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About Hungary beta
Reform of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Hungary has an obligation to defend the Schengen borders
Referendum on EU Migrant Quota: New Unity and Changes to the Fundamental Law
Referendum on migrant resettlement quota
Family Housing Support Program
Economic Recovery
Paks II Nuclear Power Project
Eliminating Foreign Exchange Loans
Civil Society in Hungary
Reducing Utility Prices
Former Fidesz MEP: Are commissioner grillings going too far?
In a piece written for EUobserver, György Schöpflin outlines how the European Parliament prides itself on its commitment to the rule of law, but the commissioner hearings go too far.
György Schöpflin European Commissioner Rule of law
Former Fidesz MEP György Schöpflin has posed the question: Are commissioner grillings going too far?
In a piece written for EUobserver, Schöpflin outlines how the European Parliament prides itself on its commitment to the rule of law, but the commissioner hearings go too far.
Schöpflin, an MEP for Hungary's ruling Fidesz party for 15 years until this year, and served as the European People's Party coordinator in the Constitutional Affairs Committee, delves deep into the Trócsányi affair, NGOs and the rule of law in Europe.
The below is in Schöpflin’s own words:
It presents itself as the most rule of law committed body on the planet. It says much the same about its adherence to transparency and accountability.
Put it all together and you will get the most virtuous parliament imaginable. Every five years, parliament has a chance to demonstrate this by questioning the suitability of those designated by the EU member states as the new EU commissioners.
These are the commissioner hearings, when candidates have to show their suitability and knowledge of the portfolios they've been assigned.
Some fail, some perform poorly. Technically, parliament can't actually veto anyone, but it can make recommendations that are hard to override for political reasons.
At this point, matters become technical, so – a trigger warning – complexity follows.
The key here is that in these commissioner hearings politics and the law are very close to one another. The temptation to use legal rules and procedures for political ends is real and present.
In sum, parliament's legal affairs committee (JURI in the jargon), is required to look into the financial affairs of the commissioner candidates and confirm that all is above board.
JURI must ensure that the candidate's financial declarations are "accurate and complete" and, the killer phrase, "whether it is possible to infer a conflict of interests".
"Infer" is so vague as to be an invitation, if not actually a temptation, to abandon legal criteria and go for political power instead.
'Hearsay'?
Parliament is a political body, true, but in a democracy political power is meant to be exercised with restraint and there should be clear blue water between politics and the law.
A body that constantly alleges breaches of the rule of law in certain targeted member states can't afford to ignore the rules, even if that means giving up on a political advantage.
Crucially, when a political body, JURI in this case, is acting a bit like a court of law, in a "quasi-judicial capacity", then it must absolutely stay with the limits of both the letter and the spirit of legality. That's the heart of the rule of law.
This means above all that the evidence looked at must conform fully to what a court of law would accept.
So, no hearsay, no reliance on reports by NGOs, no basing assessments on intuition.
Further, there must be time to scrutinise the files put forward by the candidates. And, even if this may mean superhuman self-discipline, European values and the exercise of the rule of law demand that matters be scrutinised fairly.
This is where things begin to look unacceptable.
The JURI committee scrutinised the suitability of the Hungarian and Romanian commissioner candidates (László Trócsányi and Rovana Plumb) and concluded that they had not complied with the rules on financial interests.
Flimsy on facts
The case against Trócsányi was flimsy on the facts.
His law firm, partly bearing his name, was receiving contracts from the Hungarian government. The fact that he had divested himself of his interests in the firm counted for nothing. A bit of legal contortion by JURI saw to that.
The other ground, that as minister of justice, he had accepted that two Russian suspects could return to Russia had self-evidently nothing to do with financial interests.
Was JURI acting beyond its legal competence here, acting ultra vires?
Quite a few people believe this to be the case. To add to these, where was the much vaunted transparency? The JURI committee met behind closed doors and the papers are not available.
A deeper problem is that of the "inference" already mentioned.
There are no rules laid down as to the criteria of what can be inferred from the data presented by the candidate or any other information.
The committee can drive a coach and horses through this gap.
Above all, it can covertly introduce political criteria into a legal procedure – a quasi-judicial one. Where law is used for political ends one can say farewell to the rule of law.
The political evidence that political criteria came into play in the blackballing of Trócsányi is clear enough.
The media and NGOs have been loud in shouting that he has been an "enabler" of Hungary's so-called anti-rule-of-law regime.
This alleged malfeasance is so deeply embedded in the minds of the left that evidence to the contrary is simply ignored.
The EU's – yes, the EU's – justice scoreboard is ignored. Hungary comes out of it not badly, in the top third for the most part.
This is a non-fact as far as the left is concerned.
The work of Hungary's Constitutional Court and its standing in the network of the European constitutional courts are ignored.
And none of the critics ever looks at the actual work of the court, like its striking down government legislation, despite its website being available in English.
There are media in Hungary strongly critical of the government, but somehow these don't count when the left's charge sheet is compiled.
The dense institutional network of checks and balances in Hungary is dismissed as non-existent. And so on. The left's dystopic fantasy of a dictatorial Hungary is never matched with reality.
Seemingly, the members of the JURI committee voted down Trócsányi by relying on these fantasy criteria. This political decision against the Hungarian commission candidate does not say much for the JURI committee's adherence to the rule of law.
And then, there's more politics.
Although JURI only made "recommendations", these are like the proverbial offer that you can't refuse.
The majority for the president of commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was very slim, a mere nine votes.
On this basis, the chance that parliament could vote down the entire commission, which it can do legally, is real enough.
Hence the decision to accept the JURI vetoes – risk avoidance.
The meaning of all this is that parliament has de facto acquired the political, though not the legal, power to interdict commissioner candidates. There are those who would call this a power grab.
Photo credit: olkt.hu
The Press Has More Freedom in Eastern Europe than in the Continent’s Western Half
Reacting to a statement by Sweden’s foreign minister on Monday, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told Hungarian news agency MTI in a statement that recently it has become obvious that the press has more freedom in Eastern Europe than in the continent’s western half.
News in Brief Prime Minister
On Facebook Prime Minister Viktor Orbán Congratulates the Creators of Son of Saul
On Monday Prime Minister Viktor Orbán congratulated the creators and actors of Son of Saul for winning the Golden Globe Award in Los Angeles for best foreign language film.
Reinstating Military Conscription is not Necessary
In response to a statement by Sweden’s foreign minister, on Sunday Chief Security Advisor to the Prime Minister György Bakondi told public television channel M1 that the Government of Hungary does not see the necessity for reintroduction of military conscription. Keeping the manpower of the reserve force at appropriate levels is important however, he stressed.
János Lázár to Have Talks in Brussels
János Lázár, the Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office will pay a visit to Brussels on Tuesday where he will have talks with EU Commissioners and Hungarian diplomats.
PM Orbán: We were one centimeter away from leaving the EPP Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s New Year international press conference PM Orbán: 2019 was about elections; the next two will be about governing PM Orbán sums up a successful year for Hungary Ministerpräsident Orbán: Ungarn ist „Klimaschutz-Meister“, und wird von Brüssel anerkannt
Is Hungary's economy growing?
About Hungary
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By ADA Culture + Politics April 14, 2015
The Highlife Revolution Part 1
Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong Performs Live in Accra, May 1956.
This is the second essay in a three-part series on Ghana’s Highlife music, documenting the story of how highlife music blew up in the heady days of the 1950’s.
by Dr. Kwesi Owusu
ACCRA: THE Swinging 1950’s
Originally built around a port, Accra became the capital of the British-ruled Gold Coast from 1877 and the new Ghana from 1957. During the 19th century, the city gradually transformed into a modern metropolis and an economic and administrative hub. Accra also attracted migrants and became a cultural melting pot where music styles from various origins met.
There was the colonial expatriate community, shuttling backwards and forwards from Europe and America and migrants from across the West African
sub region. Kru Sailors from Liberia for example visited the city regularly. They used to travel the whole length of the West African coast, usually as hired crew on European and American vessels and transported instruments like the guitar, concertina and tambourine from place to place. They also came with their music which was fused with local Ga rhythms like as Kolomashie and Kpanlogo.
From the 1950’s onwards, Accra saw a proliferation of dance bands, choral groups, church musical groups, funeral groups and traditional recreational groups. This incidentally also became a rich source of musical talent for the Highlife bands. Their successful use of western instruments to play African tunes mirrored the fact that a western socio-political structure was also becoming rapidly Africanized. Like Takoradi, Accra was a coastal city and strategically placed as a cross cultural
meeting point. The capital city also gave to Highlife a certain respectability
as the bands adopted formal evening wear to play at government functions,
sherry parties and dances.
The spectacular success of E.T. Mensah
If one musician and his band typified the excitement of the Highlife scene in Accra during its golden years between the 1950’s and 1960’s, it was E.T. Mensah and his Tempos Band. This immensely talented musician and his band literally owned the popular franchise for Highlife in Accra throughout his career spanning the post
war years and the optimistic days of Ghana’s independence. And if one event came to symbolize his dominance of the scene, it was the visit of Louis Armstrong, the legendary Jazz trumpeter, popular known as “Satchmo.”
Everybody remembers the momentous welcome at Accra Airport in May 1956. It became one of the most talked about events leading to Ghana’s independence in 1957. James Moxon, Director of the Colonial Department of Information Services had invited and provided transport for thirteen of Accra’s Highlife bands, including E.T. Mensah and the Tempos Band. Invariably the crowd was kept waiting but shortly before the plane touched down the bands took up their positions and the crowd, which would reach 15,000, slowly began to build.
In his fascinating book, Black Star in the Wind, Robert Raymond, one of Moxon’s colleagues describes the scene after the plane landed , when the bands stuck E.T. Mensah’s song, aptly improvised for the occasion – “All For You , Louie, All For You.”
Louis Armstrong’s Welcome Ceremony in Accra, 1956.
“Then the spirit took charge. The crowd suddenly swarmed over the fence into the
prohibited tarmac area, and the two cultures met with explosive zest. The
police and customs officers watched helplessly. A dozen trumpet players swung
in behind Armstrong. They blew their hardest in his ear as they marched along.
The Americans, now with the tune between their teeth, blew as hard as anyone, led by Armstrong’s swinging, driving trumpet. As the animated mass of players and singing people moved across the tarmac, gathering strength and impetus all the time, the noise and the clamor rose to the skies in the greatest paean of welcome Accra had ever known.”
Following the exuberant welcome, Armstrong and his party were taken by motorcade to their quarters in Accra. The band later played at the Old Polo Grounds in Accra where independence was declared a year later. This concert also turned out to be a sensational event by all accounts. The crowd was so huge Raymond
described it as “an overwhelming, almost frightening sight.” As the
band began to play amidst wild cheering, the crowd tried to spread out to
dance. Eventually, the speaker system was disabled and the band stand and
camera equipment came into danger. It was necessary for the band to depart.
E.T., Satchmo and all that Jazz at Paramount Club
That evening, Armstrong’s All Stars played at E.T. Mensah’s Paramount open air club in Accra. By all accounts, it was also a great work out. ” The atmosphere and the music were so infectiously happy..The American musicians spent hours on the bandstand playing with the local men. Trummy Young who must have had an unquenchable enthusiasm for music, played every number.He was the comedian of the group, and occasionally finished a frantic solo lying on his back, working the slide of his trombone with his foot.” [2]
At midnight, Armstrong and his wife left for home. But not before Armstrong is rumoured to have grabbed the microphone and made his famous request in Ga, “ ET, twaa me beatii !” ( E.T., play me the beat!) He certainly must have benefited from some language lessons. The rest of the band went to another club – Weekend In Havana – where they apparently jammed till the morning.
During the 1950’s “Satchmo” became e hugely popular in the Gold Coast as a result of Jazz and more Jazz on radio. GuyWarren, ex drummer of the Tempos as crusading DJ of Gold Coast Broadcasting Corporation always talked about him and played his music, not least When the Saints Go Marching In, All of Me, and Bye and Bye. These became listeners’ favourites.
Armstrong’s visit assumed greater significance because of its timing. Politically, it was a tense year before independence. Preparations were underway for another set of general elections and a British royal visit was pending that summer. Both the British authorities and the transitional government led by Prime Minister Nkrumah were keen to defuse the tension with a unifying event.
Armstrong’s popularity and easy going personality lent themselves to this. “By
jove, Louis is as great as his instrument”, E.T. Mensah waxed lyrically
about his idol and new found friend and earned a headline quote in New York
Herald Tribune’s report of the visit. (5/24/56)
Coincidentally, Pepsi Cola had also placed an Armstrong headshot inside bottle
tops in a popular competition with cash prizes for winners (people with the most tops). The innovative marketing campaign, complete with barefoot marketers and mobile cinema vans contributed to making “Satchmo” a household name in the Gold Coast.
Armstrong’s visit made an impressionable impact on Accra’s Highlife scene by drawing global media attention to it. Armstrong’s entourage included a filming crew from United Artists that flashed back to the world images of a happy and relaxed Armstrong blowing his trumpet on the Accra beach and enjoying time in his “ancestral homeland”. At a traditional durbar held in his honour, Armstrong sighted a woman that he said looked exactly like his mother and sent exciting telegrams to his friends in America.
His presence on the local band stand, not to mention the ease with which he played
Highlife helped consolidate the music’s progressive relationship with Jazz. And if local musicians needed a seal of approval, it could not come from anyone better than Armstrong, then establishing himself as one of the most popular Jazz acts in the world.
For the king of Highlife, E.T. Mensah, the visit consolidated his position as the leading songwriter of Ghana’s independence movement. He wrote the Ghana Freedom to mark the historic occasion in 1957 and followed it in 1958 with Ghana – Guinea – Mali, tribute to the political union of the three West African countries.
E.T.’s popularity throughout West Africa, especially in Nigeria also played well with the nationalist political emphasis on African unity at the time. As a result of his visits there, Nigerian bands had started to play Highlife . E.T. performed “Nike Nike” and “Okamo” on his return. E.T. even trained quite a few Nigerian musicians and brought under his creative influenced others like Rex Lawson, Victor Owaifo, and Roy Chicago. The Tempos visited Abidjan in 1955 and toured Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in 1958. Songs like “Nkebo Baaya” (I’ll go with you in the Ga language) and “Medze Medze”, ( I’ll eat and eat in the Akan language) a delightful but coded song about making love also became a Pan African anthem on the new external radio service of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation.
*All photographs in this article are from the Ghana National Archive.
Dr Kwesi Owusu is the CEO of Creative Storm and Director of The Environmental Film Festival in Ghana.
ET MensahGhana independenceGhana jazzhighlifekolomashiekpanlogoLouis ArmstrongRobert RaymondSatchmoTrummy YoungVictor Owaifo
Previous articleTHE POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF HIGHLIFE SONGS
Next articleThe Highlife Revolution Part 2
‘One Corner’ Dance & the Disruption of Social Conservatism in Ghana
CULTURAL PRODUCTION IS THE BIG THING BUT GHANA MEDIA DEY SLEEP
The 9th edition of the CHALE WOTE Street Art Festival takes place from August 20-27, 2018. Book a tour with…
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Fighting for Michigan's working families
PFAS Action Plan
Keeping Jobs in Michigan
Taking on Excessive Prescription Drug Costs
Preventing Wage Theft
Fighting for Working Families
Caucus Members
Michigan Jobs and Careers Resources
Write To Your Representative
Carter and Chang Bills Ban Smoking on Public Beaches
Expands scope of current smoke-free laws
LANSING — State Rep. Tyrone Carter (D-Detroit) and state Sen. Stephanie Chang (D-Detroit) introduced legislation today to protect Michigan’s beaches and beachgoers by expanding the state’s current smoke-free law to prohibit smoking on public beaches. Carter believes his House Bill 4936 will significantly reduce litter on beaches and reduce the risk posed by secondhand smoke.
“Most of us have fond memories of going to the beach during the summer, an unforgettable experience that we’d all like to share with our children in the future,” said Carter. “As the Great Lakes State, the pride we have in our beaches and the recreational opportunities they provide come with the duty to preserve them. Not only will this bill protect beach-going families from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke, it will protect our beaches and the wildlife that call them home from further pollution.”
Chang’s Senate Bill 497 mirrors Carter’s, with the express intent of banning smoking on public beaches.
“Our public spaces should be a place that all our families can enjoy – so children and their parents don’t have to worry about second-hand smoke,” said Chang. “Beaches are part of our Pure Michigan – and we should keep them clean and safe for everyone to enjoy.”
Michigan’s smoke-free law currently bans smoking in all state-owned buildings and most buildings open to the public. Chang’s bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Health Policy and Human Services, and Carter’s bill was referred to the House Committee on Regulatory Reform.
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Keep up to date on the latest news from the Michigan House Democratic Caucus
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Did anyone ever play “War”?…
Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on June 7, 1999 by Streetplay Discussions November 13, 2014
Original author: webdiva
Did anyone ever play “War”? Or “Steal the Old Man’s Bundle?”
I had two brothers and sisters and we used to play “War” for hours. You dealt out all the cards and then each played a card. The higher card won and the winner took both cards. If the cards were equal, you had to say “I declare War”. Then each dealt out three cards face down and one card face up. Highest card wins all the cards. Object of the game is to get all the cards.
– webdiva
Posted in Card Games, Other Games Tagged "I Declare War" permalink
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The Flash Vol. 1: Lightning Strikes Twice
DC Comics, Reviews
By Milo Milton Jefferies
By Joshua Williamson, Carmine Di Giandomenico & Ivan Plascencia
Lightning Strikes Twice is the first volume in the new Rebirth Flash series and writer Joshua Williamson kickstarts the new series on a solid, if not entirely original note as he works Carmine Di Giandomenico and Ivan Plascencia to pit Barry against Godspeed, who is a new antagonist with speedster powers for Barry to face. Whilst the initial threat of Godspeed is interesting the book quickly decides to take a similar stance to that of The CW’s Flash series which had problems of its own when it came to the number of Speedsters that it constantly throws against Barry season after season. It almost looks like Godspeed is tailor-made to show up on Season 4 as the main villain with a storyline that follows a familiar narrative, but that was probably the biggest problem with the book as for the most part it is largely an exciting and fun read.
The Flash also benefits from a few twists to the usual formula that we’ve seen in the comics in the past. Barry has suddenly found himself in the mentor role as a teacher to his new ally, who also has the Speedforce and is just as eager to solve crime as he is. This brings up the potential for discussion as to why Barry is the person best suited to be The Flash when there are others with a similar skill set, particularly as Wally West is another new speedster also dealing with his powers and learning how to control them. This further adds to the various problems that Barry has to deal with over this series and it’s something that Joshua Williamson handles for the most part effectively, making sure that each issue is action packed and contains plenty of content for fans to devour.
For the most part the artwork is effective with Carmine Di Giandomenico taking over duties as the main series artist whilst Neil Googe and Felipe Watanabe lend a hand for a couple of issues which is to be expected because of the fact that this book is one of the double-shipping Rebirth titles. Giandomenico himself has both strengths and weaknesses here because although the series looks great in the more action-oriented sequences as well as those where Barry is constantly on the move as The Flash and using his speedster powers, it unfortunately suffers with portrayals of various human emotion that never quite pay off, sometimes meaning that the emotional impact in a scene isn’t quite as powerful as it could have been. However the artwork is for the most part effective throughout the series and Ivan Plascencia really makes the most out his colouring style to help give the book a bright and vibrant feel that you’d expect from The Flash. The layouts are also inventive and varied as well, and it’s something that the book really benefits from as a result.
Putting its strength in its characters with a solid focus on its characters and its supporting cast, Lightning Strikes Twice sees the series get off to a positive start under the new creative team. If you’re a fan of the show looking to read more of Barry Allen’s adventures while the show is off air then Lightning Strikes Twice acts as a great introduction for newcomers to the character as well as at the same time it manages to appeal to returning fans with plenty of teasers to past events, especially in the opening standalone Rebirth chapter. At the end of the day even if it may not be perfect, there’s plenty to like about this series that shows the promise to only get better from here.
Liked It6
At the end of the day even if it may not be perfect, there’s plenty to like about this series that shows the promise to only get better from here.
Reader Rating: (2 Rates)10
TagsBarry AllenCarmine Di GiandomenicoDC ComicsDC RebirthIvan PlascenciaJoshua WilliamsonMilo Milton-Jefferiesthe flashTrade Paperback Review
Collector’s Corner: Modern Valiant 1st Appearances
Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor Vol. 5
Milo Milton Jefferies
Outside of comics, Milo is into books/music/film/games/TV. He is a big fan of shows like The Magicians and Line of Duty, loves Civilization 6 and is a supporter of Arsenal FC. His favourite Marvel film is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and his favourite post-Nolan DC movie is Wonder Woman.
DC Comics, Previews
Preview: Grayson #11
Preview: Justice League #1
Preview: Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands #6
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60. ELEVATOR MOVIE (2004)
June 23, 2010 Gregory J. Smalley (366weirdmovies) 3 Comments
“I think it was from taking the elevator to my dorm room every day in college. I developed this weird thing with elevators. It wasn’t fetishistic or anything, I was just always thinking about the elevator, and you know how you feel your stomach move a bit when an elevator first starts or stops? I would feel that at random times in the day when I wasn’t in an elevator, and I would feel like the ground was just a rising elevator platform. I was also very shy at the time and I started to look forward to taking the elevator every day because it was the rare time I might be forced into a social situation with someone.”–Zeb Haradon on the origins of Elevator Movie
DIRECTED BY: Zeb Haradon
FEATURING: Zeb Haradon, Robin Ballard
PLOT: A woman carrying groceries is trapped in an elevator with a socially inept graduate student. Oddly, no one answers when they push the call button, and no one comes for days and weeks on end; even more oddly, her grocery bag is refilled each morning. As the weeks stretch into months, the mismatched pair—an adult virgin obsessed with anal sex and a reformed slut turned Jesus freak—form a sick symbiotic bond, until the girl undergoes a weird metamorphosis.
Per director Haradon, the budget for the film was between twenty-five and thirty thousand dollars.
According to a statement on the official website the main influences on the story were Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” the films of Luis Buñuel (particularly That Obscure Object of Desire and The Exterminating Angel), and Eraserhead.
Although the mouse-stomping scene was faked, the end of the film shows a joke disclaimer that proclaims, “No animals were harmed in the making of this film except for lobsters and mice.” Haradon received angry mails from animal rights advocates who believed that a mouse was actually killed onscreen.
Hardon’s followup film was the documentary Waiting for NESARA (2005), about a bizarre UFO cult composed of ex-Mormons.
The 2008 Romanian film Elevator features a similar dramatic scenario of a young man and woman trapped together in a cargo elevator, but without any surrealistic elements.
INDELIBLE IMAGE: Lana, after she inexplicably transforms into a metal/human hybrid.
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: By mixing Sartre’s “No Exit” with an ultra-minimalist riff on Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel, garnished with large dollops of fantastical sexual depravity and a pinch of body horror, writer/director/star Zeb Haradon created one of the weirder underground movies of recent years. The absurdist script is exemplary, and the simplicity of the one-set scenario means that the movie’s technical deficiencies don’t stick out, and could even add to the oddness.
Original trailer for Elevator Movie (WARNING: trailer contains profanity and sexual situations)
COMMENTS: I have to start this review of with a confession/apology: when I first reviewed Elevator Movie over a year ago, I gave it a mere three out of five stars and made an indefensible call not to certify it for inclusion on the List of the 366 best weird movies ever made. If the truth be told, I wanted to post about the movie that night and was simply too tired at the time to write a full length review, but the excuse I made for overlooking it was as follows: “Unfortunately, in a demanding two character piece that requires top-notch, nuanced dramatic performances to succeed, Haradon’s acting talent isn’t up to the level of his imagination and screenwriting ability. The resulting film looks like an A- film school final project: it tantalizingly promises more than it’s capable of delivering.”
No doubt, the key blemish on Elevator Movie is the acting. With one location, two actors, and a heavy reliance on dialogue, the movie feels like a play. But, as I said originally, although Robin Ballard is passable in the easier role of Lana, Haradon is almost unforgivably subdued as Jim. Jim is passive, so some of the wimpiness of the characterization is intentional, but when he needs to project a menacing, seething passion subdued under a calm exterior, he can’t pull it off. Therefore, at times the inherent dramatic conflict tails off into a bland “OK, OK”, just as Jim’s voice does when Lana once again rejects his advances. There are too many “ums” and pauses in his delivery, which sound less like Jim’s natural speech patterns and more like untutored acting. And there’s a moment, after Ballard tells Haradon a story about when her uncle saw a vision of Jesus in his feces that his delivery blows what should have been a perfect (if obvious) punchline.
I still stand behind those criticisms; with the right acting talent, Elevator Movie could have been an absolute classic rather than just a fascinating oddity. But time has proven me wrong in underestimating Elevator Movie; this thing gets into your subconscious and festers there, and its weird incidents linger in the memory long after more technically polished movies have faded away completely. And sometimes, like lovers, flawed movies become all the more lovable for their flaws, which make them unique.
The basic scenario is simplicity itself—Jim and Lana, two polar opposites, are stuck in an elevator together; impossibly, for months on end. Lana enters the elevator with a grocery bag, and each morning when the couple awakens the supplies are magically replenished. The problem of elimination isn’t shied away from; fortunately, whatever entity takes care of the shopping while they sleep also empties the coffee can that holds their mingled waste. The couple have no television and neither brought an Ipod, so for entertainment they only have each other to converse with. And so, as the weeks pass, they talk, and talk, and talk.
They talk about God, they talk about their personal histories, they talk about what they would do if they were on the outside, but, as their imprisonment drags on, more and more they talk about Jim’s unusual sexual desires. Jim, a virgin and a socially inept college student studying genetics, is obsessed with the allure of anal sex. That’s his primary kink, but not his only one. The longer we stay trapped in the elevator with Jim, the more we come to realize what a sick puppy he truly is. Early on, on their very first day of captivity, he confesses his dream project to Lana: he wants to genetically engineer a Venus flytrap that’s capable of performing fellatio.
As the days mount, Jim seems to have an inexhaustible store of deviant ideas and fantasies to spring on Lana, and (in the early reels, at least) the oddest thing about her is that she accepts his perversions with nothing more than mild distaste, as if he just passed wind. The panic that would possess most women if they found themselves trapped in an enclosed space with a madman is missing from her character. In fact, from the beginning the newly chaste Lana encourages Jim’s mounting sexual frustration by suggesting that they sleep together in the spoon position, and teases him with tales of her promiscuity before she found Jesus, stopping abruptly just as his hopes start to rise. There’s a powerful strain of misogyny in her portrayal as the ultimate faux-virgin tease, but oddly enough, it doesn’t come across as offensive; probably because the misandric disgust the movie directs at Jim more than counteracts it. Lana intuitively realizes Jim is too needy to force himself on her—rape wouldn’t appeal to him, since what he longs for is willing approval of his kinks—so she has the upper hand in any sexual jousting. But, as the days wear on, she also develops a genuine fondness for the only man around. With no one else to interact with, in the redefined reality of their elevator prison, Jim’s perverse peculiarities lose their ability to shock and become a simple fact of her existence, like the buttons on the wall.
While Lana seems like a perfectly normal woman, or Jim’s imaginary version of a normal woman, she turns out to have a secret of her own. Jim, with his permanently stained button down shirt and habit of picking his nose in public, begins the picture as one of those standoffish loners you wonder about as you see him shuffling around in public with his head downcast. He gradually reveals that his psychology is more twisted than your worst imaginings. Lana’s slowly revealed affliction, on the other hand, is entirely physical, taking the form of a bizarre, Tetsuo-like sickness. It’s almost as if forced exposure to Jim’s sick psychic radiation is mutating her.
Most of the film’s itchy bizarreness comes from the characters and their straight-faced acceptance of the impossible. With no money for effects, Haradon wisely chose to tackle a project that was completely within his means. The cardboard box set works in the movie’s favor, removing all distractions and highlighting the characters’ oversized psychologies, which play like grotesque shadows against the elevator’s blank walls. Weirdness is suggested on the cheap, as when the cross around Lana’s neck inexplicably turns into an air freshener for one scene before reverting back. Much of the imagery—mainly scatological, but also one scene of brutal animal cruelty—is shocking, but it always feels integral to the sickly atmosphere, never gratuitous. Sometimes shots are framed poorly, but this seems deliberate, to add to the offness. The sound is bad—some shots have a background hum that alternates back and forth with a silent scene, and the movement of Lana’s lips don’t always match what she’s saying. The audio imperfections were probably unintentional, the result of a low budget and technical inexperience, but they could be viewed as happy accidents. Unless you have a fetish for polish, none of the technical glitches—with the exception of the acting—diminish the effectiveness of the screenplay.
Haradon understands that the basis of drama is conflicting agendas, and, aside from a few missed opportunities to ratchet up the conflict up to stratospheric levels, the script manages to keep up our interest by slowly revealing new facets of the characters and keeping up the tension as Jim and Lana struggle to reconcile their need for intimacy with their utter incompatibility. Those conflicting agendas are never revealed so dramatically as when the two agree to share their deepest wishes with each other, and scrawl them on pieces of paper for the other to read. Though the screenplay never reaches the theatrical heights of its literary inspirations, “Waiting for Godot” and “No Exit,” as an x-rated first attempt at a Theater of the Absurd piece, it comes much closer to those luminaries than it probably had any right to. The simple ending is very nearly perfect; chilling, but, due to the way the movie has altered our view of reality and forced us to reluctantly identify with Jim, also touching, in a bizarre way. Despite the absurdity of the situation and the gargantuan eccentricities of the characters, if you’re willing to accept this movie’s rules at face value, you may find that it rings with a dangerous psychological truth, and hints at something unspeakably horrifying about male sexuality.
“As a champion of ‘Eraserhead’, ‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’, ‘Naked Lunch’, and ‘Back Against the Wall’, all fine films that downright bask in their toxicity to the homogenized masses, I found Haradon’s film to be unique and fascinating and a most worthy addition to the midnight movie circuit. Just don’t ask me to spend any longer in Haradon’s mind than I have to in any one sitting. It’s very likely I’d never make it out!”–Daniel Wible, Film Threat (contemporaneous)
“…an inspired piece of weirdness and one of the more original debut films I’ve ever seen.”–Mike Everleth, BadLit.com
“…the weirdly simple, natural way Jim and Lana deal with their predicament, and relate to each other, provides more than enough sustenance to sate the adventurous movie-goer too long denied a good fix of the strange stuff… Fans of early David Lynch and other low-budget, absurdist auteurs will be delighted by Elevator Movie, a sick and sincere slice of hopeless existentialism and despair.”–Kurt Dahlke, DVD Talk
OFFICIAL SITE: Elevator Movie Website
IMDB LINK: Elevator Movie (2004)
OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST:
Zeb Haradon – interview with the director from artinterviews.com
DVD INFO: The weird movie community is lucky to have a flick as obscure as Elevator Movie (buy ) available on a duplicated (and thus Netflix eligible) DVD at all; asking for special features would be too much. The meager extras are trailers for eight other Patherfinder-distributed features (including List entry Gozu) and bios of writer/director/star Zeb Haradon and costar Robin Ballard.
2004AbsurdistBlack and WhiteBlack ComedyDramaElevatorFreudianLow budgetMinimalistPerversePsychologicalSexual repressionSurrealismUndergroundZeb Haradon
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3 thoughts on “60. ELEVATOR MOVIE (2004)”
ericgabbard says:
Just finished watching this and you’re right, it definitely deserves to make the list. You’re also correct in saying the amateurish acting is a bit of a detractor. I had a strange sensation watching the film. It felt as I had uncovered some student film someone had hidden in my attic and was forgotten about when they moved out in the late 80’s/early 90’s. Time period is never revealed but the undescript clothing, Jansport backpack, Rubik’s cube, and VHS porn videos all made it feel like ’86 or so. The hum in the background and the out-of-sync dialogue made it feel like the film could start to melt at any moment or break from the reel and start flapping on the side of the projector. Weird stuff indeed.
where did you find the movie ericgabbard? did you download it, buy it online, buy it on dvd? I’d love to watch it, but I can’t find it anywhere.
G. Smalley (366weirdmovies) says:
Elevator Movie is available in the US to buy from Amazon or to rent from Netflix. Your IP address suggests you are overseas, and I don’t think its ever been released in Europe, unfortunately.
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Posted by Sarah Kathy at Thursday, January 07, 2010
10 Unbelievable Facebook Stories
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10 Weirdest Wedding Invitations
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10 Most Unusual Mirrors
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{SamsoNgroup} National Geographic's International Photography Contest 2009
National Geographic's International Photography Contest 2009
National Geographic's International Photography Contest attracts thousands of entries from photographers of all skill levels around the world every year. While this year's entry deadline has passed, there is still time to view and vote for your favorites in the Viewer's Choice competition. National Geographic was kind enough to let me choose a few of their entries from 2009 for display here on The Big Picture. Collected below are 25 images from the three categories of People, Places and Nature. Captions were written by the individual photographers. (25 photos total)
Nazroo, a mahout (elephant driver), poses for a portrait while taking his elephant, Rajan, out for a swim in front of Radha Nagar Beach in Havelock, Andaman Islands. Rajan is one of the few elephants in Havelock that can swim, so when he is not dragging timber in the forest he is used as a tourist attraction. The relationship between the mahout and his elephant usually lasts for their entire lives, creating an extremely strong tie between the animal and the human being. (Photo and caption by Cesare Naldi)
On the final leg of a six-week United States of America road trip, I was driving east across Interstate 40 when a spot storm with golf ball-sized hail struck. A sign near Groom, Texas, announcing the "largest cross in the western hemisphere" explained the large crucifix I'd been wondering about for miles on the highway; it seemed like an OK place to wait out the storm. On my way to getting stuck in the mud and a giant double rainbow, I saw this silhouetted view of the cross, splitting the sunny sky from the stormy plains. (Photo and caption by Brad Maule) #
This picture was taken during the Rinjani volcano trek on Lombok Island in Indonesia at sunrise. (Photo and caption by David Bismuth) #
An example of photo luminescence in coral in West Papua (Photo and caption by Stephen Martin) #
A male gelada baboon on the Guassa Plateau of the Ethiopian Highlands enjoys a good grooming. (Photo and caption by Robin Moore) #
I was in the front car of the short subway between Pudong and the Bund, and was treated to the wonderful spectacle of an oncoming train in the tunnel's changing light show. I put my camera up to the window and shot as fast as possible to get this image. (Photo and caption by Gail von Bergen Ryan) #
A stone's-eye-view of two tracks made by the sailing stones of Death Valley's Racetrack playa. The dried clay surface has a beautiful texture, and there is a palpable aura of mystery over the entire three-square-mile playa. The Racetrack was not entirely free of human influence though: several weeks before this taken many of the stones were stolen, leaving long trails without a traveler at the end. (Photo and caption by Tucker Sylvestro) #
On my second day visiting the astounding Iguazu falls on the Brazilian side I was forced to change to my telephoto lens as my wide angle had been damaged by the water vapour. In had rained solid for 10 days prior to my arrival and so the falls were at their most spectacular. Standing on the elevated viewing platform I was able to shoot this school group who stood transfixed, emphasizing the incredible size of the falls. (Photo and caption by Ian Kelsall) #
I took this picture on a sunny fall afternoon on a prairie near Chicago, Illinois. To improve the color saturation, I blocked the sunlight with my body. The blue background came straight from the camera. The image was not altered with any editor. (Photo and caption by Richard Susanto) #
My grandfather was born and raised on our New Zealand farm. He and my grandmother were married nearly 60 years. Preparing for a photo in the barley, my grandmother lovingly reached up to adjust his hat. This was his last harvest. (Photo and caption by Gemma Collier) #
During a rainy, cloudy morning at the Wild Goose scenic overlook on St. Mary Lake in Glacier National Park, Montana, the sun peeped from under the cloud cover long enough to paint a golden-yellow swath across the face of the mountain for maybe 15 minutes before disappearing again. (Photo and caption by Rebecca Latson) #
A young orangutan swings from tree to tree in Tanjung Puting National Park in Indonesian Borneo. (Photo and caption by Sean Crane) #
This is about one hour of firefly activity near my home in rural Ontario. The precision of the background star trails is an interesting contrast to the chaotic pattern of the firefly flashes. (Photo and caption by Steve Irvine) #
The edge of an iceberg floating just off the coast of Antarctica. (Photo and caption by Mike Matas) #
While visiting Kruger National Park with my son, we came across two male hippos battling for dominance as we crossed a bridge over the Sabie River. The bellowing from the animals as they fought their bloody battle was incredible. They first fought in the shallows near the bank and then moved into the deeper part of the river. We don't know how it turned out but we were so glad to see the spectacle. (Photo and caption by Steve Mandel) #
Andrew and his friend, a young sperm whale named Scar, were swimming together off the west coast of Dominica. The two of them became "friends" after Andrew saved Scar's life. (Photo and caption by Peter Allinson) #
The Darvaza natural gas crater is located in the center of the Karakum Desert in the central Asian country of Turkmenistan. The crater resulted after a Soviet natural gas exploration accident in the 1950s and has been burning ever since. The crater is approximately 60 meters in diameter and its depth is approximately 20 meters. (Photo and caption by Natalja Silver) #
When the wave conditions are right a wave appears, infrequently, as a result of the splash back off the cliff connecting with an incoming wave. This causes the incoming wave to pop up, creating fan-like shapes. On this particular day, over the two hours I spent on the rocks, this wave only appeared once. This is that shot. (Photo and caption by Aaron Feinberg) #
David Hanson crosses a fallen log beneath soaring trees and a lingering fog in Washington's Olympic National Park. (Photo and caption by Michael Hanson) #
Even during the Arirang Mass Games in North Korea, the ultimate expression of the state ideology, an individual can still sometimes stand out from the crowd and break free of the collective. If only just for a moment. (Photo and caption by Brendyn Zachary) #
Cary stands on a deserted road in Central Ohio, at sunset. (Photo and caption by Lisa Roberts) #
This bee was unfortunate enough to land in my pool, but he made some amazing patterns buzzing around in the water. He later escaped. (Photo and caption by Michael Johnson) #
Taken at Kwena Croc Farm in South Africa (Photo and caption by Wayne Holloway) #
This is one view of many dunes found in Jordan. Two steps forward and one step back made for a challenging ascent. (Photo and caption by Andrew Cwiklewich)#
Curious gulls on Sanibel Island, Florida. Meet my friend, "Gull-i-Bel"!!! (Photo and caption by Richard Rush) #
"~ Love conquers all, but if love doesn't do it, try hard work ~."
{SamsoNgroup} What is Rajnikant’s gmail id?
Thanks to Abhi for the post
Comon Guys if you are a true rajnikant fan then answers it I say!!!!
What is Rajnikant's gmail id?
gmail@rajnikant.com
mind it ..
"Our Similarities bring us to a common ground; Our Differences allow us to be fascinated by each other."
(b. 1936); novelist, short story writer, essayist
{SamsoNgroup} National Geographic's International ...
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Amalgamated Printers' Association
…AN ORGANIZATION COMPOSED OF LETTERPRESS PRINTING ENTHUSIASTS
About The APA
APA Historical Pages
How The APA Was Named
Early APA History
Previous Wayzgoose Cities
Annual APA Wayzgoose Info
Amalgamated Printers’ Association
(Last revision on March 2006)
Article I / General
Article II / Membership
Article III / Activities
Article IV / Printing Specifications
Article V / Official Business
Article VI / Elections
Article VII / Officers, Board, Terms & Tenure
Article VIII / Duties of Board Members
Article IX / Amendments to the Rules
Article I: General
The name of the organization is Amalgamated Printers’ Association, abbreviated APA.
The purposes of APA are:
To foster interest in the art of letterpress printing.
To encourage excellence in printing.
To provide a means for collective exchange of members work, promoting mutual communication and improvement of skills.
Article II: Membership
Membership is limited to 150.
A partnership of two or more qualified persons at the same address may choose to be recognized as a single membership, provided they so advise the Secretary-Treasurer. In case of death of one partner, membership reverts to the surviving partner(s).
Qualifications for membership are an interest in printing as a hobby, possession of or access to letterpress printing equipment, and a working knowledge of letterpress printing.
Induction:
A candidate for membership may apply to the Secretary-Treasurer. The application must be endorsed by a sponsor who has been an APA member in good standing for the last two years, and must be accompanied by a specimen of the candidate’s letterpress printing.
A waiting list of applicants shall be maintained by the Secretary-Treasurer, and qualifying candidates shall be inducted in order of application.
A candidate shall be notified when his name reaches the top of the waiting list and a vacancy occurs, and invited to join by remitting dues, which at the discretion of the Secretary-Treasurer may be pro-rated.
Permanent membership numbers shall be consecutively assigned to all members at the time of induction. If a previous member rejoins, the original number shall be used by that member.
Upon acceptance of dues copies of the APA Constitution and Membership Directory shall be sent to the new member, and the sponsor shall be notified.
A new member is on probationary status until he prints a Proprietor’s Card for distribution in the Bundle, which must be done within three months of acceptance. It is encouraged that this include a brief introduction of the member, relating qualifications, background and shop information.
Dues:
Annual dues shall be in an amount determined by the Board. Members living outside the United States are asked to voluntarily contribute more than their dues to offset the extra postage in mailing their bundles.
Renewal notices shall be distributed annually in the January Bundle, with dues payable by March 1.
The Vice President shall attempt to personally contact any member delinquent as of March 15. The Secretary-Treasurer shall terminate by written notice any member delinquent as of April 1.
All members shall actively participate in APA by publication of at least four separate and different letterpress printed items per calendar year for distribution in the Bundle. Members may not submit more than two pieces for the December bundle.
Each letterpress-printed contribution to Treasure Gems may be counted toward this requirement, provided that Treasure Gems is distributed to all members. If Treasure Gems is not distributed to all members, only one such contribution may be counted toward this requirement.
Items produced as joint ventures shall be counted at half-credit for each participant.
Items produced by a partnership shall be counted as if the partners were a single member.
At the discretion of the board member responsible for checking participation, publications with multiple sheets bound together may be counted as more than one item.
In the event a member in good standing suffers a disability or other hardship, a written request for waiver of the required participation may be filed with the Vice President. If he and the President agree, a waiver may be granted for the current calendar year only, after which the member may reapply.
Members shall receive the monthly Bundle.
Subject to specific registration and fees, members are entitled to participate in all APA activities.
Article III: Activities
The Bundle is a packet mailed monthly to all members for the collective exchange of printing specimens. It may also contain announcements, reports, ballots, and other official business or unofficial items submitted by members for the general interest.
Treasure Gems is a cooperative book published annually in May, containing works of members contributed on a voluntary basis. It is coordinated by a volunteer member other than the Mailer.
The Wayzgoose is an informal annual convention held on a summer weekend and coordinated by a volunteer host financially responsible only to those who register and attend.
Other activities such as cooperative calendars, contests, field trips, newsletters, keepsakes, awards, etc., may be initiated by any member.
Article IV: Printing Specifications
Except for educational materials approved by the Vice President or official business, members are required to only submit letterpress-printed pieces for the bundle.
Variable dimensions, thickness or weight of stock in one item is discouraged.
Items sent to the Mailer shall be suitably packed, and marked to indicate intended distribution if other than the current month.
Items requiring folding, binding, or similar operations shall be so serviced before shipment to the Mailer.
Identification and contents:
Each piece submitted for distribution shall clearly indicate the name of the member who printed and/or contributed it. Neither the name of the press nor the assigned APA number constitutes the name of the member, but such further identification is encouraged.
In the spirit of the free press, there are no restrictions to subject matter, but APA is not intended as a forum for material of inflammatory or controversial nature.
Should the propriety of an item be questioned, the Mailer shall withhold distribution of it and refer the matter to the Vice President, who shall render a decision with due promptness.
Proprietor’s Card:
Each member shall print a 3″x5″ Proprietor’s Card for distribution to other members, with the following format recommended:
Name of member in the upper left hand corner with the last name first.
Assigned APA number, name of press, mailing address, telephone number, and salient facts about member’s interests and equipment.
Month and year the member joined APA in the lower right corner.
A. Month and year the Proprietor’s card was issued, reissued or revised in the lower right corner.
When new members join APA, each member is requested to welcome them by mailing a Proprietor’s Card.
Members are encouraged to reissue Proprietor’s Cards occasionally, especially in case of significant changes.
Monthly Bundle:
For a regular Bundle, items shall not exceed 6″x9″ flat, or 5.5″x8.5 folded.
For the special November Bundle, items shall not exceed 8.5″x11″ flat, or 8″x10″ folded.
Members shall furnish 155 copies to the Mailer of each item intended for Bundle distribution.
Except for official association notices or variances approved by the Vice President, all items submitted for the bundle must be printed via the letterpress process.
Treasure Gems
Items submitted for publication in Treasure Gems shall be 4.5″x6,” preferably printed both sides, and sent to the special coordinator, not the Mailer.
Use of stock thicker or heavier than text grade is discouraged.
Deadlines and particulars shall be published in the Bundle by the coordinator as appropriate.
Article V: Official Business
Items of official business may be printed by any Board member, or any lay member or outside source duly designated by a Board member.
Costs of paper, binding, typesetting, shipping or similar services performed within or outside APA membership on official business may be borne by APA funds. Such expenditures must be approved by the President.
Reimbursement for personal labor, consultation, coordination, travel, or similar expenses to any Officer or member from APA funds is strictly prohibited.
A fee determined by the Board of Directors shall be paid to each of the Secretary-Treasurer and the Mailer, over and above itemized expenses, to cover incidental costs.
Article VI: Elections
Nominations shall be by petition from the candidate seeking office. The Petition must be endorsed by another member in good standing for the last two years. The Petition shall be submitted to the Secretary-Treasurer by August 1 of even numbered years.
Balloting is by mail in duplicate distributed in the September Bundle. Vote recorders shall be the Secretary-Treasurer and the Senior Director. A recorder who is running for office shall be replaced by an alternate appointed by the President. Ballots received by either recorder after October 15 will be considered invalid.
Results of the election shall be published in the November Bundle. If in the judgment of the President, the two sets of ballots disagree sufficiently to obscure the outcome, another balloting shall be conducted promptly.
Special elections for official business may be held any time as required, following the same sequence set forth above.
In any contest the candidate or choice receiving the greatest number of valid votes shall be the winner.
In case of tie vote the outcome shall be determined by a majority of the Board.
If there are no contested races for APA offices, the President, with the approval of the Board, may declare those who filed for an office the winners without an election.
Article VII: Officers, Board, Terms & Tenure
The four elected officers are President, Vice President, Secretary-Treasurer, and Mailer: they are elected for two year terms, taking office on January 1 of odd-numbered years. These officers shall not serve more than two consecutive terms in the same office.
The three directors are elected for staggered six-year terms, one each to take office concurrently with the elected officers. Directors may not serve consecutive terms.
The Archivist shall be appointed by the President, with the advise of the Board, and serve for an indefinite term.
The holders of the above eight offices shall constitute the Board.
No member may hold more than one office simultaneously.
Vacancies:
Should the office of the President become vacant, it shall be assumed by the Vice President.
Other vacancies shall be filled by appointment by the President, and ratified by at least two other Board members.
Directors so appointed shall serve until the next general election, at which time a Director shall be elected to finish the vacated term.
At the next general election such appointees, or Vice President assuming the office of President, shall not be construed to be in conflict with the tenure rules set forth in this article.
Article VIII: Duties of Board Members
The President is the chief spokesman and serves as Chairman of the Board. He shall be the alternate signator for the APA bank account. He shall ensure that the constitutional duties of all officers are discharged as specified.
The Vice President shall assist with the coordination of duties of all Board members, and with particular regard to:
Making every effort to contact all members whose dues are delinquent as of March 15.
Evaluation of the propriety of questionable Bundle contributions.
Membership petitions for activity waiver.
The Secretary-Treasurer is responsible for APA funds and membership records, with particular regard to:
Processing applications from prospective new members.
Collecting membership dues.
Advising Vice President promptly of all members whose dues are delinquent as of March 15.
Processing election petitions from members seeking to run for office or sponsor a constitutional amendment.
Arranging ballot distribution for general and special elections.
Maintaining a current membership list.
Maintaining proper bank accounts.
Publish or have published an annual report in the February bundle, to include a financial statement from the previous year, changes in the membership, and any other pertinent official business.
Maintain and publish or have published the current APA Constitution as required.
Publish or have published annually in the September bundle a notice reminding members that the November bundle will accept large items.
Publish or have published a current membership directory annually in the June bundle.
Publish or have published annually in the January bundle a dues notice.
The Mailer is responsible for distributing monthly Bundles, with particular regard to:
Printing 6.5”x9.5” or larger envelopes, at the mailer’s descretion, for mailing regular monthly bundles and 9”x12” envelopes for the November bundle. The mailer may use any kind of envelope he/she sees fit for mailing.
Normally mailing the Bundles between the 10th and 15th day of each month.
Withholding distribution of items of questionable propriety, and referring them to the Vice President.
The Archivist shall:
Receive and file an extra monthly Bundle.
Collect historical papers, pictures, clippings, journals, and similar items concerning APA.
Maintain a log of Bundle contributions to determine compliance with the activity requirement.
Publish a report annually in the September Bundle, listing by membership number only, all members who have not yet met activity requirement for the current year. For each such member, the report shall list the number of qualifying and non-qualifying items published both year-to-date and for the previous calendar year.
File a year-end activity report with the president and secretary-treasurer within 10 days upon receipt of the December bundle.
The Directors provide continuity for APA, and with the officers, comprise the Board, which sets policy.
Article IX: Amendments to Constitution
Any member may begin amendment proceedings by publishing a proposal in the Bundle, gaining supportive petitions from at least fifteen other members, and submitting the proposal and required support to the Secretary-Treasurer.
A majority of the board may begin amendment proceedings by publishing a proposal in the Bundle and submitting it to the Secretary-Treasurer.
When either of the above procedures is duly completed, the Secretary-Treasurer shall promptly conduct a special election for the proposed amendment.
About The Amalgamated Printers’ Association
All-Time Membership List
All-Time Officer List
Early History of the APA
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Retro Review: Viva Morte! Viva la Plaza! Celebrate the Plaza Theatre as the Silver Scream Spookshow presents ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN!
Silver Scream Spookshow presents ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948); Dir: Charles Barton; Starring: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Jr. and Glenn Strange; Sat. Dec. 22; kids’ matinee at 1 PM (kids under 12 free & adults $7) and adult show at 10 PM(all tickets $12); Plaza Theatre; Trailer here.
By Aleck Bennett
Let me get personal for a minute here.
This month’s Silver Scream Spookshow at the Plaza Theatre is a special one for me. Not just because every Spookshow is its own special thing. And not just because the Plaza is Atlanta’s oldest running independent cinema, which is just incredible in its own right. But because the film being presented—ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN—is my very first memory. The earliest thing I can recall from childhood is trying to fall asleep while watching Glenn Strange’s monster lurching about a pier in a film on the “late-late show” my mom was watching. It’s stuck with me. That’s why one of my most treasured possessions as a kid was a glow-in-the-dark poster of James Bama’s portrait of Glenn Strange as the Frankenstein monster. (Thanks, Super Sugar Crisps!) That’s why I’ve got Glenn-as-Frankie tattooed on my forearm. In the years since that fateful day, I’ve watched this movie over and over again and I’ve never grown tired of it.
For those not in the know, here’s the lowdown on this flick: Chick (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur (Lou Costello) are bumbling baggage-claim clerks in Florida. Thanks to a late-night delivery of mysterious crates to a wax museum, they unwittingly wind up caught in Dracula’s (Bela Lugosi) evil plot to replace the Frankenstein monster’s brain with a more receptive one: that of the dim-witted Wilbur. Lawrence “Wolf Man” Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) enlists their assistance in stopping Dracula’s fiendish plot, and once the full moon rises, the whole thing turns into a large-scale monster bash along the lines of 1944’s HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN or 1945’s HOUSE OF DRACULA. Just a whole lot funnier.
Besides the film’s early imprinting on my developing mind, though, the film is notable for many other reasons. It’s Bela’s second and final feature-length performance as Dracula (he had a cameo as Dracula in 1933’s HOLLYWOOD ON PARADE theatrical short). It’s one of the few horror comedies in which the monsters are not treated as the butts of the film’s jokes; the horror elements are respected and presented practically as seriously as they were in any other Universal film, while the comedy largely rises from Bud and Lou’s interplay and reactions to the horror. (This, however, didn’t stop Boris Karloff from refusing to see the film, believing it to be disrespectful toward the horror genre.) All three of the “monster” actors had played the role of Frankenstein’s monster (with Chaney even briefly playing him during the course of this film when Glenn Strange broke his foot on a falling lighting rig), and both Chaney and Lugosi had played Dracula. Vincent Price even makes a surprise cameo (though don’t keep your eyes peeled for him).
Dracula (Bela Lugosi) hypnotizing Bud AbbotT in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. Universal Pictures, 1948.
But beyond even those items of interest, there’s a larger and more personal reason why this Spookshow is a special event this month: it’s the final Silver Scream Spookshow being held at the Plaza under the watchful eye of Jonathan and Gayle Rej, the Plaza’s owners and operators since 2006.
Let me make another personal detour here. The Plaza Theatre is, to me, a sacred space. It’s almost a religious temple, dedicated to conjuring and making manifest the spirit of cinema. And over its history—from movie palace to grindhouse to a showcase for independent film and performing arts—it has presented Atlanta with the full spectrum of the cinematic experience. And more than that, it has become a central, vital spot in my life. When I first moved back to the Atlanta area in 2006 after more than a decade away, I was working from home and initially didn’t get out much. It took me a while to get settled in and motivated to check out what was going on. That was when I saw a flyer for the Silver Scream Spookshow in the window of Junkman’s Daughter. It promised a revival of the classic “Spook Show” tradition of live stage shows augmenting showings of classic horror flicks—a phenomenon that I was old enough to remember coming to my home town, but young enough to have never personally experienced—presented by Professor Morte, an old-school-styled horror host from the cracked mold of Ghoulardi and Zacherley. So I went. And went. And went again.
The Frankenstein Monster meets Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Universal Pictures, 1948.
Being a movie fanatic, the Plaza quickly became the center of much of my recreational time because more than simply being a theater, it has spawned a community. Most of the people I know and the friends I have, I have met either directly or indirectly through the Plaza. In fact, I wouldn’t be writing this piece for this fine website if it weren’t for the Plaza. And if it weren’t for the hard work and dedication of Johnny and Gayle Rej in the face of economic struggles that would have beaten down lesser mortals, none of the above would have existed.
As you may or may not know, Johnny and Gayle have sold the Plaza to Michael Furlinger, who recently revived the classic Terrace Theatre in Charleston, SC. I spoke with Shane Morton, the mastermind behind Morte, for his thoughts on the end of the reign of the Rejs and the beginning of a new era for the Plaza.
“I think out of all the phases that the Plaza has gone through, that Johnny and Gayle have really turned it into something much more than just a movie theatre. Something beyond just building the stage and clearing out the space in the back for us to work. It’s like they gave this place a soul. You can feel it when you walk in there. And if I can be selfish, they’ve given me a place to do what I think is the most important work of my life with the Spookshow. We recently did a showing of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925), and I spent 15 minutes turning a kid into Lon Chaney’s Phantom. All that time, I was talking to the audience, and I felt the passion that one of those true-believer preachers must feel—not one of those charlatans that’s just out for money or to bang chicks or whatever. I got to preach about the magic of the movies. I not only get to be this hero (or anti-hero, if you want); I get to educate kids and give them something that they don’t have enough of right now. Kids’ programming today sucks, and they don’t have the kind of stuff available to them that even you and I had growing up; they don’t see things like the original KING KONG, stuff that filled me with a sense of wonder and amazement at the age of four.”
Shane went on to discuss the creative development that the Plaza has encouraged: “It’s become a hub for a lot of creative people: Splatter Cinema, Blast-Off Burlesque’s Taboo-La-La series and all the great art shows that they’ve hosted at the Plaza. Johnny and Gayle really turned a simple movie theater into almost an art movement. I know that it has literally changed my life. It’s given me the chance to fulfill every dream I ever had growing up. I could get to be Houdini or Alice Cooper or the horror host I had always wanted to see. And no matter what happens in the future, if I wind up making the greatest movie ever made, I don’t need any more than this: I saw a kid dressed as Professor Morte for Halloween. My mother passed away recently, and I’m so glad that she got a chance to see me spread my bat wings and fly with the Spookshow. And I really have Johnny and Gayle to thank for this.”
Professor Morte (Shane Morton). Photo courtesy of Shane Morton.
And what of the future? “We’d always hoped that someone with the financial backing could come in and turn the Plaza Theatre around. It seemed like an impossible dream. And then suddenly, it all seemed to fall together at the right time. Johnny and Gayle had just had a baby, and that’s without a doubt their most important job right there! Suddenly, Mike Furlinger came in and was in the position to deliver everything anyone involved with the Plaza could hope for. New digital projectors, new seats, new carpeting…now, I like the old seats and the old carpeting. I like stuff that’s old and weird. But you have to keep moving with the times, and what he’s going to bring to the Plaza is going to help the theater thrive. The future looks really exciting. The Plaza will be able to show first-run films along with the art-house movies they’re known for and keep delivering the funky stuff that all of us bring to the table.”
After the Rejs turn the keys over to Furlinger at the end of this month and renovations begin, it may be a while before we can see Morte’s handiwork on the Plaza stage. So come out and celebrate. Celebrate that the world didn’t end on Friday. Celebrate that the solstice has passed and a new dawn is rising. That Santa’s on his way. That a new year is on the horizon. That one of the best films in the Universal Horror cycle is screening in a lovely digital restoration. That Professor Morte and his merry band of misfits are taking the stage. And celebrate the legacy of the hard work and spirit of Jonathan and Gayle Rej. Raise your tubs of popcorn in salute, boils and ghouls.
Aleck Bennett is a writer, blogger, pug warden, pop culture enthusiast, raconteur and bon vivant from the greater Atlanta area. Visit his blog at doctorsardonicus.wordpress.com
Category: Retro Review | Tags: Abbott and Costello, Aleck Bennett, Alice Cooper, Bela Lugosi, Blast-Off Burlesque, Boris Karloff, Bud Abbott, Charles Barton, Charleston, Doctor Sardonicus, Frankenstein, gayle rej, Ghoulardi, Glenn Strange, Hollywood on Parade, horror host, Houdini, House of Dracula, House of Frankenstein, James Bama, Jonathan Rej, Junkman's Daughter, King Kong, Lon Chaney Jr., Lon Chaney Sr., Lou Costello, Michael Furlinger, monster movies, Phantom of the Opera, Plaza Theatre, Prof. Morte, Professor Morte, retro review, Shane Morton, Silver Scream Spookshow, Splatter Cinema, Taboo-La-La, Terrace Theatre, Universal monsters, Vincent Price, werewolf, wolf man, Zacherley
Kool Kat of the Week: Watch out, Shirley Jones! Spooky Partridge’s Katy Graves Is a Real Mother?!
Posted on: May 9th, 2012 By: Anya99
Katy Graves and son Nick in Spooky Partridge. Photo courtesy of Katy Graves.
By James Kelly
Contributing Music Editor
With Mother’s Day approaching, ATLRetro wanted to find someone special who represents both the Atlanta music scene and makes motherhood look easy. Local musician Katy Graves is one of the most energetic, friendly and interesting people in town. She has been part of the rock & roll community for many years in such bands as Doll Squad and Catfight, and while she is currently working on her teaching degree, she is also in an amazing and entertaining band called Spooky Partridge, with HER 10-YEAR-OLD SON, Nick Christian!!! Those credentials and the fact that Spooky Partridge are rocking Shorty’s Pizza in Tucker this Saturday May 12 at 8 p.m. are more than sufficient for ATLRetro to make Katy Kool Kat of the Week just in time for Mother’s Day!
ATLRetro: How did you initially get involved with performing music in Atlanta? What was your first band experience?
Katy: I sang in a couple bands in high school starting in about the 9th grade, and by the 11th grade, our band, The Doughboys, was playing out at the infamous Margaritaville as well as The Dugout in Emory Village. We did mostly covers by bands like The Police, Squeeze, The Jam, Ramones, Echo and the Bunnymen and loads of REM. Our guitar player loved REM! Can you imagine me singing REM covers? We had some originals, but mostly covers. I played cello and and piano as a kid. Susanne Gibboney (who plays with Tiger! Tiger!, Lust and Catfight), and I started Doll Squad while I was in college. We both worked at Junkman’s Daughter at the time. We all loved The Runaways and ’60s girl groups, but also L7 and the Lunachicks so we wanted to be in an all-girl band. Doll Squad opened for Shonen Knife at the Masquerade, that was so fun!
Catfight was an incredibly popular band for several years. what do you think was the source of the appeal, and what was going on in Atlanta at that time to make the scene so open to the band? How was David T. Lindsay involved?
Ann Beaman and I had been in Doll Squad for a while, and that had kind of run its course. We ran an ad for a guitar player so we could start a new band, and Jennifer Leavey answered. She was the only person who answered that wasn’t nuts! Jennifer is just an incredible songwriter, and Catfight really took off. I think the reason we managed to do well was that we had songs with elements of a several kinds of genres and we could fit in on a lot of shows, appeal to a lot of people. We were a little garage, a little punk; we liked rockabilly; we did some girl group type songs; we also covered Van Halen, though!
David Lindsay put out a Doll Squad 7″, and he and I were friends. He had had a disagreement with someone in Doll Squad and wasn’t keen to put out any more of our records. I didn’t know if I would want to work with Catfight, but I brought a tape over of us and gave it to him. I told him I just wanted him to give me some feedback. He called me like an hour after I gave him the tape and told me he had to put out our stuff! David put out two singles and two CDs on his label, Worry Bird Records.
How did working in the music business affect your perception of playing music as a profession? Any good sleazy Green Room stories?
I remember when I got a job working for a record company, this boyfriend (a musician) said, “You are working for the enemy now!!!” I had a great run working in the music business for 15 years, but sometimes I was conflicted. It’s hard when you have to sell art like it is shoes or office supplies or something. Also, I figured out quite early on that I did not care about meeting a lot of famous people, which I thought initially would be really fun. Yawn! That being said two of the nicest people I met while working at a record company were Brittany Spears and Notorious B.I.G. Seriously! There were a few who were complete jerks – if you see me out sometime I’ll tell you who!! I can’t think of any super sleazy stories, but I do remember we took this guy from a New York band to the Clermont Lounge after his show one night. He has irritated all of us with this superior attitude, like he had seen it all/done it all in NYC. We introduced him to Blondie, she personalized a beer can for him as she does, and he just about lost it. He was completely freaked out by the whole Clermont scene! We couldn’t believe it – he was playing Mr. Badass rock guy but he got all nervous at the Clermont! Come on!
What must one do to reconcile motherhood with a rock & roll lifestyle?
Well, I began my rock’ & roll mom lifestyle when Nick was in utero – I kept playing shows with Catfight until I was more than eight months pregnant! I would have played up until I went into labor, but Jennifer but the kibosh on that. Probably the girls were sick of loading all the equipment without me at that point. Anyway, you have to rock & roll at home a lot more when you are a mom, because as you might guess it becomes difficult to be out at shows until 2 a.m. on a regular basis. The child watched THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT from an early age, which is a questionable decision when you think about how The Who treat equipment, but we escaped any serious damage around the house somehow. When I still worked for a record company I brought Nick to every daytime in-store appearance by a band that I was working. One year I took him to Ozzfest. I always tried to take him to any daytime shows I could find – he went to Warped Tour a few times. And yes – we made him wear earplugs to every show, of course! Finally I ended up being in a band WITH my son so I could still play but also keep kid-friendly hours!
Spooky Partridge's Nick poses with a pair of drumsticks.
Tell us about Nick. Do you think he will become a professional musician? Or a baseball player? He seems equally great at both…
Nick turned 10 in February. He has been in Montessori school since he was 3. He plays drums and guitar; he can play bass and fools around on piano as well. He is dyslexic, which I believe is why he is so good at music and art; I think that the things in his brain that often make reading hard make music easy. He loves to draw. And yes, he does love baseball and soccer. I am the only mom in Americawho actually asks her child to please use the Wii or the Nintendo DSI, because we have these expensive games and the kid never uses them! He loves Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Who and The Cartoon Network. Nick cooks a lot – he puts red pepper flakes and/or Siracha in almost everything, however, so if you don’t like spicy food, you have to watch out. At different times he has told me that when he wants to grow up he wants to be a musician, a baseball player, a soccer player or a pathologist. Yes, a pathologist! Recently he has gotten way interested in bird-watching, of all things! He can identify lots of birds, and he draws them all the time.
Where did the idea for “Spooky Partridge” come from, and what was the formation of the band like for everyone?
Nick’s dad is Shawn Christian from X-Impossibles and Rock City Dropouts. Shawn and I met because we were in bands that played shows together all the time, so it was only natural that we wanted our child to be a musician. Nick was almost named Marshall – after the amp, of course! Shawn and I made sure that Santa brought Nick a drum set when he was two years old. By the time he was seven, he was getting pretty good, and since I had a friend teaching at a rock band camp, we sent Nick there that summer. That is when we could see he was really progressing, when we saw him play with a band. So we sent him again two years ago. He wanted to play “No Action” by Elvis Costello, but the kids in the band couldn’t learn it fast enough to perform it, which bummed him out. There were so many songs Nick wanted to play and no one to play them with. I was like “Why am I paying for this rock band camp when we can just have rock band camp at home for free?” Those camps are crazy expensive, and we already had a practice room in our house. What was I thinking?
Shawn and I decided that we would have a family band. Shawn and I have not been a couple since Nick was two, but we get along extremely well, so the band was nothing but fun from the start. We started by learning songs that Nick wanted to do, we started writing originals. Nick has written some on guitar, and he writes words and works with his dad to write songs, like “I Hate Chores.”
Spooky Partridge performs at last year's Tunes From The Tombs.
Any plans to release a Spooky Partridge record anytime?
We have three songs recorded that we are really happy with, and we need to record some more! We recorded the songs with Jimmy Demer from The Accidents, and his two daughters sing back up on our song, “Robots Don’t Poop.” It’s me that is holding this record up, really – around the time we started the band I went back to school to become a Montessori teacher. I work full time, I am in school, I’m a single mom, and I’m in two bands since Catfight has been out playing again this year. I’m hoping after I finish my class at the end of the summer we can really focus on getting out a CD. Vinyl would be cool, too! Right now we have music up on our Facebook/ReverbNation page, so everyone go listen to that!
How do you go about booking a band in Atlanta, with a 10-year-old drummer?
Very carefully! We have been very lucky; Nick doesn’t even know how lucky he is, what great shows he has played! Before he turned 10, he got to play not only [Rock n Roll] Monster Bash and Drive Invasion, but he got to open for CJ Ramone at Masquerade! We started by playing in restaurants owned by friends, we got everyone we knew out to see us, and we were lucky that a lot of folks posted videos of us on youtube. We got a lot of good word of mouth, and that led to more shows. I have played some of the most interesting shows with this band. We have played at Atlanta Rocks rock climbing gym on top of a huge boulder! You have to get creative booking shows when you have a 10-year-old in the band, but really I would say it’s good to do that no matter what kind of band you have.
What’s coming up for the band in the near future?
Well, we are playing at Shorty’s Pizza in Tucker on Saturday, May 12. We have wanted to play Shorty’s because the food is great! This is a special show because it’s also an end-of-season party for Nick’s baseball team. The coach wanted Spooky Partridge for the party, and we were only too glad to oblige. There is one kid on Nick’s team who loves Led Zeppelin as much as Nick, so we are going to do an abbreviated “Moby Dick” for him. We are also playing an art opening at the Defoor Centre on June 10! That should be great.
Catfight is playing Tunes From the Tombs at Oakland Cemetery on Sat. May 19 at 3 p.m. in the Criminal Records tent. Also we are playing at the Plaza Theatre before the [Blast-off Burlesque Taboo-La-La] screening of BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS June 2 – my dream show!
Spooky Partridge. Photo credit: Rose Riot.
Any words of wisdom for aspiring female musicians? Mothers?
I have a little anecdote about being a female musician in Atlanta 20 years ago for everyone, and I hope this is something that does not happen to women in bands anymore! Doll Squad was playing at Masquerade one night, and when we finished we got off stage and wandered around, as you do, waiting to see the next band. This guy came over and said, (imagine redneck kind of voice) “Y’all were pretty good. But you’d be better if you played naked.” We just had to laugh – what can you say?? That was not the only incident like that I experienced with Doll Squad or Catfight, but it’s been a long, long time since I heard any nonsense like that. I hope no women in bands have that experience these days, but unfortunately I bet they do . . . Just keep playing ladies! Ignore the crap and get out there and play.
Moms: Expose your child to music as soon as possible – in the womb! Play every kind of music for them. Let them explore what they like. Even if you can’t sing or play anything sing with your child anyway. Get silly, have fun! Nick and I will sing “Ma-na-ma-na” from The Muppets in the car, then we sing “Bohemian Rhapsody.” It’s all music, it’s all good.
One more word of wisdom for mothers – no matter how much you want to absolutely do not watch THE STOOGES LIVE IN DETROIT DVD with your toddler thinking that he is too young to notice what obscenities Iggy Pop is yelling out. You could find yourself in the middle of Kroger with a child who yells “F****** dirt!” in the middle of the produce department. If this does happen, do what I do – pretend you are horrified and have no idea where the child could have learned this! If you are lucky, as I was, you ask him where he learned that word and he says, “From Daddy!”
Category: Kool Kat of the Week | Tags: AKA Blondie, Ann Beaman, Atlanta Rocks, Beatles, Blondie, Brittany Spears, Cartoon Network, Catfight!, CJ Ramone, Clermont Lounge, David T Lindsay, Defoor Centre, Doll Squad, Doughboys, Drive Invasion, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, James Kelly, Jennifer Leavey, Jimmy Demer, Junkman's Daughter, Katy Graves, Kool Kat of the Week, L7, led zeppelin, Lunachicks, Lust, Margaritaville, Marshall amp, Masquerade, Moby Dick, Mother's Day, Muppets, Nick Graves, No Action, Notorious BIG, Ozzfest, rock band camp, Rock City Dropouts, Rock n Roll Monster Bash, Shawn Christian, Shonen Knife, Shorty's Pizza, Spooky Partridge, Stooges, Stooges Live in Detroit, Susanne Gibboney, The Accidents, The Dugout, The Kids are Alright, The Runaways, The Who, Tiger! Tiger!, Van Halen, Worry Bird Records, X-Impossibles
ATLRetro Holiday Gift Guide #2: A Noel Neighborhood Spotlight on Little 5 Points
Shopping can be a wonderful experience, but for many, it’s the REAL nightmare before Christmas. The traffic, humdrum selection of gifts, mobs of people shoving each other about. The mall. Yikes! It hurts my head just thinking about it. There is another way. We can have fun shopping, help out our independently owned shops, and give some really kick ass gifts without depleting our bank accounts or losing our minds!
Little 5 Points is often thought of for Halloween and… uh, people-watching. It should be one of the first places you think of for your holiday list. Wax N Facts, Coyote Trading, Stratosphere Skateboards, Stefan’s Vintage, Rene Rene, Cherry Bomb… there are so many reasons to shop here year-round.
Junkman’s Daughter is known far and wide as the Alternative Super Store. Shoes, clothes, and accessories from Lip Service, Bettie Page Clothing, Too Fast and many others. My friend, Kool Kat Barb Hays of Blast-Off Burlesque, gave me the highlights of the season.
Keep your head and face warm with this fun Beard Hat from Beardhead. Available in several colors, $29.00.
Who wouldn’t want Frankenstein, Tiki or Shrunken Head Plush Dice by Sourpuss? Just $10.00.
Quirky Soap Spitters like Florapus and the chubby Sock Monkey by Allen Designs instantly perk up any sink. Each dispenser is $24.99.
What’s on Barb’s Wishlist? Yummy Tofu Soft Tacos from El Myr.
Next, Barb and I headed over to Criminal Records. Criminal is home to more records, CDs, comics, toys, tees and art than you can imagine. Right now they are host to the Indie Craft Experience’s Pop Up Shop through December 24. Inside the Pop Up Shop you’ll find truly one of a kind gifts for everyone on your list.
Messenger Bags featuring Crypto Zoo, Zombie Woodland Creatures, Killer Unicorns, and Sugar Skulls by Third Half Studios. They also make double-sided necklaces (I especially love Gamera) and Sugar Skull Aprons. Prices start at $25.00
Earrings and Hair Adornments by Hustle-N-Bustle. These creations add a touch of vintage glamour and romance to any outfit. I’m fond of the ranunculus flowers, $14.00-$44.00.
Crocheted toys like Cthulhu, Grim Reaper, Giant Squid, and Vikings by NeedleNoodles, $19.00.
I ended this trip at my very own little shop of curios, Libertine – a small, but fully stocked shop known for corsets, wigs, and makeup. But, wait! There’s more. Indie designers like: Wanderlust, SweetHeartSinner, Pop Art by Zteven, as well as brands like Special Effects, Tokyo Milk and Living Dead Souls. My partner in crime, Tim Scott, showed me a few of his favorite things.
Happiness Head To Toe. A 10-piece kit including: clementine-scented shampoo, conditioner, shower creme and body lotion, sugar scrub, lip scrub and lip butter. A facial scrub, facial cleanser and facial moisturizer by Love & Toast, $24.00.
Wristlets, wallets, totes, messenger bags and backpacks featuring critters like deer, whales, hummingbirds, foxes and the oh-so-popular, Youtube favorite, otters holding hands. All by Bungalow 360, $12.00-$48.00.
Ornate Flasks by Diamond*Star*Halo. Great gifts for guys or gals with designs like Conjoined Twins, Dead Elvis, Unicorns, Owls, Anchors, and much more! $28.00- $34.00.
What’s little Timmy asking Santa for this year? The Dusty Springfield box set, Goin’ Back, from Wax N Facts.
Me? I’m headed down to the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club for a cup of Boozy Hot Cocoa. I managed to whittle my shopping list down quite a bit, but there’s more shopping to do. Next week I’ll hit the shops in Avondale with Astrid Lyons and a few of other friends. I hear talk of beer growlers and sausage. Gotta love the holidays!!!
Jennifer Belgard is Co-Conspirator at Libertine, Curator of Curios at Diamond*Star*Halo, Barkeep at Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, and Co-Coordinator of Chaos for the Little 5 Points Halloween Parade & Festival. In her spare time she enjoys Turnin’ TriXXX.
Category: Shop Around | Tags: allen designs, astrid lyons, Atlanta, avondale, Barb Hays, Barbilicious, Beardhead, Bettie Page Clothing, Blast-Off Burlesque, boozy hot cocoa, bungalow, Cherry Bomb, Christmas shopping, Coyote Trading, Criminal Records, crochet, crypto zoo, Cthulhu, Dead Elvis, Diamond Star Halo, dusty springfield, El Myr, Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, flasks, florapus, giant squid, gift guide, grim reaper, hair accessories, hustle n bustle, indie craft experience, jennifer belgard, Junkman's Daughter, killer unicorns, L5P Halloween Parade, Libertine, Lip Service, Little 5 Points, living dead souls, love & toast, messenger bags, needle noodles, owls, plush dice, pop art by zteven, Pop up shop, Rene Rene, sock monkey, Sourpuss, special effects, Stefan's, Stratosphere Skateboards, sugar skull aprons, sugar skulls, sweetheartsinner, third half studios, tim scott, tofu soft tacos, tokyo milk, Too Fast, toys, turnin trixx, vikings, Vintage Clothes, wanderlust, Wax n Facts, zombie woodland creatures
Kool Kat of the Week: Gilded Trash-Talking with Amber Taylor of The Sexual Side Effects
Posted on: Jul 20th, 2011 By: Anya99
Return to the outrageous glittery days of ‘70s glam rock at The Masquerade this Friday July 22, from 9 p.m. into the wee, wee hours. The theme party promises not just classic hits from the likes of T. Rex, David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Brian Eno—we imagine there’s got to be some Gary Glitter, too—spun by Glitterdome’s DJ Tiny Tears but also live music from neo-glam bands The Sexual Side Effects, Chattanooga’s The Unsatisfied and New York’s Starbolt 9. And that’s just the tip of the sequins as attendees are fully immersed in the glam-orous life with burlesque by the always provocative The Chameleon Queen, scandalous banter by model/artist Dax Exclamationpoint, body-painting by Erick Jara’s Dreamskin Art, gilded go-go dancers on the dance floor, a glam-inspired art show by Chris Buxbaum and vivacious vendors such as Diamond Star Halo and Aries Chain Mail.
ATLRetro tracked down Amber Taylor, the creative mastermind behind this glam resurrection and lead vocalist/guitarist of The Sexual Side Effects, to find out all the dazzling details about what’s happening Friday night, what’s new with her band and whether the rumor is true that she’s about to become a TV star.
When ATLRetro first saw the profile shot for The Sexual Side Effects Facebook page, we had to do a double-take because we thought that cute chick in the middle stomping her foot was Noel Fielding. We’re guessing you’ll take that as a compliment?
If you want to get it on with Noel then the answer is yes, because chances are I want to get it on with you too 🙂
OK, let’s get to Gilded Trash? How did you get the idea and why a tribute night to glam rock in 2011?
The night is about classic Glam Rock old and new—not ‘80s hair metal. I know a lot of really great musicians around the world who are influenced and inspired by the Glam movement of the early 1970s like I am. What better way to bring all of these people from across the globe together than to have a full-blown crazy club night with burlesque queens, circus freaks and half-naked body-painted go-go dancers where they can put on a real show.
Other glam-inspired nights I have seen or been involved with have everyone playing cover songs. While this is great, this is where we bring something different to the table by showcasing original music, hopefully cultivating a classic glam revival in the music scene. Even more important than that is to give the glam experience to a new generation that is bombarded at all angles by Disney princesses, hip-hop and dance-pop that has been run through so many record label marketing groups and filters that there is no real music or emotions left. This is about bringing classic Glam Rock into the hearts and minds of the 21st century.
You’ve put together a pretty diverse line-up of live acts, DJs, go-go dancers and burlesque performers such as The Chameleon Queen? How did you decide on the line-up?
The only way to create a magical night that is this big and have as much reach is to get as many people involved as possible. The live music is the core, but we didn’t just want to have another concert, we wanted to augment the night into something beyond that. We put the word out and started getting different types of performers and components involved with the night. It doesn’t stop at bands, burlesque, dancers, drag-queens, DJs and vendors. We have so much more we want to do as far as showcasing performers in the future, but we simply have ran out of room on the bill for this first night.
A lot of credit goes to the Gilded Trash team as well—David Dominick, our production manager, and Meredith Greer, our stage manager/talent coordinator. They have been the key in cultivating the talent and organizing the night.
Category: Kool Kat of the Week | Tags: Amber Taylor, Aries Chain Mail, Barabarella, bodypainting, Brian Eno, Chameleon Queen, Cobweb Strange, David Bowie, David Dominick, Dax Exclamationpoint, Diamond Star Halo, DJ Tiny Tears, Dreamskin Art, Drivin' n Cryin', Drunken Unicorn, Edwin McCain, Erick Jara, Flat Cat, Gary Glitter, glam rock, Glitterdome, go-go dancers, Iggy Pop, John Briglevich, Junkman's Daughter, Kool Kat, Libertine, Little 5 Points, Marc Bolan, Masquerade, Meredith Greer, Noel Fielding, Party City, Psycho Sisters, Rag-O-Rama, Sexual Side Effects, Starbolt 9, Stefan's, T Rex, The Chamber, The Unsatisfied, Ziggy Stardust
BUBBAPALOOZA 20 Schedule
Posted on: May 27th, 2011 By: Anya99
The Star Community Bar presents: BUBBAPALOOZA 20 “In memory of Gregory Dean Smalley” Read the full ATLRetro sneak preview from Bryan Malone and Ted Weldon here.
FRIDAY May 27, Doors 7pm/$8
8:00 PM The Wheelknockers
8:45 PM Rod Hamdallah
9:30 PM Bareknuckle Betties
10:15 PM The Blacktop Rockets
11:15 PM Anna Kramer & theLostCause
12:00 PM Ocha La Rocha
Little Vinyl Lounge Stage:
10:00 PM Midway Charmers
11:00 PM The Atomic Rockets
SATURDAY, Doors 3pm/$10
4:30 PM Chickens & Pigs
5:30 PM Senator Artie Mondello
6:25 PM Uncle Daddy & the Kissin Cousins
7:15 PM Sonoramic Commando
8:00 PM The Stumblers
8:45 PM AM Gold
9:30 PM Cigar Store Indians (Ben)
10:20 PM Ghost Riders Car Club
11:15 PM Caroline & the Ramblers
12:15 PM The Billygoats
6:00 PM Western Union Messenger
8:30 PM The Disasternaughts
ALSO: Garage 71 will be broadcasting live.
Parking lot beside Star Bar:
The Redneck Cruise-In Car Show! Hosted by Garage 71; pre-1970’s & earlier Hot Rods & Cycles; starts Saturday at 5pm.
BBQ provided by SLOPE’S BBQ
Raffles & Prizes including gift certificates to the best shops and stores in Little Five Points (to benefit the family of Gregory Dean Smalley)
Get your official BUBBAPALOOZA 20th Anniversary photo at the PBR Photo Booth.
Sponsored by: Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, Garage 71, Slopes BBQ, Starlight Six Drive-In, Plaza Theater, Memorial Tattoo, East Atlanta Tattoo, Criminal Records, Wax N’ Facts, El Myr, Junkman’s Daughter, Abbadabba’s, Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, Savage Pizza, Tin Roof Cantina & Star Community Bar
Category: Weekend Update | Tags: Abbadabba's, AM Gold, Anna Kramer & the Lost Cause, Atomic Rockets, Bareknuckle Betties, Billygoats, Blacktop Rockets, Bubbapalooza, Caroline & the Ramblers, Chickens and Pigs, Cigar Store Indians, Criminal Records, Disasternauts, East Atlanta Tattoo, El Myr, Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, Garage 71, Ghost Riders Car Club, Gregory Dean Smalley, hot rods, Junkman's Daughter, Little 5 Points, Memorial Tattoo, Midway Charmers, Ocha La Rocha, Pabst Blue Ribbon, PBR, Plaza Theatre, Redneck Cruise-In Car Show, Redneck Underground, Rod Hamdallah, Savage Pizza, Senator Artie Mondello, Slope's BBQ, Sonoramic Commando, Star Bar, Starlight Drive-In, Stumblers, Tin Roof Cantina, Uncle Daddy & the Kissin' Cousins, Wax n Facts, Western Union Messenger, Wheelknockers
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Adam Dick
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Home→Uncategorized→House Republicans’ Hollow ‘Local Control of Education’ Rhetoric
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House Republicans’ Hollow ‘Local Control of Education’ Rhetoric
Posted on October 25, 2013 by Adam DickJune 29, 2014
By guiding HR 2083, the Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act, to the Floor Tuesday for passage by a voice vote, the House Republican leadership demonstrated the hollowness of the praise it heaped on local control of education when HR 5, the Student Success Act, passed in the House three months earlier.
The nice sounding but ominous in consequences Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act presents serious federalism, constitutional, and individual liberty concerns. The legislation standardizes nationwide — and expands — school-related background check policies that states have implemented. In particular, HR 2083 mandates fingerprinting, as well as state and FBI criminal background checking, of millions of school and local or state educational agency employees. The requirements also apply to all persons who, because they work for private entities or public agencies with a school contract or agreement, have “unsupervised access” to students.
HR 2083 provides no opt-out provision for states, school districts, or any current or potential employees. Refusal to submit to any of the fingerprinting or background checks will result in being fired or refused employment. The legislation also disqualifies people who have been convicted for any of a list of crimes from the opportunity to work in any of the covered jobs despite the fact that they have served their entire court imposed punishments. This effectively creates an ex post facto punishment prohibited under the US Constitution.
Funneling all these fingerprints and background checks to the US government also helps build the databases supporting the US government’s mass spying program.
HR 2083 passed by voice vote after a chorus of praise from several Representatives, and some moderated concern expressed by Rep. Keith Ellison in the House floor debate. Indeed, the Hill writer Pete Kasperowics identified HR 2083 as part of a package of legislation “just about everyone agrees on” that House Republican leadership had scheduled for consideration after “weeks of bitter partisan fighting about spending and the debt ceiling.”
As with the PATRIOT Act and other legislation designed to expand police powers in the US and suppress local political control, HR 2083 is cleverly named to put any legislator who opposes it immediately on the defensive. “Why don’t you want to protect the children from murderers and sexual predators,” media and constituents would ask any legislator who dares to oppose the bill.
On July 19, when HR 5, the Student Success Act, passed in the House, many Republicans were singing the praise of local control of schools. Yet the Republican leadership, with the consent of the Democrat leadership, this week put HR 2083, with its one-size-fits-all US government mandates, on the House floor for passage by voice vote.
To understand the apparent shift in the Republican House leadership’s education policy goals over the last three months, it is helpful to consider what Republicans responsible for moving education legislation in the House said when HR 5 passed on July 19.
Here is what Speaker of the House John Boehner said in a press release regarding the Student Success Act the day that legislation passed in the House:
[The Student Success Act] protects local schools from new requirements and red tape, and lets school districts identify, recruit, and keep the best teachers possible.
Similarly, the Republican House leadership’s number two, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, issued a statement that day praising the Student Success Act for removing “mandates on our local schools.”
Boehner and Cantor were outdone by their fellow Republican House members Reps. John Kline and Todd Rokita, chairmen respectively of the Education and the Workforce Committee and that committee’s Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education. Both HR 2083 and HR 5 proceeded to the House floor via the committee. Kline (the sponsor of HR 5) and Rokita said, also on July 19, the following in their press release trumpeting the passage of the Student Success Act:
“For the first time in more than a decade, the House has approved legislation to revamp K-12 education law. This is a monumental step forward in the fight to improve the nation’s education system and ensure a brighter future for our children,” Chairman Kline said. “The Student Success Act will tear down barriers to progress and grant states and districts the freedom and flexibility they need to think bigger, innovate, and take whatever steps are necessary to raise the bar in our schools.”
“No Washington bureaucrat cares more about a child than a parent does. And no one in Washington knows what is better for an Indiana school than Indiana families do. That is why the Student Success Act puts an end to the administration’s National School Board by putting state and local school districts back in charge of their own schools,” said Rep. Rokita. “Many Hoosiers will also be pleased to know that the Student Success Act prohibits the Secretary of Education from coercing states into adopting Common Core, again returning accountability and standards to state and local school districts, where it belongs.”
This praise for local control in education is in sharp contrast to the talking points repeated by Republican and Democrat representatives on the House floor on Tuesday — they said HR 2083 is needed to make employee hiring and retention decisions uniform nationwide. Yet, Subcommittee Chairman Rokita made the motion to suspend the rules that began debate on HR 2083. Then, in his House floor speech during the debate, Rokita praised HR 2083 for moving education decisions from local school districts and private employers to the US government — the exact opposite of what he praised HR 5 for doing:
Despite the fact that States have varying policies intended to protect children from sexual predators in schools, the GAO determined the policies were largely inconsistent and insufficient. According to the report, States don’t consistently perform preemployment background checks, and when they do conduct these checks, they are not always fingerprinted or connected to the national criminal database.
There is widespread agreement on both sides of this aisle that more must be done to protect students. We have worked with our colleagues to advance legislation that will ensure that every school employee–from the cafeteria workers, Mr. Speaker, to the administrators, to the janitors, to the teachers, principals, and librarians–that everyone is subject to a complete background check that includes the FBI fingerprint identification system and the National Sex Offender Registry.
Why did Rokita and other Republicans responsible for moving education legislation through the House reverse their position on local control of education between July 19 and October 22? The answer is that they actually did not reverse their position, despite the fact that anyone looking at their comments logically would conclude that they had. The Republican leaders’ position on local control has remained the same: cloudy and inconsistent. They just change their rhetoric to defend the legislation they are pushing at the moment.
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Chinese vice premier tours Winter Olympics rail project
Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli on Friday lauded the progress of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway construction project, which will be an important transportation link for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Border security discussed at China-India talks
China and India will enhance communication and handle border issue properly to create favorable conditions for border negotiation, foreign spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Thursday.
Special gift from Canada's Trudeau to Premier Li
A memorial medal, made 43 years ago honoring the work of an inspirational doctor, was presented to Premier Li Keqiang.
China to aid probe into car bombing
China said it will work with Kyrgyzstan to discover as soon as possible the organization and people that carried out a suicide car bomb attack on China's embassy in Bishkek on Tuesday.
China adds 7 new free trade zones
Chinese authorities have decided to set up seven new free trade zones across the country, bringing the total number to 11, as China looks to replicate the success of previous trials.
Xi urges linkup on development
President Xi Jinping called for linking China's and Canada's development strategies and promoting a series of "landmark projects", while meeting on Wednesday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
China, Canada to set up key mechanism for dialogue
China and Canada will establish an annual dialogue between both heads of government to boost bilateral relations and exchanges of views on international affairs, Premier Li Keqiang said while meeting with the visiting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday.
Foreigners to gain easier access to court verdicts
An English-language version of a website operated by China's top court will make it easier for foreigners to learn how the country's courts make judgments.
Xi encourages leading group to meet goals set for reform
The country should focus more on economic system reforms and improve fundamental mechanisms that support these overhauls.
Premier Li to visit Laos next week
Premier Li Keqiang is to attend the China-ASEAN leaders' meetings in Vientiane and pay the neighboring country an official visit from Sept 6 to 9, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
Official channels will issue subsidies to students
The State Council addressed a number of recent concerns raised by the media and the public.
Higher quality aimed for homemade goods
China aims to improve the standards and quality of consumer goods by 2020 to raise living standards and prop up domestic consumption as part of the supply-side reform.
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Chinese FM expresses condolences over death of Garcia Marquez
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Friday expressed condolences over the death of Nobel Prize-winning Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
PLA senior generals reaffirm support for Xi
High-ranking People's Liberation Army (PLA) officers have again voiced support for President Xi Jinping's instruction to build a strong military, the second time this month they have voiced group approval.
China, Gabon celebrate diplomatic anniversary
China and Gabon celebrated the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties on Friday.
Li says economy can continue growth
Premier Li Keqiang said China has the conditions to keep its economy moving with another round of reform and opening-up.
China's next 5-year plan eyes deepening reforms
China's top economic planning body on Thursday said that it has started to formulate the 13th Five-Year Plan covering 2016 to 2020, with deepening reforms and shifting the country's economic growth model at the forefront.
China's Top legislature publishes legislation plan
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, on Thursday released its legislation plan for the year.
Danish ambassador: Queen's visit to deepen Sino-Danish ties
The upcoming state visit to China by Danish Queen Margrethe II will cement political trust and promote economic cooperation and cultural exchanges between the two countries, said Danish Ambassador to China Friis Arne Petersen on Thursday.
China, ASEAN officials to meet in Thailand
The 20th China-ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Senior Officials' Consultation will be held in Thailand on Monday and Tuesday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on Thursday.
Putin says to expand ties with China
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that his country will expand cooperation with China and the bilateral relations are expected to be a considerable factor in global politics.
Chinese leaders send condolences to S. Korea over shipwreck
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang on Thursday extended condolences to their respective South Korean counterparts over a ferry accident, which has left a significant number of people dead or missing.
China, Kuwait vow to boost economic ties
Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao met on Thursday with Sheikh Nasser Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti Minister of Amiri Diwan, on boosting economic ties.
Healthcare changes to aid new family planning policy
The nation's top health authority has been taking steps to boost women and children healthcare resources as the government prepares for the relaxation of the family planning policy.
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Major Cracks at The O.K. Corral
Today is the anniversary of Billy the Kid's death and if it wasn't for Pancho Villa and Walter Noble Burns, nobody would give a damn. Here's why: if the Mexican Revolutionary general hadn't attacked Columbus, New Mexico, a news reporter from Chicago, wouldn't have gotten the assignment to travel to New Mexico and cover the story. And if the reporter, Walter Noble Burns, hadn't followed up his reporting in Columbus with another report in El Paso, he wouldn't have gone into The Coney Island Saloon. And if Burns hadn't gone into the Coney Island he wouldn't have seen the pistol over the bar that killed Billy the Kid. And if he hadn't talked to the owner about it, Tom Powers, Burns probably wouldn't have written "The Saga of Billy the Kid." And if Burns hadn't written that book none of us would care, because that best-seller raised the Kid from obscurity and launched his legend for all time. And, if Burns hadn't hit it out of the park with that book he wouldn't have gone looking for someone else to write about, which ended up to be "Tombstone An Iliad of The Southwest." and if Burns hadn't written that book we wouldn't have this paragraph to marvel at:
The Lion of Tombstone
"So hail and farewell to the lion of Tombstone. Strong, bold, powerful, picturesque was this fighter of the old frontier. Someething epic about him. Fashioned in Homereric mold. In his way, a hero. Whatever else he may have been, he was brave. Not even his enemies have sought to deny his splendid courage. The problems of his dangerous and difficult situation, he solved, whether wisely or foolishly, with largeness of soul and utter fearlessness. No halo is for this rugged, storm-beaten head. He was a hard man among hard men in a hard environment. What he did, he did. The record stands. But, weighed in the balance, he will not be found wanting. Judged by the circumstances of his career, the verdict in his case is clear—Wyatt Earp was a man."
But we're getting ahead of the legend, as we know it. Before Burns, there was Flood, hand picked by Wyatt and Sadie Earp to be the writer of the book on Wyatt's life that would make them all rich. They worked hard on it. They fought over sections and revised others. In the end they had a real door stopper: it clocked in at 348 pages and they were mighty enthused and hopeful.
Unfortunately, everyone they sent it to, sent it back with a "no thanks." The Saturday Evening Post said it was "Florid." They were being nice. It is beyond florid. It is horrid. How horrid?
The heart of the manuscript is the Gunfight in Tombstone. Even Flood knows it's Earp's defining moment, and so we begin Chapter XXXII, like this:
"Hello Wyatt!" "Hello Wyatt!" Knock! Knock! Knock! "Hello Wyatt!" But the only response was an echo of sounds along the corridor where the early riser stood before the door.
Away at the end, a ray of light struggled in beneath the partly drawn shade—the early flush of awakening day: while the moisture on the pane indicated a lowering of the temperature outside.
[To summarize: It's cold outside and Wyatt doesn't want to get up. But Flood's not done with this scene.]
For a bare thirty seconds, there was silence as the alarmist listened, with his ear towards the closed entrance of the room. Then he tried again.
"Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! "Wyatt!" "Wyatt!" still no response, and he took hold of the knob of the door and shook it violently.
"Don't that beat the band!" he exclaimed aloud. "Damn it all!" "Wyatt!" "Wyatt!" "Get up!" "Get up!" and he fairly shook the building as he pounded on the door with his fists.
[Okay, we get the picture. Wyatt Earp doesn't want to get up and it does beat the band. Certainly, we can move on to the action?]
Whether it was the vociferous superlatives of the last remarks or his impatient pounding on the door, was never explained by the sleeper within who now showed signs of life. This time, there was a faint stretching of springs as if some one had raised up suddenly in bed:
"Huh?" "What is it?" came the half conscious tones of a sleepy voice on the inside.
"Is that you Wyatt!"
"Yes, u-h-m-m, yes, what is it?" "Me?" "Yes, all right." and then there was the sound of a heavy tread upon the door, and a fumbling with the lock, and the door opened.
"Wyatt, hurry and put on your clothes: the two McLowerys [sic] and the Clantons are in town, and Billy the Kid and they're armed for a fight!"
End of quotes from the opening of the Tombstone gunfight in Flood's florid hand. Notice that we have come full circle and that Earp-Flood are trying to lean on Billy the Kid being in on the action. Yes, Billy Claiborne was known as Billy the Kid, but still, this has an extra tinge of cheesy to it, like they're trying to cash in on the Burns book.
But just wait until we get to the main action, where the cowboys and the Earps exchange 110 shots (actually 109 CRACKs! and one BANG!) and Wyatt draws a map, that places the fight in the wrong place.
"Well, we won't put them to all that trouble, we'll go down," declared the deputy, and he and his brothers, Virgil and Morgan, buckled on their forty-fives."
—Wyatt Earp, as quoted by Flood, acknowledging they wore gunbelts, although in the Spicer Hearing he puts his pistol in his coat pocket.
Posted by Bob Boze Bell at 12:16 PM
Mary Doria Russell 2:49 PM
Poor John Flood -- still taking the rap for writing what Sadie wanted: a nice clean version, with lots of peppy dialog...
Bob Boze Bell 4:31 PM
I think you are confusing "peppy" with "pontificatious." I have a hunch that is a word Flood would gravitate towards.
Texas Ranger On The Move
Walkdown Second Thoughts
Wyatt Earp Hates Me!
New Meaning to Taking Care of Your Friends
Goldroad Connections
Thomas at Fort Thomas
What Hath Wyatt Earp Wrought?
The Walkdown
Box Lip Darrell And Mister Ottipoby In Swat City
The Tragedy of Wyatt and Mattie & Pimps From Iowa
Sadie The Conniving, Histrionic Diva
New T-shirt Designs for The Doctor Will See You No...
Who's The Bigger Fibber? Flood, Lake or Burns?
A Face In The Mob And A Toadie to The Earps
The Wyatt Earp Myth: Who Exaggerated And Why?
Wyatt Earp Super Marshal
The Truth About Wyatt Earp
Just Another Skinny Kid From Iowa
How Much Is The Wyatt Earp Story Worth?
109 Cracks! at The O.K. Corral
Wyatt Wary As A Cat
Did Wyatt Earp Have A Sense of Humor?
Sadie Lays Down The Law
When Eyesores Become Icons
The Two-Gun Mystery Solved
Was Wyatt Earp A Two-Gun Man?
Was Wyatt Earp A Damaged Man?
Whores In The Rearview
Shady Shade Hat Brim Study
It May Be Rainin' But There's a Rainbow Right Abov...
My Agent and O.K. Corral Writing
The Prescott Rodeo Parade Gives Me Hope
Big Brim Cowboy Hats & Dopple-gangers Galore
Where There's Smoke There's Conflagration
Embarrassing Self-revelations Scattered Between Pa...
Nine Shades of Sadie Shame
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Science of Sex
There's this cool thing in London I've written about before called Lates, where museums, galleries, and other cultural institutions stay open late for fun after-hours activities. Lates has been a bit quiet recently, and it seems like the website isn't really updated regularly, but that isn't stopping places like the Design Museum, the Tates, and the Science Museum from hosting their post-work events.
Last Wednesday the Irishman and I went on a nerdy date and traveled west to the Science Museum's late "The Science of Sex." Us being, well, us, it was preceded by a trip to Byron for burgers as recommended by one of my colleagues, and after delicious burgers (very American style), Brooklyn Lagers, fries and fried zucchini strips, we headed over to see what the Science of Sex was really all about.
The event was so popular that a fast moving queue extended past the length of the building itself, but once inside the atmosphere was fantastic. There were djs and dance floors set up, and we had free access to all of the exhibits as long as we wanted. Museum staff handed out flyers outlining all of the activities that were scheduled, but this was a huge source of disappointment - there weren't that many that were about sex! There was speed-dating (a bit inappropriate for me), some sexy dancing classes (not quite my speed), and a several talks that were completely mobbed with hordes of people lining up for hours to join. I really wanted to see one about Victorian sex toys (how hilarious!) but after standing in line for 25 minutes a staff member informed about half of us that we were too far back in the line to get into the limited seat auditorium. What a bummer.
So the Irishman and I wandered, checked out a Wallace and Gromit exhibit about inventions and intellectual property sponsored by Patent office, and basically enjoyed the evening out doing something we never do. But all in all, the Science of Sex was just not sexy enough. I got a free condom on my way out, and that was pretty much the sexiest thing of all. C'mon Science Museum... try harder to turn me on!
Labels: London, Pop Culture
Post-Thanksgiving gut
The Hand of God - I mean, Henry
Fresh and local
And Christmas... begins!
Armistice Day, Poppies, and Poor Gordon Brown
18 months in, and trouble ordering brekkie.
LIveblogging Paris
Halloween, Jose, a new silk dress and a beer
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Tag: ZEVS
A Voice Moving Over The Waters
[Image: The Jim Creek Naval Radio Station from Popular Mechanics].
For a variety of reasons, I’ve been looking at a variety of large terrestrial antenna sites built for communicating with submarines. This is the field of Very Low Frequency (VLF) and Extremely Low Frequency radio transmission (the latter wonderfully abbreviated as ELF).
This is a topic already explored here several years ago, of course, with the Project Sanguine antenna field in Wisconsin, for example, and the Cutler array up on a peninsula in Maine. But a few other examples came up that I thought I’d post.
One is the example you see above: the Jim Creek Naval Radio Station in the woods of Washington State, as featured here in an old issue of Popular Mechanics. The Jim Creek facility is basically an entire valley in the Pacific Northwest, denuded of its trees and then strung with the harp-like cables of a mega-antenna. This antenna then broadcasts “the voice that crosses the Pacific,” as Popular Mechanics describes it, including U.S. military ships and submarines.
[Image: The antenna field at Jim Creek, via Wikipedia].
Briefly, although it’s technically irrelevant, it is nonetheless interesting in this context to read about the so-called “Hessdalen lights,” a phenomenon that appears to be caused by natural electrical currents moving through a remote Norwegian valley.
The scientific explanation for these “lights” is incredible.
Back in 2011, New Scientist reported, a scientific team “analyzed rock samples from Hessdalen and found that it is a valley of two halves: the rocks on one side of the Hesja river are rich in zinc and iron, those on the other are rich in copper. Then, during the 2012 mission someone mentioned an abandoned sulphur mine in the valley. ‘For me it was news,’ says [head scientist Jader Monari from the Institute of Radio Astronomy]. ‘We found zinc and iron on one side and copper on the other. If there is sulphur in the water in the middle, it makes a perfect battery.’”
By a weird fluke of geochemistry, the entire valley is a natural electrical cell! Now imagine a valley somewhere—in Washington State, say—acting as a giant natural radio transmitter: a geological radio station broadcasting signals out to sea.
In any case, here is the Jim Creek facility on Google Maps.
Two other quick things to mention: as a commenter pointed out here a few years ago, there is a spectacular naval-communications facility located on a peninsula in Western Australia called the Harold E. Holt Naval Communication Station.
[Image: Harold E. Holt Naval Communication Station, via Google Maps].
As described by the Australian government, the facility “consists of one central tower surrounded by two concentric circles each of six smaller towers ranging from 304 to 387 meters in height and is 2.54 km in diameter. It communicates over immense distances with submerged submarines in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.”
According to this commenter, the station “has an eerie suggestion of sacred geometry[:] pentagons and symmetrical shapes, all concentric. It is said that under the array, light bulbs held in the hand will glow.” This is not impossible; recall the work of artist Richard Box.
Indeed, seen on Google Maps, the facility is breathtaking. Be sure to zoom out to get a sense of how isolated this place is. Here is a view of the antennas from the nearby beach.
Finally, there is something called ZEVS. ZEVS is a secretive, Soviet-era electromagnetic facility and submarine-communication antenna array that allegedly exists somewhere beneath the forests of the Kola Peninsula.
There’s not a ton of information about it online, but I’m also just lazily Googling things at the moment and have undoubtedly missed something; if you have more details, by all means please feel free to share.
Author Geoff ManaughPosted on May 4, 2017 May 4, 2017 Categories BLDGBLOGTags Antennas, Australia, Cold War, Electricity, ELF, Extremely Low Frequency, Harold E. Holt Naval Communication Station, Hessdalen Lights, Infrastructure, Jim Creek, Kola Peninsula, Landscape, Maine, Norway, Project Sanguine, Soviet Union, Submarines, Western Australia, Wisconsin, ZEVS
Deep Space Pharma
Leaving empty space behind
Quick list 6
Dream-Sector Physics and Inception Space
The Architecture of Self-Measurement
Horse Skull Disco
Nazca City
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Members in the News: Ortiz-Bobea, Knippenberg, Chambers, Zilberman, Lee, Offutt, and Brewer
Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, Cornell University
Erwin Knippenberg, Cornell University
Robert G. Chambers, University of Maryland
Midwesterners are being forced to face up to climate change
By: The Economist - January 11, 2019
Yet Midwesterners are being pressed to think again. Rising sea levels or fast-moving forest fires that ravaged California this year might not threaten America’s heartland. But other changes do. Take agriculture which suffers as soil dries, rain falls erratically and winters get less cold. The National Climate Assessment, published late in November, warned of especially sharp rises in temperature in the Midwest, along with more intense rainfall and periods of drought. Research published in December by Ariel Ortiz-Bobea of Cornell University concurs with that. He suggests farmers are already enduring lower yields than they would otherwise, had climate change not been under way. Those who grow crops—the region depends heavily on harvesting corn and soy beans--see productivity suffer from big changes in the weather, especially hotter summers.
Mr Ortiz-Bobea studied the impact of increasingly frequent drought years, notably in 1983, 1988 and 2012, and concluded that farmers’ productivity grew more sensitive to changing weather in the years since the 1980s, compared with an earlier period. Though some farmers gain (especially in the north) from longer planting and harvesting seasons, “the region is more vulnerable than we’d like to believe”, he says. More warming in the coming decades will mean sharper declines in the potential yield.
Read more on: The Economist, Ag Week, Capital Journal, Duluth News Tribune, Homeland Security News Wire, AZO Cleantech, Long Room, Environmental News Network, SeedQuest, Cornell Chronicle, and Phys.org
Wolf Prize laureates announced
By: The Jerusalem Post - January 16, 2019
The names of the seven laureates of the prestigious Wolf Prize in the fields of medicine, architecture, agriculture, chemistry and mathematics were announced on Wednesday at a ceremony held at the President’s Residence. Two Israelis living in the United States – acclaimed Haifa-born architect Moshe Safdie, and Jerusalem-born Prof. David Zilberman who is an expert in agricultural and resource economics – are among the seven people who will be awarded the prize in the Knesset’s Chagall Hall at the end of May.
Read more on: The Jerusalem Post, Wolf Foundation and Haaretz
John E. Lee, Mississippi State University
Susan Offutt, FAO
Is Trump Trying To Politicize Agricultural Data? Some Former USDA Officials Suspect Yes.
By: FiveThirtyEight - January 17, 2019
The new plan would move ERS from the research arm of the USDA to one that supports the administration’s policies from within the agriculture secretary’s office. That’s worrisome, said John E. Lee, the administrator of ERS from 1981 to 1993, because the agency’s position under the undersecretary for science and education has helped to protect it as a place for objective science. Moving it to the offices of the chief economist places it in a branch centered on policy, which could threaten its ability to remain policy-neutral. (Lee recently wrote an op-ed in The Hill voicing his opposition to the plan.)
“Every administration I’ve worked for — both Democrat and Republican — at some point gets uncomfortable with one piece or another of ERS analysis,” said Susan Offutt, the ERS administrator under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. As an example, she pointed to research showing that most farmers are fairly well off. “It’s not a politically popular finding,” she said, adding such finding are why it’s essential to keep the agency in a neutral role, lest inconvenient statistics like those disappear.
Read more on: FiveThirtyEight
Brady Brewer, Purdue University
Ag Lenders Preparing for Tough 2019
By: Hoosier Ag Today - January 15, 2019
Ag lenders are preparing for a tough 2019 as well as farmers. Purdue Ag Econ Professor Brady Brewer told attendees at the Purdue Top Farmer Conference the results of a survey given to ag lenders.
“What the lenders are saying is that they have some farmers that are doing alright, and they have some farmers that they’re worrying about. Overall, their loan portfolio is pretty stable, but just given the decreasing commodity prices and some of the trade issues, they’re worried about repayment capacity moving forward here to 2019.”
Brewer said that the most common response from the survey was that lenders are looking for a plan for 2019. Even if that plan includes a loss on the year.
Read more on: Hoosier Ag Today
Send a link of the article to Sinais Alvarado at salvarado@aaea.org
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KIP MOORE ANNOUNCES UK HEADLINE DATES FOR SEPTEMBER
‘ROOM TO SPARE’ SHOWS IN MAY SOLD OUT
Multi-Platinum US singer/songwriter Kip Moore has confirmed a second run of UK headline shows for later this year.
With tickets for his initial 4-show UK run in May – part of his intimate ‘Room To Spare’ acoustic tour – selling out immediately, the Nashville-based artist will return in September for a trio of full-band, full-throttle electric dates.
“To have a fan base in the U.K. is never lost on me, and especially to be playing rooms like the ones we do. There’s a unique thing between us and these fans that’s been building for years. I can’t wait to get back in front of them.“ – Kip Moore.
KIP MOORE UK HEADLINE SHOWS 2019:-
ACOUSTIC SHOWS:-
26th May – Manchester, Academy 2 (sold out)
27th May – Glasgow, Old Fruitmarket (sold out)
29th May – Birmingham, Town Hall (sold out)
30th May – London, Cadogan Hall (sold out)
Support on these shows comes from Jillian Jacqueline.
NEWLY ADDED ELECTRIC SHOWS:-
2nd September – London, Roundhouse
4th September – Glasgow, O2 Academy
5th September – Belfast, Ulster Hall
Support tbc.
Tickets for the new shows go on sale Friday 29th March at 10:00AM
www.gigsandtours.com || www.ticketmaster.co.uk || www.axs.com/uk
In advance of these shows, Kip Moore’s ‘Room To Spare: The Acoustic Sessions’ EP – already available on CD / digital – will be released on vinyl for Record Store Day on
13th April; this special RSD version adds 5 additional tracks from Moore’s previous studio recordings – ‘Plead The Fifth’, ‘Last Shot’, ‘The Bull’ & ‘Guitar Man’ from his latest, wildly-acclaimed ‘Slowheart’ album (2017), plus ‘That Was Us’ from the highly-praised ‘Wild Ones’ (2015).
All of the tracks on this release were hand-picked by Moore, providing an essential playlist for his loyal following.
“I’m still a big believer that there’s something special about the physical part of buying a record,” says Moore. “For me, there’s nothing better than the sound of vinyl, so I’m really happy that these songs can now be heard in that way.”
‘ROOM TO SPARE: THE ACOUSTIC SESSIONS’
Official Vinyl Track-List:-
SIDE A: ‘Room To Spare – The Acoustic Sessions’
1. Plead The Fifth
2. Tennessee Boy
3. Love You To The Moon
4. It Ain’t California
5. Wish It Was Me
6. Come Home With You
7. Part Of Growing Up
SIDE B: Kip Essentials
1. Plead The Fifth (Studio Version)
2. That Was Us (Studio Version)
3. The Bull (Studio Version)
4 Last Shot (Studio Version)
5. Guitar Man (Studio Version)
Fans can purchase this special limited edition vinyl format at participating record stores, available to locate here.
Moore recently unleashed his new single, ‘The Bull’, from his aforementioned third studio album, ‘Slowheart’, a record that garnered instant praise from critics as the "sound of an uncompromising, genre-defying artist firing on all cylinders” (NOISEY); his energetic, emotion-driven live performances prove why he’s "one of country music’s most tireless and powerful live draws” (Rolling Stone).
Kipmoore.net
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HOME>NEWS&EVENTS>NEWS BRIEFING>China and Africa jo...
China and Africa jointly promote sustainable development
Author:Bureau of International Cooperation, CASS Source: Chinese Social Sciences Today 2019-12-16
Hosted by the China-Africa Institute and the African Union (AU) Commission, the international symposium “China and Africa jointly promote sustainable development” was held in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, Dec. 6–7. More than 300 people including scholars from Chinese and African major research institutions, government officials, business executives, media personnel and representatives from such international organizations as the AU participated in the symposium.
CASS president Xie Fuzhan , ambassador and head of the Chinese mission to the AU Liu Yuxi, and AU commissioner for trade and industry Albert Muchanga attended the opening ceremony and made speeches. Arkebe Oqubay, special adviser to the Ethiopian prime minister, delivered a keynote speech.
Xie said that at the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, both sides unanimously decided to build a China-Africa community with a shared future that assumes joint responsibility, pursues win-win cooperation, delivers happiness for all, enjoys cultural prosperity, ensures common security, and promotes harmony between man and nature, setting an example for pushing the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.
Under the chaotic international situation, China and Africa jointly bear the historical mission of countering global development challenges, shaping international development momentum and building an inclusive and interconnected global development governance pattern. Both sides should deepen their comprehensive strategic and cooperative partnership, solve development problems, and strengthen exchanges and mutual learning, Xie said.
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The latest solo project from Sergio Trejo, Wladyslaw, has released a new single titled 'Dos Agujas'. It is described as a look inside the junkies' lives of Trejo's neighborhood. The song comes along with a video directed from experimental photographer and director Juan Carlos Quindos, and can be streamed below.
The single comes packed with two remixes from Miguel Grimaldo and Joaquin Posac and can be ordered HERE.
Wladyslaw Releases New Single "Dos Agujas"
Steven Gullotta http://www.brutalresonance.com/news/wladyslaw-releases-new-single-dos-agujas/ March 5, 2016 March 5, 2016
# experimental
# spain
# wladyslaw
unTIL BEN Releases New Single "Computer Decadence"
3rd Paris Ambient Festival To Take Place On April 16th
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24 College Football Head Coaches That CANNOT LOSE In Week THREE – Sing It Steely Dan…Deacon Blues…Deacon Blues!
COACHES HOT SEAT > Uncategorized > 24 College Football Head Coaches That CANNOT LOSE In Week THREE – Sing It Steely Dan…Deacon Blues…Deacon Blues!
Harry September 17, 2015 0 Comments
Coaches Hot Seat, Coaches Hot Seat Rankings
“They got a name for the winners in the world….I want a name when I lose…they call Alabama the Crimson Tide….call me Deacon Blues…Deacon Blues.”
Enjoy the GREAT Steely Dan singing Deacon Blues!
1. Bobby Petrino, Louisville vs. Clemson – After a 9 – 4 first season Louisville HC Bobby Petrino is very close to having his Cardinals football team go off the tracks after opening the 2015 season with losses to Auburn and Houston and with the mighty Clemson Tigers coming to town who could leave Louisville with a BIG…
…on the board with 7 ACC games remaining to be played and a game against Kentucky in Lexington to end the season. There will ALWAYS be more pressure on Bobby Petrino because of his past coaching and personal incidents and a loss to Clemson on Thursday night will see a return of Bobby Petrino to the Hot Seat where he will be joining his brother Paul Petrino the head coach at Idaho!
2. Randy Edsall, Maryland vs. South Florida – Randy Edsall got his ass off the Hot Seat in 2014 with a record of 7 – 5 before getting destroyed in the bowl game against Stanford BUT Edsall will be heading back to the Hot Seat if he cannot get his team refocused and ready to play South Florida after the Terps got whipped by MAC Conference team Bowling Green in Week 2. It’s all very simple for Randy Edsall…to stay off the Hot Seat Maryland team MUST beat South Florida who has a head coach in Willie Taggart who has his own Hot Seat problems and who is in desperate need of some wins also right now! Come on Willie Taggart…get off your ass and get YOUR Bulls to start winning some football games!
3. Bob Stoops, Oklahoma vs. Tulsa – Yes, it was precious watching Bob Stoops crow about his used-to-be mighty Sooners having to storm back to beat a middling SEC team in Tennessee that had a head coach in Butch Jones that coached the last three quarters of that game like a COWARD but then why don’t we let Bob and Mike Stoops crow a bit since after all…
Baylor now routinely treats the Oklahoma like a red-headed stepchild!
Memo to Bob Stoops: Most Big 12 Head Coaches don’t coach like Butch Jones…..COWARDLY….so don’t expect to come roaring back in games when you get into Big 12 Conference play this season son!
As for Tulsa….we cannot imagine that Oklahoma could lose this game with Tulsa having a new head coach and all….but with the Stoops Boys these days one never knows and if the Sooners come out un-focused after their “Big” win over Tennessee…one never knows!
Just don’t lose to Tulsa Bob because a loss would have your ass roaring back up the Coaches Hot Seat Rankings just like the Sooners roared back against Tennessee and their COWARDLY coach last Saturday!
4. Frank Beamer, Virginia Tech vs. Purdue – In the 12 football seasons between 1999 and 2011 Virginia Tech under Frank Beamer won 10 or more games…
…and won 11 games…
…BUT over the past three seasons the Hokies under Beamer have put-up records of…
2012: 7 – 6
…and if that is acceptable to the fans of Virginia Tech football then Virginia Tech football is about one thing and one thing only…
Being Very Damn Average!
The above is why this game at Purdue is a CRITICAL game for Frank Beamer and the Hokies to win because if the Hokies lose to a Purdue football team that has won…
4 Football Games
….the last TWO seasons then it will truly be OVER for Frank Beamer in Blacksburg…..right? RIGHT!
5. Darrell Hazell, Purdue vs. Virginia Tech – We said it before and we will say it again the Purdue football team that lost to Marshall in Week 1 looked like a much-improved team over 2014 and frankly we will be SHOCKED if the Boilermakers lose to a stumbling and bumbling Virginia Tech football team this Saturday but then we have been shocked many Damn times before in our short lives on this Earth!
Very Damn Simply….Virginia Tech is a CRITICAL game for Darrell Hazell and the Boilermakers to win especially with a game against Bowling Green in Week 4 and Big Ten Conference play beginning on October 3 at Michigan State! Just Damn CRITICAL!
6. Brian Kelly, Notre Dame vs. Georgia Tech – Brian Kelly was lucky to get out of Charlottesville with a win and not find his ass scalding at the top of the Coaches Hot Seat Rankings which is where Kelly’s ass would have been with an Irish loss to Virginia and now the pressure is on again in Week 3 because if Notre Dame truly is a…
“College Football Playoff Contender”
…as Brian Kelly seems to believe then for Damn sure the Irish shouldn’t lose to a Georgia Tech team in South Bend…right? RIGHT!
With games remaining at Clemson, Navy, USC, at Temple, at Pitt, Boston College and at Stanford the Irish have very little margin for error especially when Brian Kelly is another 4-plus loss season from finding his ass out of a job in South Bend!
7. Mike Riley, Nebraska vs. Miami – As Bo Pelini said in 2011 after Nebraska came back to beat Ohio State….
“Our crowd. What a bunch of f-ing fair-weather fucking—they can all kiss my ass out the f-ing door. ‘Cause the day is f-ing coming now. We’ll see what they can do when I’m f-ing gone. I’m so f-ing pissed off.”
…we are all going to get to see what Nebraska can do with Pelini’s “ass out the f-ing door” and since Bo Pelini spent a good deal of time on the Hot Seat over the past SEVEN seasons even while putting up a lot of..
9 – 4 like records
….the standard for Mike Riley is very simple…
Either EXCEED Bo Pelini’s performance at Nebraska or your “Golly Geez Whiz Mr. McGoo” persona will find it’s ass on the Hot Seat Mike Riley in the same way Bo Pelini’s ass did during his time in Lincoln.
YES…beating Miami is Very Damn Important for Mike Riley and Mike Riley knows it!
8. Al Golden, Miami vs. Nebraska – We made another call down to our buddies in South Florida in the last couple of days and asked again…
“How many wins does Al Golden need this season to return in 2016?”
South Florida Buddies Response = “9….maybe 10 wins….and Miami better not lose to Duke!”
Hmmm….”9 or 10 wins and Miami better not lose to Duke” means that with Miami now sitting at 2 – 0 and 10 games left on the board Al Golden needs 7 or 8 more wins playing 10 these games….
At Cincinnati
At Florida State
At Duke
At North Carolina
At Pitt
Since we are talking about the Miami Hurricanes here…”The U”….we see no Damn reason at all why Al Golden in his FIFTH season at Miami cannot win…
10 Regular Season Games in 2015…..PERIOD!
9. Les Miles, LSU vs. Auburn – LSU looked so bad at times in 2014 that a win over Mississippi State which used to close to an AUTOMATIC WIN for the LSU Tigers was received with a sigh of relief in Bayou Country and now with Auburn on the ropes and another loss from going into a Complete Tailspin (more on Auburn and Gus Malzahn in a moment) there is a chance that LSU could beat Auburn in Baton Rouge and roll through their next 5 games to be 7 – 0 when they go to play Alabama in Tuscaloosa on November 7!
On the other side of that coin though which we call the Les Miles Roaring Hot Seat Side of the coin if LSU does somehow lose to an Auburn team that looks to be in Complete Disarray right now Les Miles can expect to wake-up Monday morning and see his mug and ass on a Raging Hot Seat!
10. Gus Malzahn, Auburn vs. LSU – A few years ago someone asked a Coaches Hot Seat member:
“Why do you guys do that Quotes of the Day thing with famous people on your website?”
The Coaches Hot Seat member responded by saying:
“Nothing wrong with getting a little education on great people along the way especially considering how little folks read these days.”
With the above in mind we are going to give a little education to Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn who we think a lot of here at Coaches Hot Seat before he finds his ass on the Hot Seat which is where Malzahn’s ass will be if the Auburn Tigers lose to LSU on Saturday.
As has been written about in the Coaches Hot Seat Blog a few times we had a lot of interest in the up-tempo offense that Gus Malzahn and many other high school and now college…and even one NFL coach…have brought to the game of football and one Coaches Hot Seat member has been watching the Auburn offense very closely in recent years both when Malzahn was the offensive coordinator and head coach at the school, and from that watching of the Auburn offense he produced a paper this past Summer that he distributed to all Coaches Hot Seat members that is titled:
“The Gus Malzahn Offense at Auburn: As Predictable As the Sun Coming Up in the East”
What the Hell does the above title mean and what is in that paper on The Gus Malzahn Offense at Auburn exactly?
Well….we can’t say exactly what is in that paper but one can probably discern from the title that if a Coaches Hot Seat member spending approximately 50 hours over a year can come up with some very clear tendencies of Gus Malzahn’s offense that opposing coaches with people on staff making collectively Millions of Dollars a year can come up with a Helluva lot of tendencies also!
To that point let’s go to a lesson from long ago from the Late Great Bill Walsh which is of course paraphrased since it was a Helluva long time ago:
“Boys, tell me what this word is with three letters missing:
P E A _ _ _
Yes, that’s right it’s P E A N U T.
OK, let’s try another word…tell me what this word is with four letters missing:
A I R P _ _ _ _
Right again…the word is A I R P L A N E.
Now, how do you think your mind was able to figure out those words with the missing letters so quickly and what the Hell does that have to do with calling offensive plays?
Yes…the human mind is wired to fill-in blanks and notice tendencies quickly based upon past experiences which goes back to the caveman days when a caveman would be in great danger if he was not able to think quickly on his feet and deal with his changing circumstances and environment. Likewise an offensive playcaller must be able to think quickly on his feet and deal with the changing circumstances and environment of a football game but the very thing that makes human beings so successful is also a great liability because human beings also will have great tendencies that they will go back to time and time again when confronted with the same situation and unless a football team is superior to another team and can overwhelm it with talent, power and strength it will be those tendencies of the offensive playcaller that can do great damage to a team’s chances to win the game.”
What the Hell exactly does all of the above mean?
Let’s go to an article in the New York Times from December 1996 that quoted Bill Walsh extensively on the importance of offensive play-calling and see if we can give a little help to Gus Malzahn down on The Plains of southeast Alabama:
The ABC’s of X’s and O’s: The Art of Play-Calling in the N.F.L., Thomas George, New York Times
‘The coach making the calls must have full command of all of the plays,” said Bill Walsh, who won three Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers, in part because he was a master of the play-calling trade. He currently is in the Hall of Fame and is back with the 49ers as an administrative assistant. One of his key roles this season, in fact, has been fine-tuning the 49ers’ play-calling.
”The coach must be well-grounded,” Walsh continued. ”When I was calling the plays early in my career as an assistant with a passing background for the Cincinnati Bengals, I used to fight tooth and nail right there on the sidelines with running backs coach Bill Johnson. He wanted to call all runs. If it was left up to me, we’d be dropping back there and throwing downfield all of the time. That taught me something. If you get a coach calling the plays who’s trying to prove his philosophies in his area, you’re in trouble.”
If the play-caller cannot make adjustments on the fly, trouble also lurks.
”I was also an assistant with the Raiders and we were playing Denver,” Walsh said. ”Denver blitzed on every play. Tom Flores was our quarterback. He hit maybe 6 out of 20 passes for 160 yards. But he hit four long touchdown passes and we won, 28-0. That game left a mark on me, because we hadn’t planned it or practiced it that way. That’s showing adaptability to what defenses are trying to do to you.””
We will assume that all of the above makes sense to anyone that coaches in or follows the Great Game of Football but let’s go to the MONEY quotes in this New York Times article as it pertains to what Bill Walsh always tried to impart to people on the importance of not getting too predictable when calling offensive plays since not only will opposing coaches pick-up on those tendencies before the game is played BUT well-coached players themselves will pick-up on those tendencies during the game itself!
And quoting again from the above New York Times article:
“It was Walsh who helped introduce into the pro game the concept of scripting the plays. When a play-caller scripts, he creates a list of plays — usually 15 to 25 — that he uses at the start of the game.
”Scripting is planning; it’s contingency planning,” Walsh said. ”The fewer decisions to be made during the game, the better. You don’t want to live by your instincts. It’s isolating each situation that comes up and establishing what comes up.”
In essence, scripting plays does two things: 1) It forces an offense to implement what it has practiced during the week and 2) It focuses on your strengths, regardless of what the defense is doing. As many as eight current N.F.L. teams, most of them led by former Walsh assistant coaches, now script plays, usually the first 15 of the game.
”It takes real nerve,” Walsh said. ”If things aren’t working, you can lose your nerve. The script makes you stay in the game plan and make it work. I often did the first 25. So, I did less thinking in the early stages of the game and I’d be less nervous. I would have check points for the defense. This way, I could orchestrate the first quarter of the game. I was able to initiate my plan. On third-and-1, for example, I’d go off that list to a short-yardage list. Then I’d go back to the script.
”You make much better decisions on Thursdays and Fridays than you do on Sundays. If anybody thinks they can make all of the decisions on Sundays, then that person often is simply hoping to be lucky.””
No…an offensive playcaller doesn’t have to script plays to open a game to be successful BUT a head coach and/or whoever is calling the offensive plays must be very aware of how easy it is to get into the same situation over and over again and often calling the same or a very similar play over and over again and in an age when very little escapes notice those tendencies will not only be noticed they will be exploited by your opponent and in our opinion the very obvious playcalling tendencies of Gus Malzahn’s offense at Auburn is a big reason why Malzahn is 10 – 6 in his last 16 games at Auburn with that on the verge of moving to 10 – 7 with a loss to LSU.
Memo to Gus Malzahn: What is this word Gus that is missing three letters?
O B V I _ _ _
Yes…it is…
O B V I O U S
…as is your offense at Auburn!
Lose to LSU and expect to find your ass on the Hot Seat come Monday morning Gus!
11. Kevin Wilson, Indiana vs. Western Kentucky – Well, this one is O B V I O U S as well because if Kevin Wilson’s Hoosiers lose to Western Kentucky on Saturday to drop to 2 – 1 on the year with a tough Big Ten Conference schedule ahead….
Well, let’s just say it would NOT BE GOOD so play hard Hoosiers!
12. Steve Spurrier, South Carolina vs. Georgia – Longtime radio show host and all around good guy along with being Steve Spurrier’s official biographer Buddy Martin appeared on the Paul Finebaum show earlier this week and said that most of all Steve Spurrier didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for Steve because of his recent troubles winning football games at South Carolina.
What person with a working brain would feel sorry for Steve Spurrier who won the Heisman Trophy, played in the NFL, is in the College Football Hall of Fame and is one of the Top 10 college head coaches in the last 50 years?
Hell, we don’t feel sorry for Steve Spurrier but instead we are ready to roast Spurrier’s ass if he doesn’t get off his ass and get his South Carolina football team playing some winning football again starting with this game against Georgia in Athens on Saturday!
There is NO downside for Steve Spurrier in his current situation because even if the 2015 season imploded at South Carolina and Spurrier decided to end his legendary coaching career come December and head to beach and play golf and maybe do some TV work in around college football games life will be very good for Steve Spurrier….just as it is for Bobby Bowden right now….and life everywhere else on Earth and in the Universe will continue on whether Spurrier is on the sideline coaching games or not.
YES…we want the Ol’ Ball Coach…
Hell, Steve you are 70 so that makes you OLD!
…..to start coaching South Carolina to wins again BUT we also know that there are cemeteries all over the world filled with men and women who many thought were “indispensable” and yet the world continued on without their presence and South Carolina and College Football will continue on without Steve Spurrier if the Ol’ Ball Coach decides to do something else with his life later this year.
Hell, what about putting Steve Spurrier in the booth with Jesse Palmer and Brent Musburger to do the SEC Game of the Week on the SEC Network in 2016 and then Steve can play a lot of golf and travel around the SEC Conference each Fall talking to coaches and critiquing what they are doing right and wrong?
Hell, that sounds good to us but how about beating Georgia on Saturday Steve?
13. Mark Richt, Georgia vs. South Carolina – Oh, this one is Very Damn Simple:
IF Mark Richt and Georgia somehow lost to a reeling Ol’ Ball Coach and South Carolina on Saturday….
Welcome Back to the Hot Seat Mark Richt!
14. Todd Monken, Southern Miss vs. Texas State – It’s time…Hell, it’s way past time to get Southern Miss football back on track and a win against Texas State on a road would be a good way to get that “back on track” thing started BUT if USM loses this game….the Hot Seat only gets Hotter for Todd Monken!
15. Kliff Kingsbury, Texas Tech vs. Arkansas – This Saturday’s Arkansas game is HUGE for Kliff Kingsbury and this Texas Tech football team because if the Red Raiders were able to go into Fayetteville and avenge the loss they took to the Hogs in 2014 and get to 3 – 0 on the season that would make the game against TCU at home in Week 4 VERY DAMN HUGE because if you can beat Arkansas on the road you might just be able to beat TCU at home….right? RIGHT!
Besides…if Texas Tech beat Arkansas on Saturday we will quit calling Kliff Kingsbury PBK = Pretty Boy Kingsbury FOREVER and Hell that just by itself is worth the Texas Tech players playing like a House on Fire in this football game!
16. Bret Bielema, Arkansas vs. Texas Tech – Just a couple of weeks ago Bret Bielema was popping off about Ohio State and about every other Damn thing under the Sun but after the loss to Toledo for some Damn reason we haven’t heard much from Bret this week and we cannot figure out why!
Memo to Head Football Coaches on the Importance of Communication: In the late 1970s the Dad of a Coaches Hot Seat member was having dinner with a legendary college football coach on the West Coast and this Dad had read something in the newspaper earlier in the day about “X player” on this coach’s team and the Dad asked the coach if had meant to make such a borderline negative comment about that “X player” and the legendary coach said:
“Hell Yes, I made a point of making that comment about “X player” in that press conference and I even requested to that the reporter personally to make sure my comment about “X player” made it into the newspaper. My players are paying attention to what is being said about them in the media and often hear things better through the media than on the practice field.”
The above coach’s comment was made in the late 1970s and some 35-plus years later in the Social Media + Information Age do you think players are hearing what is said about them in the media?
Be careful what you say coaches and make sure all of your comments in the media are on target and measured well especially during the football season.
Getting back to Bret Bielema after the loss to Toledo…
Bret Bielema and Arkansas CANNOT LOSE THIS GAME…PERIOD.
17. Mike MacIntyre, Colorado vs. Colorado State – Talk about a head coach that CANNOT LOSE A GAME that would be Colorado head coach Mike MacIntyre who CANNOT LOSE to Colorado State on Saturday for so many reasons but especially because CSU has a first-year head coach in Mike Bobo and the Buffs really need this win over CSU and a win over Nicholls State in Week 4 to be 3 – 1 when they enter Pac-12 Conference play on October 3 against Oregon in Boulder.
Good Luck Mike and DON’T LOSE THIS GAME!
18. Charlie Strong, Texas vs. California – Last time we checked Texas is still Texas and NOT Louisville and since Texas is still Texas we don’t believe in these “not enough talent” excuses for Charlie Strong or anyone else that coaches the football team at the University of Texas and thus why Strong better start winning some football games and in a hurry starting with a win over California on Saturday.
Should we really expect Texas to beat California on Saturday?
HELL YES and that is because what Charlie Strong took over at Texas is no Damn worse off than what Nick Saban took over at Alabama and what was Alabama’s record in Saban’s second year at Alabama?
Oh, what was Alabama’s record in Nick Saban’s third year at Alabama?
14 – 0 and National Champions!
We expect no less at Texas than we would at Alabama and anyone at Texas, or around Texas, or loves Texas football shouldn’t accept anything less either and thus why it’s time for Texas football to start winning some football games starting with a win over California on Saturday which posted a record of…
….in 2014 so we aren’t exactly talking about Alabama coming to Austin on Saturday…right? RIGHT!
IF Texas did lose to California looking over the rest of the Horns’ schedule how many wins might Charlie Strong post in 2015?
At TCU
At Iowa State
At West Virginia
At Baylor
Hell, if you can’t beat a mediocre California team in your home stadium in Austin just who in the Hell besides Kansas is Texas going to beat on the rest of its schedule exactly?
Geez…could Texas really go 2 – 10 or 3 – 9 in 2015?
Maybe so and if they do we will have to invent a new name for Charlie Strong’s Hot Seat Category like….
RXJ1347 = The Hottest Place in the Universe = 300 Million Degrees C!
Hottest Spot in the Universe Found, Paul Sutherland, Skymania
19. James Franklin, Penn State vs. Rutgers – With Rutgers head coach Kyle Flood being sent to the showers for three games…
Kyle Flood suspended 3 games, fined $50K for contacting professor, Adam Rittenberg, ESPN.com
…in what can only be characterized as…
“That’s just Rutgers folks!”
….a coach that CANNOT afford a loss in this spot is Penn State HC James Franklin who is coaching what seems like one of the most fragile teams in college football right now.
Penn State played a little better in Week 2 against Buffalo BUT than in their Week 1 loss to Temple which was a lot like many of Penn State’s games in 2014 when it seemed that the Penn State players were playing not aggressively but almost as if they were afraid to make a mistake that might lead to something else….perhaps them getting their ass chewed out royally maybe?
One thing for sure James Franklin’s Vanderbilt teams seemed to have a lot of fun playing football for James Franklin…just an observation from the peanut gallery here at Coaches Hot Seat….and this and last year’s Penn State teams look miserable as Hell playing for James Franklin.
20. Kirk Ferentz, Iowa vs. Pitt – It’s impossible for us to know if the 2015 Iowa football team is any good or not since the Hawkeyes have wins over Illinois State and Iowa State on the board which is like saying you beat a team slightly tougher than AIR and even in Week 3 with Pitt coming to town with a new head coach in Pat Narduzzi it’s hard to know if a win in this spot over the Panthers will be that big of a deal or not.
One Damn Thing For Sure….a loss to Pitt will send Kirk Ferentz flying BACK UP the Coaches Hot Seat Rankings!
21. David Shaw, Stanford vs. USC – The other day we posted a Stanford Athletics video of the 2009 Stanford – USC game in the LA Coliseum when the Cardinal whipped the Trojans by a score of…
….and many of us after watching the above video could not help but notice with how much…
Passion, Fire, Determination, Kick-Ass Intensity, Craziness, Sheer Will
…that Stanford football was playing with against USC in 2009 especially compared to the 2015 Stanford football team that was barely awake when they lost to Northwestern in the opening game of the season.
One Coaches Hot Seat Member even said after watching the above video and comparing it to the Northwestern game earlier this year:
“That’s it! Stanford football is now DEAD ASLEEP under David Shaw and is on the verge of going into a COMA!”
The old joke among Coaches Hot Seat members before Coaches Hot Seat ever existed was that the Stanford football teams under coaches Buddy Teevens and Walt Harris were so WEAK that the then 30ish and 40ish Coaches Hot Seat members could whip the Hell out of the entire Cardinal team on or off the football field.
That reality changed when Jim Harbaugh got to The Farm….
…and now it’s quickly becoming the consensus again that the now 40ish and 50ish Coaches Hot Seat members could whip the Hell out of the entire Cardinal team on or off the football field and that is nothing less than a…
Complete Freaking Disaster for Stanford Football
Can David Shaw and Stanford beat USC in the LA Coliseum on Saturday night?
Better question might be can Stanford keep the final margin below a 21 point plus defeat at the hands of the Trojans?
One of the worst feelings in the world is embarrassment and we would recommend that David Shaw’s Stanford team not embarrass the Stanford alumni that are traveling to Los Angeles for this game many of whom will be hanging-out with and staying with USC alumni and will rightly be hearing a lot of crowing if USC destroys the Cardinal. No, don’t embarrass yourselves, Stanford fans and alumni, and Stanford University on Saturday night because that leads to people getting pissed-off and pissed-off people is the LAST DAMN THING IN THE WORLD David Shaw wants right now.
22. Paul Rhoads, Iowa State vs. Toledo – Talk about bad timing just when Paul Rhoads needs a win in the worst way he has to take his Iowa State football team on the road to play a MAC team on their home field in Toledo which just beat Arkansas on its home field!
A loss in this spot and Iowa State drops to 1 – 2 on the season with NINE Big 12 Conference Games ahead and our guess is that the Cyclones will be the underdog in…
Eight of those Nine Big 12 Conference Games!
Geez…these are not good times for Iowa State football.
23. Mike Leach, Washington State vs. Wyoming – Mike Leach somehow pulled a win out of his ass that was sitting on a very Hot Seat last Saturday against Rutgers and now the Cougs needs to refocus and make sure they beat a reeling Wyoming team at home before starting Pac-12 Conference play at California on October 3.
Absolutely Wyoming is a game that The Pirate CANNOT LOSE!
24. Norm Chow, Hawaii vs. UC Davis – Now sitting on a record of 1 – 1 Norm Chow’s Hawaii team MUST beat UC Davis on Saturday because their next two games are…
At Boise State
….and there is not a Chance in Hell that the Warriors will win either of those games on the road so clearly UC Davis is a CANNOT LOSE game for Norm Chow and Hawaii!
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Our goal is to ensure that everyone has equal access to information and can fully participate in their care. The JPS Health Network website is assessed for ADA compliance by simulating methods employed by people with various disabilities and by using validators to indicate potential accessibility issues. We are committed to upholding our legal obligations to Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) web accessibility directives.
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Our current howler
Companion site:
How he got there
Bob Somerby
Google search...
Marc Cherbonnier
2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998
We liberals need to save ourselves. Can Keith Olbermann do it?
CHIMP-ON-CHIMP CRIME! We liberals need to save ourselves. Can Keith Olbermann do it? // link // print // previous // next //
A note about snowballs in Hell: According to the Washington Post, the normal high temperature for D.C. is 85 degrees at this time of year. Yesterday’s high was 96. It has been that way for several days. The heat wave is supposed to continue into next week.
Question: Have you seen any stories about the way the heat wave proves that global warming is happening? We ask because of the lunacy that occurred when it snowed in D.C. this year.
As you may recall, Washington’s snowstorms produced a wave of mocking claims about the foolishness of climate change theory. All over talk radio, all over Fox, voters heard a ludicrous claim: The heavy snow means that climate change isn’t really happening! Voters heard this again and again. Many voters believed it.
We can ridicule these people all we want. But many of them are voters.
For our money, our big newspapers did a very poor job responding to this perfect nonsense (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/15/10). There has been no corresponding nonsense about this week’s heat wave.
There has been no nonsense this week—and that, of course, is good. But in these well-twinned weather events, we can’t help seeing the shape of American politics over the past forty years. One tribe has broadcast well-known bits of nonsense: Socialized medicine has failed wherever it’s been tried! The Social Security trust fund has already been spent! If we lower tax rates, we get extra revenue! In the absence of active attempts at rebuttal, such nonsense has been quite effective. Claims of this type have driven American politics, as in the past year’s debate about the Obama health plan.
Many people believed what they heard about that unusual snow in D.C. This week, it’s been very hot in D.C. Thankfully, not a word has been said.
CHIMP-ON-CHIMP CRIME (permalink): How do bands of chimps wage war?
If you’re curious, you can read Nicholas Wade’s intriguing report from Tuesday’s New York Times (click here). Or you can watch your own tribe’s alpha chimp as he blusters each evening on Countdown.
Our chimp can be quite a sight. On Tuesday night, you could have watched his latest “Special Report,” in which he blustered, pronounced and proclaimed, instructing pitiful dumb-ass Obama about why he shouldn’t fire McChrystal. Our head chimp knew exactly what Obama should do. He also knew, with perfect certainty, what the political outcomes would be—and he knew which camera to wheel toward as he thundered about these events.
On Tuesday, you could have watched him doing that. Or you could have seen his pitiful attempt to rebut Sharron Angle. Angle seems to favor some form of privatized Social Security. (We doubt that she’s ever explained in detail.) But Angle seems to know how to talk about this potent issue—and Keith Olbermann pretty much doesn’t. On Tuesday night, after several teases, he named Angle worst person in the world—and he offered this hapless report about this potent issue:
OLBERMANN (6/22/10): But our winner, Nevada Tea Party Senate candidate Sharron Angle. After the profusion of evidence that she was lying when she denied she wanted to gut and privatize Social Security, she has now changed her tune slightly. She did an interview with the Human Events site, the people who brought you that headline "Liberals Hate Sarah Palin Because She’s Beautiful."
ANGLE (videotape): We need to look at personalizing the Social Security and Medicare programs, so that we can keep the government out of the lock box, keep them from raiding our retirement and raiding our health care.
OLBERMANN: Personalizing Social Security does not mean selecting your own screen saver. It means privatizing. Make people invest their Social Security earnings into the stock market, where a chunk will automatically be skimmed off the top by brokers, and the rest could vanish in, you know, the next mortgage crisis or BP Gulf disaster. And if any of that is still unclear, Ms. Angle’s website says, at this moment, that Social Security needs to be, quote, "transitioned out." So when she says she doesn’t want to gut and privatize Social Security, she’s lying. Sharron Angle, Tea Party and “Let’s restore the 19th Century” party candidate for the senate from Nevada, today’s worst person in the world.
Angle is working with talking-points which have been successful for decades. (The Social Security trust fund is just a bunch of IOUs! The money isn’t there—it’s already been spent!) These talking-points have been quite successful, even though they’re misleading, because the right has endlessly worked to promote them—and because the liberal world, sleepwalking through life, has never made any serious attempt to create a coherent rebuttal. For the record, Angle isn’t “lying” when she uses the language of “personal” accounts; going back at least as far as Candidate Bush in 2000, Republicans use the language of “personal” accounts (not “private” accounts) because that language poll-tests better. (Democrats use the language of “privatization” because it poll-tests worse.) But no, Angle’s language isn’t a “lie. Somewhat sadly, that’s the only type of ordure our head chimp knows how to throw.
Conceivably, this issue could serve Angle well in the coming campaign. She seems to know how to talk about it; major bozos on our side still don’t. As a general matter, Olbermann’s thunder will be pleasing to liberals, unconvincing to everyone else.
Later that evening, preening and wheeling to various cameras, Olbermann loudly instructed dumb Obama why he should keep McChrystal.
But then, our liberal channel is increasingly a joke, a route to long-term disaster. If progressives are ever going to succeed in changing American politics, we need to learn how to persuade voters in Arkansas, the state Gene Lyons discussed last week—and in Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, the states David Brooks named this week. This effort would take a good long time, but there’s no other route to progressive consensus. But at our pseudo-progressive channel, the chimps are inclined to insult such voters. This approach makes for good entertainment TV—and it serves the interests of Power.
(As long as the two bands of chimps keep fighting, Power will stay on top.)
Can liberals build a progressive politics? We’ll certainly have to do it ourselves, if it’s ever going to happen. Just consider what happened this week when several major mainstream columnists tried to stand and fight.
By this time, the dumbness of mainstream press corps culture almost defies belief. Consider what happened when the New York Times’ Charles Blow tried to say that Obama is doing a pretty good job.
Blow thought Obama’s address from the Oval Office was “just fine.” And not only that! “On balance, [Obama] is doing a good job,” the columnist judges—“not perfect, but good.” But you had to hunt through Blow’s piece to ferret these favorable judgments. This was Blow’s picture of the state of American politics—a picture in which he went straight to insulting psychiatric assessments about the guy he defended:
BLOW (6/19/10): On one side is America—fickle and excitable, hotheaded and prone to overreaction, easily frightened and in constant need of reassurance.
On the other side stands Obama—solid and sober, rooted in the belief that his way is the right way and in no need of alteration. He’s the emotionally maimed type who lights up when he’s stroked and adored but shuts down in the face of acrimony. Other people’s anxieties are dismissed as irrational and unworthy of engagement or empathy. He seems quite comfortable with this aspect of his personality, even if few others are, and shows little desire to change it. It’s the height of irony: the presumed transformative president is stymied by his own unwillingness to be transformed. He would rather sacrifice the relationship than be altered by it.
Blow’s portrait of “America” is remarkably dumb. (Is everyone “fickle and excitable, hotheaded and prone to overreaction, easily frightened and in constant need of reassurance?) But his portrait of Obama defines the fallen state of the upper-end press corps. Obama is doing a good job, Blow says. But he’s “the emotionally maimed type,” the pundit confides, making a remarkable judgment—and he goes on to offer a very unflattering portrait of Obama’s psyche, without offering any examples which might help us know why he thinks such things. (When has Obama dismissed “other people’s anxieties…as irrational and unworthy of engagement or empathy?” Blow forgets to say.) But then, this column is a pure example of the species known as Hardening Dowdism; it’s an almost perfect copy of Lady Dowd’s simpering style. (Note especially the pseudo-irony found in Blow’s silly word-play: The presumed transformative president is stymied by his own unwillingness to be transformed! Later: The president must accept the basic fact that he, as the agent of change, must himself be open to change!) Blow is becoming the latest Lord Dowdinpants. You know the formula! He offers dim-witted psychiatric assessments wrapped in silly word-play.
Blow, remember, was praising Obama. Richard Cohen is less impressed with the president—but he too turned to psychiatric assessments in Tuesday’s Washington Post. According to Cohen, Obama “hugely misunderstood what some people were saying when they demanded that he get angry over the gulf oil catastrophe.” In this utterly ludicrous passage, Cohen explained what he meant:
COHEN (6/22/10): What these people were seeking was not an eruption of anger, not a tantrum and not a full-scale denunciation of an oil company. What they wanted instead was a sign that this catastrophe meant something to Obama, that it was not merely another problem that had crossed his desk—and this time just wouldn't budge. He showed not the slightest sign in the idiom that really counts in a media age—body language—that he gave a damn. He could see your pain, he could talk about your pain, but he gave no indication that he felt it.
One can understand. Obama's father deserted the family and afterward visited his son only once. He twice was separated from his mother, who lived in Indonesia without him. He was partially raised by his grandparents—an elderly white couple. If the president is what the shrinks call "well-defended," who can blame him? It's ironic that Oprah Winfrey was maybe Obama's most significant early backer when the man himself is so un-Oprah. He cannot emote.
Cohen made a fool of himself before turning to the pseudo-psychiatry of that second paragraph. A sensible person would assume that Cohen must be speaking ironically about body language—but in truth, there’s no sign that he is. Understand what Cohen says here: Obama had just obtained a $20 billion fund to help the victims of this disaster—but because of the president’s failed body language, Cohen couldn’t spot “the slightest sign…that he gave a damn” about them.
Whatever one thinks of Barack Obama, there you see the terminal dumbness of the mainstream press elite.
How hapless is this mainstream press? Consider this column by Colbert King, who tried to defend Obama against an ugly insult—an ugly insult of the type has been quite common in the past week.
After Obama secured that escrow fund, the insults came rolling down. Joe Barton made the “shakedown” insult famous, but Sarah Palin had piped up several weeks before, offering an ugly insult on the June 9 Hannity. (This was the week before the escrow fund was announced.) Obama “needs to call in those around him and kind of broaden his inner circle of confidants because right now it sounds like the inner circle that he has are some Chicago thugs,” Palin sweetly observed. Quite rightly, Colbert King was angered by this remarkable language. Burt good lord! This is what happens when your mainstream press corps tries to create an argument:
KING (6/19/10): [W]hat would a Father's Day discussion of the nuclear family and a moral society be without bringing into the picture Mrs. Family Values herself, Sarah Palin?
The same Palin who last week said of President Obama, “It sounds like the inner circle that he has are some Chicago thugs.” Well, Palin knows lawbreaking, too.
Her sister-in-law, Diana Palin, half sister of the former governor’s husband, got a 15-month sentence this year. Burglarizing the same Alaska house three times for money to satisfy a drug habit is the kind of thing that can get you arrested. Thuggery? How about Sherry Johnston, the mother of Levi Johnston, the high school dropout who fathered Palin’s grandson? She was arrested and charged with selling drugs; after pleading guilty to one count with intent to deliver the drug OxyContin she was sentenced to three years.
Because of her medical condition, the woman who was once Bristol Palin's future mother-in-law was released from prison to home confinement, where she wears an ankle-monitoring device.
And the whereabouts of 19-year-old Levi on this Father's Day weekend? His bonds with the Palins were so tight, he said on TV, that Sarah and her husband, Todd, allowed Levi to live in their house with Bristol while they dated. Conservative family values?
Levi can be found on the cover of Playgirl magazine, his nude body blocked from full exposure by his strategically placed arm.
“Palin knows lawbreaking too,” King wrote. Did he realize that he seemed to be saying that Obama is surrounded by thugs—but that Palin has thugs around too? King went on to present a remarkable string of insults, insulting Palin about the things her distant relations have done.
Just a guess, based on knowledge of people: Many voters in Arkansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio would be inclined to react in negative ways to insults about “thugs” and “shakedowns.” These insults might provide a route to these voters’ minds—a way to help these voters think twice about the people who author these insults. That said, King’s column was a classic example of the best known way to lose an argument. All over the country, his column would tend to build sympathy for Palin. Let’s hope few voters read it.
Last Saturday, Blow explained that Barack Obama is “emotionally maimed.” King seemed to say that Obama is surrounded by thugs—though Palin has thugs around her too. A few days later, Cohen explained why Obama seems to be “what the shrinks call ‘well-defended.’” Translation: Over the course of the past few decades, the dumbness of the mainstream press has hardened and turned into stone.
Will this country ever have a progressive politics? If so, we liberals will have to create it. Do you see that happening on our liberal channel? Silly insults are good solid fun—but will they be enough?
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