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metaLAB (at) Harvard
Sarah Newman
Creative Researcher at metaLAB at Harvard University, and a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Working primarily in the area of installation art, she develops projects that deal with technology’s role in culture, examining the significance of our current moment both playfully and critically. Newman holds a BA in Philosophy from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA in Imaging Arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology; she has exhibited work in New York, San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, Berlin, and Rome, and has held artist residencies in Germany and Sweden. Her current work explores the social and philosophical dimensions of artificial intelligence, the curious intersections of the human and the nonhuman, and using art as a means of public engagement and dialogue.
Understanding Ourselves and AI through Art
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Histoires extraordinaires (Baudelaire translation of Poe)
Histoires extraordinaires (Spirits of the Dead) is a 1968 French "omnibus" film comprising three segments which premiered on 17 May 1968.
American International Pictures distributed this horror anthology film featuring three stories by Edgar Allan Poe directed by European directors Roger Vadim, Louis Malle and Federico Fellini. Jane Fonda, Alain Delon, Peter Fonda, Brigitte Bardot, and Terence Stamp are among the stars. The English language version features narration by Vincent Price.
1.1 "Metzengerstein" segment
1.2 "William Wilson" segment
1.3 "Toby Dammit" segment
All three segments are based on stories written by Edgar Allan Poe. The original stories were "Metzengerstein", "William Wilson" and "Never Bet the Devil Your Head".
"Metzengerstein" segment
At the age of 22, Countess Federica inherits the Metzengerstein estate and lives a life of promiscuity and debauchery. While in the forest, her leg is caught in a trap and she is freed by her neighbor Baron Wilhelm, whom she has never met because of a long-standing family feud. She becomes enamored with Wilhelm, but he rejects her for her wicked ways. His rejection infuriates Federica and she sets his stables on fire -- Wilhelm is killed attempting to save his prized horses.
One black horse somehow escapes and makes its way to the Metzengerstein castle. The horse is very wild and Federica takes it upon herself to tame it. She notices at one point that a damaged tapestry depicts a horse eerily similar to the one that she has just taken in. Become obsessed with it, she orders its repair. During a thunderstorm, Federica is carried off by the spooked horse into a fire caused by lightning that has struck.
"William Wilson" segment
During the 19th century, northern Italy is occupied by Austrian forces. A man named William Wilson rushes to confess to a priest (in a church of the "Città alta" of Bergamo) that he has committed murder. Wilson then relates the story of his cruel ways throughout his life. While playing cards, his doppelgänger, also named William Wilson, convinces people that Wilson has cheated at cards. In a rage, the protagonist Wilson stabs the other. After making his confession, Wilson commits suicide by jumping from the tower of "Palazzo della Ragione" but finally seen with a knife stuck on his breast.
"Toby Dammit" segment
see Toby Dammit
Former Shakespearean actor Toby Dammit is losing his acting career as he is tempted by alcohol. He agrees to work on a film where he will be paid with a Ferrari. After helping a young girl who has lost her ball, Dammit begins to have visions of the girl and the ball. After being awarded his Ferrari at a large ceremony, Dammit rushes, inebriated, in his new car. Workers try to get Dammit to stop the car at a fallen bridge across a ravine, but Dammit speeds ahead. When his car reaches the other side, Dammit's head has been cut off by a wire that was stretched across the ravine. The young girl is seen again.
Roger Vadim's segment was filmed just after Vadim had completed shooting on his previous movie Barbarella, which also starred Jane Fonda. Scriptwriter and novelist Terry Southern, who had worked on the screenplay for Barbarella, travelled to Rome with Vadim and according to Southern's biographer Lee Hill, it was during the making of this segment that Peter Fonda told Southern of his idea to make a 'modern Western' movie. Southern was enthusiastic about the idea and agreed to work on the project, which eventually became the renowned independent film Easy Rider.<ref>Lee Hill - A Grand Guy: The Life and Art of Terry Southern (Bloomsbury, 2001)</ref>
Louis Malle accepted the job of directing the segment “William Wilson” in order to raise money for his next film Le Souffle au coeur (Murmur of the Heart). The financial process of raising money for Murmur took him three years after completing “William Wilson” and in the meantime he shot two documentaries about India. Malle stated that he did not considered his collaboration in Histoires Extraordinaires a very personal one and that he agreed to make some compromises with the producer, Raymond Eger, in order to make the film more attractive to mainstream spectators. Malle’s original conception of the film was closer to Poe’s tale than the final result. The most important changes were: casting Brigitte Bardot in the role of Giuseppina with the purpose of adding some erotic touches to the film, the inclusion of the dissection scene, and a somewhat explicit use of violence in some scenes.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Spirits of the Dead" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on original research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
Retrieved from "http://artandpopularculture.com/Spirits_of_the_Dead"
This page was last modified 23:00, 6 December 2012.
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The Best Picture Winners: Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
Jerry Roberts | December 20, 2017
Oscar’s 90th birthday is just around the corner and to celebrate, every other day from now through March 4th, I will be taking a look at each and every film selected for his top award – the good, the bad and the sometimes not-so deserving.
God love The Academy for trying to stay topical.
Between 1979 and 1981 the divorce rate in The United States was at an all-time high. So, it must have given the voters of The Academy much pleasure in selecting a film for its Best Picture award that looked the subject squarely in the eye. At the time, Kramer vs. Kramer was heavily lauded for taking a stand on the emerging cultural shift in the traditional gender roles that were occurring in the country.
Kramer vs. Kramer was based on a sudzy melodramatic best seller (which I’ve read) by a magazine publisher turned novelist named Avery Corman – who also wrote the book “Oh, God!” Kramer told the story of work-obsessed family man, Ted Kramer (Best Actor winner Dustin Hoffman) whose wife Joanna (Supporting Actress winner Meryl Streep) suddenly walks out one day because she she needs to find herself, leaving Ted to raise an eight year-old son that he hardly knows.
The movie is really held up by two fine performances, first by Hoffman as a befuddled man who can work wonders on the job but is totally out to sea when it comes to dealing with the simplest domestic issue; and by Streep as a woman whose inward trajectory never really seemed prepared for motherhood.
Yet, while I admire the film’s goals, I’m always a little put off by how super-satisfied the script is that in the end it has proven that a man can do a woman’s job just as well as she can. Also, I’m a little put off by the court decision which allows that Joanna should be given sole custody of their son Billy on the basis of the fact that she’s the mother, and a child needs his mother. But . . . she walked out! She left! She abandoned her family! Why is she given custody? That’s a point that I never really understood and, yes, I know it ends with her doing the right thing, but her initial decision should have come with far more bitter consequences.
Share Filed in: The Best Picture Winners
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Stephen C. Higgins, Esq.
Tampa Criminal Attorney Working In Hillsborough County
Lawyer Stephen Higgins | Featured Attorney Criminal Defense
Lawyer Stephen Higgins | Lawyer DUI
Stephen Higgins has been passionately defending individuals charged with criminal offenses since shortly after graduating from Rutgers Law School in Camden, New Jersey, in 2004. During his career as a criminal defense attorney, Stephen has been recognized by AVVO, a lawyer rating service, with a “Superb – 10.0” rating by his peers and clients. He has also been interviewed by local print and television media regarding DUI and other traffic-related matters.
Stephen’s introduction to the criminal defense world came during his judicial internship with the Honorable Freda Wolfson, United States District Court Judge in Camden, NJ. During the trial of several alleged drug ‘kingpins,’ he came to appreciate the value of an aggressive, knowledgeable and passionate criminal defense lawyer. That experience has helped shape the zealous attorney he is today and embodies the lawyer he strives to be.
Stephen focuses his practice on defending those charged with various types of criminal offenses, including DUI, drug possession, theft, fleeing to elude, leaving the scene of an accident, assault and battery, probation violations and traffic tickets. On any given day, Stephen can be found in the courthouse advocating for his clients’ rights, exuding the skills and characteristics that not only make him a successful attorney, but that also form the basis of a trusting, respectful relationship between him and his clients.
Stephen is originally from Essex, Connecticut and graduated from Northeastern University in Boston, MA. In 2004, he graduated with a J.D./M.B.A. from Rutgers Law School and Rutgers Graduate School of Business. He began his career with Brown & Connery in Westmont, New Jersey and, in 2005, moved to Florida to work with Finebloom & Haenel, PA.
Stephen is a member of the Florida, New Jersey and Pennsylvania bars. He is admitted to practice before the state and federal courts of Florida, state courts in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Third Circuit Court of Appeals and the District Courts of New Jersey. Stephen is also a member of the Hillsborough and Sarasota County Bar Associations, Association of Trial Lawyers of America, Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Stephen Corrigan Higgins
View lawyer’s profile
Contact us about your legal matter today!
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Regional history/
4810 Czech Republic/
4811 Czech Republic 01 (an4811)
4811 Czech Republic 01
The Augustinian Province of Bohemia, or now more popularly called “the Czech Augustinian Province,” has Mary as its principal patroness under the title of Mother of Consolation. In December 1604 the Bohemian (Czech) Province was created upon the personal recommendation of the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, Rudolf II, who ruled 1576 – 1612. It must be remembered that in the early seventeenth century the Kingdom of Bohemia comprised not only the Czech-Moravian heartlands but also Upper Silesia, Lower Silesia and both Lusatias which now embraces large sections of southwest Poland and southeast Germany.
During the late Middle Ages shortly after the Augustinian General Chapter at Milan in 1298, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Upper-Lower Silesia, Styria and Carinthia were organized and remained as districts under the administration of the large Augustinian Province of Bavaria. Inevitably, with the daily advance of the Ottoman Turks and the inroads of the Protestant Reformation, governing such a wide territory became virtually impossible for the successive Augustinians who occupied the office of Bavarian Provincial. The first contact with humanism in Germany was brought about by the emperor Charles IV (1346-1378), and he sought to incorporate it into German culture, in the hope of establishing a national German culture.
As its Chancellor the University of Prague had John of Neumarkt (Novoforo), played a key role in the imperial organization of this centre of culture. A number of Augustinians were counted among the friends of John. Most notable among these was Nicholas of Laun O.S.A.. For a number of years he was the Provincial of the Bavarian Province, and recognized as far-sighted and diligent in this capacity. He brought the Province to a new period of growth after the damage caused by the Black Death in the years 1348 – 1351. He reorganized the house of St Thomas in Prague, making it one of the principal centres of formation and culture north of the Alps.
Photos (at right)
Picture 1: Former Augustinian monastery at Ceska-Lipa, Czech Republic.
Picture 2: Former Augustinian church at Rocov, Czech Republic.
Picture 3: Former Augustinian church and monastery at Rocov, Czech Republic.
The Augustinians of this community had frequent contact with their brothers in Italy, in particular with the Augustinian friary of Santo Spirto in Florence. They were acquainted with the tendencies of humanism and these stimulated in them new ideas as well as confirming them in their Augustinian orientation. They certainly were the persons most responsible for the diffusion of humanism in Bohemia at the time. In their libraries, along with theological works, there were not a few classical authors and writings by some of the first humanists. Laun enjoyed great favour at the court in Prague, for Charles IV referred to him as "our chaplain-counsellor, Ioyal and dear to us." When Charles was crowned King of Bohemia in 1347, Laun was called upon to deliver the congratulatory discourse. As the first master of Paris among those called to the new University in Prague, Laun for a time was the only one able to promote students to the grade of doctor in theology. He died in 1371 as auxiliary bishop of Ratisbon.
In 1370 the previously-mentioned chancellor John of Neumarkt invited John Klenkok O.S.A. to teach at the University in Prague. Klenkok was a renowned moralist from the Augustinian Province of Saxony. Before his teaching career with the Augustinians in Oxford, where he obtained his baccalaureate and doctorate, he had pursued the study of law in Bologna. While there he became famous for his opposition to the Speculum Saxonum, at that time still the prevailing code in Saxony; Roman law had been established in Saxony but played only a subsidiary role.
The theological works of Klenkok are medieval both in base and in form. However, the diligence of the author in identifying the patristic texts that he cites, comparing them with the original, indicating the book and chapter of the citation and applying the same rule to the texts of medieval theologians, constituted an undeniable step forward. The friendship of Klenkok with Neumarkt is clear in a letter of recommendation written on his behalf when he undertook the journey to the Augustinian General Chapter in Florence in 1371. Neumarkt stated that the Augustinian was his "dear associate and companion." Klenkok died in 1374 in Avignon. The chancellor spoke also of Angel of Dobeln (Dobelin) in similar words in a letter successfully sent to the academic authorities of the University of Paris (where the Augustinians had their famed studium generale to accommodate him) in support of the advancement of his Augustinian friend to the degree of doctor of theology.
Dobelin's Lectura super IV libros Sententiarum ("Lectures about Book Four of the Sentences of Peter Lombard"), preserved in the university library in Jena (Ms. E1ect. Fol. 47), cannot provide a complete picture of the author and his scholarly interests, but there are at least some clearly humanistic tendencies, as when he delays over a passage of the Paradiso of Dante (fol. 10r). The work also reveals that he was a doctor of theology at the University of Paris in 1379 when Luigi Marsigli O.S.A. of Florence was also there. From 1392 on he taught with his Augustinian colleagues at the University of Erfurt, that is, from the year of its foundation, and he served as the first dean of its theological faculty.
It would seem that he was well regarded within the Order, since he was chosen to be one of the theologians representing the Order at the Council of Constance at the conclusion of the Great Western Schism. As previously mentioned, one of his sermons at the Council merited the praise of Martin V for its oratorical perfection. He died in 1420. A major administrative change happened between 1568 and1578, when Styria (Steiermark) and Carinthia (Karntern) in what is now contemporary Austria were excised from the Province of Bavaria and erected into an autonomous Province of Bohemia by the Prior General. The neighboring region of Austria was in such a precarious state that by 1600 it consisted of only two impoverished monasteries, Vienna and Baden.
Photos (at left)
Picture 1: A former Augustinian abbot at Brno, the geneticist Gregor Mendel O.S.A.
Picture 2: The present Augustinian abbot at Brno, Czech Republic.
Picture 3: Augustinian monastery and minor basilica, Brno, Czech Republic.
To remedy this situation, Felix Milensius O.S.A., an energetic friar and historian, was appointed by the Prior General, Hippolytus Fabriani O.S.A. on 9th October 1602 as his personal “Vicar General for Germany and other northern lands.” Milensius was authorized to implement much needed administrative restructuring. He wasted no time in doing do; he soon separated the two languishing Austrian monasteries from Bavaria by uniting them with the stronger Bohemian district then consisting of St Thomas and St Catherine monasteries in Prague, Domazlice, Sopka-Melnik, Ceska Lipa, Rocov, Pivon and Biele-pod-Bezdezem. Not everything went according to his expectations, however; Milensius unsuccessfully attempted to include in this union the monastery of St Thomas (Brno) and its dependent house of Jevicko.
After much wrangling, in 1608 the insistent Moravians were permitted by the subsequent Prior General, John Baptist d’Aste O.S.A., to establish their own Moravian vicariate. The Augustinian community of St Thomas in Brno was singularly honored in 1611 when Cardinal Dietrichstein conferred on the Prior, Jan Vincenzo Barnabe di Fiume O.S.A. and his successors, the rare privilege of wearing the episcopal regalia; this was later ratified by Pope Innocent XIII in 1721. The regional autonomy of the Moravian Augustinians was further confirmed in 1752 when the “Perpetual Prior,” Mathias Pertscher O.S.A., obtained from Pope Benedict XIV the singular abbatial title and dignity. Henceforth the Augustinian Prior of the Moravian Augustinians in Brno would be episcopally consecrated and appointed for life, becoming an “abbot” similar to the Benedictine tradition. This privilege still exists, with the Augustinian leader at the Augustinian monastery in Brno the only abbot in the Order of St Augustine.
Image (above): Unvieling of a statue of Augustine at the monastery in Prague.
With Emperor Rudolph II’s support, in 1604 a “Union Chapter” of Augustinians gathered at St Thomas Monastery in Prague. On 1st December 1604 the meeting elected Jan Krtitel Svitavsky O.S.A. (Johannes Baptista Chrystellius) of Bochova, as the first Provincial of Bohemia-Austria. This unlikely union of such disparate cultures and diverse areas lasted until 1626 when Prior General Jerome de Ghettis O.S.A. allowed the disgruntled Austrians to separate from Bohemia, which then comprised some fifty friars precariously surviving in seven houses the exactions and ravages of the Thirty Years War (1618 –1648).In addition to the pastoral work in the ministry of the sacraments the Augustinian friars in these houses often served as teachers in the schools run by the various monasteries. Saint Thomas in Prague also had a parish hospital and asylum for the homeless and aged. Some friars, too, became military chaplains and domestic praeceptors in the households of prominent families.
Assistance was given the Irish Franciscans (Hyberni) who, unable to effectively speak the paramount Czech or German languages in Prague (Hyberni) petitioned such prominent Augustinians as Ambrose Wilde, to act as Festival Preachers in the Czech language for the faithful gathered for liturgy in the great Franciscan church located just outside the Powder Gate in Prague.
In addition to teaching duties in their own internal school, other Augustinians in St Thomas were professors of Theology and Canon Law in the Charles University. Saint Thomas Church was a known cultural center with, as mentioned above, an internal house of studies organized by the Order in 1347 for its own postulants and students. In fact, the first Rector of the first central European University (now known as the Charles University) was Nicholas of Louny O.S.A., the Augustinian intellectual, personal friend of Emperor Charles IV and missionary in Poland and Lithuania, later bishop in Regensburg. This Augustinian tradition of public teaching at a high level continued locally until the suppression under Emperor Joseph II (r.1780-1790).
For the Augnet gallery on the Augustinians of the Czech Republic (Brno and Prague), click here.
St Thomas’ Church Prague. Some tourist photos taken on Palm Sunday, April 2011.
http://wersthungarianadventure.blogspot.com/2011/04/prague-st-thomas-church-and-palm-sunday.html
(Continued on the next page.)
4802 Africa
4803 Asia-Pacific
4804 Algeria
4808 Benin
4810 Czech Republic
4814 Congo
4827 Hungary
4840 Iran
4848 Kenya
4851 Korea
4852 Latin America
4857 Macau
4858 Malta
4878 Middle East
4876 Tanzania
4877 Wales & Scotland
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Blurblogs
angelchrys's blurblog
I am the Queen of Awesome. My words do not represent my employer, but I bet you already knew that.
Deadstock 1986 Super Mario Bros. Slippers Are A Modern Masterpiece by Luke Plunkett
Tuesday January 28th, 2020 at 9:24 PM
Imagine, it’s 1986, you’re a grown-ass adult living in Japan and after a hard day’s salaryman/womanning you get home to your apartment, kick your shoes off at the door and slip on these beautiful babies.
Facebook’s Clear History tool is now available to everyone by Dami Lee
The Verge - All Posts
Image: Facebook
Facebook’s Clear History tool is now available in all countries, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a blog post today. It’s part of a new section in your settings called “Off-Facebook activity,” and it lets users see which third-parties have shared user interactions with the social network — even when they’re not using Facebook directly.
Off-Facebook activity is the information that businesses and websites share with Facebook based on your interactions with those sites or apps. The Clear History tool can be helpful if you’re constantly getting ads for something you were just looking at online or being served suggestions for things Facebook thinks you might be interested in. Besides clearing your history, the new section also includes options to view your information by category, download the information, and select how off-Facebook activity can be managed in the future.
The tool was first announced at the company’s annual F8 developer conference in 2018 in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and it first rolled out to three countries after facing months of delays. Facebook says the unexpected delays were due to technical challenges related to how the company stores data on its servers.
”Off-Facebook Activity marks a new level of transparency and control,” Zuckerberg wrote today. “We’ve been working on this for a while because we had to rebuild some of our systems to make this possible.”
In an initiative to mark Data Privacy Day, Facebook is showing users a prompt in the News Feed to review their privacy settings, directing them to a Privacy Checkup tool. The tool takes you through a tour of who can see your information, an option to turn on two-factor security, and which apps use your Facebook account to log in. Notably, it doesn’t point users to the new Off-Facebook activity introduced today. It’s also not the easiest tool to find as it’s buried in the side menus. Here’s a direct link, or you can find it in Settings —> Your Facebook Information —> Off-Facebook Activity.
Zach Sullivan is the first-ever pro ice hockey player to come out as bisexual by Vic Parsons
Tuesday January 28th, 2020 at 10:04 AM
PinkNews – Gay news, reviews and comment from the world's most read lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans news service
Ice hockey player Zach Sullivan has come out as bisexual to mark the sport’s first Pride weekend.
Sullivan, who plays for UK team Manchester Storm, said he was coming out in the hope it would “help others”.
Believed to be the first professional ice hockey player to come out as bisexual, the 25-year-old said he hopes his decision “will give other hockey players around the country the same confidence to do the same”.
“I’m not doing this in the hope of any publicity. I’ve always been a very private guy, but I realise that I have a unique opportunity to do some good,” he said.
In a statement on Twitter, Zach Sullivan, who is from Redhill in Surrey, said he had “battled with mental health problems” but made the decision to go public “with the support, understanding and acceptance” of his family, friends and teammates.
“I finally feel ready to says; I’m bisexual,” Sullivan wrote.
“I have never been more proud to wear a jersey before, especially one that celebrates all gender identities and sexualities.”
#PrideWeekend #ICanPlay #YouCanPlay @officialEIHL @Mcr_Storm pic.twitter.com/2FH6AtDZ4f
— Zach Sullivan (@ZachSully11) January 26, 2020
Zach Sullivan’s statement was released over the Elite Ice Hockey League’s first-ever Pride weekend.
Sullivan’s coming out has been met with widespread support, including from Manchester Storm’s captain, Dallas Ehrhardt.
“We couldn’t be happier for our teammate and we 100% have his back,” said Mr Ehrhardt.
“The hockey world is a tight-knit supportive community and when something as important like this happens, the whole sport gets better.”
Manchester Storm’s head coach Ryan Finnerty said it was a “historic moment” because Sullivan is believed to be the first professional ice hockey player to come out while still playing.
“His strength and courage will inspire the youth of tomorrow,” he added.
In Manchester Storm’s game against Dundee on Sunday, the players wore rainbow-coloured Pride jerseys to celebrate inclusion and diversity.
The post Zach Sullivan is the first-ever pro ice hockey player to come out as bisexual appeared first on PinkNews - Gay news, reviews and comment from the world's most read lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans news service.
Animal Crossing Fans Are So Desperate For News That They’re Analyzing Obscure Stickers by Ethan Gach
Monday January 27th, 2020 at 6:40 PM
Earlier today, fans spotted some Animal Crossing: New Horizons decals for the Switch on the Japanese HMV store website. Eager fans are now pouring over them trying to figure out which new characters will be in the game.
Stephen King Pens Op-Ed Clarifying Diversity Comments
We like it when we see someone in the public eye learn from a mistake and use that to educate others, so we’re happy that author Stephen King has taken the time to correct and expand on some comments he made in the wake of the Oscars’ continued failure to produce a diverse field of nominees.
On January 14, the day after the Oscars nominations were announced, King tweeted a few comments on the nominations and, in part due to the fact he didn’t thread his tweets (it’s okay Stephen, it happens to the best), one tweet in particular blew up and engendered a great deal of criticism, including from us here at TMS.
Today, King published an Op-Ed in the Washington Post to explain this and clearly state that “The Oscars are rigged in favor of white people.” He rightly states of social media: “Lines of belief are drawn with indelible ink, and if you step over them — wittingly or otherwise — you find yourself in the social-media version of the stocks and subject to a barrage of electronic turnips and cabbages.”
King noted the above tweet and added: “I also said, in essence, that those judging creative excellence should be blind to questions of race, gender or sexual orientation,” but he clarifies. “I did not say that was the case today, because nothing could be further from the truth. Nor did I say that films, novels, plays and music focusing on diversity and/or inequality cannot be works of creative genius.”
This is true but it’s certainly not how the comments came across – or at least how the isolated tweet came across. That’s not just a flaw in the sentiment, but also a flaw in social media, which reduces nuanced arguments to soundbites and responses by way of gif, not discussion.
King, however, goes on to make it clear that his ideal world, where he and all academy members would view art from a purely artistic point of view and not even think of “diversity” does not exist. It’s really important for him to say this, and to note, correctly, that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is overwhelmingly white and male in their demographics, even if there has been positive movement in recent years.
But as King succinctly puts in it: “Not good enough. Not even within shouting distance of good enough.”
King does what a lot of men don’t and calls out not just the membership of the Academy but the fact that the majority of the best picture nominees “are what my sons call ‘man-fiction.’ There are fights, guns and many white faces.” Add into this the fact that the while, male academy might not see the non-white, not-male films and even if they do, they might not get them.
Without using the term, King acknowledges his own privilege: “Where am I in this diversity discussion? Fair question. The answer is white, male, old and rich.” But he also notes, again without using the word, that he’s an ally that has written strong female characters and stood up for colorblind casting. But that still all comes from a privileged perspective in a racist, sexist world.
King clearly states what he was trying to get across two weeks ago: “as with justice, judgments of creative excellence should be blind. But that would be the case in a perfect world, one where the game isn’t rigged in favor of the white folks.”
Again, I’m glad that King is taking the time to clarify and state in no uncertain terms that a world where we valued art only on its merits would be great, but we aren’t there yet. He even, sort of, alludes to the fact that our subjective responses and valuations of art have to do with our own privilege or life experiences and we need a diversity of perspective in order to honor diverse art.
Overall, it’s heartening to see a man in power use his platform to grow and support marginalized voices, in his way. We won’t make progress without privileged people acknowledging that the world is unfair and needs to change. This is a good stand to take.
(Image: ENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP via Getty Images)
If you connect the stations where the Picard-branded Metrocards... by ajlobster
Friday January 24th, 2020 at 2:08 PM
Fashion It So
If you connect the stations where the Picard-branded Metrocards are available, it makes the Starfleet insignia.
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Varanus bengalensisBengal Monitor
By Kathleen Farmer and Eric Wright
Geographic Range
Lifespan/Longevity
Communication and Perception
Ecosystem Roles
Economic Importance for Humans: Positive
Economic Importance for Humans: Negative
Bengal monitors or common Indian monitors (Varanus bengalensis) occur across much of southern Asia. Compared to other varanid lizards, Bengal monitors have a much larger geographic range, where they are considered less restricted both geographically and environmentally. This species is widely distributed from Afghanistan to Java, including southeastern Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, southern Nepal, Bhutan, and China, North and South Vietnam, Laos, and islands in the Strait of Malacca and the Greater Sunda Islands. In Iran they are generally restricted to southeastern regions in close proximity to rivers that drain into marshes or shallow lakes, rather than seas, they are particularly common along the River Gartatab. In Afghanistan, Bengal monitors are limited to the Kabul River Valley in the extreme southeastern part of the country. (Auffenberg, 1994; Pianka, 1995)
Biogeographic Regions
Unlike other varanid lizards, Bengal monitors have the ability to cope with a broad range of environments, from deserts to rainforests to habitats having seasonally snowy winters. However, generally they are found in areas with continuously warm climates, with mean annual air temperatures of approximately 24 C. Most of southern Asia experiences seasonal monsoons and wind patterns influenced by neighboring seas and mountains. Thus, precipitation across much of the range for Bengal monitors is highly variable. Some habitat areas are relatively arid, with mean precipitation less than 200 mm per year. Other habitats are considerably more humid, with annual rainfall reaching 2,200 mm per year. The most common tropical forest habitats for Bengal monitors are deciduous, semi-deciduous, evergreen tropical forests, and thornbrush. (Auffenberg, 1994)
Habitat Regions
Terrestrial Biomes
savanna or grassland
scrub forest
Range elevation
0 to 1500 m
0.00 to 4921.26 ft
Adult Bengal monitors are generally grey or greenish-grey in color, with a ventral pattern of grey to black crossbars from the chin to the tail. These markings are generally darkest in the western parts and lightest in the eastern parts of the geographic range. These ventral markings typically become lighter, and the ground color darker, with age. Thus, adults display a less pronounced, less contrasting pattern than younger Bengal monitors.
In the wild, the heaviest recorded male Bengal monitor weighed 7.18 kg, though captive individuals have been reported to reach 10.2 kg. In the wild, males generally weigh 42% more than females. Males of the same snout to vent length (SVL) as females are typically 9.2% heavier. Young Bengal monitors, on average, weigh 0.078 kg. (Auffenberg, 1994)
Other Physical Features
heterothermic
male larger
Range mass
7.18 (high) kg
15.81 (high) lb
Range length
61 to 175 cm
24.02 to 68.90 in
Development in Bengal monitors begins with a variable length incubation period. Laboratory investigations have shown this incubation period to range from 70 to 327 days. The length of incubation depends largely on mean egg temperature. However, even within a single brood, there can be variations of up to 105 days from first to last hatching. High incubation temperatures typically lead to shorter development times, but also may skew sex ratios or cause developmental defects.
Bengal monitors are relatively long-lived varanids. As such, this species does not reach sexual maturity until 2.5 to 3 years. Most produce one clutch of offspring each year for the remainder of their lives. Environmental influences play an important role in body size and overall length in Bengal monitors. In general, longer individuals are found in areas with greater soil moisture, such as marsh environments, whereas shorter individuals often occur in surrounding forests. In addition, those found on the small islands in both the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand have been found to become sexually mature at a much smaller size than those from the nearby mainland, reaching reproductive maturing with SVLs as low as 23.3 cm. (Auffenberg, 1994)
Development - Life Cycle
temperature sex determination
Chemical cues play an important role in the ability of males to recognize receptive females. These chemical cues are produced by the female, from glands located in skin of the abdomen. In captivity, females show the greatest chances of successful copulation by mating with only one or two individual males in successive years, though they still may be courted by several other males. (Auffenberg, 1994)
Mating System
polygynandrous (promiscuous)
In females, the reproductive cycle is annual. Follicles mature only during one part of the year, shortly before ovulation. Follicles and ovaries reach their largest size during the months of July and August for those individuals in the western part of the species range, and from October to December for those in more southern areas such as India and Sri Lanka. Yolk deposition in an egg has no correlation with the ovulatory phase in females, but it does correlate with fat accumulation. (Auffenberg, 1994)
There are three major phases in the reproductive cycle of female V. bengalensis: previtellogenesis, recrudescence, and ovulation. During the previtellogenesis phase, the ovaries are small and inactive. This stage usually occurs during the fall months, usually September through March. Females forage less during this time for individuals in more southern regions, while those in more northern regions do not forage at all. A return to foraging in the spring initiates oogenesis. This phase is also characterized by regressed oviducts and nonsecretory epithelial and gland cells, which are used to attract mates. In the second phase of the reproductive cycle, called recrudescence (or true vitellogenesis), the ovarian follicles will fully mature with the completion of yolk deposition. This phase occurs in the premonsoon period, from April to June. In a short time, the ovaries increase in size and change from a pearly white to a deep yellow color. A mature preovulatory ova has a mean diameter of 17.8 mm. The oviducts will also increase in width and secretions will start to flow into the oviductal lumen. The last phase of the reproductive cycle, ovulation, is characterized by the movement of the egg from the upper part of the oviduct to the lower portion after fertilization has occurred. Once the egg reaches the lower portion of the oviduct, a shell will form around each egg. Ovulation begins in June, but reaches full force in July. The most successful copulation occurs slightly before or after ovulation has reached its peak. Egg laying will occur two weeks after copulation, usually during the months of July, August, and early September. By the last week of October, both sexes are largely inactive with size and sperm production heavily reduced in the male and new follicles for the next year appearing in the ovaries of the female. (Auffenberg, 1994)
Usually, mature females of V. bengalensis will produce only one clutch annually. However, in some areas where the environment experiences two monsoon seasons, some females may lay two clutches annually. If two clutches are laid, there are 23 to 30 days between the first egg laying and breeding for the second clutch. Data also suggests that those females from more mesic environments have a higher proportion of pregnancies than those from xeric areas. This may be due to the longer breeding periods in more mesic environments as well as higher food abundance, which has an effect on fat production. In captive species, day length also had an effect on courtship and breeding patterns. When day length was artificially lengthened, combat among males occurred as early as April and courtship initiation and breeding began earlier. The average number of eggs laid per year is 20, of which about 80% typically hatch. This results in about 16 young per female per year. Additionally, because V. bengalensis has a large clutch size relative to most tropical lizards, neonates are subject to relatively high predation rates. Because of predation, roughly half of the offspring do not live past the age of two. (Auffenberg, 1994)
Both males and females become sexually mature at approximately 2.5 to 3 years of age, both in the wild and in captivity. In both sexes, the onset of sexual maturity is linked to a body mass greater than 0.4 kg. In female Bengal monitors, reproductive efforts occur throughout most of their life span. After reaching sexual maturity, females remain reproductively active for the remainder of their lives, which may extend to 27 years. (Auffenberg, 1994)
Key Reproductive Features
iteroparous
seasonal breeding
oviparous
Breeding interval
Female Bengal monitors that live in environments that experience two monsoon seasons may lay two clutches annually while those in one monsoon areas lay just one clutch annually.
Breeding season
Individuals mate in June, July, and early August and the shelled eggs are laid any time from July through early September. The incubation period is from 4 to 8 months.
Average number of offspring
Range gestation period
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
2.5 to 3 years
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)
In varanid species, the bulk of parental investment occurs through the materials and energy supplied prior to hatching. This includes resources provided for egg, embryonic, and initial post-hatching development. For example, during embryonic development the yolk supplies the fetus with nutrients required for growth. Females typically create and spend a large amount of time in the nest. She devotes energy to ensuring eggs are protected from predators, such as other monitors, and have proper incubation conditions in order to increase the offsprings' chances of survival. After their lengthy incubation period, however, neonates have very little yolk remaining when they hatch from the egg. This means that new hatchlings must locate food resources quickly and independently. It is interesting to note that females in captivity will frequently retain the eggs longer, spending additional time searching for an appropriate nesting medium. This makes the egg shells thicker than usual. Thicker shells require greater movement and strength on the part of the offspring to break out of the egg. Thus, small yolk food reserves also affect hatchling success. There are no reports showing sufficient evidence that female varanids provide additional care for offspring after laying eggs and hiding them in the nest. In fact, both males and females often eat eggs of other monitors. There also is evidence that females sometimes eat their own eggs. Data suggest that mean egg size and hatchling size are reduced in xeric habitats. (Auffenberg, 1994)
Parental Investment
no parental involvement
pre-fertilization
pre-hatching/birth
Like many other large predators, V. bengalensis is relatively long-lived. This species is relatively unaffected by drought or daily variations in rainfall, so population sizes remains fairly stable from season to season. Mortality rates are highest for neonates, due to predation, with only about half surviving past the age of two and reaching sexual maturity. For captive individuals, the longest recorded life span was about 22 years. (Auffenberg, 1994)
Age estimates in reptiles are obtained by counting bone layers. Reptiles, including V. bengalensis have annual cyclic bone growth that can be estimated by staining methods. (Auffenberg, 1994)
Average lifespan
Status: captivity
In the wild, Bengal monitors are almost completely solitary. Much of the daytime is spent in constant movement, searching for food. Bengal monitor are more likely to interact with one another during the peak breading season, when males compete for mates. (Auffenberg, 1994)
Key Behaviors
terricolous
Like most varanids, Bengal monitors use primarily scent as their main method of communication and perception. They “taste” the environment around them by constantly flicking their highly sensitive tongues while moving their head from side to side. This is useful in tracking prey and mates and in signaling between monitors of the same species. It has been documented in the wild that V. bengalensis spends large amounts of time examining the droppings of other Bengal monitors that have passed through their territory. Even though they are solitary creatures, scent messages in feces are said to be important in communication. The scent perceived by one monitor from another can inform of hostile intentions or to stay away from the particular territory. (Auffenberg, 1994)
There is a diverse range of intraspecific communication exhibited by V. bengalensis through touching, biting, clawing and wrestling. Being solitary predators, roughly three quarters of encounters begin as purely investigatory and the remaining quarter are for the purpose of sex and courtship. Conflict between males, whether over food or mating, usually results in an initial investigation through acquiring each others scents and their intent. Conflict typically involves vocalization which is usually a hissing noise accompanied by the monitor inflating its upper body to appear larger. Tail-slapping and whipping is also common behavior between males and sometimes females to establish dominance. Encounters between males can lead to wrestling in which case both males stand on their hind legs and embrace each other while thrashing their heads and upper bodies. Occasionally biting and clawing can occur during wrestling but it is usually collateral damage rather than intentional. (Auffenberg, 1994)
Other Communication Modes
scent marks
Perception Channels
The diet of Bengal monitors is almost strictly carnivorous. They consume almost anything that is smaller than themselves and that they can easily overpower. They are known to scavenge carcasses of previously felled animals. Their documented observed prey species list is considerable, containing roughly 200 species. Common prey include: annelids, insects, amphibians, smaller reptiles, birds, small mammals, and eggs. Cannibalism of eggs, hatchlings, and even adults has been noted, although predation on adults is rare. As with most varanids, they swallow prey whole but are also capable of ripping and tearing flesh from larger animals and carcasses. At smaller body sizes for Bengal monitors, various beetles species represent the largest portion of their diet, averaging 52.8%. The second largest component of their diet is made up of orthopteran insects at 9.5%. The remainder of their diet is made up of other insects, crabs, rodents, reptiles, spiders, birds and almost any other animal they can reasonably consume. (Auffenberg, 1994)
Primary Diet
eats terrestrial vertebrates
insectivore
eats non-insect arthropods
Animal Foods
terrestrial non-insect arthropods
Predation on V. bengalensis does occur despite the fact that they themselves large predators. Species that prey upon V. bengalensis include other Bengal monitors, pythons and other large snakes, eagles, mongooses, wild and domesticated dogs, feral cats, and even humans. Most predation occurs early in life as eggs, hatchlings, and juveniles, while only a small portion of predation involves fully grown adults. (Auffenberg, 1994)
Known Predators
Bengal monitors (Varanus bengalensis)
python species (Python)
birds of prey (Accipitridae)
mongooses (Herpestidae)
feral dogs (Canis lupus familiaris)
feral cats (Felis domesticus)
Bengal monitors are primary predators of many smaller animals in the ecosystems they inhabits. Juveniles are preyed upon by larger predators, including other monitors. There are four tick species known to infect Bengal monitors, including: Aponommon gervaisi, A. varanensis, A. laeve, and Amblyomma helvolum. In addition, trematodes, cestode worms, nematodes, filarial worms, and sporozoan protozoans are known to infect these monitors.
Commensal/Parasitic Species
Aponommon gervaisi
Aponommon varanensis
Aponommon laeve
Amblyomma helvolum
Bengal monitor population declines for this species are largely due to the commercial exploitation of their skins for leather products. In addition, various parts of their bodies are used in some village medicines. Monitors in general, also are eaten by human populations in some parts of Asia, Africa, and Australia. (Auffenberg, 1994)
body parts are source of valuable material
source of medicine or drug
controls pest population
There are no noted negative impacts of Varanus bengalensis on humans. Bengal monitors are not large enough to attack any livestock nor do they eat any human cultivated crops. They may eat any small mammals that they can easily catch, so may pose a threat to small domestic animals. (Auffenberg, 1994)
According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, V. bengalensis is a species of Least Concern. This is based on its wide geographic range. However, there are increasing pressures on the species. They are hunted for their meat, skins, and for use in medicine. Due to expanding human habitation and urbanization, the range threats to their population are likely to increase in the future. (Papenfuss, et al., 2010)
US Federal List
State of Michigan List
No special status
Kathleen Farmer (author), Radford University, Eric Wright (author), Radford University, Christine Small (editor), Radford University, Tanya Dewey (editor), University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
an animal that mainly eats meat
flesh of dead animals.
uses smells or other chemicals to communicate
active during the day, 2. lasting for one day.
a substance used for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease
union of egg and spermatozoan
A substance that provides both nutrients and energy to a living thing.
forest biomes are dominated by trees, otherwise forest biomes can vary widely in amount of precipitation and seasonality.
having a body temperature that fluctuates with that of the immediate environment; having no mechanism or a poorly developed mechanism for regulating internal body temperature.
An animal that eats mainly insects or spiders.
offspring are produced in more than one group (litters, clutches, etc.) and across multiple seasons (or other periods hospitable to reproduction). Iteroparous animals must, by definition, survive over multiple seasons (or periodic condition changes).
native range
the area in which the animal is naturally found, the region in which it is endemic.
generally wanders from place to place, usually within a well-defined range.
found in the oriental region of the world. In other words, India and southeast Asia.
reproduction in which eggs are released by the female; development of offspring occurs outside the mother's body.
polygynandrous
the kind of polygamy in which a female pairs with several males, each of which also pairs with several different females.
rainforests, both temperate and tropical, are dominated by trees often forming a closed canopy with little light reaching the ground. Epiphytes and climbing plants are also abundant. Precipitation is typically not limiting, but may be somewhat seasonal.
an animal that mainly eats dead animals
communicates by producing scents from special gland(s) and placing them on a surface whether others can smell or taste them
scrub forests develop in areas that experience dry seasons.
breeding is confined to a particular season
reproduction that includes combining the genetic contribution of two individuals, a male and a female
lives alone
Living on the ground.
the region of the earth that surrounds the equator, from 23.5 degrees north to 23.5 degrees south.
tropical savanna and grassland
A terrestrial biome. Savannas are grasslands with scattered individual trees that do not form a closed canopy. Extensive savannas are found in parts of subtropical and tropical Africa and South America, and in Australia.
A grassland with scattered trees or scattered clumps of trees, a type of community intermediate between grassland and forest. See also Tropical savanna and grassland biome.
temperate grassland
A terrestrial biome found in temperate latitudes (>23.5° N or S latitude). Vegetation is made up mostly of grasses, the height and species diversity of which depend largely on the amount of moisture available. Fire and grazing are important in the long-term maintenance of grasslands.
uses sight to communicate
Auffenberg, W. 1983. Notes on feeding behaviour of Varanus bengalensis (Sauria: Varanidae). Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, 80/2: 286-302.
Auffenberg, W. 1994. The Bengal Monitor. Gainesville, Fl: University Press of Florida.
Auffenberg, W. 1981. Combat behaviour in Varanus bengalenisis (Sauria: Varanidae). Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, 78/1: 54-72.
Auffenberg, W. 1979. Intersexual Differences in Behavior of Captive Varanus bengalensis (Reptilia, Lacertilia, Varanidae). Journal of Herpetology, 13/3: 313-315. Accessed February 04, 2011 at http://www.jstor.org/stable/1563325.
Auffenberg, W. 1983. The food and feeding of juvenile Bengal monitor lizards (Varanus bengalensis). Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, 80/1: 119-124.
Bohme, W. 2003. Checklist of the living monitor lizards of the world (family Varanidae). Leiden, 341/25: 4-43.
Duengkae, P., Y. Chuaynkem. 2009. Observations of basking in Varanus bengalensis nebulosus from northeastern thailand. Biawak, 3/3: 88-92.
Gupta, D., A. Sinha. 2001. Notes on the burrows of Varanus bengalensis in and around Agra. Zoos' print journal, 16/12: 651-654.
Lauprasert, K., K. Thirakhupt. 2001. Species diversity, distribution and proposed status of monitor lizards (Family Varanidae) in southern Thailand. The Natural History Journal of Chulalongkorn University, 1/1: 39-46.
Loop, M. 1974. The Effect of Relative Prey Size on the Ingestion Behavior of the Bengal Monitor, Varanus bengalensis (Sauria: Varanidae). Herpetologica, 30/2: 123-127.
Losos, J. 1988. Ecological and evolutionary implications of diet in monitor lizards. Journal of the Linnean Society, 1988/35: 379-407.
Papenfuss, T., S. Shafiei Bafti, M. Sharifi, D. Bennett, S. Sweet. 2010. "Varanus bengalensis" (On-line). IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Accessed April 04, 2011 at http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/164579/0.
Pianka, E. 1995. Review: Lizards observed. Science, 268/5217: 1636.
Sweet, S., E. Pianka. 2003. The Lizard Kings. Natural History, 112/9: 40-45.
Wikramanayake, E. 1992. Energy and water turnover in two tropical varanid lizards, Varanus bengalensis and V. salvator. Copeia, 1992/1: 102-107. Accessed February 04, 2011 at http://www.jstor.org/stable/1446540.
Wikramanayake, E., G. Dryden. 1993. Thermal Ecology of Habitat and Microhabitat Use by Sympatric Varanus bengalensis and V. salvator in Sri Lanka. Copeia, 1993/3: 709-714.
Class Reptilia turtles, snakes, lizards, and relatives
Reptilia: information (1) Reptilia: pictures (8805) Reptilia: specimens (170) Reptilia: sounds (676)
Order Squamata
Squamata: pictures (985) Squamata: specimens (7)
Family Varanidae
Varanidae: information (1) Varanidae: pictures (17)
Genus Varanus
Varanus: pictures (17)
Species Varanus bengalensis Bengal Monitor
Varanus bengalensis: information (1) Varanus bengalensis: pictures (2)
To cite this page: Farmer, K. and E. Wright 2012. "Varanus bengalensis" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed January 29, 2020 at https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Varanus_bengalensis/
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A Testimony to Be HeardThe story of thousands of women who experienced war crimes
Yu Ha-eun | theodora93820@Hotmail.com
SHE HAD just turned 15. It was a cold winter day in 1941 when two men dressed in military uniforms knocked on her door to inform her of a new job opening at a factory far away. She could earn money for her family, they said, and could come back home if she felt homesick. With not much choice, the teenage girl agreed and followed the two men - a decision which marked the beginning of her own tragedy. She arrived at a storage area in Busan, where 20 girls around her age were sitting quietly, waiting for ”work“ to start. Of course, they had yet to realize what was awaiting them; they still thought they were there as factory workers. It was only after she was raped by a military man that she realized: she was now a sex slave. This is the heartbreaking story of a young girl, named Kim Bok-dong.
Their story
The phrase “comfort women,” or “military sex slaves” according to the official UN term, stands for the girls and women forced into prostitution corps created by the Japanese Empire during the years 1930-1945. The same term is also known as *wi-an-bu* in Korean, a word directly translated from the Japanese word for “prostitutes.” The number of Japanese military comfort women was around 200,000, yet 80% of them are believed to have been of Korean origin. Females aged from 11-year-old girls to 30-year-old women from countries under Japanese imperial control were either abducted from their homes or even volunteered to go abroad, lured with false promises of new “job positions” available in foreign lands. Soon, they were taken to comfort stations in territories occupied by the Japanese to satisfy the lust of Japanese military men.
The young comfort women back then are now grandmothers willing to tell their story and let the world know about this dark episode in East Asian history that often goes untold. According to their testimonies, the comfort stations were always filled with animal-like men, making it impossible to even count the number of sexual assaults the women were forced to deal with from morning till late at night. One girl, they recall, asked a cleaning woman to bring her something that would help her die on the spot. The girl handed her \1, the precious money her mother had given her before she left home. The woman returned with a bucket of alcohol, which the girl drank hoping to die as soon as possible. Of course, she failed to kill herself, and had to go back to work from the very next day. She was enraged, because she could not die.
Almost three out of four comfort women died during the war and the remaining survivors were left infertile due to sexual trauma or sexually transmitted diseases. Even when the women escaped and returned back to Korea, they had to pretend as if nothing had happened. They were back in a society that valued the integrity and purity of women, and their story was simply unacceptable. In the animation “Her Story,” one of the girls musters the courage to tell her mother about her horrible experiences during the past 8 years. Yet her mother refuses to believe her story which “cannot be true, and must not be true” and tells her daughter to leave their home. The girl carries her physically and psychologically damaged self to the suburbs, and lives as if nothing happened.
Taking courage to make history known
The appalling individual ordeal of the Japanese military’s comfort women was first revealed to the public in 1991. Just before the 46th anniversary of Korea’s independence, a grandmother named Kim Hak-soon went to the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery (Korean Council) and became the first Korean woman to testify about the issue in public. She then released her testimony on paper, disclosing all the painful details about her life as a comfort woman. Kim also took the issue to the Japanese courts in order to receive official acknowledgement. Her testimony received attention both domestically and internationally, and around 235 women followed Kim’s example to testify also about their former lives as comfort women.
Kim’s bravery became a stepping stone for greater action regarding the issue of comfort women. In 1988, the world’s first museum with the theme of sexual slavery was created in Gwangju with the name “Historical Museum of Sexual Slavery by the Japanese Military.” A few years later, in June 1992, the “House of Sharing” was opened as a residence for the comfort women who lost their families during the war and remains home to 8 grandmothers to this day. Ever since 1992, there have also been weekly Wednesday protests in front of the Japanese Embassy, where the surviving grandmothers gather with a large crowd to demand acknowledgement, an official apology, compensation, and accurate factual records of the events in Japanese history textbooks. A former comfort woman, Kim Bok-dong, once said “Do not hate people even if you hate their crimes. If the Japanese acknowledge the fact that they used us as comfort women and apologize, it shall be enough. I want to live in peace before I die.”
The Wednesday protests have been going on for 22 years, and the Wednesday of Sep. 25 marked the 1,093th protest in front of the Japanese Embassy, catching the media’s attention as the longest demonstration in history. On Dec. 14, 2011, a statue resembling a young comfort woman was placed in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul to mark the 1,000th Wednesday protest. Kim (activist, Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery) says that “At each Wednesday protest, I wish there will be no protest the following week. I hope the issue is resolved soon, so that the grandmothers won’t have to come out every week to shout out for the same cause.”
Why not apologize?
Starting from the creation of the Korean Council in 1990, Koreans have been requesting an official recognition and apology for the comfort women from the Japanese government. At first, Japan refused to acknowledge the existence of comfort women, but Kim Hak-soon’s testimony worked against their claims. As a result, the Japanese government has acknowledged the existence of comfort women, but still denies that they were coerced into prostitution, citing lack of official evidence. They claim that they cannot take official responsibility for a policy that lacks historical evidence and have tried to cover up the issue by offering grants to the victims. The Korean grandmothers, however, rejected the grants and continued to demand an official apology. “The grandmothers are not seeking financial compensation,” says Choi Jong Kun (Prof., Dept. of Political Science and Int. Studies). “What they are seeking is official recognition by the Japanese government to get their long lost honor and youth back.” From the perspective of the comfort women, “efforts to buy indulgence with money might even be conceived as an insulting gesture to erase their past through the power of money. You cannot buy their lost youth with material goods,” says Choi Jae-hyung (Jr., UIC, Dept. of Political Science and Int. Relations).
While the Japanese government refuses to recognize its responsibility for the war crimes, the issue of comfort women is being brought to a broader international stage. In 1993, the issue was included in the World Conference of Human Rights held in Vienna, and in 2003, the UN Convention against Women’s Discrimination called on the Japanese government to “take responsibility for the comfort women issue.” A few years later in 2007, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution that called on Japan to “formally apologize and accept historical responsibility.” 23 countries followed suit, galvanizing movements around the globe. Around that time, a Japanese military official publically admitted his involvement in the sexual assaults during the war, but Shinzo Abe once again refused to take responsibility. Tokyo has also claimed that since the comfort women existed before the UN convention against torture in 1987, their cases are not subject to the convention.
In a recent speech, Hashimoto Toru, mayor of Osaka, stated that "to maintain discipline in the military it must have been necessary at that time. For soldiers who risked their lives when bullets were flying around like rain and wind, a comfort women system was necessary. That's clear to anyone." His claims caused great controversy worldwide, as they were seen to be representative of the Abe administration’s perception of the crimes committed during the war. Some also claim that the women were simply paid to produce physical labor for Japanese companies and that those who faced sexual assaults were simply more unfortunate than others. According to Choi Jung Kun, however, “the country used the women forcefully as products of the war. Some believe it was commercial or even volunteer prostitution, but the very fact that comfort women systems were created by the Japanese government is unacceptable.”
Then why is the Japanese government so reluctant to acknowledge their role? According to Choi, the main reason is legitimacy. That is, if Tokyo were to confirm the fact that the Japanese government was behind the comfort women system, they would eventually have to acknowledge everything including their forgotten past, inhumane war crimes, the Dokdo issue and other political controversies. Their legitimacy would eventually be gone. “Everything, including the legitimacy that the country of Japan has built over the years, would collapse like a domino,” says Choi. “The foundations of the whole nation would crumble and Japan would be unable to keep the low profile it has maintained over the years.” Cho Yoon-sook (participant, East Asian History Debate Forum) also believes that if the government planned to take responsibility for such an embarrassing issue, then Japanese citizens would protest and take action in order to prevent it from happening. She also claims that there could be economic reasons. As Japan is heavily concerned with the international image of its companies, if the government admits to having launched a comfort women system, the image of the country as a whole would go down, leading to boycotts of Japanese products.
Echoes for an international awakening
While the Japanese government is yet to acknowledge its involvement in the comfort women system, other governments around the world have succeeded in raising public awareness of the issue on an international level. As Choi Jae-hyung asserts, “Perhaps now is the time for international civic groups and NGOs to take up the matter and indirectly influence Japan through their actions.” According to Hans Schattle (Prof., Dept. of Political Science & Int. Studies), the grandmothers have been visiting universities abroad to share their stories. “Their story is getting more attention through the word of mouth, media and education. Since the issue of comfort women is actually one of the few cases in history with very few shades of gray, individuals show sympathy for the grandmothers’ cause and repulsion for the acts by the Japanese. Global awareness about the issue is growing.” Heather Evans (former volunteer, House of Sharing), says that “when you work with the *halmunis*, you feel sad and angry for the current situation, but also inspired by their courage and determination. This is an issue connected with current situations all across the globe, and everyone should be ready to take action.”
In 2011, a short animation film resembling Kim Hak-soon’s tragedy was released with the title “Her Story.” The movie was included in various international movie festivals, spreading the story of the comfort women abroad. Moreover, a peace statue honoring the victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery was set up in Los Angeles, in front of Glendale’s main library in July 2013 and caught worldwide attention. “I don’t see this as a monument designed to shame Japan,” said Laura Friedman, member of the Glendale council. “The monument is meant to remind people of the tragedy that 13- or 14-year-old girls were forced to become comfort women and the horrors of the war.” In the meantime, Aug. 14, 2013 was declared as the first “UN Comfort Women Day,” in remembrance of Kim Hak-soon’s first testimony, and people in 17 cities from 9 different countries participated in various events regarding the issue.
This August, UNESCO also held an East Asian History Debate Forum, during which many discussions focused on the issue of comfort women. According to Cho, “Everyone, including Japanese students seemed to realize the severity of the problem, and showed sincere interest in taking action to help. When the other participants of the forum heard that I would be attending this week’s Wednesday protest, they all sent me inspiring messages in their own languages via Facebook and made a poster from different locations.” Hyun Ji-hye (participant, East Asian History Debate Forum) noticed that although the Japanese students knew about the existence of comfort women, they had never heard of any details, since they are not included in Japanese textbooks. “They were shocked after learning the grandmothers’ stories, and cried a lot when they met one of them in person at the House of Sharing. They seemed determined to go back and raise awareness in Japan. This is how internationalized the issue has become,” she says.
Yoon Mi-hyun, (Representative, Korean Council) still remembers the first Wednesday protest that took place 22 years ago. At first, she says, the grandmothers used to hide their faces during each demonstration to protect themselves from the criticisms and gaze of the public. However, according to Yoon, “although we might not have succeeded in earning a sincere apology from the Japanese government yet, the grandmothers have now realized that they have nothing to be ashamed of.” Most importantly, they have been able to heal their past traumas through the Wednesday protests and the public encouragement. Next Wednesday, the grandmothers will once again gather in front of the Japanese Embassy to ask for a humble apology for their lost youth. “We cannot know how the issue will evolve in the future,” says Choi Jae-hyung. “Yet, let us hope that the grandmothers will finally be able to accept themselves not as comfort women, but as beautiful women.”
Yu Ha-eun의 다른기사 보기
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"Of the House of David"
Of all the men in the Old Testament, few are spoken of with such reverence and honor as King David—shepherd, psalmist, soldier, and king. With God’s mighty power behind him, he slew a bear and a lion to save his father’s sheep, toppled a wicked giant with a single stone, slaughtered thousands of godless Philistines, and united the children of Israel under a monarchy of righteousness and justice. The Bible mentions David some 1,048 times. He wrote 73 of the psalms and stands as the major character in approximately 62 chapters of the Old Testament. Anyone who has ever read the Good Book cannot help but know the name of David—a man said to be “after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). And those familiar with the modern-day nation of Israel know that its flag proudly bears a symbol known as the Star of David.
Yet, if the Bible is removed from the discussion, David—King of Israel—vanishes into the shadows of secular history. At least he did for almost 3,000 years. David’s name and story were conspicuously missing from either archaeological evidence or the testimony of history. His name was so absent, in fact, that for many years skeptics had dubbed David’s life as fantasy and his deeds as legendary. After all, every nation needs a hero who slays giants. The Saxons had Beowulf, the Greeks had Hercules, and the Jews had David. David’s daring deeds and courageous conduct were relegated to the fabled heaps of legend and myth.
But a find unearthed in Palestine in 1993 changed David’s status in secular history forever. Professor Avraham Biran, director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at Hebrew Union College, was digging at a site in northern Israelite known as Tel Dan. There he unearthed a 3,000-year-old black basalt obelisk inscribed by one of the enemies of the ancient nation of Israel. The obelisk explained that Ben Hadad, King of Damascus, had defeated the Israelites and taken many of them captive. But the most amazing aspect of the obelisk is that it plainly states that the Israelite monarch defeated by Ben Hadad was “of the house of David.” This serves to confirm the biblical usage of this very designation (cf. 1 Kings 12:19; 14:8; Isaiah 7:2; et al.). And, for the first time in secular history, David appears connected to Israel from a historical standpoint. The implications of the stone cannot be ignored. If a king—any king—reigned who belonged to the “house of David,” then there must have been a real, historical David who established such a house and began the dynastic name.
The story of David thus has assumed a new place in the halls of history. No longer can David, King of Israel, be relegated to the status of myth or legend. Instead, he takes his rightful place beside the other documented kings of ancient history. David lived, just as the Bible had stated. And once again, the Bible remains the anvil on which the blows of the skeptic fall in vain.
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21 Reasons to Believe the Earth is Young
The age of the Earth, according to naturalists and old-Earth advocates, is 4.5 billion years.1 Young-Earth creationists contend that the Earth is on the order of thousands, not billions, of years old. Is there evidence to support the young-Earth creationists’ premise?
First, as we have shown elsewhere, the biblical narrative implies that the Universe was created with an immediate appearance of age in many ways.2 Adam and Eve were not mere zygotes, but walking, talking, working, and procreating individuals. The trees of the Garden were bearing fruit so that Adam and Eve could eat from them, light from distant stars was viewable on Earth, and daughter elements3 were possibly in the various rocks. That said, while certain attributes of the Earth would appear old, the biblical model suggests that other features of the Universe would highlight its youth. Here are 21 such examples:
#1: Bible Teaching
If the Bible is the inspired Word of God, then whatever it teaches can be known to be true—including what it teaches about the age of the Earth. The evidence indicates that the Bible is in fact God’s Word.4 Simple addition of the genealogies in Genesis 5 reveals that from Creation to the Flood was 1,6565 years, give or take a few years.6 The genealogies of Genesis 11, which do not use precisely the same terminology as that of Genesis 5,7 account for roughly 400 to 5,000 years, ending with the birth of Abram.8 From Abram to Christ is roughly 2,000 years, and from Christ to present day is roughly 2,000 years. Therefore, the age of the Earth is 6,000-10,000 years.
Paleontology/Archaeology
#2: Polystrate Fossils
Perhaps the most widely used argument for a millions-of-years-old Earth historically has been the rock layers of the geologic column. It would take millions of years for the thousands of meters of material beneath us to accumulate and lithify—or so the argument goes. Is that true? A polystrate fossil is a single fossil that spans more than one geologic stratum. Many polystrate tree trunk fossils have been discovered, as well as a baleen whale, swamp plants called calamites, and catfish.9 Polystrate fossils prove that both the rock layers of the geologic column and the surfaces between them do not require millions of years of slow and gradual accumulation and lithification. After all, how could a tree escape its inevitable decay while sticking out of the ground for millions of years with its roots dead and lithified, while it waited to be slowly covered with sediment? Polystrate fossils provide evidence that the rock strata have formed rapidly—fast enough to preserve organic materials before their decay.
#3: DNA in “Ancient” Bacteria Support a Young Earth
In 2000, a bacterium was discovered that is thought to be from the Permian Period of Earth’s history—250 million years ago. The problem is that, according to geomicrobiologist of the University of Bristol John Parkes, “[a]ll the laws of chemistry tell you that complex molecules in the spores should have degraded to very simple compounds such as carbon dioxide” in that amount of time,10 and yet the bacterium’s DNA was still intact. Further, the “Lazarus” bacterium actually revived in spite of its supposed great age. Not only was the bacterium revived, but analysis of its DNA indicated that the bacterium is similar to modern bacteria—it had not evolved in “250 million years.”11 Critics verified that the DNA of the bacterium does in fact match that of modern bacteria, but respond that “unless it can be shown that [the bacterium] evolves 5 to 10 times more slowly than other bacteria,” the researchers’ claims should be rejected.12 So according to critics, the evidence does not match the “theoretical expectations for ancient DNA” predicted by the evolutionary model. Therefore, the bacterium cannot be ancient regardless of the evidence.13 Another plausible option: the bacterium is not 250 million years old.
#4: Human Population Statistics
Evolutionists argue that humans (i.e., the genus homo) have been on the Earth for roughly two to three million years. Using statistics, one can arrive at an estimate for how many people would be predicted to be on the Earth at different points in history. For example, accounting for factors such as war, disease, and famine, and assuming humans have been on the planet for only one million, rather than two to three million, years, we find that there should be 102,000 people on the planet today.14 There are, however, not even 1010 people on the Earth. In fact, if three-feet-tall humans with narrow shoulders were squeezed into the Universe like sardines, only 1082 people could fit into the entire Universe. It would take 101,918 (minus one) other Universes like ours to house that many humans.
It might be tempting to argue that the Earth could only sustain roughly 50 billion people, resource-wise, and therefore, all humans above that number would die off. If that were the case, however, there should be evidence that the Earth’s resource capacity had been met many times in the past in the form of billions upon billions of hominid fossils. Hominid fossils, however, are acknowledged to be “hard to come by.”15 In fact, “meager evidence” exists to attempt to substantiate the origin of the entire genus homo.16 Even after over a century of searching for homo fossils, one evolutionary scientist admitted several years ago, “The fossils that decorate our family tree are so scarce that there are still more scientists than specimens. The remarkable fact is that all the physical evidence we have for human evolution can still be placed, with room to spare, inside a single coffin.”17 Is belief in an old Earth reasonable or irrational? Ironically, if our calculations are adjusted based on the predictions of the biblical model, roughly 4,350 years ago18 a Flood ensued that wiped out man from the face of the Earth. If the planet then began to be repopulated by six people (namely the sons of Noah and their wives), statistics show that there should be roughly 6.7 to 8.1 billion people on the planet today. As of today, the U.S. Census Bureau documents that the world’s population is 7.5 billion people.19
#5: Carbon-14 in “Ancient” Fossils and Materials
At current rates, it takes 5,730 years for half of the radioactive element carbon-14 (C-14), from an organic sample like a bone or piece of wood, to break down into its daughter element, nitrogen-14. With such a “short” half-life, after 57,300 years (10 half-lives), less than 0.1% of the original C-14 atoms are left in any specimen. Current technology does not allow scientists to detect C-14 in specimens thought to be older than 60-100 thousand years in age—all of the measurable carbon-14 is gone.20 If C-14 is detected in any uncontaminated specimen, therefore, the specimen cannot be older than 100,000 years (assuming, as evolutionists do, a constant nuclear decay rate of C-14 into nitrogen-14—an assumption which would not hold in the biblical Flood scenario). The discovery of C-14 in fossils that are believed to be 10’s to 100’s of millions of years old is, predictably, shocking to those who accept the conventional dating scheme and its underlying techniques. No matter how much care is taken to ensure that the specimens have not been contaminated, the fossils still reveal the presence of C-14. Fossilized wood from the Cenozoic era (up to 65 million years old, conventionally), fossilized wood, dinosaur fossils, and ammonite shells from the Mesozoic era (66-252 million years old, conventionally), and fossilized wood, reptiles, and sponges from the Paleozoic era (252-541 million years old) have been discovered with C-14 present.21 Similarly, coal from the Paleozoic era (thought to be 40-320 million years old), and even diamonds thought to be billions of years old, have yielded C-14 upon examination.22 It is notable that regardless of where the specimens are found in the geologic column, the C-14 ages all fall within the range of 10-60 thousand years old (again, assuming a constant nuclear decay rate). While one might predict that deeper in the strata would correspond to an older age, the depth in the strata does not appear to correlate to the measured age of the specimen, supporting the creationist contention that the entire fossil record and geologic column from the Paleozoic up into the Cenozoic era likely formed during the single year of the biblical Flood. The geologic column and fossil record are not a record of life through time, but of death during the Flood a few millennia ago.23
#6: Soft Tissue/Blood Vessels in Dinosaur Fossils
The last uncontested dinosaur fossil is found in the Cretaceous period of the geologic column, below the K-Pg boundary that marks a mysterious extinction event that wiped out some 70% of the planet’s species. The dinosaur era (i.e., the Mesozoic) extends from roughly 252 million years ago to the K-Pg boundary, roughly 65-66 million years ago according to the evolutionary timescale. Obviously, no flesh could conceivably survive 100,000 years without decay, much less one million years, much less 65 million years, much less 200 million years. As of 2005, however, many dinosaur fossils have been “cracked open” and studied, only to find collagen and blood vessels with red blood cells intact, original proteins, and soft, stretchy, flexible tissue. The list has grown to include T-rex, hadrosaur, mosasaur, triceratops, thescelosaurus, psittacosaurus, archaeopteryx, and seismosaur fossils.24 While certain sterile conditions could conceivably preserve organic remains for hundreds or thousands of years, the fossils being studied were not discovered in sterile, laboratory environments, but rather harsh environments like the mid-western U.S., with large temperature differentials, erratic weather, and climate conditions that accelerate decay. No reasonable explanation has been offered, and yet the evidence has continued to mount.25 The most plausible explanation is that the geologic strata that host the dinosaurs do not date to 66+ million years ago, but rather, to a few thousand years ago.
#7: Human/Dinosaur Co-existence
According to the evolutionary, old-Earth timeline, dinosaurs went extinct some 65 to 66 million years ago. Modern-day mammals and many other living organisms did not yet exist, since they are not found in the strata that house the dinosaurs. Humans (i.e., the genus homo) only arrived on the scene two to three million years ago according to that paradigm. No human, therefore, ever saw a dinosaur. If, however, evidence was discovered that proves humans and dinosaurs in fact co-existed in the recent past, then the evolutionary timeline telescopes down millions of years and the geologic strata in which the dinosaurs are found are shown to represent a time period in the not-too-distant past. Sure enough, physical, historical, and biblical evidences are available to substantiate the co-existence of humans and dinosaurs in the recent past.26
#8: Tightly Folded Rock Strata
If the rock layers of the geologic column represent millions of years of slow accumulation, lithification, and erosion, one would expect the layers beneath the surface layer to be “brittle,” as rock layers are today. Plate movement would, therefore, result in the fracturing of those rock layers, rather than bending them—rocks do not bend, but rather, break. In several places on the Earth, however, rock layers have been discovered that are bent and folded at radical angles without fracturing (e.g., the Tapeats Sandstone and Muav Limestone of the Grand Canyon27). These thick layers of sediment that eventually lithified—representing millions of years of time, conventionally—must have been laid down rapidly and had not yet had enough time to lithify before being bent by the rapid plate movement predicted to occur during the Flood.
#9: Rapid “Slow” Processes
Any old-Earth/evolutionary dating technique relies on the uniformitarian assumption: whatever processes we witness occurring today must be used to explain the past. If petrifying a tree, forming oil, carving a canyon, transforming the parent isotopes of a radioactive rock into their daughter elements, or moving a continent several miles would take millions of years at the lithification, transformation, erosion, decay, and “drift” rates we see today, then the Earth must be at least millions of years old. If, however, each of these processes are shown to occur rapidly under catastrophic conditions (as predicted by the young-Earth biblical model), then those processes cannot be used to prove an old Earth. Sure enough, as creationists have predicted would be the case, each of these processes has been empirically verified as occurring rapidly under catastrophic conditions like those of the biblical Flood model. Petrification has been found to be able to occur in mere months to a few years under catastrophic conditions.28 Oil has been shown to form in hundreds to thousands of years.29 The rapid carving of canyons has been verified to occur under catastrophic conditions as well.30 Studies have verified that the nuclear decay rates of radioactive materials can be accelerated under catastrophic conditions,31 and evidence for the rapid movement in the past of the plates upon which the continents reside has been verified as well.32 If each of the chronometers that are said to prove “old” ages of the Earth is contradicted by the evidence, then where is the evidence of an old Earth?
#10: Amount of Salt in the Sea
Ocean water is salty. Each year, hundreds of millions of tons of sodium are added to the oceans and only about 27% of it is removed by other processes, leaving an annual accumulation of 336 million tons of sodium.33 Starting with a zero sodium content in the sea and using the old-Earth assumption of uniformitarianism, the current concentration of sodium in the ocean would be reached in only 42 million years. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, however, the ocean is 3.8 billion years old.34 The response to this fact, as must be the case in other examples in this list, would obviously be that accumulation and/or dissemination rates must have been different in the past. The average salt accumulation, however, would have to be over 90 times slower than present rates in order to accommodate the alleged age of the ocean. This conjecture simply does not hold up under scrutiny and, even if it did, it would merely prove the creationist contention that uniformitarianism is not a reliable assumption. Present processes are not the key to understanding the past and, therefore, no old-age dating technique can be trusted, since they all rely on uniformitarianism. Since the Flood happened, catastrophism, not uniformitarianism, is a more reasonable assumption in interpreting physical evidence. Intimately tied to catastrophism are rapid processes and, therefore, young ages.
#11: Amount of Sediment on the Sea Floor
As water and wind scour the continents each year, 20 billion tons of material is estimated to be deposited in the oceans.35 As the tectonic plates of the Earth move, subduction occurs, with one plate slowly diving under another towards the mantle. One billion tons of material is estimated to be removed from the sea floor each year from that process,36 leaving 19 billion tons of sediment accumulating each year on the ocean floor. On average, the sediment thickness on the ocean floor is 1,500 feet.37 Based on the current rate of sediment deposition, however (i.e., assuming uniformitarianism once again), the sediment on the ocean floor would accumulate in only a small fraction of the alleged 3.8 billion year age of the ocean (i.e., 0.5% or 19 million years).38 The average annual sediment accumulation would have to be 197 times smaller to match an ocean age of 3.8 billion years. The amount of sediment on the sea floor simply does not support a billions-of-years-old ocean, but fits well with a young Earth when the accelerated erosion rates during and immediately after the Flood are accounted for.
#12: Lack of Erosion Evidence Between Strata
When making a multi-layer cake, the adjoining surface between layers is smooth. If you made your cake outside over several weeks, waiting several days between new layers and leaving the cake open to the elements in the meantime, the surface of each layer would exhibit the indicators of time—decay, loss of cake from scavengers, erosion from rain water, etc. Similarly, if geologic strata are formed over millions of years, the surface between adjoining layers would not be smooth, but would exhibit proof of time passing in the form of, for instance, erosional and depositional surfaces. However, the layers, by in large (e.g., at the Grand Canyon), display smooth contact surfaces—indicating rapid deposition without enough time for erosion.39 Those surfaces which show evidence of erosion match the type of erosion that would be predicted if the lower surface had not yet lithified when a rapid erosion event occurred above the surface, prior to further rapid deposition. Bottom line: the Grand Canyon exhibits evidence of a young Earth.
#13: Helium in Zircon Crystals
Zircon crystals are considered to be some of the oldest minerals on Earth—thought to be billions of years old. They are very hard and resistant to deterioration, and are also able to preserve their contents well, making them safer from contamination. Within zircon crystals, a portion of the zirconium atoms are replaced by uranium while the crystals grow. As radioactive uranium-238 decays into its daughter element, lead-206, alpha particles are released that combine with nearby electrons. Helium is subsequently formed, which can then be detected in zircon crystals. While zircon crystals are able to preserve their contents well, helium is known to behave as a “slippery” material. Helium atoms are small and are in constant motion as gas particles. They are, therefore, hard to contain, and they diffuse quickly.40 Upon examination of zircon crystals that are thought to be 1.5 billion years old, however, scientists have discovered the presence of unusually high concentrations of helium.41 If the crystals were billions of years old, the helium should have been diffused from the crystals and released into the atmosphere, since high concentrations of helium can only be sustained, theoretically, for a few thousand years without significant diffusion. The presence of high concentrations of helium illustrates the fact that at some point(s) in the relatively recent past, the nuclear decay rate of uranium-238 was accelerated, producing larger amounts of helium that have not yet had time to diffuse. If radioactive decay rates were accelerated at some point in the past (e.g., during the Flood), then radioactive materials will appear deceptively old, while actually being relatively young.
#14: “Orphan” Radiohalos
As a radioactive atom of uranium decays into polonium within a solid crystalline material, alpha particles are released and “halos”42 form, marking the different stages of nuclear decay. Parentless radiohalos, however, are found in many granitic rocks, implying accelerated nuclear decay in the past and a young age for the Earth.43
#15: Clastic Dikes
In sedimentary rock strata, open fractures often exist, and in some cases, other sedimentary material is injected into those cracks at a later time, filling them with a different type of sedimentary rock. These are called clastic dikes. The Ute Pass fault, west of Colorado Springs, for example, exhibits over 200 sandstone dikes, some of which are miles in length. The dikes are comprised of Cambrian Sawatch sandstone (allegedly 500 million years old) that injected rock from the Cretaceous period (allegedly 65-66 million years old).44 Is it reasonable to presume that 500-million-year-old sediment remained unlithified for over 400 million years while Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous strata were laid down on top of it before intruding into the Cretaceous strata? Or is it more reasonable to infer that the layers of the geologic column from the Cambrian to the Cretaceous were laid down rapidly on top of one another during a global, aqueous catastrophe before they had lithified? Then, during the rapid uplift of the Rocky Mountains later in the Flood, the Cambrian Sawatch material was injected through the overlying layers forming the clastic dikes of the Ute Pass. Bottom line: the geologic column was formed rapidly—the Earth is young.
Astronomy/Astrophysics/Geophysics
#16: Faint Young Sun Paradox
As the hydrogen within the Sun fuses into helium, the Sun gradually increases in temperature. Calculations show that (at current rates) 3.5 billion years ago, the Sun would have been 25% dimmer and would have heated the Earth less, dropping Earth’s temperature some 31oF. Earth would have been below freezing!45 According to contemporary thinking, however, Earth, initially molten, was hotter, not colder, prior to 3.5 billion years ago, and was gradually cooling, not heating up.46 Not only is there no evidence that Earth was ever frozen, but if it had been frozen 3.5 billion years ago and beyond, according to evolutionists, life could not emerge 3.5-4 billion years ago since it relies on liquid water.
#17: Rapid Decay Rate of Earth’s Magnetic Field
Scientists have been measuring the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field with precision since 1835. The magnetic field is decaying at an exponential rate with a half-life of roughly 1,100 years.47 By implication, when we follow the exponential function back in history, doubling the Earth’s magnetic field intensity every 1,100 years, we reach a point 30,000 years ago when the Earth’s magnetic field strength would have been comparable to that of a neutron star,48 creating immense heat that would have prohibited life from existing and possibly even compromised the internal structure of the Earth. The Earth cannot be millions of years old.
#18: Lunar Recession Rate
The Moon is presently moving away from the Earth at a rate of approximately 4 cm per year.49 The recession rate is not linear. As the Moon moves further from the Earth, it recedes slower. Based on the equation that describes the Moon’s recession rate, scientists can calculate where the Moon would have been compared to the Earth at different times in history. For example, 6,000 years ago, the Moon would have been 750 feet closer to the Earth than it is today—resulting in little effect on the Earth. If, however, the Moon has the contemporary age of 4.5 billion years old, there is a significant problem, because 1.55 billion years ago the Moon would have been touching the Earth.50 It would be physically impossible, therefore, for the Moon to be older than 1.55 billion years old based on the known recession rate of the Moon. In response, those who wish to maintain the contemporary belief in deep time must argue that present recession rates did not hold in the past.51 In so doing, however, they abandon uniformitarian thinking (i.e., “the present is the key to the past”) which undergirds every deep time dating technique. They are, therefore, once again admitting that every evolutionary dating technique is suspect and does not prove an old Earth.
#19: Atmospheric Helium Content
Helium is gradually accumulating in the Earth’s atmosphere as radioactive isotopes beneath the Earth’s surface decay, emitting alpha particles that attract electrons and form helium. The amount of helium in the atmosphere has been measured, the rate at which helium is introduced in the atmosphere has been measured, and the theoretical rate of helium release to space has been calculated as well. Using the typical old-Earth assumption of uniformity over time, it is easy to calculate an upper limit on the age of the atmosphere. The atmosphere can be no older than two million years—as opposed to the alleged age of 4.5 billion years.52
#20: Spiral Galaxies
Earth is located in the Milky Way Galaxy—a spiral galaxy. According to the Big Bang model, galaxies began forming within a billion years after the Big Bang, making many of them over 12 billion years old. Of all of the galaxies that scientists have observed, some 77 percent of them are spiral galaxies.53 The oldest spiral galaxy is thought to be roughly 11 billion years old.54 If you have ever sprinkled cinnamon on a hot, foamy drink and then stirred the drink with a straw or stick, you will notice the formation of the characteristic spiral galaxy shape. You may also notice that the portion of the spiral that is closer to the center rotates faster than the portion of the spiral that is close to the edge of the cup. That “differential rotation” causes the arms of the spiral to begin blurring closer to the center of the spiral over time. After a few rotations, the center of the spiral is no longer recognizable. Similarly, spiral galaxies are spinning slowly. If spiral galaxies are as old as is claimed by secular cosmologists, after a few hundred million years the arms of the spirals should no longer be recognizable—and yet many of them are. Space.com admits: “The exact mechanism for the formation of the spiral arms continues to puzzle scientists. If they were permanent features of the galaxy, they would soon wind up tightly and disappear in less than a billion years.”55 Apparently, the observational evidence does not harmonize with the deep time proposition of the Big Bang model.
#21: Comet Contradiction
The solar system is comprised of hundreds of thousands of objects that are orbiting the Sun. Over 3,000 of those objects are comets.56 Comets are balls of ice and dirt moving through space in elliptical orbits around the Sun. They are believed to be “leftovers from the material that initially formed the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.”57 As comets in their orbit move close to the Sun, solar winds and radiation from the Sun “blow” material from the comet, creating the characteristic tail we observe. Since material is removed from a comet with each cycle around the Sun, obviously the comet will eventually disintegrate—completely sublimating. The typical lifespan of a comet is 10,000 years.58 How, then, can the solar system be 4.6 billion years old if thousands of comets—thought to have formed when the solar system formed—are still orbiting the Sun? Scientists speculate the existence of a source for new comets that lies outside of the solar system, but no observational evidence has substantiated that claim. The biblical model, of course, provides a plausible explanation that harmonizes with the evidence: the solar system is less than 10,000 years old.
This list is but a small sample of the available evidences for a young Earth. Keep in mind that the assumption of uniformitarianism undergirds many of the arguments in this list. Uniformitarianism is a fundamental assumption of evolutionary dating techniques, not of the biblical Creation model. The creationist would argue that uniformitarianism is extremely unreliable due to the effects of catastrophic phenomena (especially that of the Flood; cf. 2 Peter 3:3-6). The biblical Creation perspective advocates, instead, catastrophism as the reliable way to interpret scientific evidence from the past. By illustrating that uniformitarianism simultaneously proves a young Earth (according to the examples above) and disproves a young Earth (according to standard evolutionary dating techniques), the unreliability of uniformitarianism is substantiated. The old-Earth advocate is forced to abandon uniformitarianism, or be guilty of holding to it blindly without evidence of its reliability. In abandoning uniformitarianism, however, the person who believes in an old Earth has now yielded his primary evidence for an old Earth and must embrace the contention that one simply cannot know the age of the Earth using science. We would concur with that conclusion, but remind the old-Earth advocate that while science cannot provide the age of the Earth, there is another source of information that can provide its age. Recall the first point in our list: since we can know that the Bible is from God, what it says is true. It gives us enough information to know the relative age of the Earth, on the order of thousands, not billions, of years.
There is never a reason to doubt the Bible. True science will always support it. If the Bible indicates that the Earth is young, then a fair, thorough assessment of the evidence will substantiate that truth, even if assessing the evidence requires time and effort. That evidence is readily available.
1 For a response to old-Earth dating techniques, see Jeff Miller (2013), “Don’t Assume Too Much: Not All Assumptions in Science Are Bad,” Reason & Revelation, 33[6]:62-70.
2 Eric Lyons (2011), “Common Sense, Miracles, and the Apparent Age of the Earth,” Reason & Revelation, 31[8]77-80.
3 In radioactive decay, a radioactive element (the parent) decays into another element (the daughter) over time. When dating a rock, geologists assume that there was initially no daughter elements present in the rock—only parent elements when the decay began. That assumption is then used to determine, at today’s decay rates, how long it would take for the rock to have the quantity of daughter element that it currently contains.
4 Kyle Butt (2007), Behold! The Word of God (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).
5 Assuming the Masoretic text is correct (as opposed to the Septuagint or Samaritan Pentateuch).
6 Unless Adam had Seth on Adam’s birthday, Seth had Enosh on Seth’s birthday, Enosh had Cainan on Enosh’s birthday, etc., each patriarch’s age is being rounded by, potentially, a few months.
7 Eric Lyons (2002), “When Did Terah Beget Abraham?” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=624.
8 The genealogy terminology of Genesis 11 is not precisely the same as that of Genesis 5. As highlighted in Lyons, 2002, the patriarch years before the birth of the next patriarch could refer to the number of years up to the firstborn son (similar to Moses’ terminology in the same context concerning Shem and Abram). If so, then the number of years between the firstborn’s birth and the ancestor of Christ listed is unknown. If each patriarch listed is a firstborn son, then simple math yields roughly 390 years from Shem to the birth of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. If, however, there is a span of time between the date of the firstborn son and the actual ancestor of Christ (who may not have been the firstborn), the time between Shem and Terah’s sons grows. As an upper limit, if every patriarch in Genesis 11 continued to live to 900 years (like the patriarchs of the pre-Flood world, Genesis 5), then the “missing” years add up to a potential addition of 4,410 years (an extreme, unlikely scenario). Upper and lower limits, therefore, are placed on the potential length of time between the Flood and the birth of Terah’s children: between 390 and 4,800 years.
9 Michael J. Oard and Hank Giesecke (2007), “Polystrate Fossils Require Rapid Deposition,” CRS Quarterly, 43[3]:232-240, March; John Morris (2011), The Young Earth (Green Forest, AR: Master Books), pp. 102-105; Andrew Snelling (1995), “The Whale Fossil in Diatomite, Lompoc, California,” Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, 9[2]:244-258.
10 As quoted in Andy Coghlan (2000), “Eternal Life,” New Scientist, On-line, October 18, https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn82-eternal-life/.
11 Russell Vreeland, William Rosenzweig, and Dennis Powers (2000), “Isolation of a 250 Million-Year-Old Halotolerant Bacterium from a Primary Salt Crystal,” Nature, 407:897-900, October 19.
12 D.C. Nickle, G.H. Learn, M.W. Rain, J.I. Mullins, and J.E. Mittler (2002), “Curiously Modern DNA for a ‘250 Million-Year-Old’ Bacterium,” Journal of Molecular Evolution, 54[1]:134-137.
14 Jeff Miller (2011), “Population Statistics and a Young Earth,” Reason & Revelation, 31[5]:41-47, http://apologeticspress.org/pub_rar/31_5/1105w.pdf.
15 Mariette DiChristina (2012), “The Story Begins,” Scientific American, 306[4]:4, April.
16 Kate Wong (2012), “First of Our Kind,” Scientific American, 306[4]:31, April.
17 Lyall Watson (1982), “The Water People,” Science Digest, 90[5]:44, May.
18 Keep in mind that the Flood could have been a few hundred years further back in history than 4,300 years ago.
19 "U.S. and World Population Clock” (2018), United States Census Bureau, November 2, https://www.census.gov/popclock/.
20 Sarah Zielinski (2008), “Showing Their Age,” Smithsonian Magazine.com, July, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/showing-their-age-62874/.
21 Andrew Snelling (2011), “Carbon-14 in Fossils and Diamonds,” Answers Magazine, On-line, January 1, https://answersingenesis.org/geology/carbon-14/carbon-14-in-fossils-and-diamonds/; Brian Thomas and Vance Nelson (2015), “Radiocarbon in Dinosaur and Other Fossils,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, 51[4]:299-311.
22 Don DeYoung (2008), Thousands…Not Billions (Green Forest, AR: Master Books), pp. 45-62.
23 Note that radiocarbon dating does, in fact, sometimes result in ages of materials that exceed 10,000 years. Radiocarbon dating, however, is understood to be suspect for objects thought to be older than roughly 3,000-4,000 years old [cf. George H. Michaels and Brian Fagan (2013), “Chronological Methods 8—Radiocarbon Dating,” University of California Santa Barbara Instructional Development, http://archserve.id.ucsb.edu/courses/anth/fagan/anth3/Courseware/Chronolo-gy/08_Radiocarbon_Dating.html]. Further, biblical creationists argue that radioactive decay rates were apparently accelerated during the Flood and afterward, possibly up to 1,500-1,000 B.C., making all dating techniques unreliable for ages beyond that time. See DeYoung for evidence of accelerated radioactive decay in the past.
24 Kevin Anderson (2017), Echoes of the Jurassic (Chino Valley, AZ: CRS Books); Brian Thomas (2015), “Solid Answers on Soft Tissue,” Answers Magazine On-line, January 1, https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/when-did-dinosaurs-live/solid-answers-soft-tissue/.
25 Cf. Creation Research Society Quarterly (2015), 51[4] and Anderson for in-depth discussion and responses to proposed explanations.
26 Eric Lyons and Kyle Butt (2008), The Dinosaur Delusion (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).
27 Andrew A. Snelling, “Rock Layers Folded, Not Fractured,” Answers 4, No. 2 (April-June 2009):80-83; Morris, pp. 108-113.
28 H. Akahane, et al. (2004), “Rapid Wood Silicification in Hot Spring Water: An Explanation of Silicification of Wood During the Earth’s History,” Sedimentary Geology 169(3-4):219-228, July 15; Alan Channing, Alan and Dianne Edwards (2004), “Experimental Taphonomy: Silicification of Plants in Yellowstone Hot-Spring Environments,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences, 94:503-521, http://www.rcn.montana.edu/Publications/Pdf/2004/ChanningEdwards%202004%20Experiment-al%20taphonomy.pdf.
29 Borys M. Didyk and Bernd R.T. Simoneit (1989), “Hydrothermal Oil of Guaymas Basin and Implications for Petroleum Formation Mechanisms,” Nature, 342:65-69, November 2.
30 John Morris and Steven Austin (2003), Footprints in the Ash (Green Forest, AR: Master Books), pp. 74-76; “A Geologic Catastrophy” (2005), Glacial Lake Missoula and the Ice Age Floods, http://www.glaciallakemissoula.org/story.html; James O’Connor and Richard Waitt (1995), “Beyond the Channeled Scabland,” Oregon Geology, 57[5]:100-103, https://www.oregongeology.org/pubs/og/ogv57n05.pdf; Michelle Roberts (2007), “Texas Set to Open New Canyon to Public,” Canyon Lake Gorge, The Associated Press, October 5, https://www.canyonlakeguide.com/helpful_info/gorge.htm; Sigrid Sanders, et al. (2017), “Providence Canyon,” New Georgia Encyclopedia On-line, July 26, http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/geography-environment/providence-canyon.
31 Steve Reucroft and J. Swain (2009), “Ultrasonic Cavitation of Water Speeds Up Thorium Decay,” CERN Courier, June 8, http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/39158; Cf. DeYoung.
32 Ross Mitchell, David Evans, and Taylor Kilian (2010), “Rapid Early Cambrian Rotation of Gondwana,” Geology, 38[8]:755-758; Paul Garner (2011), The New Creationism (Carlisle, PA: EP Books), pp. 187-189.
33 Steven Austin and D. Russell Humphreys (1990), “The Sea’s Missing Salt: A Dilemma for Evolutionists,” Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, ed. R.E. Walsh and C.L. Brooks (Pittsburgh, PA: Creation Science Fellowship), 2:17-33.
34 “Why Do We Have Oceans?” (no date), National Ocean Service, https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/why_oceans.html.
35 John Milliman and James Syvitski, “Geomorphic/Tectonic Control of Sediment Discharge to the Ocean: The Importance of Small Mountainous Rivers,” The Journal of Geology, 100 (1992): 525-544.
36 William Hay, James Sloan II, and Christopher Wold (1998), “Mass/Age Distribution and Composition of Sediments on the Ocean Floor and the Global Rate of Sediment Subduction,” Journal of Geophysical Research, 93[B12]: 14,933-14,940.
37 “Deep-Sea Sediments” (2018), Encyclopaedia Britannica On-line, https://www.britannica.com/science/ocean-basin/Deep-sea-sediments.
38 NOTE: One ft3 wet gravel is approximately 126.1 pounds, and the surface area of the ocean is roughly 139 million square miles. The total weight of the sediment on the ocean floor is, therefore, 3.665(1017) tons.
39 Steven Austin (1994), Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe (Santee, CA: Institute for Creation Research), pp 42-43.
40 Consider a child’s helium balloon. The helium, being “slippery,” gradually escapes the balloon, but it does so through the rubber itself, not through the knot at the base of the balloon.
41 DeYoung, pp. 65-78.
42 Rings of color that surround a radioactive mineral.
44 Steven Austin and John Morris (1986), “Tight Fold and Clastic Dikes as Evidence for Rapid Deposition and Deformation of Two Very Thick Stratigraphic Sequences,” First International Conference on Creationism, ed. R.E. Walsh, C.L. Brooks, and R.S. Crowell (Pittsburgh, PA: Creation Science Fellowship), pp. 3-13, http://static.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Tight-Fold-and-Clastic-Dikes-Rapid-Deposition-Deformation.pdf.
45 Danny Faulkner (2012), “#4 Faint Sun Paradox,” Answers Magazine On-line, October 1, https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/sun/4-faint-sun-paradox/.
46 Eric McLamb (2011), “Earth’s Beginnings: The Origins of Life,” Ecology On-line, September 11, http://www.ecology.com/2011/09/10/earths-beginnings-origins-life/.
47 D.R. Humphreys (2016), Earth’s Mysterious Magnetism and that of Other Celestial Orbs (Chino Valley, AZ: Creation Research Society), p. 57.
48 Earth’s magnetic field strength is roughly 0.5 G at the surface, while a neutron star’s magnetic field strength is at least 108 G [“Earth’s Magnetic Field” (2018), Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations, Harvard University, https://sciencedemonstrations.fas.harvard.edu/presentations/earths-magnetic-field; A. Reisenegger (2003), “Origin and Evolution of Neutron Star Magnetic Fields,” International Workshop on Strong Magnetic Fields and Neutron Stars, http://www.if.ufrgs.br/hadrons/reisenegger1.pdf.].
49 David Powell (2007), “Earth’s Moon Destined to Disintegrate,” Space.com, January 22, https://www.space.com/3373-earth-moon-destined-disintegrate.html.
50 Don DeYoung (2008), “Tides and the Creation Worldview,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, 45[2]:100-108.
51 E.g., F.R. Stephenson, “Tidal Recession of the Moon from Ancient and Modern Data,” Journal of the British Astronomical Association, 91:141, http://adsbit.harvard.edu/full/seri/JBAA./0091//0000136.000.html.
52 Larry Vardiman (1990), The Age of the Earth’s Atmosphere (El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research).
53 Nola Taylor Redd (2013), “Spiral Galaxy Facts & Definition,” Space.com, August 15, https://www.space.com/22382-spiral-galaxy.html.
54 Calla Cofield (2017), “Oldest Spiral Galaxy Ever Seen May Reveal Secrets About the Milky Way,” Space.com, November 7, https://www.space.com/38690-oldest-spiral-galaxy-ever-seen-detected.html.
55 Redd, emp. added.
56 “Solar System Profile” (2018), ThePlanets.org, https://theplanets.org/solar-system/.
57 Charles Choi (2017), “Comets: Facts About the ‘Dirty Snowballs’ of Space,” Space.com, October 23, https://www.space.com/53-comets-formation-discovery-and-exploration.html.
58 “How Long Does it Take for Comets to ‘Melt’?” (2013), TheNakedScientists.com, April 4, https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/how-long-does-it-take-comets-melt.
Suggested Resourses
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Category: Productions
Copacabana – October 2011
Orchestrations by Andy Rumble Originally produced in the United States by Pittsburgh CLO, Pittsburgh, PA. Van Kapalan, Executive Producer,...
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas – October 2010
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a yee-haaing, thigh slapping trip down memory lane that is sure...
Return to the Forbidden Planet – October 2009
Doctor Prospero worked late one night developing a formula which could change the world. However, his wife Gloria...
Summer Holiday – October 2008
Based on the classic Cliff Richard film, Summer Holiday will transport you back to the swinging sixties as it...
Thoroughly Modern Millie – October 2007
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Serving with determination, making racquet
Published on Friday, February 25, 2011 by The Norseman Staff
As players continue to volley back and forth at a rapid pace, there’s not a lot of down time during a tennis match. Competitors must stay on their toes in a sport where reaction and anticipation mean everything.
Tennis also provides an opportunity for students to have a release from the average school day by allowing them to step onto the court and channel their energy elsewhere.
“Being able to just hit the ball as hard as I can; just going out there and being good at something [is the best part of tennis],” senior Shawn Greinert said. “You don’t have to sit in the classroom, you don’t have to think about everything; you just go out there and play. It’s enjoyable.”
The sport appears to have noticeable influence on the students when they step on to the court and develop a competitive spirit.
“Tennis has influenced me by making me a more competitive person, because normally I’m like this sweet little nice girl who never says anything bad about anybody and when I get on the court, [I become] a completely different person,” senior Kayla Seigert said.
In preparation for district, the tennis team goes through a variety of training methods to better their playing abilities.
“We do various drills and play matches, and usually have games on Friday,” Greinert said. “During the season, though, it’s just really aimed at getting better for district.”
Even though many players start off playing for power, they soon learn that tennis is a game of finesse.
“[The most difficult part for student athletes is] understanding that you don’t have to hit the ball hard to win a point; [they just] have to be able to keep the ball in play,” Coach Randy Stewart said.
Even though the fall season didn’t go as well as the team would have hoped, it should act as a great foundation for the spring.
“We ended up tying for fourth at district,” Stewart said.
Already, students are considering how upcoming competitions may or may not turn out, depending on the skill of the players.
“My prediction is that our team will have a lot of fun, and the upper classmen will probably do better than the underclassmen just because they have more experience and have been on varsity longer,” Seigert said.
Hopefully, for any upcoming seasons, the students will gain a better understanding of what ‘school spirit’ really is.
“The main thing they need to do is to go out and do more on their own; playing only for the school and only for school matches and only for school practice. Just to get them to understand why they’re trying to play like they are,” Stewart said.
Students needing more information about joining the team next year can contact Coach Stewart or talk to members of the tennis team.
Categories: Sports | Tags: main, tennis, Volume 40 Number 3
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HealthEquity Creates Employment Opportunities in Rural Utah
HealthEquity, Inc. (NASDAQ: HQY), a nationwide health savings account administrator, […]
_November 29, 2016
HealthEquity, Inc. (NASDAQ: HQY), a nationwide health savings account administrator, announced a new hiring initiative to meet both their needs and those of residents in Carbon County, Utah.
The Draper-based company plans to employ more than 28 permanent, benefited positions in Carbon County—where the unemployment is 5.8 percent. The remote employees will be offered the same wages and benefits as employees based along Utah’s Wasatch Front.
“HealthEquity’s innovative approach is improving lives beyond the Wasatch Front,” said Gov. Gary R. Herbert. “I applaud them for their efforts, and I challenge other growing companies to look to rural Utah for business growth and expansion.”
In December 2015, HealthEquity announced it would expand its Draper headquarters to create up to 200 jobs in Utah within six years. With the addition of the new team members based in Price, HealthEquity has surpassed their goal and added 207 new jobs in less than a year.
“Providing job opportunities in Price gives us a unique opportunity to help strengthen the local economy,” said Natalie Atwood, senior vice president of people at HealthEquity. “We are thrilled to be part of such a worthwhile initiative and are ready to fully integrate the new employees into our HealthEquity team.”
HealthEquity partnered with Utah-based Accelerant to hire, train and manage logistical aspects of their initiative in Price. Accelerant has been actively advocating with Utah corporations to consider how rural workforce can and will play a significant role in filling both current and future demand for talent. Accelerant’s business model facilitates and helps de-risk solutions for companies who recognize the opportunity and are looking to develop high performance, diversified and scalable teams.
“Utah’s growing companies need skilled employees,” said Joel Smith, CEO of Accelerant. “Our experience with HealthEquity in partnering on this initiative has been incredible. The talent found has exceeded expectations. To be able to provide high quality personnel on one hand, and new employment opportunities to change people’s lives on the other, has been deeply gratifying.”
How Utah Draws Companies to the State – KCPW »
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Murray Lerner; September 12th re-release of Festival! by Criterion Collection
Published September 18, 2017 | By cavehollywood
By Harvey Kubernik © 2017
Joni Mitchell Live Scheduled for 2018 release is a Murray Lerner documentary about Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now: Joni Mitchell Live at the Isle of Wight 1970.
Oscar-winning filmmaker Murray Lerner passed away on September 2nd in New York City at age 90.
Courtesy of MLF Productions, Inc
Born in Philadelphia Pennsylvania on May 8, 1927, raised in New York City, and a graduate of Harvard University English major in 1948, Lerner’s award-winning and trend-setting musical documentaries include examinations of Isaac Stern, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, the Newport Folk Festival, the Moody Blues, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, Jethro Tull, the Who and Leonard Cohen.
Scheduled for 2018 release is a Lerner’s documentary about Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now: Joni Mitchell Live at the Isle of Wight 1970.
Also allegedly readied for February 2018 is Lerner’s complete one-hour film of the Doors’ set at the 1970 Isle of Wight.
On September 12th, Criterion will release a director-approved special edition of Festival! It’s a new reconstruction and remastering of the monaural soundtrack utilizing the original concert and field recordings and presented uncompressed on the Blu-ray DVD.
The disc will also feature When We Played Newport, a new program incorporating archival interviews with Lerner, music festival producer George Wein, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Pete Seeger, and Peter Yarrow. In addition, there’s also a new feature Editing Festival, with Lerner, associate editor Alan Heim, and assistant editor Gordon Quinn.
There’s also a selection of complete outtake performances, including Clarence Ashley, Horton Barker, Johnny Cash, John Lee Hooker, and Odetta. Package booklet text has an essay by critic Amanda Petrusich and artist bios by folk music expert Mary Katherine Aldin.
Over the years I interviewed Lerner a few times.
My brother Kenneth and I hosted a question and answer session with Lerner one evening in Hollywood at the American Cinematheque Egyptian Theater in August 2010 as part of Martin Lewis’ Mods and Rockers film series.
I cited Murray’s landmark movie Festival! in my 2017 book, 1967 A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love. Lerner’s voice is also quoted in my 2014 book on Leonard Cohen, Everybody Knows.
In 2008 I talked to Murray by telephone about his The Other Side Of The Mirror-Bob Dylan Live At The Newport Festival 1963-1965 DVD released by Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings. Jeff Rosen serves as executive producer and filmed Lerner for a bonus feature interview contained in the package. Lerner’s Newport DVD premiered at the 2007 New York Film Festival.
In 1967 Lerner’s documentary Festival!, lensed between 1963 and 1966 at the Newport Folk Festival, was theatrically released. The movie spotlighted performances by Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Donovan, the Staples Singers, Judy Collins, Howlin’ Wolf, Judy Collins, Mississippi John Hurt, Peter, Paul & Mary, Johnny Cash, Son House, Mimi & Dick Farina, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Joan Baez.
This Oscar-nominated film was the first of the movie house documentaries on counter-culture music festivals, preceding both the Monterey International Pop Festival and the Woodstock Music & Arts Festival.
Festival! received honors at every major international film festival, including Manheim, San Francisco, Mar del Plata, and Venice. It was distributed on DVD in 2005 by Eagle Rock Entertainment.
Murray Lerner’s filmmaking career began from “industrial cinema.” In 1980 he produced and directed the Academy-Award winning From Mao To Mozart: Isaac Stern In China about violin virtuoso Isaac Stern’s 1979 goodwill tour of Red China.
In 1995 Lerner released his long awaited Message To Love: The Isle of Wight Festival from 1970 featuring the Who, Jimi Hendrix, Leonard Cohen, Moody Blues, Tiny Tim, the Doors, Taste, Free, Jethro Tull, and other acts.
It’s a fascinating document of the plagued 1970 Isle of Wight Festival attended by some 600,000 people, the vast majority of whom refused to pay for their admission. A sophisticated analysis and look of the darker side of the period’s festival culture and location-dependent events.
Equally memorable are Lerner’s fully realized and updated stellar documents of the complete performances, Listening To You: The Who At The Isle Of Wight Festival (1996), Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight (2002), and Nothing is Easy: Jethro Tull at the Isle of Wight (2005).
Lerner produced and directed the revealing film in 2004 about Miles Davis, Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue, dramatizing the constantly innovative musician’s transition to his electric period. It earned the Canadian Banff Award.
In 2007 Lerner co-produced and was a director on Amazing Journey: The Story of the Who, that premiered at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival and debuted on cable television in November on VH-1. In November 2007 it was issued on DVD.
In 2009 I spoke with Lerner about his Leonard Cohen: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970.
Murray Lerner is the forgotten Godfather of outdoor culture music cinema let alone the singular force that shaped a new film genre who was still active in the frame game at age 90.
Lerner is the person who stuck both his neck and camera out for rock ‘n’ roll and in the process forged alternative screening outlets and distribution for his work which inspired film students, budding independent room workers and future moviemakers since 1967.
Producers and directors of music-driven documentaries hawking their wares owe both psychic and fiscal debts to Lerner’s trailblazing path that enabled music product screen exhibition over the last half century. Lerner taught at Yale and helped establish a film studies program.
In 1972 Lerner’s office sent me a single reel tape copy of Festival! to show to students at a rock music upper division literature class at San Diego State University. The first accredited course in the United States.
When watching and absorbing Murray’s panoramic musical library of moving images and icons, it’s quite obvious we always had a poetry head and storyteller for 50 years behind the camera.
Lerner loved folk music and literature, His life and career trek is a hydra-headed poetic and retail blend of Oscar Micheaux and Homer, four-walled by AIP’s James H. Nicholson, Samuel Z. Arkoff and Roger Corman.
His influential camera techniques and distribution outlets for his products informed all rock ‘n’ reel filmusic documentarians who followed, like Andrew Solt and Malcolm Leo who would produce and direct This Is Elvis and Imagine: John Lennon.
“Murray Lerner,” praised filmmaker Solt, “was a very interesting and important figure in visual music history!”
The Other Side Of The Mirror-Bob Dylan Live At The Newport Festival 1963-1965 is 83 minutes of filmed Dylan verbal and grammatical anarchy in chronological order, 70% available here for the first time.
It opens a window into a critical epoch in American cultural history as reflected in the musical transformations of Dylan’s watershed performances in 1963-1965 at the Newport Folk Festival. It’s a delight to check out Dylan from folkie to front man for the electric revolution of American Top 40 popular music.
The most extraordinary aspect is watching Lerner’s work capture this unbelievable moment in time where the young artist shows up from nowhere
Courtesy of Criterion
then projects his own voice, his stage presence, his ability to deliver his art, but watching the audience’s reaction over the same period of time. As if everyone was in complete lockstep. That Dylan’s own personal growth mirrored the desire and the needs of an audience to have him there physically as well at the exact time. It was Dylan on the big screen just before both the distortion and benefits of fame.
A lone wolf himself, Murray Lerner visually is very sensitive to Dylan’s personal magnetism particularly that wonderful paradox of his assertive, even aggressive self-confidence combined with his physical presentation. Dylan on screen is a small delicate person but as soon blow you away as look you. Dylan’s uncanny abilities establish a compelling and distinctive vocal stylist.
The Other Side Of The Mirror-Bob Dylan Live At The Newport Festival 1963-1965 has no sense of director Lerner asserting a point of view of what this DVD means. It just gives you what happened. This is all the existing footage edited together to be as coherent as true to the moment as possible. Any dueling narratives between director and stage subject are not on display. Watch it and see what you think. Lerner captures the faction (fact and action) of Dylan’s seismic stage performances, especially the 1965 culture-shaping offering of “Like a Rolling Stone.”
Murray Lerner and Harvey Kubernik Interview
Q: Is there any sort of general philosophy that guides you in preparation of a documentary film subject?
A: I tend to make documentary films after thinking about it and researching it and having a concept in mind and finding iconic images that resonate with that concept. That’s the way I work. When it came to Festival! when I started to go up there and look, I went up for the Newport festival. I was a folk music fanatic.
Before then, I did some industrial films, an underwater feature, Secrets Of The Reef. It actually played in theatres successfully, at least in one theater, the Baronet, and then Jacque Cousteau came along with The Silent World and that was the end of our distribution. (laughs). We didn’t have any people in our movie. Ours was anthropomorphism and it was a negative word. I had done a number of industrial films with sophisticated photography and editing before I did Festival!
Q: This Newport Dylan DVD is a different sort of film, in a sense, from what you usually direct.
A: We decided on no narration, no pundit interviews, and no interviews with Dylan. Nothing except the experience of seeing him…That to me is exciting. Just the clear experience gives you everything you need. I felt that when I screened the music of The Other Side Of The Mirror, because his touted metaphorically as the mirror of his generation, and I thought no, he’s beyond that. He always takes the generation beyond that, and he’s like on the other side of the mirror, but I also felt the wonderous quality of his imagination took us like Alice to a new world on the other side of the mirror. I felt to break that would be bad.
Dylan’s songs and his ideas were so powerful that my thesis, or premise, was that once I got you involved in him and you were also seeing a change in his imagination going in his music that you wouldn’t want to leave it. Either I pulled you into it or I didn’t. If you weren’t pulled into his music and took this journey with him then you’re not going to like the film. Nothing you say is gonna make you like it more.
Q: Was it by decision you chose to shoot Festival! and The Other Side Of The Mirror Bob Dylan Live At The Newport Folk Festival in black and white?
A: I had a choice for black and white over color, and it was a major decision in the face of a lot of negativity. First of all, I thought at that time you could really get good color in the original but you couldn’t get good color duplicates. That the prints, which is, after all, that was going to be what you were going to show, and also the contrasts were too great, and the blacks wouldn’t have any detail in it. As a matter of fact, I was a fanatic about that, and I earlier had done an industrial film, which became a big hit in that industry, Unseen Journey, and I couldn’t stand the idea of Kodachrome prints, so I actually talked the people to pay to me to going to Technicolor, and doing three strip prints. And it worked. It was beautiful and I shot it in 35mm to begin with. But the 16 mm prints were also great, so I was really in to thinking about those things in a way.
I wasn’t influenced by any filmmakers, maybe Bert Stern and Jazz On A Summer’s Day, also shot at Newport in the late 50s, largely because of his use of telephoto lenses, which I fell in love with.
I have this theory. Color is perception but black and white is judgment. We see the world in color but the imagination does not necessarily work in color. And there is a sense that black and white as taking place in a way outside of realism. Since black and white never looks the way the world really is the conscious or unconsciousness comparison between the world that you see it and the way the world as it is in a color movie doesn’t ever happen. You don’t hold black and white to the same standards. There is an artificial, as in art element to black and white that separates it. The music is so colorful and powerful. Dylan’s 1963-1965 music was colorful, confrontational in a way, and with a tendency toward the mythic. Take me through the filming process?
A: Shooting Dylan in daylight, 1963 and ’64 is one thing, but 1965, evening, gives you a feeling of professionalism and not stardom yet, commanding an audience, whereas the other way he’s kind of part of the audience almost, you know. He’s a nervous flat-pick seeking youth, when you get to the black and white on stage. Because the lighting is more contrasty and so forth. I was able to listen to the music and see it as well. My thought about filming music has always been, or filming anything that has sound or motion, that you have to put yourself into it and then forget yourself, be part of it. I’m good at conversations and interviews. I’m a part of it.
At Newport we did pick up shots, we showed the audience and the community, because that was the relationship that we wanted to build up at that time. There was an audience involvement in this thing and there was a message of the audience that they were putting out. The basic thing is I become part of what I film. So it doesn’t matter what it is. Also, I’ve always felt, since I started film, that music should be the spine of a film. Not only music within a film but a musical structure for a film.
Q: How did you get the initial Newport gig that resulted in 1967’s theatrical release of Festival! which later utilized excerpts in your 2007 Dylan at Newport DVD item?
A: Through debt and through cajoling people to help. (laughs). There weren’t a lot of obstacles to shoot Festival! Once it got rolling then the obstacles were different people associated with the festival who had their own favorites to make a film. I had to overcome that. Anyway, I was determined to get it initially released theatrically. I knew there the workshops and live performances that were interesting and cinematic.
Festival! was released only theatrically in America in 1967 and not in DVD until 2005. The ‘Dylan thing’ began to grow on me.
As I thought about it, ‘What a great thing to see and to show the change and to show how he related to his own artistic development and consciousness.’ I felt it was one of those things I should just do. There is no way to describe it otherwise or prove how powerful it would be. So, I funded a draft edit myself, and took it some doing to find all this material in our outtakes, since they were very scattered, and I didn’t have much money when we made Festival! Then we had to rush to finish that film. You know, we might have a piece of one song in one place without the track, and a track in a third or fourth place. A lot of lip reading and eye matching.
We worked from a word print at that time and a little negative. Maybe 1973, ’74. For Festival! we had a crew of 3 and used Plus-X and Tri-X film. The rest of the crew used Arriflexes cameras I used an Auricon camera for several reasons. Once in a while I had to hand hold twelve hundred foot magazines, which is difficult. Another reason I used the Auricon was because we couldn’t do slating. We couldn’t synchronize it. Auricons could do single system sound. So, there is some sound on some negative. I thought of it a little later in the game but it was a clever idea, so it tells you where you are at with the camera.
Howard Alk my editor also worked on Dont Look Back with D.A. Pennebaker. Howard got it going. Howard was working with me when he had to leave to do Dont Look Back. Festival! was the first of those counter-culture music films.
And, music was always my passion for the soundtrack of a film. For the form of a film, when I did Festival! it was the form of the film should also be musical and it should be like experiencing a piece of music in addition to being about music. It seemed to work.
At the Venice Film Festival people in a 1,000 seat theater really got up and applauded. I was alone. I was brought up to think that things should be well exposed, in focus, and you can hear the sound. I had no encounters with Dylan except through Howard Alk. He was great. A marvelous human being. You had to stand up to him with a powerful personality.
So, every time I told him to change something, a storm would come over the room that we were in. But I stuck to my ground and that’s why he needed a director like me.
If you look at the editing of Festival! you will see how sophisticated it is. He’d carry over the tiny sound from one thing to another. It was a three picture two sound movieola and we spent most of our time repairing the film.
Howard called me up and said ‘why don’t we edit this in Woodstock?” and I said, ‘No!” ‘Cause I would have a lot of powerful voices around me. “How ‘bout Martha’s Vineyard?” It was edited for two summers at Martha’s Vineyard, then he saw a film I did about Yale, finish that. I had to deal with Albert Grossman for clearances. It took a while to convince Al who was not a control freak. Not the slightest influence in the editing. As time went on each artist was different. Dylan was a buddy of Howard Alk. Howard had their ear and a friend of Dylan, and had known Grossman from Chicago.
The concept was that going beyond the entertainment value of the music that was the music being used was a crucible for creation of a counter-culture and a message. The prize I got at Venice was not only for a form of entertainment but a means of an expression of youth. That’s what I wanted to do and look for stuff like that helped me do that. So, when I did an interview, I had that in mind. Like in the new Newport DVD and in Festival!
I interview Joan Baez in the car. She did a good one because she discusses what the kids ask. Joan could make fun of Bob on stage because they were close. I think they thought of themselves, and the crowd did as well as the king and queen of Newport. The movie I really wanted to make was about all the tension backstage from the other performers and managers. (laughs).
Q: Festival! was always well received when it played. Universities and midnight movie screenings.
A: It had more festival showings than any. San Francisco, Argentina, In Italy Federico Fellini the director gave me his phone number…but I never called him. I always admired him. I was rather shy at the time. At Venice, it sounds crazy, but there were a lot of big wigs there, Pasolini, Antonioni, my film was the most popular of the festival. It was a hit. [Receiving the San Giorgio Prize, an award from 1956-1967 to artistic works that contributed to the progress of civilization]
Festival! was not just about Dylan. They loved Baez and the rest of it. The whole crowd at Venice got up and danced in the aisles it was amazing. It was thrilling. It’s always been available for schools and screenings and before a Festival! DVD it was on videotape. I was determined not to let it die through mail order and schools. We never made any money. I was a terrible self-promoter and this was before DVD and cable TV.
Q: In Festival! and once again in the Newport DVD, the live footage of “Maggie’s Farm” was so powerful to see in a theater originally, and now on DVD. I dug seeing the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, too.
A: I knew the Butterfield band and had done some industrial film with some of their music. On stage Paul came alive. He’s not performing with Dylan together in the 1965 set because Paul mentioned something like it wasn’t right to have two stars on stage at the same time. I interviewed Mike Bloomfield in Festival! talking about (Paul) Butterfield. I wanted to show in the movie that this was a movement for white kids and white people to get into the blues. Bloomfield and Butterfield were iconic figures in my mind.
Q: You appreciated Dylan moving into electric rock ‘n’ roll from an acoustic setting.
A: I felt that electricity was needed to distribute the music in a wide basis, radio and television. Then, once it happened, the hunger for the feeling that electricity gave people listening to it was more than volume. I think electric music gets into your body, and enters into your nerves quite deeply, and almost puts you into a trance. It’s hypnotic. I’ve always felt this and this was the feeling I had when I watched Bob. And I was excited by it. I not only appreciated the changes I loved it! I really was mesmerized and hypnotized by “Maggie’s Farm” on many levels. As I was filming it I knew it was a gateway to a new culture in the form of based on the older culture, and I thought this was it.
I was mesmerized by electric music. By Paul Butterfield earlier in the thing and Howlin’ Wolf played with a band. But what Dylan did the electricity got into your bones. I was both in the pit and on the stage. In the DVD we didn’t use ‘Phantom Engineer’ (It Takes A Lot To Laugh A Train To Cry)” because I didn’t think it was up to the standard of ‘Maggie’s Farm” and “Like A Rolling Stone,” to be honest with you. ‘Stone’ is too big a climax to extend it with something not as good.
I knew it was going to be a major breakthrough. It was a mixture of booing, applause and bewilderment. I was intensely involved in the filming so I didn’t pay much attention to what the audience was doing. I was hypnotized in a way by the electric music and had to get the shot. And, the interesting thing about “Maggie’s Farm” which was a breakthrough musically, but the lyrics were expressing the same kind of idea that he wasn’t gonna be a conformist. And in a way, ‘Maggie’ Farm’ was a symbol for America working. We’re all working on “Maggie’s Farm.’”
Q: What impressed you the most about Dylan as a poet?
A: The words just fell on his music. I knew that when I saw him walk in a room at a party around 1962 for Cynthia Gooding. He came in and pulled out his guitar, played a few songs about New York, packed it up and split. He intrigued me. At Harvard university I majored in English and my main interest was modern American poetry. T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. And their technique of two opposite symbols creating a third idea. Two different images, the unexpected juxtaposition of two different images for the third idea. Which guided me into filmmaking.
Q: What is the genesis of your Newport DVD?
A: Jeff Rosen loved Festival! ever since it came out and we became friends. He directed and filmed the interview with me in the Newport DVD. An associate of mine. He loved my Miles Davis’ film. How we got to the Dylan thing. Someone who shall remain nameless, an attorney I was dealing with in L.A. about the Isle Of Wight, saw some papers, turned out to be a Dylan freak, played the guitar, I showed him a copy of my work print from 1973, ’74, a draft edit, and told him not to ever show it to anyone because Dylan would be annoyed if it ever came out bootlegged.
Then, years later, Jeff Rosen called me up and said, ‘we’d like to buy your Dylan footage.’ ‘what do you mean?’ ‘I have a copy of this thing you did.’ I was annoyed. (laughs). But it turned out to be good. Jeff had a long range view of what turned out to be No Direction Home. I have some footage in No Direction Home which he twisted my arm to buy. (laughs). So, I said OK, “and he made a few good suggestions, but it had to be released after No Direction Home. I was at time in conflict licensing things from my work. Absolutely. Always in conflict. (laughs). What did happen when I revisited it I saw I had a real film there. Not just a series of shots. But in chronological order. Once the New York Film Festival took it I knew I had a film.
Q: What was the one thing you learned from your Newport documentary which you applied to the Isle of Wight shoot?
A: First of all, on the technical side, I learned and made sure everyone examine and perfect their equipment so that they were sharp to be on a very literal level. Sharp when they were close in and wide angle. Very often when you go to a wide angle it can lose focus. So I had them check their cameras for that problem and fix it. And, going from there, I had to call them all together and explain what I don’t like. I don’t like, and some of them did it anyway, I don’t like fast pans, fast zooms.
I said, “If you are panning over to a musician that is playing but you don’t see because he comes in after the musician is on go slow.” You’ll hear the person and it will be more dramatic than if you swish the camera or zoom in. That is one of the big things. And, I ‘Close Up! Close Up! I don’t mind looking into the lights for effect. A bunch of stuff I directed them to do. I took special shots, positions.
Like with the Doors, I took the shots from behind looking into the lights. The idea is to be musical in the movements and try and move with the music.
When I showed some films a few years ago in Hollywood at the Egyptian Theater, the Who at the Isle of Wight, Andrew Loog Oldham was there and commented, “You were part of the band.” That’s what you gotta do.
I personally have a technique where I practice the choreography of the camera. Everyday for about an hour before I shot, having an assistant stand by and I would focus, zoom and figure out how big the moves had to be to get the result I wanted so I could do it myself. And I practiced all of that. And I kind of instilled that sense that of the choreography of the camera being part of the concert. For the most part, in the planning stages, I picked positions to shoot. And I told people, “You concentrate on the close up and you concentrate on something else.”
Q: Your Message To Love music documentary shot in 1970, thankfully released commercially in 1995, included the Who’s cover of Mose Allison’s “Young Man’s Blues” and Townsend’s “Naked Eye.”
The DVD also birthed a retail relationship with the band that exists at the moment with the release of the Who’s Amazing Journey 2007 documentary that you’ve co-produced and co-directed.
But, there was like a 20 year period, before the Betamax and VHS-formats, the growth of home video market, and the DVD as a viable format where we could not find your catalogue and music documentary products, largely because the market had not been developed yet to distribute your things. Man, talk about being early on the scene. Message To Love emerged as a joint venture with Castle Communications and BBC in association with Initial Film and Television.
A: (laughs). The thing that got me re-introduced known again, was my Isle of Wight Feature that took a long time to get made. Dylan had played at the 1969 Isle of Wight festival, not at Woodstock that same summer.
Bert Bock was the agent got him to go. Bert was sorta acting as Dylan’s manager at the time, not Albert Grossman. The Foulk bothers were looking for a performer a headliner for my film. Bock was a great fan of my Newport film. And he called would you like to rent us the Newport film to show at the Isle of Wight? I responded and suggested, “Why not make another film?” OK. That was part of it. And, actually, they did license my film, and if you watch my film once in a while there are two big projectors sitting there. (laughs).
What happened at that festival was you couldn’t show a film because there was chaos. I did get a check but it took four months to bounce. (laughs). In those days the English currency regulations were such you weren’t allowed to send money abroad except under certain conditions. I decided to shoot Isle of Wight in color and duplications of color were OK.
I predicted what would happen. Conceptually, I thought the counter-culture, having followed it, was being co-opted commercially, kids were getting angry and I knew there would be tremendous tension and anger. I knew it was brewing, and one of the people interested in it was in England. I got an English crew of about 9. After I did it, and Howard helped me edit a little initially, a “demo” reel, but then he moved to the west coast to live on Dylan’s property editing Renaldo & Clara. It was really exciting.
Everyone loved it but wouldn’t back it. They didn’t think the music would sell they didn’t think the political aspect would sell. But I knew the Who, Jethro Tull, Miles Davis, the Doors were potent performers on stage and on camera. Absolutely. And, there was a feeling “Oh well. These are older acts.” Which I never agreed. The people who control this media they just say…
Looking at the Who through a lens was incredible. We all felt it was almost a religious experience. You’ve seen my Who film from the Isle of Wight. That was really incredible. And the crowd was with it, and of course, except for me, the crew was British, and they knew their music quite well. I had a great chief camera man. Nick Noland, an incredible find, another one like Howard Alk. He did a lot with the counter-culture.
And Jethro Tull lept off the screen with “My Sunday Feeling.” I finally got to put their full set out from the Isle of Wight a couple of years ago. I interviewed Ian Anderson 30 years later, a land squire, still a musician. I’ve done a number of interviews, like with Ian, and the people who played with Miles Davis at Isle of Wight, 30 years later.
The Message To Love festival film documentary was both a harder and easier sale. I got the financing from a fellow Jeff Kempton who followed the production many years from Castle to Eagle Vision. BBC put up half the money. Initial Films for BBC to do it. They didn’t bother me at all. It took a lot of money on my part to keep showing this demo reel of the Isle of Wight. (laughs).
I remember Haskell Wexler, a friend of mine, he said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll talk to you but you’ve got to promise never to mention the Isle of Wight again. (laughs).” That was then. It really was an interesting journey. It ended up being the last live performance of the Doors. The mood of it. I had met (Jim) Morrison before, and he said, “you can film but you’re not gonna get an image because we keep the lights low.” “I’ll get an image.” (laughs). I pointed toward the light. It was very simple.
From the Newport festivals on I decided I wanted to show something behind the scenes in the music business. Not just the festival, because I saw the festivals were not quite as loving and peaceful as it seemed. Every night there would be big meetings at Newport until two or three in the morning arguing about who was gonna be next and the order of the lineup, all of that. And you never saw that and I was startled. How many blacks? How many Appalachian singers? This and that. So I decided I would like to turn the cameras the other way at some point. And then when I saw Woodstock, I decided I had to because I thought it was phony. So that made me determined to do it.
And then by chance, really, when (Bob) Dylan was breaking up with (Albert) Grossman, and Bert Block, who became an agent for (Kris) Kristofferson, at the Isle of Wight festival, he came to me. He had been Grossman’s partner and now was with Jerry Perenchio’s Chartwell Artists) He liked my movie Festival! He said these the promoters from England came to America and asked him to get the performers for the 1970 Isle of Wight, an island off Southern England. They wanted to run and screen ‘Festival.”
So I said fine, ‘But I’d really like to make a film.” OK. That started me down this path. And they did make a deal with me to license “Festival.” They even rented two projectors and in the Tiny Tim scene you can see them. They had rented the projectors but the guys in charge fled, they were really afraid of staying in the festival grounds ‘cause they were worrying about the atmosphere. They refused to work it. So they gave me a check for licensing which took at least three months to bounce. That was the first one. It was organized by Ronnie, Ray and Bill Foulk, and Rikki Farr (compere) did the stage introductions.
I decided to do a film and the promoters I got them in touch with ABC Films at the time and they decided it wasn’t a good enough deal. So then we started to negotiate and talk. Everyone wanted to do this film and they were willing to do it with me. And I organized an English crew. And I had one person from staff, a guy who had been my assistant on a lot of shoots.
I had a loose outline between the idealism of the music and the commercialism of the music business.
In the 2007 Who documentary, I conducted the new interviews with everyone. Pete Townshend is not only bright, but perceptive, and he’s thought a lot about issues that I’ve thought a lot about, the meaning of rock ‘n’ roll. Anyone who thinks about it has to think, ‘why is this so powerful?” ‘Why do millions of people respond to it all over the world.’ And then the bigger question I ask people I want to make a film about is “what is music?” That really throws people when I ask them that. Why is it so powerful? And Townshend realizes that the audience is part of the music. At least that’s the way he plays and they play. He doesn’t speak the way you want him to. I mean he can throw you! (laughs).
Q: Your films on Bob Dylan and Miles Davis are time capsules. Dylan at Newport before he went electric was like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz before the road became color. Before it was post-War America, where nothing had sorted itself out yet, by the time Dylan went electric, everything changes. Between 1963-1964 people started screaming for him. The electric set demonstrates paramountly that Dylan was his own man. That he was not going to wait for anyone.
It reminds me of the famous line by Miles, that my brother Ken told me, when someone came up to Miles and said ‘I’ve grown up with your music and now that you’re playing this electric stuff I just don’t get it.” And, Miles looked at him and said, ‘what do you want me to do? Wait for you?”
That’s what great artists do by definition. They’re not being held back by their audience.
A: In my Miles Davis film, I thought the change in Miles Davis was very similar to the change in Bob Dylan and the hostility that he encountered as for them going electric. Because of Dylan, and I read a lot about Miles going electric, it took a lot of courage on his part to go electric. That music at the Isle of Wight was cinematic, Like Dylan earlier at Newport. Dylan was at the absolute height of the involvement and the charisma. Absolutely. Of course he has words and Miles doesn’t. It’s a big difference for me. Shooting Miles I knew I had an important moment, especially in a rock music setting. That’s the point, again.
Q: You have a Hendrix Isle of Wight title I’ve always liked. What was the magic of this guy on film or the amazing qualities he had? I have a theory some of it had to be because he was left-handed and we see your film different.
A: (Laughs). No one has ever said that and you might be right. That’s interesting. I have to think about it. I felt that the thing about him was that I felt he was talking through his music. His music talked to us. Those were his lyrics in a way. His narration. And he was talking to us through music. And he was expressing himself that way. He wasn’t just accompanying a song. He was unusual and so intensively evolved. It was incredible. The volume of the sound.
Q: And, there is also Leonard Cohen: Live at the Isle of Wight – 1970. A full-length DVD out in 2010.
A: I shot color for the Cohen and the Isle of Wight performers. It was high-speed Ectochrome reversal. And I’m glad I did it because the color lasts a lot better in reversal. The camera people I had were with their own cameras for the most part but they used Arriflexes, and the clas and a new camera, the main camera man used an Aaton, a kind of avant garde camera at the time.
Q: The Isle of Wight footage and the Cohen section you seem to capture close ups and focus on the dramatic aspect of faces, Cohen, some band members, female background singers is terrific.
A: Yes. I always use very very long lenses as an adjunct to my photography. I believe in the long shot because I would like the thing to feel musical and not jumpy. I think film is visual music. And it should be, and I believe in editing that way. You can moments where you are doing quick montage. Most of the time you need to relax.
I like really long and before anyone ever did it I used 2,000 millimeter lenses and for crowd shots, moving in slow motion on Broadway. A lot of unusual stuff. I love people coming towards the camera and coming into close up. And then I got a 600 millimeter lens for my 16 millimeter camera, played around with it during Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee at Newport. Real close ups.
Q: At the August 31, 1970 Isle of Wight music festival on a small island off the southern coast of England Leonard Cohen was billed with Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, the Who, the Doors, the Moody Blues, Jethro Tull and Jimi Hendrix. But the crowd, alas, had its own agenda, metastasizing into a heaving, barreling beast, crushing the gates and fences, rubbishing the prim seaside community.
The throng numbered 600,000 and Cohen was at the epicenter of the event which now had fire and smoke encroaching structures and equipment. When Cohen and his band, which included Bob Johnston and Charlie Daniels, finally took to the stage, it was two o’clock in the morning.
My brother Kenneth Kubernik described the scene remarkably well after viewing your Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight-1970 DVD in my book on Leonard, Everybody Knows.
“The punters, restless in the aftermath of Jimi Hendrix’s incendiary performance, were instantly tamed by this unkempt, unprepossessing gentleman, adorned in pajama bottoms (he’d been having a nap backstage and barely answered the bell to perform). As poised as Caesar before his legions, Cohen took command of his ‘Army’ – his group’s nickname – and held the half million attendees in thrall.
“Documentarian Murray Lerner captured it all on film. The resulting 2009 DVD – Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight – 1970 – demonstrated his gift for conjuring magic out of mayhem. The oft-derided listless baritone voice, the plodding rhythms and the deathly pallor of the lyrics conspired to produce a hypnotic calm.”
A: I first heard Cohen as a literary character, a poet. And then in the late sixties a couple of his records on the radio. I heard his debut LP. He came out acoustic and walked out with guitar.
“I felt hypnotized. I felt his poetry was that way. I was really into poetry and that is what excited me about him. To put music to poetry was like hypnotic to me.
When he told the audience before a number, how his father would take him to the circus as a child. He didn’t like circuses, but he liked when a man would stand up and asking everyone to light a match so they could see each other in the darkness. ‘Can I ask of you to light a match so I can see where you all are?’
But when he sang the lyrics of the songs they took over and he had ‘em in the palm of his hand. Even removing myself from being the director how this guy could walk out and do this in front of 600,000 people? It was remarkable. It was mesmerizing. And the banter was very much in tune with the spirit of the festival. And, more particularly what he said, you know. ‘We’re still a weak nation and we need land. It will be our land one day.’ It was almost biblical.
When he did ‘Suzanne’ he said, ‘Maybe this is good music to make love to.’ He’s very smart. He’s very shrewd. The other thing he was able to do, the talking, I think the audience was able to listen to him. They heard him and felt he was echoing something they felt. The audience and I were mesmerized. It was incredible and captivating. That night, Leonard was on some sort of mission. His band was called the Army.
My film shows the roles of the background singers. Sure, Ray Charles and Raylettes, and the Cohen singers had beautiful skin. They were a balance to him up there and the fact I was jealous of the guy that this guy was able to get all these women. (laughs). And he’s up there very late at night, the morning, unshaven. The music is great.
The Isle of Wight journey was worth it. That was the most exciting event I’ve ever been to. ‘Cause it was so all encompassing. And new. In terms of the possibility of the crowd killing us and always living on the edge of that precipice.
And I was always thinking, in relationship to the performers, ‘What’s my role in what they are singing about? How do I fit into that?’ I change with each one as I am watching them. Like with the Moody Blues, I liked their music. It was different and interesting, and like Leonard Cohen, it had an undercurrent of mysticism to it.
I thought the Isle of Wight1970 and the Cohen footage had touched the deep chord of people. I realized how deep it was and I was startled how prophetic it was. I was proud and excited at what I had done.
I’ve gone to some Cohen concerts over the last twenty years. Really incredible. It was hard to believe it was the same person. The songs hold up. I was really excited he was so good. I really was. His talent hasn’t diminished, especially in terms of songwriting.
On stage I thought he was overdoing it in terms of his own energy. But there’s a mysterious quality to it and we don’t really know why it works. I just thought it’s amazing and I like some of the songs and some of them I had not heard. I really liked it and said to myself it is amazing he can still be doing this. He knows what he is doing and you do sense, when I went to the Beacon and Radio City Theaters, you sense there is a kind of formula to what he was doing. That part was not as good. His so called off the cuff remarks were the same at both.
Isle of Wight, Leonard was much different than Miles, Jimi, the Doors and the Who. Because the talking on stage was very insightful of him, you know. He must have understood that by talking and speaking to them it gave him, or put him in touch or gave him a kind of camaraderie with the crowd that no one else tried to do. Maybe he felt he needed it and he may have.
Leonard also had that fabulous guy, the producer who was in his band, Bob Johnston. I had quite a time over decades later getting him to be interviewed for the DVD.
All performers have a common thread of some kind or they wouldn’t perform.
A: Leonard, on stage and in film is different than Bob Dylan.
Q: Can you compare and contrast them
A: If I can. Dylan depends on music in a way that Cohen doesn’t, I think. It stands on its own more than Dylan does, I think. Dylan is brilliant. I trust in a sense whatever he says. He actually likes to tour and he likes the involvement with the crowd. You never know what he really thinks. He loves teasing people.
Q: What about Joni Mitchell from Isle of Wight?
A: I’m very excited about the possibility of the Joni Mitchell one. The whole set. I’ve been dealing with Elliott (Roberts). There are a few more Isle of Wight things I’d like to do. Like the Doors.
Q: What is happening with the Isle of Wight Doors’ footage? Their last live show.
A: I’ve just licensed “Break On Through” for a Doors’ compilation, Re-Evolution. I’ve tried to put out the Doors’ set. It was dark but that was the mood. And the darkness is interesting I think.
Morrison said to me, “You can film but you’re not gonna get an image but we’re not gonna change our lighting.” “I’ll get an image.” I did.
I met and knew (Jim) Morrison earlier at the Atlanta Film Festival. I was showing “Festival,” it won an award and they had a film [Feast of Friends] they had made played. We talked at the party afterwards, we had both won awards but they were bullshit awards. Mine was for the best music. What does that mean? At the party and I really gave it to the organizer out loud a hard time, told him what I felt about him, and they came up to me and said, “We agree with you.” I got friendly and tried to help them distribute their film.
Q: You have witnessed and participated in the development of the rock and music documentary over 50 years. Like D.A. Pennebaker. Have you done panel discussions with him in front of film students? I’ve been attending some of these events, and unlike the sixties and seventies, most of the students and wannabee filmmakers in the audience at the question and answer session now want to know about royalty points on the back end of movie deal and not curious about film stock, lenses or concepts to creating a story.
A: The best one of those was at the Santa Fe New Mexico Film Festival. A documentary panel. Pennebaker was there. (Ricky) Leacock was there. I was there. It was a seminar type thing where people would question us afterwards, you know. It was all about how do you get the money? Not about creative stuff but financial. One kid said to Pennebaker, “How do you get the money to finance a film?” And without missing a beat he said, “Marry a rich woman.”
Harvey Kubernik is the author of 12 books, including Leonard Cohen, Everybody Knows, and Neil Young, Heart of Gold. In April 2017, Sterling published Kubernik’s 1967 A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.
Harvey Kubernik’s literary music anthology Inside Cave Hollywood: The Harvey Kubernik Music InnerViews and InterViews Collection, Vol. 1 will be published in late 2017, by Cave Hollywood. Kubernik is also writing and assembling a multi-voice narrative book on the Doors scheduled for publication last quarter 2017.
In November 2006, Kubernik was invited to address audiotape preservation and archiving at special hearings called by The Library of Congress held in Hollywood, California.
During July, 2017, Harvey Kubernik was a guest speaker at The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Library & Archives Author Series in Cleveland, Ohio discussing his 2017 book 1967 A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.
The Kinks- The Mono Collection Now Out
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Steely Dan and Walter Becker Interviews
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Category Archives: Visual Art
New Arts Faculty & Staff for 2016-2017 School Year
Posted on August 30, 2016 by galane
As the departments within the fine arts continue to change and develop, the needs of these departments also change. Several of our departments are proud to present new faculty and staff members – from Administrative Assistants, to Specialty Instructors, to added professors! Below you will see the list of these talented professionals who have joined or been promoted within the Belhaven Arts family.
Dr. Owen Rockwell has been named Specialty Instructor of Dance and Music, previously serving as an adjunct faculty member for several years at BU. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (BM, MM) and received his Doctor of Musical Arts in Percussion Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Southern Mississippi. He was formerly on the music faculty at Jackson State University and the New England Music Camp, and has worked as a freelance performer and music educator in Central Illinois, Nashville, Washington, D.C., and New York City. He also performs regularly as a percussionist with the Mississippi and Meridian Symphonies, as well as serving as the drummer for First Baptist Church of Madison and the Vibe Doctors jazz trio. Owen accompanies modern dance technique classes and provides leadership for the musicians in the Dance Department. He also teaches applied percussion, percussion ensemble, percussion methods, and popular music within the Music Department.
Dr. Rebecca Geihsler, a native of New Orleans, has served as an Adjunct Music Professor in Voice, Popular Music and Music History since 2009. This year, she has been named as Specialty Instructor in Music. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Centenary College of Louisiana, a Masters of Music in Vocal Performance and Doctor of Arts in Pedagogy from the University of Mississippi where she held a University Fellowship and an Assistantship in Opera. Dr. Geihsler has been a finalist in both State and Regional NATS Student Auditions and represented the University of Mississippi in performances at the National Opera Association Convention and the Midwest Opera Festival. She is a member of Pi Kappa Lamda and the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Being superwoman, Dr. Geihsler not only teaches voice and music history at Belhaven, but also does Crossfit and takes care of her six children.
Mr. Christopher Phillips has named Specialty Instructor in Music. He is a native of Alabama, studied church music at Samford University in Birmingham, and continued there to complete his master’s in music education; both degrees included a vocal performance emphasis. Chris serves as Director of Worship at Lakeside Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brandon, MS and has been leading worship in local churches throughout the Southeast for the last 25 years. With energy and joy, Chris seeks to invite the people of God to exalt their Lord and Savior and to edify one another. One of his greatest passions is the cultivation of corporate worship that is deeply rooted in Scripture, covenantal focused, and wonderfully creative. As a teacher, Chris employs a student-focused, collaborative philosophy. He believes every classroom or rehearsal space should be an environment of joy and safety in which both talking and listening are equally valued. Chris’ genre of choice for page and screen is science fiction. His musical interests range from Bluegrass to Beethoven with an occasional dose of Mongolian Throat Singing. He practices moderate coffee snobbery. Chris continues teaching voice and worship arts, and will conduct both the Concert Choir and Chorale.
Mrs. Erin Scheiwe Rockwell has been named Associate Professor of Dance, previously serving as Specialty Instructor and prior to that as adjunct at BU. Erin earned an MFA in Dance from California State University, Long Beach and a BA in Dance from St. Olaf University. She obtained her comprehensive Pilates teacher training with dance specialization through Body Arts and Science International and taught Pilates and modern dance at CSULB. Her choreography has been presented nationally by several dance companies, schools, and festivals. Throughout her career, Rockwell’s interest in technology has inspired her to direct and edit several short dance films and to fuse screendance within her stage choreography. Erin is co-founder of Front Porch Dance, a Mississippi based contemporary dance company. She teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses including modern dance technique, improvisation, choreography, and dance-and-technology. Also, she and her husband Owen also had their first child, Isabella, this summer. Congratulations to the Rockwells!
Mrs. Elizabeth Sweatt has been named Specialty Instructor of Dance. She served as an adjunct in the Dance Department from 2010-2012. Elizabeth received her BFA in Dance from Belhaven University and performed professionally with Ballet San Antonio and TALK Dance Company. She recently returned to Jackson after living and teaching in Japan where her parents were missionaries. Elizabeth will teach ballet, pointe, and modern dance courses and will co-direct the BU Dance Ministry Ensemble. Come see the Dance Ministry Ensemble in concert on February 10 and 11. Welcome back, Elizabeth.
Ms. Mia Whitehead has been named Specialty Instructor of Dance, previously serving as an adjunct. Mia danced professionally with Ballet San Antonio, TALK Dance Company, and Front Porch Dance. She also served as the dance instructor for the USA International Ballet Competition’s outreach program, CityDance, in Jackson for several years. Mia teaches ballet and pointe technique courses and co-directs the Dance Ministry Ensemble at Belhaven. Come see the Dance Ministry Ensemble in concert on February 10 and 11.
Ms. Amy Smith just completed her sixth year as Box Office Manager at New Stage Theatre. She now joins Belhaven as the Administrative Assistant for the Theatre, Graphic Design and Arts Administration department. She stage managed shows such as Almost, Maine and Five Women Wearing the Same Dress for New Stage’s Unframed Series, Rabbit Hole (2010 SETC Winner) for Actor’s Playhouse, and Die Fledermaus for Mississippi Opera. Amy also directed The Light in the Piazza for the Belhaven University Music Department. She recently played “Liddie” in the world premiere of Running Mates, written by Beth Kander and is a founding member of the Misfit Monkeys Improv Troupe. When not at the theatre, Smith is playing with her three Weimaraner dogs, Dutch, Lily Belle, and Batty, and is a member of Bellwether Church. Amy loves returning to Belhaven, having such fond memories from when she was a theatre student here. She is enjoying getting to know the faculty in each of her departments and is looking forward to when the students return!
Hearty and well-deserved congratulations to all!
Posted in Arts Administration, Creative Writing, Dance, Music, Theatre, Uncategorized, Visual Art | Leave a comment
Art Professor Releases Photography Book
Posted on June 2, 2016 by galane
Ms. Gretchen Haien, Associate Professor of Art and teacher of Photography, is releasing a book in the near future, entitled Incidentals: Seven Years of Photography. In her own words the purpose of the book is “to educate and uplift – to share, as a photographer, what I have learned from life and my life experiences as an artist.” In addition to being a faculty member at Belhaven, Ms. Haien is also an alumna, graduating with a BA in Art from BU and a BFA in photography from Louisiana Tech University, and began teaching at Belhaven in 2007. Incidentals will be presented and released at the Mississippi Book Festival on August 20th of this summer.
Posted in Visual Art | Leave a comment
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Forkland man guilty of killing wife at Livingston High School
A Forkland man avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to killing his wife at Livingston High School in 2010. Telvin Gray, 35, shot his wife Starrick Gray outside of the school where she taught special education. He was angry with her because she had announced her intentions to divorce him, said 17th Judicial Circuit District Attorney Greg Griggers. After shooting his wife three times in the face and once in the abdomen, Gray led police on a chase to… Read More »
Police: Man rapes woman after following her home
A woman told police that someone followed her from a club and raped her in her driveway Thursday night. The woman, 23, told officers that she spoke to the acquaintance at the club, said Tuscaloosa County Metro Homicide Unit commander Capt. Loyd Baker. She left alone, he said. She pulled up at her residence on 41st Avenue Northeast and the man entered the passenger door of her car and raped her, he said. The identity of the man is unknown… Read More »
Jury convicts Uniontown man of manslaughter
A jury found a Uniontown man guilty of manslaughter after a two-day trial in Perry County Circuit Court. Lamar Montrell Williams, 30, was accused of shooting into a crowd outside Lee’s County Inn on Perry County Road 1, south of Uniontown. Jonathan Butler, 29, of Orrville, was killed and four others were injured. Witnesses testified during the trial that Williams raised a handgun and started shooting into a crowd during the early morning hours of March 20, 2011, according to… Read More »
Tuscaloosa County man charged with vehicular homicide in death of his wife
A Tuscaloosa County man has been charged with causing the death of his wife in an April car crash. Marcus Deondrell Wilder, 29, was arrested Tuesday and charged with manslaughter, vehicular homicide, first-degree assault, second-degree assault and eight counts of third-degree assault. A Tuscaloosa County grand jury that met in July found that Wilder was driving recklessly, speeding, improperly passing and driving in the left lane of Gainesville Road when the crash occurred. His wife Misty Leigh Smith, 28, of… Read More »
Several fires reported in Uniontown
Tuesday, November 27, 2012 at 12:10 by crime.beat
The Alabama State Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating several fires that happened in Uniontown during the last week. Several structures burned over the weekend and last week, said Stephen Holmes, spokesman for the Alabama State Fire Marshal’s Office. Causes of the fires are still undetermined. “The number of fires in such a short sequence of time raises some red flags,” he said. Holmes was unsure how many fires had been set. Calls to Uniontown City Hall were referred to the… Read More »
Residential burglary suspects caught on tape
Monday, November 26, 2012 at 12:39 by crime.beat
Tuscaloosa Police often release surveillance photos of burglaries and thefts from businesses, but not private residences. The department released photos Monday that were captured during the burglary of a home on University Circle. The house near the University of Alabama campus is equipped with security cameras that were able to provide police with clear images of the burglars. Several people were asleep in the house off 12th Avenue near Bryant Drive when two men entered during the early morning hours… Read More »
Police search for Walmart shoplifters
Investigators have released surveillance photos of a man who stole luggage from Walmart earlier this month. The man took two suitcases from a shelf at the Walmart on Skyland Boulevard at 2:45 p.m. on Nov. 17, a Saturday. Surveillance video shows the man meeting with another person and leaving the store without paying.Both suspects left the store in a red truck, said Tuscaloosa Police Sgt. Brent Blankley. Anyone who can identify the man in the photo released Monday is asked… Read More »
Police seek man who stole cell phone
Police are searching for a man who took a forgotten cell phone from a cart at Dollar General. A woman told Tuscaloosa Police that she left her phone in a cart at the Dollar General on Culver Road around 9 a.m. Saturday. It was gone when she returned for it. Investigators reviewed security video that shows a man wearing glasses and a dark shirt take the phone and put it in his pocket. Anyone who can identify the man is… Read More »
FBI seeks suspect in Vance bank robbery
Wednesday, November 21, 2012 at 10:52 by crime.beat
The FBI has released surveillance photos of man suspected of robbing the First Financial Bank in Vance on Friday. The man is around five, feet 10 inches tall, has a slender build and a brown beard. He was wearing a dark gray toboggan, form-fitting black sunglasses, blue jeans and a light gray hoodie sweatshirt with “AERO” across the front. He may have been driving a white mini-van, according to a news release from the FBI’s Birmingham office. The FBI released… Read More »
Authorities: Tuscaloosa teen who escaped is armed and dangerous
TUSCALOOSA | Authorities are searching for a teenager who escaped from a state detention center and is considered armed and dangerous. Brandon Kyle Evans, 16, is one of three teens who attacked staff members at the Mount Meigs youth facility on Saturday night. One worker was beaten and lost a thumb and some teeth in the attack, according to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office. The teenagers took keys from a staff member, crashed a vehicle through a gate and escaped.… Read More »
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Zenyatta Video the Perfect Holiday Gift
17 October, 2017 6:40 PM
The new "Zenyatta: Queen of Racing" video is out, but I must issue a warning to all those who purchase it. If you were a fan of Zenyatta, have plenty of tissues close by. You're going to need them. If you weren't a fan of Zenyatta, have them close by anyway, because you will be by the end.
The memories keep coming throughout, reminding us that Zenyatta was so much more than a racehorse. She was a spiritual force who affected people unlike any other Thoroughbred.
From the powerful opening to the even more powerful conclusion, you will be swept away once again by the equine miracle that was Zenyatta and the love and admiration she brought out in people, especially those to whom she was such an inspiration.
In this 87-minute video, produced and directed by Edward Kip Hannan, written by Jay Hovdey along with Hannan, and with Zenyatta's owner Jerry Moss serving as executive producer, the viewer is treated to all of Zenyatta's races, either in their entirety or most of the race, behind the scenes shots of the great mare taken at her familiar Barn 55 at Hollywood Park, some of which were taken by trainer John Shirreffs, and insightful interviews with Shirreffs, Moss and his wife Ann, Dottie Ingordo, wife of Shirreffs and Moss's longtime racing manager, and Zenyatta's late exercise rider Steve Willard.
It all comes together in the vast tapestry that was Zenyatta's amazing career, in which she won her first 19 starts before suffering a narrow heartbreaking defeat in the Breeders' Cup Classic, which many believe was her greatest performance.
The film is enhanced by the perfect blend of dramatic and soul soothing music, including that of Sting and the Police, whose album Zenyatta Mondatta inspired the filly's name.
The opening focuses on Zenyatta being one of the rare Thoroughbreds in history to be captured in bronze. When it makes its dramatic transition with the simple words, "This is the story of Zenyatta," the first of the goosebumps begin.
We are taken to the sales ring and watch Zenyatta sell for a mere $60,000 because she was gangly back then with rash on her neck, and are then treated to a montage of the great moments that will follow.
Perhaps the greatest line of all the interviews was Dottie Ingordo telling how Zenyatta grew into the "person" they hoped she'd be. She immediately caught her faux pas with an "oops," explaining how they always thought of her as a person. I'm glad they left that as is.
Some of the great moments are the actual race calls of Zenyatta's races, especially the emotional outbursts by Hollywood Park announcer Vic Stauffer, as Zenyatta's heroics kept pushing him to new limits of excitement and forced him to run out of superlatives. He actually nailed it in her second career start when he said, "Here is a future superstar, followed by a "Wow!" and a "Holy Mackerel." He eventually surrendered and told the crowd after one of her races, "How do you spell perfection? Why try. Just enjoy her."
You see many scenes of Zenyatta at home, drinking her Guinness and later on the remarkable throng of fans that gathered at her barn, many of whom had their picture taken with her. Her groom Mario Espinoza said they would get 200 visitors a day. Shirreffs also reveals one of the many inspirational stories behind Zenyatta and could barely get the words out.
As you watch all of Zenyatta's races crammed in the 87 minutes you truly get to see what an amazing machine she was. It didn't matter where she was or how far back, that devastating move and burst of speed in the stretch, combined with that gargantuan stride always managed to get her home first, and with her ears pricked. You once again will be amazed how she managed to catch St. Trinians in the Vanity Handicap and Switch in the Lady's Secret Stakes after looking hopelessly beaten just yards from the wire. But with that stride and desire, nothing was ever hopeless with Zenyatta.
The highlight obviously was her Breeders' Cup Classic victory and that memorable "Un-be-lievable" call by Trevor Denman, and the hysteria that followed; all of it captured in dramatic fashion. Moss and the others discuss the decision to keep her in training as a 6-year-old, mainly because of how well she was training.
But the video saves the best for last, in which you relive the days leading up to her career finale in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Churchill Downs. But be aware, after all the emotional, poignant moments of the video, it's going to be difficult seeing her get beat, coming so close, and watching Mike Smith shedding tears for her; feeling he let her down. To this day there are many people who cannot bear to watch that race. But in one person's opinion, it was that race, run on dirt, in which she fell some 20 lengths back and then encountered traffic that stamped her true greatness, just as it did Seattle Slew after his gallant defeat in the Jockey Club Gold Cup.
Who can forget that amazing day after the Classic when people gathered outside the fence on Longfield Avenue to get close to her, as she remained outside most of the day, often being brought close up to the people, who reached in to touch her, just as they did on that freezing cold night at Keeneland after she came home for good on her way to Lane's End Farm. Both are captured in the video.
You will also be moved by Ann Moss showing off the mass volumes of cards, drawings, letters, and gifts of all kinds, which arrived by the thousands, and will join the Zenyatta team at their table at the Eclipse Awards and at Zenyatta's induction into the Hall of Fame, as Jerry Moss gave a heartfelt speech, while Shirreffs wiped away the tears. And of course, there is the unveiling of Nina Kaiser's magnificent statue of Zenyatta, which people still visit every day at Santa Anita to have their photo taken with the great mare, some leaving flowers.
You definitely will need those tissues during the final moments, between the music that accompanies the shots of Zenyatta romping about the field as a broodmare with her buddies and frolicking in the snow, to the tender shots of her with her newborn foal.
The video reveals this amazing horse in such detail, while telling every aspect of the Zenyatta story, you will walk away privileged to have witnessed it, whether on TV or in person.
Credit to all those involved for bringing the great Zenyatta back into our homes and more important back into our heart.
Filed under: Zenyatta, Breeders' Cup Classic, John Shirreffs, lane's end farm, hollywood park, Dottie Ingordo, Jerry Moss, Steve Willard, Ann Moss
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A Case of Vino
Tales from the Triple Crown
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Thoroughbred Champions: Top 100 Racehorses of the 20th Century
2013 Triple Crown Preview
Become a Friend on Facebook!
Breeders' Cup Classic
hangin with haskin
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Cars for real men
As many drivers, as many tastes - the car market offers a model suitable for everyone and it is beautiful. There are special cars, however, called "cars for real men". What makes them stand out and what is worth knowing about them?
Cars for real men?
What is meant to be "for real men" or "for real women" is discussed today with a pinch of salt. Choosing a car is a matter of taste, character, needs and lifestyle. True enthusiasts, however, like expressive models, dedicated to a specific group of recipients or associated with a specific climate. Here are five models that are often referred to as "cars for real men". Why would I do that? It's worth seeing!
Ford pick-up type (F series)
A series of American monsters, inseparably associated with films directly from the Far West. Fordy pick-ups are a wide range of car models. The largest of these is the F-550, while the smallest is the F-150. The Ford of the F series looks powerful and impressive. It is solid, slightly angular and really reliable. Although it is difficult to imagine moving around a city, it works perfectly in the field or at work. Ford Ford is often said to be a car for real men.
Another option among the "male" cars is the classic, well-known and recognizable Ford Mustang. It does not belong to cars that are pleasant and comfortable to drive. Its angular shapes translate into a specific way of guiding. The latest models still have a lot in common with absolute classics. Passionate fans love the Ford for its distinctive sound and powerful, powerful engines. Despite the high level of combustion, Mustangs can be found relatively often. In almost 90% of cases, men are behind the wheel.
The Nissan GT-R
It's a car for a player and a talker. Its performance and technical parameters are similar to those offered by Porsche, but the price is much more affordable. The Nissan has a unique on-board computer, created by the best computer game specialists. It is not surprising that the vast majority of the owners of these cars are men. Driving a model so packed with electronics is a real fun. Aesthetic, achievable, ideal for garnetters - that's the Nissan GT-R.
A sporting classic of the genre, which for years has been determining the social status of the leader. The Porsche 911 is a machine with constant, excellent performance, reliable, but less and less unique and more and more often found on the streets. Despite the streamlined, shapely shapes of Porsche, men are much more likely to choose than women. What does this car communicate? Sportiness, dynamics, speed and... a fat wallet.
BMW 1 M Series Coupe
Something special for drivers who have to combine their passion for extraordinary cars with practicality. It's a car with impressive performance and great workmanship. At the same time it can accommodate almost everything - shopping, family holidays, trips to the city are not scary. The BMW 1 M Coupe is a "family car" that accelerates to a hundredth in less than 5 seconds.
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