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"The Vintage Magazine is full of good things. It is the first web magazine aimed at the mature, 50+ man about town,
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Masterpiece Art Fair, London 27th June to 3rd July – A Personal Experience by Terence Rodrigues
Grosvenor House Art Fair, founded in 1934, used to be the grand art and antiques fair of London, but, after a half century of glory, it steadily declined and, like a dowdy old dowager, finally gave up the ghost, in 2009.
A year after its demise, Masterpiece stepped nimbly into its place, but establishing itself in much more airy and spacious premises in Chelsea rather than the cramped and penumbral environs of the Grosvenor House Hotel.
Though only in its fourth year, Masterpiece has become one of the premier art fairs of the world. Indeed, in terms of both visitor numbers and turnover, it has rapidly won a place among the top five, in the same league as Maastricht, Art Basel, the Armory New York and Frieze, but is the only one of that group that encompasses not only fine art but antiques and design as well. It also does luxury goods – such as jewellery, sports cars and boats.
It is housed in a temporary but spectacular pavilion in the leafy purlieus of Wren’s splendid Royal Hospital, Chelsea. With its opulent floral displays, uncluttered and beautifully lit booths, miles of soft carpets, champagne bars and restaurants, Masterpiece is a very stylish and elegant affair, akin to Maastricht or last year’s Frieze Masters. The booths look like rooms in smart Mayfair galleries rather than art fair stands.
The designers of the fair are to be congratulated. It really is a pleasure to amble along its wide aisles, admire the huge and imaginative flower displays, stop for a superior baguette at the Mount Street Deli, slurp up a few oysters with a glass of Ruinart at Scott’s Seafood & Champagne Bar or linger for a more lavish lunch (or even dinner) at the Caprice – all pop-up siblings of the distinguished Mayfair and St James’s restaurants.
However, there is much to see and, unless one has a lot of time, one can’t dawdle too long over lunch.
There are about 150 exhibitors, mainly top rung galleries from England, but also many from Europe and the USA. The art works are all vetted by a committee of experts, assuring buyers quality and authenticity.
A measure of a fair’s strength is whether it attracts museum curators – with their credit cards. I spotted directors and curators from the Metropolitan Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Rijksmuseum. Indeed, the elegance and calibre of the fair lures collectors as well as a sprinkling of grandees and celebs: for example, one has spotted a variety of royals including Prince Harry, Elton John, Oprah Winfrey, Anish Kapoor, Paul Smith, Vivienne Westwood and Tom Ford. Unlike Frieze, Masterpiece attracts a chic and dapper crowd – not many jeans and trainers in evidence, more Chanel and Ferragamo.
As the fair offers so many works across multiple disciplines, mixing antique with contemporary, classic with quirky, most visitors will have no difficulty finding works to their taste – designers and decorators are key visitors and buyers.
This year, the antiquities section was particularly splendid: rare Egyptian, Greek and Roman sculptures. My personal favourites were a very fine 18th century copy of the famous Vatican Laocoon (about £750,000); a typically swaggerish portrait by Boldini of Princess Murat Ney d’Elchingen (£1m); a superb 16th century Urbino maiolica charger, a rare and elegant 18th century New Zealand long hand club of polished amber-coloured wood, that looked like a piece of contemporary sculpture (£340,000) and the stunning E-Type Jaguar.
If I had to choose one object for myself, I would have unhesitatingly taken a piece offered by the Merrin Gallery, New York. The owner had put together three pre-Columbian Olmec stone ‘yokes’ (probably ceremonial stone versions of the leather hip girdles that players in the Mesoamerican ball game wore around their waists, to protect themselves against the 5-pound balls). Of different colours and very differing dates (800BC – 900 AD), the three yokes form an astonishingly elegant, Zen-like contemporary sculpture. If I had $370,000, I would bought it in a heart-beat.
So, Masterpiece is clearly going from strength to strength. They have got the formula right: location (Chelsea), timing (mid-summer, just after Royal Ascot, just before the big sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s), great design, lavish décor, top-drawer galleries, a judicious mix of art, antiques, design and jewellery plus a few wow items (such as the Riva speedboat, a Maserati and an E-type Jaguar) and gastronomic treats.
Gravitas comes from the clever partnership with the Courtauld Institute of Art, and glamour comes from a good sprinkling of royals and celebs. The only unpredictable but essential thing is sales. Visitors flock there in their thousands, but do they buy? Judging from what I heard from dealers, most works flew off the walls and shelves. London’s high-end art and luxury market appears to be oblivious to the recession in Britain: in this fairy world of the super-rich, the depressed global economy, the euro zone debt crisis and double-dip recessions – all sound so far away.
TERENCE RODRIGUES, besides being an author and critic, is an international art consultant, advising private clients on art sales and acquisitions.
Tel: 07905 474 394 (m) & 0207 828 9255 (w)
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CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY
THE WEST INDIAN ONLINE
Home COMMUNITY Caribbean American Legislator Opens Campaign Committee for NYC Public Advocate Race
Caribbean American Legislator Opens Campaign Committee for NYC Public Advocate Race
Jumaane Williams
By Nelson A. King
NEW YORK, Oct 24, CMC – Caribbean American New York City Council member, Jumaane Williams, says he intends to run for Public Advocate of the City of New York after opening a campaign committee with the Board of Elections in anticipation of the race.
Williams, the son of Grenadian immigrants, who represents the 45th Council District in Brooklyn, said he filed paperwork to open the citywide campaign committee in advance of the November 6 general election.
The current Public Advocate, Letitia James, is running on the Democratic and Working Families Party line for Attorney General of New York State.
The Public Advocate, the second highest ranking elected office in the City, after the Mayor, serves as a direct link between New Yorkers and their government, and acts as a watchdog over City agencies.
The Public Advocate also investigates complaints about City services and makes proposals to address any shortcomings or failures of those services.
James made history in 2014 by becoming the first woman of colour to hold citywide office in New York City.
If and when the Public Advocate position is vacated, Williams, a progressive Democrat, who is now serving his third term in the New York City Council, said he will formally launch his campaign to fill the Public Advocate role in a special election to be set by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio shortly after the vacancy occurs.
“I have always felt that my job as an activist elected official has been to make sure the voices of all New Yorkers are lifted up, and to create the kinds of changes that have a tangible positive impact on their lives,” said Williams, who unsuccessfully ran against Kathy Hochul for Lieutenant Governor of New York State in the Democratic Primary elections. The Lieutenant Governor is the second highest position in New York State.
“New York City needs to live up to its promise as a progressive beacon, and government needs not just to legislate but to listen. Too many working class New Yorkers are struggling, and this city belongs to them – not just to the rich or real estate lobby.
“This is our New York, and it’s time to take it back. As Public Advocate, I will fight make this city affordable, equitable and just for the many, not the few,” Williams said.
Williams’ announcement comes after he received nearly 650,000 votes to become Lieutenant Governor of New York last month. – CMC
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THE WEST INDIAN is a bi-weekly newspaper covering and serving the Caribbean diaspora. We are located at: 131-06 Liberty Avenue, Richmond Hill, NY 11419. We can be reached at 347-432-3465 or email: westindiannews@gmail.com
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Driver Profile: Billy Knipper- Winner of the 1909 Merrimac Valley Trophy
Andrea V: (Italy): " I'm the owner of the trophy won by William Knipper in a Chalmers-Detroit at the Merrimac Valley Trophy Race. Do you have information on the race and Knipper?
William (Billy) Knipper (1882-1968) was an early star of US road races participating in the 1909 Lowell Races, the 1909 vanderbilt Cup Race, the 1910 Massapequa Sweepstakes and three Indy 500 Races (1911, 1913 and 1914). In the 1914 Indy 500 Guide Guide, Knipper's profile noted:
Billy Knipper is a graduate of the dirt track circuit, having palled with Bob Burman during the latter's numerous barn storming experiences. It is said of him that he drive a circular mile almost as fast as the speed king himself, which is sufficient recommendation for anyone.
Knipper is one of the finest and most gentlemanly fellow in the business, one whom everybody wishes well without exception. It can be truly said of him that he has not an enemy in the world. Burman would rather have him as a teammate, he says, than anyone he knows of, for the simple reason that he can be depended on absolutely.
The trophy that you own was won by Knipper in one of the races held at he three-day automobile racing event on the Merrimac Valley course in Lowell, Massachusetts. On September 6, 1909, Knipper competed against nine "small car" starters in a 127.2-mile race for your "Merrimac Valley Trophy". Automobile Topics described the race in their September 18, 1909 issue:
Billy Knipper was a great favorite with the crowd. He took the lead in the short distance race, making the first round in 12.40, and for four laps he had a friendly brush with hi team-mate, Joe Matson. At the end of the fourth lap, Knipper had a lead of only two seconds over Matson, but on the following round, he opened up a commanding lead and held it to the end.
One month after the Lowell race, Knipper was planning to compete in the 1909 Massapequa Sweepstakes. However when driver Bert Dingley was injured in practice, Knipper became the driver of the #7 Chalmers-Detroit in the 22-lap, 278.08- mile 1909 Vanderbilt Cup Race and had one of the best rides of his career. For 15 of the first 20 laps, Knipper was first or second. averaging 65 mph. However, while leading in the 20th lap, his oil line vibrated against the flywheel of the Chalmers-Detroit and was severed. Knipper would finish in third place when the race was called. His fast run did result in some of the most amazing photos from the 1909 Vanderbilt Cup Race:
On Old Country Road at the Hicksville Turn
Almost losing control on the Westbury Turn from Old Country Road onto Ellison Road in Westbury.
Seconds later, Knipper's mechanician Robert Muller celebrated as the Chalmers-Detroit regained control of the road.
Passing under the Stewart Avenue Motor Parkway Bridge in East Meadow.
Turning off the Long Island Motor Parkway onto a temporary banked road leading to Massapequa-Hicksville Road in Plainedge. The Massapequa Lodge can be seen in the background.
William Knipper was one of six entrants for the 1910 Massapequa Sweepstakes that ran simultaneously with the Vanderbilt Cup Race. He drove the Italian #54 Lancia.
On lap #8 while taking the Massapequa Turn, Knipper lost control of the Lancia and crashed into a pole. Knipper was thrown from the car and sustained a broken leg whicle his mechanician August Disher was uninjured. Knipper was awarded fourth place.
February 4, 2011 Update: Andrea V: "Ciao, Howard. Thank you for the information. Here are photos of my trophy:"
Links to related posts on VanderbiltCupRaces.com:
Archives: 1909 Vanderbilt Cup Race
1909 Race Summary
Drivers Who Raced in the 1911 Indy 500 and the Vanderbilt Cup Races (1904-1910)
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.
William Knipper
Winner of the 1909 Merrimac Valley Trophy Race
Chalmers-Detroit #7 (1909)
Led the 1909 Vanderbilt Cup Race for 12 laps
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Felix’s threes lead Crimson Tide to victory
Alabama outlasts Marquette, 90-85
San Diego — Alabama's Jean Felix quickly brought the focus back to basketball with every 3-pointer he swished.
Felix was nearly perfect in scoring a career-high 31 points for the Crimson Tide, which beat Marquette 90-85 in a thrilling first-round NCAA Tournament game on Thursday that was delayed 70 minutes after bomb-sniffing dogs detected something suspicious at San Diego State's Cox Arena.
Players weren't distracted during the delay. The teams were kept at their hotels while a bomb robot was brought to campus.
"Those things are not going to beat us," said Felix, a senior forward.
"They were joking in the back of the bus, 'The bomb's not going to beat us, coach,'" Alabama's Mark Gottfried said. "It throws you off a little bit, but the important thing's to make sure the building is safe."
It turned out there wasn't anything to worry about.
The arena hadn't yet opened to spectators when a security sweep turned up something suspicious on a concession cart in an upper concourse about two hours before the scheduled tipoff. The arena was cleared of workers and media, and fans gathered in nearby parking lots.
An all-clear was given about two hours later and fans were allowed in once security staff took their posts inside the arena.
Players from Marquette were the first to take the floor for warmups, but it was 'Bama that came out hot.
Felix was an unlikely catalyst, considering that he was a combined 2-for-14 in the Crimson Tide's previous two games, losses to Mississippi State to end the regular season and Kentucky in the first round of the SEC tournament.
But he calmly put up 3 after 3, and it helped that Alabama got numerous second chances thanks to its rebounding muscle.
Felix was 8-of-11 shooting -- all from behind the 3-point line -- and made 7-of-8 free throws. Steele scored 23 points, and Jermareo Davidson had 21 points and 12 rebounds.
"I feel like I was hot today, but I didn't do it by myself," said Felix, who was born in the Congo Republic and grew up in France. "I have four guys with me today who do a good job passing me the ball."
Felix, who once scored 32 points in a junior college game, "had one of those performances that is just phenomenal," Gottfried said.
Felix made five 3-pointers in the first 12½ minutes, and the Crimson Tide raced to a 15-point first-half lead.
Marquette caught the Tide and went ahead by two midway through the second half. Felix made his eighth 3-pointer -- a school postseason record -- with less than 3 minutes left for an 84-77 Alabama lead.
Marquette's star forward, Steve Novak, had two chances late, and missed both.
With Alabama leading 86-85, the ball bounced off Felix's foot and went out of bounds, but Novak missed a turnaround jumper. Alabama's Ronald Steele made two free throws for an 88-85 lead. Novak, Marquette's all-time 3-point shooter, missed from behind the arc in the right corner with 7.8 seconds left.
"I guess I'm not really sure what I'd change about it," Novak said. "Obviously it didn't fall. It was probably the first open shot I had all night. So, I mean, some go down, some don't. It was obviously a huge shot."
Brandon Hollinger finished it off with two free throws for the 10th-seeded Crimson Tide (18-12), which moves on to face UCLA in the Oakland Regional.
Marquette (20-11) was eliminated in its first NCAA Tournament appearance since reaching the Final Four in 2003.
Freshman guard Dominic James, who keyed Marquette's second-half comeback, had 20 points. Novak had 17. James scored seven points in two minutes early in the second half.
Novak said Marquette's players were aware that the FBI warned last week of a recent Internet posting discussing terrorists attacks aimed at college basketball arenas and other sports stadiums. The FBI also said there were no specific or credible threats.
"We understand that any small thing like that needed to be seriously looked into. It was handled the right way," Novak said.
Morrison keeps Gonzaga alive
Fighting Irish finish strong
'Bama upends Iowa St.
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David Organizes the Levites
1 So when David was old and full of days, he made Solomon his son king over Israel.
2 And he gathered together all the princes of Israel, with the priests and the Levites. 3 Now the Levites were numbered from the age of thirty years and upward: and their number by their polls, man by man, was thirty and eight thousand. 4 Of which, twenty and four thousand were to set forward the work of the house of the LORD; and six thousand were officers and judges: 5 Moreover four thousand were porters; and four thousand praised the LORD with the instruments which I made, said David, to praise therewith. 6 And David divided them into courses among the sons of Levi, namely, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.
7 Of the Gershonites were, Laadan, and Shimei. 8 The sons of Laadan; the chief was Jehiel, and Zetham, and Joel, three. 9 The sons of Shimei; Shelomith, and Haziel, and Haran, three. These were the chief of the fathers of Laadan. 10 And the sons of Shimei were, Jahath, Zina, and Jeush, and Beriah. These four were the sons of Shimei. 11 And Jahath was the chief, and Zizah the second: but Jeush and Beriah had not many sons; therefore they were in one reckoning, according to their father's house.
12 The sons of Kohath; Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, four. 13 The sons of Amram; Aaron and Moses: and Aaron was separated, that he should sanctify the most holy things, he and his sons for ever, to burn incense before the LORD, to minister unto him, and to bless in his name for ever. 14 Now concerning Moses the man of God, his sons were named of the tribe of Levi. 15 The sons of Moses were, Gershom, and Eliezer. 16 Of the sons of Gershom, Shebuel was the chief. 17 And the sons of Eliezer were, Rehabiah the chief. And Eliezer had none other sons; but the sons of Rehabiah were very many. 18 Of the sons of Izhar; Shelomith the chief. 19 Of the sons of Hebron; Jeriah the first, Amariah the second, Jahaziel the third, and Jekameam the fourth. 20 Of the sons of Uzziel; Micah the first and Jesiah the second.
21 The sons of Merari; Mahli, and Mushi. The sons of Mahli; Eleazar, and Kish. 22 And Eleazar died, and had no sons, but daughters: and their brethren the sons of Kish took them. 23 The sons of Mushi; Mahli, and Eder, and Jeremoth, three.
24 These were the sons of Levi after the house of their fathers; even the chief of the fathers, as they were counted by number of names by their polls, that did the work for the service of the house of the LORD, from the age of twenty years and upward. 25 For David said, The LORD God of Israel hath given rest unto his people, that they may dwell in Jerusalem for ever: 26 And also unto the Levites; they shall no more carry the tabernacle, nor any vessels of it for the service thereof. 27 For by the last words of David the Levites were numbered from twenty years old and above: 28 Because their office was to wait on the sons of Aaron for the service of the house of the LORD, in the courts, and in the chambers, and in the purifying of all holy things, and the work of the service of the house of God; 29 Both for the shewbread, and for the fine flour for meat offering, and for the unleavened cakes, and for that which is baked in the pan, and for that which is fried, and for all manner of measure and size; 30 And to stand every morning to thank and praise the LORD, and likewise at even: 31 And to offer all burnt sacrifices unto the LORD in the sabbaths, in the new moons, and on the set feasts, by number, according to the order commanded unto them, continually before the LORD: 32 And that they should keep the charge of the tabernacle of the congregation, and the charge of the holy place, and the charge of the sons of Aaron their brethren, in the service of the house of the LORD.
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Tag Archives for 上海夜网JF
‘Unique and Perfect’
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It might be over now but it was definitely a weekend Christmas Extravaganza, with spectacular performances that touched the soul of the audience, making it difficult for anyone in the full-house auditorium to hold back their excitement.The crowd described the African Methodist Episcopal University (AMEU) Choir’s live performance as “unique and perfect.”Though the choir did not sing their own songs, they had great chemistry performing traditional Christmas songs. “The kind of performance that the choir displayed here proved that the university has a great extracurricular activity program. It is the best we have ever seen since this program was initiated a few months ago,” a member of the audience told Lib Life.“This is a turning point in the university’s activities and we hope that more investments will be made to improve it in some areas.”Also performing a drama entitled “Paradise Lost,” the Anyenkon (AMEU Dance and Drama Troupe) never utter a word throughout the performance, but their silence spoke volumes, and was epic.The drama opened with five actors on stage in a state of bliss. Their leaders seemed kind and generous. Food is plentiful and children laugh and play. But eventually their leaders became corrupt with greed and sold them into slavery.As the plot thickened, the slaves are treated with unspeakable cruelty. But they never forgot about returning home one day.The slaves were eventually freed by their slave master. They embraced each other in silence, fighting to hold back their emotions.The former slaves returned home and forgetting their past treatment under bondage, they forcefully established dominance over their own people, and at last conflict escalated until everything was destroyed. In the end, they came together to rebuild.Paradise Lost ends as the people pledged to never allow greed to make them carry out such wanton acts of destruction against each other. In a nutshell, Paradise Lost is the story of Liberia.“I am elated by the wonderful response that our Christmas Extravaganza received. I hope this will become an annual event. There is so much talent in Liberia and within the AMEU student population in particular,” said Dr. Dawn Barnes, Associate Vice President for Academic Support Services at the university said.“We hope to explore these talents and showcase them at cultural events throughout the year. Our community, too, has said that they look forward to having occasions like these to relax and enjoy the spirit of the holiday. Music, dance and live drama are universal. I am honored to serve as a facilitator for this service to our students and our community.”Dr. Barnes also said that art and culture, like sports, are aspects of lives that unite and bring people together to laugh, share fun and jointly celebrate humanity. “As an institution of higher education, it is part of our mandate to enrich the lives of the community,” she added.Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) read more
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July 31st 2008
Posted under France
With the car packed up, we left Paris and set out for Normandy. My parents had recommended a stop in the historic seafaring town of Honfleur along the way and we decided that we should not miss it. The picture-perfect town was situated around a small harbor full of extravagant pleasure boats. Surrounding the harbor were outdoor cafes and boutique shops in gorgeous old buildings with flower boxes in every window.
Since I couldn’t walk far, Aaron dropped us off in the main square and parked the car. We made one slow, careful lap around the harbor, stopping for a lovely lunch of salads and mussels on the water and again for cones of gelato. The town was drenched in bright summer flowers and overtaken with impeccably dressed French and foreign tourists. I found myself longing for a sundress, pretty sandals, and an afternoon to wile away sipping French wine on the deck of my sailboat. We took some last photos, vowing to return someday with the budget of two-week vacationers, and said goodbye to beautiful Honfleur.
Hours later, we reached our destination for the night – the tiny town of Ceaux in Lower Normandy, just ten minutes from Mont Saint Michel. We could see the abbey in the distance as we searched for our hotel and, after quickly settling into our room, we went right for it.
Rising from the flat golden plains like a Gothic fairy tale castle against a backdrop of ocean meets sky, Mont Saint Michel casts an awe-inspiring silhouette. The Mont sits atop a small rock island connected to the mainland by a natural bridge. At low tide, the island is surrounded by flat white sand and is only fully surrounded by water during seasonal equinoxes. A tiny town with a population of only 42 rounds the circumference of the Mont within an old stone wall. Catering to the throngs of tourists, the lower floors of the buildings have all been converted to souvenir shops and restaurants, creating an avenue of crowded commercialism around the abbey, though Mont St Michel remains a fully functioning town complete with a post office and garbage service. My post-surgical handicap precluded me from tackling the many stairs inside the Mont so I parked myself inside a café with a Nutella crepe while Aaron and Valerie ventured further inside.
On our way out of town the next morning, we stumbled upon a beautiful field of wildflowers edging the pale blue ocean. Aaron and I hopped the low barbed wire fence and waded into the patch of red, white, violet and pink blossoms. By the time we’d finished frolicking, at least four more cars had stopped along the shoulderless two-lane highway to join in. The French traffic was not amused and conveyed as much with their annoyed honking. We didn’t care, though; the wildflowers in Normandy were simply too beautiful to miss.
Le Maillot Jaune
Back in Paris, we have acquired a traveling companion for the next few weeks – Aaron’s mom. She arrived in the morning with big smiles, big hugs and lots of presents! I felt awful that she would have to endure a bit of our stressful medical issues during her vacation but, at the same time, I was glad to have her with us.
We spent four nights in Paris during which I was in and out of commission as determined by my “ailment”. Together we visited the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre (one of my favorite places in the world), walked along the picturesque Seine and down the Champs-Elysees. Our pace was much slower than that of our trip to Paris during which we excitedly rushed around to see everything.
On Sunday, we arrived early at the Champs-Elysees, where we would camp out all day in the sun to mark our spot for the finish of the Tour de France. This was Aaron’s day and he was decked out in the Tour’s signature yellow for the occasion. We claimed a prime spot near the Arc de Triomphe next to a nice American family with whom we visited throughout the day. The hours passed surprisingly quickly and, as mid-afternoon approached, the crowds grew increasingly dense. When the caravan arrived, it was ten times as raucous and rowdy as it had been in Grenoble. By this time, we could no longer sit down but had to stand for the last several hours to maintain our front row spot.
The racers arrived over an hour past the printed schedule time but the crowd was immediately forgiving; it wailed in unison as the triumphant athletes performed eight laps around the Champs-Elysees. As Aaron explained, the winner of the race and le maillot jaune (the yellow jersey) had already essentially been decided in an earlier stage. The final laps around the Champs-Elysees were more like victory laps for the entire peloton.
From our prime position along the northern curb, the riders were within an arms length of us. In fact, we had to be careful when reaching our cameras over the barrier not to clothesline the outermost riders in the peloton. The scene was electrifying – a brilliant spectacle of bright colors and finely-chiseled bodies cheered by a madly roaring crowd. At the end of the day, we were utterly exhausted. We braved the crowded metro system back to Montmartre, picked up dinner on the street, and hibernated until morning.
On Monday morning, we were back at the hospital for another ultrasound followed by emergency surgery, though it was more of a scheduling emergency than a medical one, since we planned to depart from Paris on our road trip the next morning.
Having endured this surgical procedure twice now, once in Texas and now in Paris, has provided a basis for comparison between American medical and French medical care. While I would characterize my experience in the British-French hospital as adequate (and worlds above the standards in China and Nepal), I have a newfound appreciation for the American standard of service as applied to surgical care. Subtle differences in my Texas surgery, involving pre- and post-surgical service, made a big difference in the comfort and quality of my overall experience. I have heard and participated in discussions for years, usually around election time, about the need for American health care reform. While I cringe at the cost of prescription drugs and ever-increasing co-pays and the cost of medical care in general, I hope that whatever reforms are implemented in the coming years do not diminish the rigorous quality standards of American medical care.
My surgery had been completed by one p.m. but I was not discharged from the hospital until six. Aaron and Valerie had picked up the rental car that afternoon and Aaron drove us back to Montmartre. I had a box of painkillers and the reluctant blessing of my surgeon to travel the next morning if I was feeling up to it. Barring any obvious complications, I was quite certain that I would be.
Goodbye Asia; Hello Europe!
After an overnight flight from Kathmandu, we arrived in Paris and found our hotel in the historic and eclectic neighborhood of Montmartre. We were surprised by the briskness of the air in the midst of summer and it was a welcome reprieve from the unforgiving heat of Nepal.
It was nine a.m. and we could not check into our room until 3:00 so, after dawdling around the lobby for a while, we decided to try to get in to see a doctor at one of the hospitals. We opted for a British-French semi-private hospital (France has socialized health care) and miraculously got in to see a doctor and have an ultrasound that afternoon. The outcome was sad but conclusive…finally. Surgery seemed the logical next step, given our strict travel schedule. However, we were unwilling to thwart our plans to leave for Grenoble the next morning and opted to deal with the surgery issue upon returning to Paris in a few days. Although we did spend our entire first day back in Paris at the hospital, we were thankful for the opportunity to be seen on such short notice. We returned to Montmartre just in time to check into our hotel, grab some delectable takeout, and melt into bed.
Grenoble was beautiful. The three-hour train ride from Paris took us through plots of sunflowers, golden fields with centuries-old farm houses, and the magnificent French Alpes. We had come to watch a stage of the Tour de France, which finishes atop a mountain called Alpe d’Huez. In planning this little detour, we were disappointed to discover how scarce and inadequate was the information online regarding the logistics of watching the stage on the mountain itself but we assumed that there would be plentiful info and public transport options for ushering the flood of cycling fans up the hill come race day. Our preoccupation with health issues for the past month had caused us to arrive in Grenoble completely unprepared. We realized when we disembarked from the train that we had no idea where our hostel was or how we were supposed to get there but, after that initial stressful realization, we pulled it together and found our way via public bus.
The hostel staff knew little about the Tour and, since Alpe d’Huez was the next afternoon, we dropped our bags and headed straight back to town to seek information. A few frustrating hours of pounding the pavement in Grenoble yielded the following: 1) the road to Alpe d’Huez would be closed on race day; 2) there was no public transport available since the road would be closed; and 3) no one in Grenoble gives a damn about the Tour de France. Our only option was to rent a car that day, drive up the mountain, and sleep in the car. Naturally, almost all of the rental cars in town were already rented and the few that were available were exorbitant. As fate would have it, we would instead watch Alpe d’Huez in a small corner tavern with a big screen T.V.
Determined to make the most of our visit to Grenoble, we spent our second day taking in the town. Wandering through the historic town center, we marveled at old stone churches and quintessential French architecture with its signature wrought iron detail. The narrow cobbled streets were lined with outdoor cafes, patisseries, and fruit and vegetable stalls. At la rue Chenoise and la place aux Herbes, a quaint and busy courtyard surrounded by 14th-18th century homes, the aromas of the daily fruit, vegetables and spices market filled the air.
The colors, smells, and quiet bustle of the locals buying their fresh ingredients for the day brought to mind the concept of the art of living. I thought briefly of the shopping in the States – the “big box” stores like Walmart, Target, Costco and American grocery chains. In comparison to this beautiful, artsy neighborhood with its butcher, baker and candlestick maker, the “big boxes” seemed vulgar and utterly lacking in personality. Still, in spite of its status as an unapologetic bastion of consumerism, the United States of Awesomeness (thanks, Trish, I love that!) has the best shopping in terms of variety, quality, service and convenience on the planet Earth. With the exception of Martha Stewart and her loyal disciples, we seem to have forsaken much of the art of living with our “big boxes” but while there is a beautiful simplicity to the art, I’ll take Costco any day.
After hours of aimless wandering through the historic streets, we walked along the river snaking through the northern edge of town. It was lined with some of Grenoble’s prettiest old buildings. We rode the cable car to La Bastille, an old wartime fortress on the mountainside to take in the spectacular panoramic views of the valley. After that, we picked up some cheese and a warm baguette and made a picnic in the park. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous and the parks were full of people, young and old, enjoying the abundant summer flowers and fresh air. It was a lovely sight.
On our last day in Grenoble, almost as if to atone for the impossibility of Alpe d’Huez, the Tour de France race course ran along the main street just outside our hostel. Hours before race time, we joined the locals in lining the curb, patiently awaiting our chance to steal a glimpse of the riders.
The caravan of sponsor cars preceded the racers, rallying the fans with incessant honking, blasting music and tossing trinkets into the crowd. An hour passed between the caravan and the riders. When the peloton finally whizzed by the level stretch of road in a mere few exhilarating seconds, our hearts raced at the sight – a kaleidoscope of spinning pedals and colorful spandex. And then they were gone. We had spent about four hours sitting around in the sun, waiting for those few brilliant seconds. While I do not share my husband’s passion for cycling, I looked at him in the wake of the peloton and exclaimed, “That was so worth it!”
We left on the evening train back to Paris – to meet Aaron’s mother who would fly in the following morning; to get closure on the miscarriage; and to revisit one of the most amazing cities in the world.
Comments Off on Goodbye Asia; Hello Europe!
The Price of Petrol
Posted under Nepal
This post contains a reference to recent medical problems with our pregnancy while traveling through China and Nepal. We originally omitted the stories so as not to worry our friends and family but since the pregnancy has come to an end we have decided to share the details of our saga. We have added some additional posts and have pre-dated them to appear in chronological order. To follow the story from the beginning, start with “The Grand Finale” and the story of our visit to a Chinese emergency room.
We returned to Kathmandu on an air-conditioned minibus, still anxious to leave Nepal. Due to our medical issue, we’ve been confined to Nepal’s two major cities and their nearby medical facilities, exacerbating our anxiety. This precluded us from trekking in the Himalayans or going on safari in Chitwan National Park to stalk Bengal tigers, but it was our reality. After the relative peace of Pokhara, Kathmandu was like a splash of cold water on our faces. The incessant honking horns and chaotic, traffic-filled streets made us reluctant to leave the serenity of our room at the Tibet Guest House. On the occasions when we did venture out, there were shopkeepers who expectantly greeted us as we passed their stores, hoping we’d stop to look at their tired wares. And there were beggars and rickshaw touts and trekking guides and a laundry list of others eager to separate us from our remaining rupees. After spending five of the last seven months in Asia, the majority of time in poverty-stricken developing countries, our patience and tolerance has worn thin. It’s unfortunate that our “Asia fatigue” has so negatively colored our last month of travel through China and Nepal. We’ve both agreed that had we visited Nepal or China as “two-weekers”, or without the anxiety of managing an impending miscarriage in a Third World country, our perspectives might have been different. C’est la vie. So with the exception of a quick day trip to the ancient city of Bhaktapur – the oldest and most pedestrian-friendly of the three cities in the Kathmandu valley – we hid out in our room, forced to bide our time until our flight to Paris.
But our time in places like Nepal has given us a different perspective on world affairs. Like everyone else in the world, we’ve been anxiously following the subprime mortgage debacle and the US economy spiraling downward into a recession; banks are defaulting on loans and deposits and gas prices have soared to record highs. We certainly aren’t immune to these affects even as we travel; the exchange rates of the US dollar to many major currencies are at all time lows, the interest accrued on our ever-shrinking pot of travel money has slowed to a trickle, and the cost of petrol has made every mode of transportation more expensive. We are, in fact, planning to return to the US by the end of the year, shortening our intended itinerary, because we’re over budget, though it is as much attributed to our own decadence as to the fuel prices or dollar’s decline. But let me paint a picture for you of how the fuel crisis is affecting Nepal, this tiny country on the other side of the world.
The increasing global oil prices have created a nightmare for one of the world’s poorest nations. The Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) is a state-run company and the sole supplier of petrol products for the country, sourcing the majority, if not all of their oil through contractual agreements with India. But with rapidly rising oil prices, the cash-strapped corporation has been unable to continue purchasing petrol from their Indian partners. The result of this price increase is unbelievable. Petrol stations in Nepal are closed during the day, opening only in the evening; and that’s only if the daily petrol truck arrives. Lines begin forming early in the afternoon and swell throughout the evening, lining city streets and congesting the already narrow roadways. Drivers wait in lines stretching more than a mile long, often waiting five or more hours for their turn at the pump. Traffic slows to a crawl on the crowded streets. The lines are guarded and traffic is tightly controlled by the Nepalese Army – tensions are high.
If a driver actually reaches the pump and petrol is available, it costs the equivalent of $9 per gallon – double what it costs in the US – with the price increasing each week. And that’s if it’s even available! Our last week in Nepal, the NOC announced that they no longer had enough cash to continue purchasing petrol and they were trying to secure interim financing just to continue operations. As a result, less than one-third of Kathmandu’s normal petrol needs were being met, crippling Nepal’s infrastructure. For a nation already dependent on handouts from the world to keep it functioning from one day to the next, the immediate future doesn’t look very bright.
A Tale of Two Rivers
Tina wasn’t interested in anything involving camping but I was eager for another outing, so I ventured out alone on an overnight rafting trip. One of the local rafting shops, Paddle Nepal, put together a two-river, one night camping package; a surprising feat in the off-season. With our experiences on the Zambezi setting the standard, I was keeping my expectations low. Our party consisted of one guide, three safety kayakers, and six rafters: four twenty-something British girls – volunteer teachers at local schools – and a young professional woman from San Francisco on holiday.
After brief introductions and the short bus ride to the drop point, we were briefed on the requisite safety procedures and set off down the Seti River. The lower Seti, normally a slow-moving, tranquil flow dissecting a lush river valley, swells significantly during the monsoon rains. The cold murky brown water ran fast and delivered a thrilling ride with big waves and long, washing-machine rapids. The Class III-IV rapids were fun, but markedly calmer than those on the Zambezi – a relief for the fearful first-timers on our trip. We survived the first day without a single casualty – nobody fell out of the raft – and we arrived at our sandy riverside campsite in the early afternoon. Our campsite was at the confluence of two rivers, the Seti and the Trisuli, which we would raft the following day. Our guides set up camp and cooked a wonderful spaghetti dinner; and I fell asleep early to the pitter-patter of rain drops falling on my tent. This was my first night apart from Tina in almost a year.
The next morning we were surprised to learn that we would be taking local buses instead of chartered transport. It wasn’t a big deal but I soon realized that it was going to be a lot longer day than I had anticipated. We hailed down a nearly full local bus heading upriver, and after loading all our gear onto the roof, we were off toward our drop point on the Trisuli. By the time we reached our stop and descended to the river’s edge, the rain was pouring down, really pouring, like where’s-Noah-with-the-Ark pouring. The Trisuli River was significantly colder than the Seti and with no sun, torrential rain, and violent rapids; I was chilled for the entire ride. The trip downriver was fun but underwhelming as our guide steered clear of the more menacing and fun-looking rapids. Our short two-hour ride was over as quickly as it had begun.
After waiting a frustrating three hours for a suitable local bus to deliver us back to Pokhara, we loaded up and were once again on the move. We’ve taken plenty of local buses during our year on the road and while they’re always a fascinating looking glass into the local culture, they are also slow, uncomfortable and otherwise miserable. The 100km trip back to Pokhara, with a chartered vehicle and normal traffic, should have taken little more than two hours. Our local bus took five hours. This is completely explainable of course – the local buses stop at every town and small village and every place in between where someone’s standing on the roadside waiting to be picked up. We were also delayed by a local strike – an everyday occurrence in Nepal where people go on strike for every imaginable reason – which blocked the main arterial road linking Pokhara and Kathmandu for nearly five hours. Luckily, we arrived as the strike was dissolving and only waited for about thirty minutes before traffic began moving once again.
The return trip, while long, was still incredibly interesting. Every local who boarded the bus argued ferociously with the conductor about their respective fares and I stared in amazement as the negotiation unfolded, wondering if, somehow, I could absorb some of the natural negotiating prowess each possessed. I watched through the bus window as a live chicken was decapitated before my eyes by a Nepali man preparing dinner on the doorstep of his rural home. On another stretch of road I saw a group of knife-wielding men huddled around a fresh buffalo carcass, skinning and carving up the dead beast. While it is decidedly more difficult to shock or impress me at this point in our adventure, there are times when I’m still amazed by the things that I see. But then again, it’s just another day in Nepal.
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If it's a character you're looking to meet, you can't do better than ol' Justin. Erik's called him a character more times than anyone can remember. He's called him a lot of other names, too, but we can't repeat any of them here.
Lattinia may know everyone worth knowing, but Justin knows everyone you need to know. Not to mention how much it costs to hire them. Although he'll hasten to assure the ladies that he's the only man you really need to know . . .
Just buy him a drink, and Justin will be only too happy to show you around, introduce you to everyone, and cheat you bli-- I mean, invite you to join him in a friendly game of poker, or maybe even dice. If he uses the ones from the Haven Islands, don't play.
Please Note: Certain character traits unsubstantiated by the show have gradually become part of the W&W Mailing List's popular lore. These include Dirk's compulsion to write execrable poetry, Erik's virtuous fondness for drinking milk, and Geoffrey's hidden reserves of intelligence. Since such traits are not strictly canonical, they are not discussed below.
Prince Erik Greystone
Whether you call him nobly, intensely heroic or merely morally uptight, this attractive blond heir to all Camarand wages a never-ending war in Southern Aperans on behalf of truth, justice, and the Greystone Way. Think of the ultimate Boy Scout, mix in a smidgen of Luke Skywalker idealism, and throw in a dash of teeth-clenched histrionics for seasoning, and you've got a reasonable facsimile of this Knight in Shining Gold Lamé.
The son of the invalid King Richard and the arch-enemy of Prince Dirk Blackpool, Erik appears less frightened of his malevolent Northern nemesis than of a potentially arranged marriage to Princess Ariel Baaldorf. Although betrothed to the princess since childhood, he seems to think it prudent for the two of them to get further acquainted before tying the knot -- or breaking the engagement. Selecting a copy of the book The Joy of Being Single as her birthday gift is only one of many subtle hints. Once you've met Ariel, you'll understand why.
The matter of marriage is the only area in which the valiant Prince Erik exercises anything resembling prudence, which he equates with simple cowardice. Death by fire seems to be the only fate he truly fears; legions of rubber-masked monsters or Dirk's Weapon of the Week seldom faze him. He is extremely, almost suicidally loyal, risking everything for the sake of such loved ones as his father and Marko on various occasions. Mounted on his noble steed Southwind, he never hesitates to rush headlong into danger while wielding only his trusty magic sword; this may explain why his brother Justin, his best friend/vassal Marko, and the wizard Traquill all have to save his hide with stunning regularity. His gung-ho exploits are aided by the occasional snippet of cryptic advice from the mysterious Belldonna, a ghostly woman whom only Erik can see or hear. As you might imagine, this leads to many hilarious misunderstandings, culminating in the famous episode, "Erik Gets Committed." Just kidding! The scriptwriters were saving that for the second season.
Erik received his education at the Royal School, where his longstanding rivalry with Dirk began. Then as now, he always defeated Dirk in combat, notwithstanding Dirk's willingness to play dirty while Erik played strictly by the rules. All the rules. Processed in triplicate.
Erik tans easily, wears the Greystone Rose as his symbol, obviously uses enough hairspray to deplete the ozone over a small Caribbean nation, and boasts a royal wardrobe which appears as if it were designed by Liberace on a major crimson-and-gold fetish day. Like his surname, this Prince Charming is as reliable and invincible (and about as bland) as a rock.
The character of Erik Greystone appears in all 8 episodes.
Erik's long-suffering best friend, vassal, and partner in fighting evil, Marko is the strongest man in Aperans. Although a good-hearted soul, Marko tends to devote markedly more enthusiasm to eating big dinners than to stopping the villainous machinations of Dirk Blackpool. He obviously feels Erik tosses around the phrase "a matter of life and death" a bit too easily and often, particularly during dinnertime. Overall, Erik's vassal serves as a voice of reason, skepticism, fatalism, and worried self-preservation. Plus a whole lotta muscle.
The nephew of the wizard Traquill, Marko demonstrates an unusual magical ability himself: communicating with animals. This is a very handy trait, especially for giving detailed instructions to his horse, Ben. However, it can also lead to very socially awkward situations when one of his livestock friends winds up plucked and stuffed and garnished on a plate. Nothing can spoil a good meal quite like Marko's sentimental lamentations about the main course. Judging by his girth, however, he seldom lets that stop him from tucking into a tasty roast tadmon dinner for long. Incidentally, your guess is as good as ours as to exactly what tadmon is. The jury is still out, but in light of the evidence, it could be something sort of chicken-ish.
The vassal dresses in basic, sturdy earth-tones in basic, sturdy fabrics well-suited to his basic, sturdy personality. He has a brother named Michael, Dunfirm lawmaster and frequent patron of the lively Dunfirm Tavern, where Marko is a popular figure. Surprisingly agile for his size, he is an excellent competitive dancer and a wistfully devoted admirer of the infamous Winslow sisters, Margaret and Lucille (and an avid defender of Margaret's honor, a cause even more hopeless than many Erik has espoused). He has admitted to being jealous of the way Erik effortlessly attracts women with his royal status -- and spiffy tan. Marko himself apparently burns and peels quite badly. Despite such minor bones of contention, this infinitely loyal sidekick is a true friend to Erik, and has saved the prince's life more times than he can count. Erik has returned the favor, although the prince's impulsive heroism is usually what puts Marko's life at risk in the first place.
According to the script for The Dungeon of Death, Marko's last name is "Herpe." Whether this unusual surname has anything to do with his association with the notorious Winslow sisters is an unknown factor.
The character of Marko appears in all 8 episodes.
Prince Dirk Blackpool
Clad in more silver-studded, heavily shoulder-padded black leather than you'd find at an average gay-rights parade, Dirk Blackpool is a Villain with a capital "V." This darkly handsome, unspeakably evil prince of Karteia rules northern Aperans with an iron fist (and probably several iron maidens, some thumbscrews, a rack or two, and various other dungeon devices) in the name of his comatose father, King Saris. His official List of Enemies is literally larger than the Encyclopedia Britannica. It is safe to bet that his sadistic psyche is even more twisted than his thumbscrews.
A tall, imposing man with a tendency to stalk and sweep into a room, his leather creaking madly all the way, Dirk often makes dramatic entrances by simply saying "Hi." The effect of this is heightened greatly by a British-accented voice which vacillates between a sensuous, sinister whisper and a hostile shout. His entire persona seems an odd fusion of elegant, almost effete manners and vicious, homicidal ruthlessness -- served with a wink and a smile. His life's ambition is to rule all of Aperans and bring about the slow and exquisitely painful death of his old schoolmate, Erik Greystone . . . not necessarily in that order. He has a soft spot for weapons of mass destruction and any opportunity to hurl a sharp insult, or a sharp object, at anyone else's soft spots. When not fiendishly plotting or practicing his torture techniques, he also enjoys indulging in a relaxing game of Barkin (a mutant mix of chess, Chinese checkers, and gratuitous violence), dining on the occasional lightning hawk, or feathering his bangs. He is as nasty drunk as he is sober, possibly even nastier. Petulant and sulky by nature, he is a very sore loser, who tends to share that soreness with anyone within striking distance. Appropriately enough, his family symbol is serpent twisted into the sign for infinity.
Thanks to the assistance of the witch Bethel, whose ample charms he often enjoys, he is now the possessor of the wizard Vector's monocle (a gem, worn as a necklace, used to channel magic power), and the wizard Vector's very reluctant servitude. Despite the Aperanian prohibitions against royals using magic, he has learned to use the monocle "a little bit" -- mainly as an instrument of pain. His willingness to lie and cheat shamefully in hand-to-hand combat gives him a huge advantage over Erik; however, his irresistible compulsion to gloat and savor the moment inevitably leads to the Greystone prince escaping by the skin of his teeth, usually thanks to the aid of Erik's friends and relatives. Unfortunately for Dirk, he is hindered about as often as he is helped by his own evil allies, both of whom have their own agendas. Both Vector and Bethel entertain nagging doubts that Dirk will ever keep either of his respective (and somewhat mutually exclusive) promises to return the monocle to Vector and make Bethel his queen. Dirk's word is basically worth less than a wooden kolna (an Aperanian coin).
Like Erik's fear of fire, Dirk suffers from intense arachnophobia, thanks to a childhood trauma involving a locked room and a swarm of spiders. In fact, in countless ways, this northern prince is a precise inversion of his southern counterpart, a dark mirror image in the blackest of black pools.
The character of Dirk Blackpool appears in all 8 episodes.
Princess Ariel Baaldorf
The beautiful, spoiled, and incredibly vain daughter of King Baaldorf, this Daddy's girl finds her fiancé Erik quite handsome (although not prettier than her, which would never be allowed). It's a shame, though, the way he's always far too wrapped up in silly world crises to pay proper homage to her charms. It's an even greater shame that the only man who does appreciate those charms just happens to be Geoffrey Blackpool, the brother of the south's mortal enemy. Sometimes a girl just can't get a break.
Even after establishing her credentials as the Uber-Damsel-in-Distress by being kidnapped, dropped in a moat, menaced by undead barbarians, etc., Ariel has never worried her pretty little head over the intricacies of the conflict between northern and southern Aperans. Her mind has always been far too preoccupied with having the very best clothes and the most expensive possessions, and on being the center of attention; she regards her birthday as something of a national holiday. She hums when she's bored, which is pretty much anytime she's not the center of attention (such as when Erik has the temerity to discuss old girlfriends). Much of this attitude can be traced to Ariel's mother, Queen Lattinia, who apparently acted much the same in her youth. All in all, Ariel regards direct sunlight -- and resultant wrinkles -- as a far greater threat to her well-being than anything Dirk Blackpool can dish out.
In addition to her love of lace, Ariel has a . . . certain dubious fascination, shall we say, with Dirk Blackpool's "leather thingies," as well as other quirks which aren't fit to be discussed in public. One thing she does do in public, unfortunately, is show off what she has learned from her expensive dancing lessons . . . which obviously isn't much. One doubts if Ariel has ever learned much of anything, aside from the ability to pout prettily and shop 'till she drops; she's never even had to find the castle kitchen. A classic dumb blond, this princess is by no means the sharpest pencil in the box, although she is the sharpest-dressed, with enormous pointy hats bedecked with trailing veils. Her predilection for huge, silly headgear may be an outgrowth of her insecurity about her diminutive height.
Ariel is often seen in the company of her devoted though disgracefully overworked handmaiden, Cassandra. The Princess also owns a dog named Woje and a unicorn named Pumpkin, whom she treats rather better than Cassandra.
The character of Ariel appears in The Unicorn of Death, The Kidnap, The Rescue, Night of Terror, Skies of Death, and Vulkar's Revenge. She is the only main character not to appear in all 8 episodes.
The Wizard Vector
As ancient and evil a wizard as you'd ever hope to find (although if you've been hoping to find an evil wizard, there's frankly something very wrong with you), Vector's knowledge of magic is incredible. Despite this, he's been forced to serve as a lackey to Dirk Blackpool ever since the witch Bethel helped the evil prince to pilfer Vector's monocle. Vector is understandably peeved with Bethel about this, but lacks the solid proof necessary to lodge a complaint with the Wizards' Council. Without recourse to this magical gem to focus his power, Vector is barred from high magic and from reading The Book, a mystical tome sacred to wizards and witches. Even so, Vector is still quite capable of impressive feats of magic, conjuring up such supernatural delights as crimson fever and lightning hawks made from takama powder and the foulest beasts in the Forest of Doom, although he quickly professes weakness after any great exertion. He constantly reminds Dirk that he could perform far more and better feats if the prince would let him use the monocle for just a moment or two, but Dirk always wisely declines to return the equivalent of a loaded gun to a vengeful wizard.
Due to Aperans' uniquely interdependent relationship between wizards and warriors, the presence of one of royal blood aids his practice of difficult magic. And speaking of blood . . . although wizards can't kill, he has used his occult skills to make life very difficult for Erik -- and sometimes for Dirk, as well. The knowledge that he could regain his monocle if Dirk died, a much shrewder idea than waiting for Dirk to return it as promised, is obviously never far from his thoughts. Unfortunately, it's never far from the justifiably paranoid Dirk's thoughts, either.
Vector has been a force of evil in Aperans for a thousand years, encouraging Dirk's father, King Saris, to make war against the southern kingdoms, and helping to mold the young prince into a true tyrant. Vector has even admitted to causing Saris' coma after the king considered making peace with the south. Luckily for Vector, Dirk does not hold this against him, blaming his father for such a betrayal of weakness. Less luckily for Vector, Dirk has evidently learned his lessons in evil all too well, graduating from being the wizard's pawn into the wizard's master. So Vector, being virtually immortal, tends to his carnivorous plants and bides his time.
Vector's apparel of choice consists of flowing dark robes and . . . well, he insists he doesn't wear a hat. You be the judge.
The character of Vector appears in all 8 episodes.
King Edwin Baaldorf
Indulgent father of Princess Ariel, tadmon-pecked husband to Queen Lattinia, and genial ruler of a beleaguered kingdom, poor King Edwin feels the pressure of standing up to the hostile armies of Karteia . . . while simultaneously keeping his wife and daughter happy. It's hard to tell sometimes which of those two tasks he finds more difficult. In spite of it all, he still has romantic feelings for Lattinia, although his occasional frisky advances are, more often than not, summarily rebuffed. His favorite benediction is "May the gods go with you."
At one time, King Edwin and King Saris of Karteia were good friends. Edwin believes that if Saris had not fallen into a coma, they could have negotiated an honorable peace. That chance gone, he spends most of his time these days sending Erik out on urgent missions to rescue his daughter, fight Dirk, and generally save the kingdom. He might also profitably send Erik to purchase a new royal scepter, since his existing one, for reasons that mystify most everyone, appears to be a shovel with a handprint on it.
The character of Edwin appears in The Unicorn of Death, The Kidnap, The Rescue, Night of Terror, Skies of Death, The Dungeon of Death, and Vulkar's Revenge.
Prince Justin Greystone
The easygoing, playboy brother of Erik Greystone, Justin has all the physical and intellectual attributes necessary to be as great a hero as his sibling . . . just not the slightest desire. While he claims to have once served with distinction on the battlefield, he ostensibly avoids such confrontations now that his "reflexes are shot." When it comes to ducking responsibility, however, his reflexes are second to none. He is the sort of infinitely pragmatic reprobate who would bet on a battle -- against his own side. Money, after all, is money. Admittedly, you'll find a certain roguish charm in Justin's lazy drawl, lazy grin, and -- well, lazy just about covers it. Not surprisingly, this attitude drives Erik up the wall.
While Erik is famed as the greatest hero in the south, Justin is famed as the winner of the Tri-Kingdom Drinking Competition. When it comes to wine, women, and song, nobody can touch Justin Greystone (actually, you can touch him any way you want to, so long as your husband's out of town, but let's not go there). Even though he's not really so good with song, the metaphorical notches on his bedpost are rumored to include the Winslow sisters, a chambermaid from Castle Blackpool, and even the witch Bethel. Although Justin calls Erik "little brother," it is unknown if this appellation refers to birth order (which would wreak havoc with all known laws of primogeniture), comparative height, or some other sordid anatomical factor which it would be best not to speculate about.
Give Justin a mug of ale, a plate of good peasant tadmon, a pretty tavern wench, and something to bet on, and you have a happy man. Regrettably, in accordance with one of Aperans' variations on Murphy's Law, this would usually be the point at which Erik's life expectancy begins looking rather grim. It is in such situations that Justin proves his lackadaisical attitude should not be taken as cowardice, since he always rides to Erik's and Marko's aid whenever the latter find themselves in a tight spot. He is quite resourceful, shielding himself from the Rains of Death with a bearskin, manipulating Bethel to his benefit, and generally playing with the rules instead of by the rules. Furthermore, although hardly the spotless role model of morality that his brother is, Justin can often use this fact to his advantage. He is able to acquire information and assistance from some of Aperans' more shady characters, the sort of people who would avoid Erik like a particularly virulent case of the crimson fever. He also just plain has a lot more fun than anyone else in Aperans.
The character of Justin appears in The Kidnap, Skies of Death, Caverns of Chaos, The Dungeon of Death, and Vulkar's Revenge.
The Witch Bethel
A sultry blond seductress who has her sights set on being Queen of all Aperans (a blatant flouting of the taboo against mixing magic and royalty), Bethel wreaks havoc as an ally and lover of Dirk Blackpool. How much genuine feeling she has for Dirk, if any, is a matter for debate, but she has gone to great lengths to aid him on occasion. Her theft of Vector's monocle at Dirk's instigation places her in great personal jeopardy, as the Wizard's Council would deal quite harshly with her should Vector manage to prove his suspicions. In the interim, with little more than insults at his disposal, Vector takes great pleasure in reminding her that she is far more ancient than her current youthful form would indicate -- older even than the legendary wars of the Ashen Plateau.
In addition to preserving her youth and committing grand larceny, Bethel can use magic to disguise herself and spy on Dirk's enemies. She's used this tactic successfully against even the worldly-wise Erik and Justin Greystone, getting traitorously close to Justin in particular as part of yet another Queen Scheme. Obviously, her spells are far harder to see through than her flimsy silver lamé clothing. In fact, her wardrobe reveals the ultimate proof of her magic's potency, since surely some sort of sorcery is required to keep her skimpy, "barely-there" outfits from falling off.
The character of Bethel appears in The Unicorn of Death, The Kidnap, Caverns of Chaos, and The Dungeon of Death.
The Wizard Traquill
A master of white magic and an accomplished storyteller to boot, the wizened and white-bearded Traquill aids the southern kingdoms . . . when he's not busy napping, or forgetting a spell (it's right on the tip of his tongue, you know, just hold off that flesh-eating monster for another minute). He spends much of his time advising King Edwin Baaldorf, although it's also not unusual to find him in Castle Greystone, speaking with King Richard. He has a thing for pointy shoes, pointy hats, and a pointed wit. However, the sometimes caustic comments of the elderly wizard are counterbalanced by his kind and mischievous nature, not to mention the gentle twinkle in his eye.
Traquill can actually smell when another wizard is lying (which means that Vector has some pretty serious body odor). Curiously, he is always shown in a seated position. It is unknown whether he is capable of standing, given sufficient motivation (such as a passing Winslow sister).
Traquill will use magic to assist Erik when necessary, although he cannot directly interfere with the natural course of human events. He often dispenses good advice to the imperiled prince, as well. Since Marko is Traquill's nephew and the mysterious Belldonna is presumably Traquill's agent, Erik owes a great deal to the wizard. However, the way in which Traquill seems to get an enormous kick out of trying Erik's limited patience makes the Greystone prince more irritable than grateful during most of their encounters.
The character of Traquill appears in The Unicorn of Death, The Kidnap, The Rescue, and Caverns of Chaos.
Prince Geoffrey Blackpool
Younger brother to Dirk, Prince Geoffrey often commands the Karteian armies. While a tall and formidable warrior, the boyishly handsome Geoffrey isn't known for great, or even average intelligence. With some justification, Vector not-so-fondly refers to him as the "strong and stupid" son of Saris Blackpool. On the other hand, although Geoffrey can certainly be a bit of a swaggering bully at times, his ready grin doesn't seem to harbor the same degree of cruelty as his brother. It is entirely possible that Geoffrey's stupidity and Dirk's cruelty are directly related, given the manner in which the young Dirk's idea of fun involved hanging his hapless brother upside-down from the North Tower until he passed out.
Geoffrey is utterly infatuated with Princess Ariel, his intellectual equal, and would like nothing better than to make her his bride (one cringes at the reproductive possibilities). Actually, he might like one thing better: to finally impress Dirk with his abilities as a warrior. Geoffrey appears to hero-worship Dirk in true little brother fashion, and is only too aware that Dirk regards him as an exasperating and embarrassing buffoon at best, and an infinitely disposable patsy at worst. Geoffrey repeatedly proves himself to be pathetically easy to manipulate, with even Ariel outwitting him at times. His most despised enemy is Marko, although the origin of their feud is unknown. Possibly it arises from their ongoing rivalry over the title of Strongest Man in Aperans, Geoffrey already being a shoo-in for the title of Stupidest. Geoffrey and Marko have engaged in hand-to-hand combat on more than one occasion, with Marko demonstrating a slight strength advantage.
The younger Blackpool looks to be a bit of a dandy underneath his armor, courting Ariel in a silk and velvet doublet even more flamboyant than her gown. His choice of silly hat, complete with an enormous spray of feathers, reveals him to be Ariel's kindred spirit. Perhaps more than anything else, however, Geoffrey is known for his love of cheese -- cheese sandwiches, in particular. Vector has learned of this firsthand, much to his humiliation, compelled to serve as chef to Geoffrey's arrogant appetite.
The character of Geoffrey appears in The Unicorn of Death, The Kidnap, and Caverns of Chaos.
Queen Lattinia Baaldorf
Mother of Princess Ariel and wife to King Edwin, the prim Queen Lattinia fights a never-ending battle to see that, regardless of war, evil princes, or a shrinking royal treasury, her wimpled hair is never mussed and every inch of her castle is always properly decorated. Provided, of course, that she can manage to figure out which way the East Wing is. Like mother, like daughter.
Famed as a striking beauty in her younger days, Lattinia is aging quite reluctantly (and appears willing to strike anyone crass enough to mention it). Perhaps the excessive attention she pays to her daughter Ariel is a way that she can relive her own lost youth. In any case, Lattinia certainly indulges her daughter's behavior. There's nothing she enjoys more than splurging on extravagant shopping sprees with Ariel -- unless it's planning the extravagant wedding she hopes that Erik and Ariel will soon have, or remodeling the banquet hall to serve as an extravagant honeymoon suite. Not that she's pushing them into anything . . .
The character of Lattinia appears in The Kidnap, Night of Terror, and Skies of Death.
Princess Ariel's handmaiden is a hard-working, excitable . . . okay, downright hysterical woman. Like her Trojan namesake, this Cassandra is an unrelenting prophetess of doom and worried worst-case scenarios. Despite the fact that Ariel has been kidnapped by everyone from Dirk Blackpool to Geoffrey Blackpool to Vulkar the Barbarian on an almost weekly basis, poor Cassandra never seems to get used to the occurrence. Like clockwork, the handmaiden will wail loudly every time Ariel is taken, and then be overcome with emotion when the princess is returned safely. Considering how Ariel treats Cassandra, it is very difficult to guess from whence the wellspring of this extraordinary loyalty might flow.
Despite the fact that Ariel's demanding nature makes Cassandra's work rather challenging -- in the same sense that weaving the Bayeux Tapestry entirely from dental floss would be challenging -- the handmaiden professes to enjoy her job, and the opportunity to associate with royalty. She also does not object to wearing an official Handmaiden Hat even sillier than Ariel's creations, looking like nothing so much as an unfortunate accident involving Dixie cups and superglue.
There are unexpected depths to Cassandra. In addition to being a fairly skilled harpsichord player, it is possible that she may harbor romantic feelings for Marko. She certainly chats with him every chance she gets, and attempts to fix him soup when he is injured. Surely she knows that if ever there was a man whose heart-route lay through his stomach, it's Marko.
The character of Cassandra appears in The Unicorn of Death, The Kidnap, and Vulkar's Revenge.
Belldonna
A lovely, spectral female, Belldonna appears to Erik from time to time to smile sweetly and offer him prophetic warnings. In the grand tradition of prophecy, these are always annoyingly vague and typically become clear only with benefit of hindsight, after the danger is already past. She has told Erik that these messages are from Traquill, which would appear to be par for the course for the puckish wizard.
Erik is uncertain exactly who or what Belldonna is, but she has confirmed that she is made of "wind and moonlight, mist and magic" and represents his "perception of beauty." Only Erik can see or hear her . . . and he's obviously quite taken with her, too. In response to the Prince's eager inquiries, she has promised that they will meet face to face "on a night when the moon is a ghostly ship on the sea of winter wind. When the fires of hell are frozen." Which, under any other circumstances, would sound an awful lot like a pretty unequivocal rejection.
The character of Belldonna appears in The Unicorn of Death and The Kidnap.
The Winslow Sisters
Found at Dunfirm tavern, and in beds, and haystacks, and pretty much any quiet corner available, these redheaded twin sisters enjoy the distinction of being the most infamous women of their generation. Margaret and Lucille are known and loved by men across the continent, although women across the continent entertain far less friendly feelings for them, often accusing the sisters of being less than virtuous. It is possible that Margaret's reputation has been unjustly sullied by association with the tarty Lucille, but this is most likely nothing more than wishful thinking on the part of the lovestruck Marko. Probably the only man who knows the whole truth of the matter is Justin -- and he's hardly a reliable witness, now, is he?
The Winslow sisters appear only in The Rescue, but they are oft-discussed in other episodes.
A strong, silent, Clint Eastwood-y type, Colter still manages to make a lot of noise . . . with heavy-duty explosives. One of Justin's unsavory mercenary acquaintances, he always carries a goodly arsenal on his person at all times, which he is not afraid to use at the slightest provocation. Judging by his monosyllabic bragging, this well-dressed cavalier obviously has more lives than an average cat; rumors of his death are often greatly exaggerated. Whether he's taking out thirty torture troopers single-handedly, or getting rid of the Taldon Gang and the castle they lived in, Colter always manages a lot of bang for the buck -- er, kolna. And he charges a lot of kolnas for the bang.
When not rumored dead, the laconic Colter can be found lying low in the seedy town of Grogan, a slim cigar clenched between his teeth. Whatever you do, don't touch his horse, lest rumors of your death ensue . . . .
The character of Colter appears only in The Dungeon of Death.
Floyd the Feather
Constantly proving that a diminutive frame can contain a sizable lust for wealth, Floyd the Feather, another Justin crony, works as one of the top thieves in all Aperans. Skilled as a pickpocket and a lockpick, Floyd uses his size to his advantage, getting into tight places and concealing himself where most people would never think to look.
Despite his stature, Floyd is not exactly timid about hurling insults at others. And although he's not big on hand-to-hand combat, he has no problem with sticking a knife into someone's back to make a point.
If you should need to hire Floyd, head to the town of Grogan and ask at the carnival. Just don't turn your back on him -- or take your eye off your valuables -- for a second.
The character of Floyd appears only in The Dungeon of Death.
Vulkar the Barbarian
Heavily bearded, heavily smelly, and boasting a voice like thunder (or a cleverly synthesized special effect), this fearsome undead barbarian has been killed many times. Like a recurring rash, he keeps on coming back whenever he is summoned by magic users foolish enough to think they can control him, Vector being a prime culprit. The sacrifice of a magic amulet, combined with a ritual chant, is one way to ensure Vulkar shows up to spoil your dinner with threats upon your life.
Each time he returns, he cannot be killed in the same manner that he was before. For example, since he has been killed in the past by Dirk's sword, Erik's sword, and Vector's monocle, the next time he comes back he would be immune to harm from all of those weapons.
Whenever the red-armored Vulkar is alive, he's a monstrous enemy. Besides his devastating magical whip and his horrifying table manners, he has the ability to summon a barbarian horde that will do his evil bidding. The only hope to defeat him is for everyone to work together, an almost unheard-of feat in contemporary Aperans.
The character of Vulkar appears only in Vulkar's Revenge.
Karnaj
Once upon a time, the late owner of the abandoned Castle Karnaj was a sweet-tempered, fancy-dressing musician who loved all living things . . . until somebody killed his pet spider, and he "went bananas." Now, his evil presence and maniacal laughter permeate that cursed place, ensuring that any visitor who kills any living thing -- even as small as a gitch -- will die the death of the damned, attacked by friend and enemy alike. Obviously, someone would have to be really stupid to see the surrounding forest as a nice spot for a picnic.
Immortalized in a painting above the castle fireplace, the steely gaze of Karnaj watches you with merciless intent. Better hope you don't accidentally swat a bug --er, gitch, or he'll squish you like one . . .
The character of Karnaj appears only in Night of Terror.
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Digital Geographies Keynote Panel
Type: Panel
Sponsor Groups: Digital Geographies Specialty Group
Start / End Time: 5:20 PM / 7:00 PM
Room: Napoleon C1, Sheraton 3rd Floor
Organizers: James Thatcher, Nick Lally
Chairs: James Thatcher
This panel seeks to discuss, debate, suggest, and explore theoretical and methodological possibilities for ongoing and future work on digital geographies. Marking the inaugural year for the Digital Geographies Specialty group and the proliferation of related sessions, this panel seeks a broad engagement with theoretical and methodological engagements with ‘the digital.’ The panel brings together a diverse set of voices and challenges them to think through the coming horizons of work in Digital Geographies. As such, panelists are encouraged to highlight areas of particular theoretical and methodological interest, such as work on algorithms, new concepts of spatial media, transduction and individuation, feminist theory, political economy, resurgent work in Critical GIS, work on social justice, materiality, and queer theory, and other areas of interest including, but not limited to, infrastructures, critical data studies, and the political ecologies of cloud computing. Led by the current chair of the Digital Geographies group and its student board members, the panel will ask participants to answer: What are the most promising directions for spatial approaches to the digital? What can we learn from other adjacent fields or scholarly precursors? What approaches have reached the limits of their usefulness? And what are we missing? We invite the panelists and audience to reflect on these questions as we aim to produce a vibrant field of inquiry with a diversity of approaches that insists on the need for spatial approaches to digital questions.
Panelist Eric Sheppard UCLA 15
Panelist Mei-Po Kwan University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 15
Panelist Clio Andris 15
Panelist Sarah Elwood University of Washington 15
Introduction James Thatcher University of Washington - Tacoma 10
Panelist Elvin Wyly University of British Columbia 20
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2007-08Top 16Round 1
Zalgiris 85
February 14, 2008 CET: 20:45
Local time: 20:45 PALACIO VISTALEGRE
Real Madrid took another step in its would-be climb to the Final Four in its own city when it oulasted never-say-die Zalgiris Kaunas 88-85 in the Top 16, Group F opening game for both teams on Thursday. Raul Lopez scored 4 of his 8 points in the final minute, including the insurance free throws on an intentional foul with 5 seconds left, to seal Madrid's victory. Louis Bullock and Felipe Reyes shared top-scoring honors for the winners with 17 points each while Charles Smith had 15 and Alex Mumbru 11. For Zalgiris, Jonas Maciulis put down 21 points while Marcus Brown and newly signed big man Mamadou N'Diaye added 14 each and Marko Popovic 11. DeJuan Collins just missed a double-double with 11 points and 9 assists for Zalgiris. A back-and-forth scoreboard for most of the game titled in Madrid's direction finally due to an 11-0 run to begin the final quarter that started and finished with triples by Smith. A three-point barrage near the finish by Zalgiris trimmed the difference all the way to 86-85, however, when Maciulis hit a final one with 16 seconds left. His foul on Lopez was ruled intentional, however, giving Madrid all the cards at the finish. Both teams were scorching from downtown, with Madrid making 11 of 23 triples. and Zalgiris 14 of 28 on the night.
Collins corralled the tipoff and passed over everyone to Jankunas for a dunk to start the game. After a Zalgiris steal, Maciulis earned free throws going inside, as did Collins on the break to make it 0-6. Surprise starter Iker Iturbe, just signed a few days ago, got Madrid going with a second-chance triple to with Lopez added a steal and fastbreak at 5-6. When Bullock got open for a transition triple, the hosts were ahead 8-6. Their run reached 12-0 as Iturbe buried another triple. Maciulis went back inside to stop the bleeding for Zalgiris, but Bullock's bakc-to-back baskets pushed Madrid ahead by 16-8. The scoring stalled then until Zalgiris newcomer N'Diaye sparked his new team with 5 points in a row to make it 18-13. Maciulis buried a triple to cut the difference again, but Axel Hervelle answered from the arc to close the quarter with Madrid in charge, 22-16.
Smith opened the second quarter with free throws but one by Mantas Kalnietis and a three-point play by N'Diaye had Zalgiris close again, 24-20. Bodies were flying in rebounding battles as Madrid pressed full-court, but Jankunas posted up and Collins hit free throws to make it 26-24. Despite fierce offensive rebounding by Madrid, Jankunas who hooked the next shot in to tie before Marko Popovic gave Zalgiris a new lead, 26-29, from downtown. Bullock struck right back from deep and then Hervelle made it 31-29 for Madrid with a sweet alley-oop reverse on the break. A prolonged exchange of free throws had Madrid up 38-33 before Mumbru's post-up drop-in forced a Zalgiris timeout. Popovic's double-pump triple revived the guests, but Madrid kept pounding the paint to lead 43-36. Popovic, however, had the last word before halftime, from way downtown, for a 43-49 scoreboard at the break.
N'Diaye kept the momentum going for Zalgiris after the half and Collins completed the turnaround with a triple to make it 43-44. The teams wrestled over the lead, with Reyes and Bullock boosting Madrid in front 48-50 before Brown did what has become something of a habit for him now, taking over the scoreboard with 3 consecutive three-pointers that vaulted Zalgirs into the lead again at 48-54. Reyes and Bullock got Madrid within 52-54 before Goran Jurak hit free throws and buried his own triple as Zalgiris surged ahead 52-59. Madrid stood up to the challenge with a triple in response from Axel Hervelle, a back-door basket by Smith and free throws by Bullock to leave a 59-59 tie after 30 minutes.
Madrid kept rolling into the final quarter, which Smith opened with a triple and Kerem Tunceri followed with the same coin, forcing a Zalgiris timeout. Madrid's defense man-handled Zalgiris long enough for Smith to launch again from the arc to complete an 11-0 start to the quarter with the scoreboard showing 70-59. Maciulis stopped the bleeding for Zalgiris with a triple before N'Daiye put down a feed from Collins and the bonus free throw to make it 70-65. Mumbru turned around and got 3 points back on a basket-plus-free throw, then Smith stole and dunked to restore the double-digit difference, 75-65, with under 5 minutes left. Maciulis worked inside for a three-point play but Mumbru dunked a Madrid miss. When Brown bombed from the corner, it ignited a three-point shootout. Tunceri blasted his own triple, Jankunas and Popovic found their own downtown strikes for Zalgiris as the difference fell to 82-77. Ever-steady Reyes drove to the rim, but Collins hit free throws and Maciulis got another three-point basket-plus-free throw off a rebound to make it 84-82 with 42 seconds left. Lopez drove for a layup with 26 seconds left for Madrid, but then Maciulis downed another triple to make it 86-85. There were 16 seconds left, but Madrid was able to outrun Zalgiris for 11 of them before Maciulis was called for an intentional foul on Lopez, who made both free throws to seal an 88-85 victory.
Referees: PITSILKAS, NIKOLAOS; ANKARALI, RECEP; CHIARI, ROBERTO
Real Madrid 22 21 16 29
Zalgiris 16 23 20 26
5 PELEKANOS, MICHALIS 7:11 0/1 0/1 1 2 2 -1
7 SMITH, CHARLES 19:12 15 2/3 3/8 2/2 3 3 1 1 1 1 14
8 SEKULIC, BLAGOTA 1:47 0/2 1 1 -1
9 REYES, FELIPE 34:32 17 4/10 9/12 2 5 7 2 1 3 5 6 16
13 AGUILAR, PABLO DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
15 MUMBRU, ALEX 24:10 11 3/3 5/7 1 3 4 1 2 1 4 4 15
17 HERVELLE, AXEL 18:52 5 1/4 1/2 3 3 6 1 1 2 2 1 6
18 ITURBE, IKER 18:47 6 2/2 3 3 1 1 1 1 9
19 TUNCERI, KEREM 21:30 9 1/2 2/2 1/2 1 1 2 1 2 3 12
22 BULLOCK, LOUIS 29:14 17 3/5 3/5 2/2 1 1 3 2 2 2 4 19
23 LLULL, SERGIO 3:26
24 LOPEZ, RAUL 21:19 8 3/4 0/3 2/2 3 3 5 4 4 2 14
Totals 200:00 88 17/34 11/23 21/27 11 20 31 16 12 12 2 0 20 24 106
Head coach: PLAZA, JOAN
4 JURAK, GORAN 12:53 5 1/3 2/2 1 2 3 1 3 1 3
5 BROWN, MARCUS 35:03 14 0/1 4/7 2/2 3 3 2 1 2 3 1 12
8 MACIULIS, JONAS 20:55 21 4/5 3/5 4/4 2 3 5 1 3 1 5 2 17
9 KALNIETIS, MANTAS 9:33 1 0/2 1/2 1 1 1 1 1 -2
10 SALENGA, DAINIUS 1:47 0/1 1 1
11 ZUKAUSKAS, EURELIJUS 11:43 0/1 1 2 1 1 1 1
13 JANKUNAS, PAULIUS 18:57 7 2/2 1/2 1 1 1 1 3 4
20 MARKOTA, DAMIR 7:18 0/1 1 1 1
24 POPOVIC, MARKO 26:12 12 4/6 4 2 2 3 1 12
34 N'DIAYE, MAMADOU 25:07 14 5/8 4/10 4 4 1 1 2 4 7 12
41 COLLINS, DeJUAN 30:32 11 0/3 1/3 8/8 1 1 9 3 3 1 6 21
Team 2 1 3 1 2
Totals 200:00 85 11/22 14/28 21/28 6 16 22 20 10 17 0 2 24 20 82
Head coach: GRIGAS, RIMANTAS
PLAZA, JOAN
"The game was just as we expected when you get to this stage in the Euroleague. Whenever you lose control for two minutes you can lose the game, too. It is good to start the Top 16 with a win, especially if it is a narrow one. We were up-and-down in the first half but managed to bounce back and get the lead. We have to correct many mistakes but I am happy with the way my team played tonight. It managed to bounce back and fight hard. We well able to overcome a difficult situation so I must congratulate my team and I hope we keep our momentum going next week."
GRIGAS, RIMANTAS
"Congratulations to Real Madrid for its win tonight. The main reason why we lost tonight were our many turnovers. You cannot committ so many turnovers in a top level game like this and pretend to beat a team like Real Madrid. It was a tough game, very balanced and the best win won it down the stretch."
"It was a tough game, just as we expected. We were prepared to play a game like this against a very talented opponent, especially in offense. Zalgiris never gave up, as it showed in the final minute. This first Top 16 win is very valuable for us, especially since we were without Lazaros Papadopoulos."
POPOVIC, MARKO
"It was a tough game but we managed to control it until the final minutes, in which we lacked concentration. We cannot lose control against a team like Real Madrid. That was the main reason why we lost. We missed some easy shots in the fourth quarter which we should have made. We didn't manage to control the game when we were up by 6, allowing Madrid to get back in the game. Even with that, we kept our options alive until the final seconds."
REGULAR SEASON TOP 16 PLAYOFFS FINAL FOUR
Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4 Round 5 Round 6
Efes Pilsen 74
Panathinaikos 64
February 13 19:15 CET LIVE FINAL
Montepaschi Siena 71
Partizan Igokea 54
Lietuvos Rytas 81
Tau Ceramica 84
Aris TT Bank 88
Fenerbahce Ulker 96
Olympiacos 67
Maccabi Elite 75
Lottomatica Roma 71
AXA FC Barcelona 64
Unicaja 62
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Rankings of Different Programs
(To properly view the table click the header)
* NRC, * US News, * Gourman
Name of University Physics Chemistry Economics General Psychology General English Language & Literature
MIT 4, *, 5 5, *, 4 3, *, 2 *, *, * *, *, *
Stanford 9, *, 7 4, *, 6 4, *, 5 *, *, 1 6, *, 7
Univ of CA-Berkeley 4, *, 6 1, *, 2 7, *, 7 *, *, 7 2, *, 2
UIUC 8, *, 9 8, *, 7 28, *, 28 *, *, 8 28, *, 27
GTECH 62, *, * 64, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Univ of MI- Ann Arbor 19, *, 14 35, *, 36 13, *, 13 *, *, 4 16, *, 16
CALTECH 5, *, 2 2, *, 3 19, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
USC 50, *, * 40, *, * 40, *, 40 *, *, 37 25, *, *
Purdue-West Lafayette 31, *, 30 24, *, 22 51, *, * *, *, 28 57, *,
Austin 11, *, 16 13, *, 15 31, *, 31 *, *, 19 21, *, 21
Carnegie Mellon Univ 28, *, 29 74, *, * *, *, * *, *, 12 52, *, *
Cornell Univ 6, *, 3 6, *, 10 18, *, 17 *, *, 21 7, *, 6
Univ of CA-San Diego 16, *, 18 19, *, 19 16, *, 19 *, *, 11 37, *, 36
TAMU 48, *, * 15, *, 18 34, *, 33 *, *, * 56, *, *
Univ of WI- Madison 21, *, 22 10, *, 11 15, *, 16 *, *, 16 22, *, 22
Univ of MD- College Park 18, *, 19 53, *, * 20, *, 20 *, *, * 41, *, *
Harvard 1, *, 1 4, *, 1 2, *, 3 *, *, 6 2, *, 3
Princeton 2, *, 4 20, *, 13 5, *, 4 *, *, 15 13, *, 12
Northwestern 37, *, 35 14, *, 12 9, *, 9 *, *, 25 29, *, 28
UCLA 15, *, 15 10, *, 8 11, *, 11 *, *, 9 12, *, 13
Penn State 55, *, * 19, *, 21 45, *, * *, *, 24 42, *, *
JHU 29, *, 27 27, *, * 32, *, 32 *, *, 26 11, *, 11
Univ of MN- Twin Cities 23, *, 24 21, *, 23 10, *, * *, *, 5 36, *, 35
Ohio State 24, *, 28 22, *, 17 34, *, 35 *, *, 27 33, *, 33
Univ of CA- Santa Barbara 10, *, 12 33, *, 35 49, *, * *, *, * 35, *, 34
Columbia Univ (Fu Foundation) 12, *, 10 7, *, 5 12, *, 12 *, *, 14 9, *, 8
Univ of Fl *, *, 38 30, *, 29 41, *, 39 *, *, 40 39, *, *
VTech 71, *, * 67, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Univ of Pennsylvania 17, *, 13 25, *, 25 8, *, 8 *, *, 3 9, *, 9
Univ of Washington 14, *, 17 29, *, 30 26, *, 27 *, *, 20 23, *, 23
Rice 43, *, 41 29, *, 28 *, *, * *, *, * 53, *, *
NCSU 51, *, * 81, *, * 42, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Duke 43, *, 39 44, *, * 22, *, 22 *, *, 29 6, *, 4
Rensselaer Polytehnic 69, *, * 82, *, * 103, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Washington Univ in St. Louis 52, *, * 55, *, * 29, *, 29 *, *, * 50, *, *
Univ of CA- Davis 67, *, * 48, *, * 38, *, 37 *, *, * 48, *, *
Univ of CO- Boulder 38, *, 33 42, *, * 55, *, * *, *, 22 52, *, *
Case Western Reserve 65, *, * 71, *, * *, *, * *, *, * 91, *, *
Iowa State 50, *, * 26, *, 16 37, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Univ of Virginia 46, *, * 43, *, * 24, *, 25 *, *, 18 4, *, 5
Lehigh 98, *, * 84, *, * 89, *, * *, *, * 114, *, *
Yale 13, *, 11 12, *, 14 6, *, 6 *, *, 2 1, *, 1
Rutgers 20, *, 23 60, *, * 52, *, * *, *, 32 17, *, 17
Dartmouth 84, *, * 54, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Univ of Delaware 74, *, * 73, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Univ of Rochester 25, *, 25 32, *, 34 14, *, 15 *, *, 30 46, *, *
Brown 27, *, 26 56, *, * 23, *, 23 *, *, 23 14, *, 15
Univ of CA- Irvine 34, *, 32 36, *, 37 *, *, * *, *, 38 15, *, 14
Univ of MA- Amherst 64, *, * 58, *, * 51, *, * *, *, 39 41, *, *
Boston 39, *, 37 89, *, * 21, *, 21 *, *, * 38, *, 37
Univ of AZ 46, *, * *, *, * 37, *, 36 *, *, * 58, *, *
Univ of Iowa 73, *, * 76, *, * 30, *, 30 *, *, 33 45, *, *
Univ of Notre Dame 56, *, * 62, *, 38 82, *, * *, *, * 63, *, 29
Univ of Pittsburgh 40, *, 40 34, *, 32 34, *, 34 *, *, * 27, *, 25
Vanderbilt 58, *, * 86, *, * 48, *, * *, *, 25 31, *, 30
ASU 70, *, * 69, *, * 67, *, * *, *, * 79, *, *
CO State 105, *, * 37, *, * 100, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
MI State 32, *, 31 39, *, 39 27, *, 26 *, *, * 60, *, *
Drexel 81, *, * 118, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Ill Institute of Tech. 88, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Univ at Buffalo 108, *, * 57, *, * 58, *, * *, *, * 27, *, 26
Univ of Illinois, Chicago 88, *, * 63, *, * 71, *, * *, *, * 64, *, *
Northeastern 66, *, * 105, *, * 107, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
SUNY -Stony Brook 23, *, 21 46, *, * 39, *, 38 *, *, 31 49, *, *
Syracuse 58, *, * 60, *, * 56, *, * *, *, * 76, *, *
Univ of Utah 58, *, * 32, *, 31 90, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
CO School of Mines 107, *, * 159, *, * 104, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Univ of Cincinnati 102, *, * 72, *, * 97, *, * *, *, * 109, *, *
University of NM *, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Oklahoma State 121, *, * 100, *, * 86, *, * *, *, * 122, *, *
Univ of CT 102, *, * 85, *, * 84, *, * *, *, * 82, *, *
Univ of NC- Chapel Hill 54, *, * 17, *, 16 25, *, 24 *, *, 24 24, *, 24
MI Tech 139, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Univ of Missouri, Rolla 124, *, * 111, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Clemson *, *, * 94, *, * 75, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Mississippi State *, *, * 159, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Polytechnic Univ 126, *, * 109, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Univ of Central Fl *, *, * *, *, * 36, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Auburn 128, *, * 123, *, * 74, *, * *, *, * 93, *, *
NJIT *, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Univ of CA- Riverside 70, *, * 70, *, * 71, *, * *, *, * 35, *, *
Univ of Houston 62, *, * 50, *, * 57, *, * *, *, * 88, *, *
Oregon State 76, *, * 61, *, 40 *, *, * *, *, * *, *, *
Tufts 77, *, * 137, *, * *, *, * *, *, * 70, *, *
Filed under: Arizona State University, ASU, Auburn, Auburn NJIT, Berkeley, Boston University, Brown University, California Institute of Technology, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, Chemistry, Clemson, CO State University, Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State University, Columbia University, Cornell University, CWRU, Dartmouth, Drexel University, Duke University, Economics, education, education specialization, English, Georgia Institute of Technology, Gourman Ranking, GTECH, Harvard University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Iowa State University, Lehigh University, MI Tech, Michigan State University, Michigan Technology University, Mississippi State University, MIT, NJIT, North Carolina State University, Northeastern University, Northwestern, NRC Ranking, Ohio State University, Oklahoma State University, Oregon State University, Penn State University, Pennsylvania State University, Physics, Polytechnic University, Princeton, Psychology, Purdue-West Lafayette, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Rice University, Rutgers, Stanford, SUNY-Stony Brook, Syracuse, Syracuse University, TAMU, Texas A&M University, Tufts, UCI, UCLA, UCSB, UCSD, UIUC, Univ of MN- Twin Cities, University at Buffalo, University of Arizona, University of California - Berkeley, University of California - Riverside, University of California - San Diego, University of California - Santa Barbara, University of California -LA, University of California-Davis, University of California-Irvine, University of Central Florida, University of Cincinnati, University of Colorado – Boulder, University of CT, University of Delaware, University of Florida, University of Houston, University of Illinois –Chicago, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, University of Iowa, University of MA -Amherst, University of Maryland-College Park, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Missouri, University of NC- Chapel Hill, University of New Mexico, University of NM, University of Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, University of Rochester, University of Texas - Austin, University of Utah, University of Virginia, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin-Madison, US News Ranking, USC, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, VTECH, Washington University in St Louis, Yale | Tagged: Arizona State University, ASU, Auburn, Berkeley, Boston University, Brown University, California Institute of Technology, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, Chemistry, Clemson, CO State University, Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State University, Columbia University, Cornell University, CWRU, Dartmouth, Drexel University, Duke University, Economics, education, education specializations, English, Georgia Institute of Technology, Gourman, GTECH, Harvard University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Iowa State University, Lehigh University, MI Tech, Michigan State University, Michigan Technology University, Mississippi State University, MIT, NJIT, North Carolina State University, Northeastern University, Northwestern, NRC, Ohio State University, Oklahoma State University, Oregon State University, Penn State University, Pennsylvania State University, Physics, Polytechnic University, Princeton, Psychology, Purdue-West Lafayette, Rankings, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Rice University, Rutgers, Stanford, SUNY-Stony Brook, Syracuse, Syracuse University, TAMU, Texas A&M University, Tufts, UCI, UCLA, UCSB, UCSD, UIUC, Univ of MN- Twin Cities, University at Buffalo, University of Arizona, University of California - Berkeley, University of California - Riverside, University of California - San Diego, University of California - Santa Barbara, University of California -LA, University of California-Davis, University of California-Irvine, University of Central Florida, University of Cincinnati, University of Colorado – Boulder, University of CT, University of Delaware, University of Florida, University of Houston, University of Illinois –Chicago, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, University of Iowa, University of MA -Amherst, University of Maryland-College Park, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Missouri, University of NC- Chapel Hill, University of New Mexico, University of NM, University of Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, University of Rochester, University of Texas - Austin, University of Utah, University of Virginia, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, USC, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, VTECH, Washington University in St Louis, Yale | 2 Comments »
A New Approach to Rankings of Engineering and Computer Science Programs
Aerospace Eng
Chemical Eng
Civil Eng
Electrical Eng
Mechanical Eng
Industrial Eng
*, *, *
Univ of CA Berkeley
Urbana Champaign
14, 8, 14
13, *, 13
GATECH
*, 5, 17
7, *, 4
57, *, *
Purdue West Lafayette
6, 10, 6
Univ of CA, San Diego
63, 49, *
*, *, 19
*, 6, 5
Univ of WI Madison
10, 10, 9
Univ of MD College Park
Penn State Univ Park
Unive of MN Twin Cities
*, *, 10*
Univ of CA Santa Barbara
Columbia (Fu Foundation)
Univ of Fl
Univ of Pennsylvania
Univ of WA Seattle
8, *, 33
Rice Univ
NC State Univ
Duke Univ
Rensselaer Polytehnic
Washington Univ in St. Louis
Univ of CA Davis
Univ of CO Boulder
Univ of Virginia
Rutgers, New Brunswick
Univ of Delaware
*, 60, *
Univ of Rochester
Univ of CA Irvine
Univ of MA Amherst
Boston Univ
Univ of Arizona
Univ of Iowa
Univ of Notre Dame
Univ of Pitts
Ill Inst of Tech
Univ at Buffalo
Univ of Illinois
Univ of Utah
Co School of Mines
Univ of Cincinnati
Univ of New Mexico
108, *, *
Univ of Connecticut
Univ of NC
8, *, *
MI Tech
Univ of Missouri, Rolla
Polytechnic Univ
Univ of Central Fl
Univ of CA Riverside
Univ of Houston
Filed under: -Rolla, Arizona State, Arizona State University, ASU, Auburn, Berkeley, Boston University, Brown, Brown University, California Institute of Technology, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve, Case Western Reserve University, Clemson, CO State University, Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State, Colorado State University, Columbia University, Cornell, Cornell University, CWRU, Dartmouth, Drexel, Drexel University, Duke University, education, education specialization, Fu Foundation, GATECH, Georgia Institute of Technology, Gourman Ranking, GTECH, Harvard, Harvard University, higher education, higher studies, Illinois Institute of Technology, Iowa State, Iowa State University, Johns Hopkins, Lehigh, Lehigh University, MI Tech, Michigan Institute of Technology, Michigan State, Michigan State University, Michigan Technology University, Mississippi State, Mississippi State University, MIT, NC State University, NJIT, North Carolina State University, Northeastern, Northeastern University, Northwestern, NRC Ranking, Ohio State University, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma State University, Oregon State, Oregon State University, Penn State - University Park, Penn State University, Pennsylvania State University, Polytechnic University, Princeton, Purdue University-West Lafayette, Purdue-West Lafayette, Ranking, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Rice University, Rutgers, Rutgers-New Brunswick, Stanford, Stony Brook, Study, SUNY-Stony Brook, Syracuse, Syracuse University, TAMU, Texas A&M University, Tufts, UCI, UCLA, UCSB, UCSD, UIUC, Univ of California- Berkeley, Univ of MN- Twin Cities, University at Buffalo, University of Arizona, University of California - Berkeley, University of California - Riverside, University of California - San Diego, University of California - Santa Barbara, University of California -LA, University of California-Davis, University of California-Irvine, University of Central Florida, University of Cincinnati, University of Colorado – Boulder, University of Colorado-Boulder, University of Connecticut, University of CT, University of Delaware, University of Florida, University of Houston, University of Illinois, University of Illinois –Chicago, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, University of Iowa, University of MA -Amherst, University of Maryland-College Park, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Minnesota -Twin Cities, University of Missouri, University of NC, University of NC- Chapel Hill, University of New Mexico, University of NM, University of North Carolina, University of Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, University of Rochester, University of Southern California, University of Texas - Austin, University of Utah, University of Virginia, University of Washington, University of Washington - Seattle, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Us News, USC, USN, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, VTECH, Washington University in St Louis, Yale | Tagged: Aero/Aeronautical, Arizona State University, ASU, Auburn, Berkeley, Boston University, Brown University, California Institute of Technology, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, Chemical, Civil, Clemson, CO State University, Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State University, Columbia University, Computer Science, Cornell University, CWRU, Dartmouth, Drexel University, Duke University, education, education specializations, Elec / Comp Engg, Electical / Electronics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Gourman Ranking, GTECH, Harvard University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Industrial, Iowa State University, Lehigh University, Mechanical, MI Tech, Michigan State University, Michigan Technology University, Mississippi State University, MIT, NJIT, North Carolina State University, Northeastern University, Northwestern, NRC Ranking, Ohio State University, Oklahoma State University, Oregon State University, Penn State University, Pennsylvania State University, Polytechnic University, Princeton, Purdue-West Lafayette, Ranking, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Rice University, Rutgers, Stanford, SUNY-Stony Brook, Syracuse, Syracuse University, TAMU, Texas A&M University, Tufts, UCI, UCLA, UCSB, UCSD, UIUC, Univ of MN- Twin Cities, University at Buffalo, University of Arizona, University of California - Berkeley, University of California - Riverside, University of California - San Diego, University of California - Santa Barbara, University of California -LA, University of California-Davis, University of California-Irvine, University of Central Florida, University of Cincinnati, University of Colorado – Boulder, University of CT, University of Delaware, University of Florida, University of Houston, University of Illinois –Chicago, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, University of Iowa, University of MA -Amherst, University of Maryland-College Park, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Missouri, University of NC- Chapel Hill, University of New Mexico, University of NM, University of Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, University of Rochester, University of Texas - Austin, University of Utah, University of Virginia, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin-Madison, US News Ranking, USA, USC, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, VTECH, Washington University in St Louis, Yale | Leave a comment »
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Big Miracle
Based on an inspiring true story, a small-town news reporter (Krasinski) and a Greenpeace volunteer (Barrymore) enlist the help of rival superpowers to save three majestic gray whales trapped under…
A subjective documentary that explores various theories about hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick’s classic film The Shining. Five very different points of view are illuminated through voice over, film clips,…
Genre: Uncategorized
Slowed by age and failing eyesight, crack baseball scout Gus Lobel takes his grown daughter along as he checks out the final prospect of his career. Along the way, the…
2-Headed Shark Attack
A Semester at Sea ship is attacked and sunk by a mutated two-headed shark, and the survivors seek refuge on a deserted atoll. The coeds, however, are no longer safe…
Genre: Action, Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller
Nameless Gangster
A corrupted customs officer, Choi Ik-hyeon, faces losing his job. Then, his life turns around as he meets ganster Choi Hyeong-bae who has connection with the Yakuza. They quickly form…
Genre: Crime, Thriller
The Lords of Salem
The City of Salem, Massachusetts is visited by a coven of ancient witches.
Country: USA, UK, Canada
Dolph Springer wakes up one morning to realize he has lost the love of his life, his dog, Paul. During his quest to get Paul (and his life) back, Dolph…
Genre: Comedy, Mystery
Lovely Molly
Newlywed Molly moves into her deceased father’s house in the countryside, where painful memories soon begin to haunt her.
Two mismatched cops team up to investigate the murder of a business mogul’s wife.
The rivalry between the manipulative boss of an advertising agency and her talented protégée escalates from stealing credit to public humiliation to murder.
Country: France, Germany
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Decorated Vietnam hero Frank Vega returns home only to get shunned by society leaving him without a job or his high school sweetheart. It’s not until forty years later when…
The Samaritan
After twenty years in prison, Foley is finished with the grifter’s life. When he meets an elusive young woman named Iris, the possibility of a new start looks real. But…
Chris wants to show girlfriend Tina his world, but events soon conspire against the couple and their dream caravan holiday takes a very wrong turn.
As the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII, Gen. Fellers is tasked with deciding if Emperor Hirohito will be hanged as a war criminal. Influencing his ruling is his…
Country: Japan, USA
Genre: Drama, History, War
A troubled hedge fund magnate, desperate to complete the sale of his trading empire, makes an error that forces him to turn to an unlikely person for help.
Country: USA, Poland
A Fantastic Fear of Everything
Jack is a children’s author turned crime novelist whose detailed research into the lives of Victorian serial killers has turned him into a paranoid wreck, persecuted by the irrational fear…
Put in charge of his young son, Ali leaves Belgium for Antibes to live with his sister and her husband as a family. Ali’s bond with Stephanie, a killer whale…
Inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s classic La Ronde, screenwriter Peter Morgan and director Fernando Meirelles’ 360 combines a modern and dynamic roundelay of stories into one, linking characters from different cities…
Country: UK, Austria, France, Brazil, USA, Canada
When a group of misfits is hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house and acquire a rare VHS tape, they discover more found footage than they…
Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups
An all-new Disney holiday classic is born – Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups. Starring a brand-new litter of the cutest talking pups ever – Hope, Jingle, Charity, and Noble…
Into the White
Based on a true story. On 27 April 1940, Luftwaffe pilot Horst Schopis’ Heinkel 111 bomber is shot down near Grotli by an RAF Blackburn Skua L2940 fighter, which then…
Country: Norway, Sweden, France
Genre: Action, Drama, War
A young girl buys an antique box at a yard sale, unaware that inside the collectible lives a malicious ancient spirit. The girl’s father teams with his ex-wife to find…
Tangled Ever After
The kingdom is in a festive mood as everyone gathers for the royal wedding of Rapunzel and Flynn. However, when Pascal and Maximus, as flower chameleon and ring bearer, respectively,…
Zephyr, now known as Z, rides the seas with only one goal: Destroy all pirates and their dreams at becoming King of Pirates. When Luffy and his crew encounter him…
Conquest 1453
After the death of his father Murat II, Mehmet II ascends to the Ottoman throne. After braving internal and external enemies, he decides to complete what he was destined to…
Cool Kids Don’t Cry
Adaptation of one of Benelux most famous children’s novels. Tough prime school girl Akkie loves soccer and can be a real bully. Love is the only thing she’s scared of….
Genre: Drama, Family, Romance
A fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe’s life, in which the poet is in pursuit of a serial killer whose murders mirror those in the writer’s…
Country: USA, Spain, Hungary, Serbia
Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Set in 1990s Belfast, a woman is forced to betray all she believes in for the sake of her son.
Country: UK, Ireland
Three high school seniors throw a party to make a name for themselves. As the night progresses, things spiral out of control as word of the party spreads.
A city in Washington state awakens to the surreal sight of foreign paratroopers dropping from the sky – shockingly, the U.S. has been invaded and their hometown is the initial…
Genre: Action, Science Fiction, Thriller, War
Disconnect interweaves multiple storylines about people searching for human connection in today’s wired world. Through poignant turns that are both harrowing and touching, the stories intersect with surprising twists that…
Arkin escapes with his life from the vicious grips of “The Collector” during an entrapment party where he adds beautiful Elena to his “Collection.” Instead of recovering from the trauma,…
The Brass Teapot
When a couple discovers that a brass teapot makes them money whenever they hurt themselves, they must come to terms with how far they are willing to go.
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Thriller
Former getaway driver Charlie Bronson jeopardizes his Witness Protection Plan identity in order to help his girlfriend get to Los Angeles. The feds and Charlie’s former gang chase them on…
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The Concubine
Living a torturous life of poverty and barely able to survive, Hwa-yeon decides to offer herself as one of the king’s concubines. Once inside the royal palace, two men are…
In an alternate universe where twinned worlds have opposite gravities, a young man battles interplanetary prejudice and the laws of physics in his quest to reunite with the long-lost girl…
Country: Canada, France
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Science Fiction
The Iceman
The true story of Richard Kuklinski, the notorious contract killer and family man.
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Barbie: The Princess & The Popstar
Tori is a blonde princess who is bored of living her royal life, and has dreams of becoming a popstar. Keira, on the other hand, is a brunette popstar who…
Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo
Fourteen years after Third Impact, Shinji Ikari awakens to a world he does not remember. He hasn’t aged. Much of Earth is laid in ruins, NERV has been dismantled, and…
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NaijaBuzz.News
Latest Nigeria News & Everi-Everi
Niger Delta Avengers
APO AFRICA NEWS
1Push.Ng News Team
1Push.Ng
I am one of President Buhari’s first few generals who started APC in 2014 – Okorocha
APC Governor Oyetola reacts to his victory at the Court of Appeal
PDP Chairman urges Okorocha to return to PDP
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PDP urges Army to compel APC to reveal identities of political thugs imported to help them rig 2019 elections
Everi-Everi
Naija Buzz
Newspapers Reviews
Nigerian News Today (Wednesday, 24 July 2019 Edition)
By DAVID CHIMA
Good Morning Nigeria! Here’s our picks on today’s top stories in Naija. Enjoy!
1. Baba Othman, the National Secretary of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, says that the herders-farmers clashes have been politicized.
According to the group, the Fulani herders are victims of politicized narratives of conflicts between partners whose relationship is symbolic.
He noted that farmers and herders share common fate, both are trapped by poverty, they are victims of state neglect, they live on the fringes of society where social amenities are obsolete.
“They both have fair sense of injuries, death, displacement and loss of livelihoods,” he added.
2. On Tuesday, the members of the National House of Representatives were divided on the motion to release the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (aka Shiites), Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, from detention.
The motion came following the Monday clash between members of the group and the Nigeria Police which led to the death of a DCP, a Channels TV reporter, and about 11 members of the Shiite group.
Mohammed Bello, had accused the Shiites of an act of terrorism. But another member, Herman Hembe, however told the House to urge the Federal Government to obey court orders and release the Shiite leader. Some members supported Bello, while others supported Hembe.
Finally after a closed-door session, the House agreed unanimously to form an ad hoc committee to discuss with the executive and the heads of security agencies on how to resolve the lingering problem before it gets out of hand.
3. The United States of America has imposed visa restrictions on some Nigerians for allegedly undermining the democratic process during and after the 2019 general elections.
Morgan Ortagus, the spokesman for the US Department of State, revealed in a statement in Washington that the individuals operated with impunity at the expense of Nigerians.
READ OUR POST: Punch Newspaper Headlines (Tuesday, 31 October 2017 Edition)
The action was part of the Department of State’s commitment to work with the Nigerian Government to end corruption and strengthen democracy. Read more
4. The spokesman of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (Shiites), Ibrahim Musa, has accused the Nigeria Police of deliberately killing the Abuja Deputy Commissioner of Police, Usman Umar; and Precious Owolabi, the Channels TV reporter who died in Monday’s protest.
The police had accused the group for the death of the DCP and the reporter. But the group however alleges that the deceased were victims of friendly fire.
According to the group, the police purposely lied against them to tarnish their image and to have false reasons to cause hatred against them. Read the statement issued by the Shiites spokesman
5. President Muhammadu Buhari in his reaction to the protesting members Islamic Movement of Nigeria (Shiites) warned the group against forcing the Federal Government to act.
Buhari noted that he would act with maximum force to defend the interest of the nation.
The group was protesting against the incarceration of their leader, Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, since 2015.
While the Nigeria Police is accusing the Shiites for the death of DCP Umar and Precious Owolabi, the group in a statement alleged that they were unarmed, saying that the police were responsible for their deaths. Naija Buzz News has more details on the incident
6. A four-bedroomed government chalet which was acquired by Ex-Senate President Bukola Saraki has been revoked by the Kwara State House of Assembly.
According to the lawmakers, the revocation was due to the non-compliance with the provision of Pensions Law 2010. They voided the acquisition, valuation and certification of land title of the chalet.
Yakubu Danladi, the Speaker of the House, noted that the revocation was to ensure an end to all forms of illegalities and abnormalities in the state.
The lawmakers further urged the Kwara State Government to use all available legal process to recover the chalet from Saraki who was a former governor of the state. Read more to know why Saraki’s property was revoked
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A Master Guide to Collectives – For All Types of Denver Creatives
Anna Sutterer March 1, 2018 Lifestyle + Culture
Andrew Huffman, Locus-Projection, 2017 at RedLine Gallery. Photo by Kyle Cooper.
Looking for a place to hang your splattered smock? Been pressing too hard on the delete key and hard-pressed for a breakthrough? Releasing some tracks but have no experience in promoting music? Denver has resources.
It also has rising costs of living and renting creative space, but Denver artists are addressing that concern together. Denver artists form collectives to help at-home creatives invest in full artistic careers. They are groups of people equally confused about the process of professionalization, and people further down the road with helpful tips. They, too, juggle day or night jobs, social lives and attempts at promoting their artistic personas. They’re also community-minded, with goals to learn and teach and give back to their neighborhoods.
Painters, writers, musicians, dancers and designers – artists: find your people, connect and be inspired.
Denver Art Society
Where: 734 N Santa Fe Dr., Denver
Website: coop.denverartsociety.org
Membership: $65 per month or volunteer hours
What they offer: Denver Art Society (DAS) is a volunteer-based community. You can get a free basic exhibiting membership in exchange for six-months of volunteering, or pay the $65 per month for a year-round space to show your work. There are also artist studio spaces and opportunities to become an artist in residence.
Exhibitions at The Denver Art Society Cooperative reach the ceilings and sometimes into the walkways of both the building’s cavernous upper room and its bunker-like basement. Art is in control, here. That’s not to say the place is disorganized. Curated meetings with all members, including new and potential, are held on the first and third Wednesday evenings of each month. Volunteer artists keep house and offer assistance to people looking for a creative home or just looking around.
Artist Ethan Hoekstra set up his eight-by-ten-foot space at DAS six months ago.
“Most of my life I haven’t been surrounding myself with any other artists, so it’s a nice change,” Hoekstra said. He’s a self-taught acrylic painter with a lifelong dream of living off his talent. As a kid, he did some cartoon sketching and then got into digital art. The acrylic paintings now hanging in his corner are somewhat improvised and from his subconscious. The goal was to transport viewers to an ideal resting place – a place to relax and daydream.
“Basically, it’s a God-given gift and I’m very blessed with this, I believe, to paint what I imagine,” Hoekstra said. “He’s the one to thank for most of it and the inspiration.”
Hoekstra said, he’ll do whatever it takes to achieve his goal of self-sustaining creativity, and DAS is a good establishment that will help him get his stuff out there and reach out to help other artists. “Basically it all comes back and it’s a nice little loop of encouragement and notoriety,” he says.
Every First Friday of the month, thousands of patrons walk the Santa Fe Arts District at once. DAS hosts live local music and sometimes theatrical exhibitions as part of the open gallery event. Hoekstra hangs around on those nights to do a live painting demonstration and chat with anyone who’d like to interrupt.
Deano Castellano curates the space. He’s lived in the Sante Fe Arts neighborhood all his life and was delighted to join DAS five years ago. After some time there, he’s now able to recognize the people in their works.
“They’re all good friends,” Castellano said when trying to describe the assemblage of artists.
The cooperative currently has its highest membership, around 60 to 70 artists. Spaces open up often, though, and those interested in joining are encouraged to visit the studio for the Wednesday meetings.
Also, check out…
Where: 2350 Arapahoe St., Denver
Website: redlineart.org
Membership: $15 to $40 per year depending on level of participation with a la carte benefits such as juried shows, lectures and more
What they offer: For the contemporary artist committed to art education and neighborhood transformation, RedLine offers a traditional artist collective and programs to connect with the greater Five Points area. For example collaborations with Denver K-12 schools and public socially engaged conversations about the arts. Artist members can benefit from lectures, workshops, networking events and access to Redline’s nonpublic artist calls. Artist residencies are the core of RedLine’s operation. The studio offers fully subsidized studio spaces to 15 to 18 emerging artists for two-year periods.
Art Students League of Denver
Where: 200 Grant St, Denver
Website: asld.org
Membership: $55 annual, tax-deductible adult membership, $34.00 for students and educators
What they offer: Artists must be lifelong learners. At ASLD, members receive discounts on classes and workshops, free use of open studio space and borrowing privileges from a 3,000+ volume library. They’re invited to all exhibitions, lectures and special events at the historic Grant Street location. ASLD partners with various creative spaces throughout the community and offers community programs such as The Gathering Place, which gives women and transgender individuals experiencing homelessness opportunities to work on art fundamentals.
READ: The Art Students League of Denver: A Local, All-Inclusive Art Community
Where: 2400 Curtis St., Denver
Website: thetempledenver.org
Membership: Studio spaces for rent on availability, no fee for pop-up shows and other visiting artist projects
What they offer: The tagline promotes The Temple as a “contemporary artist haven,” a preserved historical landmark where one can find affordable art studios and workshop facilities, community non-profit space and creative business suites. Owner Adam Gordon says he hasn’t raised rent in two years, and the individuals and organizations in the building work creatively to keep it that way, using pop-up shows and joint grant writing. Nonprofits PlatteForum and the Denver Zine library, a bakery co-op and another artist collective, Processus, share the space and collaborate.
READ: Denver Artists Restore 134-Year-Old Synagogue for Affordable Studios
Where: 955 24th St., Denver
Website:processusartlife.com
Membership: $175 – $125 per month depending on length of commitment, day and weekly passes available
What they offer: Where else could you find a wood shop, darkroom and printmaking area in the same space? Processus is all about teaching processes like photography, printmaking, sculpture, woodworking and more. Members get access to equipment for 40 hours each month. If that’s not enough, artist residencies, for a higher fee, allow unlimited access. There are also options for personal instruction and, when the work is done, exhibiting during the Art Sale and Open Studio in conjunction with the RiNo First Friday and Denver Arts Week.
Where: 7130 W 16th Ave, Lakewood
Website:pirateartonline.org
Membership: $65 per month
What they offer: More than 35 years ago, Pirate opened its doors to a unique brand of contemporary art expression. A group of friends felt their place in the gallery world was not yet created, so they started their own. Artists with an inventive, original and imaginative style, fitting with Pirate’s vague definition of contemporary, are encouraged to apply for membership and gain opportunities for exhibition in gallery shows and collaboration with other Lakewood co-ops like 40 West Arts District. They have openings every three weeks.
READ: Pirate, One of Denver’s Oldest Art Galleries Sets Sail This Weekend
Kanon Collective
Where: 766 Santa Fe Dr., Denver
Website:kanonart.com
Membership: $175 per month
What they offer: Another well-trafficked Art District on Santa Fe studio, Kanon Collective is an artist-owned and operated space complete with a front gallery, backroom and garden reception area. Members can sell any original work year-round, and host personal events in the garden. Each member gets to do one solo show each year, which lasts for a month. Kanon asks for at least a one-year commitment from artists and takes five percent commission on credit card sales only to cover costs.
Helikon Gallery & Studios
Where: 3675 Wynkoop St., Denver
Website: helikongallery.com
Membership: Studio rentals $250 – $650 per month
What they offer: The mountain where the muses come: Helikon (according to Greek lore). Emerging or established artists come to this gallery and studio space to work near like-minded artists in a professional and relatively affordable space. Studio artists get 24/7 keyed access to the building, fully enclosed spaces, no fee on sales made in the studio, a free online portfolio and other office resources. Helikon hosts paid and donation-based workshops and learning events so artists can share knowledge, improve their craft and remain students at heart.
READ: Gaze Upon New Art by Denver’s John Vogl at Helikon Gallery
Colorado Photographic Arts Center
Where: 1070 Bannock St., Denver
Website:cpacphoto.org
Membership: $45 for basic annual individual membership, extra benefits add up to $1,000 annual fee
What they offer: The CPAC is 50 years into supporting MFA graduates, established and aspiring artists. It’s the only nonprofit organization in Denver dedicated to the art of photography. All members get discounts on workshops, classes, lectures, rentals for the darkroom and digital lab and services at neighboring photo printing centers. In its white-walled, well-lit space, the center hosts up to 10 exhibitions each year, showcasing local and national artists. Connect with greater Denver through CPAC’s events such as Picture Me Here, which provides cameras to refugees and immigrants.
40 West Arts
Where: 1560 Teller St., Lakewood
Website: 40westarts.org
Membership: $279+ per month rent for a creative suite depending on size
What they offer: Centered around the 40 West Gallery, this arts district and collective in one serves more than 140 artist members and is a gathering place for the West Colfax community at large. 40 West has 13 creative suites (individual and shared) and three workshops with garage door access. Units include utilities and WiFi, and artist members are invited to calls for entry to exhibitions multiple times a year and special member showcases.
READ: 40 West is the Newest Arts District Near Denver to Keep Your Eyes On
Where: 999 Vallejo St., Denver
Website: prismworkspaces.com
Membership, spaces: Call for availability and lease rates 303- 870-8569
What they offer: An affordable, unconventional work space for Denver’s creators and business builders of all types, PRISM offers a community-minded environment conducive to collaboration and exchanging resources. The 62 individual units range in size from 100 to over 3,000 square feet and the cost includes 24-hour access, Wifi, utilities, loading dock access and more. PRISM’s current community includes ceramicists; interior designers and people who work with glass, metal, light and technology.
Art Gym Denver
Where: 1460 Leyden St., Denver
Website: artgymdenver.com
Membership: $100 per month, discounts available for students and recent graduates
What they offer: Flexibility. Art Gym has space and equipment for all sorts of makers: printers, metalsmiths, dancers, digital artists, painters, drawers, sculptors, writers and other. It operates on a month-to-month membership basis with no long-term contracts, and offers member-to-member mentoring programs, occasional workshops and classes, access to a library and free coffee from the building’s cafe. There are no private studio spaces, but lockers and other options for storage. The gallery exhibits curated shows with public calls for entry and two juried members-only exhibits per year.
GRACe (Globeville Riverfront Art Center)
Where: 888 E. 50th Ave., Denver
Website: studiosatgrace.com
Membership: 75 studio rentals starting at $175 per month, up to $1400 per month depending on size
What they offer: Need a studio space that welcomes your creative business and beloved pets? GRACe offers month-to-month leases on studios and creative offices with 24/7 access to the space, all utilities and WiFi — not to mention a few chickens, a community garden and an open door to friendly dogs. Located in the River North Art District, the gallery at GRACe gets plenty of foot traffic, especially on First Fridays and Open Studio tours. Resident creatives include painters, photographers, multimedia producers and even a rock climbing gear company.
READ: New Art Campus to Celebrate Grand Opening in Globeville on First Friday
Lighthouse Writers Workshop
Where: 1515 Race St., Denver
Website: lighthousewriters.org
Membership: A standard $60 membership for the year includes discounts on literary magazines and books, classes and workshops.
What they offer: Inside this lighthouse, actually a Victorian home, writers might fill every nook, but only clacking keyboards and scribbling pens make a sound. There’s a crackling energy above everyone’s heads. Pen and paper are all that’s needed to write, but there’s momentum in a place where others are focused and creating, Lighthouse Community Programmer Dan Manzanares says.
Lighthouse Writers’ Workshop is home for anyone who connects with books and writing. It’s hard to put a face to the place, but the space itself certainly has a distinct character. The home, built in 1893, maintains a dignified mood with a few curious quirks. Workspace options include standard desks, dining tables, seats near windows, a fainting couch and a claw foot bathtub – whatever gets the words flowing. Wood floors, harp-like banisters and emerald green accents set an academic tone for six large classrooms on the main floors. The basement downstairs, which hosts workshops and author events for up to 115 people. It feels like a 1970s church youth group space, according to Communications Coordinator Corey Dahl. She loves taking a drink out on the spacious porch to commiserate or celebrate with other writers.
Lighthouse is not a collective confined to its 7,000 square-foot residence set on a five-plot piece of land. From the house’s wrought-iron fence hang poems, products of the community outreach program, Write Denver. It hosts events throughout the city accessible to children, veterans and people experiencing homelessness. Every fourth Tuesday of the month, patrons of the Denver Art Museum can meet up for drop-in writing sessions inspired by exhibits.
“Wherever the beacon shines, writers grow,” Manzanares said.
LitFest is the best gateway for people to “catch the lighthouse vibe,” he said. It’s an annual circus for literature freaks. A striped tent is involved. About 3,000 people attended the two-weeks of seminars, parties, workshops, salons and agent consultations last June. Simply attending the free events and readings is a valuable networking opportunity and a chance to see how deep and vibrant the literary community is here in Denver.
There are only a handful of literary centers across the nation with classes, workshops, outreach and massive events like Lighthouse, said Dahl, naming The Loft in Minneapolis, Grub Street in Boston and Hugo House in Seattle.
Big-time authors know this. Lighthouse is somewhat of a household name in achieving writers’ circles. Kazuo Ishiguro, who won the Nobel for Literature in 2017 and came here in 2015, encouraged Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient, to speak for Lighthouse the following year, in 2016.
Posters of honored guests, like Colson Whitehead and Junot Diaz, hang in Lighthouse’s basement, talismans for the writers working through drafts, critiques and edits. In addition to all this, there are members-only writing hours at the house throughout the week. Financial assistance, student and senior memberships are an option for tight budgets. In addition to eight-week workshop courses and community events, Lighthouse has a two-year Book Project program, akin to an MFA, for polishing big projects and guidance through the publishing process.
Also, see…
The Denver Press Club
Where: 1330 Glenarm Pl., Denver
Website: denverpressclub.org/
Membership: $260 for a regular one-year membership
What they offer: The Denver Press Club, founded in 1867, claims to be the oldest press club in the nation. With more than 400 members, you can use their space to connect with active and retired media as well as public relation experts, advertisers, lawyers and more. The club offers events including a “book beat” and “lunch on deadline” events. You also have access to press clubs across the nation. The press club is also known for their great bar. So belly up and rub elbows with some of Denver’s best minds.
Denver Open Media
Where: 700 Kalamath St., Denver
Website: denveropenmedia.org
Membership: Basic memberships cost $100 per year with a $50 renewal and Equipment Access memberships are $500 for the year with a $250 renewal
What they offer: Tech intimidation no more. Denver Open Media supports digital storytelling artists by providing high-quality media tools (cameras, voice recorders, accessories, studios, computer programs) to individuals and organizations with a range of previous experience and financial resources. With a basic membership, one can take tech-skill classes at a discounted rate, rent equipment and studios to create audio or video projects and submit them to DOM’s radio station (KOMF 104.7) and/or TV channels. Equipment Access members get free access to DOM Studios, Editing, & Field Production equipment (with certification).
READ: The Low Down on 104.7 FM, Denver’s New “Local Music Only” Radio Station at Denver Open Media
Naughty Jungle
Website: naughtyjungle.com
Membership: Sharing gig income occasionally (see details below)
What they offer: Friends like family, Naughty Jungle artists are all about promoting each other’s music and events. One band has a space for recording audio and video and all contribute their social and professional networks. There’s no cost but time to give for collaboration and maybe some community outreach at Denver’s nonprofit Youth on Record. Collaborating artists split show money when performing together and sometimes a small percentage goes to the leadership that sets up gigs. Members of Naughty Jungle have played shows at The Meadowlark, Milk Bar, The Marquis Theatre and others.
It’s tight-knit, but not exclusive. Although several of the artists in Naughty Jungle met in college and have been making music together for a while, some others joined after chance meetings at those random shows and events filling the Denver music scene calendar.
“We all have great rapport with each other, and we have a strong sense of community,” said founder Levi Wharton.
Power in numbers — that was the idea when Wharton approached his friends, Chris Scott and Chris Kimmel, with the idea for a collective. Wharton was already managing Chris and Chris’ hip-hop/pop duo, OptycNerd, while they were making music and going to school at the University of Colorado in Denver. Their sound is a little Post Malone vocals meets Calvin Harris or Chainsmokers’ dance beat. But it’s not enough to just make good music, said Kimmel. You have to push on all fronts – especially in Denver’s developing music scene that’s different from Los Angeles or New York City.
“We want this to be our thing – to be a career path,” Kimmel said of OptycNerd. “If I was making music that I enjoyed that was connecting with people and I’m in a financially stable situation just writing, performing and sharing music with people that are into it; that’s the dream.”
One of the six names in Naughty Jungle, DJ AnnaMalistiik, aka Anna Rozenberg, is originally from the Detroit area. She got her start spinning for parties at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, then started picking up gigs and residencies in that area. In August 2015, she moved to Denver and got a corporate day job. A very corporate day job, she says, but it pays the rent. Most people she knows in the business have something else to keep them afloat. It’s tough to get consistent gigs and gain recognition, especially as an out-of-state artist and a woman.
“There [are] pros and cons,” she said. “It’s good because I think people get excited about female DJs because we’re less common. But the bad is that I always have to be proving myself 10 times more than any of the other guys. Constantly people question my identity as a DJ.” While setting up for shows, she’s been mistaken for a gear girl rather than the performing artist. “I’ll just confirm that I am the DJ and I’m looking them dead in the eye and that they hear me loud and clear.” Then her beats prove them wrong.
Rozenberg’s sound clicked with Wharton, whom she met while playing her first set at The Meadowlark. He asked her to play some guest sets, and then to join the collective. Rozenberg now hosts DJ nights with Wharton, aka Levi Double U, a solo electronic label, every second and fourth Thursday at Stoney’s South in an event called Brain.wav.
Naughty Jungle members capitalize on each others’ different networks to increase their impacts and visibility. They mix styles to create unique collaborated music, like OptycNerd and Play Pat’s joint EP released in December. Naughty Jungle loves the city they live in. Whether it’s visiting Youth on Record to teach kids about music and graphic design, helping with benefit shows or contributing skills and a network to expand the group’s community, any artist coming into the group needs to buy into the vision.
Souls In Action Entertainment
Where: 190 E 9th Ave., Denver
Website: soulsinaction.com
Membership: Contact SIA
What they offer: Friends who make art converge with a desire to create social change. Souls In Action seeks a diverse group of young creative individuals to create a better community. Members get involved in city improvement projects and events such as resource fairs, fundraiser dinners and benefit concerts. Artists get to know one another, promote each others’ gigs and music releases and participate in shows together.
READ: Meet Souls In Action, The Artist Collective Breathing Life Into Denver’s Music Scene
Seventh Circle Music Collective
Where: 2935 W 7th Ave., Denver
Website:7thcirclemusiccollective.org
Membership: No membership, anyone is welcome to play shows
What they offer: All genres of music are welcome at this art gallery/record store/live show venue. It’s a training ground for newer bands to learn live show operations and etiquette, so they can be ready to play bigger, more professional venues. At this collective-run, community-oriented DIY space, artists have connected with one another and collaborated on projects and performances. Seventh Circle typically has three or four local artists and bands playing each show, about five nights a week.
Moon Magnet Collective
Where: North Park Hill area (contact for more information)
Website: moonmagnetmusic.com
Membership: Free for all services
What they offer: It’s not the studio or the gear that makes a great artist – although Moon Magnet Studio has a unique and adequate setup for full recording and video capabilities. Founder Reed Fuchs believes in the power of practice, complete free expression and a good producer. Moon Magnet promotes a “spirit of endless possibility” as a Denver music label, recording studio, publishing company and artist collective. They do recordings for film scores, voice reels and bands in their studio. They stream music on their label and operate as a licensing platform and provide business, law and marketing consultations as well as host a monthly music industry meetup in 27 cities. The collective also hosts art installations and general creative projects around town and have had music residencies at The Meadowlark and Syntax Physic Opera. Moon Magnet is always looking to help artists record, promote, learn and professionalize their music.
Roux Black Consulting
Website: rouxblack.com
Membership: Fees according to services provided
What they offer: Roux Black’s Denver operation is a consulting business that specializes in content creation, event production and campaign development. Music is the mainstay of the company, especially hip-hop, but all creatives are welcome. Ru Johnson, the founder of the firm, pushes artists’ missions forward by managing the platforms they need, like creating openings at venues and networking with talent buyers or advocating for city recognition of roots-level arts.
READ: Meet Ru Johnson, the Queen Calling the Shots in Denver Hip-Hop
Swing Nights
Where: 2199 California St., Denver
Website: swingnights.com
Membership: $10 drop-in classes, $50 per month for swing teams
What they offer: Find a dance home at The Mercury Cafe in Five Points, where Swing Nights have held most of its classes and social dances for the past 20 years. Drop into weekly lessons and open dances – Sunday night Jitterbug, Thursday Lindy Hop – for $10. Taking technique and friendship to the next level, The Mercury Retros (beginner) and QuickSilvers (intermediate-advanced) swing teams meet for weekly practices and other special events.
The principles of jazz apply to the principles of life and community — swing dancers know this. Rhythm, connection, improvisation and self-expression are key to relational work on and off the floor.
Swing Nights is a product of another performance team, 23 Skidoo, and just a part of the larger swing scene in the Denver area, says instructor and leader Ceth Stifel. Two decades ago, he was going to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for painting and came home to Denver on winter break. A visiting friend heard about The Mercury as a “must do” in Denver and it was there Stifel took his first swing lesson. He loved it. He later joined 23 Skidoo and then formed Swing Nights.
Stifel is a self-described introvert and soft-spoken man, though he stands over six feet tall and is a strong and stylish dance lead. He and Dani Botello, his teaching and dancing partner, are passionate about dance and people learning and growing on and off the dance floor. He’s also passionate about capturing the magic on the floor through photography. “It’s a joyful place to be and it’s a joyful thing to experience, this partner dancing with someone else,” he said. “You see, when you take these pictures of people, it is about some sort of friendship that’s happening between two people in these short increments of time.”
Stifel says the dance style particularly attracts young people. Some regular dancers at The Mercury have been coming since high school, and new groups of teens continue to gather under the twinkly lights. Swing Nights makes it a mission to pass the swing lifestyle on for generations to come.
Alejandro Ramirez, a recent addition to The Mercury Retros, took the bait. “I totally bit the bug, hard,” he said. “Swing fever, you know.”
Ramirez, originally from El Paso, Texas, graduated from Regis University in May. A school friend dragged him to The Mercury and he’s danced there intermittently for the past two years. “When it’s packed it feels like you’ve got the ‘in’ on something,” he said about the cafe’s positive vibe and popularity. He’s loved having a place to go for stress relief and now to invest in a community.
The Mercury Retros welcomed him in December. Ramirez marvels at the level of commitment these people have to each other. He signed a document that ensures members maintain a positive environment and encourages them to be friends. He went to a teammate’s home with more than 20 others for a game night and has seen them reach out to give rides and other acts of kindness.
A couple months into practices, Ramirez says he is still “pretty good.” He’ll be “good” when he’s mastered his first team routine. Lindy is a little different, even for someone who grew up with parents who are known by friends as “Dancing with the Stars.” Cumbia music blasted in Ramirez’s home where his mom gave him lessons. Sometimes a little Latin flavor comes out on the swing floor. “These hips have been trained by my mama,” Ramirez said. Instructor Dani Botello not only accepted the experimentation, she encourages it — something Ramirez appreciates.
There’s a place to start and room grow to with Swing Nights. Once dancers make it to the top team, QuickSilvers, they don’t stop. They talk about adding tricks, perfecting mechanics and even travel, Stifel says; they continue a journey together.
Esme Dance Company
Website: esmedancecompany.com
Membership: No fees to be a volunteer dancer for the small company
What they offer: The Esmé model is to train hard, perform with emotion and bring outside experiences to the floor as inspiration. The contemporary dance company, founded in 2014, uses its name, which means to be loved and esteemed, as a vision for their artists’ growth in skill and community.
Turnverein Dance and Cultural Center
Where: 1570 Clarkson St., Denver
Website: denverturnverein.com
Membership: $50 annual fee
What they offer: Tango, salsa, swing or waltz into this historic center. The Turnverein Dance and Cultural Center houses several ballroom style clubs. With one membership fee, dancers get discounts to classes, workshops and events put on by the Colorado Swing Dance Club, Salsa Central Denver, Rocky Mountain Swing Dance Club and Tango Colorado. See club websites for details on class schedules, volunteer opportunities and extra member perks like drink discounts and educational resources.
Boulder Swing Dance
Where: 2115 Pearl St., Boulder(Mondays), 414 East Simpson St., Lafayette (Tuesdays), 900 S Hover St. Unit D, Longmont, (Wednesdays)
Website: boulderswingdance.com
Membership: $15 drop-in classes, multiple-class punch cards available
What they offer: High in energy and joyful in nature, the dances Boulder Swing Dance focuses on are the Lindy Hop, Balboa and Charleston. Beginners and people sans-partner are welcome to get started with a month-long intro series. Take the class and get into the social dance for free. Events are spread along the front range in Boulder, Lafayette and Longmont. Dance Ambassadors — positions open for application — serve as hosts, points of contact and role models in class.
Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Company
Where: 119 Park Ave W., Denver
Website: cleoparkerdance.org
Membership: $150 for unlimited monthly options for 45 – 90-minute classes, drop-ins and other class pass bundles available
What they offer: The four pillars of the CPRD institution include the ensemble, academy, theatre and education programs. Cross-cultural education is the foundation. Dancers at any level are encouraged to drop into a variety of classic dance instruction (modern, ballet, tap, jazz) and other fitness classes like Zumba and “No Pressure Hip Hop.” Advanced dancers, including professionals and pre-professionals, find comprehensive training with the internationally esteemed Ensemble or through a Dance Major with the Independent Degree Programs in partnership with Metro State University. Areas of study include Social Transformation/World Dance and Culture, Dance Pedagogy or Administration and Performance or Choreography.
READ: Jazz, Voodoo and New Orleans – Cleo Parker Robinson Retells Romeo & Juliet
Miscellaneous Collectives
Denver Artisan Cooperative
Where: 3939 W. 32nd Ave., Denver
Website: denverartisancoop.com
Membership: Artists choose to either sell on commission (40 percent of sales go to help pay for the retail shop’s rent) or to rent space at $150 per month.
What they offer: This cooperative’s retail store serves as a home base for artisans who often travel or show their work in intermittent events like Denver Flea and other festivals. The 1,400 square foot space is naturally nestled in the Historic Highlands Square neighborhood. Applications to become a vendor are always accepted and take a week to a month to process. The Cooperative tries to keep a non-competitive variety of artisans who use different mediums and design styles. They are in the process of creating skill building classes.
Denver Film Society
Where: 1510 York St., 3rd Floor, Denver, CO 80206
Website: denverfilm.org
Membership: $80 per year industry memberships for filmmakers
What they offer: Denver’s nonprofit and year-round cinematheque, Sie FilmCenter, houses a society providing Colorado’s growing filmmaker community with discounts on film submissions to the theater, educational panels, theatre rentals and invitations to events. The Filmmaker Toolkit includes a series of workshops, panels with top industry professionals covering niche topics and networking opportunities. Projects needing some monetary and directional help can benefit from DFS’s sponsorship program. CINEMA, Colorado Innovators of New Entertainment Media and Arts, is an and education and advocacy group spreading word about how film stimulates local and state economy.
910 Arts
Website: 910arts.com
Membership: Contact for leasing openings and rates
What they offer: Designed with community in mind, the 910 Arts building is a multi-use redevelopment project that incorporated urban renewal and green building practices. The studios and live/work lofts have natural light and easy access to coffee and goodies at mmm…Coffee in the 910 courtyard. Supported arts in the community include ceramics, theater, eco-architecture, floral design, mixed media, music, pastel and photography.
The Collab.Den
Website: thecollabden.com
Membership: none, fees for sessions vary
What they offer: It’s a virtually-based networking platform run in four major creative cities. Denver is cool enough to make the list. The Collab promotes less competition and more collaboration through monthly and bi-monthly workshops. Sign up for an appointment to learn from a skilled Denverite and/or post your own educational opportunities. Collab’s broad goal is to build strong local, regional and national presence while promoting diversity.
Like Minded Productions
Where: 2700 Walnut St., Denver
Website: likemindedproductions.com
Membership: Open to consultation
What they offer: Bringing art to the streets, Like Minded is a print shop and art collective that’s led mural projects all over the city. Its studio at the heart of the RiNo Art District has an open door policy — they’ll support any creative person who comes through seeking guidance or solidarity in growing an artistic practice.
Fashion Group International – Denver
Website: denver.fgi.org
Membership: $70 annual dues for Associate Memberships, $145 for Executive Membership (requires being in a professional position in a fashion related industry for three or more years)
What they offer: The FGI community is online and is therefore there wherever and whenever needed. Services for members include trend reports, bulletins with business insights, membership directories to connect to peers and mentors and an archive with 75 years of fashion inspiration. Denver’s chapter hosts showcases and business programs, and recently celebrated its 60th anniversary of serving the fashion and lifestyle industries.
READ: Fashion Group International Celebrates 60 Years in Denver
Denver Design Incubator
Where: 2040 Clay St., Denver
Website: denverdesignincubator.com
Membership: $75 per month, other levels of involvement and rates available
What they offer: Time to spend time with someone other than your mannequin? Denver Design incubator provides resources, education and development to support a thriving apparel and sewn products industry in the city. Members have full access to the studio and its equipment as well as storage cubbies and access to the Sourcing Library, which includes books of swatches and trims from vendors domestic and abroad. Extra workshops teach practical elements of pattern making or sewing and things on the business side like Social Media 101 and Fashion Law.
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Anna Sutterer
January 7, 2019 Taylor Reply
Stain’d Arts is another great writing collective that hosts workshops, open mics and prints a journal. Artists, writers and musicians are involved and it’s free 🙂
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Two Point One
Two Point Two
Headscratchers
Gotei 13
Hollows
Orihime
Uryu and Quincies
Zanpakutos
Ho Yay
Shikai Confirmed
Shikai Edition
Shikai Jossed
Shikai Open One
Shikai Open Two
Shikai Silly
Crowners
Awesome Music
Just Bugs Me
Narm
Tropes A-G
Tropes H-R
Tropes S-Z
The Five-Man Band, clockwise from top: Yasutora 'Chad' Sado, Orihime Inoue, Ichigo Kurosaki, Rukia Kuchiki and Uryu Ishida. And Kon.
"We stand in awe at that which cannot be seen."
—Rukia Kuchiki
Ichigo Kurosaki would have liked to have been an Ordinary High School Student. Unfortunately, his ability to see and hear ghosts (and his orange-colored hair) kept getting in the way of a normal life. This is all he knows of the spirit world until the day he encounters Rukia Kuchiki, a Soul Reaper whose profession requires her to destroy evil spirits ("Hollows") and send good spirits ("Pluses" or "Wholes") to the afterlife. When Rukia is injured while trying to slay a powerful Hollow about to kill Ichigo and his family, she offers the boy a portion of her powers to defeat it in her place. Unfortunately, his abnormally-high amount of spiritual energy absorbs all of her power instead, forcing him to take up her duties until she can recover and return home.
Bleach starts off as a quirky Urban Fantasy action-comedy, but soon becomes a much more standard Shonen Fightin' Anime with the start of the Soul Society arc. In it, Rukia is arrested by her fellow Shinigami for the crime of transferring her powers to a human, and taken back to the afterlife ("Soul Society") to be executed. Naturally, Ichigo wants to mount a rescue. Training montages, Shonen Upgrades and ridiculously complicated plans ensue. This arc is infamous for introducing Loads and Loads of Characters (tripling the previous cast; manga author Tite Kubo has admitted that when he creates new characters, he does it to avoid writers' block), drastically changing the formula and tone of the series, and for its sheer length, which coined the meme, "Are they still in Soul Society?"
That said, this change of direction has led to not only one of the most ludicrous Wham Episodes in manga history, but many an awesome moment as well, and its continued popularity speaks for itself. Hell, it even has musicals! It remained one of the "Big Three" long-running shonen manga/anime in serialization today (or... then), and it inevitably gets compared to its colleagues, as well as Dragon Ball (of which Kubo is inspired by) and Yu Yu Hakusho (which shared the same director). It's also notable for having one of the largest Peripheral Demographics in the history of shonen manga -- it has not so much an Estrogen Brigade as an Estrogen Legion.
After 10 long years, the manga is announced to enter its final arc, which began on February 8, 2012. The anime ended after 7 1/2 years on March 27, 2012 in favor of the Naruto spinoff Rock Lees Springtime of Youth, leaving the ending to be the only arc not planned to be adapted to animation.
There are fourteen story arcs so far, including the anime-original Filler:
Substitute Shinigami Arc (Volumes 1-6; episodes 1-14)
Soul Society Arc (Volumes 7-20; episodes 15-63).
Bount Arc (Filler; episodes 64-109)
Arrancar Invasion Arc (Volumes 21-27; episodes 110-143)
Hueco Mundo Arc (Volumes 27-35; episodes 144-167, 190-205)
New Captain Arc (Filler; episodes 168-189)
Turn Back The Pendulum Arc (Volumes 36-37; episodes 206-213)
Fake Karakura Town Arc (Volumes 37-46; episodes 216-226, 266-296)
Zanpakuto Rebellion Arc (Filler; episodes 229-255)
The Beast Swords Arc (Filler, episodes 256-265)
Deicide Arc (Volumes 46-48; episodes 297-316)
Gotei 13 Invasion Army Arc (Filler; episodes 317-342)
The Lost Agent Arc (Volumes 49-54; episodes 343-366)
The Thousand-Year Blood War Arc (Volumes 55-)
The English dub is currently running in America on Cartoon Network's Toonami block. The Japanese version is now broadcasting the new episodes on a one-week delay from Japan on Hulu, or on a 1hr delay for Crunchyroll subscribers, as well as a one-week delay for free viewers.
On February 22, 2012, Warner Brothers Studios announced the licensing and planned development of a live-action Hollywood movie.
Feel free to check out Ichigo's companions character sheet and six more on the other side of the link. Bleach is also amongst those few anime that earned its own Die For Our Ship, Ho/Foe Yay, Fan Nickname, Getting Crap Past The Radar, and Complete Monster pages. This page has gotten so long that it is necessary to give both the movies and the Anime their own page and character sheet. Under Construction - See the discussion page as to why.
It now has a page discussing one of its DS outings, Bleach: The 3rd Phantom.
Note: This article is not about a laundry detergent or the Nirvana album. Sorry. It also (usually) has nothing to do with Brain Bleach.
Please revamp the main trope pages by moving all character tropes to their respective characters.
If you are watching the English dub or haven't read the manga, there are major spoilers below.
Bleach is the Trope Namer for:
Flash Step: A favorite combat maneuver of most Soul Reapers (called Shunpo in Japanese). The Arrancar have their own move called Sonido, the Quincy have Hirenkyaku, and the Fullbringers have Bringer Light. Despite the different names (and claims by various practitioners that their version is better), the only apparent difference between them is the sound effect each one makes. This is even Lampshaded by Gin Ichimaru in one of the omakes.
Tropes used in Bleach include:
Show me your bankai, All The Tropes.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/w/index.php?title=Bleach&oldid=1692346"
Trope Namers
The Epic
FAI International
Studio Wanpack
Asahi Production
DR Movie
Trope Overdosed
Fantasy Anime and Manga
Multiple Works Need Separate Pages
Action Adventure Series
Pages with working Wikipedia tabs
One-Word Title
Manga of the 2000s
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Antifa’s Identitarian Ideology
- August 8th, 2019
While the Antifa movement may defy easy characterization, one of its most animating features is a commitment to opposing the alleged right-wing racism practiced or condoned by “millions” of “white nationalists.” They condemn any such endorsements of so-called identitarian concepts. But who are the real identitarians? And to which movement is identitarianism both the centerpiece of their rhetoric, and a smokescreen to hide their true agenda? A look at online material promoting an upcoming Antifa-type action offers clues.
According to a recent tweet by embattled journalist Andy Ngo, “Antifa is leading a ‘Border Resistance’ militancy training that will converge on a 10-day siege in El Paso, Texas.” The website Ngo references is BorderResistance.com, with the tagline “Call to Action in El Paso September 1-10.” The homepage displays a graphic poster headlined with the words “CALL TO ACTION,” followed by the somewhat nebulous phrase “Border Resistance Convergence.”
As has been painstakingly emphasized in the wake of the tragic mass shooting in El Paso on August 3, nowhere on this website are the words “Antifa,” or, for that matter, anything that might remotely be construed as synonymous with the violence that anyone paying attention would know accompanies Antifa protests, whether they’re in Portland, Berkeley, Charlottesville, or countless other places.
For that matter, it is unclear whether or not this “convergence” will still occur—Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick has “warned the left-wing group Antifa against coming to the state following the mass shooting in El Paso.” It is reasonable to assume that Patrick would have also been referring to the planners of the “Border Resistance Convergence,” regardless of whether or not they have any formal connection to Antifa cells.
Nonetheless, the “Border Resistance” website does contain language offering insight into the ideology of these organizations, whether they are directly backed by Antifa or part of the collection of local and regional groups that align themselves with the movement. It is an ideology that is as steeped in identitarian divisiveness as it is riddled with contradictions.
Antifa’s Identitarian Ideology Is Embraced by the Mainstream Left
While organizations like Antifa—along with the planners of the “Border Resistance Convergence”—embrace identitarian ideology, the same ideology in only a slightly less virulent form is embraced by the mainstream American Left.
The 10 days of “trainings and direct actions” that are (were?) planned for El Paso are to “help us address US-funded genocide and local concentration camps.” Evidently, if you’re a far-left, anti-American ideologue, such language gets a pass on its hyperbole. To such a believer, today’s conditions in the El Paso Processing Center and those enforced 75 years ago at Treblinka are indistinguishable.
Identitarian ideology becomes evident, along with continuing contradictory logic, in the next paragraph, where prospective travelers to this “convergence” are advised that when they go to El Paso, they will be in “Tigua, Raramuri, Piro, Suma and Manso territory.” Reminding virtually everyone in North America that they are trespassing on stolen land has become a favored trope of the far Left. But how is this rational? If this is Tigua (etc.) “territory,” doesn’t that territory have borders?
Why would the organizers of the El Paso Border Resistance Convergence assert the legitimacy of Tigua (etc.) territory, yet deplore the existence of United States territory? Is this “border resistance” convergence only based on the illegitimacy of U.S. borders? Looking back in history, had no tribe existed in the El Paso area before the Tigua (etc.) overran them? It was wrong that Europeans overran Tigua (etc.) territory, so now it’s OK for foreigners to overrun Texas?
The next sentence offers some clarification: “This convergence is being run by Indigenous & QTPOC (Queer, trans, people of color) leadership and anyone who passively or aggressively disrespects that will be asked to leave.”
Ah ha. Indigenous people—presumably including the local Tigua (et. al.), will run the “convergence,” along with the “QTPOC” cohort. Descendants of Europeans—so long as they’re “white,” lack a Hispanic surname, are heterosexual, and identify as the sex on their birth certificate—are indeed required to defer to everyone else.
Further reading of the “convergence” promotional material verifies this elevating of “QTPOC” people into positions of supremacy. For example:
“We are very much relying on white comrades to donate money and throw down on renting temporary spaces for our more vulnerable friends.”
“Are you coming prepared to follow the direction of Indigenous, Black, Brown, and most affected-centered leadership?”
“It is the responsibility of those of privilege to financially support others to join us for this convergence.”
“How can we make this space safer in the current context of the world concerning topics such as Decolonization, the prevalence of Racism even in leftist spaces, inter-racial conflict, the cis-white-hetero-patriarchy, etc.”
Before continuing, let’s admire the creativity in this new and hyper-inclusive alphabetical innovation: “QTPOC.” What a fine way to maximize the inclusive capacity of five characters. Gone is LGBTQ, and POC (“people of color”) is no longer an orphan. “L,” “G,” and “B” are presumably now subsumed within “Q,” and of course “T” for “trans” shall be retained because “trans” is the hottest new category of victim, and now there is room for “POC” to be merged to create a brand new, linguistically efficient string of letters: QTPOC.
But how does alphabetizing every possible identifiable group that might have any conceivable grievance and proclaiming all of them to be victims of the “cis-white hetero patriarchy” (CWHP?) bring people together? Do these strident, simplistic calls for retribution, restitution, repentance, and submission elicit compassion? Or do they erase compassion?
The Left’s Identitarianism: “QTPOC Supremacy”
While the organizers of the “convergence” in El Paso are enforcing QTPOC supremacy among their participants, why is it when we see video and photos of similar demonstrations in recent years, the demonstrators seem overwhelmingly to be white, if not actually from that most deplorable subset of white, the “cis-white-hetero-patriarchy” (CWHP)?
From available evidence, albeit anecdotal, it seems implausible that the individuals organizing these “convergences” and “direct actions” are not mostly white. But rationality, or, for that matter, actual QTPOC supremacy, is not the ultimate objective of the identitarian Left in America.
Which brings us to the true ideology of America’s far Left, from Antifa to academia: It is a coalition of mostly white activists who despise capitalism, private property, traditional American values, their own heritage, and, arguably, themselves. They couch their Communist core values in the same identitarian rhetoric that they claim to oppose when it comes from right-wing sources.
When it comes to identitarian politics, the difference between Right and Left—and it’s a big one—is that only a minute fraction of conservative, pro-capitalist, pro-American ideologues are identitarians, whereas the American Left is defined by its identitarian politics. It is their seductive currency, obscuring the nihilistic agenda of international Communism, which is the deadliest ideology in the history of the world.
Apart from an insignificant fringe, the American Right does not emphasize identity group hierarchies and other forms of identitarian demagoguery in their political messaging not only because it is anathema to their ideology, but also because they don’t have to. The ideals of individual freedom, compassionate capitalism, and inclusive nationalism are powerful enough to occupy center stage.
The American Left, by contrast, must emphasize identitarian messages and identitarian policies because their hidden agenda is to establish the 21st century’s version of Communism. They are fighting to impose a neo-feudalist international corporate socialism on the American people. Most of them will never see their righteous identitarian fury for what it is: useful idiocy.
Photo Credit: Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
Edward Ring is a senior fellow of the Center for American Greatness. He is a co-founder of the California Policy Center, a free-market think tank...
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https://apnews.com/e6fc02ebcc644379861b80f87152c9bd
Government business and finance
Employment figures
Leading economic indicators
United States Presidential Election
Labor economy
Poll: Americans prefer low prices to items ‘Made in the USA’
JOSH BOAK & EMILY SWANSONApril 14, 2016 GMT
WASHINGTON (AP) — The vast majority of Americans say they prefer lower prices instead of paying a premium for items labeled “Made in the USA,” even if it means those cheaper items are made abroad, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll.
While presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are vowing to bring back millions of American jobs lost to China and other foreign competitors, public sentiment reflects core challenges confronting the U.S. economy. Incomes have barely improved, forcing many households to look for the most convenient bargains instead of goods made in America. Employers now seek workers with college degrees, leaving those with only a high school degree who once would have held assembly lines jobs in the lurch. And some Americans who work at companies with clients worldwide see themselves as part of a global market.
Nearly three in four say they would like to buy goods manufactured inside the United States, but those items are often too costly or difficult to find, according to the survey released Thursday. A mere 9 percent say they only buy American.
Asked about a real world example of choosing between $50 pants made in another country or an $85 pair made in the United States — one retailer sells two such pairs made with the same fabric and design — 67 percent say they’d buy the cheaper pair. Only 30 percent would pony up for the more expensive American-made one. People in higher earning households earning more than $100,000 a year are no less likely than lower-income Americans to say they’d go for the lower price.
“Low prices are a positive for US consumers — it stretches budgets and allows people to save for their retirements, if they’re wise, with dollars that would otherwise be spent on day-to-day living,” said Sonya Grob, 57, a middle school secretary from Norman, Oklahoma who described herself as a “liberal Democrat.”
But Trump and Sanders have galvanized many voters by attacking recent trade deals.
From their perspective, layoffs and shuttered factories have erased the benefits to the economy from reduced consumer prices.
“We’re getting ripped off on trade by everyone,” said Trump, the Republican front-runner, at a Monday speech in Albany, New York. “Jobs are going down the drain, folks.”
The real estate mogul and reality television star has threatened to shred the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. He has also threatened to slap sharp tariffs on China in hopes of erasing the overall $540 billion trade deficit.
Economists doubt that Trump could deliver on his promises to create the first trade surplus since 1975. Many see the backlash against trade as frustration with a broader economy coping with sluggish income gains.
“The reaction to trade is less about trade and more about the decline in people’s ability to achieve the American Dream,” said Caroline Freund, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “It’s a lot easier to blame the foreigner than other forces that are affecting stagnant wage growth like technology.”
But Trump’s message appeals to Merry Post, 58, of Paris, Texas where the empty factories are daily reminders of what was lost. Sixty-eight percent of people with a favorable opinion of Trump said that free trade agreements decreased the number of jobs available to Americans.
“In our area down here in Texas, there used to be sewing factories and a lot of cotton gins,” Post said. “I’ve watched them all shut down as things went to China, Mexico and the Philippines. All my friends had to take early retirements or walk away.”
Sanders, the Vermont senator battling for the Democratic nomination, has pledged to end the exodus of jobs overseas.
“I will stop it by renegotiating all of the trade agreements that we have,” Sanders told the New York Daily News editorial board earlier this month, saying that the wages paid to foreigner workers and environmental standards would be part of any deal he would strike.
Still, voters are divided as to whether free trade agreements hurt job creation and incomes.
Americans are slightly more likely to say free trade agreements are positive for the economy overall than negative, 33 percent to 27 percent. But 37 percent say the deals make no difference. Republicans (35 percent) are more likely than Democrats (22 percent) to say free trade agreements are bad for the economy.
On jobs, 46 percent say the agreements decrease jobs for American workers, while 11 percent say they improve employment opportunities and 40 percent that they make no difference. Pessimism was especially pronounced among the 18 percent of respondents with a family member or friend whose job was offshored. Sixty-four percent of this group said free trade had decreased the availability of jobs.
The AP-GfK Poll of 1,076 adults was conducted online March 31-April 4, using a sample drawn from GfK’s probability-based KnowledgePanel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
Respondents were first selected randomly using telephone or mail survey methods and later interviewed online. People selected for KnowledgePanel who didn’t otherwise have access to the Internet were provided access at no cost to them.
http://ap-gfkpoll.com
On Twitter follow Emily Swanson at @EL_Swan and Josh Boak at @joshboak
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Bill Clinton’s (possible) half-brother, Arkansas Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller, has died of a mysterious blood disease. This illness forced him to withdraw from the race for Governor, leaving the race open for the sleazy Asa Hutchinson (see the amazing Fortress America story). In 1973, it was Win who announced that his father, Winthrop, the black sheep of the Rockefeller family (largely because he wasn’t evil enough), was withdrawing from his race to be reelected governor, as Winthrop had contracted pancreatic cancer.
In even more Rockefeller-ish news, a usually highly unreliable Russian source is reporting that the mysterious explosion of a doctor’s house in New York, attributed in all the media to the doctor’s wish to commit suicide in the house and destroy it to spitefully deny it to his divorced wife (and complete with a crazy email which, of course, no one can prove actually came from the doctor, and with the complication that the explosion will likely increase the amount that the ex-wife gets!), was actually an attempt on the life of one of the doctor’s patients, Henry Kissinger. This isn’t as crazy as it seems. The doctor was a cardiologist (although almost always described in the media as an emergency medicine specialist), and apparently was regarded as one of the best doctors in New York. Despite being portrayed in the media as a crazed misanthrope, those who knew him only had good things to say about him, and don’t feel he would do anything to hurt anybody. In the divorce proceedings, the court accepted the fact that the partly Jewish doctor, who himself fled execution by the Nazis, liked to torment his Jewish wife by posting swastikas around the house (it was in fact the swastikas that formed the main basis for the court’s decision). The court made the unusual ruling that the doctor’s interest in the house, left by the doctor’s parents to the doctor and his daughters, would form part of the assets to be shared by the wife, a decision which eventually led to the upcoming sale of the house.
YouTube Still Monetizing, Promoting Climate Science Denial, Report Finds - [image: Burning forests satellite view with play button for YouTube climate denial report by Avaaz] Read time: 8 mins You don’t have to look far to find mi...
This shit's gotta stop
The swimming pool massacre at Qana
Offence dressed as defense
Mel's helpful musings
Hezbollah versus the 'experts'
Suicide mission to fill swimming pools
Background on Lebanon
The next trick (in a series of tricks)
Latuff Lidice
The feeble stirrings of the American immune system...
Reassessing the Hariri assassination in the light ...
American 'progressives' support war crimes
Outlaw state
The suicide parade
Israel's incompetent strategy
Apollo 11 tapes missing
The very strange saga of Adam Gadahn
The Syrian deal
Zidane metaphor
Why did they murder Philip Merrill?
More uncovered history of the Israel Lobby
Kenny boy, dead or alive?
The horrible danger of peace
Kenny Boy lives!
More on the Zionist plan
The Zionist plan for the Middle East
Oil and deceit
Racial hatred as the real essence of Israel
Israeli math
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Strange case
A comment at Zero Hedge by boattrash:
"Instead of ousting Maduro, Trump should be getting pointers from him on how to deal with a coup."
"The Strange Case of Chrystia Freeland and the Failure of the ‘Super Elite’" (Ehret). Some surprisingly very woke stuff here, including the roles of Freeland mentor and fellow Rhodes Scholar Bob Ray (who, for a while, between bouts of being a Liberal, posed as the 'socialist', and disastrous, premier of Ontario), and - footnote 4 - ur-globalist Maurice Strong, who was up to this kind of serious evil decades before anybody else.
This is the 'help' with China that Freeland asked the Assholians for, and, exactly as you would expect, makes things much, much worse for Canada: "U.S. Senate passes resolution commending Canada for its actions in Huawei case".
Speaking of Canuck conspiracies, this one is pretty much mainstream thinking amongst Alberta knuckle-draggers: "Vivian Krause: Rachel Notley, the Rockefellers and Alberta's landlocked oil" (since this was published Alberta premier Notley has lost to über-piece-of-shit Kenney). Say what you will about the details, but there is a staggering fact - a billions of dollars fact - which requires explanation, which is that western Canadian oil doesn't fetch near what world prices would indicate it should fetch. If this much money was disappearing in any other context, people would be scrambling to find reasons and fixes, conspiracy theory or otherwise, but this one is essentially ignored in Canada.
"Anti-Racist Canada promotes Video by Anti-Palestinian, FOX News Filmmaker" (Engler). What we should have learned by now is that the 'left' is hopelessly beshekeled, having the world's worst ((('donor'))) problem. It has always been this way, as the oldest trick in the book is Khazars passing their anti-Gentilism off as 'progressive', with the shekel donations to match.
"New Green MP's fraught history with the NDP over Israel paved the way for his election" (Smith). He had been booted from the NDP - another group with a debilitating ((('donor'))) problem - for saying a few relatively sane things about Israel.
"Venezuelan police tow deputy opposition leader Edgar Zambrano to jail in his car"!
"Found this, thought it was pretty good for people who don't realise what's going on." (Doll). Even if we get around to doing the tiny things politicians have come up with in pretending to be doing something - and there is no evidence that any of these things are going to happen - we are still grievously far from the bare minimum required to avoid total disaster.
I'm not suspicious of Anglin on the JQ, as real hoaxers simply don't mention it, or try to change the subject in various defined ways (even if Anglin is being used as some kind of cautionary tale allowing for more Khazar whining and subsequent anti-gentilism, mass murdering, and land theft, they'd still remove the truth from his JQ writings, which are good enough to be very convincing), but his Koch-sucking writing on climate change, an issue which is already grievously affecting the very people Anglin claims to champion, is extremely suspicious. Climate change denial is where I get the strongest CIA-feel from Anglin.
"David Duke and Richard Spencer are Purposefully Not Being Banned From Twitter" (Anglin). If they ban everybody, they will lose the foundations of their political lies.
"Iran Withdraws From Certain Aspects of the Nuclear Agreement" (Dagres). It is interesting that the Atlantic Council fuckwits are relatively sympathetic to the position of Iran, and even give them strategic kudos.
"Environmental Crisis, Oil Geopolitics and the Trump Diversion" (Urie). I'm no more inclined to give Assholians the benefit of the doubt on this than I am inclined to give the average Khazar a pass due to the fact his or her leaders are said to be 'crazy'. It is a very convenient out. We get the politicians we deserve.
"Israel’s New Plan to Annex the West Bank: What Happens Next?" (Shany):
"Three principal sets of issues need to be considered when reviewing the legality under international law of the planned annexation of settlements/settlement blocs. First, such a move appears to run contrary to the inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war. This principle is articulated in the preamble to U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 (1967); in multiple U.N. resolutions proclaiming the status of the West Bank as occupied Palestinian territory and expressing opposition to any change in the status of the territory not agreed to by the parties through negotiation; and in the ICJ advisory opinion on the Wall, which rejected the de facto annexation of part of the West Bank.
The current annexation plans draw on the Trump administration’s recent recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Arguably, the unique circumstances cited by the U.S. as justification for annexation in the Golan case—occupation in a defensive war and the presence of an ongoing security threat—would be relied upon in the context of the West Bank too. While the U.S. position had been heavily criticized internationally, it may give Israel the political cover it needs to avoid some of the diplomatic repercussions of the annexation. Or at the very least, the Israeli government may believe this to be the case. Significantly, unlike in the Golan Heights, Israel has never recognized the sovereignty of any other political entity in the West Bank—and this may lead it to have fewer inhibitions in asserting its sovereignty there.
Second, the annexation plans run directly contrary to the Oslo Accords—and more generally to the two-state vision that both parties, including Israel under Netanyahu, accepted in the past. The unilateral creation of Israeli sovereign enclaves runs contrary to the obligation to negotiate a permanent status arrangement with the Palestinians, and effectively creates Palestinian enclaves in the nonannexed area with limited contiguity and almost certainly no sustainable viability as an independent state. This division of territorial control looks more like the South African system of Bantustans than the foundation of a viable two-state solution.
Third, the annexation plans will perpetuate Israel’s control over large parts of the West Bank, effectively subjecting the Palestinian residents living next to the annexed areas to its authority on a day-to-day and permanent basis. These residents will be dependent on Israel regarding their movement and in connection to their basic rights to health, work, family life and more. Involuntarily subjecting a large local population to the power and authority of a foreign state—without providing that population with the right to naturalize and to partake in the design of government policies that affect daily life—raises significant questions of democratic legitimacy. If indeed the annexation plans result in extensive de facto control over West Bank Palestinians, then the decision not to de jure annex their villages does not fully resolve the demographic challenge they pose. And it leaves in place the aforementioned democratic deficit.
This situation will result in a continuous state of affairs in which two sets of laws apply to two adjacent populations: one able to exercise the full rights attendant to citizenship, and the other barred from those rights. Such a development could push Israel over the edge, from a democracy toward a regime whose laws de facto underlie a structural and permanent system of ethnic discrimination."
"Pandering to Israel Means War With Iran" (Giraldi) (it is funny how all these scoundrels confirm, without the slightest question, all the worst 'anti-Semitic' conspiracy theories):
"Israel is desperate to confirm its legitimacy in international fora, where it has few friends in spite of an intensive lobbying campaign. It seeks to have countries that do not have an embassy in Israel to take steps to establish one, and it also wants more nations that do already have an embassy in Tel Aviv to move to Jerusalem, building on the White House’s decision taken last year to do just that. Not surprisingly, nations and political leaders who are on the make and want American support have drawn the correct conclusions and pander to Israel as a first step.
One only has to cite the example of Venezuela. Juan Guaido, the candidate favored by Washington for regime change, has undoubtedly a lot of things on his plate but he has proven willing to make some time to say what Benjamin Netanyahu wants to hear, as reported by the Israeli media. The Times of Israel describes how “Venezuela’s self-proclaimed leader Juan Guaido is working to re-establish diplomatic relations with Israel and isn’t ruling out placing his country’s embassy in Jerusalem, according to an interview with an Israeli newspaper published Tuesday.”
One would think that Guaido would consider his interview sufficient, but he has also taken the pandering process one step farther, reportedly displaying huge video images of the flags of both Israel and the United States at his rallies.
This deference to Israel’s interests produced an almost immediate positive result with Netanyahu recognizing him as the legitimate Venezuelan head of state, followed by an echo chamber of effusive congratulations from US (sic) Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who praised the Jewish state for “standing with the people of Venezuela and the forces of freedom and democracy.” Donald Trump’s esteemed special envoy for international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, also joined in, praising the Israeli government for its “courageous stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan people.”
A similar bonding took place regarding Brazil, where hard right conservative leader Jair Bolsonaro was recently elected president. Netanyahu attended the Bolsonaro inauguration last December and the two men benefit from strong support from Christian Evangelicals. Bolsonaro repaid the favor by promising that Israel would be his first foreign trip. In the event he went to Washington first, but the state visit to Israel took place in April, just before that country’s elections, in a bid to demonstrate international support for Netanyahu."
The big question, is this brain cancer/frying a real thing, or an anti-Huawei American disinfo campaign: "Selected Articles: The Dangers of 5G Wireless Communication"? It would make sense that if there is documented danger from the current system (which there is, but we're taking the risk as too much money is involved), a system with even more energy involved would greatly increase the problem.
"U.S. campaign against Huawei hits a snag south of the border" (Love). Note how they are lying about giving the northern work to the incompetents at Nokia. People continue to work their way around Assholian stupidity/Evil.
Panopticon conspiracy corner. "FBI has seized Deep Dot Web and arrested its administrators" (Whittaker). "Peter Thiel’s Palantir Was Used To Bust Relatives of Migrant Children, New Documents Show" (Biddle/Devereaux). "Chinese Fund Backed by Hunter Biden Invested in Technology Used to Surveil Muslims" (Fang). "Facebook readies secretive blockchain currency for India with ex-PayPal recruits" (Verhage). "Facebook's crypto project echoes board member Peter Thiel's original vision for PayPal" (Rodriguez).
Regional threats
Partly because Sheldon Adelson likes him
'Advice' from the Yanks
Turkey versus CIA
Priceless state-stabilization experiences
We’re not looking for regime change
WFTJ, WTF?
US chaos
Rounding error
Lap dogs and lackeys
Just think about John Bolton as a human being
We’ll take over your media and destroy your countr...
'Faced
Useful purpose on the ground
No, they know that you are cowards and hypocrites
Innocence and self-pity
Fat Slim
'Terrorists' and 'gunmen'
Bone Saw II, the Sequel
The cult of the exterminated
Pierre!
Failed to follow through
Secret reason
Complete failure / no one decent
The Fix and Fits
Aggressive mocking / excremental attempt
Constitutional legitimacy
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1950-1959 Cadillac
Cadillac's 1959 models, like this eye-catching 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz, sported a new, more curvaceous body.
As flamboyant as the 1958 Cadillacs appeared, there was another styling frontier ahead. That threshold was crossed with the immortal 1959 Cadillac.
GM gave its division's largest cars, the so-called C-bodies, another new basic design for 1959. For Cadillac, that meant more-curvaceous styling devised as a hurried reply to Chrysler's resurgent '57 Imperials.
Hallmarks included huge curved-top windshields, thin-section rooflines, slim roof pillars -- and soaring fins of heroic proportions, adorned with high-riding bullet taillamps.
Offsetting such excesses were worthy suspension changes and improved power steering. In addition, a V-8 stroked to 390 cubic inches produced predictably higher horsepower: to 345 on Eldorados, to 325 on other models.
The Cadillac De Ville became a distinct series for 1959, offering hardtop sedans with flat-top four-window styling and a rounded six-window roofline, plus a hardtop coupe.
The 1959 Cadillac Series 62 duplicated these body styles, and added a convertible.
After just two years and 704 units, the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham was fully restyled, too. Moreover, assembly was farmed out to coachbuilder Pininfarina in Italy. Only 99 Eldorado Broughams were built for '59, another 101 of the near-identical '60s. Though appearance was clean (a preview of Cadillac's 1961 styling, as it turned out), these cars were larger (on a 130-inch wheelbase), heavier, and not put together as well (bodies contained lots of lead filler). They're collector's items now, but restoring one is a chore.
Also still pillarless (as it had been since 1957) was the lush 1959 Cadillac Sixty Special, now on the 130-inch wheelbase shared with other standard models, including the line-topping Eldorado Seville, Biarritz, and Brougham.
Cadillac prices were generally higher for 1959, with Series 62 models at around $5,000 and the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado going for $7,400 and up. Still, Cadillac built more 142,000 cars for the model year, a fair gain on 1958.
The 1959 Cadillac Series 62 hardtop is another example of evocative 1959 Cadillac styling.
At the time, of course, it took some foresight, or a certain contrarian outlook, to believe that American car styling had reached some outlandish zenith with the 1959 Cadillac. But even within GM there was a sense that things had to be dialed back, and indeed they were, beginning in 1960.
What can't be disputed is that the 1959 Cadillacs, defined by those saber-edged fins and projectile taillamps, are among the most evocative objects of the 20th Century. What precisely they evoke is open to interpretation, and that's part of the magic.
The 1960s would evoke a cleaner, more streamlined Cadillac design, as well as record sales numbers. Read our 1960-1969 Cadillac report for more on this Cadillac era.
For more infomation on Cadillac, see:
Cadillac: Learn the history of America's premier luxury car, from 1930s classics to today's newest Cadillac models.
Consumer Guide New Car Reviews and Prices: Road test results, photos, specifications, and prices for 2007 Cadillacs and hundreds of other new cars, trucks, minivans, and SUVs.
1940-1949 Cadillac: Cadillac produces some of its most beautiful cars and some of its most important engineering developments -- not to mention the tailfin.
1960-1969 Cadillac: Cadillac brings unmatched elegance to the luxury market and is rewarded with unchallenged popularity.
1957-1960 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham
1959 Cadillac Cyclone
1953-1966 Cadillac Eldorado
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appsphilly
APPS Archive
HomeEars on the SRC: June 21, 2018
Ears on the SRC: June 21, 2018
by Diane Payne
1:00 PM Action Meeting: Charters
Present for Final SRC Meeting
How fitting that the SRC ended on the Summer Solstice, which many cultures celebrate with festivals and rituals. Philadelphians now celebrate the sunset of the SRC. This state-imposed governance operated outside the democratic system with little interference from elected officials or objections from the media. But we as Philadelphians must insure that the incoming appointed school board remains transparent and accountable to the public. Full democratic voice will not be restored until disenfranchisement ends and Philadelphians vote for its school board–just as all other 499 school districts in Pennsylvania do.
A special meeting of the SRC was held at 1:00 p.m. to consider and vote on charter school issues and the regular Action Meeting was held at the normal time of 4:30 p.m. All four SRC Commissioners were present for both meetings. Seven members of APPS were present; four members testified on behalf of public education at the 1:00 p.m. meeting. Nine members of APPS were present and five APPS members spoke in defense of public education at the 4:30 p.m. meeting. (The SRC will reconvene next Thursday, June 28th, only to approve the minutes for the official record.)
There was a large and vocal group of parents from Mayfair Elementary demanding safe conditions for their kindergarten and first grade students, along with another vocal and persistent contingent from Strawberry Mansion High School (SMHS) fighting for their school’s survival. (Details about both struggles follow.)
Charter School Onslaught
The SRC voted on a total of 17 charter school resolutions that addressed amendments or renewals. The resolutions contained no text, so the public had no way to know the facts on the charters. In addition, none of the conditions the SRC included in the renewals were released to the public. All renewals are for 5 years unless otherwise noted:
SRC-1: Charter Amendment for KIPP West Philadelphia C.S. to move locations. Unanimous approval by SRC.
SRC-2: Charter Amendment for Marianna Bracetti Academy C.S. to increase enrollment by 100 students. Unanimous approval.
SRC-3: Charter Amendment for Southwest Leadership Academy C.S. to change locations . Unanimous approval.
SRC-4: Charter Non-renewal for Architecture and Design C.S. (CHAD). Vote for non-renewal passed with three Yes votes; Commissioner Green cast the sole No vote.
SRC-5: Charter Renewal for Discovery C.S. Unanimous approval for renewal with “conditions”.
SRC-6: Charter Renewal for Imhotep Institute C.S. Unanimous approval for renewal for ONE YEAR “with conditions”.
SRC-7: Charter Renewal for KIPP West Philadelphia Preparatory C.S. Unanimous approval for renewal “with conditions”.
SRC-8: Charter Renewal for Maritime Academy C.S. Unanimous approval for renewal “with conditions”.
SRC-9: Charter Renewal for MaST. Unanimous approval for renewal “with conditions”.
SRC-10: Charter Renewal for Memphis Street Academy C.S. (Renaissance charter) . Unanimous approval for renewal “with conditions”. Note: this vote was postponed since April 2016 when the Charter Schools Office recommended Non-renewal. Although the school showed little improvement, SRC voted for 5 more years.
SRC-11: Charter Renewal for Universal Alcorn C.S. (Renaissance charter). Unanimous approval for renewal “with conditions”.
SRC-12: Charter Renewal for Universal Institute C.S. Unanimous approval for renewal “with conditions”.
SRC-13: Charter Renewal for Universal Vare C.S. (Renaissance charter). Unanimous approval for renewal “with conditions”. Note: SRC postponed vote from April 2017 after CSO recommended Non-renewal. SRC voted for 5 more years despite no evidence of improvement.
SRC-14: Charter Renewal for Young Scholars C.S. Unanimous approval for renewal “with conditions”.
SRC-15: Grant new charter for Deep Roots C.S. Approved 3-1; Commissioner Neff voted No.
SRC-16: Grant new charter for KIPP North Philadelphia C.S. Approved 3-1; Neff voted No.
SRC-17: Grant Charter for Mastery Prep C.S. (the former Gillespie Middle School). Approved 3-1; Neff voted No.
Even though Resolution SRC-4 was a vote not to renew the CHAD charter, it is only the beginning of the public process. There will be public hearings in front of a hearing officer and opportunity for public comment before any actual revocation occurs. This begins a lengthy, time consuming, and expensive process to decide the final outcome of a charter operator that is failing. Even after this process, the charter operator has the right to appeal to the state level and further delay an outcome. Charter Schools Office Director DawnLynn Kacer noted that it could be a two to three year process. On the other hand, public schools placed on the chopping block have no recourse once it is on the chopping block– just look to Wister Elementary for proof.
The SRC, claiming quasi-judicial exemption, once again failed to adhere to the stipulations of the Sunshine Act by providingnotext for the resolutions, only titles. They then voted on these title only resolutions deliberately withholding information from public view until almost a week after the meeting when the full text of the resolution appeared on the district website. APPS expects the new School Board to follow both the letter and the spirit of the PA Sunshine Act which protects the public’s right to know what our public officials are voting on and to allow and encourage public engagement on matters of public concern. You can view the district’s text of these resolutions (posted AFTER the meeting). You can view the staff presentation by the Charter School Officer (CSO) here.
There are 71 pages of text dealing with these 17 resolutions. Every renewal and charter grant includes numerous conditions which begs the question: are these operators adequately submitting documentation and do they engage in practices that satisfies the charter school law? (Even considering that Pennsylvania has one of the worst charter school laws in the nation.) Charter schools sell themselves as the savior of failing public schools. They purport to operate more efficiently and educate better than their public school counterparts. Yet the evidence on the performance frameworks which can be accessed on the district website for each and every school fails to show stellar results in the majority of charter schools. They suck the taxpayer dollars into a huge black hole further crippling existing public schools. When will the citizens and politicians of this state acknowledge that this is an excessively expensive failed experiment which has undermined and harmed a public institution that serves the common good? Probably not until the “follow the money” trail is exposed.
Resolutions SRC-1 (KIPP West Philadelphia C.S.) and SRC-3 (Southwest Leadership Academy) were both amendments for location change. Public schools are anchors in their community. Charter schools change locations without consideration of building community stability because the reform model relies on disruption not stability. APPS members asked why a community is not notified or consulted before the SRC gives the OK for a charter to move into that community.
SRC-4 (Architecture and Design C.H.S. , also known as CHAD) was the sole resolution for Non-renewal. This school received a “Does Not Meet Standards” designation in all three categories–Academic, Organizational, and Financial. It was alarming that the school has steadily declined academically in each year of its charter. Nonetheless, a vocal school contingent came to fight to keep their school open despite its startling failures. The Inquirer reported that the school’s administration had hired a consultant to organize opposition to non-renewal.
SRC-11 (Universal Alcorn), SRC-12 (Universal Institute), and SRC-13 (Universal Vare) are all part of the Universal portfolio of 7 schools run by music mogul Kenny Gamble, who, like many charter founders, has no education experience or training. All seven of these schools have been plagued with questionable financial practices. In all seven schools, there are 21 Academic, Organizational, and Financial subcategories which all schools are rated on by the Charter School Office (CSO). Only TWO categories out of all possible 21 received a “Meets Standards.”
Even more disturbing, both Universal Alcorn and Universal Vare were given to Universal as part of the Renaissance program. Universal assured the SRC and the public that it would dramatically improve outcomes. The fact that that never happened doesn’t mean Kenny Gamble and Universal have to give up control of the schools. Vare was recommended for Non-renewal in 2016 with a rating of “Does Not Meet Standards” in both the academic and financial categories and Approaches Standards in the Organizational category. Vare was allowed to languish without a vote for two years, resulting in a de-facto renewal until this date when a renewal was recommended with 38 conditions. This hardly constitutes dramatic improvement of outcomes this constitutes abuse of taxpayer funds.
The Mastery chain of 14 schools, including 9 Renaissance charters, also fails to deliver any outstanding or dramatic improvements. Instead, now that Mastery has a mini-district within the SDP, it cries foul when asked to deliver outcomes that show they are worth the taxpayer money funneled into their coffers. Mastery schools also languish in a non-renewal state yet SRC-17 (Mastery Prep) is being recommended a charter grant to continue the mediocre performance and drain on taxpayer funds.
4:30 p.m. Action Meeting
Dr. Hite, in his opening remarks, informed the audience that a rigorous summer schedule was in place to insure safe, welcoming schools for students and staff. Twenty-six schools were chosen for various improvements: construction, lead paint removal, HVAC repairs, and asbestos abatement. Dr. Hite did not name the schools or explain how they were chosen.
Mayfair Elementary Parents Want Answers
Dr. Hite also addressed the growing community unrest around the relocation of Kindergarten and first-grade students from Mayfair Elementary School to Austin Meehan Middle School. Mayfair has been struggling with an escalating overcrowding problem for many years. The district has watched from the sidelines as many Northeast schools, including Mayfair, have exceeded maximum enrollments. In another example of talking about parent engagement while failing to actually engage in it, there was NO dialogue with the school community until AFTER the district made its decision. The district then informed the Mayfair community of its decision to renovate a portion of the Meehan Middle school to accommodate the young students. The students will be bused from Mayfair to Meehan.
After seeing photos of the space to be used, parents were alarmed that renovations would not be completed in an safe manner for their children since it appeared that lead, asbestos, HVAC, and mold were all in need of repair and/or abatement. Not to mention concerns about young children in a middle school building positioned adjacent to Lincoln High School. Community members brought their concerns to City Councilman Bobby Henon, who also had no prior notice of the district’s intent.
Councilman Henon accompanied a large group of Mayfair parents, many immigrant families, to testify and to ask Dr. Hite to address their concerns. The Mayfair community had been told that a modular solution was not on the table, yet resolution SRC-48 alluded to a plan to provide modular space to nearby Solis-Cohen. Understandably, parents wanted to know why their request for this solution was not considered while a neighboring school was to have that very solution offered to them. The parents also questioned the wisdom of spending resources to improve this controversial space when Meehan is scheduled to be demolished in two years.
Hite failed to explain why a modular solution was available to Solis-Cohen but not Mayfair. It remains unclear what will happen when school begins only a month away.
At the end of the public speakers, Commissioner Green questioned the Mayfair/Meehan plan. He noted that he didn’t remember voting on a capital budget resolution for this conversion. District Chief Operating Officer Danielle Floyd was called to the table to answer questions. Floyd testified that there was no such vote because all work was being done by district staff. When Green asked how much it would cost, Floyd listed the following expenses: $116,000 for materials, $340,000 of district staff overtime, $31,000 to move furniture, and $159,000 for new furniture for a total renovation fee of $646,000. So, for $646,000 will the youngest of our students be entering an environment that is safe and free of asbestos, lead, mold and with functioning HVAC systems? Would Dr. Hite, or any member of the SRC, want their young children or grandchildren in that environment?
Community Continues Fight to Keep Strawberry Mansion High Open
In another display of the district’s lack of parent and community engagement and district doublespeak, the bulldozing forward by the administration on plans to close SMHS are undeterred. But community members fighting for their school are also undeterred. Five members of the community spoke in defense of their neighborhood school, including the former principal; they vowed to not back down. Hite’s plans to keep the school open for vendors bringing in unproven programs; that does not equate to a neighborhood comprehensive high school. Our schools are anchors in our communities. The Hite administration has little respect for continuity, stability, and community wishes. SMHS was starved of resources. Feeder schools became charter schools, but Hite fails to acknowledge the conditions leading to diminished enrollment. Hite’s plan to not open a 9th grade at Mansion is a thinly veiled distraction. SMHS is closing as a neighborhood high school. What will be in store for the building is yet to be established.
Passage of Resolution A-19 approved reorganization for four schools, including “truncating” the grade structure at Mansion. Commissioner Neff proposed separating SMHS out of this group to make it a separate resolution, which the Commissioners voted on and approved. Mansion became resolution A-19B. Hite addressed his version of what the district is doing regarding “planning” (forgetting that Deputy Superintendent Eric Becoats already told the Mansion community that the change was already in the “implementation stage”). He called Chief of Schools Shawn Bird to the table to supply additional information. Nothing Hite nor Bird said explained how SMHS would remain a comprehensive neighborhood high school, hence the doublespeak. As members of the Mansion group shouted out when false statements were being made to the SRC, Hite angrily shouted back to the audience members “I had to listen to you.” Telling.
Before the vote, Commissioner Neff spoke about her “deep concerns” with this plan. She noted that eliminating the ninth grade would further decrease the school population. She pointed out that as early as last year the district knew it wanted to make changes at Mansion but failed to engage in any community dialogue until this March. She said this plan does not take into account 9th graders transferring into Mansion when they are not successful in other school environments including charters like Mastery Gratz. Neff voiced concern over this vulnerable population and questioned whether they would fall through the cracks. She asked how those students could be tracked to see what happens to them. Finally, she stated that she just failed to understand how truncating a grade helps in planning.
When it was time to vote, Commissioners Green and Burns voted yes and Commissioner Neff voted no. Commissioner Richman paused in uncertainty, had sidebar conversations with Hite, again paused, had an additional sidebar conversation with Hite and finally joined Green and Burns to vote yes. The resolution passed 3 to 1, thus eliminating the 9th grade for next year. As the commissioners were voting, an audience member was shouting to leave this for the new school board to decide. Why wouldn’t the Commissioners yield a controversial decision to the incoming board?
It is the duty of the governing body to do its homework, research, publicly debate, and vet the many resolutions that come before them. The governing board should not be a rubber stamp to any superintendent’s vision. Superintendents come and go. We the stakeholders should have a say in a vision for our schools because we are here to stay.
Procurement Complaints
Speaker # 26 , Mark Steinberg, represented Imperial Dade Bag and Paper Company. Who knew that that Bag and Paper company speaker would be so controversial? Steinberg vehemently complained about the district failing to follow its own procurement policies which resulted in his company losing a contract. On June 28th, an article appeared in the Public School Notebook by Greg Windle, exposing exactly with this speaker was complaining about. “…the District is preparing to argue that it has no obligation to follow state law or enter into competitive bidding when it awards contracts for professional services, despite promising to do so in its procedures sent to bidders.” Oh SDP, it is really tiresome when you feel rules, procedures, and accountablity applies to everyone but you.
Block Voting and Mega Spending
101 resolutions were voted on in 4 blocks. The SRC spent a total of $133,536,478 at this meeting. The total money accepted in grants and donations was $5,576,338.
The new School Board will be meeting the third Thursday of month, just as the SRC did, but the meeting time is moved back to 5:00 p.m. You still call the Office of Family and Community Engagement by 4:30 on the day preceding the meeting to register to speak at a School Board Meeting. The number is 215-400-4180.
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Priority School Reports 2016
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SRC: Dissolve Thyself
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Testimony of Nimet Eren to the BOE, December 12, 2019
MaST III Charter report
The Growing Influence of Jounce Partners
Defenders of Public Education speak at the New Charter Applications Hearing, December 20, 2019
Deep Roots Charter School
Franklin Towne Middle Charter School
Community Organizations Demand Open Meetings for School Board Nominating Panel
New Charter Application from String Theory Charters: Joan Myers Brown Academy
Avery D. Harrington Elementary Focus Groups 1 to 4
Eyes on the SRC: June 21, 2018
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Residents’ voice has not been heard in Latvia again
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Bruce Deitrick Price
Jason Siko
Atwood & Calio
Marie Bussing-Burks
William M. Shea
Erin K. Leonard
Omar Sabbagh
North Wood
Barry Jones
Bert Cardullo
William J. Maloney
David Walpuck
Keith Moser
C.J. Jos
Abhimanyu Pandey
Desogus and Casu
Barbi Leifert
Robert J. Begiebing
Denise Sassoon
Robert Hauptman
Stan Schatt
Roberta Salper
Ralph W. Crosby
Charlene Swinton-Mattox
Iris Novak
Intern Editing Guide
Pennsylvania Literary Journal (ISSN#: 2151-3066; Library of Congress Catalog Number: PN80.P46) is a printed peer-reviewed journal that publishes critical essays, book-reviews, short stories, interviews, photographs, art, and poetry. PLJ is available through the EBSCO Academic Complete and ProQuest databases in full-text. It is also on sale as single issues on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and most other online bookstores. It is cataloged in the MLA International Bibliography, the MLA Directory of Periodicals, Genamics JournalSeek, and Duotrope’s Digest. PLJ has published works by and interviews with New York Times bestselling writers like Larry Niven and Cinda Williams Chima. Dr. R. Joseph Rodríguez received the 2015 CCCC Lavender Rhetorics Award for Excellence in Queer Scholarship’s Article Award for his article, “There Are Many Rooms” which appeared in Volume VI, Issue 1 of the Pennsylvania Literary Journal (El Paso Inc).
Subscription: To subscribe to 3 annual issues for $45 (includes shipping), email Director Anna Faktorovich at director@anaphoraliterary.com with your payment preference. The mailing address listed on the contact page can change, so email a subscription request prior to mailing a payment. The options are:
1.You can subscribe via SquareUp
2. Chase QuickPay electronic payment (free with registration, no Chase account opening necessary)
3. PayPal payment
3. Check in US $ mailed to Anna Faktorovich, 1108 W 3rd Street, Quanah, TX 79252
“I have worked with Anna for a few years now and am always pleased with the results. She responds almost immediately to submissions, the journal is professional and always published on time, with both electronic and print options. There is always courteous and yet efficient communication on editorial and business matters. PLJ has interesting, formidable content. It is one answer to the almost uniformly bland and oh-hum state of commercial publishing.” –Louis Gallo, PhD, Professor at Radford University
Editor-in-Chief: Anna Faktorovich
New and Old Historical Perspectives on Literature: Volume 2, Issue 1 ($30 – Click to Purchase): This is the third issue of an academic, literary, peer-reviewed journal. It is the first one available for purchase through Amazon CreateSpace and most major distribution channels. It includes original scholarly essays, poetry, a short story, an interview with a well-known Indian poet, Jayanta Mahapatra, photographs, and book reviews. The Summer 2010 Special Issue: New and Old Historical Perspectives on Literature (Paper $30, ISBN# 978-1-450-58358-9, LCCN: 2011922231, July 9, 2010) uses ideas originated by Stephen Greenblatt in the 1980s. Despite H. Aram Veeser’s 1989 anthology, The New Historicism, and numerous other publications in this field, one is left puzzled about why any historical examination of literature is “new.” We tackle the question of if historicism needs to be further updated. The journal is listed on the MLA Periodicals Directory and is a member of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals. An article about this journal was published in D-Lib Magazine’s November/December 2009 issue. The critical essay and book review writers include established professors from America, England, India, China and other countries across the world. Featuring: Dr. Joan Ferretti Varnum (NYU), Dr. Robert Hauptman (Editor, Journal of Information Ethics), Dr. Eugenia Russell (University of London), Dr. Hugh Fox (Founder of the International Organization of Independent Publishers), Dr. Frank Casale, Dr. Carol Mejia LaPerle, Dr. Stephen Barnes, Dr. Karley Adney, Dr. Robert McParland, Dr. Sirpa Salenius, Dr. Yihsuan Tso, Dr. Louis Gallo, and Dr. Joe Mills.
British Literature: Volume 2, Issue 2 ($30 – Click to Purchase): is a special issue that focuses on examining oppression, rebellion and the structural features in British fiction. Dr. Kelley Wezner writes about the affect of Machiavellian thought on Jonathan Swift. Dr. Mark Zunac discusses human rights and the colonial condition in Mary Robinson. Dr. Victoria Williams researches Dickens’s use of the fairytale-like details and structure in Our Mutual Friend. Dr. Ignacio Ramos Gay talks about Victorian theatrical audience censorship attempting to exclude French theatrical productions from the British stage. Lastly, Dr. Michael Cornelius discusses the suppression of homosexuality from the pages of historical British fiction. LCCN: 2011922233.
Editing Technique: Volume 3, Issue 1 ($10 – Click to Purchase): What are the components of great editing? Are there differences in editorial practices between the United States, Canada, and Australia? What kind of preparation should those hoping to become editors later in their careers obtain? What are the rewards and challenges of working as an editor or as a director of a press or poetry association? In this issue on Editing Technique of the Pennsylvania Literary Journal, interviews were conducted with four outstanding editors of critical and creative magazines to answer these questions. Interviewed Editors: Janet Brennan Croft, Editor of Mythlore; Professor Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Editor of Paterson Literary Review; Dr. Gillian Dooley, Editor of the Transnational Literature Journal; and Dr. Dina Ripsman Eylon, Editor of Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal. ISBN: 978-1-461-16497-5. Publication date: May 8, 2011.
Editor-in-Chief: Anna Faktorovich, Ph.D.
Interviews with Brooklyn Film Festival Winners: Pennsylvania Literary Journal: Volume III, Issue 2 ($40 – Click to Purchase, ISBN#: 978-1-937536-02-2, Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-68114-183-1, Summer 2011, 6X9”, 222pp): The Brooklyn Film Festival invites regional, national and international submissions. I conducted interview the directors, producers, script writers and other creative people, who won awards at the BFF in various categories. This issue should be very helpful for those who hope to build a filmmaking career. Antonio Piazza talks about transitioning from being a working Italian writer to creating a short film that has been shown in nearly 100 film festivals. Stephan Wassmann relates the dangers and adventures of filming bomb metal scrappers during war-time on the Mexican border. Ivaylo Getov describes how one can turn their senior NYU Tisch film school project into an award-winning venture. Massimiliano Verdesca covers special effects on a low-budget and techniques to use when working with actors. Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas chat about the frustrations of youth and the film industry in Canada. Damian Harper touches on the causes and ways to prevent gang-violence in Brooklyn and elsewhere. Joel Fendelman talks about theology and filming locations. Marina Mello boasts about filming in Brazil.
Creative Work: Pennsylvania Literary Journal: Volume III: Issue 3 ($10 – Click to Purchase, ISBN: 978-1-937536-22-0, Fall 2011, 6X9″, 68pp): This Fall 2011 issue of the Pennsylvania Literary Journal includes poetry, short stories, book reviews and a non-fiction story from academics and published creative writers. Among other works, the issue includes a short story by the editor, Anna Faktorovich, “Vampire Daichi.”
New Formalism of/ on the Contemporary: Volume IV, Issue 1, Spring 2012 ($10 – Click to Purchase, ISBN: 978-1937536244, Spring 2012, 6X9″, 144pp) New Formalism is no more a rebaptized deconstruction than it is a reanimated New Criticism. But in a sense one can trace the beginnings of the New Formalism to the work of the only deconstructionist to take on New Historicism directly even as it was just beginning its ascent—J. Hillis Miller. At the end of his 1986 MLA Presidential Address, “The Triumph of Theory,” Miller warns that the material base—that ground of irrefutable referentiality that historicism assumed as a platform on which it could situate its tools of critique—is not beyond questioning. In other words, form subsists even at the pith of matter; one cannot posit or predicate a material base without being aware that this positing is au fond, or at least en passant, formal.
Guest Editor: Nicholas Birns
Guest Editor for New Formalism: Nicholas Birns is co-editor of A Companion to Australian Literature Since 1900 (Camden House, 2007), which was named a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Book of the Year for 2008 and of Vargas Llosa and Latin American Politics (Palgrave, 2010).His book Theory After Theory: An Intellectual History of Literary Theory From 1950 to the Early 21st Century appeared from Broadview in 2010. He teaches at the New School in New York.
Volume IV, Issue 2: Interviews with BFF Winners, Part II ($10 – Click to Purchase, ISBN: 978-1-937536-35-0, Hardback ISBN: 978-1-68114-159-6, 6X9″, 116pp): In this issue of the Pennsylvania Literary Journal, one of the main sections is a new set of interviews with the winners of the Brooklyn Film Festival, and the second main section is two rebellious, anti-monarchical works from the 19th century by British authors. The Brooklyn Film Festival interviews with producer-directors focus on three films, none of which were made in New York. Dara Kell talks about making Dear Mandela, a film that focuses on the shanty town housing struggles in South Africa. Daniel Long discusses Pigeon Kicker, which looks inward at the psychology of a psychopathic youth. And Tina Gharavi explains her Indian film, I Am Nasrine, about the struggles of a woman in a chauvinist world. The rebellious stories are passionate, political statements that should be of interest to students of British political fiction and rhetoric. George Cruikshank, the infamous cartoonist and satirist presents his 1820 long, illustrated poem, The Queen’s Matrimonial Ladder, which bitingly relates the various indescretions of the English Queen. In a later, 1838, unpublished essay, Jeremy Bentham makes the highly controversial at the time claim that like America, Canada should also be emancipated by the British Empire in Canada. Emancipate Your Colonies!
* Nominated for the 2013 Pushcart Prize
Editor: Anna Faktorovich, Ph.D.
Interviews with Best-Selling Young Adult Writers: Volume IV, Issue 3 ($10, 6X9”, 112pp, Fall 2012, ISBN-13: 978-1-937536-38-1, Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-68114-156-5, Click to Purchase): This special issue of PLJ includes interviews with Cinda Williams Chima, James Dashner and Carrie Ryan, all New York Times best-selling young adult fiction writers. They are interviewed by Catherine W. Griffin, who has a Master’s of Science in Journalism from Columbia University. They share their experiences with writing in a popular genre, and give specific advice for both new and professional writers. Those who love reading their books should appreciate this close inside look into their minds and lives. You will also find Thomas Carlyle’s 1840 2nd edition of Chartism and a couple of critical reviews of new academic books.
Editor: Anna Faktorovich; V5I1
Reviews of Popular Fiction: Volume V, Issue 1 ($10, 6X9″, Spring 2013, ISBN: 978-1-937536-46-6, 66pp Click to Purchase): This issue includes eight highly critical and mostly negative reviews of popular fiction (Twilight, Wallander, Percy Jackson, The Last Boyfriend, “The Island of Doctor Moreau,” You Have to Kiss a Lot of Frogs, The Troubled Man: A Kurt Wallander Novel, The Flower and the Flame, and The Draco Tavern). Readers who have been disappointed with popular fiction before should read these. The issue is also full of the usual academic reviews, essays, fiction and poetry you’ll always find in PLJ. PLJ is focusing more on popular fiction recently to reflect the interests of the majority of the modern audience.
Editor: Anna Faktorovich
Interview with Larry Niven: Volume V, Issue 2 ($10, 6X9″, Summer 2013, ISBN: 978-1-937536-49-7, 68pp, Click to Purchase): This special issue of the Pennsylvania Literary Journal: Interview with Larry Niven features an interview with the best-selling science fiction author, Larry Niven, in which he discusses the writing craft, the life of a professional writer, and his unique science fiction style. Niven’s Ringworld has won many prestigious international awards, and his newly released collection of short stories, The Draco Tavern is one of the best recent examples of structured, literary science fiction. The issue also includes a short story from the editor, Anna Faktorovich, “Coal and Rice” about a struggling Chinese rice farmer and a wealthy, corrupt Chinese businessman. In addition, the first scholarly essay in the volume is from an NPR employee, who’s finishing his PhD at Brown. Byrd McDaniel critically evaluates the modern paintings of Kehinde Wiley, a Yale MFA graduate painter whose work has been displayed at some of the top museums around the world. Wiley’s painting is also on this issue’s cover.
Volume V, Issue 3: ($10, 6X9″, Fall 2013, ISBN:978-1-937536-60-2, 160pp, Buy on Amazon or CreateSpace): of the Pennsylvania Literary Journal marks the end of its fifth volume, its fifth year and the thirteenth issue in print. The issue includes a short fiction story from the Editor, Anna Faktorovich, “Murder on a Crab Boat”, which was inspired by a Discovery Channel show, Deadliest Catch. This issue also includes a short story about a love-struck drug addict from Louis Gallo. These two are followed by a section of critical essays, including Linda Gill’s critical essay on Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and the relationship between gender and religion in the work, then Will Clemens’ essay on why the TV show The Big Bang Theory has been successful, then Zachary Tavlin’s essay on the cinematic subject, and finally Natacha Guyot’s essay on the revision of Indian myths in Bollywood movies. The next section includes a few poems from four writers: James Grabill, Leonore Wilson, Sharon Lynne Joffe and Noel Sloboda. The last section is composed of two academic book reviews. The first review is by Dongho Cha, and she reviews Powers of Possibility from Oxford UP. The second review is by Laura Madeline Wiseman, who released a poetry book with Anaphora a month ago, and reviews the Hornbook from Horseless Press.
Film Theory and Modern Art, Volume VI, Issue 1: ($10, 6X9″, Spring 2014, ISBN: 978-1-937536-72-5, 136pp, Click to Purchase on: Amazon, CreateSpace, Barnes and Noble, or Kindle for $2.99): includes two interviews with the winners of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, Nathan Zellner (Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter) and Janicza Bravo (Gregory Go Boom). It also features an essay from one of the most respected film academics in the world, Bert Cardullo, “Modish Artifice vs. Modern Art.” There are also essays from Dr. R. Joseph Rodriguez, Dr. Keith Moser, and Aaron Lee Moore. You will also find innovative poetry from Jefferson Holdridge (the Director of the Wake Forest University Press), Louis Gallo (professor at Radford University), and Mark Jones (professor at Trinity Christian College). Finally, there is a review from the Editor, Anna Faktorovich, of a television series available in-full on Netflix, Breaking Bad. It is discussed at-length, with a focus on the elements that position it somewhere between great art and disastrous pop filmmaking, and a special look at acting methodology through a study of the supporting lead, Aaron Paul.
Interviews with Novelists: Volume VI, Issue 2: ($10, 178pp, 6X9″, Summer 2014, ISBN: 978-1-937536-84-8, Purchase on CreateSpace, Amazon, or Kindle for only $2.99): Features interviews with best-selling and award winning novelists. Bob Van Laerhoven, winner of the 2007 Knack Hercule Poirot Prize, for his mystery novel, Baudelaire’s Revenge, talks about his horses, literary fiction, and about the boundaries of obscenity. John Michael Cummings, winner of The Paterson Prize for Books for Young People for his novel, The Night Freed John Brown, discusses reasons for writing young adult fiction, selling the first novel to Penguin, and other curious topics. Bestselling visionary author of The Transhumanist Wager, Zoltan Istvan, chats about the adventures he had working for National Geographic, and the philosophy behind his unique novel. The issue also includes a review of The Pizza Underground, a comedy rock band of which Mack Culkin is a minor band member. The issue is illustrated with photographs from a New York City photographer, Jeremy Freedman. The academic essays are from four widely published professors, David Comfort, Diane Todd Bucci, Robert Cardullo, and Jeffrey P. Beck, the latter is also the Dean of the Graduate College at Kean University. Fiction pieces include a short story from the Editor, Anna Faktorovich, “My Life as a Werewolf,” and stories from the Florida professor Luis Martínez-Fernández, and Tom Tolnay, the publisher of Birch Brook Press. The poets are all also very established professors, editors and writers, and include: Kika Dorsey, Diane Sahms-Guarnieri, KV Wilt, and Michael Zucaro.
Nine Reviews of Poetry: Volume VI, Issue 3: ($10, 148pp, 6X9″, Fall 2014, ISBN: 978-1-681140-06-3; Purchase on CreateSpace, Amazon or Kindle): This issue includes nine reviews from the Editor, Anna Faktorovich, of recently released poetry collections, with a special look at the recurring styles and themes and cover design. The essays focus on modern and postmodern cultural artifacts. There are two essays on drama from a well-known film critic, Bert Cardullo. Michael Denison’s essay is on the connections between the postmodern novel, Gravity’s Rainbow, and the ancient Chinese game, Go. Keith Moser finds Foucauldian elements in a 2006 film, Harkis. You’ll also find four short stories and poems from six poets. The artwork in the issue is by Allen Forrest.
Interviews with Geraldine Brooks and Farmers: Volume VII, Issue 1: ($15, 166pp, 7X10″, Spring 2015, 84 photographs, ISBN: 978-1-512068-34-4, Purchase on CreateSpace, Amazon, or Kindle for only $2.99): This issue begins with an interview with the Pulitzer Prize winning author, Geraldine Brooks, who talks about the writing craft, her novels and her life outside of fiction. This feature is followed by four interviews with farmers from the Frankfort, Kentucky region, one of whom, Michael Spencer, is on the Kentucky state Farm Bureau board and another, Richard Jones, runs the regionally well-known Happy Jack’s Pumpkin Farm. The critical essays include one from the editor, Anna Faktorovich, on the Kentucky farm cabin myth, which is best-recognized as the Lincoln cabin myth. She developed this essay as part of her research in the Kentucky Historical Society’s Special Collections, where she did a three-week fellowship this April 2015. There are also essays, short stories and poetry from Bert Cardullo (established film critic and professor), Michael O’Connor (a successful script writer), Louis Gallo (editor and professor), Jim Davis (Harvard master’s candidate), A. Joachim Glage (attorney and Hollywood writer), Scott Gordon (fiction writer and independent filmmaker), Janet Ruth Heller (president of the Michigan College English Association), and Keith Moser (professor, editor and author of multiple titles).
Interview with Mary Jo Putney: Volume VII, Issue 2: ($10, 6X9″, 80pp, ISBN: 978-1-68114-196-1, 10 photographs, Summer 2015; Purchase on CreateSpace, Kindle or Amazon): This issue of the Pennsylvania Literary Journal features an interview with Mary Jo Putney, a best-selling romance author. A ten-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America RITA, she won RITAs for Dancing on the Wind and The Rake and the Reformer and is on the RWA Honor Roll for bestselling authors. She has also been awarded two Romantic Times Career Achievement Awards, four NJRW Golden Leaf awards, and the Romance Writers of America Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. The issue also includes an interview with an established poet and interim director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Connecticut, Sean Frederick Forbes, interviewed by Rodrigo Rodriguez. There are also short stories, an essay, and poetry from R. Sebastian Bennett, Dennis E. Donham, Joseph De Quattro, Fred Skolnik, and Howard Winn.
Interviews with Gene Ambaum and Corban Addison: Volume VII, Issue 3, Fall 2015: ($20, 214pp, 6X9″, ISBN: 978-1-519787-95-8, 40+ photographs; But printed book on Amazon or CreateSpace; or purchase a Kindle for $2.99): This issue of the Pennsylvania Literary Journal includes an interview with Gene Ambaum, one of the creators of the popular Unshelved cartoon about a library. The second featured interview is with Corban Addison, the author of three international bestselling novels, A Walk Across the Sun, The Garden of Burning Sand, and The Tears of Dark Water. There is also the largest selection of extensive book reviews to appear in PLJ to-date with starred reviews in all genres, in fiction and non-fiction, and from both high and low-brow literature. The essays section includes Keith Moser’s exploration of the post-Marxist philosophy of Jean Baudrillard and Michel Serres, and Marco R. S. Post’s study of monologue and dialogue in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace. You will also find varied short stories (comedies, absurdities, tragedies, and mysteries) from J. T. Townley, Tommy Partl, Rachel Veroff and Thomas Elson, and new poetry from re-appearing authors, Howard Winn and Louis Gallo.
Reviews of Academic Books and Journals: Volume VIII, Issue 1: Spring 2016: ($15, 192pp, 6X9”, ISBN-13: 978-1-533169-02-0; Purchase on CreateSpace or Amazon): This PLJ issue includes one essay on silenced books in the USSR by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed. The poetry includes is written with different forms by a diverse group of poets: Roxana Cazan (English professor at Saint Francis University in Pennsylvania), Louis Gallo (professor at Radford University) and Brian Glaser (assistant professor of English at Chapman University). Dozens of detailed and honest book reviews are offered for recent releases from major publishers in both fiction and non-fiction from the Editor, Anna Faktorovich. There are several unique short fiction stories in the last section from: Joel Allegretti, Jacques Carrié, Will Lahneman, Tom Tolnay, Fred Waage and Anton Yakovlev on everything from assassinations to dinners and jobs.
Reviews of Fiction and Non-Fiction: Volume VIII, Issue 2: Summer 2016: ($10, 170pp, 6X9”, ISBN-13: 978-1-5374-1896-4, September 1, 2016; Purchase on CreateSpace or Amazon): This issue of PLJ includes many detailed critical non-fiction and fiction book reviews from the editor, together with a narration of her misadventures at the American Library Association conference. An essay by Andrea Phiana Borunda offers a critical study of cultural memory in Cabeza de Vaca’s La Relacion. Michelle Hunt’s essay considers how women might be treated as commodities in Breath, Eyes, Memory and The Bluest Eye. The poetry section offers dense and complex literary poems by Thomas Piekarski and John White.
Interview with a Marketing Guru: Volume VIII, Issue 3: Fall 2016: ($10, 134pp, 6X9”, ISBN 978-1-541242-78-4; December 21, 2016; Purchase on Amazon or CreateSpace): This issue includes a couple dozen scholarly book reviews from the editor, which cover women’s, worker’s, tax-payers, and other social rights. They also include some digressive thoughts on duels, authorship, revolutions and various other pertinent topics. The featured interview is with Mark Stevens, the CEO of MSCO and marketing guru and author of the Sucks series, who has advised world’s leading companies including Nike, IBM and GE. In the scholarly literary criticism section, D. Bruno Starrs, Australian academic, writes about Bruneian self-censorship in both literature and news publishing. Nichole DeWall, associate professor of English at McKendree University, writes about faith in George Herbert’s poetry. Then, the poetry section, includes innovative and conservative works from Kristina Nichole Brodbeck, Cecelia Burton, Louis Gallo and Gerard Sarnat. Among the stories, D. Seth Horton has contributed a series of three short fictions about U.S. presidents on the eve of a new president’s inauguration. Other stories by Susan Duke, Lynn Levin and David Pratt recall jam, travel and warfare. The spontaneous photography throughout, including the cover, is by Mark Wyatt.
Interview with Midwest Book Review’s Editor, Jim Cox: Volume IX, Issue 1: Spring 2017: ($15, 146pp, 6X9”, ISBN: 978-1-546759-21-8; Purchase on Amazon or CreateSpace): This issue includes an interview with Jim Cox, who has been editing the Midwest Book Review for over four decades, publishing thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of book reviews, with a focus on books from small presses that typically struggle with finding interested reviewers. Jim opens up about the realities of making a living from operating a review publication. His insight is essential to any author interested in self-promotion, and who is interested in how the review process looks from the other perspective. The “Introduction” features an aside from the Editor on the plague plagiarism is on American culture and society. The Editor also reviews dozens of new scholarly book releases. A critical essay by Swan Kim (Assistant Professor of English at Bronx Community College) analyzes Chinese female identity in Haling Nieh’s Mulberry and Peach. E. L. Risden (Professor of English at St. Norbert College) contributed a unique blend of brisk stories and poetic interludes. Two of PLJ’s returning poets are once again featured, Louis Gallo and Howard Winn (Professor of English at SUNY), as well as some other great poets, such as Kevin Casey, S. R. Graham, Daniel Nemo, Rikki Santer, and John Zedolik.
*Nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize
Interview with Carol Reardon, Battlefield Guide and Professor: Volume IX, Issue 2: Summer 2017: ($15, 130pp, 6X9”, ISBN: 978-1974698783; Purchase on Amazon or CreateSpace): This summer issue of the journal begins with an interview with Carol Reardon, who has just retired from serving as the Professor of History at the Pennsylvania State University after thirty years of service. She has also served on various government committees, advised on films, and worked as a travel guide for fun. Anna Faktorovich, the Editor, gave a five-star review to Reardon’s latest book in a previous issue, and wanted to discuss her work. In the next section, over a dozen scholarly, creative non-fiction, and non-fiction books are reviewed. Some of them are more readable, enjoyable and helpful than others. The “Essays” section includes three critical works. The first is from Sarah DeGeorge, and she studies queer rhetoric in Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9. Next, Mark A. Doherty takes a Marxist look at Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Finally, Heather Duerre Humann examines narrative time in Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad. The poetry section includes modern works from Gary Duehr (recipient of the NEA Poetry Fellowship), Robert Fabre, Louis Gallo (professor at Radford University), J.R. Kangas (retired Kettering University professor) and Joel Schueler.
Interview with Otto Penzler, Owner of Manhattan’s Mysterious Bookshop and Press: Fall 2017: Volume IX, Issue 3: ($15: 130pp, 6X9”, 978-1-981866-36-6; Purchase on Amazon): In these pages, you will find an interview with Otto Penzler, the Owner of Manhattan’s Mysterious Bookshop and Mysterious Press. He has owned several other publishing businesses over the years, and has edited some of the most prestigious mystery anthologies. He talks about diverse topics from ebooks to the power of the Big Four publishers to marketing strategies and onto buying space for a bookstore. Everybody from writers who want to publish a mystery to publishers who want to expand will find something helpful in Penzler’s advice. The book reviews offer a dozen in-depth reviews of scholarly (collections of reviews or essays) and general interest books (Southern recipes), with reflections on where academic scholarship is heading. Then, Kathleen Murphey’s (associate professor of English at the Community College of Philadelphia) essay analyzes rape myths in modern fantasy fiction. These heavy speculations are followed by short stories from Alan Fleishman, Mark Howard, M. T. Ingoldby and Michael A. Livingston. The poetry section includes pieces from Gale Acuff, Keith Moul, Howard Winn (Professor of English at SUNY), and John Zedolik.
Interview with D.J. Butler, Lawyer and Speculative Writer: Volume X, Issue 1, Spring 2018: ($15, 210pp, 6X9”: 978-1-719439-52-7; Purchase on Amazon): This PLJ issue presents an interview with D.J. Butler, who has had a successful career in corporate law, and has published several fantasy and children’s books with top presses. It also carries over forty, detailed book reviews of fiction, scholarly, general interest and art books by the editor, Anna Faktorovich. Then, an essay by John Basourakos (Assistant Professor at Fu Jen Catholic University) about David Mamet’s (American) examination of a besieged and troubled American manhood in his plays. You will also find a longer than usual collection of innovative new poetry from John J. Brugaletta (professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton), Millard C. Davis (entomologist), Louis Gallo (teaches at Radford University), Anna Kapungu, Simon Perchik (attorney), Timothy Robbins, Sam Robertson (served as a Visiting Fellow at the University of Notre Dame), Michael Skau (emeritus professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha), Kim Cope Tait, William Waters (associate professor at the University of Houston Downtown) and Howard Winn (Professor of English at SUNY). Finally, the short stories section includes works by Kristin Fouquet, Phillip Parotti (taught at Sam Houston State University) and Henry Simpson.
Poetry Overload: Volume X, Issue 2: Summer 2018: (220pp, 6X9”; Softcover: $15: 978-1-68114-475-7; Hardcover: $25: 978-1-68114-476-4; Purchase on Amazon or Barnes & Noble): The content of this issue includes an extended set of detailed reviews from the editor, Anna Faktorovich, of recently released and forthcoming scholarly and general interest non-fiction books. These titles cover the history of the Americas, recent political issues and politicians, biographies of famous or applauded individuals, space exploration studies or personal narratives, and various other works (some outstanding and some nonsensical). Then follows a scholarly essay by R. Joseph Rodríguez, a professor at the California State University, Fresno, on reading and teaching poetics about the Borderlands. This season brought in an unusually heavy volume of innovative, modern and emotional poetry from Jonathan Bracker, Michael Ceraolo, Louis Gallo (a regular contributor, who offered eleven poems and all of them were too good to refuse), Susie Gharib, Rob Luke, Tom McFadden, Andrew Alexander Mobbs, Timothy Robbins, Robert Ronnow, and Kobina Wright. In the last section, you will find a set of short fictional stories on topics ranging from the sea to Eastern European fairytales from John W. Dennehy, Alan Fleishman, Kevin Harris and Kathleen Murphey.
Scholarly Reviews: Volume X, Issue 3, Fall 2018: ($10, 214pp, 6X9”: 978-1-792069-90-1; Purchase on Amazon or Barnes & Noble): Within you will find a series of over forty non-fiction book reviews that touches on science, biographies, history, politics, philosophy, as well as collections of canonical fiction and other curious new releases from academic publishers. An additional review by Valerie Smith considers Jane Hirshfield’s Nine Gates. Betinna Hansen presents an interview with Christian Moerk. Among the essays, Susie Gharib examines the tree metaphor in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves. And Kathleen Murphey reviews science fiction and fantasy takes on slavery in the works of N.K. Jemisin and Tomi Adeyemi. On the fiction front, short pieces are included by Susie Gharib, Liam O’Buachalla, Phillip Parotti and Marina Rubin. A wide variety of poetic styles are displayed in works from Christopher Barnes, Louis Gallo, Layla Lenhardt, Keith Moul, Kathleen Murphey, Fabrice Poussin, Heather Sager, Michael T. Smith, and Peter Specker.
An Avalanche of Reviews, Poetry and Stories: Volume XI, Issue 1, Spring 2019: ($15, 322pp, 6X9”; ISBN: 978-1-072098-48-5; Nonfiction—Literary Criticism—American—General; Purchase on Amazon or Barnes & Noble): This issue includes the most massive set of book reviews yet from the editor, Anna Faktorovich. Nearly a hundred titles are analyzed closely, in search for what these new releases signify for world culture, society, and scholarly knowledge. The topics covered range from history to investing to literature; the publishers represented are primarily university presses with a few mainstream trade publishers. Those who are seeking insightful books as part of their research or to enjoy in their free time, will find some great tested ideas here. The scholarly essays included are on silence in Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed and a tailoring in The Waves and Madame Bovary by Susie Gharib. The short stories presented are by Alberto Ambard (maxillofacial prosthodontist), Yona Bouskila (scientist), Alan Fleishman (corporate executive), Carolyn Geduld (clinical social worker), Kevin Harris, Ziaul Moid Khan (English teacher at the Gudha International School), Kathleen Murphey (associate professor of English at Community College of Philadelphia), and Jack Smith (fiction editor). Sets of poems are by Christopher Barnes, Lloyd A. Jacobs, M.D. (surgeon), LindaAnn LoSchiavo (dramatist), W. F. Parent, and Howard Winn (Professor of English at SUNY).
A Review of Literary Studies: Volume XI, Issue 2, Summer 2019: ($15, 274pp, 6X9”; ISBN: 978-1-689193-12-2; Nonfiction—Literary Criticism—American—General; Purchase on Amazon or Barnes & Noble): This issue offers one of the longer sets of book reviews of over seventy titles from the Editor, Anna Faktorovich. The books covered come from academic publishers. They are discussed in greater depths than most book reviews from theoretical, historical and comparative perspectives. If you are looking for a general trade book on nutrition or a great art book to put on your shelf, you will find some ideas here. If you are a researcher in the literature field (especially in the British Isles), you will find information on recent releases that most scholars should be familiar with. The essays section includes a theoretical piece from Susie Gharib on the relationship between color and theme in the texts of D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. The second essay by Kathleen Murphey (associate professor of English at Community College of Philadelphia) covers the problem of normalization of rape culture in literature. The short stories offered are by Steve Carr, D. Seth Horton (professor of literature at the University of Virginia) and Ziaul Moid Khan (teaches English at Gudha International School). The poetry section is full of strange and innovative works by Danny P. Barbare, Joseph Chopko, Philip Fried (founding editor of The Manhattan Review), Lloyd Jacobs (Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan), Rob Luke (teaches English at Delano High School), Robin Ray, Timothy Robbins, and Howard Winn (SUNY Professor of English).
The State of Scholarship: Volume XI, Issue 3, Fall 2019: ($15, 338pp, 6X9”; ISBN: 978-1-650217840; Nonfiction—Literary Criticism—American—General; Purchase on Amazon or Barnes & Noble): This issue concludes the eleventh volume of the Pennsylvania Literary Journal. It features over sixty book reviews of scholarly and general-interest non-fiction books from the Editor, Anna Faktorovich. These reviews touch on Faktorovich’s current research in computational linguistics authorial attribution, including some pre-release details from her findings on the true authors behind texts that have been falsely attributed to “Daniel Defoe” and “William Shakespeare”. They also explore the problem of convoluted nonsense gibberish versus the useful breakthroughs that characterize the modern non-fiction publishing industry and scholarly endeavors. This information is designed for literature scholars and members of the general public seeking books to read to expand their understanding of the world. Additionally, you will find: Alan Gibbs’ essay on neo-naturalism and obesity in Shriver’s Big Brother, Joe Sarnowski’s discourse on idealism in Wendell Berry’s poems, and Sara Sass’ scathing article on the Centralia, Pennsylvania mine fire. The collected fictional short stories are by Jason Marc Harris, Hareendran Kallinkeel, Kevin Harris, Ziaul Moid Khan and Kevin Statham. The poetry section highlights creations by regular and new authors including Louis Gallo, Lloyd Jacobs, Fabrice Poussin, and John Zedolik.
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March publication notes… – and waking… - March 30, 2017
[…] and “Fable for a Wilderness Tamed” have been accepted for publication by the Pennsylvania Literary Journal, from Anaphora […]
Sean Interviewed for Pennsylvania Literary Journal - Sean Frederick Forbes - August 30, 2015
[…] Pennsylvania Literary Journal (PLJ) is a printed peer-reviewed journal that publishes critical essays, book-reviews, short stories, interviews, photographs, art, and poetry. PLJ is available through the EBSCO Academic Complete and ProQuest databases in full-text. It is also on sale as single issues on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and most other online bookstores. […]
Revisiting Indian Traditionalism in Shabd | Natacha Guyot - January 19, 2014
[…] ago. It is included in Pennsylvania Literary Journal Volume V, Issue 3, Fall 2013, published by Anaphora Press. I am glad that my paper was accepted for this volume, not only because this isn’t my regular […]
Curriculum Vita « Anna Faktorovich's Career Portfolio - June 1, 2012
[…] Pennsylvania Literary Journal. Editor of 7 Issues in Volumes I-III. 2009-Present. […]
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The Burden of Persuasion
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1st quarter 2nd quarter 3rd quarter 4th quarter Background Show all
Trip to Germany, Italy and Switzerland
Departure from Leipzig
1852: Trip to Germany, Italy and Switzerland
Release of Historier (Stories), including:"Aarets Historie (The Story of The Year), "Verdens deiligste Rose" (The Lovliest Rose in the World), "Et Billede fra Castelsvolden" (A Picture from the Rampart at Castel), "Paa den yderste Dag" (The Final Day), "Det er ganske vist" (That is Quite So), "Svanereden" (The Swan's Nest), "Et godt Humeur" (A Good Mood).
Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann exhibits some of her paintings in London, and Queen Victoria even requests a special presentation at Buckingham Palace. Amongst the portraits is her painting of HCA, completed in 1850. Queen Elisabeth does not, however, purchase this painting, which is later bought by the Melchior family.
Departure from Copenhagen, aboard the steam-ship 'Skirner', to Travemünde and from here on to Lübeck, where he sees eg. the picture frise "Dødedansen" (The Dance of Death). In the diary, 17th May, he comments; "Death certainly looks cheerful". From here by train, via Magdeburg and Halle to Weimar. Is collected by and invited to stay with his old friend Beaulieu, the lord chamberlain. Visits the hereditary grand duke and is obliged to address questions relating to nation. Comments in the diary on 20th May: "Do not feel quite at home".
Also visits Eckermann and Mrs von Gross. Socialises with Liszt and Princess Wittgenstein, who lives with Liszt.
"He and the princess seem to me very like fire-spirits, with flames burning. Momentarily, one may be warmed by them, but one cannot get close to them without being burnt" (diary, 31st May).
Attends a performance of Tannhäuser on the 29th. Feels the music works through thought, but lacks melody. Sees Lohengrin few days later:
"Lohengrin is a good text and wonderful music, but without melody. A whispering tree, without flower or fruit", (dairy, 5th June).
Liszt wishes to stage the opera Ravnen (The Raven) by Andersen and Hartmann. Asks HCA to contact Hartmann on this matter.
Drives with Mrs von Gross and the Beaulieu family out to Tiefurth and sees the park of the writer and landscape gardener, Prince Pückler-Muskaus. The park had recently been laid out according to a new plan. The impressions from this visit may have been significant for HCA's description of the park in "Gartneren og Herskabet" (The Gardener and the Gentry) (1872).
1852: Departure from Leipzig
Receives the German translation of Fliedermütterchen (The Elder-Tree Mother) from Lorck.
Travels to Leipzig, where he is joined by Viggo Drewsen, who has arrived from Copenhagen. Lorck seeks out HCA, accompanied by a painter, who receives the picture by C.A. Jensen to base his work on. Departure from Leipzig on 13th, stopping in Nuremberg, then continuing to Munich, where HCA is invited to visit King Max at Starnberg. After dining at court, there is a romantic sail on the lake, and out on a little island, HCA reads fairy-tales and converses about how both the position of king and poet is a calling. Meets some Americans in Munich who remark:
"That I was so widely read in America that all my novels are sold at the railway stations there!" (the diary, 21st June).
Is requested to visit King Ludwig (father of King Max) at the castle Wittelsbach.
Departs Munich, accompanied by Viggo Drewsen. Via Lindau, Chur and across the Alps (the Splügen Pass) to Italy. From Como by train to Milano (where they go up to the open marble halls of the cathedral: "Like a fantasy castle made of snow" (the diary, 4th July). Return via Como and Luzern (where Viggo Drewsen sees HCA's Werke (works) in the window of a book-seller. They continue on to Zürich, and from there via Schaffhausen and Freiburg to Heidelberg, where HCA by chance meets his friend from the past, August Kestner (Lotte's Sohn (son), the minister resident of Hannover in Rome). The journey continues to Frankfurt. An invitation is received, through an intermediary, from the Augustenborg family to visit them at Homburg. The invitation is declined, because of the national issue. Further on to Kastel by train and from there along the Rhine via St. Goar and Koblenz to Cologne. Then via Hannover, Hamburg and Kiel, on the way back to Copenhagen.
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UQ Holder Chapter 129 Manga Review (Negima Part 2)
October 8th, 2016 AstroNerdBoy
ユーキューホルダー! Manga Review
In the Phantasmagoria, Touta is shown typical happenings with his grandfather when Negi was 10 years old and a teacher at Mahora Academy. There’s an incident where he sneezes and strips seven girls, causing Asuna to punish Negi. For homeroom, Negi’s all female students stuff him with breakfast items. After class, Negi spends the afternoon with Setsuna, Konoka, and Asuna doing some shopping. The day ends with Eva arriving to take Negi for some rigorous training.
Albireo Imma reveals himself as the voice who’s been narrating things. Kurobo also shows up, revealing that Al is the wizard that made it. After Al and Kurobo have a “reunion” of sorts, Al decides to show Touta how Eva came to love Negi. Traveling in the Phantasmagoria to the past, Touta observes an explosion on a castle at the edge of a cliff. Eva is falling, but is saved by Nagi, who’s climbing up. Al shows Touta some of Eva’s time spent with Nagi, including how Nagi ended up putting a curse on her and trapping her at Mahora.
Touta is then shown how Negi and Eva met at Mahora fifteen years later. Touta gets to see how that initially, Eva and Negi were opponents, but after Eva was defeated, Negi began training under her. Touta is shown how Negi’s battle harem grew and how Eva was forced into an adult role. Touta also witnesses when Eva kissed Negi and how happy she looked. With that, Touta is satisfied at having seen Eva happy.
Al questions this and somehow, Eva is able to see Touta in this flashback Phantasmagoria and recognizes him. Immediately, the Mage of the Beginning appears behind Eva. Touta’s “tether” to the real world vanishes and he has form in this world. MotB snares Eva while Al causes many spears to pierce Touta. MotB introduces herself as Ialdabaoth (Ialda). With that, she rips Eva in half at the torso while Al slams Touta into the ground with gravity magic.
MotB mocks Touta for thinking Eva was saved. Touta manages to craw to the broken and bleeding Eva. As Eva’s legs regenerate, an angry Touta retorts to MotB that she doesn’t get to talk about Eva’s happiness and vows to settle things with MotB.
At last Crunchyroll will reveal UQ Holder chapter 129 to the public. At last, we will get to read it.
Man, it has been a while, hasn’t it? However, after such a long wait, I’m happy to say that on a personal level, I loved this chapter, both as a look back at the awesome days of Negima, and as a continuation of the UQ Holder storyline.
Mahou Sensei Negima 2 or Magister Negi Magi 2
Despite its ecchi start, I loved the look back at at the Negima life. From Negi’s sneeze to Asuna going all Naru (Love Hina) on Negi for stripping all the girls, it just made me grin from ear to ear. I got a laugh out of seeing Negi being handled like a certain ermine by Asuna.
I also liked how Akamatsu-sensei managed to work in all of the girls from Negi’s class, even if it was just for a cameo panel. The story of the homeroom and stuffing Negi full of food is a new story, but old ideas that were common in Negima, especially the earlier years of the manga. I loved seeing all of those antics again.
It made me think of how Negima ended. Before we knew it was ending, we had a period of antics, which bothered a lot of fans. I wasn’t bothered because I felt once out of the life or death situation, young teen girls might easily start to forget the things they’d seen and become immature girls again. So it was all fun for me, but disappointing since Negima ended very shortly thereafter.
I liked that Touta recognized Mana, Zazie, and Sayo from his encounter with their older selves. I also liked that he recognized in the form of Isana and Honoka Setsuna and Konoka. (I still think that Isana and Honoka are clones of Setsuna and Konoka respectively.) It is understandable that Touta wouldn’t recognize Ayaka since when he met her, Ayaka was an elderly woman. It would have been nice if Touta pondered about the Yukihiro name, but oh well.
Eva as Eva!
As a long time fan of Eva, I’m glad to see Eva as Eva in this chapter and not as Yukihime. As I’ve said before, it isn’t that I have a problem with the Yukihime form, I just feel that Eva’s true form has a certain level of sass and character that’s missing in Yukihime.
You know, I really hope Akamatsu-sensei takes the time to further expound on things with Eva’s past. We’ve gotten a lot, but I want more. For example, what was Eva doing in that castle that she was literally blown out of? What was Nagi doing climbing the cliff to said castle in order to catch Eva? What kind of things did Eva do with Nagi for the month they were together? And then there’s Eva’s brief time with Ala Rubra.
Reading all of the flashback stuff with Eva and Negi from Negima, I have a desire to reread Negima. Clearly, designed to bring new fans up to speed and make old fans nostalgic for Negima. I wonder if there will be a small uptick in sales of old Negima volumes because of this.
UQ Holder Returns, Featuring the Mage of the Beginning
Up until page 53 of UQ Holder chapter 129, everything Touta was seeing was via a Phantasmagoria. Negi had often used this when viewing memories. The only time that people in the Phantasmagoria could see outsiders is in Negima when Eva created one in order to battle Setsuna without the restrictions of the curse. That all changed when MotB arrived.
I noticed some interesting things when MotB arrived. First, she seems to have converted the Phantasmagoria into reality. Touta’s tether was dissolved and he obtained physical form. Not only that, but Eva was able to see him as well. Does this mean Touta is now in the past within Eva’s resort diorama? Or is the Phantasmagoria now a pocket reality, created by the MotB? I tend to suspect the latter.
Next, after looming behind Eva, MotB took control of Al. Actually, it may have been just prior to her arrival. Either way, I noticed that Al’s long hair strand stood out when she arrived. That may not mean anything, but the fact that her shadow tendrils began winding around him as he attacked Touto with spears indicates control to me.
Finally, MotB binds up Eva, reveals her name to Touta, then rips Eva in half. As I see it, there are two things at work here. First, MotB has further plans for Eva. Second, MotB is trying to make Touta fall into despair. The obvious reason for that is so that Touta doesn’t get in her way.
Gnostic Religion
With the Mage of the Beginning having revealed her name as Ialdabaoth (I think the manga is making it Ialda Baoth), we have a clear indication that Akamatsu-sensei is using Gnostic religious stuff rather than Christianity. This is certainly a direction I did not expect the manga to take. Not only that, but I think it kills any notion that MotB is connected to Amateru. I could be wrong there, but that’s what I think at the moment.
The introduction of Gnosticism might very possibly explain some of the oddness with Karin and her backstory. If that’s true, then I will be OK with Karin’s seemingly Christian origins with Christ not jiving with Biblical accounts.
Not to nitpick, but in the last page, Eva’s left arm is backwards. As such, it appears she has two right arms. 😉
I loved seeing Chachazero back. I wish Touta would have remarked on her. Even though Akamatsu-sensei killed the puppet off, I’d love for Chachazero to have future returns. She is awesomeness, after all.
Finally, how did Kurobo get into the Phantasmagoria? It just appeared, but it never had a tether like Touta.
In the end, UQ Holder chapter 129 ended up being very good for its heavy Negima elements, but also very good for its continuation of the UQ Holder plot. Now to wait another month for the next chapter.
Posted in Manga Tags: AKAMATSU Ken, Crunchyroll manga, Mahou Sensei Negima, UQ Holder
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67 Responses to “UQ Holder Chapter 129 Manga Review (Negima Part 2)”
Its good the manga is back! I really wished it wasnt so ecchi at the start.
This certainly had a mind twisting cliffhanger. Im not sure what the point of MOTB revealing himself to Touta aside a tempting mentally break him.
I’m wondering if Eve was sucked into this artifical reality.
Yeah, I hear ya on the ecchi.
As to Eva, I don’t think she was sucked into this. I tend to think that MotB, as the Lifemaker, simply turned Al’s Phantasmagoria into a pocket reality.
That would make sense that this is an artificial recreation of Eve. Her behavior doesn’t track with her tough-girl attitude she usually displaces. It would also explain why she immediately recognized Tontu after what 500 years since their last encounter in time?
True, but it does appear that Eva recognized Touta after the attack where she took him in and became his guardian.
You know, I had been expecting for the rest of the UQ Holder cast to at least show up in a few panels demanding to know what had happened to Touta. It seems somewhat… unfair to completely leave them out of the special chapter meant to relaunch their series. Even if I prefer the Negima cast, this still feels wrong, because this still was supposed to be their series. Instead, in the introduction of the series to a whole new audience, characters who were supposed to mean as much to Touta as Kuromaru or Kirie don’t even rate a passing mention.
Again, the problem is now the series has identified itself as UQ Holder and Negima 2 at once. It’ll be very difficult to go on without shortchanging one cast or the other. If we just go back to the future from here, the most likely option, then this whole Negima-centered special, the first exposure the new magazine’s intended audience will get to the Akamatsuverse, will be nothing but a fleeting bait for old fans of a cast that already was shortchanged once. If the focus becomes Negima-centered, which I doubt, since the subtitle seems to be mostly fanservice of a non sexual variety, then the UQ Holder members, most of whom haven’t been fleshed out properly yet, will suffer instead. Either option will leave me with a bad mouth taste, because even though I don’t really like most UQ original characters, I prefer when a character is redeemed or improved upon rather than being dumped aside or bashed.
The series is UQ first and foremost. Most of the cast of Negima are either absent or deceased most likely. I suspect next chapter will have things snapping back to reality. I think back to when Negi’s entry into the tournament was revealed and the MotB appeared, this seemed a bit similar to that. Only a lot more violent… I do wonder why the Lifemaker’s motives seem to have decayed into destruction. They never came off as this… douchey back in Negima.
Anyway, good chapter all around. Surprised Touta didn’t recognize Yue and Nodoka, especially the latter. Hope things snap back to reality pretty quickly in the next chapter. While the chapter length is great, a month is a long time to digest information and theorize what’s going to happen in the next one. The wait will be a tough one albeit not as tough as the wait for this chapter.
Yeah, well. If we’re just going to lose the Negima cast again, it’s a shame this chapter wasn’t spent looking at them actually doing badass things during the period where they actually were adventurers under Negi’s direction and instead it just wasted valuable and limited room recycling the same old academy routines. You could even have the fanservice during the fights with the Clothing Damage, if Akamatsu thinks it’s such an important selling point for a relaunch.
Instead, we not only had the main UQ supporting cast fully absent from their own relaunching, but the old cast was just brought back for more of the same, which basically feels pointless and gratuitous. If the intent was to show for new readers how close they were to Negi, it’d have been better to show them together in an adventure, since that’s the kind of thing UQ Holder is supposed to showcase, and Ala Alba made their future fame as fighters and saviors rather than students.
There is only so much you can do with so many characters. If you read Negima you know what becomes of most of the main cast. As much as I would like an explanation on Yue/Nodoka I suspect that’ll come soon.
I enjoy UQ’s cast but quite frankly it pales in comparison to its predecessors, especially with the excessive spotlight given to Chis-…err, Kirie. Albiero made the point that Negi was popular with the ladies, much like Touta. Showing a bunch of action wouldn’t have portrayed that as accurately.
“If you read Negima you know what becomes of most of the main cast.”
One panel epilogues out of nowhere don’t make for good conclusions to any truncated character arc.
“Albiero made the point that Negi was popular with the ladies, much like Touta. Showing a bunch of action wouldn’t have portrayed that as accurately.”
What could portray devotion better than showing the girls fighting along Negi and cooperating with him? That’s more of an actual showing of love than random school hijinks. Besides, UQ Holder was supposed to be an action manga first, it makes more sense to spotlight the adventurous side of Ala Alba, the one that just keeps receiving token lip service but little actual focus, now.
The problem is, that only forebodes the same problem may end up befalling UQ Holder’s team itself. As it is, even characters like Karin and Santa, with awesome abilities of their own, have spent long now being sidelined and underused, shoved into stock comedic routines and contributing little to conflicts.
Anyway, good chapter all around. Surprised Touta didn’t recognize Yue and Nodoka, especially the latter.
Ah. Good catch there. I think he should have.
While the chapter length is great, a month is a long time to digest information and theorize what’s going to happen in the next one. The wait will be a tough one albeit not as tough as the wait for this chapter.
Ha!ha! All true.
“I do wonder why the Lifemaker’s motives seem to have decayed into destruction. They never came off as this… douchey back in Negima.”
In fact … First, contrary to what one major part of the fans think, the lifemaker has never been pacifist. Certainly, at the time of Negima, he ordered to his men to not kill “human” (understand by that, “inhabitants of the Earth”, Kotaro and Setsuna are not humans, but still counted as people “saving”) but this is forget that 20 years before Negima, he triggered a global war that lasted 3 years and has killed millions of people, humans as non-humans.
So I tend to think that his degree of non-violence is relative, and depent on several factors. The plan he wants to establish, the mental state of his host after the possession is completed (we now know thanks to Negi that the soul of lifemaker merges with her host, rather than crush and destroy her, and Negi suffers raisonnance for 20 years if you combine all that, it is normal that Negi Baoth, is far more ruthless than Nagi Baoth in his time), the means available to him (probably Asuna, is sealed in an inaccessible location and we do not know what are become the “master key”. Personnaly, I see it “melted” between dimensions to facilitate terraforming Mars. And n any case, the project of Negi Baoth concerns the entire solar system, it is likely that the master-keyes would be useless for this plan.).
This explains for me why the current mage beginning tolerate terrorist actions of Cutlass, and why the mage of the beginning of the Great War did not hesitate to trigger a global war. Each lifemaker is both identical (they have the same memories) and different (they have personalities and means of act, differents)….
True, show at least a few panels of the other UQ characters are doing something in the current time … but as ANB has said, there are not many chapters that don’t have Tota in it.
I wasn’t surprised the UQH folks didn’t show up. After all, none of them were taken into the Phantasmagoria. Initially, I was wondering how long Touta might be taken to the past. But now that Touta is battling the MotB in the Phantasmagoria, who knows what will happen.
As to the Negima 2 subtitle, I don’t think it will mean a great deal other than Touta officially picks up Negi’s quest vs. MotB. We may see Mana and company more, and Touta’s harem status may get more confirmed. That’s my expectation, at least.
Negi’s quest against the Lifemaker never amounted to that much in Negima proper– for the overwhelming majority of Negima’s lenght, there isn’t even any hint to the characters the Lifemaker might return. Negi’s quest and the series’ main arc was about finding Nagi instead. The Lifemaker being the goal was pretty much a last minute addition, and thus hardly something that defined Negima as a whole, enough as to make it a worthwhile reason to call UQ Holder its sequel. Ditto for the whole Space Elevator affair, something that only gets mentioned in the final two Negima volumes.
Let’s be frank here: the ‘Negima 2’ subtitle holds little to no logical narrative reason and is just a marketing gamble instead, banking on name recognition from a franchise that sold better than UQ Holder, regardless of either’s quality or lack thereof, which is another debate on itself. It’s a purely mercenary move, and a very transparent one at that. But Touta’s character arc, despite the surface similarities, is not the same as Negi’s. Negi started his quest without knowing the world was at stake (and for that matter, it’s only a parallel world that gets introduced way into the series that is in any actual risk of destruction– even the future war on Earth wouldn’t happen if not because of Mundus Magicus), while UQ tries to paint a much more global sense of menace from the start, and that has an impact on Touta’s Hero Journey which Negi’s lacked until much later into his own story.
And in any case, it’s in very bad taste to start this saying ‘Negima 2!’, giving an extended tease of the old cast that made the first series what it was in the first place, and then dropping them back as soon as possible to get back to the UQ cast that got neglected in the first new chapter. It just paints how crassly commercial this move is– and granted, this is a commercial manga, much like any other backed by a corporation, but there are far more subtle and tasteful ways to do a series restart than this, that doesn’t really favor either series’ cast.
“I wasn’t surprised the UQH folks didn’t show up. After all, none of them were taken into the Phantasmagoria.”
Come on, Astro. You are better than this. Surely you are aware of the concept of parallel narrative that goes back and forth from one point to another between scenes; it’s one of the oldest staples in the storytelling dealing with extended casts, and by this point UQ Holder has grown into its own extended cast, even if very unabalanced in its treament.
Vatuxki says:
What’s written in this page? I could not read the chapter in Crunchyroll.
http://anime.astronerdboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/UQH-CH129-SP11.png
Sorry, I’m so busy these days, I can’t keep my head above water. The answer is there now. 🙂
Basically, Touta is saying that since he got to see Eva happy with Negi, he’s satisfied and doesn’t need to see more of Eva’s past with Negi and how she fell in love with Negi.
Thank you!, Really Thank you!!.
nt122 says:
whats going on? is Al on her side by forced, or is he dead or whatever? aside from that last moment, is the MotB trying to test touta? for what reason? is it to make him fall into despair like you think?
im lost..
We don’t know what Al’s status is. He may be controlled. He may be a replica of the real Al. We just don’t know.
Hopefully, the next chapter helps clear things up.
Sooooo, the chapter on crunchyroll is still locked behind a paywall, it isn’t available on Kindle to buy. Yet the latest Attack on Titan chapter IS available. Why is THIS, the only series that I frequently face piracy as my only recourse.
The real oddity is that all the volumes and individual chapters for UQ Holder are available to buy, up to 128.
I think it may have come out early on CR. Either way, I’m not sure why it is behind the paywall. It may be because of its monthly status, but that’s just speculation. There may be licensing issues at work here since it shifted to a new magazine, even though it is still a Kodansha magazine.
Enj says:
I think its good for Touta to see Negi as he really was rather than the way he’s remembered. He was developing a complex…
To be fair, Negi did see Nagi for the goofball he was back in Volume 3 of Negima, and it didn’t diminish his hero worship any. I imagine this will be the same.
Good point. I also think Touta will now be down with a harem having seen Negi with one. 😉
Not to sound too negative.
I wonder if UQ Holder doesn’t work out and if Akamatsu-sensei desperate to income he won’t resort to restarting it turning into sitcom situation that always was without the galactic problems.
I won’t want that, thou was originally drawn into the series because of the comedy, despite me being a admirer of scifi/fantasy material that he was evolving Negima into.
Well, I think there will be some harem hijinks down the road. I think it will be more of a blend — dark, then some comedic relief.
Yea! The wait is OVER! and have enjoyed this chapter, re-reading it several times.
We now know new things about the MotB. More small clues, and even MORE questions.
This flash-back seems more a elaborate illusion, that looks very much of biased/distorted scenes based on the real past events from Negima, and at the same time the same tool to keep Negi brain-washed and under control by making it appear as real.
Maybe that was the plan to get Tota separate and isolated from everyone else, and possibly brainwash Tota too with the same method, just as the illusions of Yue and Nodoka did to calm Negi when they were outside the space station.
Makes me wonder if what Yue and Nodoka said was false too about Tota’s creation, since all of them are controlled or illusions of the MotB.
Sometimes I get the impression that the MotB is jealous of Eva, and determined to keep any man away and out of Eva’s life and keep it miserable for Eva. First was Nagi, and then Negi.
It makes me question if Tota was made by Fate and Eva. If so why would Eva be also attracted to Tota in a romantic way, if Tota is her creation, like another puppet?
Or was the affection/romance just to lure the MotB so that Eva can finally trap the MotB via Tota and free Negi and possibly Nagi??
I kept going back to the Negima chpt 355 about Eva during the break.
“Her promise with the boy regarding infernus scholasticus (school attendance hell), was carried out together with the rescue of her loved one. Although she had obtained her freedom, she held back her own grimness of the past, and continued to watch over, the fate of the boy, and of the girl in whom she saw herself. How things went with the one she loved is a story for another time.”
I interpret that as Eva watches over ‘of the boy, and of the girl’ which I think is referring to Negi and Asuna.
Eva does rescue of ‘the boy regarding …’ I’m thinking referring to Nagi or ‘her loved one’.
In Negima and in this current flashback, Nagi didn’t see Eva the same way Eva saw Nagi, so the mutual attraction/love again, wasn’t shown.
The ‘one she loved’ – has to be Tota, and is exclusively UQ.
That’s assuming that Akamatsu-sensei already had the idea of Touta firmly established at this point and knew that he’d have Touta with Eva. I’m not convinced of that.
That being said, even though Nagi was never romantically attracted to Eva, Eva was in love with Nagi. So the story of how things went with the one she loved is likely about Nagi. His tale remains untold, even now.
Good reasoning ANB! There is the Eva x Nagi ship that is very much there with not much released information about that relationship. It is also Eva’s first love too. So it can go that way too.
I also agree with you ANB that Tota is also better at being strong/mature enough not to get provoked or upset or jealous by Alberio. He was genuinely happy for Eva, actually thanking Alberio for showing the past. Not getting the reaction the MotB wanted.
I don’t know if brainwashing is the right term. I think part of the plan may have been to get Touta out of the way. If his looking at Negi’s life caused him to move aside, great. However, since Touta wasn’t getting upset or whatever with Negi x Eva, MotB stepped in to take another approach to move him aside. That’s how I see it, at least.
All of Negi’s comrades may be artificial lifeforms, based off of the original. Or they may be controlled. Or they may have willingly decided to go with Negi’s plan, assuming Negi decided to follow form and try to help MotB.
If so why would Eva be also attracted to Tota in a romantic way, if Tota is her creation, like another puppet?
Just how deeply she’s attracted to Touta is unknown to me. And it is rather creepy when you consider she took him in as a guardian.
That being said, assuming Eva did indeed have a part in making Touta, Eva met Touta before she made him. So her affection for Touta is more akin to a childhood crush, as I see it.
But we’ll see.
Eva is wearing plush slippers on page 43! Interesting that Akamatsu drew her with those slippers!
What about it do you find interesting?
Eva has most of the time has been drawn dressed well or with a ragged over-coat/poncho and at times bare feet. Rarely in ‘comfy’ clothes, like PJs or footwear one would wear at home in the house, that usually goes with those booties – it just didn’t go with the outfit/uniform she was wearing. Those slippers/foot warmers/bunny booties are more for the in-house use.
I was expecting the usual mary-jane style flats or heels, sandals, or even army boots that she sometimes wears with her lolita outfit or a school uniform – like what she wore in the classroom (page 18). So it caught my eye when I saw her wear the bunny booties, and thought it was odd she would be wearing them. It was something that didn’t fit Eva and maybe a flaw in Alberio’s imaging, like a indicator/hint that this version of the past may be close to what actually happened in the past, but not accurate.
Then when Eva sees Tota a few pages later, everything changes, and I’m not sure if this is still in that Phantasmagoria, or a trap, or in the actual past, and if in the past, what happened to Negi? Is he standing there in the water?
The reason to showing Tota the past was to get him up-to-speed with the current events. But now, with what is happening, I start to question if this is this how Negi got involved with the MotB to save both Eva and Tota? thus the cliff-hanger at the end of the chapter. Gotta wait another month!
Still I’m happy UQ is back, and that this chapter showed many characters — finally including Chamo. I almost missed seeing him in that one panel.
Those slippers/foot warmers/bunny booties are more for the in-house use.
I’m not sure if this is still in that Phantasmagoria, or a trap, or in the actual past, and if in the past, what happened to Negi? Is he standing there in the water?
All good questions.
Still I’m happy UQ is back, and that this chapter showed many characters — finally including Chamo.
Yes, he did get his cameo. ^_^
Funny thing though it’s early to say, i was looking forward to Touta working up the ladder up to the top of the tower. One of his DREAMS and focus of his character since the early days.
Sensei seem to skip all that, about glimpse how the solar system inhabited now and interplanetary drama/politics that Touta could end up changing to here grandpa, fight for world. I got nothing now.
Well, it may be that Sensei is going to resolve the MotB thing, then return the series to a more UQH-centric thing. Who knows.
The thing is, UQ Holder the organization seems very aimless without the Lifemaker’s machinations. It makes no sense that I can see so far to resolve the Lifemaker situation away from them and then return to them, since their goals are so vague (after more than 100 chapters!) facing Fate and the Lifemaker’s threat is all they’ve got going for them.
Thank you Overmaster on the clarification on Madoka!
For me, there are several story lines started and different from any Negima beginning dealing with the UQ org and then kinda forgotten or fell into a black hole of nothing…
– when Tota fought the cyborg, werewolf, and blind swordsman, sent from a crime syndicate, and created Tota’s 2 million yen debt for damages.
– that bounty arc where that teacher/bounty hunter that tried to stop Eva for the price on her head, but that arc made Tota into a immortal.
– Kuromaru’s arc or that school that sends their members to destroy monsters like those in UQ.
– Nor much about anyone else at Senkyokan either outside of Tota’s small group of holders (Karin, Santa, Kirie, Ikkyu) , or other possible UQ holders at other remote locations if they have them. Or even the last two other holders (from promo group pic) that haven’t made their appearence
– Continued training by Dana — Tota didn’t finish his training by her either.
– What of the tournament that Tota was depending on to train and improve, and also win to help him with his dream to go to the top of the space tower, and money to help pay his debt. Which seems moot at this point of the story.
So there is a lot of potential story material that is still there, if and when the Negima arc finishes. At least we had the Sayoko arc which introduced Santa
Re- Your thanks. It was nothing, you’re welcome. Glad I could be of help.
The debt issue is awkward now, since it’d be quite heartless to press on Touta for money when UQ Holder already have lots of money and Touta’s got so much to worry about, including saving the whole world. Trying to charge him a gigantic sum UQ Holder doesn’t really need, especially with Kirie around, after that would be in quite bad taste and not really funny, just a d*ck move. Mizore might offer to just pay if for him, but Touta would simply refuse claiming he has to do it on his own… but once you’ve saved the world, everyone is endebted to you rather than the other way around. So I hope that plot point never comes up again.
The immortal hunters… well, power escalation makes hard for them to return as viable threats. By now, if the Lifemaker’s vanquished or still the major ongoing threat, guys who were soundly beaten at the start of the manga aren’t much of a credible menace. It’s like trying to bring Chigusa back by the end of the Mundus Magicus arc. Even trying to pull stronger immortal hunters out of nowhere creates a whole bunch of issues– if there are immortal hunters powerful enough as to menace post-MOTB’s hypothetic defeat Touta and Evam why didn’t they just wipe UQ Holder off before the series started? What were they doing in the meanwhile?
Basically, the Lifemaker, a generations spanning recurring arc villain who’s been a looming threat over two series, raises the bar too high. Underwhelming in actual shown results as the Mage’s been so far, the villain has been charged with so much hype and in-universe credit as to make difficult for any previously unmentioned, not even hinted at, newer villain to surpass her, and going back down the power scale is not the way action shounen tend to work.
Yeah, there’s plenty of material for after MotB, but for Negima fans, MotB resolution is king. 😉
mmm. good points OverMaster.
The series needs a primary villain and the MotB/Lifemaker is probably the prime one, and it may get dragged out for the whole length of the manga to end in the last chapter whenever it happens. What we may be seeing now is the initial ‘intro to the players’ skirmish.
But between the battles, it will probably not always be going to battle with the ultimate powerful MotB. We know the destruction of Earth is its goal, and saving Negi and Nagi seems to be part of it too, but not one long battle. I would think a series of battles.
I’m expecting hijinks, but also lesser powerful beings that may challenge other UQ holders where Tota may or may not assist. It would allow the other minor characters to shine — I hope this happens. The immortal hunters for example may try to attack UQ again, or that samurai clan going after Kuromaru for defecting. Maybe the immortal hunters have been in battle with UQ for some time, we don’t know much – and we now may see some of this as they send more people to destroy UQ by their abilities. The crime syndicate may also send thugs against UQ also for interfering with their plans of control and possibly extortion. So they may not be as powerful as the MotB, but bad-ass enough to give UQ a problem that UQ has to solve. Kinda like the Quincys in Bleach, and the different villains that Ichigo had to face. It wasn’t always Aizen or Bach. BUT its just what I hope UQ can be… we shall see what the Akamatsu-sensei does with this manga.
Well, originally, their mission was to find rogue immortals. That’s how Santa came to join the ranks. And there are other immortals that were shown whom we’ve not seen. And we know so little about the other members of UQH.
Any idea when we’ll hear anime announcements?
Other than what we’ve already heard? Not sure.
Lan Hoang says:
Butts and butts and more butts ==’
minopop says:
what rly stood out to me in this chapter was AL’s/ku:nel’s sudden snap in attitude and facial expression after touta said he was just happy to see eva smile genuinely.
there were also a few moments earlier in the chapter I got the impression that AL wasn’t really 100% AL like he had some malicious intentions and was really trying to get at something.
2 panels specifically pages 28 and 30.
page 28 when he said: “so that IS what’s bothering you.”
and page 30 when he said: “well, tota-kun? are you curious?”
both involving tota’s feelings for evangeline. almost like the actual purpose for showing tota the past was to get to that point; not just for the sake of re-introducing the negima characters in UQ holder or to not leave tota in the dark and show him everything so that he can make his choice as was said at the end of chapter 128.
if the MOTB decided to alter the phantasmagoria just after AL asks tota if that’s really how he feels than that choice was obviously not the 1 the motb wanted
I’m not really sure what to make of it I literally just finished the chapter and its fun to speculate.
I enjoyed this chapter. I’m curious what this will lead up to and the significance of why the MOTB appeared when she did in regards to tota’s last reaction before she arrived
That’s when I think MotB took him over.
Well, he is working with MotB, and MotB has an agenda.
Still, it will be interesting learning more about what the MotB is after.
I know its how its drawn and is not supposed to be that person, but on the page that Ayaka (class rep) is saying good morning to Negi, the next panel shows a girl drawn or looks like a smiling Karin saying ‘morning’ to Negi too. BUT with a different type of bag or looks like a sack on her back, and not her sword.
That’s Kugimiya Madoka, one of the three cheerleaders in Class 3-A. She had Karin’s character design from the start of Negima.
Yeah, Akamatsu-sensei does have a limited range on character designs.
That’s Madoka. 🙂
Something that was bothering me which shouldn’t really matter. WHEN was visit of Touta’s?
He arrives in part of the past when things seem to be usual business at school. So Negi hadn’t gone to Magical World / Inverse Mars YET? Or is this after the fact?
Granted this is a recreation of Negima! but i wonder if Sensei was paying attention to when it was.
I’d say it’s somewhere after the sports festival arc. Chao is still missing so it’s definitely after the Mahorafest arc and Negi’s level of sneeze seems to indicate that it’s well after he mastered Magia Erebea, to say nothing of Asuna’s mastery of her own arts. There were a few skips towards the end of the series so it’s hard to pinpoint but it’s probably sometime between one of the late skips.
The Sports Girls don’t seem to know about Negi’s magic, wondering what’s happened after Negi strips them, while by the end of Negima the whole class was well used (even if still annoyed) at it. So that would seem to put the whole thing before Mundus Magicus, plus the fact Negi doesn’t go into Lightning Mode after sneezing, like every other time he sneezed after that arc (when he only stripped Chisame and when he stripped the whole class).
Post Mahorafest, pre Mundus Magicus would be my best guess, although it’s difficult to say for sure since there any many small logical flaws, including how Asuna keeps her full underwear while even by the manga’s end she only could keep her bra.
Then again, it’s worth considering the whole vision seems to jump back and forth in time, including the kiss with Eva that happened DURING Mahorafest. And of course, if it’s all an illusion created by the Mage rather than an actual glimpse into the past, anything goes, as the MOTB might have just cherrypicked elements from different points to create an overall picture of Negi’s stint as a teacher. Probably close to Negi’s own vision of his situation while in Poyo’s mirage, but closer to reality in broad stroke details.
Yeah, there are a lot of things that put the time frame up for questioning. Negi openly uses a spell and Asuna openly uses kankaho in front of everyone. After the Sports Festival is where I was thinking this likely was, but Negi wasn’t around a lot then.
Yeah, after the sports festival sounds about right.
Considering how Asuna openly uses kankaho, how Negi openly cast a spell, and how folks reacted to Negi’s sneeze, I kinda want to say that this was after they came back from Mars. But then again, Negi wasn’t around much then, so it might be before. It really is hard to tell.
Another, and maybe the main reason why this can’t be set after Mundus Magicus is right after that arc Negi was not 3-A’s homeroom teacher anymore. *Fate* was.
And, again, the Sports Girls are puzzled by what just happened, which wouldn’t make sense after they learned about magic in Mundus Magicus.
It could be just prior to the trip to Wales.
What Eva said to Negi seems to stick in my mind:
You think a twerp like you can accomplish jack on his own? Once you’ve taken that step, You have to accept the consequences. …..
Don’t be afraid of getting down in the mud. You will hurt others, and others will hurt you. Be the one who can move forward, no matter how dirty you get. Only then can you call yourself my disciple.
Sounds like Eva’s life being changed by the MotB.
I’m beginning to wonder if Negi had shared his plans with Eva right before this happened. It makes a bit more sense from the earlier chapter when Negi-MotB hugs Eva earlier and whispered in Eva’s ear that:
You’re right. I know you are. But I can’t stop it anymore. The world’s cries of grief and resentment follow me wherever I go.
ANB, your idea of Negi making a deal with the MotB is making more sense. The statements are making me consider that Negi allow himself to be absorbed as a way of re-forming the MotB. Its something that Eva knows and Negi was saying she was right. Most of it we don’t know as yet.
But yeah, the MotB isn’t done with Eva yet too. Negi-MotB also was enticing Eva:
… so come with me, Evangeline-san. You wanted this, too, once.
I think Eva already made her decision a long time ago.
I also wanted to see how this quote notation works…
Well, it fits Negi’s pattern, going back to his first encounter with Eva. Negi doesn’t like seeing folks he fights as villains per se. With Eva, he was afraid of her, but he wanted her to attend class and not do bad things. When he realized what he could learn from her, he then wanted to be her apprentice.
Kotaro — similar story. Negi reaches out to him to be allies and friends.
Count Hermann — Negi defeats the demon, but doesn’t kill him, showing him no malice.
Fate — Negi fights him for ages, but eventually with the goal of becoming allies.
And there are other instances of Negi and former foes becoming friends and allies.
So with MotB, it just made sense to me that Negi might defeat her in combat, but want to find some alliance/friendship/whatever to solve MotB’s issue a different way.
Ha!ha! 😀 I’m lucky in that I have a comment panel for all comments and it includes all of the cheat buttons for a WYSIWYG interface. ^_^
I am trying to re-read Negima too. I’m forgetting details on Alberio’s ability. He can create clones with their powers for a short time using his books (his pactio?).
So it is possible Eva and what is being shown to Tota is false, and a creation by Alberio. Maybe the foot warmers was his way of making fun of Eva too. If its using a pactio, and one made with Nagi, then Nagi is definitely alive.
So its getting harder to keep up …. Alberio could be a creation of the MotB, so a MotB creation then creates the illusions and clones being shown to Tota and maybe Negi too, including the ones of Eva, and twisting the past to convince Tota of a false or modified history, and failed to invoke a jealous response from Tota. Maybe Kurabo is also a illusion too, since it just seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
How many more weeks to wait for the next chapter?
He can create clones with their powers for a short time using his books (his pactio?).
Yes, I believe that was his artifact. But Al also had the form of a book, which was never explained.
So it is possible Eva and what is being shown to Tota is false, and a creation by Alberio.
I suspect that Al created the phantasmagoria they entered. I suspect that MotB “made it real” with her Lifemaker powers.
But yeah, Al could be a recreated by MotB, complete with Al’s powers. I think the history shown was pretty accurate because I think MotB would initially rather win Touta over than go through the trouble of fighting him.
Not sure. A couple at least, I think.
Tonikaku Cawaii Chapter 94 (An old romance trope.) January 17, 2020
Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! 07 (In the midst of darkness, wacky comedy.) August 18, 2016
Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei Herz! – 05 (Summer festival fun.) August 24, 2015
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Parents recall 'terrifying' moments their toddler was locked inside a running washing machine
A family is sharing an urgent warning after a 3-year-old girl wound up inside a locked and running washing machine while her parents were sleeping.
Their daughter is OK, but Lindsey and Alan McIver are sharing the horrifying ordeal in hopes of helping other parents avoid the same scenario or worse.
"It was terrifying," Alan told Good Morning America in a Monday interview.
The situation began when the family's washing machine broke down on July 8, Lindsey wrote in a Facebook post. On July 9, they installed a new front-loading LG washer. They told their young children multiple times not to touch it.
Early the next day, their 4-year-old son came into their room to wake them, visibly upset. The McIvers recalled that morning to GMA.
"He was crying so hard I couldn't understand the words he was saying," Lindsay said.
Then they came to the realization of what the boy was saying: Kloe, their 3-year-old daughter, was inside the washing machine.
The couple discovered Kloe inside a locked washing machine that was spinning and filling with water, Lindsey wrote.
"I could tell she was screaming, but the machine's air-tight," Alan told GMA. "I yanked on the door. I pulled so hard I moved the machine from the wall, but it's locked."
The family was finally able to stop the machine and get Kloe out. Kloe emerged shaken but with only a few scrapes and bruises.
After it was all over, the family installed a child lock on the washer and took a photo of it. They also activated the child lock setting on the machine.
LG responded with to ABC News with a statement.
"We applaud Ms. McIver for telling her story and share in her efforts to make sure that consumers are aware of the child safety lock feature," the statement read. "We encourage people to use this important safety setting and to contact our customer support team if they need any assistance. LG customer support can be reached 1 (800) 243-0000."
Lindsey said she hopes other parents will take action after hearing her story.
"I realize that there are ways we could've prevented this from happening," she wrote on Facebook. "I want to encourage anybody who has this type of front loading washing machine and small children, or even grandkids who visit, to lock the door with a child safety lock and always keep the child lock setting on!"
parentingchildrensocial mediatoddleru.s. & worldwarningaccident
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Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque Small Group Tour Reviewed by Nicola, 04/22/2019
Beautiful day and a beautiful lunch with a small group
This tour was fantastic, I had such a nice time. I was thrilled to find there was only five of us on the tour and it was a great balance between structure and the freedom to explore the mosques. The lunch was delicious and we had plenty of time to explore the Grand Bazaar in the afternoon. Highly recommended.
Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque Small Group Tour Reviewed by Carli, 08/05/2019
Covered everything expected and guide was good
The organisation of groups at the beginning was frustrating and time consuming. Which meant we did not really start the tour until after 0920. This was a four hour tour but in essence would have been lucky to have been three hours - which questions true value for money.
Byzantine Istanbul Half-Day Morning Tour Reviewed by Rhonda, 06/17/2019
Excellent guide, but don’t recommend the shopping experience
The tour did not mention the shopping experience. You are seated and served drinks...time share experience. I didn’t mind the food, spice presentation, but had no interest in purchasing a rug for $800. No does not mean no unless you say it numerous times.
Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque Small Group Tour Reviewed by Anonymous, 07/19/2019
Things to do near Hippodrome, Istanbul
Cover photo: Robert Cutts, CC BY 2.0
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OT: Trump/Russians/Robert Mueller
201,078 Views | 3122 Replies | Last: 5 mo ago by BearForce2
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blungld
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6:42p, 4/17/19
There is a small and unlikely chance that Barr's actions which are a clear cover up are also part of a negotiation with Trump for him to resign. It's a stretch, but perhaps the redactions ate legit because so much is being prosecuted elsewhere and the stall is part of buying time to see if Trump will resign and the communications with WH is the negotiation.
If not, it is full cover up and Barr needs to be investigated and perjury/impeachment explored.
Another Bear
In reply to NYCGOBEARS • 6:45p, 4/17/19
NYCGOBEARS said:
Cuz Trump did all that shhheeet.
I hear he did the pee stuff as well...and he loves it!
bearister
Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection
Send my credentials to the House of Detention
I got some friends inside
In reply to dajo9 • 6:52p, 4/17/19
dajo9 said:
Impeachment will give Trump a win (in the Senate) going into the election.
I think they should impeach Barr
He is going to win anyway because the Dems are cannibalizing themselves so putting historical taint on the Clown Prince is enough for me. Barr is more of a Tier 1 Operator wetwork issue.
B.A. Bearacus
In reply to blungld • 6:59p, 4/17/19
blungld said:
I would personally replace with "absolutely no chance."
Ultimately I agree that things eventually get out but I think there's going to be a few weeks or months of hide the report. The consistent badgering by the Trumpies then the Barr letter, then the early celebration are indications they will try and continue the travesty of justice. They're going to throw everything at it...risk constitutional failure, try and further erode trust.
Basically their p*ssing in the fan to make it seem like rain....instead of the sh*t storm it really is.
It will be interesting how the Dems respond. Slow play or fire?
My guess is the full document will be leaked. Some patriot will bust this motherf*cker open. Then it'll be time..
I don't know if I have been more disappointed with my country than watching 40% of Americans stand by and watch the lies and cover up and be okay with it because they chose their man and don't care. I never thought "we" would let something like this happen here. Only took two years for them to become blindly loyal.
Okay...it's on!
Judiciary chair lays out 4 charges against Bill Barr that sound like Articles of Impeachment
House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler blasted Attorney General Bill Barr at a hastily-called Wednesday evening press conference.
"The Attorney General appears to be waging a media campaign on behalf of President Trump the very subject of the investigation at the heart of the Mueller report," Nadler said. "Rather than letting the facts of the report speak for themselves, the Attorney General is taking unprecedented steps to spin Mueller's nearly two-year investigation."
Nadler then laid out four arguments against Barr.
"One, he summarized the report and cherry-picked findings in his March 24th letter to Congress," he charged.
"Two, he withheld summaries written by the special counsel that were intended for public consumption," he continued.
"Three he briefed the white house before providing Congress a copy that helped them prepare a rebuttal response for the president," he said.
And now, the evening before the report's scheduled release, the Department of Justice has informed the committee that it will receive a copy between 11:00 and noon well after the Attorney General's 9:30 a.m. press conference," Nadler said. "This is wrong."
oski003
In reply to Another Bear • 8:06p, 4/17/19
Another Bear said:
It's interesting how in some circumstances the Mueller investigation is characterized by BI posters as merely an investigation into Russian election interference and in some circumstances Trump is actually the subject of the investigation.
sycasey
In reply to oski003 • 8:08p, 4/17/19
oski003 said:
An investigation into Russian interference can also potentially make Trump look bad. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.
In reply to sycasey • 9:19p, 4/17/19
sycasey said:
7:27a, 4/18/19
Barr's press conference was itself an act of obstruction. How much you want to bet that Trump himself insisted that Barr use the phrase "no collusion." Disgusting.
No American should be okay with the actions of this president and his administration. Every act was to hide behavior they KNEW was unethical/illegal. How can any rational person defend this?
I go back to three simple things I have listed for over a year.
1) Show us your personal and corporate returns.
2) Release entire un-redacted report.
3) Testify to American public under oath an explanation for the behavior that any rational human would see as unethical and illegal. Can you tell us your version of what happened and why you are innocent of things when you look so guilty?
That is pretty simple and direct and almost everyone on these boards and in my life agrees that is a fair baseline. Why don't we have this? Without these three, he should not be president.
Welp...the American Century is over. The slide into full Banana Republic corruption and foreign interference says so. Many predicted the American Empire would end, just no one figured it would go down this way. Bill Barr was simply playing his part.
Oh well, it was a good run. Now it's over.
Telling Cohen to "stay strong" is all you need to know to say he should no longer be president.
In reply to Another Bear • 9:08a, 4/18/19
Which signals the Fall of the American Empire more: the POTUS' Game of Thrones tweet or the fact that at least 40% of the electorate thinks it was a rip roaring idea?
"The country has to awaken every now and then to the fact that the people are responsible for the government they get," Harry Truman wrote. " "And when they elect a man to the presidency who doesn't take care of the job, they got nobody to blame but themselves." Jon Meacham, The Soul of America
Trump's lack of curiosity about election interference and no moves to protect against it happening again, but rather totally worried about creating doubt about that interference and saying his win is legit is more than damning, it is total dereliction of duty and number one in a long list of reasons why he can no longer be president.
"No Collusion? Yes Conspiracy!"
10:05a, 4/18/19
The more I read, the guiltier he is. This is worse, and he is dumber and dirtier, than I even imagined.
All the posters on these threads (and all Trumpers) who defended and are part of the constituency that provided cover and blessing for this, should be ashamed. He depended on your hatred of Libs and your blind loyalty to not be held to account. It's time for you all to stop. In the conversations with friends and family or in your community or even here on BI, you need to be part of the solution by not letting any part of this be okay in our country and holding him to account as we redeem ourselves as a nation.
No more projecting on Libs or whatabouts, just hold this criminal to task and remove him from office because you are an American not a Trumper.
Can we finally be on the same team on doing what is clearly right?
In reply to blungld • 10:35a, 4/18/19
America is now in a fight for democracy and its soul. Either you're in or out. No fence sitting on this. This is NOT about party...this is about country.
To my conservative friends and family...buck up and fight for democracy or get the **** out of the way.
"This is the end of my Presidency" and "I'm ****ed," can only reasonably be interpreted as the reaction of an innocent man, right?
golden sloth
In reply to bearister • 11:05a, 4/18/19
bearister said:
His saving grace on obstruction may be the fact that he was impotent and incompetent in its execution.
In reply to golden sloth • 11:22a, 4/18/19
golden sloth said:
I have thought for a while now that Trump was actually too incompetent to have pulled off any of these criminal schemes successfully.
Unit2Sucks
He obviously obstructed the investigation but I'm most curious as to why he's not being criticized more for his continuous, repeated disingenuous statements that Putin didn't interfere with the election. Has Trump ever acknowledged what took place?
As far as I'm concerned that's still the big story and Trump still refuses to address it.
In reply to sycasey • 11:31a, 4/18/19
I knew this round of the Mueller Report would lead to more cluster****, and more ****ting in the pond by the RWNJs.
The only way this is resolved is the full report is leaked and someone with "the goods" steps forwards with a smoking gun and the location of the dead bodies.
is there any reason to believe the redacted report is missing anything critical? I'm not sure "leaking" the full report will make a difference. It is what it is - he obstructed justice (there are arguments on both sides) but there isn't really any new evidence to think that he or the campaign colluded.
In reply to Unit2Sucks • 2:42p, 4/18/19
Unit2Sucks said:
Perhaps more accurately, there isn't evidence that the campaign conspired with the Russians on anything, because that requires a level of organization that the Trump team doesn't have. Individuals within the campaign (Manafort) may well have colluded.
Calcupcakes
In reply to golden sloth • 2:47p, 4/18/19
... and the fact that some of the more competent people surrounding him refused to go along with what he ordered them to do.
I am about as far right of the crazy, left-wing, crying-wolf mainstream media as one can get without being a Trump supporter. I have been skeptical of the stupid "collusion" charge from the very beginning. And I have downloaded the entire report and wasted many non-billable hours reading the damn thing. But I came away convinced that we have a crook in the WH surrounded "mostly" by crooks. I don't need a "full" unredacted report to learn more. This is report is NOT good for Trump by any means. He's indeed f*cked.
Part II of the report -- the Obstruction part -- is about as damning a declination to prosecute as one could be. Reading between the lines, Mueller & co. decided not to prosecute because they agreed with the OLC's opinion that "the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions." Trump is about as innocent of obstruction as OJ following his criminal trial.
The question is: how are we going to replace him, and with whom?
It shouldn't be that tough, right? But somehow I'm sure the Dems will *****it up, in some way, some form, some fashion.
Anarchistbear
No, none. There is sufficient information to begin impeachment charges on obstruction. My own view is that the Democrats will use the " full report" issue to keep from doing this
In reply to Calcupcakes • 3:17p, 4/18/19
Calcupcakes said:
Why is it only on the Dems to fix this?
In reply to Anarchistbear • 3:23p, 4/18/19
Anarchistbear said:
I agree with you here. I was against impeachment all along but now think that it should be commenced on the obstruction issue based on this report. (By the way, Mueller & Co left the determination of that issue to Congress, NOT to Barr or Rosenstein.)
But I think Nancy and the Dems will use the full report excuses to not pull the trigger. They have been reading to polls and realizing that the public won't be warming up to it. They'd rather spend resources on 2020.
It's like the Republicans claiming ad nauseum that Obamacare ought to be repealed, but when they had a chance to do it, they backed off.
Because Trump's base of 35% or so won't change their minds no matter what, so if the Dems just stopped the infighting and turned out to vote, he would be gone in 2020.
Because at the end of the day, it's still a beauty contest to most voters, and it will be Trump vs. _____. If the Dems nominated someone crazier and less palatable then Trump, then we may have a repeat of 2016. People might choose to stay home again. There might not be more things American despise than a Commie, for instance.
Because for many "independents" the "Anyone but Trump" chant might not be enough. It might depend on who that "anyone" is, and the Dems control who that "anyone" is.
If there is a way to play this, you use the House's powers to begin an "investigation" into obstruction, without actually starting impeachment proceedings. Basically start laying out the case for impeachment without calling it that. Hope that something comes out of these investigations that changes public sentiment enough to support impeachment. It's tricky, and I'm no legal expert so maybe there are reasons why this can't happen. But on first glance that's what I'd try to do, if I were serious about being a check on the president.
There might not be more things American despise than a Commie, for instance.
IMO there is a big generational difference on this (older Americans still do, younger Americans don't care), and the coming elections over the next decade or so will bear that out.
In 2020 I suspect there are still enough of the "despise Commies" types where it could make a difference, though I'm not 100% sure about that.
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Beat In My Bones.
Garage Rock and Punk obsessive.
THE CRAMPS: Big Beat From Badsville
Here comes record number seven with a blazing smack to the choppers. Big Beat From Badsville is the coolest sounding record I ever did hear. Does the record sound as cool as its name? It’s The Cramps! Of course it does! Now, let me give you a few hundred words about why this record will ease any mood, why this record feels like it could be up there as one of the best things you’ll ever hear.
The most important thing to note about this record is that it is the only record by The Cramps that doesn’t have any cover songs in. the brilliant thing about The Cramps is that they make you forget that a chunk of their songs are actually covers. They make it their own. They made whatever genre of music you want to lump them in their own. They are the loudest band you’ll ever need. Hell..they’re the only band you’re going to need.
Big Beat From Badsville came out in 1997. Its 20 years old, and it sounds like it easily could have been one of their first records. Maybe just after A Date With Elvis. The songs are as smutty as ever. They are wonderfully sleazy especially on songs like I Walked All Night, It Thing Hard-On and of course, Like A Bad Girl Should. This record has ALL the hits. It has the songs that you need to play at any party. Just play this record, and go have a great time. You can play it loud whilst at home by yourself, play it to a lover or force friends to listen to it. Whatever your mood, just play this record as loud as you can. If they turn their noses up at these genius-like songs, then kick ‘em out. Then kick out the jams!
This may be their second to last record, and it really doesn’t sound like a bad that had it in them to quit. I reckon if Lux was still here, they’d be busting up stages and giving the kids a seductive fright. Badass Bug is such a brilliant Rockabilly song. You can picture them recording this in the studio and possibly just having the best time imaginable doing so. It’s such a great song to let everything go to. Just flail your limbs about. Do whatever you want!
What I absolutely love about The Cramps is their ability to make you feel utterly free. You can be stuck in a situation that is ruining your soul, but as soon as you play this record it makes you feel so free. They just take you some place that nothing else can. Like A Bad Girl Should is such a filthy song, and if anyone else sang it- you’d probably just dismiss it but Lux does it in a way that just makes you smirk and probably think about the person you lust after. That lust shouldn’t ever fade if you’re with them. Like A Bad Girl Should is an unconventional love song.. I love how out there it is. I love how it sounds a little stalker-ish. Thing is, Lux doesn’t make any of this creepy. I love Devil Behind The Bush- you can easily tell what this is about. You’re probably a prude if you don’t get it. I reckon even the biggest prudes of them all could find a song by The Cramps that they love. Find one, and shock them with a song by The Cramps!
If I was ever looking for a record by The Cramps to reinforce or even justify (as if I need to) my love for them, I’d probably use this one. I love that it is all of their songs. I love how outrageous Lux got with the lyrics on this one. He truly lets it all go on this record, and you know what- it really makes you miss him.
« THE CRAMPS: Flamejob THE CRAMPS: Fiends Of Dope Island. »
Date : Sep 18, 2017
Tags: 1997, Big Beat From Badsville, Epitaph, Garage Rock, Harry Drumdini, Lux Interior, Music, Poison Ivy, Psychobilly, Punk, Slim Chance, The Cramps
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https://www.facebook.com/Beatsthatsetmypulse/
Finding those BEATS THAT SET MY PULSE.
Tag Archives: music reviews
November 13, 2018 by beatsthatsetmypulse
Iceland Airwaves (Nov 3-5, 2017) – Review
Written by Erica Andreozzi
I’ve worn plenty of wristbands in my day, but this one I wear with MOST PRIDE. Having been accepted to my second Iceland Airwaves Music Festival as a media pass holder is an opportunity that I do NOT take lightly, and I tried my best to capture the highlights of this magical, musical mystery tour. Not only does this “land of Ice” know know to shatter glass ceilings and defy the odds of artistic potential and possibility, but it does so in a way that is warm (“land of fire”) and welcoming, and so in the least bit pretentious. The sky is definitely the limit for this innovative, ingenious, impressive Island. The music, people, and scenery is uncharacteristic of anywhere else. ❤
Here are some of the bands that left a lasting impression in my mind and made me question the boundaries of human creativity (click on names or links below to see the full reviews): Hatari, Hogni, Hormonar, Kiriyama Family, We Made God, Omotrack, Rythmatik, Captain Syrup, Arstidir, Between Mountains, Axel Flovent, Mani Orrason, One Week Wonder, GDJYB (non-Icelandic), and Mammut (a personal favorite). Since my review for Mammut was taking a very long to write (I often find it most difficult to write about bands that move me the most), I decided to write a combined review on their 2017 & 2018 Airwaves shows. Other Icelandic bands I have written about in the past are Asgeir, VAR, Vok, Kaleo, For a Minor Reflection, Sin Fang, Agent Fresco, Lay Low, Rokvva, Samaris, etc. See my reviews on Asgeir and Low Roar. See videos below from Airwaves 2017 when Mammut performed ‘Kinder Versions,’ ‘Pray for Air in the Water,’ ‘The Moon Will Never Turn on Me,’ ‘Walls,’ and ‘What’s Your Secret‘ (these absolutely SLAY):
https://beatsthatsetmypulse.com/2018/11/04/kiriyama-family-youre-looking-for-an-answer-and-try-to-dig-deeper-but-you-cant-always-get-higher-live-at-iceland-airwaves-nov-4-2017/
https://beatsthatsetmypulse.com/2018/10/28/hormonar-our-songs-are-like-a-female-orgasm/
beatsthatsetmypulse.com/2018/10/29/hogni-wonderful-dreams-that-were-uncomfortable-scenes-out-of-nowhere-wonderful-scenes-that-were-uncomfortable-schemes-out-of-nowhere-live-at-secret-solstice-and-iceland-airwaves-june-nov-20/
https://beatsthatsetmypulse.com/2018/11/03/hatari-we-are-the-screamers-we-are-the-echo-we-are-the-chambers-live-at-iceland-airwaves-nov-5-2017/
https://beatsthatsetmypulse.com/2018/10/27/rythmatik-put-my-dreams-in-red-balloons-tie-the-knots-tie-the-noose-iceland-airwaves-nov-4-2017/
https://beatsthatsetmypulse.com/2018/02/20/axel-flovent-you-are-the-reason-why-i-got-what-i-really-wanted-now-i-can-see-the-sun-when-i-look-at-where-we-started-iceland-airwaves-nov-3-2017/
https://beatsthatsetmypulse.com/2018/02/01/gdjyb-tick-tick-tock-tock-the-minute-goes-the-history-flows-nothings-gonna-change-the-lies-u-told-the-scam-we-know-iceland-airwaves-nov-3-2017/
beatsthatsetmypulse.com/2018/10/28/between-mountains-deeper-in-the-city-i-feel-your-face-live-at-iceland-airwaves-nov-5-2017/
beatsthatsetmypulse.com/2018/10/28/captain-syrup-be-sure-to-taste-some-of-this-live-at-iceland-airwaves-nov-4-2017/
beatsthatsetmypulse.com/2018/10/28/arstidir-ive-been-waiting-for-someone-to-say-that-my-patience-was-worth-all-the-way-live-at-iceland-airwaves-nov-3-2017
https://beatsthatsetmypulse.com/2018/10/28/omotrack-why-is-life-equalized-some-people-just-cant-see-everyone-has-blind-spots-except-for-me-live-at-iceland-airwaves-nov-4-2018/
https://beatsthatsetmypulse.com/2018/02/12/mani-orrason-but-freedom-haunts-me-like-it-should-haunt-no-one-and-when-i-run-through-the-trees-i-will-run-for-everyone-iceland-airwaves-nov-3-2017/
https://beatsthatsetmypulse.com/2018/02/01/one-week-wonder-even-the-gods-will-know-my-own-name-iceland-airwaves-nov-3-2017/
beatsthatsetmypulse.com/2018/10/28/we-made-god-hail-to-this-higher-power-live-at-iceland-airwaves-nov-4-2017/
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Tagged agent fresco, arstidir, asgeir, axel flovent, between mountains, captain syrup, for a minor reflection, hatari, hormonar, iceland, iceland airwaves, icelandic music, kaleo, kiriyama family, Lay Low, live music, mammut, mani orrason, music festival, music review, music reviews, music video, music videos, omotrack, one week wonder, rokvva, rythmatik, samaris, sin fang, var, vok, We made god
November 3, 2018 by beatsthatsetmypulse
Hatari: “We are the screamer, We are the echo, and We are the chambers” – Live at Iceland Airwaves (Nov 5, 2017)
HATARI was BY FAR my favorite, unexpected discovery of Iceland Airwaves 2017. Their name, which translates to “hater” in Icelandic, suits the venomous vibe of their “experimental bondage dark ambient darkwave goth punk synth” (check out their Bandcamp). Formed back in 2015, this transfixing trio — Klemens Hannigan (vocals), Matthías Tryggvi Haraldson (vocals), and Einar Stéfansson (drums, also the drummer for the amazing band Vok!) — have already earned themselves Reykjavik’s Grapvine‘s “Best Live Band” pick of 2016 and 2017 (check out their comical interview). Their BDSM garb and bizarre masks (worn mainly by Einar) perfectly compliment the cult-like atmosphere that they create with their dark, enigmatic electronic beats and their eccentric, bizarre behavior (crawling on the bar, swinging around poles, and screaming like the devil). What’s most compelling about Hatari is their discerning dichotomies: devilish, primal screams delivered with a stolid, poker face… disturbing, suicide lyrics shouted to happy techno beats… fearful, yet amused. They exude a mystery and allure that is truly magnetic, and I had such a hard time pulling myself away. Mad props to Hatari for helping the crowd unleash our inner demons and making us “haters” against all the rampant hypocrisy that exists in this world. AND, I later learned that Bjork was one of the unexpected crowd members that Matthías locked eyes when he swung down from the pole that show. ONLY IN ICELAND. ❤️ Can’t WAIT to see them again at Airwaves this year!
Tagged dark electronic, dark wave, goth, hatari, iceland airwaves, icelandic music, music festival, music reviews, music videos, reykavik grapevine
October 28, 2018 by beatsthatsetmypulse
Hormonar: “Our songs are like a female orgasm; there’s no one big explosion, but many high points” – Live at Secret Solstice and Iceland Airwaves (June/Nov 2017)
Photo credit: Ian Young (www.nounpusher.com)
Hórmónar (Whoremoans) definitely roused plenty of hormones at Iceland Airwaves this year, and it is no surprise that their fan base is multiplying rapidly. They were one of my top new discoveries at Secret Solstice 2017, and their liberating (shirts off at the ed), sexually-charged punk rock performance had both men and women in a tizzy. It therefore was no surprise to later find out that these 5 friends (Brynhildur Karlsdóttir-Vocals, Urður Bergsdóttir-Bass/Vocals, Katrín Guðbjartsdóttir-Guitar, Hjalti Torfason-Saxophone, Örn Gauti Jóhannsson-Drums) won the 2016 Icelandic Music Experiment. Brynhildur’s vocals were unpredictable, edgy, and hot, and plenty of men shouted “are you offering?!” in response to her asking the audience, “Are you HORNY?!!” In a previous interview with the Rekyavik Grapevine, Brynhildur said: “Our songs are like a female orgasm; there’s no one big explosion, but many high points.” Their smoking hot, super-seductive, “drive-you-wild” energy sparked some serious attention at Iceland Airwaves this year, earning them the “Peoples’ Choice Award” at the Grapevine Music Awards. I am so glad I was able to see them up close without getting burned. 😛 Can’t wait to see my three favorite songs (videos below) from their album ‘Nananana Búbú” once more at Iceland Airwaves 2018. ❤
Tagged hormonar, iceland airwaves, icelandic band, icelandic music, live music, music festival, music reviews, secret solstice
Omotrack: “Why is life equalized, some people just can’t see… Everyone has blind spots except for me” – Live at Iceland Airwaves (Nov 4, 2018)
It was so awesome to have run into the talented brother duo (Markús and Birkir Bjarnason) front-men of Omotrack at Songhoy Blues (at Reykjavík art museum) only a few hours after catching their last set of Airwaves at the bookstore on Laugavegi. They’ve got such an infectious indie/pop/electro sound that kinda remind me of a funkier version of two Bombay Bicycle Club and Two Door Cinema Club. It’s pretty rare to see synths and brass (trombone, trumpet, saxophone) battling for the spotlight! The trumpet and sax were nailing their harmony parts! I loved all of the tracks in the set, especially the 4 below that I got on video: Hippo Trip (new), Imaginary Mountains, Old Habits, and Blind Spots. I especially love ‘Blind Spots,’ and assume that the lyrics were inspired by their experience of growing up as two Icelandic toddlers in remote village in Ethiopia called “Omo Rate” (which inspired the band name), witnessing disparities between people of different ethnicity and social class:
“People treated differently, due to their ethnicity.. Who can tell wrong from right, and sit back watch people fight… Why is life equalized, some people just can’t see… Life can’t be overpriced… Everyone has blind spots except for me.”
Not able to speak the local dialect of Daasanach or easily blend in, Markús and Birkir relied on each other for friendship, fun and musical entertainment and started creating music together as early as 5 and 3 years old. Now, in their early twenties, the band has put down some strong roots into the Icelandic music scene and recently placed third in Músiktilraunir, Iceland’s annual “Battle of the Bands” for young and emerging talent who are hoping to take their careers to the next level. “We tried to enter two years ago, but we only had two songs,” says lead singer and guitarist Markús. “We had been a band for maybe ten days. Now we have more music, and we feel more comfortable, so we just thought: let’s try this.” I’m so glad they did. Their bronze finish not only earned them a spot at Iceland Airwaves, but also a supporting slot with the contest’s winners, Between Mountains. Can’t wait to see them again at Airwaves this year!
So lucky to run into them later that night!
Tagged iceland airwaves, icelandic music, live music, Músíktilraunir, music festival, music reviews, omotrack
March 13, 2018 by beatsthatsetmypulse
Love Somebody (Playlist: March 13, 2018)
Compiled by Erica Andreozzi
FRESH NEW PLAYLIST (Spotify link and track listing below) inspired by recent shows in January and February (many of of which were part of SF’s NoisePop Festival) – Josh Jacobson, Typhoon, Mimicking Birds, Emily Afton, Future Feats, Wild Child, Andrew St. James, Wildling, Crooked Colours, Dagmar, Ha Ha Tonka, Belle Game, Geographer, DonCat, Langhorne Slim, The Album Leaf, Vakoum, Field Medic, Waxahatchee, White Knuckles, Banzai Cliff, King Krule, Derek Ted (of Owl Paws), Lucy Rose, Charlie Cunningham, tUnE-yArDs, X-Ambassadors, Tall Heights, Black Pistol Fire, Billy Rafoul, ZZ Ward, The Wedding Present – and new releases from Frenship, Chvrches (including a track featuring Matt Berninger of The National), Jose Gonzalez, and Tallest Man in Earth (along with new tour dates!)
I chose Frenship’s ‘Love Somebody’ as the title track because, despite the song being so damn catchy (I couldn’t listen just once), I really liked the overarching message: “Get out and LOVE SOMEBODY, and GET LOST on the way.” You never know what hard times someone may be going through or how much they could use a simple smile or “Hello” from a stranger. Get out of your own head and look up at the beauty in your surroundings, savor all the amazing people around you and the lil’ miracles that might sweep you off your feet. I’ve recently encounter many young lives being snatched up way too early (including the super-talented, massively-loved LA-music photographer, Emery Becker who met last year at SXSW), and it absolutely crushes me. No matter what your circumstances and what miserable mood you may be in, strive to be kind. Remember that everyone’s days are numbered and that only WE have the power to make sure those numbers count – every hour, every min, ever second. The fleetingness of life will always remain one of our greatest mysteries, and we should never take anything for granted. Hug harder, smile wider, lend more hands. You never know what impact the tiniest act of kindness may have, or whose lives they may be saving. I hope this playlist will encourage you to open your heart to “love somebody” and to “make tiny changes to earth” (now quoting Frightened Rabbit). And as my friend Paige Parsons (met seeing The Twilight Sad (Official)) says so beautifully, music is the best medium to do so because “music cuts through out cynicism and breaks down the barriers that we erect between ourselves and the rest of the world.” Check out her talk on this:
Help me amplify this message by sharing my playlist with friends and posting about it on social media. AND, if you are an artist featured on this playlist, reposting this playlist will increase the odds of Google not filtering this out on the web and improving your visibility (from what I’ve been told by SEO experts), so please care to share! 😀
(In order to access the playlist, you have to press the 3 vertical dots in the upper right hand corner and select download. You can then cancel the download immediately and still have access to the playlist. If you are still having uses, let me know and I can send you a link to download the tracks!
Wake- Typhoon
Same Mistakes- FUTURE FEATS
LOVE Somebody- Frenship
Get Out- CHVRCHES
Hummingbird- Wildling
Rorschach- Typhoon
Plymouth- Crooked Colours
In the Morning!- Andrew St James
I Want Nothing- The Belle Game
Try to Be Someone- DonCat
Conversation- Owl Paws
Lost- Emily Afton
Suck- The Wedding Present
Gorgeous- X Ambassadors
Home- White Knuckles
Sparks Fly- Waxahatchee
Don’t Ask Why- Black Pistol Fire
Minimum- Charlie Cunningham
Laura- Andrew St James
Flow- Crooked Colours
backyard sorrow- derek ted
Biscuit Town- King Krule
Remember- Typhoon
Little Lies- Wildling
Tumbleweed- Dagmar
Expectations- Wild Child
What Do You Want- Dagmar
Sorry Bout Tomorrow!- Andrew St James
Foolish- Geographer
Millennial Malaise- Andrew St James
Severing the Knot- Emily Afton
Come Back To You- Crooked Colours
The Way We Move
Bloodlines- Mimicking Birds
Anyone Can Make A Mistake- The Wedding Present
Too Young To Die- Banzai Cliff
Silver- Waxahatchee
Bully- Black Pistol Fire
poison poetry- derek ted
Silver Screen- DonCat
Koyo- Josh Jacobson
Coast to Coast- tUnE-yArDs
Changes- Langhorne Slim
My Enemy (feat. Matt Berninger)- CHVRCHES
Think it Over- Wild Child
An Opening- Charlie Cunningham
Hipster Shakes- Black Pistol Fire
Tethered- Josh Jacobson
I Love to Dance- Langhorn Slim
Danielle- Banzai Cliff
I Hope You Get It- Crooked Colours
An Ocean- The Tallest Man on Earth
Back & Forth- Wild Child
Better Off- White Knuckles
What Did Your Last Servant Die Of- The Wedding Present
Spirit Cold- Tall Heights
Never Been Wrong- Waxahatchee
Let Me Go Alone- White Knuckles
All With You- Ha Ha Tonka
Owl Hoots- Mimicking Birds
POWERFUL LOVE- Field Medic
Ahead Of Myself- X Ambassadors
Be Set Free- Langhorn Slim
Race To The Bottom- Ha Ha Tonka
Still In Love- Thirdstory
all i have- derek ted
Driver- Billy Raffoul
Sunlight Daze- Mimicking Birds
Fade- Josh Jacobson
uuu- Field Medic
With the Ink of a Ghost- José González
Twenty Two Fourteen- The Album Leaf
Second Chance- Lucy Rose
ICE- Vákoum
Movie Screen- Dagmar
Blank Pages- The Album Leaf
Ghost- ZZ Ward
YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/user/eandreoz
Tagged acts of kindness, andrew st. james, belle game, billy rafoul, black pistol fire, charlie cunningham, CHVRCHES, crooked colours, dagmar, derek ted, doncat, emily afton, field medic, folk rock, frendship, frenship, Frightened Rabbit, future feats, Geographer, ha ha tonka, indie rock, jose gonzalez, josh jacobson, king krule, langhorn slim, live music, Lucy Rose, matt berninger, mimicking birds, music festival, music photography, music playlist, music reviews, music with a message, noisepop, owl paws, paige parsons, sf music scene, spotify, Tallest Man on Earth, the album leaf, The National, the wedding present, tuneyards, Typhoon, vakoum, waxahatchee, white knuckles, wild child, wildling, x ambassadors, zz ward
Charlie Cunningham: “What you got to live for, Now you got the whole of the world at your feet, And how much more can you pass yourself round?… Go, take a load off, Letting your wings unfold, And keeping everything down to a minimum” – The Swedish American Hall (March 7, 2018)
Lucy Rose jokingly said, “never bring an opener on tour who is better than you.” She was of course referring to Charlie Cunningham, the super-talented British singer/songwriter who was definitely more of a “show stopper” than “show starter” and who had you stopped in your tracks with HIS stunning tracks. Apart from his exquisite guitar work and super-soothing vocals, his incredibly pensive, poetic, introspective lyrics will seep into your soul and etch some long-lasting “Lines” (coincidentally the title of his debut album). His music reminds me a bit of Nick Mulvey and Jose Gonzalez, which is funny cause apparently Jose Gonzalez is one of the main musicians that Charlie’s record label curator (Magus) works with. Keen hunch! I l also hear a bit of Spanish guitar influence, which makes sense considering that Charlie traveled to Spain to create the music he wanted to play, free from the prerequisite of “having to read music” first. Charlie also learned to play piano before he learned guitar (at age 14), and I hope he brings both with him on his next US tour… which BETTER BE a HEADLINE one. His 45 min opening set at Swedish American Hall was way too short for satiation, and there was a unanimous request from the entire audience for him to keep playing after his last song, ‘Minimum‘ (video below), my FAVORITE (aside from ‘An Opening‘) and one that really hits home:
“How do I walk this earth?
So much work at first, it goes
How should I walk this earth?
So much worse the further, the further you go
Go, take off a load
Letting your wings unfold
And keeping everything down to a minimum
Everything a bit though
Tell’em what you know but all that you know, though
The truth be told you need it more than you thought
But you’re managing, that’s how you evened out, out
Keep on walking that line, the fine line
Between a wrong and a right
You get yours, I’m gonna get mine
Is that what you signed for?
They’re feeding you lines
To keep you on their side
It works every time
What you got to live for
Now you got the whole of the world at your feet
And how much more can you pass yourself round?
What you got to live for now
You got the whole of the world at your feet
But you’re still shaking?
You need to make up some ground
But you’re managing, that’s how you evened out, out” ❤
Mad props to Lucy for bringing him on tour with her! It was also nice that she invited him up on stage to help sing a few of her songs. I was so bummed when I missed seeing him open for Low Roar at The Chapel last year cause of being away for a work trip. This was certainly a super sweet an unexpected treat!<3 🙂
Tagged charlie cunningham, folk music, lines, live music, Lucy Rose, minimum, music reviews, sf music scene, singer songerwriter, swedish american hall, uk artist
Black Pistol Fire: “Now you pick apart my love, When a push comes to shove, Say you had about enough, But you still call my bluff” – Ace of Spades in Sacramento (March 6, 2017)
Meeting Kevin McKeown, the WILD FRONTMAN of Black Pistol Fire!
“Why settle for a spark when you can have the whole damn fire”… BLACK PISTOL FIRE. Ain’t that the truth! There is no reason set settle for a mediocre “rock band” band you can have the HIGH-OCTANE rock duo that I like to call a “younger version of The Black Keys but with more energy, power, and FIRE.” Both Kevin McKeown (Guitar, vocals) and Eric Owen (Drums) are SERIOUS SPITFIRES that will have your ENTIRE BODY AFLAME within seconds of them hitting the stage. I nearly spontaneously combusted when getting to see him perform ‘Speak of the Devil‘ (my favorite track which I got a full video of) from the photo pit and watching him SHRED GUITAR so hard you thought he might puncture skin. Eric (shirtless, hands wrapped), was equally as intense, pounding on his drums as if he is beating away demons. My heart was racing the entire set, especially when Kevin started karate-kicking his legs up in the air and jumping off anything that didn’t move (although I’m sure that is subject to change). He would also stomp in place mid-shred as if marking his territory like in flamenco, with his feet moving so fast you can hardly catch them!. Kevin also blazed a trail through the crowd as he dove face first to crowd surf while STILL SHREDDING guitar. I’m not sure why the name of their album (released May 2016) is ‘Don’t Wake The Riot,’ cause they certainly wake every riot that I have in me, especially with songs like ‘Bully’ (“I like it when you play too rough…”) and I cannot WAIT to see FEEL THIS FIRE again, hopefully next week at SXSW while sporting my badass Black Pistol Fire t-shirt (pic above). 🙂 WARING: You better see them before they blow up and only play huge venues. They have already been clocking it at #1 on the Canada Rock Billboard Chart for the past week! ❤
Tagged ace of spades, austin band, band on the rise, billboard 100, black pistol fire, don't wake the riot, eric owen, kevin mcKeown, live music, meeting the band, music reviews, rock band, rock music, sf music scene, speak of the devil, SXSW, the blacks keys
Additional Social Media
Born Dark
Queen of Failureland
Rebound (Playlist: May 18, 2018)
Make it out Alive (Playlist: Jan 15, 2018)
Up All Night (Playlist: Oct 29, 2017)
Capsized (Playlist: Sept 24, 2017)
Creature Comfort (Playlist: Aug 15, 2017)
I Know You Know (Playlist: July 9, 2017)
Feeling Electric (Playlist: June 5, 2017)
Wake Up (Playlist: May 3, 2017)
I Want It All (Playlist: Feb 12, 2017)
Rising Water (Playlist: Dec 17, 2016)
Standing Rock (Playlist: Oct 31, 2016)
Jungle (Playlist: Oct 1, 2016)
When Things Fall Apart (Playlist: July 5, 2016)
I Need Your Light (Playlist: April 10, 2016)
Are We Alive (playlist: March 6, 2016)
Show Me the Way (Playlist: Feb 16, 2016)
Glow Long (Playlist: Feb 11, 2016)
The World is Crowded
All This Wandering Around
Little Whiskey
Time Is Dancing
Mess in Mine
Ballad of a Patient Man
A Good Reason to Grow Old
What Have We Done
All My Days
Afraid of Nothing
Play It Right
Wakin’ On a Pretty Day
Celebrate Nothing
Now You Are Free
Let’s Be Still
Hearts Like Ours
All Hail Bright Futures
Silver Self
We Will All Be Changed
Imperfect Time
These Barren Years
Finally Moving
Hopeless Wanderer
I’m Wrong
You’re Going Back
I Won’t Be Found
Orange Sky
Hello My Old Heart
Lost in My Mind
Behold the Hurricane
Your Only Doll
Unloveable
Built to Break
U.R.A. Fever
You Yes You
Road to Joy
Always Like This
How It Ends
All at Once
Sigh No More
Do You Want It All?
Aging Actress
Aging Actress: “Sometimes pulling you down to me, Feels like lassoing the moon” -Live at Club Tee Gee in LA (June 15, 2019)
Aero Flynn
Aero Flynn: “I Can Feel the Moonbeams”
Allan Rayman
Allan Rayman: “God is a Woman, Can she hear me now” – The Rickshaw Stop (March 29, 2017)
Andrew McMahon and the Wilderness
Andrew McMahon – “You’ve gotta swim, swim for your life, swim for the music that saves you when you’re not so sure you’ll survive”: The UC Theatre in Berkeley (May 6, 2017)
Angus Stone
Annie Eve
Arstidir
Arstíðir: “I’ve been waiting for someone to say, That my patience was worth all the way” – Live at Iceland Airwaves (Nov 3, 2017)
Asgeir
Asgeir: “Oh, how I long for light.. A light that won’t leave me.. Never to go away”: The Fillmore in SF (Sept 1, 2017)
Asgeir: “I lift my mind to the sky, and I let it take flight…The wind carries to my ears, precious sounds of life”
Atlas Genius – “You spin me right round baby right round, like a record baby”: The UC Theatre in Berkeley (May 6, 2017)
Augustines
Augustines: “To RISE UP from some dirty ashes…”
Augustines’ Birthday Cheer at Green Man!
AUGUSTINES- The Empire, Belfast (Nov 26, 2014)
Axel Flovent
Axel Flovent: “You are the reason why I got what I really wanted…Now I can see the sun When I look at where we started” – Iceland Airwaves (Nov 3, 2017)
Bear’s Den
Bear’s Den: “I didn’t know when I started runnin’…I’d be runnin’ my whole life.”
Ben Abraham
Ben Abraham – “You’re hiding like a memory… Calling to the weakness in my soul”: The Independent (May 19, 2016)
Ben Howard: “So happy hearted in the warmth…Free as a bird that flies.”
Ben Sollee
Ben Sollee and the Kentucky Natives: “I thought I could change the world If I just held you high enough, Truth is, I couldn’t hold you up at all… And I sure ain’t gonna hold you down” – Live at the Swedish American Music Hall in SF (12-10-17)
Between Mountains
Between Mountains: “Deeper in the city, I feel your face” – Live at Iceland Airwaves (Nov 5, 2017)
Boy & Bear
Boy & Bear: “Cause the love that keeps me sane, Is killing me all the same”
Broken Hands
Broken Social Scene: “I get world sick every time I take a stand… Well, I get world sick, my love is for my man” – Fox Theater in Oakland (Oct 26, 2017)
Brother & Bones
Bwani Junction
Captain Syrup
Captain Syrup: Be sure to taste some of this! – Live at Iceland Airwaves (Nov 4, 2017)
Caroline Smith
Caroline Smith: “If you gotta guy like mine then read the signs don’t lose your mind make the drive to Jefferson”” – Live at the Independent in SF (Dec 9, 2017)
Catfish and the Bottlemen- “I want to endorse you…I want you to EXHAUST ME.”
Cattle & Cane
City of the Sun
City of the Sun: “If you can here for a chill acoustic show, this ain’t it” – The Cornerstone in Berkeley (Nov 7, 2017)
Courtney Barnett (REVIEW): “In my brain I re-arrange the letters on the page to spell your name…” – Islington Assembly Hall and The Great Escape in London/Brighton (2014)
Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile: “You can’t save the unsavably untogether” – Fox Theater in Oakland (Oct 18, 2017)
Damien Jurado
Damien Jurado – “My name is Damien Jurado, not Damien “Jutebox”: The Independent in SF (May 19, 2016)
Damien Jurado: “I have questions that lead to more questions…”
Daniel Champagne
Daniel Champagne: “When I told you I, was afraid to fall…really I, was afraid to fly…at all”
Dawes: “Oh you can judge the whole world on the sparkle that you think it lacks…Well you can stare into the abyss but it’s staring right back.”
Day Wave- “So just close your eyes and I’ll close mine Let me close your heart, it just takes time And we’ll be alright”: Rickshaw Stop (Feb 25, 2016)
Del Barber
Dirty Projectors- “I Haven’t Found it Yet…But I’ll Keep on Dancing Until I Do”
Emilie and Ogden
Emilie & Ogden (amazing harpist!) had us “never going out of style” at The Independent (Jan 16, 2016)
Emily Scott Robinson
Emily Scott Robinson: “So raise a glass to my good long life, don’t dress in black, don’t let me see you cry, I’m not afraid, I’m just headed home. It’s time to let me go’ – Swedish American Hall (Dec 8, 2017)
Eric Long: “So hold onto the best, and let go of the rest, cause in the morning, them sweet things might be gone” – Live at Sofar Sounds in SF (Aug 12, 2019)
Etches
Fatherson- “So go home, sober up, Take the weight off your feet and just chill.”
GDJYB
GDJYB: “Tick tick tock tock the minute goes, the history flows, nothing’s gonna change the lies u told, the scam we know” – Iceland Airwaves (Nov 3, 2017)
Geographer
Geographer – “You’ve been staring at the ocean, Like it’s a language you could learn”: The Catalyst Club in Santa Cruz (April 16, 2017)
Geographer – “I want it all, I want it all, right now right now”: The Rickshaw Stop in SF (Jan 20, 2017)
Geographer- “Said this life was made for the LIVING…if this is life AT ALL.”
George Ezra- “Give Me One Good Reason Why I Should Never Make a Change”
GIVERS- “Don’t Get Stuck in the Meantime, No Such Thing as the Meantime”
Good Old War
Gracie and Rachel
Gracie and Rachel: “I am getting so very comfortable, and I don’t want to get that way, no, I don’t want to get that way… Oh no… Comfortable, comfortable, comfortable, uncomfortable” – Cafe Du Nord (Sept 15, 2017)
Gregory Alan Isakov – “And your heart’s a thousand colors but they’re all shades of blue”: The Mystic Theater in Petaluma (April 28, 2017)
HAIM: “I’ll never give up and I’ll never look back, just hold your head up… And if it gets rough, it’s time to get rough” – The Fox Theater in Oakland (Sept 7, 2017)
Half Moon Run surely had us “Turn our love way up inside”at the Independent (Jan 16, 2016)
Half Moon Run- “She wants to know just who I am…She can make you work for the worth that she has”
Harriet- “I could take you higher, But I can’t take you home… You’re a tough desire… You may be all I needed but it’s not like we’re alone”: The Rickshaw Stop (Feb 25, 2016)
Hatari: “Dance of corruption, Trance of consumption, Greed and extravagance, Where do we go now?” – Live at Iceland Airwaves
Heartwatch
Heartwatch- “Meet me in the middle of the golden gate and feel my heart beat”: The Independent (Feb 24, 2016)
Henry Jamison: “Well if all is fair in love and war then I don’t know what we are fighting for; So if we don’t care to fight no more let’s go upstairs and let’s shut the door” – Live at Cafe Du Nord (Sept 15, 2017)
Hogni
Hogni: “Wonderful dreams that were uncomfortable scenes out of nowhere… Wonderful scenes that were uncomfortable schemes out of nowhere” – Live at Secret Solstice and Iceland Airwaves (June/Nov 2017)
Hormonar
Hormonar: “Our songs are like a female orgasm; there’s no one big explosion, but many high points” – Live at Secret Solstice and Iceland Airwaves (2016/2017)
Hot Feet
Hozier- “The only heaven I’ll be sent to, Is when I’m alone with you.”
Jack Garratt: “Let me be something you use up for one night…Burn the remnants of my youth.”
Jake Morely
Jake Morley: “Headstrong…Always used to be so headstrong…Now all I seem to do is falter…”
James Vincent McMorrow
James Vincent McMorrow- “Sometimes my hands they don’t feel like my own, I need someone to love, I need someone to hold”
Jaws of Love: “You just smile cause you know that things can break but we stay alive” – Live at Cafe Du Nord (Nov 11, 2017)
Joe Purdy
Joe Purdy – “playing with the tragedies, singing good time harmonies”: Slims in SF (April 15, 2017)
Joe Purdy- “Treat me like a human, treat you like the same, maybe we’ll all get along some day”: The Independent (Feb 20, 2016)
Josh Jacobson
Josh Jacobson: “My heart is still on the fence I’m sorry, I have no defense I’m drowning in your confidence” – Cafe Du Nord (Feb 9, 2018)
Joshua Radin
Joshua Radin Heals Hearts Broken by Bowie’s Death (Jan 11, 2016)
Judah & The Lion
Judah & The Lion: “Hey, my life is real great, feel I’m well on my way to my dreams coming true and I’m getting to do with you” – (April 21, 2016)
Julia Holter- Her distinct drift towards pop reels us all in: The Chapel (Jan 31, 2016)
Junip
Junip- “Let these moments last…Could be gone so fast…Walking Lightly”
Kings of Convenience- “Love is just a game we’re both playing and we can’t get enough of…”
Kiriyama Family
Kiriyama Family: “You’re looking for an answer, and try to dig deeper but you can’t always get higher” – Live at Iceland Airwaves (Nov 4, 2017)
Kodaline- “I hope that I can say…When all my days are done…We were just having fun”
Kurt Vile (REVIEW): “I wanna change, but I don’t wanna stay the same…I wanna go, but I’m running” – Live at St. James Church and Green Man in London/Wales (2015)
Langhorne Slim: “Now tell me where do the good ones go, when they’re gone.” – Swedish American Hall (February 20, 2018)
Laura Marling – “A woman alone is not a woman undone”: The Fillmore in SF (April 30, 2017)
Lauren Ruth Ward: “‘Love is not loving’ mama, that’s what Bowie said… Think I’m aggressive? I’m just obsessive. Maybe I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” – Live at The Chapel in SF (May 25, 2018)
Little May
Little May: “The Shine is Brighter at Night”
Little Green Cars
Little Green Cars: “It’s easy to give it to, When there’s more people out there to love…Than people who love you”
Low Roar
Low Roar – “I wanna feel something again… memorable”: The Independent in SF (April 24 & 25, 2017)
Lucy Rose: “And if we could back time, could we learn to live right?…”
Luke Sital-Singh
Luke Sital-Singh: “I’ve got a 21st century heartbeat. It’s a dying voice, it still haunts me. 21st century heartbeat, holding on” – The Fillmore (12-3-17)
Magic Bronson
Magic Bronson- “Say something, say it real quick, I’ll throw it at the wall and see if it sticks… I’m erratic, I need a fix, I’m brushing off the dirt of my fresh white kicks” – Empire Control Room at SXSW (March 16, 2018)
Magic Bronson – “Good to know just won’t make it, kid you got take it, into your own hands”: SXSW in Austin (April 17 & 18, 2017)
Mani Orrason
Mani Orrason: “But freedom haunts me like it should haunt no one… And when I run through the trees I will run for everyone” – Iceland Airwaves (Nov 3, 2017)
Max Frost
Max Frost: “Life is a game just stay strong, One day your moment will come, You’ve got to shine till then” – Bottom of the Hill (Jan 23, 2016)
Milo Greene
Milo Greene- “Even if your heart stops, I’ll be there to hold you up”-Brick & Mortar (Feb 17, 2016)
Minus the Bear: “Hey, let’s cross the sea, and get some culture… Red wine with every meal, and absinthe after dinner” – The Fox Theater in Oakland (Oct 22, 2017)
Minus the Bear: “I hope the weather holds, But you don’t need the sun to make you shine”
Mogwai: “Music is so powerful that it’s quite beyond my control…and when I’m in the grips of it I don’t feel pleasure and I don’t feel pain.”
Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats- “Don’t You Weep, Don’t You Worry”: The Filmore (Jan 27, 2016)
Nick Mulvey: “Cause you got lost in comparison Always pretending you knew When everything you were looking for Was already looking at you… Wake up now” – Swedish American Hall (Nov 17, 2017)
Night Riots
Night Riots – “They will try but they will never break who you are. There is us, we are one, as the whole world falls apart”: The UC Theatre in Berkeley (May 6, 2017)
Omotrack
One Week Wonder
One Week Wonder: “Even the Gods will know my own name” – Iceland Airwaves (Nov 3, 2017)
Overcoats: “He makes me smaller with every embrace that I ask for… Smaller than my mother, he looks down on me” – The Independent (Dec 9, 2017)
Owl John
Owl John: “With my head in my hands I resolve to die alone, Now I’ve finally found a good reason to grow old.”
Owl Paws
Owl Paws: “I know there’s a reason wild and true…why I had to hurt you” – Bottom of the Hill (March 25, 2016)
Passport to Stockholm
Passport to Stockholm: “Don’t tell me that we can’t try, Our imperfections define us.”
Penguin Prison- “Just a little more, cause it never gets old”: Mezzanine (Feb 10, 2016)
Pierce Brothers
Pierce Brothers: “Just keep in mind, I’ll be there for you, You’ll be next to my heart” – The Fillmore in SF (Oct 21, 2017)
Public Service Broadcasting: “It’s tiring, always stretching for something just out of reach… But I’ll get it. After all, what I want isn’t as easy as all that” – Swedish American Hall in SF (Sept 24, 2017)
Radical Face
Radical Face: “So, collect your scars and wear ’em well, Your blood’s a good an ink as any” – The Chapel (May 12, 2016)
Rett Madison
Rythmatik
Rett Madison: “Shame is a river, and I’ve crossed its waters, always sink… Hope’s on the other side, and I’ve got guilt I’ve got bricks to my feet… Love is a sunrise, where’s the light to eclipse my grief?” – Live at The HiHat in LA (March 8, 2019)
Rythmatik: “Put my dreams in red balloons, Tie the Knots, Tie the Noose” – Iceland Airwaves (Nov 4, 2017)
Samantha Crain- “When you come back, can you bring my heart” [review] Amnesia in SF (Jan 19, 2016)
San Fermin – “Oh I wish I kept myself a little better company… oh I try ot put a good face on … someone better come for me”: The Independent in SF (April 24 & 25, 2017)
Sharon Van Etten: “Halfway through this life, I used to feel free, Or was it just a dream? Now you’re hotshot, Think you’re so carefree, But you’re just seventeen, So much like me” – Live at The Fillmore in SF (Feb 26, 2019)
Sharon Van Etten- “We’ve been through better days, And you’ve tasted all my pain…Break my legs so I can’t walk to you…”
Silversun Pickups: “You’re not the type to stand aside… Let’s stay and fight for the wild kind” – The Fox Theater in Oakland (Oct 22, 2017)
She Keeps Bees: “Basic right we must defend, To choose whether and when… Our bodies are our home” – the Independent in SF (Sept 25, 2017)
tUnE-yArDs: “Giving me a heart attack don’t let me lose my soul” – Live at the Mystic Theater in Petaluma (Dec 1, 2017)
Sun Kill Moon
Sun Kil Moon- “She wanted love like anyone else…She had dreams like anyone else.”
Sylvan Esso: “I was Gonna Die Young, But now I Gotta Wait for You”: Fox Theater in Oakland (Aug 23, 2017)
Tash Sultana: “But you keep on rolling, Like a rolling stone… And you fight until the finish line, Carries you home” – Live at the Fillmore in SF (Oct 21, 2017)
The Head and the Heart: “If you think that you’re lost, you can follow the bridges you’ve crossed… You can turn it around, there’s nobody blocking your way” – The Greek Theater in Berkeley (Oct 7, 2016)
The Oh Hellos: “Nothing lasts forever, Some things aren’t meant to be, But you’ll never find the answer, Until you set your old heart free” – The Fillmore in SF (March 29, 2018)
The Staves: “You cut my roots and now my leaves are dead. They tumble down in pools of all the blood I bled” – The Great American Music Hall in in SF (Feb 20, 2017)
The Twilight Sad (REVIEW): “We Danced to Save Them All…” – Live at the Lexington in London (July 26, 2014)
The War on Drugs: “I resist what I cannot change, But I wanna find what can’t be found” – Greek Theater in Berkeley (October 6, 2017)
The XX – “A rush of blood is not enough – I need my feelings set on fire”: Bill Graham in SF (April 16, 2017)
Tow’rs
Tow’rs- “Just Because We’re Breathing Doesn’t Mean We’re Alive”: Neck of the Woods (Feb 12, 2016)
Trevor Hall – “Open up and live, let that sweet love come in”: Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley (Oct 13, 2016)
Trousdale
Trousdale: “Just when you think you know someone, Lord knows you ain’t got a clue” – Live at Club Tee Gee (June 16, 2019)
Typhoon: “But if there’s nothing, then what’s that song that keeps hounding me? .. this is not your loss, this is your offering” – The Independent (Feb 13, 2018)
Vancouver Sleep Clinic – “All of the sinners, all of the saints, All of the beauty, all of the pain, In the loss, in the gain, I’m not afraid”: Bottom of the Hill in SF (April 17, 2017
We Made God
We Made God: Hail to this Higher Power – Live at Iceland Airwaves (Nov 4, 2017)
Youth Lagoon: ‘When I was seventeen, my mother said to me…Don’t stop imagining…The day that you do is the day that you die.”
Snapshots (2011): I
Snapshots (2011): II
Snapshots (2012): 2
Snapshots (2012): III
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2017
Outside Lands (Aug 11-13, 2017)
BottleRock Napa (May 26-28, 2017)
Green Man (Aug 15-18, 2014)
The Great Escape (May 8-10, 2014)
T in the Park (July 12-14, 2013)
Summer Stampede (July 6, 2013)
The Summer Stampede (July 6, 2013): Mumford and Sons, Ben Howard, Vampire Weekend, Haim, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Bear’s Den
Great Escape (May 16-18, 2013)
Not So Silent Night (Dec 9, 2011): Mumford and Sons, Green Day, Florence and the Machine, Bush, Young the Giant
Sasquatch Music Festival (May 25-28, 2012)
Music & Love
Newest Reviews/Playlists (all can be found above)
Between Mountains: “But I know I don’t have to be in love to wanna meet you” – Live at Iceland Airwaves
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Home / Uncategorized / Juvenile drug court needed, magistrate says
Juvenile drug court needed, magistrate says - by Barbados Today January 26, 2018
Barbados Today
A local magistrate is recommending the establishment of a special court for children charged with illegal drugs offences.
Magistrate Graveney Bannister, who is chairman of the Drug Treatment Court for adults, told a panel discussion on drugs at the Cave Hill Wesleyan Holiness Church, Cave Hill Main Road, St Michael last night that such a court would make it possible for juveniles to bypass incarceration at the Government Industrial School (GIS) for young offenders.
“The time may have arrived for consideration to be given to a juvenile drug court. The reason being is that there are several youngsters 12 and 13 [years old] who are running into problems with the use of drugs and I think it is a bit draconian to send children off for three years to the Government Industrial School.
“If there is a drug court programme, they can complete their education outside of such an environment,” Bannister told the launch of the 2018 Man Talk panel discussion series organized by the Cave Hill Wesleyan Men Ministry.
Addressing the topic, Not My Child – The Drug Debate, the judicial officer said such a court would have to be funded, possibly through a method that is similar to that of the adult court, which is bring financed by the Organization of American States (OAS) in conjunction with various other entities including the Maria Holder Memorial Trust.
“If the same format is adopted for a juvenile court, I see no harm in adding a juvenile court. I believe there is a problem that we may have in that we may have to build capacity to have additional training for people to man these courts. Dealing with children is different from dealing with adults,” he said.
Bannister expressed concern about the number of children using cannabis, which he said was associated with violence in schools.
“So we need to arrest the use of drugs and we need to get out of this denial that it is not in certain institutions. My information is that it is commonplace in a lot of institutions, even though it might be more publicized in others,” the magistrate told the panel.
Bannister’s call was supported by Manager of the National Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA) Betty Hunte, who said that a study conducted in secondary schools in 2013 had found that on average students had been used drugs, particularly marijuana, before their 14th birthday.
That survey also found that 46 per cent of children said “it was really easy for them to access marijuana”, Hunte said, adding that the students reported getting the illicit substances from at home and on the block.
The NCSA manager also backed an earlier suggestion by the magistrate for parents to search their children’s rooms and bags to find out whether they were involved in drugs, a recommendation Orlando Jones, the director of the Centre for Counselling Addiction Support Alternatives, was apprehensive about.
“I have experienced situations where I have seen parents who are actually afraid of their teenage children. So the whole notion of going into their rooms to actually search is really a challenge to the parents,” Jones cautioned.
10 Replies to “Juvenile drug court needed, magistrate says”
Educator says:
Great idea. It would also be useful for schools to be able to directly collaborate with personnel in the juvenile drug court, if it is established, as a source for referring students who are known to be using drugs. Drug use among adolescents is a huge problem within our schools.
Alex Alleyne says:
THE ONLY OTHER COURT WE NEED IN BARBADOS IS A “SMALL CLAIMS COURT”.
We don’t need another court.
What we need is for our young people to leave the drugs that are killing them and making them more stupid alone.
We have certainly lost our way.
Our people have long become a detriment to our own young people. Start with the politicians who took on and imported devil systems which was not geared or matched to this people.
After another court, another jail and we continuing to travel down hill……………
Add to the discussion.
What are your thoughts? Add to the conversation. Cancel reply
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bergamot orange
a journal about life
Fragile Situation in Tunisia
May 10, 2011 February 5, 2012 ~ Bergamot Orange
You may have heard that Tunisia is back under curfew due to engagement between the police and protesters. Following is a story NPR ran about the current situation.
Tunisia Seen As Laboratory For Arab Democracy
by Eleanor Beardsley
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=136137821&m=136149443
[5 min 4 sec]
Fethi Belaid/AFP/Getty Images
Tunisian riot police face protestors in the center of Tunis on May 6 during a demonstration organized by youths denouncing the transitional government and calling for “a new revolution.”
In this season of uprisings in the Arab world, Tunisia was the first country to throw off its dictator. That event inspired similar revolts across the region. Four months later, with the country’s first democratic elections approaching, Tunisians are both hopeful and fearful.
Tunisia, and especially its capital, Tunis, is a bubbling cauldron of excitement and ideas. More than 70 new political parties have sprung into existence and hundreds of citizens’ organizations have formed. Fares Mabrouk, head of the Arab Policy Institute, was finally able to create a think-tank — something inconceivable under the former regime.
Mabrouk says Tunisia is a laboratory for democracy in the Arab world.
“Is democracy possible in the Arab world?” Mabrouk asks. “The question will be answered here in Tunisia.”
A Fragile Situation
But amidst the excitement, says Mabrouk, the situation is still very fragile. Many Tunisians fear the former regime will return. Over the weekend Tunisian authorities had to set a curfew after violent protests were fueled by rumors of a coup.
But although there are occasional setbacks, the freedoms brought by the revolution are obvious everywhere. Upbeat and peaceful street demonstrations have become a part of daily life as everyone clamors to be heard.
The once-harassed street vendor now plies his wares freely from the sidewalk. The young Tunisian who ignited the revolution by setting himself on fire last December was a street vendor, and today the profession is sacrosanct.
Once cowed, Tunisians seem to burst with creativity and gall. The words of ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s last speech, mockingly set to a rapper’s beat, blares from a cafe.
Mustapha Saheb-Ettabaa, who is running for a seat in the 260-member constitutional assembly, says for Tunisians it’s like a dream.
“Because perhaps 70 or 80 percent of the Tunisian people never went to put an envelope in a box,” he explains. “So for us it will be a very, very great day the day we will go to the elections.”
Hassene Dridi/AP
Tunisian women listen to Hammadi Jebali, secretary general of Ennahda, Tunisia’s largest Islamic movement during a meeting in Tunis, Tunisia, on April 17. Political parties like Ennahda were once banned under dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s rule.
It will be the assembly’s job to draft a new constitution. The election is scheduled for July 24.
‘How Can We Actually Trust A Political Party?’
At a town hall meeting in a middle-class Tunis neighborhood, Ettabaa fields questions from citizens. Many people are concerned about the economy and security.
One woman asks, “How can we actually trust a political party?”
Such uncertainty is stoking fears. For the first time, bearded men in religious clothing walk the streets of Tunis. And many women now speak of being harassed by Islamists who tell them to cover themselves with a veil.
Ali Larayedh spent 13 years in a jail cell for membership in the outlawed Islamist party Ennahda. Today, with the ban lifted, he’s the party’s official spokesman. Larayedh says the fear over his party is unfounded because it wants a democracy too — but one that reflects the Tunisian identity.
“The Tunisian people are at peace with their identity as Arabs and Muslims, and they don’t want this questioned,” Larayedh says. “We must have a space for religion. Only a small minority on the left thinks this is a problem and wants a strictly secular state that would deny our Muslim identity.”
But more radical elements have split off from the mainstream Islamist party. A group of about 1,000 religious conservatives — mostly bearded, robed men — held a rally in the center of Tunis to demand the implementation of Islamic law. English professor Mounir Khelifa watched the demonstration from a cafe.
“Tunisians feel that this is un-Tunisian. Tunisians are moderate and pragmatic people. The kind of radical, extremist discourse does not ring true to a Tunisian ear,” Khelifa says.
Taking A Patriotic Year
If the young people continue to live their life and don’t involve themselves in what’s happening in Tunisia, it will be done by others. Maybe we will regress.
– Amazzine Khelifa, a 28-year-old woman who left her job in Paris to return to Tunisia
As it turns out, the hardliners have no permit to assemble, and their demonstration is soon disbursed by riot police firing volleys of tear gas. Cafe patrons also scramble for cover. It’s a typical afternoon in Tunis.
Whatever their viewpoints, most Tunisians agree on protecting the values of the revolution: democratic elections, an independent judiciary, freedom of speech. This sentiment is especially strong among Tunisian youth, and thousands of young people are now taking what they call a “patriotic year,” dropping whatever they were doing to help build their country.
Amazzine Khelifa, 28, left her husband and an engineering job in Paris to return to Tunisia at this historic time.
“The feeling is that something very important is happening in our country,” she says, “and if the young people continue to live their life and don’t involve themselves in what’s happening in Tunisia, it will be done by others. Maybe we will regress.”
We can’t trust anyone with the fate of our revolution, says Khelifa, except ourselves.
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Renown Health, with our partners, will inspire better health in our communities.
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Teenager Andreescu hailed for play, poise ahead of US Open
Vaughn Ridley / Getty Images Sport / Getty
TORONTO (AP) Current and former players are praising teenager Bianca Andreescu of Canada - not only for winning her third title of the year and first on home soil, but for the gracious way she handled a surprise retirement by Serena Williams.
Andreescu won the Rogers Cup in Toronto on Sunday after an emotional Williams said she could not continue in the final because of back spasms.
Williams' decision initially caught Andreescu off guard, but the younger player quickly went over to console the 37-year-old American star.
''I'm a pretty outgoing person and I felt like I knew what to say at that moment because I knew exactly how she felt because of what I've been through the last couple of months with my shoulder and even last year with my back,'' the 19-year-old Andreescu said Monday in a phone interview with The Canadian Press.
Williams called Andreescu an ''old soul'' and a ''great sportswoman.'' Those words meant a lot to Andreescu, who grew up idolizing the 23-time Grand Slam champion.
''I've watched (Williams) play my whole life,'' she said. ''She's a champion and she's an inspiration on and off the court. So having those words come out of her mouth about me is pretty damn awesome.''
Many others were quick to offer words of approval, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who called Andreescu ''an inspiration to players across Canada'' in a tweet.
''Today you showed tennis fans what sportsmanship is all about,'' he wrote on Sunday.
Tennis icon Billie Jean King, famous for pushing for women's equality in the sport, also joined the cheers on social media, saying Andreescu showed ''a level of maturity well beyond her years.''
"This is how women should treat each other. Her empathy and support for Serena were admirable. Competitors and women supporting women!'' King tweeted.
The win moved Andreescu to 14th in the rankings. She has a 38-5 record this season, including titles at Newport Beach and Indian Wells, and Sunday's win was her 17th straight in matches that have been completed. She has withdrawn or retired twice during that span because of injury.
She'll take that hot streak into the U.S. Open, which starts Aug. 26. She withdrew from this week's Western & Southern Open at Cincinnati to give herself time to recover after dealing with shoulder and groin injuries this year.
''At this point, after all I've been through with injuries, I want to listen to my body,'' Andreescu said. ''And my body told me to just take it easy right now and get ready for the U.S. Open.''
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Tag Archives: UASE
Entertainment, Film
2016 UASE: Call 2 Action Martial Arts Action Talent Competition and Branding Initiative with Willie “The Bam” Johnson on Nov. 12
The Urban Action Showcase & Expo, founded by Demetrius Angelo, is the premier all-action experiential entertainment platform celebrating diversity and honoring the past, present and future multicultural achievements within the blockbuster Action genre including Adventure, Fantasy, Grindhouse, Action Horror, Sci-Fi, and Supernatural content. Cinemax® sponsors the Urban Action Showcase and Expo (UASE) in New York City.
The Urban Action Showcase and Expo is presenting the 2016 Call 2 Action Martial Arts Action Talent Initiative on Saturday, November 12 at the AMC Empire 25 Theaters Times Square, 234 W 42nd St in New York from 9:00A.M. – 11:30A.M. (6M or Terrace)
Get your Festival Passes Here: http://www.urbanactionshowcase.com/event-passes.html
*General Admission gets you All Films and the Expo
*V.I.P Gets you everything!
Here’s your opportunity to be seen by agents, casting directors, fight choreographers, directors, filmmakers and industry professionals.
Call 2 Action Martial Arts Action Talent Competition and Branding Initiative is a joint collaboration between Willie “The Bam” Johnson and the Urban Action Showcase to Educate, Facilitate, Expose and Empower Martial Artists interested in branding themselves for the Action Film Industry.
A seven-time sport karate and kung fu world champion and two-time All-American champion, Willie “The Bam” Johnson is a true hero in the world of martial arts. As the creator of Wushudo Universal Martial Arts, Johnson is known for his dynamic, universal approach to developing physical, mental and spiritual fitness. Johnson received the title of Grand Master in 1995 and is a member of the Martial Arts Hall of Fame.
Professor “Bam” Johnson will be sharing the secrets of marketing your Martial Arts Talents from “The Ring to The Screen” with this exciting and informative branding initiative!
Showcase your Screen Fighting skills in front of industry Stunt Coordinators and Fight Choreographers form some of NYC top Action shows!
CLICK HERE FOR RULES AND MORE INFORMATION!
2016 Urban Action Showcase & Expo Featuring the Cinemax Max Action Short Film Competition on Nov. 11; 30th Anniversary Screening of BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA on Nov. 12
Lia Chang is an actor, a multi-media content producer and co-founder of Bev’s Girl Films, making films that foster inclusion and diversity on both sides of the camera. Bev’s Girl Films’ debut short film, Hide and Seek was a top ten film in the Asian American Film Lab’s 2015 72 Hour Shootout Filmmaking Competition, and she received a Best Actress nomination. BGF collaborates with and produces multi-media content for artists, actors, designers, theatrical productions, composers, musicians and corporations. Lia is also an internationally published and exhibited photographer, a multi-platform journalist, and a publicist. Lia has appeared in the films Wolf, New Jack City, A Kiss Before Dying, King of New York, Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Dragon, Taxman and Hide and Seek. She is profiled in Jade Magazine and Playbill.com.
Bev's Girl FilmsBranding InitiativeCall 2 Action Martial Arts Action Talent CompetitionLia ChangUASEUrban Action Showcase and ExpoWillie "The Bam" Johnson
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Hacker promises to take down Zuckerberg’s Facebook page as you watch live
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Boise Area Trail Running Etiquette
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Astrid Gilbert and Running Vitality
February 28, 2018 randiwalkins
By Beau Seegmiller
Astrid after the Chicago Marathon. In 2013, she was the top fund raiser for Team Special Olympics.
To say that running is a vital part of Astrid Gilbert’s life would not be an overstatement. When asked how running has changed for her over the years she simply says, “It’s not even an option anymore, it’s just what I do.” Throughout time, Astrid has drawn a vitality from running both physically and mentally that has nourished relationships, taught her life lessons, and, most importantly, helped her heal.
Astrid has been running since junior high, but it wasn’t until 2008 that she first signed up for a race: the Chicago Marathon. She will never forget coming through the finish line with bleachers on both sides full of spectators cheering for her as she finished with 44 seconds to spare on her goal time. She was hooked and has since run twenty marathons! She is currently training to run her first Boston Marathon in April. She had always assumed that she would never run a Boston qualifying time, and never even cared, until one of her friends qualified and lit the fire in her to go for it.
Astrid running the Chicago Marathon in 2010. She has fond memories of spending time with her husband in Chinatown (the neighborhood pictured here).
“Some of the best friendships I have made have been through running.” Astrid’s friend Kimmi in particular would get her to sign up for races. While living in Florida she joined a running group and acquired running buddies to travel with and they went from coast to coast running the Disney marathons in Florida and California, the Florida Keys Ragnar, and even the Chicago marathon. “Traveling with running buddies is the best!” She has even journeyed with fellow family runners to race in places as far off as Dublin. Her husband at the time wondered if they could travel without having to race.
In 2009, Astrid married her high school sweetheart, Rick. Though not a runner, Rick recognized the value that running brought to Astrid’s life and gave her his full support. He was the one who encouraged her to find a running club when they moved to Florida and even rescued her mid run when caught in a downpour. Rick’s untimely death in 2015 devastated Astrid.
“I thought I would lose my passion for running. But over time, I was able to lace up my shoes again.” Having an outlet like running helped her healing process. Sometimes, during a run, a memory would come to mind and “I found myself crying while running.” Astrid continued to run and moved forward.
Astrid has also valued the mental benefits of running through the years. “I have always been the type that is constantly busy. Running is the only time
Astrid with her sister at her first Disney race.
that I am actually alone with my thoughts. I can solve a lot of life’s obstacles while pounding the pavement.” Running has helped her come to be in tune with her body and know when not to push it with injuries. Yet, she has also learned that persistence and dedication pay off. “I am capable of more than I thought.”
When Astrid first started running, she “used to run with a stopwatch (a little Timex)” and in baggy, cotton sweats. She remembers purchasing her first Garmin watch which was so big it was like “having a laptop on your wrist.” Now she can’t live without a GPS watch and wears quality running apparel. But through all the changes in technology and gear, running has been with her, in the ups and downs of life, adding an indispensable vibrancy to her life.
Previous Article Eric Palmer and Relationships Built through Running
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2 thoughts on “Astrid Gilbert and Running Vitality”
Julie Proksel March 2, 2018 / 8:33 am
Astrid,you are an amazing young lady and I am so proud to call you my niece. Love you.😍😘
Sherry March 3, 2018 / 7:44 am
You are the bomb, girl! I’m so proud of you and honored to be your friend! Can’t wait to see you in Boston this year… and run it knowing that you are right in the glorious mix with me this time around! It’s going to be a blast! Love you! ❤
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Home > Tips & tricks > 3 Nonfiction Summer Reads
3 Nonfiction Summer Reads
by Caity E July 16, 2019
Bookie Blog, Inspiration, Merchandise, Tips & tricks 0
Diving into a well of new information with a good nonfiction bio, poli-sci, or history tome sounds like a dream. Learning everything you could want to know about a particular subject is thrilling. These books may seem denser, but nonfiction reads can be a lot of fun if the subject interests you. So, if you’re looking to learn something new, these nonfiction summer books are sure to keep you turning the pages.
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
Believe me when I say that this book is heavy. The Color of Law is a deep dive into the history of housing segregation, redlining, and government policies. Both locally and federally, they act as a roadmap of discrimination in America. This book is incredibly dense and will take a while to wade through. However, it’s definitely worth your time.
“In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading authority on housing policy, explodes the myth that America’s cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation… Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation―the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments―that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.”
Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Hector Tobar
This one comes from the Bookmans Midtown Backroom Bookclub. I still talk about it and recommend it to customers. Tobar does an amazing job with the details while keeping this compelling true story moving along. There’s also a movie about the miners, The 33.
“When the San José mine collapsed outside of Copiapó, Chile, in August 2010, it trapped thirty-three miners beneath thousands of feet of rock for a record-breaking sixty-nine days. After the disaster, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Héctor Tobar received exclusive access to the miners and their tales, and in The 33, he brings them to haunting, visceral life… A masterwork of narrative journalism and a stirring testament to the power of the human spirit, The 33 captures the profound ways in which the lives of the Chilean miners and everyone involved in the catastrophe were forever changed.”
Pure Land: A True Story of Three Lives, Three Cultures and The Search For Heaven On Earth by Annette McGivney
Everyone is talking about this book, and they should be. Pure Land tells the true story of a gruesome murder that took place in Havasupai Falls. It delves into childhood trauma and intersects three lives. Set against the backdrop on the southwest, Pure Land is a compelling story of heartbreaking circumstance across different cultures. Annette McGiveney is a local author to boot. Flagstaff residents will recognize the settings and places the book talks about. It hits very close to home.
“Pure Land is the story of the most brutal murder in the history of the Grand Canyon and how McGivney’s quest to investigate the victim’s life and death wound up guiding the author through her own life-threatening crisis. On this journey… Pure Land offers proof of the healing power of nature and of the resiliency of the human spirit.”
There you have it! Three nonfiction reads that will teach you something new and keep you turning pages this summer.
Bookmans is your store to explore! If you are interested in a book mentioned here call your local store and one of our staff members will be happy to check our shelves.
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Mahindra First Choice Wheels Gets Strategic Investment from US Based Cox Automotive
Mahindra First Choice Wheels Ltd. – USPs
India’s No.1 multi-brand certified used car company, Mahindra First Choice Wheels Ltd. (MFCWL), has a network of 650 outlets spread across 300 locations in the country which includes metros, mini metros and smaller towns. The company is growing at a rapid pace with a CAGR of 35% by volumes over the last 5 years.The cumulative retail footprint under the Mahindra First Choice brand is in excess of 8.5 lakh sq feet
The company has created a unique (first globally) franchisee driven business model and is on a mission to transform the way used cars are retailed in the country. It is also the winner of the prestigious “Franchisor of the year” award in the Automotive business category by Franchisee India
MFCWL is the market leader in the online auction space, having sold in excess of 3 lakh vehicles through the ‘eDiig’ auction platform
The company has recently launched a new product called the Indian Blue Book (IBB) which is India’s first and only used car pricing guide that incorporates transaction data with an analytical engine. IBB has got immediate traction with most leading banks and NBFCs, car portals, auto magazines, auto OEMs, dealers and customers subscribing to it
A new product for car evaluation called ‘Autoinspekt’ has been launched. Autoinspekt is an unbiased third party vehicle evaluation report to determine the condition, quality and value of a used vehicle. The report itself covers 53 parameters across 8 vehicle systems of the car and is prepared after physical inspection of the vehicle by a trained engineer. The company has delivered over 1 lakh inspections to date
November 23, 2015, Mumbai: Mahindra First Choice Wheels Ltd. (MFCWL), India’s No. 1 multi-brand certified used car company, today announced that Cox Automotive has made a strategic investment in MFCWL through a secondary purchase.
This investment brings together two leaders. Cox Automotive is a global leader providing digital marketing, classifieds, software, wholesale and eCommerce solutions to dealers, consumers, manufacturers and financial institutions. Its brands include Manheim®, Autotrader®, Kelley Blue Book®, Dealertrack®, vAuto®, Xtime®.
MFCWL is the leading pre-owned car retail and wholesale services provider in India. In addition to being the leading multi-brand pre-owned car franchise player, it is the leading provider of auction, inspections and pricing solutions in the Indian market. Its brands include Mahindra First Choice Wheels, Indian Blue Book, eDiig, and Autoinspekt.
Cox Automotive is a subsidiary of Atlanta based Cox Enterprises, Inc. (CEI). Founded in 1898 in Dayton, OH, CEI is one of the most respected privately held businesses in the United States. Its other major businesses include Cox Communications and Cox Media Group, both major players in the media and communications industries.
“We founded MFCWL as a startup with a vision to revolutionize the way that pre-owned cars are bought and sold in India. This strategic investment by Cox Automotive reflects the strong progress made by us over the last few years. We look forward to a long term partnership with them based on our shared values,” commented Anand Mahindra, Chairman, Mahindra Group.
“We are delighted to have Cox Automotive make an investment in MFCWL. The fact that an entrepreunerial venture like MFCWL is attracting PE and strategic investments validates our belief that we at Mahindra have a flourishing entrepreunerial ecosystem creating real value”, said Mr. Rajeev Dubey, CEO, Aftermarket Sector, Group President, HR & Corporate Services and Member, Group Executive Board.
MFCWL now has over 650 franchise outlets in 300 towns across India. Recently, it launched a commercial vehicle franchise business in addition to its industry leading multi-brand pre-owned passenger cars business. Over the last three years, it has pioneered the use of technology to deliver industry first solutions such as Indian Blue Book for pricing solutions and Autoinspekt for inspection services.
With its portfolio of products and services, MFCWL is the only true ‘hybrid’ model in India and is uniquely positioned to organize every element of the used car value chain within the country.
“Our investment in Mahindra First Choice Wheels Ltd. furthers Cox Automotive’s strategic plans to create and grow used vehicle marketplaces,” said Joe Luppino, Chief Corporate Development Officer for Cox Automotive. “This opportunity allows us to partner with a company that has a reputation for delivering high-quality used car products and services to dealers nd consumers in the fast-growing Indian automotive market.”
Commenting on the investment, Dr. Nagendra Palle, CEO and Managing Director, MFCWL said, “It’s heartening to see Cox Automotive enter India with MFCWL. We see deep synergy between the two organizations and aim to leverage their global presence and expertise to take MFCWL to the next level.”
HDFC and Phi Capital participated in the secondary sale.
About Mahindra First Choice Wheels
Mahindra First Choice Wheels Ltd. (MFCWL) is the country’s preferred used car mart and is India’s number one multi-brand certified used car player. The company plans to expand this number to 1000 outlets over the next three years. This implies that customers will soon be able to choose from a range of certified used cars throughout India, including the metros and tier-2 towns and cities. MFCWL closed F-15 with sales of 69,000 used cars, which is 30% growth over the last financial year.
Tremendous attention to detail is required to ensure that each used car meets a high level of quality. Before purchasing the car, a trained engineer thoroughly inspects the vehicle and also sees to it that all papers are in order. After purchase, the car is refurbished and undergoes an extensive 118 point quality check by a trained engineer, as part of the company’s robust certification process. The objective behind the care and diligence exercised is to present the customer with a car in good condition.
In short, buying a used car from Mahindra First Choice offers several advantages, including quality assurance, safety and a hassle-free driving experience. To give complete peace of mind to the used car buyer, the company has Warranty products like WARRANTYFIRST, CERTIFIRST and CERTIFIRST+.
Subject to specific terms and conditions, WARRANTYFIRST provides Warranty for all the major mechanical and electrical components of the car. The concerned components are covered for a period of 12 months or 15,000 km, whichever is earlier. The CERTIFIRST Warranty covers the car’s Engine and Transmission for a period of 6 months or 7,500 Km, whichever is earlier while CERTIFIRST+ covers for a period of 12 months or 15000 kms, whichever is earlier.
The Warranty products come with the facility of 24X7 Roadside Assistance across the country. The 24×7 Roadside Assistance, subject to specific terms and conditions, assures the certified used car buyer that should the car breakdown, he will be provided assistance.
The Warranty product gives tremendous peace of mind to buyers of certified used cars. Mahindra First Choice has a – which provides complete assistance to customers wishing to buy or sell a car. Mahindra First Choice also has retail finance relationships with major banks like Mahindra Finance, HDFC, Kotak Mahindra and ICICI Bank for helping consumers buy their dream cars through loans.
The company has also launched a new product, the Indian Blue Book which is the most comprehensive unbiased resource for consumers and dealers to determine the value of their used cars.
A new product for car evaluation called ‘Autoinspekt’ has been launched. Autoinspekt is an unbiased third party vehicle evaluation report to determine the condition, quality and value of a used vehicle. The report itself covers 53 parameters across 8 vehicle systems of the car and is prepared after physical inspection of the vehicle by a trained engineer.
About Mahindra
The Mahindra Group focuses on enabling people to rise through solutions that power mobility, drive rural prosperity, enhance urban lifestyles and increase business efficiency.
A USD 16.9 billion multinational group based in Mumbai, India, Mahindra employs more than 200,000 people in over 100 countries. Mahindra operates in the key industries that drive economic growth, enjoying a leadership position in tractors, utility vehicles, information technology, financial services and vacation ownership. In addition, Mahindra enjoys a strong presence in the agribusiness, aerospace, components, consulting services, defence, energy, industrial equipment, logistics, real estate, retail, steel, commercial vehicles and two wheeler industries.
In 2015, Mahindra & Mahindra was recognized as the Best Company for CSR in India in a study by the Economic Times. In 2014, Mahindra featured on the Forbes Global 2000, a comprehensive listing of the world’s largest, most powerful public companies, as measured by revenue, profit, assets and market value.
The Mahindra Group also received the Financial Times ‘Boldness in Business’ Award in the ‘Emerging Markets’ category in 2013.
About Cox Automotive
Cox Automotive, Inc. is transforming the way the world buys, sells and owns cars with industry-leading digital marketing, software, financial, wholesale and e-commerce solutions for consumers, dealers, manufacturers and the overall automotive ecosystem worldwide. Committed to open choice and dedicated to strong partnerships, the Cox Automotive family includes Manheim®, Autotrader®, Kelley Blue Book®, Dealertrack®, vAuto®, Xtime®, NextGear Capital® and a host of other brands. The global company has nearly 30,000 team members in more than 200 locations and is partner to more than 40,000 auto dealers, as well as most major automobile manufacturers, while engaging U.S. consumer car buyers with the most recognized media brands in the industry.
Cox Automotive is a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises, Inc., an Atlanta-based company with revenues of more than $17 billion and approximately 50,000 employees. Cox Enterprises’ other major operating subsidiaries include Cox Communications and Cox Media Group.
For more information about Cox Automotive, visit coxautoinc.com
Visit us at Mahindra
Our Social Media Channels:
Twitter – https://twitter.com/MahindraRise
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/MahindraRise
For further enquiries please contact:
Sunil Gate
General Manager, Group Communications
Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd.
Mahindra Towers, Worli,
Email: gate.sunil@mahindra.com
Previous Unorganised players in used car market pose threat to consumer protection: CEO, Mahindra First Choice
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New Hyundai Santro – What You Should Know?
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The 9 Best Destinations for Diving With Endangered Marine Life
Sarah Morlock
According to the Smithsonian, 2,270 marine species are currently listed as endangered. Each of these marine species plays a vital role in its habitat, yet because of pressures on the environment like fishing, pollution and more, these animals are all threatened with extinction.
As divers, we have a unique opportunity to see and support these animals. By traveling to destinations which feature endangered marine life, you put a monetary value on animals that are alive. In many cases, you also support marine reserves and citizen science programs working to protect vulnerable species.
1. Revillagigedo Islands, Mexico
The Revillagigedo Islands (a.k.a. Socorro) in Mexico are famous for big marine life. From dolphins and whale sharks to humpback whales and hammerheads, these far flung islands are a scuba diving dream. One animal in particular is quite easy to spot here but is actually rare in the wild. That is the giant manta ray (Mobula birostris). Listed as vulnerable by the IUCN, this amazing creature has a “wingspan” of up to 23 feet (7 meters) and is one of the largest fish on Earth. Jump on a liveaboard to the Revillagigedo Islands if you want to see these beauties while diving.
Endangered Marine Life: Giant Manta Rays, Hammerheads & More
When to Go: November to May
Recommended Liveaboards: Vortex, Solmar V, Quino El Guardian
View All Liveaboards
A paradise like few others, the Maldives, with its islands ringed in white sand and clear, aquamarine waters, is an oasis for both humans and marine life alike. This country is one of the best in the world for swimming and diving with whale sharks (Rhincodon typus), the largest fish in the sea. Since 2016, whale sharks have been listed as endangered by the IUCN due to shark finning, fishing and bycatch. Of course, if a iveaboard or a dive resort stay in the Maldives isn’t in your plans, you can also gape at these huge sharks at Isla Mujeres in Mexico, the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador and Cenderawasih Bay in Indonesia.
Endangered Marine Life: Whale Sharks, Hammerheads & More
When to Go: Year-Round
Recommended Liveaboards: Scubaspa Ying, Maldives Blue Force One, MV Adora
Recommended Dive Resorts: Amilla Fushi Resort, Aveyla Manta Village, Vakarufalhi Island Resort
View All Dive Resorts
3. Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
If you’ve ever looked at the log of a diver who has been to the Galapagos Islands, you’ll most likely find a who’s who of endangered species. On any given liveaboard, you might spot whale sharks, Galapagos penguins, Galapagos sea lions, marine iguanas, green sea turtles, leatherback sea turtles and scalloped hammerhead sharks. Each one of these marine species is endangered, and that’s only a list of animals that spend at least part of the day in the water. Topside on the islands, you may also spot endangered giant tortoises among a wide range of other fauna.
Endangered Marine Life: Galapagos Penguin, Sharks, Sea Turtles & More
When to Go: June to December
Recommended Liveaboards: M/Y Galapagos Aqua, Majestic Explorer, Galapagos Aggressor III
4. Hawaii, USA
Hawaii is home to nine marine species currently protected by America’s Endangered Species Act, namely green sea turtles, loggerhead sea turtles, olive ridley sea turtles, Hawaiian monk seals, humpback whales, sperm whales, fin whales, blue whales and sei whales. While you can’t dive with all of these species, you can spot sea turtles under the water from time to time. In addition, you might be lucky enough to see humpback whales on your way to dive sites during the months of January, February and March. And Hawaiian monk seals can be spotted on land, although human interaction with the endemic seals is discouraged.
Endangered Marine Life: Hawaiian Monk Seal, Sea Turtles & More
When to Go: January to March
Recommended Liveaboard: Kona Aggressor II
Recommended Dive Resort: Kamaole Sands
Have you heard of the Hammerhead Triangle? Encompassing Malpelo in Colombia, the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador and Cocos Island in Costa Rica, this is the best area in the world for spotting endangered scalloped hammerhead sharks. In particular, lonely Cocos Island dons many bucket lists written by shark lovers. Here, hammerheads have a peculiar habit of hunting solitarily at night and swimming in large schools during the day, creating a spectacle for lucky scuba divers who travel to this far flung destination.
Endangered Marine Life: Scalloped Hammerhead Sharks
Recommended Liveaboards: Argo, Okeanos Aggressor II, Sea Hunter
6. Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia
Slightly off the beaten track, Pohnpei is every bit a South Pacific paradise. This island in the Federated States of Micronesia boasts a lush green appearance and seemingly untouched reefs in crystal clear waters. Sharks and manta rays, including those of the rare black morph, make common appearances. In addition, endangered humphead wrasse can be seen on the reef swimming alongside endangered green sea turtles and groups of vulnerable bumphead parrotfish.
Endangered Marine Life: Humphead Wrasse, Sea Turtles & More
When to Go: April to November
Recommended Dive Resort: Pohnpei Dive Club @ Mangrove Bay Hotel
7. Marsa Alam, Egypt
Although not endangered, the dugong and its cousin, the manatee, remain vulnerable to extinction according to the IUCN. Coastal development and water pollution are big reasons behind their population decline. Yet, dugongs are still spotted regularly by divers thanks to their shallow habitat. In particular, Marsa Alam is home to several individuals, and divers who want to see this walrus-like creature should head to the shores of the Red Sea for their next diving adventure.
Endangered Marine Life: Dugongs
When to Go: April to June and September to November
Recommended Dive Resorts: Marsa Shagra Village, Hilton Marsa Alam Nubian Resort, Wadi Lahami Village
8. Sipadan, Malaysia
Sipadan off the coast of Malaysian Borneo is one of the best places in the world for diving with endangered sea turtles. On any given dive, you might see 20 to 30 endangered green and critically endangered hawksbill turtles. There’s also a natural turtle graveyard in a cave at advanced depths. Just be sure to observe these graceful animals from a distance, allowing them to go about their turtle business in peace.
Endangered Marine Life: Green and Hawksbill Sea Turtles
Recommended Dive Resorts: Sipadan-Mabul Resort, Mabul Water Bungalows, Seaventures Dive Rig
Diving in Antarctica certainly isn’t for the faint of heart, but it is the adventure of a lifetime. Heading under the waves means experiencing a section of the ocean few others have seen. Icebergs loom overhead, while crabs, squat lobsters, jellyfish, anemones and soft corals populate the waters below. Lucky divers might also get to see penguins, fur seals and even leopard seals in the water. In addition, while on the boat, you’ll want to keep an eye out for endangered blue whales. If this sounds like a magical liveaboard destination to you, do note that Antarctica is becoming easier and easier to visit thanks to an increased number of liveaboards traveling to the continent.
Endangered Marine Life: Blue Whales
When to Go: November to March
Recommended Liveaboard: MV Ortelius, MV Plancius
If you’re ready to dive in with endangered marine life, visit PADI Travel and start a conversation with the 24/7 sales team to find the best scuba adventure for you.
Tagged antarctica, cocos island, dugongs, Egypt, endangered animals, fish, Galapagos Islands, hammerhead, Hawaii, malaysia, maldives, manta rays, mexico, Penguins, seals, sharks, turtles, whale sharks, whales
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October 22, 2019 October 22, 2019 Ojaswi Indap Case summary, Income Tax
Whether the order of ITAT confirming the inapplicability of Section 145(3) while ignoring the AO’s assessment and rejection of the assessee’s books of accounts justified?
Case: CIT v. Ajay Kumar Gupta, Delhi High Court
This case is clubbed with CIT v. Rajiv Gupta
Listen to the summary of CIT v. Ajay Kumar Gupta, Delhi High Court
Note: You must have access to Riverus Research Map for Income Tax to access the links in this article. To get free access, please click on this link.
This judgement is one of the handful of judgements passed by a High Court in 2019 where the standard of evidence has been discussed in relation to disallowance of receipt and expenditure in connection with business or profession.
See more Profit and Gains of Business or Profession cases where the expense has been disallowed for want of evidence.
Both the assessees carry on different businesses but were connected to the same case because the AO alleged that both of them had provided accommodation entries against the bogus purchase of silver and gold from one Bamalwa Group based out of Kolkata. The involvement of the assessees with Bamalwa Group came in the light because of a search and seizure operation was conducted on the premises of Bamalwa Group.
See more accommodation entries cases in relation to PGBP.
The income tax returns filed by both the assessees in AY 1999-99 were picked up for scrutiny.
AO gave several opportunities to the assesses to reveal the identity of the buyers who had bought these silver items, but they failed to do so. Hence, AO invoked section 145(3) which empowered him to reject the book of accounts.
The CIT(A) and ITAT rejected the AO’s stand and held that Section 145(3) was inapplicable in the given fact situation.
Hence, Revenue filed two separate appeals which were admitted in 2005 and 2006 and both of which were disposed of through this common judgement.
Revenue’s Arguments
Revenue argued that the alleged sale of silver by the assessees to Bamalwa Group was fictitious and concocted. Revenue placed before the Court the following evidence to sustain AO’s decision to reject the books of accounts of the assessees:
Assessees were unable, on five separate occasions, to provide details (including names and addresses) of their end customers of silver.
In respect of cash memos produced as evidence of cash sales of silver by the assessees, they were able to provide details of purchasers in less than 0.5% of the cash memos.
Assessees had evidence of the purchase of silver from MMTC and Customs Department but no evidence of purchase from Bamalwa Group.
Assessees were unable to provide details on how huge amount of silver was transported from Bamalwa’s depots to Delhi.
Assessees’ Arguments
Assessees argued that High Court sitting to adjudicate an Income Tax Appeal, should not accept Revenue’s appeal where both CIT(A) and ITAT has made concurrent findings against the rejection of books of accounts by the assessee.
High Court’s Holding
Justice Muralidhar (see judge analytics) wrote the judgement for the Court
ITAT and CIT(A) erred in ignoring the “exhaustive” evidence put forth by the AO.
The case made by the assessees cannot be compared with the situation in CIT vs Jindal Dyechem Industries Pvt Ltd on facts and also because the amount involved in the current case was way higher than the amounts involved in Jindal Dyechem.
The case of the Revenue draws support from the judgement of the Supreme Court in Kachwala Gems Jaipur vs. Joint Commissioner of Income Tax, in that the assessees who submit false books of accounts run the risk of being assessed on the best judgement basis
CIT-vs.-Ajay-Kumar-GuptaDownload
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Tagged article, case summary, standard of evidence for deduction
The ‘X’ Factor
The Research Map for Income tax Advantage 1 – Broad Search
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US Requests Extradition Of Fake Blacktip Island ‘Ambassador’
United States authorities have requested the extradition of longtime resident Payne Hanover after the US State Department discovered Hanover was claiming to be the US ambassador to Blacktip Island.
The self-proclaimed United States ambassador to Blacktip Island is fighting extradition this week after United States officials requested the Tiperon Island government remand him to US authorities.
“Bunch of tight-asses who can’t take a joke,” longtime Blacktip Island resident Payne Hanover said. “Sure, I have a big State Department seal over my front door, but no one with any sense took it seriously.
“It was in good fun,” Hanover said. “We’d be sitting around drinking, discussing world events, and someone’d say, ‘Hey, why don’t you put in a good word for us with Uncle Sam,’ I’d agree, then we’d forget about it by the morning.”
Some on the small Caribbean island were angry at the news.
“I always negotiated with Payne in good faith and he burned me,” said island mayor Jack Cobia. “This explains why I never made any headway with the US. I thought Payne just didn’t have the kind of diplomatic stroke he said he did.
“It puts me over a barrel, what with the promises I’ve made in the community based on his say-so,” Cobia said. “And I’m out hundreds of dollars for all those US visitors visas. I’d love to chuck the rat-bastard on the first plane to Miami.”
Legal professionals say the case is not so cut and dried.
“To start with, there’s no extradition treaty between the United States and the Tiperon Islands,” said Ferris Skerritt, of the Skerritt and Skulkin legal firm. “And even if there were, no laws were broken. It’s not illegal to call yourself an ambassador.
“The State Department knew about Payne, but didn’t care,” Skerritt said. “What got their feathers ruffled was he sent in a joke request for Blacktip Embassy funding. Some low-level flunky rubber-stamped it and feces hit the props. But it wasn’t like Payne cashed the check or anything.”
Local law enforcement say they won’t honor the request.
“Payne hasn’t violated any Tiperon laws,” Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. “Jack tries to ship him off island, Jack’ll wind up in jail himself.”
Many locals were upset by the developments.
“Payne’s had that seal up forever. We took it as classic Royal Payne exaggeration,” said resident Clete Horn. “Hell, before he was the US ambassador he was the ambassador from Ohinkey, with flowing robes and everything.”
Others were more concerned with practical implications.
“Payne throws blow-out parties with dignitaries and celebrities all the time,” resident Jerrod Ephesians said. “Now, with the diplomatic budgeting season on us, him getting busted means no gala embassy fêtes this year,” Ephesians said. “That’s a bummer. They really gave an air of civilization to the island.”
Hanover, meanwhile, remained defiant.
“Just because I’m not technically the ambassador’s no reason for me to close the consulate,” he said. “I’m still hosting the New Year’s Eve bash. Rafe Marquette’s the guest of honor.”
Hanover would not comment on allegations of suspicious activities in his bank accounts.
The US State Department would neither confirm nor deny the allegations.
Tagged as blog fiction, Caribbean ambassador, Caribbean embassy, fake ambassador, fake embassy, humor, money laundering, Tim W. Jackson
Undersea ‘Christmas Carol’ Brightens Blacktip Island Holiday Season
The cast of the underwater ‘Christmas Carol’ run through the final scene at Bob Cratchit’s house during the dress rehearsal Wednesday afternoon. (photo courtesy of Mahdian)
Dive staff from Blacktip Island scuba resorts have joined forces to stage an underwater version of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol in the shallows off the Diddley’s Landing public pier. The play will be performed twice daily through Christmas Eve.
“We wanted a fresh take on an old classic,” artistic director Cori Anders said. “The dialogue’s 100% scuba signals, with some new ones we got from the local Mime Divers Association.
“Each actor gives surprising nuance to the hand signs – is that ‘eel’ sign fast, slow, over-the-top, understated? Small inflections carry a ton of weight,” Anders said. “After the ghost of Christmas Yet To Come leaves, Scrooge’s desperate out of air sign had the crew in tears.”
The cast includes:
Elena Havens as Ebenezer Scrooge
Gage Hoase as Bob Cratchit
Marina DeLow as the Ghost of Christmas Past
Alison Diesel as the Ghost of Christmas Present
Wendy Beaufort as the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come
Hugh Calloway as Tiny Tim
Lee Helm as the Christmas Turkey
Finn Kiick as Old Fezziwig
“We didn’t really need the Old Fezziwig character, but it’s just fun to say and lightened the rehearsals,” Anders said.
The underwater venue allows for creative staging.
“Scrooge clomps across the sand in lead boots, while neutrally-buoyant ghosts float over and around him,” said Blacktip Haven resort owner Elena Havens. “And when the inevitable sting ray cruises past, it gives an ethereal quality to the performance.
“The audience is on scuba and can view the play from any angle, so long as they don’t interfere with the actors,” Havens said. “And we have morning and afternoon shows to give all divers a chance to see it.”
Some of the staging had to be curtailed for safety’s sake.
“We tried a night dive version, but the audience got mixed in with the actors and it turned into a real Charlie Foxtrot,” said cast member Gage Hoase. “Things blew up when the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come scared the bejesus out of a couple from Cincinnati. They bolted to the surface. But, man, did they tip well at the end of the week.”
The play is not without its critics.
“You have to be 10 years old to scuba dive, which means the younger kiddos can’t see it,” local parent Ginger Bass said. “And the sign language is a mostly gibberish. I mean, I know the story and I had a hard time following along. I think they make it up as they go along, and there were some rude gestures mixed in that are definitely not scuba signals.”
Performances are at 10:30 and 2:45 daily. Proceeds of the play go to The Blacktip Island Widows and Orphans Fund, minus expenses and incidentals.
Tagged as A Christmas Carol, blog fiction, Caribbean Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Divemaster, humor, Scrooge, Tim W. Jackson, Tiny Tim
Painful Holiday Musical Scenes Highlight Blacktip Island Extravaganza
The cast of this year’s Most Excruciating Holiday Musicals perform during their dress rehearsal Thursday evening at the Blacktip Island Heritage House. (photo courtesy of the University of Utah)
The Blacktip Island Community Players will perform its annual selection of cringe-worthy excerpts from a dozen Christmas musicals Saturday and Sunday evenings to raise money for local charities.
“Most people spend the holiday season watching one agonizing musical after another, often barely recuperating from one before the next starts,” said Doris Blenny, BICP’s creative director. “The point of this show is to tear off the Band-Aid, so to speak, and get the worst of it over with in less than an hour.
“After this, even if you want to watch holiday musicals, that urge will be burned out of your system,” Blenny said. “We think of it as holiday cauterization. Our aim is to get everyone through the agonizing parts of the holidays as quickly as we can.”
The event owes much of its appeal to the quality of the local singers.
“None of these people can sing a note, but that’s the point,” resident Jay Valve said. “Last year, Cori brought the house down with ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You,’ because she sang so off-key. You’ll remember, she was the one who voiced the airplane engines and the machine guns in Tora ! Tora! Tora!”
This year’s performance will honor several classic holiday films.
“We’ll be paying homage to White Christmas, partly to take advantage of the talent we have this year,” Blenny said. “Antonio does a great Bing Crosby. Not the singing, mind you, but the body language. And Dermott does a surprisingly good Rosemary Clooney. We tried him in a Vera-Ellen dance routine, but he broke too much furniture.
“We’re also spicing things up with a Meet Me In St. Louis number,” Blenny added. ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ will feature Alison Diesel’s interpretation of little Margaret O’Brien’s snowman-bashing scene. Those in the first three rows are advised to wear eye protection for Christmas light shards, and motorcycle helmets in case Alison loses her grip on the baseball bat.”
Blenny’s warning was not necessary for some.
“I always wear ear protectors and earplugs at this gig,” resident Val Schrader said. “Payne Hanover and Catalina Luxfer’s screeching that date rape song from Elf about did me in back in 2007. The muffs and plugs don’t totally block the sound, but they take the edge off.”
Audience members are asked to wear ugly Christmas sweaters. Proceeds from the event to go Blacktip Island Meals on Wheels and the Retired Seaman’s Association.
Ask Dermott:
Yo, Dermott,
With everyone so tense about sexual harassment these days, the company Christmas party is going to be a minefield, what with the booze, the mistletoe and coworkers hanging out under the mistletoe – intentionally or not. Help me out here. Why’s it called ‘mistletoe?’ – Who in Whoville
Who,
‘Mistletoe’ is Old English for ‘kick to the crotch.’
Tagged as blog fiction, Christmas musicals, Christmas plays, Christmas songs, humor, Tim W. Jackson
Tension High For Blacktip Island’s ‘Son Of A Bee’ Spell-Off
An artist’s rendering of the 2016 Son of a Bee spelling contest, when crowd favorite Payne Hanover defeated Lee Helm in the final round. (illustration courtesy of Thomas Eakins)
Blacktip Island’s 17th annual ‘Son of a Bee’ spelling bee is slated for this weekend at the Last Ballyhoo bar. The two-day event, sponsored by the Blacktip Adult Literacy Learning Society, will feature the island’s premier competitive spellers going head-to-head in double elimination rounds.
“It started years ago as a dare at the Ballyhoo,” BALLS president Doris Blenny said. “Someone bet an inebriated Dermott Bottoms he couldn’t spell ‘cat.’ Then they spotted him the ‘c’ and the ‘a’ while the crowd cheered. Dermott was so drunk he lost the bet, but other patrons started challenging each other to spell words as a gauge of how sauced they were.
“It proved so popular, the Ballyhoo made the spell-off a standard event the first weekend in December,” Blenny said. “BALLS stepped in with sponsorship, gave it a snazzy name and it took off from there.
“The Ballyhoo requires all contestants to consume one drink per 30 minutes, so we instituted a double-elimination format to level the playing field,” Blenny added. “In the later rounds alcohol can become an impediment. Or, for some, a performance enhancer.”
Perennial favorites are Jerrod Ephesians, Finn Kiick and reigning Son of a Bee champion Payne Hanover.
“I’ve been practicing buzzed spelling for months to find that sweet spot where I’m toasted but can still spell,” Hanover said. “It’s easy to have that one drink too many and fall over the cliff.
“The strategy’s in knowing your opponent’s alcohol tolerance,” Hanover added. “Against a lightweight, sometimes if you hem and haw before spelling each word, the booze’ll win the round for you. But if you draw Antonio, you’re screwed. He gets better the more he drinks.”
The judges’ subjectivity often plays a key role in the competition.
“Last year Lee Helm may have spelled ‘perspicacity’ correctly in the final, but he slurred so badly two of the three judges scored him wrong,” judge Helen Maples said. “It cost him the match.”
Sponsors are hoping for a controversy-free Bee this year.
“Two years ago, Finn had to give up the title after we found out he bribed Peachy Bottoms for the vocabulary words beforehand,” Blenny said. “The year before that, there was no winner because all finalists had passed out before the final round.”
Bee officials say they’ve also beefed up security for this year’s event.
“It’s a two-day drinking event on a small island, Things can get physical,” Last Ballyhoo owner Marlin Bleu said. “Sometimes onlookers takes sides and quite the brouhaha breaks out.”
Proceeds from the event go to BALLS and the Last Ballyhoo repair fund.
Tagged as adult literacy, adult literacy programs, blog fiction, humor, son of a bee, spelling bee, spelling bee words, Tim W. Jackson
“Faux-Ever’ Lets Blacktip Island Churchgoers Sample The Afterlife
A member of the Blacktip Island Ecumenical Community Church, under the guidance of a church elder, gets a taste of the afterlife with the church’s new Faux-Ever headset. (photo courtesy of Justraveling.com)
The Blacktip Island Ecumenical Community Church Thursday unveiled ‘Faux-Ever,’ a virtual reality headset that allows churchgoers of any religious tradition to experience the afterlife of their particular faith.
“Users input information about their personal belief systems,” the former Reverend Jerrod Ephesians said. “It’s like a Buzzfeed quiz, only with a religious focus, and draws on the teachings of classic theologians as well as popular novels and cinema.
“We tried to be as inclusive as possible,” Ephesians said. “The headset provides more than 128 different versions of the afterlife,” Ephesians said. “You can get anything from sitting on lotus pads to hunting buffalo on the Great Plains to being at one with an expanding universe. We even have a Cthulu option, but that didn’t end well for the congregant.”
Church officials hope the devices will strengthen users’ faith.
“We see it as sort of a trainer, like what pilots use before they get in an actual airplane,” church elder Harry ‘Scratcher’ Wrasse said. “There’s no telling what the afterlife will be like. You want to get a hint of what to expect, maybe even a nudge to change your ways.
“A lot of times people’re surprised what they see after programing the headset,” Wrasse said. “One person expected milk and honey and instead got a wasteland and his mouth stuffed with clay.”
The program is not without its critics.
“Jerrod and his cohorts are making a mockery of religious faith,” said the Reverend Pierre Grunt of the Our Lady of Blacktip cathedral. “There is no way that gizmo can provide a glimpse of anything like Heaven. They’re turning religion into a video game.”
Faux-Ever has proved popular with early testers
“I filled out the survey, slipped on the visor, and the next thing I knew I was floating around the reef,” said divemaster Marina DeLow. “The reef’s pretty much my church, so that made sense. And was kinda comforting.”
Others were underwhelmed.
“I expected something nice, the whole 100 virgins sort of thing,” Lee Helm said. “Instead, I wound up sitting on a cloud, playing a harp, surrounded by chubby little angels wearing diapers. I just felt . . . depressed.
“James Conlee, he got eternity at the Sand Spit bar with unlimited beer,” Helm said. “It’s not fair.”
Ephesians is encouraged by Faux-Ever’s successes.
“We’re working on adding more options,” he said. “Going forward, atheists will see a black, blank screen. And for a small donation to the widows and orphans’ fund, we can throw in a séance so you can talk to dead relatives.”
Hey, Dermott,
First there was Jefferson Airplane. Then there was Jefferson Starship. Then there was just Starship. Then they were all gone. My question is, who was Jefferson? – Slick With Worry
Slick,
Jefferson was Jefferson Beaumont. Beaumont, Texas’s named after him, too.
Tagged as afterlife, blog fiction, eternity, humor, Tim W. Jackson, virtual reality, what is heaven like
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10s versus 25s
Big Bear Butt asks, "Can 25 man raids really be as fun as 10’s to play in, if most people have to be bribed to take part in them?"
I don't know, BBB. But one could ask, "If 10s are really that much more fun, why do they need higher quality rewards? Surely the extra fun is more important than the lower level loot."
But both questions miss the point. Or more accurately, both questions twist the situation, conveniently ignoring many aspects of the problem.
Here's how I look at it:
1. 25s are more fun than 10s.*
2. 25s are more significantly more work than 10s for the officers.
* Not really up for debate. Just accept that I personally find 25s more fun than 10s.
So it's a question of marginal value. Does the extra fun outweigh the extra cost. In the current game, the calculation is, "Does extra fun + greater quality loot outweigh the extra cost?" The answer for a lot of people is Yes. However, there are still a lot of people who answer No and do mainly 10s. Or they don't consider 25s more fun, so the decision is solely "greater quality loot versus extra work".
In Cataclysm, the question will be, "Does extra fun + greater quantity of loot outweigh the extra cost?" I think that a far greater majority of officers will answer No. And people who are willing to lead guilds are the heart and soul of the WoW community. The rest of us will follow their lead.
As for quantity versus quality of loot, we've debated that before. For some reason, quality is far more important to PvE. Witness the fuss made over Best-in-Slot gear versus gear that is just slightly worse.
The only time quantity of loot actually matters is if gear becomes very hard to obtain. For example, the switch from tier set pieces to tokens. Blizzard is not going to cripple 10s by making the quantity of loot low enough to actually be a factor worth considering when debating between 10s and 25s. Or if they do, the howls when the only item that drops off the boss is Spell Power plate--or something else unusable--will quickly force them to reconsider.
25s may drop more loot, but 10s will drop enough loot. And at that point, I don't think the extra fun will outweigh the extra work for the officers.
On the other hand, perhaps putting all this extra work on the officers was a bad idea in the first place. I've been raiding for several years now, first in 40s and then 25s, and I've seen a lot of officers burn out. As I mentioned above, these players are usually the heart and soul of the guild and community. Perhaps sacrificing 25s is worthwhile if it keeps them playing and involved in the game at a comfortable level.
Carson 63000 10:14 PM, April 29, 2010
Don't forget that, while it may ease the load on raid leaders if guild switch en masse to 10-man raiding, we'll need two and half times as many people who are willing and able to lead raids.
Phelps 10:41 PM, April 29, 2010
Lots of problems with this line of reasoning. First, if fewer people are willing to run 25s, then the people that are still running them will be able to pick from the cream of the crop, which will make 25 mans look like the 1337 run, which will bring people back in.
Also, the ones most likely to see the extra loot as justifying the trouble are the officers, because they (we) are the ones that hear people whine when they don't get gear, the ones who want people geared up, and the ones who don't want to have to lead runs on our mains and two alts to get everyone through.
Finally, there is another angle that everyone seems to be ignoring. Cataclysm is supposed to bring guild experience and a new guild resource to the game. If the "quantity" of rewards are increased in 25 mans, then it stands to reason that the guild xp and resource gain will also. I think that officers will be really intent on building this.
Gryphonheart 2:56 AM, April 30, 2010
I completely agree, Rohan. However, I think the shared raid lockout is going to be just as big of a problem (if not bigger) for 25-mans than the loot changes, because it has the serious potential to dry up that raider pool. More PuG raids are likely to become 10-mans since, as you mentioned, they're easier to organize (thereby locking PuGers out of the equivalent 25s), and the players who are fine with either format will likely join 10-man raids because they'll simply be easier to come by. Basically, it means that everyone who's willing to compromise on raid size for whatever reason will likely go to 10s, leaving behind only the people who want to run 25s and only 25s. When you factor in attrition (due to players moving to faster-progressing raids, real life interfering, drama bombs going off, etc. etc.) you end up with a very valid concern for whether the 25-man raiding pool will be able to maintain the critical mass necessary to sustain itself.
If the pool gets too small, then you'll end up in a situation were raid leaders may not be able to replace players that don't fit the raid (whether that's due to performance concerns or personality conflict or anything else). They'll end up getting frustrated and either feeding into the attrition mentioned above or swap to running 10 mans because it's less of a headache. And at some point, the players who really like running 25s may end up finding themselves forced into running 10s, not because it's what's fun for them, but because it's the only thing readily available. This isn't fundamentally any different than players who feel forced to run 25s for the best loot when they'd rather run 10s—it's just the same thing in reverse.
Now, I'm not saying that the above is definitely going to happen and the only way to prevent it is for Blizzard to rescind the change, I'm just stating that it's valid enough of a concern that it should be discussed seriously and thoroughly, and I applaud you for this post. Unless Blizzard can come up for a way to reassure people that the 25s pool won't dry up (perhaps by enticing the crowd of people who don't care whether they're raiding 10s or 25s over to the "25s preferred" side of the spectrum), people who genuinely enjoy the 25s experience over the 10s are going to continue to worry, and rightly so in my opinion.
Kevin 3:06 AM, April 30, 2010
I'm in the exact opposite situation as you. I love 10-man raiding. My guild has to put a gun to my head to get me into a 25-man raid.
I'm tired of being a second class citizen and being asked to move to the back of the bus so the "real" raiders can have a seat. Every real cool thing about raids (read legendaries) have been completely out of my reach because I hate the method of raiding that's required.
25s are already far easier than 10s (once you've filled the raids). Why should the people who have to have perfection to win be rewarded less than those who can have 2-5 people who can't even cast a spell and still win?
I understand the logistics issue. I'm an officer in a guild that has twice now almost killed itself by trying to do 25s.
Ulv 3:06 AM, April 30, 2010
It's going to be interesting and Bliz's balance will make all the difference BUT regarding your statement above... if 10s drop enough (relative to teh player numbers) the bribe to run 25s will mean they drop too much loot.
On 25 we'll see loot being sharded with massive frequency just a few weeks into the content if they set the drops too high but not doing so will not balance the equation.
My guild, Pride of St George, has moved from 10-man through TBC, Naxx and Uld into a 25-man guild with a healthy bench for TOTC and ICC.
We have a really good core of excellent raiders but we can see, from our 10-man progress that not all are equal in skill. There's going to be a temptation to forge ahead with this group which may fragment our current team.
My work and that of the Raid Leaders will be much harder to prevent this and the forming of cliques within the guild.
Apologies for two back-to-back comments, but this was too long to fit into the first:
@Carson: In my experience, many 25 man raids have multiple raid officers, whereas 10 man raids can be led solo. If 25s break up into 10s, I have no doubt that there will be plenty of potential raid leaders around.
@Phelps: I disagree with your assertion that if fewer people run 25s then 25s will be able to pick from the cream of the crop and thereby entice more people back over. I think it's more likely that the 25-man raider pool will dry up (as explained above), thereby making it significantly harder for 25s to replenish their ranks. This means they'll be more likely to have to resort to bringing along players that they don't want to bring (either due to lack of performance or personality conflicts or whatever) because it's often a better alternative than trying to run short-handed.
As for whether the extra loot will justify the extra effort on the part of the officers really depends on how much more loot 25s will drop per player than 10s. If 10s drop 2 epics per boss and 25s drop 6, that's only one extra epic per 25 players per boss. I'm not entirely convinced that's a significant enough of an increase to justify the work, and I'm not prepared to assume a higher epics per boss ratio until we have more concrete numbers (either from Blizzard or from beta testers). What can I say, I'm a "expect the worst, hope for the best" kind of guy.
Finally, Blizzard has stated that the guild XP accumulation rate is going to be capped so that smaller guilds aren't going to be at a disadvantage to larger guilds, so that argument goes out the window. Not to mention that guild rewards will do nothing to help 25-mans on servers where non-guild affiliated raids and/or raiding alliances are common. In fact, they'll end up hurting them even more if the rewards become seen as necessary for raiding, since many players in such raids would rather raid 10s with their in-guild friends than have to merge guilds until they have a viable 25-man.
Jb 6:23 AM, April 30, 2010
There is alot of buss flying around now regarding this issue with 10 vs 25 mans. As I see it there can be no doubt that 25 mans will die for most guilds. Only guilds solid enough to always have sufficient number of good reliable players will run them for the reasons of habit and that it is accually less work for them to organize 1-2 25 man runs than the eqivalent of 3-5 10 man runs. The main reasons for the death of the 25 man is not only the hassle/strain on raid leader, but also that you don`t get significantly increased utility with 25 people that 10. If the encounters where scripted differently and the classes had differences that really conted in the raids - it migth be really worth it bringing 25 players together. The way Bliz is going now it`s not going in this direction. It seems the other way around. So 25 RIP.
mediumsizedrob 8:11 AM, April 30, 2010
I'm not 100% sure why this seems to be such a big deal. The change is great because it leaves it up to the group. Guilds who either don't have the roster or the inclination to do 25s don't have to pug them on off nights in order to get the loot they want. Guilds that do enjoy 25 man raids can still do them. I think 25s and 10s are fun in their own ways.. 25 feels more epic, 10 feels more like a close-knit team going against the odds, and sometimes 10s are more of a challenge.
The game should be about what's fun for the player I think, not about giving only the best loot to players who enjoy playing Virtual HR Department with a 25 person raid. Or players who are lucky enough to be in a guild with a leader who enjoys playing VHRD.
Sorry for the double but I forgot to add that 25s won't die as long as there are people who enjoy doing them, and there always will be. The guilds running them may be fewer and further between, but I'd argue that's already the case now.
People want to raid and have fun period, and I think the average player would be happy in either situation as long as they can play and get the bosses down. It's just going to come down to the raid leaders' personal preferences, and as I said, there will be plenty of each type.
Hana 11:33 AM, April 30, 2010
Back when WotLK first came out, I was actually disappointed to switch to 25-mans with my guild. The 10-mans just feel more heroic with me, like we're the heroes of a story. (You don't have 25 heroes in a story, that's a mass of faceless people with a couple leaders, but a band of ten can happen.)
I admit the better gear is a nice incentive to do the bigger raids, but at the end of the day, it's the only incentive (for me).
In answer to the question "If 10s are really that much more fun, why do they need higher quality rewards? Surely the extra fun is more important than the lower level loot."
I do run 10s only now. So the answer is no, we don't "need" higher quality rewards. If this change wasn't made I'd still be running 10s in Cataclysm. That's what my current guildies signed up to do. But it certainly will make recruitment easier and we won't have the occasional 25-man raider dogging on us.
I know there are a lot of people who love the 25-man format, though, and I'm hoping there are enough people who like it that people will play the size they want regardless of the quality of loot that drops for it. Maybe if they really care about it, more 25-man raiders will step up to help the officer team.
When my 25-man guild disbanded nearly all the officers were burnt out and the guild leaders quit the game entirely (due to their own burnout). With work, I could have tried saving the guild as an officer and the new guild leader, but I knew that without the support of the remaining officers I would burn out in short order, so we mutually agreed on the disbanding and I made my current 10-man guild.
For me it was a double bonus. I like the format already, and the guild is small enough that there's no need for an officer team. Everyone knows everyone else and people pitch in as needed because as a smaller group, each individual is more invested in having us succeed.
Iiene of Kul Tiras 12:26 PM, April 30, 2010
I love the new 10 man world! As far as I'm concerned, the ONLY reason people do 25 man raids now is either the better loot or the increased DPS from the increase in raid buffs.
Are the areas different for 25s now? No? Are the mechanics significantly different? No? Then why choose 25s over 10s? Loot and DPS.
People don't want to come out and say "I like 25s because there is more or better loot" So they make up this "I like the epic raid feel! Eee!" excuse.
I'll be totally honest, I would rather do 25s than 10s because of the better loot. I'm not going to lie so I don't look like a mercenary.
But with the loot equal, I would rather do 10s because there is less crap to deal with and my individual contribution is greater.
Now, one aspect of 10 mans that I DON'T like is the lower chance of having a fully buffed raid. If you're DPS, you simply do more damage in 25s because of the better availability of buffs. If you're a healer, your job is simply easier in a 25 because you have a more specialized assignment (And possibly have more buffs)
There are raid buffs that only a single spec of a single class can do... (Example... Trueshot Aura) or others that only come from a set of 2 unique class/specs (Wrath totem / Demonic Pact)
Why couldn't they fix that when they said they were going to with the "Bring the player, not the class" crap?
Kadaan 3:50 PM, May 03, 2010
I completely agree with you, and I think a lot of people who don't think this will be the beginning of the end of 25-man raiding have a romantic view of what makes raiding fun.
To take it one step further: What if all loot you could obtain in 10-man raiding could be obtained in 5-man heroics? What if you could purchase all the raid loot with badges, at reasonably exorbitant prices. Would you spend 3h-4 nights (12h) a week raiding on a set schedule when you could instead run 24h worth of heroics for the same loot? It becomes another scale of logistics + time commitment vs the "fun" of raiding. Of course, if you've obtained all the 'best' gear from 5-mans then you'll most likely run the 10-man raid just to see what it's all about (just like running old content you missed just to see it,) but won't have any incentive to raid on a weekly basis.
It's easy to say it won't make a difference, and people will still do 25's, but we'll just have to see what happens when the time comes. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if we drop to less than half the current number of 25-man guilds. Wow-progress shows 4.3k guilds that have killed normal mode Arthas 25 and 13.1k on 10-man (1:3 ratio). I bet in Cataclysm it'll be at least double; 1:6 and probably closer to 1:10.
Cataclysm Raiding Changes
Healing Dreamwalker as Retribution
Star Pony
Beacon of Light and Cataclysm
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AARP AARP Blogs Take Care
Wanted: A Family for Christmas
By Amy Goyer , December 23, 2013 05:41 PM
Christmas is traditionally a time when families gather. Sure, all families are imperfect; we all have disagreements and conflicts. But for most, the love is still there and holidays are special times.
For many, however, there are no good memories of Christmas mornings or good-natured squabbles over holiday plans. There is, essentially, no family.
Jackie Turner and her new Christmas "mom," Anita Hermsmeier.
CBS News recently aired this story about Jackie Turner, a student at William Jessup University, near Sacramento, Calif. Jackie was facing another Christmas with no family. She decided to place an ad for a mom and dad for Christmas; she wanted, at least for a couple of hours, to be "the light of their lives." Her quest grew into something much bigger.
It touched my heart so deeply on so many levels I wanted to share it with you.
Perhaps this story means so much to me because my mom died just 10 weeks ago and I'm missing her so terribly this holiday season. I'd give almost anything for one more Christmas with her. All my life, Mom made a regular practice of leading us in opening our hearts and home to college students and others who didn't have family, or couldn't be with their families for holidays. She taught us that there is more than one definition of family.
"Show Us Your Modern Family" Photo Contest. Upload your photo for a chance to be photographed in AARP The Magazine. See official rules.
Jackie Turner has opened herself to the light of love this year and in doing so - without even trying - brought that broadened definition of family to so many this Christmas.
May your holidays be bright, and may you treasure every moment with those who light up your lives ... and maybe share that light with a few who are missing it this year.
Photo Credit: CBS News/YouTube
Amy Goyer is AARP's Family, Caregiving & Multigenerational Issues Expert; she splits her time between Washington, D.C. and Phoenix, Ariz. where she is caregiving for her Dad who lives with her. She is the author of AARP's Juggling Work and Caregiving. Follow Amy on Twitter @amygoyer and on Facebook.
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When Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, I knew he would need all of his senses to help interpret the world around him and balance his changing cognitive abilities. But he has hearing impairment and limited vision (glaucoma plus visual-processing problems associated with Alzheimer’s). Even though there is only so much I can do about the visual issues, I assumed hearing aids would solve his auditory problems. I was wrong. The good news is that we eventually discovered a surprisingly simple solution.
Caring for Mom Shouldn’t Mean Losing Your Job
The phone rang one day when I was at work. It was my mom. “Come right away, Elaine, we need you,” she said. Mom had just driven Pop to the emergency room. I knew Pop must have been very sick, because Mom hadn’t driven a car in years.
4 Tips for Long-Distance Caregivers
I have been both a live-in caregiver and a long-distance caregiver. In fact, currently, I’m really both. My dad lives with me (as do my sister and her two sons at the moment), and I also travel for work, about a week every month. I’ve learned to manage my loved ones’ care no matter where I am. Here are some of my tips for other long-distance caregivers.
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Beyond Dodge
Animation/Visual Effects
Film & Design Production
News & Documentary
Creative Producing
Public Relations & Advertising
TV Writing / Production
Make an Impact in the Classroom with Creating Creators Guest Post: Arthur Fishel (BFA/FP '09)
Five years back, I was invited into a classroom of 4th grade filmmakers by my friend, producer Polo Munoz, CCO of Creating Creators. At first I was a little hesitant to believe that ten year olds were producing their own films, but one step in the door, I realized that these were not ordinary fourth graders. Take my word for it—there is nothing more disarming than a 4th grade producer asking you well articulated and blunt questions about the type of director’s prep you do before a shoot because they don’t think their director is doing enough.
Years before I was a guest in their classroom, in 2010, CEO Jessica Just and CCO Polo Munoz were developing and refining their methodology and curriculum in some of the most under-served classrooms of South Central, Los Angeles. At first only a film class, it did not take long for both Jessica and Polo to recognize the cinematic medium’s ability to enhance education through apprentice styled learning. From there, the program evolved and has continued to do so with the industry at large.
Partnering public school classrooms with professional filmmakers, Creating Creators CEO Jessica Just’s unique curriculum aligns with education standards and operates in tandem with the accredited teacher’s daily lessons. Be ginning in fourth grade and carrying all the way through twelfth, the line between amateur and professional blurs as the students’ reading, writing, and communications skills grow while each student voice is empowered through the cinema arts. I’ve seen first hand production teams form from the ranks of the different classes to produce no less than a dozen unique short films that redefine the learning and social landscape of the classroom.
I vividly remember in my freshmen year at Dodge, Professor [Michael] Kowalski mentioning that one of his desires as an artist was to impact and inspire the audience in the same way that some of his favorite films and photographs had impacted and inspired him. I, too, share Professor Kowalski’s sentiment and Creating Creators provides such an opportunity. To work with the kind of film mentors and be the kind of film mentor that I would’ve benefited from as a kid allows me to impact the next generation of filmmakers and has helped me grow as an artist.
For information on the Creating Creators or to apply as a mentor, follow them on LinkedIn or visit their website at https://www.creatingcreators.net
Arthur Fishel
What You Need to do Before You Get Outta Dodge - Words of wisdom according to RJ Collins (BFA/FP '12)
Staying True to the Story - A conversation with Ragini Bhasin (MFA/FP ’19)
Iconic Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Goes Off Without A Hitch - Alumna Tori Rose (BFA/TBJ '11) Script Supervisor for NBC
Life After Dodge - Alumni Panel was a Huge Success - Over 150 Students and Alumni were in attendance
NFMLA and AMPAS: LatinX & Hispanic Cinema Review
Riot Games Career Excursion - Animators, Game Developers, and CS majors get an inside view!
Oscar-Nominated Animation RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET: Q&A with Filmmaker - Head of Story Jim Reardon (Wreck-It Ralph, Zootopia, WALL-E)
FREE Pass to Infinity Festival Hollywood
November 1, 2019 by Jon Hernandez | Uncategorized
The Infinity Festival™ (IF) is offering Chapman University guests an opportunity to receive complimentary Festival Pass tickets (a$595 value!). On the Festival website (InfinityFestival.com) choose your ticket, and enter the IF19CHAP at checkout. The 2019 Infinity Festival, celebrating “Story Advanced by Technology” is now headed into its second year, in partnership with Title Sponsor, RYOT. The premiere festival for
Staying True to the Story
December 11, 2019 by Esther Shin | News
Ragini Bhasin is a recent graduate of the MFA program in Film Production. Her graduate thesis film, Ghazaal, tells the story of a 13-year-old Afghan girl who hustles around in a refugee camp in Turkey to survive the harsh circumstances. When she gets her monthly period she does whatever it takes to make ends meet. Ghazaal
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All posts tagged "Animal Welfare"
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Better Welfare For Farm Animals Worldwide Supported By UN
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30 Years On: Japan, Iceland And Norway Continue To Disregard International Whaling Moratorium
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TripAdvisor Stops Ticket Sales For Cruel Wildlife Tourist Entertainment
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Blue Swan Daily > South Pacific > Analysis > Air New Zealand expands in Argentina as Australasia-South America capacity reaches record levels
Air New Zealand expands in Argentina as Australasia-South America capacity reaches record levels
Air New Zealand is increasing capacity to Buenos Aires by more than 30% this summer in response to increasing demand for travel between Australia/New Zealand and Argentina.
Argentinean visitor numbers to Australia and New Zealand have increased over the last year by 29% and 41% respectively. Outbound traffic from Australia/New Zealand to Argentina is also growing, driven by the ethnic and leisure segments.
Air NZ launched services from Auckland to Buenos Aires in late 2015 with three weekly flights. Last summer Air NZ increased capacity to Buenos Aires by offering a fourth frequency from mid-December to early March. It has since maintained three weekly flights, including for the entire current winter season.
This summer Air NZ is offering a fourth frequency to Buenos Aires from early November, which marks the beginning of the summer schedule. A fifth frequency will be operated for the first time from early December until March 2018. Air NZ will therefore have an average of 4.8 weekly frequencies on the Auckland-Buenos Aires route this summer compared to approximately 3.6 weekly frequencies last summer.
The CAPA-ACTE 2017 New Zealand Aviation & Corporate Travel Summit, scheduled for 17-18 October, at the Grand Mercure Auckland, will include variety of thought provoking discussions and keynote speeches. To find out more or register click here.
Air NZ also has added to its Buenos Aires schedule a fourth weekly frequency from 25-Mar-2018 until 30-Apr-2018, which is the first five weeks of the winter season. The airline for now plans to revert to the normal three weekly flights per week schedule from May-2018, which is an off-peak month for Australasia-South America travel.
Air NZ has operated 787-9s on the Auckland-Buenos Aires route since the beginning of the 2016/2017 summer season. Initially it operated the route with the slightly larger 777-200s.
Air NZ has benefitted from offering the most convenient one-stop product to Buenos Aires from several Australian cities. Australians now account for approximately 40% of Air NZ’s Buenos Aires traffic. Air NZ holds approximately a 60% share of total Australia-Argentina traffic.
Sydney was served with nonstop flights from Buenos Aires until 2014, when Aerolineas Argentinas suspended the route. Qantas also operated Sydney-Buenos Aires until 2012, when it instead launched Sydney-Santiago.
Regaining a link to Buenos Aires is a priority for Sydney Airport. However, this is unlikely for at least the next few years, as Blue Swan has previously analysed. Therefore, Air NZ should be able to continue to enjoy its strong position in the Sydney-Buenos Aires market for some time.
See related report: Can the Argentina-Australia market again support a nonstop service?
Qantas now competes with Air NZ in the one-stop Sydney-Buenos Aires market with the Santiago-Buenos Aires sector being operated by oneworld partner LATAM. Qantas and LATAM currently only offer a two-stop product to Buenos Aires from other Australian cities, giving Air NZ a competitive advantage. However, LATAM is launching nonstop flights from Melbourne to Santiago on 5-Oct-2017, which will provide a new one-stop option in the Melbourne-Buenos Aires market.
See related report: LATAM Airlines to further grow Australia traffic as Melbourne is launched
The decision to add capacity to Buenos Aires could be seen as a competitive response by Air NZ to the intensifying competition (and significantly higher levels of capacity) in the overall Australasia-South America market.
During the peak months this summer, there will be a record 20 weekly flights from Australasia to South America. This consists of five frequencies from Air NZ, five from Qantas and 10 from LATAM (including three on the new Melbourne-Santiago nonstop route and seven on the Sydney-Auckland-Santiago route, which it launched in 2002).
Seat capacity from Australasia to South America will approach a record 7,000 weekly seats one-way in Dec-2017 and Jan-2018.
Australasia-South America one-way weekly seat capacity: Sep-2011 to Feb-2018
Source: CAPA – Centre for Aviation & OAG
The record level of capacity should be absorbable given the growing demand for air travel between Australasia and South America. Australia reported a 29% increase in visitor numbers from Argentina in the year ending Jul-2017 to 21,000 and a 9% increase in visitor numbers from Chile to 23,000. There was also a 19% increase in visitor numbers from Brazil, to 52,000.
New Zealand reported a 41% increase in visitor numbers from Argentina in the year ending Jul-2017 to 17,000. Brazilian visitor numbers to New Zealand were up 24% to 16,000. New Zealand does not provide visitor numbers from Chile as it is a very small source market for New Zealand (the LATAM service to Auckland relies heavily on traffic continuing to Sydney).
Air NZ serves the growing New Zealand-Brazil market using its partnership with Aerolineas Argentinas, which operates from Buenos Aires to several Brazilian destinations. Qantas uses partner LATAM to access Brazil, where LATAM has a subsidiary airline and serves several cities from Santiago.
Air NZ and Qantas are keen to operate nonstop flights to Brazil at some point. Both are now evaluating new generation ultra-long range aircraft which could make an Auckland or Sydney to Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro route viable.
United Airlines launching Houston-Sydney complicates Air NZ-United JVSeptember 20, 2017
Virgin Australia’s trans Tasman upgrades: how partnerships can be an impediment to innovation and market stimulationAugust 9, 2018
How has the trans Tasman aviation market evolved over the past three years?August 20, 2018
Virgin Australia trans-Tasman loads hit seven-year low following termination of its Air New Zealand allianceFebruary 18, 2019
Air New Zealand and Virgin Australia cross-Tasman market share gains will result in declines at QantasMay 3, 2018
Australia-China market booms with 35 nonstop routes and 10 airlines this DecemberNovember 29, 2017
Singapore Airlines route changes for Wellington: the good and the badJanuary 31, 2018
Jetstar wins NZ government travel contract, but will still have to battle Air NZFebruary 21, 2017
The new long ranger – who will become the first airline to link New York with Australasia?June 13, 2019
New Zealand tourism surges, prompting expansion from Air NZAugust 28, 2017
Third daily Auckland-Singapore flight indicates success for Air New Zealand-Singapore Airlines JVJanuary 11, 2018
New Zealand-US capacity to reach record highs this summer as tourism boomsSeptember 4, 2017
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← Blogger ping-pong, round two: if loving five-star players is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.
What the Hell has happened to Innovative Thinking? →
Georgia’s worst defensive coordinator in the last 15 years
… isn’t Willie Martinez. Not even close.
I was looking over Georgia’s defense of 1999 and checkout these standouts:
Orantes Grant, Tyrone Robertson, Jamie Henderson, Kendrell Bell, Marcus Stroud, Demetric Evans, Richard Seymour, Tim Wansley, Terreal Bierria, Josh Mallard, Charles Grant, Will Witherspoon, and Boss Bailey – all major contributors that season and all would eventually play in the NFL.
Yet, this group of defenders, statistically, is one of the worst in Georgia football history. In 1999, the Bulldogs ranked last in the SEC in total defense (382.6) and pass defense (278.1) and next-to-last in scoring defense (25.9).
Many blame the Bulldogs’ defensive woes of ’99 on Kevin Ramsey. Remember him? He was Tennessee’s much-acclaimed secondary coach, who left the Vols following their national championship season of 1998 to become Georgia’s defensive coordinator. Ramsey’s hire by Coach Jim Donnan demoted former-DC Joe Kines (the best bowl coaching clip of all time) to “Assistant Head Coach.”
After the defense’s performance in 1999, it was Ramsey who Donnan tried to demote to secondary coach. And as you’re likely aware, legend has it Donnan’s decision would eventually cost the head coach a punch in the face during a confrontation with Ramsey. Needless to say, the 2000 Outback Bowl was Ramsey’s final game as a Bulldog, and as of this season, his last game as a defensive coordinator in college football.
37 responses to “Georgia’s worst defensive coordinator in the last 15 years”
X-Dawg
I had finally blocked out Ramsey’s name from my memory. Now it will take another decade to do that again.
Fuck Kevin Ramsey. I think Auburn just scored again. That Auburn 1999 game was the only time I’ve ever been embarrassed to be in Sanford Stadium.
Yeah. I came all the way down from Lynchburg, Virginia, to see that game (after having bragged all week about how we were going to stomp the Tigers). It was as close to a waking nightmare as I’ve ever experienced in real life.
I still maintain Ramsey was a sleeper agent sent by Fulmer to wreck Georgia’s program.
It all works out with Boom at Florida and SOD at UT!
Ah, back in the days when UGA was over-rated as consistently as any Big Ten team. We had top ten talent but never did turn the corner. Quincy Carter’s million dollar arm (Dr. Evil) and ten cent head, rotating (and not particularly good) defensive coordinators, and Jim Donnan’s Switzer without the charm coaching style made those very frustrating years. Still, that was a hell of a comeback against Purdue.
JaxDawg
only b/c Donnan replaced Ramsey with Kines at halftime.
I wept openly for years as I saw all those Dawgs playing and excelling in the Pro’s. What a waste of big time talent.
Bringing Gary Gibbs in as DC the following season was probably the best hire Donnan made his entire career.
The AJC
That, and turning the defense over to Joe Kines to shut down Drew Brees in the second half of the Outback Bowl.
Thank God I was stationed overseas during that season and couldn’t see the games. I don’t know what type of ultra-violence I would have resorted to had I witnessed that abortion.
wnc dawg
I love the fact that when I saw the title of this post in my reader the first thought was “If this isn’t about Kevin Ramsey our good Senator from Delta House has lost his mind.” I don’t know why, but I was always infuriated by the sunglasses he wore in the booth. I have no reason for this, but it doesn’t change the fact that I still get a little agitated picturing him in those black glasses gritting his teeth sitting over a play sheet.
RandallPinkFloyd
That’s the same year that we lost to Tech 51-48, correct? Talk about a shootout. I still remember after Sanks had been down and they picked up the ball when one of our OLs grabbed him and starting to sling him around until officials called the play dead….even though the play should’ve been dead when Jasper was down. That was blown on so many levels.
If I ever decide to start one of these web-blog things about UGA football the title is going to be “Jasper Was Down!”
It took Kevin Ramsey, 17 ineligible Georgia Tech players, and two incorrect Al Ford calls to give Georgia Tech its only home “win” against Georgia since the 1980s.
Another Jacket point of pride.
This is an iron clad fact. Still, giving up 51 points to Tech in any game is utterly embarrasing. What awful defense that day. Would have loved to see what Grantham could do with that roster. Wow.
National Champions. I don’t know if Stroud or Seymour fit the bill at nose tackle in the 3-4, but I’m convinced that’s what he would have done with that roster. That’s what Van Gorder would have done with them, too.
“Your dream is out there…. go get it… we will protect it.” Kevin is moving on up!
http://www.examiner.com/college-football-in-houston/tsu-names-kevin-ramsey-interim-head-football-coach-after-firing-johnnie-cole
Holy crap. That happened. And he led them to a 4-7 (2-7 SWAC) record, which is four more wins than I would have bet on. Apparently, he was the defensive coordinator before Johnnie Cole was fired, which is probably the reason Cole was fired.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/team/schedule/_/id/2640/texas-southern-tigers
re: Auburn ’99
Is there any truth to the rumor that Kines had to take over in that game because Ramsey had a nervous breakdown in the box?
I’ve heard that Kines was basically demoted at halftime of that game, but who knows.
Ramsey, sorry.
Kines coached from the sideline. Kirby Smart was in the box.
ClassicCityDawg
Is there any truth to the rumor that the defensive play calling during the 2nd half of the 2000 Outback Bowl was handled by grad assistants? For years, I’ve been hearing that Donnan told Ramsey to give up the reigns after the Dawgs got down by 25.
I had heard Kines took it over. And look at the results. We completely shut down DREW BREES!
I have never gotten as drunk watching a college football game as I did that day in Tampa.
I just allowed myself to imagine what Kevin Ramsey would have looked like trying to stop the triple option. I damn near threw up.
Seriously, ’99 was my sophomore year at UGA and I am convinced that I won’t live to see my 60’s because of Kevin Ramsey. The amount of bourbon that I consumed during that loss to Auburn just to be able to make it out of the stadium without committing murder… well, I’m pretty sure I’m still drunk. I remember reading up on the guy when Donnan hired him and wondering why it was such a big deal that we got a guy who had never been more than a position coach, but deciding to just trust that the head coach knew what he was doing. The Florida game that year… watching them get dismantled in Knoxville… Georgia should have pulled the plug on Donnan after that 1999 season. Allowing Kevin Ramsey to keep calling the shots all year long should have been the last straw. I don’t know if Mark Richt would have come in 2000 or if we would have ended up with someone else, but I sure would have liked to see that 2000 defense in the hands of someone besides Gary Gibbs. With the talent that the defenses in 1999 and 2000 had, it is criminal that Georgia didn’t win the division. Criminal.
Quincy and the dope heads on O played a major role in 2000 being sub-par. Gibbs wasn’t too bad, but we defintiely needed an overhaul by that point.
I remember thinking that Gibbs did a decent job with the defense, but that was looking at it with post-Ramsey shell shock. That defense in 2000 underachieved based on the talent that they had.
The D actually played pretty well against Florida in 99. Jasper legitimately fumbled and completely turned the game around.
My wife (who I was not dating at the time) tells the story of falling asleep in her dorm room and waking up to see the Dawgs were down 28-0 and thinking she was still asleep. I hated that game, and I never sat in the endzone for a game again.
Also, legend says that the Dawgs won the toss, and Quincy said, “Let’s see what Mr. Leard can do with the ball.” Well, QC, he beat your ass with it.
Well, in Quincy’s defense, he was probably high when he said that.
…or on the phone.
A coach still on the UGA staff said Ramsey spent that Tech game in the booth eating fried chicken and picking his teeth like he was at a picnic.
Well, if he really punched Donnan in the face I can forgive him. Jeeze! I am glad I wasn’t able to watch much football back then. Thanks for the memories guys. A DC that makes CWM look like Buddy Ryan, a coke head QB, and a head coach that only made up for losses to UT, UF, AU, and Tech with his pleasant personality. No wonder Larry was such a pessimist.
Don’t forget what shitty fans we were to fire Donnan after that. Just ask ESPN who had him on staff for years before he Bozoed everyone out of their life savings.
Thanks for the film memories, Senator. Most of all, I appreciated the Redcoat Band playing “Ode to Joy” after the game.
Peteydawg
Haha, those years growing up were horrible for the dawgs. What seemed to be enormous talent and .500 seasons. Thanks for the trip down memory lane; I’ve only recently shed my pessimism. Hence why I would hold onto richt like grim death.
12th Man Dawg Fan
Ramsey is now the Head Ball Coach at Texas Southern. TSU compiled a stellar 4-7 record this year. They were 9-3 prior year before the old Head Coach got canned for cheating.
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Making Sense Of The World, One Map At A Time
If “Did Not Vote” Had Been A Candidate In The 2016 US Presidential Election, It Would Have Won By a Landslide
November 13, 2016 132 Comments
Map created using 270 To Win, based on reddit user Taillesskangaru’s posts here and updated here.
The map above shows what the 2016 US Presidential Election results would have been if votes not cast for Hillary, Trump or one of the third party candidates had gone to fictional candidate “Did Not Vote.”
Disclaimer: The map above was accurate as of January 17th, 2017. Totals below were true at the time of writing but may no longer currently be accurate as additional votes and recounts are conducted.
Only 8 states + Washington DC, had high enough voter turnouts where one of the actual candidates won more votes than people who did not bother to vote. Iowa and Wisconsin for Trump and Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire and DC for Clinton.
A few other 2016 election facts for you:
As a percentage of eligible voters, Clinton received 28.43% (65,845,063) of all votes compared to Trump’s 27.20% (62,980,160) and Did Not Vote’s 44.37% (102,731,399).
Total voter turnout was estimated to be 55.3% of the voting age population and 59.0% of the voting eligible population.
It is the 5th election since 1820 when the winner of the popular vote lost the presidency (the others being 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000)
Donald Trump received 2,046,656 more votes than Romney did in 2012, but Hilary Clinton received 70,732 fewer votes than Obama did in 2012.
Neither Candidate even won a majority of votes cast, Clinton got 48.0% vs Trump’s 45.9%.
As a percentage of the entire US population (including those too young or other ineligible to vote) Clinton got votes from 20.30% of the population and Trump got votes from 19.41% of people.
Washington DC is the only area in the country where a majority of all eligible voters (whether they voted or not) voted for Clinton (90% of voters, voted for Clinton on a 55.7% turnout). In the other 6 states listed above, victories were simple pluralities.
Like to see more 2016 US election maps?
2016 US Presidential Election Map By County & Vote Share
How Whites Voted In The 2016 US Presidential Election by State & County
Counties That Changed Party In The 2016 US Presidential Election VS 2012
2016 US Presidential Electoral Map If Only [X] Voted
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Filed Under: United States Tagged With: election
Michael Ryland says
I would like to know, of those “Did Not Vote”(s), how many were Democrats and how many were Republicans.
Jason Blake says
That’s why they didn’t vote, neither was there choice……seems the majority of Americans realize it is all a scam
DumptyTrumpty says
It is definitely a scam. But even scams have very real consequences.
Martin Kuiper says
As you surely have found out be now. Very real consequences indeed.
Agreed – had she won, two thirds of us would he dead from the FF dirty bomb after starting WWIII, 2A would be repealed with military going door2door forcibly taking guns, 1A would be next, political enemies would be taken to FEMA camps, the sheep that stayed in line would be relocated to one of 9 districts living in 3rd world conditions.
Dont believe me? Then look at California at time of writing this.
Joe Bialobreski says
Jason and Dumpty, other than the Electoral College, how are our national elections a scam. And even considering the Electoral College’s effect of twisting the peoples input a bit, couldn’t it be overcome, and very possibly would be, if people opted to vote. They’re all counted, okay that is probably not the case but it is damn near the case. I think you are confusing the willful ignorance or the American electorate (that being not only those who voted but those that were eligible and those who could be eligible), with a scam. Here’s some choices between a good steak or a good pork chop, or between a bad fast food burger or a turd on a bun gee which would be a more critical choice to make if you weren’t getting anything else to eat for a while. As Dumpty points out there are consequences not only to our actions but out lack of actions. Answer, hell yes. For years to come, both the voters choices and the non-voters decision not to register their preference will have consequences in their lives and different decisions, yes would have brought about different consequences, many small differences, a few big ones and collectively genuine differences in all of our lives, that is the way it works.
Now let me ask again, in what way or ways are our national elections as well as state to federal elective positions, state elected positions, and our local elections a scam? Please be specific and leave the money spent on elections out as elections are not bought if voters, or potential voters, do not sell their vote.
It is called the hegelian dialectic, two forces that oppose each other as Thesis & Anti-Thesis, but are moving in a direction called Synthesis.
For instance the control of the money supply is the most important economic/macro money issue in every country, yet anytime anyone tries to go after it, they are attacked – like head blow off attacked……..
I think Trump has already found out, he can’t do sh*t………….
And the thing is that if Americans would think as they are capable of, most are not genetically cognitively challenged, just willfully ignorant, a form of stupidity, they would be able to challenge those who hold economic power. There is a question as to whether it would take armed revolution to change the power structure, these turds won’t even bother to think, are they capable of taking up arms, other than for the fun of it, with a previous thoughtful analysis of what the revolution would have to change and to what? I think not.
Compassionate Curmudgeon says
I really deeply doubt that our elected egomoniacal sociopathic oligarch has tried to ‘do’ anything of value. He’s pushed for cutting spending on everything but the military. He’s successfully loosened already loose environmental regulations ensuring that the 76,000 coal workers keep their jobs and the 318 million other americans get to deal with the fucked up water supplies.
It’s not that he can’t do shit, it’s that this country’s poor people looked up at the boot on their neck and said, ‘That’s what I aspire to.’ He’s the worst parts of the system, he already controlled the money. Why would someone like that ever opt to change the satus quo?
Leon Foonman says
You Are The Scam! Look at what an ignorant POS you are.
Noonan, Mark William says
And thus foisted Trump. They may have been pissed but dammit
Syd says
Grow up. All choices have consequences. No adult feels that any choice is perfect. Everyone knows that you are picking “on balance”.
Also, um, one of the candidates is evil and the other is not. So there’s that.
PI says
Jean Waller says
The majority of registered voters are now independents (about 40%) so your question is irrelevant if you don’t include them. Both parties have lost membership over the last decades by failing to represent their constituents fully rather than special intersests and wedge issues. A smarter question would be why are the two “major” parties have been allowed to hijack our democracy and control the electoral process so much through their primaries, legislative gerrymandering, appointing their own debate commissions and rules for access in ways that routinely disenfranchise almost half of registered voters.
Barak_Mohammed_0bama says
You left out “INDEPENDENTS” – Which is MY guess…
gscott says
Most of them are not registered. And I’m sure this applies every election, not just this one.
I want to know if those votes belong to Bernie since his supporters could not vote for him because he was not on the ballot! He is listed as an Independent presidential candidate for the general election with the Green Papers.
Most weren’t registered. The map looks grey because they’re going off of ‘voting age population’ not ‘registered voters’. So they just moved the goalpost mathematically about 25-50% further out. 2012 and 2008 maps would look the same because Americans don’t register and don’t vote.
Oregon had 80% turnout among registered voters and about 83% registration. So the 2 million votes out of 2.5 turns into 2 million votes out of 3 million. It takes total turnout down to 60%. So in order for either side to win a state on this map it would take winning 1.6 million votes out of 2 million or about a 83% rate of support among registered voters.
No candidate has received that kind of mandate in my lifetime.
Don’t let this article twist your viewpoint.
So to answer your question: Very few of either.
Kurt Miller says
Overwhelmingly Democrat
Rebublican
XJ4 says
Democrats love not to vote
emjaysea says
If that’s true then barely anyone wanted Trump in office.
Dexterette says
Republicans march in lockstep more, like I wish Democrats would, and Democrats have more young supporters, which means more people who throw temper tantrums at the worst possible moments. Republicans throw theirs after elections (Tea Party), Democrats throw theirs during elections. Young Democratic voters are fatally idealistic. I can’t stand this talk of lowering the voting age. It should be raised to 21 if you ask me.
OhSoRight says
It should be 26 if you’re still living at home and using mommy and daddy’s health insurance.
I call an error that brings in doubt this whole thing…
Washington state had an 80% turnout. Hillary got 71% and Trump got 21%, and others got the rest. Therefore “did not vote” would be at the maximum 20%. Hillary takes Washington; as she did on November 8th.
Bonnie Jo says
Had just come here to say the same thing. I don’t trust this map at all. Looks like the same story for IL
ThroughDifferentEyes says
The number of counts “for” an elect are what got tallied. If the area was “BLANK” it wouldn’t count toward either candidate, hence 71% VOTED for Hillary that filled in that blank and 21% VOTED for Trump that filled in that blank. You can’t “count” blanks – until you count “entries” – that’s what they are saying they did. I would still like an additional link though. It would appear by these numbers that we had almost a 100% voter turn-out. But I would need proof of that before parading that news all over FB.
Commenter C below is kind of right. The percentages to the candidates that I listed were indeed for King County (I accidentally have been looking there as the votes were being counted). But my comments below indeed use the election data for the entire State. My voter turnout percentage was correct for the State though.
Nick A. Zukin says
I don’t know about Washington, but Oregon had about an 80% turnout and over 50% voted for Clinton. That means Clinton got 40% and DNV got 20%, meaning Clinton won a plurality. Makes me question the map as well.
You need to add in all the voting-eligible persons that are not registered. That is what makes this map sad and undermines the pleasing sound of “80% turnout”. If only 80% of Oregon is registered, “did not vote” wins.
I can’t find figures on eligible vs registered voters in Oregon, but didn’t Oregon pass an “opt out” bill a couple years ago, making all eligible voters registered unless they choose not to be?
Paul Manson says
What you are hunting for is called Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP). Census tries to estimate it, for Oregon it is 2,830,525 (+/- 4,237). In Oregon 1,959,902 people cast a ballot for the presidential race (with 98.5% votes counted). So 870,623 people did not vote or were not registered, but could be based on age. Clinton received 982,205 votes. So she has the most votes of any “candidate”.
corbinc says
the oregon “new motor voter” law makes you registered by default whenever you do anything at the DMV, but it was just enacted this year, so many people probably haven’t been caught yet.
MarqusW says
458 electoral votes seems like a somewhat comfortable margin to account for this error (and CA as noted above).
They’re factoring in people who didn’t register at all. Oregon is in the same boat with an 80% turnout rate. If you take all ‘voting age’ people however that drops to 65% which makes the 51% clinton into more like 30%.
The part that makes this article bullshit is that more people turned out to the oregon election than ever have. I’m sure the same is true of other states. All this says is that it was a contentious election. For example in 2012 Obama got 54% of the vote. By these standards he would have needed 75% to get more than half and ‘win’ the ‘state.’
This article is full of shit/useless.
In WA 71% of people voted, 55% of those for Clinton. Therefore Clinton got 39% total vote, more than 29% of the did not vote. Not sure where you got your numbers.
John MasterGuns Lewis says
I have problems believing that absentee ballots are not counted. Absentee ballots are sent to the voter’s precinct, not to the state. Local races are often hotly contested and sometimes won by only a handful of votes, so it would be prudent to count every ballot that is received and determined to be a valid ballot.
According to the numbers, would it be a stretch to say that had Clinton received as many votes as did Obama in 2012 she could very well be the president elect? And by extension, is it a stretch that since she received over 5 million fewer votes than Obama in 2012 that it was a repudiation of the current administration?
Wheezer says
It just means fewer people saw a valid reason to waste their votes on her than on Obama. People do have that option, after all. No one has ever been legally required to vote Democrat or Republican, despite what every year’s election percentages seem to suggest.
There are a lot of racists who only came out to vote for the black guy. No black guy, no interest.
Melanie Brown says
Exactly the point of the map.
The whole state was at least 71%, 55% for Hillary. She still beats did not vote. Same with IL
scalscott says
Absentee ballots are counted.
http://help.vote.org/article/8-are-absentee-ballots-counted
Milo Filadox says
Could be and should be. Might take a Constitutional amendment, but it would be worth it to rein in the established parties’ rigging the system against all other contenders.
Steve Oliveri says
Hillary would have won CA. This is based on over 3.5 million ballots outstanding of 8.5 million ballots not counted yet or not cast. Once they have been counted it will be around 5 million not cast ballots versus well over 7 million for Clinton. Please update your map accordingly.
458 electoral votes seems like a somewhat comfortable margin to absorb this error.
Klaus Von Dessel says
This data isn’t based on registered voters, it is based on eligible voters. There are more than 24 million eligible voters in California so Clinton would still lose to “didn’t vote”.
It makes sense since not registering is the same as registering and not voting. You don’t care enough to vote for President even though you can.
No it’s not. If it was, Wisconsin wouldn’t be red.
Total eligible voters: 4,502,492
Total votes cast: 2,944,620
Total non-voters: 1,557,872
Votes for Trump: 1,409,467
This is how you make Wisconsin red on that map:
Total registered voters: 3,558,877
Total non-voters: 614,257
Washington D.C. is the only place where one candidate would beat out non-voters out of all eligible voters.
Huh, I was going by the commenter below (Keith) who was saying the same thing about Washington needing to be blue. looks like the numbers are just weird.
Bahb says
75,000 California votes were thrown out because they were votes of illegals. Another 26,000 were thrown out because they were harvested. California cheating is legendary. Notice the color coding of the envelopes that hold the mail-in ballots? They don’t want to have to actually open them and count. Did you know that 21 States have Soros voting machines?
madisontruth says
120 million, who’d rather watch Netflix than vote. Now Nero is tuning up.
7worldtraveler says
Wrong! Absentee ballots ARE counted. That is why the final totals took so long in some states.
Catherine Brinkley says
Does anyone know where you can get data on the registered voter turnout by COUNTY? It seems like this would be great data to have so that counties with very low (below 20%) turnout can DO SOMETHING to address it- potentially by learning from counties with very high registered voter turnout. But… it seems that this data does not exist… and needs to be scraped from the individual county websites… which is incredibly tedious. Not to mention, it seems like voter turnout should be a top priority… and it’s rather sad that it hasn’t been analyzed.
I don’t want uninterested and uninformed people voting.
bleef says
Right, because only you are the great informed one.
Not just me…there are plenty of others.
No. There are tens of millions of interested and informed people who have opinions different from me.
Vic78 says
That’ll probably be a candidate’s strategy or the new DNC chair might try to figure that one out.
Jose G. Ahumada says
Everyone should just register absentee. Tuesday voting is ridiculous. Deciding the fate of the nation on ONE workday with a set time limit? Absurd.
It’s actually the only smart way to do it.
Otherwise, everyone is voting on something different, as information is always coming out and new argument made.
All votes should be cast on the same day.
colton says
It’s not clear if the denominator is registered voters or those who voted in the 2016 elections. It sounds like the percentages given applies to all eligible voters.
To be fair, this is due in large part to registering people who don’t care about voting.
Monkey Brains says
Dead horse is dead.
Nikola Reljic says
Votings are only for Peasents!
Money talk Bullshit walk!
NewColumbian says
This is what happens when both candidates do nothing but go negative.
stan69 says
Indeed, but that in itself rather underlines the extent to which the US is by no stretch of the imagination a democracy. We have a similar thing in the UK, the Queen can effectively pick a Prime Minister and government herself in the event that no-one has a clear majority. In both cases, in order to be truly formal and binding, a NOTA option would have to supersede such archaic and anti-democratic mechanisms. So constitutional amendments would indeed be necessary as part and parcel of introducing NOTA. But that is no reason to not pursue it. We are talking about true democracy in action after all, which is literally impossible without NOTA.
K1ng Pete says
The US is not, and was never intended to be, a democracy.
Indeed. But it pretends it is out of necessity. All the while that is true, the case for democratic pre-requisites like NOTA can be made. And won.
Three_to_Five says
People act like voting is some sort of sacred right that must be practiced by everyone: I’m one of the few that doesn’t care if certain people don’t want to vote. If you don’t have an informed opinion or just don’t care who wins, then go ahead and don’t vote. I’d much rather have 50% of eligible voters turn out and make an informed decision rather than have 100% of eligible voters vote in ignorance.
Well that’s what happened. Those vast majority of white males in the interior have no education beyond high school. Like democrats they fall for the misinformation that their leaders give out. And no we have what could very well be a disaster of epic proportions.
Jeh Jeh says
Going to the polls and voting NOTA is very different than “Didn’t want to bother putting my pants on.”
This is true, but I know a lot of people who would have bothered to put on pants if NOTA were an option, and a LOT who voted for Clinton as the lesser evil who all would have voted to invalidate both options.
I don’t believe many voted for Clinton as the lesser of evils. She WAS the evil. Evil vs. Idiot. I voted Idiot.
And there are more people that don’t vote every year than vote. Not even registered to vote. There was surely more this year, but still. Every year the ‘did not vote’ candidate wins in a landslide.
David Lloyd-Jones says
She wasn’t evil. This is a Republican Big Lie, told over and over, year after year, all the way back to when she was a young single lawyer on the Watergate Committee staff pursuing the crook Nixon.
And Fred malek, the guy who did the dirty in the Saturday Night Massacre is back at work in Trump’s GOP today.
-dlj.
Yes. No clinton ever did anything wrong. Sure.
EboTebo says
F**K Y*U!!
Hillary being given sainthood by Popey would be an irony the masses would throw around like a ball of yarn until the end of time.
Carl Hatcher says
I know a lot of no longer young black males who don’t agree with you and as an older male I think she is evil corrupt and duplicitous. So evil is on the table for sure.
piaf says
Why participate in a fraud at all.
You’re Evil!
Eddie Higgins says
I voted none of the above in Nevada in 2016 and not for the first time
Everyone who voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein were basically choosing NOTA. That is what I did.
Barbara Jean says
Except millions of people were not able to vote because of too few polling places (an elderly or working person can’t stand in line for 12 to 24 hours) or because of restrictive Voter ID laws passed all over the country in 2012 or because of crosschecking eliminating valid voter. And there were a lot of provisional votes handed out and then never counted. But it’s also true–many people felt neither candidate had their interests at heart. I have to wonder how many voters showed up to vote for their representatives and senators but left president blank.
PogmoThoin13 says
Indeed. It has been well established there was quite a bit of voter suppression and election fraud. (Note: election fraud is not the same as voter fraud).
Bryan Harris says
I voted Johnson instead…
levi9998 says
Actually, the house has to choose among the top 3 electoral vote-getters (12th amendment), otherwise the current VP becomes president if they don’t get a majority choice.
THE CURRENT V.P.?!?! an office which is HISTORICALLY chosen to be someone SO BAD no one will harm the President or “that idiot” takes over?!?
(AND I MEAN THAT BIPARTISANLY! ! ! )
Hence the book which chronicles history of the VP is titled “BLAND AMBITION”!
Craig Austin says
ROFLMAO (sort of) Barak, you’re way too excited here. Biden would have made a better president than either of the two candidates that could have won. But all this talk is just silliness. The electoral college being abolished could actually happen, though.
Wally Shoot says
NO way will the electoral college be abolished. The only reason Clinton won the popular vote was because of California. She won like 60% of the vote there; therefore she got the electoral votes from CA but that in and of itself is not enough to win the presidency as we all have now noticed. If the electoral vote goes away we will never see another president campaign outside of CA, TX, FL, & NY. There will be no need to, if you can win those 34 states in popular vote you win. May as well call us then the United States of California. So, NO it will not be abolished on those grounds.
That same thing is happening in reverse today.
I hope so. Enough of the least popular person becoming president.
Duke Harrington says
One minor quibble: Keep in mind Maine split its electoral votes. So, in effect, it voted for both major party candidates. Another interesting map might be to show how the election might have turned out if all 50 states divvied its electoral votes as Maine and Nebraska do.
Ross Merritt says
Not registering and not voting is just lazy and you should have no right to complain about the results. If you think it is rigged then get more involved not less.
sashamanda says
There are numerous rational reasons not to vote including a corrupt media that does more to obfuscate than enlighten, an educational bureaucracy that promotes a progressive worldview instead of an examination of the basis for US government, and an electoral system that shifts meaningful voting to “swing states.”
Mike Fogel says
Some of the numbers in this post are now out-of-date. For example, “Donald Trump received 667,646 fewer votes than Romney did in 2012, but Hilary Clinton received 5,075,873 fewer votes than Obama did in 2012.” This is simply no longer true. Trump has now surpassed Romney, and Clinton is within 4M votes of Obama. Hillary’s lead over Trump has also now grown to 1.3M votes and leads Trump 48.0% to 47.0%.
It would be good to update this post with a disclaimer at the top that this was done with incomplete voter tallies, and that it’ll be updated once the final vote is certified in all the states.
jaw444 says
never mind, i found the information i was asking about, i would delete my question but don’t see that option.
Javier Anderson says
This map is no longer accurate as the numbers continue to pile in. Already Colorado and Maryland have higher turnout and therefore should be in the Clinton camp on this map. Also, Maine should have one of its electors put to Trump because of the way they delegate Electoral College votes by Congressional District. I suspect that before all is said and done, Vermont and Wyoming will also fall out of the “Did not vote” category and should be place toward Clinton and Trump respectively.
David Direktor says
Reminds me of the film “Brewster’s Millions” where he changes his name to “None of the above”, stands for election and wins.
A good film, but not really indicative of what a true NOTA option is. A person or party called ‘none of the above’ will always just be another ‘one of the above’ in practice. A bona fide NOTA option does what it says on the tin: allows people to reject all that is off and withhold consent in a formal and binding way.
SenzibleG says
Time to move out of the 18th Century people! The US will continue to suffer the sepsis of poisoned democracy-light until all citizens are automatically registered to vote and all citizens are required to vote. That includes using a NOTA choice stan69 mentions. If NOTA wins in primaries or the general then you have to find new candidates. Both ‘choices’ this year were and are dead ends.
Donny Wilmer says
There are about 200 million eligible voters in the United States in 2016. Clinton received
about 65 million of those votes
(32.5%); Trump received about
62 million of those votes (31.0%);
and that leaves third-parties
and nonvoters, totalling about
73 million (36.5%). Since the
largest share of this last group,
nonvoters, don’t GET a share of
the vote, Clinton’s “plurality”
(65 million votes) is actually a
MAJORITY. She should be the
President-Elect. Abstentions
don’t count as votes. If you add the two top vote-getters as a
whole ( 127 million votes ),
Clinton got 51.18% ( a
majority) and Trump got 48.81%.
Nonvoters this time around are
not a bigger percentage (36.5%)
than they have ever been before.
Agreed. This article factored ‘voting age population’ which includes all kinds of felons and mentally infirmed people that can’t/shouldn’t/don’t want to register/vote.
Mr Trainbeans says
i dont understand how this is supposed to undermine the obvious truth that the USA is an illegitimate settler empire based on a system of murderous class and racial apartheid and deserves to be destroyed
Michael McTeer says
For POTUS, NOTA would result in election by the House of Representatives, no?
Not if implemented properly. As things stand, the house is allowed to have final say in the event of there being no clear winner, for whatever reason. But a bona fide formal and binding NOTA option would have to supersede all that in order to be legitimate and not just a token gesture. If the majority formally reject all that is on offer, by definition those candidates must be disqualified and a new election must be run. That is democracy in action. The plain fact is that the spectacle of electing POTUS is the whole point, not the election itself, because the US is not a democracy, not even close. Even if it were a lot closer to being an actual democracy than it is, there would have to be a formal, binding NOTA option in place in order for it to be fully democratic. Without NOTA, true democracy is impossible.
gunnerbear says
Or the same candidates can stand but they’d have to alter their policies to get the voters to back them…..
Uh, this number?
Did Not Vote’s 44.37% (10,2731,399)
Kerry Petersen says
Apparently, the “did not voters” just “could not” bring themselves to vote for the skank…….even if it meant saving the entire world from Trump. So, I guess every non-vote was like a vote for Trump. That means that the skank never came close to being the “popular” candidate after all. Hmmmm
SteveO says
You forgot Delaware
*Droopy Voice* Don’t worry, they always do
Putting your pants on and going to the polls is a waste of good time and energy. Plus it condones the fraud. Not going to the polls is very different from ‘not bothering.’ It’s ‘not condoning the circus.’ It’s being awake.
And, potentially, drafted into a war. Think it can’t happen? Vote, every time. No matter what.
Chris Ramsey says
This ‘brilliant map’ shows Delaware as blue, and D.C. as gray. if the text below it is accurate, these should be reversed.
9. As everybody who supports the Constitution by voting (if there are any such) does so secretly (by secret ballot), and in a way to avoid all personal responsibility for the acts of his agents or representatives, it cannot legally or reasonably be said that anybody at all supports the Constitution by voting. No man can reasonably or legally be said to do such a thing as assent to, or support, the Constitution, unless he does it openly, and in a way to make himself personally responsible for the acts of his agents, so long as they act within the limits of the power he delegates to them.
10. As all voting is secret (by secret ballot), and as all secret governments are necessarily only secret bands of robbers, tyrants, and murderers, the general fact that our government is practically carried on by means of such voting, only proves that there is among us a secret band of robbers, tyrants, and murderers, whose purpose is to rob, enslave, and, so far as necessary to accomplish their purposes, murder, the rest of the people. The simple fact of the existence of such a vand does nothing towards proving that “the people of the United States,” or any one of them, voluntarily supports the Constitution.
For all the reasons that have now been given, voting furnishes no legal evidence as to who the particular individuals are (if there are any), who voluntarily support the Constitution. It therefore furnishes no legal evidence that anybody supports it voluntarily.
So far, therefore, as voting is concerned, the Constitution, legally speaking, has no supporters at all.
And, as a matter of fact, there is not the slightest probability that the Constitution has a single bona fide supporter in the country. That is to say, there is not the slightest probability that there is a single man in the country, who both understands what the Constitution really is, and sincerely supports it for what it really is.
The ostensible supporters of the Constitution, like the ostensible supporters of most other governments, are made up of three classes, viz.: 1. Knaves, a numerous and active class, who see in the government an instrument which they can use for their own aggrandizement or wealth. 2. Dupes — a large class, no doubt — each of whom, because he is allowed one voice out of millions in deciding what he may do with his own person and his own property, and because he is permitted to have the same voice in robbing, enslaving, and murdering others, that others have in robbing, enslaving, and murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that he is a “free man,” a “sovereign”; that this is “a free government”; “a government of equal rights,” “the best government on earth,” [1] and such like absurdities. 3. A class who have some appreciation of the evils of government, but either do not see how to get rid of them, or do not choose to so far sacrifice their private interests as to give themselves seriously and earnestly to the work of making a change.
No Treason
The Constitution of No Authority
by Lysander Spooner
http://jim.com/treason.htm
Doc Chaos says
Unless the constitution is personally ratified. Perhaps that would be a requirement if federalism weren’t so delicate a sell.
Paul Hoffman says
Dont believe this for a second; polls here were packed.
Helen York says
Your map is incorrect about Maine. Maine did not give all of its electoral votes to Clinton.Maine assigns two of its electoral votes by congressional district, so while two electoral votes went to Clinton on the basis of overall numbers, and while the Southern District went with Clinton, Northen Maine went with Trump. The numbers should be 3f or Clinton, 1 for Trump.
Travis Frey says
This article was made in November. I’m sensing time travel or a heavy edit to the original article.
PlayStation4Life! says
I didn’t vote, cuz i can’t (i’m not american). But if i could. I would vote for the Donald!
Anyways, this map is fake news.
Thanks for just ignoring Delaware and pretending it is not a state even though it is clearly blue…
This just confirms that most eligible voters would like a choice other than Dem or GOP.
Shannon Jacobs says
Uh… The map has a mistake. DE is Delaware, which is colored for DC’s vote.
I should have thought to follow that link at the top. In that archived source the map is colored correctly.
Luke wallis says
Is there a particular reason Delaware is colored blue on the map but not listed as a Clinton state? Other than, you know, rudeness?
The % breakdown cannot be accurate…
= 100%
We know some voters chose other candidates.
Jay Lender says
Please source your data and include an attribution in your graphic JPEG. You KNOW people want to share that picture!
Not voting, was voting. It was a statement that neither choice was acceptable. Neither candidate sold themselves and their platform to those voters. The candidates failed the voters. If the candidate can’t close the deal in the campaign by the election, they don’t deserve the job; they lack what it takes to do the job; they are not top dog material.
Chainsaw says
I wonder what those numbers would look like if we could vote for policy rather than personalities? Not wanting to eat either cat poo or dog poo doesn’t mean someone wants to go hungry.
MyChoice says
Thirty-Nine States have Early Voting. In my home state of North Carolina, Early Voting begins on the third Wednesday in October and runs through the last Saturday preceding Election Day. Any registered voter who did not vote cannot be, nor should not be, categorized. In 2016, there were any number of reasons not to vote from, “I do not like either candidate”, to, “My vote won’t matter since the MSM is publishing a 94% lock for Clinton”. Voter Suppression, Gerrymandering, Electoral College, and etc. are simply excuses for a failed candidacy. I know several registered voters who chose not to vote due to the impression of Clinton “Stealing” the Democrat Nomination from Sanders. Registered Voters are not required to vote. Their reasons are secret and sacred unless they wish to disclose their reason(s) for not participating.
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Cooke's suspension ends, expected to return in Game 4
Matt Cooke is expected to return to the Minnesota Wild's lineup on Friday night as his seven-game suspension has come to an end.
The NHL suspended Cooke for his knee-to-knee hit on Avalanche defenseman Tyson Barrie. Barrie was expected to miss 4 to 6 weeks with a sprained MCL, but the Avalanche were eliminated in Game 7, by the Wild.
Wild Coach Mike Yeo said he expects Cooke will return during Game 4 on Friday.
The Wild trail 2-1 in the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinals after beating the Blackhawks 4-0 on Tuesday night.
"I would expect him to come in the lineup," Yeo said. "This is a guy that's not fun to play against. This is a guy who helps our penalty kill.
According to Pro Hockey Talk, it will be interesting to see where he fits in the lineup.
Cooke addressed the media on Tuesday.
The Star Tribune reports he did not answer questions about why he didn't appeal the suspension.
In his career, Cooke has been called many things including: goon, thug and low-life to name a few. He knows that many people are going to continue to think he's a dirty player. He has been suspended by the league on seven different occasions, but the hit on Barrie was the first time he had been suspended since joining the Wild.
"People are entitled to their opinions,'' Cooke said. "Everyone's going to have them. It's not my job to go out and change people's opinions. My job is to go out and play the way I can and be successful helping my teammates win.
The Blackhawks will be mindful of Cooke, but they aren't preparing for anything dirty from him.
Chicago's Patrick Kane told the Chicago Sun Times, "He probably knows better now, where he can't make any more hits that are going to affect himself or the team. When a player like that comes back in the line up [if] you worry about that player too much, it only affects yourself in a negative way. He can be an effective player, though."
NHLMinnesota Wild HockeysportsHockeymatt cookeNHL PlayoffsSportsWildchicago blackhawkscolorado avalanche
Cooke speaks on suspension; Wild prep for game 4
'Joke of a suspension': Twitter reacts to Matt Cooke's punishment
Moulson to miss Game 4 for Wild with 'lower body injury'
Back to even; Wild fly past Blackhawks
Wild hold off Avalanche in dramatic finish to even series
Reports: Granlund likely to return for Wild-Avalanche playoff series
Cooke misses practice, status for Game 1 at St. Louis in question
Late rally lifts Avalanche over Wild in game one
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MY BRIEFCASE (0)
Back to Government Relations
News from Down Under: The Case against Leighton Holdings Further Highlights Problems with the Facilitation Payments Exception
September 17, 2014 | FCPA, financial-regulation, The GEE Blog
+ADD TO E-BRIEFCASE
Kathleen L. Matsoukas
White Collar and Investigations Chair
Traditionally, Australia has not vigorously enforced its anti-corruption laws. In fact, an OECD report released in October 2012 found that, as of that date, enforcement of Australia’s Bribery of Foreign Officials Act was “extremely low,” considering the number of Australian companies exposed to bribery risk. It notes that as of 2012, only 1 of 28 referred allegations resulted in a prosecution. That may be changing with Monday’s report in the Australian Financial Review that Leighton Holdings, an international contracting company based in Australia and active in mining and oil and gas, has internal emails and other documents that show that it have paid substantial bribes in Iraq to secure oil and gas contracts. According to that article, among other things, certain leaked emails which are part of an investigation by the Australian Federal Police “warn a $24 million ‘facilitation payment’ linked to a 2010 Iraq contract would ‘attract attention’ from auditors.” The AFP is reportedly finalizing a case to present to prosecutors based on these and other documents. The Australian Financial Review previously reported on an internal memorandum between two top executives that stated that oil pipeline contracts in Iraq were won by Leighton Holdings’ payment of multi-million-dollar bribes and that more kickbacks were needed. Other leaked documents reportedly reflect that payments were made to a Monaco company named Unaoil, after Unaoil promised that they could “facilitate” matters with the Iraqi government-owned Southern Oil Company in exchange for $24 million. Others also apparently reflect that in 2011, Leighton Offshore (a subsidiary of Leighton Holdings) made large payments – recorded as payments “for friend” – to three separate companies owned by a middleman who had told the company that he had connections with Iraqi officials. The Leighton Holdings matter highlights the confusion that inevitably results when a country’s anti-corruption law permits facilitation payments. The Australian government’s information page on the Bribery of Foreign Officials Act explains that while the facilitation payment defense is available under the law, it is limited to circumstances involving “routine government action,” and “does not include any decision to award or continue business, or any decision related to the terms of new or existing business.” It also notes that “[i]f a payment is to qualify as a legitimate facilitation payment, detailed records must be kept including the value of the benefit concerned, the identity of the foreign official and the person receiving the benefit, and particulars of the routine government action sought.” Finally, it recommends that “individuals and companies make every effort to resist making facilitation payments” as “[a] growing body of research and the experiences of a growing number of major companies demonstrate that businesses can achieve net gains by refusing to make payments.” While this guidance is helpful, the 2012 OECD Report (which would have covered the period in which the Leighton Holdings bribes were allegedly made) identified problems with the facilitation payments defense under Australia’s law, identifying the confusion that can result with such an exception and noting that:
Australia has made efforts to raise awareness of the facilitation payment defence, including through its proactive consultation process. Nevertheless, there continues to be substantial confusion over the scope of the facilitation payment defence. The lead examiners therefore recommend that Australia continue to raise awareness of the distinction between bribes and facilitation payments, and encourage companies to prohibit or discourage the use of small facilitation payments in internal company controls, ethics and compliance programmes or measures, recognising that such payments must in all cases be accurately accounted for in such companies’ books and financial records.
OECD Report at 11 (emphasis added). The Leighton Holdings emails likely reflect a minimal effort to “legitimize” obviously corrupt payments by labeling them as “facilitation payments,” despite that they did not come close to fitting the definition of a facilitation payment that would qualify for any exception or defense. Nevertheless, the documents may reflect a flawed understanding at the corporate level that the facilitation payment exception is a permissible or viable exception to the rule. Categorizing or differentiating facilitation payments from bribes has proved a “ slippery task,” and ultimately many commentators have concluded that the difference is “ illusory.” This has led some jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, Japan, ( and soon Canada), to refuse to permit facilitation payments. While the FCPA currently allows for the use of facilitation payments, the November 2012 DOJ/SEC guidelines discourage their use, and there have been calls to ban their use outright, or at least to reduce their use to a mitigating factor for penalties. The Leighton Holdings case is just the most recent example of why companies should expressly forbid facilitation payments and train their executives that they cannot rely on the concept or catchphrase of “facilitating payments” as an exception or defense to applicable anti-bribery laws. Under today’s anti-corruption regimes, categorizing something as a “facilitation payment” is no longer a strategy that is legally or practically sound.
DODD-FRANK WHISTLEBLOWER LITIGATION HEATING UP
NASAA: State Securities Regulators’ Views on Top Emerging...
{75F165A7-6883-4A4F-9C4B-1C4EE8E3B6CE}
FCPA / BRAZIL: THE PERFECT STORM FOR ANTI-CORRUPTION ENFORCEMENT
April 23, 2015 | FCPA, The GEE Blog
PART II - CORRUPTION ENFORCEMENT IN BRAZIL: WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?
February 25, 2015 | SEC, The GEE Blog
PART I - CORRUPTION ENFORCEMENT IN BRAZIL: WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
Checking in on the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office
February 3, 2015 | FCPA, The GEE Blog
Canadian Corruption of Foreign Officials Act Update: Three Takeaways from the Cryptometics Case
June 6, 2014 | government-investigations, Privacy, The GEE Blog
Here Comes Canada: Corruption Prosecutions Likely to Increase Under the Amended CFPOA
April 22, 2014 | FCPA, government-investigations, The GEE Blog
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10 Key Policies and Practices for Schoolwide and Classroom-Based Behavioral Supports
This document distills the latest research findings into 10 easy-to-follow recommendations that states, school districts, and schools can use to improve schoolwide and classroom behavioral supports. Also included are examples of each recommendation.
10Keys_Behavior_Web_Revised.pdf
10 Key Policies and Practices for All Schools
Concise, one-page document distills the latest research findings into 10 easy-to-follow recommendations that states and school districts can use to create policy and improve student outcomes. It covers items in reading, writing, mathematics, dropout prevention, data management, and other topics.
10 Key Policies and Practices for Teaching English Language Learners
"10 Key Policies and Practices for Teaching English Language Learners" offers recommendations and examples stated in clear language that are grounded in findings from solid research studies.
10 Key Policies and Practices for Assessment in Schools
This document distills the latest research findings into 10 easy-to-follow recommendations that states, school districts, and schools can use to improve assessment. Also included is a list of publications cited.
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Bible > Commentary > EXP > 2 Kings
◄ 2 Kings ►
Expositor's Bible Commentary
"Ich bin iiberzeugt, dass die Bibel immer schoner wird, je mehr man sie versteht, d.h. je mehr man einsieht und anschaut, dass jedes Wort, das wir allgemein auflassen und in Besondern auf uns anwenden, nach gewissen Umstanden, nach Zeit- und Orts-verhaltnissen einen, eigenen, besondern, unmittelbar individuellen Bezug gehabt hat."
- GOETHE.
"Es bleibt dabei, das beste Lesen der Bibel, dieses Gottlichen Buchs, ist menschlich. Ich nehme dies Wort im weitesten Umfang und in der andringendsten Bedeutung. Menschlich muss man die Bibcl lesen : denn sie ist ein Buch durch Menschen fur Menschen geschrieben ; menschlich ist die Sprache, menschlich die aussern Hulfsmittel, mit denen sie geschrieben und aufbehalten ist. . . . Es darf also sicher geglaubt werden : je humaner (im besten Sinn des Worts) man das Wort Gottes liest, desto naher kommt man dem Zweck
seines Urhebers, welcher Menschen zu seinem Bilde schuf . . . und fiir uns menschlich handelt."
- HERDER.
THE HIGHER CRITICISM
"God shows all things in the slow history of their ripening."
- GEORGE ELIOT.
God has given us many Bibles. The book which we call the Bible consists of a series of books, and its name represents the Greek plural tablia. It is not so much a book, as the extant fragments of a literature, which grew up during many centuries. Supreme as is the importance of this "Book of God," it was never meant to be the sole teacher of mankind. We mistake its purpose, we misapply its revelation, when we use it to exclude the other sources of religious knowledge. It is supremely profitable for our instruction, but, so far from being designed to absorb our exclusive attention, its work is to stimulate the eagerness with which, by its aid, we are able to learn from all other sources the will of God towards men.
God speaks to us in many voices. In the Bible He revealed Himself to all mankind by His messages to the individual souls of some of His servants. But those messages, whether uttered or consigned to writing, were but one method of enabling us to hold communion with Him. They were not even an indispensable method. Thousands of the saints of God lived the spiritual life in close communion with their Father in heaven in ages which possessed no written book; in ages before any such book existed; in ages during which, though it existed, it was practically inaccessible; in ages during which it had been designedly kept out of their hands by priests. This fact should quicken our sense of gratitude for the inestimable boon of a Book wherein he who runs may now read, and respecting the main teaching of which wayfaring men, and even fools, need not err. But it should at the same time save us from the error of treating the Bible as though it were in itself an amulet or a fetish, as the Mohammedan treats his Koran. The Bible was written in human language, by men for men. It was written mainly in Judaea, by Jews, for Jews. "Scripture," as the old theological rule said, "is the sense of Scripture," and the sense of Scripture can only be ascertained by the methods of study and the rules of criticism without which no ancient document or literature can be even approximately understood. In these respects the Bible cannot be arbitrarily or exceptionally treated. No a priori rules can be devised for its elucidation. It is what it is, not what we might have expected it to be. Language, at the best, is an imperfect and ever-varying instrument of thought. It is full of twilight and of gracious shadows. Vast numbers of its words were originally metaphorical. When the light of metaphor has faded from them they come to mean different things at different times, under different conditions, in different contexts, on different lips. Language can at the best be but an asymptote to thought; in other words, it resembles the mathematical line which approaches nearer and nearer to the circumference of a circle, but which, even when infinitely extended, can never actually touch it. The fact that the Bible contains a Divine revelation does not alter the fact that it represents a nation’s literature. It is the library of the Jewish people, or rather all that remains to us of that library, and all that was most precious in it. Holy men of old were moved by the Spirit of God, but as this Divine inspiration did not make them personally sinless in their actions, or infallible in their judgments, so neither does it exempt their messages from the limitation which attaches to all human conditions. Criticism would have rendered an inestimable service to every thoughtful reader of the Scriptures if it had done nothing more than impress upon them that the component books are not one, but complex and multiform, separated from each other by centuries of time, and of very varying value and preciousness. They too, like the greatest apostles of God, have their treasure in earthen vessels; and we not only may, but must, by the aid of that reason which is "the candle of the Lord," estimate both the value of the treasure, and the age and character of the earthen vessel in which it is contained.
There are hundreds of texts in Scripture which may convey to some souls a very true and blessed meaning, but which do not in the original possess any such meaning as that which is now attached to them. The words of Hebrew prophets often seem perfectly clear, but in some cases they had another set of connotations in the mouths of those by whom they were originally spoken. It requires a learned and a literary training to discover by philology, by history, or by comparison, what alone they could have meant when they were first spoken. In many cases their exact significance is no longer to be ascertained with certainty. It must be more or less conjectural. There are passages of Scripture which have received scores of differing interpretations. There are entire books of Scripture about the general scope of which there have been diametrically opposite opinions. The spiritual intuition of the saint may in some instances be keener to read aright than the laborious researches of the scholar, because spiritual things can only be spiritually discerned. But in general it is true that the ex cathedra assertions of ignorant readers, though they are often pronounced with an assumption of infallibility, are not worth the breath which utters them. All artificial dogmas as to what Scripture must be, and must mean, are worse than idle; we have only to deal with what it really is, and what it really says. Even when opinions respecting it have been all but unanimously pronounced by the representatives of all the Churches, they have nevertheless been again and again shown to be absurdly erroneous. The slow light of scholarship, of criticism, of comparative religion, has proved that in many instances not only the interpretations of former ages, but the very principles of interpretation from which they were derived, had no basis whatever in fact. And the methods of interpretation-dogmatic, ecclesiastical, mystic, allegorical, literal-have changed from age to age. The asserted heresy of yesterday has in scores of instances become the accepted commonplace of tomorrow. The duty of the Church in the present day is neither to make out that the Bible is what men have imagined that it was, nor to repeat the assertions of ancient writers as to what they declared it to be, but honestly and truthfully to discover the significance of the actual phenomena which it presents to the enlightened and cultivated intelligence.
If it were not so common a failing to ignore the lessons of the past, it might have been hoped that a certain modesty, of which the necessity is taught us by centuries of error, would have saved a multitude of writers from rushing into premature and denunciative rejection of results which they have not studied, and of which they are incapable to judge. St. Jerome complained that in his day there was no old woman so fatuous as not to assume the right to lay down the law about Scriptural interpretation. It is just the same in these days. Half-taught dogmatists, as they have been called-may sweepingly condemn the lifelong researches of men far superior to themselves, not only in learning, but in love of truth; they may attribute their conclusions to faithless infatuation, and even to moral obliquity. This has been done over and over again in our own lifetime; and yet such self-constituted and unauthorized defenders of their own prejudices and traditions-which they always identify with the Catholic faith-are impotent to prevent, impotent even greatly to retard, the spread of real knowledge. Many of the now-accepted certainties of science were repudiated a generation ago as absurd and blasphemous. As long as it was possible to put them down by persecution, the thumbscrew and the stake were freely used by priests and inquisitors for their suppression. E pur si muove. Theologians who mingled the gold of Revelation with the clay of their own opinions have been driven to correct their past errors. Untaught by experience, religious prejudice is ever heaping up fresh obstacles to oppose the progress of new truths. The obstacles will be swept away in the future as surely as they have been in the past. The eagle, it has been said, which soars through the air does not worry itself how to cross the rivers.
It is probable that no age since that of the Apostles has added so much to our knowledge of the true meaning and history of the Bible as has been added by our own. The mode of regarding Scripture has been almost revolutionized, and in consequence many books of Scripture previously misunderstood have acquired a reality and intensity of interest and instructiveness which have rendered them trebly precious. A deeper and holier reverence for all eternal truth which the Bible contains has taken the place of a meaningless letter worship. The fatal and wooden Rabbinic dogma of verbal dictation-a dogma which either destroys intelligent faith altogether, or introduces into Christian conduct some of the worst delusions of false religion-is dead and buried in every capable and well-taught mind. Truths which had long been seen through the distorting mirage of false exegesis have now been set forth in their true aspect. We have been enabled, for the first time, to grasp the real character of events which, by being set in a wrong perspective, had been made so fantastic as to have no relation to ordinary lives. Figures which had become dim specters moving through an unnatural atmosphere now stand out, full of grace, instructiveness and warning, in the clear light of day. The science of Bible criticism has solved scores of enigmas which were once disastrously obscure, and has brought out the original beauty of some passages, which, even in our Authorized Version, conveyed no intelligible meaning to earnest readers. The Revised Version alone has corrected hundreds of inaccuracies which in some instances defaced the beauty of the sacred page, and in many others misrepresented and mis-translated it. Intolerance has been robbed of favorite shibboleths, used as the basis of cruel beliefs, which souls unhardened by system could only repudiate with a "God forbid!" Familiar error has ever been dearer to most men than unfamiliar truths; but truth, however slow may seem to be the beat of her pinions, always wins her way at last.
"Thro’ the heather an’-howe gaed the creepin’ thing,
But abune was the waft of an angel’s wing."
Can there be any doubt that mankind has everything to gain and nothing to lose from the ascertainment of genuine truth? Are we so wholly devoid of even an elementary faith as to think that man can profit by consciously cherished illusions? Does it not show a nobler confidence in facts to correct traditional prejudices, than to rest blindly content with conventional assertions? If we do not believe that God is a God of truth, that all falsity is hateful to Him, -and religious falsity most hateful of all, because it adds the sin of hypocrisy to the love of lies, -we believe in nothing. If our religion is to consist in a rejection of knowledge, lest it should disturb the convictions of times of ignorance, the dicta of "the Fathers," or dogmas which arrogate to themselves the sham claim of Catholicity-if we are to give only to the Dark Ages the title of the Ages of Faith, then indeed
"The pillared firmament is rottenness, And earth’s base built on stubble."
"There is and will be much discussion," says Goethe, "as to the advantage or disadvantage of the popular dissemination of the Bible. To me it is clear that it will be mischievous as it always has been if used dogmatically and capriciously; beneficial as it always has been if accepted didactically (for our instruction) and with feeling." There is abundance in the Bible for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; -we shall weaken its moral and spiritual force, and gain nothing in its place, if we turn it into an idol adorned with impossible claims which it never makes for itself, and if we support its golden image upon the brittle clay of an exegesis which is morally, critically, and historically false.
I do not see how there can be any loss in the positive results of what is called the Higher Criticism. Certainly its suggestions must never be hastily adopted. Nor is it likely that they will be. They have to fight their way through crowds of opposing prejudices. They are first held up to ridicule as absurd; then exposed to anathema as irreligious; at last they are accepted as obviously true. The very theologians who once denounced them silently ignore or readjust what they previously preached, and hasten, first to minimize the importance, then to extol the value of the new discoveries. It is quite right that they should be keenly scrutinized. All new sciences are liable to rush into extremes. Their first discoverers are misled into error by premature generalizations born of a genuine enthusiasm. They are tempted to build elaborate superstructures on inadequate foundations. But when they have established certain irrefragable principles, can the obvious deductions from those principles be other than a pure gain? Can we be the better for traditional delusions? Can mistakes and ignorance-can anything but the ascertained fact-be desirable for man, or acceptable to God?
No doubt it is with a sensation of pain that we are compelled to give up convictions which we once regarded as indubitable and sacred. That is a part of our human nature. We must say with all gentleness to the passionate devotees of each old erroneous mumpsimus-
"Disce; sed ira cadat naso rugosaque sanna Cum veteres avias tibi de pulmone revello."
Our blessed Lord, with His consummate tenderness, and Divine insight into the frailties of our nature made tolerant allowance for inveterate prejudices. "No man," He said, "having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is good." But the pain of disillusionment is blessed and healing when it is incurred in the cause of sincerity. There must always be more value in results earned by heroic labor than in conventions accepted without serious inquiry. Already there has been a silent revolution. Many of the old opinions about the Bible have been greatly modified. There is scarcely a single competent scholar who does not now admit that the Hexateuch is a composite structure; that much of the Levitical legislation, which was once called Mosaic, is in reality an after growth which in its present form is not earlier than the days of the prophet Ezekiel; that the Book of Deuteronomy belongs, in its present form, whatever older elements it may contain, to the era of Hezekiah’s or Josiah’s reformation; that the Books of Zechariah and Isaiah are not homogeneous, but preserve the writings of more prophets than their titles imply; that only a small section of the Psalter was the work of David; that the Book of Ecclesiastes was not the work of King Solomon; that most of the Book of Daniel belongs to the era of Antiochus Epiphanes; and so forth. In what respect is the Bible less precious, less "inspired" in the only tenable sense of that very undefined word, in consequence of such discoveries? In what way do they touch the outermost fringe of our Christian faith? Is there anything in such results of modern criticism which militates against the most inferential expansion of a single clause in the Apostolic, the Nicene, or even the Athanasian Creed? Do they contravene one single syllable of the hundreds of propositions to which our assent is demanded in the Thirty-nine Articles? I would gladly help to mitigate the needless anxiety felt by many religious minds. When the Higher Criticism is in question I would ask them to distinguish between established premises and the exorbitant system of inferences which a few writers have based upon them. They may rest assured that sweeping conclusions will not be hastily snatched up; that no conclusion will be regarded as proved until it has successfully run the gauntlet of many a jealous challenge. They need not fear for one moment that the Ark of their faith is in peril, and they will be guilty not only of unwisdom but of profanity if they rush forward to support it with rude and unauthorized hands. There never has been an age of deep thought and earnest inquiry which has not left its mark in the modification of some traditions or doctrines of theology. But the truths of essential Christianity are built upon a rock. They belong to things which cannot be shaken, and which remain. The intense labors of eminent scholars, English and German, thanklessly as they have been received, have not robbed us of so much as a fraction of a single precious element of revelation. On the contrary, they have cleared the Bible of many accretions by which its meaning was spoilt, and its doctrines wrested to perdition, and they have thus rendered it more profitable than before for every purpose for which it was designed, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
When we study the Bible it is surely one of our most primary duties to beware lest any idols of the caverns or of the forum tempt us "to offer to the God of truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie."
THE BOOKS OF KINGS
THE "Two Books of Kings," as we call them, are only one book (Sepher Melakim), and were so regarded not only in the days of Origen (ap. Euseb., H.E., 6:25) and of Jerome (A.D. 420), but by the Jews even down to Bomberg’s Hebrew Bible of 1518. They are treated as one book in the Talmud and the Peshito. The Western Bibles followed the Alexandrian division into two books (called the third and fourth of Kings), and Jerome adopted this division in the Vulgate (Regum, 3 et 4). But if this separation into two books was due to the LXX translators, they should have made a less awkward and artificial division than the one which breaks off the first book in the middle of the brief reign of Ahaziah. Jerome’s version of the Books of Samuel and Kings appeared first of his translations, and in his famous Prologus Galeatus he mentions these facts.
The History was intended to be a continuation of the Books of Samuel. Some critics, and among them Ewald, assign them to the same author, but closer examination of the Book of Kings renders this more than doubtful. The incessant use of the prefix "King," the extreme frequency of the description "Man of God," the references to the law, and above all the constant condemnation of high places, counterbalance the minor resemblance of style, and prove a difference of authorship.
What has the Higher Criticism, as represented in historic sequence by such writers as Vatke, de Wette, Reuss, Graf, Ewald, Kuenen, Bleek, Wellhausen, Stade, Kittel, Renan, Klostermann, Cheyne, Driver, Robertson Smith, and others, to tell us about the structure and historic credibility of the Books of Kings? Has it in any way shaken their value, while it has undoubtedly added to their intelligibility and interest?
1. It emphasizes the fact that they are a compilation. In this there is nothing either new or startling, for the fact is plainly and repeatedly acknowledged in the page of the sacred narrative. The sources utilized are:-
(1) The Book of the Acts of Solomon. {1Ki 11:41}(2) The Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah (referred to fifteen times).
(3) The Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel (referred to seventeen times).
By comparing the authority referred to in 1 Kings 11:41 with those quoted in 2 Chronicles 9:29, we see that "the Book of the Acts of Solomon" must have been to a large extent identical with the annals of that king’s reign contained in "the Book (R.V, Histories) of Nathan the Prophet," the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and "the story (R.V, commentary) or visions of Iddo the Seer." Similarly it appears that the Acts of Rehoboam, Abijam, Jehoshaphat, Uzziah, were compiled, at any rate in part, from the histories of Shemaiah, Jehu the son of Hanani, Isaiah the son of Amoz, Hozai, {2Ch 33:18, R.V} and other seers. In the narrative of a history of 450 years (from B.C. 1016 to 562) the writer was of course compelled to rely for his facts upon more ancient authorities. Whether he consulted the original documents in the archives of Jerusalem, or whether he utilized some outline of them which had previously been drawn up, cannot easily be determined. The work would have been impossible but for the existence of the officials known as recorders and historiographers (Mazkirim, Sopherim), who first made their appearance in the court of David. But the original documents could hardly have survived the ravages of Shalmanezer in Samaria and of Nebuchadnezzar in Jerusalem, so that Movers is probably right in the conjecture that the author’s extracts were made, not immediately, but from the epitome of an earlier compiler.
1. Although no direct quotations are referred to other documents, it seems certain from the style, and from various minor touches, that the compiler also utilized detailed accounts of great prophets like Elijah, Elisha, and Micaiah son of Imliah, which had been drawn up by literary students in the Schools of the Prophets. The stories of prophets and men of God who are left unnamed were derived from oral traditions so old that the names had been forgotten before they had been committed to writing.
2. The work of the compiler himself is easily traceable. It is seen in the constantly recurring formulae, which come almost like the refrain of an epic poem, at the accession and close of every reign. They run normally as follows. For the Kings of Judah:-
"And in the year of King of Israel reigned over Judah." "And years he reigned in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was the daughter of And did that which was {right-evil} in the sight of the Lord."
"And slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the City of David his father. And his son reigned in his stead."
In the formulae for the Kings of Israel "slept with his fathers" is omitted when the king was murdered; and "was buried with his fathers" is omitted because there was no unbroken dynasty and no royal burial-place. The prominent and frequent mention of the queen-mother is due to the fact that as Gebira she held a far higher rank than the favorite wife.
1. To the compiler is also due the moral aspect given to the annals and other documents which he utilized. Something of this religious coloring he doubtless found in the prophetic histories which he consulted; and the unity of aim visible throughout the book is due to the fact that his standpoint is identical with theirs. Thus, in spite of its compilation from different sources, the book bears the impress of one hand and of one mind. Sometimes a passing touch in an earlier narrative shows the work of an editor after the Exile, as when in the story of Solomon {1Ki 4:20-26} we read, "And he had dominion over all the region on the other side of the river," i.e., west of the Euphrates, exactly as in Ezra 4:10. Here the rendering of the A.V, "on this side of the river," is certainly inaccurate, and is surprisingly retained in the R.V also.
2. To this high moral purpose everything else is subordinated. Like all his Jewish contemporaries, the writer attaches small importance to accurate chronological data. He pays little attention to discrepancies, and does not care in every instance to harmonize his own authorities. Some contradictions may be due to additions made in a later recension (2 Kings 15:30; 2 Kings 15:33; 2 Kings 8:25; 2 Kings 9:29), and some may have arisen from the introduction of marginal glosses, or from corruptions of the text which (apart from a miraculous supervision such as was not exercised) might easily, and indeed would inevitably, occur in the constant transcription of numeric letters closely resembling each other. "The numbers as they have come down to us in the Book of Kings," says Canon Rawlinson, "are untrustworthy, being in part self-contradictory, in part opposed to other Scriptural notices, in part improbable, if not impossible."
1. The date of the book as it stands was after B.C. 542, for the last event mentioned in it is the mercy extended by Evil-merodach, King of Babylon, to his unfortunate prisoner Jehoiachin {2Ki 25:27} in the thirty-seventh year of his captivity. The language-later than that of Isaiah, and earlier than that of Ezra-confirms this conclusion. That the book appeared before B.C. 536 is clear from the fact that the compiler makes no allusion to Zerubbabel, Jeshua, or the first exiles who returned to Jerusalem after the decree of Cyrus. But it is generally agreed that the book was substantially complete before the Exile (about B.C. 600), though some exilic additions may have been made by a later editor. "The writer was already removed by at least six hundred years from the days of Samuel, a space of time as long as that which separates us from the first Parliament of Edward I" This date of the book-which cannot but have some bearing on its historic value-is admitted by all, since the peculiarities of the language from the beginning to the end are marked by the usages of later Hebrew. The chronicler lived some two centuries later "in about the same chronological relation to David as Professor Freeman stands to William Rufus."
2. Criticism cannot furnish us with the name of this great compiler. Jewish tradition, as preserved in the Talmud, assigned the Books of Kings to the prophet Jeremiah, and in the Jewish canon they are reckoned among "the earlier prophets." This would account for the strange silence about Jeremiah in the Second Book of Kings, whereas he is prominently mentioned in the Book of Chronicles, in the Apocrypha, and in Josephus. But unless we accept the late and worthless Jewish assertion that, after being carried to Egypt by Johanan, son of Kareah, Jeremiah {Jer 42:6-7} escaped to Babylon, he could not have been the author of the last section of the book. {2Ki 25:27-30} Yet it is precisely in the closing chapters of the second book (in and after chapter 17) that the resemblances to the style of Jeremiah are most marked. That the writer was a contemporary of that prophet, was closely akin to him in his religious attitude, and was filled with the same melancholy feelings, is plain; but this, as recent critics have pointed out, is due to the fact that both writers reflect the opinions and the phraseology which we find in the Book of Deuteronomy.
3. The critics who are so often charged with rash assumptions have been led to the conclusions which they adopt by intense and infinite labor, including the examination of various books of Scripture phrase by phrase, and even word by word. The sum total of their most important results as regards the Books of Kings is as follows:-
i. The books are composed of older materials, retouched, sometimes expanded, and set in a suitable framework, mostly by a single author who writes throughout in the same characteristic phraseology, and judges the actions and characters of the kings from the standpoint of later centuries.
The annals which he consulted, and in part incorporated, were twofold-prophetic and political. The latter were probably drawn up for each reign by the official recorder, who held an important place in the courts of all the greatest kings, {2Sa 8:16; 2Sa 20:24 1Ki 4:3 2Ki 18:18} and whose duty it was to write the "acts" or "words" of the "days" of his sovereign.
ii. The compiler’s work is partly of the nature of an epitome, and partly consists of longer narratives, of which we can sometimes trace the Northern Israelitish origin by peculiarities of form and expression.
iii. The synchronisms which he gives between the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah are computed by himself, or by some redactor, and only in round numbers.
iv. The speeches, prayers, and prophecies introduced are perhaps based on tradition, but, since they reflect all the peculiarities of the compiler, must owe their ultimate form to him. This accounts for the fact that the earlier prophecies recorded in these books resemble the tone and style of Jeremiah, but do not resemble such ancient prophecies as those of Amos and Hoshea.
v. The numbers which he adopts are sometimes so enormous as to be grossly improbable; and in these as in some of the dates, allowance must be made for possible errors of tradition and transcription.
vi. "Deuteronomy," says Professor Driver, "is the standard by which the compiler judges both men and actions; and the history from the beginning of Solomon’s reign is presented, not in a purely ‘objective’ form" (as e.g. in 2 Samuel 9:1-13; 2 Samuel 10:1-19; 2 Samuel 11:1-27; 2 Samuel 12:1-31; 2 Samuel 13:1-39; 2 Samuel 14:1-33; 2 Samuel 15:1-37; 2 Samuel 16:1-23; 2 Samuel 17:1-29; 2 Samuel 18:1-33; 2 Samuel 19:1-43; 2 Samuel 20:1-26), but from the point of view of the Deuteronomic code. The principles which, in his view, the history as a whole is to exemplify, are already expressed succinctly in the charge which he represents David as giving to his son Solomon; {1Ki 2:3-4} they are stated by him again in 1 Kings 3:14, and more distinctly in 1 Kings 9:1-9. Obedience to the Deuteronomic law is the qualification for an approving verdict; deviation from it is the source of ill success, {1Ki 11:9-13; 1Ki 14:7-11; 1Ki 16:2; 2Ki 17:7-18} and the sure prelude to condemnation. Every king of the Northern Kingdom is characterized as doing ‘that which was evil in the eyes of Jehovah.’ In the Southern Kingdom the exceptions are Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoash, Amaziah, Uzziah, Jotham, Hezekiah, Josiah-usually, however, with the limitation that ‘the high places were not removed’ as demanded by the Deuteronomic law.
The constantly recurring Deuteronomic phrases which most directly illustrate the point of view from which the history is regarded are, ‘To keep the charge of Jehovah’; ‘to walk in the ways of Jehovah’; ‘to keep (or execute) His commandments, or statutes, and judgments’; "to do that which is right in the eyes of Jehovah’; ‘to provoke Jehovah to anger’; ‘to cleave to Jehovah.’ If the reader will be at the pains of underlining in his text the phrases here cited "(and many others of which Professor Driver gives a list), "he will not only realize how numerous they are, but also perceive how they seldom occur indiscriminately in the narrative as such, but are generally aggregated in particular passages (mostly comments on the history, or speeches) which are thereby distinguished from their context, and shown to be presumably the work of a different hand."
vii. It must not be imagined that the late compilation of the book, or its subsequent recensions, or the dogmatic coloring which it may have insensibly derived from the religious systems and organizations of days subsequent to the Exile, have in the least affected the main historic veracity of the kingly annals. They may have influenced the omissions and the moral estimates, but the events themselves are in every case confirmed when we are able to compare them with any records and monuments of Phoenicia, Moab, Egypt, Assyria, or Babylon. The discovery and deciphering of the Moabite stone, and of the painted vaults of Shishak at Karnak, and of the cuneiform inscriptions, confirm in every case the general truth, in some cases the minute details, of the sacred historian. In so passing an allusion as that in 2 Kings 3:16-17 the accuracy of the narrative is confirmed by the fact that (as Delitzsch has shown) the method of obtaining water is that which is to this day employed in the Wady el-Hasa at the southern end of the Dead Sea.
viii. The Book of Kings consists, according to Stade, of,
(a) 1 Kings 1:1-53; 1 Kings 2:1-46, the close of a history of David, in continuation of 1 and 2 Samuel. The continuity of the Scriptures is marked in an interesting way by the word "and," with which so many of the books begin. The Jews, devout believers in the work of a Divine Providence, saw no discontinuities in the course of national events.
(b) 1 Kings 3:1-28; 1 Kings 4:1-34; 1 Kings 5:1-18; 1 Kings 6:1-38; 1 Kings 7:1-51; 1 Kings 8:1-66; 1 Kings 9:1-28; 1 Kings 10:1-29; 1 Kings 11:1-43, a conglomerate of notices about Solomon; grouped round chaps, 6, 7, which narrate the building of the Temple. They are arranged by the pre-exilic compiler, but not without later touches from the Deuteronomic standpoint of a later editor. {e.g., 1Ki 3:2-3} 1 Kings 8:14, 1 Kings 9:9 also belong to the later editor.
(c) 1 Kings 11:1-43 - 2 Kings 23:29, an epitome of the entire regal period of Judah and Israel, after the three first reigns over the undivided kingdom, compiled mainly before the Exile.
(d) 2 Kings 23:30 - 2 Kings 25:30, a conclusion, added, in its present form, after the Exile.
Two positions arc maintained
(A) as regards the text, and
(B) as regards the chronology.
A. As regards the text no one will maintain the old false assertion that it has come down to us in a perfect condition. There are in the history of the text three epochs:
1. The Prae-Talmudic;
2. The Talmudic-Masoretic up to the time when vowel-points were introduced;
3. The Masoretic traditions of a later period.
The marginal annotations known as Q’ri "read" (plural, Qarjan), consist of glosses and euphemisms which were used in the service of the synagogue in place of the written text (K’tib); the oral tradition of these variations was known as the Masora (i.e., tradition). The Greek version (Septuagint, LXX), which is of immense importance for the history of the text, was begun in Alexandria under Ptolemy Philadelphus (B.C. 283-247). It presents many additions and variations in the Books of Kings.
All Hebrew manuscripts, as is well known, are of comparatively recent date, owing to the strict rule of the Jewish Schools that any manuscript which had in the slightest degree suffered from time or use was to be instantly destroyed. The oldest Hebrew manuscript is supposed to be the Codex Babylonicus at St. Petersburg (A.D. 916), unless one recently discovered by Dr. Ginsburg in the British Museum be older. Most Hebrew manuscripts are later than the twelfth century.
The variations in the Samaritan Pentateuch, and in the Septuagint version-the latter of which are often specially valuable as indications of the original text-furnish abundant proof that no miracle has been wrought to preserve the text of Scripture from the changes and corruptions which always arise in the course of constant transcriptions.
A further and serious difficulty in the reproduction of events in their historic exactitude is introduced by the certainty that many books of the Bible, in their present form, represent the results arrived at after their recension by successive editors, some of whom lived many centuries after the events recorded. In the Books of Kings we probably see many nuances which were not introduced till after the epoch-making discovery of the Book of the Law (perhaps the essential parts of the Book of Deuteronomy) in the reign of Josiah, A.D. 621. {2Ki 22:8-14} It is, for instance, impossible to declare with certainty what parts of the Temple service were really coaeval with David and Solomon, and what parts had arisen in later days. There appear to be liturgical touches, or alterations as indicated by the variations of the text in 1 Kings 8:4; 1 Kings 8:12-13. In 1 Kings 18:29-36 the allusion to the Minchah is absent from the LXX in 1 Kings 18:36, and in 2 Kings 3:20 another reading is suggested.
B. As regards the difficult question of Chronology we need add but little to what has been elsewhere said. Even the most conservative critics admit that
(1) the numbers of the Biblical text have often become corrupt or uncertain; and
(2) that the ancient Hebrews were careless on the subject of exact chronology.
The Chronology of the Kings, as it now stands, is historically true in its general outlines, but in its details presents us with data which are mutually irreconcilable. It is obviously artificial, and is dominated by slight modifications of the round number 40. Thus from the Exile to the Building of the Temple is stated at 480 years, and from that period to the fiftieth year of the Exile also at 480 years. In the Chronicles there are eleven high priests from Azariah ben-Ahimaaz to the Exile of Jozadak, which, with the Exile period, gives twelve generations of 40 years each.
Again, from Rehoboam to the Fall of Samaria in the sixth year of Hezekiah, following the 40 years’ reign of Saul, of David, and of Solomon, we have:
Rehoboam, Abijah 20 years,
Asa 41 years,
Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Ahaziah, Athaliah 40 years,
Joash 40 years,
Amaziah, Uzziah 81 years,
Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah 38 years,
After the Fall of Samaria we have:
Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon 80 years,
- and it can hardly be a mere accident that in these lists the number 40 is only modified by slight necessary details.
The history of the Northern Kingdom seems to be roughly trisected into 80 years before Ben-hadad’s first invasion, 80 years of Syrian war, 40 years of prosperity under Jeroboam II, and 40 years of decline. This is probably a result of chronological system, not uninfluenced by mystical considerations. For 480=40 X 12. Forty is repeatedly used as a sacred number in connection with epochs of penitence and punishment. Twelve (4X3) is, according to Bahr (the chief student of numerical and other symbolism), "the signature of the people of Israel"-as a whole (4), in the midst of which God (3) resides. Similarly Stade thinks that 16 is the basal number for the reigns of kings from Jehu to Hoshea, and 12 from Jeroboam to Jehu.
It is possible that the synchronistic data did not proceed from the compiler of the Book of Kings, but were added by the last redactor.
Are these critical conclusions so formidable? Are they fraught with disastrous consequences? Which is really dangerous-truth laboriously sought for, or error accepted with unreasoning blindness and maintained with invincible prejudice?
THE HISTORIAN OF THE KINGS
"The hearts of kings are in Thy rule and governance, and Thou dost dispose and turn them as it seemeth best to Thy godly wisdom."
WERE we to judge the compiler or epitomator of the Book of Kings from the literary standpoint of modern historians, he would, no doubt, hold a very inferior place; but so to judge him would be to take a mistaken view of his object, and to test his merits and demerits by conditions which are entirely alien from the ideal of his contemporaries and the purpose which he had in view.
It is quite true that he does not even aim at fulfilling the requirements demanded of an ordinary secular historian. He does not attempt to present any philosophical conception of the political events and complicated interrelations of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. His method of writing the story of the Kings of Judah and Israel in so many separate paragraphs gives a certain confusedness to the general picture. It leads inevitably to the repetition of the same facts in the accounts of two reigns. Each king is judged from a single point of view, and that not the point of view by which his own age was influenced, but one arrived at in later centuries, and under changed conditions, religious and political. There is no attempt to show that
"God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."
The military splendor or political ability of a king goes for nothing. It has so little interest for the writer that a brilliant and powerful ruler like Jeroboam II seems to excite in him as little interest as an effeminate weakling like Ahaziah. He passes over without notice events of such capital importance as the invasion of Zerah the Ethiopian; {2Ch 14:9-15; 2Ch 16:8} the wars of Jehoshaphat against Edom, Ammon, and Moab; {2Ch 20:1-25} of Uzziah against the Philistines; {2Ch 26:6-8} and of the Assyrians against Manasseh. {2Ch 33:11-13} He neither tells us that Omri subdued Moab, nor that he was defeated by Syria. He scarcely more than mentions events of such deep interest as the conquest of Jerusalem by Shishak; {1Ki 14:25-26} the war between Abijam and Jeroboam; {1Ki 15:7} of Amaziah with Edom; {2Ki 14:7} or even the expedition of Josiah against Pharaoh-nechoh. {2Ki 23:29} For these events he is content to relegate us to the best authorities which he used, with the phrase "and the rest of his acts, his wars, and all that he did." The fact that Omri was the founder of so powerful a dynasty that the Kings of Israel were known to Assyria as "the House of Omri," does not induce him to give more than a passing notice to that king. It did not come within his province to record such memorable circumstances as that Ahab fought with the Aramaean host against Assyria at the battle of Karkar, or that the bloodstained Jehu had to send a large tribute to Shalmaneser II.
There is a certain monotony in the grounds given for the moral judgments passed on each successive monarch. One unchanging formula tells us of every one of the kings of Israel that "he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord," with exclusive reference in most cases to "the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, wherewith he made Israel to sin. "The unfavorable remark about king after king of Judah that "nevertheless the high places were not taken away; the people offered and burnt incense yet in the high places" {1Ki 15:14; 1Ki 22:43 2Ki 12:3; 2Ki 14:4} makes no allowance for the fact that high places dedicated to Jehovah had been previously used unblamed by the greatest judges and seers, and that the feeling against them had only entered into the national life in later days.
It belongs to the same essential view of history that the writer’s attention is so largely occupied by the activity of the prophets, whose personality often looms far more largely on his imagination than that of the kings. If we were to remove from his pages all that he tells us of Nathan, Ahijah of Shiloh, Shemaiah, Jehu the son of Hanani, Elijah, Elisha, Micaiah, Isaiah, Huldah, Jonah, and various nameless "men of God," {1Ki 13:1-32; 1Ki 20:13-15; 1Ki 20:28; 1Ki 20:35; 1Ki 20:42 2Ki 21:10-15} the residuum would be meager indeed. The silence as to Jeremiah is a remarkable circumstance which no theory has explained; but we must remember the small extent of the compiler’s canvas, and that, even as it is, we should have but a dim insight into the condition of the two kingdoms if we did not study also the extant writings of contemporary prophets. His whole aim is to exhibit the course of events as so controlled by the Divine Hand that faithfulness to God ensured blessing, and unfaithfulness brought down His displeasure and led to national decline. So far from concealing this principle he states it, again and again, in the most formal manner. {2Ki 17:7-23; 2Ki 17:32; 2Ki 17:41; 2Ki 17:23-26; 2Ki 17:27}These might be objections against the author if he had written his book in the spirit of an ordinary historian. They cease to have any validity when we remember that he does not profess to offer us a secular history at all. His aim and method have been described as "prophetic-didactic." He writes avowedly as one who believed in the Theocracy. His epitomes from the documents which he had before him were made with a definite religious purpose. The importance or unimportance of kings in his eyes depended on their relation to the opinions which had come home to the conscience of the nation in the still recent reformation of Josiah. He strove to solve the moral problems of Gods government as they presented themselves, with much distress and perplexity, to the mind of his nation in the days of its decadence and threatened obliteration. And in virtue of his method of dealing with such themes, he shares with the other historical writers of the Old Testament a right to be regarded as one of the Prophetoe priores.
What are those problems?
They were old problems respecting God’s moral government of the world which always haunted the Jewish mind, complicated by the disappointment of national convictions about the promises of God to the race of Abraham and the family of David.
The Exile was already imminent-it had indeed partly begun in the deportation of Jehoiakin and many Jews to Babylon (B.C. 598)-when the book saw the light. The writer was compelled to look back with tears on "the days that were no more." The epoch of Israel’s splendor and dominion seemed to have passed forever. And yet, was not God the true Governor of His people? Had He not chosen Jacob for Himself, and Israel for His own possession? Had not Abraham received the promise that his seed should be as the sand of the sea, and that in his seed should all the nations of the earth be blessed? Or was it a mere illusion that "when Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son"? The writer clung with unquenchable faith to his convictions about the destinies of his people, and yet every year seemed to render their fulfillment more distant and more impossible.
The promise to Abraham had been renewed to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to the patriarchs; but to David and his house it had been reiterated with special emphasis and fresh details. That promise, as it stood recorded in 2 Samuel 7:12-16, was doubtless in the writer’s hands. The election of Israel as "God’s people" is "a world-historic fact, the fundamental miracle which no criticism can explain away." And, in addition God had sworn in His holiness that He would not forsake David. "When thy days be fulfilled," He had said, "and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee and will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever, I will be his father, and he shall be My son. If he commit iniquity, I will chastise him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men. But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul whom I put away before thee, and thy house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee; thy throne shall be established forever." This promise haunted the imagination of the compiler of the Book of Kings. He repeatedly refers to it, and it is so constantly present to his mind that his whole narrative seems to be a comment, and often a perplexed and half-despairing comment, upon it. Yet he resisted the assaults of despair. The Lord had made a faithful oath unto David, and He would not depart from it.
It is this that makes him linger so lovingly on the glories of the reign of Solomon. At first they seem to inaugurate an era of overwhelming and permanent prosperity. Because Solomon was the heir of David whom God had chosen, his dominion is established without an effort in spite of a formidable conspiracy. Under his wise, pacific rule the united kingdom springs to the zenith of its greatness. The writer dwells with fond regret upon the glories of the Temple, the Empire, and the Court of the wise king. He records God’s renewed promises to him that there should not be any among the kings like unto him all his days. Alas! the splendid visions had faded away like an unsubstantial pageant. Glory had led to vice and corruption. Worldly policy carried apostasy in its train. The sun of Solomon set in darkness, as the sun of David had set in decrepitude and blood. "And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared unto him twice but he kept not that which the Lord commanded. Wherefore the Lord said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept My covenant, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee Notwithstanding in thy day I will not do it for David thy father’s sake. Howbeit I will not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one tribe to thy son, for David My servant’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake which I have chosen." {1Ki 11:9-13}Thus at one blow the heir of "Solomon in all his glory" dwindles into the kinglet of a paltry little province not nearly so large as the smallest of English counties. So insignificant, in fact, do the fortunes of the kingdom become, that, for long periods, it has no history worth speaking of. The historian is driven to occupy himself with the northern tribes because they are the scene of the activity of two glorious though widely different prophets. From first to last we seem to hear in the prose of the annalist the cry of the troubled Psalmist, "Lord, where are thy old loving kindnesses which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth? Remember, Lord, the rebukes that Thy servants have, and how I do bear in my bosom the rebukes of many people wherewith thine enemies have blasphemed Thee, and slandered the footsteps of Thine anointed." And yet, in spite of all, with invincible confidence, he adds, "Praised be the Lord for evermore. Amen and Amen."
And this is one of the great lessons which we learn alike from Scripture and from the experience of every holy and humble, life. It may be briefly summed up in the words. Put thou thy trust in God, and be doing good, and He shall bring it to pass. In multitudes of forms the Bible inculcates upon us the lesson, "Have faith in God," "Fear not; only believe." The paradox of the New Testament is the existence of joy in the midst of sorrow and sighing, of exultation even amid the burning fiery furnaces of anguish and persecution. The secret of both Testaments alike is the power to maintain an unquenchable faith, an unbroken peace, an indomitable trust amid every complication of disaster and apparent overthrow. The writer of the Book of Kings saw that God is patient, because He is eternal; that even the histories of nations, not individual lives only, are but as one ticking of a clock amid the eternal silence that God’s ways are not man’s ways. And because this is so-because God sitteth above the water floods and remaineth a King forever-therefore we can attain to that ultimate triumph of faith which consists in holding fast our profession, not only amid all the waves and storms of calamity, but even when we are brought face to face with that which wears the aspect of absolute and final failure. The historian says in the name of his nation what the saint has so often to say in his own, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Amos, earliest of the prophets whose written utterances have been preserved, undazzled by the magnificent revival of the Northern Kingdom under Jeroboam II, was still convinced that the future lay with the poor fallen "booth" of David’s royalty: "And I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old saith the Lord that doeth this." {Amo 9:11-12} In many a dark age of Jewish affliction this fire of conviction has still burned amid the ashes of national hopes after it had seemed to have flickered out under white heaps of chilly dust. {Psa 89:48-50}GOD IN HISTORY
"The Lord remaineth a King forever."
HAD the compiler of the Book of Kings been so incompetent and valueless a historian as some critics have represented, it would indeed have been strange that his book should have kindled so immortal an interest, or have taken its place securely in the Jewish canon among the most sacred books of the world. He could not have secured this recognition without real and abiding merits. His greatness appears by the manner in which he grapples with, and is not crushed by, the problems presented to him by the course of events to him so dismal.
1. He wrote after Israel had long been scattered among the nations. The sons of Jacob had been deported into strange lands to be hopelessly lost and absorbed amid heathen peoples. The district which had been assigned to the Ten Tribes after the conquest of Joshua had been given over to an alien and mongrel population. The worst anticipations of northern prophets like Amos and Hoshea had been terribly fulfilled. The glory of Samaria had been wiped out, as when one wipeth a dish, wiping and turning it upside down. From the beginning of Israel’s separate dominion the prophets saw the germ of its final ruin in what is called the "calf-worship" of Jeroboam. which prepared the way for the Baal-worship introduced by the House of Omri. In the two and a half centuries of Samaria’s existence the compiler of this history finds nothing of eternal interest except the activity of God’s great messengers. In the history of Judah the better reigns of a Jehoshapat, of a Hezekiah, of a Josiah, had shed a sunset gleam over the waning fortunes of the remnant of God’s people. Hezekiah and Josiah, with whatever deflections, had both ruled in the theocratic spirit. They had both inaugurated reforms. The reformation achieved by the latter was so sweeping and thorough as to kindle the hope that the deep wound inflicted on the nation by the manifold crimes of Manasseh had been healed. But it was not so. The records of these two best kings end, nevertheless, in prophecies of doom. {2Ki 20:16-18; 2Ki 22:16-20} The results of their reforming efforts proved to be partial and unsatisfactory. A race of vassal weaklings succeeded. Jehoahaz was taken captive by the Egyptians, who set up Jehoiakim as their puppet. He submits to Nebuchadnezzar, attempts a weak revolt, and is punished. In the short reign of Jehoiachin the captivity begins, and the futile rebellion of Zedekiah leads to tile deportation of his people, the burning of the Holy City, and the desecration of the Temple. It seemed as though the ruin of the olden hopes could not have been more absolute. Yet the historian will not abandon them. Clinging to God’s promises with desperate and pathetic tenacity he gilds his last page, as with one faint sunbeam struggling out of the stormy darkness of the exile, by narrating how Evil Merodach released Jehoiachin from his long captivity, and treated him with kindness, and advanced him to the first rank among the vassal kings in the court of Babylon. If the ruler of Judah must be a hopeless prisoner, let him at least occupy among his fellow-prisoners a sad pre-eminence!
2. The historian has been blamed for the perpetual gloom which enwraps his narrative. Surely the criticism is unjust. He did not invent his story. He is no whit more gloomy than Thucydides, who had to record how the brief gleam of Athenian glory sank in the Bay of Syracuse into a sea of blood. He is not half so gloomy as Tacitus, who is forced to apologize for the "hues of earthquake and eclipse" which darken his every page. The gloom lay in the events of which he desired to be the faithful recorder. He certainly did not love gloom. He lingers at disproportionate length over the grandeur of the reign of Solomon, dilating fondly upon every element of his magnificence, and unwilling to tear himself away from the one period which realized his ideal expectations. After that period his spirits sink. He cared less to deal with a divided kingdom of which only the smallest fragment was even approximately faithful. There could be nothing but gloom in the record of short-lived, sanguinary, and idolatrous dynasties, which succeeded each other like the scenes of a grim phantasmagoria in Samaria and Jezreel. There could be nothing but gloom in the story of that northern kingdom in which king after king was dogged to ruin by the politic unfaithfulness of the rebel by whom it had been founded. Nor could there be much real brightness in the story of humiliated Judah. There also many kings preferred a diplomatic worldliness to reliance on their true source of strength. Even in Judah there were kings who defiled God’s own temple with heathen abominations; and a saint like Hezekiah had been followed by an apostate like Manasseh. Had Judah been content to dwell in the defense of the Most High and abide under the shadow of the Almighty, she would have been defended under His wings and been safe beneath His feathers; His righteousness and truth would have been her shield and buckler. He who protected her in the awful crisis of Sennacherib’s invasion had proved that He never faileth them that trust Him. But her kings had preferred to lean on such a bruised reed as Egypt, which broke under the weight and pierced the hand of all who relied on her assistance. "But ye said, Nay, but we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift." {Isa 30:16}3. And has not gloom been the normal characteristic of many a long period of human history? It is with the life of nations as with the life of men. With nations, too, there is "a perpetual fading of all beauty into darkness, and of all strength into dust." Humanity advances, but it advances over the ruins of peoples and the wrecks of institutions. Truth forces its way into acceptance, but its progress is "from scaffold to scaffold, and from stake to stake." All who have generalized on the course of history have been forced to recognize its agonies and disappointments. There, says Byron,
"There is the moral of all human tales;
‘Tis but the same rehearsal of the past;
First Freedom, and then Glory-when that fails,
Wealth, Vice, Corruption-Barbarism at last.
And History, with all her volumes vast,
Hath but one page: ‘tis better written here
Where gorgeous tyranny hath thus amassed
All treasures, all delights that eye or ear,
Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask."
Mr. J.R. Lowell, looking at the question from another side, sings:-
"Careless seems the Great Avenger; History’s pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness ‘twixt all systems and the Word
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne-
Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own."
Mr. W.H. Lecky, again, considering the facts of national story from the point of view of heredity, and the permanent consequences of wrongdoing, sings:-
"The voice of the afflicted is rising to the sun,
The thousands who have perished for the selfishness of one;
The judgment-seat polluted, the altar overthrown,
The sighing of the exile, the tortured captive’s groan,
The many crushed and plundered to gratify the few,
The hounds of hate pursuing the noble and the true."
Or, if we desire a prose authority, can we deny this painful estimate of Mr. Ruskin?-"Truly It seems to me as I gather in my mind the evidence of insane religion, degraded art, merciless war, sullen toil, detestable pleasure, and vain or vile hope in which the nations of the world have lived since first they could bear record of themselves, it seems to me, I say, as if the race itself were still half serpent, not extricated yet from its clay; a lacertine brood of bitterness, the glory of it emaciate with cruel hunger and blotted with venomous stain, and the track of it on the leaf a glittering slime, and in the sand a useless furrow." Dark as is the story which the author of the Book of Kings has to record, and hopeless as might seem to be the conclusion of the tragedy, he is responsible for neither. He can but tell the things that were, and tell them as they were; the picture is, after all, far less gloomy than that presented in many a great historic record. Consider the features of such an age as that recorded by Tacitus, with the "Iliad of woes" of which he was the annalist. Does Jewish history offer us nothing but this horrible monotony of delations and suicides? Consider the long ages of darkness and retrogression in the fifth and following centuries; or the unutterable miseries inflicted on the seaboard of Europe by the invasions of the Norsemen-the mere thought of which drove Charlemagne to tears; or the long complicated agony produced by hundreds of petty feudal wars, and the cruel tyranny of marauding barons; or the condition of England in the middle of the fourteenth century when the Black Death swept away half of her population; or the extreme misery of the masses after the Thirty Years’ War; or the desolating horror of the wars of Napoleon which filled Germany with homeless and starving orphans. The annals of the Hebrew monarchy are less grim than these; yet the House of Israel might also seem to have been chosen out for a preeminence of sorrow which ended in making Jerusalem "a rendezvous for the extermination of the race." When once the Jewish wars began-
"Vengeance! thy fiery wing their race pursued,
Thy thirsty poniard blushed with infant blood!
Roused at thy call and panting still for game
The bird of war, the Latin eagle came.
Then Judah raged, by ruffian discord led,
Drunk with the steamy carnage of the dead;
He saw his sons by dubious slaughter fall,
And war without, and death within the wall."
Probably no calamity since time began exceeded in horror and anguish the carnage and cannibalism and demoniac outbreak of every vile and furious passion which marked the siege of Jerusalem; and, in the dreary ages which followed, the world has heard rising from the Jewish people the groan of myriads of broken hearts. "The fruits of the earth have lost their savor," wrote one poor Rabbi, the son of Gamaliel, "and no dew falls." In the crowded Ghettos of mediaeval cities, during the foul tyranny of the Inquisition in Spain, and many a time throughout Europe, amid the iron oppression of ignorant and armed brutality, the hapless Jews have been forced to cry aloud to the God of their fathers:
"Thou feedest Thy people with the bread of tears, and givest them plenteousness of tears to drink! Thou sellest Thy people for nought, and givest no money for them."
When the eccentric Frederic William I of Prussia ordered his Court chaplain to give him in one sentence a proof of Christianity, the chaplain answered without a moment's hesitation: "The Jews, your Majesty." Truly it might seem that the fortunes of that strange people had been designed for a special lesson, not to them only, but to the whole human race; and the general outlines of that lesson have never been more clearly and forcibly indicated than in the Book of Kings.
HISTORY WITH A PURPOSE
"History, as distinguished from chronicles or annals, must always contain a theory whether confessed by the writer or not. A sound theory is simply a general conception which coordinates a multitude of facts. Without this, facts cease to have interest except to the antiquarian."
-LAURIE.
THE prejudice against history written with a purpose is a groundless prejudice. Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Sallust, had each his guiding principle, no less than Ammianus Marcellinus, St. Augustine, Orosius, Bossuet, Montesquieu. Voltaire, Kant, Turgot, Condorcet, Hegel, Fichte, and every modern historian worthy the name. They have all, as Mr. Morley says, felt the intellectual necessity for showing "those secret dispositions of events which prepared the way for great changes, as well as the momentous conjunctures which more immediately brought them to pass." Orosius, founding his epitome on the hint given by St. Augustine in his De Civitate Dei, begins with the famous words, "Divina providentia agitur mundus et homo." Other serious writers may vary the formula, but in all their annals the lesson is essentially the same. "The foundation upon which, at all periods, Israel’s sense of its national unity rested was religious in its character." "The history of Israel," says Stade, "is essentially a history of religious ideas."
Of course the history is rendered valueless if, in pursuing his purpose, the writer either falsifies events or intentionally manipulates them in such a way that they lead to false issues. But the man who is not inspired by his subject, the man to whom the history which he is narrating, has no particular significance, must be a man of dull imagination or cold affections. No such man can write a true history at all. For history is the record of what has happened to men in nations, and its events are swayed by human passions, and palpitate with human emotions. There is no great historian who may not be charged with having been in some respects a partisan. The ebb and flow of his narrative, the "to-and-fro-conflicting waves" of the struggles which he records, must be to him as idle as a dance of puppets if he feels no special interest in the chief actors, and has not formed a distinct judgment of the sweep of the great unseen tidal forces by which they are determined and controlled.
The greatness of the sacred historian of the Kings consists in his firm grasp of the principle that God is the controlling power and sin the disturbing force in the entire history of men and nations.
Surely he does not stand alone in either conviction. Both propositions are confirmed by all experience. In all life, individual and national, sin is weakness; and human life without God, whether isolated or corporate, is no better than
"A trouble of ants ‘mid a million million of suns."
"Why do the heathen so furiously rage together," sang the Psalmist, "and why do the people imagine a vain thing? He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh them to scorn; the Lord shall have them in derision." Even the oldest of the Greek poets, in the first lines of the Iliad, declares that amid those scenes of carnage, and the tragic fate of heroes:-
"Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring Of woes unnumbered, Heavenly Goddess sing; That wrath which hurled to Pluto’s gloomy reign The souls of countless chiefs untimely slain; Whose limbs, unburied on the naked shore, Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore: Since great Achilles and Atreides strove, Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove!"
In the Odyssey the same conviction is repeated, where Odysseus says that it is the fate-fraught decree of Zeus which stands by as arbiter, when it is meant that "miserable men should suffer many woes." The heathen, too, saw clearly that,
"Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small";
and that, alike for Trojans and Danaans, the chariot-wheels of Heaven roll onward to their destined goal.
Such words express a belief in the hearts of pagans identical with that in the hearts of the early disciples when they exclaimed: "Of a truth in this city against Thy holy Servant Jesus, whom Thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel foreordained to come to pass." {Act 4:27-28}The ever-present intensity of these convictions leads the historian of the Kings to many shorter or longer "homiletic excursuses," in which he develops his main theme. And if he inculcates his high faith in the form of speeches and other insertions which perhaps express his own views more distinctly than they could have been expressed by the earlier prophets and kings of Judah, he adopts a method which was common in past ages and has always been conceded to the greatest and most trustworthy of ancient historians.
LESSONS OF THE HISTORY
"Great men are the inspired texts of that Divine Book of Revelation of which a chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, and by some named History."
-CARLYLE.
THUS History becomes one of the most precious books of God. To speak vaguely of "a stream of tendency not ourselves which makes for righteousness," is to endow "a stream of tendency" with a moral sense. Philosophers may talk of "dass unbekannte hohere Wesen das wir ahnen"; but the great majority alike of the wisest and the humblest of mankind, will give to that moral "Not-ourselves" the name of God. The truth was more simply and more religiously expressed by the American orator when he said that "One with God is always in a majority," and "God is the only final public opinion." Only thus can we account for the fact that events apparently the most trivial have repeatedly been overruled to produce the most stupendous issues, and opposition apparently the most overwhelming has been made to further the very ends which it most fiercely resisted. "The fierceness of man shall turn to Thy praise, and the fierceness of them shalt Thou restrain."
St. Paul expresses his sense of this fact when he says, "Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God chose the foolish things of the world, and the weak things of the world, and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised did God choose, and the things that are not, that He might bring to naught the things that are": {1Co 1:26-28} and that "because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."
The most conspicuous instance of these laws in history is furnished by the victories of Christianity. It was against all probability that a faith not only despised but execrated-a faith whose crucified Messiah kindled unmitigated contempt, and its doctrine of the Resurrection unmingled derision-a faith confined originally to a handful of ignorant peasants drawn from the dregs of a tenth-rate and subjugated people-should prevail over all the philosophy, and genius, and ridicule, and authority of the world, supported by the diadems of all-powerful Caesars and the swords of thirty legions. It was against all probability that a faith which, in the world’s judgment, was so abject, should in so short a space of time achieve so complete a triumph, not by aggressive force, but by meek nonresistance, and that it should win its way through armed antagonism by the sole powers of innocence and of martyrdoms "not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts."
But though the thoughtful Israelite had no such glorious spectacle as this before him, he saw something analogous to it. The prophets had been careful to point out that no merit or superiority of its own had caused the people to be chosen by God from among the nations for the mighty functions for which it was destined, and which it had already in part fulfilled. "And thou shalt answer before the Lord thy God, and say, A Syrian ready to perish was my father; he went down to Egypt, and sojourned there, few in number." {Deu 26:5} The chosen people could boast of no loftier ancestry than that they sprang from a fugitive from the land of Ur, whose descendants had sunk into a horde of miserable slaves in the hot valley of Egypt. Yet from that degraded and sensuous serfdom God had led them into the wilderness "through parted seas and thundering battles," and had spoken to them at Sinai in a voice so mighty that its echoes have rolled among the nations for evermore. If through their sins and shortcomings they had once more been reduced to the rank of captive strangers in a strange land, the historian knew that even then their lot was not so abject as it once had been. They had at least heroic memories and an imperishable past. He believed that though God’s face was darkened to them, the light of it was neither utterly nor finally withdrawn. Nothing could henceforth shake his trust that, even when Israel walked in the valley of the shadow of death, God would still be with His people; that "He would love their souls out of the pit of destruction." {Isa 38:17} The vain-glorious efforts of the heathen were foredoomed to final impotence, for God ruled the raging of the sea, the noise of his waves, and the madness of the people.
If this high faith seemed so often to lead only to frustrate hopes, the historian saw the reason. His philosophy of history reduced itself to the one rule that "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is the reproach of any people." It is a sublime philosophy, and no other is possible. It might be written as the comment on every history in the world. The prophets write it large, and again and again, as in letters of blood and fire. Upon their pages, even from the days of Balaam.
"In outline dim and vast
Their mighty shadows cast
The giant forms of Empires on their way
To ruin: one by one
They tower, and they are gone!"
Balaam had uttered his denunciation on Moab and Amalek and the Kenite. Amos hurled defiance on Moab, Ammon, and the Philistines. Isaiah taunted Egypt with her splendid impotence, and had said of Babylon: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" As the sphere of national life enlarged, Nahum had poured forth his exultant dirge over the falling greatness of Assyria; and Ezekiel had painted the desolation which should come on glorious Tyre. These great prophets had read upon the palace walls of the mightiest kingdoms the burning messages of doom, because they knew that (to quote the words of a living historian) "for every false word and unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust and vanity, the price has to be paid at last. Justice and truth alone endure and live. Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived, but doomsday comes to them at last."
Has the course of ages at all altered the incidence of these eternal laws? Do modern kingdoms offer any exceptions to the universal experience of the past? Look at Spain. Corrupted by her own vast wealth, by the confusion of religion with the indolent acceptance of lies which paraded themselves as catholic orthodoxy, and by the fatal disseverance of religion from the moral law, she has sunk into decrepitude. Read in the utter collapse and ruin of her great Armada the inevitable Nemesis on greed, indolence, and superstition. Look at modern France. When the inflated bubble of her arrogance collapsed at Sedan as with a touch, two of her own writers, certainly not prejudiced in favor of Christian conclusions-Ernest Renan and Alexandre Dumas, fils-pointed independently to the causes of her ruin, and found them in her irreligion and her debauchery. The warnings which they addressed to their countrymen in that hour of humiliation, on the sanctity of family life and the eternal obligations of national righteousness, were identical with those addressed to the Israelites of old by Amos or Isaiah. The only difference was that the form in which they were uttered was modern and came with incomparably less of impassioned force.
The historian who, six hundred years before Christ, saw so clearly, and illustrated with such striking conciseness, the laws of God’s moral governance of the world stands far above the casual censure of those who judge him by a mistaken standard. We owe him a debt of the deepest gratitude, not only because he has preserved for us the national records which might otherwise have perished, but far more because he has seen and pointed out their true significance. Imagine an English writer trying to give a sketch of English history since the death of Henry VI in a thin volume of sixty or seventy octavo pages! Is it conceivable that even the most gifted and brilliant of our historians could in so short a space have rendered such a service as this sacred historian has rendered to all mankind? Do we owe nothing to the vivid insight which enabled him to set so many characters clearly before us with a few strokes of the pen? It is true that it is the history which is inspired rather than the record of the history; but the record itself is of quite exceptional value. It is true that the prophetic historian and the scientific historian must be judged by wholly different canons of criticism; but may not the prophetic historian be much the greater of the two? By the light of his histories we can read all histories, and see the common lesson taught us by the life of nations, as by the life of individuals which is, that obedience to God’s law is the only path of safety, the only condition of permanence. To fear God and keep His commandments is the end of the matter, and is the whole duty of man. To one who follows the guiding clue of these convictions history becomes "Providence made visible."
Bossuet, like St. Augustine, found the key to all events in a Divine Will controlling and overruling the course of human destinies by a constant exercise of superhuman power. Even Comte "ascribed a hardly less resistible power to a Providence of his own construction, directing present events along a groove cut ever more and more deeply for them by the past." And Mr. John Morley admits that "whether you accept Bossuet’s theory or Comte’s-whether men be their own Providence, or no more than instruments or secondary agents in other hands-this classification of either Providence equally deserves study and meditation."
Thus, though the Jews were a small and insignificant people-though their kings were mere local sheykhs in comparison with the Pharaohs, or the kings of Assyria and Babylon; though they had none of that sense of beauty which gave immortality to the arts of Greece; though their temple was an altogether trivial structure when compared with the Parthenon or the Serapeum; though they had no drama which can be distantly compared with the Oresteia of Aeschylus, and no epic which can be put beside the Iliad or the Nibelungen; though they had nothing which can be dignified with the name of a system of Philosophy yet their influence on the human race-rendered permanent by their literature, or by that fragment of it which we call "The Books" as though there were none other in the world worth speaking of-has been more powerful than that of all nations upon the development of humanity. Millions have known the names of David or Isaiah, who never so much as heard of Sesostris or of Plato. The influence of the Hebrew race upon mankind has been a moral and a religious influence. Leaving Christianity out of sight-though Christianity itself was nursed in the cradle of Judaism, and was the fulfillment of the Messianic idea which was the most characteristic element in the ancient religion of the Hebrews-the history of Israel is more widely known a million-fold than any history of any people. Professor Huxley is an unsuspected witness to this truth. He has declared that he knows of no other work in the world by the study of which children could be so much humanized, and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the interval between the two eternities. What other nation has contributed to the treasure of human thought elements so immeasurably important as the idea of monotheism, and the Ten Commandments, and the high spiritual teaching by which the prophets brought home to the consciousness of our race the nearness, the holiness, and the love of God? We do not underrate the value of Eternal Inspiration in the "richly-variegated wisdom" which "multifariously and fragmentarily" the Creator has vouchsafed to man; but the Jews will ever be the most interesting of nations, chiefly because to them were entrusted the oracles of God.
{e-Sword Note: In the printed edition, this material appeared at the end of 2 Kings as a topical chapter}EPILOGUE
"On Jordan’s banks the Arab’s camels stray, On Zion’s hills the False One’s votaries pray, The Baal-adorer bows on Sinai’s steep; Yet there-e’en there-O God, Thy thunders sleep,"
- BYRON
"God, Thou art Love: I build my faith on that."
BEFORE concluding I should like to add a few words
(1) on what some may regard as the too favorable attitude towards what is called the "Higher Criticism" adopted in this book; and
(2) on the deep essential, eternal lessons which we have found in chapter after chapter of it.
1. As regards the first, I need only say that the one thing I seek, the sole thing I care for, is Truth, -truth, not tradition. Even St. Cyprian, devoted as he was to custom and tradition, warns us that "Custom without Truth is only antiquated error," and that what we believe must be established by reason, not prescribed by tradition.
And it cannot be laid down too clearly that the old view of Inspiration-which defined it as consisting in verbal dictation, which made the sacred writers "not only the penmen but the pens of the Holy Spirit," and which spoke of every sentence, word, syllable, and every letter of Scripture as Divine and infallible-was a dangerous and absolutely falsity, and that any attempt in these days to enforce it as binding on the intellect and conscience of mankind could only lead to the utter shipwreck of all sincere and reasonable religion. "Not needlessly," says the learned author of "Italy and her Invaders"-himself an able opponent of many modern conclusions on the subject-"should I wish to shake even that faith which practically believes that the whole Bible, exactly in its present shape, yes, almost the English Bible just as we have it, came straight down from heaven. But we do want to get away from all mere theories as to the way in which God might have revealed Himself, and to learn as much as we can of the way in which He has revealed Himself in actual fact, and in real human lives."
To do this has been one of my objects in this volume, and in the preceding volume on the First Book of Kings.
2. We have now only to cast one last glance on this book, and on the lessons which it is meant to teach.
Consider, first, its deep and varied interest. It has the combined value of History and of Biography; and, in dealing with both, its aim is to pass over all minor and earthly details, and to show the method of God’s dealings both with nations and with the individual soul.
If we look at the book only as a History, it shows us in the briefest possible compass a series of national events of the greatest importance in the annals of mankind. We become witnesses of the fierce occasional struggles between Israel and Judah, and of the constant warfare of both with those wild surrounding nations-the people of Moab, and of Edom, Gebal, and Ammon, and. Amalek, the Philistines also, and them that dwell at Tyre. We watch the indomitable resistance of Tyre to Assyria and Babylon. We see the Northern Kingdom of Israel rise into wealth, power, and luxury, only to sink into deep moral corruption, until, at last, the patience of God is exhausted, and He obliterates its very existence in an apparently final and irremediable overthrow. We witness the rise, culmination, and fall of Syria; the culmination and the crashing overthrow of Nineveh; the rise and the splendor of Babylon. We see the surging tide of the nomad Scythians and Cimmerians rise into flood and ebb away with spent and shallow waves. We see the petty fortress of Zion triumph in its defiance of the mighty hosts of Sennacherib because it is strong in reliance upon God, and we see it grow faithless to God until it succumbs to the captains of Nebuchadrezzar. Again and again we observe that the Almighty stills the raging of the sea, the noise of his waves, and the madness of the people. The conviction is borne upon our soul with overwhelming power, as we read the pages of Amos, of Isaiah, and of Jeremiah, that, in spite of all their rage and tumult, and apparently irresistible dominance, God still sitteth above the water-floods, and God remaineth a King forever. Side by side with this spectacle of the dealing of God with nations, in which we see written in large letters, in characters of blood and of fire, His dealing with guilty nations, we have abundantly in these chapters the narrower yet more intense interest which arises from the contemplation of human nature-one and the same in its general elements, but infinitely varied in its conditions-in the lives of individual men. It is revealed to us as in a picture-it is brought homo to us, not by didactic inferences, but with the silent conviction which springs from the evidence of facts-that wealth is nothing, and rank nothing, and power nothing, but that the only thing of essential importance in human lives is whether a man does that which is good or that which is evil in the sight of the Lord. Good kings and bad kings pass before us; and though the best kings, like Hezekiah and Josiah, were no more free from earthly misfortune than are any of the saints of God-though Hezekiah had to suffer anguish and humiliation, and Josiah died in defeat on the battle-field, -yet we are irresistibly led to the belief: "Say ye of the righteous that it shall be well with him; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked! It shall be ill with him; for the work of his hands shall be done to him." We all have a guide in life. "We are not left to steer our course even by the stars, which the clouds of earth may dim. The ship has something on board which points towards the spiritual pole of the universe. I will not venture to call it an infallible guide. It wavers with tremulous sensitiveness; it may be deflected by disturbing influences; but still in the main it points with mysterious fidelity towards the pole of our spirits, even God. And what is this compass which we have for our guidance? Some would call it Conscience; but we call it by a holier name, and say that even as the needle is acted on by the magnetic current, so our spiritual compass is the spirit of man acted on by the Spirit of the living and infinite God." The lesson of this book-of every book of biography or of history-is that men are noble and useful in proportion as they are true to that law of an enlightened conscience which represents to them the will and the voice of God.
Ahaziah and Jehoram of Judah, tainted with the blood of Jezebel, and perverted by the example of Ahab, live wretchedly, reign contemptibly, and perish miserably; while good Jehoshaphat and pious Josiah are richly blessed. In the vaunting elation of Amaziah, in the blood-stained ferocity of Jehu, in the ruthless examples of usurpation and murder set by king after king in Israel, and in the consequences which befell them, we see that "fruit is seed." Shallum, Menahem, Pekah, Athaliah, have to pay a terrible price for brief spells of troubled royalty; and the slow corruption and disintegration of the people reflects the vile example of their rulers. Like king, like people; like people, like priest. We look on at a succession of thrilling scenes-the horrors of beleaguered cities, the raptures of unexpected deliverance, the insulting vanities of triumph; we hear the wail that rises from long lines of fettered captives as they turn their backs weeping upon their native land. And we are told "strange stories of the death of kings." We see the King of Moab sacrificing his eldest son to Chemosh upon the wall of Kirharaseth in the sight of three invading hosts.
We shudder to think of Ahaz and Manasseh passing their children through the fire before the grim bull-headed monster in the valley of the children of Hinnom. We see the two ghastly piles of the heads of young princes on either side the gates of Jezreel. We see Jehu driving his fierce chariot over the body of the painted Tyrian Queen. We catch a glimpse of the sackcloth under the purple of the King of Israel as he rends his clothes at the horrible cry of mothers who have devoured their babes. We see the child Joash standing with the high priest in the Temple amid the blast of trumpets, while the alien murderess is pushed out and hewn to the ground. We see Manasseh dragged with hooks to Babylon. We watch the haggard face of the miserable Zedekiah as his sons are slaughtered before the eyes which thenceforth are blinded forevermore. We burn with indignation to see the villain Ishmael close with corpses the well of Mizpah. But even when the phantasmagoria seems most appalling and most bloody, we watch the Day-star from on high begin to shed its glory over the grey east. In due time that Daystar was to rise in men’s hearts and on the world, with healing in His wings; and we feel that somehow, beyond the smoke and stir of earth’s anguish,
"God’s in His heaven,
All’s right with the world."
And like a Greek chorus amid the agonies of destiny stand the prophets, those clearest and greatest of moral teachers. They, in spite of their holiness and faithfulness, are not exempt from the calamities of life. Amos was insulted and expelled by the high priest of Bethel; Urijah was martyred; Hosea’s prophecy is one long and almost unbroken wail; Isaiah was mocked and slandered by the priests of Jerusalem, and, if the tradition be true, sawn asunder; Micah, though spared, prophesied under imminent peril; Jeremiah, saddest of mankind, type of the suffering servant of Jehovah, was smitten in the face by the priest Pashur, thrust into the stocks for the general derision, flung into a deathful prison, let down into a miry well, hurried into exile, defied, denounced, insulted, at last in all probability martyred. Prophets in general were hated and disbelieved. They were the eternal antagonists of priests and mobs. With priests they had so little affinity that, when a prophet was born a priest, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, he might count on the undying hatred and antagonism of his order. Priests, with scarcely an exception, under every erring or apostatizing king, from Rehoboam to Ahaz, from Ahaz to Zedekiah, with a monotony of meanness, did nothing but acquiesce, careful mainly for their own rights and revenues; prophets did little but raise, against them and their party, an unavailing protest. When, in the days of the priest-regent Jehoiada, the priests had power, he had made a special ordinance that there should be overseers in the Temple whose function it should be to put in the stocks and the collar "every man that is mad, and that maketh himself a prophet"; {Jer 29:25-27} and Shemaiah was quite indignant that there should be any delay in putting this convenient ordinance into force. Priests were chiefly absorbed in functions and futilities in the exact spirit of their guilty successors in the days of Christ. There could be little sympathy between them and the inspired messengers who spoke of such reliance on observances with almost passionate scorn, and to whom religion meant righteousness towards men and faith in the Living God.
This high lesson of Prophecy came into greater prominence with each succeeding generation. It had been taught by Amos, the first of the literary prophets, with emphatic distinctness. It was summarized by Hosea in words which our Savior loved to quote: "Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice." It had been uttered by Micah in an outburst of splendid poetry which summed up all that God requires. It was reiterated in many forms by Isaiah and by Jeremiah in words of richer moral value than all that came from the teaching of the priestly functionaries from the days when Aaron seduced Israel with his golden calf till the days when Caiaphas and Annas goaded the multitude to prefer Barabbas to Jesus, and to shout of their Messiah, "Let Him be crucified."
It was the richest fruit which sprang from the long Divine discipline of the nation, -the knowledge that outward things are of no avail to save any man; that God requires righteousness, that God looketh at the heart.
And the prophets themselves had to learn by the irony of events that no suppression of local sanctuaries under Hezekiah, no multiplication of ceremonies and acceptance of Deuteronomic Codes under Josiah, were deep enough to change men’s hearts. Isaiah, like Amos, dwells with anger, on the reliance upon vain ritual, which is so cheap a substitute for genuine holiness; and Jeremiah, despairing utterly of that reformation under Josiah of which he had once felt hopeful; had to denounce the new reliance on the Temple and its sacrifices. He ultimately felt no confidence in anything except in a new covenant in which God Himself would write His law upon men’s hearts, and all should know Him from the least even to the greatest.
But the History of Prophecy also in this epoch is marked by events of world-wide importance. In the days of Isaiah we see the change of Israel from a nation into a church of the faithful, for which alone he has any permanent hope. In him, too, we hear the first distinct utterances of the final form in which should be fulfilled the Messianic hope. Under Jeremiah there was still further advance. He points, as Joel does, to the epoch of the gift of the Holy Spirit, and shows that God does not only deal with men as nations, or as churches, or even as families, but as beings with individual souls.
This and much besides we have seen in the foregoing pages, in which we have endeavored to point the lessons of the Books of Kings. The one main lesson which the narrative is meant to teach is absolute faith and trust in God, as an anchor which holds amid the wildest storms of ruin, and of apparently final failure. Not until we have realized that truth can we hear the words of God, or see the vision of the Almighty. When we have learnt it, we shall not fear, though the hills be moved and carried into the midst of the sea. It is the lesson which gets behind the meaning of failure, and raises us to a height from which we can look down on prosperity as a thing which - except in fatally delusive semblance-cannot exist apart fromrighteousness and faith. This is the lesson of life, the lesson of lessons. If it does not solve all problems on their intellectual side, it scatters all perplexities in the spiritual sphere. It shows us that duty is the reward of duty, and that there can be no happiness save for those who have learnt that duty and blessedness are one. And thus even by this book of annals-annals of wild deeds and troubled times-we may be taught the truths which find their perfect illustration and proof in the life and teaching of the Son of God. When those truths are our real possession, the work of life is done. Then
"Vigor may fail the towering fantasy,
But yet the will rolls onward, like a wheel
In even motion by the love impelled
That moves the sun in heaven, and all the stars."
{e-Sword Note: In the printed edition, the appendices appeared at the end of 2 Kings } APPENDIX 1
THE KINGS OF ASSYRIA, AND SOME OF THEIR INSCRIPTIONS
DATES from the "Eponym Canon" and the Assyrian Monuments; Schrader, "Cuneiform Inscriptions, and the Old Testament," E. Tr., 1888, pp. 167-187.
B.C
860 Shalmaneser II
854 Battle of Karkar. War with Ahab and Benhadad.
842 War with Hazael. Tribute of Jehu.
825 {Samsi-Ramman}812 Ramman-Nirari.
783 Shalmaneser III
773 Assur-dan III
763 June 15th. Eclipse of the sun.
755 Assur-Nirari.
745 Tiglath-Pileser II
742 Azariah (Uzziah) heads a league of nineteen Hamathite districts against Assyria (?).
740 Death of Uzziah (?).
738 Tribute of Menahem, Rezin, and Hiram.
734 Expedition to Palestine against Pekah. Tribute of Ahaz.
732 Capture of Damascus. Death of Rezin. First actual collision between Israel and Assyria.
728 Hoshea refuses tribute.
727 Shalmaneser IV
724 Siege of Samaria begun.
722 Sargon. Fall of Samaria.
721 Defeat of Merodach-Baladan.
720 Battle of Raphia. Defeat of Sabaco, King of Egypt.
715 Subjugated people deported to Samaria. Accession of Hezekiah.
711 Capture of Ashdod.
707 Building of great palace of Dur-Sarrukin.
706 Sargon expels Merodach-Baladan, and becomes King of Babylon.
705 Assassination (?) of Sargon.
705 Sennacherib.
704 Embassy of Merodach-Baladan to Hezekiah.
703 Belibus made King of Babylon.
702 Construction of the Bellino Cylinder.
701 Siege of Ekron. Defeat of Egypt at Altaqu. Siege of Jerusalem. Campaign against Hezekiah and Tirhakah disastrously concluded at Pelusium and Jerusalem.
681 Murder of Sennacherib.
681 Esarhaddon.
676 Manasseh pays tribute.
668 Assur-bani-pal (Sardanapalus).
608 Death of Josiah in the battle of Megiddo against Pharaoh Necho.
The dates and names of Assyrian kings as given in "Records of the Past" (2. 207, 208) do not exactly accord with these in all cases.
I. INSCRIPTION OF SHALMANESER II ON THE BLACK OBELISK IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
Tiglath-Pileser II 950
Assur-dan II 930
Rimmon-Nirari II 911
Tiglath-Uras II 889
Assur-natzu-pal 883
Shalmaneser II 858
Assur-dain-pal (a rebel) 825
Samsi-Rimmon II 823
Rimmon-Nirari III 810
Shalmaneser III 781
Assur-dan III 771
Assur-Nirari 753
Tiglath-Pileser III (Pul’) 745
Shalmaneser IV (a usurper) 727
Sargon (Jareb?) (usurper) 722
Sennacherib 705
Esar-haddon I 681
Assur-bani-pal 668
Destruction of Nineveh under Esar-haddon II, or Sarakos 606
It begins with an invocation to the gods Rimmon, Adar, Merodach, Nergal, Beltis, Istar, and proceeds:-
"I am Shalmaneser, the strong king, king of all the four Zones of the Sun, the marcher over the whole world who has laid his yoke upon all lands hostile to him, and has swept them like a whirlwind." It tells of his campaigns against the Hittites, etc., etc.
The allusion to Jehu runs as follows:-"The tribute of Yahua, son of Khumri, silver, gold, bowls of gold, vessels of gold, goblets of gold, pitchers of gold, lead, scepters for the king’s hand, staves, I received."
This inscription is supplemented by another on a monolith found at Karkh, twenty miles from Diarbekr ("Records," 3:81-100), which mentions the battle of Karkar, with its slaughter of fourteen thousand of the enemy, among whom was Akkabhu Sirlai-i.e., Ahab of Israel.
II. TIGLATH-PILESER II
(CIRCA B.C. 739)
In his Records he mentions no less than five Hebrew kings-Azariah, Jehoahaz (Ahaz), Menahem, Pekah, Hoshea-as well as Rezin of Damascus, Hiram of Tyre, etc. His name perhaps means "He who puts his trust in Adar." See "Records of the Past," 5:45-52; Schrader, "Keilinschr.," pp. 149-151; G. Smith, "Assyrian Discoveries," pp. 254-287.
Unfortunately the inscriptions are very mutilated and fragmentary.
III. SARGON
Our chief knowledge of SARGON is from the great inscription in the Palace of Khorsabad. It is translated by Prof. Dr. Jules Oppert, "Records of the Past," 9:1-21. The king’s inscription at Bavian, northeast of Mosul, is in the same volume, pp. 21-28, translated by Dr. T. G. Pinches. See, too, id., 7:21-56, 11:15-40.
The Khorsabad inscription has these passages:-
"The great gods have made me happy by the constancy of their affection; they have granted me the exercise of my sovereignty over all things."
He says:-
"I besieged and occupied the town of Samaria; I took twenty-seven thousand two hundred and eighty of its inhabitants captive. I took from them fifty chariots, but left them the rest of their belongings. I placed my lieutenants over them; I renewed the obligations imposed upon them by one of the kings who preceded me." [Tiglath-Pileser, whom Sargon does not choose to name.]
"Hanun, King of Gaza, and Sabaco, Sultan of Egypt, allied themselves at Raphia to oppose me. I put them to flight. Sabaco fled, and no one has seen any trace of him since. I imposed a tribute on Pharaoh, King of Egypt."
He tells us that he defeated the usurper Ilubid of Hamath, who had been a smith; burnt Karkar; and flayed Ilubid alive.
He defeated Azuri and Jaman of Ashdod, and his most persistent enemy, Merodach-Baladan, son of Jakin, King of Chaldaea.
He ends with a prayer that Assur may bless him.
IV. SENNACHERIB
Bellino's Cylinder
Bellino’s Cylinder comprises the first two years of SENNACHERIB. It is translated by Mr. H. F. Talbot, "Records of the Past," 1:22-32. It was published by Layard in the first volume of "British Museum Inscriptions," pl. 63. The facsimile of it was made by Bellino. It begins:-
"SENNACHERIB, the great king, the powerful king, the king of Assyria, the king unrivalled, the pious monarch, the worshipper of the great gods, the noble warrior, the valiant hero, the first of all kings, the great punisher of unbelievers who are breakers of the holy festivals."
"Assur, my lord, has given me an unrivalled monarchy. Over all princes he has raised triumphantly my arms."
"In the beginning of my reign I defeated Marduk-Baladan, King of Babylon, and his allies the Elamites, in the plains near the city of Kish. He fled alone; he got into the marshes full of reeds and rushes, and so saved his life."
(He proceeds to narrate the spoiling of Marduk’s camp, and his palace in Babylon, and how he carried off his wife, his harem, his nobles.)
We see here an illustration of the vaunting tones of this king which are so faithfully reproduced in 2 Kings 18:1-37.
His Bull Inscription, chiefly relating to his defeats of Merodach-Baladan, is translated by Rev. J.M. Rodwell ("Records of the Past," 7:57-64.)
V. SENNACHERIB
The Taylor Cylinder
The Taylor Cylinder, so called from its former possessor, is a hexagonal clay prism found at Nineveh in 1830, and now in the British Museum (translated by Mr. H.F. Talbot, "Records of the Past," 1:35-53).
The first two campaigns of Sennacherib are related as on the Bellino Cylinder. The Taylor Cylinder narrates campaigns of his first eight years.
The story of the third campaign narrates the defeat of Elulaeus, King of Sidon; the tribute of Menahem, King of Samaria; the defeat of Zidka, King of Askelon; the revolt of Ekron, which deposed the Assyrian vassal Padi, and sent him in, iron chains to Hezekiah; the battle of Egypt and Ethiopia at Altaqu, {Eltekon, Jos 15:59} and the capture of Timnath. OfHezekiah the king says:-
"And Hezekiah, King of Judah, who had not bowed down at my feet, forty-six of his strong cities, castles, and smaller towns, with warlike engines, I captured; 200,500 people, Small and great, male and female, horses, sheep, etc., without number, I carried off. Himself I shut up like a bird in a cage inside Jerusalem. Siege towers against him I constructed. I gave his plundered cities to the kings of Ashdod, Ekron, and Gaza. I diminished his kingdom; I augmented his tribute. The fearful splendor of my majesty had overwhelmed him. The horsemen, soldiers, etc., which he had collected for the fortification of Jerusalem his royal city, now carried tribute, thirty talents of gold, eight hundred of silver, scarlet, embroidered woven cloth, large precious stones, ivory couches and thrones, skins, precious woods; his daughters, his harem, his male and female slaves, unto Nineveh, my royal city, after me he sent; and to pay tribute he sent his envoy."
He then narrates his fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh campaigns against Elam, etc. His eighth was against "the children of Babylon, wicked devils," etc. He ends by describing the splendor of the palace which ‘he built.
VI. ESAR-HADDON
An inscription of ESAR-HADDON, found at Kouyunjik, now in the British Museum, mentions his receipt of the intelligence of his father’s murder by his unnatural brothers, while he was commanding his father’s army on the northern confines.
"From my heart I made a vow. My liver was inflamed with rage. Immediately I wrote letters, saying I assumed the sovereignty of my Father’s House."
He prayed to the gods and goddesses; they encouraged him, and in spite of a great snowstorm he reached Nineveh, and defeated his brother, because Istar stood by his side and said to their army, "An unsparing deity am I" ("Records of the Past," 3:100-108).
VII. ASSUR-BANI-PAL
A terra-cotta cylinder of ASSUR-BANI-PAL (the Sardanapalus of the Greeks) is now in the British Museum. It is translated by Mr. G. Smith, "Records of the Past," 1:55-106, 9.37-64; Oppert, "Memoire sur les Rapports de l’Egypte et l’Assyrie"; and G. Smith, "Annals of Assur-bani-pal."
Its most interesting parts relate to the campaign of his father Esar-haddon against Egypt, and how Tirhakah, King of Egypt and Ethiopia, reoccupied Memphis. He defeated the army of Tirhakah, who, to save his life, fled from Memphis to Thebes. The Assyrians then took Thebes, and restored Necho’s father, Psamatik I, to Memphis and Sais, and other Egyptian kings, friends of Assyria who had fled before Tirhakah. The kings,
"however, proved ungrateful, and made a league against him. He therefore threw them into fetters, and had them brought to Nineveh, but subsequently released Necho with splendid presents. Tirhakah fled to Ethiopia, where he went to his place of night"-i.e., died.
INSCRIPTION IN THE TUNNEL OF SILOAM
THE inscription of Siloam is the oldest known Hebrew inscription. "It is engraved on the rocky wall of the subterranean channel which conveys the water of the Virgin’s Spring at Jerusalem into the Pool of Siloam. In the summer of 1880 one of the native pupils of Dr. Schick, a German architect, was playing with other lads in the Pool, and while wading up the subterranean channel slipped and fell into the water. On rising to the surface he noticed, in spite of the darkness, what looked like letters on the rock which formed the southern wall of the channel. Dr. Schick visited the spot, and found that an ancient inscription, concealed for the most part by the water, actually existed there." The level of the water was lowered, but the inscription had been partly filled up with a deposit of lime, and the first intelligible copy was made by Professor Sayce in February, 1881, and six weeks later by Dr. Guthe. Professor Sayce had to sit for hours in the mud and water, working under masonry or earth. There can be little doubt that this work is alluded to in 2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chronicles 32:30; Isaiah 8:6 ("the waters of Shiloah ["the tunnel"?] which flow softly").
The alphabet is that used by the prophets before the exile, somewhat like that on the Moabite Stone, and on early Israelitish and Jewish seals. The language is pure Hebrew, with only one unknown word - zadah, in line three: perhaps "excess" or "obstacle."
Professor Sayce thinks that it proves that "the City of David" (Zion) must have been on the southern hill, the so-called Ophel. If so, the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom must be the rubbish-choked Tyropaeon, under which must be the tombs of the kings, and the relics of the Temple and Palace destroyed by Nebuchadrezzar.
The inscription is:-
"The excavation! Now this is the history of the excavation. While the excavators were lifting up the pick each towards his neighbor, and while there were yet three cubits [to excavate], there was heard the voice of one man calling to his neighbor, for there was an excess in the rock on the right hand [and on the left?]. And after that on the day of excavating, the excavators had struck pick against pick, one against another, the water flowed from the spring [motsa, " exit," 2 Chronicles 32:30] to the Pool" (that of Siloam, which therefore was the only one which then existed) "for twelve hundred cubits. And [part] of a cubit was the height of the rock over the head of the excavators" (Sayce, "Records of the Past," 1:169-175).
The letters are on an artificial tablet cut in the wall of rock, nineteen feet from where the subterranean conduit opens on the Pool of Siloam, and on the right-hand side. The conduit is at first sixteen, feet high, but lessens in one place to no more than two feet. It is, according to Captain Conder, seventeen hundred and eight yards long, but not in a straight line, as there are two culs-de-sac, caused by faulty engineering. The engineers, beginning, as at Mount Cenis, from opposite ends, intended to meet in the middle, but failed. The floor has been rounded to allow the water to flow more easily. It is a splendid piece of engineering for that age.
The Pool of Siloam is at the southeast end of a hill which lies to the south of the Temple hill: the Virgin’s Fountain is on the opposite side of the hill, more to the north, and is the only natural spring or "Gihon" near Jerusalem, so that its water was of supreme importance. Being outside the city wall, a conduit was necessary.
Hezekiah "stopped all the fountains" {2Ch 32:4} -i.e., concealed them. By providing a subterranean channel for them, he saved them from the enemy and secured the water-supply of the besieged city.
WAS THERE A GOLDEN CALF AT DAN?
THE question might seem absurd, but for its solution I must refer to my paper on the subject in the Expositor for October, 1893.
The sole authorities for a calf at Dan are 1 Kings 12:28-30; 2 Kings 10:29. If in the former passage we alter one letter, and read dKah (the "ephod") for djah (the "one")-as Klostermann suggests-we throw light on an obscure and perhaps corrupt passage. The allusion then would be to Micah’s old idolatrous image (which may have been a calf) at Dan. The two words "and in Dan" in 2 Kings 10:29 may easily have been (as Klostermann thinks) an exegetical gloss added from the error of one letter 1 Kings 12:30.
Dan was a most unlikely place to select: for
(1) It was a remote frontier town; and
(2) there was no room, and no necessity there, for a new cultus beside the ancient one established some centuries earlier, and still served by priests who were direct lineal descendants of Moses. {Jdg 18:30-31}This would further account for the absolute silence of prophets and historians about any golden calf at Dan; and it adds to the inherent probability, also supported by some evidence, that there were two cherubic calves at Bethel.
For further arguments I must refer to my paper.
APPENDIX 4.
DATES OF THE KINGS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH, AS GIVEN BY KITTEL AND OTHER MODERN CRITICS
ISRAEL B.C.
Ahaziah 855-854
Jehoram 854-842
Jehu 842-814
Jehoahaz 814-797
Joash 797-781
Jeroboam 781-740
Zachariah 740
Shallum 740
Menahem 740-737
Pekahiah 737-735
Pekah 735-734
Hoshea 734-725
JUDAH B.C.
Jehoram ben-Jehoshaphat 851-843
Ahaziah ben-Jehoram 843-842
Athaliah 842-836
Joash ben-Ahaziah 836-796
Amaziah 796-783
Amaziah-Uzziah 783-737
Jotham 737-735
Ahaz 735-715
Hezekiah 715-686
Manasseh 686-641
Amon 641-639
Josiah 539-608
Jehoahaz 608
Jehoiakim 608-597
Jehoiachin 597
Zedekiah 597-586
The Expositor's Bible
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Generally cloudy. A few flurries or snow showers possible. High 23F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph..
The Rimrock Hot Club, 7 - 10 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 13 at Walkers. Free, but reservations are suggested.
From left, Trevor Krieger, Alex Nauman, Mark Bryan and David Banuelos are pictured in the Billings Gazette Studios. They are the Rimrock Hot Club, performing in a style of European music, made popular in Paris in the 1930s by Django Reinhardt.
CASEY PAGE, Billings Gazette
The Dusty Pockets perform at 6 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 14 at Yellowstone Valley Brewing. Tickets for the general admission all ages show are $10 in advance, plus fees.
The Dusty Pockets tell meaningful stories, delivered with grit, wrapped in beautiful melodies and driven by powerful grooves. Their self-invented genre, “recreational Americana,” is indicative of the band’s mission to make seriously good music and have fun at the same time. Their debut release, “Hard Line,” is a ten-song album that cherry-picks from the band's wide and growing catalog of original songs. Centered on a strong foundation of American musical traditions, "Hard Line," and the band's live shows, showcase a collection of tunes that scratch the itch for twang, soul, and rock n' roll all at once.
Barbershop group, Treasure State Sound, will be performing a concert on Dec. 14 at First Presbyterian Church, 2420 13th St. W., starting at 3 p.m.
LARRY MAYER, Billings Gazette
Jackson Blue performs at Kirks' Grocery in Billings in May. The Billings guitarist and poet will be featured on Tuesday at Kirks' Grocery during Twosday Duets with Callie Benjamin & Jackson Blue, staritng at 7 p.m.
BETHANY BAKER, Billings Gazette
Live this week: Ellen and the Old School, Rimrock Hot Club, George Wilson Drag Show and more
Russell Engesser, accordionist: 6-8 p.m. at Octoberfest.
The Bronc Project, Ellen and the Old School: 7 p.m. at Craft Local.
Little Joe & The Cartwrights: 7 p.m.-midnight at Heights VFW.
3/5 of Bucky Beaver: 7-9 p.m. at Yellowstone Cellars & Winery.
Yellowstone Bluegrass Association jam: 7 p.m. at Elk's Club.
Goldenrod, Country Time Yee Haw Bois: 9 p.m. at Kirk's Grocery. $10 reserved or $5-10 suggested donation at door.
Holiday Harmonies concert: 3 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church. Treasure State Sound with Senior High School’s Expressions, directed by Jacoby Holte. Free-will offering collected.
The Dusty Pockets: 6 p.m. at Yellowstone Valley Brewing. All ages. $10.
Local 406: 7-9 p.m. at Yellowstone Cellars & Winery.
Spiked Mind, JOBU with Jerry Zilkoski: 7 p.m. at Craft Local.
Spur of the Moment: 7 p.m. at Elk's Club.
Yellowstone Ballroom Dance Club Christmas dance: 7:30 p.m. at Elks Lodge. Music by The John Fox Sound. $15. 259-5739, yellowstoneballroomdance.com.
Second Annual George Wilson Toys for Tots Drag Show: 8 p.m. at America Family Restaurant/Stars ‘n’ Strips Lounge and Casino. Hosted by Magic City Glamour. Ages 18 and older. $5. Proceeds and donations of new, unwrapped toys benefit Toys for Tots.
Sunday, Dec. 15
Little Joe & The Cartwrights: 2-7 p.m. at Heights VFW.
Singer/Songwriter Sunday with John Adams: 3-5 p.m. at Yellowstone Cellars & Winery. Features music, trivia, anecdotes.
Rimrock Hot Club's Hot Jazz Holiday Hang: 7-10 p.m. at Walkers Grill. With Trevor Kreiger on violin, Alex Nauman and David Banuelos on guitar, Mark Bryan on bass. All ages. Free.
Slainte session: 7-9 p.m. at Craft Local. Open jam, traditional Irish music.
Twosday Duets with Callie Benjamin & Jackson Blue: 7 p.m., BYOV community DJ'ing 8 p.m. at Kirk's Grocery. $10 reserved or $5-10 suggested donation at door.
Wednesday, Dec. 18
Nashville Songwriters Association International open mic: 6-10 p.m. at Craft Local. Anna Gramza 6:30 p.m.
The Cimarron Band, senior citizens dance: 7-10 p.m. at Moose Lodge. All ages welcome. $5.
Suny Stone Ballou, 36?, Laura Hickli, Shane de Leon: 7 p.m. at Kirk's Grocery. $10 reserved or $5-10 suggested donation at door.
Open Mic Night: 7-9 p.m. at Yellowstone Cellars & Winery. For more information, text Doug at 406-208-0790.
Poetry Jam, thievesbreakin, AGNAR: 7 p.m. at Kirk's Grocery. $10 reserved or $5-10 suggested donation at door.
Enjoy-billings
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It’s petition day! Getting signatures is hard — here’s what we (and the candidates) learned
Shannon Wink
Mar. 10, 2015, 11:41 a.m.
Nominating petitions are due today for Philly’s Republican and Democratic candidates (candidates from non-major parties have more time, as they’re not in the May primary). Mayoral candidates need to submit at least 1,000 valid signatures and survive potential challenges to remain in the race. They had between Feb. 13 and March 10 to get it all done.
Yesterday, Billy Penn explained the very detailed process of how to run for office in the city. Today, we explain what it’s like to collect signatures.
Four of our staffers spent a combined total of seven hours Monday asking total strangers to sign our (completely fake) nominating petition. Spoiler alert: It’s hard to get signatures — and we set a pretty low bar.
While legitimate candidates need a name, signature, address and date, we only asked for signatures. We were also pretty open about the motive behind our effort — proving how hard it is get people to sign — which made it easier to get signatures than if we had an actual political motive. Finally, we made absolutely no effort to verify the address or registration status of our signers. Candidates need signatures from registered voters within their own party. Ours was just an exercise in getting pen on paper.
And now, for the results…
One hour at Dilworth Park: Community Manager Shannon McDonald
Number of signatures: 30
Number of rejections: 5
Number of legible names: 15
My approach seemed to work with most people. I went for people who were seated, but not listening to headphones, and asked them if they would mind answering a strange question. Most were amused enough to listen, so I identified myself as a reporter trying to determine how difficult it is to get 1,000 signatures to run for mayor, so hey, would you mind signing my fake petition?
Two women told me the didn’t speak English and then carried on their conversation in English. I mean, at least wait for me to be out of earshot.
One woman who was far too interested in the game she was playing on her phone to really appreciate the nice weather just said “no” when I approached her. Point taken.
I stumbled upon a city employee who gave me a hot tip: Traffic Court! People are coming and going all day, but aren’t scheduled to return during the same week, so you won’t hit any repeats. On the other hand, not sure I want to spend my time talking to the unhappy people at Traffic Court.
One woman(?) who signed my “petition” was very likely underage, even though I asked her if she was eligible to vote. Her signature looks like a scribble, anyway.
What surprised me most is that only two people asked me for identification. I mean, what if I was lying when I said I wouldn’t use their signatures for anything?
Two hours in Rittenhouse Square: Reporter/Curator Anna Orso
Number of rejections: 20ish
Running for mayor is basically the hardest thing I’ve done in weeks. It should be a new weight loss regimen that would be especially useful for people used to sitting in an office for large chunks of the day. For me, there was no secret to getting signatures other than my efforts to sound convincing and also trying not to get too close to people because I stepped in like 13 puddles and smelled weird.
I was actually surprised at how chill people were about giving their signature to a random person. What I did, basically, was corner people while they were enjoying their Hip City Veg or having a smoke break on a bench in Rittenhouse Square. This provided for an excellent opportunity for me to explain what I was doing without them being able to run away. Ha!
From there, I gave each person my spiel that went something like, “Hey, I’m Anna Orso, and I’m a reporter with Billy Penn… [something about how we want to know how hard it is to run for mayor]… will you sign my totally fake and meaningless petition?” And lots of people did. A couple people even told me that they wanted to run for mayor for us. One man, who left me his phone number so we could “follow up,” said he wants to reduce parking tickets by 50 percent and send City Council salaries to the school district. OK! A man with a plan!
Some people straight up didn’t understand what we were doing and didn’t want to sign. Understandable. Other people were just like, please go away. It’s fine. I can be very intimidating. Rawr. One group of people who were way too hip for their own good told me that they wouldn’t sign because it wasn’t “scientific.” (Alright dude, I’m asking you to sign my legal pad, like of course it’s not scientific.)
What I did notice was an age discrepancy in the people who were willing to sign. Older folks for the most part were hesitant to sign, while in many cases people who seemed to be in their 20s were cool with signing their name to be part of our experiment. One guy even told me he would just sign 50 of his friends’ names, too. It’s the thought that counts?
However, there were two young people in the park Monday afternoon who maybe would have signed my petition, but I didn’t ask. They were feeding each other slices of baguette and sipping on bottled Italian sodas. I feared I might have barfed on them. Spring in Rittenhouse, people!
Two hours in Old City: Reporter/Curator Mark Dent
Listen to people who are trying to get your attention on the sidewalks. Like at least politely decline what they’re offering or asking for. Just don’t ignore them.
That is my new motto after hanging around in Washington Square and for a little while in Old City trying to convince people to stop and listen to our fake candidacy pitch. With most of the benches empty or kept in use by the same people, I had little option but to chat with people walking by who weren’t listening to music or on their cell phones. The result? Many blank stares, five seconds of listening and then walking away and plenty of unwillingness to sign a name for a fake mayoral run.
As Anna put it, running for mayor is freaking hard. Add the rejection, and standing around with a notepad hoping people will listen (even on the nicest day in months) feels brutal. I can’t imagine how much harder it would be to get someone’s attention if you were campaigning for a specific, real candidate and had to convince someone to sign his or her name in support of Doug Oliver, Tony Williams, Lynne Abraham or whoever. Or even harder, as one lady told me after signing the petition, “Imagine being a Republican” and getting signatures. Yikes.
There was almost no rhyme or reason to the people who did sign. Young people were slightly more likely to sign than middle-aged or elderly, but not by much. Women and men signed equally.
I did notice one trend: I asked three people who were walking dogs to sign the petition, and all three of them did. The easiest way to load up on signatures for mayor is clearly finding a bunch of people who have dogs. Every serious candidate needs to hang out at Pop’s Playground Dog Park.
Two hours in three locations: Intern Jenine Pilla
Equipped with Billy Penn sunglasses, pens, stickers and business cards, I started my fake mayoral run in Logan Square. For my first attempt, I was met by three guys in backwards hats smoking cigars who, instead of offering a polite no to my pitch, berated me about the project and how I wasn’t raised in Philly. Not a good start considering I kinda wanted to wander back to the office and call it a day after that. It was a heavy blow and my patience immediately fell to nothing, but thankfully a group of medical students threw me a few signatures while running to catch a bus.
If I could say one thing, fake running for mayor was a real blow to the old self confidence. As Logan Square was a flop, I wandered to 30th Street Station, which wasn’t even half as fruitful as I had hoped. Trains were leaving, people were running and I was standing defeated next to a vending machine where I hadn’t even filled up a quarter of a page of signatures.
Then I saw it, the beacon of hope that I needed, cutting across the street in yellow and blue: “Drexel University.” If I were running for mayor, I’d set up camp at every college across the city because students. When I walked on to Drexel’s campus the sun was high and those kids were pretty much waiting to listen to anything I had to say. They just got it. They got what I was doing and why I was asking them to sign my legal pad and they even offered horror stories of their own about a time they had to get 50 people to take a five minute survey.
The students rarely signed blindly, they asked questions and offered comments like “I’d imagine actually getting signatures in support of a viewpoint being much harder.” Word. Of the more than 40 people I approached on campus, only one declined, and he did so pretty politely.
One thing I learned: stick to the younger crowd. They will most likely give you that minute you need to explain yourself without all their preset judgements getting in the way.
Campaign staff report: Doug Oliver
“Getting a bunch of people in the same place at the same time,” worked for Oliver, Campaign Manager Mustafa Rashed told Billy Penn. But that doesn’t mean getting signatures was easy.
Oliver was able to get a lot of the signatures himself during his commute on the subway because he’s not holding a full-time job while campaigning. But Rashed said the time-consuming signature process can definitely be “a distraction” from other campaign matters. About 20 staffers spent five hours each circulating petitions, landing about 4,000 during the three-week petitioning period.
The weather was a challenge for sure, but Rashed also floated the idea of rethinking the entire signature process. What if candidates needed the signatures from the get-go, as part of the declaring and vetting process, rather than the campaigning process? Collecting signatures gets tougher as the weeks go on because candidates cannot get signatures from voters who’ve already signed another candidate’s petition. If you don’t get to voters right away, you’ve already lost them.
But the rules are the rules for now, and Rashed has one piece of advice for his future self, should he find himself campaigning again. “If I had to do this all over again, I’d be outside the Criminal Justice Center” talking to jurors. They all have one thing in common: they’re definitely registered voters.
Campaign staff report: Jim Kenney
Lauren Hitt, Kenney’s communications director, summed up the staff’s petition experience in one word: fortunate.
“Over 250 people volunteered their time” to circulate petitions, Hitt said, so things didn’t really feel too chaotic. Things got a little hectic Monday as the campaign worked to organize petitions, but volunteers were present even then.
Kenney submitted 10,070 signatures Monday and expects to file an addendum today.
As far as circulation strategy goes, Hitt said the campaign “left it to the volunteers.” Some went door to door, and others found success in large crowds. Though the weather in the final days of petitioning, most of the last three weeks has been marked by snow.
“Especially in the weather, we feel very fortunate to have had so much support,” Hitt said.
Campaign staff report: Anthony Hardy Williams
Staffer Barbara Grant submitted an email statement: “Gathering more than 10,000 signatures (with more still to come) is a huge collective effort of full time, part time and spare time campaign workers canvassing the city.
In addition to staff, we had a volunteer group of community leaders and everyday citizens who enabled us to reach into every ward in the city. We started collecting signatures on February 17(so a total of 4 weeks of wall to wall work). Our field operation was set up to collect petitions 12 hours per day, seven days a week. The scope of this kind of operation requires consistent monitoring, strong leadership, the willingness to be flexible and the ability to take advantage of opportunities as they arise.
Our team is made up of committed staff of all ages and backgrounds, but we are particularly proud of our millennials — whose enthusiasm carried our theme of One Philadelphia to all corners of the city and really engaged voters with Tony’s message. As you can see from the overwhelming response, representing all 66 wards, his message is resonating with voters from all across Philadelphia.”
#PHLvotes: 2015 mayoral race, Republican City Committee, Mustafa Rashed
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Home > Journals > Weed Science > Volume 50 > Issue 2 > Article
1 March 2002 Environmental factors affecting germination of apple of Peru
Hajime Watanabe, Yoshino Kusagaya, Masahiko Saigusa
Hajime Watanabe,1 Yoshino Kusagaya,2 Masahiko Saigusa2
1Corresponding author. Experimental Farm of Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, Miyagi 989-6711, Japan; watanabe@bios.tohoku.ac.jp
2Experimental Farm of Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, Miyagi 989-6711, Japan
Weed Science, 50(2):152-156 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1614/0043-1745(2002)050[0152:EFAGOA]2.0.CO;2
Laboratory and field experiments were conducted to determine the effects of several environmental factors on seed germination and seedling emergence of the invasive weed, apple of Peru. The anatomy of the seed was also investigated in this study. The anatomy of the seed is similar to that of an eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) seed. The seed is albuminous, and consists of a seed coat, endosperm, and an embryo. The seed coat, which consists of both outer and inner integuments, is relatively thick. Fresh and dry stored seeds exhibited strong dormancy. Hot water treatment did not affect the seed germination in the light, but significantly (P < 0.05) reduced the germination rate in the dark. Dry-heat treatment had no significant effect on seed germination in the dark, but it significantly (P < 0.05) increased the germination rate in the light. Cold stratification alone did not influence seed germination under constant temperature (25 C) but affected it under alternating temperature (25–15 C). However, a combination of warm and cold stratification produced significant (P < 0.05) germination in the dark as well as in the light. In addition, the effect of warm stratification followed by cold stratification was more pronounced in the dark than in the light. Gibberellin A3 (GA3) (10–3 and 10–4 M) treatments significantly (P < 0.05) increased the seed germination rate compared with that of the control. Emergence rate was maximum for seeds placed on the soil surfaces; no seedling emergence occurred when seeds were placed at a depth of 5 cm.
Nomenclature: Apple of Peru, Nicandra physalodes (L.) Pers.
Hajime Watanabe, Yoshino Kusagaya, and Masahiko Saigusa "Environmental factors affecting germination of apple of Peru," Weed Science 50(2), 152-156, (1 March 2002). https://doi.org/10.1614/0043-1745(2002)050[0152:EFAGOA]2.0.CO;2
Received: 1 February 2001; Accepted: 2 October 2001; Published: 1 March 2002
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planting depth
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Germination Ecology of Cassava (Manihot Esculenta Crantz, Euphorbiaceae) in Traditional...
SEED GERMINATION OF ERODIUM MACROPHYLLUM (GERANIACEAE)
Seed Germination Strategies of Species With Restoration Potential in a...
Quantitative analysis of emergence of seedlings from buried weed seeds...
Influence of environmental factors on seed germination and seedling emergence...
Comparative Germination and Emergence Ecology of Two Populations of Common...
Seed Dormancy and Seedling Recruitment in Smooth Barley (Hordeum murinum...
Hajime Watanabe, Yoshino Kusagaya, Masahiko Saigusa "Environmental factors affecting germination of apple of Peru," Weed Science, 50(2), 152-156, (1 March 2002)
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Home > Journals > Canadian Journal of Plant Science > Volume 91 > Issue 1
Canadian Journal of Plant Science
VOL. 91 · NO. 1 | January 2011
Agronomy Other (4)
Cultivar Description (1)
Plant Pathology (3)
Weed Science (1)
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A review on the improvement of stevia [Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni)]
Ashok Kumar Yadav, S. Singh, D. Dhyani, P. S. Ahuja
91(1), 1-27, (1 January 2011) https://doi.org/10.1139/CJPS10086
KEYWORDS: Stevia, diterpene glycoside, rebaudioside A, selection, gibberellic acid pathway, gene cloning, Stevia, glycosides diterpēne, rēbaudioside A, sēlection
Yadav, A. K., Singh, S., Dhyani, D. and Ahuja, P. S. 2011. A review on the improvement of Stevia [Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni)]. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 1-27. Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) is a herbaceous perennial plant (2n=22) of genus Stevia Cav., which consists of approximately 230 species of herbaceous, shrub and sub-shrub plants. Leaves of stevia produce diterpene glycosides (stevioside and rebaudiosides), non-nutritive, non-toxic, high-potency sweeteners and may substitute sucrose as well as other synthetic sweetners, being 300 times sweeter than sucrose. In addition to its sweetening property, it has medicinal values and uses. Stevia is self-incompatible plant and the pollination behaviour is entomophilous. Rebaudioside-A is of particular interest among the glycosides produced in the leaves of stevia because of the most desirable flavour profile, while, stevioside is responsible for aftertaste bitterness. Development of new varieties of S. rebaudiana with a higher content of rebaudioside-A and a reduced content of stevioside is the primary aim of plant breeders concerned with the improvement and utilization of this source of natural sweeteners. The proportions of rebaudioside-A and -C are controlled by a single additive gene known to be co-segregating suggesting synthesis by the same enzyme. Stevioside and rebaudioside-A are negatively correlated, while rebaudioside-A and -C are positively correlated. Conventional plant breeding approaches such as selection and intercrossing among various desirable genotypes is the best method for improving quality traits in a highly cross-pollinated crop like stevia. Various plant types with larger amounts of specific glycoside have already been patented, such as RSIT 94-1306, RSIT 94-75, RSIT 95-166-1 through selection and intercrossing. Composites and synthetics can be used to capture part of the available heterosis because of the high degree of natural out-crossing and the absence of an efficient system of pollination control. Synthetics and composites like “AC Black Bird“ and “PTA-444“ have already been developed. Polyploidy results in better adaptability of individuals and increased organ and cell sizes. Tetraploids have larger leaf size, thickness and have potential use in increasing biomass and yield in comparison with diploid strains. Characters of interest with low variability in the population may be improved through mutation breeding. Use of biotechnological approaches, such as tissue culture for the mass propagation of elite genotypes, anther culture for development of pure homozygous doubled haploid and molecular marker technology for identification of marker loci linked to rebaudioside-A trait, can create new opportunities for plant breeders. Understanding the mechanism and pathway of biosynthesis of steviol glycosides can help to improve the glycoside profile by up-regulation and down-regulation of genes.
Effet de la date de semis sur la productivité du lin oléagineux cultivé en climat frais
Denis Pageau, Julie Lajeunesse
91(1), 29-35, (1 January 2011) https://doi.org/10.1139/CJPS10021
KEYWORDS: lin, date de semis, rendement, huile, Flax, seeding date, yield, oil
Pageau, D. and Lajeunesse, J. 2011. Effect of seeding date on oilseed flax grown in a cool climate. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 29-35. In Quebec, the growing season is relatively short and most crops are sown early in the spring. However, flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) production is recent in Quebec and the effect of time of seeding on flax productivity has not yet been studied. The objective of this project was to determine the effect of four different sowing dates on the productivity of oilseed flax grown in a cool climate in Quebec. Four planting dates (mid-May to mid-June) were evaluated for 4 yr (2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008) with four cultivars (AC Emerson, AC McDuff, CDC Bethune and Lightning). During 2 yr, delays in seeding reduced grain yields. Moreover, in 2006 and 2007, flax seeded at the last planting date (mid-June) did not reach maturity. Compared with the earliest seeding date, a 2-wk delay in sowing reduced grain yields by 34 to 42% in 2006 and by 25 to 51% in 2007. Late sowing also reduced the oil content and 1000-grain weight of flax. These results indicate that oilseed flax should be sown early (11-18 May) in regions where the climate is cool.
Canaryseed (Phalaris canariensis L.) accessions from nineteen countries show useful genetic variation for agronomic traits
M. Cogliatti, F. Bongiorno, H. Dalla Valle, W. J. Rogers
KEYWORDS: Phalaris canariensis, canaryseed, accessions, yield, phenology, Genetics, breeding, Phalaris canariensis, alpiste, obtentions, rendement, phénologie, génétique, amélioration
Cogliatti, M., Bongiorno, F., Dalla Valle, H. and Rogers, W. J. 2011. Canaryseed (Phalaris canariensis L.) accessions from nineteen countries show useful genetic variation for agronomic traits. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 37-48. Fifty-seven accessions of canaryseed (47 populations and 10 cultivars) from 19 countries were evaluated for agronomic traits in four field trials sown over 3 yr in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Genetic variation was found for all traits scored: grain yield and its components (grain weight, grain number per square meter, grain number per head and head number per square meter), harvest index, percent lodging, and phenological characters (emergence to heading, emergence to harvest maturity and heading to harvest maturity). Although genotype×environment interaction was observed for all traits, the additive differences between accessions were sufficient to enable promising breeding materials to be identified. Accessions superior in performance to the local Argentinean population, which in general gave values close to the overall mean of the accessions evaluated, were identified. For example, a population of Moroccan origin gave good yield associated with elevated values of the highly heritable character grain weight, rather than with the more commonly observed grain number per square meter. This population was also of relatively short stature and resistant to lodging, and, although it performed best when sown within the normal sowing date, tolerated late sowing fairly well. Other accessions were also observed with high grain weight, a useful characteristic in itself, since large grains are desirable from a quality point of view. Regarding phenology, the accessions showed a range of 160 degree days (8 calendar days in our conditions) in maturity, which, while not large in magnitude, may be of some utility in crop rotation management. Some accessions were well adapted to late sowing. Grain yield in general was strongly correlated with grain number per square meter. Principal components analysis (PCA) carried out for all characteristics provided indications of accessions combining useful characteristics and identified three components that explained approximately 70% of the phenotypic variation. Furthermore, a second PCA plus regression showed that approximately 60% of the variation in grain yield could be explained by a component associated with harvest index and grain number per square meter. Pointers were provided to possible future breeding targets.
Quantitative trait loci analysis of seed coat color components for selective breeding in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)
Shanoor Hossain, Joe F. Panozzo, Chris Pittock, Rebecca Ford
KEYWORDS: Chickpea, seed coat color, chromometer, QUANTITATIVE TRAIT LOCI, mapping, marker-assisted selection, Pois chiche, couleur du tégument des graines, chromomètre, QTL, Cartographie, sélection assistée par marqueur
Hossain, S., Panozzo, J. F., Pittock, C. and Ford, R. 2011. Quantitative trait loci analysis of seed coat color components for selective breeding in chickpea (Cicer arietinumL.). Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 49-55. Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an annual grain legume, grown worldwide for human consumption with the potential to attract premium prices in markets such as India, Bangladesh and southern Asia. The ability to accurately select for seed coat color, an important export quality trait, would greatly benefit chickpea breeding programs. In order to determine the major genomic loci governing the color trait, the color components of CIE L* (luminance), CIE a* (red/green color) and CIE b* (blue/yellow color), C* (chroma or saturation of the color) and h° (hue or purity of the color) were mapped, and associated molecular markers were identified. A linkage map was constructed with 80 SSR markers distributed over 10 linkage groups at an average marker density of 2.8 cM. Two major quantitative trait loci (QTL), which accounted for up to 36 and 49% of the genetic variance and several smaller genetic effects were determined to govern the color components. These were consistent across two differing environments. Once validated, the markers that are close to and flanking these QTL and significantly associated with the minor gene effects will be useful in future color selective breeding programs.
Morphological characterization of triticale starch granules during endosperm development and seed germination
Chun-Yan Li, Wei-Hua Li, Byron Lee, André Laroche, Lian-Pu Cao, Zhen-Xiang Lu
KEYWORDS: Triticale, starch, granule, morphology, synthesis, hydrolysis, Triticale, amidon, granule, morphologie, synthése
Li, C.-Y., Li, W.-H., Lee, B., Laroche, A., Cao, L.-P. and Lu, Z.-X. 2011. Morphological characterization of triticale starch granules during endosperm development and seed germination. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 57-67. The morphology of starch granules and its changes during endosperm development and seed germination in triticale has been investigated under scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Starch granules were rapidly accumulating in triticale endosperm after 6 d postanthesis (DPA). The double-disk structure of starch granules was detected in endosperms from 6 DPA until 27 DPA in triticale and its parental crops, wheat and rye. The equatorial grooves of triticale starch granules were more susceptible to enzymatic hydrolysis than the broad or flat surfaces. Triticale starch was slowly degraded within 4 or 5 d post germination (DPG) and most starch granules were almost completely hydrolyzed after 9 DPG. Morphological changes of starch granules observed under SEM during the in vitro enzymatic hydrolysis were consistent with patterns identified during the germination process. As a hybrid of wheat and rye, triticale inherits many morphological characteristics of starch synthesis and storage in the seed endosperm. However, triticale also possesses unique features of granule shape, size, distribution, and enzyme susceptibility. These results will make it possible to effectively utilize triticale starch in the starch-based production.
Agronomic performance of barley cultivars in response to varying rates of swine slurry
K. E. Buckley, M. C. Therrien, R. M. Mohr
KEYWORDS: barley, swine slurry, grain yield, biomass yield, crop quality, Orge, lisier de porc, rendement grainier, rendement de la biomasse, qualité des cultures
Buckley, K. E., Mohr, R. M. and Therrien, M. C. 2011. Agronomic performance of barley cultivars in response to varying rates of swine slurry. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 69-79. Selection of crop variety may address concerns of potential adverse effects of preplant manure slurry application on crop yield and quality due to nutrient availability and lack of precision in application rate. An experiment was conducted in two field locations in southern Manitoba to assess the impact of slurry rate on growth, yield and quality of three barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) cultivars (Harrington, Rosser, Stander). Treatments included three rates of swine slurry, an unfertilized check and an inorganic fertilizer treatment at the recommended N rate based on preseeding soil nutrient tests. While the current study demonstrated no significant difference in the grain yield response of barley cultivars to rates of slurry application, higher rates of swine slurry may have a negative effect on milling quality (percentage of plump kernels) depending on cultivar, but had little effect on other quality parameters such as test weight and 1000-kernel weight. The absence of cultivar×slurry interaction for grain and biomass yield at each field location in each year indicated that all cultivars responded similarly to increasing rates of manure slurry for these traits. Grain protein concentration for all cultivars was unaffected by slurry amendment except at the highest application rate.
Quantitative trait loci analysis of economically important traits in Sorghum bicolor × S. sudanense hybrid
Lu Xiao-ping, Yun Jin-feng, Gao Cui-ping, Surya Acharya
KEYWORDS: amplified fragment length polymorphism, genetic mapping, QUANTITATIVE TRAIT LOCI, sorghum×Sudan grass hybrid, AFLP, cartographie génétique, locus à caractère quantitatif, hybride sorgho×herbe du Soudan
Lu, X-p., Yun, J-f., Gao, C-p. and Acharya, S. 2011. Quantitative trait loci analysis of economically important traits in Sorghum bicolor×S. sudanense hybrid. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 81-90. Many agronomic traits of Sorghum bicolor×S. sudanense hybrid are quantitatively inherited, and the gene mapping of these traits has important research and practical consequences. In this study, genetic mapping and quantitative trait loci (QTL) analyses were conducted using 248 F2:3 plants of a cross between sorghum 314A (female parent) and Sudan grass 2002GZ-1 (male parent). A total of 178 markers (170 amplified fragment length polymorphism and 8 random amplified polymorphic DNA) were employed to construct a linkage map with 10 linkage groups covering 836 cM of the genome. The two parents expressed polymorphism for 10 agronomic characters (plant height, stem diameter, leaf number, leaf length, leaf width, spike length, tiller number, ratio of stem and leaf weight, fresh plant weight and dry plant weight). When analyzed for possible QTLs a total of 98 QTLs were identified in two test sites, out of which 26 QTLs overlapped in both sites. The average number of QTLs per character was found to be 2.6 and the distributions of these QTLs were found to be uneven across linkage groups. This, and the fact that molecular marker densities were not proportional with QTL frequencies, indicates that the detectable QTLs correlated with the agronomic traits and the genetic map can be useful for improvement in relevant characters in Sorghum bicolor×S. sudanense hybrids.
Seeding patterns and companion grasses affect total forage yield and components of binary red clover-grass mixtures
Carole Lafreniére, Raynald Drapeau
KEYWORDS: red clover, timothy, smooth bromegrass, tall fescue, orchardgrass, seeding pattern, yield, Trèfle rouge, fléole des prés, brome inerme, fétuque élevée, dactyle pelotonné, patron de semis, rendement
Lafrenière, C. and Drapeau, R. 2011. Seeding patterns and companion grasses affect total forage yield and components of binary red clover-grass mixtures. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 91-97. Red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) is the most popular seeded legume for forage production in northern Quebec and Ontario because of the poorly drained soils that prevail in these regions. The objective of this experiment was to determine which seeding patterns [mixed within a row (MR), single alternate rows (1 1), or double alternate rows (2 2)] and which companion grasses (smooth bromegrass, Bromus inermis L.; tall fescue, Festuca arundinacea Schreb.; orchardgrass, Dactylis glomerata L.; or timothy, Phleum pratense L.), in association with red clover, were best for sustaining the total forage yield of a red clover-grass mixture and how these factors affect red clover and grass components. Test plots were established at Kapuskasing, ON, and Normandin, QC. At each site, two independent seedings were performed and harvested over 3 yr following the seeding year. Total dry matter (DM) yield and contribution of red clover grasses and weeds to total forage yield were measured. The MR pattern gave higher yield over both alternate seeding patterns by nearly 0.5 Mg DM ha-1 at the Normandin site and 1.0 Mg DM ha-1 at the Kapuskasing site. Neither the seeding pattern nor the companion grass species improved significantly the contribution of red clover to total forage yield beyond the second production year even though there were differences between sites. Environmental conditions, principally high precipitation in the fall, and maturity stage at harvest resulted in major differences between sites. Results from this experiment showed that tall fescue and orchardgrass could be good alternatives to timothy or bromegrass in association with red clover given that plots were still productive in the third production year and invasion by weeds was lower.
Antioxidant and antileukemic properties of selected fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) genotypes grown in western Canada
S. N. Acharya, K. Acharya, S. Paul, S. K. Basu
91(1), 99-105, (1 January 2011) https://doi.org/10.1139/CJPS10025
KEYWORDS: Fenugreek, nutraceutical, Trigonella foenum-graecum L., Tristar, antioxidant, antileukemic, Fénugrec, nutraceutique, Trigonella foenum-graecum L., Tristar, antioxydant, anti-leucémique
Acharya, S. N., Acharya, K., Paul, S. and Basu S. K. 2011. Antioxidant and antileukemic properties of selected fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) genotypes grown in western Canada. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 99-105. Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) is an annual forage legume known to have a number of important medicinal properties such as being anti-diabetic and hyperchloesterolaemic among others. In this study we have investigated the anti-oxidant and antileukemic properties of five fenugreek genotypes (L3068, L3375, Tristar, PI143504 and Amber) grown in western Canada for their potential use as nutraceuticals. Our preliminary experiments conducted in two different laboratories showed that the seeds grown in western Canada have anti-oxidant and antileukemic properties and the genotypes differ in the two traits studied. All the genotypes were found to be good scavengers for hydroxyl and free radicals. Among all the varieties, L3068 showed a higher EC50 value i.e., lower inhibitory activity for lipid peroxidation than the standard catechin. Although all five extracts showed significant antioxidant activity, the crude extract of Tristar was the most effective. Out of the five cultivars of fenugreek, Amber and L3375 showed a robust antileukemic activity followed by Tristar. Hence we conclude that Tristar has the best potential among all the genotypes tested to be used as a future nutraceutical crop when grown in western Canada.
Comparison of the structure and organization of the rrna operons of Bouteloua gracilis and Zea mays
Gerardo A. Aguado-Santacruz, David A. Betancourt-Guerra, Tania Siquerios-Cendón, Sigifredo Arévalo-Gallegos, Blanca E. Rivera-Chavira, Guadalupe V. Nevarez-Moorillon, Blanca Moreno-Gómez, Quintín Rascón-Cruz
91(1), 107-116, (1 January 2011) https://doi.org/10.1139/CJPS10089
KEYWORDS: chloroplast DNA, cpDNA, Bouteloua gracilis, maize, physical map, restriction, ADN des chloroplastes, cpADN, Bouteloua gracilis, maïs, carte physique, restriction
Aguado-Santacruz, G. A., Betancourt-Guerra, D. A., Siquerios-Cendón, T., Arévalo-Gallegos, S., Rivera-Chavira, B. E., Nevarez-Moorillon, G. V., Moreno-Gómez, B. and Rascón-Cruz, Q. 2011. Comparison of the structure and organization of therrnaoperons of Bouteloua gracilisandZea mays. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 107-116. We studied the genomic structure of Bouteloua gracilis chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) and compared it with the sequenced ribosomal RNA spacer region from other cereals. This will allow us to understand chloroplast topology and the recombination ability of cpDNA. The development of potential tools for biotechnology applied to cereals can be focused through the study of cpDNA in family related grasses, such as B. gracilis. cpDNA was prepared from green B. gracilis and Zea mays plants using a modified NaCl method. A 2332 bp intergenic spacer (IGS) region (rrna16S-trnI-trnA-rrna23S) from B. gracilis was sequenced, which showed great similarity (at least 92%) to IGS region from Z. mays, Oryza sativa and Saccharum officinarum. A physical map constructed by Southern hybridization using petA, psbA, psbD, ndhA, rbcL, 16S and 23S rDNA digoxigenin-labelled probes showed low organizational resemblance to maize cpDNA. Moreover, when compared to a similar fragment of Z. mays, a 239 bp intron deletion was found in the trnI gene in the B. gracilis cpDNA. Restriction and hybridization analyses suggested that the B. gracilis cpDNA has a molecular weight of 130 Kb. We expect that the findings reported in this work can be a baseline for increasing our knowledge in chloroplast organization in grasses and for the development of molecular tools.
Agronomy Other
Simulated hail damage and yield reduction in lentil
R. A. Bueckert
KEYWORDS: lentil, Lens, hail, damage, yield reduction, Lentille, Lens, grêle, dommages, baisse de rendement
Bueckert, R. A. 2011. Simulated hail damage and yield reduction in lentil. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 117-124. The severity of crop damage by hail is frequently estimated using equations derived from controlled experiments, but this approach has not been extended to the indeterminate pulse crop lentil (Lens culinaris L.). The objective was to simulate hail damage on two lentil cultivars, and estimate yield reduction for use in the Crop Insurance Industry. Hail damage was simulated by controlled canopy crushing on two cultivars, CDC Blaze and CDC Sedley at 4 location-years in Saskatchewan in 2006 and 2007. Plots received simulated damage as the untreated control (0%), 30, 60 or 90% canopy height reduction by crushing at each of four growth stages: vegetative, early flowering, pod-filling, and physiological maturity. As damage intensity increased from 0 to 90%, yield decreased in both cultivars. Most yield reduction (>65%) was seen when damage occurred in reproductive growth. Yield reduction for lentil damaged in vegetative growth was described by linear models, and the reproductive stages by quadratic models. The equations will help improve hail damage assessment in lentil on the Northern Great Plains.
Yield stability analysis of broadly adaptive triticale germplasm in southern and central Alberta, Canada, for industrial end-use suitability
A. Goyal, B. L. Beres, H. S. Randhawa, A. Navabi, D. F. Salmon, F. Eudes
KEYWORDS: Triticale, ×Triticosecale Wittmack, wheat, Triticum aestivum L., yield, stability analysis, Genotype×environment interaction, Triticale, ×Triticosecale Wittmack, blé, Triticum aestivum L., rendement, analyse de la stabilité, interaction génotype×environnement
Goyal A., Beres, B. L., Randhawa, H. S., Navabi, A., Salmon, D. F. and Eudes, F. 2011. Yield stability analysis of broadly adaptive triticale germplasm in southern and central Alberta, Canada for industrial end-use suitability. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 125-135. Triticale (×Triticosecale Wittmack) is a cereal crop with high grain yield and biomass potential, which are traits desired in biorefinery processes that currently utilize wheat (Triticum aestivum). This study was conducted to evaluate the performance of introduced germplasm for its adaptability to selected Canadian prairie agroecosystems, and to benchmark both introduced and registered triticale lines against hard red spring wheat. To investigate the genotype×environment interaction effects on the performance of triticale genotypes, 30 genotypes (27 triticale; 3 hard red spring wheat) were grown in three environments for 3 yr (2005-2007) in southern and central Alberta, Canada. Variance due to genotypes, years, locations, and their interactions were studied by employing several stability analysis models. Site Regression Model (SREG) and GGE biplot analysis were conducted to rank the relative yield performance of cultivars and to identify stable genotypes. Triticale consistently produced higher grain and biomass than hard red spring wheat, but some lines were high in pentosan content, produced low test weight, and possessed unacceptable growing degree day requirements. However, several of the introduction lines displayed superior trait performance and high stability. Five advanced to “C” level registration testing with one subsequently recommended for registration. The results provide evidence that some of the global triticale germplasm are well-suited to the production environments of the Canadian prairies, and that triticale has potential to be the ideal cereal platform for future technological and biorefinery end-use applications.
Evaluation of mungbean accessions for the southern Canadian prairies
Mark Olson, Manjula Bandara, Deng Jin Bing, Art Kruger, Boris Henriquez, Eric Bremer
KEYWORDS: Vigna radiata, dry bean, green gram, green bean, Vigna radiata, haricot sec, ambérique, haricot vert
Olson, M., Bandara, M., Bing, D. J., Kruger, A., Henriquez, B. and Bremer, E. 2011. Evaluation of mungbean accessions for the southern Canadian prairies. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 137-141. Mungbean [Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek] accessions were screened under field conditions to determine their suitability for commercial production in regions similar to those used for dry bean production on the Canadian prairies. Field studies were conducted in 2007 and 2008 at two locations in southern Alberta and in 2007 at one location in southern Manitoba. Two mungbean lines produced a minimum of 400 kg seed ha-1 at 4 of 5 site-years, even with as little as 2240 crop heat units (CHU). The best-yielding accession produced an average seed yield of 750 kg ha-1. Although seed yields were low relative to dry bean (1920 to 3100 kg ha-1), substantial increases could likely be obtained through improvements in cultural practice and cultivar development.
Influence of isoxaflutole on colonization of corn (Zea mays L.) roots with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Glomus intraradices
Agnieszka Stokłosa, Ranganayaki Nandanavanam, Urszula Puczel, Mahesh K. Upadhyaya
KEYWORDS: Isoxaflutole, mycorrhiza, corn, Zea mays, Glomus intraradices, Isoxaflutole, mycorhizes, maïs, Zea mays, Glomus intraradices
Stoklosa, A., Nandanavanam, R., Puczel, U. and Upadhyaya, M. K. 2011. Influence of isoxaflutole on colonization of corn (Zea mays L.) roots with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Glomus intraradices. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 143-145. In a greenhouse pot culture study, corn plants were grown in sterilized soil containing mycorrhizal fungus Glomus intraradices and different concentrations of Converge Pro® herbicide (19.8, 39.6, 79.2, and 158.4 µg a.i. isoxaflutole L-1 soil). Mycorrhizal colonization of corn roots was observed to be 10 to 20% at 6 wk (exp. I) and 50 to 60% at 8 wk (exps. II and III) of plant growth. Isoxaflutole did not inhibit mycorrhizal colonization in any of the three experiments. These results show that the use of isoxaflutole does not affect corn plants by influencing mycorrhizal colonization for up to 8 wk of growth.
Bioreactors and molecular analysis in berry crop micropropagation — A review
Samir C. Debnath
KEYWORDS: Berry crops, in vitro culture, molecular markers, Petits fruits, culture in vitro, marqueurs moléculaires
Debnath, S. C. 2011. Bioreactors and molecular analysis in berry crop micropropagation - A review. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 147-157. While berry fruits have long enjoyed huge popularity among consumers, tremendous progress in plant tissue culture, resulting in great advances in micropropagation, has occurred. Of particular significance has been the evolution of the technology permitting multiplication of berry plants in bioreactors containing liquid media. Although automation of micropropagation in bioreactors has been advanced as a possible way of reducing propagation cost, optimal plant production depends upon better understanding of physiological and biochemical responses of plant to the signals of culture microenvironment and an optimization of specific physical and chemical culture conditions to control the morphogenesis of berry plants in liquid culture systems. Clonal fidelity can be a serious problem, and molecular strategies have been developed in order to reduce the variation to manageable levels. Molecular markers have been introduced to tissue culture research and can potentially be used in various facets of pertinent studies with berry crops. The paper focuses on bioreactor systems combined with semi-solid media used for in vitro culture of berry crops, cultivation of micropropagules and employment of molecular markers in micropropagated plants for the assessment of genetic fidelity, uniformity, stability and trueness-to-type among donor plants and tissue culture regenerants. The pertinent literature is reviewed and the relative merits and shortcomings of the various molecular markers applied are presented with an emphasis on the nature of tissue culture-induced variation.
Influencing factors and structural characterization of hyperhydricity of in vitro regeneration in Brassica oleracea var. italica
Ya Yu, Yong-Qin Zhao, Bing Zhao, Shuxin Ren, Yang-Dong Guo
KEYWORDS: Anatomy, broccoli, Hyperhydricity, orthogonal design, regeneration, ultrastructure, Anatomie, brocoli, hyper-hydricité, plan d'expérience orthogonalm, régénération, ultrastructure
Yu, U., Zhao, Y.-Q., Zhao, B., Ren, S. and Guo, Y.-D. 2011. Influencing factors and structural characterization of hyperhydricity of in vitro regeneration in Brassica oleracea var. italica. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 159-165. This study examines factors that affect the occurrence of hyperhydric tissue in in vitro cultures of Brassica oleracea variety italica. The anatomy of normal and hyperhydric leaves of plantlets regenerated from the hypocotyls was compared using scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. In hyperhydric leaves palisade tissue was absent and the spongy mesophyll displayed large, unorganized intercellular spaces. Hyperhydric leaves had abnormal stomata with deformed guard cells. Significant ultrastructural differences were observed between chloroplasts in normal and hyperhydric leaves. The effects of zeatin, indoleacetic acid, silver nitrate and sucrose on the formation of hyperhydric shoots were studied. Zeatin was the most important factor, followed by sucrose concentration, AgNO3 and indoleacetic acid. The process of hyperhydricity was found to be reversed by increasing the agar concentration and eliminating NH4NO3 from the macro-elements in the MS medium. This is the first report of hyperhydricity in Brassica oleracea, and our study gives a better understanding of the factors that influence hyperhydricity during in vitro regeneration in Brassica crops.
Temporal variations of starch and mass in greenhouse tomato leaves under CO2 enrichment
Diane Edwards, David Ehret, Peter Jolliffe
KEYWORDS: Tomato (greenhouse), CO2 enrichment, leaf starch, Leaf mass per area, dynamics, Tomate (de serre), enrichissement au CO2, amidon foliaire, masse foliaire par unité de surface, dynamique
Edwards, D., Ehret, D. and Jolliffe, P. 2011. Temporal variations of starch and mass in greenhouse tomato leaves under CO2enrichment. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 167-177. A plant-based method of guiding CO2 dosing may improve the effectiveness of CO2 enrichment in commercial greenhouse tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill) production. The temporal dynamics of two plant response indicators, leaf starch and leaf mass per unit area (LMA) were investigated in commercial and research greenhouses throughout day/night periods, as well as after the onset of CO2 enrichment. Both leaf starch and LMA tended to follow the diurnal profile of light but with 3 to 4 h of lag. The magnitude of the response, especially for starch, was affected by leaf position, CO2 enrichment and light. The highest starch contents were measured between 1400 and 1600 and the lowest levels occurred in the morning between sunrise and 1100. In many cases plants carried over substantial starch in upper leaves from one day to the next, indicating a carbon-surplus state. In the onset experiment leaf starch and LMA increased with 4 d of exposure to CO2 enrichment for mid and upper canopy leaves and continued to increase to the end of the monitoring period (7 d). Leaf starch contents and LMA are indicators of plant carbon status that show potential for guiding CO2 dosing.
Cultivar Description
SPC103 (Sentennial™) sweet cherry
Frank Kappel, Richard A. MacDonald, Rob T. Brownlee, Darrell-Lee McKenzie
KEYWORDS: Prunus avium, fruit breeding, cultivars, Prunus avium, amélioration des cultures fruitières, cultivars
Kappel, F., MacDonald, R. A., Brownlee, R. T. and McKenzie, D.-L. 2011 SPC103 (Sentennial™) sweet cherry. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 179-181. SPC103 (Sentennial™) is a sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) that has been released by the Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre (PARC-Summerland), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at Summerland, BC, as part of the ongoing sweet cherry breeding program that began in 1936. Sentennial™ is the latest maturing cultivar released from PARC-Summerland and has very good fruit size and firmness. It was released to growers for advanced commercial testing in 2006. The name Sentennial™ was chosen in honour of the District of Summerland's centennial year in 2006 and it was spelled with an “S” to maintain the tradition of starting most cherry cultivar names from the Summerland breeding program with an “S”.
Plant Pathology
Seedling age and inoculum density affect clubroot severity and seed yield in canola
S. F. Hwang, H. U. Ahmed, S. E. Strelkov, B. D. Gossen, G. D. Turnbull, G. Peng, R. J. Howard
KEYWORDS: Plasmodiophora brassicae, Brassica napu, Brassica rapa, resistance, residual fungicide, fungicide efficacy, disease management, Plasmodiophora brassicae, Brassica napus, Brassica rapa, résistance, fongicide à effet durable, efficacité des fongicides, lutte contre la maladie
Hwang, S. F., Ahmed, H. U., Strelkov, S. E., Gossen, B. D., Turnbull, G. D., Peng, G. and Howard, R. J. 2011. Seedling age and inoculum density affect clubroot severity and seed yield in canola. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 183-190. Clubroot, caused by Plasmodiophora brassicae, is a serious threat to canola (Brassica napus,B. rapa) production in western Canada because of its long-lived resting spores, high spore production potential, and negative impact on seed yield when inoculum pressure is high. The effect of inoculum density was studied by diluting heavily infested field soil with pathogen-free soil-less potting mix at seven increments, ranging from completely pathogen-free to 100% infested soil, and also by incorporating resting spores into the soil-less mix at concentrations of 1×105 to 1×108 spores cm-3, along with a non-inoculated control. Seed of the susceptible canola cultivar 34 SS 65 was planted in soil of each treatment, grown to maturity, and rated for plant height, seed yield, and clubroot severity (0-3 scale) at harvest. Clubroot severity increased and plant height and seed yield decreased with increasing inoculum density. To assess the effect of seedling age on reaction to clubroot, resting spores of P. brassicae were inoculated onto roots of 1-, 2-, 3- and 4-wk-old seedlings of 34 SS 65. In addition, seed (i.e., 0-wk-old seedlings) was sown into infested soil. Inoculation of young seedlings resulted in higher clubroot severity, shorter plants and lower yield than inoculation of older seedlings. These results indicate that seed treatment fungicides with a long residual period (4 wk or more) may be useful for the management of clubroot.
Effect and breeding potential of qSB-11LE, a sheath blight resistance quantitative trait loci from a susceptible rice cultivar
Shimin Zuo, Yuejun Yin, Li Zhang, Yafang Zhang, Zongxiang Chen, Shiliang Gu, Lihuang Zhu, Xuebiao Pan
KEYWORDS: Oryza sativa, sheath blight, resistance QTL, effect, breeding potential, Oryza sativa, flé trissure de la gaine, QTL de résistance, effet, potentiel pour l'amélioration
Zuo, S., Yin, Y., Zhang, L., Zhang, Y., Chen, Z., Gu, S., Zhu, L. and Pan, X. 2011. Effect and breeding potential of qSB-11LE, a sheath blight resistance QTL from a susceptible rice cultivar. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 191-198. Sheath blight (SB) caused by Rhizoctonia solani is one of the most important diseases of rice worldwide. The QTL qSB-11LE, located on chromosome 11 of an SB-susceptible Oryza japonica rice cultivar Lemont, was identified in previous studies. In this study, its effect on SB resistance and its potential in breeding programs were evaluated using a set of near-isogenic lines (NILs) that exhibit three different genotypes at the qSB-11LE locus and seven backcross populations. Results of field disease evaluation under artificial inoculation showed that the inheritance of resistance of qSB-11LE to SB is controlled by additive gene action and that the genes have a dosage effect on SB resistance. In greenhouse evaluations, the resistance effect of qSB-11LE was expressed at 11 and 14 d after inoculation at the tillering stage. Analysis of field resistance of six BC1F1 populations and one BC2F1 population, developed from the backcrosses between Lemont as the donor parent and six commercial O. indica rice cultivars as recurrent parents, indicated that qSB-11LE could be effectively used to enhance these cultivars' SB resistance. These observations suggest that the qSB-11LE has considerable potential in rice breeding for resistance to SB, and that its flanking molecular markers could be employed in practical breeding programs for marker-assisted selection.
Identification of microsatellite markers linked to quantitative trait loci controlling resistance to Fusarium root rot in field pea
J. Feng, R. Hwang, K. F. Chang, R. L. Conner, S. F. Hwang, S. E. Strelkov, B. D. Gossen, D. L. McLaren, A. G. Xue
KEYWORDS: simple sequence repeat, QUANTITATIVE TRAIT LOCI, Fusarium solani, Root rot, pea, SSR, locus à caractère quantitatif, Fusarium solani, pourridié, pois
Feng, J., Hwang, R., Chang, K. F., Conner, R. L., Hwang, S. F., Strelkov, S. E., Gossen, B. D., McLaren, D. L. and Xue, A. G. 2011. Identification of microsatellite markers linked to quantitative trait loci controlling resistance to Fusarium root rot in field pea. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 199-204. Fusarium root rot, caused by Fusarium solani (Mart.) Sacc. f. sp. pisi (F. R. Jones) W. C. Snyder & H. N. Hans, is the most common root disease of field pea (Pisum sativum L.) in western Canada. In this study, a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population (n=71) of field pea, derived from crosses between a resistant cultivar Carman, and a susceptible cultivar Reward, was evaluated to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) controlling resistance to Fusarium root rot. The parental genotypes and RILs were evaluated for resistance to root rot following inoculation with F. solani in field experiments during 2007 and 2008. The frequency distribution of disease severities among the RILs was continuous. Transgressive segregation for resistance was observed among the RILs, with five lines more resistant than Carman, but no lines were more susceptible than Reward. To identify DNA markers linked with the resistance, 213 microsatellite markers were screened with genomic DNA from the two parental cultivars. Only 14 markers were polymorphic between the two parents and were used to genotype each of the RILs. Quantitative trait loci analysis based on the mean disease severity data from 2007 and 2008 identified a QTL that explained 39.0% of the phenotypic variance in the RIL population. This QTL is flanked by markers AA416 and AB60 on linkage group VII. The microsatellite markers that are closely linked to this QTL may be useful for marker assisted selection to develop cultivars with superior Fusarium root rot resistance.
The Biology of Canadian Weeds. 145. Muhlenbergia frondosa (Poir.) Fernald
Stephen J. Darbyshire, Ardath Francis, Clifford W. Crompton, Clarence J. Swanton
KEYWORDS: Muhlenbergia frondosa, wire-stemmed muhly, wirestem muhly, muhlenbergie feuillée, MUHFR, weed biology, Muhlenbergia frondosa, wire-stemmed muhly, wirestem muhly, muhlenbergie feuillée, MUHFR, biologie des mauvaises herbes
Darbyshire, S. J., Francis, A., Crompton, C. W. and Swanton, C. J. 2011. The Biology of Canadian Weeds. 145. Muhlenbergia frondosa (Poir.) Fernald. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 205-219. Muhlenbergia frondosa is a perennial grass native to eastern North America, which naturally inhabits moist to wet forest margins and openings, freshwater littoral habitats, and grasslands. In Canada, its spread as a weed appears to have coincided with changes in cultivation practices during the past few decades. Infestations in such crops as maize and soya bean have been reported mainly from southern Ontario and Quebec, and the Midwest and northeastern areas of the United States, where it reduces yields and can be difficult to control. It is shade tolerant and able to compete under the closed canopy of crops. Although this weed can be controlled by herbicides, its ability to spread by regrowth from rhizomes, and its abundant seed production, cause ongoing problems in arable fields, particularly in conservation-tillage systems. As a warm-season C4 grass, growth begins relatively late in the season (early June in Canada), after most intensive weed control measures have already been taken. Timing herbicide application with active growth stages (10-30 cm) is most effective and the use of herbicide-tolerant crops provides additional control opportunities after crop planting.
A meta-analysis of seed protein concentration QTL in soybean
Qi Zhao-ming, Sun Ya-nan, Wu Qiong, Liu Chun-yan, Hu Guo-hua, Chen Qing-shan
KEYWORDS: soybean, protein concentration, consensus QTL, marker-assisted selection, soja, concentration de protéines, QTL consensus, sélection assistée par marqueur
Qi, Z.-m., Sun Y.-n., Wu, Q., Liu, C.-y., Hu, G.-h. and Chen, Q.-s. 2011. A meta-analysis of seed protein concentration QTL in soybean. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 221-230. An integrated map of QTLs related to seed protein concentration in soybean has been constructed, based on the public genetic map, soymap2 as a reference map, along with a set of 107 QTLs reported in the literature over the past 20 yr. Each of these QTLs was projected onto the soymap2 by software package BioMercator v2.1. Twenty-three consensus QTLs were detected. The confidence interval at all sites ranged from 1.52 to 14.31cM, and the proportion of the phenotypic variance associated with each of them from 1.5 to 20.8%. Major chromosomal sites were identified on LG I (Gm20), four important sites were identified, involving LG A1 (Gm05), B2 (Gm14), E (Gm07) and M (Gm15). A meta-analysis approach was used to improve the precision of the location of these sites. These results facilitate gene mining and molecular assist-selection in soybean.
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Home > Passage of Love
Passage of Love
Miller, Alex
Critically acclaimed, two-time winner of the Miles Franklin award, winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize and numerous other literary awards, Miller's new work is an exquisitely personal novel of love and creativity.
'Capacious, wise, and startlingly honest about human frailty and the permutations of love over time. Frankly autobiographical, it is also a work of fully achieved fiction, ripe with experience, double-voiced, peopled with unpredictable men and women, and set in Miller's landscapes that characteristically throb with life.' --Morag Fraser, Australian Book Review
Sitting in a New York park, an old man holds a book and tries to accept that his contribution to the future is over. Instead, he remembers a youthful yearning for open horizons, for Australia, a yearning he now knows inspired his life as a writer. Instinctively he picks up his pen and starts at the beginning ...
At twenty-one years, Robert Crofts leaves his broken dreams in Far North Queensland, finally stopping in Melbourne almost destitute. It's there he begins to understand how books and writing might be the saving of him.
When Robert is introduced to Lena Soren, beautiful, rich and educated, his life takes a very different path. But in the intimacy of their connection lies an unknowability that both torments and tantalises as Robert and Lena long for something that neither can provide for the other.
Alex Miller is magnificent in this most personal of all novels filled with rare wisdom and incisive observation.
'Half a dozen of Miller's novels are likely to be judged among the finest of the past quarter century. They were written in the course of a career that has showcased Miller's subtlety, narrative craft, moral acuity and delight in writing about what he loves.'
'A thoughtful autobiographical work by an award-winning Australian novelist ... traces themes of art and commitment through Crofts' relationships with three women. Miller pulls back from the narrative several times in interludes that return to the first person of the much older man and highlight how memory has many layers. A rich addition to the growing shelf of autofiction from a seasoned storyteller.' Kirkus (starred review)
Author: Miller, Alex
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Settler Colonialism: The Oromo Extremist Narrative (Getaneh Yismaw)
The writer Getaneh Yismaw
Getaneh Yismaw
The spread of asymmetrically exaggerated grievance narratives and outright false historical assertions made by Oromo extremist nationalists, that have deadly and potentially genocidal consequences, are not widely known much less being refuted based on historical facts and evidences. This article is an attempt to bring attention to these dangerous propagandas that’s been shaping a significant proportion of Oromo youth’s psyche and make a clarion call for students of history and others to step up and refute false assertions and twisted narratives with historical facts, evidences and proper context of the time in which events took place.
1. The Genesis: TPLF’s Anti-Amhara Ideology and Its Consequences
The Stalinist ideology of nations and nationalities that was espoused by the Ethiopian students’ movement of the 1960’s and 70’s, served as the foundation that led to the rise of secessionist, anti-Ethiopian forces, such as the EPLF, TPLF and OLF. The toxic alien ideology, which was induced from abroad on a junket, including the 1936 book by Roman Prochazka (Abyssinia: The Powder Barrel), asserted the existence of one privileged ethnic group, the Amhara, that exclusively ruled over the rest. The sentiment was further cemented in Eritrea, thanks to the 60-year colonial rule by Italy and Britain.
These three secessionist forces have been tremendously successful at achieving what they set out to do, and more.
The 1975 TPLF manifesto took the anti-Amhara ideology literally, and made the Amhara people its primary enemy.
Today, Ethiopia is fragile and at risk of dismemberment— a feat even European colonial forces and many others before them had not be able to pull off. Eritrea has long seceded, leaving Ethiopia as the largest country in the world without access to the sea. Tigrai is a quasi-confederate state out of the reach of the federal government’s military, security and law-enforcement organs. The OLF (with the warlord JaWar) is rapidly establishing a medieval-type hegemony over the so-called Oromia region and spreading instability to the adjacent regions.
Meanwhile, decades of vengeful rule against the “enemy” Amhara people by the TPLF regime has resulted in abject poverty and destitution in the so-called Amhara killil. For example, as documented by journalist and activist Getachew Shiferaw, the Amhara killil has over 1000 primary schools that are barely more than straw huts or make-shift straw structures. Further, as the late Amhara region official, Tesfaye Getachew, courageously revealed, there has not been a single power-substation that was constructed in the region during the TPLF rule, essentially ruling out the possibility of having any large-scale industries.
Millions of Amharas, who live outside of their “killil”, have been constantly displaced and systematically relegated as 2nd and 3rd class citizens throughout the country. Although, according to the official census, Amharas are either the second or third largest ethnic groups in such areas as Oromia, Benshangul, Harrar, Dire Dawa and Gambella, ranging from 10% to close to 25%, they are not eligible to hold offices or have representations.
In contrast, almost all non-Amhara ethnic groups, including Agew (plus Wag), Oromo, Qimant and Argoba, which constitute 3.7%, 3.0%,1.2%, 0.4%, respectively, of the Amhara region population, are accorded self-rule and zonal or special woreda level administrations.
This stark asymmetric disenfranchisement and underdevelopment of the Amhara ethnic group throughout the country is the effect of the TPLF’s narrative that made it its primary enemy. (This should have been one the primary agenda for ANDM/ADP if it were an actual organic organization that promote and protect its constitutes’ political and economic interests. But organic political party, it is not! It was founded as TPLF trojan-horse to implement the policy of retribution and vengeance mentioned earlier. This ANDM/ADP group, even after the so-called reform and undergoing name change, is still in the mindset of being taken for a ride by a master so much so that its senior apparatchiks’ and leaders are being had by Oromo Nationalists and extremists alike. But this is a topic for another day).
All this is not to say TPLF was better for any non-Amhara ethnic group. Far from it: TPLF was repressive for all ethnic groups. It’s to show that the Amharas who were considered enemies bore the brunt of its vengeful oppression.
Admittedly, the egregious oppression of the Amharas by the TPLF is all very well known. It has been written about, talked about and protested-against, and is seared in the conscience of the new generation who came of age through its consequences. However, as will be highlighted below, what has not been equally talked about or is well known outside of the Oromo nationalist circles is the narrative of the Oromo extremists’ fabricated grievances, which has been nurtured and effectively used to advance the TPLF’s anti-Amhara campaign.
2. “Settler Colonialism” Narrative
Parasitically attached to TPLF’s widely known governing ideology of the existence of one ethnic group that has dominance over the rest, but unbeknown to most Ethiopians, is the Oromo extremists’ narrative of settler colonialism. This narrative, which once was considered a fringe, and ignored and laughed at because of its fantasy and falsehoods, is now embraced as “history” by the so-called Qeerro generation.
Incidentally, there are now several Oromo extremist intellectuals who are active purveyors of this false history and spreading poisonous propaganda to shape the current Oromo generation, with adverse consequences on the integrity of contemporary Ethiopia.
One such hate monger is Asafa Jalata, a professor of sociology and African studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, who spreads falsehoods and fascistic propaganda against the Amhara people. In one of his writings, he declared:
“The African American and Oromo movements have been anticolonial struggles, and they aimed to dismantle racial/ethnonational hierarchies legitimated by the ideology of racism in the hegemonic state of the United States and peripheral and imperial state of Ethiopia. …. Oromos make up 50% of the Ethiopian population. … The Oromo movement emerged to fight Ethiopian settler colonialism and its institutions, and underdevelopment” (Jalata, 2003; see embedded pic for abstract).
First, the paper is blatantly flawed in asserting that the Oromia make up 50% of the population. At the time of the publication of the paper, Ethiopia had conducted two censuses, in which the Oromo subpopulation constituted 31% and 32% in 1984 and 1994, respectively. Therefore, Jalata’s assertion of 50% is a clear demonstration of his blatant disregard for academic integrity, in which census figures are fabricated at will for a political goal.
The myth of “Oromo is 50% of Ethiopia,” which has been laundered and pumped into Oromo political bloodstream for a long time by extremists like Jalata, is now being used to “justify” the ongoing “kegna” campaign. This is a campaign intended to establish absolute Oromo ownership and hegemony, through direct control of all the economic, political and security establishments in the country, and to realize their latent desire to “Oromize” many heterogeneous communities.
Tragically, the campaign has not only created massive displacements, but also has made it impossible to conduct any credible census in the so-called Oromo region in the foreseeable future.
Jalata’s other assertion that the Oromo ethnic group has been under settler colonial occupation has no theoretical or historical basis. Settler colonialism is a form of colonialism which seeks to replace the original population of the colonized territory with a new society of settlers. As in all forms of colonialism, it is based on exogenous domination, typically organized or supported by an imperial authority. Well-known examples of settler colonialism, of course, include Canada, the United States and Australia, where the indigenous people (i.e., native Americans and Aborigines) were systemically decimated, replaced or dominated by the new settlers. Thus, Jalata’s assertion is not only inconsistent with the notion of “settler colonialism”, but is also in direct contradiction to his fabricated “Oromo is 50% of Ethiopia” mythology. If his fantastic claim of settler colonialism was true, the Oromo population should have been wiped out like the Australian Aborigines or native Indian tribes in the US, who are limited to be “sovereign” in tribal reservations, scattered throughout the mid and interior Western states.
However, Jalata’s assertion is not only inconsistent with the notion of “settler colonialism”, but is also in direct contradiction to his fabricated “Oromo is 50% of Ethiopia” mythology. If his fantastic claim of settler colonialism was true, the Oromo population should have been wiped out like the Australian Aborigines or native Indian tribes in the US, who are limited to be “sovereign” in tribal reservations, scattered thought-out the mid and interior Western states.
Propagandists like Mr Jalata on one hand claim Oromo ethnic group is dominant with 50% of Ethiopian population but on another they turn around and claim Oromo is dominated and under settler colonialism—in which case the Oromo population should have been wiped out like the Australian Aborigines or native Indian tribes in the US—who are limited to be “sovereign” in tribal reservation dotted enclaves scattered thought-out the mid and interior Western states.
For anyone who has not been to one of the Oromo nationalists’ propaganda cesspools, the idea of “settler colonialism”, in a country that has preserved its independence for centuries, may be incomprehensible. However, the Oromo extremists’ narrative, which asserts that the indigenous Oromo country was colonized by settlers, mostly by the dreaded Amharas, now has a mainstream feel, with a firm stranglehold on the conscience of the current generation!
The third fabrication in Jalata’s paper, and one embraced by other extremist Oromo propagandists, is the laughable narrative of grievances and victimhood which equates the so-called Oromo struggle with that of the struggle of African-Americans for civil liberties and equality. This fabrication is an insult to millions of African-Americans, as it trivializes the legacy of 400 years of slavery, segregation and brutality where its effect is still visible today.
As any cursory reading of Ethiopian history shows, the Oromos migrated and expanded northwards from the Borena area in the 16 and 17 Centuries, decimating many communities along the way. However, according to Oromo propagandists, the beginning of history was when Menelik II came to power as King of Shewa in 1865 and then as Emperor of Ethiopia. Further, it seems to be of no relevance to extremist academics-without-ethics like Jalata that there is no evidence to support the claim of segregation to which the Oromo people were subjected, as were African Americans in the United States.
3. The Five Million Massacre Lie
The “settler colonialism” narrative, through which Oromo extremists see their world, has been a convenient framework to fabricate and exaggerate alleged atrocities, drawing from intra-war stories that were all too common in that era.
Among the myths of the settler narrative that have been pushed down to the Oromo populace by TPLF and extremist propaganda include the killings of 5 million Oromos and the graphic mutilation of women at Anole (Arusi).
Contrary to the claims of the propagandists, there is no evidence to support the assertion that Emperor Menelik II ordered the killings of 5 million Oromos. In fact, there is no evidence that any large-scale massacre ever happened, much less it was ordered by the king. The truth is that the entire Ethiopian population at the end of Emperor Menelik’s reign was at most about 5.0 million, as can be figured from historical estimates of 2.8%-2.9% annual population growth rates.
Unfortunately, this myth is now a widespread belief held among the uncritical Oromo youth, thanks in part to the works of irresponsible social media nihilists, and diehard Oromo nationalists, such as Mohammed Ademo, who has been promoting his vicious hatred for Amhara through his appearances at Arab satellite TV stations, and influential positions in OLF/ODP circles and the Oromia Broadcasting Network (see pictures of twits made in 2012 and 2018).
If intellectual elites like Mohammed Ademo can spread “5 million Oromos killed” lie without any evidence, other than siting some mythical beliefs, when Ethiopian total population, at the time of this alleged massacre is, at best 5 million, will there be any moral or ethical restraint for any of these extremists that prohibit them from concocting “historical facts” and myths to help achieve their secessionist/expansionist goals?
4. The Anole Myth
Perhaps one of the most egregious fabrications of the Anole myth that led to the erection a gruesome monument, depicting a severed body part of a woman. The fictional narrative and the monument were intended to paint a gruesome atrocity perpetrated by the invading and conquering Amhara army led by Emperor Menelik II, thereby poisoning the minds of young Oromo children and inculcating in them hatred, animosity and resentment against Amharas.
Incidentally, the man responsible for the fabrication of this myth was a former TPLF operative and Eritrean national, Tesfaye Gebereab. The fiction, which was propagated in graphic and gruesome detail by Gebreab, has been debunked by prominent Oromos, including the late Dr. Negasso Gidada. Although Gidada supported the monument for political reasons once it was constructed, he admitted that there was absolutely no evidence in support of the claim that the atrocity happened in the way it had been depicted.
More recently, Addisu Arega, a top Oromo politician and head of the ruling OPDO/ODP Secretariat, made a very rare admission about this part of the Oromo Nationalists’ false narrative, and revealed that the Anole myth had been part of a well-orchestrated and generously-financed TPLF operation to create animosity between the Amhara and Oromo ethnic groups. He specifically singled out Tesfaye Gebereab for condemnation for his active role in promoting the myth.
While many observers praised Ato Addisu’s stand to tell the truth, the negative reaction from the Oromo body politics was swift, with immediate backlash. He was vociferously vilified, asked to resign, and condemned by extremists, nihilist Oromo activists and politicians alike. As a result, he was obliged to walk back, repeatedly apologize, and ask for forgiveness. The OLF, the oldest Oromo secessionist paramilitary group that commits bank robberies and displacements with impunity, warned any attempt to touch the “history” of the Anole hate monument would have serious consequences.
In the ensuing days, several demonstrations were held by Oromo youth in Arusi area condemning Ato Addisu for his admission of the truth. The demonstrators demanded the fiction writer and “their history” be respected, and amplified the Anole myth, waving banners that displayed men with severed hands.
Needless to say, the absence of facts and evidence is immaterial to Oromo political nihilists and propagandists. To them, evidence and facts are secondary to their wild dreams of Oromo state formation and the urge for vengeance. Indeed, as they blindly march towards those ends, all means, fabricated and myths, are justified.
5. The Consequences
The underlying motive of the false narrative is unquestionably the desire to create an Oromo state or to Oromize much of Ethiopia. Therefore, this resentment had to be created, nurtured and propagandized. It is also essential to introduce the “us” versus “settler” fascistic mentality to mobilize the youth and some of the more cautious members of the Oromo society.
The hatred that is fueling the current displacements and thousands of home demolitions we have been witnessing in the so-called Oromo region is but a small part of this grand scheme. The constant reference to Addis Ababa as a “garrison city” is a prelude to a campaign of a medieval type, with the ultimate goal of expelling the “settlers” from, what they consider, an enemy enclave.
In the face of these potentially genocidal consequences, the likes of which the country has never seen in its long history, the Ethiopian elites have a moral responsibility to confront this cancerous and fascistic false narrative being propagated by Oromo extremists. There can be no excuse for failure to address the barrage of easily provable lies with documented historical facts, when the most brazen history and narrative heist is being hermetically sealed into the Oromo youth psyche.
It is critical that every Oromo extremist’s false assertion and made-up narrative be confronted with the truth, and refuted based on historical facts and evidence. It might not convince the brainwashed mobs who are mindlessly brandishing their machete to avenge for their ancestors; however, it would at least help initiate informed conversations about the fanciful narratives of “settler colonialism” and “the 5 million lie”.
Finally, propagandists like Asafa Jalata, who laid the intellectual foundation for displacements and tensions we see today, should incontrovertibly be held responsible for the displacements and atrocities that have happened and those yet to come.
Editor’s note: This article appeared first on Getaneh Yismaw page on Facebook. Views reflected in the article reflect views of the writer, not borkena’s view. If you would like to publish article, please send submissions to info@borkena.com
Related Post : Rethinking the notion of self-determination
2 Responses to "Settler Colonialism: The Oromo Extremist Narrative (Getaneh Yismaw)"
aye abesha June 15, 2019 at 11:05 am
Oromo migrants in the 15th century settled in many of the Ethiopian highlands.
That needs to be the first lesson in the history books of ‘Oromia’.
thomas June 20, 2019 at 2:58 pm
1) Ethiopia population was 14M in population by the year 1907, menelik 2 died 1917 ? which mean he had enough time to kill 5M oromo including almost 1M if you include ethnic such as sidamo,walata & few tigray who wanted to unite with eritera.
2) Because Ethiopia almost got colonized by Italy it doest make it uncolonizer,Japan almost got colonized by British empire which Japan managed to win?yet it called colonizer by Korea,Taiwan & china..
3) Ethiopia fit all label that what make empire colonized-: force expansion, dividing ethnic & create new boarder,ethnic kill those who resisted to unite, force convert to faith, assimilate culture,tradition & language as well settler.
4) even those we cant call oromo colonized ethnic since they already have power such as shewa & wollo had power even during derg, other ethiopian are other betrayed or colonized.
5) south,east,west Ethiopia were colonized, when north tigray were betrayed by Menelik 2 giving their land to Italy that created today Eritrea.
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Trump and the Afghan War
A slice of life in Afghanistan (Photo by Anna M.)
A concept that you learn quickly in the military is that you can delegate authority but not responsibility. The buck stops with the guy or gal in charge, and when it’s policy at the national level, that guy is the commander-in-chief, currently Donald Trump. Yet when it comes to the Afghan war, it appears Trump may be seeking to evade responsibility even as he delegates the specifics of strategy and troop levels to his “civilian” Secretary of Defense, retired General James Mattis.
That’s the news out of Washington: that Trump has delegated to Mattis the decision as to how many additional U.S. troops should be sent to Afghanistan, and what strategy they should employ in a war that Mattis admits the U.S. military is “not winning.”
Think about that. After nearly 16 years and a trillion dollars spent, the U.S. is “not winning” in Afghanistan, which is, to put it honestly, an admission of defeat. “Not winning” means we’re losing, yet how likely is it that the U.S. military, effectively under the command of retired General Mattis, is going to shift gears completely and withdraw?
Mattis testified to Congress that the Taliban “had a good year last year” and that “winning,” which we’re currently not doing, is a scenario in which U.S. forces, working with Afghan forces, are able to provide local security after several years of “frequent skirmishing” with the Taliban and other insurgent forces.
Yes — that’s the definition of “winning.” A long-term U.S. commitment of more troops and more money with continued internecine warfare in Afghanistan.
In the near-term, Mattis will likely send more troops (“trainers” and “advisers”) and more money, promising that this time American training and methods will work, that this time corruption will be curtailed, that this time the Taliban will be neutralized (I doubt Mattis is foolish enough to promise “victory”). Trump will rubber-stamp Mattis’s decision, which gives him the ability to blame his generals if and when the Afghan war takes yet another turn that is contrary to U.S. imperatives. (Recall how Trump blamed his generals for losing the Navy SEAL in the bungled raid on Yemen.)
As a candidate, Trump deplored the waste of America’s wars and suggested he would try to end them. As president, Trump is kowtowing to the Pentagon, ensuring these wars will continue. Worst of all, even as he delegates authority, he is evading responsibility.
It’s a recipe for incessant warfare, yet more suffering, and the continued erosion of democracy in America.
An Afterthought: Let’s suppose for a moment that Trump actually wanted to end the Afghan war. It would require considerable political capital to take on the national security state — capital that Trump currently doesn’t have, embroiled as he is in controversy (lawsuits!) and ongoing investigations. This is hardly ever remarked upon in the media: the fact that Trump, who ran on a platform that was often quite critical of conventional wisdom and wasteful wars, has little latitude to act on this platform (assuming he’d want to) when he’s constantly under attack in the media as a Putin stooge, or worse. Some would say he has only himself to blame here, but it goes deeper than that, I think.
Update (6/16/17): Surprise! News out of the Pentagon today suggests that another 4000 or so U.S. troops will be sent as a mini-surge to help train and advise Afghan forces. And so the “stalemate” in Afghanistan will continue.
As I wrote back in February for TomDispatch.com:
That a few thousand troops could somehow reverse the present situation and ensure progress toward victory is obviously a fantasy of the first order, one that barely papers over the reality of these last years: that Washington has been losing the war in Afghanistan and will continue to do so, no matter how it fiddles with troop levels.
Update 2 (6/16/17): Editorial title at the New York Times: Afghanistan Is Trump’s War Now. It reflects a major flaw and a fatal conceit — that Afghanistan is a war and not a country or a people, that it only matters as a war (at least to Americans), and that somehow Trump now owns it. Recall that before Americans wage war, it’s supposed to require a Congressional declaration. Wars are not supposed to be owned by presidents and waged at their whim. WTF, America?
Update 3 (6/17/17): Watching retired General David Petraeus last night on PBS was a grim experience. He spoke of a generational war in Afghanistan and a U.S. commitment that might come to rival our time in South Korea, i.e. 60+ years. Most revealing of all was the language he used. He spoke of achieving “a sustainable, sustained commitment” to Afghanistan. 4000 additional troops are part of that “sustainable, sustained commitment.”
There was the usual talk of regional stability, of maintaining a base against terrorism, and so on. But what the Petraeus interview revealed was the total bankruptcy of American strategy and thinking, encapsulated so well by the concept of a “generational war” modulated by a “sustainable, sustained commitment.”
Update 4 (6/17/17): Good god. At Fox News, retired General Jack Keane is calling for an additional 10,000 to 20,000 troops to change the momentum in the Afghan war. These troops will somehow change the “absolute disgrace” of the war (he mainly blamed President Obama for refusing to make the necessary commitment to win the war).
These generals never ask the question: Why are our “enemies” doing just fine without U.S. troops and billions of dollars in heavy equipment and air power? Whether in Vietnam or Afghanistan or elsewhere, the answer for these generals is always more: more U.S. troops, more firepower, more aid to our “allies.”
If these generals were investors, they’d keep funneling money to Bernie Madoff even after his fund had been revealed as a Ponzi scheme. After all, the initial returns were promising, and if we keep sending more money, this time, maybe this time, it won’t all be stolen …
Posted on June 15, 2017 June 17, 2017 by wjastorePosted in Asia, US Military, warTagged Afghan War, Afghanistan, commander in chief, James Mattis, Pentagon, Taliban, Trump.
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23 thoughts on “Trump and the Afghan War”
D. J. Manley says:
Just serves to point out that DoD is the fourth–and dominant–branch of the US government.
Noteworthy that we don’t even bother to feign the illusion of “civilian” control of the military any more; just have double-dipping retired generals segue into the SecDef slot.
mikestrong33 says:
Makes me wonder (as I have for many, many years) why do we think our advisers/trainers are superior and why does anyone want our advisers. We keep getting our rear ends kicked for a variety of reasons and we still think we have advice to give. Maybe we could hire advisers from all those folks who keep kicking our rears. What a win-win, in 1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder fashion. They get money, “we” get buy in (depending on who is “we” – could sell stocks). Everybody keeps their enterprises in business (literally, ah, me thinks that is a clue). Cheery thought, that. : – )
It is not clear that anyonee does want our advisors. More a case of us inserting our “advisors” (shit-disturbers) sub rosa, then finding a local surrogate who will take credit (in exchange for significant emoluments) for having “asked” for our “advice” (direction). From there on, they surge and escalate ad absurdum.
Indeed. Not only is the value of those ‘advisors’ doubtful as such, but remember that they hail from many different countries… Just imagine US army (or local US government) units being ‘advised & trained’ by ‘specialists’ from China, Uruguay, Finland, Serbia, Congo and a few more? Each with their own background, approach, experience, not to mention language. After all English and its various pidgin versions as spoken by multi-national ‘advisors’, is a foreign language to Afghans.
Generally in Afghanistan, we seem to be getting ever closer back to square one.
During the first few years of the US/NATO occupation civilians killed by random shooting, speeding army vehicles etc were common. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Shinwar_shooting.
Eventually the negative PR seemed to work and possibly military leaving for the ‘battlefield’ were less indoctrinated about how savage the country was to which they were being dispatched to heroically defend US values. The cause of civilian casualties shifted from trigger happy nervous recruits to night raids and other covert actions in remote areas where only embedded – and therefore loyal – press would be admitted – and of course Gen Petraeus’ embedded biographer, who seemed to relish in such bombing raids: http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/13/travels-with-paula-i-a-time-to-build/.
Ten years later, it looks like we’re indeed getting back to square one, including those panicking army kids : http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/man-sons-killed-troops-nangarhar-170612083754646.html. But that should not come as a surprise. After all, thanks to Rear Admiral Greg Smith we know that the US has its own amazing interpretation of self defense: “You don’t have to be fired upon to fire back. [sic]” … http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2010/03/14/nato-covered-up-botched-night-raid-in-afghanistan-that-killed-five.phtml
That this kind of ‘self defense’ only applies when we do the killing, goes without saying.
Clif Brown says:
I keep wondering – what is the point of our being in Afghanistan? I think about what winning means.
Consider for a moment the purpose of capitalism, to make a profit. Being in Afghanistan certainly brings profits not only to the the weapons manufacturers but also to the host of companies that provide services for our military there. Supporting the operation of bases, far removed from danger, doing laundry, serving food, providing supplies, driving trucks, etc. at inflated prices while employing local labor for very low pay, could business be any better? 16 years! In the States plenty of businesses can go bust over that period, but in Afghanistan, there’s business security in never-ending insecurity. It’s plain old vested interests. The Civil War and WW2 were over in a flash with epic destruction. Nobody for a moment thought about extending them! Now almost nobody dies and nothing of importance is at stake so why not let business be business?
If the real purpose of being in Afghanistan is business profits and having a mighty footprint for empire there, then are we losing? The training mission can go on forever and with military-parasitic businesses, who cares about the Taliban running around? After all, they provide the necessary enemy, just as in other places Russia or Iran can take on the enemy role we assign them regardless of their behavior. And just maybe we do score a final business win – McDonalds and ReMax Reality in Kabul! We know from long experience in Central and South America that any government will do. As long as business is welcomed, the status of the general public isn’t of any real importance.
Looked at in this way further base and troop deployments are just fine, so on and on it goes. Has anyone read Peter Van Buren’s, “We Meant Well”? A lot of Americans cleaned up in Iraq from our involvement and look how we seem to be leaking people back in while maintaining the world’s largest mall, oops I mean embassy, there. We aren’t really, seriously at war anywhere, but the infrastructure of war everywhere pays off if you know how to play it.
Gregory Herr says:
Clif…very much to the heart of the matter. And they are sure are playing it.
Monotonous Languor says:
The Roman Emperor Trajan is perhaps a leading candidate for the most accomplished Emperor and General in Roman History. He ended up conquering what we know today as Iraq. Hadrian, Trajan’s successor abandoned these Iraqi conquests. Modern historians acknowledge the difficulty of the conquest, but a permanent Roman garrison would have required more Roman Legions and a great expenditure. Thus, a pull back to a more rational border. Hadrian as Emperor could just give the withdrawal order, without the bother of political repercussions.
One haunted house from our own history is the, Who Lost China blame game after Mao’s victory in China. Some histories related LBJ feared a repeat of the blame game backlash if he withdrew from Vietnam.
If the US withdrew from Afghanistan, it probably would be only a matter of two months or so before the Taliban took over again. The fury of the Deep State would be immense. The Wars in the Mideast and Afghanistan are never, I mean never allowed to be debated as a part of the political process. The most that is said about these wars are some platitudes about how we have the best military, rah, rah, rah. Somehow the sheer sobering reality of if we have the best military, then why have we not wrapped these wars up with a victory, is not asked.
Some stupid new or rehashed old tactical plan will be dusted off and presented as a new improved victory model.
wjastore says:
Thanks for the great comments. Yes, war means big profits for some, even as it drains the American taxpayer. Another reason why these wars persist is that Americans are isolated from their effects. It’s an “all volunteer” military, after all, meaning no draft (and no draft protests). The media and military tell us that we must persist, else the scary terrorists will be back — that’s basically the rationale for Afghanistan — we haven’t been attacked from terrorists training in Afghanistan since 9/11, hence we’re winning the Afghan war! I’ve heard this said in Congress … no kidding.
Orwell said all that mattered is that war should exist — it’s a great prop to authoritarian states. Madison’s quote about liberty not surviving in a state that’s constantly at war is also telling. War is also an essential part of America’s violent heritage, our culture.
I know this is all a jumble, but when we ask why the Afghan war persists, we have to take a broad look. Profits, isolation (and ignorance), fear, war as a prop to authoritarianism and as a force against liberty, war as a part of American culture: all of these are involved, and more.
Succinct summary of the chief variables driving the militarization of American society. Keep up your great work!
Michael Murry says:
Some very good comments. I’d like to suggest some additional reading:
(1) Why Afghanistan? Fighting a War for the War System Itself, by Gareth Porter, antiwar.com (June 14, 2017)
(2) “The War In Afghanistan Is A Racket,” Moon of Alabama (June 14, 2017)
(3) “When Generals Make Policies – From Tactics To Strategy To Political Decision” Moon of Alabama (June 16, 2017)
Afghanistan means Vietnam in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains with the U.S. military doing what it does best: namely, what historian Barbara Tuchman called “working the levers” of a vast Rube Goldberg machine having no purpose other than its own careening destructiveness.
I’d like to comment on some of this reading, but I have to go to sleep now. Perhaps tomorrow when I have enough energy to deal with the dreary, dispiriting insanity.
Mike – I followed your link to the Porter essay “Why Afghanistan” and found it excellent. Here are two excerpts that stood out…
“…the Pentagon designed a massive $2.16 billion annual logistics contract in 2008-09 under which about 25,000 militiamen were paid by dozens of private trucking companies and security companies owned by the warlords. The warlords were paid tens of millions of dollars a year, further consolidating their hold on the society.”
As we know from medieval European history, mercenary armies do everything they can to give the appearance of making war while in fact avoiding it. Few die and the money keeps coming in.
and this which indicates how vested interests need not be financial.
“…the war has continued, because it serves powerful interests that have nothing to do with Afghanistan itself: the careers of the US officers who serve there; the bureaucratic stakes of the Joint Special Operations Command and the CIA in their huge programs and facilities in the country; the political cost of admitting that it was a futile effort from the start. Plus, the Pentagon and the CIA are determined to hold on to Afghan airstrips they use to carry out drone war in Pakistan for as long as possible.”
By coincidence, I was just reading this review of “War Machine” and noted this quote:
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/17/brad-pitts-war-machine-offers-an-absurd-and-scathing-critique-of-americas-delusional-generals/
One of the movie’s best scenes takes place in a conference hall in Germany, where Pitt is trying to drum up support for more allied troops to fight in Afghanistan. He comes armed with a whiteboard, and he deploys a bewildering flow chart about the dynamics of insurgency and counterinsurgency, but Tilda Swinton, playing a German member of parliament, blows it all to hell. She points out that the reason for invading Afghanistan was to crush Al Qaeda, which was based there with Osama bin Laden, and was pretty much chased out of the country in the first months of the invasion. After so many years of stalemate against the Taliban, what is the purpose of continuing to fight?
“As an elected representative of the people of Germany, it is my job to ensure that the personal ambitions of those who serve those people are kept in check,” Swinton says. “You have devoted your entire life, general, to the fighting of war, and this situation in Afghanistan for you is the culmination of all your years of training, all your years of ambition. This is the great moment of your life. It is understandable to me that you should have therefor a fetish for completion, to make your moment glorious. It is my job, however, to ensure that your personal ambitions are not entirely delusional and do not carry with them an unacceptable cost for everybody else.”
Back in 1970 as a 21 year old grunt, on night guard duty in the bush, I had occasions to have some thoughts other than sex, drugs and rock and roll. I wondered what am I doing here. I, the singular. Why was I sitting here, and someone else was driving some general around in jeep, or shuffling papers in Bien Hoa.
What was I fighting for?? The Army answered. We were fighting against Communism, better to fight them Reds in Vietnam. If that reason did not work. Reason # 2 was, it is your patriotic duty, just like the previous generation, or some crap like that.
At least back in Vietnam days we had anti-war songs. “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag” by Country Joe and Fish. (Selected Lyrics below)
Well, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He’s got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We’re gonna have a whole lotta fun.
And it’s one, two, three,
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it’s five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.
Well, come on generals, let’s move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Now you can go out and get those reds
‘Cause the only good commie is the one that’s dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we’ve blown ’em all to kingdom come.
Come on Wall Street, don’t be slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go
There’s plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of its trade,
But just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on the Viet Cong.
We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, was another popular song for us Vietnam.
Thank you for watching the David Petraeus thing on the PBS Newshour. I saw the program segment listed but couldn’t stomach the thought of actually listening to General Dave babble his perfunctory post-modern platitudes. Did he really utter the anemic phrase, “a sustainable, sustained commitment”? How pathetic. I would have suggested something like “a perpetually prolonged period of pointless parasitic profligacy periodically punctuated by predictable promotion of the professional partcipants.” When it comes to alliteration, this guy couldn’t pass the entrance examination to Poetry PreSchool. He sounds as if he has his Newspeak euphemisms and Thought-Terminating Clichés specially designed for him at the American Enterprise Insitute by neocons like Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland. As far as strategic substance goes, this fatuous fraud has nothing to offer America but more tactical ticket-punching and greasy-pole-climbing careerism perpetrated upon the taxpaying public in the form of endless Ordnance Expenditure Expeditions and Enlisted Casualty Campaigns fueled by Commendation Accumulation Syndrome. And let us not overlook the Entrenched Economic Entitlements lavished on our military’s attendant dogs-of-war mercenaries and crony-corporate camp followers. It escapes me how anyone with half a brain and the ability to spell Vietnam can stomach a minute of General Dave’s drivel.
This whole dreary thing with the mission-creep troop reinforcements reminds me of that scene in Alice in Wonderland where the Queen shouts: “Sentence first, verdict afterwards.” As applied to our mediocre generals — like Secretary of War James “Mad Dog” Mattis — the rule sounds more like “troop deployments first, a plan for what to do with them, later.” And just the other day, Secretary Mattis proclaimed that he couldn’t see any sign that Russia wanted to cooperate with the United States. I immediately thought of those Russian rockets that ferry our astronauts up to the International Space Station and back, reliably and safely, year after year. I could multiply examples, but why bother? I think that ex-general Mattis should change his nickname from Mad Dog to Mr Magoo. If he really can’t see all the ways in which Russia has cooperated with the United States over the past decades, then he really needs to pull his head out of his ass an look around at the real world inhabited by the rest of us.
“Commendation Accumulation Syndrome” — CAS for short. Love it, Mike.
As I recall, we had CAS at the AF Academy, where it stood for Cadet Accountability System. Yes, I had to treat cadets like children, monitoring their attendance, whether they were late to class or sleepy or whatever, and punishing them in a paper-pushing bureaucratic process that belittled the cadets as well as the officers who administered it.
No wonder we’re losing …
For “belittled,” I meant “diminished.” The whole process of policing cadets made me feel like a teacher at kindergarten. I’m sure it made the cadets feel like children.
Guardian has an article today, ‘The war after Isis’: has Trump opened the door to conflict with Iran? I gather our Military and Political apparatus is preparing to announce another premature “victory” once Mosul and other cities are turned into dust and debris.
The Trump administration says it is still reviewing Iran policy but secretary of state Rex Tillerson told the Senate last week the US would “work toward support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition”. (Side Bar Satire- perhaps this is what the Russians were doing in our election.)
The emphasis was on peaceful change but to Iranian government ears, that sounded like a reversion to the spirit of regime change of the Bush era and even more distant memories, of a CIA-engineered coup in 1953. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/18/donald-trump-syria-iran-isis-james-mattis
SNAFU or FUBAR is a better more accurate description of our strategy. Next week on CNN, MSNBC and FOX the “news” will be dominated by more endless speculation on Trump-Russia, Russia and Trump. Wolf Blitzkreig, Anderson Cooper, Rachael Maddow, Chris Matthews and the FOX Five will never leave their air conditioned studios and go to the front lines in Afghanistan, or the Middle East and report. No Ernie Pyles or Bill Mauldins in our media today.
Congress will have no open hearings on our world wide wars. No generals or senior political types will be called to task on why they have failed. If there are any public hearings it will be a demonstration of boot licking by our elected officials.
Combat boot licking — great point.
I recall watching generals testify before Congress — and each member of Congress took his or her turn to praise the military and “our” troops before tossing mostly softball questions to the brass. So much for Congressional oversight.
Speaking of those farcical “Congressional oversight” — i.e., Military Idolatry — rituals, see:
Why Does Congress Accept Perpetual Wars? To exercise real oversight, our representatives must take ownership of unpopular foreign entanglements, by Andrew J. Bacevich, the American Conservative (February 17, 2017 )
And another piece to go along with the one above:
The Never-Ending War in Afghanistan, by ANDREW J. BACEVICH, New York Times (March 13, 2017)
The late Sri Lankan Ambassador Ananda W. P. Guruge certainly had it right when he told me once why his government had refused America’s offer of military aid against the Tamil insurgency in that little island country: “If the Americans come, they will just draw an arbitrary line through a temporary problem and make it permanent.” Rest in peace, Dr. Guruge, and thanks for the timeless wisdom.
Mike: Guruge’s comment is spot on. I know you’ve cited it before, and it’s worth citing, again and again, because it remains true.
The name J. William Fulbright came to my mind. Fulbright had his faults, but he was right on about some issues.
In his book, The Arrogance of Power, Fulbright offered an analysis of American foreign policy:
Throughout our history two strands have coexisted uneasily; a dominant strand of democratic humanism and a lesser but durable strand of intolerant Puritanism. There has been a tendency through the years for reason and moderation to prevail as long as things are going tolerably well or as long as our problems seem clear and finite and manageable. But… when some event or leader of opinion has aroused the people to a state of high emotion, our puritan spirit has tended to break through, leading us to look at the world through the distorting prism of a harsh and angry moralism.
Power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is particularly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God’s favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations—to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image. Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence. Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God’s work.
Fulbright’s quote on Power is a near perfect description on what we now know as American Exceptionalism, the exercise of power without virtue, morals or constraints.
I still cringe whenever I think of that rhetorical motor-mouth Barack Obama claiming “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being.” For eight long years I waited for at least one sentient carbon-based life form in the press corps to ask him: “Well, then, Mr President: would you tell us how many fibers your being has? I mean, since you know every one of them, surely you know their number.” But I waited in vain. It seems that the tolerance of the American people for vapid verbal diarrhea knows no limit. I even wrote a few terza rima stanzas on the subject matter quite some time ago:
A Disassembled Dialectic
(From The Triumph of Strife: an homage to Dante Alighieri and Percy Shelley)
The mawkish milquetoast mavens mildly moan
And mumble mealy mouthfuls of their mush
Mellifluously masking grammar’s groan
As if our very words they wish to crush.
Beneath a fog dispensed to hide the stink
Of language that would make Rasputin blush,
They make it near impossible to think,
But praise with faint damnation published loud.
In weakly written, waffling wretch-stained ink,
They preach their penchant for pedantry proud.
Their panchromatic paradigm of gray
Describes in blended black and white the cloud.
The metaphysics of the middle they
Debate with dialectical dismay.
They start assuming what they wish to know
These salesmen of the syllogism flawed
Then postulate the hope it may be so
Whatever frozen fact they have unthawed
They legislate a logic lunatic
Inductive inference they have outlawed
Whatever both implausible and thick
They fantasize as fabric for their fraud
And then segué to sell the simply sick:
Suggestions subtle as a cattle prod
Designed to stir stampede instead of thought
They bask in their own bombast overawed
With what their obloquy has sold and bought
They premised nothing and concluded naught
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2006-2010
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How You Can Develop a Curious Workforce — and Reap the Benefits
Bruce Anderson
Curiosity fares poorly in the business world. Like creativity, curiosity is something that every company says it wants from employees — before throwing up barriers to prevent or contain it.
Some of this is cultural. We have always viewed curiosity with skepticism. Our foundational stories, from Pandora to Adam and Eve, speak to the idea that folks will be punished for their curiosity.
But last fall the Harvard Business Review trumpeted the trait in a cover story entitled “The Business Case for Curiosity.”
HBR said that new research points to three critical insights:
Curiosity is hugely important to a company’s performance
Leaders can bolster curiosity (and, in so doing, performance)
Most companies stifle curiosity, believing it will increase risk and inefficiency
HBR cited increased innovation, reduced group conflict, more candid communication, and better team performance as benefits of curiosity, and then offered five tactics to bolster the trait.
Curious? Read on:
1. Hire for curiosity
If you’re looking for employees who have an abiding fascination with the world, how will you know when you have a candidate who is deeply curious?
Start by asking candidates about a time when they went down the rabbit hole on a new topic. The hiring teams at Google ask candidates: “Have you ever found yourself unable to stop learning something you’ve never encountered before? Why? What kept you persistent?”
Related: The Go-To Interview Questions of Companies Like Warby Parker, Airbnb and More
Questions are the hallmark of curiosity. As you listen to a candidate’s answers, make sure you’re also absorbing their questions. Does your candidate have questions about you and your role? About other parts of your company? About why your company does things certain ways and not others?
Finally, there are now an array of online tools that use predictive assessment to measure behavioral attributes such as curiosity. Consider looking into the tests and games of companies such as Koru, The Predictive Index, and Plum.io.
2. Model inquisitiveness
Part of running a business is leading by example — the way you behave is likely to be the way your organization behaves.
In his book A Curious Mind, legendary film producer Brian Grazer writes: “If you’re the boss, and you manage by asking questions, you’re laying the foundation for the culture of your company or your group.”
Leaders who champion curiosity will find it has other benefits as well. “Curiosity is a magnet for valuable new information and a battering ram for self-imposed limits,” says Molly Fletcher, sports agent turned corporate change agent.
Another way to model curiosity is to be as engaged a listener as you are a talker. This requires humility. By actively listening to your employees and drawing them out with questions, you send a clear signal that you alone don’t have all the answers, perspectives, and insights your company needs.
3. Emphasize learning goals
As both employees and companies, we tend to favor the short term over the long term. And that can lead us to neglect learning goals for our teams while, instead, we focus on performance goals. But as we look for ways to reskill our workforces in the face of the current skills gaps, learning goals have many advantages.
Research shows that framing work around learning goals rather than performance goals increases motivation. “And when motivated by learning goals,” HBR says, “we acquire more-diverse skills, do better at work, get higher grades in college, do better on problem-solving tasks, and receive higher ratings after training.” Whew. What’s not to love?
And as employees draft potential learning goals, they have to think about their own career path, making them personally invested in their goals and their growth.
4. Let employees explore and broaden their interests
It used to be that bringing your side gigs or outside interests into the office was a surefire way to get reprimanded. But companies have started to see the upsides of encouraging employees to bring their whole selves to work.
Outside work, for example, may boost employee creativity. “Side gigs . . . can expose your employees to different people, processes, procedures, or vendors,” writes performance specialist Bonnie Monych.
Side hustles — when done for passion rather than to pay the rent — can also increase employee engagement and reduce burnout and attrition. And the dangers of losing an employee to their second job is small. In a survey two years ago, CareerBuilder found that 71% of employees with a side gig don’t want to pursue it full time.
MRY, a powerhouse creative agency based in New York City, actually tries to help its employees pursue their dream careers: “For example, if an employee wants to be a sports broadcaster, then MRY will help the employee get more experience presenting in front of groups.” The result of that counterintuitive approach? Higher retention.
There are many ways to seamlessly integrate the nonwork passions of your workforce into the workplace. Sponsor company teams — softball, basketball, bowling, ultimate Frisbee. Support a company choir, book club, or Toastmasters group. You can also nurture their outside interests by offering paid time off to volunteer, whether they’re mentoring young readers or rebuilding wetlands.
5. Have “Why?” “What if . . .?” and “How might we . . . ?” days
“Organizing ‘Why?’ days, when employees are encouraged to ask that question if facing a challenge,” HBR says, “can go a long way toward fostering curiosity.”
At the same time you’re honoring curiosity with its own day, you want to make sure it also becomes central to the daily fabric of your company and its culture. In an essay extolling the virtues of curiosity, SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie writes: “Create an environment of transparency and a safe space where all kinds of questions are valued.”
Zander also suggests both rewarding great questions and celebrating prudent risks that fail. “[O]therwise,” he adds, “you will create a culture where employees are risk averse, thereby limiting your upside.”
Final thoughts: Get comfortable with not knowing how and when you’ll get your biggest curiosity dividend
HBR says “most of the breakthrough discoveries and remarkable inventions throughout history” resulted from curiosity. Legendary and disruptive business leaders, from Walt Disney to Michael Dell, have stressed the importance of curiosity.
In his 2005 commencement address at Stanford, Steve Jobs also made a case for it. “[M]uch of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on,” Jobs said.
When he briefly attended Reed College, Jobs noted that every poster on campus was beautifully hand-calligraphed. After he dropped out, he registered for a calligraphy class to learn how he could do this. He learned many things, including what makes for great typography.
“None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life,” he told the Class of 2005. “But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography.”
It’s difficult, if not impossible, to plot out all the ways curiosity may lift your company. You need the patience of Jobs, who said, “You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
*Photo by Media Union on Shutterstock
Company Culture,
4 Creative Ways Companies Show They’re Thankful for Their Employees
How This Company Established a Four-Day Work Week — and Says Others Can Too
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WTI futures
Crude Oil Turns Lower as Rally Stalls
By Alison Sider and Neanda Salvaterra Published September 28, 2017 Features Dow Jones Newswires
Oil prices moved into the red, erasing much of this week’s gains as investors took profits.
Prices had been on the rise earlier Thursday following concerns that Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence vote could hit supply from the oil-rich region and after U.S. data Wednesday showed that record-high exports of U.S. crude and additional demand from refineries helped drain 1.8 million barrels from U.S. crude inventories last week.
But investors pulled back, sending oil prices tumbling amid concerns that the rally had gone too far.
“I think more than anything there was some profit-taking here,” said Tariq Zahir, managing member of Tyche Capital Advisors. “It’s had a heck of a run.”
U.S. crude futures fell 58 cents, or 1.11%, to $51.56 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent, the global benchmark, fell 49 cents, or 0.85%, to $57.41 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.
Prices also tumbled after data-tracking firm Genscape said storage at the Cushing, Okla., storage hub rose to 65.1 million barrels, up by close to 2 million barrels from Friday.
Oil prices have been climbing the past few weeks amid renewed faith in the efforts of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other major oil producers to eliminate the global supply glut.
But bearish factors are on the horizon: U.S. production has continued to rise and producers could take advantage of the higher prices to ramp up more quickly.
Oil’s recent rally represents a return to “the optimism we saw earlier in the year, that the reduction of supply through the 1.8 million [barrel] cut is basically taking hold and tightening the market,” said Gene McGillian, research manager at Tradition Energy.
Still, he said the market could be vulnerable to a selloff if data in the coming weeks don’t continue to show the glut of oil is shrinking.
U.S. and global oil benchmarks have diverged in recent weeks, with the gap between the two trading at its widest in more than two years.
Brent has been bolstered by tightening supplies abroad. This week it also jumped on fears that the Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum would lead to conflicts that could interrupt the flow of Kurdish oil. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. reference price, has lagged behind as U.S. fuel makers were hobbled by Hurricane Harvey and unable to process as much crude.
The price gap has led to a surge of exports from the U.S. as buyers take advantage of the discount. U.S. crude exports rose to a record 1.5 million barrels a day last week, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
“The only real crude surplus left is in the U.S., and, as we whittle down the last of the stored barrels, the world is turning to the U.S. as the supplier of last resort,” Energy Aspects analysts wrote in a research note.
Some expect oil prices to continue to rise.
“We are still viewing this as a near term bull market capable of fresh highs,” Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch & Associates, wrote in a client note. “We expect an upside reversal tomorrow amidst various contract expirations.”
Gasoline futures fell 2.22 cents, or 1.34%, to $1.6318 a gallon. Diesel futures fell 1.43 cents, or 0.77%, to $1.832 a gallon.
This entry was tagged crude oil, Kurdistan, oil prices, OPEC, U.S. crude futures, WTI futures. Bookmark the permalink.
US crude jumps to more than 6-week closing high of $49.89, as demand-driven rally continues
US crude demand outlook improves 16 Hours Ago | 00:41
Oil prices rose on Thursday, a day after the International Energy Agency forecast the market would continue to tighten as fuel demand increased.
U.S. West Texas Intermdediate crude hit a nearly four-month high at $50.50 a barrel. The contract ended Thursday’s trade up 59 cents, or 1.2 percent, at $49.89. WTI popped above its 200-day moving average level on an intraday basis for the first time since Aug. 10.
Benchmark Brent crude topped out at $55.99, the highest level since in five months. It was up 46 cents at $55.62 a barrel by 1:57 p.m. The contract remained in technically overbought territory for a second day in a row.
Brent has now climbed by more than $10 a barrel over the past three months and is close to where it was at the beginning of the year.
Oil demand growth is strengthening: IEA 5:26 AM ET Wed, 13 Sept 2017 | 02:26
On Wednesday, the IEA raised its estimate of 2017 world oil demand growth to 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) from 1.5 million bpd.
The agency said a global oil glut was shrinking thanks to strong European and U.S. demand, as well as production declines in OPEC and non-OPEC countries.
“The IEA revising up its 2017 global oil demand growth forecast, together with persistent weakness in the U.S. dollar index, has prompted bullish sentiment in the oil market,” said Abhishek Kumar, Senior Energy Analyst at Interfax Energy’s Global Gas Analytics in London.
“Anticipation is growing that this could quicken the pace of oil market rebalancing.”
The U.S. dollar index was down 0.2 percent against a basket of currencies, making oil cheaper for holders of other currencies. Last week, the dollar index fell to its lowest level since the start of 2015.
The supply side of the equation also looks promising, Barclays Research said. That said, “a softer market balance is in store for next year, which should ensure an OPEC/non-OPEC deal remains in place beyond March 2018,” Barclays added.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers, including Russia, have agreed to reduce crude output by about 1.8 million bpd until next March in an attempt to support prices.
Oil disruption following Harvey is easing: IEA 5:21 AM ET Wed, 13 Sept 2017 | 01:57
BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley told Reuters in an interview on Thursday that oil prices were likely to stay between $50 and $60 as major producers kept output restricted.
“We’re all trying to make our way in this world of between $50 and $60 and I would expect that to continue.”
This week’s gains came despite U.S. data showing another big build in U.S. crude inventories due to Hurricane Harvey.
Data from the Energy Information Administration showed a build in U.S. crude inventories last week of 5.9 million barrels, exceeding expectations.
U.S. gasoline stocks slumped by 8.4 million barrels, the largest weekly decline since the data was first recorded in 1990. U.S. distillate stocks fell by 3.2 million barrels.
— CNBC’s Tom DiChristopher and Gina Francolla contributed to this report.
This entry was tagged brent crude, crude oil, crude oil prices, U.S. West Texas Intermediate Crude, WTI futures. Bookmark the permalink.
Oil ends at 4-week high as refineries reopen
7 Sep 2017 — Leave a comment
New hurricane sparks fears of potential damage to U.S. oil production
Hurricane Irma, a record Category 5 storm, is heading toward Florida.
SaraSjolin
Markets reporter
Christopher Alessi
The U.S. oil benchmark closed at a four-week high Wednesday, reflecting concerns about a potential hit to production from Hurricane Irma as well as renewed demand for crude as Gulf Coast refineries previously shut down by Hurricane Harvey reopened.
West Texas Intermediate U.S. crude oil for October CLV7, +0.22% rose 50 cents, or 1%, to close at $49.16 a barrel, the highest settlement since Aug.9. Brent crude LCOX7, +0.59% the global benchmark, gained 82 cents, or 1.5%, to end at $54.20 a barrel, its highest close since April 18.
“Oil market participants have become used to tropical storms causing no lasting damage to the energy infrastructure. This may change now, prompting the market to price in something of an uncertainty premium. Many market participants viewed the latest fall in the WTI price as excessive in any case,” analysts at Commerzbank said in a note.
The upswing in crude prices marked a swift reversal from last week, when prices had languished in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. The storm knocked out more than 20% of U.S. refining capacity, cutting demand for crude and weighing on prices.
Refining capacity has since started to come back online, providing support for crude. That, however, is weighing on gasoline prices that rallied last week as refineries shut down and created a short-term shortage. Gasoline for October delivery RBV7, -0.60% fell 1.15 cents, or 0.7%, to $1.7595 a gallon.
At the same time, the market is preparing for potential disruptions to oil production in the Gulf of Mexico as the result of Hurricane Irma, which made landfall in the Caribbean earlier on Wednesday, and other brewing storms. If crude output is hindered by the new storms it would boost prices, the analysts said.
The Harvey-related refinery shutdowns are expected to have contributed to a build in crude-oil stocks and a fall in gasoline inventories when the Energy Information Administration provides its weekly update on Thursday morning.
Analysts surveyed by S&P Global Platts produced a consensus forecast for a 2.7 million-barrel rise in crude stocks, while gasoline inventories are expected to fall 4.2 million barrels. The survey found distillate stocks are expected to drop 1.9 million barrels while refinery utilization is expected to show a sharp fall of 7 percentage points.
In addition, inventories at Cushing, Okla., a storage hub that serves as the delivery point for Nymex crude futures, could see significant increases in the next few weeks as a result of Harvey, according to Geoffrey Craig, oil futures editor at S&P Global Platts.
Ahead of the EIA data, the American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group, will provide its weekly inventory figures late Wednesday.
Oil prices also responded positively to suggestions Tuesday by the Russian energy minister, Alexander Novak, that Russia and Saudi Arabia would be open to extending their output cut agreement.
“The strong cooperation of the leading oil producers in combating the ‘oil glut’ is making market participants hopeful that stocks may be quickly reduced, which is boosting the price rise,” the Commerzbank analysts said.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries — of which Saudi Arabia is the largest member — and 10 producers outside the cartel, including Russia, first agreed late last year to cap production at around 1.8 million barrels a day lower than peak Oct. 16 levels, with the aim of reining in the global oil glut and sending prices higher.
The deal, which was extended in May until March 2018, has been undermined by falling compliance, growing U.S. output and an unexpected surge in production from Libya and Nigeria — two member states exempted from the agreement because their oil industries had been damaged by civil unrest.
Analysts said they were looking ahead to official U.S. data this week on crude inventory levels, which have fallen consistently in recent months, while cautioning that the information was likely to be less reliable than usual as a result of Harvey.
In other energy products, October natural gas NGV17, +0.60% rose 0.9% to end at $3 per million British thermal units. Heating oil futures HOV7, +0.05% rose 0.7%, to $1.7595 a gallon.
—Sara Sjolin contributed to this article.
This entry was tagged crude oil, crude oil prices, Oil Markets, US West Texas Intermediate, WTI futures. Bookmark the permalink.
Mexican autoparts firms eye fast lane after U.S. backs trade deal
Oil steadies as Chinese economy offsets trade optimism
The yield curve's still weird. Fed's Bullard is okay with that
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C21st Left
Notes on Trump – 7
Posted on August 31, 2017 by Arthur
This is the first article I have seen explaining that Trump’s focus on Republican primaries is working.
Still does not discuss likelihood that MOST GOP incumbents will face Trumpist challengers whether or not openly backed by Trump, that many of these will be successful and likely outcome is a large Trumpist party in House of Representatives (including both newbies and intimidated incumbents as well as pure opportunists).
Does mention the Democrat shambles and implied possibility of Democrats not having a majority after mid-terms.
Does not mention that even if a Democrat majority is likely the four way split would be favourable to Trump getting populist measures through conducive to an economic and political climate that could result in a second term.
No mention of large wing of Democrats convergence towards anti-globalist and isolationist policies that would jointly have far more impact in creating a climate for real damage by implementation than the gestures towards such policies that Trump has been able to make so far with no party supporting them in Congress, let alone two.
Still this is as clear a shift towards agreement with my basic analysis as I have seen so far:
1) https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/why-gop-is-stuck-with-trump-commentary.html
I’ll add some other background related links below without explanation. Don’t have time now to include in a coherent post but may be useful to anyone interested in the meantime.
2) http://thehill.com/homenews/house/348629-gop-rep-trump-cant-bully-senators-this-isnt-the-apprentice
3) http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/28/trump-karl-rove-2018-elections-242074
4) https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-28/why-people-still-support-trump
5) http://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-damaged-democracy-silicon-valley-will-finish-it-off
6) https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trump-looks-to-2020-but-a-more-immediate-peril-looms-democratic-control-and-impeachment-power-in-the-house/2017/08/25/c4fe5046-89dd-11e7-a50f-e0d4e6ec070a_story.html?utm_term=.d08057a273eb
7) http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/08/25/trump-voters-cnn-panel-dont-mind-his-charlottesville-response
8) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/08/24/trump-is-starting-to-tear-the-gop-apart/?utm_term=.f63e93e15fc7
9) https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/no-he-wont-back-down/538125/
10) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/08/26/what-if-trump-ditched-the-gop/
11) http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/348048-the-memo-trump-allies-say-he-needs-a-gop-scalp
12) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/26/donald-trumps-attacks-on-republican-politicians
13) http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/08/the-media-cant-help-but-help-trump.php
14) http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/21/trump-republicans-loyalty-arizona-241861
15) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/08/22/trumps-own-pollster-just-confirmed-his-base-is-weakening/?utm_term=.2e92c7ab75d7
16) http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/08/trump_s_bigoted_base_by_the_numbers.html
17) http://www.afr.com/opinion/columnists/why-so-many-people-still-support-donald-trump-20170829-gy68sl
18) http://time.com/4386335/donald-trump-trade-speech-transcript/
Posted in Half baked articles (Arthur Dent), Trump | 5 Comments
The Individual and the left
Posted on August 31, 2017 by c21styork
Tom Griffiths
Some introductory ideas/context
The medieval soul is superficial, impoverished, miserable – that’s why the role of religion had to be imposed to fill in gaps or provide a veneer.
The modern soul is deep, complex (and therefore prone to neuroses) developing further layers of complexity. Increasingly the link is to individuality within an increasingly complex and multilayered society.
I want to start this essay with a quote from The German Ideology, a work by Marx that predates the Communist Manifesto by not very much, and pose a rhetorical question to the reader: what stands out to you? What is Marx actually getting at?
“…private property can be abolished only on condition of an all round development of individuals, because the existing character of intercourse and productive forces is an all round one, and only individuals that are developing in an all round fashion can appropriate them, i.e. can turn them into free manifestations of their lives.” Selected Writings ed McLellan p 191
In case we missed it – and the left has a long history in peering through Nelson’s telescope on its position relating to the individual – Marx was pointing out that the development of communism couldn’t occur without the all round development of individuals.Abolition of private property from above, via some form of executive fiat, is no substitute for the broad cultural changes that “the all round development of individuals” assumes and that the abolition of private property must be a reflection of.
A Procrustean bed has no place here. As with spirituality, we have left the field of individuality and authenticity to the right – which is why we find some of their libertarian ideas attractive (presumably this must also apply to the Spiked crew).This 55+ year old quote from Barry Goldwater is a case in point: “Every man, both for his own individual good and for the good of society, is responsible for his own development.
The choices that govern his life are choices he must make: They cannot be made by any other human being, or by a collectivity of human beings.” (The Conscience of a Conservative, 1960). It’s like Nietzsche with a southern twang. And before readers start hyperventilating over the very obvious holes in old Barry’s argument – “he would say that wouldn’t he, he’s let the property question slip through” – we need to be aware that the radical left has been complicit in effectively allowing individual agency and responsibility – cornerstones of freedom – to become the ‘property’ of bourgeois property.
Late American Marxist, Marshal Berman, (The Politics of Authenticity , All That is Solid Melts into Air made a spirited attempt to rescue the individual and reclaim territory once charted by progressive forces, including the revolutionary left, and he deserves our thanks. I’ll be dipping into his material, amongst others, below. There are a lot of reasons why what have formerly been mass revolutionary movements can now hold conventions in broom cupboards and assuming the ostrich position concerning the individual is one of them.
But before proceeding further some off road detours or context, hopefully relevant, are called for.
My first detour is: why am I bothering? My motivation is twofold. The first, and oldest, springs from an ongoing interest and dissatisfaction with how communist, and broadly revolutionary leftist thinking, has dealt with the individual. The second comes from my not quite as old work as a family therapist, group worker and supervisor (men’s family violence groups) and refugee support worker. I have come to appreciate that there is a considerable degree of overlap between these areas.
My second detour takes a very brief look at human nature. An uncontentious materialist view of human nature sees it as neither purely biological nor as an atomised abstraction along the lines of Adam Smith’s ‘natural man’. Our biology may be fixed within evolutionary frameworks but our individual and psychological makeup occur within social and historical ones. These latter therefore unfold and develop as we interact with both the natural world and the world we create and struggle to overcome their constraints; as we make our history, so we make ourselves.
Late German sociologist Norbert Elias expressed this rather well when he said “What is fixed by heredity, the range or pitch of voice, for example, merely provides the framework for an infinite variety of possible articulation.” (p36 The Society of Individuals)
Since the scientific revolution that accompanied modernity, numerous figures have expressed this fundamental truth. The 19thC thinker J.S.Mill, for example, wrote that: “Human nature is not a machine to be built like a model, and set to exactly the work proscribed to it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of inward forces that make it a living thing.” (On Liberty)
A more robust view was expressed by Ivan Michurin, a Russian/Soviet scientist (he straddled epochs): “We cannot wait for favours from Nature, our task is to wrest them from her”, while English Marxist historian Christopher Hill, in God’s Englishman (p218) quoted Hugh Peter saying in 1648, “The work of God will go on [but] I am not in the mind we should put our hands in our pockets and wait what will come.”
Hugh Peter was expressing the idea of giving “history a push”, of loosening the reins on human subjectivity. During periods of revolutionary turmoil the “task to wrest them from her”, was not so much directed at Nature as at moribund ruling classes content with the idea that it was their natural and divinely ordained right to be in charge.
This idea captures a dilemma faced by proletarian parties which led successful revolutions in backward societies. These revolutions were obviously on the side of historical development but the ‘push’ was not solely directed at proletarian revolution. There was first the not so small problem of the bourgeois revolution to complete or even get started. We are familiar with the expression ‘push/pull’ and the push in Russia and China was in both bourgeois and proletarian directions with the latter being eventually defeated by a pull that was able to pass itself off as progressive. Deng Hsiao Ping’s “black cat, white cat: who cares so long as it catches mice” summed this up. As necessary and correct as the united front with the peasantry was, it was also a compromise and one of the components of this compromise – the one I’m interested in here – is the cultural space given to individuals and the cultural beliefs and practises that corralled that space.
Clearly siding with Michurin’s stand, Berman proposes that “It is inherent in our nature to make all things new – including ourselves.” (The Politics of Authenticity p165). In today’s world of deadened discourse we would insist that this view must accord with ‘evidence based practise’. What can I say, other than: it does and in bucket loads.
The Individual in Context
Picking up the point that we make ourselves, it seems reasonable to ask: how and from what? Elias makes the obvious, but easily overlooked observation that individuation, the process of becoming individual, presumes some sort of social context because one must have a society, clan or group to individuate from. While this may seem obvious its implications are easily missed, even by so-called Marxists, who should frankly know better.
In dialectical jargon the individual and society are in relationship as thesis and antithesis, each being antithesis or opposite to the other. In more colloquial vein they occupy different sides of the same coin. Speaking of the relationship between society and the individual across history, Elias speaks of the ‘frozen antithesis’, a forced and inevitable one sidedness that cements one side of a contradiction, the ‘society’ side, to the exclusion of its opposite, the ‘individual’ side. When this happens the mutual interpenetration of opposites cannot be seen, let alone analysed, blind-siding us in the process.
Plekhanov’s favourite Hegelian aphorism that a contradiction leads forward covers similar ground. And this is what we have seen in traditional (pre modern) societies where the relationship between society (or group) and individual, the we/I balance, as Elias puts it, is fixed. And from the point of view of those involved, eternally so. Dynamism or fluidity in the relationship is absent and the individual is severely constrained and barely recognised.
There were very compelling reasons for this and they revolved around the issue of survival. For tens of thousands of years human survival was marginal and hard won. Individual survival depended upon the survival and viability of the group the individual belonged to. Initially these were small, family based units before developing into larger clan or tribal based societies and beyond. To use a maritime metaphor, the seas were too rough and the water too close to the gunnels for the individual to be able to stand up and rock the communal boat. Hence for most of our history the individual has had to serve the interests of the group and by so doing enhance his/her own chance of survival. The first struggle for freedom then was freedom from imminent danger, the freedom to survive. The struggle to wrest ourselves free from domination by nature is the basis upon which individual freedom emerges.
But this took many thousands of years and the development of mystical beliefs and practises – cultural, religious and loosely, ideological, were the secondary, and at this stage of our development, the most useful vehicles deployed to pass survival manuals from one generation to the next. As Daniel Dennett points out, harsh realities meant that we simply didn’t have the time or opportunity to turn the wealth of empirical knowledge our ancestors gained into higher level, scientific knowledge.
Romantic beliefs that surface from time to time, like those espoused by many greens, that our forebears lived in a harmonious relationship with nature, leapfrog conservatism and head straight for reaction. The fallacy of this belief rests upon an assumption that the relationship was essentially benign, if not between equals then at least between mutually respectful partners where a fair, de facto accommodation could occur. Nothing could have been further from the truth. For many tens of thousands of years nature held the whip hand. Our ancestors did as nature dictated.
The Individual in Pre-Modern Society
Alienation, here the separation of individuals from their potential to develop, was systematically imposed, unavoidable, unconscious and experienced as normal in static societies that were governed by fixed norms and traditions. Here, people must be satisfied with the roles given, experiencing themselves, Berman says, as pegs, aspiring “only to fit the holes that fit them best.” (The Politics of Authenticity p xxvii-xxviii) A static equilibrium is Berman’s description of Elias’ frozen antithesis.
This static equilibrium was dominant in the west until the demise of medievalism between the 16th and 20th centuries – (Russia across the 19th and 20thC, although if we include the Vatican in our reckoning we will need to push out the time frames a century or few). It is difficult to find a better, more dispassionate and dystopian description of traditional power and order than that given by prominent 19thC French reactionary Joseph de Maistre who saw humanity as sinful, weak and proud with savage natures that must be kept in check by an uncompromising and unquestioned authority. “…all greatness, all power, all social order depends upon the executioner.” What can one say but “yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir.”
A static equilibrium describes social arrangements that warm the hearts of conservatives and reactionaries across the broad sweep of history, from Plato to Edmund Burke, Burke’s contemporary de Maistre and beyond in both directions.
Marxists have no difficulty in identifying Burke as a stick in the mud given his immediate hostility (1790) to the French revolution and his valorization of tradition, albeit within the context that accepted the gains of the English Revolution. Plato is more interesting because he was identified by the Second International’s leading theoretician, Karl Kautsky, as a prototype socialist come communist. Late American Marxist Hal Draper, was no fan. “Plato’s state model is government by an aristocratic elite, and his argument stresses that democracy inevitably means the deterioration and ruin of society. Plato’s political aim, in fact, was the rehabilitation and purification of the ruling aristocracy in order to fight the tide of democracy. To call him a socialist ancestor is to imply a conception of socialism which makes any kind of democratic control irrelevant.”
Like so many aristocrats after him Plato’s ideal of individual perfection was one’s acceptance of the role a person was born into, performing one’s ‘proper’ function, a perfect balance Plato called justice. It was a pity that Kautsky was unable to ask simply: justice for whom?
While Plato was an aristocrat and a static equilibriumist (it’s not a neologism, I’ve checked) there is little point getting carried away with his reactionary politics two and a half thousand years down the track. But the same allowance cannot be extended Kautsky or other revolutionary figures drawn to Plato as some kind of Ancient Greek avatar of revolutionary socialism. While violent class struggles may occur within Plato’s schema “they concern only the allocation of particular holes to particular pegs. The board itself, the closely knit but rigidly stratified system of the Greek polis, which defines men precisely by their functions, remains unquestioned and intact.” (Berman The Politics of Authenticity p xxviii) What Berman is drawing attention to is, in systems jargon, first order or quantitative change. What is required is second order or transformative change. The board itself needs to go. That the leading figure of the Second International saw Plato as a prototype socialist indicates the depth of the problem for the left around the individual and the demos generally.
Under traditional circumstances people’s personal identity was derived from the roles they were born into or assigned. This promoted social stability of course (what’s not to like comrades?) while inhibiting innovation and creativity. It also shielded the undeveloped self from expectations and disappointments beyond one’s station. While systems are not sentient the advantages they confer pass on to those that are and these advantages were most warmly accepted by those who, coincidentally, sat at the top of what Hill describes as “the cosy hierarchical world picture [that] must not be disturbed lest the social hierarchy be challenged.” (The Origins of the English Revolution p345)
Berman’s take is similar pointing out that “Individual thought or feeling, insight or initiative, could only be destructive to these traditions and routines. Hence it was essential for traditional society to keep individuality from developing, at the bottom as well as at the top.” (The Politics of Authenticity p100)
The dead hand of the past, a point not missed by Marx, weighed down on the aristocracy and the peasants alike, but “it was easy to see why the upper classes were willing to make the sacrifice of self which their social roles demanded.” But no matter what station one was born into everyone “was reduced to a function of the rank which he acquired at birth – or, perhaps more accurately, to paraphrase Marx, the rank which acquired him.” (Ibid p101)
The respective autobiographies of Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Infidel, Nomad), Souad Burned Alive and Phoolan Devi (The Bandit Queen of India) describe both these aspects with an intense, intimate clarity. The life stories of these women are required reading by those serious about understanding, on a personal level, how tradition works and the risks that must be confronted in the struggle to form an authentic self.
THE WINDS OF CHANGE – CULTURAL REVOLUTION IN EUROPE
What I have been attempting to describe is the dividing line between the pre-modern and the modern world. The transformation of the former to the latter saw the relationship between the individual and society transform from suffocating stasis to dynamism. The place of the individual has grown enormously, with modernity facilitating this growth and there can be no doubt that this development has enriched those societies subject to its influence. There can also be no doubt that the transition was, or is for those societies still in transition, anything but smooth or complete.
While contradictions and conflicts of interest between society and the individual continue to exist and may often be very sharp, modern societies have created a social and political space (a cultural space if you like) where individuals can fight for and extend their own piece of the action. While we often think of these developments in terms of ‘rights’, it is worth remembering that along with creating ourselves we create the need for new rights and we win them through struggles against both nature and socially imposed impediments.
Gramsci described as a cultural revolution the period ushered in by the Renaissance and the Reformation. I’d not previously thought of these events, or movements, as cultural revolutions before, but he was right. They sounded the death knell of medievalism and it is worth remembering that the transition was protracted, violent and characterised by what we have come to realise as historical transformations with their obligatory twists and turns. This latter point should serve to reassure, by the way – looking back we can see that frozen antitheses were melting all over the place, a fact that should encourage us to look for the current melting points.
These transformations ushered in the modern era and with it the modern individual. Most bourgeois opinion, that is, most ‘opinion’, prefer to either be overtly negative about revolutions or to ignore them. This also applies to attitudes of any oppositional movement that comes from below – cultural or otherwise – where the default perspective offered is, as suggested, to not only turn a blind eye or to focus on the negative aspects but to demean and treat with contempt the ignorant or stupid masses. Where are Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters pumping out Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive when you need them I ask rhetorically.
The threat and fear of ‘chaos’ is an oft repeated mantra by both conservatives and reactionaries, especially as revolutions threaten or are in their midst. Communist parties, especially those in power, have shown themselves to be prone to catching this bug and the challenges it throws up in spite of their need to launch cultural upheavals or revolutions. This latter is surely part of the job description, a recognition that it’s ok to consciously and deliberately give history a push. But the modernist cultural revolution, if I can call it that, was not prescribed or consciously directed and the participants were most unlikely to have had a clear idea about how things would unfold or where they would end up. Developments were more akin to an unpredictably moving but unstoppable tsunami, moving forward here, being held back or pushed in other directions there, leaving untouched some remnants and swallowing up others. One way of reading Hill’s histories is with this in mind. So too with Shakespeare who wrote his plays as the tide began to surge.
The ‘left’, of whatever stripe, speaks of and seeks to work with ‘social units’ – the working class, unions or worker or community organisations, parties etc. But unless this contributes and leads to an ongoing transformation of the social unit or group (getting rid of the board), and thereby to the opening up of opportunity for individual growth and transformation, the ‘left’ would be pissing into the wind and indicating that, on this matter at least, it has failed to understand or embrace the modernity that Marx and Engels, amongst many others, were so enraptured by.
Group maintenance without transformation is a dead end. Group transformation without individual transformation, is politically fraudulent and reactionary, seeking to maintain the existing or traditional power relations within the group, community or society. As repeated once already, the board itself has to go.
THE EMERGING INDIVIDUAL
Hill makes the point that the transition from tribal to village society involved a shift from kinship (blood bond) to neighbourhood; that is, from tribalism to feudalism; and that the transition from parish to sect was a shift from local community to voluntary organisation. Voluntary organisation cannot occur without the existence of self-motivated individuals. Today this is the norm, indeed so normal as to barely raise comment. In the social sphere alone we see a plethora of activities, clubs, associations and the like which people engage in freely. It covers all classes, ages and tastes and could not occur without freely choosing individuals, all taking responsibility for fulfilling certain of their needs.
But the communist movement has struggled with the free aspect of the individual uncritically buying (I use the term advisedly) the bourgeois assertion that central to this freedom is freedom of property ownership and hence of capital. The individual that emerged from the medieval straightjacket was associated with the development of capitalism, capitalists and aspiring capitalists, what Hill termed ‘the industrious sort’. One sidedness in an analysis is always a problem and an embarrassing one when the analysis is promoted as dialectical. Here the matter of the individual is left dangling, a frozen antithesis, stained with its association with the ‘industrious sort’ so central in the development of capitalism (Tawney’s depiction makes this connection a defining characteristic). Individuality, individualism, bourgeois individualism and its junior, aspiring cousin petty bourgeois individualism, are generally carelessly treated as synonyms. While some common ground between them is real, contradictions and points of divergence emerged early on. Failing to see this, or downplaying their importance and lumping them all together, is more than careless, it is lazy and betrays an ambivalence about the place of the individual absent from Marx and Engel’s thinking.
As mentioned Berman has attempted to correct this by focusing on the emergence of the individual, as has Hill. One of Hill’s great contributions has been his determination to track and expose the development of both sides or aspects of the individual’s development in England from the 16th to the 18th centuries. That is, the individual’s connection to bourgeois economic and social development, the aspect that has ‘form’, and the flourishing of the individual among the ‘lower sort’, the members of the ‘many headed monster’. (Change and Continuity in 17th Century England)
Failure to distinguish between capitalism and modernity
Associated with this has been a failure by the left to distinguish between capitalism and modernity. Each has developed together and each has, within itself, contained the possibility of the other. This is best seen and summed up in the “all that is solid melts into air’” aspect, the dynamism, that has been common to both. By the early 19th C it was becoming possible to clearly distinguish between the two and to see that the development of one was frustrating, distorting and impeding the development of the other. Marx’s writings were very much concerned with this distinction (we can see it too in Goethe’s Faust, albeit in a less politically conscious way); indeed he and Engels were key figures in making it. In effect they were saying: I like this part, the dynamism, the restlessness, the urge to develop, the newfangledness, which in turn enables the individual to develop; but not this part, the tying of labour, in perpetuity, to market relations and the exploitation and alienation that goes with this.
Marx and Engels spent most of their lives demonstrating that capitalist economic and social development will materially create the conditions where it can be superseded. Where, in other words, modernity can be fully transformed and shed itself of its capitalist constraints.
The identification that left wing radicalism has made between the capitalist economy and the liberal state with ‘individualism’ has also seen it linking radicalism with, as Berman puts it, “a collectivism that negated individuality.” This is succinct and accurate. A collectivism so understood, one that attempts to negate the ‘newfangledness’ so admired by Marx, will take us nowhere other than a dead end. More disturbingly it aligns a radical, anti-capitalist sensibility regarding the individual with the premodern. Indeed, that is what it is a hangover from. It is backward looking and as communists or assorted radicals we need to remind ourselves that that is not the direction we should be heading.
The Marxist Archive reflects this problem and makes its own contributions (see the entries for ‘Individual’, ‘Individualism and Collectivism’ and ‘Autonomy’ for examples). While not wishing to make such a detour as to get lost let me make the following points. Its entry for ‘Individual’ goes no further than formal logic or the medieval Latin word ‘individuum’ in describing particular, indivisible things. This includes individual humans, of course, but also individual rocks, horses or flies crawling up a wall. Unique persons, with their multiplicity of individual characteristics fail to make the team. ‘Individualism and Collectivism’ is more nuanced, but remains problematic (or should I say symptomatic?). It speaks of collectivism transcending or sublating individualism; that is a collectivism which does not suppress the individualism of bourgeois society, but supersedes it. This gets closer, but supersedes to what? Primacy is given to collectivism with the transcendent, dialectical leap, only relating to it. Individualism, which remains ‘bourgeois’, or consistent with the individuality that emerged under capitalism, remains unsuppressed but also untransformed. It is as though dialectics has had a seniors’ moment and forgotten that individuality too, must transcend its bourgeois limits.
Individuum (and its siblings individualis and individuus) was, in relation to the now emerged individual (bourgeois or otherwise) a word at a low level of synthesis, a direct reflection of Elias’ frozen antithesis and Berman’s static equilibrium, characteristic of undeveloped or backward societies. A collectivism that negates, or awkwardly slides over individuality within a modernist context, that strips the particularities of individual persons and highlights only those features common to all is backward looking and reactionary.
The bods at the Archive, seem to understand that the individual is important but their ambivalence gets in the way of them seeing the matter as dynamic. The antithesis remains frozen.
But if dialectics has meaning this must also indicate that we also have a problem with the universal, although this is not an issue for here.
Although we are social creatures who define ourselves in relation to the other, modern societies enable identities to be achieved and transcended. The synthesis has developed to a much higher level. Roles and limits are transcended regularly and to such a degree we barely notice. Your average citizen at work transcends him/herself out of work or even at work – is he/she a junior sports coach, team manager, assistant this or that, the secretary of a club, an amateur whatever, a blogger … How about a revolutionary? Now, that’s a novel idea!
Berman points out that “To be authentic, authentically “oneself”, is to see critically through the forces that twist and constrict our being and to strive to overcome them” (The Politics of Authenticity p xiv). In a repressive society people cannot be themselves within the system but must strive to become themselves in spite of the system. This can take private, even mystical forms, as with the Stoics, or openly rebellious forms where people can only be themselves, or strive to become so, against the system. Revolt, Berman reminds us, is the only mode of authenticity a repressive society allows. It is not only right that we rebel against reactionaries, but in doing so we act authentically.
If the theory of revolution grows out of and develops alongside the idea of authenticity, we need to be able to evaluate how well proletarian parties like the Bolsheviks and CCP fulfilled or sought to fulfill this within the boundaries of what was historically and socially achievable. Within the west I think we’ve been under performers and more aligned with the historically regressive. Revolutions in undeveloped countries present a more complex picture. With 80/90% of the population in China, for example, being peasant and where feudalist culture predominated, the communists had to work with the raw materials at hand and an emphasis on a collectivism that downplayed individuality was probably unavoidable. That was certainly what they inherited. This did not mean that individuality did not develop. It is difficult to read Lu Hsun or any of William Hinton’s accounts without seeing new and vibrant individuals emerging. But there is also an ambivalence borne of the circumstance (the constraints) of these revolutions. In his very sympathetic Reconstructing Lenin, Hungarian historian Tamas Krausz remarks that “the autonomy of the individual and of personality as the communal societies’ main context of unfolding was missing not only from Lenin’s legacy, but from the legacy of the entire period, which insisted on other areas of development.” (p369)
What I find disappointing is the lack, or apparent lack, of theoretical material from either the CCP or the Bolsheviks that laid the realities on the table in such a way that indicated that they knew the growth of the individual was an important goal and that it was occurring, but that circumstances did not allow them to focus on this. This distinction, and its rationale, does not strike me as beyond the wit of the players to articulate. While my own ignorance may be the driver here, the lack of much written material indicates that it was not seen as a problem. This reinforces my hunch that there has been a deep ambivalence about the individual in revolutionary movements generally and that this has been dealt with through avoidance and a one sided focus on notions of collectivism.
One of the problems I have with this (there are a few) is that this ambivalence leaves the door open to the development of anti-capitalist feelings that spring from a backward looking romanticism, a yearning for a pastoral, harmonious, pre industrial past, based on scarcity and frugality.
This reactionary yearning looks to an idealised, non-existent past and posits it as the future. Its most modern form can be seen amongst extremist greens and Islamic fascist groups like ISIS. It certainly had a presence in the English Revolution and re-emerged as a current of the Romantic period that arose partly in response to the Industrial Revolution. However, as Berman states, we envision equality within an urban, dynamic economy based on growth and abundance. (p36) And Amen to that!
During the 18thC and 19thC that reactionary yearning for harmony and stability was expressed strongly in reactions to the Enlightenment and to the French Revolution. Prior to the revolution reactionaries on both sides of the English channel were busy drawing the cultural authoritarian wagons into a circle, drawing upon Neo-Classicism from the arts and Newtonian physics, in order to promote social stability by encouraging people to submit to fixed, eternal rules, externally imposed and closed to scrutiny. This de facto united front between a decaying French feudalism and an ascendant British capitalism occurred because both ruling classes required social stability. The British were more successful having had a revolution, albeit limited in its extent and aims; the French were not because they hadn’t. But on both sides of the Channel ruling class anxiety was a clear sign that the horse had well and truly bolted. Whilst it is obvious that there were a great many other issues that drove the revolution, the progressive unfettering of the individual, his/her emergence as subjects on the social and political arena, was prominent among them. Following similar developments that had been occurring in Britain, the third estate mob was becoming less and less mob like.
By 1790, for example, before the direction of the revolution had become clear, Edmund Burke was quick to fire a shot across the bows, dismissing the philosophes and the revolution that Burke would have seen as their mongrel child, as “sophisters, economists and calculators. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom.” Proud submission? Servitude an exalted freedom? Warming to his theme and moving seamlessly into hyperbolic overdrive he predicted that “All the pleasing illusions which made power gentle and obedience liberal, which harmonised the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics all the sentiments that beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by the new conquering empire of light and reason. All decent drapery of life is to be torn off …” (Reflections… paras 127-8)
While Burke’s prose is simultaneously impressive and nausea inducing he employs a sophistry unmatched by any of his erstwhile French targets. We should keep in mind that de Maistre’s reflections, made after the revolution, dispensed with Burke’s draperies and cut to the chase. Berman points out that what Burke was effectively admitting to was that the “whole social system of Europe was essentially a system of lies” which is where de Maistre’s executioner comes in as reinforcer. Shelley exposed these lies in his poem Anarchy, written in response to the Peterloo Massacre of 1819. It is good to have Burke in mind while reading it.
French reactionary responses were also predictably hostile. What had been lost was the clarity and predictability of medieval Catholicism, especially the stability and obedience to medieval hierarchy. Individuals, they argued, had been severed from their traditional (and subservient) ties. The atomised, uncontrolled individual, the individual who no longer respected the sanctity of the place of his/her superiors, was a threat to social cohesion and aroused consternation among those superiors for whom de Maistre was an influential spokesperson. Individualist liberalism was destructive to the social order and de Maistre’s uncompromising worldview has cast a long shadow.
Had figures like de Maistre simply faded into the background and, along with their ideas, exited stage right, we could happily channel the Mandy Rice-Davies line of “well he would [say that] wouldn’t he” and move on. What is of ongoing interest about de Maistre, aside from his ‘casual’ attitude on maintaining social order, is his influence on Saint-Simon, one of the Utopian Socialists’ heavy lifters, a man who had a significant influence on the development of numerous socialist currents that developed in the mid to late 19thC. Both men were contemporaries and it was de Maistre’s thinking about social cohesion and political authority that garnered influence. Auguste Comte, Saint-Simone’s secretary and father of sociology, frequently and approvingly cited him.
Culture that draws its authority from a closed and oppressive past cannot prepare or aid its members to negotiate the permanently turbulent waters that modernity throws up. For such cultures, the future has already happened and all it does is prepare people for more of the same.
Historical events demonstrate more powerfully than words that this has a shelf life. Taking sides in the individual/social divide, however, presented real challenges, cultural and political, that have seen ostensibly radical and revolutionary ideologies promote ideas that bore disturbing similarities to feudalist or semi feudalist ideas of community with limited space for individual development, let alone transformation.
The development of society to higher levels (higher levels of syntheses as Elias would put it) enables higher levels of individuation and individual development, opening the way to increased fulfilment (and increased dissatisfaction); increased chances of happiness (and increased chances of unhappiness and disappointment), all of which are society specific. So which road, the high road or the low road? Old maritime charts used to have “this way there be dragons” to describe unknown waters and discourage exploration. Dragons might be scary, but “this way there be development”.
This of course is not a one way street as the development of the individual in modern societies is necessarily accompanied by the development of society, of a multiplicity of choices in how we can be ‘we’ as well as ‘I’ and ‘we’ relationships are no longer necessarily permanent and inescapable, no longer a constraint to the development of free will and personal responsibility.
The working class itself has made it clear through its actions and choices that it values individual growth and development and the economic development which facilitates this.
The question for communists and assorted ratbags is: do we?
Posted in Christopher Hill, communism, conservatism, Marshall Berman, Marxism, modernity, Norbert Elias, the individual, Tom Griffiths, Uncategorized | Tagged Christopher Hill, communism, conservatism, Edmund Burke, Joseph de Maistre, Karl Kautsky, Marxism, modernity, Norbert Elias, Plato, the individual, Tom Griffiths | 12 Comments
How the racism of low expectations holds back progress while disempowering…
‘Greens should just shut up and listen’ by Jacinta Price via Bill Kerr’s blog.
This article originally appeared in ‘The Australian’. Yeah, I know – the Murdoch press. Well, I don’t care where it was published. It needs to be read. The issue is way too important and way too urgent.
When elders from the communities of Kununurra, Wyndham and Ceduna travelled to Canberra last week with a video revealing the appalling violence on their streets, they delivered a strong message. Those streets are war zones of drug and alcohol-fuelled assaults and child abuse — and they want it to stop.
The video, supported by West Australian mining businessman Andrew Forrest, proves the desperate need for the cashless debit card system that quarantines 80 per cent of welfare recipients’ payments to limit access to alcohol, drugs and gambling.
These elders are crying out for the lives of the children being assaulted and abused. In one of these communities, 187 children are victims of sexual abuse with 36 men facing 300 charges, and a further 124 are suspects.
I know all too well the deep frustrations these Australian citizens feel as they are desperate to save their people from the crisis being played out day after day in their communities. They have long fought for our political leaders to recognise the need to take the tough — sometimes unpopular but necessary — steps to make meaningful change that will save the lives of Aboriginal children, women and men.
So why do large numbers of our media and our political leaders (including some indigenous ones) fail to respond to such clear evidence of assault, child abuse and violence at the hands of our own people but are prepared to call for a royal commission when the perpetrator is a white person in uniform or when institutionalised racism is perceived to be at play?
A television report on the horrendous treatment of juvenile inmates at Darwin’s Don Dale Youth Detention Centre swiftly sparked a royal commission. Yet footage of an Aboriginal man stomping on an Aboriginal woman and various other vicious acts — which in my view are far more shocking than that of the Don Dale footage — draws criticism by the Greens that the video was simply propaganda for the cashless welfare card. This is not propaganda; it is proof.
We hear regularly that we should be listening to Aboriginal people on the ground to understand the complexities of the problems and to encourage us to find solutions for our horrific circumstances. Well, here is a video created by Aboriginal leaders in conjunction with the wider community, including the police and a mayor, pleading for the implementation of a practical measure to help curb the purchase of alcohol and drugs so the lives of the most marginalised Australians may be improved. No, it is not a magic bullet, but it is a start towards improving the lives of Australian citizens in crisis.
Forrest has been criticised for telling the world that he has been approached by minors willing to sell sex. A 14-year-old I know who roams Alice Springs streets at night regularly witnesses children selling themselves to “old” Aboriginal men for alcohol and cigarettes. We pass such information on to the police, who already know it is happening, yet the authorities responsible for these children tells us they have seen no evidence of it. Just as there was a conspiracy of silence to deny the reality of frontier violence, now there seems to be a conspiracy of silence on the left to deny what is happening openly in our streets.
The evidence of deep crisis has never been so blatant. This trauma is inflicted on our people by substance abuse and violence fuelled by a taxpayer-funded disposable income. However, if a rich white man throws his support behind a group of frustrated and desperate indigenous leaders living with this trauma their plea simply is dismissed as perverse by the politically correct without offering any effective alternative solutions.
The Greens call Forrest paternalistic, yet WA Greens senator Rachel Siewert has the audacity to tell indigenous people how we should think, what our problems are and what we should be doing about it. Siewert and her party chose not to meet the elders who came all the way to Canberra from their remote communities to communicate the real problems.
The Greens reaction is nothing more than the racism of low expectations and egocentric virtue-signalling of those toeing the line of an ideology that is further compounding the crisis. If the video shocked you, good. It should; and what should follow is an appropriate response that recognises the human right of Aboriginal women, children and men to live in safety, free of drug and alcohol-driven violence and sexual abuse. Sacrificing whole generations to violence and abuse does not help the fight against racism. It reinforces it.
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is an Alice Springs councillor and a research associate at the Centre for Independent Studies.This article originally appeared in ‘The Australian’.
Posted in Aborigines, Greens, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, remote communities - violence, Uncategorized | Tagged Aborigines, Greens, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, No More campaign, remote communities - violence | 9 Comments
SYRIA: links
For links to information about, and discussion of, Syria's democratic revolution.
Daesh, the (pseudo) Left, and the Unmaking of the Syrian Revolution
How the Syrian revolution has transformed me - Budour Hassan
... because I believe in a bright future and want to help make a difference. And I refuse to allow the likes of John Pilger, Tariq Ali and Tim Flannery to be seen as leftists.
Brexit – born again December 13, 2019
Brexit – Baldrick Cummings Cunning Plans October 18, 2019
ROB DARBY (1953-2019): Interviewed in 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1989 by John Herouvim for thesis on the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) September 30, 2019
Who do you ‘sock’? From Alice Springs to the ‘Foolish Old Man who moved the Mountains’ – and back September 11, 2019
Brexit – And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards November to be aborted September 3, 2019
Brexit – Pantomime Outrage August 29, 2019
Brexit – four parties dancing and falling to bits August 11, 2019
Brexit – stumbling towards a “Final Say” July 22, 2019
Debunking Austrian Economics’ Socialist Calculation Problem July 16, 2019
Servility is abhorrent June 19, 2019
A Marxist Response to the the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers’ Report “The Opportunity Cost of Socialism” June 16, 2019
Looking back on the 1980s nuclear disarmament movement. Atom bombs really are paper tigers. June 8, 2019
We are all nobody… June 7, 2019
Brexit – has Greg Sheridan actually noticed? June 1, 2019
Brexit – if UK retains two party system it could be LibDems vs Brexit June 1, 2019
Brexit – EU election results May 28, 2019
Persecution of Marxist students in Beijing – where there is repression, there is resistance! May 27, 2019
Brexit – near end game May 22, 2019
Brexit – could it result in Proportional Representation? May 18, 2019
Brexit – Remain still winning, as is Labour May 17, 2019
Celebrating Darce Cassidy May 15, 2019
Notes on Trump 46 – breaking news flash on Mueller report liberals outraged April 19, 2019
Brexit – “Remain has won” April 11, 2019
Notes on Trump 45 – now at 51% approval to 47% disapproval among voters April 7, 2019
Brexit – from blustering and blithering to outright gibbering April 5, 2019
Brexit blustering and blithering April 2, 2019
Brexit – exhausting the alternatives March 31, 2019
Brexit – straws in the wind for UK election March 26, 2019
Notes on Trump 44 – No collusion but keep ranting about obstruction March 25, 2019
Brexit – successful confusion March 22, 2019
Notes on Trump 43, Nazis and Brexit both sides losing March 20, 2019
Brexit – end game March 18, 2019
Expel Anning from Senate March 16, 2019
The dialectical relationship between ‘I’ and ‘We’ – critical response to Michael D. Yates’ ‘Can the working class change the world?’ March 9, 2019
Some fighting words for International Women’s Day March 8, 2019
Grounds for Suspicion March 2, 2019
The Internationale – Tiananmen Square 1989 February 28, 2019
Brexit and the Ides of March February 26, 2019
Twilight Zone Trump February 18, 2019
Constitutional Ignorance and Criminal Policies towards refugees February 14, 2019
Notes on Trump 41 – the shutdown January 25, 2019
Notes on Trump 40 January 14, 2019
Reminder of the spirit January 13, 2019
Word meanings and the left January 10, 2019
Brexit April Fool’s day joke could be nearly over December 14, 2018
When the state is unjust, citizens may use justifiable violence December 9, 2018
Assassinations of Raed Fares and Hammoud al-Jneid – the democratic revolution continues November 28, 2018
Notes on Trump 39 – Democrats on about obstruction of justice and Russia again November 22, 2018
Brexit danger fading November 19, 2018
Notes on Trump 38 – midterm results November 18, 2018
Arthur on Brexit – Baldrick Cummin…
Steve Owens on Brexit – Baldrick Cummin…
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A Blog Devoted to Socialist Economics
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Experts Rally behind Comparative Oncology to Solve Cancers Shared by Kids and Dogs
Contact: Shawn Flaherty, 703-554-3609
Veterinary and Pediatric Researchers Address Barriers to Cancer Collaboration
WASHINGTON, DC (June 16, 2017)—Dogs and kids develop many of the same cancers but efforts to find cures have not been widely coordinated…yet. Top cancer researchers and leaders in pediatric and veterinary medicine gathered for the first ever Paws for a Cure Summit, hosted by Canines-N-Kids Foundation—to discuss barriers and find solutions for enhancing collaborative efforts aimed at finding cures for cancers shared by kids and dogs.
“Dogs and kids need each other. Both develop a number of similar or even identical cancers, but the worlds of pet and pediatric cancer research largely function separately. We are working to change this so that veterinary and pediatric researchers can work together to develop better medicines and find more cures,” explained Ulrike Szalay, founder and executive director of Canines-N-Kids Foundation, a nonprofit committed to promoting research that integrates efforts for the benefit of both kids and dogs with cancer.
Held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, this first-of-its-kind Summit brought together top leaders and researchers in veterinary and pediatric oncology, immunology, translational science, industry and cancer advocacy to develop a roadmap for accelerating innovation in pediatric cancer treatment in ways that might also help man’s best friend. Consensus opinions suggest that comparative oncology, leveraging the study of similar cancers that occur in both animals and people through clinical trials recruiting dogs affected by cancer, offers tremendous opportunity to find treatments that will benefit both dog and human patient groups.
Not only is cancer the leading cause of disease-related childhood death in the US—it also claims the lives of 47 percent of dogs. Kids and dogs develop similar kinds of cancers, including bone cancer, brain and central nervous system cancers (like glioblastoma), and lymph and blood cancers (including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and certain types of leukemia). Dogs and kids share genes, too: more than 84 percent of canine DNA has human counterparts. This makes them susceptible to the same diseases, according to the Genomics Institute, and makes the cancers that they share eerily similar on a clinical, genetic, and biologic level. Treatments that work in kids work in dogs, and vice-versa.
The challenges inherent in designing and implementing pediatric oncology clinical trials for limited number of children with cancer, coupled with scant resources for conducting research on pediatric cancers, makes finding cures difficult for the roughly 16,000 children diagnosed in the United States each year. Only three new medications have been approved for the treatment of pediatric cancer in the last 30 years. Only 4 percent of the National Cancer Institute’s budget goes to kids’ cancer and virtually no pharmaceutical funding goes to pediatric cancer research. For dogs diagnosed with cancer, the outlook is no better.
Speaker Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, urged attendees to work together to fulfill the promise of comparative oncology for the benefit of kids and our four legged companions, and to fix regulatory and other hurdles standing in the way, exclaiming: “I’m convinced. You’re convinced. It can be done. It has to be done. We need to understand, and we can do it!”
During the Summit, attendees participated in cross-disciplinary working groups with both animal and human researchers and experts. The groups identified key challenges and opportunities to accelerating progress, including:
• Reducing gaps in the regulatory framework to ease the inclusion of canine clinical trials in the drug development process in ways that benefit canine and human cancer patients
• Providing incentives for formal training in clinical sciences targeting veterinary trainees to expand the pool of expert veterinary oncologists
• Improving the resolution of maps that facilitate comparison of canine and human genomes and defining a larger set of genomic cancer markers through sequencing and comparing dog tumors with human tumors
• Supporting research that generates improved understanding of canine immunology across breeds to better predict how dogs and kids might respond similarly or differently to cutting-edge cancer therapies
• Promoting an improved understanding and acceptance of comparative oncology among the pet owners and pediatric cancer communities
• Improving coordination between collaborative groups that organize clinical trials in pets and in people
As next steps, the recently established Canines-N-Kids Foundation agreed to continue building momentum by:
• Developing platforms to enhance communication and share information among both pet and human medical worlds
• Improving the basic research “toolbox” for veterinary cancer researchers, providing proteins, antibodies, assays, and other tools for canine research similar to those used by their human oncology counterparts
• Creating and publishing a compelling business case for canine clinical trials in pharmaceutical drug development using real-life examples of integrated drug development
• Prioritizing Canines-N-Kids grants-making to ensure that critical, collaborative research projects get funded
• Developing and supporting cross–disciplinary, multi-stakeholder working groups to addressing barriers to effective, efficient, productive collaboration between veterinary and pediatric communities
The integration of drug development in pediatric and pet populations has great potential to accelerate the discovery of novel, more effective, less toxic treatments for the cancers that plague children and dogs. “I left believing there is a better chance for my human osteosarcoma patients. When I got home, I hugged my dog extra as well,” quipped Damon Reed, leader of the Pediatric Cancer Foundation’s pediatric phase I consortium, the Sunshine Project.
The Summit received generous support from the Petco Foundation; the Blue Buffalo Foundation; the V Foundation for Cancer Research; and the Quad W Foundation.
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Catalog Till You Hear From Me » Books »
Till You Hear From Me: A Novel
Pearl Cleage
Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group 2010
Pearl Cleage. (2010). Till You Hear From Me: A Novel. Unabridged Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group.
Pearl Cleage. 2010. Till You Hear From Me: A Novel. Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group.
Pearl Cleage, Till You Hear From Me: A Novel. Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, 2010.
Pearl Cleage. Till You Hear From Me: A Novel. Unabridged Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, 2010.
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Till You Hear From Me A Novel
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Just when it appears that all her hard work on Barack Obama's presidential campaign is about to pay off with a White House job, thirty-five-year-old Ida B. Wells Dunbar finds herself on Washington, D.C.'s post-election sidelines even as her twentysomething counterparts overrun the West Wing. Adding to her woes, her father, the Reverend Horace A. Dunbar, Atlanta civil rights icon, is notoriously featured on an endlessly replayed YouTube clip in which his pronouncements don't exactly jibe with the new era in American politics. The Rev's stinging words and myopic views don't sound anything like the man who raised Ida. When friends call to express their concern, Ida realizes it's time to head home and see for herself what's going on.
Back in her old West End neighborhood, Ida runs into childhood friend and smooth political operator Wes Harper, also in town to pay a visit to the Reverend Dunbar, his mentor. While Ida and the Rev try to find the balance between personal loyalties...
Back in her old West End neighborhood, Ida runs into childhood friend and smooth political operator Wes Harper, also in town to pay a visit to the Reverend Dunbar, his mentor. While Ida and the Rev try to find the balance between personal loyalties and political realities, they must do some serious soul searching in order to get things back on track before Wes permanently derails their best laid plans.
From the Compact Disc edition.
Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
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CCR Home » Pediatric Oncology Branch
Brigitte C. Widemann, M.D.
Carol J. Thiele, Ph.D.
ncipediatrics@mail.nih.gov
Building 10, Room 1W-3750
The Pediatric Oncology Branch is dedicated to improving outcomes for children and young adults with cancer and genetic tumor predisposition syndromes. We conduct translational research that spans basic science to clinical trials. Our clinical studies are performed in an environment that supports our patient’s medical and emotional needs, alongside cutting edge scientific research.
Whether you are a referring physician, family member or patient with childhood cancer or neurofibromatosis, or are interested in training at the Pediatric Oncology Branch, we hope that this website will provide the information you need to access our programs.
Chief, Pediatric Oncology Branch
Physicians should contact the Pediatric Oncology Branch by calling 240-760-6403 or 1-833-248-0479 or email NCIPOBReferrals@mail.nih.gov
We conduct clinical trials in acute lymphoblastic leukemia, pediatric sarcomas, neuroblastoma, brain tumors, malignant melanoma, neurofibromatosis and Phase I trials.
The Pediatric Hematology Oncology Fellowship is a joint program of the Pediatric Oncology Branch, NCI, NIH and Johns Hopkins University.
MEK inhibitor selumetinib granted breakthrough designation by FDA.
Our investigators and physicians realize that many challenges remain in the treatment of childhood cancers and genetic tumor predisposition syndromes but we are committed to improving outcomes for children and young adults with these diseases through cutting-edge basic and clinical research. Patients with cancer, neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), NF2 or other diseases under study who are enrolled on Branch clinical trials may receive therapy at the NIH Clinical Center.
Pediatric Oncology: A Tour for New Patients
Link to audio described version here.
Our clinical programs and trials span early treatment studies with new targeted agents including small molecules, monoclonal antibodies and immunotoxins, immunotherapy including tumor vaccines, and bone marrow transplantation, to studies aimed at improving our understanding of childhood cancers and the conditions that predispose children to cancer. Our multidisciplinary teams specialize in the study and treatment of:
solid tumors, including sarcomas:
chordoma
Ewing’s sarcoma
desmoplastic small round cell tumor
gastrointestinal stromal cell tumors (GIST)
leukemias and lymphomas
tumors related to genetic tumor predisposition syndromes:
NF1, NF2
The treatment of a childhood cancer presents extraordinary psychological, emotional and social challenges to the entire family. We offer a variety of support services to help patients and their families adapt and mobilize resources during treatment for these diseases. At the heart of these services is the personal commitment of every clinical team member to understand each young patient as a unique individual with specific needs. Team members collaborate with parents at each step in the process to be attentive to the quality of life of all family members, including siblings.
Physicians, patients, or family members may contact the Pediatric Oncology Branch from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday-Friday:
NCIPOBReferrals@mail.nih.gov
Administrative Staff:
Fidelia Acevedo, Program Assistant
Tiffany Prout, Administrative Assistant (Contr.)
Donna Shiels, Administrative Assistant (Contr.)
The Children's Inn at NIH
About Childhood Cancers
The NIH Clinical Center
Camp Fantastic
My Pediatric and Adult Rare Tumor Network
Clinical Teams
Behavioral Health Core
Neuro‐Oncology
Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (Phase I/II)
Behavioral Health Core - Lori Wiener, PhD, and Pamela Wolters, PhD, Co-Directors
Cell and Molecular Biology Section - Carol J. Thiele, PhD, Head
Hematologic Malignancies Section - Nirali Shah, Head
Tumor Microenvironment Section - Rosandra N. Kaplan, Head
Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics Section and Genetic Tumor Predisposition Program - Brigitte Widemann, MD, Head
Fellowship in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology
Graduate and Postdoctoral Research Opportunities
Medical Student Rotations
Predoctoral Fellowships
Psychology Training Program
Resident Electives
Trainees and Featured Alumni
James Morrow – MD/PhD, Graduate Student
Adrienne Long – MD/PhD, Graduate Student
Meera Murgabi – PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow
Jerry Jaboin – MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Radiation Oncology, Washington University, St. Louis
AeRang Kim – MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, George Washington University and Attending Physician at the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at the Children’s National Medical Center
MEK inhibitor selumetinib is granted breakthrough designation by FDA to treat children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1)
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted a breakthrough therapy designation for the MEK 1/2 inhibitor selumetinib for use in pediatric patients aged 3 years and older with symptomatic neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) and/or inoperable plexiform neurofibromas. The breakthrough designation was granted based on evidence from a phase II clinical trial, led by the POB. The FDA breakthrough designation is designed to accelerate the development and approval of drugs that show substantial improvement over currently available treatment. Read more.
Dr. Karlyne Reilly, Ph.D., speaks at the Future of Healthcare Summit held by The Hill
Dr. Karlyne Reilly participated in a panel on rare disease at the Future of Healthcare Summit, an event organized by The Hill magazine. She spoke about the challenges in rare disease and rare cancer research, and the importance of collaboration and innovation to develop therapies and get them to the patients. Watch the panel discussion here: https://buff.ly/326wUnX.
Congressional staff visit the POB
On May 29, 2019, Congressional staff visited the POB and participated in a roundtable discussion about childhood cancer research with NCI pediatric oncology experts. Congressional staff also toured labs within the POB and met with patients and families at the Children’s Inn at NIH. Nine bipartisan and bicameral staffers interested in childhood cancer research were present for the visit.
Dr. Nirali Shah, M.D., and Dr. Lori Wiener, Ph.D., speak at the Children and Cancer summit hosted by The Atlantic
On May 22, 2019, the Atlantic magazine hosted a summit on Children and Cancer. Dr. Nirali Shah, M.D. discussed her work on immunotherapy: Watch here. Dr. Lori Wiener, Ph.D. discussed her work on psychosocial standards of care for children and young adults with cancer: Watch here.
Dr. Udo Rudloff, M.D., Ph.D., discusses his research on CDH1 germline mutations in a Bloomberg podcast
Dr. Udo Rudloff, M.D., Ph.D. is featured on a recent Bloomberg Prognosis podcast episode entitled “Should We Be Scared of Our DNA?” He discusses the risks of developing diseases from genetic mutations. He also explains his work on the CDH1 germline mutations and the associated risk of hereditary diffuse gastric cancer (HDGC). Listen the full podcast online here.
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Search All CCR
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Certiorari Granted
Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc.
from the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
See other cases from the Federal Circuit.
Amicus brief of Software Freedom Law Center submitted.
Brief amici curiae of Software and System Developers and Engineers for United States Government Agencies filed.
Brief amicus curiae of American Antitrust Institute filed.
Brief amici curiae of Seventy Two Intellectual Property Scholars filed.
Brief amicus curiae of Engine Advocacy filed.
Brief amicus curiae of Retail Litigation Center, Inc. filed.
Brief amici curiae of R Street Institute, et al. filed.
Brief amicus curiae of Electronic Frontier Foundation filed.
Brief amici curiae of Eighty Three Computer Scientists filed.
Brief amici curiae of Python Software Foundation, et al. filed.
Brief amici curiae of Auto Care Association and Static Control Components, Inc. filed.
Brief amici curiae of Small, Medium, and Open Source Technology Organizations filed.
Brief amici curiae of International Business Machines Corp. et al. filed.
Brief amicus curiae of American Intellectual Property Law Association in support of neither party filed.
Brief amicus curiae of Microsoft Corporation filed.
Brief amici curiae of Computer & Communications Industry Association and Internet Association filed.
Brief amicus curiae of Developers Alliance filed.
Brief amici curiae of Software Innovators, Startups, and Investors filed.
Amicus brief of The American Library Association, The Association Of Research Libraries, The Association Of College And Research Libraries, And The Software Preservation Network submitted.
Amicus brief of Empirical Legal Researchers submitted.
Brief amici curiae of The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation et al. in support of neither party filed.
Brief amicus curiae of Rimini Street, Inc. filed.
Brief amici curiae of Copyright Scholars filed.
Brief amicus curiae of Michael Risch filed.
Brief amici curiae of Center for Democracy and Technology, et al. filed.
Brief amici curiae of Professors Peter S. Menell, et al. filed.
Brief amicus curiae of Glynn Lunney filed.
Brief amici curiae of Civ Pro, IP & Legal History Professors filed.
Brief of petitioner Google LLC filed.
Blanket Consent filed by Petitioner, Google LLC.
Motion to extend the time to file the briefs on the merits granted. The time to file petitioner's brief on the merits is extended to and including January 6, 2020. The time to file respondent's brief on the merits is extended to and including February 12, 2020.
The Clerk has approved the deferred method for filing of the joint appendix per Rule 26.4.
Motion for an extension of time to file the briefs on the merits filed.
Letter requesting permission to file the joint appendix under the deferred method filed.
Petition GRANTED.
Motion for leave to file amici brief filed by 78 Computer Scientists GRANTED.
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/8/2019.
Supplemental brief of petitioner Google LLC filed. (Distributed)
Brief amicus curiae of United States filed.
The Solicitor General is invited to file a brief in this case expressing the views of the United States.
Reply of petitioner Google LLC, filed. (Distributed)
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 4/26/2019.
Brief of respondent Oracle America, Inc. in opposition filed.
Motion for leave to file amici brief filed by 78 Computer Scientists.
Brief amicus curiae of Red Hat, Inc. filed.(3/11/2019)
Amicus brief of Red Hat, Inc. not accepted for filing. (March 11, 2019)(Corrected version submitted).
Brief amici curiae of Mozilla Corp., et al. filed.
Brief amici curiae of Python Software Foundation and Tidelift filed.
Brief amicus curiae of Computer & Communications Industry Association filed.
Brief amici curiae of Sixty Five Intellectual Property Scholars filed.
Brief amici curiae of Professors Peter S. Menell and David Nimmer filed.
Brief amici curiae of R Street Institute and Public Knowledge filed.
Amicus brief of Computer & Communications Industry Association not accepted for filing. (February 25, 2019) (Corrected electronic filing submitted)
Brief amici curiae of Eight Intellectual Property Scholars filed.
Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including March 27, 2019.
Motion to extend the time to file a response from February 25, 2019 to March 27, 2019, submitted to The Clerk.
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due February 25, 2019)
Application (18A417) granted by The Chief Justice extending the time to file until January 25, 2019.
Application (18A417) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from November 26, 2018 to January 25, 2019, submitted to The Chief Justice.
Google LLC, Petitioner, represented by Thomas C. Goldstein
Oracle America, Inc., Respondent, represented by E. Joshua Rosenkranz
American Antitrust Institute, Amicus Curiae, represented by Randy M. Stutz
American Intellectual Property Law Association, Amicus Curiae, represented by Jennifer Librach Nall
Auto Care Association and Static Control Components, Inc., Amicus Curiae, represented by Seth D. Greenstein
Center for Democracy and Technology, Institute For Intellectual Property & Social Justice, National Consumers League, and National Federation of the Blind, Amicus Curiae, represented by Joseph Charles Gratz
Civ Pro, IP & Legal History Professors in Support of Petitioner, Amicus Curiae, represented by Jaclyn Fabean Cherry
Computer & Communications Industry Association and Internet Association, Amicus Curiae, represented by Jonathan Band
Copyright Scholars, Amicus Curiae, represented by Rebecca Leah Tushnet
Developers Alliance, Amicus Curiae, represented by James Harold Hulme
Eight Intellectual Property Scholars, Amicus Curiae, represented by Christopher Theodore Bavitz
Eighty Three Computer Scientists, Amicus Curiae, represented by Phillip Robert Malone
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Amicus Curiae, represented by Michael Barclay
Empirical Legal Researchers, Amicus Curiae, represented by Ian Marc Herman
Engine Advocacy, Amicus Curiae, represented by Jeffrey Theodore Pearlman
Glynn Lunney, Amicus Curiae, represented by Joseph Glynn Stephen Lunney Jr.
International Business Machines Corp. and Red Hat, Inc., Amicus Curiae, represented by James Wilson Dabney
Michael Risch, Amicus Curiae, represented by Michael Victor Risch
Microsoft Corporation, Amicus Curiae, represented by Jeffrey Alan Lamken
Mozilla Corp., et al., Amicus Curiae, represented by Jason M. Schultz
Professors Peter S. Menell, David Nimmer and Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Amicus Curiae, represented by Peter S. Menell
Python Software Foundation and Tidelift, Amicus Curiae, represented by Jill Margaret Wheaton
Retail Litigation Center, Inc., Amicus Curiae, represented by Jonathan S. Massey
Rimini Street, Inc., Amicus Curiae, represented by Mark Andrew Perry
R Street Institute and Public Knowledge, Amicus Curiae, represented by Charles Duan
Seventy Two Intellectual Property Scholars, Amicus Curiae, represented by Catherine Newby Crump
Small, Medium, and Open Source Technology Organizations, Amicus Curiae, represented by Jason M. Schultz
Software and System Developers and Engineers for United States Government Agencies, Amicus Curiae, represented by Andrew Phillip Bridges
Software Freedom Law Center, Amicus Curiae, represented by Eben Moglen
Software Innovators, Startups, and Investors, Amicus Curiae, represented by Joseph Carl Cecere
The American Library Association, The Association Of Research Libraries, The Association Of College And Research Libraries, And The Software Preservation Network, Amicus Curiae, represented by Brandon Collins Butler
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation et al., Amicus Curiae, represented by John Paul Schnapper-Casteras
United States, Amicus Curiae, represented by Noel J. Francisco
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Ken Starr, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Ray join Trump’s impeachment defense team
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Home /AMAs: Taylor Swift takes subtle jabs at former record label, talks complicated year
EntertainmentNovember 25, 2019
AMAs: Taylor Swift takes subtle jabs at former record label, talks complicated year
After a week and a half of uncertainty, Taylor Swift‘s return to the American Music Awards went off without a hitch Sunday, as the pop star delivered a series of impassioned speeches and performances while standing in defiance of her former record label.
To recap, on Nov. 14, the pop superstar took to social media to call out Big Machine Label Group for allegedly barring her from performing her old hits at Sunday’s AMAs, where she was honored with the artist of the decade award. A public spat between Swift and the label’s owners, Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun, ensued, with the record label ultimately announcing that she had permission to perform her entire catalog on the telecast. (Swift released her most recent album, “Lover,” on Universal Music Group’s Republic Records this past summer. It was her first label change since signing to Big Machine at age 15.)
Fans wondered how Swift, 29, would choose to address the controversy in her much-anticipated return to the AMAs. The jabs were ultimately subtle, yet pointed: Accepting the fan-voted award for favorite album – pop/rock, Swift thanked her new label for supporting her as an artist.
10 best dressed:From Taylor Swift to Lizzo, here are the 10 best-dressed stars at the AMAs
“This album really felt like a new beginning, and I also really love my record label, Universal and Republic,” Swift said onstage. “Thank you for being so generous to me and allowing me to make whatever music I want to make. As a songwriter, it’s so thrilling to me that I get to keep doing that.”
Later, Swift opened her artist-of-the-decade medley with her incisive feminist anthem “The Man,” which she sang wearing a stark white button-down shirt with titles of all of her Big Machine-released albums scrawled across it in bold black letters, including “Fearless,” “Red” and “1989.”
She was joined by roughly a dozen young girls in matching shirts for the song, which includes lyrics such as, “I’m so sick of running fast as I can, wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man.”
More:Shania Twain supports Taylor Swift before AMAs: It’s ‘ridiculous’ for artists not to own their music
Swift continued with a career-spanning medley of hits, including “Blank Space,” “Love Story,” “I Knew You Were Trouble” and “Shake It Off,” where she was backed by friends and fellow pop stars Camila Cabello and Halsey. She closed out the set with title track “Lover,” her solo-written nominee for the Grammys’ song-of-the-year award, and was accompanied onstage by ballerina Misty Copeland.
Before the performance, she was lauded by songwriting legend Carole King, who praised Swift’s gifts as a singer, songwriter and performer.
“It’s rare to see all those talents in one person, but that defines Taylor Swift,” King said. “She is one of the only modern pop artists whose name appears as the sole songwriter in her song lyrics.”
AMAs 2019 winners’ list:Taylor Swift is tops; Dan + Shay, Billie Eilish win two each
Swift, in turn, credited a teary King for inspiring her as a young girl with 1971 album “Tapestry,” which helped her realize “that artists could transcend so many different phases and changes in people’s lives.”
It was an emotional night all around for Swift, who was a typically enthusiastic cheerleader watching best new artist winner Billie Eilish and friends Cabello, Shawn Mendes and Selena Gomez perform throughout the night. She also directed much of her medley and speeches to mom Andrea Swift, who was visibly crying throughout. (Swift’s heartbreaking new ballad “Soon You’ll Get Better” was inspired in part by her mother’s cancer relapse.)
AMAs:Selena Gomez ‘feels good’ after first live TV performance in two years
“The last year of my life has had some of the best times of my life and some of the hardest things in my life that haven’t been public,” Swift said at the end of the show, as she accepted her artist of the year award, which brought her all-time AMA wins to 25, breaking a record set by Michael Jackson.
“I want to say thank you to the fans for being something that is a constant in my life. … This year was good but really complicated. On behalf of me, my family, thank you for being there and caring.”
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Target India
Valli Bovallaram
From the innovation Labs
Target Accelerator Program
How India is powering US retailer Target with digital innovations
Here’s how US retailer Target’s Bangalore center has become a crucible of innovationSneha Jha | ETCIO | Updated: September 04, 2017, 12:53 IST
If a breath of air from one person can spin a pinwheel, imagine the gale force that could be generated from a team of over 2,800 members.
Whoever said there is strength in numbers was a wise man. A 2,800- strong team that is keyed up about innovations is a force to be reckoned with. It is powerful enough to uproot entrenched practices, add momentum to the winds of change and push ahead with innovation.
That explains why Target India’s headquarters, spread across two locations Embassy Golf Links and Embassy Manyata Tech Park in Bangalore, is a citadel of innovation.
Innovation Powerhouse
Set up in 2005, Target India is the extended headquarters for the US retailing giant and operates as a fully-integrated part of the global team. It supports Target’s global strategy across business areas such as technology, marketing, human resources, finance, merchandising, supply chain, analytics, and reporting. In fact, every business area at Target has team members in India.
And the Minneapolis-based discount retailer looks to the Bangalore center to tune up its innovation engine.
Established in 1962, Target has emerged as America’s second largest general merchandise retailer with a network of 1,816 stores and 39 distribution centers. It is focused on providing a convenient shopping experience and competitive discount pricing. It’s website Target.com is consistently ranked as one of the most-visited retail websites in the US.
But Target’s enduring competitive advantage isn’t longevity or a widespread network. It’s innovation. And a significant amount of the innovation wending its way to Target’s headquarters is created by its India crew.
Under the stewardship of Valli Bollavaram, Target India's Enterprise Data and BI engineering team has emerged as a classic example of India’s innovation and engineering potential.
As the Vice President - Enterprise Data & Business Intelligence Engineering and Global leader at Target, Bollavaram is tasked with making Target India an engineering focused organization. She is responsible for the strategic and operational aspects of Enterprise Data and Business Intelligence Engineering and has teams reporting to her based out of Bangalore, Minneapolis, and Sunnyvale.
And it’s a job she’s done remarkably well. Today the Bangalore center is innovating to help Target limber up for the rigorous retail wars.
Making the change happen
To keep Target ahead well into the future, Bollavaram is betting heavily on data.
“Data is an important resource, especially in the retail industry. At Target, we are constantly on the lookout for data, insights, and algorithms to further our guest experience on a day-to-day basis,” she declares. That data intensive strategy, it turns out, has ignited the innovative spirit of Target to revitalize its business on the digital front.
“At Target shopping is not just restricted to our stores, but extends to online (through target.com) and mobile as well. Data is thus very important in helping us provide a seamless shopping experience for our guests (customers) across the multiple channels. Such an experience helps drive a good shopping experience and is very important to the customer of today,” explains Valli Bollavaram.
Data thus is an important utility for Target and making enterprise data available, reliable, discoverable and accessible is a guiding principle. “We have built internal search engines or chatbots to find relevant data and answer business questions,’’ she adds.
The Enterprise Data & Analytics team of Target India has three main objectives: usage of data as a utility, optimizing operations and usage of data as an asset.
To use data as a utility, the retailer collects and uses reliable, discoverable data for Target without any disruptions. It processes petabytes of data annually.
The usage of data as an asset involves creating high-value tools and products to help leverage the open source community in a way that provides a competitive advantage.
And then, the retailer is constantly on the journey towards finding the most efficient way to optimize operations. For instance, it is trying to reduce ongoing operating costs by shifting away from vendor packaged products.
Another interesting example is how the Bangalore center in collaboration with the US-based team is trying to support Target’s Supply Chain Modernization agenda. The Bangalore team has been leading the effort to build relevant data subject areas in the Hadoop ecosystem while reducing dependency on traditional data storage platforms. “We have built a product that automates the entire subject area build out in Hadoop using the footprint in Teradata, which has accelerated our Hadoop journey,” she claims.
None of this would be possible without digital leadership that is well-steeped in the business. Bollavaram believes that if there’s a better way to do business they must find it. This perennial quest nudges her towards making Target an engine of efficiency.
In the hyper-competitive realm of discount retailing, data is key to making the company more responsive to customers. The Bangalore center in collaboration with the US based teams has developed a recommendation engine to improve Target’s digital business conversion. This starts with knowing the guests in terms of demographics and location, their preferences (brand, style, color, stores, etc.) and shopping behavior (store and digital purchases, digital views, etc.).
“We use what we know to personalize and optimize each interaction the guest has at Target across all channels and devices. We delight our guests by helping them find what they want easily and quickly, discover what they love, shop the way they prefer and deliver where, when and how they want it. Finally, we strive to drive repeat visits and purchases,” she says.
Data gives them a wide angle view of the customer. And this knowledge has been applied to demand forecasting. Target India in conjunction with its US counterpart has created a demand forecasting engine that supports decisions taken across various business teams to provide accurate forecast like inventory (on hand) and assortment mix. The engine uses data and signals and exposes forecasts through APIs. The engine employs a continuous feedback loop to improve accuracy with time.
Target India closely collaborates with global teams on all technology aspects and has been instrumental in driving change across business processes that have been clamoring for change. It has revamped Point of Sales to cater to all kinds of guests. “Though our point of sale software is rated as one of the fastest in the industry in terms of check out experience, we are enhancing self-checkout functionality that would enable our guests to avoid check lane queues and also building mobile POS that would enable guests to have a seamless checkout experience,” she says.
Optimizing shipping costs play a huge role in improving digital sales efficiencies. With this end in mind, the Bangalore team is collaborating with global partners to identify opportunities to optimize shipping expenses through delivering data products that provide a good view of improving overall inventory positioning and addressing gaps.
One of the other techniques that Target India is employing to enhance efficiencies is to move away from traditional off-the-shelf packages to solve business problems. Engineers are encouraged to adopt Open Source technologies to build solutions/products. This gives immense flexibility in the hands of engineers to deliver products that perfectly meet the needs of Target’s business teams. In addition, this approach enables them to learn and contribute to the open source community and stay on top of the technology changes that can be harnessed to solve business problems in a proactive fashion.
Let a 1000 flowers bloom
Target is also invested heavily in the cloud model. Any piece of code that engineers develop needs to be cloud-ready. This enables the company to scale its products seamlessly and deliver product features in the hands of the business teams at a much quicker pace than what was possible through traditional application development.
Bollavaram claims that Target embraced AI long before it was popular in the industry. Target has been using it widely to personalize the guest experience, improve efficiencies within stores or predict stores’ inventory and assortment needs.
The use of AI and machine learning at Target has paved the way for the Smart Buildings initiative “Sustainability is an important goal for us at Target and we continue to integrate such practices across our business with an eye on using our resources responsibly,” says Bollavaram.
Analytics and AI have had an important role to play in this. The Bangalore center in collaboration with Target US has been leveraging sensor data to control lighting and temperature in Target stores to enhance guest (customer) experience based on the sections in the stores and how popular they are in terms of visitors, etc,” she informs.
“The IT infrastructure at the stores is equally important and we use AI and machine learning to maintain its health. These technologies are used to monitor our Store Servers’ infrastructure. This helps prevent failures using High-Performance Computing. It also helps facilitate the processing of all server events responsible for seamless operations at stores. This way we avoid POS and cash register related issues at checkout,” she adds.
Innovation is core to Target’s culture and strategy. To step up its game with a steady stream of bold new ideas, the retailer launched the Target Accelerator Program (TAP) in December 2013. Under the program, it assists Indian retail startups with customization and scaling their products. The move was aimed at spurring innovative solutions that will ultimately benefit its guests. “Till date, we have had 4 batches of 22 startups graduate from the Target Accelerator Program. The startups work with various teams including marketing, finance, stores, legal, search engine, merchandising, mobile, Target.com, etc. We’ve seen a lot of success from our accelerator program and recently launched the fifth and largest batch of our program (8 startups),” states Bollavaram.
Many of the selected startups work in areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and analytics. For instance, Pune-based Light Information Systems has developed a product ‘NLP Bots’ that process text and images and is powered by deep learning algorithms that help it learn from user interactions. Moonraft Innovation Labs, a design and innovation firm has experience in creating an AI-powered shopping assistant for trial-rooms. Another startup vPhrase helps enterprises understand their data better by explaining insights in words using artificial intelligence.
So what does Target India do to become a crucible of innovation? “We are conducting focused training interventions to further enhance our engineering capability. This has enabled us to reduce our reliance on third-party vendors in managing projects and mission critical software platforms. We also challenge our team members to innovate and look for solutions by leveraging hackathons and bringing together like minded engineers. A solid onboarding on technology and domain specific knowledge has enabled us to build a strong engineering bench,” Bollavaram reveals.
And that, in fact, has helped Target India become a hotbed of technological innovation.
Tags : Strategy & Management, Target India, Valli Bovallaram, Target, From the innovation Labs, AI, Target Accelerator Program, digital, US, retailer, data
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The X window system (1986)
by R W Scheifler, J Gettys
Venue: ACM Trans. Graphics
An introduction to software architecture
by David Garlan, Mary Shaw - Advances in Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering , 1993
...ring environment architecture based on layered communication substrates) [13, 14], and the X Window System (a distributed windowed user interface architecture based on event triggering and callbacks) =-=[15]-=-. We are still far from having a well-accepted taxonomy of such architectural paradigms, let alone a fully-developed theory of software architecture. But we can now clearly identify a number of archit...
Architectural Mismatch or Why it's hard to build systems out of existing parts
by David Garlan , Robert Allen, John Ockerbloom , 1995
"... Many would argue that future breakthroughs in software productivity will depend on our ability to combine existing pieces of software to produce new applications. An important step towards this goal is the development of new techniques to detect and cope with mismatches in the assembled parts. Some ..."
Many would argue that future breakthroughs in software productivity will depend on our ability to combine existing pieces of software to produce new applications. An important step towards this goal is the development of new techniques to detect and cope with mismatches in the assembled parts. Some problems of composition are due to low-level issues of interoperability, such as mismatches in programming languages or database schemas. However, in this paper we highlight a different, and in manywaysmore pervasive, class of problem: architectural mismatch. Specifically, we use our experience in building a family of software design environments from existing parts to illustrate a variety of types of mismatch that center around the assumptions a reusable part makes about the structure of the application in which is to appear. Based on this experience we show how an architectural view of the mismatch problem exposes some fundamental, thorny problems for software composition and suggests poss...
...considerable investment in research and development in reuse [BP89, Kru92], industry standards for component interaction (e.g., [Cor91]), domain-specific architectures (e.g., [MG92]), toolkits (e.g., =-=[SG86]-=-), and many other related areas. This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number CCR-9357792, by the Wright Laboratory, Aeronautical Systems Center, Air Force Materie...
On Finding Duplication and Near-Duplication in Large Software Systems
by Brenda S. Baker , 1995
"... This paper describes how a program called dup can be used to locate instances of duplication or near-duplication in a software system. Dup reports both textually identical sections of code and sections that are the same textually except for systematic substitution of one set of variable names and co ..."
This paper describes how a program called dup can be used to locate instances of duplication or near-duplication in a software system. Dup reports both textually identical sections of code and sections that are the same textually except for systematic substitution of one set of variable names and constants for another. Further processing locates longer sections of code that are the same except for other small modifications. Experimental results from running dup on millions of lines from two large software systems show dup to be both effective at locating duplication and fast. Applications could include identifying sections of code that should be replaced by procedures, elimination of duplication during reengineering of the system,
...ated by small gaps; alternatively, such regions can be found by examining scatter plots. An example of a p-match is given in Figure 1, which contains two code fragments taken from the X Window System =-=[18]-=- source code. The fragments are identical except for the differing indentation (which is ignored by dup) and the correspondence between the variable names pfi/pfh and the pairs of structure member nam...
The Design, Implementation and Evaluation of SMART: A Scheduler for Multimedia Applications
by Jason Nieh, Monica S. Lam , 1997
"... This paper argues for the need to design a new processor scheduling algorithm that can handle the mix of applications we see today. We present a scheduling algorithm which we have implemented in the Solaris UNIX operating system [Eykholt et al. 1992], and demonstrate its improved performance over ex ..."
This paper argues for the need to design a new processor scheduling algorithm that can handle the mix of applications we see today. We present a scheduling algorithm which we have implemented in the Solaris UNIX operating system [Eykholt et al. 1992], and demonstrate its improved performance over existing schedulers in research and practice on real applications. In particular, we have quantitatively compared against the popular weighted fair queueing and UNIX SVR4 schedulers in supporting multimedia applications in a realistic workstation environment...
...s CPU integer performance. —Typing (interactive) - This application emulates a user typing to a text editor by receiving a series of characters from a serial input line and using the X window server=-= [Scheifler and Gettys 1986-=-] to display them to the frame buffer. To enable a realistic and repeatable sequence of typed keystrokes for interactive applications, a hardware keyboard simulator was constructed and attached via a ...
Composing User Interfaces with InterViews
by Mark A. Linton, John M. Vlissides, Paul R Calder - IEEE Computer , 1989
"... raphical user interfaces for workstation applications are inherently difficult to build without abstractions that simplify the implementation process. To help programmers create such interfaces, we considered the following questions: What sort of interfaces should be supported? What constitutes a go ..."
raphical user interfaces for workstation applications are inherently difficult to build without abstractions that simplify the implementation process. To help programmers create such interfaces, we considered the following questions: What sort of interfaces should be supported? What constitutes a good set of programming abstractions for building such interfaces? How does a programmer build an interface given these abstractions? Practical experience has guided our efforts to develop user interface tools that address these questions. We make the following
Debugging concurrent programs
by Charles E. Mcdowell, David P. Helmbold - ACM Computing Surveys , 1989
"... The main problems associated with debugging concurrent programs are increased complexity, the “probe effect, ” nonrepeatability, and the lack of a synchronized global clock. The probe effect refers to the fact that any attempt to observe the behavior of a distributed system may change the behavior o ..."
The main problems associated with debugging concurrent programs are increased complexity, the “probe effect, ” nonrepeatability, and the lack of a synchronized global clock. The probe effect refers to the fact that any attempt to observe the behavior of a distributed system may change the behavior of that system. For some parallel programs,
Graphical User Interface Programming
by Brad A. Myers , 2004
Checking for Race Conditions in File Accesses
by Matt Bishop, Michael Dilger - COMPUTING SYSTEMS , 1996
"... Flaws due to race conditions in which the binding of a name to an object changes between repeated references occur in many programs. We examine one type of this flaw in the UNIX operating system, and describe a semantic method for detecting possible instances of this problem. We present the results ..."
Flaws due to race conditions in which the binding of a name to an object changes between repeated references occur in many programs. We examine one type of this flaw in the UNIX operating system, and describe a semantic method for detecting possible instances of this problem. We present the results of one such analysis in which a previously undiscovered race condition flaw was found.
User Interface Software Tools
by Brad A. Myers - ACM TRANSACTIONS ON COMPUTER-HUMAN INTERACTION , 1993
"... Almost as long as there have been user interfaces, there have been special software systems and tools to help design and implement the user interface software. Many of these tools have demonstrated significant productivity gains for programmers, and have become important commercial products. Others ..."
Almost as long as there have been user interfaces, there have been special software systems and tools to help design and implement the user interface software. Many of these tools have demonstrated significant productivity gains for programmers, and have become important commercial products. Others have proven less successful at supporting the kinds of user interfaces people want to build. This article discusses the different kinds of user interface software tools, and investigates why some approaches have worked and others have not. Many examples of commercial and research systems are included. Finally, current research directions and open issues in the field are discussed.
... components of user interface software discussed in this article. The windowing system supports the separation of the screen into different (usually rectangular) regions, called windows. The X system =-=[91]-=- divides the window functionality into two layers: the window system, which is the functional or programming interface, and the window manager which is the user interface. Thus the ‘‘window system’’ p...
A Brief History of Human Computer Interaction Technology
by Brad A. Myers - ACM INTERACTIONS , 1998
"... This article summarizes the historical development of major advances in humancomputer interaction technology, emphasizing the pivotal role of university research in the advancement of the field. ..."
This article summarizes the historical development of major advances in humancomputer interaction technology, emphasizing the pivotal role of university research in the advancement of the field.
...ar and Microsoft Windows were tiled, but eventually they supported overlapping windows like the Lisa and Macintosh.sThe X Window System, a current international standard, was developed at MIT in 1984 =-=[39]-=-.sFor a survey of window managers, see [24]. 3. Application Types • Drawing programs: Much of the current technology was demonstrated in Sutherland’s 1963 Sketchpad system.sThe use of a mouse for grap...
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‘Logan Lucky’ Review: Never Leave Us Again, Steven Soderbergh
by Matt Goldberg August 17, 2017
Although he announced his retirement from filmmaking several years ago, Steven Soderbergh never truly abandoned us. In a world with better theatrical distribution models, Behind the Candelabra would have been in theaters instead of on HBO, and Soderbergh still went on to crush it on TV with the critically acclaimed series The Knick. But now he’s “back” with Logan Lucky, and he hasn’t missed a beat. While I don’t love all of Soderbergh’s films, his talent is undeniable, and with Logan Lucky, he takes a movie that could have been so breezy that it would have floated away or a film that could have poked fun at poor white people and instead came away with a movie that’s painfully funny, as cool as any of the Ocean’s movies, and loves its hillbilly characters unabashedly. The second Logan Lucky was over, I wanted to walk right back in and see it again.
Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) has just been fired from his construction job fixing sinkholes at the Charlotte Motor Speedway after an HR rep spotted him limping (an injury he suffered long before he started his construction job) and didn’t want to worry about insurance. His brother Clyde (Adam Driver), who lost an arm fighting in the second Iraq War, tends bar and keeps bringing up the “Logan Family Curse.” When Jimmy’s ex-wife Bobbie Jo (Katie Holmes) threatens to move from West Virginia to Virginia with their daughter Sadie (Farrah Mackenzie), Jimmy decides that he’s had it, and that it’s time to stage a robbery at the Speedway so he’ll have the money to hire a lawyer. He recruits a team of misfits including demolitions expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), Bang’s brothers, Sam (Brian Gleeson) and Fish (Jack Quaid), and Jimmy’s sister Mellie (Riley Keough) to rob the Speedway during a race.
Image via Fingerprint Releasing and Bleecker Street
Rather than just trying to do Ocean’s Eleven with a new coat of paint, Soderbergh takes his comic heist model and really invests in a new set of characters and their surroundings. If the Ocean’s movies are all polished and smooth, Logan Lucky cherishes all the bumps and ridges this new environment provides. In most stories, the characters featured in Logan Lucky—poor West Virginians—are usually depicted as bumpkins, tragic figures, or background. They don’t get to be the heroes, or if they do, their heroism is related to working in mines. Jimmy Logan is at the same level as Danny Ocean in terms of planning a heist, and whereas you never really get the sense that money itself is important to Danny, for Jimmy it has real consequences.
And yet Soderbergh never lets his movie get bogged down or looks at his heroes as hopeless cases. There’s so much love for these people and their environment that you can’t help but root for them. Every time the movie threatens to get too heavy with new characters or new complications, Soderbergh just uses some narrative jujitsu to make the movie even stronger. When an old crush from high school (Katherine Waterston) re-enters Jimmy’s life, the movie knows how to get the most out of the scene without detracting from the heist plot. When FBI Agent Sarah Grayson (Hilary Swank) and her partner (Macon Blair) are called in, they make the story richer rather than dragging it out.
In time, we may even come to look at Logan Lucky as better than the Ocean’s movies (and I say that as someone who thinks 11 is endlessly rewatchable, 12 is an underappreciated gem, and 13 is fine but a little too safe) because Soderbergh is operating at the top of his game. Whereas Ocean’s 11 is a propulsive movie that never takes its foot off the gas, Logan Lucky is content to just have weird scenes that pretty much lampoon the heist genre without ever undermining it. If Ocean’s 11 is too cool for school, Logan Lucky is the dropout who still achieved the same thing anyway, which makes it slightly more impressive.
The entire movie is a blast from start to finish, featuring outstanding performances from the entire cast (this is definitely Craig’s best non-Bond performance since he became Bond), and while even the film itself cites the heist as “Ocean’s 7-11”, it’s got a flavor and energy all its own. If Soderbergh wanted to do a new trilogy of Logan Lucky movies, I would be first in line. The movie is fast, fun, and an absolute joy that shows Soderbergh hasn’t missed a step. I’m still thinking about all of my favorite moments from Logan Lucky, and I can’t wait to see it again.
Logan Lucky hits theaters August 18.
‘Thor: Ragnarok’: 18 New Images Prepare for the End of the Universe
'The Jetsons' to Make the Jump from Animation to Live-Action in ABC…
• Adam Driver • Brian Gleeson • Channing Tatum • Daniel Craig • Farrah Mackenzie • Hilary Swank • Jack Quaid • Katherine Waterston • Katie Holmes • Logan Lucky • Macon Blair • Review • Riley Keough • Steven Soderbergh
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The Free Library > Literature > Wilkie Collins > The Haunted Hotel > The Fourth Part: Chapter XVI
The Fourth Part: Chapter XVI
It was only the twentieth of September, when Agnes and the children reached Paris. Mrs. Norbury and her brother Francis had then already started on their journey to Italy--at least three weeks before the date at which the new hotel was to open for the reception of travellers.
The person answerable for this premature departure was Francis Westwick.
Like his younger brother Henry, he had increased his pecuniary resources by his own enterprise and ingenuity; with this difference, that his speculations were connected with the Arts. He had made money, in the first instance, by a weekly newspaper; and he had then invested his profits in a London theatre. This latter enterprise, admirably conducted, had been rewarded by the public with steady and liberal encouragement. Pondering over a new form of theatrical attraction for the coming winter season, Francis had determined to revive the languid public taste for the ballet by means of an entertainment of his own invention, combining dramatic interest with dancing. He was now, accordingly, in search of the best dancer (possessed of the indispensable personal attractions) who was to be found in the theatres of the Continent. Hearing from his foreign correspondents of two women who had made successful first appearances, one at Milan and one at Florence, he had arranged to visit those cities, and to judge of the merits of the dancers for himself, before he joined the bride and bridegroom. His widowed sister, having friends at Florence whom she was anxious to see, readily accompanied him. The Montbarrys remained at Paris, until it was time to present themselves at the family meeting in Venice. Henry found them still in the French capital, when he arrived from London on his way to the opening of the new hotel.
Against Lady Montbarry's advice, he took the opportunity of renewing his addresses to Agnes. He could hardly have chosen a more unpropitious time for pleading his cause with her. The gaieties of Paris (quite incomprehensibly to herself as well as to everyone about her) had a depressing effect on her spirits. She had no illness to complain of; she shared willingly in the ever-varying succession of amusements offered to strangers by the ingenuity of the liveliest people in the world--but nothing roused her: she remained persistently dull and weary through it all. In this frame of mind and body, she was in no humour to receive Henry's ill-timed addresses with favour, or even with patience: she plainly and positively refused to listen to him. 'Why do you remind me of what I have suffered?' she asked petulantly. 'Don't you see that it has left its mark on me for life?'
'I thought I knew something of women by this time,' Henry said, appealing privately to Lady Montbarry for consolation. 'But Agnes completely puzzles me. It is a year since Montbarry's death; and she remains as devoted to his memory as if he had died faithful to her-- she still feels the loss of him, as none of us feel it!'
'She is the truest woman that ever breathed the breath of life,' Lady Montbarry answered. 'Remember that, and you will understand her. Can such a woman as Agnes give her love or refuse it, according to circumstances? Because the man was unworthy of her, was he less the man of her choice? The truest and best friend to him
(little as he deserved it) in his lifetime, she naturally remains the truest and best friend to his memory now. If you really love her, wait; and trust to your two best friends-- to time and to me. There is my advice; let your own experience decide whether it is not the best advice that I can offer. Resume your journey to Venice to-morrow; and when you take leave of Agnes, speak to her as cordially as if nothing had happened.'
Henry wisely followed this advice. Thoroughly understanding him, Agnes made the leave-taking friendly and pleasant on her side. When he stopped at the door for a last look at her, she hurriedly turned her head so that her face was hidden from him. Was that a good sign? Lady Montbarry, accompanying Henry down the stairs, said, 'Yes, decidedly! Write when you get to Venice. We shall wait here to receive letters from Arthur and his wife, and we shall time our departure for Italy accordingly.'
A week passed, and no letter came from Henry. Some days later, a telegram was received from him. It was despatched from Milan, instead of from Venice; and it brought this strange message:--'I have left the hotel. Will return on the arrival of Arthur and his wife. Address, meanwhile, Albergo Reale, Milan.'
Preferring Venice before all other cities of Europe, and having arranged to remain there until the family meeting took place, what unexpected event had led Henry to alter his plans? and why did he state the bare fact, without adding a word of explanation? Let the narrative follow him--and find the answer to those questions at Venice.
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Here Come the Rabbis
Op-Ed by Rabbi Yossi Lipsker: Why the Rebbe insisted on the yearly gathering of the Shluchim from all four corners of the globe. Full Story, Photos
By Rabbi Yossi Lipsker
Chabad of The North Shore, Boston, MA
In reading one of the Rebbe’s post-holiday talks from 1968, addressing the Chasidim preparing to return home from abroad, after an uplifting holiday experience, you get a glimpse into a theological worldview that can only be summed up in one word.
The Rebbe was all love. Pure and unconditional love. As I’m reading I can sense how fully attuned he was to the gut wrenching pain of the Chasid who had saved for a year to purchase a ticket from France or Israel, placing everything back home on pause, in order to spend a week “soaking in holiness,” and who is now reluctantly “packing up,” and listening to the Rebbe one last time before departing.
The Rebbe would always invoke the famous commentary of Rashi on the portion of Pinchas, explaining the idea behind Shmini Atzeret, the eighth day of the festival. Rashi quotes a Midrash narrated in the voice of G-d. “..all the seven days of the holiday were filled with offerings to the seventy nations of the world, but now I just want to just spend some time with my children, alone…one simple bull offering, a quiet dinner, just family..” In this Midrash the sages hear a guilt ridden voice of G-d, one we can all relate to as parents, agonizing over the impending separation from his beloved children, frantically trying to condense so much closeness into the narrow space of a day.
“You are leaving already and I barely even saw you, I didn’t even have five minutes to look you in the eye, to talk with you, to make sure you are ok before you leave again, and who knows when we’ll see each other next, or if we will ever see each other again?”
“Kasheh Alay Praydaschem!” (“your departure is difficult for me”).. this is a heartbreaking passage, and I always read it trying to imagine what an unbearable cosmic sadness might feel like.”
I wonder, what the Rebbe, in quoting this, might have been thinking of as well. Many of these Chasidim, were also his emissaries to far flung locales all over the globe, returning to places that were often hard to get to, especially then, communication was minimal, and kosher food was nowhere to be found. It was no secret that although this Rebbe did not have children — he considered His emissaries and their families his children.
I can imagine him playing with these words in his own mind, “Kasha Alay…” this is problematic for me .. I have a “Kahshe”(question) on all this. On top of barely seeing his “children” in all the madness of the holidays, was the ache, of the Shluchim returning back to the isolation that is part of living life on planet mission impossible.
This is where the Rebbe always managed to turn the tables, reminding us, that though living a life punctuated with occasional bouts of unbearable existential loneliness, might be a hefty price to pay, for all parties, the costs of answering this “long distance” calling, was well worth the reward that one gets to feel, in the occasional moments of genuine connectedness.
He pointed out that the pilgrimage of a Chasid to his Rebbe, is no different than the ancient pilgrimage to spend time in close proximity to the Holy Temple, and the Kohen Gadol Rebbe, during the Jewish festivals, as well as those who choose to spend the Chagim in Eretz Yisroel till today. All different versions of a journey we must occasionally embark on, in order to briefly “check back in” to the epicenter of our spiritual world.
He also lovingly reminded those Chasidim preparing to head back home, that this is where the real pilgrimage must actually begin. The climbing of the stairs leading up to the holy temple in Jerusalem, to stand in the presence of a viscerally felt display of sacredness, not unlike the spiritual bliss of a Chasid in the presence of his Rebbe, are all steps towards a taking, a receiving, one that is intended, not as an end in itself, but merely as a prelude to an even higher pilgrimage characterized entirely by the opposite, by a giving. A path that continues in the footsteps of Abraham, and his Lech Lecha pilgrimage; founded exclusively on a platform of sharing spiritual goodness and an overall preoccupation with the welfare of the “other” — the walk TOWARDS G-d that morphs into a walk FOR G-d.
Abraham ALREADY HAD his Tishrei, he already had his pilgrimage toward the G-dly truth that burned inside the depths of his center; and if you like, you can catch all those details in the Midrash. The Torah however, the five books of Moses, the Rebbe gently reminded his Chasidim that day, begins to paint the portrait of the first Jew, only at the beginning of his SECOND pilgrimage, when he begins to walk for G-d, with G-d, towards mankind!
This might help understand his insistence on the “Taluchah” walks. During the high point of spending the holidays with the Rebbe, he would encourage all of us, even those who already lived on Shlichus, to form groups together with our fellow Chasidim from Crown Heights, that would fan out to all the walkable areas of New York, visiting all the dying Shuls in the area, simply to bolster the spirits of fellow Jews who remained living in declining Jewish communities. Perhaps this was the Rebbes way of jump starting the transition between the two types of Pilgrimages.
He drove this point home in that Sichah, with a mystical teaching on the Hebrew letters of the month of Tishrei. This month, he taught, contains the letters Raysh and Shin in it, letters that spell Rosh. So the ENTIRE month contains the energy of Rosh and the aura of the Holidays. Though the beginning of the month which features Rosh Hashanah, may be like the well lit beginning of a tunnel, nevertheless, the end of the month, the dark side of Tishrei, the end that contains no holidays, is STILL Tishrei, the dark part of the tunnel is still connected to its bright beginning. Even though Havdalah was made, signaling the end of the holiday, and we have already left the Bais Hamikdosh, “Haray Adayin Nimshacheem Inyanay Hayom Tov….” we remain in that tunnel — the holiday follows us as we endeavor to house its spirit, constituting its human embodiment and continuity, deployments of miniature Mishkan like extensions of the stationary Bait Hamikdash, sharing its light wherever we end up, no matter how far.
In acknowledging our lapses of vision, and the loving and patient way he regrounded us into a culture that values giving over taking, sending us off with food for thought on the journey back home, he was validating us as well, with all our flaws, pettiness, and frequent inability to see what he saw.
I truly believe that he internalized the loneliness and terror that we all felt at times, and still do, the high octane pressure of not just serving in a community, but creating it from scratch, and sustaining and nurturing it as well. A terror associated with believing in something alone. I know in my heart the pain he must have felt deep into the night knowing there was a Shliach somehwere that was in pain. It’s important for me to believe, that his hyper focus on the Neshama, the soulfulness of even the most estranged Jew on the planet, was equally applicable to the way he viewed his own emissaries.
Still, his sadness, the manifestation of his “Kashah Alay” was only in the empathetic “knowing” of the difficulties these brave couples were prepared to endure at his behest — never for one moment entertaining a theological or existential “Kashah Alay” with regards to the actual sustainability, or correctness of this approach altogether.
It was only as a result of the solidness of the Rebbes conviction that there even is a Worldwide Chabad movement today.
There was no pilot program for Chabad, and no Beta version or “prototype” of the role of the Shliach. We are now three generations into the world of Shluchim, and there are still hundreds of young couples eager to answer the call of the Rebbe. His unique message that resonated in the fifties, a voice that spoke unwaveringly, and with a commanding authority, is as refreshing today, more than two decades after his passing as ever. The Rebbe was Rebbe because he never wavered. He was the original big picture Tzaddik, who steadfastly imagined a movement, developing a unique theological platform utilizing a dazzling and daring array of Mystical and Talmudic vocabulary, language that constituted the very heart of this fledgling movement, as well as overseeing its actual development down to the most granular nuts and bolts of the movement.
His was a refreshing voice that stood out in a Jewish world starving for clarity, one that drew so many to marvel at his unmatched style of towering and bold leadership.
The Rebbe exuded a classiness that always took people by surprise, not expecting to encounter that type of worldliness and sophistication from the scion of a major Chasidic dynasty, a charm that proved irresistible to the thousands who flocked to him, to be in his presence, even for the briefest of encounters.
How do we continue to foster this magic today? I believe the Rebbe might have begun addressing this even then as well, with a powerful alternative reading of that same “Kasheh Alay Praydaschem” verse, in the course of that same talk.
Perhaps the Rebbe was not just thinking of the temporary separation in time, as he bade the Chasid pilgrims farewell, but also looking down the road, to the trauma of the “permanent” dimensional separation, after his passing. He, better than anyone, knew the loneliness stemming from the permanent loss of someone who plays that central a role in ones life. Though he was a Rebbe, he was also a Chasid, and it was very clear how profoundly saddened he was with the passing of his father in law, the sixth Rebbe of Lubavitch, The Rebbe of my Rebbe.
The existential “Praydaschem” loneliness that a Chasid feels in the absence of his Rebbe, is deep and real. I know first hand the pain of growing up with a Rebbe, whose soul was interwoven into the very center of the fabric of my own, and the huge gaping void left in the wake of his passing.
The Rebbes response is brilliant. He taught that the phrase “your separation” can be seen differently. In this reading he defines the “Praydashchem” as the separation between yourselves! In essence he was saying, that the key to the continuity of the movement lies in the degrees to which we succeed in fostering a healthy sense of community. He is pleading. “Kasha Alay, it would be unbearable for me to see the splintering of a community, to see it in its “Praydaschem” dysfunctionality.” The extent to which we can successfully navigate the social, communal component, determines the extent to which we can sense the spiritual presence of the Rebbe as well. The lengths that we go, to foster greater cohesion and negate “Praydah,” will serve to automatically, and simultaneously bridge the “Praydah” between the Rebbe and Chosid. Those precious moments of shared purpose, are one of the doorways we need to enter, in order to discover what the texture of a “Yechidus” experience of today might feel like.
When the seven days of consecrating the tabernacle had passed without the hoped for “fire from heaven” descending from above, instead of despairing, Moshe and Aaron assembled the community (Hakhel) and they stopped looking upward, instead they gazed out over the people and blessed them. Shouldn’t they have been desperately scanning the heavens one last time? No. I imagine them instead, addressing their beloved Am Yisroel, their family, with the following. “The notion that G-d, as a result of our sinning with the golden calf, might have “permanently” severed himself from us, and even this glorious Mishkan that we built for him, will not appease him enough to look past our horrible betrayal in order to move on in the relationship is terrifying, but let us at least be terrified together! At that very moment, the heavens parted and the fire of G-d descended!
Perhaps this was why the Rebbe insisted on the yearly gathering of the Shluchim from all four corners of the globe. This years Kinnus has already begun this week in Brooklyn. I plan to be there as well.
This idea is expressed beautifully in the lyrics of a song that the Chasidim would sing before they took leave of their Rebbe. “Tayere Breeder Mir Velin Zich Vaiter Zehn, Der Aibishter vet Gebben, Gezunt Un Lebben..” The song is powerful in the way the farewell between the Chasidim is at the center, without even mentioning a goodbye to the Rebbe!
I think it might be suggestive of the way, on a certain level, the very nature of the unique soul centered bond between a Rebbe and Chasid, precludes the possibility of true separation, hence they can never really depart from one another — however, the awareness of which, can only rise, from deep within the sacred space carved out of a connectedness, filling an emptiness hollowed out from the midst of a genuine sacred brotherhood.
That’s one of the places we can go to feel the fire once again.
Rabbi Yossi Lipsker
Shachris, Breakfast of Shluchim
CDs Offer Learning on the Go
Avremi Kievman!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yasher Koach
If the rebbe had more chasidim like rabbi Lipsker we’d be in a lot better shape! Thank you for this inspiring narrative.
Thank you rabbi lipskar !
You words are most poignant and have truly touched my heart!
A most grateful shlucha
rabbi Lipsker
Always so well spoken. Thank you for all you do
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Tag Archives: Hing Lung Lay
Chin Wing You – Seattle history in Interrogations
April 1, 2019 Affidavit, Certificate of Identity, Certificate of Residence1889 Seattle fire, Ah Wah, bookkeeper, Chin Ah Wing, Chin Ah Wing 陳阿榮, Chin Ching Hock, Chin Gee Hee, Chin Gem (Jim) Wah, Chin Hui Quock, Chin Wing Moy, Chin Wing You 陳榮耀, China, cook in logging camp, George Harman, Hing Lung Lay, Indian wife, John H Sargent, Kitsap County, Louie See, Me Wing Wah, navy yard, Phoenix Hotel, Port Townsend, Post-Intelligencer, Samuel L. Crawford, Seattle, sisters, Sun Ning District, Wa Chong Company, Wan Lee, Woo Ah Moy, Woo Gen, wood haulingTrish Hackett Nicola
“Chin Wing You Affidavit Photo,“ 1907, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, Chin Wing You case file, Seattle Box 822, file 7030/13441.
Chin Wing You 陳榮耀 was born in Seattle, Washington in 1887. His parents Chin Gem (Jim) Wah and Me Wing Wah, had two older sons, Chin Wing Moy and Chin Ah Wing 陳阿榮 who were also born in Seattle. The family traveled to their family village Hing Lung Lay, Sun Ning district, China in 1888.
The father made several trips between China and Seattle between 1888 and 1907. His son Chin Ah Wing joined him at the Wa Chong Company in 1900. His son Chin Wing Moy died in in China in 1907.
Chin Wing You 陳榮耀 married Louie See in China in 1905 then prepared to join his father in Seattle in 1907. Since he was in China when the Exclusion Act was passed, he did not have a residence certificate. He did not have the required documentation to prove that he was born in the U.S. and was the son of a merchant, so he was required to have witnesses swear that he was the son of Chin Jim Wah and was born in Seattle.
Samuel L. Crawford, was a witness for Chin Wing You in 1907. His affidavit stated that he had been a resident of Seattle for thirty years; he knew Chin Wing You’s father, Chin Jim Wah, prior to 1887; Chin Jim Wah was a merchant, partner and bookkeeper for the Wa Chong Company; he and his wife lived in the store and had several small children. In Crawford’s interrogation he stated that he was in real estate business. From 1875 to 1888 he was in the newspaper profession with the Post Intelligencer. He knew and had dealings with all the Chinese businessmen. He was acquainted with Chin Ching Hock, Woo Gen, Wan Lee, Chin Gee Hee, and Ah Wah. Crawford saw Chin Jim Wah, Wa Chong Company’s bookkeeper, every month when he conducted business with the store. Crawford identified photos of Chin Jim Wah and Chin Ah Wing.
Chin Ah Wing, marriage name Chin Hui Quock, a U.S. Citizen and resident of Seattle, swore in a 1907 affidavit that he was born in Seattle on 1 October 1885 and his brother, Chin Wing You, was born at the Wa Chong Company store in Seattle on 10 May 1887. Chin Ah Wing left Seattle in 1888 and returned in 1900. He made another trip to China in 1904 and returned the next year through Port Townsend.
In George Harman’s 1907 affidavit he swore that he was a citizen of the United States and a resident of Seattle and Kitsap County for 56 years; that Chin Wing You was born in Seattle at the Wa Chong Company on the corner of South Third and Washington Streets where the Phoenix Hotel was standing in 1907; and that the family went to China in 1888 when Chin Wing You was about one year old. In Harman’s interrogation he testified that he had been in Washington state since 22 August 1866 when he “got paid off in the navy yard from the navy.” In 1907 he was living on a ranch about twelve miles south of Seattle. He was asked what he was doing in Seattle five years before the 1889 fire. He replied that he had been working in various places in the woods hauling out wood. He knew the Chinese at Wa Chong Company especially the manager, Chin Ching Hock, who at one time was a cook in a logging camp. Chin Ching Hock’s wife and Harman’s wife were sisters.
Excerpt for George Harman’s 1907 interrogation
Chin Ching Hock’s second wife was Chinese, and their children were born in Seattle. When asked if he had been a witness for other Chinese, Harman said he was only a witness for his nephews, the sons of Chin Ching Hock and his sister-in-law. The interrogator disagreed and told him that he had affidavits showing that Harman had been a witness for Woo Ah Moy in 1901 and Chin Ah Wing in 1900.
After considering the evidence from the applicant and the witnesses, John H. Sargent, Immigration Inspector in Charge, ordered that Chin Wing You be admitted to the United States as a returning native-born American citizen on 19 November 1907.
Chin Wing You made another trip to China in 1912. When he returned, he had no proof of citizenship, so he produced a duplicate of his 1907 admittance into the Port of Seattle as an American-born Chinese. With this information he received his certificate of identity #45476. He made trips back to China in 1922, 1929 and 1941 and sired many children.
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227.-233. Auktion -> AUSTRALIAN STATES & AUSTRALIA 1850-1960 -> Britische Kolonien -> Queensland
Losnr. : 3273 Queensland
1896/1908: The specialised primarily unused collection with multiples throughout, with 9 d. blue-green blocks of four (4) and a block of fifteen, 1 d. in blocks of nine, 48 and 60, 2 d. unused with "Cracked Plate" flaw (2) and "Scratched Plate" variety used (4, two are on covers), 2 d. blocks of four and six unused; 1898 2½ d. rose in an unused block of 36, 2½ d. violet on blued with blocks and a cover to India, 3 d. brown blocks of four (8) and eight, 4 d. yellow block of four (8) and a block of nine, 5 d. brown in blocks of four (3), six and eight, 6 d. green blocks of four (3), 1 s. pale mauve block of four (2), 2 s. turquoise-green in blocks of six, nine, twelve and 18 etc., together with used blocks and cancellation interest throughout.
Ausruf : 750 CHF
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Blue baby is finally home
Carissa Joyce Reyno
Kids are often asked about their dreams and their favorites like their favorite food, cartoon character, and even their favorite color. Usually, little boys will say that their dream is to be a policeman, or an athlete. They will share that their favorite color is blue and will eventually show their blue collection. However, for Jerald, an eight-year-old boy, his dream is neither to be a policeman nor to be an athlete. Blue is not his favorite color yet his friends call him, “Blue Baby”.
Jerald is not your ordinary-young boy.
It was in 2017, with an unknown reason, Jerald, who was just six-years old then, was secretly taken by his father somewhere in Quezon City, hundreds of kilometers away from their hometown in Camarines Sur, Bicol. Giving him PHP 200, his father left him alone in the city. Confused, he wandered from one place to another. He had nowhere else to go. At his young age, instead of having fun with his friends, he experienced the reality of life in the streets. Fortunately, after few days of being a vagrant, he was rescued by the Quezon City- Social Services Development Department (QC-SSDD). In 2018, he became one of the 46 children referred by the QC-SSDD to Bantay Bata 163- Children’s Village.
The Children’s Village serves as a halfway home that provides holistic healing for abused and neglected children. It is a place that advocates children’s rights and ensures their rehabilitation and recovery.
Since Jerald has no definite identification, he was classified as one of the children under the foundling category. “Sa unang pagpasok ni Jerald sa Bantay Bata… matamlay, hindi nakikipaghalobilo sa mga bata at hindi masyadong nagsasalita.”(“When Jerald first entered Bantay Bata he neither socialized nor talked to other children.”), said Jason Tripulca, social worker of Bantay Bata 163. With these observations, the child was subjected to medical examinations to further asses his condition. It turned out that Jerald has Tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart disease that lowers his oxygen saturation, making his nails and lips appear to have a bluish color. Because of this, the people at the Children’s Village coined the term, “Blue Baby” as a way to identify him.
Jerald’s heart’s condition limits him from playing with his fellow kids in the Children’s Village. Too much exhaustion can cause difficulty in breathing.
A month after Jerald was brought to the Children’s Village, Salamat Dok, a medical television program of ABS-CBN that provides information on diseases and medical concerns, conducted a regular free medical mission at the Children’s Village. The doctors advised the social workers on the need for Jerald to go through a heart surgical operation to improve his condition. The program featured Jerald to help him look for sponsors and donors who can assist them financially with the operation of the child. However, little did they know, the program has reached a special person in the child’s life. His mother, Angela Velarde, who has been looking for Jerald for the past two years watched her son’s episode on Salamat Dok with the help of her friend who first saw its broadcast.
“Pinuntahan ko po agad siya. Pumunta po ako sa city hall sa SSDD, tapos after, sinamahan nila po ako papunta sa Bantay Bata na po. Tapos doon ko na po nakita si Jerald.” (I immediately made my move to see him. I went to Quezon City Halls-SSDD office and they accompanied me to Bantay Bata; that was where I saw Jerald.”), said Angela, mother of Jerald.
After two years of being away from his family, Jerald finally reunited with his mother. Their tears kept on flowing and the smile on their faces were undeniably genuine. Jerald cannot hide his happiness as he expressed it with his tight hugs.
Angela shared that they have been looking for Jerald these past years. They used all the resources they could gather in order to find him. Jerald’s family lives in Camarines Sur, Bicol. He has two siblings, Angeline, a seven-year old girl, and Jenard, a two-year old baby boy. They are living with their grandparents, whose bread and butter is farming. His mother tried her luck here in the metro to help them with their financial needs. She is currently a canteen crew in Paranaque.
Bantay Bata 163’s social workers immediately worked on the re-integration of Jerald in coordination with the local social welfare. This is the legal process of bringing the child back to his family after checking if they are capable of supporting all his needs. Fortunately, Jerald’s mother was assessed to have the capability to take back the custody of her son and Jerald was successfully re-integrated to his family in Bicol.
Jerald’s grandparents welcomed him with open arms while his little siblings were in awe after seeing their long lost brother. It was a surreal moment for the Pacla family. The two years they spent on looking for Jerald has come to an end. The Children’s Village’s “Blue Baby” is finally home.
After all the ups and downs that happened to Jerald, he still managed to think of the other children who might be going through the same situation he had experienced. He shared that someday he wants to be a Bantay Bata officer. Bantay Bata helped him find his family that is why he wants to help others to find theirs.
“Nagpapasalamat po ako sa mga tumulong sa akin lalong lalo na po [sa] Bantay Bata para sa lahat, iyong mga taga office kasi natulungan nila ako. Pinacheck up nila ako. Pinabunot iyong ngipin kong bulok,” said Jerald as he expressed his gratitude to all the people who became part of his journey.
It is true that Jerald is not your ordinary kid. He is a unique and brave young boy.
They say blue is the warmest color, as it is the color of the sky and the sea. Both beautiful sceneries that give us the feeling of tranquility and freedom. For Jerald, blue is something that symbolizes his condition --- but it does not hinder him from being free to hope and dream for himself and his family.
Fighting malnutrition with Alaska Milk Corporation
Bantay Bata 163, Philippine Dental Association collaborate to promote child oral health
Bantay Bata 163 Laguna celebrates 27th Children’s Month
Bantay Bata, Globe activate child helpline for free
Alyssa Marie Gerolao, Bantay Bata 163 scholar
"Kahit kailan po hindi hadlang ang kahirapan para abutin ko ang aking pangarap. Sa Bantay Bata 163 at sa aming sponsor, maraming salamat po sa pagpasa ng pag -asa. "
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The summer between 7th and 8th grade was my best summer yet. Sandy and I were inseparable, when we weren’t scoring beer from skeezy 21-year-olds, we were hunting for boys. It was a haze of beer, pot, boys, generic cigarettes and Days.
My future.
Sandy’s big sister was a super tan high school Cheerleader and therefore the coolest person I’d ever met. I mean, Rah-Rah wore a toe ring, had bleached blonde hair, and went through boyfriends faster than Marty McFly’s DeLorean ripped through dimensions. She sported cool accessories like a huge personalized bottle-opener keychain and a pullout car stereo. The only time she ever spoke to me was when she ran out of smokes, which was why I totally spazzed out when she invited Sandy and me to the Lake with her.
It was the middle of August the summer between seventh and eighth grade. It was going to be one of the hottest days that summer and Rah-Rah only had two more weeks to work on her tan before school started again. She had the day off and since all of her friends were either working, smoking Meth, or fucking someone that day, Sandy and I lying around the house chain-smoking were two easy hostages.
As tan as Rah-Rah was, her little sister Sandy was equally white. I had olive skin because Bio Dad said that once and so I believed it to be true. In reality, I was fairly white as well, but not quite as white as Sandy.
She tossed Sandy, me, and a cooler full of beer into the back of her Chevy Citation and pushed her car stereo into its hole. The radar detector on the dash lit up and beeped. Just when it couldn’t get any better, the brand new tape “Look What the Cat Dragged In” came on full-blast.
I totally loved Poison. I saw their album cover for the first time at Wherehouse Tapes & Records when my mom pointed it out.
“I didn’t know The Bangles had a new album out!”
“Mom, those are boys.”
She picked up the album and held it out to look at it closer. For some reason, the older my mom got, the farther away she had to look at things to see them up close. It took me almost five minutes to prove to her that the four guys in Poison were not, indeed, The Bangles.
Sandy started to whine about having to sit in the backseat.
“I get carsick. Come on.”
And so on and so forth the sibling issues went on. I didn’t care. I was in heaven in the backseat, thoughts of radness swirling through my head.
So this is what a cheerleader’s car looks like. I bet she’s had sex back here. With boys. High school boys.
Maybe someone would see me on my way to the Lake with a high school cheerleader. I was tempted to sniff the cloth seats, but adjusted my fake Ray Bans instead.
Sandy started to turn green.
Three tape flips, four rewound extra plays of Talk Dirty to Me, and two Sandy puke stops later, the little Chevy sporting a FORD = FOUND ON ROAD DEAD bumper sticker rounded its last bend to Pyramid Lake.
Yes, we called that a beach.
At first look Pyramid Lake looked fake because it was literally in the middle of the desert and had big pyramid-shaped rock formations jutting out of it. The Lake was on a Native American Reservation and had tons of urban legend (if anyone ever considered Reno/Sparks urban) surrounding it.
My skin broke out in goose bumps with excitement, or perhaps foreboding. I was already practicing telling everyone at school about my bitchin’ summer as they all admired my deep, dark tan. I knew this was going to be the best day of my life so far.
Rah-Rah parked the car right in front of where the water started and the dirt stopped. Frequenters of the Lake called this a beach, although it resembled a real beach very little. She killed the engine, along with Brett Michael’s voice, and breathed in the atmosphere.
“There’s nowhere in the world you get a tan like at Pyramid.”
I started to understand. A tan wasn’t just a good look, it was a way-of-life, a religion. And I was about to become a card-carrying member.
Ten minutes later, the three of us were already a beer in each and sprawled out on oversized Budweiser beach towels. Our nubile bodies were slathered with Ban de Soliel Tanning Accelerator and Baby Oil. Rah-Rah told us which to put on first and why and how often to turn over. When we got too hot, we’d spritz our bodies with spray tanning enhancer and drink more beer.
She was mentoring us in the ways of the tan. These were her secrets, her traditions. Tanning was a sacred act. Unfortunately, she neglected to educate us on the importance or even the existence of a “base tan.”
Not for a moment did I think I might possibly be putting my life in danger, nor did Sandy. I truly thought I’d come home looking just like Rah-Rah and boys would immediately flock to me and I’d be instantly popular.
Three hours, all the beer, and two packs of generic cigarettes later, we piled back into the Citation and headed back to Sandy’s. I passed out the second the car started moving.
The next thing I remember is waking up and we were back. Then I did something really stupid; I tried to move. I could feel every crease in my cotton shorts and my bathing suit felt like it suddenly became three sizes too small because every strap was digging into my flesh with avengeance.
I probably looked like a gingerbread man walking up to the house, as I couldn’t bend any of my appendages without screaming in pain. It kind of felt like that time I burned the side of my neck with the curling iron, only that spot on my neck was all over every inch of my body. And somehow even on my scalp.
Hi. I went to the lake.
The second Sandy’s Mom saw us she started icing us down. That is, Sandy and I. Rah-Rah looked perfect, just even browner and prettier. I suddenly hated her.
Sandy’s mom ran an ice bath and put Sandy in first, while I lay on Sandy’s bed with frozen peas on my back. Her rare maternal reaction made us realize that we were really in bad shape. I started to cry. The hot tears stung running down my cheeks.
My bath was next. It was filled with cold water and ice cubes. I shuddered to think I could do it, but pain was an amazing motivator. Within minutes of my plunge, all the ice returned to its original liquid form. It was official; my skin had been replaced by molten lava.
Covered in aloe vera and the loosest clothing possible, Sandy and I passed out on a sheet in front of the TV just as the weatherman announced the highs of the day.
It was 102 degrees at Pyramid Lake.
By the time school started, the only proof I had left from that day was the sloughing chunks of my scalp that happened to look just like dandruff. This did not aid in my popularity.
Major Lee High, The Final Mission
4 thoughts on “Red Lobster”
Ouch! I seem to remember getting a few of those “tans” back in the day.
Right?!? Ah, youth.
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On NBC’s Rise and the Christian’s vigilance
April 9, 2018 JT Leave a comment
Christians must be aware of the world around them. Inspiration teaches, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Our awareness of the world will help to guard us against falling prey to Satan’s schemes, and prepare us to help others find God’s truth.
NBC premiered a new program called Rise in March. The show focuses on Lou Massuchelli, an English teacher put in charge of his high school’s drama club. His first act is to announce the production of the controversial musical, Spring Awakening, which addresses several issues of teenage sexuality.
Rise includes a male homosexual student, a transgender female transitioning to male, and a straight male who is cast in a role that requires him to kiss another male. All of these are presented as completely normal, acceptable lifestyles to most of the other characters. The few that object are portrayed as narrow-minded people. Showrunner Jason Katims released a statement in which he affirmed the producers are “firmly committed to LGBTQ inclusion” and that Rise “portrays positive depictions of LGBTQ characters and stories…with honesty and sensitivity.”
In a recent episode, a parent asked the teacher, “What do you believe in?”
Lou responded, “I believe in the kids I teach. I believe in the truth. I believe in helping them to grow up in the sun and not in the shadows,” further reinforcing the character’s view that homosexuality and transgenderism should be accepted by everyone.
I am reminded of the prophet who cried, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).
Fornication — whether heterosexual or homosexual — is wrong, regardless of age. Transgenderism is wrong. Brother Ben Giselbach published an informative article about transgenderism in 2015 on his website, “Plain Simple Faith” (plainsimplefaith.com/2015/06/transgenderism).
Christians, be aware that many of your co-workers (adults) and classmates (youngsters) believe in the acceptance of deviant sexual behaviors. Be ready to defend the Biblical truth on these matters (1 Peter 3:15; Jude 3).
1 Peter 5HomosexualityIsaiah 5LGBTQRiseTransgenderism
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Posted on November 3, 2012 by serenitybolt
How does personality transform fashion? I’ve always been fascinated by the indefinable ways that the same piece of clothing just looks different on everyone. The slope of a shoulder, the way that fabric drapes and clings in different places; even the attitude of the person wearing it can completely change the way something looks, like an unconscious and purely physical interpretation of thread and cloth.
The Little Black jacket features a simple black tweed jacket worn over 100 different ways on over 100 distinctly different personalities. Shot by Karl Lagerfeld himself, and styled by Carine Roitfeld, The Little Black Jacket has his favorite muses wearing the label’s iconic jacket.
Rather than a book-long ad campaign for Chanel, it seems to be more of a study on the transformative power of personality on fashion.
(The Little Black Jacket book $55)
via {Honestly WTF}
This entry was posted in Art, Fashion, Shopping and tagged books, Carine Roitfeld, celebrities, Chanel, exhibitions, fashion, jackets, Karl Lagerfeld, photography by serenitybolt. Bookmark the permalink.
17 thoughts on “The Little Black Jacket”
jalal michael sabbagh on November 3, 2012 at 10:34 am said:
Beautiful Art.Captivating post.jalal
prewitt1970 on November 3, 2012 at 10:45 am said:
It is interesting how one piece can be empower by its wearer in so many ways. Also the perception of the beholder comes into play as well. Nice post.
Princess Heather Glam! on November 3, 2012 at 11:59 am said:
Phil Diro on November 3, 2012 at 12:52 pm said:
theevilcherry on November 3, 2012 at 1:53 pm said:
what a post! love it and it inspire me! thanks alot
Jayden Miller on November 3, 2012 at 1:57 pm said:
Wow! Just, WOW!!!
Gretchen O'Donnell on November 3, 2012 at 5:11 pm said:
I love my black jackets – always a good evening when I get to wear one! Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today!
Winter Owls on November 3, 2012 at 8:25 pm said:
thenoteunderyourdoor on November 3, 2012 at 9:42 pm said:
Wow! Such a fascinating concept – thanks for sharing!
Miri<3sFashion on November 4, 2012 at 12:28 am said:
Wow, awesome pictures!! See my blog at boldmode.wordpress.com
Vibeke Henriette on November 4, 2012 at 9:34 am said:
I think… Coooooooooooool :)!! So inspiring!
Animalcouriers on November 4, 2012 at 11:19 am said:
What a wonderful set of images!
Honeley on November 4, 2012 at 8:27 pm said:
How can be one jacket has so many styles, so unbelievable, i like it a lot
gourmandchic on November 5, 2012 at 4:43 pm said:
I love all these different ideas on how to wear a simple jacket and transform it into so many styles!!!
theblackcape on November 5, 2012 at 8:42 pm said:
my fave pics are georgia may jagger , alice dellal, and sarah jessica,! the video was great too!!
someprettylittlethings on November 6, 2012 at 2:21 pm said:
Wow c’est super 🙂 Très jolie veste noire!
lifestyletea on November 6, 2012 at 8:38 pm said:
Awww im in love with this post! So adaptable to different styles xx
Leave a Reply to Jayden Miller Cancel reply
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The Lake — Outcomes & Media
The Lake | N-ha-a-itk has had an enormous impact on many of its collaborators. Post-production interviews revealed that many artists involved felt their lives had changed, that the process and performance had in itself been an act of reconciliation, and that this work was extraordinarily rewarding and revealing.
Challenges included the cost and labour involved in the production, some resistance to participation from within the Westbank First Nation, and even some racist pushback from the non-indigenous community. Overall, however, participants described an overwhelmingly positive and powerful experience. The operatic score was transfigured, and in the process of “breaking open” the score, participants embarked upon a process of “learning together” (Derickson-Armstrong) as they created something new, a music drama that told the story of the spirit of the lake in multiple voices, across the historical registers of Susan Allison’s pioneer memoirs, Pentland and Livesay’s mid-century operatic text, the legends of the syilx people, and the contemporary moment of performance.
A paper based on participant interviews entitled “Put Them on the Stage But Let Them Speak” was presented at the Canadian University Music Society (MusCan) conference in 2015.
We are pleased to share the news that Turning Point Ensemble and the Westbank First Nation have begun a second collaborative endeavour designed to learn from and with Westbank First Nations youth through music.
For resources on effective collaborations between indigenous and non-indigenous partners, contact the First Peoples’ Cultural Council
To learn more about the history and culture of the Westbank First Nation, visit the Scnewips Heritage Museum
Interactive Program
Click on the program cover above to view the official event program for The Lake | N-ha-a-itk.
Video documentation of the world premiere of IMPRINT. Performed on January 23, 2010 at the Museum of Anthropology, UBC. Created by Henry Daniel and Owen Underhill with assistance from Chief Robert Joseph. Commissioned for the MOA’s Celebration of Creativity and presented by Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad.
Delphine Derickson-Armstrong, Heather Pawsey and Barbara Towell sing in a blend of western and syilx vocal technique in Leslie Uyada’s original composition “Incantation.” Photo credit: Dylan Robinson
Turning Point Ensemble perform onstage for The Lake | N-ha-a-itk perform with Lake Okanagan in the distance. Photo credit: Mary Ingraham
Jordan Coble looks on while his daughter performs with Cori Derickson in her Salmon Dance. Photo credit: Dylan Robinson
Members of the Westbank First Nation perform for audience members prior to the matinee performance of “The Lake | N-ha-a-itk.” Photo credit: Mary Ingraham
Heather Pawsey (soprano), Jordan Coble (Westbank First Nation) and Jeremy Berkman (Artistic Director of Turning Point) discuss the collaboration in the Allison House, still standing at Quails’ Gate Winery. Photo credit: Mary Ingraham
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Category Archives: GLOUCESTER NEWS CENTRE
UK NETFLIX DARK TOURIST ATTRACTION, THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION @ LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN, GLOS, GL14 3NL. A BRIEF EXHIBITION INSIGHT INTO THE LIFE AND DEATH OF FORMER MEMBER OF THE SEX PISTOLS SID VICIOUS ( 10 MAY 1952- 2 FEB 1979) & HIS GIRLFRIEND NANCY SPUNGEN. TO INCLUDE HERE ON DISPLAY, SID’S TREASURED LEATHER BIKER BOOTS & BIKE CHAIN BRACELET.
ABOVE: SID VICIOUS WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND NANCY SPUNGEN
BELOW IS THE POLICE MUGSHOT OF SID VICIOUS AT THE TIME OF ONE OF HIS MANY ARRESTS , BACK IN 1979, IN NEW YORK , USA.
BELOW … IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS WEARING THESE BIKER BOOTS WHILST PRANCING ABOUT IN PARIS WHILST FILMING A TV DOCUMENTARY .
ABOVE AND BELOW …SID VICIOUS PERFORMING SOLO WEARING THESE LEATHER BOOTS ON WHAT WAS HIS LAST LIVE PERFORMANCE AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY , NEW YORK ON SEPTEMBER 29 1978 … LATER TO BE REPORTED IN THE NME DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978
SID VICIOUS PERFORMING SOLO WEARING THESE LEATHER BOOTS ON WHAT WAS HIS LAST LIVE PERFORMANCES AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY , NEW YORK ON SEPTEMBER 29 1978 … LATER TO BE REPORTED IN THE NME DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978
NME CUTTING DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978 OF SID VICIOUS WEARING THESE BOOTS DURING HIS SOLO GIG AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY GIG … A GREAT RARE CLOSE-UP OF SID’S BOOTS AS WAS LAST WORN BY SID SHORTLY BEFORE HIS ARREST FOR THE MURDER OF HIS GIRLFRIEND NANCY SPUNGEN ON 12 OCTOBER 1978
PURCHASE RECEIPT FOR THE BOOTS … BOUGHT BY ANDY JONES FOR THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT FRASERS AUCTION HOUSE , LONDON, BACK IN 2000
CLOSE UP IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS BOOTS
Above are several images of Sid Vicious most treasured leather biker boots , which he can also be seen wearing in this video of him prancing about in Paris , France . in his alleged suicide note ( many believe that this was actually written by his mother Anne Beverley ) he had requested that he be buried with his leather jacket and these leather biker boots … This was never the case as he was cremated and his ashes were secretly thrown over Nancy’s grave . His mother had subsequently kept his personal clothing last worn by him and later these boots were auctioned off in the year 2000 by Alan Parker through Frasers Auctions , London . Bought by Andy Jones of the Crime Through Time Collection and now on permanent display at Littledean Jail , Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, UK .
Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman of Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen on display in and amongst our Punk Rock Collection here at Littledean Jail.
ABOVE IS SID’S ( NOW WELL AGED ) BIKE CHAIN BRACELET ALONG WITH IMAGE OF HIM WEARING THIS . ALSO HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL .
Sid Vicious, born John Simon Ritchie, later named John Beverley (10 May 1957 – 2 February 1979), was an English bass guitarist, drummer and vocalist, most famous as a member of the influential punk rock band the Sex Pistols, and notorious for his arrest for the murder of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen.
Vicious joined the Sex Pistols in early 1977, to replace Glen Matlock, who had fallen out of favour with the rest of the group. Due to intravenous drug use, Vicious was hospitalized with hepatitis during the recording of the band’s only studio album Never Mind the Bollocks. Accordingly, his bass is only partially featured on one song from the album. Vicious would later appear as a lead vocalist, performing three cover songs, on the soundtrack to The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, a largely fictionalized documentary about the Sex Pistols, produced by the group’s former manager Malcolm McLaren and directed by Julien Temple.
During the brief and chaotic ascendancy of the Sex Pistols, Vicious met eventual girlfriend and manager Nancy Spungen. Spungen and Vicious entered a destructive codependent relationship based on drug use. This culminated in Spungen’s death from an apparent stab wound while staying in New York City‘s Hotel Chelsea with Vicious. Under suspicion of having committed Spungen’s murder, Vicious was released on bail; he was later arrested again for assaulting Todd Smith, brother of Patti Smith, at a night club, and underwent drug rehabilitation on Rikers Island. In celebration of Vicious’ release from prison, his mother hosted a party for him at his girlfriend’s residence in Greenwich Village, which was attended notably by the Misfits bassist Jerry Only.
Vicious’ mother had been supplying him with drugs and paraphernalia since he was young, and assisted him in procuring heroin late that night. Vicious died in his sleep, having overdosed on the heroin his mother had procured.
Less than four weeks after Vicious’ death, the soundtrack album of The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle was released. Later that year, on 15 December, a compilation of live material recorded during his brief solo career was packaged and released as Sid Sings.
In the 1986 feature-film Sid and Nancy, Gary Oldman gave a much-acclaimed performance as Sid.
ABOVE IS AN EXCEPTIONALLY SCARCE AND RARE SIGNED BY BOTH PHOTOGRAPH OF SID AND NANCY TOGETHER .
BELOW IS THE ICONIC AND CONTROVERSIAL ALBUM COVER OF THE SEX PISTOLS …” NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS HERE’S THE SEX PISTOLS ” THIS BEING A FULLY SIGNED BY THE ORIGINAL PISTOLS LINE UP ON A RARE RUSSIAN VERSION OF THE ALBUM .
Nancy Spungen death and Sid Vicious arrest
Sid Vicious mugshot 9 December 1978
On the morning of 12 October 1978, Vicious claimed to have awoken from a drugged stupor to find Nancy Spungen dead on the bathroom floor of their room in the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan, New York. She had suffered a single stab wound to her abdomen and appeared to have bled to death. The knife used had been bought by Vicious on 42nd Street and was identical to a “007” flip-knife given to punk rock vocalist Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys by Dee Dee Ramone. According to Dee Dee’s wife at the time, Vera King Ramone, Vicious had bought the knife after seeing Stiv’s. Vicious was arrested and charged with her murder.[He said they had fought that night but gave conflicting versions of what happened next, saying, “I stabbed her, but I never meant to kill her”, then saying that he did not remember and at one point during the argument Spungen had fallen onto the knife
On 22 October, ten days after Spungen’s death, Vicious attempted suicide by slitting his wrist with a smashed light bulb and was subsequently hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital where he also tried killing himself by jumping from a window as well as shouting “I want to be with my Nancy” or other similar words, but was pulled back by hospital staff. In an interview he gave in November 1978, he said that Nancy’s death was “meant to happen” and that “Nancy always said she’d die before she was 21.” Near the end of the interview, he was asked if he was having fun. In reply, he asked the interviewer if he was kidding, adding that he would like to be “under the ground.” It was also at Bellevue that he met his lawyer James Merberg, who did everything he could to keep Vicious out of jail.
SID VICIOUS SUICIDE BY OVERDOSE
On the evening of February 1, 1979, a small gathering to celebrate Vicious having made bail was held at the 63 Bank Street, New York apartment of his new girlfriend, Michelle Robinson. Sid and Michelle had started dating in November after Sid was released from Bellevue Hospital the previous October. Vicious was clean, having been on a detoxification methadone program during his time at Rikers Island. At the dinner gathering, however, Sid had some heroin delivered by his friend, English photographer Peter Kodick, against the wishes of Sid’s girlfriend and some other people at the party. It was also during this party that Sid had apparently spent the hours looking towards the future; he had plans for an album he was going to record to get his life and career on track should he be off the hook. Vicious overdosed at midnight, but everyone who was there that night worked together to get him up and walking around in order to revive him. At 3:00 am, Vicious and Michelle Robinson went to bed together. Vicious died in the night and was discovered dead by Anne and Michelle early the next morning.
In his first interview, appearing in the Daily Mirror‘s June 11, 1977 issue, Vicious said “I’ll probably die by the time I reach 25. But I’ll have lived the way I wanted to.”
A few days after Vicious’ cremation, his mother allegedly found a suicide note in the pocket of his jacket:
We had a death pact, and I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby. Bury me in my leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots Goodbye.
Since Spungen was Jewish, she was buried in a Jewish cemetery. As Vicious was not Jewish, he could not be buried with her. According to the book Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Jerry Only of the Misfits drove Anne and her sister, and two of Sid’s friends to the cemetery where Nancy was buried and Anne scattered Sid’s ashes over Nancy Spungen’s grave. In the same book, it is alleged that the cemetery didn’t want to be associated with Vicious and his inherent negative reputation, and it is speculated that this was of greater importance to them than the above stated reason he and Nancy weren’t able to be buried together.
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KIM, YOUTH CULTURE, YOUTH CULTURE MOVEMENT, YOUTH CULTURE MUSEUM, YOUTUBE | Leave a reply
ANOTHER WORLD RECORD SALE ($50 MILLION)… OF A LUCIEN FREUD PAINTING OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND DOWN TO EARTH – SUE TILLEY, WHO HAS LONG BEEN FEATURED HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL IN OUR OWN UNIQUE GALLERY OF SORTS …
ABOVE IMAGES SHOWING A PERSONALLY INSCRIBED AND SIGNED PORTRAIT ON LEFT IS AN IMAGE OF THE RECENTLY SOLD LUCIAN FREUD PAINTING OF SUE TILLEY FOR $50 MILLION
THE MIDDLE IMAGE SHOWS A BRA OWNED AND WORN BY HERSELF . THIS BEING COMPLETE WITH HAND DRAWN AND SIGNED “HIS AND HER’S ” DOODLE SCRIBBLE ON THE CUPS OF THE BRA, THIS BRA IS ON PERMANENT DISPLAY HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL.
ON THE RIGHT IS IMAGE OF ANDY JONES FROM LITTLEDEAN JAIL WITH SUE AT A LONDON ART EXHIBITION EVENT.
New record: Benefits Supervisor Resting, featuring Sue Tilley (right), sold for £35.8million in Manhattan yesterday
Freud’s painting of a Jobcentre clerk breaks his record: ‘Benefits Supervisor Resting’ sells at auction for a staggering £35.8m
Was sold at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art sale in Manhattan
The 1994 painting, showing 280-pound Sue Tilley sitting naked on sofa, was sold to London art dealer on behalf of anonymous buyer
Nicknamed ‘fat Sue’, she posed for £20 a day for four paintings in early 90s
ABOVE IS VIDEO OF CHRISTIE’S LIVE AUCTION SALE OF THE FREUD PAINTING OF SUE TILLEY ON MAY 13 2015 , CHRISTIE’S IN NEW YORK .
BELOW IS A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL PAINTING PREVIOUSLY INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY SUE TILLEY FOR DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
A Lucian Freud painting of a voluptuous Jobcentre clerk has set a world record for the artist by selling for more than £35million.
Benefits Supervisor Resting went under the hammer for £35.8million at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art evening sale in Manhattan yesterday.
The 1994 painting, which shows 280-pound Sue Tilley sitting naked on a sofa, was sold to London art dealer Pilar Ordovas on behalf of an anonymous buyer.
Miss Tilley became Freud’s muse in the early Nineties, posing for £20 a day. Freud, who died in 2011, painted Miss Tilly – who he nicknamed ‘Fat Sue’ – four times.
Posted in $50000000, AJ, ANDY JONES, ART EXHIBITION, ART GALLERY, ART SALE, ASYLUM, BANKSY, BBC GLOUCESTERSHIRE, BENEFITS SUPERVISOR RESTING, BIG SUE, BONHAM'S, BOY GEORGE, BRA, CAMDON, CELL BLOCK, CHARLES SAATCHI, CHELSEA, CHELSEA FC, CON ART, CONTROVERSIAL, CRIME THROUGH TIME, DAMIEN HIRST, DAYS OUT, DEAN PARRISH, EXPLICIT, FOREST OF DEAN, FOREST OF DEAN NEWS CENTRE, GAMBLING DEBTS, GANGLAND, GAY, GLOUCESTER NEWS CENTRE, GLOUCESTER PRISON, GRAPHIC, GUV, HOMOSEXUAL, KATE MOSS, LEIGH BOWERY, LITTLEDEAN, LITTLEDEAN AJAIL, LONDON, MAFIA, MARILYN, NEW YORK, NUDE MODEL, NUDE PAINTING, NUDITY, PAINTING, PORTRAIT, PRISON CELL, REG KRAY, ROMAN ABRAMOVICH, RON KRAY, SAATCHI AND SAATCHI, SLEAZE AND SCANDAL, TATE GALLERY, THE KRAY TWINS, THE TRUE CRIME MUSEUM, THINGS TO DO IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE, TOPLESS, TRACEY EMIN | Tagged 1960'S, AJ, ANDY JONES, christie's, COLLECTION, CRIME COLLECTION, CRIME MEMORABILIA, CRIME MUSEUM, LUCIEN FREUD, SLEEPING BENEFIT SUPERVISOR, STARS BEHIND BRAS, SUE TILLEY | Leave a reply
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Health diagnosis of maize genetic resources
Contributors to this page: CIMMYT, Mexico (Suketoshi Taba, Bonnie J. Furman), with inputs also received from IITA, Nigeria (Dominique Dumet), EMBRAPA (maize and sorghum genebank), Brazil (Flavia Teixeira), USDA(ARS/NC7, ISU), USA (Mark Millard).
Inspection and certification (purity analysis of seeds)
A multistage seed inspection by the genebank curator or seed health personnel is required for the maintenance of purity of the seed accession.
The genebank and seed health personnel (quarantine personnel) should inspect the purity and quality of the seed accessions for incoming (introductions) and outgoing (seed shipments and conservation) in the genebank.
The seed certification by the seed health laboratory facilitates both incoming and outgoing seed movements, including conservation in the genebank.
The dried and cleaned seed lot should go through the seed health inspection for the seed shipment (outgoing seeds) and conservation in the genebank.
The seed lots should be macroscopically inspected (as done at the CIMMYT seed health laboratory) for fungal infection, insect damage, weed seeds and others.
As needed, the seed wash filter test and freeze blotter test should be performed for the presence of spores, smuts and oospores for the quarantined fungi (ex. Ustilago maydis, Peronosclerspora spp., Heterodera zeae, Cephalosporium maydis) and in the greenhouse germination test for seed-born bacterial or viral pathogens (ex. Panatoea stewartii) and seed viability. Click here for more information.
The absence or presence of the transgenic events in the seed accessions should also be inspected.
Inspecting seed lots in the CIMMYT seed health laboratory (photos: CIMMYT)
List of pests and diseases of quarantine importance
More detailed information is also available from the page on safe movement of germplasm, on this website. Click here for details.
See also the list of pests and diseases for this crop listed in the crop regeneration guidelines.
The list below mentions some of the pests/diseases that were considered important worldwide, but many of them may or may not have relevance in specific countries. It also does not consider pests/diseases of limited relevance (e.g. only important in very few countries).
List of important pests per region
Pantoea stewartii
Europe: Austria, Greece, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia and Montenegro, Switzerland.
Asia: China, India, Malaysia, Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam.
Central America & Caribbean: Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago.
North America: Canada, Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Mexico, USA.
South America: Bolivia, Brazil, Sao Paulo, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru.
Clavibacter michiganensis pv. Nebraskensis
North America: Canada, USA.
Cephalosporium maydis
Asia: India.
Africa: Egypt.
Wheat streak mosaic virus
Europe: Hungary, Italy, Ukraine.
Asia: Iran.
North America: Canada (Ontario), USA (Kansas).
Peronosclerospora maydis
Asia: China, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Java, Nusa Tenggara, Israel, Japan, Thailand.
Africa: Congo Democratic Republic.
Central America & Caribbean: Jamaica.
South America: Argentina, Venezuela.
Oceania: Australia.
Europe.
Peronosclerospora sorghi
Asia: Bangladesh, China, Taiwan, India, Iran, Japan, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, Yemen.
Africa: Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Central America & Caribbean: El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico.
North America: Mexico, USA.
South America: Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela.
Peronoscleropsora philippinensis
Asia: China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sulawesi, Taiwan, Thailand,
Africa: Mauritius (Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute, 1986).
North America: USA (EPPO, 2005).
Sclerophthora rayssae f.sp. zeae
Asia: India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand.
Options for testing procedures
The seed health procedures ensure the safe movement of the maize germplasm, following the international rules and regulations.
Click here to see CIMMYT’s current list of seed health testing recommendations for maize.
Recording information during health diagnosis
Applying the latest laboratory methods, CIMMYT staff ensures that seed entering (and leaving) the centre is disease-free (photo: CIMMYT)
The following information should be recorded for each procedure:
Accession number (number).
Introduction ID number (number).
Collection name or pedigree (number, name).
Seed quantity received and used (grams or numbers).
Seed origin (location, year, plot number).
Date received (year, month, day).
Category of the seed health tests and names of the pests (test names and the target species).
Greenhouse germination and inspection (% germination and inspection).
Results of the seed health test (positive or negative).
Date released by the seed health lab (date: year month day).
Observation (any need for follow up, retesting etc).
Seed exchange policy (MLS, other to specify).
EPPO activities on plant quarantine [online]. 2010. Available from: http://eppo.org/QUARANTINE/quarantine.htm. Date accessed: 30 January 2010.
Mezzalama M, Gilchrist L, McNab A. 2005. Seed Health: Rules and regulations for the safe movement of germplasm. Mexico. D.F., CIMMYT. Available from: http://libcatalog.cimmyt.org/download/cim/93586.pdf. Date accessed: 3 September 2010.
Norma Oficial Mexicana NOM-018-FITO-1995. Por la que se establece la cuarentena exterior para prevenir la introducción de plagas del maíz. Available for download from: senasica.gob.mx/?doc=615. Date accessed: 3 September 2010.
Seed health testing: Maize CIMMYT [online]. Available from: http://apps.cimmyt.org/english/wps/obtain_seed/shl-table2.htm. Date accessed: 30 January 2010.
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Genebank management strategies & principles Safe transfer of germplasm Common bean Guidelines Viruses
Viruses - common bean
Contributors to this page: CIAT, Colombia (Maritza Cuervo, Cesar Medina, Jose Luis Ramirez, Socorro Balcazar, Josefina Martinez, Daniel Debouck).
Bean common mosaic
Peanut mottle
BSMV
Bean common mosaic virus
Bean common mosaic virus (BCMV).
Mungbean mosaic virus (MBRV), Azuki bean mosaic virus, Bean mosaic virus, Bean western mosaic virus, Blackeye cowpea mosaic virus, Mungbean mosaic virus, Peanut stripe virus, Peanut mild mottle virus, Peanut chlorotic ring mottle virus, Sesame yellow mosaic virus.
The BCMV is the most widespread viral disease. It causes some of the most economically important diseases of legume crops around the world. Plant infection may reach 100% in fields and yield losses range from 6 to 98% depending upon the cultivar and time of infection. It is economically important throughout Africa, Europe, North America and Latin America.
The type of symptom produced is determined by the strain of BCMV, temperature and the host genotype. The BCMV may incite three types of symptoms: mosaic, systemic necrosis (black root), or local lesions or malformation. Symptoms associated with common mosaic include leaf rolling or blistering, light and dark green patches on the leaf (green mosaic), chlorotic vein banding, yellow mosaic and growth reduction. Mottling and malformation of the primary leaves is an indication that the primary infection occurred through seed. Cultivars which develop common mosaic may have distinct chlorotic or necrotic local lesions which are not associated with the vascular system. Systemically infected plants may have smaller and fewer pods and infected pods may sometimes be covered with small, dark green spots and mature later than uninfected pods. Black root is characterized by local necrotic lesions which extend into the veins causing systemic necrosis in the vascular system; this symptom only occurs in cultivars possessing the dominant resistance gene I. This necrosis can extend into the roots, stem and meristem and may result in plant death if the plant is infected at an early stage. Leaf distortion and blistering, dwarfing, downward curling of leaf margins, vascular necrosis, light and dark green mosaic, ring shaped and pin-point local lesions, distortion of flowers and buds.
Natural hosts of BCMV are mainly restricted to Phaseolus spp., especially P. vulgaris . However, BCMV has been isolated naturally from other leguminous species including Phaseolus acutifolius, Phaseolus lunatus, Arachis hypogaea, Bauhinia purpurea, Cajanus cajan, Centrosema pubescens, Chenopodium quinoa, Cicer arietinum, Clitoria ternatea, Crotalaria incana, Crotalaria juncea, Crotalaria spectabilis, Cucumis sativus, Cyamopsis tetragonoloba, Glycine max, Lablab purpureus, Lupinus angustifolius, Lupinus luteus, Lupinus albus, Macroptilium atropurpureum, Macroptilium lathyroides, Medicago sativa, Melilotus alba, Pisum sativum, Rhynchosia minima, Senna sophera, Sena tora, Sesbania herbacea, Trifolium incarnatum, Trifolium pretense, Trifolium repens, Trifolium subterraneum, Trifolium hybridum, Vicia sativa, Vicia villosa, Vigna radiata, Vigna unguiculata, Vigna vexillata and Vigna subterranean.
The virus is probably distributed worldwide (in Phaseolus beans wherever they are grown).
Virus is of the genus Potyvirus in the family Potyviridae. Filamentous particles are about 750 nm long and 15 nm wide. Virus is transmitted by mechanical inoculation (sap), transmitted by seeds (up to 83% in Phaseolus vulgaris and from 7 to 22% in tepary bean, transmitted by pollen to seed. The virus is transmitted by arthropods, by insects of the order Hemiptera, family Aphididae; Acyrthosiphon pisum, Aphis craccivora, A. fabae, Myzus persicae and other species. The virus is transmitted in a non-persistent manner. Bean common mosaic is caused by two species of the genus Potyvirus: Bean common mosaic virus (BCMV) and Bean common mosaic necrosis virus (BCMNV).
Detection/indexing method in place at CIAT
ELISA, kit for Potyvirus group.
Possible control measures for BCMV include planting healthy seed, improving cultural practices, controlling the vector and host plant resistance.
Reject accession and new regeneration seed process in field.
References of protocols at EPPO, NAPPO or other similar organization
ICTVdB Management (2006). 00.057.0.01.007. Bean common mosaic virus. In: ICTVdB - The Universal Virus Database, version 4. Büchen-Osmond, C. (Ed), Columbia University, New York, USA.
Alan B, Crabtree K, Dallwitz M, Gibbs A, Watson L, editors. 1996. Viruses of Plants. Description and Lists from the VIDE Database. CAB International, UK. 1484 pp.
Frison EA, Bos L, Hamilton RI, Mathur SB, Taylor JD, editors. 1990. FAO/IBPGR Technical Guidelines for the Safe Movement of Legume Germplasm. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome/International Board for Plant Genetic Resources.
Gad L, Thottappilly G, editors. 2003. Virus and Virus-like Diseases of Major Crops in Developing Countries. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht. 800 pp.
Gálvez GE, Morales FJ. 1989. Aphid-transmitted viruses. In: Schwartz HF, Pastor-Corrales MA, editors. Bean production problems in the tropics. Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT). Cali, Colombia. pp. 333-362.
Morales FJ. 2003. Common Bean, In: Loebenstein G, Thottappily G, editors. Virus and Virus-Like Diseases of Major Crops in Developing Countries. Kluver Academic Publisher, London, UK. pp. 425-445.
Morales FJ. 1979. Purification and serology of bean common mosaic virus. Turrialba 29(4):320-324.
Morales FJ, Bos L. 1988. Bean common mosaic virus. AAB Descriptions of Plant Viruses No. 337. Association of Applied Biologists, Wellesbourne.
Morales FJ, Castaño M. 2008. Enfermedades Virales del Frijol en America Latina. International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Virolgy Unit.
Morales FJ, Castaño M. 1986. Seed transmission characteristics of selected bean common mosaic virus strains in differential bean cultivars. Plant Dis. 71:51-53.
Olufemi Williams A, Mbiele AL, Nkouka N, editors. 1988. Virus Diseases of Plants in Africa. Organization of African Unity/Scientific, Technical & Research Commission (OAU/STRC), Technical Center for Agricultural & Rural Cooperation: Lagos Nigeria. 225 p.
Bean common mosaic (photos: URG-Virology Unit, CIAT)
Peanut mottle virus (PeMoV).
Groundnut mottle virus, Peanut mild mosaic virus, Peanut severe mosaic virus.
Is considered to be economically important on a global scale.
Yellow vein clearing, crinkled leaves, blistered leaves, ring foliar lesions, variegation, deformed leaves, mottling with necrosis and mosaic chlorotic ringspot in leaves, mild leaf chlorosis and stunting.
PeMoV is principally a disease of the peanut but occasionally it can affect fields of common bean in the surrounding areas of peanut production. Other host: Amaranthus retroflexus, Arachis hypogaea, Arachis pintoi, Beta vulgaris, Brassica rapa, Cajanus cajan, Chenopodium murale, Chenopodium quinoa, Chenopodium album, Citrullus lanatus, Crotalaria spectabilis, Cucumis sativus, Cyamopsis tetragonoloba, Glycine max, Lupinus angustifolius, Lupinus albus, Macroptilium lathyroides, Medicago sativa, Melilotus alba, Melilotus officinalis, Phaseolus acutifolius, Phaseolus lunatus, Pisum sativum, Senna bicapsularis, Senna obtusifolia, Senna occidentalis, Senna tora, Trifolium incarnatum, Trifolium pretense, Trifolium repens, Trifolium subterraneum, Trifolium hybridum, Vicia villosa, Vigna unguiculata and Vigna subterranean.
This virus affects bean in Africa, Australia, United States and Latin America.
The virus is of the Potyvirus genus in the Potyviridae family. The capsid is filamentous, flexuous with a clear modal length with a length of 740-750 nm. The virus is transmitted by mechanical inoculation; transmitted by seeds 0.02-2% in Arachis hypogaea; to 1% in Phaseolus vulgaris and to 0.008% in Vigna unguiculata (Demski et al., 1983), but not in Glycine max, Pisum sativum and Cassia obtusifolia. the virus is transmitted by arthropods, by insects of the order Hemiptera, family Aphididae; Aphis craccivora, A. gossypii, Hyperomyzus lactucae, Myzus persicae and Rhopalosiphum padi. The virus is transmitted in a non-persistent manner (A. craccivora can remain infective for 2 hours and M. persicae for 12 hours after acquisition (Paguio and Kuhn, 1974). Seed transmission in peanuts and beans, mottle and necrosis in peanut, bean and pea, Arachis glabrata resistant.
Prevent its spread to commercial seeds by destroying infected experimental peanut plantings.
Roguing is another method of control but would not necessarily be reliable since symptoms are not always evident on recently infected plants.
Aphid populations may be controlled by various registered insecticides.
Procedure followed in the case of positive test
Rejection of accession and new regeneration seed process in field.
Protocols at other institutions
ICTVdB Management (2006). 00.057.0.01.049. Peanut mottle virus. In: ICTVdB - The Universal Virus Database, version 4. Büchen-Osmond, C. (Ed), Columbia University, New York, USA.
Bijaisoradat M, Kuhn CWY, Benner CP. 1988. Disease reactions, resistance and viral antigen content in six legume species infected with eight isolates of peanut mottle virus. Plant Disease 72:1042-1046.
Kuhn CWY, Morales FJ. 2005. Peanut mottle. pp 79-80, in: Compendium of Bean Disease. Schwartz HF, Steadman JR, Hall R, Forster YRL. American Phytopathological Society, Segunda Edición, St. Pail, MN.
Marco S. 1986. Identification of Peanut mottle virus in Israel. Springer Netherlands. Volume 14, Number 3.
Olufemi WA, Mbiele AL, Nkouka N, editors. 1988. Virus Diseases of Plants in Africa. Organization of African Unity/Scientific.
Technical & Research Commission (OAU/STRC), Technical Center for Agricultural & Rural Cooperation: Lagos Nigeria. 225 pp.
Thomas JE, Redden RJ, Usher T. 1990. Screening for resistance to peanut mottle virus in accessions and breeding lines of Phaseolus vulgaris. pp. 163-164, in: Bean Improvement Cooperative 1990 Annual Report.
Bean southern mosaic virus (BSMV)
Other scietnific names
Southern bean mosaic virus 1
BSMV is undoubtedly the most widely distributed of the beetle-borne viruses which infects beans. It is considered to be economically important on a global sacale. The virus can reduce bean yields as much as 83 to 94 % reducing the amount and weight of seed produced by infected plants.
In Phaseolus it can induce diverse symptoms such as mosaic, or mottle, rugosity, epinasty, vein yellowing, stunting, and necrotic local lesion, depending on the variety inoculated.
BSMV (photo: Virology Unit, CIAT)
The virus has a host range restricted to legumes. Casia tora, Cicer arietinum, Cyamopsis tetragonoloba, Glycine max, Lupinus albus, Melilotus albus, Phaseolus acutifolius, P. lunatus, P. vulgaris, Pisum sativum, Vigna mungo, V. radiata, V. subterranea, V. unguiculata and Vigna unguiculata ssp. Sesquipedalis.
The virus was first observed in southern United States and now is present in all the main bean producing nations of the world. The virus spreads in Africa, North America, South and Central Americas, France and Spain.
SBMV is a type member of the sobemovirus group which characteristically has isometric particles 28 to 30 nm in diameter and contains one molecule of positive-sense single-stranded RNA. The virus is transmitted by a vector. The virus is transmitted by sap, mechanical inoculation, grafting, seeds 3-7% in V. unguiculata cv.; it is transmitted by pollen to seed and transmitted by pollen to the pollinated plant. The virus is seed-borne and can be carried both in the embryo and as a contaminant on the seed coat. This virus, however, becomes inactivated upon the dehydration or storage of contaminated seeds. Secondary transmission occurs naturally by several species of chrysomelid beetles such as Cerotoma facialis, C. trifurcate and Epilachna varivestis. The virus is transmitted in a semi-persistent manner.
ELISA with commercial kit.
Virus free seed, grown in areas where the virus does not occur, should be used.
Insecticides that reduce beetle population should be helpful.
BSMV is best controlled by planting resistant cultivars.
Protocols at other organizations
ICTVdB Management (2006). 00.067.0.01.001. Southern bean mosaic virus. In: ICTVdB - The Universal Virus Database, version 4. Büchen-Osmond, C. (Ed), Columbia University, New York, USA.
Frison EA, Bos L, Hamilton RI, Mathur SB, Taylor JD, editors. 1990. FAO/IBPGR Technical Guidelines for the Safe Movement of Legume Germplasm. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome/International Board for Plant Genetic Resources, Rome.
Gergerich RC, Morales FJ. 2005. Bean southern mosaic. Pp 71-72. In: Schwartz HF, Steadman JR, Hall R, Forster YRL, editors.Compendium of Bean Disease. American Phytopathological Society, Second edition, St. Paul, MN.
Jayasinghe U. 1982. Chlorotic mottle of bean. PhD Thesis, Agric. Univ. Wageningen, the Netherlands. 156 pp.
McDonald JG, Hamilton RI. 1972. Distribution of Southern bean mosaic virus in the seed of Phaseolus vulgaris. Phytopathology 62:387-389.
Morales FJ, Castaño M. 1985. Effect of a Colombian isolate of bean southern mosaic virus on selected yield components of Phaseolus vulgaris. Plant Diseases 69:803-804.
Morales FJ, Castaño M. 2008. Enfermedades Virales del Frijol en America Latina. Interantional Center for Tropical Agriculture, Virolgy Unit.
National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources. 1994. Checklist on Seed Transmitted Viruses: Leguminous Hosts. National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), India. 14 pp.
Shepherd RJ, Fulton RW. 1962. Identity of a seed-borne virus of cowpea. Phytopathology 52:489-493.
Tremaine JH, Hamilton RI. 1983. Southern bean mosaic virus. CMI/AABDescriptions of Plant Viruses No. 274. Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux, Slough.
You are here: Genebank management strategies & principles Safe transfer of germplasm Common bean Guidelines Viruses
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BA CISSOKO
When a chap I work with, Saa, found out that I had been listening to Ali Farka Toure, he got out his USB pen drive and gave me some Vieux Farka Toure and the Ba Cissoko’s album, Sabolan, which was recorded back in 2004.
I was immediately blown away by Mr. Cissoko — what a great album! Actually I just spent 20 minutes or so writing up this piece, but somehow it vanished as soon as I hit the “publish” button”, so I will try to do it all again — quickly before heading off to bed. Computers can be a real pest!
The album starts with Dandala which is upbeat, and “sunny”. It reminded me of Ruth’s pal, Jerry’s band, Zuba — Ruth, Judy, Chris and I used to go along to see Zuba as much as we could at the likes of King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut and The Barrowlands.
The mood calms down for Maïmouna — which starts quite jazzy, with fretless bass. It soon picks up a skippy beat, and exudes warmth and comforting kora playing — this is a bottled sunset!
Wawata continues, but is definitely after dark, as the groove settles. Moving on to Kounkouré the night is coming on nicely, this track has superb bass playing, and there is more a tribalism vibe coming through.
Likhirin starts all weird and wistful, chill out that soon turns into a form of Jamaican Reggae! The musicianship, production values, skill and talent is always apparent, but on Yélé, it comes more to the fore — what kora gymnastics! I love that Ba starts singing in the style of George Benson, along with the instrument. Marvellous. Taouyah (which appears a bit later in the album) is also a kind of Reggae.
Mamaya is a funny thing; it’s kind of Celtic somehow — it reminds me of mod music, or even of trippy folk — possibly more Gentle Giant than Jethro Tull, hard to explain — I even thought of Fripp and King Crimson! It certainly is a trance track, no bass, no drums, just plucking harp!
Then for a complete contrast, up next pops, the warm morning that is Saï — a gorgeous wee song with a swinging beat. One of my faves.
A serious chillin’ track is Manssani — ECM Jazz, this is dreamy and relaxing. Djeli and Hirdé both start in very similar ways with harp runs. Hirdé, though is slow and sad, chilling and wistful again, morose singing at its most morose! Djeli picks up a bit and is almost Indian!
The title track, Sabolan, is like Hendrix on kora! It’s a fuzz box and wah wah lead solo! It’s fast paced and African, but the track is thoroughly modern. It manages to blend and forge together weird influences into something new. So a Big Thank You to my mate Saa!
Posted in Music | 2 Comments »
Tags: Africa, ba cissoko, kora, Mali, Music, World Music
STEVE HOWE. It’s not just a name, it’s a question. The question on all serious guitarists’ lips: Steve — How?
So I played guitar back in ’72 — I even played classical and some ragtime jazz stuff when I was a wee schoolboy. Rock was pretty easy and blues wasn’t pushing me. Then I got into Yes. Now there are guitarists that astound you, like Stanley Jordan or Mahavishnu John Mclaughlin, and there are guitarists that you appreciate — like Paco de lucia and Al di Meola or George Benson. There are guitarists that you recognise as being influential — Page, Hendrix, etc.
But these are generalisms, canonical standards, well recognised axemen and guitar heroes. Blah, Blah, But — there are personal favourites for every guitar student. Howe is up there for me.
I liked Genesis and someone at school said that I ought to give Yes a go as it was likely I would “get” them. I did. Big Time.
I loved Yes immensely — although I have always refused to actually figure out the lyrics. For me the concept album is a no-go area; I simply do not need everything to link up as a complete work. It doesn’t have to be rational or make sense; it’s music!
I noted that in Playboy charts and the like, Pastorius or Stanley Clarke would take first or second place for bass — but third tended to be Chris Squire of Yes — who used a PLECTRUM! *swoon*. In drum charts, Bruford or White would be up there — and in keyboards, Wakeman or Moraz would be in the top few as well.
Yes was a supergroup — drums, bass, guitar and keyboards were considered by record buyers and muso journalists to be the best in their fields.
I adored Close to The Edge, and even liked Going For the One, but I drew the line with Tormato. I think, ultimately, apart from the live triple album that was Yessongs, the best for me has to be Relayer.
This was all pre-punk — and at a pretty dire time in general. Yes offered escape — and Howe produced some of the most amazing guitar lines I have ever heard then or since.
Put it this way — I would imagine myself faced with a Yes track, and posed with the task of coming up with some guitar lines — and I would be done-for, flummoxed, bewildered. But Howe did it — not only did he manage to come up with something, he came up with genius work.
It was so sublime, so wonderful, so complicated, so perfect, so … so… ah!
Words do Howe’s guitar work little justice. He has been such a real influence on me as a guitarist — from not being afraid to wear the guitar high and angled (properly), to feeling that I could mix up apparently incompatible styles — country hill billy guitar in a pseudo classical piece etc.
One of the very few guitarists I have actually learned note-by-note — Howe is a legend to me. I learned Mood for a Day and Clap, but I would hear his sound sometimes when I plugged in — and I would play in his style and his shadow.
Maaan, I love that guy!
Posted in Music | 1 Comment »
Tags: guitar, hero, howe
Shrigley has always entertained, always managed to make me laugh. Well, that is, ever since I saw an article on him in the Guardian back in 2005 or 2006.
He’s got a funny website, funnily enough called www.davidshrigley.com. And funnily enough, he lives and works in Glasgow and declares himself to be a Glasgow Artist, even though he’s fay Macclesfield.
Fair enough; after all he did go to the school of art. He does wee cartoons for the Guardian, and he’s responsible for Jason Mraz’s latest album being called after one of his pieces: “We sing. We Dance. We Steal Things”.
Sure, you can always argue about “what is art” and “What art ought to be” — and maybe Dave’s stuff is not art. Maybe it is. Maybe it is called art because there is no better word, or because art is a catchall word for this sort of thing these days.
But for me, whatever Dave does, it is interesting, thought-provoking, unusual, enlightening, mischievous, fun, funny, and very entertaining. To draw wee faces on pebbles on the beach, or to put up notices may seem childish or affected, but it’s less pretentious then most other art today, and too good to be dismissed as merely childish. Too mature to be immatute — if you take my meaning. It’s one level past that at least.
Anyway, enjoy Dave Shrigley (what else can you do with him?).
Posted in pictures | 1 Comment »
Tags: art., cartoons, Funny, glasgow, shrigley
Life’s weird. I love that life’s weird.
A really nice girl from Edinburgh called Annalisa sent me a CD copy of Jimmy Johnson’s “Living The Life” on the Blue Shadow label. She picked it up in person when she was on a road trip across the USA last year. I think it was in Chicago — in a bar owned by Buddy Guy or called Buddy Guy (or both). She actually met Jimmy Johnson — and pointed out that he shared a name with a legendary wee ginger footballer from Glasgow! Apparently, he just looked at Annalisa as if she were mad!
Anyway, she bought his CD and brought it home to Scotland — and now I have a copy!
Jimmy’s on the cover, complete with afro and moustache, clutching a plectrum and wearing a 335. Maybe in his 60s, but still cool. More a guitar player than singer, but hey, he’s authentic!
Here’s the tracklist:
1. I used to be a millionaire (Jimmy Johnson) F min;
2. You don’t have to go (Jimmy Reed) E maj;
3. Drowning on a Dry Land (M. Gregory, A. Jones) B min;
4. Something you got (Chris Kenner) C maj;
5. Livin’ The Life (Jimmy Johnson) G maj;
6. The Sky is Crying (Elmore James, Bobby Robinson) D min;
7. Bring it on Home to Me (Sam Cooke) C maj;
8. Pretty Baby (Herman Parker) E maj;
9. Born Under a Bad Sign (Booker T. Jones, William Bell) D min;
10. Next Time You See Me (Forest, Harvey) Bb maj.
Oh boy, it takes be back — big time! The big surprise was “Born under a Bad Sign” — so funky, great bass and rhythm riffs and completely different from Muddy and Paul Rodgers!
“Bring it Home To me” is pure Sam Cooke; it delivers in a gospel groove that has more to do with the vocal arrangement than anything else! Still made me want to sing along (mental note: get MP3 for the car)! Nice piano — wonder who it is.
My initial impression was of Eric Gale (who I used to adore when I was at school) rather than say, George Benson. It’s definitely NOT London Blues ala Clapton, Beck and Page, but then again it’s not Blind Lemon Jefferson!
It was great to listen to — a real reconnection. I immediately listened to old Page and Rory Gallagher — even some Eric Bell and Gary Moore (of course).
Funnily enough, on listening again, I was impressed by the similarity to Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour — particularly on track 6, the Elmore James one — Bring it on Home.
I finished off my blues revisited night with the wonderful Paul Rodgers and his Muddy Waters Blues Tribute. Ahh! Dem Bloose!
Tags: Album, blues, Jimmy Johnson, Music
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Posts Tagged thriller novel
A Thrilling Tale of Two Hearts’ Desires
Posted by David Gittlin in Book Marketing, eBook Marketing, fiction, humor, Online Marketing, Self-Publishing on November 19, 2014
Just in, this review of my new novel, Scarlet Ambrosia, now available on Amazon.com and coming soon to Barnes and Noble and iTunes.
“There’s a relatively new but rapidly expanding genre on the market called “urban fantasy,” that has as its older sibling the vampire novel, born of Anne Rice’s first book decades ago and now a genre in its own right. And then, there’s the classic vampire struggle between darkness and light—a struggle that immerses unwitting victims, vampires, and survivors in a world dominated by blood-lust.
“With so many vampire novels on the market today, one could wonder at the need for yet another; but Scarlet Ambrosia is a vampire story of a different color, seasoned not so much by the drama of blood-letting as by the more universal themes of self-discovery, human nature, and redemption. Ultimately this is what makes or breaks any genre; especially one such as the urban fantasy or vampire story, which too often tends to eschew self-examination in favor of high drama. And this is just one of the reasons why Scarlet Ambrosia stands out from the urban fantasy genre crowd.
“Sure, protagonist Devon’s outward battle is against an ancient evil vampire, Egon Schiller, but it’s also against himself. Devon is no stranger to the dark forces within him after years of therapy, but the darkness he’s confronting now proves far beyond his wildest dreams.
“Scarlet Ambrosia‘s inner light shines forth: a light that starts with Devon’s inner world and expands to embrace the wider concern of disappearances on the city streets.
“This part is predictable as Devon confronts an undercurrent of blood-lust and vampires in Miami’s underworld. What is less predictable is his foray into the drug world in search of evidence that will support an international investigation into one of Egon’s illegal activities, fostered by his encounter with the sly, alluring Mathilde, who harbors her own secret agenda.
“There’s a suggestion of romance between Devon and Mathilde that’s evident from their first encounter but which is suppressed in their growing focus on greater goals, which are developed as the quest progresses, as evidenced in Mathilde’s statement:
“Vanderling fears what Schiller will do every day he roams the earth more than he fears what might happen to us if we fail.” “It’s ironic how Schiller’s existence can matter more in the scheme of things than yours or mine,” he said. “When we first met, I told you I could handle Egon. That was another lie to help you feel more secure in your new situation.
“There is acknowledgement of the forces of light and darkness that occasionally rise up, unfettered, to try to take over people and the world. And as Devon becomes involved in kidnapping and worse, he finds all facets of his life are called into question with a series of decisions that reach out to affect even his relationship with his beloved parents.
“As lies, secrecy, and murders build, Devon finds himself paying for the bad decisions of others, and must come to admit his own inner nature before he can make a proper decision on honing his skills for either greater good or evil.
“The web of lies builds and threatens to immerse everything Devon holds dear, eventually spilling over into something greater than he’s ever known.
“Scarlet Ambrosia is not your usual vampire story. Its intrigue, romance, and thriller writing are all wrapped up in a bigger picture. It offers much food for thought in the course of following Devon’s evolutionary process and decisions, and it’s not a light-hearted romp through a vampire’s realm, as so many such novels offer.
“As such, it’s especially recommended for readers seeking more depth and undercurrents of philosophy in their literary choices. How does a protagonist not become the evil he fights in the process of battle? The classic vampire struggle between darkness and light just assumed a new cloak of complexity here—and wears it well.”
Source: Midwest Book Review, Diane Donovan, Senior e-Book reviewer.
action, blood-lust, consciousness, drug lords, drug war, erotica, fledgling vampire, god-man, god-woman, high energy, increased energy, international intrigue, master vampire, philosophy, sex, super-human powers, suspense, thriller novel, vampire romance, vampires
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What Jane’s Been Reading, week ending September 15
JaneReading ListsJill-Shalvis / Michelle-Reid / Nalini-Singh / Nicola Marsh / Reading lists / Sarah Morgan12 Comments
Lord of the Abyss by Nalini Singh. This is a December release. It’s a full fledged fairy tale with an ugly heroine (described as having a hook nose, walks with a limp, and a misshapen body) and a somewhat virginal hero. He’s been Lord of the Abyss for as long as he can remember and has had no woman in that time. I read no other books in the series and wasn’t lost at all. I was disappointed in a reveal at the end and that marred my enjoyment of the overall story. Full review to come in late November.
Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
Ravenborne by Chandra Ryan. This is an alternate reality paranormal romance which had intriguing world building but suffered from either a lack of focus or an attempt to shoehorn too much into one story. I did go and buy a second story in this series which predates “Ravenborne” but have not yet read it. The story opens with a scene in which a dragon shifter on the losing side of a war but with much power is condemned to live a number of lives before she can be free of her servitude. She is called the Oracle because of her ability to foretell the future and to measure the power of others. Magic flows through some families and it is the strength of magic that determines the rulers of the kingdom. Saraphina Raven is conscripted into the king’s guard because he wants her to use her telepathic ability to suss out those that might be plotting against him. Kavin Hunter, the head of the king’s guard, and old friend of Saraphina is ordered to bring her to the castle. The journey is beset with challenges to Saraphina’s life, betrayal, and a growing but improper attraction. I liked the world and the concept but felt the romance was shoehorned in.
Hot as Hades by Alisha Rai. This is an erotic take on the Hades and Persephone story. Hades is a misunderstood lord of the underworld and Persephone is unclear of her power. They must be separated, per the myth and Rai colors in the reasons why. It’s a short story and a decent read, but doesn’t have much staying power for me.
Altered Destiny by Shawna Thomas. This is a high fantasy story set in a land where they use horses (middle earthian?) There are two basic types of folks: humans and Svistra. Svistra are bloodsuckers. They are great fighters but small in numbers. They had been hired by the human kings to fight in battle with them but given their predilection for blood, they are cast out and driven back to a northern, inhospitable climate. The Svistra, however, are tired of being outcasts and are mobilizing an army. Selia is a human that owns a tavern. She stumbles upon a wounded Svistra and nurses him back to health. Her world is upended by the coming war, the conscription of her adopted brother, and her growing feelings for the Svistra. The book kind of peters out toward the end because so much denouement is stuffed into the last two chapters. Full review to come.
Deadly Descent by Kaylea Cross. Years ago I read an article about these awesome female helicopter pilots and I thought it would be great if one of them were the basis of a romance heroine. “Deadly Descent” features a female soldier in the Army who pilots Black Hawks on extract missions. I thought the military parts were really well done in this book and I certainly felt like I was amidst the action. However, in reading articles about females in combat there has been a concern that the males in combat would be endangered by their own protective instincts toward the females and I felt that the story actually fed into that belief rather than combatting it and that was unfortunate. Full review to come but it is a book I would recommend with some provisions. Full review here.
Cover of Darkness by Kaylea Cross. After I had read “Deadly Descent”, I wanted to read another Cross romantic suspense book and I remembered that she had sent me a book for review last year. According to my gmail archives that book was “Cover of Darkness”. The good news is that Cross has really grown as an author. The bad news is that I had a hard time reading this one (and I suspect that is what happened when I first received the book for review) and ultimately I have to score this as a DNF for me. In the first chapter, the heroine is saved by a team of SEALs in the Middle East. She’s injured and placed in a military hospital along with a wounded SEAL. A medic on the SEAL team comes in and just lays a big fat sloppy kiss on her while she is recovering from her wounds and her father is elsewhere, likely dying. I wanted to put the story down right there, but given that I had liked Cross in the past, I thought I would give it more of an effort. Unfortunately, the story really didn’t improve for me. Instead, I met more testosterone who were obviously sequel bait and the insta lust between the two characters continued apace. I did skim through the book to find out what happened but I wasn’t interested in reading the rest of the series. I’ll wait for more Cross books from Carina Press.
The Crown Affair by Lucy King. There isn’t anything particularly wrong with this story. The hero wasn’t a huge asshole and the heroine wasn’t too much of a doormat, but I was never engaged by this couple. Neither had an interesting storyline and even though the story was about the heroine remaking herself from being passive to more aggressive, I never bought into that transformation.
Sex, Gossip and Rock and Roll by Nicola Marsh. This was an opposites attract story but the insta-lust between two people who didn’t like or trust each other was tiresome. Charli Chambers manages rock stars and other celebrities for a man who saved her from the streets. Luca Petrelli has been asked by the same man (and also his purported grandfather) to step in and manage the money for the tour of a rock star that Charli is managing. Both believe the other is ripping off the old man. I stopped reading after the fourth chapter. DNF.
The Kanellis Scandal by Michelle Reid. I love Reid’s books but this one was a big disappointment. Neither character was likeable. Anton Pallis lies and virtually kidnaps Zoe Ellis from her home when her parents die because she is the guardian of the heir to a fortune. Zoe’s father was the son of a wealthy Greek man who was disowned when he married against the wealthy man’s wishes. Now Zoe’s father is dead and the wealthy Greek man wants his heir and sends Anton to fetch the both of them. Zoe spends most of the book alternating between ripping Anton’s clothes off and insulting him greviously. She was 23? in the book but acted about 16. It was a chore to spend time with either character.
Doukakis’s Apprentice by Sarah Morgan. Sarah Wendell suggested I read this and it was as enjoyable as she suggested. Polly Prince’s company is taken over by Damon Doukakis who believes that everyone on the payroll, particularly Polly, are lazy and incompetent. The Prince company must have at least one creative talent, however, because it is stealing ad campaigns from the Doukakis firm. Damon knows it isn’t Polly though, who wears loud stockings to work, and allows her co workers to have plants on their desks. Of course, Polly is the creative genius behind the Prince firm and has been for a long time. I think someone at DA will review this next week. Full review.
Animal Attraction by Jill Shalvis. Jade Bennett is only in Sunshine, Idaho, temporarily. She suffered something bad back in Chicago and she ran and ended up in Sunshine 18 months ago. She promised her family she would return after a certain time and her deadline is approaching. As the deadline is approaching, Dell, her boss, and Jade decide to embark on a temporary affair, mostly because Jade believes that Dell can’t make an attachment. This is something that is repeated throughout the story but the problem is that the declaration didn’t match the text. He was devoted to his brothers. He took in Lilah, a woman in town and treated her like his sister. He had a solid vet practice and had his own pets. Everything about him screamed permanency. So while I liked both characters, I felt that neither characterization was very authentic. What Shalvis told us we should believe wasn’t what she showed us.
Head Over Heels by Jill Shalvis. After I kind of complained about “Animal Attraction” on Twitter, a bunch of readers told me to try Head Over Heels out. So I did and I liked it a ton better. The hero is Sheriff Sawyer Thompson who used to be a rotten teen and turned his life around. He’s all about permanence, stability, and up right citizenship. Unfortunately, the one woman in town that really turns his crank is Chloe Traeger, the youngest of the three sisters featured in the Lucky Harbor series, who is nicknamed the Wild Child. I hadn’t read any in the series before so I hadn’t any feelings toward Chloe one way or another. Apparently she is a pill in the previous books. In any event, I thought that there romance was quite sweet.
One huge problem for me was that Chloe didn’t want to change from being wild, coloring outside the lines, in order to be loved. Yet, in the end, she opted for a very conventional life with the sheriff, enforcing exactly what she struggled against. If the message was that you didn’t have to completely remake yourself to find true love, I felt that message wasn’t delivered in the end. That said, I loved both characters. Sawyer is the tall, silent type (and I love that type) who needed a person like Chloe in his life. You could really see in the text of the story that these two were a good pair, that they balanced each other. And Sawyer is a really loving guy. This is a late November release which I plan to review.
The Sweetest Thing by Jill Shalvis. I liked Head Over Heels enough to go and purchase The Sweetest Thing which I kind of regret because I saw that Forever is re-releasing the first two in the Lucky Harbor series as one volume for the price of $7.99. Curses. Anyway, I didn’t love it as much as The Sweetest Thing. Ford is an olympic medal winning sailor whose home base is Lucky Harbor. Tara is his teenage sweetheart. Their teen romance ended badly but their feelings for each other haven’t ever wholly died. Ford knows that Tara’s time in Lucky Harbor is temporary (does that remind you of any plot?) but pursues her avidly. Why? So that they could have casual sexy times. I didn’t really understand either characters’ motivations. Tara says she didn’t want to stick around in Lucky Harbor but I wasn’t shown that she had a good life away from there. She was presented as this woman who was so amazing that she had two awesome guys pursuing her. The best part of the story was the competition between Ford and Tara’s ex husband.
Season for Temptation by Theresa Romain. This came to my attention in a glowing post by Courtney Milan. I wrote the publicist immediately for a copy but even before I received a response, Ms. Romain kindly sent me a copy. It was a nice historical but not much agnst. Sarah Wendell calls these types of books “visiting” people and I think that is what it was. Admittedly I like more romangst in my historical romances. Full review to come in October.
Clearly I need to read more historical romances. Again.
Previous article: What Jayne is reading/watching in early September
Next Post: September Kindle Winner
library addict
Jane, do you plan to read the first Lucky Harbor book Simply Irresistible? I loved the first three-fourths, then the story gets bogged down and the heroine gets overly mad at the hero, but overall it’s a book I would recommend. I haven’t read book 2 yet. Glad to know Chloe is more likable in her own book as I didn’t like her in book 1. I’ve got the first Animal book in my TBR pile. I may wait until all 3 are out before starting it.So far I’ve enjoyed her Wilder Adventure books the most, though I also really liked the second book in her Sky High trilogy.
I’ve got the Carina Kaylea Cross book on my wishlist.
Darlynne
So Anton Pallis and Zoe Ellis hook up presumably, which means she could become Zoe Ellis Pallis one day, and somewhere there is a Kanellis, too, because of the scandal. Well, Lauren Bush is now Lauren Bush Lauren, so stranger things happen, but I confess the names would drop me right out of the story.
Not as badly, however, as Damon Doukakis, however. I’m sorry, every mention of that name makes me think of a man in a too-large helmet, driving a tank.
I feel so terribly shallow, but I would not be able to get past the names.
Your bout of fantasy seems interesting. I’m very excited to read Sarah Morgan’s latest – she always delivers for me. Historicals, for me, are the books that usually work for me on a higher percentage rate than the other subgenres.
@library addict: I’m working my way backwards in the series and thus haven’t made it there yet. I am starting my December/January books so it might sit on the shelf for a while.
@Darlynne: The son changed his name to Ellis when he was disowned.
@John: I usually love historicals so I need to read more.
It’s a shame to hear that there’s a big reveal in the end of Lord of the Abyss that ruined it for you. I know you probably won’t answer (spoilers, and all that), but is it something like the ugly heroine was under some sort of curse and is actually beautiful after all? Because I know that would probably put the book in a less than positive light for me, as it’s so typical for the genre that the hero can never truly accept an ugly heroine.
@Lindsey I don’t want to spoil it for anyone yet (I will include the spoiler in my review).
I’ll say that it stays fairly true to its fairytale roots.
Kaetrin
I finished The Sweetest Thing last night. I liked it but I felt it lacked any real conflict. The story had some amusing parts and I really like Shalvis’ writing style but there wasn’t anything keeping Tara and Ford apart = no conflict. Still, it was an easy fun read. I think I enjoyed the first book slightly better, as it had a bit more to it but I do enjoy all the characters and I really like how she writes guys both relating to each other and with their SO – they sound authentic to me.
I’m looking forward to Head Over Heels because I’m so curious to know how Chloe gets to have sex without ending up in hospital – it’s something that’s mentioned in both earlier books, that sex brings on asthma attacks.
Ok, did I miss an entire Singh series? This is listed as #4 in goodreads Lord of the Abyss (Royal House of Shadows, #4)
But I can’t find books 1,2,3 anywhere? Has anyone read the first 3 or is it misnamed in goodreads?
@helen: It is a multi authored series. The first book was written by Gena Showalter, and then there is two more books by other authors before Nalini Singh’s book is released.
@Kaetrin: I felt that way about Animal Magnetism, that there was a lack of conflict.
As for Chloe’s asthma and sex, I thought that was handled fairly well and Shalvis used it to show how much Sawyer truly cared about Chloe. It was pretty sexy.
@helen: What Mikaela says.
My issue with the earlier Lucky Harbor books was that the distance/conflict felt a bit contrived; a little bit of honesty would have resolved things, and I didn’t really feel that the reasons for secrecy were compelling. Particularly in the first book. But I enjoyed them despite that, and I am looking forward to Chloe’s book.
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Spuerkeess consolidates branches in Gasperich
News • Business • 22.02.2019 • Delano staff
Spuerkeess will close its Howald and Gasperich branches as part of a reorganisation
Photo: Maison moderne/archives
Luxembourg public bank Spuerkeess (BCEE) is to open a new branche at the Cloche d’Or shopping centre in mid-May.
The inauguration will come just over a year after it opened a branch at the Leudelange industrial zone, in the Lalux building complex.
“This new opening will better respond to the needs of inhabitants, shopkeepers and staff in the [Gasperich financial centre] district, which is expanding, and will welcome 25,000 inhabitants and 15,000 workers,” the bank wrote in a 15 February press release.
The two branches form part of a reorganisation of the bank’s activities in the area, which includes renovating branches in Bonnevoie (scheduled for end of 2019) and Hesperange, and closing branches in Howald and the existing Cloche d’Or branch. The seven staff from both sites will be found roles at other branches.
Spuerkeess • BCEE • luxembourg • Gasperich • Cloche d'Or • Bank
Moody's: 3% GDP growth expected for 2019/2020
Renovating an icon
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Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
AL CAPONE (director: Richard Wilson; screenwriters: Malvin Wald/Henry F. Greenberg; cinematographer: Lucien Ballard; editor: Walter Hannemann; music: David Raksin; cast: Rod Steiger (Al Capone), Fay Spain (Maureen Flannery), James Gregory (Schaefer, narrator), Martin Balsam (Mac Keeley, reporter), Nehemiah Persoff (Johnny Torrio), Murvyn Vye (George ‘Bugs’ Moran), Robert Gist (Dion O’Banion), Lewis Charles (Earl Weiss), Joe De Santis (Big Jim Colosimo), Sandy Kenyon (Bones Corelli); Runtime: 105; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Leonard J. Ackerman/John H. Burrows; Warner Home Video; 1959)
“Rod Steiger gives his Method acting technique a workout as he captures the fiery persona of Al Capone and makes the gangster a lively larger-than-life subject.“
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Rip-roaring gangster biopic that’s filmed in a semi-documentary style and skillfully directed by Richard Wilson (“Pay or Die”/”Man with the Gun”/”3 in the Attic“). It’s written by Malvin Wald and Henry F. Greenberg. Rod Steiger gives his Method acting technique a workout as he captures the fiery persona of Al Capone and makes the gangster a lively larger-than-life subject. Over the years there have been many pictures about Capone, nicknamed Scarface, but this one might be the most accurate and Steiger in my opinion is the best one portrayed on celluloid of the famous Italian Chicago mobster–seemingly getting his gestures and volatile hot temper down pat. The black and white photography by cinematographer Lucien Ballard brings the Chicago underworld scene of the Roaring Twenties into full effect.
The machine gun paced film picks up with young Brooklynite Al Capone arriving in Chicago in 1919 to work as a bouncer and bodyguard for Johnny Torrio (Nehemiah Persoff), a gangster who works under his political savvy uncle Big Jim Colosimo (Joe De Santis). The opera loving dandy, Big Jim, controls the First Ward, and with Johnny’s management skills they run a number of clubs on the South Side that permit gambling and prostitution. When Prohibition arrives in 1920 Johnny and Big Jim move into bootlegging and become wealthy. When Big Jim is deemed too old and soft and refuses to make a deal with gang leaders O’Banion (Robert Gist), “Bugs” Moran (Murvyn Vye) and “Hymie the Pole” (Lewis Charles) to carve up booze distributing rights in Chicago, Capone convinces Johnny to forget about family ties and make a sound business decision by allowing him to execute Big Jim. The gangsters then throw a big funeral for Big Jim. During the execution of Big Jim, Capone’s goons also kill the waiter husband of Maureen Flannery (Fay Spain). Capone obsesses over her and wins her over as his mistress when he convinces her he had nothing to do with killing her hubby. Their romance was unconvincingly portrayed, and was largely fictionalized for the film.
The film chronicles the uneducated Capone’s ruthless rise to power and becoming top dog in the organization, as he deals with corrupt Chicago politicians on his payroll and a corrupt slimy newspaper reporter (Martin Balsam) also on his payroll, who is used to feed him inside scoops and negotiate payoff deals with the politicians. There are also numerous Roaring Twenties gang wars with rivals in the crime organization (the big one being the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre that eliminates a good portion of Moran’s North Side gang). Capone’s nemesis is honest cop Schaefer (James Gregory), who rises through the ranks to eventually become police inspector and is obsessed with putting Capone behind bars. Schaefer finally gets the backing from the politicians, who see the people revolting against them after the reporter is slain and decide to act before they’re removed from office, and the Chicago police inspector together with the feds get Capone convicted on tax evasion. Serving seven years of an eleven year stretch in Alcatraz, the now mentally impaired gangster when released soon dies from syphilis.Gregory, not only stars, but acts as narrator.
REVIEWED ON 9/16/2010 GRADE: B
Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3-PARABELLUM
Copyright 2019 - Dennis Schwartz Reviews
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Archives for the month of: October, 2014
My Review of Yong Zhao’s Book: No Longer Behind a Paywall
You can now read the full review in the New York Review of Books of Yong Zhao’s book, “Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Dragon? Why China Has the Best (and the Worst) Schools in the World.”
It is no longer behind a paywall.
Categories International, Standardized Testing
Los Angeles: More on Resignation of Tech Chief
Ron Chandler, head of technology for LAUSD, abruptly resigned.
The Los Angeles Times said that Chandler oversaw two of the disrict’s most controversial and troubled programs: the $1.3 billion iPad purchase, which was former Superintendent John Deasy’s signature initiative, and the botched MISIS computer system.
“Chandler, 52, became associated with two major troubled projects. The first was a $1.3-billion effort to provide every student, teacher and campus administrator with an iPad, a flagship initiative of former Supt. John Deasy.
“Chandler was responsible for some of the problems that accompanied the iPad rollout at 47 schools last year. For example, immediately after receiving iPads last year, students at three high schools figured out how to delete the security filter and freely browse the Internet.
“Officials immediately took back the devices and some schools made little use of them for the remainder of the year….
“But Chandler’s position apparently became untenable in the wake of a second technology project called My Integrated Student Information System, or MISIS. The system eventually is expected to integrate all student records, keeping parents informed, allowing educators to tailor instruction and helping students stay on track with graduation and college requirements. But the system wasn’t ready and caused chaos across the sprawling district of about 600,000 students.
“As if to underscore the link between Chandler’s departure and MISIS, new Supt. Ramon C. Cortines tersely announced the resignation at the beginning of an update on the records system.
“There will be a change of leadership … Mr. Ron Chandler, Chief Information Officer, has resigned,” Cortines said. “We thank him for his service.”
Categories Los Angeles, Technology, Computers
Breaking News: Cortines Fires L.A. Technology Chief
Ramon Cortines, the new superintendent of schools in Los Angrles, is moving swiftly and decisively to clean up the district’s technology mess. Today he fired the chief of technology, who was responsible for the malfunctioning MISIS system, which left students without programs and scrambled schedules.
No excuses, no delay. This 82-year-old has taken charge.
Philip Kovacs: My Son’s Teacher is a Witch!
Philip Kovacs brought his kindergarten child to school, and his teacher was dressed as a scary witch, dispensing candy, really terrifying!
Kovacs thinks what would be even more frightening would be to see people dressed as bankers (or hedge fund managers or tech billionaires), as destroyers of teachers and public schools.
“Witches, ghouls, goblins, astonishingly real zombies, the teachers were in full gear, dressed to distress the children they’d spent all day with. The principal and staff were there as well, greeting parents, shaking hands, occasionally jumping out of darker corners to the delight of students and parents alike.
“The mainstream media would have the American public believe that teachers are THE problem with our public schools. That they are the witches conjuring up the destruction of America’s competitive edge.
“I’d say the people to fear are the banksters, and if you want to scare the bejeepers out of thinking adults this year dress up as one of those. You’ll need a suit and a deck of cards. When people ask about the cards tell them you are gambling with their pensions. Tell them you’ve been “all in” since the beginning.”
He adds:
“No, I’m not afraid of the witch, but the people peddling fear of teachers scare the life out of me. If their voices continue unchallenged, we shouldn’t expect our best and brightest to enter the profession. You can’t spend millions of dollars hating on teachers and expect future prospects to want to become one.
“And if we continue to pile on the hate, to invoke “fear of teacher,” we will truly have something to be afraid of, a nation where the most qualified avoid teaching like the plague because we’ve made teachers the enemy.”
Next time you want someone to care for your children, call David Welch, tech zillionaire, or Bill Gates,Campbell Brown, or Arne Duncan. Would you?
Categories Teachers
Indiana: Republicans Abandoned Public Education
Conservatives are supposed to conserve. however, these days conservatives are intent on smashing their community’s public schools and substituting a market-based system. this is Wall Street, not Main Street.
From a parent activist in Indiana:
“When it comes to public education, Indiana Republicans have been good at one thing – the deception of their own base of voters.
“Republicans lawmakers found themselves torn this year between traditional Hoosier conservatives and corporate sponsors who finance their campaigns. Conservative voters protested Federal overreach in education. Demanding Indiana maintain local decision-making for their schools, Hoosiers asked lawmakers to abandon the Common Core State Standards. However, the corporate ownership of the Common Core is pervasive.
“Republicans needed to quell conservative voter outrage at a Federal initiative taking away local control and costing taxpayers millions in compliance. Yet, they also needed to appease the big businesses that not only funded the Common Core, but funded their election campaigns as well. What were Indiana Republicans to do?
“Deceive us Hoosier Conservatives.
“Remaining loyal to their corporate sponsors, Republicans devised a scheme – rebrand the Common Core State Standards as the new Indiana College and Career Ready Standards. Confident they had cornered the voting booth, they stuck a new sticker over the Common Core and sold us out.
“State Republicans continue to deceive the public with their education platform of “supporting high state-based standards”. In fact, much of the Republican platform on education is written in deceptive terminology.
“The ancient Chinese general, Sun Tzu, said, “All warfare is based on deception.” The Republican Platform on education is nothing more than a declaration of war on our public schools. Unfortunately, Hoosier students are their casualties.”
Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Indiana, Republicans, Vouchers
The Massachusetts Teachers Association Blasts State Plan re Evaluations
Yesterday, I posted about the plan by Massachusetts to strip teachers of their licenses if their evaluations were poor.
As it happened, the Massachusetts Teachers Association had already issued a forceful response to this misguided proposal. President Barbara Madeloni posted this as a comment on the blog. It was released on October 27:
MTA to BESE: How can anyone in good conscience connect an employment evaluation to licensure?
In response to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s proposed changes to initial licensure and relicensure, MTA President Barbara Madeloni and Vice President Janet Anderson sent the following letter to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester. More information and recommended actions are forthcoming.
To: Members of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education
Mitchell Chester, Commissioner of Education
From: Barbara Madeloni, President, Massachusetts Teachers Association
Janet Anderson, Vice President, Massachusetts Teachers Association
Re: Changes Proposed by DESE to initial licensure and relicensure
On Monday, October 20, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released proposed changes to requirements for both initial licensure and relicensure. A day later, the DESE held its first “town hall” hearing about these proposals. These hearings were facilitated by the Keystone Center, but DESE staff were present.
While there are many questions to ask about these proposals that would allow us to gain some clarity of meaning (e.g., what does “grit” mean as a requirement for initial licensure?), the primary question is: How can anyone in good conscience connect an employment evaluation to licensure when these are entirely different areas of authority and oversight? We know of no other profession in which licensure is contingent on employment evaluation. More insidiously, the employment evaluations include student learning outcomes, thus connecting relicensure to student test scores.
“ How can anyone in good conscience connect an employment evaluation to licensure when these are entirely different areas of authority and oversight?”
We are asking the commissioner to rescind these recommendations in whole for the following reasons:
1. The DESE is advancing policy options that almost exclusively base license advancement and license renewal on the summative performance ratings in the educator evaluation framework and the student impact rating derived from MCAS growth scores and District-Determined Measures. This is a misuse of measures of student learning and is counter to the DESE’s own assertions about how student learning measures would be used.
2. As a professional organization representing approximately 80,000 licensed preK-12 practitioner-members, the MTA does not support either the design principles or the policy options outlined in this document. To connect licensure to evaluation is a serious breach of lines of authority and responsibility. The state’s determination of having met requirements to teach should not and cannot extend into performance on the job, which falls under the authority of school administrators. Further, linking performance evaluations to licensure puts all educators on notice: Be careful what you say and do or you risk not only your job, but also your ability to teach or administer in Massachusetts schools.
3. The MTA does not support short-track preparation programs that allow unqualified and underqualified individuals to enter classrooms as teachers of record without the requisite knowledge and skills to be “classroom ready” on day one. Too often, these underqualified individuals enter high-poverty, low-performing schools, thus contributing to existing achievement gaps and the inequitable distribution of highly effective practitioners.
4. The MTA decries the use of $550,000 in public funds to pay private vendors for this project. The process employed by these vendors shows little or no interest in engaging in meaningful dialogue about what is and is not effective in the current licensure and relicensure processes. Educators report that they have attended tightly controlled “town halls” in which the outcome seems predetermined and voices of dissent are not welcome. We need meaningful opportunities for input into the development of licensure regulations.
We urge the commissioner and the board in the strongest possible terms to heed the overwhelming opposition to these proposals from the people most directly affected and to act immediately to withdraw the policy options currently being considered.
Categories Massachusetts, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers, Testing
Is Katie Osgood Dangerous?
Katie Osgood is a special education teacher in Chicago who has worked for years with children in high need. She has been critical of Teach for America on her blog for sending inexperienced recruits to work in schools with vulnerable students who should have experienced teachers.
She wrote a comment on this blog today about TFA’s leaked memo on how to respond to critics:
“In TFA’s memo, they cite me BY NAME, as a “known detractor”. So, apparently your tax dollars are also going to spying and unsuccessfully debunking tweets/blog posts from a simple special education teacher in Chicago. I have no media team or PR strategy, I’m just writing the truth of TFA and its devastating impact on my city. I am pretty upset how TFA has singled me out and targeted me. I feel violated and even unsafe given the vast power and resources TFA has at its disposal.”
Categories Special Education, Teach for America, Teachers
Steven Singer: Why Can’t Teachers Fire Tech Billionaires?
Steven Singer, teacher, was outraged by the cover of TIME that said it’s nearly impossible to fire bad teachers but tech millionaires have figured it out.
“It is IMPOSSIBLE to fire a bad teacher.
“Unless of course you document how that teacher is bad.
“You know? Due process. Rights. All that liberal bullshit.
“Thank goodness we have tech millionaires to stand up for the rights of totalitarians everywhere!
“A slew of Microsoft wannabes is taking up the mantle of the bored rich to once again attack teacher tenure.
“They claim it’s almost impossible to fire bad teachers because of worker’s rights.
“You know who actually is impossible to fire!? Self-appointed policy experts!
“No one hired them to govern our public schools. In fact, they have zero background in education. But they have oodles of cash and insufferable ennui. Somehow that makes them experts!
“I wonder why no one wants to hear my pet theories on how we should organize computer systems and pay programmers. Somehow the change in my pocket doesn’t qualify me to make policy at IBM, Apple or Microsoft. Strange!”
And be sure to read the imaginary editorial meeting where they decided to let know nothing millionaires tell schools how to do their job.
Categories Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching
Brian Ford Writes a Letter to the Editors of TIME
Brian Ford, teacher and author, wrote this letter to the editor of TIME magazine, in response to the demeaning cover about teachers as “Rotten Apples” who cannot be fired. The cover said that “tech millionaires” had figured out how to deal with those teachers.
Ford writes:
To the Editors of Time Magazine:
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” – Malcolm X
I hope Malcolm X was wrong about media controlling ‘the minds of the masses,’ but the Time cover on teacher tenure with the phrase ‘Rotten Apples’ emblazoned across it shows that his other points were spot on. Irresponsible media can accuse with impunity, they can treat as hereos tech millionaires who lambast teachers by not only encouraging the use of, but use the courts to compel the use of techniques such as ‘Value-added measurement.’
Having written extensively on VAMs, I am aware of what a troubled and inaccurate method it is. I am not going to enter into all the reasons –I have a book about that–, but the “flood of new academic research on teacher quality” is dubious at best, deliberately misleading at times, often relying on a single study of a single school in a single year and then generalizing that to all schools everywhere in all years. Furthermore, this research is often miscategorized and misrepresented by advocates for a quick fix. But there is no quick fix – the problems of our schools are rooted in social pathologies, not teacher quality.
It is concentrated poverty, not teacher quality that plagues our system – or, more accurately, those parts of the system which serve the poorest quarter of our population. Even Eric Hanushek of Stanford, who is known for saying we need to “replace the bottom five to eight percent of our teachers in terms of effectiveness,” stresses that “an average teacher is quite good in our schools” and would rate well against teachers anywhere in the world. And almost no one suggests what seems obvious – that tenure draws people into the teaching pool who might go elsewhere, thus very likely making the average teacher significantly better.
On the other side, the so-called fixes would make things worse, much worse. What none of the advocates admit is this: it narrows the curriculum. The ‘value’ measured is not that that of character or creativity, but is based on standardized tests and how students perform on them. It has nothing to do with their dreams or aspirations, on their unique gifts or their personal histories and, as one might expect, since the advent of high stakes tests in the early 1990s, young people have had documented declines in creativity. Administrators and teachers are pressured to teach students to do well on the short list of skills the tests measure, not on how to have a meaningful life.
Those tests are themselves narrow in many ways, but in one way they are not: they are sweeping in their ability to make money. Pearson education has a nearly half a billion dollar contract to provide testing services in Texas. As for venture capitalists, the money has gone up 30-fold, from $13 million in 2005 to $389 million in 2011. As former Massachusetts Governor William Weld said some years ago, the “fundamentals are all aligned for a great number of people to make a whole lot of money in this sector.”
Weld finished his statement, “and do well by doing good.” That is always the claim. Dismantle the public system to serve the students. This is done in the strangest way — teacher autonomy declines and long term professionals are pushed out not because they are ‘bad,’ but because they have higher salaries. The problem is that far too many advocates of this position are trying to make room in the budget for their own payments; ranging from Rupert Murdoch to purveyors of virtual education to TFA to Pearson to the Gates-funded, Michelle Rhee-founded organizations the New Teacher Project, have an interest, financial and professional, in labeling the system as failing.
Add to this those with political interests to do the same, from the Bushes to Chris Christie to Scott Walker to Kevin Johnson, and you have a potent force able to craft messages that are in their own interests, but not those of a democratic nation the most important foundation of which is its public education system.
Brian Ford
brianford58@yahoo.com
First, my own book, Brian Ford, Respect For Teachers or The Rhetoric Gap and How Research on Schools is Laying the Ground for New Business Models in Education, Rowman and Littlefield, 2012. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781475802078
Eric Hanushek speaking, “Class Size and Student Achievement,” Diane Rehm Show, 8 March 2011; accessed June 2011 at http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-03-08/class-size-and-student-achievement.
Luke Quinton & Kate Mcgee, “What’s in Texas’ $500 Million Testing Contract with Pearson?” KUT.ORG News, Austin, Texas, July 16, 2013; accessed October 2014 at http://kut.org/post/what-s-texas-500-million-testing-contract-pearson.
Stephanie Simon,”Private firms eyeing profits from U.S. public schools,” Reuters, New York, 2 August 2012; accessed October 2014 at http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/02/usa-education-investment-idUSL2E8J15FR20120802
Kyung Hee Kim, “The Creativity Crisis: The Decrease in Creative Thinking Scores on the Torrance
Tests of Creative Thinking,” Creativity Research Journal, 2011, Vol. 23:4, pp. 285-295.
Weld quote was from Walsh, Ed Week, 19 Jan 2000, p. 13
Categories Education Reform, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers
George Joseph Describes TFA’s Rapid Response Team for Critics
George Joseph, writing in The Nation, describes how Teach for America deals with critics. It has a rapid response team to debunk criticism, and it uses its extensive network in the halls of power to head off critics long before they publish. As more and more ex-TFA publish their criticism of the organization, the rapid response team is kept very busy. One of those critics–Alexandra Hootnick– wrote an article for The Nation. She filed a Freedom of Information Act with the U.S. Department of Education to get information about TFA; an operative inside the DOE immediately informed TFA. TFA knew about the article long before it was published, and the response was ready when the article appeared. The brand must be protected.
TFA has installed friendly allies in key places in D.C.:
With this extensive organizational infrastructure behind them, Teach For America alumni have climbed to prominence in the education policy sphere. As Hootnick noted in her piece for The Nation, “More than seventy alumni currently hold public office, including two state senators. Within the federal government, their ranks include two assistants to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, as well as education policy advisers and associates in the offices of Senators Harry Reid and Al Franken and Representative George Miller.” And despite its non-profit status, which prohibits partisan political advocacy, from 2010 to 2013 TFA poured nearly $2.4 million into lobbying and “direct contact” with political figures to pass state legislation recognizing TFA’s five-week summer training as an alternative to traditional teacher certification, and to secure “adequate federal funding.”
Joseph writes:
While Teach For America has failed at providing the nation with many long-term educators, they have provided a stream of political operatives, who have gone on to help fuel their former organization’s expansion and codify its narrow, corporate vision of education reform. Though TFA corp members often complain of a lack of institutional support in the classroom, TFA has been proactive in setting up regional professional networks and leadership organizations to groom corp members for influential political platforms after their classroom stints. TFA’s “Leadership for Educational Equity,” “a nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering Teach for America corps members and alumni to grow as leaders,” has helped groom numerous policy makers, policy leaders, and education reform lobbyists; in fact, according to the latest IRS documents available, in 2012 alone TFA’s Leadership for Educational Equity, a 501c(4), spent nearly $3.2 million on “leadership development,” the vast majority of which came from five undisclosed donors. Furthermore, TFA’s tax records from 2010 to 2013 reveal the organization gave over $7.3 million to Leadership for Educational Equity.
Among TFA’s prominent alums are John White, who has promoted charter schools in Louisiana and Cami Anderson, now pushing charter schools in Newark. TFA alums were also engaged in Chicago, where the closure of 50 public schools was premised on the creation of new charter schools, whose teachers would be largely TFA.
Joseph concludes:
The anti-TFA movement appears to be picking up steam. Last month, the national student labor organization, United Students Against Sweatshops, announced a national campaign to kick Teach For America off campus at 15 colleges across the country. While the campaign will not immediately affect the organization’s corporate funding, the ongoing PR toll could damage TFA’s brand. As organizer for United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) Leewana Thomas explained, “By disrupting TFA’s campus recruitment efforts, we can cut off their efforts to capitalize on universities’ academic prestige.” At Harvard, for example, this September, USAS activists delivered a letter asking administrators to cut ties with TFA.
“We’ve asked schools to cut ties with TFA because our schools are a major source of corp members for TFA,” said Harvard USAS activist Hannah McShea, “The idea is that these kids [recruits] are going to be super energetic and passionate, but honestly they [students] need more than that. On the national level, Teach for America hasn’t been receiving a lot of criticism for about twenty years. This is a new thing for them.”
In a statement to The Nation, Teach For America claimed, “Most organizations have a media response strategy and TFA is no different—we work to correct the record when things are inaccurate. We also work to proactively share the stories of our teachers, students and the communities we partner with.” But as more and more of these same teachers, students, and communities speak out against their experiences with Teach For America, the organization is less able to “correct the record,” salvage its brand, and thereby justify its continued expansion.
Categories Teach for America
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Words starting with f
Meaning of F
f means: the 6th letter of the Roman alphabet
f means: the capacitance of a capacitor that has an equal and opposite charge of 1 coulomb on each plate and a voltage difference of 1 volt between the plates
f means: a degree on the Fahrenheit scale of temperature
f means: a nonmetallic univalent element belonging to the halogens; usually a yellow irritating toxic flammable gas; a powerful oxidizing agent; recovered from fluorite or cryolite or fluorapatite
Meaning of F clef
f clef means: a clef that puts the F below middle C on the fourth line of a staff
Meaning of F layer
f layer means: the highest region of the ionosphere (from 90 to 600 miles up) which contains the highest concentration of free electrons and is most useful for long-range radio transmission
Meaning of F number
f number means: the ratio of the focal length to the diameter of a (camera) lens system
Meaning of F region
f region means: the highest region of the ionosphere (from 90 to 600 miles up) which contains the highest concentration of free electrons and is most useful for long-range radio transmission
Meaning of F. d. roosevelt
f. d. roosevelt means: 32nd President of the United States; elected four times; instituted New Deal to counter the Great Depression and led country during World War II (1882-1945)
Meaning of F. g. banting
f. g. banting means: Canadian physiologist who discovered insulin with C. H. Best and who used it to treat diabetes(1891-1941)
Meaning of Afterpiece
afterpiece means: a brief dramatic piece (usually comic) presented after a play
Meaning of Caenolestidae
caenolestidae means: small marsupials of southern South America
Meaning of Calcific
calcific means: involving or resulting from calcification
Meaning of Capparis cynophallophora
capparis cynophallophora means: shrub of southern Florida to West Indies
Meaning of Chip shot
chip shot means: (golf) a low running approach shot
Meaning of Ezra loomis pound
ezra loomis pound means: United States writer who lived in Europe; strongly influenced the development of modern literature (1885-1972)
Meaning of Family tilletiaceae
family tilletiaceae means: a family of smut fungi having a simple promycelium bearing the spores in an apical cluster
Meaning of Genus oecanthus
genus oecanthus means: tree crickets
Meaning of Hiawatha
hiawatha means: a Native American chieftain who argued for peace with the European settlers (16th century)
Meaning of Maintenance man
maintenance man means: a skilled worker whose job is to repair things
Meaning of Paranoid
paranoid means: a person afflicted with paranoia
paranoid means: suffering from paranoia
Meaning of Piece of cloth
piece of cloth means: a separate part consisting of fabric
Meaning of Pinnate leaf
pinnate leaf means: a leaf resembling a feather; having the leaflets on each side of a common axis
Meaning of Plainly
plainly means: in a simple manner; without extravagance or embellishment
plainly means: unmistakably (`plain' is often used informally for `plainly')
Meaning of Polygala lutea
polygala lutea means: bog plant of pine barrens of southeastern United States having spikes of irregular yellow-orange flowers
Meaning of Psyop
psyop means: military actions designed to influence the perceptions and attitudes of individuals, groups, and foreign governments
Meaning of Savouring
savouring means: taking a small amount into the mouth to test its quality
Meaning of Undercarriage
undercarriage means: framework that serves as a support for the body of a vehicle
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About•
Des Moines Symphony News
All ArticlesSymphony NewsAcademy News
2019-20 Season Rebroadcast Schedule on IPR’s Symphonies of Iowa 08/26/2019 In Symphony News
Iowa Public Radio is the Radio Home of the Des Moines Symphony. Tune in to IPR's "Symphonies of Iowa" program to hear our 2019-2020 Masterworks concerts rebroadcast throughout 2020.
Des Moines Symphony Chooses First-Ever Mini Maestro 07/30/2019 In Symphony News
On July 28, the Des Moines Symphony held its first-ever Mini Maestro Contest as part of its Water Works Pops Concert, “A John Williams Spectacular.”
Des Moines Symphony Announces Leadership Gift from Linda and Tom Koehn to Create Water Works Pops Series 07/09/2019 In Symphony News
The Des Moines Symphony has received a leadership gift from Linda and Thomas Koehn to create the Des Moines Symphony's Water Works Pops, a new series of free outdoor concerts set to launch this summer.
Read the Review! Star Wars: A New Hope in Concert 06/08/2019 In Symphony News
Maestro Ernest Richardson and The Des Moines Symphony turned in a Jedi-like performance Friday night to the delight of thousands of fans who had gathered at the Des Moines Civic Center to hear — and see — “Star Wars: A New Hope In Concert” and its iconic score come to life.
Announcing Our First Sensory-Friendly Concert 05/06/2019 In Academy News
The Des Moines Symphony & Academy will offer its first sensory-friendly concert, Little Johnny & Papa Haydn, at 3:00pm on Sunday, June 9 in the Grand Hall at the Temple for Performing Arts.
Meet A Musician: Gregory Oakes 04/01/2019 In Symphony News
I’ve always had music around me as long as I can remember. It was playing in the house from my earliest memories.
"My Favorite Field Trip of the Year" 03/01/2019 In Symphony News
Remember the very first time you heard a live symphony – the excitement of seeing musicians on-stage and being moved by the power of music. Last month, over 5,600 fourth and fifth grade students had the opportunity to experience the Des Moines Symphony live on the Civic Center stage, many for the first time.
Youth Orchestras Honors String Quartet Takes First Place in Minnesota Competition 02/26/2019 In Academy News
On February 23, 2019, the Des Moines Symphony Youth Orchestras Honors String Quartet competed in and were awarded First Place in the Finals of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Youth Chamber Music Competition.
Meet a Musician: Elaine Ng 02/01/2019 In Symphony News
I am not sure when I first experienced music, but I can’t recall my life without music. Maybe my very first encounter with music was my mom watching Michael Jackson’s music video while I danced along when I was two-years-old!
Free Tickets for Furloughed Federal Employees 01/17/2019 In Symphony News
The Des Moines Symphony has announced that furloughed federal employees are eligible for two complimentary tickets to attend a Des Moines Symphony Masterworks concert of their choice. All Masterworks series concerts through May 2019 are included in the offer (subject to availability).
Des Moines Symphony Creates Music Opportunities for Everyone 01/13/2020 In Symphony News
Thank you for a wonderful year of music! 01/06/2020 In Symphony News
Give the Gift of Music this Season 12/04/2019 In Symphony News
Share Your Melody 12/02/2019 In Symphony News
Meet Our Music Librarian: Rachel Lowry 11/26/2019 In Symphony News
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Netflix’s ‘Spinning Out’ Trailer Teases The Twisted World Of Figure Skating
in Entertainment, World
If there’s one thing dark sports movies have taught audiences, it’s that it’s easy for athletes to spin out of control. Well, in Netflix’s Spinning Out trailer, it looks like the main character will also be doing some literal spinning. The new series follows elite figure skater Kat Baker (The Maze Runner‘s Kaya Scodelario) who considers ending her career after an injury. However, she reconsiders when she gets the opportunity to compete in a pairs competition alongside resident bad boy Justin (Arrow‘s Evan Roderick). Per Netflix’s official synopsis, “She soon realizes that in order to chase her skating dreams, shell have to overcome fractured family relationships, a rocky partnership, and personal demons that threaten to derail everything shes worked for.”
The stakes get even higher once you throw in Kat’s overbearing and emotionally abusive mom, who’s played by Mad Men‘s January Jones. In the trailer, she has the terrifying line, “You were perfect, but now when I look at you, all I see is wasted potential. Youll never be a champion. Never! She’s refocused her attention on Kat’s younger sister Serena (Willow Shields, who fans will recognize from The Hunger Games), but that doesn’t deter Kat from sticking it out on the ice. “Skatings like breathing, she says. I cant imagine not doing it. And if I stopped, itd feel like drowning.
The Spinning Out trailer is filled with dramatic moments, including a hint of a deep, dark secret in Kat’s past. It all contributes to the trailer’s intense thriller tone and gives it some major Black Swan vibes. But, it isn’t all dark and disturbing. One of the series’ guest stars is the pocketful of sunshine in human form known as Jonathan Van Ness. The Queer Eye star will play Bruce, a former skater turned big-time choreographer from Michigan.” It’s the perfect role for Van Ness, who’s made his love of figure skating very clear on his Instagram account. He joins a cast that’s rounded out by Amanda Zhou, Will Kemp, Svetlana Efremova, Mitchell Edwards, Sarah Wright Olsen, David James Elliott, Johnny Weir, and Kaitlyn Leeb.
All ten episodes of Spinning Out‘s Season 1 drop on Wednesday, Jan. 1 on Netflix.
The post Netflix’s ‘Spinning Out’ Trailer Teases The Twisted World Of Figure Skating appeared first on Elite Daily.
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Sort by Date (Ascending) Date (Descending) Newest Added Title
Letter from L. Beria to Cde. I.V. Stalin
Molotov reports that he is sending Stalin a letter from Alihan Tore Shakirjan, the Chairman of the Provisional Government of East Turkestan.
Report concerning the Work of the Xinjiang Provincial Party Comittee from January 1943 through March 1945
A report on the Xinjiang Provincial Party Committee, from its founding in 1943 through early 1945.
Letter from L. Beria to Cde. I.V. Stalin of the State Defense Committee and Cde. V.M. Molotov of the Council of People's Commissars
Beria describes a meeting between NKVD Lt. Col. Prokopyuk and Shakirjan at which Shakirjan suggested renewing active rebel operations, emphasizing that the lack of combat is beginning to demoralize the Muslim population.
Notes by Wilhelm Pieck on a Consultation with Stalin, Molotov, Zhdanov
Meeting notes on the situation in Germany.
Cable, Summary of Averell Harriman Meeting with Stalin and Molotov
Harriman updates the President on the adverse relations between the USSR and the United States; observes that Stalin cannot understand the United State's interest in establishing an independent Poland.
USSR Council of People’s Commissars, 'The Organization of Soviet Industrial Enterprises in Northern Iran'
A decree with plans for construction of various factories and enterprises in northern Iran under the organization of the Azerbaijan SSR.
Decree of the GOKO [State Defense Committee] No. 9168SS, 'Geological Prospecting Work for Oil in Northern Iran'
Decree ordering '"Azneft" [Azerbaijani Oil] Association to supervise geological prospecting for oil deposits in northern Iran under the direction of Narkomneft, the USSR Oil Ministry.
Exceprt on Xinjiang from Minutes No. 46 of the VKP(b) CC Politburo Meetings
The CPSU Central Committee announces various measures to support the rebels in Ili, Xinjiang, and the East Turkestan Republic (ETR).
Record of I. V. Stalin's Conversation with Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia Z. Fierlinger and Deputy Foreign Minister V. Clementis
Stalin and Fierlinger discuss the issues of Transcarpathian Ukraine, tobacco in Czechoslovakia, American troops in Czechoslovakia, the Teshin Region, and the development of the Czechoslovak army.
Meeting between Marshal Stalin and Dr. Soong
Stalin and Chinese Minister Soong discuss the necessity of warm relations between China and the Soviet Union; Stalin pledges to support China's position.
Report on Generalleutnant Walter Dornberger and Information he Shared
The report presents Walter Dornberger and information he provided after his capture.
Cable, Summary of Averell Harriman Meeting with T. V. Soong
Harriman reports on a conversation with Chinese Minister Soong about his meeting with Stalin. Soong reports that China and the USSR wish to establish close ties; Harriman encourages Soong on this point.
Message from Averell Harriman to the President and Secretary of State
Harriman reports on Chiang Kai-Shek and Stalin's bartering over the status of Outer Mongolia. Chiang refuses to recognize its independence now, but offers to hold a plebiscite after the war.
Letter to Nikolai Aleksandrovich
A letter describing the activities of the Soviet 4th army to strengthen ties with the local population in Iranian Azerbaijan.
Telegram from Cde. Yegnarov for Cde. Beria
Cde. Yegnarov reports on his meeting with "Sadyk," noting his persistent requests to begin military operations against the Chinese and for "Sadyk" to lead the operation against the Chinese in the South of Xinjiang. Yegnarov also describes military maneuvers in the Ili District and requests permission to transfer Red Army detachments in order to liberate the Tarbaghatai District.
Record of a Meeting between T.V. Soong and Stalin
Notes taken during meetings between the Chinese nationalist government and the Soviet Union in Moscow during Sino-Soviet treaty negotiations.
Memorandum of Conversation between Averell Harriman and T. V. Soong, 'Far Eastern Conversations with Generalissimo Stalin'
Harriman reports on Soong and Stalin's July 2 conversation on ports and the issue of Outer Mongolia.
Report from L. Beria to I.V. Stalin of the State Defense Committee and V.M. Molotov of the Council of People's Commissars
Beria reports on a Chinese offensive against the Dungan rebel battalion in the Ili District of Xinjiang, noting the Chinese and rebel losses.
Cable, Summary of Averell Harriman Meeting with Stalin and T. V. Soong
Harriman reports on Stalin and Soong's July 2, 1945 meeting regarding Stalin's attitudes towards a Sino-Soviet railroad and the internationaliztion of ports.
Harriman reports on his meeting with Dr. Soong, in which Soong provides him with detailed notes from his July 2, 1945 meeting with Stalin. Soong is concerned that Stalin does not understand the importance of China's territorial integrity in regards to Outer Mongolia, asks for the stance of the United States' government on this issue. Harriman reports on Stalin and Soong's discussion of open ports and Korea.
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Parks, Arthur Ewart, 2 résultats 2
McLennan, John Cunningham, 1 résultats 1
McLennan/Parks Family, 1 résultats 1
Parks, William Arthur, 1 résultats 1
Photographs and art, 2 résultats 2
Textual records, 2 résultats 2
Publications, 1 résultats 1
Objects, 1 résultats 1
Seulement les descriptions de haut niveau Parks, Arthur Ewart collection
Dépôt OISE Library Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Trinity College Archives University of St Michael's College Archives University of St. Michael's College, John M. Kelly Library, Special Collections University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services University of Toronto Media Commons University of Toronto Mississauga Library, Archives & Special Collections University of Toronto Music Library University of Toronto Scarborough Library, Archives & Special Collections Victoria University Archives Victoria University Library - Special Collections
Niveau de description Acquisition collection Collection Dossier Ébauche Manuscript Collection Pièce Série organique Sous-fonds Sous-série organique
McLennan/Parks family fonds
This accession contains mainly correspondence, photographs, memorabilia and diplomas from all three members of the family. Of particular note are the diaries of Sir J.C. McLennan for the last two years of his life as well as well as geological field notebooks and expense books.
For further details, see attached file list in the finding aid.
McLennan/Parks Family
Arthur Ewart Parks fonds
Correspondence, course and lecture notes relating to his early education at University of Toronto Schools, Upper Canada College and as undergraduate and medical student at the University of Toronto; diaries, addresses, and publications documenting Arthur Parks' education, his military service in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps during World War II, and his subsequent career in the insurance business. Also includes course notes of Park's aunt, Mary Louise McLennan, in Education, 1914-1915. Photograph of Camp Borden.
Parks, Arthur Ewart
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Artemis Quartet 'MuCH Waterloo Festival, Bartok'
Artemis Quartet 'MuCH Waterloo Festival, Beethoven'
Artemis Quartet 'Fugues Out #03 - Beethoven on Platform 17 in Austerlitz train station'
Artemis Quartet
Saturday, April 13, 2019 | 8:00 pm
Chamber Arts Series
Baldwin Auditorium
During the last three decades, the Artemis Quartet has set new standards of flexibility for the modern string quartet. The ensemble’s catalogue includes Beethoven, Ligeti, Schoenberg, and Brahms. Capable of commanding power and breathtaking delicacy, the Artemis “is not only on par with the most virtuosic of their competitors, but it offers a greater musical intensity than all the others!” (Suddeutsche Zeitung). After the tragic death of its longtime violist in 2015, the Artemis has reemerged with renewed vigor; it remains “a testament to adaptability and consummate musicianship,” raved the Chicago Classical Review.
For its fourth visit to Durham, the Artemis presents a condensed history of the string quartet in only three pieces. They begin with Haydn’s beloved Quartet in G Minor, known as the “Rider” for its galloping, triumphant rhythms. Béla Bartok rewrote the rules for string quartets in the twentieth century with his daring pizzicato fantasies, his magnetic metric tension, and his dissonant call-and-response sections with their pastoral denouements. The Artemis gives us the fourth of Bartok’s modern classics. The concert ends with Brahms’ Quartet No. 2. Impassioned and yearning, it embeds deep pangs of loneliness inside a prevailing sense of redemption.
Haydn: String Quartet in G Minor, op. 74, no. 3 (“Rider”)
Bartók: String Quartet No. 4, Sz. 91
Brahms: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, op. 51, no. 2
Artemis Quartet's Website
Artemis Quartet's Facebook
“They sounded completely at one with the music, unfailingly inflecting and characterising the thematic ebb and flow, and pacing the whole structure to perfection.”
Jeremy Denk, Piano
& Stefan Jackiw, Violin
Ives Violin Sonatas
with New York Polyphony, Voices
St. Lawrence String Quartet & Anne-Marie McDermott, Piano
Jan Lisiecki, Piano
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‘Home-free’ residents prepare for winter in Durango
Frigid months can be fatal for people sleeping outside
By Bret Hauff City government & crime reporter
Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018 5:03 AM
Updated: Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018 10:47 PM
Follow @b_hauff
David Surles, who camps on the west side of Durango, said Monday he’s ready for winter. He has a tent, three sleeping bags, five pillows and at least two sleeping mats. The tent has a tarp over it supported by a sturdy branch that will keep the snow off of his tent. Surles uses four different campsites that follow the sun to keep him warm or cool, depending on the season.
Jerry McBride/Durango Herald
Timothy Sargent is preparing for the cold months ahead. For him, staying warm is a matter of life and death.
“It is so important to have someplace that you can go and be warm,” said Sargent, who has been without a home for about five years.
Keeping warm during the winter months is something of a science for Sargent. He takes great precautions to prepare himself and his shelter to avoid freezing.
Although the city stopped enforcing its camping ban at night, keeping a tent up during the day is still prohibited by the city of Durango, which requires people who sleep on public land to take down their tents between the hours of sunrise and sunset.
But that becomes unrealistic for homeless residents trying to survive the winter.
“It takes a good couple hours, and you can’t go and take it down, especially when there’s snow all around,” Sargent said. “It’s not just a simple tent, it’s a wintering camp. ... We need a place that can be kept up until spring.”
Many campers move away during the cold months, in search of warmer climates. But for a select few, winter is no deterrent to the “home-free” lifestyle – a term Sargent and others use to identify people without a permanent residence.
It all comes down to layers, he said. First, he gets a tent from Walmart and a bunch of blankets to insulate it. Fleece or light-weight, synthetic blankets work best, Sargent said – those blankets won’t collapse the tent like a heavy-weight blanket will.
Sargent said he drapes blankets over his tent between the inside layer and the rain cover – enough to block out the light – using safety pins to affix the blankets to his tent so they won’t slide off. Then comes a tarp roof for the tent – strung up to nearby trees – somewhat of an A-frame structure to keep the snow from collecting on top of his tent and collapsing his shelter.
David Surles shows a reflective coating on the inside of his tent that helps retain heat. Surles has three sleeping bags, five pillows and at least two sleeping mats.
But even that isn’t enough. Sargent said he buys two or three pillar candles that last anywhere between 60 and 80 hours, to produce heat and light inside his tent. Setting all that up takes time, he said.
Every night in America, there are hundreds of thousands of people who sleep outside because they have nowhere else to go, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many of those individuals experience alcohol or drug abuse, mental illness or other diseases like HIV or tuberculous, according to the CDC.
On a single night in 2017, Colorado, California, Florida and Oregon accounted for nearly two-thirds of all unsheltered people in families with children, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
On a single night in January of last year, Colorado had the seventh largest homeless veteran population. The Centennial state also accounted for one of the largest increases in homeless population from 2016 to 2017, according to HUD – 20 in every 10,000 Coloradans were homeless in 2017.
Some of those people don’t have the means to purchase shelter, so they may purposefully get incarcerated because it gives them a warm place to sleep and a meal to eat.
“Some people give up their freedom just to survive,” Sargent said.
David Surles, who has lived home-free for about seven years, said he has a friend who has committed himself to the detox center in Durango more than 380 times in the past few years just to get out of the cold.
The first year Surles was home-free, he said he wasn’t prepared for the cold that would come. The former transit engineer said he took a job at Denny’s for warmth and a free meal.
Surles chose the lifestyle, he said: “I want to be home-free; I don’t want a light bulb to change, a lawn to mow or a garbage disposal to fix.”
Now, he’s figured out how to stay warm: one tent, three sleeping bags, five pillows and at least two sleeping mats. Staying off the ground is most important, he said – the earth can suck the warmth out of a person.
Staying away from water is also important, Sargent said. It’s colder by the water, so sleeping under a bridge, although it provides shelter, may not be the best choice for people without homes.
David Surles relaxes Tuesday at his campsite. He has been camping for about seven years, through summers and winters.
It’s those people, the ones who are new to the lifestyle or may not have the means or the wisdom to purchase warm gear, that Sargent said he most worries about. It can get cold enough to freeze a person to death, something that happens almost every year, he said.
“Imagine it’s 12 degrees and all you have is your clothes,” Sargent said.
No deaths have been reported so far this fall as a result of cold weather, said La Plata County Coroner Jann Smith.
Empathy can go a long way to help people without permanent shelter, Sargent said. “If you see someone outside, ask,” Sargent said. “They might be really cold.”
People without a home are treated as second-class citizens in Durango, Surles said. But a bit of kindness and recognition could go a long way to change that status, he said. Although people may not have permanent shelter, they still contribute to the community through the things they buy at local stores to survive, he said. They still have constitutional rights, he said.
“We are humans, and we contribute to society in our own way,” Surles said. “That should be acknowledged and respected.”
bhauff@durangoherald.com
Groups take aim at Durango’s proposed camping rules
Durango rules on homelessness ‘starting a battle’
Camp closure leaves Durango’s homeless without options
Durango to close homeless camp, won’t provide new location
Hickenlooper faces renewed questions about his administration’s spending
La Plata County likely to suspend public process for road improvements
Snowstorm likely to bring up to 3 inches in Durango
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SOTU Liveblogging
Posted on January 23, 2007 by dylanmatthews
8:59 – Just organizational stuff now.
9:02 – Laura’s entered, standing next to Lynne Cheney. Just sat down.
9:02 – Supreme Court enters.
9:03 – Cabinet enters.
9:06 – Nothing’s happening…
9:09 – Finally, he enters.
9:13 – Bush gives lip service to Pelosi having a vagina. An easy applause line.
9:14 – Mentions Tim Johnson/Charlie Norwood, calls for fast recovery. Surprised by the courtesy of it.
9:15 – Congratulates the “Democrat majority.” Go to hell.
9:16 – Charlie Rangel is doing a crossword. So Stanley-esque I want to cry.
9:18 – Calls for the budget to be balanced without raising taxes. Also, a pony and some ice cream.
9:20 – Calls for earmarks to be made public, cut in half. Doesn’t mention that the reason they’re public now is Obama.
9:21 – Onto Medicare/SS. Oh no.
9:22 – Phew, he’s moved on to education. Pats self on back for NCLB. Calls for expansion, more school flexibility, vouchers (which I’m actually sympathetic towards).
9:23 – Health care time.
9:24 – Children, elderly, poor need public insurance. Rest don’t. They’re different. It’s a genetic thing.
9:24 – Nothing more exciting than hearing Bush talk about tax deductions.
9:25 – Whoa. Totally co-opts Feingold proposal on state health care innovation.
9:26 – Calls to expand HSAs. That’ll fix everything!
9:28 – Immigration schpiel. Nothing new here. Tancredo looks pissed.
9:30 – Energy time. Technology that conveniently helps Big Coal and Big Nuclear is the answer, strangely enough.
9:31 – Calls on US to reduce oil usage 10% in next ten years. Good reception – the smirk is intense.
9:33 – Global warming. Calls challenge “real.” Lots of applause, lots of smirk.
9:34 – Condemns judicial filibuster. Isn’t that cute.
9:35 – Terrorism time. Flypaper theory is still in fashion – even Pelosi’s clapping. Why?
9:36 – Names foiled terror plots that, even if real and even if conducted at all competently, would have killed like five people.
9:38 – Terrorists are bad, apparently. Didn’t know that.
9:39 – Starts talking about Shi’a extremists. Name-checks Iran, support for Hezbollah. Oh. Crap.
9:40 – Moves on. Phew.
9:41 – “What every terrorist fears most is human freedom.” Rarely has such complete and utter bullshit been uttered in the House.
9:43 – Talks repeatedly about Hezbollah without mentioning who, you know, started the war in June.
9:45 – Goal: “democratic Iraq…that is an ally in the war on terror.” Name a bigger impossibility if you can.
9:47 – Talks tough on Iraqi government. Because the instability we caused is totally their responsibility.
9:48 – “Consequences of failure would be grievous and far-reaching.” I know, haven’t they been?
9:49 – “Nothing is more important than that the United States succeed in the Middle East.” 21,500 soldiers and Marines would beg to differ.
9:51 – War on terror a “generational struggle.” Is forming advisory council on it, including plan to expand military. A good means to a wickedly stupid end.
9:53 – Is creating second reserve military for those who want to join the “defining struggle of our time.” Any takers? Anyone? Bueller?
9:54 – Mentions Darfur, Lukashenko in Belarus, and junta in Burma. Surprisingly good stuff.
9:55 – Foreign aid time. Hard to object, esp. on HIV/AIDS and malaria.
9:57 – Special guest time. Some NBA star born in Africa.
9:58 – Another guest. Baby Einstein founder. WTF?
9:59 – Another guest. Saved man on subway tracks. Daughter’s asleep. Insists not a hero, but agreed to be here. Hmm.
10:01 – Another guest. Iraq vet who won the Silver Star for courage.
10:02 – It’s over. “See you next year.” Don’t remind me, George.
P.S. What is with the Jim Webb hero-worship? Sure, the content of his speech was nice (aside from the nod in favor of protectionism), but he spoke with the charisma of a rock. Comparing the speech to Obama’s DNC speech is just slightly less silly than comparing Ted Stevens’ “series of tubes” speech to Cicero.
Libby Delivers
As a longtime Law and Order fan, I have a penchant for sensationalistic trials. Which is what Scooter Libby’s seems to be becoming. The fact that the defense is saying that Libby is a scapegoat for Rove isn’t particularly interesting. This, from Steve Benen, is:
MSNBC’s David Schuster, who has been covering the Plame scandal very closely for quite a while, said prosecutors have “astounding” evidence that should raise eyebrows throughout the political establishment, even among “those who have been following this case.” Among the new claims:
* “Vice President Cheney himself directed Scooter Libby to essentially go around protocol and deal with the press and handle press himself…to try to beat back the criticism of administration critic Joe Wilson.”
* Cheney personally “wrote out for Scooter Libby what Libby should say in a conversation with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper.”
* “Scooter Libby destroyed a note from Vice President Cheney about their conversations and about how Vice President Cheney wanted the Wilson matter handled.”
Whoa. If this holds up in court – and based on what we know about this administration, it probably will – this could do to Cheney what tax evasion did to Spiro Agnew. Which would be a good thing, and not just for the obvious reason. Cheney’s resignation would provide Bush the opportunity to choose a new vice president. Whoever he chooses would instantly become the Republican frontrunner in 2008. But though this would greatly benefit the new VP in the Republican primaries, his/her close connection to the administration (however new) would be a huge mark against them in the general, greatly improving Democratic chances.
The nominations turned out better than I could have expected. Dreamgirls was not nominated for best picture or best director (though it led with eight nominations, mostly technical). Little Miss Sunshine, though unfortunately unnominated for best director, was nominated for best picture, best original screenplay, best supporting actress for Abigail Breslin, and best supporting actor for Alan Arkin. And The Departed got a full slate of nominations: best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay, best film editing, and best supporting actor (Mark Wahlberg). Very, very well done, Academy.
P.S. Dana Stevens – that Volver wasn’t nominated for best foreign film is a feature, not a bug. Sorry, Pedro, but ripping off the entire premise of Chinatown is just tacky.
Oh, Brownback…
…how can I resist mocking you for this?
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., began a long-shot bid for president on Saturday, hoping his reputation as a favorite son of the religious right can help him outdistance better known rivals.
Alluding to another famous Kansan, Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz,” Brownback declared his intention to seek his party’s nomination in 2008, saying “My family and I are taking the first steps on the yellow brick road to the White House.
Did Sam Brownback really just declare himself a “Friend of Dorothy”? Because I do believe he did.
Brad Strikes Again
I really don’t understand how Brad Plumer has kept his job at TNR after pwning pro-war-with-Iran forces so thoroughly on The Plank, but in any case the pwnage is a beautiful thing to witness.
Surprise of the century. I still don’t see how she can win the primary, for a number of reasons:
As the situation in Iraq gets worse and worse from now to early 2008, Hillary – as the only one of the three major candidates to still think that the invasion was a good idea – will upset basically everyone in the Democratic party more and more. It’s not enough, in my mind and in the minds of many in the party, to call for a withdrawal after it’s painfully obvious that that’s the least bad option. The POTUS needs to be able to make intelligent foreign policy decisions based on the information available at the time they’re made. Hillary’s support for the war demonstrated that she is utterly incapable of doing that.
Hillary has no accomplishments under her belt. Obama, in two years – both in the minority – in the Senate, has improved government transparency dramatically, worked to address the situation in D.R. Congo, and reduced the availability of small arms globally. After six years – two in the majority – Hillary has no similar accomplishments, and much of her proposed legislation has been both trivial and unsavory: her video game censorship bill, protectionist legislation that would pay companies to impoverish poor third-world workers, and a capitulationist bill that would criminalize speech in the form of flag-burning. She’s going to be hard-pressed to show that she’s been at all effective as a Senator, whereas Obama can show his results with relative ease.
Building off the last two points, Hillary is going to have to face the fact that what smells rotten about her candidacy – to me and to a lot of people – is the nepotism of it. She would be as viable a candidate for the presidency as Dianne Feinstein were she not Bill Clinton’s wife; the only reason she’s been taken seriously, and supported in some circles, is because of that connection. But she’s not Bill Clinton. She doesn’t have the charisma, the policy ingenuity, or the political tact of Bill, and that’s what makes Clinton fans like me more willing to support Obama, who actually has more in common with Bill than does his wife.
I don’t dislike Hillary. Compared to Edwards, who is a grade-A snake oil salesman with the gall to run an anti-poverty campaign with a major component being a full-frontal assault on the poor, she’s positively refreshing. But candidates with Obama’s charisma and intellect don’t come around often – Bill and JFK are the only reference points that make sense.
This is being called the best movie of the year? God, is this world sad. It turns out that combining music that’s two notches better than that in Cats, characters who one is loath to call one-dimensional for fear of offending number lines, and a wildly, nearly libelously inaccurate version of Motown history that goes far beyond creative license yields an Oscar contender. Among the more painful two hour periods in my life – even MST3K films have Joel/Mike, Crow, and Servo to ease the pain. I haven’t seen Babel or The Queen yet, but if the DGA nominations turn into the Oscar ones, The Departed or Little Miss Sunshine had better win, preferably the former (it’s the first Scorsese film since Goodfellas that deserves to win on its own merits, not just because Scorsese needs an Oscar at some point). If Dreamgirls wins, it would be the biggest Oscar blunder since The Greatest Show on Earth beat High Noon.
The best argument against Williams on integrity I’ve read
2013 – Best So Far
Great moments in academic laziness
Inverting the stack
@dylanmatt
RT @jbouie: jonathan rauch reviews christopher caldwell’s new book, which appears to be an argument that “the segregationists were right an… 40 minutes ago
@CorusQ Piketty's new book has an extensive argument that politics in rich countries has repolarized around educati… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 3 hours ago
Tired: Brooks' "there's no class war" argument Wired: Piketty's "liberal Brahmin" argument, which whether he reali… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 3 hours ago
@kpomerleau Amazing that his top rate is lower than even Bennet's. Bennet at least wants 44%! 3 hours ago
RT @dylanlscott: EVERYBODY COVERED, Part 3: The Netherlands The Dutch have universal private health insurance. They've built an aggressive… 4 hours ago
Follow @dylanmatt
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Tag / Phyllida Lloyd
November 17, 2019 November 17, 2019 by mvfour
Broadway Review: ‘Tina’ – Riveting, Heartfelt, and A Testament To Tina Turner’s Indelible Star Power
Arts, Broadway, Culture, Pop Culture, Review
Adrienne Warren, Daniel J. Watts, Dawnn Lewis, Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, Musicals, Phyllida Lloyd, Tina, Tina Turner Musical
Photo: Manuel Harlan
Upon hearing that the Tina Tuner musical was coming to town, I had trepidation and a bit of skepticism. As a theatre and musical lover, I had no choice but to succumb to a new rendition of one of my childhood idol’s life portrayed on the Broadway stage. Would the actress playing Tina measure up? Would she be able to convey this powerhouse of a woman justly? Would the music move me? The answer to all my resounding questions: Absolutely! Tony-nominated actress, Adrienne Warren (Shuffle Along, Bring It On: The Musical) reprises her role of rock legend, Tina Turner; Warren had performed ‘Tina’ in London’s West End this past spring with rave reviews. And, now she’s traveled to New York to shatter all expectations of fans and critics alike. Warren’s portrayal of Tina Turner is sensational. The octaves in her similarly raspy voice to Turner’s are spectacular. Warren interprets Tina’s signature moves with grace, sans mimicry.
Photo: Manuel Harlan, Steven Booth as Phil Spector, Adrienne Warren as Tina
The musical begins with Warren seated on the stage floor wearing Turner’s iconic red leather dress reciting a Buddhist chant. Turner, a Buddhist since 1973, credits the religion for helping her endure life’s hardships. Then the audience is introduced to a young Tina (given name: Anna-Mae Bullock) played by Skye Dakota Turner masterfully, belting out church songs with fervor in her hometown of Nutbush, Tennessee, where her mother, Zelma, played by the talented Dawnn Lewis (A Different World, This Is Us) isn’t too pleased and constantly scolds her for being to loud and boisterous. At the behest of her grandmother, played by Myra Lucretia Taylor (Macbeth, A Streetcar Named Desire), she pursues her talents as a singer, and moves to St. Louis to be with her mother and sister.
The pacing of the musical is perfection. There are no lulls. We transition through the different phases of Tina’s life with Tina’s hit songs and sets so visually stimulating the rest of your senses have to play catch up! The scenes between Tina and Ike are electrifying. Their chronicled relationship is replete with success and abuse at the hands of Ike Turner played by Daniel J. Watts (Hamilton, The Color Purple). Ike Turner is undoubtedly the villain from what is known about his persona and documented past relationship with Turner. Watts does an excellent job of balancing the complexities of Ike, as the abusive husband, yet talented musician that discovered Anna-Mae Bullock’s talents at 17 years-old, Watts is able to convey this atrocious man, with comedic flair at times, while showcasing his singing and dancing abilities. After all, this is a musical and the tone shouldn’t be too gloomy.
Photo: Manuel Harlan, Adrienne Warren as Tina, Daniel J. Watts as Ike Turner
Executive produced by Tina Turner, directed by Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia, The Taming of the Shrew), and choreographed by Anthony Van Laast (Mamma Mia!, Sister Act) ‘Tina’ is a true gem for biopic and musical aficionados. Run! Don’t walk to see this fantastic production of the Queen of Rock n’ Roll. Tina, The Tina Turner Musical will be on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre through September 2020, for upcoming performances, click here.
PRODUCTION: A presentation by Stage Entertainment, James L. Nederlander, Tali Pelman, Feste Investments B.V., David Mirvish, Nattering Way, Teg Dainty, Katori Hall, Mark Rubinstein Ltd., Warner Chappell, Peter May, Eva Price, No Guarantees, Caiola Productions, Jamie DeRoy, Wendy Federman, Roy Furman, Independent Presenters Network, John Gore Organization, Marc Levine, Carl Moellenberg, Al Nocciolino, Catherine Adler, Tom Perakos, Daryl Roth, Iris Smith, Candy Spelling, and Anita Waxman, in association with Tina Turner, of a musical in two acts, with book by Katori Hall (with Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins), originally produced at the Aldwych Theater in London, by Stage Entertainment, Joop van den Ende and Tali Pelman.
CREATIVE: Directed by Phyllida Lloyd. Choreography, Anthony Van Laast. Sets & costumes, Mark Thompson; lighting, Bruno Poet; sound, Nevin Steinberg; projections, Jeff Sugg; hair & wigs, Campbell Young Associates; orchestrations, Ethan Popp; musical supervision, arrangements, additional music & conductor, Nicholas Skilbeck; production stage manager, Kristen Harris.
CAST: Adrienne Warren, Dawnn Lewis, Nkeki Obi-Melekwe, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Daniel J. Watts, Steven Booth, Nick Rashad Burroughs, Gerald Caesar, Holli’ Conway, Kayla Davion, Charlie Franklin, Judith Franklin, Matthew Griffin, David Jennings, Ross Lekites, Robert Lenzi, Gloria Manning, Jhardon Dishon Milton, Destinée Rea, Mars Rucker, Jessica Rush, Carla Stewart, Jayden Theophile, Skye Dakota Turner, Antonio J. Watson, Katie Webber.
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News > Events > UK students to compete in international robotics competition
UK students to compete in international robotics competition
Cambridgeshire students are getting ready to compete in the inaugural First Tech Challenge UK championships
First Tech Challenge’s robot ‘pit’ Image via FTC
Students from across Cambridgeshire are gearing up to compete in the inaugural UK championships for the international First Tech Challenge robotics competition.
First Tech Challenge UK is an inclusive robotics programme for students aged 12–18, and is part of an international STEM scheme which will hold global championships in the USA from 24–27 April. The international programme attracts over 500,000 participants in the USA annually.
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This is the first time that the challenge has come to the UK, and 100 teams comprising of around 1,500 students overall are participating in championship events in Peterborough and Manchester this March.
The winning team from each regional final will attend the global championships, and will receive full funding for travel and accommodation in the USA.
Participating teams this year have also been provided with charity bursaries to cover the cost of robotics kits, phones and resources, and travel to take part in regional competitions.
We’re counting down to one of the biggest student robotics competitions in the UK, and we cannot wait to see what the teams have got to bring to the game field.
– Ed Cervantes-Watson, First UK
Ed Cervantes-Watson, CEO at First UK, said: “We’re counting down to one of the biggest student robotics competitions in the UK, and we cannot wait to see what the teams have got to bring to the game field. Young people entering education today will be pursuing jobs which don’t yet exist. We need to equip tomorrow’s workforce with the technical know-how and core life skills they need to transform their futures. First Tech Challenge is more than just robots, it’s a platform for young people to become the innovators of tomorrow and ensure no-one is left behind.”
The First Tech Challenge UK programme is backed by industry partners, with the aim of addressing the STEM skills gap. First employees and industry partners serve as coaches and role models for students, and local employers provide staff volunteers to support with the events’ stewarding, judging, and refereeing.
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The southern regional championship will take place on 13 March at the KingsGate Conference Centre in Peterborough. 50 teams will be participating from schools including: Comberton Village College, Linton Village College, Witchford Village College, Chesterton Community College, Trumpington Community College, and more.
First UK is currently recruiting local science and technology enthusiasts to volunteer at the Peterborough championships. For more information on volunteering opportunities, and to register your interest, please visit: ftc-uk.org/gamechanger/
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Open to young people aged 14-17, courses in the predominantly residential programme include mobile robotics, an introduction to cyber security and astrophysics
Sphero seeks global educators ‘transforming steam learning’
Applications for the Sphero Heroes ambassador programme are now open
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