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Tag: Teaching
September 8, 2019 ~ kerrymc ~ Leave a comment
Many days I leave work as an English teacher in Japan wanting to hold a reasoning with my high school Spanish teacher. In a reasoning, you ask your partner searching questions, listen to their honest answers and opinions, and you yourself are equally frank and open.
I really want to reason with Senorita Blake on many things like the taste of words in a foreign language, when she first got interested in Spanish, her experiences in Spanish speaking countries, her favorite Spanish words, and so on.
But most of all, I really want my high school Spanish teacher to tell me how exactly she got through every class teaching a language to students who just didn’t understand that they were being taught a language.
How come you didn’t tell me to try tasting the words? I might ask her. To become so intimate with this language so much so that I could decide by taste that I didn’t like some words. Like I just don’t like the taste of the word ‘boob’ in English, so I don’t use it.
Maybe she would tell me that she did tell us those things, that I just don’t remember. And she would probably be right. In Spanish class, all kinds of tastes were on my lips– patty, or bun and cheese or rice and kidney for dinner that evening. Many things, but not Spanish.
What was Spanish? Spanish was the subject I chose instead of geography. Spanish was something my dear friend was good at, but I wasn’t. Spanish class time was a time I felt lost. Spanish was songs or performances in Spanish by bright students at school events. Spanish was a thing. It was many things, but it wasn’t a language. It was not something used by people somewhere to organize their lives. It was not something actually used for communication. It was like a code. A code that if I could decipher I would get high marks on the CXC exam. Like Maths.
Spanish felt like Maths. Isn’t that unfortunate? Spanish felt like a cloudy block of rules and patterns that I just couldn’t penetrate.
Now, I live in a country where I’ve mastered daily conversation in the language. In Japanese, I can order my food, tell the doctor what’s wrong with me, buy sugar instead of salt. It often feels like a bothersome set of rules and patterns, but it’s not as indecipherable as I saw Spanish, and I don’t associate it with Maths. Most days. The obvious difference with this situation and my Spanish class is that here, I am immersed. The people around me speak the language I am aiming to speak.
But it’s neither my fault nor Senorita Blake’s that I never actually met and spoke with Spanish speakers all the five years I studied Spanish. Or that I was never in a setting where Spanish was the only or primary means of communication. That didn’t even occur to me as a possibility. Because, like I said, I didn’t even know I was studying a language.
How Senorita Blake must have felt like she was on a failing mission sometimes. Or perhaps it was enough for her to be able to use a language she loved every day. Of course, all students weren’t like me. For some, Spanish was Spanish, not Maths. Its sounds were musical, its rules logical, its patterns predictable, and where they were not, caramba, that was exciting, not frustrating. Maybe those students went on to meet Spanish speakers in their lives.
As I eventually did meet one Spanish speaker, who was my second Spanish teacher. He was from Cuba. One of the benefits of my teaching job at the time was that you could enroll in one course per semester. I chose a beginner Spanish course.
Well this time, fear was worse than anything. Fear of speaking up in class. I felt that what I said would sound completely wrong to this native speaker. Plus by that time, I had already lived in Japan for a bit, and all the foreign language signals sent to my brain were Japanese. So a lot of Japanese came out in the Spanish class. Now Spanish was like Japanese. Again, I’m sure not all students were like me. But I think for a good number of them, for whom it was a compulsory course, Spanish was like Maths. But I was in that class with the understanding, finally, that Spanish was a language. However, I still had no practical setting in which to try using the language.
Similarly, my students don’t use English outside of class, unless they are super motivated and have some goal they want to achieve like studying abroad. But some might go on to work in jobs that require them to use English. Some might end up with friends or even family from English speaking countries. Some will eventually find relevance for all this English.
The contexts are different, but there is also a lack of practical opportunities for people to use Spanish or French, the two main languages taught in Jamaican schools. I would ask Senorita Blake what she thinks of this. Outside of becoming a Spanish teacher, what other jobs are there where you can use Spanish in Jamaica? A smattering, maybe. In a previous job, I was asked once in the two years I was there to read an e-mail in Spanish. I have one friend who uses Spanish in his job. Spanish he learnt while studying in Cuba. Or maybe you can become a teacher of teachers, like Senorita Blake did.
Of the hundreds of thousands of students who study Spanish and French each year, how many will go on to become Spanish or French teachers? And is the sole purpose of (language) study preparing one for a job? I don’t think so. But when it comes to practicality, that’s the low hanging fruit.
Of the hundreds of students I have taught and will teach, how many will ever meet another English speaker? How many will actually use English to communicate outside of a classroom? Of course English is different from Spanish in global use and Jamaica is not Japan.
But maybe Senorita Blake can give me some advice on how to teach students for whom English is not a language.
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Lampard delighted with return of N'Golo Kante
Vincent Titus
Chelsea boss Frank Lampard has admitted he is delighted with the return of midfielder N'Golo Kante who is in contention to face Liverpool on Sunday.
Kante has been on the sidelines, missing four matches of Chelsea after he picked up an ankle injury during his side's 1-1 draw with Leicester City in the Premier League. Kante resumed training this week and Lampard believes the return of the Frenchman will be a huge boost to the Blues when they take on the league leaders.
“It’s a boost with N’Golo. We all know the importance of him for the team with the attributes that he brings," he said.
Read: Wazito vs AFC Leopards ticketing info
“The only question for me is how fit he is because he’s had a long time out now since the back end of last season."
“I know he played a couple of games this year but I didn’t count them as such because he missed the pre-season and what he did in Istanbul was miraculous as opposed to the norm, to play how he did without training."
Lampard met Jurgen Klopp's men in the Super Cup at the start of the finals where Chelsea lost on penalties.
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Osimhen moves on after Lille's French Cup ouster
Man United vs Burnley: Predicted lineup and injury updates
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Microsoft at E3 2016: Project Scorpio, Gears of War 4, and Xbox Live
By Rishi Alwani | Updated: 17 June 2016 14:20 IST
Microsoft will be bring its exclusive games to Windows 10 PC.
Xbox One S - a slimmer Xbox One will be out in August as leaked prior.
Project Scorpio - a more powerful Xbox is due for Christmas 2017.
"Windows 10 and Xbox One exclusive" was a phrase thrown around throughout the duration of Microsoft's E3 2016 conference. Which should come as no surprise as it was leaked early in the year that most of the company's upcoming games will come to Windows 10 PC and Xbox One.
Speaking of leaks, most of the conference's biggest announcements were revealed before it even began. Be it details for the Xbox One S, Halo Wars 2, Forza Horizon 3, or third-party games like Final Fantasy XV, The Division Underground, ReCore, and Battlefield 1, there was very little that was unknown. Nonetheless, here are the most important announcements from Microsoft's E3 2016 event.
(Also see: Xbox One Exclusives Gears of War 4, Scalebound Coming to Windows 10 PC: Report)
The Xbox will go beyond generations
At the end Xbox boss Phil Spencer stated the company will not wait around five to eight years to sell you a new Xbox. This is due to Project Scorpio - a new Xbox sporting 6 teraflops of GPU power and 8 CPU cores with the objective of letting you play games at 4K resolution and in high fidelity VR. It's due in Christmas 2017 and has been announced now for developers to know what to expect and take advantage of it.
However keep in mind that whatever works on the Xbox One and One S will work on the Scorpio and vice versa.
Scalebound gameplay impresses
From the team behind Vanquish and Bayonetta is Scalebound. After a solid showing at Gamescom 2015, PlatinumGames lifted the lid on the game's stellar co-op mode. There's a wealth of action, a fair bit of strategising, and oodles of gorgeous combat. It will be coming to Windows 10 PC as Xbox One in 2017.
Tekken 7 - one of the rare games that was not leaked
Fighting game Tekken 7 was present at Microsoft's event. There was smooth looking battling and a generous story mode. To celebrate its early 2017 arrival on the Xbox One, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is free to Xbox Live Gold subscribers right now.
Gears of War 4 is coming to PC day one
Also coming to Windows 10 PC, Gears of War 4 had a surprisingly long demo which focussed on teamwork to a large degree. There was a lot going on what with varied weather, environments, and hordes of enemies to defeat. It's out on October 11. Microsoft also unveiled a Gears of War 4 themed Xbox Elite controller to go with it.
Xbox Live levels up
Some new features will be making their way to the Xbox One. These include Clubs to allow you to form communities with friends, Looking For Group which lets you find likeminded gamers, and a new e-sports platform called Arena. In addition to this Background music coming to the Xbox One as is Language Region Independence - which lets you choose your language without being tied by region and voice assistant Cortana.
There were other games such as a host of indie titles such as Inside and We Happy Few out soon as well as a new gameplay trailer for Rare's Sea of Thieves, which seemed like a shared-world game similar to Destiny. Gwent - a card game from CD Projekt RED, makers of The Witcher 3 was also revealed and will be coming to PC and the Xbox One first with other platforms later.
What were your favourite reveals from Microsoft's E3 2016 conference? Let us know in the comments.
Wondering which were the best games announced at E3 2016? You can listen to our podcast via iTunes or just hit the play button below to find out.
Further reading: Forza Horizon 3, Gears of War 4, Gears of War 4 Elite Xbox Controller, Halo Wars 2, PC Games, PC Gaming, Project Scorpio, Scalebound, Tekken 7, Windows 10, Windows 10 PC, Xbox Live Anywhere, Xbox One, Xbox One S, E3, E3 2016, Gwent, Xbox E3
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dr. Dorian Nowacki
Dietetyka i Żywienie Medyczne
Ph.D. in Medical Sciences, dietician and nutritionist
He received Ph.D. degree with high honours from the Faculty of Medicine of the Wroclaw Medical University. The subject of his Doctoral research was the role of polyunsaturated fatty acids (such as: phospholipids, omega-3 acids, omega-6) in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.
After Ph.D. graduation, he was hired as Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Biotechnology of the University of Wrocław and at the Department of Human Nutrition of the Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, where he conducted the research related to the role of functional food and bio-specimens in prevention of civilization dieses.
Currently, as the co-founder and CEO of Health Inn Med sp. o.o. [ltd.] he is involved in Dietetics and Innovative Medical Nutrition.
The implementation potential of his doctoral research allows to be a laureate of the Top 500 Innovators Programme led by Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Within the programme he took a professional internship at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. He also gained international experience during internships at the Medical Department of the University of Rome Tor Vergata in Italy and at the Sackler Medical Faculty of the University of Tel Aviv in Israel.
He is the author and co-author of international medical articles (i.a. in Nature Publishing Group Journal) as well as a co-author of patents regarding the use of innovative phospholipids in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases.
LinkedInResearchGate
Should we abandoned the dreams about colonization of other planets in space? (available only in Polish)
GLOS.UPWR.EDU.PL
Internships for innovators. Our workers go to the USA and England – Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences
Głos UPWr
The young face of Polish science with world-wide range (available only in Polish)
Selected articles and scientific reports:
“Lecithin derived from ω-3 PUFA fortified eggs decreases blood pressure in spontaneously hypertensive rats” D. Nowacki, H. Martynowicz, A. Skoczyńska, A. Wojakowska, B. Turczyn, Ł. Bobak, T. Trziszka, A. Szuba
Sci Rep. Link – nature.com
“Stan odżywienia 14-latków z Wrocławia” J. Wyka, E. Piotrowska, E. Raczkowska, K. Rak, D. Mazurek, M. Bienkiewicz, D. Nowacki
Bromat. Chem. Toksykol. Link – ptfarm.pl
“Wpływ kwasów omega-3 (DHA) na zaburzenia otępienne, w tym chorobę Alzheimera w badaniach zwierzęcych” B. Stańczykiewicz, D. Nowacki, M. Jakubik, J. Rymaszewska
Psychogeriatr.Pol. Link
“Wpływ kwasów omega-3 na poziom ołowiu, reaktywność naczyń i lipidy w surowicy szczurów zatruwanych ołowiem” A. Wojakowska, A. Skoczyńska, B. Turczyn, D. Nowacki, Ł. Bobak, B. Smyk, A. Szuba, T. Trziszka
Conference Publication; Olsztyn: UMW Editor, ISBN 978-83-7299-893-4
“Omega-3 enriched eggs and egg derived products in prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases” A. Szuba, D. Nowacki, K. Skórka-Telichowska, A. Wojakowska, A. Podgórska, A. Doroszko, Ł. Bobak, T. Trziszka
Wrocław Banff Egg Forum 2014, p. 33. ISBN 978-83-7717-185-1
“The phospholipid fraction obtained from egg yolk decreases blood pressure in spontaneously hypertensive rats exposed to acute stress” H. Martynowicz,D. Nowacki, G. Mazur, T. Trziszka. A. Szuba
Journal of Hypertension, doi: 10.1097/01.hjh.0000500248.52671.11. Konferencja: Hypertension Seoul 2016. Link
All scientific publications
© 2020 Health Inn Med sp. z o. o.
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Current rules in Taiwan for operating licensed stations, bringing in personal equipment?
In some countries, Ham licensing is still cumbersome even for citizens, and operation prohibited by foreigners.
I'm curious what the situation is like in Taiwan now. Years ago, there was little difference between the license and licensing process for a Ham station and that for a large commercial radio station. Also bringing equipment into the country yourself was prohibited and subject to on-the-spot confiscation. I think things have improved now, but I don't know to what extent.
These days, what are the rules regarding non-citizens operating licensed stations in Taiwan, does a citizen need to be present? Is self-importing of one's personal equipment still prohibited?
legal license
uhohuhoh
$\begingroup$ law.moj.gov.tw/Eng/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?PCode=K0060032 $\endgroup$ – Marcus Müller May 28 '18 at 17:02
See the Chinese Taipei Amateur Radio League (CTARL) web site for a link to information for Visitors and short-term residents of Taiwan wishing to operate an Amateur Radio station in Taiwan.
"Visitors and short-term residents of Taiwan wishing to operate an Amateur Radio station in Taiwan may apply for a Temporary Operating Permit after being sponsored by a licensed Taiwan host whose station they may operate during the period in which the issued permit is valid. Amateur Radio station licenses in Taiwan license the specific transmitting and radiating equipment operated, and the temporary permit is an operator permit only, so no transmitting equipment may be legally brought into Taiwan by visiting Amateur Radio operators."
CTARL officers are identified at Headquarters and Branche Offices. I recommend you reach out to the entire HQ staff as well as the branch representative for the region you plan to visit.
$\begingroup$ Thanks, your 2nd link appears to be dated October 2009. 2009-10/VSTR-op.htm and I'm pretty sure there have been some significant changes over the last decade. "I'm curious what the situation is like in Taiwan now. Years ago, there was little difference between the license and licensing process for a Ham station and that for a large commercial radio station." Luckily the last link is from 2015 so it's likely to be helpful. $\endgroup$ – uhoh Sep 14 '18 at 8:00
$\begingroup$ Please, enlighten us with a link to the changes you cite and update us when you learn the current status. Thanks! $\endgroup$ – Brian K1LI Sep 14 '18 at 10:37
$\begingroup$ It's 2nd hand information I received from people in Taiwan years ago. I also remember reading blog posts written by expat Hams living in TW years ago as well. I was just curious if there is an up-to-date source of information in English, so far I haven't found one. I do know that FaceBook is very popular in TW; it's possible that there is a CTARL FB page that's actively maintained. I don't use social media (unless you count SE) so I wouldn't know how to check. $\endgroup$ – uhoh Sep 14 '18 at 10:49
Over the last few years, there have been many changes in Amateur Radio licensing law and practice in Taiwan. One of the major changes is the abolition of the Morse Code proficiency requirement in order to obtain a Second-Class (rough FCC General equivalence) operator license. Another is using FCC pool questions in all relevant sections down to the wording and answer choices literally translated. Not sure whether the questions will be updated when then FCC pool for the license classes are updated.
One may bring in amateur radio equipment provided that accompanying paperwork is completed and is not allowed to be operated until it is inspected and approved at the NCC (National Communications Commission) office. It may not matter anyway to a foreign guest operator, because they cannot use their own equipment.
What has not changed is that Taiwan (including Kinmen, Matsu and Penghu outlying islands) does not share operating authority with any other jurisdiction, period.
Operators licensed in their home jurisdiction may apply for temporary operating authority at a local sponsor station: http://www.ctarl.org.tw/bv5ya/2009-10/VSTR-op.htm
While the link is dated 2009-10, my understanding is that the link is current as of this posting. A list of guest operator permit grants may be found here: http://www.ctarl.org.tw/bv5ya/outnews.htm
What has also not changed is that one must possess a valid Alien Residence Certificate (ARC) or Passport issued by the Republic of China (Taiwan) to apply for an Amateur Radio Operator License and sit for the exam.
The CTARL face book page is limited to news feed of their activities. Current general information remains on their web site. Actually all the information is there, it just may not be presented in the manner you expect.
BM2NHCBM2NHC
$\begingroup$ Yep, it helps, thanks! $\endgroup$ – uhoh Nov 5 '19 at 20:19
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged legal license or ask your own question.
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Amateur Radio for Science Fair
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The Orangutan, the Rocket Man and the Carrot
Virtual Reality is dead, or is it?
Is having a brand based around one face a good idea?
It’s that time again. The temperature has dropped, the Christmas tree is up and our TV screens have been taken over by this year’s round of festivity. Now all the festive adverts have dropped, we take a look at which brand has won Christmas and which might have missed the mark.
Iceland: Most Controversial
Iceland’s festive offering wins the award for ‘Most Controversial’ this year – even though it didn’t even make it on to television. Titled ‘Rang-tan’ and narrated by Emma Thompson, the ad follows an orangutan and the destruction of its forest habitat for palm oil. However, the ad has been banned by advertising regulators after being seen as too political to broadcast, causing a stir on social media. With such a powerful and meaningful message this was one of the only ads that made us stop and think, so even if it didn’t make it onto our screens we think it’s one of the best ads this year.
Holdens score out of 10: 7
John Lewis: Biggest Anti-climax
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNbSgMEZ_Tw
Every year people look forward to seeing the prestigious John Lewis Christmas advert. It’s become so iconic due to the rise of social media that it’s now a notable date in the Christmas calendar. The public look forward to seeing what John Lewis has to offer whether that be a dog on a trampoline, a man on the moon, a bear and a hare or a monster under the bed. This year however they went down a different path by using a national treasure in Elton John. A move which can be considered as a little safe by John Lewis, to use a globally known musician to endorse their brand. To us this feels like a bit of an anti-climax, a safe bet and perhaps even lacking creativity?
Our Social Lead Ryan Gibson gave his insight into the advert. He said:
“It’s like opening a Christmas present from your Aunt. You know what you’re getting, it’s socks, every year it’s socks. They’re warm, cosy, it wouldn’t be Christmas without these socks. Then one year you get a ukulele. You’re a bit surprised when you open it as you were expecting one thing and you get something completely different. The John Lewis advert may not have been what everyone expected, a bit different to the usual ‘classic’.”
Holdens score out of 10: 5.9
Aldi: Best Crossover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69Cg_ez7d1U
The Coca-Cola Christmas adverts are arguably the most recognisable Christmas ads of all time. Aldi very cleverly have taken advantage of this by incorporating their cute Christmas icon ‘Kevin the Carrot’ into a Coca-Cola style advert. The advert depicts Kevin accidentally driving the iconic brightly lit lorry off the edge of a cliff which leads to an Italian Job ‘cliff-hanger’ ending with the hashtag #savekevin. In our opinion this was a funny and clever twist on a classic Christmas advert.
The squeaky voiced Kevin the Carrot did have his haters though. Many people think the advert serves to simply sell the giant cuddly carrot teddy in the middle aisles of their store. To some extent this is true, however, John Lewis did exactly the same thing last year, cashing in on their ‘Moz the Monster’ advert selling fluffy toys, mugs, slippers and PJ’s featuring the lovable monster. John Lewis didn’t seem to receive the amount of backlash as Aldi has, but then again Aldi is primarily a food store, so it seems a bit out of place for them to start selling giant cuddly toys which may have caused more exposure.
KFC: Best Copy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM5wUJUXBAc
Riding on the wave of Red Dead Redemption 2’s success, KFC decided to opt for a visually impressive advert set in a snowy wilderness. The advert depicts a chicken wading through the snow with the recognisable wild west song The Ecstasy of Gold resonating in the background. The ad finishes with a stand-off between the chicken and a turkey. After a long stare down the turkey flutters off and the chicken struts towards the camera and the strapline “turkey comes and goes, but chicken’s here to stay” appears. A personal favourite, we can’t help but appreciate the inspiration from this year’s most talked about game Red Dead Redemption 2, and we love this unique take on a festive ad.
Sainsbury’s: Most Memeable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvXBbsRU83Q
Now some might say the Sainsbury’s Christmas ad is a bit of a rip off of the John Lewis & Partners advert back when they announced their re-brand. But you can’t really go wrong with a bunch of cute kids in a nativity scene. Throw in a flying gravy boat and a boy dressed as a plug who rams himself into a fake socket on the wall and you’ve got a recipe for a great festive ad, and one that’s totally shareable on social media. The supermarket’s advert is a marked improvement on last year’s singalong, although maybe that’s not surprising given that is was directed by The Greatest Showman’s Michael Gracey.
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The life and times of a Holdens intern
Decorex International 2019: Investigating Luxury Interiors
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Entertainment, News and Relationships
Home » Media » What Is Lou Dobbs Salary & Net Worth? He's Among Fox News Richest
What Is Lou Dobbs Salary & Net Worth? He's Among Fox News Richest
Date: 28 Nov, 2019
September 24 ,1945
74 Years 3 Month(s)
Childress County, Texas, United States
Wife/Spouse
Debi Segura (M. 1982)
Ex-Wife
Kathy Wheeler (M. 1867-1981)
Ethnicity/Race
Frank Dobbs
Lydia Mae
Minico High School
Height/ How Tall?
6 Feet and 2 Inches
For American Journalist Lou Dobbs his career in prestigious news networks like CNN and Fox News has gained him tons of popularity but along with that, it has also provided him with a huge salary that adds up to his massive net worth.
The finance guru is a conservative television pundit, business writer, host, author and commentator who is best known for his #1 news program on business television show Lou Dobbs Tonight which airs on Fox Business Network.
Fox News: Lou Dobbs delivers breaking news for the Fox news network (Published on 15 November 2018)
Prior to joining Fox Business Network, he served as the chief economic correspondent, managing editor and executive vice president for CNN. He was also the anchor for CNN's Moneyline which covered financial news and hosted a U.S Radio Network show Lou Dobbs Financial Report.
He is also the author of seven books which includes Space: The Next Business Frontier (2001), Upheaval (2014), Putin's Gambit: A Novel (2017), among others.
See More: CNN Correspondent Jim Sciutto Bio: Age, Wife, Family, Salary, Net Worth
He was listed as one of the top 10 most important radio talk show hosts in America by Talkers Magazine in 2009.
Lou Dobbs Is Harvard University Graduate
Texan native Lou Dobbs was born on 1945 as the son of Frank Dobbs -- the co-owner of propane business and mother Lydia Dobbs, a bookkeeper. Aged 73 in 2018 he celebrates his birthday each year on September 24.
He did his schooling from Minico High School and later graduated from Harvard University with a degree in economics. Before stepping up his foot into journalism he worked in government and banks.
Lou Dobbs Career Progression From CNN To Fox News
He started his career in journalism as the reporter and anchor for various radio news networks including KBLU and KING-TV. Soon in 1979 he was contacted by Ted Turner in CNN's formation year and by 1980 he became the chief economics correspondent and as host of the business news program Moneyline (2001) on CNN.
He later left CNN to start an astronomical news site Space.com but soon returned and anchored the news program Lou Dobbs Tonight. However, in 2009 Dobb’s viewers were left stunned with the news of his resignation from CNN.
His departure was rumored to be because of his clashes with the management team. After CNN, he returned to the radio and hosted his nationally syndicated program for three years--2009 to 2012.
Discover: Fox News’ Abby Huntsman Career Details: Net Worth, Salary And More
Meanwhile, having left CNN in bitter terms, it did not take him long to join a rival TV station. Just after a year leaving CNN, he made his comeback in the newsroom as the anchor for Lou Dobbs Tonight on Fox News Network in 2010.
He was regarded as the Fox News’ high-profile hire as it was launched a little over three years ago.
He is recognized for his work as the recipient of George Foster Peabody Award, Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement (2005) by National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and several more.
What Is Lou Dobbs Salary And Net Worth?
When it comes to Lou's career he has been able to mark himself as a notable journalist in the news industry which has earned him both name, fame and also tons of dollars.
Having worked in the industry for more than 3 decades holding high and prestigious position in America’s top news network like CNN as an executive president, chief news correspondent and landing a job as a news anchor for Fox News network as a high-profile hire, it is of no doubt that he has accumulated a hefty net worth for himself.
Coming to his salary throughout his career in CNN he has been successful to earn a yearly salary of thousands of dollars yearly. And currently, as a Fox news anchor, he is reported to earn a yearly salary of $6 million per annum, putting him on par with reputed broadcasters like Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich.
His net worth also speaks of his huge salary. His net worth as of 2018 is estimated to be $16 million, comfortably placing him in the list of richest journalists now.
Related: Dana Perino Among Richest Fox News Women With Massive Salary & Net Worth
And to top that off, reflecting his massive fortune -- he also owns a 300-acre horse farm and a home worth $1.2 million on Eagle Terrace in the Ibis Golf & Country Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
He does have all the looks of a rich man!
#American Journalist #CNN #Fox News #Lou Dobbs Tonight
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The Zoomorphic Figures of Awadh
Anthropology Mystery Research
There are 14 extraordinary painted clay zoomorphic figures in the Horniman collections which have piqued the curiosity of visitors. Curatorial volunteer Alison South has been researching these figures to find out something about their origins.
The zoomorphic figures
These are 3D artworks, with animals and humans comprised of numerous smaller animals. The fine quality of the figures and their unusual form has been a source of interest, particularly since four of the figures have been put on display in the World Gallery, while two more featured in the recent Lore of the Land exhibition.
The creatures depicted are so diverse there is no obvious link to any particular geographical region.
The 14 models consist of the following 21 figures:
4 humans standing, 3 seated
2 rhinos
2 gazelles
2 monkeys seated
1 donkey
1 owl
1 ostrich
2 goat/goat-like animals
1 cow, 1 calf
1 kangaroo
Whilst paintings of zoomorphic creatures are well-known in Indian art, we have not so far been able to trace any other similar ceramic figures.
Pari holding a unique animal. 19th cent. Rajput style. Bhopal museum, Ismoon via CC license on Wikicommons
How did the Horniman acquire them?
The 14 figures were transferred to the Horniman from the Wellcome Collection in 1982. We wanted to know more about the origins of these figures – where had they been made and how had they come to be in the Wellcome Collection?
As with most of our research projects, we began with our own records: the Horniman’s historical file relating to the transfer from the Wellcome in 1982.
The file also includes copies of the Wellcome’s descriptions and index cards, which pointed us to two sources.
12 figures (Wellcome A19174 / Horniman 1982.126i- xii) came from a sale at Easton Park on 25 June 1919, lot 243.
The two human figures (Wellcome R753/1937 and R754/1937 / Horniman 1982.127i – ii) were bought from a Mr H R Maggs, who lived at 118 Long Acre in Covent Garden, London in 1937.
Although the objects came to the Wellcome from two separate sources, they are so similar that they are considered to have come from the same origin. The figures currently on display at the Horniman all come from the Easton Park source, the remaining figures are in store at our Study Collections Centre.
The Easton Park figures
The next step was to identify Easton Park. Online searches brought us to Easton in Suffolk and their excellent local history website revealed that the Easton Park estate formed part of the Dukes of Hamilton’s holdings. The Hamilton’s were (and are) the most senior peers in Scotland, and Easton was the main base of the 12th Duke of Hamilton.
The 12th Duke with a gun boy, Courtesy of Mr Brian Boon
It was well established that the whole estate, 4,833 acres, was put up for sale in 1919 and a large proportion of the estate was sold at that time. However no sale of artefacts taking place in June 1919 (as referred to in the Wellcome documentation) was known about locally.
Easton Park, Courtesy of Mr Brian Boon
Local historian Mr Brian Boon suggested contacting Dr Godfrey Evans, Principal Curator of European Decorative Arts at the National Museums Scotland, as a researcher of the Dukes of Hamilton, and the Hamilton Palace collection and dispersal. We’re very much indebted to both these individuals for sharing their knowledge on this with us.
Following our enquiry, the archivists in the Wellcome Library helpfully located an uncatalogued sale catalogue in their archives for an auction by Moore Garrard & Son for five days at Easton Park starting on 25 June 1919.
Almost simultaneously, Dr Evans confirmed that this was the sale at which the 12th Duke of Hamilton’s collections were disposed of by the Marchioness of Graham, his daughter and only child. The 12th Duke had died some years previously, aged 50 in 1895.
Lady Mary Graham daughter of 12th Duke, Courtesy of Mr Brian Boon
Lot 243 from the first day of the sale is described as ‘Eleven quaint Russian figures and animals, under glass.’
The annotated copy of the sale catalogue confirms that Lot 243 was purchased by ‘Stow’ for £9, 15sh. Dr Ruth Horry at the Wellcome Collection explained Mr Harry Stow was one of the longest-serving of the Wellcome’s employees and acted as a regular purchasing agent at auctions and sales.
The Wellcome index card for the Easton Park acquisition indicates there were 12 figures rather than 11 and that the origin was thought to be Indian rather than Russian. The glass coverings referred to in the sale catalogue have not survived.
So how did William, 12th Duke of Hamilton come into possession of these 12 exquisite figures? This is where the trail goes cold.
They may have come to him directly from India or from some more circuitous route. He is not thought to have visited India himself though family members and friends may well have. The figures could possibly have been a gift from someone who knew of his interest in amusing, bizarre and exotic representations of animals of which there are many examples within his collections.
The Maggs figures
The next task was to investigate Mr Maggs of Covent Garden. The Wellcome has now digitised their correspondence files so it’s possible to read the exchanges from 1937.
When offering the two figures to the Wellcome, Mr Maggs said, “I feel sure” that the figures were made in Lucknow for the Nawab (or ruler) of Oudh (the anglicised spelling of Awadh) and were in his collection about 100 years ago.
He added that the king was a great lover of wild animals and had a “wonderful collection.” After some correspondence, the price of 8 Guineas was agreed for the purchase.
So, who was Mr Maggs?
Harry Reginald Maggs is listed at the Long Acre address between 1935 and 1939 on the Electoral Register, as is Sarah Lewis Maggs. They are also linked to a property at 50 Great Russell Street, which is probably a business address, located opposite the British Museum.
By 1939, the flat at 118 Long Acre was vacant, and the census confirms Harry and Sarah Maggs were living in Hove. Harry’s occupation is given as General Export Agent and his date of birth as 8 June 1880. Sarah, born on 17 September 1888, was a Master Antique Dealer.
118 Long Acre, Covent Garden, Spudgun67 under CC license via Wikicommons
No details of Sarah’s business activities are known at present, but it’s interesting that she dealt in antiques, which adds to the validity of the explanation of the origin of the figures mentioned in Harry’s letter to the Wellcome. From the Wellcome correspondence files, we know that in 1936 Harry also offered them sets of drug jars and glass bottles from a chemist’s shop which he said were 150 years old, though these were not purchased by the Wellcome. He does not appear to have offered or sold any other objects to the Wellcome, apart from the 2 figures.
We have not been able to find any evidence so far that Harry was involved in trade with India, though this is a possibility, or that the figures were acquired through Sarah’s business dealings.
The King of Awadh Connection
Based on the information in Harry Maggs’ letter, the figurines date from around 1837 and were made in Lucknow for the Nawab of Awadh. There are four rulers of Awadh who ruled within the likely time-frame:
Nasir-ud-Din-Haidar Shah (1827-1837)
Muhammad Ali Shah (1837-1842)
Amjad Ali Shah (1842-1847)
Wajid Ali Shah (1847-1856)
From top left clockwise - Muhammad Ali Shah, Nasir-ud-Din-Haidar Shah, Amjad Ali Shah, Washah Ali Shah., Wikicommons - public domain
King Wajid Ali Shah was the last Nawab of Awadh and a great patron of the arts. He also possessed a large menagerie of animals.
In 1856, his kingdom was annexed by the British and Nawab Wajid Ali Shah eventually settled in Metiabruz, a suburb of Calcutta, following stints under house arrest. His mother and brother came to England in 1856 to plead his case with Queen Victoria. The first great revolt of Indian Independence started in Awadh in 1857 and Lucknow was besieged.
Accordingly, there would seem to be very many routes by which these figurines could have come from Awadh to England - either during or following the annexation by the British.
Can you shed any light on these figures, or have you seen others like them?
Get in touch and tell us.
World Gallery
The Windrush Generation: Norman’s experience
Anthropology Community Windrush Generation
2019 was the first year the UK celebrated Windrush Day as an officially recognised anniversary so we took this opportunity to talk with Caribbean elders and hear their experiences.
Rachael Minott, Horniman’s Curator of Anthropology (Social Practice), with the help of Shasti Lowton, created a series of events where multiple generations of Caribbeans could gather and share food, stories and advice.
Here, Mr Norman Mitchell, shares his experience and thoughts of the Windrush scandal and memories of coming to England in a moving interview by Shashti Lowton.
What are your early memories of life in England?
When the boat came in [to dock] with us at 5 o’clock in the morning, we were meant to come out but unfortunately, the ferry boat that should take us off the HMS Fairsea wanted to charge us.
Men were determined that they were not going to pay no more money, because we had paid the fare to England. When they see that the men refused to pay, we did not come off until 2 o’clock that day.
We landed in Plymouth and then the train took us from Plymouth to London. We had three trains, one to London, one to Bristol and one to Leeds - there was 300 of us that came on that boat. On the train coming up, we never see house have chimneys, so when I saw all these chimneys on these houses, I say ‘oh my gosh, look how many boiling house!’ Boiling house is where we make sugar, that’s the only thing we see chimney with. So I say ‘what a lot of boiling house they have there’.
When I get home that is when I realise that is the house, true they had the fire and they had the chimney to take away the smoke. That was my experience of coming into London.
Mr Norman W Mitchell, Photo by Sarah Duncan
I came in on Sunday night, then on Monday I was to go and sign on, and luckily, a friend that was at the house told me to follow him on Tuesday morning where he works and I got there and I got the job.
So yeah, I came in on Sunday night and then by Tuesday I was working! Unfortunately, we were loading a lorry with brick, six of us out there on the lorry, a brick went cross the lorry and hit one of the Irish men in his head. And all of them said it was my brick, they didn’t know which brick but they all said it was mine, so because of that I was dismissed.
I still went out and tried to get another job, so it was a little difficult at first because there was no hot water in the house, there was no heating and there was no bathroom.
Where did you bathe?
We went to the public bath, every Friday we went to the public bath. Even the small house lav was outside, so you’d have to come out the house sometimes and go round the back. It was quite difficult sometimes but we made it through.
It was again difficult finding room because the English people wouldn’t let the black people no rooms, and the Irish.
They used to put a sign on the door saying ‘rooms for let but no dog, no Irish and no black’.
But in the long run, things change and we get through.
So what day did you arrive in England?
I arrived on a Sunday, 1955.
And how much did you pay for your boat tickets?
In those days? £75. In those days it was a lot of money but it was reasonable.
Where did you grow up and were you like as a child?
I grew up in Jamaica.
I was a very good boy, well for most of my early days. I grew up in church, Sunday school and from Sunday school I make a member of the Pentecostal church.
My days were with church people. I lost my father at age 14, and then I took the responsibility at age 14 to assist my mother in everything that I could to assist her in until I was 27.
What was the best advice you’ve heard?
Well the gentlemen who was at my fathers' age, they used to come to me and say, ‘Boy you surprised me, I didn’t expect you to stand you to your mother as you do, and because of that I love you’ and all the big men became my friend.
And did they help and support you, and give you advice to look after your mother?
Yes, well my father was a farmer so we needed to see about the farming and see that everything gets in place and in order to move on.
So what is the hardest lesson that you had to learn?
I really do not make things bother me, don’t care how it is difficult, I try to make some way through. And I think that is what helps me that I am able to be here today.
We would say, to make the decision, and leaving home to be in England, in place that you no know no one or the land or what it is about. That’s a very big decision and something that you had to think about and over, because you going to somewhere where you don’t know no one. But I succeed.
What is your favourite family tradition?
Tradition? Well, we was in cooperation in unity. And the family tie was quite good and valuable, we used to counsel and have good consultation to try to sort out things when it becomes difficult.
What are your thoughts on the Windrush scandal?
Oh it’s very interesting.
When I understand what was going on with the Windrush people, it makes me feel a bit distressed because when we came here, it was very difficult.
It was hard because of the snow, because of the frost and because of the cold. We didn’t come from a cold country, so to make it was quite difficult. As I said to my friend, ‘Did you know, God give us a new body?’ Because a lot of us do not think of it; because when we think of it we have sun, ninety-five degrees, seventy-five, eighty degrees, we came here, zero!
It was a great change. The first time I saw the snow falling I didn’t know what it was and I was like, ‘A what dis falling down?’ The foreman that I was working with he called us together and he asked us do we want to go home. And I was so glad because I wanted to go home! Because I don’t know what dis… but it was when I get home that I realised what it was, it was snow! But it did stop.
I get to understand the movements was in those days very difficult. For some of us, nine men used to be in one room. Sometimes they had three beds with one wardrobe or just a bed. You had to put your case underneath bed.
Those were difficult days but we didn’t let those things bother us or trouble us. Well time long gone, thank God. Until today we are enjoying it.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with us that you’d like to say?
We had a lot of Windrush meetings that have been organised and going on, but one of the things that I would really love to see, is the people were deported, that they bring them back.
Because they struggled in the early years through the snow, rain and cold.
When they should be enjoying a fair life, they were put on a plane and sent back to the West Indies without relatives, without a place to live - that is most difficult and I really think about that and I wish that they could consider it.
Some people have their houses here, they left their house, they lost their house, their pension and all what they worked for. It’s sad.
Yes, yes, I trust that something better could be done for them.
The Windrush Generation: Stories, memories, food and advice
The Windrush Generation: Memories of Family
The Windrush Generation: Reflections on Food
The Windrush Generation: Teaching the Other Generations
The Windrush Generation: The Journey through to Life
The Windrush Generations: Experiences of passing
Gods of the Sun
Anthropology World Gallery
We’re taking a look at stories of some of the sun gods that feature in our collections.
Surya and Hinduism
In Hinduism, Surya is known as the solar deity and is often represented in iconography as a person riding a chariot of seven horses. This represents seven colours of light and seven days of the week. Surya was one of five deities worshipped throughout India and is ranked highly in the Vedas - a large body of religious texts - which date back to 1500 BC.
Surya is recognised in the Gayatri Mantra: one of the most powerful mantras in Hindu religion. The chant is said to create a powerful energy upon the users mind and body.
There are many stories of Surya, as he also features in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, but in Rig Veda text - an ancient collection of Indian Sanskrit hymns - Surya is believed to be created by Lord Bhrama with the sound in the universe, Om and the intelligence of Vishnu.
Have you heard of salutation to the sun (surya namaskar) or sun salutations? It’s a fundamental move in the practise of yoga.
The movements are said to be of Hanuman facing Surya as the chariot travelled across the sky, showing his gratitude for the lessons he learned, honouring Surya as the source of energy and light for the world.
Shield possibly of Surya, Horniman Museum and Gardens
Ra and the Egyptians
In Egyptian mythology, Ra was worshipped as the god of the Sun and all creation, and even the king of the gods. He came in many forms, including a ram, a hawk-headed man and a scarab. In the IV dynasty, pharaohs were seen as the ‘sons of Ra’ and by the V dynasty, he was worshipped state wide, and temples and pyramids were built in his honour.
Ra is said to be a creator of all life in varying accounts. Some texts say that Ra created people from his sweat and tears, and he is also said to have brought everything into existence by uttering secret names.
Ra’s role as a creation god is strengthened by his story of renewal. It is said that Ra sailed across the skies during the day on a boat called ‘Barque of Millions of Years’. He then emerged in the east on a boat named ‘Madjet’ or ‘becoming strong’, which was called ‘Semektet’, or ‘becoming weak’ by the end of the day. Ra died by being swallowed by Nut - the goddess of the sky - and sailed in the underworld leaving the moon to light up the Earth. So, Ra is reborn at the beginning of each day and swallowed by Nut.
Scarab charm, Horniman Museum and Gardens
Amaterasu and Japan
In Japanese Shinto mythology, Amaterasu, meaning shining in heaven, is the goddess of the sun. With her brother Susano’o, the god of storms, they painted the landscape to create ancient Japan.
There are tales of rivalry between the siblings, which vary to some degree. Amaterasu proposed a challenge to Susano’o, to create people from an object belonging to the other. Amaterasu created three women from his sword and Susano’o made five men from her necklace. As these men were made from her necklace, Amaterasu said they were all created from her and in anger, Susano’o destroyed her rice fields and one of her assistants.
Because of this Amaterasu went into hiding in a cave, hiding the sun for a long time, which caused devils to come out of the darkness.
The god of happiness, Ama-no-Uzume, danced outside the cave, tearing her clothes off in front of the spirits (Kami) to make them laugh. Upon hearing the gods laugh, Amaterasu looked out of the cave to see a reflection of her light in a mirror that Ama-no-Uzume had put on a tree. Once out of the cave the door was closed behind Amaterasu, so she could not go back in, bathing light across Japan once more.
Amaterasu then remained with the gods whilst Susano’o was banished from heaven as punishment.
Item: nn1202, Embroidered panel, Horniman Museum and Gardens
2019 is the first year that the nation celebrated Windrush day as an officially recognised anniversary, so we spoke with Caribbean elders and heard their experiences.
Here, the group shares challenges in the education system, career successes and aspirations, through letters to their parents.
Morella Forde
Mum tells us how fortunate we are, she was born during wartime and had little schooling. She always looks up at us when she needs to write her letters or complete forms.
She tells us stories of her childhood days, sometimes not attending school and having very little to eat as it was difficult in the war.
I must say I am grateful for what I have achieved in my education here. I believe the education system in the Caribbean overall is much better than here. All of my friends who went to school with me always talk about how we were left behind when we came to school here.
We had already learnt all the subjects which was being taught according to our ages in the class. However, when you get older to 18 years on, you do need to leave Dominica and seek to travel to another country to study at university level as Dominica doesn’t have a university.
Catherine Ross
Mum and Dad - Your courage and persistence helped you succeed in creating a home for your family, providing for your growing family needs and inspiring your family and others to reach for the stars and follow their dreams.
What you will be delighted to know is the little clan you have created did just that.
The name Ross is now associated with entrepreneurial activity and a range of business ventures - children’s nurseries and playschools, fashion and beauty salons, art and culture, and catering.
All these businesses have the same ethos as the one you created in your early days in England, bringing people together and helping them to survive, thrive and navigate their way around English society.
Your house parties were legendary; people still talk about them today. Many people say they don’t know how they would have coped in the early days of settling into the country if you hadn’t generously opened your home and hearts to them.
Shebeens and Blues Parties developed from house parties, but Caribbeans needed these spaces where they could escape the racism of those days.
Rachael Minott
Mum and Dad - Despite your knowledge and experience you had to start over with work here, because no one trusted what you knew.
You went from managers to receptionist, sat through interviews for jobs - which no longer existed - just to be tested.
You conducted yourselves in the constant pursuit of excellence and told us that it did not matter what we chose to do, but that we were the best we could be in that role.
You encouraged excellence and we too pursue excellence until this day. However, it means I expect excellence in return. Sometimes it means I am disappointed, by the world, the people I interact with and in myself.
Dunstan Creavalle
Pops - It's been nine years since you passed but not a day goes by without us celebrating your love of photography.
With me on my Samsung 8 plus and Vanes on her IPhone 8, we continue capturing magical memories and to make our own mark documenting history.
Your journey meant you were known throughout London (especially east London), as Andy the Photographer who did weddings, christenings, passports and many other celebrations.
Dustan Creavalle
I am pleased that you got to see the start of my Photography Journey, with Soca News, then the City of London Black Police Association, which led to my connection with the 100 Black Men of London, and becoming their Official Photographer in 2002.
I know you will be pleased to hear that Vanes is continuing photography for 100 Black Men of London and taking things even further by creating videos that highlight the work we do.
In fact, last week she was representing at Caesars Palace Las Vegas!
I know as a boxing fan, that's one place you would have loved to capture Muhammed Ali.
2019 will be the first year that the nation celebrates Windrush day as an officially recognised anniversary, so we took this opportunity to talk with Caribbean elders and hear their experiences.
Here, the group discussed what they wish they could teach the generations.
Vanes Creavalle
I think maybe the power of accepting change.
Because it’s really hard to accept change, especially when you’ve seen a lot and experienced a lot of things, and I feel like you need to be more accepting of change in that there are different people.
We have a really multicultural society but we seem very sheltered and isolated within our communities, which in some cases is good cos its nice we can develop our cultures and traditions, but in other senses, it's limiting what we can do.
Like saying, because I’m Caribbean I’m only going to have with Caribbean people, it stops us from making a much greater impact.
I think to have the diversity in that, telling your story to Caribbean people, but telling your story to others is important because there can be a mutual understanding. And I feel like until we have that understanding we are not really going to go anywhere.
Because you can always say, 'this is my story, this is my story'. And you can tell your family that story, but apart from that, where is your story going?
I don't think there is any further conversation.
Howard, Vanes and Catherine laughing together
So I think there needs to be more acceptance of change, as well as more conversations with not just your family, or the people in your race, or people you talk to normally - but more open conversation with everybody so we can come together and share what we have.
And then when we share we can create something much better in the future.
My granddaughter is eight going on eighty - she knows everything.
She’ll come up to me and say - cause she thinks I know nothing, I’m only her Grandma - she’ll say, 'I bet you don't know' or 'Did you know?' And I’m like, I’ve been here sixty-odd years, I think I will know a few things!
But you have to put on these things and be like, 'Really? And what happens next...' cause I’m pushing her with follow questions to see how much she does know, so then I can give my input.
She always feels like she has to teach me when I come visit, something she feels I won’t know. And I feel like that is really, really good.
But there are things that she does know that I’m sure I didn’t know until I was fifteen! You know what I mean, so I think the younger generation know a lot more than we ever did, and I certainly knew more than my dad.
But only because they came from the Caribbean to here, and you know I grew up here, so I felt I knew everything and now my granddaughter is doing it to me, she knows more than I do.
I think it’s nice each generation can help the next.
Howard Richards
That's the goal though, you raise a child, the child learns you, then they go out and learn the world - and then they come back and teach you. Simple.
So the child becomes stronger.
Here, the group shares some of their thoughts and memories connected to family.
Mum and Dad - Did you think when you settled your family of six in Nottingham from St Kitts all those years ago that one day you would have 210 descendants!
That through a series of marriages and romantic liaisons they would all claim and assert their familial link to you both with such fierce pride and love.
Many of these have Caribbean blood running through their veins and not just from St Kitts! In some of them, the blood of the English and the Irish have a presence and a vibrancy, but all of them have your indomitable spirit, that marvellous trait that brought you from sunny shores to a place that couldn’t be more different.
Where your courage and persistence helped you succeed in creating a home for your family, providing for your growing family needs and inspiring your family and others to reach for the stars and follow their dreams.
Many a time I recalled a phrase you used when it was taking one of us a time to grasp things you were trying to teach us, “Yuh ears hard?”
That’s what I remember, Mum and Dad, the many Caribbean sayings you used in so many situations – from teaching us good manners to expressing your delight or annoyance over matters.
One thing all my siblings and I say when we get together for family reunions, is how much we are like you both in this regard. We hear ourselves chiding our children in the phrases we were regularly admonished with. We laugh and thank the Lord for you, the best parents ever.
Have we become more like you since your passing over a quarter of a century ago? We all say we hope so, and if we keep trying to be then the world will be a better place, how could it not be if we put our faith into practice and we try and help others less fortunate in whatever situation and community we find ourselves.
We now realise, as you said, the best gift we will ever be given is family, they are a blessing and so we should treat them well and kindly because “You never miss the water till the well runs dry”.
If we had realised the importance of this saying of yours then we would have asked more questions of you: learned more life lessons from you and would have had even more of your wisdom to share with others - the world would have been an even more beautiful place.
We thank you for what you have shared with us and many others do too.
As people of the Windrush generation, you brought hope to these British shores, showed what rewards courage can bring and left a vibrant legacy, a beacon for all who inhabit the British Isles to be grateful for those who came from the Caribbean Isles.
I applaud you for your efforts, I recognise you for your achievements and I love you for showing us that it’s the people who make a difference to life. Thank you.
My Grandad. He was a photographer and the idea that he was capturing moments in history - I think it’s just really amazing to capture single moments. I think that's really beautiful.
As they say, pictures can tell a thousand words, so capturing moments in history, family moments and peoples smile even - I just think it’s so beautiful to take pictures.
In our house there is actually a picture of my granddad taking a picture and, as my dad always says, there are not many pictures of the people who take pictures.
I think that kind of capturing someone in their element doing something that they love, I think that's really powerful - that's always inspired me.
Howard talking to Vanes
The best childhood memory I’ve got is my grandmother.
My mother and father came to England, leaving me in Jamaica. I was born in St Andrews in my father’s house where I was left with my Hanti.
My grandmother lived in Trewlany, which is on the north coast, St Andrews is in Kingston, in fact. My grandmother came from Trewlany and took us from my Hanti and brought us to Trewlany to live with her.
We walked with no shoes on the foot: beautiful. We walked through cane trees: beautiful.
I used to think about coming to England. I’m going to go to England one day and see my mother and father. But when I left Jamaica to come here I cry for all three, four weeks, because I missed my grandmother.
2019 will be the first year that the nation celebrates Windrush day as an officially recognised anniversary so we took this opportunity to talk with Caribbean elders and hear their experiences.
Together, the group planned a meal and shared some reflections about food.
The group shared memories of food and drink. Clockwise from top left: Normal and Dunstan, the group eating, Catherine and Lyn, Shasti and Morella.
Mum goes to church on Sundays but as teenagers we were left to make our own choices so sometimes we too went to church.
When we came back home we had to help her in the kitchen to prepare the Sunday meals of our stewed red beans, rice, ground provisions like yams, sweet potatoes, macaroni cheese, etc, not forgetting our green bananas with fried fish and stewed chicken.
On Saturdays mum still cooks our national dish of broth, and we have conversations of Dominica and England as mum tells us stories when she first came to England, and the problems she had with the racism in finding a place to live and work.
She believed she could come to England to get some money and go back to build and improve her lifestyle, and instead she was in a worse position.
She rented one room - sharing with other people - and money was to the minimum.
Dad would have his friends round to play dominoes and have their rum or whiskey drinks, as they played just like in Dominica. The men have not lost playing dominoes tradition after dinner.
Dinner time was always a time we made to give jokes and stories - remembering the Anansi stories which were always so funny. We played calypso and soca music, and danced.
It’s lovely that we kept these traditions because it reminded me so much of my homeland and these memories are precious to me.
My grandmother’s cooking was beyond my comprehension, beyond anyone’s comprehension.
She could twiss up hot chocolate, anything she touched her hands on, it was something out of the world!
Lynda Louise Burrell
Whenever I smell Dettol, I remember Grandma. It transports me back in time to Grandma’s house - clean, and comforting, and a range of childhood memories tumble over each other.
Caribbean spiced bun and cheese, stewed chicken, Guinness punch, and ackee and salt fish, the smells that make up the quintessential Caribbean Home.
Something that Grandma instilled in me early was that you should always have food on the stove, as you never know when someone may stop by and a good Caribbean must always be able to offer visitors something to eat.
Well, my modern busy lifestyle doesn’t always allow me to follow this social etiquette, but again who would have thought in those days that one day society would have a system for cooked food to be delivered from a restaurant to your home with just a phone call, within minutes, and some of the suppliers can deliver drink too!
So, within minutes of the arrival of guests, and some great welcome and engaging conversation, you could be wining and dining - and as the Caribbean saying goes, “telling jokes!”
That’s what I miss most - not just Grandmas' good advice, advice for all seasons and reasons, but her laughter and the jokes we shared.
The menu for the day
Rachael Minott, Horniman’s Curator of Anthropology (Social Practice), wanted to use the World Gallery at the Horniman as a tool to better appeal to the people of Forest Hill, as 24.5% of Forest Hill population is of Caribbean descent.
Rachael, with the help of Shasti Lowton, created a series of events where multiple generations could gather and share food, stories and advice. These events would allow a discussion of the Windrush generation’s impact within families.
Who are the Windrush generation?
On 22 June 1948, the HMT Empire Windrush, arrived at Tilbury Docks, Essex, having sailed from Kinston, Jamaica.
Among its passengers were 492 people from the Caribbean who arrived, as all colonials were, British subjects of the Empire, with the same rights of movement and settlement as all who lived in Britain.
HMT Empire Windrush, at sea between 1945 and 1954. , Royal Navy Official Photographer, Imperial War Museum via wikicommons
This date is now regarded as the symbolic starting point of a wave of Caribbean migration, with those who migrated between 1948 and 1971 referred to as the Windrush generation.
As a part of the post-war relief effort, these people helped to build the NHS, staffed the transport systems and worked in the industrial heart of the UK.
Music, food, language, fashion and art have all been transformed by Caribbean cultural influence, and fundamental human rights were championed by this community, among others, as they fought for equality.
This generation of migrants were pioneers, changing a cultural landscape and facing challenges of ignorance and prejudice. Their legacy can be felt across the world, but it is within the intimate connections of communities, within families and between friends, that their legacy touches our hearts.
What is the Windrush scandal?
On 18 June 2018, the government announced that a National Windrush Day will take place on 22 June every year to celebrate the contribution of the Windrush generation and their descendants.
However, 2018 also saw what has become known as the ‘Windrush Scandal’ where it emerged that for years this generation has faced deportation, withdrawal of care, and evictions due to failures by the Home Office to keep records of their legal status.
The Immigration Act of 1971 firmly established a distinction among British subjects concerning rights to enter and stay in the UK, but it preserved certain immigration rights of Commonwealth citizens who had already settled.
A decade later, the British Nationality Act 1981 established what is now known as British citizenship. However, at this moment many Commonwealth citizens ceased to be British subjects, but did not become British citizens.
Changes to Immigration law in 2012, required people to have documentation to work, rent a property or access benefits, including healthcare. The Immigration Acts of 2014 and 2016 imposed compulsory immigration checks for access to these services.
Residents were expected to hold expensive biometric residence cards introduced in 2008 with formerly accepted documents deemed invalid proof of status.
This led to a number of people from the Windrush generation being wrongful classified as illegal immigrants. They were unable to use the Home Office database to prove their right to remain, as the government had destroyed all the landing cards in their care in 2009.
Windrush Scandal protest � from Parliament Square to the Home Office. London, Steve Eason via Flickr CC BY 2.0
What was the result?
Nationwide protests, speeches in parliament and a swell of public support saw a change in Home Secretary, an apology from Theresa May and a commitment to support and compensate those who have been affected.
Since then, the Home Office has admitted that of the 164 people who were known to be wrongly detained or removed from the country, at least 19 died before officials were able to contact them to apologise; another 27 have not been traced.
Windrush Day must not be separated from the Windrush scandal that highlights the mass injustices still faced by this generation of Caribbean migrants.
The influence of this group on Britain and British identity has been staggering and we owe them so much.
This Windrush Day we will celebrate their contribution to our country, through sharing some of their thoughts and memories as well as pictures from these gatherings, so watch this space.
Online Collections - Objects from the Caribbean
Easter around the world
It’s Easter, filled with bunnies, egg-hunts and springtime treats, so we thought we would explore what Easter means to cultures around the world, through objects from the Horniman’s collections.
Polish Easter Eggs and decoration
In Poland, Easter is celebrated according to the Western Roman Catholic calendar. On the week before Easter, Palm Sunday (niedziela palmowa) takes place. Bunches of dried flowers and branches are brought to church representing palm leaves (said to have been scattered in front of Christ as he rode into Jerusalem) because palm trees are rare in Poland. The Holy week proceeds with spring-cleaning and families will decorate their homes in representations of Jesus’ tomb.
On the Saturday before Easter, the tradition of egg decorating, pisanki takes place, a tradition that’s more than a thousand years old. One technique to decorate the eggs is to apply wax, which would then be removed after dying. Another tradition is to make Easter baskets, these contain foods such as eggs, ham and cake.
Easter Sunday consists of attending church for many to see the resurrection mass ceremony, before the meal and sharing of Easter chocolate. On the final festive day of Easter, known as Śmigus-Dyngus (Wet Monday), boys have traditionally thrown water over girls and hit them with willow branches. Girls traditionally returned the favour the following day.
Decorated egg, 'pisanki' , Horniman Museum and Gardens
Dough lamb with flag, 2016.111, Horniman Museum and Gardens
Paper Easter chandelier, straw spider, 13.6.56/4, Horniman Museum and Gardens
Paper Easter chandelier, 'straw spider', is a festival decoration made of straw and pieces of coloured paper. Decorations of this type were made during the Easter and Christmas periods and suspended under the ceiling beam. When spun by the wind, the decorations were a great attraction for children.
Easter in Russia
Did you know that Easter in Russia can fall in either April or May? This is because the dates are based on the Julian calendar, which differs from the Georgian calendar that most Western countries use.
All chores should be done the week before Easter, in the Holy Week. In Russia, Easter is called Pashka (Пасха) - one theory is that this derives from Greek for ‘I suffer’, signifying the transition Jesus made to from death to eternity.
As in Poland, Russia also has the tradition of decorating eggs, but this is done on ‘Clean Thursday’. Traditionally these are painted red using red onion skins and represent resurrection and new life.
Lithograph of Easter customs, nn17390, Horniman Museum and Gardens
The Easter witches of Sweden
In Sweden, children dress as påskgumma, the Easter witch or hag, and as with Halloween and trick-or-treat, the children knock on doors in exchange for sweets and drawings with Easter greetings on them.
In Swedish folklore, witches would travel to Blåkulla to dance with the devil on the Thursday before Easter, Maundy Thursday, and to prevent witches from starting journey people would hide broomsticks and set fires to scare them off.
Easter witch, 31.10.60/3, Horniman Museum and Gardens
The Semana Santa and Pascua – Easter in Mexico
In Mexico, Easter is celebrated across two weeks: the Holy Week, Semana Santa, and Semana de Pascua, Easter week.
Processions and festivities take place on Semana Santa, and these activities change depending on the regions throughout Mexico.
It begins on Palm Sunday with the Blessing of the Palms, but really gets underway in earnest on Maundy Thursday, when there may be a re-enactment of the last supper, alongside services.
Church bells are usually silenced for the three days of Easter and people are called to church services by the use of a large wooden clapper also called a Matraca. Good Friday is marked in many towns and villages by the performance of a Passion Play, but it is Easter Saturday that most children look forward to.
On Easter Saturday large paper figures of Judas are stuffed with fireworks and paraded through the town, before exploding. The noise is added to by the spectators with Matracas. Easter Sunday is the highlight of the week when church attendance is high, and there are noisy celebrations in front of the church.
Semana de Pascua begins in the second week of Easter. This week has a light tone and celebrates the beginnings of Spring. Many Mexican families travel to the coast to pay tribute and enjoy the festivities.
Painted tin toy bird, known as a matraca, HC.1999.1386, Horniman Museum and Gardens
This painted tin toy bird, known as a matraca, or Easter rattle, painted black and pink with fake fur neck. Makes noise when rotated. Matracas are part of Easter Sunday celebrations in Mexico when paper figures of Judas are burnt, accompanied by fireworks and the noisy whirring of the matracas.
Australia and the Easter bilby
In Australia, Easter has the same traditions as many Western countries like hot cross buns and the extravagant roast dinner but did you know that the Easter bunny is represented by the Easter Bilby?
The Bilby (Macrotis lagotis), a small rodent-type animal, is used by many to raise awareness for the endangered animal.
Rabbits are seen as unlucky as they devastated the crops for farmers and are not indigenous to Australia.
Bilby, Sadaka
Why not come and celebrate Easter at the Horniman? There are lots of events and activities happening throughout spring.
Join us in the Horniman fun for the Easter Fair on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 April and identify the morning songs of birds in Dawn Chorus Walk on Saturday 4 May.
Horniman Easter Fair
Dawn Chorus Walk
Horniman’s 5 Women Artists
Anthropology Exhibitions Art World Gallery
When people have been asked to name five female artists (beyond perhaps Frida Kahlo) they struggle. Magnificent and talented as they are, there’s a wealth of female artists out there. At the Horniman, we have exhibited works by Lynette Nampijimpa Granites Nelson, Buffy Cordero-Suina and Olive Blackham to name a few.
So this year we have decided to take part in the challenge National Museum of Women in the Arts set again, and highlight female artists. We’re even giving you a sneak peek about who will be exhibiting later this year towards the end of this post.
, Shauna Richardson
Shauna Richardson developed a sewing technique called Crotchetdermy®. Crotchetdermy® creates a skin like visual by using the interlocking of looped stitches formed with a single thread and hooked needle. Her exhibition EVOLUTION of The Artist and The Exhibited Works compliments the taxidermy and narrative of evolution from the Natural History Gallery.
“Crochetdermy® is a combination of all sorts of things. I guess it’s a mash-up of me and my life. There are childhood pastimes such as museum visits and making things, and the adult interest in art theory, particularly in what constitutes art and perhaps more interestingly, what does not. Constant throughout there is rebellion, humour and pure devilment” – Shauna Richardson.
Bear Crochetdermy sculpture, Shauna Richardson
Serena Korda
Serena Korda , Chris Egon Searle
Have you seen or smelt the scented ceramics in our new arts space, The Studio?
English artist Serena Korda created them as part of her work with The Collective, a group of 10 people from the local community. Korda creates large-scale ensemble performances, soundscapes and sculptures that reflect communion and tradition and aspects of our lives.
This element feeds into The Lore of The Land exhibition, which asks us to think about our relationship to our natural environment. The exhibition features 100 objects from our anthropology collection, scented sculptures and a soundscape influenced by the chemical process that arises in trees and plants. You can visit The Lore of the Land until 2 June 2019.
The Lore of The Land
Alafuro Sikoki-Coleman
Woyingi design piece by Alafuro Sikoki-Coleman, Studio Sikoki , Jatin Garg
Alafuro Sikoki-Coleman is an artist and industrial designer whose work explores the dynamics between the object, user, and the environment.
Her piece in the World Gallery represents Woyingi. In Ljaw law, Woyingi is the goddess of all creation. Although many Ljaw people are now Christian, people still refer to God as Woyongi or Nana Owei.
Her beautiful pieces can be seen in the African encounter in the World Gallery.
Vuya Raratabu
In Fiji, Barkcloth, called tapa or masi, is a sacred material made from beaten mulberry bark. Traditionally, barkcloth is central to celebrations and milestones in family life.
In the World Gallery, two examples of this can be seen. The dresses designed by Vuya Raratabu, were made to celebrate the 1st and 21st birthday of Shelley Marie Kaurasi. Traditionally these dresses only come in variants of brown and black, made with natural materials such as clay, dye and soot, which are representative of the land.
Across Polynesia, people share a similar understanding of mana as power, effectiveness and prestige of divine origin. In Fiji, mana is often associated with chiefs and healers. Mana also exists within objects. The chiefly regalia and barkcloth material you can see here reveal different ideas and experiences of mana.
Item 2017.85, dress by Vuya Raratabu
Claire Morgan, David Holbrook
Claire Morgan is a UK artist, with a deep interest in humans and animals. Much of her work features taxidermy, creating tangible elements to something that would be lost.
“I am interested in humans as animals. What we have been, what we are, and what we could be or might be, as our way of living changes.” Claire Morgan
Morgan is in the process of creating special artworks that will connect to the Natural History Gallery. Watch this space for more news on Claire, as her pieces will be coming later next year.
Below are some of her preparatory sketches.
As I Live and Breathe 2019 37 x 28.2cm (h x w) Pencil and watercolour on paper Photo: Claire Morgan Studio, Claire Morgan Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, Paris, St. Moritz
By the Skin of the Teeth 2019 67 x 101.8cm (h x w) Pencil, watercolour, graphite, pastel on paper Photo: Claire Morgan Studio Claire Morgan Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, Paris, St. Moritz
And one more…
Katie Schwab, Sarah Packer
We also recently announced a new partnership with Artist Katie Schwab who will co-produce a brand new artwork with a new Collective accompanied with a programme of events.
Share your stories of women artists using the hashtag #5WomenArtists on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
EVOLUTION of The Artist and The Exhibited Works
from 29 Sep 2018
until 31 Mar 2019
from 20 Oct 2018
until 02 Jun 2019
The 2018 Studio Collective
Artist Katie Schwab joins new Collective to co-produce Horniman’s 2019 Studio exhibition
The Horniman Public Museum and Public Park Trust
London SE23 3PQ
THE HORNIMAN
Animal Walk
Hands on Base
Natural History Gallery
Nature Base
Tea Trail London
Company Registration Number: 02456393 - Charity Registration Number: 802725 - Charity registered in England and Wales
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Find Hotels in Perth
Perth Hotels & Accommodation
The most remote of all the nation's major cities, Perth upholds a uniquely independent spirit: subversively and vibrantly cultural, while still possessing that quintessential Australian spirit of sun, sand and surf.
Perth accommodation is on hand to put you right in the midst of the action, wherever you want to stay. Choose from cheap Perth hotels to position yourself close to the CBD or the sun-drenched fun of the beach.
And there's plenty of reason to book yourself a long visit at a Perth hotel, with so much to see and do, whether tapping into the eclectic local scene of shops, restaurants and night-life or soaking up the sun at one of the many fantastic ocean beaches.
Why not check out the hip selection of Northbridge bars and eateries or head to Leederville if you're in the mood for some boutique shopping. Visit magnificent Kings Park, to explore the beautiful landscaped gardens and uncover its significant Aboriginal heritage.
Or you could take a cruise on the river to enjoy the shimmering beauty of the city on your way to the Swan Valley. Here, you can take the time to savour the good life, whether sampling the wares of a boutique, family-owned winery or bushwalking through a gorgeous national park.
Meanwhile, be sure to take a train to Fremantle to enjoy the funky energy and gorgeous heritage of this bustling port suburb. While you're there, Rottnest Island, with its breathtaking natural beauty, is not far away. Explore this island paradise on bike, snorkel amongst the tropical fish and coral, or delve into its rich history.
Perth's ocean beaches offer plenty to choose from, whether you're looking for awesome waves or more family-friendly waters. With gorgeous sands and its holiday-village vibe, Cottesloe is one of the best and it's barely 15 minutes from the city centre.
And if you're interested in exploring beyond the city, hire a car and head south to visit the gorgeous Margaret River region or north for a spectacular journey along Western Australia's Coral Coast.
With such a breadth of amazing experiences on offer, Perth is an incredible holiday destination year-round. Come on over and enjoy!
Where to Stay in Perth
Areas and Suburbs in Perth
Alexander Heights
East Perth
Lesmurdie
Mindarie
Mt Nasura
North Perth
Perth - CBD
Perth Airport / Redcliffe
Seville Grove
South Perth
Sunset Coast
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Breakfast in Kathmandu and Bardia.
Deluxe hotel accommodation in Kathmandu on B/B basis and Bardia.
Bardia Tour is always a good idea for your vacation in Nepal because it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller. Bardia National Park Tour, a popular package from Tour in Nepal takes you to Bardiya National Park, a paradise for zoologists and wildlife spectators. There are countless species of wild deer like the hog deer, barking deer, sambar and the spotted deer. Other species include the sloth bears, civets, grey langurs, striped hyenas, rhesus macaques, four-horned antelopes, and leopards. There are also Royal Bengal tigers and one-horned rhinoceros, but they are considered a rare sighting. The Karnali, Geruwa and Babai Rivers passing through the protected zone are also a home to the gharials, marsh mugger crocodiles and Gangetic dolphins. For bird watchers, there is the Bengal florican, Silver-eared mesia and the blue sarus, and much more to keep the eyes busy throughout the tour. Altogether there is estimated to be more than 250 types of birds and across 30 types of animals freely running across the national park.
To explore all that the Bardiya national park has, there are options to explore the park riding an elephant through the park or going on a jeep safari through the jungle, swamps, and bogs. Many visitors love to camouflage themselves with nature by going on an elephant safari to enjoy the wilderness. There are boating and canoeing available to suit your choice of doing safari through the water. There are also view towers at the best locations to find the wild with their guards let down. The guides will provide you with detailed information on the habitats of the plants and animals around the national park. You can also enjoy a calm nature walk along a safe path across the jungle and enjoy a cultural performance in the evening by the ethnic group of Tharu people during Bardia Wildlife and Safari Tour.
The similar experience can be taken during Chitwan Jungle Safari Tour. Himalayan Monk Travels & Treks is glad to operate Bardia Wildlife Tour and other Tour in Nepal for you to make it your life experience.
Transportation, including flight, as per the itinerary
Welcome and farewell dinner
3 nights in Bardia hotel
Bardia jungle safari tour
National park fees (TIMS)
Day 2: Flight from Kathmandu to Nepalgunj and 2 hours drive to Bardiya.
Day 3: Elephant safari and jungle walk.
Day 4: Tiger tracking and bird watching.
Day 5: River dolphin view
Day 6: Return to Kathmandu via Nepalgunj, Transfer to Int'l airport for see off.
You will stay in a three-star hotel in Kathmandu as per B/B. The rooms are clean, spacious and simple with a comfortable bed along with attached bathrooms. The rooms are usually double bedrooms, but it can be supplemented with single bedrooms. There is range of hotels, lodges, and resorts available around the Bardia National Park area. The rooms here are also complete along with a working desk and an attached private bathroom. You can choose to stay at your desired location or Himalayan monk team will suggest and assist you to find one to your liking. Bardia national park is not much a tourist spot when compared to Chitwan national park, but you will get the taste of a real wildlife staying amidst the jungles.
Meals in Kathmandu and Bardia include only breakfast. You are free to choose where to eat and what to eat in the city. While you are around the national park, you will find plenty of places to fill your stomach. Food is not much to worry about as you will find every type of cuisine, form authentic Nepali to international (continental, Italian, Tibetan, Indian, etc), outside the safari zone. Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be on the basis of B/B in Kathmandu and Bardia hotels. Also, while you are in the national park area it is suggested to carry a light snack in case you want to munch on something while watching the wildlife.
Bardia National park area is open all year round with most of the wildlife encountered through the jungle. Summers are very hot in Bardia with the need to frequently keep your body hydrated, whereas, winters are warm but very hazy and difficult to spot animals at a distance. So, you need to prepare as per the season you are visiting. However, it is best to visit after the end of winter and start of summer, i.e. between February to July as other rare animals such as the tigers come out of their homes during these seasons. It is also a good time of the year to travel through the park as it is neither very hot nor cold.
A Himalayan monk representative will pick you up at the Tribhuwan International airport in Kathmandu and transfer you to a hotel on B/B basis. After some refreshment in the hotel, you can visit our office to discuss our tour and trekking, the required items and equipment. We also have an opening welcome dinner and you can further inquire about the trip.
Day 2: Kathmandu to Bardia National Park via Nepalgunj.
You take a flight from Kathmandu to the plains of Nepalgunj which is located towards the west of Nepal. Drive from Nepalgunj for about 2 hours to reach Bardiya National Park covering an area of 374 sq. mile. We will have the vehicles ready when you get there. We first lodge in a hotel or resort for refreshment, and then take a tour of the nearby ethnic village of the Tharu indigenous group of people.
Day 3: Elephant ride and jungle walk
After having breakfast, we go on a forest safari on the back of an elephant. We also visit the crocodile breeding center and then explore the Tharu cultural museum. We have our lunch and take a slow walk in the jungle to see more wild animals and birds. The Bardiya national park is more a raw safari in the jungle, so we suggest you follow our guide for directions and do not walk astray without notice of the guide, for your own safety. Later you can explore more of the Tharu culture and lifestyle in the villages. Stay the night in the lodge.
Day 4: Tiger tracking and bird watching
We follow the guide to track the tiger and then watch birds from the viewpoints in the forest. We have a better chance of spotting a Royal Bengal Tiger in Bardia in the right season than in Chitwan national park. After having lunch, we ride the park jeep and spot more species of mammals in the park area. We can spot many birds and animals with a guide, as they are well known of the habitats of the animals in the forest. We stay the night in the same lodge.
Day 5: River dolphin viewing
We drive to the Karnali river and look for Dolphins. The river is fresh and wide enough, with the well-paced flow of water, suitable habitat for many types of fishes including the Gangetic Dolphins. The other half of the day we leave the park to see some other destination in Bardiya. We visit the elephant breeding center as well as the crocodile breeding center. It is a quick visit to the breeding centers as it is fairly smaller that breeding center of Chitwan. These center nurse injured and sick elephants with newborn and safari elephants.
Day 6: Bardiya to Kathmandu via Nepalgunj & Transfer to Int'l Airport
We have a final morning breakfast amidst sounds of bird chirpings and cicadas in the jungle. We dive for 2 hours to reach Nepalgunj airport and return to Kathmandu via flight above the river basins of the Terai region and a vast range of Himalayan Mountains to the north. On the same day, we will bid you farewell, drop you at the airport and you return to your country.
Transportation, including domestic flight KTM-KEP-KTM, all transfer by car as per the itinerary.
Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner During the Bardiya stay.
1 night at Kathmandu in Deluxe hotel on B/B.
4 nights in Bardia wildlife resort.
Bardia jungle safari tour.
English speaking tour guide.
National park fees.
Lunch and evening meals in Kathmandu.
Extra night accommodation in Kathmandu and Bardia.
Travel and rescue insurance
Kathmandu Valley Tour includes three major cities- Kathmandu, Lalitpur, and Bhaktapur. These three sister cities date back to ancient times. On our Kathmandu valley tour, we will expl
Kathmandu Pokhara Tour is always a good idea for your vacation in Nepal because it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller. Kathmandu-Pokhara Tour is one of the popul
Kathmandu-Chitwan-Lumbini Tour is an example that Nepal is not just a land of mountains and Sherpas. The natural diversity, the topographical variance and the cultural harmony of Nepal are depicted by
Chitwan Jungle Safari Tour is always a good idea for your vacation in Nepal because it leaves you speechless, then turns you i
Grade: Easy / Adventure/ Excitement
Max. Altitude: 1441m (Ktm)
Transportation: Private vehicle and Domestic Flight both ways.
Accommodation: 2/3 star hotel in cities Resort during Bardia visit on double sharing basis.
Activities: Exploring wildlife.
Cost: Above mentioned price is for a single person based on 2 pax. Please contact us for further cost details.
Bardia National Park Tour | Bardia Wildlife and Safari Tour Rated 4.8 / 5 based on 5 reviews. |
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What date does a 1738 British author intend by “soon after the revolution”?
In the February 1738 The Gentleman's Magazine, Volume XIII at page 80:
It is stated:
A manuscript writen by a great Uncle of mine, who dy'd soon after the Revolution came lately into my hands.
What does "soon after the Revolution" mean?
The Wikipedia page for English Revolution makes it sound like there is more than one possibility.
DavePhDDavePhD
@PieterGeerkens I think 1688 is correct, because the other possibilities that Wikipedia gives are treated as Marxist theories, and 1738 is before Marx. But I wanted an answer from HistorySE that I could quote for this SkepticsSE question skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/41763/… – DavePhD Jul 18 '18 at 13:32
The requests for it perhaps could have been phrased nicer (hint everyone), so a double thank you goes to you for adding the clarification to the question. – T.E.D.♦ Jul 18 '18 at 13:44
In the text, he describes the history of the game of Blind Man's Buff and other childrens' games through various reigns. At the bottom-right of the page, the text states:
"At the Revolution, when all People recover'd their Liberty, ..."
Since this immediately follows a paragraph describing how the game was played during the reigns of Charles II and James II, it is clear that "the Revolution" referred to here is The Glorious Revolution of 1688.
sempaiscuba♦sempaiscuba
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged britain or ask your own question.
Could Great Britain have built the British Empire if it was not the pioneer of the Industrial Revolution?
In the British Invasion of Greece, what happened to the British troops who were not captured?
What was the official attitude to Cromwell after the Glorious Revolution?
What does a slitterman do?
What percentage of British people during the industrial revolution were rich?
What were British voting qualifications in the 1770's?
What was the Victorian opinion of the American Revolution?
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"LOST AFTER DARK" Cast/Crew Signing at Dark Delicacies Bookstore on Tuesday, September 1st
LOST AFTER DARK
Cast/Crew Blu-ray signing at
Dark Delicacies Bookstore in Burbank !!!
WHAT: Tubular! Go full retro when the cast and crew from the new 80’s inspired thriller LOST AFTER DARK autograph Blu-rays at Burbank’s favorite gothic retailer Dark Delicacies bookstore.
WHEN: Tuesday, September 1st, 2015, 7:00pm
WHERE: Dark Delicacies Bookstore
3512 W. Magnolia Blvd.
GUESTS: Director/writer Ian Kessner;
Writer Bo Ransdell;
Producer Eric Gozlan;
Composer Eric Allaman;
Actors Robert Patrick (schedule permitting); David Lipper and Rick Rosenthal (Director, Halloween II and Halloween:Resurrection)
DETAILS: Fans must purchase LOST AFTER DARK Blu-rays and DVDs at Dark Delicacies for signing. One additional item will be signed at celebrities’ discretion.
Spring Ball, 1984. Adrienne (Kendra Leigh Timmins, Midnight Sun, "Wingin' It"), a straight-A student, joins her quarterback crush Sean (Justin Kelly, Maps To The Stars, Big Muddy) and some friends in sneaking out of their high school dance for some unsupervised mayhem. The teens' party plans hit a snag when they run out of gas on a deserted road. They head out on foot and discover a rundown farmhouse where they hope to find help. Instead they find themselves at the mercy of Junior Joad (Mark Wiebe, Sweet Karma), a cannibal killer from an urban legend. After the brutal murder of one of their friends, the group’s quest for help becomes one of survival. Will anyone survive the night? LOST AFTER DARK arrives September 1st on Blu-ray and DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment!
Read our review of LOST AFTER DARK
#1 SERIAL KILLER -- DVD Review by Porfle
From the "he was a quiet man" school of kill flicks, the main character of #1 SERIAL KILLER, a.k.a. "Chink" (2013), is fed up as hell and doesn't want to take being regarded as the office creep anymore. But instead of going postal, Eddy (Jason Tobin, THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT) aspires to something greater--becoming the best serial killer of all time.
It's a pathetic goal and we know Eddy's too much of a loser to achieve even this, but once he gets started he certainly makes a concerted effort to match or surpass his hero, Ted Bundy. There are scenes of him acting tough and scary in front of the bathroom mirror to clippings of Bundy, and we almost expect the creepy bastard to materialize as a spectral mentor a la Elvis in TRUE ROMANCE.
At his job in a company called "HK and Chang Imports" (nice name) Eddy's the guy with a hopeless crush on a co-worker--in this case, beautiful blonde babe Amber (Kenzie Dalton). But no matter how he tries to summon his courage and break the ice he can't help coming off as weird, especially to Amber's bitchy friend Tricia (Shoshana Bush) who keep a suspicious eye on him.
Amber's rejection of Eddy during a party sends him into a "Carrie"-style nightmare of insecurity and humiliation that stokes his growing urge to make that first big kill. The violence and audacity of his murders will grow as he becomes more detached from reality and fancies himself some kind of higher being.
Eddy's increased self-confidence comes in handy when he starts dating the new Asian girl in the office, Karena (Eugenia Yuan, I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT), who is actually the boss's reluctant mistress. Karena helps Eddy overcome his odd self-loathing for being Chinese--he goes by the last name "Richards" and tells people he was adopted by Caucasian parents--and, in scenes that would be rather charming in any other kind of movie, she takes him to various Asian restaurants to introduce him to exotic foods he's never tried before.
This aspect of the story, how Asian-Americans feel about and are perceived by modern American society, is something screenwriter Koji Steven Sakai and director Stanley Yung felt compelled to explore even if it took making their main character a wacko serial killer to do it. (The original title, "Chink", indicates their desire to be provocative.)
Be that as it may, the story takes some not-so-unexpected turns when his boss, Mr. Chang (Tzi Ma, RUSH HOUR, THE LADYKILLERS), is angered by Eddy's relationship with Karena and takes action. This is further complicated when she finally discovers his true nature and he's forced to take desperate actions himself which will result in even more killing and a final shocking resolution to the whole sordid situation.
All of this potentially garish material is presented in a low-key, deliberately-paced style that's functional without drawing attention to itself. While I originally expected the film to be torture porn and/or a gorehound's delight, it's actually neither. Instead, although there are definitely a few "wet" parts, the violence is often suggested (effectively) rather than graphically depicted.
The DVD from Indican Pictures is in 1:85 widescreen with Dolby 2.0 sound and English subtitles. Extras consist of an official trailer and two festival teasers, a "Chink" music video, a behind-the-scenes featurette, deleted and alternate scenes, and cast and crew interviews.
This is more of a twisted character study than anything else, not unlike HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER but without that film's stark realism and heavily oppressive atmosphere. Indeed, Jason Tobin's energetic performance as a monstrous, yet enterprising young psycho, along with that of the likable Eugenia Yuan and the rest of the capable cast, actually gives #1 SERIAL KILLER a kind of light touch that keeps it from descending to the level of more lurid and tawdry entries in the genre. I didn't love it, but I liked it, despite an ending that I didn't find altogether convincing.
Format: 1:85
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Sound: Dolby SR
Website: http://www.KillerChink.com
GONE DOGGY GONE -- DVD Review by Porfle
This movie is just so pleasantly goofy in all the right ways that I just couldn't help but thoroughly enjoy it. Not too heavy on slapstick or farce, GONE DOGGY GONE (2014) is like a live-action cartoon for adults in which certain of their foibles are skewered in delightfully nutty ways.
Abby and Elliott Harmon are one of those boring yuppie couples who have absolutely no clue how out of it they are. Their first scene together is one of the funniest, in which it sounds as though they're carrying on a totally nonsensical conversation with each other until we realize each is speaking to someone else via headset phones. When they actually start talking to each other, they can't think of anything to say.
The only interest they seem to share with any enthusiasm is their tiny "Teacup Yorkie" dog, Laila, with whom both are abnormally obsessed. The trouble is, the babysitter they've hired to take care of Laila--a nice but socially-awkward nerdgirl named Jill (Shaina Vorspan, REDEMPTION)--is equally devoted to the li'l nipper. So much so, in fact, that one day she impulsively kidnaps the dog (her "BFF") and makes off with her in her car.
The Harmons frantically set off in pursuit, taking them on a life-changing odyssey that will bring them together by throwing them into some wildly bizarre situations--such as being forced to strip naked at gunpoint by robbers who abscond with $30,000 in ransom money--and turning GONE DOGGY GONE into a road picture.
Things get even more complicated when Dan (Jeff Sloniker), the inept private investigator they hire to tail Jill, falls in love with her and they end up having to tail him. Sloniker plays Dan as a disgusting slob who hates working for his overbearing dad Stan (special guest star Richard Riehle of OFFICE SPACE), and they all end up at Jill's mom's house in New Mexico being menaced by a scary Mafia loan shark to whom Stan is deeply in debt.
Kasi Brown and Brandon Walter, who play Abby and Elliott, also do an utterly surehanded job writing, producing, and directing the film with an exquisite subtlety that gives even the most outlandish scenes a painfully deadpan quality. Brown's frantic reactions to Laila's kidnapping and their subsequent indignities along the road are priceless, as is Walter's passively resigned response to it all. Abby's friend Kat (Kate Connor), a wine-swilling cougar along for the ride, adds her own cynical eccentricities to the mix.
Vorspan is a delight as Jill--she's a well-meaning ditz who loves her beat-boxing boyfriend even when he dumps her right after sex, and can't believe she just got laid off from her temp job when people who didn't even make coffee or decorate cute mugs for everyone else got to stay.
Jill's pitiful need for love, which is the reason she's so desperately attached to Laila, comes from feelings of rejection by her cold-shoulder mom Ruth (Marsha Waterbury). This, along with some genuinely moving moments as the emotionally stunted Harmons start to regain their humanity, gives GONE DOGGY GONE an actual heart which makes the comedy even better while never lapsing into bathos.
The DVD from Indican Pictures is in 1.78 widescreen and Dolby 2.0 sound, with English subtitles. Extras consist of a making-of featurette, deleted scenes, bloopers, and trailers for this and other Indican releases.
GONE DOGGY GONE reminded me a bit of another upstart indy comedy about a dog, Bobcat Goldthwaite's exquisite SLEEPING DOGS LIE, with its ability to surprise us by being so much better than expected. And like that film, this wonderful little romp is out-of-its-mind unhinged but pretends not to be, which just makes it even funnier.
Corin Hardy's Acclaimed Horror Hit "THE HALLOW"--Poster Now Available
** POSTER NOW AVAILABLE **
THE HALLOW
Directed by Corin Hardy
Click here to download the poster
*Opens in Select Theaters on November 6th*
(VOD and Digital Platforms on November 5th)
"A viscerally scary fantasy horror tale... [Hardy] proves himself both a gifted visual stylist and an assured storyteller with a wicked grasp of sustained dread."
- David Rooney, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
"A slick, confident debut... This pleasingly old-school Irish-backwoods scarer should appeal to fans of Guillermo Del Toro."
- Charles Gant, SCREEN DAILY
"Embraces a thrilling mix of practical effects, animatronics, puppetry and prosthetics along with subtle CG enhancements to create a vivid collection of nightmarish fiends."
- Geoff Berkshire, VARIETY
Deep within the darkness of secluded forest land in rural Ireland dwells an ancient evil. Feared by the nearby superstitious villagers as cursed creatures who prey upon the lost, their secrets have been kept from civilization and remain on their hallowed ground. But when a conservationist from London moves in with his wife and infant child in order to survey the land for future construction, his actions unwittingly disturb the horde of demonic forces. Alone in a remote wilderness, he must now ensure his family's survival from their relentless attacks.
With his feature debut, acclaimed visual stylist Corin Hardy displays an innate talent for the macabre, approaching the medium with a cocksure confidence in his construction of the modern horror fable. Relying upon a precise and layered technical elegance, The Hallow seethes with an uncommonly sophisticated terror that uncoils effortlessly into an atmosphere of disquieting intensity and primal dread.
Joseph Mawle, Bojana Novakovic, Michael McElhatton, Michael Smiley
About The Director:
Corin Hardy is an award-winning filmmaker, whose live action and animated work mixes the macabre, the beautiful and the epic to visually dazzling results. Corin studied Special Effects at Wimbledon School of Art before making his award-winning stop-motion short film Butterfly in 2003. This led into directing music videos, beginning with Keane’s ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ and ‘Bedshaped’ and continuing with films for a mix of mainstream acts including The Prodigy, Biffy Clyro, Olly Murs, Paolo Nutini and The Rizzle Kicks as well as underground indies The Horrors, Dry The River, The Horrible Crowes – and recently the 9 minute crime epic for Devlin and Ed Sheeran’s Watchtower, all produced with Academy Films. For the past 10 years Corin has been writing and developing four of his own horror-based feature film projects with production companies in UK & US these include: The Hallow with Occupant Films, Refuge with Big Talk Films, Frogz Legz with Brilliant Films and F E S T with Pari Passu. Corin is also attached to direct Element Pictures teen thriller Where There’s Darkness.
COUNTRY: Ireland/United Kingdom
RUN TIME: 97 min
DEATH VALLEY -- Movie Review by Porfle
Sort of a sandy, sun-blanched noir, DEATH VALLEY (2015) forgoes gut-punch visceral impact for a more snakelike seductive quality that simmers until done.
After a cop picks up a terrified, traumatized girl on a lonely highway, crying "Dead! They're all dead!", we flashback to her tearful story as she spins it back at the station. Two odd couples set out across the desert from L.A. to Vegas on a brand-new road that hasn't even been opened to the public yet--ensuring a privacy they'll soon regret--and are shocked when a woman in nothing but her lacy underwear leaps in their path and starts blasting away at them with a gun.
They hit her, crash the car, bury the body, and set out across the desert in search of a parallel highway which is supposed to be within walking distance. But during this "trudge through the desert" sequence, some dramatic revelations emerge between the characters that really liven things up and keep them--and us--on edge.
For one thing, TV and movie producer Billy (Lochlyn Munro, IN THE NAME OF THE KING 2: TWO WORLDS, JULES VERNE'S MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, UNFORGIVEN) and Annie (Katrina Law, "Spartacus"), the aspiring actress he's on his way to Vegas to marry after a one-night courtship, still have a paper-thin relationship and thus certain revelations might tend to dim the blush on the rose of their tentative love.
As for the other couple, prison parolee Roy (Nick E. Tarabay, excellent as the devious Ashur in "Spartacus") and his wife Jamie (Victoria Pratt, "Heartland"), who just might've gotten it on with Billy the night before, are at an even more volatile crossroads which will not end well. When these four people get out in the middle of nowhere with too much booze, too many pills, and a situation growing hotter than the burning sands (including yet another dead body or two), it's a powderkeg just waiting for something to set it off.
A surehanded subtlety is the order of the day as this deceptively simple storyline gets deeper as we go farther into the desert. Prolific TV director T.J. Scott shows a deft touch for this kind of slightly-bent character drama with elements of the predicament movie and the adult thriller mixed well into an off-center, off-balance puzzler that keeps us guessing who's not what they seem and who's a lot badder than they let on.
Scott also makes great use of beautiful desert locations, photographing his actors against picturesque Southwestern backdrops that capture the expansiveness of their surroundings and their vulnerability to both the elements and to irrevocable fate itself.
Each cast member is fine. The ubiquitous Lochlyn Munro is a particular hoot as Billy, a typical obnoxious, low-level Hollywood type who always has hot irons in somebody else's fire. For fans of the epic TV series "Spartacus", it's great seeing Nick E. Tarabay and Katrina Law in something that continues to take good advantage of their talents. Victoria Pratt as Jamie manages to evoke our sympathy in the smaller role of the emotionally-conflicted Jamie.
The pressure cooker finally blows its lid in the closing minutes when all the mysteries are revealed and all the masks come off. While hardly a steamrolling action epic or mind-blowing drama, DEATH VALLEY is well-rendered, performed with verve by a cracking good cast, and doesn't leave the viewer feeling stranded in the middle of nowhere.
Sound: Stereo
Genre: Thriller/Drama
Website: www.DeathValleyTheMovie.com
"A PLAGUE SO PLEASANT" Release Postponed to September 29th
Critical Hit A Plague So Pleasant Held Back
The Infection Now Breaks Free September 29th
"Puts a new cinematic spin on the zombie genre."
-Filmmaker Magazine
New York, NY - Wild Eye Releasing has announced a date change for their latest cinematic epidemic. A Plague So Pleasant will now infect home entertainment systems beginning September 29th. A more dangerous strain than recent efforts, the film has been hailed by undead aficionados as "a miraculous accomplishment" (Zombie Guide Magazine), "an Excellent, Original Zombie Movie" (ZMDB.com), and "so much better than the average straight to video zombie travesty" (The Rotting Zombie).
In the near future, zombies have become a protected, endangered species, held in captivity and legally wandering the streets free from harm by the living. But for the loved ones of those who die, sometimes coping is just too much to handle, especially when not everyone feels the dead have a right to exist, and are willing to break the law to rid the world of this new population of the dead.
The DVD release of A Plague So Pleasant (SRP $19.95) will exclusively include promos and trailers.
BLOOD PUNCH -- DVD Review by Porfle
Remember in GROUNDHOG DAY when Bill Murray was reliving the same day again and again, and kept on killing the same guy over and over in different ways because if he didn't, the guy would kill him? And the guy's former girlfriend was now Bill Murray's girlfriend and they were all stuck in the time loop together, and the only way to escape from it was to figure out who to kill, and when and how? Remember that?
You probably don't remember it because it didn't happen, but it happens in Midnight Releasing's new DVD, BLOOD PUNCH (2013), a kickass feature-film directing debut by Madellaine Paxson. Paxson and scripter Eddie Guzelian used to write episodes of "Power Rangers R.P.M." and have cast former stars of that show in this film's main roles, and they're all excellent. Who'd have thought "Power Rangers R.P.M." would be the breeding ground for something this good?
Olivia Tennet, who was also in THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS, plays a dark, enigmatic babe named Skyler who recruits mild-mannered brainiac Milton (Milo Cawthorne, DEATHGASM) straight out of a meth-addict rehab group in order to cook up a couple million dollars worth of the stuff for her and her cheerfully psychotic bad-cop boyfriend Russell (Ari Boyland) to sell and make them all rich.
The trouble is, as soon as they get to the secluded cabin where all this is supposed to take place, Milton suspects (correctly, as it turns out) that his life expectancy may be growing shorter. After a wild evening of meth and peyote, in which the three manage to invoke an ancient Native American curse that affects anyone who spills blood on the sacred land around them, they find themselves trapped in a repeating timeline filled with deceit, betrayal, and what might be referred to as "chronic death syndrome."
Every day is Tuesday, and each morning begins with killing Russell in whatever way strikes their fancy since he's the most dangerous one and has already proven that he's going to kill Milton by killing him the night before. This gives Milton and Skyler the rest of the day to throw today's Russell on the pile of dead Russells and brainstorm about how to solve their predicament, which results in their trying a number of desperate ways to set things right again, none of which work.
BLOOD PUNCH is kind of like what would happen if a young Quentin Tarantino had been hired to do a feature-length episode of "The Twilight Zone" and had a ball making it. It's certainly loads of fun to watch, with surprises galore and an endless sense of mischief that keeps on being scintillating right up to the very last satisfying twist before the fadeout.
Tennet is top-notch as Skyler, the perfect modern-noir mystery woman, with Cawthorne well-cast as the unsuspecting fall guy in the deal. As Russell, Boyard is a pure delight and makes the character likable despite his utter homicidal insanity. Cohen Holloway and Adelaide Kane (GOATS) are memorable as Archer, a loose cannon to whom our heroes try to sell their wares, and his femme fatale girlfriend Nabiki, in the film's most bullet-riddled scene (out of several).
Elsewhere, the dramatic plot developments and tongue-in-cheek humor are frequently punctuated by potent doses of violence which is as quirkily entertaining as it is shocking. While the film is deadpan funny the cast plays it straight, so once we get caught up in this outlandish story the suspense just keeps on building. In this way, it reminded me of TIMECRIMES, another film of recent years which had the same kind of cockeyed appeal.
The DVD from Midnight Releasing is in 16:9 widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound and English subtitles. Extras consist of several deleted scenes, test footage clips, and bloopers.
This is the sort of funhouse flick that gives us something cool to watch while we're waiting for the next Tarantino movie to come out. Not that this one's necessarily as good as a QT flick, but it sure manages to generate that same kind of imaginative zing which makes it stimulating to watch. And BLOOD PUNCH, one of the best indy films I've seen in a long time, is just all kinds of imaginative.
Street date: Sept. 1, 2015
"BLACK SAILS: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON" Sets Course on Blu-ray + Digital HD and DVD November 3, 2015 from Anchor Bay Entertainment
“… a bona fide hit…”
– Newsday
RELEASES THE NEXT CHAPTER OF
HIGH SEAS ADVENTURE
“BLACK SAILS: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON”
ON BLU-RAY™ + Digital HD with Ultraviolet™ AND DVD NOVEMBER 3, 2015
Three-Disc Set Contains All 10 Episodes and New Exclusive Extras!
Beverly Hills, Calif., August 24, 2015 – Anchor Bay Entertainment announced today that they will release the thrilling STARZ Original series “BLACK SAILS: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON” on Blu-ray™ + Digital HD with Ultraviolet™ and DVD on November 3, 2015. The Emmy® Award-winning series, created by Jonathan E. Steinberg (“Jericho,” “Human Target”) and Robert Levine (“Touch”) and executive produced by Michael Bay (the Transformers franchise, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor), and his Platinum Dunes partners Brad Fuller and Andrew Form (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Purge), follows the most feared pirate of the day, Captain Flint (Toby Stephens), and takes place twenty years prior to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic “Treasure Island.”
The first two seasons of “Black Sails” averaged 4.5 million multi-platform viewers per episode* and the series is distributed in over 175 countries and territories worldwide. A fourth season greenlight was announced at the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour, and will follow the 2016 season three return.
The second season release has over an hour of new, exclusive bonus features including expanded commentaries from the cast and creators, and behind-the-scenes featurettes on the stunts and stunning special effects that garnered the series an Emmy® win in 2014 for Outstanding Special and Visual Effects in a Supporting Role.
“BLACK SAILS: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON” begins where we left off, as the Walrus crew is stranded with an army of Spanish soldiers standing between them and the precious Urca gold. And with their crimes against their brethren no longer a secret, Flint and Silver must join forces in a desperate bid for survival. Meanwhile, Eleanor Guthrie struggles to maintain her grip on Nassau, as a new breed of pirate arrives in the form of Ned Low, a man for whom violence isn't just a tool ... it's a past time.
As blood is spilled, and tensions mount, Charles Vane must decide which he values more; Eleanor's life, or the respect of his men. And unbeknownst to all of them, a prize of immeasurable value has already been smuggled onto the island ... one whose discovery will alter the very landscape of their world, and force everyone in Nassau toward the ultimate judgment: are they men, or are they monsters?
New Bonus Features:
Inside The World Of “Black Sails”
The Man O' War
Expanding Worlds
High Seas Action
History's Influence
“Black Sails” stars Toby Stephens as the brilliant and unstoppable ‘Captain Flint.’ Stephens is an accomplished film, television and stage actor, who will appear in the 2016 feature film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi directed by Michael Bay, and is well-known for his role in Die Another Day. He starred in BBC’s “Vexed” and on stage in “Noel Coward’s Private Lives.” His many film credits include Believe and Twelfth Night. London-born Hannah New portrays ‘Eleanor Guthrie,’ a beautiful and determined young woman who runs the smuggling operation on New Providence. New starred in the miniseries, "El Tiempo Entre Costuras (The Time Between Seams)," the feature Fuga De Cerebros 2, and most recently in Maleficent, starring Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning. Luke Arnold portrays the classic character, ‘John Silver,’ in the years before his well-known feats. Arnold is a native of Australia, where he began working in television on series including “McLeod's Daughters,” “Rush” and “Rescue: Special Ops.” He also went on to appear in the feature film, Broken Hill and most recently starred in the miniseries “INXS: The Michael Hutchence Story.” Jessica Parker Kennedy is in the role of ‘Max,’ a young prostitute with an eye towards advancement. Parker Kennedy is known for her work in the television series, “The Secret Circle,” and has appeared in the films 50/50 and In Time. British actor Tom Hopper stars as ‘Billy Bones’ of “Treasure Island” fame. Hopper is most well-known for his role as ‘Sir Percival’ in “Merlin” and has recently appeared in Northmen – A Viking Saga. Zach McGowan is featured as ‘Captain Charles Vane,’ a rival pirate to Captain Flint. McGowan is most well-known for his role in the series “Shameless” and appeared last year in the feature film Dracula Untold.
*Multiplatform results based on Starz internal estimates of linear and time shifted results from Nielsen (NPower), Rentrak (On Demand Essentials) and internal broadband data.
About Anchor Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment is a leading independent home entertainment company celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2015. Anchor Bay acquires and releases a wide array of filmed entertainment in the theatrical and home entertainment markets, including STARZ Original series, children's entertainment, fitness (Anchor Bay Fitness), sports and specialty films on Blu-ray™ and DVD formats. The company has long-term distribution agreements in place for select programming with The Weinstein Company, AMC Networks and RADiUS, among others. Headquartered in Beverly Hills, CA, Anchor Bay Entertainment (www.anchorbayentertainment.com) is a full service distributor in the North American market. Anchor Bay Entertainment is a Starz (NASDAQ: STRZA, STRZB) business, www.starz.com. Anchor Bay Entertainment (www.anchorbayentertainment.com) is a Starz (NASDAQ: STRZA, STRZB) business, www.starz.com.
About Starz
Starz (NASDAQ: STRZA, STRZB) is a leading integrated global media and entertainment company with operating units that provide premium subscription video programming on domestic U.S. pay television channels (Starz Networks), global content distribution (Starz Distribution) and animated television and movie production (Starz Animation), www.starz.com.
Starz Networks is a leading provider of premium subscription video programming through the flagship STARZ® and ENCORE® pay TV networks which showcase premium original programming and movies to U.S. multichannel video distributors, including cable operators, satellite television providers, and telecommunications companies. As of June 30, 2015, STARZ and ENCORE serve a combined 56.8 million subscribers, including 23.5 million at STARZ, and 33.3 million at ENCORE, making them the largest pair of premium flagship channels in the U.S. STARZ® and ENCORE®, along with Starz Networks’ third network MOVIEPLEX®, air more than 1,000 movies monthly across 17 linear networks, complemented by On Demand and authenticated online offerings through STARZ PLAY, ENCORE PLAY, and MOVIEPLEX PLAY. Starz Distribution develops, produces and acquires entertainment content, distributing it to consumers globally on DVD, digital formats and traditional television. Starz Distribution’s home video, digital media and worldwide distribution business units distribute original programming content produced by Starz, as well as entertainment content for itself and third parties. Starz Animation produces animated TV and movie content for studios, networks, distributors and audiences worldwide.
Blu -ray™ + Digital HD with Ultraviolet™
Street Date: November 3, 2015
Pre-book: September 30, 2015
Cat. #: BD63084
Format: 1.78:1 / 16x9
English Audio: English Dolby TrueHD 7.1
Spanish & French Audio: Dolby Surround 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH and Spanish
“BLACK SAILS: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON” DVD
Pre-book: September 30, 2015, 2014
Cat. #: ST63083
English Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1
"THE LONG ISLAND SERIAL KILLER"--The Unsolved Case Washes Up on DVD August 25th
The Long Island Serial Killer Strikes on DVD August 25th
The Truth is Darker than Fiction
New York, NY - Wild Eye Releasing has announced the nationwide release of the first film to depict the unsolved case of The Long Island Serial Killer. The August 25th release dramatizes the brutal crimes of a serial killer who has been dumping the bodies of sex workers on the barren stretch of Gilgo Beach for years. Joseph DiPietro's debut feature places a fictitious coed in the path of the sadistic killer, who is believed responsible for the death of up to seventeen sex workers, and is still at large in the New York area.
A serial killer is at large in the edges of New York City, luring prostitutes from the Internet and leaving a trail of bodies along Gilgo Beach in Long Island. While the friends and families of the victims search for answers, the police remain unable to solve the murders or stop him from taunting the grieving survivors. A young, down on her luck college student turns to the escort business in desperation, but she unknowingly places herself directly in the path of one of New York's most vicious serial killers.
The DVD release of The Long Island Serial Killer (SRP $19.95) will exclusively include two feature length cast and crew commentaries, deleted scenes and trailers.
The Long Island Serial Killer (Official Trailer)
Order The Long Island Serial Killer on DVD
LOST AFTER DARK -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle
Every once in a while these days someone will decide to make a slasher flick, but they won't want to put a lot of effort into the story so they'll whip out the old barebones template, hang a bunch of hoary cliches on it, and call it an "80s homage." Whether or not this is entertaining usually depends largely upon the mood of the viewer at the time.
Continuing in this dubious tradition is LOST AFTER DARK (2014), the "story" of a bunch of teens being terrorized and slaughtered one by one in the middle of nowhere by a psycho killer. After stealing a school bus, they head off into the night for a secluded cabin belonging to the father of virginal "final girl" contestant Adrienne (Kendra Timmins) for one of those "party down" weekends that always turn out bad.
Adrienne, whose older sister Laurie we saw getting the old "bear trap to the face" routine in a pre-titles flashback, feels bad about lying to her kindly single dad Norman (David Lipper) about her whereabouts, but she can't wait for some alone time with her heartthrob Sean (Justin Kelly), and perhaps her first kiss. Also along for the ride are her BFF Jamie (Elise Gatien), rude boy Johnnie (Alexander Calvert) and his blonde bimbo girlfriend Heather (Lanie McAuley), token "cool black dude" Wes (Stephan James in a really bad afro wig), misfit Goth chick Marilyn (Eve Harlow), and, last but not least, lonely fat guy Tobe (Jesse Camacho), who has a pitiful unrequited crush on Marilyn.
The dialogue these characters spout is so inane that it hovers precariously between tongue-in-cheek and just plain dumb. They're also not too smart, which, to be fair, is something of a requirement in these movies. After their bus runs out of gas on the most deserted road in the United States (of Canada, that is), they hoof it just long enough to find the darkest scariest old house in the universe to force their way into and go prowling around for absolutely no reason whatsoever except to rouse its hopelessly inbred inhabitant into a blind killing frenzy.
Much of what elevated certain films in this genre above the rest of the pack was the perverse appeal of stalkers such as Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, etc. The best this one can do, unfortunately, is a shaggy hillbilly cannibal named Junior Joad (Mark Wiebe) who looks like a Duck Dynasty reject. He doesn't even start killing until almost an hour in, hovering in the shadows and making with the usual POV shots in order to build "suspense" (i.e., boredom) as our unsuspecting heroes galumph around in the dark.
Things pick up a bit when the farm implements finally start a-swingin', and there's even something of a plot twist that manages to surprise. The kills are just bloody enough to keep gorehounds from feeling totally gypped, although there's very little of the old Tom Savini-style imagination and ingenuity involved. Ultimately the final stalk-and-slash sequence drags on long enough for me to start hoping old Junior would wrap things up.
Director Ian Kessner makes a mild effort to give LOST AFTER DARK that "grindhouse" look, but this is limited to a few rough edits, occasional simulated film imperfections, and, in one jarring instance, the old "reel missing" gag that you'll no doubt remember from PLANET TERROR. This approach seemed odd to me since I remember most of my 80s slasher flicks as either first-run theatrical prints or VHS tape rentals.
Performances are more or less adequate. Robert Patrick of TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY fame gets to overact as Vice-Principal Cunningham, a stressed-out Viet Nam vet who doesn't allow this sort of thing from his students, while HALLOWEEN 2 director Rick Rosenthal turns up near the end as a grizzled old sheriff. Astute viewers will notice that every character (except for the killer) is named after either a slasher flick director or final girl.
The Blu-ray from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 widescreen with Dolby TrueHD 5.1 sound and subtitles in English and Spanish. No extras.
Neither one of the worst modern-day slasher flicks I've seen (it's better than MOTOR HOME MASSACRE, THE EVIL WOODS, and DARK FIELDS, to name a few) nor one of the best, LOST AFTER DARK exists in that creepy, mist-shrouded zone of mystery that I call "take it or leave it." If you take it, just keep your expectations low and--as Jamie keeps telling herself while fleeing through the woods from Junior's pickaxe--"keep breathing."
Stills used are not taken from Blu-ray
TEEN TITANS GO!: HOUSE PESTS SEASON 2 PART 2 -- DVD Review by Porfle
If you're a fan of that weird sort of "Americanized anime" style of cartoons found on the Cartoon Network--you know, stuff like "Powerpuff Girls" and "Dexter's Laboratory" and "Samurai Jack"--then chances are you're already familiar with "Teen Titans Go!" This speed-freak-paced series takes what was once a serious DC Comics property and turns it into some of the most surrealistically silly animated shorts that will ever dazzle your eyeballs and sizzle your brain.
We've already covered the previous DVD set, "Teen Titans Go!: Appetite For Destruction Season 2 Part 1", and with TEEN TITANS GO!: HOUSE PESTS SEASON 2 PART 2, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment gives us another 26 episodes on two DVDs. There aren't any extras (unless you count two trailers) but if you're into this kind of supreme goofiness as I am, then the cartoons themselves are extra enough.
Besides being bright, colorful, sharply drawn, and impeccably animated, these things just move like a house on fire and are addictively entertaining. The Titans do very little crimefighting, with the stories focusing instead on their domestic infighting and other non-sequitur trainwrecks of thought which often exist merely to celebrate sheer silliness itself.
Batman's old chum Robin, the team's leader, is portrayed as an immature, insecure, vainglorious boob whose hyperactive overenthusiasm for his job is matched only by his pathetic attempts to woo teammate Starfire, a female alien glowing with girlish, frilly-pink sweetness. Guy's guy Cyborg, a big half-human, half-robot lug, and lovable little shape-shifting slob Beast Boy spend most of their time watching TV and eating pizza, while sullen half-demon Raven reads, sulks, and casts spells.
The Teen Titans live in a giant T-shaped building on a tiny island in the bay next to Jump City and only occasionally protect its citizens from their super-powered teen rivals, the Hive. In the episode "Cool School" they try to stop bad girl Rose Wilson aka "Ravager" from breaking out of prison until she stops them cold by pointing out how "uncool" they are. While Rose and Raven strike up an unlikely friendship, the rest of the Titans go to Cool School in a vain effort to get cooler. Meanwhile, Rose deflects Robin's demand that she return to jail by insisting that she's already in jail and challenging him to prove otherwise, which just confuses him.
"Robin Backwards" introduces us to Robin's Bizarro counterpart, Nibor, who becomes more popular with the other Titans than the original. "Crazy Day" is pretty much as it sounds, with everyone except a predictably glum Raven taking part in acting as crazy as possible. In "Smile Bones", Cyborg and Beast Boy's habit of inhaling their food without chewing it comes back to haunt them when their bellies grow to gargantuan proportions, sprout faces and limbs, and take over Jump City.
"Real Boy Adventures" is a twisted retelling of "Pinocchio" with Raven granting Cyborg's wish to be human, which he'll regret when he finds out how vulnerable he is in his new guise as "Fleshy Guy." "Hose Water" is the story of the Titans' overly successful attempt to get in touch with their inner children. In "Let's Get Serious", Robin decides the team needs to cut out the clowning after a rival good-guy group led by archly-grim Aqualad easily defeats the Hive.
In other stories, Beast Boy decides to replace paper currency with bees and wasps ("Two Bumble Bees and a Wasp"), the team combat the worldwide conspiracy of evil soccer trolls who trick the unwary populace into liking soccer ("Kicking a Ball and Pretending to Be Hurt"), the evil-but-cuddly Whisperer grants Raven's foolish request to deprive the world of all sound ("And the Award For Sound Design Goes to Rob"), the Titans visit Starfire's ultra-weird home planet and start a war ("Tamaranian Vacation"), and, in perhaps my favorite cartoon in the set, they enter a world of 80s-style video games that recreates the era beautifully ("Video Game References").
Other episodes in the set: "Rocks and Water", "Multiple Trick Pony", "Truth, Justice and What?", "Oil Drums", "Head Fruit", "Yearbook Madness", "Operation Tin Man", "Nean", "Campfire Stories", "Beast Man", "The Hive Five", "The Return of Slade", "More of the Same", and "Some of Their Parts."
The 2-disc DVD set from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (26 episodes, 11 minutes each) is in matted widescreen with English, Spanish, and Portuguese Dolby surround sound. Subtitles are in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. No extras except trailers for two other WBHE releases.
As before, TEEN TITANS GO!: HOUSE PESTS SEASON 2 PART 2 is a dizzying dash through some of the fastest, prettiest, and most cultural-reference-packed cartoons being made today. I previously commented that it seemed "as though the scripts had been dictated on tape by a Red Bull-fueled Robin Williams and animated by Tex Avery at his most unhinged", and that description still stands. Fans of earlier incarnations of the Teen Titans may balk, but to me, these cartoons are like brightly-wrapped candy that I can't get enough of.
Buy it at WBShop.com
Street date: Aug. 18, 2015
"Zorro Reborn" With Lantica Media and Sobini Films Behind the Mask
LANTICA MEDIA AND SOBINI FILMS PARTNER FOR ZORRO FUTURISTIC REBOOT
LOS ANGELES, CA -- Lantica Media and Sobini Films announced today that they have partnered to produce Sobini’s Zorro Reborn project. Lantica Media will finance the film which is due to begin principal photography in March 2016 at the Pinewood Dominican Republic Studios. Zorro Reborn is a reboot of the wildly successful film franchise based on the beloved masked character. Pantelion Films will handle international sales. The deal was announced jointly by Lantica Media’s CEO Antonio Gennari and Sobini Films’ Mark Amin.
“We’re extremely excited to have partnered with Sobini on this project,” commented Gennari. “The Zorro character has nearly a 100 year history in various entertainment mediums as well as a tremendous worldwide appeal. Every generation has its own Zorro hero and we’re proud to be able to introduce a new Zorro to this generation.”
Amin added, “This has been a fifteen year journey filled with ups and downs but it has remained my passion project over the years. I’m so happy to have found partners in Antonio and Albert who share my vision for what this project will be.”
Set in the near future, Zorro Reborn is the re-imagining of the classic legend which will take audiences to a new and visually exciting world.
International sales will be launched this fall in Toronto by Anne-Marie Ross, President of International at Pantelion. “Zorro Reborn offers a unique opportunity for international distributors to come on board an action film with a brand that is already a household name worldwide,” said Ross.
Veteran producer Amin, whose credits include Good Kill and Frida, will produce the film with Albert Martinez Martin overseeing production for Lantica Pictures. Cami Winikoff and David W. Higgins are set to executive produce on behalf of Sobini.
About Lantica Media
Lantica Media (www.lantica.media) is an innovative media company that invests across several segments of the entertainment industry. Its subsidiaries offer world-class studio facilities and production services as well as production, financing and distribution solutions for films and television shows.
The company's operating units currently include Pinewood Dominican Republic Studios and Lantica Pictures. Pinewood Dominican Republic Studios is a state-of-the-art film and TV studio established with Pinewood Studios Group plc. Lantica Pictures develops, finances and produces original content for English and Spanish language audiences.
Lantica Media is an asset managed by VICINI’s Terra-RD platform.
About Sobini Films
Sobini Films, an independent production and finance company that focuses on feature films and long-form television, is headed by Mark Amin, veteran producer, distributor and financier whose credits include FRIDA, GOOD KILL, EVE’S BAYOU, and STONEHEARST ASYLUM. The company also has the upcoming MILES AHEAD, directed by and starring Don Cheadle as Miles Davis which just sold in a bidding war to Sony Classics as well as RUSS & ROGER GO BEYOND, starring Will Ferrell and Josh Gad with Michael Winterbottom to direct.
About Pantelion Films
Pantelion Films is the first major Latino Hollywood studio and the new face of Hispanic entertainment. Launched in 2010, Pantelion releases include the breakout hit Instructions Not Included, the recent box office success Cantinflas which achieved the highest per screen average of any film in nationwide release on its opening weekend as well as films such as Pulling Strings, Casa de mi Padre and From Prada to Nada.
THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle
Well, here we go again--another season of the AMC series "The Walking Dead", which means another nonstop binge-watching session that drags on into the wee hours of the morning. But I wouldn't have it any other way.
This is quite simply, in my opinion, one of my most watchable TV shows ever. My annual viewing marathon is almost on the same anticipation level as a yearly holiday such as Labor Day, or at least Arbor Day. And THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON, a 5-disc Blu-ray set from Anchor Bay, is a worthy continuation of that show's tradition of insane watchability.
Most people are familiar with the premise by now--a ragtag group of survivors make their way through the zombie apocalypse with ex-Georgia sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) as their dauntless leader, trying to hold on to their humanity even as circumstances make them more hard-edged and ruthless with each struggle to stay alive.
The longer they do survive, however, the more callous they become, and season five finds Rick and his people dealing with their enemies with a blood-and-thunder attitude that would've shocked them all just a year or two ago. If they'd run into their present selves back then, they'd have fled the other way.
But by now they've pretty much had enough of all the other living humans who've screwed them over, such as their nemesis from the last couple of seasons, The Governor (David Morrissey). This new set begins with the resolution to last season's tantalizing cliffhanger in which our heroes were taken prisoner by the inhabitants of a community called Terminus which is supposed to be a haven for survivors but turns out to be anything but.
Led by a smirking young sociopath named Gareth (Andrew J. West), the Terminus gang turn out to be a bunch of cannibals who gleefully harvest their human captives like cattle. The first episode casts us right into the middle of a harrowing slaughter sequence which leads to a thrilling free-for-all of humans vs. zombies vs. cannibals involving several group chow-downs of screaming victims by ravenous walkers and loads of special makeup effects, rivalling season four's spectacular opening.
Further segments will take us on a journey with our protagonists through many gripping battles for survival and encounters with other groups of people whose motives are ever under suspicion. While the walking, flesh-devouring dead remain a constant threat, it's the living who consistently pose the greatest danger.
By this point in the series, many other factions exist with their own laws and principals, centered around a leader who is either good, bad, or insane (or a combination of the three). Just like Ben and Harry in George Romero's original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (from whence all other current zombie apocalypse sagas seem to have been spawned), this can lead to serious conflicts in which it's hard to tell who's right and who's wrong.
This is especially true when Rick's group discover an idyllic walled-in community known as Alexandria, near what's left of Washington, D.C. They're invited to become citizens of the seemingly genteel and peaceful collective, yet even here there's danger of many different kinds lurking at every turn. And by now, Rick's people have themselves become too feral to coexist with civilized society! Tovuh Feldshuh guest stars as Alexandria's leader, Deanna, whose initially warm welcome toward them will soon turn to fear and mistrust.
The show features more fascinating continuing characters than ever and most get their time in the spotlight, including the ever-popular crossbow-wielding wild man Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus), samurai swordswoman Michonne (Danai Gurira), lovebirds Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan), and Rick's son Carl (Chandler Riggs), whose adolescence has been unconventional to say the least.
Tyreese (Chad L. Coleman) and his sister Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) each get some highly-dramatic storylines that bring home the emotional devastation that comes from living so close to death on such intimate terms every day. Maggie's missing-in-action sister Beth (Emily Kinney) turns up again in a hospital setting known as "Slabtown" in the middle of ruined Atlanta, dealing with a mentally-unbalanced policewoman (Christine Woods) and her squad of fascist cops.
And there's the continuing saga of Eugene (Josh McDermitt), a scientist who ostensibly holds the solution to the zombie problem if only he can get to Washington, D.C. with the help of his hulking ex-military bodyguard with the anger-management problem, Abraham (Michael Cudlitz).
Best of all, we get to see the continuing saga of Carol (Melissa McBride), the once-timid domestic abuse victim turned hardened survivalist who is the most calmly and ruthlessly pragmatic of them all. After being exiled from the group last season, Carol is the one who rescues her former friends from the cannibals at Terminus while drenched in blood and guts in order to throw surrounding zombies off her scent. Later, she gets back together with her friend and fellow one-time outcast Daryl in a storyline that will tie in with Beth's adventures in Slabtown.
While most of the drama and action involve the living, there's always the ever-present threat of the walkers, who seem to pop out of nowhere every time someone turns around (sneaky little buggers). These shambling corpses are all getting more decomposed than ever--sometimes we see something that's so horrible we think "Oh, that's not right."
Greg Nicotero's SPFX team keep coming up with endlessly imaginative ways of grossing us out, such as zombies that are little more than blobs of napalmed flesh stuck to the pavement--still horribly "alive", of course--and waterlogged zombies who've been slogging around in a flooded basement for months.
The combination of practical effects with impeccably-rendered CGI is excellent, often downright spectacular. Thanks to the creativity and imagination of everyone involved, the show still has the power to flabbergast us after all these years. Just when we should be starting to get numbed by all the gory violence and horror, something will happen to make us say "whoa."
The 5-disc, 16-episode Blu-ray set from Anchor Bay (which includes instructions for a complete digital download of its contents) is in 1.78:1 widescreen with English Dolby TrueHD 7.1 and French Dolby 2.0 surround sound. Subtitles are in English and Spanish. Several of the episodes have cast and crew audio commentaries. (A couple of episodes have post-credits "sting" scenes, so be sure not to miss them.)
Disc five contains a wealth of extras including:
•Deleted Scenes
•Inside “The Walking Dead” (covers each individual episode)
•The Making of “The Walking Dead” (covers each individual episode)
•The Making of Alexandria
•Beth’s Journey
•Bob’s Journey
•Noah’s Journey
•Tyreese’s Journey
•A Day in the Life of Michael Cudlitz
•A Day in the Life of Josh McDermitt
•Rotters in the Flesh
These days "The Walking Dead" has so many good characters that we get several alternating plotlines to keep things interesting. Rick and his followers are changing, growing, evolving (in some cases devolving) all over the place this season, and it makes THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON an endlessly entertaining treat for fans of both this show and gory zombie apocalypse epics in general to gorge themselves on.
Our Season One review
Our Season Two review
Our Season Three review
Our Season Four review
"Sesame Street: Elmo Can Do It!" - Take a Journey to Discover All Your Favorite Sesame Street Friend's First Encounters
SHARE YOUR FAVORITE FIRST MEMORIES WITH ELMO
AND THE SESAME STREET CREW AS WARNER BROS. HOME ENTERTAINMENT
AND SESAME WORKSHOP RELEASE
SESAME STREET: ELMO CAN DO IT!
ON DVD OCTOBER 13, 2015!
BURBANK, CA (August 11, 2015) – Everyone remembers their first day of school or their first lost tooth. Now you can share these fabulous first memories with your Sesame Street friends in Sesame Street: Elmo Can Do It! This all new video compilation full of stories and songs takes you on a journey to discover all your favorite Sesame Street friend’s first encounters. From haircuts to sleepovers, preschoolers will enjoy learning life lessons, while addressing milestones and transitions in a fun way. Sesame Street: Elmo Can Do It! is available on DVD October 13, 2015 for $14.98 SRP.
Start your adventure with Abby as she packs her wand and pajamas to embark on her first sleepover at Big Bird’s nest. Then, while Papa Bear and Mama Bear spend some time away, help Baby Bear get excited about meeting his new babysitter! Continue the fun with Elmo as he harnesses his writing skills and composes a letter for the first time. Finally, all your Sesame Street friends will come together for “National Try a New Food Day” as they each try a delicious treat they’ve never had before. You may even discover the first time Cookie Monster ate a cookie! All these firsts and more in Sesame Street: Elmo Can Do It!
“Warner Home Bros Home Entertainment is thrilled to release our next exciting and educational title, Sesame Street: Elmo Can Do It,” said Jeff Brown, WBHE Executive Vice President and GM of Non-Theatrical Franchise Marketing. “Kids now have the opportunity to view their favorite TV character’s first memories all on one fantastic DVD.”
Celebrating its impressive 45th anniversary this season, Sesame Street is the #1 top-of-mind preschool show with moms. The series has received more Emmy awards than any other show in television history, as well as a Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award.
About Sesame Workshop
Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street which reaches 156 million children across more than 150 countries. The Workshop’s mission is to help kids grow smarter, stronger and kinder. Delivered through a variety of platforms, including television programs, digital experiences, books and community engagement, its research-based programs are tailored to the needs of the communities and countries they serve. For more information, visit us at www.sesameworkshop.org.
HARBINGER DOWN -- Movie Review by Porfle
"Some things should stay frozen," says one of the Harbinger's crew after they recover a crashed Soviet spacecraft in the frozen Arctic and discover that there's something alien--and alive--still on board.
The sci-fi/horror thriller HARBINGER DOWN (2015) is the brainchild of writer/director Alec Gillis, co-owner of Amalgamated Dynamics (ADI), the FX group behind the original practical effects for the 2011 remake-prequel to John Carpenter's 80s classic THE THING. As can be seen in a popular YouTube video, ADI's extensive work was deleted from the film and replaced with digital effects by studio execs who thought the old-school stuff looked "too 80s" and thus unsuitable for modern CGI-hungry audiences.
Gillis, wanting to prove them wrong, then put HARBINGER DOWN together and packed it with practical effects, with not even a hint of CGI. The result is an attempt by a who's who of PFX artists (including Tom Woodruff, Jr. of THE TERMINATOR and the ALIEN series) to recreate the kind of stuff animatronics artist Rob Bottin (THE HOWLING, TOTAL RECALL, SE7EN) and crew achieved on John Carpenter's THE THING, not to mention other pre-CGI creature classics such as ALIENS, David Cronenberg's THE FLY, and a host of other favorites from the era.
The result is a mixed bag with Gillis and company doing their best with what they have. While some of the effects are impressive, there's unfortunately nothing as awesome as what we see in the THING remake video because this movie has a much tighter effects budget.
The most striking thing about Carpenter's THE THING is how the undulating tentacled creatures retained certain humanoid elements that made the whole thing that much more horrible, while here the alien lifeforms are mostly amorphous shapes squirming all over the place. The occasional recognizable human body parts add a more horrific touch (I especially liked the pair of legs running around topped by a roiling mass of intestines, and another crawling blob with a recognizable human head) but for the most part we get a lot of big, purple spaghetti creatures.
The film's opening is similar to THE THING with a crippled spaceship entering Earth's atmosphere, but this time it's a Soviet craft which is barbecued on reentry with one unlucky cosmonaut and a cargo of green alien goo. Years later, the crabbing vessel Harbinger picks up three passengers, a teacher and two students studying the effects of "climate change" on Beluga whales. One student, Sadie (Camille Balsamo), is the granddaughter of ship's captain Graff (the venerable Lance Henriksen), and it is she who spots the downed spacecraft under the water's icy surface.
The object is brought aboard, after which it's not hard to figure out what happens when the globs of pulsating alien protoplasm thaw out and start slithering about, engulfing various crewmembers into hideous makeshift orifices and digesting them. This time there's no assimilation and mimicking of their human hosts, but simple attack-and-devour stuff by creature creations that are fun but, as previously noted, not all that imaginative or stunningly rendered.
With a simple plot similar to the THING remakes and the original THE THING (FROM ANOTHER WORLD) along with shades of ALIEN and older monster flicks like IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE, HARBINGER DOWN is the classic 50s sci-fi/monster-type yarn that's fun and mildly exciting without being especially memorable.
Gillis' direction is okay (save for the occasional Shaky-Cam) yet lacking the finesse of a John Carpenter in building tension and suspense, and the shocks aren't as sharply-staged as one might wish. The film does establish a satisfying atmosphere of cold and isolation for its budget, with some nice model work of the ship and its environs and some well-done interiors.
The crew are a colorful group of people such as Svet, the Russian babe with a king-sized chip on her shoulder (Milla Bjorn), comically paranoid Dock (Michael Estime, "Everybody Hates Chris"), and Big G (Winston James Francis), the extra-large guy with the extra-corny sense of humor. Henriksen--who gets the corniest line when he recalls the most famous quip from JAWS--is wonderfully grizzled and able to convey a wealth of emotion with just a look and a grunt.
As Dr. Stephen, the head of the scientific trio, Matt Winston (A.I., THE CORE) is exquisitely vain, petty, and supercilious as he grows increasingly desperate to retain control of the expedition and get all the credit for their find. Camille Balsamo (THE PAPERBOY, "Murder in the First"), on the other hand, is instantly likable as Sadie and makes a fine heroine.
HARBINGER DOWN is the result of a bunch of ace practical effects wizards saying "Okay, this is how it's done without slathering on a bunch of cartoony CGI." As such, it's a good low-key monster movie, but I wish the filmmakers had been able to spend enough time and money on those PFX to make them not just passably entertaining, but astounding.
DVD release date: Sept. 1, 2015
Theatrical Release in select cities:
LA SF NY PHL DET CHI ATL DAL HOU PHX
Available on VOD on these platforms: iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, Vudu and Xbox and on cable and satellite providers, including:
Dish Digital/Sling TV
https://www.facebook.com/HarbingerDownOfficial
https://twitter.com/harbinger_down
http://harbingerdown.com/
THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON Limited Edition Coming December 1st From Anchor Bay Entertainment!
AMC’S “THE WALKING DEAD:
THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON”
ARRIVES DECEMBER 1ST FROM
BEVERLY HILLS, CA – In what has become a highly anticipated annual tradition for “Walking Dead” fans the world over, Anchor Bay Entertainment will be releasing THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON Blu-ray™ + Digital HD Limited Edition set on December 1st. As with previous limited editions, McFarlane Toys has once again created a striking, must-own packaging concept. This year’s Limited Edition features an “asphalt” walker, one of the many unforgettable images that have made the AMC series a global phenomenon. Handsomely crafted and intricately detailed, the figurine is based on the original walker designed by award-winning SFX make-up Supervisor and Executive Producer, Greg Nicotero. Packaging also includes a collectible 5-disc Blu-ray™ set digipack with exclusive “walker” cover art available only with this set. SRP is $149.99, and available for pre-order now on Amazon.com.
Previous “Walking Dead” Limited Edition releases include the “Screwdriver Walker Head” (Season 2), the “Governor’s Walker Head Tank” (Season 3), and the “Tree Walker” (Season 4).
Bonus Features on the Blu-ray™ + Digital HD include:
Audio commentaries featuring Showrunner/Executive Producer/Writer Scott M. Gimple, Executive Producer Gale Anne Hurd, Executive Producer Tom Luse, Executive Producer/Special Effects Make-Up Supervisor /Director Greg Nicotero, Director Julius Ramsay; Actors Lauren Cohan, Chad L. Coleman, Michael Cudlitz, Sonequa Martin-Green, Danai Gurira, Alanna Masterson, Melissa McBride, Josh McDermitt, Norman Reedus, Christian Serratos and Steven Yeun.
Inside “The Walking Dead”
The Making of “The Walking Dead”
The Making of Alexandria
Beth’s Journey
Bob’s Journey
Noah’s Journey
Tyreese’s Journey
A Day in the Life of Michael Cudlitz
A Day in the Life of Josh McDermitt
Rotters in the Flesh
THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON cast also includes Norman Reedus, Steven Yeun, Lauren Cohan, Danai Gurira, Chandler Riggs, Melissa McBride, Chad L. Coleman, Sonequa Martin-Green, Lawrence Gilliard, Jr., Michael Cudlitz, Emily Kinney, Alanna Masterson, Christian Serratos, Josh McDermitt and Andrew J. West.
“The Walking Dead” Season 6 returns to AMC Sunday, October 11th 9/8c.
“THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON”Blu-ray™ + Digital HD Limited Edition
Street Date: December 1, 2015
UPC: 0 1313 2635448 61
Format: Widescreen Presentation 1.78:1
Audio: English Dolby TrueHD 7.1 and French Dolby Surround 2.0
Whether commemorating favorite films from every genre and decade, or creating acclaimed original programming, AMC brings to its audience something deeper, something richer, Something More. The network reigns as the only cable network in history ever to win the Emmy® Award for Outstanding Drama Series four years in a row with “Mad Men,” and six of the last seven with current back-to-back honoree, “Breaking Bad.” The network boasts the most-watched drama series in basic cable history and the number one show on television among adults 18-49 for the last three years with “The Walking Dead.” AMC’s original drama series include “Mad Men,” “The Walking Dead,” “Better Call Saul,” “Hell on Wheels,” “TURN: Washington’s Spies,” “Halt and Catch Fire,” and the forthcoming “Humans,” “The Making of The Mob: New York,” “Fear the Walking Dead,” “Into the Badlands” and “The Night Manager.” AMC also explores authentic worlds and discussion with original shows like “Talking Dead” and “Comic Book Men.” AMC is owned and operated by AMC Networks Inc. and its sister networks include IFC, SundanceTV, BBC America and WE tv. AMC is available across all platforms, including on-air, online, on demand and mobile. AMC: Something More.
About Anchor Bay Entertainment:
Anchor Bay Entertainment is a leading independent home entertainment company celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2015. Anchor Bay acquires and releases a wide array of filmed entertainment in the theatrical and home entertainment markets, including STARZ Original series, children's entertainment, fitness (Anchor Bay Fitness), sports and specialty films on Blu-ray™ and DVD formats. The company has long-term distribution agreements in place for select programming with The Weinstein Company, AMC Networks and RADiUS, among others. Headquartered in Beverly Hills, CA, Anchor Bay Entertainment (www.anchorbayentertainment.com) is a full service distributor in the North American market. Anchor Bay Entertainment is a Starz (NASDAQ: STRZA, STRZB) business, www.starz.com.
https://www.facebook.com/AnchorBay
https://twitter.com/Anchor_Bay
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https://www.youtube.com/user/starzmedia
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Die a Different Way When Horror Hit "BLOOD PUNCH" Hits DVD/VOD 9/1
Festival Hit Blood Punch Available Nationwide September 1
Die A Different Way on DVD and Digital HD
"...a supernatural film noir on meth, with heaps of dark humor and a madcap edge that cuts deep." -- Bloody Disgusting
Los Angeles, CA - Bluff Road Productions and Midnight Releasing are excited to announce the DVD and VOD release of Blood Punch. Directed by Madellaine Paxson, the film reunites "Power Rangers RPM" stars Milo Cawthorne, Olivia Tennet and Ari Boyland in a bloody thriller, centered on a murderous love triangle that takes a shocking and grisly supernatural turn. Blood Punch pulls you into its vicious cycle on DVD, Digital HD and cable VOD starting September 1.
Blood Punch has been an audience and critical favorite since its premiere at the Austin Film Festival, where it won the Dark Matters Audience Award. Paxson was honored with Best Director and Best Feature at the Hoboken Film Festival, while the film has taken home seven additional Audience and Best Feature awards.
Milton (Cawthorne, Deathgasm), a brilliant chemistry student breaks out of court-mandated drug rehab with a mysterious bad girl, Skyler (Tennet, "When We Go to War"). Looking to recruit a cook for a one-day drug score, she lures him to an isolated cabin with her psychotic and trigger-happy boyfriend Russell (Boyland, "Shortland Street").
Russell reveals that he plans to murder Milton as soon as he is finished cooking the drugs, and their simple love triangle quickly descends into a mind-blowing supernatural cycle of carnage and mayhem with no end...and no escape.
Order Blood Punch on Amazon
Order Blood Punch on iTunes
The DVD release of Blood Punch (SRP $17.98) will exclusively include deleted scenes, outtakes and test footage.
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TEEN TITANS GO!: HOUSE PESTS SEASON 2 PART 2 -- DV...
"Zorro Reborn" With Lantica Media and Sobini Films...
THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON -- Blu...
"Sesame Street: Elmo Can Do It!" - Take a Journey ...
THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON Limite...
Die a Different Way When Horror Hit "BLOOD PUNCH" ...
"Teen Titans Go!: House Pests Season 2 Part 2" - O...
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BIG SKY -- Movie Review by Porfle
"A PLAGUE SO PLEASANT" Infects Everyone August 25t...
"Person of Interest: The Complete Fourth Season" -...
SILENT PARTNER -- Movie Review by Porfle
WEIRDSVILLE -- Movie Review by Porfle
"HARBINGER DOWN"--Practical Effects Horror Film Op...
"COOTIES"--Horror Comedy with Elijah Wood & Alison...
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Hock 5
Tag: Edgardo Navarro-Cruz
Taunton Edges Oliver Ames In Game of the Week
Taunton quarterback Noah Leonard (left) converts a third down with his legs in the second half. (Ryan Lanigan/HockomockSports.com)
NORTH EASTON, Mass. – Whatever Taunton head coach Brad Sidwell was selling at halftime, his defensive unit was buying.
Taunton posted a second half shutout, limiting Oliver Ames to negative yardage on each of its first two drives and then stopped a late red zone attempt to seal a 13-12 win.
“Our defense hung in there for us in the end,” Sidwell said. “We had to keep them in front of us to make the play. We turned the ball over too much on offense. And even though our defense didn’t force a turnover, they didn’t give up too many big plays.
“I give [Oliver Ames] a lot of credit. The back they have there [Anthony Berksza] is an unbelievably hard runner. They do a good job of getting him the ball and doing some formational things that make it difficult for us on defense.”
Click here for a photo gallery from this game.
Oliver Ames had an ideal start to the game, scoring on each of their first two drives while Taunton had just 10 yards of offense on its first two series of the game.
With the wind at its back, Oliver Ames’ defense came out blazing, forcing a three and out. Because of the wind, Taunton’s punt went just eight yards giving the hosts great field position at the Taunton 35-yard line.
OA used eight plays to cover the 35 yards, with junior Anthony Berksza (19 carries, 94 yards, two touchdowns) cutting up the middle for a 4-yard touchdown. A two-point attempt was stuffed in the backfield by Taunton’s Nuno Camara but OA took a 6-0 lead with 4:29 left in the first.
The hosts were back on offense just three plays later. Facing a third down, Taunton went to the air for the first time in the game but OA’s Michael Mulrean came away with the interception, giving the home team a first down at the Taunton 42-yard line.
OA took advantage of good field position once again, using just six plays to double its lead. Highlighted by a 25-yard rush from Noah Fitzgerald on third down, the home-Tigers moved into the red zone. Three plays later, Berksza took the toss to the right and plunged across the goal line inside the pylon. Another two-point attempt was stopped but OA had a 12-0 lead with less than 10 minutes gone in the game.
“Our kids came out strong,” said OA head coach Mike Holland. “The weather definitely impacted both teams, especially with what we were both doing offensively. We played a good first quarter but we just have to be able to put together an entire game. They made two big fourth down conversions and had a huge third down conversion too. They made plays when they needed to.”
Taunton’s offense finally got in gear behind three straight runs from TJ Mendes (16 carries, 41 yards). Facing a fourth down at OA’s 20-yard line, Taunton went back to the air and junior Noah Leonard (4-for-11, 62 yards, two total touchdowns) hit classmate Wesner Charles for an 11 yard gain and a first down.
Three plays later, Leonard used a QB sneak from two yards out to get Taunton on the board. A dropped snap on the extra point try resulted in a failed attempt, cutting the deficit to 12-6 with 4:19 left in the second quarter.
OA received the kickoff to start the second half, but a chop block penalty on second down set the offense back and resulted in a punt into the win for just 16 yards.
Taunton’s offense capitalized on the momentum its defense created and took a shot on the first play. Leonard dropped back and floated a perfect pass down the right sideline to senior Collin Hunter, who hauled in the pass and raced just inside the pylon for a 36-yard touchdown. John Teixeira‘s extra point put Taunton up 13-12 and ended up being the winning kick.
“I thoroughly am enjoying coaching these kids,” Sidwell said. “Each day, we’re coaching hard, the kids are working hard. Tomorrow morning the kids and my coaches will be working on how to get better and it’s awesome for the kids and the city of Taunton.”
The team’s traded punts after OA’s next drive went for negative yards (with big tackles from Edgardo Navarro-Cruz and Coryn Nompleggi) and Taunton’s drive stalled after a key third-and-one stop by OA.
OA moved the ball into Taunton territory on its next drive, highlighted by a 28-yard burst by Berksza. But Taunton’s defense stopped OA for a loss, then a fumble on the handoff went for no gain. On fourth down, Taunton’s defense was able to stop the rush and force a turnover on downs.
Taunton’s next drive didn’t result in points but did take nearly seven minutes off of the clock. Malik Richardson (nine carries, 37 yards) rushed for back-to-back first downs before Mendes took two straight carries for another first.
“In a game when the weather is like this, you have to be stubborn and stick with the run,” Sidwell said. “Even though they were crowding the line, we had to stick with it. There was a drive toward the end that we leaned on [the running backs] heavily and they came through.”
Facing fourth and nine from OA’s 30-yard line, Leonard (six carries, 56 yards) took the carry himself, bolting for 12 yards to move the chains and keep Taunton’s drive alive.
“He had two huge runs for us,” Sidwell said of Leonard. “He’s a real threat. He can really throw the ball but if he can be a dual-threat quarterback by running the ball, that will be huge for us.”
The visitors almost put the game away on a play action play but Leonard’s pass into the wind to senior lineman Alex Simon held up and the pass ended up incomplete despite a diving effort. Taunton tried to throw for the first on fourth down but OA’s Cobey Williamson came up with an interception and returned it to the OA 29-yard line.
With just over five minutes to play, Berksza went for 28 yards on OA’s second play of the drive. Jay Fruci (13 carries, 56 yards) followed it up with a 29-yard dash, putting the ball at Taunton’s 11-yard line.
Taunton’s defense then held OA for runs of four, one and two, setting up fourth down. OA elected to try a 21-yard field goal but it was just wide right with 1:45 to play.
The visitors ran out the rest of the time as OA had no timeouts left.
“We talk to the kids to just live in the week that we’re in, focus on the team we’re playing that week,” Sidwell said. “Right now we just have to get them ready for Attleboro.”
Taunton football (3-0 overall, 1-0 Hockomock) returns home to Aleixo Stadium next week to welcome Attleboro (0-3, 0-1) on Friday night. Oliver Ames (1-2, 0-1) will welcome Franklin (1-2, 0-1) to Muscato Stadium on Thursday night.
Anthony Berksza Brad Sidwell Cobey Williamson Collin Hunter Coryn Nompleggi Edgardo Navarro-Cruz Jay Fruci John Teixeira Malik Richardson Michael Mulrean Mike Holland Noah Fitzgerald Noah Leonard Nuno Camara Oliver Ames Taunton TJ Mendes Wesner Charles
© 2020 HockomockSports.com
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by Shane McGlaun — Wednesday, August 21, 2019, 12:00 PM EDT
Massive MoviePass Database Flaw Exposes Credit Card Info On Thousands Of Customers
MoviePass members have reason to be concerned with the service. A security researcher from SpiderSilk named Mossab Hussein has announced that he found a major flaw in MoviePass servers. The flaw exposed a database that contained 161 million records and it is still growing in real-time. The researcher says the many of the messages in the database were routine computer-generated logging messages.
However, many of the entries included sensitive user information like MoviePass customer card numbers. MoviePass customer cards are like debit cards and are issued by MasterCard. TechCrunch reports that it reviewed 1,000 entries from that log and a bit over half of them contained MoviePass customer card numbers.
Information contained in the messages included the MoviePass debit card number, expiration date, card balance, and when the card was activated. The database contained more than 58,000 records containing card data. To make matters worse, among the data in the database was customer personal credit card numbers and the expiration date, along with data on billing information, names, and postal addresses.
Some of the entries in the database did contain credit card numbers that had been masked except for the last four digits. The logs in the file also included email addresses and failed passwords from users attempting to log into their accounts. None of the data in the database was encrypted. MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe was contacted via email by the security researcher to tell him about the breach, but Lowe never responded. The database remained up and visible until yesterday.
This isn't the first time that MoviePass users were concerned with privacy; MoviePass promised that it wouldn't monetize users' location data.
Tags: data breach, Privacy, moviepass
Via: TechCrunch
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In the early years, even as HSPAA fundraised for the instrument, we gave back. We partnered with Squamish Rotary on several occasions. One such concert/auction at Totem Hall raised $10,000 for a heart monitor for the hospital.
We partnered again with the Rotary club in 1996 to host international pianist Janina Fialkowska, performing on a grand piano donated for the occasion by Tom Lee Music in Vancouver. Together we raised $23,000 for the piano fund and Rotary set aside a sizeable amount towards a community park.
In 1997, HSPAA purchased the grand piano from Tom Lee Music using:
$6000 raised over four years from our local events
$6000 matched by the Vancouver foundation
$23,000 from the joint HSPAA/Rotary fundraiser and
$10,000, from the Tiampo family.
For a total investment of $45,000.
Since that time, the grand piano has served us well. The HSPAA is known for bringing professional level performers to Squamish. We have presented artists such as Janina Fialkowska (on three occasions), Jon Kimura Parker, Angela Cheng, Sara Buechner, Lorne Elliott, Borealis Quartet, Chor Leoni and Avan Yu to name a few.
In addition we produced concerts for local artists and students including Star Search and Festival of the Canadian Arts. Currently, we produce several shows each year that feature talented local performers.
The Howe Sound Music Festival (HSMF) is held each spring for pianists, singers and choirs. Performers of all ages -- from Pemberton to Britannia -- are welcome to compete for adjudication by professional adjudicators, scholarships and the chance to compete in the Provincial Music Festival. Performances culminate in a gala showcase of gold medal winning performances.
I think it's safe to say that HSPAA has contributed greatly to the culture of our community and indeed, inspired other artists.
HSPAA and Squamish Rotary, supported by the District of Squamish, hosted a third major event in 2005: the fundraiser for victims of the tsunami in Indonesia -- Waves of Compassion. We raised $46,000 and the event was a highlight of community cooperation and service. It's worth noting that from start to finish this fundraiser was organized and took place within a three week time period.
In the past, we donated several thousand dollars to the Access Music Education fund (AME) which benefitted deserving students in their performing arts endeavors.
At present, HSPAA is proud to support a Howe Sound Secondary student financially with our annual performing arts award.
What does the future hold for HSPAA? We want to mentor others, especially young people, in production and the technical aspects of sound and lighting. We will continue to support artists at a grassroots level and bring touring artists to play on our quality instrument.
We are currently seeking volunteers to help us continue to provide the corridor with high quality concerts and performances.
Please contact us to get involved.
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How To Delete iCloud Account On iPhone And iPad
For iOS 12, 11, 10, 9, 8
Good vibes with the new iPhone 11: 55% of US bookings are from ‘Pro’ models
por vegueta octubre 19, 2019 octubre 19, 2019 Deja un comentario Good vibes with the new iPhone 11: 55% of US bookings are from ‘Pro’ models
As I mentioned recently, the move Apple has made with the names of the new iPhones seeks to make the iPhone 11 the main model as long as the 11 Pro is relegated to something more expensive and suitable for professionals like the iMac Pro. We took away the feeling of «I’ll settle for the iPhone XR that’s the cheap one» we had last year.
However, it seems that the first analyses point higher than we can think of at first. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says bookings have gone better than expected, with the two iPhone 11 Pro sizes dominating in the United States.
Optimism in the reservations of all models
According to his own study, Kuo says 45% of the bookings that have been made so far from the iPhone 11. That means the remaining 55% of bookings are from the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max. It would represent a 10-15% improvement over last year’s reserves.
The motive? One of the causes could be the iPhone Upgrade Program present in the United States, with which you can pay a fixed amount of money per month and renew your iPhone each year. The difference between renewing for an iPhone 11 and renewing for an iPhone Pro 11 is a few more dollars a month, which is tempting for anyone who uses their iPhone on a daily basis.
Kuo also said yesterday that demand for iPhone 11s was going better than expected, and that new colors were picking up a lot of interest. We’ll see this in the form of the revenue Apple is unveiling at next January’s financial results press conference, which will reflect sales for the holiday period.
A13 Bionic: this is the brain of 8.5 billion transistors that ride the new iPhones
Apple plans to use Apple Watch’s LTPO display technology also on iPhones
© 2020 How To Delete iCloud Account On iPhone And iPad. Metro Magazine | Developed By Rara Theme. <Funciona con WordPress
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ClintonRecent ArticlesSatanist Pedophiles
Why Did Hillary Clinton Visit Jeffrey Epstein’s Pedophilia Island 6 Times Via The Lolita Express?
Alexander LightJuly 21, 2017
Report: Bill Clinton Wasn’t Only One to Go to ‘Sex Slave Island,’ Hillary Went with Him–‘Six Times’
The source for this claim is Erik Prince, the founder of the security firm Blackwater (yes, that one.) In an exclusive interview at Breitbart News, Prince first states that the NYPD is “ready to make arrests in Weiner case.”
The Breitbart — PizzaGate Connection: Was Andrew Breitbart Killed To Conceal This Story?
Prince, who is a Trump supporter and major donor to pro-Trump Super PAC Make America Number 1, had plenty to say about the hot water that Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin may be in, according to his NYPD sources.
“I believe – I know, and this is from a very well-placed source of mine at 1PP, One Police Plaza in New York – the NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional arrests they were making in this investigation, and they’ve gotten huge pushback, to the point of coercion, from the Justice Department, with the Justice Department threatening to charge someone that had been unrelated in the accidental heart attack death of Eric Garner almost two years ago.
“That’s the level of pushback the Obama Justice Department is doing against actually seeking justice in the email and other related criminal matters,” Prince claimed.
Prince then went into the alleged lurid material he says is on Weiner’s laptop:
“NYPD was the first one to look at that laptop,” Prince elaborated.
“Weiner and Huma Abedin, his wife – the closest adviser of Hillary Clinton for 20 years – have both flipped. They are cooperating with the government.
They both have – they see potential jail time of many years for their crimes, for Huma Abedin sending and receiving and even storing hundreds of thousands of messages from the State Department server and from Hillary Clinton’s own homebrew server, which contained classified information.
Weiner faces all kinds of exposure for the inappropriate sexting that was going on and for other information that they found.”
“So NYPD first gets that computer. They see how disgusting it is. They keep a copy of everything, and they pass a copy on to the FBI, which finally pushes the FBI off their chairs, making Comey reopen that investigation, which was indicated in the letter last week.
“The point being, NYPD has all the information, and they will pursue justice within their rights if the FBI doesn’t,” Prince contended.
DNC Staffer Arrested For Possessing ‘Infant Porn’ Featuring Babies as Young as 6 Months Old
The Blackwater Founder then leveled the charge that there is evidence of criminal activity:
“There is all kinds of criminal culpability through all the emails they’ve seen of that 650,000, including money laundering, underage sex, pay-for-play, and, of course, plenty of proof of inappropriate handling, sending/receiving of classified information, up to SAP level Special Access Programs,” he stated.
“So the plot thickens. NYPD was pushing because, as an article quoted one of the chiefs – that’s the level just below commissioner – he said as a parent, as a father with daughters, he could not let that level of evil continue,” Prince said.
Prince pivots from the Weiner laptop investigation to claiming that Hillary Clinton accompanied Bill Clinton and billionaire convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein to “sex island” (aka “sex slave island”).
As we hurry past the disturbing picture that paints, let’s go to the transcript:
“Because of Weinergate and the sexting scandal, the NYPD started investigating it. Through a subpoena, through a warrant, they searched his laptop, and sure enough, found those 650,000 emails.
“They found way more stuff than just more information pertaining to the inappropriate sexting the guy was doing,” Prince claimed.
“They found State Department emails. They found a lot of other really damning criminal information, including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
“Bill Clinton went there more than 20 times. Hillary Clinton went there at least six times.”
In May, Fox News reported that Bill Clinton indeed frequented Sex Slave Island with Epstein several times:
Clinton’s presence aboard Jeffrey Epstein’s Boeing 727 on 11 occasions has been reported, but flight logs show the number is more than double that, and trips between 2001 and 2003 included extended junkets around the world with Epstein and fellow passengers identified on manifests by their initials or first names, including “Tatiana.”
The tricked-out jet earned its Nabakov-inspired nickname because it was reportedly outfitted with a bed where passengers had group sex with young girls… Official flight logs filed with the Federal Aviation Administration show Clinton traveled on some of the trips with as many as 10 U.S. Secret Service agents.
However, on a five-leg Asia trip between May 22 and May 25, 2002, not a single Secret Service agent is listed.
Not only has Bill Clinton been aboard the “Lolita Express” multiple times on the way to the secluded island, reportedly Donald Trump has “at least once,” according to sworn testimony reported by Vice News.
Trump has called Epstein “a terrific guy” and “a lot of fun to be with.”
Huge Pedophilia Lawsuit: Slave Children Forced to Have Sex With ‘Royalty, Politicians, Academicians’ — Bill Clinton Also Visited the Villa
Vice News claims that Trump’s one-time visit with Epstein has effectively taken the attack off the table for the campaign.
Breitbart News argues that if there were actual evidence that Trump had visited the island, it would be all over the press.
“But the fact is, you know that if the Left had emails pointing to Donald Trump visiting, multiple times, an island with underage sex slaves basically, emails, you know they’d be talking about it. They’d be shouting it from the rooftops.”
“This kind of evil, this kind of true dirt on Hillary Clinton – look, you don’t have to make any judgments,“ he added. ”Just release the emails,” he urged. “Just dump them. Let them out there. Let people see the light of truth.”
By Kyle Becker, Guest author
Oakland Police Pedophile Ring — They Raped & Trafficked A Minor Previous post
90% of Breast Cancer Could be Prevented With These 12 Things Next post
NewsSatanist Pedophiles
45-Year-Old Man Caught With Child Pornography Says He Identifies as an 8-Year-Old Girl
Trans Activist Jonathan “Jessica” Yaniv Tried Grooming a 14-year Old Girl And Asked Her: “Show Me Your Used Tampon!”
British Police Didn’t Stop Muslim Gang of Pedophiles Due to Fears Over “Community Tensions”
Cop Admits to Urinating on 12yo Girl, Filming It, Trying to Kidnap Her
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Adhesion of laser in situ keratomileusis-like flaps in the cornea: Effects of crosslinking, stromal fibroblasts, and cytokine treatment
Shengli Mi, Erin P. Dooley, Julie Albon, Michael E. Boulton, Keith M. Meek, Christina S. Kamma-Lorger
Purpose: To evaluate 3 approaches, both cellular and acellular, to improve the healing of laser in situ keratomileusis flaps in bovine corneas. Setting: School of Optometry and Vision Sciences and Cardiff Institute of Tissue Engineering and Repair, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom. Design: Experimental study. Methods: Laser in situ keratomileusis-like flaps were created in bovine corneas, and the flap bed was treated with tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-1α, Fas ligand, transforming growth factor-β1, or activated stromal fibroblasts. In separate experiments, flaps were created and repositioned. The corneas were then crosslinked using ultraviolet-A (UVA) light. All samples were then placed in organ culture for up to 4 weeks. Untreated samples acted as controls. Results: All treatments increased the adherence of the stromal flap. This was achieved at the expense of corneal clarity except in the case of crosslinking (CXL). In this case, the flap adhesion force immediately increased while the cornea remained clear. The force then decreased gradually during organ culture, although it remained at twice the level of the control corneas after 3 weeks in culture. Conclusions: The results suggest that riboflavin-UVA CXL is a hopeful approach for increasing the adherence strength of corneal flaps while keeping the cornea clear. Further studies are necessary to confirm the durability of the strengthening effect and to exclude serious late complications. Financial Disclosure: No author has a financial or proprietary interest in any material or method mentioned.
Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrs.2010.07.028
Published - Jan 2011
Laser In Situ Keratomileusis
Organ Culture Techniques
Fas Ligand Protein
Ultraviolet Rays
Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha
Mi, S., Dooley, E. P., Albon, J., Boulton, M. E., Meek, K. M., & Kamma-Lorger, C. S. (2011). Adhesion of laser in situ keratomileusis-like flaps in the cornea: Effects of crosslinking, stromal fibroblasts, and cytokine treatment. Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, 37(1), 166-172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrs.2010.07.028
Adhesion of laser in situ keratomileusis-like flaps in the cornea : Effects of crosslinking, stromal fibroblasts, and cytokine treatment. / Mi, Shengli; Dooley, Erin P.; Albon, Julie; Boulton, Michael E.; Meek, Keith M.; Kamma-Lorger, Christina S.
In: Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, Vol. 37, No. 1, 01.2011, p. 166-172.
Mi, S, Dooley, EP, Albon, J, Boulton, ME, Meek, KM & Kamma-Lorger, CS 2011, 'Adhesion of laser in situ keratomileusis-like flaps in the cornea: Effects of crosslinking, stromal fibroblasts, and cytokine treatment', Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 166-172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrs.2010.07.028
Mi S, Dooley EP, Albon J, Boulton ME, Meek KM, Kamma-Lorger CS. Adhesion of laser in situ keratomileusis-like flaps in the cornea: Effects of crosslinking, stromal fibroblasts, and cytokine treatment. Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery. 2011 Jan;37(1):166-172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrs.2010.07.028
Mi, Shengli ; Dooley, Erin P. ; Albon, Julie ; Boulton, Michael E. ; Meek, Keith M. ; Kamma-Lorger, Christina S. / Adhesion of laser in situ keratomileusis-like flaps in the cornea : Effects of crosslinking, stromal fibroblasts, and cytokine treatment. In: Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery. 2011 ; Vol. 37, No. 1. pp. 166-172.
@article{75abe52ee55744a091a7b1b44ecedc24,
title = "Adhesion of laser in situ keratomileusis-like flaps in the cornea: Effects of crosslinking, stromal fibroblasts, and cytokine treatment",
abstract = "Purpose: To evaluate 3 approaches, both cellular and acellular, to improve the healing of laser in situ keratomileusis flaps in bovine corneas. Setting: School of Optometry and Vision Sciences and Cardiff Institute of Tissue Engineering and Repair, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom. Design: Experimental study. Methods: Laser in situ keratomileusis-like flaps were created in bovine corneas, and the flap bed was treated with tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-1α, Fas ligand, transforming growth factor-β1, or activated stromal fibroblasts. In separate experiments, flaps were created and repositioned. The corneas were then crosslinked using ultraviolet-A (UVA) light. All samples were then placed in organ culture for up to 4 weeks. Untreated samples acted as controls. Results: All treatments increased the adherence of the stromal flap. This was achieved at the expense of corneal clarity except in the case of crosslinking (CXL). In this case, the flap adhesion force immediately increased while the cornea remained clear. The force then decreased gradually during organ culture, although it remained at twice the level of the control corneas after 3 weeks in culture. Conclusions: The results suggest that riboflavin-UVA CXL is a hopeful approach for increasing the adherence strength of corneal flaps while keeping the cornea clear. Further studies are necessary to confirm the durability of the strengthening effect and to exclude serious late complications. Financial Disclosure: No author has a financial or proprietary interest in any material or method mentioned.",
author = "Shengli Mi and Dooley, {Erin P.} and Julie Albon and Boulton, {Michael E.} and Meek, {Keith M.} and Kamma-Lorger, {Christina S.}",
doi = "10.1016/j.jcrs.2010.07.028",
journal = "Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery",
T1 - Adhesion of laser in situ keratomileusis-like flaps in the cornea
T2 - Effects of crosslinking, stromal fibroblasts, and cytokine treatment
AU - Mi, Shengli
AU - Dooley, Erin P.
AU - Albon, Julie
AU - Boulton, Michael E.
AU - Meek, Keith M.
AU - Kamma-Lorger, Christina S.
N2 - Purpose: To evaluate 3 approaches, both cellular and acellular, to improve the healing of laser in situ keratomileusis flaps in bovine corneas. Setting: School of Optometry and Vision Sciences and Cardiff Institute of Tissue Engineering and Repair, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom. Design: Experimental study. Methods: Laser in situ keratomileusis-like flaps were created in bovine corneas, and the flap bed was treated with tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-1α, Fas ligand, transforming growth factor-β1, or activated stromal fibroblasts. In separate experiments, flaps were created and repositioned. The corneas were then crosslinked using ultraviolet-A (UVA) light. All samples were then placed in organ culture for up to 4 weeks. Untreated samples acted as controls. Results: All treatments increased the adherence of the stromal flap. This was achieved at the expense of corneal clarity except in the case of crosslinking (CXL). In this case, the flap adhesion force immediately increased while the cornea remained clear. The force then decreased gradually during organ culture, although it remained at twice the level of the control corneas after 3 weeks in culture. Conclusions: The results suggest that riboflavin-UVA CXL is a hopeful approach for increasing the adherence strength of corneal flaps while keeping the cornea clear. Further studies are necessary to confirm the durability of the strengthening effect and to exclude serious late complications. Financial Disclosure: No author has a financial or proprietary interest in any material or method mentioned.
AB - Purpose: To evaluate 3 approaches, both cellular and acellular, to improve the healing of laser in situ keratomileusis flaps in bovine corneas. Setting: School of Optometry and Vision Sciences and Cardiff Institute of Tissue Engineering and Repair, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom. Design: Experimental study. Methods: Laser in situ keratomileusis-like flaps were created in bovine corneas, and the flap bed was treated with tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-1α, Fas ligand, transforming growth factor-β1, or activated stromal fibroblasts. In separate experiments, flaps were created and repositioned. The corneas were then crosslinked using ultraviolet-A (UVA) light. All samples were then placed in organ culture for up to 4 weeks. Untreated samples acted as controls. Results: All treatments increased the adherence of the stromal flap. This was achieved at the expense of corneal clarity except in the case of crosslinking (CXL). In this case, the flap adhesion force immediately increased while the cornea remained clear. The force then decreased gradually during organ culture, although it remained at twice the level of the control corneas after 3 weeks in culture. Conclusions: The results suggest that riboflavin-UVA CXL is a hopeful approach for increasing the adherence strength of corneal flaps while keeping the cornea clear. Further studies are necessary to confirm the durability of the strengthening effect and to exclude serious late complications. Financial Disclosure: No author has a financial or proprietary interest in any material or method mentioned.
U2 - 10.1016/j.jcrs.2010.07.028
DO - 10.1016/j.jcrs.2010.07.028
JO - Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery
JF - Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery
10.1016/j.jcrs.2010.07.028
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His thoughts came through gruff and growly and she knew immediately he was a Were of some kind. Fuck, it’s locked! I was supposed to put the bug inside so I could hear them talking. If I try and get in, someone might see or the vamper might notice my smell on the car. I bet he’s in the hotel right now, fucking the whore who drove him around all day like he was he King of the World! Wait until he sees what I got for him. A big old fucking stake, or maybe better yet, a silver chain to a tree so he can watch the sunrise! Fuck, what do I do now?
Eric felt Sookie’s body tense, and then through the bond he felt…RAGE. BLACK RAGE. BERSERKER RAGE. Insanity washed over her face and he was looking at her in this world for the first time, The Cast Iron Bitch. She snarled, not at him, but at the figure outside, her body starting to glow and shove away from his, moving toward the door.
Eric was fighting not to be swept away in the rage that was pouring into him through the bond. His hands clenched into claws that wanted to rend and tear, his fangs dropping on instinct. He had no idea what was about to happen. Even if he had been told in advance and shown pictures he would not have believed it.
He saw the man outside tense up. Then he let out a strangled cry before it was cut off sharply.
“GET IN”, the CIB commanded, waving her hand at the front passenger door. The lock popped up, of its own accord. His body moved stiffly, shuffling over, opening the door and climbing in. Eric could smell his terror, and it smelled…good. The rage in him longed to taste that fear with his fangs.
“LOOK AT ME!” the man’s head turned and she drilled into his eyes, into his mind, sorting his brain like a card catalog. He opened his mouth to scream in pain. “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” his lips clamped shut. Blood was running from his eyes. Uncaring, she pressed him harder. His body was jerking, a seizure perhaps or just reaction to her violent intrusion, Eric had no idea, could barely care.
Eric had turned on his side and was inching out of his coffin, watching Sookie crouched between him and the man in the front passenger seat. He couldn’t see her face, but he heard her tone as she commanded the Were to do her bidding while she brain raped him. Eric was torn. His instincts pressed him to feed when he smelled the blood, the master in him commanded that the take charge of this situation, but he wanted to see where this went. He needed to measure the full extent of what she could do. There was also a tiny part of him that wanted to stop it before she did something she would regret.
That ship has probably sailed, he thought, looking at the hemorrhaging man. Since she would regret this anyway, the pragmatic side of his nature insisted he remain silent and observe, refusing to give in to his instinctive responses, and to push back on the rage still barreling through to him from the bond.
“SLEEP,” she commanded and the man immediately crumpled down in the front seat and the CIB turned back to look at him.
“THIS ONE WISHES TO HARM YOU, VAMPIRE. NOT THAT I GIVE A FUCK, BUT IT SEEMS TO MATTER TO THE PIXIE AND THE CHILD A GREAT DEAL.” So many questions ran through his mind. He wanted to talk to her about what she meant but he had to stick on topic and find out what this man’s intentions were.
“What does he plan? Does he know who blew up the plane? ”
“HE PLANS TO FOLLOW YOU, DISCOVER YOUR DESTINATION THEN REPORT YOUR WHEREABOUTS TO SOMEONE NAMED ROMAN. HE HAS BEEN FOLLOWING YOU SINCE YOU LEFT SHREVEPORT. HE WAS INSTRUCTED TO PLANT A LISTENGING DEVICE INSIDE THIS VEHICLE AND TRACKING DEVICE ON THE OUTSIDE AS BACKUP.”
“Does he know what Roman will do when he finds out where I am headed?”
“HE HOPES THAT ROMAN WILL TELL HIM TO KILL YOU, EITHER WITH A STAKE OR BY CHAINING YOU TO MEET THE SUN.” She growled as she spoke the words. Her eyes practically dripping crazy on the upholstery. The bond suddenly went so taught with the desire to murder and kill that it almost tripped his own darker urges, again. Using restraint that had taken him a thousand years to master he pulled himself back from the edge of that darkness. One of them being crazy right now was probably one too many as it was. They would really be fucked beyond all measure if the both surrendered to the darkness at the same time. How did she have the power to do this to him? He was the monster in this relationship…wasn’t he? “BUT HE DOESN’T KNOW FOR SURE WHAT ROMAN WILL DO.”
“Is Roman Vampire?”
“UNKNOWN. HE MIGHT BE, BUT IF SO THIS FUCK DOESN’T KNOW IT. HE HATES ALL VAMPIRES, AND WOULD AS SOON KILL ONE AS ANOTHER.” She stopped there, and seemed to be waiting.
“Are there others or is he the only one?”
“Does he suspect where we are going?”
Eric paused here, then asked what we really on his mind. “What is your recommendation?”
“LET ME KILL HIM. SLOWLY.” When he did not speak right away she dropped her gaze and then added. “I WILL DO AS YOU SAY, TEACHER.” That last word cost her, he saw it on her face. She resented acknowledging him in this way. He could feel it in the bond. He wasn’t surprised, it was what he had expected to feel when he had first imagining encountering the CIB in the bond.
Considering his options, he asked, “Can you make him think that he placed the bug on our car and put it on another to follow instead? Can you make him forget he was caught and that we spoke to him?” She considered.
“YES.” His eyes narrowed, he sensed deception in the bond.
“I mean it, we need him to believe he is following us and keep reporting that back. If you kill him or debilitate him in any way the odds are good that another will be sent. I feel your rage, Warrior, I long to drink deeply of it and join you in killing those who wish us harm, but in this instance the better choice is subterfuge.”
She was not capable of reasoning thought. Her rage increased, and he wouldn’t have believed that to even be possible. Her body literally convulsed in front of him and for a moment he thought she might seize herself. Then she regained control, the rage going back down a notch. She turned to the man in front.
“UP!” she commanded. “CLEAN OFF YOUR FACE.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. When he was done wiping the blood off, he sat up and opened the door, closing it again behind him. He moved to the car next to theirs, a similar make and build. Eric watched as the man planted the tracking device under that car, try the door and then walk away toward what was presumably his car, a white Corolla, take out a bag and then walk into the hotel. He checked in, and then disappeared into the elevator, presumably off to his room for the night.
Beside him Sookie had been stiff and silent as she piloted him around. She remained that way for several minutes after he was out of sight and then she turned to face him again. He had been tracking her through the bond and had felt her energy waning and her rage receding as she walked her puppet around.
Then her frame relaxed and she turned to him. The CIB was gone, and in her place was Sookie, with tears in her eyes remorse and shame poured through the bond. He immediately regretted not stopping her from hurting the man. He knew this would be too much for her. He swore at himself as he moved toward her to pull her closer and soothe her. She pulled away from him.
Eric was shocked and hurt. She had not pulled away from him since they had bonded. He felt loathing and shame in the bond and immediately started to apologize for allowing her to do what she had done.
“I’m sorry, Sookie, I-“she held up a hand for silence, cutting him off.
“No, you don’t owe me an apology, Eric.” His eyes widened in surprise. “I owe you one.” He sat back, now feeling like someone had kicked him in the chest.
“Wha-?” She cut him off again, bowing her head, tears flowing freely now down her cheeks.
“You trusted me to keep you safe. You asked me to find us someplace safe to renew our bond and I failed you on both counts. I am ashamed.” She hung her head now, kneeling before him, bordering on sobs.
WHAT THE FUCK??? She pulled away from his touch, so he couldn’t console her that way. He could feel her shame and sorrow through the bond, as well as her exhaustion. He had no idea what she had just done, but it had saved them both and she was cowering in front of him. He soothed her through the bond, sending her strength and support, and making sure that she could feel his love and how proud he was of her for what she had done.
“You feel proud?” she asked disbelievingly. Her self-loathing so overwhelming it overtook his own feelings completely in the bond. “I can’t do a fucking thing right, not even a simple thing when you ask it of me, and you feel proud?” Her tone indicated that she thought he might be mentally defective in some way.
Eric wanted to say and do about a million things in that moment. He wanted to reassure her and list all the ways and reasons he was proud. He wanted to ask her what she had implanted in the Were’s head. He wanted to kiss her until her stupid self-loathing lips could do nothing but sigh under his kisses. He wanted to drink from her deeply while he was buried inside her slick heat, showing her exactly how much he loved and needed her. He did and said none of those things.
He was the teacher. She had asked and he had accepted. He had to live up to his end of the deal. He found another more relevant truth to give her instead, and in doing so donned an old Mask that he had not worn since Pam was turned.
“Sookie, sometimes survival, is about gaining time, even a minute can make the difference. Time to think, to plot to plan to prepare and to know your enemy. Tonight, we have met ours and we both live. To ask for more would be unreasonable at this juncture.” She said nothing to that, but at least didn’t argue back. He moved around her, still not touching her, and took his place in the driver’s seat. He noted with pleasure that the tank was full. They could move now and try and sort this out later.
“Come, Sookie. We need to be away from this place as soon as possible.”
“Eric, wait.” He turned to see what was going to happen next and saw her sitting there with her face showing strain and concentration. In the bond he could feel her reaching out, looking for other minds and followers she might have missed before. Again he felt proud, but rather than start another argument he stuffed it back down not letting it across the bond. Instead he sent her strength to bolster her efforts and was gratified to see her expression ease as she accepted his gift to her. She opened her eyes after several minutes and said, “Seems clear. I will listen while you drive to be sure.” He nodded and turned to pull out of the space and get back on the interstate, regretting his loss of time with her tonight. Again he pressed it down, not wanting to spark another self-flagellation session in his Beloved over something neither of them could change.
As he slipped out of the road she sat beside him again buckled in and concentrating on the cars around them with a fierce expression on her face. Her hands were carefully tucked between her knees, locked together and twisting occasionally as she heard whatever she was hearing from those around them.
As Sookie listened to the outside she also listened to the inside. Outside…
Fuck I forgot the salt. Marge is gonna kill me..
I wonder if he will be there tonight? I want to see him so bad…
If this asshole in front of me taps his breaks one more time I am gonna roll outta this car and shoot him in his fucking face…
Oh, gawd, last time we fucked she wore those…
He’s going to fire me, I know he is…
You have disappointed me again, Sookie. Why are you always disappointing me? You know what happens now don’t you? We sit down and go through it all step by step until you see where you went wrong, and then I punish you…so that it will never happen again.
NO! Not yet, she mentally shouted back. I need to do this first, I need to listen and protect Eric now. I will do this later. Later, I will come to you and accept what must be done.
Ah, there you go disappointing me again, Sweetheart. Yes, let’s do this later. I want you to have time to make it worse.
She focused back outside and resumed listening to the cars around her. The guy in the car next to her was singing Johnny Cash’s When the Man Comes Around. She smiled a wise and sad smile and thought how appropriate, moving on to the next car.
She asked Eric to slow down and speed up at different times, letting the cars shift around them. He watched the mirrors and looked for any suspicious lane changing, and even left the interstate a couple of times looking for followers while she listened.
After several hours he was convinced that they were no longer being followed. He kept his foot down though determined to distance them from the man they had left at the Holiday Inn. He told her to get some rest, as she would be back behind the wheel tomorrow and she needed to be alert. She didn’t fight him. She just turned toward the window and closed her eyes. After several minutes her breathing evened out and he knew she was sleeping.
Eric immediately started analyzing the evening’s events. Sookie’s power to move things with her mind, her ability to alter memories. Not to mention her complete lack of caring and compassion for her victim. Definitely not the Sookie he thought he knew. When had it changed? Had it changed? He had seen signs of the CIB before when she dealt with Talbot’s remains, and maybe too when she had shot the Were in her living room? She had not been remorseful then, either. He had not seen her after she killed Lenier but somehow, he didn’t think she would have been too upset about avenging her grandmother’s death either. At its heart was that not also what she was showing him when she stood up to him and even dared to strike him? Was it all the same part of her at varying intensity?
He had expected her to be upset because she hurt someone. She was devastated because she felt she almost allowed HIM to be hurt. He filed that for now and moved on the next pressing item.
Someone was after them, well him. Roman? Roman Zimojic? The Authority wanted him dead? Why? Maybe that stunt he pulled with Russell Edgington? How would they have found out? King Bill? He and Pam were the only other ones who knew that he had not sent Russell to his Final Death. He thought back, to his last conversation with Bill, the night before he had gone to see Sookie, the night before they had left together. What had he been prattling on about? Witches, something about witches? Bill might be King now but that certainly did nothing to make him more tolerable, or less pompous and dramatic. Asshole, Eric thought, curling his lip in disgust. I wouldn’t be surprise if he turned me in for not killing Russell, but Nora would have contacted me, she would have warned me if she knew the Authority was after me, he reassured himself.
Besides, if the head of the fucking Authority were after him there would be a fucking army of soldiers on their asses, not some raggedy Were that had all the stealth of a fangbanger hitting Fangtasia for the first time. Too lacking in order for it to be coming from the top.
Someone posing as Roman? Who would be that fucking crazy? To bring that kind of thunder down, posing as the leader of the Authority? His mind took him back to Russell. But Russell was not able to make a play like this? Right?
And what of Nora? What if she was in danger, too? He filed this away for now, not having enough information to make a decision at this point. In time, if he was patient more would be discovered and he would better be able to choose a course of action then. At this point he could well be endangering anyone he reached out to, like he was endangering Sookie right now.
When she had asked to go away with him and leave all this behind, he had pretended to have no idea it would follow them. He had let himself for just a minute think that he could take her away and just BE. Just let himself be happy. It had been a ridiculous fantasy and he should never have indulged himself.
It would have been worse if she had stayed in Bon Temps, if they were not a moving target someone one would have tried to kill her or steal her by now and no matter how much he wanted to there was no way he could be there every time to save her. He had learned that the hard way when she was taken by the Fae, right under his fucking nose practically. He sighed. So much had happened in the short time they had been together and there was never enough time to think it through, to talk about it, to figure out what any of it meant.
Why did things move so fucking fast when you had all of eternity to make any decision? Because someone is always trying to take eternity from you, the answer came back to him.
His thoughts drifting back to Sookie again he considered her new powers and how to find out what else she was capable of. There was also the physical manifestation of the CIB, and this self-loathing at what she thought had been her mistake. It was so strong that it was making him uncomfortable now through the bond even though she was asleep.
Wait…he was feeling that through the bond…thinking back over the turn of his thoughts he was definitely being influenced by it. What the fuck was happening in there? He looked at her head, still facing the window, away from him and started to look for some place to stop. He needed to look for himself. Seeing a rest stop a few miles ahead, he sped up and raced toward the pull off. Feeling pressed that every minute counted here.
Pulling into the first space available and turning the truck off her steadied himself and closed his eyes, reaching out for her via the bond. As always that moment of shivery delight in his body and then he was in.
For the second time that night, even if he had been told what to expect he would never have believed it, not with pictures, not with songs, not with some yokel swearing on a stack of King James editions.
Before him, Sookie kneeled on the floor of her chamber, naked. Her back was raw and bleeding. She was sobbing quietly, hunched over so that her head almost touched the floor. Looking around Eric saw the door labeled Bill was open.
He turned and found himself face to face with Bill Compton. Bill sneered at him, somehow managing to look down his nose at someone who was over a foot taller than himself in that annoying way of his.
“Welcome, Eric. Perhaps you would care to join us?” Bill cracked the whip he obviously had been using on Sookie’s back and looked at him like he was sure Eric was going to say, yes and take a turn with the whip himself. How could he not after all?
3 thoughts on “I’m The Monster, Right?”
Stupid were. Can’t wait for CIB/Sookie to get ahold of him. Holy Crap. Bad Ass Sookie!!!
hmmm Roman appears. Wonder if Nora the Whore will as well? Can’t wait to see S get ahold of her.
Silly Sookie. Better the man come out at a hotel rather than follow them to upsalla.
hmmm CIB is going to punish her? Or is that Scumbill’s door talking?
OMG Hope he can kill Scumbill in her head soon and quickly
That CIB is some BAMF …So Roman is after Eric the authority wants him dead …This plot is getting more and more interesting now I wonder what the hell Bill wants.!!!
I am skeptical that Roman actually sent that Were after them. More likely he was glamoured to think that..now who might have done that? Bill, Russell, or someone unexpected..
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Ten Things You Didn’t Know About: Barbara McReynolds
Eyewear Designer Profiles
Barbara McReynolds and Gai Gherardi, co-founders of l.a.Eyeworks, were high school friends who opened their first storefront on Melrose Avenue in 1979. For more than 35 years, the duo and their frames have embodied a playful, pioneering spirit, and they continue to inspire and influence a new generation of eyewear enthusiasts. They also count a roster of A-list celebrities and lifetime fans among those who give life to the company’s motto, “A face is like a work of art. It deserves a great frame.” — CLODAGH NORTON
This article originally appeared in the September 2015 edition of INVISION.
I remember very clearly the first conversation I had with Gai about setting up an eyewear company. We knew what we wanted to do (and not do) with our business. We even went through a lot of names in that first discussion, all of which we rejected. The only thing we were certain of was that “L.A.” had to be a part of it, and we came up with “Eyeworks” shortly after.
My favorite color is pink. It’s soft, feminine, and it smells good. (But if you ask me again tomorrow, I might just say red.)
My eyewear icons, truly, are our customers. Seeing anyone’s life transformed by great glasses — perhaps that’s more heroic than iconic, but Gai and I live for those moments. That said, I don’t think there’s anyone who’s explored the expressive potential of eyewear like Elton John. There are women who come to mind like Iris Apfel and Joy Bianchi, but I wish I could say I have a young female icon to name. Come on, ladies!
If I could, I would like to start a foundation to feed and house the poor, and I would work my ass off doing it.
I collect rocks and plants, with a particular passion for succulents from Madagascar. I also like poetry and music, and Gai and I spend as much time as we can visiting museums like the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
I love botany, geology and psychology, but I’ve never really wanted to take a completely different path from designing eyewear and making a successful business.
Many people know that we have special love for pugs at l.a.Eyeworks. My pug Stella, who’s no longer with us, was chairman of our board and brand ambassador! I have also cared for a rescued California Desert Tortoise named Mr. Torto for more than 30 years.
A favorite destination? I don’t get there as much as I would like, but I love the Colorado River.
One of Barbara McReynolds’ favorite haunts is Pasadena’s Huntington Gardens.
I often visit the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena where I’m always taken with The Japanese Garden. I love to see the ceremonial tea house in the late afternoon light.
Before l.a.Eyeworks, I worked and trained as an optician at some of the most notable optical shops in Southern California including Rose Optical, Spec Shop and Optique Boutique. I was also a sales representative for Essilor when they introduced Varilux in the U.S.
Ten Things You Didn’t Know About: Pascal Jaulent
Ten Things You Didn’t Know About: Jean-François Rey
Designer Insights: David Rose
Sweat and surf have always had one thing in common. Salt. Now, they have another thing in common. David Rose of SALT. At age 10, Rose purchased his first pair of ski sunglasses. Years later, he retired from pro surfing and entered the industry that had been a lifelong love. In 2007, after working his way up through the ranks at Optical Shop of Aspen and Oliver Peoples, Rose took over design at the year-old SALT. Optics and now uses his love of nature, the beach lifestyle and simple, meaningful design, to create the finest in premium eyewear.
This article originally appeared in the April 2016 edition of INVISION.
1 I work alone but I’m quite happy whenever buyers, consumers and fellow eyewear enthusiasts want to talk shop. I feel like it opens the boundaries on how others might perceive the brand.
2 I’m influenced by nature’s pure beauty. Rich lustrous colors and natural elements help create and refine SALT.’s design aesthetic. The treasured inspiration of nature will always push me forward. The purest form of design comes from the shapes and colors nature provides us.
3 Each piece of SALT. eyewear has its own fingerprint and is finished by hand by third-generation Japanese artisans.
4 Cycling has my attention right now. It’s true freedom to roam all over and connect with the landscape. If I weren’t working in eyewear, I would love to be a pro cyclist. But I’m to old for that now.
5 Hugh Jackman is the coolest I ever saw anyone look in a pair of glasses. He wears a frame we developed with Aether Apparel that’s made for performance but with a sense of ease and sensibility to it. (See Jackman in the frame: invmag.us/jackman.)
Styles From David Rose
The Meadows is a stylish, masculine frame in an aviator shape. Made of titanium/beta titanium, it features bi-color enamel tortoise platting.
A flattering, soft upswept shape, the Chrissie is also crafted of titanium/ beta titanium and further refined by bi-color plating and titanium nose pads.
A vintage inspired sunglass, the Taft offers a unique combination of acetate with titanium temple and bridge details.
Designer Insights: Nicolas Roseillier
John Varvatos recently became the first menswear designer to win the Designer of the Year ACE Award from the Accessories Council — and Nicolas Roseillier is the man who brings Varvatos’ design sensibility to life in eyewear. Roseillier, creative director for REM Eyewear, has worked for the California company since 2009. An architect by training who actually wanted to be an optician as a teen, his first experience with the eyeglasses world came when he designed an optical trade show booth. Today, his influences include television (Mad Men was an inspiration for the mid-century motifs in the Jonathan Adler line introduced last year), music and classic automobiles. Roseillier drives an electric car, but if you want to see him smile, ask about the time he got to take a friend’s Lamborghini out for a spin. See a video of Roseillier talking about the John Varvatos and Jonathan Adler lines below. — MARISSA WALSH
This article originally appeared in the January 2016 edition of INVISION.
1 Before I attended architecture and art school, I studied engineering, specializing in micromechanics.
2 I didn’t speak a word of English when I moved to New York City from Paris 16 years ago.
3 I’ve always been a fan of the Beatles and The Rolling Stones, which is why my two sons are named Jude and Jagger.
4 My dad was in the French military and my mom is an artist. I like to think that because of them, I learned organization and creativity.
5 Most of my first-draft drawings and modifications are drawn by hand. I feel like I get a better feeling of the curves and shapes when I do it that way, and using a computer takes away from that connection.
6 When I’m not doing eyewear, my passions are still with architecture — furniture and interior design.
7 These days most of my trend and general design research is done on social media. Instagram in particular is a great medium for that.
Rem’s Jonathan Adler line playfully echoes the popular designer’s Miami-meets-California vibe. Model JA308 features a digitally printed acetate pattern inside the temples.
A favorite from the John Varvatos “Artisan” collection, model V799 (top) has perforated leather detailing reminiscent of fine driving gloves, plus a classic round silhouette and laser-engraved temples.
Temples transformed into legs with elegant shoes. (See picture at right.) Hidden messages like “So What” or “Super Chic” tucked behind the ears. These are among the many creative inspirations of Pascal Jaulent, president and art director at Face à Face, the Parisian company behind a world of colorful eyewear. Jaulent launched Face à Face with Nadine Roth in 1995 after he’d worked in big business (Nestlé and Dior) and for Lafont. Two decades later, Face à Face and its sister brand Woow continue to wow the eyewear world with adventurous and chic designs. CLODAGH NORTON
This article originally appeared in the November-December 2015 edition of INVISION.
1 When I think of my childhood, I remember the freedom of walking alone in the countryside, with all senses open to nature, the sky, and a feeling of eternity.
2 I am a Leo and I am sure I show some of the typical traits of this sign: I can be idealistic, charming, powerful, brave, honest, generous and shy at different times.
3 I hate dishonesty and meanness, and I can have problems with criticism.
4 Traveling is to me the most inspirational condition for design: a chance to open your eyes, your ears and your taste buds.
5 My favorite destinations depend on my mood and the season. Brittany, for restoring my health. The Côte d’Azur for the light, the sea and the informal lifestyle.
6 My favorite French dish is the cherry tart I remember from my childhood.
7 I love the taste and mastery behind objects: the combination of expertise and intelligence that any object carries in its smallest details, in many kinds of things — a racing car, a glove, a risotto or a whisky, for example.
8My first morning in New York many years ago, I was so excited that I almost couldn’t sleep. I went out onto the streets at 5:30 to walk and breathe and live it.
9 I always have many dreams and ambitions. I’d like to go to the opera on a regular basis, to master my Italian, exercise three times a week, to visit Jordan and Costa Rica, or go on a family trip to London.
10 I love Italy for the exquisite refinements in so many tiny details, and the United States. It’s such a stimulating place.
Press Releases59 mins ago
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January 20, 2016 by Italians in Chicago
The Italian Cultural Institute, in collaboration with the Consulate General of Italy in Chicago and the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, will present the documentary “L’orologio di Monaco,” by Mauro Caputo on Wednesday, Jan. 27th at 6p.m.
Holocaust survivor Dov Boros, born in Budapest, will speak briefly before the screening.
The Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago will commemorate the occasion by screening the docu-film L’orologio di Monaco (The Munich’s Clock) made in 2014 by Mauro Caputo. The movie originates from the short story collection written by writer, playwright and film director Giorgio Pressburger, who also lends his voice to the film. The movie was presented in the Official Selection of the Rome International Film Festival within the “Special Events” category and subsequently at the 13th edition of the Mittel Cinema Fest – Italian Film Festival in Central Europe, which is dedicated to the diffusion of Italian cinema in Mitteleuropa.
L’orologio di Monaco is the story of a centre-European family in which some of the names of the greatest protagonists of the last two centuries of history converge: Karl Marx, Heinrich Heine, Felix Mendelssohn, Edmund Husserls, Emeric Pressburger. The narrator (Giorgio Pressburger) relives with intense emotion, through a research intertwining past and present, memories and events that have led him to discover “what it really means to belong to a human community of dead and living people”. The movie, based on true stories, includes live footage held at the Istituto Luce Cinecittà as well as original video material by film director Emeric Pressburger, kindly made available for this movie by his nephew, Scottish director and Oscar prize winner Kevin MacDonald.
For info and reservations, please click here.
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September 18, 2018 Air, Military
Curtiss-Wright Showcases COTS Hardware and Software Solutions for FACE at U.S. Army FACE Technical Interchange Meeting
Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions division will showcase a range of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)-based embedded solutions that combine its rugged open architecture board and mission computer hardware with FACE-conformant operating system (OS) and FACE-conformant application software at today’s 2018 U.S. Army FACE Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) in Huntsville, Ala.
In addition to the demonstration of the first working example of a FACE-conformant operating system (OS) and FACE-conformant software application running simultaneously on two completely different processor infrastructures (Intel and NXP Power Architecture) held in its own booth (Booth #22), Curtiss-Wright is also participating in technology demonstrations held in the booths of other leading FACE-conformant software vendors, including ENSCO, Green Hills Software (GHS), and Lynx Software Technologies.
The demonstration held in Curtiss-Wright’s booth features Harris Corporation’s popular FACE-conformant FliteScene Digital Moving Map software running on top of GHS’ industry-leading and FACE-conformant INTEGRITY-178 tuMP real-time multicore operating system. The COTS module hardware solutions showcased in the demonstration includes Curtiss-Wright’s NXP Power Architecture QorIQ Quad-core AltiVec-enabled T2080 processor-based VPX3-152, a DO-254 safety-certifiable 3U OpenVPX single board computer (SBC), and the VPX3-1258, a 4th Gen Intel Core i7 (Haswell) processor-based 3U OpenVPX SBC.
FACE-Conformant Multicore RTOS-based Mission Computer
In GHS’ (Booth #3), there will be a demonstration of a Curtiss-Wright Parvus DuraCOR 8042 mission computer running GHS’ FACE-conformant INTEGRITY-178 tuMP real-time multicore operating system. The DuraCOR 8042 is based on a quad-core (8-thread), 5th gen Intel Core i7 (Broadwell) processor with PCI Express (PCIe) Mini Card slots and a PCIe/104 bus architecture to support platform-specific add-on I/O module rapid integration with no/low NRE expense. The INTEGRITY-178 tuMP, the first true multicore operating system to conform to the FACE Technical Standard, is conformant to the FACE 2.1.1 Technical Standard. It conforms to both the FACE Safety Base and Security Profiles for the C, C++ and Ada programming languages. The RTOS has successfully met the DO-178 DAL A certification objectives multiple times across several different multicore SOC architectures, each of which featured a different core design. It is available for all of Curtiss-Wright’s DO-254 safety-certifiable products including its Power Architecture, Intel, and Arm-based SBCs.
Rapid Integration Framework: FACE and Crew Mission System (CMS) Upgrade Demo
In a demonstration of a Rapid Integration Framework solution, Lynx Software Technologies (Booth #33) is showcasing a FACE-aligned software and COTS hardware solution for upgrading the existing Crew Mission System (CMS) hardware. The CMS is designed to reside in the main cabin area of a helicopter and provide situational/mission related data, such as location, speed, and altitude to the Crew Chief. This demo will feature Curtiss-Wright’s Parvus DuraCOR 8042 mission computer and highlight Lynx’s LynxOS-178 RTOS and LynxSecure Separation Kernel. The demo shows how new software and hardware can be integrated into the CMS with minimal development effort and integration challenges. In this demo, the existing hypervisor is replaced with the LynxSecure Separation Kernel, and the CDS’s RTOS is replaced with the LynxOS-178 RTOS. The DuraCOR Mission Computer, located in Lynx’s booth, will host all of the CMS software. The demo also features Presagis, GE Aviation, Boeing, Lynx, RTI, and CDS. Displays located in the Presagis, GE Aviation, and Boeing booths will be connected to the DuraCOR 8042.
FACE-aligned ARINC 661 Cockpit Display System (CDS) Demo
In ENSCO Avionics’ Booth #38 there is a demonstration of a FACE-aligned solution for an ARINC 661-compliant Cockpit Display System (CDS). The demo, based on ENSCO’s IData Tool Suite, a platform-independent embedded graphical software solution, features Curtiss-Wright’s VPX3-131 single board computer and XMC-715 mezzanine graphics card. The operating system for this demo is Lynx Software Technologies’ LynxOS-178 RTOS. The demo will also use CoreAVI graphics drivers. This demo highlights the use of COTS solutions to reduce costs while enabling new technologies for a data-driven development environment.
Drone Startup Airware Shuts Down Operations
NovAtel Introduces SMART7 Family of Smart Antennas Designed for Agricultural Applications
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October 15, 2019 Air, Driverless Cars
Industry Leaders Form Autonomous Vehicle Computing Consortium
Arm, Bosch, Continental, DENSO, General Motors, NVIDIA, NXP Semiconductors and Toyota are working together through a new consortium that’s dedicated to advancing the development of driverless cars.
The automotive and technology companies have formed the Autonomous Vehicle Computing Consortium (AVCC), and will collaborate to develop a “set of recommendations of a system architecture and a computing platform to promote scalable deployment of automated and autonomous vehicles,” according to a news release. The group officially launched at Arm TechCon in San Jose earlier this month.
The standards will reconcile the performance requirements of autonomous systems with the vehicle-specific requirements and limitations in regards to size, temperature range, power consumption and safety.
“This is the first time in the automotive industry that a collaborative organization with this scope is launched,” President Armando Pereira said. “Our members are OEMs, Tier1s and semiconductor manufacturers joined by the common goal of tackling the incredible challenges associated with developing and deploying safe autonomous vehicles at scale.”
Through the AVCC, working groups will share ideas and study common technological challenges. The companies will “help the automotive industry work together by defining, educating and publishing for the benefit of all,” according to the release.
“The future of mobility and the safe, scalable deployment of advanced driver assistance systems to fully autonomous vehicles for mass production requires unprecedented industry collaboration,” said Dipti Vachani, senior vice president and general manager, Automotive and IoT Line of Business, Arm, according to the release. “The AVCC brings together leaders from across the automotive industry landscape to tackle complex foundational technological and computing challenges to accelerate our path to a truly autonomous future.”
Hitec launches Xeno FX
Fleet of Baidu Self-Driving Taxis Begin Trials in China
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May 7, 2015 Air, AUVSI 2015
Spectracom Launches VersaSync at AUVSI
Spectracom
Most of today’s time and frequency solutions aren’t optimized for unmanned platforms, but the team at Spectracom plans to change that with the new high performance GPS master clock and network time server, VersaSync.
VersaSync, set to launch at the AUVSI meeting in Atlanta, offers a small footprint (165 X 120 X 45 millimeters) and weighs less than 500 grams, making it easy to integrate into unmanned platforms for use in a variety of applications, said Rohit Braggs, VP Sales & Marketing. The all-in-one rugged timing and frequency solution provides accurate timing, positioning and attitude in a single, low SWaP box.
VersaSync represents Spectracom’s first standalone timing platform aimed at the unmanned market, and was built based on the company’s nearly 40 years of experience in the precision timing and frequency business.
“Thinking about unmanned platform applications stretched our imagination,” Braggs said. “We had to use our expertise to develop a failsafe technology in a much smaller form factor.”
Not only did the team know VersaSync needed to be small and feature low power consumption, it also needed to be versatile, Braggs said. There are many different types of unmanned vehicles used for many different applications, and they wanted to develop a solution flexible enough for any of those applications.
“All the various unmanned applications have different technology needs, different timing and frequency outputs depending on how they’re being deployed,” Braggs said. “We knew we had to make it versatile enough to be deployed on various unmanned platforms. We made the design flexible, and targeted the compact size along with the ruggedization to address timing and frequency needs. It has configurable signals and various interfaces commonly deployed in these applications.”
VersaSync can be used in land, airborne and marine applications, including as observation payload, robotics, electronic warfare sensor support for naval applications, tactical UAS navigation and communications, and is customizable to match these and other various applications.
VersaSync’s small size, weight and low power consumptions make it easy to integrate, Braggs said, while its high level of ruggedization makes it suitable for mobile applications in harsh environments. It delivers accurate time and frequency in GNSS denied environments by accommodating an OCXO or a CSAC oscillator, allowing the unit to maintain frequency and time accuracy during GPS/GNSS outages.
This new offering is one of the products in Spectracom’s growing rugged portfolio, Braggs said. The Geo-iNav GPS + INS Inertial Navigation System and the Geo-PNT Rugged PNT Module are also part of that portfolio, and are designed to offer precise position and navigation. The Geo-iNav is a fully integrated GPS-aided inertial navigation system available in six standard configurations for commercial and military applications, while the Geo-PNT combines precision timing with positioning and navigation data for continuous data streaming of TSPI (time-space positioning information).
As the unmanned market continues to grow, Braggs expects the company’s portfolio will as well to meet the industry demand for accurate timing and frequency solutions.
“The industry and the technology is constantly changing,” Braggs said. “With VersaSync we provide an all-in-one reliable solution that’s easy to integrate into customized applications.”
For more information, visit spectracomcorp.com.
FAA, Firms to Study Longer-Distance, Urban Drone Flights
Trimble Introduces BD935-INS at AUVSI in Atlanta
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How Google Hire Is Taking on the Recruiting Industry with Landing Pages
Finding the right talent for your business can be an expensive and time-consuming process. According to a U.C. Berkeley study, the average cost of hiring a new employee is $4,000. That number jumps up to a $7,000 average for professional and managerial employees.
With the staffing market predicted to reach $146.6 billion in 2018, most managers and senior level staff recognize the high cost and frustrating inefficiencies involved in hiring or replacing employees. Most managers have wished the hiring process could become more efficient and less of a drain on time and resources.
Google is now presenting their solution to this challenge. This July marks the launch of Google Hire, a recruitment platform for managing job applicants. They are betting on transforming the way companies hire new employees — and Google’s past success entering new markets suggests that competitors should be very wary.
What is Google Hire?
Google Hire is a recruitment platform that is designed to help businesses manage the hiring process and connect job seekers with opportunities. Or, in their own words, “Hire brings the power of Google to recruiting.”
Google’s dominance with data in the search engine space may separate Google Hire from potential competitors such as Indeed, Jobvite, and LinkedIn. Traditional job boards are limited to recommending jobs based on a user’s actions on their site. Since Google has information on what users search, what they buy, who they email (from all over the web), they can leverage this data to match companies with stronger job candidates.
Google’s wide array of apps also separates Google Hire from its competitors. Companies using Google Hire can easily sync interviews through Google Calendar and manage a prospective employee database through Google Sheets. That level of functionality and integration with apps isn’t currently available through other recruitment platforms.
Google Hire allows businesses to:
Create unique hiring stages
Obtain increased background on candidates through Google Search
Create a candidate database to resurface those with high interview scores who weren’t hired or those who were offered but declined
Sync with other Google apps, such as Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Sheets
Post to the major job boards and track the efficacy of each source
The power of Google search will likely be a big draw for Google Hire, as well the ability to sync Google Hire with Google apps.
Google Hire with post-click landing pages
As one of the most influential companies in the digital world, Google understands how best to market their products and services to be hyper targeted to prospects. Google Hire has currently limited the beta product to companies based in the US with under 1,000 employees to generate interest and create demand for the new service.
As you might expect, when you search for “Google Hire,” Google is using paid ads to promote their service:
Clicking on each Hire ad takes visitors to the Google Hire post-click landing page below. Let’s take a look at what this demo post-click landing page does well, and what it could A/B test to be more effective:
What the post-click landing page does well:
The headline lets visitors know what the post-click landing page is about: signing up for a Google Hire product demo.
The copy is short and to the point allowing visitors to quickly read through and determine if they want to convert on the offer.
Google lets prospects know that even if their company doesn’t meet the criteria for the product demo, they will still get an update on when Google Hire becomes available to their region or company size.
The privacy policy link in the footer can help increase trust in prospects who are weary about giving up personal information online.
What the post-click landing page could change or A/B test:
The linked Google Hire logo in the top-left acts as an exit route off the post-click landing page before prospects can convert.
The header navigation also gives visitors too many ways off the page without considering the offer. Research confirms this is a poor post-click landing page design practice.
The large empty space to the left of the form makes the post-click landing page feel unbalanced. Adding social proof, such as a testimonial, could improve the aesthetics of this post-click landing page.
The long form is intimidating. Breaking up this information into a multi-step form could reduce form friction and the empty space on the left.
The turquoise CTA color is similar to other colors on the page, which prevents it from standing out as much as it could. Changing this color to orange could increase conversions.
The CTA copy could be better optimized. “Schedule My Demo” is more accurate to the offer, and it’s personalized to the visitor.
The footer full of links are distractions and removing them could increase conversions.
The simplified post-click landing page users are taken to from the email looks very similar but doesn’t have the footer navigation links. The form is more personalized as well and offers specific time slots for availability.
After converting on the page, visitors are taken to a thank you page:
Prospects who convert on the offer are also sent a thank you email confirming their reservation. Doing this is a best practice to nurture leads with related content in the future and building a familiarity with your brand.
Why did Google choose post-click landing pages to promote Google Hire?
Google is no stranger to post-click landing pages; they’ve already used post-click landing pages to announce and promote products like Google Home. As the dominant provider in the search engine industry, Google understands that post-click landing pages are the best way to increase conversions and turn general interest in Google Hire into a substantial list of qualified prospects.
post-click landing pages that convert at a high rate focus on a single offer and use persuasive elements to convince prospects to act. Google’s post-click landing page for their Hire solution demonstrates their understanding of this.
Follow Google’s lead with post-click landing pages
By promoting Hire with a post-click landing page, Google is effectively keeping the focus on the product demo and nothing else. While Hire is currently only available to US based organizations with less than 1,000 employees, when Google is ready to roll out more features, they’ll be able to use their leads generated from post-click landing pages to extend the offer to those who couldn’t participate originally and generate sign ups.
You can build attractive post-click landing pages to generate interest for your promotions just like Google. Sign up for an Instapage Enterprise demo today.
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IC Arizona
Rachel Alexander
The Center for Marriage Policy
War Against Second Amendment Salvo In War Against The First
One of the fundamental axioms of politics and policy is to never allow a crisis to go to waste. By that, it is meant that, if at all possible, a tragic event should not only be invoked in reference to limit the circumstances surrounding it, but also to taint one's opposition with the ensuing heartache so as to make their own defense against the allegations directed towards them seem callous and insensitive.
An article posted 7/26/18 on the Washington Post website is titled “Why Some Christians Don't Believe In Gun Control: They Think God Handed Down The Second Amendment”. The analysis opens, “We're now at a point when Americans are killed or injured in a mass shooting almost every month...Despite this, resistance to gun control in the United States remains fierce.”
However, blame is not placed on those actually perpetrating such horrific acts of violence. Instead, blame is aimed at those nebulously referred to as “Christian nationalists”.
The author defines Christian nationalism as an ideology that holds to the inseparable bond between Christianity and American civil society. Adherents of the philosophy are accused of believing that America should remain broadly Christian in terms of underlying symbols and policies with the nation's foundational liberties to be understood in terms of a literal and absolute meaning.
Interestingly, the authors of the study point out that adherents of Christian nationalism do not necessarily adhere to a singular interpretative theological tradition. Rather those of this perspective are not only conservative Evangelicals but also traditionalist Catholics or even those that construe existence through a religious lens but do not necessarily practice their faith through formalized church attendance.
Such a definition raises a number of issues and questions perhaps even more important than the right to bear arms. Among these rank why certain technocrats want to eliminate this particular liberty and, conversely, why Americans must not allow this precious freedom to be taken away if they desire to retain those more obvious such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The first presupposition denigrated as going “beyond merely acknowledging some sincere religious commitments of the Founding Fathers” is that America should always be distinctively Christian in terms of national identity. But if the majority in the nation are Christian at least to the degree that they have no problem identifying the institutions of such in terms of origin, why are these obligated to be altered to placate a small cabal of disgruntled secularists?
The next issue raised by the authors of the study that ought to be of concern is opposition to enumerated liberties understood as being divine, literal and absolute.
If rights are not understood as being divine in origin, it follows that these protections must derive then from being bestowed upon the individual by the state as the ultimate authority answerable to nothing higher in a materialistic or naturalistic universe. After all, even if for a moment the institution decides to grant those subject to it a degree of leeway referred to colloquially as “rights”, there is nothing preventing these from being revoked at a moment's notice because of the near monopolistic use of force utilized by the state. For even in a situation where the population has access to basic firearms, these are minuscule in terms of the sorts of munitions available to the state in the era of total war.
Only when rights are construed as being bequeathed upon mankind by God apart from the state can they be perceived as absolute and unchanging. For such a gift would be a reflection of God's absolute perfection and unchanging goodness.
Nor would an honest or descent person want it any other way. For if rights are granted by an individual or institution that is fallible by nature, who is to say that these rights were not mistakes to begin with.
This concern is evidenced in the case of Alex Jones. It has been concluded that a controversialist such as himself must be “deplatformed” for the sake of the social good because of his propensity to disseminate ideas contradictory to the narratives concocted by globalist puppet masters determining what will or will not constitute acceptable factuality.
Most people, even his admirers, will eventually admit that Jones has said shocking and outrageous things over the years. But what if this government that can adapt the scope of the allowable in order to calibrate what the technocrats conclude is the sort of society that they desire decide to contract the boundaries of permissible utterances further?
Believe that Jesus is the only path to Heaven? But if rights do not exist above the material world, what if a government concludes such cannot be said for fear of undermining the sense of equality of those residing within its jurisdiction? Unless the people are allowed to retain some kind of tangible check on such power run amok.
By Frederick Meekins
Posted by Frederick at Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Tweets by @Rach_IC
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American Civil Rights Institute Blog
LifeNews.com Pro-Life Headlines
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Twin pregnancy with complete hydatidiform mole and coexisting fetus following ovulation induction with a non-prescribed clomiphene citrate regimen: a case report
Sherif Abd-Elkarim Mohammed Shazly1,
Mohammed Khairy Ali1,
Ahmed Yahia Abdel Badee1,
Abu-bakr Abbas Alsokkary1,
Mostafa Mohammed Khodary1 &
Nehal Abd-Elkarim Mostafa2
Twin pregnancy with complete hydatidiform mole represents a very rare obstetric problem. Management of such cases is always problematic because the possibility of fetal survival should always be weighed against the risk of complications of molar pregnancy.
A 34-year-old Caucasian woman presented to our center with mild vaginal bleeding. Our patient was 16 weeks pregnant after a seven-year period of primary infertility. She became pregnant following a non-prescribed regimen of clomiphene citrate extending from the second day to the 13th day of her last cycle. A transabdominal ultrasound examination revealed a twin pregnancy with complete hydatidiform mole and a coexisting fetus. Serum β human chorionic gonadotropin was falsely low as identified by serial dilution of the sample (the 'hook effect'). Our patient refused termination of pregnancy and she was hospitalized for strict observation and follow-up. Unfortunately, she developed an attack of severe vaginal bleeding and a hysterotomy was performed. The fetus died shortly after birth.
Twin pregnancy with complete hydatidiform mole represents a matter of controversy. We suggest that conservation should always be considered whenever tertiary care services and strict observation are available.
Twin pregnancy with complete hydatidiform mole and coexisting fetus is rarely seen during clinic practice. The incidence ranges from 1 in 20,000 to 1 in 100,000 pregnancies [1]. Diagnosis in such cases can be simply made by obstetric ultrasound examination but the decision whether to conserve or not is always problematic. Traditionally, termination of pregnancy was indicated to avoid the unacceptable risk of complications of complete molar pregnancy such as early onset pre-eclampsia, thyrotoxicosis and increased risk of persistent trophoblastic disease [2]. However, complete hydatidiform mole is possibly associated with advanced maternal age and the use of assisted reproductive techniques, and this reflects how difficult the decision of termination is for such couples [3]. Our case report represents one such patient who conceived after a relatively long period of infertility and repeated medical trials for conception. In this article, we report a case of second trimester twin pregnancy with a huge complete hydatidiform mole that was managed conservatively according to our patient's request and circumstances. We also discuss the falsely low β human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) results that were revealed during follow-up in what is known as the 'hook effect'. The hook effect is another interesting phenomenon that should be considered in patients with complete molar pregnancy and low serum β-hCG.
A 34-year-old Caucasian woman, gravida 1 para 0, presented to our hospital with repeated attacks of mild vaginal bleeding. Our patient, according to her sure reliable dates, was 16 weeks and three days pregnant. She had a history of primary infertility for seven years preceding this pregnancy, and she had sought medical advice for delayed conception one year after marriage. Male factor infertility was excluded by a single semen analysis and she was informed that her hysterosalpingography was quite normal; she was given medical treatment that she could not recall to improve her cycles (these were infrequent and irregular over the last five years). She used these medications for about four months after which she reported some improvement in her cycles but conception did not occur. A hormonal profile was ordered and our patient was examined transvaginally by ultrasound. Subsequently, she was informed she had bilateral polycystic ovarian syndrome. Her physician prescribed clomiphene citrate (Clomid, Global Napi, Egypt) 100 mg for five days beginning on the second day of her cycle. Our patient continued taking the drug without ovulation monitoring and the regimen was repeated with an increasing dose up to 200 mg daily for six successive months. Laparoscopic ovarian drilling was performed and our patient resumed using clomiphene citrate three months after the operation without prescription. Two months prior to admission, she took 250 mg of clomiphene citrate (five tablets per day) beginning from the second day onwards until the 13th day of the cycle.
Our patient had a missed period immediately after this haphazard regimen. Pregnancy was confirmed by a urine pregnancy test then by a trans-vaginal ultrasonographic examination that was carried out six weeks and three days after her last menstrual period. According to this ultrasound report, the gestational sac corresponded to seven weeks of gestation. However, there was no comment regarding the presence of theca lutein ovarian cysts. She did not follow-up with her pregnancy until she reached the 16th week of gestation. At that time, she experienced recurrent attacks of vaginal bleeding that she described as mild and dark colored. Apart from pallor and tachycardia, our patient appeared quite normal on general examination; her pulse was 106 beats/minute, blood pressure was 125/85 and her temperature was 37.2°C. Abdominally, her uterine fundal level was equivalent to 28 weeks and the uterus was dewy in consistency in most of its mass. A transabdominal ultrasound examination revealed a huge complete hydatidiform mole occupying the lower pole of the uterus and a coexisting fetus with its placenta that were enclosed within a separate sac (Figure 1). Our patient was admitted to our hospital and full laboratory investigations were ordered. Her blood test results revealed microcytic hypochromic anemia and her hemoglobin level was 9.6 g/dL. Other investigations were normal. In spite of her testing positive, her serum β-hCG level was relatively low for a patient with complete molar pregnancy (8354 mIU/mL and 7799 mIU/mL in two serum samples drawn two days apart). The technician did not suspect any technical error and he confirmed the accuracy of the result. However, we considered the possibility of falsely low results and accordingly, a senior specialist was consulted. She repeated the test with serial dilutions and β-hCG was found to be 1.876 million mIU/mL. Our patient was counseled about the risk of continuation of this pregnancy and the low possibility of fetal survival. However, our patient refused intervention and insisted on conservation.
Ultrasound picture of complete hydatidiform mole with coexisting fetus and placenta.
The choice of conservative management was quite difficult; our patient was kept under strict observation and she was followed up using a four-hour interval chart for vital signs. Blood picture, renal chemistry (urea and creatinine), liver enzymes and thyroid function tests were ordered twice weekly, vaginal bleeding was observed and our patient was asked to report any pain, bleeding or other issues during the period of conservation. Our patient was offered genetic amniocentesis but she absolutely refused the procedure. On day 3, an increase in blood pressure above 140/90 mmHg was reported and it was found to be increasing (Figure 2). However, dipstick testing for albumin in her urine gave a negative result. Anti-hypertensive drugs were not given in order not to mask her actual blood pressure. She experienced palpitation, flushing and excessive sweating from day five and the thyroid function test was repeated; the results indicated thyrotoxicosis (T4 = 3.26 ng/dL, free T3 = 5.95 pg/mL, thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) = 0.022 μIU/mL). Two attacks of mild vaginal bleeding were reported on days five and nine. The dipstick testing for albumin in urine became positive (1 plus) on day seven and the results became worse over the next few days reaching 4 plus on day 10. Our patient was recounseled about these unacceptable complications (thyrotoxicosis and severe pre-eclampsia) and for the low possibility of fetal survival. Again, the patient refused termination. Two days later, the patient developed a severe attack of vaginal bleeding; a hysterotomy was inevitable. She delivered a 680 g viable boy with no apparent congenital anomalies; the placenta was complete, about 15 cm in diameter and adjacent but identifiable from the coexisting molar pregnancy. The baby died half an hour later in the neonatal intensive care unit. A histopathological study confirmed the diagnosis of benign complete hydatidiform mole. Unfortunately, karyotyping was not available.
Blood pressure follow-up mean readings during conservative management.
Her serum β-hCG level was followed up after termination; it dropped progressively until it became negative after 70 days and remained so for 12 successive months (Figure 3). Serial dilution of the sample was no longer needed after termination.
Serum β-human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) follow-up before and after termination of pregnancy after elimination of the 'high-dose hook effect'.
Few cases of complete hydatidiform mole with a coexisting fetus have been reported over the last two decades. This broad term can be classified into three major types: (1) twin gestation in which one twin is a diploid fetus with a normal placenta (46 chromosomes, 23 maternal and 23 paternal) and the other twin is a complete hydatidiform mole (46 chromosomes of paternal origin) with no fetus (this is applied to our case report). (2) Singleton gestation consisting of a triploid fetus with partial hydatidiform mole placenta (69 chromosomes, 23 maternal and 46 paternal). (3) Twin gestation in which one twin is a diploid fetus with normal placenta (46 chromosomes, 23 maternal and 23 paternal) and the other twin is a triploid fetus with partial hydatidiform mole placenta (69 chromosomes, 23 maternal and 46 paternal) [4]. Categorization of the case is essential for proper management. Unlike partial hydatidiform mole that is commonly associated with multiple fetal anomalies and is managed by immediate termination of pregnancy [5], reported cases of twin pregnancy with complete hydatidiform mole (including our case) are not associated with fetal anomalies in the coexisting fetus; in some cases the mother has even given birth to fetuses that survived [6].
However, twin pregnancy with complete hydatidiform mole has a higher risk of maternal complications than partial hydatidiform moles; the same risk also applies to twin pregnancy with complete hydatidiform mole. These complications include early onset pre-eclampsia, thyrotoxicosis and persistent trophoblastic disease (PTD). Because of case rarity, the incidence of these complications cannot be exactly assessed in comparison with complete molar pregnancy; however, the incidence of PTD in reported case series varies from 19% to 50% [2, 7]. The reason for this high incidence has not yet been clarified.
Accordingly, the management of these cases remains problematic: the fair possibility of fetal survival is weighed against the expected risk of maternal complications, and for this reason, many reported cases were managed by immediate termination. However, some authors support the option of conservation under strict hospital-based observation and follow-up. In this case, we support the latter policy for the following reasons. First, conservative management of some reported cases was successful, with fetal survival [5]. Second, most expected complications can be diagnosed by strict follow-up and clinical observation. Third, although the risk of PTD cannot be excluded during conservative management, this risk does not seem to increase with advanced gestational age [2]. According to these findings, we suggest that conservative management should always be a choice in such patients.
Amniocentesis is expected to be beneficial in decision making; a triploid fetus would be expected to be severely malformed and thus, termination of pregnancy would be recommended. A diploid fetus (46XX or 46XY of maternal and paternal origins) indicates a viable fetus with a normal placenta and therefore, pregnancy can be allowed to continue [4]. With regard to our patient, the option of amniocentesis was refused and we were obligated to manage our patient conservatively according to her will. Unfortunately, our patient experienced serious complications during conservation and hysterotomy was indicated; the fetus was alive but did not survive. However, as our patient was managed conservatively as long as possible and she did not experience any adverse post-operative outcomes including gestational trophoblastic disease, these findings may support the relative safety of conservation of these cases.
The falsely low result for serum β-hCG represents another interesting point in our patient's case; this is described as the 'high-dose hook effect'. This effect is not specific for β-hCG. It occurs when there is an inordinate amount of substance being measured by an immunoassay; this causes the formation of incomplete antibody-antigen complexes. Accordingly, below a certain threshold concentration, the assay will reflect the concentration of the substance correctly. Above this concentration, the assay will record falsely lower results as the concentration rises higher. This can be corrected by dilution of a sample and this was exactly what we did in this case [8].
It is infeasible to correlate between the occurrence of complete hydatidiform mole with a coexisting fetus and ovulation induction, particularly with clomiphene citrate, because the number of reported cases is limited. However, the association between complete hydatidiform mole and ovulation induction has not been confirmed; the incidence of complete hydatidiform mole following ovulation induction with clomiphene citrate was 1:659 [9, 10]. However, Piura et al. reported 30 cases of twin pregnancy with complete hydatidiform mole and a co-existent fetus. Of these, nine cases (30%) were preceded by ovulation induction with either hMG/hCG (eight cases) or clomiphene citrate (one case). Five out of eight patients who received human menopausal gonadotropin (hMG)/human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) were exposed to assisted reproductive technologies (in vitro fertilization/embryo transfer (IVF/ET) in three women, intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection/embryo transfer (ICSI-ET) in two women) [4]. This correlation may need further study and explanation.
Twin pregnancy with complete hydatidiform mole is a rare condition that can be diagnosed by obstetric ultrasound examination. We cannot confirm or deny a correlation between this case and ovulation induction because the number of reported cases is still limited. Management of these patients is controversial. However, we suggest that conservative management is always a choice whenever strict hospital-based observation is available.
Malhotra N, Deka D, Takkar D, Kochar S, Goel S, Sharma MC: Hydatiform mole with coexisting live fetus in dichorionic twin gestation. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol. 2001, 94: 301-303. 10.1016/S0301-2115(00)00338-9.
Matsui H, Sekiya S, Hando T, Wake N, Tomoda Y: Hydatidiform mole coexistent with a twin live fetus: a national collaborative study in Japan. Hum Reprod. 2000, 15: 608-611. 10.1093/humrep/15.3.608.
Montes-de-Oca-Valero F, Macara L, Shaker A: Twin pregnancy with a complete hydatidiform mole and co-existing fetus following in-vitro fertilization. Hum Reprod. 1999, 14: 2905-2907. 10.1093/humrep/14.11.2905.
Piura B, Rabinovich A, Hershkovitz R, Maor E, Mazor M: Twin pregnancy with a complete hydatidiform mole and surviving co-existent fetus. Arch Gynecol Obstet. 2008, 278: 377-382. 10.1007/s00404-008-0591-x.
Jacobs PA, Szulman AH, Funkhouser J, Matsuura JS, Wilson CC: Human triploidy: relationship between parental origin of the additional haploid complement and development of partial hydatidiform mole. Ann Hum Genet. 1982, 46: 223-231. 10.1111/j.1469-1809.1982.tb00714.x.
Steller MA, Genest DR, Bernstein MR, Lage JM, Goldstein DP, Berkowitz RS: Clinical features of multiple conception with partial or complete molar pregnancy and coexisting fetuses. J Reprod Med. 1994, 39: 147-154.
Sebire NJ, Foskett M, Paradinas FJ, Fisher RA, Francis RJ, Short D, Newlands ES, Seckl MJ: Outcome of twin pregnancies with complete hydatidiform mole and healthy co-twin. Lancet. 2002, 359: 2165-2166. 10.1016/S0140-6736(02)09085-2.
Levavi H, Neri A, Bar J, Regev D, Nordenberg J, Ovadia J: "Hook effect" in complete hydatidiform molar pregnancy: a falsely low level of beta-hCG. Obstet Gynecol. 1993, 82 (Suppl 2): 720-721.
Bates M, Everard J, Wall L, Horsman JM, Hancock BW: Is there a relationship between treatment for infertility and gestational trophoblastic disease?. Hum Reprod. 2004, 19: 365-367. 10.1093/humrep/deh068.
Wade RV: Clomiphene-citrate-induced hydatidiform mole. South Med J. 1980, 73: 1417-1418. 10.1097/00007611-198010000-00043.
Woman's Health Center, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt
Sherif Abd-Elkarim Mohammed Shazly
, Mohammed Khairy Ali
, Ahmed Yahia Abdel Badee
, Abu-bakr Abbas Alsokkary
& Mostafa Mohammed Khodary
Clinical Pathology Department, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt
Nehal Abd-Elkarim Mostafa
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Correspondence to Sherif Abd-Elkarim Mohammed Shazly.
SAM participated in collecting medical data during patient follow-up and was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. MKA participated in collecting medical data during patient follow-up. AYA contributed to writing the manuscript. AAA reported the patient ultrasound that was illustrated in the manuscript. MMK contributed to writing the manuscript. NAM performed the related laboratory tests. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Shazly, S.A.M., Ali, M.K., Abdel Badee, A.Y. et al. Twin pregnancy with complete hydatidiform mole and coexisting fetus following ovulation induction with a non-prescribed clomiphene citrate regimen: a case report. J Med Case Reports 6, 95 (2012) doi:10.1186/1752-1947-6-95
Ovulation Induction
Hydatidiform Mole
Laparoscopic Ovarian Drilling
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Intestinal angina in a patient with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy: a case report
Takuto Hamaoka1,
Wataru Omi2,
Yoshiteru Sekiguti2,
Shigeo Takata2,
Shuichi Kaneko1,
Oto Inoue2,
Shinichiro Takashima2,
Hisayoshi Murai1,
Soichiro Usui1,
Takeshi Kato1,
Hiroshi Furusho1 &
Masayuki Takamura1
Intestinal angina is characterized by recurrent postprandial abdominal pain and anorexia. Commonly, these symptoms are caused by severe stenosis of at least two vessels among the celiac and mesenteric arteries. However, intestinal perfusion is affected not only by the degree of arterial stenosis but also by systemic perfusion. We experienced a unique case of intestinal angina caused by relatively mild stenosis of the abdominal arteries complicated with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy.
We report an 86-year old Japanese man with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy and advanced atrioventricular block who was diagnosed with intestinal angina. Computed tomography showed mild stenosis of the celiac artery and severe stenosis of the inferior mesenteric artery, and these lesions were relatively mild compared with other reports. A dual-chamber pacemaker with right ventricular apical pacing was implanted to improve the obstruction of the left ventricular outflow tract. After implantation, the patient’s abdominal symptoms diminished markedly, and improvement of the left ventricular outflow tract obstruction was observed.
Although intestinal angina is generally defined by severe stenosis of at least two vessels among the celiac and mesenteric arteries, the present case suggests that hemodynamic changes can greatly affect intestinal perfusion and induce intestinal angina in the presence of mild stenosis of the celiac and mesenteric arteries.
Intestinal angina is caused by chronic intestinal ischemia characterized by recurrent postprandial abdominal pain and a decrease in body weight with anorexia [1]. The symptom is commonly manifested when at least two vessels of the celiac and mesenteric arteries have developed moderate to severe stenosis or occlusion. Hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM) is associated with a reduction in cardiac output and systemic perfusion fluctuated by multiple hemodynamic conditions [2] such as hypovolemia or high blood pressure. Hypovolemic conditions lead to a reduction in left ventricular volume and the narrowing or collapse of the left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT), resulting in an increased LVOT pressure gradient. On the other hand, hypertension increases the cardiac afterload, which inhibits the collapse of LVOT and results in a decreased LVOT pressure gradient [3].
In this report, we describe a unique case of intestinal angina complicated with HOCM and abruptly worsened by advanced atrioventricular (AV) block in the presence of mild stenosis of the abdominal arteries.
An 86-year old Japanese man was admitted to our hospital because of worsening postprandial abdominal pain, anorexia, and general malaise. He was previously diagnosed with HOCM on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and echocardiography, but because he was asymptomatic, he was not taking oral medications. He had been suffering from repetitive and paroxysmal upper abdominal pain for 1 year. His symptoms occurred approximately 15 minutes after eating and usually disappeared within 1 hour and were sometimes accompanied by watery diarrhea. Once his abdominal attacks occurred, he had great difficulties with oral intake due to postprandial pain, but his symptoms disappeared upon fluid replacement for several days. He presented to our department because of worsening and more sustained symptoms within the week prior.
He was emaciated and exhausted and had lost 7 kg in the last 1 year. A physical examination showed a low blood pressure (90/60 mmHg) and bradycardia (40 beats per minute). He had no signs of disorientation or paralysis. A holosystolic ejection murmur at the fourth left sternal border was auscultated, and abdominal palpitation showed no abnormal findings. The murmur was accentuated by the Valsalva maneuver and walking. Laboratory data showed slight anemia (hemoglobin 11.5 g/day), hypoalbuminemia (3.8 g/dL, normal range 3.8–5.3 g/dL), and mild renal dysfunction (serum creatinine (Cre) 1.33 mg/dL, normal range 0.6–1.2 mg/dL; blood urea nitrogen (BUN) 39 mg/dL, normal range 9–23 mg/dL; estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) 39.5 mL/minute/1.73 m2), and no signs of dyslipidemia or diabetes mellitus (low density lipoprotein cholesterol 98 mg/dL; glycosylated hemoglobin 5.3 %; fasting blood glucose 100 mg/dL). Our patient’s activated partial thromboplastin time (33.1 seconds) and prothrombin time (13.0 seconds) were within the normal ranges. Gastroscopy and colonoscopy examinations detected no abnormal findings, while a computed tomography (CT) scan with contrast enhancement demonstrated moderate stenosis of the celiac artery and severe stenosis of the inferior mesenteric artery (Fig. 1). In addition, significant dilatation of the bowels was observed by CT and chest X-ray examinations (Fig. 2).
Enhanced computed tomography showed severe atherosclerosis of the arteries. The aorta showed broad calcifications, and the celiac artery showed moderate stenosis, although the lumen of the SMA was relatively patent. In addition, stenosis of the IMA was very severe. IMA inferior mesenteric artery, SMA superior mesenteric artery
Chest X-ray examinations pre-PMI demonstrated significant dilatation of the bowels; however, this dilatation was improved after PMI with right ventricular apical pacing. PMI pacemaker implantation
An electrocardiogram revealed advanced AV block and left high voltage with ST-T change; AV disturbance had not been detected previously (Fig. 3). Transthoracic echocardiography showed significant obstruction of the LVOT (pressure gradient, 35 mmHg) and mitral regurgitation with systolic anterior motion of the anterior mitral leaflet (Fig. 4). These echocardiographic findings were similar to those of echocardiography performed the previous year on our patient.
An electrocardiogram pre-PMI showed severe bradycardia with advanced AV block (approximately 40 beats/minute). After PMI, bradycardia was improved. AV atrioventricular, PMI pacemaker implantation
Transthoracic echocardiography demonstrated severe MR with SAM and LVOT obstruction (LVOT pressure gradient, 35 mmHg) pre-PMI. After PMI, transthoracic echocardiography showed significant improvements in MR and LVOT obstruction (LVOT pressure gradient, 14.6 mmHg). LVOT left ventricular outflow tract, MR mitral valve regurgitation, SAM systolic anterior motion
CT angiography was classified as mild to account for our patient’s severe postprandial pain, since our patient’s superior mesenteric artery, which had the widest intestinal perfusion area, was patent in this patient; however, in many previous reports concerning intestinal angina, stenosis of this artery was demonstrated, and angioplasty was performed [4]. Thus, it was suspected that hemodynamic failure contributed to the pathophysiology. That is, under the chronic low output condition of uncontrolled HOCM, factors such as occasional dehydration and bradycardia had reduced systemic perfusion, especially that of intestinal blood flow. We performed a pacemaker implantation with right ventricular apical pacing to improve our patient’s hemodynamic condition. After dual-chamber pacemaker implantation, pacing AV delay was optimized for a minimum LVOT pressure gradient and mitral valve regurgitation under echocardiographic estimations (AV delay 100 milliseconds for LVOT 14.6 mmHg, Fig. 4). Following these procedures, our patient’s appetite and daily activity improved dramatically. In addition, his blood pressure improved significantly, his renal function became normal (Cre, 0.83 mg/dL; BUN, 25 mg/dL; eGFR, 66.2 mL/minute/1.73 m2), and a chest X-ray examination showed significant improvement of intestinal dilatation (Fig. 2), suggesting increase in systemic and intestinal perfusion. Finally, he has been completely free from abdominal symptoms in the last 3 months.
Classically, chronic intestinal angina is caused by a reduction in mesenteric blood flow [1], and the pathophysiology of most cases is atherosclerotic stenosis of the celiac and mesenteric arteries. Arterial dissection, fibromuscular dysplasia, and vasculitis are included as rare etiologies of arterial narrowing, and the median arcuate ligament of the diaphragm can compress the celiac artery and disturb blood flow (median arcuate ligament syndrome) [5, 6]. Intestinal circulation consists of an abundant collateral blood supply, and chronic intestinal ischemia is associated with high-grade stenosis or occlusion of two or more of the three major vessels: the celiac artery, the superior and inferior mesenteric arteries [7, 8]. In our case, the arterial lesions were relatively mild compared with previous reports [9, 10]; thus, we hypothesized that our patient’s major symptoms were not due to his arterial lesions alone.
Specifically, our patient’s symptoms depended greatly on his hemodynamic condition, which caused a flow discrepancy between demand and supply [1]. Once an abdominal attack occurred, our patient’s blunted oral intake exacerbated repetitive postprandial attacks; only fluid replacement led to remission. Furthermore, advanced AV block abruptly worsened his condition and pacemaker implantation with right ventricular apical pacing resulted in complete remission of his symptoms. In patients with HOCM, dehydration augments LVOT obstruction and mitral regurgitation, leading to reduced cardiac output [2]. Pacemaker implantation with right ventricular apical pacing increases cardiac output by optimizing chronotropic action as well as by lowering the LVOT gradient in HOCM patients [11, 12]. Nonocclusive mesenteric ischemia is a type of intestinal ischemia attributed to hemodynamic failure, sometimes without arterial stenosis or occlusion. Vasospasm of mesenteric vessels is assumed to be a major pathophysiological and acute homeostatic response used to maintain systemic circulation at the expense of the splanchnic blood supply in critically ill conditions, such as cardiogenic shock [13]. In our case, the patient complained mainly of long-standing postprandial abdominal pain without any signs of severe circulatory failure in other organs. He was later diagnosed with uncontrolled HOCM complicated with stenosis of the celiac and mesenteric arteries, and his symptoms reflected excessive hemodynamic fluctuation specific to HOCM. Generally, easily digestible meals or vasodilators are used as supportive therapy, while the definitive treatment for intestinal angina is revascularization by surgery or catheterization [13]. However, our patient was too old and emaciated to undergo these invasive treatments. Although he underwent pacemaker implantation, it was less invasive than was revascularization therapy. HOCM is commonly treated with oral medications, such as calcium channel blockers, β-adrenoreceptor blockers, and antiarrhythmic agents included in group Ia of the Vaughan-Williams criteria, to reduce myocardial oxygen consumption and inhibit left ventricular hypercontraction. Percutaneous transluminal septal myocardial ablation, septal myectomy, and pacemaker implantation are other potential treatments if oral therapy is not successful. Although the efficacy of septal myectomy in improving the long-term prognosis of HOCM patients was reported previously [14], this treatment is well known for its high mortality rate, with older age being a risk factor [15]. In this case, pacemaker implantation was selected as the treatment, because our patient’s systemic circulation and abdominal symptoms were clearly exacerbated by bradycardia from AV block.
Some limitations were observed in this case report. No intestinal hemodynamic parameters were evaluated, because abdominal ultrasound was unable to detect the celiac and mesenteric arterial flows. Furthermore, our patient was very emaciated and unable to undergo catheter examination. However, after pacemaker implantation, his symptoms, intestinal dilatation, and renal function improved without fluid replacement or additional medications, which reflected improvement of his systemic circulation.
This case suggests that hemodynamic changes could greatly affect intestinal perfusion in the presence of mild stenosis of the celiac and mesenteric arteries. Thus, it should be recognized that intestinal angina might be a symptom of cardiovascular disease, especially cardiac failure.
atrioventricular
BUN:
blood urea nitrogen
Cre:
eGFR:
estimated glomerular filtration rate
HOCM:
hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy
LVOT:
left ventricular outflow tract
Schneider TA, Longo WE, Ure T, Vernava III AM. Mesenteric ischemia. Acute arterial syndromes. Dis Colon Rectum. 1994;37:1163–74.
Varma PK, Neema PK. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: Part 1 - introduction, pathology and pathophysiology. Ann Card Anaesth. 2014;17:118–24.
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Sundermeyer A, Zapenko A, et al. Endovascular treatment of chronic mesenteric ischemia. Interv Med Appl Sci. 2014;6(3):118–24.
Kim AY, Ha HK. Evaluation of suspected mesenteric ischemia: efficacy of radiologic studies. Radiol Clin North Am. 2004;41:327–42.
Cognet F, Ben Salem D, Dranssart M, et al. Chronic mesenteric ischemia: Imaging and percutaneous treatment. Radiographics. 2002;22:863–80.
Van Bockel JH, Geelkerken RH, Wasser MN. Chronic splanchnic ischaemia. Best Pract Res Clin Gastroenterol. 2001;15:99–119.
Walker TG. Mesenteric vasculature and collateral pathways. Semin Interv Radiol. 2009;26:167–74.
Matsuda M, Ikeda S, et al. Intestinal angina due to atherosclerosis in a 45-year-old systemic lupus erythematosus patient. Intern Med. 2010;49:2175–8.
Walker TG. Mesentric ischemia. Semin Interv Radiol. 2009;26:175–83.
Fananapazir L, Epstein ND, Curiel RV, et al. Long-term results of dual-chamber (DDD) pacing in obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Evidence for progressive symptomatic and hemodynamic improvement and reduction of left ventricular hypertrophy. Circulation. 1994;90:2731–42.
Jeanrenaud X, Goy JJ, Kappenberger L. Effects of dual-chamber pacing in hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy. Lancet. 1992;339:1318–23.
Mastoraki A, Arkadopoulos N, et al. Mesenteric ischemia: pathogenesis and challenging diagnostic and therapeutic modalities. World J Gastrointest Pathophysiol. 2016;7:125–30.
Robbins RC, Stinson EB. Long-term results of left ventricular myotomy and myoectomy for obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 1996;111:586–94.
Smedira NG, Lytle BW, et al. Current effectiveness and risks of isolated septal myectomy for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy. Ann Thorac Surg. 2008;85:127–33.
We gratefully acknowledge the patient described in this report.
The authors declare no funding associated with this report.
TH compiled the case and drafted the initial manuscript. OI, ST, and TK contributed significantly to writing the manuscript. WO, YS, and ST performed the initial literature review, clinical diagnosis, and treatment of the case. SU, HF, HM, SK, and MT proofread the manuscript prior to submission. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Written informed consent for publication of this case report and any accompanying images was obtained from the patient. A copy of the written consent is available for review by the Editor-in-Chief of this journal.
Not applicable since this case report was retrospective and observational.
Department of Disease Control and Homeostasis, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kanazawa University, 13-1 Takara-machi, Kanazawa, 920-8641, Japan
Takuto Hamaoka
, Shuichi Kaneko
, Hisayoshi Murai
, Soichiro Usui
, Takeshi Kato
, Hiroshi Furusho
& Masayuki Takamura
Department of Cardiology, Kanazawa Municipal Hospital, Kanazawa, Japan
Wataru Omi
, Yoshiteru Sekiguti
, Shigeo Takata
, Oto Inoue
& Shinichiro Takashima
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Hamaoka, T., Omi, W., Sekiguti, Y. et al. Intestinal angina in a patient with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy: a case report. J Med Case Reports 10, 271 (2016) doi:10.1186/s13256-016-1055-8
Intestinal angina
Advanced atrioventricular block
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Nephrology@jacobspublishers.us
Jacobs Journal of Nephrology and Urology
Histopathological Findings of Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Undergoing Kidney Biopsy: Diabetic Nephropathy versus Non-Diabetic Kidney Disease
*Issa Al Salmi
The Renal Medicine Department, The Royal Hospital, Muscat, Oman
Issa Al Salmi
Email:isa@ausdoctors.net
Published on: 2019-03-15
Aim: Kidney diseases are common among diabetes mellitus (DM) patients, including diabetic nephropathies (DN) and non-diabetic kidney diseases (NDKD). The clinical differentiation among them is usually not so clear. This study examined kidney biopsies in patients with type-2-DM who underwent native kidney biopsy. Materials and Methods: We analyzed retrospectively the reported histopathological findings of kidney biopsies obtained from 51 type-2-DM patients who underwent native kidney biopsy in our center between January 2005 and December 2016. Routine processing of kidney biopsies includes evaluation by light microscopy, immunofluorescence and electron microscopy. Results: There were a total of 51 DM patients, 28 males (54.9%) and 23 females (45.1%). The mean age was 50.8 (47.1-55.2) years, 86% of patients were between 25 and 64 years old. Histological findings showed that 43.1% of patients had diabetic nephropathy. While focal segmental glomerulosclerosis was present in 23.5%- primary in 9.8% and secondary in 13.7%. Lupus nephritis and drug induced interstitial nephritis were each present in 5.8%. MCD and IgA nephropathy were each present in 4%. Lastly membranous nephropathy, diffuse proliferative GN, ANCA associated glomerulonephritis, hypertensive nephrosclerosis and others accounted for 2%. Conclusion: This is the first study of its kind in Oman covering a period of more than ten years and is representative of the whole country. It showed that the prevalence of NDKD is remarkably frequent in DM patients in whom nephrologists consider kidney biopsy to be an appropriate measure. Among NDKD, FSGS was the most frequent diagnosis.
Diabetic Nephropathy, Diabetic Kidney disease, Diabetes mellitus, Sultanate of Oman, Chronic kidney disease, Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate (e GFR)
Diabetes Mellitus (DM) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are worldwide public health problems that affect millions of people. The worldwide prevalence of DM is predicted to increase from 2.8% in 2000 to 4.4% in 2030, equivalent to almost 366 million people. The highest growths in prevalence are projected to occur in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and India. It was estimated that in 2013,382 million people had DM and this is expected to surge to 592 million by 2035. In addition, in the United States it is anticipated that there would be 165% increase in the prevalence of DM from 2000 to 2050. DM is a leading cause of CKD worldwide. Nearly 43% of diabetics in the United States have microalbuminuria, a marker of progression to CKD. According to data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), diabetic kidney disease (DKD) accounts for 39% of CKD. With the increasing prevalence of CKD, the costs of management are becoming a public health issue. In 2013, more than 30 billion dollars from Medicare expenditure were spent on management of end-stage kidney disease (ESKD), 14 billion of which were due to DKD. Given these factors, clinical societies continue to offer strategies to diagnose and manage DKD to improve outcomes.
The prevalence of DM in Oman is high at around 11.6% [5, 6], a country with a total population of approximately 4.56 million, out of which 2.5million are Omanis [7]. In2000, the age-adjusted prevalence of DM among Omanis aged 30-64 years reached 16.1% compared with 12.2% in 1991, indicating an increasing prevalence [6].
Apart from DN, NDKDs are also common in the diabetic population and these require different treatment and follow-up regimen. The prevalence of NDKD is presumed to exist in between one-sixth and two-thirds of DM patients with overt proteinuria [8-9]. In South Korea, Kim et al. [10] reported 74 cases of kidney biopsy performed in diabetic patients, and nearly half of them had non- diabetic nephropathy. On the other hand, in patients with over 10-year history of type-1 DM, NDKD is a rare clinical condition with a rate of 2-3% [11].
The decision to perform a diagnostic biopsy should be considered very carefully. In patients with type-2 DM, there might be varied time interval between the onset ofthe disease and the time of the diagnosis; hence the exact duration from the time of onset of diabetes is generally not known. Clinical findings such as proteinuria could be attributed either to different kidney pathology superimposed on DN or be the manifestation of DKD itself. Many clinical features have been considered as predictive factors for NDKD: diabetic nephropathy not associated with diabetic neuropathy or retinopathy [12], hematuria [13], short duration of diabetes [14], deterioration of renal function more rapidly than expected [15], and the presence of acanthocyturia [16] but none of them is 100% sensitive or specific. Differential diagnosis between the various NDKD is important due to the differences in treatment and in clinical outcome regarding kidney function and patients’ survival.
The aim of the present study is to evaluate the findings of kidney biopsies performed on patients with type-2 DM with a clinical suspicion of NDKD and to highlight the pathological features other than diabetic nephropathy in the Sultanate of Oman.
After obtaining approval from the medical ethics and research committee at the Royal Hospital (RH), located in Muscat, Oman, we included in this study 51 patients with type-2 DM who were submitted to a kidney biopsy for clinical suspicion of NDKD from January 2005 to December 2016. The RH has an internationally recognized electronic medical record system called Al Shifaa that uses International Classification of Diseases.
Mohamed et al, had previously described the clinical and laboratory findings of patients with DM that underwent kidney biopsy. In this study, we describe the pathological findings in these patients.
The indications for the kidney biopsy were as follows:
1.Sudden onset of heavy proteinuria
2. Unexplained acute kidney injury
3. Hematuria
4. Proteinuria with no evidence of diabetic retinopathy on fundus examination
5. Other positive immunological or serological findings like IgA titer above normal, Autoantibodies, C3, C4, etc.
All kidney biopsy specimens were obtained via percutaneous needle biopsy according to Royal hospital – Nephrology and Renal Transplant Department Guidelines for Percutaneous Kidney Biopsy, which was approved earlier by Royal Hospital Policy Committee.
All kidney biopsies were submitted for light microscopic (LM), immunofluorescence (IF) and electron microscopy (EM) examination. For LM, the sample was fixed with neutral buffered formalin and processed overnight followed by paraffin embedding. Blocks were serially sectioned at 3micron thickness and were stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stain, Periodic-acid Schiff (PAS) and Jones’ silver stain to evaluate glomerular basement membranes (GBM). Scarring was assessed using Masson trichrome stain. Majority of cases were also stained with congo red stain to exclude amyloidosis. All compartments of the kidney were evaluated (glomeruli, tubules, interstitium and blood vessels) for injury, inflammation, scarring or accumulation of abnormal materials. The standard immunofluorescence panel was applied to all cases namely: IgA, IgG, IgM, C3, C1q, kappa light chain, lambda light chains and fibrinogen. The presence of each of these was assessed individually by the direct immunofluorescence (IF) technique on frozen sections.
For EM examination, tissue was processed and then embedded in resin blocks. Toluidine blue-stained 1-um thick semi-thin sections were used to assess for presence of glomeruli, any structural changes including mesnagial or endocapillary hypercellularity, segmental sclerosis or crescents. Representative 1 to 2 glomeruli were selected for further processing for ultrastructural examination. The features evaluated included the thickness and texture of the glomerular basement membranes, the appearance of the podocytes and extent of foot process effacement divided into either focal or diffuse. Focal was defined as area of foot process effacement involving less than 50% of the surface area of the glomerular basement membranes, whereas diffuse was defined as more than 50% of surface area showing effacement. The presence of subendothelial, subepithelial or intramembranous deposits was noted. The appearance of the endothelial cells, presence of subendothelial lucencies, and glomerular basement membrane duplication with mesangial cell interpositioning was also recorded. Mesangial areas were assessed for increase in cells and matrix and presence of any deposits. Careful examination for presence of organized deposits, particularly amyloid and for any abnormal intracellular accumulations was also performed. Biopsies were regarded as adequate if they contained at least ten glomeruli for light microscopy and at least one glomerulus each for immunofluorescence and electron microscopy.
Diabetic nephropathy was defined as findings of mesangial expansion, diffuse intercapillary glomerulosclerosis and/ or Kimmelstiel-Wilson nodule formation, GBM thickening, presence of fibrin cap, or capsular drops.
The data entry was rechecked by 2 researchers. Statistical analysis was done using Stata software (Chicago, Ill.). Descriptive statistics were used to present the distribution of the histological types of glomerulonephritis and their relative frequencies. Data were described as frequencies and percentages for categorical variables. Continuous variables were reported as median and ranges or as mean and standard deviations. A p-value equal to or less than 0.05 was considered to be significant.
During the period from January 2005 to end of December 2016, a total of 51 diabetic patients, 28 (54.9%) males and 23 (45.1%) females underwent a renal biopsy in the Royal Hospital.
Based on pathological findings, table 1 highlights the histopathological findings by LM. An adequate number of glomeruli was present in 62.7% of biopsies. The most common glomerular findings were the presence of glomerular mesnagial matrix expansion in 75.5%, glomerular sclerosis in 43.1%, and19.6% of cases showed endocapillary hypercellularity, while only 7.7 % of cases had crescents. Interstitial fibrosiswas presentin 76.5%and tubular atrophy and arteriolar hyalinosis was 72.5% for each.
Immunofluorescence examination was available for all biopsies. 54.8% of cases had some positive staining with IF, the most common being IgM in 11.7%, followed by C3 and C1q in 9.8%, IgG was positive in 5.9% and IgA in 4%, there was no light chain restriction by kappa and lambda in any of our biopsies.
Table 1: Histopathological Findings by Light Microscopy
Table 2 shows histopathological findings by EM. Foot process fusion was present in 96%, GBM thickening in 76% and mesangial expansion by matrix in 80%.There were no organized deposits in any of our cases.
Table 2: Histopathological Findings by Electron Microscopy
Based on light microscopy, immunofluorescence and electron microscopy findings, 43.1% of patients had diabetic nephropathy only with no additional pathology, whereas 56.9% of patients had some form of NDKD. The most common NDKD was focal segmental glomerulosclerosis in 23.5% of biopsies with primary FSGS being favored in 9.8% and secondary in 13.7%.Lupus nephritis and drug induced interstitial nephritis were each present in 5.8% of biopsies. 4% of patients had IgA nephropathy defined as dominant mesangial and/or capillary wall staining with IgA antibody. Also, minimal change disease (MCD) was diagnosed in 4% of our biopsies. Lastly membranous nephropathy, diffuse proliferative glomerulonephritis (GN), ANCA associated GN and hypertensive nephropathy were each present in 2% of our biopsies (table 3).
Table 3: Final Histopathological Diagnosis.
There was no statistically significant difference between clinical diagnostic impression before biopsy and final pathological diagnosis. Table 4 shows the frequencies of clinical diagnostic impression. FSGS, especially secondary, was underestimated by the clinicians being suspected in 9.8% of cases whereas it was histopathologically identified in 23.5% of cases. IgA nephropathy was not suspected clinically in any of the cases but was diagnosed in 4% of biopsies. Drug inducing nephritis and lupus nephritis, were underestimated clinically in 2% of patients but accounted for 5.8% each on final histopathological diagnosis. While, crescentic GN was overestimated by clinical judgment compared to biopsy finding (5.8% vs 0%).Same for ATN, was entertained clinically in 9.8% but was not present in any of the biopsies.
Table 4: The Frequencies of Clinical Diagnostic Impression.
Clinical judgment and histopathological diagnosis came in agreement for minimal change disease, membranous GN and ANCA associated GN.
This study describes the pathological findings of patients with type II DM who underwent native kidney biopsy at Royal hospital, Sultanate of Oman in the period from 2005 to 2016. Almost 45% of patients had diabetic nephropathy histologically. However, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis was present in 23.5%, lupus nephritis and drug induced interstitial nephritis were present in 5.8%. MCD and IgA nephropathy were each present in about 4% of the biopsies. Lastly membranous nephropathy, diffuse proliferative GN, ANCA associated GN, hypertensive nephropathy and others were each present in 2% of the biopsies. In addition, there was no statistically significant difference between clinical diagnostic impression before biopsy and the final pathological diagnosis.
Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is the leading cause of ESKD world-wide [17]. Projections from the recent Indian Council of Medical Research–India Diabetes study has shown that India has 62.4 million people with DM making DN an important cause of CKD [18]. Studies from India and rest of Asia showed a high prevalence of DN as a cause of CKD [19-20]. The progressive rise in the number of patients with ESKD due to DN is a major social and economic problem in several countries. Furthermore, prognosis in such patients is poor compared to patients with ESKD due to other kidney diseases and hence special treatment guidelines are defined for this subset [21]. Proteinuria in DM patients is usually interpreted as a clinical manifestation of DN [22]. Although the renal biopsy is regarded as the gold standard method of evaluating proteinuria patients, it is rarely used in subjects with DM with isolated proteinuria [23] and the primary aim of the kidney biopsy in proteinuric patients with DM is to confirm and or exclude NDKD.
Worldwide, DN is the leading cause of ESKD, with a reported frequency of 10-15% in T2DM patients, however there is a great discrepancy between countries. In retrospective series of DM patients, NDKD was found in between 7-44% in accordance with patient selection criteria [24-25]. In different studies, the prevalence of NDKDs was reported as 22% in Caucasians. An Asian study reported that NDKD occurred in 26.7% [26]. A European study from Denmark reported it as 3% [13], whereas another study from Italy reported it to occur in 12% [27].
The indications for doing kidney biopsy in diabetic patients with CKD are; recently diagnosed DM within < 3 months in patients with CKD (52.9%), proteinuria with lack of diabetic retinopathy (37.8%), microscopic hematuria (77.1%) and positive immunological findings like high IgA, low C3/C4, positive ANA and ANCA (Mohammed et.al SJKDT).
A study from Iran, revealed that indications for biopsies in diabetic patients were as follows: unexplained rapidly increasing proteinuria (67.5%), unexpected serum creatinine (2.2%), active urine sediment and rising serum creatinine (8.7%), proteinuria and rising serum creatinine (19.7%), and all of them (2.2%). Urine sediment was active in (17.4%) patients. Nephrotic range proteinuria was observed in (58.7%) subjects [28].
Adequate glomerular number is important which reflects proper pathological diagnosis. In our study an adequate glomerular samplewas present in 62.7% of tissue submitted for LM and 100% of tissue submitted for both IF and EM.
An increase in GBM thickness leads to hematuria in 33% of patients with typical diabetic glomerulosclerosis [29].In our study GBM thickening was there in 76% of all biopsies while foot process fusion was there in 96%. In our study, we found 44.9% incidence of DN. These patients all had pathologic hallmarks of DN, including increased thickness of GBM and mesangial expansion. According to the new classification of glomerular lesions in DN, the degree from light to severe are presented as follows [29]:
I. Mild or nonspecific light microscopy changes and electron microscopy-proven glomerular basement membrane thickening.
II-a. Mild Mesangial expansion.
II-b. Severe Mesangial expansion.
III. Nodular sclerosis (Kimmelstiel-Wilson lesion).
IV. Advanced diabetic glomerulosclerosis
In our study, most patients’ glomerular lesions in DN were I, IIa or IIb. This reflects the clinical status of early diabetic patients being biopsied because of NDKD clinical features presentations, whereas diabetic patients with advanced disease were hardly biopsied and hence later stages were not found among our biopsy series.
By IF examination, positive staining was present in 54.8 % of all biopsies, indicating other findings other than DN. IgA positive stain was there in 2 biopsies (4.1%), IgM in 6 biopsies 11.7%, IgG in 3 biopsies (5.9%), and C3 in 5 biopsies (9.8%), C1q in another 5 biopsies (9.8%). Many biopsies showed a combination of positive staining; however interpretation was based on the pattern and intensity of staining.
In our study, histopathological findings supporting diabetic nephropathy were present in (43.1%) of all biopsies, while pathological findings other than diabetic nephropathy were present in 56.9% mainly with FSGS in (23.5%), lupus nephritis and drugs induce GN ,5.8% for each and IgA nephropathy in 4%. A study from Pakistan by Muhammad Arif et al [30], revealed that minimal change disease (MCD) and/or focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) were the most common NDKD. These results are similar to a study conducted in USA, which reported FSGS (21%) to be the most common lesion in patients with typeII diabetes followed by MCD (15.3%) [31]. Ghani AA et al [32], a study from Saudi Arabia, revealed that NDKD was detected in 45.8% of biopsies of diabetic patients. This was in concordance with previous studies where the prevalence of NDKD was found to range from 45% to 57% [33- 34]. Kittrawee Kritmetapak et al [35], Thailand, revealed that 49% of type 2 diabetes patients who underwent renal biopsy had NDKD, either isolated or superimposed on underlying DN. In another study from Taiwan, AIN was the most prevalent NDKD (46.5%), followed by membranous nephropathy and IgA nephropathy [14]. An Indian study found AIN to be the most common NDKD found in 18% of the patients with mixed renal disease (NDKD superimposed on DN), while membranous nephropathy (19.2%) was the most frequent diagnosis in patients with isolated NDKD [36]. IgA nephropathy is reported to be the most frequent type of NDKD in Chinese, Korean and Japanese population with diabetes [37, 38 and 39]. Keeping in mind that IgA nephropathy is the most common primary glomerulonephritis in the general population of these countries, with a prevalence of 28.3% to 50.6% [40].
In our study, comparing the clinical impression prior to biopsy with the final histopathological diagnosis showed that DN was underestimated clinically being suspected in 35.2% of cases but turned out to be the main diagnosis in 43.1%. On the other hand, the clinical impression of NDKD was entertained in 64.8%, but was present in 56.9% based on biopsy findings. FSGS was the clinical suspicion in 9.8% (7.8% presumed primary and 2% presumed secondary) but was diagnosed in 23.5% (9.8% primary and 13.7% secondary). IgA nephropathy was not the primary suspicion in any of the cases but was in the final diagnosis in 4%. Similarly lupus nephritis and drug induced GN,were suspected clinically in 2% of cases and this increased to 5.8% for each in the final diagnosis. While in the case of MCD the clinical impression and the final pathological diagnosis were very similar at 4% and 4%, same as for membranous nephropathy, diffuse proliferative GN and ANCA at 2% for each. However there was a striking difference between the clinical impression and the final diagnosis in the case of ATN and crescentic GN, which were suspected clinically in 9.8% and 5.8% of biopsies, respectively, yet both of them were not there in the final biopsy diagnosis.
The high prevalence of NDKD in our study (56.9%) supports the ongoing call for more consideration to biopsy diabetic patients presenting with the criteria stated above, as the finding of NDKD requires a different therapeutic approach (other than or in addition to conventional angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers) as steroids and other immunosuppressive medications. New therapeutic agents for the treatment of DN have recently been characterized. Endothelin receptor antagonists, sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors and agents targeting inflammation/fibrosis are probably the most promising candidates on top of the classical RAAS blockers [41, 42]. Therefore, it is mandatory that patients with diabetic kidney disease are adequately classified, differentiating clearly those with DN and those with NDKD. In addition, among those with DN, a reliable classification within different pathological categories [43, 44] will be of great value to individualize treatment strategies.
The present findings show that NDKD are a very common clinical condition in type-2 DM patients. The differential diagnosis of DNs and NDKDs is of considerable important because of their management approach and prognosis.
In Oman, among diabetic patients, pathological findings other than diabetic nephropathy were present in 56.9% mainly with FSGS in (23.5%), lupus nephritis in 5.8% and IgA nephropathy in 4% whereas diabetic nephropathy was the main finding in (43.1%) of all biopsies.
Therefore, there is a great need for more consideration to biopsy diabetic patients, as the finding of NDKD requires a different therapeutic approach. This, hopefully, will help to manage these patients better and therefore, ameliorate the progression to end stage kidney disease over time and therefore delay the need for RRT.
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Lytvyn Y, Bjornstad P, Pun N et al. New and old agents in the management of diabetic nephropathy. CurrOpin42. NephrolHypertens 2016; 25: 232–239
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Sabaton Heroes Review
Category: Music Tags: Heavy Metal, Heroes, Review, Sabaton, Traditional Metal Leave a Comment
Artist: Sabaton
Album: Heroes
Genre(s): Heavy Metal
Subgenres(s): Traditional Metal
Label(s): Nuclear Blast
01. Night Witches
02. No Bullets Fly
03. Smoking Snakes
04. Inmate 4859
05. To Hell and Back
06. The Ballad of Bull
07. Resist and Bite
08. Soldier of 3 Armies
09. Far from the Fame
10. Hearts of Iron
Sabaton Heroes Cover
Heroes is the 7th studio album by Swedish heavy metal band Sabaton. Following the announcement on 31st March 2012 that 4 members had simultaneously departed the band, lead vocalist, primary songwriter and now keyboardist Joakim Brodén and bassist Pär Sundström were saddled with the arduous task of reforming the line-up. With 3 new band members being brought into the fold it would be difficult to guess what would happen after such a heavy blow was dealt.
Heroes sees the sound of Sabaton moving away from the realm of power metal and drawing closer to traditional metal with their secret weapon, the voice of Joakim Brodén, being made the focal point of every song. His powerful and charismatic performance commands the listeners’ attention while bassist Pär Sundström and guitarists Chris Rörland and Thobbe Englund all double up as backing vocalists to add a real anthemic quality with their gang vocal delivery.
Long-time Sabaton fans will be familiar with the lyrical content largely revolving around military history and Heroes is no exception although a slightly different approach is taken because each song is used to sing the praises soldiers who exemplified humanity, bravery and valour while often facing dire circumstances in historical battles.
The lyrics take on a central role in songs that are heavily informed by pop song structure and length so they can appear to be direct and nondescript. This is a hindrance from a storytelling perspective because they don’t always delve deep enough to explain the situation that these people find themselves in so if you aren’t familiar with them or the battle in question then you won’t be able to appreciate what Sabaton are trying to convey. However if you spend a few minutes researching the subject matter you will be able to apply your own knowledge to the lyrics and fill in the gaps yourself to bring greater meaning to the songs.
Aside from some lyrical short comings there is also a notable deficit between the guitar riffs played during the verse/chorus sections and the lead guitar parts that burst into life during the bridge on songs like Night Witches, Smoking Snakes and Far from the Fame. These moments are often accompanied by more exciting drum parts courtesy of Hannes van Dahl and there seems to be a recurring theme of their skills being downplayed in favour of the aforementioned focus on anthemic choruses.
The first 3 songs establish exactly what Heroes is about and while many of the others follow suit, Inmate 4859 takes on a much slower and darker tone to tell the story of Witold Pilecki, a Polish soldier who infiltrated Auschwitz as a prisoner to gather intelligence on the camp and the holocaust before escaping to report his findings.
To Hell and Back features the tasteful use of a (synthesised) flute and some minor folk influences without crossing over into folk metal while the power ballad, The Ballad of Bull, features a piano, choral singing and a string section that frames Joakim Brodén’s voice in an entirely different setting and works to great effect. This is easily one of the biggest highlights of Heroes and the total change of pace breaks up the albums flow without losing any of the power or conviction found in the other songs.
The emphasis on hooks and simple arrangements shows that these songs were written with a live audience in mind because that same essence of power and engagement found at a concert is captured on Heroes although a healthier balance between this and more moments that would have shown off the skills of the new band members would have yielded some more exciting (and varied) results overall.
Joakim Brodén: Lead vocals, keyboards
Pär Sundström: Bass, backing vocals
Chris Rörland: Guitar, backing vocals
Thobbe Englund: Guitar, backing vocals
Hannes van Dahl: Drums
Sabaton Homepage
Sabaton on Wikipedia
Heroes on Wikipedia
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The Golden Section as Optical Limitation
Mark A. Elliott ,
Contributed equally to this work with: Mark A. Elliott, Joy Kelly, Paul Mulcahy
* E-mail: mark.elliott@nuigalway.ie
Affiliation School of Psychology, National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Republic of Ireland
Joy Kelly ,
¶‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work in running the experimental studies.
Jonas Friedel ,
Affiliation Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
Jennifer Brodsky ,
Affiliation Department of Psychology, Union College, Schenectady, New York, United States of America
Paul Mulcahy
Mark A. Elliott,
Joy Kelly,
Jonas Friedel,
Jennifer Brodsky,
Mark A. Elliott Joy Kelly ... Paul Mulcahy
The golden section, ϕ = (1 + √5)/2 = 1.618… and its companion ϕ = 1/ϕ = ϕ -1 = 0.618…, are irrational numbers which for centuries were believed to confer aesthetic appeal. In line with the presence of golden sectioning in natural growth patterns, recent EEG recordings show an absence of coherence between brain frequencies related by the golden ratio, suggesting the potential relevance of the golden section to brain dynamics. Using Mondrian-type patterns comprising a number of paired sections in a range of five section-section areal ratios (including golden-sectioned pairs), participants were asked to indicate as rapidly and accurately as possible the polarity (light or dark) of the smallest section in the patterns. They were also asked to independently assess the aesthetic appeal of the patterns. No preference was found for golden-sectioned patterns, while reaction times (RTs) tended to decrease overall with increasing ratio independently of each pattern’s fractal dimensionality. (Fractal dimensionality was unrelated to ratio and measured in terms of the Minkowski-Bouligand box-counting dimension). The ease of detecting the smallest section also decreased with increasing ratio, although RTs were found to be substantially slower for golden-sectioned patterns under 8-paired sectioned conditions. This was confirmed by a significant linear relationship between RT and ratio (p <.001) only when the golden-sectioned RTs were excluded [the relationship was non-significant for the full complement of ratios (p = .217)]. Image analysis revealed an absence of spatial frequencies between 4 and 8 cycles-per-degree that was exclusive to the 8-paired (golden)-sectioned patterns. The significance of this was demonstrated in a subsequent experiment by addition of uniformly distributed random noise to the patterns. This provided a uniform spatial-frequency profile for all patterns, which did not influence the decrease in RT with increasing ratio but abolished the elevated RTs to golden-sectioned patterns. This suggests that optical limitation in the form of reduced inter-neural synchronization during spatial-frequency coding may be the foundation for the perceptual effects of golden sectioning.
Citation: Elliott MA, Kelly J, Friedel J, Brodsky J, Mulcahy P (2015) The Golden Section as Optical Limitation. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0131045. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131045
Editor: Helmut Ahammer, Medical University of Graz, AUSTRIA
Received: December 4, 2014; Accepted: May 29, 2015; Published: July 8, 2015
Copyright: © 2015 Elliott et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Funding: The authors have no support or funding to report.
The golden section or ϕ (phi) is an irrational number, which in conjunction with π and e are determined to be one of the most significant constants in mathematics. Amongst other properties ϕ describes the relationship of numbers in the Fibonacci sequence as well as the geometry of pentagrams, in which each intersection of edges sections other edges in the golden section. While the term ‘Golden Section’ (goldener Schnitt) is ascribed to a text written by Martin Ohm in 1835 [1], knowledge of its mathematical significance is much older. The number was originally defined by early Greek mathematicians including Pythagoras, for whom it may have been instrumental in the discovery of irrational numbers by virtue of its application to geometrical structure [2]. Expressed formally, the relation r = a/b = b/(a + b) permit only two possibilities for r: ϕ = (√5–1)/2 = 0.618… and -ϕ = -(1 + √5)/2 = -1.618…, which is the geometric definition of the golden section.
The golden section is commonly believed to be present in ancient architecture, for example the Parthenon [3] and Egyptian religious buildings [4]. In antiquity, design employing golden sectioning is believed to generalize to other structures: 2,500 year-old Greek kantheroi have been argued to incorporate the golden section in their design [5]. There is also evidence for design employing golden sectioning in which the mean length/width ratios of 7,000-year old projectile points were found to vary in very close agreement with the ϕ (upper and lower 95% confidence intervals 1.59–1.64) [6].
While compelling, there are convincing arguments that claims of golden sectioning in almost all cases involve seemingly arbitrary calculations of the actual dimensions of the structures concerned [2]. In contemporary thinking the golden section is associated with aesthetics: in the 16th century, De Divina Poportione [7] proposed ϕ to be the fundamental unit in artistic perspective with application to architectural design. In the mid-19th century it was suggested that many works of art include golden sectioning in their composition [8,9]. These claims lead the founder of modern psychophysics, Gustav-Theodor Fechner, to examine the aesthetic properties of simple rectangular figures, and to report a clear preference for golden-sectioned rectangles [10]. However, in the 150 years since Fechner’s work there are an almost equal number of studies claiming support for Fechner’s finding as there are studies finding no preference. This lack of agreement may be based upon misunderstandings or misreading of the early experimental protocols, as well as imprecise replications of experimental conditions [11]. However, the lack of consensus has lead to claims that there is no evidence to support the idea that golden sectioning is an important principle in art and structural design [2].
Phi does appear in natural growth patterns, such as flower and leaf arrangements that develop pentagonal symmetry. The morphologies of a variety of sea creatures adapt to golden sectioning, for instance, the logarithmic spiral that is constructed from golden rectangles characterizes the shells of Nautilus, Abalone and Triton [4,11]. Another example is the “golden-angled” (137.5°) spiral configurations of pineapples, sunflowers, pinecones, cauliflowers, etc. Neither of these examples are numerological coincidences, but rather adaptations following ϕ as a physical constraint. Seashells that follow this growth pattern are able to maintain their shape while growing in size, and petal growth sequences can maximize their individual exposure to the environment by having this arrangement, in both cases producing a visual appearance that is self-similar across spatial scales [11].
It has recently been argued that in the human EEG, different neural oscillation frequencies will never synchronize (in a mathematical sense) if the frequency relationship is close to ϕ: mathematical modeling indicates that frequencies separated by close to ϕ exhibit the most irregular pattern of interaction possible between the excitatory phases of two or more independent sources of neuronal activity [12].
Neural oscillation frequency is believed to be important because it is associated with the rhythmic synchronization of neuronal firing, which in turn is believed to facilitate the formation of functional neuronal assemblies [13–15]. In the EEG literature, neural oscillations are divided into different frequency bands according to associated cognitive function: for instance, frequencies in the EEG beta (4–7 Hz) and alpha (8–12 Hz) bands are associated with working memory and attention while those in the EEG gamma band (30–70 Hz) are associated with functions that include long-term memory storage and retrieval, as well as perceptual processing [16–18]. It is also believed that cross-frequency phase synchronization is necessary for the functional integration of assemblies undertaking different cognitive tasks [19–21]. Assuming the model offered in [12] is of significance to functional integration, it would entail that for neural assembles oscillating at frequencies separated by ϕ, for example two assemblies oscillating at 50 and 31 Hz (1:0.613), there would be little or no functional interaction between the two assemblies and therefore no cognitive function associated with their co-activation.
This may come about as a property of ϕ as the “most irrational” of all the irrational numbers [6, 12]. This description arises because ϕ possesses an infinitely recursive continued fraction where none of the integer values are above 1. This is extremely slow to converge in comparison with other irrational approximations as it has the smallest possible sequence of denominators, simply adding 1 to each recursive iteration [2]. As such, the numerator and denominator representing the golden ratio are more incommensurable than other irrationals. In terms of oscillatory activity in the brain, this translates to phase sequences of two neural frequencies that are, in combination, least able to produce an integer value relationship that allows for phase locking [12]. By this account, a ratio at or close to ϕ would entail the two frequencies will rarely synchronize, with the consequence that cognition will either not occur or its function will be impaired. This is consistent with the idea that an irregular patterning in cross-frequency phase meetings conferred by ϕ characterize the resting state of the brain, in which no selective information processing is argued to take place [12].
The idea that cognition and particularly visual cognition related to aesthetic preference may be influenced by ϕ at the level of neural dynamics provided the idea from which the research presented here developed. More specifically, we believed size relations in golden ratio might influence judgments concerning areal relations. This seems plausible given conclusion that geometrical illusions, which illustrate size contrast [22,23] and size assimilation [24], are best described as contour interaction illusions, which, are in turn explicable in terms of the mutual adaptation (likely mediated by the synchronization) of spatial-frequency detectors in the visual system [25–27]. Related to the frequency of synchronization, it is generally held that variations in the amplitude of the EEG response relates to the number of synchronized neurons. In turn, we assumed that amplitude and therefore synchronization frequency also differs between neural assemblies of different size. This assumption was based upon EEG evidence, which has found amplitude to be proportional to the number of synchronously active neural elements [28], with slowly oscillating cell assemblies comprising more neurons than assemblies of higher frequencies [29]. Related to synchronization a simulation study [30] has shown that amplitude increases and frequency decreases with an increasing number of interconnecting neurons and therewith the need to synchronize neurons across different patterns of spike timing or membrane potential fluctuations as well as different patterns of synaptic delay.
In addition, much of the evidence for the way that ratio proportions are represented psychologically deals with their symbolic or numerical notation (i.e. fractions). Experiments usually involve comparison of a pair of fractions; with participants deciding which of two values is larger. Results show a numerical distance effect; that is, the distance between the absolute magnitudes of the individual fractions predicts performance in both accuracy and speed [31,32]. For symbolic comparisons, this suggests that the representations of the integrated fractions are implemented according to an analogical labeled line code (i.e. a holistic processing strategy) rather than being due to cross-comparison of the rational components in an online computation. The integration of fraction components into a holistic representation is shown to exhibit theta and gamma band synchrony over frontal and central-parietal areas in the EEG [33], implying the binding of the individual numerator and denominator representations into a common neural code. A holistic processing strategy is also shown to produce less alpha-band desynchronization, implying that this process does not actively down regulate cortical networks concerned with attention and executive control; i.e. it relies on more intensive neural resources than strategies using online computation [33]. In this case, irrationals may slow or impair responding by making the process of holistic integration more difficult than the analogical code would otherwise account for. In other words, the magnitude estimation of a single ratio relationship might be especially difficult according to the irrationality of the numerator and denominator. Evidence from an fMRI study shows that when a proportion magnitude was presented as an adapting stimulus, followed by a test proportion, BOLD signal adaptation and recovery was similar to that for numerical fractions [34]. In this case, regions surrounding the intraparietal sulcus showed stronger recovery for test proportions that deviated further from the adapting stimulus. On this basis it is argued that proportion coding is closely comparable to symbolic fractional representation as it also subject to the numeric distance effect, is implemented automatically, and independent of presentation format [34].
Golden sectioning may therefore influence the efficiency of visual scene coding, in which context it would seem likely to impair or at least slow processing of holistic structure. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to investigate the proposal that fast and efficient areal comparisons would be impaired when the relevant areas are in golden-ratio proportions to each other relative to areas in other ratios.
Twelve naïve participants (5 male, mean age of 25.27 years +/- 3.41 years) took part in Experiments 1 and 4. Eight participants (4 male, mean age 26.125 +/- 4.2 years) took part in Experiment 2 and 10 participants (6 male, mean age 22.625 +/- 2.5 years) in Experiment 3. Participants had normal or corrected to normal vision. All participants provided written consent to participate in this study. The complete protocol, including provision of written consent, was approved by the institutional Research Ethics Committee at the National University of Ireland Galway.
Apparatus and Stimuli
Stimuli were generated using E-prime 2.0 PRO (Psychology Software tools Inc.) on a Pentium 4 PC running Windows XP. Stimulus control and presentation were programmed using native E-prime macro scripts with system integrity checked by means of an E-prime refresh clock test which gave a diagnostic classification of ‘good’ (measurement error +/- 1 ms). Stimuli were presented on a 19” Magic Displays monitor, model CPD-4402 Trinitron with resolution 1024x768 and refresh rate 75 Hz. Responses were recorded using a two key Ergodex DX1 Input System. To approximate a relationship between golden sectioning in composition with brain activity we constructed patterns sectioned with various ratios between their larger and smaller sections that included the golden section (Fig 1). We reasoned that areal ratios in golden section would promote neural responses corresponding approximately in terms of the number of contributive neurons to the ratios of larger to smaller areas. This seemed a plausible assumption given there are non-integer as well as harmonic relations between neural oscillation frequencies in the gamma band, which is the band most closely associated with coding sensory structure [35]. If the number of neurons responding to a given stimulus relates to the frequency at which those neurons synchronize, then the frequency-response adopted by neurons across two areas in golden ratio should also be, approximately, in golden ratio. Stimuli were rectangular, horizontally (Experiments 1, 3 and 4) or vertically (Experiment 2) oriented Mondrian-like patterns with 4-, 8- or 16-paired sections (Fig 1). Each pattern contained a set of differently sized, paired sections with self-similar dimensions. The ratios of the paired sections examined were 1:0.468, 1:0.518, 1:0.568, 1:0.618*, 1:0.668 (*0.618 is the golden ratio, or more precisely it’s reciprocal, but in this case the two are interchangeable) [36]. The set of ratio intervals and sizes were chosen because they allowed equal increments that would not cause large discontinuities in the appearance of the stimuli across ratios. They also avoid the possibility of patterns producing overly small targets when sectioned beyond a certain point. The position of the golden ratio as 4th largest within the range of 5 ratios used sought to avoid any biased responding that may arise from a central position in the range of ratios [37,38]. The sectioning procedure generates the stimuli in each case by first drawing the rectangular boundary of the whole pattern irrespective of ratio, the dimensions of the pattern match those of the screen to avoid biasing responses towards ratios that more closely match the screen dimensions (in other words we did not rule out the possibility that self-similarity or the effects of fractal complexity could extend beyond the stimulus). The pattern was overall 0.5 times the area of the screen and centrally placed. The color of the pattern’s interior was randomly assigned to one of either of the potential target colors “light gray” and “dark gray” in VBA/E-Basic designations. The first sectioning was then achieved by multiplying the length along the x-axis to achieve the subdivisions of the relevant ratios. After establishing the first section, the sectioning algorithm then performed the same operation on the smaller area, with the section matching the target ratio being assigned to the smaller of the two areas. The larger sectioned area then underwent the same operation recursively and with the number of sectioning operations determined by set size. The two subsections of each paired section were shaded light and dark gray with equal probability across the overall set of patterns with this procedure the same for all ratios in order to establish a consistent layout, and to make sure that the target appears in approximately the same location. Larger set sizes follow the same procedure as longer series of repetitions. Overall pattern size did vary slightly leading to 4 different grid sizes of between 1 and 2° of visual angle at 55 cm viewing distance. All patterns were presented at the center of the monitor screen. In Experiment 3, randomly distributed pixels accounting for 20% of each pattern employed in Experiment 1 were transformed from light or dark grey to either white or black with the result of pixelating the pattern displays.
Fig 1. Example grids used in all experiments, from top to bottom, left to right a 4-paired sectioned pattern with sections in area ratio 1|0.568, an 8-paired sectioned pattern with sections in area ratio 1|0.618 (the golden section), an 8-paired sectioned pattern with sections in area ratio 1|0.568 and a 16-paired sectioned pattern with sections in area ratio 1|0.668.
The participants’ task was to respond by button press as rapidly and accurately as possible to the luminance of the smallest section. Patterns varied in size with 4, 8 or 16 paired sections and the ratio in area of the sections with ratios of (1|0.468, 1|0.518, 1|0.568, 1|0.618, 1|0.668), where 1|0.618 is the golden section.
Design and Procedure
Experiments 1, 2 and 3 used a within subjects design and a speeded-response task in which participants were asked to determine the shading (e.g. dark–right key, light–left key) of the overall smallest pattern section and respond by button press as rapidly and accurately as possible. Some previous studies have linked golden-section preference with visual field morphology or to the velocity of visual scan which exhibits a 3/2 horizontal/vertical ratio [39–41]. Accordingly, in Experiment 2 we examined the hypothesis that if an egocentric, horizontal reference frame defined by the visual field influenced participants’ performance, presentation of vertical instead of horizontally oriented patterns would exclude any influence of the golden section. Experiment 3 added uniform visual noise to the golden-section patterns to convolve with pattern structure and to assess whether or not this influenced the effects of golden sectioning on RTs. Experiment 4 employed a paired comparison task in which participants were asked to rate the relative pleasantness or aesthetic value of one pattern against another.
Each trial started with the presentation of a central fixation cross for 500 milliseconds (ms). The fixation cross was then immediately replaced by the search pattern, to which observers responded. Patterns remained on screen until a response was recorded. In case of an erroneous response or a time-out (i.e., after a period of 2,500 ms without response), feedback was given by a computer-generated tone and an alert was presented for 500 ms at the center of the screen. Each trial was separated from the next by variable intervals of 500–1,000 ms. Following a 20-trial practice session participants completed 600 trials in one 15-block session ensuring 40 trials per experimental condition. Pattern presentation was fully randomized across all conditions, across blocks and randomized separately for each participant. The experiment was carried out in a sound proof booth with low ambient lighting with a chin rest used to ensure distance between participant’s eyes and the monitor was kept constant at 55 cm.
Experiment 4 used a paired comparisons procedure to investigate whether or not there was a significantly higher preference for the golden ratio relative to the other ratios used in Experiment 1. Experiment 4 used the same stimulus patterns with presentation order fully randomized for 40 trials per condition and 600 trials overall. Participants were asked to report which pattern of the two they thought was the most ‘pleasing’. The stimuli, stimulus presentation and experimental conditions were identical to those employed in Experiment 1. Pattern-pair presentation was fully randomized across 25, 40-trial blocks and separately for each participant. The running order of Experiments 1 and 4 were varied such that Experiment 1 was conducted first for 50% of participants.
Analysis of Aesthetic Judgments
The multiple pairwise-comparison data obtained in Experiment 4 (S1 Table) were analyzed according to the law of comparative judgment [42], but failed to identify any patterning as ranking significantly differently to the median ranking [χ2 (4, N = 60) = 0.52, p = .97]. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 are illustrated in Fig 2(A)–2(D). For Experiments 1–3, repeated-measures analyses were carried out using SPSS 21.0 (SPSS, IBM, Inc.), which returns observed or post-hoc power, and partial eta squared (η2) statistics. Trials with error responses were removed from the data prior to subsequent analyses. Error RTs tended to be slower overall than correct RTs, and analysis of the probability correct by RT revealed no significant correlation between RT and accuracy. This argues against the correct data being contaminated by accuracy-speed trade-offs. Examination of the correct RTs revealed non-normal distribution with pronounced positive skew. A Kolmogorov ‘D’ test showed RT distributions to be approximately lognormal and on this basis subsequent analyses were conducted on the exponents of the means of log-transformed RT distributions [43,44]. Huynh-Feldt, Greenhouse Geisser or Lower bound epsilon adjustments were applied where sphericity assumptions are not met [45].
Fig 2. For Experiment 1 (a) shows mean RTs and their standard errors as a function of ratio for the three pattern sizes 4-paired sections (diamonds), 8-paired sections (squares) and 16-pairted sections (stars), respectively.
In (b) is shown the regression line of RTs over ratio when the golden section is excluded from analysis alongside diamonds signifying the mean RTs for all ratio conditions. A similar patterning describes RTs for Experiment 2 (b and c).
Reaction-Time Analyses (Experiments 1 and 2)
In Experiment 1, examination of the log-transformed correct RTs (85%) (S1 Dataset) by means of a repeated-measures ANOVA revealed significant main effects for ratio [F(2.1, 23.8) = 41.24, p < .001, η2 = .79, power = 1], and pattern [F(2, 22) = 16.9, p < .001, η2 = .61, power = .91] as well as a significant interaction [F(3, 33.46) = 13.25, p < .001, η2 = .55, power = 1].
Fig 2(A) shows that RTs did not increase linearly as a function of an increase in the pattern sections as might be expected if participants engaged in serial search for the target section. Fig 2(A) also indicates the interaction to be complex: RTs decreased overall with increasing ratio although this effect was compromised for both 4 and 8-paired sectioned patterns, which are characterized by notably slower RTs to the golden-sectioned patterns. As illustrated in Fig 2(A), the different pattern x ratio RTs were likely to be explained by different models and as a result, subsequent analyses sought to establish the model that best described the decrease in RT with ratio for each pattern separately. RTs decreased nonlinearly with increasing ratio for the 4- and 16-paired-sectioned patterns [logarithmic r2 = .752, F(1,3) = 9.072, p = 0.057 and quadratic r2 = .964, F(2,2) = 26.4, p < .036, respectively]. The 8-paired sectioned pattern was explained by a near perfect linear function, but only following removal of the golden ratio RTs [r2 = .996, F(1,3) = 454.8, p < .001], and was not linear if analysis included these RTs [r2 = .448, F(1,3) = 2.43, p = .217, see Fig 2(B)]. Note that the logarithmic fit of RT over ratio also improved slightly for the 4-paired sectioned patterns following removal of the golden ratio RTs, but the fit failed to achieve significance (logarithmic r2 = 0.862). Because RTs did not decrease linearly with an increase in the number of sections we might conclude that RT variability relates more to discrimination at the target location than it does to search.
Fig 2(C) shows that the pattern of correct RTs (92%) in Experiment 2 (S2 Dataset) very closely matched those in Experiment 1: there were significant main effects for ratio, [F(1.6, 11.4) = 24.06, p < .001, η2 = .78, power = .99], and pattern [F(1.11, 7.8) = 25, p = .001, η2 = .78, power = .99] while the interaction was also significant [F(1.82, 12.73) = 7.39, p = .008, η2 = .51, power = .85]. As with Experiment 1, RTs decreased nonlinearly with increasing ratio for the 4- and 16-paired-sectioned patterns [logarithmic r2 = .776, F(1,3) = 10.4, p = 0.048 and quadratic r2 = .946, F(2,2) = 17.57, p = .054, respectively]. Again consistent with Experiment 1, examination of RTs to the 8-paired sectioned patterns revealed a linear function only following removal of the golden section RTs [r2 = .919, F(1,3) = 22.72, p = .018], and not on the basis of analysis of the full range of RTs over ratio [linear r2 = .637, F(1,3) = 5.27, p = .105, see Fig 2(D)]. Similar again to Experiment 1, there was a logarithmic fit of RT over ratio following removal of the golden section RTs in the 4-paired sectioned patterns [r2 = .987, F(2,2) = 154.72, p = .006], which was not found for the 16-paired sectioned patterns.
Response-Error Analyses (Experiments 1 and 2)
Analysis of response error (15% and 7.9% of trials overall in Experiments 1 and 2 S2 Table and S3 Table) were carried out using the same ANOVA as for the RTs but on the arcsined square-root error proportions. These analyses revealed significant main effects for ratio in both experiments [F(2.1, 23.4) = 39.9, p < .001, η2 = .78, power = 1 and [F(4, 28) = 39.5, p < .001, η2 = .85, power = 1, for Experiments 1 and 2, respectively], which is consistent with the corresponding RT effects, i.e. improved task performance is associated with faster RTs. In Experiment 1 simple-effects analysis of the ratio x pattern interaction [F(7.2, 78.8) = 24, p < .001, η2 = .69, power = 1] showed 8-paired (golden)-sectioned patterns produced significantly higher errors than were produced for the 1:0.518 (p < .001), 1:0.568 (p = .013) and 1:0.668 (p < .001) ratios. However and unlike the RT analyses, this pattern was not replicated for Experiment 2 in which a corresponding simple-effects analysis showed no differences in error production between the 8-paired (golden)-section and other patterns. These patterns in error production tend to suggest that the task becomes overall easier with increasing ratio, and the increasing conspicuity of the smallest sections. However, the pattern of RT performance to the 8-paired section conditions is not consistently matched by variations in task difficulty.
Fractal Patterning (Experiments 1 and 2)
Because self-similarity characterizes both natural scenes and art, including abstract compositions [46,47] it was decided to examine any effects of the fractal dimensionality of the stimulus grids on the RTs from Experiment 1. Analysis of these RT data suggests that golden sectioning influences processing at the level of the local section and not mechanisms involved in pattern search. However the specificity of this effect to the 8-paired sectioned patterns suggests that pattern composition plays a critical role. All of the patterns were fractal in that smaller sections were reduced copies of larger sections and golden sectioning may be a mathematical fractal when the ratio refers to a formula that is based upon recursive iteration. Accordingly, it seemed sensible to assess whether or not RTs to golden-section patterns were influenced by fractal dimensionality. If RTs were found to correspond to the fractal dimension (d) between golden ratio and other ratios, it might be conjectured that slowed RTs to the golden-sectioned grids came about due to an inability to successfully separate the target from the background as a function of fractal dimensionality.
Fig 3(A) illustrates the Minkowski–Bouligand or box-counting dimension of the different ratio conditions. Box counting characterizes a fractal set by determining the number (N) of boxes of size R required to cover the fractal set, following the power law N = N0*R-df with df < = d. Estimating the log-log fit for each distribution of N for different box sizes revealed the following, near identical exponents for each ratio condition (Table 1):
Fig 3. (a) The Minkowski–Bouligand or box-counting dimension for the 5 ratios (1|0.468, 1|0.518 and 1|0.568 circles, squares and diamond, respectively) as well as (1|0.618, and 1|0.668, large open diamond and star).
Box counting characterizes a fractal set by determining the number (N) of boxes of size R required to cover the fractal set, following the power law N = N0*R-df with df < = d (or fractal dimension). In (b) the spatial frequency structure of the golden-16-sectioned patterns, determined by application of a bank of log-Gabor filters is illustrated by the black continuous line, with golden-4- and 16-paired sectioned patterns presented for comparison purposes as gray discontinuous lines. Unlike any other pattern the 8-paired (golden) sectioned pattern exhibits an absence in spatial frequency information in the middle of the range of spatial frequencies possessed by the pattern, at around 3–7 cycles per degree of visual angle. Addition of uniformly distributed random noise (white or black pixels) to 20% of the 8-paired sectioned patterns convolved with the natural pattern amplitude spectra of the patterns to raise all lower values in the amplitude spectrum, particularly, raising zero values above zero. The black dashed line illustrates the resulting amplitude spectrum. An example pattern is given in (c); (d) shows that following this modification, in Experiment the 3, golden-section RTs were not elevated as had been found in Experiments 1 and 2 but corresponded to the approximately linear negative function describing RT over ratio.
Table 1. Exponents describing the fractal dimensionality for each of the ratios employed in Experiments 1, 2 and 3.
It can be observed from Fig 3(A) that as the number of boxes increases the degrees of freedom or number of dimensions decrease in this case over the range 2–1. Within this range, analysis of all sample points (dimensions) using logistic regression analysis showed mean RTs correlated reasonably well (although non-significantly) with the number of boxes. While by no means conclusive this analysis is suggestive of a relationship between fractal dimensionality and RTs, with the best correlation for d = 1 where McFadden’s pseudo r2 = .418, χ2(4, N = 5) = 6.73, p = .151. However and related to our question, explanatory power was only slightly reduced following the removal of the golden-section RTs (r2 = .406) suggesting that the golden-section RTs are unlikely to deviate substantially from any more general relationship between RTs and fractal dimensionality [48].
Spatial-Frequency Structure (Experiments 1 and 2)
We believed a second possibility was that the spatial-frequency structure of the patterns themselves related to the slowed RTs. In a first step all patterns were subject to analysis using a bank of log-Gabor filters [49] to better approximate the 1/f amplitude spectra present in natural images than Gabor filters while also being analogous with measures of human visual-system function, which indicate we have neuronal responses that are symmetric on the log frequency scale. The results of this analysis are given in Fig 3(B) [50] Here it can be seen that unlike any other patterns tested, the 8-paired (golden)-sectioned patterns exhibit an absence of information in the amplitude spectrum across a bandwidth of over 3 cycles-per-degree within the range 4–7 cycles-per-degree. One corollary with this might be in the number of light or dark sections that sit adjacent but are of different polarity to the target section, however RTs were found not to correlate (r2 = .04) with the number of adjacent sections of opposing polarity.
Experiment 3: Reaction-Time and Response-Error Analysis
In Experiment 3 the spatial frequency structure of the 16-sectioned patterns was masked by addition of uniformly distributed random noise (white or black pixels). Twenty-percent of each pattern was masked by noise allowing target sections to remain discriminable while at the same time influencing the amplitude spectra of the patterns: analysis of the resulting patterns using log-Gabor filters had the effect, illustrated in Fig 3(B), of convolving spatial frequency information in the noise with the existing spatial-frequency structure, thus augmenting lower values in the amplitude spectrum and raising all zero values above zero. If the unusual spatial-frequency structure of golden-sectioned patterns were responsible for the RT outliers in Experiments 1 and 2, the addition of uniformly distributed noise in the current experiment should reduce the golden-section RTs, which should then not be found to deviate significantly from the function describing decreasing RT over ratio. In Experiment 3 the ratio main effect was the same as that found in Experiments 1 and 2 [F(1, 9) = 51, p < .001, η2 = .85, power = 1]. However and consistent with expectations, RTs decreased linearly with increasing ratio ([r2 = .9, F(1,3) = 26.97, p = .014 Fig 3(D) S3 Dataset] and did not show the increase in RTs to the golden-section patterns that was found in Experiments 1 and 2.
Analysis of response error (5.5% of trials overall in Experiment 3 S4 Table) was carried out using the same ANOVA as for the RTs but on the arcsined square-root error proportions. These analyses revealed significant main effects for ratio [F(1, 9) = 32.8, p < .001, η2 = .79, power = 1], which is consistent with the corresponding RT effects, i.e. improved task performance is associated with faster RTs. No other effects were found.
Experiments 1–3 show that golden-sectioned patterns yield less efficient visual target discrimination as a function of unusual spatial-frequency distributions within the patterns. In this context the golden section serves as a limit to the efficient functioning of perceptual processing. Fig 2 panels (a) and (c) show RTs be approximately distributed such that discrimination performance is fastest for 4, then 16 and slower for the 8-paired sectioned patterns. This suggests that it is not target-section search (which, if serial would favor a 4-8-16-section order in RT magnitude) but time taken to process at the target location that is influenced by golden sectioning. This is consistent with the idea that inefficient and/or absent synchronization between neurons participating in spatial frequency analysis requires additional processing resources (for example top-down driven synchronization) and therefore more time to successfully process the pattern. Linkage with previously discussed ideas [12] derives from the assumption that within-pattern segmentation is achieved by virtue of frequency or phase differences between neural responses to the larger and smaller sections. On this assumption, inefficient or absent synchronization between neural responses might result in inefficient, and as a consequence slowed processing because neurons coding the different sections would operate in different temporal codes that would not easily combine to facilitate their processing within a common framework.
Concerning the relationship of the golden section to aesthetic preference, the contribution of Experiment 4 to the mixture of findings for and against, weighs in against the idea of golden sectioning as a major principle underlying aesthetic preference [2]. However, this conclusion may be premature and the relationship between golden sectioning and aesthetic appeal more complex than is often taken into account. To illustrate this: in difficult visual-search displays, it may happen that a participant exercises an “optimal stopping rule”, application of the rule equivalent to responding because “it never usually takes this long to make a response”, and under such circumstances, the rule might explain a peak in errors at slow response latencies. In the present context, and given an understanding that there may a basis for aesthetic appeal in some of the presented patterns, a participant might judge patterns that are more difficult to process as aesthetic simply because they are taking unusually long to view. In spite of the fact that this judgment would likely occur without introspection on the fact that it is made based upon noticeably prolonged viewing, if it were the case, golden-section preference might be considered a demand characteristic in an experimental procedure. However and equally, contemporary art forms similar to the stimuli employed in this study can be considered to possess aesthetic value. In theses cases, prolonged viewing might be sufficient to encourage an aesthetic dialog, proceeding from the observation that “I have been viewing this work for slightly longer than usual”. Of course this does not account for why, in Experiment 4, participants did not prefer the golden-sectioned patterns over other patterns. Perhaps in this case initiation of the aesthetic dialog relies upon prior, relevant knowledge of the potential for the patterns to possess aesthetic appeal. If so, and if participant samples were not deliberately biased towards non-naive participants, measuring aesthetic preference may end up being a matter of chance rather than based upon systematic variation of the experimental conditions.
Two future research agendas emerge from this: agenda (a) recommends using neuroscience methods to investigate the functional dynamics of mechanisms engaging, via synchronized activity, two or more neural assemblies either in golden ratio or in response to a stimulus characterized by the golden ratio; agenda (b) rests on the assumption that, under some circumstances, an aesthetic response could evolve as a consequence of the viewer responding implicitly (and in the same sense as governs operation of an optimal stopping rule in visual search) to viewing a particular pattern for unusually longer than other patterns. In an artistic context this may encourage more explicit introspection and the development of an aesthetic dialog, in this instance with golden-sectioned images.
In conclusion, golden sectioning influences the efficiency of visual processing. This appears to be a function of the absent spatial-frequencies within the 8-paired sectioned patterns but it is not related to the fractal dimensionality of the golden-sectioned patterns. It is interesting to note that 4–7 cycles-per-degree is found within the human contrast sensitivity function, which shows a band-pass filter shape peaking at around 4 cycles-per-degree [51]. This suggests that the optical limit possessed by golden-sectioned patterns lies in the absence of spatial frequencies to which the visual system is maximally sensitive. The resultant slowing in processing may arise due to the need to engage spatial frequency analyzers by means of top-down activation. This leads to the tentative hypothesis that, slowed processing to a particular pattern within a set of similarly structured patterns, may be sensed by the observer and under particular circumstances (e.g. given art-like pattern structure and when the observer is aware of the possibility for aesthetic dialog) may initiate an aesthetic response. While not a general theory of aesthetics, this account might describe why under some circumstances, the golden section appears to be of aesthetic value and on other occasions does not. This conclusion requires further scientific study.
S1 Dataset. Experiment 1, raw and tabulated RT data.
S1 Table. Tabulated data for Experiment 4.
S2 Table. Experiment 1, tabulated error data.
Conceived and designed the experiments: MAE PM. Performed the experiments: JK JF JB. Analyzed the data: JK PM MAE. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MAE. Wrote the paper: MAE PM.
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27. Blakemore C, Nachmias J, Sutton P (1970) The perceived spatial frequency shift: Evidence for frequency selective neurones in the human brain. J Physiol 210: 727–750. pmid:5499822
28. Elul R (1972) The genesis of the EEG. Int Rev Neurobiol 15: 227–272.
29. Pfurtscheller G, Lopes da Silva FH (1999) Event-related EEG/MEG synchronization and desynchronization: basic principles. Clin Neurophysiol 110: 1842–1857 pmid:10576479
30. Lopes da Silva FH, van Rotterdam A, Barts P, van Heusden E, Burr W. Models of neuronal populations: the basic mechanisms of rhythmicity. In: Corner MA, Swaab DF, editors. Perspectives of brain research, Prog Brain Res, vol. 45, 1976. pp. 281–308.
31. Ganor-Stern D, Karasik-Rivkin I, Tzelgov J (2011) Holistic representation of unit fractions. Exp psychol 58: 201–206. pmid:21106472
32. Schneider M, Siegler RS (2010) Representations of the magnitudes of fractions. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 36: 1227–1238. pmid:20873937
33. Barraza P, Gómez DM, Oyarzún F, Dartnell P (2014) Long-distance neural synchrony correlates with processing strategies to compare fractions. Neurosci Lett 567: 40–44. pmid:24680853
34. Jacob SN, Vallentin D, Nieder A (2012) Relating magnitudes: the brain's code for proportions. Trends Cogn Sci 16: 157–166. pmid:22377692
35. Cohen MX (2008) Assessing transient cross-frequency coupling in EEG data. J Neurosci Meth 168: 494–499.
36. These ratios relate to a comparison of the area being sectioned to its subsequent largest section. Another way is to define the subdivisions in the extreme:mean format rather than whole:extreme. This would give ratios of 0.88:1, 1.08:1, 1.32:1, 1.618:1 (golden section), and 2.01:1. This spread might allow us to provide easier discriminability between stimuli, as well as coming closer to a 1:1 or maximally stable ratio for the second ratio.
37. Godkewitsch M (1974) The 'golden section': an artifact of stimulus range and measure of preference. Am J Psychol 87: 269–277. pmid:4451211
38. McManus IC (1980) The aesthetics of simple figures. Brit J Psychol 71: 505–524. pmid:7437674
39. Hintz JM, Nelson TM (1970) Golden section: Reassessment of the perimetric hypothesis. Am J Psychol 83: 126–129. pmid:5449389
40. LeRoy A, Stone LA, Collins LG (1965) The golden section revisited: A perimetric explanation. Am J Psychol 78: 503–506. pmid:14344099
41. Bejan A (2009) The golden ratio predicted: Vision, cognition and locomotion as a single design in nature. Int J Design Nature Ecodynamics 4: 97–104.
42. Thurstone LL (1927) A law of comparative judgment. Psychol Rev 34: 273–286.
43. Box GEP, Cox DR (1964) An analysis of transformations. J R Stat Soc: 211–252.
44. Box GEP, Cox DR (1982) An analysis of transformations revisited, rebutted. J Am Stat Assoc 77: 209–210.
45. Huynh H, Feldt LS (1976) Estimation of the Box correction for degrees of freedom from sample data in the randomized block and split plot designs. J Educ Stat 1: 69–82.
46. Spehar B, Clifford CW, Newell BR, Taylor RP (2003) Universal aesthetic of fractals. Comput Graph 27: 813–820.
47. Redies C (2007) A universal model of esthetic perception based on the sensory coding of natural stimuli. Spatial Vision 21: 97–117. pmid:18073053
48. Fractal dimensionality was calculated using the Matlab package authored by F. Moisy and is available under http://www.fast.u-psud.fr/~moisy/ml/boxcount/html/demo.html
49. Field DJ (1987) Relations between the statistics of natural Images and the response properties of cortical cells. J Opt Soc Am A 4: 2379–2394. pmid:3430225
50. Patterns were analyzed using the gaborconvolve Matlab function for convolving image with log-Gabor filters. This function is authored by P. Kovesi and available under http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~pk/Research/MatlabFns/PhaseCongruency/gaborconvolve.m
51. Campbell FW, Robson JG (1968) Application of Fourier analysis to the visibility of gratings. J Physiol 197: 551–566. pmid:5666169
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Financing companies
Starting companies
Exporting companies
We hedge the company's payment risks
New exporters
Experienced exporters
We are developing the Estonian start-up ecosystem
Making housing affordable
We improve living conditions
Apartment associations
Increasing energy performance
Increasing awareness of energy performance
Energy performance of existing buildings
Energy efficiency of new buildings
Tools for measuring energy performance
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KredEx Career Exploration Tours
Services to finance a business
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For housing
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WORKING IN KREDEX
KredEx makes profit of 0.9 million euros
The KredEx Foundation made a profit of 0.9 milllion euros last year (0.9 million euros in 2012).
“Last year was characterised by active work in operations of financing companies and investments as well as residents’ purchases and reconstruction of homes. In addition to the provision of existing services, we developed several new solutions in the areas of loans, venture capital and sureties. For the development of companies’ operations, loans remain important, whilst the overall risk levels in the economic environment declined and competition amongst banks became more intense last year, as a result of which banks are willing to finance stronger companies on increasingly more attractive terms. It is primarily start-up, small and micro companies that need additional guarantees by KredEx, which make no less than 71.3% of the annual volume of sureties. Furthermore, sureties by KredEx are an important source of help especially for young families when purchasing homes and for the performance of renovations on apartment buildings that are small or that are in remote areas,” said Andrus Treier, CEO of KredEx.
KredEx’ gross operating revenue amounted to 6.5 million euros, down 8.3% from 2012. That includes revenue related to guaranteeing loans, which reached 2.9 million euros, and revenue from interest on loans, which amounted to 2.6.million euros.
To cover losses, there were appropriations of 2.3 million euros in 2013 (3.4 million euros in 2012). Indemnified losses totalled 2.5 million euros in 2013 (3.8 million euros in 2012), with the majority accounted for by losses resulting from guarantees for business loans. Over the course of its entire existence, KredEx has indemnified losses of 22.1 million euros.
In providing financial services, KredEx is above all guided by public interest, assisting companies and residents where the market is not functioning. To accomplish its mission, KredEx has to take sufficient risks yet break even when several years are averaged. That said, considerable profits or losses may be made in individual years. Since its founding in 2000, KredEx has made a total profit of 5.0 million euros.
Last year saw the creation of the first funds under the Baltic Innovation Fund, in which the Estonian state has invested 20 million euros through KredEx. “The objective for the Baltic Innovation Fund is to fund the growth of companies in the Baltic States. During the course of the year, fund managers were issued with the first mandates, with active negotiations in progress to involve private investors. In addition, KredEx is preparing the next fund of funds, intended above all for financing start-up and fledgling companies. The two funds above have a significant effect on stimulating the private and venture capital market, rather inactive to date, by laying a long-term foundation for both attracting investments needed by companies and for rousing investors’ interest in the capital market here,” Treier said.
In the area of entrepreneurship, KredEx provided sureties and financing, totalling 55.2 million euros, for 529 companies in 2013. Support from KredEx enabled companies to attract additional financing of 105.2 million euros in total. The companies supported employ a total of 8484 staff, and there are plans for the creation of 661 jobs as a result of the projects.
In addition to supporting companies, last year KredEx helped 1723 young families, entry-level workers and military veterans to purchase homes and to take out a total of 92.6 million euros in home loans from banks, using 12.9 million euros in sureties from KredEx to that end. Last year, KredEx issued 75 loan sureties for apartment buildings, totalling 4.7 million euros. In 2013, 99 apartment associations used long-term loans at attractive interest rates for renovations, totalling 17.5 million euros. A total of 8.3 million euros was allocated in reconstruction grants for 95 apartment buildings. Since 2001, KredEx’ home loan sureties were used by 22 250 households, with loan sureties to renovate apartment buildings used on 721 occasions.
As of the end of last year, KredEx had an endowment of 70.9 million euros, a balance sheet total of 201.3 million euros and a guarantee portfolio totalling 148.0 million euros.
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Grow Your Social Media Presence
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Targeting Leads on LinkedIn
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"Corpsepaint" by David Peak
Review by Christopher Shultz May 2, 2018
David Peak
Word Horde
Metal and horror have a longstanding, healthy relationship. Both explore dark themes of death, destruction, and the macabre, and sport diehard fanbases composed of society's misunderstood, moody misfits. (That there is a kind of proto-metal horror punk band by the same name is more a coincidence than anything, but it is no less fitting). Given this, it is no wonder that the fanbases tend to overlap, providing fertile ground for many writers, most recently including Joe Hill and his novel Heart-Shaped Box, as well as Jason Lei and Sarah Howden's comedy horror film Deathgasm, among numerous other titles.
Author David Peak's latest novel, Corpsepaint, (out now from Word Horde) explores this same territory, but it does so in tones as black and gritty as the music itself. The title refers to the high contrast black and white face paint used by metal bands to appear corpse-like or even demonic. The specter of this masking combined with the novel's primary setting—a snow-covered compound in the Ukraine—works as a symbolic covering of the deep darkness coursing through the narrative, the blackest evil hiding beneath a bright white facade. This dichotomy may also allude to the book's Lovecraftian themes and issues of racism that go hand in hand with the man's name, but more on this in a moment.
"Corpsepaint" is a meditative and psychologically-driven book, unfolding at the speed of a thirty-minute ambient doom track rather than a fast and heavy Bathory song.
The novel centers on Max, AKA Strigoi, a washed-up, heroin-addicted musician and founder of seminal metal band Angelus Mortis, who never quite topped the success of their first three albums. Max is notoriously difficult to work with, resulting in a revolving door of musicians for each Angelus Mortis album. His latest recruit, Roland—a dumb and doughy kid with a near-genius-level gift for songwriting and drumming—accompanies Max from America to the remote compound of European metal band Wisdom of Silenus, who basically operate a doomsday cult, though members are free to come and go as they please, despite the consternation of their leader Seph, the lone female member of the band. Their record label arranged this "legendary collision of two worlds" as a potential comeback for Max and possibly a recruitment technique for Wisdom—or at least, that's how Seph sees it. However, true to good horror fiction plotting, things do not go according to plan, and the music created by the musicians in this icy locale threatens to annihilate the world, and possibly even the universe.
To explain any more of the plot would ruin the reader's experience. However, a caution is in order: if, based on the above description, you are expecting an action-packed novel, you will be disappointed. This is not a strike against Peak's work, to be clear, but rather an advisement to simply check your expectations at the door when cracking its spine. Despite visions of nightmarish, sometimes gory imagery, Corpsepaint is a meditative and psychologically-driven book, unfolding at the speed of a thirty-minute ambient doom track rather than a fast and heavy Bathory song (one of the real bands mentioned in the novel). We spend a significant amount of time with the thoughts of the aforementioned three main characters (as well as the compound's resident witch Taras, and even, at one point, a young goat). Where Max and Roland are concerned, their main preoccupations are steeped in constant contradictions, with Max primarily alternating between respect for his earlier work with Angelus Mortis, expressing a desire to "get back to his roots," so to speak, and loathing those first three albums for overshadowing every subsequent release. Similarly, Roland cannot decide if all people should strive toward isolation, or if loneliness is crippling and detrimental to one's health, among other opposing sentiments. It's love and hate in equal measure for these two, with neither character really knowing how they feel or what they really want, despite how bull-like they charge through their lives, how headstrong and cocksure they behave, how much they insist they have things figured out. (And naturally, the ultimate conclusion Peak reaches is that Max and Roland, two very different but identically naive Americans, really know nothing.)
Seph shares some of Roland's feelings of isolation, as well as a sense of being lost, of wondering what her "Lord" desires of her, and how—as a mere mortal—to meet those expectations, but despite this she is the most resolved and put-together of the trio. Unfortunately, her core beliefs involve unabashed racism toward "dark-skinned immigrants" and extreme, militant nationalism. It seems fitting then that Peak ultimately emphasizes the violent destructiveness of Seph's way of thinking as more terrifying than the cosmic horror elements of Corpsepaint—a sobering statement that, despite the supernatural forces at play, people are the most grotesque and dangerous monsters on the planet, the true darkness hiding in the light. As such, anyone seeking a life-affirming read should look elsewhere; this novel actualizes in uncompromising detail the "anti-human, anti-life" themes of the music with which it is concerned, and it thus exists as a very good example on downbeat, bordering-on-nihilistic horror, a treat for anyone who prefers their fiction black and bitter.
Corpsepaint
Author: David Peak
Publisher: Word Horde (2018)
Review by Christopher Shultz
Christopher Shultz writes weird, dark fiction. His stories have appeared both online and in print, including most recently in Apex Magazine, freeze frame flash fiction and Grievous Angel. In addition to LitReactor, he has also written for Ranker.com, Cultured Vultures and Tor.com. At times, he dabbles in digital art and photography. Christopher lives in Oklahoma City with his fiancée Lauren and their two mostly well-behaved cats. More info at christophershultz.com.
Follow @chris_shultz81
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Putting Other People's Words in Your Mouth with John F.D. Taff
February 4, 2020 - March 3, 2020
Make sure the dialog you're writing for your characters sounds like real people actually said it, ensuring they come off as authentic.
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Why Art? (Paperback)
By Eleanor Davis
This is a treatise on what makes art art, told in graphic novel form.
What is “Art”? It’s widely accepted that art serves an important function in society. But the concept falls under such an absurdly large umbrella and can manifest in so many different ways. Art can be self indulgent, goofy, serious, altruistic, evil, or expressive, or any number of other things. But how can it truly make lasting, positive change? In Why Art?, acclaimed graphic novelist Eleanor Davis (How To Be Happy) unpacks some of these concepts in ways both critical and positive, in an attempt to illuminate the highest possible potential an artwork might hope to achieve. A work of art unto itself, Davis leavens her exploration with a sense of humor and a thirst for challenging preconceptions of art worth of Magritte, instantly drawing the reader in as a willing accomplice in her quest.
Raised in Tucson, Arizona, Eleanor Davis lives in Athens, Georgia with her husband, the cartoonist Drew Weing.
Eccentric and visually inventive, answering all the many questions it raises, Why Art? is about the power that comes from creating. The art that we mold with our own hands shows us how to be strong; it shows us how to live.
Eleanor Davis is widely hailed as one of the most interesting young cartoonists working today. In Why Art?, Davis takes as her subject the cartoonist’s unique process of creation. We’re absorbed—and implicated—in the excitement of the creative process
Eisner Award-winner Davis seeks to answer eternal questions about the purpose of creativity in a metaphysical jaunt through the artistic process. She sketches this journey with wry humor and her characteristic empathy.
Davis’s central message is that, when it comes to art, everybody needs to lighten up. … With her surprising, off-kilter appreciations of art — and thanks to the virtuosic draftsmanship with which they’re executed — Why Art? adds up to a memorable work of, and about, art.
Why Art? reflects the combination of empathy and imagination that has made Davis such a compelling cartoonist, and this graphic novel is an inspiring call to action for artists to create and audiences to engage.
By the end, you’ll be questioning your assumptions about the creative process and artistic consumption, and your awe for Davis will be all the stronger.
With a pinch of dry humour, Davis wrestles with the protean concept of art and tries to pin down why it exists and what function it can really serve in society.
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Minimum Grade Level: 11
Comics & Graphic Novels / Literary
Art / Criticism & Theory
Comics & Graphic Novels / Nonfiction
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Correcting the Call
It kills me to admit this, but…I’m not perfect.
Tennis offers me so many opportunities to be humbled by my fallibility. There are all those unforced errors. All the times I can’t remember the score.
And of course, there’s the line calls.
On the face of it, calling a ball in or out really shouldn’t be too hard. You look at the line. You see the ball bounce. A kindergartner ought to be able to get this right.
But even professional line judges err, which is why we now have HawkEye and the challenge system. I’ve seen chair umpires overrule the line judge–something they’re not supposed to do unless it’s a clear error–and then get proven wrong themselves when a player challenges the call.
What we think we saw is not always what actually happened. I don’t know why this should be so, but it is. I make mistakes. You make mistakes. My opponents also make mistakes, but in almost every instance, I believe they’re doing the best they can.
Fortunately for me, I play doubles and have a second set of eyes watching the lines. My usual partner will promptly overrule my “out” call if she saw the ball in. And she doesn’t mind when I do the same. We just say something like, “No, it was in. It was close, but it was in. Nice shot.”
It never occurred to me that anyone could take offense at being corrected by her partner, but apparently I’m wrong here, too. The Code offers this advice on how to properly correct a partner’s line call:
“14. Partners’ disagreement on calls. If one partner calls the ball out and the other partner sees the ball good, the ball is good. It is more important to give opponents the benefit of the doubt than to avoid possibly hurting a partner’s feelings. The tactful way to achieve the desired result is to tell a partner quietly of the mistake and then let the partner concede the point.”
I’ve played a lot of doubles, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen line call disagreements handled this way. It seems very strange–both overly formal and time-consuming. And how infantilizing to the partner who made the “wrong” call! After having been pulled aside and corrected, the poor partner is sent back out, tail between her legs, and forced to say…what, exactly? “On second thought, I believe the ball may have been in”? Ridiculous.
To my mind, this approach makes too much fuss out of ordinary human fallibility. Just correct the call and move on.
What do you think of the Code’s advice? How do you handle this situation in your own matches?
Correcting partner's line call
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6 thoughts on “Correcting the Call”
Tom Damkowitch says:
Well said Deb. Spot on.
Since posting this blog, I’ve had a number of people whisper in my ear that they never correct their partner’s bad calls!
Tsk, tsk… 🤣🎾
Pauline Haran says:
I too, refuse to correct my partner’s calls, ….who can say that I am right just because I believe it so?
You raise a good point. I was playing a few “practice” games with my partner at that time. Our coach was standing along the side of the court. I was standing on the service line, as my partner was receiving serve. She called a serve long, and I corrected it to “good.” And then our coach said, “No, that ball was out”! I’ve since become more circumspect in correcting calls. But as I said above, even the chair umpires overruling calls sometimes get it wrong. Maybe I should just keep my big mouth shut!
Jill Ebstein says:
My first dbh partner had old eyes and a highly competitive spirit. Her calls were awful. I did both. I told her that her calls were off frequently, and I sometimes overruled her. She didn’t love this, but it was to embarrassing for me to have a bad call potentially affect the game. Also Deb,you aren’t perfect, but you are as close we get 🙂
I love this: “I told her that her calls were off frequently.” Not “wrong,” just “off.” Ever the model of diplomacy! 😅
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Decadal variability of clouds
Posted on February 9, 2011 by curryja | 218 Comments
by Robert Ellison (Chief Hydrologist)
The theory and estimation of the role of cloud in changing Earth’s dynamic energy balance is an area of fundamental weakness in climate science. Low level stratiform cloud forms over cool ocean water and dissipates over warm. The Pacific Ocean is where sea surface temperature (SST) varies most. SST changes dramatically across the Pacific Ocean as a result of a shifting balance between cold, turbulent, nutrient rich and acidic water rising in the eastern Pacific and the suppression of upwelling of sub-surface currents by a warm surface layer. A thermally enhanced satellite image as of the 7th of February 2011 can be found at this NOAA site. It shows the ‘V’ shaped wedge of cold water typical of the 20 to 40 year cool La Niña dominant mode of the Pacific multi-decadal pattern. It covers a good part of the planet.
The Pacific multi-decadal pattern involves modulation of the frequency and intensity of the ENSO. This can most easily be seen in the multivariate ENSO index (MEI) of Klaus Wolter in Figure 1. A bias is seen towards La Niña (blue) conditions prior to 1976/77, a shift thereafter to an El Niño (red) bias and a subsequent shift after 1998 back to a cooler bias. The MEI is based on six observed variables over the tropical Pacific. These six variables are: sea-level pressure, zonal and meridional components of the surface wind, sea surface temperature, surface air temperature, and total cloudiness fraction of the sky.
Figure 1: Multivariate ENSO Index (Source: NOAA; click on link)
The risk in focusing on a specific index is that the woods will be obscured by the trees. A 2007 study by Anastasios Tsonis – ‘A new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts’ – shows that ENSO is part of a global and chaotic system. There are tremendous energies cascading through powerful systems. However, given the dramatic changes in upwelling of cold water on interannular to decadal and millennial timescales in the eastern Pacific – this is what drives most of the changes in global average surface temperature, hydrology and marine biology. Tsonis (2009) observed in a sediment record a ‘chaotic bifurcation’ from La Niña to El Niño dominated conditions 5000 years ago. This resulted in the drying of the Sahel and changed the path of human cultural development. Professor Jonathon Nott of James Cook University was interviewed by the ‘The Australian’ newspaper in the tense day before cyclone Yasi hit. Cyclones in Australia are much bigger and much more frequent in La Niña years than otherwise. He said that ‘what the record shows is we go through extended periods, hundreds of years, of high activity and extended periods of little activity.’ God help us – the past 150 years have been a period of little activity. There is little to suggest that we have more than skimmed the surface of Pacific Ocean variability.
In the past 60 years, observation from ships show cloud change over the same periods as the well known modes of Pacific Ocean decadal SST variability. A change to less cloud in the shift to a warm El Niño dominated Pacific decadal pattern in the late 1970’s and a change to more cloud following the shift to a La Niña dominated cool mode since 1998. Satellite measurements have since quantified decadal changes in outgoing shortwave and longwave radiative flux associated with cloud changes in the Pacific.
Burgman et al (2008) use a variety of data sources to examine decadal variability of surface winds, water vapour (WV), outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) and clouds. They conclude that the ‘most recent climate shift, which occurred in the 1990s during a period of continuous satellite coverage, is characterized by a ‘La Niña’ SST pattern with significant signals in the central equatorial Pacific and also in the north-eastern subtropics. There is a clear westward shift in convection on the equator, and an apparent strengthening of the Walker circulation. In the north-eastern subtropics, SST cooling coinciding with atmospheric drying appears to be induced by changes in atmospheric circulation. There is no indication in the wind speed that the changes in SST or WV are a result of changes in the surface heat flux. There is also an increase in OLR which is consistent with the drying. Finally, there is evidence for an increase in cloud fraction in the stratus regions for the 1990s transition as seen in earlier studies.’
In a study that was widely interpreted as a demonstration of a positive global warming cloud feedback, Amy Clement and colleagues (2009) presented observational evidence of decadal change in cloud cover in surface observation of clouds from the Comprehensive Ocean Atmosphere Data Set (COADS). ‘Both COADS and adjusted ISCCP data sets show a shift toward more total cloud cover in the late 1990s, and the shift is dominated by low- level cloud cover in the adjusted ISCCP data. The longer COADS total cloud time series indicates that a similar magnitude shift toward reduced cloud cover occurred in the mid-1970s, and this earlier shift was also dominated by marine stratiform clouds. . . Our observational analysis indicates that increased SST and weaker subtropical highs will act to reduce NE Pacific cloud cover.’ As was clearly stated in the paper, the evidence was for a decadal cloud feedback. The feedbacks correspond exactly to changes in the Pacific multi-decadal pattern.
A number of studies have demonstrated the connection of ENSO to radiative flux and therefore to cloud. In an analysis of global warming cloud feedbacks, Dessler (2010) used short term variations in surface temperature and CERES data to determine that cloud cover was negatively correlated with temperature. Dessler also plotted ENSO against surface temperature leaving no doubt that ENSO was the primary cause of the short term temperature variations. Leaving aside anthropogenic global warming – the finding of a positive feedback here is in the first instance an ENSO feedback. As was reported, ‘the climate variations being analysed here are primarily driven by ENSO, and there has been no suggestion that ENSO is caused by cloud variations.’ The study takes a statistical approach that may gloss over the difference in processes in play in ENSO and from global warming.
Zhu et al (2007) found that cloud formation for ENSO and for global warming have different characteristics and are the result of different physical mechanisms. The change in low cloud cover in the 1997-1998 El Niño came mainly as a decrease in optically thick stratocumulus and stratus cloud. The decrease is negatively correlated to local SST anomalies, especially in the eastern tropical Pacific, and is associated with a change in convective activity. ‘During the 1997–1998 El Niño, observations indicate that the SST increase in the eastern tropical Pacific enhances the atmospheric convection, which shifts the upward motion to further south and breaks down low stratiform clouds, leading to a decrease in low cloud amount in this region. Taking into account the obscuring effects of high cloud, it was found that thick low clouds decreased by more than 20% in the eastern tropical Pacific… In contrast, most increase in low cloud amount due to doubled CO2 simulated by the NCAR and GFDL models occurs in the subtropical subsidence regimes associated with a strong atmospheric stability.’
The surface observed decadal atmospheric changes have quantified support in satellite measurements of top of atmosphere radiative flux. This is what NASA/GISS says about the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project data. The ‘slow increase of global upwelling LW (infrared or heat) flux at TOA from the 1980’s to the 1990’s, which is found mostly in lower latitudes, is confirmed by the ERBS records.’ ‘The overall slow decrease of upwelling SW (visible light) flux from the mid-1980’s until the end of the 1990’s and subsequent increase from 2000 onwards appears to be caused, primarily, by changes in global cloud cover (although there is a small increase of cloud optical thickness after 2000) and is confirmed by the ERBS measurements.’
Wong et al (2006) find that ‘comparison of decadal changes in ERB with existing satellite-based decadal radiation datasets shows very good agreement among ERBS Nonscanner WFOV Edition3_Rev1, HIRS Pathfinder OLR, and ISCCP FD datasets.’ They estimate the 15 year stability uncertainty of the radiative flux anomaly data (for all three datasets) at 0.3W/m2 to 0.4W/m2.
All global warming in the past 50 years, the period in which the IPCC say most warming occurred because of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, happened between 1977 and 1998. This is exactly the same period as the last warm El Niño dominated Pacific decadal mode. In the instrumental record, the trajectory of global surface temperature mirrors the Pacific Ocean states. Cool to the late 1970’s, warm to 1998 and cool since. Sea surface temperature is negatively correlated to marine stratiform cloud. Multiple satellite data sources show that over most of the period of warming there was planetary cooling in the infrared band where greenhouse gases were expected to result in warming – and strong planetary warming as a result of less cloud reflecting less sunlight back into space. As a testable hypothesis, the current cool La Niña mode of the Pacific decadal pattern will lead to increased cloud cover and global cooling over another decade or three. After that, in a chaotic climate, it is anyone’s guess.
Biosketch. Robert styles himself in the blogosphere as a Chief Hydrologist. ‘Cecil Terwilliger (brother to Sideshow Bob) was Springfield’s Chief Hydrological and Hydrodynamical Engineer. He opined that this was a sacred vocation in some cultures. The more I thought about this the more it resonated with me. I am an hydrologist by training, profession and (much more) through a deep fascination with water in all its power and beauty. Given the importance of water to us practically and symbolically, there is more than an element of the sacred.’ –http://www.earthandocean.robertellison.com.au/
Moderation note: this is a technical thread, moderated for relevance.
218 responses to “Decadal variability of clouds”
kim | February 9, 2011 at 7:58 am |
I think I’ve never heard so loud
The quiet message in a cloud.
Hear it now, what were the odds?
The raucous laughter of the Gods.
Chief Hydrologist | February 9, 2011 at 11:28 am |
Rhyming couplets – I’m impressed – thank you very much
Anander | February 9, 2011 at 8:18 am |
I do not regard their view as superior to Dessler (2010), but is there some specific reason why Spencer & Braswell (2010) was not cited when discussing ENSO and clouds?
Dessler’s (2010) results were quite different from S&B even though (as far as I can tell) they used exactly the same data.
juakola | February 9, 2011 at 8:32 am |
I was wondering the same thing. And as far as I can tell, no one has rebutted the idea that when clouds are *the cause* of warming, this kind of analysis will always show a positive feedback.
Maybe someone will answer?
Saaad | February 9, 2011 at 9:26 am |
I’m always a bit reticent about posting on the technical threads but, I must admit, having read both Dessler and Spencer and followed their – as yet unfinished – debate, I was surprised that Spencer wasn’t represented in the thread.
Spencer’s ideas regarding feedback and clouds are important I believe: I have no idea who is right out of he and Dessler but Spencer is an important figure nevertheless, particularly in this area of debate.
Chief Hydrologist | February 9, 2011 at 12:40 pm |
Spencer postulates random changes in cloud as a cause recent warming – which comes first less cloud and warming or warming and less cloud. Here we can see a major reason for why clouds change. He is right as far he goes – but we need that primary causal mechanism to discover which comes first. It is cloud causing global warming in the period of warming of 1977 to 1998.
Philip | February 9, 2011 at 10:05 am |
Me too. I’ve been dying to read an detailed criticism of the S&B paper.
Dessler was cited simply because of the link he analysed between cloud and ENSO – Spencer and Brasswell don’t address that link at all so were not relevant.
Joe Lalonde | February 9, 2011 at 8:40 am |
Why is it no one includes the surface salt changes on the oceans?
The pattern matches just about perfectly with the cold sea surface temperatures.
hunter | February 9, 2011 at 11:11 am |
Please demonstrate thaese salt changes you keep talking about or let it go.
Joe Lalonde | February 9, 2011 at 4:48 pm |
You have no idea the crap I get into showing this that no one has studied further.
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?cid=897&pid=12455&tid=282
hunter | February 9, 2011 at 9:29 pm |
Thank You very much. I will read it further. That is significant.
Joe Lalonde | February 10, 2011 at 6:54 am |
Hunter,
I thought they would be significant as well considering:
Salt changes started at the equator.
Coldest sea surface temperatures are at the equator.
And the strongest centrifugal force is at the equator.
RobB | February 9, 2011 at 8:49 am |
How do the models treat clouds? Specifically, do the GCMs model the reduction in cloud cover during the warming period 70s to 90s? Is that done by changing the value of albedo or is it treated as natural variability and just averaged out over time? If so, does the averaging out process include multidecadel variations like the one discussed or only shorter term oscillations? Need the model owner’s operating manual!
Andy Lacis/Fred/Anyone – are you there?
Fred Moolten | February 9, 2011 at 12:19 pm |
Hi Rob – You do need a modeler like Andy Lacis to show up for a very accurate and detailed response. In the meantime:
As you know, almost all GCM outputs yield a positive cloud feedback with warming (i.e., enhanced warming), although the magnitudes differ. Some of this is depicted in Dessler’s Figure 3 – see Dessler 2010 . The short term results in the Dessler paper, based on observational data, are in the same direction.
The same figure shows that the positive feedback involves both shortwave and longwave positive feedback. The SW feedback is due mainly to reduced albedo, principally involving reductions in low cloud cover. The LW feedback is due mainly to increased cloud height, because high cirrus clouds exert greenhouse effects that tend to exceed their light scattering (albedo) effects.
Some observational evidence consistent with the model estimates can be seen in the graph of albedo changes at Flux and Albedo Changes (note also the importance of reading the footnotes to this page to understand some of the sources of errors in flux change estimates, particularly in the LW spectrum in recent years). However, the slight downward trend in albedo is not statistically significant because of pronounced interannual variability (including the effects of volcanic eruptions).
If one looks at clouds specifically, however, it is clear that the principal source of cloud albedo – low level cloud cover – appears to have declined, consistent with the modeled estimates of SW feedback: Cloud Changes . High clouds are more difficult to interpret, but tend to support the LW effects, or are at least consistent. If you subtract the IR data (LW cloud effects) from the VIS-IR data, it appears that the VIS (cloud albedo) effects have increased, suggesting that total high cloud cover has increased. An increase in high cloud cover at the expense of low cloud cover will alter cloud greenhouse effects in a positive direction. This is because clouds that absorb infrared (IR) radiation at high altitudes, directing some of it downward, have much more IR absorbing capacity than cloud-free air at those altitudes, whereas the IR-absorbing capacity of low level clouds is more closely matched by the high CO2 and H2O concentrations of low-altitude cloud-free air.
All in all, I would suggest that the models suggest positive feedback in both the SW and LW components, and that the observational evidence is supportive for reduced low level cloud cover, and, while less clear, is not inconsistent in regard to the complex effects of increases in high level clouds.
Chief Hydrologist | February 9, 2011 at 1:05 pm |
G’day Fred,
The physical mechanism is described by Zhu et al (2007). Ignoring the ocean effect is not credible. That’s why I led with it.
Cloud decreased after 1976/77 and increased after 1998 – in line with the Pacific multi-decadal pattern. That is the central point.
Dessler anlysed ENSO changes – that is the core of that paper. So really we have a physical oceanic system that covers a good part of the oceanic portion of the tropics and subtropics – with demonstrated cloud effects and an impact on global climate, hydrology and biology.
This system changes on decadal scales at least and the periods of these changes correspond exactly to the trajectory of surface temperature. Finally, in the only period of warming in the past 50 years, 1977 to 1998, we have cooling in the IR and warming in the SW.
Do you see the problem I am having?
Fred Moolten | February 9, 2011 at 1:34 pm |
There is no question that on some timescales ENSO variations will dictate changes in clouds and radiative forcing. However, long term, the warming from anthropogenic GHGs will mediate trends as projected by the models.
It is not correct to state that warming occurred only from 1977 to 1998. In fact, the trend has continued positive into this century, and through 2010. This point has been addressed thoroughly in the literature and in blogs, and I do not believe that readers familiar with the data will conclude that the peak of the 1998 “super-El Nino” is a legitimate starting point for asserting a difference between earlier and later temperature trends. It is true, however, that the more recent warming has been slower than previously.
It is also incorrect to conclude that “we have cooling in the IR”, and in fact, that is probably untrue (the data are ambiguous but recent continuation of the rising OHC trend together with rises in CO2 are consistent with continued warming in the IR). It would, however, be correct to state that the upward slope of IR recently is shallower than previously. That of course includes the possibility of IR cooling, but does not demonstrate it.
Have a look at the Klaus Wolter MEI and tell me there aren’t decadal changes in ENSO. Or simply take my word for it – this is oceanography 101.
And the ‘super El Nino’ was my very point. A multi-decadal modulation of the frequency and intensity of ENSO. The raw monthly figures show warming starting after 1976/77 and peaking very strongly in February 1998. That we haven’t had another ‘super’ El Nino is part of the pattern. I think if we are talking about ENSO it is most reasonable to see the break point at 1998. Have a look as well at the Tsonis et al (2007) for the significance of the transition points.
We gave to look at periods – ISCCP-FD and CERES show cooling of -0.5 and 0.7 W/m2 in the IR – as reported by the IPCC. Wong et al quoted a stability uncertainty of .3 to .4 W/m2 – especially for ERBS. So still a bit of cooling even making the most conservative assumptions.
The last decade is a little different. The CERES dataset is too short to say much. There doesn’t seem much of a trend in net radiation to 2010. The missing energy is no longer missing? I think that until 2008 there was shortwave warming that showed up only in the von Schuckmann ARGO analysis. But the the current super La Nina is rapidly cooling the planet.
I suggest that the planet cooled a little to 2010 – but this was all in a reduction in solar irradiance as it dropped to a solar cycle low in 2008.
This upward slope in IR has me worried. We seemed to have stopped cooling or warming in the IR in CERES? Absolutely – but it cracks me up every time.
ISCCP-FD and CERES show cooling of -0.5 and 0.7 W/m2 in the IR”
Longwave IR is always outward – in that sense it is always “cooling” and the important question is by how much. There is minimal incoming IR from the sun except in the shorter wavelengths (the near IR). The net forcing involves the balance between absorbed SW and emitted LW, which is still positive, although modified by interannual changes in internal climate dynamics such as ENSO.
Chief Hydrologist | February 10, 2011 at 3:43 am |
ERBS and ISCCP-FD show an increasing LW trend – 0.5 for ISCCP-FD and 0.7 W.m2 for ERBS – sorry typo
The near IR is IR and quite a substantial component of solar irradiance.
The net radiative flux is (-lw up – sw up) – for instance the difference in trend is 0.7 W/m2 lw (increasing trend – cooling) and -2.1 W/m2 SW (decreasing trend – warming). So the net trend is minus 0.7 minus minus 2.1 or net 1.4 W/m2 increase over the period. By convention the net is always shown as the planet gaining energy.
Clear as mud?
The radiant imbalance is the difference between solar irradiance and net outgoing (LW+SW) – except the absolute values are somewhat to a lot rubbery.
Only the trends in solar irradiance and in outgoing radiative flux (SW and LW) have any real utility – a positive trend and the planet is cooling – negative and the planet is warming.
Labmunkey | February 10, 2011 at 8:05 am |
guys great discussion it’s cleared loads up for me.
Fred Moolten | February 10, 2011 at 9:31 am |
That’s not correct. A trend in either direction could signify warming or cooling. Only the sign of the absolute difference between incoming and outgoing energy determines whether the planet is warming or cooling. A trend merely tells us whether the cooling or warming slope is changing.
Although there will always be ups and downs at the surface due to internal climate fluctuations, it appears that the planet has continued to warm in recent years, and as long as CO2 continues to rise, it is hard to foresee something that would change that, barring an asteroid impact.
JCH | February 10, 2011 at 9:53 am |
But aerosols could dampen its vigor. What does:
early century brightening
mid-century dimming
late-century brightening
early century dimming
look like when graphed?
I should clarify the meaning of my comment, because the terms “warming” and “cooling” are often used ambiguously. The planet is warming when the outgoing LW radiation (OLR) is less than the incoming absorbed solar radiation (mainly SW). If the OLR starts to increase, with no other changes, the planet will be warming less, but unless it exceeds the incoming absorbed radiation, it will still be warming – i.e., its temperature will continue to rise.
“Cooling” is sometimes used to signify only the magnitude of the OLR. In that sense, an increase in OLR represents greater “cooling”, even if the planetary balance remains in a warming direction.
Finally, we are currently in a La Nina phase of ENSO. At this particular moment, it is certainly conceivable that we are actually cooling (there is a net loss of energy from the entire climate system including the deep oceans). This may or may not be the case, but I was referring to the smoothed out planetary balance over several years. The proper duration for smoothing can be argued, because the fluctuations can be significant over short time spans. Over the course of the past century, ENSO fluctuations tended to average out.
Chief Hydrologist | February 10, 2011 at 1:37 pm |
I think there some lack of clarity here. If we look the energy equilibrium.
Ein/s – Eout/s = d(GHC)/dt
The average unit energy in less the average unit energy out = the rate of change of global heat content. Unit energy in is relatively constant. Eout changes in both the SW and LW. In the period we are talking about(1984 to 1998) – the planet was warming so d(GHC)/dt was positive. That means that Ein > Eout in the period.
So what changed? Net energy out decreased. The net consists of LW up and SW up components. In this period – all of the warming happened in the shortwave spectrum and there was a significant trend in the other direction in the LW.
The absolute values of neither incoming or outgoing energy are not known with any precision. But the changes are measurable with an order of magnitude greater precision. If we know whether the planet is warming or cooling in my little equation we can disentangle contributing factors in the SW or LW. This is hard data in which the trends survive considerations of stability uncertainty.
It can be refined a little bit by looking at the smaller changes in incoming solar irradiance in the solar cycles.
Here is your statement – “Cooling” is sometimes used to signify only the magnitude of the OLR. In that sense, an increase in OLR represents greater “cooling”, even if the planetary balance remains in a warming direction.”
It is not complete – the net flux (-SW-LW) is used to determine if the change in outgoing energy is negative or positive. As you say – whether the planet is warming or cooling depends on where the point of radiant balance is – which we don’t know. As I say – if we know whether the planet is warming or cooling – we have a solid point of reference. In the period I am talking about there was warming in the SW which more than offset some cooling in the IR.
I think you need an engineering education Fred – too much theory and not enough application.
The current super La Nina certainly is cooling the troposphere – the UAH anomaly for January is at the 30 year mean.
We cannot tell with much accuracy what ENSO was doing prior to 1950. You have to make an assessment of the quality of your data before making – oh Fred you would try the patience of a saint.
In the period I am talking about – 1977 to 1998 – ENSO certainly did not ‘even out’. We are talking here of the ‘Great Pacific Climate Shift’ of 1976/77.
RobB | February 11, 2011 at 7:08 am |
Now I’ve had chance to consider the various responses here’s a couple of points and a question:
Despite, my initial concerns about the graphs showing low level cloud, the changes in albedo and SW radiation seem to be compelling, and after careful consideration I am now convinced by Robert’s argument (at least for the timescale under consideration.)
I accept your concerns regarding temperature trends and the start/finish points etc. However, when I look at the global temperature record, say HADCRUT3, it is possible to see quite clearly the changes in the record that Robert has mentioned. Note, I have not mentioned warming or cooling, merely a significant change in the rate. That way we avoid an argument.
I find the linkage between the timing of these changes and those in the ENSO index to be quite compelling. It is a shame that our rccord does not go back further. If there is a direct link, then Robert’s prediction for the next 2 decades will be telling.
Sorry to bang on about this, but how is ENSO treated in the models? Am I correct to say that it is averaged out over a long period. In other words the net effect is assumed to be zero? If so, Robert’s analysis poses some challenges. If there is an unpredictable element to natural variability it does not really seem possible to remove it from the calculations to arrive at an accurate climate sensitivity.
This has been a great thread. I have learned loads. Thanks again to both of you.
where I asked, “sorry to bang on about this, but how is ENSO treated in the models?”
I meant to ask, ” how are PMDO/PDO treated in the models?”
TomFP | February 10, 2011 at 2:53 am |
As an Australian I’m interested to know your thoughts on the widespread attribution of our recent severe weather to CO2-induced global warming.
G’day Tom,
As a Chief Hydrologist – this is a particularly galling development. Back in the 1980’s Erskine and Warner – a couple of Newcastle based geomorphologists noticed that some central NSW streams had changed shape. There went from a high energy braided form to a low energy meandering form after the late 1970’s. Looking at flood heights in Newcastle over 150 years – they discovered something they called Flood Dominated Regimes and Drought Dominated Regimes – a 20 to 40 year period of flooding followed by a 20 to 40 year period of droughts. This is now a cornerstone of Australian hydrology.
These are of course related to the Pacific Changes we are talking about – a FDR to the late 1970’s and a DDR to 1998. Now of course we have had more drought since 1998 in many places in the country. Australia is a big country and the other major factors in rainfall are the Southern Annular Mode and the Indian Ocean Dipole. These have all conspired to produce the perfect storm this year. Suffice to say that these contributed to drought this century in north western, central and southern Australia – which came on top of decades of drought in the 1977 to 1998 DDR.
What the CSIRO did in their 2007 report is compare rainfall in the FDR to 1977 to rainfall after that and assume that the decline could be attributed to AGW. They then linearly projected regional ‘changes’ into the future. It is an appalling distortion of the hydrological truth.
We have 110 years of pretty good rainfall records. There is little evidence anywhere of significant departures from the historic norm.
The claims are made in contrary to evidence on the basis of muddle headed (warning Australian literary allusion) theories.
We are in FDR now. If Professor Nott is right – we may soon be in a period of super cyclones. It is all much more complex than people imagine and largely driven by these Pacific Ocean changes.
TomFP | February 10, 2011 at 6:07 pm |
Ta Chief. Rather as I thought.
And be kind to wombats – they are nicer than, say, koalas in every way that matters (including not spontaneously peeing on anyone who holds them) and have had to live with the outrageous slur of muddle-headedness for too long. Why wombats have played Cinderella to the koalas’ and kangaroos’ Ugly Sisters is one of the great mysteries in Australian culture. Wombats are way cuter.
Can I tell a funny story about wombats? We were spotlighting for northern hairy nosed wombats in Epping Forest in Central Queensland. There are like 83 of these left in the world.
My mate Alan was on the roof with a spotlight when one ran out of the grass and under the truck. It flashed through my mind – do I brake hard and lose Alan or run over one of the last of the most endangered animal on the planet?
Naturally I braked hard – but wombats, if cute and likeable, have a well deserved reputation.
TomFP | February 10, 2011 at 10:20 pm |
CH I had a similar experience in NSW, driving over an unmade road to my weekender. But with less happy results. A wombat darted out into the road, I slowed down, followed it for a few yards. It left the road, I thought it had scarpered, but it suddenly darted back right under my front wheel. I braked and ended up skidding over it, with fatal results. In retrospect I should probably have rolled over it – might have survived, as it was a seriously chunky creature. It was a Sad Day for me, but worse for the wombat. It had no hairy nose, but that wasn’t a lot of comfort for either of us.
You say that though cute and likeable they have a well-deserved reputation. For what – being in reality grumpy and dislikeable, like koalas? Don’t tell me I must abandon my cherished notions about wombats!?
I do recall a mate telling me that he lived in SA in the 70s, where apparently it was then legal to keep them as pets. The house he shared had a pet wombat, and by his account it was every bit as amiable as its appearance suggested.
For being muddle headed I meant. I have started using the term Climate Wombats – it seems to suit some people.
RobB | February 9, 2011 at 3:11 pm |
Fred’s link called ‘Cloud Changes’ in the comment above seems to show no recent increase in low level clouds only a continual decline. Can you explain please. Thanks.
It has been a while since I have been on this site – http://www.climate4you.com/ – a good place to start for lots of stuff including cloud.
To show the good faith I am always talking about I must admit I have been a bit sloppy in thinking about low and high level cloud. Zhu Ping et al talked about low level cloud dominating the process. Others talked about total cloud. This is the albedo – which is just a ratio between incident and reflected visible light – it is a mirror of the SW graph.
Fred repeats the generalised theoretical statements about cloud – not wrong. But there are reasonably good measurements of this so why rely on theory?
OK – I got it, Chief, I hope you didn’t think I was questioning your good faith; I was merely trying to understand. The albedo graph shows what you are talking about. Thanks for your reply
Thanks – I just read something in AR4 that questions the veracity of ISCCP-FD low cloud data. I won’t make any comment yet – the last resort of the scoundrel is to dismiss the data on spurious grounds.
Dallas | February 9, 2011 at 10:43 pm |
I may not be current, but convective clouds were/are considered neutral which I find difficult to understand. Mixing would increase cloud top temps which would increase outgoing I would think.
Brian H | February 9, 2011 at 12:44 pm |
It’s very interesting that the pattern of increased cloud and atmospheric drying is exactly the opposite of the explanation being touted for major precipitation events — supposedly warming leading to increased moisture burden in the air, etc.
My take is simpler: warmth holds moisture in the air, cool condenses and drops it to the ground.
Pressurization plays a huge role in the evaporation process.
The mechanics of planetary rotation generates centrifugal force which is the only energy that exerts away from the planet. All other energies exerts to the planets surface. Pressure and rotation smooths out what would be many individual applications processes due to sun, motion and electro-magnetics.
Peter | February 9, 2011 at 8:57 am |
“Multiple satellite data sources show that over most of the period of warming there was planetary cooling in the infrared band where greenhouse gases were expected to result in warming – and strong planetary warming as a result of less cloud reflecting less sunlight back into space.”
I’d be curious to see a reference for this statement.
“Previously published work using satellite observations of the clear sky infrared emitted radiation by the Earth in 1970, 1997 and in 2003 showed the appearance of changes in the outgoing spectrum, which agreed with those expected from known changes in the concentrations of well-mixed greenhouse gases over this period. Thus, the greenhouse forcing of the Earth has been observed to change in response to these concentration changes. In the present work, this analysis is being extended to 2006 using the TES instrument on the AURA spacecraft. Additionally, simulated spectra have been calculated using LBLRTM with inputs from the HadGEM1 coupled model and compared to the observed satellite spectra.”
The quotes from the NASA/GISS ISCCP-FD say just that – and Wong et al confirm it for ISCCP-FD, ERBS and HIRS in the infrared.
The slow decrease in SW – less reflected visible light – and slow increase in LW – increasing heat emission from the planet show just that.
The spectral IR analysis you refer to is something different. There is an effect of greenhouse gases in the IR – as in the reference you linked to. But that is a snapshot as opposed to the decadal evolution of IR emissions in which the greenhouse gas effects are integrated with other changes – especially the Pacific Ocean changes. There are large changes in IR upward power flux year to year and seemingly decade to decade that have nothing to do with greenhouse gases.
Peter | February 9, 2011 at 10:40 am |
Please indicate where the NASA page says there was cooling in bans expected to be associated with CO2 acting as a GHG.
Can we agree that the NASA/GISS say that: ‘In the first row, the slow increase of global upwelling LW flux at TOA from the 1980’s to the 1990’s, which is found mostly in lower latitudes, is confirmed by the ERBE-CERES records.’
This seems to be a cloud effect as well – less cloud allows more IR radiative flux escape to space. This is – by the 1st law of thermodynamics – cooling in the infrared spectrum. The planet is in a dynamic disequilibrium – incoming solar energy is relatively constant, what changes most is the outgoing energy. If outgoing energy increases over a period – this energy has to come from somewhere and it is from the heat stored in oceans and atmosphere. So the planet cools. Just so with the outward IR power flux. There is an article at the link above. It can also be found here – http://sciencefile.org/SciFile/component/content/article/2668-a-new-global-climate-change-equation – Andy at science file added the ‘new’ – but it is really quite simple especially if you know a very little bit of calculus.
It is just some basic physics.
But that’s all IR. Not the IR bans related to GHGs, or CO2 specifically.
I love how as evidence you link me to another blog with an article you’ve writtne.
I thought it might be of interest to quote from the Wong paper you cited:
“1.The new results do not support the recent Iris hypothesis (Lindzen et al. 2001; Lin et al. 2004). As tropical and global SST warms in the late 1990s during the 1997–98 El Niño, the Iris negative feedback predicts net flux to decrease (ocean cooling) as opposed to the increase (ocean heating) seen in Fig. 7.
2.The ocean heat storage and net radiation data, while showing relatively large interannual variability, are consistent with heating predicted from current state-of-the-art coupled ocean–atmosphere climate models (Barnett et al. 2001). The anticipated change in anthropogenic radiative forcing over the next few decades is estimated as 0.6 W m−2 (decade)−1 (Houghton et al. 2001). The interannual variability in net radiation is of similar magnitude (±0.7 W m−2). Note that the ocean heat storage dataset for single annual-mean values has a sampling uncertainty of 0.4 W m−2 (1σ) so that the larger range of variation in ocean heat storage is more likely due to its larger sampling noise. The radiation dataset has a larger mean bias uncertainty (absolute calibration) but smaller sampling error than the ocean heat storage data. The 10-yr average of ocean heat storage is about 0.6 W m−2, similar to the levels predicted by current climate models for anthropogenic global warming scenarios (Houghton et al. 2001; Hansen et al. 2005).”
The “Iris hypothesis” was put forth by Lindzen as a mechanism by which CO2 induced climate chagen wouldn’t be a problem.
“3.The net radiation and ocean heat storage variability predict that studies of cloud feedback in the climate system will require extremely accurate long time series of both ocean heat storage data as well as clear-sky, all-sky, and cloud radiative forcing observations. With anticipated anthropogenic radiative forcing changes of 0.6 W m−2 (decade)−1, cloud radiative forcing changes of only 0.3 W m−2 (decade)−1 can represent 50% changes in climate sensitivity. ”
At this time, there is no reason to believe that clouds are having the large of an effect.
I have read the Wong et al paper.
“1.The new results do not support the recent Iris hypothesis ..”
The Isis hypothesis does not seem to accord with evidence.
“The ocean heat storage and net radiation data, while showing…”
Net radiative flux is the addition of LW and SW fluxes. These are as shown on the ISCCP-FD site.
“3.The net radiation and ocean heat storage variability predict that studies of cloud feedback in the climate system…”
The variability is for the most part caused by these Pacific Ocean changes. They are far greater over decades than the enhanced greenhouse effect. So you would need a long time to pick the signal from the noise. But typically – it is the noise I am interested in.
‘At this time, there is no reason to believe that clouds are having the large of an effect.”
So you don’t believe NASA/GISS – the spectacularly large change in SW up anomaly – the “overall slow decrease of upwelling SW flux from the mid-1980’s until the end of the 1990’s and subsequent increase from 2000 onwards appear to caused, primarily, by changes in global cloud cover (although there is a small increase of cloud optical thickness after 2000) and is confirmed by the ERBS measurements.”
Snarky comments are not appreciated. Here, it is seeking of the sacred hydrological truth through dialogue. For this the required attitude is humor, patience, good will, honesty and good faith.
Peter | February 9, 2011 at 1:44 pm |
I believe what NASA says, but that statement is irrelevant to the comment I made, unless you are claiming the cloud changes are the “direct” result of increases of CO2 (which be transmitted through other variables like increased temperatures).
Which there is no evidence to support.
You actually need more than that. You need the behavior of clouds to flip in response to future warming as compared to their behavior in the more recent past.
I don’t know where this is going. There are 2 papers I referenced that show a shift to more cloud in the late 1990’s. One shows a ‘similar magnitude’ shift in the 1970’s. Not much to go on but there is not much around.
We are on stronger ground with an ENSO and cloud link. That’s abundantly clear.
The decadal changes in cloud are exactly the periods of SST change in the Pacific. So we are entitled to presume a connection. Finally – the limited satellite evidence shows exactly the decadal pattern appearing everywhere – in global rainfall, cyclones, sardines in Monterey Bay, Chinook Salmon in North American streams, phytoplankton in the equatorial Pacific and clouds. It also shows the climate shift to a cool Pacific mode after 1998.
It sounds a bit poetic but it is to do with cold and nutrient rich water rising in the eastern Pacific. There are thousands of papers on this. I just googled “great Pacific climate shift” (of 1976/77) and got 7 million hits.
So clouds increased in cover after 1998 with the shift in Pacific Ocean states.
tallbloke | February 10, 2011 at 5:19 pm |
I haven’t been able to read all comments, but has the additional evidence for increased cloud after 98 noted by the Earthshine project of Palle et al been mentioned? In page search doesn’t reveal a mention.
http://bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/literature/Palle_etal_2008_JGR.pdf
Palle is definitely one of my inspirations.
Let’s include a link here – http://www.bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/
OK – so there was a global cloud cover decrease between 1984 and the late 1990’s with a significant SW signature and an increase thereafter?
Oliver K. Manuel | February 9, 2011 at 10:58 am |
To: Robert Ellison (Chief Hydrologist)
Thanks for the interesting information.
Is there any chance that our government (perhaps through HAARP) and/or others are secretly altering weather patterns?
http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
I don’t think so – LOL. If I may be impertinent – we need to be centered in ourselves. As Yoda says – “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
“Within a man of light, there is light, and he lighteth up the whole word. If he does not shine, he is darkness.”
Seek t0 do good and not evil – seek to shine and you’re light will fill the space/time continuum.
willard | February 9, 2011 at 2:10 pm |
Even if most of what you say comes up moot (it’s science, that’s how it finishes most of the times) you talk with dignity.
Let’s note this nice lapsus:
> Within a man of light, there is light, and he lighteth up the whole word [sic].
You’re then a man of word, Chief.
That’s what you get for quoting Yoda…
And thanks (not) for making me look up lapsus. I think word is correct – it’s a biblical thing – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
And I can’t see how I am wrong – but isn’t that the human condition?
http://scripturetext.com/john/1-9.htm
World, Word. All good. No blame.
I heard there were heated debates just for the length of the first Word in the Book.
Yeah – absolutely – just get me going on Angels on pins.
Oliver K. Manuel | February 9, 2011 at 3:48 pm |
Thanks, Chief.
You definitely have a way with words.
I especially appreciate your quote of Yoda: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Does the Chief see any indication in the climate scandal that government science is a tool of propaganda that may lead to a tyrannical government like George Orwell described in his book “1984” ?
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/
Did unfounded fears cause the last election revolt?
Was Eisenhower’s 1961 warning about misuse of science unfounded?
In Australia there is a deep commitment to democracy. No one would last 10 minutes if they tried something else. So therefore – we get the government we deserve.
Thanks, Chief, for answering my questions.
Soon after former President Eisenhower’s warning (above video) that government science might form a “scientific-technological elite”, “space-age” data that falsified the Standard Solar Model of a hydrogen-filled Sun were being hidden or manipulated.
Those deep roots of the climate scandal are exposed in a paper published today on arXiv : http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.1499v1
I personally remember only the President of Czechoslovakia, not the leader of the Australian government, for distancing himself from the alliance of world leaders that rallied behind the propaganda of CO2-induced global warming.
Again, I thank you for answering my questions.
richard | February 9, 2011 at 9:25 am |
The cloud experiment investigates relationship between cosmic rays and cloud formation. If it is shown that there is such a relationship it would follow that decadal variation in cosmic rays would influence decadal variability of clouds.
Dallas | February 9, 2011 at 10:06 am |
Tsonis had another paper on teleconnections that I found interesting.
https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/aatsonis/www/JKLI-1907.pdf
The PDO – ENSO relationship is the strongest of the internal variation indicators? It is kinda like the chicken and the egg, which comes first.
On the teleconnections thing. It may be interesting to assemble precipitation reconstructions and compare them to the teleconnected regions. May have already been done?
I haven’t seen this paper – but anything that Tsonis says is worth paying attention to.
This is a good resource – http://ioc-goos-oopc.org/state_of_the_ocean/ – a lot of connections have been shown. Odd things such such as changes in water temperature in small areas off Africa and Indonesia – the Indian Ocean Dipole – influencing rainfall on both sides of the Indian Ocean.
But it is a trees and woods thing rather than cause and effect. The system is global and everything is interconnected.
Dr. Curry and Chief Hydrologist,
Is there a null hypothesis for AGW that you can offer?
Just call me chief. Ummm – there is a greenhouse gas effect and we are adding to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But yes – absolutely – I think the very term global warming is misleading.
The new scientific consensus is that both weather and climate are chaotic. For example, the British Royal Society in their recent climate science summary discussed internal climate variability as a result of climate being an example of a chaotic system in theoretical physics. While this may seem to be a quibble on a minor point to many – it is in fact central to consideration of climate predictability and climate risk. In a chaotic climate – predictability and risk are two sides of a coin. Climate predictions can only be made in terms of probabilities and some climate risk from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is mathematically certain as a result of those same probabilities.
So we move beyond uncertainty to a certainty of chaos. I don’t know which is worse.
hunter | February 9, 2011 at 12:08 pm |
Chief,
Thanks. I agree that we are dealing with a chaotic system, and always have been, but is this reducible to a hypothesis?
Trenberth and pals offer this as the null hypothesis to justify the attention and policy demands regarding CO2 to this effect:
Human activities are not impacting climate.
Is there a specific hypothesis you can offer, or is this all that is required to focus on CO2 in your opinion?
I have an assumption only. Abrupt and violent climate shifts have a long history on planet Earth – less extreme climate shifts occurred four times last century. Small changes, such as anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, can accumulate in chaotic systems until they precipitate a shift that is wildly out of proportion to the initial impetus.
I think we need to be very careful about the changes we are making to the atmosphere. Having said that – I am not much into negative economic growth. The usual argument against economic growth involves grain and a chessboard. In the real world the board is swept clean daily to feed hungry mouths and no grain accumulates.
Yes, at some point our anthropo changes on a global scale would be bad.
But we have had > 20 years now of ‘doom around the corner’ and the corner gets no closer. It seems that if history has meaning, then our GHG forcings are just one of many competing in the system. The paleo record seems to indicate that the evidence is clear that resistance to dangerous change is quite large.
My question about the null is pointed to this: it is not enough to show CO2 is a GHG that can change the climate. The only issue that is important is if we are going to cause dangerous change.
Funny – I keep wondering if I’ve got the signs right too. And by multiple I mean ISCCP-FD, ERBS and HIRS in LW
So we have LW up emissions increasing – and I won’t quote NASA/GISS again. That means the trend is to more energy leaving the planet in the LW.
And we have SW up trends declining – that means there is less light being reflected back into space.
What makes you think this is wrong?
Nothing really makes me think this is wrong. I will read the links in detail and see if the change implies a significant energy balance shift. If not, then no, not much is happening.
Ahh – we have agreement. These are really boring people and they are into weird things – i.e. not The Simpsons, Star Wars and Mustangs.
Stuff the paleo record – that is a recourse for wankers. Like we know with any detail anything at all in pre-history. It reminds me that there is a nice analogy for the paleo record in the NAS report on Abrupt climate Change: Inevitable Surprises – essentially groping about in a dark room. Fun but of limited utility.
I think predictability is a figment – and if we can’t predict it won’t happen it is a bit of a quandary.
Hmmm…..a bit delphic, but if I am following your subtelty, then perhaps it is fair to say the entire predictive climatological enterprise is so much fluff?
Tim Palmer has a book called Predicting Weather and Climate – worth having a look at the the 1st chapter at least.
If you get run over by the logic train of chaos theory – predictability as more than probabilities is a nonsense.
hunter | February 10, 2011 at 8:26 am |
Thanks. I will have a look.
Do you think we are anywhere close enough to understanding the various influences on climate to make the deterministic predictions the self-appointed ‘team’ are making?
Bart R | February 9, 2011 at 2:44 pm |
Well, that’s a very protracted decision for the British Royal Society, since I’ve seen Chaos treatments of climate from the 1980’s.
Certainty of Chaos is quite a good thing. Chaos Theory has a number of attractive (forgive the pun) meaningful conclusions and tools that can be applied to problems and analyses.
Which I didn’t see applied here by you, ChHy.
Could you develop the themes of attractors, period doubling, transition from turbulent to chaotic states?
What data in climate follows the pattern f(x)=1- mu|x|^y?(http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FeigenbaumConstant.html)
Can you speak to the Schwarzian derivative in regard to ENSO and the PDO over time?
Well – if you have been reading in this for decades – you tell me. Judith made me leave out the chaos stuff but I sneaked in some anyway.
I am a bit slow – may be why this one appealed to me – http://www.pnas.org/content/105/38/14308.abstract – I have thought about applying it to ENSO.
I was basically clueless – as I suspect most people still are – including half the committee of the Royal Society. Until 2009, I would read the word chaos and not understand at all.
There are people such as Tim Palmer who have been working on this for a long time – try Predicting Weather and Climate – available on google books. I highly recommend that the IPCC be replaced by a Lorenzian Meteorological Office headed by Tim Palmer immediately.
There is this one by James McWilliams on models – http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.full.pdf+html
‘Sensitive dependence and structural instability are humbling twin properties for chaotic dynamical systems, indicating limits about which kinds of questions are theoretically answerable. They echo other famous limitations on scientist’s expectations, namely the undecidability of some propositions within axiomatic mathematical systems (Godel’s theorem) and the uncomputability of some algorithms due to excessive size of the calculation (see ref. 26)’
Doh – I guess I’d have to wonder which kinds of questions are theoretically answerable.
Now you’re making me think back to the days when I studied and did equations and the like.
Best I can offer are suggestions.
1. Period doubling is offers us a signature, a highly reliable prediction of Chaos Theory to indicate a) whether we’re seeing actual Chaos, and b) what step in the transition we have encountered between orderly, turbulent and chaotic; it c) also gives us information on scale and d) points like an arrow to the suspect inputs and relevant domains.
The inputs and relevant domains I’ve seen argued are such things as CO2 levels, solar and cosmic effects, and much smaller influences like land use on temperature, variability of cloud formation, precipitation, variability of extreme events, rate old meteorological records are broken (ie one expects the rate of new record setting to be logarithmic at best, so linearity would be Chaotic on some scale). I imagine a clever Chaos analyst could correlate period doubling signatures to rank the significant inputs.
2. What isn’t Chaotic is really important. Is there something that the chaotic state always collapses back to, as a ground state?
Those things that can’t stay Chaotic long and are subject to reversion are really helpful in that they become semi-predictable.
(Wow am I rusty, used to be able to rattle this stuff off like a gattling gun. You need a current hot quarterback, not a former benchwarmer.)
3. What scales (time, geography, temperature range, etc) things do and don’t exhibit Chaos traits is also meaningful to analysis of what is going to become less predictable and how soon. Suppose we’re entering a domain where for some regions of the planet seasons become truly meaningless? We don’t know that this hasn’t happened before, how could we? We would want to know if we might be approaching it now, and Chaos Theory has some strong tools for identifying such patterns.
Suppose Earth is about to generate an equivalent of the Great Eye of Saturn, a standing storm covering a huge fraction of the planet and lasting centuries? That’s alarmism to non-mathematicians, of course, but wow wouldn’t it be such an awesomely cool mathematical event to be present for? Sadly, really not likely for so many reasons. But it’d be awesome.
4. Resonances: we can establish something much more powerful than correlation, if we can show that the profile in terms of chaos measures for two possibly related phenomena match. Are our thermometers biased by changes in the way measurements are taken and the places they happen, or do the profiles of periodicity and so forth correspond?
5. Attractors are really fun! I don’t recall the reference, but I recall that self-motivated complex systems at equilibrium, for example imagine a solar system with three stars and 17 planets where unlikely though it may seem the ‘orbits’ have entered a course that doesn’t result in everything all collapsing, even with highly erratic planetary paths exchanging between all three stars.. That system would have attractos exhibiting some sort of, if not pattern, non-vanishingness. Attractors in a system with a new disturbance, however, do vanish and move and spontaneously appear. Liken this to new CO2 emissions and look at what happens in the climate with its historical attractors.
6. Better things to measure. We measure all this by anomaly? Just anomaly? Really? That’s scandalous. (I know, I’m being freakishly blinkered; there are many, many non-anomaly measures, so why focus on just temperature?) Chaos Theory can identify whether groups of observations fit orderly, turbulent or chaotic sets, and whether those states are changing.. which would be interesting.
At least, maybe some of this sort of might work. With equations.
If only we had a Hydrologist. ;)
well – I am a bit tired now – I think I’ll go to sleep
vukcevic | February 9, 2011 at 11:47 am |
I think I may have an answer to that one.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PDO-ENSO.htm
Faustino | February 10, 2011 at 1:51 am |
The requested URL /PDO-ENSO.htm was not found on this server.
Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS) Server at http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net Port 80″
Your link is broken, I’m afraid.
Rimshot | February 9, 2011 at 2:12 pm |
A body of ocean water which is acidic, not just less alkaline, really?
Oh dear – I will watch my language but of course the scale is a continuum.
Spence_UK | February 9, 2011 at 3:55 pm |
A discussion of the complexities of large scale variability of the hydrological cycle and no reference to Dr Timothy Cohn or Dr Demetris Koutsoyiannis?
Ah well… maybe another time.
Sorry – too big a subject for a post. But Hydrology certainly seems to breed sceptics. Too much spoken that is not is accordance with the we know.
Indeed, definitely a rich vein of solid, rational, scientific scepticism from hydrologists. As you rightly point out, the views of Dr C and Dr K probably deserve a post (or two…) of their own. I keep meaning to write a post or two myself, but have been planning that for about the last two years. Possibly never going to happen…
Malcolm Miller | February 9, 2011 at 4:23 pm |
Lots of data; lots of interpretations; lots of uncertainty. Typical of ‘climate science’!
And don’t forget- the opportunity to draw huge conclusions from trivial data.
jbk | February 9, 2011 at 4:41 pm |
Could you provide a reference for this? I think you may have your signs reversed. Thanks!
Chief Hydrologist | February 9, 2011 at 5:16 pm | Reply
I guess I wasn’t looking for your personal research, but rather someone saying something like “there was planetary cooling in the infrared band where greenhouse gases were expected to result in warming,” as opposed to you linking to graphs that are well explained by http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/projects/browse_fc.html that actually don’t say anything about cooling in any infrared bands. Would you like to modify your posting?
So you want a reference? So let’s look at the tropical trends using s3.4.4.1 of AR4.
‘Based upon the revised (Edition 3_Rev1) ERBS record outgoing LW radiation over the tropics appears to have increased by about 0.7 W m–2 while the reflected SW radiation decreased by roughly 2.1 W m–2 from the 1980s to 1990s.’
We note that the net is 1.4W/m-2.
‘Since most of the net tropical heating of 1.4 W m–2 is a decrease in reflected SW radiative flux, the change implies a similar increase in solar insolation at the surface that, if unbalanced by other changes in surface fluxes, would increase the amount of ocean heat storage.’
Well – the warming was 2.1 W/m-2 SW and cooling in the IR of 0.7 W/m-2? However.
‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system.’
I referenced a number of studies on cloud showing a decrease in cloud associated with ENSO and the PDO – or both together in the Pacific multi-decadal pattern. The fact that ERBS and ISCCP-FD agree is more than interesting. It is more than time that this was more widely understood.
I have some advice for you. Here – it is a seeking of the sacred hydrological truth through dialectic. For this the required attitude is humor, patience, good will, humility, honesty and good faith. Unless we practice these virtues – the truth will evade will and we will be in darkness.
Ummm – the truth will evade us and we will be in darkness. See – that’s why humility is important
jbk | February 10, 2011 at 7:27 am |
Interesting. However, I’m still looking for someone saying something about “there was planetary cooling in the infrared band where greenhouse gases were expected to result in warming.” I guess that’s asking for too much? So far, you’ve ably demonstrated the other half of your statement – the part that I’m not challenging.
At some stage you will need to engage the logic centers of the brain – rather than this odd appeal to authority on every simple consideration.
‘Based upon the revised (Edition 3_Rev1) ERBS record (Figure 3.23), outgoing LW radiation over the tropics appears to have increased by about 0.7 W m–2 while the reflected SW radiation decreased by roughly 2.1 W m–2 from the 1980s to 1990s (Table 3.5).’ AR4 s3.4.4.1
Now if SW up decreased and it was warming and LW up increased then it must be…
a) warming
b) cooling
c) an orangutan
jbk | February 10, 2011 at 4:00 pm |
d) Not relevant to the question, which was “where greenhouse gases were expected to result in warming.” Who did this expecting, exactly, and where did you find their expecting? Is this your expecting? If it is your expecting, then shouldn’t you state that it was your expecting? What, exactly, did you do to come up with this expectation?
This is the third time I’ve asked you this question, directly, and reviewing the rest of the people who commented, at least the fifth total time. Please don’t reply with anything except a source to someone doing this expecting – thanks!
OMG – I believe this might be the enhanced greenhouse or anthropogenic global warming theory.
But your original question said that I had the signs of the radiative flux trends reversed.
I take your latest question to be an example of bad faith. For all of the patient assistance I have provided to assist your understanding – I am most disappointed.
“For this the required attitude is humor, patience, good will, humility, honesty and good faith.”
You stated “there was planetary cooling in the infrared band where greenhouse gases were expected to result in warming.” This is incorrect – you have your signs reversed, as I initially claimed – see Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth’s infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006, Chen 1, Harries, Brindley, Ringer, see Earth’s Global Energy Budget, Trenberth, Fasullo, Kiehl, see An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950, Murphy, Solomon, Portmann, Rosenlof, Forster, Wong.
Your first sentence “OMG – I believe this might be the enhanced greenhouse or anthropogenic global warming theory,” does not make any sense.
vukcevic | February 9, 2011 at 4:53 pm |
Hi Mr Ellison
I assume you are Robert Ellison of REA.
When scientists are unable to explain a natural variable then they recall the ever helpful chaos theory. As far as the PDO and ENSO are concerned, in my view there is nothing chaotic about it either on annual or decadal scale.
Both PDO and ENSO are simply result of subtle changes in the Pacific Gateway as shown in this short extract of data.
Pacific Gateway?
I think upwelling in the area of the Humboldt Current – and thus the origin of ENSO – is the result of cool currents pushing up to South America on storms spinning off the polar vortex. Displacing some warm surface water. But then there are other systems that come into play – planetary spin, pressure differentials, surges sloshing back and forth across the Pacific. Thus it is a complex system with a couple of strange attractors and infinitely variable orbits. It is just a definition. The reason for changes theoretically involves sea level pressure responding to changes in UV and ozone warming in the middle atmosphere. This is hugely speculative – but see Lockwood (2010) or Lean (2008) for instance.
Lockwood, M., Harrison, R., Woollings, T. Solanki, S., (2010) Are cold winters in Europe associated with low solar activity? Environ. Res. Lett. 5 (2010) 024001 (7pp)
Lean, J., (2008) How Variable Is the Sun, and What Are the Links Between This Variability and Climate?, Search and Discovery Article #110055
But PDO and ENSO are but 2 elements in a global dance –
‘My stock in trade must then be: the power of ENSO twins,
abrupt shifts in the PDO, the fickleness of the PNA, the
slow pendulum of the AMO and the SAM with its storms
freewheeling off the Southern Ocean to smash on the shore.
These standard bearers of doubt engage in a global dance.
Occasionally, they pirouette towards a grand crescendo and,
then fly wildly to the ends of Earth in a new choreography,
Tremendous energies cascading though powerful systems.
Unless I miss my mark then this is the mark of chaos and
a danger in its own right as climate system components
jostle unpredictably and things settle into whatever pattern
emerges – mayhaps a cold, cold, cold day on planet Earth.’
from Song of a Climate Zombie
Chaos is not just a word – but has a scientific meaning – like relativity theory or quantum mechanics. In fact chaos theory is the third great idea in 20th physics.
curryja | February 9, 2011 at 7:20 pm |
Actually i was trying to keep some focus on the topic and provide sufficient depth, so i suggested narrowing the scope of the topic. The chaotic element of all this is certainly of great interest. So lets talk about it, and I am open to another post by CH on this topic.
I look forward to more from our Chief High Drologist.
Richard Drake | February 10, 2011 at 8:10 pm |
Love the poetry as well as acknowledgment of three great ideas in 20th century physics. (You missed the word century and probably a few others on the way. But that’s poetry for you.) I too vote for more on Chaos and from CH.
I am humbled and appreciative – and happy you liked the poetry.
vukcevic
“..then they recall the ever helpful chaos theory.”
That would be the opposite of this case, don’t you think? I mean, there’s next to nothing recognizable as CT in CH’s discourse, and I had to pull teeth to get the very slight and limited additional CT references of our author.
These are not fulsom CT investigations one would expect, and fail to bring to bear much of the panoply of CT tools for understanding a complex system.
Poor CH, squeezed on three sides by Judy who won’t let him splash in the CT pool, me who wants him to scope out the deep end of the ocean, and you who thinks CT is an ill-reputed mud puddle.
Sounds like a problem for a hydrologist.
Oh dear – I didn’t really mean to start anything.
Judith – it was not meant as a complaint – merely playfulness. If I am to do this – it is in a spirit of humour and good will.
I am quite out of my depth with Bart’s questions – as I said I was clueless on CT to 2009 – I thought it had something to do with butterflies.
The only thing I really know now is that the Tsonis network model breaks us out of the conceptual straight jacket with which we have viewed climate. Where before we had all these independent indices – PDO, ENSO, AMO, NAO, IOD, SAM, AO, PNA – now it seems they interact globally in a chaotic climate system.
Really – I am not much more advanced than thinking that Tim Palmer’s ‘Lorenzian Meteorological Office’ tickles my fancy.
And a Chief Hydrologist doesn’t have problems – only solutions. As I have said to others here, it is a seeking of the sacred hydrological truth through dialogue. For this the required attitude is humor, patience, good will, humility, honesty and good faith.
There is no possible answer to your post – and this is a failure to engage in a true dialectic – a lack of good faith. Can I expect better in future?
First, I don’t think that Tsonis believes that climate is a true chaos system. This is getting further from my expertise, but certainly my understanding is that in true chaotic system predicting the future is very difficult and certainly there is no reason to believe it will repeat in regular cycles.
If 1998 was a “switch”, there would be no real way of predicting what it was a switch to based on the amount of data we have. The “initial” conditions of the system at the time of the switch would have greatly influenced its out come in a manner that we’d have no hope of predicting what the result would be. The fact that he seems to feel that he can make a prediction suggests to me that he doesn’t believe it fits into what is traditionally called chaos.
There can be systems that are made of multiple interacting subsystems where there is a stochastic component, that are not truly chaotic systems.
(Though this would be a point where it would actually be interesting to hear somebody that is actually an expert (like Tsonis’s) opinion.)
Bart R | February 9, 2011 at 10:07 pm |
Er, ahem, in a strictly theoretical mathematical sense.
I mean, a switch to a truly chaotic state would be very, very alarmist, which I would not condone.
But still, for a math junky, so exciting!
Tsonis (2009) looked at a a sediment record. There was a red shift in sediment associated with inflows. Tsonis certainly refers to the shift 5000 years ago as a chaotic bifurcation.
‘Abstract: A thorough analysis of a proxy El Nino/
Southern Oscillation (ENSO) record indicates that a
bifurcation occurred in the ENSO system sometime around
5,000 years B.P. As a result of this bifurcation the attractor
became higher dimensional and a new mechanism of
instability was introduced. As a consequence of these
changes the system switched from a dynamics where the
normal condition (La Nina) was dominant to a dynamics
characterized by more frequent and stronger El Nino
events. ‘
If it weren’t (my hero) Tsonis – you might be entitled to say – yeah right – prove it.
They don’t actually make a prediction as such – it is more a case of this is the state we are in – it might last for another decade or so.
Tim Palmer is the other guy who is really interesting.
Peter | February 10, 2011 at 9:21 am |
Systems that are not truely chaotic can have some properties of chaotic systems. All stochastic systems are not truly chaotic.
Tsonis hasn’t said that he thinks there weren’t be much warming (or even any warming) for the next 30 years or so?
JCH | February 10, 2011 at 2:36 pm |
Peter – as a layperson the gist I get from their paper is there is a GHG-caused warming trend that can be boosted by a confluence of warm phases and dampened by a confluence of cool phases. To me, they are saying the resumption of warming out of the “shift” is a given.
I have the doubts about their theory a layperson is allowed to have. I think it’s wrong.
Paul Vaughan | February 10, 2011 at 11:05 pm |
Russian scientists have suggested the possibility of a strange nonchaotic attractor. Certainly not all components of climate are chaotic.
vukcevic | February 10, 2011 at 3:57 am |
Many experts would consider that the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Oceans at University of Washington, to be one of the highest authorities on the subject of PDO.
Here is their opinion:
At the time of this writing, causes for (and predictability limits of) the PDO are not known. What is known is that the nature of the mechanisms giving rise to the PDO will determine whether or not it is possible to make decade-long PDO climate predictions.
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mantua/REPORTS/PDO/PDO_cs.htm
Anything else is just ‘fluffing about’. If scientist do not have the required knowledge than the best course for the science and all concerned is to say so.
I have found source of these oscillations, this short extract from 100+ year data directly identifies the driver.
I gave it working title ‘Pacific Gateway’. Data is available, mechanism is simple and strait forward. If Dr. Curry has time and inclination to assess (in confidence) the viability of results of my findings, I would be happy to forward required information.
curryja | February 10, 2011 at 6:46 am |
yes, i’m still trying to figure out what the pacific gateway is and how it works. thx.
I shall write short outlay with the data, source etc , during the next 2-3 days and email it.
Graph is now removed from the website.
geo | February 9, 2011 at 4:54 pm |
If we switched to the “cool” phase in 1999. . . then I look at UAH, and see in 2002-2007 a relatively stable period (no major El or La) that looks demonstrably higher than any other relatively stable period you can find in that record.
I personally think it likely that the AGWers have C02 effects overstated from 1/2 to 2/3rds due to factors like those discussed in this piece. . . but I’d like to see this “cooling” period actually result in extended multi-year cooling from the 2002-2007 level before deciding just how much. Will we return to something like 1992-1997 (absent Pinatubo effects at the start), or will the new “low baseline” be higher, and C02 has something closer to its true impact quantified in the difference?
I do agree up to a point – July 2010.
I don’t think we can be hard and fast about any thing very much. Our instrumental records are too short and the proxy records to imprecise. I started my journey more than 20 years ago when 2 geomorphologists noticed some streams in central NSW had changed shape after the 1970’s – so they analysed flood heights over 150 years and found that we had these 20 to 40 year periods of flooding followed by 20 to 40 year periods of drought.
Over the years I have seen dozens of hydrologists say this – but it never seems to sink in. I narrowed the hydrological pattern to the north east of Australia – which implied an ENSO influence. But how did that work? When the PDO was described – well the periods fit but how is there a connection between chinook salmon in North American streams and rainfall in Woop Woop, Australia.
In 2003, I realised that the planet wasn’t warming for decades at least because all these patterns were converging. How frustrating is that? Not even my wife believed me. She just wondered whether this was a harmless eccentricity or if I had totally lost the plot. It was a big call in 2003.
The cool Pacific multi-decadal phase is with us. It is a little difficult to distinguish from physical parameters. My utter confidence comes from biological indicators – the afore mentioned chinook slamon, sardines in Monterey Bay and phytoplanton in the equatorial Pacific. Remembering that this is a biological phenomenon as cold currents bring nutrients to the surface in one of the most productive ecosystems on the planet. It gets me all choked up.
The current super La Nina suggests that the Pacific multi-decadal pattern is kicking up a gear – with record SOI this one is likely to hang around for a while yet.
All we can do is wait and see. Everyone seems to think we will return to a warm period. This presumes that we understand what drives it – I’m not so sure. If my solar UV speculation is even almost right – and I don’t want to enter into ill-informed discussion on this as in the sun doesn’t change (it does in the UV) or how the hell can solar UV influence ENSO – well let’s just say all bets are off.
The one thing I’m absolutely sure of is the “relentless” bit of the traditional AGW analysis just cannot be right. Just how wrong it is will tell us just how much trouble we’re in.
It seems like there are only three options in climate shifts, warm, cool and neutral (hopefully, 1999-2000 is a neutral and not supposed to be a cool.) Which makes is difficult to even propose a significant internal climate variability and be take seriously. Then you have the 15 year waiting period before you can mention “trend”. So decadal cloud variability can be blown off as weather if it doesn’t produce a “trend”.
Since cloud feedback is still poorly understood, a cosmic ray/cloud impact on climate is even more poorly understood. It is a heck of a puzzle!
I was looking at ENSO-PDO relationships in precipitation reconstructions and there is a good match in the tropics (for the few I looked at), but it gets more complicated moving away from the equator.
Anyway, my thought was it would be easier to use precipitation reconstructions related to the various oscillations to compare with Tsnois’ work to see if shifts are semi-predictable.
There is terrific hydrological correlation in Australia and Indonesia one hand and a reverse correlation in North and South America. There are also correlations in India – in fact that is where Sir Gilbert Walker discovered ENSO in search of a predictor for the Indian monsoon. No one believed him for 50 years – so what’s 15 years? There are also connections to rainfall in China and Africa. Trust me – I’m a hydrologist.
I think it might actually cool long term – but that is just of academic interest. Where we can’t predict that there won’t be a seriously bad outcome – it is a quandary and we need to decarbonise in a sensible manner. I’d like to see Al Gore groveling and apologising first but I have a feeling hell will freeze over before that happens.
Where we can’t predict that there won’t be a seriously bad outcome – it is a quandary and we need to decarbonise in a sensible manner.
This raises two questions, one of which seems to me to be outside the scope of this thread:
1. Are we in the position where we can’t predict that there won’t be a seriously bad outcome? Is that a definite? (Ho hum.)
2. What is decarbonising ‘in a sensible manner’? Nuclear?
Anyway, as I say, the second is probably out of scope but I appreciate your openness throughout.
Chief Hydrologist | February 11, 2011 at 12:54 am |
1. We are definitely in a position where we can say with certainty that we cannot say anything with certainty.
2. Technological at least. Something that increases efficiency, productivity and global wealth. I keep hearing about this chessboard and grain and my answer is that is doesn’t seem like a real world scenario. How is any grain to accumulate when there are so many billions living from hand to mouth.
If I had to pick winners – it would be thin solar and 4th generation nuclear.
Brian H | February 11, 2011 at 4:18 am |
Re: Chief Hydrologist ,
Arghh — again with the “decarbonize in a sensible manner”.
No, sir. That is presuming the conclusion. There is, to my and many others’ minds, ample evidence that CO2 generation is entirely benign — in fact, it is pushing against an unfortunate tendency of plants to eat themselves out of house and home by driving CO2 down relentlessly.
As for warming, I’ll take my chances with a Holocene or Roman or Medieval Optimum/Warm Period any time over another LIA or similar.
The only GHG of any significance is H2O. That we have no faintest hope of (or need to) control it globally means that it is useless for political/economic leverage. Which is where the IPCC comes in ….
manacker | February 9, 2011 at 6:02 pm |
Thanks for a very illuminating article.
You have presented your case precisely and have defended it here very well.
If I have understood this (with some oversimplification, as I am no expert):
– We have an observed period between 1977 and 1998, during which most of the observed warming of the past 50 years has occurred.
– During this period we have observed a strong, warm El Niño trend.
– The sea surface temperature increased as the marine low-level clouds decreased.
– Satellite data show us that most of the reduction in outgoing radiation over this period occurred in the SW band from a decrease in reflected incoming radiation and very little in the LW band from the GH effect
– Prior to this period of warming we had a prolonged period of cooling, which coincided with a period of La Niña events.
– After the period of cooling, i.e. most recently, we have observed slight cooling, again with a shift to La Niña
– A test for the hypothesis will be the next decade or two: if increased low level clouds continue to contribute to cooling at the same time as La Niña dominates, this will confirm the correlation.
– But the main “take home” seems to be that we are in a chaotic climate system, which appears to be closely correlated to ENSO oscillations, with a possible underlying warming trend from AGW.
Did I get it right?
Thanks Max,
‘We have an observed period between 1977 and 1998, during which most of the observed warming of the past 50 years has occurred.’
Yes – no matter what metric you use or statistics are spun – this seems to be a statement of indisputable fact.
‘The sea surface temperature increased as the marine low-level clouds decreased.’
I have been called on the low-level stratiform cloud with some validity. Zhu Ping et al certainly talk about low level cloud. Clement and Burgman talk about total cloud. Total cloud follows the pattern described – and the satellite measurements confirm the energy implications of changing cloud.
The short explanation is that the Pacific trade winds set up conditions for a La Niña. Trade winds, south-easterly in the Southern Hemisphere and north-easterly in the Northern Hemisphere, pile up warm surface water against Australia and Indonesia. Water vapour rises in the western Pacific creating low pressure cells that strengthen the trade winds piling yet more warm water up in the western Pacific. Cool, subsurface water rises in the eastern Pacific and spreads westward. At some point the trade winds falter and warm water spreads out westward across the Pacific.
Warm oceans conditions in an El Niño are associated with reduced cloud cover – reduced cloud lets in more of the Sun’s energy warming oceans and atmosphere.
‘Satellite data show us that most of the reduction in outgoing radiation over this period occurred in the SW band from a decrease in reflected incoming radiation and very little in the LW band from the GH effect’
There is an enhanced greenhouse effect. It can be seen in IR spectral analysis. For instance – take an IR snapshot in 1979 and 2000 and compare emissions in the greenhouse gas bandwidths. Observationally certain.
But the longitudinal record (1984 to the late 1990’s) shows an increase in heat emitted by the planet – because energy in conserved that is heat lost from the planet. At the same time there was a stronger warming effect in the visible spectrum. Less light reflected from less cloud. The net effect was warming. Again, based on pure observation. It doesn’t rely on absolute values – which are a bit problematical – and the trends are valid when estimates of ‘stability uncertainty’ are included.
‘Prior to this period of warming we had a prolonged period of cooling, which coincided with a period of La Niña events.’
The well known mid century slump that has a partial explanation in sulphates. Sulphates are unlikely to the entire explanation because of Arctic amplification (http://www.lanl.gov/source/orgs/ees/ees14/pdfs/09Chlylek.pdf)
Theres is no reason to suppose that sulphates are responsible for the large amplification of the signal in the Arctic. It coincides exactly with a cool La Nina dominated Pacific Ocean multi-decadal mode.
‘After the period of cooling, i.e. most recently, we have observed slight cooling, again with a shift to La Niña’
The multi-decadal pattern includes the PDO. The physical signals are a bit vague – such that NASA called it in 2008. Bloody physicists. This is a biological phenomenon as well with nutrient rich water rising in the Eastern Pacific. There is little doubt from biological indicators – chinook salmon in North American streams in numbers not seen since the 1970’s, sardines in Monterey Bay where they haven’t been seen in numbers for decades, phytoplankton (the base of the food chain) in the equatorial Pacific returned in abundance again not seen since the 1970’s – show that the shift occurred after 1998.
The CERES record is quite inconclusive on warming or cooling in the past decade. I would suggest very moderate cooling – but only because solar irradiance fell to a solar cycle minimum in 2008.
As the Pacific multi-decadal mode involves modulation of the frequency and intensity of ENSO – the current super La Niña should be a taste of things to come.
‘A test for the hypothesis will be the next decade or two: if increased low level clouds continue to contribute to cooling at the same time as La Niña dominates, this will confirm the correlation’
Again, I will have to get back to you on low cloud. The CERES data from 2000 on the other hand will be definitive sometime in the future. Who was it who said that prediction is very difficult – especially if it is about the future.
We seem to have both a plausible mechanism and experimental proof in the data from the satellite platforms that shows that something is amiss in climate science .
My message that I keep giving to our alarmist friends is, even if we just keep drifting along for another decade, this will make the politics of carbon reduction impossible unless we very quickly find another narrative. This is difficult but necessary and may require a bit of groveling and backpedaling. What price they are right and I am wrong and do they want to take that all in gamble?
‘But the main “take home” seems to be that we are in a chaotic climate system, which appears to be closely correlated to ENSO oscillations, with a possible underlying warming trend from AGW.’
The skeptics hate me for this. But the other foundational error in climate science is in the assumption that weather is an ‘initial value problem’ and climate a ‘boundary value problem’. The distinction sees weather as ‘chaotic’ and climate as the ‘statistics of weather’. The new scientific consensus is that both weather and climate are chaotic. For example, the British Royal Society in their recent climate science summary discussed internal climate variability as a result of climate being an example of a chaotic system in theoretical physics (Bart thinks they should have got there decades ago and perhaps so – I can’t gloat because essentially I still am nearly as clueless as anyone).
While this may seem to be a quibble on a minor point to many – it is in fact central to consideration of climate predictability and climate risk. In a chaotic climate – predictability and risk are two sides of a coin. Climate predictions can only be made in terms of probabilities and a range of climate risk from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is mathematically certain as a result of those same probabilities. If we can’t predict that abrupt and violent climate change won’t happen – it is quite a quandary.
kim | February 10, 2011 at 12:12 am |
Gotta be clueless
Haiku in the sky queue, too.
Words don’t fail me now.
manacker | February 10, 2011 at 1:25 am |
Thanks for your reply. I very much appreciate that you have taken the time to respond to my questions so thoroughly.
BTW, it was US baseball great (and philosopher), Yoggi Berra who said that about predicting the future.
He also said (when the his Yankees had apparently not had their usual winning season):
“The future ain’t what it used to be”.
Maybe the modelers cited by IPCC in AR4 WG1 might feel a bit that way today, as well.
Girma | February 11, 2011 at 7:26 am |
Chief, what do you think of my global mean temperature projection?
http://bit.ly/cO94in
Girma | February 9, 2011 at 6:40 pm |
Robert Ellison
All global warming in the past 50 years, the period in which the IPCC say most warming occurred because of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, happened between 1977 and 1998. This is exactly the same period as the last warm El Niño dominated Pacific decadal mode. In the instrumental record, the trajectory of global surface temperature mirrors the Pacific Ocean states. Cool to the late 1970’s, warm to 1998 and cool since.
Data that supports the above statement:
20th century data: http://bit.ly/hxrx7N
21st century data: http://bit.ly/e4Nk93
cba | February 9, 2011 at 8:21 pm |
the dessler paper has a cloud sensitivity to temperature listed as around 0.5 +/- 0.7. The correlation for this, as I recall from reading the paper last month, is r^2 = 0.02. seems there is also an underestimation or dismissing by dessler of the magnitude of the cloud albedo effect over the IR blocking.
kse | February 10, 2011 at 3:43 pm |
I think that those are the correct values. I wonder that no one seems to notice that r^2 value – AFAIK, it should mean that there is not even a weak correlation (as Dessler claims) but no correlation at all and thus the only justified conclusions should have been that there are not enough observations or the correlation is non-linear (this also visually quite obvious if you look at the graph given in the paper).
Quite odd that peer reviewers have allowed such an elementary error to remain in the article.
cba | February 14, 2011 at 4:23 pm |
kse,
well even without the r^2 problem, dessler’s result by no means excludes 0.0 when he proclaimed his clouds affected by temperature paper.
I’ve not really studied his paper, after finding it to essentially be bogus, but even this r^2 = 0.02 bothers me as there is the obvious reverse effect that goes on. Cloud cover affects temperatures immediately and directly. How he managed to remove this correlation – effectively removing almost all traces of signal while leaving the noise intact – has got to be a real gem.
The original hansen paper ’84?? with Lacis and others that brings up the notion of cloud cover dropping with temperature or surface temperature is not really any better in solidness because they were using a model which was very incomplete in that area and they did mention in discussion that another assumption alternative was that clouds followed absolute humidity and it showed absolutely no loss of cover due to temperature in their models. It seems also they had to use a 1-d model for this rather than their beloved gcm – probably because it would still be calculating the value LOL.
I’m also curious why Judith decided to ignore my question.
the r^2 = 0.02 really isn’t an error though. I think it’s really just an admission that there was nothing to publish. I think too that it was a rushed job with a specific purpose to give them something to proclaim at that point in time.
‘Obviously, the correlation between DRcloud and DTs is weak (r2 = 2%), meaning that factors other than Ts are important in regulating DRcloud. An example is the Madden-Julian Oscillation (7), which has a strong impact on DRcloud but no effect on DTs. This does not mean that DTs exerts no control on DRcloud, but rather that the influence is
hard to quantify because of the influence of other factors. As a result, it may require several more decades of data to significantly reduce the
uncertainty in the inferred relationship.’
DT and ENSO are well correlated – naturally. The large changes in CERES fluxes show clouds. Is there a lag? There is another factor in Hadley cells. Could there be a ‘chaotic’ factor in the evolution of clouds? I don’t know. But there is an obvious connection in here between ENSO and cloud and whether it shows in the simple linear regression is not the main game. Nor is some purported global warming feedback. Sometimes it is not the conclusion but the methods and results that are most interesting.
The real connection of cloud is to SST – as shown in the Zhu Ping et al and Clements papers – this is the important issue.
cba | February 16, 2011 at 9:26 am |
seems that your papers referenced are stuck behind a pay wall, even here at work,
dp | February 9, 2011 at 8:33 pm |
There are examples in nature where tipping points induce sympathetic resonances in odd places. Two examples are Aeolian harps which are driven by the wind, but very differently at various wind speeds, and the tidal bore in the Bay of Fundy which is driven in part by the moon. Am I to understand that some or all of the natural climate oscillations (ENSO, cyclic cloud cover, etc) may be tied in with this type of coupling to natural chaotic events? Sorry if I haven’t described that well, but I haven’t had much time to ponder it myself.
David Wojick | February 9, 2011 at 8:38 pm |
So-called tipping points and chaos have nothing to do with each other. They are not mathematical opposites, but nearly so. Get a grip people.
dp | February 9, 2011 at 11:47 pm |
I present a tipping point example as I’ve used the term (and I’d no idea the term was owned and held so tight fistedly). This is from a fable but describes the point.
From a blog that has humor:
http://www.squidoo.com/walls-of-jericho
We get:
“The Battle of Jericho is one of the more astonishing stories in the Bible. Some guys march around a city, tootle their horns, the walls fall, and they storm in. Of course, scientific thinking proves that story is totally implausible … or does it??”
I’ll expand this to say, after much tootling, the walls did not fall. Into the fray marches Hubert the Tardy. Hubert is a slacker, always late to the pillaging, but quite a tootler. He adds his tootle to the din, a tipping point is reached, down come the walls through sympathetic resonance.
Others may have other ways of using the term “tipping point”, but this one seems reasonable and is what happens when an Aeolian harp goes from random buzzing in light airs to a beautiful chorus of sound when the tipping point of the wind vector is reached. I hope the chief approves :)
I’ve also used the term in describing systems with hysterisis as that point which causes the model to change states or measurable level in a way that is out of proportion to the input. Schmitt triggers come to mind.
Tipping points are a bit of a sore point. I think what Tsonis shows is an improbable chaotic connection between the North Atlantic Oscillation and ENSO for instance. It got me thinking.
The indices may be useful in themselves for disentangling regional effects. They are very useful for hydrological analysis for instance because they are relatively stable patterns with predictive power – seasonal to decadal even.
But I don’t think we should view the solar system as anything other than an integrated system. There are all sorts of energies cascading through heliosphere, cryosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere. These are the true base units of climate and they are all interconnected as they must be. It is all one and it is all chaotic.
And yes – I approve of your beautiful aeolian harps
Attention to timescale is useful in distinguishing the effects of internal climate variability, including the chaotic elements, from long term trends driven by anthropogenic forcing. Over interannual and in some cases multidecadal scales, internal variations have often exhibited a prominent profile. Conversely, the internal variations have tended to average out over a centennial timescale, revealing the underlying forcing trends. In the first half of the twentieth century, the forcing was primarily solar, whereas in the later decades, it appears to have been predominantly anthropogenic, reflecting rising CO2 concentrations.
Of the internal variations, ENSO has operated on shorter timescales than other prominent oscillations such as the AMO and PDO; for the ENSO relationship to trends, see Temperature Series .
Over the twentieth century, both AMO and PDO variations have tended to average out, but the AMO has been poorly correlated with long term trends, while the PDO has matched them fairly well. To some extent, this may reflect an anthropogenic forcing signal in the PDO – Forced and Inherent Variability, but it is presumed that most of the variation is natural. It is informative to ask how much this variation contributed to observed changes, and the implication for future trends.
During the twentieth century, temperature exhibited a brief spike and dip in the 1940s. However, the only long term variation from the early and late warming trends was a flat interval from about 1950 into the late 1970s. This was an interval of negative PDO phase. It was also an interval of increased negative forcing from aerosols (mostly presumably anthropogenic), as noted by a reduction until the 1980’s in the transmittance of solar irradiation from the top of the atmosphere to the surface, observed under both clear sky and all sky conditions – Solar Dimming and Brightening.
It seems notable the combination of negative aerosol forcing and negative phase PDO (to the extent the latter was non-forced) contributed to a flat but not a long-term multidecadal cooling trend. The near future is likely to see an increasing divergence of CO2 and anthropogenic aerosol trends, as fossil fuel consumption rises in the presence of more rigorous air pollution controls, and so it may be that the combined aerosol/PDO influence of the mid-twentieth century will fail to repeat in the current century. In that circumstance, the flat interval of the early decades will probably be replaced by a continuation of long term warming. Whether this will play out over intervals as short as ten years remains uncertain.
Only 1 point Fred – the PDO and ENSO are linked in the Pacific multi-decadal pattern. It is better to think of them as 2 aspects of the same thing. Certainly there an interannular component to ENSO – but there is also a multi-decadal aspect that I think shows clearly in the MEI of Wolter Klaus.
It makes little difference to your argument – but seems more technically correct.
JCH | February 10, 2011 at 12:28 am |
I was reading this one today, page 22, figure 9.
Craig Goodrich | February 10, 2011 at 4:40 pm |
One point that I haven’t seen discussed here (though I may have missed it) is that the consensus AGW theory seems to regard clouds as purely a function of the amount of water vapor in the lower troposphere.
But cloud formation requires not only water vapor, but condensation nuclei, and apparently the nature and size of those nuclei can influence the radiative/reflective characteristics of the (specific) low clouds.
Moreover, there are numerous potential sources for the aerosols that provide the nuclei — biological (sulfur compounds emitted by plants and sea life), cosmological (ionizing cosmic rays), geological (airborne dust from deserts and wind erosion), and anthropological (particulates and power plant emissions). All of these sources will wax and wane on different time scales and in (currently) largely unpredictable ways.
Has any rigorous study of all this been done? I know that CERN is investigating cosmic rays from a theoretical standpoint, but has any effort been made to quantify these different influences on cloud formation?
I have wondered if there was a biological aspect to the ENSO/cloud feedback. La Nina is of course an immense boost to biological activity – even globally. Nutrients rise to the surface in the eastern Pacific. One of my earlier enthusiasms was for biogeochemical cycling. Once the nutrients are at the surface they are recycled through phytoplankton very efficiently and lost only slowly to the depths.
The phytoplankton population does seem to have this same multidecadal temporal pattern – just like the sardines in Monterey Bay and other biological responses to upwelling and for the same reason. So di-methyl sulphide is likely also to have the same temporal pattern.
A bit like cosmic rays and cloud really. Hard to prove.
Hank Roberts | February 9, 2011 at 10:09 pm |
Aside on salinity — a lot has been published since that WHOI page cited above; it’s not being ignored, and doesn’t appear to have been a surprise. You can find plenty if you search Scholar on the subject; see, e.g. :
Geophys. Research Letters, V. 35, L21702, 5 PP., 2008 doi:10.1029/2008GL035874
Detection and attribution of Atlantic salinity changes
“… An analysis of observed and modeled oceanic salinity changes shows that significant changes of salinity, which are predicted in the World’s oceans as a result of human influence, are beginning to emerge…. [i]n the 20N–50N latitude band of the Atlantic ocean, although changes at sub-polar latitudes of the Atlantic, and in other ocean basins, are not found to be significant compared to modeled internal variability.”
http://www.ird.nc/UR65/Maes/Maes_JGR_2008.pdf
J. Geophys. Research, V. 113, C03027, doi:10.1029/2007JC004297, 2008
“… the equatorial western Pacific is characterized by an increasing east-west gradient in salinity stratification whereas the stronger values are found westward of the eastern edge of the warm pool. This diagnostic then provides the basis for an examination of the dynamical mechanisms involved in the formation of the salinity stratification. It also confirms the importance of the ocean salinity in the variability of the equatorial Pacific warm pool….”
Plenty more there; some abstracts only, some full text can be found.
No need to go into this, just noting it’s out there to be found.
You mean, there is insufficient expertise demonstrated to support the conclusions based on the sources?
And yes, please to not blog pantless.
Leave Spongebob out of this – this is between you and me.
I also have a Masters in Environmental Science – which was a hell of a lot of fun as well. Not important.
I will have to look at my checklist:
1 Seeking of the sacred hydrological truth through dialectic. For this the required attitude is:
humor – no
patience – no
good will – no
humility – no
honesty – well I don’t think you took you’re pants off and I am rather afraid
good faith – no
I strongly encourage you to develop these virtues in yourself for you’re own spiritual health.
Gabriel Atega | February 9, 2011 at 11:39 pm |
1977 to 1998 is period where global logging activity was at its peak. Harvesting of forests follow closely with growths in housing and paper production. During this period Japan was buying mangrove from Indonesia and Eucalyptus from Australia to produce brown paper for box making. Australia, Japan, Europe and the USA were buying increasing volumes of wood to support the expansion of housing which were seen by politicians as a major driver for economic growth. The dipterocarp forests that covered 90% of Southeast Asia (Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia) was dramatically reduced during 1977 to 1998 to as low as 10% in many places.
Logging activity has reduced because there are no more forests to log in many areas. Now while harvesting in Southeast Asia is going down, this is now continued in the countries of the former Soviet Union and China.
I am pointing this out because cloud production is directly correlated with the forests. Forests keep the waters on the ground instead of in the atmosphere. I do not know why scientists have not worked to establish the correlation between the atmosphere and the biosphere particularly in connection with the hydrologic cycle. They seemed to be more focused on CO2 rather than on water vapor. CO2 is insignificant when compared to water vapor.
The forests slows down the hydrologic cycle by providing precipitation cushions that delay the run of water into the waterways by absorption and the facilitating the deposition of waters into aquifers instead of into waterways.
The massive reduction of mangrove have contributed to the warming of the oceans as coastal waters previously covered with mangrove are now exposed directly to solar radiation. Rivers whose banks were once covered with trees now bring to the oceans warmer waters than those that flowed to the oceans in the past. Warmer fresh water feed to the oceans translate also to the hydrologic cycle acceleration. Faster cycle suggest more time for the water vapor to stay in the atmosphere to receive radiation.
In other words, without the forests there will be a self-feeding process of waters in the atmosphere and on the oceans to become warmer with increased solar heat retention following increase in water vapor or cloud densities.
The forests serve also to cool down the waters.
There is only one genuine solution to mitigate global warming trends: the restoration of forests and mangrove.
wayne | February 10, 2011 at 3:05 am |
Gabriel, there is some science ongoing in this area that I just became aware of recently. Check http://www.bioticregulation.ru/index.php , a site of Dr. Makarieva and Gorshkov. Search around their site for some great information and physics on clouds in realtion to forests on a more global weather/climate pattern scale.
Your right, forest’s influence is usually brushed aside and it should not be. Without forests with deep roots the water cycle over the continents is but skin deep and continental sourced water vapor drives the global pressure front systems more than most realize.
Also: http://www.bioticregulation.ru/common/pdf/neraz-en.pdf
Thanks Guys – I will check it out to. I have spent too long being appalled at the continuing devastation of the Australian landscape and loss of species. Most of it is from feral species and poor fire management. But the focus for a generation has been on greenhouse gases. I need to practice what I preach – and become much less cynical.
Guenter Hess | February 9, 2011 at 11:44 pm |
Thank you for your overview on clouds.
I think a good resource on clouds is the website of Joel Norris.
http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/pub.html#277-b
An excerpt of one of his abstracts:
“Global climate models provide scant reliable insight regarding these issues because of their inability to parameterize correctly or otherwise represent the small-scale convective, turbulent, and microphysical processes that control cloud properties. It is therefore crucial to document and assess global and regional low-frequency variations in clouds and radiation flux that have occurred over the past several decades, a period marked by rapidly rising temperature and changes in anthropogenic aerosol emissions. This will enable us to estimate from observations how clouds and their impacts on the radiation budget are responding to global warming and aerosol changes.”
I agree with him, it is very important to make measurements and assess the data of the past in reanalyses. Without measurements and good data, we have to accept the uncertainty, models won’t help much right now.
I think it is more important to put money in a project that measures clouds in a reliable way than put additional money in computer models.
On some point I miss the PR of such an international project that does that.
Here is a link to a study on superparameterization, a possible way to get around the model problems with cloud parameterization mentioned by Norris in the paper you cited:
ftp://eos.atmos.washington.edu/pub/breth/papers/2006/SPGRL.pdf
Of course, you are right in saying that actual observations are needed, rather than simply model simulations, but this approach might make the models less sketchy when it comes to clouds.
Another point.
In their study on the radiative forcing due to clouds and water vapor, Ramanathan and Inamdar lamented:
The few results we have on the role of cloud feedback in climate change is mostly from GCMs. Their treatment of clouds is so rudimentary that we need an observational basis to check the model conclusions. We do not know how the net forcing of −18 W m−2 will change in response to global warming. Thus, the magnitude as well as the sign of the cloud feedback is uncertain.
In the IPCC AR4 WG1 SPM report, IPCC conceded:
Cloud feedbacks remain the largest source of uncertainty.
Yet all the climate models cited by IPCC have estimated that clouds exert a net positive feedback with warming, strong enough, in fact, to significantly increase the estimated 2xCO2 climate sensitivity (AR4, WG1, Ch.8, p.633):
Using feedback parameters from Figure 8.14, it can be estimated that in the presence of water vapour, lapse rate and surface albedo feedbacks, current GCMs would predict a climate sensitivity (± 1 standard deviation) of roughly 1.9°C ± 0.15°C (ignoring spread from radiative forcing differences). The mean and standard deviation of climate sensitivity estimates derived from current GCMs are larger (3.2°C ± 0.7°C) essentially because the GCMs all predict a positive cloud feedback (Figure 8.14) but strongly disagree on its magnitude.
So it is clear that, if net cloud feedbacks really were negative, as the observations of Spencer and Braswell seem to indicate and Dessler 2010 seems to concede as a possibility, the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity would be considerably lower than that estimated by the IPCC models, probably around one-third of the IPCC estimate.
You (and “Chief”) have both written here that we need more direct observations on the behavior of clouds, both as a feedback to SST warming and as a possible natural climate forcing in themselves (and everyone seems to agree).
I’d say before we have this we really don’t know whether AGW is a serious potential threat to humanity and our environment, as postulated by IPCC, or simply a minor factor, which would be lost in natural variability.
Hi Günter
God yes – I find Joel Norris to be an earnest and worthy young man. But I think it must be a very difficult time to be a young climate scientist.
I think the Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System instrument on the TERRA satellite is pretty good – the record is too short yet.
In the meantime – ERBS and ISCCP-FD re-analysis are saying things that challenge theories – as it should be. Data is king and – dare I say it – models are bullshit.
Julian Flood | February 10, 2011 at 5:15 am |
In an analysis of global warming cloud feedbacks, Dessler (2010) used short term variations in surface temperature and CERES data to determine that cloud cover was negatively correlated with temperature. Dessler also plotted ENSO against surface temperature leaving no doubt that ENSO was the primary cause of the short term temperature variations. Leaving aside anthropogenic global warming – the finding of a positive feedback here is in the first instance an ENSO feedback. As was reported, ‘the climate variations being analysed here are primarily driven by ENSO, and there has been no suggestion that ENSO is caused by cloud variations.’
I’ve wondered about an assumption made in Dessler 2010:
But aerosols’ radiative impact is not expected to
correlate with DeltaTs, so the effect of aerosols is to
add uncertainty to the cloud feedback calculation
but should not introduce a bias.
By using ENSO fluctuations as the source of his variations, he is assuming that ENSO has no effect on aerosol loading. Is this justified? It would seem more likely that aerosols will vary with the cycling — for example, salt aerosols are produced by wave breaking and are thus dependent on windspeed– and thus will have some correlation with deltaT.
I will make a general apology – some of these things are well outside anything I understand. I am a simple man. So if I don’t respond just assume it went right over my head and I am sitting here with a dumfounded expression.
But apropos of nothing – there are a couple of rules (more guidelines really):
1. don’t stray too far from experimental data – even if you have a computer you still need good data;
2. do quality control on your data – assess the sources, limits of accuracy and methods – just because you have a graph showing something happened 10 million years ago doesn’t mean it is meaningful;
3. speculation is fun and may lead to interesting places but don’t mistake it for the scientific method.
Really interesting piece that- thanks
I too am fascinated with water but on a different line of research. This is through mechanics of planetary motion and rotation.
The system only seems chaotic when the perimeters are not understood or the strict adherence to the theories of laws. Areas such as centrifugal force can be understood but then this shows the theory of thermodynamics to be incorrect.
Thermodynamics misses compression and stored energy as well as the only physical energy that exerts out from the planet is centrifugal force. All other energies exert to the planets surface(including the sun).
Next science decided the planet was on a balanced system of equal opposites. That is impossible in an area where the changes are due from a slowing planet, slowly moving away from the sun.
Individualized areas of science does not take into account of a system that is totally interactive.
Current science is hard pressed for the theories to be accurate in the past billions of years when the planet was rotating faster and evaporation had not started until 1.25 billion years ago.
Tomas Milanovic | February 10, 2011 at 10:25 am |
But the other foundational error in climate science is in the assumption that weather is an ‘initial value problem’ and climate a ‘boundary value problem’.
I fully agree. It is a physical error an a mathematical nonsense. I would like to have one day a thread on this matter because it closely relates to the question of statistical predictability of chaotic systems.
Speaking of chaotic systems, I must again do and redo the same work eliminating misconceptions. I already did it on other threads but it seems that it will be necessary for a longtime.
There are scientists who don’t know what is chaos. Those equate chaos to randomness. I’d put that category at 90%.
There are scientists who equate chaos with Lorenz. They have seen the butterfly attractor picture one day or the other. They know that chaos is not randomness but not much more. I’d put that category at 9%.
There are then scientists who know what is chaos and really worked on it. I’d put that category at 1% and much less for the climate scientists.
The chaos one could and should we be talking about as far as climate is concerned is spatio-temporal chaos.
What is known as chaos theory and often associated with Lorenz was actually discovered by Poincare 100 years ago and it is TEMPORAL chaos.
It is a paradox but chaos was first discovered by Poincare in a Hamiltonian system which has been considered for centuries as the perfect deterministic clockwork – the celestail mechanics.
Poincare has proven that a gravitational 3 body system was chaotic and unpredictable. Actually it is not even predictable statistically (e.g you can not put a probability on the event “Mars will be ejected from the solar system in N years”).
Scientists having been busy discovering relativity and QM (Poincare too), they have been ignoring these results for 60 years.
Then Lorenz found chaos in fluid dynamics and the temporal chaos theory started slowly.
The most important point that everybody who wants to understand something about temporal chaos theory should understand that it is all about geometry in a finite dimensional phase space.
In other words it deals mathematically with systems of non linear ODE where all unknowns are coordinates of the phase space and the state of the system is perfectly defined by a point P(t) in the phase space by giving its coordinates (degrees of freedom). If it rings a bell with hamiltonian mechanics, it is good as it should.
All the “advanced” concepts (bifurcations, shifts, attractors, fractals) are children of the temporal chaos theory. The simple rule of thumb is that if there is only time dependence, then if there is chaos it can be explained by the chaos theory. It doesn’t apply at all to the problem that brings us here and here is why.
There is something much more complicated and qualitatively radically different from the temporal (Lorenzinan) chaos – the spatio-temporal chaos.
There is no established spatio-temporal chaos theory. It is cutting edge and a few people work on it only since a a few decades.
Spatio-temporal chaos deals with the dynamics of SPATIAL PATTERNS. Mathematically we deal with fields described by non linear PDE. Navier Stokes is an example.
It is as far from the temporal chaos theory as QM is from classical mechanics.
The biggest difficulty comes from the fact that we lost this convenient finite dimensional phase space. That’s why almost nothing transports from temporal chaos to spatio-temporal chaos. There are no attractors, bifurcations and such. The whole mathematical apparatus has to be invented from scratch and it will take decades.
To know the state of the system we must know all the fields at all points – this is an uncountable infinity of dimensions.
As the fields are coupled, the system produces quasi standing waves all the time. A quasi standing wave is a spatial pattern that oscillates at the same place repeating the same spatial structures in time.
However in spatio-temporal chaos these quasi standing waves are not invariants of the system on the contrary to the attractors which are the invariants of the temporal chaos.
They live for a certain time and then change or disappear altogether.
You can see spatio-temporal chaos if you look at a fast mountain river.
There will be vortexes of different sizes at different places at different times. But if you observe patiently, you will notice that there are places where there almost always are vortexes and they almost always have similar sizes – these are the quasi standing waves of the spatio-temporal chaos governing the river. If you perturb the flow, many quasi standing waves may disappear. Or very few. It depends.
But this is clearly what weather and climate are. Spatio temporal chaos of staggering complexity because there is not only Navier Stokes. There are many more coupled fields.
ENSO is an example of a quasi standing wave of the system.
Of course I hope that the reader now knows that it cannot be explained by something depending on time only (like indexes, time series and such) because if it could, we would have a classical temporal chaos where space doesn’t matter. We would have solved the problem long times ago.
But as ENSO is a pattern resulting of interaction of ALL fields in the system, it vitally depends on how these fields interact in space.
That’s why all interpretations of ENSO (and other multidecadal quasi standing waves) are failing – people are using functions (series) that depend on time only which cannot clearly encode all the spatial interactions.
There are a few exceptions like Tsonis. I have written a long post in the Tsonis thread so won’t repeat. But Tsonis makes a step towards spatio-temporal chaos by considering that there are several interacting waves what is equivalent to introduce some dose of spatial interaction.
Of course as he considers only 5 waves, it is a rather rough way to discretize space over the whole planet but it is a beginning.
The best way to imagin a full spatio-temporal chaos theory is to imagine that there is a different chaotic oscillator like the Lorenz butterfl) at every point of space (so there is an infinity of them) and that they are all coupled strongly with each other in a non linear and time dependent way.
I am not saying that there can’t be some simplifications but nobody knows today.
The only thing I am reasonably sure of is that there will be no progress in understanding be it via chaos or not as long as people will insist on the crutches of functions/series that are only time dependent.
That’s why I would love to have a thread about this nonsense that climate is a boundary value problem.
I know several people who would tear to shreds the defendants of this nonsense.
curryja | February 10, 2011 at 10:42 am |
Tomas, I am going to turn this into a post. let me know if you would like to add some references/links. This issue comes up way too often, and your explanation here is very clear.
Tomas Milanovic | February 10, 2011 at 1:14 pm |
As there is no theory yet, there are no textbooks.
The papers are generally rather technical and mathematically non trivial.
But the main approach is always the same – it’s what I would call “generalised Tsonis approach”.
As the main difficulty is the infinite dimensionality of the phase space due to the fact that we deal with a field theory (what J.Stults has called “the configurational entropy”), people always try to reduce the problem to a finite dimensional one.
This is then called cellular automata, coupled lattices, interacting networks.
The idea behind this is mostly the same – have a finite number of nodes, grids and make them interact according to different couplings.
These methods are used more by biologists than physicists because they are not lucky to have clean, simple ODEs but face messy, chaotic systems instead.
For instace the brain is an example of spatio-temporal chaos (amusing idea that the brain is the ultimate spatio temporal chaos)
A “simple” one because here the number of nodes is finite :)
This paper is for example typical : http://amath.colorado.edu/faculty/juanga/Papers/PhysicaD.pdf
It considers interacting coupled nodes and proves an important result that the behaviour of the system can be separated (like variable separation) in one part that only depends on the node uncoupled dynamics (f.ex a chaotic oscillator) and another part that only depends on the network’s topology.
Of course a reader who can follow the nontrivial mathematics will immediately observe that the uncoupled dynamics corresponds to nothing physical.
This is a defining feature of most serious papers on spatio-temporal chaos.
They are situated on a meta level where one doesn’t attempt to apply the usual reductionism familiar for every physicist – write what happens at small scales (dx , dt etc) and go to big scales by integration.
Here one uses instead an approach to study how the general topology of a network interacts with the individual dynamics.
That’s why the networks look like “toy models” because what counts is not what an individual oscillator does when it is alone but rather what happens when (any) kind of oscillator is coupled to others and the variable is the topology of the couplings.
You recognize in this philosophy what I called the generalised Tsonis approach
Perhaps another interesting link might be : http://yakari.polytechnique.fr/people/pops/NL2574.pdf
But as you mentioned at the end of your post, this thread is technical. I do not think that thses links are very readable for a casual reader.
curryja | February 10, 2011 at 1:28 pm |
ok thx. i’ll put a post up tonite on this.
wayne | February 10, 2011 at 7:11 pm |
You just hit one of my nerves there! Not a bad nerve but a good one. ☺
I think I see clearly your point through your words. I’m going to step back to more plain English type of description to see if I am following somewhat your view of climate in general. I prefer to keep words as simple as possible and only including arcane terms (to some) which usually just get many lost at one point or the other along the way.
First, the topography. You are speaking of the layout of a mathematical graph, with nodes and links between these nodes, visually much as a spider web.
I am going to pick a few for an example: TSI, albedo, irradiance, temperature, evaporation, precipitation, and wind. Each of these nodes have links, many times bidirectional, connecting these. The links are the equations describing how one node’s values affect another connected node’s values. I assume this overall is the topography you speak of.
The nodes are parameters and these parameters usually are not merely single numbers but can be viewed as a map of the world with colors indicating the values at a given point on the map as you see so often at any weather or climate site. In reality these are more complex for they are 3D in nature (dx,dy,dz). This brings in the special aspect and the time aspect (dt) used to progress this network through time.
But you are right to bring in another aspect that you term you bring in the aspect of “Tsonis approach” which I am not going to lookup right now on purpose, sometimes that draws my mind off point and confuses my own view of your words.
You are speaking of the topography of this network of interconnected nodes itself. Much as looking at what and deviance in temperature over on the far left of my graph to wind far over on the right and studying this relationship which on one aspect has no direct ties but can only act after going from temperature to evaporation to precipitation (volume collapse) to pressure to wind. And wind connects back to temperature through evaporation.
If temporal changes are looked in such large steps and you are viewing the 3D colored maps at each node you can see some patterns that appear to be chaotic in nature but that is only due all of the special/temporal information that is missing between these large dt’s.
Is that description in a any way describing part of your ‘Tsonis approach’?
When I look at actual relationships as in http://web.mit.edu/seawater/Seawater_Property_Tables.pdf and look at each with a critical view I don’t see instability and chaos, I see stability in each of these graphs. Each one of these relationships curve or step in a manner that instills smaller and smaller effects or larger and larger effects always in the right direction to bring a system toward stability when forced. But if you connect enough together and step in too large of a temporal steps, you do see what appears to be chaotic patterns, it is pseudo-chaos and this type of chaos is not really real, just an artifact of the method.
However, effects such as gravity do not converge on stability, depending on trajectory, and can lead directly to instability and is due to the inversed square type of relation. In this case as vertical movements in the atmosphere this could bring forth locally true chaos but over distance would smooth back to a stable state as our world has been in for eons.
I guess what I am saying is that chaos is so easy to fill in for our inability either from lack of knowledge, precise measurements, correct algorithms, relationships, and lack of adequate computing power and it’s precision.
Now I will Google ‘Tsonis’ and probably get real confused again! ☺
Bart R | February 10, 2011 at 7:41 pm |
Nicely said, sir!
These 2 (un-paywalled) deal with the toy network model – heaps of fun for all.
https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/kravtsov/www/downloads/GRL-Tsonis.pdf
https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/kswanson/www/publications/2008GL037022_all.pdf
Here is a Poincaré 3 body problem animation – just because Tomas pointed out that Poincaré and not Lorenz originated the concept. It is a planet rotating around 2 suns.
You have a beautiful mind.
I am a great admirer of Tsonis – but I was especially amused by your description of his work as a toy network model.
Indices are terrific for regional climatology and hydrology because they relatively stable – quasi standing waves as you inform me – with useful empirical connections to a critical consideration for humanity – rainfall.
Conceptually, however, we should view the solar mediated climate system as a single entity – like your stream but writ large. There are tremendous energies cascading through heliosphere, cryosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere. These are the true base units of climate and they are all interconnected as they must be. It is all one and it is all chaotic.
Paul Vaughan | February 11, 2011 at 12:20 am |
It’s not all chaotic.
which bit isn’t – heliosphere, cryosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere or hydrosphere?
e.g. day & year.
Chief Hydrologist | February 11, 2011 at 11:13 pm |
December 21st 1982? I was a bit flippant but your cryptic comments are not fun or informative
Ken Lydell | February 10, 2011 at 5:21 pm |
Like many young and incomplete sciences, climate science has advanced to the point best described as “the more we know the less we understand”. This is often the product of the resolution of observations and the theories and hypotheses that attempt to explain them. I offer two examples.
The standard model of DNA asserts that each active gene produces one and only one protein. However, there are more than 50,000 human proteins that can’t be accounted for in this model. What Watson and Crick once made seem so simple has proven to be staggeringly complex. Things look simple from afar but are often inconveniently complex when more closely examined.
Earth system observations have become increasingly refined and the closer we look at key elements of global circulation models the more complex they become. A good example is the Atlantic Ocean meridional overturning. The less we knew about it the simpler it seemed. Instead, recent research strongly suggests that its behavior is consistent with the spatio-temporal chaotic model championed by Tomas Milanovic above.
For a summary of recent research in this aspect of oceanography I suggest: http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/ocean-conveyor-belt-confounds-climate-science
Pooh, Dixie | February 11, 2011 at 12:23 am |
Under a general principle to observe first, I found Tisdale’s animations useful in seeing what is going on, together with interesting interpretations and consequences. Tisdale has opinions on decadal variations. But first, NASA’s take on El Niño:
NASA. 1998. SVS Animation 287 – Visualizing El Niño. Scientific. Scientific Visualization Studio. April 1. http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a000200/a000287/index.html
Video #1 The 2.5 minute, narrated El Nino video
Graphic (JPEG) #2 Sea surface height and temperature anomalies in the Pacific Ocean in August 1997 as measured by NOAA-14/AVHRR and TOPEX/Poseidon
Some selected Tisdale animations and blink comparators follow: I gather from the animations (and NOAA) that there is a mechanism at work to propagate ENSO across continents and into adjacent ocean basins. Tisdale 2010a touches on clouds.
(I assume that Tisdale has used the right data and the right graphing techniques; he has been faithful in responding to criticism with corrections or explanations.) Enjoy!
Tisdale, Bob. 2008. Recharging The Pacific Warm Pool. Scientific Blog. Climate Observations. November 30. http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/11/recharging-pacific-warm-pool.html.
Introduction: In prior posts, I’ve noted that the heat upwelled during El Nino events isn’t all released into the atmosphere, that much of it is returned to the West Pacific and the Pacific Warm Pool where it awaits the next El Nino event. This video of the 1997/98 El Nino and the years that followed should help illustrate the process. I’ve interrupted the flow of the SSH video from JPL to narrate as needed. I also took the opportunity to illustrate and reinforce the lingering effects of the 1997/98 El Nino.
———. 2009a. Reproducing Global Temperature Anomalies With Natural Forcings. Scientific. Climate Observations. January 25. http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/reproducing-global-temperature.html
It Only Takes NINO3.4 SST Anomaly, Sunspot Number, and Volcanic Aerosols Data and A Different Mindset (Blink Comparators)
Initial Comments: In this post, only natural forcings are used to simulate the Global Temperature Anomaly curve. The correlation is closer than any other attempt of this kind that I’ve seen to date, with or without anthropogenic forcings and with or without General Circulation Models (GCMs). Consider two things: First, most GCMs that government entities employ to make projections about future global climate do NOT model El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, even though ENSO is a dominant natural climate phenomenon. Second, those few GCMs that attempt to model ENSO events do NOT model their processes or the climate responses before, during, or after the events with any accuracy, though they are improving.
———. 2009b. Cross-Sectional Views of Three Significant El Nino Events – Part 1. Scientific Blog. Climate Observations. February 13. http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/02/cross-sectional-views-of-three.html.
The video that follows is intended to help the reader visualize of the subsurface processes that take place during El Nino events, and what better El Nino events to examine than the three significant El Ninos of 1982/83, 1986/87/88, and 1997/98….The first video in the series is the introduction and the presentation of the 1997/98 El Nino. A second video dealing with the 1982/83 and 1986/87/88 El Nino events will follow. The video is over 6 minutes long, but it goes quickly.
YouTube – Cross-Sectional Views of Three Significant El Nino Events Part 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_tAz2IATT8&feature=player_embedded#!
YouTube – Cross-Sectional Views of Three Significant El Nino Events Part 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWKFPHJvuF8&feature=related.
———. 2009d. Contiguous U.S. GISTEMP Linear Trends: Before and After. Scientific. Climate Observations. June 28. http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/06/contiguous-us-gistemp-linear-trends.html
Blink Comparators of prior and current GISTEMP data
———. 2009e. Regression Analyses Do Not Capture The Multiyear Aftereffects Of Significant El Nino Events. Scientific Blog. Climate Observations. July 27. http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/07/regression-analyses-do-not-capture.html
Regression Analyses Treat Enso As A “Forcing”, Not As A Process With Multiyear Aftereffects
Regression analyses regard El Nino events as a climate forcing of varying frequency and magnitude, the same way they consider other natural forcings such as volcanic aerosols and solar irradiance. They do not consider the multiyear processes that can occur after those El Nino events. Before presenting these, I’ll first provide a detailed description of the processes that take place before, during, and after significant El Nino events.
Regression analyses do not account for the multiyear aftereffects of significant El Nino events and do not account for the resulting El Nino-induced step changes in SST, TLT, and Land Surface Temperatures.
Regression analyses falsely attribute the divergence of global temperature anomalies from NINO3.4 SST anomalies to anthropogenic causes when, in fact, the divergence is caused by the lingering aftereffects of significant El Nino events.
The additional rise in global temperatures after the significant El Nino events is in reality caused by subsurface waters from the Pacific Warm Pool being transported to the surface and remaining there after the El Nino event has ended.
———. 2010a. La Niña Is Not The Opposite Of El Niño – The Videos. Scientific Blog. Climate Observations. June 10. http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/06/la-nina-is-not-opposite-of-el-nino.html
Weather noise and seasonal variability have stifled my previous attempts to animate noisy datasets like TLT anomalies. That noise made it difficult, at best, to determine what is taking place. A short example of a .gif animation of monthly TLT anomaly maps is shown in Figure 1.
Recently, I began animating maps that represent 12-month averages of “noisy” datasets with good results. The weather noise and seasonal variations are gone, for the most part. The 12-month-averaged TLT anomaly maps present a much “smoother” animation, as shown in the .gif sample, Figure 2.
The following 2-part video series provides detailed descriptions, time-series graphs, and animations of the processes that take place during El Niño and La Niña events. It uses TLT, SST, Total Cloud Amount, Sea Level, and Downward Shortwave Radiation anomalies to help illustrate the significant differences between the 1997/98 El Niño and the 1998/99/00/01 La Niña.
———. 2010b. An Introduction To ENSO, AMO, and PDO — Part 1. Scientific Blog. Climate Observations. August 8. http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/08/introduction-to-enso-amo-and-pdo-part-1.html (Diagrams but no animations.)
… keep in mind that it is not the fact that the NINO3.4 SST anomalies are above a certain threshold that causes the changes in global weather and temperature during an El Niño. It is the change in location of the warm water to the central and eastern tropical Pacific and the changes in the locations and strengths of all of the coupled ocean-atmosphere processes (ocean surface wind, convection, precipitation, atmospheric circulation, etc.) that cause the changes in global precipitation and temperature. That is, the changes in NINO3.4 SST anomalies are only one of the many factors that cause changes in global temperature. The changes in NINO3.4 SST anomalies simply correlate well (but not perfectly) with global temperature changes.
Note: An Introduction To ENSO, AMO, and PDO – Parts 2 & 3 have no animations, but present descriptions, diagrams and clarifications of various multidecadal oscillations.
———. 2010c. Multidecadal Changes In Sea Surface Temperature. Climate Observations. November 17. http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/11/multidecadal-changes-in-sea-surface_17.html
This post presents evidence that multidecadal variations in the strength and frequency of El Niño and La Niña events are responsible for the multidecadal changes in Global Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomalies. It compares running 31-year averages of NINO3.4 SST anomalies (a widely used proxy for the frequency and magnitude of ENSO events) to the 31-year changes in global sea surface temperature anomalies. Also presented is a video that animates the maps of the changes in Global Sea Surface Temperature anomalies over 31-year periods, (maps that are available through the GISS Map-Making web page). That is, the animation begins with the map of the changes in annual SST anomalies from1880 to 1910, and it is followed by maps of the changes from 1881 to 1911, from 1882 to 1912, etc., through 1979 to 2009. The animation of the maps shows two multidecadal periods, both containing what appears to be a persistent El Niño event, one in the early 1900s and one in the late 1900s to present, and between those two epochs, there appears to be a persistent La Niña event.
———. 2009. Global SST Anomaly Animation 1996 to 2009. July 13. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ir1w3OrR4U&feature=youtube_gdata_player
This video illustrates [OI.v2] Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Anomaly data for the Global Oceans from January 1996 through July 1, 2009.The contour level of the maps were set at 0.2 deg C to bring out the lower-intensity SST anomalies.
(This page will also give you access to all of Tisdale’s YouTube animations.)
Barry Moore | February 11, 2011 at 1:31 am |
I noted the term “acidic” refering to the pacific ocean, since the IPCC 4AR lists the ocean pH as ranging from 7.9 to 8.2 around the world I am somewhat confused as to how this can be termed “acidic” frankly this gross error turned me off and I did not read the rest of the post since all credibility was lost in the preamble. The terms “increased acidification” when referring to the oceans is a very popular alarmist propaganda ploy, frankly it demonstrates at the very least a total ignorance of the english language and what is probably more correct, normal IPCC alarmist distortion.
Frankly – the pH scale is a continuum from more acidic to less.
These areas of upwelling in the eastern Pacific are the most acidic seawater on the planet during upwelling phases. Frankly it is more acidic than the water it is rising through.
Frankly the article shows – using hard data – that the planet warmed because of clouds. Duh.
Perhaps I should have said relatively acidic – but I really only added it at all because the only actual papers I could find on changes in pH over time were done in these areas of upwelling in the eastern Pacific. Bad faith in ocean acidification science? I have read that there is so much money going into this area that ‘guidleines’ were developed to inform the large number of total novices coming into the field.
But to quibble over as single word based on an arbitrary distinction between acid and alkaline – and to be rude about it – is no way to approach truth through dialectic.
‘The concentration of hydrogen ions is commonly expressed in terms of the pH scale. Low pH corresponds to high hydrogen ion concentration and vice versa. A substance that when added to water increases the concentration of hydrogen ions(lowers the pH) is called an acid. A substance that reduces the concentration of hydrogen ions(raises the pH) is called a base. Finally some substances enable solutions to resist pH changes when an acid or base is added. Such substances are called buffers. Buffers are very important in helping organisms maintain a relatively constant pH.’ http://staff.jccc.net/pdecell/chemistry/phscale.html
This has been a really interesting post with some good comments. Thanks very much.
manacker | February 11, 2011 at 1:16 pm |
I’ll second Rob’s statement. Thank you.
WUWT has tried to get a Dessler / Spencer “debate” going on the impact of clouds, but the two apparently “talked past each other”.
Any chance of this sort of thing happening here (on a more “neutral” venue)?
Yes this would be interesting. I will think about how to approach this.
Judith,
my question is simple. dessler’s paper has a correlation coefficient of 0.02 = r^2. I thought r^2 that was anything under 0.3 was considered random chance. What am I missing here?
AGW Observer has a post summarizing recent papers on the PDO
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/papers-on-pacific-decadal-oscillation/
not sure if this has been mentioned here, but Roy Spencer has a recent post:
Radiative changes over the global oceans during warm and cold events
p://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/02/radiative-changes-over-the-global-oceans-during-warm-and-cool-events/
Pooh, Dixie | February 12, 2011 at 1:32 am |
Thanks to Dr. Curry for referencing
Anon.2011. Papers on Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Scientific. AGW Observer. February 10. http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/papers-on-pacific-decadal-oscillation/
I’m looking forward to reading the list, and any for which I can find the full text.
I neglected to add this reference to the Tisdale references (since it was not by Tisdale).
Bunny, D. 2009. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Research. Western Washington University, December 26. http://myweb.wwu.edu/dbunny/research/global/pdo/pacific-decadal-oscillation.pdf
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) refers to cyclical variations in sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. A detailed summary of the PDO is given in D’Aleo (this volume) and additional data may be found in Minobe (1997, 1999; Trenberth and Hurrell, 1994; Tsonis et al, 2007;), . It was discovered in the mid 1990s by fisheries scientists studying the relationship between Alaska salmon runs, Pacific Ocean temperatures, and climate and named by Hare in 1996. Zhang et al. (1996), and Mantua et al. (1997) found that cyclical variations in salmon and other fisheries correlated with warm/cool changes in Pacific Ocean temperatures that followed a regular pattern. Each warm PDO phase lasted about 25 to 30 years then switched to the cool phase and vice versa. The PDO differs from El Nino/La Nina warm/cool oscillations, which persist for only 6-18 months in an east-west belt near the Equator.
juakola | February 12, 2011 at 3:52 am |
Dear Robert,
How would you explain the cloud changes associated with the Madden-Julian Oscillation a.k.a “day in the tropics”, as shown in Spencer et al (2007 GRL)?
For any who are persisting and don’t know what the Madden-Julia Oscillation is – it is an odd little pulse of cloud moving west to east across the Indian and Pacific Oceans with a 20 to 60 day period. OLR anomalies are shown in the top box of the animation here.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/clim/olr_modes/mapanim2.html
I have an affectionate regard for the quirky little MHO because I can’t explain it – and I suspect that others can’t either what any confidence. There are a couple of links below but neither are worth clicking on. It has some affect on northern Australian rainfall – a little pleasant relief in the dry season and lost in the monsoon.
If you note in the above animation there are 2 areas of OLR anomaly – positive and negative. Spencer may be clutching at straws.
I feel like I have been reacquainted with an old, endearing but inexplicable friend. Thanks.
http://www.clivar.org/organization/aamp/presentations/AAMP10_joint/7_Pray.pdf
http://www.arm.gov/publications/proceedings/conf08/extended_abs/barr2_sa.pdf
Thank you for your answer, Robert.
that should be MJO not MHO of course
Ari Jokimäki | February 12, 2011 at 3:38 pm |
So much talk about ISCCP and not a slightest mention of their possible problems? Tsk, tsk.
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/isccp-problems/
ari, thanks for pointing this out
Well yes – that is why I used the Wong reference. A correspondence with ERBS in SW and LW and HIRS in the infrared.
There is also the Pacific Ocean surface observations supporting decadal changes and the Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) confirmation of significant ENSO influence of radiant dynamics.
I thought I would cite the concurrences – rather than bring up one analysis on a partisan blog. If it is worthwhile to bring this up explicitly – it has now been done.
‘When the trend is corrected, interesting things might be found, as shown by Clement et al. (2009) who corrected for the problem and found that cloud feedback is positive. As a long record, ISCCP data would be suitable to that kind of studies.’ from AGW Observer I don’t know what they think that means.
“This observational analysis further indicated that clouds act as a positive feedback in this region on decadal time scales.” Clement et al 2009 ( that is cloud cover negatively correlated with SST)
And this quote was included in the post.
‘Both COADS and adjusted ISCCP data sets show a shift toward more total cloud cover in the late 1990s, and the shift is dominated by low- level cloud cover in the adjusted ISCCP data. The longer COADS total cloud time series indicates that a similar magnitude shift toward reduced cloud cover occurred in the mid-1970s, and this earlier shift was also dominated by marine stratiform clouds. . . Our observational analysis indicates that increased SST and weaker subtropical highs will act to reduce NE Pacific cloud cover.’
This qualitatively has the same trend over exactly same periods as the satellite data.
Adjusted ISCCP data is the ISCCP-FD data. It was not adjusted by Amy Clement at all.
Ari Jokimäki | February 13, 2011 at 1:51 am |
From Clement et al.:
“Before using ISCCP data, we applied some adjustments to remove spurious long-term variability caused by satellite artifacts and to account for erroneous retrievals of low-level cloud-top height (19).”
At least they claim they adjusted it.
my bad – if I jumped too quickly to a conclusion. The results of Clement however speak for themselves.
actually the low level cloud height problem is discussed in AR4.
I trust that I have dealt with your tsk tsk more than adequately. There are several problematic results in ISCCP-FD data – and these are discussed in more than sufficient detail at the NASA/GISS site – but they do not affect the trend in SW and LW up at TOA.
Then there is the accordance with ERBS and with Clements et al 2009 – the latter is something that is misinterpreted at the AGW Observer site. We will give them the benefit of the doubt that it was an honest mistake. Simple human error is always the most likely explanation.
Assessing data for source, reliability, independent confirmation and multiple modes of observation is the essence of the hydrological truth.
It is always worth repeating that, here, it is a seeking of the sacred hydrological truth through dialectic. The required attitude is: humour, honesty, good will, application, reflection and good faith. If we have come closer to the truth I thank you.
I would like to finish some with pithy and meaningful statement………..but nothing comes to mind. However, as we started with poetry why not finish that way. It comes from, would you believe, the Cloud Appreciation Society. It has 25,000 members – I must join.
GIVE ME A CLOUDY DAY
SOME PEOPLE THINK IT’S COOL SOAKING UP THE RAYS
ACTING LIKE A GATOR DOWN BY THE POOL
BUT MAMA DIDN’T RAISE NO FOOL I AIN’T SOME HUMAN BBQ
IF YOU’VE SEEN ONE BLUE SKY, YOU MUST OF SEEN THEM ALL
SAME OLD COLOR SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME
I NEED SOME THUNDER AND LIGHTNING, A HARD RAIN TO FALL
WHO NEEDS HEATSTROKE AND SUNBURN WHO REALLY NEEDS TO SWEAT
MELANOMA, WRINKLES AND OTHER BAD NEWS
I’VE GOT THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST RAINY DAY BLUES
WON’T YOU GIVE ME A CLOUDY DAY
© SKIP KANE 2010
RANDLE, WA
http://cloudappreciationsociety.org
This resolves a problem that we were having with low cloud. The adjusted ISCCP low cloud is shown in Figure 1B of the Clement et al paper. The graph of the ISCCP data is also shown below.
‘The decadal changes in NE Pacific clouds and climate are linked to well-known basinwide climate shifts.’
The thesis now fits the data much better – well at least I don’t have to reorder my world view yet.
http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/reprints/PacCloudFeedback.pdf
The LW and SW up flux at TOA isn’t affected by this problem.
Thank you all for helping me learn.
Then there is the accordance with ERBS and with Clements et al 2009 – the latter is something that is misinterpreted at the AGW Observer site.
I don’t know what you mean. I wrote there that they found a positive cloud feedback, which seems to be what they are suggesting.
Pekka Pirilä | February 13, 2011 at 6:01 am |
Ari,
Looking at the Clemens paper, the data is difficult to interpret as showing a positive feedback. Rather it appears at face value to support the idea that cloudiness drives global temperature change than vice versa. This interpretation is based on the observation that cloudiness correlates obviously well with the rate of temperature change, not with the temperature.
Drawing conclusions as I do above is simplistic as the the areal coverage is different (and for other reasons as well). Thus I do really claim only that the interpretation of the data as supporting positive feedback is far from obvious.
The conclusion that there is evidence on positive feedback is indirect. It is based on the observation that the only model, which can explain the observations has a positive feedback. This is a statement on the models not directly on observations.
Clement et al. explicitly cite both observational evidence and model evidence for positive cloud feedback:
Decadal fluctuations were identified in multiple, independent cloud data sets, and changes in cloud cover appeared to be linked to changes in both local temperature structure and large-scale circulation. This observational analysis further indicated that clouds act as a positive feedback in this region on decadal time scales.
The only model that passed this test simulated a reduction in cloud cover over much of the Pacific when greenhouse gases were increased, providing modeling evidence for a positive low-level cloud feedback.
There’s nothing wrong for me to repeat their conclusion in my article. I think they are best judges of their own data. If I would state something else about their work, such as claiming that they have found cloud forcing instead of feedback, I would be adding an interpretation to their work instead of just reporting what they said they found (which also makes sense to me).
Less cloud is associated with higher sea surface temperature – hence the potential for a positive global warming feedback. Although if you look at the Zhu Ping et al reference – there is a difference in the way clouds form in ENSO than in a global warming scenario.
It is correct to say that there is a negative correlation of cloud to SST. The increase in cloud that occurred in the late 1990’s was in response to the 1998/2001 climate shift.
‘‘Both COADS and adjusted ISCCP data sets show a shift toward more total cloud cover in the late 1990s, and the shift is dominated by low- level cloud cover…’
It is changes in SST that drive the cloud changes – and hence the energy dynamic.
There is modeling evidence and then there is the scientific method..
I should perhaps add that less cloud is a positive feedback for these multi-decadal modes of SST change in the Pacific. Higher SST => less cloud => ocean warming and vice versa. The question is – what drives these multi-decadal changes in SST that appear in tree and coral ring evidence for 400 years – or other larger changes that appear in the Tsonis (2009) 11,000 year sediment record? Here I will leave you to speculate at the edge of the known.
Being in a playful mode, during my free time I am elaborating a simple climate model.
The goal is to fool all climate scientists who rely on averages.
In the model I am simply moving clouds from day to night in tropical areas on different geometries at constant average cloudiness.
This has a huge effect that overwhelms energetically anything you can imagine.
But as it happens on a 24 h scale, this is weather, right?
Also perfectly undetectable by any climatologist for whom considering time scales less than 15 years and space scales less than half a globe is an insult to his profession.
Now the point is to find the right (non linear) way to couple atmosphere to the oceans (kind of 2 box non linear model).
If I am lucky and I am confident that I willbe , there will be chaotic solutions to my differential equations and a clear warming pseudo signal.
And after that I only need to publish it as an original model consistent with the AGW theory and having meaningful statistics.
I like much the expression “consistent with AGW and having meaningful statistics” which seems to be the magical sesame for publication.
And the best part of the fun would be that when everyone agrees, to reveal that the model has no meaningful statistics because it is chaotic and that the long term dynamics are integrally driven by cloud behaviour on supershort time scales and that CO2 is not even considered in the model :)
The difficult part will be to tune the chaotic solution so that it produces a pseudo trend when I need it.
Let me think on it – but I agree – it needs to be consistent with AGW to be published.
diogenes | February 23, 2011 at 7:30 pm |
checked your page…an impressive and reasoned argument, which I found cogent although I am no scientist, which seems surprisingly rare in this field, oddly enough. Let’s check your predictions.
RobB | March 18, 2011 at 9:08 am |
I’m not sure if you’re still monitoring this post, but if you are I would be interested in your view of The Association of Albedo and OLR Radiation with Variations of Precipitation – Implications for AGW by Gray and Schwartz
I recently re-read this thread and noticed that nobody seems to have tried to quantify the effect of the PDO/changes of albedo on the magnitude of the recent warming and hence the numerical implications for AGW theory. (Perhaps, deliberately so?)
This paper makes a stab at it from a slightly different angle. It is a little strident in tone and includes a bit of skeptical advocacy that reduced its impact and rather put me off. Nonetheless, I would be interested in your view of their analysis if you get the chance. It discusses the Hydrological cycle so it should be a matter close to your heart!
Regards, Rob
RT @hausfath: Ahh, the joy of lifecycle assessment tradeoffs. Producing a liter of each requires: Cow milk - 1.67 kg CO2e, 77 gallons wate… 10 hours ago
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Friday, 7 Dec, 2018
Mental health tribunals need more powers to care for people outside hospitals, says judge
A specialist judge involved in an independent review of mental health legislation has said tribunals need more powers to help people to be cared for outside hospitals.Anselm Eldergill, a judge in the Court of Protection, said evidence suggests that mental health tribunals have become more risk-averse and interpret rules relating…
Police office jailed over sexual relationship with vulnerable woman he met on duty
A police officer who left a colleague waiting outside as he had sex with a vulnerable woman he had met while on duty has been jailed for two years.Both on and off duty, Met Police officer Scott Johnson failed to protect someone who was vulnerable and risked public trust in…
Thursday, 6 Dec, 2018
Major investment needed to improve care for mental health patients - report
Major new investment is needed to improve some of the most "dilapidated" estates in the NHS and provide more community care for the sickest and most vulnerable mental health patients, a new report said.The independent review of the Mental Health Act 1983 published its findings on Thursday, setting out how…
Government to draw up new bill to support mental health patients in crisis
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Wednesday, 5 Dec, 2018
560 people who took their own lives died within a week of leaving A&E
One in five of the 1,540 people who attended A&E in the three months prior to taking their own lives died within two days of leaving hospital, new figures show.More than a quarter (30%) of the 5,826 people who died by suicide between 2011 and 2017 in Scotland went to…
Over 200 young Scots waiting more than year for mental health treatment, figures show
A total of 221 young Scots have been waiting more than a year for specialist help with mental health problems, new figures have shown.NHS statistics also disclosed there were 197 cases where children with such conditions were treated on adult wards in 2017-18.In 255 cases, patients were admitted to specialist…
Wednesday, 28 Nov, 2018
Inspectors report 'significant concerns' as NHS trust rated inadequate for third time
A mental health trust has been rated inadequate for a third time, with records of patients harming themselves while waiting to be seen.Health watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found "significant concerns" when it inspected Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust in September.The trust was under-staffed, some wards were found…
Muslim convert 'felt justified' in assaulting Broadmoor hospital staff, inquest told
A Muslim convert terrorist felt "justified" in assaulting hospital staff over a ban on communal prayers, an inquest jury has heard.Nicky Reilly, 30, was said to be furious after bosses at high-security Broadmoor brought in the policy following fears that Muslim patients were intimidating others by the way they were…
Tuesday, 27 Nov, 2018
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Police face 'intolerable burden' of tackling broken mental health system, Inspectorate warns
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Mental health trusts to probe 'red flag' deaths to prevent repeat of Connor Sparrowhawk failings
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Maghaberry officers 'making renewed efforts to identify most vulnerable prisoners'
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Our community’s cup runneth over with uplifting stories on this eve of a new decade.
December 30, 2019 /0 Comments/in Charity News, Columnists, Uncategorized /by LifeInNaples
Jeff Lytle
Let us try to count some of the ways that special individuals and organizations are making our world a better place, often against tall odds, at the outset of 2020.-
Empty Bowls: For the 14th year in a row, this crusade against hunger comes to Cambier Park on January 25th.
For tickets starting at $20, attendees can select and keep a ceramic bowl – handmade throughout the year by volunteers at churches, senior centers, schools, property owners associations and many other places – and stroll the grounds sampling soup donated by 50 restaurants and country clubs.
Thousands of supporters turn out every year to embrace the spirit and enjoy music from high school students, witness pottery in progress and bid on special arts and crafts in a silent auction.
The true beauty of all this is the all-volunteer culture: Proceeds go directly to food charities such as Meals of Hope and the Naples Senior Center serving food in secure neighbors of all ages and walks of life.
Thus, an event that is a year in the making and culminates in a single-day event keeps on making a difference year-round – while work on the next year’s event gets under way.
More information: Emptybowlsnaples.com.
The 250 member Literacy Volunteers of Collier County organization is going the extra mile to tutor families and build better futures.
When parents show up for English lessons at select local schools taking part in a pilot program, their toddlers are welcomed into supervised settings that teach fundamental language and math skills. No babysitters? No problem. In fact, Literacy Volunteers turns that challenge into an opportunity to prepare youngsters for success.
“Continued funding for Families Learning English is crucial to continue and expand the program,” explains Cindy Denhart, directorof family programs for the LVCC.
“The money is needed to purchase curriculum materials for the adult students; educational games, toys, and books for the children; and fiction and non-fiction books to give to the families to enhance and encourage English literacy in their homes.’
’The Community Foundation, whose priorities include early childhood education and literacy, is lending a hand with an angelfund grant.
More information: Collierliteracyvolunteers.org.
Collier County’s long standing Identity Theft Task Force is expanding its mission and name to reflect the reality of our expanding landscape of high-tech fraud.
The iFACT Task Force, for Identity Theft & Fraud Awareness, still led by Sheriff Kevin Rambosk and cyber-crimefighter Carrie Kerskie, is gearing up for a new round of public forums with updates on how to protect yourself. Stay tuned.
More information: Carrie@griffonforce.com.
A member of that task force – and many other civic efforts –from the start, Mike Reagen, continues to leverage goodwill earned from leading the chamber of commerce in Naples from 2002-2013. That was an era of economic ups and downs that was in dire need of his calming influence and voice of reason.
Now in a very active retirement mode, Reagen remains solidly engaged. He shares insights, skills and often public encouragement with organizations involved with art, health care, household injury prevention, Collier County Mosquito Control, Keiser University, Collier Citizens Council, Naples Council on World Affairs and the Naples Discussion Group at Moorings Park. He wrote and now rewrites the book on involvement, dialogue and civility.
Collier Citizens Council, with representatives of groups throughout the county, has made Nancy Lascheid the third recipient of its annual Murray Hendel Public Service Award.
She and her husband, the late Dr. Bill Lascheid, in 1999 founded the Neighborhood Health Clinic, which recruits volunteer medical professionals to treat the working poor and refer them to specialists when needed. The clinic, which started in a storefront and now is expanding its stand-alone facilities on Goodlette-Frank Road, is admired as a role model around the nation.
Lascheid’s award predecessors are Carrie Kerskie for her cybercrime-fighting and Collier County Judge Janeice Martin for her pioneering work with local drug court. Hendel championed beach renourishment and public beach access, among many other civic projects, helped found the Collier Citizens Council and worked behind the scenes to finish the Freedom Memorial.
The Legal Aid Society of Collier County is a prime example of a cause that has a full plate but keeps reaching out for more work.
The team of lawyers and other legal professionals – known for going to bat for people unable to fight landlord-tenant and other battles for themselves – now comes forward to offer pro bono help on wills and estate planning for veterans and first responders.
Though Legal Aid held a one day help-fest in November, services are available year-round.
“We had a Collier County Sheriff’s Office deputy, a singlemother, who sadly was diagnosed with cancer and we found an attorney very quickly to put that estate plan together pro bono,’’ says Jeff Ahern, development director.
“In addition, we offer holistic services at Legal Aid for those who qualify for other issues – including housing, family law, tax issues, public benefits to address medical care and to meet basic needs, etc.”
More information: Legalaid.org/collier.
Lytle is the retired editorial page editor and TV host at theNaples Daily News. Jeff can be reached by email at Jlytle@comcast.net
https://lifeinnaples.net/magazinewp/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/lytle-art.jpg 240 453 LifeInNaples https://lifeinnaples.net/magazinewp/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/LIN-LOGO-2019340by78.jpg LifeInNaples2019-12-30 14:10:582020-01-01 10:35:46Our community’s cup runneth over with uplifting stories on this eve of a new decade.
Changing Lives One Face at a Time Art After Dark – January 2020
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[ILLAWREN] [Fwd: 101th birthday Celabration]
by Roland Bauer
This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------24AD778746FD7ED2BFE0DC8D Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greetings; I thought this might be of interest to you because of Sumner and the Lawrence County connection. Roland Bauer Collinsville, IL --------------24AD778746FD7ED2BFE0DC8D Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Received: from ezl.com (seg1b-203-209.ezl.com [208.33.203.209]) by ns.ezl.com (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id QAA05844; Sun, 23 Jun 2002 16:49:08 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <3D1643C3.D8DF3E76(a)ezl.com> Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2002 16:55:15 -0500 From: Roland Bauer <rb2(a)ezl.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: LJMB <LJMB(a)ezl.com>, "B - Bauer, Roland" <rb2(a)ezl.com> Subject: 101th birthday Celabration Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 MATRIARCH TO HAVE 101st BIRTHDAY !! Pauline McCaully Morris of Collinsville will celebrate her 101th birthday on August the first. Born in Flora to W. C "Cal" McCaully and Lou Archibald McCaully of Cisne. She attended Mc Kendree College and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Pauline taught school in Marion County and was married to Lossie E Morris of Xenia in 1924. McCaully owned The Two Mac's Bakery on North Street in Flora, was a former Mayor and President of the school board when the old high school was built. The original corner stone is carelessly deposited behind the new High School. Efforts of the family to preserve the corner stone have been rebuffed. McCaully was descended from the Pargins, Pettys and McCaullys who came to Lawrence County and had Land Grants before Illinois statehood. The Archibalds were from Ohio County, Kentucky and came to Wayne County, Illinois where they received Land Grants in 1846. Her father, Green Archibald, owned The Archibald Store by the depot in Cisne. Lossie Morris and his brother, Delyte, were from Xenia. For many years Lossie was a prominent civic leader in Collinsville before his death in 1984. He was President of the Savings and Loan and the Chamber of Commerce. He was active in the Methodist Church, politics and the Lions Internatioal as well as a land developer and insurance broker. Delyte Morris is known for his presidency of Southern Illinois University. Pauline, known as Two Mom, is in good health and has 5 children, 4 of whom live in the area. She maintains her own home on the bluffs in Collinsville and is the matriarch of a large, still growing, family. --------------24AD778746FD7ED2BFE0DC8D--
[ILLAWREN] Virus
by Jerry Edwards
Howdy, I got an e-mail today from generean, subject: Genealogy Records, go to. It had a virus that Norton could not repair, It caught it but couldn't repair it. Jerry Edwards Looking for Edwards/Chamberlain/Mote/Patty/Hiatt/Hiett
Welcome to the ILLAWREN mailing list!! PLEASE SAVE THIS INFORMATION so you have it for future reference. PLEASE BE CONSIDERATE of your fellow list members. Some folks are beginners at computers and some to genealogy. The world is a better place when we are all patient with each other. Personal attacks, criticism, or flaming are never permitted. HOW DO YOU POST? Send an email to illawren@rootsweb.com WHAT SHOULD YOU POST? 1. Questions about your ancestors. Give as much detail as you can. 2. Interesting history that is relevant to the list. 3. Genealogy and family history conferences, even if they charge for admission. 4. Genealogy societies should feel free to post about their society and their websites. 5. Book reviews of genealogy books are reasonable to post. A list of books is not, but sharing a good genealogy book you've found is a good idea. 6. Links to personal blogs that are about genealogy. They can be your blog or another. Even if the blog has ads, that is not a problem. 7. New collections on various genealogy sites that are relevant. We don't want advertisements, but if you find an interesting collection on Ancestry, FamilySearch, Library of Congress, or some other site that has relevance to the list, let people know. WHAT SHOULD BE IN YOUR POST? 1. An informative but concise subject line. 2. When replying to a previous message, be sure to check that the intended recipient's address is showing in the Send To box of your email BEFORE clicking on SEND. 3. Proofread and be sure you want your post public. All posts go in the archives! WANT TO UNSUBSCRIBE? Send an email to illawren-leave@rootsweb.com and put unsubscribe in the subject and body and nothing else.
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Why is Walmart buying up brands?
Bonobos, by Walmart.
Image: lisa lake/Getty Images for Bonobos
By Emma Hinchliffe 2017-04-15 21:36:27 UTC
Walmart is buying up a lot of brands that don't really feel like Walmart.
The big box store is reportedly about to close a deal to buy Bonobos, the men's e-commerce brand. Recode reported news of the impending acquisition on Friday. Exactly how much Bonobos will go for hasn't been confirmed yet.
The deal would come one month after Walmart bought ModCloth, the quirky women's online retailer. That acquisition came with a host of controversy, since ModCloth was once seen in stark opposition to Walmart — as a small, size-inclusive brand that supported independent designers. Walmart didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Mashable.
SEE ALSO: Alibaba is making moves in the world's fastest-growing e-commerce market
Bonobos was founded in 2007, as a place to buy dress pants for athletic men. Now, the brand sells many other kinds of men's clothing, and was valued at $300 million in 2014.
The acquisition spree is the work of Marc Lore, the president and CEO of Walmart's U.S. e-commerce division. Lore founded Jet.com, which was basically the only real U.S. competitor to Amazon. Walmart bought Jet.com and poached Lore in August.
Lore has been building up Walmart's e-commerce operation to turn the retailer into a major player against Amazon. Walmart introduced free shipping comparable to what Amazon offers customers who aren't Prime members and just last week added discounts for in-store pickup of online orders — something Amazon doesn't really have the physical presence to do.
SEE ALSO: YouTube is bleeding major advertisers because of its hateful videos
Along with making plays against Amazon, Walmart will now own specialized brands whose customers probably don't shop too often at regular Walmart.
So if you want to buy something from ModCloth or Bonobos, get ready to support Walmart. Or try Amazon.
WATCH: This insane Lexus covered in 41,999 LED bulbs is basically a drivable billboard
Topics: bonobos, Business, modcloth, Wal-Mart
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Petrobras loses $2 billion tax dispute
By admin1 on January 22, 2020 • ( 0 )
In a statement, Brazil’s state-run oil firm Petrobras said, it has lost an appeal over $2.14 billion (9 billion reais). The case relates to a tax dispute which dates back to 2011 and 2012. Petrobras said, it will stick to… Read More ›
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During a press conference held by business lobby group BusinessEurope, EU trade chief Phil Hogan made it amply clear that the European Union wants China to protect foreign investment and increase access to its investment market in 2020. The EU… Read More ›
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Opinion: Amazon Prime is the future of football
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Record Reappraisal: Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division
Preview: Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick DeWitt
Photo: Hana Abbott
Written on 19th November 2015 . Posted in Books
Patrick DeWitt’s Undermajordomo Minor opens with a scene that will be familiar to a lot of first year university students; the narrator Lucy (male, short for Lucian) is leaving home for a new life, where he will try new things, escape any past mistakes, and leave the people of his hometown marvelling in his wake. While he fails at the latter, his determination is admirable.
Our sheltered hero has a very simple view on life. When somebody steals his pipe, he simply goes and asks for it back; when a rival suitor appears on the scene he decides the only sensible course of action is to kill him. In other hands this could come across as a lack of depth, and elsewhere DeWitt has been criticised for making his characters too literal, but Lucy’s honesty and naivety throughout the book (including during some rather gruesome and risqué scenes) make him extremely sympathetic, and his black-and-white outlook makes for a refreshing read.
A straightforward narrative style ensures the various storylines are not laborious, and the simplicity means you are constantly focused. This is what is most enjoyable about the novel—by mixing murder, sex and loss with a familiar premise, DeWitt has produced a novel that is genuinely fun to read, without losing its emotional core. For the most part, the simplicity drives the comedy.
For example, there is a very large hole, which is plainly called “the Very Large Hole” and Lucy’s conversations with his superior Mr Olderglough are deadpan even when they are discussing murder. The whole narrative is conducted extremely eloquently—everyone in the story is very polite. Even the young vagabond, Mewe, is articulate to the extreme. The stony humour is reminiscent of Lemony Snicket, with slightly more adult themes.
The unfiltered candour reveals many an awkward situation, bordering on the ridiculous. But this still feels logical in the story, because Lucy works for a secretive Baron; so what else would you expect? The castle and its secrets are, as Lucy says himself, “quite beyond his experience,” and as a reader you relish his nervous determination. At the start of the book Lucy is childlike, delighting in extravagant lies and stories.
The war that is going on around the castle where most of the story takes place is never explained. The soldiers assume Lucy will not be able to understand it. When he witnesses a rather scandalous rendezvous between the Baron and his guests, he is not offended, but rather confused by what the point of it all was. He is not a classic gothic hero, despite the setting, and his general misjudgement of the people around him leads to more comic situations, where he valiantly tries to impress everyone.
Of course, there is a girl, and the hero must find a way to get said girl. Your sympathy for Lucy increases as you watch him struggle with his emotions. Some might find his teenage self-pity trying, but we’ve all been there before, and the speed of the narrative keeps the plot moving along. There are poignant moments both for Lucy and his companions, heartbreak and death, and despite this being primarily a funny book, these moments are still genuinely touching.
Lucy meets a stereotyped but vibrant cast of characters; the ageing butler, the mysterious Baroness, and the valiant soldier are just a few. The characters of Memel and Mewe, despite being criminals, are very kind to Lucy, and offer him help and guidance. The same goes for Mr Olderglough, the Baron, and Agnes the cook. What is interesting about them is the lack of information that is given to us about their pasts, and the secrets that they keep from Lucy.
Their stories intertwine with his own, revealing themselves slowly, with small but satisfying twists lifting the plot throughout the novel. The other characters’ anecdotes, stories within stories, embellish Lucy’s world. There are also funny little references back to previous situations in the book, complementing the fairy tale theme with a cyclical history. However our hero doesn’t really learn from his mistakes.
There are some loose ends left at the completion of the story, events never explained, mysteries never solved, and this is disappointing. This is where the novel is less satisfying, as there is no clear cut “happy ending” or closure. However, the characters and the setting are classic and the boldness of the story means you easily engage with Lucy’s adventure. The storyline has enough deviations from a typical model to be interesting without being too complicated. DeWitt finds a balance between dark humour and slapstick comedy, romance and sorrow, and life and death.
Hope Abbott
Tags: book preview, fiction, Granta books, Lemony Snicket, Patrick DeWitt, YA fiction
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Tag Archive | videogames
Viva Thailand 2: Bangkok – Forever Festive
(Display at a shop near Piazza del Duomo, Firenze)
Cute bunnies and chocolate eggs announce Easter time – the most holy festival in the Christian year. Three weeks prior to Easter, we were toying with the idea of a charming and fulfilling Holy Week in Rome followed by a few days in Lugano, Switzerland’s third most important financial centre with parks, villas and sacred buildings. At that juncture, a pleasing stimulus was our reminiscence of the chance we had last year to witness the Scoppio del Carro (ref my post of October 25, 2012: Viva Italia 3: Scoppio del Carro, Florence) at the Piazza del Duomo of Firenze.
Someone once wrote: Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans. What could have been a swell time in Rome attending the solemn Easter ceremonies at St. Peter’s Basilica led by Papa Francesco might have turned into a parade in winter clothes owing to the chilly temperatures and scattered showers in Italy.
Having given up our earlier flirtation with the idea of Italy, we had shifted the venue to the bright tropical sunshine of Bangkok. Incidentally, just prior to our departure before Palm Sunday, Andrea ate something funny that didn’t agree with her stomach which culminated in cancellation of our trip though, thankfully, she has since got better.
Here in Cochin, the schools and colleges had closed just in time for “Holi” – the festival of colour and joy (formerly Holika). Holi denotes triumph of truth over evil and proclaims the message of universal brotherhood, although originally it was celebrated for good harvest and fertility of the land.
Rooted in Hindu mythology, the legend of Radha-Krishna has it that the dark-skinned Krishna having been jealous of the fair-skinned Radha, pestered his mother Yashoda about the inferiority of his skin tone. Fed up, she advised him to douse Radha’s fair skin in colours so that she will also sport dark hue like him. Yet another legend, one of the several legends and stories behind Holi, remembers it for the sacrifice of Holika who burned herself in fire on that day.
To commemorate this, each spring the Holi celebrators (preferably dressed in white kurtas or saris or shalwar kameez for maximum effect) enjoyed high moments by spraying gulal (colour) powder and vibrant coloured water of red, pink, yellow, magenta, green, etc at each other in festive merrymaking. The vibrant hues epitomize life, energy, joy and the beginning of spring. One of my friends in Delhi, a lovely warm person, once summarized the colours concisely: Green being healthy, blue lucky, red meaning wealth and pink pleasant anticipation. Caught up in commercial exploitation, Gulal powders are now available with glittering effect, perfumed, skin/echo friendly, non-toxic, easy to remove, even organic or herbal (made from natural Maize starch).
At the wake of Holi came Easter. Being in Cochin for Easter offered us a rather happening atmosphere amongst the close ones and the inviting ambiance of our home. The mailing-list was fished out and the traditional greeting cards were all sent. The local market readily smartened up offering exciting wares, fare and fun – especially the newly opened Lulu Shopping Mall, the largest in India.
(A window display in Aachen, Germany)
The Easter hampers in wicker baskets on display were fun – the latest craze was the Chocolate hampers of tasty treats such as edible decoupage eggs, handmade biscuits, sweeties, bunnies, Chocolate-topped hot cross buns, etc – all the Easter goodies were in there – excluding the bottle of Champagne!
(A display in Central World Plaza, Bangkok)
Tradition is a guide that draws attention to our roots that stretch to our spiritual and blood ancestors. Numerous books and periodicals have traced the roots and facts about Easter traditions of the world. The custom of exchanging eggs goes back to the Egyptian and the Roman times when eggs were exchanged at spring festivals as a token of renewed life. Christianity adopted the eggs as an emblem of the Resurrection of Christ.
(A window display in Firenze, Italy)
The Cocoa Easter bunnies came to be identified as the essence of life and the resurrection of Jesus Christ – an integral part of Easter tradition ever since they originated in Germany, the country of birth of Carina!
The hot cross buns possibly developed from small wheat cakes eaten at the spring festivals in honour of Astárte, the Phoenician goddess of fertility, sexuality and war, though the cross on it is of Christian origin.
(Statues adoring the Battistero di San Giovanni, Firenze, Italy)
It all dated to a past I could know of only by reading about it initially in the Reader’s Digest and The Illustrated Weekly of India (now defunct) while I was a Seventies teenager.
The choice of Bangkok to spend Easter time there was quite natural. For us, Bangkok is not just a place for city sights or major landmarks or friends; it is also special due to one of our favourite churches, The Assumption Cathedral which has interwoven itself into our lives over the years ever since we first went there back in 2002.
Situated at Oriental Avenue in the Bang Rak district within 100 meters from the famous Mandarin Oriental Bangkok Hotel, this principal Roman Catholic church of Thailand has its origins in Father Pasquale Gallo, a French missionary who sought permission to build it in 1809 as per design of an architect from his country. It was completed with imported materials from France and Italy in 1821 during the reign of King Rama II (1809-1824), the second monarch of the House of Chakri.
Named Assumption Cathedral to honour the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heavenly glory, the church was rebuilt in the Romanesque style as a tall and rectangular structure with red brick exterior between 1909 and 1918.
However, it underwent extensive restoration following serious damage in 1942 during World War II bombings. The layout of the building is in the form of a cross though the two hands of the cross used as sanctuaries are not wide and their lengths shorter in proportion to the length of the building. Although the exterior of the building looks very simple, the interior has a very luxurious and dignified appearance.
The church is undergoing extensive renovations until December 2014, but even so, worship service is held there on special occasions. I can still feel the tranquility and stillness of its interior when I had sat on one of the polished wooden pews on numerous occasions and said quiet prayers or just meditated.
Those were rare moments in which we were left with our thoughts in silence. Living in cities, seldom do we come face to face with a silent moment in our daily lives. To borrow a quote from Mother Teresa “See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.” It would explain why is it that many of the renowned vacation resorts are situated on secluded coasts, isolated mountains, sweeping oceans or on tranquil lakes.
Easter, Christmas or New Years are not the only attractions for us in relation to the major events and festivals of Bangkok. Following Easter, the Chakri Day is celebrated on April 6 to commemorate the founding of the present Chakri Dynasty in 1782 by King Rama I (Phra Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke).
Earlier, on February 10, the Bangkokians had joined millions across the world to celebrate the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) which is the most important event in the Chinese calendar.
In Bangkok, the whole of Yaowarat Road in the historic Chinatown is decorated with colourful flags, lanterns, strings but was closed as thousands thronged there to taste the authentic Chinese food and partake in the street fanfare.
People danced as the grandiose and colourful Chinese lion and dragon processions coursed through to the sound of drums and explosions of firecrackers.
I have seen rows and rows of gastronomic display of shark’s fin soup, duck and pork noodle soup, steamed Chinese buns, dim sum, Chinese silky rice noodles, suckling pig, Peking duck, and fresh seafood at hotspot eateries just waiting to be plated into hot clay pots – although none of which I tasted since I had to meet someone later at the Jameson’s Irish Pub at Silom Road (Bang Rak).
That evening at the Jameson’s, I was served a readily dressed Crab Salad in Vinaigrette. It’s a delicious salad with ingredients such as Cornichons (continental gherkins), capers, fresh coriander leaves, grated zest, fresh lime juice, shallot, white wine, olive oil, Tabasco sauce, milled black pepper, few crisp salad leaves to garnish and served with buttered brown bread.
In other parts of Bangkok, restaurants (especially Chinese Thai owned) and shopping malls lured customers with promotions ranging from discounts to special offers to free feng-shui advice. To set the tone for the launch of the New Year, families of Chinese Thais sat together at their home to enjoy sumptuous Chinese banquets and to indulge in conversations that is fairly predictable.
Following the banquet, the children were gifted with red envelopes (ang-pao) stuffed with pocket money as New Year gift. (Thais generally give money in envelopes as gifts rather than a present for weddings, a custom still practiced by many in my part of the world.)
(Songkran celebration at Chiang Mai)
Shortly after Easter, the Thais welcome their traditional New Year called “Songkran” (April 12-16, 2013). But unlike the Chinese New Year Festival, Songkran is celebrated throughout the country, especially in Bangkok, Pattaya, Chiang Mai, with rituals (like sprinkling water on sacred Buddha statues, making food offerings at temples, etc), parades, beauty pageants, oyster shelling competitions and merriment.
In the scalding hot weather of April, the festival has an added fun for the fun-loving Thais since an integral part is friendly water splashing/hurling at each other, which includes locals and tourists, as a ‘gesture to give and request a blessing”. It also symbolizes the washing off all misfortunes of the past year and welcoming the New Year.
Water has a special meaning in Asia. It represents life, prosperity and, of course, a new beginning.
However, to restrict drenching battles carried out by people on the back of trucks and to reduce possible fatalities, this year the authorities have banned all vehicles from carrying water on trucks for the duration of the Songkran festival.
On a few occasions we were also not spared by the frolicking Thais from being miserably drenched by splashing perfumed water for coming within the hurling range.
One takes it all in the stride since the majority of the Thais are friendly and often smile back at you pleasantly in return to your smile. This is a phenomenon you can notice amongst the Thais themselves who display a really warm community spirit by getting along a whole lot better with each other than people from other countries do.
Being the most popular holiday, city life in Bangkok comes to a standstill during Songkran as masses of Thais travel back to their provinces for family reunions since the majority of Bangkokians hail from the countryside.
It’s a time for them to revisit their home-grounds where they have grown up playing in paddy fields with water buffaloes.
After the festival, they will be back in Bangkok like books finding its right place back on the shelf, carrying country grown fruits and vegetables, fermented fish, etc, their relatives had packed for them.
On May 5, once again the nation joins the Royal Family to celebrate the Coronation Day to mark the day when Prince Bhumibol Adulyadej is crowned King (Rama IX), the ninth king of the Chakri Dynasty in 1950.
We have not been in Bangkok on this day nor during the ancient Brahmanic ritual called The Ploughing Ceremony held in May at Sanam Luang, the big park next to the Palace.
This ceremony was re-introduced in 1960 by H.M. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the longest reigning king in Thai history, to commemorate the beginning of the rice-growing season and to bless the farmers with bumper harvests during the year. I remember, we too once had such an event in Kerala, and practises such as sowing the seeds from north to south across the land to obtain best crops.
Bangkok is a rapidly modernizing city. But best of all, the Thais are conscientious enough to do not severe the threads of their past. On the full moon day of May, the Visakha Puja (May 24) is held. It is one of the most important holy days for the Theravada Buddhists. This day commemorates the birth, Enlightenment and death of Buddha.
When Bangkok experiences rain during June to October, except for the unrelenting tropical heat which is breezed with occasional coolness, the energy and vibrancy and the intense traffic jams still prevail.
Its Golden temples, serpentine canals, cacophony of street vendors and markets, Chinatown, are all still active and busy.
People still strolled in Lumpini Park, made their wishes at Erawan Shrine, visited the Thewet Flower Market (Talaat Taywait), cruised downriver on rented motor launches (rua mai) or toured the Jim Thompson House or their showrooms.
If you happen to be in Bangkok by mid-September, you could watch the International Swan Boat Races which take place under the Rama IX Bridge on the Chao Phraya River (River of Kings) which divides Bangkok into twin cities – Bangkok and Thonburi, but governed by the same municipality.
The nightlife, lively as ever, would still be glaring, mainly in the stretch of nightclubs on Silom, Phat Phong, Sukhumvit, and Ratchadapisek (Royal City Avenue or RCA) Roads. Here is where the sanuk (fun and enjoyment) is – the fun-drenched possibilities, the world of delight hanging there like ripe golden fruit for whoever could leap high enough to take it.
Though we were not on time to attend the 85th birthday celebrations of His Majesty the King on December 5 of last year, at one time our visit coincided with that event when huge crowds gathered on the evenings of 4th and 5th to celebrate the event at different locations in Bangkok. The city sported beautiful decorations and the excitement in the air was almost tangible. The decorative altars (Khrueang ratchasakkara) honouring the king and the queen were elegantly beautified.
Apart from the existing decorative arches spanning the wide avenues, new temporary celebratory arches were erected. Possibly replicas derived from the Chinese “pai lou” or inspired by the earlier triumphal arches of Europe, these arches are called “sum chalerm phrakiat”, and come in various sizes and shapes featuring moulded garudas, nagas, angels, elephants, etc, in variant hues dominated by gold and blue. (In earlier days we had watered down versions of such arches erected across less wider roads in Cochin which has eventually evolved into plain arches that feature advertisements for events or commercials or traffic indications.)
That year also provided us with the chance to see the regal pageantry of the Trooping of the Colours held on December 3 when the King reviewed the elite Royal Guards as they marched past the members of the Royal Family.
The Thai calendar is dotted with many other interesting events and regional festivals such as the annual Thai Traditional Boat Races, Phimai Festival (performing arts, art and culture) of Nakhon Ratchasima province, Chiang Mai Flower Festival, Chiang Mai Yi Peng Festival, to name a few.
While we were in Bangkok last year, December 12 was treated by many as an auspicious day due to the three twelves’ “12-12-12” involved in it (which only happens once every hundred years). Given that Thailand loves to celebrate auspicious dates, the seasonal mood was one of high romance. I read somewhere that Bangkok’s Bang Rak district (literally the “village of love” which is always a hotspot for marriage registration), and districts in Chiang Mai, etc were much sought after by loving couples to register for their marriage on that auspicious day.
Reports have indicated that, in spite of the economic difficulties of Europe and the United States, the tourism performance of Thailand for 2012 turned out quite impressive. Likewise, with their projections for 2013’s tourism prospects pointing in the same direction, many events to promote tourism have been scheduled – one of which is the Bangkok Bike 2013 during May 2-5 this year co-organized by the Tourism Authority of Thailand to promote the use of bicycles for both recreational and regular use and to popularise the existing cycling tours for local and foreign visitors.
The country’s accommodations industry has shown improvement as hotels in major tourism destinations registered bookings of 85-90 per cent in 2012 compared to the 70-75 per cent of 2011 even though many hotels have raised their room rates by 5 to 10 per cent to cover higher operating costs.
One aspect in favour of the flourish in tourism is the strong Asian economy, which is encouraging people to travel. Keeping an eye on this development, the Thai Tourism Department has been allotted Bt.4.3 billion in 2014 which is substantially higher than 2012 and this year, to continue improving tourism sites nationwide to attract more foreign visitors and to encourage longer stays. In addition to the Visa on arrival facility which allows for certain number of days stay in Thailand based on different nationalities, should you require an extension, the Immigration Office in Bangkok currently provides visa extension for a further period up to seven days for deserving cases. The formalities for such services are simplified and made tourist-friendly so that the extension can be availed within an hour.
Thailand has long been ranked as one of the world’s best tourist destinations. According to media reports, the Thai Government is calling on all Thais, who are generally very tolerant of foreigners, to lend a hand to look after the tourists in their neighbourhood since on few occasions tourists are victims of scams and crimes including rape and assault. As in every touristy country, if you are aware of the ground you walk and keep an eye on your back, you can enjoy a wonderful time without coming across any sleaze.
One of the activities I indulge in any city is to visit the local antique/second hand book shops of which a few can be found in Bangkok. Even though Thailand has a rich literary tradition, and libraries containing religious books and ancient texts in palm leaves were part of many Buddhist temples, the reading habit is rather poor compared to its neighbours.
Now that Bangkok has been awarded the World Book Capital of 2013 by UN cultural organization UNESCO, Thailand is encouraging its citizens to “read for life” and acquire better understanding of the political, legal and economic functions of adult society, and the social and moral awareness to thrive in it.
It is much to their credit that, with sheer dedication and effort, Thailand has finally entered the Huffington Post’s list of top 20 destinations for New Year celebrations. The Christmas and New Year season is a good example of how the country as a whole rose up to encourage tourism. It was an all-out effort of which even the students lend a hand in support. In order to celebrate the festive season and promote tourism, the students of a school in Ayutthaya province dressed as Santa Claus and posed with elephants on Christmas Eve of every year.
(At Hotel Amari Atrium, Bangkok)
Throughout the world late December has always been a time for celebration. Last year, we were sufficiently early in Bangkok for the Christmas and the New Year season.
We could enjoy a vast array of display of beautiful Christmas trees put up in Bangkok including those forming part of decorations at Shangri-La Hotel, Gaysorn Plaza (pic above) and of course, Mandarin Oriental Bangkok (pic below).
How wonderful it is to realize that all this is part of that wonderful Victorian Christmas created by Charles Dickens and Prince Albert – “Christmas Carol” by Dickens while Prince Albert had popularised the Christmas tree.
Free from problems like the political unrest and floods of the last couple of years, the Bangkokians appeared keen to join in the celebrations with shopping and dining experiences – buying gifts for others, merit-making and parties with relatives and friends – the same thing they did during last year’s season.
(Inside Central World Plaza, Bangkok)
As usual, the stores slashed prices and put up festive promotions and discount offers of the season, trade fairs and exhibitions in the run up to Christmas, in a last ditch attempt to get people through their doors – as if reminding them to have a terrific clear-out of their wardrobes or let their love of beautiful and luxurious things grab them.
Apart from the original brands of international fashionistas, you could also find the fakes at lesser price. Only the discerning could distinguish the counterfeit brands and cheap copies that are abound in the market.
SF Cinema came up with a movie gift pack of 10 tickets for Bt1,300/- (about US$45/-) to welcome the new year.
Just as in Singapore, the year-end spending for the Thais was not confined to merely Christmas and New Year, but also intended for the Chinese New Year which falls during February.
New Year’s party is everyone’s birthday party. Thousands turned up for the “New Year countdown to 2013” at locations such as Siam Square, Asiatique the Riverfront, Khao San Road (the backpacker ghetto and unofficial gateway to Southeast Asia), Bangkok Countdown Novotel, etc, while the biggest party with dazzling fireworks and stage entertainments was again at the Rajprasong intersection, with a huge stage set up in front of the Central World Plaza that showcased the theme: “Big Hug Big Fun.”
The long stretch from Four Seasons Bangkok to Gaysorn Plaza to Central World was lit up with thousands of fairy lights. Groups of celebrators flocked to national parks to enjoy a festive tipple though they are urged not to use cooking stoves inside their tents.
The New Year’s Eve party beckoned at many star hotels – the choice belonged to us. For a change from the beaten track, there is the famous Mandarin Oriental Bangkok. An innate sense of comfort, combined with a feel for history, luxury and location epitomise that hotel.
For the affluent and society doyennes, the answer to all their pampering needs awaited in that pioneering place, the lawns of which came alive with fun and gaiety in a party called “Mama Mia” featuring sumptuous food, music, dance, entertainment and fireworks.
To some participants from Britain and Europe, the cooking fire at live gastronomic-stations at the party helped to defuse the superstitious belief that prevailed in their countries that considered it bad luck to let fire go out on New Year’s Eve.
I heard that some went to the banks of Chao Phraya River to watch the midnight fireworks go off on both sides of the river while some couples went to Rama VIII Bridge for an inspiring and illuminated New Year kiss as the clock struck midnight.
A wonderful sight also to be seen occasionally is pre-wedding pictures being taken of happy couples kissing on this breezy bridge while a fleet of every kind of boats – from klong boats to deep-sea fishing trawlers, ornamental tourist junks to long-tailed boats, or even dragon racers to the revived magnificent Royal Barges, passed under the bridge.
Love – that thing between a man and woman is beautiful – the most natural thing in the world.
As for our New Year lunch, it was served to us at The Veranda of Mandarin Oriental. I had a Seared Black eye Tuna in Almond and Pistachio Crust with South American Quinoa, diced vegetables, couscous medley, green asparagus, butter and a soy sauce emulsion for main course.
Carina went for Khaw Phad Oriental – the Oriental fried rice with Chicken, pork and prawns topped with fried eggs with assorted satays as accompaniment. The bottles of wine and strains of romantic music were another perfect accompaniment.
However, as much as Rome and Bangkok inspired us and how wonderful it was to be away, there are always those little homely pleasures that tug at your heart strings to return home, sweet home.
Someone has remarked that you should be careful what you wish for because you might end up getting it. Easter at home was our final wish for Easter.
Ours is a family home and we like it to be lived in. Spending Easter in our house in Cochin amongst close ones was ample proof that wherever you are, the greatest fun in any festivity is the presence of your loved ones and the joy that you feel when you see the glow of happiness in their eyes. Then you realize that there is a feeling of renewal in the air. It is life’s enrichments rather than the riches of life that bring us true contentment. Hold that thought. Until next time. Ciao, Jo
a) Exact dates for festivals vary from year to year since many are based on the lunar cycle.
b) The paintings of “Holi being played in the courtyard” and “Radha-Krishna” are from Wikipedia: Public domain;
c) Reproduction of pictures credited to “Thailand Authority of Tourism” appearing in this post was made possible through the permission of International Public Relations Division, TAT, Bangkok;
d) Photos of “Mama Mia!” New Year party provided by Ms. Somsri (Susie) Hansirisawasdi, Director of Public Relations, Mandarin Oriental Bangkok;
e) All Photos, except those credited on them, © Joseph Sebastine-Carina Simeon/Manningtree Archive.
This entry was posted on April 6, 2013, in Viva Thailand and tagged climate, food, gaming, nature, restaurants, videogames. 31 Comments
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Movies in MANNINGTREE ARCHIVE
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Contributor: Barry Eggers
Blog Contributor Barry Eggers
Barry is a founder of Lightspeed and focuses primarily on information technology infrastructure, with a specific interest in cloud computing, big data, storage, consumerization of IT, and networking. He has 15 years of venture capital experience, 10 years of operating experience and has been named to the Forbes Midas List of top 100 investors multiple times.
Barry works closely with Avi Networks, MapR Technologies, Nimble Storage and Pertino. His past investments include Pliant Technology (acquired by Sandisk), Calista Technologies (acquired by MSFT), Arbor Networks (acquired by DHR), Growth Networks (acquired by CSCO), Maker Communications (acquired post-IPO by CNXT), Metasolv Software (acquired post-IPO by ORCL), Sirocco Systems (acquired by SCMR), and Telogy Networks (acquired by TI).
Prior to joining Lightspeed, Barry held executive roles in business development and general management at Cisco Systems from 1991-1997. While at Cisco, Barry established many of the company’s largest distribution channels across OEMs, Service Providers, Distributors, and VARs. He also developed Cisco’s initial M&A process and directed the first wave of acquisitions and integrations for the company.
Barry holds a BA in Economics and Business from the University of California, Los Angeles and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Barry is a member of the UCLA Economics Board of Visitors.
Blog Posts by Barry Eggers
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Home > About Minyard Plumbing
Our History at Minyard Plumbing
Minyard Plumbing, Inc. was started in 1983, with the goal to serve their customers with quality work at a reasonable price. In 1983, Minyard Plumbing had one 1962 truck and one plumber, operating with a pager and an answering service. Today, Minyard Plumbing has a fleet of seven trucks, a full time office staff and is one of the most respected service companies in the tri-county area.
FRANK MINYARD, JR.
Frank Minyard, Jr. (also known as Butch) is a licensed plumber with the states of North Carolina and South Carolina. His credentials run deep.
Butch has been involved in the plumbing industry over 35 years. His father taught him nearly everything he knows about plumbing. By the age of eleven, Butch was going on jobs with his father regularly. He learned the business from the ground up and credits his father for his success as a plumber. Butch’s father was well known and highly respected by Hickory residents before his death in 1981. Butch has done well in following in his father’s footsteps.
Butch is proud of his heritage and his company. He is most proud of his family’s involvement in his business. His son, Scott, is the third generation to choose plumbing as his vocational skill. Butch’s wife, Jan, is always on call to help in the office while his daughter Amy and dauther-in-law, Mitzi, works in customer service.
JAN MINYARD
Founded company in 1983
Over 28 years experience in plumbing
Holds Master Plumbing License in North Carolina & South Carolina
SCOTT MINYARD
Joined company in 1989
Holds Master Plumbing License in North Carolina
AMY MINYARD HALLMAN
Showroom Specialist
MITZI MINYARD Assistant
Five service technicians, including Master and Journeyman plumbers, are available to meet all routine and emergency needs. Our service vehicles are fully stocked for routine needs and we have same day access through our suppliers to all types of plumbing fittings. Our office staff dispatches our technicians using two-way radios and cell phones.
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Increase the visibility of the association bonus by documenting it with the other privileges
Currently, the first time a user on the Stack Exchange network reaches 200 reputation, they get an extra 100 rep on that account and all their associated accounts.
I believe this should be documented as a privilege at 200 rep (along with the lessening of adverts) for the following reasons.
When a user gets a new privilege, they get notified about it and would most likely go and see what that privilege allows them to do.
It would explain to new and active users that the SE site they are using - whether Stack Overflow, Super User or any other site - is not the only one. And that the community is larger than that, with a link to this page perhaps: http://stackexchange.com/sites
Also it would explain that there is no need to start all over again to be able to participate in any other SE site. And that they would already have some of the basic privileges.
One technical drawback would be the difficulty of what to do on SE sites where the user hasn't yet reached 200 rep, but has already received that privilege via another SE site?
feature-request privileges linked-accounts association association-bonus
DanDan
I'm not sure I understand how you want to change the process. How would it work differently if it were a privilege than it works now? – Pekka Sep 5 '13 at 12:38
You seem to be requesting this feature to improve user awareness of the other SE sites. Do you think it would be more efficient than the list of sites already available in the page footer and in the MultiCollider SuperDropdown™? – Frédéric Hamidi Sep 5 '13 at 12:40
@FrédéricHamidi Of course, simply because not all people check a site's footer, and you can't explain what those links are in a footer. But more people check their notifications. The privilege won't have anything new that isn't already implemented. Only more awareness to it by having some content in them explaining what those sites are. – Dan Sep 5 '13 at 12:45
@notPekka I do not want to change the current process at all, just adding more info to it. – Dan Sep 5 '13 at 12:47
@Dan, so the privilege notification message would list the 106 sites along with their descriptions? It may be a little too long to be useable, let alone read in the first place. – Frédéric Hamidi Sep 5 '13 at 12:47
@FrédéricHamidi No, it would only say that there are other SE sites with a link to stackexchange.com/sites – Dan Sep 5 '13 at 12:49
How about adding that information to the reduced ads privilege page? – Oded Sep 5 '13 at 12:52
@Oded Cool, that would be a good idea. But should it stay by that name? – Dan Sep 5 '13 at 12:56
Well, most privileges give you more than what they are named after - so, in this respect it will not be different, though I see merit to your suggestion. Point being that on that page the information will certainly gain more visibility than currently. – Oded Sep 5 '13 at 12:58
+1, I love this idea. Some concept art – Dave Chen Sep 5 '13 at 13:16
"Verified" would be a bit misleading though - Twitter and others use it to point out members whose identity has been verified offline. "Established" would be more fitting – Pekka Sep 5 '13 at 13:18
@notPekka I did think of that, specially since all those related questions about "verified users" were being suggested while typing the question. I couldn't think of anything else since both Trusted User and Established User are already used. – Dan Sep 5 '13 at 13:22
I've edited the question to try to reflect this comment thread. I've removed the reference to "verified user", as that seems to have caused more confusion than enlightenment. – EnergyNumbers Sep 5 '13 at 13:23
"I believe this should be documented as a privilege at 200 rep (along with the lessening of adverts)". This part is a no-brainer. It still hasn't happened 11 months later. Please add the association bonus to /help/privileges – Qubei Aug 8 '14 at 4:17
Browse other questions tagged feature-request privileges linked-accounts association association-bonus .
Association bonus isn't mentioned in help pages where it would be expected
Show all of my question/answers to me even if they are deleted
Award account association bonus automatically upon reaching 200 rep
Send authors an inbox message if their question is put on hold
Don't throw away all votes when a user is deleted
What is the association bonus, and how does it work?
Improve “Protected Question” message with regard to rep gained through Association Bonus
Why do I need 50 reputation to comment? What can I do instead?
Prevent questions on Hot List from being upvoted by casual visitors (only rep is from association bonus)
Association bonus is still awarded if accounts are deleted
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All Posts in "Movies"
Telugu Movies Releasing September 2019
Telugu Film Cinemas does not release that much movies as compared rest of the south Indian Film Industry. There are 10 to 15 movies released in Tollywood Industry. We can not remember all the Kannada movies so to make it simple we have enlisted Tollywood movies for you. If you want to know more about the Telugu movies of September 2019 you can check below.
September 2019 Telugu Movies
Gang Leader: 13 September 2019
Originally, Gang Leader was about to release in theatres on August 30 but now the movie is postponed and all set to release on 13 September 2019. In the lead role, we have Nani, Karthikeya and other star casts of the movie also includes Saranya, Aneesh Kuruvilla, Priyadarshi, Raghubabu, Vennela Kishore and Sathya. The film’s Telugu music has been composed by Anirudh Ravichander.
Pailwaan: 12 September 2019
With a budget of 45Cr Pailwaan movie is the much-awaited movies have again postponed to 12th September and the trailer is all hyped in the social media as many big stars have promoted this film. We can see Suniel Shetty in this movie after a long gap in the film industry. Pailwaan movie stars Kichcha Sudeep, Sunil Shetty, and Aakanksha Singh in the lead role. The film is produced by Swapna Krishna under the banners of RRR Motion Pictures Production house.
Also, if you want to know more news and updates on Gadgets and Technology check the link. If you have some news then you can drop it in the comment section below.
by Rouf Shaikh — August 24, 2019 in Telugu Movies 0
Latest Tamil Movies of September 2019 You Should Not Miss
Tamil Cinemas have become much idealistic and we can see many movies with new ideas and contents. In a month around 10 to 15 movies are produced and released. They have the biggest studios which are the AVM studios. It is very hard to keep track of all the so we have separated the sections month wise which makes will make simple for the audience. In this article, we have listed the Tamil film of September 2019 which you should not miss.
September 2019 Tamil Movies
Kaappaan: 20 September 2019
After NGK Suriya’s next movie is Kaappaan and every Suriya fan is expecting this movie. Kaappaan was about to release on 30 Aug 2019 but the date has been postponed to 20 Sept 2019. The director of the movie is K.V. Anand and produced by Lyca Productions. This movie also features Mohanlal, Arya, Boman Irani, and Sayyeshaa. If you are looking forward to watching Kaappan Full Movie then we request to wait and watch in theatres.
This is one of the best geek movies that you should watch in 2019. Also, you can recommend this movie to your friends and family. If you have some geek Best movies then you can feel free to drop it in the comment section below.
by Rouf Shaikh — August 24, 2019 in Full Movie Download 0
Upcoming Websites – Covering News And Updates About Films
People excited to watch movies and information about movies is the most important entertainment for people. So many people search to watch movies online and here we are helping to with it. In this place, you will find the list of movies as per the Industry, and we will cover the upcoming movie news – Few upcoming websites covering film Industry News.
Website Name Language Description
123movies Multi-lingual Provide the Indian and Hollywood Movies News, updates, Latest released trailers, movie download information, songs, and Lyrics
Indiahunt.news Multi-language Check out the Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Bollywood and Hollywood Movies News, updated information about movies, and music information
kannadamovies.club Kannada Get the latest Kannada movie details, teaser, released, review, cast and crew information, and updates.
by Madhu Alla — August 21, 2019 in Movies 0
Covering Upcoming Movies – News and Updates of film Industry
Nowadays, movies impact people, so many people choose to work films, people like to watch the latest movies Movies play a very important role in everyone’s life as this is one of the most important entertainment for people. Millions of people search to watch movies online and we are helping to with it. Here you will find the list of movies as per the Industry. Below in this article, we will cover the movie reviews, news – few upcoming websites covering film industry news.
pinkvilla.xyz Bollywood Get the Latest movie related news, Bollywood news & gossip, Bollywood movies, Bollywood fashion and TV news.
qskyblog.com Technology Here, you can know the latest domain prices, hosting services, and registrations in various Hosting providing accounts, price comparison in domains and hosting.
regalcinemas.xyz Multi-lingual Find the Bollywood, Telugu, Tamil, and Kannada Film industries Upcoming cinema news, movies, Lyrics, and box office updates.
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by Madhu Alla — August 21, 2019 in Full Movie Download 0
List of the latest Hollywood Movies Of September 2019
The Hollywood industry is the number one industry to get the highest collection in the World. In fact, the Hollywood Industry has the largest fan following all over the World. It very hard to keep track of the monthwise movie release. In this article, you will find details about the list of Hollywood movies of September 2019.
List Of Hollywood Movies Releasing In September 2019
21 Bridges:
21 Bridges is a Hollywood American action thriller film directed by Brian Kirk. The Featuring Chadwick Boseman, J. K. Simmons, Sienna Miller, Taylor Kitsch, Stephan James, and Keith David. The story is about a NYPD detective who locks 21 bridges of the city in order to find two suspects. Brothers Joe and Anthony Russo act as producers of 21 Bridges movie. As it is one of the best geek movies of September 2019.
IT CHAPTER TWO:
It: Chapter Two is a 2019 Hollywood horror film and a sequel to the first part of It, based on the book It by Stephen King. While the first part was about the children, this film is set 27 years later and features the adult’s versions, while the children return for flashback sequences. IT CHAPTER TWO is scheduled to be delivered on 6th September 2019. If you are the geek star in your group, then you can recommend this movie to your friends.
by Sathish Varre — August 17, 2019 in Hollywood Movies 0
List Of Bollywood Movies Releasing In September 2019
Lots of Bollywood movies are releasing this year and every month more than 10 movies are released in Bollywood. As we all know Bollywood is the second largest film Industry after Hollywood Industry. In this article, you will find the details about the list of Bollywood movies releasing in September 2019.
Bollywood Movies Releasing In September 2019
Satellite Shankar:
Satellite Shankar is the latest Bollywood action drama film written and directed by Irfan Kamal. Starring Sooraj Pancholi and Megha Akash in the lead role. T-Series and Cine 1 Studios are the production house of this film. Satellite Shankar is based on the life of Indian soldiers, tells a story of the adventures of an Indian soldier. This movie is loaded with full of geek stuff. If you are a geek guy then you will definitely like this movie.
Chhichhore:
Chhichhore is a Bollywood romantic comedy-drama film directed by Nitesh Tiwari and produced by Sajid Nadiadwala under the banner of Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment. Starring Sushant Singh Rajput, Shraddha Kapoor, Varun Sharma, and Prateik Babbar in the lead roles. The story is about the lives of seven friends from 1992 to the present day.
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by Sathish Varre — August 17, 2019 in Bollywood Movies 0
Upcoming New Websites Providing the Lyrics of Movie Songs
These upcoming websites, provide the latest lyrics of movie songs based on Language and Genre. We have collected the upcoming songs, lyrics, music sites from all languages at one place. Here you can find the details about your favorite lyrics with your favorite language. Below in this article, we will cover the upcoming movies music news on these new websites. Definitely, you will enjoy with your favorite music.
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by yuva sri — August 16, 2019 in Lyrics 0
Firstly, Punjabi movies are attracting people, especially young peoples across India. In fact, the Punjabi movie is doing exceptionally great for a long time. These movies are known for their unbelievable action scenes, comedy, and romance. In this article, you will find details about the list of Punjabi movies releasing in 2019.
List Of Punjabi Movies Releasing In 2019
Sikander 2
The featuring stars are Kartar Cheema, Guri, and Sawan Rupowali are in the lead roles. The story is about the Sikander where he left his dangerous past and starts his new life in an unknown village where he is welcomed by a loving family. The family considered him as one of the family members. After some time the family’s only son gets in danger by the wrong crowd, Sikander has left no choice he has to come in these old ways with respect to help the young boy. Sikander 2 movie is directed by Manav Shah and produced by Kv Dhillon, Anmol Monga, and Swapan Manga. Watch Sikander full movie in a theatre for a better experience with your family. This movie is Best for the Message Oriented Film Lovers
Singham is an upcoming Indian Punjabi language action drama film releasing in August 2019. Featuring stars Sonam Bajwa, Kartar Cheema, and Parmish Verma in the lead roles. The movie is directed by Navaniat Singh and produced by Ajay Devgan and Bushan Kumar. The movie is about Dilsher Sikhon after taking the charge as the DSP of Singham Khurd. Sets an aim to end the drug addiction among the youth Punjabi. Most of the people will search for Singham full movie download after the movie is released in the theater. This movie will be available on the legal streaming platform after 3 months of the movie release.
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by sayyed sohaib — August 16, 2019 in Punjabi Movies 0
Jayam Ravi’s Comali Leaked by Tamilrockers, Isaimini, Tamilyogi Online For Free Download
‘Comali’ is a 2019 Tamil Comedy movie made under the direction of Pradeep Ranganathan. Ishari K. Ganesh has produced this movie under the banner: Vels Films International. The lead roles are played by ‘Jayam Ravi’ while the supporting cast includes Samyukhta Hegde, Kajal Aggarwal, K. S. Ravikumar. Below in this article, you can find the details of Comali Full Movie Download Tamilrockers, Isaimini, Tamilyogi leak.
Comali Full Movie Download Tamilrockers
‘Jayam Ravi’ recently released film Comali which is getting a tremendous response from the audience, has been the talk of the town since its inception. This is the latest film to fall prey to the man of the online piracy websites.
According to the reports making rounds on the internet, the infamous Tamilrockers is responsible for leaking the film online. This notorious pirate site Tamilrockers has been the bane of moviemakers for many years, pirating and leaking movies online just days after its release or even on the same day. While Tamilrockers has been taken down countless times it still manages to pop up again, now the site is offering HD streams of Comali Full Movie as well as HD cam prints of the movie for download.
Comali Full Movie Download Isaimini
Online Movie Piracy by illegal websites is an unfortunate sad fate of most of the movies, or we say almost all the major movies. Every new release is now under attack by websites like TamilRockers, Filmywap, filmyzilla and sharing download links even before it hits the theatres.
The piracy site Isaimini has leaked the Comali Full Movie Download and made ‘Comali’ movie download on their open servers. Well, we wish that these leaked versions are taken away from the Internet and the movie release becomes a clean release where the viewers can have an enjoyable watch away from any spoilers. However, these piracy sites like Isaimini have done the same thing to so many other movies as well. This has to be stopped as soon as possible otherwise filmmakers all around the world will have to bear so much loss.
Comali Full Movie Download Tamilyogi
Tamil movies getting leaked on piracy websites especially Tamilyogi has become an issue of grave concern. And now ‘Jayam Ravi’ Tamil Film ‘Comali’ which was recently released has become the latest victim of online piracy.
To the shock of the producers Ishari K. Ganesh, the complete Comali Movie Download was leaked online by Tamilyogi website which has major plot-reveal content. We are not revealing any of the leaked scenes as we totally believe in anti-piracy. It is of a grave issue that the complete film has leaked on piracy sites.
by Amovie Star — August 16, 2019 in Full Movie Download 0
August Releasing Telugu Movies 2019
Every month more than 50 movies were released in India, in that more than 10 movies were released in Telugu. First of all, in 2019 many Telugu Movies were released Worldwide. In fact, it is very hard to find which is the best movie. Some movies did really great in the box office whereas some movies in a good response from the audience but not reach great Tollywood Film box office collections Expectations. In this article, you will find details about August Releasing Telugu Movies 2019.
List Of Telugu Movies Releasing In August 2019
Saaho is an upcoming Indian multi-language action movie releasing in the month of August. Whereas, this movie is directed by Sujeeth and produced by V. Vamsi Krishna Reddy, Pramod Uppalapati, and Bhushan Kumar. The featuring stars are Prabhas and Shraddha Kapoor in the lead roles. Hence, most of the people look for Saaho full movie download but we highly recommend not to get engaged with illegal activities. If caught while downloading the movies you will find or can go to jail.
Ashwamedham is a 2019 upcoming Telugu Drama movie directed by Nitin G. The movie is about Dhruva where he tells about how to defeat an opponent when the opponent knows the next move that you are going to play. The lead roles are played by Dhruva Karunakar while the supporting cast includes Priyadarshi, Vennela Kishore. We highly recommend you to watch Ashwamedham full movie in the theatre for a better experience instead of instead getting engaged in illegal activities by supporting piracy.
Manmadhudu 2
Manmadhudu 2 is a 2019 Telugu Romantic Comedy movie directed by Rahul Ravindran, while Nagarjuna Akkineni has produced the movie under the banner of Annapurna Studios The lead roles are played by Nagarjuna Akkineni while the supporting cast includes Rakul Preet Singh, Vennela Kishore. This is the best movie for Comedy movie Lovers. Hence, it is a big movie most of the people will search for Manmadhudu 2 full movie download. We suggest you watch this movie in the theatre for a better experience.
by sayyed sohaib — August 16, 2019 in Telugu Movies 0
Soothrakkaran Movie Trailer
Best Punjabi Movies To Download
List Of Top Malayalam Romantic Movies of 2018
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CAS News
Americans Abroad: Students create travel blogs to document their summer adventures
Written by Emily Ward, Linguistics and East Asian Languages and Cultures major
Americans Abroad in Paris, France
Americans Abroad is a 4-week summer workshop offered by the Department of Global and Intercultural Studies. Associate professor Sande Garner and visiting assistant professor Allison Wanger, both of the American Studies (AMS) program, lead Miami students to Ireland, England, and France to examine American heritage tourism from a critical perspective.
"Teaching this summer workshop is one of the highlights of our year," said Garner. "It is a great opportunity for students to see the world and reflect on their experiences as American tourists. In the process, they learn about the role that heritage and culture play in a multitude of tourist industries throughout Europe!"
Students can get a head start on an American Studies thematic sequence or minor by taking this 6-credit hour AMS course, as they travel to cities like Dublin, London, and Paris.
To get a better idea of the student experience, check out the following posts from student travel blogs for Americans Abroad from May 20 - June 16, 2018.
Maddiestravel
Queen Elizabeth's birthday celebration, London, England
Psychology major Maddie Filipkowski introduces her journal with a picture from the EPIC Museum (Dublin, Ireland) that frames the idea of Heritage Tourism. She provides a rundown of her favorite — and least favorite — moments of Americans Abroad 2018 to examine her expectations, experiences and the historical significance of some of the key sites visited.
"As an individual, a student, and a tourist, I learned a lot about myself and the world outside of the US," she says. "These past few weeks have really set the bar for my future vacations and changed the way I look at other cultures and the way I take in these new experiences."
Visit maddiestravel journal.
Outside storefront of Bewley's Cafe on Grafton Street in Dublin, Ireland
Cassidy Hemm, a junior strategic communications and public health double major, discusses the way that her encounters with locals, tour guides and other tourists shaped her study abroad experience.
Hemm was approached by Miami alumna Marybeth Bond at Bewley's in Dublin, Ireland. "Sitting back to listen to stories and sharing a meal with an American couple shaped my view on tourism in Dublin just by hearing their suggestions on where to visit," she says. "I loved getting to be a little piece of Miami and give them information about a campus they hadn't visited in over 30 years."
"I have learned to be opened minded and push myself out of my comfort zone," Hemm continues. "Americans Abroad gave me perspective on how other people travel and who they travel with and taught me to explain what the tourism culture that I was studying in our American Studies classes."
Visit Americans Abroad.
Americans Abroad: Tour Guides and Tourist Gazes
Houses in Notting Hill, UK
In her blog, junior speech pathology & audiology major Emily Mann emphasizes the importance of tour guides and how they shaped her experience in Americans Abroad.
"I found that the tour guides had such a positive impact on my ability to really push myself to view everything through their lens, rather than what I have been previously been taught about a place," Mann says.
Visit Study Abroad: Tour Guides and Tourist Gaze.
Taste Life
The National Gallery, London, England
Junior marketing major Danielle Nehring's blog examines the value of stories and museums in her travels.
She writes, "People who both lived in the cities I was in and travelers just like me. Each new meeting came with a tale just as each place held a unique culture, filled with thousands of years of stories."
"My absolute favorite place in London: the National Gallery," she continues. "Overlooking Trafalgar Square, this is the perfect place to meet up, grab a quick bite to eat at the cafe, and listen to the street musicians as the street artists create stunning black and white portraits, displays of flags, or roaring lions. Being centrally located to all the theatres, Regent Street, and several small cafes, it quickly becomes the center of my wanderings."
Visit Danielle Nicole Photography: Americans Abroad.
For more information about how you can be part of this experience in summer 2019, contact Sande Garner (garners2@MiamiOH.edu) or Allison Wanger (wangeral@MiamiOH.edu).
You can also check out the Americans Abroad Instagram site.
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What A Year It’s Been – an Interview with Milton & Goose founder Shari Raymond
By Alison Walkley
Almost a year ago to the date, Shari Raymond hit the green light on Milton & Goose, and she was in business.
“When I started Milton & Goose one year ago, I had high hopes for the company, but tried to manage my expectations by taking things one step at a time,” Raymond said. “I launched the business with a modest run of play kitchens and really had no idea how long it would take me to sell them (a month? Six months? A year?). I couldn’t have imagined that by my first holiday season and before year-end, Milton & Goose would sell out of inventory three times.”
Now, Raymond is taking stock of all that’s occurred in the last 365 days of business.
“Because I started by just taking the first step and seeing where things went, I feel good about where the business is today, one year in,” she said. “I feel poised for growth and am excited about the next year to come.”
As can be expected with any new business, there were some issues that arose as Raymond learned the ins and outs of manufacturing and selling, and got a much better idea of the timelines involved with creating her play kitchens.
“It’s really incredible how much time and energy it takes to develop a product,” she noted. “From manufacturing limitations to safety regulations and shipping issues, we’ve encountered many unforeseen challenges along the way, but one of the most rewarding things is brainstorming and developing a solution.”
Raymond realized she had a packaging issue that needed to be dealt with quickly, for example, as she began sending out the first shipments.
“While we spent a lot of time designing packaging that could safely transport a big and heavy wooden unit (that ships almost fully assembled!), the first few kitchens arrived damaged. It was a nightmare!” she recalled. “We of course replaced all of the broken items immediately, but that put us right back into development mode as I was simultaneously building the brand and communicating with customers.”
Now, however, the redesigned kitchen has reinforcement in the areas where it was breaking during transport, and the packaging itself was rethought and improved. “So now our kitchens almost always arrive in one piece and ready for play!” said Raymond.
For the business owner, customer feedback has been the best part of the last year. “While I obviously think the design is adorable and the quality excellent, hearing the positive feedback from our customers has made this whole journey so rewarding,” she gushed. “We also always love seeing pictures of kids enjoying our play kitchens!”
Looking ahead, Raymond is very excited about a few things that are in the works, including a variety of accessories to complement Milton & Goose’s current products.
Be on the lookout for more news from Milton & Goose as Year Two gets underway!
Haven’t purchased a Milton & Goose play kitchen yet? Check out the two models available now: Essential Play Kitchen and the Classic Play Kitchen.
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Archive for the tag “Isiolo”
IGAD: CEWARN positioned to expand its integrated data collection and analysis system towards full regional coverage (01.05.2018)
Posted in Africa, Agriculture, Civil Service, Development, Ethics, Governance, Government, Law, Leadership, Politics, Transparency and tagged Abdela Kadir, Abdikarim Hussein Guled, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gaas, Abune Dioskoros, Adaado, Afmadow District, African Horn, African Union, African Union Mission in Somalia, Agriculutre, Alene Shama, Amba Giorgis, Amhara, AMISOM, Artan, Article 19, ASAL Counties, Asasa, Atalay Zafe, Ato Gedu Andargachew, AU, AU Mission in Somalia, Awaday, Badhadhe, Badhadhe District, Bale, Bekele Gerba, Burundi, Central Somalia, CEWARN, Colonel Demeke Zewdu, Crop Loss, Crop Sector, Dejene Turfa, Djibouti, DP Ruto, DP William Ruto, Drought, East Africa, Elidar, EU, European Union, Famine, Famine Early Warning System Network, Famine Early Warning Systems Network, FAO, Federal Government of Somalia, Federal Republic of Somalia, Federica Mogherini, Fewsnet, FIDH, Fikadu Mirkana, FireChat, Food Insecure, Food Insecurity, Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit, Food Shortage, Galkayo, Galmudug, Galmudug Parliament, Galmudug State, Getachew Ademe, Getachew Reda, Getachew Shiferaw, GIA, Girum Chala, GoU, Government of Somalia, Government of Uganda, Greenhouses, Hassan Sheik Mohamoud, Hassan Sheik Mohamud, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Hiraan, Horn of Africa, Humera, IDDRSI, IGAD, IGAD Drought Disaster Resilience and Sustainability Initiative, IGAD Member States, Intergovernmental Authority on Development, International Community, International Service for Human Rights, IPC Phase 5, Isiolo, Jowhar District, Kismaayo, Kismayo, Kismayo District, Livestock, Livestock deaths, Livestock Disease Control, Makueni, Mandera, Maykadra, Meher, Mendi, Metema, Middle Shabelle, Mohamed Hashi Abdi, MPS, Mudag, Mudug Region, Negash Kebre Botoa, Nekemte, Nicholas Kay, Oromia Region, Peter Prove, President Hassan Sheik Mohamud, Puntland, Rainfall, Republic of Somalia, Samburu, Samora Yunis, Shalla Districts, Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden, Shashamene, Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Somali, Somali Clan, Somali National Army, Somali National Police, Somalia, Somalia Federal Government, Somaliland, South Omo Zone, South West Administration, SRSG Kay, TCEWR, Technical Committee of Early Warning and Response, The 45th Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum, The Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, UDF, Uganda, UN, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, United Democratic Front, United Republican Party, Upper Nile, URP, Water Bowsers, Woreda, Yechibo | Leave a comment
Communiqué of the Consultative Meeting of IGAD Member States on the Current Drought Situation in the Region (31.03.2017)
Posted in Africa, Agriculture, Aid, Civil Service, Development, Economic Measures, Economy, Ethics, Governance, Government, Law, Leadership, Politics, Tax, Trade, Transparency and tagged #AddisProtest, #AmaharaProtest, #OmoroProtest, 2017 General Election Kenya, Abdela Kadir, Abdikarim Hussein Guled, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gaas, Abune Dioskoros, Adaado, Addis Ababa, Addisu Serebe, Afar, Afar Region, Afmadow, Afmadow District, African Horn, African Union, African Union Mission in Somalia, Agriculutre, Al Sunnah wal Jamaah, Al-Qaeda, Alene Shama, Alliance Party of Kenya, Amba Giorgis, Amhara, AMISOM, Amnesty International, Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, APK, Artan, Article 19, ASAL Counties, Asasa, Atalay Zafe, Ato Gedu Andargachew, AU, AU Mission in Somalia, Awaday, Badhadhe, Badhadhe District, Bahr Dar, Bahr El Ghazal, Bale, Bekele Gerba, Boniface Mwangi, Borena Zone, Burundi, CBK, CDO Debretsion, Central Bank of Kenya, Central Somalia, Chama Cha, Coalition for Reform and Democracy, Colonel Demeke Zewdu, Conflict, Congolese Authorities, cooperatives, CORD, Council of Governors, Counterterrorism, County Government, Crop Loss, Crop Sector, Dejene Turfa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Demonstration, Deputy President William Ruto, Djibouti, Dominique Burgeon, DP Ruto, DP William Ruto, Dr. Riek Machar-Teny, DRC, Drought, East Africa, EBC, ECD Centres, El Nino, Elidar, Emergency, ENDF, EPRDF, Erecha, Eritrea, Eroded Labor, ESAT, Ethiopia, Ethiopia Universial Periodic Review, Ethiopian Athlete, Ethiopian Government, Ethiopian National Defence Force, Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, EU, European Union, European Union External Action, Famine, Famine Early Warning System Network, Famine Early Warning Systems Network, FAO, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Federal Government, Federal Government of Somalia, Federal Republic of Somalia, Federica Mogherini, Fewsnet, FIDH, Fikadu Mirkana, FireChat, Food Insecure, Food Insecurity, Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit, Food Shortage, Galkayo, Galmudug, Galmudug Parliament, Galmudug State, Garissa, Getachew Ademe, Getachew Reda, Getachew Shiferaw, GHACOF 45, GIA, Gideon Moi, Girum Chala, GNU, GoB, GoDRC, GoE, GoK, GoSS, GoU, Government Ministries, Government of Burundi, Government of Ethiopia, Government of Kenya, Government of Somalia, Government of South Sudan, Government of Uganda, Governors, Grand National Union, Greenhouses, Gulf States, H.E. Hailemariam Desalegn, H.E. Uhuru Kenyatta, H.E. William Samoei Ruto, Haile Asfha, Haile Mariam Desalegn, Hassan Sheik Mohamoud, Hassan Sheik Mohamud, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Health Care Personnel, Health Care Services, Hiraan, Hon. Ato Gedu Andargachew, Hon. William Ruto, Horn of Africa, HRCO, HRD, Human Rights Couuncil of Ethiopia, Humanitarian Requirements Document, Humera, IDDRSI, IGAD, IGAD Drought Disaster Resilience and Sustainability Initiative, IGAD Member States, Intergovernmental Authority on Development, International Community, International Service for Human Rights, IPC Phase 5, Isiolo, JAP, Jeehdin, Jeff Davis, Jowhar District, Juba, Jubilee, Jubilee Alliance, Jubilee Alliance Party, Jubilee Party, KANU, Kenya, Kenya African National Union, Kenya General Election, Kenya General Election 2017, Kenya National Government, Kenya National Treasury, Kenyan Government, Kilifi, Kismaayo, Kismayo, Kismayo District, Kitui, Kwale, La Nina, Livestock, Livestock deaths, Livestock Disease Control, Makueni, Malnourished, Mandera, Marsabit, Maykadra, Mebratu Getahun, Meher, Members of Parliament, Mendi, Mercenaries, Mercenary Force, Metema, Middle Shabelle, Mohamed Hashi Abdi, MPS, Mudag, Mudug Region, National Treasury, Negash Kebre Botoa, Nekemte, New Jubilee Party, New-Ford Kenya, Nicholas Kay, Oromia Region, Pastoral Areas, Peter Prove, Political Party, Political Platform, Poor Gu, President Hailemiriam, President Hassan Sheik Mohamud, President Kenyatta, Puntland, Rainfall, RC, RDC, Republic of Somalia, Republican Congress Party of Kenya, Robe, Ruto, Rwanda, Samburu, Samora Yunis, Senators, Shalla Districts, Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden, Shashamene, Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Somali, Somali Clan, Somali National Army, Somali National Police, Somalia, Somalia Federal Government, Somaliland, South Omo Zone, South Sudan, South Sudan Conflict, South West Administration, SRSG Kay, Taita Taveta, Taita Taveta County, Tana River, Tanzania, The 45th Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum, The National Alliance, The Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, TNA, Tourism, TPLF, Travel, Turkey, U.S. Forces, U.S. Military, UAE, UDF, Uganda, Uhuru Kenyatta, UN, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, United Arab Emirates, United Democratic Front, United Nation, United Nations, United Nations Investigation, United Republican Party, Unity Party of Kenya, UPK, Upper Nile, URP, USA, Value Added Projects, Wajir, Water Bowsers, West Arsi, Willam Ruto, William Ruto, William Samoei Ruto, Woreda, World Council of Churches, Yechibo, Yemen, Yonathan Teressa, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussain | Leave a comment
IGAD: Nairobi Declaration on Durable Solutions for Somali Refugees and Reintegration of Returnees in Somalia (25.03.2017)
Posted in Africa, Aid, Army, Civil Service, Development, Diplomacy, Governance, Government, Law, Leadership, Politics, Tax and tagged #AddisProtest, #AmaharaProtest, #OmoroProtest, 2017 General Election Kenya, Abdela Kadir, Abdikarim Hussain Guled, Abdikarim Hussein Guled, Abdirahman Abdishakur Wasame, Abdirazak Barre Jama, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gaas, Abdulkadir Osoble Ali, Abdullahi Ugaas Farah, Abune Dioskoros, Act Alliance, Adaado, Adan Ibrahim Aw-Hersi, Addis Ababa, Addisu Serebe, Afar, Afar Region, Afmadow, Afmadow District, African Horn, African Mission in Somalia, African Union, African Union Mission in Somalia, Agriculutre, Ahlu Sunna Waljama, Ahmed Mohamad Islam, Al Sunnah wal Jamaah, Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabab, Alene Shama, Ali Abdullahi Osoble, Alliance Party of Kenya, Amb Mohamed Idris, Amb. Eng. 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Statement of IGAD Council of Ministers’ Consultation on the Current Situation in the Region (17.03.2017)
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World Bank Group President Calls for Urgent Action on Hunger Crisis (08.03.2017)
WASHINGTON, March 8, 2017—World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim today issued the following statement on the devastating levels of food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa and Yemen:
“Famine is a stain on our collective conscience. Millions of lives are at risk and more will die if we do not act quickly and decisively.
We at the World Bank Group stand in solidarity with the people now threatened by famine. We are mobilizing an immediate response for Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen. Our first priority is to work with partners to make sure that families have access to food and water. We are working toward a financial package of more than $1.6 billion to build social protection systems, strengthen community resilience, and maintain service delivery to the most vulnerable. This includes existing operations of over $870 million that will help communities threatened by famine. I am also working with our Board of Directors to secure the approval of new operations amounting to $770 million, funded substantially through IDA’s Crisis Response Window.
The World Bank Group will help respond to the immediate needs of the current famine, but we must recognize that famine will have lasting impacts on people’s health, ability to learn, and earn a living. So we will also continue to work with communities to reclaim their livelihoods and build resilience to future shocks.
We are coordinating closely with the UN and other partners in all areas of our response. We know that resolution to this acute crisis will not be possible without all humanitarian and development actors working together. We call on the international community to respond robustly and quickly to the UN global appeal for resources for the famine.
To prevent crises in the future, we must invest in addressing the root causes and drivers of fragility today and help countries build institutional and societal resilience.”
A famine means that a significant part of the population has no access to basic food, suffers from severe malnutrition, and death from hunger reaches unprecedented levels. Children under five are disproportionately affected. A famine can affect the well-being of a whole generation. Famine was officially declared on February 20 in South Sudan, impacting approximately 100,000 people, and there is a credible risk of other famines in Yemen, Northeast Nigeria, and other countries. Ongoing conflicts and civil insecurity are further intensifying the food insecurity of millions of people across the region, and there is already widespread displacement and other cross-border spillovers. For instance, food insecurity in Somalia and famine in South Sudan are accelerating the flow of refugees into Ethiopia and Uganda. The UN estimates that about 20 million people in Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen are on the “tipping point” of famine. Drought conditions also extend to Uganda and parts of Tanzania. The last famine was declared in 2011 in Somalia during which 260,000 people died.
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Statement by the IGAD Executive Secretary on the current drought in the Greater Horn of Africa (08.02.2017)
The Drought Situation
The Horn of Africa is in the midst of a major drought resulting from La Niña and reduced moisture influx due to the cooling of the ocean water in the east African coast. Whilst Member States of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) are adept at managing droughts, what makes the current drought alarming in the Equatorial Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) region is that it follows two consecutive poor rainfall seasons in 2016 and the likelihood of depressed rainfall persisting into the March – May 2017 rainfall season remains high. The most affected areas include, most of Somalia, South-eastern Ethiopia, Northern Eastern and coastal Kenya, and Northern Uganda.
The climate predictions and early warnings produced by IGAD through advanced scientific modeling and prediction tools, which were provided to Member States and the general public, have elicited early actions (preparedness and mitigation measures). Highly comparable to the 2010 GHA drought, the current depressed rainfall and resultant poor vegetation conditions since March 2016 eroded the coping and adaptive capacities of the affected people. It also depleted water points, reduced crops, forages and livestock production, increased food insecurity, and adversely affected the livelihoods of vulnerable communities in the region.
The number of food insecure human population in the region is currently estimated at 17 million. Certain areas in South Sudan and Djibouti are already under an emergency food insecurity phase, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) classification scale. In Somalia, the number of food insecure people doubled in the last year alone.
In the drought affected cropping lands (over Deyr area in Somalia and coastal Kenya), 70 to 100 percent crop failure has been registered. Livestock mortality has been particularly devastating amongst small ruminants with mortality rate ranging from 25 to 75 percent in the cross border areas of Somalia-Kenya-Ethiopia. In addition, livestock prices have dropped by as much as 700 percent.
Terms of trade have declined in the region, with Ethiopia registering a figure of almost 10 percent. This is exacerbated by a substantial negative impact on external balances, as well as a small impact on financial sector-soundness in the other countries. The overall impact on fiscal positions is a likely increase in current budget spending and deterioration in the fiscal balance and weak adaptation capacity.
Despite the downtrend in global agriculture commodity prices, the drought has resulted in an increase in domestic food prices in the region. Cereal prices (e.g. maize) have gone up by about 130 percent, while those of critical food items such as oils, beans and wheat flour increased by at least 50 percent in some pastoralist areas. The limited financial and institutional capacity for effective adaptation to reduce exposure and vulnerability will result in limited safety net to the most vulnerable households.
Drought Response in the Horn of Africa
With the early warning and technical assistance provided by IGAD, Member States have initiated early action to mitigate the adverse impact of the current drought.
Somalia and South Sudan have declared drought emergencies. Kenya announced a doubling of expenditure on food relief to ease the pressure in the drought-affected counties, while Uganda shifted some of its development resources to finance emergency response in order to address food insecurity and livelihood protection. In Somalia, the President of the Federal Republic, as well as state and regional administrations led the issuance of appeals for support and coordinated actors and efforts that scaled-up food security activities to respond to the humanitarian needs of the country.
The USD 730 million allocated by the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia boosted the response effort which, coupled by an above-average meher harvest, resulted to an almost 50 percent reduction in the number of food insecure people, for example, from 10.2 million to 5.6 million.
IGAD continues to reinforce the actions of its Member States using them as guide for complementary action on drought responses. Below are some of the major actions being undertaken by the IGAD Secretariat and its specialized institutions to manage the drought in the region:
Through its specialized institutions, IGAD continues to monitor and provide analysis of the evolving situation and advise Member States and the general public on measures to mitigate its impact. The 45th Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum (GHACOF 45), which ends today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, will present the consensus climate outlook for the next season (March – May 2017) and its likely impact on disaster risk management, livestock production, water, energy and health etc.
A multi- humanitarian coordination mechanism led by IGAD that includes UN agencies, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), and other Non-State Actors (NSAs) is effectively working to coordinate the response effort, as well as guide the recovery process once the situation stabilizes.
IGAD is also working with relevant national authorities, UN agencies and CSOs in each member state on the development of an Integrated Regional Appeal that will articulate the priority initiatives within the response plan for each Member State.
Furthermore, IGAD will support institutional arrangements and capacity building that needs to be in place to allow humanitarian response plans to be implemented in timely, effective manner.
A regional Ministerial Meeting will be convened by IGAD at the end of this month to launch the Integrated Regional Appeal and secure financial resources, which further complements the response undertaken by national authorities and humanitarian and development partners, while at the same time building resilience to climate-induced disasters.
Through the IGAD Drought Disaster Resilience and Sustainability Initiative (IDDRSI) Platform, the ultimate purpose and objective of IGAD and its Member States is to mitigate the adverse effects of disasters through building resilience of relevant national institutions, communities and people, to end drought emergencies and contribute to the achievement of sustainable development in the region.
In this regard, IGAD will remain vigilant in monitoring and advising the people of the region on the drought situation through its’ specialized institution, the IGAD Climate Prediction and Application Centre (ICPAC) domiciled in Nairobi, and shall continue to support and complement regional and national actions on drought response and recovery.
Posted in Africa, Agriculture, Aid, Business, Civil Service, Development, Economic Measures, Economy, Ethics, Governance, Government, Industry, Law, Leadership, Politics, Transparency and tagged #AddisProtest, #AmaharaProtest, #OmoroProtest, 2017 General Election Kenya, Abdela Kadir, Abdikarim Hussein Guled, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gaas, Abune Dioskoros, Adaado, Addis Ababa, Addisu Serebe, Afar, Afar Region, Afmadow, Afmadow District, African Horn, African Union, African Union Mission in Somalia, Agriculutre, Al Sunnah wal Jamaah, Al-Qaeda, Alene Shama, Alliance Party of Kenya, Amba Giorgis, Amhara, AMISOM, Amnesty International, Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, APK, Artan, Article 19, ASAL Counties, Asasa, Atalay Zafe, Ato Gedu Andargachew, AU, AU Mission in Somalia, Awaday, Badhadhe, Badhadhe District, Bahr Dar, Bahr El Ghazal, Bale, Bekele Gerba, Boniface Mwangi, Borena Zone, Burundi, CBK, CDO Debretsion, Central Bank of Kenya, Central Somalia, Chama Cha, Coalition for Reform and Democracy, Colonel Demeke Zewdu, Conflict, Congolese Authorities, cooperatives, CORD, Council of Governors, Counterterrorism, County Government, Crop Loss, Crop Sector, Dejene Turfa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Demonstration, Deputy President William Ruto, Djibouti, Dominique Burgeon, DP Ruto, DP William Ruto, Dr. Riek Machar-Teny, DRC, Drought, East Africa, EBC, ECD Centres, El Nino, Elidar, Emergency, ENDF, EPRDF, Erecha, Eritrea, Eroded Labor, ESAT, Ethiopia, Ethiopia Universial Periodic Review, Ethiopian Athlete, Ethiopian Government, Ethiopian National Defence Force, Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, EU, European Union, European Union External Action, Famine, Famine Early Warning System Network, Famine Early Warning Systems Network, FAO, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Federal Government, Federal Government of Somalia, Federal Republic of Somalia, Federica Mogherini, Fewsnet, FIDH, Fikadu Mirkana, FireChat, Food Insecure, Food Insecurity, Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit, Food Shortage, Galkayo, Galmudug, Galmudug Parliament, Galmudug State, Garissa, Getachew Ademe, Getachew Reda, Getachew Shiferaw, GHACOF 45, GIA, Gideon Moi, Girum Chala, GNU, GoB, GoDRC, GoE, GoK, GoSS, GoU, Government Ministries, Government of Burundi, Government of Ethiopia, Government of Kenya, Government of Somalia, Government of South Sudan, Government of Uganda, Governors, Grand National Union, Greenhouses, Gulf States, H.E. 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William Ruto, Horn of Africa, HRCO, HRD, Human Rights Couuncil of Ethiopia, Humanitarian Requirements Document, Humera, IDDRSI, IGAD, IGAD Drought Disaster Resilience and Sustainability Initiative, IGAD Member States, Intergovernmental Authority on Development, International Community, International Service for Human Rights, IPC Phase 5, Isiolo, JAP, Jeehdin, Jeff Davis, Jowhar District, Juba, Jubilee, Jubilee Alliance, Jubilee Alliance Party, Jubilee Party, KANU, Kenya, Kenya African National Union, Kenya General Election, Kenya General Election 2017, Kenya National Government, Kenya National Treasury, Kenyan Government, Kilifi, Kismaayo, Kismayo, Kismayo District, Kitui, Kwale, La Nina, Livestock, Livestock deaths, Livestock Disease Control, Makueni, Malnourished, Mandera, Marsabit, Maykadra, Mebratu Getahun, Meher, Members of Parliament, Mendi, Mercenaries, Mercenary Force, Metema, Middle Shabelle, Mohamed Hashi Abdi, MPS, Mudag, Mudug Region, National Treasury, Negash Kebre Botoa, Nekemte, New Jubilee Party, New-Ford Kenya, Nicholas Kay, Oromia Region, Pastoral Areas, Peter Prove, Political Party, Political Platform, Poor Gu, President Hailemiriam, President Hassan Sheik Mohamud, President Kenyatta, Puntland, Rainfall, RC, RDC, Republic of Somalia, Republican Congress Party of Kenya, Robe, Ruto, Rwanda, Samburu, Samora Yunis, Senators, Shalla Districts, Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden, Shashamene, Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Somali, Somali Clan, Somali National Army, Somali National Police, Somalia, Somalia Federal Government, Somaliland, South Omo Zone, South Sudan, South Sudan Conflict, South West Administration, SRSG Kay, Taita Taveta, Taita Taveta County, Tana River, Tanzania, The 45th Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum, The National Alliance, The Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, TNA, Tourism, TPLF, Travel, Turkey, U.S. Forces, U.S. Military, UAE, UDF, Uganda, Uhuru Kenyatta, UN, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, United Arab Emirates, United Democratic Front, United Nation, United Nations, United Nations Investigation, United Republican Party, Unity Party of Kenya, UPK, Upper Nile, URP, USA, Value Added Projects, Wajir, Water Bowsers, West Arsi, Willam Ruto, William Ruto, William Samoei Ruto, Woreda, World Council of Churches, Yechibo, Yemen, Yonathan Teressa, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussain | Leave a comment
With continued drought, Horn of Africa braces for another hunger season (20.12.2016)
Agricultural support critical now to protect livestock, equip families to plant in rainy season.
ROME, Italy, December 20, 2016 – Countries in the Horn of Africa are likely to see a rise in hunger and further decline of local livelihoods in the coming months, as farming families struggle with the knock-on effects of multiple droughts that hit the region this year, FAO warned today. Growing numbers of refugees in East Africa, meanwhile, are expected to place even more burden on already strained food and nutrition security.
Currently, close to 12 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are in need of food assistance, as families in the region face limited access to food and income, together with rising debt, low cereal and seed stocks, and low milk and meat production. Terms of trade are particularly bad for livestock farmers, as food prices are increasing at the same time that market prices for livestock are low.
Farmers in the region need urgent support to recover from consecutive lost harvests and to keep their breeding livestock healthy and productive at a time that pastures are the driest in years. Production outputs in the three countries are grim.
Rapid intervention
“We’re dealing with a cyclical phenomenon in the Horn of Africa,” said Dominique Burgeon, Director of FAO’s Emergency and Rehabilitation Division. “But we also know from experience that timely support to farming families can significantly boost their ability to withstand the impacts of these droughts and soften the blow to their livelihoods,” he stressed.
For this reason, FAO has already begun disbursing emergency funds for rapid interventions in Kenya and Somalia.
The funds will support emergency feed and vaccinations for breeding and weak animals, repairs of water points, and seeds and tools to plant in the spring season. FAO is also working with local officials to bolster countries’ emergency preparedness across the region.
“Especially in those areas where we know natural hazards are recurring, working with the Government to further build-up their ability to mitigate future shocks is a smart intervention that can significantly reduce the need for humanitarian and food aid further down the line,” Burgeon said.
Kenya is highly likely to see another drought in early 2017, and with it a rise in food insecurity. Current estimates show some 1.3 million people are food insecure.
Based on the latest predictions, the impacts of the current drought in the southern part of the country will lessen by mid-2017, but counties in the North – in particular Turkana, Marsabit, Wajir and Mandera – will steadily get worse.
Families in these areas are heavily dependent on livestock. Now, with their livelihoods already stressed – the last reliable rain they received was in December 2015- they will get little relief from the October-December short rains, which typically mark a recovery period but once again fell short this season.
In the affected counties, the terms of trade have become increasingly unfavourable for livestock keepers, as prices of staple foods are rising, while a flood of weakened sheep, goats and cows onto local markets has brought down livestock prices.
To ensure livestock markets remain functional throughout the dry season in 2017, FAO, is training local officials in better managing livestock markets — in addition to providing feed, water and veterinary support.
After two poor rainy seasons this year, Somalia is in a countrywide state of drought emergency, ranging from moderate to extreme. As a result, the Gu cereal harvest – from April to June – was 50 percent below average, and prospects for the October-December Deyr season are very grim.
To make matters worse, the country’s driest season – the Jilaal that begins in January- is expected to be even harsher than usual, which means Somali famers are unlikely to get a break anytime soon.
All indications are that crop farmers are already facing a second consecutive season with poor harvest. Pastoralists, meanwhile, are struggling to provide food for both their families and livestock, as pasture and water for grazing their animals are becoming poorer and scarcer by the day – in the south, pasture availability is the lowest it has been in the past five years.
Some five million Somalis are food insecure through December 2016. This includes 1.1 million people in Crisis and Emergency conditions of food insecurity (Phases 3 and 4 on the five-tier IPC scale used by humanitarian agencies). This is a 20 percent increase in just six months.
The latest analysis forecasts that the number of people in Crisis and Emergency conditions of food insecurity may further rise by more than a quarter of a million people between February and May 2017. Similar conditions in 2011 have resulted in famine and loss of lives, and therefore early action is urgently needed to avoid a repeat.
FAO calls on resource partners to urgently scale up assistance in rural areas, in the form of cash relief, emergency livestock support and agricultural inputs to plant in the April Gu season.
If farmers cannot plant during Gu – which traditionally produces 60 percent of the country’s annual cereal output — they will be left without another major harvest until 2018.
Farming families in Ethiopia, meanwhile, are extremely vulnerable as they have not been able to recover from the 2015 El Nino-induced drought. Some 5.6 million people remain food insecure, while millions more depend on livestock herds that need to be protected and treated to improve milk and meat production. Here, too, better access to feed and water is critical.
The crop situation is relatively stable after the country completed the most widespread emergency seed distribution in Ethiopia’s history. FAO and more than 25 NGOs and agencies reached 1.5 million households with drought-resistant seeds.
As a result of enabling farming families to grow their own food, the government and humanitarian community saved close to $1 billion in emergency aid, underlining that investing in farmers is not only the right thing to do but also the most cost-efficient.
FAO’s Early Warning early action work
Somalia and Kenya are among the first countries benefiting from FAO’s new Early Warning Early Action Fund (EWEA). The fund ensures quick activation of emergency plans when there is a high likelihood of a disaster that would affect agriculture and people’s food and nutrition security.
The fund will be part of a larger Early Warning Early Action System that tracks climate data and earth imaging to determine what areas are at risk of an imminent shock and will benefit from early intervention.
Posted in Africa, Aid, Army, Civil Service, Development, Economic Measures, Economy, Ethics, Governance, Government, Law, Leadership, Politics and tagged #AddisProtest, #AmaharaProtest, #OmoroProtest, 2017 General Election Kenya, Abdela Kadir, Abdikarim Hussein Guled, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gaas, Abune Dioskoros, Adaado, Addis Ababa, Addisu Serebe, Afar, Afar Region, Afmadow, Afmadow District, African Horn, African Union, African Union Mission in Somalia, Agriculutre, Al Sunnah wal Jamaah, Al-Qaeda, Alene Shama, Alliance Party of Kenya, Amba Giorgis, Amhara, AMISOM, Amnesty International, Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, APK, Artan, Article 19, ASAL Counties, Asasa, Atalay Zafe, Ato Gedu Andargachew, AU, AU Mission in Somalia, Awaday, Badhadhe, Badhadhe District, Bahr Dar, Bahr El Ghazal, Bale, Bekele Gerba, Boniface Mwangi, Borena Zone, Burundi, CBK, CDO Debretsion, Central Bank of Kenya, Central Somalia, Chama Cha, Coalition for Reform and Democracy, Colonel Demeke Zewdu, Conflict, Congolese Authorities, cooperatives, CORD, Council of Governors, Counterterrorism, County Government, Crop Loss, Crop Sector, Dejene Turfa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Demonstration, Deputy President William Ruto, Djibouti, Dominique Burgeon, DP Ruto, DP William Ruto, Dr. Riek Machar-Teny, DRC, Drought, East Africa, EBC, ECD Centres, El Nino, Elidar, Emergency, ENDF, EPRDF, Erecha, Eritrea, Eroded Labor, ESAT, Ethiopia, Ethiopia Universial Periodic Review, Ethiopian Athlete, Ethiopian Government, Ethiopian National Defence Force, Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, EU, European Union, European Union External Action, Famine, Famine Early Warning System Network, Famine Early Warning Systems Network, FAO, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Federal Government, Federal Government of Somalia, Federal Republic of Somalia, Federica Mogherini, Fewsnet, FIDH, Fikadu Mirkana, FireChat, Food Insecure, Food Insecurity, Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit, Food Shortage, Galkayo, Galmudug, Galmudug Parliament, Galmudug State, Garissa, Getachew Ademe, Getachew Reda, Getachew Shiferaw, GIA, Gideon Moi, Girum Chala, GNU, GoB, GoDRC, GoE, GoK, GoSS, GoU, Government Ministries, Government of Burundi, Government of Ethiopia, Government of Kenya, Government of Somalia, Government of South Sudan, Government of Uganda, Governors, Grand National Union, Greenhouses, Gulf States, H.E. Hailemariam Desalegn, H.E. Uhuru Kenyatta, H.E. William Samoei Ruto, Haile Asfha, Haile Mariam Desalegn, Hassan Sheik Mohamoud, Hassan Sheik Mohamud, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Health Care Personnel, Health Care Services, Hiraan, Hon. Ato Gedu Andargachew, Hon. 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Kenya – Worsening drought in Mandera and Samburu (23.11.2016)
Drought conditions are deteriorating particularly in northern Kenya. Around 1.3 million people are reportedly food insecure.
Food security is expected to shift from stressed (phase 2 of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification/IPC) to crisis level (IPC phase 3) for pastoral areas in early 2017. Global acute malnutrition is expected to remain critical, with rates above emergency thresholds.
The government of Kenya announced an allocation of 5.4 billion Kenyan shillings (nearly EUR 50 million) to mitigate the effects of the drought.
DG ECHO partner organisation Acted launched an emergency appeal for USD 2.6 million for immediate life-saving support to drought-affected communities in the districts of Mandera and Samburu.
Posted in Africa, Agriculture, Civil Service, Development, Ethics, Governance, Government, Law, Leadership, Politics and tagged 2017 General Election Kenya, Agriculutre, Alliance Party of Kenya, APK, ASAL Counties, Boniface Mwangi, CBK, Central Bank of Kenya, Chama Cha, Coalition for Reform and Democracy, cooperatives, CORD, Council of Governors, County Government, Deputy President William Ruto, DP Ruto, DP William Ruto, East Africa, ECD Centres, Garissa, Gideon Moi, GNU, GoK, Government Ministries, Government of Kenya, Governors, Grand National Union, Greenhouses, H.E. Uhuru Kenyatta, H.E. William Samoei Ruto, Health Care Personnel, Health Care Services, Hon. William Ruto, Isiolo, JAP, Jubilee, Jubilee Alliance, Jubilee Alliance Party, Jubilee Party, KANU, Kenya, Kenya African National Union, Kenya General Election, Kenya General Election 2017, Kenya National Government, Kenya National Treasury, Kenyan Government, Kilifi, Kitui, Kwale, Livestock Disease Control, Makueni, Mandera, Marsabit, Members of Parliament, MPS, National Treasury, New Jubilee Party, New-Ford Kenya, Political Party, Political Platform, President Kenyatta, RC, Republican Congress Party of Kenya, Ruto, Samburu, Senators, Taita Taveta, Taita Taveta County, Tana River, The National Alliance, TNA, UDF, Uhuru Kenyatta, United Democratic Front, United Republican Party, Unity Party of Kenya, UPK, URP, Value Added Projects, Wajir, Water Bowsers, Willam Ruto, William Ruto, William Samoei Ruto | Leave a comment
Kenya: Joint Press Briefing – Drought and Food Security situation in ASAL Counties (16.10.2016)
Posted in Africa, Civil Service, Development, Economic Measures, Economy, Ethics, Governance, Government, Law, Leadership, Politics and tagged 2017 General Election Kenya, Agriculutre, Alliance Party of Kenya, APK, ASAL Counties, Boniface Mwangi, CBK, Central Bank of Kenya, Chama Cha, Coalition for Reform and Democracy, cooperatives, CORD, Council of Governors, County Government, Deputy President William Ruto, DP Ruto, DP William Ruto, East Africa, ECD Centres, Garissa, Gideon Moi, GNU, GoK, Government Ministries, Government of Kenya, Governors, Grand National Union, Greenhouses, H.E. Uhuru Kenyatta, H.E. William Samoei Ruto, Health Care Personnel, Health Care Services, Hon. William Ruto, Isiolo, JAP, Jubilee, Jubilee Alliance, Jubilee Alliance Party, Jubilee Party, KANU, Kenya, Kenya African National Union, Kenya General Election, Kenya General Election 2017, Kenya National Government, Kenya National Treasury, Kenyan Government, Kilifi, Kitui, Kwale, Livestock Disease Control, Makueni, Mandera, Marsabit, Members of Parliament, MPS, National Treasury, New Jubilee Party, New-Ford Kenya, Political Party, Political Platform, President Kenyatta, RC, Republican Congress Party of Kenya, Ruto, Samburu, Senators, Taita Taveta, Taita Taveta County, Tana River, The National Alliance, TNA, UDF, Uhuru Kenyatta, United Democratic Front, United Republican Party, Unity Party of Kenya, UPK, URP, Value Added Projects, Wajir, Water Bowsers, Willam Ruto, William Ruto, William Samoei Ruto | Leave a comment
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Archive for the tag “Revolutionary”
#SONA2017: Mmusi Maimane speaks to the media outside Parliament after walking out (Footage)
Posted in Africa, Civil Service, Development, Election, Ethics, Governance, Government, Law, Leadership, Politics, Transparency and tagged Africa, African National Congress, ANC, ANC Government, Better Service, Business Friendly Approach, Cape Town, Change, Chronic Unemployment, DA, Democratic Alliance, Deteriorating Service Delivery, Economic Climate, Economically, Election, European, Gauteng, General Election 2016, Government, H.E. Jacob Zuma, Hardship, Hon. Mmusi Maimane, Indians, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, Jacob Zuma, Jobs Crisis, Mmusi Maimane, Muncipality, NAC, National Action Council, National Assembly, Nelson Mandela, Nepotism, Pietermaritzburg Resolutions, Population Growth, President Zuma, Public Works Programs, Republic of South Africa, Revolutionary, Ruling Regime, SA, Shrinking Economy, Socially, SONA2017, South Africa, South African Constitution, South African National Assembly, State of the Nation Adress, Struggle, Unemployment, Vote, Voteless, Work, Youth Unemployment | Leave a comment
Remembering Madiba: Let Us Continue Building a United South Africa, Message from President Jacob Zuma (05.12.2016)
Today, on the anniversary of Madiba’s sad passing, let us recommit ourselves to unity, and to working together to build our country, regardless of whatever political differences we may have.
PRETORIA, South Africa, December 5, 2016 – On this day in 2013, the first President of a free and democratic South Africa, President Nelson Mandela passed on, leaving behind a rich legacy of building a dynamic young nation, from the ashes of apartheid.
President Mandela taught us to unite and to love and respect one another as South Africans. He also taught us to build friendly relations with our neighbours and the international community as a whole.
A lot of good work has been done towards building a truly united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa. The road ahead remains long and full of challenges given the unending economic slowdown globally and locally and the need to continue building a better life for and with our people. There is indeed a lot more hard work to be done, as we move towards the ideal society he envisaged when he said let there be bread, water and salt for all.
Today, on the anniversary of Madiba’s sad passing, let us recommit ourselves to unity, and to working together to build our country, regardless of whatever political differences we may have. Let us work harder than ever, to make South Africa a success story that generations to come will be proud of.
Posted in Africa, Civil Service, Development, Ethics, Governance, Government, History, Law, Leadership, Politics and tagged Africa, African National Congress, ANC, Bantu, Better Service, Business Friendly Approach, Cape Town, Change, Chronic Unemployment, DA, Democratic Alliance, Deteriorating Service Delivery, Economic Climate, Economically, Election, European, Freedom, Freedom Day, Gauteng, General Election 2016, Government, H.E. Jacob Zuma, Hardship, Hon. Mmusi Maimane, Indians, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, Jacob Zuma, Jobs Crisis, Mmusi Maimane, Muncipality, NAC, National Action Council, Nelson Mandela, Nepotism, Pietermaritzburg Resolutions, Population Growth, President Zuma, Public Works Programs, Republic of South Africa, Revolutionary, Ruling Regime, SA, Shrinking Economy, Small Business, Socially, South Africa, South Africa General Election 2016, Struggle, Unemployment, Vote, Voteless, Work, Youth Unemployment | Leave a comment
Press Statement of Organisers of Occupy Luthuli House #OccupyLuthuliHouse (04.09.2016)
Thank you once again for coming and honouring this invitation at such short notice. As millions of South Africans witnessed on Friday, a revolution isn’t a bed of roses. However we equally believe what happened Friday was a blessing in disguise as millions of South Africans saw exactly why we are on this cause. South Africans witnessed how the ANC has deteriorated, South Africans saw a micro reflection of how ordinary members of the ANC are silenced and dealt with in branches. Millions of South Africans saw why we have severely lost our moral high ground and why we are fast losing respect from society and no longer leading it. Millions of South Africans witnessed the implications of people being parachuted as leaders yet have no inclination of what it means to be a disciplined member of the ANC. South Africans saw why residents of Tshwane, particularly young people didn’t vote for the ANC. South Africans this is what we are fighting against. We are fighting against institutional abnormalities, intellectual paucity and moral deficiency in our ranks. We are fighting to salvage what is left of this revolutionary movement started by dignified, astute and disciplined Africans. Africans who understood that militancy and radicalism was never tantamount to hooliganism. We are fighting against patriarchy and chauvinism that has seen many women in the ANC and overall society being isolated, labelled and man handled because their views were not advancing agendas.
In the most trying times we have never witnessed Tata Nelson Mandela insult, slander or belittle even leaders of apartheid, we have never witnessed O.R. Tambo man handle or intimidate those with dissenting views. We wish to reiterate that no one has ownership or intellectual property over the ANC as ANC belongs to society. Hence even in joyous moments we continue to appreciate that its ordinary people that proudly wear ANC colours, but also in times of despair let them do so. We wish to extend our unequivocal apologies to the management and staff of the Classique Hotel in Tshwane, the National Press Club who hosted the press briefing, but more importantly to you South Africans that witnessed a self-proclaimed ANC member and leader rape the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa by undermining and disregarding freedom of speech and expression. We apologise to the veterans that had to witness what YL members have degenerated to. It was embarrassing, humiliating but more than anything it was necessary so that society understands why we can no longer introspect but we must take action.
It is rather unfortunate that we as young people of the ANC are now at logger heads not on fundamental issues such as the implications of South Africa being part of BRICS, whether motive forces as presented in the ANC strategy and tactics document have changed, what are the implications of potential shifts in American and European politics, the Syria crisis, inequalities in our society, that millions of Black South Africans are still subjected to poverty, but unfortunately our generation is embroiled unnecessarily in the turmoil of factional politics led by senior leaders. Our senior leaders are dismally failing our generation, more eager and interested in succession battles as we lose power. Friday we saw live evidence that if we don’t act now this is what the future of the ANC will be.
We wish to reassure millions of South Africans that as bleak as the situation might be, there are ANC members who are decisively ready to change this trajectory. We refuse to stand silently in our corners and watch this erosion unfold, we refuse to be intimidated and if need be will die to save the ANC. Yet we are witnessing cowardice strangling our organisation, many people hiding behind the notion of organisational processes. Millions of South Africans saw how abnormal we have become. We are in a state of paralysis where ANC processes have been hijacked and manipulated and robust engagement oppressed.
We appeal to revolutionary consciousness of NEC members to do the right thing. Are they really willing to go down in history as those that were hell-bent to protect individual interests over the organisation?
As reiterated in our statement on Friday we wish to tell South Africans that Occupy Luthuli House is necessitated by time and space, however time is clearly not our side. The ANC is losing power, its losing society. We therefore call upon members of society, members of the ANC and non-members to please come and join us tomorrow so that we correct these wrongs. Our generation will not sit and watch this. We will never realise our generational mission of economic freedom in our lifetime if we sit and protect patronage, anarchy and just watch the ANC die at the hands of parasitic conformists.
We reiterate our demands and why we are going to occupy Luthuli House
– That the ANC immediately recall President Jacob Gedleyehlekisa Zuma as President of the Republic of South Africa
– That NEC members follow suite and resign
– We call upon stalwarts of the ANC to take us to a consultative conference by December 2016
– The immediate implementation of conference Resolutions which will revive the ANC
– Disbanding the fees commission as it undermines conference resolutions of free and quality education by 2014
We are risking everything as we sit here, but we are inspired by the generation that formed the ANCYL risking everything to advance the armed struggle, we are inspired by those that have made contact and supported pour call. We call upon South Africans to please come tomorrow at 8 am as we converge first at the Bayers Naude square.
We acknowledge and respect the statement of the PEC of Gauteng, and what they have said is no different from all internal processes that have taken place. Unfortunately we also note the PEC’s silence on those who are claiming to defend Luthuli House and threatening violence. Self-proclaimed defenders have threatened violence when we just want to peacefully visit our own headquarters and visit our own leadership and request them to resign. The PEC has not condemned the violent and un-ANC behaviour of ANCYL Tshwane. We are aware that people are being mobilised to come and attack us. We maintain that this is a peaceful demonstration as a result of growing frustrations internally and externally. We continue to see growing frustrations expressed by many in public who seem to share the same sentiment.
We call upon all South Africans who support the ANC and those who voted and those in CBD to come and support us share our views to please come and join us. We remain resolute that we stand with the ANC; we are children of the ANC.
Bonolo Ramokhele
Posted in Africa, Business, Civil Service, Development, Diplomacy, Economic Measures, Economy, Election, Ethics, Governance, Government, Law, Leadership, Politics and tagged #OccupyLuthuliHouse, African National Congress, African National Congress National Executive Committee, African National Congress Youth League, ANC, ANC NEC, ANCYL, Bayers Naude, Bonolo Ramokhele, BRICS, Constitution of South Africa, H.E. Jacob Zuma, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, Jacob Zuma, Luthuli, Luthuli House, Nelson Mandela, O.R. Tambo, PEC, Republic of South Africa, Revolutionary, RSA, South Africa, South Africans, Tambo, Tshwane, YL | Leave a comment
Press Statement: Zimbabwean Government answer the tweet from Julius Malema (15.07.2016)
Here is what the Zimbabwe Government was answering:
Posted in Africa, Civil Service, Development, Diplomacy, Ethics, Governance, Government, Leadership, Media, Politics and tagged African National Congress, ANC, CIC Julius Malema, Colonization, Demonstrations, Dr. C.C. Mushohwe, Economic Freedom Fighters, EFF, EFF Julius Malema, Government of Zimbabwe, Imperialist, Julius Malema, Liberation, Minister of Information Media and Broadcasting Services, Mushohwe, Pseudo-Revolutionary, Republic of South Africa, Revolutionary, RSA, South Africa, Southern Africa, Zanu-PF, Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe African National Union, Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front, Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporations, Zimbabwean Authorities | Leave a comment
The Dream of a Public TV-Debate between top three Presidential Candidates in Uganda
There is a dream of TV-Debate between the three main candidates in Uganda: the NRM with Museveni, the Go-Forward Amama Mbabazi and the FDC Dr. Kizza Besigye! So what will that be, it should be sent on NBS, NTV and WBS at the same time. So that nobody can watch dubbed South American TV-shows for those who don’t care about the politics or elections.
I can’t expect the now gone away Maureen Faith Kyala or Joseph Mabirizi being a part of this. The same with Gen. Benon Biraaro or Abed Bwanika and Professor Bayramureeba; I am sure some people wont to see this candidates to! But, we know that they don’t have the suction yet to be viable combined with the trio who are really fighting to become the President. Even if the Electoral Commission (Now the Independent Electoral Commission), surely will work towards another term for the Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and his NRM! Still, would be fun to have him on the spot together with his arch-nemesis Besigye and new enemy Amama Mbabazi!
Why I discuss it:
“President Yoweri Museveni, also NRM flag bearer, says “he is ready to take on any of his fellow 2016 presidential candidates in a public debate” (…)”While addressing a press conference early Monday in Gulu at the State Lodge, Museveni said: “If Besigye or any other candidate wants to debate with me, I am ready. I don’t move without my mouth or brain…” (…)”The president’s comments today come days after Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye challenged him to a debate ‘to discuss issues affecting Ugandans’” (…)”Besigye became the second candidate to dare the president to a live televised debate after Venansius Baryamureeba” (NBS TV, 23.11.2015).
Though the Professor Barya we’re first touched it and Dr. Besigye we’re second. And then the President answered them. It’s a reason why he didn’t answer the Professor, he doesn’t see he as threat. That he do by Dr. Besigye. So that he sent shots and questioned in the public with other candidates. That is something new, because the NRM-Regime can’t control it or really stare the conversation, they can’t rule it. They can’t script it all. Neither can the other candidates. If it will happen there will be banter and change, even if they set certain terms for the discussion and the general debate between them.
Then the candidates can recharge their words they will stay in memory. Certain facts will be tested. The numbers they drop to each other will be discussed like they also are on the manifestos and speeches. The difference with speeches in campaigns is that the candidate can write it himself and conduct it himself. He will say his own words on the debate, but the forum and space will be different. It’s a place where you need your tongue check and in order. If you don’t do it well you will be political daft or naked by your own words. You can be praised if you have said and conducted yourself accordingly. That is an reaction that you can’t script in anyway, but they have to mobilize and anticipate accordingly to the debate. That will show if the politicians actually has any substance or is just some hot air.
The things that can be good about a debate is if the candidate really get tested. Touched and emotional and loses his cool. Even if many debates can end up in stale boring sadness, because none of candidates actually say something meaningful about the subjects at hand. Since there haven’t been in ages or ever been a presidential candidates debate there would be a breath of fresh air to the citizens. Might even see Mzee out of his comfort-zone! That is something that would be good. I think even Amama Mbabazi could be fired up. Dr. Kizza Besigye has been attacked so much that him I am sure would keep his composure in the debate.
A made up debate between:
Who is in the debate:
The Canidates are President Museveni, former PM Mbabazi and (rtd) Col. Dr. Besigye.
And an un-named TV-Host.
On security:
Museveni: “I and the NRM has ensured, secured and made this country safe, nobody except NRM and my government can keep UPDF under control. Then me and the NRM”.
Mbabazi: “You say you have kept the country safe, but not paid the veterans or made people safe, is that why you have hired crime preventers?”
Besigye: “There isn’t just one man who can control the UPDF; the people, the Government, the Parliament can hold the army under control!”
This is a segment we will show more time later in the debate! (the crowd clapping).
On media freedom:
Museveni: “I am revolutionary differs from Obote and Amin, we have given the freedom of the media, look at the Vision, the Monitors, the radios, they can speak their mind, unless it creates problems, they should not speak to much then they create problems for the country”
Mbabazi: “I will address that the media get more funding from the my new government, get digital and fresh new visions, not the secured media of the NRM that have secured in the past”
Besigye: “The media should be total free and not kept under surveillance from the NRM-Junta. There is too much Musveni-Media where his own propaganda get spread instead of the truth!”
TV Host:
“What are your thoughts on the balloting and election reforms? Are they ensuring the people of free and fair elections in Uganda?”
On Elections:
Museveni: “We have re-introduced free and fair elections, an independent Electoral Commission, that have delivered more than before 1986 when the government had fraudulent elections. If you see somebody who rigs the elections take it to the police and their will take care of it”.
Mbabazi: “After you have voted and not sure if the polls will matter and get the correct result. Ensure to stay at the polling station until they finish. So that the Election Officers can’t fix it! Don’t leave!”
Besigye: “We need a new Electoral Commission, now it is a Museveni-Commission. The culture is to rig for the NRM-Junta. There isn’t a way that this entity will give the will of the people. Until we reform it and change it, we will see that the will of the Ugandans will happen”.
On the Police:
Museveni: “The police are ensuring and securing the people, my people all of Ugandans which the revolutionary force that I have made since the 1980s. Obote or Amin never had the safety and security as the police is doing now. The police only acts, acts upon those forces in Uganda who works against the government, like ADF and LRA”
Mbabazi: “the Police under me and Go-Forward will be police for the Ugandans. The Police will not stop public gatherings and meetings. They will be going against criminals and fight corruption, will make a new commission to fight corrupt much better”
Besigye: “The Police needs reforms. They are not for the Ugandans, if not the Ugandans means the NRM and Museveni. They are a unit and ensure the regime to crackdown on anybody, anybody who speaks against them or acts towards them. We need a police reform that ensure that the IGP, DPP and Courts are independent and not loyal to Museveni, but according to laws to ensure safety for Ugandans”.
Now it’s time for a commercial break please don’t switch the channel, it’s more juicy quotes to come!”.
On Foreign Affairs:
Museveni: “We fought against sectarianism; we the NRM are a Pan-African Movement. We Move-Forward. We fight to liberate and have liberated Uganda and Ugandans. In the same way we will fight these guerillas, guerillas [who] will destroy the NRM and Uganda. We will continue to fight the LRA, the Al-Shabab and other force together with other African armies to secure Uganda and the movement”
Mbabazi: “We will continue to fight together with African Union in AMISOM and continue to have forces in C.A.R. to fight LRA. We in Go-Forward will re-evaluate the police to civic protection, not to fight Ugandans as they do now. The Armed forces will get better housing and better salaries”
Besigye: “We have to change the UPDF from a mercenary force which it has been in South Sudan, been hired to fight in C.A.R. but I will still continue to have forces in Somalia as part of the struggle of our fellow comrades in Somalia. But the NRM-Junta and have kept the UPDF to have seats in Parliament, that is something I will change!”
On the Economy:
Museveni: “We the NRM will continue to build a secure economy as we have done since 1980s. The NRM has built stability and we will over the next term, create a industrial economy, there will be more towns turned into city status, more villages turned into industrial towns, we will stop land grabbing and secure the development. We will focus on agriculture and cash-crops like coffee and tea. I myself as a farmer, a farmer knows the importance of cows and I got rich of agriculture myself! That is wealth creation which Ugandans can do himself. Parts of wealth creation that ensure our YOUTHS! Our Ugandan people we also will strengthen the NAADS and SACCO’s to assure that districts and counties get funding for their and our agricultural projects, agricultural projects who will ensure the Ugandan people and grow our economy”.
Mbabazi: “We will establish more of our economy to support our famers. Farmers are the main workforce. We will move forward to support our farmers. We will support growth with the cooperatives and ensure that districts get silos, follow up budget by the Mputo Declaration. That they get silos in every district and cheap fertilizers! Get more education on cash-crops and learn about more effective methods to earn more on their farm. We Go-Forward! ”
(Some guy in crowd scream: “WE GO FORWARD!”)
Besigye: ““This will be in recognition of the pivotal role of the Agricultural Sector in economic growth and development given the fact that the sector employs 70 percent of Uganda’s labour force. We boast that the backbone of our economy is agriculture yet the budget allocation is small, something that has curtailed the growth of the sector and poverty fight among the farmers. Once voted into power I will increase the budget allocation to agriculture to 15% Time to revive ourself from the NRM-theives”.
The host ends with asking:
“Does anybody in the crowd here have any questions for the candidates? Please grab the microphone so the candidate can try to answer you question, and please adress the one or who your asking the question!”
Like this I could have continued. Don’t you think it would be interesting! What do you think? It would be special with a TV-Debate between three Presidential Candidates. Who can address the public on TV and can’t make switches and changes to their statements and can’t retract quotes. Their banter will stay and they can’t stop the filming and their mouths from blabbering! That can be beautiful. Peace.
Posted in Africa, Agriculture, Aid, Business, Civil Service, Corruption, Crime, Daily Life, Development, Economic Measures, Economy, Education, Election, Ethics, Governance, Government, Industry, Infrastructure, Law, Leadership, Politics and tagged Abed Bwainika, ADF, Agriculture, Al-Shabab, Allied Democratic Force, Amama Mbabazi, AMISOM, Armed Forces, AU Mission in Somalia, Benon Biaaro, Budget Allocation, C.A.R., Campaigns, Cash Crops, Central African Republic, City, City Status, Civic Protection, Codes of Conduct, Col. Dr. Kizza Besigye, Comfort Zone, cooperatives, Corrupt, Courts, CP Fred Enanga, Criminals, DPP, Dr Badru Kiggundu, Dr Badru M. Kiggundu, Dr. Kizza Besigye, EAC, East Africa, East African Community, Economy, Electoral Commission, Electoral Reform, Elton Joseph Mabirizi, Eng. Dr. Badru M. Kiggundu, Farmers Party of Uganda, FDC, FDC Presidential Flag-Bearer, Fight Corruption, Foreign Affairs, Forum for Democratic Change, Free and Fair Elections, Free Speech, Gen. Kale Kayihura, Go-Forward, Go-Forward Group, GoU, Government of Uganda, H. E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, H.E. Yoweri Museveni, Hired, Hoe Project, Hon. Amama Mbabazi, IGP Gen Kale Kayihura, IGP Kale Kayihura, Independent Electoral Commission, Industrial Economy, Industrial Towns, Issues Affecting Uganda, Joseph Mabirizi, Land Grabbing, Laws, LDC, Lord Resistance Army, LRA, Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni., Maureen Faith Kyala, Maureen Faith Kyalya Waluumbe, Media, Mercenary, Mercenary Force, Move-Forward, Mputo Declaration, Museveni Commission, Naked Words, National Budget, National Resistance Movement, NBS TV, NBS Uganda, NRM, NRM Junta, NRM Regime, NTV Uganda, Pan-African, Pan-Africanism, Parliament of Uganda, PDP, People's Development Party, Professor Barya, Professor Baryamureeba, Professor Venasius Baryamureeba, Public Debate, Re-Evaluate, Reforms, Resistance, Revolutionary, Salaries, Script, Sectarianism, South Sudan, Speeches, TDA, TDA Joint Presidential Candidate, TDA Uganda, The Democratic Alliance, The Democratic Alliance Uganda, The Independent Coalition, The Movement, TIC, Uganda Electoral Commission, Uganda People Defence Force, Uganda Police Force, UPDF, UPF, WBS TV, Wealth Creation, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
Quote of the Day – Tamale Mirundi: “Statesman…”
Posted in Africa, Civil Service, Development, Election, Ethics, Governance, Government, Law, Leadership, Politics and tagged 2016 General Election, Col. Dr. Kizza Besigye, Dr. Kizza Besigye, Dr. Warren Smith Kizza Besigye Kifefe, Election, FDC, Forum for Democratic Change, H. E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, Lie, Musveni, National Resistance Movement, NRM, Presidential Election 2016 Uganda, Promise, Renegad, Renegaded, Revolutionary, Run-Again, Statesman, Tamale Mirundi, Term Limits, Truth, Uganda General Election 2016, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
Nelson Mandela statement from 26th of June 1961 – ‘the struggle is my life’
Statement by Nelson Mandela explaining his decision to carry on his political work underground in accordance with the advice of the National Action Council (NAC).
The struggle is my life
The magnificent response to the call of the National Action Council for a three day strike and the wonderful work done by our organisers and field workers throughout the country proves once again that no power on earth can stop an oppressed people determined to win their freedom. In the face of unprecedented intimidation by the government and employers and of blatant falsehoods and distortions by the press, immediately before and during the strike, the freedom loving people of South Africa gave massive and solid support to the historic and challenging resolutions of the Pietermaritzburg Conference. Factory and office workers, businessmen in town and country, students in university colleges, in primary and secondary schools, inspired by genuine patriotism and threatened with loss of employment, cancellation of business licences and the ruin of school careers, rose to the occasion and recorded in emphatic tones their opposition to a White republic forcibly imposed on us by a minority. In the light of the formidable array of hostile forces that stood against us, and the difficult and dangerous conditions under which we worked, the results were most inspiring. I am confident that if we work harder and more systematically, the Nationalist government will not survive for long. No organisation in the world could have withstood and survived the full-scale and massive bombardment directed against us by the government during the last month.
In the history of our country no political campaign has ever merited the serious attention and respect which the Nationalist government gave us. When a government seeks to suppress a peaceful demonstration of an unarmed people by mobilising the entire resources of the State, military and otherwise, it concedes powerful mass support for such a demonstration. Could there be any other evidence to prove that we have become a power to be reckoned with and the strongest opposition to the government? Who can deny the plain fact that ever since the end of last month the issue that dominated South African politics was not the republican celebrations, but our plans for a general strike?
Today is 26 June, a day known throughout the length and breadth of our country as Freedom Day. On this memorable day, nine years ago, eight thousand five hundred of our dedicated freedom fighters struck a mighty blow against the repressive colour policies of the government. Their matchless courage won them the praise and affection of millions of people here and abroad. Since then we have had many stirring campaigns on this date and it has been observed by hundreds of thousands of our people as a day of dedication. It is fit and proper that on this historic day I should speak to you and announce fresh plans for the opening of the second phase in the fight against the Verwoerd republic, and for a National Convention.
You will remember that the Pietermaritzburg Resolutions warned that if the government did not call a National Convention before the end of May, 1961, Africans, Coloureds, Indians and European democrats would be asked not to collaborate with the republic or any government based on force. On several occasions since then the National Action Council explained that the last strike marked the beginning of a relentless mass struggle for the defeat of the Nationalist government, and for a sovereign multi-racial convention. We stressed that the strike would be followed by other forms of mass pressure to force the race maniacs who govern our beloved country to make way for a democratic government of the people, by the people and for the people. A full-scale and countrywide campaign of non-co-operation with the government will be launched immediately. The precise form of the contemplated action, its scope and dimensions and duration will be announced to you at the appropriate time.
At the present moment it is sufficient to say that we plan to make government impossible. Those who are voteless cannot be expected to continue paying taxes to a government which is not responsible to them. People who live in poverty and starvation cannot be expected to pay exorbitant house rents to the government and local authorities. We furnish the sinews of agriculture and industry. We produce the work of the gold mines, the diamonds and the coal, of the farms and industry, in return for miserable wages. Why should we continue enriching those who steal the products of our sweat and blood? Those who exploit us and refuse us the right to organise trade unions? Those who side with the government when we stage peaceful demonstrations to assert our claims and aspirations? How can Africans serve on School Boards and Committees which are part of Bantu Education, a sinister scheme of the Nationalist government to deprive the African people of real education in return for tribal education? Can Africans be expected to be content with serving on Advisory Boards and Bantu Authorities when the demand all over the continent of Africa is for national independence and self-government? Is it not an affront to the African people that the government should now seek to extend Bantu Authorities to the cities, when people in the rural areas have refused to accept the same system and fought against it tooth and nail? Which African does not burn with indignation when thousands of our people are sent to gaol every month under the cruel pass laws? Why should we continue carrying these badges of slavery? Non-collaboration is a dynamic weapon. We must refuse. We must use it to send this government to the grave. It must be used vigorously and without delay. The entire resources of the Black people must be mobilised to withdraw all co-operation with the Nationalist government. Various forms of industrial and economic action will be employed to undermine the already tottering economy of the country. We will call upon the international bodies to expel South Africa and upon nations of the world to sever economic and diplomatic relations with the country.
I am informed that a warrant for my arrest has been issued, and that the police are looking for me. The National Action Council has given full and serious consideration to this question, and has sought the advice of many trusted friends and bodies and they have advised me not to surrender myself. I have accepted this advice, and will not give myself up to a government I do not recognise. Any serious politician will realise that under present-day conditions in this country, to seek for cheap martyrdom by handing myself to the police is naive and criminal. We have an important programme before us and it is important to carry it out very seriously and without delay.
I have chosen this latter course, which is more difficult and which entails more risk and hardship than sitting in gaol. I have had to separate myself from my dear wife and children, from my mother and sisters, to live as an outlaw in my own land. I have had to close my business, to abandon my profession, and live in poverty and misery, as many of my people are doing. I will continue to act as the spokesman of the National Action Council during the phase that is unfolding and in the tough struggles that lie ahead. I shall fight the government side by side with you, inch by inch, and mile by mile, until victory is won. What are you going to do? Will you come along with us, or are you going to co-operate with the government in its efforts to suppress the claims and aspirations of your own people? Or are you going to remain silent and neutral in a matter of life and death to my people, to our people? For my own part I have made my choice. I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.
My 2 cents:
– This is just my thoughts. This speech is so powerful and amazing. The sad thing is that its now been one year and a day since his death. This speech I upload here today in rememberence of his peaceful and revolutionary mind. Peace.
Posted in Africa, Civil Service, Corruption, Crime, Daily Life, Governance, Government, History, Politics and tagged Africa, African National Congress, ANC, Bantu, Election, European, Freedom, Freedom Day, Government, Hardship, Indians, NAC, National Action Council, Nelson Mandela, Pietermaritzburg Resolutions, Revolutionary, South Africa, Struggle, Vote, Voteless | Leave a comment
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MINI THRILL MAXIMISED.
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MOTORSPORT IS IN OUR DNA.
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In 1959, Sir Alec Issigonis and Morris Motors introduce the Classic Mini to the world: a compact, affordable, fuel-efficient car with a wheels-pushed-out design and a transversely-mounted engine. The British public don’t know what to make of it. But others, like John Cooper, see great potential in this seemingly unassuming vehicle.
It’s the early 1960s when John Cooper – now renowned for pioneering the rear-engine race car – becomes intrigued by the Mini’s unconventional transverse engine. He sees the potential to transform the humble Mini into a feisty race car. And so, in 1961, with the addition of a racing-tuned engine and a more rigid chassis, the ‘Mini Cooper’ emerges from the Cooper Car Company garages, marking the birth of a legend.
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Posted on October 30, 2016 by mcrae3051
For Geoffrey, who knows it all already.
Bourke St, Grand Final week. (pics: Findlay Films)
I was there. Round 3 versus Hawthorn. The Hawks had got out to a 30-point lead midway through the second quarter but the Dogs pegged them back with five unanswered goals and then poked through another four — from unlikely sources. Shane Biggs, for example, got two. Eleven Dogs players kicked goals that day. Caleb Daniel, the semi-adolescent helmeted ant, had been everywhere. From a dispassionate view, it had been a showcase of fast fluent elegant football. But then, like they do, like they had for the last three years, Hawthorn came pumping back. A seven goal last quarter. Sicily (who’s Sicily?!) kicked three before Jakey Stringer managed an unlikely effort to put the Dogs three points up with a couple of minutes to go.
Having trouble with the tension — because I knew we could beat them, it was just when — I’d left my seat 15 minutes before, wandering heart pounding round the passages of Etihad Stadium, catching glimpses of the game on the TVs, through the entries or the spaces left for the wheelchairs, trying to read what was happening from the crowd noise (47,000 in). I got down to the bottom tier and stopped in the aisle just behind the goal posts, 30 metres from where Bob jumped to spoil Sicily landing awkwardly. I could actually see the look on his face. He knew he was gone. Ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in the same knee he’d wrecked in the same way in 2006. Surgery, then out for the season.
This is Bob. Bob! Our Bob, our favourite, who could be the most popular footballer in the Australian Football League. Witty, smart, thoughtful Bob who for a time wrote the most engaging and quirky football column going round, Melbourne’s civilisation made flesh. A gentleman, son of a former nun and a priest if that matters at all, kind, committed, the face of the AFL’s go at feminism, the ‘I want to play football like a girl’ campaign. In 2015 he was chosen in a wildly popular move as All-Australian captain. And his football skills … silk we say. Just silk. Not quite Chrissy Grant, but damn close. In his pomp you’d go to the footy to watch him.
That week I wrote him my first ever letter to a footballer, remembering him as a skinny twig and the tip from Ron Ikin that he was going to be great. He’d played football with the People’s Beard (Murph’s fond name for the stalwart ruckman Ben Hudson), he’d played in three preliminary finals, he’d drunk coffee at The Auction Rooms with Roughy. He didn’t have to, shouldn’t, feel he owed the fans anything. If he went through the rehab and another pre-season, he’d be suiting up in 2017 at age 35, at the very margins of a professional sportsman’s working life.
That was Bob gone. The heartbeat of the club. Coach Luke Beveridge, a close friend of Bob’s, was in tears at the post-game press conference as he suggested that the Western Bulldogs were a glass half-full club and that they would dust themselves off and be ready for the Blues next week.
And so we were. We won. But we lost JJ, Jason Johanissen, the form attacking backman in the comp. Matt Suckling went off with an ankle and possible knee injury that never seemed to get better. Tom Boyd got the shoulder injury that dogged his whole season. The week after, Luke Dalhaus did his medial ligament. A couple of weeks later big Jack Redpath from whom the coach had coaxed a whole new level of commitment and capability did his ACL. Jake Stringer had injury reports from five games in row. Mitch Wallis broke both bones in his left leg and waited screaming with pain for the ambulance. In the same game Dale Morris went off with a hamstring problem (and, as it turns out, played the last four games with two fractured vertebrae). Before the round 19 game against Geelong the team had to make five changes forced by injury. In that game Tom Liberatore played with broken ribs before doing something complex and more enduring to his foot. Jack Macrae did his hamstring. Marcus Adams who had been a revelation just disappeared with something wrong possibly with one or both of his legs. They are all first choice players, half a team full.
We kept winning quite regularly, with mystified journalists — when they could ever be bothered writing about the Dogs — labelling them in the most polite and second-favourite-team terms as unserious lucksters, cheeky pretenders. This was a team of mostly second string players punching way above their weight, just waiting to be found out really. And you look at the list and who could argue.
We dropped games to Geelong (twice), got beaten by St Kilda somewhat unnecessarily and were thrashed by Freo in the last game of the season. We had 15 wins on the board, but whatever you might hope you couldn’t expect much from the finals. Not legitimately. Seventh place. Everyone knows this is nowhere.
How it used to be. Proper footy. Robbie ‘Bones’ McGhie preparing for the 1974 Grand Final. Centre half back! The wind would have whistled through him. Richmond by 40 points over North. Barry Richardson 5, Royce Hart 3. It might be forgotten that Bones came to the Tiges from Footscray and before ending up at South Melbourne, transfers which may have been driven by a shortage of smokes or Sharpie haircuts at the two previous clubs. Note lace-up jumper (and what a good idea that was) and tatts before people stopped commenting on tatts. (The photo is another Rennie Ellis masterpiece.)
I grew up in the bush barracking for Fitzroy. I liked their colours, maroon, royal blue and gold; plus it cut you out from the herd. Especially seeing they never won and hadn’t won a Premiership since 1922. That may be what drew me to them. Underdoggedness.
When we moved to Melbourne and I started taking the football more seriously, I used to get upset watching them lose. So under some modest pressure I began to accompany Mr Ainsworth to watch the Dogs, Mr Ainsworth being a rusted-on-from-birth supporter who to some degree structured his life around the footy season. We were subsequently joined by Mr Smith and Mr Keenan who is no longer with us. That’s all a long time ago now. I’ve probably seen about 450 Dogs games.
This is also history, but the trips around to the suburban grounds were about 15 percent 0f the attraction. It was a big day out to Moorabbin but, wading our way through the black bomber jackets and big blond hair, we could never work out where to stand. We most certainly had our spot on the hill at the Western (later Whitten, but for me always the Western) Oval between the stand and the Barkly Street end with Big Nose, Fat Guts and The Maltese and his two kids. If the football palled you could always watch the sunset’s developing reflection across the river flats on the newly built Rialto and the other city buildings. That’s what you can do from the west.
If 15 percent of the attraction was touring Melbourne’s suburbia, 50 percent was the growth of a narrative around the players. The majority of these 35 or so years have been lean pickings in terms of wins, but there was always someone to talk about.
The Hawk, for example. Dougie Hawkins, football genius, crazed human being, uncontrollably bubbling over with life. Geoffrey will want me to remember the confession in his ‘autobiography’ Hawkins My Story: Both sides of the fence that he was going to/had? burnt d own the house of someone who’d bothered him. He was captain for four years (1990-93) and was club games record holder for 12 years till Chris Grant ran him down in 2006. He also ran for the Senate as a member of the Palmer United Party in 2013.
We loved Ricky Kennedy who spent his time troubling the kidneys of opposition forwards. Super Steve McPherson, who you’d always pick but somehow never quite clicked into peak form: yet another Tasmanian enigma. The Wog Squad (Libber senior, Hose B and Dimma), at their best guaranteed to get the ball — or you die. Fossie Foster drifting across half back or half forward taking mark after mark. As good as Royce Hart? Definitely. He’d hand off to Mickey ‘Fruitcake’ Ford or Greg ‘The Iceman’ Eppulstun (recruited improbably from Won Wron Woodside) who we watched growing from mid-adolescents into men. Galaxy Coleman who tried hard but Lord he was clumsy. Coxy, who when asked in his AFL profile which six people he’d like to have dinner with passed on both Nelson Mandela and Elvis Presley and nominated ‘six strippers’. Simon ‘The Stock Broker’ Beasley (and er hem … ex-bookmaker, a little trouble with the law) who kicked 105 goals in 1985. We could never work out how. John Georgiades who kicked 8 goals in his first game and then never got another kick. Ilija Grgic, Steven ‘Koly’ Kolynuik, Steven ‘Kretters’ Kretiuk, Danny Southern: hard men of the west. Some of them could play and some couldn’t, but we built them all into stories. Mick Malthouse at left, was the first decent coach we had while I was in attendance, among extraordinary dross — I give you Royce Hart, Bluey Hampshire, Alan Joyce, Peter Rohde. (Note the sponsor. Eastcoast Jeans for the Western Bulldogs. This asymmetry used to drive Mr Ainsworth mad. ‘They can’t bloody get anything right! Etc. Etc.’)
Mick is with Jimmy Edmund. I loved Jimmy Edmund. He was captain from 83-85, which included a preliminary final. The previous years had been incredibly lean, years when the handpass which bounced at least once to a team mate was instituted as a mandatory skill, but Jimmy had a bit of a vibe about him, one of those strong medium-size players that on a good day can turn a game. We were up there on our hill one day when, clearly under instruction, Jimmy ran onto the field to the centre bounce, biffed someone, then ran off again. It was, I think, a most defined and truncated version of what is known as ‘flying the flag’. There’s lot of that residual detritus lying round in my mind.
Of this ‘team’ I saw Gary Dempsey, Scott West, Choco Royal, the Hawk, The Stockbroker, Kelvin Templeton, Brad Johnson, Scotty Wynd, Little Libber (both Brownlow medallists, awarded for best and fairest player of the season although opposition fans like to question Mr Liberatore senior’s fairness). And all-time legend Chrissy Grant. Mr Fairness Itself, who was robbed of his medal. There’s some good players there, but it wasn’t necessarily The Greats we were interested in.
The other 35 percent of the attraction? Match results I suppose. On the field winning was a brief frisson of pleasure rather than an expectation. Off the field things always seemed rocky. Mr Ainsworth could usually help with insights into trouble at the club. We always seemed to be selling our best players or our captain. Ian Dustan, club champion three years in a row and with Kelvin Templeton holder of the highest score ever kicked by two players in a game (22.12 between them, July 1978, how about that!) got sold to North. Jimmy Edmund got choofed off to the Swans. You’d just get a bit of momentum, and clonk!
The major crisis occurred in 1989 when Nick Columb, a fairly colourful racing identity, became President of the club and decided it was broke. While he was promoting the idea of a merger with Fitzroy, the administrators were taking the heavy equipment to the door. The supporters exploded and Peter Gordon and Irene Chatfield (the face of the fans) took over raising enough money to pay off the most urgent of the debts.
Since then there’s been enough wins to keep the fans interested if not ecstatic. Terry Wallace and Rocket Eade were professional coaches who had quite lot of success (in Bulldogs terms: not bottom three). But then there was the McCartney era, 2012, 13 and 14. Everyone agreed he was a nice bloke and ‘a great teacher of men’ to which I used to reply, but no one’s idea of a football coach. We seemed to have a fair team that couldn’t win — 15th (out of 16) in 2012, 15th in 2013 and 14th in 2014. At the end of 2014 the Coach was sacked, the captain asked to be traded to another club and Brownlow Medallist Adam Cooney went to Essendon.
Returning to the present, on Grand Final day, Bob wrote in ‘The Age’ newspaper: ‘A football club’s history is a delicate balance. There is a wafer-thin line between romance and baggage. … At the end of last season I spoke publicly about the fact our club was bruised at the end of 2014. But the reality is we were merely nursing the freshest batch of bruises. Like a Scottish loch, some of these waters run deep. I’m told my club has an ancestral link to Scotland. There’s a clan who know a thing or two about the ripple effect of defeat. For all of my club’s glorious romance of survival and the spirit of working-class heroes, the scars of our past are visible like the thousands of lochs on a Scottish map. With only one premiership in 91 years there are far too many of our clan who feel disgruntled, bitter or unfulfilled. Some have left, never to return.’ That was the grim bit, the calm reflective bit, of what he wrote.
That’s us. All-time Dogs hero Teddy Whitten with a pillar in his head. (I’m sure that wasn’t intended.)
Even if we finished seventh in 2016, we were still in the finals. Dogs’ fans could anticipate the season would last one or maybe two more weeks.
To start with we had to beat the madly in-form West Coast Eagles in Perth, a close to impossible task. The Eagles had lost just seven of the last 32 matches they’d played at home. You had to play the 22 on the track and the 50,000 in the stands. However, the Dogs’ midfield began with a sustained assault. Caleb Daniel and Luke Dalhaus just … well they just … performed. At the final siren Dogs by an unprecedented 50 points. The only downer was Lin Jong, The Chinese Footballer, who we love, breaking his collar bone.
Next up was Hawthorn. Hawthorn who always finds a way to win. The last three premierships in a row just for example. Mr Smith and I were in the best seats in the house, front row of the upper deck of the Olympic stand. I’d been waiting for this, because I knew this was the time that we were going to beat Hawthorn, and it would be a great pleasure to stick it up those brown and yellow arseholes. (Sorry. Lost it there for a moment.) It looked a bit dodgey for the first half. We were holding them but only by the fingernails. They kept getting away like they do — the Cyril factor. But at half time we had scored the last goal and there was a sense that things might turn. Then in a sustained burst of brilliance — and no one, just no one, does this like the current Bulldogs (samples here) — we kicked eight straight. Game over. The Three-Peat boys had finally met their match. We tried our best to be nice to the dairy farmer from Terang and his family who were sitting next to us, the only Hawks supporters in a block of Doggies fans, promising in future to always pay a fair price for milk, but I went home grimly replete.
This win meant we were in a prelim (the game before the Grand Final). Since and including 1954, the last premiership, Footscray/Western Bulldogs has been in 11 prelims and lost 9. I was present at six of those losses: 85, 97, 98, 08, 09, 10. Before some of these at the ceremonial pre-game dinner we had discussed how we’d go if we ever got into a grand final and agreed we wouldn’t be able to cope.
In 97 we lost by two points after leading by 22 at three-quarter time AND after Libber had kicked a goal that was called a point. (AND Chris Grant, one of the fairest players to have pulled on boots, polled the most Brownlow votes only to have its award disallowed after he had been suspended not on the basis of an umpire’s report but unprecedented intervention by Ian Collins, at the time AFL Director of Football and previously Chief Executive of a rival club. That’s a Footscray story, one that actually still burns.) Seven points down against the Saints in 2009 after a bodgey free kick in front of goals (against Brian Lake, to St. Nick ‘you can’t touch him’ Riewoldt) before the ball had even been bounced at three-quarter time.
The opponent was to be the Greater Western Sydney Giants, the ersatz team made up of first round draft picks and ageing stars. In Sydney. At some dog box stadium that seated 20,000 people. ‘Age’ journalist Greg Baum, on the dot as always, described it as ‘the team long overdue for a premiership versus the team precociously ahead of schedule. The team that has paid its dues versus the team whose dues have been paid for them. Cinderella versus the ugly sisters. … A team with one-and-a-half players worth of talent in every position versus a team whose coach implores them to each play like one-and-a-half men.’
‘The football was magnificent, the tension almost unbelievable’, says the AFL website’s match report. The Dogs kept just ahead for the first half, then Roughy got a ball in the face that left him temporarily blinded in one eye. He wasn’t coming back: so no ruckmen at all, Tom Boyd and Zaine (sic) Cordy trying to make a game of it against Man Mountain Mumford. Three goals to GWS left them, for this game, well ahead, but somehow the Dogs scrambled a couple back. Three-quarter time and the Giants were just one point up, dead even really, but after the break they kicked two quick ones: 13 points up, an insuperable lead in this game. But these boys play till the end. Aforesaid Zaine Cordy got one which was more than his brother (Ayce (sic)) ever did. Then after a scintillating run, JJ flicked the ball over towards Bontempelli, who in his languid way just let it bounce and paddled it until it came up into his hands and The Bont wasn’t going to miss. Jack Macrae slotted the sealer. His first set shot and first goal of the season. A six-point win.
I was sequestered in a Daylesford motel room watching this game. Sometime later when company arrived there were questions about my health because I was so pale.
Grand Final. First time for 62 years. How do you accommodate this?
First, by going to New Zealand. Here I am sitting in our room at the Bolton Hotel in Wellington. (Mr Ainsworth was in Milan, Mr Smith in Kilmore.)
Second, by asking the help where I could find the game televised. They were capable of many things but seemed to go to the thinnest of water at this most important request. As it happened I found it in our room on an obscure cable channel called Duke devoted mainly to transmitting American college sport. Didn’t matter though. Not one whit. Because that night we were going to see NZ Opera’s version of Sweeney Todd at the Saint James. I can only say I’d arranged all this long before there was any chance of the Dogs being at the pointy end of the finals.
I watched the anthem and the first five minutes. No one appeared to be able to hold the ball. It was like soap. Then it was time to go. Deep breath for the pleasant half hour walk along The Terrace to Courtney Place. We hadn’t decided where to eat occasioning the usual crisis and in our meanderings we went past a pub where raucous patrons had the game on. I don’t think they were watching, and if they were they weren’t concentrating properly. Any game requires focus; how much more so a grand final? Five minutes to go in the first quarter, Dogs four points up. I tried to ask the motley about the run of play but they seemed to have no idea what I was talking about.
We had dinner a few hundred metres up the street, a slightly tarted-up version of a Turkish takeaway where the food never seemed to come. I was a bit on edge. The conversation didn’t really flow. The meal did come. We ate it. I ran back to the pub. The score box said five or so minutes to go in the second quarter, Swans up by 8. The punters seemed to have lost all interest. I ran back to the theatre because it was time to go in and anyway I couldn’t focus.
We saw an exceptionally fine version of Sweeney Todd, Teddy Tahu Rhodes being wonderful in the main role, Antoinette O’Halloran perhaps even better as Mrs. Lovett. I stayed calm at interval and didn’t race off down the street, just stood there looking benign and foreign. What I wanted now was to immerse myself in the second half of the music, walk quietly home, open the AFL website and look at the worm — the score progress graph — and that’s just what happened. Myrna took a look at me and said, ‘Lost by five points.’ And I said, ‘No. We won.’
How do you deal with the impossible? Just because it’s desirable doesn’t make it reasonable or — ready? — processable.
Before the Grand Final Lord Rowland dropped me a line wondering ‘what odds would have been on offer six months ago on:
Being in the AFL Grand Final – 30/1?
Winning the AFL Grand Final – 50/1?
Being in the VFL Grand Final – ?
Winning the VFL Grand Final – ?
Winning both Grand Finals – 200/1?’
10,000/1 more like. Matthew Lloyd, current doyen of tipsters, tipped against us in each of the finals. We’d done well he thought, but now for the real stuff. Well Matthew … But everyone else who wasn’t seduced by the romantic dream knew we had no hope.
We started from seventh place. We had to win four on the trot against opponents who for various excellent reasons were most unlikely to be beaten. We’ve got a team that includes: Z. Cordy, F. Roberts, J. Hamling, none of whom could possibly be in a premiership team. Daniel, Dunkley, Hunter, McLean are good kids, but children. We do not have a power forward. Jakey Stringer has become ‘The Package Unwrapped’, a mile out of touch. Best forward: Tory Dickson. Crikey. Against Buddy Franklin and Tippett? You jest. We’re very short all over the field. Even helmeted, Caleb Daniel just rises to most people’s nipples. We make Dale Morris, a Collingwood six-footer, take on and beat gorillas every week. We haven’t really got a ruckman. And we didn’t have Bob…
But above all, we don’t have hope, not really. Which is to say that we make no assumptions. We qualify hope, measure it, keep it in its place with the lid pretty tightly on. The boys do well. We like them. They’ve had a good year against all sorts of adversity and they seem a nice bunch. We’re not the types who go along to grand finals. Not to play anyway. And that’ll do fine.
Before the game one of the commentators describes the Dogs perhaps unnecessarily as having been ‘a carcase on the football landscape’, but Bevo in the pre-game interview suggests ‘there’s a bit of glue there’. Danny McGinlay’s so smart run-through banner says: ‘We’ve beaten all the others/ defied all the odds./ Today this team of puppies/ become true Bullgods’.
The first quarter is one of relentless pressure — no biff, nothing unbecoming, nothing spiteful. These teams are going to win by beating rather than bashing the other side. Just relentless pressure, as Dennis Cometti says, like a game of pinball. The Swans miss two easy shots, and so go eight points up rather than 18. That helps. Cordy (Z.) misses Lachie Hunter clear in the goal square but then produces a remarkable tackle and kicks a goal from the boundary line. Buddy Franklin has rolled his ankle but Hamling has beaten him one-on-one twice already. No one is ahead. Neither team has got off to their lethal flying starts.
One minute into the second quarter Tom Boyd, the six million dollar flop, kicks a very difficult goal from an un-Tom-Boyd-like mark. Hamling and Roberts, journeymen at best, are playing the games of their lives in the backline. The Swans’ Grundy takes something that looks a lot like a mark, but eventually it spills and Tory Dickson cleans up for a goal. Picken gets another beauty. At the 12 minute mark we’re 16 points up. JJ is getting a lot of the ball but keeps kicking it to the opposition. Josh Kennedy, such a good player, has just cut loose for the Swans. Bang, a goal. Bang, a minute later. Another one. The Swans are getting on top. They’ve kicked four goals in seven minutes. Toby McLean gets a dodgey free and then just before half-time has a no-look snap from a scrimmage in front of goal, and after an 11-goal quarter it’s the Swans by two points.
At half time we get a look at Bob Murphy, floating round in some disembodied state, madly chewing gum, his eyes glazed and impenetrable, clapping his hands in some sort of dedicated but directionless encouragement. Disposals 198-197; inside 50s 25-24; contested possessions 80-79; time in the forward half? Exactly 50-50. Even watching the replay for the third time my palms get sweaty.
Tippett, who without dominating has been playing well — the Swans are no pushover at the best of times — takes a good mark but misses with his kick. Tommy Boyd has somehow developed soft hands to go with his wrists of steel and his usual stiff-arm marking style. From a play he has initiated, Dickson flicks one through and the crowd goes insane. We’re ahead again. Jack Macrae gets a whack on the head from Laidler after a mark. Fifty metres (always a very useful penalty). But he hooks it, a big chance, missed. Jake Stringer kicks another possession out of bounds on the full. He couldn’t hit a barn door today. There’s a scoring lull, but it’s full of incredible tackling, full of lucky and unlucky bounces, endless half volleys: nothing is clean possession. Rampe stands in a tackle and gets pinged for holding the ball. A margin call. Free kick count 17 to 4 our way, but there have been plenty of games over the years where it’s gone the other way. Might be our turn; success breeds luck perhaps. The Bont has come good and Boyd (T.) takes two more killer marks. At three-quarter time we’ve had 7 of the last 10 scoring shots, but we’re still only eight points up. Have we squandered the championship quarter?
Last 30 minutes for the year. Four minutes in Buddy gets a goal and Papley has already kicked a point — so there is one point in it. Is this the end? The Sydney steam roller about to come good? 12 minutes to go and Jakey finds a trademark stroke of genius and gets one from nowhere out of the back of a pack. They can’t break us. Not yet.
Mr Ainsworth has watched the game a number of times wondering just when it was that we were going to win. I say it was this.
Thirty metres from the goals Papley kicks into Biggs, the man on the mark. Biggs follows up but is tackled. Dalhaus gets a tap forward. Lloyd (Swans) picks it up but Biggs smothers his handpass. Macrae gets it, off to Dunkley who handpasses ahead of Biggs yet again. Cordy (Z.), shorts pulled off displaying his nether regions, gets it out of a pack but can’t quite get it onto his boot. It spills to Daniel who gets it to Tom Boyd who kicks into the back of Stringer. It’s in the air. Biggs gets it again but is immediately stripped. A Swans handpass, desperate and misdirected, is picked up by Dunkley, to Macrae who somehow flicks it off his boot over to McLean who spills the mark into the path of Picken who picks it up and goals.
From Papley lining up to kick the ball until the goal umpire has raised two fingers, time elapsed: 39 seconds. (A chauvinistic moment, Australian Rules football, surely the greatest of all team games.) The turning point wasn’t Picken’s goal. It was the absolute determination in that passage of play, this late in the game, to keep control of the direction of the ball. We’re seven points up and there are still seven minutes to play. Enough time to lose it, but not if we play with that sort of desperation.
In his game day ‘Age’ article Bob had also written, ‘I’ve tried to explain with varying degrees of success that en masse we are an uncomplicated group. That doesn’t mean simple, only that these Bulldogs have a gift for simplifying things. Considered as music, we have some virtuosos with classical training. But for the most part this is a garage rock band. Tell us when the game starts, we’ll plug in and crank it up to 11.’ With seven minutes to go in the last quarter they were still at 11, even 11.5. They weren’t going to lose it from here.
A minute later JJ ducks past McGlynn and kicks a long one. Huge. This must be it. Unbelievable noise from the crowd. The umpire has the ball back in the middle ready for the bounce, when a score review is called for. The replay shows that the ball has somehow bounced on but not completely over the line and the Swans’ Laidler has touched it on the bounce. One point. Back to the old days? The curse? Macrae kicks another point. Then Dale Morris with his two fractured vertebrae runs down Buddy in the centre of the field, a free, but advantage — play on. Tom Boyd picks it up and from 80 metres has a shot and it bounces … bounces … through. ‘And the western suburbs erupt’, says Dennis Cometti. This must be the cork in the bottle. Fifteen points. Yep. It’s looking like it. McGlynn (Swans) misses a set shot from thirty metres out and hangs his head. Tommy Boyd kicks a point. Can the Swans get three goals in five minutes? Probably not. Two minutes fourteen to go Stringer squares a beautiful pass to Liam Picken who controls it well enough to get his boot on the ball from just a few metres out. What a game he’s played. That’s the absolute sealer. We will win. The coach comes down from his box to the boundary line. Bob’s there too, tears streaming down his face. Bench: Hunter, Boyd M., Smith, Cordy Z. (sic). The siren goes as Toby McLean misses a set shot. Chrissy Grant and Rohan ‘Bubba’ Smith embrace dissolving in their own sets of tears.
There were those who put it down to the controversial bye before the finals which gave five of our injured players an additional week to recover. Or the injuries during the game to Buddy Franklin (who didn’t seem to be impeded) and Hannebery (only towards the end of the game). Sydney’s foolishness in picking McVeigh and Mills who were clearly not fit was noted. The internet seethed with the free kick count and the number of dodgey ones that went our way and there was some weird Trumpian inference that the only explanation for the result was that we must have cheated. Bruce ‘Cyyyrrrrrrilllll’ McAvaney, unbearable man that he is, was more interested in the retirement of his co-commentator than the result. But we won.
Let it be recorded: Dogs 13.11.89 Swans 10.7.67.
JJ was awarded the Norm Smith medal for best on ground. If any individual could have won it, it should have been the Swans’ Josh Kennedy. The point of the Dogs is that no player dominates or wins a game on their own. Boyd T., Boyd M., Morris, Hamling, Roberts were all great; but it was Dalhaus and Libber who were at the bottom of the packs, the fundamental part of the swarm that won the game; Jack Macrae gave his sweet left foot a big work out; The Bont … always; Dickson kicked the goals; Picken! Picken, ah … and so on.
Then in the post-game carry-on two unusual things happened.
No one made the traditional Australian ‘thank you’ speech, the one that begins ‘I’d just like …’. In his concession, Keiran Jack the estimable captain of the Swans (who have a player-instituted ‘no dickheads’ policy, bless them) began: ‘Just huge congratulations. You guys play footy the right way, so you’re well congratulated today.’ Honourable, decent, respectful.
And there was none of the conventional idiot triumphalism from Bevo. ‘It took our very best to beat the Swans. They’re a tremendous side. At half time I really thought it would take something extra special to win. The boys had given their all already. … And to you, the fans, we’ve felt like the Beatles this past week. You’ve boosted our spirits. We’ve ridden on your wings really. Our players couldn’t have given any more. They’re totally spent.’ Just as he says this there’s a cutaway to the players who are jumping up and down, hugging each other, clearly far from spent. It’s himself he’s talking about.
‘Thank you very much.’ And he turns away, but then as though drawn by something important he turns back to the microphone and says, taking off his premiership medallion: ‘Before I go I’d like to get Bob Murphy up on the stand. … This is yours Murph. You deserve it more than anyone else.’
A short while later, Sam Lane, a female journalist, they’re friends, catches Bob who’s worn his game day jumper under his track suit top. Catching him has not been an easy task. We have been watching him having an out-of-body experience geeing up the crowd to roar even more.
‘Robert Murphy, Robert Murphy can you put into words what is running through your veins?’
He struggles, visibly. Then he says, measuring each phrase: ‘We must be dreamin’. It’s somethin’ else. We didn’t even allow ourselves to daydream about this. (A second wind and really to the crowd) Sons and daughters of the ‘Scray, we’re bringing it home. Hoooooomme.’ He strides away gesturing to the crowd still warbling.
And we won, he won, but he didn’t play and the next day he gave the medal back. The AFL, recognising that something special had happened, had already replaced Bevo’s medal, and the spare one is now in the Western Bulldogs museum celebrating the love and respect one can have for one’s fellow human beings.
After the game Boydy said: He [Bob]’s our leader. We’ll just have to do it again for him next year I reckon.’ Aged 35. He’ll be deft and experienced but the injury will ensure he’ll never be as quick or agile as he was. Maybe Bob’s role is spiritual adviser. Maybe we won because he could devote himself to building a scarcely penetrable wall of single-mindedness and (good) will with Bevo. Maybe we won because he wasn’t playing.
When I get the annual survey of club members it requests choice from a seven-point scale whether I am ‘not very interested’ to ‘passionate’. I’m not even torn at this point. Mr Ainsworth would be a 7, I come in about a 5. I barrack pretty emphatically but I don’t buy merchandise. I wear my scarf sparingly. Myrna wears the cap when we go walking. When Footscray won the VFL Grand Final and The Chinese Footballer won the award for best on ground playing with a partially mended collar bone, the other shoulder strapped to confuse the opposition, I was just as happy, happier, than when the firsts won. Unalloyed happiness. Completely uncomplicated happiness. But this …
The Dogs have caught the car. What now? I guess I’ll just have to go along to find out.
Tagged Bob Murphy, Footscray Football Club, Luke Beveridge, Miraculous result, Western Bulldogs Premiers
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To allow Wahhabist Saudi Arabia to protect women's rights is like making a pyromania the head of the fire department. Saudi Arabia, where women can not drive or open a bank account, are now developing UN work for gender equality. Saudi Arabia is one of the world's worst countries with a state-sanctioned systematic discrimination against women. Every year, the Commission gathers new guidelines and give concrete proposals for increasing gender equality in the world. One of the states that will do this from 2018 is Saudi Arabia. A country where women by law are subordinate men, are not allowed to drive or start a bank account, where strict laws regulate women's clothing and a country where women live under constant persecution and oppression! However, this should not happen, it should be made much more demanding that the countries elected to the Commission are also the most prominent in their work for women's rights, not the contrary! It is terrible that what is exposed to women in Saudi Arabia. We must, by all means, make it possible for women to have another life in Saudi Arabia as well. I note that Saudi Arabia has been nominated and elected as representative of its geographical group. The UN is an organization consisting of Member States, where everyone has the same right to participate in the organization's work. Elections to the women's commission are made in the regional groups to which each Member State belongs. @scandinavians_against_wahabism SaudiArabia saudi arabia oppression wahhabism AwakeningHumans
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INDEPENDENT E News World World Politics Anger over Saudi appointment to UN Women's Rights Commission Critics call the decision shocking and 'absurd' To allow Wahhabist Saudi Arabia to protect women's rights is like making a pyromania the head of the fire department Saudi Arabia where women can not drive or open a bank account are now developing UN work for gender equality Saudi Arabia is one of the world's worst countries with a state-sanctioned systematic discrimination against women Every year the Commission gathers new guidelines and give concrete proposals for increasing gender equality in the world One of the states that will do this from 2018 is Saudi Arabia A country where women by law are subordinate men are not allowed to drive or start a bank account where strict laws regulate women's clothing and a country where women live under constant persecution and oppression! However this should not happen it should be made much more demanding that the countries elected to the Commission are also the most prominent in their work for women's rights not the contrary! It is terrible that what is exposed to women in Saudi Arabia We must by all means make it possible for women to have another life in Saudi Arabia as well I note that Saudi Arabia has been nominated and elected as representative of its geographical group The UN is an organization consisting of Member States where everyone has the same right to participate in the organization's work Elections to the women's commission are made in the regional groups to which each Member State belongs @scandinavians_against_wahabism SaudiArabia saudi arabia oppression wahhabism AwakeningHumans Meme
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The Death of the Sensible Centre
Terry Barnes
My favourite painting is J.M.W. Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire. Whenever I’m in London, I visit Room 34 of the National Gallery and sit in awe before Turner’s master-piece. To me, it’s a secular shrine.
The mighty Temeraire, veteran of the Battle of Trafalgar that saved England from Napoleon, is being towed to the breaker’s yard more than 30 years after her greatest glory. Yet Turner focuses our gaze on a sinister, black, smoke-belching, paddle-wheeled tug, its squat features outlined sharply as the unresisting Temeraire follows behind, a hazy romantic presence brought meekly yet unwillingly to her fate, a magnificent beast led to the final indignity of slaughter.
The Fighting Temeraire is a magnificent allegory of change, transfiguring the death of England’s heroic past, supplanted by the Industrial Revolution and an inevitable future of ugly, noisy machines and dark, satanic mills. Now, once again, we are on the cusp of massive technological disruption. Our established political institutions and philosophies are not just under threat, but look as certain to be broken up as HMS Temeraire in 1839. Enlightenment liberal-conservative tradition formed by the likes of Edmund Burke, John Locke and John Stuart Mill is under siege from a tide of anti-intellectual populism propelling Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders abroad, and Pauline Hanson and Cory Bernardi at home.
Under intense pressure of the polemic politics propagated by this new generation of demagogues, and the social and economic disruption, dislocation and insecurity they’re exploiting, the Australian sensible centre is going the way of the mighty Temeraire.
The Australian centre as we have known it
Australian centrism has no philosophers. It has no prophets. The political consensus that is Australian centrism has evolved gradually over more than a century. Innovations and values of the political left and right have shaped its evolution, and the competitive tension between the Liberal and National parties and their predecessors on one side, and the Australian Labor Party on the other, have moderated and tempered it over time. Changes of government are the electorate’s way of correcting excesses when one side or the other strays too far from the centrist consensus. This much, voters say, but no further.
The resulting evolutionary journey of the sensible centre has taken us from the insular, economically protectionist, largely monocultural and frankly xenophobic Australia of 1901 to the open, globalist and proudly multicultural Australia of the twenty-first century.
From the left, we have a strong social safety net and a shared commitment to the protections of a welfare state, from age pensions to Medicare and, most recently, the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The left also ensures that while capitalism generates wealth, its benefits should be shared fairly and that workers deserve to be safeguarded from exploitation.
From the right, there is a commitment to capitalism and a strong private sector economy, a healthy distrust of the omniscience of the state, a belief in giving people reward for effort and looking out for the safety of the community as a whole. It has also given us lasting political and legal institutions, including our federation.
From both sides, a faith has evolved in a tolerant, pluralistic and democratic society, where people generally are free to live their lives as they please, provided they don’t do harm to others. We commonly reject extremism of any sort, and the tradition of a fair go for all has been a largely bipartisan golden thread running through our public policy.
Centrist consensus has influenced civil discourse. Our democracy is lively and robust, but has embraced and respected differences of opinion and ideas. Mostly we play by the rules of that civility: the ability of our sporting teams to have a beer after a fierce match is legendary, but so is the ability of our MPs to forget their partisan differences and forge deep friendships transcending party or faction.
While some on the left may find it hard to accept the description, Australia’s centrist consensus is classically conservative. Respect for institutions, acceptance of change when necessary and not for change’s sake, and valuing individuals as part of a greater community is so very typical of the patron saint of Enlightenment conservatism, Edmund Burke.
Like Burke, most Australians have an innate respect for the rule of law, but not such a rigid regard for it, or the rigid permanence of our institutions, that we don’t either question them or preserve them in concrete. Otherwise, why is there widespread public acceptance of gay marriage, adapting society’s most ancient institution to accept contemporary realities? And, despite our self-image of rugged independence, why are we so very willing to accept rules imposed by authority: how else can we explain our passive acceptance of one of the most extensive nanny state regimes anywhere in the world, right down to our national obsession with wearing bicycle helmets?
Unlike its bastard offshoot, libertarianism, classical conservatism embraces the family and community as well as the individual. While respecting personal freedoms, it sees each of us as part of a much wider whole, a society that is, as Burke put it, a contract between the past, present and future. So too does Australian centrism. We rightly take pride in our community spirit, our volunteering and our willingness to lend a helping hand to those in trouble. Full-on libertarian thought and its insistent ‘up yours’ individualism is just as alien to mainstream Australia as Marxism-Leninism and cradle-to-grave European welfarism. All in all, it’s a pragmatic and moderate political consensus that has served Australia well. Until now.
The sensible centre is missing in action
In the final sentence of his Quarterly Essay on Pauline Hanson and her constituency, David Marr writes: ‘Nearly all of us are somewhere else (other than the far right), scattered around the centre, waiting for a government that would take this good, prosperous generous country into the future.’
Even with opinion polls indicating three out of ten of us have deserted the Coalition and Labor parties, whether flirtingly or for good, most Australians are denizens of the sensible centre. They want to see their politicians concentrate on problems directing affecting their daily lives, and offering their children a path to happier, healthier, more economically secure lives than theirs.
They want governments that understand them, their concerns and aspirations. They don’t rant on Facebook or Twitter, obsessively watch round-the-clock news channels, listen to Alan Jones or Neil Mitchell, or barrack panellists on The Drum. They’re more likely to care about personality clashes on My Kitchen Rules or Married at First Sight than care deeply about Malcolm Turnbull or Bill Shorten, Pauline Hanson or, for that matter, Sarah Hanson-Young.
Mainstream Australians, however, do watch or listen to the news and get at least the Laurie Oakes version of what’s going on. Nevertheless, most voters are not activists but set-and-forget democrats, voting dutifully in federal and state elections every three years or so, buying their ‘democracy sausages’ and then leaving politics to the politicians.
Until 2010, Australians could switch off between elections confident that governments and oppositions between them contained enough men and women of competence, good judgement and a shared commitment to keep our politics in the sensible centre—whether centre-left under the pragmatic social democrats like Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, or centre-right under Robert Menzies and his successors up to John Howard.
It’s become standard to say Tony Abbott and his ruthless opposition to the Rudd and Gillard governments invented today’s parliamentary chaos. But it was opposition leader Kim Beazley who started walking Labor back from the Hawke–Keating redefinition of Australia’s centrist consensus, with its combination of economic liberalism, social democracy and institutional conservatism, that paved the way for Abbott and now Bill Shorten’s ruthless total opposition. Now even Paul Keating is saying ‘since 2008, liberal economics has gone nowhere and to the extent that (new ACTU secretary) Sally McManus is saying this, she is right’.
But whoever is responsible, when one or both parties of government in a parliamentary democracy reject centrist consensus for insurgency, as in post-Howard Australia, the price is permanent instability. Add to that a revolving-door prime ministership since Labor’s night of the long knives in June 2010—Rudd, Gillard, Rudd, Abbott, Turnbull and whoever’s next—and a Senate voting system all but guaranteed to ensure no government will have an upper-house majority to exercise an unfettered mandate, and the result is endemic chaos.
Populism, nationalism and extremism have risen elsewhere in the West, and even in Donald Trump’s America, there are centrist Republican political leaders to counter-balance their President. Not, however, in 2017 Australia. Here, the entire sensible centre of Australian politics is missing in action when it’s most needed. Neither the Liberal–National Coalition nor Labor are fulfilling the consensus-supporting roles our traditional two-party system intended for them, forcing disaffected voters to look to the fringes for leadership and inspiration.
The balkanisation of the Liberal Party
The Liberal Party of the great centrist, Menzies, is failing in the centre. After six years of opposition and three in government, it still hasn’t worked out what it stands for and where it is going. It is riven by ideological factions, personality cults and power struggles.
Part of the Liberals’ problem is the way that Abbott came to power in 2013: with his potent yet narrow political campaigning focused relentlessly on Julia Gillard’s hated carbon and mining taxes, and stopping the boats, aided and abetted by the Labor death struggle between Gillard and Rudd forces. Abbott and his advisers knew that all they had to do was sit back, enjoy the spectacle of Labor’s self-immolation, and turn up on polling day to waltz into office. Not being Labor was enough, but lack of a detailed plan for government, and failing to prepare voters for the tough medicine the Coalition knew was necessary in the 2014 budget, helped eventually destroy Abbott’s prime ministership.
There’s no question the Liberals were in big electoral trouble when Turnbull launched his coup against Abbott in September 2015. But it quickly became obvious that Turnbull was like Robert Redford’s title character in The Candidate, who having beaten the long-time incumbent, turned to his campaign manager and asked, pathetically, ‘What do we do now?’ Turnbull was not the solution: he was just another—worse—problem.
Since then, Turnbull’s political naivety and indecision have been found out by his opponents, in as well as outside the Liberal Party. Last year he turned a sizeable Coalition majority into a near loss in a campaign where repetition of his ‘Jobs and Growth’ mantra was no substitute for a visionary narrative based on strong, coherent and affordable policies. In turn, that close electoral shave robbed Turnbull of whatever leadership mandate he had post-Abbott, something Abbott himself has exploited ruthlessly in his personal quest for redemption. But it has also killed Turnbull’s authority to lead and unify his bitterly divided Liberal broad church of MPs, grassroots party members and supporters.
Say what you like about Abbott, it’s he, not Turnbull, who from backbench exile is most mapping out a plausible centre-right vision for the Liberals. Turnbull, by contrast, so far is showing little clear vision of his own to compete with Abbott’s, and is at the mercy of factional players, ideological MPs, and backroom powerbrokers who love the political game but care little about the higher purposes or principle and policy for which it is played.
Balkanised, leaderless, rudderless, racked by factionalism and internal tensions: is it any surprise that the party of Menzies is bleeding votes, supporters and funding to the polemic politics of the fringe right, to pretenders to the conservative mantle such as Cory Bernardi and Pauline Hanson?
Labor has found its inner populist
Yet what about Labor? Opinion polls consistently showing Labor streets in front of the Coalition reflect voter frustration with the Coalition, rather than a vote of confidence in Bill Shorten and his team. Not that this deters Shorten from stealing Abbott’s oppositionist and opportunist clothes, and he’s going still further. Hanson likes to claim she’s the Australian soulmate of Donald Trump, but it’s Shorten who is borrowing from the shamelessly populist playbook that propelled Trump to the White House, building a coalition of the displaced and disaffected to win elections, with no thought to the tougher realities of principled governing that must come afterwards.
Since becoming Labor leader in 2013, Shorten has opposed the Coalition at almost every turn. In government Labor helped create a chronic budget deficit problem, and with de facto Senate support from the Greens and fellow populist crossbench travellers such as Tasmania’s Jacqui Lambie, Shorten now refuses to help repair the damage. He has happily exploited government misjudgements from the infamous 2014 budget onwards, and has strengthened his position since a bungled Coalition election campaign allowed him to get away with murder, especially Labor’s now notorious (or legendary depending on your loyalties) ‘Mediscare’ campaign that came within a hair’s breadth of dumping Turnbull from government.
Shorten’s ruthless opposition and unabashed populism have put Labor in the box seat for victory in the next federal election. He looks like a winner and prime minister-in-waiting. But in the process Shorten has interred the proudly Labor centrist settlement of Hawke and Keating. Shorten Labor has become just another shrill populist voice on the left, happy to serve up big-spending nostrums to soothe voter grievances, while booting the generators of wealth—private businesses, investors and savers—who are needed to pay for the extravagant promises of our political class.
Labor’s shepherding of Greens and Senate crossbench opposition to derail the Coalition’s 2014 budget was more than applying a corrective to Abbott’s most unpopular measures. It was also a conscious decision to ditch fiscal responsibility and policy leadership in favour of winning votes. Ever since, Shorten’s modus operandi has been crude but effective: has that nasty government hurt you? Labor will throw a few billions at your hurt and kiss it better. And if the government hasn’t actually caused hurt, then Labor creates fear that it will. That was the essence of Mediscare, and underpins 2017’s blanket scare over the future of penalty rates.
Having played his populist game so well, Shorten risks coming to office with a bulging file of unfunded IOUs, with no intellectual or political credibility left to tack back to the centre he has so enthusiastically abandoned. Surely, that’s no prospect for believers in good government.
Since 2013, therefore, we have been witnessing the fragmentation and destruction of the centrist consensus that has kept Australia prosperous for so long and has underpinned the quarter-century of continuous economic growth that both side of politics crow about. Labor has gone populist, and the Coalition parties, especially the Liberal Party’s ideological factions and personality cults, are tearing themselves apart in their frustration and political impotence. The government is not governing, but nor is there a credible alternative government fit to replace it.
Where the sensible centre once ruled and gave Australians stability and confidence, now only an intellectual vacuum remains. A vacuum needs to be filled, and the fringe players of both right and left—the dreamers, idealists and the downright nutjobs—are rushing to fill it.
In his Quarterly Essay on Hanson, David Marr unfairly treats her followers with condescension and contempt. Most of these people are not, as Hillary Clinton would have it, a ‘basket of deplorables’. They essentially are decent people who have been neglected by the political centre they so long trusted. But even the most decent people have their dark sides, and people’s fears of change, of difference, of the future are being exploited ruthlessly by Hanson and others on the fringe right because the politics and politicians of the centre aren’t there to appeal to the better angels of their nature.
It’s political opportunists of the formerly sensible centre, who allowed this vacuum to arise, who are the true deplorables in this political calculus.
Now the fringe is the mainstream
Those who shout loudest get the attention and, without a coherent sensible centre to moderate political discourse, the fringes of both left and right are shouting loudly, angrily and viciously. Since the mainstream news cycle has gone 24/7 and online, editors and producers crave the three Cs: conflict, colour and, above all, content. Social media too thrives on polemic, conflict and invective, delivered without the editorial filters that at least attempt to keep mainstream media discourse civil.
Polemic politics therefore is becoming the norm in Australia. Fringe players are moving to centre stage, each claiming to have the prescription to treat our social and economic ills, but each also knowing they can play the game all they like without worrying that they may someday have to govern. Stanley Baldwin’s pithy comment about press barons, ‘power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot through the ages’, is apt for them too.
Most media attention is being lavished on Pauline Hanson and her One Nation movement as a rallying point not only for social conservatives disgruntled with the mainstream Coalition parties. As Marr points out in his Quarterly Essay, Hanson redux is slicker, savvier and better managed by her latest Svengali, James Ashby, but One Nation itself is the same haven for kooks and conspiracy theorists that ever it was.
The appeal of Hansonism and further right groups such as the Australian Liberty Alliance, has grown because without a centrist alternative to reassure them, respond to their needs and to moderate their fears of change and difference, the ever-diminishing Anglo-Celtic working class feels ever more threatened. Many older and relatively less-educated voters believe they’ve been forgotten by the political class, and hanker for a time when life was simpler, more ordered and simply better, who wistfully remember standing for ‘God Save the Queen’ at the end of the pictures. It’s easy to distrust foreigners, especially those with different customs, religion and dress, and the fringe right plays to those fears for all they’re worth. #Pray4MuslimBan? They make no distinction between the vast majority of peaceful followers of Islam and the few fanatics and extremists who maim and kill in Allah’s name. Hate in a hashtag.
But Hanson isn’t all. Media-savvy figures such as Nick Xenophon seem reasonable but are equally unabashed populists, trimming their sails to the fickle winds of public opinion. Xenophon always seems to sound reasonable yet often chooses the most popular option, happy to spend big with taxpayers’ money as the currency of his parliamentary Monopoly game. Then there are pure libertarians such as Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm, who subscribe to the notion that rules are for other people. For them, it’s the individual who matters, not the community. Edmund Burke surely would reject libertarians as no conservatives. In their turn, libertarians reject the Australian centrist consensus. What of Mr Common Sense Starts Here, Cory Bernardi? When Bernardi proudly took a cheesy selfie in his Make Australia Great Again baseball cap, and more recently allowed anti-Muslim activist Kirrilie Smith to join his Australian Conservatives micro-party, he abandoned whatever pretensions to genuine conservatism he may have had. He’s no messiah, just another naughty boy.
And even those supposedly riding to conservatism’s rescue from the right, the so-called ‘punk conservative’ movement led by the now-disgraced Milo Yiannopoulos and his Australian acolytes such as the in-your-face Daisy Cousens, are hell-bent on smashing an honourable intellectual heritage in a frenzy of millennial narcissism. Punk conservatives are punks but not conservatives. Yiannopoulos is no new conservative saviour but a Clockwork Orange demagogue: an Alex leading his ideological droogs in an orgy of intellectual violence and destruction. These ‘punks’ have forgotten true conservatism is about community, courtesy, respect and manners as much as ideology, and through their narcissistic antics trash the very ideals and principles they claim to uphold.
When it comes to Polemic Politics, however, even the intellectual left is just as strident, intolerant and aggressive as those it opposes. In 2017 Australia, the horseshoe theory of ideology, that the fringe left and right are closer to each other than the centre, is alive and well. Both have their demagogues and polemicists who are outspoken to the point of crudity, utterly convinced of their own rightness, and reject the legitimacy of any views but their own.
Take the divisive issue of freedom of speech. Many on the left rejoiced in shooting down the Turnbull government’s recent if half-hearted attempts to change the hate speech tests of the infamous section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Many, including some Labor MPs, were happy to vilify those supporting change as endorsing racism and prejudice of all kinds. Yet, smug in the absolute conviction of their own rightness about capitalism, racism, refugees, feminism, gender and marriage equality, climate change, and any other cause they see as confronting their world views, leaders and foot soldiers of the left are all too ready to shout down their opponents, engage in ad hominem attacks and practise moral McCarthyism instead of moral leadership.
Recent attempts to muzzle those offending the left, from the boycotting and humiliating of a brewer for sponsoring a civil conversation between two Liberal MPs on gay marriage to the threats of disruption and violence that led to the cancelation of the visit of Islamic apostate Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Clementine Ford’s determination to Fight Like a Girl as a social media feminist warrior, or the shouting down of American writer Lionel Shriver at the Brisbane Writers Festival, highlight an intolerance of freedom of thought on the left that’s no less distasteful and ugly than that on the fringe right.
Yet with Shorten Labor off with the populist pixies, the moderating voices of the centre-left are muzzled. Sadly, too many so-called progressives have become loud, intolerant and authoritarian, effectively no different from the likes of Hanson, Bernardi and the more extreme nationalists on the right they so virulently attack. In the absence of a sensible-centre consensus to moderate the civil discourse, in 2017 Australia the only opinions that deserve free speech and thought are your own: when polemic politics and the political fringes that practise them are unchecked, such is the new normal.
The future will be jobless while our politics flounders
Futurist Martin Ford, in his 2015 book Rise of the Robots, writes starkly of the realities of a future where the next tidal wave of technological innovation and automation will swamp the world of work as we have known it.
According to Ford, economies will continue to grow, productivity will improve, and businesses will make profits. But this will all happen without more jobs for people being created. More and more, robots will take over routine and repetitive functions, and not just blue-collar factory jobs. Rapid progress in artificial intelligence means complex white-collar and even professional jobs will be replaced by computers guided by algorithms. Soon, for example, radiologists won’t be needed to interpret X-rays and MRI scans: a computer will do it more quickly, cheaply and, crucially, more accurately.
Already computer programs can write coherent newspaper articles. And if driver-less vehicles became the norm, Ford estimates they would disrupt or destroy the 40 per cent of jobs that involve driving a vehicle in some way, from pizza delivery to driving buses to long-haul lorries. Forty per cent of the jobs base gone, just like that. For the great many of us who define ourselves and our self-worth through the work that we do, the rise of the robots means irrelevance stares us in the face. This, not climate change, threatens to be the greatest moral challenge of our time.
The imminent social and economic change that AI and robotics represent can’t be stopped, but its changes can be managed and mitigated by sensible policy leadership. But political populists and opportunists, whipping up and exploiting people’s fear and resentment, will not do that. Anti-capitalist ranting from the left, and Luddite, xenophobic demagoguery from the right do nothing to confront the social and technological storm to come.
If Martin Ford is right, it’s painfully clear that the class-war political agenda dominating our politics, highlighted by bitter clashes over penalty rates, company tax cuts and the minimum wage, totally miss the coming reality. There will be economic growth, but fewer not more jobs to produce it. Yet here we are fighting over the crumbs of a moribund post-industrial economy.
Instead of having a strong political centre to offer policy and social leadership as we navigate our way through the next great wave of technological disruption to our very way of life, the polemic politics of the fringes hold sway. From the most watermelon Green to the wackiest One Nation conspiracy theorist, whether in our parliaments or the darkest recesses of social media, nothing is being done to prepare Australians for a robotic, jobless future. When we need sensible heads and ideas the most, we have a toxic doughnut of a polity with a gaping hole in the middle where moderation, rationality and principle should be.
We need Australian centrism now more than ever
Populism excels in turning grievances and fear into political capital. But, as Donald Trump’s struggle to conduct a coherent American presidency is now proving, while populism identifies and exploits problems for political gain, it doesn’t solve them.
Dealing with profound and potentially destructive change takes leadership prepared to manage sweeping social and economic disruption; leadership daring to do what’s right and not necessarily what’s popular; leadership embracing Burke’s ‘little platoons’ of family and community; leadership that doesn’t try to stop change but uses sound and rational judgement to preserve cherished institutions and protect what we, as a society, most hold dear; and leadership that rejects populism, demagoguery and scapegoating, and promotes tolerance, pluralism and freedom tempered by individuals’ responsibility to the wider community. In short, sensible centrist leadership.
But in Australia ugly Polemic Politicsis in the ascendency. Both centre-left and centre-right are failing us when we need them most. We can’t fix the populist and nationalist madness seizing the United States and Europe, but we can save ourselves from its clutches at home. Yet Shorten Labor has rejected the centrist heritage of great Labor reformers Hawke and Keating in favour of Trumpian grievance-exploiting, and the Coalition’s lost its intellectual way.
Yet although Shorten’s flagrant populism gives the centre-right a golden opportunity to redefine the centrist consensus in its favour—something Abbott has recognised in his policy forays of recent months—Turnbull Liberals seem more determined to practise mutual assured destruction, preferring defeat and risking a generation of political oblivion to reasserting prudent, practical, centrist leadership. And all despite Turnbull’s declarations that he indeed governs from the sensible centre.
The major parties may be failing us, but we can’t lay the blame solely upon them. The polemic politics of grievance, populism, intolerance and extremism succeed—because we allow them to. As the declining electoral standing of the major parties shows, too many of us would rather bury our heads in the sand and quarrel pointlessly over jobs and ‘rights’ that soon will be swept away by the robotics revolution, let alone by global economic and political instability.
Where moderation and sound judgement go missing, fear, grievance and hatred will prevail. If Australian centrism is permitted to wither and die, our liberal society’s future risks being nasty, brutish and short. Deprived of effective centrist leadership from either Labor or the Coalition, we will be doomed to act out the scene of Gericault’s nightmarish painting The Raft of the Medusa: a flimsy raft made from wreckage tossed on the angry seas of intolerance and populism and, on which we, shipwrecked and leaderless, cannibalise ourselves without hope of rescue.
Meanwhile the fighting Temeraire of Australian centrism is being towed, remorselessly and inevitably, to her doom. That is our collective tragedy.
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Morris County Politics
Authored by Fred Snowflack. Covering politics and Morris County government.
Ugh — Moving to the dark side
Herbert endorsed by General Clark
Douglas Herbert, the Democratic candidate running against Rep. Rodney P. Frelinghuysen, R-Harding, has a general on his side.
That would be Wesley Clark, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and one-time presidential candidate. Herbert is a veteran himself, having served with the 2nd Armored Division in West Germany
Clark said:
“Years ago, Douglas devoted himself to our country by enlisting in the Army. Though he has completed his duty honorably, serving in the infantry and with the 82nd Airborne, he has not stopped fighting for the people of this nation. Today he continues that fight as a lawyer, protecting the rights of ordinary people. As a Congressman, he will fight for the people of his district, our country and help restore our nation’s security and prosperity.”‘
Christie campaigning for Whitman
Yeah, it sounds like a joke.
But it’s not. We are talking about Chris Christie who will be in California tomorrow to campaign for gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. She is running against Democrat Jerry Brown and polls have the race within the margin of error.
The governor plans a town hall meeting with Whitman in Burbank tomorrow afternoon and then a closed fundraiser tomorrow evening.
We look bad in the eyes of the world
The year is 2010 and the United States military still cares whether a prospective soldier is gay. Pretty primitive thinking, no?
Efforts to repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell provision have stalled in the Senate. There is plenty of blame to go around here. Senate Republicans are playing politics. All members of the GOP are coming down on the side of discrimination.
The president is to blame as well. Doing away with Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and treating all equally is something that the president can _ and should _ just order.
Guadagno wins praise, but really we don't need a Lt. Gov.
After eight months, Kim Guadagno is winning kudos for style and grace. Yes, she is professional and classy.
But after eight months, you still have to wonder why New Jersey needs a lieutenant governor.
A story we had today noted that Guadagno attends various ribbon cutting events, but is kept off-limits ro reporters. She often is on hand for Gov. Chris Christie press conferences, but is just about never called on to say anything.
Knowing that her duties would be minimal, Guadagno was also given the job as secretary of state. Yes, we need a secretary of state, but we do not need a lieutenant governor. That is no reflection on Guadagno, but a reflection on a job that really isn’t.
Starve Christie
Yep, that was a bumper sticker I saw this afternoon. As we know, politics is not for those with thin skins …
At any rate, new poll results will be released tomorrow. Here’s a preview. Christie is still on the plus side, but his approval numbers in New Jersey are below those of President Obama.
That should whet your appetite.
Christie wants you to give to GOP senatorial campaigns
The governor has written a solicitation letter on behalf of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Here is what it says:
When I defeated New Jersey Governor John Corzine last year, it should have been a wakeup call to the Democrats everywhere that voters wanted a better and brighter future for their families. I presented a bold agenda to the people of New Jersey and challenged them to raise their sights…and, of course, New Jerseyans rose to that challenge.
And rather than start in office with small steps, we have attacked our state’s challenges with gusto. Our first budget eliminated a budget gap of more than $11 billion. And we did it without raising taxes.
For too long America has been on a similar course of more spending, more debt, and a weakened economic recovery. We are on an unsustainable path and the American people don’t like what they see.
But now the Democrats in Washington and their liberal allies realize they are in danger of losing everything in November. The President has been traveling around the country raising money for Democrat candidates, and liberal special interest groups are planning to spend millions to prop up their badly endangered candidates.
New Jersey sent shockwaves across the nation by winning in a State that everyone thought was blue. We can do the same in Washington with your help.
The NRSC needs your help to win more Republican Senate seats across the country and defeat the Democrats. Will you contribute $10, $25, $50 or even $100 today to help win all of the races and end the extreme liberal agenda of Democrats in Washington?
We'll have debates in the 11th District
There will be two radio debates this fall between Democratic congressional candidate Doug Herbert and incumbent Rep. Rodney P. Frelinghuysen, R-Harding. So says Herbert.
The Democrat said that the candidates will meet Oct. 17 at WMTR studios in Hanover and on Oct. 29 at the studios of WRNJ in Hackettstown.
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499. The Four Tops: “Without The One You Love (Life’s Not Worth While)”
Posted by The Nixon Administration in The Four Tops, Writing credit: Holland-Dozier-Holland
Motown M 1069 (A), November 1964
b/w Love Has Gone
(Written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland Jr.)
Stateside SS 371 (A), January 1965
(Released in the UK under license through EMI/Stateside Records)
After the Four Tops’ magnificent breakthrough with Baby I Need Your Loving, I had high hopes for this first follow-up, a classic example of Motown not messing with a winning formula: the same writers, producers, musicians and vocalists, of course, but also pretty much the same song, slightly faster but unmistakeably built on the same skeleton as its predecessor.
Hard to imagine a more blatant soundalike sequel than this, really. They don’t even try to hide it; the song blasts into life mid-flow, almost as if someone’s carelessly dropped the needle on the record, and in the very first line of the song the Tops chime in: Baby, I need your good lovin’! Got to have your love right now! Shameless, sure, but then trying to remind people how good your last record was is forgiveable when your last record was a masterpiece. Carry on, boys and girls.
How disappointing, then, that this turns out to be a shambolic, noisy attempt to riff on the perfection of the Tops’ Motown début but completely missing the point, seemingly misunderstanding just about everything that made that record magical. No, I don’t like this.
On the Tops’ début album (left), the two are sequenced back to back, and this song strikes up right after the closing bars of Baby I Need Your Loving; there’s never been a less flattering comparison. Everything that was great about that one is missing on this one; like a clumsy junior chef who’s followed the recipe to the letter without ever tasting it to see if it still works, and perhaps without even knowing what it’s meant to be like. “Yeah, sure, I can do what it says here… you want a big, operatic chorus, okay, you want Levi Stubbs free to roam over the top, you want the same kind of tune. I can do that for you, no problem. It’ll be about half an hour, is that OK?”
The lyrics are a blunt, obvious parody of the desperate, all-or-nothing “man on the edge” that so captured my heart in Baby I Need Your Loving, not that it matters because the vocals are so indistinct you can only make out about two-thirds of them anyway. The heavenly mix of the three “other” Tops and the female Andantes, the unique sound that would propel so many Tops records to greatness, is ruined by a staggeringly cack-handed production job from the normally laser-precise Holland and Dozier, the whole thing fuzzy and indistinct, the boys’ harmonies harsh and loud, the girls’ operatic swell in the chorus drowned out in a cacophonous sea of distortion. The band sound like they’re laying down a cover of Baby I Need Your Loving to fill album space at 5am (which they may have been, for all I know) and struggling to get all their parts down. It’s just not that good a record.
Damn, I really, really wanted this to be amazing. Instead, it’s the biggest drop-off between first and second singles since the Supremes, and it’s a crushing, sucking disappointment, so much so that it’s taken me a few listens to uncouple my expectations and try and give it a fair shake on its own merits.
And it does have merits. Levi Stubbs, again, comes away from this looking pretty good; he certainly emerges with the most credit by far. The other six vocalists on this record seem to be doing whatever they want, so much so that it almost sounds as though they couldn’t hear themselves while recording, even when they’re only having to sing “oooh” in the background; the producers can’t keep them on a tight enough leash, and the result is a mess, a few sweet moments bobbing in a sea of amateurism. But, oh, Levi! A man who’s always at his best when freestyling anyway, here he delivers another tough, wounded performance in the verses, half-singing, half-cursing, and when HDH and his beloved bandmates hand him lemons, he sets about making wholly passable lemonade. Whether through luck or excellent judgement, his lead vocal really works against the chaotic backdrop, and it’s the record’s only real redeeming feature, enough to almost single-handedly save it from disgrace and push it to the dizzy heights of mediocrity.
(Of course, this being a Golden Age Motown single from one of the label’s best and most beloved acts, it has plenty of defenders, and I’m guessing this review will probably upset a few people – as will likely be the case every time something doesn’t move me from now until 1972. Don’t be offended; I calls ’em as I sees ’em, I can’t love ’em all, and everyone reading this is absolutely welcome to have your say in response.)
But, honestly, as it strikes me, well… it’s just not all that good. If I didn’t know that they’d dust themselves off and make some of the best records in history, I’d be worried. As it is, I’m just really disappointed – this could, and should, have been fantastic.
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50 thoughts on “499. The Four Tops: “Without The One You Love (Life’s Not Worth While)””
Nick in Pasadena said:
I guess I’m one of this song’s defenders. While I don’t consider it in the class of “Baby I Need Your Lovin,” and it is a pretty obvious imitation of that disc’s structure and feel, it is by no means a “mess ” or a “crushing, sucking disappointment.” In fact, I find myself listening to it more these days than I do “Baby,” probably because that earlier hit has been so overexposed. I think this is another case where the expectations are unrealistically raised for certain Motown acts, and Motown in general. I’d give this a “7”.
The Nixon Administration said:
You wouldn’t be alone (hence the pre-emptive defensiveness!) – as 144man put it a few months ago, from now until 1972 there’s probably an army of fans for everything I dislike. Except Ray Oddis, maybe. But I just plain don’t like this one.
I’m certainly guilty as charged when it comes to heightened expectations; I often find myself marking my favourites (and the Tops are probably my favourite Motown group, trivia fans) harder than if they were long-forgotten unknowns, simply because I know how good they can be when it all hooks up.
jyx95k said:
Despite it’s obvious ‘safe follow-up’ nature, I’ve always loved this record. It’s great. Not, obviously as great as ‘Baby I Need Your Lovin’, but I still love it.
BILLY RICHARDSON said:
I found this record in the 50 cents pile a year after its release as I never heard it until I took it home and played it and was blown away. I love it more than baby I need your lovin really. It is just a pretty song. I give it a 10.
Dave L said:
In the late 80s, when I finally got a hold of several of Joel Whitburn’s assorted books on Billboard charts, I was stunned to read that this one only reached No. 43 nationally. I remember both sides of it being well received all over my Philadelphia neighborhood.
While I like it more than you, I also agree that Levi is the best thing about it. It could have disappointed even more if Stubbs didn’t have the chops to deal with the kind of bombast the record asks for. In less talented hands, it could have been a laughable disaster.
After “Baby I Need Your Loving’s” slow, woo-ooo intro, I actually liked the way this one begins fully-charged, as if splashing right into the deep end of the pool. I know who these guys are by now, so if they don’t want to introduce themselves gently the second round, that’s okay 🙂 And on AM radio, it left no room for a mouthy DJ to step all over any long intro, something that frustrated many a play of, say, “Heat Wave” and “Back In My Arms Again.”
Certainly the record is a ‘valley’ between the mountain peaks of “Baby I Need Your Loving” and “Ask The Lonely,” but like all of their Golden Age stuff, even though I’ve got two original 45s of it, I’d buy a clean third copy today if one were around.
In my own affection, I couldn’t honestly drop it below a 7. 🙂
Adam White said:
This diagnosis suffers from 20/20 hindsight, if I may so say. Perfectly rational, but too distant from the sheer visceral thrill of hearing more in ’64 of the epic sound which had just upended the world. Well, my world, at least, before I knew there were hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of like-minded people out there, instead of the handful known to me. Stunned by the majesty of “Baby I Need Your Loving,” we surely just wanted another fix. HDH and the Tops could have sung that first hit backwards, and it would have been sufficient. That they went on to make, as you correctly observe, some of the greatest-ever recordings fulfilled all those first hopes and brought justice to the world. You can’t second guess the past from the present. Well, you can, but then, life’s not worthwhile.
Bob Harlow said:
I guess the public in 1964 America felt the same way Nixon does about “Without The One You Love” It stalled out at #43 on Billboard..
The fact that this is an obvious attempt to sound like the hit record before it doesn’t bother me. That happened all the time: “Heat Wave” to “Quicksand” ,”Can I Get A Witness” to “You’re A Wonderful One” and “I Can’t Help Myself” followed by “It’s The Same Old Song”.
I have to agree with Nick in Pasadina..to me this one is a 7. Not as good as “Baby,I Need Your Loving” (few records are) or the next one,”Ask The Lonely” but still a 4 seems way too low.I’ll bet Nick heard this one on KRLA when it was new.I did. I really liked it then and I like it even more today.
Yes, Bob, I may have heard it a couple of times on KRLA! Back then some discs didn’t stay long in rotation if they didn’t take off right away.
MichaelS said:
Sure, it pales in comparison with “Baby I Need Your Loving” but taken on its own merits it’s quite good. A “4” is quite a severe rating for this tune; imo, it deserves
144man said:
To me this record stands up well in its own right, and I think it’s got a lot going for it. I like Levi’s vocals, I like the tune, I like the harmonies, and I like the arrangement. Not being able to understand the words in a record is nothing unusual, but I don’t think it’s worse here than anywhere else. I particularly like the mini-climax where, instead of ending the chorus with the usual “so come and fill my empty arms and make my life worthwhile”, Levi sings “so come and fill my empty arms and fill my empty life”.
I’m with Nick, Dave L, Adam and Bob on this one, so 7/10.
…and with MichaelS.
I thought you were snubbing me at first, 144man. LOL!
gregory said:
Nixon admin., I heard your guest radio bit on the show. it sounded good!!!!! it’s too bad to you weren’t on for more than 4 songs !! I really liked and in the sixties terminology I really dug it man!!! I’ve Been reading your comments and thoughts on all these songs for two years it’s like I’ve gotten to know you almost!!!! now I have finally got to hear your voice on the radio!!!! your show bit sounded great!! I hope more opportunity comes your way to do more!!! On This Four Tops song I Often wrestled back an forth! the melody and the vocals are of hit material But I have often wondered if the lyric was of a different nature (not to match with or be so close as a follow up to” baby I need your loving “) that has been a kind of a Comparison I’ve heard through my many years in the music business, It some times is unjust but other times fair in a way, Because the story that the song tells is different but yet kinda match as a follow up to the story told on their first hit!!! I think If the beginning lyric and chorus was different This may not be in any form an issue!!!! and Maybe The tune would be judged on its own merits rather than on the sounding to much as a cheap follow up to baby i need you loving!!! I think it is a great song !!! you have to remember the type of records and sound that where coming out of Motown in just a years time!!! It was The song writers and producers learning and and a good way competing with one another and with the sounds coming out on other labels as well!!! It was the artist that where starting to mature and starting to sing with confidence !! Even though the 1964/5 was a real time of change! o Not knowing weather say would an artist would continue to other contracts or not be renewed. but as a result it seems like their best (mostly) Efforts at the time got put forward! it was close to this time that berry Gordy put up a higher standard and expecting Top 10 to” number 1″ in reality material hits! The Holland ,Dozier ,Holland where writing much more marketed aimed material than in the last previous songs in previous years! The funk brothers (the individuals a mixture through the years in the house band), They were putting more sounds,And strings and things.etc. The songs where really becoming the Motown sound!!!!! Real class productions compared to the last 3 of4 years of producing… However it was not perfect thou There where still some duds and not so good ones. but it was a growing company trying to be the best at what they do!
So when I say that the song should be judged on its own merits. I believe that it should be on a number of things that make the song, and elements there in!
The Melodie , The hooks ,The instrumentation, The vocal arrangements, The performance of the artist The story that the song tells and the feeling you get when you hear it. it should be easy to understand Not too complicated or too busy!
It is my humble opinion that if the lyrical chorus referring to the baby I Need your loving” sounding” content was different. it still would tell the same story,still have the same great sounds and production with the great hooks, the Tops where polished at their craft at that time an it shows!! since they had been in the business since about 1954!! The record would of still be a big Hit if not better.. And the stigma of a follow up copy would not be there!!! I would give it a 7ish It was a great 2nd hit!!
Many have asked Me though the years what really is early Motown and where does it divide., Is it the early pink Motown label/ early shaped tamla labels(U.S.)? is it around 1966? Is it a the forefront of the H.D.H. releases? Is it the beginning of the Supreme s Hits around the time of where did our love go? When??When??
I believe that at least for me it is in my opinion this period of time, basically its about mid summer to fall of 1964
Robb Klein said:
I would give this a 7 as well. Despite the obvious effort to cash in on a sound similar to “Baby I Need Your Loving”, this song stands up well on its own. I admit that it was a slight disappointment that it didn’t reach the high standards of their first Motown release as feature artists. But i liked it a lot, anyway, and bought it just after hearing it.
I’M always impressed of how much research and careful thought of how the picture of things where in the time and era of Hitsville when you make your review of the particular record!! its like some times I can Imagine an or it brings a particular memory of the story back then in the day!!! It’s great that you research both charts in the U.S. as well in the U.K. in The U.S. since about the 1980s it seems as though Billboard was the main chart in the industry.That people paid any attention to, But in the late 1950’sthrough the 1970’s, There were whats called the main 3, which where Billboard, Cash box and Record world charts..One song may be high on one chart and not very high on the other !! I believe to get a true picture of what the record chart performance was in that Time is to have and compare all 3 charts. I for the longest time have been trying to do this but my resource is very limited.. outside of Joel Witburns billboard charts books I Haven’t been able to find much on the other two . in the U.S.I know this might be off the subject but I was wondering if you had come across any books or material on the chart action on cash box or record world charts??it would be interesting to see side by side Also see how they did on the U.S. and U.K.charts I only have very limited info on the u.k. charts that don’t list them all to 1970 I believe We would find especially on some of the lesser known hits how the really fared and how some Motown tunes in the u.s. went unappreciated at home in the U.S. Did a lot better in the U.K. after 1966/7 the U.K.was the 2nd successful largest market for Motown and it seemed to edge a bit up in the early to mid 1970’s on some selections!!! it would be of great value to know what action was happening across the pond!! as well as The U.K. just kind of a thought . Can you Help Me with this??
gregory, there is a book titled “Cash Box: Pop Singles Charts, 1950-1993″ by Pat Downey, George Albert and Frank Hoffmann.” It is out of print and quite expensive
if you can find it. There also is a Cash Box chart website: http://cashboxmagazine.com/the-legendary-cash-box-magazine-charts/
For ME, “Early Motown ends in mid 1963 with the break-outs of Martha and The Vandellas, continuing greater popularity of Mary Wells, The Miracles and Marvin Gaye, as well as The Marvelettes and The Temptations. At the same time, Motown was dropping their older, more gritty, more bluesy artists, and their main sound was evolving in a new direction (The classical Motown Sound). Around that time (a little later), Gwen Gordy’s and Harvey Fuqua’s Harvey/Tri-Phi Records were gathered into the fold, and The Four Tops were signed.
Mm, I think there’s a temptation to group Motown into “early”, “Golden Age”, “Silver Age”, “late” – or there was for me, anyway – but I think Robb’s absolutely right, wherever you choose to put the start of the “Golden Age”, “early” has finished by mid-1963. When I was on the radio at the weekend and the DJ said our discussion of 1964 would be “talking about Motown’s early years”, it felt very incongruous.
Hi Gregory (and everyone else!)
I can’t contribute much about alternate US charts, but the UK equivalent of the books being mentioned was the Guinness Book of Hit Singles; Tony Brown’s Complete Book of the UK Charts was also an excellent resource. Both are now out of print, unfortunately.
But I’ll be covering every British Motown release (whether through Tamla Motown, or just licensed to a UK label as in this instance) on here anyway, so you won’t miss anything.
thank you michealS For the info. on the book!! I will see if I can locate one ..It is quiet rare as you said., It might be a challenge but hopefully I will prevail and find one that will be a wealth of greatly appreciated chart info. once again many thanks!!
Ron Leonard said:
The very first time I heard this song.it was Thanksgiving Night on the way home from my Aunt Marge’s and I was in the back seat of my parents 1964 Buick Convertable the top was up and the Four Tops were on the radio..and I absolutely loved it!! For me it was a sound that I knew was different from anything else that I was hearing on the radio…When Levi sings ..’Hang my head and I sadly reply”..the word “reply” Levi hangs onto the word where you could feel his pain..
The arrangement on this one is different enough..it’s the lyric that’s somewhat similar to “Baby I”…and The Andantes really stand out!! This stil gives me goosebumps..7 to 8 at least!! Nationally number 43 but these are just numbers!
this old heart said:
oh no! so “without the one you love” gets the “come see about me” treatment, and “baby i need your loving” receives love along the lines of your big crush on the supremes “baby love” … jeez. even more insulting is the big number “4” you gave it! i am shocked!!! first and foremost it sounds nothing like a rewrite of “BINYL”! whereas the andantes had very distinct roles in “BINYL”, the tops/andantes merge is almost complete here, making this the closest true tops sounding single yet. and what is all this talk about this being a retread of “BINYL”? no way! mr. stubbs is well on his way to playing his great part of the pleading, heartaching lover he will play on all of the tops h/d/h hits to follow save “sugar pie, honey bunch” … a review i am thinking i will dread! “without the one you love” is the first very good tops single … a solid “7” or “8”! i am afraid of the battles to come, giving this review … but, as always, await with baited breath!
No, no, no, no, no. Come See About Me is an excellent record, as I hope I made clear. I gave it an 8, because I think it’s excellent. As the Marks Out Of Ten page (linked to at the top of every page here) says, 8/10 means “…especially good, knocking on the door of the Best Motown Tunes Ever Club (and sometimes being allowed in), there’s almost nothing about this record that could conceivably be made any better. Hearing this come on the radio makes you stop and listen. A classic.”
I don’t dislike this because it sounds like Baby I Need Your Loving (and it really does, I assure you); as I said in the intro, when your last record was a masterpiece, it’s entirely acceptable to turn in a soundalike sequel, and besides some of my favourite Motown hits are so-called soundalikes anyway. Nor do I dislike it because it’s less familiar – nearly all of this is new to me in some way or another, being a relatively late (but fervent!) convert to Motown, and I hadn’t ever knowingly heard this OR Baby… when I first got TCMS 4. On first listen, one of them took my breath away, the other promptly gave it back again with an apologetic shrug.
No, I dislike this because it’s ruined by too many mediocre things. I don’t like the lyrics, which seem too blunt and “on the nose” compared to its predecessor (one of my all-time favourite Eddie Holland texts). I don’t like the production and the harmonies, which seem to conspire to buzz in the speakers and drown out the words. And I don’t like the tune in the chorus, which opts for a series of big, loud, punchy “orchestra hit” crotchet pumps but feels much too forceful and bludgeoning for the really rather lovely melody of the verses. The only thing I really love about this is Levi Stubbs. Luckily, he’s so good – so good! – that he makes it a half decent record – as Ron says, that and I sa-a-dly reply bit is just exquisite. But I’m not bending on my rating, no matter how much I’ve apparently misjudged the public mood (well, actually, I didn’t misjudge it, as I knew this was going to happen and I did it anyway, but hopefully you know what I mean – I ackowledge I’m way out of step with popular opinion).
mndean said:
Since I have dissented strongly in the past, I’ll kick in with an agreement that this is (to me) a very mediocre followup. The idea it may be the worst HDH production is also something to consider. Also I dislike it because once long ago I bought a vinyl compilation that included this with Ask The Lonely nowhere to be found!
Oh, and without wanting to get into spoiler territory, I like Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch a great deal, so you can rest a bit easier anyway!
treborij said:
Nixon – I find you usually underrate songs I really like but that’s OK. But here’s a case where I agree with you. It actually sounds a little like generic H-D-H (although I usually don’t think of that coming until a year or so later. This song is OK but it lacks everything that made BINYL so great (the haunted pleading in Levi’s voice, the harmonies of the other Tops and Andantes, the beautiful use of brass in the horn chart).
I hadn’t heard this song in quite a while until I got the 1964 Motown singles. There were a couple of things that surprised me. First of all I think this is one of the worst sounding records of the period (at least on this set). The sound is almost distorted. Not sure if that’s just on this set.
But what also surprised me is that over the years, I’ve tended to ignore this track. And because of that, in my mind, I always think of Ask The Lonely as the follow up to Baby I Need Your Loving and Without The One as the lower charting third record that preceded the triumph of I Can’t Help Myself. Ask The Lonely wasn’t the chartbuster it should have been but it was much closer in spirit and tone to Baby I Need Your Lovin’ than this track was. And I also think it’s more of a sound-alike than Without The One You Love. I think I agree with your 4.
Thanks Treborij! I agree with everything you’ve said there – and as for your second paragraph, I’d agree word for word – it sounds dreadful, like a throwback to the Fifties tracks where the TCMS compilers couldn’t find a clean master tape to work from. Maybe the version on TCMS 4 is just mangled or something?
I’ve just dug out my UK 45 and played it on my old record-player. Without a doubt, it sounds better on vinyl -crackles and all- than it does on CD, and I don’t think this is uncommon.
Abbott Cooper said:
I was so glad to read the comments directly above mine. I purchased 12 of the 14 volumes of TCMS set in one bundle and, due to massive quantity of tracks suddenly appearing in my home (close to 1,700), I failed to sample each song for the purposes of detecting defects in the product, as I usually do, in timely fashion .Needless to say, I was not pleased when I heard today’s as signs of distortion commenced at the beginning of the second verse. I knew that was not the original production because I own 2 versions of this song (one in the Four Tops Anthology which I obtained in the the ’70s and the other which I recorded right off the radio on my Voice of Music reel-to-reel tape recorder in late 1964. The song is loud, but I can assure one and all that there are no distortions on those other versions. So, all of the above begs the question: Would Nixon have rated this one higher if he had listened to a distortion-free copy?
As for MY feelings, as I have mentioned in the past, I am no fan of Motown’s followup soundalikes, but in this case, I really like this one, I don’t possess the musical knowledge of Kevin Moore, but he seems to be saying, in his comments further down the line, what I would have if I did have a better understanding of musical structure. Also I really dig the macho feel that MotownFan1962 alludes to in another comment below, especially where the guys almost shout out those “RIGHT NOW”s. Therefore a grade of “9” is quite worthwhile.
nafalmat said:
Talking about sound quality and distortion on this track, the worse without question is the version on the UK pressing of the Four Tops first album TML11010. The whole track on this album sounds fuzzy and distorted and that’s not due to a worn record. I bought my copy brand new in 1965 and it sounded distorted right from the start not a patch on the much clearer version on the US album equivalent. In fact several other tracks on TML 11010 have always sounded very poor in particular ‘Don’t turn away’ and ‘Love has gone’ which is the worse of the lot and is completely distorted throughout. I bought another new copy of TML11010 in 1970 just before it was deleted and that was no better for sound quality. EMI certainly didn’t take care when they made the masters for that LP!!
I never compared the TCMS 4 with the vinyl before!! Being that I collect pressings from different pressing plants I have found differences in the vinyl singles from different plants!!!and how they sound . Some To the clarity of the sound! RCA plant vinyl sounds clear, less distortion ,you do not hear the crackle and pop as much. But the bass is not there, as much! And it has more (in the old school terminology)Treble to it. . most likely when RCA Mastered there own stampers for pressing the 45 they toned down the base pitch signature a bit to even out the amount of space in the grooves so the would make more space among the high pitch tone grooves ! that’s why the pressing as a whole sounds clearer in the higher notes and so on, because They mastered their stamper Plate with a little more space in between the grooves during the high pitch signaling. But of coarse at the expense of a little of the bass which requires more spacing between grooves.. The Monarch pressings mostly are Styrene They seem to to especially after a number of plays distort during the high notes some time I’m not sure whether this is due to the nature of the type of vinyl it is pressed on ( Styrene ) or if it is in the stamper mastered with the high pitch grooves too close that once in a while the needle wants to pop up and ride the top of the groove or cross into the next groove. I do know that the monarch Styrene is brittle and does not hold up very well especially under a lot of friction and heat. compared to some other plants(Columbia) for example [ yes the used both types of vinyl ] That Lasted longer and sounded better! less high pitch distortion unless the record was wearing out !! Due to the number of plays !! The A.R.P. (American record Pressing plant) in Michigan Pressings (mostly have all of the bass sound in the record!!! and have a (Louder sound)!!! The vinyl is NOT styrene, but shows signs of wear after a few plays and has a little bit of what I call vinyl noise in the silent parts of the song etc . So THE SONG CAN SOUND DIFFERENT DEPENDING ON THE PRESSING YOU HAVE!! but even with the vinyl noise, It is not filtered to death as in some C.D.s do!! or have tape deterioration mostly in the high notes or subtle parts or more hiss coming from aging tapes.. Or the thing that bugs me most especially for those of us that know the records by heart is when who ever masters the C.D. tries to get rid of the hiss on the ending fade they cut out or fade out a little earlier and you miss the last word in the song ,or lick of the guitar etc. that happens during the fade of the original record!!! But I do appreciate the effort to preserve and to bring the Motown sound to the next generation and generations to come!!!! not matter what way or vehicle it’s done
Styrene is a very different type of plastic from that of vinyl. The stylus wears down the sides of the grooves on styrene records (whose fidelity when first used is better than vinyl, but after 30-50 plays, it is already worse. Styrene was significantly less expensive. But, as a record purchaser, who liked to play my records often, I am very sorry they didn’t use vinyl, exclusively. RCA Midwest used vinyl exclusively, and a good quality of it, at that. They also did a very good job of mastering. I find that I like their pressings best. They also were extremely flexible, and thereby, nigh onto unbreakable.
Yes Robb I AGREE 100% The RCA Pressings are my Pressing of choice Out of all of them!! the sound is clearer, the labels are cleaner and present a better presentation of the product the print is more uniform and it seems that the vinyl is more solid and last longer!!!! most of the time RCA mastered their own metal work (masters mothers and stampers) that is why there seems to be a little more Possibly room between the high pitch groves and balance out between the Bass and high pitch !!! you have to remember that it was RCA that Introduced the 45 rpm to the U.S. and the world ( His Masters voice) and had high a quality ethic!! So they took a little more time to Master the record to bring out as much of the record in good balance… but as some people like more bass ,then other people like more treble I’m really one or the other but I Like a clear sounding song the highs not distorted The subtle parts as well as the bass the record reproduction is clear !! especially on the Indianapolis R.C.A. Plant Pressings!!!! the bass is a bit lower though , But Probably Like I said before it was most likely done to balance out the Mastering of the Stampers !! with a a bit of more space between the high pitch grooves for better tracking and basic all around sound….It probably cost more per unit than say monarch or A.R.P. However Columbia made some great sounding records also! But the one in the U.S. i would chose to favor is the R.C.A. Pressings.
P.S. in the U.K. , Gramophone or E.M.I. Tamla Motown Issues I Wish I had more but the ones I have. I’m Impressed with it is too bad that Tamla Motown/E.M.I. Didn’t Have More colorful labels… But I really like the Red and white and Green U.K. demo records!! the sound also doesn’t have as much bass but there are some songs that should of been released and become hits in the United States that where Released in the U.K. I’m sure Steve (Nixon Admin.) will review them as they come!! It is a Fascinating story!! of its own!!! It escapes my mind but i think the man’s name is Dave Godin? or something to that effect..??
Start here: Britain
Then go here: Greetings to Tamla Motown Appreciation Society
…and you’ll be up to speed.
bogart4017 said:
very useful information for vinyl junkies!
John Plant said:
Four might be a bit severe, but I’m with you here, Nixon. There’s a French critical insult ‘pompier’ – a ‘pompier’ is a fireman, but it’s used for art which is overblown, which calls attention to its own grandeur. The song doesn’t earn its own climaxes, which come too early in any case. It’s one of the few Four Tops songs which has never given me goosebumps (or brought tears to my eyes).
Damecia said:
I agree with this verdict completely. This is a lame and bring version of “Baby I Need Your Lovin”. Perhaps that is the reason for the performances we are givin on this record. They new the song was lame and a copy. IMO the B-side is much better than its A -side.
Mickey The Twistin' Playboy said:
This is an example of Motown adhering to its gospel roots. The Tops and Andantes provide a great gospel choral aesthetic behind Levi’s grit. I’ve loved this song since I was a kid. Rating: 9/10
Landini said:
Yo! I’m wit ya on this one Mickey. Always liked it. And you’re right about the gospel feel. I’m kind of funny when it comes to 4 Tops records. I admire their classic songs but tend to like their offbeat stuff better. (For instance, “Yesterday’s Dreams” is one of my favorite songs by them. FYI – in 1970 the 4 Tops recorded this one again with the Supremes (for the Mag 7 album).
I LOVE THE SUPREMES AND TEMPTATONS said:
Guess i’m in the minority…but I love this song…The four tops and the andantes sound great on it…
Is it their best?….no…but it’s not that bad
Guy said:
I had never heard this song before today, but after reading this blog for a while I started to buy the box sets and recently got my hands on 1964. Noisy? Yes. Messy? Yes. Pales in in comparison to its predecessor? Yes. But, man, when the first few bars came through my headphones I sat up and took notice. If this had been worked on a bit more, the rough edges smoothed, the most blatant ripoff lyrics fixed up, it would be an out and out classic. I agree with commentators above who lift this mark up in the 7 range. In fact, one of the most exciting things now that I’m listening to these box sets is seeing all of the less than stellar marks this blog has given to some of my favourite songs. That probably means that there are a lot of songs I’ve yet to hear which got similar bad marks that will be new favourites soon. By the way, Hip-o-Select has really outdone themselves with these sets. They are beautiful!
Hmmm…i never thought of this as a mediocre followup. For me it was more of a Levi rave-up and due to production values recorded proof that there were more than 4 “tops”.
I will agree with you on one point—that record was LOUD. You could literally put the 45 on and turn the volume all the way down to nothing and hear clearly what you were playing.
Anyway, interestingly enough, when we would go to see the Tops during their “golden phase” (1964-19677/8) the shows were paced so that you never noticed that the other 3 voices were missing. I never wondered about that until after the show was over. Perhaps it had to do with being recorded a key and a half out of range and then when you sing live you can bring it down, relax with it, and have the musicians pitch to your key then the average audience member doesnt pick up on the other 3 voices gone missing.
Also if you still think you’re disappointed after a while pick up on the 1970 “The Magnificent 7” by the Supremes and the 4 Tops. Their version of “Without The One You Love” is one of the highlights of the album.
Yeah. That Mag 7 album has some good stuff on it. Love their version of “Baby You Got What it Takes” (the Brook Benton/Dinah Washington song). One of the few songs where Cindy Birdsong gets a lead vocal!
longlivegin said:
i love this record
4/10 is very, very, very mean 🙂
MotownFan1962 said:
One more person who disagrees with, sir.
I’ll admit it’s not as good as “Baby I Need Your Loving” to my ears, but as many have said, this song stands one it’s own. I think of it as Baby I Need Your Loving with a little extra testosterone added. It’s got a rougher, more gospel-esque sound. It’s still excellent in my books and is probably in my Top 50. Of course, that’s coming from a guy who favors loud, raucous songs (i.e. “Lovelight” vs. “Baby Love”).
P. S, Another thing I’ll admit: The harmonies on the chorus are slightly iffy (only because Marlene squeaks when she goes too high, as can be heard on “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted”).
I’d give it a 7 or an 8.
Feel free to delete that comment if you want.
If you like ’em loud and raucous, watch out for “Can You Jerk Like Me” just a few train stops down the tracks. One of my all-time Motown faves.
Kevin Moore said:
I agree wholeheartedly with NickInPasadena on this (and not simply because I’m from South Pasadena myself [CA, not TX, right?])
In any case – yes, it’s a blatant example of a cannibalized followup single, and yes, it’s not nearly as good as Baby I Need Your Lovin’, but it’s only the second time in all of pop music that we’ve heard the incredible device that it cannibalizes (i.e,., dropping into the middle of an Eb progression from Bb using bVII [Ab] as a pivot). It’s like saying Sexy Sadie is a cannibalization of I’m So Tired. Yes, both use VII (not bVII, and not in a modulation) in the same amazingly wonderful and creative way, but all of these were brilliant and flexible enough to merit many more “nickings”. I mean, think how many songs returned to the 12-bar blues, doopwop & La Bamba progressions.
An even juicier comparison than Sadie/I’m So Tired would be to Penny Lane, Magical Mystery Tour and Maybe I’m Amazed – all written within a relative short period of time and all built on two keys separated by the same distance (a whole step – Baby I Need Your Lovin’ and today’s song each use two keys separated by a fourth).
All that said, Baby I Need Your Lovin’ and all of the aforementioned Beatles songs are drop dead 100/100s in my book and (although I haven’t heard it enough to render judgment) I don’t think Without the One You Love is likely to exceed Nick’s suggested 7/10. I think if HDH had considered that we’d all be here examining their followup singles with an electron microscope, they might well have done what the Beatles seemed to do by instinct, i.e., spend extra time and effort disguising their reuse of recent ideas. The Beatles were every bit as diligent when stealing from themselves as when stealing from others. And all THAT said, the Beatles, in 1964, were a couple years from engaging in this type of ground-breaking modulation. You might even speculate that the above songs, (and Lucy In The Sky, I Am The Walrus et al) “nicked” HDH’s concept, but used keys that were different distances apart.
While Without the One You Love steals Baby I Need Your Lovin’s opening section and the beginning of the modulation hook line and sinker, it contains several golden hooks that are much better and more original that many higher rated songs. For example: “so come and fill my empty arms and make my life worthwhile” – it’s not in Baby I Need Your Lovin’ and – especially in 1964 – it’s a pretty great hook unto itself.
Sadly, the first thing you hear – the verse – is the simplest and least original part of Baby I Need Your Lovin’ and could have SO easily been disguised as something just as good that wouldn’t bring the earlier hit to mind. The tragedy of Gordy’s approach is that he seems to have actually NOT WANTED HDH to disguise the similarities. I think he felt “you won’t go broke underestimating the sophistication of your audience” – you have a brief bit of airplay to capture their imaginations, so exaggerate rather than disguising the similarities to the earlier hit.
Also, “without the one you love, live is not worthwhile” is quite different from “got … to have all your lovin'” – especially with Jamerson playing the 3rd of the G chord in the bass. It’s not AS great a hook, it’s still a hell of a hook! If this song had a bridge, I’d give it 10/10 in spite of the shamelessly undisguised cannibalization.
The biggest question I have is where HDH got the idea for the Baby I Need Your Lovin’ modulation in the first place. Finally, what if this song had come first and Baby I Need Your Lovin’ second?
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Mountain Meditation Francesca takes time to herself to soak in the spectacle of Rogers Pass from her perch above the Asulkan Hut during the 2015 Mounraineering Camp.
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Why the language change?
In the movie The Hunt For Red October, Marko Ramius (Sean Connery) begins the movie speaking Russian-- as do all Russian characters. Upon reading the following passage from the Book of Revelations (Revelation 16:15-17), on the word 'armageddon,' the characters begin to speak English instead.
[in Russian] "Behold, I am coming as a thief... and he gathered them all together in a place called Armageddon... [in English] and the Seventh Angel poured forth his bowl into the air, and a voice cried out from Heaven, saying, "It is done!" A man of your responsibilities reading about the end of the world? And what's this? "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
Why the switch? Why not just start out in English? Why on that passage, and that word, specifically?
analysis dialogue the-hunt-for-red-october
stevvvestevvve
FYI: I chose the [analysis] tag because I suspect there may be a larger plot implication that I don't understand. – stevvve Oct 6 '16 at 2:20
I think it was just a creative way to show to the audience that while hearing English, the characters were speaking Russian. Note that the word "Armageddon" is the same in English and Russian. – sanpaco Oct 6 '16 at 3:12
@sanpaco: You should add that as an answer. – bobbyalex Oct 6 '16 at 4:49
Seconded. This is required as the language barrier is a plot point later on but the audience wouldn't tolerate viewing most of the movie with subtitles. – Stephane Oct 6 '16 at 16:04
I too have wondered about this when I watch the show. It seems strange to start with subtitles and then suddenly switch to English in this manner. At first I imagined maybe they wanted to do subtitles originally but then they ran out of subtitle budget really early on and had to switch. This of course doesn't make much sense.
I don't think there is anything more to it than to have a creative way to show the viewer that while the language being heard is English, the characters are in fact speaking Russian. By having them start speaking Russian it establishes the fact that there is a different language, but then there is a transition from Russian to English, including a visual transition to help illustrate the effect. It is a creative way to do this.
As for the point of transition, it is noted in the IMDb Trivia section for the movie that the word "Armageddon" is the same in English and Russian although pronounced differently. This is likely the purpose of choosing that word as the point when the character's transition from Russian to English.
sanpacosanpaco
Like @sanpaco said, armageddon is the same in both languages. IMDb Link
My understanding was simply that it would be easier for audiences to follow what was happening. However, it could be that the director simply liked the idea based on a movie he had seen: Reddit Link
The Whether ManThe Whether Man
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The Failed Hamilton Electors Prove That Moderates Can't Save Us From Trump
By Eoin Higgins | December 20, 2016 | 2:20pm
Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Politics Features Electoral College
For whom does the bell toll? Electors, it tolls for thee. After a month of wondering what could really happen if the Elector College had control over the presidential election, if they could save us from the Trumpian nightmare, we have our answer: nothing.
The reality is that Donald Trump will be the next President of these United States. Nothing the quixotic mission of the Hamilton Electors—a group that popped up in the wake of the election as a last ditch effort to reverse the November 8 results—tried to do had any effect on that. But what exactly were these people trying to do, anyway?
The Electoral College is the final hurdle in the election system. Put in place by the nation’s “founding fathers,” the mechanism allocates votes to states weighted for their populations (Wisconsin has 10, California has 55, etc). Those electors vote for their state’s winner a month after the election. The mechanism was invented in part to stop a demagogue from rising to power and so the slave states of the South could use their slave population for political power without enfranchising them.
It was never going to be Hillary. Clinton would never win the electoral college. That was clear to everyone, even the most zealous defenders of Clinton. No Republican elector unsettled by Trump would take the suicidal political risk of voting for the right’s bete noir of the past two decades. So the Hamilton Electors offered an alternative: vote for a “reasonable Republican.”
The hope was that a third option could take Trump’s majority away and somehow force the House of Representatives to vote that third candidate into office. But this was always a ridiculous idea, even if it had worked to deny Trump a clear win.
The idea that the GOP House would reject their base’s nominee for president on the merits of anything other than reptilian survival is fantastical. The GOP has been held hostage by its base for years. There’s no way this won’t continue. Denying the presidency to the clearest expression of the party’s id would be the end of a great many political careers.
And all the Hamilton Electors and their friends wanted was a more genteel version of Trump.That was clear in three of their alternatives: John Kasich, Mitt Romney, and Evan McMullin.
Kasich cultivated quite the cult of personality over 2016, portraying himself as an “aw shucks” moderate conservative. But the truth is, Kasich’s one of the most radically right wing executives in the country. Kasich has signed legislation in the last week to ban abortions from 20 weeks on and denied workers the right to negotiate for higher wages.
Romney was also a ludicrous proposition for people ostensibly worried about the consequences of a Trump presidency. As governor, Romney was a duplicitous and vicious man, working against the working class at every opportunity. As a businessman, he accrued billions of dollars in profit at the expense of ordinary Americans. And it’s not despite his record in designing Obamacare he should be rejected, it’s because of it.
And McMullin, a former CIA intelligence officer and Goldman-Sachs employee, wants to keep Guantanomo open, to destroy women’s rights, to eradicate Social Security.
That these were the options shows clearly that the electoral college movement was morally bankrupt from the start. Trump is a dangerous man who will be a dangerous president. But the one sliver of hope is that he will be as incompetent and foolish as he was during the campaign. If Trump governs sloppily, the next four years may be survivable. His policies may not be approved by the House, and he may go to war with his own party and hold up their more toxic legislation as revenge.
That’s likely the best outcome we can hope for. But if the Hamilton Electors and their ilk had had their way, we could have been looking at a President who knows how power is wielded and how to work in Washington. There’s no indication that any of their alternatives would have pursued different policies than Trump—in fact all evidence indicates that they’d pursue the same policies but effectively.
This is the problem with moderate politics in a nutshell. Policy is unimportant, only the rhetorical delivery of politicians is at issue. The destruction of domestic politics and the oppression of marginalized people are only bad things when the wrong person or team is responsible.
Donald Trump is going to be the 45th President of the United States of America. Resistance to his presidency, policies, and party is essential. But that resistance has to come from somewhere real, have some tactical application, and have realistic goals. Grasping for ephemeral, impossible dreams like the Hamilton Electors movement are a recipe for disaster.
You can reach Eoin Higgins on Facebook and Twitter.
hamilton electors
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... Simon pulled Wash free, not Mal. Tranq gun, with another on the counter, because River asked them to bring it aboard, to open it here in the light. Because she could feel the weight of Spike there in that box, skin and bones but heavy) against her, as she swings towards him, and he lifts her up again. Higher. "Couldn't see, after all. Anyway, I was mostly asleep."
(Liar) She doesn't call him (liar) on it, as he doesn't call her on the things that he sees when she stares too long at him, like how many years they've both been (trapped in a box) missing a smile they didn't have to return. He lifts her up until her lips brush the cold of the bar, and it slides smooth past her chin, and she looks down at him. And smiles. "You're not real."
He waits, and she drops back down to his arms. When she doesn't (Why? Why not? It's a place to be, like any other, leaning on soft cotton, damp with sweat.) pull away, he lets her rest there. Brushes her hair back from her (someone else's, someone gone, just as gone as the River she used to be, but he's looking in the now too and he sees her) face. "Suppose not," he agrees. "Don't feel very real, most of the time."
"It's ok. Neither am I. I just fake it better than you." She'll teach him, though.", "url": "https://mpoetess.livejournal.com/357083.html", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://l-stat.livejournal.net/img/sign.png" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "I Blame the Dutch", "image": "https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/41368135/81573" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Journal mpoetess", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://mpoetess.livejournal.com", "contentUrl": "https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/89429017/81573" } } }
Mood: contemplative
For buffyverse1000: River/Spike
Buffyverse/Firefly; rated G
Joss made them, I just stare nervously at them and don't dare ask them to have sex.
In the Same Boat
Simon keeps wanting to touch him with (a scalpel) calm, curious hands (No, the knife was Jayne, brightflash blade and drip drip red like a snail down the white arm, so slow that River on the countertop watching, watching, could count each drop as it slid, and give it a name. One. Two. Three. She'd said the names out loud in the hated infirmary, three times over, a charm to drown the sound of Jayne's wrist cracking in the withered hand, knife clattering to the floor.) reaching to see if Spike's really real, walking and talking when his heart doesn't beat.
(Of course he isn't real.) Jayne had said, "That thing ain't right," as he cradled his hand and didn't howl the dog-howl in his head. River'd stuck her tongue out at him, because he never had learned a new trick, long as she'd known him. You don't bite what's not right, stupid dog. "Mal should'a left it where he found it, never touched that gorram box. There's a reason it was marked up like that. I told him."
Marked up with crosses (They burned into his skin, the ones inside the box, the ones on the lid, on the sides. Burned his face, his arms, his shoulders, dark red scars on whitepink flesh. Fading over days, as he drinks away their medstocks, grows from skeleton to man, but too slow, too slow because he stares at the marks when no one's watching him but her, like they should be gone by now.) everywhere, even scratched into the lock. A lock half the size of the box itself; Mal couldn't pry it off, couldn't kick it off, didn't really want to shoot it off in a pressurized hold. Almost left it in the corner where they found it - ship too old and empty to loot after all, except for one stupid, stubborn (coffin) box.
"How many came before us?" she asks Spike one day as he does chin-ups in Serenity's cargo bay. Jayne's bars, Jayne's weights and bench, but funny how Jayne never comes down here to growl at him when he uses them.
"How many--" Scarred arms flex, tuft of hair like sun on snow (Inara's hands on his head, soft, clipping, snipping, inches of matted mud-blond curls, and are you sure you want it bleached *that* much? It could burn... His cracked, dry voice: had worse. And of course he has; it's written on his skin.) above the bar, then down, hands resting on it high above his head. "--came where before who, love?"
He's patient as Simon (Kaylee) can be with her, but something's missing in his voice, something that doesn't suck at her with (want) love, asking her (get better, get better, be what you were, be what you could be, remember, for me? For him? For me?) for things she doesn't own to give. It makes her easy with him as she stands beneath the bar and looks up, not answering.
"Little high for you, isn't it?"
"I could jump."
He grins. (He sure smiles pretty, Kaylee said quiet as a mouse, slapjack in the galley with River and losing badly because she kept staring out the door at Spike leaning armcrossed on a bulkhead. Sure, Wash said, louder in Chinese because he said he doesn't speak it, but River's caught him laughing in the right places when Jayne cusses out the Captain behind his back. Sure, if by pretty you mean hungry, and by smiles you mean does that thing with his mouth where he pretends not to be thinking about which of us looks most like a nice roast duck with all the trimmings.) "Could do. Could give you a lift if you like, though."
He drops hands from the bar and reaches for her waist, and River doesn't look like a duck, so she steps forward into his hands and he raises her up. And up, and she's got fingers on the bar (Metal, cold, lashed to it, can't let go, sharp lance of fire in her head but she doesn't kick him away, because she's better now, she can see what's then and what's now and what's not. Mostly.) that's slick, just a little, with the sweat from his palms. She holds on tight to it, and he steps away, arms slipping from her body. Not sure she doesn't wish he hadn't done that - his hands there and she'd almost felt solid for a second, like she had weight and wouldn't blow away if he breathed on her. Not that he breathes.
She hangs there, and because he smiles, she smiles back at him. Not because he needs it (He does, she knows he does, needs smiles that he won't ask for and hands to take him gentle out of the box and smooth away what was, the touch of people on his skin that pressed crosses against it and burned (his head) his body and shut him away in the dark, but it doesn't have to be her, doesn't need River to smile at him to show she's all ok now, and so it's ok that it's her) or demands it or because he'll back away and find something else to do, quick-like, if she doesn't play like a good little human girl to make him easy. Just because she wants to.
"People before us. How many people came to that ship before us, and left you there?" She pulls, now, not just hanging, but reaching for the bar with her (brain) chin, knowing sooner or later they'll connect. Just. Not. And her arms burn. Sooner, she guesses. Closes her eyes and takes a deep breath and pulls again.
"Don't know, do I?" And his hands are on her waist again. He's close, and heavy (Skin and bones. Wo de ma, it's a corp--- moving, really fast, corpse with sharp teeth and funny eyes that's by the way got me by the throat so Mal, you could shoot this thing anytime now.... No life signs, there were no life signs... Simon pulled Wash free, not Mal. Tranq gun, with another on the counter, because River asked them to bring it aboard, to open it here in the light. Because she could feel the weight of Spike there in that box, skin and bones but heavy) against her, as she swings towards him, and he lifts her up again. Higher. "Couldn't see, after all. Anyway, I was mostly asleep."
"It's ok. Neither am I. I just fake it better than you." She'll teach him, though.
Tags: fic-posted, firefly
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5 signs of a bad workplace
by Daniel B. Kline for The Motley Fool @CNNMoney August 9, 2017: 10:45 AM ET
Five steps to ace that job interview
It's not always easy to spot a bad workplace before you take a job, but it should become evident pretty quickly once you are on board.
That unfortunately means that you'll only realize your mistake after you have made it -- but all is not lost.
Think of a job in a bad workplace as a means to an end. It may not be the situation you want to work in, but the experience you gain still counts. It's also important to remember that just because many, if not most, employees have a bad experience at a company, that doesn't mean that you will too.
Still, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's usually a duck. Below are five signs: When more than one is true at any workplace, that suggests that the company is not a great place to work.
The turnover is high
If a company runs through employees quickly, that's generally a sign that people don't want to work there. As a rule, if the average worker stays less than a year it should raise a red flag. In addition, when a business has few long-term employees below the upper levels, that's an important sign it's not a great place to work.
People are afraid of the boss
There's a difference between having a healthy fear of the boss simply because he or she is in charge, and actually being afraid. If employees are clearly worried that any little thing might set the boss off in a rage, that's a black mark against a company. You should also take note of coworkers worrying that they will be fired for minor transgressions or even for routine mistakes.
Everyone leaves exactly at quitting time
At a good company, workers arrive early and are not desperate to leave exactly at quitting time. Even in a situation where employees punch a clock and get paid hourly, if they like the job, they don't make a special effort to be present only the minimum amount of time required.
People working only their mandated hours is an even bigger red flag in an office situation where employees are paid an annual salary. At a happy office, salaried employees don't drop their pens or stop typing mid-word when the clock ticks to the hour that the workday technically ends.
Coworkers don't socialize
Happy people talk to each other. Even if work hours are mostly business, a pleasant office houses workers who chat during coffee breaks or over lunch. If employees keep mostly to themselves and barely exchange pleasantries, it's likely because they don't enjoy working there.
Not everyone needs to be best friends or to hang out after work, but an office full of people who treat each other like strangers certainly hints at a bad workplace.
It's all take, no give
If a job regularly asks you to go above and beyond but offers nothing in return, you have probably picked a bad place to work. It's not a case of direct quid pro quo, but there should be reasonable give and take.
For example, if your boss regularly asks you to stay late to finish, but won't let you leave a little early every now and then for legitimate reasons, then you probably are in a bad workplace.
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The same is true when it comes to working weekends or being asked to be flexible, but not receiving any flexibility in return.
CNNMoney (New York) First published August 9, 2017: 10:45 AM ET
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Cinematographer Mike Gurnett Forges New Path
Photo by Raymond Lombardi
By BILL LOMBARDI
It’s about 9:45 on a cool early summer night and sparks—like from a Fourth of July Roman Candle—are jumping from a dimly lit garage off a side street in Helena, Mont.
The lingering dusk doesn’t snuff out these sparks—they just add a kind of excitement to the work going on at this time of night.
Just outside his garage, Mike Gurnett is grinding two pectoral fins, clamped in a small vice, that he will weld onto the body of a shiny nickel-steel trout that he hopes to finish before his fishing trip on the Big Hole River.
The former Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks cinematographer didn’t leave behind his creative spirit when he retired at the end of 2014. In fact, he’s busier than ever, serving as chair of the Last Chance Stampede and Fair in Lewis and Clark County, doting on his one-year-old grandson, and turning out the likenesses of trout in raw steel that represent his deep appreciation for the beauty of a state and region that he filmed, photographed, and wrote about for almost four decades as he told the story of a wildly natural place that has no natural voice.
Gurnett, 65, documented Montana’s landscapes, wildlife, and people for 37 years. His documentaries, stories and video newscasts for the Outdoor Report, which played on television stations across the state. They helped Montanans to understand the invaluably rich natural world that lies at our doorstep and the advocates who understand it needs protection for generations to come.
He filmed some of the most iconic places and wildlife in the state, from Yellowstone and Glacier national parks to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and everything in between. He captured powerful images of wildlife and people springing to life, showing Montanans that this so-called Last Best Place is country worth protecting.
But when retirement landed with a thud on his workbench, Gurnett, who grew up in Lewistown and Livingston and searched for something to keep his mind and hands busy.
His wife, Lauri, bought him a welder for Christmas and suggested that he do what he knows best: create things that reflect the natural world.
Raw steel is not the most malleable product. But with an iron will and bull-headed persistence, as well as a refurbished vice, ball-peen hammer, welder, plasma cutter, grinders, and guidance from renowned metal sculptor Jim Dolan of Belgrade, Gurnett waded right in to the turbid waters of the art world.
Gurnett was a former fishing guide whose father was good friends with the fly fishing pioneer Dan Bailey of Livingston. Once retired, Gurnett started to create three-dimensional representations in quarter- to three-eighths-inch thick plates of mild steel that reflect his passion for fish and wildlife and the waters that cleave this state.
“I like to bend metal and shape wood to create an image,” Gurnett says. “With film, you get to make a story. That’s what the [steel] fish are. When someone looks at the fish, hopefully it reminds them of a good moment in their life.”
While filmmaking was intellectually demanding, requiring patience and persistence, Gurnett’s new artistic endeavor requires close study of fish, flies and antlers. It also requires physicality and tactility of constantly lifting steel and beating it with a hammer.
Gurnett uses an air chisel, like a handheld jackhammer, to provide relief to the flat steel that he heats in his new forge—another Christmas present from Lauri.
Pounding on the metal with the hammer helps create the iridescence of, say, a grayling, and makes the steel seem to flex and contort, just as real fish move with the steady movement of small dark clouds in the limpid current of water.
“I love to get them out of the heat and see what color they are,” Gurnett says, noting that the carbon content of the steel helps to dictate colors produced by the heat. “It makes each piece unique.”
He attaches completed works to a steel or walnut base. Some of Gurnett’s salmon weigh up to 32 pounds dry (on a base), and he sometimes airbrushes them with red lacquer, to make them look like they are wet.
“I’m sure Mike’s childhood and career have contributed to his creativity and drive,” his wife says. “But this welder has been another avenue to express his love for the art of the outdoors.”
After a handful of years of building large flies, like mayflies, and fish, Gurnett is studying further with Dolan in Belgrade and Bozeman bronze sculptor Bob Burkhart to “bump it up in complexity” and take on a larger challenge: life-size horses made of steel.
That means starting from the ground up—literally. His first equine project starts with hooves, and will be built up from there. The sculpture will be of his daughter Libby’s red roan quarter horse named Digger, who helped her to win Miss Teen Rodeo Montana in 2010.
“I want to take this to another level,” Gurnett says, adding that the steel horse is intended to stand in a field where Libby and her husband ranch southwest of Dillon.
And standing serenely above outfitter John Maki’s Helena house just below Mount Helena is Gurnett’s newest creation: A fish weathervane. About three-feet long and made of one-eighth-inch flat steel, the vane is what any river guide or rower needs, Gurnett says, because they need to know if the wind will be blowing at their back—a good day—or the wind will be blowing in their face and pushing them back upriver—a bad day.
“Who really needs a weathervane?” Gurnett asks rhetorically. “But it gives you an idea of how good a day you’re going to have.”
Maki asked Gurnett to build him the vane, and, as Gurnett explains, the fish and a hook sit on successive sleeves of pipe and swivel, drifting freely in the slightest breeze thanks to a ball-bearing mount.
As he’s explaining the physics of the aesthetic and practical contraption, Gurnett realizes that the air currents he is talking about affect this lifeless fish just as much as water currents affect real-life trout in a current of water.
“It’s drifting in an air current just like it’s drifting in water current,” Gurnett says. “It’s the same concept.”
From the perch in his garage, Gurnett created Copper Creel, a media and metal art business to market his artwork. Many of his orders come from people walking by who see his art work and ask if he can make them something.
“People have their ideas, and I say, ‘I will give it a shot,’ ” he says.
An outfitter for 44 years, Maki, for instance, always had a weather vane on his ranch. “Rowers always need to know which way the wind blows. It’s usually blowing upstream when you’re trying to get out,” Maki says.
Gurnett, meanwhile, finds his use of time valuable.
He is dedicated to reflecting back the natural world in which he grew up and made his living. His ethic as a volunteer—chair of the Lewis and Clark Last Chance Stampede Rodeo Committee and a board member of the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center—can “be lumped into an ongoing personal attempt to keep the culture, values, and traditions of the American West relevant to our lives today.”
“You just can’t take some of these things for granted,” Gurnett says of our natural world. MSN
Tags:American WestBob BurkhartJim DolanLast Chance StampedeMontana Cowboy Hall of FamesculptorwelderWestern Heritage Center
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Naveen Naqvi
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Army of Frankensteins
AP photo in Dawn-Army troops gather at the site of a suicide attack in Rawalpindi
At least 40 people were killed in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi yesterday. Maybe because the attack targeted Muslim worshippers gathered for what is in the Islamic cultural of the subcontinent the week’s most important namaz many reacted by declaring that this CANNOT have been done by Pakistanis. For whatever reason, it is increasingly the rhetoric in ordinary Pakistanis. I’m not sure what that means, I said in response, and say it again now. This angle is being perpetuated by the ‘star’ television anchors on the Urdu networks. And if you press your memory, or better still do a bit of research on the internet, you will find that this line first came from men like Rehman Malik, the Minister of Interior, and the Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer. I do not think that I am incorrect when I point out that these are two of the most despised people in power right now. It would do us well to not fall for propaganda at this time. It is clear that neither the government, the state nor the army appear to be able to contain the explosion of terror in this country right now. It is the easiest way out to point fingers at external forces. It is also easier for a beleaguered, disillusioned people to go along with the theory of the ‘foreign hand’ rather than to carry on questioning and loathing themselves.
Not to mention that even if there are external forces at play, the fact remains that the men who entered the mosque with no regard to the lives of 16 innocent children were Pakistanis. The men who flung grenades, fired shots, and eventually detonated their explosives, killing themselves and those 16 children were not Americans, Israelis or Indians. They were in fact Pakistanis, and they had enough conviction and grievances to go through with this terrible act of violence.
When we talk about the nature of the attack and the method used, it seems that the Pakistani terrorist is evolving. One of the earlier reports indicated that the men (the number changed from 6 to 2) wore bulletproof vests, carried grenades and automatic weapons. This is a step up from the ‘simple’ suicide vest of the recent past. I think there are a few important points in this.
What we are witnessing is urban guerrilla warfare in Pakistan in a civil-war situation, and it is rapidly becoming more sophisticated. As we now know the fidayeen style of attack was cultivated by the Pakistan army and intelligence agencies for use against India in Kashmir. These groups were cultivated in Southern Punjab and are now being coined in both the national and international press as the ‘Punjabi Taliban’. After 9/11, I remember the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and other such charmers were claimed to be part of the al-Qaeda, but in recent times we see that the word Taliban appears to be expanding in definition to encompass all sorts of terrorists/militants. It also makes it easier to lump them all together if you say Punjabi Taliban, Swat Taliban and Waziristan Taliban. It certainly appears to be what the terrorists are doing. The lethal combination of the fidayeen-suicide attack is a developing phenomenon, which indicates that the various creations of the Pakistan army and intelligence agencies are uniting.
Blogger Kalsoom Lakhani rightly points out in her post published shortly after the attack:
The oft-branded “Taliban” is not a cohesive or localized organization, but a loose network of militant groups, each with varying agendas and objectives, but able to share information and collaborate on attacks. Therefore, the attack on the Rawalpindi mosque may have indirectly involved the “Taliban” the military is fighting in South Waziristan, but it may have been directly carried out by Punjab-based militant groups. […] To my knowledge, the Pakistani government has not developed an adequate strategy of tackling this militant nexus, an approach that should operate in tandem to the military offensive in South Waziristan.
[picapp align=”none” wrap=”false” link=”term=pakistan+terror&iid=7234434″ src=”9/8/b/5/Suicide_Attack_in_8d12.JPG?adImageId=8038236&imageId=7234434″ width=”380″ height=”252″ /]
This morning the Dawn newspaper editorial follows a similar line. It makes the point in passing, but persists in doing so:
In these columns, we have repeatedly warned the security establishment here that any ‘good Taliban/bad Taliban’ distinction needs to be dropped for the long-term security of the country.
You know what that means. It may have been true that these groups were useful at some point to the Pakistani state, but that time is over now. Our analysts keep referring to the ‘Frankensteins’ created by the establishment. They are all coming together in a sizable army, and they have a plan. To counter the plan a clearly devised strategy needs to be developed. Time and again, we have seen that the groups targeting Kashmir are ignored. They are banned, but only to re-emerge under a new name. As the Dawn newspaper editorial warns that kind of nurturing of militancy must come to an end. That may be a good place to start.
Filed under: Politics, Swat Offensive, Taliban, Terrorism, Waziristan Offensive | 42 Comments
Tags: 9/11, fidayeen, India, Israel, Pakistan army, Pakistan mosque blast, Rawalpindi attack, Rawalpindi blast, suicide attack, Taliban, US
42 Responses to “Army of Frankensteins”
1 Dileep on December 5, 2009 said:
Great article. Thank you.
2 ranasamir on December 5, 2009 said:
3 Timothy Thompson on December 5, 2009 said:
Frankenstein’s monsters they are.
Take Pakistani tribals. Add ISI leadership and training. Feed with money from the US, UK, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. Equip with captured Soviet weapons from Israel. Top with Saudi indoctrination which comes bound to their money. What one gets is a lethal monster which kills every infidel in sight. Unless people adhere to the monsters’ very narrow definition of Islam, they are non-Believers, just so much fodder for explosives.
The spooks call it “Blowback”.
When will the politicians in Islamabad and the military in Rawalpindi catch on? Their creations are trying to kill them and establish “pure” Islamic rule in Pakistan or least parts of Pakistan. This is unrestricted civil war. Army House is fair game. The National Assembly is fair game. Mosques filled with “false” Believers are fair game. Anything or anyone who stands in the way of an Islamic Emirate of Pakistan is fair game. Politicians and generals and their families are no longer safe because they know or used to know some Taliban leader. The monsters have slipped their chains and they are loose in the streets.
This ends when the all the Taliban movements are defeated or when Pakistan accedes to a Taliban Emirate. Pakistan kills the monsters or the monsters kill Pakistan.
4 temporal on December 5, 2009 said:
naveen:
not accusing you…but when you say…
And if you press your memory, or better still do a bit of research on the internet, you will find that this line first came from men like Rehman Malik, the Minister of Interior, and the Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer. I do not think that I am incorrect when I point out that these are two of the most despised people in power right now….
why do you gloss over the likes of your colleagues like hamid mir etc. ? etc. including other media bigwigs…. not you….
5 naveenaqvi on December 5, 2009 said:
temporal, thanks for your comment. Actually, what I wrote right before the lines you’ve quoted is this:
‘This angle is being perpetuated by the ’star’ television anchors on the Urdu networks. ‘
You may be right that I haven’t spent enough time talking about the role of the anchors in question, but I thought what followed is the more important point. It is crucial for us to differentiate between information and disinformation, propaganda and news…if that is at all possible.
It is crucial for us to differentiate between information and disinformation, propaganda and news…if that is at all possible.
not easy! all of us have blinkers:)
one can try and be fair … but given the prevailing winds even that is a seemingly gargantuan task
pseudo nationalism contributes to this terminal curse
7 MystaKool on December 5, 2009 said:
Very well assessed and written, I must say.
8 Amjad on December 5, 2009 said:
I don’t understand what is keeping the government from sacking rehman malik. even if it doesnt change things dramtically, the guy is doing more harm than good in his job.
9 Asif Khan on December 5, 2009 said:
It is encouraging to see there are people in Pakistan who can understand the real issue. This Frankenstein is turning on their masters or manipulators but ironically there is no stopping to it either through design or ignorance or lack of capacity. The politicians and establishment are shamefully busy in NROs and other non issues without coming to a clear strategy to deal with this Frankenstein. A recent article by Macleans clearly indicates the intentions and goals of the so-called establishment to nurture yet another Frankenstein.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/12/02/the-terror-game/
Sometime, I really feel disgusting to keep on talking on such pessimistic note but then you have no option if your love ones are there and suffering. I wish the people of Pakistan understand their strength and get the courage to ask their rulers where they are heading them.
10 temporal on December 5, 2009 said:
maveen:
point taken!
laikin bhai….(ok behen if you want to be technical;))
these colleagues are a great part of this spin (no i would not call it disinformation)
and for for most of (like me in the diaspora) and others in the desh….these voices contribute to the spin
the perpetrators are amongst us
this is our unique misfortune
11 Hasan Pervez on December 5, 2009 said:
You are correct in pointing out the obvious fact that the perpetrators of this and other such attacks were not ‘American, Israelis or Indians’. Because they belong to territories that lie within the political boundaries of Pakistan they qualify as Pakistanis.
But I feel its time people like you should raise the debate to another level. Its time we redefine the concept of being Pakistani.
Clearly there are people within our boundaries inimical to the Pakistani state. Do these people qualify as Pakistanis merely by virtue of living in this country? Given the fact that such people are working in partnership with states and forces hostile to Pakistan, and aim to create anarchy and eventually balkanize the country, its difficult to term them Pakistanis.
People who believe in the federation of Pakistan within its exisiting political boundaries, and who subscribe to the concept of a Pakistani state are Pakistanis. The rest are not.
12 sana saleem on December 5, 2009 said:
Am so gad u are back :). It’s a natural reaction from the majority because for us-no matter how barbaric one can get- attacking mosques is still a shocking incident. At one point we want to accept that these are religious extremist and as we do we still can’t figure out how a ‘religious’ fanatic would carry out an attack of this stature on a mosque that too on Juma prayers.
So what do we do? like any normal person we try and disconnect ourselves from these incidents because its the easy way out.
We want to say “its not us, its the enemy” because well that will save us a hell of a lot of pain. Most of our people are not well-versed in Islamic history, their only definition of religion is SACRED. But if we take a quick peek, religion (and Islam isn’t the only one) has always been used as a tool by power mongers.
So when we say we want people to get out of this phase we need to set ideologies straight. People’s opinion have only been amplified by the media. It’s about time we get over with the ‘oh we are so shocked’ phase and embrace that these men are terrorist and hence are capable of doing just about anything to provoke fear.
13 Salman Latif on December 5, 2009 said:
The most disturbing phenomenon is the express denial cited by a majority of Pakistanis – they simply refuse to accept the fact that it’s the same Taliban killing their innocents, who were orchestrated as ‘good’ some time back as an official policy and which our mainstream media people have been very reluctant to criticize.
It is of course natural that we need here is an immediate opinion shift and that we are unable to achieve, considering the government propagation machine expended for years to convince us of the goodness of these very barbarians.
Such arrogant ignorance on the part of an average Pakistani is all the more dangerous when punjabi jihadi militants have joined ranks with Talibans and are apparently operating in collaboration with them.
The point to note here is that the very same authorities were bickering our heads off with Taliban as behind it all. And now, all of the sudden, the famous Rehman Malik has rearranged guns to blame India. Apparently, it’s only to cover a failed strategy to counter Taliban and buy off some sympathy from the masses.
14 Faisal Kapadia on December 5, 2009 said:
Time and again when these attacks happen we tend to recognize the shock value only when something close to our hearts or minds or souls like this mosque are hit, we cry foul over it and then the next attack happens. There is rampant checking on roads now, the stretched beyond limits police force and rangers are trying to protect a fence which has so many holes in it that a virtual army can slip through. What is actually missing from this whole scenario is support from our ulema. Please list the no of ulema who have come on tv and condemned this attack on a mosque? Compare that to what happened when “Babri masjid” in India was attacked and razed to the ground? this will give you the answer, i agree very much with what temporal says the real enemy is within us, it is the misguided upper classes who still term this a foreign war and the masses of religious zealots just waiting for a chance to take over and form the “Islamic caliphate of Pakistan”
They refer to us as Kaffirs we refer to them as monsters..it will only end when one of us is finished.
15 naveenaqvi on December 5, 2009 said:
Faisal, it must be said that whenever Islamic scholars have spoken out against suicide attacks, militancy or the Taliban, they too have been targeted. Mufti Sarfraz Naeemi is just one who comes to mind. There are several others who have lost their lives. I remember when I presented Breakfast at Dawn Dr Khalid Zaheer said very clearly that it was a sad truth that ‘progressive’ Islamists, as they are known, were scared to speak their minds.
16 Ali on December 5, 2009 said:
I’ve recently come to know that there is recent Fatwa by Tahir-ul-qadri declaring Suicide attacks as Haram! Hopefully someone will carry out some story on that..
Thanks for sharing that with us, Ali.
18 DiscoMaulvi on December 5, 2009 said:
The ghouls of our past are haunting us. While we experimented in creating the Frankensteins for the various masters whose money fed our leaders for years, we did not expect them to grow at a pace far outside our control.
Lack of religious knowledge in the Muslims of our country helped inculcate and incubate this menace and the only solution to eradicate is implementation of a proper Islamic education system.
This will counter the rhetoric and brainwash of these groups forcing a stop to their growth.
19 Anoop on January 23, 2010 said:
Religion is not the answer. Common Sense is. I am not saying Religion is not common sense but Religion is basically an ideology about a power that we have not witnessed personally and is just hearsay.
Proper education and establishment of democratic values is the answer. Please look at how India toiled to establish democracy and learn. India is the best model for Pakistan.
20 shobz on December 5, 2009 said:
It was a sad day for all of us as terrorists struck again. They spilled so much blood and they are not going to rest until there are rivers of blood everywhere. I agree with you on your point that our people are so disillusioned that they are pointing fingers at external forces. How do they even know that external forces are allegedly responsible for all the bombings? If these people are allegedly responsible then why are our own Pakistanis helping carry out the attacks at the end of the day. Why don’t our “responsible” media do something about it rather than blame external forces? There is the urgency to actually find the perpetrators and not to pin it on external elements. If we can contain this internally then no one ruin it for us. We need to win the war within. I can bet the army is regretting creating an “Army of Frankensteins” and giving them too much support. It has backfired on their faces now. May Allah save us from them all.
21 Rabail on December 5, 2009 said:
Very factual. Our own trained pets gone wild noww!
22 Ayesha on December 5, 2009 said:
They (Taliban) have been created by the military. True. But in whose hands they are playing now?
I have a serious concern that there are militant (Taliban) sympathizers within our military and establishment. While you must have noticed none of the religious leaders (political one) categorically denounces such attacks or Taliban because they fear for their own lives. Taliban have grown too strong.
23 Mohsin Meer on December 5, 2009 said:
I was looking for a solution. Finally found here in your concluding note in reference to DAWN editorial.
*There are no good/bad Talibans. And as Timothy simply suggested kill all Monsters before they kill Pakistan. But for sure, before they are vanished, they will attempt to kill as many Army related personnel and ordinary Pakistanis – how we expect from them to play by book and observe Islamic principles? – it is too naive to expect all this decency from a declared monster. We have declared Islam of Taliban is not the right brand and we also expect them to observe sanctity of mosques when back-lashing to their cleansing program.
*All Jihadis have common agenda so militant groups targeting Kashmir should be also killed (mere disbanding does not work) and their Punjabi cousins (aka Punjabi Talibans) should be drone attacked since they all are supporting each other.
*No one mentioned here, but all Islamic madrassas should be closed immediately across the board since these are nurseries of future sympathizers of militant groups if not go step ahead and join them.
*all the personnel in armed forces or government institutions who have a trace of any soft corner for monsters should be persecuted in Abu Gharib or Gitmo type jails
*All religious leaders who don’t come on TV, same day as any back-lash incident happens, to strongly condemn the monsters should be exiled to a place called Ko Kaf so they can dance with fairies as a practice opportunity before these blessed souls dance in heaven with Hoors.
*If possible, Ata Turk type of Islam should be introduced in Pakistan. Pervaiz Musharraf had a plan but this desire of his was jeopardized by ill-planned 9/11. We should all support Marvi memon who is doing her best for his re-incarnation. So he can come in power once again to fulfill his Ata Turkise Pakistan
All of the above should happen before “strong” Talibans attack me or kill Pakistan. Looks like – Do more – appeals are only being listened by monsters and for Rahman Malik – it is – Do More – Negligence so monsters can penetrate the “most secured” place at their will.
Can we kill Monsters having a Clan ruling us? Of that clan, he is the Shining Star? If someone expects that, then we deserve a place in Fool’s paradise more than a monster deserves.
The choice is ours – to speedy kill the monsters and send them to fool’s paradise or get bomb blasted and reach there before monster arrives.
I am feeling myself very wise after writing this “rant shant” and dying to appear on a TV talk show or at least on LBS(laid back show of faisal kapadia) to spill out my wisdom and impress the nation by my grasp on this grave situation and a way out.
Who said Jokers don’t exist in Chaos time? But they are called “Intellectuals” in crisis time and comment on blogs in free time as ‘Lucky Irani Circus’ is closed due to security reasons.
P.S – if I sound insane, then join me as any one expecting sanity in these turmoils (Fasad fil Ardh) is an insane without any doubt.
24 Aman Sharma on December 6, 2009 said:
The blog post is now reading very much like an official statement from the Indian Foreign Ministry. It is sad that it takes these kind of dastardly acts of terrorism for Pakistan to realize the folly of using rogue elements as instruments of state policy.
It is better late than never. If Pakistan has to salvage the situation even now, it has to come out of the denial mode, accept that there is an internal problem, and dismantle the complete network of terror it so assiduously built over the years.
However, if the Pak media and the people still continue to overlook the problem and see the non existent foreign hand in the terror acts perpetrated, the situation might become very difficult to salvage from here on.
25 Debitum Naturae on December 6, 2009 said:
The Increasing incidence of ‘terrorism’ in Pakistan suggests that the Pakistanis need the 30,000 US troops deployed in pakistan more than the Afghans.
The ultimate resposibility for this and other recent atrocities lies firmly in the hands of a weak and feeble Pakistani government and army. Our leaders and its army are the biggest terrorists and pose the greatest threat to our security of life.
If it is commonly accepted by the people of this nation that their president was responsible for the murder of his own wife, if the US intellegence agencies could kill one of their own presidents, JFK, and furthermore orchestrate the death of almost 3000 of its own people in the 911 attacks, send its troops into illegal wars to illegally occupy sovereign lands, killing hundreds and thousands of innocent people, then how can you trust these same people to protect us???
Our leaders need to have bogeymen, like the US created the communist threat (when anyone with even a small amount of intellect could easily see that the russians were way behind in the arms race), then they created the islamic threat, even though most so called islamic nations very totally secular, apart from KSA who have always been best buddies with the USA. Pakistan previously had the Indian threat over kashmir and now the ‘taliban’.
The US will continue to support and fund our weak and corrupt governments and armies as long as our governments and armies continue to terrorise their citizens.
26 George Philip on December 6, 2009 said:
Laying aside the conspiracy theories that tend to ignite passions to make us all blind in the short term the question is how would what is happening now take everyone to the future.
Frankenstein getting more agitated and counter measures ending up in more loses such that masses end up having no way but to believe the propaganda to alleviate the pain? Or Is there a new dream that the masses can connect to.Fear and forgiveness is a tough one to go together voluntarily without having the balm of time where there is no losses of life.
Every country in its history has had its brush with warfare.Right now its the moment for Pakistan to decide if its going to be main way or collaborate to find a new dream while the armed struggle is co-coordinating to bring a dream through havoc.
27 Liberal on December 6, 2009 said:
Coming from India, for many Pakistani friends, this suggestion would more be under scrutiny and suspicion rather than have any serious look at it as a viewpoint from an aggrieved neighbor. The problem lies in the mindset where most of the Pakistanis do not comprehend a disposition other than the current one which has taught the “Hindu India” a lesson many a times besides having equipped itself with nukes. But, in the process of doing all this Pakistan overlooked other strategic implications of such a disposition; the implication of becoming a dangerous place for not only the neighbors but also the whole industrialized world who now view Pakistan’s nukes as potential threat and even refer to it as a rogue disposition.
Under such circumstances, who would come for the rescue of a self imploding state. Why would a far away world save a self imploding distant state which is considered a dangerous place in the world. Obviously, the only ones who would have to salvage the situation would be the most affected ones, i.e. the Pakistani masses. So, the moot question is about “””from where the masses would pick the threads”””” to salvage it.
Many a Pakistani commentators feel pride in picking the threads from the Mughal era, even fancying another Panipat like war by a Muslim Pakistan to lay siege over Hindu India. People of lesser historical memory would like to pick the threads from the woes and bloodshed of 1947. Little less wounded ones would like to pick the threads by rather displaying LondonTimes of 1971 carrying a story of India’s involvement in raising of Mukti Bahini in Bangladesh. Yet many wise leaders always wanted to bury the past and pick the threads from the contemporary events of the history.
Late ZA Bhutto wanted to bury everything upto 1971 and started afresh from Simla agreement of 1972. But that was thwarted by Gen Zia. Later Mian Nawaz Sharief tried to start afresh with AB Vajpayee by signing LahoreDeclaration in Feb 1999. Again it was thwarted by Gen Parvez Musharraf by scaling the Kargil heights. In all these attempts the noteworthy characteristic has been that the representatives of the masses always wanted to start afresh but to the discomfort of those who want to live in the distant history, at whatever cost! However, there still lies an opportunity to start afresh from the immediate past, i.e. 26/11 Mumbai Attack.
The choice lies with Pakistan masses if they would like to pick the threads from 26/11 and start afresh once again instead of starting from Mughal era. Because the solution to everything, including to AfPak lies in peace with the neighbors including India and Afghanistan and the whole subcontinent. Both India as well as Afghanistan are craving for a stable Pakistan. TTP in fact is a freak accident caused by reckless maneuvering by non-state actors. The real challenge is to avert any bigger accident.
Debitum Naturae: The threats mentioned by you save many economies from total collapse but at the expense of chaos in areas which are far away from the base location of creators of threats. Moreover, some people always need threats like Kashmir and Taliban and if Talibans finish – a fresh new one – so their Incorporations stay in business and how many kitchens see fire in result of fire in some one else house. These chaos are not created in a short period and will not end by simple formula – kill all monsters. How about the trial of creators of these Monsters which have turned in to Frankeisteins due to creator’s mismanagement of affairs?
Why only punish Frankeisteins? Their creators and past supporters also deserve some divine poetic justice. The drama is on and curtians will not fall until all the characters get what they deserve as per their performance.
Very much agree with you Mohsin, it all boils down to ‘Money and Power’.
Also it seems that Naveen and many that have commented on this blog have clearly misused the term ‘Frankenstein/s’.
Just for the record, in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein was the scientist who creates the monster who is left nameless and is correctly referred to as Frankenstein’s monster.
Hence, you cannot refer to the ‘different Taliban Factions’ as an ‘army of Frankensteins’. Frankenstein would be a suitable name for the ‘establishment’ that created these so-called ‘monsters’
If I remember correctly, Dr Frankenstein fails to control the monster he created and in fact destroys himself in his pursuit of destroying the ‘monster’.
We will not find peace until we allow others around us to live in peace.
The essence of the whole discussion is a simple statement by Debitum Naturae .
And this should be a base start towards permanent solution of the present chaos in world – no permanet peace until all factions agree to allow all others to live in peace. Any breach of trust by even a single stakeholder will be a big hurdle to find a solution – the whole world is dying to get. The survival of mankind depends on the above simple solution and Debitum said it so simply and so plain that I could hear it loud and clear among all other distracting noises.
Debitum Naturae: Yes, you have a point there. In my opinion as per your explanation, the title should be “Army of Frankenstein” or “Monsters of Frankenstein”.
Naveen – Since you put these article on facebook also and it is suggested that discussion over there also somehow should be brought here. Some interesting and thoughtful comments over there. Below is the link;
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Naveen-Naqvi-DawnNews/167424202780?ref=nf
The discussion seems finished over here but it is still ON on Naveen’s facebook
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Naveen-Naqvi-DawnNews/167424202780
Thank you Naveen and may God bless you for providing forum for open discussion – Aámen. If there is a Change written for us, you will surely go down is history as a Change Agent.
Keep up your very positive work. My all silent support for you and your efforts for a better peaceful Pakistan for all Pakistanis – a must prerequisite for world peace.
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Netflix gives Hallmark a run for its money with this year's holiday movie lineup
Britt Hayes
We’ve had just two weeks to enjoy spooky season, which means it’s finally appropriate to drop GIFs of that dancing pumpkin head dude on every social media platform. But here comes Netflix with its maternal insistence that we begin thinking about Christmas already. In recent years, Netflix has entered an extremely silly (and probably one-sided, to be honest) rivalry with Hallmark over which brand can deliver the most ridiculous holiday programming. And this year’s offerings are exceptionally cringe-inducing, but like, in a holly jolly way. Christmas may be two months out, but that’s exactly how long it’s going to take you to recover from the crying-laughing fit induced by reading the plot descriptions for Netflix’s holiday movies.
A fun challenge/self-own is seeing if you can make it through all of these plot descriptions without devolving into shrieks and sobs of laughter and/or collapsing in on yourself like a dying star. There is no reward. This is an exercise in humanity’s futile search for meaning in the uncaring void known as life. But also it’s hilarious.
First up is Holiday In The Wild, starring Kristin Davis and Rob Lowe, who may or may not have been illegally poached from Hallmark:
Available 11/1/19
To keep her spirits high when their son leaves for college, Manhattanite Kate Conrad (Kristin Davis) has booked a ‘second honeymoon’ with her husband. Instead of thanking her, he brings their relationship to a sudden end; jilted Kate proceeds to Africa for a solo safari. During a detour through Zambia, she helps her pilot, Derek Holliston (Rob Lowe), rescue an orphaned baby elephant. They nurse him back to health at a local elephant sanctuary, and Kate extends her stay through Christmastime. Far from the modern luxuries of home, Kate thrives amidst majestic animals and scenery. Her love for the new surroundings just might extend to the man who shared her journey.
The real journey is reading that synopsis, which goes from zero to elephant sanctuary in Zambia in two seconds flat. Next is Let It Snow, starring Kiernan Shipka and Jacob Batalon and some other famous people who aren’t too proud to accept a handout. As Netflix helpfully informs us, this one is based on a best-selling YA novel by John Green of The Fault In Our Stars fame. Which somber historical landmark will play host to an inappropriate teen make-out session this time around? Tune in to find out!
When a snowstorm hits a small midwestern town on Christmas Eve, a group of high school seniors find their friendships and love lives colliding thanks to a stranded pop star, a stolen keg, a squad of competitive dancers, a mysterious woman covered in tin foil, and an epic party at the local Waffle Town. Come Christmas morning, nothing will be the same.
Ominous! The next one is called Klaus, and it’s Netflix’s first original animated feature. It’s also the holiday movie Most Likely To Not Suck, if this voice cast is any indication:
Available 11/15/19
When Jesper (Jason Schwartzman) distinguishes himself as the postal academy’s worst student, he is stationed on a frozen island above the Arctic Circle, where the feuding locals hardly exchange words let alone letters. Jesper is about to give up when he finds an ally in local teacher Alva (Rashida Jones), and discovers Klaus (Oscar® winner J.K. Simmons), a mysterious carpenter who lives alone in a cabin full of handmade toys. These unlikely friendships return laughter to Smeerensburg, forging a new legacy of generous neighbors, magical lore and stockings hung by the chimney with care. An animated holiday comedy directed by Despicable Me co-creator Sergio Pablos, KLAUS co-stars Joan Cusack, Will Sasso and Norm Macdonald.
Potentially good movies are boring. NEXT. The Knight Before Christmas. See, it’s a play on words. It’s the night before Christmas but also it’s about a knight. You know you’re in for a wild ride when the synopsis begins with “After a magical sorceress...” Yes, do go on.
The Knight Before Christmas
After a magical sorceress transports medieval knight Sir Cole (Josh Whitehouse) to present-day Ohio during the holiday season, he befriends Brooke (Vanessa Hudgens), a clever and kind science teacher who’s been disillusioned by love. Brooke helps Sir Cole navigate the modern world and helps him discover how to fulfill his mysterious one true quest — the only act that will return him home. But as he and Brooke grow closer, Sir Cole begins to wonder just how much he wants to return to his old life. Directed by Monika Mitchell (THE CHRISTMAS CONTRACT, ROYAL NEW YEAR’S EVE) and also starring Emmanuelle Chriqui, Isabelle Franca, Ella Kenion, and Jean-Michel Le Gal, THE KNIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS is a cozy holiday romance about learning to let yourself believe in magic again.
“Cozy holiday romance” is a nauseating series of words. We’re in.
For those in the market for a Christmas movie with a gooey moral center, look no further than Holiday Rush, which has nothing to do with fast cars (sadly) and everything to do with the main character’s name (boring):
Holiday Rush
Popular New York radio DJ Rush Williams (Romany Malco) has been spoiling his four children since they lost their mom. Unfortunately, the kids share their pricey Christmas lists right when he loses his job. To keep Rush on the air, his producer Roxy Richardson (Sonequa Martin-Green) and his Aunt Jo (Darlene Love) plan to help him buy another station — if the Williams family can downsize fast and embrace a simpler life. In this heartwarming film, a loving father reconnects with his children and opens his heart to love when they all learn that true joy comes from not what you have but who you have around you.
Great news, everyone: There’s a new Christmas Prince sequel! A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby is a deceptive title because while there is definitely an impending infant, this movie is about some weird shit, like a 600-year-old sacred truce with Asian royalty and an ancient curse. You know, for Christmas!
A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby
It’s Christmastime in Aldovia, and a royal baby is on the way! Queen Amber (Rose McIver) and King Richard (Ben Lamb) are getting ready to take some time off to prepare for their first child’s arrival, but first they have to host King Tai (Kevin Shen) and Queen Ming (Momo Yeung) of Penglia to renew a 600-year-old sacred truce. But when the priceless treaty goes missing, peace is jeopardized and an ancient curse looms. Amber will have to figure out who the thief is before the clock strikes midnight on Christmas Eve, for the safety of her family and the kingdom. Director John Schultz (A CHRISTMAS PRINCE: THE ROYAL WEDDING) and screenwriter Nathan Atkins (A CHRISTMAS PRINCE, A CHRISTMAS PRINCE: THE ROYAL WEDDING) return for the third installment in the CHRISTMAS PRINCE series.
Oh, you thought we were done here? Dennis Quaid would like to have a word:
Set during the happy but hectic days before and after Christmas, Merry Happy Whatever follows Don Quinn (Dennis Quaid), a strong-willed patriarch from Philadelphia doing his best to balance the stress of the holidays with the demands of his close-knit but eclectic family — and his family doing their best to manage him. But when youngest daughter Emmy (Bridgit Mendler) arrives home from L.A. with a new boyfriend, struggling musician Matt (Brent Morin), Don’s belief that “there’s the Quinn way… and the wrong way” is put to the test. From Emmy Award-winning creator Tucker Cawley (Everybody Loves Raymond), Merry Happy Whatever is a hilarious and heartwarming comedy that proves while family may not come wrapped up in a neat little bow, it sometimes can still be the greatest gift.
In addition to all these cinematic gems, Netflix is also releasing new holiday-centric seasons of The Great British Baking Show, Nailed It!, and Sugar Rush. Thanks, Netflix Santa!
Netflix calls out the 53 people who can’t stop watching A Christmas Prince
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Great Job Internet
Step aside, Pennywise: This sexy Ronald McDonald's got French fry pubes
Kevin Cortez
Filed to:McDonalds
Photo: Paul J. Richards (Getty Images)
It’s finally October, which means it’s spooky season, which also kinda means it’s clown season. Of late, we’ve seen the second and final chapter of IT, some closure for Zach Galifianakis’ sweet clown series Baskets, a visit from Wrinkles, and, who can forget, the anxiety surrounding Joker’s opening weekend. It could be worse, though. We could be cursed with a sexy Ronald McDonald with French fry pubes.
This past week, Twitter discovered sexy Ronald in a Japanese advertisement for what was assumed to be a McDonald’s ad.
Well, they were wrong. This iteration of our clown Ronny actually comes from an ad for a Japanese tapas/pub chain, Yotteba, that, according to Medium blog Unseen Japan, loves using offbeat imagery to advertise their restaurants. The company’s mascot can be seen at the top right of the image, next to the skinny “i’m lovin’ it,” text. The copy on the left side of the ad states, “Of course, we serve them in Yotteba’s original container.” And, as one Twitter user points out, the idea came from the chain presenting “naked ingredients” as a pun on McDonald’s “fresh ingredients.”
The actual artwork itself, however, can still be appreciated. It stems from New York-based artist Wizard Skull, who created this sexy Ronald character in 2011 and has since seen an influx of the piece being replicated and reproduced for various reasons, Japanese pub chain advertisements apparently being one of them. According to his website, the design has also been sold as merch around Thailand, Indonesia, and South Africa. The pube fry entering the world’s cultural consciousness is so powerful.
And before you even think about stealing this artwork for a sexy Ronald McDonald costume yourself, just know that it’s already been done before.
Joker’s throwback vision is derivative, but at least it brings something new to superhero cinema
How do you make a real-life evil clown boring? Just call Wrinkles The Clown
It Chapter Two is a bad horror movie, but it’s a pretty decent comedy
Kevin Cortez writes on the internet. He wrote this. Follow his dumb tweets @AOLNetScape.
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Cops who didn’t register for elections to be charged
Published October 1, 2019, 7:13 PM
By Calvin Cordova
CEBU CITY — Policemen who failed to list up during the recent voter’s registration face administrative charges.
Central Visayas Police Chief Brigadier General Debold Sinas (Photo courtesy of PRO-7 via Facebook / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) ended the voter’s registration last Monday for the now-canceled barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections.
Brig. Gen. Debold Sinas, chief of the Central Visayas police, said the order requiring all policemen to register came from Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters in Camp Crame.
“The order was relayed to all provincial and city police offices in the region. Those who failed to comply will be charged with administrative cases,” Sinas said.
The Central Visayas police has 10,000 uniformed and non-uniformed personnel.
Sinas said Camp Crame was alarmed that so many policemen, particularly in Central Visayas, were not able to vote in the elections last May because they did not register.
“The order is meant to encourage the policemen to exercise their rights to suffrage. It will be a big waste if some policemen will not be able to vote,” said Sinas.
To help comply with the order, an off-site registration was conducted at the police regional headquarters last week.
Off-site registrations were also set up at shopping malls.
Sinas added that the regional police will coordinate with the Comelec to identify those policemen who failed to register.
“Initially, only 80 percent of the regional police personnel was able to register. By next week, we will be able to identify the 20 percent who didn’t comply with the order,” Sinas said.
DTI issues price freeze on basic necessities in Batangas
Batangas governor nixes ever having residents on Taal Volcano island due to risk
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New Zika diagnostics needed for babies, researchers say
Mariette Le Roux
AFP June 29, 2016
The mosquito-borne Zika virus has been linked to microcephaly -- a shrinking of the brain and skull -- in babies
The mosquito-borne Zika virus has been linked to microcephaly -- a shrinking of the brain and skull -- in babies (AFP Photo/Christophe Simon)
Paris (AFP) - Two studies of newborns in Zika-stricken Brazil yielded meagre clues Wednesday about the mysterious workings of the virus, and prompted researchers to call for better tests to identify brain-damaged babies.
Some infants with brain abnormalities may not be diagnosed because they have normal-sized heads instead of the tell-tale small skulls of those born with Zika-linked microcephaly, said one of the papers published by The Lancet.
More than 100 babies who had "definitely or probably" been infected with Zika in the womb, turned out to have normal-sized heads in a recent study, researchers said.
The skull is fully developed by about week 30 of pregnancy, which lasts some 40 weeks.
This meant that "newborns infected with the virus late in pregnancy may go unreported due to their head size being within normal range," said study co-author Cesar Victora of the Federal University of Pelotas.
Also, many of the affected infants' mothers had not had the pregnancy rash sometimes indicative of Zika infection.
Benign in most people, the mosquito-borne virus has been linked to microcephaly -- a shrinking of the brain and skull -- in babies, and to rare adult-onset neurological problems such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which can result in paralysis and death.
In an outbreak that started last year, about 1.5 million people have been infected with Zika in Brazil, and more than 1,600 babies born with abnormally small heads and brains.
Existing diagnostics, such as skull measurements or checking for a rash, were not enough to detect all Zika-affected children, said the team.
As a result, some may be living with brain damage that will only become apparent much later.
Doctors should also screen for other signs of brain abnormalities, using ultrasound brain examinations, for example, Victora told AFP.
And, "we need to improve the detection of Zika virus infection on the blood".
- Second wave -
The authors speculated that babies may develop brain damage from an infection that occurs even after birth.
"Zika affects the growing brain, and brain growth does not stop at birth but continues throughout infancy," said Victora.
"If a foetus infected in the last trimester of pregnancy can suffer brain damage, couldn't a newborn who is infected by a mosquito also be affected?"
No such case has yet been reported, "but I think it is possible that this will happen," the scientist said.
With a new wave of Zika virus infections in southeast Brazil early this year, there could soon be a second wave of microcephaly births, the authors added.
A second study added to the growing body of evidence linking the virus to birth defects.
It reported finding Zika in the brain tissue of three dead babies with severe brain damage, and the placenta of two miscarriages.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has concluding that Zika causes microcephaly, even though there have only been a handful of studies to confirm the presence of Zika in foetuses or babies with birth defects.
A lot more research is needed, said the authors, to determine how the virus works and what it does.
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Parker Aerospace and Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance Announce Long-Term Agreement for Boeing 787 Component Support and Service
19 June 2019 . 1 min read
Paris, Amstelveen, Le Bourget, June 19, 2019 - Parker Aerospace, a business group of Parker Hannifin Corporation, the global leader in motion and control technologies, and Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance (AFI KLM E&M) announced today an agreement for long-term collaboration on Boeing 787 component maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) services. The agreement, signed and announced at the 2019 Paris Air Show, covers the vast majority of repairable and test-only components for the Parker-designed 787 hydraulic system.
The agreement between AFI KLM E&M and Parker Aerospace will also encompass the joint development of repair procedures to increase component and system reliability and reduce related maintenance costs for airline customers worldwide. Operators benefit from shared best practices and collaborative approaches to continuous improvement in repair performance. The collaboration focuses on repair development and work-scoping to help optimize on-wing time and reduce delays, cancellations, and overall cost.
Parker Aerospace is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and a global leader in developing and integrating components across many aerospace technologies. Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance is a world leader in MRO with extensive knowledge of airline operations. By combining efforts with a new way of doing business, customers benefit from OEM data combined with powerful MRO insight and repair capabilities. The agreement does not preclude other agreements between Parker Aerospace and its customers.
"Parker Aerospace is continually focused on developing a strong global network while providing local solutions for MRO and part availability," said Vic Jorcyk, vice president of commercial aftermarket business for Parker Aerospace Customer Support Operations. "By combining efforts with AFKLM, this agreement will help end users realize the best cost savings, operational performance, and value created through the collaboration."
Anne Brachet, Executive Vice President Air France KLM Engineering & Maintenance, said: "We are happy with this partnership. It demonstrates again that AFI KLM E&M is a reliable and trustful party on the 787 market. We see this as further reinforcing our Boeing 787 support program to the benefit of our customers."
Maintenance + SafetyAmericasEurope
TJLX - 19 June 2019
Embraer Announces KLM Intention for up to 35 E195-E2 Jets
Turkmenistan Airlines Intends to Order One Boeing 777-200LR
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Home / Michael Formanek
Thumbscrew – ‘Ours’ and ‘Theirs’
June 6, 2018 By Anthony Dean-Harris
Thumbscrew - the trio of guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Michael Formanek, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara - are giants at the particular kind of weird they do individually, but they're practically mythological titans when united together. For the last four years, this trio has been a total trip, bending notes and playing with abstractions while holding onto a certain snap that … [Read more...]
Mary Halvorson – ‘Code Girl’
April 6, 2018 By Brian Kiwanuka
If there is one word that cannot be used to describe Mary Halvorson, it's stagnant. In the past decade, the unconventional guitarist has been consistently expanding the range of her creativity, appearing on a staggering amount of recordings while developing a strikingly singular compositional approach. Code Girl, the name of Halvorson's latest record and band, stands adjacent … [Read more...]
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Donate to The Mulberry Bush
Despite being a national resource, we receive no central government funding. Local authorities pay fees which cover the basic cost of care and education. However, these do not allow for any capital development, the up-keep of our buildings, extension of therapeutic care, or any of the extra curricular activities which other children take for granted and which our children so desperately need.
We would be grateful for all donations, which are tax-exempt and on which we can claim Gift Aid, adding a further 25% through the UK Gift Aid scheme. Our registered charity number is 309565.
The Mulberry Bush Organisation is registered with The Fundraising Regulator. As such, we have made a public promise to adhere to best practice, honesty, transparency, clarity and accountability in all fundraising activity, enabling you to give with confidence. You can read our fundraising promise here.
Read our fundraising complaints policy and procedures here
You can donate via PayPal with a debit/credit card or using your PayPal account (you don’t need a PayPal account to donate this way).
Simply select the amount you wish to donate and whether you wish to donate monthly.
BACS Transfer
Our bank details are:
The Mulberry Bush Organisation
Donations by Cheque
If you would like to make a donation to The Mulberry Bush by cheque, please make it payable to:
The Mulberry Bush Organisation Limited, enclose a completed Gift Aid form with your donation and send to:
Joanna Mitchell
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If you would prefer to donate via Virgin Money Giving, please click the button:
Your regular gifts to The Mulberry Bush will help the children at the school now as well as all the children we can help in the future. Every gift you make, whether large or small, is deeply appreciated.
If you are a UK bank account holder and you would like to make a regular Gift Aid donation to The Mulberry Bush, please complete and sign the Banker’s Order Form and return it together with your Gift Aid Declaration Form to the address on the form.
Download Standing Order Form
Download Gift Aid form
There are a number of other easy ways in which you can support the work of The Mulberry Bush. Here’s how you can get involved with supporting our work.
We have also created a page of suggestions for other ways you can support us
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What's On San Javier
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FIND MURCIA PROPERTY
Playa la Isla, the southernmost Mar Menor beach in the San Javier section of La Manga
Half a kilometre of sand near the Dos Mares marina in La Manga
Playa La Isla runs for half a kilometre along the internal coastline of the Mar Menor and is the sourhernmost La Manga beach in the municipality of San Javier. It runs between kilometres 3.7 and 4.2 of La Manga in a heavily developed area, which means that there is hig occupancy, especially, of course, in July and August.
Services and facilities include footwashes, telephones, bins, wooden walkways, lounger and sunshade hire and beach cleaning, and there are plenty of bars, shops and restaurants nearby.
Access: there is a bus service which runs right along the length of La Manga del Mar Menor throughout the day, and several stops give access to Playa de la Isla. Parking is available in the urban areas which back onto the beach, but as this area is high density, parking can be more difficult than for other beaches in La Manga.
Mar Menor beaches of La Manga in the municipality of San Javier
San Javier has two distinct sections of beaches, one being in Santiago de la Ribera on the shore of the Mar Menor, close to the main centre of San Javier town, and the other on the opposite side of the Mar Menor on the spit of land called La Manga de Mar Menor (or "the strip", as it is often referred to by holidaymakers), where there are both Mar Menor and Mediterranean beaches.
Mar Menor beaches are enclosed within Europe's largest saltwater lagoon, which is fed by the Mediterranean. The Mar Menor is totally unique, its geographical peculiarities creating some of the best conditions in Spain for those learning watersports, particularly windsurfing and sailing.
Murcia is the warmest mainland region in Spain, and has an average temperature of 18 degrees, which makes it perfect for year-round watersports activity, and bathers can enjoy the waters of the Mar Menor for most of the year. The water is not tidal and has only very insiginficant currents and waves, so it's perfect for family bathing or watersport beginners.
It has shallow fringes which slope gently, and is only 7 metres deep in the centre, so the water temperature is warmer than that of the Mediterranean, particularly around the edges where it is possible to wade out 50 metres from the shore and still only be waist deep.
The Mar Menor beaches are all around the lagoon, which covers a surface area of nearly 170 square kilometres, with 70 kilometres of internal coastline, separated from the Mediterranean by the 22 kilometres of La Manga. Channels known as "golas" cut across La Manga, enabling water to flow bewteen the two seas as well as making it possible for boats to sail between the two.
It is important when choosing a beach to understand that the Mar Menor beaches offer shallow and calm bathing conditions, whereas the Mediterranean beaches are wider, longer, windier, and are susceptible to wave conditions and currents.
The internal area of the Mar Menor is divided among several municipalities, or local councils. The La Manga strip is divided into two sections for administrative purposes, although there is no geographical difference, the far end belonging to San Javier and the lower section linking to Cabo de Palos belongs to Cartagena.
The La Manga Strip offers beaches on both the Mar Menor side and the Mediterranean coast, both presenting totally different bathing conditions and types of beaches.
Almost the entire length of La Manga del Mar Menor is lined with holiday apartments, hotels and summer properties, although it does also have a significant year-round residential population.
There are beaches the entire length of La Manga, with the Mediterranean on one side and the Mar Menor on the other. For this reason the density of occupation is a lot lower than might be expected due to the sheer metreage of sand, although the beaches nearest to the Cabo de Palos end of La Manga tend to have higher occupancy as the land is wider, there is a higher concentration of apartments and they are nearer to the "mainland" road access.
Towards the northern end, in San Javier, the land narrows, and the concentration of properties is lower, so the beaches are emptier. The Mar Menor beaches have good facilities, good sand and safe bathing conditions, and those who prefer wider, more open beaches, with rolling waves, simply have to cross the road to the Mediterranean side, or take a short bus ride further along the Gran Via, which runs the entire length of the strip, to another beach.
The location of La Manga del Mar Menor beaches is generally defined by kilometre reference. Kilometre 0 is the tourist information point at Cabo de Palos and km 18 is the far end of La Manga by the Esculls de la Llana y Encañizadas, which is where dry land runs out! The northernmost end of the strip is marshy and largely inaccessible, before it finally just fails to join up with the salt flats of San Pedro del Pinatar.
Safety precautions for bathers
This is a Mar Menor beach and it is advisable to observe the following safety precautions when bathing:
- most of the Mar Menor beaches have very gently sloping shelves, meaning that bathers can walk a considerable distance from the shore and still only be waist high in the water. These shore fringes are also very warm, heating up more than the deeper waters, or the Mediterranean coastline, particularly during the hot summer months.
- many beaches are also protected by netting to exclude jellyfish. This creates safe bathing areas for families but also leads to a situation which can be life threatening, as the safety of the beaches results in many elderly bathers bathing alone. This in itself is not life threatening, but every year there are unnecessary deaths when bathers suffer a heart attack, stroke, faint or have a dizzy spell of some sort whilst bathing alone, slipping into the water without anybody else being aware that this has happened.
The transition from hot beach to cold water can shock the body, causing dizziness or fainting, so it is advisable to splash the body with water to cool down before wading out into the Mar Menor or Mediterranean.
Even though there are lifeguards at many Mar Menor beaches, accidents happen and every year there are unnecessary fatalities, the simple rule being if you have a medical condition, are taking medication, or are of advanced age, don´t bathe alone no matter how shallow and calm the water is.
And for all ages, a red flag means do not bathe, particularly on the Mediterranean beaches.
Click to see an overview of the beaches in San Javier, or to go to the home page of San Javier Today for more local news, events and other information.
Other La Manga del Mar Menor Beaches
Find more information by AREA, TOWN or URBANISATION
The Mar Menor
El Carmoli
Islas Menores and Mar de Cristal
La Puebla
La Torre Golf Resort
Terrazas de la Torre Golf Resort
Los Belones
Los Nietos
Los Urrutias
Mar Menor Golf Resort
Playa Honda / Playa Paraiso
Portman
Roldan and Lo Ferro
South West Murcia
Bolnuevo
Condado de Alhama
Fuente Alamo
Hacienda del Alamo Golf Resort
Puerto de Mazarron
Sierra Espuna
North & North West Murcia
Murcia Central
El Valle Golf Resort
Hacienda Riquelme Golf Resort
Peraleja Golf Resort
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27.6k Views6 Comments
by Latifa Saber March 8, 2018, 10:00 pm in Featured, History
Did You Know That the First University Was Founded by a Muslim woman?
Have you ever asked someone to name inspirational people, dead or alive? You’ll probably get names like Martin Luther King, Neil Armstrong, Tariq Ramadan, … I mean, We can’t deny that these and so many other men have done amazing things and are definitely worth the title, but I’ve noticed that most people only name men when it comes to powerful people. Little do they know that women have done and are still doing some pretty amazing things. So in this series I want to talk to you about women whose names are often forgotten or simply ignored because of the patriarchal society we live in. All I want is for you to never forget their names and keep their achievements in mind.
She was the daughter of a merchant named Mohammed, she was known as ‘the lady of Fez’ and ‘the mother of boys’. I’m talking about Fatima Al Fihri, founder of the very first academic university. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
It all started 1215 years ago, Fatima was born in approximately 800 CE in Tunisia. After quite some years they all moved to Fez which was one of the most influential Muslim cities back then. Which means that it was the place to be for ambitious people. And that was exactly what the family Al Fihri needed. They started as a family who struggled a lot with money, but hard work paid off and Mohammed Al Fihri became a very successful businessman. When Fatima’s father and brother died she was left alone with her sister Mariam. They were very lucky as they inherited a big sum of money. As generous as they were they both decided to invest their money in projects that would benefit their community. Fatima’s sister decided to build a mosque which is known as the Al Andalus Mosque. Fatima herself decided to benefit her community on an educational level. In 859 she founded the Al Qarrawiyyin University which was the very first academic university. Although some people say that this university started out as a Mosque and developed into a university through the years.
This university wasn’t only a big achievement when it comes to education, it was also a great opportunity for Muslims to unite with European cultures. Different non-Muslims studied at the Al Qarrawiyyin University. Probably because of its wide range of subjects. For a university built in the 9th century in a Muslim country you’d think that the only things that were taught were the Quran and the Fiqh, which is known as the Islamic legislation. But that was not the case, there a-were a lot of different subjects such as: geology, astrology, grammar, chemistry, medicine, mathematics and even music!
To me the most admirable thing about Fatima is that she was a woman with a vision. Even though she was a wealthy women she still decided to invest this money in other people and in education.
Fatima died in 880 CE and it’s almost 1135 years later but the Al Qarrawiyyin University is still existent and is known as one of the highly appreciated Moroccan universities. Fatima is admired by many Moroccan women for being the smart, ambitious and inspiring woman she was.
EducateInspireinspiring womenIslamic HistoryMotivationuniversitywoman
Written by Latifa Saber
Latifa Saber is a 21-year-old student with strong opinions on pretty much everything. Feminism, literature and fashion are her main fields of interest.
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Occupy Oakland; Free Tickets to: Goapele; Omar Sosa; Average White Band; Tank; David Grisman Quintet; Rachelle Ferrell; Hot 8 Brass Band; Fela!; Amiri Baraka, and Ishmael Reed Band; The Velveteen Rabbit; Colors of Christmas; Business Strategic Plan; YOUR Free Food Program; Entertainment Jobs Nov-Dec. 2011
Special “Thanks” to all that have supported our efforts over the years!FREE tickets to:
Goapele, Thurs., 11/17@10 pm, Sun., 11/20 @7 pm, Yoshi’s- Oakland, 510 Embarcadero W, Oakland Ca 94607;
The tickets will be awarded upon promoter conditions via our Text, Twitter or website, so DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL, and if you haven’t already, you should join us on:
Text “I Want Tickets to (name of show)” with your name and email address to: (510) 394-4501; Twitter at: http://twitter.com/xzwhy , http://twitter.com/ajalil , http://twitter.com/nowtruth , http://twitter.com/amwft, http://twitter.com/win2012elect , or go to the websites at: http://Superstarmanagement.com , http://Ex-Why.com/ , http://AMWFTRUST.Org/ or http://NowTruth.Org/ and make your request on the “I WANT TICKETS” page.
Goapele
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Contact the Food Bank’’s Agency Services staff to let us know about your interest in Food Bank membership. You can email us atagency (at) accfb.org or call us at 510-635-3663 ext. 365.
A&MWF delivers food, medicine, clothing and other necessities to over 4,000 individuals- children, families, and organizations per monthwho lack these essentials and is pioneering a new trend, as government and community funds grapple with the recession and the challenges of raising funds, WE have forged an awareness and sustained an effort to connect those in dire need with service providers, donors, volunteers and nonprofit groups with these causes. We have taken community foundations and moved into social networking, reaching beyond static “bricks and mortar” to interactive Web sites to serve as a dynamic virtual clearinghouses or “town square” that holds conversations between those in NEED and their local charities, citizens, donors, and volunteers.
Television / feature film production company is seeking a Creative Executive. Must have one to two years’ experience in TV. Responsibilities include script coverage, compiling writer/director/actor lists, research and writing detailed notes. Must be familiar with TV writers and showrunners and the general TV development landscape. Executive will be expected to bring in projects and work across both TV (scripted and reality) and Features. Will also assist two senior development executives with some administrative tasks (scheduling/research) when necessary. Send cover letter and resume totvfilmexecjob@gmail.com
The Robert Simonds Company (Culver City) Veteran producer Robert Simonds seeks Creative Executive to assist in development of star-driven scripts. New venture startup backed by private equity firm TPG. Salary commensurate with experience. Please forward cover letter and resume for consideration torsasst@rscfilms.com
United Talent Agency (UTA) seeks qualified candidates for its agent trainee program. Previous industry experience and bachelors degree required. Candidates must be motivated, extremely detail oriented, have excellent communication and organizational skills and a desire to learn the business of talent representation. This is a very demanding environment with excellent opportunities to work in Film, Television, Music, New Media and Entertainment Marketing. Proficiency with Microsoft Office software is mandatory. Compensation includes overtime and full benefits. References required.www.unitedtalent.com for more information. Fax cover letter & resume to (310) 247-1111 or email to HR@unitedtalent.com. Attn: Human Resources. No calls.
Busy television production company with studio term deal seeks an assistant who wants to learn about the TV/film industry. Candidate should be driven, computer literate, detail-oriented and creative with strong communication skills. Entertainment experience and excellent computer skills are mandatory. Agency experience preferred. Responsibilities include heavy phones, scheduling and office management. Email resumes/cover letters tottc_jobs@yahoo.com
Fashion oriented celebrity website is seeking a fulltime Writer/Editorial Assistant. Looking for an employee to help develop stories based on current entertainment news, proofread articles, and search for photographs that bring engaging and fun articles to life. Position is entry-level with great benefits. Offices located in West Hollywood. Early schedule, 6am start time, Monday-Friday. Email resume, cover letter, and relevant writing samples toAssistEditor2010@gmail.com
CEO at prominent film school is in search of an experienced Executive Assistant. Looking for a computer proficient, educated positive person with a great attitude. Must take on any and all assignments with enthusiasm and dedication. This is a full-time, paid position. Please email resumes and cover letters tolshack@lafilm.com
Boutique talent and literary management company seeks a full time, executive assistant for president of the company. Responsibilities include but are not limited to: heavy phones, making travel arrangements, scheduling, arranging auditions, script reading, coverage and correspondence. Prefer candidate with interest in graduating to full time manager as promotion is guaranteed for the right person (if becoming a manager is not your goal, this is not the job for you). Minimum of 1 year agency experience a must. Salary and benefits commensurate with experience. Please send cover letter and resume tomanagementasst123@yahoo.com
Executive Vice-President of a studio-affiliated production/finance company is looking for an executive assistant. Candidates must be motivated self-starters, love to read, and able to manage a busy desk including heavy phones, travel, scheduling, have a keen understanding and passion for the motion picture business, as well as extensive knowledge of screenwriters, directors, agents, producers and actors. Please e-mail resume and cover-letter toassist.assistant@gmail.com
Management 360 is seeking an assistant for one of our talent partners. Ideal candidates have an excellent educational background and a minimum of one year paid desk experience at a talent agency or management company. Must have excellent skills (rolling calls, travel, client schedules, attention to detail, etc.) and have a strong desire to be a talent manager. If you do not meet all these qualifications, please do not apply. Send resumes as an attached pdf file tojobs@management360.com
A very busy TV producer and showrunner with a deal at a major studio seeks a part-time personal assistant. This is for a go getter fresh out of college. If you think you have too much experience to do something like this than you probably do. You will have the opportunity to make some invaluable contacts and there is the possibility for this to turn into a full time position in the new year. Please submit resumes and a brief cover letter totvproducerassist@gmail.com with the words Personal Assistant in the subject line.
The job will be M – F/9-5. You will be responsible for all the errands, shopping, and some driving. Creative person that has done events and a lot of gift buying, wrapping, and shipping. Must be good to help manage the house and petty cash. Great w/ excel and computer. Calendar skills are very important as you will be interfacing with the husband’s (producer/actor) office. Approximate 52K plus health insurance. You must be great w/ kids but there are nannies.jobs@thehelpcompany.com
Partner at high-profile PR firm seeking coordinator. Must have prior desk experience, is a quick-learner, self-starter, reliable, detail oriented, organized, great at multi-tasking and follow up. Microsoft programs, good communication skills and common sense a must. Duties include phones, scheduling, handling client press kits, client requests, light pitching etc. Office in West Hollywood. Interested applicants please send resume/cover letter tocoordinatorprjob@gmail.com
42West is seeking an assistant to the Deputy Head of Talent. Candidates must be extremely detailed, organized, possess a high level of initiative, and have the ability to multi-task and be resourceful. Candidates with at least 1 year experience in entertainment will be considered. Daily duties include: rolling calls, managing publicist’s calendar, servicing press clippings, updating press kits, booking hair and make-up, creating client travel and publicity schedules. We are looking for someone who is willing to make at least a 1 year commitment. Please email resume and cover letter toElizabeth.Cain@42West.net
Entertainment PR Firm seeks assistant with prior work experience. Must be extremely organized, self-motivator, prolific writing skills, and outgoing. Must have paid experience in PR or as an assistant. Responsibilities will include assisting the partners of boutique Film PR agency with film festivals, premieres, press junkets and more. Heavy computer and internet work. Room for advancement within in company. Please send salary requirements with resume tofilmpublicistjob@aol.com
PR and marketing firm specializing in emerging brands and entertainment is looking for responsible and dedicated interns to start immediately and gain valuable hands-on experience with media and the mechanics of PR campaigns and strategy. Credit-only interns who have an active interest in all forms of public relations and marketing, specifically social media and website design/management. Applicants must be a dedicated, reliable, articulate, and personable. Must be able to commit to at least 10-15 hours per week. If interested, please send a resume and cover letter tospencer@workshopcollective.com
Unpaid Intern: Bulletproof Entertainment, run by one of the top music producers/supervisors in the motion picture and soundtrack industry, is in need of interns to assist with scanning, video editing, reachout, our CD library & iTunes database, record production, computer graphics, as well as some light office duties. Requirements: strong interest in music and film industries and strong proficiency with Mac/Apple software. Email resume and brief letter toapply@bulletproofentertainment.com
EQAL is a leading social media company that builds digital “influencer” networks around celebrities and brands. The Department Coordinator will provide significant administrative support to the Chief Content Officer as well as other department executives. Responsibilities include including managing calendars, answering emails, answering phones, filing, expense reports and managing travel. Will also serve as a ‘utility player’ and complete special projects including: writing, copyediting, pitch deck design/development and project tracking. Bachelor’s Degree required. Send resume and cover letter tomedianetworks-resume@eqal.com and specify you are applying for Dept Coordinator position.
Dimension Films is seeking an assistant in production/development in the New York office. This is a highly demanding position with plenty of opportunity for advancement. Must be dedicated, focused and proficient in handling assistant tasks – phones, scheduling, etc. Ideal candidate will have at least 2 years of relevant experience. Knowledge of script coverage a must. Bachelors degree required. Please submit a resume and cover letter todimensionfilms4@gmail.com
Santa Monica Production/Distribution company seeks full time Front Office Receptionist. Candidate must be outgoing and energetic with a positive attitude and excellent phone etiquette. Position will include, but not limited to, answering phones, greeting visitors, managing all aspects of company mail and shipping as well as other various clerical duties. Salary: $500+ a week. Medical after 90 days probation. Please email cover letter and resume to:90404.accts@gmail.com
Film/ TV/ Commercial Production Company at Paramount seeks a creative intern. Must be available at least two days a week and ideal candidates will possess knowledge of Photoshop and other graphic design programs and a tenacity for reading scripts. Candidate must supply his/her own laptop. We have two films in post production two more in pre-production. Position is unpaid, but college credit is available. Send cover letter and resume todtish@envisionma.com with “Office Internship” in subject line.
Red Granite Pictures is looking for enthusiastic, hard working interns to start immediately. Responsibilities include answering phones as needed, script reading/coverage, research, assisting executives and assistants, errands, and/or general office needs. Excellent communication and organizational skills required. We are looking for interns who can commit to 2 or more days/week in our Hollywood office. Please email resumes toinfo@redgranitepictures.com. Non-paid internship – college credit only.
REV New Media is seeking for two production interns to help out with day-to-day operations. This position will consist of involvement in all aspects of the business including: screening and logging tapes, research, delivery to other production companies, assisting in production coordination, attending celebrity events, and more. You must live in Los Angeles or a very short commute away. Position is unpaid, but hours are flexible (at least 16 hours per week) those hours must be between the hours of 8:00 am – 6:00 pm, M – F. College credit is provided. Send cover letters / resumes topress@revnewmedia.com
Venice-based Literary and Talent Management company seeks interns to start immediately. Interns will get to be hands on and are encouraged to ask questions and contribute creatively. Responsibilities include: clerical support, phones, script coverage, and research. Candidates should have strong interest in feature and television development and should be receiving school credit. Unpaid. Please send resumes and cover letters toTheBlackBoxGuys@gmail.com
Talent-based feature production company with a focus on comedy is currently seeking reliable interns with an interest in writing, development and production. Responsibilities include script coverage, phones, office management, project research, and occasional runs. This is a non-paid internship. College credit necessary. Ideally looking for 2-3 day/week commitment. Please email resumes and cover letters with your availability to:internapp1@gmail.com
Village Roadshow Pictures Entertainment is seeking conscientious and enthusiastic interns to support our Production department. Interns will also be exposed to Marketing, Distribution and other divisions of the company. This internship is designed to prepare interns to enter the Entertainment Industry workforce, and is focused on teaching script coverage and analysis, film awareness as well as general office duties. Please send all resumes tovrpeinternship@gmail.com
Award winning agency and production company is seeking 2 interns to work with an award-winning costume designer and stylist on a television promo shoot. This is a great opportunity. Candidate must be professional, motivated, flexible. Basic experience in fashion world a plus. Non-paid internship starts immediately and will continue on to October, 22 2011. Please send brief email why you would be perfect and your resume in the body of an email toproduction3@bpg.tv
Frederic Golchan Productions, associated with Radar Pictures, is searching for a Mandarin Chinese speaking development/office intern. You will work on specific projects, as well as coverage, rolling calls, scheduling, etc. You will work directly with Mr. Golchan. Specific projects are compensated and college credit is available. Lunch/parking is paid/reimbursed. Must commit 2-3 days a week. Email resume and cover letter to asstgolchan@gmail.com andfgfilm@aol.com
Point Grey Pictures, which released its first film this fall to critical acclaim, is seeking one intern in a fast-paced and open working environment. Position is unpaid but with several projects in development, our intern will be involved with every aspect. Duties include administrative tasks, covering scripts and assisting executives. Applicants best suited will have a strong work ethic, knowledge of film & tv, proficiency with Word & Excel and most importantly, a positive attitude. Prior experience is not necessary, though liking dogs and having your own transportation is. Submit cover letter and resume topointgreypictures@gmail.com
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Author: nowtruth . Comments: Leave a comment
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In Their Element: Program Offers Innovative Learning Opportunities for Students
by Kadijah Smith and Bryan Lindenberger
This past summer, several University of West Georgia undergraduate chemistry students conducted advanced chemical research, from exploring explosive compounds to fighting cancer.
Amy Salyards
Although this may sound like a science-fiction premise, the reality is even more interesting. These UWG students were taking part in an innovative learning opportunity provided by the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, REU provides research opportunities for a diverse range of students from across the country. In this program, they leave the comfort of their home institutions to engage in new avenues of research and experimentation. UWG Department of Chemistry Chair Dr. Sharmistha Basu-Dutt sees REU as an experience similar to an internship but in an academic setting.
“REU provides opportunities for the student to improve technical and social skills by learning new instrumentation and new methods, as well as facilitating productive interaction with a group of researchers,” said Dutt.
Two of the participants are Amy Salyards and Dali Davis. Both are senior chemistry majors with an American Chemical Society (ACS) track. The ACS track is a more ambitious program, providing undergraduates with one year of research experience with a faculty adviser and rigorous class courses.
Salyards followed her sister’s footsteps, choosing chemistry as a major. Her REU experience took her to Florida International University near Miami. Her research focused on improving a technique called capillary microextraction of volatiles, a method used to detect trace amounts of volatile chemical compounds.
She prepared for this research with her faculty adviser, Dr. Douglas Stuart, an associate professor of chemistry.
“Salyards is a fantastic student who has a logical and organized mindset with a hard-working attitude,” Stuart said. “She puts in the time, effort and energy to succeed.”
Salyards enjoyed working with the best and brightest of students from across the nation and around the world.
“What really stood out to me was getting a taste of what it would be like to be a chemistry graduate student,” Salyards said. “I enjoyed the lifestyle and being in the lab from morning to night. I absolutely loved it.”
Davis researched at the University of Michigan after recommendations to apply for REU program came from several professors in the College of Science and Mathematics.
“I loved my experience in the REU program,” Davis said. “I learned a great deal from working in a different lab environment, and I made some new connections that will be beneficial when I apply for graduate school.”
Dali Davis
Dr. Partha Ray, professor of chemistry, served as Davis’ adviser and helped her apply for the REU program.
“Dali Davis is one of our very best students,” Ray said. “She has been doing research with me for a year on the synthesis of potential anti-cancer drugs. She has proven herself to be a very enthusiastic and capable research student.”
UWG has helped these young chemists stand apart from the crowd, but the effect of personal growth and discovery doesn’t end there. Both Davis and Salyards have decided to attend graduate school, crediting their decisions to the REU program.
“What I learned about graduate school, as well as what I learned about myself, is irreplaceable,” Davis concluded. “Chemistry majors interested in graduate degrees should consider participating in the REU program to gain direct knowledge, experiences and specific skills useful in future research.”
Hail to the King: Alumnus Cast on Upcoming Hit Show
Johnston Books $387,000 Grant: Professor Awarded Funding from Prestigious Program
No Longer a Weird Science: Computer science offers bold possibilities for women
Making History: Non-Traditional Graduate Student Prepares for Future by Exploring Past
Magical History Tour: Alum helps Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama come to life
From Battle to UWG: Martin treats patients on campus and around the world
Early Childhood Education Awarded Teaching Excellence Award by Board of Regents
The Interpreter: Grad translates military experience to academic success
Autism, Hope and Achievement: Alumnus Michael Goodroe Releases Memoir
Lager Than Life: MBA Student Runs Successful Brewery
The Perfect Chemistry: Program Offers Innovative Learning Opportunities for Students
Out of Africa: South African Emigrant Finds Success, Scholarship at UWG
From Sidelines to Center Stage: UWG Cheer Alumna Stars with Cirque du Soleil at Sea
'Ready to Get Out There': UWG Senior Wants to Help Others Find Their Voices
Pug Teaches Reading: Student’s Therapy Pug Helps Boost Children’s Reading Skills
Star Trek: UWG Alum Lends Technology Expertise to Oscar-Winning Film
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Wind subsidies gone, Samsung gone
Toronto Sun, Jennifer Bieman and Megan Stacey
The loss of 340 jobs at a factory that makes blades for wind turbines could be harbinger of troubles ahead in Ontario’s green-energy industry, a leading analyst says.
Siemens Canada announced Tuesday it’s closing its Tillsonburg plant, one of four Ontario green-energy factories set up under a controversial, multi-billion-dollar deal with Korean industrial giant Samsung.
The closing of one of the town’s largest employers came after weeks of nervous speculation.
But energy analyst Tom Adams said Ontario’s green-energy industry could be in for a rough ride if it doesn’t lay its hands on orders from outside Ontario, arguing the provincial market is saturated with wind and solar electricity brought online since the Liberal government plunged headlong into green energy in 2009.
“I think it was always pretty obvious that whatever jobs were going to arise from the Green Energy Act were all temporary or almost all temporary,” Adams said, referencing the provincial law that paved the way for big wind farms in Ontario under contracts paying energy giants more than consumers pay for power.
“Samsung had no history in renewable energy before they came to Ontario. They came only for the subsidies, and when the subsidies dry up, they’ll disappear as quick as they landed,” said Adams, an independent energy and environmental advisor and researcher. Read article
This entry was posted in Investment, Jobs, Ontario government, Subsidies / Costs, Viability, Wind Industry by wind resist. Bookmark the permalink.
30 thoughts on “Wind subsidies gone, Samsung gone”
This is very ‘interesting’, especially for people dealing with the noise, the low frequency noise modulations and infrasound radiation that is harming them from turbines built by a company that is on its way out of Ontario.
United Nations: Press release, 8 April 1997
Sustainable Development Commission 11
1st Meeting (AM) 8 Apr. 1997
‘Commission On Sustainable Development Begins Fifth Session Meeting As Preparatory Body For Assembly’s Review Of Agenda 21’
Re: Remarks attributed to Elizabeth Dowdeswell & Maurice Strong.
Scroll way down this web page for these remarks.
http://www.un.org/press/en/1997/19970408.endev408.html
For anyone who still doesn’t understand how this all happened, take a look at this or the many other talks given by Dr. Coffman:
And then people should read actual United Nations documents.
Also everyone needs to understand the financial background: https://www.corbettreport.com/and-now-for-the-100-trillion-dollar-bankster-climate-swindle/
This is the way it is all over the place take about the subsidies and the company is gone. Companies tout jobs, but there are no real long term jobs. Smoke & mirrors that’s all this stuff is.
It should be made very clear in the U.S. where the money is coming from to fund renewable energy projects.
Source of information:
UNEP FI, Geneva, Switzerland
‘UNEP FI, Changing Finance, Financing Change
‘Connecting Financing System And Sustainable Development: Market Leadership Paper/ Advance Copy’, 2016
“Banks are the primary source of funding for renewable energy investments, and critical sources of capital for infrastructure and SMEs.”
http://www.unepfi.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/MKT-LEADERSHIP-REPORT-AW-WEB.pdf
UNEP FI/United Nations Environment Programme – Finance Initiative.
Over 200 banks worldwide are members of this organization which steers money into renewables investments.
UNEP FI was formed in the wake of the 1992 UN Earth Summit.
The shift to green energy requires lots of money.
SMEs / Small and Medium-sized Enterprises.
And then we have this issue to face in financing a wind project:
https://ontario-wind-resistance.org/2015/04/17/wind-leaseholders-may-be-on-the-hook-for-billions/
UN/United Nations
Archived press release: 20 October 2003
ENV/DEV/741-UNEP/175
‘UNEP Announces New Initiative to Shift Investment to Sustainable Energy’
Read at:
https://www.un.org/press/en/2003/envdev741.doc.htm
UNEP/United Nations Environment Programme
UNEP – Inquiry, Geneva, Switzerland
Blog article link:
The Globe And Mail, Toronto, June 22, 2017
‘Report on Business, Rob commentary/ Financing The Clean Transition Is Canada’s G7 Opportunity to Lead.
Two persons mentioned in this article are related to UNEP – Inquiry.
http://www.unep.org/inquiry
‘Financing the clean transition is Canada’s G7 opportunity to lead’
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/financing-the-clean-transition-is-canadas-g7-opportunity-to-lead/article35398666
UNEP Inquiry
Authors: Toby A. A. Heaps
UNEP Inquiry Publications:
‘A Review Of International Financial Standards As They Relate To Sustainable Development’
‘Financial Centres For Sustainability’
http://unepinquiry.org/publicationauthor/toby-a-a-heaps
PRI / Principles for Responsible Investing, London, U.K.
‘Corporate knight’s report on ranking the world’s stock exchanges based on sustainability disclosure’
“The PRI is an investor initiative in partnership with UNEP Finance and UN Global Compact.”
http://www.unpri.org/news/corporate-knights-report-on-ranking-the-worlds-stock-exchanges-based-on-sustainability-disclosure
PRI/Principles for Responsible Investment, London, 19 October 2016
The PRI will publish Roadmaps in 8 markets.
Canada, Jan., 2017
U.S. Oct., 2016
PRI was launched in April 2006 at the New York Stock Exchange.
http://www.unpri.org/page/pri-unep-fi-and-the-generation-foundation-announce-roadmaps-for-fiduciary-duties-in-the-us-and-uk
UN Global Compact Network Canada
“The Canadian Network of the United Nations Global Compact”
Re: Carbon pricing, Canada
Scroll down to : Webinar Blog: Carbon Pricing Champions: Putting A Price On Carbon
Webinar: October 7, 2015, Canada
Experts at this event included:
Paul Chandler, UNPRI
Much more information and partcipants at:
https://globalcompact.ca/category/climate-action
UN Global Compact, HQ New York City, Founded 2000
“A local lens for global change.”
Canada launched 2013.
71 participants (See All)
http://unglobalcompact.org/engage-locally/north-america/canada
PRI | Montreal | Pledge
“The Pledge was launched on 25 September 2014 at PRI in Person in Montreal, and is supported by the Principle for Responsible Investment (PRI) and the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI).”
Signatories included:
Toronto Atmospheric Fund
Home page,
Also click on: “Spread the word: share the pledge …” for signatories as of 14th June 2017
http://montrealpledge.org/signatories
UNPRI, Sept. 25, 2014
Investors representing over US 500 billion take Montreal Carbon Pledge.
Link to: Montreal pledge.org
http://www.unpri.org/page/investors-representing-over-us-500-billion-take-montreal-carbon-pledge-to-carbon-footprint-their-portfolios
UNFCCC / Private Finance
Montreal Climate Pledge
‘Mobilizing Investors to Account for Portfolio Carbon Footprints’
“With the Montreal Carbon Pledge, investors pledge to measure and publicly disclose the carbon footprint of their investment portfolios on an annual basis.”
UNFCCC page link to: Montreal Carbon Pledge
http://newsroom.unfccc.int/lpaa/private-finance/montreal-carbon-pledge
UNFCCC, Sept.28, 2014
‘Investors Make New Montreal Carbon Pledge’
Conference speech:
UNFCCC Christiana Figueres spoke in Montreal at the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) Conference.
Link to speech at:
http://newsroom.unfccc.int/unfccc-newsroom/more-momentum-in-montreal
UNEP FI
The Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition / PDC
“Mobilizing financial markets to catalyze economic decarbonization”
Who organized the PDC at:
http://unepfi.org/fileadmin/documents/PortfolioDecarbonizationCoalition.pdf
Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition
Member include:
http://unepfi.org/pdc/members
Re: Huron County Health Unit
An investigation on health impacts of wind turbines was initiated in March 2016. (Ontario’s HPPA, Health Protection and Prevention Act). Since then we have had one delay after another, and still no remedy for those living under turbines.
As of July 4th, 2017, Erica Clark informed me they have heard back University of Waterloo ethics and are now planning another ethics applications to address concerns raised.
Meanwhile I have been told that all communication of the ethics board, including the names an positions of the applicants, is confidential.
How much longer can the government delay? Is there a time limit by which an investigation must report?
Pardon me, Professor.
Ontario’s “HPPA” is the “Health Protection and PROMOTION Act”,
not the “Health Protection and PREVENTION Act”.
A thinking person can conceptualize what it means to “promote” good health.
Covering-up the knowledge of the adverse effects that are caused by exposure to industrial electricity generation infrastructure cannot, by any definition, be considered “promoting” persons’ health.
Numerous authorities (including the Ontario Ministry of the Environment’s own commissioned experts, Howe Gastmeier Chapnik Engineering in 2010,) have found links between exposure to industrial wind energy facilities and ill health.
So “The Purpose” of Huron County (and others’) so-called “Investigations” “to determine whether a health hazard exists or does not exist” (HPPA, Section 11) is unclear.
You and others ask, how much time should these fiduciaries be afforded to carry out their duties.
I think they’ve had more than enough time already and their failure to conclude could– and maybe should– be regarded as “reckless disregard for lives and safety”. (see Criminal Code of Canada, Criminal Negligence).
University of Waterloo Vice-President George Dixon and his accomplices are implicated.
There are tons of evidence supporting this.
If I were you, I would check with your insurance company whether you’re covered for negative health effects caused by witnessing this potential fraud.
Please, take care, and thank you for volunteering to help with the Emergency Response efforts in this Public Health Disaster.
Don’t be distracted: Industrial Wind Turbines may be a real NUISANCE.
Unfortunately, enjoining (stopping, or arresting) a nuisance and being compensated for harms, losses and damages sustained can be very costly for Victim Plaintiffs. Everybody knows this, especially those persons who may be perpetrating or perpetuating the nuisances. (think: “Intent”)
Also unfortunate is that Ontarians who’ve tried to protect themselves from wind turbine nuisances, which, by the admission of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment’s commissioned experts, are “expected” to happen, have had their available resources and time drained by the shameful Environmental Review Tribunal and other processes.
The [phony] Environmental Review Tribunal appeal mechanism was a set-up. The appelants (victims) had to prove a project “will” “cause” “serious” “harm”, before it happened. Oodles of lawyers at the ERT can debate these words for all eternity (and be paid handsomely to do it,) but for most other things in the real world, tracing “Causation” to 99 or whatever percent certainty is not required before action MUST be taken to prevent the associated harm. In fact, failure to prevent damage is a punishable offense of its own.
Did the perpetrators of the Green Energy Act pre-meditate how they could destroy resources that victims might be able to use (albeit after the fact) to protect themselves with initiating a nuisance claim in court? Either way you are witnessing an atrocity that is hard to match.
At the same time understanding the nuisances to be caused by the wind turbines: sleep disruption causing sleep deprivation, high annoyance and other very disturbing, harmful and potentially lethal physiological disturbances, leads thinking people to the predictable consequences that victims are incapacitated and less able to defend from attack.
Then, any remaining cash or resources that victims have left must be weighed: spend it fleeing your home and getting respite or re-establishing elsewhere, or gamble it in Ontario’s legal system that (pardon any cynicism) appears to be rigged.
For some, it is Hell on Earth in one of the greatest, most prosperous nations on Earth.
And to think that all this is for NO ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS but TONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE.
And then there is Ontario’s Health Protection and Promotion Act, the “HPPA”.
Section 11 of The HPPA requires a “Medical Officer of Health” to “investigate” “a complaint” “to determine whether a health hazard exists or does not exist”.
The HPPA defines what a “HEALTH HAZARD” is:
HEALTH HAZARD, as defined in s.1(1) of the Health Protection and Promotion Act, means
“(a) a condition of a premises,
(b) a substance, thing, plant or animal other than man, or
(c) a solid, liquid, gas or combination of any of them,
that is likely to have an adverse effect on the health of any person.”
“Adverse Effect”
What is an “adverse effect”?
The “Environmental Protection Act” exists in the Province of Ontario.
The Environmental Protection Act defines “adverse effect”:
1 (1) In this Act,
“administrative penalty” means a penalty imposed under section 182.3; (pénalité administrative”)
“adverse effect” means one or more of,
(a) impairment of the quality of the natural environment for any use that can be made of it,
(b) injury or damage to property or to plant or animal life,
(c) harm or material discomfort to any person,
(d) an adverse effect on the health of any person,
(e) impairment of the safety of any person,
(f) rendering any property or plant or animal life unfit for human use,
(g) loss of enjoyment of normal use of property, and
(h) interference with the normal conduct of business; (“conséquence préjudiciable”)”
ONTARIO ERT finds Industrial Wind Energy Projects
“will cause serious harm to human health.”
It’s like when police officers GET CAUGHT committing offenses: the penalties should be MORE, NOT LESS; they chose to be in positions of trust.
Or, it’s like Bullies: if they’re not stopped, they’ll keep doing it.
Don’t wait for someone who is recklessly not competent to come and tell you about it.
# University of Waterloo
# Vice-President George Dixon
‘[excerpt] Indeed, not paying taxes and suing wind-energy opponents appears to be excellent for business. Since 2013, when NextEra sued Wrightman, the company’s market capitalization has nearly doubled. It now stands at about $62 billion.’
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447244/wind-turbine-company-sues-small-towns-get-tax-credits
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ORANGE COUNTY TRIBUNE
Covering Garden Grove, Huntington Beach and Westminster
About the Orange County Tribune
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History of Orange County
FC bridges past to present
By OC Tribune Staff on May 31, 2014 • ( 1 Comment )
New Fullerton College library, opened in 2005.
Editor’s note: First in a series of visits to historically significant locations in Orange County.
By Jim Tortolano
Orange County’s most senior institution of higher learning is a “junior” college.
Technically, Fullerton College, established in 1913, is a community college. Mathematically, it is the granddaddy of post-secondary education locally, beating out Santa Ana College (1915) for that title.
FC is also California’s “senior” two-year school, as it is the oldest community college in continuous operation in the Golden State. The school’s roots stretch back over 100 years now, and a stroll through the campus demonstrates how important history and heritage are to the campus on East Chapman Street.
Fullerton College (enrollment over 20,000) sits at the northern edge of Fullerton’s booming downtown, directly adjacent to Fullerton High School, from which it sprung. For 23 years the nascent “Fullerton Junior College” held its classes on the high school campus before moving to the then-14 acre campus next door in 1936.
The architecture of the college reflects its origins in the pre-World War II era. The older structures are classic academic, with colonnades and cupolas. The central area of the campus includes a grassy rectangle on a plan said to be an homage to Thomas Jefferson’s layout for the University of Virginia.
Not all of the college has that classic, ivy halls look. Some of the buildings suffer from the ugly dull-red brick boxy look popular in school construction in the Fifties. But when a major facelift of the campus was launched in the recent decade, kind attention was paid the keeping the unique style of the college.
Gleaming new (but college-traditional) library, science and dining halls buildings make FC look more like an up-and-coming university than a cookie-cutter jaycee.
Over the years, the campus expanded to its present 83 acres (still relatively compact for a community college; Golden West College, with roughly half the enrollment, sits on 144 acres in Huntington Beach), including a large parcel across Chapman, which is traversed by a pedestrian bridge.
Bridge over E. Chapman Avenue.
Fans of FC claim that its long heritage, architectural uniqueness and close proximity to downtown Fullerton (just a few blocks east of busy Harbor Boulevard) make it a unique kind of college, less of a commuter school than its peers. Tradition is important; the student newspaper (originally The Weekly Torch, now called the The Hornet) can trace its history back to 1923. Alums include former First Lady Pat Nixon and Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron.
If you think a college should look like a peaceful place of learning rather than an industrial park or big box store, you might like FC. Like the four-year Chapman University in Orange, it combines heritage and high-tech with a lively nearby downtown.
Nearly all of the 10 community colleges in Orange County offer a wide variety of courses both for vocational and university-transfer purposes; FC is one of few that offers a strong dose of living history as well.
Categories: History of Orange County
Tagged as: Fullerton, Fullerton College, James Cameron, Jim Tortolano, Orange County, Orange County Tribune, Pat Nixon, Santa Ana, Santa Ana College
Book: ‘New Deal’ for Orange County
OC turns 125 … sort of
wesomniman1 says:
Of the four north Orange County Community Colleges, SAC, GWC, OCC, Fullerton is the only one that I have not a class at. But I have been on the campus many times, and like the others, colleges campuses always make me feel at home.
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Devil Tavern : London coffee houses and taverns
THE DEVIL TAVERN.
This celebrated Tavern is described in the present work, Vol. I., pp. 10-15, as the meeting-place of the Apollo Club. Its later history is interesting. Mull Sack, alias John Cottington, the noted highwayman of the time of the Commonwealth, is stated to have been a constant visitor at the Devil Tavern. In the garb and character of a man of fashion, he appears to have levied contributions on the public as a pick- pocket and highwayman, to a greater extent than perhaps any other individual of his fraternity on record. He not only had the honour of picking the pocket of Oliver Cromwell, when Lord Protector, but he afterwards robbed King Charles II., then living in exile at Cologne, of plate valued at jB1500. Another of his feats was his robbing the wife of the Lord General Fairfax. " This lady," we are told, " used to go to a lecture on a weekday, to Ludgate Church, where one Mr. Jacomb preached, being much followed by the precisians. Mull Sack, observing this, — and that she constantly wore her watch hanging by a chain from her waist, — against the next time she came there, dressed himself like an officer in the army ; and having his comrades attending him like troopers, one of them takes out the pin of a coach wheel that was going upwards through the gate, by which means, it falling off, the passage was obstructed ; so that the lady could not alight at the church door, but was forced to leave her coach without. Mull Sack, taking advantage of this, readily presented himself to her ladyship; and having the impudence to take her from her gentleman usher, who attended her alighting, led her by the arm into the church ; and by the way, with a pair of keen or sharp scissors for the purpose, cut the chain in two, and got the watch clear away : she not missing it till sermon was done, when she was going to see the time of the day." At the Devil Tavern Mull Sack could mix with the best society, whom he probably occasionally relieved of their watches and purses. There is extant a very rare print of him, in which he is represented partly in the garb of a chimney-sweep, his original avocation, and partly in the fashionable costume of the period.*
In the Apollo chamber, at the Devil Tavern, were rehearsed, with music, the Court day Odes of the Poets Laureate : hence Pope, in the Dunciad :
"Back to the Devil the loud echoes roll,
And ' Coll !' each butcher roars at Hockley Hole."
The following epigram on the Odes rehearsals is by a wit of those times :
1 ' When Laureates make Odes, do you ask of what sort ?
Do you ask if they're good, or are evil?
You may judge — From the Devil they come to the Court,
And go from the Court to the Devil."
St. Dunstan's, or the Devil Tavern, is mentioned as a house of old repute, in the interlude, Jacke Jugeler, 1563, where Jack, having persuaded his cousin Jenkin,
" As foolish a knave withall,
As any is now, within London wall,"
that he was not himself, thrusts him from his master's door, and in answer to Jenkin's sorrowful question — where his master and he were to dwell, replies,
" At the Devyll yf you lust, I can not tell !"
Ben Jonson being one night at the Devil Tavern, a country gentleman in the company was obtrusively loquacious touching his land and tenements ; Ben, out of patience, exclaimed, "What signifies to us your dirt and your clods ? Where you have an acre of land I have ten acres of wit " " Have you so," retorted the countryman, " good Mr. Wise-acre ?" ' l Why, how now, Ben?" said one of the party, "you seem to be quite stung !" " I was never so pricked by a hobnail before," grumbled Ben.
* Jesse's ' London and its Celebrities.'
There is a ludicrous reference to this old place in a song describing the visit of James I. to St. Paul's Cathedral on Sunday, 26th of March, 1620 :
" The Maior layd downe his mace, and cry'd,
1 God save your Grace,
And keepe our King from all evill !'
With all my hart I then wist, the good mace
had been in my fist,
To ha' pawn'd it for supper at the Devill!"
We have already given the famous Apollo " Welcome," but not immortal Ben's Rules, which have been thus happily translated by Alexander Brome, one of the wits who frequented the Devil, and who left Poems and Songs, 1661 : he was an attorney in the Lord Mayor's Court :
" Ben Jonsoris Sociable Rules for the Apollo.
" Let none hut guests, or clubbers, hither come.
Let dunces, fools, sad sordid men keep home.
Let learned, civil, merry men, b' invited,
And modest too ; nor be choice ladies slighted.
Let nothing in the treat offend the guests ;
More for delight than cost, prepare the feast.
The cook and purvey 'r must our palates know ;
And none contend who shall sit high or low.
Our waiters must quick-sighted be, and dumb,
And let the drawers quickly hear and come.
Let not our wine be mix'd, but brisk and neat,
Or else the drinkers may the vintners beat.
And let our only emulation be,
Not drinking much, but talking wittily.
Let it be voted lawful to stir up
Each other with a moderate chirping cup ;
Let not our company be, or talk too much ;
On serious things, or sacred, let's not touch
With sated heads and bellies. Neither may
Fiddlers unask'd obtrude themselves to play.
With laughing, leaping, dancing, jests, and songs,
And whate'er else to grateful mirth belongs,
Let's celebrate our feasts ; and let us see
That all our jests without reflection be.
Insipid poems let no man rehearse,
Nor any be compelled to write a verse.
All noise of vain disputes must be forborne,
And let no lover in a corner mourn.
To fight and brawl, like hectors, let none dare,
Glasses or windows break, or hangings tear.
Whoe'er shall publish what's here done or said
From our society must be banished ;
Let none by drinking do or suffer harm,
And, while we stay, let us be always warm."
We must now say something of the noted hosts.
Simon Wadlow appears for the last time, as a licensed vintner, in the Wardmote return, of December, 1626; and the burial register of St. Dunstan's records :
" March 30th, 1627, Symon Wadlowe, vintner, was buried out of Fleet-street." On St. Thomas's Day, in the last-named year, the name of " the widow Wadlowe" appears; and in the following year, 1628, of the eight licensed victuallers, five were widows. The widow Wadlowe's name is returned for the last time by the Wardmote on December 21st, 1629.
The name of John Wadlow, apparently the son of old Simon, appears first as a licensed victualler, in the Wardmote return, December 21, 1646. He issued his token, showing on its obverse St. Dunstan holding the devil by his nose, his lower half being that of a satyr, the devil on the signboard was as usual, sable ; the origin of the practice being thus satisfactorily explained by Dr. Jortin : " The devils used often to appear to the monks in the figure of Ethiopian boys or men ; thence probably the painters learned to make the devil black. " Hogarth, in his print of the Burning of the Rumps, represents the hanging of the effigy against the signboard of the Devil Tavern.
In a ludicrous and boasting ballad of 1650, we read :
" Not the Vintry Cranes, nor St. Clement's Danes,
Nor the Devill can put us down-a."
John Wadlow's name occurs for the last time in the Wardmote return of December, 1660. After the Great Fire, he rebuilt the Sun Tavern, behind the Royal Exchange : he was a loyal man, and appears to have been sufficiently wealthy to have advanced money to the Crown ; his autograph was attached to several receipts among the Exchequer documents lately destroyed.
Hollar's Map of London, 1667, shows the site of the Devil Tavern, and its proximity to the barrier designated Temple Bar, when the house had become the resort of lawyers and physicians. In the rare volume of Cambridge Merry Jests, printed in the reign of Charles II., the will of a tavern-hunter has the bequeathment of " ten pounds to be drank by lawyers and physicians at the Devil's Tavern, by Temple Bar "
The Tatler, October 11, 1709, contains Bickerstaffs account of the wedding entertainment at the Devil Tavern, in honour of his sister Jenny's marriage. He mentions "the Rules of Ben's Club in gold letters over the chimney ;" and this is the latest notice of this celebrated ode. When, or by whom, the board was taken from " over the chimney," Mr. Burn has failed to discover.
Swift tells Stella that Oct. 12, 1710, he dined at the Devil Tavern with Mr. Addison and Dr. Garth, when the doctor treated.
In 1746, the Royal Society held here their Annual Dinner; and in 1752, concerts of vocal and instrumental music were given in the great room.
A view of the exterior of the Devil Tavern, with its gable-pointed front, engraved from a drawing by Wale, was published in Dodsley's London and its Environs, 1761. The sign-iron bears its pendent sign — the Saint painted as a half-length, and the devil behind him grinning grimly over his shoulder. On the removal of projecting signs, by authority, in 1764, the Devil Tavern sign was placed flat against the front, and there remained till the demolition of the house.
Brush Collins, in March, 1775, delivered for several evenings, in the great room, a satirical lecture on Modern Oratory. In the following year, a Pandemonium Club was held here ; and, according to a notice in Mr. Burn's possession, " the first meeting was to be on Monday, the 4th of November, 1776. These devils were lawyers, who were about commencing term, to the annoyance of many a hitherto happy bon-vivant."
From bad to worse, the Devil Tavern fell into disuse, and Messrs. Child, the bankers, purchased the freehold in 1787, for .£2800. It was soon after demolished, and the site is now occupied by the houses called Child's-place.
We have selected and condensed these details from Mr. Burn's exhaustive article on the Devil Tavern, in the Beaufoy Catalogue.
There is a token of this tavern, which is very rare.
The initials stand for Simon Wadloe, embalmed in Squire Western's favourite air " Old Sir Simon the King:" — "at the d. and dvnstans. The representation of the saint standing at his anvil, and pulling the nose of the ( d.' with his pincers.- — R. withtn temple barre. In the field, i. s. w."
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Lord Waffle King
Trump Refuses To End Government Shutdown Until K. Rool Gets Nerf
December 28, 2018 Lord Waffle King Leave a comment
Nintendo’s all-star fighting mash-up has hardly been out a month, and the game’s mechanics are already under fire. Complaints that the game is not “balanced” and not anywhere near as competitively viable as certain other past Smash games have been all over the place, raising massive shitstorms among a bunch of fucking nerds.
One of the most notable changes within the Smash formula was how heavy fighters worked. Heavy fighters have almost always been not very viable on the competitive scene, thanks to their poor speed and combo potential. Since Nintendo was adding several heavies to the mix, including Ridley and K. Rool, it was time for the heavies to have a chance to redeem themselves.
But Nintendo has pissed off some people in high places now with how powerful a certain fighter is.
The threat of a government shutdown has always loomed over the United States, thanks to the sheer incompetence, corruption, and greed in their political system. Always divided over the stupidest issues, unable to get anything done on their own without one of the many megacorporations puppeteering them or Saudis, Israelis, Russians, or Chinese lining their pockets pushing them one way or another. Never in the common interests of their own people, either.
But now that our government has come to a screeching halt, our country is being held hostage by the man at the top. And he’s got some demands. Aside from trying to smooth over his V-Buck scandal, Trump has decided that while we’re at it, we may as well tackle a few other pressing issues too. Namely, nerf K. Rool. He really, really doesn’t like K. Rool.
Trump, a dedicated and outspoken Wii Fit Trainer and Bayonetta main, has been campaigning on Twitter since launch for his prized main fighters to get a buff and for the bane of his existence to be nerfed. “Make Wii Fit Trainer Great Again” has been trending, as has “Make Bayonetta Great Again”.
The two female fighters, the second a bit more controversial than the first, Trump has always loved to play because they “remind him of Melania and Ivanka”. He’s gone on record stating how attractive he finds both. The characters, and his own wife and daughter. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out which he’s referring to when the topic comes up, but the uncomfortable thoughts are the same regardless.
With no end to the government shutdown in sight, and Trump now threatening action against Japan, it looks like we’ll be entering 2019 the way we started it. On the brink of nuclear war with an Asian country.
One thing is for certain. We’re all completely fucked. One can only hope and pray that this all blows over and we’re perfectly fine for another few months, until the next thing happens and we’re fucked again, all the while skating by on thin ice while our hollow shell of a government teeters on the brink of collapse until either society collapses or we fuck this planet into oblivion.
Don’t kid yourself, there’s no other way out of this mess. We’ll drag the entire world down with us before we let this country go belly up.
Donald Trump Starts GoFundMe For Border Wall After Spending Government Funds On Fortnite “V-Bucks”
The state of American politics has been a joke for quite some time now, and yet with each passing day the distinction between reality and fantasy slips just a little more. Parody and satire bits are becoming actual news stories, and fact is becoming more ridiculous than fiction. It really shouldn’t surprise us anymore when there’s a major political scandal. And yet here we are, once again.
A GoFundMe has been making the rounds on the internet, claiming to be a “by the people” movement to get Trump’s border wall funded. With the threat of a government shutdown constantly looming, Trump has had to make a few compromises on what he built his entire campaign on. Keeping illegal immigrants out with a big, meaty wall. As funds are mysteriously drying up, Trump’s supporters have stepped in to cover the costs.
And yet things aren’t exactly what they seem.
The campaign, having blown up so suddenly, has been under intense scrutiny. Who is this guy, where is this money going? Will it actually be put towards the wall? Or is it just some guy trying to cash in and scam a bunch of people? It’s actually a little of both.
According to sources close to Trump, the president has taken up a new hobby in addition to golf. A hobby that’s proven to be slightly more expensive. Trump, who is 72 years old, is understandably wary of modern tech. He’s preferred to use his phone, and sometimes his iPad, which he refers to as “the flat one” according to tweets from mid-2018. He’s always been very reluctant to using any of the White House computers or laptops.
sometimes Trump reads things on a iPad that he calls "the flat one" https://t.co/ZnbWRRSXY4
— Tara Palmeri (@tarapalmeri) August 28, 2018
But when one of his caretakers allowed him to download games onto “the flat one”, Trump discovered the video game sensation “Fortnite”. That’s where things get messy.
Within weeks of Trump becoming hooked on the game, government funds began to get inexplicably sucked up. Little by little, money wasn’t where it should be. It wasn’t until later investigations that anyone discovered where that money was being spent. Trump had been spending hundreds of dollars on the game’s “V-Bucks”, which are a form of in-game currency. Several other major purchases were made, including one for a gaming PC, and a new headset.
While White House staff attempted to cover up the mess, the problem of the missing government funds was still something they couldn’t just ignore. And that’s when the idea for the GoFundMe came up. Witnesses say it was Barron Trump’s idea, but we have no official confirmation. Regardless, a fake persona and account were made by government officials in order to raise the money Donald had inadvertently spent.
You’d think the story would end there, but Trump is still vehemently denying that he’s ever played Fortnite, despite photographic evidence and tweets in which he explicitly mentions playing Fortnite.
Critics of the president have been calling for him to be impeached over this, and yet he continues to deny it, even going so far as to accusing them of being racist against “gamers”. Which, if he refers to himself as a gamer, would imply he is playing Fortnite? Trump has also gone on record saying “buying V-bucks is not illegal”. Though I’m pretty sure misusing government funds is?
I don’t know. I just don’t know anymore.
Yoshi’s Original Final Smash In Ultimate Had Him Violently Fucking His Enemies, Here’s Why Nintendo Censored That
Nintendo has always been infamous for their gratuitous censorship. They have a family-friendly image to uphold, as the house of Mario. Their games are mostly rated E for everyone, they can’t do anything to offend the conservative soccer moms that purchase their products for the whole family.
In recent years, they’ve gotten a bit bolder, here and there. Bayonetta is in Smash, that alone should be enough to show that they’re unafraid to step out of their comfort zone. But time and time again, Nintendo will make decisions that baffle their long-time fans. For example, the rampant censorship in the Switch’s latest blockbuster title, Super Smash Bros Ultimate.
Many female characters saw changes to their outfits, from Fire Emblem’s Camilla losing her tit window, to Xenoblade’s Mythra. Also losing her tit window. All the windows have been closed. And the thighs have been covered as well. But the character most touched by Nintendo’s overprotective censorship is actually a playable one. Yoshi.
As part of their attempt to make Super Smash Bros Ultimate quicker and more to the point, each character’s finishing move has been tweaked and edited to make them snappier and less of an interruption to the match. Any transformation style moves were removed, in favor of much faster and flashier attacks. Yoshi no longer transforms into his dragon form. Now, he simply stampedes across the stage and tramples all in his path.
It’s an odd move choice. As anyone familiar with Yoshi canon knows, Yoshis don’t travel in massive herds like that. At most, there’s maybe like twelve of them? Somewhere around that. They move in packs, like the terrifying predators they are. Not to mention the average Yoshi IQ is equal to, if not greater than the average human’s. They aren’t brainless animals, nothing would make them stampede like that. Why the odd, seemingly non-canon move choice then? It’s not the first time Sakurai has taken creative liberties with a character. But this time, it’s because of Nintendo’s intervention.
Yoshi’s original Final Smash? The cinematic portion isn’t entirely off. The massive pack of Yoshis charging was part of the original animation. But the rest of it was cut. All core Yoshi fans know that the two most defining traits of the whimsical green dinosaur are his appetite, and his voracious sex drive. Yoshis are capable of fucking for up to an entire week straight, which is why they have such copious calorie intakes. There’s no time to eat or drink if you’re in the middle of a two week long fuckfest. Yes, Yoshi’s original Final Smash was for him and his pack of Broshis to descend on their helpless enemy, ensnare the hapless fighter with their tongues, and engage in a violent gangbang dealing critical damage.
It only makes sense. Yoshi has never been some savage, lower creature. They’re intelligent pack animals. Just a couple of bros taking their latest victim to pound town, as Yoshis are known to do. That was literally the plot of Yoshi’s Story. Why would Yoshi have a fully rendered erect penis stored in the game’s files? Data miners have been able to pull snippets of code and animation from the game, but the full animation has yet to be discovered. Models for various characters in various positions are also being dug up, but not enough to reconstruct a possible scene.
Each character is also equipped with an “orgasm face”, though it appears the faces have been recycled to be used whenever they grab the “Spicy Curry” item. Except, the faces are labeled as part of Yoshi’s Final Smash in the game’s codes. Further proof that Nintendo has once again stepped all over a developer’s integrity for the sake of maintaining their image? I rest my case.
Data miners will continue to dig through the game’s code, unearthing more leftover tidbits of the Yoshi Gangbang that was stolen from us. One day, we may even have full animations for each character. Realistically, it’s on us. But one can only hope that perhaps if enough people complain about it on Twitter, maybe, just maybe, Nintendo may listen to our demands and patch the original back into the game.
Please, Nintendo. We all want to see Yoshi’s fat, dripping, dinosaur cock spread some plumber cheeks. It’s what every gamer has wanted to see since our childhoods. Give us gamers what we want.
PSA: If You Don’t Pet Your Pokémon In Let’s Go Pikachu And Eevee They Will Kill Themselves
Pokémon are cute and cuddly, most of the time. It’s no wonder why Nintendo keeps pushing the Tamagotchi-esque care mechanics into games. Starting with Pokémon-Amie in XY and finding its way into every game since, Nintendo wants trainers to be petting and feeding their Pokémon.
But the latest Pokémon title for the Nintendo Switch takes a much heavy-handed approach to the love and care portion of raising a Pokémon. Nintendo has opted to make bringing up a Pokémon a bit more “realistic” in terms of what they need to grow and flourish. Food, water, and shelter of course. If you don’t feed your Pokémon, they will eventually wither away and die. But they also crave love and belongingness, and without it they will grow up to be stunted and emotionally crippled beings.
The mechanics, which remained hidden for the first few weeks after the game’s release while the Pokémon in question brooded like ticking time bombs, began to surface late last week. With trainers finding their precious Pokémon broken, maimed, or poisoned in varying fashions. The Pokémon, starved of love and affection, will seek an escape from their cruel lives of imprisonment and isolation.
No no no this can’t be happening oh my God Pikachu stop please no don’t do it please Pikachu oh my God he can’t hear us I can’t believe this he’s gonna die Pikachu please don’t we love you oh my God I’m crying and shaking right now Pikachu don’t do it oh God oh fuck.
The horrible fates can be prevented, but only if you stop them in time. If you catch your Pikachu or Eevee about to overdose on heroin, make sure you stop them. But do it gently, remind them that you care. If you scold them or come across as accusatory they will only hide their intentions from you. They’re crying out for help, don’t punish them for it. Help them, please.
We can all help to prevent suicide. If you or a Pokémon you know is considering suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255. Suicide is never the answer, and together we can help those suffering from substance abuse and emotional distress.
Nintendo Announces Seinfeld Let’s Go Jerry And Newman
December 7, 2018 Lord Waffle King Leave a comment
Nintendo has just been raking in the money ever since Pokémon Let’s Go hit the Nintendo Switch. Their fastest selling console, paired with their fastest selling franchise, has made Let’s Go one of Nintendo’s most popular games yet.
Many have argued over whether Let’s Go would be considered a “mainline” Pokémon game, a spin-off, or something in-between. Some have found the streamlined mechanics welcome, some long for a return to the complex yet bloated games of the past few generations. But now that the game has launched, and Nintendo has gotten a chance to look at the numbers, they’ve made their decision. We need more Let’s Go.
And we’re getting one, in an unexpected form. Let’s Go: Seinfeld. Similar to Nintendo’s “Yarn” series of games, which jumped from Kirby to Yoshi unexpectedly, “Let’s Go” has come to mean a style of games in itself to them.
The new pair of titles, which are actually officially dubbed “Seinfeld: Giddy Up Jerry” and “Seinfeld: Giddy Up Newman” will bring the casual, co-op exploration and simple mobile game-style touch and motion controlled gameplay to an all new world with brand new characters.
Players will be able to collect up George, Elaine, Kramer, and more as they venture far and wide. There will be Soup Nazis to vanquish, puffy shirts to wear, and shrinkage to avoid in a quest spanning many classic Seinfeld locales across time and space. You can give Kramer a gun. Get into a fist fight with a protester. Purchase an iPad. Go to a furry convention. Walk dogs at night so you don’t have to pick up their poop. Nintendo has truly taken a lot of liberties with the Seinfeld property.
Seinfeld: Giddy Up Jerry and Seinfeld: Giddy Up Newman are both dated for holiday of next year, and the next “real” Pokémon game has been pushed back indefinitely. Let’s Go is the Pokémon game we got for this generation. You better be happy with it.
Pokémon Let’s Go Confirms Identity of Ash’s Father And Here’s Why That’s Important
Pokémon Let’s Go finally launched, stirring up Pokémon fever once more. People are playing Pokémon Go again for the connectivity features, and Nintendo has been at work teasing new Pokémon to stir up hype for the inevitable full Pokémon RPG launching next year.
While there’s been some excitement revolving around the new Pokémon Meltan, the odd metal nut-like creature first revealed in Pokémon Go, Nintendo has made sure to not let their experimental half-step Switch title go to waste. Pokémon Let’s Go may not be the first “full-fledged console Pokémon RPG experience”, but it’s packed quite a bit of mechanical improvements and world lore all into its unexpectedly smooth Red and Blue remaster.
Catching mechanics are entirely different, building a competitive team is a bit more straightforward, and for the first time ever, the player trainer has a dad. That’s right. Ash has a father, and they’re in the game.
The enigmatic NPC does not do much but sit in the front room of the player’s house. If spoken to, they don’t respond with any sort of text, but will vibrate violently and activate the console’s rumble features. But otherwise, they do nothing.
Data miners have tried digging into the code to figure out what purpose he serves and if he does anything, and have discovered that he can be battled. His team consists of six Mega Rayquazas, which oddly breaks the game’s own rules of only allowing one Mega per team, and they are sent out already in their Mega form. Other than that, the mysterious NPC only raises more questions than he answers. At the very least, Pokemon fans now have some sort of clue to go on in terms of the mysteries surrounding Ash’s father.
Only time will tell what this means for Let’s Go players. Could this be hinting at DLC expansions? Will other regions’ Pokemon be introduced, if not at the very least Hoenn’s? Or are there secrets still hidden within the game that players have yet to uncover? Nintendo has refused to comment on the matter.
Real, ethical video game journalism
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ReMix Comments/Reviews
OCR00123 - EarthBound "Sound Stone (C Major)"
By Jivemaster, May 18, 2002 in ReMix Comments/Reviews
tempo-slow
Jivemaster
EarthBound 'Sound Stone (C Major)'
Spekkosaurus with a piano exclusive rendition of EarthBound. Quite realistic sounding, but the bad thing about this is the nasty high-end crackle which appears after the choir sound enters. It sort of ruins it in some way. Still, I really like the effort and bravery that went into this, but it's just a little long and some parts didn't keep my interest for long enough (especially when the bass plays on it's own).
Steffan Andrews
I agree with Jivemaster on this track not being my best work. It was sequenced quite a while ago (in 2000), during the time that I was first learning how to create music using a computer.
SithProbe
a remake of this track? well we'll all be waiting (or I will at least)
Outstanding track. the beginning panio work doesn't flow a smooth as I think it should but that adds something to this remix that cannot be described.
This is a great remix.
PhantomMagi
This is absolutely my favourite piece of all time.
I don't care what you all think of me.
This should be the Earthbound main theme.
Actually, I think it is...
Well, whatever.
Great piano work.
although, for the solo, it would have been pretty cool to have heard a lighter instrument play it. but oh well.
It's a great piece.
Definately deserves to be listened to.
And if you don't, I'll personally hunt you down and gut you.
bulletproofpossom
Glass Joe (+10)
This is one of the most incredible remixes i've ever listened to (more than 40 so far). Unfortunately, it is too short and I did notice the noise.
This is so great, I would like to learn to play it on the piano. *sigh* if only there were some way to read music in order to reproduce it.
In conclusion, props to spekkosaurus for this. Woo, Hoo!
Perndog
It's a great tune, and indeed a quality arrangement. But..um....this is F Major, folks. Am I the only one who noticed? And the second chord is a little funky...it's going from F to G, when the original is F to C.
Anyway, aside from the title and that chord, it sounds great. We need more piano-type mixes around here.
Rayagon
You've chosen a beautiful piece of music, and done it ultimate justice. I've just done my own mix of this, and I listened to yours again, and realized I didn't have sheiss on your wonderful adaptation. The melody is poignant and haunting, and you've got a great sense for heightening that sense.
Carrie-san
King Hippo (+15)
simply amazing. you took probably my favorite song from earthbound and tweaked it so nicely. i actually taught myself how to play this song on the clarinet and piano ....i have a problem X3; . anyway, it's very beautiful. a melodious,almost haunting melody that lingers with you after it's over. i feel like i'm sitting and playing earthbound all over again. great job. and a remake would be wonderful, i eagerly await it!
jessthemullet
This is one of my all-time favorite game tunes, and Spekkosaurus made it better. Great mix, in my opinion.
tyler_lucero
We're all still waiting for the aformentioned "remade and rearranged version..." I love this track, and can't wait to hear any improvements...
Hmmm..."Funky Bookas" is more amused for me. Good stuff. But this is very monotonous.
Ticadrius
I really like the overall feel of this piece, and this is really well-arranged. The sound, if maybe monotonous, certainly inspires at least some emotion. I enjoyed it.
However, one thing that costs Spekk marks in my book is the bass solo at 1'24". While it has grown on me over time, that is one part of this song that sounds forced and out of place to me. The conclusion, however, is magnificent.
But that aside, this is a phenomenal mix, one that every human on earth needs.
The only complaint I have is that the end was a little slow. 8/10
Gasdyf_Warefayer
What is everyone talking about? This is not a piece of music that you can just mix up and rearrange as you please! I don't know how many of you have actually played Earthbound, but this Remix is exactly how I would want the Soundstone Melody to be if they remade the game. Good job, Spekko, for understanding that sometimes, the less you do to a song, the better.
fuzzys1ippers
I love that song, and I would LOVE to learn to play it on the piano. Doesn't seem hard. Anyway I think it's very nifty, and Earth Bound is an awesome game. I own it but I think I lost my users manual. o.o I lent it to some dude once and he beat the game like in three days. *Shrug*
Straybow
This deserves a bump and I love you.
Jabberbox
why don[t you post your new one here?
Platinum Azure
No, you're not the only one who noticed. I noticed it immediately (and in fact, I renamed my file to reflect that after I listened to it-- it was bugging me).
I wasn't quite able to put my finger on the F to G thing, though. I knew it was odd, but it didn't sound that bad.
OceansAndrew
Unsung Heroes Director
There's a lot of flaws in this one, but there is an undeniable charm that shines through regardless. It's a great source song as well, and though the samples throughout are pretty terrible, there's a nice song progression, and the arrangement itself is pretty good. Some of the parts are a bit choppy, like the solo bass part, and a bit of the piano playing, but despite this, it's still worth a listen.
Opterion
Unfortunately I have to say this mix could use quite a bit of work. Dynamics are not much more than soft and loud; there's not much gray area. Great intro, the flowing melody sticks out here. The transition to next section feels a little choppy, but otherwise just need more dynamics as aforementioned. Choir is a good touch, sound mixing does need improvement, but the dropout to the bass was great. When the choir joins back in, the melody should have less an accent at the beginning of the notes.
The melody itself was great, but sound mixing needs improvement.
tweex
Crash Bandicoot (+650)
The first track from Steffan Andrews. Having already heard his more recent stuff, I can already imagine how this will only imrpove. While, yes, the samples are old and out dated, I agree that there is a certain charm to the piece. It almost has a Rug Rats feel to it that's sweet and adorable. The fighting tempo is probably the hardest thing for me to get past, but again, for a first piece done almost 10 years ago, I can't be too harsh! On to the next!
dANGER boy
Would be a great ReMix but for the crackles and pops in the samples. It sure as hell ain't my speakers...
Crulex
A little dated and a little short, but excluding any production issues, the opening piano's intent can be gleamed from it. I can hear the emotion wanting to come through, but it just seems to need that old decade polish that a lot of these need.
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Queen Mary Long Beach
Posted on March 6, 2015 by jessica
Depending on your experience with Long Beach, it will call to mind one of two things:
The majestic Queen Mary, former world class ocean liner, current heritage icon; or
The majestic Snoop Dogg, former world class rapper, current Katy Perry back up singer.
On this visit to Long Beach, we’re checking out Queen Mary. As much as we love Snoop Dogg, he’s a bit hard to pin down (particularly when his marijuana love gets him turned away from performing in countries we’re in).
The construction of the Queen Mary began in Clydebank, Scotland, in 1930. Construction was stalled for several years during the Great Depression. Despite the economic setbacks of the time, she was completed and left Southampton, England, for her maiden voyage on 27 May 1936.
There’s a delightful story around the ship’s naming. Apparently with ship naming conventions, Cunard ships had a tradition of being named with ia as a suffix – Mauretania, Aquitania, Berengeria — and the ship had been intended to be named Queen Victoria.
When the directors asked King George for his blessing of the ship’s name, they explained to him it was going to be named after the greatest queen, but left off the fact they were referring to his grandmother. Instead, he assumed they were talking about his wife, Queen Mary, and told them how delighted she would be to have it named after her.
For years royalties and celebrities stayed aboard this luxury liner. But when World War 11 started, the ship was repainted with camouflage colours and transformed into a troopship, nicknamed The Grey Ghost. After the war, she was returned to her former glory and cruised for another two decades. Her final cruise was in October 1967, and she docked at Long Beach in December 1967.
The former ocean liner is a diverse tourist attraction these days, offering drinks at the deck bar, Sunday brunches, exhibits like Diana: Legacy of a Princess and Bob Hope: American Treasure, and a variety of tours. It’s also a hotel, and you can also state in one of 346 original first class staterooms and suites.
As we’re only around for an afternoon, we choose the Ghosts and Legends Tour. While it is not particularly scary, it is hilarious. The tour guide is theatrical and over the top, and I can barely understand her American accent (sorry American readers, I have as much trouble with your accents as you do with my Aussie one!). But she has a definite tone of seriousness and urgency to her tour.
Our small group is taken on a tour of the underbelly of the ship. We check out the boiler room where the temperatures were sweltering and many emergencies happened. My favourite part of the tour is in the old swimming pool. There’s always something creepy about abandoned swimming pools, and it feels freezing this far down into the ship.
Our guide tells us that people are regularly seen swimming in the pool… despite no water being in it. I giggle at the thought of ghosts, and we get water flicked up on us as we walk past the empty pool.
At one point of our tour, our guide seems slightly exasperated with our little group for not running quickly enough with the “emergency” of flood water that is supposedly careening down the hallway. In fairness to our group, one elderly gentleman does have a walking frame!
After our tour, we settle in for a drink at the authentic 1930s Observation Bar. It’s beautiful and quiet, and we relax with a Pimms Cup. After a quick peruse around the boat and the beautiful sunshine, we’re back on our way.
We’re hoping for a trip back in 2016 – there’s a science center and museum planned which I’m really excited about. And it would be lovely to stay overnight onboard!
NB: I double checked the Queen Mary website for information about the tour we did and saw this note: PLEASE NOTE: Ghosts and Legends is currently down for repair. We will substitute ANY tour for Ghosts and Legends while it is down. Thank you for your understanding.
Hours: MON-THURS 11AM – 6PM, FRI-SUN 11AM – 9PM and takes approximately 35 minutes
Pricing: Available as part of any of our tour packages – The Queen Mary Passport, or the First-Class Haunted Passport. Groups of 15 or more may call 562-499-1623 for discounted group rates.
Parking: $15 (Subject to change based on Special Event schedule here.)
Map: The Queen Mary can get confusing. Download our map and bring it with you!
Crystal Cove Beach and Newport Beach Whole Foods – Orange County, California, United States of America Native Foods Cafe – Newport Beach, California Beach Burrito Company Darlinghurst Natural Bridges Vallecito California
This entry was posted in America, California, Outdoor Adventures, Urban Adventures. Bookmark the permalink.
8 thoughts on “Queen Mary Long Beach”
Crystal W says:
First, you just made me wish there was a cruise ship called The Majestic Snoop Dog. But second, this sounds like a lot of fun, and the views are gorgeous!
haha! Maybe it’s just a tad too different to the traditional naming conventions for ships 😉 I was surprised at how beautiful Long Beach was, it’s a really nice place to spend a lazy Summer’s afternoon and evening.
Hannah @ CleanEatingVeggieGirl says:
Wow, I love how old that cruise ship is! It’s so cool to see what is now almost an “antique” as far as ships go!
It’s just gorgeous! And it had this fantastic vintage clothing store onboard, too. I really wanted to buy a couple of handbags, but we were in Long Beach to see the Aussie embassy after I’d had my passport stolen, so we had to conserve funds. Good reason to visit again. 😉
Lou @ Mommy Sanest says:
First, I was assuming you meant Snoop Dog’s Long Beach, obvi. And second, I have an accent?!?!?! 😉
The tour sounds fantastic — I like a good ghost story. Did you really get water flicked at you? That sounds a bit spooky.
Haha! You probably have a very mild accent, Lou. When we traveled through the Deep South, you should have seen the confusion when an American and I would have a conversation. They’d scream “you have an ACCENT” because they’d never heard one before (we went to some errrr unusual parts of the deep south, needless to say) and it would take me minutes to decipher what they’d said to me – they may as well have been talking in Thai!
And yes! The water flicking up out of the empty swimming pool was a cool touch. 😀
Tianna says:
gorgeous photos! The Queen Mary is such a cool place to visit. I love going to their Halloween events
http://storybookapothecary.com ♥ stop by and chat with me! 🙂
Ahhh I can imagine it would be fantastic on Halloween! It’s creepy enough as it is. Kinda like a mix between the Titanic and The Shining. 🙂
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Theatre, Film, and Trashy Novels – Not Necessarily in That Order
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HomePosts tagged 'theatre'
THE BIG GIVE & The Crucible (SRO Theatre Company – Columbus, OH)
October 10, 2017 October 10, 2017 Chuck III Columbus, Theatre ART, ARTHUR MILLER, BIG GIVE, BIGGIVE, columbus, COLUMBUS FOUNDATION, columbus performing arts center, CPAC, CRUCIBLE, NONPROFIT, PERFORMING ARTS, PHILANTHROPY, SENIOR THEATRE, SRO, SRO THEATRE COMPANY, theatre
The Columbus Foundation’s THE BIG GIVE has begun!
Get all of the details by viewing our video above and then donate
before NOON on Wednesday
to get your rewards and have your gift MAGNIFIED!
TEXT 698 to 614-230-0347 to GIVE TO SRO!
To participate in THE BIG GIVE and receive your rewards: https://columbusfoundation.org/the-giving-store/nonprofit-directory-listing/SROTheatreCompany/698
OPENING FRIDAY the 13TH!
Arthur Miller’s landmark play has gripped audiences for nearly 65 years, but couldn’t be more timely in today’s political environment. The McCarthy-era drama, set in Puritan Salem, paints a portrait of a paranoid, litigious society — power-hungry and gripped by misguided moralism.
The story focuses upon a young farmer, his wife, and a young servant-girl who maliciously causes the wife’s arrest for witchcraft. The farmer brings the girl to court to admit the lie—and it is here that the monstrous course of bigotry and deceit is terrifyingly depicted. The farmer, instead of saving his wife, finds himself also accused of witchcraft and ultimately condemned with a host of others.
OCTOBER 13-22 – ONLY 8 PERFORMANCES!
Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm – Sundays at 2pm
Special Friday Morning at 10:30am on 10/13
Special Saturday Matinee at 2pm on 10/21
Audio Description available 10/14 Saturday Evening at 8pm
(audio description will be live and performed along with the show over cell phones for
patrons who wish to utilize the service – for more information on audio description for people who are blind or sight impaired, please e-mail srotheatre@gmail.com or call 614-427-3324 – a promotional video for the audio described performance can be heard here: https://youtu.be/6Cfy7D6jGGA)
Columbus Performing Arts Center
Shedd Theatre
FRI 10/13 at 10:30am & 8pm
SAT 10/14 at 8pm (audio description available for this performance only)
SUN 10/15 at 2pm
FRI 10/20 at 8pm
SAT 10/21 at 2pm & 8pm
Seniors/Students: $20
Groups of 10 or more: $15
(e-mail srotheatre@gmail.com or call 614-427-3324 to reserve)
3:00 including intermission
THE CRUCIBLE is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.
Central Ohio Live Theatre Resources
March 12, 2017 December 18, 2018 Chuck III Columbus, Theatre ACTORS, ART, AUDITION, columbus, community, DAYTON, DRAMA, EVENTS, FACEBOOK, LIVE, musical, ohio, PERFORMING, PLAYS, PROFESSIONAL, theatre
Last fall I assumed the position of President of SRO Theatre Company, which has severely limited my ability to review local theatre (please hold the applause). I now receive many requests for information on local theatre, ranging from auditions, script submissions, unsolicited resumes – you name it. I have a list of website links on this blog to assist people in finding the answers to so many of these questions, but in this day and age it seems to “like” and “subscribe” to a company’s events on their Facebook page is the easiet and most efficient way of keeping on top of things. There are also several groups that are helpful to join as well, in addition to some performance and audition calendars.
Here I am posting links to many important resources; some are websites, but many more are Facebook pages or groups. This list is not complete (is any list ever?), and I aim to add to it in time. It doesn’t include the many fine high school theatre departments as I found that many either didn’t have websites and Facebook pages or that they weren’t always up-to-date. There is also no distinction between professional, semi-professional, and community theatre in this list. Still, this is a good starting point to add to your Facebook “likes” and bookmarks for the time being.
I believe that fans of theatre will see more theatre if they know of all the options available. I also don’t believe one theatre company has to do poorly for another to do well (I know several theatre companies appear to feel differently). Unless we are all doing the same shows at the same time, we aren’t in competition. At SRO, we now have a policy to display as many cards and flyers for other theatre companies as we receive at our performances. We don’t ask for or expect other companies to follow that practice; some are open to it while others are silent, and that’s fine. The bottom line is I want everyone to succeed and to help connect theatre with the community. While there may be individual people within certain organizations that I feel try to denigrate and dismiss other companies and their work, I find that, by and large, the artists, technicians, and audiences just want to come together and enjoy the experience of live performance.
Please help me add and correct this list by posting comments.
Columbus Makes Art (GCAC events)
Columbus Theater Events
My Auditions Calendar (Columbus, OH)
My Performance Calendar (Columbus, OH)
Central Ohio Auditions
Grandview Carriage Place Players – Audition Page
I Support Local Live Theatre
Shameless Production Plugs of Central Ohio Theatre
Theatre Audition and Job Notices
COLUMBUS AREA THEATRE COMPANIES
Actors’ Theatre of Columbus
Arena Fair Theatre
Available Light Theatre
CATCO
CATCO is Kids!
Columbus Children’s Theatre (CCT)
Columbus Civic Theater
Curtain Players
Cyclodrama
DNGinc Productions
Eclipse Theatre Company
Ember Women’s Theatre
Evolution Theatre Company
Gahanna Community Theatre
Gallery Players
Hilliard Arts Council
Imagine Productions
King Avenue Players
Little Theatre Off-Broadway (LTOB)
Mine4God Productions
Ohio Musical Theatre Institute
Onyx Productions
Original Productions Theatre
Out of the Box Community Theatre (OOTBCT)
PAST Productions Columbus
Performing Arts Creative Ensemble (PACE)
Pickerington Community Theatre
Red Herring Productions
Shadowbox Live
Short North Stage
State of the Arts Productions (SoArtsPro)
Tantrum Theater
The Tipping Point Theatre Company
Westerville Parks & Recreation Civic Theatre
Worthington Community Theatre
Ashland University Theatre
Denison University
Ohio State University Department of Dance
Ohio State University Department of Theatre
Ohio State University School of Music
Ohio University Lancaster Theatre
Otterbein University Theatre and Dance
Theatre Columbus State
SURROUNDING THEATRE COMPANIES/GROUPS
Beavercreek Community Theatre (Beavercreek, OH)
Bespoke Theatre (Columbus, OH)
The Black Box Improv Theatre (Dayton, OH)
Dare to Defy (Dayton, OH)
Dayton Playhouse (Dayton, OH)
Dayton Theatre (Dayton, OH)
Dayton Theatre Co-op (Dayton, OH)
Dayton Theatre Guild (Dayton, OH)
Frontgate Theatre Troupe Productions (Dayton, OH)
Human Race Theatre Company (Dayton, OH)
The Lancaster Playhouse (Lancaster, OH)
The Libby Art and Theatre Company (Dayton, OH)
Licking County Players (Newark, OH)
Magnolia Theatre Company (Dayton, OH)
The Musical Theatre Initiative (Dayton, OH)
On Stage Dayton (Dayton, OH)
The Playground (Dayton, OH)
Roundtown Players (Circleville, OH)
Sinclair Community College Theatre (Dayton, OH)
UD Studio Theatre (Dayton, OH)
University of Dayton Theatre, Dance, and Performance Technology Program (Dayton, OH)
Weathervane Playhouse (Newark, OH)The Zoot Theatre Company (Dayton, OH)
Until He Wasn’t (MadLab – Columbus, OH)
October 14, 2016 Chuck III Columbus, Theatre AUDREY RUSH, BETRAYAL, columbus, DARK COMEDY, DATING, DRAMA, JENN FEATHER YOUNGBLOOD, KASEY MEININGER, LAURA SPIRES, love, MADLAB, MANIPULATION, PATRICK MCLAUGHLIN, ROB PHILPOTT, sex, SHEREE EVANS, theatre, VIOLENCE, WILL MACKE
Until He Wasn’t concerns four strangers connected by one man: Colin Bayley. Colin is attentive, sexy, sensitive – the perfect guy to each of his former lovers commiserating about their time with him; that is, until he wasn’t. As the evening progresses, each member of the group divulges just how deep their connection to each other goes – all because of one man.
Photo: Michelle DiCeglio – (left to right) Laura Spires (Raya), Tenille (Jenn Feather Youngblood), Will Macke (Gavin), and Kasey Meininger (Natalie)
Is it worth seeing?
When I first entered the MadLab Theatre to see how the seating had been completely rearranged to present this show in the round, I knew Until He Wasn’t was going to be special. I didn’t plan on how involving the piece would ultimately be, as the writing by Patrick McLaughlin can be interpreted as either dramatic or cynically comical all depending on the way the audience chooses to interpret it; there were many moments were certain groups would laugh at a particular moment whereas other parts of the audience were solemnly quiet. The set pieces are minimal and never in danger of blocking any of the action, and director Audrey Rush takes care to spread the action out so there doesn’t appear to be a bad vantage point.
Photo: Michelle DiCeglio – (left to right) Laura Spires (Raya), Rob Philpott (Colin), and Kasey Meininger (Natalie)
This is one hell of a cast working through some rough material, and it’s quickly apparent that this is not their first time at the rodeo. Laura Spires could be whiny as Raya, the wife who was married to Colin for years, but she isn’t; Ms. Spires isn’t keen on hearing of his infidelities, and so she comes off as naturally defensive of what she believes were those special years before the trouble started. Kasey Meininger makes Natalie, Colin’s lover while still married to Raya, quite aggressive, exhibiting a natural inclination towards physicality that fits the role and the actor playing it; a semi-dream sequence in the second act requires Ms. Meininger to fling herself around in a way that would send most of us to the chiropractor, but she manages it all in stride.
Jenn Feather Youngblood as Tenille at first glance might seem like the stereotypical “sexless, quirky best friend of the lead who never gets the guy,” but she is so much more than that. At times able to connect with a beat that jolts the audience with laughter and at other times uncomfortably vulnerable, Ms. Youngblood is able to turn the perceived stereotype on its head, showing more than anything that we all seek love and acceptance and don’t necessarily question it when it comes in an unbelievably attractive package. Will Macke’s Gavin definitely stands out in the otherwise female group, his swagger and sexual innuendos definitely meant to shock and disarm; still, Mr. Macke has a way of letting the audience in to look past his brusque facade, most shockingly during an intense sequence in the second act.
Photo: Michelle DiCeglio – (left to right) Laura Spires (Raya) and Rob Philpott (Colin)
It takes a special actor to be able to generate chemistry with four very different people in the same play, and Rob Philpott is just such a special talent. As Colin, Mr. Philpott is disarmingly suave and appealing, but he performs at a much higher level than one might expect from what seems like a typical pretty-boy role. His Colin says the right things at the right time, and the heat he generates with each of his on-stage lovers (no matter the gender) is electric and dangerous. Without a special person for each of the four main characters to pine for, Until He Wasn’t wouldn’t work; with Mr. Philpott as Colin, it works so well that I bet it could make members of the audience wonder if they might also be taken in under his spell if they encountered him in the same circumstances as did Raya, Natalie, Tenille, and Gavin.
Until He Wasn’t is one of those two-act plays where the first act ends with a big revelation, one that I didn’t see coming. This big moment lays the groundwork for the second act, as thrilling and tense as anything I’ve seen in years. At the end of this two and a half hour journey, I was exhausted yet exhilarated by the ride. Highly recommended!
My rating: *** 3/4 out of ****
Where can I see it?
Until He Wasn’t continues through to October 22nd in the MadLab Theatre located at 227 North 3rd Street, and more information can be found at http://madlab.net/until-he-wasnt.html
Dracula (SRO [Standing Room Only] – Columbus, OH)
October 7, 2016 Chuck III Columbus, Theatre BLOOD, BRAM STOKER, BRETT HUTTON, CHASITY BROOKE PERKINS, COLLEEN UNDERWOOD, columbus, columbus performing arts center, CPAC, DEE SHEPHERD, donnie lockwood, DRACULA, DRAMA, HALLOWEEN, HORROR, PHIL CUNNINGHAM, SCOTT DOUGLAS WILSON, SRO, standing room only, STEPHEN HANNA, STEVEN DIETZ, SYLVIA GONZALEZ, TARYN HUFFMAN, theatre, TRAVIS HORSEMAN, VAMPIRE
In lieu of a full review, I offer up this promotional video I produced for SRO’s Dracula.
Dracula continues through to October 15th in the Shedd Theatre within the Columbus Performing Arts Center at 549 Franklin Avenue, and more information can be found at http://www.srotheatre.org
Looped (Evolution Theatre Company – Columbus, OH)
September 16, 2016 September 17, 2016 Chuck III Columbus, Theatre ALCOHOLIC, closeted, columbus, comedy, CURTIS NITZ BROWN, DIALOGUE REPLACEMENT, DIE DIE MY DARLING, DRUNK, Evolution Theatre Company, Film, gay, JEFFREY GRESS, jimmy bohr, JON OSBECK, Kent Halloran, LOOPED, LOOPING, MATTHEW LOMBARDO, REBECCA BAYGENTS TURK, SCOTCH, TALLULAH BANKHEAD, theatre, VICKY WELSH BRAGG
It’s 1965, and stage and screen star Tallulah Bankhead has seen better days. Suffering the ill-effects of a lifetime of boozing and doping, she is called in to re-record (or “loop”) one line for what would be her final film, Die! Die! My Darling! Based on a true event, Ms. Bankhead makes sure to put the sound engineer and film editor through the ringer before they get what they want out of her, playing up to their expectations of what a quarrelsome and demanding woman she can be. Looped enjoyed a brief run on Broadway in the spring of 2010, garnering Valerie Harper a Tony Award nomination as the beleaguered Tallulah Bankhead.
Photo: Jerri Shafer – Vicky Welsh Bragg (Tallulah Bankhead) and Jon Osbeck (Danny Miller)
Looped is the kind of play where the concept is much better than its execution. Who wouldn’t enjoy seeing a comedic piece about a loud-mouthed lush, a star of both stage and screen, showing off her bad behavior? There are plenty of zingers to be had in Matthew Lombardo’s script, but at nearly two hours with an intermission (placed at a particularly contrived moment within the play), there doesn’t seem to be enough there to justify that much of an investment. However, Looped is that rare play that improves greatly in its second half, even if it gets rather maudlin and embarrassingly overwrought dealing with a discussion of homosexuality in the era. Mixing comedy with drama is tricky, but luckily the moments where the balance is completely off are brief and don’t sink the show. This is far from a great work, but, with the right crowd and performers, it’s more good than bad.
Vicky Welsh Bragg makes a fine Tallulah Bankhead, sounding a great deal like the actress, speaking in a low register that must be a challenge. Ms. Bragg is engaging if less biting that one might expect playing a drug-addicted alcoholic, but she is consistently interesting to watch and embodies the proper spirit to make her part work. Jon Osbeck as Danny Miller, the put-upon film editor struggling to corral Ms. Bankhead, performs as beyond irritated from the get-go, not allowing much room to grow all that much more frustrated with Ms. Bankhead’s shenanigans without yelling expletives that I doubt any studio employee would use towards a star, even a drunken one. Part of the problem is in the writing, but Mr. Osbeck is to blame for his entirely false crying scene near the end of the second act. It often feels like Mr. Osbeck thinks that he is part of a duet when it is quite clear that Ms. Bragg and her character is the star here.
Photo: Jerri Shafer – Jon Osbeck (Danny Miller) and Vicky Welsh Bragg (Tallulah Bankhead)
Technically, the show is quite impressive, with a detailed black, white, and gray set by Jeffrey Gress complete with a boom mike that looks right out of that era. Nitz Brown’s lighting is detailed down to the ever-so-slight reflection of the film being projected (which we don’t see) for Ms. Bankhead to use as a reference for her vocal performance. Rebecca Baygents Turk’s costumes, from Ms. Bankhead’s improbable red gown (looking much like Bette Davis’s frock in All About Eve) to Danny Miller’s high-waisted slacks and slick shoes impressively represent a 1965 as one might imagine it from seeing sitcoms of the era; too perfect to be real, but too defined and attractive to ignore.
Ultimately, Looped misses its target, but not by as much as it could’ve had Evolution’s production not had such a proficient design team and game cast. At its best moments, when Ms. Bragg’s lines elicit honest laughter and Mr. Osbeck‘s exasperated look relaxes a bit in intensity, the production is quite enjoyable, though it takes someone with an appreciation of the era, film making, and that special kind of smoky female brashness to hang on through the more awkwardly written moments (like the ending that feels right out of Casablanca). Note to other playwrights: exercise caution when including excerpts from vastly superior works (in this case, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire) into your script.
My rating: ** 3/4 out of ****
Looped continues through to September 24th in the Van Fleet Theatre within the Columbus Performing Arts Center at 549 Franklin Avenue, and more information can be found at http://evolutiontheatre.org
The Fantasticks (Short North Stage – Columbus, OH)
August 2, 2016 August 3, 2016 Chuck III Columbus, Theatre ALEX LANIER, BRIAN HUPP, columbus, DEPRESSION, doug joseph, DUST BOWL, EMMA CONIGLIO, fantasticks, GARDEN THEATRE, GREEN ROOM, harvey schmidt, IN THE ROUND, JONATHAN FLOM, JONATHAN SABO, KATE LINGNOFSKI, LLOYD BUTLER, love, MEGAN VALLE, musical, ROBERT CARLTON STIMMEL, RYAN STEM, short north stage, TATJANA LONGEROT, theatre, tom jones, TRY TO REMEMBER
It’s funny how some plays can become such a part of popular culture that they can feel like you’ve seen them before even if you haven’t. The Fantasticks, the long-running 1960 Tom Jones-Harvey Schmidt musical about two neighboring fathers pretending to feud in the hope that their children will rebel and fall in love, is one of those evergreens, a musical that is akin to a rite of passage as each new generation discovers and embraces its charms. The Fantasticks isn’t a great work, but its memorable score, including such standards as “Try to Remember,” “Much More,” and “Soon It’s Gonna Rain,” has done much to solidify its reputation.
Photo: Jason Allen – Emma Coniglio (Luisa) and Robert Carlton Stimmel (Matt)
Now Short North Stage presents their version of The Fantasticks, only this time director Jonathan Flom has changed its setting and locale to Oklahoma circa April 1935 during The Great Depression, more specially after a great dust storm that has left much death and destruction in its wake. Not a word or song has been changed to accommodate this interpretation, and yet what emerges in this production injects new life and relevance in the all-too-familiar story of boy meets girl/boy loses girl/boy gets girl back. Mr. Flom’s production, with a sprawling set by Jonathan Sabo complete with mounds of dirt and partially buried farm paraphernalia, is presented in the round with limited seating around the perimeter of a raised wooden platform (the room’s support beam is cleverly dressed to appear like a tower); the overall effect is one of inclusion, like the audience is a part of the action.
Photo: Jason Allen – Brian Hupp (El Gallo) and Emma Coniglio (Luisa)
The cast is uniformly excellent, exuding a kind of familial affection for one another that permeates past their roles. Brian Hupp makes an oddly dangerous and elusive El Gallo, a fresh take on this character all dressed in black; Robert Carlton Stimmel plays Matt with energy to spare, and Emma Coniglio has a way of playing a bit spoiled as Luisa that isn’t cloying; Doug Joseph and Ryan Stem, as the fathers of Matt and Louisa respectively, should be listened to carefully for their humorous ad libbing as they bicker with each other in the way that only great friends can do; Mr. Joseph and Mr. Stem both have a way of embodying the spirit of both mother and father that makes their investment in the future of their children all the more significant.
Photo: Jason Allen – (left to right) Robert Carlton Stimmel (Matt), Kate Lingnofski (Mortimer), and Alex Lanier (Henry)
Though her stage time is brief, Alex Lanier makes a dizzyingly bombastic Henry, the old actor who helps to stage an attempted abduction of Louisa to help Matt appear to be a hero; Kate Lingnofski as Mortimer, Henry’s sidekick, has a staunch posture and walk that is highly individual and comedic; her goggles, cap, and scarves conjure images of a Chaplinesque Amelia Earhart. Megan Valle plays The Mute, and she is also responsible for the choreography that feels so organic that it can be difficult to tell when it starts and ends; Ms. Valle acts silently with an expression that looks as if she’s on the cusp of saying something quite profound, the story of Matt and Luisa’s courtship playing out in front of her being the one respite from the world around her.
Photo: Jason Allen
Short North Stage’s The Fantasticks has a wistful, dreamlike quality to it, almost like recalling a memory through a haze of sheer muslin. All of the familiar songs and characters are there, but this telling has more of an urgency and relevance to it; the love and joy of the young lovers is more poignant with The Great Depression as a backdrop. This reimagining doesn’t feel forced or heavy-handed at all, and the simplicity of the story has never felt more welcome a luxury. Aside from the intimacy of experiencing this production in the round, there is an added benefit; many times I caught myself glancing at the smiling faces of other audience members on the opposite side of the performing space. I’m sure I sported an incongruous smile as well since the sweetness and hopefulness of this production is infectious. “Aren’t you glad we came out tonight?” I heard a lady ask her friends as we all exited the theatre after the play. Everyone agreed that seeing this production of The Fantasticks was time well-spent.
**** out of ****
The Fantasticks continues through to August 14th in The Green Room at The Garden Theatre located at 1187 North High Street in downtown Columbus, and more information can be found at http://www.shortnorthstage.org/calendar/v/471
West Side Story (Columbus Children’s Theatre – Columbus, OH)
July 5, 2016 July 5, 2016 Chuck III Columbus, Theatre ANDY SIMMONS, ARTHUR LAURENTS, AUSTIN RYAN BACKUS, broadway, CCT, CHARLOTTE BROWN, columbus, COLUMBUS CHILDREN'S THEATRE, DAVID BAHGAT, DEATH, ELIZABETH BLANQUERA, GANGS, JEFFREY GRESS, JEROME ROBBINS, JORDAN FELICIANO, leonard bernstein, love, MATTHEW J MAYER II, musical, NEW YORK, NICOLETTE MONTANA, ODETTE GUTIERREZ DEL ARROYO, ROMEO AND JULIET, STEPHEN SONDHEIM, theatre, VIOLENCE, WEST SIDE STORY, WILL THOMPSON, WILLIAM GOLDSMITH, ZAC DELMONTE
How lucky am I to be able to see full productions of the two biggest Broadway hits of the 1957-1958 season all in the same week? One night I get to see The Music Man at Weathervane Playhouse in Newark, and the next night I’m enjoying Columbus Children’s Theatre’s West Side Story! Both are now revered as classics, were made into very popular and faithfully adapted films, and for well over fifty years have been performed thousands of times a year all over the country from high schools to regional theatres. One can’t really be considered a fan of musicals without becoming acquainted with these evergreens; their songs pop up all the time in popular culture, and chances are you’ve heard some of them even if you didn’t know from where they originated.
Photo: David Heasley
Meredith Willson’s The Music Man was the big Tony Award winner in 1958 and the longer-running hit, but West Side Story, with a searing Leonard Bernstein score, lyrics by the up-and-coming Stephen Sondheim, book by Arthur Laurents, and choreography courtesy of the legendary Jerome Robbins, has emerged as the more serious classic. Inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the action has been transplanted to the Upper West Side of New York City in the 1950s as rival gangs, the Jets (who are white) and the Sharks (who are Puerto Rican), fight for dominance. Caught in the crosshairs are Tony, a sometime member of the Jets, and Maria, the sister of the leader of the Sharks, Bernardo. Tony and Maria meet at a school dance, fall in love, and try to stop the gangs from fighting to discover things will only get worse before they begin to get better. With nearly every now song an established classic (“Maria,” “Tonight,” “Somewhere,” “I Feel Pretty,” and “America” to name but a few), West Side Story continues to capture the heart of each new generation, thanks to the 1961 film and the play’s continued popularity. This current production, featuring Columbus Children’s Theatre’s Summer Pre-Professional Company of performers ages sixteen to twenty-two, is about as engaging and rousing a production as one is likely to find, “pre-professional” or not.
These Jets and Sharks dance, fight, and spit with equal intensity (stage combat aided by William Goldsmith), and each performer appears fully cocked and ready to attack anyone who gets in their way. I remember some snickering from my classmates when we watched the movie in high school during the opening dance sequence; no one would dare to scoff at these Jets and Sharks, especially once they see them believably kick and punch each other to the ground! It’s interesting to note that all but two of the Jets and Sharks are wearing identical black Converse Chuck Taylor All Star shoes, a nice visual reminder that they have so much more in common than they seem to realize.
As sweet and innocent as Tony (Andy Simmons) and Maria (Elizabeth Blanquera) are in this production, they can’t help but appear less exciting when stacked next to the excellent supporting cast: Austin Ryan Backus as Riff exudes confidence and swagger; Matthew J. Mayer II makes an intense Bernardo; Odette Gutierrez del Arroyo is a firecracker as Anita but also heartbreaking; Will Thompson plays Doc like a wise, concerned older brother, making an impact in a part usually ignored; and Charlotte Brown should be watched closely in the small role of Rosalia, especially for her hilarious facial expressions during the dance at the gym.
The only serious flaw in this production occurs during the ballet (which is not in the film). This ballet leads into “Somewhere” and begins strongly with Riff and Bernardo reappearing after the violent end of the first act; then, inexplicably, a little boy climbs out of Maria’s bedroom window, down over the fence, sings “Somewhere” at Tony and Maria (now dressed in just a slip), and then scampers back up to from where he came. Though staged a bit differently, this addition of the character “Kiddo” and reassignment of the song was made by original book writer Arthur Laurents for the 2009 Broadway revival he directed; it was widely criticized then, and it’s inclusion in this production is a glaring sore spot. It has nothing to do with the ability of the kid playing Kiddo; the moment comes off as schmaltzy and like a lecture to the characters, bringing to mind this verse in Isaiah: “And a little child shall lead them.” I began to wonder why a little kid was squatting in Maria’s bedroom and if someone should let her know.
Luckily everything gets back on track when some of the Jets sing “Gee, Officer Krumpke,” far funnier with lyrics and gestures that were greatly toned down for the film. This is one of several scenes in which Jordan Feliciano as Baby John is a riot, donning a mop on his head and squeaky voice. As humorous as this sequence is, Ms. Gutierrez del Arroyo’s “A Boy Like That” that follows it is conversely serious and impassioned. Songs were moved around for the film to provide a more consistent tone for that medium, but the flow of the original play works marvelously on the stage.
Director David Bahgat incorporates many design elements from the film (unavoidable with its popularity) and expands upon them, the Jets costumed in blue and yellow and the Sharks in purple and red; the lighting is also used in this color motif effectively without being too obvious. Mr. Bahgat keeps everything moving at a brisk pace (save for the aforementioned break in the ballet), and he guides his cast into making each line sound like it is theirs and theirs alone. I’ve seen several productions were the actors copy each line reading as it was done in the film; that isn’t the case here at all, and many times so much more humor and character comes across because of it. He keeps his actors moving all around the audience, maintaining an immediacy that a lesser director wouldn’t bother trying to create. The marvelous set designed by Jeffrey Gress represents all of the different locations needed for the story, elements of which extend out around the audience, making this what I would consider an environmental staging; a low chain link fence separates the audience from the cast on the left and right sides, Doc’s storefront is between the center and right seating areas, actors often enter the center rows of the audience and sit alongside them, and (depending on where one is sitting) Chino (Frank Ruiz) can be seen stealthily sneaking down the alley between the center and left section of seats leading up to the intense climax.
The four-piece band led by Zac DelMonte kicks into high gear during the “Tonight” quintet and rumble, though the limited orchestration takes a little time to get used to at the start of the show. Nicolette Montana does a fine job of recreating iconic moments from Jerome Robbins’ original choreography, adding and changing bits here and there to suit the space and production demands; aside from a moment during the prologue when the Jets shout “Ha!” and jut their hands out into the audience, Ms. Montana’s work is commendable and adds so much to this overall splendid production.
Except for a few missteps (mostly minor), Columbus Children’s Theatre’s West Side Story is nearly impossibly good. With action occurring from all sides of the theatre and an energetic cast that knows this show like seasoned pros, this West Side Story is one to see no matter how many times you’ve seen the play or movie before. Most of the performers appear to be exactly in the right age range of the characters they are playing, from late teens to early twenties, but this is the exception rather than the rule when compared to the film or Broadway productions of this show. The “us verses them” struggle between the Jets and the Sharks is still relevant today; one need only to watch the daily news to see how fear of the “other” continues to incite violence and be used politically to pit people against one another.
*** 3/4 out of ****
West Side Story continues through to July 17th at Columbus Children’s Theatre located at 512 Park Street in downtown Columbus, and more information can be found at http://www.columbuschildrenstheatre.org/west-side-story.html
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Taking my brother to an interactive screening of #Xanadu @alamophoenix - fun, but too loud, especially for my brother who has #aspergers and #sensitivityissues
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RYA Yachtmaster Offshore!!
.....And so onto bigger and better things. With the wreckage of Dive BVI firmly behind us and our new found confidence of sailing catamarans, now Sadie and I head back to the UK to get on with what we really want to do.........sailing!! Sadie heads for Cowes in the Isle of Wight to brush up on her cheffing skills and I head for Falmouth in Cornwall to complete my Yachtmaster training. We were now able to press on and fulfill our sailing dreams. So where to start? A good sailing school is generally the right move - but which one to choose? Once you start this search and ask people for advice and recommendations you end up with a short list of about 30 reputable sailing schools all over the south coast of England. In the end my choice was an easy one, I opted for Nick Jordan's school, Cornish Cruising based in Falmouth. It was an inspired choice, it was well away from the mayhem in the Solent and conincidentally was the same school that Sadie's Dad, Jim, independently came up with as his first choice to do the same course. Nick and his team were streets ahead of all his competitors when it came to custmer service and support as well as ensuring that the quality of the training was up to scratch and value for money. Nick was the only school to reply with a full response to our detailed brief literally within hours of getting it. Nearly all of the other schools either didn't even bother replying or send a standard reply simply referring me to their web sites for further details if I was still interested! Needless to say, Cornish Cruising got the business.
Jim and I had a tall order ahead of us. The training schedule Nick put together for us was going to be a tough one. In order to qualify as a Yachtmaster Offshore through the Royal Yachting Association (the RYA), candidates must have at least 2500 sea miles, at least half of which needs to be in tidal waters (i.e. not the Caribbean!), you must have clocked up at least 50 days at sea, of which 5 trips need to be of at least 60 miles each and 2 of these need to be at night. All of this culminates with a min 12 hour practical assessment by an RYA examiner. Both Jim and I had a few gaps in our log books which we were hopefully going to be able to complete over the course of the next 7 weeks.
Our first week bizarely was to be land based. There's a lot of theory to sailing even before you hit the water, all candidates must be up to scratch with the Rules of the Road, Lights and Buoyage, Meteorology and most importantly Navigation. Thankfully you can get to grips with all of this in a classroom first before you have to do it in earnest, down below on a rolling boat pitched over by 45 degrees trying to work out where you are and where you're going to next!! The week passed quickly for us and by the end of it we were ready to sit the exams. Thankfully we both passed with flying colours and were now keen to get on with the real deal - sailing.
Our accommodation for the week was aboard 'Polbream' a 46ft Beneteau. For me the transition from living in the heat of the Caribbean to all of a sudden being aboard a yacht in the south coast of England in April was a bit of a shock. I remember clearly while during our first sea training week standing on the pullpit wearing full wet weather gear, freezing cold, while a heavy hail storm peppered the deck around me with thousands of icy ball bearings, each one threatening to roll me off onto the drink without a moments hesitation! As the marbles of pure white ice managed to find their way down the back of my neck I clearly remember thinking "what the fuck have I done!!". While we were to see some significant weather over the next six weeks, this was undoubtedly the coldest I'd felt in over 5 years.
While our first week at sea was more to do with our Skipper 'Ken the Vicar' finding our levels rather than us getting our teeth into the Yachtmaster course, it was all part of the journey of improving our seamanship skills while also building the necessary tidal miles and passages needed to qualify and sit the Yachtmaster practical assessment at the start of June. We spent the week pottering around in local waters up the River Fal, the Helford, St Mawes, Fowey and then back to Falmouth. For me getting to grips with sailing a monohull for the first time was the biggest challenge. Having spent the last two years solely aboard catamarans getting a feel for the reactions of a monohull took some getting used to, as well as understanding points of sail and doing things like sailing up to mooring balls and recovering a man-over-board under sail. It's fair to say that on reflection I was almost ready to pack it all in at the end of that week - nothing seemed to be sinking into me!
The following two sailing trips however somehow managed to restore the level of confidence that I'd been missing. We did a 2 week trip from Falmouth to the southern coast of Ireland, via the Isles of Scilly and up through the infamous Irish Sea. This was with Peter and his wife Stella, Jim and I and another Andy who joined us on the trip. Talk about night and day from the previous one. We stopped for a night in St Agnes in the Scilly Isles and managed to get ashore in the dingy for a beer or two in the only pub. The pub was rammed. The island normally only has a population of about 60, but with the Annual Gig Racing festival now on to say it was standing room only, and that was just outside, would have been an understatement. Fantastic to be part of these marvelous events and celebrations on which much of the islands historic welfare and prosperity was once based.
The Southern coast of Ireland is a great place to go cruising. There are so many places and hidden gems all along the coast and always somewhere safe to head should the weather coming off the Irish Sea turn a little unfavourable. We visited Kinsail, Cork, Baltimore, Bantry Bay and Castletownbere (the home of the famous MacCarthy's Bar), to name but a few. The whole two weeks were amazing, dolphins and huge basking sharks came our way off of the Mizzen Head as we battled our way through heavy seas with wind against current, and past the famous lighthouse landmark, The Fastnet Rock. To add to the experience we also had our share of boat challenges, from leaking water tanks to a loss of all electrics as well as a night of dense fog and a misreading radar all thrown in for the measure. This was definitely what it's all about. The learning process was well underway.
The final week of mileage and passage building came next, and we headed off to the Brittany Coast in Northern France. It was a challenging crossing for me. I was nominated skipper and my task was to take our boat out of Falmouth and over to France organising the crew and sail as I saw fit. Our new leader that week was Chris a retired instructor but lifelong sailor. He went below to his bunk soon after we left Falmouth as we headed out to sea. The weather was up, it was Force 7 occasionally blowing 8, and the seas were at times 30ft plus. With the sails appropriately reefed we set in for the 24 hour journey ahead over to Treguir in France. With seasickness playing a part for some of the crew it was a tough call to continue. Chris seemed to have confidence in us as a crew and he kept me reassured in my role as skipper. While it was a log overnight passage our sightings of the many lighthouses on the French coastline welcomed us just as dawn was begining to break and we headed up the river in search of some 'vin et du pain' in the fresh spring air. Our journey then took us back to the UK via Guernsey in the Channel Islands and then up the River Dart in England and finally to Falmouth. Our final week of mileage building and passages was complete. Now it was time for some fun......
Sadie and Loretta then joined us for a bareboat week as Jim and I had now to put all the training into practice by skippering the boat for ourselves. We were both given our own yachts for the week and the girls helped out immensly by assiting in the preparation and provisioning of our new 'hotels' for the week as well as taking on the role as 1st mate. With Sadie fresh from chef school and Jim and I desperate to eat something different to sausage casserole our appetites were tingling with anticipation as we both set out from Falmouth on yet another new adventure.
It was a great week and the on board cuisine was excellent, and although the sailing was mixed due to some heavy weather midweek, being able to go sailing just with Sadie made it very special. This was to be our first real taste of what was hopefully lying ahead for us. However the uncertainty of our Yachtmaster's practical examination was now just a week away and the pressure was building even more than it was already.
Having said sad goodbyes to the gilrs and amidst various wishes of 'good luck's' and 'you'll breeze it' Jim and I then set of for the final showdown - A week's preparation getting rid of the bad habits and fine tuning our sailing skills and general seamanship knowledge. The week passed quickly in local waters and on the Friday our assessment began.
Like many things the reputations that preceed examiners are usualy outweighed by the various exaggerated stories that you hear about in the run up to your assessment. Mike Stratton was our examiner, at sea all his life and considered to be 'hard but fair'. Well, at least we knew he wouldn't suffer fools gladly and that we woulod be tested to the limits of our experiences and knowledge. All in it was a 14 hour exam, with all four candidates taking thier turn at skippering the boat, while Mike tested our seamanship with man-over-board drills, mooring, anchoring and blind navigation - all under both power and sail. He covered every single Rule of Road, Lights and Buoyage card with us as well as a detailed review of our Passage Plans and our sailing experiences as per our Sea Logs. It was indeed a thorough examination. As we all stepped off the boat, mentally drained and eager for the results to be known, waiting in silent anticipation and hope for the judges final ruling on our individual performances. It was going to be a good day and a very celebratory night afterall. Jim and I both passed. A huge relief came over us - it was over.
After 7 solid weeks of sea training, some 1800 sea miles, over forty days at sea and numerous hours of study and concentration we definitely had cause to celebrate. A huge door was now open for Sadie and I. We now had the necessary qualifations to start our professional careers in the sailing industry and to continue our dream. The course was probably the most challenging but most rewarding thing I have ever done, there were so many memories, high points and low points that it is impossible to put them all down on paper.
The next big chapter in our lives has definitely started!!
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Find the top private language schools in Canada
We imagine that the experience of living within a global village—a context where disparate cultures, people, ideas, and languages come into regular contact—is a unique and distinguishing feature of modern life. In some ways it is, though our forebears weren’t always as isolated or as insular as we might think. This especially when it came to language. The experience of life in a multilingual environment is, historically, as common as breathing and disagreements. Read more
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Fieldstone School
Mar. 05 — open house
Boarding Day Homestay Coed All Girls All Boys
Nursery/Preschool Kindergarten Elementary Middle schools High schools
Sort Name Cost
La Citadelle International Academy of Arts & Science
Leslie/York Mills
NS to 12 Coed
La Citadelle's Excellence in Bilingual Education and academically advanced curriculum develop successful global citizens through IB & AP programs and a holistic approach where students achieve their highest potential.
La Citadelle International Academy of Arts & Science 12500 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
College Prep International
Rue Sherbrooke/Ave Connaught
5 to 12 Coed
College Prep International, a traditional private school in Montreal, offers English instruction with partial French immersion, for grades five to twelve. Its average class size range from 12 to 18 Students
College Prep International 12000 MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
Dufferin Street/Lawrence Avenue
JK to 12 Coed
Fieldstone prepares students to be future global leaders. As Canada's first Cambridge School, we offer a stimulating curriculum in the context of a small and nurturing environment.
open house: Mar. 05
Fieldstone School 17750 Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
Westside Montessori School
NS to 6 Coed
An authentic, CCMA accredited Montessori School located in downtown Toronto, offering programs for Toddlers, Casa and Elementary children.
Westside Montessori School 19200 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary Day Coed
Royal Cachet Montessori School
Woodbine Ave/Major Mackenzie Dr E
Royal Cachet Montessori School is a Montessori school that offers programs from nursery to grade three in Markham. Its average class size is five to 15 students.
Royal Cachet Montessori School 6800 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary Day Coed
Académie Marie-Claire
Kirkland, Quebec
Boul Elkas/Rue Houde
PS to 11 Coed
This academically re-known French & English bilingual serves students from Pre-Kg to High School. Class size averages 20 students; tuition ranges from $15,000 to $18,00 . Boarding is available.
Académie Marie-Claire 14094 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
Académie St-Laurent Academy
St. Laurent Blvd./Montreal Rd.
St-Laurent Academy is a private school that offers programs from nursery to high school in Ottawa. Its average class size is ten to 15 students.
Académie St-Laurent Academy 11500 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
TFS - Canada's International School (West Campus)
Cawthra/Lakeshore
PS to 7 Coed
TFS - Canada's International School (West Campus) offers programs from Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 7. Its average class size is 12 to 22 students.
TFS - Canada's International School (West Campus) 18820 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools Day Coed
Ellington Montessori School
Kennedy Avenue/Highway 401
Ellington Montessori School offers small class sizes and individualized programs from pre-school to grade eight. Our holistic approach to education helps prepare students for success in today's rapidly changing world.
Ellington Montessori School 8750 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools Day Coed
Century Private School
Yonge Street/Silverwood Ave.
Century Montessori Schools in Richmond Hill runs from preschool to grade twelve, with class sizes as low as 12 students.
Century Private School 16550 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
Académie de la Capitale
Highway 417/Greenbank
Acadecap International School ( Académie de la Capitale), an IB school, offers bilingual and/or English programmes from Pre-K to Grade 12. Students thrive in a culture of academic excellence and real-life learning.
Académie de la Capitale 13340 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
Children's Garden Nursery School
Bayview Ave/Broadway Ave
NS to SK Coed
Located in the Leaside neighbourhood of Toronto, Children's Garden Nursery School is a well-established private school that offers exceptional programming including Core French and French Immersion.
Children's Garden Nursery School 6000 Preschool Kindergarten Day Coed
Bishop's College School
Bishop's College School is an English boarding and day school for students in grades 7 through 12. Small in size and culturally diverse, BCS is an IB World School offering the IB DP and course certificates.
Boarding/Day
Bishop's College School 25000 MiddleSchools HighSchools Boarding Day Coed
Macdonald-Cartier Academy
Chrichton St/Electric St
7 to 8 Coed
Macdonald-Cartier Academy teaches Grade 7 & 8 students how to learn and offers an intensive French immersion program combining rigorous and accelerated academics with athletics and fun experiential learning.
Macdonald-Cartier Academy 16900 MiddleSchools Day Coed
Central Montessori School – Maplehurst Campus
North York, Ontario
The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one - the period from birth to the age of six. Choose Central Montessori Schools.
Central Montessori School – Maplehurst Campus 8700 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary Day Coed
Kaban Montessori School
Glen Erin/Dundas
Kaban Montessori School in west Mississauga/Erin Mills is a CCMA accredited school for children aged 6 months to 12 years. Come for a tour, you'll love it!
Kaban Montessori School 15000 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary Day Coed
Central Montessori Schools - York Mills
Central Montessori Schools in Toronto offers instruction from nursery to grade six, with enrolment of 900 day students and tuition starting at $5,900.
Central Montessori Schools - York Mills 8900 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary Day Coed
TFS - Canada's International School
Bayview/Lawrence
TFS - Canada's International School offers Canada's only bilingual IB programs from PK to Grade 12. Average class size is 12 to 22 students. Entrance Scholarship to Grade 7 is available.
TFS - Canada's International School 19760 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
Shawnigan Lake School
Shawnigan Lake, British Columbia
Shawnigan Lake School is the largest boarding school in Canada. Located in Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island, we offer a comprehensive program to 500 young men and women in grades 8-12.
Shawnigan Lake School 28500 HighSchools Boarding Day Coed
Pensionnat du Saint-Nom-de-Marie
chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine/Avenue Claude Champagne
7 to 11 Girls
École secondaire francophone privée pour jeunes filles située à Outremont, Qc. Les frais de scolarité sont de 4 500 $ par année. Elle offre les profils Éducation internationale, Danse-études et Musique-études.
Day/Boarding
Pensionnat du Saint-Nom-de-Marie 4950 MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Boarding Girls
West Island College (Montreal)
Montreal (DDO), Quebec
West Island College offers French and French Immersion programs from grades seven to 11 in Montreal. It is a leader in innovative teaching methods. Average class size 22 students.
West Island College (Montreal) 12565 MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
Selwyn House School
Westmount, Quebec
K to 11 Boys
Selwyn House School provides a well-rounded education of exceptional depth and scope for boys from Kindergarten to Grade 11. It is located in Westmount, Quebec.
Selwyn House School 19880 Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Boys
Séminaire Marie-Reine-du-Clergé
Métabetchouan-Lac-à-la-Croix, Quebec
Rte 170/Rte 169
SMRC is a coed day and boarding high school in French Canada with a warm & relaxed natural campus, modern rooms, enrichment & support, technology enhanced classrooms & labs, 8 cultural & sports programs, 20+ activities
Séminaire Marie-Reine-du-Clergé 3580 MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Boarding Coed
Lycée Français de Toronto
Dufferin/Eglinton
Lycée Français de Toronto is a French school that offers programs from nursery to grade 12. Its average class size is 17 students.
Lycée Français de Toronto 17152 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
Sidney Ledson Institute
Don Mills Rd/York Mills Rd
The PK – Grade 6 program is a visible expression of the philosophy embodied in Ledson's books, Raising Brighter Children and Teach Your Child to Read in Just 10 Minutes a Day.
Sidney Ledson Institute 4501 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary Day Coed
The Giles School
Leslie Street/York Mills Road
The Giles School is a French immersion private school in Toronto for children age 2 (Pre-K) to Grade 8. Open Admissions through Grade 1, small classes, and Mandarin introduced as a third language in Grade 1.
The Giles School 12900 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools Day Coed
Momentum Montessori
Dundas Street East/Parliament St.
NS to K Coed
Children absorb multiple languages, music & develop sports skills VERY easily. Momentum Montessori is a multilingual school exposing kids (1.5 - 6 yrs) to multiple languages, sports & music like no other program.
Momentum Montessori 13000 Preschool Kindergarten Day Coed
Joan of Arc Academy / Academie Jeanne d'Arc
Iris St/Woodroffe Ave
JK to 8 Girls
In our all-girls environment, academic achievement in both official languages is the norm. A Joan of Arc Academy bilingual education prepares the women leaders for the challenges of tomorrow. Come and see the difference.
Joan of Arc Academy / Academie Jeanne d'Arc 15750 Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools Day Girls
Toronto High School
Yonge Street/Weldrick Road East
An inspected and accredited private secondary school offering high school credit courses in small classes or online, leading to high school diploma
Day/Boarding/Homestay
Toronto High School 19000 HighSchools Day Boarding Homestay Coed
Lycée Louis Pasteur
Garrison Blvd SW/33 Ave SW
Lycée Louis Pasteur is the only school in Calgary to teach the French Ministry of Education and Alberta Education curricula. Three years old to Grade 12. All linguistic backgrounds welcome. Small class sizes.
Homestay/Day
Lycée Louis Pasteur 13600 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Homestay Day Coed
German International School Toronto
German International School in Toronto offers programs from PK to grade 8. It provides a German curriculum enriched with Canadian content.
German International School Toronto 9050 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools Day Coed
West Island College
Blackfoot Trail S.E/Glenmore Trail
West Island College offers post-secondary preparatory programs from grades 7 to 12 in Calgary. It's class size varies from 15 to 25 students. French Immersion is offered alongside the English program
West Island College 18026 MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
K to 11 Coed
St. George's School of Montreal is a bilingual private school where students acquire a life-long love of learning as we challenge each student to excel and become confident problem solvers and engaged citizens.
St. George's School of Montreal 18568 Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
Sunrise Montessori School
Denison/Warden
Sunrise Montessori School in Markham offers both English and French Immersion programs from Infant (0 months) to Grade 8.
Sunrise Montessori School 10500 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools Day Coed
Montessori House of Children
Charlotte St/Chatham St
Located in Brantford, Ontario, Montessori House of Children (MHC) provides excellent programs for grades Nursery to 3 and helps young children reach their learning potential with both independent and self-directed learning. MHC also offers support for students with learning differences.
Montessori House of Children 8200 Preschool Kindergarten Day Coed
Calgary French & International School
Calgary French & International School graduates will be active global citizens with a foundation for life-long success, and our school will be the leader in French immersion and international education.
Calgary French & International School 7900 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
Oxford Learning Academy (Private School)
Oxford Learning Academy – where your child will experience a homeschooling approach with the benefits of socialization in a small classroom environment. This Milton private school runs from PK to grade 8.
Oxford Learning Academy (Private School) 12000 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools Day Coed
Lycée Claudel
Place Lycée Pl./Ruelle Hinks Lane
Accredited by French Ministry of Education and certified by AEFE, this school provides outstanding education and revolves around 3 major themes: Excellence, Educational innovation and Cultural / linguistic openness.
Lycée Claudel 12376 Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
Emmanuel Christian School
Dollard des Ormeaux, Quebec
Boul Saint-Jean/Jolicoeur
Emmanuel Christian School offers a bilingual program in both Elementary and High School. Our caring, Christ-centered environment enables students to thrive and reach their full potential through a variety of activities.
Emmanuel Christian School 7780 Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
Kuper Academy
Rue Edmond/Ch Ste-Marie
Kuper Academy offers programs from pre-school to grade eleven in Kirkland. Its average class size is 22 students.
Kuper Academy 5121 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Coed
Guiding Light Academy
JK to 8 Coed
Guiding Light Academy is a Catholic private elementary school in Streetsville, Mississauga. We offer an enriched curriculum for JK, SK and Grades 1 to 8. We are located just minutes away from the Streetsville Go Station.
Guiding Light Academy 9500 Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools Day Coed
Hatch House Montessori School
Brock Street South/Dundas Streer West
The Hatch House Montessori School is a very child centered school where each student is respected for his/her uniqueness and is taught accordingly. Ask about our unique, fully bilingual elementary program.
Hatch House Montessori School 9950 Preschool Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools Day Coed
Miss Edgar's & Miss Cramp's School
Mount Pleasant Avenue/Cedar Avenue
K to 11 Girls
Miss Edgar's & Miss Cramp's School is a Tier 1 school for girls in Kindergarten through Grade 11, located in Westmount, Quebec. For every girl who has a mind of her own, we have a school to nurture it.
Miss Edgar's & Miss Cramp's School 18763 Kindergarten Elementary MiddleSchools HighSchools Day Girls
Fred Genesee, a professor within the psychology department at McGill, has made a career of studying language acquisition and bilingualism. He writes that “historical documents indicate that individuals and whole communities around the world have been compelled to learn other languages for centuries and they have done so for a variety of reasons—language contact, colonization, trade, education through a colonial language, and intermarriage.”
The Rosetta Stone offers a hint of that. Created more than 2000 years ago, it presents a decree outlining the intentions of the new ruler, Ptolemy, in the languages of the people over which ruled: ancient Egyptian, demotic, and Greek. It’s an example of something that many people live with today. The sign outside the mayor’s office of Novi Sad, Siberia (shown at right) is its own kind of Rosetta Stone, presenting the same information in the four official languages of the city: Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak and Pannonian Rusyn. Certainly, many countries reflect that level of linguistic diversity, if not more. Switzerland has four official languages. South Africa has 11, including Xhosa. It’s a tonal language, and it's a job just to say its name, as the “x” is a click. While English is one of South Africa’s official languages, considerably more people speak Xhosa as their mother tongue.
How many languages do we need?
Still, there is a common belief that bilingualism isn’t as important as it once was, and that the benefits of bilingualism are increasingly limited. English feels like a global language, and in any case, technology, many believe, can otherwise help smooth any communication gaps. Max Ventilla, the founder of AltSchool and a rising star in the world of 21st century literacies, commented recently that “if the reason you are having your child learn a foreign language is so that they can communicate with someone in a different language twenty years from now—well, the relative value of that is changed, surely, by the fact that everyone is going to be walking around with live-translation apps.”[1]
However, there are indications that those kinds of assumptions may not be entirely true. Based on his research, Fred Genesee believes that the internet, increased international travel and migration, and the growth of global markets creates more incentives for students to learn languages, not less.
“The Internet makes global communication available and easy, whether it be for personal, professional, commercial, or other reasons. On the one hand, this has created a particular need for proficiency in English as a lingua franca on the internet. On the other hand, as with economic globalization, global communication via the internet has also created the possibility of much greater communication in regional languages. Indeed, domination of the internet by English is giving way to a much stronger presence of regional and local languages as e-commerce takes hold and begins to commit resources to communicating with local and regional markets. In fact, there are presently more internet sites in languages other than English.”[2]
Content-based language instruction
The term “immersion” is the one we typically use when we talk about intensive language instruction. As it suggests, students are immersed within a language, such as French, German, or Mandarin, and they learn the language through the need to use it on a day-to-day basis.
While that’s true—that’s exactly what language immersion is intended to provide—a more accurate term is content-based language instruction. Just as we think of immersion, says Genesee, “content-based language instruction holds that people do not learn language and then use it, rather, they learn language by using it.”[3]
"Content" in this instance doesn’t refer only to whatever thoughts and ideas a student may be expressing, but to curriculum content specifically. Students don’t learn French in isolation, rather they learn science with French as the language of instruction. That’s how the French immersion programs across Canada are structured. Students spend a portion of their day in a French setting, and a portion in an English setting, with the core curriculum divided between them. Science, for example, will be taught in French throughout a student’s high school career, with literature and art, say, taught in English.
The result, in language schools, is not simply providing a need for students to use a language, but also to use it constructively. In a content-based setting, writes Genessee, “cognitive and social development proceed naturally along with language development [and] language is a tool children use to understand the world around them and to become full-fledged members of their social-cultural communities.”
The benefits of a bilingual education
The main goal of a bilingual language schools is, of course, proficiency in two languages. That said, the degree of proficiency isn’t necessarily what some might believe it to be, nor is it ever the only goal.
TFS is a pioneer of language immersion in Canada. The school was founded in 1964, pre-dating the national multicultural movement of the 60s and 70s. As such it had, and retains to this day, a distinct flavour. Students are immersed in the French language, and all graduate fluent in both English and French. Likewise, cultural literacy is very much foregrounded, most obviously in the use of the French National Curriculum, first devised at the time of the French Revolution. Citizenship, unsurprisingly, is a core element, with language seen as a primary element in participation within a cultural community. In keeping, a goal of the program is to provide students not only with a facility with language, but also an awareness of their active participation in the wider world.
A criticism of language immersion schools is often that students, on graduating, may not speak the second language as naturally as a native speaker would. Certainly, it’s true that few, by and large, reach that level of comfort and agility within the second language. The reality is that in many schools no one actually believes they will. To gain that level of ability—a fluid, natural use of grammar, idiom, and creativity—isn’t possible outside of a consistent linguistic culture. The only way to speak like a Parisian is to live in Paris; the only way to achieve true fluency in Japanese is to live and communicate, every day, in Japanese within a Japanese cultural context.
That said, the goals that programs do set for their students are achieved regularly, including opportunities to:
Gain bilingual competence: To furnish students win an ability to use a first and second language effectively and appropriately for authentic personal, educational, social, and/or work-related purposes.
Develop expression: Develop the ability to think creatively and flexibly, and more properly express their thoughts to a variety of people and in a variety of settings.
Enhance/support cognitive development: It has been found that people who can speak two or more languages are less easily distracted and have more mental capacity for storing information than their unilingual counterparts. Bilingualism also helps offset declines in mental performance that comes with age, and bilingual people tend to show a higher performance in examinations and tests.
Increase employability: Bilingual workers experience higher rates of employment, can enter the job market more easily, and can switch jobs more easily than their unilingual counterparts. More generally, the global nature of today's business world requires employees who can communicate between cultures and overcome language barriers.
In a paper delivered to the fourth International Symposium on Bilingualism, Mary Maguire quoted from an interview she conducted with a Chinese immigrant parent identified as Mrs. Li: “Language is like a door which enables you to learn the world. When you learn one language you get to know one part of the world. When you learn other languages, you will get an opportunity to know other parts of the world.” [4]
Maguire is professor emerita in McGill’s Department of Integrated Studies in Education. She used that quote to underscore the relationship between language and cultural literacy. Learning a language can provide students with a more intensive, and ultimately more meaningful, engagement with other cultural traditions. Likewise, learning a heritage language—one that is spoken by parents or grandparents—can provide a more authentic connection to ancestry and increased access to literature from that culture.
That said, through her research Maguire has found that learning languages isn’t just about information or understanding, but can have an impact on identity and a sense of cultural space. Maguire writes that “places are both physical territories with clearly defined borders and culturally constructed spaces through intricate social networks of social relationships.” Language, she suggests, can contribute to a sense belonging and identity within a cultural space, something that she feels is confirmed within the experience of the multilingual population of Montreal.
What Maguire goes on to suggest, however, is that within immigrant communities, language can create new identities that derive from an understanding of place that isn’t limited to one cultural community, but extend to the community of people who share a multiple cultural heritage. The term of art is “third space,” coined by Edward Soja. While he wrote primarily about geographical spaces, Maguire applied the concept to language acquisition and a sense of belonging within unique cultural spaces: “a new space between cultural collectives and individuals and historical periods.” She writes that “the expression of the self and the construction of the identity are both enabled and constrained by the appropriation of the linguistic and rhetorical conventions.” For example, children living in Montreal, Quebec, who are conversant in English, French, and Armenian, will inhabit a larger and likely richer cultural space than, say, a resident of Montreal who is conversant in only one of those languages.
On a larger scale, there is a greater cultural diversity within many languages than there is in English. Parisian French is distinct from Quebecois, for example, in more fundamental ways that English spoken in New York is distinct from that spoken in London. Likewise, French dialects spoken in Polynesia or Africa are more distinct still. Learning French, then, can provide a window onto a range of cultural spaces, and a greater breadth of cultural and historical understanding. It's something that critics of language programs, as Max Ventilla, often fail to recognize: languages are expressions of culture and, for some, can afford a sense of belonging and identity. Likewise, learning languages can enhance an understanding of local, national, and global historic and cultural diversity.
Types of immersion
Developmental bilingual education refers to immersion programs intended for students who share a first language and are all gaining proficiency in the same second language. French immersion in Ontario, for example, is intended for English speakers learning French as a second language.
Two-way immersion is less common in Canada, while more common on other parts of the world. These programs admit students for whom either instructional language is their first language. For example, schools that offer French and English and that admit enrollment of both Anglophone and Francophone students.
The German International School Toronto (GIST) is an example of two-way immersion, or dual immersion, with some students for whom German is their first language, and others for whom English is their first language. Students need to use both languages not just to interact with the coursework, but also to make themselves understood to their peers.
It’s also an example of how the value of language learning can go well beyond communication. Many immersion schools, such as GIST and the Alexander von Humboldt German International School in Montreal, use the immersion experience to develop social competencies, including empathy, personal engagement, and cooperation.
Those schools, and those like them, have developed in very different ways, and for very different purposes than the French immersion model that Canadians are most familiar with. “These schools were originally intended to be for expats, parents on foreign assignment,” says Manfred von Volte, vice principal of GIST. The school has taught English since it began in 2000, though language instruction wasn’t the only organizing principle. Equally important, if not more so, was instruction that reflected the core program of study used in schools in Germany. It is the system that some students were coming from, and also the one that some, presumably, would enter should their parents repatriate prior to the end of their elementary or secondary school careers.
While the international German schools—there is a network of 140 of them dotted around the globe—soon attracted the attention of the local community, recognizing the rich and unique educational opportunity the schools offered. The school in Egypt, and others in South America, today have student populations in excess of 1000 students.
Says von Volte, “When you have this situation—where you have two languages, children from around the world, students that are the new students—they are all facing some hurdle of one sort or another.” They may be from different places, speak different languages, have different abilities or strengths, though they share the experience difference, and live each day with the challenges of making themselves understood across languages and cultures. Increasingly those social benefits attract families and students to language schools, in addition to the benefits of bilingualism.
Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR)
If there is a manifesto of immersion, the CEFR is undoubtedly it. Francis Goullier, one of the chief architects of the CEFR, describes it as an “action-oriented approach to modern languages” and that “the usefulness of the CEFR is that it reminds us that competences vary in nature and all contribute to pupil success. … it lays stress on the combination between task execution and one or more language activities; it emphasizes the importance of the authenticity of situations in relation to pupils’ communication needs.”
The framework was created by the Council of Europe and launched in 2001 in order to provide A) concrete guidelines around optimal language instruction, and B) an objective tool for employers to use when evaluating language qualifications. To that end, CEFR describes five key linguistic competencies:
existential competence, an ability to communicate thoughts and ideas;
linguistic competence, an ability to use grammar correctly;
sociolinguistic competence, an ability to speak naturally and appropriately, using politeness conventions and idioms;
pragmatic competence, an ability to organize, structure, and sequence thoughts and arguments;
general knowledge, and the vocabulary with which to express it.
The framework also recognizes that true fluency requires an ability to adjust usage appropriately between four main settings—educational, occupational, public, and personal—and to be able to engage with others appropriately.
The most compelling piece of the framework, however, is how it expresses the goals of language instruction, in turn also providing an objective means of assessing linguistic competence. Grammar is important, of course, but the proof of the pudding is in the abilities that the learner gains. The levels of competence that CEFR outlines are keyed, famously, to “can do” statements, shown in the right-hand column in Table 1 below.
Table 1: CEFR Levelling
The SIOP instructional model
The Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) was developed in the US for the purposes of English language instruction, specifically for students entering English-language schools and for whom English is a second language. It was developed as a framework for delivering language instruction through the presentation of the core academic curriculum. While the protocol wasn’t developed with language immersion programs specifically in mind (it was developed for non-English speakers entering English-only schools) some schools have adopted the model. For the most part, SIOP is a formalized presentation of the concepts that inform content-based language instruction akin, at least in intention, to the CEFR.
Is younger better?
There is an abundance of anecdotal evidence—if not clinical evidence—to support the idea that children learn second languages more quickly than adults or even older students. And, as a generalization, they do. Sharon Lapkin is professor emeritus at OISE in Toronto. She says, “It’s easier. It’s play based. They’re doing things that young children do and [language] is acquired quite easily, painlessly.”
Younger children are better able to replicate intonation, the sounds of language, and therefore are less likely to speak with an accent. The relation between age and accent is fairly predictable: age 13. “I have a friend that came here when she was about 12 and her brother was 13,” says Lapkin. “He has an accent and she doesn’t.” It’s sometimes referred to as the Kissinger Effect, given that Henry Kissinger has a very pronounced accent while his younger brother doesn’t. There, too, 13 appears to be the deciding age. Of course, reality doesn’t always conform, though at least in terms of the sounds within language, and the ability to replicate them, age can at times be a significant factor.
Still, language acquisition is complex, and not simply a function of age or brain development. Personality and disposition are factors as well. When his brother Walter was asked about the different accents, he quipped “unlike Henry, I listen to other people.” And, in fact, there may be a bit of truth in that. Lapkin notes that desire, and a drive to learn, can be equally important as exposure and opportunity. “The higher the staring grade, the more the student is opting in or out, rather than the parents. So, if it’s a grade seven student, for example, there’s probably going to be some self-selection into the program. … But there are all kinds of other things going on [as well]. The older student may have had an exchange opportunity, contact with real experiences in the other languages. There may have been an online contact, maybe an online pen pal or that kind of thing,” that can create a unique impetus to excel.
What remains true throughout is that there is a positive correlation between exposure to a second language and proficiency, and students of any age can gain proficiency. It’s also clear that the most successful programs provide continuous instruction in the second language; teach language through core curricula, not in isolation from it; include a social imperative to use the second language.
The ideal immersion program
When considering immersion, these are the things you should be looking for:
extended opportunities to use the second language
authentic opportunities to express genuine thoughts and ideas
instruction that is based in an imperative to use the second language to interact with peers and to acquire knowledge
use of communicative tasks that promote task-specific vocabulary and usage
a setting that reflects the learner’s personal goals, be they linguistic, cultural, or social
The ideal immersion student
“There is no evidence that immersion is just for the smart kids,” says Lapkin. “The more educated parent is more aware of options, they go to parent meetings, and are more likely to opt in.” However, notes Lapkin, that’s changing. “Immersion is more firmly established, and parents are more aware of it as an option. There is a greater awareness that bilingual education has not been shown to confuse struggling learners, or to limit academic achievement.”
Likewise, the benefits of a bilingual education have been demonstrated for students with a wide range of learner characteristics, including those who may be at risk for poor academic performance. “We know that immigrants thrive in immersion programs,” says Lapkin. “There is even research to the effect that children with a learning disability will do as well as they would do” in a unilingual academic setting.
Part of the concern around academic performance arises from findings showing that immersion students score lower than their English-only peers during the primary grades. Specifically, they score lower on tests of reading and writing in English. “These lags disappear within one year of receiving English language arts instruction,” writes Genesee. “The rapid catch-up in reading and writing in English that early total [immersion] students experience is often attributed to the transfer of reading and writing skills in French to English and the fact that they have extensive exposure to English outside school.”
—Glen Herbert
[1] Rebecca Mead, "Learn Different: Silicon Valley disrupts edcuation," New Yorker, March 7, 2016.
[2] Fred Genesee, "What do we know about bilingual education for majority language students?" in T.K. Bhatia and W. Ritchie (eds) (2004) Handbook of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 547-576.
[3] Fred Genesee and Kathryn Lindholm-Leary. “Two case studies of content-based language education,” Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education 1:1 (2013), 3–33. doi 10.1075/jicb.1.1.02gen issn 2212–8433 / e-issn 2212–8441 © John Benjamins Publishing Company
[4] Maguire, Mary H. (McGill University). "Identity and Agency in Primary Trilingual Children’s Multiple Cultural Worlds: Third Space and Heritage Languages" (Archive). In: Cohen, James, Kara T. McAlister, Kellie Rolstad, and Jeff MacSwan (editors). ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism. Conference held from April 30 to May 3, 2003. y
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Posts Tagged ‘Crusoe’
Crusoe & Friday and The Hunt
This week on Crusoe, Crusoe was hunted by a tribe because the chief thought that Crusoe was enslaving Friday. Crusoe was captured but regardless what he said and what Friday said, the chief didn’t believe them. The Chief ordered them to fight each other until one of them died or they would be killed. Having no choice, Crusoe and Friday pretended to fight and when they had a chance, they took the chief hostage and ran away. The battle between them and the tribe members was inevitable.
Oh one more thing, Friday had a fling in this episode with one of the girl warrior from the tribe. Heh, it’s gonna be a nice little sub-plot.
Tags: Crusoe, crusoe friday tribe, Daniel Defoe, drama, nbc, robinson crusoe, television, tv shows
No Crusoe Tonight
Posted by: Peter on: December 27, 2008
In: Crusoe | Olympic 2008 | TV | TV Shows
Few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the cancelled tv shows where I listed the scheduled air date for shows that are on their season finale. Crusoe only has 1 season with 13 episodes. From what I knew, there was supposed to be a Crusoe tonight and the last 3 episodes will air on 2009. However, I was surprised when I tuned in to NBC and found Beijing Olympics 2008 opening ceremony instead. So I checked with NBC.com, and it appeared that they’ve changed their schedule quite a bit. So here’s the updated schedule for the last 4 episodes of Crusoe:
‘Smoke and Mirrors’ airs Saturday, 1/10 at 8pm ET
‘The Hunting Party’ airs Saturday, 1/17 at 8pm ET
‘The Traveler’ airs Saturday, 1/24 at 8pm ET
‘The Return’ airs Saturday, 1/31 at 8pm ET
Well, I guess it never hurts to re-watch the opening ceremony again. It was spectacular.
Tags: Crusoe, crusoe friday, nbc, Olympic 2008, opening ceremony, robinson crusoe, television, tv schedule
Crusoe & Friday and The Games
On this episode, Crusoe and Friday’s friendship was again put on a test. Crusoe was a little smug believing that he was smarter than Friday, who was uneducated. He pointed out that he had to study algebra. Friday had a “manhood” test too on his tribe, and Crusoe wanted to know what it was because he thought whatever Friday could do at 12 years old, he could do it too.
There were a series of tests on Friday’s tribe: walking on hot coals, jousting, bungeejumping, and duelling with crocodile. Friday failed the last test because he was afraid; he watched the boy before him got attacked and injured by crocodile so he chickened out. He believed that he’d made his father dissapointed in him, not to mention the whole tribe. He was a failed warrior.
Crusoe on the other hand, wanted to prove that he was (slightly) better than Friday by doing all the challenges, except the last one because Friday refused to tell him what it was. He insisted in asking Friday what it was causing Friday to be a little touchy. Friday was angry because Crusoe took the test as a game, and it was very important and serious matter for Friday. When Crusoe found out that Friday failed the test, he encouraged Friday to re-do the test and pass it. Friday told him to forget it.
However, Crusoe fell into his own trap and landed on a tree branch hanging a few feet above a lake with a “giant killer crocodile” waiting to eat him. Because he was injured, Crusoe couldn’t hang on to the branch any longer, and he fell down. Friday had to let go of his fear and duelled the crocodile to save Crusoe. And of course, he passed this time. Here’s a clip from last night’s episode:
Again, if you missed this episode (like me), you can watch it on hulu.com/crusoe or nbc.om/crusoe. Four more episodes until Crusoe returns to England along with Friday. Stay tuned 🙂
Tags: Crusoe, crusoe friday, Daniel Defoe, drama, nbc, robinson crusoe, televisions, tv shows, watch crusoe
Crusoe Moved to Saturday
Posted by: Peter on: December 5, 2008
Just a friendly reminder that Crusoe will not air tonight (Friday) because it has been moved permanently to Saturday at 8 pm EST. So tune in tomorrow night to NBC to watch the latest episode of Crusoe 🙂
Tags: Crusoe, crusoe friday, Daniel Defoe, drama, nbc, robinson crusoe, television, tv series, tv shows
In: Chase | Game Shows | Games | TV | TV Shows
Just a friendly reminder that there’s no new episode of Crusoe tonight. It will air next week on Saturday at 8 pm EST. So, with no Crusoe, I’m going to write about another show: Chase.
There’s a new reality show in Sci-fi Channel called Cha$e. It’s inspired from video game, but the difference is, it’s a real life game, human players are situated on a real life game board, and they have to survive until the end of the game to win money. Each week, 10 players compete for up to $50,000. The game is simple, the contestants, called Runners, pick up money for each second they “stay alive” while figuring out how the secret exit of the game. “Stay Alive,” you ask? Yes, the game wouldn’t be fun if there’s no challanges. Other than having to complete some tasks, the Runners are not alone in the game field, they are surrounded and stalked by 8 relentless Hunters thoughout the life sized “game boards.” So, the runners must stay uncaught in the game and also must also be conscious of their time. As the clock counts down, the tasks get harder and the Hunters grow more insistent. The last person stays alive will win the cash.
I think this show is really fun, because for me it looks like a reality show of Bourne Identiy. Each Hunters has distinct skills, like: Agility, Speed Runner, and Endurance. Click here to see the Hunters’ profie. So highly skilled Hunters vs. 10 Runners, it doesn’t sound balanced with the Hunters’ ability and gadgets. But no worries, the Runners are given some gadgets to stay incognito:
Runner Pack – which has other functions other than storing stuff
Deflector – to deflect 1 hunter to about face 180 degrees from runner
Freeze Ray – to freeze 1 hunter for 1 minute
Sonic Stunner – to freeze mutiple hunters for 2 minutes
Invisibility Glasses – to become “invisible” to hunters for 2 minutes
All the utility gadgets can only be used once by the runners, so they have to carefully plan their moves. Also, not every one of them will be able to have access to those gadgets. In the end, all is fair in competition and money. Some will be savvy and others will be sacrificed. The action-packed show takes place throughout various locations in Los Angeles like San Pedro Harbor, Universal Theme Park and the Descanso Gardens.
This new show airs on Scifi Channel every Tuesday at 10pm EST. The first few episodes are already availabe online. Visit the show’s official website for more information and videos: http://www.scifi.com/chase/
Tags: action show, cha$e, chase, Crusoe, game, hunters, real game, reality show, runners, scifi channel, televison, TV Show, video game
Crusoe & Friday and The Cannibal Tribe
This week on Crusoe, the mutineers are taking a break (from the screen). Instead, Crusoe and Friday met Captain Santana, the Spanish Guard captain (from episode 1), the one who betrayed Friday and Crusoe. He hunted them down to get gold and in the end, he broke the promise of taking them out of the island.
Crusoe and Friday found Friday’s old tribe and found out that they had a new victim for sacrificial ceremony. Despite having the chance to get away from the island using the tribe’s boat, they decided to help the poor victim first. And so they did, but they were surprised that it was Captain Santana. Friday loathed him, and didn’t believe the story that he had a friend among the tribe that was going to be sacrificed too. Of course, Friday didn’t believe him, but Crusoe did. It turned out that Santana’s friend was Friday’s father.
So they worked together to save him. But because Santana was injured during the rescue mission, Crusoe and Friday had to set the diversion, and only Santana and Friday’s father got out on the boat. Friday and Crusoe were stuck on the island again, but they were hopeful now because they knew that this time Captain Santana would come back and get them. Friday also got his revenge on the tribe leader, who once wanted to kill him and almost killed his father.
Here’s a clip from this week’s episode:
Again, if you’d like to watch the full episodes of Crusoe, just visit nbc.com/Crusoe or Hulu.com/Crusoe
Tags: cannibal tribe, Crusoe, crusoe friday, Daniel Defoe, drama, nbc, robinson crusoe, television, TV, tv shows, watch crusoe
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Palmetto Corp Team – A Leading South Carolina Construction Company
The Palmetto Corp staff and crews are part of the best South Carolina construction company. Many of our employees have been with us for over 10 years, and those that are newer hires come to us with years of experience in the field. With over 465 employees, we are one of the largest private employers in Horry County. Our management staff is listed below.
Shawn Godwin
President & Owner
Shawn Godwin joined Palmetto Corp in 1994 after graduating from the University of South Carolina with a degree in Owner-Managed Management. He learned the ins and outs of the company and the construction industry from his father Marshall and grandfather Mack. Under Shawn’s leadership, Palmetto Corp has evolved from a small paving company to a diversified complete site development company.
Craig Berkey
Craig Berkey joined Palmetto Corp in 2007 and became CFO in 2011. Prior to joining the company, Craig oversaw the Operational and P&L departments for AVX Corporation for 25 years. He holds a degree in Ceramic Science and Engineering from Penn State University. Craig manages all financial aspects of the Palmetto Corp and has worked with Mr. Godwin to help diversify and expand the company.
Rusty Faulk
Sales/Project Manager
Rusty Faulk has over 45 years of experience in the construction business. Rusty has been with Palmetto Corp since its founding in 1987. Prior to that, he worked for Palmetto Paving and Godwin Construction Company. During his career, Rusty has worked his way from truck driver to the Coastal Area Manager. His primary role is to oversee all operations in the Coastal Area and to ensure that every job, regardless of size, is completed efficiently and to each customer’s satisfaction.
Kenneth A. (Ken) Atkinson, Jr.
VP of Estimating
Ken Atkinson has an Associates Degree in Civil Engineering from Sumter Technical College and has over 40 years of experience in the construction industry. After his 14-year tenure at SCDOT, Ken advanced from Area Manager to Division Vice President of APAC (Ashland) and retired from the company after 23 years. As the Vice President of Estimating and Project Management at Palmetto Corp, he is responsible for securing and managing the construction of all asphalt paving and grading projects. Ken’s major project experience includes, but is not limited to, the construction of the Conway Bypass (SC 22) and Phases I and II of the Carolina Bays Parkway in Horry County.
Lindsay Wallace
Safety Director and Production Analyst
Lindsay Wallace is the Safety Director and Production Analyst for Palmetto Corp. Her primary responsibility at Palmetto Corp is to ensure that safety protocol is being followed by every member of the Palmetto Corp team. Lindsay also serves as the liaison between the company’s estimating department and project managers to ensure that every job is completed correctly, on time, and on budget. Prior to joining Palmetto Corp, Lindsay was a transportation planner for the Waccamaw Regional Council of Governments. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design and a master’s degree in Community Planning, both from Auburn University.
Bobby Friar
Pee Dee Area Manager
As the Pee Dee Area Manager, Bobby Friar oversees all of Palmetto Corp’s projects in the Pee Dee Region of South Carolina. Bobby has nearly 30 years of experience managing major complete site development projects. His past professional experience includes jobs with Site Concepts, Inc., Weaver Company, Site Group, Inc., and G & P, Inc. Some of Bobby’s complete site development project experience includes Cameron Village, Country Lakes and Windsor Forest developments, Georgetown and Conway Wal-Marts, and the McLeod Medical Center in Florence.
Eric Faulk
VP of Plant and Labs
Eric Faulk holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Management from the College of Charleston and has over 20 years of experience in the construction industry. He worked for Palmetto Corp part time in high school and college and joined the team full time after graduating from college. Eric oversees the company’s three Plants and Research and Design Laboratories statewide that use state of the art technology to produce our asphalt.
Shane Gibbs
VP of Concrete
Shane Gibbs joined Palmetto Corp in 2005, and oversees the company’s concrete division. Prior to joining Palmetto Corp, Shane worked for Benton Concrete and APAC Ready Mix. During his employment at Palmetto Corp, has completed the ACI Concrete Flatwork Finisher/Technician, ACI Testing Level 1, SCDOT Level 1 and Level 2 Field Inspector Certifications, and NRMCA Pervious Concrete Technician courses.
Shawn Lee
Coastal Area Manager
Shawn Lee holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Finance and has been working for Palmetto Corp for 20 years. Shawn manages the company’s larger paving and maintenance jobs from the estimating process to project completion.
Matt Cherry
VP Trucking Division
Matt Cherry has been with Palmetto Corp for six years. A Conway native, Matt started at Palmetto Corp in the Traffic Control Division. He was named Traffic Control Supervisor in October 2010, and in July 2011 he accepted his current position as VP of Trucking. Matt helps the daily operations of the company run smoothly by assigning each truck a job location and making sure every crew has the right amount of material on site when they need it.
Trev Howard
Midlands Area Grading Manager
Trev Howard has worked for Palmetto Corp for ten years. He started with us as a superintendent over a grading grew and is now Grading Manager for the Midlands Region. Trev has over 30 years of experience in construction.
General Services Manager
Chad Smith joined Palmetto Corp in 2014, bringing with him over 21 years of experience in the industry. Prior to joining our team, Chad worked for Boggs construction. Chad is the General Services Manager in charge of all milling, concrete, reclamation and traffic control operations at Palmetto Corp.
Justin Farnum
Midlands Area Manager
Justin Farnum joined the Palmetto Corp team in 2013 and is a project manager for SCDOT jobs in the Florence and Sumter areas. He has 12 years of experience in the industry, including managing complete site development jobs for various counties and the SCDOT.
Mark Scott
Project Manager – Reclamation and Erosion Divisions
Mark Scott joined Palmetto Corp in 2015 as project manager for our reclamation division. A graduate of Horry-Georgetown Technical College, Mark spent the majority of his career (28 years) working for Ashmore Brothers in Greenville, SC. Mark has managed multiple asphalt emulsion and cement reclamation projects for the private and public sectors.
Randy Calhoun
Coastal Area Grading Manager
Randy Calhoun, aka “Rooster”, has been with Palmetto Corp his entire professional career of 18 years. He started as a grading supervisor and is now the Grading Area Manager for the Coastal Area. He holds certification in traffic control, OSHA training, septic, and erosion control.
Elaine Brevko
Office Manager and Controller
Elaine Brevko has been with Palmetto Corp for eight years. Prior to joining Palmetto Corp, Elaine worked as a Controller for Shea Homes in Charlotte, North Carolina. Elaine brings 25 years of accounting and human resources experience to the Palmetto Corp team. Her favorite motto is, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.”
Kim Weaver
Human Resource Manager and EEO Officer
Kim Weaver joined Palmetto Corp in 2015 as the Human Resource Manager and EEO Officer. She is responsible for new hire orientation, employee benefits, writing and enforcing company policies, implementing human resources programs and solving performance problems.She holds a Master’s of Business Administration from West Virginia University. Kim came to Palmetto Corp with over 12 years of experience in the architectural/engineering field.
Wade Kennard
Safety and Environmental Coordinator
Wade Kennard joined Palmetto Corp in January 2012 and brings 17 years of experience to the team. Wade is responsible for safety and environmental training and enforcement. He has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from The Ohio State University, and a Master Certificate of Project Management from Villanova and an Estimating Commercial Buildings Certificate from the Construction Estimating Institute. Prior to joining Palmetto Corp, he worked for Main Street Building Company, Centex Homes, and Northern Construction, Inc.
Alen Leggett
Pee Dee Paving Project Manager
Alen came on with Palmetto Corp in 2017 as a Project Manager overseeing DOT projects. Alen holds over 21 years of experience in the paving industry ranging from Operator, Foreman, to Project Manager. He worked with APAC and Barnhill Contracting in North Carolina before joining the Palmetto Corp team.
Mike Grammas
Mike Grammas is Palmetto Corp’s IT/IS Administrator. He is responsible for supporting all of the company’s computer/telecommunication hardware and software. Mike holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Systems, and has 30 years’ experience in that field. Prior to moving to SC, he spent 18 years at Loyola University Health System, in Maywood, IL.
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Suhoor with Burning Giraffe
Mehwish Hayat Louds Using Truck Art for the Rights of the Girl Child
5 Top Trends that keep popping on our fashion-gram
Coke Studio Announces the Launch of Season 12!
Condensing the best Dressed at PLBW’19
Mahira Khan Pioneering at the Paris Fashion Week 2019 and Making us Proud!
Tajwar Chaudhry
Sumrina Khan and Hassan Agha came together to host a splendid evening for us this past week. All the girls were dressed in gorgeous Cross Stitch outfits and fed till our tummies were full. The food, the ambiance and the wonderful company made this Sehri one to remember!
Tajwar Chaudhry, Sumrina Khan, Salina Khan and Daneese Ali
Team Burning Giraffe – Hassan Agha, Sahar Noon and Agha Najeeb
Publicist Shireen Rehman and Creative head, Cross Stitch – Mishal Asad
Sehri in full swing
Steak and Egg Croissant with a Potato cutlet and sausages
Scrambled Eggs platter with an assortment of bread, butter, sausages and sauces
The Lotus French Toast served with Vanilla Ice Cream
The Thaal – an absolute favourite on our table. This included yummy walon walay parathay, Tawa Qeema, Achari aloo, Chanay Ki Daal and Mutton Karahi
Related Topics:burning giraffecross stitchdesieggsFashionFoodfrench toasthassan aghalotusmishal asadSahar NoonsehrisuhoorSumrina Khantawa qeemathaalthe burning giraffe
Your one-stop Sehri-Iftari guide featuring the hottest eateries in town
Sehri at Sashas
4 Western Clothing Brands You Probably did not Know about!
In Conversation with the Heartthrob; Usman Mukhtar.
Sabeeka Imam’s Wardrobe is Giving us Some Real Fashion Goals
Who is Ready to Spill some Magic at PLBW’19?
A confab with Amar Khan, as an actress
Natasha Jozi- Maneuvering Performance Art to Show the Darker Side of the Death Penalty
Rohama Riaz
Natasha Jozi- whenever the name pops up, only one word comes to our mind and that is art or to be more precise, performing art. She is a visual thinker, an artist and also a writer interested in the performative self, collective experience, and Eastern philosophy.
Talking about her vast experiences, she has performed and exhibited her work at International Festival of Video Art 2014 (Venice), MagnanMetz 2014 (NYC), Index Art Center 2014 (NJ), PPL 2013 (NYC), DCCA 2013 (Delaware), LAABF 2013 (NYC), La MaMa 2013 (NYC).
In 2017 Jozi founded “House”- an independent initiative that works towards generating discourse around performance art in Pakistan.
We recently came to know that Natasha is curating the show ‘We’ve Been Waiting For You’ hosted by Justice Project Pakistan (working to improve the justice system of Pakistan), happening on 10th of October (“The World Day against Death Penalty”) at Bari Studio and our intriguing self wanted to dig into more details and here is what she had to share about her showcase.
Tell us a little about your partnership with JPP and what do you think about Pakistan’s justice system?
It has been great working with Justice Project Pakistan as a partner and especially coming along with an understanding of what they do in terms of their work and what they represent as an organization. I am working with them under the perspective of bringing an art exhibition together. The partnership has been quite interesting in terms of what art does and what JPP does and how does that come together? I feel the complexities of the justice system are always very difficult for a common man to understand or relate to.
I feel JPP is trying to bridge that gap between the justice system and the complexity that it comes with and that is very similar to what I do under House Ltd. So, I expect that partnership with JPP shall be very interesting because we’ve talked about themes, about ideas and how performance art can be used as a vessel to represent themes that JPP works on.
You’ve worked both in Pakistan and abroad what difference do you feel in the sense of how art is valued here and abroad?
I would talk about this in terms of two perspectives. One is as an artist and the other as a viewer. As a performance artist, I’ve experienced that there was initially not much of an understanding of the medium in Pakistan.
And I also feel that in terms of the value of the medium, since a lot of the work that is being produced in Pakistan has an element of becoming a product that you can actually monetize on or you can buy or sell. But performance art is something that cannot take the shape of a product because it’s an experience. It happens for a short period of time and then it’s over. So, it’s very ephemeral in that sense.
In the international art market, artists are delving with themes that cannot be put together in a form package that you can buy or sell. It’s very important to realize that the value of art is beyond buying or selling it, but also, to experience it.
As a viewer, I really enjoy some of the artists’ work in Pakistan but I also feel like there is a lot of potential in young artists, the work that they’re doing where they’re not allowing the market or the business to affect their process. I feel it is very important for an artist to liberate themselves from the fear of value is equal to money because we’re living in an age where innovative ideas are of great significance? I definitely feel that with the wake of the internet, a lot of artists are now traveling abroad and are coming back and just sort of exchange that is happening.
Also, in Pakistan, a lot of times we look at something from an exotic lens or we try to mimic or reproduce what’s being done abroad. I don’t really think that is of value. But at the same time, I definitely see that contemporary artists from my generation are trying to create a more balanced or a more contextualized relationship with what’s happening in Pakistan and what’s happening outside Pakistan.
What do you think about Justice Project Pakistan?
I was not familiar with JPP before I was contacted by JPP for this particular project. Once I got to know about their work, I met the team and I saw the projects that they have been doing in the past. I was sort of intrigued, and a little amazed to see a human rights organization that is so much invested in the people and what is happening in their lives.
I feel that JPP is trying to bring awareness and spark conversations that are around the justice system. I feel why such organizations are so much needed is that they try to create a more humanize and understandable way of looking at the sensitive issues that people are facing in Pakistan. It is great that they are trying to use disciplines that are beyond just law and trying to reach out to a wider audience. It’s a pleasure to work with them.
How has been your experience of curating performances for ‘We’ve been waiting for you’?
The curatorial experience for me is not just about curating an exhibition as an organizer. For me, it is sort of coming together and trying to create an experience that is long-lasting. I’ve been working with the artists under the initiative that I run called House Ltd. and I have cultivated a relationship with them. So, every time we come together, we go into a deep-rooted conversation, look at what we are doing and try to unpack not just the themes but, also how can this exhibition contribute to the larger discourse of performance art in Pakistan.
And so for this exhibition as well, the ideas that we were dealing with were very real. I spent a lot of time just having conversations with the artists and discussing the craft of performance art.
A lot of the work that we do for performance art is not rehearsed. Thus, it is very authentic as an artist and as a curator to go into that space and to get involved in.
With what kind of expectations should people come to this event?
The first thing that I would definitely like to say is that space and the venue that we’ve selected for this exhibition, Bari Studio, is amazing for performance art. The moment I stepped into Bari studio I fell in love with it.
The audience would definitely experience something that they have never seen before in terms of venue and how it’s used.
Also, we are having 10 performances in one venue. It’s going to be a really charged experience for everybody where all of the artists are dealing with themes around the death penalty and doing performances that are very authentic and very raw. The materials that the artists have used in the performances range from, real bones to bricks to sand. Going from one performance to another where all of these have been curated in relationship to one another, each performance will be experienced individually, but then all of them coming together is going to have an impact of its own.
What is art for you?
That is definitely a very loaded question. I would say for me art is about an experience, what you experience when you look at something. It is not just a visual experience, but a very sensory experience. That is why performance art is a medium that I’m addicted to.
It cannot be confined. I definitely have a lot of reservations about the way the market dictates the production of art. I don’t think that one should allow the market to dictate what the artist is going to make or what art should be because art is definitely about looking at life and looking at what is around you from an unfazed way.
Art can actually supersede or can reach a point of impacting a larger audience and can eventually become universal and transcend space and time and location.
The AKUH Launches Sports Medicine, Injury Clinic
Hasan Kazmi
Sportspersons’ mobility is a crucial aspect of their sporting journey. Hence, their injuries, severe or mild, require timely and specialized attention to keep their athletic dreams thriving.
The Aga Khan University Hospital celebrated the launch of its new Sports Medicine and Injury Clinic on Friday, in the presence of over 150 people. Pakistan’s celebrated sportspersons and prominent sports management personalities, including Samina Baig, Javed Miandad, Samilullah, Moin Khan, Hydro, and Jamil Chandio to name a few, gathered to commemorate the importance of focused care for sports injuries.
“I am so excited to celebrate the launch of Sports Medicine and Injury Clinic at The Aga Khan University Hospital. Sportspersons from diverse sporting fields have various types of injuries and they struggle getting complete treatment. I am happy to see the efforts by AKUH”, said Samina Baig during her keynote address. As the first Pakistani woman to climb Everest and the Seven Summits, she highlighted the honorable moment for her to raise the flag of Pakistan on these summits.
While speaking on the occasion, Dr. Pervaiz Hashmi, Orthopedic surgeon and Service Line Chief, Musculoskeletal and Sports Medicine, discussed the inception and the need of Sports Medicine. “We aim to develop sub-specialties in future that cater to all types of sports-related injuries”, said Dr. Hashmi while highlighting the pivotal role of the new clinic in rendering dedicated care to sports injuries.
A panel discussion was also organized to emphasize the high-quality treatment regimen for sports related injuries. The panel included, Samina Baig, Javed Miandad, Pakistan’s cricket legend and former batsman, Hassan Sardar, former field hockey player and team captain, Samiullah, former field hockey player known as Flying Horse, Hydro, fitness instructor and founder Hydro Fit Team Studio, and Jamil Chandio, martial arts instructor and founder K7 Fitness & Kickboxing Academy. Although having diverse sports and athletic journeys, the guest panel agreed upon the need of patient-centered care for each type of sports related injury.
Javed Miandad among many others were also present at the occasion
The efforts of the Aga Khan University Hospital to enhance its Sports Medicine services were applauded by key personalities from health and fitness and sports management arena. “I am so delighted to see that The Aga Khan University Hospital has continued to consistently deliver on its commitment of high-quality care, and took a step forward to establish Sports Medicine and Injury Clinic of international standards”, said Moin Khan, former wicket-keeper and batsman for Pakistan’s cricket team.
While ending the evening, Shagufta Hassan, Interim CEO, Health Services and COO, Outreach Services of the Aga Khan University Hospital, spoke about its commitment to the development of new services in response to public expectations. “Today’s launch is an example of our commitment to cater to the evolving needs of our community and younger generation and provide a comprehensive solution for injury management”, said Ms. Hassan.
Beydari: The Dreamer Awakes
Kaukab Jahan
Words are considered the most powerful medium of expression whether spoken or written. The bothe were witnessd in a recent event at Arts Council, Karachi, where a poetry collection ‘The Dreamer Awakes’, by Beo Zafar was launched along with its Urdu translation titled ‘Baydari’ by none other than renown fiction writer Asma Nabeel, the name behind dramas like Khuda Mera Bhi Hai, Khaani and Maan Jao Na.
The event was not limited to the introduction of book and poets, but the excerpts from both the English and Urdu section were read by the famous personalities of media and showbiz industry of Pakistan. Thus the evening was as glittery as it could be.
Beo Zafar and Asma Nabeel both dedicated this book to their beloved mothers. They extended their gratitude to the Almighty, their family and everyone who supported them and contributed towards their success.
Beo Zafar, the author of Beydari (The Dreamer Awakes) and a woman with a passion for poetry so utterly great said at the event, “I always desired one thing; to be able to express my poems in a language as beautiful as Urdu. My only regret, however was that I couldn’t write as well in Urdu as I did in English, leaving my long awaited dream unfulfilled. It was, at last, due to the remarkable translation skills of Asma Nabeel, the extremely talented screenplay that Beydari was born. Hence, my dream finally came true.”
The guests started to arrive in the evening at red carpet with their pictures done for various media present at the occasion. The event started off with the introduction of the book by the respected authors. Following the introduction, verses from the book were recited by Sidra Iqbal, Sanam Saeed, Yasra Rizvi, Hina Dilpazir, Arib Azhar and Toddshea. Many famous personalities from media industry and literature attended the launch such as Fahad Mustafa, Anwar Maqsood, Javed Jabber, Sana Shahnawaz, Imran Ashraf, Hajra Yamin, Noor Hassan, Amna Ilyas, Abdullah Farhatullah, Haseena Moien and many more. To conclude the event, verse from the book was beautifully composed and sung by Schumaila Hussain.
The event was sponsored by Arif Habib Group, Thyme restaurant, and Edenrobe while Parfaire Events and PR arranged the entire evening.
A quick & fun natter with the gorgeous Naimal Khawar
A New Chapter in Young Parents’ Lives
7th Sky Entertainment’s “Mera Rab Waris” To Air this March
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In Focus: Clinton Endorses McCain Again
By Michael Weiss 2008-03-07T12:00:38
Does anyone now doubt that Hillary Clinton is an artist of the clawing and desperate campaign tactic? One half expected her to issue a statement yesterday responding to the minor bombing at Times Square by asking if anyone knew of Michelle Obama's whereabouts lately. And if she does finally release her tax returns, would this event be accompanied by her piloting an F-16 onto a U.S. aircraft carrier to prove her "readiness" for the Oval Office?
It seems that Clinton's alarmist "red phone" ad did play well in Texas and Ohio. Her argument that Barack Obama's a babe in the woods when it comes to national security was not helped by the fact that Obama's own senior adviser Susan Rice declared both Democratic candidates "not ready to have that 3 a.m. phone call." (Obama's team, from Austan Goolbee to Samantha Power, is suffering from a nasty case of foot-in-mouth disease.)
Which only leaves this wondrous remark from Clinton herself, proving that if she loses the nomination, nothing she says in Obama's favor thenceforth will seem the least bit persuasive or plausible:
"I think that since we now know Sen. (John) McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party, national security will be front and center in this election. We all know that. And I think it's imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold," the New York senator told reporters crowded into an infant's bedroom-sized hotel conference room in Washington.
"I believe that I've done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you'll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy," she said.
She went on to call McCain a friend and praise and his service to his country; at least she knows how to wage someone's campaign effectively.
This is what the Democrats mean by a self-cannibalizing presidential race brokered on the somewhat paradoxical fact that, as the pundits say, the party "likes" both Barack and Hillary.
There were plenty of Clinton-loathing Republicans who rejoiced over her twin victories Tuesday, knowing that the other side's prolonged agonies only give them more breathing space to run in a general election uncontested for months.
The Democrats are now ensnared in a sideshow of petty squabbles and fuzzy math over delegates. What can this mean to so many swing voters but that the GOP is both serious and "ready" to fight two wars and rescue the economy?
The Moderate Voice smacks its forehead at Hillary's stupidity: "By conceding John McCain's acumen as Commander in Chief, she has no ability to attack him on those grounds. It's one thing to recognize his experience. It's another to say he's crossed the threshold into acceptance. Imagine, for a moment, if John McCain conceded the economy or health care to Hillary Clinton."
Greg Sargent at TPM Election Central writes: "But pumping up McCain to this extent risks provoking a backlash from rank-and-file Dems. The question I have is whether Obama will be able to capitalize on this, perhaps by using it to further his efforts to tie Hillary to McCain and to present himself as the only real candidate capable of drawing a clear contrast with him."
AMERICABlog isn't happy either: "On the most important foreign policy decision of this decade, on the biggest foreign policy disaster in recent American history, Hillary Clinton and John McCain made the wrong call - both sided with George Bush and voted for the Iraq war. If this is the judgment they would bring to the threshold of the Oval Office, if these are the decisions Hillary and McCain are going to be making when the phone rings at 3AM, who needs either one of them."
Michael Weiss is the New York Editor of Pajamas Media. His blog is Snarksmith.
https://pjmedia.com/blog/clinton_endorses_mccain_again/
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Tag Archives: Woody Harrelson
Niki Caro’s North Country
April 16, 2019 natewatchescoolmovies Leave a comment
Charlize Theron can pretty much play any role when she sets her mind to it, and when it comes to embodying the collective injustice and abuse inflicted towards female mine workers in late 80’s Minnesota, she is heartbreaking. Of course many other brilliant actors work hard to bring Niki Caro’s North Country to life, but it’s Theron who gives it the wounded centre and makes us care, not just about the issues at had but her character as well.
She plays a semi fictional character named Josey Aimes, who is loosely based on a real life woman that launched a milestone lawsuit against the corporate mining giant. Josey has escaped her abusive husband and come home to seek refuge with her parents (Sissy Spacek and Richard Jenkins) while trying to provide for her two children. The highest paying wage in the region is at the mines but from the moment she joins up she’s faced with hostility, scorn and rampant sexual harassment from the vast male work force there, and the few other female employees fare the same, unless they keep their head low. Josey and her young coworker Sherry (Michelle Monaghan) have it the worst because they’re, shall we say, easiest on the eyes, while their childhood friend Glory (Frances McDormand) keeps up a tough exterior, but in truth they are all of them fed up. As their treatment gets worse, Josey does the unthinkable and launches a high profile lawsuit against Big Mining for mistreatment and neglect, causing a shit-storm of controversy for both herself and the entire town whose survival depends on that industry. Not only that, but the case dredges up painful events from her past that involve supervisor Jeremy Renner, whose special interest in tormenting her dates back to then and explains why he radiates with guilt.
This is a brave, difficult choice for a woman to make especially when it seems like everyone is against her, but Josey is determined and Theron makes her wounded, charismatic and captivating. Woody Harrelson does a fine job as the lawyer hired to represent her, an idealistic man who isn’t afraid to unleash some hell when delivering statements or interrogating a witness because he believes it will lead to change. Jenkins is always brilliant, the arc he carries out here goes from cynically intoning that his daughter must have cheated on her husband to illicit violence like that to later openly defending his her with his own violence in court when he finds out what she has gone through. The old pro handles it gracefully and I can’t remember if he was nominated for this but he should have been. McDormand is her usual salty self and is excellent, while Sean Bean, an actor who often plays gruff, alpha male badasses is laid back and sensitive as her introvert boyfriend. Watch for great work from Xander Berkeley, Rusty Schwimmer, Corey Stoll, Brad William Henke, Jillian Armenante, Amber Heard and Chris Mulkey too.
Director Caro drew huge acclaim for her film Whale Rider a few years before, another story that dealt with a girl trying to find her place in the world and defying the men in her life. Once again this is a fantastic piece that shows her talent for filmmaking, never coming across as too much of a dramatization or too slack when it needs to cut deep. Theron is a force of nature and you can see the hurt, frustration and will to not back down burning in her eyes. This is a tough film to watch in many instances, but an extremely important one to sit through and the type that Hollywood doesn’t usually jump to green-light, at least back then anyways. Something of a masterpiece.
-Nate Hill
Amber HeardBrad William HenkeCharlize Theronchris mulkeycinemadramafilmfilm reviewfilm reviewsfilmsFrances McDormandJeremy Rennermichelle monaghanmoviemovie reviewmovie reviewsMoviesNiki CaroNorth CountryRichard JenkinsRusty SchwimmerSean Beansissy spacekWoody HarrelsonXander Berkeley
Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line
August 17, 2018 natewatchescoolmovies Leave a comment
There’s a scene in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill 2 where Michael Madsen’s Budd lays down the sword rhetoric: “If you’re gonna compared a sword made by Hattori Hanzo, you compare it to every other sword ever made, that wasn’t made by Hattori Hanzo.” I’d like to augment that slightly in the case of Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line and say, “If you’re gonna compare The Thin Red Line, you compare it to every other war movie ever made that *isn’t* The Thin Red Line.” That’s not to say its better than all the rest or on any kind of quality pedestal, it’s just simply unlike every other war film out there, and that differentiation makes it an incredibly special picture. Why, you ask? Because it takes a ponderous, meditative approach to a very hectic horrific period in history, and takes the time to explore the effects of conflict on both humanity and nature, as well as how all those forces go hand in hand. What other war film does that? Malick uses a poets eye and a lyricist’s approach to show the Guadalcanal siege, a horrific battle in which lives were lost on both sides and the countryside ravaged by the fires of war. To say that this film is an ensemble piece would be an understatement; practically all of Hollywood and their mother have parts in this, from the front and centre players right down to cameos and even a few appearances that never made it into the final cut (which I’m still bitter about). The two central performances come from Jim Caviesel and Sean Penn as Pvt. Welsh and Sgt. Witt. Welsh is a compassionate, thoughtful man who seems primally uncomfortable in a soldiers uniform, and shirks the materialistic horror and industrialist grind of war to seek something more esoteric, a reason for being amongst the horror. Witt is a hard, cold man who sees no spiritual light at the end of the tunnel and does his job with grim resolve, scarcely pausing to contemplate anything but the next plan of action. These two are archetypes, different forces that play in each of us and, variations of which, are how we deal with something as incomparable as a world war. Around them swirl an endless sea of famous faces and other characters doing the best they can in the chaos, or simply getting lost in it. Nick Nolte as a gloomy Colonel displays fire and brimstone externally, but his inner monologue (a constant with Malick) shows us a roiling torment. A captain under his command (Elias Koteas) has an emotional crisis and disobeys orders to send his men to their death when thunderously pressured by Nolte. Koteas vividly shows us the heartbreak and confusion of a man who is ready to break, and gives arguably the best performance of the film. Woody Harrelson accidentally blows a chunk of his ass off with a grenade, John Cusack climbs the military rank with his tactics, John Savage wanders around in a daze as a sadly shell shocked soldier, Ben Chaplin pines for his lost love (Miranda Otto) and the jaw dropping supporting cast includes (deep breath now) Jared Leto, Nick Stahl, Tim Blake Nelson, Thomas Jane, Dash Mihok, Michael Mcgrady, John C. Reilly, Adrien Brody, Mark Boone Jr, Don Harvey, Arie Verveen, Donal Logue, John Travolta and a brief George Clooney. There’s a whole bunch who were inexplicably cut from scenes too including Bill Pullman, Gary Oldman and Mickey Rourke. Rourke’s scene can be found, in pieces, on YouTube and it’s worth a search to see him play a haunted sniper. Hans Zimmer doles out musical genius as usual, with a mournfully angelic score that laments the process of war, particularly in scenes where Caviesel connects with the natives in the region, as well as a soul shattering ambush on the Japanese encampment that is not a sequence that ten year old Nate has been able to forget since I saw it and the hairs on my neck stood up. This is a diversion from most war films; Malick always has a dreamy filter over every story he weaves: exposition is scant, atmosphere matters above all else and the forces of music and visual direction almost always supersede dialogue, excepting inner thoughts from the characters. If you take that very specific yet loose and ethereal aesthetic and plug it into the machinations of a war picture, the result is as disturbing as it is breathtakingly beautiful, because you are seeing these events through a lens not usually brandished in the genre, and the consequences of war seem somehow more urgent and cataclysmic. Malick knows this, and keeps that tempo up for the entire near three hour runtime, giving us nothing short of a classic.
Adrien BrodyArie Verveenben chaplincinemadash mihokElias Koteasfilmfilm reviewfilm reviewsfilmsGeorge ClooneyHans ZimmerJared Letojim caviezelJohn CusackJohn SavageJohn Travoltamark boone jrMickey RourkeMiranda Ottomoviemovie reviewmovie reviewsMoviesNick Noltenick stahlSean PennTerrence MalickThe Thin Red LineThomas Janetim blake nelsonwarWoody Harrelson
Film Review, Podcast, Star Wars
Buckle Up Baby: SOLO Preview
April 23, 2018 Frank Mengarelli Leave a comment
https://podcastingthemsoftly.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/solo-pc.wav
Frank and Tim are back with their latest Star Wars episode. And while their predictions of Max von Sydow being Boba Fett and who Rey’s parents are didn’t prove to be correct; everything you hear in this podcast is true…
ChewieDonald GloverGeorge LucasHan SoloLandoLawrence KasdanRon HowardSoloSolo A Star Wars StoryStar WarsWoody Harrelson
Martin McDonough’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri
December 23, 2017 natewatchescoolmovies Leave a comment
Irish writing/directing guru Martin McDonough has pulled a miraculous hat-trick with Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, a pitch perfect follow up to his other two black dramedies, In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths. He’s an unbelievable talent who specializes in caustic, vigorously sharp dialogue and comic moments organically drawn from real life situations, not to mention a heap of earned emotional moments and narratives that, try as the viewer might, are impossible to predict. This is a near perfect bookend to the trilogy, with a late career encore turn from Frances Mcdormand, who cements an oddly Coen-esque vibe that’s welcome. She plays Mildred Hays here, a fiery single mother whose frustration and rage at the rape and murder of her teen daughter is fuelled into the purchase of three advertising billboards on the outskirts of town, calling out the Sheriff (Woody Harrelson) and his department for their lack of arrests or convictions. Needless to say, this brazen act causes a hailstorm Of events both funny and sad, strange and mundane, but never boring. Harrelson is a blast of potent poignancy as Chief Willoughby, a stern family man who laconically protests the Billboards, but understands the poor woman’s intentions. His arc is one that leaves you puzzled and tugs at the heartstrings unexpectedly, especially when it comes to his relationship with his beautiful wife (Abbie Cornish, most excellent). Sam Rockwell is the height of hilarity as Dixon, a certifiably nuts, volatile man-child of a deputy who violently takes matters into his own hands and exacerbates the whole deal wonderfully with his antics. Rockwell was a dynamo enough in Seven Psychos, and here he takes that loony persona into the stratosphere, a whirling dervish of bizarre, idiosyncratic wonderment. Other standouts include Peter Dinklage as a love-struck dwarf that everyone refers to as a midget, John Hawkes as Mildred’s troubled ex husband, Lucas Hedges as her traumatized son and Caleb Landry Jones as an oddball local advertising mogul. McDonough’s calling card is his defiant refusal to tell a story in Hollywood’s glossy, surface level terms, deliberately punctuating his tales with vagueness, eccentricity and constant reminders that people, emotions, characters and narratives are complex, weird concepts which are seldom black and white or clear cut in any direction. The arcs here are broad, surprising and beautifully drawn, with the same deep set sadness he brought us In Bruges, accented by the acidic, dysfunctional and cheerfully profane writing that showed up in Seven Psychos. This is a film that ducks the pesky limbo bar of standards set by the Hollywood machine in favour of something more unique, a road less travelled when it comes to comedy dramas, but one that anyone seeking fresh, alive and different material would be much rewarded trekking down. One of the best films of the year.
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Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers
July 15, 2017 natewatchescoolmovies Leave a comment
I will sing the praises for Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers til the day I either die, am too dementia ridden to compile a coherent review or too arthritic to type anymore (you folks will get some peace and quiet on your social media once any or all of the above happens). This film is less a film than it is a writhing elemental force, a cinematic being brought to life by tools seldom used in Hollywood, namely the sheer audacity of Stone’s frenetic filmmaking style. The MPAA kept an R rating just out of his reach for a while before finally conceding, harping to him that though he cut violent bits here and there to make it semantically tamer, it was the general aura of chaotic madness that irked them so. Stone considers this a compliment, and well he should, for its not everyday that an artist so fluidly taps into the artery of violence and the many catalysts of it in such a primal, intangible way that brilliantly splices what compels us with what appalls is, and the scarily thin line that wavers between them. This film is many things: a psychedelic road flick, a blistering indictment of sensationalist American media and the decaying degeneracy it breeds, a hallucinatory mood piece, a severely expressionistic action film, a thriller, a chiller and the list goes on, but more important than all of those is the love story that ties it all together. Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson are sticks of poisoned dynamite as Mickey and Mallory Knox, two twisted up kids on the run from everyone and everything, products of the darkest bowers of bizarro world Americana, deeply scarred by their pasts, fully committed to the wanton murder spree they’ve engaged in and unapologetic about the wave of carnage they’ve left in their wake. Demonized at every turn by the powers that be and everyone else in between, it’s easy to see why a system feeds two sick souls like this with infamy and notoriety instead of helping them. Anything for that big ol’ dollar sign, or simply whatever fills the void. We see the sickness creep after them, ever present in creatures like Tommy Lee Jones’s fire and brimstone prison warden, Robert Downey Jr.’s manic, sickening enabler of a talk show host and Tom Sizemore’s psychotic, gung-ho detective Jack Scagnetti. There’s a saying out there that goes “animals are beasts, but men are monsters, a sentiment that Stone has taken and run right off the cliff with, blasting us in the face with humanity’s very worst for a solid two hours, until he’s damn sure we catch his drift. The film is a stylistic tornado, every kind of colour, lens, filter, soundscape, visual trick and style of editing used until we realize we’re watching something truly unlike anything before, and likely after as well. Mallory’s backstory is staged in a stinging sitcom format as she’s terrorized by her abusive father (Rodney Dangerfield, cast grotesquely against type). Mickey breaks out of prison in black and white Lone Ranger style. A drug store Mexican standoff is painted with swaths of neon vomit green. Shadowy title cards and striking lighting are used in a sequence where the pair visit the lonely desert hut of a prophetic Indian (Russell Means). Visions dance on walls like spectral tv screens, faces leer and loom out of shadows for no apparent reason other than to add to the beautiful commotion, characters skitter through frames looking for a moment like demons. There is no other film like this, no other experience rather, an animalistic treatise on primal human urges, societal constraints that bind them, loosely and laughably out of place when you consider the dark urges within everyone. Amidst all this chaos though, like two corrupted beacons, are Mickey and Mallory. This is their story, and despite being a chief cause of the chaos I just mentioned (the universe has a sense of irony), it’s a love story, they being the centrepiece and everyone else rushing past like dark passengers in a swirling sideshow to their main-tent event. They’re brutal serial killers, no question, but they’re tender and caring with each other, and we see hints at a collective sweet disposition hiding below all those years of built up scar tissue. It’s a gorgeous film, full of scream-at-the-heavens ugliness, imagery that burns a patchwork quilt of impressions straight into your soul, an angry satirical edge that cuts like a knife and so much overflowing style you could watch the thing a thousand times and still pick up on things you never saw before. From the first cacophonous diner slaughterhouse set piece, to the second half of the film that descends into a regular Dante’s Inferno of a prison riot, this film is truly something else, in my top ten of all time and a uniquely affecting experience that has shaped the way I’ve watched films ever since. Plus that soundtrack man.. the story is set to every kind of music out there including Trent Reznor, Lou Reed, Patsy Kline, Peter Gabriel, Dre, Mozart, Marilyn Manson and so many more, with a pair of perfectly nailed opening and closing numbers warbled by Leonard Cohen. Everyone and anyone has quick bits and cameos to support the titanic work of the main cast too, including Denis Leary, Ashley Judd, Arliss Howard, O Lan Jones, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Jared Harris, Mark Harmon, Balthazar Getty, Marshall Bell, Louis Lombardi, Steven Wright, Rachel Ticotin, James Gammon and more. What more can be said about this film? It’s a natural born classic.
arliss howardAshley Juddbalthazar gettycinemaCrimedenis learyfilmfilm reviewfilm reviewsfilmsJuliette Lewismoviemovie reviewmovie reviewsMoviesNatural Born KillersOliver StoneRodney DangerfieldRussell meanstom sizemoreTommy Lee JonesWoody Harrelson
Problem Children with Big Eyes who make Biopics that’ll give you Goosebumps: An Interview with Larry Karaszewski by Kent Hill
May 25, 2017 Kent Hill Leave a comment
As the child from a working class family in South Bend, Indiana, Larry was introduced to the movies by his father. He was not restricted as to what he could watch, so he watched it all. After high school he debated between pursuing either a career in comedy or a life in pictures.
Larry opted for the movies, and soon found himself at USC. It was there that he would meet Scott Alexander, and together they would form not only a friendship, but also the foundation of a prolific career as a successful screenwriting duo.
After (and though it launched a trilogy of films and even an animated series) Problem Child, the screenwriters struggled to find work. It seemed as though they had been typecast buy their work and so looked to independently produce a biopic they were working on about the notoriously bad filmmaker Ed Wood.
As fate would have it, word of the project reached director Tim Burton. After expressing interest, the boys would have to hammer out a screenplay in double-quick fashion. They succeeded, and this, the first in a string of biographical efforts, would re-establish them in Hollywood and from it they would carve out their place in the genre and become, in many ways, its ‘go-to guys.’
Biopics of Larry Flynt and Andy Kaufman would follow, seeing the boys team up with Academy Award winner Milos Forman. They would go on to re-team with Tim Burton as well as dabble in a variety on different genres including everything from a kid-friendly version of James Bond to horrific hotel rooms were you’ll spend a night or perhaps even an eternity.
Larry and Scott have garnered the highest accolades the industry has to offer and continue to deliver. While trying to get a hold of Larry for this interview I caught him riding high on his recent wave of success, so I would just have to wait for the tide to turn. I am however, glad that I did. It was, as it is ever, a privilege to chat with a man whose work I heartily admire. I love the films he has written and I look forward to the projects that he and Scott have in the pipeline.
Without further ado I present, the award-winning screenwriter and all-round nice guy . . . the one, the only, Larry Karaszewski.
Agent Cody BanksBill MurrayBiopicCourtney LoveCuba Gooding JRdanny devitoDave ChapelleEd WoodfilmFrankie MunizGoosebumpsJack BlackJim CarreyJohn RitterJohn TravoltaJohnny DeppLarry FlyntLarry KaraszewskiMan on the MoonMartin LandauMilos FormanNorm MacdonaldOJ SimpsonProblem ChildSarah Jessica ParkerScott AlexanderScrewedTim BurtonWoody Harrelson
SEAN STONE: An Interview with Kent Hill
April 5, 2017 Kent Hill Leave a comment
Many of us can only imagine what it must be like to grow up in a household where one or both of our parents are people of extraordinary ability. We can only muse further what it must be like if that said parent were internationally recognized in their chosen field of expertise.
On the other hand, when we are young, we don’t really question such things. They are the ‘norm’, the everyday, and our parents are simply Mum and Dad. They do what they do and we are none the wiser. Then of course we reach an age when that changes. We realize that there are differences, and our worlds shrink or growth according to the depth of that perception.
So imagine growing up and one day the realization hits that your Dad is the acclaimed filmmaker Oliver Stone; on top of that you have essentially grown up in the movies your father has been making. Now you were unaware to the extent of just how different things at home where compared to other people. But, it’s just how things were, and it’s just how things were for Sean Stone.
Being on the set was normal because making movies is what Dad did for a living. These famous actors were simply people that were helping Dad out. It all seems fine that is till, as Sean told me, the world opens up and your understanding of that which you have been exposed to becomes evident.
Being a lover of the work of Sean’s dad, I, like the rest of you, have seen him as a baby on the lap of Gordon Gekko, as a young Jim Morrison, as the brother of an eventual mass murderer and more. He is now, however, a storyteller in his own right. Beginning with the chronicling of the making of Alexander, Sean has emerged as a naturally talented filmmaker. He has continued exploring the documentary as well as genre filmmaking, and I eagerly anticipate his intended adaptation of his father’s book A Child’s Night Dream.
It was a real treat to chat with him at the dawn of 2017 . . . ladies and gentlemen, I give you . . . Sean Stone.
https://www.amazon.com/Alexander-Revisited-Blu-ray-Colin-Farrell/dp/B00CSKQ5TK/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1491450945&sr=8-9&keywords=alexander+blu+ray
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https://www.amazon.com/Childs-Night-Dream-Oliver-Stone/dp/0312167989/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491451496&sr=8-1&keywords=a+childs+night+dream+oliver+stone
A Child's Night DreamAlexanderBorn on the Forth of JulyColin FarrellJFKKevin CostnerMichael DouglasMoviesNatural Born KillersOliver StoneSean PennSean StoneThe DoorsTom CruiseU TurnVal KilmerWall StreetWoody Harrelson
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Doing a mail-drop still has its place, but social media has An increasing role in inviting community involvement in built environment projects. how does it work in practice?
The traditional approach for those planning a public consultation exercise is to draw a circle on a map around a development site and send a letter or postcard to every address in that 'consultation zone' to let them know about how to get involved.
This method still has its place and is often considered a minimum level of publicity for a public consultation, particularly on Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) for example. But new and innovative 'social marketing' approaches to consultation publicity are emerging, where information is targeted at certain social media users based on their location, interests and life circumstances.
What are the benefits of the 'social marketing' approach?
Using social media promotion allows developers and civic leaders to reach people in a much wider geographical area with publicity that focuses on their specific interests, dramatically increasing overall levels of participation, the diversity of participants and the balance of opinion reflected in consultation feedback.
This approach recognises that it isn't just people already living in the immediate vicinity of a proposal site that have a stake in what is proposed. For example, young people living in a certain town or city may be interested in proposals for new homes in the village where their parents live, with future family planning in mind, and people living further afield may be looking to take up employment opportunities created by a development proposal even if they don't live nearby.
It is also important to focus publicity on what matters to people to motivate them to get involved in a consultation process, but it is almost impossible to anticipate what matters to someone living at a certain postal address or in a certain street.
The 'social marketing' approach allows engagement teams to target people with publicity that focuses on their specific interests, recognising that certain people may be more interested in the job creation aspects of a development proposal, whilst some may be interested in new homes or school places created by the plans, for example.
How does it work in practice?
Posts can be created to appear in the timeline or newsfeed of people that match certain demographic indicators to encourage them to get involved in a consultation or community engagement exercise. The posts link to an online consultation platform or a webpage with more information about how to get involved. Demographic indicators include:
Tenure status (living with parents, renting or homeowner)
Life events (such as engagement, marriage, new job or arrival of a child)
Industry or job title
Special interests (such as sport or heritage)
What are our top tips for social media consultation publicity?
Facebook and Instagram work best to increase levels of participation in your consultation or community engagement exercise, but Twitter works best as a tool for two-way conversation and a point of contact for people with questions and queries
Instagram captures the attention of a younger demographic (16-25) and Facebook a slightly older demographic (25-65)
Twitter makes it easier to tap into existing conversations that are taking place, by seeking retweets by existing organisations whose members or followers might be interested in your project and using hashtags that people are already using to tap into existing conversations
Some people may not click your link and interact with your consultation straight away, so create a page for your project which people can 'like', so that they can see posts made on your page in the future which will encourage them to get involved further down the line
Attracting 'likes' to your Facebook promoted posts can help prolong engagement beyond the period that the post is actively promoted, as things that people 'like' appear in the news feeds of their friends and followers
Don't use too much text in your promoted posts and focus messages on the human interest of the demographic group(s) that you are targeting
At Participatr, we have seen transformational results from targeted 'social marketing' campaigns that supplement traditional consultation publicity. Get in touch to find out more.
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50 Shades of G’Day
February 14, 2019 ~ Pat Boxall
My friend Ryan took acid once. That’s not to say he’d never taken acid previously. Nor was he my friend, actually. But if you knew Ryan well, which I didn’t, you’d be aware of his penchant for all things hallucinogenic. The kids call it tripping.
On this particular occasion, Ryan was tripping in a small town in Northern California. Sandwiched between giant redwood forests and a bitterly cold Pacific Ocean, Arcata attracts university students, hippies, marijuana farmers and a large transient population.
I sat on a porch in the middle of town drinking weak American beer. It could have been a Friday, it could have been a Tuesday, but it was a sunny afternoon. A few people I knew had decided to skip class for the day and, like any good exchange student worth their accent, I agreed to join. It may have been my idea.
“There’s Ryan,” said one of the boys, pointing down the street.
The rest of us turned to look. Ryan was darting between colourful, weatherboard houses at high speed. He was too far away to be audible, but he appeared to be having a great time. I’d met him a few weeks back at a party.
As Ryan made his way up the street it became apparent he had either mistaken himself for Jack Sparrow or was having a stroke.
“Arrrrr!” he screamed, rolling past a letterbox and crouching behind a set of stairs.
“Cannons at the ready!” he cried, taking cover between a pastel yellow split-level and a manicured hedge.
“What the fuck?” we asked each other in unison as he ran past our porch.
“Ryan likes acid,” my mate explained. We took a sip of beer. California knows how to party.
Never tried acid myself. It seems a little removed from reality and, contrary to popular opinion, I quite like reality. On a global scale it’s completely fucked, I grant you that, but if you keep an eye out you’ll witness little moments every day that remind you just how great it can be. Like dropping an egg, only to realise you had actually boiled it that morning, or watching a commuter sprint for a train and jump through the doors at the last second.
Then again, I suppose that’s the whole point of drugs. They can be used to either escape or enhance reality and the same goes for travelling. Maybe that’s why it’s called tripping, and why every 19-year-old returning from their first summer in Europe has to publicly confirm that “travel is my drug of choice”. To them, I say try MDMA. It’s cheaper.
I was a novelty in California. In a town of 18,000, with a student population of 8000, there were only two Australians and the other was from Canberra – enough said. A leisurely “How are ya?” would lead to party invitations and I even made a girl orgasm with my dulcet Aussie twang.
That’s not entirely true. Thanks to issues of flaccidity and my masculine failings after a number of beers, I have sincere doubts that particular orgasm was real. I tried pointing this out to her multiple times but she was having none of it – neither my excuses, nor an enjoyable experience.
“Just keep talking Australian,” she commanded, despite the erectile elephant in the room. So I did. But instead of sweet nothings I whispered ‘Strayan somethings in her ear, essentially acting out 50 Shades of G’day.
“That’s not a knife…” I said. She became louder. The dolphin tattooed on her lower back mocked me mercilessly with its fully functioning bottlenose.
“How ya goin?” I queried.
Lift off.
“How’s the serenity?”
This was too much for her and her confusing climax, which defied both logic and logistics, completely ruined what little serenity remained in the apartment.
“That was great,” she informed me in her American drawl.
It wasn’t, but it was nice of her to say so. When I woke up she had vanished, leaving me to wonder, Did that really just happen?
It’s a question I often ask when thinking back on experiences had while travelling. The memories become hazy after a while, like the recollections of a bender, as if there’s a trade that has to take a place: I can have those endorphins, the rush of the unfamiliar and the novelty of not knowing what could happen, but in return I’ll never quite remember how it truly felt. So I chase it, and more often than not I’ll convince myself that those kinds of peaks are only achievable while travelling, while taking drugs or while whispering cliché Australian sayings to an American sophomore. But of course, these peak experiences are achievable anywhere; it’s just a question of finding what makes you tick, what helps you become open to anyone and anything and how you can incorporate that into your life every single day.
There’s nothing wrong with waking up on a Sunday, or coming home from a big trip, and asking, “Did those things really happen?” But a life put together from a patchwork of nights out and annual leave is, I think, hardly something to boast about. Perhaps the ultimate goal, for me at least, is to forget that question. To be lying bruised and broken on my deathbed and say, with confidence and a clear memory, “Shit. That all actually happened.”
acidcalifornialovesextravel
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Ready! Star Wars Dice
By Joshua Yehl Note: With Solo: A Star Wars Story about to hit theaters, we figured this was the perfect time to take another look at Han Solo's.
Buy Star Wars RPG Dice: Game Accessories - ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases.
One galaxy. Three games. One set of dice. The Star Wars movies are full of dramatic twists and turns, and Star Wars® Roleplaying Dice translate the action to.
Master fate in your favorite FFG Star Wars™-themed game with the Star Wars Dice app for your iOS or Android device! The ultimate accessory for the X-Wing™ . 16 Dec - 3 min - Uploaded by IGN There's a whole backstory to the small prop glimpsed in The Last Jedi. Star Wars: The Last. The new Star Wars installment is chock-full of references to the space opera's past, but here's one allusion that moviegoers, and even many.
Star Wars RPG FFG narrative system This is a dice roller for the Star Wars RPG lines Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion, and Force & Destiny from Fantasy. Just before he chats with R2-D2, Luke pulls a pair of golden dice down from the roof of the ship's cockpit. Die-hard Star Wars fans may know. Launch your Star Wars (TM) gaming experience into hyperdrive! The Star Wars Dice app is the ultimate accessory for Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars games.
A large amount of time is given to a small tchotchke in "The Last Jedi." It might be a hint at another "Star Wars" movie to come. Everything you need to know about those gold dice Han has in "Solo: A Star Wars Story," and what they mean to Han and the other characters. Han Solo's dice first appeared on the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. The props were recreated for Star Wars: Episode VII The Force.
You searched for: star wars dice! Etsy is the home to thousands of handmade, vintage, and one-of-a-kind products and gifts related to your search. No matter. Spoilers ahead for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Fans of the Star Wars universe may have been prepared for Han Solo's death in The Force. The Star Wars creators explain why Han Solo's dice in the Millennium Falcon were so important in The Last Jedi.
A key scene in Star Wars: The Last Jedi involves the appearance of a pair of gold dice, which has significant meaning for longtime fans of the.
A long standing mystery for hardcore Star Wars fans has finally, at least partially, been solved in Solo.
Big spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi below! At two points in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, we get emotional scenes featuring a set of gold dice. In many ways, The Last Jedi was about saying goodbye to what we know about the Star Wars universe, or at least, letting go of the way things. After winning the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian, Han hung the dice in the freighter's cockpit. They were a favorite childhood plaything of Ben Solo.
The latest Tweets from EA Star Wars (@EAStarWars). The official Twitter page for EA Star Wars™ including Star Wars Battlefront™, Star Wars Battlefront II, and. Overview: This Dice Roller is adapted from a previous script () and provides for a display of the dice for the FFG Star Wars RPG. Launch your Star Wars (TM) gaming experience into hyperdrive! The Star Wars Dice app is the ultimate accessory for Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars games.
Immerse yourself in the epic Star Wars battles you've always dreamed of and create new heroic moments of your own in Star Wars Battlefront. Fight for the.
Buy Star Wars Han Solo Collectible Lucky Dice from Zavvi, the home of entertainment. Take advantage of great prices on Blu-ray, 4K, merchandise, games.
EA and DICE continue to overhaul the progression system in Star Wars: Battlefront II. The developers just announced yet another huge change.
Contains a complete set of fourteen custom dice for Star Wars: Edge of the Empire; Unique icons allow players and GMs to quickly determine the success or . I have a small question about Star Wars: The Last Jedi but it is really Luke touches Leia's hand very solidly, then hands her the gold dice, which she can Kylo can hold the dice in his hand, but they fade away (as Luke did). Disney, please stop trying to make Han Solo's lucky gold dice a thing. There are light spoilers ahead for both Star Wars: The Last Jedi and.
I'm sorry if this has been answered recently; I feel like this is a super-easy question and I'm completely missing the answer. My gaming.
You may have noticed that in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker hands his sister Leia a pair of gold dice, which were originally hanging.
DICE is working on a revamped progression system, it confirmed today in a blogpost. While the studio has made several small changes to the.
Solo: A Star Wars Story provided a lot of insight about the smuggler we know and love -- including one artifact that he was fond rs for.
WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story, in theaters now. Among the longest-running mysteries of Star Wars lore is.
Jack: If people were mad at getting Clone Wars characters, I bet they are excited about getting lesser known Clone War characters! Coming in at 8/11 Luce has a .
Fans will now that these are the dice that have always hung over the cockpit of the Milennium Falcon. Star Wars lore has it that Han Solo won. In the rules reference says the player rolls the sum of dice of all units participating in combat. If i have 6 tie fighters, that would be 6 black dice. Want to watch the Lucasfilm Story Group dish on Star Wars: The Last Jedi for 30 minutes? Of course you do.
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Paula Citron | Critic, Broadcaster, Arts Journalist
Reviews, interviews and previews of Toronto dance, theatre, opera and concerts as well as blog entries focusing on current social and political issues.
Meet Paula
Tag Archives: Vaibhavi Merchant
Music Theatre Review – TO Live/Taj Express written by Toby Gough, music by Salim and Sulaiman Merchant, choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant, directed by Shruti Merchant
Posted on November 24, 2019 by pcitron
As soon as Taj Express was over, I wanted to sit through it all again. That’s how much fun I had at this Bollywood dance and music show direct from India. Who cares if the storyline is thin? The main thing is the spectacle, and with 20 dancers wearing 1000 costumes and 500 accessories (courtesy of designer Bipin Tanna), Taj Express is wall-to-wall, glitz and glamour entertainment.
First we should mention the Merchant family of Mumbai (no relation to Ismail of Merchant Ivory film fame). For three generations, the Merchants have been purveyors of Bollywood, and remind me of Brazil’s Pederneiras family, where every aspect of dance company Grupo Corpo features a member of the clan. Take Taj Express, and I’m assuming they are all related. Director (Shruti), choreographer (Vaibhavi), executive producer (Pranav), and composers (Salim and Sulaiman). The family apparently packages shows for the foreign market, and not the domestic one. On the other hand, the domestic market has direct access to the over 2000 Bollywood movies that are made each year.
Note should also be made of British writer/director Toby Gough who specializes in working on shows involving diverse cultures world-wide, such as Bosnia, Barbados, Cuba, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the gypsies of Romania, the monks of Tibet, Australia and New Zealand’s indigenous population, the continent of Africa, not to mention India.
Basically, Taj Express (2017)is a dazzling song and dance extravaganza, but there is a story of sorts. Shankar (Ninad Samaddar) is a young film composer who wants to emulate the international success and fame of Bollywood music legend A.R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire). Rahman, incidentally, is a friend and sometime collaborator, of the Merchant family. We follow Shankar in his studio as he composes the score to a new romantic film, Taj Express, with his session band, Arjun Dhanraj (guitar and comic relief), Prathamesh Kandalkar (percussion), and Avadhoot Phadke (flute). As an aside, Dhanraj can certainly wail on the guitar like his idol, Eddie Van Halen. Shankar also has to put up with non-stop, conflicting demands from his producer, Raj Pakora (voiced by prominent Indian actor Denzil Smith).
The relentless parade of song and dance numbers are the scenes that Shankar envisions happening in the movie to his music. Arjun (Rajitdev Easwardas) is a sort of social worker in the slums of Mumbai where he runs a classical dance school to keep the children out of gangs. Kareena Kaboom (Tanvi Patil) is a famous Bollywood star who wants to escape her celebrity. Arjun and Kareena meet when he saves her from a car crash. In the second act, the two board the Taj Express to get away from Mumbai, which is an excuse to include both religious rituals and ethnic dances from various parts of India, and which are additional gorgeous exotica to the de rigueur Bollywood in sync. The ending of the movie is pure hokum, as only Bollywood can make it. I can only imagine what wardrobe is coping with backstage, as each number sports different costumes, each more eye-catching than the one before.
Easwardas and Patil, and the 18-member chorus, many of whom perform solos, are sensational dancers, and the impact of the group ensembles, especially with everyone moving in sync, is mind-boggling eye candy. The choreography is quite complex, particularly as it is driven by the beat of the various musical motifs. How the dancers get through the high-energy show and are still breathing at the end is a marvel. The action never flags, not even during the slower romantic duets, or religious observances, because they shimmer with beauty. Arjun and Kareena have some very touchy-feely partnering, and I wonder if theses duets could even be performed in India, given the strictures on touching and kissing in Indian movies.
Simply put, Taj Express is a good time theatrical experience, and not to be missed. It’s a class act in every detail.
TO Live & Quintessence Entertainment Productions, Taj Express, directed by Shruti Merchant, choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant, Bluma Appel Theatre, Nov. 23 to Dec. 1, 2019.
Posted in Dance, Theatre | Tagged Bollywood, Shruti Merchant, Taj Express, Vaibhavi Merchant | Leave a Reply
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A Glitch in my System
Theatre Review – Three Ships Collective & Soup Can Theatre/A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, adapted by Justin Haigh
Theatre Review – Coal Mine Theatre/Between Riverside and Crazy by Stephen Adly Guirgis
pcitron on Dance Review – ProArteDanza/The 9th! choreographed by Roberto Campanella and Robert Glumbek
learie mc nicolls on Dance Review – ProArteDanza/The 9th! choreographed by Roberto Campanella and Robert Glumbek
pcitron on Theatre Review – Blyth Festival/The Team on the Hill by Dan Needles
Copyright © 2012 · Paula Citron · All rights reserved
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The making of Rodrigo Duterte
IN THE PHILIPPINES, the end of Ferdinand Marcos’s 20-year dictatorship in 1986 was a tumultuous time. The new government of Corazon Aquino was being challenged on all fronts: from the Right, by ambitious military factions plotting coups; from the Left, by peasant guerrillas and angry protesters demanding radical reforms. In those days, I was working as a journalist in Manila, finally able to cover the country’s problems with corruption, crime, economic stagnation, and insurgency without fear of censors.
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You are here: Home Reports & data Mothers & babies Child and maternal health in 2014–2016
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Child and maternal health in 2014–2016
Author: AIHW
View citation formats for this report
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2018. Child and maternal health in 2014–2016. Cat. no. HPF 38. Canberra: AIHW. Viewed 22 January 2020, https://pp.aihw.gov.au/reports/mothers-babies/child-maternal-health-2014-2016
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2018). Child and maternal health in 2014–2016. Retrieved from https://pp.aihw.gov.au/reports/mothers-babies/child-maternal-health-2014-2016
Child and maternal health in 2014–2016. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 25 October 2018, https://pp.aihw.gov.au/reports/mothers-babies/child-maternal-health-2014-2016
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Child and maternal health in 2014–2016 [Internet]. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018 [cited 2020 Jan. 22]. Available from: https://pp.aihw.gov.au/reports/mothers-babies/child-maternal-health-2014-2016
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) 2018, Child and maternal health in 2014–2016, viewed 22 January 2020, https://pp.aihw.gov.au/reports/mothers-babies/child-maternal-health-2014-2016
Get citations as an Endnote file: Endnote
Four key maternal and child health indicators have been updated in this release — smoking during pregnancy, child and infant mortality, low birthweight babies, and antenatal visits in the first trimester of pregnancy. Indicators are reported nationally, by Primary Health Network (PHN) areas and by smaller local areas.
Cat. no: HPF 38
Findings from this report:
Regional PHN areas had an infant and young child mortality rate 1.3 times the rate of metropolitan PHN areas
The proportion of women who reported smoking during pregnancy was 10.4%
More than 6 in 10 (65%) mothers attended at least one antenatal visit in the first trimester of pregnancy.
The proportion of low birthweight babies was 5.0% with little difference between metropolitan and regional PHN areas
Report editions
Nationally, the data revealed that in 2014–2016:
The proportion of women who reported smoking during pregnancy was 10.4%. However, there are substantial differences across Australia. In regional PHN areas 16.6% of mothers reported smoking at some point during pregnancy, compared with 7.5% in metropolitan PHN areas.
The infant and young child mortality rate was 3.9 deaths per 1,000 live births. Regional PHN areas reported a rate of 4.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, 1.3 times the rate for metropolitan PHN areas (3.3 per 1,000 live births).
The proportion of low birthweight babies was 5.0%, with little difference between regional PHN areas (5.3%) and metropolitan PHN areas (4.8%).
All measures presented in the report are by PHN area. Local-level data are available for all women and their babies by Statistical Areas Level 3, and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and their babies by Statistical Area Level 4 in the downloadable data and on the National overview pages for each of the indicators.
Last updated 6/12/2018 v10.0
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