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__label__cc | 0.512643 | 0.487357 | Measurements of the velocity-field characteristic in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures
J. M. Barker, D. K. Ferry, Stephen Goodnick, D. D. Koleske, A. E. Wickenden, R. L. Henry
IAFSE-SEMTE: Materials Science and Engineering
IAFSE-ECEE: Solid State Electronics Research Center (CSSER)
Knowledge Enterprise Development, Office of (OKED)
Biodesign Institute (BI)
Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, School of (ECEE)
AlGaN/GaN test structures, with an etched constriction have been fabricated and tested with, and without, a gate. A pulsed voltage input with a 200 ns pulse width and a four-point measurement were used in a 50 Ω environment to determine the room temperature velocity-field characteristic of the structures. A low field mobility of 250 cm2/V s and an estimated electron velocity of ∼2 × 107 cm/s was attained at a field of 180 kV/cm.
Microelectronic Engineering
Heterojunctions
constrictions
velocity distribution
aluminum gallium nitride
AlGaN/GaN
Drift velocity
High field transport
Velocity-field characteristic
Barker, J. M., Ferry, D. K., Goodnick, S., Koleske, D. D., Wickenden, A. E., & Henry, R. L. (2002). Measurements of the velocity-field characteristic in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures. Microelectronic Engineering, 63(1-3), 193-197. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-9317(02)00627-5
Measurements of the velocity-field characteristic in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures. / Barker, J. M.; Ferry, D. K.; Goodnick, Stephen; Koleske, D. D.; Wickenden, A. E.; Henry, R. L.
In: Microelectronic Engineering, Vol. 63, No. 1-3, 08.2002, p. 193-197.
Barker, JM, Ferry, DK, Goodnick, S, Koleske, DD, Wickenden, AE & Henry, RL 2002, 'Measurements of the velocity-field characteristic in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures', Microelectronic Engineering, vol. 63, no. 1-3, pp. 193-197. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-9317(02)00627-5
Barker JM, Ferry DK, Goodnick S, Koleske DD, Wickenden AE, Henry RL. Measurements of the velocity-field characteristic in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures. Microelectronic Engineering. 2002 Aug;63(1-3):193-197. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-9317(02)00627-5
Barker, J. M. ; Ferry, D. K. ; Goodnick, Stephen ; Koleske, D. D. ; Wickenden, A. E. ; Henry, R. L. / Measurements of the velocity-field characteristic in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures. In: Microelectronic Engineering. 2002 ; Vol. 63, No. 1-3. pp. 193-197.
@article{8b8a25a4e92e4ab69b653e0f1ef70ec5,
title = "Measurements of the velocity-field characteristic in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures",
abstract = "AlGaN/GaN test structures, with an etched constriction have been fabricated and tested with, and without, a gate. A pulsed voltage input with a 200 ns pulse width and a four-point measurement were used in a 50 Ω environment to determine the room temperature velocity-field characteristic of the structures. A low field mobility of 250 cm2/V s and an estimated electron velocity of ∼2 × 107 cm/s was attained at a field of 180 kV/cm.",
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T1 - Measurements of the velocity-field characteristic in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures
AU - Barker, J. M.
AU - Ferry, D. K.
AU - Goodnick, Stephen
AU - Koleske, D. D.
AU - Wickenden, A. E.
AU - Henry, R. L.
N2 - AlGaN/GaN test structures, with an etched constriction have been fabricated and tested with, and without, a gate. A pulsed voltage input with a 200 ns pulse width and a four-point measurement were used in a 50 Ω environment to determine the room temperature velocity-field characteristic of the structures. A low field mobility of 250 cm2/V s and an estimated electron velocity of ∼2 × 107 cm/s was attained at a field of 180 kV/cm.
AB - AlGaN/GaN test structures, with an etched constriction have been fabricated and tested with, and without, a gate. A pulsed voltage input with a 200 ns pulse width and a four-point measurement were used in a 50 Ω environment to determine the room temperature velocity-field characteristic of the structures. A low field mobility of 250 cm2/V s and an estimated electron velocity of ∼2 × 107 cm/s was attained at a field of 180 kV/cm.
KW - AlGaN/GaN
KW - Drift velocity
KW - GaN
KW - High field transport
KW - Velocity-field characteristic
JO - Microelectronic Engineering
JF - Microelectronic Engineering | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line823 |
__label__wiki | 0.674553 | 0.674553 | Modern Church events
High Leigh Conference Centre
Saving the soul of Anglicanism: the nature and future of the Anglican Communion
Tuesday 8th to Friday 11th July 2008 at High Leigh Conference Centre.
Chair: Most Revd Dr Barry Morgan
Secretary: Revd Jean Mayland
Chaplain: Revd Sarah Lamming
We share the anxiety of many in the Anglican Communion about its future. MCU is committed to a Church which is open, inclusive and welcoming to all. This conference will consider:
the nature of Anglicanism, in the UK and overseas
what Anglicanism has been in the past and is now
Anglicanism from a critical and Free Church point of view
the role of the Communion in the world today
the proposed Covenant and its implications.
Conference photos: Joan Dorrell
Papers from the conference were published in several editions of Modern Believing from October 2008.
Speakers (with text where available)
Barry Morgan
R. S. Thomas' Religious Poetry. Questions not answers: A way forward for the Anglican Communion?
Most Revd Dr Barry Morgan is Archbishop of Wales and an MCU Vice President.
Talk: Full text
Charlotte Methuen
'In the which the pure Word of God is preached and the Sacraments be duly administered': The ecclesiology of the Church of England in the context of the European Reformation.
Revd Dr Charlotte Methuen is Lecturer in Church History at the University of Oxford and Canon Theologian of the Diocese of Gloucester.
Anglicanism, blessing or curse - the Irish experience.
Rt Revd Dr Michael Jackson is Bishop of Clogher, Church of Ireland.
Trevor Mwamba
A holy mess and the grace of ambiguity.
Rt Revd Musonda Trevor Mwamba is Bishop of Botswana and Dean of the Province of Central Africa.
Frank Griswold
The Episcopal Church and the future of the Anglican Communion.
Most Revd Frank T Griswold is former Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church.
Marilyn McCord Adams
The proposed Anglican Covenant and its implications for the Communion.
Revd Dr Marilyn McCord Adams is Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University and Canon of Christ Church.
Janet Wootton
A dissenter's view of Anglicanism and Establishment.
Rev Dr Janet Wootton is Director of Studies for the Congregational Federation. Until the end of 2003, she was minister of Union Chapel, Islington, an inner city church with an active homelessness project and a varied music programme.
My story and my hopes for the future.
Rt Revd V Gene Robinson is Bishop of New Hampshire.
A journalist's view of Anglicanism.
Andrew Brown is an English writer and journalist. His interests cover biology, religion, and technology - especially where they overlap. Recent articles in The Guardian. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line830 |
__label__wiki | 0.806142 | 0.806142 | A to Z Health Planning
Health Insurance News
Cutbacks hit family planning clinics that lost federal dollars over Trump abortion rules
Posted By: boss September 1, 2019
A Planned Parenthood clinic. | Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images
Some health clinics that quit the federal family planning program over Trump anti-abortion policies are cutting staff, charging for services that had been free and making other austerity moves to avert a major hollowing out of reproductive health care for poor women.
At least four state health departments, hundreds of Planned Parenthood clinics and dozens of independent providers have withdrawn from the more than $250 million Title X program. Some have literally had to box up and return unused supplies bought with a government discount. They’re leaning on emergency funds, private donations and in some instances, state assistance.
But it’s not enough for the most hard-pressed providers. Trying to preserve as much patient access as they can, clinics are imposing new fees, trimming sex education and suspending some sexually transmitted disease testing even as the Trump White House makes eradicating HIV a national priority.
“We’re watching the safety net disintegrate right before our eyes,” said Jessica Marcella, the vice president of advocacy and communications at the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which represents staff at thousands of Title X clinics across all 50 states.
The clinics in August quit the Title X program, which dates back to the Richard Nixon presidency, when the Trump administration added restrictions that include forbidding clinics from referring patients for abortions. Another provision, requiring additional layers of physical and financial separation between abortion and other reproductive health services, takes effect in 2020.
And the challenges to providing comprehensive reproductive and preventive care to poor women may become more severe. There could be a new wave of cuts when clinics burn through cash on hand. And while fundraising could forestall service rollbacks — and the administration insists new providers will step in to fill the void — the reality could be a permanent reduction in free or low-cost family planning services across the country.
By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Clinics remaining in Title X and planning to comply also are gearing up to retrain staff and counsel employees on what can and can’t be said in conversations with patients seeking to terminate a pregnancy, according to officials and two state plans reviewed by POLITICO. That’s because the new rules allow discussions about abortion but forbid actually referring a patient to a provider — a restriction critics contend is a “gag rule” that tramples on patients’ rights.
The extent of the service cuts is difficult to measure, because clinics only began exiting the program over the past two weeks. But disruptions are less likely in conservative-led states that have not been relying heavily on the more than 400 Planned Parenthood clinics that receive Title X funding. Meanwhile, the withdrawals by private and public grantees have left states including Maine, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington with no Title X providers.
Trump administration officials and anti-abortion groups portray the new rules as a de facto defunding of Planned Parenthood because the organization received up to $60 million per year from the Title X program. The organization was already barred from using that federal funding to provide abortions, but the new rule would require financial and physical separation of their abortion providers and other health care services funded by Title X. Critics of the women’s health group say the policy change prevents federal funding from being used to subsidize abortion services.
Planned Parenthood, the American Medical Association and nearly two dozen states are fighting the new rules in a case that will go to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in late September. But in the meantime, some clinics choosing to forego the Title X funding are figuring out how to make ends meet.
The Mahube-Otwa Community Action Partnership, which serves patients in rural Minnesota, is cutting half of its family planning staff of six and plans to curtail walk-in visits and initiatives like talking to college students about safe sex.
The Lovering Health Center in Greenland, N.H., is suspending its walk-in STI testing service, imposing a hiring freeze and stopping most community outreach and education work.
The Planned Parenthood affiliate in Cleveland has stopped using a mobile health care unit that brought STI testing and sex education services to underserved areas.
And the Utah Navajo Health System is charging for once-free doctor visits, pregnancy and STI testing and other services that roughly $40,000 in Title X funds used to subsidize.
“We’re already seeing patients forego services,” Byron Clarke, the chief operating officer of the UNHS, told POLITICO. “It hits hardest on people who are already considering whether they can afford the gas money to drive to see us.”
State health departments that left the program are pledging to make up for lost federal dollars with public funds. Planned Parenthood and other providers elsewhere are turning to fundraising, with varying degrees of success.
Planned Parenthood of Illinois is relying on $3.5 million it raised since President Donald Trump was sworn in that it estimates will sustain services until June 30, 2020. The affiliate’s president and CEO, Jennifer Welch, acknowledged that afterward “there may be a time when we have to increase our cost to our patients or decrease our services to our patients.”
Smaller clinics like Mahube-Otwa and Lovering Health Center also are adapting to another reality: losing their ability to buy contraceptives and other medications they bought at a discount while part of the Title X program.
“We don’t have a lot of ability to fundraise,” said Liz Kuoppala, Mahube-Otwa’s executive director. “We don’t have large foundations or a lot of wealth to tap into in the private sector.”
The Lovering Health Center’s executive director, Lisa Leach, said she’ll emphasize the severity of the situation at her annual fundraising event in October.
“This year it’s really a call to action,” she said. “We’re asking for donors, for example, to fund five IUDs.”
Providers aiming to stay in the program submitted plans to HHS in August detailing how they plan to comply with the new rules. They have to show they’re following through with those plans by Sept. 18., and must have separate physical facilities for abortion services in place by next March.
But some grantees say they’re not entirely clear what HHS will consider as full compliance.
“I would not be shocked if they responded and said, ‘Perfect!’ and I wouldn’t be surprised if they said, ‘This is no good,” said Marj Plumb, the acting executive director of the Family Planning Council of Nebraska, the state’s sole manager of Title X funds.
Other clinics and groups managing family planning dollars, such as Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services and Unity Health Care in Washington, D.C., submitted plans to the department but are still assessing whether they can comply with the new policy.
San Francisco’s Women’s Community Clinic is also seeking more details and has said it’s ready to give up $150,000 in annual Title X funding if it feels its principles are being compromised.
“If it’s a gag rule, we’ll pull out,” CEO Vitka Eisen of the clinic’s parent group HealthRIGHT 360 said.
HHS officials have said they could find new providers to replace Planned Parenthood and other exiting groups “where possible.” But the department has declined to comment or respond to multiple questions about its search and how long that process might take.
Jonathan Imbody, vice president for government relations at the Christian Medical Association, which represents Christian health professionals, told POLITICO that he’s confident there won’t be gaps in care, even though Planned Parenthood and the other exiting providers served more than 1.5 million women in Title X.
“They won’t be missed,” he said. “Able and ready to serve Title X patients are thousands of federally qualified health centers and other nonprofit clinics across the country that provide much more comprehensive, compassionate care than does abortion-focused Planned Parenthood.”
But in some parts of the country, replacements may be hard to find. Vermont, for example, relied exclusively on Planned Parenthood for Title X services, and state officials there said they’re unaware of any potential replacement. Planned Parenthood was the only respondent each time Vermont’s health department applied for Title X funding and put out a request for proposals, according to a department spokesperson.
The Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, projects that remaining Title X clinics would have to see an average of 70 percent more patients seeking birth control to make up for Planned Parenthood’s exit — a burden Guttmacher notes poses “massive challenges” for many providers.
Organizations like the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association contend there’s a finite pool of providers willing to be part of Title X and its sometimes burdensome bureaucratic requirements, and that most were already part of the program. Just a handful of new grantees were added earlier this year, including the faith-based California clinic network Obria, which opposes both abortion and most forms of contraception.
“The notion there is this secondary network waiting in the wings to jump in doesn’t bear out in reality,” said Marcella of the family planning and reproductive health association.
Victoria Colliver and Renuka Rayasam contributed to this report.
The Scoop: October 2 Edition
Does telehealth save money? The jury’s still out.
Pulse Check and the future of health
Montana health system phishing scam affects 130,000 patients
Health care data-sharing rules touch off intense lobbying fight
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The Scoop: January 15, 2020 Edition
Oklahoma attorney general sues distributors of opioids | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line835 |
__label__cc | 0.706391 | 0.293609 | Iberian & Latin American Visual Culture Group
Tag Archives: Online Collections
Meadows Museum: Online Collections
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez: Portrait of Queen Mariana
The entire collection of the Meadows Museum, which has notable holdings of Spanish art, has just been digitised and is available online for browsing and searches.
This entry was posted in Spanish Art and tagged 2016, Dallas, Digital Collections, Meadows Museum, Online Collections, Spanish Art on June 1, 2016 by Clare Hills-Nova.
Focus-Abengoa Foundation: Online Collections
The Focus-Abengoa Foundation launches a new tool to digitally disseminate its art collections devoted to the Baroque.
In recent years, the assets of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation have increased notably with the creation of the Centro Velázquez in 2008 and the receipt of the legacy of Professor Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez in 2011. In order to adapt to the new technologies and disseminate its art collections online, since 2012 the Foundation has been working on an action plan that will allow it to manage its art collections more easily and effectively, and thus to ease access to its resources for researchers and anyone interested in them.
Thanks to its new multimedia programme, it is now possible to access much of the Foundation’s artistic collections with a detailed description and cataloguing which substantially improves knowledge of these collections at the highest level. The Focus-Abengoa Foundation’s ultimate goal is to promote the advancement of knowledge, to revitalise the debate on the Baroque period and ultimately to support the growth of society.
The collections available online are:
– Room of Engravings
Made up of 327 prints from the 16th to 20th centuries, this is a collection specialised in the iconography of the city of Seville which dates back to 1982. It is a unique collection of its kind, as well as a reference tool for any scholar interested in the history of Seville. It is organised by four broad chronological sections: prints from the Baroque period, prints from the Enlightenment, Romantic and Costumbrist prints and finally contemporary prints.
– Centro Velázquez
Created after the Focus-Abengoa Foundation’s 2007 acquisition of the painting by Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) Saint Rufina, one of the purposes of the centre is to recreate the historical and artistic universe in which the Sevillian genius lived from his early days in the city until his establishment in the Court as the painter to the king in 1624. The permanent collection of the Centro Velázquez is made up of 15 works that from now on will be accessible via an online catalogue that provides detailed information on the provenance, bibliography and exhibitions of the works, in addition to medium-resolution photographs.
– Artistic heritage of the Hospital de los Venerables
The headquarters of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation, after it signed an agreement with the Archbishopric of Seville, is the Hospital de los Venerables, one of the most impressive complex of Sevillian Baroque art and a prime historical benchmark in Spain’s Golden Age, with works by artists like Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Juan de Valdés Leal and Pedro Roldán. The inventory contains more than 400 works of art which encompass a broad timespan of five centuries, from the 16th to the 20th.
This entry was posted in Seville, Spain, Spanish Art and tagged 2015, Baroque art, Centro Velázquez, Digital Collections, Focus-Abengoa Foundation, Hospital de los Venerables, Online Collections, Seville, Spain, Spanish Art, Spanish Baroque, Velázquez on August 9, 2015 by Clare Hills-Nova.
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__label__cc | 0.740848 | 0.259152 | What Are Blackheads and How Do You Get Rid of Them?
Blackheads form when your hair follicles become partially clogged by excess sebum, an oil produced by your sebaceous glands
While there are plenty of pharmaceutical products sold today that may help remove blackheads, they may contain substances that may harm your health
These Factors Can Predispose You to Blackheads
Factors That May Increase Your Risk of Blackheads
Commonly Believed Myths About Blackheads
5 Ways to Treat Blackheads Naturally
Tips to Help Prevent Blackheads From Occurring
You may have experienced having blackheads during your teenage years, and some people continue to get them into adulthood. These dark-colored dots are typically found on the nasal and forehead area, though they may appear in other areas of your skin as well. But what exactly causes blackheads to appear?
Blackheads are comedones, the clinical term for skin-colored small bumps.1 They form when your hair follicles become partially clogged by excess sebum, an oil produced by your sebaceous glands.
Your sebaceous glands help keep your skin lubricated and reduce its susceptibility of getting cuts, but if they produce excess sebum, blackheads may most likely appear. The three-step process below describes how blackheads form:2
1. The sebaceous glands produce excess sebum.
2. The excess sebum combines with dead skin cells, blocking the hair follicle.
3. The opening exposes the sebum to air, causing it to oxidize and change color.
Contrary to popular belief, the dark color of blackheads is not created by dirt latching on to the sebum. Rather, it is the oxidation of melanin, a pigment found in sebum, that creates the distinctive appearance of blackheads. In contrast, whiteheads are completely clogged, allowing the sebum to retain its color.3
If left untreated, both blackheads and whiteheads may become inflamed due to the influx of skin bacteria to the clogged hair follicles. As a result, they turn into pimples.4
The causes of blackheads vary depending on the person, but it is mostly a combination of hormone production, heredity and the growth of skin bacteria:5
• Hormones — Puberty causes your body to produce more androgen-type hormones. In turn, this causes your sebaceous glands to enlarge and produce more sebum. This condition tends to happen more commonly in men than in women.
• Heredity — Your genes may play a role in the size and oil production of your sebaceous glands. If you inherit large sebaceous glands, you may have a higher risk of developing blackheads.
• Bacteria — Skin bacteria may act on sebum, which causes a blockage. In time, it may form into a pimple, resulting in a pus-filled inflammation that is painful to the touch.
Several factors have been linked to the increase of blackheads and acne problems in general. One of them is cigarette smoking, especially among women.
In a study published in the British Journal of Dermatology, researchers interviewed 1,000 women between the ages 25 to 50 years old. They discovered that 42 percent of those who smoked had acne, but among non-smokers, only 10 percent experienced this skin condition.6
The researchers went on to conclude that smokers who developed acne problems during their youth were four times more likely to develop acne as they get older, compared to non-smokers in their teenage years.7
In addition, smoking causes your skin to age faster, becoming dry and coarse.8 Other factors that may increase your risk for blackheads include:9
Wearing tight-fitting clothes, such as sweat headbands and turtlenecks.
Using a cosmetic product that may clog your hair follicles (commonly known as comedogenic makeup).
Going to areas with excess humidity.
The onset of stress may cause an outbreak of acne.
Due to the prevalence of acne around the world, many popular "theories" appeared that have long been accepted as truth. In reality, these theories are just rumors, such as:10
• Eating greasy food — Since people with oily faces tend to have blackheads, it was thought that eating greasy foods may be one of the causes. In reality, eating greasy food doesn't have an impact on your skin's oil production. However, getting grease on an already oily skin may clog your pores.11
• Having dirty skin — Many people think that blackheads — and acne problems in general — are caused by poor hygiene, causing them to scrub their faces vigorously all the time. This may actually work against you, as scrubbing your face may irritate and traumatize your skin.12
• Applying makeup on your skin — It's generally agreed that cosmetic products may worsen your acne. This isn't necessarily true if you're using non-comedogenic products, which are specifically designed not to clog your pores.13
While there are plenty of pharmaceutical products sold today that may help remove blackheads, they may contain substances that may harm your health. Instead, try these home remedies to help get rid of your blackheads safely:14,15
• Lemon — Lemon juice contains a citric acid called alpha hydroxy acid (AHA) that is known to naturally remove dead skin cells. It also contains vitamin C, which can help stimulate collagen production, resulting in improved skin health.
To apply lemon to your blackheads, squeeze 1 teaspoon of lemon juice from an organic lemon. Afterwards, dip a cotton ball in the juice then dab it on the affected area. Wait for it to dry, and then rinse with water.
• Raw Honey — Honey contains antibacterial properties that may help treat your blackheads. Simply heat a tablespoon of pure, raw honey until it is warm, dab it into your blackheads and let it soak for around 10 minutes.
• Wild Turmeric — Turmeric is typically used in cooking, but a non-edible variety called katsuri turmeric (wild turmeric) is widely used for skin treatments. It also has the benefit of not staining your skin compared to regular turmeric.
To create a turmeric paste, mix a small amount of wild turmeric with a tablespoon of coconut oil. Apply it to your blackheads and let it soak for 15 minutes, and then wash with lukewarm water.
• Apple Cider and Mint — Apple cider vinegar (ACV) contains strong antibacterial properties that may help fight bacteria. You can create a facial toner by using ACV mixed with mint, which will help add a soothing feeling to your face when applied.
To create the toner, mix 3 tablespoons of ACV, 3 tablespoons of chopped mint leaves and 8 ounces of water in a small bottle, then leave it in cool place for one week. Remove the solid particles using a strainer, and then add a cup of water to the mixture. Apply the toner to your face using cotton balls.
• Green Tea — Green tea leaves are packed with antioxidants and vitamins that may help treat your blackheads. Simply mix 2 teaspoons of organic green tea into 8 ounces of warm water. After letting the mixture cool for an hour, apply it to your blackheads and let it dry for 10 minutes, then rinse with water.
Other Tips to Help Prevent Blackheads From Occurring
Some of the underlying causes of blackheads can't be controlled, such as hormonal production and heredity. But there are a few things you can do to lower your risk:
• Wash your face only twice a day — Wash your face twice a day, with the first one in the morning and the second one before you sleep.16 This will help you get rid of the oil buildup throughout the course of your day. Excess washing and scrubbing only irritates the skin, which can worsen your acne problems further.17
Use only plain soap, since antibacterial soap contains triclosan, a harmful substance linked to the growth of breast cancer cells,18 impaired muscle function in both humans and animals19 and allergies in children.20
• Purchase non-comedogenic products — Non-comedogenic products are designed not to clog your pores, which can help minimize the chances of forming blackheads. Oil-free cosmetic products can also lower your risk of getting clogged pores.21
• Clean yourself up after a workout — Residue from sweat may block your pores, which can lead to blackheads. Remember to always take a shower or bath after exercising.22
1 DermNet New Zealand, "Comedonal Acne" April 2014
2, 9 Medical News Today, "What Are Blackheads?" March 16 2016
3 Medical News Today, "Blackheads: Facts, Causes and Treatments" March 16, 2016
4, 10, 17 Mayo Clinic, "Acne — Causes"
5 University of Michigan University Health Service, "Acne"
6, 7 The Telegraph, "Smoking Can Cause Acne, New Research Shows" September 17, 2007
8 DermNet New Zealand, "Smoking and Its Effects on the Skin"
11, 12, 21 Everyday Health, "5 Common Myths About Acne"
13 Acne.com, "Buying Non-Comedogenic and Beyond: 8 Ways to Stop Makeup From Making Your Acne Worse"
14 Natural Living Ideas, 8 Quick Natural Remedies for Blackheads" May 29, 2014
15 Everyday Roots, 11 Simple Remedies to Get Rid of Blackheads"
16 Healthline, "Blackheads — How Are Blackheads Treated?"
18 Journal of Applied Toxicology, "Oestrogenic and Androgenic Activity of Triclosan in Breast Cancer Cells" January 2008
19 PNAS "Triclosan impairs excitation-contraction coupling and Ca2+ dynamics in striated muscle" July 13, 2012
20 ScienceDirect, "Advances in Allergic Skin Disease, Anaphylaxis, and Hypersensitivity Reactions to Floods, Drugs, and insects in 2012" January 2013
22 Skin Care Clues, "How to Get Rid of Blackheads?" | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line837 |
__label__wiki | 0.677426 | 0.677426 | Never take it for granted that justice will be done. News for the Artist Rights Advocacy Community
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Even More Bad Faith from @RonWyden on Copyright Small Claims Legislation January 14, 2020
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Category: Post-dicting the present
Postdicting the Future: Five Things Congress Could Do for Music Creators That Wouldn’t Cost the Taxpayer a Dime from The Hill
[This is a July 30, 2013 summary from The Hill of my series that first appeared in the Huffington Post on July 26, 2013–lets see how I did now that music is all modern and chrome.]
1. Create an Audit Right for Songwriters for Compulsory Licenses: One of the oldest compulsory licenses in the Copyright Act is the “mechanical license”, the statutory mandate forcing songwriters to license songs that dates from 1909. The government mandates the license and also mandates the rate that songwriters are paid—from 1909 until 1977 that rate was set at 2¢ per recording. Although that rate was eventually indexed to inflation leading to the current 9.1¢ minimum, songwriters had to dig out of a deep hole.
Getting paid is another story. This statutory license requires songwriters be sent “statements of account” for royalties—but songwriters are not allowed to conduct a “royalty compliance” examination (called an “audit”). The law requires a company officer and a CPA to certify the company’s statements—a practice rarely complied with. As recently demonstrated by Aimee Mann’s lawsuit against Medianet, if songwriters don’t get paid there’s not much they can do except sue—a costly process.
The government tells the songwriter “trust—but don’t verify.” This is an easy fix. Congress could give songwriters an audit right as they did for stakeholders in the contemporary digital performance compulsory license for satellite radio and Internet radio.
2. Allow Artists and Songwriters to Opt Out of the Compulsory License: The recent blow-up regarding the so-called “Internet Radio Fairness Act” and the related ASCAP and BMI rate court proceedings should let the Congress know that there are many artists and songwriters who want to be able to decide who gets to license their songs. Again, the digital performance compulsory license allows copyright owners to control “interactive” uses of their works—why not at least do the same for the mechanical license as well?
Require Digital Royalties for pre-72 Sound Recordings: Sound recordings did not receive federal copyright protection until 1972. When the Congress established the digital performance royalty, it seemed to clearly apply to all recordings and did not arbitrarily exclude recordings prior to 1972. However, this “gotcha” is used by SiriusXM and others to avoid paying great American artists whose records were released before 1972—jazz, R&B and rock legends get nothing. Congress could fix this “gotcha” and secure a fair share of digital performance royalties to these authors of our musical heritage.
4. Require All Unpaid Statutory Mechanical Royalties Be Paid to the State Unclaimed Property Offices: As Aimee Mann’s alleged in her lawsuit against the white label provider Medianet, witnesses stated that 23 percent of the songs used by Medianet are unlicensed—which could easily be millions of songs if true. And there are likely a number of digital music services that are arbitrarily holding unpaid royalties in an unauthorized “escrow.”
It seems that there could be substantial royalties controlled by the very retailers who must pay songwriters under the law, a potentially significant moral hazard. Congress could require that any “escrowed” royalties be paid over under State unclaimed property laws—a lawful “escrow.”
5. Require that Online and Offline Videos Follow the Same Rules: As online video platforms become available through Internet enabled home televisions, attention should be paid to a frequently overlooked category of songwriter—the film and television music composers. Current reporting by online video platforms makes it difficult for score composers to be paid for their work. The Congress may well ask whether those who seek to replace television should be held to the same licensing standards as television.
These are but a few ideas the Congress could be addressing that might make a difference in the lives of artists and songwriters and would cost the taxpayer very little. All leverage existing structures and bureaucracies, eliminate “gotchas,” and help to reduce the unintended consequences of government mandated compulsory licensing.
By Chris Castlein Artist News, Post-dicting the present December 31, 2018 December 31, 2018 645 Words
Postdicting the Future: Five Things Congress Could Do for Music Creators That Wouldn’t Cost the Taxpayer a Dime Part 4: Fixing Unmatched Songwriter Royalties
[This series first appeared on the Huffington Post 2013–lets see how I did now that music is all modern and chrome.]
The US is alone in the world in maintaining a compulsory license for songs. The government forces songwriters to license their songs at a rate approved by the government and then has rather flimsy rules about how songwriters actually get paid. These flimsy rules, I suggest, have resulted in unknown amounts of royalties not finding their way to songwriters, particularly under compulsory licenses used by on-demand digital music services.
There’s an easy fix for this — the same rule that was applied against record companies and music publishers for unclaimed royalties in the past: Pay the money to state unclaimed property offices. If songwriters are getting ripped off by brand sponsored piracy on the unlicensed sites, then let’s at least make sure they get paid on the licensed services.
The Compulsory License for Songs
When the Congress established the compulsory license in 1909, the legislative body was concerned that granting exclusive rights in “mechanical royalties” for songs in piano rolls might create a monopoly if a single publisher could buy up the market in songs. However real that concern might have been at the time, the most common complaint from digital music services about songs is that the music publishing market is too fragmented, so it seems that argument is no longer relevant.
One of the big users of compulsory licenses is, of course, Google Play. Concern about the antitrust lusting of songwriters is particularly difficult to comprehend in a world in which the same government allows Google to buy and subsidize YouTube with monopoly rents, buy Double Click to achieve a dominant position in online advertising, and is given a pass by the FTC for antitrust violations. But those songwriters…boy, we have to keep a close eye on them.
Unsupervised Digital Music Services
So what appears to be happening is this: Digital music services use the compulsory license and its labyrinthine regulations — often with notices that are too late, accountings that are noncompliant and data that is just incorrect. To give you a sense of scope, digital music services often offer 20 million or so recordings, all of which contain the co-equal copyright in the song being recorded. Songs and recordings of songs have to be separately licensed for on-demand streaming services (especially the popular “cover recordings”). Songs are frequently co-owned — so the service using the compulsory license must notify a minimum of 20 million songwriters of their use of the song and often two or more writers per song. So let’s just call it tens of millions of licenses.
The digital music services must then track the use of these songs and recordings and match the usage to licenses obtained. There inevitably will be songs for which the writers cannot be found. So even if you assume that these companies can get to the matching stage without making any mistakes at all, what happens when there is usage — and therefore payable royalties — for songs that the service is unable to match — even for the most honest of reasons.
How Digital Music Services Pay Themselves Free Money
Add to this problem another problem — digital music services frequently try to dupe songwriters — the ones they have found — into agreeing that the service need only account to them if the songwriter has over a certain amount in payable royalties — somewhere between $50 and $250 depending on the service. (Google Play, for example, has a $100 minimum threshold — unilaterally imposed — on all international and “friction free” electronic payments.)
To put some math on this, realize that there are about 20 million songs typically available in a broad based retail offering such as Google Play or Spotify. Assume that on average 50 percent achieve $25 in earnings in a given calendar quarter accounting period. (This is consistent with both the “long tail” power law type sales distribution and the miniscule royalties paid to songwriters by these services.)
If a service holds royalty payments from songwriters until payable royalties exceed $25 (such as Google Play’s $100 default threshold as stated in their “Publisher Statement of Account Preference”), this means that the service could then be sitting on up to $250,000,000 in interest-free money. Free money that they theoretically may never have to pay out and only have to pay out when the service determines that the songwriter’s account is payable. Free money that is not permitted under the compulsory license rules for songs.
And that’s one service.
This policy of withholding royalties is fraught with moral hazard and practical problems: The heirs of one songwriter recently tried to sort out these payments and were told they needed to hire a lawyer to deal with the highly litigious digital music service. They couldn’t afford a lawyer so guess what happens to the unclaimed monies? And then there’s the statute of limitations.
Unmatched and Unclaimed Royalties
But there’s another problem with the digital music services — if they service cannot match usage (and earnings) to a royalty recipient in their systems, what happens then? Particularly with monies based on a share of advertising revenue that is distributed proportionately based on usage?
In this example, if in one month all songs were played 100 times and your song was played 10 times, then you would get 10/100 (or 10 percentt) of the advertising pie for that period. But — if there were actually 120 songs played during that period but only 100 could be matched, what happens to the other 20 that were unmatched? There is a growing belief that what happens is that the services don’t count the 20 unmatched songs, and divide the pie up based on the 100 they are able to match.
That means — there are 20 songs that were exploited but that are never paid and are not on the books. Even though there should be no songs on the service that were unlicensed because the compulsory license applies. If this seems high, remember that MediaNet’s lawyers acknowledged in a declaration cited in the current case by Aimee Mann against MediaNet that 23 percent of the millions of songs on the service are unlicensed.
By not counting the unmatched (and probably also unlicensed) songs, a service could argue — albeit fallaciously — that it had no “unallocated” royalties as it allocated all payable royalties to songs it could match and did not accrue any unpaid royalties. If I’m right about this, services are overpaying the matched songs with a share of revenue from the unmatched songs (in our example, 10/120 or 8-1/3 percent instead of the overpayment of 10/100 or 10 percent).
Because the Congress does not allow songwriters to audit the digital music services, there is no real way to know whether this is happening or the degree to which it is happening. If 23 percent of the MediaNet songs are unlicensed, royalties payable on any activity on these songs seems like it should at least be accrued until the songwriters can be found.
This is, of course, why states have unclaimed property statutes. In 2004, then Attorney General Eliot Spitzer chased record companies and music publishers for unpaid royalties for artists who could not be found for a variety of reasons, some plausible, some not so plausible. Spitzer forced the royalties to be paid—like utility deposits, dividends, abandoned bank accounts, the works—to the state unclaimed property office where the monies are held forever and where somebody eventually tries to track down the rightful owner.
Of course — there is a chance that if the digital music services did this voluntarily they might be admitting that they were using unlicensed songs and they want to keep a good eye on those kinds of admissions. So they will come up with many excuses for why they should not be subject to the same laws as everyone else. It is, after all, the Internet, and you know how that can be.
An Easy Fix for Congress: Pay unclaimed money to people who deal with unclaimed money
Even if the Congress does not establish an audit right for songwriters for mechanical royalties as they have for rights holders under the more contemporary webcasting compulsory license and the Audio Home Recording Act, it would be quite simple for the Congress to clarify once and for all that unpaid royalties — whether for the unmet minimum thresholds unilaterally imposed by digital music services, unknown addresses for songwriters, or any other reason — should be paid to the state unclaimed property offices in the state of the songwriter’s last known address or at least the state where the company does business.
Companies that want to take advantage of the compulsory license rules for songs shouldn’t also get to make their own rules to take advantage of songwriters.
By Chris Castlein Artist News, Post-dicting the present December 30, 2018 January 2, 2019 1,452 Words
Postdicting the Present: Five Things Congress Could Do for Music Creators That Wouldn’t Cost the Taxpayer a Dime Part 3: Create an Audit Right for Songwriters
Once a song is distributed to the public with the permission of the owner of the copyright in the song, the U.S. Copyright Act requires songwriters to license songs for reproduction and distribution under a “compulsory license.” This license is typically called a “mechanical license” because it only covers the “mechanical reproduction” of the song and does not, for example, include the right to use the song in a YouTube video or a motion picture, create a mashup or reprint the lyrics of the song.
When the Congress first developed the compulsory mechanical license in 1909, the concern was that “the right to make mechanical reproductions of musical works might become a monopoly controlled by a single company.” This monopoly never came to pass, and given the fragmentation in music licensing in the current environment, is unlikely to ever come about.
The user of the compulsory license (or “licensee”) has to comply with the rules for these licenses — including an obligation to account and pay royalties. If the licensee fails to comply, then the songwriter can in theory terminate the license, although making that termination stick usually requires an expensive copyright infringement lawsuit.
The bare compulsory license was not widely used before the advent of Internet music services — and then became something of a weapon of its own — music services bought into the “long tail” theory and tried to clear millions of songs overnight by massive mailings of notices of their intention to use the work. Given that songs are frequently co-written, this required sending huge numbers of notices. Behind each notice — supposedly — is a royalty account and statement of usage as required by law.
So if you’re following, songwriters suddenly were required to license to services they did not ask to be included in (unlike artists recording “cuts” the songwriter solicited), and only a limited paper trail to confirm the accuracy of royalty payments.
Trust, But Don’t Verify
Intuitively, you are probably thinking that songwriters would have the right to make the licensee provide evidence to demonstrate if this morass actually resulted in correct payments, right? Checking the evidence is called a “royalty compliance examination” or an “audit”. Since there is no “auditor general” of compulsory licenses appointed by the Congress, it would seem strange to believe that the intent of Congress was to codify the moral hazard of allowing the person doing the paying to examine their own books.
And yet, in the current practice, the fox is squarely among the chickens. This is because the government requires that the licensee merely “certifies” their own statements (i.e., promises the statements are true). This certification is done on a monthly basis by an officer of the licensee and annually by the licensee’s CPA. And songwriters are told “trust me.”
The Industry Standard
It’s safe to say that this certification process is drastically different than any industry-standard mechanical license. There is a long history of audits in the music business — the State of California even passed legislation in 2004 protecting the artist’s right to audit record companies. But when it comes to songwriters, the federal government forces songwriters to take the compulsory license, tells them the royalty rate they are to be paid, but does not permit songwriters to audit the licensee.
Instead, the government permits the licensee to “certify” their own statements (i.e., promises the statements are true). This certification is done on a monthly basis by an officer of the licensee and annually by the licensee’s CPA. And songwriters are told “trust me.”
The Blanche Dubois Approach to Royalty Accounting
As Blanche Dubois said in A Streetcar Named Desire, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” and until the Congress updates this certification business model, that’s exactly what songwriters are expected to do, too.
The compulsory license requires certification by the licensee on a monthly basis and by a CPA on an annual basis.
An officer of the licensee is to include this certification oath with the songwriter’s monthly statement:
“I certify that I have examined this Monthly Statement of Account and that all statements of fact contained herein are true, complete, and correct to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief, and are made in good faith.”
The Annual Statement of Account requires this certification by a Certified Public Accountant for the licensee:
“We have examined the attached “Annual Statement of Account Under Compulsory License For Making and Distributing Phonorecords” for the fiscal year ended (date) of (name of the compulsory licensee) applicable to phonorecords embodying (title or titles of nondramatic musical works embodied in phonorecords made under the compulsory license) made under the provisions of section 115 of title 17 of the United States Code, as amended by Pub. L. 94-553, and applicable regulations of the United States Copyright Office. Our examination was made in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and accordingly, included tests of the accounting records and such other auditing procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances.”
Do you think that the CPA has in fact examined millions of annual statements? Does the CPA’s risk manager or insurance carrier know that the CPA is certifying to a multitude of songwriters that the CPA has actually “examined the attached “Annual Statement of Account…” when it is highly unlikely that the CPA has done any such thing?
Congress crafted this language in a much simpler time. Remember — there are now millions of these statements every month. Do you think that the certification oath could possibly be true every time? Some of the time? How would you find out?
Certification is a One-Way Street
This certification runs only one way — the government only offers licensees and CPAs the opportunity to certify that the books are correct, not that they are incorrect. Under current practice, if a company or CPA is squishy about how accurate their books and records are, songwriters typically get no certifications at all and just an uncertified royalty statement if they are lucky.
What conclusion should be drawn from a failure to certify? Why not provide an alternative certification — that the licensee’s books and records cannot be certified. While it may be unrealistic to think that companies would ever disqualify their own books, it is not unrealistic to think that a CPA might choose this option on the annual statement of account given the CPA’s licensing responsibilities.
And it is definitely not unrealistic to think that the company’s books would be more likely to be accurate if the company knew that this disqualification option were available to the CPA. But the simplest thing Congress could do is to create an audit right for the compulsory license.
Let’s Keep it Simple
Chairman Goodlatte has said he intends to update the Copyright Act to bring it into line with the digital age. The Congress already allowed audits for the compulsory license for sound recordings and the webcasting royalty established under Section 114. This mechanism that Congress created in the recent past is working quite well.
Chairman Goodlatte could borrow heavily from the audit rights for the Section 114 compulsory license for sound recordings, and allow songwriters to conduct group audits under Section 115 to avoid a multiplicity of audits.
These changes would bring help bring song licensing into the 21st century and allow songwriters to enjoy greater confidence that they are being paid properly. Creating an audit right under Section 115 compulsory licenses would allow market forces to work to align the incentives toward better payments for songwriters.
By Chris Castlein Artist News, Post-dicting the present December 29, 2018 December 29, 2018 1,276 Words
Postdicting the Present: Five Things Congress Could Do for Music Creators That Wouldn’t Cost the Taxpayer a Dime Part 2: Update the Compulsory License for Songwriters
[This series first appeared in the Huffington Post on July 26, 2013–lets see how I did now that music is all modern and chrome.]
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) is holding hearings on a potential revision to the Copyright Act. One area he might want to take a fresh look at is whether we still need a compulsory license to protect the public from the antitrust ambitions…of songwriters.
A “compulsory license” is a government-mandated requirement that someone license property on terms set by the government. Very often, the government also mandates the price that the property owner may charge for the rights she is forced to license. Americans enjoy protection under the “takings clause” of the 5th Amendment of the Constitution, so these compulsory licenses are fairly rare. The Constitution also requires that “takings” require “just compensation” to the property owner.
Did you know that the Congress established a compulsory license for songs? Yes, they did in 1909. This compulsory license is often called the “mechanical” license because it covers the “mechanical reproduction” of the song, a somewhat arcane concept better understood as a copy. The contemporary version of the 1909 license covers permanent downloads and certain categories of on-demand streaming as well as compact discs and vinyl.
The government royalty rate for songs is a “minimum” rate—of course, no one should be surprised to know that if the only rate anyone is required to pay is the minimum and the songwriter cannot decline the license, the minimum may as well be a maximum. And that is what has happened.
Does this sound like the kind of government action that is required to protect the public from songwriters in the time of the Internet?
For over a century, songwriters have been forced to give up control over who records their songs. They also have to accept the royalty rate that the Congress determines to be “just compensation” in a market already distorted by the compulsory license. (The Congress determined 2¢ a copy was “just compensation” from 1909 to 1977—the rate then was indexed to inflation and the minimum rate is currently 9.1¢.)
One might ask why do we need a compulsory license for songs? At a time when the dominant big tech companies drive around the world snorting up private data and taking pictures of your house, have scant attention paid to them when they gobble up companies to increase their market dominance or even monopoly, and employ an unprecedented number of lobbyists to influence governments around the world, why are we still worried about compulsory licenses for songs? To protect the public from the anticompetitive ambitions of songwriters?
Nearly 10 years ago, former Register of Copyright Marybeth Peters told the Congress that abandoning the compulsory may be an idea whose time has come:
[T]oday all…countries, except for the United States and Australia, have eliminated such compulsory licenses from their copyright laws. A fundamental principle of copyright is that the author should have the exclusive right to exploit the market for his work, except where this would conflict with the public interest. A compulsory license limits an author’s bargaining power. It deprives the author of determining with whom and on what terms he wishes to do business. In fact, the Register of Copyrights’ 1961 Report on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law favored elimination of this compulsory license.
I believe that the time has come to again consider whether there is really a need for such a compulsory license. Since most of the world functions without such a license, why should one be needed in the United States?
Let Us Know How That Turns Out
The compulsory license essentially destroys the market for mechanical licenses—one reason that preserving a strong market for other forms of song licenses has become so important to songwriters. Yet the Congress still mandates that songwriters must license their songs and tells songwriters the price they can charge—but they do not allow the songwriter to determine whether the government mandated rate has been paid correctly under the government mandated license.
You probably assumed that once the government intervened in the market to mandate a license and a royalty rate, that they would feel obligated to make sure that their government royalty was actually paid to the songwriters whose bargaining rights were cut off.
But the government doesn’t do that. If songwriters don’t get paid, it is up to the songwriter to terminate their statutory license and bring a copyright infringement claim for statutory damages against someone they did not want to record their songs, who didn’t pay the bill, and who probably will either be difficult to find or is a Big Tech company that is oblivious to the claim of any one songwriter because the company can crush them like a gnat in litigation.
In this situation, the government tells songwriters, “let us know how that turns out.”
What Is Good About Uniform License Terms
The potential fix is actually relatively easy. Just as we have uniform laws like the Uniform Partnership Act, there is a value to having certain terms of a mechanical license set in the Copyright Act. The standard negotiated mechanical license is a private contract that typically starts with something like “this license incorporates by reference the mechanical license in the Copyright Act except as set forth herein”. The problem is not that there is a uniform set of terms that copyright licensees and licensors can reference.
The problem is the compulsory part.
The easy fix would be to allow songwriters either to opt in to the existing statutory license terms or to opt out of it. The better route might be to phase in an “opt out” so the market could develop more gradually, and implement the “opt in” a few years down the road.
Either way, the change would probably best be implemented prospectively—there are a host of statutory licenses in use, either stand alone or private agreements granted by artist-songwriters in record deals that rely on the statutory license. Simply eliminating these existing licenses entirely would likely be extraordinarily disruptive.
Maintaining an optional “uniform mechanical license” seems to make good commercial sense.
Communicating the Opt In Decision
As we are often told, the Internet has brought unprecedented democratization to creators. A songwriter could communicate her decision to opt in or opt out of the statutory license in a host of ways, from Twitter to blogs. But as a more formal matter, the good news is that there is already an existing methodology for communicating legal notices regarding the disposition of copyrights.
The U.S. Copyright Office has a document repository that has been in place for decades (See “Recordation of Transfers and Other Documents“ described in Copyright Office Circular 12). For a modest fee (starting at $105) anyone can register a document and “to encourage document recordation, the law confers certain legal advantages, including priority between conflicting transfers and “constructive notice”…if certain requirements are met.”
So an opt in notice could easily be recorded in the Copyright Office and take advantage of the existing jurisprudence around document recording. Those who find the fees burdensome should be authorized to give notice on their websites, Facebook pages, or other ways to leverage the democratic benefits of the ever popular social media.
Abandoning the government mandated compulsory license would free songwriters to participate in the market for reproductions of their songs, and would be a great step forward. However, this still doesn’t deal with the problem of getting paid on existing compulsory licenses where the government has largely abandoned the songwriter after forcing her to get into the situation in the first place. I’ll address a couple ideas for fixes in Part 3.
By Chris Castlein Artist News, Post-dicting the present December 28, 2018 December 28, 2018 1,290 Words1 Comment
Postdicting the Present: Five Things Congress Could Do For Music Creators That Wouldn’t Cost the Taxpayer a Dime Part 1: Pre-72 Sound Recordings
In this and future posts, I will be addressing five things the Congress could do for music creators that are easy to do and that would help develop an online market for music. First up is a slightly esoteric, but important area: royalties paid by companies like SiriusXM for sound recordings made before 1972.
Many of us in the music business know that songwriters and recording artists are financially worse off under the “new boss” than they were under the “old boss.” We have watched older artists “die on the bandstand” because the royalty or residual income they had counted on to support them in their retirement began evaporating with the arrival of the Internet in their lives. We have watched younger artists and songwriters essentially give up on the idea of doing anything but breaking even — maybe, if they are lucky — on sound recordings. And there is a growing realization that being in cut out bin, or as it’s known online the “long tail”…well, is not ideal. So what is to be done?
Fix the Past Before You Fix the Future
People of goodwill want to do something to help, starting with Chairman Bob Goodlatte of the House Judiciary Committee. Chairman Goodlatte is holding a series of hearings about what to do to address the current U.S. Copyright Act which had its last general revision in 1976 and has evolved through amendments since then.
There are lots of different issues that a variety of people want addressed in the new act, but my guess is that there is a concern about another competing law, the law of unintended consequences. And when we as a nation are staring double digit real unemployment in the face, doing no harm may be almost as important as fixing the harm from the last time they tried to do no harm.
Here is one thing the Congress could do today to fix the unintended consequences of the past before they turn to the future — all of which, if not fixed first, will continue to fester in any new laws.
Pre-72 Sound Recordings and Webcasting Royalties
Congress made a great and politically difficult lift when it created the public performance right in digital uses of sound recordings. The Congress took a very comprehensive look in 1995 and again in 1998 at how best to encourage the development of this market and created a limited compulsory license for the digital performance right, a royalty system and a collection and accounting function for the payment of those royalties. All countries that are business partners with the U.S. except China recognize a broad right in public performances of sound recordings, so U.S. recognition of the digital right is a good first step.
What they did not address was what may seem like a “gotcha” loophole — should that federal copyright royalty be available to recordings that are not protected by federal copyright protection? An additional fact — federal copyright protection of sound recordings only came into effect in 1972. Obviously there were plenty of sound recordings available before then, but those sound recordings are protected under a patchwork of state laws and were not granted federal protection.
Hold on, you say — sound recordings before 1972 include formative recording artists like Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughn, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Robert Johnson, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, Cream, The Temptations, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and The Beatles. And those are just the famous ones. You know — if you wanted to you could make entire satellite radio channels from just those artists. And if you thought that, you’d be right.
Now add an additional fact: When Pandora and SiriusXM pay royalties for sound recordings under the compulsory license, the artists or sound recording owners cannot say “no”, they cannot opt out of the compulsory license. And when those royalties are paid, the payment is made to SoundExchange which then pays 45 percent of the net royalty to the artist and 2.5 percent to each of the principle unions involved — outside of the artist’s recording contract so the labels never touch it.
In other words — the money goes directly to the artists. So the Congress did a great, great thing (modeled, frankly, on the way songwriters are treated by their performance rights organizations).
An “undeserved windfall”?
Enter the loophole, because some people just have to take an edge — or as the tech folks say, an “exploit.” The recent Copyright Office report to the Congress on pre-72 sound recordings notes (text accompanying footnote 444):
SiriusXM [told the Copyright Office] that requiring statutory services [like SiriusXM] to pay under the statutory license for recordings currently protected under state law would provide an undeserved windfall for recordings created and paid for more than 40 years ago, at the expense of services like Sirius XM. It also noted that to the extent that any services are mistakenly making payments for public performance of pre-1972 sound recordings, that SoundExchange should not be accepting or distributing such payments.
An “undeserved windfall” to musicians? To artists? To all of those artists listed above and many, many more? An “undeserved windfall” to artists and musicians who are nearing or well past retirement age and who gave us some of the greatest American music that is still in demand 50 years later to the great benefit of those taking advantage of the compulsory license like SiriusXM? While SiriusXM has over a billion dollars in free cash flow?
If there is an undeserved windfall, it is to these beneficiaries of the digital public performance right, webcasters and satellite radio in particular, who want to stiff artists and musicians when they need it most based on a “gotcha” loophole that the Congress could fix.
Let’s “Level the Playing Field” and Fix the Loophole
There are a lot of arguments about other aspects of federalizing pre-72 sound recordings, but the Chairman Goodlatte does not need to get drawn into every single one of these unrelated arguments. (See Copyright Office Report at p. 122.) It would be a simple fix to require the payment of statutory royalties by the commercial beneficiaries of the compulsory license — to all the artists, not just the ones whose recordings happened to be released in the right year.
Webcasters offered tortured arguments about “rate parity” in the “Internet Radio Fairness Act” legislation — well, “fairness” begins at home. It was encouraging to hear Ranking Member Mel Watt’s commitment to the public performance royalty at this week’s hearingin the House Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, but if this pre-72 “gotcha” loophole, this “exploit,” isn’t fixed, it will be perpetuated once terrestrial radio starts paying its fair share as Mr. Watt desires.
The Congress could fix this problem with the stroke of a pen. This would accomplish both fair payments to artists and musicians on pre-72 recordings, and also get the issue out of the way for future expansion of the public performance right — both worthy goals.
And wouldn’t cost the taxpayer a dime.
By Chris Castlein Artist News, Post-dicting the present December 27, 2018 1,188 Words1 Comment | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line838 |
__label__wiki | 0.944096 | 0.944096 | Sertraline bruising
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Discussion in 'Onlinecanadianpharmacy.Com' started by Crazych, 05-Sep-2019.
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Some side effects may occur that usually do not need medical attention. These side effects may go away during treatment as your body adjusts to the medicine. Also, your health care professional may be able to tell you about ways to prevent or reduce some of these side effects. Check with your health care professional if any of the following side effects continue or are bothersome or if you have any questions about them: Other side effects not listed may also occur in some patients. If you notice any other effects, check with your healthcare professional. Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to the FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088. Commonly reported side effects of sertraline include: diarrhea, dizziness, drowsiness, dyspepsia, fatigue, insomnia, loose stools, nausea, tremor, headache, paresthesia, anorexia, decreased libido, delayed ejaculation, diaphoresis, ejaculation failure, and xerostomia. Other side effects include: abdominal pain, agitation, pain, vomiting, anxiety, hypouricemia, and malaise. See below for a comprehensive list of adverse effects. Applies to sertraline: oral solution, oral tablet Along with its needed effects, sertraline may cause some unwanted effects. Although not all of these side effects may occur, if they do occur they may need medical attention. Check with your doctor immediately if any of the following side effects occur while taking sertraline: Some side effects of sertraline may occur that usually do not need medical attention. These side effects may go away during treatment as your body adjusts to the medicine.
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We report two instances of dose-dependent relations between sertraline and bleeding tendency. Bleeding. Bruising associated with the use of fluoxetine. Find a comprehensive guide to possible side effects including common and rare side effects when taking Zoloft Sertraline Hcl for healthcare professionals and consumers. I have had bruises on my legs since starting on Setraline last year but I have come out a very large bruise at the top of my leg caused from me.
I have had bruises on my legs since starting on Setraline last year but I have come out a very large bruise at the top of my leg caused from me scratching an itch. I was on it for 6 weeks before is started to come out and I only had them on my thighs but it looked like someone had been beating me up there! I had a blood test for blood clots a few months ago but didn't hear back so assume all was fine. They'd fade really quickly then I'd get a new one to replace them the next day and I was gradually getting more of them. I had a blood test which showed I had just inside the abnormal range for blood clotting - I would have been happy to stay on them because it worked so well but my GP wasn't happy so took me off. The bruises all disappeared within 3 days of coming off it. I'd ask to have another blood test and go in in person to find out what the results are. My GP didn't ring me but told me in an appointment. I have read the side effects if Sertraline which I have been taking for several months. It can also be a sign of kidney infection which I have had previously to my panic attacks. The medication probably does affect the kidneys but the pros outway the cons. Notes: In general, seniors or children, people with certain medical conditions (such as liver or kidney problems, heart disease, diabetes, seizures) or people who take other medications are more at risk of developing a wider range of side effects. For a complete list of all side effects, click here.
Taking Sertraline And Bruising? -, Common Side Effects of Zoloft Sertraline Hcl Drug Center.
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Comments on Medscape are moderated and should be professional in tone and on topic. You must declare any conflicts of interest related to your comments and responses. Please see our Commenting. Zoloft sertraline is a type of antidepressant medication commonly used to treat depression and anxiety. It belongs to a class of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors SSRIs which work by preventing the reabsorption of serotonin the "feel good" hormone so that more is available in the system. The bruising is a serious side effect of the Zoloft and needs to be reported to the doctor right away. I wouldn't panic about this, but you need to have this condition addressed as soon as possible. Best wishes, Laurie
Steepler, 05-Sep-2019 11:01
SE_LM Well-Known Member
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Toto, 29-Aug-2019 13:20 | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line853 |
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After nearly 20 years as a CPA specializing in international tax with Andersen, Darlene co-founded a pharmaceutical manufacturing company with her father and brother. Her father died soon after the company was founded and Darlene bought her brother’s half of the company and became the CEO, leading the company to tremendous growth. She was named the only American on the list of the nine Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World in 2004 and was on the Inc 500 list for three years in a row. Following her sale of the company in 2006, she became Executive Director of TechFW, a technology business incubator in Fort Worth, establishing multiple programs for entrepreneurs, universities and angel investors, including the Cowtown Angels Network. She has coached dozens of local startup companies. Darlene has served on the national boards of the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration, the International Business Innovation Association, and DePauw University, as well as several local boards, including Junior Achievement, Girl Scouts, and the American Heart Association. Since stepping down as the Executive Director of TechFW in November 2018, Darlene has continued her work with entrepreneurs: coaching TechFW clients, investing as a member of the Cowtown Angels, joining the management team of BioNorth TX, and working with VIC Technology Venture Development to commercialize university technologies. She holds a BA in math and German from DePauw University, an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and a graduate certificate in genealogical research from Boston University.
Jorge Varela’s is an entrepreneur, startup evangelist, international speaker, consultant, and investor. He has started and/or been a part of the executive team at numerous companies most notably in telecom, software, and IT, with financially successful exits in each market segment. He has mentored and coached startups in the life sciences with exits in the last 5 years exceeding $3 Billion.
Jorge is CEO, of BioNorthTexas, the nonprofit that represents, connects, and promotes the life sciences and healthcare industries in North Texas. He is also Managing Director of AltusVista, a consultancy that works with leadership to build better companies, non-profits and executives.
Jorge was most recently Founder and CEO of VelocityTX, an innovation superhub offering incubation, mentorships, and seed investments to startups with disruptive technology. VelocityTX is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Texas Research & Technology Foundation (TRTF) where Jorge served as Executive Vice President of Innovation & Investments and managed the McDermott Legacy Fund. TRTF is a non-profit dedicated to economic development through investments both in early stage companies and in the entrepreneurial ecosystem with a focus on biosciences, medtech, & technology – especially cyber security.
Jorge is on the Executive Board of the Alliance of Texas Angel Networks, an organization consisting of accredited angel groups in Texas. He is also a reviewer for the National Science Foundation on SBIR/STTR grants.
Jorge’s passion is working with leadership to develop and grow for- and non- profit organizations to enable:
• financial independence and the creation of economic opportunities globally; and,
• to improve the quality of life through the commercialization of new technologies. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line854 |
__label__cc | 0.712219 | 0.287781 | Church Rock Epiphany
Well, it’s not necessarily a NEW idea, but it’s still a pretty novel concept. I recall early tweer-than-fuck Belle & Sebastian holding concerts in churches, and I think Arcade Fire decided to do some of their Neon Bible shows in church too (obvious much?).
As of recently though, many bands have made the move to use churches as recording spaces rather than venues. The aforementioned Neon Bible, and B&S’s Lazy Line Painter Jane EP were both recorded exclusively in churches — both to great effect. Off the top of my head, I The Decemberists also recording Picaresque in a church as well.
(L) Low plays cathedral, (R) Belle & Sebastian flier
Anyway, this is a LONG way to get around mentioning that I just saw Cleveland’s The Muttering Retreats play at South Union Artsyesterday (interview with T.M.A.’s Tim Thornton to be posted soon). Aside from S.U.A. being the first German-language school ever built in Chicago, it also operated as the Gethsemane Missionary Baptist Church before South Union Arts took over the space… the highlight of the cathedral is a GIANT NEON CRUCIFIX… more creepy than the one from Se7en. Jealous much, Arcade Fire? You shoulda played here.
(L) South Union Arts in Chicago, (R) Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible cover art
So yeah, Indie Rock in a church is an interesting experience. Which is now why I have to mention that both Jenny Lewis and “slowcore” legends Low, will be playing what Oh My Rockness is referring to as “Epiphany” in September. Epiphany is, indeed, Epiphany Episcopal Church on 201 South Ashland.
(L) Epiphany, (R) Jenny Lewis
Arcade Fire mp3: “Rebellion (Lies)” (via Different is Dangerous)
Belle & Sebastian mp3: “I Know Where Summer Goes” (via Letters Have No Arms!)
The Muttering Retreats mp3: “Pastiche” (via I Rock Cleveland)
Jenny Lewis mp3: “The Big Guns” (via Cannibal Cheerleader)
Low mp3: “Over the Ocean” (via Large-hearted Boy)
1 Comment | Free MP3's, Local Biz, Music | Tagged: Arcade Fire, Baptist, Belle & Sebastian, Chapel, Chicago, Church, Cleveland, Crucifix, Decemberists, Episcopal, Indie, indie rock, Jenny Lewis, Lazy Line Painter Jane, Low, Neon, Neon Bible, Picaresque, Portland, Rilo Kiley, Se7en, The Muttering Retreats, twee | Permalink | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line861 |
__label__wiki | 0.650524 | 0.650524 | Meet 'Yogi,' an Abbotsford man's dog being featured by Jones Soda
Carly Yoshida-Butryn CTVNewsVancouver.ca reporter
@ctvcarlyyoshida Contact
Published Thursday, December 5, 2019 3:59PM PST Last Updated Friday, December 6, 2019 10:09AM PST
Yogi the Pomeranian will be featured on a Jones Soda label for pineapple cream soda. (Submitted: Gilles DeCruyenaere)
VANCOUVER -- An Abbotsford man's Pomeranian has been selected to be featured on a Jones Soda label.
Gilles DeCruyenaere's 10-year-old dog, Yogi, has been chosen to be the spokesmodel for the company's pineapple cream soda flavour.
"I've always thought it would be cool to get a photo on a Jones Soda bottle and I'd submitted some before a few years ago and nothing came of it," said DeCruyenaere. "But then about a year ago I took a photo of Yogi eating ice cream at the park and I thought it would be good to send in with a batch of other ones."
The company allows people to submit photos to an online gallery to be considered for use on their bottles. Both staff and members of the public can then vote on their favourite images.
DeCruyenaere said he received a letter from the company in November saying Yogi's picture had been selected. He also received two sample copies of the label with Yogi's photo. And even though Yogi has never tried pineapple before, DeCruyenaere thinks it's an appropriate flavour that matches his dog's personality.
"It's kind of funky and funny and I just imagine it's something he would enjoy," he said. "He really likes strawberry milkshakes, so pineapple cream soda sounds like something he'd like."
The bottle is not on store shelves just yet, and since the company uses several different photos for each flavour, there's no guarantee DeCruyenaere will be able to get a bottle with Yogi's picture on it when he heads to the grocery store.
"If you have a photo on a Jones Soda label, you have to be sort of on a scavenger hunt, constantly looking around trying to buy one," said DeCruyenaere.
While he isn't receiving any financial compensation for his photo being used on the bottle, DeCruyenaere is quite happy that the photo of his dog will be widely seen. But it's not Yogi's first brush with fame. DeCruyenaere does stock photography, and the proud owner has submitted Yogi's picture to be featured in several books about pets and Pomeranians.
"He's super fluffy and cute and cuddly," he said. "He's a super smart little dog. We got him when he was eight weeks old and he's pretty much like a son to me."
'False boss' scam prompts warning from Richmond RCMP | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line867 |
__label__cc | 0.684249 | 0.315751 | A Child of the Troubles brought up within the heartlands of Loyalist West Belfast and his twenty five year search for his MISSING Catholic Mother.
Remembering the Innocent Victims
This blog and my story are dedicated to the memory of all innocent victims of the Troubles, regardless of political or religious background, including members of the British army and other security force personnel whom died as a direct result of the Troubles.
Life’s hard enough without having to worry that you will be killed or abused because you worship a different god or follow a different political system.
Life is for living – So live & let live
Please follow me on Twitter and spread the word:
Twitter @bfchild66
https://twitter.com/bfchild66
Hope you enjoy my story
My life growing up in the heartlands of Loyalist West Belfast and my life long search for my “Missing” catholic mother.
Read my amazing story in the Guardian Newspaper
Click here: Our family, divided by the Troubles
See below for first eight chapters of my amazing story.
Since the Troubles began in the late sixties over three thousand five hundred people have lost their lives and countless more have been injured and scarred, both emotionally and physically by the events that played out in the streets of Northern Ireland and mainland Britain. For almost three decades Northern Ireland descended into a furnace of sectarian slaughter and the legacy of those years will hunt the memory of those who lived through them and hopefully the conscience of the paramilitaries who orchestrated the rivers of blood.
Below are the first few chapters of my autobiography Belfast Child, which tells the story of my life growing up within the heartlands of Loyalist West Belfast during the worse years of the Troubles and my secret twenty five year search for my missing Catholic mother.
My parents were a rare thing in 1960,s Belfast and ignoring the political and civil disharmony between the two warring communities, they crossed the religious barriers and against the wishes of their families and local communities they got married.
Dad came from an ultra loyalist family from the Shankill Road area of Belfast and Mum came from a Republican family from the nationalist Falls Road. It was a marriage doomed from the start and one day mum simply disappeared from our lives and we never heard from her or any of her family again. As I grew older and I began to think more and more about mum, but when I asked questions about her to family members I was told she was dead and not to mention her again. So that’s what I did, I put her out of my mind.
When I was 13 years old my beloved father died and I desperately prayed that mum would return and we could all live as a family again. But that never happened and my siblings and I were split up and went to live with various members of my dad’s family on the Shankill road.
The communities from The Shankill , The Falls and surrounding areas arguable suffered most during the Troubles , as not only were we on the “frontline” of the sectarian divide , but the paramilitaries from both sides lived and operated among us and spent their time killing each other and anyone else who got in the way. This is the backdrop to my story and my search for mum.
Times have much changed since my youth and the turbulent early years of the troubles and life is much better and less uncertain for the Children of Belfast today. Hopefully we can all put the past behind us and build a lasting peace and learn to live side by side and respect each other’s history and culture.
“Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.”
Please follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/bfchild66 and share my story.
By John Chambers
Go on surprise me and make a small donation
Boarding the Virgin train at London Euston I ignored the day trippers and business travellers and took my seat opposite my brother David and we settled in for the three hour journey north to Preston, in Lancashire. I had been to Preston a few times on business trips previously and to be honest it hadn’t really left an impression on me. But the thought of what or who was waiting for me at the other end now filled me with apprehension and anxiety.
I was going to confront the ghosts of my past.
It was mid January and the UK was in the grip of the coldest winter in decades and outside a heavy snow was falling and the landscape was covered in a thick blanket of white. Looking out the window I watched silently as the train gathered speed and the country scenery flashed past in a blurry haze. David was snoring quietly and I was glad of the silence, I had to prepare myself for what was to come.
I took the letter out of my pocket and read the words for the thousandth time.
The letter had been given to my sister back in Belfast and had eventually found its way to me in London.
I had spent most of my life believing my mother was dead and knowing next to nothing about her. But to my amazement when I was a teenager I had learnt that she was in fact not dead, but alive and well, but due to the nature of my parents breakup and my father’s family being ultra Loyalist from the Shankill Road in Loyalist West Belfast she had been denied access to us and her memory and all traces of her had been erased from our lives’. As I grew older I began trying to find out more about my mother , but this was impossible due to that fact my father’s family refused to discuss her and I was told to let sleeping dogs sleep. When I was in my late teens I began a secret search for mum and I approached the Salvation Army and other agencies who I thought could help me find her, But due to lack of information ( I didn’t even know her maiden name) there was nothing they could do.
Now a year after receiving the letter and speaking with Philomena in Boston I was on train travelling to Preston to meet my mother for the first time in over 25 years and face the ghosts of my past
My father John was born in 1944 and was the first of five sons and one daughter born to my grandparents, John and Suzy Chambers, who were both hard core loyalists from the Sandy Row area of Belfast. Dad’s early years were typical of working class Protestants of the time, high unemployment and poverty dominated the area he lived in and home was in a council house in the heartlands of protestant West Belfast among other hard core loyalists. Granda was lucky and like other protestant men from the area worked in the shipyard, which at the time was controlled by protestant unions and blatant in its discrimination against employing Catholics. To the Catholic population of Northern Ireland the shipyard was a symbol of unionist control and a constant reminder that they were treated as second-class citizens in a Unionist run state. Being the oldest dad held a special place in both my grandparents hearts and like his siblings he was brought up to practice and respect the protestant culture and traditions which controlled all aspects of their daily lives. Everything was going well until he met and fell in love with my Mother Sally, a Catholic from the heartlands of republican Belfast.
My mother was a Catholic from a hard core republican family from the Falls Road area of Belfast and when her and my father got together both families opposed the relationship from the start. My grandfather disowned my father and both he and mum were ostracised for daring to cross the religious divide. Although tension and paranoia between the two communities was mounting, at this time mixed marriages did take place but were always controversial and scorned upon by both communities. Centuries of conflict between the two religions had left scars on both sides and it was always expected that when you got married, you would marry someone from your own religion. It was a marriage doomed from the start and although mum and dad tried their hardest to make it work, it was impossible for them to escape the sectarian conflict raging around them.
I was born on the 16th July 1966 and the first three years of my life were spent living in the Grosvenor Road area in the west of the city which was one of the few areas of Belfast were Catholics and Protestants could live side by side in relative harmony. Sadly this was to change within the coming years as the beginning of the modern troubles signalled all out war between the two communities of Northern Ireland and Belfast faced the biggest population shift since the Second World War. Relationships between the two communities of Northern Ireland had reached boiling point and within three years the Troubles reached a point of no return.
I was the third of four children and the first boy. My sister Margaret was born shortly after my parents married in 1962. David the youngest was born in September 1968. In the early days mum and dad tried to shield us from the hatred that surrounded us and in an effort to bridge the gap gave Margaret and David Catholic names. In the tribal world of Belfast names signified which religious group you came from and my Grandfather was outraged that two of his grandchildren were given Catholic names. Hostilities continued between the two families and although my grandparents loved us, they could never accept that we had a Catholic mother. Dad’s brothers were all ultra loyalist’s and there were attacks on my mother’s family, which made it impossible for mum and dad to disassociate them from the sectarian conflict surrounding them.
As if mum and dad didn’t have enough problems it was discovered when I was eighteen months old that I had osteomyelitis, a bone disease which led to me spending the next two years of my life in hospital undergoing a total of sixteen operations as the doctors fought to save my right leg. Little did I know at the time that I was to spend the rest of my life in and out of hospital having various operations on my leg and a host of other medical problems.
The first five years of my life I spent more time in hospital than at home with the family and was shielded from the violent events that would ultimately lead to the break-up of my parents marriage and our family. My earliest memories are of me at about three in hospital, surrounded by other children, doctors and nurses. When I first went into hospital I missed my family terribly and cried myself to sleep feeling very sorry for myself. But as time went on and I realized that I hadn’t been abandoned and mum, dad and other members of the family came to see me almost every day, I began to adapt to my life in the children’s ward. Due to the nature of my disease I had to constantly have plaster of Paris on both my legs and was unable to walk and was confined to my bed unless one of the nurses lifted me up and placed me on a chair or on the floor where I could play with the other children and crawl around until my heart was content. If I was really lucky I would be placed in this little four-wheeled cart and I would push myself around the ward for hours, getting myself into as much mischief as possible.
One day a new student nurse called Brown came to work on the ward and I immediately fell in love with her and decided she could be my foster mother in hospital. I was spending so much time away from my own mother and family that I became confused and cried more when Nurse Brown left the ward at the end of her shift, than I did when my own mother left after visiting me. On her days off Nurse Brown would come into the ward, get a wheelchair and take me on long walks in the park and hospital surroundings, feeding the birds and watching the squirrels fight.
Sometimes she would take me to her living quarters and make us both sandwiches and tea. I became so attached to Nurse Brown that when I was occasionally allowed home for the weekend to visit my family I would scream the place down and demand to be allowed to stay in the ward with Nurse Brown.
Although I was much too young to understand the complexities of my parents marriage I began to sense that something was not right when dad and mum began visiting me separately, with members of their own families in tow. This went on for some time and I gradually learned to accept it as normal.
Then one weekend when I was due to go home for a visit, mum turned up at the hospital early with one of her sisters and bundled me into a waiting taxi. At first I was surprised to find Margaret, Jean and David also in the car, but when mum said we were going on holiday I became excited began asking loads of questions.
“Where are we going? How long are we going for? Where’s dad?
Mum told me that dad would not be coming with us and I thought nothing more of it. Unbeknown to me, dad and mum had finally parted and there was no turning back. The strain of their mixed marriage in the brutal environment of West Belfast had become too much for them to cope with and led to various arguments and the eventual end of their marriage.
Mum took us straight to the airport and the five of us boarded a plane for London. Once we were in London a friend of mum’s picked us up from the airport and drove us to a flat in Stockwell. As a child the whole thing very exciting and we were blissfully unaware of the significance of it all. Within a few days dad arrived on the doorstep with his brothers to take us back to Belfast. There was nothing mum could do about it and although we didn’t know it at the time , when we left mum crying after us on the door step that day , it was to be the last time any of us would ever see or have any contact with mum or any of her family again , for the next 25 years.
From that moment onwards mum ceased to exist in our lives and through time we all came to believe she was dead and it was better not to talk about her. We all loved dad hugely and after mum left, he became the centre of our universe and we all worshipped the ground he walked on. Having spent so much time in hospital , I was used to being away from mum and the family and I think this may have eased the pain of a three year old losing his mother. It must have affected my sisters more, because they were older than me and had a longer time to bond with mum. My brother David was only one at the time and has lived his entire life not knowing what it is like to have a mother and share her love.
Life went on and gradually mum became a distant memory of my first three years on earth and before long I had learned to live without her in my life. When we arrived back in Belfast I was brought back to hospital to continue my treatment and dad brought the rest of the children home to begin a new life without mum. I was four at the time and having spent so much time away from mum in hospital, for the first few years after she had gone I hardly missed her presence at all, but this would change through time. Beside’s I had Nurse Brown and all my adopted family in the hospital to keep me company. I used to pretend mum was still at home with the rest of the family and was too busy to visit me. But as I grew older the pain of not having her in my life tore me apart and I missed her terribly.
On a sunny day in 1970 my osteomyelitis was finally given the all clear and I was on my way home from the hospital, for a couple of years at least. I was so heartbroken to leave Nurse Brown, that on the day of my discharge I hid in a broom cupboard, in the childish belief if they couldn’t find me they would let me stay in the children’s ward with Nurse Brown. The day before dad had explained to me that we had a new home and that‘s where I would be going to live when I left hospital. He explained that we had moved to Glencairn to be near his family, so that our grandmother could help look after us. We all loved my grandmother dearly and although I was grief stricken at the thought of leaving Nurse Brown, I was also excited at the thought of living in a new home and being surrounded by my grandparents and cousins. When I had first gone into hospital we had lived in a mixed area of the city and spent as much time with our Catholic family on mum’s side, as we had with dad’s family. When mum and dad had first parted dad forbade any of mum’s family from visiting me in hospital and as a result when they parted for good we were never to meet any of our Catholic relatives again. The division in my family reflected the religious segregation that was ripping Northern Ireland apart. At four years old my political and religious destination was decided, as I left the children’s ward and headed home to my new life without mum in Glencairn.
Glencairn was a violent, ultra loyalist estate in the West of the city built in the sixties and was controlled by the UDA, the largest protestant paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. The estate is cut into the mountains and is surrounded by glens and forest and from the top you can look down over Belfast City, with the giant cranes Samson and Goliath dominating the horizon of the east of the city. On my first day home I fell in love with Glencairn and I knew immediately that I would like living there. Previously we had lived in a built up area of Belfast and now I was surrounded by vast open spaces and fields and mountains as far as the eye could see. There was only one road into Glencairn and due to this isolation it became a dumping ground for loyalist murder squads
Our new house was on the Forthriver Road, half way up the estate and two minutes walk from the local and only shopping complex in Glencairn, which was made up of a VG , a Chinese takeaway , paper shop , a wine lodge and a UDA drinking club called Grouchos, which dad worked in. Home for us was a ground floor house in a two story maisonette, with two bedrooms between five of us. It was a bit cramped and when I first came out of hospital I got to sleep with dad in his double bed and the others shared the other room. But we were all happy and I was excited about all the sudden changes in my young life. Just facing our house was St. Andrews church, which was to play a huge role in my future life,
Granny and Granddad lived just around the corner from our place and Granny practically lived in our house as she helped dad look after us. About 10 minutes away from our place, at the top of the estate dad’s two younger brothers and their wives and children lived. Like a lot of deprived area’s of Belfast, Glencairn was a tribal community and the Protestant people of the estate stuck together through thick and thin with their hatred of their Catholic counter parts throughout Belfast and Northern Ireland with a passion.
But the best thing for me was dad’s dog Shep, a temperamental Alsatian, who terrorised the area. We quickly became inseparable and before long we were the best of friend’s. After unpacking my things and settling me in, Dad and Granny called me into the front room and asked me to sit down. They explained that mum had gone away and that I would never see her again. If anyone were to ever ask where she was, I was simply to say she had died and leave it at that. Also from then on I was to call Gerard David and Mary Margaret. Due to the ultra Loyalist nature of Glencairn and the people we now lived amongst, all traces of our Catholic heritage and mum had to be eradicated from our past and we were told never to mention mum or her family again. This was done also for our own safety, because had the truth been known we would have been ostracised and picked on.
Within a short space of time I had really settled in and for the first time in my short life I was spending a lot of time with dad’s side of the family and I was getting to know my brother and sisters properly. Due to my leg, I got to sleep with dad in his huge double bed and every night he would carry me upstairs because, due to my caliper’s I was still unable to get up them by myself. Whist I had been in hospital I was surrounded by other children in wheelchairs, plaster and caliper’s and I had thought nothing of it. But now back at home with all those trees and never ending fields I began to feel self conscious about my caliper and the way I walked. When I had to visit the physiotherapist I pushed myself as hard as possible in my efforts to strengthen my leg muscles, so I could climb trees and run with the other kids. But I was getting stronger everyday and within a year of leaving hospital I could walk and run unaided, although I was to have a limp for the rest of my life and suffer multiple fractures due to the weak bones in my bad leg.
As the weakling of the family I got special attention from Dad and my Grandparents and during my first few months at home dad took a lot of time off work as a gardener to look after me and help me settle into my new life. Dad had always been a special person in my tiny world , but now that I was home and spending so much time with him , he soon became the centre of my universe and I must have been a right nuisance as I followed him around like a love sick puppy getting under his feet all the time. Within a few weeks after coming home I was enrolled in the local school, Fernhill which was just behind our home on the perimeters of the park and glens. I was lucky in that aspect that my sisters and brother and all my cousin’s attended the same school and from my first day there I loved every minute I spent there. After school we would all head off to the vast Glencairn park and when we got bored with playing on the swings or climbing trees we would go down the glen to the river and play for hours following the river as far as we could and catching rainbow trout with pieces of string attached to branches and our bare hands. It was an idyllic place to grow up and had it not been for the absence of mum and the madness going on around us, it could have been the perfect childhood.
Before moving to Glencairn I had not been aware that Dad, along with his brother was a member of the UDA. This was nothing out of the ordinary, as most of the adult men and many of the women in Glencairn and the surrounding areas were members of one of the many loyalist paramilitary groups. The UDA played a very active role within the community and if someone had a problem that needed solving or were short of cash and needed a loan they would turn to the UDA. Like a lot of the paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, the UDA were looked upon as protectors of the people they governed. Although he was a member of the UDA, like many others dad did not get involved with the military actions of the active units and was a pacifist who hated violence. He had been a practising Christian for most of his teenage years.
Dad played a very active role within the UDA and apart from running the local UDA club, Grouchos, he was responsible for setting up and running the Glencairn Accordion band. From my point of view this was excellent. My sisters and cousins were all members of the band, the younger ones played the triangle or symbols and then like my sisters Margaret and Jean, working their way up the ranks until they were taught how to play the accordion. The band was the pride of Glencairn and won many competitions throughout Northern Ireland. They practiced on Thursday nights and I use to go with dad up to the practice hall at the top of the estate and sit mesmerised in the corner, surrounded by 40 females of various ages. There was one girl who played the accordion and I feel in love with her the first time I set eyes on her. Of course she never knew as the girls went through the rehearsals, playing various loyalist tunes and anthems, I would sing along and pretend to be the leader of the band and march up and down the hall. The girls’ found this absolutely hilarious and in order to gain some control back, dad would tell me off and I would have to sit quietly in the corner again, until a personal favourite of mine was played and I would be off again. During the protestant marching season and the build up to the 12th, the most important day in the loyalist calendar, the band was hired to march with various orange lodges throughout Northern Ireland. On the day of the march our house would be in complete chaos as my sisters and dad got themselves dressed in the uniforms for the march. Granny would come round to help and gradually all our cousins would arrive with various instruments and get in some last minute practice. All the members of the band would meet outside the shops and a large crowd always gathered to see them off. I would almost be bursting with pride as they all fell in together and led by dad would start marching down the Glencairn Road towards the meeting point on the Shankill Road. David and I would follow the band down to the bottom of the road and wave them off before heading home for a snack and then out to play until tea time. The band would normally arrive back in the estate between six and seven and we would wait eagerly near the Road until we could hear the distant sound of them approaching and rush to greet them. When we finally got home granny would prepare dinner and after eating we would all sit down and watch telly, exhausted by the day’s events.
At this stage of my life I was as happy and normal as an eight –year old boy could be in my circumstances and was blissfully unaware that my life was so different from others. Life with dad and the others was a happy life and I now had a routine to my life that was missing when I was in hospital. I still occasionally thought of Nurse Brown and missed her, but I was to see her again in the not too distant future. On Tuesday David and I went to the BB and Sunday school on Sunday’s. Although I really believed that god had created the earth and sacrificed his only son for the good of mankind, my god had become a Protestant god and I did not love my Catholic counterparts. Reverend Lewis, our vicar, was a patient and tolerant man but he occasionally became exasperated at our hardcore Protestant approach to religion and tried hard to teach us the concept of love, not hate.
Although dad did go to church himself it was expected of us kids to attend and religion played a very important role in my early life and teenage years. Also I think dad liked to get us all out of the house for a while, so he could have some peace and quiet time to himself and a rest from looking after us. Sometime’s dad would be on sentry duty outside the UDA club and David and I would go and visit him on the way home. In these early years I used to think of mum only occasionally and once when I asked granny about her she made it clear that mum was gone forever and I was not to mention her again and forget all about her. So I did exactly that and pushed mum to the back of my mind and got on with my new exciting life in Glencairn.
One day after weeks of anticipation Margaret’s cat Smoky give birth to a little of five kittens. We were all allowed into Margaret’s bedroom to watch the birth, including dad’s dog; my best friend Shep, who was told off a few times by Smoky for getting a little too close to the action.
After letting David, Shep and I have a supervised look at the five kittens Margaret banished us from the labour ward, as she needed to spend time alone with her five new charges. I was very thoughtful and to be honest jealous of Margaret having five brand new kittens to her name and I wanted some for myself. There was obviously no quick way for me to find five brand new kittens for myself, so I decided there and then that Shep would have to give birth to five puppies for me before the day was out. The major problem there was that Shep was a he! This bit of fundamental biological necessity wasn’t going to put me off.
After a quick strategy plan with David we headed to our secret den in the park, with an unexpected Shep in tow. My plan was a simple one, I needed a miracle and I was going to ask God to help. Reverend Lewis had instilled in us a firm believe that if you wanted and needed something bad enough god would answer your prayers. Surely god and baby Jesus in their wisdom would recognize the importance of me having five puppies for myself before the end of the day. When we got to the den Shep was more than happy to lay down on the grass and rub his belly and wait for the miracle that god was about to perform. I had little knowledge of how kittens were born and how miracles worked, but I was not to be put off. After a chat with David and stroking Shep’s belly with what I felt was a miracle stroke, I lead David behind a nearby bush, sank to my knees and began a marathon prayer to god and Jesus, outlining the desperate importance of Shep giving birth and me having my puppies. Needless to say nothing happened and after about an hour David and Shep were beginning to give me strange looks and were obviously bored and becoming alarmed at my enthusiasm for the lord’s intervention and after a while I too got bored and disillusioned and decided to throw the towel in… for now at least. It was obvious to me that god in his wisdom had decided not to grant me a miracle today but this did not diminish my faith and I would continue to seek gods help in all matters big and small.
PROUND TO BE A PROD
By 1972 ,when I was 6 years old I had all but forgotten or at least suppressed my early years with mum and her Catholic side of the family. I started to become very aware of the fact that I was Protestant and that the Catholic people of Northern Ireland were my enemies. The troubles were reaching fever pitch as the IRA waged a savage war against the British government and Army. Various loyalist paramilitaries groups fought a brutal war against the IRA, Catholic populations and each other. To be Protestant in Northern Ireland was akin to being British in an occupied state and the Protestant people were fiercely loyal to their British roots and despised the IRA and all republicans for their unjust war against the British crown. Whilst the Protestants’ clung to their British sovereigntry and took pride in the union, their Catholic counterparts felt abandoned and 2nd class citizens in a unionist run state. An attack on the crown was an attack on the Protestant people of the North and the Protestant paramilitaries waged an indiscriminate war against the IRA and the Catholic population. Many innocent Catholic’s and Protestant’s became targets of psychopathic sectarian murder squads. Sectarian murder was almost a daily occurrence and the killings on both side perpetuated the hatred between the two ever-warring communities.
The two tribes of Northern Ireland view each other with suspicion and hatred and the death toll mounted with the blood of mainly innocent people. The grief of their families and communities fuelled the hatred. By the time I had reached my ninth birthday I was deeply proud of my Protestant heritage and took pride in the culture and traditions of the Protestant way of life. Like the vast majority of my peers I hated and mistrusted the veil Catholics and their IRA godfathers, who were responsible for the ongoing war in Northern Ireland. The view that the Protestant paramilitaries only existed to protect us from the IRA was universally accepted and in every area of my day-to-day life I was reminded that I was a Loyalist and therefore all Catholics were the enemy. But somewhere deep in my mind a little voice kept reminding me that my mum was a Catholic and this thought disgusted me. I felt I had a dirty little secret and had to hide it from everyone. This knowledge developed into hatred and before long I had rejected all feelings and emotions I had held for my mother and she became a dirty fenian in my childish mind. This was to gradually change as I grew older and I began to realise that my Catholic counterparts were really no different than me. Besides my mother was a Catholic, so therefore they couldn’t all be bad, could they?
Even the innocence of assembly in school was dominated by the divisions between us Protestants and our Catholic counterparts and hatred bred unabated. During morning assembly when it came to hymn singing, as the whole school was gathered in the presence of god, the service would turn into a vocal protest against the IRA and all things Irish. We hated the Irish and anything to do with them. When Mr Wilson, the bald headmaster stood to take assembly a silent anthem was sang among all those present.
Our wee school’s a good wee school: it’s made of sticks and plaster
The only thing wrong with it, is the baldly headed master
He goes to church on Saturday: he goes to church on Sunday
To pray to god, to give him strength
To put up with us on Monday
Even the words to a classic assembly hymn took on a very different meaning to us and further underlined our hatred of the IRA and all things Irish.
Give me bullets in my gun, keep it firing
Give me bullets in my gun I pray
Give me bullets in my gun and we’ll shoot them everyone
The members of the IRA
Sing Osanna, Sin Osanna…………
Whether Mr Wilson knew or cared what we were singing was never clear to me, but I do know he was a timid little man and always looked about nervously when he had to address the assembly. At one time a rumour spread around the school that he might be a Catholic and some of the older children took to calling him names behind his back and spreading rumours about him. On reflection this was probably why he always looked so uncomfortable.
One day after school David, Shep and I were playing on the hill outside our house when we heard a commotion coming from the direction of the shops. We quickly legged it down the hill and made our way in the direction of the noise to see what was going on. A large crowd were gathering around a woman and there was a lot of shouting and shoving and the woman who was the centre of attention looked very distressed and was crying and screaming. A couple of men dragged the woman to a lamp post on the front of the road and as she screamed, one of them produced a rope from somewhere and she was tied to the lamp post. The crowd had now worked themselves into frenzy and people were pushing and shoving each other as they verbally abused the woman and spat at her. Suddenly a UDA man stepped forward with a pair of scissors cut off most of her hair and threw it on the ground beside her feet. Before I knew what was happening a tin of red paint had appeared from somewhere and thrown over the woman and someone had produced a bag of feather’s which were thrown over her head and body and stuck all over her. When the crowd had finished someone stepped forward and placed a piece of cardboard on string around her neck with the words “Fenian Lover” painted in large red paint. Although I didn’t or couldn’t comprehend it at the time her only crime was that she had been seeing a Catholic and in the environment we now lived in this was a capital sin. The Catholics were our sworn enemies and to cross the religious barrier carried brutal consequences. Tar and Feathering of those who transgressed the rules was a common accordance in the estate and to the vast majority of people living there, it was an accepted part of life and a just punishment. Gradually the crowd began to move a away and David, Shep and I moved back a little and stared at the woman and in our childhood innocence we found the whole thing very exciting and were completely oblivious to the brutality of it all. We watched with anticipation as the crowd started to disperse and after someone had untied and released the woman, she hurried off and like red Indians we waiting for a few minutes and then followed the trail of red footprints straight to her front door and the agony that dwelled behind it.
As a child it seemed like harmless fun to me and the others, but the injustice of it still echoes through my mind and I knew that it wasn’t right. But I was living among the ultra loyalist ghettos of west Belfast and I had to toe the line. These were my people, weren’t they and to be different raised suspicion and there was no way I could ever reveal that my mother was a catholic and I was a dirty little half Fenian.
The Glorious 12th
Like the vast majority of Protestants in Northern Ireland apart from my Birthday, Christmas and our family holiday to Ballyferris, the 12th of July was the biggest and most important day of the year. In 1663 the Protestant King Billy defeated the Catholic King James at the Battle of Boyne and changed the course of Irish history forever. Three hundred years later on the 12th of July every year Northern Ireland came to a standstill as the Protestant majority took to the streets and celebrated the most sacred day in the Protestant calendar. As a child I loved the whole 12th experience and counted the days down until the great day arrived. For weeks before the 12th all the children, with the help of adults would gather all sorts of burnable material for the bonfire that would be lit the night before, to signal the beginning of the celebrations. After school we would rush home, have something to eat and head of in the hunt for wood and whatever else we could find that would burn. Sometimes there would be dozens of us going back and forth to the gel carrying whatever we could find and placing it on the ever growing bonfire in the middle of the square. In Glencairn alone there would be about five or six bonfires and it was always very competitive to see which area could collect the most wood and have the biggest bonfire. Competition between the various parts of the estate were fierce and as the eleventh grew closer, the older boys would be allowed to stay out all night with suitable adults and guard the wood from raids from those at the top or bottom of the estate. As the day grew closer, the excitement was almost tangible and in the early evening sunshine we would gather around the ever-growing tower of wood and play until darkness. There was always a hunt, the command centre and if we were lucky the older boys would let us go inside and wait until they returned from another hunt for wood. One day when there was only myself and a few of the other younger children guarding the wood , the boys from the top of the estate came charging through the square in a bare faced raid on our precious wood. There were only about five of us and there was about fifteen of them and they were all older than us and there was little we could do but stand by and watch as they made off with their precious bounty. Taking control I told David to run as fast as he could and find the rest of our gang. Picking up stones from the ground I began pelting the enemy with missiles. The others soon joined in and before long the enemy had to duck and hide as we threw everything we could find at them. But we were well out numbered and it was only a matter of time before they had over powered us and decided to take me prisoner, as I seemed to be in charge.
Panic and terror washed over me as I was lead away to the enemy camp at the top of the estate. To add insult to injury a boy named Y forced me to help him carry a door stolen from our bonfire. I was threatened with a dig in the face if I tried to run away or do anything stupid, so I decided self preservation was the best course of action and was a model prisoner. As we marched in single file towards the top of the estate and the enemy bonfire, I wondered with dread what fate awaited me when we arrived there. A few weeks before John Jackson had also been captured in a raid and when he was finally set free he had a black eye and a busted lip. As I marched on all sorts of thoughts of pain and torture were going through my mind, when suddenly I heard the sound of running feet and raised voices. As I turned I was delighted to see my brother and about ten of our gang running towards us. Panic set into the enemy as they realized what was happening and some of them dropped what they were carrying and fled. Before I knew what was happening my rescuers had caught up with us and a massive fight broke out between the two warring sides. I dropped my end of the door I was carrying and jumped on Y terrorising him with a blood curdling scream that rose from deep within me. I was free! The noise was deafening as the two sides fought a running battle, but reinforcements had arrived from our gang and before long we had beaten the enemy into retreat. When they had all fled, we gathered up our stolen wood and sang as we made our way back to our camp.
I was a hero and that night guarding the bonfire I wallowed as all those present praised my heroic deeds of the day and I now had access to the hut whenever I liked.
As the great day drew closer our house was always in a state of complete chaos. Dad was busy making sure everything was ready for the bands biggest and most important march of the year. There were over forty people in the band and they all had to have uniforms that fitted perfectly and instruments that were at the peak of their working year. While dad got on with that, Granny took us down town and rigged us out with new clothes and shoes for the big day. Image was everything and regardless of how scruffy and dirty we looked the rest of the year, on the 12th of July we would be immaculately turned out. Granny had an old friend called Isaac who lived in Ballysillan and although he was half blind, deaf and always drunk, he had in his day been a competent barber and Granny saw no reason not to continue sending me and David over to Isaac whenever a hair cut was in order, even though he had been retired for over thirty years. Besides he only charged £1.50 and as money was always tight it made perfect sense. Unfortunately for us he would give us a cut that would have shamed a corpse and eventually I came up with the idea that we should cut each other’s hair and pocket the money for ourselves.
These plans went well for a few months until one-day granny give us the money to go and get our hairs cut. When we got back, Granny was stood by the door waiting for us, which was most unusual and asked us had Isaac cut our hair? When we answered yes, she asked us how he was. By now we were both starting to get a bit suspicious and nervously answered ok. How were we to know that he had died the night before from a sudden heart attached and was now in the morgue having the final hair cut of his life. Needless to say Granny went ape and we got a good thumping for the lies. From that day on Granny personally escorted us to the barbers and watched with a critical eye as we had our hairs cut.
As the 12th grew closer and closer there was always an atmosphere of excitement and anticipation whilst everyone counted the days down. The various bonfires were now mountains of burnable material that towered high above the houses and flats that surrounded the area. Apart from the hundreds of bands and orange lodge’s from Northern Ireland that would be marching on the day, dozen’s more would travel over from Scotland, Mainland England and as far afield as Canada & Australia. This was the most sacred day in the Loyalist calendar. Loyalist’s from across the world would make the pilgrimage back to Northern Ireland to celebrate their culture and age old traditions. Even at nine years old I felt a tremendous sense of pride and loyalty and passion at the Protestant culture and traditions that governed my daily life in Loyalist West Belfast. I was no different from any other child from a working class Protestant family in Northern Ireland. Although unlike my peers I had a secret Catholic mother.
Like all other Loyalist areas of Belfast and throughout Northern Ireland Glencairn was awash with Loyalist flags, red, white and blue bunting, murals and countless houses had Union Jacks and Red Hand of Ulster flag’s flying proudly from the front. As the twelfth of July approached this visual proclamation of Protestant pride took on a new meaning and the paving stones would be painted red, white and blue whilst almost every house in the estate flew a Loyalist or Protestant flag of some description. As a child this added to the sense of excitement for me and I took this as a sign of the glorious party that everyone would take part in to celebrate the twelfth.
When the 11th of July finally arrived Granny would come round to our house first thing and sort dad and us all out and make sure we had enough food to see us over the holiday period. We would be almost bursting with excitement and as soon as breakfast was over, David, Shep and I were out the door and heading towards the bonfire, where we would meet up with our mates and spend the day collecting last minute material for the fire and generally playing around. As evening approached adults would gradually start to gather around the bonfire and the celebrations would get in to full swing. Loud Loyalist music would be blaring from various houses around the square and as the night wore on more and more people would gather and the whole square came alive with the sound of laughter and people enjoying themselves. Everybody took part in the celebrations and the whole community mucked in to make sure the occasion was really special and a night to remember. Local women would prepare loads and loads of food for the party and this would be distributed throughout the day to anyone who needed a bite to eat. As the evening wore on the music got louder, the adults would become very loud and funny as the drink kicked in and as darkness engulfed Belfast the time to light the children’s bonfire would arrive. Finally when everyone was in place, to cries of delight from the gathered crowds, an Effie of the pope was placed on the top of the bonfire. On this night more than any other, the two communities of Northern Ireland were divided more than ever, as the Protestant majority noisily celebrated its supremacy over the Catholic minority. Surrounded by all my family and friends I watched in awe as the bonfire was lit and the flames, slowly at first, then faster licked their way up towards the top and the pope. As the flames grew higher and higher and finally reached the pope and engulfed him in flames, screams of joy rang out through the summer’s nights and echoed around the estate and Protestant Northern Ireland. Shouts of encouragement egged the flames on until finally the pope disintegrated in front of our eyes and we all took great joy from the fact the he was obviously suffering a terrible death.
As grew older & wiser my hatred of the pope and all things Catholic diminished
We had killed and burned to cinders the father of the hated Catholic Church and her people and we sang and yelled with pleasure as the ritual the stirred in us. As the fire burned the crackle of the wood and the spit of the flames filled the air and children would dance round the fire, laughing and singing with the adults until it was time for bed. Eventually Granny would come and find David, Shep and me and bring us home in protest to bed. As soon as we were settled down she would go out into the square again and David and I would climb out of bed and watch from our bedroom window, the antics of the drunken adults as they sang and danced the night away around the burning bonfire.
First thing next morning Granny would be round at the crack of dawn and yell for us to get up as she busied herself making everyone a full Ulster Fry and getting us ready. Before long the house was in complete chaos as Granny washed and fed us and made sure we were smartly turned out for the day. As the morning wore on members of the band would arrive for last minute preparation and before long the whole street was out and about, as the band nervously got in a few last minutes of practice. At about eight thirty the whole band would start to gather outside the shops and take up their places. By now the route out of the estate was lined with hundreds of people, regardless of age or hangovers, who had come to see them off. When everyone was in place dad took up his position at the right of the procession and after one last check shouted, “March” and they would strike up a tune and begin to march. Every year a loyal crowd of followers would fall in beside them and accompany them on the 26 mile march to the field. Much to my annoyance I was too young to be allowed to go with them and I longed for the day when I would be old enough. As we stood on the kerb watching them go my heart was full of pride as I watched dad in his uniform lead them down the Road and out of the estate. When they were out of sight we would all travel down to Ormeau Road, where hundreds of bands and Orange men would meet before making their way to the field. Tens of thousands lined the route and as a child it seemed to me the whole world had gathered to celebrate with 12th of July. Our family always sat outside the garage on the lower Ormeau road and watched as hundred of bands, of all shapes and colours, lead thousands of bowler hatted Orangemen and women to the field.
Throughout Northern Ireland dozens of similar parades were taking place, but the march in Belfast was always by far the biggest and the most important of the day. We watched with mounting excitement as various bands passed and waited with baited breath for dad’s band to come into view, so we could cheer them on.
Each band would be attached to an Orange lodge that marched in front of them all the way to the field. They all had a unique uniform that extinguished them from the other bands marching. The hardcore Loyalist and paramilitary flute bands always got the loudest cheers and when a talented leader came into view everyone watched with nervous anticipation as he done various tricks with his pole, flinging it high into the sky, before catching it on the way down and immediately throwing it over his neck or under his legs before going into an routine.. Although dad’s band was an accordion band and we all took great pride in them being part of the parade, the flute and hardcore Loyalist bands were the crowds favourite and when they played a familiar tune huge cheers arose from the gathered crowd and people would join in and sing a long at the top of their voices until the band passed and another came into view. I always loved the sound of the Lambeg drums as they made their way to where we were standing and their mournful tunes drifted far over our heads and echoed through the streets of Belfast, as a warning to the Catholic people that today was our day and we were the masters of Northern Ireland. A sea of colour washed past as band after band marched by us on their way to the field. Apart from local and famous flute bands getting the loudest cheers , bands from the Shankill Road brought the loudest cheers of encouragement and joy , these were our people, come to our shore to support us in our never ending war against the IRA and Catholic people and we made sure they knew we appreciated their commitment. When dad’s band finally came into sight a huge cheer rang out from all of us and those among the spectators from Glencairn and the surrounding areas. As they passed us we would call dad’s name and when he and the other’s from the band noticed us they would all turn and salute us as they marched past. I almost burst with pride as I watched them move off and disappear in to the distance and always regretted that I was not going with them. The parade took about two hours to pass us and when it was all over, Granny would take us home. Exhausted from shouting and singing after dinner we would while away the time until 17:30, when we would go back to town to cheer them on their homeward journey from the field. When it was all over there would always be lots of parties in the estate as we clung desperately to the day and never wanted it to end. By the time we eventually got to bed I would be counting down the days until next year and the time I was old enough to take part in the parade and go all the way to the mystical field with dad and the rest of the band. Sleep came easily and I dreamt I was the leader of one of the more famous bands and the best leader in the whole wide world.
Every year on the 13th July the entire Chambers clan, aunties, uncles, grandparents, cousin’s, close friends and an assortment of animals would descend on Ballyferris Caravan Park to start the annual holidays. Ballyferris is a small seaside town on the east coast of County Down and like all other aspects of our life it was a Protestant town and a favourite destination for Protestants throughout Belfast and the Shankill road area. It was like a home from home and we all loved and looked forward to our yearly visits there. In the early years we never had a car and would travel down on the bus or train, depending on how much money we had. We must have looked like a Sunday school outing as 9 adults shepherded over a dozen kids through the centre of Belfast towards the train or bus station. When we finally arrived in Ballyferris we would all help unpack the luggage and settle into various caravans that stood side by side looking out towards the sea. There were that many of us that it must have looked as though we had taken over the whole caravan site and the other children always sought us out as they wanted to become part of our massive gang. There was a huge green in the centre of the site and at every opportunity two teams were rustled together and a football match would get under way. I used to love it if I got picked to play on the same side as dad and other members of the family and the rest of the family cheered on from the touchline. I dreamt that I was George Best, playing for Manchester United. When we weren’t playing football or flying our kites David, wee Sam , Pickle and me would go down to the beach in search of crabs and other sea life and if they were lucky to survive being captured , we would bring them up to the green and race them for packets of sweets and crisps etc. Once wee Sam and I got separated from the other as we climbed further and further over the rocks until we were right by the sea’s edge. We lost all sense of time as we cast our crab lines out as far as possible in our quest to catch the biggest crab. Gradually it started to rain and as it began to fall heavier and heavier we decided to pack up and head back to the caravan with our bucket of nervous crabs. As we turned to leave we noticed with mounting panic that the tide had come in and we were completely surrounded by the rising sea water. Our frantic cries finally caught the attention of a man walking his dog on the beach and before long the whole family and most of the other people staying at the caravan site were gathered at the edge of the water telling us not to move and the coastguards were on their way. Panic turned to excitement as a dot appeared in the distance sea and the coast boat came slowly into view. Wee Sam and I were pleased as punch as the boat drew up and the coastguard helped us into the boat. As the boat made its way to the beach we waved like royalty to the gathered crowds on the beachfront. Sadly our joy was short lived as when we arrived on the beach we got a severe ticking off from our parents and any other adult who felt like having a go. Not that we let this spoil our new found fame and at every opportunity for the rest of the holiday we boasted to our peers about our daring rescue by the coast guard from the jaws of certain death.
In the evening if the weather was good we would all gather as much food and drink as we could carry and go down to the beach to have a BBQ or picnic. We would collect wood from the beach and before long we would have a fire going and cook baked potatoes and roast sausages round the edge. As darkness rolled in we would sit around the fire singing Loyalist song and telling stories and before long I would fall asleep on dad’s knee and the next thing I knew I was waking up the next morning, in the caravan to the sounds and smells of Granny making breakfast. The best part of the whole holiday for me and the other children was when we would all be gathered up and went to Millisle , a seaside town about two miles away with a huge funfair. Sometime’s when the weather was really good we would walk to Millisle along the beach front and as it came into view we would race over the sand dunes in a scramble to see who could get there first. The day would be spent going from one ride to another and although I loved it all, I enjoyed the dodgem cars best of all and I drove like a kamikaze pilot as I crashed into dad and anyone else I could catch. Dad always seemed to enjoy our time at the funfair and he took part in loads of different games until he had won us all a present of some description. After exhausting ourselves on the rides we would join our grandparents and others on the beach for a picnic and if we were really lucky we were treated to fish and chips from one of the many chippies along the seas front. After dinner dad and his brothers would go for a pint in one of the local bars and we kids would amuse ourselves by burying each other in the sand and paddling by the water’s edge. It was always with great sadness for me when these days came to an end and I would feel heartbroken as we packed up our things for the bus back to the caravan site. I never wanted these holidays to end and when the day came that we would be travelling back to Belfast I would take long walks along the beach and through the caravan site and considered hiding until everyone else had left and I could stay there forever. Dad and the others were used to my wander lust and a search party was soon despatched to find me and bring me back into the fold. As the bus pulled away from the caravan site, taking us home, I fought to hold back my tears as I said a silent goodbye to Ballyferris and the bright lights of the fun fair.
Years later as a teenager, with my life in tatters and on the brink of suicide, I ran away from home and ended up back in Ballyferris. But this time I was all alone and it was mid winter, snowing, freezing cold and the funfair was in complete darkness. And my beloved father was dead.
Surrounded by Madness
Back in Belfast life went on as normal as possible in the circumstance’s and although my early memories of mum occasionally drifted into my mind, gradually mum became a vague memory of my childhood world. Once, a boy at school asked me where my mother was and I remember being embarrassed that I couldn’t answer him. That afternoon when I got home from school and Granny was cooking dinner I asked her where my mum was and she became quiet and asked me to go and fetch the others. When we were all sat down Granny told us that mum had died in car crash and she was now in heaven and we should pray for her. That was it, the only explanation we were ever given and from that day on no one ever really mentioned mum to us again. The few times I did mention her to the others I was told to be quiet and stop causing trouble and that is exactly what I done. There was a massive hole in my life and although deep down I had an instinctive feeling that mum wasn’t dead, I accepted the explanation given to us. In spite of everything I was a very happy child and loved living in Glencairn with dad and the others, surrounded by family and friends and the people of the estate, who were like an extended family. Like most inner city area’s of Belfast the community we lived in was very tribal and everyone was viewed as members of an extended family. The dividing line between the people of the estate was the paramilitary groups and which one you and your family were connected too. Most families in the estate were in one way or another connected to one of the main loyalist paramilitary groups; the UDA and UVF and other splinter groups.
Like the vast majority of people in Glencairn dad and his brothers were members of the UDA and as such were respected throughout the estate. Although the UVF had a stronghold on the Shankill and Woodvale Road, many members lived in Glencairn and on the whole the various paramilitary groups lived side by side, apart from when violent feuds would erupt between them and they would turn their attention from the war against the IRA and other republican groups, towards each other and an orgy of death and destruction would ensue as they sorted out their differences. Eventually as the death toll mounted, local community leaders, politicians and paramilitary leaders would intervene to end the blood bath and before long stability was restored and the loyalist paramilitaries would once again turn their attention to the IRA and other republican targets and continue the never ending war for control of Northern Ireland.
Although I was much too young to fully understand the complexities of the sectarian war raging around me, I understood it was a war between us and the Republicans and like everyone else I celebrated when news of another IRA or Nationalist assassination came through and commiserated when news of the death of a Protestant paramilitary or civilian hit the streets
Our lives were dominated by the brutal violence that surrounded us and we learnt to take the carnage in our stride. Everyday there was a bloody reminder of the destruction going on around us and although we were safe from the IRA in Glencairn, there was no escaping the madness that was going on around us. Day in day out the news reported the latest causalities of war, British soldiers blown to pieces by IRA bombs, innocent people wiped out, either victims because they had been in the wrong place at the wrong time or simply because of their religion. Whenever a local paramilitary died in action or became an assassination victim to a Republican death squad, the whole community would feel the loss and an atmosphere of hatred and the want for revenge would hang over the whole Loyalist community. The funerals were always massive affairs and the roads would be lined with thousands from all over Northern Ireland, as the Loyalist population gathered to pay their respects to a son of Ulster, who had died fighting for our right to control Northern Ireland and remain part of the UK.
After the murder victim had been buried the whole of Belfast would await apprehensively in the certain knowledge that revenge was imminent and the Catholic people of the city would brace themselves for the brutal retribution that would surely come, brought on by the actions of the IRA godfathers. It was a crazy cycle of violence, but I was part of it and accepted it as normal and like all the other children around me, I longed for the day I was old enough to take up arms and join the war against the enemy, the IRA and their Nationalist supporters.
But even from an early age I felt sympathy for the many innocent Catholic’s killed by the more extreme Loyalist groups. I knew deep down that I was different, but didn’t yet know why.
Like most of the families on the estate we were living on the bread line and relied heavily on state hand-out’s to subsidise the little dad brought in through various temporary casual work. He done everything from gardening to working as a hospital porter and although we never had much, we never seemed to go without and at Xmas and birthdays we always received loads of presents. All our school uniforms were paid for by government grants and we were always on free lunches at school, which meant that we would have to queue up outside the dinner hall and wait until we were giving blue tickets which entitled us to a free lunch. Not that this bothered me at all; I was the same as 95% of the other kids who attended the school.
Although my education had been and would continue to be punctuated by my time in hospital, I really enjoyed primary school and when I look back these were among the happiest days of my young life. In the school pecking order I was neither bully nor victim and due to the size of my family and their connections I was normally left to my own devices. That’s not to say I was never involved in scraps or anything, but the few times I had come up against one of my peers I had handled myself well and word got out that I was not an easy target and it was best to leave me alone.
One day my cousin Wee Sam and I were mucking about in the school playground and as I was chasing him he accidentally knocked into Jimbo, who was one of the best fighters in our year. Although Wee Sam was also a good fighter, he rarely went looking for trouble and he tried his best to defuse the situation. But Jimbo was having none of it and a scuffle broke out between them. Before the teacher had time to pull them apart, Wee Sam had caught Jimbo a stinging blow to the right hand side of his face and knocked him flying. Needless to say this really pissed Jimbo off and as he was making his way back to the classroom he let everyone know that this was not the end of the matter. As the afternoon wore on word quickly spread room the school that Jimbo was going to beat wee Sam up after school and a buzz of anticipation filled the air, as the hour grew nearer.
I found all this rather exciting and quickly promoted myself to Wee Sam’s manager and I let it be known that Sam would have Jimbo a fair dig at the back of the park after school was out. I took Sam’s silence and lack of enthusiasm as his way of preparing for the fight and arranged to meet him at the school gates at 3:15. By three o’clock it seemed the whole of the school was talking about the fight and when the bell finally rang, crowds of children started making their way to the appointed area. I waited for Sam for ages by the gate and when he failed to turn up I decided that he must have already made his way there and I sprinted to the woods as fast as I could, in case I missed any of the action. When I got there it seemed there were hundreds gathered and I scanned the crowds searching for Sam, but he was nowhere to be seen. At the centre of the gathered mass I could see Jimbo pacing up and down like a caged animal and for a moment I thought it might be better if Sam didn’t turn up, in case he was seriously injured.
As more and more time passed and there was still no sign of Sam the crowd began to get restless and I began running out of excuses for Sam’s absence. Suddenly to my horror I heard someone from the crowd suggest that as Sam wasn’t here I should fight Jimbo instead, because I was Sam’s cousin. Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather and before I had time to argue my case, the crowd were warming to the idea and some were actually starting to bay for my blood. As I stared among the crowd for Sam or a friendly face all I could see was a mass of blood thirty spectators who had come to see a fight and they didn’t really care who fought, as long as they got the entertainment they were expecting.
Suddenly I felt a hammer like blow to the face, followed by a quick punch in the stomach and before my brain had time to register what was happening Jimbo was all over me like a rash. I don’t know where I found the strength, but through the cheering of the crowds I clambered back to my feet and started ducking and diving to avoid the raging bull in front of me. I was not very happy with the situation I found myself in , but there was no way I was going to let someone kick the shit out of me. Gradually I began to fight back and before long we were rolling all over the place and I was starting to hurt him as much as he was hurting me. He was the dirtiest fighter I had ever come across, he pulled my hair, nipped my neck as he straddled me on the ground, which was very painful , gorged his fingers in my eyes and squeezed my balls. I don’t know how I survived all that, but suddenly I was on top of him, punching him in the face and sides and banging his head on the ground.
Eventually we both became exhausted with the toll the fight was taking on our bodies and when someone from the crowd suggested we call it a draw, we both agreed and the battle came to an end. I don’t know if the crowd was getting bored with the fight or the shear brutality of it was starting to get someone them worried , but we were both grateful for a way out and took it. It was a brutal fight for two nine year olds and I still remember every detail of it. Such was the impact of the fight that from that day on my profile among my peers went up considerably and I had respect throughout the school. As is often the case Jimbo and I became the best of friends afterward and remained so until an event in the future would bring us up against each other again, this time on a scale of brutal paramilitary violence.
Sadly years later Jimbo began a target of an IRA death squad and left a girlfriend and two young children to fend for themselves, another casualty of the brutal troubles.
As for Sam, the jammy git, his reputation remained in place when we found out that Mr. Wilson had detained him in detention, as a means of preventing the fight from taking place.
By 1974 the troubles had reached boiling point between the two religions and the whole of Northern Ireland were bracing themselves for civil war. The troubles dominated every aspect of our daily lives and every minute of every day we expected the whole of Belfast to explode into a savage bloodbath as the two warring communities vented their pent up anger and hatred of each other. Religious hatred was an integral part of Loyalist culture and we watched with mounting fury and hatred as the IRA and other Republican groups flooded the streets of Belfast with the blood the innocent and guilty alike. On one front the IRA were fighting a dirty war against the British government and army and on another front they were waging war against the Protestant paramilitaries and people. The whole of Belfast was a war zone and we became used to the presence of British soldiers lurking behind walls and lampposts and the ever-present whirling sound of helicopters, watching over us constantly from the sky. Bombs were going off almost daily and from the top of Glencairn we watched with disgust and hatred as the whole of the Belfast skyline was curtained with black smoke whirls, rising from the devastating actions of Republican bombs on the ground, as they tried to bomb both the British government out of Northern Ireland and the Protestant people into submission. At night we would lie in bed listening to it all and as the distant rumble of a bomb going of slowly crept its way towards us we would drift off to sleep. All over Belfast there were nightly riots, as Protestants and Catholics people fought hand –to-hand battles for control of Belfast and when the police and army came to try and restore order, the rage would be turned on them and the security forces would find themselves in the middle trying to keep the two tribes apart. We used to collect badges of the soldiers and compare them like triumph cards and after a riot we would go out and look for plastic bullets and other trophies left from the battle the night before. We were living in a war zone and we were on the front line.
One day on the way home from school David and I were walking past some derelict flats when we heard the unmistakable sound of a gun going off. Followed by a blood curdling scream. This was too good not to have a closer look and we both darted behind a wall and cautiously made our way to the sound of the action. When we got to a few feet of the sound we peered round the building and saw two local men that we knew running away and a third man on the ground rolling in apparent agony. Curiosity got the best of us and we came out of our hiding place and made our way towards the injured man. It was obvious from the two holes in his leg and blood on the ground that he had been shot. As we stood transfixed at the sight he became aware of our presence and slowly started to crawl towards us. As he got closer I recognised him as a local man and wondered what he had done.
“Call an ambulance” he pleaded with us.
“Why did they shoot you?” I asked suspiciously
“I don’t know”, he whispered through the pain, “go and call an ambulance…please”
Moving closer I could see the holes in his trousers and bits of red flesh hanging from the gaps, it was a right mess and I thought I was going to throw up.
“Does it hurt?” I asked
“Off course it fucking hurts, now are you going to call an ambulance or not?”
Before I could answer the sound of an approaching siren began to grow closer and I knew the ambulance was on the way. It was obviously a punishment shooting and no one got shot for nothing, so he probably deserved it. Also, it was normal procedure for a hit squad to call an ambulance for the victims, after they had carried out the punishment.
By now people had started to come out of their houses and by the time the ambulance arrived and started treating him, a crowd had gathered around the man as he lay wriggling on the ground. As usual the police weren’t far behind and they went through the routine of asking if anyone had seen or heard anything. But this was a formality , as they knew no one ever saw anything or spoke to the police and if anyone ever were to help the police , they would be dealt a far worse fate than a kneecapping victim, who would lucky if he ever walked again. The paramilitaries protected us from the IRA and dealt with local crime and punishment and the police were rarely involved in local disputes. We policed ourselves and the paramilitaries kept local crime under control.
When dad got home from that night he knew all about the incident and also that we had been there and he gives us a right ticking off. Although he was heavily involved with the UDA and local community, he tried his hardest to shield us from the brutality that surrounded our daily lives and protect us from the madness going on around us.
Shortly after the shooting incident I began to get severe pain in my left ear drum and after a visit to the doctors it was discovered that I had a perforated eardrum and would have to go back into hospital for another operation. For the first time in my life I wasn’t looking forward to going into hospital. Even being reunited with Nurse Brown in the children’s ward failed to cheer me up. During the past few months I had started thinking more and more about mum and frustrated at knowing anything about her, I began to dwell on the situation. I had never really missed mum before, well not that I could remember, but this stay in hospital was a turning point in my attitude towards mum. I remember one day at visiting time in the children’s ward, I felt jealous and empty as I watched the mothers and fathers of other children coming and going. Dad and the rest of the family visited me almost every day and I really looked forward to the visits, but something was missing and I gradually began to realise it was mum. Before long I was missing mum desperately, but due to the background of the situation I was too frightened and didn’t want to upset anyone in the family, to let them know how I was feeling. I just bottled it up inside, as I was to do for many years and took what comfort I could from Nurse Brown and the family. After I got over the operation I went home with a heavy heart and although I got on with my childhood, I more than ever was aware of the huge gap in my life that would never be filled. I was still going to church and bible studies and I tried to take as much comfort as possible that mum might be in heaven with God and Jesus and one day we would be together again. I was really mixed up emotionally at the time and when I was alone I often cried over mum’s absence in my life. Such was the stigma of mum in the family that I couldn’t even discuss her with my siblings, let alone with dad or granny. As a child I learned early on to hide my pain and I pushed the biggest pain in my life to the back of my mind in the hope that I would forget about it. But this was only a temporary measure and gradually, not having mum around began to have a profound effect on my childhood and it was to haunt me far more and more as my childhood went on.
Life went on as it always does and I learned to live with the pain and growing agony of not having mum around. Granny was a constant presence in our day-to-day lives and whenever we were sad or upset about something she was always there to offer love and support. Sadly for Granny, as David and I grew older some of the antics we were getting up to were threatening to give her a nervous breakdown. The local VG was a co-operative scheme, owed and ran by the people of the estate, with Reverend Lewis in over all control of the operation. One Saturday Granny drew up a weekly shopping list and sent David and I off to the VG with £20.00 in my pocket to do the shopping. On the way I had a brain wave. David and I would steal as much of the shopping as possible and keep the money we saved for ourselves. This worked brilliantly for the first few times and then disaster struck. On this particular day things had been going well until we got to the check out and I took a mad itch in my right leg. As I bent down to scratch it, to the shock of all those present a roll of black pudding appeared from my sleeve and slithered onto the floor.
As we were both led away to the manager’s office at the back of the store, clouds of shame began to quickly gather over me and the seriousness of the situation hit home. My panic turned to horror as I was pushed into Mr. Stewarts, the manager’s office and saw Reverend Lewis standing in the corner. After the check out girl explained what had happened Reverend Lewis turned to both of us and with a look of disappointment on his face, asked had we anything else on us. You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife as we both stood there in silence, dreading having to admit that yes, we did have more on our person and dreading even more having to lie to Reverend Lewis. “Well” said Reverend Lewis, “Do you have anything else?”. Unable to speak, I slowly nodded my head up and down and was relieved to see David doing the dame. We hadn’t actually admitted anything up to this point and our souls were still safe because we had not lied to Reverend Lewis .After a bit of persuasion we both began to remove items from our clothing and placed them on the desk, in full view of Mr. Stewart, (I’d never get a job in the VG now) Reverend Lewis and the check out girl. Anger turned to pity as David removed and placed a tin of corned beef, a small tin of beans with four sausages and two packets of chicken soup on the table. Out of my pocket I pulled a small tub of margarine, a packet of teabags and a bird’s eye strawberry flavoured trifle and placed them beside David’s things. When I had finished I stepped back and peered with bitterness at the offending items. Reverend Lewis and the others whispered among themselves for a while and then he turned and asked us to explain why we needed to steal food from the community shop.
“We were hungry Reverend” I ventured.
“I’m sure your Granny or dad would have given you something to eat, if you had asked them” said Reverend Lewis.
“Surely there’s no need to steal?”
I don’t know why I said it, but I heard myself saying that we had no food or money and had not eaten in five days. The moment I said it, I knew I had made a major mistake and the look of terror on David’s face confirmed this. After that things began to move quickly and before I knew what was happening we were in the car with Reverend Lewis on the way to Granny’s house. When we got there Granny was out somewhere and Reverend Lewis left a note on the window and drove us straight to his house where his wife made us a slap up meal, with strawberry jelly and ice cream for desert. We had just finished dinner and were settling down to watch cartoons, when we heard a knock on the door and a few minutes later Granny’s voice. as she spoke with Reverend Lewis in the hallway. Before we knew what was happening Granny had us out the door and dragged us all the way home screaming blue murder. We both got a clot round the ear and Granny was forever going on about how we had shamed her and everyone in the estate must be talking about her and saying she wasn’t looking after us right. Needless to say we never did get to do the shopping again and Granny never got over the shock of such a public humiliation.
Dad’s Death
It was around 1976 that it first came to my attention that dad was ill and he was getting sicker and weaker by the day. He had always been a heavy drinker and smoker, but this was normal where we lived and we never really thought anything about it or the health implications these habits would have on him. One day when dad was supposed to be working I got home from school and found Margaret, Jean and some of their friend’s standing outside the front door. When I asked them what they were doing they said that had arrived home from school and on entering the house had heard a strange noise coming from upstairs and they had fled the house.
Trying to act all brave in from of my sisters I causally moved into the house, making sure I left the front door open, in case I had to make a quick getaway. After a nervous look downstairs and not finding anything, I began to make my way slowly up the stairs. As I got to the top I became aware of a deep rasping sound growing louder and louder that stopped me in my tracks. I’d seen enough of Dr. Who to know the sound I heard wasn’t coming from a human and I flew down the stairs and out of the house as fast as my legs could carry me. When the girls finally caught up with me I confirmed that I had indeed heard the sounds and I thought it might be one of those monsters from Dr.Who. The others looked rightly shocked at my analysis of the situation and it was decided that we would call the police. Christine Russell’s mum was the only neighbour we knew who had a phone and while Margaret and the other’s went to make the call, David and I made our way back to the house, making sure we kept a safe distance between us and the front door.
Word quickly spread around the estate that we had one of those monsters from Dr. Who hiding upstairs and before long large crowds began to gather, in the hope of seeing some action. When the police arrived they asked a few questions before entering the house and slowly making their way up the stairs. Whilst we were all waiting about outside to see what happened, Granny arrived and after a quick chat with a neighbour she made her way into the house with the police up stairs. After a while Granny came out with one of the policemen and explained to us that it was dad in the house, that he was sick and would have to go to hospital. In the distance we could hear the sound of an ambulance rushing towards us and suddenly it wasn’t funny or exciting anymore. I watched with the others as dad was stretchered out and placed in the ambulance and taken to the hospital. By the time everyone had cleared, Aunty Anne, dads younger sister arrived and explained to us that dad was going to be ok, but he would have to stay in hospital for a few days and she would be staying with us whilst he was away.
Being so young I don’t think I fully understood the magnitude of the situation and as usual I just ignored the situation that was going on around me and got on with my life. After that first time, dad was in and out of hospital all the time and gradually he became more and more ill. I remember many evenings at home, dad would take these horrible, agonising fits and one of us would have to run to Christine Russell’s house to call an ambulance. This became almost natural to us, but it was always distressing to see dad suffering so much and be unable to do anything to help.
Gradually we all began to realize that dad was very ill, although none of us wanted to accept or believe that he might die. I had already “lost” my mother and surely God wouldn’t take my dad away also? Once when he was in hospital Margaret decided that we would all do up the garden for dad and plant some rose bushes. We all went to work and by the time dad got out of hospital, the garden was looking great and dad was really impressed with our efforts and monitored the progress of the rose bushes with us. I remember the last time Granny took me up to the hospital to visit dad, I was really shocked and upset at how bad he looked. He was thin as a rake and I remember the watch he had worn all the time on his wrist had slide all the way up his arm to his elbow.
I’ve still got that watch, but I’ve never been able to wear it and every time I look at it I see dad in hospital, all skin and bones and at deaths door.
Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was too young to understand the seriousness of how ill dad was, this was the last time that I would see my dad alive.
I wish I had told him how much I loved him and told him how much the others and I would miss him, how much we needed him and didn’t want him to die.
When I got home I went straight to my room and begged God to save my dad and not take him away from us. But as usual God wasn’t listening and fate was once again messing with my destiny and making my young life a misery.
One day when we got home from school, Aunty Anne was waiting for us and told us that dad had been taken to hospital again, but he should be home in a few days. The day he was suppose to come home arrived and we all busied ourselves tidying up and making the place as nice as possible for him. Someone had told us that dad would be home around three o’clock and when the time came we all went down and stood on the main road watching for the car that would bring him home. Three o’clock came and went, then four and by 5 o’clock we were all getting bored waiting around. Eventually a car did approach us and pulled up, but our relief turned to panic when we realised that only Granny and Granddad were in the back. As they got out it was obvious that Granny was very upset and had been crying. Granddad told us he was taking her home and for us to wait indoors and they would come to see us in a while.
Dad never did come home.
Later that night Granny and Granddad gathered us all in the front room and through tears told us that dad wouldn’t be coming home. She explained to us that dad had died and was now in heaven watching over us. From the moment I heard the news I was distraught with grief and numb to everything going on around me. Dad had been the one stable thing in our lives since mum had left and now we were being told that he had died and we would never see him again.
The pain was almost too much to bear and I kept praying to myself that somehow there had been a terrible mistake and dad was going to walk through the door at any minute. But the brutal truth of the matter was that I wasn’t dreaming and once again fate and chance had entered my life and left a trail of misery and destruction in their wake.
The week of the funeral was the worst and longest of my live and to this day I am still trying to come to terms with dad’s death and the consequences it had on all our lives. After the autopsy dad’s body was brought home and laid to rest in Granny’s front room. Endless people came to pay their last respects and the sound of crying drifted constantly through the house, reminding me of my huge lose. Since the moments dad’s coffin was laid out in the front room, Shep curled up underneath and didn’t move the whole time it was in the house, apart from going for a pee. It was almost as if he was guarding dad’s body and at night when we were sleeping upstairs in Granny’s room, we could hear him whinging softly to himself, as he kept his 24 hour vigil. On the second night we were all brought in to see dad and as I stood over the coffin, looking into his lifeless face, I was praying and willing for him to move and for me to wake up from this horrible nightmare. I don’t know how long I stood looking down at him, but I was completely numb with pain and vaguely remember breaking down in tears and someone leading me away from the room.
When the day of the funeral finally arrived Granny got us all up early and dressed us in new clothes she had brought us for the funeral. I still remember the green and silver dogtooth blazer I wore that day as if it was yesterday and how I hated that jacket. After the coffin had been removed from the house we made our way to the church and I remember being surprised that there were so many people making their way to the church and the main road to see dad off. In the church we took our seats in front of the coffin and suddenly Granny absolutely lost it and threw herself over the coffin, screaming and crying for her baby son. It was really heartbreaking to see Granny suffer like that, but I was so numb with grief that it hardly registered at the time. It had been decided that dad’s band would all attend the funeral and when they stood up and played Amazing Grace it seemed as if everyone in the church was crying. When the service ended dad’s brothers and close family and friends lifted the coffin onto their shoulders and carried dad out of the church and unto the main road, for his final journey. Dads younger, Uncle Sam had been let out of jail for the funeral and his guards respectively give him the freedom to carry dad’s coffin. As the cortege made its way down the Glencairn Road, David and I fell in behind it and we followed the coffin down the Forthriver Road.
Dad had been such an integral part of the community that the whole of Glencairn came out that day to see him off and people lined the whole route all the way out of the estate. I don’t remember much about the graveyard, apart from the fact that it was a beautiful day and I could hear birds singing against the background of people crying. After the burial everyone headed back to Granny’s house for the wake and I remember wishing that I was at home in bed and alone with my broken heart, instead of being surrounded by people talking about dad and the happy memories he had left behind. It was the longest night of my life, with various people coming and going all the time and although they might have been trying to be kind to us, I just wished they would all go home and leave me alone, so I could go to bed and try to begin and comprehend dad’s death and life without him.
Eventually Aunty Anne gathered us all up and brought us home, to our own empty house and eventually got us into bed. I still remember lying there in the dark and thinking over and over again:
Why you dad?
Why, why, why?
Surely if there really was a God, what possible reason would he have to let this happen to us.
Why would he let this happen to us, after everything else we had been through? I lay awake for hours tortured by the reality of what had happened and what the future now held for us without dad to protect us and mum being a distant memory.
Eventually I feel asleep from exhaustion and had a dream about dad that I was to have for many years after his death .In the dream I’m asleep in my bed and am woken up by the sound of dad gently calling my name. I begin searching the whole house for him and finally I realise that the voice is coming from the attic. When I get half way up the ladder, dads arm reaches down and helps me the rest of the way up. In the loft I notice that dads got a camp bed, a gas oven, kettle and it looks as if he has been here for some time. I ask him what he’s doing and tell him that I thought he was dead and I feel really happy now I know that he’s alive and well and still with us. Dad sits and talks to me for ages and when I ask him to come down and see the others he says he’s hiding and I have to keep it a secret from the others. The dream always ends with me crying hysterically for dad to come down from the loft with me and him reassuring me that everything would be ok. I would always wake up crying and upset and glace through the darkness towards the loft in the hallway, wishing the dream had been real.
The day after the funeral the reality of the situation hit all and we all dealt with our grief privately. Now that dad was dead there was the immediate problem of what was going to happen to us and where we were going to live. Aunty Ann had moved into the house and we all waited apprehensively to see what would happen to us. I remember thinking about mum and wishing she was there to pick up the piece and sooth our agony over dads death. Due to the fact that we were now orphans the social services got involved with the case and there was talk of us all going into a home. When we heard this we all prayed that it would never happen and in our childish innocence we hoped that they would let Margaret look after us, so we could all stay together.
This was never a realistic options as Margaret was only thirteen at the time and legally too young to look after us. Although we were all grief stricken at dad’s death, we really wanted to remain together as a family and we let Granny know this. Granny and the family pulled together and fought tooth and nail for the social services not to take us away from them and finally our future was decided. We were to be split up among the family in Glencairn. At least this meant we would still be living close together. Because Margaret was the oldest and closer to Granny and Granddad, she and David would go to live with them. Jean would go to live with dad’s brother Uncle Jim, his wife Maureen and my cousin’s Denise, Karen and Stephen, otherwise known as Pickle, at the top of the estate. I was going to live with Uncle Sam, Aunt Gerry (who was Maureen’s younger sister) and their children Wee Sam, Linda, Mandy and Joanne, on the Forthriver road. It was not a perfect solution and although we were all really upset that we were to be split up, at least we would all be living with members of the family and would see each other on a daily basis.
I was only 11 years old at the time and like the others had suffered a terrible life at the hands of fate and destiny, but there was one more tragedy just around the corner for me to deal with. Because I was so close to Shep, it was decided that he would come and live with me in Uncle Sam’s house. Since dad’s death Shep had refused to eat or drink and two weeks after the funeral he died one night in his sleep. The vet said that he had died of a broken heart and no one doubted this. There was so much misery in my life that I was almost to numb to mourn Shep’s death at the time. Beside’s I felt like I was also dying from a broken heart and I didn’t care whether I lived or died. I was 11 years old and I had lost the will to live.
Life without Dad
Although my little universe had been turned upside down and torn apart, I done what I had always done in a crisis and pushed things to the back of my mind and tried to get on with life. I thought of dad, mum and Shep every day and although the pain never left me, I gradually learned to live with it and was able to enjoy myself at times. I had always been close to my cousins, especially Wee Sam and I quickly settled into my new environment. When I had first arrived Uncle Sam was still in jail on UDA related charges, but I took to Aunt Gerry like a duck to water. I had always been fond of Aunt Gerry and although she was only my Auntie through marriage she had taken me in and from the moment I arrived she made me feel at home and treated me like one of her own children. I remember the first night I spent there and when it was time for the children to go to bed, my cousins lined up to kiss their mother goodnight before they went to bed. As I was unaccustomed to a mother’s love, I lingered in the background not quite knowing what to do. Before I knew what was happening, Gerry was motioning me over and kissed me like the others before sending us off to bed. This small gesture filled me with joy and I went to bed feeling almost happy and knew I was going to enjoy living here under the care of Aunt Gerry. But that night, as I lay awake in the bed I shared with Wee Sam, my heart was breaking with missing dad so very much and I just couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I would never see him again. I was still having the nightmare where he was still alive up in the attic and in the morning the reality of my situation tore my soul apart. On the other hand I was missing mum more and more and yet I had no one to turn too. Seeing my cousins surrounded by such love reminded me what was missing in my own life and I longed for mum to come and rescue us and take us away to build a family again.
In the months since dads death I had heard various rumours and snippets of conversation from the adults in the family and I had come to the conclusion that mum had not died in a car crash and was alive somewhere in the world. Although this information filled me with hope and something to cling too , I knew that I could never speak about mum to anyone , other than my brother and sisters and even then I was told to shut up and stop causing trouble. Although we were a very close family and I was as happy as I could be in the situation we were in, there was an unspoken rule that mum was never, ever to be discussed and so as usual I bottled it all up inside me and tried to make the best of what I had.
Also to my horror I eventually found out that mum definitely was a Catholic and this knowledge both shamed and enraged me. I was so very proud of my Protestant heritage and to learn that I was half Catholic added to the misery of my situation. The more I thought about it, the more disgusted I was with the situation. I felt I had a dirty little secret and if the truth was ever to come out I would be ostracised from my peers and the community I now belonged in. My hatred of Catholic’s increased tenfold and I became ultra Loyalist in my view and outlook to life.
Gradually I began to hate mum and thought less and less of her as I came to terms with the awful truth about how dad married a Catholic. How was I ever going to get over the shame of knowing that I had Catholic blood running through my veins. Through all this anger, shame and confusion in the back of my mind I knew I still loved and wanted mum, but things had become so complicated I was unable to deal with the situation and resolved to put it to the back of my mind and never think about it again.
At first Wee Sam and I got on brilliantly and spent every-spare minute together, getting up to all sorts of mischief. We were in the same year at school and after the bell went, along with David and Pickle we would head towards the glens and spend hours playing by the river and trying to catch the rainbow trout as they swam down river. Half way up the glen there was a natural bowl shaped area of the river called The Spoon and in the summer , we along with other children would strip off to our underpants and spend hours swimming and playing in the water. One day when we were swimming in The Spoon the water suddenly changed colour and started flowing a dead red colour. This frightened the life out of us, we all thought it was blood and legged it out of the water as fast as our legs would carry us..
We ran home and told Aunt Gerry and although she couldn’t throw any light on the situation, she told us to keep away from the river for the time being which of course we ignored. About a week later, after school we all rushed up to The Spoon again and stood transfixed as we watched the river flowing a deep shade of purple. We all stepped back from the bank and pondered what might be making this strange event happen and came to the conclusion that it was a magic river, possibly evil and we should avoid it all costs. From that day on we renamed the river Rainbow River and every time we returned the water would be a different colour of the Rainbow River and remained a magical place.
Then one day months later we heard through the grapevine that the reason for the river changing colour was that there was a clothes factory further up the Glen and they had been fined for emptying their waste into the river. We all felt a bit sheepish about our earlier fears and before long we were once again spending large parts of our spare time swimming in Rainbow River.
Gradually Wee Sam and I began to clash and were constantly arguing and fighting with each other. Although I had no fear and wouldn’t let anyone pick on me, Wee Sam was a better fighter than me and although we fought constantly we never really hurt each other and soon made up after the latest scrap. Eventually Aunt Gerry got tired of our bickering and one day ordered us out to the front garden to sort out our differences once and for all. I remember that it was a summer’s day and swelteringly hot and we both took our tops off before getting laid into each other.
The fight was going well and a large crowd had started to gather around the garden to watch the action. Suddenly the crowds parted like the Red Sea and who should walk through, none other than Reverend Lewis. Telling the crowds the fun was over and to go back about their own business , he went had had a quiet word with an embarrassed Aunt Gerry, before giving me a severe look and telling me to behave myself if I wanted to get into heaven one day. Reverend Lewis always seemed to turn up at the most inappropriate times and that night in bed I prayed extra hard for God to forgive me and give me another chance to prove that I was worthy of a place in heaven. I sincerely believed in Jesus and looked forward to the day I would be reunited with Dad and Shep in heaven and we could spend eternity together. Every night before I went to sleep I would kneel at the bottom of my bed and say my prayers. I never forgot to mention the poor and needy and always asked God to send dad back so we could be a family again, but this was the one prayer that could never be answered and deep down I knew it was hopeless even asking God for this.
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Finally the day for Uncle Sam to be released from jail arrived and the whole family along with friends and acquaintances gathered to give him a welcome home party he would remember. All day long preparations were made for the night’s celebration and the house was awash with food and alcohol of every description. When Sam finally walked through the door a huge cheer rang out and after the greeting and hugs the party got into full swing. Although dad had only been dead a few months and the pain was still tearing me apart inside, I really enjoyed myself that night and for a while forgot about the state of my life.
Uncle Sam was dad’s younger brother and was well respected throughout the estate and surrounding areas. He was lovable rogue and with his swarthy good looks and mischievous manner all that knew him loved him and all the local women fancied him. Also, more importantly he was a Loyalist soldier and had served time for a cause he believed in.
All male members of the family looked up to Uncle Sam and we all wanted to be just like him when we grew up. That night we were permitted to stay up into the wee hours and when the adults were full of drink the talk soon turned to dad and I was proud to hear them all talk about what a great man dad was and how they all missed him terribly and wished things could be different. Although we were a very close family, we were typical of the area and emotions were something men never showed and that night I felt proud when I went to bed, knowing that dad’s memory would live long in this house and others were sharing my grief at losing him.
After Uncle Sam had settled back into life outside jail, his thoughts naturally turned to how he could earning a living and bring some money in for the family. Whilst in jail he had done a course in painting and decorating and on his release he let it become known around the estate that he was available for hire at a very reasonable rate. Before long the work started to come in and if he had a job at the weekend Wee Sam and I went with him and helped in any way he seen fit, which included cleaning up the mess behind him and making endless cups of tea. If we were really lucky and the owner of the house was out, Uncle Sam would sit chain smoking and watch us paint the bottom section of the wall to the best of our ability. At first he was making good money and Wee Sam and I were more than pleased with the few quid he give us after completely the job. After a while the work started to dry up and Uncle Sam pondered long and hard to come up with a new means of earning some money.
Suddenly one day he proclaimed that he was going to set up a door to door business selling firewood and half an half later the three of us were on our way to the forest behind the house , with a wheel barrel and a chain saw he had borrowed from a reluctant neighbour. When we had walk some way into the forest Uncle Sam stops, gazed around for a moment and before we knew what was happening shouted “ timber” as the tree first let out an agonising groan and thundered to the ground below. After Uncle Sam had chopped the tree into manageable sizes, wee Sam and I loaded the wheel barrel with as much as possible and taking a handle each swayed our way back to the house were we dumped the wood in the back garden and went back for more. Later that night we all gathered in the back garden and bagged the wood into bags , before setting off and selling it door to door around the estate. After a short time money was pouring in and we had established a large client basis throughout the estate.
Although what we were doing was highly illegal, we carried on oblivious to the laws we were breaking and chopped down trees on an industrial scale. In Glencairn and the surrounding areas we followed our own rules and pretty much ignored the laws of the land. Business was that good I was able to save enough money to buy myself a second hand chopper from the bike shop down the Shankill. All good things come to an end and one day as we were making our way to our favourite felling spot, a team from the forestry department apprehended us and Uncle Sam was read the riot act.
The game was up and we watched with shock as Uncle Sam shamelessly agreed to everything they were saying and promised never to do it again. Wee Sam and I were bitterly disappointed and begged Uncle Sam to chance h his mind. As we made our way home empty handed he explained that because he was out on licence, the last thing he need was the police paying him too much attention or he might end up inside again. What he said made perfect sense and Wee Sam and I reluctantly agree with him. “Besides, as Uncle Sam pointed out winter would soon be over and sales would dry up with the changing weather.
Another scheme Uncle Sam got me involved in was selling his UDA sweepstake cards. As a member of the UDA he was not only expected to pay a weekly donation or dues to the cause, he was also expected to help raise money for loyalist prisoners and their families. The UDA was run along very strict guidelines and had its own welfare department that raised and distributed money were most needed. This was done in a variety of ways, mostly illegal and generated huge sums of money for the organisation. At the weekly meeting sweep cards were handed out to all present to sell and most members would take £25.00 quid’s worth and sell then to their friends and family. As with anything he couldn’t be arsed to do it himself, he recruited Wee Sam and me.One Saturday he handed us a bundle of sweep stakes and told us if we sold them all he would give us two quid each, which sounded like a fair deal to me. After giving us instructions on what we were selling and how best to sell them and how much they coasted, he sent us of and told us not to return until they were all sold.
He would wait for us in community centre, he informed us solemnly as though he was getting the short end of the stick, when in fact we knew that he would be having a few pints and playing cards with his mates.
Equipped with the necessary information wee Sam headed to the top of the estate and I headed to the bottom and knocked on the first door I came to. After a moment or two a woman’s head appeared round the door and I immediately went into my pitch, which I had been working on for a few days and perfected on the walk down the Road.
“Excuse me misses, would you like to buy one of these?
You write your name, pick two numbers between 1 and 50 and if you win you win £25.00.
Price 20p a go,…
most people buy a sheet of five and its only £1.00 in total…….Oh and the profits go to the prisoners and their families “
“Ah…god love you love, thinking of the prisoners. Go on”, I’ll have two sheets she replied”
and I was in business.
I took this like a duck to water and before long I was outselling Wee Sam on an embarrassing g scale. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was a natural sales man and years later would have a successful career in London selling everything from life insurance to industrial chemicals, but much more of that later.
Eventually Wee Sam threw the towel in and I took over the whole operation. That’s not to say it was always easy. Lots of people turned me away, some were nice about it and others told me fuck off and never darken their door again. but even back then I was a natural sales man and the insults just rolled over my head and I apologised for interrupting them and made my way next door to a potential sale. It wasn’t long before I had built up a substantial client basis and when on the job I knew exactly which houses to call at and which were best avoided. For my efforts I got £2.00, which was duly spend on sweets and other treats I had promised myself.
As I pounded the Roads of Glencairn selling my sweep stakes the war raged on around me and like most people I took it in my stride. I took some pride in the face that I was contributing to the cause, by raising money for the prisoners. One morning when we were all getting ready to leave the house for school, there was a sudden commotion outside the front door and we all rushed into the front garden to see what was happening. There were loads of armed RUC personnel frantically running from door to door, evacuating the inhabitants into the field outside the community centre. Uncle Sam and Gerry gathered us all up and we went to join the dozens of other families milling about the field. After having a chat with one of the local leaders we heard Uncle Sam explain to Gerry that the IRA had planted a bomb under the car of one of our neighbours, who was a member of the UDR ( Ulster Defence Regiment ) .
This news sent waves of fear and anger through the gathered crowd. How dare the IRA enter our estate in the dead of night and try to kill one of our people. Apparently the man in question had left the house to check the car over before dropping his children at school and going through his normal security checks had discovered the bomb under the passenger’s side of the vehicle. Had he been less vigilant the bomb would have gone off killing not only him, but also his three children and anyone else in the vicinity. This relisation filled everyone gathered with outrage and resentment and once again our hatred of the IRA and their Catholic supporters was justified.
After they were sure that everyone in the immediate vicinity was evacuated, the army bomb disposal unit sent a robot in to detonate the bomb and we all watched in awe as the ground below us shook violently and the robot along with large sections of the car was blown high into the sky to smithereens. We were all kept of school that day and naturally the talk was of how close we had been to being caught up in the bomb that morning and possibly being killed. Wee Sam and I knew the children of the man in question and often played with them after school, so it was with sadness that a few days later we watched them pack their belongings onto a removal van and drive out of the estate never to be seen again.
Like Wee Sam, David and Pickle I felt an immense hatred towards Catholics and Nationalists that day and longed for the day I would be old enough to take up arms and join the war against the IRA and their Catholic supporters. Although I was too young to understand the complexities of the conflict between us and the nationalists I understood that we hadn’t started this war and all the pain and suffering in Northern Ireland was a direct result of the IRA and nationalist call for a united Ireland.
Northern Ireland’s Protestants were a remnant of colonial Britain and we clung to our sovernty like a comfort blanket and the IRA & nationalists were trying to rip our blanket away from us. We felt abandoned and Britain seemed to have turn her back on us The Americans and wider outside world sympathised with the romantic notion of a United Ireland and offered us no support. No one seemed to understand our position and we were living under the brutal, daily menace of the most brutal terrorist organisation of the century and this isolation feed the fears of the loyalist and ensured a steady stream of new recruits for the loyalist paramilitary groups.
During the mid 70s relationships between the two warring sides had reached a new low and innocent people from both sides became legitimate targets in tit-for-tat murder campaign like never before, between the nationalists and loyalist paramilitaries. The violence was out of control and as a child I watched in horror and disgust as the nightly news told of the latest IRA atrocity, as the death toll mounted. Like most of the people around me I rejoiced when news of an IRA or other republican member being killed or even better executed came through and I mourned the passing of any loyalist killed. I hated Catholics with a passion and blamed them on all the troubles of our country and like all around me I saw them as my natural enemy. In response to the increase of IRA atrocities and through self-preservation the loyalist paramilitaries, with the blessing of their people, stepped up the campaign and the streets of Belfast flowed with the blood of the innocent and guilty alike.
Among the countless act of brutality by the various paramilitary groups during this time, the actions of a loyalist death squad call “The Shankill Butchers” effected me mostly and haunted the conscience of the loyalist population of Belfast. The Butchers were a loyalist death squad, lead by a psychopathic killer called Lenny Murphy and during the summer of 75 – 77 they stalked the streets of catholic West Belfast, leaving a trial of unimaginable death and destruction in their wake. They would drive to a Catholic area of the city in a black taxi and pick up an unsuspecting passenger, with the sole intention of torturing and eventually killing them and putting them out of their misery. Although Catholics were mostly their intended targets, Protestants were lifted in Catholic area and mistakenly killed because the Butchers thought they were Catholics. Countless innocent people were taken to a derelict house on the Shankill Road and after hours of brutal, mindless torture they would be killed and their wasted bodies would be driven through the Shankill Road towards Glencairn, where they would be dumped outside the community centre o surrounding areas. The community centre was just down the road from our house and on at least three occasions Wee Sam and I were among the first to stumble across the mutilated bodies and the images would haunt me for years to come. On another occasion we had been playing in a new block of flats being built and suddenly we heard David yelling from another part of the building site. We all rushed to see what was happening and stopped dead in our tracks when we came to the room David had yelled from. The first thing that struck me was that all of the walls and large areas of the floor were splattered with blood and a chair in the middle of the round was surrounded by a puddle of blood and what looked like pieces of human flesh. On one of the walls, a bloody handprint left a trail of blood as it slide down the wall into another pool of blood. Although I was only 11 at the time, I knew I was standing in a room that had been used to torture someone and along with the others I turned on my heel, yelled and legged it all the way home. That night Uncle Sam informed us that we were not to play in the flats again, which we all happily agreed with and nothing more was said about the matter. Whilst The Shankill Butchers carried out their murder’s I was hanging about with a friend called John Jackson, who lived in the middle of the estate. It was a well known fact that the butchers dumped their bodies outside the community centre and not only was this just down the road from our house, I had to pass it on the way home.
On dark winter nights I use to be terrified when it was time for me to go home and I dreaded the walk up the dark deserted hill. Before setting off with a heavy heart, I would find myself a suitable large stick or tree branch as a weapon and nervously make my way up the hill and through the dark streets of the estate and home. The right hand side of the Road was lined with old people’s homes and well lit, until they came to an end and there was a large field that travelled upwards into the mountains and whatever was watching me from the darkness. The field was just across from the community centre and when I got to this area my heart would be thumping in my chest and my senses would be focused on what was going on around me. Most frightening of all was when I heard the unmistakable sound of a black taxi, crawling up the hill towards me. As the taxi drew closer I would brace myself and move to the opposite side of the Road. The only problem with that I now had to walk straight past the community centre, where countless mutilated bodies had been dumped and this frightened the life out of me. Rather than walk past the community centre I would duck behind a bush or tree and hide until the taxi had passed and then I would run the rest of the way home up the middle of the road, yelling in terror. I must have looked a right sight, but I was out of my mind with fear and didn’t give a shit how I looked.
As the butcher death toll mounted leading community leaders demanded that loyalist godfathers reined them in, but the butchers had become a law unto themselves and a liability to the loyalist cause. Apart from the problems they were causing the loyalist leaders, the IRA had issues various death threats against the butchers and they were all living on borrowed time. For Murphy the end came on 16th November 1982. , when an IRA hit squad ambushed and assassinated him, as he visited his girlfriend in Glencairn. For years afterwards rumours circulated that the UDA and/or other loyalist paramilitaries, tired Glencairn was one of the most violent and tightly controlled areas of protestant West Belfast and nothing happened without the top paramilitaries giving their permission or knowing about it. Murphy was given a full UVF funeral and through time other members off the Shankill Butcher’s met with equally violent ends.
As the first 12th of July since dads death approached, I felt mixed emotions and none of the joy I normally associated with the celebrations of my culture. After dads death the girls of the band decided to keep going in dads memory and the band was renamed the “John Chambers Memorial Band” Although I took great pride in this fact, it saddened me to watch them set off on a march without dad being present and we no longer saw the point of following them out of the estate. On a more positive note, Uncle Sam & Uncle Jim had arranged to have Wee Sam and I join the orange lodge and for the first time ever I would get to march to the glorious field in Edenderry. As usual I joined in the hunt for firewood and guarded the bonfire when it was my turn, but my heart wasn’t really in it, as I was still struggling to come to terms to life without dad. When the 11th night arrived I went along with some of the family watch the bonfire being lit and the pope go up in flames and that did raise a cheer from my broken heart.
The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn and Gerry scrubbed wee Sam and me, and got us dressed in our outfits for the day. We both wore dark trousers, white shorts and blue tank tops and the crowning moment came when Uncle J Sam placed our sashes around our necks and we were officially members of the orange lodge. After breakfast we were out the door, met up with Pickle and Uncle Jim and were on our way down the Shankill in a taxi by 8:30. When we got to Sandy Road there were thousands of people already milling around and Uncle Sam lead us into the Rangers Club, which was opened for business and jammed packed with early morning drinkers and die hards whom had spent the night there. Singing a litany of top loyalist anthems. After getting the drinks in, we all settled in the corner and whilst Uncle’s Sam & Jim socialised with friends and acquaintances, Wee Sam and I watched the drunken antics of the adults around us. And it wasn’t even nine o’clock.
Orange Lodge
The time for us to meet up with the band and other lodges arrived and we all made our way down the street, around a few corners and came to the house of that years master, which is traditionally the gathering and starting point of the march and as such had to supply drink and refreshments for all those taking part in the march. Eventually we took up our positions and Wee Sam and I were to carry the strings of the banner and this was a great privilege. The Band that was leading us was a well known flute band, which had one of the best leaders around and they always got a huge cheer wherever they went. I felt proud as punch as we began to march and I thought of dad and how I wish he had been there to share this special moment in my life, but I knew he was watching me from heaven and this eased my heartache.
We made our way to the Ormea Road, where we joined with thousands of other lodges and bands off every description and started on our long walk to the field. At first I felt like a super star marching in front of hundreds of thousands of people lining the route and swinging my piece of string to the same rhythm with Wee Sam and the other strings boys. All along the route we kept our eyes peeled for someone who knew us and our hearts swelled with pride as we heard our names called out from the crowds and turned to wave at pour adoring public.
By the time we got to the field my legs were killing me and I had huge blisters on both feet and if it wasn’t for the joy and excitement of being there, I would have laid down and gone to sleep. This was the Field, I reminded myself. A holy temple of our protestant heritage and I wasn’t going to miss it for the world. The march into the field came off a hill and when I got to the top, I stopped and held my breath. Thousands upon thousands of people swarmed around the field around me and in every direction I looked there were vans and lorries of every description, selling everything from fish and chips, loyalist paraphernalia and every alcohol known to man. All the bands arriving were allocated a particular spot and when our band came to our resting place, we along with everyone else sank onto the ground and rested our exhausted legs for a while. Uncle’s Sam & Jim went to the nearest bar tent and told us not to go too far and to be back by 3: 30, when we would begin the journey home… Our first stop was something to eat and after picking up a hotdog each, we decided to go for a walk… All around us was the sound of people celebrating and as far as the eye could see Union Jacks and loyalist flags fluttered in the gentle breeze. This was our day and our field and the event was opened solely to the protestant people of Northern Ireland and those that supported us. I drank in the atmosphere proudly and felt safe surrounded by my own people.
Wee Sam and I took a longer than predicted walk down by the river and getting to the bottom, we were alarmed and shocked to hear a women screaming, in obvious pain in my opinion. Curiosity getting the better of us , we slowly made our way to where the sound was coming from and we were surprised to see four, not two legs protruding from under a bush. The woman was moaning and groaning that loudly now she didn’t hear us approach until I lifted the bush and seeing a man lying between her legs I asked her in a concerned voice if she was ok? Wee Sam being a bit sharper than me, let out a squeal of laughter and retreated behind a tree. Suddenly all hell broke loose and before I knew what was happening the man was up of the ground , chasing me and calling me all sorts of names as he tried to pull his trousers up and kept tripping over. When I got back to our meeting spot, Wee Sam was rolling about the ground in hysterics and the others began teasing me and calling me a peeping tom. I took it all in good taste and spent the rest of the afternoon messing about until it was time to leave or the March home. As we gathered and marched out of the field I couldn’t help noticing that quite a few of the men were walking a bit loop sided and I was glad I wasn’t in their shoes , as we sat off on the 10 mile journey home. The march home proved to be much harder than the inward march and for our efforts fewer people gathered to welcome us home. After a few beers in the master house, Uncle Sam & Jim gathered us up and took us home and we both slept like logs that night.
As was only the case after the 12th celebrations, the whole Chambers clan pack their bags and headed to the caravan site in Ballyferris for our annual holiday. That year for the first time we were travelling down in private transport, Uncle Sam had saved a condememed transit van from the scrap yard and assured us all that it was safe o travel in. This was the first time we had been to the Cavan since dad’s death and at first I couldn’t settle and spent a lot of time in doors and alone. Like the 12th, the yearly trips to the caravan were things I had always looked forward to and enjoyed with dad and that wasn’t now possible. Gradually I came out of my shell and began to let myself enjoy it and that was helped greatly by the fact that David and my sisters were also there, although we were all sleeping in different caravans. We done all the usual things that year , but I just didn’t enjoy it and when it was time to go back to Belfast for the first time I wasn’t sad to say goodbye to the place.
Back in Belfast we slipped into the routine of school and day-to-day life and slowly I began to start to come to terms with dads death. Nothing I could ever say or do would ever bring him back and I had to get on top of my grief, before it engulfed me and ruined any chance for happiness I held for the future. Like my brother and sisters my life would never be complete again and we would all have to learn to deal with dad’s death on our own and come to terms with it. From the moment dad died I missed him terrible and the pain has been with me in varying degrees throughout my life. But I knew that my grief was dominating my life and unless I dealt with it, I would never be happy.
Gradually I pulled myself together and through time I learnt to enjoy the 12th and caravan trips again, without dad’s absence tormenting me and evoking painful memories of better times. I had really settled into life with Uncle Sam and Aunt Gerry and at times I even felt optimistic about the future, I resolved to try and get on with my life and make the best of what little I had and started to enjoy life a little more.
Little did I realize at the time that fate had returned to toy with my destiny and once again my life was on a course of instability and unhappiness. The gods must have been in foul moods the day they mapped out my destiny. Before long I would be leaving the security and happiness of Uncle Sam’s house and my path would change again and only unhappiness and misery lined the route of my next journey.
Thankfully this was a short journey and as I entered my teenage years my life would start to improve and as time tick on I began to find I enjoyed life and although the pain of dads death and mums absence hunted me the future was much brighter and I would go on to make the best of my shattered life and in time I would find happiness, contentment and eventually be reunited with the mother I had long ago thought dead and gone for ever.
Much more to follow….
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Please come back soon for additional chapters or visit my blog -you might find something of interest.
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www. loyalistchild.co.uk
Thanks for taking the time to read my story and visiting my world.
Take care – Be Happy and Come back soon!
Please feel free to leave comments or say hello. I don’t bite and answer most emails.
36 thoughts on “Belfast Child. Autobiography.”
Alison Colwell (hollywood) says:
I lived in glencairn for many a years and knew ur family really well ur cousin linda was my best friend I have really enjoyed reading ur book and can’t wait to read more x
belfastchildis says:
Hi Alison ,
Thanks for taking the time to read my story and for getting in touch. Great to hear that you are from Glencairn and know the family. Are you still in touch with Linda? She’s been onto me today and thankfully is happy with my efforts.
Keep an eye out for the next few chapters and spread thee word – the more interest I get the more successful the book will be when its published.
Take care xx
ann moore/ann hollywood says:
hi Stephen love reading it cannot wait till read more we live in the glancairn we where all good friends with linda mandy joanne I was Alison holywood sister ann
Hi Ann ,
Thanks for getting in touch and your kind words. I’m happy that people seem to like what I’ve done so far and am working to complete the project. Keep an eye on the website for the next few chapters.
Stephen xx
Janet Briers says:
Hi Stephen I lived in glencairn an was in your dad’s band it was a sad emotional day in St. Andrews on the day of his funeral he was a good man, I’ve enjoyed your story an look forward to reading more.
Dear Janet ,
Thank you kindly for reading the first few chapters and taking the time to message me. I have been surprised by how many positive comments I have received regarding the book and this encourages me no end. I was unsure how people back home would judge the story , but thus far its all good.
I am currently working on finishing the story and have a few publishers interested and I will be posting a few additional chapters on the website in the near future.
Its always good to hear from people whom knew dad and I’m proud that he’s memory lives on and when the book is published it will be dedicated to him and my extended family in Glencairn.
John Stephen Chambers
Really enjoyed readin ur story can’t wait 4 the rest
Thanks Lindsay for reading my story and taking the time to comment.
I will be adding a few more chapters this weekend, so please come back and spread the word.
Joanne black says:
I’m so proud of you Stephen , it’s such a heartfelt true life story which brings life into to memories of the family , I remember you having a wee note pad under your mattress in your flat and you saying you were writing a book about your life and now here it is , it’s truly brilliant and I’m sure it will be a great success , I pray the lords blessings upon you and your wee family’s life , god bless and be proud , lots of love , your wee cuz Joanne xo
Thank you so much Joanne , it’s good to know I’m doing something right and I’m getting a lot of positive feedback, which although I’m grateful for , is unexpected and a bit of a surprise to me.
So I best get my finger out and complete the rest as soon as possible.
My life has been enriched by you and the rest of the family and you will always have a special place in my heart.
mpbaz says:
What a brilliant writer you are..I am fascinated by your story and by Northern Ireland, I know you felt alone but many people here supported the loyalist cause and our brothers and sisters in Ulster, you were not forgotten or ignored the people here were outraged as you were when our people(Protestants) were murdered by Irish terrorists remember we had murders here as well so hated them as much as you did, please do not think you were ever alone in this we were here you just couldn’t hear us!
Squidegy says:
A story from the heart beautifully written, enticing you too read on to the end.
Thank you and keep going x
Hi Squidegy ,
Thanks for taking the time to read my story thus far and your kind comments. Please have look through my blog and come back soon.
Elizabeth livingstone says:
I have really enjoyed reading your book very touching God is great I get very emotional about your parents you are blessed.
Thanks Elizabeth for your kind comments and taking the time to read my story thus far.
Take care & god bless
Maureen McDermott says:
Great reading Stephen.
Remember you n Stephen both. Old Fernhill kids xx
Hi Maureen ,
Thanks for taking the time to read my story thus far & your kind comments. Its always good to get positive feedback from people back home, esp those I grew up with. Seems a lifetime ago since I was at Fernhill, but many happy memories.
Make sure to follow my blog and you will receive notifications when I post additional chapters.
Hi Stephen, how are you? Loved the book so far; great writing. Looking forward to reading more. It’s been so long. Would love to catch up.
Your old friend,
Fabrício says:
Hello, Stephen! I am from Brazil (in South America), then you would think: “why the hell would this guy ever be interested in my story, back to Northern Ireland?”. All I can say is it’s a powerful story. I’ve been to Belfast last June and I got impressed about the Peace lines. First, I visited The Tower of London and His Magesty, Henry VIII, and his struggle to establish the Church of England. Then, I went to Belfast, straight to Falls Road, as every foreign tourist. Then I started thinking about all those centuries of hatred between Catholics and Protestants. Then I started imagining secret love stories between these two groups (if they could ever be possible). Your story can give me a glance. I enjoyed every line, you’re a great writer. Congratulations!
Fabrício
Dear Fabrício ,
Just A quick note to say thanks for taking the time to read my story thus far and your kind comments. Its always good to get positive feedback. I will be posting additional chapters soon , so please follow my blog and you will get email notifications when I post new content.
PS. I have always had a fascination with the Tudors & especial Henry VIII and have posted some blogs about them. If you search my blog you will find them.
Stephen.
Hi Stephen. I found myself enthralled and captured by your story. Coming from West Belfast I had some apprehension, as I’m sure you can imagine. It can be difficult to hear such negative views on the community you come from but these few chapters were enshrined in your narrative through the eyes of a child and resonated with me. Any more chapters yet? go raibh maith agat. All the very best
Dear Mary ,
Thank you for taking the time to get in touch and your kind words. Its always good to get positive feedback, especially from Belfast people, who have lived through the Troubles and have experienced first hand day to day life under such a brutal conflict . Thankfully things are much better now, although progress is slow and occasional the “wheels” come off – I feel we are moving in the right direction and future generations of Belfast children will wander what it was all about!
I am working with an agent to finish and publish the book and will post updates on my blog as and when I have something to report. So if you follow my blog you will be notified automatically by email.
Take care and thanks
John Chambers
Ba mhaith liom tú go léir is fearr
Pingback: 5th May – Deaths & Events in Northern Ireland Troubles | Belfast Child
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Michelle Stephen says:
Im an old school friend of Simone.Saw her post on FB..Totally immersed in your choldhood…brilliantly written..cannot wait to read more…amazing story
Hi Michelle ,
Thanks for your kind comments and I’m glad you like my story thus far. I have an article in the Guardian this Saturday if you interested , although I must admit I’m a bit nervous about the reaction as a lot of people have very strong views on the “Troubles ” and no doubt I’ll get some flack. Keep an eye out for more chapters soon.
euanjthomas says:
Hi John, Just read your story in The Guardian Australia and found your story very moving. I can relate to your story as my brother-in-law Gary is from Derry and my mother is from Kinsale, Cork. My Dad was a proud Welshman from Carmanthan.Gary told me similar stories to your childhood; getting drunking and then going out and throwing petrol bombs at the then known Ulster Police Force and at the time thought it was the best fun in the world. Don’t think that Australia was free from the sectarian divide; it wasn’t! This country of mine was just as divide at times as was Belfast, but without the bullets, bombs or the murderous bloodshed.
I recall meeting Gary’s Uncle who came to Australia as refugees from Northern Ireland.
I really hope you get a publisher for your book. Oh and I also love your acting. Looking forward to you acting in the next TV Show or Film.
Hi Thomas ,
Thanks for your kind comments & I found your history interesting and with some similarities to my own. Its amazing how many people have contacted me regarding my story and most of these have been positive and this feels me with joy.
Thank you and take care
Diarmuid says:
I read the article in The Guardian and I grew up as a committed republican. Although some of what you wrote stuck a little in my craw, it was very welcome. The stories that come out of your side of the community are often drowned out by the stories from the other and successful publication of your fascinating story will make a great contribution to the literature which, in turn, will allow the generations of the future to understand our follies.
Hi Diarmuid ,
I hope I find you well and thanks for the comments.
Thankfully things have moved on (mostly) since the darkest days of the “Troubles” and one day the kids of Northern Ireland will wonder what it was all about and in my book that will be a good thing. Too many innocent and good people died as a result of the conflict and sadly the legacy of these pointless, senseless murders have perpetuated the mistrust and suspicion our two communities held for each other and the men of violence took brutal advantage of this. Generations from now our grandchildren’s children will look back in horror at the madness that engulfed N.I for 30 long brutal years and hopefully they will live in harmony , peace and unity and respect each others cultures and traditions.
Artie hinds says:
Hi Steven how’s you and my Wee mate bootsy which is David it’s Artie & Steven hinds your book is fantastic wouldn’t have cared if your mother was Catholic you and David Jean the cat and Margaret were our friends and miss you and Wee bootsy still see Jean everyday your story was true and compelling keep it up can’t wait to read more your childhood friends the hindsys I still live in glen cairn a great place kind regards Artie
Hi Artie/Steven,
Thanks for getting in touch and I hope I find you both well.
It’s always good to get positive feedback, esp from Belfast folk and even more special if it’s from my childhood friends from Glencairn.
It’s hard to believe but I’ve now lived in England for almost 30 years, but my heart and soul will always dwell in the playgrounds of my youth – in Glencairn and I remember fondly the long hot summers and dark cold winters I spent playing with you guys and others at the top of the estate.
Writing this book has meant travelling back to those days and although there were some sad/painful times, there were far more happy times and I wouldn’t change it for the world. No matter where life takes me I will never forget the people of Glencairn and the huge part they played in my life.
Since my story was first published in the Guardian/Belfast Telegraph I have been amazed at the reaction and thankfully most of it has been positive thus far, although there are always haters out there and I just ignore them.
I’ve done loads of Radio/Newspaper/Magazine interview and to be honest I hate all the exposure and having to put myself out there, but if I want the book to be a success I have to do these things (that’s what my agent keeps telling me anyways) .
Ulster TV want me to do a show next week and I really don’t want to do it as it would mean me appearing on camera, but the wife is telling me to stop being a wimp and to do it! I’m actually quite a shy and reserved person (unlike in my youth) and I cringe when doing interviews – but needs must.
The last time I saw Steven was about 15 years ago when I was over in Belfast for a visit and he was in a pub in town and we said hello and spent a few minutes chatting – ( I think he was drunk at the time and he may not remember this meeting ).
I hope life is treating you both and your families well and the next time I’m home I’ll drop you an email and we can maybe meet up for a pint.
Great hearing from you and keep in touch.
Colin Crozier says:
Well what a blast from the past..never thought I would be reading such a fascinating and touching account of life from an old neighbour..took me right back.brilliant !! Best wishes to you Stephen and all the rest of the family from Colin Crozier..
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Valerie Killow says:
I was nearly in tears reading this as it brought back so many memories of growing up in Hutchinson Street Belfast where your life began , I can remember going over to your house with mum one morning and you would have been just over a year old and as mum and your mum sat talking we noticed that you were sitting in the middle of the floor in front of the open fire taking your calliper off and on , it was hard to believe that you being so young could do it yourself.
The bit about your dad dying broke my heart as I oved your dad him your mum , my mum and dad were all great friends as long as we lived there but sadly as they were going to built the West link and our side of the street was getting knocked down to built it we had to move , you did make me laugh at your antics though as you grew up in Glencairn and I was thinking to myself that’s just typical of lads at that age .
I can’t wait to read the rest of it . Good luck with it and hope you and the family are all keeping well. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line872 |
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__label__wiki | 0.641866 | 0.641866 | A Parable for Environmentalists
By: Katherine Marshall
A monkey, so goes an ancient eastern parable, passed by a stream and saw a fish in the water. Assuming that it must be struggling for breath, he "rescued" it. On dry land, the fish flopped about as the monkey rejoiced in its liberation. But the fish soon died. The monkey was sad that his rescue had come too late.
The monkey/fish parable is often told to highlight the dangers of an imperialist spirit and of aggressive religious proselytizing. The obvious message is that the desire to help others may be gravely misdirected. It's a story that speaks to the arrogance of power.
An unfolding story from Madagascar has poignant echoes of the tale of the monkey and the fish. The global environmental movement is cast as the monkey, the local population as the fish.
Madagascar is an ecologist's dream and nightmare. A dream because it has unique animals and flora that evolved after the island separated long ago from Africa. Lemurs are one famous example of a unique Malagasy species. I was told years ago that Madagascar's snakes resemble their poisonous African cousins but the poison ducts are not connected - which came as a relief when I stepped on one barefoot.
The nightmare is the vision of ecological destruction -erosion, loss of species, disappearance of forests, climate change. So a host of programs are working to protect the island's natural heritage.
Scholar Eva Keller cautions that a complex clash is taking shape between ecologists and the Malagasy who live in some areas where the environmental movement sees an urgent need for protection. Her research has focused on the Masoala Penninsula and Park, along the northeast coast.
The large protected park comes with strong international support and strict regulations. Lemurs play and a wild variety of natural fauna and flora thrive. The aim is preservation and research. Park management focuses on ending slash-and-burn agriculture and the extension of farming into forested areas.
But for villagers, the park program is something akin to a military occupation. People are imprisoned for cutting trees on what they see as their own land. Their view is that foreigners, in a throwback both to the French colonial era and autocratic regimes long before, are imposing a new form of slavery.
All this despite the best intentions and efforts to "empower" local communities. With strong local traditions of large families needing new plots to farm and deep social tensions in Malagasy society, it is not hard to imagine a situation leading to acute conflict. The welfare of very poor Malagasy seems to clash with the challenge of protecting the earth. There are plenty of other places where similar tensions are building.
It is telling that ecologists and environmentalists are often described in terms reminiscent of missionaries spreading the Gospel: a righteousness in their fervor, a certainty in their beliefs. National Public Radio this week reported on studies suggesting that acute tensions between environmental proselytizers and their families are increasing divorce rates. That's bad enough but the dangers of accentuating tensions between conservation groups and local populations threaten both human welfare and the vital cause of environmental protection.
The monkey/fish parable is an epic tragedy. Not only does the fish die; it dies for no reason. The monkey learns nothing, convinced that his view of reality is unassailable: the poor fish needed to be rescued! There are real monkey pitfalls in the path of the environmental movement if the cause is advanced in a spirit of total certainty and righteousness. In places like Madagascar there is a danger of seeing local people like the fish, in need of salvation by outside intervention. Most important, images like the monkey/fish story are the way many people see what's happening in the world and the implications of unbalanced power. It's a good admonition for humility.
But the monkey/fish story, for all its telling symbolism, is a poor frame for the important discussions we need to have today about culture and empowerment. It's far too polarizing. We have moved well beyond a vision of a world where modern and traditional, man and nature, religious and secular, are pitted one against the other. In practice, however, as the Masoala story suggests, the wisdom we have gained about the complexity of development challenges and the merits of pluralist approaches have yet to be translated fully into practice.
Faith in Action tracks the activities of people of faith across the globe and across religious traditions, with a focus on development issues. Posts are originally published by the Huffington Post. Older blog posts appeared on the Washington Post's Georgetown/On Faith site.
Faith and Planning in the Sahel: Tensions and Cooperation
Sister Agatha: A Nigerian Peacemaker at Work
Thursdays in Black: Uniting Against Violence
“Paths of Peace”: The Sant’Egidio Interreligious Gathering in Münster and Osnabrück, Germany
Focusing on Inclusion: Dr. Luiz Loures, UNAIDS | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line879 |
__label__wiki | 0.592236 | 0.592236 | Article 13 is Dead (For Now), Favoring Youtube and Content Creators
by Beyond The Music | Feb 8, 2019 | Music Business & News
This week, a group of organizations representing creatives in Europe across music, sports, entertainment, and broadcasting industries said they “are not able to support [the Directive] or the impact it will have on the European creative sector”.
The statement issued by the organization states that the proposed approach Article 13 pursues would fail to meet its true objective and cause harm to creatives all across Europe.
“Despite our constant commitment in the last two years to finding a viable solution, and having proposed many positive alternatives, the text – as currently drafted and on the table – no longer meets these objectives, not only in respect of any one article, but as a whole,” says the letter.
“As rightsholders we are not able to support it or the impact it will have on the European creative sector.”
Last year, Parliament drafted a version of the European Copyright Directive that included the Article 13 provision- which aimed to hold Youtube and other content platforms legally responsible for any copyright infringements. This would affect fan-made content, parodies, remixes, response videos, and more.
It appears content platforms, and creators, are in the clear for now. While music rights organizations want to protect their creatives as much as possible, it could be awhile before they and Parliament agree on fair legislation.
You can read the full letter the organizations submitted below:
We are writing as a group of rightsholders representing the music, audio-visual, broadcasting and sports industries, regarding the direction of travel for the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market.
The key aims of the original draft Directive were to create a level playing field in the online Digital Single Market and strengthen the ability of European rightsholders to create and invest in new and diverse content across Europe.
Despite our constant commitment in the last two years to finding a viable solution, and having proposed many positive alternatives, the text – as currently drafted and on the table – no longer meets these objectives, not only in respect of any one article, but as a whole. As rightsholders we are not able to support it or the impact it will have on the European creative sector.
We appreciate the efforts made by several parties to attempt to achieve a good compromise in the long negotiations of recent months. Nevertheless, the outcome of these negotiations in several of the Council discussions has been to produce a text which contains elements which fundamentally go against copyright principles enshrined in EU and international copyright law.
Far from levelling the playing field, the proposed approach would cause serious harm by not only failing to meet its objectives, but actually risking leaving European producers, distributors and creators worse off.
Regrettably, under these conditions we would rather have no Directive at all than a bad Directive. We therefore call on negotiators to not proceed on the basis of the latest proposals from the Council.
Yours sincerely, the undersigned.
ACT – Association of Commercial Television in Europe*
AKTV – Czech Association of Commercial Television
DFL – German Football League
ICMP – The Global Voice of Music Publishing
IFPI – Representing the Recording Industry Worldwide
IMPALA – Independent Music Companies Association
La Liga – The Spanish Football League
Mediapro – Independent Production Company
The Premier League – The English Football League
Związek Pracodawców Prywatnych Mediów – Polish Union of Private Media Employers, Lewiatan | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line885 |
__label__cc | 0.613961 | 0.386039 | Upcoming Releases Volume XIII: Unlucky Release Edition
Author Topic: Upcoming Releases Volume XIII: Unlucky Release Edition (Read 86278 times)
Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XIII: Unlucky Release Edition
« Reply #480 on: 03 August 2018, 22:58:24 »
Won't there be alot designs cut out of the books? Are they going be all Mech only TROs? Clan Invasion would include 3050 thru 3058 won't it for example? Vehicles go to some Vehicle only TRO online only?
I wouldn't call this a major problem, see the recent thread on the Talos(?), where someone asked where the RS was only for the answer to be that there is none. As long as the selection is broad and inclusive the absence of any given design, or even a lot of them, isn't a major issue.
sadlerbw
Brent did mention that there have been some ideas kicked around regarding the hole the XTRO series left. Well, not really a hole, but the idea of doing a smaller PDF product that focused on equipment more than story events. It wouldn’t be XTRO reincarnated, just something that was meant to focus on playable units like mechs or vehicles or whatever. It appears to still be in the ‘kicking around the idea’ stage though, so it may or may not ever happen. Still, it’s a possibility.
I also asked the obligatory question about record sheets. The answer was still, and I’m paraphrasing here: not right now. they take time and effort that it doesn’t make sense to spend right now.
Hopefully Record Sheet issue as a whole will be addressed in coming year. They will likely redesign the Record Sheets as well. If "cleaning up" TRO line to be Era only specific, they will need to match record sheet up.
I hope Shattered Fortress will drop Monday. I figured the CGL need recover from the con by then.
Quote from: sadlerbw on 03 August 2018, 23:16:57
Frankly the way to sounds like the Mini-TRO 3145 PDF Series makes more sense even now. Smaller TROs, Record Sheets ready to go with variants. Print and run the game. Do printed Era TROs if that's way they want focus their budget on it. Not everyone be happy but they get to their target audience.
ColBosch
Legends Never Die
That would be my suggestion. As I said earlier, keep the in-store focus on the 'Mechs, and anyone who is into the game enough to want vehicles, infantry, etc. would be more willing to go online to find them.
BattleTech is a huge house, it's not any one fan's or "type" of fans. If you need to relieve yourself, use the bathroom not another BattleTech fan. - nckestrel
1st and 2nd Succession Wars are not happy times. - klarg1
Check my Ogre Flickr page! https://flic.kr/s/aHsmcLnb7v and https://flic.kr/s/aHsksV83ZP
SteveRestless
Clan Wolf Rho Galaxy "The Altered Beasts"
Quote from: ColBosch on 03 August 2018, 22:19:06
It'd have to be multiple files in a compressed folder - you do NOT want to deal with 2GB PDFs, trust me - but yeah, I could see that.
Well, a big part of why I would want it, would be searchability. I'm willing to throw computing horsepower at it, but there probably is a sweet spot in there somewhere.
Want to Track your own unit? Try the LUCK system | NonCanon Units Index!
<Articus> theres coyotes outside <Articus> i can hear them baying <Steve_Restless> oh shit it's the homeclans <Steve_Restless> my milkshakes! *Steve_Restless leaps out the window <Articus> His milkshakes bring all the Clans to the yard <Articus> he could teach you, but you'll have to Batchall | <Articus> keep it up mister, and your next shipment of Inferno IV will be ConfettIV
Quote from: SteveRestless on 03 August 2018, 23:46:15
Having a single huge file would drastically limit its usability by other people. My own computer is a monster gaming rig, but most folks don't have such powerful machines. My work computer is probably about average for what folks have, and it seriously hates big PDFs. But, the good news is that there are programs out there that can "stitch" together PDFs, so you could just take the extra step of combining the smaller files into one big one for your own use. In my mind's eye, I'm picturing separate files for each size class of 'Mech, plus one for conventional vehicles, one for aerospace fighters, etc.
By Weight Class would probably be an acceptable way to divide such a theoretical product. I'd say by factions, but that'd require a lot of superfluous duplicate pages across the various volumes.
klarg1
Indeed. I have a perfectly good computer, but my preferred PDF reading platform is a tablet.
A single-file omnibus would be pretty useless to me. As it is, I use the MUL as an index.
Read about my travails with miniatures:
http://blindmetalminis.blogspot.com/
Tai Dai Cultist
Books organized by faction availability goes against BattleTech's soul. Everyone uses everything. The Clan Invasion is an outlier, not the norm.
roosterboy
trapped in a world I never made
Well, a big part of why I would want it, would be searchability.
Pretty much all modern computer systems allow one to search an entire folder full of files, either as part of the OS or as a feature of a PDF reader application, so having everything in one file isn't really necessary for search purposes.
SteelRaven
Fight for something or Die for nothing
Not sure why some players are obsessed with the idea of some sort of huge BT bible when the trend is quite the opposite. A huge PDF is simply not very optimize for the same reason one huge book is 90%-99% of the time dead weight.
Battletech Art and Commissions
http://steel-raven.deviantart.com
Quote from: Tai Dai Cultist on 04 August 2018, 00:18:04
Fully agreed. Faction availability is, after all, considered an "advanced" and optional rule. I have no problem pointing people who wish to limit themselves to the Master Unit List.
Quote from: SteelRaven on 04 August 2018, 00:38:36
BIGGER IS BETTER. Just ask the Lyrans.
I'm with you there.
I find it very hard to find anything in the books that are faction-organized. Unit type / tonnage seems to be simplest / most universal to me, although I appreciate that players also want some indication of "recommended" faction for each unit.
Quote from: roosterboy on 04 August 2018, 00:29:27
my experiences with directory based searching have been less than optimal. I get far better results working directly within the file. That said, I'm well aware that I'll never get what I'm wishing for.
Kitsune413
Diamond Khanate Sakhan
The 3145 techmanuals are by faction. The only reason that everyone used everything before was because everybody forgot how to make mechs and had been using the same star league tech for centuries.
But you see that stop in the 3000's. Wolfhound, Raven. They show up in Mercenary forces but they are an extreme outlier in another House's army. They're also hard to get parts for I'm sure making them pretty undesirable for a House quartermaster.
The Clan Invasion is the rule... a century and a half after they stopped being able to make new battlemech factories House's and Clans are all running their own unit list if you ignore Sea Fox Trading.
Every man lives by exchanging - Adam Smith
It remains to be seen that the factional mini-TROs were a financial success or that the approach will be repeated. After all, you can get TROs 3145 and 3150 instead.
Furthermore, the "factional" TROs aren't actually factional. MaD Cat Mk IVs aren't just used by the Clans. Ziblers aren't just used by Davion. SM2s aren't just used by Kurita. Etc.
Sure, each TRO (after 3025) has units that are usually faction-restricted upon immediate invention, but most of the time the MUL says those units become more widely available over time.
And more to my point, by the Jihad the major divide in availability (Clan-tech vs no Clan-tech) is functionally gone in many (most?) cases.
Yeah but even if they aren't, the old TRO's are the same way. TRO 3055. This mech is produced here by this faction.
Even in the succession wars when everybody was using the same tech and been salvaging any mech they could get their hands on you still saw mechs that were faction specific. If you saw a Zeus you knew who was driving it. If you saw a Panther you knew where it was from. Dragons, Cicada's, Assassin's.
I think you'd see lots of salvaged Clan tech in any faction, especially the factions that directly fought the clans because it's worth the expense. But if you're House Davion and you get a Dragon in 3070 save yourself the headache and sell it to some Mercs.
From a gameplay perspective it makes sense too. Base game 3000+ "Everyone uses all these mechs."
advanced game - This Bushwacker is Lyran AF.
Quote from: Kitsune413 on 04 August 2018, 02:03:46
You're dramatically underestimating the importance of cross-pollination from battlefield salvage. Especially the 3025/3rd SW era that is the soul of BattleTech. Yes Zeuses are stereotypically Lyran and Dragons are stereotypically Kuritan, but in no way would a Kuritan Zeus or a Davion Dragon be rare or even noteworthy.
Something that makes BattleTech nearly unique among wargames is that it lacks factional availability in a formal way. In 40K if you're playing Orks, you May Not field models from the Space Marines. If you're playing Cryx in Warmachine, you May Not field Khador warjacks. These kinds of games are are fundamentally different from Battletech having non-binding "flavor" for factions.
So, no, a Bushwacker isn't particularly "Lyran AF" even upon introduction in 3053. According to the MUL, it's "available" to 7 factions immediately. And again if someone wants to play a Draconis or Capellan force with a Bushwacker, it's legal even though those availabilities aren't on the MUL. (of interest, in looking this up the Bushwacker becomes "hardly Lyran at all, really" as time goes on. Eventually Lyrans don't even have it available and it's only on the Merc general availability list)
« Last Edit: 04 August 2018, 02:27:15 by Tai Dai Cultist »
AldanFerrox
(of interest, in looking this up the Bushwacker becomes "hardly Lyran at all, really" as time goes on. Eventually Lyrans don't even have it available and it's only on the Merc general availability list)
When did this happen? After 3130 it was probably because the Lyrans had largely switched to the Gauntlet, because most Bushwackers either were destroyed during the Jihad or were scrapped after it.
« Last Edit: 04 August 2018, 05:19:49 by AldanFerrox »
Only in death duty ends
MUL for Bushwacker 1x gives it these factions:
Federated Commonwealth
Federated Suns
Lyran Commonwealth
Lyran Alliance
Kell Hounds
Wolves Dragoon
The first four are essentially the same thing. The Kell Hounds live in the Lyran Commonwealth. The Dragoons live in the Federated Suns at the time.
The L1 variant is only in the commonwealth. The L2 gets traded to the Republic.
So in the MUL the only time it isn't Lyran is when the Lyrans are in the Federated Commonwealth.
Yeah battletech is great because you can play the Capellans and run a battalion of Timber Wolves. But if I'm gming a game that sticks to canon, we are playing a Canon scenario, or one of us were writing a story that sticks to canon I'm going to expect a really good explanation.
Quote from: AldanFerrox on 04 August 2018, 04:02:08
When did this happen? After 3130 it was probably because the Lyrans had largely switched to the Gauntlet, and because most Bushwackers either were destroyed during the Jihad or were scrapped after it.
The Lyrans stop using the base model. The more advanced variants are only Lyran. Though one of them is traded with the Republican and the Suns.
You are correct. The Gauntlet is only Lyran.
The good thing about this is that it let's them expand on faction flavor. It differentiates the factions and makes their playstyle unique.
It's battletech and it's not far fetched for anybody to have a salvaged anything...
But to have something in any kind of real volume is a different story.
Also keep in mind the defunct combat manuala for Alpha Strike had unit lists.
People like playing with specific units, having units only available to their faction and guidance for what kind of units and formations exist.
There are players that like things more open ended. That's fine. I don't particularly.
MarikMilitaMan
The Kendall Hammers
Just delving back into the universe after some time away and have bought TRO:SW and i have to agree that its probably the way to go, it certainly makes it easier to understand where it fits in the universe.
I only meant the faction themed mini TRO:3145 PDF is that's format (not because its faction themed itself) would likely be future TROs could be made. I rather keep ALL my era specific stuff in one package (i rather like year, again this is changing).
At this point, we know something coming aside Shattered Fortress (novels of various shade) but nothing else by name or type. So there less talk about.
I'm glad their going to do a map pack, but i'm not sure the large maps Mr. Coleman mentioned would be cost effective. Has anyone see this sample one at the con? It sounds its either large paper map of quality or cloth type but i don't it is.
Were Brent to come to me and say, "Bosch, I want you to redo the Technical Readout line," here's what it would look like. All would be 194 pages total, with 92 different 'Mech entries each; no other units would be included in the print volumes.
One major change I'd make right off the bat is to change the stat blocks. Right now the game stats are basically a design spreadsheet, but players don't really need to see the mass of components, and some critical information is missing. I'd replace it with what players need to fill out record sheets: where each item is, and how many spaces it takes up. With that change alone, the need for record sheet volumes is dramatically reduced, freeing up company resources to focus on actually-profitable areas. The in-universe state block would slightly change to list how many tons of ammo is included with each weapon, and OmniMechs would have their Prime loadout listed here along with their available pod tonnage.
Print Books (also in PDF)
Technical Readout: Succession Wars: Revise the entries to the new stat standard, above.
Technical Readout: Clan Invasion: Would contain the rest of the Classic redesigns in their 3050 configs, the 16 original Clan OmniMechs, the new 'Mech designs from Technical Readout 3050 Upgrade, then fill out the remaining pages with a selection of 'Mechs from 3055U and 3058U.
Technical Readout: Civil War: Would contain 92 'Mechs from 3055U, 3058U, 3060, and 3067.
Technical Readout: Jihad: Would contain 92 'Mechs from 3067, 3075, and 3085.
Technical Readout: Dark Age: Would contain 92 'Mechs from Prototypes, 3145, and 3150.
So the in-print and in-stores line would be just five books, 194 pages each, and far easier to keep in print. The new names and 'Mech-only contents would make it far simpler for non-fanatic customers (i.e., not us) to figure out what books they want and keep the focus of the game on the giant robots.
PDF-Only Books (hopefully print on demand, too)
Technical Readout: <era> Supplemental(s): A series of books that include any 'Mechs cut from the old Technical Readouts. Varied lengths, one for each era.
Technical Readout: <other unit type>: A series of books, each collecting a different non-'Mech unit: fighters, WarShips, infantry and battle armor, etc. If any end up excessively long, they'll be split into two volumes in whatever fashion seems convenient.
Technical Readout: Experimental <unit type>: Omnibus editions of the XTRO series, one each for 'Mechs, fighters, and vehicles. Perhaps expanded with new material.
One key feature of the line would be that units that were previously only published in sourcebooks would be given full Technical Readout entries. Most art would be recycled, but some units would have new art produced, such as the remaining Classics, the original Clan and Inner Sphere OmniMechs, and anything that just doesn't seem cool anymore.
Moving forward, I'd push for strict limits on new designs. Let's say the Powers That Be decide to go ahead and do a time jump to 3250. I'd want to limit Technical Readout: Darker Age's totally-new designs to 20-30 maximum, with the rest of the book showing older machines - especially those only found in the Supplementals - with modern upgrades. This allows players to immediately use their miniature collections with the new stats and doesn't overwhelm IWM; with a little lead time (heh), they might even have most or all of the new miniatures ready to release alongside the Technical Readout.
The main challenge would be where to put unit variants. Personally, I'd be okay leaving them in legacy materials, but perhaps the Supplementals could include the new stat blocks for the gazillions of different Marauders. One idea that strikes me is to change the Tech Readouts to portrait format, allowing home printers to more-easily assemble loose leaf binder collections.
Okay, that ran MUCH longer than I anticipated. Sorry.
Lorcan Nagle
75 tons of heavy metal mayhem
We're back, baby!
He said it was thin neoprene, which has been used for table mats of that size for some years. I have a 4x4 one I use for Dropzone Commander and Alpha Strike, and my LGS had a lot of ones around 6x4 for club tables.
The moderator formerly known as the user formerly known as nenechan
A 'Mech only TRO would be the perfect companion to the BattleMech Manual. I'd be all for that, and leaving vehicles and infantry to supplemental products. Some quick numbers...
The "intro" version becomes TRO 3039 BattleMechs, and only 162 pages (120 pages for the regular 'Mechs, and I'm going from 21 pages for the Unseen to 42 pages for the Classics) compared to the 304 page beast it is. You'd have a little smaller sized document for "Support Forces" at 142 pages, but that covers vehicles and aerospace and could be padded a little with infantry a la 3085.
3050U is mostly 'mechs, but it's also not as big overall. Pull the fighters and such, add about 40 pages for the Star League stuff and you're back to 178 pages, only a little larger than 3039 (and would include the Clan omnis) in the end. Though, you'd need to add in the Classics, so you're peaking 220 pages; considering all the new production designs in play (Imp, Annihilator, Caesar, Cataphract et al) it makes some sense. And is still smaller than 3050U by 26 pages.
Typed this out while you were doing your big post, reading the rest now.
Succession Wars: I count 83 'mechs in 3039, counting the Unseen designs. Trivia: there's only 34 'Mechs that weren't Unseen that were standard for the era. Would you pad out extra to reach 92 with common variants? (Dragon, introtech Grand Dragon for example)
Also re: record sheets, should there be an explanation of how RS crits should be arranged (engines at the top, then weapons, then ammo, then heat sinks, then noncrit locations) or freeform? In the end it's not like the dice care where an object is, the twelve slots are evenly reached anyway. As long as all the components are in the right slot, I don't mind myself, but you'd want some sort of 'tournament standard' I think for major events.
« Last Edit: 04 August 2018, 07:02:23 by ANS Kamas P81 »
The Shattered Fortress PDF is LIVE!
Please note: Because a relatively few customers were able to obtain the print book at Gen Con, we wanted to push the PDF version out as quickly as possible so everyone has a chance to read the latest exciting chapter of the BattleTech saga. As a result, at this time, ONLY the PDF version is available. The usual PDF + Print bundle will not be available on the store until the print book has a street date, later this fall. Likewise, an upgrade to the combo is not available at this time.
« Last Edit: 04 August 2018, 12:36:14 by Cubby » | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line886 |
__label__wiki | 0.624085 | 0.624085 | Kat's Reviews
Kat first came to Bookshop Santa Cruz by winning the short story contest in 2008. She convinced the management to give her a job, and went on to become an event host, the used book manager and an avid connoisseur of fiction. In her other life, she is often found enjoying tacos. She now works for the Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks managing their ParkStores.
You Are Here by Chris Hadfield
Science & Nature from the 2014 Winter Newsletter
During his time on the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield became the first-ever Canadian commander of the ISS, oversaw a record-breaking number of science experiments, and filmed a music video of himself singing David Bowie in zero gravity. He also took thousands of pictures of our little blue planet and shared them on Twitter. Collected here are the best of those shots, organized by continent, and guaranteed to give you a truly unique perspective on where you are now.
You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes: Photographs from the International Space Station (Hardcover)
By Chris Hadfield
Internal Medicine by Terrence Holt
Mind, Body, & Spirit from the 2014 Winter Newsletter
I’ve never read anything quite like Internal Medicine. Terrence Holt is a practicing physician and a fine writer, and his essays describe critical moments of his residency, underscoring the vulnerable relationship between doctor and patient. From a dying artist who painted brilliant pictures of birds, to a man who seems incapable of remembering his own diagnosis, Holt leads us through a strange and fascinating landscape of suffering and healing. I can’t wait to read anything and everything else Terrence Holt ever writes.
Internal Medicine: A Doctor's Stories (Hardcover)
By Terrence Holt
Published: Liveright - September 8th, 2014
Prune by Gabrielle Hamilton
Cooking & Food Writing from the 2014 Winter Newsletter
I am a huge fan of Gabrielle Hamilton. I inhaled Blood, Bones & Butter, her stunning 2011 memoir about her life as a chef, but the whole time I read it I found myself craving a cookbook to go along with it (I’m a greedy reader). Now my wish has been granted in the form of Prune, which features dazzling photography and recipes for the sophisticated-but-completely-unpretentious appetizers, cocktails and entrees that Hamilton has become deservedly famous for.
Prune: A Cookbook (Hardcover)
By Gabrielle Hamilton
Published: Random House - November 4th, 2014
God is an Astronaut by Alyson Foster
When I realized that this book is entirely written in emails from one character to another, I almost put it right back down. But this strange structure works so well that I found myself reading it late into the night. God is an Astronaut is a page turner that features a strong, smart, and acerbic female protagonist. This one stuck with me for a long time.
God is an Astronaut: A Novel (Hardcover)
By Alyson Foster
Published: Bloomsbury USA - July 1st, 2014
Houdini Girl by Martyn Bedford
Houdini Girl is in many ways a precursor to Tana French and Adrian McKinty. This moody, captivating crime novel is about a professional magician bent on discovering who murdered his girlfriend, a sexy, enigmatic woman who was very good at keeping secrets. Bedford uses his protagonist’s tricks to distract, deflect and enchant his readers. Houdini Girl is simply irresistible.
The Houdini Girl: A Novel (Paperback)
By Martyn Bedford
Published: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard - June 13th, 2000
Life Drawing by Robin Black
This beautiful literary novel has the bones of a thriller. From the first line on I found myself clutching at the pages, as though to save myself from what I knew was coming. Robin Black is simply a master (her short story collection If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This is a huge staff favorite) and her writing deserves a wide, adoring audience. Don’t miss Life Drawing.
Life Drawing (Hardcover)
Published: Random House - July 15th, 2014
The Children Act by Ian McEwan
Fall Reading, 2014
The marketing for The Children Act will rightfully focus on religion; it is a novel that asks provocative questions about faith, freedom, and ethics. But I would argue that at its heart, The Children Act is a book about choices, and the way a single decision can ricochet into the world with startling, unpredictable consequences. The Children Act is also pure Ian McEwan all the way through—elegant, haunting, and arresting, the kind of book you find yourself returning to over and over again. I couldn’t ask for anything more in a novel.
The Children Act (Hardcover)
Published: Nan A. Talese - September 9th, 2014
The Sun is God by Adrian McKinty
Mystery and True Crime
It is a rare, sweet thing to find an author you adore and then discover how very prolific they’ve been. Adrian McKinty has written fourteen books, and The Sun is God is his newest, and perhaps his biggest departure. Set on a far-flung island in New Guinea in 1906, the site of a nudist colony who worships the sun, The Sun is God promises to be the kind of cracking historical crime novel that only McKinty can deliver. I can’t wait!
The Sun Is God (Paperback)
By Adrian McKinty
Published: Seventh Street Books - September 9th, 2014
Ten Years In the Tub by Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby is perfect bookseller material. He reads everything, his curiosity knows no limits, and he cannot resist the impulse to bring home yet another book. For many years he has written a fabulous column for The Believer, where he tracks the books he’s bought and the books he’s read every month. Believe me when I say you will want to read everything Hornby even glancingly mentions in this book, which is what makes him such a fantastic (and dangerous) influence.
Ten Years in the Tub: A Decade Soaking in Great Books (Paperback)
By Nick Hornby
Published: McSweeney's - September 30th, 2014
Dirty Love by Andre Dubus III
Paperback Fiction Recommendations, Summer 2014
Andre Dubus III writes my kind of summer reads. His latest, a collection of linked novellas, delves into the vulnerability that shadows love and desire. As always, Dubus has crafted characters who feel like people we know intimately, and in Dirty Love they wander in and out of each other's stories, lending perspective and nuance to a larger narrative. Dirty Love is an assertive, addictive read that is reminiscent of his earlier work, House of Sand and Fog.
Dirty Love (Paperback)
By Andre Dubus, III
Published: W. W. Norton & Company - June 10th, 2014 | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line895 |
__label__cc | 0.749692 | 0.250308 | Earth Day Special Clip – Bette Midler
[when asked by Parade magazine whether she will retire after her show in Las Vegas]
[when asked by Parade magazine whether she will retire after her show in Las Vegas] I…
Bette Midler – Tenderly – Kiss My Brass – 2004
BetteBack February 11, 1975: Bette Midler Slated For Big Broadway Return
Anderson Herald Bulletin February 11, 1975 20-20 News: Bette Midler is set for a “big Broadway…
You know, I wanted to leave you with the memory of the good beneath the gaudy, the saint beneath the paint, the pure little soul that lurks beneath this lurid exterior… but then again I figured: Fuck’EM IF THEY CAN’T TAKE A JOKE!
“You know, I wanted to leave you with the memory of the good beneath the gaudy,…
Bette Midler – Hey There – Kiss My Brass – 2004
Sentimental Journey – Bette Midler
BetteBack February 8, 1975: What To Expect On The Cher Special
Hillsdale Daily News February 8, 1975 Music: Elton John sings hit version of the Beatle’s song…
Ready For My Close Up! | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line896 |
__label__wiki | 0.552065 | 0.552065 | GetEdFunding
Funding Search
Most Popular Funding Opportunities Last Month
By Taylor Kremer
in Funding Opportunities
In the previous month, educators were looking for funding opportunities in the areas of STEM education, career readiness, music education, and journalism. Check out which grants GetEdFunding educators viewed the most in the month of December.
In the previous month, educators were looking for funding opportunities in the areas of STEM education, service learning, and arts. Check out which grants GetEdFunding educators viewed the most in the month of November.
Get Insights into the Grant Writing Process Through Success Stories
in Success Stories
The grant writing process can often feel like it’s shrouded in mystery. Each application has different requirements and levels of difficulty. Sometimes it can even be difficult to tell from the funder’s website how much funding they’re likely to give you. Take some of the mystery out of grant writing by learning from your peers.
Get Your Copy of the New Big Deal Book of Technology
in Professional Development
Looking for the best teaching and learning tools? Find them in our latest edition of the K–12 Book of Technology.
In the previous month, educators were looking for funding opportunities in the areas of STEM education, arts, and technology. Check out which grants GetEdFunding educators viewed the most in the month of October.
Tell Us What You Think 2019
By Julia O'Connor
You are invited to participate in a brief survey about GetEdFunding.com. We would love to hear from you! This brief survey will take approximately five minutes to complete.
The Importance of Community Partnerships
By Anne Zimmermann
in Tips and Tricks
Community partnerships can be great opportunities for schools to not only connect students, parents, nonprofit organizations, and educators to increase funding chances, but also a measure to create advocacy for education and work towards achieving a common goal.
In the previous month, educators were looking for funding opportunities in the areas of STEM education, vocational training, and field trips, as well as technology equipment. Check out which grants GetEdFunding educators viewed the most in the month of August.
The Soft Underbelly of Nonprofit Collaboration Pt. 2
By Valerie F. Leonard
Last week, we looked at the first part of Valerie F. Leonard’s blog “The Soft Underbelly of Nonprofit Collaboration.” This week, we continue with part 2. Her blog focuses on the opportunities and pitfalls of collaboration between agencies and organizations.
Everybody is talking about how important it is for organizations to work together. Few are addressing the potential pitfalls and vulnerabilities of partnership.
What Have You Been Reading? – Discover GetEdFunding on How to Spot a Scam Grant
What Makes a Successful Grant Application? – STEM and Arts – Discover GetEdFunding on What Makes a Successful Grant Application?
5 Steps to Best Practices in Grant Writing – Discover GetEdFunding on Six Ways to Nurture Relationships with Donors
Top Tips for Writing Your First Grant – Discover GetEdFunding on Grant Writing for Beginners Series
Adding Value to Your Grant Proposal – Discover GetEdFunding on Finding Data for Your Grant Proposal
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__label__cc | 0.595135 | 0.404865 | 5 Businesses Crushing Fandom Right Now
by david@freshspot.com (David Meerman Scott) · Published November 26, 2019 · Updated November 26, 2019
Author: david@freshspot.com (David Meerman Scott)
If you aren’t thinking about how fandom can grow your business, you should be. One of the most powerful things you can do as a business is to build a community of devoted fans that will choose the products or services that you provide no matter the circumstances. The passion behind fandom creates genuine human connection, and in a world of impersonal marketing automation, businesses that tap into the personalized power of fandom will dominate.
Companies have started to realize the importance of turning customers into fans and fans into customers — the cornerstone of Fanocracy.
In this article, I’ll highlight 5 businesses that are crushing fandom right now and having fun while doing it.
1. Southwest Airlines.
Southwest Airlines doesn’t dominate in the conventional areas of airline experience — it has no meals, no seat-back screens, and no first-class seating — but happens to be the third-largest airline in the world. Only one thing can explain this: Fandom.
Southwest takes its commitment to customer experience seriously. On its website, the airline describes itself as such.
“We like to think of ourselves as a Customer Service company that happens to fly airplanes (on schedule, with personality and perks along the way).”
The airline first embodies this with its policies. There are no charges to change or cancel a flight, and the first two checked bags are free. By giving customers the flexibility to adjust to changing travel plans and the freedom to pack more for their trips, Southwest prioritizes customer satisfaction and happiness over extra fees.
Additionally, the customer support at Southwest truly goes above and beyond. Besides having around-the-clock support over the phone, email, and social media, the airline takes the time to accommodate extraordinary requests. In one situation, a customer preparing for a relay race lost her bag on a flight the day before her competition. A Southwest employee took it in her hands to see that the customer could complete her race, so she waited until the bag arrived and then drove 3-hours to the race site to deliver the luggage on time. Talk about genuine connection! The amazing story is on Southwest’s Twitter page, which has over 2 million followers.
2. Wendy’s
If Wendy’s burgers don’t distinguish it from notable competitors such as McDonald’s and Burger King, its fan engagement certainly does. In an industry that does not have glamorous-looking menu items or lavish restaurant experiences, Wendy’s uses social media and humor to turn customers into fans.
Wendy’s has created a distinctive brand voice rife with sarcasm and wit. Through Twitter, the restaurant chain engages with competitors and users through hilarious quips while also maintaining humor in promotional content.
It is often said that the customer is always right, but Wendy’s fearless authenticity with customers have allowed it to build a strong fanbase.
3. Trader Joe’s
Despite having locations all across the U.S., Trader Joe’s works hard to ensure that shoppers have a personal experience that you’d find at your friendly neighborhood grocer. Working to create genuine human connection has paid dividends for Trader Joe’s as the grocer has faithful fans from coast to coast.
Most grocery stores look like bland warehouses — not Trader Joe’s. Each store has artwork and design from the local neighborhood, meaning that each Trader Joe’s location has a connection to the unique community that it’s in. Beyond the local feel, Trader Joe’s includes stickers for kids, hidden stuffed animals, and tasty free samples that make the shopping experience delightful for kids and adults alike.
But perhaps most impressively, Trader Joe’s have adjusted store hours and changed products in response to local customer requests. Additionally, shoppers can sample any item in the store, even if it’s not the featured sample of the day. By bringing a fun, local, and personalized feel to shopping, Trader Joe’s devotes itself to its customers — who often become loyal, life-long fans.
4. Dollar Shave Club
Dollar Shave Club takes a seemingly mundane activity — grooming — and injects some fun into the process. Through creating special experiences for its customers, Dollar Shave Club channels the power of fandom to disrupt the grooming industry.
Most people think of razors and grooming products as plain products found in the aisles of a convenience store. On the contrary, Dollar Shave Club provides its customers with a detailed box, a “membership” card to its shaving community, witty welcome notes, and clear descriptions of the company’s shopping process. Instead of picking up some blank, impersonal razors at the store, customers are treated to an enjoyable buying process for no extra cost.
By welcoming customers to its brand with a playful and humanistic buying process Dollar Shave Club wins fans with the small, little details that its competitors may take for granted.
5. Harley-Davidson
A key element of what makes a fan is an emotional connection to like-minded people. Harley-Davidson gets this, and cultivates a strong fan base by creating a sense of community among its customers.
Harley-Davidson customers are more than just customers — they are members of a bike-riding community for life. The company encourages bike owners to connect with each other through Harley Owner Groups where they can ask questions about maintenance, organize learning seminars, and even establish new bike clubs. This initiative has been a huge success — membership has grown to over 325,000 with almost 950 individual chapters.
Ultimately, Harley-Davidson retains such a loyal following by connecting customers with each other. By allowing like-minded people to share in the same interests and passions, Harley-Davidson sells more than just a bike to its customers — it provides access to a community.
These 5 businesses show just how powerful fandom is in creating meaningful experiences for customers. From air travel and motorcycles to food and grooming, businesses can all benefit from the human connection that fandom inspires. Regardless of the industry, creating authentic, personal bonds with customers will turn them into loyal fans of your business.
Do you want to build loyal fanbases like Southwest Airlines or Trader Joes? I want to help you achieve that; my upcoming book, Fanocracy: How to Turn Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans, explores how you can grow your business through fandom. The book releases on January 7, 2020 from the Portfolio division of Penguin Random House.
To Run a Successful Business, All You Need Is Love
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__label__wiki | 0.621699 | 0.621699 | Government Tear Gas vs Molotov Cocktails: Hong Kong’s Street Fight for Democracy
Alex Mak - Managing Editor 2019-10-08
08 Oct 2019 Alex Mak - Managing Editor
A protester throws a smoking tear gas shell back at police officers in Hong Kong (Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)
Riot police and protesters fought fierce battles up and down Kowloon’s Nathan Road in Hong Kong on October 1st. Hundreds of tear gas canisters and Molotov cocktails were thrown, and dozens of arrests were made. During citywide protests on that day, police used lethal force for the first time, after protesters attacked several officers.
Here is footage from that battle on the streets, the sites are like something out of a Christopher Nolan Batman movie, it’s both incredible and frightening. You can see how dangerous the situation has become as Chinese government soldiers trade tear gas canisters with firebombs from pro-democracy protesters:
The protests are against Chinese government influence in Hong Kong, the issue initially rose over a bill that gave China the power to extradite citizens of Hong Kong who they deemed had committed crimes. Since Hong Kongers know that the Chinese state has a no real due process, or a free press, they fought back hard against the bill. Especially the young people in Hong Kong, they don’t want a government that silences dissent with re-education camps taking over Hong Kong. Applications for visas to leave Hong Kong have sky-rocketed, some fear that if the Chinese do takeover, they will not be able to leave so easily.
Here’s an early days explanation of how the protests began (back in June) and some history of Hong Kong and its complicated relationship with China:
The Chinese government famously measures time in ‘dynasties’ or ‘thousand-year’ periods, and they see an opportunity to encroach on a place full of Chinese speaking people who also inconveniently celebrate free trade and the free press. The Chinese government is patient, ruthless, and untethered.
Anyone who speaks out publicly against the Chinese government, or in support of the protesters can expect retaliation. The Chinese government will threaten any company doing business in China if they are shown to allow free speech against the government.
For example, US video game company Blizzard had to suspend a Chinese player for using pro-democracy rhetoric on its platform. He supported the protesters in Hong Kong, so therefore he had to be kicked off the airwaves. Many companies that operate in China are forced to suppress free speech in order to keep the Chines government happy. Early this week, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted out something that supported the Hong Kong Protesters and the Chinese Basketball Association suspended ties with the Rockets, and Chinese state television said they would no longer show Rockets games in China. That’s for just one tweet of decent, by one employee of the team.
Meanwhile, here is a video of the police beating Hong Kong protesters with batons on October 7th. The battles are unfolding continuously on the streets:
IF you are looking for a good English language news source in Hong Kong, Check out the not-for-profit HKFP:
http://www.hongkongfp.com – Hong Kong’s only not-for-profit, independent English-language news source.
Tags:chinese governmentdeathdemorcracyfree pressHong Kongmolotov cocktailspro-democracyprotestsTear Gas
There Are SO Many Film Festivals Coming to the Bay Area!
An Ode to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco
Alex Mak - Managing Editor
I'm the managin' editor here at Broke-Ass Stuart. When we're not writing, editing, or publishing articles, Stuart and I are promoting the good things in SF & NYC.
If you're a writer, artist, or performer who would like to get your work seen by our audience, or if you're a cool business and would like us to introduce you to our 120k social followers in a creative and engaging way, contact me at alex@brokeassstuart.com.
La Victrola : Big Art and Introspection at Burning Man
Bernie Wrote a Wonderful Op-Ed to His Supporters, Tells It How It Is
5 Ways to Kill Bed Bugs on the Cheap
All Over Coffee By Paul Madonna | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line912 |
__label__cc | 0.586657 | 0.413343 | Bryan Davis is always available to teach trumpet/brass lessons, whether at home in NYC or while he’s on the road. If you are not in New York, or Bryan is not visiting your location, he is also available to teach online lessons via Skype or FaceTime. Mr Davis has been extensively involved in Music education since the early 1990s – giving both private trumpet lessons and conducting workshops/masterclasses, and coaching ensembles all over the world.
His methodology is simple: to promote strong playing fundamentals and good playing efficiency through intelligent and organised practice, and informed equipment choices. In other words, the aim is to make the physical act of playing the trumpet as effortless as possible. That way, one can make music with the instrument rather than against, or in spite of, it!
In particular, Bryan can help players who are struggling due to lip injuries, caused either by some sort of accident or the cumulative effect of many years playing harder than is necessary. It does not have to hurt to play the trumpet!
If you are interested in having Bryan Davis conduct a workshop/masterclass at your High School, College or University please contact him directly for further details.
In addition to his private studio teaching, Mr Davis is also available as an “Out of Proficiency” Instructor to trumpet students at The New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music in NYC.
Bryan is based in New York City.
Lessons in New York can take place at Bryan’s home, in Upper Manhattan, or at a rehearsal studio location in midtown. Two preferred studio locations are the Michiko Studios at Roberto’s Winds on West 46th Street, between 6th & 7th Avenues; or J Landress Brass, 153 West 36th Street, 3rd Floor, between 7th Ave. & Broadway. The studio rental is the responsibility of the student.
‘Road’ lessons, when Bryan is on tour, usually take place at the performance venue (subject to availability) or at a location provided by the student.
You will need to bring your trumpet and any mouthpieces you use, as well as a tape/digital recorder/video camera. Students are encouraged to record their lessons for reference.
2018/19 Lesson prices are as follows:
USA: $80 per hour (i.e. $160 for a 2 hour lesson)
Germany/Austria/Eurozone: €80 per hour
Other countries/currencies please email for prices.
Regular students may prepay longer blocks of lesson time for a discount.
Initial and ‘Road’ lessons are organised on the basis of a 2 hour session. Subsequent lessons may be booked on a one hourly basis.
If meeting in person for a lesson is not geographically possible, Online Lessons via Skype are also available. An initial Online Lesson can be organized as a 90 minute or 2 hour session.
If you would like to organise a lesson, please check Bryan’s schedule and then use the Online Lesson Enquiry Form below.
Prepayment for in-person lessons is possible via PayPal: please state this when organising the lesson. Cash on the day is preferred. Online lessons must be prepaid, in order for Bryan to instigate the video call.
All Prepayment for Lessons is now handled via the Airflow Music Store – click here to visit the Lessons page.
Students are encouraged to record their lessons for reference, either in audio or video format. Bryan can make an audio recording of your lesson which will be made available to you, via download, if you require it. However, sharing of these recordings, whether online or off- is prohibited without Bryan Davis’ express permission.
Online Lesson Enquiry Form
Skype Username
Preferred Date(s) & Time(s)
We will attempt to honour your preferred date and time, subject to availability. If it is not available, we will be in contact to arrange an alternative.
Have you taken a lesson with Bryan Davis before?*
Tell Me Something About You:*
How long have you been playing trumpet? What would you like to improve in your playing? Your musical goals? Who are your teachers? Some players who inspire you?
Recent Video Tutorials
Watch more Video Tutorials with Bryan Davis at the Airflow Music YouTube Channel. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line914 |
__label__wiki | 0.961217 | 0.961217 | The BT Archive
News National 2012 07 29 Debt payment priority for most receivers
Debt payment priority for most receivers
29 July 2012 Diyana Ibrahim, Fung Siew Mun, Rabiatul Kamit National 4 minutes, 36 seconds
-Gov't pays Cost of Living Allowance or 'Elaun Sara Hidup'
SETTLING debts and spending for Hari Raya necessities become priority for civil servants who just received their Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) or 'Elaun Sara Hidup'. Banks and ATM machines in the capital yesterday saw long queues of members of the civil service wanting to check if their COLA allowance has been paid or not.
People also seen thronging malls and department stores in connection with the allowance payment.
Most people interviewed by The Brunei Times said that settling debt first before anything else is important.
Rosmah Hj Othman, a teacher from Yayasan Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah School, whose husband received his COLA yesterday, said that for them settling debt is a priority.
She said she agreed to deducting part of COLA in order to pay outstanding debt owed to the government.
Her husband, Pg Mohd Saleh Pg Hj Yunus, an engineer at the Ministry of Defence (MinDef), had part of his COLA deducted to settle off the money owed.
"It is good to pay it off first because it is a good feeling once it is settled. Then after that, we can enjoy," she said.
"A number of people had commented in Facebook that all of their COLA were deducted but we do not know if this is real. But I do not think the government would do that and leaves people with nothing," said Rosmah.
Jamail Hj Rabaha, who also works at MinDef, echoed similar sentiment, saying any outstanding debt should be paid off first.
"If the debt is not paid, people may neglect to pay it back. This may affect the development of the country," he said.
"This is also a good timing for the Elaun Sara Hidup to be released because Hari Raya is here and it can be used to buy things," said Jamal.
Whereas for Rosmah, the next priority with the money received will go towards her children's needs. "The rest we will use for Hari Raya but not much, depending on the needs. Most important is for the children," she said.
For Amoi Norafizah, 26, an employee of MinDef, the money will be used for her children's future and savings.
"We are trying not to spend it first, because like I said, we want to save it for the future.
"If possible, people must keep the money for the future even if they had received a lot," Amoi said in her word of advice.
Jamail also said that more than half of the money he received will go towards his savings.
"The remaining will be spent for daily use and for Hari Raya needs. We will use it to pay off our debts too," said Jamail.
Among people in the queue at the ATM Centre at The Mall was Hj Dahlan Hj Hidup, who told The Brunei Times that he did not wait that long... "just 20 minutes," he said.
"I guessed they (the government) have deducted a little from my cost of living allowance when I checked my BIBD account," he said.
The 40-year-old shared that he plans to use the rest of his allowance to buy things for Hari Raya and to undertake his home repair, like replacing the old lights and broken toilet to repainting the walls. "I also want to use some of it to pay for my MasterCard bills," he said.
Meanwhile, Hj Zaini Hj Ibrahim, who works for the Port Department, said receiving or not receiving his cost of living allowance would have little effect in how he managed his finance.
"If I get mine, I will feel grateful and I will use it the way I use my salary to pay my monthly bills," he said as he waited for his turn at the ATM.
"This allowance is a gift from His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam," he said.
A women, who wished to be known as Florindah HAR, said that people receiving the allowance should place priority in paying their debt to the government, which include previous electricity and water bills.
"In the end, it falls on the individual," she said, "but it is better to use some to pay one's debt."
"The rest of it would be for personal use," she said.
For her part, she said that she plans to use some of her allowance to prepare for Hari Raya, to provide for her children's education needs and for her family's Haj fund.
"InsyaAllah, we will also use it to visit our son, who is currently working overseas," she added.
The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) had earlier announced in a circular that 25 per cent of the COLA of civil servants, held by the government, would be paid in July.
According to the memo, which came into effect on March 7, the savings balance is calculated on the accumulated savings amount at the end of each year, and not on the total savings credited on a certain year only.
Monthly-paid employees were paid yesterday, while daily wage staff will receive their pay on July 30.
However, the savings from the cost of living allowance was released only on the condition that any outstanding debts owed to the government must be settled prior to any payment of the allowance savings.
The Brunei Times
The BT Archive is a repository for articles and items from the now-defunct The Brunei Times newspaper. (more)
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__label__wiki | 0.59834 | 0.59834 | Home About this blog Archives Search Feed Newsletter Notes micro.blog peteashton.com ↑
Instructions for Humans interlude: Project Oversight
After a fairly intense couple of weeks I finally had a day off on Monday and decided to veg and watch a stupid movie. My stupid movie genre of choice these days is the Marvel Cinematic Universe which have a nice mix of earnest nonsense and knowing humour. I settled on the 9th in the series, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which I remember enjoying at the time as a superior iteration of the genre. I wasn't expecting to find a really useful metaphor for my work in it though.
Now, a lot of the current show is about embracing bias as a means to critique it, so when I find myself succumbing to it it's not a surprise and kinda interesting. Like the legendary 23, I'm going to see data surveillance issues in everything at the moment. But this one was worth noting.
[Spoilers, obviously]
The driving plot of the film concerns a new surveillance system developed by super-spy agency SHIELD. This draws on a Prism-style database of information about everyone in the world, fed through a AI which determines who The Bad Guys are, so they can be taken out before they do harm. Nice bit of predictive policing, carefully contained within the safeguards of The Good Guys, of whom Captain America is a part.
Of course this being a big dumb action movie "taken out" means shot by one of three massive flying aircraft carrier gunships from low orbit, but we can let that slide.
Cap plays an interesting role in these films. Having been frozen alive since 1945 he's a stranger in a strange land and is therefore able to questions the norms the have emerged in American society, as espoused by our hero good spy Nick Fury, here taking the "if you've got nothing to hide" position of every UK Home Secretary.
Cap takes on the role of a warning from history. Not a nostalgic "things were better then" but a "we had a war over this and it wasn't nice". There's a nuanced argument hiding there that the "greatest generation" saved civilisation not from an outside enemy but from itself, which is then made blatant when it turns out SHIELD has been infiltrated since the very beginning by HYDRA, the Nazi science devision who the American's integrated into their programmes in the 50s.
The big lesson from this seems to be to be wary of the origins of systems of control and power. When a tool comes to you, look at how it was programmed, what its intention was. Can something made for evil be repurposed for good?
The vehicle for that lesson in this case is data surveillance. The AI powering this new profiling system was built by a HYDRA scientist (who, of course, copied his brain and is the AI, because we can't be too subtle here) which presumably is capturing data in much the same way Facebook, Google or the NSA might. We can argue that we don't have to worry too much about those organisations as they're not Nazis and just need decent oversight. But what if that oversight is corrupt? What if our systems enable evil to get in?
President Trump was not even on the radar when this film came out. That's some prescient shit going on there.
Now, big stupid movies often wrap their plots around the issues of the day, and that means data surveillance these days; I often invoke the Gods Eye plot from Fast & Furious 7 as a classic of the genre where the shock of invasive technology is invoked purely to push the plot forward. I'd put Captain America in that category too, but on rewatching it I think this is the best illustration of the potential abuses of power in a data-harvesting age that we have. And that's kinda awesome, but also a bit tragic, because no-one's going to take a superhero movie seriously.
If you've seen a good, accessible summary of these issues in popular media, do let me know. I'm intrigued by how it's done.
Up next Instructions for Humans - Day 5 Explaining Machine Learning and Neural Networks in the simplest terms Instructions for Humans - Day 6 Helper recruitment begins.
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__label__cc | 0.706929 | 0.293071 | My thoughts on defense.
« World of Warships- Kitwars Kagero | Main | World of Warships- Kaiser Killing Cruisers »
The YF-16
As Boyd and the Fighter Mafia envisioned the Lightweight Fighter, the ideal was a very maneuverable jet armed with two Sidewinders and a gun. It was to be equipped with a very simple radar, and have a very high fuel fraction (that is, the percentage of the gross weight made up of fuel, versus the weight of the airframe itself). They actually envisaged the plane not normally carrying any drop tanks during normal operations. The thinking was that the reduced drag would outweigh the benefits of extra fuel.
What the Fighter Mafia had in mind was a jet that could go to Hanoi, and tangle with MiG-17s and MiG-21s.
What the Fighter Mafia didn’t quite grasp was that improvements in electronics, radars, and especially missiles meant that such a scenario was unlikely to repeat itself.
And what the Air Force really needed wasn’t a lightweight replacement for the F-4 in the fighter role, but rather a replacement for the F-4 and A-7 in the attack role.
In the end, the F-16 was considerable different than the YF-16, and has proven to be an extremely adaptable aircraft in the later production blocks.
What I remember of the F-16 (and the F-15 as well) is that they were designed and delivered pretty much on time and within budget. Certainly they were not years late and way over budget. I graduated from college and was commissioned in 1974 and so these planes were watched by us Navy guys as they would belong to those who would not be named.
Where did we lose the management capability in the past 20 years to deliver an airframe within budget? I understand there are new technologies in the F-35 but I can't believe it's enough to cause all the overruns and delays.
George V.
Posted by: George V | 09/02/2016 at 12:29 PM
Oops - correct previous post - Where did we lose management capability over the last 40 years...
Very simple, George. It's the difference between evolutionary vs. revolutionary.
Both the -15 and the -16 had new tech, but it was new tech that had been allowed to mature for a while during R&D, like fly by wire. One of the other differences was that the Air Force wanted simple air superiority planes to start with, although the planned day only, fair weather only design would be terribly limited.
One of the several problems of the F-35 program is that the DoD tried to force a "one size fits all" solution on the various branches, ignoring the historical lesson of the F-111 project.
Add to that the nearly-irresistible attraction of adding doodads on, and changes of mind by the buyer, it's no surprise the F-35 is running behind.
I'll also note that the F-14 had issues in development, and the early F-16 was at one point limited to "dead stick" landing distances from base until the engine problems were cleared up.
Posted by: Casey | 09/03/2016 at 04:21 PM
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The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for biographies. Please help to establish notability by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. Scott’s 2013 radio single “God in Me” was also produced by Ed Cash. Scott’s 2012 release, Blameless and Free EP was written by Allan Scott, co-written and produced by award-winning music producer/songwriter Scott Davis (Kutless, Rush of Fools), and mixed by Allen Salmon (Building 429, Starfield). Characterized by lyrical depth, the.
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UK's Labour vows action on 'tax and wage cheat' multinationals
Michael Holden, Andy Bruce
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s opposition Labour Party held a rally outside an Amazon (AMZN.O) depot on Saturday as it highlights its promise to target multinational firms it accuses of dodging taxes and cheating workers should it win next month’s general election.
FILE PHOTO: Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn speaks at the launch of the party manifesto in Birmingham, Britain November 21, 2019. REUTERS/Phil Noble
In its manifesto launched on Thursday, Labour unveiled a plan to spend almost 83 billion pounds ($106 billion) on a program of widespread nationalization and free public services with the revenue coming from taxes on high earners and corporations.
Labour said its “Fair Tax Programme” would ensure the City of London financial district, big businesses and those who dodged tax paid their share.
“I’ll quite simply say this: if you’re trading in Britain and making money in Britain, pay your taxes in Britain, and that is exactly what we’re proposing,” Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said outside the Amazon depot in Yorkshire, northern England.
In remarks published before his visit, Corbyn referred to a “tax and wage cheat” culture among multinational corporations.
“Of course we want jobs in this country, of course we want people working in this country,” Corbyn said. “What is a problem is if they decide to domicile their company somewhere else in order to pay tax at somebody else’s tax rate, and that ends up underfunding our public services.”
Amazon rebutted Labour’s comments. “The government wrote the tax laws and they are designed to encourage investment, and we are investing heavily in creating jobs and infrastructure across the UK - more than 18 billion pounds ($23 billion) since 2010,” an Amazon spokesman said.
Labour is lagging Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party by about 10 points or more in the polls but it hopes that targeting “vested interests” will win over voters ahead of the Dec. 12 election.
“Jeremy Corbyn is lashing out at businesses because he is desperate to distract from the fact that he has no credible plan to get Brexit done,” Conservative Party Chairman James Cleverly said.
The party has earmarked tech firms such as Amazon, Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google and Facebook (FB.O) for additional taxes, saying it would bring in measures to stop multinationals avoiding tax through profit-shifting schemes. It said this would bring in 6.3 billion pounds in 2023-4.
Other planned measures include establishing an inquiry into the finance sector, introducing a 20% Offshore Company Property Levy, and scrapping non-domiciled status, which allows some people resident in Britain to limit the tax they pay.
UK PM Johnson holds 12-point lead over Labour: YouGov poll
Taxation of multinational giants has become an international issue since Reuters revealed in 2012 how companies like Amazon and Starbucks (SBUX.O) use inter-company payments to lower tax liabilities.
Other countries have already introduced taxes on digital companies - France for instance applies a 3% levy to revenue from digital services earned by firms with more than 25 million euros in French revenue and 750 million euros ($830 million) worldwide.
U.S. President Donald Trump has described such taxes as “foolishness”.
Reporting by Michael Holden and Andy Bruce; Editing by Neil Fullick and David Holmes | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line937 |
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Social Care Worker Apprentice
Salary: 14560
Reference: VAC-49132
11/12/2019 lifetime 2020-01-21T00:00:00+00:00 Reading RG26 5NG
GBP 14560
Social Care Worker Apprentice VAC-49132
Sector: health social care
Choice Care Group is looking to appoint a Health and Social Care Apprentice to work in one of our homes. The successful candidate will work towards achieving QCF Level 2 Health & Social Care.
Applicants should be at least 16 years old and not in full time education. By the end of your Apprenticeship you’ll have gained new skills and experience.
If you’re new to adult social care, then an Apprenticeship is one of the best ways to get into the sector and start your career. You’ll work alongside experienced staff and learn the skills and knowledge required for you to be a skilled and confident worker.
As an Apprentice you will be supporting adults with learning disabilities, mental health disorders and complex needs in a residential care environment, providing a high standard of care and support.
• Deliver high quality personal care following the care plan and individual resident wishes to ensure the comfort and dignity of each resident
• Delivery of care that it is of high quality and maintains the dignity and well-being of residents
• Understand the importance of privacy, dignity, choice and consent and uphold these basic rights at all times
• Contribute to the individualised person centred care planning process of each resident and recording appropriate interactions and observations
• Complete all regulatory and statutory training requirements and comply with all company policy and procedures whilst at work
• Carry out responsibilities for residents ensuring that residents receive one-to-one quality time when on duty
Position Type: Apprenticeship
Sector: Health and Social Care
Working Week : 40 hours Shifts
Weekly Wage : £280.00
Application Deadline: 21-01-2020
Possible Start Date : 28-01-2020
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Lifetime Training's founding principle was to support individuals and businesses to perform better through the delivery of outstanding training programmes. Today this principle remains core to our business and has enabled Lifetime Training to become one of the UK's top training providers, offering Apprenticeship programmes, recruitment services and self-funded training courses. We have developed the skills and careers of thousands of individuals and have improved the performance of some of the biggest, and smallest, employers in the UK across a wide range of business sectors.
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Apprenticeships are an excellent option for those leaving school to train and learn a role in a hands-on environment. Through apprenticeships, young people get the opportunity to work with experienced professionals who have a wealth of knowledge relating to their chosen scheme, so they can provide young people with support and guidance along the way while they also study towards a professional qualification.
There are a wide range of sectors that accept apprentices, including everything from health and beauty to engineering and plumbing. Careermap offers a wide choice of opportunities for young people to choose from.
The Careermap team recognises that the first steps in a young person’s career can be confusing, so they keep it simple from the start. Careermap ensures vacancies are being successfully filled, putting early career opportunities at young people’s fingertips. Along with their network of social media partners @CareerMapNews aims to provide the most viral content on the web for the youth market. The Careermap team thinks outside the box, using a fresh approach to inspiring and recruiting young people.
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Summary: In April 1994 the airplane of the Hutu President of Rwanda crashes and the Hutu militias slaughter the Tutsi population. In the Ecole Technique Officielle, Christopher, a Catholic priest and Joe Connor, an idealistic English teacher give sanctuary to twenty-five hundred Rwandans survivors in the school, which is under the protection of the UN Belgian force and under siege from the Hutu...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment 2007
Copies Available at Woodmere
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Summary: Documentary about a community of homeless people living in a train tunnel beneath Manhattan. Depicts a way of life that is unimaginable to most of those who walk the streets above: in the pitch black of the tunnel, rats swarm through piles of garbage as high-speed trains leaving Penn station tear through the darkness. For some of those who have gone underground, it has been home for as long as...
Publisher / Publication Date: RYKO Distribution 2001
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC DAR
Summary: At the turn of the 20th century, two brothers fall in love with the same woman. When she chooses the younger of the two, the embittered older brother travels to Europe where he becomes a ruthless mercenary. But a revolution takes a personal twist with one brother hanging on the edge of life and death.
Publisher / Publication Date: Trimark Home Video 2003
1 available in TC Film Fest DVDs, Call number: DVD TCFF DUS
When did you last see your father?
Summary: A 40-year-old writer visits his dying father. He begins to relive the memories of the past - both good and bad - and he is forced to realize that his once "immortal, invincible and infallible" father is human after all.
Publisher / Publication Date: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 2008
1 available in TC Film Fest DVDs, Call number: DVD TCFF WHE
Summary: A family in 1630s New England faces destruction by the forces of witchcraft, black magic, and possession. When one of their five children goes missing and their life-sustaining crops fail, they fall victim to paranoia and fear as they begin to turn on one another.
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Summary: Inglewood, a Los Angeles suburb, is called the Wood. It is largely home to Black middle class families. Mike, Slim, and Roland have been best friends since junior high. It's three hours before Roland's wedding and he has a bad case of cold feet. Mike and Slim must sober him up and help him decide if he wants to go through with the wedding. In flashbacks, they recall key moments of their...
Publisher / Publication Date: Paramount Home Entertainment 2007
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47 meters down
Summary: Two sisters vacationing in Mexico are trapped in a shark cage at the bottom of the ocean. With less than an hour of oxygen left and great white sharks circling nearby, they must fight to survive.
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Publisher / Publication Date: Universal Studios Home Entertainment 2007
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Summary: Sam, a middle-aged Aboriginal man, works for a preacher in the outback of Australia's Northern Territory. When Harry, a bitter war veteran, moves into a neighboring outpost, the preacher sends Sam and his family to help Harry renovate his cattle yards. But Sam's relationship with the cruel and ill-tempered Harry quickly deteriorates, culminating in a violent shootout in which Sam kills Harry in...
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Summary: After super villain Shredder escapes custody, he joins forces with mad scientist Baxter Stockman and two dimwitted henchmen, Bebop and Rocksteady, to unleash a diabolical plan to take over the world. As the Turtles prepare to take on Shredder and his new crew, they find themselves facing an even greater evil with similar intentions: the notorious Krang.
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Summary: Hard-nosed and hard-headed NYFD firefighter Tommy Gavin returns along with the rest of the 62 Truck crew. In this season, Tommy is trying to hold his life and team together while dealing with the devastating loss of his son; Franco studies for the lieutenant's exam while "Probie" contemplates the end of his probationary period and now both ponder leaving the house; Lou and Jerry each grapple...
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Summary: In a north German village prior to the outbreak of World War I, strange events, accidents, and deaths are occurring. The village people are beside themselves with worry and can't figure out what to do. After the school teacher starts to unravel the mystery, he discovers that the children of the town may be guilty of the crimes and have formed a secret society that the local pastor's daughter...
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Animal friends : 8 movies.
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Summary: A corrupted police officer is in line for a promotion and will stop at nothing to get what he wants. While solving a brutal murder, he makes sure to turn his colleagues against one another to ruin their ambitions. By stealing their wives and exposing their secrets the cop starts to lose himself in the web of deceit he created.
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Summary: Tharlo is a Tibetan shepherd, used to living with little human contact. Visiting a Tibetan town in Qinghai province to obtain a proper ID card from the local police station, Tharlo surprises Police Chief Dorje by reciting from memory a lengthy excerpt from one of Chairman Mao's essays. But things develop in a romantic rather than a political direction. To prepare for his ID photo, Tharlo needs...
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Summary: Centered around a small group of American soldiers stationed at a checkpoint in Iraq. Alternates points of view between these soldiers, the media and the local Iraqi people illuminating how each group is deeply affected by the current conflict and their encounters with each other.
Publisher / Publication Date: Distributed by Magnolia Home Entertainment 2008
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Summary: "Antonio, a successful but cash-poor merchant, approaches Shylock, a wealthy moneylender, for a loan to help his young friend Bassanio woo the fair Portia. Despite being longtime enemies, Shylock grants the request, but demands one pound of Antonio's flesh if the debt is not repaid on time. When Antonio defaults on the loan, Shylock seeks what is legally owed him but soon learns that those to...
Publisher / Publication Date: Sony Pictures Classics 2005
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Game of thrones. The complete eighth season
19 holds on 10 copies
Summary: "With the Army of the Dead--led by the Night King, his White Walkers and an undead dragon--bearing down on Jon and Dany and their combined forces, a denouement eight seasons in the making will be reached, answering a myriad of questions surrounding the fate of the series' protagonists. Meanwhile, Jon's true identity promises to undermine Dany's claim to the Iron Throne...and, or course, Cersei... | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line949 |
__label__cc | 0.632193 | 0.367807 | Le Gach Dea-Ghuí don Athbhliain December 31, 2018 December 31, 2018
…to everyone who comments, lurks, reads, helps or writes for the site. Also, a word for similar minded sites such as An Sionnach Fionn, Workers’ Playtime, Ben’s site, Phil’s NZ site, Come Here to Me, East Wall etc, and so on keeping on keeping on. Somehow the CLR are entering our twelfth year and that’s down to input from all of you (oh and a shout out to Aonghus on the Left Archive without who… and that’s sincerely meant. BTW if you have docs you think might fit the Left Archive all welcome). Thanks a million – you know who you are and it’s always appreciated. Roll on 2019.
Womens View, Number 10, The Workers’ Party, 1983 December 31, 2018
To download the above please click on the following link. AP 1970
Please click here to go the Left Archive.
Many thanks to Aine Mannion for forwarding this to the Archive.
This edition of Wome’s View from The Workers’ Party is an useful addition to the others in the Archive. Dating from 1983 it has a wide range of articles – one notes the recent 8th Amendment campaign. Another considers the British Labour Conference of the same year and notes that various motions were defeated which called for ‘separate and positive discrimination’ for women members of the BLP. It looks ahead to the deliberations of the Dáil Committee on Marital Breakdown. There’s also a long piece on the then recent dispute at Clery’s.
There’s an overview of women’s prisons and an article on the Pill and where next for contraception. There’s a review of the TUC Guide and Workplace Programme for Trade Unionists which covers sexual harassment in workplaces.
Go-Between memoir December 30, 2018
Was given a copy of Grant and I by Robert Forster over Christmas… it’s a very readable book – a memoir of how Forster and Grant McLennan formed the Go-Betweens. Some interesting material in their backgrounds. McLennan came from a rural family, Forster from an urban working class background (‘workers, but not union’ as he notes wryly). As an insight into life in Australia in the 60s when he was a teenager and after it’s fascinating.
Written here and here and here about them amongst other pieces on this site. After McLennan’s death I found it impossible to listen to their last album, or Forster’s solo album made at that time, though their earlier material remained high on the playlists.
Working until 70? December 30, 2018
Jason O’Toole has a piece today on the upping of the (voluntary) age of retirement until 70. Mixed feelings about this. Ruth Coppinger is quoted in the piece:
“As Socialists, we oppose pushing up the retirement age.
“This was a right fought for by trade unions for centuries. Governments worldwide are seeking to raise the age and slash pensions.
“Although the Bill proposed it as voluntary to breach age 65, it sets a dangerous precedent for the entire public sector and thus for all workers in general.
“The government and some union leaders pose this as an individual right for those who wish to work beyond 65.
“However, the breaching of the retirement age is what is significant. This also has implications for job creation for younger people.”
Some fairly stupid statements from the year… December 30, 2018
A few selected from the last twelve months or so.
I think this one may be close to the top of the pile…
The hubris of our age is the idea that moral progress has tracked technological progress, so that our behaviour becomes the criterion by reference to which church teaching is to be judged, rather than the other way around.
Those who, in their arrogance and pride, believe themselves to be above God’s law are never far from abuse. This is what allowed abuses – clearly contrary to the law of the church – to be perpetrated and facilitated in the past.
But this is close behind it from the same week:
The Government wants to reduce the average alcohol intake of each Irish person from 11 litres to 9.1 litres by 2020. Such thorough authoritarianism!
Yesteryear’s religious moralists were never this ambitious in the policing of people’s lifestyles.
Speaking of matters religious and secular…
Meanwhile John McGuirk, communications director for Save the 8th and master of the counter-productive taunt, was tweeting at length about “angry repealers”. “Once all the ‘oppression’ is gone, they’ll have to confront the fact that their misery is their own.”
Or not. Probably not.
Still this exercised some no end:
The debate is not about maternal healthcare in Ireland, do not be fooled. It is an ideological question: do you really want abortion on demand at least up to 12 weeks? Do you really want to give carte blanche to your Government for abortions up to 6 months’ gestation? Legalising abortion will inevitably and inexorably create a general malaise in Irish society, at every level, in every family, between neighbours, in medical facilities, everywhere.
And it would be simply unfair to ignore this person… and wonder at their predictive powers!
The President’s attachment to a left-wing agenda, which manifested itself in his tribute to Fidel Castro and his consistent criticism of the free-market philosophy which has underpinned the economic policies of successive governments might expose him to attack from a more mainstream opponent.
Or marvel at their analytical powers!
One of the problems is that the lessons of the crash were never fully absorbed at political level, never mind in consciousness of the public, and that means politicians find it hard to resist the temptation of repeating the mistakes of the past.
For instance, the widely accepted view that the crash was caused solely by the banks has allowed politicians of all parties to shirk the fundamental truth that “austerity” measures were necessitated by the fact that public spending and tax revenue went completely out of kilter.
On the spending side the rapid rise in public-service pay to unsustainable levels due to benchmarking was an important factor. This was accompanied by a narrowing of the tax base with almost half the workforce removed from the income tax net.
When tax revenue suddenly collapsed the money was simply not there to pay the public salary levels agreed and hence the emergency legislation to control the public pay bill and the rapid rise in income tax to help narrow the gap between revenue and expenditure.
Still, let us end on this more entertaining note – from April:
Finally in a different category all its own, in the paper of record, an interview with a ‘specialist’ in ‘astrocartography’ (a “form” of “astrology” that “helps people choose where to live”) now relocated to the US.
How did your move to Boston come about?
After two years in Italy, I reluctantly returned to Ireland to continue my astrology studying and to develop and extend my client base there, which included starting to teach astrology.
And this is priceless…
In January 2017, I learned of Norwegian airline’s proposed new low cost routes between Ireland and the US, consulted my own astrologer and saw that Mars (which rules passion, drive and inspired action) was strong in my chart in Boston.
So I booked my flight in June 2017, and put it out there in a Boston women’s Facebook group that I was looking for a holistic shop to work out of. I got several replies, contacted ZuZus Healing Arts Shop outside of Boston, who were happy to have me work from their shop one day a week.
Chriss Foss and Black Mirror December 29, 2018
Apparently Chris Foss did the cover art for the book at the heart of this latest interactive ‘event’ from Black Mirror. I’ve mixed feelings about Black Mirror in general – but like the way they integrated a Foss cover, whose art those who read SF in the mid-1980s will recall was everywhere.
Christmas present/past December 29, 2018
I was given this during the week. It’s a neat spoof of the rub-down transfers of illustrations which were one side of Letraset’s output in the 1970s.
If you go looking you’ll find more work by the artist.
This Weekend I’ll Mostly Be Listening to… music from 2018 December 29, 2018
A lot of music this year – been digging deep on the downloads service I use, and still foreswearing streaming. It’s kind of good because it provides a means of getting a sense of what’s out there. I’ve found myself listening to the output of labels a lot – Kompakt for techno, Sonic Cathedral for shoegaze, Heavy Psych Sounds for… well, heavy psych sounds. I kind of wonder is that a reversion to the days when Factory or 4AD were not quite but almost guarantors of quality, or at least listenability.
Honourable Mentions – first up Yawning Man’s excellent The Revolt Against Tired Noises and Half Man Half Biscuit’s new ‘No One Cares About Your Creative Hub so Get Your Fuckin’ Hedge Cut’ album, Vibravoid’s live ‘Vibrations from the Cosmic Void’, Nik Turner and Youth had an interesting album of jazz/electronica, The Prids, VNV Nation, The Go! Team, Moon Duo, Fire Down Below, Hawklords, High Priestess, Marijannah, Fennesz, Tim Burgess, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Joy O and Windhand all deserve mention and there’ll be more on some of them during the new year.
Mixed bag here, some individual songs, others whole albums.
I Came Back to Bitch – L7
A stellar single from a group with a new album in the offing.
Xanadu – Juliana Hatfield
Quite some facility for pop displayed by Juliana Hatfield on an album of covers from the 1970s.
We’re So Nice – The Damned
A very solid album this year and a great scathing anti-war song.
Overload – Gui Boratto & Truelove Music feat Luciana Villanova
I like the album this is taken from a lot, here Gui Boratto seems to almost channel electroclash.
The Truth is in the Post – Black Dog
Not one but two albums this year from Black Dog and a flurry of other releases. Concept albums too about the contemporary world with the usual sceptical IDM inflected take by BD.
Working the Root – Anii
Really like this, it builds and builds, but slowly.
Signs of Hope – 2018 retrospective December 28, 2018
When Gewerkschaftler suggested this they wrote:
I suggest this blog should have a regular (weekly) slot where people can post happenings at the personal or political level that gives them hope that we’re perhaps not going to hell in a handbasket as quickly as we thought. Or as the phlegmatic Germans put it “hope dies last”.
It has been a long 2018. So any thoughts on signs of hope this year?
Political surprises in 2018 December 28, 2018
Good podcast from the IT last week which considered political surprises – one was the fact SF ran a Presidential election candidate, another was the lack of an election, another was the remarkable majority on the 8th. Any others people can think of? | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line954 |
__label__cc | 0.628784 | 0.371216 | NECESSITY, CONTINGENCY. CHAPTER 7 – THE LIMITS OF HEGEL (PART 2)
Posted on October 8, 2018 October 8, 2018 by Cadell Last in Lecture, Less Than Nothing
Necessity as self-sublated contingency
YouTube: NECESSITY, CONTINGENCY. The Limits of Hegel (Part 2) (SERIES PLAYLIST)
Welcome to Lecture 22 of Less Than Nothing focused on Part 2 of Chapter 7 — The Limits of Hegel. In the section titled “Necessity as Self-Sublated Contingency” we encounter a concept which is absolutely central to Žižek’s metaphysical focus on reviving a Hegelian ontology for a universe of contingency. In our contemporary philosophical universe contingency has become universalized. Everything from the laws of physics to the structure of gender to the nature of religion is perceived to be contingent. This means that contemporary philosophy plays with the idea that everything from the laws of physics to the structure of gender to the nature of religion could be other. The eternal necessity of the pre-modern world is replaced with the eternal contingency of the post-modern world. However, Žižek notes that the proper Hegelian understanding of contingency and necessity is to dialecticize the process, where a natural contingency becomes necessary through its own processual becoming. This is what it means to think “necessity as self-sublated contingency”.
Here we immediately encounter Žižek’s commentary on a crucial philosophical interaction between Hegel and Kierkegaard. For Kierkegaard, Hegel is unable to really think contingency, subjectivity and becoming. This is because, according to Kierkegaard, Hegel cannot think contingency and transforms everything into an objective necessity of the Absolute Idea. In this sense Kierkegaard lays the groundwork for what will become the 20th century existentialist movement which focuses on individuality and experience from a perspective which cannot be totalized or globalized by any all-encompassing necessary determination.
Here we encounter a direct quote from Kierkegaard’s “Concluding Unscientific Postscript” which articulates this idea that subjectivity is fundamentally open, unfinished, in a process of becoming, and thus can never be objectively closed, finished, and completed in an Absolute Idea (1):
“Whenever a particular existence has been relegated to the past, it is complete, has acquired finality, and is in so far subject to a systematic apprehension… but for whom is it so subject? Anyone who is himself an existing individual cannot gain this finality outside existence which corresponds to the eternity into which the past has entered.”
Žižek, in his characteristic way, then attempts to flip Kierkegaard’s critique of Hegel on its head. For Žižek, it is not that Hegel is viewing process from the point of view of the deterministic end point of the Absolute Idea, but rather attempting to articulate the way in which the very “eternal past” which Kierkegaard is saying is objective and complete, is in fact itself produced through an irreducibly contingent process of becoming. In other words, what in the past appears as a necessary given background is in fact something that emerges in its own time and only gains the appearance of finality retroactively. In that sense Hegel’s “Absolute Idea” should be read in this sense, as something that in retrospect will appear to be a complete finality, it is not something that should be inscribed into our present, since, for Hegel, the truth is the unrealized notion, not the realized notion. In that sense necessity is only ever being constituted, necessity is only ever in its own process of becoming, as a type of self-sublated necessity. Here to quote Žižek (2):
“What if the wager of [Hegel’s] dialectic is not to adopt the “point of view of finality” towards the present, viewing it as if it were already past, but, precisely, to reintroduce the openness of the future into the past, to grasp that-which-was in its process of becoming, to see the contingent process which generated existing necessity? Is this not why we have to conceive the Absolute “not only as Substance, but also as Subject?”
From clarifying this common critique of the Hegelian dialectical process Žižek then is capable of articulating the way in which the German Idealist tradition, properly understood as running from Kant to Hegel (as explored in Lectures 9 and 10 Parataxis; Figures of the Dialectical Process); is capable of transcending the traditional Aristotelian ontology. This ontology is “structured around the vector running from possibility to actuality” (3) and basically realizes what is always already there. This ontology is in fact still present as a presupposition in the Newtonian worldview where there is no difference between past and future, making the future some already realized state of being, and making time some illusory epiphenomenon. For the German Idealist tradition this ontology is destroyed by reinscribing potentiality into contemporary actuality. Thus it is the German Idealists who could properly make sense of actuality in a state of radically open becoming, where a substantial eternity is properly dialecticized, transformed into virtual potentiality.
In this representation we can see the basic coordinates of the German Idealist ontology which “explodes” the Aristotelian ontology. To quote Žižek the German Idealist ontology is a “movement of restoring the dimension of potentiality to mere actuality, of unearthing, in the very heart of actuality, a secret striving towards potentiality.” (4) In this very dramatic sense the German Idealist ontology “unfreezes reality”. One can no longer merely conceive of reality as given being but given being as itself something that emerged in a becoming, and the present reality as itself still charged by a process of becoming. Again, the true is not the realized but the unrealized, the latest potentiality of the present moment. In every moment there is a latent potential that we can recede from or act upon.
From understanding this ontology Žižek is then quick to demonstrate how this ontology played a huge role in structuring the metaphysical groundwork for the Marxist historical dialectic which say in the present moment the potentiality for radical change and transformation. The world was no longer a static given but something to be transformed by a radical form of subjectivity. To quote Žižek (5):
“Apropos the French Revolution, the task of true Marxist historiography is not to describe the events the way they really were […] the task is rather to unearth the hidden potentiality (the utopian emancipatory potential) which was betrayed in the actuality of revolution and in its final outcome[.] [The point is] to explain how these betrayed radical-emancipatory potentials continue to “insist” as historical “spectres” that haunt the revolutionary memory, demanding their enactment, so that the later proletarian revolution should also redeem (lay to rest) these past ghosts.”
This is a provocative statement and points towards ideas we covered in Lecture 8 focused on Interlude 1 — Marx as a Reader of Hegel, Hegel as a Reader of Marx. The crucial point to remember is that in the German Idealist ontology the future is not already determined. This means that the Communist Utopia is not a state of being that is something we are just inevitably acting out. The future is to be determined by subjectivity in the present moment. But in the present moment there is this ever-present mysterious “potentiality” which “cries out” for actualization or realization. This “potentiality” can often be conceptualized as a higher state of being, specifically a higher state of social being where human coordination is realized without friction or injustice or suffering. This idealization will likely continue to haunt us as a “spectre” until (as Žižek suggests) we “lay to rest these past ghosts” (the unrealized or failed revolutions of the past).
external-internal
In order to understand essence in this ontology we have to first make a distinction between the external essences and the internal essences. For Hegel freedom is always central which is why the potentiality of the present is always emphasized and universalized. However this freedom of self or spirit is what is responsible for transforming its environment into an objective necessity. This is the location of “internal essence”. To quote Žižek (6):
“We are partially, but not totally, determined: we have a space of freedom, but within the coordinates imposed by our objective situation. What this view fails to take into account is the way our freedom (free activity) retroactively creates (“posits”) its objective conditions: these conditions are not simply given, they emerge as the presuppositions of our activity. (And vice versa: the space of our freedom itself is sustained by the situation in which we find ourselves.) The excess is thus double: we are not only less free than we think (the contours of our freedom are predetermined), we are simultaneously more free than we think (we freely “posit” the very necessity that determines us).”
In this quote we see the dialectical difference between external essence and internal essence. External essence predetermines the coordinates of our freedom. This of the physical or social world in which we are born. We did not choose these essences, they were determined for us by processes outside of our space of freedom. However, these determinations are not absolute in the sense of fixed-givens. There is also a space of virtual potentiality where free spirit can constitute its own essence. Here we can think of the various beliefs and desires that structure our intentions and actions in the world. For example, the essence of God or America are not external essences existing before the emergence of human free spirit, they are rather internal essences that exist because human subjectivity freely posited them and attached to them across a temporal duration.
necessity of contingency; contingency of necessity
The ultimate theoretical point to grasp here is the spiritual reversal between spirit discovering a contingently created essence and spirit creating a necessarily discovered essence. Here we can refer back to a theoretical point that opened this series in Lecture 1 focused on the Introduction: Eppur Si Muove with the idea of God moving subjectivity even if God does not exist as a transcendental ideality. When early scientists discovered the structure of the solar system they were not creating the solar system in its essence. The essence of the solar system was contingently created by processes that have nothing to do with human observation. Scientists merely discovered the mechanics of essence that pre-existed human observation. However, when it comes a phenomena like the Christian or the Islamic God, this God did not preexist religious subjectivity. It is rather that religious subjectivity created and sustains God as an absolute ideality. In this way spirit creates a necessarily discovered essence. As one may be able to tell this difference between the necessity of contingency and the contingency of necessity is absolutely essential to understand if we are to think the division between science and religion.
Here to quote Žižek on the mechanics of this dialectical reversal (7):
““What, then, is the central insight of the Hegelian dialectic of necessity and contingency? Not only does Hegel (quote consistently with his premises) deduce the necessity of contingency — namely how the Idea necessarily externalizes itself (acquires reality) in phenomena which are genuinely contingent — he also [..] develops the opposite and theoretically much more interesting thesis, that of the contingency of necessity. That is to say, when Hegel describes the progress from “external” contingent appearance to “inner” necessary essence, the appearance’s “self-internalization” through self-reflection, he is not thereby describing the discovery of some preexisting inner Essence, something that was already there (this, exactly, would have been a “reification” of the Essence), but a “performative” process of constructing (forming) that which is “discovered”. As Hegel himself puts it in his Logic, in the process of reflection, the very “return” to the lost or hidden Ground produces what it returns to. It is then not only inner necessity that is the unity of itself and contingency as its opposite, necessarily positing contingency as its moment; it is also contingency which is the encompassing unity of itself and its opposite, necessity; that is to say, the very process through which necessity arises out of necessity is a contingent process.”
This long meditation is necessary to spend time reflecting on because we see a complete description of this dialectical reversal between contingency and necessity. Hegel’s point is that all essence is contingent, could be other, but at the same time becomes necessary through self-positing. That means that once a network of selves contingently posit something as necessary it gains a life of its own and then prefigures the actuality of the next series of potential beings.
Pre-critical metaphysics
Here let us explore the true significance of what Hegel really achieved by trying to visualize the relationship between epistemology (our knowledge) and ontology (natural being). As Žižek notes this achievement can be found in the introduction of the Phenomenology of Spirit. In the above representation we see a pre-critical representation of metaphysics which basically employs an ontology that can be found in Aristotle through Spinoza. This is an ontology that cannot think the inscription of historical subjectivity, or as Hegel notes in the Phenomenology, our cognitive knowledge as itself a part of the becoming of the truth. In this ontology the “absolute being” already exists and our minds and knowledge are merely reflecting or discovering this truth. In other words, human minds and human knowledge play no real role in the constituting of the absolute being.
Hegelian Metaphysics
However, with the introduction of Hegel’s Phenomenology we have to totally rethink the creation of eternal being as something that is unrealized, something that depends on human minds and human knowledge. Thus Hegel manages to articulate a dialectic where human knowledge (epistemology) is inscribed into absolute being (ontology). In this way we can not only explain and transcend the emergence of temporal religions and other social structures which posit an eternal being but also to the radical openness of eternal being itself. What is the absolute is to be determined by temporal human knowledge structures.
To quote Žižek (8):
“Hegel’s central idea […] that our way towards truth is part of the truth itself […] only if the encompassing unity is contingency can we claim that the subject’s discovery of necessary truth is simultaneously the (contingent) constitution of this truth itself, that, to paraphrase Hegel, the very return to (rediscovery of) eternal Truth generates this Truth.”
In other words, to put it simply, when the subject appears to discover an eternal truth, it is not that this eternal truth existed before the subject discovered it. What the subject discovered was created in the very moment of its discovery. This can be applied to many different phenomena in our suprasensible world, including psychedelic experiences, religious experiences, and other genius insights in many fields of science, music, philosophy and art. In this sense Hegel articulates the eternal dialectic of chaotic contingencies which gives rise necessary order through a type of autopoietic self-limitation. This idea of the connection between autopoiesis and the Hegelian dialectic can also be found in our exploration of Lecture 5 which focuses on Part 2 of Chapter 3 — Fichte’s Choice.
Hegelian summary
From this precise articulation of the relation between contingency and necessity in Hegel we can re-approach the problem with the standard critique of Hegel (proposed at the beginning of this lecture with the critical quote from Kierkegaard vis-a-vis becoming and subjectivity). In the standard critique of Hegel we have an idea that Hegel is the philosopher of the closed system, the over-arching totality that prevents the emergence of anything radically new. Of course, in this critique, nothing radically new can really emerge because everything already exists in the eternal Absolute Idea which exists from all time. This critique may function against Plato but it does not function against Hegel who does not essentialize eternity.
What in fact Hegel does achieve in his dialectic is to introduce possibility into actuality, to see the way in which the eternal idea is unrealized and moves in a dialectical motion of openness and closedness. In this dialectic what appears to be closed logical necessities (like the laws of physics or historical gender categories or the existence of God) are in fact only appearances of closed logical necessities in retrospect (once they have been posited). Before their positing by self-sublation they are open contingencies to be determined by subjectivity.
From this understanding we can say that the level of the dialectic of the idea is a process where a Thing (like the laws of physics, gender categories or religious structures) become “what it always already was” through the self-sublated positing of a necessary ideal. In other words what we think of as a necessary idea is in fact something that forms in the process of an open and contingent process of becoming. This in some sense allows philosophy to also transcend the standard Hegelian critiques levelled by Deleuze, among others.
At the same time, what this understanding highlights or forces us to confront is the importance of retroactivity. This was emphasized in Lecture 7 focused on Part 2 of Chapter 4 — Is It Still Possible to be a Hegelian Today? In this work we identify that what is reified essence is in fact the work of notional necessity in the present moment. The work of notional necessity sets for itself a past (and a future) that is virtually constituted.
Universal language
Now we can connect the traditional Aristotelian ontology which develops and is maintained throughout the history of classical philosophy and classical philosophical understanding of the concept, or human historical epistemology. In the standard philosophical understanding of language we must start with the contingency of our native “false” language and work our way through the historical contingencies to the absolute truth of a language that is purified, that has a precise and true absolute meaning. This is what psychoanalysis would refer to as a “metalanguage”, a language which reified pure essence in eternal concepts. Here we logically start with all of the different languages that exist in the world, with all of their idiosyncracies, and then, through the hard work of notional determination throughout history, teleologically work towards the one true language that we can all share. This logic is still at work in many different scientific and religious communities today.
Universal language (2)
However, as reflected in the transition from Aristotelian ontology to German Idealist ontology, we cannot conceive of the eternal concept in this way. To quote Žižek (9):
“The starting point of a philosophical thought has to be the contingency of one’s own language as the “substance” of one’s thinking: there is no direct path to universal truth through abstracting from the contingencies of one’s “natural” tongue and constructing a new artificial or technical language whose terms would carry precise meanings.”
Instead in the above representation we see that the identity of the eternal concept is always already present as opposed to a teleological end point that we are tending towards, like a light at the end of the historical tunnel. However this eternal concept always has gaps or cracks which is why there is possibility inscribed into actuality. Our actual present is not just a static eternal concept that is fixed for all time, but rather an actual present that is simultaneously one, and filled with a potentiality of an otherness. One may think of this precisely in terms of the actual real of history where one can always find groups of people who have a “one” which is both always already in competition with alternative fields of “ones” and which changes in time into a different form the the “one”. This does not mean that we should simply “deconstruct the one” but rather “temporalize the one” as a “one” that is itself in a radical process of becoming through the forms of historical subjectivity. This is again the meaning of thinking the Absolute as substance but also as subject.
Here to quote Žižek the meaning of this epistemology for a true speculative thinker who is capable of thinking the “one of his time” (10):
“The path from the contingency (of one’s natural language) to the necessity (of speculative thought) leads through the redoubled contingency: one cannot escape thinking in one’s language, this language is one’s unsurpassable substance; however, thinking means thinking against the language in which one thinks — language inevitably ossifies our thoughts, it is the medium of the fixed distinctions of Understanding par excellence. But, while one has to think against the language in which one thinks, one has to do so within language, there is no other option. This is why Hegel precludes the possibility (developed later especially in the Anglo-Saxon analytical philosophy) of purifying our natural language that would faithfully reflect conceptual determinations.”
The very important theoretical point that is highlighted here is the fact that, in the Anglo-Saxon philosophical and scientific tradition, we do have this pre-German Idealist epistemology which implicitly assumes that a pure and true language reflecting eternal essence can be constructed. This may be one way to interpret the tradition which subscribes to logical positivism, for example. The problem with thinking in this way is that one represses or ignores the eternal possibility and eternal dialectic and the eternal movement. Language can never complete ossify itself in an eternal static-fixed form. That is why Hegel’s formula for the concept was to correlate it precisely with temporality itself.
In other words, when we think about the symbolic order we can never pretend that we are or we will ever inhabit a conceptual determination or a metalanguage that is pure and complete and consistent. We can never pretend that we have the metalanguage to reconcile all of being. This is the fundamental trap of a pre-modern epistemology. To use the psychoanalytic jargon, the Other is always lacking, inconsistent or idiosyncratic. There are always holes and gaps and this is necessary for historical subjectivity. If the Other were full and complete there would be no historical subjectivity. Thus the persistent desire for a metalanguage is a persistent desire to eliminate the persistence of the existence of subjectivity itself.
Excessive contingency
The important analytic point is that when we are thinking in a properly Hegelian epistemology which can also add the interventions of psychoanalysis we have the existing of an irreducibly imaginary irrational field where all sorts of interesting dimensions of language emerge that escape a metalinguistic notional determination. These paradoxically are not preventing us from accessing the Absolute, but precisely those dimensions which give us direct access to the Absolute. For example, to really make sense of “one’s own time” in “the one” (or the eternal concept) one should full explore this inconsistent and idiosyncratic realm of metaphor, word-play, dreams, symptoms, theatre, play, double meanings, slips of the tongue, music, jokes, indirect conjecture. It is this domain of language which is the locus of the birth of new thoughts and new paradigms and new ways of seeing the Absolute. Žižek refers to this as a “redoubled” irrationality and contingency. To quote (11):
“Hegel precludes the possibility […] of purifying our natural language[.] […] Where, then, in language itself, can we find some support for thinking against it? Hegel’s answer is: where language is not a formal system, where language is at its most inconsistent, contingent, idiosyncratic. The paradox is that one can only combat the “irrationality” of language on behalf of the immanent notional necessity if this necessity itself relies on what is most “irrational” in language, on its redoubled irrationality or contingency.”
lalangue
Thus we can clearly see that in the Hegelian system we never have the eternal concept that eats or sublates everything, eliminating all contingency, as was covered in great detail in Lectures 16 and 17 focused on the Idea’s Constipation in Chapter 6 — Not Only As Substance But Also As Subject. The necessity which is the self-sublation of contingency does not mean that all contingent otherness is overcome but redoubled. That what becomes necessary in time is the product of an irreducibly contingent otherness. To quote Žižek (12):
“there is always a remainder of contingency, of particularity, which cannot be [sublated], which resists its conceptual (dis)integration.”
To go deeper into this relationship consider the above representation which captures the irreducibly contingent excess of metaphor, word-play, dreams, symptoms and so forth, and the internal formation of the necessary concept which attempts for clarity in understanding. The relationship between these two is what Hegel is dialectizing as the deployment of the historical one. To quote Žižek again (13):
“not only does necessity express itself in the appearance of contingency, but this necessity itself does not pre-exist the contingent multitude of appearances as their ground — it itself emerges out of contingency, as a contingency […] elevated into the necessity of a universal concept.”
Here the same relationship can be expressed in the relationship between universality and particularity. The particular excess external to a conceptual universality is necessary for the formation of conceptual universality. This process of sublation is itself the eternal motion in the present and not a teleological tending towards a final sublation that would end all process. In that sense Žižek claims the standard critique of Hegel always misses the fact that Hegel’s necessary sublation is always a redoubled process where necessary sublation neither precedes contingent particularity nor eliminates contingent particularity precisely because it require contingent particularity in order to form its internal organization. To quote Žižek on sublation (14):
“This brings us to the Hegelian sublation as a movement through which every contingent particularity is sublated in its universal notion. The standard argument against sublation is that there is always a remainder which resists it, which persists in its immediate idiocy. What if, however, this is the very point of the truly Hegelian sublation, of the “negation of the negation”? The direct attempt at sublation is the initial “position”; it is “negated” in its failure, in the element that resists it; the “negation of the negation” is then the insight into how this resisting element, this obstacle, is in itself a positive condition of possibility, the sublation has to be sustained by its constitutive exception.”
Žižek then goes on to claim that the meaning of sublation means that we have to see from the perspective of the Absolute itself. If we are capable of seeing from the perspective of the Absolute itself we see that (what we see as) loss itself and failure itself must be celebrated. When our egos see loss and failure as a catastrophe this is only from our historical individual human vantage point. But if we were capable of seeing from the vantage point of the Absolute itself we would see that loss and failure are in fact the triumph to be celebrated. The example he gives to demonstrate this relation is the difference between the individual human lives that were lost during the Peloponnesian War and the immortal work of by Thucydides which we gained from these deaths. Of course on the humanist level we cannot make the argument that we privilege the book over the human lives, but Žižek claims, on the level of the Absolute we actually do privilege the book over the lives. The loss and failure of the lives were absolutely necessary for the book. And that this pattern can be found throughout history itself. It is a pattern of sacrifice for the Absolute.
Žižek also gives the example of different historical eras, for example, the struggles and vicissitudes of the Elizabethan era were structured by an enormous pain and suffering (as is every era), but that the absolute result of these pains and sufferings was the work of Shakespeare’s plays, stories and poetry. The lesson here, perhaps, if we are to transcend our actual mortality and finitude, is that we must self-posit as necessary the pain and struggle that is required by the Absolute for a true gain. Indeed, this central motif is expressed in Christianity with the symbol of Jesus on the Cross, the crucifixion of the worst pain and suffering which leads to the resurrection, of the immortal gain.
Absolute Essencing
And this brings us to a culmination on the precise point of necessity as a self-sublated contingency. This is perhaps one of the most important mechanisms to understand in the transition from pre-modern metaphysics to modern metaphysics proper. Zizek here would situate Plato and Christianity against Hegel and Heidegger with the temporalization of eternal essence. In that sense the true modern passage is capable of understanding the dialectics, the coincidence of the opposites, of temporality and eternity. This is done by realizing that the eternal essence does not exist in its complete fullness but is rather radically open and incomplete, in a process of becoming, and only as a process of becoming. To quote Zizek on how Heidegger understood this essence as a process (15):
“In [Heidegger’s] reading of “essence” (Wesen) as a verb (“essencing”), Heidegger provides a de-essentialized notion of essence: while, traditionally, “essence” refers to a stable core that guarantees the identity of a thing, for Heidegger, “essence” is something that depends on the historical context, on the epochal disclosure of being that occurs in and through language as the “house of being”. The expression “Wesen der Sprache” does not mean “the essence of language” but the “essencing” done by language.”
This brings us to the end of Lecture 22 on Žižek’s Less Than Nothing focused on Part 2 of Chapter 7 — The Limits of Hegel — covering an essential dimension of Hegelian necessity as a process of self-sublation.
Self-sublated
(1) Žižek, S. 2012. Chapter 7 – The Limits of Hegel. p. 463-464.
(12) ibid. p. 470-471.
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__label__wiki | 0.652907 | 0.652907 | Johnson: Points will be at a premium in CFL's West Final
George Johnson, Calgary Herald
Points, it figures, are apt to be at a premium. Absolute hell to come by.
“We just can’t,’’ lectured wideout Eric Rogers, “let opportunities slip away. Any time we’re in range, we need something. We can’t settle for a field goal when we’re in close: We need a touchdown. If you start with a short field, you’d better take advantage of it.
“You can’t afford to leave anything out there or give anything away for free.”
On Sunday, in the afterglow of a comprehensive semifinal victory at McMahon Stadium, given how downright penurious the Stamps’ Rich Stubler-directed defence is acting, the Calgary Stampeders Cirque du Soleil wideout said he’d gladly put 20 points in the bank pre-kick-off for the upcoming West decider against the Edmonton Eskimos and take his chances.
Considering they only managed 16, 16 and 11 over three regular-season confrontations, respectively, that’d certainly be a step in the right direction, anyway.
So, fully understanding this is far from exact science, what will it take?
Quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell reckoned if the Stamps “can go out there and put up 20, 25, 30, we have good chance we can win the game.”
Tailback Jerome Messam pared down the figure slightly, estimating “20 or 25” ought to do the trick.
Whatever, they certainly need to find a way to inflict more incisive damage on the ever-shifting fortification that Eskimos head coach/defensive co-ordinator Chris Jones — that “mad genius kinda guy” as Mitchell wonderfully referred to him Wednesday — masterminds.
So far, it’s been a slog through a bog. Calgary’s high-octane offence has breached Edmonton resistance for only three TDs in as many games. Mitchell’s TD-to-INT ratio is 3-5. And they’re still waiting to score a first major along ol’ terra firma.
In their final meeting on Oct. 10th, a 15-11 Eskie win at McMahon Stadium that put the northerners in control of the West, the bye and hosting the division final, second-down (in)efficiency helped doom Calgary.
“Offensively,’’ said coach John Hufnagel, “we have to make hay when we have an opportunity. In the last game we did not do that. We were in very manageable second-down situations and didn’t convert. We need to get our share of those this game.”
Which is, you’d think, where the 245 pounds of Mr. Messam comes in mighty handy.
“I relish these moments, to prove what I’ve got,’’ said the ex-Eskimo. “I feel I perform well under pressure. Knowing it’s going to be tough to get points out there, two great defences, running the ball is going to be big, so I hope we can dominate the line of scrimmage, dictate the game and keep them on their heels.
“Coach Jones, he dials up a lot of blitzes, gives a lot of different looks to confuse offences. That being said, they also have the athletes, the right people for the right schemes. You’ve got a guy like Odell Willis who can run out and cover a back in the flat.
“If a D-lineman’s covering a running back, there’s a lot of things, a lot of flexibility, you can do. Jonesy’s got a good scheme, but we feel we have great athletes, too.”
One of those great athletes, Mitchell, is prepared to do whatever.
“It’s a playoff game,’’ said the reigning Grey Cup MVP. “I expect to get dirty. Especially playing against Edmonton. They’re a team that likes to put pressure on the quarterback and that likes to hit. I’ve got to make sure I turn around and deliver a hit, as well.
“I’m gonna do whatever I can to make sure I’m getting first downs, moving the ball, moving the chains and if it takes my lowering my shoulder to do it, that’s what I’m going to do.”
After rolling up 12 consecutive slap-downs against Edmonton over three-plus seasons, the Eskimos have bossed the last two meetings. Not that it matters now, in playoffs. Clean slate, and all that. Right?
“Doesn’t concern me,’’ replied Mitchell, “but I’m also not going to throw it out the window. They still did what they had to to win two of the three games and catch first place.
“They’ve had two, almost three weeks off now. We haven’t had that.
“The way Huff kind of put it was: We’ve got to cram like it’s a college exam. You’ve got to be studying as much as you can.”
The man in charge of offensive tutorial, Prof. Dave Dickenson, knows how exactly how difficult the marking’s going to be.
“They’ve got a lot of speed. Physical players. They understand what (Jones) wants. They’ve been one of the healthier groups, which certainly helps. And their offence is a good at controlling the ball, so the other team usually doesn’t get a lot of plays.
“You’ve got to take advantage of opportunities but you never know when they’ve going to arrive. He might play super-aggressive, he might not. I’m just going to call it the way I see it.
“What football comes down to in playoffs is usually 1-on-1 battles: Are you better than them?’’
Precisely what everyone’s itching to find out Sunday.
So how many is it going to take, then? Twenty points? Twenty-five? Higher? Lower?
“Honestly,’’ replied Dickenson, with a sigh, “I don’t care how many we score.
“As long as it’s one more than they’ve got.”
gjohnson@calgaryherald.com
Twitter.com/GeorgejohnsonCH
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Reggie Begelton is heading to the NFL. The Calgary Stampeders announced on Thursday morning they were releasing their star receiver so that he could pursue an NFL opportunity, with a source telling Postmedia the Green Bay Packers are expected to be his destination. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line956 |
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Breaking news from Cambodia can be found here. CEO often finds Khmer news and translates it into English for our readers if it is interesting to expats, locals, Cambodians living abroad and anyone who wants to stay informed of the latest local and international news stories about Cambodia and our neighbors in South East Asia. There are many sources for Khmer news articles and they can all be found here in one place. Most of the media comes out of Phnom Penh, Siem Reap or Sihanoukville, but we cover national Cambodian news from all provinces.
taabarang
Location: Outside of Kampong Cham city
Post by taabarang » Thu Oct 05, 2017 9:43 pm
Does anyone know to which country Mou Sokua fled?
As my old Cajun bait seller used to say, "I opes you luck.
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Re: Mu Sokua
Post by Username Taken » Thu Oct 05, 2017 10:07 pm
Her husband was American, so maybe there.
... give 'em a quick, short, sharp shock ...
https://BooksAboutCambodia.com
CEOCambodiaNews
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Post by CEOCambodiaNews » Thu Oct 05, 2017 10:16 pm
So far the only information is that she has fled to an undisclosed location and she left by plane.
Cambodia National Rescue Party deputy president Mu Sochua escaped the country on a flight from Phnom Penh on Tuesday ahead of warnings she would be arrested for conspiring with jailed party leader Kem Sokha to overthrow the Cambodian government, the now exiled lawmaker said.
Speaking to RFA’s Khmer Service from an undisclosed location, Mu Sochua said she feared loss of her freedom at the hands of courts controlled by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party led by Prime Minister HE.
https://www.everyday.com.kh/en/article/64852.html
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bangkokhooker
Post by bangkokhooker » Thu Oct 05, 2017 10:19 pm
Last time she was in exile it was in France. I guess seeing as her boss is there that's where she will go, along with all the other CNRP scaredy cats.
"In 1972, Sochua's parents sent her to Paris for further studies.[1] A year later, she relocated to San Francisco to join her brother over there. When the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia in 1975, her parents vanished. Sochua would remain in exile for the next 18 years. While Sochua was in the US, she earned a bachelor's degree in Psychology from San Francisco State University and a master's degree in Social Work from the University of California, Berkeley before returning to Cambodia to help rebuild a society shattered by war."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_Sochua
Sidewalker
Location: Siem Reap
Post by Sidewalker » Fri Oct 06, 2017 1:43 pm
Here is a interview with her: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41518527
There are people who cannot imagine that there are other ways of life than their own life.
Post by CEOCambodiaNews » Fri Nov 03, 2017 6:12 pm
Article on Mu Sochua from the CSM, 27 October 2017:
Amid Cambodia crackdown, this leader fled. But she hasn't given up on change
Recognition abroad for Mu Sochua's human-rights work hasn't always translated into political power at home. As a political crackdown in Cambodia continues, she's been presented with unprecedented pressures – but perhaps new opportunities, as well...
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pa ... -on-change
Location: Phnom Penh
Post by Woody » Fri Nov 03, 2017 6:33 pm
bangkokhooker wrote: ↑
Scared of living the rest of her life in gaol?
Post by bangkokhooker » Fri Nov 03, 2017 6:54 pm
Woody wrote: ↑
Dunno, never asked her.
I was referring to the "other CNRP" scaredy cats.
Barang chgout
Post by Barang chgout » Fri Nov 03, 2017 8:13 pm
Pretty sure she's in Sweden
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__label__wiki | 0.714515 | 0.714515 | Concurrent chemoradiotherapy combined with enteral nutrition support: a radical treatment strategy for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients with malignant fistulae
Li Ma1,2,3,
Guang-Yu Luo1,2,4,
Yu-Feng Ren5,
Bo Qiu1,2,3,
Hong Yang1,2,6,
Chun-Xia Xie1,3,
Song-Ran Liu1,2,3,
Shi-Liang Liu1,2,3,
Zhao-Lin Chen1,2,3,
Qun Li1,2,3,
Jian-Hua Fu1,2,6,
Meng-Zhong Liu1,2,3,
Yong-Hong Hu1,2,3,
Wen-Feng Ye1,2,7 &
Hui Liu1,2,3
Chinese Journal of Cancer volume 36, Article number: 8 (2017) Cite this article
Concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) significantly increases the survival rate of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients with malignant fistulae. Recent clinical evidence has shown the benefits of enteral nutrition for malnourished cancer patients. In this study, we aimed to validate that, with the support of enteral nutrition, ESCC patients who develop malignant fistulae might be able to complete CCRT and achieve long-term survival.
We reviewed the medical records of 652 patients with ESCC who received definitive CCRT at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center between January 2010 and December 2012. Treatment outcome and toxicity were retrospectively evaluated in 40 ESCC patients with malignant fistulae. All the 40 patients were treated with CCRT and evaluated by clinical nutritionists using nutrition risk screening (NRS) before, during, and after treatment. Twenty-two patients received a nasogastric tube, and 18 underwent percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy feeding. The median energy intake was 2166 kcal/day. Treatment response was evaluated at 3 months after the completion of CCRT.
With a median follow-up of 18 months (range, 3–39 months), patients’ 1-year overall survival (OS) rate was 62.5%, and the estimated OS time was 25.5 months. Univariate analysis showed that the NRS score (P = 0.003), increase in NRS score (P = 0.024), fistula closure (P = 0.011), and response to treatment (P < 0.001) were significantly associated with OS. Multivariate analysis showed that tumor response (P = 0.044) and increase in NRS score (P = 0.044) were independent predictors of OS. Grade 3 vomiting was observed in 8 patients (20.0%), grade 3 neutropenia was observed in 11 patients (27.5%), and grade 3 cough was observed in 13 patients (32.5%); 2 patients (5.0%) died of massive bleeding during treatment.
CCRT combined with enteral nutrition support is effective for ESCC patients with malignant fistulae. Patients have an increased potential to be cured, especially those who experience complete response and have an increase in NRS score. Careful observation and nutrition support are required for patients with advanced T-category ESCC who undergo CCRT.
Esophageal cancer is among 10 most common causes of cancer-related death in China [1]. Malignant fistulae between the esophagus and respiratory tract (ER fistula) or between the esophagus and mediastinum (EM fistula) are serious complications for patients with esophageal carcinoma [2]. Bronchopneumonia, sepsis, and massive bleeding are the most common terminal events observed in patients with a malignant fistula. Many patients with malignant fistulae eventually die, with a short median survival ranging from 1 to 6 weeks [3, 4]. Historically, the presence of ER fistula or EM fistula has been considered a relative contraindication for radiotherapy and chemotherapy. However, a large retrospective analysis showed that, for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients with malignant fistulae, radiotherapy significantly extended overall survival (OS) compared with supportive care [4]. Although most concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) trials for ESCC patients have excluded primary tumors with fistulae [5, 6], some studies reported that, for patients with locally advanced esophageal carcinoma, significant improvement in local control and OS can be achieved with CCRT compared with radiotherapy alone [7,8,9]. Koike et al. [10] reported that CCRT with protracted cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) infusion for patients with T4 esophageal carcinoma and malignant fistulae could lead to a 2-year survival rate of 22%.
Malnutrition is a common comorbidity in esophageal carcinoma patients, affecting up to 80% of patients at the time of diagnosis; for esophageal carcinoma patients with malignant fistulae, nutritional status is even worse [11]. Although CCRT has become a standard treatment strategy for esophageal carcinoma, this regimen is associated with several toxicities, such as bone marrow suppression, esophagitis, mucositis, nausea, and vomiting [7,8,9,10]. Recent clinical evidence has shown the benefits of enteral nutrition in malnourished cancer patients: it can maintain quality of life and improve nutritional status by ensuring adequate nutrient intake [12,13,14]. Therefore, with the support of enteral nutrition, ESCC patients who develop malignant fistulae might be able to complete CCRT and achieve long-term survival.
Building on our previous work that made the promising effects of CCRT on esophageal carcinoma [15, 16], we treated patients who had advanced esophageal carcinoma and ER or EM fistulae with aggressive CCRT combined with enteral nutrition support. Here, we reviewed and analyzed the clinical results of this treatment strategy for esophageal carcinoma patients who developed malignant fistulae before or during treatment.
Patient and clinical data
We reviewed the medical records of 652 patients with ESCC who received definitive CCRT at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China between January 2010 and December 2012. Among 652 patients, 73 ESCC patients were identified to have fistulae. The patients were diagnosed according to the American Joint Committee on Cancer tumor, node, and metastasis (TNM) classification (7th edition). All the patients who met the following inclusion criteria were included in this study: (1) confirmed thoracic ESCC by pathologic analysis; (2) no previous cancer treatments and no distant metastases; (3) Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status ≤2; (4) a complete evaluation, including physical examination, computed tomography (CT) scanning of the chest and abdomen, an upper gastrointestinal barium meal exam, and endoscopic ultrasound of the esophagus; and (5) meglumine diatrizoate mucilage (MDC) leakage with/without endoscopy for fistulae assessment.
Clinical data collected from each patient included ECOG performance status, a nutrition assessment, age, sex, primary esophageal tumor location, clinical stage and T category of primary tumor, radiation dose, CCRT regimen, and tumor response to CCRT.
Enteral nutrition support and assessment
Before, during, and after CCRT, all patients were evaluated by clinical nutritionists using nutrition risk screening (NRS). Patients were evaluated in terms of undernutrition and disease severity, according to whether they are absent, mild, moderate, or severe, making a total score of 0–6; patients with a total score of ≥3 were classified as nutritionally at-risk. Undernutrition was estimated using three variables used in most screening tools: body mass index (BMI), percent of recent weight loss, and change in food intake. Diseases like hip fracture, chronic diseases, and tumor were scored 1; major abdominal surgery, stroke, diabetes, and hematologic malignancy were scored 2; head injury and bone marrow transplantation were scored 3 [17]. Increased NRS score indicated improved nutritional status of patients than before. When diagnosed with a malignant fistula, patients were administered enteral nutrition support. The patients either received nasal feeding or underwent a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG), and therefore dietary intake could be adjusted and to achieve energy balance and minimize weight loss based on patient weight that was continuously monitored.
Intacted protein enteral nutrition powder formula (Danone; Paris, France) was used for nasal feeding (each 500-mL bottle provides 20 g of protein and 500 kcal of energy). Oral and/or enteral energy-rich and protein-rich supplements were added when needed. At all measurement points, the PEG stoma site was observed and care advice was given when needed. Nutritional supplements were administered until 4–8 weeks after fistula closure.
All laboratory test values, including hemoglobin level and serum albumin level, were determined in the clinical laboratories of Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center.
Radiotherapy and concurrent chemotherapy
During radiotherapy, the techniques used for patient immobilization, simulation, and treatment planning were performed according to a standard protocol in the Department of Radiotherapy at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center for esophageal carcinoma patients receiving three-dimensional conventional radiotherapy (3D-CRT) [18]. With the patient in the supine position, a cradle for immobilization was made with a vacuum. Individual patients were scanned from the atlas (C1) to the second lumbar vertebra (L2) level to cover the entire neck, lung, esophagus, and celiac lymph node regions. CT scans were performed with 0.5-cm thickness slices. Briefly, the gross tumor volume (GTV-esophagus) consisted of lesions diagnosed by biopsy or subsequent CT scans; tumor regions described on endoscopy but not observed on CT were also included in the GTV-esophagus. The criteria for GTV of positive lymph nodes (GTV-ln) based on CT scans were as follows: short axis size ≥10 mm, a lymph node with an infiltrative margin, or central necrosis. Two clinical target volumes (CTVs) for the patients were defined: CTV1 comprised GTV-ln and 2 cm proximal and distal to the GTV-esophagus; CTV2 comprised the supraclavicular and mediastinal lymph nodes, GTV-ln, and 4 cm proximal and distal to the GTV-esophagus. PTV1 was defined as a 5-mm margin added to CTV1; PTV2 was defined as a 5-mm margin added to CTV2 [17]. All patients had a 3D-CRT treatment plan that was calculated by the Pinnacle treatment planning system, and they were treated with a 6-MV linear accelerator (MIMiC; Nomos Corp., Sewickly, PA, USA). The median dose was 60 Gy for GTV (range, 46–68 Gy), 55 Gy for PTV1 (range, 40–68 Gy), and 46 Gy for PTV2 (range, 40–54 Gy). Dose constraints for critical organs were as follows: the maximum spinal cord dose <46 Gy, mean lung dose <17 Gy, and the lung volumes irradiated above 20 Gy (V20) <30%.
Two regimens of chemotherapy were used in the study: (1) concurrent chemotherapy consisted of cisplatin (20 mg/m2 per day) and 5-FU (500 mg/m2 per day), every 3 weeks; (2) docetaxel-based regimens consisted of docetaxel (60 mg/m2 per day) and cisplatin (60 mg/m2 per day), every 3 weeks; or concurrent chemotherapy comprising cisplatin (25 mg/m2 per day) and docetaxel (25 mg/m2 per day), weekly [15, 16].
Follow-up and treatment response assessment
The beginning of the follow-up period was defined as the last date of CCRT treatment. During the follow-up period, patients underwent a chest CT scan every 3 months, an upper digestive tract endoscopy and an abdominal ultrasonography every 6 months for 2 years after CCRT, and a subsequent chest CT scan, an endoscopy, and an abdominal ultrasonography every 6 months thereafter. Bone scans were performed when patients were suspected to have bone metastases. The rates and time to treatment response or distant metastasis, duration of OS and local relapse were recorded.
MDC leakage evaluation and/or endoscopy were performed every 2–3 weeks from the diagnosis of malignant fistulae until 4 weeks after fistula closure.
Tumor response evaluations were performed 1–3 months after CCRT according to response evaluation criteria in solid tumors (RECIST) definitions. For the primary tumors, the responses include complete response (CR), partial response (PR), progressive disease (PD), and stable disease (SD) [15, 19]. Multiple failures comprised both local and distant failures after CCRT. Acute toxicity was graded using the National Cancer Institute Common Toxicity Criteria (version 4.0).
The study endpoint was OS, which was calculated as the time from the last date of radiotherapy to the date of death from any cause or to the date of the last visit before September 30, 2013. Continuous variables, such as age, hemoglobin level, serum albumin level, and radiation dose, were normalized as the sample median and then analyzed as nominal categorical variables. Each variable was assessed first in univariate analysis, and variables that reached a P value of less than 0.05 were further evaluated in multivariate analysis. Survival curves were plotted using the Kaplan–Meier method. We fitted the proportional hazards model using Cox regression. After testing for variable interactions, a forward stepwise elimination procedure was used to determine the best-fitting model. In the multivariate analysis, P values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 19.0 software (IBM, Chicago, IL, USA).
Our thoracic multi-disciplinary team discussed the treatment of all patients. Written informed consent was not obtained; instead, all clinical records were anonymized and de-identified prior to analysis. The entire study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center.
Patient characteristics
Forty ESCC patients (37 men and 3 women) were pathologically diagnosed with malignant fistulae and were finally included in this study. Patient characteristics are detailed in Table 1. Most primary lesions (26/40, 65.0%) were located in the middle thoracic esophagus. Twenty-two patients had stages III and IV disease, and 18 patients had stages I and II disease; 5 had T1-2 lesion, 21 had T3 lesion, and 14 had T4 lesion. The NRS scores of 22 patients were 3–4 (moderate to severe impaired nutritional status) before treatment, and 16 patients experienced an increase in NRS score with nutrition support during CCRT. All patients received concurrent chemotherapy; most (33/40, 82.5%) received a docetaxel-based regimen. The median radiation dose was 60 Gy (range, 46–68 Gy); 12 patients (30.0%) received a lower dose (46–58 Gy). Fistula closure was observed in 32 patients (80.0%). Twelve patients (30.0%) had a CR, and 20 (50.0%) had a PR.
Table 1 Characteristics of 40 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients with malignant fistulae
With a median follow-up of 18 months (range, 3–39 months), the 1-year OS rate of all patients was 62.5%, and the estimated OS was 25.5 months. Univariate analysis showed that, after CCRT completion, NRS score (P = 0.003), increase in NRS score (P = 0.024), fistula closure (P = 0.011), and response to treatment (P < 0.001) were significantly associated with OS (Table 2). Clinical factors that were statistically significant (P < 0.05) in univariate analysis were further analyzed in a multivariate analysis with the stepwise regression of variables. Only patients who had a tumor response (HR = 3.49, 95% CI 1.48–8.23, P = 0.004) and increase in NRS score (HR = 0.23, 95% CI 0.06–0.94, P = 0.004) after CCRT were selected by the stepwise addition of factors in the final models. The 1-year OS rates of patients who achieved CR, PR, SD, and PD were 91.7%, 65.0%, 33.3% and 0%, respectively. The 1-year OS rates of patients with an increased and non-increased NRS scores were 74.1% and 38.5%, respectively (Fig. 1a–c). Patients with T4 tumor and fistulae had an 1-year OS rate similar to that of patients with non-T4 tumor and fistulae who received nutrition supported during CCRT (57.1% vs. 69.6%, P = 0.198).
Table 2 Univariate analysis of prognostic factors of overall survival in 40 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients with malignant fistulae
Kaplan–Meier overall survival (OS) curves for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients with malignant fistula categorized by radiation dose, response to treatment, and increased nutrition risk screening (NRS) score or not. a OS curves for patients receiving different doses of radiation. b OS curves for patients with different responses to treatment. c OS curves for patients who experienced an increase of NRS score or not. CR, complete response; PR, partial response; SD, stable disease; PD, progressive disease
Calorie intake and nutritional status
Eighteen patients had malignant fistula before CCRT; 22 patients developed fistula during treatment. In these 22 patients, the median time from the beginning of CCRT to the formation of fistula was 22 days (range, 7–36 days). Patients were given enteral nutrition support when diagnosed with malignant fistula. Nasal feeding was administered to 22 patients; 18 underwent PEG feeding. The median energy intake was 2166 kcal/day; the median protein intake was 1.53 g/kg weight per day (range, 1.41–1.76 g/kg weight per day). Twenty-two patients had an NRS score of 3–4 before CCRT; 6 had an NRS score of 3–4 after treatment. The median time from diagnosis to fistula closure for all 40 patients was 5 weeks.
Toxicities
The most frequent toxicities observed were vomiting, neutropenia, esophagitis, and cough, with a large majority of toxicity degrees being grade 1 or 2. Grade 3 vomiting, neutropenia, and cough were observed in 8 (20.0%), 11 (27.5%), and 13 patients (32.5%), respectively. Two patients (5.0%) died of massive bleeding during treatment. Two patients (5.0%) developed re-perforation after the initial fistula closure.
Our study demonstrated that CCRT combined with enteral nutrition support offers a cure for malignant fistulae. In our study, 40 patients who underwent CCRT for esophageal carcinoma with a malignant fistula had an estimated OS of 25.2 months, with 62.5% of the patients remaining alive at 1 year after treatment.
CCRT has been used as a primary therapeutic regimen for more and more patients who have unresectable esophageal carcinoma, who decline surgery, or who are deemed medically unfit for surgery. Radiation Therapy Oncology Group 85–01 was the first trial to analyze the efficacy of radiochemotherapy as a definitive treatment, and it demonstrated the superiority of CCRT over radiotherapy alone with regard to 5-year OS rate [20]. Historically, the presence of a malignant esophageal fistula was considered a relative contraindication to CCRT. Ahmed et al. [9] found that malignant ER fistulae could completely be cured in 4 of 5 patients (80%) treated with 5-FU (400–600 mg/m2) by protracting continuous infusion and 60-Gy radiotherapy. Muto et al. [8] reported promising CCRT results for patients with malignant esophageal fistulae. Indeed, fistula was closed after CCRT in 17 of 24 patients (71%), with a median OS of 198 days as calculated from the fistula diagnosis. These results suggested that the presence of a malignant fistula was not a contraindication for CCRT, which was the treatment that provided the best chance for survival and palliation of dysphagia.
Most patients were selected for non-surgical therapy because of comorbidity or locally advanced disease. Esophageal perforation may be inevitable when patients with T4 esophageal tumors are treated with conformal radiotherapy. Ishida et al. [5] reported that 6 of 45 patients (13%) with a T4 tumor and/or M1 lymph nodes developed esophageal-bronchial fistulae during CCRT, and CCRT was consequently terminated. Most previous CCRT trials for patients with advanced esophageal carcinoma excluded the patients with fistulae; however, in our study, we found that patients with T4 tumor and fistulae who received nutrition support during CCRT had similar OS to patients with non-T4 tumor and fistulae (1-year OS rate, 57.1% vs. 69.6%, P = 0.198).
Furthermore, recent studies showed that the patients who underwent preoperative CCRT followed by surgery and achieved a complete pathologic response to preoperative CCRT had excellent prognosis [21,22,23]. Although clinical CR after CCRT may not be significantly associated with pathologic CR [24], maximizing the CR rate is likely to increase the proportion of patients with the most favorable outcome, potentially increasing the survival rate of the whole group. In accordance with the published data above, the patients in our study who achieved CR had a 1-year survival rate of 91.7%; in the group of 8 patients who did not achieve CR (SD, n = 3; PD, n = 5), 7 (87.5%) died within 1 year. These results suggested that even in esophageal carcinoma patients with malignant fistula, achieving clinical CR is a very important prognostic factor of long-term survival. In addition, patients who received a higher radiation dose and more cycles of chemotherapy had a better chance of achieving CR as well as extended OS than patients with lower radiation dose.
For esophageal carcinoma patients, malnutrition might be another important cause of pneumonia and massive bleeding. For patients undergoing chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, minor malnutrition (weight loss <10%) is also significantly associated with poor prognosis. In a retrospective review of 1555 patients with gastrointestinal malignancies who underwent chemotherapy, Andreyev et al. [25] suggested that weight loss at presentation may be an independent prognostic predictor for developing more severe dose-limiting toxicities (P < 0.001), decreased response rate (P = 0.006), and shorter OS (P < 0.001) for patients with gastric and colorectal neoplasms. For 350 patients with advanced esophageal carcinoma who were treated in 6 consecutive prospective trials, weight loss of more than 5% was a poor prognostic factor (9 vs. 12 months, P = 0.006) [26]. According to European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism guidelines on enteral nutrition for patients who receive external-beam radiotherapy or CCRT, every effort should be made to increase dietary intake and prevent therapy-associated weight loss and radiotherapy interruption [27]. In our study, for most patients, we observed a gain in total mass, involving mainly lean mass, and an increase in weight. Our results also showed that enteral nutrition support increased the NRS score of malnourished patients who received CCRT, and patients who had an increased NRS score had higher 1-year OS rate than those who did not have an increased score (74.1% vs. 38.5%, P = 0.016). It is generally thought that radiotherapy interrupts normal wound-healing mechanisms by leading to changes in the vasculature, by affecting fibroblasts, and by varying the levels of regulatory growth factors [28, 29]. Studies of preoperative radiotherapy have shown an increased risk for wound-healing complications compared with postoperative radiotherapy [30]. For this reason, malignant esophageal fistulae were previously regarded as incurable. However, most patients died within 12 months if radiotherapy was terminated [9, 10]. In the present study, the median fistula diameter upon MDC was 4.3 mm, and adequate enteral nutrition support appeared to be sufficient for minor wounds. The median time from diagnosis of fistula to fistula closure was 5 weeks. Two patients developed re-perforation after fistula closure, due to low protein intake after they were released from the hospital. In contrast, 1 patient maintained a good nutrition status (NRS score = 1) even without fistula closure. These results suggest that maintaining good nutritional status is important for fistula closure.
Compared with the results in other published studies [8,9,10], the higher treatment response and local control rates in our study might be due to the following: (1) the use of the 3D-CRT technique (3D-CRT has a better GTV high-dose coverage compared with two-dimensional conventional radiotherapy, which was used in most previous studies); (2) the higher radiation dose was administered (in the present study, the median dose was 60 Gy, ranging from 46 to 68 Gy; better local control could be achieved with radiation dose greater than 60 Gy in ESCC); (3) all patients received concurrent chemotherapy; and (4) all patients received enteral nutrition support.
This retrospective study has several limitations, such as selection bias, different chemotherapy regimens, small sample size, and short follow-up. However, our results showed that, for ESCC patients, a malignant fistula is not a contraindication for CCRT. When enteral nutrition support is provided together with CCRT, patients can achieve promising improvement and have an increased potential to be cured.
CCRT combined with enteral nutrition support is an effective treatment regimen for ESCC patients with malignant fistulae, and these patients have an increased potential to be cured, especially those who achieve CR and an increase in NRS score. Careful observation and clinical nutrition support are required for patients with advanced T-category ESCC who underwent CCRT.
Chen W, Zheng R, Zeng H, Zhang S. The incidence and mortality of major cancers in China, 2012. Chin J Cancer. 2016;35(1):73.
Zheng YZ, Dai SQ, Shan HB, Gao XY, Zhang LJ, Cao X, et al. Managing esophageal fistulae by endoscopic transluminal drainage in esophageal cancer patients withsuperior mediastinal sepsis after esophagectomy. Chin J Cancer. 2013;32(8):469–73.
Reed MF, Mathisen DJ. Tracheoesophageal fistula. Chest Surg Clin N Am. 2003;13:271–89.
Burt M, Diehl W, Martini N, Bains MS, Ginsberg RJ, McCormack PM, Rusch VW. Malignant esophagorespiratory fistula: management options and survival. Ann Thorac Surg. 1991;52:1222–9.
Ishida K, Iizuka T, Ando N, Ide H. Phase II study of chemoradiotherapy for advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the thoracic esophagus: nine Japanese institutions trial. Jpn J Clin Oncol. 1996;26:310–5.
Ohtsu A, Boku N, Muro K, Chin K, Muto M, Yoshida S, et al. Definitive chemoradiotherapy for T4 and/or M1 lymph node squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus. J Clin Oncol. 1999;17:2915–21.
Nishimura Y, Suzuki M, Nakamatsu K, Kanamori S, Yagyu Y, Shigeoka H. Prospective trial of concurrent chemoradiotherapy with protracted infusion of 5-fluorouracil and cisplatin for T4 esophageal cancer with or without fistula. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2002;53:134–9.
Muto M, Ohtsu A, Miyamoto S, Muro K, Boku N, Ishikura S, et al. Concurrent chemoradiotherapy for esophageal carcinoma patients with malignant fistulae. Cancer. 1999;86:1406–13.
Ahmed HF, Hussain MA, Grant CE, Wadleigh RG. Closure of tracheoesophageal fistulas with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Am J Clin Oncol. 1998;21:177–9.
Koike R, Nishimura Y, Nakamatsu K, Kanamori S, Shibata T. Concurrent chemoradiotherapy for esophageal cancer with malignant fistula. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2008;70:1418–22.
Larrea J, Vega S, Martinez T, Torrent JM, Vega V, Núñez V. The nutritional status and immunological situation of cancer patients. Nutr Hosp. 1992;7:178–84 [in Spanish].
Miyata H, Yano M, Yasuda T, Hamano R, Yamasaki M, Hou E, et al. Randomized study of clinical effect of enteral nutrition support during neoadjuvant chemotherapy on chemotherapy-related toxicity in patients with esophageal cancer. Clin Nutr. 2012;31:330–6.
Murphy RA, Mourtzakis M, Chu QS, Baracos VE, Reiman T, Mazurak VC. Nutritional intervention with fish oil provides a benefit over standard of care for weight and skeletal muscle mass in patients with nonsmall cell lung cancer receiving chemotherapy. Cancer. 2011;117:1775–82.
Vasson MP, Talvas J, Perche O, Dillies AF, Bachmann P, Pezet D, et al. Immunonutrition improves functional capacities in head and neck and esophageal cancer patients undergoing radiochemotherapy: a randomized clinical trial. Clin Nutr. 2014;33:204–10.
Bao Y, Liu S, Zhou Q, Cai P, Anfossi S, Li Q, et al. Three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy with concurrent chemotherapy for postoperative recurrence of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: clinical efficacy and failure pattern. Radiat Oncol. 2013;8:241.
Li QQ, Liu MZ, Hu YH, Liu H, He ZY, Lin HX. Definitive concomitant chemoradiotherapy with docetaxel and cisplatin in squamous esophageal carcinoma. Dis Esophagus. 2010;23:253–9.
Kongdrup J, Rasmussen HH, Hanberg O, Stanga Z, Ad Hoc ESPEN Working Group. Nutritional risk screening (NRS 2002) a new method based on an analysis of controlled clinical trials. Clin Nutr. 2002;2003(22):321–36.
Liu H, Lu L, Zhu Q, Hao Y, Mo Y, Liu M, et al. Cervical nodal metastases of unresectable thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: characteristics of long-term survivors after concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Radiother Oncol. 2011;99:181–6.
Eisenhauer EA, Therasse P, Bogaerts J, Schwartz LH, Sargent D, Ford R, et al. New response evaluation criteria in solid tumours: revised RECIST guideline (version 1.1). Eur J Cancer. 2009;45:228–47.
Cooper JS, Guo MD, Herskovic A, Macdonald JS, Martenson JJ, Al-Sarraf M, et al. Chemoradiotherapy of locally advanced esophageal cancer: long-term follow-up of a prospective randomized trial (RTOG 85-01). Radiation Therapy Oncology Group. JAMA. 1999;281:1623–7.
van Hagen P, Hulshof MC, van Lanschot JJ, Steyerberg EW, van Berge HM, Wijnhoven BP, et al. Preoperative chemoradiotherapy for esophageal or junctional cancer. N Engl J Med. 2012;366:2074–84.
Sjoquist KM, Burmeister BH, Smithers BM, Zalcberg JR, Simes RJ, Barbour A, et al. Survival after neoadjuvant chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy for resectable oesophageal carcinoma: an updated meta-analysis. Lancet Oncol. 2011;12:681–92.
Kountourakis P, Correa AM, Hofstetter WL, Lee JH, Bhutani MS, Rice DC, et al. Combined modality therapy of cT2N0M0 esophageal cancer: the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center experience. Cancer. 2011;117:925–30.
Cheedella NK, Suzuki A, Xiao L, Hofstetter WL, Maru DM, Taketa T, et al. Association between clinical complete response and pathological complete response after preoperative chemoradiation in patients with gastroesophageal cancer: analysis in a large cohort. Ann Oncol. 2013;24:12–6.
Andreyev HJ, Norman AR, Oates J, Cunningham D. Why do patients with weight loss have a worse outcome when undergoing chemotherapy for gastrointestinal malignancies? Eur J Cancer. 1998;34:503–9.
Polee MB, Hop WC, Kok TC, Eskens FA, van der Burg ME, Splinter TA, et al. Prognostic factors for survival in patients with advanced oesophageal cancer treated with cisplatin-based combination chemotherapy. Br J Cancer. 2003;89:2045–50.
ESPEN. Guidelines on parenteral nutrition. http://www.espen.org/education/espen-guidelines.html. Accessed 7 May 2014.
Dormand EL, Banwell PE, Goodacre TE. Radiotherapy and wound healing. Int Wound J. 2005;2:112–27.
Izadi K, Ganchi P. Chronic wounds. Clin Plast Surg. 2005;32:209–22.
Wolfson AH. Preoperative vs postoperative radiation therapy for extremity soft tissue sarcoma: controversy and present management. Curr Opin Oncol. 2005;17:357.
LM, GYL, YFR, BQ, CXX, ZLC, YHH, QL, and HL performed the acquisition of data. LM, GYL, YFR, SRL, SLL, and HL participated in analyzing data. BQ and HY drafted the article. HY, JHF, MZL, and WFY made substantial contributions to conception and design. SRL and SRL interpreted the data. LM and YHH revised the manuscript. YHH, WFY, and HL made the final approval of version. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
This research was supported by funds from the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry; National Nature Science Fund, Support Grant 81301932; the grants from the University Cancer Foundation via the Sister Institution Network Fund at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and, in part, by the National Institutes of Health through MD Anderson Cancer Center Support Grant (CA016672), as some of these studies were performed in the North Campus Flow Cytometry and Cellular Imaging Core (PI: Ronald A. DePinho, MD). This research was also supported by the grant from the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry, China.
Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, 510060, Guangdong, P. R. China
Li Ma
, Guang-Yu Luo
, Bo Qiu
, Hong Yang
, Chun-Xia Xie
, Song-Ran Liu
, Shi-Liang Liu
, Zhao-Lin Chen
, Qun Li
, Jian-Hua Fu
, Meng-Zhong Liu
, Yong-Hong Hu
, Wen-Feng Ye
& Hui Liu
Guangdong Esophageal Cancer Research Institute, Guangzhou, 510060, Guangdong, P. R. China
Department of Radiation Oncology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, 651 Dongfeng Road East, Guangzhou, 510060, Guangdong, P. R. China
Department of Endoscopy, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, 510060, Guangdong, P. R. China
Guang-Yu Luo
Department of Radiation Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510080, Guangdong, P. R. China
Yu-Feng Ren
Department of Thoracic Surgery, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, 510060, Guangdong, P. R. China
Hong Yang
& Jian-Hua Fu
Department of Clinical Nutrition, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, 651 Dongfeng Road East, Guangzhou, 510060, Guangdong, P. R. China
Wen-Feng Ye
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Corresponding authors
Correspondence to Yong-Hong Hu or Wen-Feng Ye or Hui Liu.
Li Ma, Guang-Yu Luo, and Yu-Feng Ren contributed equally to this work
Ma, L., Luo, G., Ren, Y. et al. Concurrent chemoradiotherapy combined with enteral nutrition support: a radical treatment strategy for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients with malignant fistulae. Chin J Cancer 36, 8 (2017) doi:10.1186/s40880-016-0171-6
Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma
Malignant fistula
Concurrent chemotherapy
Enteral nutrition support | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line962 |
__label__wiki | 0.974097 | 0.974097 | Brumby victory and more Green seats predicted in November Election
October 12, 2010 Leave a Comment by Brianna Piazza politics
The Victorian Labor Party will form government for a fourth consecutive term and face significant pressure from the Greens in the upcoming election, an expert predicts.
Labor will be re-elected and the Greens could hold the balance of power in the Upper House following the November State Election, Monash University Senior Lecturer in Politics, Nick Economou, predicts.
The Greens could win up to four seats and pose more of a threat to the Brumby Government than the Coalition, Dr Economou said. “The Greens will end up holding the balance of power in the Legislative Council in their own right,” Dr Economou predicts.
The Greens’ primary vote is at a high of 14 per cent, according to the Herald Sun/Galaxy Poll.
Meanwhile, despite cost blowouts for the troubled myki ticketing system and the controversial Wonthaggi desalination plant, Labor leads the Coalition 51-49 on a two-party-preferred basis.
“I think the most likely outcome is a return of the Brumby Government with a reduced majority,” Dr Economou said.
Thirty per cent of people aged 18-25 will vote for the Greens on November 27 while almost one quarter are still undecided, according to a Monash News Survey.
Adequate funding towards environmental issues will help parties gain votes, Environment Victoria CEO, Kelly O’Shanassy, said.
“There are a lot of votes these days [regarding] the environment,” Ms O’Shanassy, said. “If parties put good, solid environmental policies forward they will win votes.”
Categories: politicsTags: 2010 election, Brumby, Greens, Labor Government, polls, Victoria
More water supplies needed to protect Victorian rivers
New primary school centres | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line968 |
__label__cc | 0.691823 | 0.308177 | Bricks in Motion
Welcome to Bricks in Motion
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That's The Way It Goes! - A Collection Of Short Stories (Page 1 of 3)
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1 Topic by That's The Way It Goes! - A Collection Of Short Stories December 1, 2014 (09:41am)
By: Walter Benson
Topic: That's The Way It Goes! - A Collection Of Short Stories
That's The Way It Goes! - A Collection Of Short Stories
A collection of short stories about nothing in particular.
Walter Benson's Website
2 Reply by AquaMorph December 1, 2014 (09:59am)
AquaMorph
Location: Cary, NC
Re: That's The Way It Goes! - A Collection Of Short Stories
Fantastic work. Making a brickfilm of this length is no easy feat especially one of this quality. Really enjoyed a lot of the visuals in it. Especially the gear one. Keep up the great work.
"WTF is wrong with y'alls hearing?" -CK98 ~ YouTube ~ Website ~ Twitter ~ Google+
AquaMorph's Website
3 Reply by Nathan Wells December 1, 2014 (10:16am)
Nathan Wells
Wiki Admin
Location: Eureka, California
I think, without hyperbole, that this is one of the best brickfilms of this year.
When I helped out with visual effects, I had NO IDEA this was a 20-minute brickfilm. So when I opened up the link, I was surprised, pleased, and worried. Not many brickfilms can maintain a good pace for 10 minutes, let alone 20. But my fears vanished. This film, despite its claim to be about "nothing in particular," is excellently plotted and paced.
Congratulations are also in order for featuring women characters who actually have depth, stand on their own merits, and essentially carry the story for second half of the film. I particularly enjoyed Jessica and her story arc.
Some of the jokes and goofy voices weren't too my taste, but others made me grin ("We could try origami!"). Animation was good throughout, though I personally don't like the method of having the characters bob back and forth every time they talk. Sometimes I felt there was too much movement on screen, and I'd suggest considering whether or not a character needs to move their whole body when talking all the time. Also, I do like the swapping out of faces for expressions, but I think you might have overused the "worried" a bit too much, especially since you used it for both characters.
Set design was bright, colorful and detailed. The coffee shop set was my favorite set, and the spider terrarium was my favorite prop. You've definitely nailed your bright, bold, cartoon style. I'd been interested in seeing you branch out and try a darker style at some point. My only other critique, which is something I'm also often guilty of, is resorting to very basic "sitcom" lighting, where everything is bright and evenly lit, even outside and in "dark" corners. Scenes with Jessica might have looked more thematic if you had experimented with some lighting and shadows. The same goes for the speed dating dinner scene.
One final quibble: I didn't really care for the transitional text, though I understand it's a popular thing to do nowadays.
The arrival of this film couldn't be more perfectly timed. It's so refreshing to see a great original brickfilm. Fantastic work!
YouTube | Twitter | Brickfilm Archival Project
Brickfilms Wiki | BiM: The Documentary
Nathan Wells's Website
4 Reply by OneDouglas December 1, 2014 (10:20am)
OneDouglas
This doesn't have an overall story, but it does have multiple shorter stories. Each one is very enjoyable. I love how you had characters with very distinct personalities. It is something I wish there was more of in brickfilms and adds a lot of great humor. Speaking of which, the humor is quite funny. There's a lot of it too.
The animation isn't the greatest I've seen this year, but still holds up well. I really liked the phone vibrating.
The sets in this brickfilm are quite impressive. They have a good amount of detail without being distracting. There's also a nice variety of them. However one small nitpick would be that the sky was a bit too bright.
Quite an achievement. That's The Way It Goes is one of my favorite brickfilms of year. Maybe even my number one.
Great job Walter Benson!
Story 9/10
Animation 8/10
Set Design 9/10
Overall 9/10
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OneDouglas's Website
5 Reply by jampot December 1, 2014 (10:26am)
jampot
Location: Earth Prime
I thought this was so good. The episodic style worked very well, and each set was aesthetically pleasing. And of course, it was just so much fun to watch!
"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein
jampot's Website
6 Reply by Penta December 1, 2014 (10:29am)
You couldn't have picked a better time to release this; it feels good to watch something so original and creative during the barrage of Star Wars trailers. 20 minutes is very impressive and it didn't feel dragged out at all. I can see you put great care and effort into the dialogue as the voice acting, timing and head-changing are all spot on. It is amazing to see a brickfilm achieve comedy through facial expression alone in parts so well.
The area that stands out the most has to be the storytelling. This really feels unlike any other brickfilm and it really works wonderfully. I liked a lot of the jokes, particularly the name tags but I wasn't mad about the couple of cut-aways. Oh well, with such a long film that didn't harm my enjoyment. Animation, sets and visuals were fantastic throughout.
Overall, I'd say you have one of the best films of the year on your hands. Bravo!
Benny n' Lee in: Parallel Panic | YouTube | Twitter
Benny n' Lee in: Sticky Situation
Penta's Website
7 Reply by Pritchard Studios December 1, 2014 (11:20am)
Pritchard Studios
Well, that was something else.
The others have gone into more detail and technical things, but I'd just like to say that as a whole, it was a very well-made, long-lasting, brickfilm that had a lot of substance. Many shorter films seem to be "empty," and are easily forgotten. Yet this made great use of a longer runtime to develop the characters and give it a lasting impact. And to echo the words of others, it was very refreshing to see such a film.
The sets, animation, voice-acting and dialog are all top-notch, and it held my interest all the way through.
This is a beautiful example of just what brickfilming can offer when plenty of time and effort are invested.
My favorite jokes were probably the brickfilming/brickfilmer related ones, but the rest, while not quite as funny, were far from boring or dull. Some films make it hard to struggle through three or four minutes, but there was no issue with this. While the film was somewhat disjointed and episodic, there was still a sense of unity and a continuing narrative that allowed it to easily flow from story to story.
A big congratulations is due, as this is a wonderful masterpiece, and you should be very proud.
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Pritchard Studios's Website
8 Reply by dewfilms December 1, 2014 (12:09pm)
dewfilms
An absolute joy and wonder to behold.
There are so many things that I love about this film. It's difficult to pick a favorite.
The characters are engaging. It's almost as if you pulled them out of our lives and transported them into your film.
Visually the backgrounds are excellent. I had to go back and watch it again just to marvel at the scenery.
Voice acting was spot on. I wanted to mention that Jessica's voice acting stood out for me the most.
It's very tough to be monotone and yet still put full range of emotion behind the character.
The actor's performance was perfect and I applaud her.
It's wonderful. Inspiring.
And I hope this film continues to be shared and remembered for many brickfilming generations.
"Tell stories that matter to you, not stories that'll sell." - Stephen Tobolowsky
YouTube/Twitter/SG
dewfilms's Website
9 Reply by rioforce December 1, 2014 (01:08pm)
rioforce
That was great. I only wish I had a longer line in the film, lol. I also noticed that my microphone doesn't sound as good as all of the other ones in the film quality-wise. Hm. There are too many words that I can say about this film, so I'll keep it short. Great job, it was great, and it kept my attention and I was laughing all the way through. Keep up the great work!
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"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31b
rioforce's Website
10 Reply by Rsteenoven December 1, 2014 (01:29pm)
Rsteenoven
Location: East Yorkshire, UK.
Great film man.
Straight to the Biscuits
Rsteenoven's Website
11 Reply by Rockydude411 December 1, 2014 (03:16pm)
Rockydude411
This is a great brickfilm, The animation was great, it made me laugh, there were very few flaws in it. Good job Walter.
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Rockydude411's Website
12 Reply by Hazzat December 1, 2014 (03:18pm)
Hazzat
Location: Londonish
Excellent work. The stories were engaging, the gags were funny (I especially liked the hobbies montage) and the sets were ace. Very well done.
Hazzat's Website
13 Reply by Gentry Studios December 1, 2014 (05:19pm)
Gentry Studios
Location: My happy place
Incredible! Set design was great! It was an honor to watch! Well done!
Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Channel | Tumblr | My Weekly Film Podcast!
"For I am NOT ashamed of the Gospel of Christ" - Romans 1:16
14 Reply by Tobias December 1, 2014 (06:17pm)
Great job on this! Entertaining storytelling with great pacing and neat execution.
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Currently going for the "Most Inactive" BiM award.
Tobias's Website
15 Reply by Sonjira December 1, 2014 (06:19pm)
Sonjira
Location: Where do you think?
This is a great film Walter! Your stories were great, your animation was on point, the sets were fantastic, and the general coloring of the whole film looked really great to me! Most of the voice were really good, though a couple were a bit grading.
By the way, where you referring to Charles Schulz in the credits, or someone you know named Charles Shultz? I was a bit confused, so I wasn't sure if it was a typo or not.
Youtube @TheRealSonjira I consider it a personal defeat if my pee is not perfectly clear every time.]
Sonjira's Website
16 Reply by Just Kidden December 1, 2014 (11:26pm)
Just Kidden
i watched this because everyone said it was pretty great, and it was pretty great! i enjoyed it a lot
i think my main beefs (beeves? idk) were that the pacing felt a little slow and the voice acting was a little monotone and annoying... i think thats a personal taste issue though?
a lot of the jokes were really good- i liked the execution of the gears spinning in the guy's head, the brickfilming joke and the montages... i really liked jessica and the puppeteer... some jokes were too boring for me to find them funny, but thankfully the bad jokes were outshined by the good ones (and there were some really good ones)
animation was smooth and fluid but unexpressive and slightly boring- while some bits were interesting (scenes where he was running away from jessica, frisbee kids, the changing of facial expressions for example), but i feel like the place where you're at with animation is a great place to start experimenting... you have a really good sense of fluidity and etc., i'd like to see you try and spice it up a little and develop your own animation style
i really liked the film overall! it's hard to keep me watching something for 20 minutes, especially brickfilms, but this kept me interested it was a really enjoyable brickfilm which i haven't seen in a while
great work walter!!
what could have been: jeffrey and the old man make some robots
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bricksinmotion's #13th best curmudgeon
17 Reply by jstudios December 1, 2014 (11:47pm)
jstudios
Wonderful little brickfilm. Really I hesitate to use the word little seeing as the things almost 20 minutes long, but that just demonstrates the amount of effort put into this. I really liked the premise, not done much in brickfilms, and most of the stories managed to keep me engaged enough to keep watching despite its larger than average runtime.
The animation was for the most part very smooth with some small little moments of jittery-ness, my main complaint would be along the lines of what JK said in that it seemed somewhat basic for the whole thing, but there still were some creative gags like the gears one.
The writing was solid and despite some jokes not really hitting me so well, there were others that I absolutely loved,
Spoiler (click to read)
the puppeteer and the not-so-subtle Phil Fish jokes in particular.
Overall a very fresh brickfilm, definitely a contender for my favourite this year.
BRAWL 2013 ENTRY Quack In Time
"Why in the world did you do a weird language if you know English?" - tenny1028
jstudios's Website
18 Reply by Divine December 2, 2014 (03:47am)
Really well presented and full of life and quirky moments, good job man I am most pleased to have been apart of this project. Well done. Congratulations are in order!
If you have any other projects or ever need voicing or help from me, let me know and I'll be more than happy to help out
This as Nathan Wells said couldn't have come at a better time, I also really like the use you made of the girl minifigs there just isn't enough of them out there in the lego brick filming World!
And the best thing about it is its original, I loved the emotions of the characters and the head changes, the set designs were splendid. I can't really complain about anything the animation was smooth, the lighting was pitched perfectly, the voicing was great.
Really good job bud!
Divine.
Last edited by Divine (December 2, 2014 (03:53am))
RELEASED! Check out my channel to watch it!
Check out my Youtube Channel New Vid every week: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy5NKN … 7cRn8gsNaw
19 Reply by HarryAndBillyBrick December 2, 2014 (04:16am)
HarryAndBillyBrick
Congratulations for this work!
I'm not a big fan of brickfilms based fully on dialogues but I have to say that this one is fabulous!
The story is really hilarious and that simple and elegant montage is one of the strengths of the film, too. Probably one of the best scripts of this year!
Definitely, it's an extraordinary story about ordinary things!
HarryAndBillyBrick's Website
20 Reply by Walter Benson December 2, 2014 (03:45pm)
Walter Benson
Thanks for the comments everyone. I appreciate your thoughts on the film.
Nathan Wells wrote:
When I helped out with visual effects, I had NO IDEA this was a 20-minute brickfilm.
For some reason I thought you knew it was a longer brickfilm, but I realize now that I never mentioned it to you. Hehe that must've been an interesting surprise.
Sonjira wrote:
It was the comic strip artist Charles Schultz. This film was very much inspired by him, so I wanted to thank him in the credits.
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__label__wiki | 0.686968 | 0.686968 | Main Facts and Life Hacks
Facts and Life Hacks
Lasizwe biography: age, boyfriend, sister, siblings, mother, videos, Instagram, car, house and net worth
4 months ago 2978 views by Evelyne Kioko
Lasizwe whose real name is Thulasizwe Dambuza, is a South African social media influencer. He is a media personality, a YouTuber, a radio host, a social media personality and an actor among other things. The multi-talented individual is known for his funny YouTube videos and general social media contributions.
Image: instagram.com, @lasizwe
Thula Sizwe as he is known in certain quarters is a vocal individual. Most people in South Africa know him probably because of the funny videos he posts on YouTube. Lasizwe videos depict the daily lives of South Africans.
Lasizwe profile summary
Name: Thulasizwe Siphiwe Dambuza
Nickname: Lasizwe
Profession: Media personality
Sisters: Zonke Nkabinde and Khanyi Mbau
Father: Menzi Mcunu
Lasizwe biography
La Sizwe leads an interesting lifestyle with a lot of media exposure. For this reason, certain facts about him are known publicly. Here are all the details you need to know about him.
Lasizwe Dambuza age
Having been born on July 19, 1998, the multi-talented media personality turned 21 years old in 2019.
Lasizwe boyfriend
Lasizwe's boyfriend is Cedric. On being gay, Lasize attributes how he ended up to lacking a hands-on father. He says that his own father was not in his life hence he developed habits that resembled those of females around him. He learnt how to pee as boys do on a show as he would do it the way girls do before.
READ ALSO: Sihle Ndaba biography: age, child, husband, father, Foundation, agency, Isibaya and Instagram
Lasizwe Dambuza Father
His father is Menzi Mcunu.
Lasizwe's siblings and mother
Lasizwe has 2 sisters. One is the famous TV personality by the name Khanyi Mbau and the second one is Zonke Nkabinde. If you look at his pictures, you can confirm that he is indeed Khanyi Mbau brother. Their mother is late. Before her death though, she had a difficult time accepting that her son was gay. She refused to talk to him for 6 months as she constantly said that she did not have a gay son in her house.
Lasizwe YouTube videos
Lasizwe may face a lot of challenges but he is very popular when it comes to social media. He is especially loved for his unique and extremely hilarious YouTube videos that interpret South African's daily lives. His YouTube channel has over 100,000 subscribers and 12.5 million views.
In addition to all the social media publicity, he also has a reality TV show where he showcases the real and sensitive side of his life. On the show, you will see tears, drama, and laughter. It is not surprising that he has titled it Fake It Till You Make It.
Lasizwe Instagram
Lasizwe is a handsome young man. His Instagram page has a lot of followers because of how much influence he has. It is here that you will also get a glimpse of his cute photos as he posts them.
Lasizwe net worth
Lasizwe has a net worth of 1.3 million.
Car and house
It was drama when a blogger by the name Phil Mphela called out Lasizwe some time back for claiming that he bought the house he lives in yet the truth is that he was renting it with his boyfriend. The blogger took it to Twitter where he urged Lasizwe to wait as time would make sure that he gets all the blessings he desires. There was no need to lie about it.
All this had come about after Siziwe's sister and media personality, Kanyi Mbau expressed her disappointment on the lie that her brother had said. She is the one that revealed the truth about the house being rental.
In response, Dambuza said that he had not claimed to have bought the house but he implied that anyone could achieve the success he had done. However, Phil called Dambuza out saying that he was a liar that had misled his fans who were all congratulating him for having bought the house. The blogger felt that Lasizwe had a chance to correct headlines yet he did not.
For some reason, fans were caught in between as some pointed out that the Vlogger had not mentioned anything about buying a house in his original post below.
Lasizwe cars
The YouTuber's career is without a doubt headed in the right direction. It is not surprising as he progresses; he can now afford the perks that come with success and fame. The Fanta gig as well as having his own reality TV show on MTV makes him stand out and can only mean that the money finally comes in. He has also partnered with Giant car brand, Audi. He was seen on Instagram posting the picture of his new car.
Lasizwe has created a name for himself. With his ability to tap into a niche that is not well explored, the potential of making major strides and actually succeeding are very high.
Kim Engelbrecht biography: age, husband, wedding, series, Movies, TV shows, Instagram, Interview and net worth
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Unisa 2020 applications Lungile radu
Intriguing facts about Sbu Nkosi that you wish to know | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line972 |
__label__cc | 0.58472 | 0.41528 | European studies blog
Tolstoy and music
Nikolai Gusev, Tolstoy’s personal secretary, stated in his memoirs that “for Tolstoy music was not an amusement but an important business in life” as Tolstoy was “a good musician and composer”. The professor of music at the Moscow conservatory, Aleksandr Goldenveizer, a regular visitor to Tolstoy’s home for some 15 years, noted that Tolstoy, as well as many members of his family, was musical by nature and that in his youth, when he occupied himself for hours on the piano, he even thought of becoming a musician. During this period Tolstoy composed a waltz for piano. Goldenveizer recorded in his memoirs, how he and the composer Taneev wrote down the waltz when Tolstoy played it for them at Iasnaia Poliana in 1906.
Aleksandr Goldenveizer and Sergei Taneyev in 1906. Photograph by Sophia Tolstaya, reproduced in Z.G. Paliukh & A.V. Prokhorova. Lev Tolstoi i muzyka : chronika, notografiia, bibliografiia. Moscow, 1977) X.989/75936
Tolstoy’s ‘Waltz in F’, his only known musical composition, was recorded several times, for example by Christopher Barnes and Imogen Cooper (both available in the British Library’s sound collections). Tolstoy remained a dilettante in music all his life, but was sensitive to it to a considerable extent.
Tolstoy’s autograph MS of his 'Waltz in F’, reproduced in Lev Tolstoi i muzyka.
Tolstoy was always deeply interested in the question of what music was and what the philosophical grounds of its inner existence were: What is music? What does it do? Why was it made? Why do sounds of different pitch and degrees of strength, separate or simultaneously sounding together, following one after another in time and combining in a kind of rhythmical construction, have such a powerful, infectious influence on man? Why does this sound combination appear on one occasion as a senseless assortment of sounds, and on another as the symphonies of Beethoven? No satisfactory answer can be given to these questions.
Tolstoy’s ideas on music were related to his ideas on nature (i.e. concrete objects portrayed): how in literature and the fine arts some kind of nature is always reproduced (whether taken from actual life or from the artist’s fantasies), and how in instrumental, chamber and symphonic music of (opera and programme music are excluded) there is the very absence of nature. His conclusion is that the contents of a musical work are clearly and forcefully conveyed by the musical work itself and do not need any kind of literal translations. In 1850s, Tolstoy defined music as “a means to arouse through sound familiar feelings or to convey them” later noted in his diary that “music is a stenograph of feelings”. Goldenveizer even recalled from his conversations how Tolstoy developed an analogy between music and dreams where there is a discrepancy between responses and their causes. This leads to the conclusion that “music does not cause states such as love, joy, sadness but summons them up in us”.
Tolstoy at the piano.
Tolstoy liked music with definitely expressed rhythm, melodically distinct, lively or full of passionate excitement. His favourite composer was Chopin. Listening to Chopin, Tolstoy experienced (in his own words) the feeling of “complete artistic satisfaction”. Tolstoy also liked Mozart, Haydn and Weber, particularly Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which was remarkable as he did not like opera as a genre in general and considered it a false kind of art. He seldom went to the opera and having seen Wagner’s Siegfried once, gave a destructive account of it in Chto takoe iskusstvo? (‘What is Art?’, 1897). Instrumental music made a stronger impression on Tolstoy than singing; he is quoted as saying about singing: “This union of the two arts has never had an effect on me. You always only listen to the music, but don’t pay attention to the words”. This is why the singing of Fyodor Shaliapin did not make a big impression on Tolstoy.
An early edition of Leo Tolstoy, Chto takoe iskusstvo? (Moscow, 1898) 1578/5199.
Tolstoy also showed an ambivalent attitude towards the music of Beethoven. When Tolstoy heard Beethoven he admired and was captivated by him, but when he spoke or wrote about Beethoven he often responded negatively considering that Beethoven began the decline of musical art. There are amazing descriptions of Beethoven’s sonatas in Tolstoy’s works, for example in The Kreutzer Sonata (1890) or Semeinoe schast’e (‘Family happiness’, 1859), where the mournful majestic sounds of the sonata‘Quasi una fantasia’ make the heroine confess “Beethoven lifts me to a radiant height”.
It is likely that Tolstoy’s wavering in his evaluation of Beethoven is down to the fact that Beethoven and Tolstoy were very similar in temperament: Tolstoy instinctively opposed all kinds of authority - Beethoven thrilled Tolstoy with his powerful individuality and this made him angry as he did not like to submit.
Russian folk-song and dance, from a collection of illustrated postcards, ca. 1900. A.868.z.
Tolstoy’s attitude towards folk music was always positive. He also liked gypsy singing, which can be found in works like Dva gusara (‘Two Hussars’, 1857). Tolstoy’s attitude to certain composers and types of music seemed to be influenced by the performances he witnessed or by the performers who visited him. Among musicians who visited Tolstoy and played for him were Anton Rubinshtein, Taneev, Skriabin, Rakhmaninov and Rimsky-Korsakov, who had been extremely negative about the ideas contained in Tolstoy’s What is Art?, but held back from expressing this at the time.
Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator East European Collections, and Peter Hellyer, former curator Russian Collections
Lev Tolstoi i muzyka: vospominaniia , (Moscow, 1953). 7901.a.16.
Tolstoï et la musique, publié sous la direction de Michel Aucouturier. (Paris, 2009). Ac.8808.d/8[tome120]
I. N. Gnezdilova, Literatura i muzyka : A. Ostrovskiĭ, F. Dostoevskiĭ, I. Turgenev, L. Tolstoĭ, A. Chekhov. (Tiumenʹ, 2006.) YF.2008.a.19917
Posted by Olga Kerziouk at 10:01 AM
Literature, Music, Russia, Slavonic
Technorati Tags: Leo Tolstoy, Music and literature
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__label__cc | 0.747929 | 0.252071 | The music of Holy Week in Seville
For the last seven years recordist Duncan Whitley has documented the events at Seville's Semana Santa in Spain. The results of this dedicated study can be found in collection C1338, which contains recordings in both audio and video of the rituals of Holy Week. Duncan's approach provides a unique and intimate acoustic portrait, allowing the listener to experience Holy Week as if they were there!
Performer: Susana Sierra Martínez
To celebrate Easter we invited Duncan Whitley to write the following guest blog for the World and Traditional Music section describing his collection:
The 194 audio and video recordings handed over to the British Library last month form part of an ongoing study of the soundscapes of Seville's Semana Santa, many recordings from which are already available in collection C1338. The collection features field recordings documenting the aural landscapes of Seville's Easter processions, with a particular focus on both processional music and the saetas flamencas. The saetas are short, flamenco prayers sung from balconies and in the streets, as effigies of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary are carried past. The styles of saeta documented in the collection largely fall into the categories of: saeta por seguiriya, por martinete, por seguiriya con cambio a martinete, or por carceleras. With regards to processional music, it is worth mentioning that Seville has a heritage of musical composition for the Semana Santa, which can take on great significance when performed in certain places and times, in accompaniment to particular religious images to whom the marches are dedicated.
This most recent batch of recordings dates from Easter 2013, and features interviews with saeta singers Pili del Castillo, Paquita Gómez and José Antonio Rodríguez Sabín, alongside video and sound documentation of Seville's public processions. The material links up with recordings already available in collection C1338, as well as a quantity of material captured across Easter 2011 and 2012 which has yet to be catalogued.
The first video documents the salida (exit from the church) of the Guide Cross of El Silencio, on the Madrugá (early hours of Good Friday). Susana Sierra Martínez sings her saeta por seguirilla from a balcony opposite the church door. It is one of only two places in Seville where it is customary to sing to the Guide Cross (saetas typically being addressed to the religious images of Christ or the Virgin).
En la Calle Silencio, 2013 from Duncan Whitley on Vimeo.
The following video documents the salida of the procession of Jesús Despojado on Palm Sunday of 2013. Upon completion of the complex manoeuvre of the religious float from the interior of the church into the street, the Agrupación Musical Virgen de los Reyes plays the Marcha Real.
Jesús Despójado, Salida 2013 from Duncan Whitley on Vimeo.
The next video follows on from the previous, with the Agrupación Musical Virgen de los Reyes accompanying the religious float bearing the image of Jesús Despojado as it makes its way through the Plaza de Molviedro. The marches interpreted are A La Gloria!, which segways into Tu Misericordia.
Jesús Despojado, A La Gloria! 2013 from Duncan Whitley on Vimeo.
The last video documents the return of the popular Esperanza de Triana ("Hope of Triana") to its neighbourhood, Triana. The brotherhood was not able to complete its Station of Penitence on the Madrugá, and having sought refuge for two nights in Seville's cathedral, the procession returns "home" without musical accompaniment. Upon reaching the Calle Pureza, where the religious images reside all year round, the public accompanying the Virgin Esperanza sing the Salve Marinera.
La Esperanza de Triana, regreso a Pureza (2013) from Duncan Whitley on Vimeo.
Duncan Whitley www.duncanwhitley.net
Posted by Isobel Clouter at 12:04 PM
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__label__wiki | 0.674577 | 0.674577 | Tag Archives: Seattle
The E&P Pub: Seattle Times’ new hyperlocal partners
As part of the Networked Journalism pilot project, by American University’s J-Lab and funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, local news partners for the Seattle Times have been announced this week:
“The four local producers and web sites partnering with The Seattle Times are: Tracy Record, who runs West Seattle Blog and White Center Now; Kate Bergman, who runs Next Door Media, which includes My Ballard, PhinneyWood, Queen Anne View, Magnolia Voice and Freemont Universe; Justin Carder, who runs Capitol Hill Seattle and helped create Neighborlogs, which is the platform for several neighborhood sites in Seattle; and Amber Campbell, who runs the Rainier Valley Post.”
This entry was posted in Citizen journalism, Editors' pick, Newspapers, Online Journalism and tagged Amber Campbell, American University, Anne View, E&P Pub, Freemont Universe, Justin Carder, Kate Bergman, Magnolia Voice, networked journalism pilot project, Queen, S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Seattle, Seattle Times, the institute for interactive journalism, the Rainier Valley Post, the Seattle Times, Tracy Record on August 27, 2009 by Judith Townend.
Journalism Daily: Q&A with Growthspur, no Guardian pay walls and tools for news numeracy
Journalism.co.uk is trialling a new service via the Editors’ Blog: a daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site.
Guardian will not introduce a pay wall, says digital director
IPC Ignite signs up to six-monthly ABCe web traffic report
Growthspur Q&A: Supporting local media through networks
Ed’s picks of the day:
BBC NEWS: Edinburgh Fringe organisers ask audience for Twitter reviews
RNW: Dutch journalist takes Russia to ECHR
Monday Note: Why paid news on mobile could work
Currybet.net: The issue of scarcity and news
Blogging for photojournalists
@willmathieson/freelance journalist
GNM abandons the distribution of bulks
Reasons to be cheerful? Seattle paper, Roanoke Times and magazine publishers turning a profit
This entry was posted in Journalism Daily and tagged BBC, Currybet.net, digital director, director IPC Ignite, e-newsletter, Edinburgh Fringe, growthspur, guardian, Journalism Daily, Journalism.co.uk, journalist, Local media, Roanoke Times, Russia, Seattle, the Journalism Daily, Twitter, web traffic report on August 11, 2009 by Laura Oliver.
In addition to reporting on plummeting profits for some newspaper groups, Journalism.co.uk thought it was about time we shared some better news or at least some examples of titles that aren’t making a loss.
As the city’s only surviving daily newspaper since the decline of the Post-Intelligencer, the Seattle Times posted a rise in daily circulation of around 30 per cent for June. According to the New York Times, publisher Frank Blethen says the title is operating ‘in the black’ on a month-to-month basis now.
“We are a profitable, debt-free enterprise,” says Debbi Meade, publisher of the US’ Roanoke Times, in this letter to readers.
New figures from the US’ Publishers Information Bureau (PIB) suggest that 12 titles managed to attract more ad pages in the first six months of this year than in comparison to the same period in 2008. Newsweek looks at which titles are managing to buck the trend in this way.
This entry was posted in Magazines, Newspapers and tagged daily newspaper, Debbi Meade, Frank Blethen, Journalism.co.uk, magazine publishers, newspaper groups, Newsweek, Post-Intelligencer, profits, Publishers Information Bureau, Roanoke Times, Seattle, Seattle Times, the New York Times, the Seattle Times, United States, us, US' Publishers Information Bureau on August 11, 2009 by Laura Oliver.
paidContent.org: The final days of The Seattle-Post Intelligencer
Joseph Tartakoff gives his insider’s view of the last few days at The Seattle-Post Intelligencer, before the title was taken online-only.
This entry was posted in Editors' pick, Job losses and tagged Seattle, seattle-post intelligencer, us on March 30, 2009 by Laura Oliver.
AP: Seattle Post-Intelligencer faces closure if buyer cannot be found
Seattle’s oldest newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, was put up for sale on Friday by owners Hearst Corp and – if a buyer is not forthcoming in the next 60 days – the paper will close or continue only online. Full story…
This entry was posted in Editors' pick, Job losses, Jobs, Newspapers and tagged Hearst Corp., Seattle, seattle-post intelligencer, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, United States, Washington on January 12, 2009 by John Thompson.
Geo-what? Oh, it’s coming to the UK soon…
This week saw the launch of a hyperlocal news map for the Liverpool Echo, as announced by Sly Bailey at the AOP Digital Publishing Summit (follow link for report in MediaGuardian).
It geotags news content so each user can search for news by postcode.
Nothing new there, web-savvy newshounds might think, but actually it is:
Though Archant announced plans for geotagged sites last October (it started with Jobs24 – a winner at yesterday’s NS ADM Awards – and Homes24 and has plans to roll out geotagged news content in 2008) to date we’re still waiting for the official launch of geotagged news.
Yesterday we reported that American site outside.in will be launching in the UK, which will link news with local areas (as localised as users specify). Outside.in thinks its opportunity has come about as a result of:
“The demand for personalized information on the web, and the failure of the newspaper industry to capitalize on featuring hyperlocal content” (Nina Grigoriev, outside.in)
Journalism.co.uk thought it was time for a bit of a run-down on the development of geotagging in the UK.
First, what is it?
Journalists record the locations referred to in each story and add their postcodes as metadata when uploading their copy to the web.
In that way, geotagged content allows users to prioritise the news they see online according to postcodes.
Where are we at in the UK?
The Liverpool Echo is the first site (of the large publishing groups) to do so in the UK. Although other sites have incorporated mapping into their sites, no other places has successfully incorporated news content as well.
The BBC plans to invest £68 million across its network of local sites, which will be decided upon by the BBC Trust in February 2009. Online Journalism Blog reported a sneak preview in January 2008, though the BBC have since asked us not to refer to the sites as ‘hyperlocal’.
Critics such as Trinity Mirror’s CEO, Sly Bailey, have voiced concerns over the BBC’s local video proposals, saying they will provide ‘unfair competition’ for the regional media.
Northcliffe is also developing geotagged content on its revamped thisis sites, and told Press Gazette in June the process has been difficult: “Because not all stories affect only one specific point, the company is finding geocoding challenging,” Hardie said.
According to the article: “The localisation functions will remain hidden until journalists have built up enough stories with postcode data.”
Back in July 2007 we saw reports of Sky geotagging its news, but it hasn’t developed at the same speed or as widely as in the US.
What’s happening in the US?
Everyblock is developing fast across the US. It’s a new experiment in journalism and data, offering feeds of local information and data for every city block in Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, DC, with more cities to come. Not in the UK yet, but watch this space.
Elsewhere, the Washington Post has used outside.in’s maps for their own site, while the New York Times’ Boston.com (the online Boston Globe) uses MetaCarta’s geographic search technology for maps.
So, what does this mean for UK based geotagging?
With the arrival of highly efficient US based sites such as outside.in (who said an UK based office is a possibility) maybe it’s time for Archant, Trinity Mirror and Northcliffe to get their skates on before it’s too late.
Please send us your examples of UK based geotagged content, from formal publications or otherwise, as we want to track it as it expands in the UK.
(Then we can make a geotagged feed and map of geotagging in journalism. Then our heads might explode)
This entry was posted in Online Journalism and tagged BBC, BBC Trust, Boston, Boston Globe, Boston.com, CEO, Charlotte, Chicago, D.C., EveryBlock, GBP, geographic search technology, geotag, Geotagging, hyperlocal news site, Journalism.co.uk, Los Angeles, Mapping, Metacarta, New York, Nina Grigoriev, NS ADM, outside in, Philadelphia, Press Gazette, San Francisco, Seattle, Sly Bailey, the Liverpool Echo, the New York Times, The Washington Post, Trinity Mirror, United Kingdom, United States, Washington, web-savvy newshounds on October 3, 2008 by Judith Townend.
Innovations in Journalism – Instant Journalist
We give developers the opportunity to tell us journalists why we should sit up and pay attention to the sites and devices they are working on. Today it’s flat-packed news websites ready for easy assembly and use from Instant Journalist.
1. Who are you and what’s it all about?
I’m Scott Durham, president of Instivate. We’re a small software company in Seattle, Washington building a flexible, scalable platform for powering online communities.
Our first product is Instant Journalist, which makes it easy for anyone to launch their own online news communities where the public can read and contribute news stories and events of local interest with rich media such as video, images, and documents.
2. Why would this be useful to a journalist?
Since anyone can join and submit content to a site powered by Instant Journalist, it allows the site to cover a much wider range of news events than an individual or team of journalists could do alone.
We have an advanced set of content rating tools, automated algorithms, and editorial controls that makes it easy for the site owner to manage the content from thousands of individual contributors, and make sure that the best content rises to the top of the heap.
In addition, we have a variety of features that aren’t available in traditional blogging or other content management systems.
One key strength is that our product comes with native support for video. That makes it easy for anyone to upload video of a news event and make it available to readers of the site. Our system handles all the complexity of video processing and conversion behind the scenes, and then allows playback on any web browser.
Another key feature includes our integrated mapping technology, where any story can be placed on a map and assigned to a specific geographical neighbourhood, town, or city.
This allows users to quickly visualise the location of a news event and browse and discover other content in that specific area. Users can also subscribe to RSS feeds for specific geographic locations and track the news around them at a very local level.
3. Is this it, or is there more to come?
Our major focus now is the delivery of a self-service advertising solution that will make it easy for site owners to monetise their site.
It will allow any advertiser to easily sign-up and create ads for the site. Also stay tuned as we roll out more advanced content management features and more interactive ways of reporting news events on the site.
4. Why are you doing this?
We’re passionate about building systems that make it easy for people to participate in and contribute to communities of like-minded people online.
We picked the news space as our first project because there’s a huge opportunity there to empower professional journalists and regular members of the public to collaborate online and cover a much wider range of news than has ever been possible before.
5. What does it cost to use it?
We have a range of packages that scale up according to the amount of traffic a site serves, starting at just $18 a month.
It’s designed so that a site can start small, with pricing that grows as the site does and at a very affordable rate.
6. How will you make it pay?
Our content management system makes it easy for site owners to plug any 3rd-party advertising solution into their site, such as Google ads, etc. And our forthcoming self-service advertising solution will take that to the next level by allowing access to a wider range of potential advertisers, and providing the site owner a higher percentage of overall revenue than other 3rd party online advertising solutions.
Have a look at Centraldistrictnews.com – it covers a neighbourhood here in Seattle and allows people to communicate with their neighbours about the news that happens right around them.
We’re also working with a major newspaper company to adapt our platform to a wide range of less newsy applications; covering topics from travel to sports and local dining we’re allowing them to quickly deploy niche interest sites and other targeted online communities that will build a rich online ecosystem of websites around their existing newspaper brands.
This entry was posted in Citizen journalism, Journalism and tagged advertising solution, advertising solutions, content management, content management system, content management systems, content rating tools, Durham, Geotagging, google, Innovations in Journalism, Instivate, integrated mapping technology, journalist, less newsy applications, Local, online communities, online ecosystem, online news communities, President, Seattle, self-service advertising solution, software, targeted online communities, USA, USD, video processing, Washington, web browser on April 9, 2008 by Oliver Luft.
Tribune resorts to ‘joke’ press release for latest appointment
Those guys at Tribune know how to have a laugh don’t they? Take this ‘hilarious’ press release I received today about the US media group’s latest appointment:
Surely You Can’t Be Serious? Marc Chase – President Of Tribune Interactive!
Randy Michaels’ run of acquiring radio-management stars
came to a screeching halt today with Chase’s appointment
CHICAGO, April 7, 2008 — Another freaking Clear Channel
Communications executive on the payroll and this one’s been
named President of Tribune Interactive.
Tribune Broadcasting’s Randy Michaels’ past finally caught
up with him when Marc Chase obviously blackmailed his way
into a position he is not remotely qualified to hold.
Insiders are irate. Chase is a fraud. A source inside
Tribune HR, who wished to remain anonymous, pointed out that
Marc Chase’s resume (below) was obviously fabricated. First
of all, his name isn’t even Marc Chase–it’s Mark Thompson.
The whole thing is a sham.
MARC CHASE
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington DC 20500 202-456-1111
PROFESSINAL EXPERIENCE
Vocabulary Advisorist for George W. Bush
Washington DC, 2004-present
President of Buying Crap
San Jose, California 2003-2004
Executive Vice President of Finding Crap Anywhere
Mountain View, California 2001-2002
Senior Executive Vice President of Technology and Stuff
Seattle, Washington, 2000-2001
CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX Television
Vice President of Watching TV A Lot
Los Angeles, California 1999-2000
Dean of School of Internetology
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1998
EDUCASHION
Nearly Graduated with Honers
School of Alabama in Atlanta Georgia 1985
400 Hours (reduced from 600)
Judge gave time off for good behavior
Chase was quoted as saying, “Timing and infrared photography
are everything. I couldn’t be happier! I know Randy is
relieved to finally have me on Sam’s payroll.”
Tribune has undergone major changes in the past year, with
billionaire Sam Zell acquiring the company last April in a
complex deal that left it with $13 billion in debt. Since
then, Zell has brought in new executives to fill key roles.
This one takes the cake.
Last December, Zell hired Michaels — who helped Zell to
build Clear Channel into a radio behemoth that he could then
sell — to oversee Tribune’s broadcast and Internet
divisions. It is obvious Michaels has lost his mind with
this hire.
–By Hugh Jass – A Reputable Media Source
© 2008, Bogus Information, a division of Dewey, Cheatum, and
Howe. All Rights Reserved.
While you’re sewing you sides back together (and trying to make sense of the whole thing), you have to ask why? As Gawker points out Marc Chase has been hired – that’s about all you can determine from the message – but is it appropriate to send out a spoof release as the Tribune company faces mass redundancies?
This entry was posted in Jobs and tagged 202-456-1111, ABC, Alabama, Atlanta, California, Cambridge, CBS, Chicago, Clear Channel, Clear Channel Communications, COMMUNITY SERVICE, D.C., eBay, executive, Executive Vice President of Technology, executive vice-president, Finding Crap Anywhere Mountain View, Funny, google, Harvard University, Honers School of Alabama, Honers School of Alabama, Hugh Jass, Internet divisions, Internet divisions, judge, Los Angeles, Marc Chase, Mark Thompson, Massachusetts, media, media group, microsoft, NBC, President, randy michaels, Sam Zell, San Jose, School of Internetology Cambridge, School of Internetology Cambridge, Seattle, Stuff Seattle, the Tribune, Tribune company, Tribune Interactive!, Tribune Interactive! Randy Michaels, United States, United States of America, USA, USD, Vice President of Watching TV, Washington, Washington DC on April 8, 2008 by Laura Oliver. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line975 |
__label__cc | 0.637118 | 0.362882 | Where did everybody go? Census data and the Minnesota migration
Dave Peters February 6, 2014, 3:24 PM Feb 6, 2014
If you want to know where everybody’s going (or coming from) where you live, check out a new interactive tool and set of data the U.S. Census Bureau just put out.
Using data collected in its American Community Survey between 2007 and 2011, the census bureau has published new county-to-county migration tables.
You can plow through spreadsheets available for downloading here and learn, for example, that Hennepin County had a bigger net out-migration than any other Minnesota county, although it’s not what you’d expect.
Outside the state, the biggest net recipient of Hennepin County residents was not Maricopa County, Arizona (Phoenix), not Harris County, Texas (Houston), not Broward County, Florida. It was Cass County, N.D., home of Fargo.
But you can have more fun using the Census Flows Mapper. Click on any county in the country and see where everybody’s going.
Here’s the Hennepin County map, zoomed in a little to focus on Minnesota and the surrounding area. Blue counties are those that Hennepin County had a net loss to. Orange are those places that Hennepin County had a net gain from. (Biggest net gains, from outside Minnesota, came from Cook County, Ill.)
Notice that within the metro area, Hennepin County had a net migration out to some metro area counties, like Anoka, Scott and Carver counties but gained population from Dakota and Washington counties.
Here’s a little different map view for Ramsey County. Note there was actually a net migration into Ramsey County from several orange southern Arizona counties, something not true for Hennepin County.
Take a look at the map for St. Louis County, home to Duluth. It lost people to the Southwest, for example, but looked like a magnet for people from much of the rest of northern Minnesota.
You can create these maps for any county in the country.
But here’s one note of caution from my favorite rural census data cruncher, Ben Winchester at the University of Minnesota Extension Center for Community Vitality. These are estimates based on surveys, not actual hard counts from the 10-year census. That means the margin of error grows for counties with smaller populations. So, you might wonder, did 45 people really move from sparsely populated Traverse County in western Minnesota to Pueblo County in southern Colorado?
census migration
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Who’s my neighbor? New Twin Cities maps tell the story
8 stray Minnesota facts from the new farm census
Todd Graham
Pretty map mosaics. But what matters most is the magnitude of flows. So Peters’ blog somewhat buries the big story… Three points:
1. Metro MSP experiences net loss of movers to Greater MN; this is a long-recognized trend, not new; mostly movement of people who have MN roots and are footloose in terms of work dependence.
2. At the same time, Metro MSP experiences strong net gain of migrants from smaller Midwest metros that have lackluster economic conditions. People move here for the economy!
3. Overall, the domestic migration gain vs loss for Metro MSP sums up to either slight loss or near zero. The loss is more than made up by international immigration gains. Metro MSP is a gateway for New Minnesotans from the rest of the world. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line977 |
__label__wiki | 0.548779 | 0.548779 | What you want to say – 24 January April 2019 April 24, 2019
As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.
[I’ve corrected the title — Tomboktu]
1. EWI - April 24, 2019
RDE is a ghoul.
WorldbyStorm - April 24, 2019
I’m out of the country, what has she said now? Here’s a question, was she ever okay? Do you recall her Atlas of Ireland, I haven’t read it since I was a lot younger but that seemed okay.
EWI - April 24, 2019
I have it too, and it’s from her genuine academic period. In some ways it foreshadows the cherrypicking activities of the Trinity set, later to find full flower with Fitzpatrick and Hart.
As to what she’s up to now, it’s a non-stop barrage across right-wing media of ‘my friend Lyra’ crocodile tears about political violence.
2. CL - April 24, 2019
“Despite the outcry and widespread revulsion radiating out from Derry, homicidal republicanism has probably not inflicted its last atrocity, merely its latest….
Lyra McKee, sadly, is highly unlikely to be the final victim of the malevolent militarism that remains both arrogantly indifferent and haughtily impervious to the twin concept that others have rights and that there is no right to practice homicide…
It is all very well for Gerry Adams to wring his hands in a gesture of faux republican piety and assert that the killers of Lyra McKee are not the IRA. They are not his preferred IRA, but the IRA being a tradition rather than a property, they are the IRA and they draw on a logic created by all of us who were in the ranks of the Provisional IRA, including Mr Adams….
Our IRA needs to tell their IRA that we failed outright on the defining republican question of expunging Britain from Ireland and that they will do the same….
While we did not realise it back in the day, caught up in the maelstrom of the times, doing what was done to Lyra McKee writ large, we made the wrong call in going to war in pursuit of the unwinnable….
The New IRA leadership, Saoradh’s cringingly embarrassing statement notwithstanding, shamefully stands alone in the dock.”
-Anthony McIntyre.
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/exprovos-excoriating-message-for-lyra-mckees-new-ira-killers-38040640.html
“President Michael D Higgins and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar are among a number of political leaders who will join the family and friends of murdered journalist Lyra McKee at her funeral in Belfast.”
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2019/0424/1045280-lyra-mckee/
“Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn are set to travel to Belfast on Wednesday for the funeral of Lyra McKee….
Her family has also invited members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) to provide a guard of honour for her cortege.”
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/prime-minister-may-and-corbyn-to-attend-funeral-of-lyra-mckee-in-belfast-38045297.html
3. Paul Culloty - April 24, 2019
Indyref 2 to be called in two years if Brexit is complete by then:
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says the people of Scotland should be given the opportunity to vote again on independence before the next Holyrood elections in 2021
— Sky News Breaking (@SkyNewsBreak) April 24, 2019
4. Dermot M O Connor - April 24, 2019
Not looking good for the Chukky Changies.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/change-uk-joseph-russo-twitter-eu-elections-candidate-racism-a8884041.html
At least there’s not anti-semitism problem for the former comrades. Just animus against people with funny tinges, romanians, black women and cryptic threats of immolation.
I think I’ll stick with Jez, lads, if you don’t mind.
Joe - April 24, 2019
At least there’s not anti-semitism problem for the former comrades.
Dermot M O Connor - April 24, 2019
Only a matter of time at this rate.
5. Alibaba - April 24, 2019
I had reason to check out some secondary schools recently and came across this to my astonishment:
‘Mount Temple is a school based on diverse Protestant traditions and a spirit of inclusiveness and welcome for those of different, particularly minority, religious traditions and those of no religious tradition. Since its foundation, teaching and learning in Mount Temple has been influenced by the philosophy of Comprehensive education – the belief that diversity in learning enriches us all.
“From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” Karl Marx’
https://www.mounttemple.ie/about-mount-temple/
Ah c’mon. You’re not serious? Mount Temple is a Protestant school?
It sure is. An unusual quote though for the context.
Paddy Healy - April 29, 2019
It is a Protestant Comprehensive School but it could well be(and probably is) that the majority of students are not protestants-they just have first refusal for places. I would not be surprised if the majority of students at Mount Temple were nowadays non denominational!!
Tomboktu - April 29, 2019
Ah, Mount Temple …. I was once in a room where the then principal walked in to find some his pupils on the mitch… at the launch of an anti-bullying campaign by the junior minister for education.
6. lcox - April 24, 2019
Some pieces from the recent commemorations and memories of Colin Barker:
Gareth Dale in the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/feb/14/colin-barker-obituary
Phil Gasper for socialistworker.org https://socialistworker.org/2019/02/08/a-teacher-and-student-of-revolution
Ian Birchall for RS21 https://www.rs21.org.uk/2019/02/09/obituary-colin-barker/
John Charlton in ISJ http://isj.org.uk/colin-barker-1939-2019/
“Snowball” on Histomatist https://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316
Video of the Alternative Futures and Popular Protest (Manchester) celebration of his life and work (Mike Tyldesley, Madelaine Moore, Ian Allinson, Trevor Ngwane, Gareth Dale, Laurence Cox) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WpXWt1gJqg&feature=youtu.be
Some real treasures on Colin’s own website which collects pretty much everything he published except the books: https://sites.google.com/site/colinbarkersite/
7. Starkadder - April 25, 2019
Pure sense from Michael Tracey here:
Journalism is now dominated by 20-and-30-somethings who are incredibly neurotic, paranoid, entitled, and constantly demanding “safety” for themselves when journalism necessarily entails confronting uncomfortable facts, evidence, and arguments. Babies.
Journalism is now dominated by 20-and-30-somethings who are incredibly neurotic, paranoid, entitled, and constantly demanding "safety" for themselves when journalism necessarily entails confronting uncomfortable facts, evidence, and arguments. Babies https://t.co/NqwloesZdO
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 24, 2019
Starkadder - April 25, 2019
Though I should add the disclaimer that Tracey’s comment applies more to US journalists than the ones in Europe.
It would not apply to the late Lyra McKee , for example.
Peter Foster covers a Vox rally in Spain:
Time to say goodnight. /ENDS pic.twitter.com/watzlwcxK5
— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) April 25, 2019
😦 That’s depressing.
9. Tomboktu - April 26, 2019
I see an Australian politician has borrowed an idea from our own Tommy Broughan
All aboard for our first truly mobile office! Jump on the light rail for a chat. We’ll be in the city at 5pm, then heading back to Gungahlin #Auspol #CBRLightRail pic.twitter.com/kouA4Bs8fq
— Andrew Leigh (@ALeighMP) April 26, 2019
10. Joe - April 26, 2019
I think most people know that the 4 in the Independents4Change refers to the 4 provinces, the four green fields, of our beloved country.
However, I’ve heard whispers of some serious political developments within that grouping. Some serious analysis and internal discussions on the national question, apparently.
So what could the 2 in their slogan Right2Change refer to? Some commentators have noticed that, on their election posters, the 2 is placed slap bang in the middle of a green island of Ireland. The speculation is that this is a reference to ‘two nations’ and that a majority faction within the Independents4Change is coalescing around support for a version of the two nations, one island theory.
Anyone else hear whispers about this?
11. CL - April 26, 2019
“In the Creggan estate, where last week’s rioting occurred, almost two-thirds of children are born into poverty.
And unemployment is rife: while the UK employment rate sits at 74 per cent, this drops to 69 per cent in Northern Ireland and further still to just 55 per cent in Derry.”
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/northern-ireland/2019/04/northern-ireland-new-ira-gaining-foothold-younger-generations
The responsibility for this deprivation in working class areas rests with the British government.
The MP for Staffordshire Moorlands, Karen Bradley, is the Secretary of State for NI.
“Seamus Mallon, veteran political leader of the peace process, tells @MiriamOCal we have seen too many false dawns to be optimistic about latest NI talks & that Karen Bradley isn’t the right SoS to drive progress: “She has proved she hasn’t a clue what she’s doing here”.
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2019/0426/1045796-north-government-meeting/
CL - April 26, 2019
“Because of the links between the DUP and the government in Westminster “I fail to see how a DUP Secretary of State can properly chair these negotiations.”-Seamus Mallon
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/seamus-mallon-karen-bradley-not-the-right-person-for-ni-secretary-of-state-job-920236.html
12. Bartholomew - April 26, 2019
I’m not sure if someone has already linked to this:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/election-historian-unapologetic-in-his-defence-of-posters-1.3871686
Alibaba - April 26, 2019
‘According to Alan Kinsella: “They’re very important, I think. They tell people there’s an election on. Not everyone knows, you know.”’.
A point well made. It also makes me more likely to consider the order of voting preferences, instead of sticking to one or two candidates as I used to do.
“It also makes me more likely to consider the order of voting preferences, instead of sticking to one or two candidates as I used to do.”
Interesting point Alibaba. I usually vote WP1 and then preference to SP, SWN, (if I have those options) then maybe Labour or an independent. And stop at that – 5 or maybe 6 would be the furthest I’d go..
What about others on here – how far do they go?
What’s crucial for me is what does the candidate stand for? I choose the most left-leaning one for my first preference and drill down eventually to a Labour candidate depending on their record. I strive to judge candidates not on their personal merits or even their purported policy beliefs, but on what contributes to holding them accountable and the context in which they exist. If they show support for a campaign struggle that is the issue of the moment or another issue of significance and courage to be dealt with, that candidate tops my list.
14. Paddy Healy - April 27, 2019
Boom And Bust? Michael Roberts Marxist Economist
Michael Roberts-Stock markets may be booming in North America but economic prosperity in many parts of the world is disappearing like water in a desert. And in some parts, a sand storm is fast approaching- South Korea, Turkey, Argentina, Pakistan. But Trend real (World) GDP growth and business investment remains well down from the rate before 2007
New Crash on the Way https://wp.me/pKzXa-ua
This financial market rally is founded on the decision of many central banks to hold their policy interest rates at very low levels. But the biggest driver of the US stock market has been the major companies using this cheap finance to buy back their own shares to drive up the price and increase the ‘market value’ of the company
Behind the fantasy of financial markets, global (economic) growth has been slowing. And worse, there are now several economies that appear to heading into outright recession-South Korea, Turkey, Argentina, Pakistan
Trend real (World) GDP growth and business investment remains well down from the rate before 2007
Will RED C Be AS Far OUT In This Election as it Was in Euro 2014 Election-Let Us SEE!!
Red C European Election Poll 2019 April
FG 33 FF 21 Sf 16 Ind 18 Others 12
https://wp.me/pKzXa-jh
The poll ratings give Fine Gael a strong chance of retaining two seats in the five-seater Ireland South constituency, where sitting MEPs Deirdre Clune and Seán Kelly are running with Minister of State Andrew Doyle
RED C Were Way Out in Euro Election 2014
Sinn Féin won 3 seats in the 26-counties heading the poll in Dublin
Euro Dublin Constituency Outcome SF 23.6% Lab 7.4%; Red C Prediction SF 15% Lab 13%
RED C Final Pre-Election Poll and Prediction 16/05/2014
Richard Colwell “Are Sinn Fein going to win seats in all constituencies?
While Sinn Fein poll relatively well in the three constituencies, it is not well enough to guarantee seats in any of the three constituencies. The main reason is that while first preference support for the Sinn Fein candidates is pretty much in line with their national standing, this is not enough to secure seats on its own, and the candidates are not as transfer friendly as other candidates they are competing with”—Red C Website
Sinn Féin headed the poll in Dublin and won seats in the other two constituencies
Euro Election 2014 Overall Outcome FG 22.28% SF 19.5%
FF 22.31 % Lab 5.3% All Others 30
We are expected to believe that FG will get 10% more than it got in 2014 when it elected 4 MEPS!!!
Sunday Independent:Gene Kerrigan: ‘No level playing field against Greed United’ It’s not just that the Government as referee is making the odd bad decision. The referee is playing for the other side.!!!
https://wp.me/pKzXa-KR
“Two separate streams of activities, within the same timeline, led us to where we are. One: a policy of the State persistently taking emergency action at our expense when misfortune afflicts private enterprises. At the same time, Government refuse us the emergency action required to counter the social effects of market failure (such as declaring a national housing emergency by Law to enable it to interfere with private property of landlords)) Two: a policy of ignoring the criminality of a wide swathe of rich people, helping them transfer unlawful assets from outside the system to inside it, legitimising the gains from blatant illegality.
We’ve been the fall guys, financing the consequences of incompetence, deceit and greed.”
“Millions of Americans rely on Europe’s tough new privacy laws to safeguard their data, but the law’s chief enforcer-Ireland- is in bed with the companies it regulates…
Ireland’s willingness to crack down on the companies that dominate its economy has long been questionable,…
Ireland’s failure to safeguard huge stores of personal information looms larger now that the country is the primary regulator responsible for protecting the health information, email addresses, financial records, relationship statuses, search histories and friend lists of hundreds of millions of Americans, Europeans and other users around the globe….
The story of how a country known for poetry and dark ale ended up in the unlikely role of global tech policeman stretches back to the aftermath of World War II….
Spurred on by an economist and central banker named Thomas Kenneth Whitaker, Ireland’s leaders oversaw an economic transformation starting in the late 1950s — away from protectionism, toward free trade and encouraging foreign investment. The most obvious partner was the United States,..
So began Ireland’s epic and enduring courtship of U.S. corporations.”
https://www.politico.eu/interactive/ireland-blocks-the-world-on-data-privacy/
Labour Party Crisis Looms after Probable Euro Wipeout!
Though RED C normally exaggerates Labour Support the Euro Poll has Labour at 4%, one quarter of the Sinn Féin score. As in 2014, complete wipeout of Labour is very probable https://wp.me/pKzXa-jh
Local Elections Labour Party Fields Less Candidates than in 2014-There are 137 electoral areas across the state
2019 The Labour Party has launched 111 candidates for the local elections: 2014 189 Labour candidates are contesting these City and County Council elections for the Labour Party
Labour Party currently has 51 seats, having lost 81 in the last election
RUC to Get Rid of Senior Gardaí???
A source said: “The (former PSNI) officer underwent a full interview scenario in the recruitment phase – he was selected because of his background in difficult policing situations
https://wp.me/pKzXa-142
“One of the key areas for the appointee will be the proposed strategy of offering a severance package to senior officers.” Garda HQ Statement
Getting Rid of Senior Gardaí????
Shifting Demographics in the 6 Counties
Figures Here Nationalists to Become a Majority https://wp.me/pKzXa-1hW
Wm Considine : In NI, religion is more than religion. These figures show how the plantation of Ulster is unraveling.
Jim O’Donnell Will this be basis for the New Republic?
Paddy Healy: William Considine is correct. Religion and even religious background in the six counties is a badge of ethnicity and political allegiance. The British maintained the Protestant/Unionists as an upper caste to control that part of the empire for them and to prevent the emergence of a strong united Ireland next door.. To do this under the cloak of democracy the upper caste had to be a local majority. That is why 3 Ulster counties were excluded from “Northern Ireland” in the Treaty Settlement. These school going figures are regarded as extremely serious by the ruling elites in UK and the 26-cuunties. In an Irish Times article which called for a”calm debate” some years ago, it also pointed out:”In total, therefore in 2010, at third level there are 20,995 students (59.3 per cent) from a Catholic background and 14,410 (40.7 per cent) from a Protestant background. This is in addition to the figures above. Nationalists/Catholics are in a majority in Queens and New University of Ulster. Many Unionist/Protestant 3rd level students are studying in Scotland and UK. A significant portion are not returning. Jim O’Donnell asks “will this be the basis for a United Ireland?” For to-day, i will just comment that it was the mainly Catholic Irish Rich who crushed the risen people in the civil war!
See My Blog piece Lessons of the War Of Independence and the Civil War for To-Day paddyhealywordpress
Leave a Reply to Paddy Healy Cancel reply | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line983 |
__label__wiki | 0.956918 | 0.956918 | Rapper YNW Melly could face the death penalty in Florida killings
By CNN| 9 months ago
(CNN) -- Florida prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty against rapper YNW Melly in connection with the killing of two men.
Prosecutors will look to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" the 19-year-old rapper -- whose legal name is Jamell Demons -- committed homicide "in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner" for financial gain, according to a Thursday court filing.
Police arrested YNW Melly and another man, Cortlen Henry, in February, charging them with two counts of murder. Police said YNW Melly fatally shot his friends and then staged the crime scene to look like a drive-by shooting.
The rapper's album We All Shine was released in January and featured the hit song 'Mixed Personalities' with Kanye West.
🐐💕🔥
A post shared by Free Melly & Melvin (@ynwmelly) on Dec 4, 2018 at 9:30pm PST
YNW Melly was arrested after the deaths of Anthony Williams and Christopher Thomas Jr., both of Vero Beach, Florida, according to Miramar Police. On October 26 at 4:35 a.m. local time, police said, Henry drove up to the Memorial Miramar Hospital with both victims in the vehicle. They had multiple gunshot wounds and were pronounced dead at the hospital, police said.
Henry gave a statement to police, but the facts discovered during the preliminary investigation did not match what was presented to detectives, police said. Further investigation and forensic evidence found that YNW Melly shot and killed Williams and Thomas, and that YNW Melly and Henry then staged the scene to resemble a drive-by shooting, police said.
The day after the shooting, YNW Melly mourned the loss of his "brothers" in an Instagram post full of breaking heart emojis.
Rapper YNW Melly (left) with Anthony Williams and Christopher Thomas Jr. (Instagram)
"They Took My Brothers From Me Over Jealousy," he wrote. "I know y'all watching over me."
In February, the rapper took to Instagram again, saying he was turning himself in to police and referred to "rumours and lies" about him.
"I want you guys to know I love you and appreciate every single one of y'all," he wrote. "[A] couple months ago I lost my two brothers by violence and now the system want to find justice.. unfortunately a lot of rumours and lies are being said but no worries god is with me and my brother."
The Instagram caption ended with a hashtag: "#freeus."
To all my fans and supporters no I did not get locked up in Washington , but I am turning myself in today I want you guys to know I love you and appreciate every single one of y’all, a couple months ago I lost my two brothers by violence and now the system want to find justice.. unfortunately a lot of rumors and lies are being said but no worries god is with me and my brother @ynw.bortlen and we want y’all to remember it’s a ynw Family I love you @ynwsakchaser1 and @ynwjuvy #freeus
A post shared by Free Melly & Melvin (@ynwmelly) on Feb 13, 2019 at 4:01pm PST
Before his arrest, YNW Melly had just begun a concert tour across the US, and his Instagram was full of the trappings of hip-hop stardom: stacks of cash, diamond jewelry and a gold grill covering his smiling teeth.
Can’t wait to see y’all soon💞 Had to push back the dates because of issues with my jail time 😣 Melly and Melvin still coming tho 😬👹✅ comment your city if you don’t see it and I’m coming #weallshine tickets link in bio
A post shared by Free Melly & Melvin (@ynwmelly) on Feb 1, 2019 at 5:40pm PST
Billboard interviewed him a week before he was arrested and the rapper discussed his plans for 2019, how he linked up with West and his overall background. During the interview, he said the two men who were fatally shot were his "day one brothers" and that he couldn't speak on whether he was a target in the shooting.
CNN has reached out to YNW Melly's attorneys for comment, but has not heard back.
By Amir Vera, CNN | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line985 |
__label__cc | 0.653205 | 0.346795 | Submit Reset
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__label__cc | 0.565517 | 0.434483 | Reanalysis (17)
Find local data (Opens in a new Window)
Find local data is a search tool that allows users to find climate data. Users can search by geographic location, municipality, and region across Canada. Data available include several climate variables, projected over 2021-2050 and 2051-2080, under two emission scenarios, and at annual or seasonal resolutions. Future data are available as point data.
Gridded Hydrologic Model Output (Opens in a new Window)
The Gridded Hydrologic Model Output page provides access to gridded, 1/16-degree (roughly 35 km2) hydrologic projections for four watersheds in British Columbia. Users can select locations of interest on a gridded map. Hydrological variables including precipitation, flow, evapotranspiration, and runoff are available for download under various climate scenarios in NetCDF, ASCII, and Arc formats.
Monthly Temperature and Precipitation Delta Maps (Opens in a new Window)
Monthly Temperature and Precipitation Delta Maps were produced from an ensemble of 12 global climate models supplied by the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium. These delta (change) maps show the difference between current climate conditions and projected, future climate conditions. Two 30-year future periods (2021-2050 and 2051-2080) were used with the current period set to 1976-2005. Future data are available as gridded data.
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The MSC50 Wind and Wave Climate Hindcast provides hourly wind and wave time series data from climate hindcast models. These hindcasts cover the Canadian Maritimes, North Atlantic basin, Northeast Pacific Ocean, and Arctic Ocean for the historical period 1954- 2015. Data are available in tabular and GIS formats. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1000 |
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Université du Québec à Rimouski, Ouranos | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1001 |
__label__wiki | 0.725342 | 0.725342 | Ecosystems and biodiversity (10)
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Mapping the Occurrence of Canada's Forest Pathogens contains distribution maps for almost 3000 forest fungi and mistletoes, many of which cause forest diseases. Over 60 years of historical ground observations and aerial overviews are available. Users can search the database for species of interest and access results in various ways, including viewing data in a table format, exploring results with an interactive map viewer, and downloading data for analysis in raster format.
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Plant Hardiness Zone Maps of Canada provide gridded information about where different types of plants can grow. They combine climatic information from across Canada and are available for two historical periods: 1961-1990 and 1981-2010. Projected future range maps are also available for a number of species of trees, shrubs, and perennial herbs. Climate profiles are available for plant species based on distribution data and climate models.
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__label__wiki | 0.941235 | 0.941235 | Madfinger Games: Building console-quality mobile games
About Madfinger Games
Madfinger Games was founded by experienced console game developers with the goal of creating console-quality games for iOS and Android mobile devices. Its games have been recognized with a series of prestigious awards. It now has an in-house staff of more than 70 people. Its games have been downloaded by more than 100 million players.
Industries: Gaming
Products: Compute Engine, BigQuery, App Engine, Cloud Storage, Cloud Datastore
Google Cloud Platform results:
Engineers can spend time developing games, not admin tasks
Madfinger Games handles bursts of demand with instant scalability
More than 100 million players have downloaded Madfinger Games mobile games
Madfinger Games wanted an infrastructure that could leverage the power of its small staff to build graphics-intensive, console-quality iOS and Android games. It chose Google Cloud Platform for its ability to instantly scale, track individuals’ game progress, and store vast amounts of user data while requiring little administrative time.
Keeping track of players’ progress
Madfinger Games was founded with a goal to create smartphone games with the same high-quality graphics and play as console games. Such complex gameplay requires that user data be stored from session to session, so when games are restarted, users can pick up where they left off. The company was having a difficult time finding the right infrastructure that could handle a large amount of data and scale on demand.
“We wanted users to be able to have a single Madfinger Games account for all of our games,” says Miroslav Ondruš, a programmer at Madfinger Games. “We also wanted to add the ability to migrate their accounts to new mobile devices. Beyond that, we were a small startup, and our team wasn’t large enough to handle all the admin work that was required.”
Helping with user data and game board leaders
Madfinger Games was using its own servers and switched to Google Cloud Platform to host user data and game progress, manage user-to-user communications, and handle analytics and game leaderboards.
“Google Cloud Platform gave us everything we needed at a reasonable cost — and it is scalable, which was important for us, because we knew that our games would become popular,” Ondruš says.
Madfinger Games relies on App Engine and Cloud Datastore for hosting user data, game progress, and managing user-to-user warfare and game tournaments. App Engine sends rewards to players, depending on how well they perform in games. In addition, App Engine manages user authentication for logging into games and accounts. App Engine also handles user chats and in-game messaging, which are kept in Memcache, resulting in fast, inexpensive communications. For each user, Cloud Datastore tracks the current state of their games and virtual worlds. When that changes, it is written back to Cloud Datastore.
“Social interactions and tracking game progress are extremely important for the games we produce,” Ondruš says. “So Google App Engine and Google Cloud Datastore are vital for us.”
Madfinger Games uses other GCP services as well, including Cloud Storage for hosting games’ downloadable content and web data and Compute Engine for handling the leaderboard server for calculating and displaying the highest-scoring users.
“One of Google Cloud Platform’s biggest benefit for us is its simplicity,” Ondruš says. “We now have a single, unified platform that handles all of our most important work. We don’t need a big team of programmers to manage things, and we can scale up quickly without having to get additional resources.”
Letting developers be developers
Using GCP, Madfinger Games has freed engineers to do what they do best — develop new games and improve old ones. The company can also update its games faster.
“Because our engineers don’t have to spend time in admin tasks, they can focus all of their energy on improving our games,” Ondruš says. “It also lets us solve critical problems on the mobile client remotely without having to release a new version of the client application. We can make quick updates to our mobile apps, which results in better games, fewer problems and happier customers. Maybe most important is that we can focus on the work we love — developing games — rather than updating servers.”
Compute Engine BigQuery App Engine Cloud Storage Cloud Datastore | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1006 |
__label__wiki | 0.881814 | 0.881814 | Crunchyroll Raises Subscription Price for the First Time Since Launch
By Nick Valdez - March 22, 2019 04:41 pm EDT
Anime has carved out a larger presence in pop culture than it has ever seen in the last few years, and much of that is due to services like Crunchyroll that make legally watching new anime episodes much easier than ever. The streaming service has seen significant changes ever since its launch in 2006, and soon paying members will see an increase in their subscription rate.
Crunchyroll announced that their monthly rate for Premium members of their service will be increasing from $6.95 to $7.99 USD a month. This marks the very first price increase to the service since its launch years ago, and will go into effect for new subscribers on May 1.
Current Premium subscribers will have the current $6.95 USD locked down until August 1, and members who have pre-paid for a year of the service will not see a change in their pricing. Crunchyroll explained the increase in a statement to Variety:
"Crunchyroll has the world’s largest collection of anime and we are grateful to have focused on building out such a robust library for over the last decade, without a significant price change in our company history...However, due to rising costs of content and infrastructure, now is the time to introduce new subscription pricing." Adding that, "This price increase will help us bring our community more of their favorite shows, allowing us to create even more experiences for them to connect with each other and through shared passion for anime."
Crunchyroll's Premium subscription allows access to each new anime episode as they simulcast from Japan in HD and without advertisements. There have been no announced changes to the free version of the streaming service (which allows watching episodes roughly a week after they air with ad breaks), nor has there been an announced change to the bundled VRV pricing of $9.99 USD.
How do you feel about Crunchyroll's new pricing? Does it make a huge difference to you, or is the increase not enough to change your budgeting? Let us know how you feel about this in the comments or talk to me on Twitter @Valdezology!
In this latest episode, we talk about Dragon Ball Super maybe returning, we're breaking down Kofi's trip to the set of Godzilla: King of the Monsters and more! Make sure to subscribe now and never miss an episode!
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Attack On Titan Reveals Armin’s True Feelings About Eren Now
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Releases Nendoroid For Golden Wind's Bucciarati
Naruto Releases New Poster for Kabuki Play | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1010 |
__label__wiki | 0.622705 | 0.622705 | Insight Schools
School league tables: how are GCSE results changing?
November 14, 2016 August 14, 2018 House of Commons Library 1698 Views Paul Bolton
This year’s GCSE league tables will be changed in the most radical way since they were first introduced a quarter of a century ago. Two new headline measures – Progress 8 and Attainment 8 – will be introduced to encourage schools to focus on an ‘academic core’ of subjects and count every increase in every grade for all pupils. Progress 8 will also be used to judge whether schools fall below the ‘floor’ target or are classed as ‘coasting’; both of which have important implications for schools.
Why are the measures changing?
According to the Department for Education:
The new performance measures are designed to encourage schools to offer a broad and balanced curriculum with a focus on an academic core at key stage 4, and reward schools for the teaching of all their pupils, measuring performance across 8 qualifications. Every increase in every grade a pupil achieves will attract additional points in the performance tables.
What are the new measures?
Attainment 8 is a points score calculated from a pupil’s best eight grades across three subject-based categories. Progress 8 compares a pupil’s Attainment 8 score to the national average for pupils who scored the same in English and maths tests at primary school. A school’s results are the average across all its eligible pupils. They both take account of each qualification and grade. This is in contrast to the threshold measure they replace, 5+ grades A*–C including English & Maths, which only counted qualifications up to the point where a pupil passed the threshold. These new measures are broadly supported by the academic community.
The Government says that the two new measures are the most relevant ones for parents to judge a school’s performance, and hence help decide where to send their children. The ‘floor standard’ for schools will use Progress 8 results as will the definition of a ‘coasting school’ (alongside earlier measures as it looks at performance over three years). A school below the floor standard or deemed to be coasting will be eligible for intervention from the Government, including conversion to an academy or change of sponsor if they are an academy already.
How are the new measures calculated?
Attainment 8 looks at qualification in:
English and maths (both double weighted)
Three English Baccalaureate (EBacc) qualifications apart from English and maths (ie. science, languages and humanities)
Three other qualifications including approved non-GCSEs
Grades in each qualification are given points ranging from one for a G, increasing one point for each grade up to eight for an A*. If a pupil doesn’t have enough qualifications in a category they score zero for that ‘slot’. The English and maths points are doubled and the points are summed.
Progress 8 looks back at a pupil’s English and maths results at the end of primary school to put them in a prior attainment group. The national average Attainment 8 score for this group is then subtracted from the pupil’s Attainment 8 score and the result is divided by 10. The individual Progress 8 score is only used as a step to calculate the average for a school.
What do the results mean?
Attainment 8: The maximum a pupil can achieve is 80 points if they get A* in eight qualifications that fit in these categories. One point difference is equivalent to one grade difference in one qualification. Ten points to one grade across all eight subjects.
Progress 8: If a school’s score is positive it means their pupils made more progress than pupils with a similar starting point nationally and vice versa. Results are centered around zero (the national average) and a score of, say, +0.5 means that on average pupils at that school achieved half grade higher per subject than pupils nationally with the same levels of prior attainment. Results are given confidence intervals to help account for the normal variability in annual results not directly linked to a school’s performance. Only where the whole interval is above or below zero can we be reasonably certain that a schools results are better or worse than average.
National and local authority headline measures were published in mid-October. The average Attainment 8 score in state schools was 49.8, up from 48.2 in 2015 (recalculated). This is equivalent to an average grade of C across all eight subjects. The improvement was largely down to ‘behavioural change’ such as more pupils entering more EBacc subjects.
Progress 8 results are only relevant when comparing groups of schools, pupils etc. These were included in the official statistics. The charts below however look at local authority data, specifically how their rankings have changed on these new measures compared to the old headline measure in 2016. They illustrate general shifts, although some of the larger changes are highlighted.
There was relatively little change from the old headline measure to Attainment 8 for those with the highest and lowest rankings, but much more for those in the middle. There was even greater ‘churn’ in rankings when the old measure is compared to progress 8. Many saw very large changes in their ranking. Confidence intervals tell us that 46 local authorities were above, 69 below and 35 no different from the national average on this measure.
Provisional school-level results were published earlier this year giving headline performance data for all secondaries in England. Final league tables with much more performance data are due out in January 2017.
Download GCSE results data (Excel 364 KB)
Image: Education, by Richard Lee; Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC by 2.0) | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1011 |
__label__cc | 0.610494 | 0.389506 | It’s an old adage – you should never have all your eggs in one basket - and Nelson farmer Cam Ealam is the living embodiment of this.
The Ealam family, on Cam’s mother’s side, has farmed the same piece of land since 1856.
“We’d been looking for something different for a while, looking at options for the future, we want the farm to support another six generations,” Cam Ealam says.
For the past 80 years the family has been dairy farming, but Cam was keen to look at how the land could have multiple income streams.
“We saw the hop option pop up and thought that would definitely tick some of the boxes.”
So after a few long family discussions the decision was made to convert 35 ha of the 110 ha farm to grow hops.
The key ingredient in beer is going through a renaissance, largely due to the growing popularity of craft beer, and although globally New Zealand represents a tiny part of the market - around 1%* - the hops we grow here are in ever increasing demand both locally and globally.
But change hasn’t come without challenges.
“My family by nature is quite risk adverse so being able to convince my mother and grandparents that it was a good idea was one of the biggest challenges,” Cam says.
“Basically my mother wasn’t going to have a bar of it unless my grandad was on board. Thankfully he was pretty excited about it right from the start so that made it easier to convince mum!”
The investment required was significant. They needed all the machinery required to harvest and process on site – all up they say it’s around $80,000/ha, not including the land. But there will be a significant crop in the first year of production, and with an estimated financial return of 15% to 20%** the Ealam family feel it’s a stronger prospect than traditional pastoral farming.
The family is in a good position – the intergenerational farming model had always been conservative when it came to taking on debt, and the land sits right in the sweet spot for growing hops. Something not lost on previous generations.
Hop beds on the Ealam farm.
The Ealam Family - Bryce, Alan, Val, Debbie, Bruce and Cam.
“There had been hops grown on the farm by one of the earlier generations, so it’s come in a full cycle which is quite cool,” Cam says. “We have all the family history with photos of old hop gardens and records of fertiliser trials and yield tests.”
The difference today is that a shift from what was once a high volume and low value crop has transformed the industry.
Even so, ANZ Commercial & Agri General Manager John Bennett says it takes courage to make bold decisions and it’s important to know what you’re getting into.
“Critical to considering different options for any business is having insights and good information about the industry dynamics and business models of the sectors that you’re looking at,” John says.
“Combine this with the industry networks that the Ealam family were able to tap into, the debt structuring expertise and access to specialists and it made the decision easier.”
John also points out that to respond to change in customer and market needs, farmers need to be flexible and not afraid to change business models that their parents or grandparents had. Innovation is about technologies, crops and how they're financed.
For the Ealam family the land still needs to support Cam, his parents and his retired grandparents, who all still live on the farm. So they’ll continue milking, but plan to reduce the herd size over time and possibly move to boutique milk supply.
There are also plans for red meat farming and cropping.
“One idea I’ve got floating around in my head is if we do stop milking cows I would love to convert our shed into a craft beer boutique bar or café,” Cam Ealam says. “There is a cycle trail which goes right past the farm gate which gets pretty busy and it would be great to share the story of our family, the connection to the land, and how farming is evolving.”
You can read the ANZ Craft Beer Insights Paper here.
*NZ Plant and Food Research
**The Ealam family – from their own financial analysis
This material is for information purposes only. You should seek professional advice relevant to your individual circumstances. While ANZ has taken care to ensure that this information is from reliable sources, it cannot warrant its accuracy, completeness or suitability for your intended use. To the extent permitted by law, ANZ does not accept any responsibility or liability arising from your use of this information. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1012 |
__label__cc | 0.739447 | 0.260553 | The Mediterranean crisis and the UN
Last week had no shortage of shocking images to illustrate our collective paralysis in the face of the Mediterranean refugee crisis. A three year old boy dead on a beach, waves lapping around his shoes. Thousands of forcibly displaced people marching through the heart of Europe watched by silent onlookers. Borders going back up in Schengen under the guise of traffic control and migrant searches.
Author(s) / Contributor(s): Sarah Cliffe
Region/Country: Europe, Middle East, Syria
Topic(s): Fragile States, Humanitarian Crises, International Security, United Nations
Anti-Social Capital in Former Members of Non-State Armed Groups: A Case Study of Colombia
A new article by CIC’s Ben Oppenheim, along with Enzo Nussio, analyzes the challenges of reintegrating former members of insurgent and paramilitary groups after war. While disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programming (DDR) is a key component of many post-conflict reconstruction processes, there is relatively little evidence about the longer-term trajectories of former fighters.
Author(s) / Contributor(s): Ben Oppenheim
Region/Country: Latin America
The Risk Pivot
The last decade has seen not one but two energy revolutions. The first, explosive growth in demand from Asia’s rising powers, fueled fears about scarcity and conflict. The second, an American revolution in technology and markets, is rapidly strengthening America’s hand in the world. There are major security consequences of these shifts, from Saudi Arabia to Africa to Russia, and the emerging powers are increasingly exposed to them—risks, as well as energy flows, are pivoting to Asia. All while a third revolution is struggling to be born, driven by climate change.
Topic(s): Emerging Powers, Global Governance, International Security, Resource Scarcity
Diplomatic Fallout: U.N. and OSCE May Offer Least-Bad Options in Ukraine
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Diplomatic Fallout: Africa Still Matters to EU Defense Cooperation
Diplomatic Fallout: Three Good Reasons for the U.S. to Spy on Germany | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1019 |
__label__cc | 0.60087 | 0.39913 | Photogallery Archive
Republic 100
The Participants of the Conference of the Transcaucasian Republics. Autumn 1919, Tbilisi. Courtesy Photo: The National Parliamentary Library of Georgia.
Home/Republic 100/Republic News/Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan Leaders Hold the Conference of the Transcaucasian Republics
Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan Leaders Hold the Conference of the Transcaucasian Republics
235 1 minute read
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Armenia Azerbaijan Caucasus Conference of the Transcaucasian Republics Democratic Republic of Georgia Evgeni Gegechkori Georgia South Caucasus Tbilisi
The Georgian Messenger, N9, May the Fourth, 1919
The Conference of The Transcaucasian Republics.
On the 27-th of April the first session of the Conference of the Transcaucasian Republics was held in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There were present the delegates of the republics of Georgia, Armenia and Aderbaijan, headed by Gegechkori, Tigranian and Khan-Khoiski. The representatives of the Mountaineer Republic have not yet arrived. The meeting was opened at 11.45 A.M. by E.P. Gegechkori, who greeted the conference in the name of the Republic of Georgia, and expressed the hope that the Conference, which had been summoned at a critical and decisive moment, will prove itself capable of rising to the true interests of all the people of the country, and will be able to find a common ground for the closest possible union and unison between all the nationalities of the Transcaucasus.
Tigranian greeted the Conference in the name of the Armenian Government, and expressed his confidence that the peoples of the Transcaucasus, which had but recently lived under one aegis, would again attain that unity which was lost at the departure of the Russians, not by means of pressure without, but brought about by the consciousness of the unity of interest of all the peoples of the Caucasus. Khan Khoiski pointed out that the Aderbeijan Government had always stood for unison among the Caucasian peoples, and expressed the confidence that the Conference would afford an opportunity to cut loose from narrow and selfish viewpoints, and to ride to a true comprehension of common problems.
After mutual greetings, a program of the aims of the Conference was read over and adopted. A member of each delegation will preside in turn: Gegechkori, Tigranian and Khan-Khoiski. The chairmen are considering a plan of the labors of the Conference, which will be submitted at the next session.
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__label__wiki | 0.53433 | 0.53433 | Errata, Author Corrections
Extended-Spectrum β-Lactamases in the 21st Century: Characterization, Epidemiology, and Detection of This Important Resistance Threat
Patricia A. Bradford
Wyeth-Ayerst Research, Pearl River, New York
DOI: 10.1128/CMR.14.4.933-951.2001
β-Lactamases continue to be the leading cause of resistance to β-lactam antibiotics among gram-negative bacteria. In recent years there has been an increased incidence and prevalence of extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs), enzymes that hydrolyze and cause resistance to oxyimino-cephalosporins and aztreonam. The majority of ESBLs are derived from the widespread broad-spectrum β-lactamases TEM-1 and SHV-1. There are also new families of ESBLs, including the CTX-M and OXA-type enzymes as well as novel, unrelated β-lactamases. Several different methods for the detection of ESBLs in clinical isolates have been suggested. While each of the tests has merit, none of the tests is able to detect all of the ESBLs encountered. ESBLs have become widespread throughout the world and are now found in a significant percentage of Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae strains in certain countries. They have also been found in other Enterobacteriaceae strains and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Strains expressing these β-lactamases will present a host of therapeutic challenges as we head into the 21st century.
Emergence of resistance to β-lactam antibiotics began even before the first β-lactam, penicillin, was developed. The first β-lactamase was identified in Escherichia coli prior to the release of penicillin for use in medical practice (1). The age of penicillin saw the rapid emergence of resistance in Staphylococcus aureus due to a plasmid-encoded penicillinase. This β-lactamase quickly spread to most clinical isolates of S. aureus as well as other species of staphylococci.
Many genera of gram-negative bacteria possess a naturally occurring, chromosomally mediated β-lactamase. These enzymes are thought to have evolved from penicillin-binding proteins, with which they show some sequence homology. This development was likely due to the selective pressure exerted by β-lactam-producing soil organisms found in the environment (61). The first plasmid-mediated β-lactamase in gram-negatives, TEM-1, was described in the early 1960s (48). The TEM-1 enzyme was originally found in a single strain of E. coli isolated from a blood culture from a patient named Temoniera in Greece, hence the designation TEM (96). Being plasmid and transposon mediated has facilitated the spread of TEM-1 to other species of bacteria. Within a few years after its first isolation, the TEM-1 β-lactamase spread worldwide and is now found in many different species of members of the family Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Haemophilus influenzae, and Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Another common plasmid-mediated β-lactamase found in Klebsiella pneumoniae and E. coli is SHV-1 (for sulphydryl variable). The SHV-1 β-lactamase is chromosomally encoded in the majority of isolates of K. pneumoniae but is usually plasmid mediated in E. coli.
Over the last 20 years, many new β-lactam antibiotics have been developed that were specifically designed to be resistant to the hydrolytic action of β-lactamases. However, with each new class that has been used to treat patients, new β-lactamases emerged that caused resistance to that class of drug. Presumably, the selective pressure of the use and overuse of new antibiotics in the treatment of patients has selected for new variants of β-lactamase. One of these new classes was the oxyimino-cephalosporins, which became widely used for the treatment of serious infections due to gram-negative bacteria in the 1980s.
Not surprisingly, resistance to these expanded-spectrum β-lactam antibiotics due to β-lactamases emerged quickly. The first of these enzymes capable of hydrolyzing the newer β-lactams, SHV-2, was found in a single strain of Klebsiella ozaenae isolated in Germany (81). Because of their increased spectrum of activity, especially against the oxyimino-cephalosporins, these enzymes were called extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs). Today, over 150 different ESBLs have been described. These β-lactamases have been found worldwide in many different genera ofEnterobacteriaceae and P. aeruginosa. This review will focus on the characterization of ESBLs, the importance of detection of these enzymes, and their epidemiology.
CHARACTERIZATION OF ESBLS
Functional and Molecular GroupingThe majority of ESBLs contain a serine at the active site and belong to Ambler's molecular class A (4). Class A enzymes are characterized by an active-site serine, a molecular mass of approximately 29,000 Da, and the preferential hydrolysis of penicillins (95). Class A β-lactamases include such enzymes as TEM-1, SHV-1, and the penicillinase found in S. aureus. The molecular classification scheme is still used to characterize β-lactamases; however, it does not sufficiently differentiate the many different types of class A enzymes. The classification scheme of Richmond and Sykes was based on the substrate profile and the location of the gene encoding the β-lactamase (145). This classification scheme was developed before ESBLs arose, and it did not allow for the differentiation between the original TEM and SHV enzymes and their ESBL derivatives. More recently, a classification scheme was devised by Bush, Jacoby, and Medeiros that uses the biochemical properties of the enzyme plus the molecular structure and nucleotide sequence of the genes to place β-lactamases into functional groups (32). Using this scheme, ESBLs are defined as β-lactamases capable of hydrolyzing oximino-cephalosporins that are inhibited by clavulanic acid and are placed into functional group 2be (32).
Susceptibility and Biochemical CharacteristicsESBLs contain a number of mutations that allow them to hydrolyze expanded-spectrum β-lactam antibiotics. While TEM- and SHV-type ESBLs retain their ability to hydrolyze penicillins, they are not catalytically as efficient as the parent enzymes (33). In addition, the expansion of the active site that allows the increased activity against expanded-spectrum cephalosporins may also result in the increased susceptibility of ESBLs to β-lactamase inhibitors (74). ESBLs are not active against cephamycins, and most strains expressing ESBLs are susceptible to cefoxitin and cefotetan. However, it has been reported that ESBL-producing strains can become resistant to cephamycins due to the loss of an outer membrane porin protein (92, 121, 181).
TYPES OF ESBLS
Most ESBLs are derivatives of TEM or SHV enzymes (32,74). There are now >90 TEM-type β-lactamases and >25 SHV-type enzymes (for amino acid sequences for TEM, SHV, and OXA extended-spectrum and inhibitor-resistant β-lactamases, seehttp://www.lahey.org/studies/webt.htm). With both of these groups of enzymes, a few point mutations at selected loci within the gene give rise to the extended-spectrum phenotype. TEM- and SHV-type ESBLs are most often found in E. coli and K. pneumoniae; however, they have also been found in Proteus spp.,Providencia spp., and other genera ofEnterobacteriaceae.
TEMTEM-1 is the most commonly encountered β-lactamase in gram-negative bacteria. Up to 90% of ampicillin resistance in E. coli is due to the production of TEM-1 (85). This enzyme is also responsible for the ampicillin and penicillin resistance that is seen in H. influenzae and N. gonorrhoeaein increasing numbers. TEM-1 is able to hydrolyze penicillins and early cephalosporins such as cephalothin and cephaloridine. TEM-2, the first derivative of TEM-1, had a single amino acid substitution from the original β-lactamase (10). This caused a shift in the isoelectric point from a pI of 5.4 to 5.6, but it did not change the substrate profile. TEM-3, originally reported in 1989, was the first TEM-type β-lactamase that displayed the ESBL phenotype (157). In the years since that first report, over 90 additional TEM derivatives have been described (for amino acid sequences for TEM, SHV, and OXA extended-spectrum and inhibitor-resistant β-lactamases, seehttp://www.lahey.org /studies/webt.htm). Some of these β-lactamases are inhibitor-resistant enzymes, but the majority of the new derivatives are ESBLs.
As shown in Fig. 1, the amino acid substitutions that occur within the TEM enzyme occur at a limited number of positions. The combinations of these amino acid changes result in various subtle alterations in the ESBL phenotypes, such as the ability to hydrolyze specific oxyimino-cephalosporins such as ceftazidime and cefotaxime, or a change in their isoelectric points, which can range from a pI of 5.2 to 6.5 (Table1). A number of amino acid residues are especially important for producing the ESBL phenotype when substitutions occur at that position. They include glutamate to lysine at position 104, arginine to either serine or histidine at position 164, glycine to serine at position 238, and glutamate to lysine at position 240 (Fig. 1). In addition to β-lactamases TEM-1 through TEM-92 shown in Fig. 1 and Table 1, there has been a report of a naturally occurring TEM-like enzyme, TEM-AQ, that contained a number of amino acid substitutions and one amino acid deletion that have not been noted in other TEM enzymes (127).
Amino acid substitutions in TEM ESBL derivatives. The amino acids listed within the grey bar are those found in the structural gene of the TEM-1 β-lactamase (162). The amino acid numbering is according to the scheme of Ambler et al. (5). Substitutions found in TEM-type ESBL derivatives are shown under the amino acids of TEM-1. TEM-type variants may contain more than one amino acid substitution. ∗, TEM-2 is not an ESBL but is included in the figure as a derivative of TEM-1. The Gln39Lys substitution does not contribute to the ESBL phenotype, but a number of ESBLs are derived from TEM-2. ∗∗, TEM-50 and TEM-68 contain amino acid substitutions that are common to both the ESBL and the IRT phenotypes. Only the amino acid substitutions that are common to TEM-type ESBLs are shown in this figure.
Characteristics of TEM-type β-lactamasesa
It is interesting that laboratory mutants of TEM-1 that contain mutations at positions other than the ones described in nature have been constructed (18, 130, 180, 182). It has been suggested that the naturally occurring TEM-type ESBLs are the result of fluctuating selective pressure from several β-lactams within a given institution rather than selection with a single agent (18). Although TEM-type β-lactamases are most often found in E. coli and K. pneumoniae, they are also found in other species of gram-negative bacteria with increasing frequency. TEM-type ESBLs have been reported in genera ofEnterobacteriaceae such as Enterobacter aerogenes, Morganella morganii, Proteus mirabilis, Proteus rettgeri, andSalmonella spp. (19, 91, 101, 120, 128, 166). Furthermore, TEM-type ESBLs have been found in non-Enterobacteriaceae gram-negative bacteria. The TEM-42 β-lactamase was found in a strain of P. aeruginosa(103). Additionally, a recent report found the TEM-17 β-lactamase being expressed from a plasmid in a blood culture isolate of Capnocytophaga ochracea (146).
Inhibitor-Resistant β-LactamasesAlthough the inhibitor-resistant β-lactamases are not ESBLs, they are often discussed with ESBLs because they are also derivatives of the classical TEM- or SHV-type enzymes. In the early 1990s β-lactamases that were resistant to inhibition by clavulanic acid were discovered. Nucleotide sequencing revealed that these enzymes were variants of the TEM-1 or TEM-2 β-lactamase. These enzymes were at first given the designation IRT for inhibitor-resistant TEM β-lactamase; however, all have subsequently been renamed with numerical TEM designations. There are at least 19 distinct inhibitor-resistant TEM β-lactamases (for amino acid sequences for TEM, SHV and OXA extended-spectrum and inhibitor resistant β-lactamases, see http://www.lahey.org/studies/webt.htm). Inhibitor-resistant TEM β-lactamases have been found mainly in clinical isolates of E. coli, but also some strains ofK. pneumoniae, Klebsiella oxytoca, P. mirabilis, andCitrobacter freundii (31, 83). Although the inhibitor-resistant TEM variants are resistant to inhibition by clavulanic acid and sulbactam, thereby showing clinical resistance to the β-lactam–β-lactamase inhibitor combinations of amoxicillin-clavulanate, ticarcillin-clavulanate, and ampicillin-sulbactam, they remain susceptible to inhibition by tazobactam and subsequently the combination of piperacillin and tazobactam (23, 37). To date, these β-lactamases have primarily been detected in France and a few other locations within Europe (37). In a recent survey of amoxicillin-clavulanate-resistant E. coli in a hospital in France, Leflon-Guibout et al. found that up to 41% of these isolates produced inhibitor-resistant TEM variants (82). Although these enzymes have not yet been reported in isolates originating in the United States, it is likely that they will eventually be detected here as well.
As shown in Fig. 2, point mutations that lead to the inhibitor-resistant phenotype occur at a few specific amino acid residues within the structural gene for the TEM enzyme, Met-69, Arg-244, Arg-275, and Asn-276 (16, 66, 191). The sites of these amino acid substitutions are distinct from those that lead to the ESBL phenotype. Laboratory mutants that contain amino acid substitutions which are common to both the IRT and the ESBL phenotype have been constructed (159). These strains were found to possess either the ESBL or IRT phenotype, but not both. However, the TEM-50 enzyme, which had amino acid substitutions common to both the ESBL and inhibitor-resistant TEMs, was recently identified. This enzyme was resistant to inhibition by clavulanate, but it also conferred a slight resistance to the expanded-spectrum cephalosporins (154). This could indicate the possibility of a new group of β-lactamases with a complex phenotype sharing some characteristics of ESBLs and inhibitor-resistant enzymes. In addition to the variants of TEM, inhibitor-resistant variants of SHV-1 and the related enzyme OHIO-1 have been detected (22, 137).
Amino acid substitutions in TEM IRT derivatives. The amino acids listed within the grey bar are those found in the structural gene of the TEM-1 β-lactamase (162). The amino acid numbering is according to the scheme of Ambler et al. (5). Substitutions found in TEM-type IRT derivatives are shown under the amino acids of TEM-1. TEM-type variants may contain more than one amino acid substitution. ∗∗, TEM-50 and TEM-68 contain amino acid substitutions that are common to both the ESBL and the IRT phenotypes. Only the amino acid substitutions that are common to TEM-type IRTs are shown in this figure.
SHVThe SHV-1 β-lactamase is most commonly found in K. pneumoniae and is responsible for up to 20% of the plasmid-mediated ampicillin resistance in this species (172). In many strains of K. pneumoniae, bla SHV-1 or a related gene is integrated into the bacterial chromosome (85). Although it has been hypothesized that the gene encoding SHV-1 may exist as part of a transposable element, it has never been proven (75). Unlike the TEM-type β-lactamases, there are relatively few derivatives of SHV-1 (Table 2). Furthermore, the changes that have been observed inbla SHV to give rise to the SHV variants occur in fewer positions within the structural gene (Fig.3). The majority of SHV variants possessing an ESBL phenotype are characterized by the substitution of a serine for glycine at position 238. A number of variants related to SHV-5 also have a substitution of lysine for glutamate at position 240. It is interesting that both the Gly238Ser and Glu240Lys amino acid substitutions mirror those seen in TEM-type ESBLs. The serine residue at position 238 is critical for the efficient hydrolysis of ceftazidime, and the lysine residue is critical for the efficient hydrolysis of cefotaxime (69).
Characteristics of SHV-type β-lactamasesa
Amino acid substitutions in SHV ESBL derivatives. The amino acids listed within the grey bar are those found in the structural gene of the SHV-1 β-lactamase (25). The amino acid numbering is according to the scheme of Ambler et al. (5). Substitutions found in SHV-type ESBL derivatives are shown under the amino acids of SHV-1. SHV-type variants may contain more than one amino acid substitution. ∗, SHV-11 is not an ESBL but is included in the figure as a derivative of SHV-1.
To date, the majority of SHV-type derivatives possess the ESBL phenotype. However, one variant, SHV-10, is reported to have an inhibitor-resistant phenotype. This enzyme appears to be derived from SHV-5 and contains one additional amino acid substitution of glycine for serine 130 (137). It is interesting that the inhibitor-resistant phenotype conferred by the Ser140Gly mutation seems to override the strong ESBL phenotype usually seen in enzymes containing the Gly238Ser and the Glu240Lys mutations seen in other SHV-5-type enzymes. The majority of SHV-type ESBLs are found in strains of K. pneumoniae. However, these enzymes have also been found in Citrobacter diversus, E. coli, and P. aeruginosa (27, 51, 108, 139).
CTX-MIn recent years a new family of plasmid-mediated ESBLs, called CTX-M, that preferentially hydrolyze cefotaxime has arisen. They have mainly been found in strains of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium and E. coli, but have also been described in other species of Enterobacteriaceae (Table3). They include the CTX-M-type enzymes CTX-M-1 (formerly called MEN-1), CTX-M-2 through CTX-M-10 (9, 11,12, 13, 21, 29, 58, 59, 64, 148; A. Oliver, J. C. Pérez-Dı́az, T. M. Coque, F. Baquero, and R. Cantón, 40th Intersci. Conf. Antmicrob. Agents Chemother., abstr. 1480, 2000) as well as Toho enzymes 1 and 2 (72, 88).
Characteristics of CTX-M-type ESBLs
These enzymes are not very closely related to TEM or SHV β-lactamases in that they show only approximately 40% identity with these two commonly isolated β-lactamases (174). Previously, the most closely related enzymes outside this family were thought to be the chromosomally encoded class A cephalosporinases found in K. oxytoca, C. diversus, Proteus vulgaris, and Serratia fonticola (73 to 77% homology) (13, 19). However, it was recently reported by Humeniuk et al. that there is a high degree of homology between the chromosomal AmpC enzyme of Kluyvera ascorbata (designated Klu-1 and Klu-2) and the CTX-M-type enzymes, suggesting that the latter probably originated from this species (G. Humeniuk, G. Arlet, R. Labia, P. Grimont, and A. Philippon, Abstr. Reunion Interdis. Chimiother. Anti-infect., abstr. 20/C4, 2000) A phylogenetic study of the CTX-M family of β-lactamases showed four major types: the CTX-M-1 type, including CTX-M-1, and CTX-M-3; the CTX-M-2 type, including CTX-M-2, CTX-M-4, CTX-M-5, CTX-M-6, CTX-M-7, and Toho-1; Toho-2; and CTX-M-8, the latter two groups containing only one member to date (21). The evolutionary distances between each of these groupings suggest an early divergence from a common ancestor (21).
Kinetic studies have shown that the CTX-M-type β-lactamases hydrolyze cephalothin or cephaloridine better than benzylpenicillin and they preferentially hydrolyze cefotaxime over ceftazidime (29,174). Although there is some hydrolysis of ceftazidime by these enzymes, it is usually not enough to provide clinical resistance to organisms in which they reside. It has been suggested that the serine residue at position 237, which is present in all of the CTX-M enzymes, plays an important role in the extended-spectrum activity of the CTX-M-type β-lactamases (174). Although it has been shown not to be essential, the Arg-276 residue lies in a position equivalent to Arg-244 in TEM- or SHV-type ESBLs, as suggested by molecular modeling, and may also play a role in the hydrolysis of oxyimino-cephalosporins (56). Recent crystallographic data for the Toho-1 enzyme suggested that there was increased flexibility of the interacting β3 strand and Ω loop of this enzyme in comparison to other class A β-lactamases. Furthermore, the lack of hydrogen bonds in the vicinity of the Ω loop could account for the extended-spectrum phenotype (71). In addition to the rapid hydrolysis of cefotaxime, another unique feature of these enzymes is that they are inhibited better by the β-lactamase inhibitor tazobactam than by sulbactam and clavulanate (29, 88, 148,174).
Strains expressing CTX-M-type β-lactamases have been isolated from many parts of the world, but have most often been associated with focal outbreaks in eastern Europe (29, 57, 64), South America, and Japan (88). There have been a few reports of these enzymes in isolates from patients in western Europe, mostly in isolates from immigrants from the outbreak areas (173). However, Sabeté et al. recently reported that 23 strains of E. coli and Salmonella isolated in Spain expressed the CTX-M-9 β-lactamase, suggesting that there may be an endemic focus of this enzyme in western Europe as well (148). Moreover, a CTX-M-3-producing strain of Enterobacter cloacae was recently isolated in France (50). Several institutions in the areas where outbreaks have occurred reported that the CTX-M-type enzyme is the most frequently isolated ESBL among clinical isolates in their laboratories (148).
Interestingly, a number of these enzymes have been found among isolates of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (11, 29,57, 58, 173). Large outbreaks of isolates of S. enterica serovar Typhimurium expressing CTX-M β-lactamases have occurred in both South America and eastern Europe. These isolates have also been found to express a variety of CTX-M-type variants. Therefore, it is unlikely that a single origin for the occurrence and propensity of this type of β-lactamase among S. enterica serovar Typhimurium can be found.
OXAThe OXA-type enzymes are another growing family of ESBLs. These β-lactamases differ from the TEM and SHV enzymes in that they belong to molecular class D and functional group 2d (32). The OXA-type β-lactamases confer resistance to ampicillin and cephalothin and are characterized by their high hydrolytic activity against oxacillin and cloxacillin and the fact that they are poorly inhibited by clavulanic acid (32). The OXA β-lactamase family was originally created as a phenotypic rather than a genotypic group for a few β-lactamases that had a specific hydrolysis profile. Therefore, there is as little as 20% sequence homology among some of the members of this family. However, recent additions to this family show some degree of homology to one or more of the existing members of the OXA β-lactamase family.
While most ESBLs have been found in E. coli, K. pneumoniae, and other Enterobacteriaceae, the OXA-type ESBLs have been found mainly in P. aeruginosa (Table4). Several of the OXA-type ESBLs have been derived from OXA-10 (OXA-11, -14, -16, and -17) (44, 45, 65,104). OXA-14 differs from OXA-10 by only one amino acid residue, OXA-11 and OXA-16 differ by two, and OXA-13 and OXA-19 differ by nine (Table 4). Among the enzymes related to OXA-10, the ESBL variants have one of two amino acid substitutions: an asparagine for serine at position 73, or an aspartate for glycine at position 157. In particular, the Gly157Asp substitution may be necessary for high-level resistance to ceftazidime (44). It appears that either of these mutations may be required to confer the ESBL phenotype on the OXA-type variant. In addition to the OXA-10 group, OXA-15 is a derivative of OXA-2, and OXA-18 is not directly derived from other OXA-type enzymes (closest relative is OXA-9, with 42% homology) (Table4) (131).
Characteristics of OXA-type ESBLs
The OXA-type ESBLs provide weak resistance to oxyimino-cephalosporins when cloned into E. coli, but provide fairly high-level resistance in P. aeruginosa transconjugants (65). In contrast to the majority of the OXA-type ESBLs, which confer resistance to ceftazidime, the OXA-17 β-lactamase confers resistance to cefotaxime and ceftriaxone but provides only marginal protection against ceftazidime (44). With respect to β-lactamase inhibitors, the original OXA enzymes were characterized by their lack of inhibition by clavulanic acid; however, the OXA-18 β-lactamase was reported to be inhibited by this compound (131). One additional OXA-type enzyme has been identified, OXA-21 (184). This enzyme was found in a strain ofAcinetobacter baumannii and is the first incidence of an OXA-type enzyme's originating in this organism. Because the clinical isolate of A. baumannii also expressed two other β-lactamases, it is unclear whether OXA-21 is an ESBL or an original-spectrum enzyme (184).
In addition to the OXA-type ESBLs, a number of recent OXA derivatives that are not ESBLs have also been described. These include OXA-20 (110), OXA-22 (115), OXA-24 (24), OXA-25, -26, and -27 (2), and OXA-30 (155). Many of the newer members of the OXA β-lactamase family have been found in bacterial isolates originating in Turkey and in France. It is not certain whether these two countries represent foci of strains harboring these enzymes or if they represent the locale of the investigators studying these β-lactamases.
Other ESBLsWhile the majority of ESBLs are derived from TEM or SHV β-lactamases and others can be categorized with one of the newer families of ESBLs, a few ESBLs have been reported that are not closely related to any of the established families of β-lactamases (Table5). The PER-1 β-lactamase was first discovered in strains of P. aeruginosa isolated from patients in Turkey (113). Later, it was also found among isolates of S. enterica serovar Typhimurium and A. baumanii (176, 177, 179). The PER-1 β-lactamase is widespread across Turkey and is found in up to 60% of ceftazidime-resistant strains of A. baumanii, which represent 46% of total isolates (179). A common plasmid encoding PER-1 was found in multiple nosocomial isolates of S. enterica serovar Typhimurium, suggesting that the strains acquired the resistance plasmids in the hospital setting (176). A related enzyme, PER-2, which has 86% amino acid homology with PER-1, was found among S. enterica serovar Typhimurium strains in Argentina. (14). It is interesting that PER-1 is found almost exclusively in Turkey, while PER-2 has been found almost exclusively in South America.
Characteristics of novel, unrelated ESBLs
Another enzyme that is somewhat related to PER-1 is the VEB-1 β-lactamase (135). VEB-1 was first found in a single isolate of E. coli in a patient from Vietnam, but was subsequently also found in a P. aeruginosa isolate from a patient from Thailand (109). A third related enzyme is CME-1, which was isolated from Chryseobacterium meningosepticum (147). A fourth enzyme in this group is TLA-1, which was identified in an E. coli isolate from a patient in Mexico (153). The PER-1, PER-2, VEB-1, CME-1, and TLA-1 β-lactamases are related but show only 40 to 50% homology. These enzymes all confer resistance to oxyimino-cephalosporins, especially ceftazidime, and aztreonam. They also show some homology to the chromosomal cephalosporinases in Bacteroides spp. and may have originated from this genus (147).
An unusual feature of SFO-1, which is highly related to a class A β-lactamase from Serratia fonticola, is that it is a transferable β-lactamase that can be induced to high-level production of β-lactamase by imipenem (94). The plasmid carrying the gene encoding the SFO-1 β-lactamase also carries theampR regulatory gene that is necessary for the induction of class C β-lactamases. However, unlike class C β-lactamases, SFO-1 cannot hydrolyze cephamycins and is inhibited well by clavulanic acid (94). GES-1 is another uncommon ESBL enzyme that is not closely related to any other plasmid-mediated β-lactamase but does show 36% homology to a carbenicillinase from Proteus mirabilis (136).
A dendrogram of the phylogeny of ESBL sequences is shown in Fig.4. The TEM and SHV families are tightly clustered and are related to each other. All of the class A ESBLs are more closely related to each other than they are to any of the class D OXA-type enzymes.
Phylogeny of ESBLs. Representative sequences of various ESBLs were obtained from GenBank. The PC1 (class A, S. aureus enzyme), IMP-1 (class B, metallo-enzyme), and ACT-1 (class C, AmpC-type enzyme) β-lactamases were included for comparison. Signal peptides were identified with SPSScan and removed prior to alignment. Sequences were aligned using Clustal X (168). Trees were constructed with Clustal X, which uses the neighbor-joining method, with a bootstrap value of 1,000. The IMP-1 sequence was used to root the tree. Trees were visualized with TREEVIEW (118).
ESBL DETECTION METHODS
The increased prevalence of Enterobacteriaceaeproducing ESBLs creates a great need for laboratory testing methods that will accurately identify the presence of these enzymes in clinical isolates. Although most ESBLs confer resistance to one or more of the oxyimino-β-lactam antibiotics, the β-lactamase does not always increase the MICs to high enough levels to be called resistant by the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) interpretive guidelines (78, 111). The sensitivity and specificity of a susceptibility test to detect ESBLs vary with the cephalosporin tested. A number of investigators have suggested that either dilution tests or disk diffusion susceptibility tests performed with cefpodoxime detected more ESBLs than other cephalosporins such as ceftazidime, cefotaxime, and ceftriaxone (52, 100). However, more recent data suggest that susceptibility testing with cefpodoxime can lead to a high number of false-positives if the current NCCLS interpretive criteria are applied (F. C. Tenover, P. Raney, P. P. Williams, K. L. Brittan, C. D. Steward, S. K. Fridkin, R. P. Gaynes, and J. E. McGowan, Jr., 40th Intersci. Conf. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother., abstr. 1606, 2000). The NCCLS is currently reevaluating the testing procedures and interpretive criteria that should be used for the detection of ESBLs.
The failure of either MIC or disk tests alone to accurately detect the presence of an ESBL in all strains of E. coli and K. pneumoniae has been well documented (52, 73). In a recent survey conducted through the World Health Organization, 5.4% of laboratories using disk diffusion tests found an ESBL-producing challenge strain to be susceptible to all cephalosporins (165). In that study, Tenover et al. reported that only 2 of the 130 laboratories surveyed specifically reported the isolate as an ESBL producer (165). It also appears that there is a difference in the ability of various susceptibility-testing methods used for detecting cephalosporin resistance in an ESBL-producing strain. Steward et al. reported the results of a proficiency test assessing the ability of hospital laboratories participating in Project ICARE (Intensive Care Antimicrobial Resistance Epidemiology) to detect specific types of antimicrobial resistance (160). Only 35% of laboratories using the Vitek system reported an ESBL challenge strain of K. pneumoniae as being resistant to ceftazidime and ceftriaxone. In contrast, 100% of the laboratories using the MicroScan system reported the same strain as being resistant. However, only 29% of the laboratories using MicroScan reported the strain as being resistant to ceftriaxone (160).
This lack of sensitivity and specificity in traditional susceptibility tests to detect ESBLs has prompted the search for an accurate test to detect the presence of ESBLs in clinical isolates. In the years since ESBLs were first described, a number of different testing methods have been suggested.
Clinical Microbiology TechniquesClinical microbiology tests employ a β-lactamase inhibitor, usually clavulanate, in combination with an oxyimino-cephalosporin such as ceftazidime or cefotaxime. In these tests, the clavulanate inhibits the ESBL, thereby reducing the level of resistance to the cephalosporin.
Several ESBL detection tests that have been proposed are based on the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion test methodology. One of the first detection tests to be described was the double-disk approximation test described by Jarlier et al. (76). In this test, the organism is swabbed onto a Mueller-Hinton agar plate. A susceptibility disk containing amoxicillin-clavulanate is placed in the center of the plate, and disks containing one of the oxyimino-β-lactam antibiotics are placed 30 mm (center to center) from the amoxicillin-clavulanate disk. As shown in Fig. 5, enhancement of the zone of inhibition of the oxyimino-β-lactam caused by the synergy of the clavulanate in the amoxicillin-clavulanate disk is a positive result (76). This test remains a reliable method for the detection of ESBLs. However, it has been suggested that the sensitivity of this test can be increased by reducing the distance between the disks to 20 mm (169, 171). The use of cefpodoxime as the expanded-spectrum cephalosporin of choice for use in double-disk tests for ESBL detection has been suggested (41). Alternatively, the addition of clavulanate (4 μg/ml) to the Mueller-Hinton agar can be used to potentiate the zone of inhibition of one or more disks containing expanded-spectrum cephalosporins (67).
Double-disk diffusion and Etest ESBL detection tests. (A) The double-disk diffusion ESBL detection test as suggested by Jarlier et al. is shown (76). A disk containing amoxicillin-clavulanate (AMC) is placed in proximity to a disk containing ceftazidime (CAZ) or another oxyimino-cephalosporin. The clavulanate in the amoxicillin-clavulanate disk diffuses through the agar and inhibits the β-lactamase surrounding the ceftazidime disk. Enhancement of the zone of the ceftazidime disk on the side facing the amoxicillin-clavulanate disk is interpreted as a positive test. (B) Etest ESBL strip (AB Biodisk, Solna, Sweden). The zone of inhibition is read from two halves of the strip containing ceftazidime alone (TZ) or ceftazidime plus clavulanate (TZL). A reduction in the MIC of ceftazidime of ≥3 dilutions in the presence of clavulanate is interpreted as a positive test. (C) The Etest ESBL strip is sometimes difficult to interpret with weak enzyme producers such as the strain expressing TEM-12 shown in this panel. The clavulanate from the ceftazidime plus clavulanate half of the strip diffuses into the agar and interferes with the reading of the MICs for the half of the strip containing ceftazidime alone.
A similar test was designed by Jacoby and Han, in which 20 μg of sulbactam was added to susceptibility disks containing one of the oxyimino-β-lactam antibiotics (73). An increase of 5 mm in the zone of inhibition in a disk containing sulbactam compared to the drug alone was considered a positive test. Although many ESBL-producing strains were detected with this method, a significant number of strains were not. In addition, a number of AmpC-producing strains also showed an enhancement of the zone diameter with the addition of sulbactam (73). Recently, several commercial manufacturers have developed disks that contain an expanded-spectrum cephalosporin plus clavulanate. A differential between results obtained with 10-μg disks containing cefpodoxime, ceftazidime, or cefotaxime with or without the addition of 1 μg of clavulanate was shown to accurately detect the presence of an ESBL (35, 105).
Another method suggested for the detection of ESBLs is the three-dimensional test described by Thomson and Sanders (169). In this test, following inoculation of the test organism onto the surface of a Mueller-Hinton agar plate, a slit is cut into the agar, into which a broth suspension of the test organism is introduced. Subsequently, antibiotic disks are placed on the surface of the plate 3 mm from the slit. Distortion or discontinuity in the expected circular zone of inhibition is considered a positive test (169). This test was determined to be very sensitive in detecting ESBLs, but it is more technically challenging and labor intensive than other methods. All of the tests utilizing one of the variations of a disk diffusion technique require some interpretation and therefore should be performed by clinical microbiologists experienced in reading these tests.
It has also been suggested that dilution tests performed with an expanded-spectrum cephalosporin with and without the addition of clavulanic acid or another β-lactamase inhibitor be used for the detection of ESBLs in a clinical isolate. In general, these tests look for a reduction in the MIC of the cephalosporin in the presence of a β-lactamase inhibitor. However, the question of which cephalosporin to use has not been definitively resolved (170).
Currently, the NCCLS recommends an initial screening by testing for growth in a broth medium containing 1 μg/ml of one of five expanded-spectrum β-lactam antibiotics. A positive result is to be reported as suspicious for the presence of an ESBL (111). This screen is then followed by a phenotypic confirmatory test that consists of determining MICs of either ceftazidime or cefotaxime with and without the presence of clavulanic acid (4 μg/ml). A decrease in the MIC of ≥3 twofold dilutions in the presence of clavulanate is indicative of the presence of an ESBL. If an ESBL is detected, the strain should be reported as nonsusceptible to all expanded-spectrum cephalosporins and aztreonam regardless of the susceptibility testing result (111).
Several commercial manufacturers have developed ESBL detection tests that can be used along with MIC test methods already in place in the clinical laboratory. Etest ESBL strips (AB Biodisk, Solna, Sweden) are two-sided strips that contain a gradient of ceftazidime on one end and ceftazidime plus clavulanate on the other end. As shown in Fig. 5, a positive test for an ESBL is a >3-dilution reduction in the MIC of ceftazidime in the presence of clavulanic acid. This test was shown to be more sensitive than the double-disk approximation test in detecting ESBLs in clinical isolates (39). This method is convenient and easy to use, but it is sometimes difficult to read the test when the MICs of ceftazidime are low because the clavulanate sometimes diffuses over to the side that contains ceftazidime alone (Fig. 5) (183).
The automated microbial susceptibility test system Vitek (Biomerieux, Hazlewood, Mo.) has also produced an ESBL test that utilizes either ceftazidime or cefotaxime alone and in combination with clavulanic acid (4 μg/ml). A predetermined reduction in growth in wells containing clavulanate compared to those containing drug alone indicates the presence of an ESBL. In a study of Klebsiella spp. andE. coli expressing well-characterized β-lactamases, Sanders et al. showed that the Vitek ESBL test was 99% sensitive and specific for the detection of ESBLs (149). Furthermore, updated computer algorithms in the new Vitek system have also been shown to categorize the β-lactamases present in many gram-negative clinical isolates based on the phenotype of susceptibility patterns with various β-lactam antibiotics (150).
While each of these tests has its merit, none of these methods can accurately detect all strains producing ESBLs. Vercauteren et al. showed that the Etest ESBL test with ceftazidime only detected 81% of ESBLs tested in their laboratory, compared to 97 and 91% for the double-disk test and the three-dimensional test, respectively (183). Tzelepi et al. have reported that the Vitek ESBL detection test failed to detect the majority of ESBL-producing strains of Enterobacter spp. (171). In a recent survey of detection of ESBLs in clinical isolates, Tenover et al. found that only 18% of laboratories correctly identified challenge organisms as potential ESBL producers using susceptibility to one or more expanded-spectrum β-lactam antibiotics as the method of detection (164). Furthermore, a survey in Europe found that 37% of ESBL-producing organisms were mistakenly reported as being susceptible to expanded-spectrum cephalosporins (86).
The merits and shortcomings of each of the detection tests are outlined in Table 6. Of the tests that have been developed to date, the double-disk approximation test recommended by Jarlier et al. (76), and the broth-dilution MIC reduction method (NCCLS confirmatory test) (111) are the easiest and most cost-effective methods for use by many clinical laboratories. However, none of the detection tests that are based on the phenotype of the β-lactamase produced are 100% sensitive or specific for the accurate detection of ESBLs among clinical isolates of gram-negative bacteria. The need for improved detection of ESBLs in clinical isolates is well recognized (123).
ESBL detection techniques
It should also be noted that caution must be employed when interpreting ESBL detection tests because there have been reports of false-positive results for ESBL phenotypic screening tests that can occur with strains that do not possess an ESBL. Several groups have reported that the high-level expression of SHV-1 in K. pneumoniae can cause the MIC of ceftazidime to rise to levels at which an ESBL would be suspected (99, 129, 141). In addition, Rasheed et al. reported that the production of SHV-1 in a strain of K. pneumoniae that was also lacking an outer membrane porin protein caused a false-positive in ESBL detection tests that looked at the differential between MICs of oxyimino-β-lactam antibiotics with and without clavulanate (139). The presence of an ESBL can also be masked by the expression of an AmpC-type enzyme in the same strain (28).
Molecular Detection MethodsThe tests described above only presumptively identify the presence of an ESBL. The task of identifying which specific ESBL is present in a clinical isolate is more complicated. In the early days of studying ESBLs, determination of the isoelectric point was usually sufficient to identify the ESBL that was present. However, with >90 TEM-type β-lactamases, many of which possess identical isoelectric points, determination of the ESBL by isoelectric point is no longer possible. A similar situation is found in the SHV, CTX-M, and OXA families of ESBLs.
Early detection of β-lactamase genes was performed using DNA probes that were specific for TEM and SHV enzymes (7, 55, 70). However, using DNA probes can sometimes be rather labor intensive. The easiest and most common molecular method used to detect the presence of a β-lactamase belonging to a family of enzymes is PCR with oligonucleotide primers that are specific for a β-lactamase gene. Oligonucleotide primers can be chosen from sequences available in public databases such as Genbank (GenBank, National Center for Biotechnology Information,http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/index.html). These primers are usually chosen to anneal to regions where various point mutations are not known to occur. However, PCR will not discriminate among different variants of TEM or SHV. Several molecular methods that will aid in the detection and differentiation of ESBLs without sequencing have been suggested.
The first molecular method for the identification of β-lactamase was the oligotyping method developed by Ouellette et al., which was used to discriminate between TEM-1 and TEM-2 (117). This method used oligonucleotide probes that are designed to detect point mutations under stringent hybridization conditions. Subsequently, Mabilat and Courvalin developed additional oligonucleotide probes to detect mutations at six positions within the bla TEMgene (89). Using this method, several new TEM variants were identified within a set of clinical isolates. The probes used in oligotyping tests for TEM β-lactamases have been labeled either with a radioisotope or with biotin (89, 167). Another approach for molecular characterization of the TEM β-lactamase gene was to add restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis to PCR (PCR-RFLP) (6). In this test, amplified PCR products were subjected to digestion with several restriction endonucleases, and the subsequent fragments were separated by electrophoresis. The sizes of the fragments generated by each restriction enzyme indicate point mutations within the bla TEM structural gene.
A number of different tests have been proposed for the detection and identification of SHV derivatives. The simplest of these was suggested by Nüesch-Inderbinen et al. and employs PCR-RFLP (116). Following PCR, the amplified DNA is digested with restriction enzyme NheI, which detects the G-to-A nucleotide change that gives rise to the glycine-to-serine substitution at position 238 that is common to many of the early SHV-type ESBLs. Although this method cannot determine which SHV-type ESBL is present, it can detect the specific mutation at position 238 (116). Another method used to characterize SHV-type ESBLs is PCR single-strand conformational polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) analysis. This method has been used to detect a single base mutation at specific locations within thebla SHV gene (106, 107). In this test, a 475-bp amplimer is generated using oligonucleotide primers that are internal to the coding sequence of thebla SHV gene, digested with restriction enzymePstI. The fragments are then denatured and separated on a 20% polyacrylamide gel. Genes for SHV-1, -2, -3, -4, -5, and -7 β-lactamases can be identified by the electrophoretic pattern of the digested amplimer (106, 107). With the identification of a number of additional SHV-type β-lactamase genes, PCR-RFLP was developed to help with the identification of some of the newer SHV variants (38). Following PCR, Chanawong et al. used a variety of restriction endonucleases to detect 12 mutations at 11 positions within the bla SHV structural gene. The combination of PCR-SSCP with PCR-RFLP allows the identification of 17 different SHV genes (38).
Another method proposed for the identification of SHV genes is the use of ligase chain reaction (LCR) (80). LCR allows the discrimination of DNA sequences that differ by a single base pair by the use of a thermostable ligase with four oligonucleotide primers that are complimentary to the target sequence and hybridize adjacent to each other. A single base mismatch in the oligonucleotide junction will not be ligated and subsequently amplified. In this LCR test, the target DNA containing the bla SHV gene is denatured in a thermocycler and annealed with biotinylated oligonucleotide primers that detect mutations at four positions. The LCR product is detected by an enzymatic reaction using NADPH-alkaline phosphatase. This method was able to detect seven of the SHV variants.
For OXA-10-derived ESBLs, the presence of an OXA-type gene in clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa was first detected using a colony hybridization technique (178). Subsequently, positive isolates were subjected to PCR with specific OXA primers and then digested with restriction endonucleases that would distinguish several groups of related OXA enzymes based on the sizes of the restriction fragments. While this technique does not completely identify which OXA gene is present in a strain, it can distinguish the ESBL OXA-type β-lactamases from non-ESBLs that are also related to OXA-10 (178).
Nucleotide sequencing remains the standard for determination of the specific β-lactamase gene present in a strain. However, this too can give variable results depending on the method used (25). It is possible that some of the variability seen in the sequences for some of the SHV β-lactamases was due to compressions and difficulty in reading traditional sequencing autoradiographs, rather than actual differences in the sequence (25).
Medical Significance of Detection of ESBLsIt is generally thought that patients having infections caused by an ESBL-producing organism are at an increased risk of treatment failure with an expanded-spectrum β-lactam antibiotic. Therefore, it is recommended that any organism that is confirmed for ESBL production according to NCCLS criteria be reported as resistant to all expanded-spectrum β-lactam antibiotics, regardless of the susceptibility test result (111). While some ESBL-producing strains have overt resistance to expanded-spectrum β-lactam antibiotics, many isolates will not be phenotypically “resistant” according to guidelines such as those previously used by the NCCLS. Therefore, it is important for the clinical microbiology lab to be aware of isolates that may show increased MICs of oxyimino-cephalosporins even though they may not be reported as resistant, as this might suggest the presence of an ESBL. It is also important for the clinical microbiology lab to then implement one or more methods to detect ESBLs. In contrast, the susceptibility test results of the β-lactam–β-lactamase inhibitor combinations can be reported as is. There have been several reports that these inhibitor combinations may provide a viable alternative for the treatment of infections caused by ESBL-producing organisms (124, 125).
The concern for the accurate detection of ESBLs is twofold. First, there is an increasing prevalence of ESBLs worldwide (see below). Second, many strains producing ESBLs demonstrate an inoculum effect in that the MICs of expanded-spectrum cephalosporins rise as the inoculum increases (36, 74, 158). Medeiros and Crellin found that the MICs of most cephalosporins rose dramatically when the inoculum of susceptibility tests was raised from 105 to 107 CFU/ml (97). This in vivo inoculum effect has also been demonstrated in animal models of endocarditis and intra-abdominal abscesses (34, 53, 144). There are many types of infections in which the bacterial load could reach these levels. Therefore, it is imperative that the detection of ESBLs accurately reflect the level of resistance that would be achieved by strains expressing these enzymes in vivo.
ESBLs are now a problem in hospitalized patients worldwide. The ESBL phenomenon began in western Europe, most likely because expanded-spectrum β-lactam antibiotics were first used there clinically. However, it did not take long before ESBLs had been detected in the United States and Asia. The prevalence of ESBLs among clinical isolates varies from country to country and from institution to institution. In the United States, occurrence of ESBL production inEnterobacteriaceae ranges from 0 to 25%, depending on the institution, with the national average being around 3% (CDC National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance,http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/hip/SURVEILL/NNIS.HTM) Among isolates ofK. pneumonia, the percentage of ceftazidime resistance ranges from 5 to 10% for non-intensive care unit (non-ICU) and ICU isolates, respectively (D. Mathai, R. N. Jones, M. Stilwell, and M. A. Pfaller, 40th Intersci. Conf. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother., abstr. 1027, 2000). Some hospitals with low levels of ESBLs may not find it cost-effective to test for ESBLs on a routine basis (52). However, these institutions should monitor the rates of resistance in their own hospitals and be aware of an increase in resistance.
In Europe, the prevalence of ESBL production among isolates ofEnterobacteriaceae varies greatly from country to country. In the Netherlands, a survey of 11 hospital laboratories showed that <1% of E. coli and K. pneumoniae strains possessed an ESBL (161). However, in France, as many as 40% of K. pneumoniae isolates were found to be ceftazidime resistant (30). Across Europe, the incidence of ceftazidime resistance among K. pneumoniae strains was 20% for non-ICU isolates and 42% for isolates from patients in the ICU (Mathai et al., abstr. 1027). In Japan, the percentage of β-lactam resistance due to ESBL production in E. coli and K pneumoniae remains very low. In a recent survey of 196 institutions across the country, <0.1% of E. coli and 0.3% of K. pneumoniae strains possessed an ESBL (187). Elsewhere in Asia, the percentage of ESBL production in E. coli and K. pneumoniae varies, from 4.8% in Korea (119) to 8.5% in Taiwan (188) and up to 12% in Hong Kong (68).
It is interesting that specific ESBLs appear to be unique to a certain country or region. For example, TEM-10 has been responsible for several unrelated outbreaks of ESBL-producing organisms in the United States for a number of years (26, 112, 143, 175). However, TEM-10 has only recently been reported in Europe with the same frequency (8, 84). Similarly, TEM-3 is common in France, but has not been detected in the United States (114, 156). In recent years, there have been reports of outbreaks of TEM-47-producing organisms in Poland (62), and the prevalence of TEM-52 in Korea is unique to that country (119). Another recent survey of Korea revealed that the SHV-12 and SHV-2a β-lactamases are the most common ESBLs found in Korea (79). In contrast, the SHV-5 β-lactamase is commonly encountered worldwide and has been reported in Croatia, France, Greece, Hungary, Poland, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States (15, 43, 54, 63, 133, 152,163, 181).
A common theme among hospitals plagued by organisms that produce ESBLs is the high volume and indiscriminate administration of expanded-spectrum cephalosporins (140, 142). Specific risk factors include length of hospital stay, severity of illness, time in the ICU, intubation and mechanical ventilation, urinary or arterial catheterization, and previous exposure to antibiotics (126,140). Many of the patients infected with ESBLs are found in ICUs, but they can occur in surgical wards as well as most other areas of the hospital. ESBLs are also being isolated with increasing frequency from patients in extended-care facilities (27, 143,186). In addition, whereas early outbreaks of ESBL-producing strains were caused by isolates that produced only a single β-lactamase, more recently outbreaks have been caused by organisms with multiple β-lactamases (26, 27, 189). This combination of non-ESBL class A enzymes and AmpC-type enzymes along with ESBLs often compounds the resistance, so that many of these strains are now resistant to β-lactam–β-lactamase inhibitor combinations, cephamycins, and even carbapenems in addition to the oxyimino-cephalosporins and aztreonam (28). In addition, there is a high association with ciprofloxacin resistance in strains that produce ESBLs (122).
Many hospitals have experienced outbreaks of ESBL-producing organisms. These outbreaks are often fueled by the large number of patient transfers between units and between hospitals (87). It was found that barrier precautions were often difficult to enforce with a mobile patient population. Eventually, many of the reported outbreaks were successfully managed using infection control methods (87), restriction of the use of oxyimino-cephalosporins (125, 138), and antibiotic cycling (49, 77). A successful approach to the control of the spread of ESBL-producing organisms involved switching to different classes of broad-spectrum antibiotics for the treatment of serious infections (140). The two most successful replacement antibiotics have been imipenem and piperacillin-tazobactam (98, 124, 125, 142, 143).
In the mid-1990s, Rice et al. reported that an outbreak of TEM-6-producing ceftazidime-resistant K. pneumoniae in a Veterans Administration hospital was successfully controlled after the institution switched from ceftazidime to piperacillin-tazobactam for empiric therapy for gram-negative infections (142). Although the ceftazidime-resistant strains causing the outbreak were originally resistant to piperacillin-tazobactam, they saw a rapid decrease in the isolation of K. pneumoniae strains resistant to both ceftazidime and piperacillin-tazobactam. The incidence of ESBL-producing K. pneumoniae has remained low since that time in that institution (142). This phenomenon of a reduction in the resistance rate to piperacillin-tazobactam following the switch from expanded-spectrum cephalosporin use to piperacillin-tazobactam has been confirmed by several other investigators (124, 125). Moreover, it has been reported that the use of β-lactam–β-lactam inhibitor combinations results in a protective effect, in that they are associated with a lower incidence of colonization with an ESBL-producing isolate (132).
Many investigators are using molecular methods such as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) to examine epidemiology with the strains involved in outbreaks of infections caused by ESBLs (30, 40,54). Other methods for studying the epidemiology of these strains include plasmid profiles, ribotyping, random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), and arbitrarily primed PCR (17, 43, 151,185, 190). These outbreaks often start in an ICU and then spread to other parts of the hospital by the usual transmission routes (17). Very often, the exact source of outbreaks caused by ESBL-producing organisms is never identified. However, some interesting epidemiology of these resistant bacteria has been reported. In one hospital in France, ceftazidime-resistant K. pneumoniaeexpressing SHV-5 was isolated from six peripartum women and two neonates. Plasmid and PFGE profiles of the strains revealed that all of the strains were identical to a strain that was cultured from contaminated ultrasonography coupling gel (54). Another study demonstrated that cockroaches infesting a neonatal ICU in South Africa carried the same PFGE strain types of ESBL-producing K. pneumoniae that were responsible for an outbreak of infections and high mortality rate among neonates in that institution (40).
ESBLs are most often encoded on plasmids, which can easily be transferred between isolates. In an outbreak of ESBL-producing K. pneumoniae and E. coli in Chicago, it was shown that a common plasmid expressing TEM-10 was found in isolates from numerous patients in several hospitals and nursing homes (26, 186). Because this plasmid was found in multiple different strain types, as demonstrated by PFGE, it was presumed that this promiscuous plasmid expressing TEM-10 was transferred to the normal flora of some of the patients. In another report from France, a 180-kb self-transmissible plasmid expressing TEM-24 was found in four different species ofEnterobacteriaceae (E. coli, K. pneumoniae, E. aerogenes, and P. rettgeri) isolated from a single patient (91).
In the last 15 years, ESBLs have gone from being an interesting scientific observation to a reality of great medical importance. The introduction of the oxyimino-β-lactam antibiotics was met with the emergence of new β-lactamases. Some of these new β-lactamases, like the TEM- and SHV-type ESBLs, result from simple point mutations in existing β-lactamase genes that lead to a changed substrate profile. Other new β-lactamases, such as the CTX-M-type enzymes, have been borrowed from the chromosomally encoded β-lactamases that occur naturally in other species of Enterobacteriaceae. The development and spread of ESBLs have most likely been caused by the overuse of expanded-spectrum cephalosporins in the hospital setting.
Numerous methods have been proposed for the detection of ESBLs in clinical isolates. Regardless of the method used for detection, it is important to note that none of the methods that rely on phenotypic expression of the β-lactamase will detect every ESBL-producing isolate. Nevertheless, increased awareness of the ESBL problem among clinical microbiology laboratory and infection control personnel will help in the interpretation of these tests.
Current therapy for strains of Enterobacteriaceae that express ESBLs is limited to such broad-spectrum agents as imipenem. However, there have already been reports of therapeutic failures of this drug with strains that produce multiple β-lactamases (3). There are limited therapeutic options left for some of these organisms. Strains expressing extended-spectrum β-lactamases will present a host of challenges for clinical microbiologists and clinicians alike as we head into the 21st century.
I thank Ellen Murphy for the sequence alignments and creating the dendrogram, Steven J. Projan for critical review of the manuscript, and Melissa Visalli and David Correa for help in gathering references.
Copyright © 2001 American Society for Microbiology
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Clinical Microbiology Reviews Oct 2001, 14 (4) 933-951; DOI: 10.1128/CMR.14.4.933-951.2001
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__label__cc | 0.653811 | 0.346189 | Swimming By the Numbers: How Elite Women Swim the 200 Backstroke
May 26, 2014 May 27, 2014 Rick Madge
This is the 2nd instalment in a series that looks at how the elite swim the 200. This time we’re analyzing the 200 backstroke for women.
Thanks to a lot of suggestions, and some renewed thinking about the data, I’ve focussed this a little differently than the 200 Free analysis (link). First off, I’ve completely dropped the analysis of 100 splits, since it’s all inherently included in the 50 splits anyway. I’ve also included additional analysis of the importance of each 50 in the race. Lastly, I’ve added some analysis of why the top 8 were faster than the other 16, and then why the fastest person is the fastest. Unfortunately, it has become so lengthy that I can only deal with the women in this post.
The data set consists of 24 elite women at the time of the 2012 Olympics. I used the Olympic finalists and semi-finalists as 16 of these swimmers, and then filled in the rest with the US Olympic trials finalists and semi-finalists. For each swimmer, I used the fastest time they swam during the competition. I also knew that I would have to look at more than raw splits, as in order to compare sprinters to more distance-oriented swimmers, and to provide value to non-elite swimmers, I’d need their 50 Personal Bests [PBs] as well. For a few swimmers I either had to infer their 50 PB from their split on a 100, or else exclude them from the analysis.
I introduce the term “offset” to mean a split minus that swimmer’s PB.
Offset 50 = 50 Split minus 50 PB
The Analysis
The analysis is divided into 3 sections.
1) What are the different ways in which the elite 24 swimmers swim the 200 backstroke? It’s more or less divided into those swimmers who are sprint-oriented, endurance-oriented, and in-between.
2) How do the top 8 swim the race differently than the other elite 16? And how does the winner swim differently than the rest?
3) Ways in which we can use this data when dealing with our own non-elite swimmers
Women’s 200 Backstroke Analysis
How do the Elite Swim the 200 Backstroke?
Here we are looking to determine the different strategies elite swimmers use in the 200 backstroke. Usually different strategies are based on whether the swimmer is more sprint-oriented, endurance-oriented, or those with elements of both. We had an excellent example of that with the 200 Fr analysis. I’ve included Katie Ledecky’s results below to show how the top female distance freestyler of the Olympics swam the 200.
Keep in mind that the last 50 should be slightly faster for all strokes, as there is no turn at the end of the race.
In order to determine the profile types used in the 200 Backstroke I grouped the swimmers according to their 50 PB. The 8 swimmers with the fastest 50 PBs would be part of the Top 50 PB group, followed by 8 more in the Middle 50 PB group, and then the remaining 8 in the Bottom 50 PB group. Here’s the result.
A couple of things stand out here. First of all, the right-most column in the table verifies that we have significant differences in average 50 PBs between the different groups of elite swimmers: 28.24 vs 29.02 vs 29.9. For a 50, these are huge differences. If there are consistently different profiles between the groups, we should see them.
We next see a totally different result than we had with the 200 freestyle, which clearly showed the three profile types. Here we see that that all 3 groups ON AVERAGE look like distance profiles. None of these groups have the gradually slowing nature of the sprinter profile, or even the flat ending of the hybrid profile. I then looked at the raw data, and found that of the 24 swimmers, 6 swam the race with a sprinter’s profile, and 2 with hybrid profiles. This included 3 sprinters and 1 hybrid in the top 8, and another 3/1 spread throughout the slower half of the field.
It would appear that the women’s 200 backstroke is predominantly swum as a distance event, although 3 of the top 8 women swam it with sprinter profiles.
We know what the offset 50s look like with swimmers grouped by their 50 PBs. Now let’s look at their raw times.
As with the 200 freestyle analysis, we find that the swimmers with the fastest 50 PBs have the highest offsets (farthest from their PBs), while the swimmers with the slowest 50 PBs swim closest to their PBs. This actually makes sense. The Bottom 50 PB group have average 50 PBs 1.8 seconds slower than the Top group. In order to be remotely competitive, the slower PB group has to swim closer to their PBs than the Top Group.
Why are the Olympic Finalists Better Than the Other Elite Backstrokers?
Our data has 24 of the top women’s 200 backstrokers in the world. We’re next going to look at the what the top 8 (who happen to be the Olympic finalists) are doing that makes them better than the other 16. The best way to do this is to try to identify some specific aspect of the race that the top 8 do differently than the rest. Examples of this aspect could be their 50 PB, 1st 50 split, last 50 split, etc. And to measure the impact of this specific aspect, we’ll group the 24 swimmers into 3 groups of 8 according to this aspect, determine the Top aspect group average 200 time, and then compare it to the 200 time average of the top 8 200 backstrokers. The smaller the difference between the two averages, the more important that aspect of race.
The table below shows the results.
What jumps out at us right away is the important of the 3rd 50 split. There is only a tiny 0.08 second difference in the 200 averages. This basically means there is almost a direct match between the swimmers with the fastest 3rd 50 split and the swimmers with the fastest 200 times.
The next important thing to notice is that the splits for ALL four 50s are strongly correlated with the 200 time. In other words, these top 8 swimmers are fast and very consistent. Nobody was saving up energy for that 3rd 50. In fact, the 2nd 50 was almost as important and aggressive as the 3rd 50.
We can also see that the 50 PB is a good indicator of the 200 final times, but not nearly as good as the 50 splits.
Basically, the top 8 are the top 8 because they are consistently fast, especially during the 2nd and 3rd 50s, and are generally aided by good 50 PBs that allow them to swim fast without having to swim near their PBs.
Next, we’re going to drill down a bit deeper and try to figure out why Missy Franklin is the best of the best. This first graph shows the raw 50 splits for the top 8 swimmers.
We can see that Missy Franklin is clearly fastest on each of the first three 50s, and still near the fastest on the last 50. Franklin, Coventry, and Simmonds were the only ones with sprinter’s profiles.
Next, we’ll look at the Offsets for those same swimmers.
Here is where we see that Franklin’s very fast 50 PB helps her out, as she achieves her significant race lead with offsets that are in the middle of the pack for the 1st, 3rd and 4th 50s. Only in the 2nd 50 does she really put in a better offset than everybody else other than Elizabeth Beisel, who I suspect has a much better 50 PB than her official results indicate.
It appears that Missy Franklin uses her great 50 PB to allow her to take it out faster than everyone else without too aggressive an offset, and then swims a sprinter’s profile with very aggressive 2nd and 3rd 50s. She finishes off with only the 4th fastest last 50, but this is more than enough for her to win the race by almost 2 seconds.
Ways in Which We Can Use This Data
Here are two potential uses of the data above.
1. Determine the best splits to reach a goal time
We have basic profiles for sprint-oriented, distance-oriented and hybrid swimmers doing the 200. Below is the 50 PB table from the 200 Free analysis that shows the different splits breakdown for these profiles. I didn’t adjust for a dive start versus an in-water start simply because the freestyle and backstroke offsets are so similar. There should be a difference for the two strokes as the freestyle PB was done with a dive, but the data doesn’t support this difference. But I did round up to the next tenth of a second.
We can use these offsets to work backwards from a 200 goal time to determine a set of 50 splits. This table shows the method. We’ll use a goal time of 2:10.00, and we’ll run it for all three profiles.
Subtract the Total Offset for the profile you want, then divide the result by 4 to get a base time for the 50. Then add back in the Offsets from the table above for the selected profile.
2. Determine the 200 time if you swam the race like the elite.
We can also use the profiles of these elite swimmers, and the swimmer’s 50 PB to come up with their 200 time. Let’s assume a 50 Backstroke PB of 32.0, and we want to know how fast you would go with elite-type profiles.
The elite women swim the 200 backstroke primarily as a distance event, with only a few swimmers using a sprinter’s (gradually slowing) profile. In general, backstrokers with the best 50 PBs swim with higher offsets, while those with higher PBs have to swim closer to their PBs.
The top 8 swim a very consistent race, with very fast 2nd and 3rd 50s.
The Olympic champion, Missy Franklin swims the race far more aggressively than everyone else. Despite having a blazing fast 50 PB, she swims the 2nd and 3rd 50s with some of the lowest Offsets in the field, using a sprinter’s profile to finish off slower, but still far ahead of the field.
Next post: Men’s 200 Backstroke
200 backstroke 2012 Olympics coaching elizabeth beisel Katie Ledecky Mighty Tritons Missy Franklin MTAC olympics race analysis swim coach swimming Tritons us olympic trials
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huxley315 says:
when your finished analyzing how to become the next world champion, head over to Slix Australia for great chlorine resistant training swimwear | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1024 |
__label__cc | 0.651776 | 0.348224 | Chris K's Colorado Playlist
Expressly & Explicitly Colorado from the 60s to Today
Chris K’s Colorado Playlist
Tag: Firefall
CP S12 EP48 2018
Monday Dec 17, 2018 – Just a reminder to VOTE for your favorites of 2018 in the fan/listener poll. There’s been a bit of a change in the running – with Sarah Snead Hornbuckle‘s fans rallying to make the pop-country ballad “All I’ve Got” the front-runner fan favorite video as we enter the final week of the polling. The sweaty Greeley soul band the Burroughs is still slightly in front of Denver’s roots-blues-rockers Silver and Smoke for Fan Favorite LP/EP of 2018.
105.5 The Colorado Sound & the Colorado Playlist Present:
Gasoline Lollipops with The Grant Farm at The Fox Theatre (Boulder) New Years Eve, Monday, Dec 31
Gasoline Lollipops at The Gothic Theater (Denver) Fri, Feb 22
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club – 3 nights! – Dec 28, 29, 31 – Globe Hall
The Railbenders at The Bluebird Theater (Denver), Friday, Dec 21
FOR MORE GREAT SHOWS SEE COLORADOSOUND.ORG
At Bohemian Foundation, our focus is on building community …by coming together to create and enjoy music.
One of the most original lyric videos I’ve come across. Kudos to the Ivory Circle team for imagining it.
MONDAY MORNING MUSIC MEETING
Wh at you’ll find below are new songs on the show this week … listen and let me know which ones you think I should keep in the Colorado Playlist, and which I should delete.
Don’t forget to let me know if there’s something I should be playing on the show. I scour Spotify, YouTube, Soundcloud and Bandcamp to find you the freshest new music from around the state – hope you’ll help out by voting to KEEP or DELETE the new music shares in the MMMM each week.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band “Colorado Christmas” from The Christmas Album (1997)
(D) Firefall “Nature’s Way (feat. Timothy B. Schmit)” from Nature’s Way (2018)
Jeff Finlin “Driving Wheel” from The Guru In The Girl (2017)
Paper Bird “Sunday” from Paper Bird (2016)
(N) Lucas Wolf “Mr. Reaper” from Falling Into Place (2019)
Ryan Chrys “Hound From the Badlands” from The Catskills (2018)
Electric Swingset “Middle Ground” from Inebriated Witchdoctor (1996)
Sweet Water Well “Zoeology” from Watermelon (1996)
(D) Jeremy Dion “Evangeline” from More Lately
Chris Daniels and The Kings with Freddi Gowdy “Sweet Memphis” from Blues With Horns Vol. 1 (2017)
Danny Shafer “Jesus, Tonto and Springsteen” from Weddings, Floods and Funerals (2015)
(N) Walter Gorra “’Til Next Time” from In Due Time (2018)
Big Head Todd & The Monsters “I’m Glad (at Christmas Time)” from I’m Glad (at Christmas Time) (2019)
(D) Coral Creek “I Gotta Move” from Free Dog (2019)
Matthew Wilburn Skinner “Wayfaring Stranger” from Play for the King (2017)
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats “I Did It” from A Little Something More From Nathaniel Rateliff The Night Sweats (2016)
(N) Bud Bronson & the Good Timers “We Are the Champions (of the Basement)” from Between the Outfield and Outer Space (2018)
Jonny Barber “Hornet’s Nest” from Hornet’s Nest / Wide Eyed Blues 7″ (2018)
SHEL “The Battle of Evermore” from SHEL (2012)
Patti Fiasco “Elvis” from Small Town Lights (2013)
(D) Davey Daydream “Backstage”(2018)
Tennis “In the Morning I’ll Be Better” from Yours Conditionally (2017)
Griz and Big Gigantic “Good Times Roll” from Good Times Roll (2015)
Garrett Sayers Trio “LuvRoot” from Thinkbox (2017)
Author goatPosted on December 17, 2018 Categories Playlists, Polls, VideosTags 105.5 The Colorado Sound, Boulder, Bud Bronson and the Good Timers, colorado, Colorado music, Colorado Music Hall of Fame, Coral Creek, Davey Daydream, Denver, Denver music, Firefall, Fort Collins, Jeremy Dion, kafm, KCMJ, kdnk, KLZR, KOTO, krfc, KSUT, KWMV, KZYR, KZYR The Zephyr, Lucas Wolf, Telluride, Walter GorraLeave a comment on CP S12 EP48 2018
The Colorado Sound S8|EP44 Nov 2014
A great week as this year’s Colorado Music Hall of Fame class was announced by executive director G. Brown. Congrats to Caribou Ranch, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Manassas, Firefall, and Poco. There is a considerable amount of history among those four acts, each of which contributed something significant to Colorado music history. It will be great for folks from around the world to see and hear what these bands brought to Colorado when they visit Red Rocks over the years to come. G has yet to announce the details of the show, scheduled for Jan 9 at the Paramount Theatre in Denver.
When I spoke with Richie Furay for our Offstage Beyond the Music podcast, he said he’d be a part of it. I’m sure Jock Bartley and Rick Roberts from Firefall will be present, and as well, Kenny Passarelli who did some time with Manassas, and who still lives and produces records here regionally. Jimmy Ibbotson from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band still lives here, so I’m sure he’ll be a part of things also. Beyond that, I have to wonder if we’ll get to see Stephen Stills and Chris Hillman from Manassas or John McEuen or some of the other guys from “the Dirt” band. It’d be a hellova show for us baby boomers for sure if as many living members of the bands as possible were able to participate. Most of those guys are mid to late 60s and older now (Richie is 78) now and were instrumental in our lives in the 60s and 70s.
NEWS & NOTES:
https://rockymountainmusicnetwork.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/s8-ep44-news-notes.wav
EMAIL OR FACEBOOK?
One of my clients emailed me this week and asked my opinion about promoting a show. He asked which is a better method – email or facebook. What do you think? To add to the complication, an article hit just as I was hitting the publish button that underlies the confusion and lack of ease with which musicians and bands and others of us in the music promote our shows etc. According to an article published Nov 17 in Digital Music News, “Facebook will be reducing the amount of “overly promotional” posts from Pages in newsfeeds starting in 2015. Posts that aren’t paid ads will become less visible if they meet the following criteria:
“Posts that solely push people to buy a product or install an app
Posts that push people to enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context
Posts that reuse the exact same content from ads”
To go with that, “…you can no longer offer incentives to get page likes.”
Some friends introduced me to this “new” single from OneRepublic, off their Native album. There’s a story here worth our attention.
OFFSTAGE …BEYOND THE MUSIC
The 3rd installment of my conversation with Reed Foehl. If you’d like to download it go to KUNC or Radio 94.9 Colorado pls. I’m only allowing streaming from here.
PLAYLIST S8|EP44
(D) = debut of single, ep, or lp
(N) = new song from previously debuted ep or lp
The Czars “What I Can Do For You” from Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy (1970)
Space Team Electra “Saints Are Bleeding” from The Vortex Flower (2001)
(D) The Sound and Color “Tug of War” from The Sound and Color (2015) Jeff Brinkman “Ordinary Day” from Strange (2012)
Drew Schofield “Break It Down” from 150 Million (-1) (2014)
(N) OneRepublic “I Lived” from Native (2013)
The Wild After “Meant for You” from Lesson Learned EP (2014)
(N) Silent Bear “Red Colorado Night” from The Green Lion (2014)
Tennis “Tell Her No” from Tell Her No (2011)
Stella Luce “Rain” from Caldera (2014)
Chemistry Club “Miranda” from Miranda (2014)
Tia Fuller “Ralphie’s Groove” from Angelic Warrior (2012)
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band “Some of Shelly’s Blues” from Greatest Hits (1990)
Manassas “Colorado” from Manassas (1972)
Firefall “Livin’ Ain’t Livin’” from Firefall (1976)
Poco “When It All Began” from Legacy (1989)
(N) Leftover Salmon “High Country” from High Country (2015)
Big Head Todd & The Monsters “I Get Smooth” from Black Beehive (2014)
John Oates “Stone Cold Love” from Good Road to Follow (2014)
Reed Foehl “When It Comes Around” from Spark (2004)
Dianne Reeves “Endangered Species” from The Best of Dianne Reeves (2000)
Hazel Miller Band “Spider Web” from Coming To You Live…From KUVO (2011)
Jon Wirtz “Country” from Tourist (2013)
Author goatPosted on November 17, 2014 November 18, 2014 Categories Live Music News, MMMM (New Music), Playlists, Podcast, Polls, VideosTags Big Head Todd and the Monsters, colorado, Colorado music, Colorado Music Hall of Fame, Denver, Denver music, Firefall, Fort Collins, kdnk, KOTO, krfc, KUNC, KWMV, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, OneRepublic, Poco, Radio 94.9 Colorado, Telluride, the colorado soundLeave a comment on The Colorado Sound S8|EP44 Nov 2014
The Colorado Sound S8|EP43 2014
To Spotify, or not to Spotify – for that is the question of the age: Whether to be popular and bought and paid for – or unpopular and unpaid – whether to suffer from the loneliness of being among the unheard, or the disdain of the few who hate, hate, hate you for who you are and what they perceive you to be. Yeah, okay … so my Shakespeare is shaky; it’s been 40+ years since I’ve read any. But for those who record today the issue is among the most talked about and debated.
Taylor Swift made news recently when her record label deleted her new album “1989” from Spotify – instead forcing the album into the physical and digital marketplaces, primarily Target and iTunes. Whether this was a good long term business strategy, or simply a shrewd way to force Taylor’s fans to buy instead of stream, it at least excited a conversation about how RECORDING ARTISTS are paid for the work they produce for our enjoyment.
Wait! This ain’t about Colorado music! — Yes. It. Is. This continues to be a conversation that dominates the local artist scene. It’s time we at least start to acknowledge that streaming is in – buying is out. NOT SO FAST, you say? Okay. Which is more popular, iTunes download store or Pandora? Pandora or Spotify? And let’s not forget YouTube, the single most dominant music discovery site in the world.
How many actual physical cds did you buy in 2014? Did you buy those physical cds from a store, or from CDBaby, Amazon, or a band website or at a show? Or did you, like most of us today, simply dial up Spotify or YouTube – places where virtually NO MONEY IS MADE (or so little it may as well be none) for our friends who spend upwards of $12,000 or more to produce a full length album at one of our incredible regional recording studios – or who make investments totalling THOUSANDS to produce records in home studios. This is NOT an inexpensive venture we’re talking about here.
For me it’s about fans BUYING from the merch table at the show. It’s about spending not only the $5 cover (are you kidding me?) – or the $15 on three beers (which the band gets nothing of ) – but about spending $5-$15 on an EP or LP cd at a show – the last real place we’re likely to see any measurable sales for most of our friends in scene.
Christmas is coming up — what do you think — BUY LOCAL – SUPPORT LOCAL MUSIC. That is all.
Speaking of Christmas – got wonderful news hours after show production deadline this week that Poco (and I believe Richie Furay separately), Firefall, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Manassas will all be inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame at the Paramount Theater on Friday January 9, 2015. Show details to be announced later this month. Congrats to all of the incredible Colorado musicians past and present who will be a part of that incredible gift.
Just in time too! New from Shatterproof.
To download this week’s segment of OSBTM please visit KUNC or Radio 94.9 Colorado
PLAYLIST S8|EP43 NOV 2014
(N) = new single from previously debuted ep or lp
The Apples in Stereo “Shine A Light” from Tone Soul Evolution (1997)
The Christines “In Your Space” from Living At the Bottom of the Sea (1996)
(N) Longest Day Of The Year “Black Horse Canyon” from Carapace (2014)
Musketeer Gripweed “End of the Day” from Floods and Fires (2014)
Calder’s Revolvers “See To Believe” from Sunday Morning (2014)
(D) Chimney Choir “Motion” from Motion (2015)
Toad In the Hole “Wiser” from APT 203 (2013)
Big Gigantic “Touch the Sky” from The Night Is Young (2014)
(D) Danielle Ate the Sandwich “Dream A Little Dream of Me” from Dream A Little Dream of Me (2015)
Joe Johnson “Don’t Let Your Blue Eyes Cry” from A Time to Dance (2011)
The Samples “The Whole World Can Sing” from America (2014)
Rich Lamb “Deja Blue” from Music Along the Way (2008)
Acoustic Junction “Where Is She Now” from Surrounded by Change (1995)
Sixteen Horsepower “Coal Black Horses” from 16 Horsepower (1995)
(D) Leftover Salmon “Western Sky” from High Country (2015)
Sofie Reed “Down By the Riverside” from Red Hen (2014)
Tennis “I’m Callin’” from Ritual In Repeat (2014)
(D) Ark Life “Very Fine Friends” from Very Fine Friends (2015)
Reed Foehl “Caroline” from Lost in the West (2014)
(D) Lauren Brombert “Love’s Carousel” from Love’s Carousel (2015)
Arthur Lee Land “Cracked Open” from Cracked Open (2013)
The Motet “Afrotech” from Instrumental Dissent (2007)
Author goatPosted on November 10, 2014 Categories Misc., News & Notes, Playlists, Podcast, VideosTags Boulder, colorado, Colorado music, Colorado Music Hall of Fame, Denver, Denver music, Firefall, Fort Collins, kdnk, KOTO, krfc, KUNC, KWMV, Manassas, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, November 10 2014, Poco, Radio 94.9 Colorado, rocky mountain music, Telluride, the colorado sound, videoLeave a comment on The Colorado Sound S8|EP43 2014
A Bit of Colorado Music History in a new album.
Rick Roberts, Richie Furay, and Jock Bartley are three of our most legendary musicians still living, in Colorado today. They all seem to be staying fairly active. I’ve been enjoying a new album that each of the three of them appear on – along with drummer Patrick Shanahan. Thanks to bassist Mike Gallivan for hipping me to this info: Patrick was in the Soul Survivors, part of the Denver Big 3 with the Moonrakers and Boenzee Cryque. He also played with Rusty Young in a Country Trio when they were in Jr High. After the Soul Survivors, he went to LA with Randy Meisner and Allen Kemp and became Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band.
I know that Richie is finishing up a new solo album as we speak, and there’s been rumors floating around the scene that Rick has been encouraged to step back in behind the mic and give us some new music. I have no doubt Jock will be a part of whatever Rick does next.
The album I’ve been enjoying is The Piedbmont Brothers Band – III. It’s an unusual project in that it’s essentially one guy out of N. Carolina and another from Italy who have teamed up with several notable players to continue the country-rock traditions originated in the 60s by guys like Gram Parsons, Gene Clark, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Poco and others.
Check ’em out … with 5 current or former Coloradoans on board it gets an official Colorado Connection (CC) designation and will get some love on The Colorado Sound…
http://www.piedmontbrothersband.com/fr_home.cfm
Author goatPosted on May 5, 2013 May 6, 2013 Categories Misc., MMMM (New Music)Tags Firefall, flying burrito brothers, gram parsons, jock bartley, Poco, richie furay, Rick Roberts1 Comment on A Bit of Colorado Music History in a new album.
The Colorado Sound S7 EP13 April 2013
Some great new music broke on this week’s show – including the first single from Rob Drabkin‘s upcoming 2nd full length due out in June … and a debut by Durango resident Thom Chacon that features Bob Dylan’s legendary rhythm section. Also shared this week, another cut from the new Paper Bird album, “Rooms.”
In News & Notes, April is Public Radio Music Month. Please text, msg, email, call your local public radio station and thank them for supporting Colorado Music. Two major Colorado music events to post about … FoCoMX on April 19 and 20 … and the Upper Colfax Root 40 Music Festival and Expo, April 22-28. I’ve been invited to speak on two panels during those events, on April 20, and April 22.
I did not come across a new video this week. I have been, however, enamored of SHEL’s re-imagination of the Led Zepplin classic “Battle of Evermore” … and happened on a video of the girls performing it about two years ago …
The Playlist – S7 EP13 April 2013
The Monocles “The Spider & the Fly” from The Spider & the Fly (1966)
The Rainy Daze “Good Morning Mr. Smith” from That Acapulco Gold (1967)
Big Head Todd & The Monsters “Resignation Superman” from Beautiful World (1997)
Leslie Brown “Welcome to the Machine” from Tenderly (2012)
SHEL “Battle of Evermore” from SHEL (2012)
(D) Farmington Hill “10 Miles” from Bridge to Nowhere (2013)
Drew Emmitt “Take the Long Way Home” from Long Road (2008)
(N) Paper Bird “Blood & Bones” from Rooms (2013) Achille Lauro “Hard Pressed” from Flight or Flight (2012)
Take to the Oars “Morning Coffee” from The Bow & the Stern (2013)
Monroe Monroe “Adore” from Hello Moon (2011)
No Fair Fights “Kiss From A Rose” from The Sound of Burning Bridges (2011)
Cocktail Revolution “Mistercool” from Better Reception (2008)
John Denver “Rocky Mountain High” from Rocky Mountain High (1972)
Firefall “Strange Way” from Elan (1978)
(N) The Congress “You’ve Got A Friend” from Loft Tapes (2013)
Juno What?! “Shameless” from Shameless (2011)
(D) Thom Chacon “American Dream” from Thom Chacon (2013) Bonnie and The Clydes “Feel The Wheels Turn” from Wrong Side Up (2012)
Great American Taxi “New Millennium Blues” from Reckless Habits (2010)
(N) Euforquestra “Free” from Let Us In (2012)
(D) Rob Drabkin “Down to Fate” [single] (2013) Katie Herzig “Free My Mind” from The Waking Sleep (2011)
(D) Joshua Trinidad “The Coast” from Maritime (2013)
Author goatPosted on April 7, 2013 Categories MMMM (New Music), Playlists, VideosTags Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Colorado music, colorado public radio, Firefall, Fort Collins, john denver, kdnk, KOTO, krfc, KWMV, Paper Bird, Rob Drabkin, SHEL, Telluride, Thom ChaconLeave a comment on The Colorado Sound S7 EP13 April 2013
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__label__wiki | 0.613563 | 0.613563 | Our work with the environment sector
Some of our longest standing clients are doing amazing things to protect, preserve and promote our valuable natural environments. From waterways to forests, urban greening projects to ocean ecosystems, we’ve run some incredible campaigns, developed beautiful brands and created films, animations, websites and print to do our bit to support them.
Our experience also extends across the renewable energy sector, and we’ve been finding creative ways to explain and engage both business and consumer audiences since we started in 2002. We have also pioneered campaigns to drive behaviour change around carbon reduction and climate change.
Nothing fires us up quite like the work we do with our clients in the environmental and renewables sectors. We’d love to bring that experience and passion to you.
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Creative Concern has been a retained agency of the Forestry Commission since 2002 and has worked with the national team since 2010. In that time, we’ve secured extensive national press coverage for their landmark moments, achieved international media profile for one of their largest forest creation schemes, developed consumer facing campaigns to get more people into the forest and taking care of trees, and even found compelling, impactful ways to communicate about tree pests and diseases.
Find out more about our work with the Forestry Commission
“I have worked directly and indirectly with Creative Concern over the last eight years. In every instance I have found their approach professional and realistic. They back this up with unflagging optimism, humour and the delivery of quality work. They are also prepared to go the extra mile.”
Keith Jones, Regional Director, The Forestry Commission
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Creative Concern has been closely involved with the Northern Forest – an ambitious vision from the Woodland Trust and Community Forests to plant 50 million trees over the next 25 years – since its inception.
As well as producing a visionary prospectus for the programme, we’ve undertaken extensive stakeholder research and insight development to demonstrate the need for the project, and supported the key partners throughout the process.
We’ve also worked alongside the Woodland Trust PR team – managing regional press across the north to drive public engagement and excitement and generate investor interest to make the vision a reality. The Northern Forest was launched in an announcement by Environment Secretary Michael Gove. The Government has pledged £5.7 million to launch the project, and forms part of its 25-Year Environment Plan, which sets out how we will be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we inherited it.
Follow all the latest from the Northern Forest on the Woodland Trust blog and check out the prospectus.
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Eden Rivers Trust does incredible work to protect and maintain the River Eden and its catchment. But to help do this, it needed to strengthen its brand and change its tone of voice to become a more active and campaign orientated organisation.
We worked with ERT on a number of projects, starting with the editing and design of the Saving Eden manifesto and action plan. From this strategic start, we’ve since produced a series of films, created an interactive map, developed the Trust’s website, set up a Tumblr blog and devised partnership campaigns, including ‘Call of Nature’ – bringing humour to the traditionally not-so-funny topic of maintaining septic tanks.
All our work has been characterised by the concept of ‘Save the Eden’, a rallying cry for all audiences to get involved in the river’s future.
“This team based approach has produced some truly outstanding, high impact and targeted results, which in turn have helped our organisation achieve and sustain our strategic conservation goals in the Eden catchment.”
Simon Johnson, Director, Eden Rivers Trust
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Wadden Sea
Spanning 500km of the Dutch, German and Danish coastline, the Wadden Sea is a truly extraordinary World Heritage Site.
Our challenge is to communicate the universal value of World Heritage to an international audience and to celebrate the uniqueness of the Wadden Sea. This involves ensuring scientific and technical information hits the mark when it lands with their target audiences. This led to the development of its brand paper, toolkit, messaging matrix and a multi-language website.
We redeveloped their international website after an extensive research and development phase. The site builds on their brand and has the twin approach of promoting the area to visitors and showcasing the extensive scientific conservation work underway in the area. The site is multilingual, in four languages with an adaptable design system to accommodate a variety of content.
We continue to support the team in strengthening their brand presence and communicate the wonders of the Wadden Sea to a global audience.
The Wildlife Trust
"Six years on and the original brand has successfully evolved with the product, and the brand values are still very much a part of Brockholes' visitor experience. The brand personality guided more aspects of the product than we anticipated, from the way we welcome our visitors to the vents that we run, and we feel the brand has been a key factor in Brockholes’ success so far. I can recommend Creative Concern’s skills at engaging with the client and being sympathetic to many complex requirements. The end results speak for themselves."
Anne Selby, CEO, The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire Manchester and Merseyside
When a new visitor destination was being planned for an area of land just off the M62 in Preston, it wasn’t long before thoughts turned to branding.
We worked with Lancashire Wildlife Trust to create a fun and distinctive brand for this family friendly destination. Mixing photography with illustration, a suite of graphic devices and inviting copy lines came together in a brand for Brockholes that’s engaging, educational and enhances the Wildlife Trust’s existing corporate brand. We also designed and developed the original Brockholes website.
In the first six months, 83,000 people visited Brockholes and there were 57,000 unique visitors to brockholes.org
The launch campaign also won Marketing Campaign of the Year at the Northwest Tourism Awards. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1033 |
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Cycling innovations: From bikes to infrastructure
Dockless bike sharing
"Bike-sharing has come a long way in the last few years, and we are moving fast into the so-called fifth generation of these systems. Soon we’ll probably see a worldwide explosion of the “dockless” bike-shares that have already taken over in Chinese cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou. The idea is that you don’t have to return the bike to a set place, but can leave it anywhere – and the city is saturated enough with these bikes that they’re always easy to find. Everything is controlled through GPS sensors in the bikes and an app in the rider’s phone. Cities from Portland to Krakow are introducing these on a small scale, but it’s the arrival of the Chinese giants that will likely change the game. Mobike launched with 1,000 bikes in Manchester on Monday, and Ofo has started a small trial with 20 bikes in Cambridge."
Quote from: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jun/17/10-best-cycling-innovations-dockless-bikes-solid-tyres
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__label__wiki | 0.713822 | 0.713822 | Critique of Super Smash Brothers Melee Review and Analysis
November 25, 2017 February 18, 2018 Chris Wagar
The slowness of the switch between Zelda and Sheik is not an engine limitation. Both characters have their files loaded when the game begins, so that they’re both in memory and switching happens as fast or slow as the actual animation. This is not true in Brawl however, where the other character is loaded on the spot.
The example of mewtwo’s up throw killing captain falcon sooner than fox is a bad one, because throws do not differ their level of knockback based on character weight. Weight only affects the length of the throw animation. For mewtwo’s up throw, the only character-specific factor that affects how far the character goes is their gravity, not their weight. A more accurate example would have been a move like fox’s up smash, where both weight and gravity can affect it.
The speculation about Sakurai’s intentions with Peach is really bad form for a review/analysis. Unless you have a statement from the developer, it’s best not to guess what their intentions were, unless it’s significantly more obvious than, “Sakurai probably thought girls were bad at the game, so he threw them a bone by making a powerful but easy character.” It’s a lot easier to guess about intentions based on changes between games, than something like expecting a certain response from a particular audience.
I think the further speculation about Bowser is even more unwarranted and unsubstantiated. My general advice for someone trying to do video game analysis is, stop caring so much what the director was probably trying to do, analyze the thing as it is. The author is dead, all that exists is their work. We can analyze the work itself and determine what it is or isn’t, but it’s nearly impossible to guess why it’s that way without direct statements from the developer. Further, it’s counterproductive to let the “why” of a work dominate analysis of it, because the only thing that makes the work is the work itself, not the developer’s statements on it. The work will be what it is, regardless of what the developer says it was supposed to be. To understand the value of the work, to understand its implications in comparison to other works, to create a basis for us to create or appreciate new works, we must be looking only at the results, not the intention. If you get too focused on the intention (which you don’t know definitively in the first place), then it distracts you from the results.
Something can completely contradict the intention of the author, but be good, something can completely accord with the intention of the author and be bad. The author’s intention doesn’t matter, only what’s left when they’re done.
You forgot that one of Roy’s other significant advantages is his down tilt, which pops enemies up, instead of outwards. This makes it less useful as a ledgeguard, but significantly helps Roy’s combo game versus Marth (even if Roy’s combo game is still overall worse).
Okay, you’re doing the author intention speculation thing again, “Sakurai clearly doesn’t find the simpler stages as interesting, seeing as battlefield and final destination are some of the last you unlock” Super amateur. This is completely baseless. Mushroom Kingdom 2 is frequently one of the last stages obtained by people trying to clear a new copy of melee because obtaining the birdo trophy is so rare. Does this mean Sakurai hated Super Mario Bros 2?
If you’re going to engage in post-hoc rationalization like this, couldn’t I also say that he probably valued simple stages the highest, by making players work hardest to earn them?
C’mon dude.
C-stick can’t SDI, only ASDI. The held direction of the C-stick will override the control stick for the exclusive purpose of ASDI. It cannot make your character move during hitlag, only the control stick can.
If you said Sakurai 90% less, then this video would be 90% better. I review a lot of video analysis, so I was excited to see one about my favorite game, but as of 15 minutes in, you’re not trying.
The premise of the video, “Examining the decisions made by the developer” is flawed.
You don’t know what decisions he made, you only have the results. There’s tons of interviews by him, you can find them over on Sourcegamer.com. I’ve read nearly all of them. You’re not citing anything he’s ever actually said.
Who cares whether adventure mode took much time to make? Analyze whether the mode is fun. What it does or doesn’t do successfully. Is the level design of the stages good? Are the encounters good? How do they randomly or deterministically vary between sessions and character picks?
I’m getting more and more frustrated as I get further into this video. If the whole thing is just guessing what sakurai wanted to do, then this isn’t a very useful review or analysis.
You use the term, “Momentum preservation” twice without explaining what it means, just saying it makes the game feel good. Of course I know what it means, but you can’t assume that everyone who views this video does. It would be more clear to say, “transferring ground momentum to air momentum” rather than “momentum preservation” like it’s a key word. Given you don’t explain this clearly, and just play clips, it’s hard to tell what exactly you mean by this.
Also, WHAT. Street Fighter 5 does NOT have an 8 frame buffer. Are you insane!? It has a 2 frame buffer. If you want a game with an 8 frame buffer, you should go for Brawl or Smash 4, which have 10 frame buffers each. Dude, you had a game with an excessive buffer sitting RIGHT THERE next to Melee, and you decide to go cross-franchise, cross sub-genre, to a game that barely demonstrates what you’re trying to claim. Are you getting mixed up by the 8 frames of input delay meme? Because Melee has 4-5 frames of input delay (the extra frame of delay oscillates over time).
AGH, the shorten window on Fox and Falco illusion isn’t 1 frame, it’s 5 frames! Fact check your shit please! It’s not that hard to google fox and falco framedata.
I do think for once that you have a point on the developer speculation here however, there are a number of intentionally implemented mechanics (ones that are specifically coded rather than being emergent) with very small frame windows, which are very difficult to notice, such as shortens, fast falls, rest, L cancel, V cancel, light shield density, power shield reflecting, etc, and this suggests that sakurai wanted to implement things that only more dedicated players could master.
Then you go straight into more baseless speculation when it come to why DI was put in the game. Come on. Also, you failed to mention that hitstun was reduced in Melee compared to Smash 64. And also, SDI existed in Smash 64 already, called PI (position influence) by the Smash 64 community. (I didn’t watch your 64 vid, so if you covered it there, I’m sorry).
Also, “more options at any one time than a traditional fighter”? Dude, you know how to count, right? A traditional fighter has 6 attack buttons. Melee has 2. A traditional fighter has 12 ground normals, smash has 7. A traditional fighter has 6 jump normals, smash has 5. A traditional fighter usually has at least 3 special moves per character, and different versions of each depending on the button you press. Every character in Street Fighter 2 has more moves than any smash character.
Smash’s DI system only works in Smash, because it’s based on juggles and angles of knockback. I’ve considered ways to implement DI into other fighting games, and it just doesn’t work based on the control and combo systems. At best it might work in a game like Hokuto No Ken, or Marvel 3, but combos are much tighter in other fighting games, including juggle combos.
Smash Bros makes up for having less attacks by having more detailed attacks, and allowing you to move as you perform attacks, and between the linking hits of combos.
It’s not a unique sped-up animation for successful L cancel, it’s the same animation, but sped up. This is trivial in any 3d game’s engine, even in those days.
Also, seriously, stop the speculation. It’s not helping your video any.
I like the perspective on bugs and glitches overall. Works for me.
I think it’s worth mentioning that glitches exist in tons of competitive games, Quake, Starcraft, Basketball. Any game with a ruleset that is robust enough has some unintended emergent effects of multiple mechanics.
Glitches weren’t banned because they were undesired for the competitive experience, they were banned on the basis of having no counterplay, things that allow for indefinitely stalling the game, or . One thing that the rulesmakers didn’t want to do was curate the game on the basis of what was desired or undesired. It was more about trying to keep the game fair and prevent strategies without a counter, things that count as an “I win” button, like the freeze glitch or luigi’s ladder.
Similar to wavedashing, the ability to cancel normals into specials in street fighter was actually the system working as intended for the most part. I’m explaining this more as a history lesson than a criticism. In SF2, there’s actually a 5 frame window at the start of every move that can be canceled into specials, probably so specials would be easier to trigger if you mashed the button and triggered a normal before you were done inputting the special move command. However, if you hit someone, there’s hitstop, which also freezes the window for this cancel, allowing you to cancel into the special after hitting your opponent (and accepting inputs for this cancel during the ENTIRE hitstop). So again, it’s stuff that was intended to happen, happening in a different way, and it became the basis of fighting games in general.
The other fact of the matter is, playing with only one third of the cast is pretty average for most fighting games. Most fighting games only have a small number of characters that are competitively viable. Well-Balanced fighting games are a recent trend and have not been the norm across the genre. And as you said, there’s a lot of different ways to play those top 8, so it’s not a big loss. Also, if you played without competitive rules, then the worse characters become even less viable. This is just an inevitability of getting good at a game, some characters fall off.
For reference, 3rd strike only has 3 viable characters, chun, yun, and ken. Super Turbo has arguably only one viable character, Old Sagat (kind of debatable, the matchup spread in super turbo is funky). CVS2 has a small number of viable teams, same for MVC2, KOF XIII, Most Tekken games, Most Mortal Kombat games, and pretty much every fighting game game made before 2009. Melee was made in 2001, long before the balance trend happened, and frankly, having a fun game is more important than balance.
The character summaries and their place in the competitive metagame is good. Good descriptions of what each character can do and why it puts them where they are.
I think it would be slightly more fair to say the wobble is why icies are viable, not their grab game.
This section was relaxing after the prior sections, a lot less baseless speculation, a lot more laying down facts, a lot less inaccuracies.
I also love the description of the 15 frame reactionary blindspot. I’ve been talking about this for a long time, but I’ve never really seen anyone else cover it except you and M2K. You illustrated it fairly well too.
Would be slightly better if you mentioned that reads are a thing players can actually do, people are designed to sync up with people via something called Mirror Neurons. This happens inconsistently, but sometimes you just get a really strong sense that the opponent is going to do a certain thing. Studies have shown the capability of mirror neurons to predict the actions of other people before, lighting up before someone else performs an action. We don’t have conscious access to the results of these however, they filter up through our subconscious.
Good job on this part.
A lot of games have arbitrary execution factors like L canceling. See starcraft, or shooters. There isn’t a risk/reward to always producing new worker units on time, you need to continuously do it the whole game, or you’re at a flat disadvantage. (okay, not the whole game, but until you reach a later stage of the game where you don’t need additional workers)
L canceling has a risk/reward in that if you press it at the wrong time, you’ll get a longer landing animation than the L canceled one. you need to read the situation and try to always nail the L cancel, and trying to go for one timing instead of another. The L cancel timings can vary significantly between whiff, hit, and hit shield, or hitting someone’s tilted shield. They can also vary with multihit moves like fox’s drill, or vary even more significantly on ice climbers, who you can hit twice before landing.
This is like fast getup in Street Fighter, you almost never want to intentionally miss your getup. It’s a matter of recognizing the situation and timing your input right.
I agree that removing it (and halving the duration of all landing lag) would probably be fine, but it’s worth understanding that it’s not just an arbitrary skill check, and that arbitrary skill checks aren’t inherently bad either.
“Small chance to miss a backdash randomly”
Facepalm.
There isn’t a small chance to miss a backdash randomly. Math.Random() is not called when you try to backdash. I realize that backdashes have been compared to randomness by some players, but it’s not actually random, it’s a result of the controller polling in the middle of moving the stick to the back position, instead of once it’s all the way there. There’s nothing random about this, It’s just very hard to get the stick from the neutral position all the way to the backdash zone in one frame. Players like Druggedfox even argue against mods like UCF, saying that backdashing consistently is a matter of getting good at the game.
Even if your intent was to say that consistency on this technique is so poor as to be random, calling it random is not the right thing.
Simultaneous grabs need to be resolved somehow, and a lot of fighting games use player number to resolve edge cases like these. Super Turbo resolved same-frame grabs randomly. SFV does the same for same-frame command grabs (based on the framecount % 2). I agree that it’s pretty dumb that Melee does this based on port priority. I’d personally prefer a 1 or 2 frame throw tech window, where the throw release animations are played by both characters. This would help resolve simultaneous throws without giving either character an advantage, much like guilty gear.
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__label__cc | 0.628401 | 0.371599 | New REEP Report!
The Center for Survivor Agency and Justice is thrilled to announce the release of a groundbreaking report from our Racial & Economic Equity for Survivors Project (REEP)!
Read the Report here!
Why racial equity and why now? Why should I read this report?
This report dialogues-back with the community that contributed to the From Margins to Center Listening Sessions. In September 2017, REEP held seven From Margins to Center Listening Sessions to facilitate dialogue across the field and gather insights on racial and economic equity for survivors. This “Showing Up” Report shares themes and issues from Listening Session conversations via text, graphics and illustrations in order to aid in self-reflection, challenge dominant narratives, support improved data collection and analysis, and to begin, continue, and advance conversations to work toward racial equity for domestic and sexual violence survivors and for all of us.
The Listening Sessions and this Report were facilitated and authored in partnership with REEP partners Women of Color Network, Inc. (WOCN), the Texas Council on Family Violence (TCFV), race equity consultant Camille Holmes, CDH Consulting, and Center for Survivor Agency & Justice. All REEP partners contributed meaningful perspectives to this Report.*
The voices you will hear throughout the report offer critical insights, open struggle, and calls to action, and include: advocates of color who also identify as survivors, economic justice or project specialist staff from statewide domestic or sexual violence coalitions who are people of color and aspiring white allies, and attorneys who worked in a range of contexts, including legal services, community based domestic violence organizations, and culturally specific legal programs and who are people of color and aspiring white allies.
Download Report Today!
Listening Session participants urged more authentic engagement in both inward and outward work for racial equity.
Only by building our systems so that they work for those at multiple intersections (across ability, Native American and Alaska Native identity, race, ethnicity, language, class, gender, gender identity, immigration status, LGBTQ status) can we truly be survivor-centered.
We invite you to enter this report mindfully, to shake loose any assumptions you might have, to come open to hearing the Listening Session participants, and to help us envision what we can do to embrace and advance equity for survivors and us all.
We hope that you will continue the dialogue in your work and community and with us!
*The following individuals and organizations are partners in the Racial & Economic Equity for Survivors Project (REEP): The Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence, Casa de Esperanza, Center for Survivor Agency & Justice, the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, the Southwest Center for Law and Policy, the the Texas Council on Family Violence, Women of Color Network, Inc., and racial equity consultants, Bill Kennedy, The Law Offices of Bill Kennedy, and Camille Holmes, CDH Consulting. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1039 |
__label__wiki | 0.858935 | 0.858935 | Your Public Information Source since 1895
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New initiative helping firms get smarter with hiring
Lindsey Erdody • lerdody@ibj.com
Skillful is billed as a workforce development initiative from the New York-based Markle Foundation. But Skillful Indiana’s executive director is adamant that the organization is not trying to clog an already full and sometimes confusing wheelhouse of workforce development programs in the state.
Instead, former Allison Transmission executive Bill Turner says, Skillful Indiana is meant to complement and enhance work already being done by state and local officials.
“We are not a new initiative for the state,” Turner said. “What I’m trying to do is give them tools to help with what they’re doing.”
The Markle Foundation, in partnership with Microsoft and LinkedIn, started Skillful in 2016 in Colorado. Microsoft Philanthropies gave Skillful $25.8 million in 2017. LinkedIn, now owned by Microsoft, provides networking services to Skillful.
When Skillful announced in the fall that Indiana would be its first expansion, Gov. Eric Holcomb described it as a “game-changer” for the state. Skillful officials say they chose Indiana because of Holcomb’s focus on workforce development and his prior involvement in the Skillful State Network, which gives states the opportunity to share best practices and access some of Skillful’s resources.
The network now has 27 states involved in the network, and on July 30-31 representatives from more than 20 were in Indianapolis for a retreat to swap ideas and hear from Skillful about what’s working in Indiana and Colorado — the only states where the organization has boots on the ground.
The Skillful Indiana team has three employees — Turner, plus a coaching initiatives manager and an employee initiatives manager. All work out of an office at an Ivy Tech Community College campus north of downtown.
The organization, which operates as a not-for-profit, focuses on teaching the regional workforce development boards under the Indiana Department of Workforce Development and employers about skills-based hiring practices and training career coaches so they can better connect job seekers with open positions.
Turner said that, in addition to DWD, Skillful Indiana has been working with the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet and Blair Milo, the state’s secretary for career connections and talent.
“I think a lot of the work that we are trying to do now going into year two of the cabinet is really aligned with what Skillful is doing,” said PJ McGrew, executive director of the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet. “It was really the perfect marriage.”
The skills-based hiring concept is catching on as employers grapple with low unemployment and sometimes struggle to find qualified workers. Advocates for the method argue that, if employers put less emphasis on credentials and pay more attention to the skills they need, they will have more success in finding quality workers.
According to a December 2018 national survey from Northeastern University’s Center for the Future of Higher Education and Talent Strategy, 23% of employers said they already had a formal skills-based hiring practice in place and 39% of employers said they were exploring it.
The issue is front and center for many employers. In the Indiana Chamber’s most recent member survey, 80% of respondents said the need for talented workers was either their top concern or among their top concerns.
Jason Bearce, vice president of education and workforce for the chamber, described Skillful as another tool in the toolbox for employers, but admitted that toolbox is already pretty full.
“Often, employers are just confused about who’s doing what,” Bearce said. “There’s definitely fatigue among employers. It seems like everyone has a solution.”
Though the chamber is working with Skillful to help educate the business community on skills-based hiring, Bearce said he doesn’t expect business leaders to know the organization by name.
What’s important, he said, is learning the strategy Skillful is teaching.
Bearce said chamber officials know that some employers are screening out prospective job candidates based on a lack of credentials, like a college degree, which could be worsening their worker-shortage problem.
“That’s not to say we don’t think credentials are important,” he said. “But we don’t want credentials to be a barrier to employment.”
Turner said Skillful Indiana initially focused on four regions — Bloomington, New Albany, Fort Wayne and West Lafayette — but has started to expand. Its training includes helping employers write job descriptions based on skills, instead of on credentials.
“A lot of times, employers want to do that; they just don’t know how,” Turner said.
Skillful also has a job-posting generator businesses can use at no cost to help write job postings.
Bearce said chamber officials believe that will be especially helpful to small companies that might not have a human resources manager.
Robert King, executive director of the South Central Region 8 Workforce Board, said he’s enjoyed the collaboration with Skillful.
“They’re not coming in to replace and do case management with us,” King said. “They’re trying to enhance what we do.”
Skillful Indiana also is trying to boost the marketability of job seekers by training people who advise them on how to highlight their skills.
One way the organization does that is through its Skillful Governor’s Coaching Corps, an eight-month training program for career coaches. The 35 career coaches selected for the initial round, who are from across the state, are required to research specific workforce issues in Indiana.
Interest in the program was better than expected, Turner said. Sixty-six people applied for the slots.
“Due to the rapidly changing labor market, it’s such a great opportunity to get this training so we can continue to develop and best serve our clients when we coach them,” said Brooklyn Burton, who works for the West Central Region 4 Workforce Board.
In the fall, the career coaches will present their findings to state officials, which could include suggestions for legislation or altering administrative policies.
The program, which is expected to be repeated, is free.
Skillful Indiana also recently launched a “community of practice” portal that is open to all career coaches throughout the state, whether they are working in K-12 education, higher education, social service agencies or other workforce development organizations.
Turner said the community is designed to help connect career coaches, so that, if someone in Gary is having a problem, someone in Evansville might be able to solve it.
Skillful CEO Beth Cobert said that, because this program already has been well received in Colorado, she expects it to succeed in Indiana.
“We view expanding that as a great way to help coaches get access to the resources they need,” Cobert said. “That’s the next sort of piece in the rollout.”•
Originally published in Indianapolis Business Journal.
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Margo Warren
Margo Warren was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2011.
My memories of the Wildcat are a mix of hilarity combined with hard work and punctuated by some pretty great accomplishments. Cynthia Lancaster and I revealed mismanagement at a student-run bar called Merlin’s and won first place in the state for investigative journalism. For this story I had my very own “Deep Throat” who would meet me in secret and hand over bags full of revealing documents. I remember going out on assignments with a cute photographer named Darr Beiser, whom I later snagged as my husband. He was fascinated by my ability to use a typewriter without ever breaking one of my long fingernails. He would sit and stare in awe. I remember being surrounded by brilliant funny people: Merl Reagle changing all our of bylines into anagrams for the April Fool’s edition; Salley Rayl landing an interview with Paul McCartney that led to her job at Rolling Stone; Arlene Scadron, eight months pregnant, doing intensive investigative writing on the resignation of a department head at the College of Medicine; Mark Ochs writing headlines like “Rock Hounds Roll into Town” for the annual Gem and Mineral Show, and Fitz, being Fitz, having a toga wedding.
I remember drinking endless enormous cups of black coffee; and endless pitchers of beer when we celebrated the close of the week starting at noon on Friday at Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow or Gentle Ben’s and ending sometime on Saturday. In my feature writing days, I worked on a story about a taxidermist where I described drawers full of eyeballs and whiskers and ended the story with the groaner that my brother-in-law the accountant has never forgotten: “ The only things you have to do in life are die and pay the taxidermist.” After failing to be rushed myself, I got my revenge when I reported on the scandalous decision of a sorority that pledged one identical twin and rejected the other.
My writing abilities were honed over in the J department, where I learned unforgettable lessons: “’Over’ is what clouds do” and the answer to the question about how long a story should be: “How long is a piece of string? As long as it needs to be.” I learned to copyedit like a champ from Charlie Burkhart. We competed, he with his pipe ashes, and I with my sunflower seed husks to create the biggest mess.
When I graduated in 1976 I couldn’t find a job in journalism thanks to Woodward and Bernstein who had made journalism the most popular and glamorous career in the universe. So I ended up going to the dark side, public relations, considered at that time the work of Satan by journalistic purists —Don Carson, I mean you. But it was George Ridge, on the steps of the journalism building who, at the end of my senior year said: “Margo, got a job yet?” and when I said no, handed me the announcement about the community relations job at City Hall. I never looked back. Who’s laughing now, print journalists?
I have spent the last 23 years of my career in public affairs at the National Institutes of Health, a place crawling with M.D., and Ph.D’s, ( Some of them have both; I call these the overeducated.) Armed only with my BA from UA, and thanks to the Wildcat and the J department, I can go mano a mano against these Ph.D’s from MIT when it comes to writing. Much of their work would be circled with big red automatic E’s.
I cherish my memories of the days at the Wildcat. I made friendships that I hold to this day, and built my career on the real-life experience and knowledge I gained there. And, oh yeah, Darr and I finally remembered to have children, and Peter, 17 and Franky, 15 have the Wildcat to thank too.
Margo Warren is the Branch Chief of the Health Education and Public Liaison Section in the Office of Communications and Public Liaison at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the National Institutes of Health. As the project officer for a major communications contract with Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, she oversees the national public education campaign Know Stroke, Know the Signs, Act in Time. The campaign has received several prestigious awards, including the Gold World Medal from the New York Festival Film and Video Awards, and the Golden Eagle Award from CINE for a film on stroke; and awards for the Know Stroke materials from the National Association of Government Communicators and the NIH Plain Language Committee. She has played an active role in stroke education for the past 15 years, from the press conference announcing the institute’s groundbreaking study on the first treatment for acute stroke to the planning and execution of two national symposia for health care professionals on how to deliver acute stroke treatment.
In addition, Margo coordinates the institute’s press activities for a broad range of neurological diseases, working closely with the media to garner coverage for scientific findings. She does extensive technical editing and writing, and advises scientific staff on how best to communicate with the media and public. She also manages special events for the institute.
Margo has worked at the National Institutes of Health for 22 years, and previously served as communications director for The National Water Alliance, a Congressional coalition headed by former Arizona Sen. Dennis DeConcini and as assistant director of community relations for the City of Tucson, and the Tucson Film Commission.
She graduated with honors with a double major in Journalism and Latin from the UA, where she was an award-winning investigative reporter and feature editor of The Arizona Daily Wildcat; and a member of Mortar Board. She is married to USA Today photographer Darr Beiser, also a Daily Wildcat alum.
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Critique: ‘Dallas’ Episode 160 — ‘Hush, Hush, Sweet Jessie’
January 28, 2015 by Chris Baker 27 Comments
How sweet she is
What do I love about the final scene in “Hush, Hush, Sweet Jessie”? Oh, pretty much everything. The Ewings stand in the Southfork driveway, panicked because no one knows the whereabouts of Miss Ellie and Jessica, whose murderous past has finally come to light. Suddenly, Donna arrives in Ray’s pickup truck. She gets out, bloodied and shaken, and explains that she’s just come from the Krebbs’ home, where Jessica knocked her out, swiped one of Ray’s handguns, took Ellie and drove who-knows-where in Donna’s car. J.R. looks stricken. “We’ve got to find them,” he says. “Jessica has killed once. Who knows what she’ll do with Mama?” Duh-duh-duh!
Is this a moment of pure camp? Yes, of course. How could any scene that requires the audience to imagine Alexis Smith abducting Barbara Bel Geddes at gunpoint not be campy? And what about the way Donna announces her news? Shouldn’t she hop out of Ray’s truck and offer the most important facts first: “Hey, everyone, Jessica has kidnapped Miss Ellie!” Instead, Donna tells the story chronologically; this allows the episode to end with the dramatic revelation that Mama has been abducted, but it isn’t very realistic. There’s also this: After Larry Hagman delivers his “We’ve got to find them” line, we get a reaction shot from Howard Keel and Patrick Duffy, who stand side by side and turn their eyes to the camera in near perfect unison. It’s priceless.
And yet despite all this, the scene is undeniably thrilling. The most valuable actors are Hagman, who makes J.R.’s concern easy to believe, and Susan Howard, whose halting, anguished delivery is pitch-perfect. She gets a big assist from the brilliant composer Richard Lewis Warren, whose underscore lends urgency to the entire sequence. I especially love how there’s no music during most of Donna’s monologue until she recalls awakening after Jessica knocked her out. Warren slowly brings in the orchestra when Donna says, “And then when I came to … they were both gone.” By the time she gets to this line — “Ray, she took one of your guns!” — the music has swelled. Can any “Dallas” fan watch this part without getting goose bumps?
The rest of “Hush, Hush, Sweet Jessie” is almost as good. Smith is as over-the-top as ever when Jessica finally unravels in Ray and Donna’s kitchen, but Bel Geddes, with her believably bewildered expression, manages to keep the scene grounded. Meanwhile, Katherine proves she can wheel and deal with the best of them when she agrees to buy Cliff’s share of Wentworth Tool & Die at a bargain-basement price, and it’s great fun to see Morgan Brittany deliver lines like “Oil, oil, everywhere, and not a drop for Cliff.” Also, how can you not love the long-awaited moment when Pam confronts Katherine after learning she forged the letter that broke up her marriage to Bobby? The slap Pam delivers must be one of the most cathartic moments in “Dallas” history, and isn’t it nice to see Victoria Principal demonstrate some of the spark that once made her character so compelling?
“Hush, Hush, Sweet Jessie” raises a few other questions that probably wouldn’t occur to anyone but “Dallas” devotees. Here’s one: At the beginning of the episode, Lucy speaks on the phone to Jackie, Cliff’s secretary. Is this the first, and perhaps only, time these two women interact? Here’s another: After J.R. confronts Clayton and Ray with Jessica’s diary in a Braddock parking lot, the three men hop into J.R.’s Mercedes and hightail it back to the ranch. Is this the first time we’ve seen J.R. and Ray share a ride since they palled around in the first-season episode “Winds of Vengeance”?
There’s also this: When the producers named this episode, they were surely offering a loving nod to the 1964 thriller “Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte,” which starred Bette Davis as a wealthy spinster driven mad by her scheming cousin, played by Olivia de Havilland. (Future “Dallas” star George Kennedy has a small role too.) The film, which received seven Oscar nominations, is now regarded by some as a camp classic. Did the “Dallas” producers know this episode would achieve a similar distinction?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
‘HUSH, HUSH, SWEET JESSIE’
Airdate: May 11, 1984
Audience: 20.4 million homes, ranking 4th in the weekly ratings
Writer: David Paulsen
Director: Gwen Arner
Synopsis: Pam learns Mark knew he was dying and killed himself. Cliff reluctantly sells his share of Wentworth Tool & Die to Katherine, whom Pam slaps after she discovers Katherine’s role in ending her marriage to Bobby. Clayton tells Ray and Donna that Dusty is actually Jessica’s son. After J.R. uncovers evidence Jessica killed Clayton’s first wife, she kidnaps Miss Ellie.
Cast: Mary Armstrong (Louise), Christopher Atkins (Peter Richards), Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie Ewing), Morgan Brittany (Katherine Wentworth), James L. Brown (Detective Harry McSween), Roseanna Christiansen (Teresa), Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing), Eric Farlow (Christopher Ewing), Linda Gray (Sue Ellen Ewing), Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing), Susan Howard (Donna Krebbs), Steve Kanaly (Ray Krebbs), Howard Keel (Clayton Farlow), Ken Kercheval (Cliff Barnes), Audrey Landers (Afton Cooper), Bill Morey (Leo Wakefield), Charles Parks (Fred Robbins), Edmund Penney (doctor), Priscilla Beaulieu Presley (Jenna Wade), Victoria Principal (Pam Ewing), Debbie Rennard (Sly), Sherril Lynn Rettino (Jackie Dugan), Alexis Smith (Lady Jessica Montfort), Don Starr (Jordan Lee), Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ewing), D.J. Zacker (Louis)
“Hush, Hush, Sweet Jessie” is available on DVD and at Amazon.com and iTunes. Watch the episode and share your comments below.
Filed Under: Critiques, Critiques (Classic), Opinion Tagged With: Alexis Smith, Barbara Bel Geddes, George Kennedy, Howard Keel, Hush Hush Sweet Jessie, Larry Hagman, Morgan Brittany, Patrick Duffy, Richard Lewis Warren, Susan Howard, Winds of Vengeance
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I really liked the scene with Pam and Bobby talk at her home just after Afton leaves. It’s so sad and lovely and well acted. The penny drops.
Chris B. says:
Yes, that is a good scene, Dan. I also like the scene because it suggests Pam and Afton are friends outside of their relationship with Cliff.
Had to watch the “Jessie” episodes of this season again on DVD. They look so great for 30 years old.
I never realized before but you are so right about Donna. She takes ages to get to the point and even with a head injury you would think she could state the facts sooner. Not that I’m complaining as that would deprive me of that step-by-step, what happened next chronological history that she delivers as only Donna can.
I’ve got to say the writers escalated Jessica to unhinged straight away – no messin! When she first meets the family I am taken aback by how forward she is with everyone. And given that Dallas starts many scenes with the actors offering each other a drink, it is wonderful to see that five minutes after Clayton introduces Jessie, it is SHE who actually has to ask for Bobby to fix her a little bourbon and branch. Wonderful delivery and a complete turnaround from the norm. Where were the Ewing manners?!
And this version of Jessica – whilst theatrical and camp – is still a joy to behold compared to when she was brought back . Sad to say that the character of Jessica is directly responsible for two of Dallas rather more lame storylines. First, the overbearing “Murder She Wrote” homage where Ellie and Clayton tried to solve who was killing all their friends and second, the even worse “JR flies over the cuckoo’s nest” fest. Dallas had already jumped the shark by then, but they perhaps stumbled over it a couple more times with those two.
Great observations, especially about how Jessica asks for the drink. I agree the character, as campy as she is, is much more interesting during her visit to
Dan in WI says:
I don’t believe Jessica had any involvment in the Murder She Wrote storyline. She would have been safely tucked away in the sanitarium awaiting JR’s visit at that point. Or am I forgetting something?
Oh, she was involved all right. She was the culprit behind the murders, right?
Okay Chris I’ll take your word for it. It just shows how much I like the camp of the character that I must be blocking the conclusion of that storyline. Since she was a much bigger part of the Ellie obduction and JR in the sanitarium storylines it’s much harder for me to block those.
I’m fuzzy on the “Murder, She Wrote” story too, but I’m pretty sure Jessica killed at least some of those old dudes, including one who was revealed as Dusty’s biological father.
Can someone confirm this? Where’s our pal Chris Donovan, who’s an expert on the original show’s later years?
Jessie was indeed the driving force behind the whole “Murder She Wrote” homage. By this time (1988-89) Dallas was no longer a ratings winner, in fact it was no longer even in the top 10 watched shows in the USA and was tumbling down the ratings fast. But in the same period millions of viewers stacked up when it came to watching Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher in “Murder She Wrote”. So whilst viewers were abandoning the antics of Dallas in their droves, they were staying loyal (even increasing) for their weekly dose of amateur pensioner sleuth.
I think it was at this point Dallas writers had a “lightbulb” moment. They were already scratching their heads about what to do with Ellie and Clayton. So they did something which, in retrospect, was ridiculous. They turned them into armchair detectives. Their first story line in this mould involved them pondering over a letter addressed to Jock and a mysterious key which led them to an ol’ western town where Jock was revealed as a war hero. That went on for a few weeks and allowed Ellie and Clayton to have a few lines each show. Then came an even more preposterous story line where Clayton’s friends were murdered week by week following the reading of a will. Again Ellie was required to do the “Jessica Lansbury” bit whilst Clayton looked suitably bewildered. It was drawn out for several weeks (with several episode cliffhangers) and after lots of ramped up mystery and murder it turned out Jessica was behind the whole thing. She even made attempts on Clayton’s life but was eventually caught and then committed to the state sanitarium. The “Murder She Wrote” homage was thus very much Jessica driven.
Of course Dallas weren’t through with using her for yet another desperate storyline – the one where JR pretended to be insane to get committed to the same state sanitarium to get her to sign over some West Star stock. Whilst he was there the writers tried to make him a Jack Nicholson character (hence “JR Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest”) but it was all ludicrous and should never have made the screen.
Suffice to say Jessica is thus a driving force behind not one but two story arcs which are best forgotten and are very far removed from the golden days of early Dallas. The writers should have left Jessica well alone after her initial visit to Dallas for Ellie and Clayton’s wedding – where she was theatrical but very watchable as the villain.
Thank you for this history lesson! I remember how popular “Murder, She Wrote” remained in the late 1980s and early 1990s. CBS tried to emulate its success with “Over My Dead Body,” another armchair sleuth series that starred Edward Woodward (previously of the darker “The Equalizer”). It was briefly paired with “Dallas” on Friday nights at the beginning of the show’s final season.
Like I said I guess I was blocking. I certainly remember the storyline. It was just the reveal of her being behind it I have zero recollection of.
It just goes to show that doing copycat story lines rarely works. If people want to watch Murder She Wrote they are going to watch Murder She Wrote. They aren’t likely to watch Dallas reduce itself to reacting and playing copy cat.
You can see why CBS wanted to replicate the success of Murder She Wrote, which was, after all, their own show. I think Over My Dead Body must have been another attempt that went astray! Whilst Ellie always looked good peering over half moon glasses, and could make a good attempt at being a Jessica Fletcher, a lot of it just didn’t make sense. I think during their first mystery she ended up buying a part of the town of Pride just so she could get a fleeting piece of information. That was just not true to the character of Ellie and was more an attempt to fill airtime and give Ellie and Clayton some lines by dragging it all out. The multiple killings of the later story line were just as far fetched. One of the victims was drowned in his own fish tank and it was more about how macabre they could get. All this occurred in the 1989-90 season where Dallas ended 43rd in the year end ratings (Murder She Wrote ended at 13th). Ten years after the shooting of JR, Dallas was sadly in decline. And yet…..and yet….I still watched it religiously hoping for a glimmer of past glories.
I remember liking the final years of the show. I’ll be curious to see how well they hold up when it comes time to critique them.
Yes you can understand CBS wanting to replicate the success of one of their own shows…..though it didn’t work. I have double checked and Ellie and Clayton becoming armchair detectives occurred in the 1989/90 season – when Dallas ratings for the year plunged to 43rd (!)…..a far cry from ten years previous. Meanwhile Murder She Wrote was at number 13 in the 1989/90 rankings so a good 30 places above.
Ellie made a good job of peering over half rim spectacles (she always did) and Clayton was always a good sidekick. But the two mysteries – first the town of Pride and second the Jessica murders – both bordered on the ridiculous. I seem to remember Ellie buying a hotel (it could have been the whole town) just to get a piece of information. And the Jessica murders ended with one victim in his own fish tank. This was Dallas on a downward curve althoug one I still watched religiously !
I believe Ellie bought the entire town of Pride. I wonder who inherited it?!
FridaySoaps says:
Had to watch the “Jessie” episodes of this season again on DVD. My oh my they are still so GREAT !
And this version of Jessica – whilst theatrical and camp – is still a joy to behold compared to when she was brought back . Sad to say that the character of Jessica is directly responsible for two of Dallas rather more lame storylines. First, the overbearing “Murder She Wrote” homage where Ellie and Clayton tried to solve who was killing all their friends and second, the even worse “JR flies over the cuckoo’s nest” fest. Dallas had already jumped the shark by then, but they perhaps jumped it a couple more times with those two.
But for now Jessie is a delight and a worthy addition to a great season.
Stephan says:
What a fabulous episode! On top of all the excellent scenes already mentioned, there is also the one where Clayton explains to Ray and Donna that he is only Dusty’s uncle – a revelation that somehow rocks the boat of DALLAS mythology where Clayton only existed because he was Dusty’s father…
I also love how Katherine continues to taunt Pam even after the truth has come out: She would have deserved the slap just for the way she holds that scarf!
And of course, the final scene does such an excellent job of making sure that people will tune in for the next episode – a must if the cliffhanger is supposed to work. I do remember wondering why the fight between Jessica and Miss Ellie is only reported by Donna, why we don’t actually get to see it. Was it out of consideration for the actresses’ somewhat advanced age (and possibly ill health in the case of Barbara Bel Geddes) or because the producers were aware that showing a cat fight between Jessica, Donna and Miss Ellie would risk over-egging the campy pudding?
Fantastic comment, Stephen. Insightful as always. Your line about Katherine’s scarf made me laugh aloud. Thanks.
I’m going with the age of the actresses would have made it too hard to believably stage the abduction myself.
… And I’m fine with that decision, by the way.
Paul A says:
I love it when Pam finally sees through Katherine and gives her one of TV’s greatest slaps ( all the more effective because Dallas, unlike a certain other show I could mention, didn’t generally lower itself to cat fighting/bitch slapping.) But what took her so long?
Yes! Thank you, Paul.
R.J. Koopmans, President, Ewing Oil Co. Ltd.-Canada says:
Chris, the “camp” as you term it reminds of the classic 1960’s camp of tv series like “BATMAN” & “Star Trek.” The dramatic pauses & spin in the orations are perfect by Adam West & Bill Shatner. It adds affect to this DALLAS episode. Plus it all makes sense as Captain Kirk made appearances & gave wonderful ideas on how to bring back the “DALLAS:TNT” reboot on another network! Ah the circle of life!
Thank goodness “Dallas” never got as campy as “Batman.”
Pam b**** slapping Katherine was a great, great moment and one of the best on Dallas. It was also sad because Pam lost a sister who she wished she had growing up with an alcoholic father and an absentee mother. Pam was so glad to know she had a sister when she found out about Katherine and to be betrayed by her like this is so sad. VP portrayed Pam’s fury and sadness so well in her eyes during that conversation with Katherine.
Agreed! Victoria Principal is quite good here. Thanks for commenting.
I love the scene where they were back at Cliff’s townhouse and he read the letter Mark wrote her. The acting was superb; especially Afton’s.
The look on Pam’ face, when she heard the part that Mark got Jerry to tell him that she knew about the sickness.
Then the part that Mark says Pam will find happiness again, maybe with Bobby because he thinks they still care for one another. Do you think Mark knew Bobby didn’t wnt to be with Jenna as much as he did Pam?
Such a poignant scene!
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__label__cc | 0.551111 | 0.448889 | Fans and stars show continuous support for Avicii in touching tribute concert
by: Rugby Scruggs Dec 8, 2019
The Friends Arena in Stockholm, Sweden was filled to the brim on the evening of Dec. 5 as fans, friends, and fellow musicians celebrated the life of Avicii. Avicii’s death shocked the world last year, and sparked an important conversation about the significance of mental health and the dangers that come with a heavy touring schedule in the music industry.
The concert opened with an emotional performance from “Without You” collaborator Sandro Cavazzo. The lyrics from this song, “I’ve gotta learn how to love without you” have become a eulogy for the talented musician. The tribute progressed with a healthy balance of both celebration and commemoration, led by friends of Avicii such as Adam Lambert, Michelle Gonzalez, Kygo, Dimitri Vegas, Aloe Blacc, and more.
The pinnacle of the powerful night was a gorgeous 30-piece orchestral performance of “Lonely Together” that Avicii’s father said was one of his son’s biggest dreams. Backed by beautiful lights and roaring pyrotechnics, the performance truly encapsulated the loving spirit of Avicii that touched so many.
The event was put on by the Tim Bergling Foundation, created posthumously to advocate for mental health awareness internationally in honor of Avicii’s passing.
To learn more and to donate, visit their website here.
Photo credit: Sean Eriksson
Tags: avicii, tim bergling foundation, tribute concert
Dancing Astronaut’s Top 100 Songs of the Decade
David Guetta shares full set from Avicii Tribute Concert
Dancing Astronaut’s BIG 100—Top 25 EDM Moments of the Decade | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1071 |
__label__wiki | 0.805909 | 0.805909 | Elizabeth Warren ‘on the warpath’ over Trump nomination
May 11, 2016 By Ichabod F.N. Herstal
In a move that could spell heap big trouble for the Republican party, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has recruited Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to go on the attack against putative GOP nominee Donald Trump.
The arrangement was apparently confirmed at a top-level pow-wow last week. Analysts believe that Clinton and Warren, previously at odds on many issues, finally sat down and smoked the peace pipe.
A Clinton insider said that the two sides realized it would benefit both of them to bury the hatchet at this stage.
Warren’s fiery populist rhetoric is just one of many arrows in her quiver. If she were able to seriously damage the Trump campaign, it would be a major scalp for the Democrats.
Clinton campaign aides have denied rumors that Clinton initially offered Warren the VP slot in return for her help, but then withdrew the offer. “She’s not an Indian giver,” one aide said.
Nevertheless, the stories set off a media stampede. Warren appeared red-faced when asked to comment on the rumor.
A source close to the senator claimed that some Clinton operatives “have gotten off the reservation on this one,” while other observers say that with several senior campaign workers saying different things, it seems to be a case of too many chiefs and not enough Indians. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1072 |
__label__cc | 0.6031 | 0.3969 | Welcome to Danganronpa Wiki
Welcome to Danganronpa Wiki, the fan-curated collaborative Danganronpa encyclopedia.
Danganronpa is a Japanese visual novel video game series created by Kazutaka Kodaka with character designs by Rui Komatsuzaki published by Spike Chunsoft since 2010. The series is published with English localization by NIS America. Currently the franchise includes four console games and two major anime series, with associated manga, novels and stage play spin-offs and adaptations. The latest game in the series, Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, debuted in Japan on January 12th, 2017 and was later released worldwide on September 26th, 2017.
Ultimate Talent Development Plan is a board minigame featured in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony.
The board game follows an alternate universe where there are no Mutual Killing Games and instead the main casts from the three main series games attend Hope's Peak Academy together.
• Read More! •
June 05 2019 Danganronpa 2: Ultimate Luck and Hope and Despair English third volume released.
Aug 21 2019 Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls English first volume released.
Nov 28 2019 Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (manga) English first volume released.
Feb 18 2020 Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls English second volume released.
Apr 21 2020 Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (manga) English second volume released.
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__label__cc | 0.522748 | 0.477252 | 360-477 – 6921
Nytom Blog
Home / Artwork / Design / Thunderbirds
‘Thunderbirds’ is a drum design that came forth years ago. Nytom has revisited it often with the intent of creating a limited-edition print. At a potlatch in the late 1980s, Mowachaht leader Jerry Jack asked to have a design painted on his drum. It was natural to conceive a design representative of his love for his three children and their love and respect for him. The children felt much pride in their father and his efforts to keep the culture alive, and they were always ready to sing and dance at their father’s request. Even though years have passed and his children are now adults, they are just as dedicated as their father to keeping the culture alive.
Thunderbirds quantity
Categories: Art Work, Design
Limited Editions Giclee’ Prints
Each print is designed, vectored and printed by Nytom, this insures him his design, color and size is of his own discretion.
The Somerset Velvet paper is of the highest quality paper possible. Each print is printed by order only, and is shipped flat on acid free mate board and acid free sleeve.
For maximum print longevity, Epson highly recommends displaying your prints mounted double mated under glass. This protects them from discoloration caused by exposure to air and extends the life of the paper and its coating.
16 × .25 × 16 in
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There are many events in nature that represent the cycle of life. Among many coastal tribes, the cycle of life is heralded by the spawning of the salmon each year. Young salmon migrate to their village far out in the ocean, and then after several years at sea endure an arduous journey fraught with dangers to return to their birth waters. The Salmon would always return because the tribes honored the Salmon People in their First Salmon Ceremonies. In doing so, they also teach the people to continue to overcome all odds–to survive and keep their traditional cultures alive.
8” by 22”
not rated $200.00
Four Wolf Brothers
After the federal government signed treaties with the First Nations of the US, the Bureau of Indian Affairs gave everyone English names and enrollment numbers to keep track of us. They never enough cared to realize that we had a powerful sense of family and relationship with one another, which came about through a highly developed naming system that provided a system of order and rank.
Coastal Drumming Circle
The three entities in this design portray the power emanating from a coastal drumming circle. When we are drumming, the circle is in unison. It is like the Thunderbird, enveloping us all as one. It is beautiful feeling that resonates through every fiber of our being, and a collective experience that is truly sacred.
Man Transforming
Nine generations ago, First Peoples from Vancouver Island came by canoe to the village of Deeah (now known as Neah Bay) in search of a wife for their Chief. They waited just off the beach, hoping to be invited ashore. After singing in their canoes for a few days, a man threw his harpoon to the beach. Unimpressed, the Makah threw the harpoon back with a herring tied to the end of the shaft. A year later, the people from Vancouver returned to Neah Bay with two whales as gifts. The Makah people gave three women in marriage to the Chief. This was the beginning of blood relations between Nytom’s family and the people of Clayoquot Sound.
Frogs Coming Out of the Ground
As a young girl, Nytom’s mother knew a man called “Young Doctor” in the village of Neah Bay. He was an artist, carver, song maker and fisherman. His ability to make songs hadn’t come easy. Young Doctor walked bent over because of an accident in the woods. While he was caught under a tree, many songs came to him. Soon after he recovered from his accident, he brought out those songs for the people of Neah Bay. One song Nytom likes singing the most talks about frogs coming out of the ground in the spring. The people of Neah Bay sing this song at every community gathering. Like the frogs’ singing, it brings us together with a spirit of unity.
Living in a Perfect World
Nytom often wonders what it would take to live in a perfect world: A place where people took only what they needed, left the rest for others and always got along. This image is what I imagined the world would be like if there was such a place.
16” by16”
Kyuquot Sunset
During Tribal Journeys 2009, I met a young man who joined the Kyuquot Canoe Family. He was Principal of the School in our village and was interested in participating in the journey, to paddle with and learn about the people. We had many wonderful conversations, and he shared a teaching that has helped children to relax and pay attention to their lessons. Inviting an elder from the village to share their oral histories gave children a sense of pride and respect for their elders and helped them focus more diligently on their studies. Nytom discovered later that the man had lost his father to cancer and never had the opportunity to say goodbye. Kyuquot sun set was created to commemorate the passing of his father, and to illustrate that as long as remember the teaching of our elders, their spirit will never die.
Pairing Eagles
Eagles mate for life. This design symbolizes the lifetime relationship that Eagles have with each other.
Designs By Nytom
info@designsbynytom.com
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__label__wiki | 0.717411 | 0.717411 | Tomorrowisit
Don’t Miss It
Detroit Sounds
Detroit Works
John Bozick
Did You Know Pingree Shoes Are the Only Shoes Being Made in Detroit?
The First Shoe Brand Locally Produced in Detroit is Committed to Community and Sustainability
Pingree
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Hazen Pingree, does that name ring a bell? If you’re from Detroit it should. After all, his term as mayor helped to pave the way for Detroit’s growth into one of America’s most prominent and influential commerce centers during the 20th century. Pingree Detroit, named for the former mayor, is working to support the Detroit Community in a way that would put a smile on the former mayors face.
As Detroit’s progressive mayor from 1889–1897, Pingree turned from ruthless business owner into a champion of workers rights after witnessing the horrific conditions Detroit’s working class. This change of heart led to drastic changes for the city which included the creation of urban farms, returning of control of Detroit’s utility companies to the hands of the people and a focus on creating jobs and opportunities for Detroit’s veterans.
In describing the former mayor, Jarret Schlaff, CEO and Co-Founder of Pingree Detroit, stated, “He embodied this idea of putting the people first, that we need to serve our workers, our neighborhood, and the broader community just the same.”
This is now Pingree Detroit’s mission, as it seeks to create a workplace environment free of exploitation and alienation, where all who work there are treated with the same level of respect. Being worker-owned and operated, Pingree has taken the first steps to ensure that those making its products receive more than simply a pay–check.
Pingree street style
They are determined to ensure that the veteran employees are given the respect and help they deserve as they go about their day such as being offered access to leadership development classes and alternative
therapy methods like float tank therapy, yoga, and meditation.
“Every person who joins our team, no matter where you’re at, we want to be part of building your confidence, clarity, and purpose.” Said Schlaff. “We really want to focus on the collaborative atmosphere around how everyone sees the role they play in accomplishing our shared mission and purpose, which is to bring veterans and civilians together to create stronger neighborhoods.”
Worker-owned, Pingree not only aims to provide its workers with a safety net against threats to the modern worker such as automation but also support fighting for the communities the workers live in.
According to Schlaff, the inequality Detroiters face in both the workplace and their community, is one of the reasons for this method of workplace organization.
“There’s no reason why we should be shutting off the water of 90-year-old grandmas in my neighborhood, that’s unacceptable. There’s no reason why anyone should be squatting in houses because their government isn’t supporting them, and their neighborhood isn’t supporting them.” Schlaff shared, “So we see a future that looks like a way of taking care of more people, not with handouts, but with making the access to resources more available. That’s why we see a way forward that honors labor instead of exploiting it.”
While working to give back to Detroit, Pingree is also fighting against the wasteful, robotic method of production that is the norm in American manufacturing. Instead of wearing a shoe made thousands of miles away in a nondescript factory, they want you to know the name of the person who made your shoe through their #KnowYourMaker program.
Pingree shoes
“#KnowYourMaker is grounded in this idea that communities are so much more vibrant and stronger when connected to the people who make your stuff. It wasn’t too long ago when you knew your farmer, and you knew the person who made your clothes,” said Schlaff. “Being connected to where our stuff comes from allows us to be more informed on our impact. We’re not aware that there’s slave labor that goes into making our shoes, we’re not aware that people are locked in factories making mere dollars a day.”
No matter the product, be it shoes or totes, for it to come with the name of the person who made it, connecting the community with the manufacturer, is one of the most unique aspects of this worker-owned enterprise model. Not how they are produced, but what materials are used with that truly sets Pingree Detroit apart from any other American shoe manufacturer.
Using repurposed leather from the automobile industry, Pingree’s sneaker, “The Mayor,” is as much a part of Detroit as the street its wearer walks on. This is a new way of manufacturing that’s in line with Pingree’s commitment toward sustainability, and fitting for the first shoes made in the motor city.
“One of the biggest reasons why we chose the products we did, and one of the reasons we chose to use recycled materials, is because at this current time in the world we’re experiencing an exponential increase, exploitation of the workers, exploitation of the land, exploitation of resources, automation, and everything going toward machines doing the job of what traditional folks are doing,” said Schlaff. “So, to avoid massive irreversible ecological devastation, we need to do things differently.”
As the years go on, the mission to change how we structure our workplace, and the way our goods are produced will be two crucial aspects in determining the effect climate change has on our society. With our current system of wasteful production, Pingree’s model can be looked at as a blueprint on how we can structure our workplace for the betterment of our environment as well as the improvement of working lifestyle.
Whether you’re a veteran looking for support, a worker looking to change your current enterprise or you’re just in need of a fresh new pair of shoes, Pingree Detroit can be found in Eastern Market every Saturday and Sunday throughout the summer months.
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Celebrate National Bagel Day with Einstein Bros. Bagels
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John Bozick is a journalist based in Detroit. The focus of his previous work has included reporting on the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Greece and the political scene in the United States following the 2016 election. His local focus is community development, activism, local politics and environmental justice.
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__label__cc | 0.700996 | 0.299004 | Nattokinase is an enzyme extracted from the fermented soybean dish natto. Nattokinase Supplements help in:
Maintain blood pressure already in normal range.**
Encourage robust, free-flowing circulation.**
Keep blood vessels flexible and healthy.**
What is Nattokinase?
Nattokinase is a unique enzyme derived from natto, a Japanese food made with fermented soybeans. The dish, which is often eaten for breakfast, has a pungent cheese-like flavor and smell, due to its fermentation process. A popular food in Japan for hundreds of years, natto has been long appreciated for its health benefits. Today, an estimated 236,000 tons of natto are consumed in Japan annually. Natto’s cardioprotective nutritional profile includes 275 different amino acids, vitamin K2 and abundant nattokinase.**
In recent decades, nattokinase has been studied with increasing interest, with scientists focusing on its connections to cardiovascular wellness. Investigations have suggested that the enzyme appears to uphold healthy blood pressure levels in measures of both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Research has also indicated that the compound promotes clear blood flow, possibly due to its ability to dissolve small fibers that may collect and hinder ideal circulation. It helps support blood vessel integrity as well, maintaining the arterial suppleness and pliability that is a key indicator of overall cardiovascular well-being.**
In addition to its well-regarded role in heart health, further studies have suggested that the enzyme has potential in the areas of cognition and aging. As a serine protease variety of enzyme, the compound may modulate key factors linked to optimal cognitive function, particularly in older adults. Specifically, it is believed to help dissolve and clear amyloids, which are harmful protein structures that have been implicated in onset of some degenerative brain issues.**
Nattokinase Supplements
Nattokinase supplement products are sourced from the soybean-based Japanese food natto or a variation of its production process. Supplements of the nutrient are offered as capsules and tablets, often in vegetarian and gluten-free form. Since natto has a strong smell and sour flavor, supplements provide the enzyme's benefits without the distinctive scent or acquired taste.**
Nattokinase Directions for Use
Supplementation with the enzyme should not begin before talking with a health care professional. Capsules and tablets are presented in a wide variety of doses, frequently in the range of 50 mg to 200 mg. The compound may also be presented in measures of fibrinolytic units of activity (FU).**
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__label__wiki | 0.562593 | 0.562593 | dmorls
@dmorls
Letter About Education
Adam Smith (1723-1790)
T. R. Malthus (1766-1834)
David Ricardo (1772-1823)
Robert Owen (1771-1858)
John Stuart Mill (1806-1878)
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Victorian Economists
Underground Economists
Books I’ve Read
← Malthus
Victorian Economists →
Posted by dmorls
Maybe not that popular, but Robert Owen was a really a hero in his time. Could be described as one of the first utopian socialists (with Thomas More permission). The amazing thing about Robert Owen, is that he wasn’t only utopian, but practical. He transformed a little mill village (New Lanark) in something not far from utopian society. He changed the life of hundreds for good!. Owen’s main contribution to socialist thought was the view that human social behavior is not fixed or absolute, and that human beings have the free will to organize themselves into any kind of society they wished.
During Malthus and Ricardo days wasn’t that hard to understand why that gloomy vision of economy and life in general. From Heilbroner:
“In 1828, The Lion, a radical magazine of the times, published the incredible history of Robert Blincoe, one of eighty pauper-children sent off to a factory at Lowdham. The boys and girls (they were all about ten years old) where whipped day and night, not only for the slightest fault, but to stimulate their flagging industry. And compared with a factory at Litton where Blincoe was subsequently transferred, conditions at Lowdham were rather humane. At Litton the children scrambled with the pigs for the slops in a through; they were kicked and punched and sexually abused; and their employer, one Ellice Needha, had the chilling habit of pinching the children’s ears until his nails met through the flesh. The foreman of the plant was even worse. He hung Blincoe up by his wrists over a machine so that his knees were bent and then he piled heavy weights on his shoulders. The child and his coworkers were almost naked in the cold winter and (seemingly a purely gratuitous sadistic flourish) their teeth were filed down!”.
Probably this story was exaggerated, but surely inhuman practices were accepted and was none business. Even in these days news about slaves appears once in a while in my own country.
Not only bad practices at job were a problem. Technology was the rage, and machinery meant displacement of laboring hands by efficient machines. In 1779 a mob of 8.000 workers attacked a mill and burned it to the ground, because it was taking jobs.
Even Ricardo, who was very respected, admitted that maybe machinery did not always operate to the immediate benefit of the workman. To an observer, the working class were getting out of control, and something must be done. Repression is the first thought, but not the only one.
In those dark times, one small light shone. That light was New Lanark. And as a good light in the dark, New Lanark was visited by over 20.000 moths who wanted to see the miracle by their own eyes. Tsar Nicholas I of Russia was one of those moths. They all came to see that horrible industrial life was not the only and inevitable social arrangement, some good practices were possible too. Some of the good practices were:
Workers had two room houses, the garbage was neatly piled up awaiting disposal instead of being strewn in filthy disarray.
Factories: Over each employee hung a little cube of wood with a different color painted each side: black, blue, yellow and white. From lightest to darkest, the colors stood for different grades of performance: white was excellent, yellow good blue indifferent; black bad. At glance, the factory manager could judge the performance of his workforce.
There were no children under ten or eleven in factories. Those that did, work only for hours per day (the norm were 16). Most important, they were not punished; discipline seemed to be wielded by benignity rather than fear.
The factory manager was available for objections to any rule or regulation, or bad cube rating (just like a good school or university).
Little children, instead of being in the street by their own, they played in schoolhouses. The small ones were learning the names of plants, animals and trees. Older boys were learning grammar. Regularly, children gathered to sing and dance under young ladies sight. Young ladies were instructed that no child’s question was ever to go unanswered, not child was ever bad without reason, punishment was never to be inflicted, and that children would learn faster from the power of example an from admonition.
Beside all that marvels, New Lanark was profitable. So, this town was not run only by a saint, but by a business saint: Robert Owen, the “benevolent Mr. Owen of New Lanark”. A man that born poor and made a fortune as a capitalist. From a capitals to a opponent of private property. From advocated to benevolence (because it pays dividends) to urge the abolition of money. So take your time if you want to classify him, you will need it.
So first Mr Owen was an entrepreneur (a successful one), then as a capitalist, a philanthropist. When he ran of money, he became a social leader. Most important, he was able to build his dreamed society, and it did work. At least once.
Napoleonic wars threatened with general gluts. To avoid the coming misery, the Dukes of York and Kent and other respectable people formed a committee to look forward for solutions for the arriving gluts. They called Owen to present his views. He didn’t came with just that, he came with the blueprints for a new society: Villages of Cooperation.
For Owen, the problem was that paupers became non productive in general gluts, so the solution was to make them productive. Paupers could become the producers of wealth if they were given a chance to work, and they deplorable social habits could easily be transformed into virtuous ones under the influence of a decent environment. Why would anyone believe that paupers were not able to produce wealth given the resources?. I mean, being pauper is not an illness. Owen knew they were people, just like everybody else.
Villages of Cooperation were an structure to make people productive. Owen proposed their way of living. From Heilbroner:
The families were to live in houses grouped in parallelograms, with each family in a private apartment but sharing common sitting rooms and reading rooms and kitchens. Children over the age of three were to be boarded separately so that they could be exposed to the kind of education that would best mold their characters for later life. Around the school were gardens to be tended by slightly older children, and around them in turn would stretch out the fields where crops would be grown. In the distance, away from the living areas, would be a factory unit; in effect this would be a planned garden city, a kibbutz, a commune.
The committee thanked Mr Owen’s plan, and his ideas were carefully ignored. Laissez faire was the beauty girl and planned economy, well, none seemed to care. But passiveness was not an option for Owen. He sold his interests in New Lanark, and set about building his own community of the future. He chose the place where dreams came true, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty: America (North America please), Indiana. It’s name: New Harmony.
New Harmony was a disaster (maybe it wasn’t so easy to have a community without the strong support of a stable business as New Lanark did with it’s own prosperous mill). After loosing four fifths of is fortune in New Harmony, Mr. Owen went back to England to participate actively in leading a new section of the country: the working classes. Indeed, he started the english working class movement by the name of The Grand National Moral Union of the Productive and Useful Classes. Some marketing genius changed the name to just Grand National. The Grand National gathered 500.000 members. It was huge!
The Gran National was a fiasco too. It appears that England was prepared for a national trade union just as US was prepared for a community paradise. Local union could not control their members and local strikes prospered. Grand National only lasted for two years.
So, who was Robert Owen? He was not only an economist, but a economic innovator who wanted to change the world (and he did it, a bit). While others wrote, he went ahead and tried to change it.
Mr. Owen, my greatest respect to you.
Etiquetado como economics, new lanark, owen, paupers, socialism, villages of cooperation
Ago·07
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ANON. Cabala, Sive Scrinia Sacra, Mysteries of State and Government: In Letters of Illustrious Persons and Great Ministers of State as well Forreign as Domestick,, In the Reigns of King Henry the Eighth, Q: Elizabeth, K: James, and K: Charles....
ANON. L'office de la quinzaine de Pasque. Latin-Francois, a l'usage de Rome et de Paris, pour la maison de monseigneur le duc d'Orleans, premier prince du sang. (BOUND FOR THE DUKE OF ORLEANS - 1746)
BACON, Francis, Viscount St Alban. A Collection of Some Principal Rules and Maximes of the Common Lawes of England... (SECOND EDITION - 1636)
BACON, Francis, Viscount St Alban. Resuscitatio; Or, Bringing Into Publick Light Severall Pieces, Of The Works, Civil, Historical, Philosophical, & Theological,... (FIRST EDITION - 1657)
BACON, Francis. Of the Advancement and Proficiencie of Learning: or the Partitions of Sciences. Nine Books... Interpreted by Gilbert Wats. (1674)
Bacon, Sir Nathaniel. A Relation of the Fearful Estate of Francis Spira in the Year 1548. (1678)
BLACKMORE, Richard. King Arthur. An Heroick Poem. In Twelve Books. (THIRD EDITION. FIRST EDITION WITH THE INDEX - 1697)
BLACKMORE, Richard. Prince Arthur. A Heroic Poem. In Ten Books. (FIRST EDITION - 1695)
CAXTON, William - Higden, Ranulf (Ranulphus). Polycronicon. ( Polychronicon ). (1482)
DRAYTON, Michael. The Works of Michael Drayton, Esq., a Celebrated Poet in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth, King James I and Charles I. (FIRST COMPLETE EDITION - 4 VOLUMES - 1753)
ERASMUS, Desiderius. L'eloge de la Folie, Compose en forme de Declamation. (1715)
FELTHAM, Owan. Resolves A Duhle Century. (FOURTH EDITION - 1631)
FIELDING, Henry. A True State of the Case of Bosavern Penlez, Who Suffered on Account of the Late Riot in the Strand. (1749)
FIELDING, Henry. The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon. (FIRST PUBLISHED EDITION - 1755)
GOLDSMITH, Oliver. The Citizen of the World on Letters from a Chinese Philosopher residing in London to his friends in the East. (FIRST COLLECTED EDITION - 1762)
GREGORY, John. The Works of the Reverend and Learned Mr. John Gregory,... In two Parts:..... (FIRST EDITION - 1671)
JOSEPHUS, Flavius. The Famous and Memorable Works of Josephus. (1655)
Le SAGE, Alain Rene. Le Diable Boiteux: or, The Devil Upon Two Sticks. Translated from the last edition at Paris, with several additions. (FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH - 1708)
MESPOLIE, Francois. Les Veritables pratiques de piete pour honorer Jesus-Christ et sa Sainte Mere:.... (BOUND FOR THE DUKE DE ORLEANS - 1715)
NOSTRADAMUS, MIchael - [Mr. Truswell]. The Fortune of France from the prophetical predictions of Mr. Truswell, the recorder of Lincoln, and Michael Nostradamus. (FIRST AND ONLY EDITION - 1678)
RAVENSCROFT, Edward. Ignoramus: or The English Lawyer; a Comedy As it is acted at the Theatre in Dublin. (FIRST DUBLIN EDITION - 1725)
RYE HOUSE PLOT - RUSSELL, Lord William. The Last Speech and Carriage of the Lord Russel, upon the scaffold, &c. on Saturday the 21st of July, 1683. (1683)
RYE HOUSE PLOT - Walcot, Thomas; Hone, William; Rouse, John.The Speeches of Captain Walcot, Jo. Rouse and Will. Hone, on Friday the twentieth of July, 1683. (1683)
RYVES, Bruno. Mercurius Rusticus: Or, The Countries Complaint of the barbarous Outrages committed by the Sectaries of this late flourishing Kingdom. (1646)
SELDEN, John. Table Talk: being The Discourses of John Seldon Esq; or His Sence Of Various Matters of Weight and High Consequence Relating Especially to Religion and State. (FIRST EDITION - 1689)
SHAKESPEARE, William. The Works of William Shakespeare. (Measure for Measure). (1685 - THE FOURTH FOLIO)
SHAKESPEARE, William. Julius Caesar. A Tragedy. As it is Now Acted at the Theatre Royal. (1691 - THE SECOND QUARTO EDITION OF ONE OF SHAKESPEARE'S MOST POPULAR PLAYS)
SMITH, Robert. The Universal Directory for Taking Alive and Destroying Rats, and All Other Kinds of Four-Footed and Winged Vermin,.... (FIRST DUBLIN EDITION - 1772)
SPEED, Robert. The Counter-Scuffle. Whereunto is Added the Counter-Rat, Written By R.S.. (1680)
SPENSER, Edmond. The Works of that Famous English Poet, Mr. Edmond Spenser. (1679 - THE THIRD FOLIO EDITION OF "THE FAIRY QUEEN" AND THE SECOND COLLECTED EDITION OF SPENSER'S WORKS)
SPENSER, Edmund. Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the World's Vanitie. (FIRST EDITION - 1591 - ONCE ACCEPTED AS BEING THE EARLIEST REFERENCE TO SHAKESPEARE)
STRADA Famianus. De Bello Belgico. The History of the Low-Countrey Warres. (FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH - 1650)
SUCKLING, John. Fragmenta Aurea. A Collection of all the Incomparable Peeces. (FIRST EDITION - 1646)
SWIFT, Jonathan. A Tale of A Tub. (FIRST EDITION - 1704)
SWIFT, Jonathan: Simon Wagstaff. A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation, According to the Most Polite Mode and Method Now Used At Court, and in the Best Companies of England. In Three Dialogues. (FIRST EDITION - 1738)
TASSO, Torquato. Godfrey of Boulogne: or, The Recoverie of Jerusalem. Done into English Heroicall Verse, by Edward Fairefax Gent. (1624 - SECOND EDITION)
THOMSON, James. The Seasons. (BOUND BY EDWARDS OF HALIFAX - 1793)
THORIUS, Raphael. Hymnus Tabaci: A Poem in Honour of Tabaco - BOUND WITH - Hymnus Tabaci, Autore Raphaele Thorio, edito nova, Multo Emendatior. (FIRST EDITION - 1651)
VOLTAIRE, M. de (W. S. Kenrich - translator). The History of Charles the XII King of Sweden. (NEW EDITION CORRECTED - 1789)
WALTON, Isaac. The Lives of Dr. John Donne; Sir Henry Wotton; Mr. Richard Hooker; Mr. George Herbert; and Dr. Robert Sanderson. (THE FIRST COLLECTED EDITION - 1796)
WATSON, Robert. The History of the Reign of Philip the Third, King of Spain. (FIRST EDITION - 1783)
WEATHERBY, James. Racing Calendar: containing An Account of the Plates, Matches, and Sweepstakes, Run for in Great-Britain & Ireland, &c. in the Year 1777. (WITH THE GILT CREST OF THE COMTE DE CLERMONT - 1777)
YOUNG, Edward. Night Thoughts. With a Life of the Author. (FIRST EDITION - 1798) | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1093 |
__label__cc | 0.730486 | 0.269514 | Parks, Open Space, Trails & Animas River
Durango is famous for its trails. Whether it's natural surface trails, or hard surface trails - we've got what you're looking for! Durango is home to over 100 miles of natural surface trails within City limits, as well as over 10 miles of hard surface trails connecting neighborhoods and parks to our business districts. With public lands owned by the BLM and USFS surrounding City limits, our local trail systems connect our community to the beautiful forests and mountains surrounding downtown Durango.
Click here for an interactive map of trails located on City of Durango lands.
Click here for an overview of public trails in and around Durango (PDF).
Click here for a trail profile generator, for planning your trail experience on City of Durango lands.
Natural Surface Trails
Hard Surface Trails
Winter Seasonal Trail Closures
Trail Rules and Etiquette
City of Durango parks and open spaces that are home to these trail systems include Overend Mountain Park, Horse Gulch, Dalla Mountain Park, Oxbow Park & Preserve, Twin Buttes, Three Springs and Chapman Hill.
Durango's natural surface trails are open to multi-use, non-motorized recreation and offer opportunities for mountain biking, hiking, trail running, dog walking, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and simply enjoying nature.
Durango's Centennial Nature Trail offers a great opportunity to learn about native plant communities. Click here for the Centennial Nature Trail and Plant Brochure (PDF).
For questions about Durango's trails, or to learn about hosting events or activities on these trail systems, please contact the Parks and Recreation Department at (970)375-7321 or rec@durangogov.org.
Animas river trail & smart 160 trail
Animas River Trail
The Animas River Trail (ART), a hard surface shared-use path, is the centerpiece of the city's trail system. It stretches nearly 7 miles through Durango's Animas River Greenway. The ART serves as the spine of the city's overall trail network and provides easy access to a variety of parks, open spaces and natural surface trails; the community recreation center, the public library, downtown Durango, neighborhoods and schools.
The Animas River Trail is a recreational trail as well as an important component of the city's transportation network. The ART is used extensively by area residents and visitors alike and is consistently rated as one of Durango top amenities.
Animas River Trail Map (PDF)
Animas River Trail North Extension
http://durangogov.org/569/ART-North-Extension
SMART 160 Trail
The SMART 160 Trail (Safe Multi-modal Aesthetic Regional Transportation), has been a vision of Durango area residents since the mid 1990's. It is planned as a multi-use hard-surface trail along Highway 160 that will be built to the same standards as the Animas River Trail. Several segments of the trail are already constructed in the Grandview area with more segments in the planning and development stage.
Animas River Trail to SMART 160 Trail Connection
The City of Durango is evaluating the Animas River Trail to SMART 160 Trail connection with consideration of several alternatives. The trail planning and design involves the area between River Road and the existing section of the SMART 160 Trail at the west end of the Grandview interchange.
Durango's natural resources are of great value to our community and our western heritage. Protecting wildlife habitat on City of Durango lands is accomplished, in part, by adhering to Colorado Parks and Wildlife regulations that require the winter seasonal closure of some recreational trails. Critical winter ranges of habitat for wildlife are key the survival of these species. When their food supplies become scarce in winter months, they depend on their body stores of nutrients to survive until spring and summer brings new plant growth and a renewed food source. Human recreation within these habitats force animals to flee interactions with humans and with dogs, depleting the nutrients their body is rationing to make it through long winter months when plants are dormant and food is scarce.
Please respect Durango's winter seasonal wildlife closures, and plan your winter recreation on trail systems that are open to winter recreation. Click here for an overview map of seasonal closures for the Durango area.
Twin Buttes
Seasonal trail closures on City of Durango lands are specific to Twin Buttes. The upper trails at Twin Buttes are closed from December 1st to April 15th each year. Click here for a map of the Twin Buttes seasonal closure area and the trails that remain open during winter months.
City of Durango's Horse Gulch trail system crosses boundaries onto the BLM's Grandview Ridge lands. Grandview Ridge trails are seasonally closed in order to protect winter wildlife habitat. The closure period is from December 1st to April 15th each year. Click here for a map of the BLM's Grandview Ridge seasonal closures and the City of Durango trails in Horse Gulch that remain open during winter months.
Dalla Mountain Park
City of Durango's Dalla Mountain Park trail system crosses boundaries onto the BLM's Animas City Mountain lands. Animas City Mountain trails are seasonally closed in order to protect winter wildlife habitat. The closure period is from December 1st to April 15th each year. Click here for a map of the BLM's Animas City Mountain seasonal closures and the City of Durango trails in Dalla Mountain Park that remain open during winter months.
The City of Durango is expanding upon the Share the Trail philosophy to provide clear guidelines for the use of City trails to enhance the enjoyable experience of all trail users without adversely impacting the use of others. Trails are for everyone. Please respect other trail users and adhere to the following local trail expectations:
Be courteous. All trail users should be respectful and aware of other users regardless of their mode, speed, or level of skill. Dogs must be on a leash. Keep trails clean and safe by disposing of trash and animal waste in appropriate trash receptacles.
Be predictable. Travel in a consistent and predictable manner. Keep right and pass on left. Always look behind before changing positions on the trail.
Yield to other trail users. Yield to slower and on-coming traffic. Bicyclists yield to pedestrians; and bicyclists riding downhill yield to bicyclists riding uphill. Yielding the right-of-way requires slowing down to a safe speed, being prepared to stop, establishing communication and passing safely. When merging onto a multi-use hard surface trail, yield to other users on the primary trail corridor.
Be observable. Provide an easy to hear warning before passing. Give a clear signal using voice (state "On your left"), bell or horn well before passing. Wear lights and reflective clothing at night. Wear only one ear bud if listening to devices.
Don't block the trail. When in a group or with your pets, move off the trail to avoid blocking the flow of other users. When stopping, trail users should move off the trail.
Control your speed. Slow down and use caution when approaching other trail users and blind turns. Please keep speed under 10 mph on City hard surface trails.
Conscious of noise. Be conscious of noise impacts on the experience of others and adjacent neighbors.
Trail Rules and Etiquette Specific Natural Surface Trails:
Respect the trail. Stay on designated trails. Stay off natural surface trails that are wet or muddy. Avoid creating braided or social trails.
Yield to Horses. All trail users yield to equestrians in open space areas where horses are allowed
Click here for the City of Durango Trail Rules & Etiquette brochure (with designated trails for E-bike usage) (PDF).
ART North Extension
POST & Recreation Master Plan
Trails Map - System Wide
Open Space Preservation | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1101 |
__label__cc | 0.727451 | 0.272549 | Find a Nanny
Nanny Agency versus Internet
Register to Find a Nanny
Nanny Fees
Maternity Nanny Service
Find an Au Pair
Au Pair Role and Expectations
Register to Find an Au Pair
Au Pair Costs
Benefits of a British Au Pair Association Agency
Au Pair Fees
Nanny Information
Au Pair Information
Register to join East Midlands Nannies and Au Pairs
You are a parent who demands the best, top-quality au pairs for your children. You want the peace of mind that is enjoyed by the many parents who use East Midlands Nannies and Au Pairs. Since 1999 we have maintained a high number of the very best available au pairs. Our unique screening process means we can offer the best available au pairs for families throughout the whole UK including London and the surrounding area, and not just the Midlands!
All our au pairs are vetted by our partner agencies over Europe to ensure we work to the highest standards in the industry. We are members of BAPAA – British Au Pair Agencies’ Association. BAPAA is recognised by the Home Office.
We charge a one off fee at the end of the search process once an au pair is agreed. There are no upfront fees!
What is the difference between an Au Pair, a Mothers Help and a Nanny?
Au pair – The Au Pair programme is an internationally recognised Cultural Exchange Programme. It offers a young individual the opportunity to travel and live / work with a host family in a new country, learn a foreign language and experience the country’s culture. The Au Pair will work a set amount of hours for the host family, usually doing a mixture of childcare and light housework. The Au Pair may have some childcare experience and even qualifications, but an Au Pair is not a nanny and should also not be treated as a housekeeper.
Mothers Help – A mothers help is a carer who has got a genuine interest in children, who works under supervision on the daily running of the household. The mother’s help will have at least 1 year relevant experience and / or a qualification. Duties regarding children will be according to their experience, the type of household and the ages of the children. An extra hand rather than someone who takes charge. Depending on the childcare responsibilities expected, they will be able to help around the house with light housework and run errands. If she is experienced and confident enough, she can take sole charge of the children at times. Unlike most nannies, a mothers help will normally do some light housework (dusting, hoovering etc).
Nanny – A nanny is a qualified and / or experienced childcarer who works in the setting of the family’s home, either live-in or out. The nanny is able to assume the responsibility of sole charge of young children. They are professionals and therefore expect a permanent contract with normal working conditions i.e. annual salary plus bonuses, overtime, paid holiday and their salary is subject to national insurance etc. Apart from doing childcare, they will usually only assist with child-related housework.
Companion – We can also source companions for elderly clients. A companion would offer company and non-medical care and assistance around the home for example cooking, light chores, shopping and accompanying to appointments. The application process and terms would be similar to that of an au pair.
Please note that, for 2019-20, UK income tax is payable on income over £12,500 per annum.
Families are responsible for ensuring income tax and National Insurance contributions are paid, if applicable.
Please check with the HMRC for further information on income tax and National Insurance thresholds (website https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs).
Click here to register to find an Au Pair
hello@eastmidlandsnanniesandaupairs.co.uk
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NG23 6DF
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Terms & Conditions | Cookies Policy | Privacy Policy | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1105 |
__label__cc | 0.729353 | 0.270647 | CULTURE OF QURAN
Dersin Koordinatörü Prof.Dr. ALİCAN DAĞDEVİREN
Students will examine the concepts, subjects and works of the Qur´an.
Concepts, subjects and works related to the Qur´an.
1 - Recognize the general characteristics of the Qur´an . 1 - 2 - A - C -
2 - Explane the nature of revelation, its forms and the sides related to it. 1 - 2 - 3 - A - C -
3 - Identify the meaning, definition, descending, names and divisions of the Qur´an. 1 - 2 - 3 - A - C -
4 - Evaluate the Qur´an´s recovery process, its reading and the issue of Seven Letters. 1 - 2 - 3 - A - C -
5 - Distinguish the concepts of Tafsir, Ta´vil, Terceme and Meal. 1 - 2 - 3 - A - C -
6 - Describe the concepts, subjects and works belonged to the history of Qur´an. 1 - 2 - 3 - A - C -
1 What is the Quran? What are the differences between the hadith and holy Qur´an?
2 Concepts of the Qur´an Verse, Sura, Juz, Mushaf and so on.
3 Nature of revelation and the beginning and varieties of Revelation-Prophet relationship, the revelation gradualism.
4 The arrival of the Qur´an and complete.
5 Bringing the Qur´an as a book and Propagation.
6 Makki-Madani and the occasions of revelation.
7 The opening parts of the surahs and Qur´anic stories.
8 The uniqueness of the Quran.
9 Difficult passages in the Qur´an.
10 Content of the Qur´an.
11 Main themes of the Qur´an.
12 Holy Qur´an Divine Kalam.
13 Tafsir and Meal of the Qur´an.
14 The virtues of the Qur´an.
Paçacı, Mehmet, Introduction to the Qur'an, İSAM yay., İstanbul, 2010.
Odev 1 5
PerformansGoreviUygulama 1 1
Performance Task (Application) 2 10 20 | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1108 |
__label__wiki | 0.612079 | 0.612079 | Republican Party presents legislation to combat violence against women
By DFWatch staff| 2017-01-13T03:42:31+00:00 January 13th, 2017|Categories: Crime|Tags: femicide, Republican party, violence against women|
TBILISI, DFWatch–In the former Soviet republic Georgia, the Republican Party has proposed legislation that will make femicide a separate crime – a gender-based hate crime which is causing alarm in the country. The Republicans, a party formed by Soviet dissenters in the 1970s, […]
75% of murdered women were stalked for a year: Report
By DFWatch staff| 2016-12-15T06:49:00+00:00 December 15th, 2016|Categories: Society|Tags: femicide, lawyer Mari Kurtanidze, Safari, violence against women|
(DFWatch.) TBILISI, DFWatch–75% of women who are murdered in Georgia were stalked by the murderer for 12 months prior to their death, according to a new report. This shocking statistic appears in a new report by the feminist group Safari, which urges the government to use its new […]
Woman shot and killed by ex-husband
By DFWatch staff| 2016-12-12T21:05:45+00:00 December 12th, 2016|Categories: Crime|Tags: family violence, femicide, violence against women|
(Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–A woman died in Georgia’s eastern Kakheti region on Friday after being shot in the head by her ex-husband. The incident happened as the man visited the victim’s house, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) said on Saturday. During an argument […]
Convention to combat violence against women still not ratified after two years
By DFWatch staff| 2016-12-07T05:33:04+00:00 December 7th, 2016|Categories: News|Tags: family violence, violence against women|
TBILISI, DFWatch–In 2014, Georgia signed an international convention to end violence against women and impunity of perpetrators, but two years later the country has still not ratified it. After Justice Minister Thea Tsulukiani had signed the Istanbul Convention on […]
13 women killed in family violence so far in 2016
By DFWatch staff| 2016-11-29T17:22:47+00:00 November 29th, 2016|Categories: News|Tags: Ucha Nanuashvili, violence against women|
TBILISI, DFWatch–New grim figures from Georgia’s ombudsman show that 13 women have been killed in family violence during the first ten months of 2016. In some cases, the police were alerted in advance, but did not intervene. Public Defender Ucha Nanuashvili spoke Friday about […]
Women in Tbilisi say: We won’t give away the night
By Mari Nikuradze| 2016-11-26T14:49:10+00:00 November 26th, 2016|Categories: News|Tags: violence against women|
(DFWatch.) TBILISI, DFWatch–Women carried dresses and skirts as flags through central Tbilisi on Friday to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The march was organized by Movement of Women and began from Pushkin Square in the center toward the police station. […]
29-year-old man arrested for beating his 15-year-old wife
By DFWatch staff| 2016-11-05T05:31:09+00:00 November 5th, 2016|Categories: News|Tags: early marriage, Eliso Rukhadze, violence against women|
(Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–A 29-year-old man was arrested a few days ago in Georgia for beating his 15-year-old wife. The young victim’s mother says her underage daughter has broken teeth, broken ribs and a broken nose after suffering systematic abuse at the hands of her husband. […]
Policeman’s wife shot in the head, case investigated as suicide attempt
By DFWatch staff| 2016-10-07T15:18:00+00:00 October 7th, 2016|Categories: Crime|Tags: violence against women|
Kutaisi central hospital. (Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–A policeman’s wife is in hospital in Kutaisi, fighting for her life after being shot in the head with her husband’s gun Thursday evening. Authorities are investigating the case as a suicide attempt. Early media reports indicated that the policeman […]
Femicide bill rejected by Georgian parliament’s human rights committee
By DFWatch staff| 2016-06-07T15:27:28+00:00 June 7th, 2016|Categories: News|Tags: femicide, violence against women|
Tamar Kordzaia (pictured) and Tamar Khidasheli proposed the femicide bill. (Photo published by Georgian Dream.) TBILISI, DFWatch–The human rights committee in parliament on Monday rejected a proposal by two MPs from the majority faction to make femicide a crime. It would have taken seven votes for the committee to approve the draft. Only three voted for it; […]
Woman hotel worker murdered in Tbilisi
By DFWatch staff| 2016-06-07T01:27:33+00:00 June 7th, 2016|Categories: In brief|Tags: violence against women|
TBILISI, DFWatch–A woman was shot outside a hotel in Isani on the outskirts of Tbilisi on Monday. She was taken to hospital with serious injuries but later died at the hospital. The woman was working in the kitchen […]
MPs propose making femicide a separate crime
By DFWatch staff| 2016-05-04T11:15:19+00:00 May 4th, 2016|Categories: News|Tags: femicide, Tamar Khidasheli, Tamar Kordzaia, violence against women|
Tamar Khidasheli. (Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–Two MPs from the parliamentary majority have proposed adding to the Criminal Code a separate offense called femicide, which is the premeditated murder of a woman on the basis of her gender. The bill sets punishment […]
Man arrested in Tbilisi for slitting wife’s throat
News, Society
By DFWatch staff| 2016-05-30T22:52:10+00:00 April 15th, 2016|Categories: News, Society|Tags: violence against women|
(DF Watch.) TBILISI, DFWatch–A man was arrested a Tbilisi suburb Wednesday, suspected of slitting his wife’s throat with a knife. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, an investigation has been launched under article 108 of the Criminal Code about premeditated murder. […]
Ombudsman highlights remaining challenges on Women’s Day
By DFWatch staff| 2016-03-08T16:50:18+00:00 March 8th, 2016|Categories: News|Tags: 8 March, taxi drivers assaulting women, violence against women, women's quota in parliament, women's rights|
Ucha Nanuashvili. (Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–On the International Women’s Day, Georgia’s Public Defender highlighted problems related to protection of women’s labor rights, supporting women’s participation in decision-making and elimination of violence against women. Ucha Nanuashvili […]
Activists demand investigation into woman’s tragic death
By DFWatch staff| 2015-09-20T01:22:50+00:00 September 20th, 2015|Categories: News|Tags: violence against women|
(Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–Demonstrators Friday called for a proper investigation into an Azerbaijani woman’s suicide last year. The demonstrators outside the Prosecutor’s Office were raising awareness about the case of Khanum Jeiranova (30), an ethnic Azeri […]
Public Defender criticizes TV exposé about virginity
By DFWatch staff| 2015-07-29T17:14:29+00:00 July 29th, 2015|Categories: News|Tags: Ucha Nanuashvili, violence against women, virginity|
(Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–Georgia’s Public Defender has criticized a TV report concerning a family conflict which for openly reporting about the personal life of a young couple. The report was aired Sunday on Imedi TV and describes a newlywed couple living in the northwest […]
Exposé about young bride’s virginity causes outrage in Georgia
By DFWatch staff| 2015-07-29T17:05:46+00:00 July 29th, 2015|Categories: News|Tags: violence against women|
(Imedi.) TBILISI, DFWatch–The question of whether a bride must be a virgin has become a hotly debated topic in Georgia after a man beat his new young wife after the wedding. The report shown on Imedi TV on Sunday also revived a discussion of how journalist go about […]
Justice Ministry proposes bill for stronger protection of women
By DFWatch staff| 2015-06-21T01:28:39+00:00 June 21st, 2015|Categories: News|Tags: violence against women|
Justice Minister Thea Tsulukiani. (Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–The Justice Ministry in Georgia has introduced a package of legislative amendments to prevent violence against women. The amendments apply to about 20 different sections of laws and will target illegal spying, communication by phone or by […]
27 year old woman killed by ‘jealous’ co-worker
By DFWatch staff| 2015-03-20T03:11:52+00:00 March 20th, 2015|Categories: News|Tags: Bodbiskhevi, violence against women|
(ICK.) TBILISI, DFWatch–A 36 year old man shot and killed a 27 year old woman and afterward took his own life in the village Bodbiskhevi in eastern Georgia, International Center of Kakheti (ICK) reports. The news service does not specify when the murder happened. […]
Every third woman in Georgia has experienced domestic abuse
By Inga Popovaite| 2015-03-19T13:34:28+00:00 March 19th, 2015|Categories: News|Tags: Anti-Violence Network of Georgia (AVNG), Nana Chabukiani, Salome Chagelishvili, violence against women|
From left to right: Inga Popovaite, Nana Chabukiani and Salome Chagelishvili. (DF Watch.) TBILISI, DFWatch–Every third woman in Georgian has been victim of domestic abuse, but it is not socially accepted to discuss it outside the family. We sat down to talk about the problem with Salome Chagelishvili from Anti-Violence Network of Georgia (AVNG), an […]
Georgian president speaks out against discrimination
By DFWatch staff| 2015-03-02T03:33:21+00:00 March 2nd, 2015|Categories: In brief|Tags: discrimination of sexual minorities, United Nation’s Zero Discrimination Day, violence against women|
President Giorgi Margvelashvili. (Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–President Giorgi Margvelashvili on Sunday highlighted the most pressing problems Georgia faces in terms of discrimination, as he observed United Nation’s Zero Discrimination Day. He drew particular attention to violence against women and […]
Woman shot and run over with car by husband in Georgia
By DFWatch staff| 2014-12-10T14:39:34+00:00 December 10th, 2014|Categories: News|Tags: violence against women|
(Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–A 41-year old woman was killed by her husband in Kakheti on Sunday. According to local media, a 41 year old man first shot his wife and later ran her over with his car. She died instantly. Police detained the suspect at the crime scene. He is charged […]
Respect will not save women from violence
By Inga Popovaite| 2014-12-06T15:10:24+00:00 December 5th, 2014|Categories: Opinion|Tags: violence against women|
Arguably the most influential person in Georgia, the Patriarch Ilia II, does not agree that a woman should be equal to a man in a family. Instead “she must be respected by her husband. She [a wife] has been always holding high authority in Georgia, and so it shall […]
Campaign launched in Georgia against domestic violence
By Mari Nikuradze| 2014-11-26T18:06:48+00:00 November 26th, 2014|Categories: Society|Tags: violence against women|
“The state has a duty to protect women against violence.” (DF Watch photo.) TBILISI, DFWatch–There were demonstrations in 22 cities and towns all over Georgia on Tuesday to highlight the problem of violence against women. 24 women have been killed this year in Georgia, and there are many reports of family conflicts, when women […]
Prisoners’ handicraft exhibition dedicated to violence against women
By DFWatch staff| 2014-11-08T13:24:11+00:00 November 8th, 2014|Categories: Society|Tags: handicraft made by prisoners, stf, violence against women|
(DF Watch photo.) TBILISI, DFWatch–Handicraft made by prisoners went on sale at an exhibition at Radisson Blu Iveria hotel in Tbilisi on Friday dedicated to the International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women. The works at the exhibition ‘Creation Work for Dignity’ were made by […]
First lady and ministers perform in ‘Women wounded to death’
By DFWatch staff| 2014-10-30T22:38:08+00:00 October 29th, 2014|Categories: Society|Tags: Federica Favi, Maka Chichua, performance 'Women wounded to death', violence against women|
The president’s wife Maka Chichua performing Tuesday at Marjanishvili Theater. (Palitra.) TBILISI, DFWatch–Georgia’s first lady and several government ministers took part in a theater performance on Tuesday dedicated to women who have been victims of violence. The title of the performance, held at Marjanishvili Theater, was ‘Women wounded to death’ […]
Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women
By Sarah Delys| 2014-10-27T17:51:35+00:00 October 27th, 2014|Categories: Opinion|Tags: Sarah Delys, violence against women|
Sarah Delys is a criminologist working for Human Rights Education and Monitoring Centre in Tbilisi. Two weeks ago the weekend news was dominated by cases of acts of violence against women. Especially the murder at Ilia State University on October 17 and the subsequent media reports of other cases of domestic violence over the course of two days spurred the debate. […]
Violence against women highlighted at demonstration in Tbilisi
By DFWatch staff| 2014-10-21T21:13:52+00:00 October 21st, 2014|Categories: News|Tags: violence against women|
(Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–Demonstrators gathered outside the government office on Tuesday to demand better protection of women after what they claim is 23 killings of women this year in incidents of domestic violence. It is not known who organized the demonstration, but it […]
String of violent incidents fuels crime debate in Georgia
By DFWatch staff| 2014-10-19T22:11:36+00:00 October 19th, 2014|Categories: News|Tags: violence against women|
(Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–After a lecturer was murdered in the corridor of a Tbilisi university on Friday, there have been more reports of domestic violence across Georgia, leaving one woman dead and one man in a critical condition in a separate incident. In Tbilisi, a patrol police […]
Man shoots ex-wife, then kills himself at Tbilisi university
(Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–A lecturer was shot dead by her former husband at Ilia State University (ISU) in Tbilisi on Friday. The murderer committed suicide on the spot. Maka Tsivtsivadze was holding an English lecture, when she was visited by her former husband. He called […]
A red ghost of virginity
By Inga Popovaite| 2014-10-10T16:09:59+00:00 October 10th, 2014|Categories: Opinion|Tags: violence against women|
(Interpressnews.) “Inga, can I stay with you for a week? Something terrible happened.” This is a message I got from a close friend earlier this week. Apparently, she went out with her friends and did not hear her brother calling. Then, in the middle of the night, her brother and her […]
Women used as percussion instruments on TV show
News, Youth
By DFWatch staff| 2014-07-12T03:12:36+00:00 July 11th, 2014|Categories: News, Youth|Tags: Bina 18, violence against women|
The TV show Bina 18 had a musical performance involving two women’s bottoms. TBILISI, DFWatch–A TV show on Thursday has stirred controversy for showing a man performing music by slapping his hands on the bottoms of two women. Human rights activists as well as the ombudsman say […]
Violence against women increasing in Georgia, group claims
By DFWatch staff| 2014-05-26T15:17:32+00:00 May 26th, 2014|Categories: News|Tags: Identoba, violence against women|
The group Identoba claims violence against women is on the rise in Georgia, and that legislation meant to protect women is ignored. (Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–The rights group Identoba held a demonstration Saturday outside the government office to highlight the problem of violence against women. The organization, which is most known for having organized a gay rights rally in May 2013 which was attacked […]
Family tragedy highlights violence against women
By DFWatch staff| 2014-05-23T03:30:44+00:00 May 23rd, 2014|Categories: News|Tags: Ochkhamuri, violence against women|
(Interpressnews.) TBILISI, DFWatch–A family tragedy has shocked Georgia and brought attention to the problem of violence against women. It appears that a Georgian man first killed his pregnant wife and then took his own life. The tragic incident unfolded in the village Ochkhamuri, […] | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1114 |
__label__cc | 0.547964 | 0.452036 | Home > Criss Library > ARCHIVES & SPECIAL COLLECTIONS > PAUL > DIGITIZEDNEWSPAPERS > KARAWAN > 702
Kārawān
Kārawān, v. 003, no. 143 - 293, 267
ʻAbd al-Hạqq Val̄ah
Ṣabāḥ al-Dīn Kushkakī
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The numbers in the title refers to a file name, 1971_v3_143-293_267.pdf, and are not necessarily illustrative of this publication's volume/ issue number. Translation pending.
Editor: 1968- 'Abd al-Haqq Val̄ah.
Title transliterated into English : Caravan.
Lumray kal̄, lumṛay ganạh [vol. 1, no. 1] (Miz̄an̄ 1, 1347 [Sept. 24, 1968])-
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Sạbahuddin̄ Kushkaki
Kab̄ul
Newspapers, Afghanistan Periodicals, Afghanistan, Periodicals
Asian History | History
Funding for the digitization and online access to issues of Kārawān was provided by the generous support of Fran and Will Irwin.
This cataloging record is available at https://unomaha.on.worldcat.org/oclc/18862823.
Val̄ah, ʻAbd al-Hạqq and Kushkakī, Ṣabāḥ al-Dīn, "Kārawān, v. 003, no. 143 - 293, 267" (1971). Kārawān. 702.
https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/karawan/702
Asian History Commons | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1118 |
__label__wiki | 0.530273 | 0.530273 | Flosstradamus Feat. TroyBoi – ‘Soundclash’
Harrison Williams
It's clear from their recent release that Flosstradamus have been hunkered down in the studio, churning up some tasty tunes for our listening pleasure. Their newest single is a wonky trap banger that continues the Flosstradamus tradition of blending hip-hop oriented rhythms and bringing them into the realm of electronic dance music. Tight production and an ear for hard-hitting beats are what made Flosstradamus a household name and they have followed through with every release since their emergence.
From major collaborations with heavy-weights like Diplo, A-Trak and DJ Snake to remixes for diverse artists like Steve Aoki and Krewella, Flosstradamus have worked hard to tap into the dance culture and grow their sound. It’s amazing to look back three years when they first stepped onto the scene with their debut Jubilation EP followed by the iconic remix of Major Lazer’s "Original Don" that would become a trap anthem. Now the duo have teamed up with South London’s best kept secret TroyBoi for another massive trap release that rekindles the fire that made Flosstradamus the leading trendsetters they are today. Pick up "Soundclash" on iTunes.
Be sure to catch Flosstradamus kicking off their FLOSSVEGAS residency at Surrender Nightclub this Spring and also tearing up the stage at BUKU Music Festival and Coachella. Check out the dates below!
Flosstradamus Dates:
Feb 20 - Las Vegas, NV - Surrender Nightclub
Mar 6 - Las Vegas, NV - Surrender Nightclub
Mar 11 - Las Vegas, NV - Surrender Nightclub
Mar 13 - New Orleans, LA - BUKU Music & Art Project
Mar 13 - New Orleans, LA - Republic New Orleans
Apr 11 - Indio, CA - Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival
Apr 24 - Las Vegas, NV - Surrender Nightclub
May 7 - Las Vegas, NV - Encore Beach Club
May 30 - Las Vegas, NV - Surrender Nightclub
July 3 - Las Vegas, NV - Surrender Nightclub
July 11 - Las Vegas, NV - Surrender Nightclub
Aug 29 - Las Vegas, NV - Surrender Nightclub
Sep 26 - Las Vegas, NV - Surrender Nightclub
Oct 24 - Las Vegas, NV - Surrender Nightclub
Filed Under: flosstradamus | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1119 |
__label__cc | 0.638868 | 0.361132 | [[missing key: search-facet.tree.open-section]] Clinical Overview (16)
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Short stature x
Phosphate matters when investigating hypercalcemia: a mutation in SLC34A3 causing HHRH
Andrew R Tang, Laura E Hinz, Aneal Khan and Gregory A Kline
Hereditary hypophosphatemic rickets with hypercalciuria (HHRH) is a rare, autosomal recessive disorder caused by mutations in the SLC34A3 gene that encodes the renal sodium-dependent phosphate cotransporter 2c (NaPi-IIc). It may present as intermittent mild hypercalcemia which may attract initial diagnostic attention but appreciation of concomitant hypophosphatemia is critical for consideration of the necessary diagnostic approach. A 21-year-old woman was assessed by adult endocrinology for low bone mass. She initially presented age two with short stature, nephrocalcinosis and mild intermittent hypercalcemia with hypercalciuria. She had no evidence of medullary sponge kidney or Fanconi syndrome and no bone deformities, pain or fractures. She had recurrent episodes of nephrolithiasis. In childhood, she was treated with hydrochlorothiazide to reduce urinary calcium. Upon review of prior investigations, she had persistent hypophosphatemia with phosphaturia, low PTH and a high-normal calcitriol. A diagnosis of HHRH was suspected and genetic testing confirmed a homozygous c.1483G>A (p.G495R) missense mutation of the SLC34A3 gene. She was started on oral phosphate replacement which normalized her serum phosphate, serum calcium and urine calcium levels over the subsequent 5 years. HHRH is an autosomal recessive condition that causes decreased renal reabsorption of phosphate, leading to hyperphosphaturia, hypophosphatemia and PTH-independent hypercalcemia due to the physiologic increase in calcitriol which also promotes hypercalciuria. Classically, patients present in childhood with bone pain, vitamin D-independent rickets and growth delay. This case of a SLC34A3 mutation illustrates the importance of investigating chronic hypophosphatemia even in the presence of other more common electrolyte abnormalities.
Learning points:
Hypophosphatemia is an important diagnostic clue that should not be ignored, even in the face of more common electrolyte disorders.
HHRH is a cause of PTH-independent hypophosphatemia that may also show hypercalcemia.
HHRH is a cause of hypophosphatemic nephrocalcinosis that should not be treated with calcitriol, unlike other congenital phosphate wasting syndromes.
Some congenital phosphate wasting disorders may not present until adolescence or early adulthood.
Hypercalcitoninaemia in pseudohypoparathyroidism type 1A and type 1B
Maria P Yavropoulou, Efstathios Chronopoulos, George Trovas, Emmanouil Avramidis, Francesca Marta Elli, Giovanna Mantovani, Pantelis Zebekakis and John G Yovos
Pseudohypoparathyroidism (PHP) is a heterogeneous group of rare endocrine disorders characterised by normal renal function and renal resistance to the action of the parathyroid hormone. Type 1A (PHP1A), which is the most common variant, also include developmental and skeletal defects named as Albright hereditary osteodystrophy (AHO). We present two cases, a 54- and a 33-year-old male diagnosed with PHP who were referred to us for persistently high levels of serum calcitonin. AHO and multinodular goitre were present in the 54-year-old male, while the second patient was free of skeletal deformities and his thyroid gland was of normal size and without nodular appearance. We performed GNAS molecular analysis (methylation status and copy number analysis by MS-MLPA) in genomic DNA samples for both patients. The analysis revealed a novel missense variant c.131T>G p.(Leu44Pro) affecting GNAS exon 1, in the patient with the clinical diagnosis of PHP1A. This amino acid change appears to be in accordance with the clinical diagnosis of the patient. The genomic DNA analysis of the second patient revealed the presence of the recurrent 3-kb deletion affecting the imprinting control region localised in the STX16 region associated with the loss of methylation (LOM) at the GNAS A/B differentially methylated region and consistent with the diagnosis of an autosomal dominant form of PHP type 1B (PHP1B). In conclusion, hypercalcitoninaemia may be encountered in PHP1A and PHP1B even in the absence of thyroid pathology.
We describe a novel missense variant c.131T>G p.(Leu44Pro) affecting GNAS exon 1 as the cause of PHP1A.
Hypercalcitoninaemia in PHP1A is considered an associated resistance to calcitonin, as suggested by the generalised impairment of Gsα-mediated hormone signalling.
GNAS methylation defects, as in type PHP1B, without thyroid pathology can also present with hypercalcitoninaemia.
Growth hormone deficiency as a cause for short stature in Wiedemann–Steiner Syndrome
George Stoyle, Siddharth Banka, Claire Langley, Elizabeth A Jones and Indraneel Banerjee
Wiedemann–Steiner Syndrome (WSS) is a rare condition characterised by short stature, hypertrichosis of the elbow, intellectual disability and characteristic facial dysmorphism due to heterozygous loss of function mutations in KMT2A, a gene encoding a histone 3 lysine 4 methyltransferase. Children with WSS are often short and until recently, it had been assumed that short stature is an intrinsic part of the syndrome. GHD has recently been reported as part of the phenotypic spectrum of WSS. We describe the case of an 8-year-old boy with a novel heterozygous variant in KMT2A and features consistent with a diagnosis of WSS who also had growth hormone deficiency (GHD). GHD was diagnosed on dynamic function testing for growth hormone (GH) secretion, low insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) levels and pituitary-specific MRI demonstrating anterior pituitary hypoplasia and an ectopic posterior pituitary. Treatment with GH improved height performance with growth trajectory being normalised to the parental height range. Our case highlights the need for GH testing in children with WSS and short stature as treatment with GH improves growth trajectory.
Growth hormone deficiency might be part of the phenotypic spectrum of Wiedemann–Steiner Syndrome (WSS).
Investigation of pituitary function should be undertaken in children with WSS and short stature. A pituitary MR scan should be considered if there is biochemical evidence of growth hormone deficiency (GHD).
Recombinant human growth hormone treatment should be considered for treatment of GHD.
Achondroplasia with SRY-positive 46, XX disorder of sex development: an extremely rare association
Yang Timothy Du, Angus Rutter and Jui T Ho
A 40-year-old man with achondroplasia presented with symptoms of hypogonadism, low libido and gynaecomastia. He was found to have hypergonadotropic hypogonadism, and karyotype and fluorescent in situ hybridisation analysis showed SRY-positive 46, XX disorder of sex development (DSD). He was tested to have the common activating mutation of the FGFR3 gene implicated in achondroplasia, indicating that he had the two rare conditions independently, with an extremely low incidence of 1 in 400 million. This, to the best of our knowledge, is the first report of an individual having these two rare conditions concurrently. This case highlights that individuals with achondroplasia should have normal sexual development, and in those presenting with incomplete sexual maturation or symptoms of hypogonadism should prompt further evaluation. We also propose a plausible link between achondroplasia and 46, XX DSD through the intricate interactions between the SRY, SOX9 and FGFR9 gene pathways.
The SOX9 and FGF9 genes, which are upregulated by the SRY gene, are important in both sex determination in the embryo, as well as endochondral bone growth.
Patients with achondroplasia should have normal sexual development and function in the absence of other confounding factors.
Patients with achondroplasia who present with symptoms and signs of abnormal sexual development and/or hypogonadism should be appropriately investigated for other causes.
Brachydactyly mental retardation syndrome with growth hormone deficiency
Alireza Arefzadeh, Pooyan Khalighinejad, Bahar Ataeinia and Pegah Parvar
Deletion of chromosome 2q37 results in a rare congenital syndrome known as brachydactyly mental retardation (BDMR) syndrome; a syndrome which has phenotypes similar to Albright hereditary osteodystrophy (AHO) syndrome. In this report, we describe a patient with AHO due to microdeletion in long arm of chromosome 2 [del(2)(q37.3)] who had growth hormone (GH) deficiency, which is a unique feature among reported BDMR cases. This case was presented with shortening of the fourth and fifth metacarpals which along with AHO phenotype, brings pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (PPHP) and pseudohypoparathyroidism type Ia (PHP-Ia) to mind; however, a genetic study revealed del(2)(q37.3). We recommend clinicians to take BDMR in consideration when they are faced with the features of AHO; although this syndrome is a rare disease, it should be ruled out while diagnosing PPHP or PHP-Ia. Moreover, we recommend evaluation of IGF 1 level and GH stimulation test in patients with BDMR whose height is below the 3rd percentile.
Clinicians must have brachydactyly mental retardation (BDMR) syndrome in consideration when they are faced with the features of Albright hereditary osteodystrophy.
Although BDMR syndrome is a rare disease, it should be ruled out while diagnosing PPHP or PHP-Ia.
Evaluation of IGF1 level in patients diagnosed with BDMR whose height is below the 3rd percentile is important.
Successful use of cinacalcet to treat parathyroid-related hypercalcemia in two pediatric patients
E Mogas, A Campos-Martorell, M Clemente, L Castaño, A Moreno-Galdó, D Yeste and A Carrascosa
Two pediatric patients with different causes of hyperparathyroidism are reported. First patient is a 13-year-old male with severe hypercalcemia due to left upper parathyroid gland adenoma. After successful surgery, calcium and phosphate levels normalized, but parathormone levels remained elevated. Further studies revealed a second adenoma in the right gland. The second patient is a 13-year-old female with uncommon hypercalcemia symptoms. Presence of pathogenic calcium-sensing receptor gene (CASR) mutation was found, resulting in diagnosis of symptomatic familial hypocalciuric hypercalcemia. Cinacalcet, a calcium-sensing agent that increases the sensitivity of the CASR, was used in both patients with successful results.
Hyperparathyroidism is a rare condition in pediatric patients. If not treated, it can cause serious morbidity.
Genetic tests searching for CASR or MEN1 gene mutations in pediatric patients with primary hyperparathyroidism should be performed.
Cinacalcet has been effective for treating different causes of hyperparathyroidism in our two pediatric patients.
Treatment has been well tolerated and no side effects have been detected.
Growth trajectory and pubertal tempo from birth till final height in a girl with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome
Jia Xuan Siew and Fabian Yap
Growth anomaly is a prominent feature in Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome (WHS), a rare congenital disorder caused by variable deletion of chromosome 4p. While growth charts have been developed for WHS patients 0–4 years of age and growth data available for Japanese WHS patients 0–17 years, information on pubertal growth and final height among WHS children remain lacking. Growth hormone (GH) therapy has been reported in two GH-sufficient children with WHS, allowing for pre-puberty catch up growth; however, pubertal growth and final height information was also unavailable. We describe the complete growth journey of a GH-sufficient girl with WHS from birth until final height (FH), in relation to her mid parental height (MPH) and target range (TR). Her growth trajectory and pubertal changes during childhood, when she was treated with growth hormone (GH) from 3 years 8 months old till 6 months post-menarche at age 11 years was fully detailed.
Pubertal growth characteristics and FH information in WHS is lacking.
While pre-pubertal growth may be improved by GH, GH therapy may not translate to improvement in FH in WHS patients.
Longitudinal growth, puberty and FH data of more WHS patients may improve the understanding of growth in its various phases (infancy/childhood/puberty).
A rare cause of primary adrenal insufficiency due to a homozygous Arg188Cys mutation in the STAR gene
Lukas Burget, Laura Audí Parera, Monica Fernandez-Cancio, Rolf Gräni, Christoph Henzen and Christa E Flück
Steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (STAR) is a key protein for the intracellular transport of cholesterol to the mitochondrium in endocrine organs (e.g. adrenal gland, ovaries, testes) and essential for the synthesis of all steroid hormones. Several mutations have been described and the clinical phenotype varies strongly and may be grouped into classic lipoid congenital adrenal hyperplasia (LCAH), in which all steroidogenesis is disrupted, and non-classic LCAH, which resembles familial glucocorticoid deficiency (FGD), which affects predominantly adrenal functions. Classic LCAH is characterized by early and potentially life-threatening manifestation of primary adrenal insufficiency (PAI) with electrolyte disturbances and 46,XY disorder of sex development (DSD) in males as well as lack of pubertal development in both sexes. Non-classic LCAH manifests usually later in life with PAI. Nevertheless, life-long follow-up of gonadal function is warranted. We describe a 26-year-old female patient who was diagnosed with PAI early in life without detailed diagnostic work-up. At the age of 14 months, she presented with hyperpigmentation, elevated ACTH and low cortisol levels. As her older brother was diagnosed with PAI two years earlier, she was put on hydrocortisone and fludrocortisone replacement therapy before an Addisonian crisis occurred. Upon review of her case in adulthood, consanguinity was noted in the family. Genetic analysis for PAI revealed a homozygous mutation in the STAR gene (c.562C>T, p.Arg188Cys) in both siblings. This mutation has been previously described in non-classic LCAH. This case illustrates that early onset, familial PAI is likely due to autosomal recessive genetic mutations in known genes causing PAI.
In childhood-onset PAI, a genetic cause is most likely, especially in families with consanguinity.
Adult patients with an etiologically unsolved PAI should be reviewed repeatedly and genetic work-up should be considered.
Knowing the exact genetic diagnosis in PAI is essential for genetic counselling and may allow disease-specific treatment.
Young men and women with NCLAH due to homozygous STAR Arg188Cys mutation should be investigated for their gonadal function as hypogonadism and infertility might occur during puberty or in early adulthood.
Growth hormone insensitivity: Mexican case report
I Castilla-Cortazar, J R De Ita, G A Aguirre, M García–Magariño, I Martín-Estal, V J Lara-Diaz and M I Elizondo
Herein, we present a 14-year-old patient with short stature (134 cm) referred from Paediatrics to our department for complementary evaluation since growth hormone (GH) treatment failed to show any improvement. He was born premature and small for gestational age. Genital examination classified the patient as Tanner I–II with small penis and testicular size for his age. Biochemical analyses revealed normal GH levels with low serum insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1). Molecular diagnosis confirmed several mutations in IGF1R and IGFALS, and so he was diagnosed with Laron Syndrome or GH insensibility and treated with IGF-1 substitutive therapy.
Evaluation of the GH/IGF-1 axis when short stature does not respond to conservative treatment must be included in the ordinary practice.
Laron Syndrome real incidence should be calculated once undiagnosed cases arise, as treatment, due to lack of market, is unaffordable.
Even when adulthood is reached, and no longitudinal growth can be achieved, still IGF-1 treatment in Laron Syndrome patients should be pursued as metabolic and protective derangements could arise.
A surprising treatment response in a patient with rare isolated growth hormone deficiency, type IB
Jordan Yardain Amar, Kimberly Borden, Elizabeth Watson and Talin Arslanian
Isolated Growth Hormone Deficiency (IGHD) is a rare cause of short stature, treated with the standard regimen of subcutaneous synthetic growth hormone (GH). Patients typically achieve a maximum height velocity in the first year of treatment, which then tapers shortly after treatment is stopped. We report a case of a 9-year-old male who presented with short stature (<3rd percentile for age and race). Basal hormone levels showed undetectable serum IGF1. Skeletal wrist age was consistent with chronologic age. Cranial MRI revealed no masses or lesions. Provocative arginine-GH stimulation testing demonstrated a peak GH level of 1.4 ng/mL. Confirmatory genetic testing revealed a rare autosomal recessive single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) with mutational frequency of 2%. GH supplementation was started and pursued for 2 years, producing dramatically increased height velocity. This velocity persisted linearly through adolescence, several years after treatment had been discontinued. Final adult height was >95th percentile for age and race. In conclusion, this is a case of primary hypopituitarism with differential diagnosis of IGHD vs Idiopathic Short Stature vs Constitutional Growth Delay. This case supports two objectives: Firstly, it highlights the importance of confirmatory genetic testing in patients with suspected, though diagnostically uncertain, IGHD. Secondly, it demonstrates a novel secondary growth pattern with implications for better understanding the tremendous variability of GH treatment response.
GHD is a common cause of growth retardation, and IGHD is a specific subtype of GHD in which patients present solely with short stature.
The standard treatment for IGHD is subcutaneous synthetic GH until mid-parental height is reached, with peak height velocity attained in the 1st year of treatment in the vast majority of patients.
Genetic testing should be strongly considered in cases of diagnostic uncertainty prior to initiating treatment.
Future investigations of GH treatment response that stratify by gene and specific mutation will help guide treatment decisions.
Response to treatment in patients with IGHD is variable, with some patients demonstrating little to no response, while others are ‘super-responders.’ | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1129 |
__label__cc | 0.505052 | 0.494948 | Yūgen
In a white lace universe
by eirini | 19 Jul 2019
In a white lace universe, three inventors create machine which are both pretty and useful. Unfortunately people do not understand them…
“ Les Trois Inventeurs” (“The Three Inventors”) is a beautiful 1980 papercut animation film about a family of inventors that build amazing machines but are misunderstood by others. It’s the story of an encounter between the soaring joy of creativity and the destructive nature of fear.
The film was directed and animated by Michel Ocelot a French writer,designer,storyboard artist and director of animated films.
His œuvre is characterised by having worked in a variety of animation techniques, typically employing a different medium for each new project, but almost exclusively within the genres of fairy tales and fairy tale fantasy. Some, are loose adaptations of existing folk tales, others are original stories constructed from the “building blocks” of such tales. He describes the process as “I play with balls that innumerable jugglers have already used for countless centuries. These balls, passed down from hand to hand, are not new. But today I’m the one doing the juggling.
I’m copying a paragraph from his bio ( website ) that i like a lot:
“My inspiration comes from my own life, from things I like and dislike —just like everybody else. One way to embark on a new story is to read some of that universal treasure-trove, traditional fairy tales. Whatever the story, whether inspired by an old legend or invented by me, I give it the form of a fairy-tale. This is the language that comes naturally to me. It enables me to do two things: to create something pleasing, beautiful, while at the same time passing on a clear message, without being hampered and weighed down by the obstacles of realism.”
Enjoy the film
https://www.facebook.com/eirinilachanaphotography/
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Mason Bee
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__label__wiki | 0.990003 | 0.990003 | Cheryl Burke Is Officially Returning To ‘Dancing With the Stars’ — Watch The Announcement!
By ETOnline.com. 4 Sep 2017 4:27 PM
Keystone Press
She’s back!
Cheryl Burke is the latest surprise announcement of season 25 of “Dancing With the Stars”. Her return to the competition show was announced on “Good Morning America” on Monday.
‘DWTS’ Season 25: Sharna Burgess Paired With NBA Star Derek Fisher!
“I’m back again!” she said. “Last year I danced with Ryan Lochte, but it’s been a season that I’ve missed so far. This is my 20th season, and I’m just so happy to be back. It’s an anniversary season for ‘Dancing With the Stars’ — season 25 — and for me.”
When asked by Ginger Zee of “GMA” about what’s changed since her first appearance on the show in season two, Burke admitted, “So much.”
“Just the production value, from lighting to the creative and the music and the level for sure has changed,” she noted. “I mean, I couldn’t do any of the routines I used to do back in seasons two and three. Season 25 is just going to be bigger than ever.”
“And that mirror ball trophy I hear is going to be amazing, and I need it,” she added. “Going to be fighting for that!”
Welcome back @CherylBurke! It's her 20th season of @DancingABC! #DWTS #DancingOnGMA https://t.co/T3gtmmd6PF pic.twitter.com/oaW8dVaja7
— Good Morning America (@GMA) September 4, 2017
The 33-year-old dancing pro also took to Twitter to share her enthusiasm. “Guess who’s back in the ballroom?! So excited for my 20th season of ‘DWTS’! I’ve got my eye on that mirror ball,” she wrote.
Guess who's back in the ballroom?!
So excited for my 20th season of #dwts! I've got my eye on that mirror ball ⭐️ #bringonthespraytans pic.twitter.com/LoYCU14kq8
— Cheryl Burke (@CherylBurke) September 4, 2017
Burke came in seventh when she last competed for the mirror ball trophy with Lochte during season 23. She left the show indefinitely to pursue other projects, like “Dance Moms” and her “Love on the Floor” tour, which has been postponed until 2018. The last time she won the competition was with celebrity partner Elliott Smith in season three, which followed her first win with Drew Lachey the season prior.
MORE: Cheryl Burke Shares Romantic Snaps From ‘Adventure of a Lifetime’ With Matthew Lawrence
The official announcement comes less than two weeks after a source told ET that Burke would be making her way back to the ballroom, noting that better money and more consistency played a factor in her decision to return to “DWTS”.
“She’s really excited to return to her roots,” the source said at the time. “She doesn’t want to let anyone down, so you can expect she will be bringing her A-game every night!”
Find out which celebs have already been announced for season 25 in the video below.
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‘The Bachelor' Enjoys A Pool Party | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1133 |
__label__cc | 0.666469 | 0.333531 | Travel award allows professor opportunity to share ideas, data, manpower with Chinese universities
Home > Blog > Travel award allows professor opportunity to share ideas, data, manpower with Chinese universities
inAcademic Departments, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Faculty, Faculty & Staff, Infrastructure & Transportation, International Initiatives, Researcher
International relationships can be incredibly beneficial to universities, allowing the partner institutions to share knowledge, resources and best practices to achieve greater results in research and education. A University of Missouri College of Engineering professor’s recent award will allow him to build upon such a relationship in China.
Bill Buttlar, the Barton Chair of Flexible Pavement Technology in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, recently received a China Great Overseas Talent Award, sponsored by Chang’An University, where Buttlar previously was an honorary visiting professor, and Beijing University of Technology.
Bill Buttlar was appointed honorary visiting professor by Chang’an University Vice President Junhai Zhao in 2014, paving the way for Buttlar’s China Great Overseas Talent Award. Photo courtesy of Chang’an University.
This five-year award will allow Buttlar to travel to China for 2-4 weeks each year to develop research collaborations, scientific exchanges and personnel exchanges between MU and the two institutions. He’ll also have access to some of China’s best and brightest engineering students, which could be an additional avenue to identify and recruit top doctoral candidates for the College of Engineering.
“It also allows me to have assistant and associate professors there (to work with), and they’ll often contact me about doing a year in residency at Mizzou,” Buttlar said.
“They bring data methods from their labs, and they’ll keep their lab going in China, so the exchange has the effect of doubling or tripling the data and resources that we have available here to conduct world-class pavement research. This will hasten our efforts to improve the condition and economics of maintaining Missouri’s roads and airports, while allowing us to publish the results in top international journals.”
Additionally, Buttlar will seek additional collaborators for his wide array of asphalt research projects and will have the opportunity to share his expertise.
“I’ll visit labs, stay in the labs, teach seminars, give keynotes and lectures,” he said. “I can travel to numerous universities and cities in China from 2-4 weeks a year as my schedule permits to pursue research collaborations and opportunities to market our research products abroad.”
Buttlar has been building relationships at Chang’An for years now and appreciates the benefits of international collaborations. The more mutually beneficial the relationship, the better it is for the field of engineering at large.
“We’re always looking for the best scholars to partner with, and we want to share our knowledge and apply our discoveries across the globe,” he said, “It expands our knowledge and speeds up the pace of innovation.”
Bill ButtlarInternational partnershipsPavements
Get smart: Phones collect critical road surface data
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Amrita University team visits MU to discuss academic collaborations | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1142 |
__label__wiki | 0.791512 | 0.791512 | Home News Government Scrambles to Keep Riel from Crashing
Government Scrambles to Keep Riel from Crashing
Jeff Smith and Kay Kimsong
Cambodia’s central bank and key ministers are scrambling to figure out ways to stabilize the country’s currency in the run-up to the scheduled July 26 elections.
Finance and commerce ministers and customs officials have been meeting in recent days to consider proposals by the National Bank of Cambodia to strengthen the riel. The currency has slid steadily since July, when it stood at 2,700 to the dollar. In the past month it has dipped noticeably, and now hovers around the 4,000 mark.
Without intervention, some experts say, the riel could drop to 5,000 by election day, repeating a pattern experienced in 1993.
That could especially hurt poorer citizens who buy commodities in riel. It also could mean higher-priced imports. The drop in the riel is less likely to affect those who buy in dollars.
Already, prices for such commodities as eggs, chicken, rice and sugar have increased by about 20 percent in recent weeks in some Phnom Penh markets.
The riel recently dropped to its lowest level since February, when it temporarily hit the 4,000 mark. It was at 3,875 on Tuesday.
National Bank officials have blamed the decline on the country’s heavy reliance on dollars, the government’s failure to collect tax revenues and an increase in the price of goods imported from Thailand. In the last case, the Thai baht has been strengthening.
“The country’s financial condition right now looks bad, but we are preparing to stop the [price] rise of goods to keep the riel stable,” said Chea Sok, general director of the National Bank.
Chea Sok said 10 proposals are on the table, many of them having to do with import-export issues and technical bank payment issues.
One proposed measure would request vendors to keep prices stable, in part by listing prices on items. In the past, the bank also has used currency auctions to support the riel.
The goal, Chea Sok said, is to agree on some measures by this weekend after at least one additional meeting.
Jean Morel, an economic adviser to the Council of Ministers, said that two or three months ago he was predicting the riel would be at 4,000 to the dollar at election day. “I’m surprised that it’s gotten there so quickly,” he said, guessing it might to 5,000 if the government doesn’t intervene.
“The finances are not so good because there’s not a lot of investors and expenditures continue to go up,” he said.
Some diplomats and economic experts are more blunt, saying the government is facing a severe cash crunch and is not far from being broke.
Aun Porn Moniroth, an adviser to the Finance Ministry, confirmed on Tuesday that Finance Minister Keat Chhon has met with key ministers to discuss what measures to take.
“Everybody knows what [the country’s financial condition is],” Aun Porn Moniroth said. But he said he wasn’t involved in the meeting, so couldn’t comment about what was discussed.
Other finance ministry officials couldn’t be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Even if the riel slides further, experts said they don’t expect that to have a big impact on post-election investment.
An economist noted that many countries experience similar situations leading up to an election, and that Cambodia’s problems may be exaggerated only because of the political uncertainty here.
Craig Martin, executive director of IMIC International, an investment consulting firm, said that for new investors, waiting two to three months doesn’t make much difference.
“For the new investor especially, they’re saying, ‘There’s no point to investing now, let’s wait]’” until after the elections, he said.
In the meantime, he said, many are preparing to invest in Cambodia—in the garment and other basic manufacturing industries, tourism and agriculture.
And he predicted investment will increase rapidly in Cambodia after the elections, as long as investors see political and legislative stability, and international acceptance of the results.
“A weak or split government is not for investors, that’s been the problem over the last 18 months,” said Martin, alluding to the unsuccessful power-sharing arrangement between CPP and Funcinpec. “Investors want a stronger government, some stability.”
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Cambodian Military Adamant There Is No Secret China Deal
British teacher, 57, is arrested on suspicion of child sexual abuse...
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__label__cc | 0.692418 | 0.307582 | Category: scenes
On January 4, 2016 By Doug BallIn finding time, scenes, writingLeave a comment
First Monday of the new year. Five AM.
New book ‘DEACON’ is not going to make my February 1 launch date. In doing the final draft corrections last night, I realized there was a major plot flaw in the next to the last scene. Beta readers hadn’t caught it. My first thought was ‘Be lazy. They didn’t find it, no one else will.’ But I did find it. If I can, others can. So, I am rewriting that scene completely. I will not cheat my readers.
I got volunteered to help a friend move today so nothing much is going to get done until late, and even then I will probably be whipped like topping on a pumpkin pie.
Be blessed and write.
Free Book – The DEACON – Episode 8 – Tell me what ya think
On November 11, 2015 By Doug BallIn believability, Nanowrimo, scenesLeave a comment
“I wanted you to come back anyhow, but not this way. Did ya have to bring your friends?”
“They got a bit pushy. Who’s that you got there with you?”
“Wounded man. Still breathing, but that’s about it.”
Tor leaned into his rifle butt and squeezed off a round that took a horse out from under one of the riders. Daniel’s following shot sent the rider tumbling. The last rider pulled up behind a large fir tree filled with moss. Dan couldn’t see him. He put five rounds through the tree about man high.
Tor did the same thing as Daniel reloaded.
While Daniel was reloading, he could hear the wounded man trying to say something. He leaned down to listen. He whispered desperately, “They took her.”
“They took her, my daughter, they took her.”
“North . . . uuhhh . . . west.”
He tried to sit up. Daniel held him down. “Calm down, we’ll help ya.”
“They took her.”
“What’s her name and why?”
Daniel could see that the man was getting weaker and weaker with every breath.
“Diane. Just like her . . . mother . . . Diane.”
“Where would they take her?”
“The ranch. Get her back. They’ll …. kill …” He tried to sit up.
Daniel eased him back down, “Who are they?”
He breathed a shallow breath. Blood oozed from the hole in his chest. Daniel could see him gather himself for one more answer. “Lazy E brand. My . . .Rafter B. . . save it for her.” He paused with a gasp that Daniel thought was his death rattle. “Kill . . . Bur…”
This time he did die. It was over for him.
Tor stopped firing as a horse ran out from behind the tree they had fired at. “Let’s go see what’s what over there.” He looked at the dead man. “He still alive?”
“No. Just died. We got a problem.”
“I don’t have a problem, yet. All we gotta do is make sure those three over there are dead or gone and then do some buryin’.”
“Tor, this man says they took his daughter and he has a ranch they are trying to take from her.”
Nothing had moved for a while. Tor stood up so he could see the ground just over the creek bank. Nothing. “Let’s ride.”
‘It is over,’ Daniel thought, ‘I killed at least one more man. God forgive me.’ He started shaking.
Tor walked his horse through the stream and up the bank into the campsite before looking back, “You comin’ or you gonna stand there and feel sorry for yourself. We defended ourselves from them killers and now we gotta take care the leavin’s.”
Daniel walked through the stream and started toward the fir tree he had filled full of holes. He was half way there when he remembered Solomon. The horse was off a couple hundred yards to the east grazing on the sparse grass alongside the creek. “Solomon, you’d do me a favor if you came here.” He whistled.
The horse lifted his head, looking straight at Daniel. He bowed his head for another bite and Daniel thought he was in for a long walk to get the horse. Instead, Solomon picked up his head and started trotting toward him with his head off to one side to keep from stepping on the reins. Daniel waited and when the horse got close, Daniel grabbed the saddle horn and climbed aboard wondering what else this horse could do.
At the fir tree, Tor was examining the bleeding man on the ground. “Bout time you got here. Check them other two. This one’s still alive. If them two are dead, check the horses for brands and clean out the saddlebags for letters and stuff that might tell us about these men. Did that other horse run far?”
Daniel looked around. “Nah, he’s over at the tree line munching on the grass.”
“Check him out. We could use a pack horse or two.”
Daniel checked the first man. Dead. The second was still alive, but just barely. He had a round through his middle just above his belt line and another in a lung which was bubbling pink blood.
He hunkered down next to the man, “Fella, you are dying. Are you right with your Creator?”
“You . . some kinda . . . idjot . . or what?”
“I’m a preacher.”
“You . . shot me.”
“You tried to kill me. What did you expect? Would it make a difference if I said I’m sorry.”
The man spit in his face. “Damn you.” He fell back and breathed one last breath as one last bubble popped on his chest.
“I think you are the one that is damned. I just need God’s guidance in a better way to deal with men like you.” Daniel was talking out loud as Tor eased up behind him.
“My man’s dead.” He heard what Dan said and added, “What other way is there to handle men that are coming at you shooting and trying to kill you and send you to heaven?”
“I don’t rightly know. Me and God will have a couple of long discussions about this.”
“Daniel, why do you think God gave you the gift of being able to hit a fly in the eye at fifty paces with a six gun and take out a running rabbit at a hundred?”
“So I can eat.”
“You really mean that don’t you. You’re not just talkin’?”
“Did you ever think that maybe God wants a Christian man to stand up for the weak and take care of the feeble, the orphans, the women, and such?”
“Well, yeah. Been thinking and praying on that, but God ain’t done no answerin’ yet.”
Tor swept his arm around the whole scene before them and said, “You really believe this isn’t God speaking. What’s it gonna take? You waiting for Him to boom out of the clouds with words loud and clear?”
“That would be nice and definite, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think He works that way. He’s a bit more subtle. He sends three killers after you while you’re helping an old man die. He tells you there’s a weak woman off someplace in trouble, a woman that can lose her ranch. We don’t even know if there’s kids involved. Matter of fact, we don’t know that the woman is a woman and not a snotty nosed kid still.”
“Let’s bury these four bodies and get on up the trail of the rest of the killers.”
“Sounds like a good idea. We done took care of a bunch of killers and put a dent in the forces of evil what took the gal. Come to think on that, did you think you were fighting evil here just as much as you would be in the tent or the opry hall or wherever? Too bad we don’t have Miss Evelyn here to make for a nice send off for these three hoodlums and specially the old man over there.”
“Shut up,” Daniel smiled. “Let’s get the burying done. You dig and I’ll say the words over their graves.”
“You help dig and I’ll listen to the words. How’s that?”
“What we gonna dig with? This dirt’s hard as a rock and filled with rocks.”
“Let me look around.” He rode off toward the trees.
Daniel caught up the only horse standing. He had to finish one that was wounded too bad to save. He found a bit of jerky and some pinon nuts in one set of bags and nothing else but a few rounds of ammo and a clean shirt. Tor claimed the shirt and they split the ammo.
The sun was low on the horizon as they set the last two rocks on the grave. “I really wish we could have given the old man his own grave and not had to bury him with his killers.”
“Get out of it. There was just this one big knocked down tree I could find. They all fit in the root hole and there was a mess of rocks up close. They are dead. You told me yourself as we laid them to rest, these are just casing for their souls. God will pick them up later.”
“I guess you could say it thataway, but I still don’t like it.”
“Daniel, when you get to likin’ killin’ and buryin’, it’s time for you to hang up your gun and spend the rest of your days praying.” Tor pointed toward their horses. “Let’s mount up and git. By the way, I like what that gunsmith did with the grips on your gun. That engraved cross in blood red says a lot about the man carrying the gun.”
“It gives me a good grip, but I think it’s a bit dramatic.”
“Not for the showman for the Lord that you are.”
“I ain’t nothin’ but a servant in the Lord’s house.”
“Well now, let me do some figurin’ here. The Lord’s house is the Church, right?”
“Well, yeah, you could call it that.”
“And the servants of the Church are called Deacons, right.”
“Yeah. They were set up to help the weak widows and orphans.”
“So that makes you a Deacon, don’t it.”
“I guess you could say that. All I want is to be a servant of the Lord.”
“Okay, Deacon, you got yourself a name.”
“What? You’re gonna change my name?”
“Yup. God did that with Abram and Saul when they started working for Him. Why not you? I like the ring to the name, Deacon.”
“I ain’t too sure, Tor. I ain’t really cut out to be helpin’ widows and orphans and such.”
“Which piece is missing?”
The Deacon didn’t have an answer.
After tying two saddles to the saddle on the one standing horse, and making sure the guns were tied on tight, they rode into the trees with rifle butts on their thighs, leading their new packhorse. The tracks led them not more than a hundred yards into the trees before turning left and following the terrain through the trees until they cut to the right and uphill along a cut with a small trickle of water flowing and up over a pass a ways past the spring that fed the trickle.
Once over the pass, Tor called a halt for the night. “Gonna be too dark to see the track right soon and I’m getting’ a mite hungry.”
“I’m beyond hungry.”
The DEACON – Episode 7
On November 9, 2015 November 9, 2015 By Doug BallIn believability, Nanowrimo, scenesLeave a comment
“Well, how many times am I gonna be hitting my gun with a rock?”
“Probably never, but if you drop something on the hammer when it’s in your holster, you will have a nice groove down your leg for the rest of your life, which might not be very long. A shot like that just right and you’d bleed out in a minute, or get gangrene, or lose the use of that leg due to a shattered knee, or just plain have an ugly scar on a weak leg.” He handed the pistol back to Daniel, who slipped it back in its home on his hip. “All them options are not too healthy. A working man cannot afford to carry a round under the hammer. Once you get in the battle, the first time you reload you fill them all. If you know the battle is coming, you load them all. Got it?”
“Yes, sir. None of them options sound good to me. Don’t want the battle either.” He drew and shot a large rattlesnake coming out from a hole under the rock right next to Tor. “There’s supper.”
Tor jumped and landed about six feet away from where he started. “You eat snake?”
“Nope. Hear it’s good though.”
“I don’t eat snake,” he said as he continued to watch the reptile writhe in the dust making mud with its blood. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Get us a fire going.”
“For supper?”
“Yup. You the eatin’est feller I ever rode with.”
“How do you think I keep my manly figure.”
Tor went hunting.
Daniel went fishing as soon as the fire was burning well.
The fish were not biting and Tor was not back after an hour. Dan had heard no shot and was beginning to wonder what was happening in the woods when the shot finally came. It sounded surprisingly close.
He gathered more wood and set the coffee to boiling as he waited. The fishing line got checked a time or two. Still no Tor. Dan strapped on the Bixby gun and saddled his horse. Just as he swung into the saddle, “Hey, you wanna come over there with that horse and help be bring this in.”
It was Tor.
Dan rode his horse across the stream and up to where Tor was coming out of the woods dragging a young doe, all nicely gutted and beheaded, toward camp. Dan pulled it up on the horses withers and gave Tor a hand climbing on behind him, turned the horse for camp and crossed the stream. As he was crossing the rock he had tied his fishing line to came off the large rock he had set it on.
He had a bite.
An hour later they were eating venison steaks in the dark and rigging a rack to make jerky on. The fish got away.
The coffee pot was empty nest to the embers of the fire when they rolled into the bedrolls for a night’s sleep. Each was full to the brim and content.
Two days later, the two of them rode into Golden. Tor wanted to stop and see an old saddle partner and Dan was just going to find someplace with a couple of books for sale. Didn’t make a difference what they were, he just wanted to unwind a bit in something other than the Bible. It had taken him a full day to make that decision.
Tor pointed in the direction of the hotel, “Meetcha there in a couple of hours. Two beds please. You roll and toss so bad I’ll end up on the floor. There’s a gunsmith down the block a bit that might be able to do something about the slickness of them grips on your Colt. Try him.” He rode away before Daniel could say anything.
Daniel was dazzled. He’d seen big cities before, but never had he seen a town with the hustle and bustle of this one. He had to guide his horse around wagons and people walking in the middle of the street. A wagon loaded with beer from the Coors brewery almost killed a man after the wagon driver took his eyes off the street to look at a dance hall gal on the balcony of a saloon. The man turned and saw the lead horses when they were about two feet from straddling him.
Dan eased up the street looking for the sign advertising a hotel in the midst of all the other signs. Seems like every building had three or more businesses or products to sell they thought worthy of having its own sign. “I ain’t seen this many signs since St. Louis, but St. Louis never had this many folks running around like chickens with their heads cut off.”
“Hey, quit star gazing and get outta the road, young feller,” came from his right. A pedestrian was held up by Daniel’s slow rubber necking of all there was to see.
“Sorry, old timer, I’ll push a little here now. How far’s it to the hotel?”
“Two buildings down. Only sign is on the winder, but ya cain’t miss’er a bit. Bright green paint around them winders.”
“Thank ya kindly, sir.”
“Now get outta my way.”
Daniel moved the horse with a gentle gig of the spurs he’d found in the saddle bag. Tor said they were cavalry spurs, short and stubby, and also reckoned that Bixby had been cavalry once upon a time “Cuz he rode so straight up and down like he had a ram rod for a back bone.” Sure enough there was the green trim on a pair of fair sized windows. One said HOTEL and the other said SALOON in large gold and black letters.
He had to sidle in between the hitching rail and the plank sidewalk in order to tie off the gelding he had named, Solomon. Not that the horse was wise, just that it sounded like a good Christian horse name. The horse would never have a thousand wives, but being a gelding it wouldn’t matter.
He swung down gingerly; his backside still wasn’t used to all the riding, pulling his Winchester out of its case as he did. After doing a couple of deep squats, he entered the hotel and walked to the desk. “Need a room with two beds or two rooms with one bed.”
“Very good, sir. Let me see what we have.” He turned to look at a bunch of cubbies behind him. “Aah yes, sir. We have two rooms side by side, each with one bed, both on the third floor facing the avenue. Will that do, sir.”
“Yeah. How much?”
“Fifty cents each. Dinner will be served in the Dining Room,” he pointed to a door behind Daniel, “In about an hour. Of course, they always have something to eat 24 hours each day. There is also the Saloon to your right,” again he pointed, “Serving the finest of liquors, beers, wines, and just plain everyday good whiskey. One of our local miners has a still and a local brewery makes the finest beer in the territory.”
Daniel plunked a ten dollar gold piece on the counter and said, “May I start an account and sign for meals and drinks?”
“Yes sir, you certainly may. Sign the ledger please and use the same signature on your tabs.” He turned and pulled two keys from adjoining slots, flipped a tab to red like most of the other rooms, and set the keys on the ledger as Daniel signed, ‘Daniel Fount, Denver.’
“Could you tell me where the best livery and gunsmith might be?”
“Why yes, sir. The livery is down the alley on the right side of the hotel,” he pointed, “And the gunsmith is across the street and uphill about a quarter mile. Can’t miss him, he has a large six shooter for a sign hanging way out from and above the rest of the signs on this street. Old German fella that I have only met once, but the best of reputations I assure you.”
“I recognize your gun, but you weren’t the man wearing it last time is saw it.”
“He lost in the game of life.”
“Oh, very good. Sir. He was not a very savory individual. Thank you for winning in the game of life.” He smiled and turned to the lady that had just walked in.
Daniel heard, “Who is that terrible man? He killed a man in the saloon the last time I was here,” from the lady.
As he walked to the gunsmith, he got to thinking that maybe, just maybe, he would be wise to change the grips altogether rather than just have them reworked. Tor was coming down the street, saw him, and pulled over to the plank sidewalk where he said, “You wanna double up?”
They finished at the gunsmith with Daniel carrying a loaner and Tor guiding the horse to the hotel where Daniel picked up his horse and they rode to the livery up the alley.
“Ya seen one livery stable, you have seen them all,” Tor said.
“And smelled them all,” Daniel added.
Two days later they left town before the sun came up and the crowds hit the streets. His old saddle partner was no longer in Golden.
It was Sunday. The bells were ringing on at least three churches somewhere in the town. Daniel felt a pull, but he was not ready yet for the questions that would come inside the walls of a friendly church. Tor offered to go with him if that was the hold up and Daniel just turned his horse to the street all the wagons had been coming into town on during their brief stay.
Within an hour the sun was up, they were off the road and on a thin trail leading into the high country, and up ahead was a smoldering fire. They spread out without saying a word as they approached the smoke. No one was there.
A breeze picked up as they looked around. Nothing. A jumble of prints in the dirt told them nothing. At least four different horses had been over this site time and time again. Tor got down and started probing the ground with a stick he grabbed. Daniel watched with his newly adorned six shooter held in position with his elbow locked into his side. No one had to tell him something had happened here.
Tor finally tossed the stick, “No new graves.”
“The top inch or so is disturbed by the prints here, but after that inch or so the ground is rock hard. If there was a grave the dirt would be loose and the stick would have gone in deep from the pressure I put on it. Why don’t you dump your canteen on this fire so’s it don’t get away, fill up from the stream, and we’ll just mosey on our way. While you’re doin’ that, I’ll just take me a ride up towards them trees and see what I can see.”
Daniel did as he asked while he looked around in the direction the horses had gone. All there was in that direction was a heavily forested area leading to the base of the biggest mountain around. The whole scene seemed strange to him as the water gurgled out of the canteen he watched Tor moving at a quick trot in that direction. When the gurglying quit, he rode down to the water and was just about off the horse when he saw him.
The man was sitting with his legs in the water next to a rock on the far side of the creek, still as the stone itself. A gun lay in his lap and the front of his shirt was bright red.
“TOR!”
Daniel looked up to see Tor jerk his horse around and ride like the devil was after him toward the camp site. Out of the trees came three riders and as soon as Daniel saw them they opened fire. Daniel started to mount and then realized if he got in a good position he could cover Tor and the old man next to the rock. The rock looked like a good place to hunker down.
He crossed the creek and turned Solomon loose to fend for himself, squatted behind the rock, and then pulled the wounded man in with him. He laid the Winchester across the top of the rock, lined up the sights, and squeezed the trigger. The center of the three riders took a tumble. Tor kept coming straight across the campsite and on through the water until he jumped off his horse, rifle in hand, and took up a spot thirty feet or so downstream from Daniel.
“You okay?” Danile asked.
“Yeah, not a scratch
Free Book – The DEACON – Episode 6
On November 8, 2015 November 8, 2015 By Doug BallIn believability, life, Nanowrimo, scenes, writingLeave a comment
NOTE: You are receiving this book fresh off the keyboard. The typos, misspellings, and other bugaboos are free just like the rest of the book. What I would like from you are suggestions, ideas, plot changes, or anything you think would make this a better book. THANK YOU for you help.
“He has killed over twenty that we know of. All have been clouded with lies good enough that we have never been able to hang him. This town is better off without him, you can bet on that.”
“I don’t bet on people’s lives.”
“Yes you do. Every time you preach you are betting that some of the folks listening will take to your message and become Christians just like you. Some you win and some you lose.”
“I win nothing. God wins it all.”
“Fine. I won’t argue the religious stuff with you.”
Daniel walked to the caravan door and went inside, emerging a few minutes later with rough clothes on and tucking a small sack of coins in his pocket. “I am going to the mountains to pray and think this through.”
He ducked under the caravan and returned with his Bible.
“Evelyn, the caravan and all that is left in it are yours. I will find you one day a couple weeks or so from now, and we will discuss the future. Deputy, where can if find a good horse at a fair price?”
Evelyn grabbed his arm, “All this is good for nothing without you.”
“There’s enough in the safe to keep you for as long as I will be gone. I’m sure you are well taken care of. If I were you, I’d find a nice boarding house for ladies and stay there. Join up with that Pastor’s church and sing in the choir. I will be back.”
The deputy said, “Come on, I’ll get you set up.” Something caught in his throat, “You know, the first time I had to kill a man, I was riding shotgun on a gold shipment. It hit me much the same as you for altogether difference reasons. I went fishing for two months to think it through. That robber got what he had coming just as this man on the ground here got what was long overdue. Would you mind if I tagged along with you for a week or so? I need a bit of a vacation myownself/”
Dan walked to Evelyn and threw his arms around her. “Thanks. You’ve been a good mother to me even if you ain’t my ma. I’ll be back. Don’t sell the caravan, yet.”
He turned to the deputy, “Where’s the fishin’ real good around here?”
First post – http://wp.me/p5dVRw-1L
A couple hours later the two of them were riding toward the mining country around Golden and the big fish along Clear Creek. Daniel was not used to a saddle and demanded a break at midday. “I need to get off this nag and walk on my own two feet for a spell, Tor. Besides all that, I am hungry.”
“If ya wanna get down we can for a spell, but if you’re hungry, you’re gonna have to shoot something.”
“What? You didn’t pack some food?”
“Not a bite. There’s a great spot to rest up about half a mile from here. See what you can shoot with that Winchester under your left leg on the way there. You take the lead.” He pulled his horse off the trail and let Daniel pass.
“Dan, that rifle is yours. Came with the rig. All you are sitting on is the outfit of Bixby. Livery man said Bixby owed him about $14 and he’d take what the man owed for the rig. I figured $14 was a good price for a horse, saddle, rifle, and whatever’s in them saddlebags. Ya might wanna air out that bedroll before it gets dark. Check for bed bugs and lice and such.”
Daniel jumped off the horse. “I can’t take the belongings of a man I killed. It wouldn’t be right, Tor. Not right at all.”
“You didn’t mind the deal when I found it for you. It’s just that it used to belong to Bixby. Is that the drift?”
“Yeah.” Daniel sat on a rock beside the trail. “I can’t do this.”
“Okay. So if you had walked into the livery on your own and the owner offered you this rig without you knowing where it come from, you would of turned it down. Is that right?”
“Then what’s the problem. I didn’t twist the man’s arm. I didn’t ask. He didn’t name Bixby until after the deal was done. All he told me was a man owed him and died. I grabbed it cuz it was a great deal. Danged rifle gun alone is worth the money. Take it or walk. I’ll buy it off ya. Matter of fact you still owe me the $14, you ain’t paid me back yet.”
“So it’s your horse and rig?”
Daniel climbed back in the saddle and said, “I’ll ride your horse and riggin’. Ya wanna sell it?”
“Yes I do. $300 for the lot.”
“Well, you didn’t like the deal I got for you, now it’s my turn to turn a profit.”
“That ain’t a profit, that’s robbery, highway robbery and a swindle to match. Look at this gun. The bluing is rubbed off all along this side. The butt has a crack and it’s held together with wire. This horse is ugly. The saddle is so worn I can feel the horses backbone under the blanket that you can see through. I’ll give ya $20 for the lot.”
“You think I’d see $300 worth of rig and horse for $20? You must be counting on divine intervention or something.”
“Well, I could try asking the Lord to knock you off that horse your one and give you a Saul moment? But, He don’t work that way. $25.”
“Sold. I don’t wanna be know what at Saul moment is.”
Forty yards down the trail a young elk jump from the bushes. The rifle came up. Tor yelled, “No, you danged fool. We can’t eat that much.” He pulled his pistol and took the head off a large cottontail rabbit not twenty feet the other side of the trail. “That will do. Lunch time, Dan, lunch time.”
He walked his horse over and reached down a long way to pick up the rabbit before he took off in a trot to the great spot he was talking about. Dan followed thinking, ‘Don’t much care for rabbit. The Right Reverend, my pa, fed me that every time the count was down.’
As the rabbit roasted, Dan filled Tor’s request for an explanation of a Saul moment.
“Dang, knocked him to the ground. Made him blind. Yelled at him. And, then he used him to start new churches all over the world? Ooooweeeee. That’d be some moment in my life.”
“Sure was for Saul. God even changed his name to Paul and then Paul lost his head to the Romans in the end.”
“God ain’t too much on protecting folks from the government, is He?”
“I don’t think I want to touch that comment, my friend.” Dan dug in his pocket, “Here’s the $30 I owe ya for the rig.”
“About time. I was beginning to figure the interest on the loan of that fine animal and his riggin’.” Tor got up and walked to his bedroll, stuck his hand in the middle, and came out with a shiny Colt .44 in a worn holster. “Here this goes with it. Bixby’s short gun. It’s a good gun. Tried it myownself. Them grips are real mother-of-pearl, comes from some sea critter, and the .44 is an easy gun to find ammo for in these parts.” He tossed it to Dan.
The rig hit the dirt after Dan backed up and refused to catch it. “You lettin’ that gun lay in the dirt ain’t good for it. Get it on. They’s some wild and woolly boys up in these mountains and we may just have an Indian or two try to steal that nag of yours.”
He paused for a moment and saw that Dan was not going to move. He yelled, “Put it on or I won’t ride with you. This country is dangerous. The critters are dangerous, grizzly and lion, and the danged people are dangerous, male and female. Put. It. On.”
Daniel put it on.
“That was the funniest way of putting on a rig I ever did see. Thumb and forefinger of each and was all you used and it took you forever. Some morning when the world falls apart around us, you will need to get that one in a flash and get off all the shots you can in the poof.”
“Look, Tor. I am not used to a pistol. Never handled one and never owned one. This is Bixby’s, or was Bixby’s. I’m still getting used to sitting on his horse, let alone strapping on his gun rig. Look at that holster, it’s got a tie down. Only folks us them are gunslicks.”
“So cut it off.” Tor tossed his knife in front of Dan’s feet.
Daniel cut it off and tossed the leather string on the hot coals. “Show me how to use it if you’re gonna make me wear it.”
“You’ll get your first lesson tonight. Let’s move. I don’t wanna camp here, too public.”
Five hours later Daniel was standing with his legs spread shoulder wide, his arms dangling at his side, and the six gun on his hip loaded again after tearing the thing completely apart and putting all back together under Tor’s guidance. “You stand like you were watching a nice looking horse walk down the main drag.”
Dan shuffled a bit.
“That’s good. Now make a fist and open your right hand a few times.”
Daniel did.
“Now grab the gun butt, pull, ease the hammer back – whatever you do don’t let it slip – until it clicks the second time, and then pull the trigger while your pointing the gun at that whitish rock over there. The one on the bank of the hill.”
Daniel did. The whitish rock came apart. “Like that?”
Tor stood in his position with his mouth open. That whitish rock was a good 10 yards away or more. First shot and it was a dead rock.
“Do it again. This time get off two shots. Remember, you have to pull the hammer back for each shot.”
Dan put the gun back in the holster. “What you want me to aim at this time?”
“How’s about that branch stickin’ up on that dead tree?” He pointed.
Daniel brought the gun out with no apparent speed, two shots sounded like two shots from two guns one on top of the other like one was just a mite slower than the other. Two branches on the dead tree lying 15 yards or so away disintegrated in puffs of saw dust and bark.
“Reload,” was all Tor could say.
Daniel ejected three cases and inserted three fresh rounds from his belt. “How come?”
“Always reload as soon as you can after firing. You will never know when you might need all five shots.”
Daniel asked, “Why on five rounds? There’s six holes here. In a battle wouldn’t six be better?”
“How many times have your fired a pistol of any kind?”
“Just the three shots today.”
“Then how can you shoot so well. You hit the target and are moderately fast in gettin’ yourself in the fight. You amaze me.”
Daniel looked at him, “Ain’t that what a man’s supposed to do?” He flipped the loading gate shut and spun the cylinder. “Six shots loaded.”
Tor walked over to him and stuck his hand out, “Let me have your .44.”
Daniel lifted it out of the holster and handed it to Tor. “Here ya are. What’s the problem?”
Tor walked over to the stream bed and grabbed a fist sized rock that was fairly flat on one side. He held the pistol with his hand wrapped around the grip. The hammer was down and his finger was not on the trigger. He smacked the rock into the hammer with the barrel pointed across the stream.
The gun went off sending a slug to ricochet off the water and into the hillside.
The DEACON – Episode 5 – Free book -Constructive Critique requested
On November 7, 2015 By Doug BallIn Nanowrimo, scenes, writingLeave a comment
“Sounds like my father. Tell me about it.”
The deputy looked around. “Let’s go in that café. I could use a cup a coffee and maybe breakfast.”
“I got a dollar. I’ll buy.”
By the time the eggs and bacon, flapjacks, honey, and a slab of beef was set in front of them to enjoy, the cups that had been filled three times, the story came out.
The elder Fount had been in a notorious saloon on the edge of Denver. The poker game was wild and high stakes. The barmaid had brought another round of drinks to the drunken Right Reverend Fount and he grabbed her, pulling her into his lap. The gambler across the table told he to let her go. He refused. The gambler got up and smacked the retired phony preacher with his gun. The preacher challenged him to a duel for his honor. The gambler provided him with a gun and then stepped out the back door. The gun was empty, the gambler’s wasn’t. Three shots were fired and only one hit preacher Fount. It was a good one, a quarter inch over his right eye. He died instantly.
Daniel felt the catch in his throat and worked hard to hold back tears. His father would never have another chance to change his ways. “I’d like to go make arrangements after we finish here. Which parlor has him?”
The deputy slurped another slug of the acidic coffee before saying, “It’s just down the block and around the corner. I’ll walk ya down there. Need a formal identification for my report on the murder. That gambler is going to swing from the county gallows, my friend.”
“If I forgive him will that change anything?”
“No. Would you really forgive the man who killed your father?”
“Yes I would. I believe I can do that and be alright with the court’s ruling.” He turned to his meal, carefully cutting a fair sized hunk of beef and putting it in his mouth.
“Don’t think I could do that, Preacher Daniel. Matter of fact, I’m sure I couldn’t do that.”
“A week ago I couldn’t have done it either. Let me tell ya why I can now.”
Twenty minutes later the deputy said, “Maybe someday I’ll think that way, but not just now.”
“Don’t wait too long. Come tonight and I’ll tell ya more.”
In the funeral parlor, the Right Reverend Lawrence P. Fount was laid out on a marble slab boosted four feet off the ground by two marble pedestals looking right peaceful and dead. His head was covered with a cloth. “He died instantly, young Daniel, instantly,” was the mortician’s opening remark.
“That’s my father? I want to see his face.” was all Daniel could say for a few moments.
“Son, when a man is shot with a .44 in the back of the head, there is no face.”
The deputy introduced Daniel to the mortician, Ev Biscotti. “He’s the best there is in this town.”
“Why thank you, Tor. I’ll put that in my next flier.”
The mortician turned to Daniel, “It’s a shame he had to die like that, shot in the back of the head is painless, though.”
“Back of the head?” It finally sunk in enough for comment by the deputy.
“Why yes, the bullet went all the way through. When I got to cleaning him up, it was easy to tell that it went in the back and out the front.”
The deputy said, “You sure?”
“Oh, yes, quite.”
“That puts a bit of a different light on the argument that Bixby has. He says they stepped off the paces and then turned and fired. The preacher here supposedly fired first, but we found the gun had no casings left in it and didn’t smell like it had been fired recently. Bixby fired three times at him.” The deputy stopped and thought for a moment or two, “I knew that was a lie, because this man bled out not six feet from the back door. Old Bixby really wanted a sure thing then, an empty gun and then shoot in the back. Ain’t never heard of anything surer when it comes to winning a gun fight. He’ll hang, no doubt of that.” Tor turned and walked outside where he sat on the steps writing his notes while he waited for Daniel.
Daniel finally came out, turning toward the caravan without even seeing the deputy.
“What that your father, Daniel.”
“Yeah, I checked the stuff Mr. Biscotti took from his pockets and the rings on his fingers,” Daniel held his hand out showing three rings, “It was him.”
The deputy jotted down his affirmation. “What you gonna do now, Daniel.”
“Preach the Word and try to live like Jesus.”
“Man, you sure do have that stuff stuck in your head don’t you?”
“Sure do. Makes life easier.” He turned and kept on walking.
The deputy went to the office to file his report with the marshal, knowing he would have to go get the gambler, Bixby. He thought of how he could set up a fake breakaway by Bixby so he could kill the man, but then the words Daniel had said to him stopped him cold. Something about forgiving those that hurt you the worst. Not his normal way of thinking. He’d have to think on it.
By sundown, the gambler was in jail, alive, Tor was sitting in row four on the aisle, Daniel was ready for the night’s service, the place was packed, and Miss Evelyn was warming up to sing, ‘Amazing Grace,’ always a favorite of every crowd. The pianist began playing as Miss Evelyn strolled onto the stage from the wings.
As the pianist reached the second time through the melody, Evelyn began singing. The crowd went quiet and listened.
Daniel got up from his knees in the wings as she hit verse three. By verse four he was ready, standing behind the wing curtain with his Bible in hand, something he had not always done on nights before. The song ended as Evelyn sang verse one again ending it with a repeat of, ‘But now I see.’
The applause was tremendous.
Daniel waited until it began to die before stepping out.
The room went silent.
Daniel began with, “Tonight we will see. WE will see.” He paused, took a deep breath, and gave them the words that God had given the world in His book about the blind seeing.
An hour later the crowd was getting antsy. He felt it. He stopped and prayed.
The piano player played slow and soft, ‘Amazing Grace.’ Daniel invited them to come to the front and speak with him or maybe even the pastor from the night before. Miss Evelyn began to sing quietly, so quietly that the back rows could not even hear her, but they knew she was singing.
The deputy was the first one to meet Daniel at the front. Daniel threw his arm over the man’s shoulders and said, “Are you ready to be God’s’ man?”
“No. I’m only here to protect you. The gambler escaped and swore he would kill you before he was caught again. He also stated he would never be put in jail again. You and me need to be careful.”
“I will. Why don’t you move up on the stage and keep your eyes on the whole crowd and then those who want to can get down here to me.”
“I’ll be watching.”
Nothing more happened until early the next morning when Daniel heard Evelyn scream in the caravan above his bed. He leaped out of bed and through the canvas curtains that gave him privacy. A scuffle was going on in the caravan. He ran to the back and threw open the door to see Evelyn being pounded by the fists of an angry man.
“Where is that lying phony? I’m gonna kill him just like I killed that phony reverend of a father,” the man yelled in the face of the cowed woman.
Daniel said a quiet tone he didn’t feel, “I am here.”
The man turned and leaped at him. Daniel ducked allowing the man to fly over him and onto the ground. Daniel spun around and leaped on top of the man. The man sliced his arm with a knife Daniel had not seen. Daniel grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted his entire arm in a direction the arm was never designed to bend. The man dropped the knife and kneed Daniel in the groin. Daniel fell back bleeding from the cut on his arm and serious pain in his crotch.
In the background, Evelyn was screaming for Daniel to kill the man. Daniel looked to see Evelyn bleeding from the face and standing in her tattered gown which left nothing to the imagination. “Go inside,” he said, swinging at the attacker.
“I’ll kill you just like I did your father, kid.” The man spit at Daniel’s face, but missed, the plug of tobacco dribbled down the front of the gambler’s vest.
“I don’t think so. I am not drunk or helpless. Surrender and you’ll get a fair trial.”
The man swung a roundhouse blow that missed as Daniel stepped inside to deliver two heavy blows to the killer’s flabby gut. The man fell back.
Daniel followed hitting him with blow after blow, continuing even after the man was on his back in the dirt as he said, “Surrender. Surrender. Surrender.”
A hand came from nowhere and spun Daniel around, pushing him to the ground away from the bleeding gambler.
The deputy said, “That’s enough. He’s out.”
The deputy walked the two steps to the gambler and grabbed his arm to pull him up. The man offered no resistance. He offered nothing. The gambler was dead.
The deputy looked at Daniel, “He’s dead. You finished him and did the city of Denver a huge favor.”
Daniel could not believe his ears. “No, he can’t be dead. I can’t kill a man. All I did was hit him with my fists. God will not forgive me for murder,” he rambled. The rambling went on even after Evelyn, wrapped in a robe, took him in her arms.
“Daniel, he was going to kill us both. You had to do it, or we both would be dead. Don’t you understand, you were defending me. The Bible says believers are to defend the weak and helpless.”
“It doesn’t say to kill the attackers. Cain slew Able with a rock and God condemned him.”
“Sometimes you have to when they offer no other way. You tried to get him to surrender and he refused. He chose to die rather than surrender to trial and hanging. Now his only judgment will be before God.”
The deputy stood up from his examination of the body, “One of your punches caught him in the nose. His nose bone was driven up into his brain. I’ll bet you never thought a punch in the face would kill him.”
“No. He died from my fist. I killed him. Killing is wrong.”
“Would you have him kill me?” Evelyn asked.
“Do you know how many other men like your father this man has killed one way or another?”
The DEACON – Episode 4 – Constructive Critique requested
On November 5, 2015 November 6, 2015 By Doug BallIn believability, Nanowrimo, scenes, writingLeave a comment
The food arrived and disappeared down their throats faster than a chicken will suck up a worm. Daniel stood, yawned, and stretched, “I’m for a nap. Let’s go move Dad out of the caravan. If he ain’t there, all the better.”
“He’s still you earthly father, Dan.”
“Yup, he is. He can move underneath with me. Plenty of room for two separate bedrooms under there.”
“He isn’t gonna like it.”
“That is really his problem. He passed the baton to me when he got so drunk he couldn’t preach. Now it’s my show and he’s welcome to tag along.
The two of them stood behind Miner’s Hall praying. The air was still and sticky telling Denver it was in store for a storm. “Let’s get inside before we get soaked.”
Evelyn answered, “I really don’t want to go in there. There are many ways for God to provide the answers to those prayers on the hilltop.”
“We’ll never know until the curtain opens.
They entered after knocking on the stage door to get the stage hand to open it.
He smiled, “I’m whipped. I never knew prayer could be such hard work. I joined Jesus last night after my wife explained some of it to me. I still need that conversation we were gonna have.”
“Congratulations. I forgot with all the excitement and the hilltop experience.” He motioned toward the hall, “How’s it look?”
“Don’t know. I’ll find out with you with we draw the curtain. It’s very quiet out there and there’s just five minutes til start up.”
They moved to the rope that controlled the curtain. The piano began quietly. No other noise could be heard. A quiet piano version of Amazing Grace lifted.
Evelyn walked to the middle of the stage still behind the curtain. As the piano got to the closing line of the verse and played the first three sections of the last line, she stepped through the gap onto the stage, down center, to the brightest stage light lifting from the biggest foot light, and began to sing as the piano continued.
Backstage there was still no sound from an audience.
Daniel listened as she sang. At the end of the first verse he stepped through the curtain. Every seat was filled. The side aisles and the back were filled with standing men and women. An occasional child could be seen, but all were quiet.
Daniel stood in awe. His body began to shake from fear. Only organized angry people could stay that quiet as they waited for the key word that would loose the lions on the two of them.
He looked out over that crowd with his Bible in his hand. They had come and by all that was Holy they would hear the word. He opened the Bible and began to read. “For God so loved, HE LOVES YOU, the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever, WHOSOEVER, believed on Him, THE SON, should not parish, DIE, BUT, BUT, hear me, BUT have everlasting life. Perfect life. No sorrow. No tears. No pain. No fear of death. The perfect life for all eternity, THAT MEANS FOREVER. From right now until FOREVER.
He nodded to Miss Evelyn telling her it was time to quit the song. Evelyn shook her head and sang louder. He lifted his arms high in a gathering motion, “Come, come as I did three nights ago. Come to Christ. Come find life anew. Come in faith that all this is true. Come, now is the day of deliverance from your bondage to the devil,” he shouted over the music.
Minutes went by. No one moved. No one made a sound. Then one young woman against the back wall began sobbing and walked toward the stage. A cowboy walked forward with his hat in his hands covering his face. A kid came smiling. A brushy faced old man hobbled to the front, shouting, “Hallelujah.” Some folks laughed, but even those were laughing without mocking. The man yelled even louder, “Hallelujah.” The crowd echoed his cry, “Hallelujah.” The windows rattled and dust fell from the chandeliers.
Daniel cried real big tears of joy. Miss Evelyn moved to the stairs and joined the growing crowd at the foot of the stage. A local pastor joined her in providing counsel to those seeming to be sobbing out of control and answer any questions put to them.
One laughing couple asked, “Can we be baptized now?”
The pastor said the river was a good place and began a march to the river that stopped at the first horse trough. First the pastor slid Daniel under the surface of the water and then Daniel moved across the street to another trough and began baptizing all those who were willing. Cries of, “Thank you, Jesus,” and “Hallelujah” were heard as the seemingly endless lines of people were dipped in the mossy waters of the troughs.
After an hour, Daniel noticed that the lines were down and a crowd was standing around, many of them dry as a bone. He jumped to the stand on the hitching rail and pulled himself up on the roof of the shade over the wooden sidewalk, where he shouted, “Come to the waters in faith all you sinners. Know the true God of this world. Live the life He designed for you.” He kept beckoning as the dry individuals slowly walked away or came crying to the trough.
As it was apparent that the folks were not going home, but were standing around praying, singing, or just plain watching, Daniel began the sermon he had prepared for this night. The street before him squirmed with live bodies trying to hear the Word. More people were caught up in the excitement and some were even directed to the trough where the Pastor continued to baptize all that agreed to the Sacrament.
At 1 AM, a local deputy from the Marshall’s office walked up to a position under Daniel as he stood on the roof, “Sir, I must ask you to stop preaching and allow these folks to go home. We do have a noise ordinance and there have been complaints. There are also laws against blocking the street and holding a parade without a permit.”
“My apologies, I didn’t note the time was so late.”
“I’ll give you fifteen minutes to disperse this crowd,” the deputy added with a smile.
Daniel spoke a few words and said a long prayer of thanksgiving before notifying all present that it was time to get out of the road and go home.
The crowd slowly dispersed with much cheering and singing as they went. Miss Evelyn was found seated on the edge of the sidewalk, sobbing. She answered Daniel’s query with, “I’m so happy.”
Daniel took her arm and led her to the caravan.
His father wasn’t home.
Pushing aside the canvas drapes, he crawled under the caravan and crashed into his blankets thinking he would hunt for him in the morning. He chuckled to himself when he realized it was early morning and shut his eyes.
Evelyn yelled and pounded on the bottom of the caravan, “He didn’t come home. We need to find him.”
Daniel used his boot to thump his acknowledgement to her call and crawled out of bed. Once dressed, he moved out from under the caravan and wondered which saloon or brothel he would find his father in this time.
Evelyn opened the side window of the caravan, “How much longer you going to keep hunting him down every other morning?”
“Until he’s dead or breaks the habit. Or, he could be hit by the truth of all those sermons he preached as a phony and then we could work together.”
“That would surely be miracle.”
Dan smiled, “No more than my change and last night.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” She paused, “Well, go find him. I’ll get dressed and get us some breakfast. Oh, did you bring the bucket home?”
“No. I’ll look for that, too.”
He trotted down the hill to the opera house. The bucket was there by the back door, but there was only one silver dollar in it. The silver dollar went in a pocket and the bucket was left at the back door. The nearest saloon was two doors down. No one was there.
He started walking.
Seven saloons and two brothels later, he met the deputy from the night before. “What you doin’ out here at this hour? The preaching don’t start till dark, does it?”
“You’re right. Dark. I’m looking for my father. Heavy man, white hair, clean shaved, about your height. Wear’s black broadcloth suits most of the time.”
The deputy stepped back. “I know where he is. I was just coming to see ya about your daddy.”
“Not for me anymore.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think your father is at the funeral parlor.”
“Is he trying to do the services or something?”
“No,” he paused and took his hat off, “He’s dead.”
“Got in a gun fight with a bad man gambler over a floozy.”
The DEACON – Episode 2 – constructive critic requested
On November 3, 2015 By Doug BallIn believability, life, Nanowrimo, scenes, writingLeave a comment
The next night the crowd began to form on the hilltop more than an hour early. There was even some jostling for the prime seats down front. Two cowboys got in a fight over a chair that was the last one on the back row. Miss Evelyn was dressed and mingling with the crowd a half hour before the show was to start.
“Oh, yes, you will be amazed at what God can do with your life once you surrender to Him through Jesus, the Christ. It is such a powerful moment and it lasts for the rest of eternity,” Miss Evelyn told one painted young gal on the front row.
“I hope he’s done before my boss misses me at the Cowboy Corral. I’m one of his biggest attractions and he won’t treat me nice if I ain’t there when the boys hit town, it being Friday and all.”
“I know whereof you speak, gal. I was in your shoes not 24 hours ago. Now I belong to Jesus and no man is gonna make me do anything I don’t wanna do no more.”
“Oh, that sounds so sweet. Tell me more at the end. You can walk me back, can’t you?”
“Maybe. It depends on the response.”
“Response to what.”
“The Word of God. That boy delivers it like no one I ever heard before.”
In the caravan, the boy is being shoved into his clean, second best shirt. “You just go out there and tell them another Bible story like you did last night. How about the ten lepers? Remember? Jesus healed ten lepers and only one came back to say, ‘thanks.’ The rest went on their merry way without ever givin’ a hoot who it was that healed them.”
“But Dad, I ain’t never been to no Bible school like you. I ain’t a preacher.”
“That crowd last night said differently, Daniel. They ate it up. The offering was one of the biggest we’ve ever had. It’s all about the money, boy, all about the money. You get out there and wow them with another story. You can do it. Bout time I retired anyhow. Too many towns know me.”
“I’ll do’er one more time. Then that’s it,” Daniel looked him in the eye, “I hope.”
“Give them heaven and they’ll fill the bucket.”
“I’m a phony, Dad. I don’t believe any of this stuff. It’s all hooey or so you been telling me.”
“They believe it and they’ll fill the bucket.”
“One more time,” Daniel said as he left the caravan for the rock platform.
The crowd saw him coming just as he saw the crowd. Every seat was filled with a person whose eyes were on him. The crowd went totally silent.
Miss Evelyn looked up to see why and then moved to her position on the rock. She looked at him and smiled. After all, he had shown her the way to a new life. She began to sing a new song she had never sung for anyone before. She had heard it as a child in New Hampshire when her folks would drag her, practically kicking and screaming, to the Congregational Church just outside of town. She sang, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” She didn’t plan it, it just came. The words flowed through her mind and out her mouth, verse after verse, until she was finished.
Daniel stood on the platform in awe of the beauty he had just heard. The crowd sat or stood in silence, most with their mouths wide open as if to catch all the music. One cowboy sitting on his horse way off to one side, took off his hat and hung it on the horn of his saddle and started clapping. The crowd slowly and reverently join in as they stood.
Miss Evelyn yelled, “It’s all true. You can have a friend in Jesus.”
The clapping got louder.
The cowboy ground reined his horse and walked slowly to the front of the rock platform and sat down in the dirt. Daniel raised his hands as he had seen his Dad do to get the crowd’s attention. They just kept clapping for Miss Evelyn.
She bowed and raised her hands. The crowd went silent. “Thank you. That was a song I learned a long time ago against my will, but today I sang it from my heart in His will. Please listen to what Daniel has to say to you.” The crowd shifted their eyes to look at the twelve year old boy in a boiled shirt and scuffed shoes.
He stepped closer to the edge of the stone platform.
An hour later he finished with, “Most of you want to be able to see, but few of you will come to Jesus for healing. He, and He alone can open your eyes to the sin in your lives that requires you to repent in order to truly know Jesus as a Savior. Then there will be even fewer that will come to the front and truly repent in faith before the throne of God that this rock symbolizes. Come won’t you?” He looked down, “Cowboy, you’re gonna have to move.”
The cowboy moved. He crawled to the rock, put one hand on his face and the other on the rock, before he yelled, “Jesus, heal me.”
Miss Evelyn scurried to the back of the rock, down the ladder, and around to the cowboy. She kneeled beside him, “Cry out to God and tell him how sorry you are that your sins required Jesus to go to the cross and be the blood sacrifice for your sins.”
The cowboy cried. He cried so loud his friend came up to see what was going on. By the time they arrived, the area between the chairs and the rock was filled with people in tears and on their knees before this God that Daniel had presented to them. Miss Evelyn went from person to person talking, comforting, and testifying of the Grace of God in her life. She even yelled at one point, “Yesterday I was in darkness, but since I met Jesus last night, I can in the light. I am free. I am free.”
The young saloon girl she had talked to before the service caught her, “Tell me how I can hide from my boss and live with Jesus.”
Daniel carried the bucket to the back of the area where most of the folks had entered. As he walked folks tossed bills and change into the bucket. The bucket got heavier as he approached the spot he had decided it belonged. Arriving, he sat the bucket on a rock that stood about two feet tall and placed a small sign on a stick in it that read, “Donations accepted,” and walked toward the caravan.
Person after person grabbed him and asked him to pray. He prayed. He didn’t believe it would do an ounce of good, but he prayed. He must have prayed a dozen times before he broke through the crowd and was able to reach the caravan. The clutching hands of the crowd fell away as he shrugged his way through the last ones and into the clear behind the rock platform.
“Dad,” he said as he entered the caravan, “You just aren’t gonna believe what I saw tonight.”
His father wasn’t there. He was in a local saloon, fondling a dancehall gal and drinking all the unguarded booze left behind the bar.
The gal didn’t mind. He had money and was free with it.
Miss Evelyn reached the last person face down on the dirt to find the cowboy. He was crying and shouting his sins as he begged for forgiveness. Miss Evelyn said, “Cowboy, that Bible says that if we repent and ask God for forgiveness, He will forgive. That’s a promise He keeps on a daily basis in your life.”
“Miss Evelyn, I needed tonight. I knew I was living wrong and now I’m dealing with it thanks to you and that boy, that preacher. Jesus is my friend just like you sang at the beginning. Where’s the boy?”
“He left.” She knew the kid didn’t believe what he told these folks, but she knew that God would forgive him one day when he did repent and follow the Word he was teaching.
Three years later Daniel stood on the platform in the largest venue in Denver and looked out over several thousand people of all ages, creeds, and colors. The message was one of a thief that was dying from the nails in his hands and feet that held him. The thief was hanging on a cross next to the dying Jesus. The thief admitted he was guilty of his deeds and deserved to die, and told the world from his cross that Jesus had done nothing wrong. He was hanging there for no reason other than the jealousy of the priesthood of the church of his day. He was hanging there in reality because that’s where His Father wanted him. He was hanging there to pay the penalty before God for all the sins of a lost world.
As he taught that last sentence something happened in the heart of a 15 year old young sinner standing on a platform in front of thousands of people. Somehow he was convinced that all he had been teaching for three years was really true and that this same Jesus died for him. He knew that the bucket was sitting at the back of the room with its small sign. He knew it was overflowing with the donations of all these people. He knew that it wasn’t all about the money.
IT WAS ALL ABOUT JESUS.
HE BELIEVED IT ALL!
He fell to his knees and cried, “Father, forgive me, a sinner,” and fainted in tears.
The next morning just before noon the Denver Tribune put out a special edition with black headlines reading, “BOY PREACHER FALLS FOR OWN MESSAGE” in three lines above the fold. The article read:
Last night at the Miner’s Hall, 15 year old Daniel Fount came to the fount of Jesus in the middle of his own sermon. The young preacher, son of the infamous Right Reverend Lawrence P. Fount, was approximately half way through his usual sermon time when he swooned on stage.
Miss Evelyn, the singer with the preacher, says he has been working excessive hours with new believers in Jesus and was totally exhausted. His father, the Right Reverend, stated that he didn’t know what happened until this morning. Rumor had it that the father was in the notorious Bucket of Blood Saloon with one, Big Bottom Kate, on his lap for most of the evening throwing money around like it was confetti thrown at a political parade.
Dr. Elmont Goode, a physician, is reported to have said that he could find no reason for the young preacher’s nose dive to the stage. The good Doctor Goode repaired the man’s broken nose and received a $10 bill for his services.
Young Preacher Daniel Fount stated to this reporter that the Revival will continue tonight a 7 PM at the Minor’s Hall where he will explain everything. A hearty crowd is expected.
Miss Evelyn will sing.
At 5 minutes to 7 PM that evening, back stage in the Minor’s Hall Daniel looked at Evelyn, “Evelyn, I need you to sing like you have only sung once before and that was the night in Las Vegas when you sang ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus.’ I want you to sing it just like you did that night.” He turned, “Dad, I want you well out of here. It could get dangerous. There were three notes delivered this afternoon concerning the phoniness of our ministry and the use of the funds donated by the audience. I may get hurt, but there is no sense anyone else getting hurt. Evelyn, you leave by the back door as soon as I begin to speak.”
“I won’t do that, Dan. I will be in the wings praying.”
“There is no reason for God to protect us tonight. I have sinned greatly and you have allowed it to happen even after you became a believer. So, go.”
He gave up, “Thank you. I’ll need all the prayer I can get. But, if it starts getting violent, you run.”
“Lady don’t run too well dressed like this. I’ll be there praying.” She pointed to the left wing.
The stage hand that was still working with them came by and said, “Ten minutes, Preacher Fount. Miss Evelyn, the piano player asked if you would begin with a couple of songs starting now. The crowd is sounding rowdy and angry.”
“On my way. Pray for me, Dan.”
The stagehand said, “She’s gonna need it. I saw lots of rotten vegetables and fruit out there as I watched the front door. There was also a basket of eggs. Not a single person has dropped a penny in the bucket.” He paused as if he were looking for the right words to say. “I know how you feel, but remember – the Truth shall set you free, and Jesus is the Truth. I’ll be praying with Miss Evelyn.”
“Thank you. Stay away from me if it gets bad.”
“Don’t worry. I got a wife and three kids to think of. I’ll drop the curtain if you say so.”
The sweet sounds of Miss Evelyn’s singing drifted through the curtains and reached Daniel’s ears bringing him peace as he prayed which brought him total comfort in the midst of this turmoil. He checked the backstage clock. Six minutes until he would walk out there and put everything on the line for the cause of Jesus, this time, the first time in truth.
He walked to the edge of the down left curtain and peeked into the footlights illuminating Miss Evelyn at the down right stage corner as she sang, ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus’ with her clear, carrying voice. The audience stirred like an ant bed a horse had just stomped on.
She finished.
He walked on stage to center front, three feet behind the center footlight.
The DEACON – Episode 1 – Your constructive comments appreciated
On November 2, 2015 By Doug BallIn believability, Nanowrimo, scenes, writingLeave a comment
The DEACON
By Doug Ball Copyright 2015
“Boy, it’s all about the money. Never forget that. It’s all about the money. Now get out there on the road and bang that drum. We need the money they’ll bring to the show.”
The boy shuffled out of the huge blue and white tent carrying the bass drum that was almost as big around as he was tall. At twelve years old, he knew the routine well. He’d bang the drum while standing next to the sign that said, “Revival. Come for a fresh anointing of the power of God.” He’d look cute and smile as wagons and horses went past on their way to the businesses of the community his father had set them up in this time.
The routine was always the same. He’d bang the drum and his father would preach. His father’s current entertainment was a woman he’d picked up from a saloon about three months past who sang sweet enough, but dealt with life with a foul mouth and even worse heart. But, she was pretty, could sing, and dress like the pious lady she wasn’t for the meetings. After she and his father would retired to the caravan wagon to drink themselves to sleep.
The boy, on the other hand, would lie awake half the night listening to their foul conversation and plans for the money that had filled the offering plate. His only hope was that this was one of those rare occasions when his father would toss him a silver dollar and say, “Run into town, son, and buy yourself a treat.” That hadn’t happened in quite awhile.
The offerings were down.
A kid about the boy’s own age stopped and asked, “Can I hit that thing a couple of times?”
“Sure.” Daniel moved back from the drum on its stand and handed the new kid the stick with the round ball of soft felt wrapped around the end. “Don’t hit it too hard, you might break the skin and I’d get a whooping, a bad whooping.”
“Okay.” The new kid took the stick and gave the drum three healthy whacks causing the drum to tip.
Daniel grabbed the drum, “Not quite that hard and hold the edge of the drum like this when you hit it.” He showed the kid how to hold it by the tightening rod across the top side.
The kid grabbed the rod and hit the drum a couple more times. “This is fun. Do they pay you for this job?”
“Nah. My dad’s the preacher.”
“The one that was preaching in the saloon last night?”
“That would be him.”
“Never heard of a preacher that got drunk and preached for free.”
“He weren’t preaching for free. He was preaching so’s them bums would hear the Word and repent from their sinful ways and buy him a drink.”
The kid shook his head as he continued to beat the drum, “Sounds fishy to me. My Ma said that a preacher should never allow foul alcohol to touch his lips.”
“I doubt if the booze ever touches his lips he slugs them down so fast. His tongue maybe, but not his lips.”
“I’ll have to check with Ma on that.” He smiled at the thought of being able to counter his mother’s words.
“Come on by tonight and I’ll get you a seat up front. Sometimes Pa gets to preaching so loud and frantic, he spits on the folks in the front couple of rows. Specially if he’s got a snoot full.”
“I don’t want no one spittin’ on me.”
“Okay, you can sit on the side of the stage near the piano with me.”
“I could do that. Gee, thanks.”
“My name’s Daniel, what’s yours?”
“Michael. Just like the Archangel.”
“I’m named after some buckaroo that herded lions.”
“He must have been one tough hand.”
“He was. The King made him his right hand Segundo.”
Two cowboys rode by laughing at the boys beating the drum. “Ben, we gonna come back and hurrah this tent tonight?”
“Sounds like a great idea. I ain’t heard a hell fire and damnation preacher in at least five years. Might be a good time. If he ain’t lively enough, we can help him by kickin’ up the action.”
Daniel heard the conversation and told himself to remember to tell his father.
He didn’t.
That evening Michael showed up just as the ‘singer’ was belting out “Bringing in the Sheaves.” The crowd grew to fill about half the tent and its 70 folding chairs. There were about a dozen cowboys standing in the back with bottles of various varieties of booze from beer to rotgut flaunted. All of them were commenting and gesturing with volume and vigor.
Daniel remembered the two cowboys riding by and ran to his father. “Dad, the cowboys are planning to hurrah you and the service tonight.”
“Don’t you worry, son, the Good Lord is in charge here tonight as He is every night,” he said as he laughed at his own words.
“Dad, I don’t really think it’s right laughing at something like that.”
“You’re right, son, but few there are that realize that, and I am one of them.” He walked to the podium, laid out his Bible and notes, and then hit the bass drum standing in its stand there beside him with a couple of good licks just as the demure dancehall girl finished her song.
“Thank you, Evelyn, for that enlightening Word of God in song. Let’s all give Evelyn a rousing hand of appreciation.”
The audience gave a half-hearted response. The cowboys in the back were cheering like mad. One of them even called out, “That ain’t no Evelyn, that’s Miss Daisy from Wichita. I saw here there last year when I hauled beef into that burg.”
The audience laughed louder at that than the response was to the song.
“Let us pray,” said the preacher.
Two hours later after the bucket had been passed around three times, the Preacher gave an impassioned altar call for, “All you sinners that need to repent and come to the feet of Jesus. Now is the day of repentance, not tomorrow. Come, come one and come all. Now is the light of Jesus shining brightest in the eyes of your heart. Come and live forevermore with Him in Paradise just as the thief on the cross. Come and enjoy the benefits of His Salvation. No more problems. No worries. He heals, come and be healed. Come now. We will sing that great hymn of the faith, “The Old Rugged Cross. Miss Evelyn will lead us.”
Miss Evelyn stood and sang with a dozen tears in her voice.
The crowd split. One group just remained seated. The other 15 or so got up and walked the aisle to the front and was greeted by the Right Reverend Doctor Lawrence P. Fount, Larry Fount on his arrest records. The head Deacon of the local Presbyterian Church asked Dr. Fount, “May I assist you, Sir?”
“Why certainly, young man.”
Some folks hit their knees and begged for forgiveness of their sins, other cried out for healing, the rest of those up front just stood awaiting whatever was supposed to happen. All except one old cowboy. That one old cowboy began the journey to the front and passed out cold to end up flat on his face in the middle of the crowd.
The Reverend Fount screamed at the top of his lungs, “This man is so overwhelmed with the power of God that he has passed out at the relieving of the burden of all his sins. Let’s shout hallelujah in praise.”
“He passed out drunk,” yelled a cowboy from the rear of the tent.
The seated crowd laughed and catcalled concerning the issue.
“He’s a boozer and a loozer.”
“That old reprobate.”
“Somebody dowse him with a bucket of water.”
Just as the fun was really ripping through the tent, the old cowboy got up, drew his six shooter, and proceeded to put five holes in the roof of the big top. The crowd hit the floor as if they were all struck by the power of God. The old cowboy staggered to the back and exited through the door of the tent.
The Reverend Fount said, “Damn, more holes to patch before they run.”
He left the tent as Evelyn sang the first verse, the only one she knew, again for the fifth time.
By the time she finished the first verse again, the crowd was well thinned and Daniel was left to put out the lamps and lanterns hanging here and there, along with buttoning up the tent door. He noticed the Reverend Father, his Father, had not forgotten the offering which had resided in a tin bucket.
“Must have been skimpy, he left the bucket.” Daniel went to his blanket under the caravan.
A month and ten towns later, the tent sat in the dirt at the end of the main business section of Las Vegas, New Mexico. The wind blew as the six hired men struggled to get the tent erected until the Reverend Fount called an end to the struggle and just had Daniel set up the chairs. The weather being pleasant and the location at the crest of a slight rise said much for the outdoor, no tent set up. No one would be cold and due to the breeze, the mosquitoes would not bother the folks. There was even a convenient rock, flat on top and large enough to be the stage. The piano would not fit, nor could it be lifted up to those heights, but a simple four step ladder sufficed to allow the Reverend and Miss Evelyn an easy and modest assent to the God given platform.
With the easy site set up allowing the Reverend plenty of time before the show, he descended into the community to share the joy he felt with the folks of said community. There being five separate buildings which merchandised the nectars he sought gave him ample opportunity to spread the good word around concerning the Joy that would be available on the hilltop that evening.
Unfortunately, he spent more time imbibing in the merchandise than he did spreading the good news of joy. Come the advertised time of 6 PM, he was only semi-conscious in the caravan. No efforts of Miss Evelyn could arouse him fully. Finally, Daniel went in as Miss Evelyn took the stage to keep the masses occupied until he could wake up the Preacher.
After three verses of “We Shall Gather at the River,” Daniel threw a bucket of water on in the Preacher’s face. Of course that was not a good thing to do, it doused all the man’s clothing from the waist up and left the bed a sodden mess. The Reverend sputtered and cursed like a sailor until he gave out with the best idea he ever had, “You go preach to them, Daniel. Tell them how God delivered your namesake from the Lions.”
“I can’t preach. You’re the preacher, not me. What do I know about preaching?”
“It’s all about the money, son. Put on the show and they will drop their last penny in that tin bucket. It is all about the money.” He fell back, out cold.
Daniel grabbed his good shirt and coat from the bottom drawer, jumped into them, and ran for the stairs to the platform. Arriving at the top he found he could not see over the podium, so he tossed it aside with a crash that brought all attention to him. Evelyn ended her song at the same moment.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, my earthly father is ill.” A long period of laughter from the audience followed. “He has anointed me to speak to you tonight. If you are disappointed, you may leave and with this set up you may leave in any direction you wish.” Again laughter.
“My name is Daniel. It comes from a man of ancient Israel in captivity. He was a slave to the highest man in the world of that day.” He went on to finish the story.
“As Daniel was saved from the lions and promoted to the highest position under the king, you can be promoted to the highest position under God by using the same faith Daniel used in his stand against the evil advisors of the king. This old world will tell you that you are alright, but God says you must have faith in His Son, Jesus, to be all right. You cannot be half right and be in the presence of God, you cannot even be mostly right to be in the presence of God. You must be ALL RIGHT, and that only happens when you totally give in to the desires of God and let Him lead you to your resurrection one day.”
Miss Evelyn fell to her knees as she sang her rendition of “The Old Rugged Cross” again and again. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Between lines she cried out, “Save me, Jesus.” Everyone thought it was part of the show, but Miss Daisy (Evelyn) meant it from the bottom of her heart. As she began the first verse again, she fell to her knees and cried, “I repent. I will be your child. Bring on the lions.”
Daniel knelt beside her, “Don’t you think you are overdoing it a bit?”
“I am not acting. This is real. I have never felt like this. The happiness in my heart is smothering the pain of my life history. Oh, the joy.” She started the first verse again.
Daniel looked at the reactions of the crowd and wondered what was going on. This had never happened when his father preached. Even the cowboys from the back of the room were up front on their knees. Many of the crowd were crying, many were just sitting in their chairs with lips twitching. One man was flat on his face sobbing.
Folks had walked the aisle for his father, but never this proportion of the crowd, and never with such sincerity. There were only three left in their chairs showing no reaction. Daniel walked back to the caravan not knowing what else to do.
He father called out, “Did you do it?”
“Yes, Dad. I don’t understand the reaction.”
“What? Did they boo you or throw things at you?”
“No. They got all emotional and cried a lot.”
The man got out of his bed, stumbling over his shoes, and walked to the platform. The sight was one he had never seen before. Evelyn was on her knees confessing every single sin she could remember, the crowd was still on site in various positions of surrender, and even the cowboys were quiet, not mocking any of it.
“What did that boy do?” he whispered as he walked in sock covered feet through the crowd.
A PANTSER GOES PLANNER
On September 1, 2015 September 1, 2015 By Doug BallIn research, scenes, writingLeave a comment
They tell me there are two kinds of writers.
The first is the PLANNER. The PLANNER sits and thinks, writing down an outline of varying level of detail, and then writes the document. The PANTSER, on the other hand, just sits down and writes with a varying number of ideas in his/her head concerning the document.
I was a PANTSER, hardcore. Of my 10 fiction books, all where pantsed. I sat with a varying level of ideas and let my muse take control. My muse has been getting lazy. The last three tries at novels have ended up dead ended at the 20-30,000 word stage. My 10th novel, SAILOR, I published at the 30,000 word length and still think its a better book because of that.
Now I have three, 3, books in progress and all are trying to end way to soon.
So, I am going to try being a PLANNER. I will sit and world build, deepen my characters with all kinds of emotional and physical stressers, and drag it through the mud of the thesaurus until I come up with an outline.
Can that really be a way to write a book? I fight myself on this choice. It just isn’t natural, for me at least.
All I really want to know is which type pays best in personal satisfaction. If I were in this for the money, I’d be a joke.
Pray for me,
Now go write
Tome for work, or maybe that should be tomb.
On July 29, 2015 By Doug BallIn life, scenes, writingLeave a comment
How you doing on camp nano? 31 days to write to your own stated goal. I think I will fail to win this year with a goal of only 10,000 words. Got to 6,500 and life got in the way. Vacation with daughter and family. Followed it up with a four day return trip thru places unknown. 3 days at home and off to Colorado for a week in the Rockies. Leadville here we come dragging our trailer behind. At our age roughing it is a very small bathroom with flush toilet.
BUT, I treat every stop and sign a research point for an upcoming book. In Missouri we saw tigers, lions, and a grizzly bear close up and personal. I have a much healthier respect for the size of all. My accountant says I can deduct much of the travel if I’m ready to show where I have or intend to use the knowledge gained. Sounds good to me.
How do you apply what you see on trips and such in your writing or other profession?
Now go write. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1150 |
__label__wiki | 0.973087 | 0.973087 | Awards Chevron Right
Golden Globes Chevron Right
Oscar Isaac, Jacob Tremblay lightsaber battle at Golden Globes after-party
By Dana Rose Falcone
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
At Sunday night’s Golden Globes, Room star Jacob Tremblay was starstruck on the red carpet when he saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens‘ Oscar Isaac. The 9-year-old actor told E!’s Giuliana Rancic that Isaac, who plays Poe Dameron in the franchise’s latest installment, is his favorite character, and he thought the movie was “awesome.”
Rancic confirmed with Tremblay that if he hadn’t been pursuing acting, he’d want to serve as a Jedi, and the two then engaged in a lightsaber battle on the carpet. But Tremblay got a chance to really show off his lightsaber skills when he met Isaac at a Golden Globes after-party.
Isaac took a break from celebrating his best actor in a limited series win for Show Me a Hero to take on his young fan in a lightsaber battle of their own. A24, the studio behind Room, shared a photo of Tremblay and Isaac’s Star Wars moment, and it’s just as cute as you’d imagine.
oh no oh no Oscar Isaac and Jacob Tremblay had a Jedi battle at the #GoldenGlobes after-party. dreams do come true. pic.twitter.com/hDSaPI7z0v
— A24 (@A24) January 11, 2016
While Tremblay’s Room missed out on the best drama and screenplay awards it was up for, his costar Brie Larson was named best actress in a drama at the 73rd annual Golden Globe Awards.
RELATED: Golden Globes 2016: Best and Worst Dressed
“He came and tackled me afterwards, which made me cry a lot,” Larson said of Tremblay backstage after her win. “He’s probably dancing. Knowing him, he’s probably in a throng of Johnny Depp and Will Smith and Amy Schumer, like, starting a conga line somewhere.”
—With reporting by Marc Snetiker
By Dana Rose Falcone @DanaRoseFalcone | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1159 |
__label__cc | 0.617976 | 0.382024 | Keeler Johnson’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff Top 10: Division is Deep
Monomoy Girl winning the 2018 Breeders' Cup Distaff (gr. I) - Coady Photography The potential field and top contenders for the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) might be unclear at this point, but the same can’t be said for the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1), which could be among the highlights of the championship series at Santa Anita Park this fall. There’s no shortage of high-class fillies and mares targeting the Distaff, and in compiling an initial Top 10 [...]
By Keeler Johnson|May 22nd, 2019|Categories: Breeders' Cup, Horses, Races, RacingWire, Thoroughbreds|Tags: Bellafina, Breeders Cup, breeders' cup distaff, Elate, Escape Clause, Keeler Johnson's Breeders' Cup Top 10, Midnight Bisou, Monomoy Girl, Paradise Woods, Point of Honor, Secret Spice, Serengeti Empress, She's a Julie|
BARN Podcast 5/22/19
BARN, Podcast, RacingWire
We're excited to welcome in trainer Richard Baltas to talk about his career as well as some of his talented horses like Secret Spice and Next Shares. We also bring back an old segment called "Meet the Tweeter" where we introduce you to a member of the horse racing twitter community.
By Jason Beem|May 21st, 2019|Categories: BARN, Podcast, RacingWire|Tags: little red feather, Next Shares, Richard Baltas, Secret Spice, swifthitter|
Patience Pays Off, She’s a Julie Wins La Troienne
She's a Julie winning the La Troienne Stakes (G1) - Coady Photography She wasn’t the favorite—three rivals started at shorter prices—but when push came to shove, She’s a Julie was indisputably the best filly in the $500,000 La Troienne Stakes (G1) on Kentucky Oaks Day at Churchill Downs. She’s a Julie is a perfect example of a horse who needed time to mature before reaching peak form. After winning her debut as a 2-year-old at Churchill Downs, the [...]
By Keeler Johnson|May 7th, 2019|Categories: Breeders' Cup, Horses, Races, RacingWire, Thoroughbreds|Tags: Blue Prize, Breeders Cup, breeders' cup distaff, Churchill Downs, La Troienne Stakes, Midnight Bisou, Mopotism, Ricardo Santana Jr., Secret Spice, She's a Julie, Steve Asmussen|
How to Bet the Kentucky Oaks Pick 4
Betting Tips, Breeders' Cup, Horses, Kentucky Derby, Races, RacingWire, Thoroughbreds
World of Trouble winning the Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint Stakes - © Leslie Martin/Adam Coglianese Photography Good luck to anyone playing the stakes-packed Pick 4 ending with the $1.25 million Kentucky Oaks (G1) at Churchill Downs this afternoon. It might require a big budget to hit. The sequence is filled with deep and competitive races, starting with the $500,000 La Troienne Stakes (G1), the eighth race on the card. #2 Blue Prize loves Churchill Downs, but she’s making her [...]
By Keeler Johnson|May 3rd, 2019|Categories: Betting Tips, Breeders' Cup, Horses, Kentucky Derby, Races, RacingWire, Thoroughbreds|Tags: Awe Emma, Bellafina, betting, betting tips, Blue Prize, Churchill Downs, Flor de La Mar, Handicapping, Jaywalk, Kentucky Oaks, Kentucky Oaks Day, La Troienne Stakes, Lady Apple, Out for a Spin, Pick 4, Restless Rider, Secret Spice, She's a Julie, Street Band, Tiz Mischief, Twin Spires Turf Sprint Stakes, Undrafted, World of Trouble|
Ms Bad Behavior well placed in Desi Arnaz Stakes
BetAmerica News, Breeders' Cup, Races, RacingWire
Ms Bad Behavior seeks her first stakes victory in the Desi Arnaz Stakes at Del Mar. Pic: Benoit Photo. Beaten by two of the best juvenile fillies in California this season, Ms Bad Behavior should enjoy easier company when she seeks her first stakes victory in the seven-furlong Desi Arnaz Stakes at Del Mar Nov. 18. The Ontario-bred from the Richard Baltas stable ran into subsequent Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) third-place finisher Piedi Bianchi on her debut [...]
By Alastair Bull|November 17th, 2017|Categories: BetAmerica News, Breeders' Cup, Races, RacingWire|Tags: 2017 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, Alluring Star, Del Mar, Desi Arnaz Stakes, Dream Tree, Midnight Bisou, Ms Bad Behavior, Piedi Bianchi, Richard Baltas, Secret Spice, Smiling Tigress, Steph Being Steph| | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1163 |
__label__wiki | 0.989201 | 0.989201 | Freeform Launching Valentine’s Day Programming Block, Anchored By ‘The Thing About Harry’
Telemundo Actors Vote To Join SAG-AFTRA
By David Robb
Labor Editor
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March 8, 2017 12:28pm
In a historic election, performers employed on Spanish-language Telemundo telenovelas have voted to be represented at the bargaining table by SAG-AFTRA. The vote was 91-21 in favor of unionization, and union officials say it’s the first time in 65 years a group of actors at a major TV network have sought an NLRB-sanction unionization election. The new bargaining unit will cover actors, stunt performers, singers, and dancers working on telenovelas produced in the U.S.
Union officials called the vote “a momentous step toward ending the double standard that has existed for decades” between Spanish-speaking performers at the NBCUniversal-owned network and their English-speaking colleagues at NBC. Telemundo currently employs some 500 performers on the more than 100 telenovela episodes it produces each year, mostly in Miami.
NBCU Telemundo Launches Film Division, Sets Eva Longoria Starrer 'Lowriders' As First Project
“I congratulate Telemundo performers and welcome them to our family of actors and professionals,” said SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris. “This vote sends a powerful message of hope and solidarity at a critical moment in the history of our union and of the creative community. Regardless of the language we speak, we can all unite to improve conditions for performers working professionally in our industry. Telemundo performers have laid a foundation that will improve lives for generations to come.”
“Voting to join SAG-AFTRA under these circumstances required tremendous courage,” said David White, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director. “I want to whole-heartedly congratulate Telemundo performers for their collective effort and I welcome them to our worldwide professional family. We know this vote also will help Telemundo grow and flourish and we look forward to negotiating with them to achieve a fair first contract for our members.”
A spokesperson for Telemundo said that while the network “is disappointed with this result, we remain committed to all of our employees and will move forward with the negotiation process after the election results have been certified by the NLRB. We continue to be dedicated to making Telemundo a great place to work and to Telemundo’s long-term success.”
Saying that the union will meet with performers in the coming weeks to discuss contract proposals surrounding issues of fair pay, residuals, benefits and on-set safety measures, union officials say that “this election also signals the union’s commitment to continue organizing on behalf of all Spanish-language media in the United States.”
“Unity of mind and spirit makes us all stronger,” said actor Edward James Olmos. “Move with clarity of purpose and stay strong. Sí se puede.”
“Very proud of all those who took a step forward towards equality and the fundamental right of being represented by SAG-AFTRA,” said actor Luis Guzman. “In unity y siempre p’alante mi gente!”
“I am proud of my fellow actors for taking this bold step that puts us on a path toward equality in the entertainment industry,” said actor Pablo Azar. “We are making history today, and we look forward to Telemundo’s continued success as we work together toward changes and equality in the industry.”
SAG AFTRA
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'Dr. Death': Stephen Frears To Direct Jamie Dornan, Alec Baldwin & Christian Slater In Peacock Limited Series | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1165 |
__label__cc | 0.629098 | 0.370902 | Tim Geithner Still Under The Impression He Can Leave Washington Whenever He Pleases
Bess Levin
Remember, back in June, when Tim Geithner said he was considering retiring from his post at the Treasury after the debt deal passed, telling friends that he was tired, needed a break and wanted to put family first (his wife and son live in Westchester, where the latter is finishing high school)? And the White House was all, "good one, buddy!" and "joked" about forcing him to wear an ankle monitoring bracelet before making clear in no uncertain terms that TG wasn't going anywhere? Apparently Tim doesn't. Which would explain the laughable statement he made earlier today, vis-à-vis being allowed to go home any time soon:
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said he doesn’t expect President Barack Obama to ask him to stay in office if he’s re-elected, and dismissed Wall Street’s concerns about financial regulations. “He’s not going to ask me to stay on, I’m pretty confident,” Geithner said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. “I’m confident he’ll be president. But I’m also confident he’s going to have the privilege of having another secretary of the Treasury.”
And Obama is confident you make one move for that door and the Secret Service throws you down the hole with the lotion again.
Geithner: Obama Wouldn’t Ask Me to Stay in a Second Term [Bloomberg]
Earlier: Rebuttal #1: Don’t be a prick. Rebuttal #2: Bros before Larchmont hoes
Treasury SecretaryTim Geithner
When And How Will Tim Geithner Leave Office?
The Banality Of Tim Geithner
Happy Birthday, Tim Geithner!
The White House Doesn't Care That Tim Geithner Has A Family And A Mortgage In Larchmont, New York
Congressman Was This Close To Telling Tim Geithner He Was Cruisin' For A Brusin'
“You can smile and laugh about it all you want,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) bristled at Mr. Geithner during a House Budget Committee hearing. Mr. Chaffetz then intoned he was getting sick of the Treasury secretary’s “silly little smirk.” To be sure, Mr. Geithner did have a smile on his face during parts of the hearing, particularly when he was interrupted by Republicans on the panel when they didn’t like his answers on deficit reduction. He even spent part of the hearing answering questions with his arms crossed. At one point, he suggested that Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R., Kan.) had an “adolescent perspective” on how the economy worked.
Bloomberg Declares Tim Geithner No Longer Fit For Ridicule
Tim Geithner To Finally Be Set Free?
Someone Please (Please?!) Buy Tim Geithner's House | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1167 |
__label__wiki | 0.819931 | 0.819931 | Home Pakistan Defence Forum > World Affairs Forum > World Affairs >
Mossad hits London Stock Exchange
Discussion in 'World Affairs' started by metalfalcon, Feb 1, 2009.
Feb 1, 2009 #1
metalfalcon SENIOR MEMBER
He was Just a Former MOSSAD agent, May be he had some Intelligence about people in Stock Exchange who can help him in Organizing his plot.
A.Rahman ELITE MEMBER
Spanish police arrest former Mossad agent in AIM fraud affair
Abraham Hochman is reported to be among six arrested in connection with the $600 million fraud.
Uriel Harman28 Jan 09 15:45
The Spanish police have arrested six people, among them a former Mossad agent, on suspicion of involvement in a €450 million ($600 million) fraud on the London Stock Exchange.
The "Daily Mail" reports that Abraham Hochman, formerly a Mossad agent, and an Argentinian named Diego Magn Selva are thought to be among the six arrested.
Article continues after advertisements
One of the people under arrest is suspected of organizing the fraudulent scheme involving shares in a British company called Langbar International between 2003 and 2005. The company was delisted from London's Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in 2005, when the investigation began. The scheme was to create a bogus company, list it on the London Stock Exchange, use false documents and rumor to inflate the share price, and then sell shares at a profit. The company's market cap was $300 million when it was floated, and reached a peak of $600 million.
Oren Shimonovich, an Israeli living in London, confirmed to "Globes" details of the reports in the British press.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news -
Karachi Stock Exchange KSE
fatman17, Jul 17, 2008, in forum: Pakistan Economy
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About Pakistan Stock Exchange
black-hawk_101, Nov 1, 2015, in forum: Pakistan Economy
Arron Bert | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1175 |
__label__wiki | 0.511913 | 0.511913 | Antonio Gates Retires from the NFL after 16 Seasons
Trevor Blevins
After a 16-season career with the Chargers, Antonio Gates has announced his retirement from the NFL. (Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports)
Antonio Gates has announced his retirement from the NFL. Gates, who spent the entirety of his career with the San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers, announced that he had re-signed with the Chargers in order to retire as part of the organization.
from Gatesy ? pic.twitter.com/8K1OXnFaFp
— Los Angeles Chargers (@Chargers) January 14, 2020
Antonio Gates calls it a career.
GOAT, period. pic.twitter.com/epugVtD5ep
Rising from being an undrafted player in 2003 to being considered one of the greatest tight ends in the history of the league, Gates finished his career with 116 receiving touchdowns, an NFL record for a tight end, having been named to eight Pro Bowls and 5 All-Pro teams. Gates was also featured on the NFL’s 2000’s All-Decade team, as well as the Chargers 50th Anniversary team in 2009.
Recently, Gates did not play in the 2019 NFL season, fueling speculation on his impending retirement, following initially not being expected to take the field for the Chargers in 2018, but ultimately being brought back due to an injury to starting tight end Hunter Henry.
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REPORT: Drew Brees Gaining Interest From TV Network | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1176 |
__label__cc | 0.725551 | 0.274449 | Waking With Words
A Portfolio of DeMarco Williams' Freelance Writing
Category Archives: Lists
10 Threatened Rivers for Your World Travel Bucket List
According to U.S. scientists, July 2012 was the hottest month in recorded history. Crops have dried up, and most people’s utility bills have shot up. North America’s epic drought has placed a chokehold on the country’s lakes and rivers. The Hudson River, a cherished waterway stretching through New York, has seen its levels drop two feet this year alone. Sadly, the news is even worse in other parts of the world (like with the Ganges River above), where environmental changes, human abuse and urban development have left once-thriving rivers mere puddles of their former selves. Here are 10 Threatened Rivers For Your World Travel Bucket List, none of which we’ll recognize for much longer if we don’t find answers to all the years of neglect.
Eco News/Lists/Travel
environment/Ganges River/Hudson River/Jordan River/Nile River/pollution/preservation/Rio Grande/Yangtze River
10 Uncrowded National Parks for Your Travel Bucket List
According to its website, Yellowstone National Park gets three million visitors annually. We don’t blame folks for making the trip either: The place is heavenly. But just because Yellowstone, Yosemite and a few other popular parks get most of the foot traffic, it doesn’t mean they’re the only stops that capture this great country in its unspoiled splendor. The following 10 natural wonders (including Alaska’s magnificent Wrangell-St. Elias National Park pictured above) probably won’t ever see a fraction of Yellowstone’s guests. That’s okay. The fewer the visitors, the more of a unique experience in store for you and other clever travelers.
Conservation and Preservation/Lists/Travel
Biscayne National Park/Buffalo National River/Canyonlands/Chaco Culture/Great Basin National Park/Isle Royale/Jean Lafitte/National Parks/North Cascades/Theodore Roosevelt National Park/travel/vacation/Wrangell-St. Elias/Yellowstone National Park
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The Rick Ross You Never Knew | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1177 |
__label__wiki | 0.831303 | 0.831303 | Whoopi Goldberg Shares Regrets About Being Unfaithful In Her 3 Failed Marriages: "I Made Mistakes"
Whoopi Goldberg has always been honest about her relationships, even when it comes to the ones that miserably failed.
But the actress claims that she is the reason for that.
READ ALSO: Whoopi Goldberg's Grandchildren Have Grown Up So Fast And They're Still Very Much Like Her!
Goldberg believes that her 3 marriages weren’t successful because of her, because she wasn’t really in love. She says she never felt a strong commitment to her husbands, as well as the desire to make the relationships work.
A post shared by Celebrity Page TV (@celebritypagetv) on Mar 15, 2019 at 12:59pm PDT
But, despite that, Whoopi has some regrets about the past she wishes she could have changed.
“I made mistakes”
Recently Goldberg defended Sandra Bullock’s husband Jesse James, who was caught on cheating. She said that we should hear the whole story before jumping into judgment. The actress also revealed that she can understand Jesse because she had been in the same situation before.
A post shared by WhoopiGoldberg (@whoopigoldberg) on Oct 12, 2018 at 4:24am PDT
She confessed:
I did it (cheated) five or six times... Yes, I screwed around while I was married, yeah. I made mistakes too. It happens sometimes.
A post shared by WhoopiGoldberg (@whoopigoldberg) on Feb 11, 2019 at 10:42am PST
READ ALSO: Being A Single Mama, Whoopi Goldberg And Her Daughter Became Not Only Lookalikes, But Also Besties
Goldberg noted that, perhaps, James wanted to marry a star, but couldn’t deal with the consequences.
But will Whoopi say 'I do' ever again after such a difficult relationship history?
Perhaps not. She believes that she is happier being single. The TV star doesn’t want to be with anyone forever or share a living space with someone.
Fair enough, if that what makes her happy, then we should respect her decision. Who knows, maybe Whoopi will meet someone who will change her mind someday.
READ ALSO: Whoopi Goldberg Explains Why You Should Run If Your Partner Says "You Complete Me" | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1178 |
__label__wiki | 0.873058 | 0.873058 | Is Duchess Catherine For Real? Her See-Through Black Dress Is, Perhaps, The Most Revealing One
It is no wonder Duchess Catherine has become a style icon a long time ago. If before her outfits were simple and sometimes bizarre, over the last past years, she has transformed into a real princess and queen-in-waiting.
READ ALSO: From Tomboy To Duchess: What Did Kate Middleton Wear Before Marrying Prince William?
Lots of royal fans want to be like Kate Middleton, following her ravishing fashion tricks and unusual beauty hacks every now and again.
Indeed, nobody can guarantee the perfection or best public appearances. Royals are also humans, and thus, can do something out of line.
Once upon a time, the Duchess of Cambridge appeared in an odd dress at Action on Addiction autumn gala evening, which causes raised eyebrows and some speculations. The royal stepped out in a knee-length off-the-peg piece by Temperley London and black suede Jimmy Choo Cosmic pumps.
The dress seems a bit revealing, at least to the royal member. Even though the delicate panels expose the nude slip, adding an edge to this feminine attire, it can seem see-through parts on her dress.
Then-pregnant Kate Middleton completed her look by a Magid clutch with a half-circle flap and intricate beading on the front, diamond earrings, and long thick hairdo.
READ ALSO: Moments When Kate Middleton Was Inspired By Lady Diana’s Style
If you take a glance at her dress the first time, what would you think of it? Normal, chic, or see-through and inappropriate?
Hey people, what about Duchess Meghan? Yes-yes, she has been slammed for her past, present, and, probably, all the future mistakes already since entering the British monarchy.
A long time before tying the knot with Prince Harry, Meghan Markle was a Hollywood actress dressing up in eye-catching and revealing clothes. One of such moments was the visit to Glamour And L'Oreal Paris Celebration of College Women Of The Year, where the former Suits star appeared in a see-through gray dress. Just like Duchess Catherine, soon-to-be-mom had the effect of opened areas on the dress, though it's just the visual effect.
Do you have any ideas about such allegations and biases? Do you support Duchesses Kate and Meghan or agree with people's opinions? Share in the comments!
READ ALSO: Style Transformation: How Different Is Meghan-Duchess From Megan-Actress? | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1179 |
__label__wiki | 0.574283 | 0.574283 | Fairytalez.com » Padraic Colum » Thor and Loki in the Giants' City
Thor and Loki in the Giants' City
Padraic Colum March 30, 2018
All but a few of the Dwellers of Asgard had come to the feast offered by Ægir the Old, the Giant King of the Sea. Frigga, the queenly wife of Odin, was there, and Frey and Freya; Iduna, who guarded the Apples of Youth, and Bragi, her husband; Tyr, the great swordsman, and Niörd, the God of the Sea, Skadi, who wedded Niörd and whose hatred for Loki was fierce, and Sif, whose golden hair was once shorn off by Loki the mischievous. Thor and Loki were there. The Dwellers of Asgard, gathered together in the hall of Ægir, waited for Odin.
Before Odin came Loki made the company merry by the tales that he told in mockery of Thor. Loki long since had his lips unloosed from the thong that the Dwarf Brock had sewn them with. And Thor had forgotten the wrong that he had done to Sif. Loki had been with Thor in his wanderings through Jötunheim, and about these wanderings he now told mocking tales.
He told how he had seen Thor in his chariot of brass drawn by two goats go across Bifröst, the Rainbow Bridge. None of the Æsir or the Vanir knew on what adventure Thor was bent. But Loki followed him and Thor kept him in his company.
As they traveled on in the brass chariot drawn by the two goats, Thor told Loki of the adventure on which he was bent. He would go into Jötunheim, even into Utgard, the Giants’ City, and he would try his strength against the Giants. He was not afraid of aught that might happen, for he carried Miölnir, his hammer, with him.
Their way was through Midgard, the World of Men. Once, as they were traveling on, night came upon them as they were hungry and in need of shelter. They saw a peasant’s hut and they drove the chariot toward it. Unyoking the goats and leaving them standing in a hollow beside the chariot, the two, looking not like Dwellers in Asgard, but like men traveling through the country, knocked at the door of the hut and asked for food and shelter.
They could have shelter, the peasant and his wife told them, but they could not have food. There was little in that place, and what little there had been they had eaten for supper. The peasant showed them the inside of the hut: it was poor and bare, and there was nothing there to give anyone. In the morning, the peasant said, he would go down to the river and catch some fish for a meal.
“We can’t wait until morning, we must eat now,” said Thor, “and I think I can provide a good meal for us all.” He went over to where his goats stood in the hollow beside the chariot of brass, and, striking them with his hammer, he left them lifeless on the ground. He skinned the goats then, and taking up the bones very carefully, he left them down on the skins. Skins and bones he lifted up and bringing them into the house he left them in a hole above the peasant’s fireplace. “No one,” said he in a commanding voice, “must touch the bones that I leave here.”
Then he brought the meat into the house. Soon it was cooked and laid smoking on the table. The peasant and his wife and his son sat round the board with Thor and Loki. They had not eaten plentifully for many days, and now the man and the woman fed themselves well.
Thialfi was the name of the peasant’s son. He was a growing lad and had an appetite that had not been satisfied for long. While the meat was on the table his father and mother had kept him going here and there, carrying water, putting fagots on the fire, and holding a blazing stick so that those at the table might see to eat. There was not much left for him when he was able to sit down, for Thor and Loki had great appetites, and the lad’s father and mother had eaten to make up for days of want. So Thialfi got little out of that plentiful feast.
When the meal was finished they lay down on the benches. Thor, because he had made a long journey that day, slept very soundly. Thialfi lay down on a bench, too, but his thoughts were still upon the food. When all were asleep, he thought, he would take one of the bones that were in the skins above him, and break and gnaw it.
So in the dead of the night the lad stood up on the bench and took down the goatskins that Thor had left so carefully there. He took out a bone, broke it, and gnawed it for the marrow. Loki was awake and saw him do this, but he, relishing mischief as much as ever, did nothing to stay the lad.
He put the bone he had broken back in the skins and he left the skins back in the hole above the fireplace. Then he went to sleep on the bench.
In the morning, as soon as they were up, the first thing Thor did was to take the skins out of the hole. He carried them carefully out to the hollow where he had left the goats standing. He put each goatskin down with the bones in it. He struck each with his hammer, and the goats sprang up alive, horns and hoofs and all.
But one was not as he had been before. He limped badly. Thor examined the leg and found out that one bone was broken. In terrible anger he turned on the peasant, his wife, and his son. “A bone of this goat has been broken under your roof,” he shouted. “For that I shall destroy your house and leave you all dead under it.” Thialfi wept. Then he came forward and touched the knees of Thor. “I did not know what harm I did,” he said. “I broke the bone.”
Thor had his hammer lifted up to crush him into the earth. But he could not bring it down on the weeping boy. He let his hammer rest on the ground again. “You will have to do much service for me for having lamed my goat,” he said. “Come with me.”
And so the lad Thialfi went off with Thor and Loki. Thor took in his powerful hands the shafts of the chariot of brass and he dragged it into a lonely mountain hollow where neither men nor Giants came. And they left the goats in a great, empty forest to stay resting there until Thor called to them again.
Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi went across from Midgard into Jötunheim. Because of Miölnir, the great hammer that he carried, Thor felt safe in the Realm of the Giants. And Loki, who trusted in his own cunning, felt safe, too. The lad Thialfi trusted in Thor so much that he had no fear. They were long in making the journey, and while they were traveling Thor and Loki trained Thialfi to be a quick and a strong lad.
One day they came out on a moor. All day they crossed it, and at night it still stretched far before them. A great wind was blowing, night was falling, and they saw no shelter near. In the dusk they saw a shape that looked to be a mountain and they went toward it, hoping to find some shelter in a cave.
Then Loki saw a lower shape that looked as if it might be a shelter. They walked around it, Loki and Thor and the lad Thialfi. It was a house, but a house most oddly shaped. The entrance was a long, wide hall that had no doorway. When they entered this hall they found five long and narrow chambers running off it. “It is an odd place, but it is the best shelter we can get,” Loki said. “You and I, Thor, will take the two longest rooms, and the lad Thialfi can take one of the little rooms.”
They entered their chambers and they lay down to sleep. But from the mountain outside there came a noise that was like moaning forests and falling cataracts. The chamber where each one slept was shaken by the noise. Neither Thor nor Loki nor the lad Thialfi slept that night.
In the morning they left the five-chambered house and turned their faces toward the mountain. It was not a mountain at all, but a Giant. He was lying on the ground when they saw him, but just then he rolled over and sat up. “Little men, little men,” he shouted to them, “have you passed by a glove of mine on your way?” He stood up and looked all around him. “Ho, I see my glove now,” he said. Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi stood still as the Giant came toward them. He leaned over and picked up the five-roomed shelter they had slept in. He put it on his hand. It was really his glove!
Thor gripped his hammer, and Loki and the lad Thialfi stood behind him. But the Giant seemed good-humored enough. “Where might ye be bound for, little men?” said he.
“To Utgard in Jötunheim,” Thor replied boldly.
“Oh, to that place,” said the Giant. “Come, then, I shall be with ye so far. You can call me Skyrmir.”
“Can you give us breakfast?” said Thor. He spoke crossly, for he did not want it to appear that there was any reason to be afraid of the Giant.
“I can give you breakfast,” said Skyrmir, “but I don’t want to stop to eat now. We’ll sit down as soon as I have an appetite. Come along now. Here is my wallet to carry. It has my provisions in it.”
He gave Thor his wallet. Thor put it on his back and put Thialfi sitting upon it. On and on the Giant strode and Thor and Loki were barely able to keep up with him. It was midday before he showed any signs of halting to take breakfast.
They came to an enormous tree. Under it Skyrmir sat down. “I’ll sleep before I eat,” he said, “but you can open my wallet, my little men, and make your meal out of it.” Saying this, he stretched himself out, and in a few minutes Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi heard the same sounds as kept them awake the night before, sounds that were like forests moaning and cataracts falling. It was Skyrmir’s snoring.
Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi were too hungry now to be disturbed by these tremendous noises. Thor tried to open the wallet, but he found it was not easy to undo the knots. Then Loki tried to open it. In spite of all Loki’s cunning he could not undo the knots. Then Thor took the wallet from him and tried to break the knots by main strength. Not even Thor’s strength could break them. He threw the wallet down in his rage.
The snoring of Skyrmir became louder and louder. Thor stood up in his rage. He grasped Miölnir and flung it at the head of the sleeping Giant.
The hammer struck him on the head. But Skyrmir only stirred in his sleep. “Did a leaf fall on my head?” he said.
He turned round on the other side and went to sleep again. The hammer came back to Thor’s hand. As soon as Skyrmir snored he flung it again, aiming at the Giant’s forehead. It struck there. The Giant opened his eyes. “Has an acorn fallen on my forehead?” he said.
Again he went to sleep. But now Thor, terribly roused, stood over his head with the hammer held in his hands. He struck him on the forehead. It was the greatest blow that Thor had ever dealt.
“A bird is pecking at my forehead—there is no chance to sleep here,” said Skyrmir, sitting up. “And you, little men, did you have breakfast yet? Toss over my wallet to me and I shall give you some provision.” The lad Thialfi brought him the wallet. Skyrmir opened it, took out his provisions, and gave a share to Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi. Thor would not take provision from him, but Loki and the lad Thialfi took it and ate. When the meal was finished Skyrmir rose up and said, “Time for us to be going toward Utgard.”
As they went on their way Skyrmir talked to Loki. “I always feel very small when I go into Utgard,” he said. “You see, I’m such a small and a weak fellow and the folk who live there are so big and powerful. But you and your friends will be welcomed in Utgard. They will be sure to make little pets of you.”
And then he left them and they went into Utgard, the City of the Giants. Giants were going up and down in the streets. They were not so huge as Skyrmir would have them believe, Loki noticed.
Utgard was the Asgard of the Giants. But in its buildings there was not a line of the beauty that there was in the palaces of the Gods, Gladsheim and Breidablik or Fensalir. Huge but shapeless the buildings arose, like mountains or icebergs. O beautiful Asgard with the dome above it of the deepest blue! Asgard with the clouds around it heaped up like mountains of diamonds! Asgard with its Rainbow Bridge and its glittering gates! O beautiful Asgard, could it be indeed that these Giants would one day overthrow you?
Thor and Loki with the lad Thialfi went to the palace of the King. The hammer that Thor gripped would, they knew, make them safe even there. They passed between rows of Giant guards and came to the King’s seat. “We know you, Thor and Loki,” said the Giant King, “and we know that Thor has come to Utgard to try his strength against the Giants. We shall have a contest tomorrow. Today there are sports for our boys. If your young servant should like to try his swiftness against our youths, let him enter the race today.”
Now Thialfi was the best runner in Midgard and all the time he had been with them Loki and Thor had trained him in quickness. And so Thialfi was not fearful of racing against the Giants’ youths.
The King called on one named Hugi and placed him against Thialfi. The pair started together. Thialfi sped off. Loki and Thor watched the race anxiously, for they thought it would be well for them if they had a triumph over the dwellers in Utgard in the first contest. But they saw Hugi leave Thialfi behind. They saw the Giant youth reach the winning post, circle round it, and come back to the starting place before Thialfi had reached the end of the course.
Thialfi, who did not know how it was that he had been beaten, asked that he be let run the race with Hugi again. The pair started off once more, and this time it did not seem to Thor and Loki that Hugi had left the starting place at all—he was back there almost as soon as the race had started.
They came back from the racing ground to the palace. The Giant King and his friends with Thor and Loki sat down to the supper table. “Tomorrow,” said the King, “we shall have our great contest when Asa Thor will show us his power. Have you of Asgard ever heard of one who would enter a contest in eating? We might have a contest in eating at this supper board if we could get one who would match himself with Logi here. He can eat more than anyone in Jötunheim.”
“And I,” said Loki, “can eat more than any two in Jötunheim. I will match myself against your Logi.”
“Good!” said the Giant King. And all the Giants present said, “Good! This will be a sight worth seeing.”
Then they put scores of plates along one side of the table, each plate filled with meat. Loki began at one end and Logi began at the other. They started to eat, moving toward each other as each cleared a plate. Plate after plate was emptied, and Thor standing by with the Giants was amazed to see how much Loki ate. But Logi on the other side was leaving plate after plate emptied. At last the two stood together with scores of plates on each side of them. “He has not defeated me,” cried Loki. “I have cleared as many plates as your champion, O King of the Giants.”
“But you have not cleared them so well,” said the King.
“Loki has eaten all the meat that was upon them,” said Thor.
“But Logi has eaten the bones with the meat,” said the Giant King. “Look and see if it be not so.”
Thor went to the plates. Where Loki had eaten, the bones were left on the plates. Where Logi had eaten, nothing was left: bones as well as meat were consumed, and all the plates were left bare.
“We are beaten,” said Thor to Loki.
“Tomorrow, Thor,” said Loki, “you must show all your strength or the Giants will cease to dread the might of the Dwellers in Asgard.”
“Be not afraid,” said Thor. “No one in Jötunheim will triumph over me.”
The next day Thor and Loki came into the great hall of Utgard. The Giant King was there with a throng of his friends. Thor marched into the hall with Miölnir, his great hammer, in his hands. “Our young men have been drinking out of this horn,” said the King, “and they want to know if you, Asa Thor, would drink out of it a morning draught. But I must tell you that they think that no one of the Æsir could empty the horn at one draught.”
“Give it to me,” said Thor. “There is no horn you can hand me that I cannot empty at a draught.”
A great horn, brimmed and flowing, was brought over to him. Handing Miölnir to Loki and bidding him stand so that he might keep the hammer in sight, Thor raised the horn to his mouth. He drank and drank. He felt sure there was not a drop left in the horn as he laid it on the ground. “There,” he gasped, “your Giant horn is drained.”
The Giants looked within the horn and laughed. “Drained, Asa Thor!” said the Giant King. “Look into the horn again. You have hardly drunk below the brim.”
And Thor looked into it and saw that the horn was not half emptied. In a mighty rage he lifted it to his lips again. He drank and drank and drank. Then, satisfied that he had emptied it to the bottom, he left the horn on the ground and walked over to the other side of the hall.
“Thor thinks he has drained the horn,” said one of the Giants, lifting it up. “But see, friends, what remains in it.”
Thor strode back and looked again into the horn. It was still half filled. He turned round to see that all the Giants were laughing at him.
“Asa Thor, Asa Thor,” said the Giant King, “we know not how you are going to deal with us in the next feat, but you certainly are not able to drink against the Giants.”
Said Thor: “I can lift up and set down any being in your hall.”
As he said this a great iron-colored cat bounded into the hall and stood before Thor, her back arched and her fur bristling.
“Then lift the cat off the ground,” said the Giant King.
Thor strode to the cat, determined to lift her up and fling her amongst the mocking Giants. He put his hands to the cat, but he could not raise her. Up, up went Thor’s arms, up, up, as high as they could go. The cat’s arched back went up to the roof, but her feet were never taken off the ground. And as he heaved and heaved with all his might he heard the laughter of the Giants all round him.
He turned away, his eyes flaming with anger. “I am not wont to try to lift cats,” he said. “Bring me one to wrestle with, and I swear you shall see me overthrow him.”
“Here is one for you to wrestle with, Asa Thor,” said the King. Thor looked round and saw an old woman hobbling toward him. She was blear-eyed and toothless. “This is Ellie, my ancient nurse,” said the Giant King. “She is the one we would have you wrestle with.”
“Thor does not wrestle with old women. I will lay my hands on your tallest Giants instead.”
“Ellie has come where you are,” said the Giant King. “Now it is she who will lay hands upon you.”
The old woman hobbled toward Thor, her eyes gleaming under her falling fringes of gray hair. Thor stood, unable to move as the hag came toward him. She laid her hands upon his arms. Her feet began to trip at his. He tried to cast her from him. Then he found that her feet and her hands were as strong against his as bands and stakes of iron.
Then began a wrestling match in earnest between Thor and the ancient crone Ellie. Round and round the hall they wrestled, and Thor was not able to bend the old woman backward nor sideways. Instead he became less and less able under her terrible grasp. She forced him down, down, and at last he could only save himself from being left prone on the ground by throwing himself down on one knee and holding the hag by the shoulders. She tried to force him down on the ground, but she could not do that. Then she broke from him, hobbled to the door and went out of the hall.
Thor rose up and took the hammer from Loki’s hands. Without a word he went out of the hall and along the ways and toward the gate of the Giants’ City. He spoke no word to Loki nor to the lad Thialfi who went with him for the seven weeks that they journeyed through Jötunheim.
Odin Tells to Vidar, His Silent Son, the Secret of His Doings
Prev Story How Thor and Loki Befooled Thrym the Giant | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1181 |
__label__wiki | 0.757751 | 0.757751 | Drapers' Academy
The Drapers’ Company, Queen Mary University of London
Construction value:
Specialising in Science and Mathematics, the Drapers’ Academy is decorated with brick patterns devised using an ancient mathematical principle. It is sponsored by one of London’s oldest Guilds, and is set in parkland once occupied by an Elizabethan manor house.
The new 1100 place school is on the edge of Harold Hill, a post-war new town built on the outskirts of London on the historic Dagnam Park Estate. Our design takes full advantage of this parkland setting – large windows from the Main Hall and Learning Resource Centre look out across open countryside, while planting is brought in to a central courtyard. Teaching spaces also look out into the landscape and are bathed in daylight, some overlooking green roofs that complement the surrounding views.
The fuller history of the park is also expressed in the design as we took inspiration from Dagnam Park House, which stood in the park until it was demolished in the 1950s. The intricate brick detailing and room layouts are influenced by the sequence of rooms found in English country houses. Students take a learning journey through these spaces which moves through:
Faraday science studios
traditional laboratories
pharmacy-style dispensing prep rooms
a bio-dome to support biological science and horticulture
a cluster of mathematics teaching spaces
To give a sense of solidity and elegance we chose a single brick material for the façades, referencing the grand houses that stood here before. The walls of the Sports Hall are divided into bays of brickwork, using the Golden Ratio principles of geometry. Subtly angled bricks create a textured façade that changes as light moves across it. In some lights it looks like richly woven fabric, appropriately for a school that derives its name from the 'Mystery of Drapers of the City of London' (here mystery meaning skill). The organisation is now a sponsor of educational charitable trusts, but was originally founded as London’s medieval guild for the cloth trade.
The school’s other sponsor, Queen Mary University, provides students with valuable links to the university’s wider facilities and higher education opportunities.
2014 RIBA National Award: Winner
2014 RIBA Award: London Regional: Winner
2014 Civic Trust Award: Commendation
"The thoroughly well conceived design gives a feeling of quality, calmness and permanence; creating a school that engenders local pride, enhances the community and raises educational aspirations in the area for all."
Civic Trust Awards 2014
"The new Drapers' Academy building is the clearest possible architectural statement of the importance of education. Its beauty and elegance will give every pupil a clear sense that they have the right to aspire to the best."
Professor Morag Shiach Queen Mary University
"The building has a sense of calm and clarity of purpose that provides a wonderful environment for focussed learning." | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1184 |
__label__wiki | 0.780218 | 0.780218 | Tags: Adolf Hitler, Andre Desplat, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Burt Lancaster, Cate Blanchett, Dimitri Leonidas, Frank Stokes, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Holger Handtke, Hugh Bonneville, Jean Dujardin, John Frankenheimer, John Goodman, Justus von Dohnanyi, Leonardo Da Vinci, Matt Damon, Nero, Nick Clooney, Ocean's 11, Paul Scofield, Steven Soderbergh, The Battle of the Bulge, The Ides of March, The Internship, The Monuments Men, The Train, Zahary Baharov
George Clooney’s last directorial outing, The Ides of March, was compelling if histrionic, but his return to the director’s chair is a sadly muddled affair.
Frank Stokes (George Clooney) approaches President Roosevelt in 1944 to plead with him not to destroy Europe’s priceless heritage in the act of liberating it. Roosevelt agrees, and so Stokes is tasked with finding some other art historians, sculptors and curators to enlist in a highly specialised unit – The Monuments Men. Stokes rounds up Chicago architect Campbell (Bill Murray), Campbell’s friend Preston (Bob Balaban), sculptor Walter Garfield (John Goodman), drunken Brit Donald (Hugh Bonneville), and Met curator James Granger (Matt Damon). A French mechanic and curator Clermont (Jean Dujardin), and Epstein (Dimitri Leonidas), a New Jersey private from Germany, are added to the roster in Europe. But not only must they work with icy Parisian Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett) to find priceless works of art, they must outwit determined Russian and German counterparts tasked with, respectively, stealing and burning it…
I wrote that last sentence to imply tension, because there ought to be a lot of it, given both Hitler’s Nero decree, ordering the destruction of everything in the event of his death, and the startling opening credits image of Italians desperately shoring up a bomb-damaged wall which is revealed to have Da Vinci’s Last Supper on it. Instead Clooney and his eternal co-writer Grant Heslov only inject urgency for the finale as frantic deductions lead Stokes’ men to a cache of stolen art just as Zahary Baharov’s Russian art-thief Commander Elya is closing in on it. Frankenheimer’s The Train is the touchstone for this movie, but Clooney introduces two successive Nazi villains Stahl (Justus von Dohnanyi) and Col. Wegner (Holger Handtke), neither of whom equal Paul Scofield’s avaricious Von Waldheim; even though Wegner is given a juicily suspenseful sequence.
There were 400 Monuments Men, not 7, so inventing a strong villain wouldn’t be outré. It’s a symptom of a wider lack of purpose. Blanchett and Damon’s characters are largely redundant, and Andre Desplat, in their clumsy seduction scene and his constant insertion of jaunty comic cues, scores an entirely different film. Clooney’s vignettes range from the amusing (Damon’s appalling ‘fluent’ French) to the shocking (a startling sequence in a wood clearing) and the hackneyed (‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ being sung over the Battle of the Bulge), but they never cohere into a story, owing to bewildering tonal inconsistency, and he fails to flesh out just 7 characters compared to the Ocean’s characterised ensemble. The importance of saving art is reduced to an argument winnable by a single word from a cameoing Nick Clooney, but there’s no compensatory joyous ‘greatest art heist’ ever…
This approaches The Internship for uncomfortable parallels. Stokes is too old to fight, so he assembles aged men to embark on a loftier mission than the young grunts, just as Clooney retreats from blockbusters to prestige films. Monuments Men is always watchable but falls badly between crowd-pleasing and cerebral-pleasing. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1190 |
__label__cc | 0.63084 | 0.36916 | Mile High 420: The world’s largest cannabis festival gets lit
By Justin Ware. Published at Apr 5, 2019, in The 420 Report
Stoners unite - it’s that time of the year again.
On April 20, pot enthusiasts from around the world will head to Colorado to partake in the annual Mile High 420 festival. As the first state to legalise cannabis, Colorado has a unique history with the marijuana movement.
The event, which takes place at Denver’s Civic Center Park, sees over 50,000 people enjoy the free entertainment and assortment of food and beverage options on offer.
This year’s rendition promises to be a fresh take on the popular gathering, with emerging cannabis company, Golden Developing Solutions Inc. (OTCMKTS:DVLP), announcing the launch of its first annual 420 shared festival at the Mile High event.
“In a sense, the whole cannabis culture ultimately wants to come together to share the 420 festival experience,” DVLP CEO Stavros Triant said.
“We will be in Denver along with 75 thousand other enthusiasts, but all across the county on 4/20, there will be smaller festivals with several hundred to several thousand participants.
“We have been aggressively reaching out to the organisers of these festivals, and they are extremely enthusiastic about the idea of connecting up with us at Mile High for a shared experience,” he said.
The launch of the shared festival is a major coup for DVLP, which is developing a leading online retail marketplace for cannabis, CBD, hemp oil and vaping products.
It has recruited more than 12 different festivals to participate in the upcoming shared festival event.
“Virtually every single organiser we have contacted has immediately jumped at the chance to join our event.
“And we have a long list of additional organisers to contact over the next three weeks. The scale of the event has grown since our initial conception.
“Not only will this serve as an extremely strong platform for brand awareness for our CBD franchise, but it will also give us a potent vehicle to further accelerate our Where’s Weed brand in the locator space,” Triant added.
More about the Mile High bender
American artists T.I. and Jermaine Dupri will headline this year’s festival.
Gates open at 10am and close at 6pm – entry is free.
Escape Artists, Penvape and High Country Cones are just some of the leading sponsors in 2019.
Ironically, despite the theme attendees are not permitted to consume cannabis on site.
Why? Despite recreational cannabis being legal in the state of Colorado, public consumption is illegal. Civic Center Park is recognised as a city-owned property and is therefore deemed as public land.
It’s not yet known if attendees will be permitted to rip a fat J on site this year, but according to reports public pot smoking was not lodged in the event permit application to the City and County of Denver.
Denver-region dispensary franchise Euflora will again host this year’s edition, after taking over from long-time organiser Miguel Lopez in 2018.
Lopez and his entourage were stripped of their hosting privileges in 2016 when long queues led to frustrated pot goers breaking down a perimeter fence, in what can only be described as an attack of the munchies.
Two people were taken into custody as hundreds of people poured into the festival unchecked by security.
For more information on Mile High 420 Festival, click here.
CANNABIS PRODUCTS CANNABIS CBD
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The information contained in this article is current at the finalised date. The information contained in this article is based on sources reasonably considered to be reliable by S3 Consortium Pty Ltd, and available in the public domain. No “insider information” is ever sourced, disclosed or used by S3 Consortium. | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1195 |
__label__wiki | 0.906973 | 0.906973 | Schelmish
Schelmish performing in Denmark in 2002
Bonn, Germany
Mittelalter rock
http://www.schelmish.de/
Des Demonia
Rimsbold von Tiefentann
Luzi das L
Marquis de Guis
Samtron
Picus von Corvin
Daniel San
Der Hai
Igerne (until 2001)
Buchanan (until 2001)
Bajonne (until 2002)
Norbius (until 2002)
Baccata (left in 2003)
Johannes der Säufer (2006–2007)
Sakepharus der Schmierenkomödiant (2002–2007)
Naj O, der Reine (2006)
Amsel von Nydeggen (2002–2004)
Balitur (2001–2002)
Septimus (2002)
Dschieses von Haagesteyff (2007–2008)
Sideribus illustris (2007–2008)
Fragor der Schlagfertige (2001–2008)
Alexis de la Vega
Schelmish was a German Mittelalter rock band from the city of Bonn. The band originally formed in 1999 for a birthday celebration for band member Des Demonia's mother. The language of their songs varies between German, English, Latin, French and several old languages. The band split-up in December 2012; a group of member founded the Electro Folk Rock Band InVictus.[1]
2.1 Albums
2.2 Maxi singles
2.3 DVDs
The inspiration for forming of Schelmish was the birthday of Des Demonia's mother in 1999. Musically, Schelmish is rooted in Irish Folk. Today though they are rather oriented towards Mittelalter Rock.
Their first CD Von Räubern, Lumpen und anderen Schelmen (Of Robbers, Rascals and other Scoundrels) was released in 2000. It features the original line-up of Schelmish and contains traditional medieval songs.
The second CD Aequinoctium is also composed only of medieval songs. It was released in 2001. For the recordings, Balitur joined the band while Igerne and Buchanan departed.
On Codex Lascivus, the third CD, released in 2002, the band's first original pieces can be heard. For this effort Amsel von Nydeggen (of Filia Irata), Fragor der Schlagfertige, Sakepharus der Schmierenkomödiant and Septimus joined the band, while, Morbius, Balitur and Bajonne left. This CD includes the instrumental Rotta, which since its release has traditionally been played at each of their concerts.
Except for the absence of Septimus, the line-up for the fourth album Tempus mutatur is the same as on Codex Lascivus. Here they recorded for the first time a bonus track with electric guitars and bass. Michael Rhein of In Extremo appears as a guest singer for Veris Dulcis and Le pôvre Villon. It was released in 2003.
After their four studio albums Schelmish produced a maxi single of Si salvas me containing three versions of Si salvas me, the hymn of Satzvey castle in Mechernich, plus another track. This maxi from 2003 is a preview of the subsequent studio album Igni Gena, which also features Si salvas me. Since this recording, Luzi das L has been a member of Schelmish, while Baccata left for health reasons.
With the fifth CD Igni Gena of 2004 the band makes it obvious that their beat has been remarkably stepped as compared to their previous albums. Moreover there is a track Ich was ein Chint so wolgetan from Carmina Burana with slight influences from Hip hop/Rap. Again Michael Rhein of In Extremo appears as a guest singer. It also contains a medieval version of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire with medieval instrumentation and vocals by Dextro.
In 2005 Schelmish fulfilled their fans' wish for a live album and released a CD called Schelmish - Live. It contains the full live recording from the 29 January 2005 show at the Kulturfabrik Krefeld. Die Rote Füchsin (Red Vixen) of Filia Irata appears as guest musician while Amsel von Nydeggen is no longer part of the band.
Two months later their first DVD Coetus was released. Among excerpts from the show at the Kulturfabrik Krefeld it contains material of several other shows (e.g. together with Das letzte Einhorn and Flex der Biegsame of In Extremo), two videos as a preview of the following album Mente Capti as well as numerous interviews, CD previews, photos, easter eggs and also a film about Schelmish. Moreover the DVD was seen as a farewell project for Amsel von Nydeggen. She can be seen in older show recordings and in the film. Also Die Rote Füchsin of Filia Irata is featured on this DVD.[2]
Mente Capti is the sixth studio album, which was released in July 2006. For the first time since Codex Lascivus the band has eight members because guitarist Marquis de Guis and den bassist Naj O, der Reine, (later replaced by Johannes, der Säufer) filled the ranks. While the band's previous albums were almost exclusively recorded with medieval instruments Mente Capti focused on a rock instrumentation, i.e. electric guitars and bass and a modern drum set. This way Schlemish re-interpreted old songs but also wrote new pieces that deal with love, melancholy and joy. The vocals were mainly Rimsbold's task while Dextro and Fragor concentrated on string instruments. Luzi and Des Demonia focused on wind instruments and Sakepharus on percussion.
In early 2007 Sakepharus left the band to concentrate on his family. His leaving had been announced beforehand and at the same time Dschieses and Picus were accepted as new members. Also Johannes der Säufer left the band on 30 July 2007 and was replaced on the bass by Sideribus illustris.
On 19 October 2007 the seventh album Wir werden sehen (We Shall See) was released and a tour was begun. Already in September Moor had been released as a single containing two album tracks and two additional recordings. In early 2008 Dschieses and Sideribus left the band for reasons of personal timing. Their successors are Samtron on the drums and Alexis de la Vega on the bass. After a period of almost seven years Fragor now left the ensemble in April 2008. After having been present on medieval shows only in 2007 and not on rock shows he then returned to private life.[3]
On 28 October 2009 the ninth album Die hässlichen Kinder (The Ugly Children) was released in Finland and Spain through Napalm Records. It was released in the United States and Canada on November 3 of the same year.[4]
Albums[edit]
2000: Von Räubern, Lumpen und anderen Schelmen
2001: Aequinoctium
2002: Codex Lascivus
2003: Tempus Mutatur
2004: Igni Gena
2005: Schelmish Live (Live-CD)
2006: Mente Capti
2007: Wir werden sehen
2009: Die hässlichen Kinder
2010: Persona non Grata
Maxi singles[edit]
2003: "Si salvas me" (Hymn of the castle Satzvey)
2007: "Moor"
DVDs[edit]
2005: Coetus
^ Schelmish - Wir sind InVictus
^ Band discography
^ Filckr Group for Schelmish
^ Schelmish at MySpace
Official website (in German)
Schelmish discography at MusicBrainz
MusicBrainz: 7dc56453-d0ee-4b34-8080-1a647d86dd2d
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Schelmish&oldid=933918126"
Musical groups established in 1999
Musical groups from North Rhine-Westphalia
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
MusicBrainz artist same as Wikidata
Articles with MusicBrainz artist links | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1208 |
__label__cc | 0.664554 | 0.335446 | login Username Password Section Love
The present service is owned and operated by Phoenix Corp, SARL, registered in the trade and companies register of Annecy, under number rcs 508 469 012, with registered offices at 129, avenue de Genève - Centre MBE BP 351 - 74000 Annecy – France, represented by its current chairman.
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The online terms and conditions on the platform prevail on any earlier printed version.
7. Registration to the Service
7.1 Registration
Access to the Service is reserved to persons registered on the platform.
To open an account and become a member, the user must previously register via the online form on the platform.
Two registration procedures are available:
Registration via facebook connect; Registration via online form.
7.2 Registration via facebook connect
To facilitate the service registration process, the user can use the identification information of his/her natural person facebook account and entering its username and password.
With the facebook connect application the fields to be completed will be automatically filled with the information taken from the user facebook account, under his sole responsibility.
The use of the facebook connect application is a simple technical feature provided to the user to facilitate his/her registration and complete the registration fields for the service: facebook connect is a third party service to the service and Phoenix Corp does not in any way guarantee the correct operation and reliability of the information obtained through that application.
No information on the registration to the service will be displayed on the facebook account of the user.
7.3 Registration via online form
The service registration procedure via the online form on the platform consists of the following steps:
Step 1: the user completes a registration form by completing the required fields - some are mandatory - depending on the services selected by the user. Some requested information builds the user profile and can be accessed by other members of the service: they must be correct and regularly updated.
Step 2: the user acknowledges and accepts the terms and conditions of the service by ticking the appropriate box; if the user does not accept the service terms and conditions, he/she shall stop the registration process and immediately leave the platform;
Step 3: once the profile is correctly informed, the user validates the form and receives a confirmation email at the supplied email address.
Once the user has confirmed the registration, he/she becomes a member of the service subject to formal acceptance of the present terms and conditions.
First Step technology is offered to members as part of our services. This technology uses an algorithm which allows members to contact others based on affinity.
The First Step algorithm allows members to contact others based on affinity.
7.4 Subscription via mobile application
The purchase platforms of mobile applications for mobile phones, digital tablets or any other digital communication device connected to the internet enable downloading an application dedicated to the use of the platform. Members wishing to use it must therefore have a connection to mobile internet.
This application enables subscription to the service from a mobile phone for example. It also enables subscription to paying functions.
The services subscribed from a mobile application in integrated purchase are subject to the present terms and conditions, as well as the terms and conditions of the purchase platform for mobile applications to obtain the application, the invoicing conditions, the payment and renewal terms of the service(s). It also means that an account must be created on that platform to enable the application download.
7.5 Profiles on hold
As soon as the service is subscribed to, the member profile is displayed as 'pending': during that variable period, the member profile is checked by Phoenix Corp to ascertain that the data and information supplied by the member meet the present terms and conditions and the ethical charter of the service. Finally, the user is offered the exclusive power to multiply his chances of finding love through the orientation on other sites if already registered or wants more contact.
If the terms and conditions are not complied with, the member is informed by email of the rejection of the profile and is proposed to modify it. If the member does not modify the profile in comformity with the terms and conditions Phoenix Corp reserves the right to definitively refuse it.
Acceptance of the profile does not validate its content, nor does it mean Phoenix Corp recognises its lawfulness.
8. Financial terms
In order to enable members discovering the functions of the service, access to a limited version of the service is offered free of charge to discover some functions of the platform.
The free access does not enable the use of all the functions of the platform or to meet other members.
Women wishing to be placed in contact with a man will specially receive free and complete access to the service, with the exception of additional services which remain payable.
In all cases where access is free, either partial or total, Phoenix Corp reserves the right to modify it both for conditions of access and financial terms of the service.
Except in the above cases, access to the service is payable.
The member subscribes to the service for the selected duration by the member, at the online price at the time of subscription and according to the payment methods proposed by Phoenix Corp and selected by the member. The access Club trial allows to maintain your active profile to visit the index forms of the other members, and to use in a unlimited way the features of searches for the service of meeting.
Access to the Service is immediate if payment is made by bank card. A processing period is required if payment is made by cheque or bank transfer. In that second hypothesis and when the service is unavailable to the member after a period of fourteen (14) days from the sending of the cheque by mail or the bank transfer, it is recommended to the member to send a message to customer services by means of the form accessible from his/her account via the 'Help' menu.
Phoenix Corp reserves the right to propose temporary promotional offers to new members or existing subscribed members for a certain time. The proposed financial terms are exceptional and cannot be grounds for any complaint by the other members.
Subscriptions are automatically extended at the end of the subscription period chosen by the member, under the same conditions and at the same price. The extension can be cancelled according to the conditions of the article 'termination' of the present terms and conditions.
Create your profile in just a few seconds, the download and registration are free. Then you can choose among our exclusive iPhone subscriptions for 1 week 10,99€, 1 month 44,99€, 2 month 69,99€, 3 month 89,99€ and for a full access on our dating app !
8.2 Additional services
The subscribers or holders of full access to the service can order one or several additional services giving them access to the advanced functions of the service.
The ordering process for one of the additional payable services is done in two confirming steps:
Step 1: the member is informed of the price of the additional service and of the possibility to use his/her usual payment method, previously and through the ordering interface: he/she can validate expressly or refuse the order or modify his/her usual payment method;
Step 2: the member is informed by the same dedicated interface that his/her order is confirmed.
8.3 Order processing
At the end of the subscription or additional service ordering process, the member can access, permanently online on the interface of his/her account, the detailed summary of his/her subscriptions and additional services ordered.
You will find the details of our subscriptions plan and pricing by following this link
8.4 Costs
Any expenses for access, either material, software or internet access are exclusively at the member's charge.
8.5 Pre-selected boxes
In accordance with the second paragraph of Article L121-17 of the Consumer Code, Phoenix Corp shall reimburse members for any pre-selected paid options on request.
9. Right to withdraw
In accordance with Article L.221-18 of the Consumer Code, the Member has the right to withdraw during a period of fourteen (14) calendar days from the conclusion of the sale, without having to give any reason and without no sum to pay. To retract, the Member will send the withdrawal form available here, by email to customer@rsipa.fr or via the following postal address:
Phoenix Corp 129, avenue de Genève - Centre MBE BP 351 - 74000 Annecy – France
In the event of the use by a Member of its right of withdrawal, Phoenix Corp will refund all the sums paid within fourteen (14) days from the date on which it was informed by the Member's decision to retract.
10. Obligations of Phoenix Corp
10.1 Quality of the service
Phoenix Corp endeavours to provide a quality service. It enables members to use the available communication tools under the best possible conditions.
Because of the nature and complexity of the internet network, and its technical performance and response times for consultation, viewing or transfer of data in particular, Phoenix Corp makes the best effort according to the rulebook to enable the access to and the use of the service. Phoenix Corp cannot guarantee absolute access or availability of the platform for access to the service.
Phoenix Corp cannot be held liable for the correct operation of the computer equipment of the member and his/her internet access.
10.2 Maintenance and updating
Phoenix Corp endeavours to provide a performing service to members. It shall use appropriate means to maintain the service in optimal operational conditions.
Phoenix Corp reserves the right, without notice or compensation, to temporarily close the platform or access to services for update, maintenance, modification or changes to operational methods, the platform and access hours, without this list being exhaustive.
Phoenix Corp is not liable for damages of any nature which might result from those changes and/or a temporary unavailability of the platform or the associated services.
Phoenix Corp reserves the right to complete or modify, at all times, the platform and the services available there according to the development of technologies and shall inform the members by all means.
10.3 Moderation
Phoenix Corp is not subject to any obligation of monitoring, moderating or checking the exchanges and contents posted online on the platform by the members who subscribed to the service.
Phoenix Corp does not intervene directly in the content of the profiles. It checks at the registration of the member that the terms and conditions are met, but does not check the truthfulness of information supplied or their validity and does not monitor the later changes to the profile carried out by the member concerned.
Phoenix Corp does not intervene in the relations and exchanges between members.
Phoenix Corp shall react when illicit content, behaviour or use or not compliant with the present terms and conditions were reported to it under article 'notification of illicit content' in the present agreement or signalled via an 'abuse' link present on the profile of every subscribing member. Phoenix Corp will then take measures it considers most appropriate in the situation.
Phoenix Corp reserves the right to remove any content which does not comply with the present terms and conditions after informing, if conditions allow it , the member concerned.
Phoenix Corp is actively working to remove fake profiles and is taking numerous measures to help in this regard.
10.4 Safety
Phoenix Corp makes its best efforts, according to the rulebook, to secure the service platform.
Considering the exponential nature of technological developments, Phoenix Corp cannot guarantee absolute security of the platform or the absence of defects.
11. Member obligations
11.1 Reliability of profiles
The service enables the member at registration and later when he/she accesses his/her profile to complete the latter with data about his/her personality and his/her looks in particular. To enable reliable exchanges between members, each of them shall supply correct data, in compliance with laws and regulations and regularly update them.
The member shall not share a member account with other persons or grant access to the account to a minor.
The member shall not supply at registration or when updating his/her profile, identification data which do not correspond to reality or to unrightfully use the identity of a third person.
The photographs placed online by the member must particularly: Represent the member; Not only represent unrelated elements (landscape, animals, etc.); Not contain text; Not represent several people; Be respectful of common decency: no nude, suggestive photographs, with a sexual connotation or depicting minors.
The member is not authorised to indicate phone, address or electronic details on his profile.
11.2 Conform use
The member is responsible for the use of the service and his/her actions on the platform. He/she shall use the platform in a fair manner, in compliance with the present terms and conditions. The member's behaviour during the use of the service should comply with the rules of good conduct.
The member shall notify any manifest illicit content, conform with the procedure under article 'notification of illicit content' of the present contract.
The member also can report to Phoenix Corp the profile of a member not respecting the present terms and conditions through the link 'abuse' present on the profile of all the registered members.
The member shall not behave in an illegal or fraud-inducing way towards Phoenix Corp, other members or third parties.
Overall, the member shall report any defect of the service he/she notices to Phoenix Corp by means of the "help" menu accessible online on the platform.
Any behaviour not respecting the rules of good conduct above or those in the ethical charter of the service may be penalised under the conditions of the article 'termination' of the present contract.
It is forbidden for a member to access or remain fraudulently, in all or part of the platform. It is forbidden to use another access method beside the one made available by Phoenix Corp. Upon discovery of such method, or if the member enters a placeholder, without right, inadvertently, the member agrees to promptly inform Phoenix Corp to the following address customer@rsipa.fr so that it can take appropriate action.
The member is not authorised to remove or modify data on the platform or to fraudulently enter data or carry out an alteration on the operation of the platform. He/she shall make sure not to introduce a virus, malware or any other harmful technology on the platform or the services provided there.
Any access to an unauthorised space shall be considered fraudulous access as provided by the criminal code.
The member shall consider all the data he/she gains knowledge of during such access to an unauthorised space is confidential data and therefore shall not divulge them.
The member shall in particular not carry out any operation to saturate a page, rebound operations or any operation which could result in disturbing or distorting the operation of the platform.
The member takes all measures to ensure his/her own safety, in particular for the management of his/her usernames and access codes he/she keeps confidential.
12. Technical support
Phoenix Corp provides a customer service to its members which can supply all necessary information on the use of the platform and the services.
Phoenix Corp makes the best efforts to provide a service accessible to all the members in the best conditions.
Phoenix Corp cannot guarantee absolute technical compatibility of the additional functions and services it proposes in the service as their correct operation is subject to the software and hardware compatibility of the computer equipment used by the members. Phoenix Corp informs the members on the minimum required configurations to fully benefit from the service and additional services.
The use of a mobile application for the use of the service requires that the member previously has a compatible electronic communication device and mobile internet connection. Before purchasing the mobile application, the member should refer to the conditions of use of the download platform of the application to learn about the necessary configuration.
Should a member experience difficulties to access and/or use one of the services proposed on the platform, he/she can contact customer services at all times via the online form accessible on the platform via the 'help' menu.
13.1 Service elements
The present service terms and conditions do not include any transfer of intellectual property rights on the elements belonging to Phoenix Corp at the advantage of the member.
The website, brands, drawings, models, images, texts, photos, logos, graphic charts, software and programmes, search engines, databases, sounds, videos, domain names, design or any other information or media presented by Phoenix Corp, without this list being exhaustive, are the exclusive property of Phoenix Corp and are protected by their copyrights, brands, patents and any other intellectual or industrial property rights they hold in accordance with valid laws.
Any reproduction and/or representation, in full or in part, of one of those elements, without the explicit authorisation of Phoenix Corp, is prohibited and would consist of counterfeit penalised by the articles l. 335-2 and following of the code of intellectual property.
Consequently, the member shall refrain from any act or action which could affect directly or indirectly the intellectual property rights of Phoenix Corp.
The member may never use, print or re-format the content of the platform or websites for purposes other than private or familial.
He/she shall not download, copy, transmit, sell, distribute or use the content of the platform and the websites.
The member recognises that the information and the databases accessible on the platform are the property of Phoenix Corp.
13.2 Elements of the third parties
The elements belonging to third parties, such as brands, drawings, models, images, texts, photos, logos, without this list being exhaustive, are the exclusive property of their author and are thus protected by copyright, trademark rights or any other right recognised by the applicable law.
The member shall not undermine, directly or indirectly, the property rights of third parties, whose content is present on the platform and shall not use, in any way, the names, brands, logos, software, information, databases and all the documents communicated to him/her, in general, in the case of the application of the present service terms and conditions.
The member shall respect the integral rights of third parties whose content is present on the platform and shall not create any analogies in the mind of the public for any purpose.
Therefore, the member shall take all necessary measures for the protection of said rights for all third parties and, in particular, maintain all the property mentions on all the data, information and more generally the consultable elements on the platform or made accessible by third parties.
13.3 Elements placed online by the member
The member grants Phoenix Corp as required a right of use of the elements he/she places online, which are his/her exclusive property and which are protected by copyrights, brands, patents, and any other intellectual or industrial property rights which are or will be granted by the applicable laws. The member has the opportunity to further disseminate his profile containing his photograph on other partner sites by visiting the "My Account"
The user right covers the right of Phoenix Corp to copy, represent, adapt, translate, digitalise, use for service purposes or sub-licence elements regarding the member on the service, or on any electronic communication medium in the context of the service (in particular email, sms, mms, Internet).
The member authorises Phoenix Corp to modify elements to comply with the graphic chart or to make them compatible with its technical performance or any format supplied in the context of the service.
The user right is granted by the member to Phoenix Corp for the whole world, and for the duration of online access of those elements by the member.
The member shall take all necessary measures to protect said third party rights and guarantees peaceful use to Phoenix Corp.
14. Responsibility and guarantee
In the context of service providing, Phoenix Corp is subject to an obligation of resources.
Conform to the valid legislation, Phoenix Corp cannot accept civil liability for activities or information stored at the request of members, unless if Phoenix Corp was duly notified of illicit content under the conditions of article 'notification of illicit content' and did not react promptly to remove it.
The members recognise and accept that the details they supply, as well as their behaviour or comments on the service can be reported by other members and a subsequent check by Phoenix Corp, based on objective appreciation criteria, without prejudice to the appropriate application of the 'Termination' article of the present contract.
The member recognises and accepts that the divulgation of information on the service is his/her sole responsibility, and relinquishes any claim on Phoenix Corp, in particular on the basis of his/her right to image, his/her honour and reputation, the intimacy of his/her private life, resulting from his/her distribution of that information. The member is sole responsible for possible prejudice caused by the divulgation of that information.
The member guarantees and releases Phoenix Corp from any claim and condemnation originating from default of obligations the member is subject to by law or the present terms and conditions of the service.
The member cannot hold Phoenix Corp liable for any delay in information provided to him/her.
The responsibility of Phoenix Corp cannot be sought in case of fraudulent or abusive use or due to voluntary or involuntary divulgation of the username and/or password for connection to the member account.
Phoenix Corp is not liable for the violation of the present terms and conditions by another member, nor for their actions on the platform, whether an offence or not.
The responsibility of Phoenix Corp can only be involved in case of direct damage, with the exclusion of indirect damage, resulting from the use of the platform by the member and shall be restricted as to the sums paid by the member to Phoenix Corp within twelve (12) months preceding the generating fact of the damage.
Phoenix Corp, technical provider, only provides a web platform and cannot guarantee that exchanges between members actually lead to encounters. Furthermore, Phoenix Corp cannot be held responsible for encounters on or outside the platform, nor for the correspondence between information communicated on the service and the reality.
Phoenix Corp endeavours to check the reliability of information and data of the member profiles, in particular by checking compliance with the present terms and conditions and the information supplied at the registration to the service. However, each member can later modify certain information on his/her profile. Phoenix Corp cannot guarantee the truthfulness of information supplied by its members, nor protect the members against identity theft and it cannot be held responsible on that basis.
Phoenix Corp provides additional services to improve the communication functions and promote the visibility of the profile of a member on the platform. HOWEVER, those services are provided up to the same services other members might subscribe to: in case of multiplicity of members' requests for a service or for technical reasons linked to the correct management of the platform operation, the member recognises that Phoenix Corp cannot guarantee an unlimited period for the promotion of visibility of the member's profile or the effectiveness and uninterrupted availability of the additional service to which the member subscribed.
15. Notification of illicit content
Any notification of illicit content to Phoenix Corp must include the following information in comformity with article 6 i 5 ° of the law 2004-575 of 21 June 2004:
Date of notification;
If the notifier is a natural person: name, first name, profession, residence, nationality, date and place of birth;
If the notifier is a legal entity: its form, name, registered office and the body that legally represents it;
The name and address of the addressee or, if it is a legal person, the name and registered office;
The description of the contentious facts and their precise location (with copy of the precise url address of the content);
The reasons why the content should be removed, including the legal provisions and the factual justifications;
The copy of the correspondence addressed to the author or editor of contentious information or activities and requesting their interruption, withdrawal or modification, or the justification that the author or editor could not be contacted.
The member shall notify such content, conform with the information indicated in present article by sending mail to the following address:
Service client / service juridique Easypayweb 129, avenue de Genève - Centre MBE BP 351 - 74000 Annecy – France
We remind of the fact that, for any person, to represent content or activity as illicit with the purpose of having it removed or to stop its diffusion, whilst knowing that information is incorrect, is punishable by a year prison and a 15,000 Euros fine under article 6, i, 4° of the law No. 2004-575 of 21 June 2004.
16. Personal data
The personal data may be collected during your registration on our site are intended for use by Phoenix Corp.
Personal data may be transferred to the following business partners : DNX Network Sarl, X CASH, Flirt Revenue et Salamandra Web SL. The Member has the possibility to delete his transfer authorization via the dedicated section on his account accessible through the menu "My Account", "My Settings".
17. Trackability
In order to provide an easily accessible and personalised service, Phoenix Corp keeps the history of the connections to the platform by the member and follows the navigation of the members on the platform with cookies, in compliance with the data-processing and liberties rules.
In order to respect the legal obligations relating to the storage and communication of data enabling the identification of any person who contributed to the creation of content posted online, Phoenix Corp stores a copy of certain contents posted online by the member, even if they are deleted by the member him/herself, for a duration of one year from the generating fact of the storage obligation.
18. Termination / end of the contract
18.1 Unsubscription
The registration of the member on the service is effective as long as the member connects to the platform and uses the service. When a member has not connected or used his/her account for two (2) years, Phoenix Corp deletes all his/her data and his/her account is automatically terminated.
The member can terminate his/her account at all times on the platform, without any other costs than those of the transmission of his/her request and without justification, via the section on his/her account accessible through the menu 'My parameters', then 'my subscription' or any other means which could be indicated to him/her in that section.
A subscribing member can only proceed with unsubscribing from the service if they have previously cancelled their membership.
18.2 Cancelling one's membership
Subscriptions are entered for the chosen period by the member during the subscription procedure.
The subscribing members can cancel the extension of the subscription after 15 days of use of the subscription to the service. The cancellation does not affect the access to all functions of the service for the initial duration of the subscription. In any case, the extension must be cancelled seventy-two hours (72) before the end of the subscription period at the latest, by using the function 'Cancel my extension' on the account accessible through menu 'Account', 'My parameters', 'My subscription', then 'Parameters'. Members who have subscribed to the two-week promotional subscription offer have the option to cancel the subscription renewal by following the unsubscribe procedure indicated above. Unless the subscription renewal is terminated or cancelled, for any seven-day period started, an additional two-week commitment is due. In the event that the Member terminates or cancels its renewal before the end of the minimum two-month period, an administrative management fee of €19.74 will be due.
The member shall then follow the procedure of cancelling one's membership indicated to him/her.
If he/she has not subscribed, the member can terminate his/her account at all times on the platform, without any other costs than those of the transmission of his/her request and without justification, via the section on his/her account accessible through the menu 'My account', 'My parameters', then 'my subscription' or any other means which could be indicated to him/her in that section. HOWEVER, if the member has subscribed, he/she previously must, to unsubscribe, terminate his/her subscription according to the terms of cancellation described in the present TCU.
This request shall be considered completed the working day following receipt of the cancellation request of the account concerned by the department. The request does not include any refund for the still outstanding subscription period.
The conditions and terms for cancelling the subscription from the mobile application are those provided in the terms and conditions of the download platform of the application and/or any indication on the interface of the mobile application.
18.3 Suspension and termination
If the member does not comply with the obligations of the present conditions, Phoenix Corp reserves the right, without compensation or refund, to suspend access to the service until the reason of the suspension has disappeared, eight (8) days after an email to the user asking him/her to conform with the present service conditions.
Access to the service can for example be suspended when:
The member does not complete his profile in accordance with the present terms and conditions; The member posts a non-conform or infringing photograph online; The member behaves in a way that disturbs the tranquillity of one or several members; Overall, the member does not respect the ethical charter of the service.
If the member repeatedly does not comply with the obligations of the present conditions, Phoenix Corp reserves the right, without compensation or refund, to cancel the registration and the subscription of the member and to terminate access to his/her member space or to prohibit access to all or part of its services, without prejudice to any common law action which might be open to it, eight (8) days after an email to the user asking him/her to conform with the present service conditions remained fruitless.
If a member notifies Phoenix Corp of manifest illicit content as provided in article 'notification of illicit content', Phoenix Corp reserves the right, without compensation or refund, to cancel the registration and the subscription of the member and to terminate access to his/her member space or to prohibit access to all or part of its services, without prejudice to any common law action which might be open to it.
If the bank refuses the payment method used by the member, Phoenix Corp reserves the right, without compensation or refund, to cancel the registration or the subscription or additional services of the member and to terminate access to his/her member space or to prohibit access to all or part of its services available to him/her with its subscription or additional services, without prejudice to any common law action which might be open to it, eight (8) days after an email to the user asking him/her to pay the outstanding sums with a new payment method remained fruitless.
Initially, cases of force majeure will suspend the application of the terms and conditions of the service.
If cases of force majeure last longer than two (2) months, the service terms and conditions will be automatically terminated.
Explicitly, the cases of force majeure commonly accepted by the jurisprudence of the French courts and tribunals shall apply.
20. Good faith
The parties agree to execute their obligations in absolute good faith.
21. Sincerity
The parties confirm the present commitments are sincere.
Thus, they confirm not knowing of any element that if communicated would have modified the consent of the other party.
22. Titles
In case of interpretation difficulties resulting from a contradiction between any title of a clause and any clause, the titles shall be declared inexistant.
23. Nullity
If one or several stipulations of the present conditions are deemed invalid, or declared such in application of a law, a regulation or after a decision enforced by competent jurisdiction, the other stipulations will maintain all their power and scope.
24. Integrality
The present service terms and conditions express the integrality of the parties' obligations.
No general or specific conditions included in the documents sent or supplied by the parties could be integrated in the present terms and conditions.
25. Proof convention
The acceptance of the terms and conditions by email has the same probatory value between parties as the agreement in paper format.
The digitalised registers stored in the computer systems of the platform will be stored under reasonable safety conditions and considered proof of communications between the parties.
The contractual documents are archived on a reliable and durable medium which can be produced as proof.
The information transmitted or received by Phoenix Corp during the use of the platform is considered confidential by nature and is subject to professional secrecy and shall not be communicated externally, apart from exceptions linked to the provision of the 'data-processing and liberties' law.
This provision does not infringe communications ordered by law or administration.
27. Language
The present service terms and conditions, the ethical charter and data-processing and liberties rules were drawn up in French and later translated.
In case of conflict between the parties or divergences on the interpretation of a word or a clause, only the French versions shall apply.
The present terms and conditions are ruled by French law.
It is the same for rules of content and form, notwithstanding the locations of execution of substantial or secondary obligations.
If you don't desire to receive anymore emails from us, please send your request at customer@rsipa.fr or use the unsubscribe link at the end of the emails we send you.
Phoenix Corp - 129, avenue de Genève - Centre MBE BP 351 - 74000 Annecy – France | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1209 |
__label__cc | 0.71085 | 0.28915 | Documents filtered by: Author="Jefferson, Thomas" AND Author="Jefferson, Thomas" AND Recipient="Jefferson, George"
From Thomas Jefferson to George Jefferson, 7 December 1802
To George Jefferson
Washington Dec. 7. 1802
I inclose you three hundred & fifty dollars to cover two drafts I make on you in favr. of Saml. & S. Myers for 150. D. & of Moran for 200. D. which be pleased to honour when presented. affectionate attachment & salutations.
P.S. Take the reciept, if you please, as paid for S. Dyer.
PrC (MHi); at foot of text: “Mr. George Jefferson”; endorsed by TJ in ink on verso. Recorded in SJL with the notation “350.”
For the payment to Joseph moran, see TJ to Gibson & Jefferson, 9 Nov.
Jefferson, George
“From Thomas Jefferson to George Jefferson, 7 December 1802,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-39-02-0105. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 39, 13 November 1802–3 March 1803, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012, pp. 120–121.]
From George Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson [6 December 1802]
From George Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson [13 December 1802]
All correspondence between George Jefferson and Thomas Jefferson | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1222 |
__label__wiki | 0.667638 | 0.667638 | Benjamin Franklin Papers
Documents filtered by: Recipient="Deane, Silas" AND Correspondent="Adams, John"
The Committee for Foreign Affairs to the American Commissioners, 1 December 1777
The Committee for Foreign Affairs to the American Commissioners
Copies:3 American Philosophical Society, Library of Congress, National Archives
York in Pensylvania Decr. 1st: 1777
As we wish the subject of this letter to be well attended to and understood, we shall confine ourselves intirely to the business of such french Gentlemen as have returned without getting employment in north america and particularly those of Monsr. du Coudray’s Corps.
Whatever may be the Clamour excited by discontent, we think that a candid consideration of our circumstances, and what Congress have really done will fully justify them in the eyes of reasonable men. We will observe in the first place, that, of all those who have returned, not one came here at the request of Congress, that they have cost the states a very large sum of money, and, that the circumstances of affairs would not permit any benefit to be drawn from them here. It was necessary, previous to the opening of the campaign that the affairs of the army should be arranged, officers appointed and every thing systematically made ready for the serious business that was approaching. At this time, it was not known by Congress or the Commander in chief, that such a character as Monsr. du Coudray (under such agreements as he brought with him) was to visit us. The best that could be done was therefore undertaken, and Genl: Knox, the father of the American Artillery, was appointed to that Command, and all the other divisions of the army filled with Major Generals.
In this state of things arrived Genl. du Coudray with an agreement by which he was to command the Artillery and the greater part of the Major Generals of the army, by being of older commission. A plentiful crop of resignations began presently to sprout up; and the whole army must have been deranged and thrown into confusion just at the opening of a Campaign, or this agreement not accorded to in the whole. But Monsr. du Coudray would have everything or nothing. An inflexible ambition that paid no regard to the situation and circumstances of the army would be gratified. This produced a scene of contention which was not ended, when the unfortunate General was drowned by accident in the Schuylkill going to join the army.4 Immediately on his death, the rest of his Corps determined to return to France; and in this disposition of mind Congress endeavoured to render things as agreable to them as possible, having some regard to the interest of the public which they serve.
It is true that a concurrence of causes, such as removal from Philadelphia, the time that elapsed before business was regularly gone into again, and the multiplicity of public affairs &c. did occasion some delay in settling with these Gentlemen, but this was loss to the community more than to them, because their pay was continued to the last. And you will see, by the papers inclosed, that ample allowances have been made for their expences to the shipping port for passage to France and travel to Paris. It has been already observed that Monsr. Du Coudray’s desire could not be complied with, without producing very injurious consequences. All the other Officers were offered admittance into the army according to the ranks stipulated for with Mr. Deane; but to avoid certain murmur and discontent by difference of pay in the same army, they were offered the pay and rations of continental officers of similar Rank. This they rejected, and when the mischief of dissimilar pay was removed by their determination to return to France, they were paid their Livres compleat, with all their Gratifications as agreed for their expences and passages being also fully satisfied.
Upon the whole, we beg Leave to refer you to the inclosed papers for more minute information touching this business, where we think you will find documents sufficient to convince unprejudiced and reasonable men that Congress have done all they could or ought in duty to the publick to have done, for the entire satisfaction of these Gentlemen.5 And we hope you will be enabled thereby to counteroperate any ill impressions that may be attempted to be made by some of these officers. We say some because we believe that the more reasonable among them are satisfied. We are with much Regard Gentlemen Your very humble Servants.
Richd. Henry Lee
(In Committee on foreign Affairs)
(Copy)
Notation: Letter from Comtee of foreign affairs relative to returning French officers.
[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]
3. The notation on the APS copy, which we print, suggests that it may have been received; the others are in letterbooks.
4. On Sept. 15, 1777; for his background and the agreement with Deane see above, XXII, 462 n. The troubles Du Coudray occasioned the commissioners before he left France, which were almost as acute as those he occasioned on arrival, are writ large in Vol. XXIII.
5. The papers presumably recorded the actions of Congress on the matter, for which see the JCC, IX, 799, 876–8, 885–6, 931–2. Not all the Frenchmen returned home; some were absorbed into the American army: ibid., X, 118–19.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-25-02-0156
Note: The annotations to this document, and any other modern editorial content, are copyright © the American Philosophical Society and Yale University. All rights reserved.
Franklin Papers
Committee for Foreign Affairs
American Commissioners
Deane, Silas
“The Committee for Foreign Affairs to the American Commissioners, 1 December 1777,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-25-02-0156. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 25, October 1, 1777, through February 28, 1778, ed. William B. Willcox. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986, pp. 220–222.] | cc/2020-05/en_middle_0005.json.gz/line1223 |
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