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“V for Vendetta” and “Demonic Modulation”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oWs_voUPkk&feature=related
V for Vendetta: “Words will always retain their power”
“First they came for the rich, and I said nothing. Because, you know, fuck the rich.” — Oral graffiti currently making the rounds.
The clip above is V’s pirate-radio speech to the people of London in V for Vendetta. V’s sardonic Guy Fawkes mask is now a favored icon among the disaffected, hacktivists especially. This movie is a hopeful relic from the Bush years, which, at the time of the film’s release, seemed they would never end.
Regarding V and his Guy Fawkes mask — as well as the repeated refrain of “Remember, remember, the fifth of November,” the day of the failed Gunpowder plot of 1605 — the literary principle involved is what Frye called “demonic modulation.” With demonic modulation Frye makes a much needed distinction between “the moral” and “the desirable”:
The moral and the desirable have many important and significant connections, but still morality, which comes to terms with experience and necessity, is one thing, and desire, which tries to escape from necessity, is quite another. Thus literature is as a rule less inflexible than morality, and it owes much of its status as a liberal art to that fact. The qualities that religion and morality call ribald, obscene, subversive, lewd and blasphemous have an essential place in literature but often they can achieve expression only through ingenious techniques of displacement. (AC 156)
Demonic modulation manages this by way of “the deliberate reversal of the customary moral associations of archetypes.” For example, in literature, whatever the current status of received moral standards,
a free and equal society may be symbolized by a band of robbers, pirates, or gypsies; or true love may be symbolized by the triumph of an adulterous liaison over marriage, as in most triangle comedy; [or] by a homosexual passion. . . . (AC 156-7)
In other words, exactly the sorts of things that oppressively “moral” forces in society get most nuts about, usually with a commensurate rise in rhetorical violence, sometimes outright threats of it, and occasionally tragic instances of it.
The traditional Catholic villain Guy Fawkes of seventeenth century England becomes in this film by way of demonic modulation the dark force of wrathful resistance in a somnolent dystopian Britain of the near-future. The movie does seem to possess the power of at least some short-term prophecy; it had picked up on something that was roiling just below the surface of the daily nightmare that was the Bush administration. The silent, simultaneous uprising of the people of London nicely prefigures what seems to have been the spontaneous generation of the Occupy movement; and, more ominously, the death of the tyrant High Chancellor Sutler doesn’t look all that different from the recent death of Muammar Quadafi. To cite another instance of oral graffiti that pops up here and there, “When people on the inside of their glass palaces are mocking the people on the outside, it never ends well for them.”
This entry was posted in Anatomy of Criticism, Archetype, Current Events, Frye on Anarchism, Popular Culture on October 26, 2011 by Michael Happy.
Video of the Day: Amy Winehouse
The autopsy results today reveal alcohol poisoning.
I thought I’d give a pass on any comment on Winehouse because her life and career were so tragic. Whatever might be said could only be trite. She had an immense talent and behaved as though possessed by demons.
But I discovered this performance at Austin’s SXSW festival in 2007. Everybody should know about it. Hear it once, you won’t forget it. When you see the expressions on the faces of the audience members, you’ll realize that’s probably how you look too.
This entry was posted in Video of the Day on October 26, 2011 by Michael Happy.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggtt7cODZd0
Wallace on humor, irony, advertising, entertainment and Infinite Jest
Frye in Anatomy: “The novelist sees evil and folly as social diseases, but the Menippean satirist sees them as diseases of the intellect, as a kind of maddened pedantry” (CW 22, 290)
This seems to be evolving into the go-to excerpt from David Foster Wallace‘s last unfinished novel, The Pale King, but let’s slip it in before it becomes overly familiar. Here’s Wallace’s rendering of the spiritual awakening of college student Chris Fogel:
I was by myself, wearing nylon warm-up pants and a black Pink Floyd tee shirt, trying to spin a soccer ball on my finger and watching the CBS soap opera “As The World Turns” on the room’s little black-and-white Zenith. . . . There was certainly always reading and studying for finals I could do, but I was being a wastoid. . . . Anyhow, I was sitting there trying to spin the ball on my finger and watching the soap opera . . . and at the end of every commercial break, the show’s trademark shot of planet earth as seen from space, turning, would appear, and the CBS daytime network announcer’s voice would say, “You’re watching ‘As the World Turns,’ ” which he seemed, on this particular day, to say more and more pointedly each time—“You’re watching ‘As the World Turns’ ” until the tone began to seem almost incredulous—“You’re watching ‘As the World Turns’ ”—until I was suddenly struck by the bare reality of the statement. . . . It was as if the CBS announcer were speaking directly to me, shaking my shoulder or leg as though trying to arouse someone from sleep—“You’re watching ‘As the World Turns.’ ” . . . I didn’t stand for anything. If I wanted to matter—even just to myself—I would have to be less free, by deciding to choose in some kind of definite way.
This entry was posted in Anatomy of Criticism, Quote of the Day, Satire on October 26, 2011 by Michael Happy.
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Mike, Lisa & Kerry
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Where to go on World Thinking Day
Who were the most renowned philosophers, intellectuals and inventors? As today is World Thinking Day, we wanted to celebrate nine of these great individuals and inspire you to follow in their footsteps.
Pisa, Italy
Visit Tuscany, the birthplace of the hugely influential Italian astronomer, physicist and philosopher, Gallileo. He was born in 1564 in Pisa and played a major role in the scientific revolution of the 17th century.
Best known for its iconic leaning tower, Pisa is a city full of must-visit gems for the discerning traveller. From the splendour of the Cathedral of Santa Maria dell’Assunta and the Baptistery of Pisa to the exciting museums and galleries such as the Museum of Opera del Duomo, the National Museum of Palazzo Reale and the Palazzo Blu art gallery, Pisa truly is a cultural hub.
You can even take a tour inspired by Galileo himself, which includes a visit to see the house he lived in on Palazzo Bocca.
Take a trip to Paris and get to know the city where Marie Curie undertook her pioneering work in the field of radioactivity research. There is even a museum dedicated to her ground-breaking work, the Musée Curie.
Paris is teeming with lots of other world-class museums such as the epic Musée du Louvre, the Musée Rodin and the Musée National Picasso to name but a few.
Of course, you can’t visit Paris (particularly for the first time) without going to see the Eiffel Tower, the Sacré-Cœur and the Panthéon. When in Paris, do what the Parisians do and flâner which essentially means to stroll around and experience the city – it’s certainly the best way to see all those iconic landmarks!
Lincoln, England
If you are looking for a fabulous staycation, why not pay a visit to Lincolnshire? Located on the east coast of England, Lincolnshire is a pretty county that is full of contrasts. From the countryside with its rolling hills, hidden valleys and quaint villages to its award-winning coastline which offers one of the best places in the UK to spot breeding grey seals. Lincoln is a vibrant city that is steeped in history – a visit to the striking Lincoln Castle where the 1215 Magna Carta was signed is an absolute must.
Science fans should head over to Woolsthorpe Manor – the birthplace and family home of Sir Isaac Newton and learn more about his scientific breakthroughs such as the discovery of the three laws of motion -- inertia, acceleration, and action & reaction – which remain a mainstay of modern physics.
A delectable combination of ancient civilisations and modern culture - Syracuse continues to attract visitors from all over the world and was the birthplace of Archimedes, the ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician, physicist and inventor who is widely considered to be the greatest scientist of the classical age.
Admirers of Archimedes should visit the Archimedes' Museum where you can see replicas of the inventions that made him famous during his lifetime. Syracuse, which is in the south east part of Sicily, has an impressive array of fascinating sights and monuments such as a 2nd century-AD amphitheatre, the archaeological museum and the Cathedral of Syracuse.
From street art and quirky coffee shops to lively bars and restaurants, Berlin is a vibrant city full of things to do and see. Berlin has several famous landmarks to visit including the Brandenburg Gate, the remnants of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie and the Holocaust Memorial.
Berlin is where one of history’s greatest thinkers – Albert Einstein lived. His theories of relativity led to new techniques of looking at gravity, space, time, matter and energy.
Often referred to as the cultural capital of Europe, Berlin boasts an impressive directory of museums and galleries, many of which offer free entry at certain times of the month.
Greece’s capital is a delectable combination of history, ancient architecture and culture. Visitors to the city will see Neoclassical buildings nestled against modern structures.
Known as the birthplace of Greek philosophy, take a walk around ancient Athens in the footsteps of one of the founders of Western philosophy - Socrates whose "Socratic method," was the cornerstone for the groundwork for Western systems of logic and philosophy.
Why not download the MCMS app which will locate your position in the city via GPS and will provide you with insight as you meander throughout the city? Peruse the iconic landmarks such as the Pnyx Hill, Philopappos Hill and of course, the world-famous Acropolis.
Alexandria, Egypt
Alexandria is the second largest city in Egypt and was the birthplace of Hypatia of Alexandria, a leading philosopher, mathematician and astronomer.
It is Egypt’s most important cultural capital and its desirable location on the Mediterranean Sea attracts millions of visitors each year. It has an extraordinary history and even today has a wealth of interesting attractions to see, including the temple of Serapeum, the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, Qaitbay Fort and the Pharos of Alexandria Lighthouse and more.
Leiden, Holland
Located in the south of the country, Leiden has been one of Europe's most prominent scientific centres for more than four centuries and was where renowned philosopher, mathematician, and scientist Rene Descartes uttered those immortal words ‘I think, therefore I am’.
Despite its impressive educational credentials, there is so much more to Leiden than just research and books. Take a canal boat ride along the picturesque canals and head to the beguiling old town which is widely regarded as one of the Netherlands’ hidden gems.
When you think of Holland, two images that spring to mind are tulips and windmills. Leiden is home to the Museum De Valk – the oldest windmill in the country. Leiden was also the first location where the first fields of tulips were planted. One of the must-see places in the city are the Leiden Botanical Garden where you can even take a guided tour.
With more than 2000 years of history, the Eternal City of Rome is a sight to behold. Think historic archaeological sites and ancient ruins, baroque churches and more.
It is also home to some of the most internationally recognised symbols of Rome – the Colosseum, the Pantheon and the awe-inspiring Sistine Chapel in The Vatican where renowned painter, sculptor and architect Michelangelo created one of the most stunning ceiling paintings ever. Both the vault and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are widely regarded as one of the most influential artworks of all time and a foundational work of Renaissance Art
To find your perfect break in Rome or in any of these thrilling destinations, why not give your Personal Travel Expert a call today?
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New waste collection measures to be introduced to boost recycling
New waste collection measures are being put in place to help residents in St Albans City and District increase their recycling rate to 60% of all household waste by 2015.
The measures form part of an action plan agreed by St Albans City and District Council’s Cabinet that is designed to help the District achieve the Council’s new recycling target for household waste.
They build on the success of the Council’s “twin bin” service under which householders have been provided with a black wheeled bin for refuse, a green wheeled bin for green waste, including food, garden waste and cardboard, and boxes for the recycling of dry waste such as tins, glass, newspapers and plastic bottles. Special arrangements are in place for some roads, for example within conservation areas.
This system resulted in an increase in the recycling rate for household waste from 36.35% in 2007/8 to 50.32% in 2009/10, beating the Council’s then target of 50% by 2010/11 ahead of schedule. The Council has since introduced a new target for the recycling of household waste of 60% by 2015.
The new measures include:
the completion of the roll out of recycling facilities for glass, newspapers, magazines, plastic bottles, cans and aerosols to all flats and maisonettes in the District by the end of 2011/12;
the introduction of recycling facilities at schools, where practicable, by the end of 2011/12;
participation in European Week of Waste Reduction in November with the aim of promoting ways that residents can reduce their waste and consumption levels;
looking at a campaign to reduce the use of plastic bags;
door-to-door visits in 2012/13 to encourage residents to make better use of the current recycling facilities available to them,
and a waste audit in 2012/13 to identify what is going to landfill which could recycled, composted or reused.
The Council is also looking at whether it can make changes to its current system of waste collection, either under its existing refuse and recycling contract with Enterprise which comes to an end in 2015 or under any new contract after this date. It is considering the possibility of:
collecting clothes, mixed plastics and tetra pak cartons from the kerbside,
collecting green waste, including food, cardboard and garden waste weekly during the summer months,
providing a second green wheeled bin for garden waste with option of charging for the service.
Liberal Democrat councillor Melvyn Teare, Portfolio Holder for Environment and Sustainability St Albans City and District Council, said: “Residents have done a brilliant job so far in reducing the amount of household waste that is being sent to landfill and have beaten the Council’s target of 50% by 2010/11 ahead of schedule. This was in part due to the introduction of the twin bin scheme and dry waste boxes which have enabled residents to separate their waste for recycling.
“It is important that this good work continues so we have set a new recycling target of 60% by 2015. The Council recognises that this goal is ambitious and we are therefore introducing new measures to help encourage residents to work with us to achieve this target.
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Maryland Obituaries
Kathryn Riedal
March 7, 2019 /
Kathryn Eileen Riedal, of Churchville, MD, passed away on March 8, 2019. She was 77. Mrs. Riedal was born in Baltimore, MD, to Roland W. Hoffman and M. Evelyn Trautfelter Hoffman. She was the devoted wife of the late Albert Rowan Rieldal, loving mother of John William Riedal, Albert “Pete” Roland Riedal and his wife Terri, Michael Joseph Riedal and his wife Sandra, and Theresa Lynn Ray and her husband Deward. Mrs. Riedal was the grandmother of Brendan Riedal, Jason Riedal, Rachel Nystrom, Jacob Riedal, Tyler Riedal, Cassidy Riedal, Grier Ray, Tucker Ray, and Owen Ray, and great-grandmother of 4 great-grandchildren. She was predeceased by her sister, Phyllis Inez Zimmerman.…
Barbara Frary
Barbara Jean Frary of Havre de Grace, MD, passed away on March 7, 2019. She was 85. Mrs. Frary was born in Ashtabula, Ohio, to Gilbert Frederick Meier and Mabel Evelyn Murn Meier. She was the loving mother of Charles E. Frary and his wife Christine A. Frary of Havre de Grace, MD, and the late Scott David Frary. She was the adored grandmother of Kenneth Frary of Abingdon, MD, and Sadie Frary and her husband Steve of Jefferson, MD, and great-grandmother of Thomas Wenzilck and Erik Frary. She was predeceased by her siblings John Meier, Gilbert Meier, and Carl Meier. Mrs. Frary enjoyed reading and completing puzzles. Services will…
James Scott “Cob” Anderson, of Perryville, MD, passed away on March 4, 2019. He was 86. Mr. Anderson was born in Delta, PA, to James “Groundie” Anderson and Genevieve “Mimi” Morris Anderson. He was the companion of 30 years to Elva Jean Kelley, loving father of James S. Anderson, Jr., and Kathy Lynne Anderson (Billy). He was the adored grandfather of Whitney and Chris Anderson, and Kayla Anderson-Armacost, and the late Brandon Anderson. He was the brother of Roberta “Bertie” Scharsmidt of Wisconsin and the late Sally McDonald, and many nieces and nephews. Mr. Anderson was a Life Member and Past Commander at the American Legion Post 128 and a…
Larry Mathena
Larry Kirk Mathena, of Havre de Grace, MD, passed away on February 24, 2019. He was 63. Mr. Mathena was born in Bluefield, West Virginia, to Carol Ann Stafford Mathena and the late Lonnie Kirk Mathena. Mr. Mathena was the brother of Karen Mathena Taylor and her husband Donald, Jeanell Marie Mathena, and Lena Mathena Brown. He is also survived by several nieces and nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews. Mr. Mathena enjoyed watching football and lacrosse and was an avid photographer. Services will be private. Messages of condolence may be made at www.zellmanfuneralhome.com.
Leta Sheaffer
Leta Marie (Smith) Sheaffer, 81, of Havre de Grace, MD, died at home on February 23, 2019, due to long term complications from Respiratory and Cardiac illnesses. Leta was born in Olney, Maryland, and grew up in Sandy Spring, Maryland. In 1952, her family moved to Havre de Grace when her father, James Arthur Smith of Washington, D.C. became the regional manager with the Telephone Company. Leta also worked for the telephone company for 34 years and after her retirement, she worked part time selling town homes in Perryville, eventually working for her daughter in the family pawn business and later as a part time employee for BCH Realty. After…
Carolyn Rutherford
February 8, 2019 /
Margaret Henson
Margaret Lissie Henson, 95, of Bel Air, MD, passed away on February 9, 2019. She was a resident of Caraway Manor, to whom we are sincerely grateful for her loving care. She was predeceased by her daughter, Betty Jo Grassa, and is survived by her son, William Paul Edwards, Treva Edwards, sibling to Paul, son-in-law, Alfred Grassa, granddaughters, Nicole Grassa and Michelle Grassa Kozak and husband, Michael, great-grandson Bennett Cross, and three sisters; Opal Milhimes and husband, Shirley, Ann Brown and late husband, Harry, and Gladys Sullivan and husband, Sterling. Margaret, whose strong work ethic began with her chores on the family farm and with her siblings and was the…
Jerald Graham
Jerald “Jerry” Wayne Graham, Sr. of Aberdeen, MD, passed away surrounded by the love of his family on February 6, 2019 at the Harford Memorial Hospital. He was 73 years old and was the devoted husband of Ethel E. (Blansfield) Graham. Jerry was born in Whitby, WV to the late Edward J. and Melva M. (Bolen) Graham. He was the devoted father to Jerald “Jerry” Graham, Jr. (Jennifer), Howard “Scott” Williams, Jr. (Carole) and Joyce Renee Jenkins (Mark). He was the loving grandfather to Alan Crigger, Jerald Graham, III, Matthew, Sara and Hanna Williams, Adrianna Graham, Emily and Erin Jenkins. He was the adoring great-grandfather to Liliah, Hunter, Owen, Isabella,…
Margaret Compton
Margaret Agnes Compton (nee DeFrank) died peacefully on February 3, 2019 in Baltimore, MD at the age of 89. She was born to Dominic and Margaret DeFrank on 1 July 1929 and was the wife of the late Thomas J. Compton, Sr. Margaret is survived by her children Thomas J. Compton, Jr. of Baltimore, Margaret A. Blake of Spring Grove, PA, James A. Compton of Baltimore, William D. Compton of York, PA and Louise C. Spangler of Aberdeen, MD. She was preceded in death by her son, Joseph A. Compton, of Havre de Grace, MD. She is also survived by nine grandchildren, eight great grandchildren and four great-great grandchildren. A…
Sheila Taylor
Sheila Ann McNamee Taylor, of Havre de Grace, MD died on January 23, 2019. She was 82. Mrs. Taylor was born in Reading, Pennsylvania and raised in the Panama Canal Zone. She graduated from the Pennsylvania School of Nursing in 1956, She married Philip H. Taylor in the Naval Academy Chapel on the day after his graduation in June 1958. Together they raised three sons, Philip Jr., Timothy and Christopher all of Seattle, WA, and one daughter, Kathryn Brink (Duane) of Havre de Grace, MD. Sheila was a true Navy Wife, making a home for her family in many locations throughout her husband’s twenty-year Navy career. She was an outstanding…
Richard Bittner
Aubrey Hickman
Aubrey Olivia Hickman, a precious little angel, passed away surrounded by her family on January 11, 2019 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She was 2 years old. She was born in Bel Air, MD to Dennis F. Hickman, III and Hailie N. Beer. Aubrey is survived by her brother Leonardo D. Hubbard. She was the adoring granddaughter of Delana Bernardi, Michael S. Beer, Sheila Ross and Dennis F. Hickman, II. She was the cherished niece to many aunts and uncles. Aubrey loved her baby dolls, playing dress-up with her clothes and shoes, and putting on make-up. She loved and adored her shoes especially. Her favorite pass time was watching Bubble…
Rebecca Tompkins
Ermalee McCauley
Ermalee Ruth Hall McCauley of Havre de Grace, MD passed away surrounded by the love of her family on December 29, 2018. She was 91 years and the loving wife of the late William P. McCauley. She was born in Glen Hedrick, WV to the late Dallas Morgan and Mabel Mae (Meadows) Hall. Mrs. McCauley was the devoted mother of Paul McCauley and his wife Elizabeth, Michael McCauley and his wife Teresa “Terry”, Myra McCauley Mayer and her husband Douglas, Donna McCauley Cicero and Mildred Campbell and her husband Dr. Kenneth Campbell. She was the adoring Nana/Nena to Randy McCauley, Sara Tolley, Melissa Love, Ryan Mayer, Susan Cicero, Tracy Wilkinson,…
Mark Kirkendall
Roy Singleton
Roy Cleveland Singleton, of Churchville, MD, passed away on December 16, 2018. He was 81. Mr. Singleton was born in Harford County, MD, to William Edward Singleton and Isabella Mawbray Singleton. He was the husband of the late Edna Mae Singleton, loving father of Kimberley A. Gentry and her husband Jeffrey W. Gentry, Sr., of Churchville, MD. He was the adored grandfather of David W. Gentry, Samantha A. Gentry, Jeffrey W. Gentry, Jr., and Courtney M. Gentry, and great-grandfather of Caitlyne Shianne Gentry, and brother-in-law of Elaine Garrity. He was predeceased by his sisters Ruby Harris and Sarah Burkentine. Mr. Singleton enjoyed watching NASCAR, baseball, and football, and Fox News.…
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Five gang members who dragged 15-year-old out of Bronx store, stabbed him to death with machete found guilty
15-year-old Lesandro 'Junior' Guzman-Feliz was dragged from a bodega and violently stabbed to death by Jonaiki Martinez Estrella, Elvin Garcia, Antonio Rodriguez Hernandez Santiago, Miguel Rivera, and Jose Muniz on June 20, 2018
By Rachel Windsor
Five defendants were on Friday found guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of 15-year-old Lesandro "Junior" Guzman-Feliz last June in the Bronx.
The killing caused outrage in New York City after a video showed the teen being dragged from a bodega before being violently stabbed to death with a machete.
After debating for just 8 hours, the jury delivered its verdict against Jonaiki Martinez Estrella, Elvin Garcia, Antonio Rodriguez Hernandez Santiago, Miguel Rivera, and Jose Muniz, according to the New York Daily News.
Estrella, Garcia, Santiago, Rivera, and Muniz are reportedly members of the Trinitarios street gang. Law enforcement last year revealed that Guzman-Feliz had no affiliation with a gang.
The prosecutors in the case claim that the defendants attacked the teenagers because they mistakenly believed that he had some involvement with a rival group.
There were nine other suspects who were also accused of taking part in the murder. They are due to be called for trial in the near future.
In surveillance footage from June 20, 2018, the reported suspects followed Guzman-Feliz into the bodega and grabbed him. The guys then dragged the 15-year-old toward the door as he struggled.
An NYC police source had previously revealed that the teenager was yelling for help and can be seen clinging to the door frame during the assault, according to People.
Guzman-Feliz, who wanted to become a policeman, was stabbed numerous times in his neck with a machete. Though he managed to flee to a nearby hospital, the teenager succumbed to his injuries over there.
“This 15-year-old boy, moments before death, fought like hell to get away,” Assistant District Attorney Morgan Dolan said during the trail, according to NBC New York.
A few members of the jury were reportedly brought to tears by the graphic autopsy photos.
After the verdict was revealed on Friday, the teenagers' mother Leandra Feliz spoke out. “I’m not going to have my son back but those killers, those murderers are not going to be outside killing other kids. We have to stop the violence and we have to save the city,” she said, according to Pix 11.
The Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said in a statement, “Junior came to symbolize all of the young people who have lost their lives to brutal gang violence. Today’s verdict fortifies the Bronx community’s stand against violence.”
'My First First Love' season 2: Release date, plot, cast, trailer and all you need to know about the Netflix K-Drama
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< Back to collections by Christopher Anderson
Christopher Anderson - USA. Des Moines, Iowa. Republican Presidential Candidates.
USA. Des Moines, Iowa. 2007. Tommy THOMPSON at the Des Moines debate at Drake University.
USA. Des Moines, Iowa. 2007. Republican presidential candidates at a debate at Drake University. Duncan HU
USA. Des Moines, Iowa. 2007. Ron PAUL supporters outside the debates of Drake University.
USA. Des Moines, Iowa. 2007. Republican presidential candidates at a debate at Drake University. Sam BROWN
USA. Des Moines, Iowa. 2007. Republican presidential candidates at a debate at Drake University. Mitt ROMN
USA. Des Moines, Iowa. 2007. Republican presidential candidates at a debate at Drake University. Ron PAUL.
USA. Des Moines, Iowa. 2007. Republican presidential candidates at a debate at Drake University. Mike HUCK
USA. Des Moines, Iowa. 2007. Republican presidential candidates at a debate at Drake University.
USA. Iowa. 2007. Republican presidential candidate, Senator John MCCAIN, at a "house party."
USA. Iowa. 2007. Republican presidential candidate, Senator John MCCAIN, at a "house party" in Bettendorf,
USA. Iowa. 2007. Republican presidential candidate, Senator John MCCAIN, at a "house party" in Swisher, Io
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Elliott Erwitt - USA. Republican Convention..
USA. Miami Beach, Florida. 1968.
USA. Miami Beach, Florida. 1968. Republican Convention.
USA. Miami, FL. 1968. Billy Graham leading a prayer at the Republican National Convention.
USA. Miami Beach. Florida. 1968.
© Elliott Erwitt/Magnum Photos
USA. Florida. Miami Beach. 1968.
USA. Miami Beach, Florida. 1968. The Republican National Convention.
USA. Miami Beach, Florida. 1968. John WAYNE at the Republican National Convention.
USA. Miami, Florida. 1968. Ronald REAGAN and Gerald FORD at the Republican National Convention.
USA. Miami, Florida. 1968. Ronald REAGAN and Gerald FORD at the 1968 Republican National Convention.
USA. Miami, Florida. 1968. Ronald REAGAN at the 1968 Republican National Convention.
USA. Miami Beach, Florida. 1968. Republican National Convention.
USA. Florida. Miami Beach. 1968. Richard NIXON at the Republican National Convention.
USA. Miami Beach, Florida. 1968. Senator Strom THURMOND of South Carolina at the 1968 Republican National
USA. Miami Beach, Florida. 1968. Richard NIXON at Republican National Convention.
USA. Miami, Florida. 1968. Massive support for Richard Nixon at the Republican Convention.
United States. Washington DC. Republican Convention.
Miami. August 1968. Republican Convention.
United States. Washington DC. Republican Convention. Top left : John WAYNE.
USA. Florida. Miami Beach. 1968
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← [UPDATED- Link to Complaint] Press Conference to Announce Filing of Legal Complaint Against French Army for Failure to Assist Migrant Boat (Paris, 11 April)
EU Court of Justice Advocate General Recommends Annulment of Frontex Sea Borders Rule →
by Niels Frenzen | 11 Apr 2012 · 14:59
Report- “Forensic Oceanography: Left-to-Die Boat Case”
A report has been released which addresses new details surrounding the deaths of 63 migrants who died one year ago after their disabled boat drifted for days within an area that was heavily patrolled by NATO warships. The report, Forensic Oceanography: Left-to-Die Boat Case- 11April2012, was prepared by researchers at the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London, and by others, and was released earlier today in conjunction with the announcement in Paris by a coalition of NGOs that a legal process against the French military for alleged failure to rescue has been commenced by several survivors from the migrant boat.
Click here for today’s Guardian article on the Report.
Excerpt: “1.1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The UNHCR defined 2011 as the “deadliest year” in the Mediterranean since the organisation began recording these statistics in 2006, estimating that over 1,500 migrants died while fleeing Libya during the initial stages of the violent conflict. This number is extremely high in comparison to the 13,417 deaths documented from 1988 to March 2012 at the maritime borders of the EU, and the 6,226 deaths occurred solely in the Sicily Channel during the same period. Furthermore, the loss of lives at sea in 2011 occurred despite the significant naval and aerial presence in the area due to the military intervention in Libya launched by an international coalition of states and NATO (hereafter referred to as ”participating states/NATO”) under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973.
One particular event, reported by the international press, provoked widespread public outrage. In the case of what is now referred to as the “left-to-die boat”, 72 migrants fleeing Tripoli by boat on the early morning of March 27 2011 ran out of fuel and were left to drift for 14 days until they landed back on the Libyan coast. With no water or food on-board, only nine of the migrants survived. In several interviews, these survivors recounted the various points of contacts they had with the external world during this ordeal. This included describing the aircraft that flew over them, the distress call they sent out via satellite telephone and their visual sightings of a military helicopter which provided a few packets of biscuits and bottles of water and a military ship which failed to provide any assistance whatsoever. The events, as recounted by these survivors, appeared to constitute a severe violation of the legal obligation to provide assistance to any person in distress at sea, an obligation sanctioned by several international conventions.
In response to this incident, several initiatives were undertaken to shed light on these deaths and demand accountability for them. On 10 May 2011, Human Rights Watch demanded that NATO and its member countries conduct a full investigation of the case. On 9 June 2011, the French NGO GISTI sent out a public call which led to the formation of a coalition of NGOs (constituted primarily by CIRÉ, FIDH, GISTI, LDH, and Migreurop) that sought accountability for the non-assistance of migrants at sea during and in the aftermath of Arab Spring in general and in the case of the “left-to-die boat” in particular. The Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) appointed the Dutch Senator Tineke Strik to prepare an in-depth report on the deaths that have occurred in the Mediterranean in 2011. Her report titled “Lives lost in the Mediterranean Sea: who is responsible?” was presented in Brussels on 29 March 2012.
The enclosed report focuses on the spatial analysis of data surrounding the case of the “left-to-die boat” and includes a series of visualizations that supplement the written reports produced by the organisations and institutions mentioned above. In order to generate our analysis and report we employed a wide range of digital mapping and modelling technologies, which included the use of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery, geospatial mapping, and drift modelling. In combining these technologies to elucidate the chain of events of this particular case we also suggest new ways in which these emergent technologies could be applied to the field of international law and human rights advocacy.
In collecting, analysing, and synthesising data, reports, and human testimonies related to the case, this report reconstructs as accurately as possible what happened to this vessel. It ultimately aims to answer the following question: what happened to the “left-to-die boat” and who was involved in the events leading to the deaths of 63 migrants? While some differences between oral testimonies occur on specific points and while there are some instances in which more data would have been desirable, overall a coherent picture emerges from the synthesis of these disparate bodies of information, a picture that demonstrates how the migrants were lead to a slow death despite repeated contacts with several parties. An abbreviated summary of key events is outlined as follows (fig. 2):
• In the early morning of 27 March 2011, between 00:00 and 02:00 GMT, a Zodiac-style rubber boat, approximately 10 metres in length with 72 people on-board left the port next to the Medina (Old City) of Tripoli, Libya and headed in the direction of the island of Lampedusa in Southern Italy.
• At 14:55 GMT an aircraft flew over the migrants’ vessel notifying the Italian Maritime Rescue and Coordination Centre (MRCC) of its sighting. This fly-over generated a photograph and provided the exact location of the vessel (fig. 2A).
• At the end of the afternoon of the same day, with little fuel and almost no food and water left and no sight of land, the migrants called Father Zerai, an Eritrean priest based in Rome, by satellite phone to ask for help. After receiving the call, Father Zerai informed of the situation Rome MRCC, which after obtaining the GPS location of the boat at 16:52 GMT from the satellite provider (fig. 2B), informed their Maltese counterparts, NATO’s Naples Maritime HQ and sent out a distress signal to all ships in the area.
• Two to three hours after having placed the call and while the migrants’ vessel continued sailing in the direction of Lampedusa, it was flown over by a military helicopter, which bore the writing “ARMY” or “RESCUE ARMY” on its side. Despite the migrants’ clearly identifiable gestures for help – waving, holding the babies on board at arms length, showing the empty tanks of petrol -, the helicopter hovered over the boat but left without providing any immediate assistance. The migrants now believed they would soon be saved, and the “captain” therefore threw overboard the satellite phone, which had failing batteries and could have been used as evidence of his involvement in a smuggling network. The last GPS position registered by the satellite provider at 19:08 GMT (fig. 2C) thus corresponds in all likelihood to the location of the first helicopter encounter.
• After 4-5 hours of waiting, floating in approximately the same position and with no sign of rescue, the migrants decided to ask for help from some fishermen, whose boats they noticed around them. They attempted to reach those boats but the fishermen too left without providing any assistance. Shortly afterwards, and still in approximately the same position, the same helicopter came back. This time, military personnel on-board threw down 8 bottles of water and a few packets of biscuits before leaving again.
• Following this second helicopter visit, the migrants were shown the direction of Lampedusa by yet another fishing vessel. Between 00:00 and 01:00 GMT on 28 March 2011, they resumed movement in this direction for 5-8 hours until they ran out of fuel in the early morning (fig. 2D). From this moment, until they landed back on the Libyan coast, their boat drifted on the open sea without any use of its motor.
• After several days of drifting, between the 3rd and 4th of April, the migrants encountered a military ship with one or two helicopters on its deck (fig. 2E). The migrants got as close as 10 metres to this ship in their plea for help. The crew on the deck of the military ship did not provide assistance and only took photos before departing.
• The migrants’ vessel continued to drift until it eventually landed back on the coast of Libya, near Zlitan, on April 10th. In total, the boat drifted for 14 days. Of the 72 people who departed from Tripoli only 11 survived. One woman died shortly after arriving ashore, while the others were caught and imprisoned by Libyan soldiers. During the imprisonment another person died. In total nine people survived the journey and 63 perished.
While the involvement of all actors in these dramatic events will be discussed in greater detail in chapter three, the reconstruction of the events will clearly demonstrate that the actions or inactions of different actors contributed to the death of 63 migrants. At least one patrol aircraft, one helicopter, two fishing boats, and a military ship, whose identities still remain unknown, allegedly had direct contact with the boat. Moreover, the Italian and Maltese MRCC as well as participating states/NATO forces present in the area were informed of the distress of the boat and of its location, and had the technical and logistical ability to assist it. Despite all this, none of these actors intervened in a way that could have averted the tragic fate of the people on the boat.
In her report “Lives lost in the Mediterranean Sea: who is responsible?” Senator Tineke Strik has spoken of a “catalogue of failures” that led to the loss of “many opportunities for saving the lives of the persons on board the boat.” Furthermore, these deaths occurred in an area that was under strict surveillance by NATO to enforce an arms embargo as provided for by UNSCR 1973 and where at least 38 naval assets were present at some time during the event. While this report focuses on the “left-to-die boat” case specifically, it should be recalled once again that this is only one amongst the many incidents that have caused the death of more than 13,417 deaths at the maritime borders of the EU over the last 20 years.”
Click on following link, Forensic Oceanography: Left-to-Die Boat 11April2012 , for report.
Click here for Guardian article on report.
Filed under Analysis, Italy, Libya, Malta, Mediterranean, Reports
Tagged as Charles Heller, Deaths at sea, Forensic Architecture, Forensic Oceanography: Left-to-Die Boat, Goldsmiths, Libya, Lorenzo Pezzani, Migrants, NATO, Operation Unified Protector, Refugees, Search and Rescue, SITU Studio, University of London
One response to “Report- “Forensic Oceanography: Left-to-Die Boat Case””
Pingback: New Publications on Humanitarian Space; Youth Displacement; Forensic Oceanography; Humanitarian Assistance; Peacebuilding | Refugee Archives Blog
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Tag Archives: offence
Lucas, Miller and a law that worked so hard not to treat them equally
Posted by Mike Sivier in Crime, Justice, Law, Politics, UK
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Congratulations are due to Green MP Caroline Lucas, who walked free from court today after criminal charges against her were overturned.
She had been charged with obstructing a public highway and a public order offence, during high-profile anti-fracking protests last summer. Neither offence carries a prison sentence – the maximum penalty for either charge would have been a fine of up to £1,000.
District judge Tim Pattinson said the prosecution had failed to satisfy him that Lucas had “the requisite knowledge” about the Section 14 order being in place.
On the obstruction charge, he said he did not hear any evidence that any actual obstruction of a vehicle or person was caused by the protest.
It is good for British justice that Ms Lucas was acquitted – but bad for British justice that she was taken to court in the first place, most particularly because the case contrasts so strongly with that of disgraced former cabinet minister Maria Miller.
Miller claimed tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money under false pretences. You can call that fraud, if you like (maximum penalty: 10 years’ imprisonment).
Did she go to court? No.
Because she is a member of Parliament, the financial irregularity was investigated by a Parliamentary body, the Commons Committee on Standards. Rather than take the advice of the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, who recommended that Miller pay back the full amount, the committee ruled that she should return just £5,800 and apologise to Parliament for obstructive behaviour during the investigation.
Surely everybody can see the double-standard here?
The least we can learn from these two stories is that the law absolutely does not treat everybody equally.
Ms Lucas was arrested, detained at Her Majesty’s convenience and now she has faced trial for the offences alleged against her. This MP, who opposes the government in Parliament, was then acquitted after a fair trial and has the support of the general public in this matter.
Miller was accused of a far more serious crime than Ms Lucas but has not been arrested, has not been detained, and has not been tried for the offences alleged against her. The then-government minister was whitewashed by her colleagues and only resigned because of a public outcry against the decision.
What conclusion can the public draw, other than that government MPs are effectively above the law?
David Cameron’s government can only redeem itself with two actions: It must remove Parliament’s right to investigate claims of financial irregularity by MPs and placing this duty firmly where it belongs – with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.
The other action?
Obvious, really…
Maria Miller must face a criminal trial, charged with fraud.
Vox Political supports justice.
Labour demands clarity over the Patrick Rock allegations
05 Wednesday Mar 2014
Posted by Mike Sivier in Children, Corruption, Crime, Media, People, Politics, UK
10 Downing Street, Cabinet Secretary, child abuse, child porn, civil servant, Conservative, crime, Daily Mail, David Cameron, Harriet Harman, image, internet, Jack Dromey, Jeremy Heywood, Jon Ashworth, Labour, Number 10, offence, paedophile, Patricia Hewitt, Patrick Rock, police, policy unit, Tories, Tory
A Rock in a hard place: Patrick Rock, formerly a senior civil servant and policy advisor, who now faces allegations that he possessed indecent images of child abuse.
Credit where it’s due: Whatever you think of the Labour Party, its leaders deserve praise for asking the right questions about the Patrick Rock affair.
Mr Rock was arrested on February 13, suspected of possessing child abuse imagery – shortly after he resigned his position working on policies that we all thought were intended to make it harder to find such images on the Internet.
Details of his resignation and arrest were not released to the public, but the media sprang into action and in a matter of days, the Daily Mail ran a major story accusing three leading members of the Labour Party of sympathising with paedophile groups.
It was only after this story had run its course that the major news media made the public aware of Mr Rock’s arrest – and Vox Political was not the only blog that voiced suspicions about the sequence of events.
It seems somebody at Labour was paying attention. Shadow minister Jon Ashworth has asked, in the public interest:
When were 10 Downing Street and David Cameron first made aware that Mr Rock may have been involved in an offence?
How much time passed until Mr Rock was questioned about the matter and the police alerted?
What contact have officials had with Mr Rock since his resignation?
What was Mr Rock’s level of security clearance?
And, most importantly:
Why were details of Mr Rock’s resignation not made public immediately?
The last question should also refer to Mr Rock’s arrest – but it could be suggested that this is implicit as the details would include the reason for the resignation.
Mr Ashworth’s letter was sent to Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood. He is Britain’s top civil servant and not a Tory politician; as such he is duty-bound to provide answers that serve the interests of the nation, rather than the Conservative Party.
He’d better get it right, too – as this story unfolds and more information is revealed, we will be able to judge the validity of Mr Heywood’s response.
It would be unfortunate for his career if it became clear at a later time that he had tried to protect anybody. Closing ranks to look after your own people is a human response – but inappropriate at high levels of government.
When senior government advisors come under suspicion, it is right that everyone connected with them should be investigated as well.
Coalition policy success: 80,000 children homeless for Christmas
Posted by Mike Sivier in Bedroom Tax, Benefits, Children, Conservative Party, Cost of living, Health, Housing, Liberal Democrats, People, Politics, Poverty, UK
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Tory politicians don’t care and Liberal Democrats don’t have any power – that’s why 80,000 children are being housed in temporary accommodation, alongside drug users and enduring threats of violence, as reported by Shelter today.
The government’s own figures show 2,090 families living in bed and breakfasts – an increase of eight per cent on 2012 and the largest number in 10 years, according to The Guardian. Of these, 760 have been living in B&Bs longer than the legal six-week limit – a 10 per cent increase on last year.
More than 43,000 other homeless households with children are in other emergency accommodation – usually privately-rented short-term flats, which are expensive. This is an increase of nine per cent on last year.
To put this into context, a Labour government commitment to halve the number of families in this kind of emergency accommodation meant the total fell between 2005 and 2010 – but it has been rising again since June 2011.
This is a human disaster created by the Coalition government.
Most families interviewed by the charity said they felt unsafe, with one child directly threatened by a man after an argument over a shared bathroom. Almost half said their children had witnessed incidents such as sexual offences, drug use and dealing.
One mother of three said: “One of the reasons we left was one of the residents trying to sell us crack cocaine.”
Most of the 25 families Shelter interviewed lived in one room; half said the children were sharing beds with parents or siblings and the family was sharing kitchen facilities with others. All but three said it was hard to find a safe place for their children to play. Three families had no cooking facilities and one reported sharing a cooker and fridge with 22 other people.
More than half had to share a bathroom or toilet with strangers, with 10 families sharing with seven or more other people; two-thirds had no table to eat on, and schoolchildren were finding it hard to do homework.
And their health is suffering: “It’s so hard to give him a balanced diet as it’s impossible to make proper meals here, let alone a Christmas dinner. He’s getting really pale and is so tired all the time. He gets so scared but it’s difficult when I’m scared myself. This is no place for a child to live,” said a mother in a Hounslow B&B.
“This shouldn’t be happening in 21st century Britain,” said Shelter’s chief executive, Campbell Robb, who described the charity’s findings as “shocking” and the conditions forced on families as “shameful”.
He said: “No child should be homeless, let alone 80,000. But tragically, with more people struggling to make ends meet and homelessness on the rise, we’re bracing ourselves for an increase in demand from families who desperately need our help.”
Housing minister Kris Hopkins couldn’t care less. “We’ve given councils nearly £1bn to tackle homelessness and to support people affected by the welfare reforms,” he sniffed.
“I am very clear that they should be fully able to meet their legal responsibility to house families in suitable accommodation.”
Let us be very clear on this: the problem is not that Tories like Hopkins don’t understand. This is exactly the result that they wanted; they just won’t acknowledge it because it is electorally damaging.
Look at the policies that created this problem: The bedroom tax; the ‘Pickles Poll Tax’, otherwise known as the Council Tax reduction scheme; the benefit cap that so many people in this country seem to support without understanding any of its implications.
Vox Political reported back in January what they would mean: “There will be a rise in rent and mortgage arrears… affordable housing will be less available and landlords less able or willing to rent to tenants on benefits… Private sector rental may become less attractive to landlords if tenants aren’t paying the rent. This will lead to a growth in homelessness. Councils have statutory duties and may see an increasing burden.”
But increases to the Discretionary Housing Payment fund have been entirely insignificant compared with the extra burden councils have faced. They received £150 million between them; Durham County Council had £883,000 and spent it all within eight weeks.
We have seen the start of the social cleansing predicted by this blog back in August 2012, when we noted that at least one council would use these measures to “clear out the poor and set up shop as a desirable residence for the rich”.
The housing bubble created by George Osborne with his ‘Help To Buy’ scheme will accelerate this process.
So don’t let a Tory tell you it’s nothing to do with them. They wanted this. In fact, 80,000 homeless children at Christmas is probably not enough for them.
Bettison’s resignation shows yet again the double standards of our justice system
Posted by Mike Sivier in Crime, People, Police, Powys, UK
cover-up, crime, criminal, Dyfed-Powys Police, Hillsborough, Independent Police Complaints Commission, injustice, IPCC, Justice, Liverpool, Liverpool Football Club, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, misconduct, offence, Parliament, people, police, police conduct, retire, rules, Sir Norman Bettison, South Yorkshire Police, Vox Political, West Yorkshire Police
Why is it permissible to investigate possible misconduct by Sir Norman Bettison after he has retired, but not permissible to investigate misconduct by other retired police officers? Is it because the allegations against him are related to the high-profile Hillsborough tragedy, and nobody will care about YOUR case?
Sir Norman Bettison’s resignation as chief constable of West Yorkshire Police has infuriated me.
You might be surprised at this. You probably think it’s exactly what he should have done after he was accused, in Parliament, of boasting about fabricating stories to blame Liverpool supporters for the Hillsborough disaster, while he was serving with South Yorkshire Police in 1989.
I’m not angry about that. I’m angry because the Independent Police Complaints Commission released a statement after Bettison’s announcement, saying that it will continue to investigate his alleged part in the Hillsborough cover-up. The statement said: “We can, and in this case will, investigate criminal offences and misconduct matters after an officer has retired or resigned.”
This is not what you would get, if you tried to allege misconduct against a retired police officer. Believe me – I know!
That’s why I say this story demonstrates the difference between what happens in a high-publicity case, when a large number of people create a fuss, supported by people who are in the public eye, and what happens when an ordinary person goes to the police with an allegation of misconduct against a retired officer.
If you have read this column before, you will be aware that I have had dealings with the police over allegations by my disabled girlfriend (and her disabled mother) against a man who abused them mentally, physically and sexually. Their complaints to the police, made separately, went uninvestigated and the mother was actually sent back into an abusive environment by officers at her local police station.
When they made a joint complaint a couple of years ago, they wanted misconduct investigations launched into the behaviour of the police officers who had been involved in these incidents (which took place over a 28-year period, starting in the 1970s).
The response was that these investigations could not possibly take place – because many of the officers involved had since retired. In a face-to-face interview with an investigating officer on May 12, 2010, he told us: “Those who have retired don’t come under police conduct rules.”
In other words, any police officer – who may have committed crimes or acts of misconduct, but has since retired – will always get away scot free.
That’s the justice we got.
That’s why the IPCC’s unctuous and hypocritical attempt to ingratiate itself with the public by leaping to the attack on this high-publicity issue fills me with fury. Faced with such flagrant double-standards, the only rational response is disgust.
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no-man played live for the first time since 2008 as part of the online record label Burning Shed’s 10th anniversary event on 14th October 2011. This was the same line-up of musicians that the band used for the three European mixtaped shows, the only change was the use of acoustic, instead of electronic, drums.
Whilst the show was noticeably shorter than the Bush Hall show I attended in 2008 (the 2011 gig weighing in at around 45 minutes), it was a much more cohesive, powerful and assured performance.
no-man have been my favourite band since stumbling upon their Loveblows & Lovecries – A Confession album in 1993 (not having heard a note of the band’s music but being hypnotised by the sleeve-notes and album art-work). With each album, I’ve grown to love the band’s music more – which is unusual, as a lot of band’s peak with early releases and go downhill, desperately trying to recapture past glories. Not so for no-man, whose recordings have shifted away from it’s electronic roots and constantly evolved over the years, though the live appearances slowed to a trickle. Whilst I caught an early Porcupine Tree show (in a tiny local pub in Kent, with about 30 people in the audience), I did not get to see no-man live until Tim & Steven performed at another Burning Shed event, this time in Norwich in 2006, then finally seeing a full no-man show when the band performed at Bush Hall in 2008.
The 2008 Bush Hall show was certainly a memorable and emotional evening, captured perfectly by Richard Smith’s excellent mixtaped dvd. But for me, the real no-man experience was this magical 45 minutes at Leamington Spa. I’ve seen hundreds of different live shows across many genres, committing many individual live performances to memory, and of all these performances I have seen since my first live show back in 1979 (Thin Lizzy at Hammersmith Odeon, in case you are wondering), I have compiled a list of my favourite gigs (Thin Lizzy never made it into the top 10, though it was a great first gig). Vivid memories of performances by the likes of The Stranglers at The Rainbow, The Police at Lewisham Odeon, Kate Bush at the London Palladium, The Who at Wembley Stadium, Prince & the Revolution on the Parade tour, Nine Inch Nails a couple of years ago and more, have now been joined by this no-man show.
The performance was more confident than the last no-man gig, and was helped by the addition of acoustic drums, which gave the band so much more power and percussive depth. Opening with a track the band had not performed live before, the sweet pop of wild opera‘s my revenge on seattle, with it’s slow build-up, was a wise choice of opener. By the time the bass drum kicked in during the latter stages of the song, you could feel the excitement in the audience.
The bass heavy, lyrically disturbing time travel in texas ratcheted up the noise, and was a perfect example of where this line-up of no-man could go if transferred to a studio environment (which I hope happens one day). The 2011 version was so much more powerful, and added a real sense of menace to the song.
all the blue changes was the personal highlight of the gig for me. together we’re stranger is the album that took a long while to finally hit home, at one point it was my least favourite no-man release but it’s now one of my most cherished albums, what the hell do I know? This edgy live version displayed some wonderful interplay between the musicians and transported the band to a different level on the night. A real shiver down the spine moment.
pretty genius (the third wild opera song of the evening, and no-man’s least popular album according to Tim) felt more like the album version, mainly due to the more powerful drum sound, and then there was lighthouse. A key track on the returning jesus album (and the band’s most “progressive” song) lighthouse retains its power and beauty in a live format, and the instrumental coda after the organ break always sends me somewhere. If they had played just this one track, I would have still left the venue a happy and content man.
The surprise of the evening was the performance of beaten by love, an (unreleased by no-man) song from 1987. A very dark song, that would not have sounded out-of-place on wild opera or a recent NiN album even, which sort of threw a curveball into the set. Though it went down well with the crowd, the inclusion of an unfamiliar song maybe interrupted the flow a little, but no-man like to challenge and stimulate their audience, so I’m not complaining.
wherever there is light received the warmest response of the evening, and was closer to the schoolyard ghosts studio version than the 2008 live incarnation. Sad songs are definitely the most uplifting.
The set ended with another track from the last no-man album, the slow-burning mixtaped, a song so much more powerful live than in its recorded form.
The audience summoned the band back for an encore, flowermouth‘s things change, the perfect no-man show-stopper. Tim jumped down from the stage when his vocal duties were over, watching the end of the song, including the wonderful violin solo from Steve Bingham, with the rest of the audience.
And that was it. Hopefully it won’t take another three years to get no-man back together again, and when it does happen, it’s clear the current no-man live band deserves to remain unchanged, as this line-up has got a unique chemistry and a real empathy for the material.
“You’d kill for that feeling again…”
my revenge on seattle
time travel in texas
all the blue changes
pretty genius
beaten by love
wherever there is light
mixtaped
encore: things change
Somewhere in the Midlands, no-man happened to be: Tim Bowness (vocals), Steven Wilson (guitar), Michael Bearpark (guitar), Pete Morgan (bass), Andy Booker (drums), Stephen Bennett (keyboards) & Steve Bingham (violin).
***Update December 20th 2011: the concert is being released on CD as Love and Endings by Burning Shed in February 2012 – listen to lighthouse (live) from Love and Endings below***
Listen to lighthouse (live) on iPhone or iPad
no-man store on the Burning Shed
mixtaped / returning DVD at the Burning Shed
no-man website
no-man Twitter
no-man on Facebook
listen to no-man on Soundcloud
all photos on this page by Charlotte Kinson
Blog post from no-man live band member Steve Bingham
Tags: Andy Booker, Burning Shed, Michael Bearpark, no-man, no-man live, Pete Morgan, Stephen Bennett, Steve Bingham, Steven Wilson, Tim Bowness
Categories : Live Review
Memories of Machines is a collaboration between no-man vocalist Tim Bowness and Giancarlo Erra from the Italian band Nosound. Memories of Machines formed in 2006, and Warm Winter is the band’s first release.
Come out of other stories
Lead to other stories
New memories of machines”
The album opener, New Memories of Machines sets the scene for the album, which is a mix of electronic and acoustic sounds, making an album of songs alternating between traditional and ambient / classical arrangements. The album kicks into life with the second track, Before We Fall, with a powerful interplay between the acoustic and electric playing of Giancarlo, and backing vocals from All About Eve’s Julianne Regan.
“It’s not love how you see me
It’s not love how we touch”
Listen to Before We Fall
iPhone / iPad link: http://soundcloud.com/tim-bowness/before-we-fall
Regular Bowness listeners will already be familiar with Beautiful Songs You Should Know, which appeared on no-man’s Schoolyard Ghosts album from 2008, as well as an earlier Nosound version in 2006. The Memories of Machines version has a more organic feel than no-man’s take, and is driven by Marianne de Chastelaine’s emotive cello lines.
There is a lot of optimism in the first set of songs on Warm Winter, almost as if the early part of the album maps out the formative stages of a relationship (playing a prospective lover the songs that have defined your life to date, moving to an unfamiliar city, “Trading the ghosts for someone new”) and as the album progresses, the songs document the cracks that appear in the relationship.
Warm Winter is a piece of rare beauty, and I’m sure will be an album highlight for a lot of people. It’s also possibly the most uplifting song sung by Bowness to date. I personally find that sad songs are the ones that usually affect me emotionally, but Warm Winter is a rare exception to that rule. Whilst it is certainly not a KC and the Sunshine Band soundalike, it is uncharacteristically positive. The track also has one of Tim’s finest vocal performances, with echoes of mid-period Bowie in the vocal phrasing and ending with a powerful guitar solo (one of the few on the album) from Giancarlo.
The optimism starts to peel away with Lucky You, Lucky Me, and the appearance of the mellotron heralds an appearance from Steven Wilson (no-man / Porcupine Tree), who also adds guitar to the track, in addition to his role in mixing the whole album. One of the highlights of the Warm Winter album is the mix, and the man Wilson (as usual) does not disappoint. A lot of attention has also gone into the sequencing of the album, and it deserves your full attention, sounding at it’s best played in the way the band intended you to hear it, not with the songs scattered with no care all over some random playlist.
“I take my words
And use my words
To heal the hurt and the blame.”
Change Me Once Again is a tale of control and compromise, with a haunting chorus lit up by a simple piano riff and the layered vocals of Julianne Regan.
Listen to Change Me Once Again:
iPhone / iPad link: http://soundcloud.com/memoriesofmachines/change-me-once-again-1
Something In Our Lives features an appearance from OSI / Fates Warning’s Jim Matheos, whilst Lost And Found In The Digital World is built over Robert Fripp’s soundscapes and haunting trumpet from UMA’s Aleksei Saks, giving the track a Brilliant Tree era David Sylvian feel.
“Lost and found in the digital world.
Lost and found.
It’s time for letting go.”
Schoolyard Ghosts is a solo Bowness composition that was originally destined for the last no-man album of the same name, and although the song didn’t appear on the no-man album in the end, some of the tune leaked into no-man’s Mixtaped.
Add to this the performances on the track from recent no-man live band members Michael Bearpark, Stephen Bennett, Andy Booker and long-term Bowness collaborator Peter Chilvers, and the track Schoolyard Ghosts will sound familiar to most no-man listeners.
“You and Jules down vodka shots
To hide the feelings that you’ve got.
You love her eyes, you love her mouth,
You love her put on Rock-chick pout.”
An intensely personal Bowness lyric and the only track with real progressive leanings (the keyboard solo recalls …And Then There Were Three era Genesis), Schoolyard Ghosts has some wonderful interplay between the musicians.
“The schoolyard ghosts that haunt your dreams,
Hold you back and make you feel unclean.”
As the final note fades, the album’s closing piece, the nearly 7½ minute long At The Centre Of It All slowly fades into view. This track became my instant favourite when I first heard the album, and my opinion hasn’t changed many months later.
A mostly electronic piece, with suspended piano notes and deep cello cutting through the glacial strings, a delay-heavy Bowness vocal intones
“All the things that were meant to be,
All the love you were meant to feel,
Became too hard to reveal.”
Porcupine Tree’s Colin Edwin contributes double bass to the song, as Giancarlo’s restrained guitar bookends the deep synth lines, as the “Beautiful Songs You Should Know” sadly become “Just pointless lists at the centre of it all.”
A moving end to a beautiful album.
New Memories Of Machines (1.31)
Before We Fall (5.12)
Beautiful Songs You Should Know (4.59)
Warm Winter (5.34)
Lucky You, Lucky Me (4.17)
Change Me Once Again (5.56)
Something In Our Lives (4.11)
Lost And Found In The Digital World (5.14)
Schoolyard Ghosts (5.32)
At The Centre Of It All (7.26)
Memories Of Machines is:
Tim Bowness – vocals, guitar on Schoolyard Ghosts
Giancarlo Erra – guitars, keyboards
Produced and arranged by Tim Bowness and Giancarlo Erra
Mixed by Steven Wilson at Nomansland
Mastered by Jon Astley at Close To The Edge
© 2011 Mascot Records
Buy Memories of Machines at Amazon UK
Buy Memories of Machines at Amazon US
Buy Memories of Machines from The Burning Shed
Tags: Giancarlo Erra, Julianne Regan, Memories Of Machines, Michael Bearpark, no-man, Nosound, Peter Chilvers, Steven Wilson, Tim Bowness, Warm Winter
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Real World Locations
The Jim Henson statue at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Maryland is the 7th state of the United States of America.
Jim Henson lived in Hyattsville, Maryland from 1946 to 1959.
Maryland is home of the University of Maryland, where Jim Henson went to college.
Sam and Friends sponsor Esskay Meats is based in Baltimore.
Jim and Jane Henson lived in Bethesda, Marlyland from 1959 to 1963. During that time, the headquarters of Muppets, Inc was the basement of the Hensons' Bethesda house.[1]
Henson produced commercials for Baltimore-based Faygo soft drinks in 1958 and Cloverland Dairy in 1965.
On April 22, 1995, Jane Henson accepted Jim Henson’s induction into the University of Maryland Hall of Fame.[2]
On April 23, 2006, Jim Henson was inducted into the Prince George's County Hall of Fame.[3]
Muppeteer Kevin Clash was born and raised in the Baltimore area.
Baby Gonzo plays on a Maryland beach in the Muppet Babies coloring book Muppet Babies Visit the Fifty States.
ASesame Street exhibit was featured at the National Children's Museum in National Harbor, Maryland (later relocated to Washington DC).
↑ Clark, Thomas D., telephone interview with Henson archivist Karen Falk, December 10, 2009.
↑ Induction of Jim Henson into the University of Maryland Alumni Hall of Fame, Student Union Building. jimhensonlegacy.org
↑ Jim Henson Inducted to Prince George’s County Hall Of Fame. jimhensonlegacy.org
Wikipedia has an article related to:
Retrieved from "https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Maryland?oldid=1142710"
3 Season 49 (2018-2019)
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You are here: Home » Artist » Big Gifts For Good Causes
Big Gifts For Good Causes
Sarah Skates • June 15, 2011
ACM, Swift Support St. Jude
ACM Lifting Lives® partnered with Entertainer of the Year, Taylor Swift, to donate $50,000 to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Erin Spahn, Executive Director ACM Lifting Lives, was on hand at Swift’s sold-out stadium show Saturday (6/11) at Detroit’s Ford Field, where she presented Swift with a $25,000 check for St. Jude, Swift’s chosen philanthropy. Swift also came prepared with her own personal check to St. Jude for $25,000, to bring the evening’s total to $50,000. Swift has donated more than $1 million to charity in the past year alone, including more than $750,000 raised for victims of the recent tornados in the Southeast and $500,000 last year to Nashville flood relief efforts.
Erin Spahn (L), Executive Director ACM Lifting Lives, and ACM Entertainer of the Year Taylor Swift (R) present checks totaling $50,000 to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Darryl Worley and Friends In-The-Round
Darryl Worley is hosting a series of songwriters-in-the-round events to benefit his namesake charitable foundation. In May he played in Memphis with Brett Jones, Ira Dean and Bernie Nelson, raising more than $33,000. Next, Bumpus Harley-Davidson of Jackson will host Worley, Steve Leslie, Jim “Moose” Brown and Wynn Varble on Tuesday, June 28, at 6:30 p.m.
(L-R): Brett Jones, Darryl Worley, Ira Dean, and Bernie Nelson
MCTI Makes Big Donation To Children’s Hospital
The 38th Annual Music City Tennis Invitational 2011 proudly donated more than $73,000 to the Center for Child Development at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.
The MCTI planning committee and friends.
GRAMMY in the Schools Supports Music Education
Nashville’s Glencliff High School hosted music industry execs for GRAMMY Career Day on May 19. The school also received a check for $5,500 and a GRAMMY Signature Schools Enterprise Award, recognizing outstanding music programs in learning institutions that are economically under-served. Both of these GRAMMY in the Schools® programs are offered with generous support from the Ford Motor Company Fund and others.
(L-R): George J. Flanigen IV (Chair of the Board of The Recording Academy® and Board member of the GRAMMY Foundation®), Vicki Mack-Lataillade (co-founder of Central South Distribution), Allen Brown (Sony Music Nashville), Shannon Sanders (two-time GRAMMY® Award-winning Producer), Shawn McSpadden (executive manager Red Light Management) and David R. Sears (Senior Director, GRAMMY Foundation) at GRAMMY Career Day. Photo: Tony R. Phipps/WireImage.com
Category: Artist, Featured, Organizations
Signings, Events And Certs. »
« Lambert Reaches No. 1, Revs Up Pistol Annies
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From redlining to subprime lending: New report examines history of Detroit’s housing crisis, racial barriers
Home » From redlining to subprime lending: New report examines history of Detroit’s housing crisis, racial barriers
By Alex Rossman
In News Releases
From redlining to subprime lending: New report examines history of Detroit’s housing crisis, racial barriers2019-05-092019-05-09https://mlpp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/mlpp-logo.pngMLPPhttps://mlpp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/family-in-kitchen.png200px200px
Alex Rossman
arossman@mlpp.org
City’s residents face high housing-cost burden, modern policies continue legacy of racism and exclusion in African American homeownership
LANSING—As Detroit continues to experience an economic comeback and a new development boom, the benefits have not reached all residents, with dramatically high housing costs as a share of income and the continued disenfranchisement of the city’s African American residents. A new report released by the Michigan League for Public Policy, Detroit: The evolution of a housing crisis, combines data and historical context to illustrate the past and ongoing hurdles to owning a home—and subsequently building wealth—that African Americans have faced. An executive summary of the report is also available.
“Detroit’s history and identity is so entwined with African American people and culture, but amidst the many points of pride, there is a history of harmful policies that have held residents of color back,” said Karen Holcomb-Merrill, Chief Operating Officer for the Michigan League for Public Policy. “This is especially true when it comes to housing, as Detroit has unfortunately become a stark example of how past racist housing policies are driving residential segregation, poor health and poverty today.”
The report examines the constant barriers to homeownership African Americans in Detroit have faced, from discriminatory deed restrictions and redlining to the subprime mortgage industry and illegal tax foreclosures. White migration to the suburbs sparked decades of disinvestment in the city, and now a resurgence of White residents are fueling big-ticket investments and inflated housing costs. As a result, African Americans have been relegated to substandard rental housing and neighborhoods that offer little in the way of health, education and employment.
Median income in the city of Detroit is $27,838 per year—roughly half of the state median income—and the poverty rate in the city is twice the state rate. Paired with rising housing costs, Detroiters are spending a larger share of their income on housing than people living in many other Michigan communities. This means they have less money in their budgets for other necessities like food, healthcare and transportation. Renters—now the majority of the city’s households—are particularly burdened, having to spend nearly half of their income on housing. In the larger metro area, affordable units are available for fewer than 1 in 3 renter families with extremely low incomes.
Unaffordable housing costs, dangerous building conditions and evictions lead to frequent moves and homelessness, with serious consequences for health and economic security. Low-income housing or rentals are less likely to be inspected or up to code, and poor housing conditions can contribute to Detroit’s exceptionally high rates of childhood lead poisoning, asthma, and infant and maternal mortality. The city’s water shutoffs are also part of the housing crisis, as outstanding water bill debts are rolled into unpaid property taxes and increase the risk of tax foreclosure.
Detroit kids are also adversely affected by unstable housing situations. In the 2015-16 school year, 58 percent of all Detroit students were enrolled in more than one school, compared to only 26 percent of their suburban peers. One in 3 of the city’s elementary students change schools every single year, constantly leaving friends, trusted teachers and other school staff and having to establish new relationships and routines in an unfamiliar environment. When children change schools, academic achievement suffers at both the individual and classroom levels, and the negative impact grows with each subsequent move, including a diminished likelihood of graduating high school on time and lifetime earnings as adults. Children experiencing multiple moves, homelessness and other forms of housing instability experience worse health, more hospitalizations and greater developmental risks than their counterparts with stable housing.
“The impact of low-quality housing options is pervasive and profound,” said Holcomb-Merrill. “Housing struggles affect economic standing, public health, education and more. Just as we have been saying about Michigan as a whole, economic recovery is only beneficial if it reaches all people, and there are many state and local policies that can help alleviate Detroit’s housing crisis and improve living options for African Americans.”
The League’s report hinges on two big, key ideas: Explicit and ongoing discussion of past racism is key to addressing it, and Detroit’s economic turnaround is the ideal time to make changes that distribute its benefits to all of the city’s residents. The report offers up several specific policy recommendations regarding improved housing affordability and reduced racial disparities:
Focus more affordable housing efforts on the households with the very lowest incomes.
Strengthen the community benefits ordinance to ensure that the Detroit residents subsidizing developers benefit from the ensuing economic development.
Establish water shutoff protections and income-based bills for households with low incomes to protect their health and help stabilize their housing situation.
Provide for eviction expungement so struggling families or those wronged by unethical landlords aren’t indefinitely blacklisted from rental housing.
Strengthen consumer protections in land contracts to ensure that unscrupulous sellers can’t cheat buyers out of the return on their investment.
Detroit: The evolution of a housing crisis, is part of the League’s Home, Health, Hope series on Michigan’s affordable housing crisis. Housing needs are also addressed in the League’s people-driven policy agenda, the Owner’s Manual for Michigan.
The Michigan League for Public Policy, www.mlpp.org, is a nonprofit policy institute focused on economic opportunity for all. It is the only state-level organization that addresses poverty in a comprehensive way.
Support the League
Michigan League for Public Policy
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michleague@gmail.com
The League is an equal opportunity employer, committed to building and retaining a diverse and inclusive staff and workplace.
View open positions >>
© 2018 Michigan League for Public Policy. All rights reserved.
Amber Bellazaire
Amber Bellazaire joined the Michigan League for Public Policy as a policy analyst in June of 2019. Her work primarily focuses on state policy and budgets affecting Michigan’s Medicaid programs. Previously, Amber worked at the National Conference of State Legislatures tracking legislation and research related to injury and violence prevention, adolescent health, and maternal and child health. She also brings with her two years of Americorps service. As a full time volunteer, Amber had the opportunity to tutor high school students in Chelsea, Massachusetts and address issues of healthcare access and food insecurity through in-person outreach in Seattle, Washington.
Amber holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and psychology and a Master of Public Health from the University of Michigan.
Contact: abellazaire@mlpp.org
Dwayne Barnes
Dwayne Barnes is a self-described “Scholar, gentleman and musician.” He is the founder of Social Tech, a think tank that focuses on the issues related to technology creation, consumption and its impact in urban communities.
Prior to joining the League, Dwayne was the engagement strategy and urban outreach for the Center for Michigan and Bridge magazine a nonprofit and nonpartisan think and do tank.
In 2013, Dwayne was the recipient of the Spirit of Detroit Award for his work with Project: Better Man, Inc. a prostate cancer awareness, education, and prevention organization in Detroit. Mr. Barnes’ professional work is based on empowering communities to save themselves through education, entrepreneurship, the arts, and policy.
In 2017, Dwayne earned a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Oakland University and a BS in African American Studies from Eastern Michigan University. Dwayne is married to Doria Barnes and has two children Dwayne Barnes III and Dylan Barnes.
In addition to his educational and professional accomplishments, Dwayne is the Chair of Recruitment for New Leaders Council Detroit Chapter.
Contact: dbarnes@mlpp.org 517.487.5436
Jayme Vosovic
Jayme Vosovic joined the Michigan League for Public Policy in January of 2019 as the West Michigan Community Engagement Specialist. In her role with the league, Jayme works with organizations throughout the region to connect the impact of budget and tax policies to their communities. She is committed to partnering with stakeholders to amplify constituent voices so that all Michiganders have the opportunity to thrive.
Prior to joining the League, Jayme served as the West Michigan Regional Coordinator for U.S. Senator Gary Peters and interned with Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss. Jayme has worked with survivors of sexual assault, families experiencing homelessness, the Mayor’s Greening Initiative, affordable housing, and sits on the board of directors for Girls on the Run of Kent and Muskegon Counties. She holds a Bachelor of Social Work from Grand Valley State University and a Master in Social Work—with a macro focus—from Michigan State University.
Contact: jvosovic@mlpp.org
Karen Holcomb-Merrill
Karen Holcomb-Merrill currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer with the League. In that capacity, Karen oversees the League’s public policy and advocacy work. Karen is an experienced coalition-builder and advocate. Prior to coming to the League, Karen was the Public Policy Consultant for Tobacco-Free Michigan, working for smoke-free laws. Before her tenure at Tobacco-Free Michigan, Karen served as the Executive Director of Common Cause in Michigan for 14 years.
Karen is a graduate of Albion College, with a degree in Political Science and an emphasis in Public Policy.
Contact: karenhm@mlpp.org
The League is proud to be partners in the following national projects:
State Priorities Partnership
Economic Analysis and Research Network
The Working Poor Families Project
Parker James
Parker James joined the Michigan League for Public Policy in August 2018 as the Kids Count Research Associate. He is responsible for the collection and management of data related to the Kids Count project. Prior to joining the League, Parker worked with data in various positions to advocate for vulnerable populations, including as project coordinator of a health program in Southwest Michigan, graduate research assistant at The Hilltop Institute, and housing policy intern with the National League of Cities.
Parker attended the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) as a Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar, where he completed a bachelor’s degree in health administration and policy. He went on to receive a master’s degree in public policy from UMBC in 2017.
contact: pjames@mlpp.org
Renell Weathers
Renell Weathers, Michigan League for Public Policy (MLPP) Community Engagement Director. As community engagement director, Renell works with organizations throughout the state in connecting the impact of budget and tax policies to their communities. She is motivated by the belief that all children and adults deserve the opportunity to achieve their dreams regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or economic class.
Renell has recently participated in the Leadership Institute for State-Based Advocates Project with the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Prior to coming to the League, she worked as Senior District Representative for U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer where she collaborated with a diverse array of community leaders, agencies, grassroots organizations and local units of government. She also served as Constituent Relations Director and District Representative for the Office of Michigan Senate Minority Leader, has managed a nonprofit that provided programs for youth and families and operated a child care program.
In 2011, in recognition of her community service, Jackson College awarded Renell the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Medal of Service Award. The King Medal of Service Award recognizes individuals in Jackson for their community service and who believe in the basic tenets of cultural and ethnic diversity, recognize the richness and strength that comes from valuing others of different groups and encourage minority group members to participate fully in our society.
Renell’s career has been devoted to improving the results for families by promoting access to economic opportunities. She attended Wayne State University and holds a bachelor of arts in management and organizational development from Spring Arbor University.
Contact: rweathers@mlpp.org
Alicia Guevara Warren
Alicia Guevara Warren joined the Michigan League for Public Policy in 2014 as the Tax Policy Analyst, and became the Kids Count in Michigan Project Director in June 2015. She oversees the project, which includes the collection and analysis of data to make informed policy recommendations to improve child well-being. Alicia has an extensive background advocating for improved outcomes for children and families through her work in the nonprofit sector with Michigan’s Children, Community Economic Development Association of Michigan, and School-Community Health Alliance of Michigan. Additionally, as Democratic Central Staff for the Michigan House of Representatives, she served as the lead analyst on issues affecting children, families, and seniors, along with immigration, women’s health, and regulatory reform. Prior to joining the League, Alicia was with the Office of Economic Development at the Michigan Department of Transportation.
Alicia holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Sociology with a specialization in law, criminology, and deviance from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor and a master’s of public affairs with a specialization in social and economic policy from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
Contact: aliciagw@mlpp.org
Alex Rossman joined the League staff in 2015 as communications director. He handles writing, editing and messaging, media relations and social media for the League to help ensure our work gets the attention it deserves. Prior to joining the League, Alex worked for Democratic Central Staff for the Michigan Senate for almost ten years, serving as the deputy communications director and, previously, as press secretary and communications advisor, helping draw attention to the important legislative issues facing our state. He previously worked in communications for the Michigan Chapter of The Nature Conservancy as well.
Alex holds a Bachelor of Science in business administration and sports management from Aquinas College, where he also ran cross country and track. Alex grew up in Lansing, and used to ride his bike through Old Town where he now works.
Contact: arossman@mlpp.org
Laura Ross
Laura Ross is an educator and writer with a background in communications. She has taught English and journalism in the Lansing area since 2005 and prior to that worked in community development as director of the Old Town Commercial Association. Her dedication to writing, research and social justice is what prompted her to seek a communications position with the League.
Laura has a Bachelor of Arts in English from Michigan State University with minors in journalism and history, as well as a Master of Arts in secondary education from Grand Valley State University. She loves to read, listen to podcasts and walk the trails with her husband, son and Moose (the dog).
Contact: lauramr@mlpp.org
Rachel Richards
Rachel Richards joined the League staff in 2015. She monitors tax policy and promotes economic opportunity through state fiscal policy. Prior to joining the League, she worked for Democratic Central Staff for the Michigan House of Representatives since 2009, serving as the Appropriations Coordinator and, previously, as the lead analyst on tax policy, commerce, and local government issues.
Rachel holds a Bachelor of Arts in history and Spanish from Kalamazoo College. She received her law degree in 2008 from Thomas M. Cooley Law School. She is a member of the State Bar of Michigan.
Contact: rrichards@mlpp.org
Julie Cassidy
Julie Cassidy joined the League as a policy analyst in 2017. Before that, she spent 14 years working as a legislative analyst for the nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency, where she specialized in health, energy and environmental issues. Julie also has an extensive volunteer history of strategic planning and building community partnerships related to local environmental stewardship efforts. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in social relations from Michigan State University’s James Madison College and a Master of Arts in public policy, also from MSU.
Contact: jcassidy@mlpp.org
Pat Sorenson
Pat Sorenson rejoined the League staff in September 2012 as a senior policy analyst working on state budget and tax policies. Prior to returning to the League, Pat was the senior director for policy and advocacy at the Early Childhood Investment Corporation; the vice president for policy at Michigan’s Children; and a senior planning and research associate at the League, serving as the organization’s first Kids Count director.
Pat has more than 30 years of experience in monitoring and analyzing state budgets and policies affecting low income families and children, including the founding and management of Michigan’s Children’s Budget Watch project. Pat received her law degree in 1986 from the Thomas M. Cooley Law School and her master’s in social work from the University of Michigan in 1978. She is a member of the State Bar of Michigan.
Contact: psorenson@mlpp.org
Peter Ruark
Peter Ruark has worked at the League since 2001 and currently serves as a Senior Policy Analyst. He specializes in public policy related to adult skill enhancement, college financial aid, job quality, public assistance and corrections. He is active in national groups including the Working Poor Families Project and the Economic Analysis Research Network, and served on the board of the Michigan chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. Peter was awarded the President’s Award from the Michigan Association of Community and Adult Education for his advocacy on behalf of adult education funding, and was recently featured on NPR’s Marketplace, where he discussed at length Michigan’s use of federal public assistance funds for various state programs.
Prior to joining the League in 2001, Peter directed an after-school tutoring program for at-risk children in Grand Rapids, taught English at the university and high school levels in China and worked in the mental health field. Peter holds a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and psychology from Calvin College and a Master of Social Work with a concentration in policy, planning and administration from Western Michigan University.
Contact: pruark@mlpp.org
Tillie Kucharek
Tillie Kucharek is the League’s graphic designer. She is responsible for design and layout of graphics and formatting publications, reports, creating charts and tables, and posting web content. She joined the League staff in 1989. She attended Kendall School of Design and received an associate’s degree from Lansing Community College in 1988.
contact: tkucharek@mlpp.org
Phyllis Killips
Phyllis Killips is the administrative assistant to the president & CEO. She has worked at the League since her graduation from Lansing’s Eastern High School in 1977. Among other duties, Phyllis tracks fund-raising for the organization, takes minutes at board meetings, distributes Kids Count reports and organizes the calendar of the president & CEO.
Contact: pkillips@mlpp.org
Gilda Z. Jacobs
Gilda Z. Jacobs has served as president & CEO of the Michigan League for Public Policy since 2011, following a 30-year career in public service at the local, county and state levels. Gilda has won numerous awards for her work, including being named as one of the 100 Most Influential Women in Michigan by Crain’s Detroit Business in 2016 and receiving the Michigan Food Bank Council’s Hunger-Free Award in 2015. In 2012, she participated in the Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in the Nonprofit Leadership Program. Gilda served in the state Senate for eight years after serving two terms in the Michigan House of Representatives where she made history as the first woman floor leader in either chamber of the Legislature. Prior to serving in the Legislature, she served as an Oakland County Commissioner and a Huntington Woods City Commissioner.
In addition to her civic leadership, Jacobs served as Development Director for JARC, a Jewish association providing residential care for persons with developmental disabilities. She also worked as a special education teacher in the Madison School District. Jacobs received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Michigan.
Contact: gjacobs@mlpp.org
Raise the Age bills pass Senate with overwhelming supportNews Releases
League supports new effort by Rep. Kildee to build on success of EITC and CTC, help more working familiesNews Releases, Press Releases
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Kathryn Miller
By Archivist
Part-time Castle Valley resident Kathryn Key Miller, died on March 17, 2009 in Idaho Falls, Idaho after a skiing accident while on a backcountry patrol at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. She was 42.
Kathryn was born June 18, 1966 in Columbus, Ga.
A Jackson Hole Ski Patroller and Mountain Guide, she graduated from Brookstone School, Columbus, Ga., attended Southern Methodist University and graduated from the University of Georgia. After graduation Kathryn began her career as an outdoor educator and climbing guide with the National Outdoor Leadership School, based in Lander,
Wyo.
Kathryn lived life to the fullest. She was a true friend, esteemed colleague and a teacher to many. Her family and friends will dearly miss her sparkling blue eyes, insatiable smile and infectious laugh. At the time of her death she was an enthusiastic and respected member of the Jackson Hole Ski Patrol spending winters and summers living in Victor, Idaho. Kathryn was a former partner of Jackson Hole Mountain Guides and continued to guide for them in Jackson, Wyo. and Moab.
Kathryn loved books, and was a feverous reader. She was a musician and an ardent listener of music. She loved to spend her spare time with friends traveling to and enjoying the concerts of her favorite bands. Kathryn was always a catalyst for getting everyone together for a dinner party, concert, adventure or online scrabble game. She was passionate about the construction of her sustainable straw-bale house in Castle Valley. She devoted countless hours of labor to the building of her beautiful home in the desert.
Kathryn was a seven-year veteran of the Jackson Hole ski patrol. As a guide her career led her throughout the Rockies, Alaska, and the canyons of Utah’s redrock country. She volunteered for Teton County Search and Rescue; ski patrolled for Grand Targhee resort, and guided Denali for Alaska Mountaineering School.
Kathryn was an accomplished skier and Alpinist who broke boundaries in 1999 when she climbed, 26,904 foot Cho Oyu, on the border of Nepal and Chinese Tibet. Cho Oyu, the sixth highest mountain in the world, is one of only 14 peaks higher than 8,0000 meters. She claimed the summit without the aid of supplemental oxygen, without help from Sherpas and with American teammates that where all women. It was the first time an American women’s team had surpassed the 8000-meter barrier in that style.
She is survived by her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Fred Miller of Columbus, Ga.,
brother, Rick, and his wife Rhonda of Gate City, Va., sister, Laura and her husband Virgil Pedersen of Columbia Falls, Mont., nephew, Derick and niece, Campbell Miller, of Gate City, Va., and partner, Derek Ellis, of Victor, Idaho.
Memorial donations may be made to The Nature Conservancy or the National Outdoor Leadership School to support her devotion to wilderness education and conservation. A slideshow CD of Kathryn can be obtained by emailing [email protected]
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Art Makes Us | A Dynamic New Centre for the Visual Arts
artists is so many things to so many people and everybody can turn their hand to it assisting which gives them inner peace and and comfort and really at the end of it that's what it's all about we've exploded you know we have so many more artworks that we've acquired we have so many more members and so many more programs that we've literally outgrown the space and it's time to move forward we live in a seismic zone that is something that absolutely must be recognized and we must protect these priceless works that are so important as a story of our heritage and our history the new design is just it's so inviting the pictures make you want to be there something that people look to and go that building speaks to the creativity of this community I think that it it's very important as a trustee that we are stewards and that we are examples for the community and I think that we have to lead by example we're behind it 100% and we'll continue to support it and we hope there are many many others who realize the importance of this new building and what it can do or thank you
Tagged architecture, art, Art Makes Us, british columbia, Canada, capital campaign, New Vancouver Art Gallery, vancouver, vancouver art gallery
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A mocking kind of documentary
Rosaleen McDonagh
The realities of life for Travellers are too boring for tabloid TV. By Rosaleen McDonagh.
As an aunt of many nieces, some of whom are getting married this summer, watching Channel 4’s My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding has its own resonance. Sitting on the sofa with ten young beoirs (young women ) between the ages of 7 to 17, creates a sense of embarrassment, some anger and internalised shame.
“Do we know the beoir that’s getting married?” “Who are their family? How much freedom do they have compared to us? Are they made go to school the way we are?” The dresses, some of the comments: “Nah. I wouldn’t wear that yoke. Too big and too awkward. The sequins and the diamonds - I’d rather have something that I could show off for more than one day.” Comments about the bridesmaids’ dresses: “We all don’t wear them.” A 15-year-old: “The peer pressure to dress like that is unbelievable, it’s the boys, the young feins. They’re told if beoirs are not dolled up this way, they’re not worth looking at.” Another comment from a 17-year-old: “My wedding is in June. My dress is old-fashioned. Mammy is helping me make it. People are going to get a shock because I won’t wear a hoop but it’s not that kind of dress. Does that mean I’m not a real Traveller or it won’t be a real Travellers’ wedding?” From a 12-year-old: “She’s getting married - my sister - in five months and Daddy can’t get a hotel. If we were settled, that hotel would have been booked a year ago.”
The overall presentation is very much a distortion of the reality of our everyday lives. Like most of the population, weddings in families are a very excitable affair. They don’t happen every day or every week or even every year, so of course a wedding is a great occasion. The preparation and organisation for such a day is top priority for most families, and in particular the bride-to-be. Again, nothing unusual. The excitement and the build-up to such an event is palpitating. In the same breath, going to school with them to get the results of their GCSE or Leaving Cert exams is equally as palpitating, but that doesn’t really make a good story. Nor does the story that Traveller women die 11.5 years earlier than settled women or that two thirds leave school before the age of 15. This story is probably too real to make and too hard to watch.
These young beoirs (Traveller women) on the programme have had very little opportunity by way of educational prospects. Gender roles within the family and the wider Traveller community are so narrowly defined that criticising the beoirs in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding is unfair.
Like all tabloid telly, it needs to be flashy, tacky and quick. A narrator whose voice comes across as evocative and sensationalist, a camera angle that’s constantly positioned on young Traveller females’ breasts and bottoms, would seem very sexist in the making of a television documentary. Or as we Travellers like to call it, a “mockumentary”. It would also seem to contradict the questions from the narrator about Traveller beoirs (women) and freedom. They get asked about arranged or love-matched weddings; the inference made is of lack of autonomy and non-promiscuity, while the programme-makers are presenting these young beoirs as sexual objects.
Any 17-year-old in that situation, whether they be Traveller, Asian, Muslim, black or Caucasian, working class Irish, are vulnerable in the hands of documentary makers.
The series is uncomfortable viewing. Questions need to be asked. How often have members of my community – Travellers - been on television? When we are, who holds the camera, who edits, who is the target audience? And where is the balance by way of representation? Up to now, mainstream media has only ever wanted us for news items when we’re implicated in some negative way. These questions, particularly the one concerning how often we’re on television, raise issues of participation, power and social mobility.
Now seems to be the time when we, the Traveller community, get the fifteen minutes of fame that other communities have had, where their cultural norms and practices were ridiculed and criticised in the context of western, mainstream, middle class media. And it was always the women who were targeted for being old-fashioned, subservient, submissive to the family, unliberated. During the eighties and nineties, it was African and Asian women who were considered exotic to the mainstream gaze. Issues of diet; wearing the burkha; arranged marriages; female genital mutilation; and the women who are married to polygamists. Always and ever, this phenomenon of exoticisation was about ridicule and targeting young girls and women who didn’t always have right of reply. Funnily enough, it’s very rare that men get asked these questions about freedom and choices.
Now the light shines on us. A pretence - as if we’re this undiscovered group of people that the media are about to expose. We’ve always been here; however, when you get so far pushed out into the margins, a lack of trust builds up and you tend to become self-reliant on your own. No big mystery - it’s just a way of managing systemic racism in all aspects of our lives. The truth of the matter was and still is, settled people don’t want us around. Not as neighbours, not as schoolmates, college pals, work colleagues, partners, daughters-in-law. But that’s too boring for tabloid TV.
Rosaleen McDonagh is a community worker, political activist, academic and playwright
Image top: Still from Channel 4's My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.
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Virginia businesswoman Ieshia Leverette goes from ex-felon to well-educated and established entrepreneur
A LIVING TESTIMONY
WOMAN OF MANY HATS — A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Ieshia Nicole Leverette is Fredericksburg, Virginia-based entrepreneur, one who’s widely known for assuming a variety of roles. (Photos By Casandra Loiacono)
For what it’s worth, Ieshia Leverette was only keeping it 100.
“I could have been a statistic,” Leverette, an ex-felon, said during a recent interview with Making Headline News, recalling the slew of the obstacles and hurdles about which she had to clear and overcome during the course of her young life.
“I have seen a lot and overcome a lot by choice and circumstances, but I never let a closed door stop me.”
She’s got that right.
Credit Leverette’s fervent desire and steadfast determination to defy arguably the grandest of odds as the biggest reasons she’s managed to make continuous strides as a thriving, progressive businesswoman.
An entrepreneurship tenure that dates back to 2010, Leverette’s inspiration for functioning in her element stems from learning of the various challenges other women have faced.
A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Leverette, 31, is Fredericksburg, Virginia-based entrepreneur, one who’s widely known for assuming a variety of roles.
An entrepreneurship track record she’s been afforded to put on display in several of establishments around the country, Leverette is an accomplished real estate team owner/operator, as well as a life coach, author, T-Shirt’s and pod cast host.
While she doesn’t shy away from the notion that she could have very well been a statistic, amongst the things about which Leverette is appreciative of the fact that she’s gone to great lengths to embrace her imperfections, which has greatly enabled her to pour into the lives of others.
HOLDING IT DOWN — An entrepreneurship track record she’s been afforded to put on display in several of establishment around the country, Leverette is an accomplished real estate team owner/operator, as well as a life coach, author, T-Shirt’s and pod cast host.
“Through being a realtor, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting so many people from so many different walks of life, and I am most humbly fulfilled when I am able to pour into their lives,” Leverette said. “I am the one they call to celebrate with them, because I impact them in a very real way.”
As Leverette explains, her steadfast commitment to impacting and enriching lives essentially have become the feature objective, of sorts, to her divine calling as a successful businesswoman.
“I don’t worry about the buying and selling of the home as much as I do in mentoring them, guiding them and helping them see their own potential,” said Leverette, explaining how her competitive drive in life has propelled her to start a host of business ventures. “It’s an unmatched experience they get with me as a person. Everyone I come across, I tend to affect their life in a very real way, even if they don’t tell me until many years later. I have been called to pour into others’ lives and show them another side of them that they didn’t know existed.”
LEADING BY EXAMPLE — While she doesn’t shy away from the notion that she could have very well been a statistic, amongst the things about which Leverette is appreciative is the fact that she’s gone to great lengths to embrace her imperfections, which has greatly enabled her to pour into others’ lives.
To her credit, Leverette certain possesses the education and training, which have contributed mightily to her sustained entrepreneurship success.
A 2005 graduate of Cleveland Height High School — she actually graduated one year early thanks in large part the administration’s approval that allowed her to take additional classes — Leverette enrolled at Cleveland State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Public Relations and Advertisement in 2010.
Consequently, she’s enrolled at Argosy University of Hawaii, where she acquired an MBA in Marketing in 2012.
As for her assortment of business ventures that accommodate individuals ranging mostly between the ages of 27 to 55, credit Leverette’s wealth of wisdom, coupled with her spirit of compassion as the reasons those with whom she customarily crosses paths often come away overwhelmingly empowered and encouraged, thus acquiring a new lease on life.
Just like she has ever since she delved off into the ever-so-competitive world of entrepreneurship.
“My business allows me to watch others become confident in whom they are. I love building tomorrow’s leaders. I love seeing progression. I am even more enthralled to watch women regain their independence, because we often forget about ourselves taking care of others.” — Virginia Businesswoman Ieshia Leverette
Interestingly, what it all boils down to, Leverette emphasized, is devising way to impact lives — and to it daily.
For the rest of her life.
“To impact lives that would otherwise continue in the same pattern,” said Leverette, when asked what her personal mission is for running the day-to-day operations of her business. “To make people see themselves clearly and with power. To help people stop doubting their abilities. People ask me why I create my own competition, but honestly if you become better, then I’ve done my job.”
DESTINY STEPS — As Leverette explains, her steadfast commitment to impacting and enriching lives essentially has become the feature objective, of sorts, to her divine calling as a successful businesswoman.
“(I become inspired by) women who have lost their power in a marriage or after having children,” Leverette said. “People who are just as lost and don’t know where to start. It’s really just how my heart operates. I just want people to know all that there is to know about the life they live today and how to maximize that time and make it the most fulfilling.”
Talk about having mounted a dramatic comeback for the ages, from a felon to a successful entrepreneur, one who’s undoubtedly living her best life.
“I am just a woman that got a felony 12 years ago and didn’t let it stop me from becoming who I am today,” Leverette said. “I’ve always fought to overcome any things thrown my way. From having 3 jobs while on a full-time school schedule, to becoming an entrepreneur and dominating a male dominant industry purely off of me being genuine, caring, and motivational to others.”
All the while keeping it 100 in the process.
For more information Fredericksburg, Virginia-based entrepreneur Ieshia Leverette, or to schedule her for a public appearance, a book signing, or speaking engagement, call 571.386.1075 or connect with her via social media at: https://www.facebook.com/ieshia.leverette. Also, send email to: ieshialeverette@gmail.com.
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Virginia author Christina Johnson recalls her son’s cancer battle, courtesy of tear-jerking memoir
April 9, 2019 Andre Johnson
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28 NIV)
GOD’S MIRACLE CHILD
ALL FOR DAVID — Virginia author Christina Johnson needed somewhere in the neighborhood of seven months to produce the awe-inspiring book entitled, “Fighting for King David,” a memoir of this mother’s journey with her child, who’s fighting childhood cancer.
For Christina Johnson, it all started out as a journal, one that was assembled within the walls of a local hospital.
As she recalled vividly, it all unfolded amid her son’s battle with Neuroblastoma, which reportedly is one of the world’s top three childhood cancers.
“The vision was given to me while I was in the hospital with my son while he has been going through cancer treatment,” Johnson — widely known as Crissy — told Making Headline News during a recent interview. “Before it was a book, it was a journal that the hospital gave to me to keep up with what was going on with him each day. There was a place where I would write my feeling and next thing you know, it was a book.”
MORE ON CRISSY’S BOOK: https://www.facebook.com/groups/353403191832093/
Johnson, in fact, needed somewhere in the neighborhood of seven months to produce the awe-inspiring book entitled, “Fighting for King David,” a memoir of this mother’s journey with her son, who’s fighting childhood cancer.
For Johnson, a Virginia-based author and alumna of Old Dominion University, her quest to assemble her book was accompanied a great deal of transparency.
“I decided to write the book to be as transparent as possible about what I dealt with as a mother and caregiver to my son,” Johnson explained. “I was also in my last semester of college at the time of my son’s diagnosis, six weeks away to be exact.”
Still, that Johnson demonstrated that kind of bend-but-don’t-break faith that ultimately kept her in high spirits, thus fueled her desire to remain focus on academics, even through her rash of adversities, virtually every goal and ambition was accomplished.
MORE ON CRISSY JOHNSON: https://crissysdesigns.com/
BOOK HER — Having accepted a few invitations to public share her stories and life-changing testimonies, Johnson is thoroughly convinced that “Fighting For King David” is synonymous to the purpose for which God has created her.
Yep, that’s just like God, providing for his child a valiant sense of direction in the midst of the storm, as only He could.
“I talked about my struggles in finishing my degree and also about the sudden death of my aunt all within weeks of my son’s diagnosis,” Johnson recalled. “I wanted to share my testimony and speak of how God kept me through all of this, how I still had to be a wife and mother to four children during all of this.”
Most importantly, Johnson was determined to encourage the masses just as God had strategically assigned her to through “Fighting for King David.”
As Johnson recalled, her vision to write her first book unfolded amid her son’s battle with Neuroblastoma, which reportedly is one of the world’s top three childhood cancers.
“I wanted to show the world that God is still performing miracles,” said Johnson, an accomplished businesswoman who is the owner and CEO of Crissy Designs LLC.
Now with her very first book having made its ceremonious presence on the market, Johnson emphasized that the divine message is rather direct and straight to the point.
“The divine message is that God still heals and He won’t put more on you then you can bear,” Johnson said. “Cancer does not discriminate.”
As expected, the feedback since the release of Johnson’s book has been overwhelmingly favorable.
GOD’S LITTLE BALLER
Johnson was determined to encourage the masses just as God strategically assigned her to through “Fighting for King David.”
“I have been given positive feedback about my book,” she said. “My story have touched so many lives. I have been asked how I was able to still succeed even through the struggle. I think my purpose is to be a voice for families who have a child that is struggling with cancer, to advocate and to bring awareness.”
Having accepted a few invitations to public share her stories and life-changing testimonies, Johnson is thoroughly convinced that “Fighting For King David” is synonymous to the purpose for which God has created her.
VICTORY STANCE
To her credit and much to her delight, there’s other notable projects she endeavors to produce and pass along to the masses, she said.
“I plan to create a journal for caregivers with inspirational quotes to help them write out their thoughts as they go their cancer journey with their child,” Johnson said. “Sort of what I did when I journaled each day.”
With God, her Helper, steering the way.
For more information about Virginia-based Author/Businesswoman Christina Johnson, or to schedule her for a public appearance, book signing, or speaking engagement, connect with her via social media at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/353403191832093/. Also, send email to: crissysdesigns2@gmail.com.
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Virginia Life Coach Debra Kay fulfilling her divine purpose as a Christian-based author
March 6, 2019 Andre Johnson
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:58 KJV)
A-O-KAY JOB
GREATER IS COMING — Having written 10 books to date, Debra Kay’s featured project is entitled, “The Woman On The Inside Is Greater Than The Woman You See,” an informative, spiritually gut-checking written document she officially released in December 2010.
DALLAS — Earlier this week, Debra Kay was going on and on about her immeasurable, compelling gifts as an accomplished author.
Truth be told, she’s earned every right to.
“I am usually writing two or three books at a time, as I am right now,” Kay told Making Headline News. “It does not usually take me any longer than six months to start and finish a book. Things are a little bit hectic being a grandmother, but very rewarding.”
Having written 10 books to date, Kay’s featured project is entitled, “The Woman On The Inside Is Greater Than The Woman You See,” an informative, spiritually gut-checking written document she officially released in December 2010.
An authorship tenure that spans a little more than a decade, Kay’s initial book had come full circle in September 2006, approximately four years after she steadfastly exercised her faith to produce it.
AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART — Since delving off into the ever-so-competitive world of authorship, the general consensus amongst Kay’s book is that she’s undoubtedly an accomplished and brilliant author, one who doesn’t shy away from the notion that she’s on fire for God.
“God gave me the vision to write this book in the summer of 2002,” Kay said. “I started this book with the title at the end of 2006. I completed this book in September of 2007.”
As Kay emphasized, it is a book — though it has been on the market for quite some time — she’s aiming to reintroduce to the general public, in large part because “The Woman On The Inside Is Greater Than The Woman You See” is just as prevalent today than it was when it made it ceremonious debut in 2010.
“The single most important reason I chose to write this book is because I have been underneath the feet of people since I was a young person,” Kay explained. “I am a survivor of depression, suicidal thoughts, inferior toward others, and very low self-esteem, which I believe runs in my family with many of the women.”
For what it’s worth, however, Kay’s featured book has brought about renewed sense of enthusiasm for this Martinsville, Virginia-area author, both in the natural and the spirit.
“This book is produced to allow women to know that the greater one is on the inside,” said Kay, who’s widely known also as a Christian-based Life Coach. “You can be beautiful on the outside, but still jacked up on the inside without Christ. When He indwells in you, you are enough.”
Thanks in large part to her life-changing connection with Jesus, Kay not only rediscovered her God-given worth but, more than anything, she’s managed connect with the purpose for which she was created.
“It took many years even after salvation for me to know my worth,” Kay said. “Two bad marriages and I am still single, but at least now I have the wisdom to know what a good man is. I have gained clarity on my worth and it is tied to Jesus, not to a natural man. The book talks about the different stages of my life and how I overcame (them). There is a greater book coming even after this. The half has not been told of my story yet.”
Speaking of “greater” books, Kay is responsible for having produced nine other written works, her latest that is entitled, “How To Walk Out Your Salvation With The Lord Jesus Christ,” which was released in October 2015.
Besides that book, Kay authored the following projects:
The Joy Of The Lord Is Our Strength (2008)
The Restored Woman (2010)
Woman Don’t Die In Your Pain (2011)
Can Your Character Handle The Anointing (2008)
Confront Your Anger: Send It Back To Calvary (2014)
Position Yourself To Be Used By God (2012)
Walking In Tampered Faith: It Is A Destroyer (2012) and,
Suicide Is Not The Answer (2012).
Since delving off into the ever-so-competitive world of authorship, the general consensus amongst Kay’s book is that she’s undoubtedly an accomplished and brilliant author, one who doesn’t shy away from the notion that she’s on fire for God.
“The feedback I have heard locally is that the books is so good they cannot put it down,” Kay said of ‘The Woman On The Inside Is Greater Than The Woman You See.”
All things considered, coupled with her divine calling, Kay is just giddy that God has set her aside for His use.
“God told me in 1998 that I would be traveling the world telling my story,” said Kay, the CEO of Debra Kay Coaching By Dezign and Inspiration Business DK Inspirations. “I have a lot to say; I just need a platform to say it in. These books are a part of that purpose (in that) God loves us all, but when women realize they are worth more than a sex toy, we can help build up other women and the cycle of depression, loneliness, suicide, and low self-image can be reduced.”
For more information about Martinsville, Virginia author Debra Kay, or to order her book, schedule her for a public appearance, a book signing, or speaking engagement, call 276.336.1217, or connect with her via Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/debra.kay.737. Also, send email to: debrakaycoaching@gmail.com.
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Virginia author LaShana Lloyd conquers slew of odds, shares testimonies in awe-inspiring books
September 16, 2018 Andre Johnson
MAKING HEADLINE NEWS WELCOMES LASHANA LLOYD
LaShana Lloyd undoubtedly aspires daily to live and savor a faith led life.
Literally and figuratively.
Consider, for instance, how Lloyd essentially drove home such an intriguing notion by way of a rather compelling Facebook post shortly after 8 a.m. EST on Sunday.
Said Lloyd in a spirited, thought-provoking post that was comprised of what she dubbed, “True Words of Wisdom:”
SET ASIDE FOR GOD’S USE — A well-respected military veteran, LaShana Lloyd is accomplished businesswoman and author, who has been blessed — and stayed true to herself — mightily, considering she has made her presence in the ever-so-popular world of authorship.
People will only have as much control as you allow them to have. If you keep letting a person hurt you, they will only hurt you more. If you keep letting a person use you, they will not stop using you. If you allow a person to get comfortable with disrespecting you, there’s a high possibility that they will not leave that place of acting like that toward you anytime soon. But the antidote to all of these problems and those similar to these is putting a stop to it. It’s as simple as that. When you understand who you are and how valuable of a person you are, you will no longer choose to settle for being treated less than that. Grow into the confidence God has given you and you will grow into the person He has created you to be, a person of worth.
Some pretty dauntless and awe-inspiring words by a devout woman of faith whom, to her credit, has remained true to herself both in the natural and spirit.
A well-respected military veteran, Lloyd is accomplished Woodbridge, Virginia businesswoman and author, who has been blessed — and stayed true to herself — mightily, considering she has made her presence in the ever-so-popular world of authorship.
A native of Clio, South Carolina, Lloyd is amongst 22 writers who joined forces to compose the book entitled, “You Have No Idea The Hell I’ve Been Through,” a collaborative and informative written document whereby they miraculously spoke about how God steered them from what they described as pain to purpose.
For Lloyd, her assortment of emotionally-driven, life-changing testimonies have benefited and enhanced not only her faith walk with God, but rather those whom, by all accounts, have endured similar experiences.
“To give my testimonies about how I overcame witnessing my father abuse my mother, being sexually abused as a child, and being black balled from the military,” said Lloyd, during a weekend interview with Making Headline News, when asked what is her purpose for choosing to collaborate last summer with a host of authors to compose You Have No Idea The Hell I’ve Been Through.
PURCHASE LASHANA LLOYD’S BOOK HERE: https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Blocking-Your-Confidence-Effective/dp/1946756350/
Not to be outdone, Lloyd is also responsible for having written yet another remarkably compelling book, this one entitled, “What’s Blocking Your Confidence: Effective Ways To Conquer Your Fears.”
Powered by Rejoice Essential Publishing, Lloyd’s “What’s Blocking Your Confidence: Effective Ways To Conquer Your Fears” was officially released on August 11, 2018, and is centered largely on this Christian-based writer providing some pertinent information, most notably that which fear, as well as the essential tools needed to walk in the confidence that God has given us.
This book also speaks about a great deal of transparency shared by Lloyd, particularly during which she was once bound by fear and how God miraculously delivered her from it.
PURCHASE LASHANA’S BOOK HERE, TOO: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/whats-blocking-your-confidence-lashana-lloyd/1129301054
THE ROMANS 8:18 FACTOR — A native of Clio, South Carolina, Lloyd is amongst 22 writers who joined forces to compose the book entitled, “You Have No Idea The Hell I’ve Been Through,” a collaborative and informative written document whereby they miraculously spoke about how God steered them from what they described as pain to purpose.
“There is hope for those who believe that living in fear is the way of life,” said a spokesperson in a detailed breakdown of Lloyd’s What’s Blocking Your Confidence: Effective Ways To Conquer Your Fears at Amazon.com. “You no longer have to be bound by fear. You can be set free. In this book, you will understand what fear is, and how the enemy (satan) is using fear against you. Find out what happens when you allow fear to override your faith.”
As expected, the feedback since the much-anticipated releases of these books have been overwhelmingly favorable, Lloyd acknowledged.
BASKING IN GOD’S GLORY — As expected, the feedback since the much-anticipated releases of these books have been overwhelmingly favorable, Lloyd acknowledged.
“I was blown away at how so many women told me my story touched them,” Lloyd said. “They were shocked at the things I had went through and how God was able to heal me from all of the pain, betrayal, and fears that I had gone through. So many women are embarrassed by the challenges they had to face — and that’s exactly what the enemy wants — but because of my transparency, so many women and men can be set free, stay free, and receive the confidence that God has for them.”
Having accepted what she labels her God-mandated calling to authorship in 2015, Lloyd doesn’t shy away from the notion that God is using her as a vessel to write in such a fashion that her immeasurable gifts would ultimately to draw others to or back to Him.
“The Father told me that He did not allow me to go through everything that I went through to watch me suffer,” said Lloyd, adding that she’s currently fielding speaking engagement requests to promote of her books. “He allowed me to go through everything that I have gone through so that it can be used to help others, especially women. I have a passion to encourage women all over the world.
THE LORD’S DOING — Having accepted what she labels her God-mandated calling to authorship in 2015, Lloyd doesn’t shy away from the notion that God is using her as a vessel to write in such a fashion that her immeasurable gifts would ultimately to draw others to or back to Him.
“Encouraging others with the words that I write and speak is how I am able to not only become stronger every time I release these words, but how others can gain the strength and confidence that they need so that their testimony can come forth as well.”
Eloquently said by this devout woman of faith, one who undoubtedly aspires daily to live and savor a faith led life.
For more information about Woodbridge, Virginia-based Author LaShana Lloyd, or to schedule her for a public appearance, a book signing or speaking engagement, connect with her via Facebook under: LaShana Lloyd. Also, send email to: info@faithledlife.com.
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Virginia-based businesswoman Charmin Y. Anderson’s C&A Enterprises having a monumental impact in Chesapeake, surrounding areas
February 24, 2018 Andre Johnson
To grasp a thorough understanding of why Charmin Y. Anderson is one whose reputation is such that she’s destined to reach back and help others as best she can, look no further than the tumultuous, heartbreaking encounter about which she once had to endure.
MAKING A DIFFERENCE — An accomplished businesswoman, Charmin Y. Anderson, 40, is the founder and chief executive officer of C&A Enterprises, a Chesapeake, Virginia-based company that specializes in setting up nonprofit entities and educating community-based driven individuals on how to start, run, or revive a nonprofit organization.
Realistically, it is a tear-jerking, demoralizing development that will rest in her spirit for the rest of her life.
“Because of my domestic violence circumstances, which led to the death of my twin girls, I have always had a desire to help people,” Anderson told Making Headline News during a recent interview. “I never want anyone to feel like I did the day I asked for help.”
Though those untimely, devastating deaths of her beloved daughters will almost certainly remain arguably the most painful occurrence of her life, Anderson still deemed it essential to make the most of a bad situation.
An accomplished businesswoman and skilled author, Anderson, 40, is the founder and chief executive officer of C&A Enterprises, a Chesapeake, Virginia-based company that specializes in setting up nonprofit entities and educating community-based driven individuals on how to start, run, or revive a nonprofit organization.
Whether one aspires to start a nonprofit or desire to become knowledgeable on how to increase the success rate of a business venture, C&A Enterprises is widely known for teaching business owners or prospective business owners about the most relevant and updated information necessary to run a successful organization, according to a detailed description of Anderson’s business at http://www.candaenterprises.com.
“I love the fact that I get to help people birth their passion and desire to better our community,” Anderson said. “Those individuals who don’t have a voice, those who are deemed invisible.”
Interestingly, Anderson’s company — located at 732 Eden Way N #254, Suite E — originally started as a platform for passionate individuals to receive some overview information, as well as what she labels some “refresher training,” particularly after being active in the nonprofit community for over nine years. Not only that, C&A Enterprises offers the following services:
501(c)3 applications services.
Grant readiness.
Board Leadership.
Development and Highly trained instructors experienced to deliver quality learning experience to you.
Top-notch training materials that enable you to fully grasp the knowledge and concept.
Full availability that offers the ongoing support you may need during your support agreement.
Private online learning/consulting at your convenience and
Group learning using the team-based approach.
Whether one aspires to start a nonprofit or desire to become how to increase the success rate of a business venture, C&A Enterprises is widely known for teaching business owners or prospective business owners about the most relevant and updated information necessary to run a successful organization, according to a detail description of Anderson’s business at http://www.candaenterprises.com.
“Overall, we are positioned to provide you with the most convenient and most cost-effective instruction on the fundamentals of starting your new nonprofit or growing your existing one,” said a C&A Enterprises spokesperson. “The content of our training sessions is designed by highly experienced and certified individuals that have an in-depth understanding of the necessities to a nonprofit organization so that you have the tools that lead you on the path of success.”
CONNECT WITH HER — As an added bonus, Anderson conducts free webinar training once a quarter. Forthcoming dates of these sessions will take place at a date to be announced via her social media pages, she said.
As for the company’s mission, Anderson said, “Our mission is to plant the seeds of knowledge so that you can make a better community. We pledge to make your learning experience pleasurable with us while providing quality support and services to your organization.”
With more than a decade of professional experience in this notable line of work, Anderson’s venture caters to individuals ages 21 and up, she said.
Also, C&A Enterprises is steadily starting to attract a national presence, considering Anderson said, “I have had the opportunity to travel all over helping individuals start nonprofit organizations. I have currently started 108 with an approval success rate of 100 percent.”
HIGH MARKS — C&A Enterprises is steadily starting to attract a national presence, considering Anderson said, “I have had the opportunity to travel all over helping individuals start nonprofit organizations. I have currently started 105 with an approval success rate of 100 percent.”
As an added bonus, Anderson conducts free webinar training once a quarter. Forthcoming dates of these sessions will take place at a date to be announced via her social media pages, she said.
“It is important that I do my part to build a community of movement,” Anderson said. “If our community learns how to take care of the individuals in our community, then monies spent on programs like welfare can be reassigned to the education sector. We have to learn how to work together and become each other’s keeper.”
By and large, it all goes back to the mission for which Anderson aid others in the manner she does.
“It’s simple. To Build A Community Of Movement,” she said.
That too, figures to rest in her spirit for the rest of her life.
For more information about C&A Enterprises, call 757.389.8757. Also, send email to: admin@candaenterprises.com.
A CHARMIN Y. ANDERSON RELATED STORY:
https://makingheadlinenews.com/2018/01/30/chesapeake-virginia-author-charmin-y-anderson-writes-awe-inspiring-book-quickly-emerges-on-amazon-best-seller-list/
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Domestic abuse survivor LaKeisha Christian emerging as a national advocate through her ministry, major network appearances
January 3, 2018 Andre Johnson
She wasn’t your typical 18-year-old.
That’s for sure.
In fact, LaKeisha Christian, given the hardships and turmoil about which she had to endure at the tender age of 18, would be hard-pressed to assess that life as a teenager was nothing about which she could look back on and come to smiles.
NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT — Much to her delight, coupled with the purpose for which God created her, Keisha Christian had ultimately escaped — and survived — what undoubtedly was the darkest chapter of her life. “After an extremely long journey to healing, I decided to speak out and tell what I went through with honesty and transparency” Christian said. Today, unlike never before, Christian’s doing just that, considering she has emerged as a nationally-acclaimed advocate for domestic violence by way of her I Bleed Purple organization, a credible venture that has become widely known as her ministry.
If nothing else, it was a rather disheartening, tear-jerking recollection that seemed more like an uninterrupted nightmare, of sorts.
“At the age of 18, I encountered my first abusive relationship,” Christian, during an exclusive interview this week with Making Headline News, said while recalling arguably the most downtrodden encounter of her young life. “I remained in domestic violent relationships for almost 10 years.”
So brutally chaotic and dysfunctional things had become for Christian that her attacker had gone as far as to threaten to take her precious, fragile life.
And his.
MAKING MAJOR STRIDES — An organization that has become a fixture throughout the country in recent months, Christian’s “I Bleed Purple” was built largely to empower victims of domestic abuse, inspiring them to break what she describes as the chains that bind their souls, minds and personal lives through activating truth found in the Word of God.
“(He) shook me to my very core,” Christian explained. “I remember sitting there, not scared but calm, asking God to save me. When the plans of the enemy did not prevail, I knew it was time to get out and stay out.”
Much to her delight, coupled with the purpose for which God created her, Christian had ultimately escaped — and survived — what undoubtedly was the darkest chapter of her life.
“After an extremely long journey to healing, I decided to speak out and tell what I went through with honesty and transparency” Christian said.
Today, unlike never before, Christian’s doing just that, considering she has emerged as a nationally-acclaimed advocate for domestic violence by way of her “I Bleed Purple” organization, a credible venture that has become widely known as her ministry.
MORE ON KEISHA CHRISTIAN: https://freeandfearless.net/
An organization that has become a fixture throughout the country in recent months, Christian’s “I Bleed Purple” was built largely to empower victims of domestic abuse, inspiring them to break what she describes as the chains that bind their souls, minds and personal lives through activating truth found in the Word of God.
“Advocating became my passion and helping those that were going through what I once did, my purpose,” Christian said. “Telling my story to those who have lost all hope, offers them reassured faith that they, too, can be healed and freed from abuse and live a life of happiness.”
BUT GOD — “At the age of 18, I encountered my first abusive relationship,” Christian, during an exclusive interview this week with Making Headline News, said while recalling arguably the most downtrodden encounter of her young life. “I remained in domestic violent relationships for almost 10 years.”
Much to her delight, it’s safe to assume that Christian’s ministry has routinely attracted the attention of several national media outlets.
SEE KEISHA CHRISTIAN’S NATIONALLY-TELEVISED INTERVIEW:
http://wset.com/news/local/lynchburg-domestic-violence-victim-keisha-christians-story-to-air-on-national-tv
That’s because in the recent past, Christian has made appearances on both CBN’s The 700 Club and the nationally-syndicated Michael Baisden Show to share of experiences in battling domestic abuse and how she’s managed to conquer was a turbulent season of her young life.
“I am inspiring others by expecting the best from them,” Christian said. “I believe people will rise to the challenge if they know you care for them and want the best for them. Wanting to see them succeed won’t mean much if they don’t know you care. I am inspiring others by taking a stand for what I believe in.”
All of which practically explains why being so transparent through her life-changing experience is extremely vital, she acknowledged.
NATIONAL IMPACT — Christian has made appearances on both CBN’s The 700 Club and the nationally-syndicated Michael Baisden Show to share of experiences in battling domestic abuse and how she’s managed to conquer was a rough season of her young life.
“In order for anyone to follow me, they must see, know, and believe that I stand on my convictions,” Christian said. “I’m inspiring others by setting an example and following it.
To her credit, 2018 figures to hold much more promise surrounding Christian’s ministry.
“My goals include securing more speaking engagements and television appearances to tell my story to empower those affected by domestic violence,” Christian said. “I am in high anticipation of releasing my solo book project (this year). The goal closest to my heart is opening a center for victims and survivors at no cost to them, where they can feel safe and receive the help they need.”
Much like she did with God, her Helper, leading the way.
Nevermind that she wasn’t your typical 18-year-old at the time.
MAKING HEADLINE NEWS SALUTES LAKEISHA CHRISTIAN:
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Organizers of North Carolina nonprofit organization pleading with Stephen Curry, other athletes to help eliminate homelessness amongst military veterans
Surely, one can say this about Dionne Archibald and Pollyanna Neely:
They both undoubtedly and routinely display a compassionate heart for people, most notably military members and veterans.
WAY TA GO, Y’ALL — It is, by all accounts, through Dionne Archibald and Pollyanna Neely’s passion for aiding and showing unyielding support for veterans that these progressively thriving businesswomen collectively established Active Veteran With Answers. A North Carolina-based nonprofit organization that Archibald and Neely started in early 2016, during which a host of retired United States Military Veterans realized they weren’t the only ones in their peer group who had trouble navigating the process of transitioning from the military to civilian life, amongst Active Veteran With Answers’ (or AVWA) chief objectives is to relieve the assortment of challenges associated with the knowledge gap, particularly during the application process for veterans programs and benefits, according to this company’s mission at http://www.activeveteranswithanswers.org.
Consider, for instance, how upon having earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Management — with a Master’s degree in Psychology with a specialization in Military Psychology expected to be acquired someone in Spring 2018 — Archibald deemed it essential to combine her personal and professional experience and place them on a unique platform as a way to exemplify support of veterans — or what she appropriately labels a unique perspective and creative approach which, in essence, are geared largely on focusing on people as they work through the process rather than forcing the process on people.
It is, by all accounts, through Archibald and Neely’s passion for aiding and showing unyielding support for veterans that these progressively thriving businesswomen collectively established Active Veteran With Answers.
A China Grove, North Carolina-based nonprofit organization that Archibald and Neely started in early 2016, during which a host of retired United States Military Veterans realized they weren’t the only ones in their peer group who had trouble navigating the process of transitioning from the military to civilian life, amongst Active Veteran With Answers’ (or AVWA) chief objectives is to relieve the assortment of challenges associated with the knowledge gap, particularly during the application process for veterans programs and benefits, according to this company’s mission at http://www.activeveteranswithanswers.org.
“Our vision is to provide a seamless learning experience for veterans as they navigate the often frustrating and overwhelming benefits channel in order to determine eligibility regarding their earned benefits,” said a spokesperson for AVWA. “If you know someone who is no longer active in the United States Military and wonder whether or not they are receiving all to which they are entitled, then Active Veterans With Answers will help those veterans determine the answers to this question and more.”
Interestingly, Archibald and Neely, during an interview this week with Making Headline News, cited that while military veterans have the support and guidance of one another, they also discovered that many of them struggled to understand the rules surrounding the eligibility requirements for programs, benefits, and services offered through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and its subsidiaries.
This, as a result, practically sums up why a credible 501 (C)(3) nonprofit organization such as AVWA is absolutely essential.
“(I love that fact that we’re) being able to provide informational services and guidance for our veterans, family members, caregivers and survivors,” said Neely, when asked what’s she appreciates mostly about AVWA.
To Neely and Archibald’s credit, young Virginia businessman Christian Graves and two-time NBA champion and league MVP Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors have chimed in mightily as it pertains to aiding America’s beloved veterans.
For starters, Graves, the young mastermind behind Youth Activist and Author Christian Samir Graves, has joined forces with Active Veterans With Answers to give back to a host of veterans organizations in the greater Hampton Roads, Virginia-area.
In addition, Graves and AVWA are challenging the community to save their dimes in a two liter soda bottle — which can hold up to $700 — and turn all donations in to a nearby TowneBank.
Graves, Neely, Archibald, and others recently held a community-wide reception held to present funds to seven area service organizations who are known for assisting in housing homeless Veterans.
The DIMES 4 Homeless Veterans Campaign has been extended to assist other organizations that help homeless veterans annually, Archibald said.
MORE ON DIMES FOR HOMELESS VETERANS CAMPAIGN: https://dimes4homelessvets.com/
AMERICA’S BALLER — Two-time NBA champion and league MVP Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors drew rave reviews from countless veterans around the country when, just last month, he composed some intriguing commentary on a blog called The Noise to express his support of veterans, having gone as far as to suggest to America that “silence is no longer an option.”
Curry, on the other hand, drew rave reviews from countless veterans around the country when, just last month, he composed some intriguing commentary on a blog called The Noise to express his support of veterans, having gone as far as to suggest to America that “silence is no longer an option.”
STEPHEN CURRY’S COMMENTARY: https://www.theplayerstribune.com/stephen-curry-veterans-day/
“When someone tells me that my stances, or athlete stances in general, are “disrespecting the military” — which has become a popular thing to accuse peaceful protestors of — it’s something that I’m going to take very, very seriously. One of the beliefs that I hold most dear is how proud I am to be an American — and how incredibly thankful I am for our troops. I know how fortunate I am to live in this country, and to do what I do for a living, and to raise my daughters in peace and prosperity. But I also hear from plenty of people who don’t have it nearly as good as I do. Plenty of people who are genuinely struggling in this country. Especially our veterans,” Curry wrote.
WELL-DESERVED HONOR — Prior to the Charlotte Hornets’ game versus the visiting Miami Heat Friday night, the Hornets organization, along with Bank of America, honored Neely, a notable Master Chief Petty Officer, USN, Ret., as this season’s third recipient of the season-long Yellow Ribbon Program. A native of Miami who currently resides in China Grove, North Carolina, Neely served 25 years in the United States Navy, first as a parachute rigger and aviation structural mechanic working on survival gear for pilots and flight crew members, then as a Navy Career Counselor.
All things considered, Archibald, Neely, and Graves are hopeful Curry, a two-time NBA Most Valuable Player, would continue to speak out on his tireless support of veterans and, most of all, encourage other professional athletes to follow suit.
Prior to the Charlotte Hornets’ game versus the visiting Miami Heat Friday night, the Hornets organization, along with Bank of America, honored Neely, a notable Master Chief Petty Officer, USN, Ret., as this season’s third recipient of the season-long Yellow Ribbon Program.
A native of Miami who currently resides in China Grove, North Carolina, Neely served 25 years in the United States Navy, first as a parachute rigger and aviation structural mechanic working on survival gear for pilots and flight crew members, then as a Navy Career Counselor.
As for Active Veterans With Answers partnering with Graves and his organization, it is the kind of unity that Archibald and Neely fully welcome.
Graves’ parents are both veterans.
“We appreciate the fact that Stephen (Curry) wants to know about what veterans have been enduring for so long,” Archibald said. “Unemployment, mental health issues, racial inequality and homelessness have plagued the veteran community for decades, and we are asking for Stephen and any other NBA players to use their status to help Active Veterans with Answers and DIMES 4 Homeless Veterans Campaign Founder Christian Graves facilitate an environment that both educates our Nations’ Veterans and assists in eradicating homelessness once and for all.”
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Q and A: Virginia-based author Dr. Sabrina Watson speaks exclusively with Making Headline News about her awe-inspiring book
GENERATING HEADLINES — During a recent interview with Making Headline News Editor Andre T. Johnson, Dr. Sabrina Watson, a Virginia Beach-based businesswoman, spoke at length about what greatly fueled her desire to compose her compellingly informative book entitled, “When You Have To Be The Man,” a 110-page paperback written document that officially hit the market in May 2013.
Time and again, it seemed the same five words kept coming up, as Dr. Sabrina Watson recalls.
So much, in fact, that those words had become so familiar that they began to rest and in her spirit.
“You should write a book,” Dr. Watson explained practically every time she finds herself sharing of her assortment of life experiences, most notably the disheartening, yet life-altering events amid the untimely death of her husband — a development that essentially forced her to assume a parental role about which she never envisioned would take place.
During a recent interview with Making Headline News Editor Andre T. Johnson, Watson, a Virginia Beach-based businesswoman, spoke at length about what greatly fueled her desire to compose her compellingly informative book entitled, “When You Have To Be The Man,” a 110-page paperback written document that officially hit the market in May 2013.
BUY DR. WATSON’S BOOK HERE: https://www.amazon.com/When-You-Have-Be-Man/dp/1478714271
“As I kept sharing my story with others, the comment, ‘You should write a book’ kept occurring,” Dr. Watson said. “These were seeds that were initially planted before I heard the Lord tell me to, ‘Write it down.’ And I ‘m so glad I obeyed.”
Even after a little more than four years removed from the release of her inspiring, thought-provoking book, Dr. Watson thought it essential to discuss with us her book, courtesy of an exclusive Q and A interview. So enjoy.
“Because this book was written while I was going through very challenging times, I am rewriting this book from a perspective of lessons learned and to expose God’s hand at play in the lives of parents who are raising children under difficult circumstances,” Dr. Watson said.
ANDRE: When did God give you the vision to write this book?
DR. WATSON: As a Christian woman, I have listened to many spiritual leaders in my lifetime. While going through a particularly difficult time on my journey as a single mother, my heart and mind were particularly sensitive to sermons about the family and children. Most of what I would hear at that time was about the role of a father in children’s lives, or about the role of a man in the home to be the leader and the head of the family. I recall hearing sermons like these over and over and over again until I began to have some inner-dialogue with God about what all did this mean for me and my children since their father was deceased. I asked God, “God, the man I called my husband and the father of my two children is gone forever. Who’s going to be the man for me and my children? The question of who’s going to be the man for us was eventually answered with a warm sense of peace and calm and a presence that only could come through Jesus Christ, with an answer that I knew was God. That He would be the man through me, that He would be my provider, my comforter, my father, my husband, my partner and my friend. So the title When You Have To Be The Man came from the realization that I would have to be everything for my family and allow Christ within me have dominion in my home and in my life – and in Him, I would be the Wo- Man by allowing God to become my man. This is how God blessed my journey as a single mother and as the head of the household.
ANDRE: When did begin writing the book? When did you finish it
DR. WATSON: When I began writing this book, I started with writings from my personal journal which started about five years before it was published. The initial writings were based on my experience for being a fairly new mom wanting to do all the right things to nurture my children development. I discussed things about the benefits of breast feeding and reading to your child at an early age. I also wrote about my professional knowledge as an educator and offered advice about the best practices for supporting healthy growth from an academic perspective. However, once my children’s father died, the book took on a whole new meaning for me as a mother and then as a new single parent. And although I still included many of the aforementioned topics, the book’s premise changed drastically and I practically rewrote it in its entirety. Due to the emotional anguish that my children and I were experiencing, the book became a way for me to give a voice to what I was feeling but not able to express around my children. For me, it was more important to me to try to ease their pain than to deal with my own. For me it was more important to assure them that mom was okay, not crying, and that I wasn’t going to die on them as well. Writing this book was therapy for my mind and healing for my soul as I was able to document God’s hand on everything that happens in the life of single women everywhere. The struggle to cope with everything around me falling apart yet worried that your value as a woman decreased each day as daily stressors took their toll on your hair, skin, and body. In this book, I documented those feelings along with the self-doubt and loss of personal dreams and desires that faded under the circumstances. Also documented in this book were the blessings, healing, understanding and truth which God revealed along this journey.
ANDRE: Give me the titles of your other books and the year they were published?
DR. WATSON: “Going Beyond the Ph.D: The Next Step.” This is a collaboration I co-authored with Dr. Joyce M. Jones and Friends.
ANDRE: What is the divine message you’re sending to your audience through this book?
IN HER OWN WORDS — “What I did not expect was how deeply my readers would connect with the experiences and stories told within the written words, Dr. Watson said. For example, one reader shared that she had to stop reading after a certain page because of how she related to feelings of inadequacy which was written about in the chapter entitled: How Did I Get Here? Another reader wrote to me expressing how she began to read this book on the plane and could not make it threw one of the initial chapters without crying. She found a personal connection to her own experiences as a mother raising a son and shared that what she read had bless her heart.”
DR. WATSON: When You Have to Be the Man illustrates the extraordinary things that can be expected with God as the man of the house. Single mothers are great warriors, women who will sacrifice their lives for their children. Their lives can be difficult and complex. When You Have to Be the Man reveals the great strength and resilience women and mothers have together with God. An extraordinary life for you and your children does exist with Jesus. He will be the Man if your life and in your home if you will allow Him. The time has come for single mothers to arise and become great women of God. Shutting out the rhetoric, renouncing all the naysayers and letting God be glorified in blessing the lives of those the world has scorned. It is a relationship of love guaranteed to exceed beyond your greatest dreams.
ANDRE: Overall, what kind of feedback have you garnered through this book?
DR. WATSON: What I did not expect was how deeply my readers would connect with the experiences and stories told within the written words. For example, one reader shared that she had to stop reading after a certain page because of how she related to feelings of inadequacy which was written about in the chapter entitled: How Did I Get Here? Another reader wrote to me expressing how she began to read this book on the plane and could not make it threw one of the initial chapters without crying. She found a personal connection to her own experiences as a mother raising a son and shared that what she read had bless her heart.
ANDRE: In what ways is this book part of the purpose for which God has created you?
“As a Christian woman, I have listened to many spiritual leaders in my lifetime,” Dr. Watson said. “While going through a particularly difficult time on my journey as a single mother, my heart and mind were particularly sensitive to sermons about the family and children. Most of what I would hear at that time was about the role of a father in children’s lives, or about the role of a man in the home to be the leader and the head of the family. “
DR. WATSON: God place this book upon my heart with the idea that I would chronicle my experiences and lessons learned as a single mother. My personal goal was that the book would bring hope and encouragement to other parents through the experiences and knowledge I have gained through my walk with God and journey as a single mother. However, this book turned out to be so much more than this. Ephesian 3:14-21 sums up what the purpose God intended for me in writing this book: (14) When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father; (15) the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth; (16) I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give us (me) mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit; (17) and I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in our hearts as we trust in him. May our roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love; (18) And may we have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is; (19) That we may experience the love of Christ, though it is so great that we will never fully understand it. Then we will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes only from God; (20) Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us (right now), that he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope for; (21) to Him be the glory in our family, in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen (Ephesians 3:14-21 (Life Application Study Bible) (biblically prayed by the Apostle Paul for (us) the church)
ANDRE: Are there any other books you’ve assembled or plan to write?
DR. WATSON: Because this book was written while I was going through very challenging times, I am rewriting this book from a perspective of lessons learned and to expose God’s hand at play in the lives of parents who are raising children under difficult circumstances. It’s hard for some people to see God in the midst of their struggles, this second book will encourage and empower and uncover the blessings on the other side of these struggles. This book will be a collaborative effort consisting of interviews with the mothers of high-profiles figures in this country who will share tips and strategies for their success as parents and how other parents can make decisions right now to provide their children the best of themselves as parents. These interviews with mothers of successful children will validate why the fight is worth it in the end.
ANDRE: Working on any speaking engagements as it pertains to promoting your book?
DR. WATSON: Not at this time.
ANDRE: Anything else you’d like to share with your reading audience?
DR. SABRINA BLOUT WATSON
DR. WATSON: One misconception that people may have about this book is that it is a “male bashing” book, possibly because of its title. When women talk about being “the man,” there is naturally as assertion that women are trying to be above men, or declare our independence of not needing men. However, this book is about none of that. In fact, through my experience of losing my children’s father in death, I have gain such an enormous appreciation for fathers and the powerful contributors to positive development that they provide. The gift that fathers are and the benefit of present fathers can be read about in almost any chapter of this book. To the contrary, there is also a chapter entitled “Are You the Problem” which exposes women who use children to gain power and revenge over fathers and obstruct the emotional and mental support that some fathers could provide their children’s, but are not allowed to because of an inhibiting mother. So although the title of this book may be misleading to men but I believe that even men would gain great insight and great pleasure knowing how much they are needed in families today as is expressed time and time again throughout this book.
ANDRE: Where can people find you and learn more about your book?
DR. WATSON: When You Have to Be the Man is now available online at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.
DR. SABRINA WATSON RELATED STORY:
Virginia-based businesswoman Dr. Sabrina Watson impacting lives as a developmental relationship expert, motivational speaker
Andre Johnson is Founder and Publisher for Making Headline News. A 2000 graduate of the University of Memphis School of Journalism and a former reporter of sports for the Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper, Johnson covers the NBA Southwest Division from Dallas, Texas. To reach Johnson, send email to andre@makingheadlinenews.com or to memphisgraduate@yahoo.com. Also, follow him on Twitter @AJ_Journalist.
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WALKING IN HER DESTINY — A native of Chesapeake, Virginia, Dr. Sabrina Watson is an accomplished Developmental Relationship Expert, a venture that has afforded her with the golden opportunity to function as a life coach and motivational speaker, a researcher, as well as put her notable gifts through authorship on display. In addition, Dr. Watson’s business venture allows her to operate as a Positive Youth Development Expert and as a Parenting Coach.
If, in fact, experience is the best teacher, surely, Dr. Sabrina Watson can greatly attest to this intriguing notion.
Consider, for instance, how Dr. Watson, 46, was brought up in a single-parent home only to find herself encountering a similar trend as a devoted single mother of two.
What was the strategic, most effective attribute that has greatly enabled Dr. Watson to persevere and enjoy sustained success as a single mom?
“My faith through the years provided me with the wisdom I needed to make the right decisions for my family as a single mother,” Dr. Watson told Making Headline News this week.
REMEMBERING DAD — While she undoubtedly has the qualifications to bask in the glory of what has evolved as a progressive and thriving business venture, amongst the things about which Dr. Watson can greatly attest is that she’s aware of what it is like to endure situations in which she had no choice but to demonstrate strength under pressure. Consider, once again, how Dr. Watson had endured arguably the darkest hours of her life when her husband passed away, a disheartening development that swiftly gave way to her assuming the single mother label, all while exhausting every options to pick up the broken pieces in the lives of her then 10-and-five-year-old children.
Add to the fact that Dr. Watson is armed with a wealth of experience as a former educator, coupled with the influential and effective single-parent environment in which she grew up, and it’s no wonder this Virginia Beach-based businesswoman has become a fixture in a venture that has proven to have an resourceful impact on countless individuals, particularly those who share similar experiences.
A native of Chesapeake, Virginia, Dr. Watson is an accomplished Developmental Relationship Expert, a venture that has afforded her with the golden opportunity to function as a life coach and motivational speaker, a researcher, as well as put her notable gifts through authorship on display.
In addition, Dr. Watson’s business venture allows her to operate as a Positive Youth Development Expert and as a Parenting Coach.
A business that is a little more than five years removed since its inception, Dr. Watson’s venture accommodates mostly individuals and groups ranging in ages 28-to-65. Also, she assists educators ranging in ages 30-to-60, as well as church youth leaders, community leaders, and a variety of other organizations.
Widely known as the Founder of Family Resources for Positive Youth Development, Dr. Watson brings a wealth of knowledge and experience through a business she began organizing in 2012.
Amongst her notable responsibilities and objectives through her profession is to provide consultation, training, speaking, and coaching on youth development to parents, schools, youth-serving organizations, foundations, and governmental agencies, among others.
“It is my desire to generate a movement that will redirect our nation’s attitude about our youth,” Dr. Watson explained. “My mission is to empower parents, youth leaders, and educators with my online courses, live webinars, and speaking.”
Interesting enough, this former public school instructor is armed with the educational credentials that have contributed mightily to her knowledge and continuous success as a resourceful businesswoman.
Dr. Watson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology, a Master’s in Early Childhood Education, and a doctorate on in Human Services with a special emphasis in Family Studies and Intervention strategies.
While she undoubtedly has the qualifications to bask in the glory of what has evolved as a progressive and thriving business venture, amongst the things about which Dr. Watson can greatly attest is that she’s fully aware of what it is like to endure situations in which she had no choice but to demonstrate strength under pressure.
Consider, once again, how Dr. Watson had endured arguably the darkest hours of her life when her husband passed away, a disheartening development that swiftly gave way to her assuming the single mother label — all while exhausting every option to pick up the broken pieces in the lives of her then-10-and-five-year-old children.
Dr. Watson served as an ambassador for the initial John Maxwell Youth Leadership Impact Summit, during which she helped assemble thousands of youth nationwide ranging in ages 12-to-18 whereby she was afforded the opportunity to equip them with leadership and self-confidence skills to increase their capabilities in the four key areas: Bullying, Positive Self-Image, Personal Character, and Unity.
Besides her relentless and bend-but-don’t-break faith, Dr. Watson credits her years of experience in the classroom and as a youth advocate for greatly enabling her to keep her household intact.
“These experiences influenced my decision to utilize my expert knowledge and practical experience in child development and parenting to inspire others through success coaching, speaking, and educational training,” Dr. Watson said.
MOM KNOWS BEST — Widely known as the Founder of Family Resources for Positive Youth Development, Dr. Watson brings a wealth of knowledge and experience through her business venture she began organizing in 2012. Amongst her notable responsibilities and objectives through her profession is to provide consultation, training, speaking, and coaching on youth development to parents, schools, youth-serving organizations, foundations, and governmental agencies, among others.
A business that is a little more than five years removed since its inception, Dr. Watson’s venture accommodates mostly individuals and groups ranging in ages 28-to-65. Also, she assists educators ranging in ages 30-to-60, as well as church youth leaders, community leaders, and a variety of other organizations, she said.
To her credit, Dr. Watson’s experience extends far beyond the walls of the classroom, considering she has worked on the John Maxwell Youth Leadership International Committee of Professional Speakers, Teachers, and Coaches in 2012.
FAMILY FOCUS — Add to the fact that Dr. Watson is armed with a wealth of experience as a former educator, coupled with the single-parent environment in which she grew up, and it’s no wonder this Virginia Beach-based businesswoman has become a fixture in a venture that has proven to have an influential impact on countless individuals, particularly those who share a similar experiences.
Moreover, she served as an ambassador for the initial John Maxwell Youth Leadership Impact Summit, during which she helped assemble thousands of youth nationwide ranging in ages 12-to-18, whereby she was afforded the opportunity to equip them with leadership and self-confidence skills to increase their capabilities in the four key areas: Bullying, Positive Self-Image, Personal Character, and Unity.
All things considered, Dr. Watson’s has enjoyed sustained success through her venture, in large part because her reputation is such that she is committed to helping establishing healthy homes — one home at time.
A TRUE INSPIRATION — All things considered, Dr. Watson’s has enjoyed sustained success through her venture, in large part because her reputation is such that she is committed to helping establishing healthy homes – one home at time.
“My mission is the development of healthy families, schools, and communities where children and youth can thrive,” said Dr. Watson, whose current itinerary includes a speaking engagement at the January 2018 Black CEO Womanpreneur Event in Tampa, Florida. “(My mission is) helping young people reach their full potential by providing critical skills and information that will equip and empower the professional adults who lead them.
“I aim to reach the coming generation of leaders by creating conditions for success so that all young people have the opportunity to succeed in school and life,” Dr. Watson added. “My mission is to help give communities and individuals the tools and knowledge to effectively work together to support young people.”
Because after all, she reiterated, “Life experiences have been my greatest teachers.”
Which, to her distinctly credit, sums up why she has become the influential, big-hearted figure for which she is widely known.
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Dunkin’ Donuts Gluten-Free Menu
Here is the complete Dunkin’ Donuts Gluten-Free menu. Dunkin’ Donuts might not be the place you’re looking for if you were hoping for a lot of gluten-free snacks. If you’re just going for a drink, all of their beverages are gluten-free. However, they do warn that any of their products may come in contact with gluten due to the environment in which they are prepared. They were talking awhile back about testing out some individually wrapped, gluten-free baked products like donuts and muffins, but it remains to be seen if they will start rolling anything like this out to all of their locations. Unless you’re just going to grab a coffee or other drink, we’d recommend going somewhere else. Note: They do have almond milk.
Dunkin’ Donuts Gluten-Free Menu 2019
All Other Beverages
Dunkin’ Donuts History
Dunkin’ Donuts is a popular fast food restaurant chain that specializes in coffee and doughnuts. It was first opened in Dedham, Massachusetts in 1955 selling 52 different types of donuts, just enough for customers to have a unique variety each week for an entire year. By 1963, Dunkin’ had already opened its 100th location and later grew to cover more than 1,000 locations by the 1970s.
Founder William Rosenberg began his career in the food industry as a typical caterer serving industrial workers. He soon discovered that 40% of his profits came from only two products, doughnuts, and coffee. When Rosenberg launched the inaugural brick and mortar store in Massachusetts, he named it Open Kettle. He soon came to the conclusion that it needed a better name so he assembled his top executives in a room and told them to come up with a new identity for the company. His company architect coined the name Dunkin’ Donuts and by 1950 they had already made it official.
William’s son Robert took over management in 1963 at the age of 25. He was a Harvard Business School graduate. Under his guidance, Dunkin’ Donuts improved operations by streamlining menu offerings, introducing paper and Styrofoam cups as well as other new products such as muffins, donut holes, croissants, bagels, Coolattas, breakfast sandwiches and other beverages apart from coffee.
Dunkin’ Donuts Location (Img src: Flickr)
He also began a national advertising program and changed the restaurant’s format by moving away from traditional stool counters to tables and made the franchise available at remote locations. Robert started selling franchises to multi-unit store operators and introduced satellite sales points and a commissary system of operation. All these things helped reduce the cost of building thus increasing profits.
Today, there are more than 11,300 locations operating internationally with 3,200 global restaurants in 37 countries. On average, they receive around 3 million customers on a daily basis, with most of them coming for special treats such as iced, glazed and dotted fried donuts. The restaurant is sometimes co-branded as Baskin Robbins, which is a sister-brand franchise owned by the parent company, Dunkin’ Brand, Inc.
Dunkin’ Donuts Allergen Menu
If this Dunkin’ Donuts gluten-free menu was helpful or if you find something inaccurate please let us know below.
Not happy with the Dunkin’ Donuts menu? Let them know we want healthier gluten-free options.
Contact Dunkin’ Donuts
Find a Dunkin’ Donuts Near You
Dunkin' Donuts Gluten-Free Menu
Dunkin’ Donuts doesn’t provide any gluten-free food items whatsoever. However, all of their coffee and other beverages are probably safe to drink if your just looking to avoid gluten and grab a quick drink. They don’t make any guarantees that cross contamination might not take place, and while they did talk at one point about rolling out some gluten-free food items, it has yet to happen in all markets.
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–How do we provide the Truth, when the populace prefers the Lie? Saturday, Nov 14 2015
Uncategorized monetarily non-sovereign, monetarily sovereign, monetary non-sovereignty, monetary sovereignty, narrow the gap, widen the gap Rodger Malcolm Mitchell 8:26 am
In comment #4 of the previous post titled, Someone please tell me what this means, reader Elizabeth Harris disagreed with the notion, stated by Warren Mosler and others, that the gold standard limited the amount of money the federal government could create.
What follows is my answer:
Elizabeth, you have identified a fundamental Truth about a sovereign government and money: A sovereign government has the power to do anything it wishes with its money, but creates rules and laws that temporarily can limit that power.
The U.S. federal government always has been Monetarily Sovereign, even during gold standard days, but has chosen to act as though it didn’t have that sovereignty.
Even now, after the gold standard ended, the government still chooses to act as though it is not MS, by enforcing a “debt limit,” issuing T-securities and engaging in complex intra-governmental loans between imaginary “trust funds.”
All laws are temporary, and the government can change or disobey any laws, at will. And that leaves us with the fact that all sovereign governments are MS.
By that logic, even the euro nations are Monetarily Sovereign, because they elected to join the EU and have the power to leave, if they so choose. Sovereignty is the power to choose.
But that logic leaves us with no way to differentiate between Monetarily Sovereign nations.
So, for convenience, we say that today’s U.S. government became MS in 1971, while in reality, it exhibited only a greater degree of MS after 1971.
Depending on ones’s perspective, Mosler and Wray were wrong — and right — for referring to limits on money creation. With current law, the government still is limited, though less limited than it was with the gold standard.
In essence, the government has created a game — call it “Monopoly” — for which it originally created the rules, and ever since, has changed those rules at will.
According to past rules, it could run short of Monopoly money, so then it changed the rules. According to current rules, it still could be unable to pay its debts (though less so), and at the appropriate time, it will (we hope) change the rules further.
Since it is both a player and the rules maker, it cannot lose at its own game.
And through all the 235+ years of its existence, the U.S. government (its leaders, actually) has pretended an inability to change the very rules it created.
At some level of awareness, we the people understand this, but we submerge that understanding so as to widen the Gap below us. (The “Gap” is the difference in income, wealth and power between those who have more and those who have less.
It sometimes mathematically is expressed as the “GINI ratio.”)
Mentally, we say:
“I know it’s a lie, but I go along with it, because it suits me.
“Deep within me, I know there isn’t a magical being, who looks like me, who made everything five thousand years ago, and who controls every atom of the universe. But I go along with the story, because for various reasons, it makes me feel good.
“And deep within me, I know bigotry is evil, but I go along with our government deporting undocumented families and police shooting unarmed blacks, and I know Mexicans aren’t rapists and the poor aren’t lazy, because bigotry comfortably separates me from those below me.
“And deep within me, I know the government can change the rules, and never run short of its own sovereign currency, but I like the unnecesary limitations, because they push the poor down and away from me.”
So where does that leave us? How do we provide the Truth, when the populace prefers the Lie? How do we narrow the Gap, when the populace likes the Gap?
I suspect the answer lies in the nature of the Gap, for there is not one Gap but many, at all levels from the upper .001% all the way down to the bottom, where people have nothing.
Each of us exists at a level, which is above some levels and below others. This is described in the post, “The Gap, the whole Gap and nothing but the Gap . . .”
The people at any given level generally wish to distance themselves from levels below (widen the Gap), while coming closer to levels above (narrow the Gap).
The problem in providing the Truth, is that the higher levels have more power than the lower levels, so the push to widen the Gap is greater than the desire to narrow it. And widening the Gap is facilitated by the Lie about government money shortages.
It would seem then, that in order for the Truth to be accepted, the upper income/wealth/levels — especially the upper 1% — somehow must come to believe there is a greater benefit to narrowing the Gap than to widening it.
Perhaps that can be accomplished by demonstrating how the Gap can be narrowed without threatening the upper 1%, the people who hold the real power in America. That is, can the poor be brought up closer to the middle classes, while the rich maintain their distance from the middle?
The middle might not accept it at first, but their minds and hearts are ruled by the rich, and eventually the middle will believe what the rich tell them, as always.
Why would the rich want this? Because increasing the incomes of the poor provides the rich with more consumers of goods and services provided by rich-owned businesses.
There are several ways this might be done, and perhaps you can visualize some. But, for example, the first seven steps of the “Ten Steps to Prosperity” might compress the Gaps within the lower levels, while allowing the 1% to maintain or even increase the Gap between them and the rest:
1: Eliminating FICA would help the low-middle-to-middle classes, and help business owners, too, who wouldn’t have to pay for FICA.
2: Federally funded Medicare for all, would compress the Gaps within the 99%, while not bringing them “uncomfortably” close to the 1%.
3: A $5,000 (for example) bonus for every man, woman and child, would help the lowest and low-middle classes to be better consumers, while being viewed as “fair” to the highest classes.
4, 5, 6, 7: Free education for all, salary for attending school, eliminate corporate taxes and increase the standard deduction all would benefit the poor and middle classes, but also benefit, in different ways, the businesses the rich own.
Bottom line: The world is run by the rich. Nothing will happen unless the rich want it to happen. There is no use bemoaning the Gap; the rich want the Gap. And with ownership of politicians, the media and university economists, the rich create their version of the truth.
A strategy must be found to compress the Gaps between the poor and the upper middle classes, while allowing the 1% to maintain their Gap.
If the 1% are satisfied that their Gap is maintained, they will feel comfortable in telling the 99% that lifting the poor is good. And the 99% will follow.
17 Responses to –How do we provide the Truth, when the populace prefers the Lie?
golfer1john says:
Under the gold standard, the government creates money buy buying gold. What does it do when there is no more gold to buy? Doesn’t that limit the money it can create?
And if it creates money under the gold standard as if it were fiat money, it maintains the gold (standard) price by selling gold. What does it do when it runs out of gold to sell? This has happened, and the answer is that it devalues the money, raising the price it will accept for its gold, before it is in danger of running out. This is also an exercise of monetary sovereignty, of course, but governments would rather not get a reputation for devaluing their currencies, so it shows how the creation of money is limited under the gold standard.
” . . . rather not get a reputation . . . ”
The U.S government did it repeatedly, as well as adopting a silver standard. Additionally, it had several different kinds of gold standards, some requiring bullion and some not.
The point is, the government has the sovereign power to do anything it wishes with its sovereign currency.
Whether it would “rather not” at any point in time, is immaterial.
averagejoe says:
“as well as adopting a silver standard…..”, which it abandoned in 1873 when the oligarchs realized that they needed more control of the money supply (coinage act) because of the burgeoning progressive movement.
. . . and replaced it with a gold standard.
So much for “oligarchal” realizations and the “burgeoning progressive movement “.
wasn’t ‘replaced with a gold standard’, because it was a gold/silver standard, the oligarchs just did away with silver. and the oligarchal realizations proved true, I don’t know what you are trying to suggest.
Q. “Under the gold standard, the government creates money by buying gold. What does it do when there is no more gold to buy? Doesn’t that limit the money it can create?”
A. No. An MS government does not create money by buying gold, since gold has no intrinsic monetary value. That is, an MS government does not use money to create money. Instead, MS governments create money out of thin air by fiat — i.e. by crediting accounts.
This creation-by-fiat occurs whether or not there is a “gold standard,” which itself is a pretense that politicians use as an excuse when they want to reduce spending, and ignore when they want to increase spending.
There were times when politicians abused the “gold standard” pretense. In their desire to cut federal spending (in order to widen the gap) politicians so attached their government’s fiscal policy to the volatile vicissitudes of a gold trading market that they caused fiscal instability, at which point the politicians quietly dropped or ignored the “gold standard” pretense.
When things calmed down, they resumed their “gold standard” antics.
Before 1971, politicians pretended that the U.S. government’s ability to create money was limited to the U.S. government’s holdings of gold. Since 1971, politicians have simply pretended that the U.S. government is flat “broke,” and that it has a “national debt crisis.” This Big Lie is maintained by “Gap dynamics” at all social levels.
Q. And if the government creates money under the gold standard as if it were fiat money, it maintains the gold (standard) price by selling gold. What does it do when it runs out of gold to sell?”
Nothing. The government simply continues to create money by fiat. There is no “gold standard price.” Instead, there are the current prices of gold on trading markets. Politicians pretended that U.S. fiscal policy was tied to this market price. How was it tied? Politicians never explained this, and they didn’t need to, just as politicians today see no need to explain how austerity and contraction cause prosperity and expansion. The public believes whatever politicians tell them. People believed in the “gold standard,” just as people today believe that bloodletting cures anemia.
The “gold standard” becomes clearer when we ignore technical mechanics, and we consider the politics behind it. MMT people fail to do this.
Q. The creation of money is limited under the gold standard.
A. With respect, no. For MS governments, the creation of money is only limited by political decisions – that is, by politicians who use various gimmicks such as the “gold standard.”
Politicians use and discard such gimmicks at will. During World War II, politicians pretended that the U.S. government needed revenue from the selling of “war bonds.” This lie was necessary in order to get money out of circulation. Everyone had jobs, and thus had cash, but consumer goods were limited by wartime rationing. This presented a danger of price inflation. In order to pull money out of the economy, the U.S. government imposed a federal withholding tax on paychecks, and also launched a “war bonds” campaign. Everywhere you looked there was the message of “buy war bonds.” In all magazines and newspapers, in posters inside all government buildings, on the outsides of buildings and vehicles, in the cinema “featurette” before the main feature film, in radio messages – EVERYWHERE.
The chosen gimmicks depend on timing and politics. In 2011 Obama lowered the FICA tax by 2%, for two years. Many politicians screamed that this would make Social Security “insolvent.” Their screams were just another gimmick.
Many thanks for your comments Rodger. I will answer your main question at the bottom of my own comments here.
But first, a few responses if I may…
1. “A sovereign government has the power to do anything it wishes with its money, but creates rules and laws that temporarily can limit that power.” ~ RMM
Yes. My main point was this…
We previously agreed that there are problems with the MMT “taxes drive money” claim. Perhaps federal taxes help to enhance the public’s full faith and credit in dollars. However the MMT people take this too far, and erroneously claim that federal taxes are the ONLY thing that maintains the demand for dollars.
Likewise, I say it’s possible that the “gold standard” was a means to impose political limitations on government spending, but the MMT people take this too far, and erroneously claim that the limitations were not political. (Or at least, they ignore the political aspects.)
The impetus for my “gold standard” comment was a YouTube viewer who said, “MMT is bunk. It says we need taxes, but we don’t need federal taxes.”
Next, I saw MMT people say the “gold standard” limited the amount of money the U.S. government could produce. The MMT people did not clarify that this limitation was purely political.
So I was turned off by MMT people’s carelessness. That is no way to offset the Big Lie.
My assertion (which you seem to agree with) was that U.S. government’s voluntarily-imposed self-limitations (the gold standard) were never really self-limitations. They were a political ploy. During World War II the U.S. government created all the dollars it needed despite the “gold standard.” In fact, the number of dollars in general circulation always far exceeded the market value of gold as measured in dollars.
Or consider the “debt limit” nonsense, in which right-wing Congressmen threaten to “shut down the government,” while the U.S. Treasury continues operating via so-called “extraordinary means” (i.e. operating as it always does). Meanwhile the Fed continues to pay interest on T-securities, despite the “debt limit” nonsense.
The “debt limit,” like the “gold standard,” is political theatre designed to make us grovel for dollars from an infinite source.
MMT people tend to ignore these political factors. That is no way to fight the Big Lie. For example, they claim that politicians are simply “misguided.”
It seems to me that the original purpose of the “gold standard” pretense was to encourage people to give their full faith and credit to the U.S. “greenback” dollar. Thus, initially the “gold standard” was not simply politics. It was socially necessary. Later, when everyone gave their full faith and credit to the dollar, the purpose of the gold standard became fully political. It supported the lie that “the U.S. Government can’t send money it doesn’t have.” This lie allows corrupt politicians to spend or not spend as they see fit.
The pretense had political implications for foreign policy too, since the Bretton Woods system was based on a “gold standard.” This allowed to the U.S. government to control the fiscal policy of other nations (destroyed by war) by falsely telling them, “You can’t spend money that does not exist.”
Today politicians no longer need the “gold standard” ruse in order to keep us groveling, since the Big Lie is firmly entrenched by “Gap dynamics,” and since we have things like the “debt limit” antics. In 1979 the Republicans let a Democrat-ruled Congress do away with the “debt limit” vote, since the Republicans wanted to massively increase spending for the U.S. military contractors (who paid kick-backs to Republicans). But in 1995, Congress was ruled by Republicans, who brought back their “debt-limit” antics as part of their “Contract With America.” The spending on military contractors continued to increase (as did the bribes and kick-backs) but now the U.S. government had “no money” for “entitlements.”
In the case of euro-zone nations, their self-imposed limitations are temporary but real, since euro-zone governments cannot create their own currency. But, as Rodger says, this decision too is political. Euro-zone nations could recover their MS if their politicians wished. Thus, euro-zone nations retain Sovereignty, since they still have the power to choose. And as Rodger says, the essence of sovereignty is the power to choose.
Incidentally the current raft of “free trade agreements” (TPP, TTIP, and TiSA) are attacks on national sovereignty, since they are attacks on the freedom of governments to choose.
2. “Through all the 235+ years of its existence, the U.S. government (its leaders, actually) has pretended an inability to change the very rules it created.” ~ RMM
Exactly. And the pretense is always for political reasons.
3. “At some level of awareness, we the people understand this, but we submerge that understanding so as to widen the Gap below us.” ~ RMM
Yes. The rich are not the only ones who impoverish us. Statistically speaking, middle class people collectively impoverish themselves in their attempt to impoverish those below. People do this in order to feel “superior” and more secure.
Therefore the engine of the Gap for the middle class and below is insecurity. For the rich, the engine is sheer greed.
By the way, we cannot fully understand the mechanical facts about money unless we also understand the political facts, which involves “Gap dynamics.” MMT people tend to ignore the political aspects, and “Gap dynamics.” Thus, MMT is flawed. MMT ignores Mitchell’s rule the “Everything in economics devolves to motive.”
4. “It would seem then, that in order for the Truth to be accepted, the upper income/wealth/levels — especially the upper 1% — somehow must come to believe there is a greater benefit to narrowing the Gap than to widening it.” ~ RMM
Historically the rich don’t wake up until inequality becomes so extreme that the current structure of society teeters on collapse, or it faces total defeat from an outside enemy or competitor. At that point the rich move to ameliorate the worst excesses of inequality — but by then it is too late. The masses revolt. Or the outsiders attack. Either way the Empire collapses, or changes its form.
Some national governments move to reduce inequality long before they reach this crisis level. These governments are vilified, sanctioned, blockaded, and attacked by outside nations, that are ruled by plutocracies.
Perhaps this is simply the nature of society, which itself is the product of human nature. If that is true, then we will continue to have these problems until overall human nature changes.
5. “The middle might not accept it at first, but their minds and hearts are ruled by the rich, and eventually the middle will believe what the rich tell them, as always.” ~RMM
Yes. Statistically speaking, the members of each class believe what they are told by the members of the classes above them. They pretend not to believe it, but in practice they do. When a right-winger claims that a poor person is worthless, the poor person subconsciously believes it, feeling desperate and hopeless. His hardships confirm his self-image.
Therefore the onus of moral responsibility increases in proportion to our height on the social ladder. The upper class and middle class both play the “Gap” game, but the upper class has a moral responsibility to guide and help the middle class, just as the middle class has a moral responsibility to help the lower class. In an ideal (but utopian) world, the richer we are, the more accountable we are, morally.
6. “Why would the rich want this? Because increasing the incomes of the poor provides the rich with more consumers of goods and services provided by rich-owned businesses.” ~ RMM
Hold on, Rodger. You are speaking as though modern society is still based on industrial capitalism, when in fact it is now based on financial capitalism. The rich don’t care if Main Street dies, as long as Wall Street thrives. As a result, Main Street (i.e. the real economy) dies a little more each day.
Eventually Main Street will no longer be able to physically support the casinos of Wall Street. At that point the USA will face the crisis of inequality that I described above. The rich will take measures to help Main Street (in order to keep Wall Street going), but by then it will be too late. The masses will build guillotines, or else the USA will break into smaller sates, or else the USA will be conquered by some outside enemy. Whatever happens, the current form of the USA will change.
One problem with humans is that the more they get, the more they want. This phenomenon increases the higher we go on the social ladder. Once we reach the upper class, the wider the gap below us, the more we desire to widen it even more. That is the general tendency, anyway. Hence the evolution from industrial capitalism to financial capitalism (i.e. from million-dollar profits based on goods and services to trillion-dollar profits based on gambling and bail-outs).
So, it is possible that the rich might wake up, but to me it seems unlikely. There are many historical precedents where the rich didn’t wake up until it was too late (e.g. ancient Rome, or the various Chinese dynasties). There are other cases in which the rich have been denied total power (e.g. Venezuela) but they keep trying to get it back. In still other cases the plutocracy was completely done away with, only to be replaced by Communist Party apparatchiks. In still other cases, the masses took power, but the nation was attacked and destroyed from outside.
Perhaps social stratification and “Gap dynamics” are inevitable. If that is true, then shall we give up and resign ourselves to the idea that we will always have the Big Lie and “Gap dynamics”?
In order to truly understand the facts of Monetary Sovereignty, we must have sincere grief for human suffering, plus an intense desire to find solutions. Our grief (i.e. our love) must be stronger than our insecurity if we are to personally escape “Gap dynamics,” with its sneering rejection of the facts.
Since most people’s insecurity is stronger than their love, most people collectively form a sea of ignorance and hostility. We hone and refine our own understanding of MS by continually trying to reach those who are confused, but who are sincere in their grief for human suffering.
Here on Rodger’s blog, if a reader seems genuinely aggrieved by human suffering, then Rodger will patiently work with him or her. But if a reader is a sneering troll, then he is ignored. Nobody becomes teachable until his love becomes stronger than his insecurity.
Rodger’s original question was, “How do we provide the Truth, when the populace prefers the Lie?”
My answer: We must continually be available for the “lovers,” since they are the only ones who can be reached. Some of them exist at all social levels. One day we shall encounter a few in the upper class, who have power. They will be our megaphones.
Monetary Sovereignty is ultimately a moral issue. We are dreaming of a happier world. All positive advances first start with a dream. The positive dreamers are usually crushed and discarded, but if they didn’t exist, then mankind would truly be doomed.
Elizabeth, you are correct that the financial industry has grown enormously, but you may be taking it a little too far (“The rich don’t care if Main Street dies, as long as Wall Street thrives.”)
The vast majority of 1%ers are industrialists, who do care whether Main Street dies.
Actually, aside from Warren Buffett, I can’t offhand think of many financial billionaires (I’m sure there are some, but they are in the distinct minority.)
Perhaps you are talking about people whose companies’ stocks are worth billions, or people who made billions in industry and now invest those billions in financial investments.
But I am quite sure Bill Gates et al care a great deal about industrial profits.
Despite rumors to the contrary, the U.S. remains the greatest industrial nation in the world. We are a long, long way from becoming Switzerland. And the values of the great majority of stocks are related to anticipated sales and profits of goods and services.
You may be right that we have to wait for love (i.e. liberalism) to rear its beautiful head, but currently, of the two dozen Presidential candidates, only one comes even close: Bernie Sanders.
The rest range from extreme to less extreme right-wingers, whose love is restricted to gods, guns and “get out of my country.”
If you’re hoping to find some lovers among the rich and powerful, you may be, as the song says, “Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places.”
1. “Elizabeth, you are correct that the financial industry has grown enormously, but you may be taking it a little too far.” ~ RMM
As a percentage of gross corporate investment, the financial sector has almost tripled in size since 1960. Nowadays corporate profits (among the big corporations) are less important than stock prices, which are manipulated in various ways, and are juiced by quantitative easing. Financial scams abound. There is interest rate manipulation (LIBOR). There is the mass push to privatize all public assets. This is not what I call productive capitalism.
There are a few Bill Gates around, but the highest paid people of all tend to be hedge fund managers. Moreover, speculation in commodities is one of the things that have increased the prices of consumer goods. (An executive for MillerCoors testified that manipulation of the aluminum market cost manufacturers over $3B.)
The problem is not so much the absolute size of the financial economy, as its size relative to the real economy. Finance is a parasite that has grown larger than the host. Finance is not a productive activity. Finance is a looting activity. Why engage in industrial production when you can gamble in the casinos, and get bailed out when your bets go bad, or when your speculative bubbles burst?
In 2009, it was not General Motors automotive manufacturing that was collapsing, but GMAC, their finance arm, which was leveraged on credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and similar exotic financial derivatives. When Obama claimed that he “saved General Motors,” he saved the Wall Street arm of General Motors.
Most big corporations today have Wall Street arms. That’s where all the action is.
Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs says that the reason Goldman Sachs’ managers are paid more than anybody else is that they’re so productive (of paper profits). The National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) say that everybody is productive in proportion to the amount of money they make/take. It doesn’t matter whether it’s extractive income or productive income. It doesn’t matter whether it’s by manufacturing things, or by stealing money from people. Any way of earning income is considered to be as productive as any other way. This is a parasite-friendly mentality that has given us things like trillion-dollar student loan debt, which manufactures nothing.
2. “Despite rumors to the contrary, the U.S. remains the greatest industrial nation in the world.” ~ RMM
That seems to me like a subjective opinion. How do you define “greatest industrial nation?” As I see it, the USA has sent most of its industrial manufacturing overseas, leaving behind a domestic economy that is a collection of toll booths.
3. “The values of the great majority of stocks are related to anticipated sales and profits of goods and services.”~ RMM
It seems to me that stock values are juiced by quantitative easing, and are subject to various manipulation scams.
On August 20, Michael Hudson published “Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy.” Hudson comes to the same conclusions I did: that the financial industry dwarfs regular industry in dollar amounts, and it is killing us.
http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Host-Financial-Parasites-Bondage/dp/3981484282/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447544642&sr=1-1&keywords=killing+the+host+michael+hudson&pebp=1447548308867&perid=1WF56F60Z8HGVM95Z2FM
4. “If you’re hoping to find some lovers among the rich and powerful, you may be, as the song says, ‘Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places’.” ~ RMM
I propose that most billionaires are greedy bastards, but not all of them. Likewise, most people in the middle class are insecure, and seek to widen the gap below them, but not all of them. There are a few people around who are genuinely concerned about others, and how they can make a better world. Those are the kind of people we must target.
We don’t necessarily need to depend on rich “patrons” to get the message out. We just need to focus on people who truly care about human suffering, and who already have an audience.
An example (which I’ll choose totally at random) is Ms. Vandana Shiva: an Indian scholar, environmental activist and anti-globalization author who has published more than 20 books in English. She’s the kind of person I want to meet so I can explain the facts of MS to her. I am certain she would “eat it up” and pass it along to her international audiences.
Yes, do contact Ms. Shiva. Contact everyone with a voice.
I’m not sure the word of an environmental activist and anti-globalization author has much influence on American economics, but it certainly couldn’t hurt to contact everyone you can.
Importantly, she may talk to people who are more influential in those areas — for instance, a national leader.
If I were to pick one person on the planet to talk with, it might be Janet Yellen, because she already knows the truth. I’d like to ask her why she doesn’t tell it.
Alternatively, I’d like to talk with the President of the United States or Donald Trump.
Donald Trump???!!!
Yes, the Donald, because the media cover everything he says, and at some point in this campaign, he will search for a dramatic statement.
I don’t know whether any of them cares about human suffering, but they have much bigger megaphones than does Ms. Shiva.
But do contact her and all those whom you believe could spread the word.
By the way, for motivation, I trust appeals to personal greed more than appeals to compassion. That was the point of the post.
But maybe I’ve grown cold in my old age.
1. “I’m not sure the word of an environmental activist and anti-globalization author has much influence on American economics, but it certainly couldn’t hurt to contact everyone you can.” ~ RMM
I cited Ms. Shiva at random. Her guest lectures are popular. I would like to give her (and many people like her) some answers for anyone who claims that we “can’t afford” solutions. There are people like her in many different fields of study.
2. “If I were to pick one person on the planet to talk with, it might be Janet Yellen, because she already knows the truth. I’d like to ask her why she doesn’t tell it.” ~ RMM
She doesn’t tell the truth because she’s paid not to tell it. Most people don’t want to hear the truth anyway, since the truth might threaten to narrow the Gap beneath them.
3. “Alternatively, I’d like to talk with the President of the United States or Donald Trump, because the media cover everything he says, and at some point in this campaign, he will search for a dramatic statement.” ~ RMM
The President is paid to lie. As for Trump, would he would be willing to say something that threatened the Gap beneath the rich? I don’t know.
4. “By the way, for motivation, I trust appeals to personal greed more than appeals to compassion. That was the point of the post. But maybe I’ve grown cold in my old age.” ~ RMM
The Gap is what makes people feel rich, and greed is what makes them want to widen the Gap. I don’t see how appealing to rich people’s desire for an ever-widening Gap would make them amenable to a smaller Gap.
5. “Can the poor be brought up closer to the middle classes, while the rich maintain their distance from the middle? Why would the rich want this? Because increasing the incomes of the poor provides the rich with more consumers of goods and services provided by rich-owned businesses.” ~ RMM
There are three problems with this idea. First, more and more of the super-rich no longer need to sell goods and services. They no longer rely on the real economy, or on industrial capitalism. They now have the financial economy (i.e. the Wall Street casinos). Today the name of the game is arbitrage, market scams, and privatization.
Second, in order to narrow the Gap between the poor and the middle class, we would have to set aside the Big Lie to some extent. This would threaten the Gap between the rich and the rest. If there is enough money to help the poor, then why wouldn’t there be enough money for single payer health insurance, or expanded Social Security, or free college tuition?
Third, the rich depend on the Gap between the middle and lower class. For rich people, the middle class acts like prison inmates who are made trustees. The trustees focus their attention on widening the Gap beneath them, not on narrowing the Gap above them. The more people in the bottom class are made to suffer, the more people in the middle class feel “middle class” (i.e. not-poor). If we start dissolving the bottom class, then middle-class people might start to realize that they are on the bottom, under the rich. They might start to look up, not down.
Members of the middle class cope with abuse from above by abusing those below. If we start dissolving the bottom class, then the middle class would have no one to abuse. This might cause them to resist abuse from above.
We see this phenomenon when we consider how the Gap is a cornerstone of imperialism. When an Empire wants to keep millions of people in chains, it elevates a small number of slaves above the rest. The “trustee” slaves (e.g. puppet dictators) are allowed to keep their special luxuries and privileges as long as they control the rest of the slaves.
My main point is that it is useless to speak the truth to people who are paid to lie, or whose greed or insecurity is greater than their concern for others. These people are unreachable, since they are obsessed with maintaining the Gap beneath them. And the Big Lie is all about maintaining the Gap beneath us.
Instead, we would do better to speak the truth to people whose compassion is greater than their greed or their insecurity. Such people are already on the road of truth. The facts of Monetary Sovereignty are part of the road.
Perhaps something that focuses on the working poor, because that removes the “poor-won’t-work-if-we-give-them-money” excuse.
As a former advertising man, I think in terms of ads, so something like this:
“She wakes up every day hungry, and goes to bed every day hungry, Her daddy works hard, but still can’t afford enough food for her.
Yes, the federal government could help, and no, it wouldn’t cause inflation. Read how you can help without spending a dime.”
potomacoracle says:
We need a 1776 redux to avoid feudalism which is clearly the goal of the 1%.
tetrahedron720 says:
“Here’s a quote from Bill Bonner in his book Hormageddon; ” The idea that a government’s mission is to make things better, is false.”……
as evidenced by both party’s inability to stay out of wars.
” …naturally occurring struggle between the Outsiders and the Insiders….”
I doubt it occurs naturally. It is more likely learned by misinformation and misdirection. The assumption that all must be rendered scarce in accord with the two fundamental inadequacy authors, Darwin (survival of the fittest) and Thomas Malthus who — during the agrarian mid-1800s– correctly concluded there was not enough to go around due to population growth outpacing general production. He obviously didn’t see the coming industrial revolution.
So we cling to the truths that becomes false with time. We embrace the words of the politicians who, in turn, are embraced by the powerful and selfish who want yesteryear’s scarcity model perpetuated to remain a viable and controlling tool in 21st Century economics.
Ian Winograd says:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/11/18/was-neil-cavutos-painful-interview-with-a-college-student-activist-fair-game/
What we have here is an interview on Fox between Neil Cavuto and a college student. The student is proposing free college education and the eradication of student debt. When Neil asks the student how will we pay for it, the student is unable to respond effectively. Had the student visited this blog, she would have been able to easily defend herself. When I get into these discussions, I always propose a question, if the US has a limited supply of dollars, what approximately is that limit — $10 trillion, $50 trillion, $100 trillion, etc. I have never gotten an answer.
What Cavuto was really saying is :
The problems of the economy cannot disappear. They’ll always be with us as there is no solution that I can envision. Checkmate!!
The student should have asked Cavuto what his solution would consist of.
He’s got his. He’s well paid by Fox to maintain an Econ 101, status quo, defense formation and no doubt totally ready to shoot down progressives looking for free money. I’d bet if students knew about MS, Cavuto would never have them on his show. He’d lose the debate.
IAN WINOGRAD SAYS: “When I get into these discussions, I always propose a question: if the US has a limited supply of dollars, then what approximately is that limit — $10 trillion, $50 trillion, $100 trillion, etc. I have never gotten an answer.”
Yes, and when people finally admit that there is no limit to dollars, they always fall back on “Plan B,” which is to claim that austerity is the only thing that protects us from hyperinflation. When you explain this error, they change the subject.
Therefore we all get more austerity and poverty. And more and more. As Rodger says, “The price of ignorance is slavery.”
My next door neighbor is paid minimum wage at her job. Five minutes ago she told me that her health insurance premiums just increased again, to $320 per month. Plus, she must pay on a mortgage, pay for food, gasoline, car insurance, and so on. (She would ride on buses, but none are available anywhere near her workplace.) She is a Mexican national, aged 55, and is just barely hanging on. She raised four children to adulthood on minimum wage (with no food stamps). (Her mortgage is in the name of her adult son, who is a U.S. citizen, but she makes all the payments.)
She is one of the working poor that Republican-types call “lazy.” She is who Republican-types think of when they demand the elimination of all safety nets, which Republican-types call “hammocks.”
As for Neil Cavuto of Fox News, he is an evil dwarf who poses as a “liberal” in order to get away with criticizing anyone who actually has a moral conscience. Shame on anyone for just WATCHING these parasites that contributing nothing to society except hate and suffering.
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#NACBA25 Highlight
We Like To Have Fun At NACBA!
Join the Ethics Jeopardy Plenary Session!
NACBA likes to mix it up and keep you on your toes! This #NACBA25 plenary session definitely won’t disappoint! Have fun exploring the ethics issues of consumer bankruptcy law practice playing Jeopardy with bankruptcy judges, Hon. Cynthia A. Norton of Kansas City and Hon. Catherine Peek McEwen of Tampa, and practitioner James H. (Jim) Cossitt of Kalispell, MT. Bring your cell phone to participate in the audience polling on Saturday, May 6th from 8:00 AM-9:00 AM
Learn More About The Players of The Game!
Your Moderator
Jill Michaux
Jill A. Michaux was appointed by Chief Justice John G. Roberts to a three-year term on the national Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules on November 30, 2012, and reappointed to a second three-year term in October 2015. She practices law with the firm of Neis & Michaux, P.A., of Topeka, Kansas. She was a founding member of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys and served on its board of directors six years from 1993 to 1999. She graduated from the University of Kansas in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism degree and from the Washburn University School of Law with Dean’s Honors in 1982. Michaux and Mark Neis, her husband and law partner, are the only Topeka attorneys, and two of seven in Kansas, to be board certified in consumer bankruptcy law by the American Board of Bankruptcy Certification. Michaux is a founding member and past president of Topeka Area Bankruptcy Council and the Kansas Bar Association Bankruptcy and Insolvency Section. She blogs on her own site, www.bankruptcykansas.info. She served as judge for the Municipal Court of the City of Rossville, Kansas, for 16 years until 2010.
Your Jeopardy Hosts
James H. Cossitt
James H. Cossitt has practiced in Kalispell, Mont., since 1999 in the areas of bankruptcy & workouts, business & commercial litigation, real estate, landlord / tenant, secured transactions and construction law. He began his career in insolvency law as a bankruptcy attorney with the FDIC in Des Moines, Iowa, served as a chapter 7 panel trustee in the N.D. of Iowa from 1988-95 and as a chapter 11 trustee in the W.D. of Michigan from 1997 to 2000. Mr. Cossitt is admitted to practice in the state and federal courts in Montana, Colorado, Michigan and Iowa, is board-certified by the American Board of Certification in both Business & Consumer Bankruptcy Law. He is a member of the American Bar Association, National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees, National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys and a lifetime member of the American Bankruptcy Institute. In addition, he is the Montana editor of West Group’s Bankruptcy Exemption Manual and in 2009 was elected to a three-year term on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Certification (ABC).
A frequent speaker to professional and trade groups on bankruptcy and related topics, Mr. Cossitt was a member of a task force of US bankruptcy judges, law professors and others who consulted with the Slovak Parliament and research institutes in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 1993 on drafting a new bankruptcy law and the transition to a market economy. He served as an invited lecturer at a Russian Bankruptcy School sponsored by the Iowa State University Center for International Agricultural Finance, held in Ames, Iowa, in 1995. Mr. Cossitt received his B.A., with distinction, in 1982 from Iowa State University and his J.D. in 1986 from the University of Iowa College of Law.
Honorable Catherine Peek McEwen
Catherine Peek McEwen is a United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Middle District of Florida (appointed August, 2005). She is also an adjunct professor at the Western Michigan University Cooley Law School. Prior to becoming a judge, she was in private practice, concentrating on commercial litigation with an emphasis on representing parties in bankruptcy cases. Judge McEwen was graduated from Stetson University College of Law cum laude in 1982 and received her undergraduate degree from the University of South Florida (B.A., Political Science) in 1979.
She is the judicial chair of The Florida Bar Business Law Section Bankruptcy/UCC Committee and a member of The Florida Bar Business Law Section Executive Council as well as past chair of The Florida Bar Federal Court Practice Committee. She is a member of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges’ Legislative Committee and is a Past Editor in Chief of the NCBJ Conference News, past co-chair of the NCBJ’s Future of the Conference Committee and past member of its National Bar Association Liaison Committee, Endowment for Education Board, Public Outreach Committee, Ethics Committee, and the Newsletter Committee. She is a past chair and a member of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit (of Florida) Pro Bono Committee. She is on the Board of Directors of the Hillsborough Association for Women Lawyers.
She was elected into the American Law Institute in 2012. Among her other honors are the Stetson University College of Law Distinguished Alumnus Award (2007), Hillsborough County Bar Association Jimmy Kynes Pro Bono Service Award (2008), the Stetson University College of Law J. Ben Watkins Award (2009), the Florida Association for Women Lawyers Leaders in the Law inaugural class designation (2010), the Tampa Bay Hispanic Bar Association’s Luis “Tony” Cabassa Award (2012), the George Edgecomb Bar Association’s Delano S. Stewart Diversity Award (2015), the inaugural Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice’s Distinguished Federal Judicial Service Award (2016), the Stetson Lawyers Alumni Association Ben C. Willard Award (2016), the University of South Florida Distinguished Alumna Award (2016), and the Bay Area Legal Services, Inc. Judge Don Castor Justice Award (2016).
Honorable Cynthia A. Norton
Cynthia A. Norton graduated summa cum laude from the University of Kansas in 1981 with a double major in French and Art History. She received her law degree from the same institution in May 1984. She clerked for the Hon. John E. Rees of the Kansas Court of Appeals, and the Hon. James A. Pusateri, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, and was a partner at Lewis Rice & Fingersh in Kansas City, before establishing her own law firm in 1995. As a member of Grimes & Rebein, Judge Norton practiced in bankruptcy and related fields in Kansas and Missouri until being sworn in as a bankruptcy judge in the Western District of Missouri on February 1, 2013. She is the recipient of the Michael R. Roser Excellence in Bankruptcy Award, and the Robert L. Gernon Award for Outstanding Contribution to CLE, as well as a Fellow in the American College of Bankruptcy. Judge Norton has authored numerous articles and seminar papers, and spoken at conferences all around the country. She and her husband reside in Parkville, Missouri.
Register Today and Get Ready to Play!
Posted in NACBA25 and tagged #NACBA25 Highlight, annual convention, attorney, Attorneys, Bankruptcy, Catherine Peek Mcewan, consumer bankruptcy, Consumer Bankruptcy Law, Cynthia Norton, Ethics, Jill Michaux, Jim Cossitt, NACBA25 on February 21, 2017 by cherewill. Leave a comment
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Where does BATTISTON rank in the most common names in the U.S.?
BATTISTON is identified by the U.S. Bureau of the Census as a surname with more than 100 occurrences in the United States for the year-2000 U.S. Census. In "Demographic Aspects of Surnames from Census 2000", the Census Bureau tabulated the surnames of all people who had obtained Social Security Numbers by the year 2000.
BATTISTON ranks # 138741 in terms of the most common surnames in America for 2000.
BATTISTON had 111 occurrences in the 2000 Census, according the U.S. government records.
Out of a sample of 100,000 people in the United States, BATTISTON would occur an average of 0.04 times.
For the last name of BATTISTON the Census Bureau reports the following race / ethnic origin breakdown:
Search the web for more on the name BATTISTON :
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Home / UFO's / Spectacular UFO Footage From NASA STS-48 Discovery Space Shuttle Released [Video]
Spectacular UFO Footage From NASA STS-48 Discovery Space Shuttle Released [Video]
in UFO's June 2, 2014 4 Comments 3,176 Views
When it comes to some of the most unexplained footage of unidentified flying objects, there has been spectacular UFO film footage released from the NASA STS 48 Discovery Space Shuttle Flight. They filmed this original UFO footage between September 12 and 18, 1991. The top secret NASA film shows a UFO following after the space shuttle while it was in orbit during one of its mission.
NASA continues to refuse comment on the video even though it has come straight from one of the Discovery missions and it is most definitely at the top of the unexplained list. This footage has not been photoshopped, altered in any way, is very well documented, and has been the subject of an ongoing arduous scientific examination by multiple astronomers, scientists and space institutions all over the world.
The footage is available on YouTube and it is also below for anyone who wants to view it. The video appears to show at least a dozen objects moving around in an unusual manner. Along with that, what seems to be the most amazing part is when one entity is near the horizon and some sort of flashing occurs. It is then followed by yet another object that travels extremely fast across the field of view. After this, the first body takes off into space.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=94XsuGYvByg
The clarifications have varied as to what everything really is and they range from space weather storms to intelligent extraterrestrial spacecraft and more. However no one has come up with any sort of positive explanation and most of them do not seem to take into account the many objects which have been caught on film.
Dr. Brian O’Leary, who once worked as as astronaut for NASA from 1967 to 1968 and later was employed at Princeton University as a physics professor before he passed away, believed that there was ample evidence to prove the people on Earth were being visited by E.T.’s and that societies from outer space had been coming to this world for a very long time. He believed that the fact of their appearance being strange to traditional western materialistic points of view was extremely troubling. The visitors were able to use the knowledge of consciousness to understand human thoughts. For mechanics, he stated they used something known as toroids, which were rotating magnetic disks that helped propulsion their ship systems. This appeared to him to be the common denominator of most UFO phenomenon.
There have been literally dozens of governments around the world which have finally declassified thousands of pages of UFO related documents through the past decade or so. As a result of this, there have been extremely high-ranking political and military personnel finally step out into the limelight and open up to what they feel is the truth.
It was not that long ago that Canada’s former Minister of National Defense Paul Hellyer spoke in Washington D.C. that he believed aliens were actually living on Earth and that most likely some of them were inside the United States government.
Hellyer made such remarks at the non-governmental hearings which were overseen by six former U.S. congressmen and were meant to look for the facts surrounding what they called “the most important issue of this or any other time, which was evidence leading to the proof of extraterrestrial existences engaging the human race.”
The former minister also exclaimed that he believed there had been at least four species of alien visiting Earth for thousands of years. He explained that the majority of extraterrestrials had come from various places known as Andromeda, Orion, Zeta Reticuli, the Pleiades, and the Altair star system. They all have different types of plans for Earth as well, he added.
The subject of UFO’s and E.T.’s is up for debate and everyone has his or her own opinion. Even after reading this article and watching the video, no one is going to change his or her mind. Because for those who believe, no amount of information is needed and for those who do not, no amount of information will ever be enough.
Regardless of where the reader stands on the UFO controversy, it is something that is heating up day by day. More attention is being paid to it all the time. It is something that can no longer be ignored. The UFO topic will continue to gain attention as the year 2014 moves on and other years take its place.
When it comes to some of the most unexplained footage of unidentified flying objects, some of the best UFO film footage was released from the NASA STS 48 Discovery Space Shuttle Flight. This was filmed between September 12 and 18, 1991. The top secret NASA film shows a UFO following after the space shuttle while it was in orbit during one of its mission
By Kimberly Ruble
Discovery Space Shuttle Discovery Space Shuttle Flight nasa 2014-06-02
Tagged with: Discovery Space Shuttle Discovery Space Shuttle Flight nasa
Previous: UFO spotted from AIRCRAFT flying over London
Next: Football field sized UFO stops Alabama I-20 traffic
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A Meteorologist Believes UFOs Are Flying Around The Sun
Mars could have supported life: Ten years on Mars leads to livable mud
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Suspects in Canadian girls kidnap allege BNI torture
BY JOSEPHINE KUUBAIBONG - Jul 01, 2019 at 3:55pm 100 COMMENTS
Three persons charged over the kidnapping of two Canadian women have accused officials of the Bureau National Investigations and Police CID of torturing them over the past three weeks. They have pleaded with the judge hearing the case to either grant them bail or have them moved to another facility.
The first accused, Romeo Aghalor, alleged he had been forced to sign a statement confirming actions he did not engage in. He told the court he was not totally innocent of accusations leveled against him but additional facts have been added to his case. He also took the opportunity to apologize to the Canadian girls, their families and the Governments of Ghana and Nigeria for participating in the crime.
Yusif Yakubu who is the fourth accused person also alleged that hot water was poured on him causing injury to his back while in custody. The 8th accused person Seidu Abubakari who had legal representation also made similar allegation.
Justice George Boadi asked Seidu Abubakari to take off his shirt for examination and remarked “there are no visible signs of injury”. He advised his lawyer Andrew Vortia to investigate the claims and make the application for bail upon his findings.The suspects were arrested in a police operation in Ashanti region
Senior State Attorney Hilda Craig described the allegations as “fabricated stories aimed at making the BNI look bad”. She insisted no one had been assaulted adding that keeping them in the custody of the BNi makes the work of investigators easier.
She also informed the court that investigations were ongoing and attempts were being made to engage the victims who have traveled to their native Canada. She explained the investigators were in touch with them and needed two weeks to conclude that aspect of the case.
The court has meanwhile issued a warrant for the arrest of two persons identified only as Derry and Mohammed following an application by the senior state attorney who explained they are connected to the crime.
Justice Buadi remanded all 8 accused persons into the custody of the BNI adjourning the case to July 15.
The girls, Bailey Jordan Chitty, 20, and Lauren Patricia Catherine Tilley, 19, were kidnapped at a house at Akyease in the Kwabre East District of the Ashanti region.
Their captivity lasted seven days after they were forced into a taxi on June 4. The Police arrested 10 persons in connection with the kidnapping. They include three Nigerians said to have masterminded the operation
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Multiple Murder Cases Resolved
A 21-year-old Wilmington man faces mandatory life in prison for the murder of 22-year-old Christian Serrano in 2016. Jose Moreta was found guilty of Murder 1st Degree, three counts of Possession of a Firearm During the Commission of a Felony, Conspiracy 1st Degree, Attempted Murder 1st Degree, Reckless Endangerment 1st Degree, Criminal Trespassing 1st Degree, and Carrying a Concealed Deadly Weapon. Gunshots were reported on March 2016 and responding Wilmington Police Department officers found Serrano in the 200 block of N. Connell Street with fatal gunshot wounds. Deputy Attorneys General Joseph Grubb and William Leonard secured the guilty verdict in a bench trial for Moreta on January 17, 2018. The Chief Investigating Officer Detective Bob Fox, Paralegal Jaime Prater, Special Investigator Willie Santiago, and Social Worker Jen Kutney all assisted with the prosecution of the case. Sentencing is scheduled for April 20, 2018.
Deputy Attorneys General Eric Zubrow and Phillip Casale secured a guilty plea from a 33-year-old Newark man who murdered his ex-girlfriend. In January 2017, Jerry Blankenship told New Castle County Police officers that he killed the victim in her apartment in the 700 block of Vinings Way in Newark. New Castle County officers went to apartment and found the victim with a fatal head wound in her bedroom. Blankenship pled guilty to Murder 2nd Degree and Possession of a Firearm During the Commission of a Felony and faces up to a life sentence in prison. Sentencing has not yet been scheduled.
Luis Cabrera was sentenced to two life sentences in prison without parole by a Superior Court judge on Friday for two murders in Wilmington 22 years ago. In 2001, Cabrera was convicted by a jury of the murders of Brandon Saunders and Vaughn Rowe, who were found shot in Rockford Park in January 1996, and he was sentenced to death. Before Cabrera’s postconviction proceedings were completed, the Delaware Supreme Court found the death penalty procedures unconstitutional. Because Cabrera was no longer subject to the death penalty, the Superior Court vacated his death sentences and imposed two life sentences. Cabrera’s convictions were affirmed.
A 31-year-old Dagsboro man was sentenced to 90 years in prison for crimes, including rape and attempted murder, that he committed against a series of women. Deputy Attorneys General Casey L. Ewart and Rebecca E. Anderson secured a guilty plea from Temourise Taylor to a charge of Attempted Murder 1st Degree, and the defendant pled no contest to Rape 2nd Degree, Unlawful Imprisonment 1st Degree, Strangulation, and Terroristic Threatening. Taylor, a serial rapist, would get women into his car, drive them to a secluded location, then rape them while threatening to kill them and/or physically beating them. In the summer of 2015, Taylor punched and strangled a woman who tried to resist his attack. During the summer of 2016 Taylor raped two women, physically beating one and threatening the other by saying that he had a knife. In December 2016, Taylor stabbed his final victim after she resisted his attempt to rape her. A Superior Court judge sentenced Taylor to a total of 90 years in prison (60 years for Attempted Murder 1st Degree, 25 years for Rape 2nd Degree, and 5 years for Strangulation). Should he ever be released, Taylor would be placed on home confinement, followed by probation with GPS monitoring, for the Unlawful Imprisonment 1st Degree and Terroristic Threatening charges. While in prison he will have to complete sex offender treatment and anger management counseling, and Taylor is now a Tier 3 sex offender. Detective Mark Doughty of the Delaware State Police was the lead investigator, assisted by other detectives in the Major Crimes Unit at Troop 4. DOJ Social Worker Carla Ennals, DOJ Administrative Specialist Angie Waters, and DOJ Paralegal Veronica McKain also assisted in the prosecution.
Deputy Attorney General Dennis Kelleher prosecuted a case involving a break-in and assault against an elderly woman. Ronald Keis, 51, of Dover, was found guilty at a bench trial and sentenced by a Superior Court judge to a total of 68 years in prison for charges of Robbery 1st Degree, Home Invasion, and Assault 2nd Degree. In February 2017, Keis broke into an elderly woman’s home on Hickory Dale Drive in Dover and proceeded to assault and rob her.
A 41-year-old Wilmington man was sentenced to 45 years in prison for the homicide of a New Castle woman. In July 2016, Martin L. Taylor was confronted by the victim, Whitney White, at his residence on the 2900 block of N. Market Street regarding missing items from a mutual acquaintance’s home. Taylor and White got into an altercation over the missing items which resulted in a fatal laceration to White’s neck. Taylor, a habitual offender, pled Guilty but Mentally Ill to Manslaughter and Possession of a Deadly Weapon During Commission of a Felony. Taylor was declared a habitual offender based on previous convictions of Assault 2nd Degree, Burglary 2nd Degree, and Distribution, Delivery, or Possession of a Controlled Substance Within 300 Feet of a Park. Deputy Attorney General Eric Zubrow secured the 45-year prison sentence for Taylor with assistance from Deputy Attorney General Andrew Vella, DOJ Social Worker Donna Lindsey, Paralegal Stacey Coupe, and Administrative Assistant Evelyn Davis.
Deputy Attorneys General Barzilai Axelrod and William Leonard, assisted by Paralegals Bridgitt Martin and Jessica Ascione, secured a prison sentence for a 31-year-old Wilmington man on drug charges. Tyrone Anderson, along with his co-defendants, were responsible for distributing heroin in 2016 in the Belvedere neighborhood of Wilmington. Between April and August of 2016, Detective Michelle Burrus, Detective John Mancuso, and other officers of the New Castle County Police Department conducted an investigation that included numerous undercover purchases of heroin from Anderson. Following a jury trial, a Superior Court judge sentenced Anderson on four counts of Drug Dealing Heroin and Conspiracy 2nd Degree to 20 years in prison followed by another year on his Violations of Probation. John Trotter, Marcus Jones, and Thomas Stegar are all scheduled to be sentenced in February 2018.
Jermaine Tingle, a habitual offender, faces a minimum mandatory 19 year prison sentence for drug dealing and related charges. Deputy Attorneys General Erika Flaschner and Allison Abessinio convicted Tingle, 39, of Wilmington in a jury trial before a Superior Court judge of two counts of Drug Dealing Heroin, two counts of Aggravated Possession, two counts of Conspiracy 2nd, Drug Dealing Marijuana, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, and Possession of a Firearm by a Person Prohibited. This was a joint investigation by Delaware State Police and the Wilmington Police Department. Delaware State Police troopers searched one residence associated with Tingle while officers with the Wilmington Police Department searched a residence and vehicle associated with Tingle. The searches yielded over 1,300 bags of heroin and $23,077 cash. Tingle was declared a habitual offender based on felony convictions for Burglary 2nd Degree, Possession of a Firearm During the Commission of a Felony, Drug Dealing, and Conspiracy 2nd Degree, which influenced the minimum mandatory sentence. Wilmington Police Department Detective Justin Wilkers and DOJ Special Investigator Cliff Dempsey investigated the case.
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Hancock Jaffe Laboratories Receives Medical Research Committee Approval for First-in-Human VenoValve Study
IRVINE, Calif., Aug. 09, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hancock Jaffe Laboratories, Inc. (Nasdaq: HJLI, HJLIW), a company specializing in bioprosthetic medical devices that establish improved standards of care for treating cardiac and vascular diseases, today announced that it has received approval for the first-in-human testing of its VenoValve® bioprosthetic medical device from the Medical Research Committee at Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá (“FSFB”), in Bogota Colombia, The company previously received approval from the FSFB’s Ethics Committee.
Hancock Jaffe will now begin gathering the information necessary to submit an application for approval to Instituto Nacional de Vigilancia de Medicamentos y Alimentos (“INVIMA”), which is the Colombian equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. INVIMA approval is required to import investigational medical devices and conduct human clinical trials in Colombia.
Hancock Jaffe is developing the VenoValve to treat severe cases of Chronic Venous Insufficiency (“CVI”). CVI occurs when the valves within the deep venous system of the leg are injured or destroyed, causing blood to pool in the lower extremities. CVI may result in swelling, debilitating pain, and skin ulcerations. Practitioners rate the severity of chronic venous disease based upon a system called Clinical-Etiology-Anatomy-Pathophysiology (“CEAP”), a rating system of C0 to C6, with C4, C5, and C6 being patients with the most severe pathology. Approximately 4.5 million people in the U.S. suffer from severe CVI and the condition results from between 400,000 to 700,000 hospitalizations per year. There are currently no FDA approved treatments for deep venous CVI.
HJLI specializes in developing and manufacturing bioprosthetic medical devices that establish improved standards of care for treating cardiac and vascular diseases. HJLI currently has three product candidates: the porcine tissue based VenoValve®, which is intended to be surgically implanted in the deep venous system of the leg to treat Chronic Venue Insufficiency; the CoreoGraft®, a bovine tissue based off the shelf conduit intended to be used for coronary artery bypass surgery, and a porcine tissue based heart valve, which based upon its relatively small size and increased output, is an ideal candidate for pediatric aortic/mitral valve replacement.
Jules Abraham
CoreIR
Email: julesa@coreir.com
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Aer Lingus Aims to Join Alliance
Aer Lingus Group Plc aims to join a global airline alliance to add destinations and attract more passengers after dropping its “no-frills” business model, Chief Executive Officer Christoph Mueller said in an interview.
Aer Lingus pulled out of the Oneworld alliance, which includes British Airways Plc, in 2006, saying the revenue benefits weren’t sufficient. The carrier continues to codeshare with BA, meaning the pair sell tickets on each other’s flights, and has similar pacts with Air France’s Dutch unit KLM and UAL Corp.’s United Airlines, members of the SkyTeam and Star groups.
Ryanair Holdings Plc, Aer Lingus’s biggest competitor and a 29 percent shareholder after two failed takeover bids, doesn’t have alliances with other airlines and operates its routes as point-to-point services without connections to other flights. The strategy has made it Europe’s biggest discount carrier.
source: BusinessWeek.com
Filed under Aer Lingus, Low cost, Ryanair, Traditional airlines.
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Press Release -- June 28th, 2011
Source: Akamai
Tags: Equipment, Expansion, Video
Akamai Expands Business into Central and Eastern Europe
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – June 28, 2011 - Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM, news, filings), the leading provider of cloud optimization services, today announced its formal expansion into five countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) – Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Akamai’s success across the globe has triggered significant demand for its enterprise cloud optimization expertise in the CEE region.
Forrester predicts the CEE region will reach overall Internet adoption rates of 54% within 20131 and according to PricewaterhouseCoopers2, the number of broadband connections in the CEE region will reach 43.2 million in 2012, an increase of 10 million over the 2010 total of 32.9 million. Additionally, Eurostat3 reports that a significant portion of total commerce being conducted online in Europe is coming from the Czech Republic (15%), Hungary (14%) and Slovakia (11%). With an increase in the number of major online news, sporting and entertainment events in the CEE region, there is a need for fast, reliable and secure content and Web application delivery, all of which are key Akamai offerings.
Akamai's expansion into Central and Eastern Europe will be led by Bruno Haubertin, a 20-year industry specialist in developing emerging markets. Haubertin has previously managed successful operations in this region, including Middle East and Africa, for Compaq Computer, Digital Equipment and Sun Microsystems.
"Our expansion into Central and Eastern Europe is an important and strategic move for Akamai and I am excited to have Bruno Haubertin leading this effort," explained Greg Lazar, Akamai General Manager & Vice President, EMEA. “Akamai has a strong leadership position in cloud optimization services, online media, e-commerce and security offerings, and we look forward to continuing success working closely with our channel partners in each country.”
Akamai will open an office in Krakow, Poland to support CEE customers. Other offices and staffing will be added over the next 6-12 months. The company is also actively working to expand its existing channel partner program in order to support Akamai's focus on the enterprise, commerce, financial services, high-tech, manufacturing and media markets in CEE.
About Akamai
Akamai® provides market-leading, cloud-based services for optimizing Web and mobile content and applications, online HD video, and secure commerce. Combining highly distributed, energy-efficient computing with intelligent software, Akamai's global platform is transforming the cloud into a more viable place to inform, entertain, advertise, transact and collaborate. To learn how the world's leading enterprises are optimizing their business in the cloud, please visit www.akamai.com and follow @Akamai on Twitter.
Akamai Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
This release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai's management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, the effects of any attempts to intentionally disrupt our services or network by hackers or others, inability to develop media solutions that address the complete needs of programmers, operators and consumers as content libraries are expanded, lack of market acceptance of solutions we do develop, inability to introduce commercial versions of features we have demonstrated, a failure of Akamai's network infrastructure, and other factors that are discussed in Akamai's Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.
1 Source: Forrester, "Central and Eastern European Internet Access Forecast 2008-2013"
2 Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers, "Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2010-2014
3 Source: Eurostat, "Internet Usage in Households and Individuals"
Karine Gourdon-Keller
Akamai Technologies (EMEA)
premea@akamai.com - or - Jeff Young
Akamai Technologies (Americas)
pressna@akamai.com
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Press Release -- March 5th, 2013
Source: Huawei
Huawei and Teltronic Enter Patent License Agreement for LTE
Shenzhen, China, March 5, 2013]: Huawei and Teltronic® S.A.U. today jointly announced that they have entered into a commercial cross-patent licensing agreement for core LTE patents.
Huawei makes significant investments in research and development in telecommunications technology and has accumulated substantial intellectual property rights to protect its investment in innovation. “The conclusion of this agreement will help to establish a harmonious, commercial ecosystem. We believe that the sharing of innovation with the industry is a key opportunity to help develop a flourishing market for LTE-based services and to help third parties to provide better service to their customers,” said Dr. Song Liuping, Chief Legal Officer of Huawei.
"We are very pleased to be cooperating with an industry leader like Huawei to meet our customer needs and to achieve our business goals. The conclusion of this agreement will solidify our commitment to offering better solutions to our customers," said Mr. Juan R. Ferro, CEO of Teltronic.
Being a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, Huawei is one of the leaders in 4G/LTE ‘essential’ patents. The company has 148 active leadership positions across a range of industry standards boards, including 3GPP, ITU, IEEE and OMA.
Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. Through our dedication to customer-centric innovation and strong partnerships, we have established end-to-end advantages in telecom networks, devices and cloud computing. We are committed to creating maximum value for telecom operators, enterprises and consumers by providing competitive solutions and services. Our products and solutions have been deployed in over 140 countries, serving more than one third of the world’s population.
About Teltronic
For over 35 years, Teltronic has been a world leader in the design and manufacturing of mission-critical radio communications equipment and systems. With the combined objectives of innovation and the highest quality, Teltronic provides complete wireless communications solutions for a variety of sectors including public safety, public transport, oil & gas, utilities, mining, industry, and others. Our products are marketed around the world, with more than 300 systems in operation in 50 countries.
Previous: Chen Lifang: Huawei Committed to Open IPR Licensing System and to Enhancing Europe’s Role as a Global Innovation Leader
Next: NaviSite Introduces NaviCloud® Intelligent Storage
Huawei Files Complaint against InterDigital for Patent Abuse
Ericsson and ZTE resolve patent license issues
Huawei Announces Managed Services Agreement with Telefónica UK
Axin and Huawei Marine Finalize Survey Agreement for Optikor Network
Huawei signs agreement with Simple Solutions for distribution of M2M modules in European markets
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HomeJeffrey Epstein
Why Would the State Department Rent a Townhouse out to Jeffrey Epstein? Is the Blackmail Story Even More Plausible?
July 15, 2019 July 15, 2019 LostMessiah Jeffrey Epstein Blackmail, Hedge Fund, Jeffrey Epstein
The State Department Once Rented A Townhouse Seized From Iran To Jeffrey Epstein — Then Sued Him For Subletting It
The now-forgotten case — laid out in newspaper clips from the time and extensive court documents — offers a glimpse into a strange facet of Epstein’s life at the time, and constitutes an early example of Epstein popping up in the media as a rich and connected but mysterious New York figure.
Beginning in February 1992, Epstein rented a former Iranian government building that had been taken over by the State Department during the Iranian revolution, at 34 East 69th Street in one of Manhattan’s most expensive neighborhoods, and at a rate of $15,000 a month.
But things went sour when the government sued Epstein in the Southern District of New York, alleging that he had at one point failed to pay the rent on time and had violated the lease by moving out in early 1996 and subletting the place without the State Department’s permission. His subtenant was Ivan Fisher, a New York City criminal defense lawyer who had famously defended members of the French Connection and Pizza Connection drug rings. The government also sued Fisher.
A lawyer for Epstein did not respond to a request for comment, and attempts to reach Fisher were unsuccessful.
A New York Daily News article from the time, headlined “Lawyer Pays Not A Cent For Palatial East Side Digs,” said Fisher had stopped paying rent after learning that the State Department had terminated Epstein’s lease as a result of the conflict over Fisher’s subtenancy, and was thus living in the home for free.
“I’m the perfect tenant,” Fisher told the Daily News. The paper described the home’s opulence: “carved oak doors, a white marble foyer, three kitchens, three bedrooms, a library with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, a steam room, 19th-century chandeliers, brass sconces, and a white marble central staircase.” “I pray to God I can stay,” Fisher told the Daily News.
Epstein is described in the story as a “Palm Beach, Fla., financial advisor.” The incident is also briefly mentioned in Vicky Ward’s 2003 Vanity Fair profile of Epstein.
The government’s complaint rested on its assertion that Epstein had not received permission before installing Fisher as the subtenant, and its grievance with Epstein was only intensified by his charging Fisher $20,000 a month for the rent when State was charging $15,000 — netting Epstein a monthly profit.
The voluminous court documents in the case include a later-amended complaint by the government, which added more defendants to the suit — a clutch of other lawyers whom, the government alleged, were in turn subletting office space from Fisher. In a sworn statement, one of those lawyers, Lawrence Gerzog, told the court that he had given Fisher free legal services in exchange for office space, among several other lawyers.
The government eventually moved to evict Fisher, and the court ordered Fisher and Epstein — who in the course of the process were eventually involved in litigation against each other — to pay the back rent and to vacate the premises. An eviction order was served on July 16, 1998, and the marshal noted on the service receipt that the tenants had moved out.
Photo of a New York Daily News story
A story on the case in the New York Daily News, Dec. 23, 1997.
Getting there wasn’t an easy process for the State Department, which had begun by exchanging strongly worded letters with Epstein’s lawyer, Jeffrey Schantz. These were included in the court filings.
“As you are aware, Mr. Epstein’s apparent departure from the house and his failure to make timely rental payments in February and March of this year have been matters of serious concern to this office,” wrote Thomas E. Burns Jr., then the deputy director of the Office of Foreign Missions, in April 1996 in a letter attached to court filings. Burns wrote that the OFM had already found someone to take over the lease from Epstein, a developer named Xenophon Galinas, and that they would not approve the sublease to Fisher.
In June, Burns wrote again, this time directly to Epstein, to notify him that he had violated the lease by leaving the property and subletting it and give him 30 days to kick Fisher out and move in again himself. In August, Burns wrote again to tell Epstein that because Fisher was still there, the State Department was ending the lease. At the end of October, the government filed suit.
Epstein was accused of carrying out an effort to put someone else in the house in his stead without clearing it with the State Department. When Richard C. Massey, an OFM official who had been the point person for Epstein’s lease, was deposed in 1997 by the defendants’ lawyers, he told them Epstein had appeared to make a concerted effort to put someone else in the property without State knowing. “Mr. Epstein was shopping the property around town without our knowledge, all over town,” Massey said. “We had calls from real estate agents who asked us about it. I do not know how many people in the City of New York had a copy of Mr. Epstein’s lease.”
Massey was not able to be reached for comment.
What was Epstein up to? Why had he abandoned the decadent mansion so abruptly and moved out without getting permission to sublet? Epstein made it publicly known when he was moving out, telling the New York Times in January 1996 that the mansion on East 71st Street that would become famous in the context of his alleged crimes was now his. It belonged to Epstein’s client and mentor Les Wexner. It’s unclear how much Epstein paid for the house, if anything, as it was reportedly transferred without a purchase price from a trust linked to both him and Wexner to a company controlled by Epstein.
Fisher, who reportedly once counseled law students to look into a mirror and practice telling potential clients their retainer was $100,000, was banned from practicing in federal court in the Southern District of New York in 2013 after a court grievance committee ruled that he had stolen money from a client.
To read the Buzzfeed article in its entirety click here.
Was Jeffrey Epstein Running a Blackmail Scheme Under Cover of a Hedge Fund? Who Were His Investors?
July 15, 2019 July 15, 2019 LostMessiah Jeffrey Epstein Blackmail, Hedge Funds, Jeffrey Epstein
Real Hedge-Fund Managers Have Some Thoughts on What Epstein Was Actually Doing
By Michelle Celarier
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer. Photos: Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Long before Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to prostitution charges in Florida more than a decade ago, his fellow Palm Beach resident and hedge-fund manager Douglas Kass was intrigued by the local gossip about his neighbor.
“I’m hearing about the parties, hearing about a guy who’s throwing money around,” says Kass, president of Seabreeze Partners Management. While stories about young girls swarming Epstein’s waterfront mansion and the sex parties he hosted for the rich and powerful were the talk of the town, Kass was more focused on how this obscure person, rumored to be managing billions of dollars, had become so wealthy without much of a track record.
Kass was well-connected on Wall Street, where he’d worked for decades, so he began to ask around. “I went to my institutional brokers, to their trading desks and asked if they ever traded with him. I did it a few times until the date when he was arrested,” he recalls. “Not one institutional trading desk, primary or secondary, had ever traded with Epstein’s firm.”
When a reporter came to interview Kass about Bernie Madoff shortly before that firm blew up in the biggest Ponzi scheme ever, Kass told her, “There’s another guy who reminds me of Madoff that no one trades with.” That man was Jeffrey Epstein.
“How did he get the money?” Kass kept asking.
For decades, Epstein has been credulously described as a big-time hedge-fund manager and a billionaire, even though there’s not a lot of evidence that he is either. There appears little chance the public is going to get definitive answers anytime soon. In a July 11 letter to the New York federal judge overseeing Epstein’s sex-trafficking case, Epstein’s attorney offered to provide “sealed disclosures” about Epstein’s finances to determine the size of the bond he would need to post to secure his release from jail pending trial. His brother, Mark, and a friend even offered to chip in if necessary.
Naturally, this air of mystery has especially piqued the interest of real-life, non-pretend hedge-funders. If this guy wasn’t playing their game — and they seem pretty sure he was not — what game was he playing? Intelligencer spoke to several prominent hedge-fund managers to get a read on what their practiced eyes are detecting in all the new information that is coming to light about Epstein in the wake of his indictment by federal prosecutors in New York. Most saw signs of something unsavory at the heart of his business model.
To begin with, there is much skepticism among the hedgies Intelligencer spoke with that Epstein made the money he has — and he appears to have a lot, given a lavish portfolio of homes and private aircraft — as a traditional money manager. A fund manager who knows well how that kind of fortune is acquired notes, “It’s hard to make a billion dollars quietly.” Epstein never made a peep in the financial world.
Get unlimited access to Intelligencer and everything else New York.
Epstein was also missing another key element of a typical thriving hedge fund: investors. Kass couldn’t find any beyond Epstein’s one well-publicized client, retail magnate Les Wexner — nor could other players in the hedge-fund world who undertook similar snooping. “I don’t know anyone who’s ever invested in him; he’s never talked about by any of the allocators,” says one billionaire hedge-fund manager, referring to firms that distribute large pools of money among various funds.
Epstein’s spotty professional history has also drawn a lot of attention in recent days, and Kass says it was one of the first things that raised his suspicions years ago. Now 66, Epstein didn’t come from money and never graduated from college, yet he landed a teaching job at a fancy private school (“unheard of,” says Kass) and rose through the ranks in the early 1980s at investment bank Bear Stearns. Within no time, Kass notes, Epstein was made a partner of the firm — and then was promptly and unceremoniously ousted. (Epstein reportedly left the firm following a minor securities violation.) Despite this “squishy work experience,” as Kass puts it, at some point after his quick exit, Epstein launched his own hedge fund, J. Epstein & Co., later renamed Financial Trust Co. Along the way, he began peddling the improbable narrative that he was so selective he would only work with billionaires.
Oddly, Epstein also claimed to do all the investing by himself while his 150 employees all worked in the back office — which Kass says reminds him of Madoff’s cover story. Though it now appears that Epstein had many fewer employees than he claimed, according to the New York Times:
Thomas Volscho, a sociology professor at the College of Staten Island who has been researching for a book on Mr. Epstein, recently obtained [a 2002 disclosure] form, which shows [Epstein’s] Financial Trust had $88 million in contributions from shareholders. In a court filing that year, Mr. Epstein said his firm had about 20 employees, far fewer than the 150 reported at the time by New York magazine.
Given this puzzling set of data points, the hedge-fund managers we spoke to leaned toward the theory that Epstein was running a blackmail scheme under the cover of a hedge fund.
How such a scheme could hypothetically work has been laid out in detail in a thread on the anonymous Twitter feed of @quantian1. It’s worth reading in its entirety, but in summary it is a rough blueprint for how a devious aspiring hedge-fund manager could blackmail rich people into investing with him without raising too many flags.
Kass and former hedge-fund manager Whitney Tilson both emailed the thread around in investing circles and both quickly discovered that their colleagues found it quite convincing. “This actually sounds very plausible,” Tilson wrote in an email forwarding the thread to others.
“He somehow cajoled these guys to invest,” says Kass, speaking of hypothetical blackmailed investors who gave Epstein their money to invest, but managed to keep their names private.
The fact that Epstein’s fund is offshore in a tax haven — it is based in the U.S. Virgin Islands — and has a secret client list both add credence to the blackmail theory.
So what did Epstein do with the money he did have under his management, setting aside the questions of how he got it and how much he had? One hedge-fund manager speculates that Epstein could have just put the client money in an S&P 500 index fund, perhaps with a tax dodge thrown in. “I put in $100 million, I get the S&P 500 minus some fees,” he says, speaking of a theoretical client’s experience. Over the past few decades, the client would have “made a shitload” — as would Epstein. A structure like that wouldn’t have required trading desks or analysts or complex regulatory disclosures.
Kass has kicked around a similar idea: Maybe Epstein just put all the client money in U.S. treasuries — the simplest and safest investment there is, and the kind of thing one guy actually can do by himself.
If the blackmail theory sounds far-fetched, it’s worth keeping in mind that it was also floated by one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre. “Epstein … also got girls for Epstein’s friends and acquaintances. Epstein specifically told me that the reason for him doing this was so that they would ‘owe him,’ they would ‘be in his pocket,’ and he would ‘have something on them,’” she said in a court affidavit, according to the investigative series in the Miami Herald that brought the case back to the public’s attention late last year.
Epstein and Acosta… Acosta Resigns, Epstein’s Victims Still Entitled to Justice
July 12, 2019 LostMessiah Jeffrey Epstein, Sex Trade, Sexual Abuse Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Labor Secretary Alex Acosta
Trump speaks after Labor Secretary Acosta resigns
What we’re covering here
The latest: President Trump took questions on a number of topics, including immigration and Democratic leaders, after announcing that Alex Acosta has resigned as Secretary of Labor.
Trump defends Acosta: The President said the resignation was Acosta’s decision, not his, “because I’m with him.”
Acosta’s timing: This resignation comes after Acosta convened a news conference defending himself against accusations of prosecutorial malfeasance in the Jeffrey Epstein case.
President Trump announced Alex Acosta’s resignation as secretary of labor from the White House lawn — but the conversation quickly turned to a number of unrelated topics.
Here’s how it unfolded: President Trump, standing next to Acosta, announced that the labor secretary was stepping down. He insisted it was Acosta’s decision — saying, “I just want to let you know, this was him, not me, because I’m with him” — before Acosta spoke.
Acosta addressed the renewed scrutiny over his previous handling of a plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein (you can read more about that here), saying he wanted to step down so the controversy doesn’t become the focus of the Labor Department.
Then, Trump took questions from reporters — and they asked him about a lot of things not related to Acosta.
Jeffrey Epstein, Alex Acosta, Cutting the Budget for Trafficking Investigations and How Many Children at Risk?
July 11, 2019 LostMessiah Baby Trafficking, Jeffrey Epstein, Sex Trade Child Trafficking, Jeffrey Epstein, Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, Sex Trafficking, Sexual Abuse
VIDEO: https://publish.dvlabs.com/democracynow/360/dn2019-0711.mp4?start=3214.0
Alex Acosta Enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Crimes. Now He’s Gutting Funding for Trafficking Victims
During a press conference Wednesday, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta dismissed calls for his resignation and defended the 2008 plea deal given to the billionaire serial child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein while he was the U.S. attorney in Florida. Acosta has also come under fire for his proposal to cut funding for victims of sex trafficking. His 2020 budget proposal for the Department of Labor includes an almost 80% decrease in funds for the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, the office tasked with fighting child sex trafficking. Critics of the proposal argue it would effectively dismantle many programs aimed at preventing child sex trafficking and put large numbers of children at risk. We speak with Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta is rejecting calls to resign and is defending his role in a 2008 plea deal given to the wealthy serial child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein. At the time, Acosta was a U.S. prosecutor in Florida. The Miami Herald has described the plea deal as, quote, “one of the most lenient deals for a serial child sex offender in history.”
AMY GOODMAN: Acosta has also come under fire for his proposal to cut funding for victims of sex trafficking. His 2020 budget proposal for the Department of Labor includes an almost 80% decrease in funds for International Labor Affairs Bureau. Acosta was questioned when he held an almost hour news conference to justify the extremely lenient deal he made with Epstein back in 2008 when he was the U.S. attorney in Florida. But this is what he said when questioned about the budget around sex trafficking.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: As labor secretary, you’ve tried repeatedly to cut a program that deals with human trafficking in the Labor Department by up to 80%, going before Congress advocating for that. Why should people trust you to focus on human trafficking and protect victims, if you’ve done that? And I’d like a follow-up question.
LABOR SECRETARY ALEXANDER ACOSTA: So, you’re referring to grants that go to foreign countries, for foreign country labor-related work. As part of the budget every year, those grants have been removed, as have other grants for foreign countries. And let me just add, as part of the budget every year, those grants are put right back in by Congress. This is what happens in Washington. And I fully suspect that those grants will remain in this year.
AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about Alex Acosta’s record, we’re joined now by Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.
We’re not as much talking right now about the case of Jeffrey Epstein, which we talked about over the last few days, but this issue of his cutting of the budget. Can you explain what this means?
TAINA BIEN-AIMÉ: So, the Department of Labor has a bureau called ILAB, which is the International Labor Affairs Bureau. And their primary responsibility is to combat forced labor, child trafficking, both labor and sex trafficking, and human trafficking in general. So, what Secretary Acosta is saying, that it goes primarily—that this money goes primarily to international programs, is correct, but it also goes to domestic programs.
So, if he slashes—so, he has a budget of $68 million. What he is proposing is for the bureau, ILAB, to be reduced by 80%, to $18 million. Congress will fight him on that; the Appropriations Committee will fight him on that. But what it means is that we are faced with an administration that wants to reduce its efforts to this very complex human rights violation called human trafficking. So, it’s not just jeopardizing the work that we are doing to combat child sex trafficking, but also child labor trafficking. So, many of—the State Department also works on human trafficking and also provides services and programs to combat it, but they rely on DOL, on the Department of Labor, and specifically for child labor trafficking.
So, for instance, cocoa production, right? So, there are three major U.S. companies—Hershey, Mars and Nestlé—that cannot even—they committed to ensuring to the consumers that no child labor trafficking is involved in the production of cocoa. What will happen to those commitments? Right? We don’t even know whether they are fulfilling their commitments to ensure that whenever you buy a bag of M&M’s or Skittles, that that doesn’t involve child trafficking.
Epstein – Court Ordered Check-In Skipped and NYPD Ambivalent
July 11, 2019 LostMessiah Jeffrey Epstein, Sex Trade, Sexual Abuse Jeffrey Epstein, Sex Trafficking, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Assault
NYPD let convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein skip judge-ordered check-ins
Convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein never once checked in with city cops in the eight-plus years since a Manhattan judge ordered him to do so every 90 days — and the NYPD says it’s fine with that.
After being labeled a worst-of-the-worst, Level 3 sex offender in 2011, Epstein should have reported in person to verify his address 34 times before he was arrested Saturday on federal child sex-trafficking charges.
Violating requirements of the state’s 1996 Sex Offender Registration Act — including checking in with law enforcement — is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison for a first offense.
Subsequent violations carry a sentence of up to seven years each.
But the NYPD hasn’t required the billionaire financier — who owns a $77 million Upper East Side townhouse — to check in since he registered as a sex offender in New York over the controversial 2008 plea bargain he struck in Florida amid allegations he sexually abused scores of underage girls in his Palm Beach mansion.
Several current and former high-ranking NYPD officials were shocked to learn from The Post that the department had given Epstein a pass on his periodic check-ins, with one saying, “It makes no sense.”
“The NYPD can’t modify a court order,” a source said. “If the judge says he has to report here, he has to report here.”
Another source said Epstein was “supposed to go to SOMU,” an acronym for the NYPD’s Sex Offender Monitoring Unit, located in the Manhattan criminal courthouse at 100 Centre St.
“If he didn’t, then he’s in violation and they could have arrested him,” the source said.
The NYPD maintains that Epstein, 66, wasn’t required to check in with New York cops because he claims his primary residence is a private island, Little St. James Island, in the US Virgin Islands.
But state Supreme Court Justice Ruth Pickholz considered and rejected that very argument by defense lawyer Sandra Musumeci during the Jan. 18, 2011, hearing.
Musumeci insisted that Epstein wasn’t a “resident of New York” and that his seven-story townhouse at 9 E. 71st St. was a “vacation home” at which he had no plans to ever stay “longer than a period 10 days.”
Jeffrey Epstein, Labor Secretary Acosta and an Unprecedented Plea Deal… that Should Never Have Happened [VIDEO]
July 9, 2019 July 9, 2019 LostMessiah Jeffrey Epstein, Sex Trade, Sexual Abuse Jeffrey Epstein, Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, Sex Trafficking, Sexual Abuse
Jeffrey Epstein, Photographs and Secret Indictment as he Pleads Not Guilty [VIDEO]
July 9, 2019 LostMessiah Jeffrey Epstein, Sex Trade, Sexual Abuse Jeffrey Epstein, Sex Trafficking, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Assault
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Sexual assault charge against former CBC host withdrawn Month: May 2016
Sexual assault charge against former CBC host withdrawn
On behalf of Neuberger & Partners LLP posted in Criminal Defence on Tuesday May 31, 2016 .
This past March we wrote about the acquittal of former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi from several sexual assault charges. At that time, though the man was found not guilty of four counts of sexual assault and one count of choking, his legal issues were not resolved. He faced another count of sexual assault, the trial for which was supposed to take place this summer. That charge was recently resolved as well. It was withdrawn by the court. This particular case involved a woman for formerly worked with the accused. She pressed charges in 2014, asserting Ghomeshi harassed her repeatedly in her…
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Many arrested in sweep of marijuana dispensaries
On behalf of Neuberger & Partners LLP posted in Criminal Defence on Friday May 27, 2016 .
Readers are likely aware that medical marijuana is legal in Ontario, available from dispensaries found throughout the province. While the use of the drug in some situations may be legal, it is strictly regulated. Recently Toronto law enforcement cracked down on some retailers in Toronto. Called Project Claudia, the sweep resulted in approximately 90 arrests. In the course of the arrests the following was seized: More than 269 kilograms of dried cannabis Around 30 kilograms of cannabis resin 24 kilograms of cannabis hash More than 27 kilograms of marijuana/THC pills 24 grams of cocaine Approximately $160,000 in cash In addition,…
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Tags:drug charges
Criminal laws apply to all in Ontario, even law enforcement
On behalf of Neuberger & Partners LLP posted in Criminal Defence on Monday May 23, 2016 .
The laws in place in the province of Ontario apply to all. This means that no one—even a law enforcement officer—is immune from criminal charges. This is illustrated in the recent charges laid against a Toronto police officer. The man, a police sergeant who has been with Toronto’s police force for more than 20 years, is facing two charges of sexual assault stemming from incidents that allegedly occurred last fall, approximately a month apart. In both cases the man is accused of using his police cruiser to drive women home and then sexual assaulting them. The charges were brought by Toronto’s…
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Test currently lacking for driving impaired due to marijuana
As readers are likely well aware, the laws in place in Ontario regarding drunk driving are well established. The same cannot be said however for impaired driving due to marijuana. Currently law enforcement does not have a good way to determine whether someone who is believed to be high from pot, is in fact too impaired to drive. With the possibility of marijuana becoming legal becoming more and more of a reality, some are concerned such a change could result in more drivers taking to the road after first using the drug. Because the breathalyser test administered to drivers to determine whether…
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Tags:Criminal Defence
Domestic violence and psychedelic drugs
In our last post we wrote about the existence of a domestic violence court in the province of Ontario. The court is used in cases where the individuals involved in the alleged activity share an intimate relationship. At the end of the process, if the accused is found guilty, it is possible he or she could face serious consequences. But what if the focus was instead on prevention domestic violence? While no two domestic violence situations are exactly the same, in many situations it is possible that substance abuse is an underlying issue for the accused. A recent study supports…
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Domestic violence court is not cruel and unusual punishment
Readers may be aware that in Ontario, there is a special court in which domestic violence matters may be handled. The court is specifically designed to address domestic violence allegations between intimate partners. Other cases of this nature, involving people who do not fit that definition, are heard in a criminal court. Recently, a man who was charged with bail breach after he allegedly violated specifications that he was to stay away from the home of his son’s mother, alleged that having his case in that court violated his rights and caused him distress. The man was on bail after…
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90 investigation culminates in arrest of 80 people
In our last post we wrote about a traffic stop that led to criminal charges. While this is one possible catalyst for criminal charges, there are other things that could lead to an arrest and charges. Sometimes they are preceded by an investigation. Recently, a three month long investigation was conducted which collected information on people suspected of either visiting child porn sites or downloading child pornography. In the course of the investigation, a total of 2,038 unique IP addresses were collected. As a result of the investigation, a total of 20 individuals who are victims of child exploitation were…
Continue reading 90 investigation culminates in arrest of 80 people...
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Draymond Green calls out Clippers’ “cocky arrogance”
By Sean HighkinApr 9, 2015, 8:00 AM EDT
The Clippers and Warriors don’t like each other very much. That’s common knowledge — their games against each other are always highly physical and they met in the playoffs last season. Draymond Green has been the most outspoken proponent of the anti-Clipper sentiment on the Warriors, most notably with the “Cool story, Glenn” episode, referring to Doc Rivers’ real name.
In a new profile by Grantland’s Jonathan Abrams (which, as with everything Abrams writes, is outstanding and worth reading in its entirety), Green outlines exactly why he hates the Clippers:
“They have a cocky arrogance, like they’ve won something, and they haven’t done nothing,” Green said. “They pretty much been to the same spot in the playoffs we’ve been to. But they have this cockiness like you’re supposed to bow down to them. They ain’t proved nothing. They ain’t earned nothing. What respect have you earned?”
It’s a common sentiment around the NBA, brought on mostly by Rivers’ vocal coaching style and the team’s reputation as a group that argues about every call in every game. As far as the “They haven’t won anything” argument, it’s not wrong, but it’s funny that Green points that out when the Clippers did, in fact, beat the Warriors in the first round of the playoffs last season.
One thing’s for sure: if these teams meet in the playoffs, there will be no shortage of bad blood between them. It should be highly entertaining for the rest of us.
Tags: Draymond Green, Golden State Warriors
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Understanding the unreached segments in pockets of lostness
N.C. BAPTIST PODCAST
This podcast was recorded at the Disciple-Making Conference breakout session training. Russ Reaves and Steve Harris dive into a discussion of unreached population groups, likening these pockets of lostness to spaghetti as they often feature common strands woven throughout one pocket to another. Hundreds of these pockets of lostness—geographic areas in which the population is highly dense, diverse and distanced from the gospel—have been identified in North Carolina. Reaves and Harris explore the commonalities, how to engage the groups in disciple-making and how to leverage strands in one pocket for similar strands in another.
Here is an excerpt from this podcast:
A pocket of lostness is a geographic area up to a three-mile radius in which the population in that area is highly unchurched—usually up around 70 percent or more unchurched. In these pockets of lostness, they are identified by several categories: population density, high diversity within that population, and population distance from the gospel—the people self-proclaim themselves to be far from God. I remember reading a few years ago, when Jerry Rankin was president of the IMB [International Mission Board], he was writing about pancakes and waffles. What Rankin said was that we can’t look at the world like it’s a pancake, where, when you pour syrup over it, it flows all over smoothly and gets all over it. But rather, he says, it’s more like a waffle: a matrix of squares separated by ridges. So, if you want syrup all over your waffle, you have to deliberately pour it into each little square. The picture here is of a world that is full of diverse peoples who are separated from each other by cultural barriers that keep the gospel from flowing cross-culturally. If you think about that in terms of a pocket of lostness, we want to look at this like it’s a waffle, not a pancake. We’ve had, in some cases, created a grid in a pocket of lostness. The problem with that approach is that, even within that square, there is such diversity and such cultural difference between people who live next door to each other that it’s really more like spaghetti. What I mean by that is that these hard-to-reach population segments meander all through the pocket and it takes a different kind of strategy to reach each one of them. Our goal is to see sustainable, reproducible disciple-making taking place among every population segment in a lost pocket.
Editor’s Note: Russ Reaves and Stephen Harris both serve on the Strategic Focus Team for the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.
Strategic Focus Team / Baptist State Convention of North Carolina
The Genesis Great Commission
If asked, “What is the Great Commission?” most Christians would say, “to make disciples.” Many years of Jesus’ life and ministry are spent forming His disciples in Christlikeness and teaching them how to do the same for others. Jesus’ life modeled God’s mission of relationally...
Here’s how I’ve seen the miracle of the Cooperative Program
I may not look like a “missionary kid,” but I’ll always be an MK in my heart. Southern Baptist missionary parents raised me in Argentina, blessing me with the opportunity to see God at work there. That experience shaped me! I saw my dad pick up people who wanted to go to church,...
Brokenness, the common denominator for sharing the gospel
“And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.” (Rev. 5:8) In South Asia: A well-dressed, cosmopolitan woman...
A simple prayer walk is a giant leap of faith
She caught me in the hallway between Sunday School and worship, anxiety stretched taut across her face. A week earlier, this 75-year old lady had agreed to join a prayer walk. Now she struggled to tell me, “I don’t like to pray out loud… and I really can’t walk very far.” I...
Sharing the gospel with bohemians
What is a bohemian? Bohemians aren’t just a quickly-growing population demographic. They represent a fast-spreading cultural mindset. A simple definition of a bohemian would be “a person with an attraction to an unconventional lifestyle.” An unconventional approach to religion and...
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Small in Stature, Arguelles Has Big Dreams May 30, 2018 | Shoal Creek, Ala. By Julie Williams
Evelyn Arguelles is the lone player in the U.S. Women's Open field currently competing at the NCAA Division II level. (USGA/Jeff Haynes)
U.S. Women's Open Home Tickets Tee Times
Evelyn Arguelles was in desperate need of a freshman 15 when she arrived at Dallas Baptist University in the winter of 2017. Having transferred from Baylor to DBU, an NCAA Division II school, Arguelles had to sit out a semester before the NCAA cleared her to compete. It was a good time to get in the weight room.
“She wasn’t 100 pounds,” DBU head coach Kenny Trapp said. Golf courses overpowered the petite player from Oaxtepec, Mexico. With the added strength, Arguelles, who stands just over 5 feet tall, added 20 yards off the tee.
The 20-year-old will need every bit of that competing on a soaked Shoal Creek for the 73rd U.S. Women’s Open Championship. It’s her first time playing against professionals. In 13 years coaching golf at DBU, it’s also the first time Trapp has had a player qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open, or any other major championship for that matter. He’s on-site this week to caddie.
Arguelles (pronounced are-way-les) represents the beauty of this event. Here’s a player who has only ever known this stage through watching her countrywomen on TV. Now she can play among them and figure out for herself what it will take to one day compete professionally.
As many girls her age, Arguelles idolized former LPGA Tour star and Mexican golf icon Lorena Ochoa, a two-time major champion. Given the opportunity to speak to Ochoa at an LPGA event in Mexico, a 7-year-old Arguelles completely froze. All the kind words she had planned to tell Ochoa simply vanished, and instead she only thrust her hat forward in stunned silence to get a signature.
“She’s probably the reason why at such a young age I knew I wanted to play golf professionally,” said Arguelles.
Since Ochoa, Gaby Lopez and Alejandra Llaneza have also charted paths from Mexico to the LPGA. Maria Fassi, No. 15 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking™, is also playing in the Women’s Open this week.
“We grew up together, basically,” Arguelles said of this trio. Even though she was never a member of the Mexican national team, Arguelles was invited to travel with the squad to a handful of tournaments.
Arguelles has tried to qualify for the Women’s Open twice before, but didn’t get particularly close either time. This year, the only qualifier that fit into the postseason schedule was May 2 at Canoe Brook Country Club in Summit, N.J. Arguelles set off alone to try to punch her ticket to Shoal Creek. Feeling overwhelmed when she found out that after 36 holes she’d have to enter a playoff, Arguelles called Trapp.
“I’m kind of nervous,” she told her coach. Trapp reassured her that she belonged on that stage, and Arguelles advanced after the first hole.
This is the way Arguelles and Trapp’s relationship works, at least after an initial adjustment period. Coach and player didn’t see eye to eye when Arguelles first arrived on campus.
“We butted heads when she first got here,” Trapp said. “We had a sit-down, and since then she’s been a different person. I learned a lot, too.”
Arguelles, who won twice this season, is the only current Division II player in this week’s Women’s Open. She is one of 29 amateurs in the field. As a junior golfer, competing both in her native Mexico and in the southern part of the United States, Arguelles was always set on playing Division I. After one semester at Baylor, though, she wasn’t happy.
Golf is the family game for Arguelles, her parents and her four brothers. Her two older brothers, Julio and Joaquin, competed for Arkansas Tech and DBU, respectively. Joaquin is about to enter his senior season and also plays for Trapp. It got Evelyn thinking about what might be waiting for her in Dallas – a bustling world totally different from the small community of Oaxtepec, where Arguelles simply hopped on her golf cart to go practice within her gated community.
“I knew how Coach was with my brother, and I knew that he was a good coach,” she said. “I just saw myself growing there, and of course it was a tough decision going from D1 to D2, because I didn’t know how good the players were in D2.”
The gap is closing between divisions, and Trapp has seen it firsthand. Arguelles is the poster child for that. Any player with designs on playing college golf has so much tournament experience under their belt that few are starstruck when they transition from being a junior to a collegian. The scores have gone down as a result.
“At the top, there’s not much difference,” Trapp said in comparing the two divisions. “These girls know how to play.”
In the past two years, Trapp has coached DBU’s women to a runner-up (by one stroke) and a third-place finish at the national championship.
DBU is a Christian university with an enrollment of just over 5,000 students. Each year, the sports teams operate under a theme. Arguelles perfectly embodies the current slogan: One heart, one way. What she lacks in size, she makes up for in sheer toughness.
“She’s a fighter, and I mean like big-time fighter,” Trapp said. “Obviously growing up smaller, I think that has given her that edge.”
Julie Williams is a Florida-based freelance writer.
More from the 73rd U.S. Women's Open
Championships U.S. Women's Open Wednesday: A Last Look before Game Time
Championships Rolex Rules Corner: Wet Conditions at Shoal Creek
Championships Crimson Tide Star Gillman Playing Semi-Home Game at Shoal Creek
Championships Late Entries Lee and Mehaffey Take Center Stage
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2803. That the Divine Truth is the “son,” and the Divine Good the “father,” is evident from the signification of a “son,” as being truth (see n. 489, 491, 533, 1147, 2633); and of a “father,” as being good; and also from the conception and birth of truth, which is from good. Truth cannot be and come forth [existere] from any other source than good, as has been shown many times. That the “son” here is the Divine Truth, and the “father” the Divine Good, is because the union of the Divine Essence with the Human, and of the Human Essence with the Divine, is the Divine marriage of Good with Truth, and of Truth with Good, from which comes the heavenly marriage; for in Jehovah or the Lord there is nothing but what is infinite; and because infinite, it cannot be apprehended by any idea, except that it is the being and the coming forth [esse et existere] of all good and truth, or is Good itself and Truth itself. Good itself is the “Father,” and Truth itself is the “Son.” But because as before said there is a Divine marriage of Good and Truth, and of Truth and Good, the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father, as the Lord Himself teaches in John:
Jesus saith unto Philip, Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in Me ? Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in me (John 14:10-11).
And again in the same Evangelist:
Jesus said to the Jews, Though ye believe not Me, believe the works; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father (John 10:36, 38).
I pray for them for all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine; and that they all may be one, as Thou Father art in Me, and I in Thee (John 17:9-10, 21).
Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself. Father, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee (John 13:31-32; 17:1).
[2] From this may be seen the nature of the union of the Divine and the Human in the Lord; namely, that it is mutual and alternate, or reciprocal; which union is that which is called the Divine Marriage, from which descends the heavenly marriage, which is the Lord’s kingdom itself in the heavens—thus spoken of in John:
In that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you (John 14:20).
I pray for them, that they all may be one, as Thou Father art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us, I in them and Thou in Me; that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them (John 17:21-23, 26).
That this heavenly marriage is that of good and truth, and of truth and good, may be seen above (n. 2508, 2618, 2728, 2729 and following numbers).
(References: Arcana Coelestia 2728-2729; John 17:20-23)
[3] And because the Divine Good cannot be and come forth without the Divine Truth, nor the Divine Truth without the Divine Good, but the one in the other mutually and reciprocally, it is therefore manifest that the Divine Marriage was from eternity; that is, the Son in the Father, and the Father in the Son, as the Lord Himself teaches in John:
And now O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thyself, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was (John 17:5, 24).
But the Divine Human which was born from eternity was also born in time; and what was born in time, and glorified, is the same. Hence it is that the Lord so often said that He was going to the Father who sent Him; that is, that He was returning to the Father. And in John:
In the beginning was the Word (the “Word” is the Divine Truth itself), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:1-3, 14; see also John 3:13; 6:62).
Arcana Coelestia 2813, 2824, 3004, 3061, 3077, 3211, 3255, 3373, 3703, 3704, 3956, 3960, 4060, 4180, 4334, 4434, 4462, 4765, 4781, 4809, 5376, 5515, 5902, 6041, 6050, 6371, 6418, 6432, 6433, 7605, 7839, 8127, 8273, 8281, 8571, 8573, 8705, 8809, ...8890, 8897, 8902, 8904, 8974, 8982, 8983, 9000, 9167, 9182, 9194, 9309, 9372, 9548, 9601, 9666, 9684, 9715, 9807, 10001, 10067, 10402, 10494, 10540, 10545
Heaven and Hell 86
The White Horse 1, 11, 14
The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 25, 201, 260, 263, 302, 303, 305
746. Because the accuser of our brethren is cast down.- That this signifies after those have been separated from heaven, and condemned to hell, who fought against the life of faith, which is charity, is evident from the signification of being cast down, when said of the dragon, as denoting that those meant by the dragon were separated from heaven and condemned to hell (concerning which see above, n. 739, 742), and from the signification of the accuser of our brethren, as denoting those who fought against the life of faith, which is charity. For an accuser signifies one who attacks, rebukes, and reproaches, for he who accuses also attacks, rebukes, and reproaches; moreover, in the original, an adversary and one who reproaches are expressed by the same word. What is wonderful, although those who are dragons make no account of life, yet they accuse the faithful in the spiritual world, if they observe [in them] any evil of ignorance, for they inquire into their life in order that they may reproach and condemn them, and therefore they are called accusers.
(References: Revelation 12:10; The Apocalypse Explained 739, 742)
[2] But by the brethren whom they accuse are meant all those in the heavens, and also all those on earth who are in the good of charity. Such are called brethren because they all have one Father, that is, the Lord; and those who are in the good of love to the Lord, and in the good of charity towards the neighbour, are His sons, and are also called sons of God, sons of the kingdom, and heirs. It follows, therefore, that since they are the sons of one Father, they are also brethren. Moreover, it is the chief commandment of the Lord the Father, that they should love one another, consequently it is love that makes them brethren; love also is spiritual conjunction. From this it came to pass that with the ancients, in the churches in which charity was the essential, all were called brethren; the same was the case in our Christian Church at its beginning. This is why brother, in the spiritual sense, signifies charity. That formerly all those who were of one church called themselves brethren, and that the Lord calls those brethren, who are in love to Him and in charity towards the neighbour, is evident from many passages in the Word. But in order that what is signified by brother may be distinctly seen, it shall be illustrated from the Word.
[3] (I.) All who were of the Israelitish Church called themselves brethren, as is clear from the following passages.
"Then shall they bring all your brethren, out of all nations, a gift to Jehovah" (lxvi. 20).
In Jeremiah:
"No one shall cause a Jew, his brother, to serve" (xxxiv. 9).
"Son of man, thy brethren, thy brethren, the sons of thy kindred and the whole house of Israel" (xi. 15).
In Micah:
"Until the remnant of his brethren return unto the sons of Israel" (v. 3).
In Moses:
"Moses went out unto his brethren, that he might see their burdens" (Exod. ii. 11):
Moses said unto Jethro his father-in-law,
"I will return to my brethren, who are in Egypt" (Exod. iv. 18);
"When thy brother shall be impoverished" (Levit. xxv. 25, 35, 47).
"But as to your brethren, the sons of Israel, a man shall not rule over his brother with rigour" (Levit. xxv. 46);
"Would to God that we had died when our brethren died before Jehovah" (Numb. xx. 3).
"Behold, a man of the sons of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman" (Numb. xxv. 6).
"Thou shalt open thine hand to thy brother; when thy brother, a Hebrew man or Hebrew woman, shall be sold to thee, he shall serve thee six years" (Deut. xv. 11, 12).
"If any man shall steal the soul (animam) of his brethren and shall make gain thereof" (Deut. xxiv. 7).
"Forty times shall he strike him, and not exceed, lest thy brother be accounted vile in thine eyes" (Deut. xxv. 3; and elsewhere).
It is evident from these passages that the sons of Israel were all called brethren among themselves; the chief reason of their being so called was that they were descended from Jacob, who was their common father; but a reason more remote was that brother signifies the good of charity, and as this good is the essential of the church, also all are spiritually conjoined by it. Another reason is that Israel, in the highest sense, signifies the Lord, and consequently the sons of Israel signify the church.
(References: Deuteronomy 15:11-12, Deuteronomy 24:7, 25:3; Exodus 2:11, 4:18; Ezekiel 11:15; Isaiah 66:20; Jeremiah 34:9; Leviticus 25:25, 25:35, Leviticus 25:46, 25:47, 25:47-50; Micah 5:3; Numbers 20:3, 25:6)
[4] (II.) They also called themselves man and brother, and also companion and brother, as in the following passages.
"The land is darkened and the people are become as fuel for the fire; they shall not spare a man (vir) his brother, they shall eat a man (vir) the flesh of his own arm, Menasseh Ephraim, and Ephraim Menasseh" (ix. 19-21).
Man and brother signify truth and good, and, in the opposite sense, falsity and evil, it is therefore also said Menasseh shall eat Ephraim, and Ephraim Menasseh, for Menasseh signifies voluntary good, and Ephraim intellectual truth, both of the external church, and in the opposite sense evil and falsity. But these words may be seen explained above (n. 386:2, 440:4, 600:13, 617:29).
(References: Isaiah 9:19-21; The Apocalypse Explained 386, 440, 600, 617)
"I will mingle Egypt with Egypt, that they may fight, a man (vir) against his brother, and a man against his companion, city against city, and kingdom against kingdom" (xix. 2).
Egypt here signifies the natural man separated from the spiritual; and because this is in no light of truth, it is continually disputing about good and evil, and about truth and falsity; and such disputation is signified by "I will mingle Egypt with Egypt, that they may fight, a man against his brother, and a man against his companion," brother and companion signifying good from which is truth, and truth from good, and in the opposite sense, evil from which is falsity, and falsity from evil. Therefore it is also said, "City against city, and kingdom against kingdom, city denoting doctrine, and kingdom the church from doctrine, which will contend in a similar manner.
"They help a man his companion, and one saith to his brother, Be strong" (xli. 6).
The signification of companion and brother is similar to that explained above.
"Take ye heed a man of his companion, and trust not in any brother; for every brother supplanteth, and every companion slandereth" (lx. 4).
"I will scatter them, a man with his brother" (xiii. 14).
"Thus shall ye say a man to his companion, and a man to his brother, What hath Jehovah answered" (xxiii. 35).
"Ye have not hearkened unto me, to proclaim liberty a man to his brother, and a man to his companion" (xxxiv. 9, 17).
"A man's sword shall be against his brother" (xxxviii. 21).
"They shall not drive forward, a man his brother" (ii. 8).
"They all lie in wait for bloods, they hunt, a man his brother, with a net" (vii. 2).
In Zechariah:
"Show kindness and compassion, a man to his brother" (vii. 9).
In Malachi:
"Wherefore do we deal treacherously, a man against his brother" (ii. 10).
"There was a thick darkness of darkness over all the land of Egypt, a man saw not his brother" (Exod. x. 22, 23).
"At the end of seven years every creditor shall withhold his hand when he hath loaned anything to his companion, neither shall he urge his companion or his brother" (Deut. xv. 1, 2).
In the nearest sense a man means every one, and brother one of the same tribe, because in blood relationship; and companion means one who is of another tribe, because so only by alliance. But in the spiritual sense a man signifies every one who is in truths, and in the opposite sense, every one who is in falsities; brother signifies every one who is in the good of charity, and, in an abstract sense, that good itself, while companion signifies every one who is in truth from that good, and, in an abstract sense, that truth itself; and in the opposite sense these signify the evil opposite to the good of charity, and the falsity opposite to the truth from that good. The terms brother and companion are both used, because there are two things that make the church - charity and faith, just as there are two things that make the life of man, will and understanding. There are in man two things which act as one, as the two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two hands and feet, two lobes of the lungs, two chambers of the heart, two hemispheres of the brain, and so on, of which one has reference to good from which is truth, and the other to truth from good. This is why it is said brother and companion, and why brother signifies good, and companion its truth.
(References: Deuteronomy 15:1-2; Exodus 10:22-23; Ezekiel 38:21; Isaiah 41:6; Jeremiah 9:4, 13:14, 23:35, Jeremiah 34:9, 34:17; Joel 2:8; Malachi 2:10; Micah 7:2; Zechariah 7:9)
[7] (III.) The Lord calls those of His church who are in the good of charity brethren, as is clear from the following passages.
In the Evangelists:
Jesus "stretching out his hand over his disciples, said, Behold my mother and my brethren; whosoever shall do the will of my Father, he is my brother and sister and mother" (Matt. xii. 49, 50; Mark iii. 33-35).
The disciples over whom the Lord stretched out His hand signify all those who are of His church; His brethren signify those who are in the good of charity from Him; sisters, those who are in truths from that good; while mother signifies the church from these.
(References: Mark 3:33-35; Matthew 12:49-50)
[8] In Matthew:
Jesus said to Mary Magdalene and to the other Mary, "Fear not, go ye, tell my brethren to go into Galilee, and there they shall see me" (xxviii. 10).
Here also brethren mean the disciples, who signify all those of the church who are in the good of charity.
In John:
Jesus said to Mary, "Go to my brethren, and say to them, I ascend to my Father" (xx. 17).
Similarly here the disciples are called brethren, because the disciples, equally as brethren, signify all those of His church who are in the good of charity.
(References: John 20:17; Matthew 28:10)
"The King answering said unto them, I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (xxv. 40).
That those who have done the good works of charity are here called by the Lord brethren is evident from the words which precede the above. It must, however, be understood that although the Lord is their Father, still He calls them brethren; but He is their Father from the Divine Love, and brother from the Divine which proceeds from Him. The reason is that all in the heavens are recipients of the Divine which proceeds from Him, and the Divine which proceeds from the Lord, of which they are recipients, is the Lord in heaven and also in the church; and this is not of angel or man, but of the Lord in them; therefore the good of charity itself in them, which is the Lord's own, He calls brother, as He also calls angels and men, because they are the recipient subjects of that good. In a word, the proceeding Divine, which is the Divine of the Lord in the heavens, is the Divine born of the Lord in heaven; therefore from that Divine, angels, who are its recipients, are called Sons of God, and since these are brethren, because of the Divine received in themselves, it is therefore the Lord in them who says "brother," for angels, when they speak from the good of charity, do not speak from themselves, but from the Lord.
This then is why the Lord says, "Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." The goods of charity, enumerated in the verses preceding, are therefore, in the spiritual sense, the brethren of the Lord, and are called brethren by the Lord, for the reason just given. The King, also, who thus calls them, signifies the proceeding Divine, which in one word is called Divine Truth or the Spiritual Divine, which in its essence is the good of charity.
(References: Matthew 25:40)
[10] It must therefore be born in mind, that the Lord did not call them brethren because He was a man like themselves, according to an opinion received in the Christian world; for this reason it follows that it is not allowable for any man to call the Lord brother, for He is God even as to the Human, and God is not a brother, but a Father. The Lord is called brother in the churches on earth because the idea which they have of His Human is the same as that which they have of the human of another man; nevertheless the Lord's Human is Divine.
[11] Because kings formally represented the Lord as to Divine Truth, and as Divine Truth received by angels in the spiritual kingdom of the Lord is the same as Divine spiritual good, and as spiritual good is the good of charity, therefore the kings appointed over the sons of Israel called their subjects brethren, although on the other hand, the subjects were not permitted to call their king brother; much less should the Lord, who is King of kings and Lord of lords be so called.
"I will declare thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee" (Psalm xxii. 22).
"I am become an alien to my brethren, and a stranger to my mother's sons" (Psalm lxix. 8).
"For my brethren and companions' sake I will say peace be unto thee" (Psalm cxxii. 8).
David spoke these things as though they were about himself, yet David, in the representative spiritual sense, here means the Lord.
"Thou shalt set over them a king from the midst of thy brethren; thou mayest not set over them a man that is a stranger, who is not thy brother; but let him not lift up his heart above his brethren" (Deut. xvii. 15, 20).
The brethren out of whom a king might be set over them, signify all who are of the church, for it is said, "Thou mayest not set over them a man that is a stranger," a man that is a stranger signifying one not of the church.
(References: Deuteronomy 17:15, 17:20; Psalms 22:22, 69:8, 122:8)
[12] In the same:
"Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet out of the midst of thee from thy brethren, like unto me; him shall ye obey" (Deut. xviii. 15, 18).
This is a prophecy concerning the Lord, who is meant by the prophet whom Jehovah God will raise up from the brethren. They are called thy brethren, that is, of Moses, because Moses, in the representative sense, means the Lord as to the Word, and a prophet means one who teaches the Word; thus also the Word and doctrine from the Word are meant, and this is why it is said, "like unto me." That Moses represented the Lord as to the law, thus as to the Word, may be seen in the Arcana Coelestia (n. 4859 at end, 5922, 6723, 6752, 6771, 6827, 7010, 7014, 7089, 7382, 9372, 10,234).
(References: Arcana Coelestia 4859, Arcana Coelestia 5922, 6723, 6752, 6771, 6827, 7010, 7014, 7089, 7382, Arcana Coelestia 9372, 10234; Deuteronomy 18:15, 18:18)
[13] (IV.) That all those who acknowledge Him, and are in the good of charity from Him, are called brethren by the Lord, follows from this, that the Lord is the Father of all and the teacher of all, and from Him, as a Father, is all the good of charity, and from Him, as a teacher, all the truth of that good; therefore the Lord says in Matthew:
"Be not ye called teacher, for one is your teacher, the Christ, but all ye are brethren. And call [no man] your Father upon earth, for one is your Father who is in the heavens" (xxiii. 8, 9).
It is manifestly clear from this that the Lord's words must be spiritually understood. For what teacher is there who may not be called teacher? or what father is there who is not called father? But because father signifies good, and the Father in the heavens the Divine Good, and as teacher or Rabbi signifies truth, and the "teacher, the Christ," the Divine Truth, therefore, on account of the spiritual sense in all things of the Word, it is said that they should not call a father on earth their father, nor anyone teacher. This refers to the spiritual sense, but not to the natural sense. In the natural sense men may be called teachers and fathers, but representatively, that is to say, teachers in the world do indeed teach truths, but from the Lord, not from themselves; and fathers in the world are indeed good, and lead their children to good, but from the Lord, not from themselves. It therefore follows, that although they are called teachers and fathers, still they are not teachers, and fathers, but the Lord alone is Teacher and Father. To call, and to call any one by a name also signifies, in the Word, to recognise the quality of any one. Because all in heaven and in the church are disciples and sons of the Lord as their Teacher and Father, therefore the Lord says, "All ye are brethren"; for the Lord calls all in heaven and in the church sons and heirs, from their consociation by love from Him, and thus by mutual love which is charity. It is consequently from the Lord that they are brethren; in this way must the common saying be understood that all are brethren in the Lord.
(References: Matthew 23:8-9)
[14] From these considerations also it is evident that the Lord means by brethren all those who acknowledge Him, and are in the good of charity from Him, consequently those who are of His church. Such also the Lord means by brethren in the following passages.
In Luke:
Jesus said to Peter, "When thou hast turned again, strengthen thy brethren" (Luke xxii. 32).
Brethren here do not mean the Jews, but all those who acknowledge the Lord and are in good from charity and faith, thus all who should receive the gospel through Peter, both Jews and Gentiles; for Peter, in the Word of the Evangelists, means truth from good, consequently also faith from charity, but here Peter means faith separated from charity, for just previously it is said of him, "Simon, lo, Satan hath demanded you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not" (verses 31, 32); and afterwards it is said to him, "I say unto thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day until thou hast thrice denied that thou knowest me" (verse 34). Such also is faith without charity. But by Peter turned again is signified truth from good, which is from the Lord, or faith from charity, which is from the Lord, therefore it is said, "When then thou hast turned again, strengthen thy brethren."
(References: Luke 22:31, 22:31-32, 22:32, 22:34)
[15] In Matthew:
"Peter said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?" (xviii. 21).
"So also will my heavenly Father do to you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses" (xviii. 35).
"If thy brother hath sinned against thee, go and accuse him between thee and him alone; if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother" (xviii. 15).
Here brother means the neighbour in general, thus every man, but specifically one whoever he may be who is in the good of charity and thus in faith from the Lord; for these passages treat of the good of charity, since to forgive one who sins against you is of charity. It is also said, "If he hear, thou hast gained thy brother," which signifies if he acknowledges his trespasses, and turns again.
(References: Matthew 18:2, 18:15, 18:21, Matthew 18:35)
[16] Again in Matthew:
"Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye, when yet there is a beam in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye" (vii. 3-5).
Here also the term brother is used, because the subject treated of is charity; for to cast out the mote out of a brother's eye signifies to give instruction about falsity and evil, and to reform. The reason why the Lord said "a mote out of thy brother's eye," and "a beam out of one's own eye," is that a spiritual sense is contained in every thing which the Lord spoke; for without that sense, of what consequence would it be to see a mote in the eye of another, and not consider a beam in one's own eye, or to cast a beam out of one's own eye before one casts a mote out of another's eye? For a mote signifies a small falsity of evil, and a beam a great falsity of evil, while the eye signifies the understanding and also faith. Mote and beam signify the falsity of evil because wood signifies good; thus a beam signifies the truth of good, and, in the opposite sense, the falsity of evil, and the eye the understanding and faith. It is therefore plain what is signified by seeing the mote and the beam, and by casting them out of the eye. That wood signifies good, and, in the opposite sense, evil, may be seen in the Arcana Coelestia (n. 643, 3720, 4943, 8354, 8740), and that the eye signifies the understanding, and also faith (n. 2701, 4403-4421, 4523-4534, 9051, 10,569), and also above (n. 37, 152). Moreover, in some passages beam is mentioned, and it signifies falsity of evil. As in Gen. xix. 8; 2 Kings vi. 2, 5, 6; Habak. ii. 11; Cant. i. 17.
(References: 2 Kings 6:2, 6:5-6; Arcana Coelestia 643, 2701, 3720, 4403-4421, 4523-4534, Arcana Coelestia 4943, Arcana Coelestia 8354, 8740, 9051, Arcana Coelestia 10569, Genesis 19:8; Habakkuk 2:11; Matthew 7:3-5; Romans 1:17; The Apocalypse Explained 37, 152)
"He who doeth and teacheth shall be called great in the kingdom of the heavens. I say unto you, Except your justice shall exceed the justice of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of the heavens. Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, but whosoever shall kill shall be liable to the judgment; but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother rashly shall be liable to the judgment; but whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be liable to the council; but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be liable to the gehenna of fire. If thou offer thy gift upon the altar, and there remember that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift" (v. 19-24).
In the whole of that chapter the subject treated of is the interior life of man, which is that of his soul, consequently of his will and the thought therefrom, thus it treats of the life of charity, which is the spiritual moral life. Of this life the sons of Jacob knew nothing before, because even from their fathers downward they were external men. On this account also they were kept in the observance of external worship, according to external statutes that represented the internal things of worship and of the church. But the Lord in this chapter teaches that the interior things of the church ought not only to be represented by external acts, but must also be loved and done from the soul and heart. Therefore that whosoever from interior life teaches and does the external things of the church will be saved, is signified by "He who doeth and teacheth shall be called great in the kingdom of the heavens." "Except your justice shall exceed the justice of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of the heavens," signifies that unless the life be internal, and from that, external, heaven is not in man and man is not received into heaven; justice signifies the good of life from the good of charity, and to exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees signifies that the life must be internal, and not external without the internal. The Scribes and Pharisees were only in representative externals, and not in internals.
External from internal life is taught in the commandment of the decalogue, "Thou shalt not kill." But they did not know that wishing to kill a man is the same as killing him, therefore it is first said, "Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be liable to the judgment." For the opinion had prevailed among the Jews from ancient time, that it was lawful to kill those who injured them, especially the Gentiles, and that they were only to be punished for it lightly or grievously according to the state of the case in regard to the enmity manifested, consequently only as to the body and not as to the soul; this is meant by being liable to the judgment.
(References: Matthew 5:1, 5:19-24)
[18] That he who without adequate cause thinks ill of his neighbour, and turns himself away from the good of charity, will be punished lightly as to the soul, is signified by Whosoever is angry with his brother rashly shall be liable to the judgment; to be angry signifies to think ill, for it is distinguished from "to say Raca," and "to say Thou fool." Brother means the neighbour, and also the good of charity, and to be liable to the judgment means to be examined and punished according to circumstances. That he who from evil thought slanders his neighbour, and thus holds the good of charity in contempt as of no account, will be grievously punished, is signified by Whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be liable to the council, - for to say Raca signifies from evil thought to slander the neighbour, thus to hold in contempt the good of charity as of no account, to say Raca signifying to account as nothing, thus of no account, and brother the good of charity. That he who hates the neighbour, that is he who altogether turns away from the good of charity, is condemned to hell, is signified by Whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be liable to the gehenna of fire, - to say "Thou fool" denoting entire aversion, brother denoting the good of charity, and gehenna of fire denoting the hell where those are who hate that good and thus the neighbour. Three degrees of hatred are described by these three, the first is that of evil thought, which is "to be angry," the second is that of a consequent evil intention, which is "to say Raca," and the third is that of an evil will, which is "to say Thou fool." All these are degrees of hatred against the good of charity; for hatred is the opposite of this good. The three degrees of punishment are signified by the judgment, the council, and the gehenna of fire, punishments for the evils of a lighter kind being signified by the judgment, punishments for those of a more grievous kind by the council, and for the most grievous of all, by the gehenna of fire.
[19] Since the whole of heaven is in the good of charity towards the neighbour, and the whole of hell is in anger, enmity, and hatred against the neighbour, and as these are the opposites of that good, and as the worship of the Lord when it is internal is worship from heaven, but is not worship if anything of it is from hell, and yet external worship without internal is from hell, therefore it is said, "If thou offer thy gift upon the altar, and there remember that thy brother hath aught against thee, go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift upon the altar." The gift upon the altar signifies the worship of the Lord, from love and charity; brother means the neighbour, and in the abstract, the good of charity; to have aught against thee signifies anger, enmity or hatred, and to be reconciled signifies the dispersion of these, and consequent conjunction by love.
[20] It is evident from these things that the Lord meant by brother the same as by neighbour; and neighbour, in the spiritual sense, signifies good in its whole extent; and good in its whole extent is the good of charity. Brother has a similar meaning in the spiritual sense in many passages in the Old Testament.
As in Moses:
"Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart" (Levit. xix. 17).
In David:
"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity" (Psalm cxxxiii. 1).
In this sense also, Lot called the inhabitants of Sodom brethren (Gen. xix. 7); and this is also meant by "the covenant of brethren" between the sons of Israel and Edom (Amos i. 9); and by "the brotherhood between Judah and Israel" (Zech. xi. 14). For by the sons of Israel and Edom, also by Judah and Israel, are not meant these in the spiritual sense, but the goods and truths of heaven and the church, which are all conjoined one with another.
(References: Amos 1:9; Genesis 19:7; Leviticus 19:17, Leviticus 25:46-47; Matthew 18:21; Psalms 133:1; Revelation 12:10; Zechariah 11:14)
Apocalypse Explained 743, 747, 757, 1012
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Least 1
Looking for Good in Other People 1
Pharisees 1
Doctor, or rabbi 1
Fool 1
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Raca 1
Reconciled 1
Sister 1
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Home \ Archives \ Tses rapist and killer found guilty
Tses rapist and killer found guilty
Roland Routh WINDHOEK - Windhoek High Court Judge Nate Ndauendapo Friday convicted a resident of Tses in the Keetmanshoop District on one count of murder, one count of rape, one count of defeating or attempting to defeat the course of justice and one count of assault by threatening. Judge Ndauendapo also acquitted the accused on a count of attempted murder. Jesaja Boois was charged with the rape and murder of Bonaventura Jahs in Tses during the period September 2 to September 3, 2014. He was also charged with assault by threat for threatening to stab his ex-girlfriend Anna Marie Links with a wine bottle on Tuesday September 2, 2014 and further faced a charge of attempted murder for allegedly attacking Lesley Tiboth in the holding cells at the Tses Police station by pushing him and slapping him in the face as well as hitting him with broomstick on the head and stabbing him on the head with a broken piece of the broomstick. He was also charged with defeating or obstructing of attempting to defeat or obstruct the course of justice by cleaning up the ground around the deceased’s body, dressing the deceased’s body with a purple legging and hiding the deceased’s dress/blouse in a culvert pipe as well as hiding the deceased’s cell phone and sim card by burying it in the ground. According to the State, Boois did all this to frustrate police investigations into the disappearance and possible murder of the deceased. According to Judge Ndauendapo, the only person that was with the deceased shortly before she died was the accused and the only reasonable inference to be drawn was that he is the one who suffocated her. He further said that DNA evidence has proven that the sperm of Boois was found in the private parts of the deceased which proved that he raped her. With regard to the assault by threat conviction, the judge said the evidence of the witness was unchallenged and he is therefore guilty on that score. Judge Ndauendapo said it was proven the place where the body of the deceased was found was cleaned and her leggings were inside out and it could only have been the accused who did that and he therefore defeated the course of justice. With regards to the charge of attempted murder, the judge said there was no evidence to dispute his version that he acted in self defence when he hit Tiboth in the head with a stick and the court can thus not find him guilty. Tiboth died before the trial started. According to Judge Ndauendapo, while the State’s case hinged on circumstantial evidence as there was no eyewitnesses, the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from the evidence presented is that it was Boois who raped and killed the deceased and tried to defeat the course of justice. “The accused was seen quarrelling with the deceased on the evening of September 2, 2014, he said and continued: MaryAnn Cloete testified that they heard the deceased telling the accused that ‘as long as I am alive, you won’t have sex with me, over my dead body will you have sex with me. Accused then replied: You are lying, I will show you. Other State witnesses also heard Boois telling the deceased ‘tonight you will see, I will f*&ck you and that he threatened to stab the deceased. That evidence of threats to stab and f*&ck the deceased from the accused is relevant and admissible because it demonstrated what the accused’s intention towards the deceased was at that stage, Judge Ndauendapo stated. The matter will continue on August 28 with pre-sentencing procedures and Boois remains in custody at the Windhoek Correctional Facility’s section for trial awaiting inmates. Advocate Ethel Ndlovu represented the State and Titus Mbaeva represented Boois on instructions from legal aid.
Home \ Archives \ Tses rapist and killer found guilty - New Era Live
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Home / News / Money / NBC, LA 2028 to combine to sell sponsorships, ad time
NBC, LA 2028 to combine to sell sponsorships, ad time
NBC Universal and the LA Olympics are going into business together, combining to package commercial time on all the network’s platforms with opportunities to sponsor the American team through 2028.
The deal is for contracts covering 2021 through 2028, the year the Summer Games return to the United States for the first time in 32 years.
NBC paid $7.75 billion for rights to broadcast the Olympics from 2022 through 2032, while the group organizing the 2028 Los Angeles Games has taken over the U.S. Olympic Committee’s marketing arm through those Olympics.
LA 2028 chairman Casey Wasserman said the new arrangement provides “simplicity and clarity and consistency in a market that provides very little of it in any medium.”
Part of LA 2028’s agreement with the USOC was that it would provide the federation $488 million from 2021 through 2028 in exchange for essentially taking over Olympic marketing in the United States through the Los Angeles Games.
The deal with NBC provides the organizing committee a chance to “de-risk” — Wasserman’s word — some of its obligations to the city, the USOC and the International Olympic Committee by entering sponsorship deals that will presumably become more valuable because they’ll include ad time on NBC’s Olympic-based shows.
It also eliminates one of the gripes some Team USA sponsors had in the past: that signing on with the USOC did not guarantee them opportunity to place ads on NBC’s coverage of the Olympics.
The network, meanwhile, could find ways through the deal to reach new sponsors and offer more value in a changing media climate. In 1996, NBC aired 171 hours of the Atlanta Games on a single network. In 2016, NBC offered 6,755 hours of coverage via live-streaming and 11 networks that aired 2,084 hours.
“Together, we’re building what’s never been available before — the chance to be an exclusive partner of a monumental global movement for the next decade,” said Linda Yaccarino, NBC Universal’s chair of ad sales and client partnerships.
In 1984, Peter Ueberroth led an LA Games that showed how a city could leverage marketing opportunities, which in turn helped transform the Olympics into the colossus they are today. Wasserman, who has been in the business of sports and entertainment marketing for decades, said he was looking to help Los Angeles again reimagine the Olympic blueprint.
“I get paid to do this every day at my job,” he said. “This was a unique opportunity to enact a business structure that, frankly, the marketplace was asking for.”
NBC Olympics 9:27 am Wed, April 17, 2019 New Orleans CityBusiness
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Darrell Doudt
President, OSDAA
Darrell Doudt, departed Class ''81, has been employed by the U.S. Government for 32 years. In addition to OSDAA, he actively involved as an advocate for Ohio Citizens for Deaf Cultures. He also is active with other organizations. Darrell is proud to be the third generation of his Deaf family to be involved with OSDAA, and is married to fellow OSD Priscilla. Together, they have three Deaf children, Joshua, Calvin & Jacquelyn and four grandchildren. They have visited 40 states on their motorcycles, and plan visit the remaining 10. Darrell admires Henry Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi, who said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
Elwin Babb
OSD graduate in 1974, Elwin attended NTID/RIT and earned the degree in 1976. He worked for NASA for three years and half. Then, he worked at Lincoln Electric Co. for 35 years before he retired. He is a member of The Cleveland Association of the Deaf and has held various positions as officers for many years. He's still involved with the Deaf Advocacy Committee for the Cleveland Hearing & Speech Center. He is currently chair of the OSDAA Finance Committee.
Theresa Cassese
Tom Penny is retired from his career as a financial specialist with the U.S. Department of Defense. A Rochester Institute of Technology/National Technical Institute for the Deaf graduate, Tom has been involved with local, regional, and national Deaf athletic organizations both as a player and as a board member. He is now an advocate for local non-profit organizations. The father to five children, four Deaf, Tom is especially proud of American Sign Language. He and his wife, Mary, often use Yelp! to find new restaurants specializing in home-cooked meals
Richard Penny
Richard has lived in Columbus area his whole life. After graduating from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Richard worked for over 38 years as a programmer analyst at Columbus State Community College before retiring. He serves as a board member for both the OSD Athletic Booster Club and OSDAA, and also is the Event Coordinator and Law/Policy Chairperson for OSDAA. Richard is married to Jolene, and they have three sons and one granddaughter. He is from an all-Deaf family and has many Deaf relatives throughout Indiana and Ohio. Richard enjoys traveling and plans to visit several countries.
Ronald Patterson
After graduating from OSD, Ronald Patterson, '67, worked as a printer for the Pittsburgh Press/Post/Gazette for 36 years. Actively involved in the Pennsylvania Society for the Advancement of the Deaf (PSAD), and nominated Pittsburgh Chapter President and involved Board of PSAD. He also hosted a Silent Campout for 10 years. He and his wife, Judy, returned to Ohio in 2015, and enjoy snowmobiling for years, and browsing stores for rustic furnitures and going on daily walks with their beloved golden retriever, Rosebud.
Robert Blessing
Robert “Bobby” Blessing was raised by Deaf parents in Toledo. After graduating from OSD, he relocated to Columbus and worked at Limited Inc. He loves sports, especially basketball, baseball, flag football and soccer and has hosted basketball, softball, and bowling tournaments for the Columbus Association for the Deaf the past 30 years. He also has chaired other events. His wife Sandra and he have raised three children; in his free time, he enjoys golf and spending time on his 1967 Pontiac Firebird.
Richard Huebner
Tonya Black-Grubb
Joshua Doudt
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Clarissa Cupero
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Bilingual 21 year-old singer-songwriter crossing borders with her powerful and sultry voice as the first Angla-Latina crossover. Appealing to both the US and Latin markets, her music creates a platform for cross-cultural understanding.
-2011 First Round Grammy Ballot, "La Sombra"
-2011 First Round Grammy Ballot, "I've Got Your Number"
Stage Specs
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Hometown Warwick, NY
Genres Pop, Latin
Band Members Clarissa Cupero
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Of the numerous striking qualities of Cupéro, the 23-year-old singer/songwriter and rocker, it’s the commanding presence of her voice and songs that sets her apart. Cupéro sings with a maturity and sense of permanence that belies her youth and the...
Of the numerous striking qualities of Cupéro, the 23-year-old singer/songwriter and rocker, it’s the commanding presence of her voice and songs that sets her apart. Cupéro sings with a maturity and sense of permanence that belies her youth and the relatively short amount of time that she has been in the New York music scene. On her debut, self-titled EP, she sings with a passion that reveals an unshakable commitment and ambition to be a performer that transcends barriers of music, ethnicity and language.
It was apparent that when Cupéro began integrating Spanish into her songs in her high school years, she was beginning to find a new identity. The idea of a crossover and making bilingual music became an essential part of her passion for music and the Spanish language while embracing cross-cultural identities. She picked up the guitar at 16 and began writing in Spanish without giving it a second thought and tested the waters at her high school talent shows in Warwick, NY. Then at 18 she recorded her first self-titled 4 track EP, Cupero, at The Cutting Room Studios in NYC. The following year she took a risk and added on two Spanish songs to make a 6-track, "La Sombra" and "Quiero Tu Amor."
Then in 2009, her song, “La Sombra” landed a spot as a finalist in the Latin category of the International John Lennon Songwriting Contest, signifying that maybe her love for the Latin music shouldn't be looked on as an afterthought.
In 2011 in the same contest once again in 2011, she jumped back into a finalist position for her song, “Voces,” a song off her second EP titled Voces. Within the song, Cupéro’s evolution continues as she sings about the social tensions and struggles that still remain in Latin America. In the Fall of 2010, both “La Sombra” and “I’ve Got Your Number” from her first EP made the first-round Grammy ballot for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for the 2011 Grammys.
Influenced by everything from modern artists like KT Tunstall and a few classic rock artists, Cupéro saves her biggest praise for the Colombian rock artist Juanes, a winner of over seventeen Latin Grammys and who has sold over ten million albums. She says, “I really admire his music and his activism, and the fact that he’s bilingual was the inspiration for me to become a bilingual artist ever since I was 16.”
In her second EP, Voces, takes on a predominantly Latin role with 3 Spanish language songs and one English. In the Spring of 2012, Cupéro made the final three in the OurStage/MTV Tr3s video contest for a chance to sing with Juanes during his Live MTV Unplugged performance in Miami. “Making the final three for the opportunity to sing with Juanes was an indication that I need to keep going. I think it’s time for the Latin music market to be introduced to a different type of crossover that embraces the Spanish language even though I’m crossing over from the English language side.”
Now with her 3rd EP titled, Miles (2013), Cupéro continues the crossover with a predominantly Latin EP, and nonstop rhythms that never stop evolving.
Her time spent studying for four months in Sevilla, Spain opened a new door for embracing a new type of culture for her music. Her song, “Ole” off her second EP sings a story of flamenco, the nightlife of Sevilla and her experience of living in Spain. “It’s important to me that I sing about what I see as an outsider looking into all types of Spanish-speaking cultures." While in Sevilla, she found herself knocking down doors with the help of her Spanish host father and flamenco guitar player, to play in local flamenco bars. Playing pop rock music in flamenco bars was a risk, but Spanish and non-Spanish speaking audiences embraced her music with standing ovations. In La Carbonería in 2011, one of the most well-known flamenco venues in Sevilla, Cupéro would bring down the house with “Ole” as her tribute to Sevilla as she conducted her shows both in English and Spanish to cater to an international audience that filled the bar.
“In the U.S., I really want to promote an environment at shows with a bilingual atmosphere where everyone can have fun. I’ve done it in Sevilla and if I can do that at any show, I’ll feel like I’m accomplishing my mission to promote music without borders.”
Now, Cupéro sets her sights on Los Angeles, while continuing to write and record music both in English and Spanish with the intent on uniting bilingual audiences on an international level.
La Historita de Nosotros
La Bestia Dentro
Juanes Competition- "Me Enamora" (cover)
Me Haces Sentir...
I've Got Your Number
Gone Again
Life Is A Moment
You'll Never Be There
I Thought I Knew Love
See More of Clarissa Cupero's Photos
Top 10 in Latin Music, June 2019
Top 10 in Latin Music, May 2019
Top 10 in Latin Music, April 2019
Top 10 in Latin Music, March 2019
Top 10 in Latin Music, February 2019
Top 10 in World, November 2018
Top 10 in World, July 2018
Top 10 in World, June 2018
Top 10 in World, May 2018
Top 10 in World, April 2018
Top 10 in World, March 2018
Top 10 in World, February 2018
Top 10 in World, January 2018
Top 10 in World, December 2017
Top 10 in Latin Music, October 2017
Top 10 in World, October 2017
Top 10 in Latin Music, September 2017
Top 10 in World, September 2017
Top 10 in Latin Music, August 2017
Top 10 in World, August 2017
Top 10 in Latin Music, July 2017
Top 10 in Latin Music, December 2016
Top 10 in Latin Music, November 2016
Top 40 in Latin Music, January 2019
Top 40 in Rock, September 2015
Top 40 in Rock, August 2015
Top 40 in Tr3s Latin Music, January 2014
Cupero Review by Wildy's World
Wow. Warwick, NY native Clarissa Cupéro just bowled me over. Cupéro's self-titled 6-song EP is the sort of introduction that knocks a listener off their feet. Whether it's the distinctly mature...
Clarissa Cupero- Cupéro by Feminist Review
Feminist Review Clarissa Cupéro - Cupéro When I found out Clarissa Cupéro was only nineteen years old, I did a double take. Her gritty alto is substantial, forceful; it speaks of experience....
Wow. Warwick, NY native Clarissa Cupéro just bowled me over. Cupéro's self-titled 6-song EP is the sort of introduction that knocks a listener off their feet. Whether it's the distinctly mature tone of 19-year-old Cupéro's songwriting, the no-holds-barred emotional strength of her songs or the absolutely amazing instrument that is her voice, Cupéro is a purely unexpected and welcome surprise on the musical scene. The Siena College student has influences all over the music map, from KT Tunstall to various classic rock artists to Columbian rocker Juanes (17 Latin Grammys). Juanes has inspired Cupéro to be a bilingual artist, writing and singing in both English and Spanish. With a voice that falls somewhere on a line between Sarah McLachlan and Bonnie Tyler, Cupéro makes fans every time she opens her mouth to sing. I've Got Your Number could have been a hit anytime in the last 25 years, and with the right breaks would vie for radio spins even in today's fractured market. La Sombra is a Spanish language song, and while I can't comment on the lyrics (no habla), the song has a powerful, sensuous feel that borders on overwhelming. Cupéro rips the roof on this vibrant rocker. I Thought I Knew Love is a commanding love song that's chart ready as you read this. It's a bit off the beaten love song track but ideal mix-tape material and the sort of song that lights up request/dedication lines. Life Is A Moment is a song about striving for dreams and never giving up. It's a powerful message delivered in a powerful vocal performance. Don't be surprised if Life Is A Moment ends up licensed, movies or even gets covered by big name artists down the road (by then Cupéro may be one herself). Quiero Tu Amor is the other Spanish language song on the EP, a gorgeous ballad that would sell a million copies in an English version. I have to say though that the Spanish language brings out a certain sensuality in Cupéro's voice that's more reserved in English, increasing her marketability in an increasingly multi-ethnic culture a hundred fold. Cupéro closes out with You'll Never Be There, an urgent acoustic rocker with Americana leanings that just about proves that she can do, play or sing almost anything. Clarissa Cupéro has everything but the breaks. Talent and composure well beyond her nineteen years and a killer voice make it very possible that down the road the name Cupéro will be as familiar as names like Prince, Madonna and Beyonce. Yes, it's a grand statement, and practically everything in Cupéro's life and career would have to go just right for that to happen. But based on what I've heard on Cupéro, it's not out of the realm of imagination. Yes, she's that good. Find out for yourself. Cupéro is a Wildy's World Certified Desert Island Disc. Don't wait, get it now. Rating: 5 Stars (Out of 5)
Feminist Review Clarissa Cupéro - Cupéro When I found out Clarissa Cupéro was only nineteen years old, I did a double take. Her gritty alto is substantial, forceful; it speaks of experience. Cupéro, a New York state native, is currently a student at Sienna College, and in addition to taking classes, she performs her songs for campus benefits (including concerts to aid student organizations such as Students Active for Ending Rape). She is still unsigned to a label, but self-released her self-titled EP last year through The Cutting Room in Greenwich Village. This bilingual album is pervaded by driving rhythms, aggressive yet playful guitar riffs, and of course, Cupéro’s meaty vocals. The influence of classic rock artists is evident in the guitar-centric instrumentals, but her self-assured lyrics make it her own. The first track, “I’ve Got Your Number,” prompted me to dance around my apartment the first time I popped the disc into the player. The lyrics speak of experience beyond her years with a confidence and independence that is believable: I’ve got your number, baby, I’m not digging the way you’re steering me, You’re changing me... I believe in what I stand for, Dignity, oh can’t you see? This track, which has elicited unexpected success, is this generation’s cure for the epidemic of dependence women often feel towards any lover that will give them attention. Cupéro is strong enough to recognize a toxic relationship, and joyfully maintains her independence, asserting her agency. Her love for Colombian rock artist Juanes is evident in the track “La Sombra”, whose Latin flair shows her flexibility as a musician to combine various styles, and once again, make this self-proclaimed wallflower get the urge to dance. Cupéro lays down a contemplative piano track on “Life is a Moment,” which along with the addition of strings, adds a thoughtful depth to the EP. “You’ll Never Be There” treats the age-old ailment of unrequited love with a positive, almost flippant attitude; as the last track, this piece rounds out the album nicely, leaving the listener with Clarissa’s sense of self and empowerment. All six tracks exhibit an aspect of Cupéro’s resilient, albeit human personality, and display her lovely voice in concert with riffs that are simultaneously catchy and classic. I definitely look forward to hearing more from this young woman in the future. Her drive and tenacity got her noticed by two producers in the small Greenwich Village recording studio, so I am certain that as she matures and finishes her studies, she will have more music to share, and won’t stop until she gets the big break she deserves. Review by Cristin Colvin
Clarissa Cupero...Spain with more songs... by New York Planet Media
Clarissa Cupero rocked audiences in New York before she darted off to Spain for several months. Immersing herself in the culture, she is due back to the states with some new Spanish language and/or influenced songs. We took a moment to catch up with her and discovered that this young artist is ready for the world! Who are your musical influences? Definitely Juanes, an amazing Colombian rocker with such a unique style. I idolize him because of his compassion for his people and country, his activism and his guitar playing. It so easy for anyone to start listening to Juanes and to become hooked even if they don’t know Spanish. He was my main influence to keep pushing at the crossover concept for a girl who is not a native Spanish speaker. I listen to a wide variety of music like KT Tunstall, AC/DC, Florence and the Machine, Hootie and Blowfish, etc. You sing some of your songs in Spanish. How did that come about? I started taking Spanish in school in the 7th grade but kept at it all throughout high school. It was my strongest subject and after I found out about Juanes in 10th grade I became that much more obsessed and listened to him non-stop learning more in the process, developing ideas. I finally put it to the test at the talent show and the response was awesome. The adrenaline I got from that night just kicked me in the head and said, “hello?!?! *light bulb* what a concept!” I have a passion for the language and I have an appreciation for all Spanish-speaking cultures. There always seem to be Latin singers crossing over (Juanes is an exception) but I never see (or have seen) a non-native Spanish speaker ever fully crossover to the Latin side. It’s challenging to get any label on my side with it because I guess they fear it being unsuccessful from acts that are more commercially promising. I like to keep everything as commercial as I can within reason. But more often than not, I feel that I have more emotional freedom when singing in Spanish. But I’ve been very grateful for it to have been embraced very well over the past few years. When “La Sombra” became a finalist in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest I became that much more motivated. I figured I was doing something right! Yes, it’s different and yes I’m a little timid but if no one ever does it how we will ever know? I feel that my songs are getting better, my Spanish is getting better- I’m ready to go.
I read the news today, oh boy. by Warwick Advertiser
I read the news today, oh boy Clarissa Cupero Warwick student is once again a finalist in John Lennon songwriting contest WARWICK — It’s the second time that Clarissa Cupero, the daughter of James and Lynn Cupero of Warwick, has been recognized as one of three finalists in the Spanish category of the International “John Lennon Songwriting Contest.” Cupero graduated from Warwick Valley High School in 2008, where she served as president of the Meistersingers choir. She is now a senior, majoring in Spanish, at Siena, a Catholic and Franciscan College, located in Loudonville, just outside Albany. In 2009 Cupero wrote and recorded her first contest submission, “La Sombra,” which recently made the first-round Grammy ballot for Record of the Year in addition to her song, “I’ve Got Your Number” for Best Female Pop Vocalist. Cupero’s latest contest entry “Voces” (“Voices”), reflects the perspective of an outsider looking in on the struggles and suffering that still exists in Latin America. English to Spanish crossover “It’s a song about the people and their life, losing loved ones and hanging onto faith to remain strong,” she said. Top artists, record label executives and singer-songwriters, will judge the John Lennon Contest. The winners in each category will be announced next May. “To be a finalist twice for another Latin song,” she said, “proves to me that my goals of becoming the first English to Spanish crossover are becoming closer to a reality. I have a passion for Latin and Spanish music and for what’s going on in the Latin world.” Cupero also recently returned from four months of study in Sevilla, Spain. “I was definitely inspired by the culture of Sevilla through flamenco and their passion for music,” she said. “The sounds of Sevilla are reflected in one of the tracks, “Ole!” on my four-track EP that will be soon released digitally on iTunes.”
For solo gig: Guitar plug in, vocal monitor, mic + stand
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Archbishops' Council
National Institutions Measure 1998
Sermon on National Apostasy
Church Commissioners
Synodical Government
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'Archbishops' Council' can also refer to...
Archbishops’ Council
Letter from the Lords of the Council to Archbishop Parker, 9 July 1563
A body set up by the National Institutions Measure 1998 to focus the leadership and co-ordinate the central structures of the C of E. It brings together a number of functions previously performed by various committees of the Church Commissioners and the General Synod. It reports annually to the General Synod, and it may introduce legislation into the synodical process. Its membership comprises the Abps. of Canterbury and York; a number of elected officers and members of the General Synod representing each of its Houses, including the Proluctors of the Convocations; one Church Estates Commissioner; and up to six further members appointed by the Archbishops in consultation with the General Synod.
From: Archbishops' Council in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church »
Subjects: Christianity.
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Federal Judges
477 F. 3d 745 - Mount Royal Joint Venture v. Kempthorne
Federal Reporter, Third Series
477 F.3d
477 F3d 745 Mount Royal Joint Venture v. Kempthorne
477 F.3d 745
MOUNT ROYAL JOINT VENTURE et al., Appellants
Dirk KEMPTHORNE, Secretary of the Interior, et al., Appellees.
No. 05-5379.
United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued September 19, 2006.
Decided February 16, 2007.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 99cv02728).
Steven J. Lechner argued the cause for the appellants. William Perry Pendley was on brief.
John L. Smeltzer, Attorney, United States Department of Justice, argued the cause for the appellees. Matthew J. Sanders, Attorney, United States Department of Justice, was on brief.
Before: HENDERSON, ROGERS and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges.
Opinion filed for the court by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.
KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge.
The appellants, Mount Royal Joint Venture (Mount Royal) and Pete and Maxine Woods (Woods family), challenge a district court decision upholding certain actions taken by the Department of the Interior (DOI) in managing federal public lands in the Sweet Grass Hills of Montana (Hills) under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, as amended, 43 U.S.C. §§ 1701-82 (FLPMA). Specifically, the appellants challenge the Interior's Board of Land Appeals's (IBLA) affirmance of the Board of Land Management's (BLM) decision declaring void ab initio the appellants' mining claims located within 19,764.74 acres of land in the Hills segregated from mineral location and entry. They claim that DOI effected consecutive two-year segregations in violation of FLPMA. The appellants also challenge as arbitrary and capricious Public Land Order 7254 (PLO 7254) in which the DOI Secretary (Secretary) withdrew from mineral location and entry 19,685 acres of land in the Hills for 20 years. As detailed below, we hold that the IBLA's interpretation of FLPMA section 1714(b) to allow consecutive segregation periods with different purposes is reasonable, that the IBLA's conclusion that the two segregation periods were not identical was not arbitrary or capricious and that the Secretary's withdrawal was not arbitrary or capricious and does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
We first outline the statutory framework that governs the withdrawal of public lands. We then set forth the facts that led to this appeal.
A. Statutory Background
FLPMA provides that "it is the policy of the United States that ... the Congress exercise its constitutional authority to withdraw . . . Federal lands for specified purposes and that Congress delineate the extent to which the Executive may withdraw lands without legislative action." 43 U.S.C. § 1701(a)(4). A "withdrawal" means:
withholding [of] an area of Federal land from settlement, sale, location, or entry, under some or all of the general land laws, for the purpose of limiting activities under those laws in order to maintain other public values in the area or reserving the area for a particular public purpose or program.
Id. § 1702(j).
Section 1714 outlines the withdrawal authority of the Executive. Section 1714(a) authorizes the Secretary "to make, modify, extend, or revoke withdrawals but only in accordance with the provisions and limitations of this section." Id. § 1714(a). Subsection (b) of 1714 sets out the withdrawal process as follows:
Within thirty days of receipt of an application for withdrawal, and whenever he proposes a withdrawal on his own motion, the Secretary shall publish a notice in the Federal Register stating that the application has been submitted for filing or the proposal has been made and the extent to which the land is to be segregated while the application is being considered by the Secretary. Upon publication of such notice the land shall be segregated from the operation of the public land laws to the extent specified in the notice. The segregative effect of the application shall terminate upon (a) rejection of the application by the Secretary, (b) withdrawal of lands by the Secretary, or (c) the expiration of two years from the date of the notice.
Id. § 1714(b)(1).1 According to FLPMA's implementing regulations, a "segregation" is "the removal for a limited period, subject to valid existing rights, of a specified area of the public lands from the operation of the public land laws ... pursuant to the exercise by the Secretary of regulatory authority to allow for the orderly administration of the public lands." 43 C.F.R. § 2300.0-5(m).
Subsections (c) and (d) of section 1714 describe the procedures by which the Secretary implements a withdrawal. With respect to a land tract aggregating 5,000 acres or greater, section 1714(c) imposes a 20-year withdrawal maximum and requires the Secretary to "notify both Houses of Congress of such a withdrawal no later than its effective date." Section 1714(c) further states, "[T]he withdrawal shall terminate and become ineffective at the end of ninety days . . . beginning on the day notice of such withdrawal has been submitted to the Senate and the House of Representatives, if the Congress has adopted a concurrent resolution stating that such House does not approve the withdrawal." As we stated in New Mexico v. Watkins, 969 F.2d 1122, 1136 (D.C.Cir. 1992), "[t]he reporting requirement is not just a formality. It is instead a fundamental part of the scheme by which Congress has reserved the right to disapprove administrative withdrawals." With respect to a land tract aggregating fewer than 5,000 acres, subsection (d) authorizes the Secretary to approve a withdrawal without congressional notification or approval:
(1) for such period of time as he deems desirable for a resource use; or
(2) for a period of not more than twenty years for any other use . . .; or
(3) for a period of not more than five years to preserve such tract for a specific use then under consideration by the Congress.
43 U.S.C. § 1714(d). A "resource use" is "a land use having as its primary objective the preservation, conservation, enhancement or development of" any "natural resource . . . including, but not limited to, mineral, timber, forage, water, fish or wildlife resources" or "[a]ny resource value" in a particular land area "including, but not limited to, watershed, power, scenic, wilderness, clean air or recreational values." 43 C.F.R. § 2300.0-5(g).
B. Factual Background
The United States owns 7,731 surface acres and 19,765 subsurface acres in the Sweet Grass Hills, an area of plains and volcanic buttes located in Montana near the Canadian border. The Hills are within the West HiLine planning area, a land tract in north central Montana encompassing over 11 million acres. Most of the West HiLine planning area is privately owned, with BLM managing only 626,098 surface acres and 1,328,014 subsurface acres.
In 1988, BLM issued the "West HiLine Resource Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact Statement" (West HiLine Plan), a land use plan2 for all BLM-managed tracts in the West HiLine area. The West HiLine Plan designated 7,640 surface acres of the Hills as an area of critical environmental concern (ACEC) and in January 1992, BLM's Montana State Director (State Director) issued a Record of Decision (ROD) adopting the West HiLine Plan for the Hills. With the ACEC designation, BLM sought "to protect high value potential habitat for reintroduction of endangered peregrine falcons; protect areas of traditional religious importance to Native Americans; and protect seasonally important elk and deer habitat." Record of Decision for the Sweet Grass Hills and the Upper Missouri National Wild and Scenic River of the Final West HiLine Resource Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement 4 (Jan.1992) (hereinafter 1992 ROD), reprinted in Joint Appendix (JA) at 211. Nevertheless, "[t]o ensure the orderly development of locatable mineral resources while protecting the ACEC values," id., BLM kept the ACEC open to mineral location and entry.3
Pursuant to the ROD's requirements, Mount Royal and Manhattan Minerals (USA), Ltd. (Manhattan Minerals) filed a plan of operations in 1992 (Mount Royal/Manhattan Plan or Plan) to begin gold mining operations in the Hills. BLM withheld approval of the Mount Royal/Manhattan Plan until it completed a second environmental impact statement (EIS) specifically assessing the Plan's effect on non-mineral resources in the Hills. In January 1993, BLM released a draft EIS in which it analyzed, inter alia, the Hills's religious significance to various Native American tribes and whether its aquifers provided potable water to local residents. Based on its analysis, BLM proposed three alternatives for action, recommending as its preferred alternative the Mount Royal/Manhattan Plan. After receiving public comments of unequivocal opposition to the proposed mining activity, however, BLM decided to reevaluate the West HiLine Plan and, in particular, its recommendation to keep the Hills open to mineral location and entry.
To protect the Hills while it reassessed the West HiLine Plan, BLM filed with the DOI Assistant Secretary (Assistant Secretary) a petition/application to withdraw 19,684.74 acres of public mineral estate4 in the Hills from mineral location and entry for 20 years pursuant to section 1714(c). On July 28, 1993, the Assistant Secretary approved BLM's petition and six days later, BLM published notice of the withdrawal proposal in the Federal Register (First Proposal), declaring that the proposed withdrawal sought "to protect high value potential habitat for reintroduction of endangered peregrine falcons, areas of traditional religious importance to Native Americans, aquifers that currently provide the only potable water in the area, and seasonally important elk and deer habitat." 58 Fed.Reg. 41,289, 41,290 (Aug. 3, 1993). Publication of the First Proposal effected a two-year segregation period (First Segregation) during which mineral location and entry in the Hills was prohibited. Id.; see also 43 U.S.C. § 1714(b)(1). As a result, on August 9, 1993, BLM suspended action on the Mount Royal/Manhattan Plan to "reassess[] long-term management options for the Sweet Grass Hills through preparation of an amendment to the [West HiLine Plan]," Letter from David L. Mari to Andrew Carstensen, Manhattan Minerals (US) Ltd. & Ernest K. Lehmann (Aug. 9, 1993), reprinted in JA at 305, and five weeks later, Manhattan withdrew from the joint venture with Mount Royal.
On August 26, 1993, BLM published notice of its intent to issue an amended West HiLine Plan and EIS (Amendment/EIS) in order "to address the proposed withdrawal" which was "not in conformance with the [RODs] for the [West HiLine Plan]" because the RODs permitted mineral location and entry. 58 Fed.Reg. 45,117, 45,117 (Aug. 26, 1993).5 The amendment process proceeded slowly and, in 1994, BLM became concerned that it could not complete the Amendment/EIS before the First Segregation terminated on August 2, 1995. It therefore sought alternative means to protect the Hills while the Amendment/EIS was pending. Initially, BLM considered attempting to withdraw the Hills by, in effect, extending the First Segregation time limit but DOI's Assistant Solicitor, believing that such action would violate FLPMA, instead recommended that BLM consider petitioning for an emergency withdrawal6 or a withdrawal "in aid of legislation."7
On February 10, 1995, almost eighteen months after BLM decided to amend the West HiLine Plan, it released its draft Amendment/EIS to the public "address[ing] future management options for land tenure adjustment, off-road vehicle use, oil and gas leasing, and locatable mineral development for lands and minerals." 60 Fed.Reg. 8056, 8056 (Feb. 10, 1995). The Amendment/EIS proposed four alternatives for locatable mineral development in the Hills and recommended a 20-year withdrawal from mineral location and entry of 6,328 acres of public mineral estate located in the ACEC portion of the Hills. BLM scheduled public meetings and received written comments regarding the draft Amendment/EIS.
But BLM determined it would be unable to complete the Amendment/EIS before August 2, 1995; as a result, on February 17, 1995, it again published notice of its intent to amend the West HiLine Plan, this time proposing an amendment and environmental assessment (Amendment/EA) that addressed only mineral withdrawal. BLM planned to complete the Amendment/EA before the First Segregation expired on August 2, 1995, in order to stop mineral development and subsequently to complete the Amendment/EIS on all remaining issues. On May 11, 1995, it issued a draft Amendment/EA with two alternatives for mineral development, recommending a withdrawal of 19,685 acres of public mineral estate in the Hills (including the 6,328 acres in the ACEC) from mineral location and entry for 20 years. BLM informed the public that the draft Amendment/EA could be protested pursuant to 43 C.F.R. § 1610.5-28 and on June 14, 1995, Mount Royal did just that, delaying the Amendment/EA's implementation.
On June 29, 1995, BLM published a notice in the Federal Register that the First Segregation was due to expire on August 2nd. 60 Fed.Reg. 33,845, 33,845 (June 29, 1995). Realizing that it needed to take immediate action to protect the Hills, BLM began preparing an application for an emergency three-year withdrawal. In the meantime, the Congress became involved, when, on July 19, 1995, Congressman Pat Williams of Montana introduced legislation to permanently prohibit mineral location and entry "within the Bureau of Land Management's Sweetgrass Hills [ACEC] as identified in the West HiLine Resource Management Plan in the State of Montana." H.R.2074, 104th Cong. § 2 (1995), reprinted in JA at 401. The bill recited: "For the purpose of conserving, protecting, and enhancing the exceptional scenic, wildlife, water quality, and cultural characteristics of lands along the Sweetgrass Hills in north central Montana, there is hereby established the Sweetgrass Hills Natural Area."9 Id., JA at 400-01. In response to the proposed legislation, BLM scrapped the emergency withdrawal and instead petitioned for an application to withdraw 19,764.74 acres in the Hills for two years "in aid of legislation" pursuant to section 1714(c). BLM published notice of the Secretary's approval of the petition in the Federal Register on July 28, 1995 (Second Proposal), declaring that the withdrawal proposal's "purpose" was to "preserve the status quo" and that its "specific objective" was:
to protect high value potential habitat for reintroduction of endangered peregrine falcons, areas of traditional religious importance to Native Americans, aquifers that currently provide the only potable water in the area, and seasonally important elk and deer habitat, pending consideration of proposed withdrawal legislation introduced into the 104th Congress, 1st Session.
60 Fed.Reg. 38,852, 38,853 (July 28, 1995). The publication of the Second Proposal effected a second two-year segregation from mineral location and entry in the specified acreage of the Hills (Second Segregation). On August 2, 1995, BLM withdrew the Amendment/EA, stating that it did "not consider all relevant alternatives." Memorandum from Tom Walker, Acting Assistant Director, Resource Assessment & Planning, to State Director, Montana (Aug. 2, 1995), reprinted in Supplemental Joint Appendix (Supp.JA) at 3.
Also in early August 1995, Mount Royal located six mining claims within the segregated area, and by September 15, 1995, the Woods family also located one mining claim within the segregated area. Both parties recorded the claims and paid the necessary fees but BLM declared all seven claims null and void ab initio because they had been located on land included in the Second Segregation. See IBLA 96-77; IBLA 96-112. In a consolidated appeal, IBLA affirmed BLM's declarations. See Mount Royal Joint Venture, 144 IBLA 277 (June 11, 1998).
In May 1996, BLM issued its final Amendment/EIS to the West HiLine Plan. BLM considered four alternatives, recommending that the Secretary withdraw from mineral location and entry 19,765 acres of public mineral estate in the Hills for 20 years. On January 30, 1997, BLM issued a ROD that approved withdrawal of 19,685 acres consistent with the First Proposal, stating, "A petition/application for withdrawal of the other 80 acres of public minerals will be submitted when necessary." Record of Decision and Resource Management Plan Summary for the approval of the Sweet Grass Hills Resource Management Plan Amendment and Environmental Impact Statement 1 (Jan.1997), reprinted in JA at 633. Two months later, the Secretary issued PLO 7254, which withdrew from mineral entry and location 19,685 acres in the Hills for 20 years.
On October 15, 1999, Mount Royal and the Woods family filed suit in the district court challenging the Second Segregation and PLO 7254. The appellants and DOI both filed motions for summary judgment. The district court granted DOI's motion, Mount Royal Joint Venture v. Babbitt, No. 1:99cv02728 (D.D.C. filed Aug. 26, 2005), and this appeal followed.
In reviewing de novo the district court's grant of summary judgment on DOI's administrative decisions, we directly review those decisions. Castlewood Prods., LLC v. Norton, 365 F.3d 1076, 1082 (D.C.Cir.2004). Under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. §§ 701-06, we must affirm an agency's action unless it is "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law." Id. § 706(2)(A). "The scope of review under the `arbitrary and capricious' standard is narrow and a court is not to substitute its judgment for that of the agency." Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass'n v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43, 103 S.Ct. 2856, 77 L.Ed.2d 443 (1983). Rather, we will reverse an agency decision only if "the agency has relied on factors which Congress has not intended it to consider, entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem, offered an explanation for its decision that runs counter to the evidence before the agency, or is so implausible that it could not be ascribed to a difference in view or the product of agency expertise." Id.
A. The Second Segregation
Following the Secretary's approval of its July 15, 1993 withdrawal petition, BLM, on August 3, 1993, published notice in the Federal Register of its proposal to withdraw 19,684.74 acres of public mineral estate located in the Hills for 20 years "to protect high value potential habitat for reintroduction of endangered peregrine falcons, areas of traditional religious importance to Native Americans, aquifers that currently provide the only potable water in the area, and seasonally important elk and deer habitat," 58 Fed.Reg. at 41,290, thus commencing the First Segregation. On July 28, 1995, after the Secretary approved its July 24th withdrawal petition and before the expiration of the First Segregation (on August 2, 1995), BLM published notice in the Federal Register of its proposal to withdraw 19,764.74 acres of public mineral estate located in the Hills for two years to "preserve the status quo" and to protect the same resource uses and values "pending consideration of proposed withdrawal legislation introduced into the 104th Congress, 1st Session," 60 Fed.Reg. at 33,853, thus commencing the Second Segregation. In upholding the Secretary's approval of two consecutive withdrawal petitions which triggered two consecutive segregation periods, the IBLA interpreted FLPMA as permitting (1) consecutive segregations initiated by withdrawal proposals with different stated purposes and (2) withdrawal of a land tract aggregating 5,000 acres or more for the purpose of aiding legislation. Mount Royal Joint Venture, 144 IBLA at 281. The IBLA also upheld the Second Segregation because the Second Proposal—which resulted in the Second Segregation—"was not identical" to the First Proposal in that the First Proposal sought "to protect the unique resources within the Sweet Grass Hills ACEC" with a 20-year withdrawal and the Second Proposal "was in aid of recently introduced Congressional legislation designed to protect the same resources" by means of a two-year withdrawal only. Id.
The appellants assert that approval of consecutive withdrawal petitions (i.e. consecutive proposals)—whether with identical or with ostensibly different purposes—contravenes FLPMA's purpose to limit a segregation to two years, Appellants' Br. at 17 (citing Public Land Law Review Commission, One Third of the Nation's Land 56 (1970));10 21. Alternatively, they contend that even if the statute permits consecutive proposals with genuinely different purposes, the First and Second Proposals are "identical" in that the Second Proposal seeks "to preserve the status quo," Appellants' Br. at 20-21, and, under section 1714(c) and (d), the Secretary may not withdraw a land tract aggregating more than 5,000 acres "in aid of legislation." Id. at 23-24. Finally, the appellants argue that even if FLPMA permits a second segregation "in aid of legislation," the IBLA's decision upholding the Second Segregation was arbitrary and capricious because Congressman Williams's proposed legislation "was introduced simply to provide the BLM with an excuse to unlawfully extend the two-year segregation period." Id. at 27.
In reviewing an agency's interpretation of the laws it administers, we apply the principles of Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). First, we analyze the statute applying customary rules of statutory interpretation. Id. at 843, 104 S.Ct. 2778. "If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress." Id. at 842-43. If we conclude that "the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue," id. at 843, however, we must next determine the deference, if any, we owe the agency's interpretation of the statute, United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U.S. 218, 121 S.Ct. 2164, 150 L.Ed.2d 292 (2001). If the agency enunciates its interpretation through notice-and-comment rule-making or formal adjudication, we give the agency's interpretation Chevron deference. Id. at 230-31, 121 S.Ct. 2164. That is, we determine whether its interpretation is "permissible" or "reasonable," Chevron, 467 U.S. at 843, 844, 104 S.Ct. 2778, giving "controlling weight" to the agency's interpretation unless it is "arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute," id. at 844, 104 S.Ct. 2778. On the other hand, if the agency enunciates its interpretation through informal action that lacks the force of law, we accept the agency's interpretation only if it is persuasive. Mead, 533 U.S. at 235, 121 S.Ct. 2164 (citing Christensen v. Harris County, 529 U.S. 576, 587, 120 S.Ct. 1655, 146 L.Ed.2d 621 (2000); Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134, 140, 65 S.Ct. 161, 89 L.Ed. 124 (1944)).
Section 1714(b) is silent regarding consecutive segregations and, because the IBLA hearing constitutes a formal agency adjudication, we give its interpretation of section 1714(b) Chevron II deference.11 See, e.g., INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U.S. 415, 424-25, 119 S.Ct. 1439, 143 L.Ed.2d 590 (1999). Reviewing under Chevron II the IBLA's interpretation of section 1714(b) as authorizing the Secretary to approve consecutive withdrawal petitions with different stated purposes thereby triggering consecutive two-year segregation periods, we believe its interpretation is both "reasonable" and "permissible." Section 1714(b) does not prohibit consecutive withdrawal proposals with different stated purposes. Moreover, contrary to the appellants' argument, permitting such proposals does not undermine FLPMA's two-year cap on segregations. A consecutive withdrawal proposal with a different stated purpose neither renews a pending proposal nor extends a segregation period beyond two years. Rather, it responds to new developments, e.g., the introduction of legislation regarding the tract or the discovery of additional resource uses or values, and, correspondingly, the resulting segregation period gives the Secretary time to evaluate whether the withdrawal should be modified. See H.R.Rep. No. 94-1163, at 10 (1976) ("[FLPMA] specifically grants the Secretary the authority, by regulation, to provide procedures (segregation of the lands) for protection of values in lands from nonconforming uses and for other purposes while he is considering their possible withdrawal.").
Next, the appellants argue that because section 1714(d) expressly permits a withdrawal aggregating fewer than 5,000 acres "to preserve [a land] tract for a specific use then under consideration by the Congress" and section 1714(c) does not expressly permit a withdrawal aggregating more than 5,000 acres for that purpose, a section 1714(c) withdrawal in aid of legislation is unauthorized pursuant to the rule of statutory construction that expressio unius est exclusio alterius (the "mention of one thing implies the exclusion of another thing"). Halverson v. Slater, 206 F.3d 1205, 1207 (D.C.Cir.2000) (internal quotations omitted). Unlike subsection (d), however, subsection (c) permits the Congress to veto the Secretary's withdrawal decision with respect to a land tract aggregating 5,000 acres or more irrespective of purpose. Specifically, the Secretary must notify the Congress of the withdrawal and "submit a report addressing the twelve issues set forth in subsection (c)(2)," New Mexico, 969 F.2d at 1136 (citing 43 U.S.C. § 1714(c)), including "an analysis of the manner in which existing and potential resource uses are incompatible with or in conflict with the proposed use," 43 U.S.C. § 1714(c)(2)(4). The Congress may then nullify the withdrawal by adopting a concurrent resolution disapproving the Secretary's decision. Id. § 1714(c). Because a withdrawal aggregating 5,000 acres or more is subject to congressional oversight, FLPMA permits the Secretary to withdraw such a land tract for any purpose so long as the Congress does not disapprove. See Indep. Ins. Agents of Am., Inc. v. Hawke, 211 F.3d 638, 644 (D.C.Cir.2000) ("[I]f there are other reasonable explanations for an omission in a statute, expressio unius may not be a useful tool.").
Finally, the IBLA's conclusion that the Second Proposal "was not identical to," Mount Royal Joint Venture, 144 IBLA at 281, the First Proposal because the Second Proposal was in fact "in aid of legislation" pursuant to section 1714(c) was neither arbitrary nor capricious. BLM first petitioned to withdraw 19,684.74 acres of public mineral estate for the statutory 20-year maximum to protect the Hills's non-mineral resource uses and values. The Secretary's approval of BLM's withdrawal petition began a two-year segregation period during which DOI was to take the necessary administrative steps to permit the Secretary to withdraw the tract. As the two-year period was nearing expiration, however, it became apparent the Secretary could not withdraw the land by that date. Congressman Williams, who had been lobbying to protect the Hills's non-mineral resources for at least two years, Letter from Pat Williams to Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior (June 1, 1993), reprinted in JA at 267-68, introduced legislation to permanently prohibit mineral location and entry within the ACEC portion of the Hills. At that point, BLM petitioned for a shorter, two-year withdrawal to maintain "the status quo" in the Hills "pending" the Congress's consideration of a permanent prohibition on mining. 60 Fed.Reg. at 38,853. That is, BLM's Second Proposal differed from its First Proposal—the Second sought to assist the legislative attempt to prohibit mineral location and entry in the Hills permanently rather than to withdraw the Hills for only 20 years. Congressman Williams's introduction of withdrawal legislation promoted FLPMA's purpose by asserting the Congress's power to manage federal lands. In enacting FLPMA, the Congress delegated to the Secretary considerable withdrawal authority, see 43 U.S.C. § 1714, but it also reaffirmed its own final authority over the withdrawal of public lands, see id. § 1701(a)(4). In the absence of a constitutional challenge, we will not interfere with congressional actions expressly authorized by statute.
Because we affirm the IBLA's decision upholding the Second Segregation, we also affirm its decision declaring the appellants' mining claims null and void ab initio. See Dean Staton, 136 IBLA 161, 164 (July 25, 1996) ("[M]ining claims located on lands not open to appropriation are null and void ab initio.") (citing Shiny Rock Mining Corp. v. United States, 825 F.2d 216, 219 (9th Cir.1987) ("[A] mining claim is void ab initio when it is located on land which at the date of location was included in an application for withdrawal which has been noted on the land records.")). Accordingly, we affirm the grant of summary judgment to DOI on this claim.
B. PLO 7254
The Secretary must manage the public lands under "principles of multiple use and sustained yield." 43 U.S.C. § 1732(a). "`Multiple use management' is a deceptively simple term that describes the enormously complicated task of striking a balance among the many competing uses to which land can be put, `including, but not limited to, recreation, range, timber, minerals, watershed, wildlife and fish, and [uses serving] natural scenic, scientific and historical values.'" Norton v. S. Utah Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. 55, 58, 124 S.Ct. 2373, 159 L.Ed.2d 137 (2004) (quoting 43 U.S.C. § 1702(c)) (alteration in original). "Sustained yield" requires the Secretary "to control depleting uses over time, so as to ensure a high level of valuable uses in the future." Id. (citing 43 U.S.C. § 1702(h)).
Mount Royal and the Woods family argue that the Secretary did not utilize "multiple use" management principles in issuing PLO 7254 and thus his decision was arbitrary and capricious. They contend that DOI had developed an "anti-mining agenda," Appellants' Br. at 41, as early as 1993 and that the decision to issue PLO 7254 was "predetermined," id. at 30-34. In support of their argument, the appellants suggest that the First Proposal represented a "complete `about face,'" id. at 31, from previous BLM policy regarding the Hills and that, by proposing a withdrawal that did not conform to the West HiLine Plan,12 BLM "`put the cart before the horse,'" id. at 32, in violation of FLPMA and implementing regulations. Mount Royal and the Woods family also contend that the withdrawal violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution by seeking to protect an area of religious significance to Native Americans at the expense of mineral development.
In attempting to make the First Proposal conform to the West HiLine Plan, BLM drafted the Amendment/EIS utilizing principles of "multiple use management." BLM considered four alternatives for managing the Hills. After analyzing the "pertinent natural resources and economic and social conditions found in the study area," Final Sweet Grass Hills Resource Management Plan Amendment and Environmental Impact Statement 13, reprinted in JA at 485, the "environmental, social, and economic consequences of implementing the [four] alternatives," id. at 31, JA at 502, and feedback from "interest groups and individuals[,] ... Federal, state, local agencies and Native American tribes," id. at 56, JA at 527, it recommended withdrawing the entire public mineral estate. Subsequently, in its 1997 ROD, BLM approved the "preferred alternative" contained in the Amendment/EIS. JA at 631.
Consistent with BLM's recommendations, the Secretary issued PLO 7254 "to protect unique resources within the Sweet Grass Hills [ACEC] and surrounding areas," including "areas of traditional spiritual importance to Native Americans, habitat which has high potential for reintroduction of the endangered peregrine falcon, seasonally important elk and deer habitat, and aquifers that provide potable water to local residents." Notification to Congress as Required by FLPMA 204(c)(2), Sweet Grass Hills 20-Year Withdrawal 1, reprinted in JA at 654. In the statutorily-required "Notification to Congress," the Secretary addressed all twelve factors listed in 43 U.S.C. § 1714(c)(2), explaining in detail the proposed withdrawal's effects on current natural resource uses in the Hills, see id. § 1714(c)(2)(2), its effects on current land users, see id. § 1714(c)(2)(3), its "incompatib[ility]" with current land uses, see id. § 1714(c)(2)(4), and its effect on state and local government interests and the regional economy, see id. § 1714(c)(2)(8). Most important, after receiving the Secretary's notification, the Congress chose not to exercise its reserved power under FLPMA to veto the withdrawal. That is, the Congress did not adopt a concurrent resolution disapproving the withdrawal, id. § 1714(c), but instead let it stand.
With respect to the appellants' argument that the decision in PLO 7254 was "predetermined," the record demonstrates that, while the 1988 West HiLine Plan and subsequent draft EIS regarding the Mount Royal/Manhattan Plan recommended allowing mineral location and entry in the Hills, strong public opposition to mining in the wake of the draft EIS's release rather than any BLM "anti-mining agenda" influenced its decision to consider a withdrawal. BLM's 1993 Application for Withdrawal concludes:
[T]he public was not as cognizant of the significance of the conflict between hardrock mining and the ACEC designation until recently when exploration and possible mining was presented as a reality. Similar activity in other areas of Montana contributed to this public awareness. As a result of these most recent public inputs, local residents, as well as Native Americans, have provided new information concerning the importance of the resource values, particularly cultural and hydrologic.
Petition/Application for Withdrawal of Sweet Grass Hills 12 (July 15, 1993), reprinted in JA at 298. Furthermore, the appellants ignore FLPMA's implementing regulations which expressly allow for the simultaneous issuance of a withdrawal proposal and preparation of a West HiLine Plan amendment to conform to the proposal. See 43 C.F.R. § 1610.5-5 ("If the amendment is being considered in response to a specific proposal, the analysis required for the proposal and for the amendment may occur simultaneously.").
Finally, PLO 7254 does not violate the Establishment Clause. Supreme Court precedent makes clear that government action conforms to the Establishment Clause if: (1) the action has a "secular ... purpose," (2) the "primary effect" of the action "neither advances nor inhibits religion" and (3) the action does "not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion." Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612-13, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971) (internal citation and quotation omitted). The Secretary enunciated several secular purposes for withdrawing the Hills, including protection of aquifers and the environment. Furthermore, PLO 7254 does not primarily affect religious interests; on the contrary, it protects all non-mineral resources in the Hills. Id. Finally, the land order does not foster excessive government entanglement with religion because it neither regulates religious practices nor increases Native American influence over management of the Hills. See Appellee's Br. at 46.
In sum, DOI followed FLPMA's land management guidelines in withdrawing 19,685 acres of public mineral estate located in the Hills from mineral location and entry for 20 years and, accordingly, its withdrawal decision contained in PLO 7254 is neither arbitrary nor capricious.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment to the Department of the Interior.
Although the "application for withdrawal" mentioned in subsection (b)(1) is not otherwise described, the regulations define a "withdrawal proposal" as a "withdrawal petition approved by the Secretary," 43 C.F.R. § 2300.0-5(q), and a "withdrawal petition" as "a request, originated within the [DOI] and submitted to the Secretary, to file anapplication for withdrawal," id. § 2300.0-5(p) (emphasis added). Consequently, a "withdrawal petition" approved by the Secretary becomes a "withdrawal proposal" that results in a "withdrawal application." Publication of a "withdrawal proposal" in the Federal Register initiates a segregation period lasting up to two years during which period the activities specified in the notice are restricted. Id. § 2310.2(a). "Before [an] authorized officer can take action on a withdrawal proposal, a withdrawal application in support thereof shall be submitted." Id. § 2310.1-2(b). An application for withdrawal may be submitted simultaneously with "the making of a withdrawal proposal," id., or with a "withdrawal petition," id. § 2310.1-3(c).
Under FLPMA, the Secretary must "develop, maintain, and, when appropriate, revise land use plans which provide by tracts or areas for the use of the public lands." 43 U.S.C. § 1712(a). A "resource management plan" is "a land use plan as described by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act." 43 C.F.R. § 1601.0-5(n)
Mineral "location" is "the act or series of acts whereby the boundaries of [a] claim are marked."Cole v. Ralph, 252 U.S. 286, 296, 40 S.Ct. 321, 64 L.Ed. 567 (1920). "Mineral entry" refers to "[t]he right of entry on public land to mine valuable mineral deposits." Black's Law Dictionary (8th ed.2004).
Section 1719 indicates that a "mineral estate" is a property interest insubsurface mineral deposits. See 43 U.S.C. § 1719(a) ("All conveyances of title issued by the Secretary ... shall reserve to the United States all minerals in the lands ... except that if the Secretary makes the findings specified in subsection (b) of this section, the minerals may then be conveyed together with the surface to the prospective surface owner ....") (emphasis added).
Pursuant to FLPMA's implementing regulations, "All ... resource management authorizations and actions ... shall conform to [an] approved plan." 43 C.F.R. § 1610.5-3(a). "If a proposed action is not in conformance [with an approved plan], and warrants further consideration before a plan revision is scheduled, such consideration shall be through a plan amendment in accordance with the provisions of § 1610.5-5 of this title."Id. § 1610.5-3(c). Section 1610.5-5 provides: "An amendment shall be initiated by ... new or revised policy, a change in circumstances or a proposed action that may result in a change in the scope of resource uses or a change in the terms, conditions and decisions of the approved plan." Id. § 1610.5-5.
Section 1714(e) permits "emergency withdrawals" if "an emergency situation exists and ... extraordinary measures must be taken to preserve values that would otherwise be lost." 43 U.S.C. § 1714(e)
A withdrawal "in aid of legislation" is one "for a specific use then under consideration by the Congress." 43 U.S.C. § 1714(d)(3)
Section 1610.5-2(a) provides: "Any person who participated in the planning process and has an interest which is or may be adversely affected by the approval or amendment of a resource management plan may protest such approval or amendment." 43 C.F.R. § 1610.5-2(a). The section also sets out the procedure for filing a protest
Apparently, the Congress took no further action on the billSee Thomas (The Library of Congress), http://thomas.loc.gov/ (last visited Nov. 28, 2006) (stating "Last Major Action" taken on bill was DOI request for comment on July 25, 1995).
In 1964, the Congress created the Public Land Law Review Commission (PLLRC) "to study existing laws and procedures relating to the administration of the public lands of the United States." Pub.L. No. 88-606, § 2, 78 Stat. 982 (1964). In 1970, the PLLRC submitted its findings to the Congress in a report entitled, "One Third of the Nation's Land." PLLRC,One Third of the Nation's Land, iii (1970). The Congress enacted FLPMA six years later. See Lujan v. Nat'l Wildlife Fed'n, 497 U.S. 871, 876-77, 110 S.Ct. 3177, 111 L.Ed.2d 695 (1990) (outlining history of public land management and describing PLLRC and subsequent enactment of FLPMA).
Because Mount Royal and the Woods family challenge the IBLA's voiding of their mining claims rather than the Secretary's approval of the second withdrawal petition, we analyze the IBLA's decision in order to discern DOI's interpretation of FLPMA. If instead we analyzed the Secretary's decision to approve the second withdrawal petition and thereby initiate the Second Segregation, however, it would not affect ourChevron analysis. While the Secretary's approval does not constitute formal adjudication or notice-and-comment rule-making, it merits Chevron deference because the Secretary acted with the force of law. See Pharm. Research & Mfrs. of Am. v. Thompson, 362 F.3d 817, 821-22 (D.C.Cir.2004). "[T]he Congress expressly conferred on the Secretary authority" to approve a withdrawal petition and thereby initiate a segregation period under section 1714(b) and "[t]hrough this express delegation of specific interpretive authority, the Congress manifested its intent that the Secretary's determinations ... should have the force of law." Id. at 822 (internal quotation omitted).
As noted earlier, under the original West HiLine Plan and the accompanying ROD, mineral location and entry were permitted in the HillsSee supra p. 749.
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Terrorists: Is UK Government Apathetic or Incompetent or …?
Posted on March 17, 2015 March 17, 2015 by Mark Horne
“Jihadi John” still has access to his bank account; the UK Government has done nothing about it.
Does the UK government really care about terrorism? You would think that it is self-evident that people in the UK government have self-interested reasons to care deeply about it since they don’t want to be killed by terrorists.
Nevertheless, this motive has not been sufficient to get people within the UK government to take basic actions against terrorists. According to the Washington Times,
“Jihadi John,” the Islamic State group terrorist involved in the execution of multiple Western prisoners, still has access to his British bank account.
The U.K. government’s independent investigator found that only six British jihadists have had their bank accounts frozen out of an estimated 600 fighting with the Islamic State group, The Telegraph reported Saturday.
“The figures for assets frozen are remarkably low,” said David Anderson, a high ranking Queen’s Counsel official and the U.K. government’s independent investigator for terrorism legislation.
In fact, the total amount of frozen assets comes to about $74,000. The rest is still available and still being used by the murderers and their groupies in Iraq and Syria.
[See also, “The U.S. Is Arming Islamic Terrorists Again.”]
What is even more bizarre: about three hundred people who went to fight with and for the Islamic state have returned to England. Their accounts also were never frozen.
“This is just another example of the Government failing to deliver on a promise it has made about protecting national security,” Professor Anthony Glees, director of the University of Buckingham’s Center for Security and Intelligence Studies, told the newspaper.
What do we make of this? Somehow, hampering and harassing terrorists and killers was not a priority to the UK government. Either they are incapable of taking basic actions or else they simply didn’t care enough to do so.
So what is the deal? Do they not care if terrorists attack? Do they not care about how British citizens are supporting the Islamic State?
But I do know for certain that, if or when a terrorist attack occurs, the UK government will use the opportunity to expand its powers and curtail the rights of all citizens.
That’s what governments do. They are incredibly incompetent or apathetic until an emergency comes along that they know they must never let go to waste.
Remember, this is the same country where authorities allowed pimping and sexual abuse of young girls because they did not want to be perceived as targeting Muslims. I assume that a desire to be politically correct is not preventing the UK government from freezing bank accounts, but it does show us that the government is failing in its most basic duty–to protect people from violence and crime.
Posted in Email Featured, Islam, National Security, TerrorismTagged ISIL, ISIS, the Islamic state, UK, UK government, united kingdom
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Annie Coffey
Known for The Cellar Door (2007), Clerks of Darkness (1999)
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"Oman" is a descriptor in the National Library of Medicine's controlled vocabulary thesaurus, MeSH (Medical Subject Headings). Descriptors are arranged in a hierarchical structure, which enables searching at various levels of specificity.
A sultanate on the southeast coast of the Arabian peninsula. Its capital is Masqat. Before the 16th century it was ruled by independent emirs but was captured and controlled by the Portuguese 1508-1648. In 1741 it was recovered by a descendent of Yemen's imam. After its decline in the 19th century, it became virtually a political and economic dependency within the British Government of India, retaining close ties with Great Britain by treaty from 1939 to 1970 when it achieved autonomy. The name was recorded by Pliny in the 1st century A.D. as Omana, said to be derived from the founder of the state, Oman ben Ibrahim al-Khalil. (From Webster's New Geographical Dictionary, 1988, p890; Oman Embassy, Washington; Room, Brewer's Dictionary of Names, 1992, p391)
Z01.252.245.500.600
Muscat and Oman
Below are MeSH descriptors whose meaning is more general than "Oman".
Geographicals [Z]
Geographic Locations [Z01]
Asia [Z01.252]
Asia, Western [Z01.252.245]
Middle East [Z01.252.245.500]
Oman [Z01.252.245.500.600]
Below are MeSH descriptors whose meaning is related to "Oman".
Below are MeSH descriptors whose meaning is more specific than "Oman".
This graph shows the total number of publications written about "Oman" by people in this website by year, and whether "Oman" was a major or minor topic of these publications.
Below are the most recent publications written about "Oman" by people in Profiles.
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Pharma has potential to surpass textile industry in Pakistan: Chairman AGP
Prices should be deregulated to enhance competition and decrease prices of medicine
KARACHI: The pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan has the potential to increase its exports to such an extent that it can become the biggest exporting industry in the country, potentially even surpassing the textile industry, says AGP Chairman Tariq Moinuddin Khan.
“The pharmaceutical industry has the potential to leave behind textile. The government should understand that there’s not only one industry but several others,” Tariq said while talking to reporters here at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Monday.
AGP has become the first local pharmaceutical company to be incorporated at the PSX in 23 years. Tariq said that the business model of AGP was acquisition and mergers, and the company has done five acquisitions of multinational companies in the last ten years.
“We export only about $150 million medicines while our neighbors India export around $20 to 30 billion of exports. We also have the potential to increase our exports considerably if there’s a proper policy,” he said.
He criticized decision makers in the government and accused them of only being concerned with the pricing of drugs rather than looking at the bigger picture.
“The government only focuses on pricing while dealing with pharma industry. Leave the price deregulated and I guarantee you that prices will come down as companies will start competing. Everyone will tell you the same thing in the industry,” Tariq said.
He added that the government should only dictate prices for life saving drugs. He further said that the difference between low prices of medicines in India and its higher priced equivalents in Pakistan was because of the same fact that India has left the pricing of medicines on the economics of market forces.
However, he added that according to a study, the prices of drugs were low in Pakistan as compared to other countries. “The government (excessively) taxes the pharmaceutical industry when they import raw material and other packaging material for medicines. It is difficult to compete in the international arena,” he said.
He added that there was no FDA regulated production facility in Pakistan since there is no incentive for taking the initiative, which would cost producers around $35 to 40 million.
Meanwhile, he said that AGP would be launching its breast cancer drugs – Hetraz, which will be sold at half of the price of its currently available substitute. AGP specializes in women’s health, paeds and oncology drugs etc. It will also be introducing AIDS medicines and also produce vaccinations which are imported in Pakistan and not currently produced by any other company.
Tariq added that AGP also plans to enter healthcare by establishing clinics, hospitals, and later educational institutions to teach medicine.
FDA approved plants
Pharmaceutical exports
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Bilal Hussain is a ex-staff member
President orders audit of AGP
Pharma industry decides to slash prices of 395 essential drugs
AGP recommends special audit of PIA’s offshore subsidiaries
Ahsan khan May 30, 2018 at 11:32 pm
Opening of fibers, removal of dust, trash and impurities and blending of material are the basic objectives to be achieved in blow-room department. for more details u can visit our website https://wordpress.com/view/innotex638231539.wordpress.com
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Day & Night – The Pixar Short Of The Week
Day & Night, Pixar Short of the Week, Short Film, Shorts, Teddy Newton
Posted by Joanna • December 7, 2018
“Day & Night” is the much-loved Pixar short that played before Toy Story 3 in 2010, and it still stands as one of the most unique shorts in the studio’s history.
It explores the inspired 2D-3D world of Day and Night – two polar opposite characters with, to begin with, a total lack of empathy for each other. The short opens with a fully 3D animated scene, and the audience is lulled into a false sense of familiarity: Pixar does 3D animation! This is what we’ve all come to expect (the genius Ratatouille short “Your Friend the Rat” is a clear exception here, along with lots of creative credits scenes). This is where “Day & Night” hits us with the first of many clever surprises – this 3D world we’ve been looking at is all inside not one, but two 2D animated characters. Inside Day are sunny fields, bright mornings and singing birds, while inside Night are moonlit meadows, glinting stars and chirping crickets.
These two characters live in the same world – in fact, the entire short only uses a single camera – but the “Day & Night” crew managed to pull off this seamless day-night contrast between scenes inside each of the characters. They live in the same world, but they see it so differently. It’s only as they discover more about each other that they begin to see the beauty in their opposite’s perspective. This is such an important message – one that can apply to absolutely everyone who’s had the joy of watching the short.
There are so many things to appreciate about “Day & Night”: the particularly relevant message, the knitting together of wildly different animation techniques, the use of sound… Initially, director Teddy Newton wanted to use only natural sounds to create the soundtrack of the film, but eventually Michael Giacchino was enlisted to compose music for it too. The music was only used where music would naturally be – playing on a radio on the beach, or blasting out of Las Vegas casinos.
There are so many smart visual and audio gags in “Day and Night” – ducks quacking to mimic laughter, squeaky bicycle wheels to imitate Day rubbing his eyes. Here, Night is hanging off a cliff edge.
The finale to “Day & Night” is perhaps what sticks with people the most – Day and Night are distracted by a radio broadcast, which is a snippet from a Dr Wayne Dyer (author and motivational speaker) lecture.
“Fear of the unknown. They are afraid of new ideas. They are loaded with prejudices, not based upon anything in reality, but based on … if something is new, I reject it immediately because it’s frightening to me. What they do instead is just stay with the familiar. You know, to me, the most beautiful things in all the universe are the most mysterious.”
It’s after hearing this recording that Day and Night finally understand the beauty in one another’s world views – it’s people’s differences that make our world so full of wonder. A synchronised sunrise and sunset show that Day and Night may be very different, but it’s still possible to connect with one another.
In the commentary for “Day & Night” from director Teddy Newton and Camera Polisher and Stereographer Sandra Karpman, Newton comments on the fact that many viewers’ favourite part is when Day and Night almost seem to become each other and switch places. He explains that they don’t turn into each other. “They’re still who they are. They’re still the same person. It’s just that the thing inside them has changed. They come out of the experience seeing the world in a new way, empathising with the other’s world view.”
That’s a pretty brilliant message to be putting out there.
Some fun facts:
Director Teddy Newton would hear this recording of Dr Wayne Dyer while he was growing up because his mother owned an audio recording of one of his lectures. He felt the quote so perfectly fit the theme of “Day & Night” and it couldn’t not be included.
Pixar treated Dr Wayne Dyer to a screening of “Day & Night” as a way of saying thank you.
Initially, Newton came up with the idea of a keyhole character with the 3D world inside it. In the end, he decided the characters needed to be more mobile to be able to tell a story, so the keyhole concept gradually evolved into the walking and (kind of) talking Day and Night characters that we see now.
Newton lent his voice to Chatter Telephone in Toy Story 3 and Mini Buzz in the Toy Story Toon “Small Fry”.
Woody’s Round Up 12/7/18
Disney Parks, Inside Out, Luxo, Jr., Round-Ups, Teddy Newton, Toy Story 4, Toy Story Land
Posted by Simoa • December 7, 2018
Welcome back to Woody’s Round Up! With all the speculation about Toy Story 4 and the excitement over the Annie and Golden Globe nominations for Incredibles 2, some other noteworthy happenings may have slipped your radar. But no worries, we’ve compiled a list here.
Jolly Holiday at Toy Story Land
Toy Story Land has been decorated just in time for Christmas and the holidays! I’m especially fond of this giant Hamm sugar cookie complete with Santa Hat:
Hope they’ll be selling edible versions in the park…
And check out these ornaments I definitely want on my tree at home!
You can see more of the decorations on the Disney Parks blog. Here’s a video of the decorations going up:
Light it Up Luxo
Pixar Pier at Disneyland also got a lovely addition in the form of animatronic Luxo Jr. atop the marquee. While the technology has not yet evolved for Luxo to bound off its perch and stomp anywhere (or on anything), it would be quite a treat to be welcomed by the energetic lamp to California Adventure. Watch Luxo in action below:
More photos at Laughing Place.
Tears of Candy Galore
Bing Bong’s Sweet Shop opened at Pixar Pier over the summer, and a new statue has been installed inside.
Bing Bong isn’t animatronic, but he does play audio from Inside Out, as reported by WDW News Today. I’m sure everyone who visits will be crying happy tears too! They just won’t taste as sweet.
Teddy Newton’s Sneaks
Teddy Newton, mastermind behind some of Pixar’s most brilliant story ideas and indelible artwork, as well as the director of ‘Day & Night’ will be directing his first feature length film! Although not a Pixar production, Sneaks is worth supporting. The official synopsis describes it as follows:
Sneaks centers on a group of misplaced sneakers that end up lost in New York City and must find a way to work together in order to get back to their “sole mates.”
The film will also be Ohio’s first animated feature, and Pixar production designer Ricky Nierva will also be part of the crew. It’s always wonderful to see Pixarians branching out, and we wish them both great success. Read more about Sneaks at THR.
Expanding Toy Story
A Toy Story 4 graphic novel anthology will be hitting shelves ahead of the film’s release next June. Released by Dark Horse comics in collaboration with Pixar, the anthology is available for preorder on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and comic book stores. More details and art will surface before the May 7th release date, so stay tuned for more!
Teddy Newton and Derek Connolly Developing New Pixar Feature!
Day & Night, Derek Connolly, Teddy Newton
Posted by Brkyo614 • November 29, 2012
Variety broke some big news about Pixar’s future lineup earlier today: Derek Connolly, an up-and-coming screenwriter who made a splash earlier this year with the acclaimed Safety Not Guaranteed, is working with Pixar veteran Teddy Newton on a new feature film!
Connolly’s limited, but strong writing background resembles that of Toy Story 3‘s Michael Arndt, who was hired at the studio after a single writing credit (Little Miss Sunshine). Speaking with Variety, Connolly described his experience at Pixar to date:
"It’s totally different, the way they do things up here. You’re here everyday. You don’t go away for three months and come up with a script. You’re involved with a director and it’s very collaborative."
That director is Teddy Newton, a name which should be familiar to many Pixar fans. An artist at the studio since the development of The Incredibles, Newton took the director’s chair for the first time with the 2D/3D hybrid Day & Night. With any luck, the same blend of creativity and character will be applied to his first feature.
The movie’s title and release date remain up in the air, but it could be the November 2015 feature which Disney recently announced. Look out for any future news.
Do you think this writer/director team has potential?
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S1 - EP 7 "In Bed With Neil Moodie" with guest Marian Newman In Bed With Neil Moodie
Marian Newman is a world renowned manicurist. Born in London and a true cockney who was born within the sound of the Bow Bells, her early love for sciences lead her into working for the forensic dept within the police force, but after having children, she changed direction to go and study make-up, where she discovered nails and manicures, going on to open one of the first nail only salons in the UK in the late 80’s.
Following a chance shooting with fashion photographer Nick Knight, Marian began her career as a manicurist in the fashion industry.
She has worked with some of the top designers and brands and also on some of the most iconic images in fashion over the last 20 years and all of this work has now been published in her latest book, Nailed It. Nails, Fashion Technique.
Marian came to visit me in London where we sat and chatted about her career and her new book, plus what this UK Queen of Nails is up to next.
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You are here: Parliament home page > Parliamentary business > Publications and Records > Hansard > Commons Debates > Commons Debates by date > Commons Debates - previous sessions > Bound Volume Hansard - Written Answers
2 Dec 2004 : Column 203Wcontinued
VAT (National Lottery)
Hugh Robertson: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether there are circumstances in which governing bodies in sport have to pay VAT on money received from the lottery. [200664]
Dawn Primarolo [holding answer 30 November 2004]: Lottery grants to sports governing bodies will generally be outside the scope of VAT as they are generally not payment for any supplies. VAT incurred on purchases made using grant income can only be recovered to the extent that those purchases relate to the grantee's taxable business activities. VAT can not be recovered on purchases related to an organisation's exempt supplies or non-business activities.
Mr. McNamara: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many flights there were into Belfast City airport on average each week in the latest period for which figures are available, broken down by type of aircraft; and how much fuel each such aircraft would be expected to consume during the first three minutes of take-off. [200508]
Mr. Spellar: The weekly average of flights into Belfast City airport by aircraft type between 1 August 2004 and 31 October 2004 is shown in the following table. The amount of fuel used by an aircraft taking-off will vary depending on various factors including loading and weather conditions. The table shows an estimate of how much fuel each such aircraft would be expected to consume during the first three minutes of take-off where this was made available.
Number of weekly
average flights
Fuel (kg)
British Aerospace 146 62 265
Airbus Industries 321 45 (1)
Airbus Industries 320 9 (1)
Airbus Industries F-100 0.15 (1)
Bombardier DASH 8 Q400 126 74
Bombardier DASH 8 Q300 63 8590
ATR72 1 74
Embraer 145 1 150
Embraer 110 17 17
Light commercial 17 (1)
(1) Unavailable
2 Dec 2004 : Column 204W
Mr. Beggs: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) what steps are being taken to enforce compliance by Belfast City Airport of its planning agreement to offer 1.5 million scheduled seats for sale from the airport in any 12 month period;. [200916]
(2) what assessment he has made of the extent to which Belfast City Airport is meeting its planning agreement in respect of scheduled seats on offer. [200917]
Angela Smith: The latest information available to the Department indicates that Belfast City Airport (BCA) is operating within the current limit included in the Planning Agreement in relation to the number of scheduled seats for sale.
As BCA has not to date exceeded the planning agreement restriction of 1.5 million scheduled seats for sale from the airport in any 12-month period the Department would have no reason to pursue enforcement action.
Crumlin Road Gaol
Mr. Dodds: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the future of Crumlin Road gaol. [200909]
Mr. Pearson: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave on 18 November 2004, Official Report, column 1751W.
Departmental Websites
Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether his Department's .gov.uk websites comply with the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines adopted by the Government in 2001; and if he will make a statement. [199691]
Mr. Pearson: At present, only the website of the Northern Ireland Office complies with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) guidelines at Priority Checkpoint 2 (Level AA) standard.
The websites of the 11 Departments of the Northern Ireland Administration currently do not fully comply with the Priority Checkpoint 2 (Level AA) Guidelines although work is currently underway to attain compliance with that standard in 2005.
Fisheries Conservancy Board
Mr. Beggs: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many recommended prosecutions by bailiffs in Northern Ireland have been prevented by the issuing of exemption certificates by the Fisheries Division of the Department of Agriculture Northern Ireland in each of the last three years. [199861]
Angela Smith: There has been one recorded recommended prosecution which was subsequently not progressed following the issue of an exemption certificate by the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure. This occurred in 2002.
Mr. Dodds: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many new housing starts there have been in (a) North Belfast and (b) Northern Ireland in each year since 1997. [200908]
Mr. Spellar: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave on 18 November 2004, Official Report, column 1758.
Mr. Hume: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what provision for psychotherapy is available under the national health service in Northern Ireland. [201174]
Angela Smith: The term psychotherapy encompasses a range of interventions such as family therapy, supportive psychotherapy, psychoanalytical therapy, and cognitive and behavioural therapy. These may be delivered by therapists from various professional backgrounds and addressing a range of issues from emotional and psychological problems to severe mental illness or addiction. Identifying all psychotherapy interventions could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Roads Budget
Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the Department for Regional Development Roads Service Structural Maintenance budget was in each of the last three years. [200082]
Mr. Spellar: The Chief Executive of Roads Service (Dr. Malcolm McKibbin) has been asked to write to the hon. Gentleman in response to this question.
Letter from Malcolm McKibbin to Mr. Gregory Campbell, dated 30 November 2004:
You recently asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland a Parliamentary Question about what Roads Service's Structural Maintenance budget was for each of the last three years. I have been asked to reply as these issues fall within my responsibility as Chief Executive of Roads Service.
The maintenance of the structure of roads and footways in Northern Ireland continues to be one of the primary objectives of the Roads Service. In the last three years 01/02; 02/03; and 03/04 the expenditure on structural maintenance has been £54, £65 and £83 million respectively. In the current financial year it is expected that just under £70 million will be spent on this key activity.
Strangford View, Killyleagh
Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will institute a public inquiry into the construction of a 45 foot gabion wall at Strangford View in Killyleagh; and if he will make a statement. [200370]
Angela Smith: It would not be appropriate to initiate a Public Inquiry in this instance. Planning permission was granted on 5 December 2003 for proposed alterations to an existing entrance, development roads, dwelling
footprints together with storm and foul sewers. The approved plans did not provide for a wall of the scale and character now constructed and the wall is therefore unauthorised.
Although the Planning Service has received assurances that the developer is keen to rectify this breach, enforcement action has been initiated and a final warning letter issued on 22 November. Formal enforcement proceedings will now follow unless the developer takes action on the breach.
The developer has submitted a planning application for twelve 3-storey townhouses on a portion of the site, which is still under consideration. It is anticipated that the developer will submit a further application addressing the breach of planning control through the delivery of a comprehensive scheme for the whole site.
Once an application is received, interested parties will be notified and given the opportunity to inspect relevant plans and comment as appropriate. Any comments will be taken into account before a final decision is reached on the application. The Department will continue to ensure that concerns expressed by residents and elected representatives in relation to the wall are addressed.
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You are here: Parliament home page > Parliamentary business > Publications and Records > Hansard > Commons Debates > Daily Hansard - Debate
15 Jun 2007 : Column 1036
Human Rights Act 1998 (Meaning of Public Authority) Bill
[Relevant document: Ninth Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights of Session 2006-07, The Meaning of Public Authority under the Human Rights Act, HC 410]
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon) (Lab): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The purpose of the Bill is to clarify public authority in section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 to ensure that, when the private sector carries out public functionsfor example, in contracted-out care for the elderlythe Act will apply. Although the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I chair, has not formally endorsed the Bill, many members of the Committee support it. It implements one of the key recommendations in our recent report on the meaning of public authority under the Human Rights Act.
It has been immensely important that the Human Rights Act brought home the rights set out in the European convention. Before the Act came into force, British people had to go to Strasbourg to tackle breaches of their human rights. However, in one respect, the protection that the Act affords has been less comprehensive than Parliament intended. The problem has arisen because of the development of case law interpreting the meaning of public authority in the Act.
Under section 6, it is unlawful for a public authority to act in way that is incompatible with a convention right. The Act does not provide a list of public authorities to which it applies. Instead, it states that a public authority includes
any person certain of whose functions are functions of a public nature.
During the measures passage, statements by the then Home Secretary and Lord Chancellor made it clear that privatised or contracted-out public services were intended to be brought within its scope.
We were told that the public function definition emphasised the functions rather than the institutional status of the body performing them. For example, a private security company that ran a prison under contract with the Government would be deemed to perform a public function within the scope of the Act. However, when a private security company provides a service to another private company, the Act does not cover it.
Since the Act came into force, a series of court cases have turned on whether a specific private company or organisation that provided services came within the ambit of the Act. The result has been to undermine and even overrule the comprehensive and wide interpretation of public authority that was originally intended.
One specific case has left utter confusion about the matter. It is the 2002 case, which is commonly known as the Leonard Cheshire case. The local authority-funded residents of a care home run by the Leonard Cheshire Foundation, which is a private charity, wanted to challenge the decision to close the home and
disperse the residents. They claimed that that broke their right to respect for their home under article 8 of the European convention. However, the Court of Appeal found that the managers of the care home were not a public authority under the definition in section 6. Residents could not, therefore, enforce their human rights against the care home, even though the council still had its obligations under article 8, regardless of its contract with Cheshire Homes.
In 2004, after reviewing that judgment and other cases, which had turned on the definition of public authority, the Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that the test being applied by the courts was highly problematic. It resulted in many instances of an organisation
standing in the shoes of the State,
but without responsibility under the Human Rights Act. That had led to a serious gap in the protection that the Act was intended to offer.
Mr. Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con): Will the hon. Gentleman cover the scope of the Bill? Would it go beyond bringing care homes within the scope of the 1998 Act? I am thinking, for example, of circumstances in which a local authority contracts out a community bus service. Would the Bill bring that service within the scope of the Human Rights Act?
Mr. Dismore: That would depend on the basis on which the contracting out was done. If it was done as part of the local authoritys public function, it would fall within the scope of the Human Rights Act, but not if it was done on any other basis. The position will become clearer as I continue.
The gap is not simply a theoretical legal problemwe just had an example of thatbut a problem with significant and immediate practical implications as many services previously delivered by public authorities become privatised or contracted out to private suppliers. The law has failed to adapt to that reality.
The implications of this failure extend across the range of especially vulnerable people in society, including elderly people in private residential care or nursing homes, tenants in housing association properties, children outside the maintained education sector and looked-after children in receipt of childrens services.
In its 2004 report on the subjectI believe that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird), was instrumental in organising the inquiry as she was a member of the Committee at the time and endorsed its recommendationsthe Joint Committee on Human Rights examined several possible solutions, including amending the Human Rights Act 1998 to make clear the responsibility of organisations in carrying out public functions to protect human rights, protecting human rights in terms of the contracts between public authorities and private providers of public services, backed by authoritative guidance on when an organisation was likely to be classed as a public authority for purposes of the Act, and the development of case law on the meaning of public authority.
At that time, at such an early stage after implementation, the Committee took the view that amendment of the Act would be likely to create as many problems as it solved. Guidance on the formulation of contracts and best practice would be helpful, it argued, but could not provide a complete or enduring solution. It argued that the Government as a third party should intervene in the public interest in cases where a broader interpretation could be argued for. The Government accepted those recommendations at the time.
Three years on from that report, a number of significant developments have taken place and, generally speaking, they have been none to the good. In November 2005, the Government published guidance to local authorities on contracting for services in the light of the Human Rights Act. That guidance was reviewed in our most recent report, published in March this year. We made a number of criticisms and recommendations, stressing that guidance alone could not solve the problem.
The reality is that the method of using guidance has proved utterly unsatisfactory and negative in respect of dealing with the difficulties surrounding the use of contracts to secure better protection of human rights. It dissuaded procurement officers from taking a positive approach and no model process was recommended. We found that the guidance was badly written, difficult to follow and suffered from a lack of publicity. The guidance lacked accessibility and, being written in highly technical language, it was difficult to understand. It was hard to find, hard to follow and did not give any practical examples. There were no mechanisms in place to monitor the impact on procurement practice and local authorities were in general unaware of the guidances existence and it had little effect or influence on their policy. Without the use of model or standard contract terms, that guidance was not going to develop a consistent approach to public service commissioning and to human rights.
We felt that without significant joint efforts on the part of the then Department for Constitutional Affairs, now the Ministry of Justice, and the Department for Communities and Local Government, the guidance would continue to fail. We saw it simply as a stop-gap that could not ultimately protect human rights through the use of contractual terms. It could never be a substitute for the direct application of the Human Rights Act to service providers.
Following the Leonard Cheshire judgment, the Government have intervened in cases before the courts to try to broaden the definition of public authority. The Government strategy in acting in this way has not so far been successful and risks making a complex area of law increasingly uncertain and difficult for people to understand.
In the current the House of Lords case of the Crown (on the application of Johnson and others) v. the London borough of Havering, the Government have argued that the meaning of public authority covers elderly and vulnerable people who are receiving care from a private provider on behalf of a public authority. The case concerned whether local authority care homes that were transferred to the private sector remained public authorities in respect of local authority-placed residents. The Government have been unsuccessful so
far, but the appeal is being heard and we await the judgment of the House of Lords, which I understand is due to be handed down this Wednesday.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights found that even if the issue were resolved in respect of the residential care sector, further complex litigation would be likely to arise in other areas. The Government could choose to intervene only in those sectors that it considers should attract public authority status and not others which Parliament had previously been led to believe would be subject to the application of the Act. We were concerned that whatever decision was reached in the House of Lords, it would be unlikely to lead to an enduring and effective solution to the interpretive problems associated with the meaning of public authority. Waiting for a solution to arise through the evolution of the law in this area by judicial interpretation might mean that uncertainties surrounding the Acts application would continue for many years, which we considered to be unacceptable.
It therefore remains the case that there is an urgent need to ensure that our human rights law clearly protects vulnerable people. The British Institute of Human Rights, for example, has reported on the treatment of residents in residential care homes that clearly amounts to a breach of their human rights. Cases included the circumstances of home closures, notices to individuals to leave homes and inhuman and degrading treatment such as elderly residents being fed their breakfast while sitting on the commode. We in the Joint Committee on Human Rights are about to conclude our own inquiry into the treatment of the elderly in hospitals and care homes. We have received appalling evidence of woeful neglect, lack of dignity and respect and ignorance of the human rights of the elderly.
The Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), who has responsibility for care services, has made it clear that he considers the present position to be an anomaly that must be addressed. Help the Aged, in its briefing for the Second Reading, has welcomed the proposals in my Bill. It says that 400,000 people are vulnerable to serious violations of their human rights without any recourse to legal remedies. Help the Aged points out that the present arrangements can force life-long couples apart and gives the example of a couple who have been married for 61 years who were placed in homes five miles apart because they had different needs. The wife had advancing dementia and the husband was physically disabled. It was agreed that an adapted taxi would be supplied five days a week for the husband to visit his wife, but the arrangement was stopped because of lack of resources. That is clearly a breach of their human rights, but it is not enforceable.
Residents have no tenancy or residential rights in care homes and can be asked to leave at any time, and we heard evidence of that time and again in our recent inquiry. Of course, the most extreme example is elder abuse. Help the Aged reckoned that 500,000 older people are believed to be being abused at any one time in the UK. It claims that the loophole left by the Leonard Cheshire judgment has grave consequences for vulnerable older people, as approximately 90 per cent. of care homes and 60 per cent. of domiciliary care agencies are run by private or voluntary
organisations. It views the Bill as a crucial opportunity to reconsider the meaning of public authority and it urges hon. Members to support it.
When such poor treatment occurs in a private residential care home, it is not satisfactory for residents to have to rely on interpreting a contract between the local authority and the homes managers, a contract to which they are not a party and in relation to which they have had no say in its drafting or terms. They should be able to enforce their human rights directly.
In a recent debate on the Governments Human Rights: Common values, common sense campaign, the Minister told the House that the Government recognised that the protection of human rights through a contract was a poor substitute for the direct application of the Act to functional public authorities, as intended by Parliament. We reiterate the conclusions to which the Minister signed up in the first report on the meaning of public authority. Human rights cannot be fully and effectively protected through the use of contractual terms and I hope that the Minister will support the Bill today.
Last October, we asked the Lord Chancellor about the Governments position in an evidence session. In his Departments July 2006 review of the Human Rights Act 1998, he repeated the extraordinary proposition that a widening of the definition of public authority could have the effect of driving private providers out of the market. That is extraordinary, because it would not be a widening of the definition, but on all fours with what Lord Irvine of Lairgthe then Lord Chancellortold Parliament was intended when the Bill was before it.
Moreover, the appalling implication is that those in private sector care homes, who are probably more vulnerable to abuse than those in in-house facilities, are not to have a right to challenge that abuse in our courts, making them second-class citizensin growing numbers, as local authorities continue to contract out. The contractors commercial interests have been put before the decent treatment of the elderly and vulnerable.
I would be grateful to know whether the Minister agrees with the Lord Chancellors proposition, or whether her view is that the best way to deal with the issue is
to make sure that public and private bodies are treated the same way when they are providing a public service.
Those are not my words, but the exact answer that I was given by the Prime Minister in February, when I questioned him on this point in the Liaison Committee. I hope that the Minister will be able to say that the Prime Minister is right and that the views expressed by the Lord Chancellor were not an accurate representation of Government policy, at least as it now stands.
The JCHR concluded in its recent report that amending the Act would be the last resort, but it went on to say that
in light of the pressing need for a solution...there is a strong case for a separate, supplementary and interpretative statute
to clarify the definition of public authority in the Act. The Bill gives effect to that recommendation.
The JCHR raised the possibility of legislation to make it clear that any person or body providing goods,
services or facilities to the public pursuant to contract with a public authority is a public authority for the specific purposes of the Act. The purpose of my Bill is to reinstate unambiguously the wide and functional interpretation of public authority that was understood by Parliament and Government alike to be the meaning of section 6 when the Act was passed. The intention behind my Bill is to ensure that human rights protections will apply comprehensively, directly and consistently to all those who receive public services from private providers, including the most vulnerable members of our society, such as the elderly in care homes, as I have mentioned.
The Government say that they are consulting on this issue, but I hope that any consultation will be on the format and text of legislation only, as the JCHR has recommended. The Minister may say that she wants to wait until the Law Lords deliver their forthcoming judgments in the Johnson casewhich, of course, is in only five days time.
I understand that the Attorney-General has concerns about my Bills wording, but if given a Second Reading, it will provide a swift way of dealing with this problem, in the event that the Governments intervention with the Law Lords is not successfula question to which we will know the answer very soon, one way or the other. If the Law Lords do not resolve the issue with clarity, we can put right the wording in Committee and take account of a short period of consultation. There will be ample time to do that, to have a Committee stage and to bring the Bill back to the House in October.
Time is of the essence for people in care homes and other facilities who ought to benefit from the full protection of the Human Rights Act, but who are currently denied it. I urge the House to support the Bill for these reasons. I urge my hon. and learned Friend not to talk it out, but to remember what her own position was on this vital issue when she was a member of the JCHR. I hope that she still stands by that position, and that she will therefore allow the Bill to proceed.
2.6 pm
Mr. Simon Burns (West Chelmsford) (Con): May I say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, what a surprising pleasure it is for me, after two years of Trappist vows of silence preventing me from speaking at the Dispatch Box, to be doing so this afternoon? It is a particular pleasure because I was for a time the Minister with responsibility for care for the elderly, and for four and a half years in opposition I was, until two years ago, the shadow Minister with such responsibility. Therefore, this is an area in which I have some interestnot from a lawyers point of view but from that of the clients and users, particularly those in care homes.
This debate is very timely because it is of course world elder abuse awareness day. It comes a day after the publication of a report by Kings College London and the National Centre for Social Research, funded by Comic Relief and the Department of Health, that highlights that more than 700,000 elderly people are abused in their own homes or in privately run nursing
homes. The issue of care for the elderly in society is one of increasing importance, and this Bill has the potential to address a serious associated issue. As many Members have said over the yearsthat makes the point no less importantit is crucial that those who are more often than not the most frail members of our society have the proper protections and the dignity and quality of life that they deserve. We, as a civilised society, have a duty to ensure that they are protected and are given that quality of life.
Currently, the Human Rights Act 1998 covers only public authorities and those performing public functions. The Bill, as I understand it, seeks to clarify the meaning of public authority as defined in section 6 of the Act. The Bill aims to insert a clause which would ensure that
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1. Buddha Dhamma is undoubtedly the most complex “theory” in the world. It is truly amazing that such a deep philosophical doctrine has survived over 2500 years.
However, we can be confident that the pure Dhamma still survives, because the three baskets of sutta, vinaya, and abhidhamma were written down in 29 BCE when there were still numerous Arahants were present.
After about 100 -200 CE, people started translating the Tipitaka into Sanskrit and also the Mahayana sect started writing their own suttas in Sanskrit; see, “Historical Timeline of Edward Conze“.
2. Another important point to remember is that there is no single discourse in which the Buddha has drawn together all the elements of his teaching and assigned them to their appropriate place within some comprehensive system; see, “Sutta – Introduction“.
Therefore, the same material was delivered in a variety of different ways over the 45-year “ministry” of the Buddha. If some mistakes were made in the transmission of one of the suttas or discourses, that would become apparent when compared with the numerous other discourses or the Abhidhamma.
3. The Buddha tailored his discourses to his audience at hand. Thus his teachings that have been transmitted encompass a broad spectrum, ranging from one-to-one conversations with people who had particular questions in mind, to long discourses to audiences consisting of groups with wide ranging mental capabilities.
If the Buddha realized that it was not fruitful to explain a deep concept to an individual, he remained silent. One example cited is Buddha’s silence when a certain wanderer named Vacchagotta asked him whether there was an atman or athma (permanent soul) or not. Even though Buddha had clearly explained in Paticca Samuppada that the concept of a lifestream with changing “gathi“, in this case he remained in silence when Vacchagotta asked him the question twice. Vacchagotta then left.
After Vacchagotta left, Buddha’s personal attendant, Ven. Ananda, asked him why Buddha did not explain the concept that it is not correct to say “there is no soul” or “there is a soul” (because there is only an ever-changing lifestream) to Vacchagotta. The Buddha told Ananda that he did not think Vacchagotta was mentally capable at that time to understand the concept, and that he did not want to confuse him. See the post, “What Reincarnates? – Concept of a Lifestream” for the correct explanation.
It turned out that Vacchagotta later became a disciple and even attained Nibbana through his efforts.
4. Other times, he would enunciate invariable principles that stand at the heart of the teaching: for example, Abhidhamma is a complete description of the working of the mind. The Buddha delivered this Abhidhamma material in summary form to his chief disciple, Ven. Sariputta, and it was Ven. Sariputta and his followers who expanded that summary to the form that we have today in the Tipitaka; see, “Abhdhamma – Introduction“.
But in most cases, instead of trying to provide most thorough and intellectually deep answers, he tried to find the best way to steer people to the truth according to their mental capabilities. Some recent books have misrepresented such isolated one-to-one correspondence as indications that some fundamental issues have not been addressed by the Buddha. They are probably unaware that such questions have been answered in other suttas. I will point such instances as they come up in other posts.
Next, “Misconceptions on the Topics the Buddha “Refused to Answer”“, …..
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Elle Fanning On Being the Youngest Member of the Cannes Film Festival Jury
The Cannes Film Festival, which is one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, kicked off yesterday with an incredibly diverse and accomplished jury of global artists in charge of determining the awards handed out throughout its run including its youngest, Elle Fanning.
And because she's only twenty-one, she admits: "I was in complete shock when I got that phone call if I wanted to be a member of the Cannes jury. I'm still feeling that buzz."
But she also sees her youth as a valuable asset to the jury, explaining: "I feel proud to represent a young voice in this festival and view the movies from those eyes.""
The Cannes Film Festival runs through May 25th.
Ryan is quite simply one of the most influential, well-regarded, and well-known names in Hollywood. He is the quintessential Hollywood insider who always manages to have the biggest scoops and the most sought after access to top events and celebrities. Read more
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HomeNewsPolicies and ProgrammesMNRE details roles and responsibilities of discoms under the 12 GW solar CPSU programme
MNRE details roles and responsibilities of discoms under the 12 GW solar CPSU programme
The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has issued a notification regarding the modalities and role of distribution companies (discoms) for the second phase of the Central Public Sector Undertaking (CPSU) programme. This government programme aims to set up 12,000 MW of grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) power projects for self-use or use by government entities.
The implementation of this programme is expected to create an investment of Rs 480 billion and provide direct employment to 60,000 people for about one year in pre-commissioning phase and 18,000 people for the next 25 years during the operations and maintenance period.
In the next three years, a total of 12 GW of solar PV projects is expected to be tendered under the CPSU program Phase-II. Moreover, 4 GW will be tendered in 2019-2020, followed by another 4 GW in 2020-2021 and then in 2021-2022.
All the projects are expected to be commissioned by the end of 2022-2023. Under the CPSU programme, the usage charges should not exceed Rs 3.50 per kWh and will be exclusive of any other third-party charge.
Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited (SECI) is the implementing agency of this programme, and the maximum viability gap funding allowed under this has been set at Rs 7 million per MW. Moreover, all the solar cells and modules utilised in setting up of solar PV projects under this programme must be domestically manufactured.
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St. Margaret's Church, Rainham
Tafara Link
Rainham’s Historic Church
Needlework & Church Kneelers
Windows of St. Margaret’s
Ministry Team’s Letter
The Bellringers
Churchyard Gang
Friends of St. Margaret’s
Ladies Who Lunch
Messy Church Page
Music at St. Margaret’s
Life’s Big Events
Millennium Centre
Rainham’s Historic Church.
Wherever you stand in the Parish of Rainham, if you look up you are bound to catch a glimpse sooner or later of our magnificent tower, standing as a witness to faithful Christian worship since its construction many centuries ago. Or maybe you will hear the peel of the bells, carried on the breeze, a timeless reminder of a worshipping community with a mission of outreach and service to the people of Rainham and beyond!
The present Parish of Rainham is a very large one and has over 30,000 people living within its boundary.
There was a village here by 811 AD when a charter records a grant of land at ‘Roegingaham’ to Wulfrid, Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1137 Robert de Crevecoeur gave Rainham Church and 18 acres of land to
Leeds Priory, which he had founded. This meant that the abbot was also the rector of Rainham and would have appointed the vicar as the abbey’s representative to act as the parish priest.
After Leeds Priory was dissolved by Henry VIII, vicars were appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who became Patron of the Parish. The names of most of the vicars since 1282 are listed on a display inside the church.
The Parish was transferred from Canterbury to the Diocese of Rochester in 1938, when the Patron then became the Bishop of Rochester.
The Church of St.Margaret
The present church building is almost entirely of Gothic design, with just a few remains of the Norman church still incorporated in the east wall of the chancel. The 13th century Early English style can be seen in the chancel ,the 14th century period, known as the Decorated, represented in the nave and aisle, with the latest period of Gothic architecture, the Perpendicular most obvious in the 15th century tower.
The church itself is built of Kentish ragstone and flint. The church underwent major restoration in the 1860’sand 1870’s,and there have been several further important periods of reconstruction in the 20th and again in this century, when it was discovered that the main roof and tower were in an advanced state of decay, and required a comprehensive programme of works to ensure the long term safety and integrity of the building. The repairs were initially estimated to cost up to £1million, but were completed in April 2010 for less than £1/2 million.
The tower is a major local landmark and was built about 1480. It stands 30m (100ft) high with an octagonal stair turret probably housing a beacon at the top to act as one of a chain between coast and capital. The tower houses a peel of eight bells (read more on the page about the bell ringers)
14th century nave, is very plain and almost all the roof timbers are original. Most of the window stonework was replaced in the 19th century. The stained glass of the south-east window is by Hardman [1871 ].
The most interesting feature in the nave is the celure which is unique and once formed a canopy for a rood screen. It was painted in the 1460’s on the orders of Sir Thomas St Leger, who married Edward IV’s sister, and depicted the King’s badge of the Sun in Splendour. This was changed rapidly after the demise of the House of York, following the Wars of the Roses, with the rose of Lancaster.
The mediaeval wall paintings and consecration crosses were uncovered in the 1920’s following a chance discovery by workmen of a cross beneath the surface of the south wall. The consecration crosses date from the reconstruction of the nave in the 14th century. In the chancel are the earliest remaining parts of the building in the form of 13th century wall arcading.
There are three sedilia and nearby is a 13th century piscina. By comparison you will also see the newest addition to the chancel, the Millennium Cross, made out of branches of our 1000 year old yew tree, which can still be seen in the churchyard.
Between the chancel and chapel is the arcade, with the two arches nearest the nave dating from the 13th century. The parclose screen inserted into the arcade is a very fine example of 15th century woodwork.. The chapel also houses a particularly fine 14th century oak chest.
Monuments.
The oldest monument in the church is a very short 13th century ‘tomb chest, a cross, which lies in the south east corner of the chapel. Beside the east window is a memorial to Thomas Norreys, a commissioner in the navy who died in 1624. Also in the chancel are a number of brasses. The oldest lies between the choir stalls and is that of James Donet who died in 1409, but only the inscription survives. There are others of interest, including William Bloor 1529, one dated 1500 and another of Charles Garlick, who died in 1573. The chapel contains two large marble monuments commemorating members of the Tufton family. One of these is of Nicholas, 3rd Earl of Thanet, who died in 1679 and twice suffered periods of imprisonment under Cromwell. The other is that of his younger brother George.
Most recently following the major work on the roof and tower additional work has taken place inside the Church. Thanks to the Friends of St. Margaret’s the wall paintings in the Nave have been restored and these are well worth a look if you happen to be passing the Church. A number of the brasses in the Chancel were also removed and taken for repair, and at this point it was found that there were inscriptions on the reverse -they had in fact been reused – a Palimpsests. This is a form of medieval recycling!
We have taken the opportunity to have resin casts made of the palimpsests and these have been set in a board with an explanation attached, and this is on display in the Chancel.
Following the repair of the brasses they have been relaid in the Chancel. We were advised that we should now cover the brasses to avoid damage and again thanks to the Friends of St Margaret’s and the assistance of Gerald Lukehurst & Son a new carpet has been laid in the chancel.
In 2017 a re-ordering project to remove some of the pews from the back section of the Church to create a multipurpose space with many exciting possibilities for its use has been completed.
The Church is open daily and all are welcome.
ME8 8AN
Messy Church April
Messy Church March
Magical All Age service
New Family Service
Carols by Candlelight
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Lenski affair
(Redirected from Letter to PNAS)
Were you looking for the Lewinsky affair?
The Lenski affair was an attempt by politically conservative activist lawyer Andrew Schlafly (creator of Conservapedia and endorser to the notion of creationism) to challenge the groundbreaking research of Michigan State University professor and National Academy of Science member Richard Lenski. Lenski and his student Zachary Blount had reported observation of evolution in bacteria. Schlafly wrote to Lenski. He demanded raw data but Lenski refused. Lenski cited Schlafly's lack of credentials as a qualified bacteriologist. Schlafly's challenge resulted in publicity on the Internet. Richard Dawkins discusses Lenski's research and the affair in his book The Greatest Show on Earth, referring to Schlafly's implied doubts about Lenski's results as an "impertinent suggestion".[1][2]
2 Correspondence
2.1 First letter, June 13, 2008
2.2 First reply, June 13, 2008
2.3 Second letter, June 18, 2008
2.4 Second reply, June 23, 2008
3 Elements censored in the reply
5 Beating a dead horse, horse kicks back
5.1 Conservapedia letter to PNAS
5.2 PNAS reply to Mr. Schlafly and his Conservapedia
The population designated Ara-3 (center) has evolved to use the citrate present in the growth medium.
On June 9, 2008, the New Scientist published an article describing preliminary results of a long-running experiment started by Lenski.[3] Lenski and his team had taken a single strain of the bacterium E. coli, separated its descendants into twelve populations,[4] and proceeded to observe their mutations over the course of two decades.[5] The E. coli were fed a measured amount of glucose every day. At one point, one of the populations exploded far beyond the parameters of the experiment. Lenski eventually discovered that this population had evolved the ability to "eat" citrate, an organic molecule which was part of the solution the E. coli lived in, but which E. coli cannot normally uptake. Thus, evolution had been visibly observed, with an exquisite amount of evidence establishing the timeline along the way. Not only that, but the experiment was repeatable; Lenski started new experiments with the frozen "archives" of the population which exploded, and found that beyond a certain point, that particular population of E. coli were highly likely to evolve the ability to digest citrate. The paper also highlighted the role of historical contingency in evolution and the role of potentiating mutations.
Naturally, this news item was posted to Conservapedia, bringing it to the attention of Schlafly. As he is a creationist, this obviously flew in the face of his views and could not be tolerated. After a discussion in which he expressed skepticism, he proceeded to send Dr. Lenski an email requesting further data, and set up a page on his blog/"encyclopedia" titled "Lenski dialog." The ensuing exchange of emails is below.
Correspondence[edit]
First letter, June 13, 2008[edit]
Dear Professor Lenski,
Skepticism has been expressed on Conservapedia about your claims, and the significance of your claims, that E. Coli bacteria had an evolutionary beneficial mutation in your study. Specifically, we wonder about the data supporting your claim that one of your colonies of E. Coli developed the ability to absorb citrate, something not found in wild E. Coli, at around 31,500 generations. In addition, there is skepticism that 3 new and useful proteins appeared in the colony around generation 20,000. A recent article about your claims appears in New Scientist here: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html
Submission guidelines for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science state that "(viii) Materials and Data Availability. To allow others to replicate and build on work published in PNAS, authors must make materials, data, and associated protocols available to readers. Authors must disclose upon submission of the manuscript any restrictions on the availability of materials or information." Also, your work was apparently funded by taxpayers, providing further reason for making the data publicly available.
Please post the data supporting your remarkable claims so that we can review it, and note where in the data you find justification for your conclusions.
I will post your reply, or lack of reply, on www.conservapedia.com. Thank you.
Andy Schlafly, B.S.E., J.D. Conservapedia
First reply, June 13, 2008[edit]
Dear Mr. Schlafly:
I suggest you might want to read our paper itself, which is available for download at most university libraries and is also posted as publication #180 on my website. Here's a brief summary that addresses your three points.
1) "...your claims, that E. Coli bacteria had an evolutionary beneficial mutation in your study." We (my group and scientific collaborators) have already published several papers that document beneficial mutations in our long-term experiment. These papers provide exact details on the identity of the mutations, as well as genetic constructions where we have produced genotypes that differ by single mutations, then compete them, demonstrating that the mutations confer an advantage under the environmental conditions of the experiment. See papers #122, 140, 155, 166, and 178 referenced on my website. In the latest paper, you will see that we make no claim to having identified the genetic basis of the mutations observed in this study. However, we have found a number of mutant clones that have heritable differences in behavior (growth on citrate), and which confer a clear advantage in the environment where they evolved, which contains citrate. Our future work will seek to identify the responsible mutations.
2. "Specifically, we wonder about the data supporting your claim that one of your colonies of E. Coli developed the ability to absorb citrate, something not found in wild E. Coli, at around 31,500 generations." You will find all the relevant methods and data supporting this claim in our paper. We also establish in our paper, through various phenotypic and genetic markers, that the Cit+ mutant was indeed a descendant of the original strain used in our experiments.
3. "In addition, there is skepticism that 3 new and useful proteins appeared in the colony around generation 20,000." We make no such claim anywhere in our paper, nor do I think it is correct. Proteins do not "appear out of the blue", in any case. We do show that what we call a "potentiated" genotype had evolved by generation 20,000 that had a greater propensity to produce Cit+ mutants. We also show that the dynamics of appearance of Cit+ mutants in the potentiated genotypes are highly suggestive of the requirement for two additional mutations to yield the resulting Cit+ trait. Moreover, we found that Cit+ mutants, when they first appeared, were often rather weak at using citrate. At least the main Cit+ line that we studied underwent an additional mutation (or mutations) that refined that ability and led to a large improvement in growth on citrate. All these issues and the supporting methods and data are covered in our paper.
Richard Lenski
Second letter, June 18, 2008[edit]
Dear Prof. Lenski,
This is my second request for your data underlying your recent paper, "Historical contingency and the evolution of a key innovation in an experimental population of Escherichia coli," published in PNAS (June 10, 2008) and reported in New Scientist ("Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in lab," June 9, 2008). http://myxo.css.msu.edu/lenski/pdf/2008,%20PNAS,%20Blount%20et%20al.pdf http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html
Your work was taxpayer-funded, and PNAS represents that its authors will make underlying data available. I'd like to review the data myself and ensure availability for others, including experts and my students. Others have expressed interest in access to the data in addition to myself, and your website seems well-suited for public release of these data.
If the data are voluminous, then I particularly request access to the data that was made available to the peer reviewers of your paper, and to the data relating to the period during which the bacterial colony supposedly developed Cit+. As before, I'm requesting the organized data themselves, not the graphs and summaries set forth in the paper and referenced in your first reply to me. Note that several times your paper expressly states, "data not shown."
Given that this is my second request for the data, a clear answer is requested as to whether you will make the key underlying data available for independent review. Your response, or lack thereof, will be posted due to the public interest in this issue. Thank you.
Andy Schlafly, B.S.E., J.D. www.conservapedia.com cc: PNAS, New Scientist publications
Second reply, June 23, 2008[edit]
I tried to be polite, civil and respectful in my reply to your first email, despite its rude tone and uninformed content. Given the continued rudeness of your second email, and the willfully ignorant and slanderous content on your website, my second response will be less polite. I expect you to post my response in its entirety; if not, I will make sure that is made publicly available through other channels.
I offer this lengthy reply because I am an educator as well as a scientist. It is my sincere hope that some readers might learn something from this exchange, even if you do not.
First, it seems that reading might not be your strongest suit given your initial letter, which showed that you had not read our paper, and given subsequent conversations with your followers, in which you wrote that you still had not bothered to read our paper. You wrote: “I did skim Lenski’s paper …” If you have not even read the original paper, how do you have any basis of understanding from which to question, much less criticize, the data that are presented therein?
Second, your capacity to misinterpret and/or misrepresent facts is plain in the third request in your first letter, where you said: “In addition, there is skepticism that 3 new and useful proteins appeared in the colony around generation 20,000.” That statement was followed by a link to a news article from NewScientist that briefly reported on our work. I assumed you had simply misunderstood that article, because there is not even a mention of proteins anywhere in the news article. As I replied, “We make no such claim anywhere in our paper, nor do I think it is correct. Proteins do not ‘appear out of the blue’, in any case.” So where did your confused assertion come from? It appears to have come from one of your earlier discussions, in which an acoltye [sic] (Able806, who to his credit at least seems to have attempted to read our paper) wrote:
"I think it might be best to clarify some of Richard's work. He started his E.Coli project in 1988 and has been running the project for 20 years now; his protocols are available to the general public. The New Scientist article is not very technical but the paper at PNAS is. The change was based on one of his colonies developing the ability to absorb citrate, something not found in wild E.Coli. This occurred around 31,500 generations and is based on the development of 3 proteins in the E.Coli genome. What his future work will be is to look at what caused the development of these 3 proteins around generation 20,000 of that particular colony."
As further evidence of your inability to keep even a few simple facts straight, you later wrote the following: “It [my reply] did clarify that his claims are not as strong as some evolutionists have insisted.” But no competent biologist would, after reading our paper with any care, insist (or even suggest) that “3 new and useful proteins appeared in the colony around generation 20,000” or any similar nonsense. It is only in your letter, and in your acolyte’s confused interpretation of our paper, that I have ever seen such a claim. Am I or the reporter for NewScientist somehow responsible for the confusion that reflects your own laziness and apparent inability to distinguish between a scientific paper, a news article, and a confused summary posted by an acolyte on your own website?
Third, it is apparent to me, and many others who have followed this exchange and your on-line discussions of how to proceed, that you are not acting in good faith in requests for data. From the posted discussion on your web site, it is obvious that you lack any expertise in the relevant fields. Several of your acolytes have pointed this out to you, and that your motives are unclear or questionable at best, but you and your cronies dismissed their concerns as rants and even expelled some of them from posting on your website. [ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Expelled:_No_Intelligence_Allowed] Several also pointed out that I had very quickly and straightforwardly responded that the methods and data supporting the evolution of the citrate-utilization capacity are already provided in our paper. One poster in your discussions, Aaronp, wrote:
“I read Lenski's paper, and as a trained microbiologist, I thought that it was both thorough and well done. His claims are backed by good data, namely that which was presented in the figures. I went through each of the figures after Aschlafly said that they were uninformative. Actually, they are basic figures that show the population explosion of the bacterial cultures after the Cit+ mutation occurred. These figures show that the cultures increased in size and mass at a given timepoint, being able to do so because they had evolved a mechanism to utilize a new nutrient, without the assistance of helper plasmids. … Lenksi’s paper, while not the most definite I’ve seen, is still a very well-researched paper that supports its claims nicely.”
(As far as I saw, Aaronp is the only poster who asserted any expertise in microbiology.) As further evidence of the absence of good-faith discussion about our research, in the discussion thread that began even before you sent your first email to me, I counted the words “fraud” or “fraudulent” being used more than 10 times, including one acolyte, TonyT, who says bluntly that I am “clearly a fraudulent hack.” In the discussion thread that also includes comments after my first reply, the number of times those same words are used has increased to 20, with the word “hoax” also now entering the discussion. A few posters wisely counseled against such slander but that did not deter you. I must say, it is surprising that someone with a law degree would make, and allow on his website, so many nasty comments that implicitly and even explicitly impugn my integrity, and by extension that of my collaborators, without any grounds whatsoever and reflecting only your dogmatic adherence to certain beliefs.
Finally, let me now turn to our data. As I said before, the relevant methods and data about the evolution of the citrate-using bacteria are in our paper. In three places in our paper, we did say “data not shown”, which is common in scientific papers owing to limitations in page length, especially for secondary or minor points. None of the places where we made such references concern the existence of the citrate-using bacteria; they concern only certain secondary properties of those bacteria. We will gladly post those additional data on my website.
It is my impression that you seem to think we have only paper and electronic records of having seen some unusual E. coli. If we made serious errors or misrepresentations, you would surely like to find them in those records. If we did not, then – as some of your acolytes have suggested – you might assert that our records are themselves untrustworthy because, well, because you said so, I guess. But perhaps because you did not bother even to read our paper, or perhaps because you aren’t very bright, you seem not to understand that we have the actual, living bacteria that exhibit the properties reported in our paper, including both the ancestral strain used to start this long-term experiment and its evolved citrate-using descendants. In other words, it’s not that we claim to have glimpsed “a unicorn in the garden” – we have a whole population of them living in my lab! [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unicorn_in_the_Garden] And lest you accuse me further of fraud, I do not literally mean that we have unicorns in the lab. Rather, I am making a literary allusion. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allusion]
One of your acolytes, Dr. Richard Paley, actually grasped this point. He does not appear to understand the practice and limitations of science, but at least he realizes that we have the bacteria, and that they provide “the real data that we [that’s you and your gang] need”. Here’s what this Dr. Paley had to say:
“I think there’s a great deal of misunderstanding here from the critics of Mr. Schlafly and obfuscation on the part of Prof. Lenski and his supporters. The real data that we need are not in the paper. Rather they are in the bacteria used in the experiments themselves. Prof. Lenski claims that these bacteria ‘evolved’ novel traits and that these were preceded by the evolution of ‘potentiated genotypes’, from which the traits could be ‘reevolved’ using preserved colonies from those generations. But how are we to know if these traits weren’t ‘potentiated’ by the Creator when He designed the bacteria thousands of years ago, such that they would eventually reveal themselves when the time was right? The only way this can be settled is if we have access to the genetic sequences of the bacteria colonies so that we can apply CSI techniques and determine if these ‘potentiated genotypes’ originated through blind chance or intelligence. But with the physical specimens in the hands of Darwinists, who claim they will get around to the sequencing at some unspecifed future time, how can we trust that this data will be forthcoming and forthright? Thus, Prof. Lenski et al. should supply Conservapedia, as stewards, with samples of the preserved E. coli colonies so that the data can be accessible to unbiased researchers outside of the hegemony of the Darwinian academia, even if it won’t be put to immediate examination by Mr. Schlafly. This is simply about keeping tax-payer-funded scientists honest.”
So, will we share the bacteria? Of course we will, with competent scientists. Now, if I was really mean, I might only share the ancestral strain, and let the scientists undertake the 20 years of our experiment. Or if I was only a little bit mean, maybe I’d also send the potentiated bacteria, and let the recipients then repeat the several years of incredibly pain-staking work that my superb doctoral student, Zachary Blount, performed to test some 40 trillion (40,000,000,000,000) cells, which generated 19 additional citrate-using mutants. But I’m a nice guy, at least when treated with some common courtesy, so if a competent scientist asks for them, I would even send a sample of the evolved E. coli that now grows vigorously on citrate. A competent microbiologist, perhaps requiring the assistance of a competent molecular geneticist, would readily confirm the following properties reported in our paper: (i) The ancestral strain does not grow in DM0 (zero glucose, but containing citrate), the recipe for which can be found on my web site, except leaving the glucose out of the standard recipe as stated in our paper. (ii) The evolved citrate-using strain, by contrast, grows well in that exact same medium. (iii) To confirm that the evolved strain is not some contaminating species but is, in fact, derived from the ancestral strain in our study, one could check a number of traits and genes that identify the ancestor as E. coli, and the evolved strains as a descendant thereof, as reported in our paper. (iv) One could also sequence the pykF and nadR genes in the ancestor and evolved citrate-using strains. One would find that the evolved bacteria have mutations in each of these genes. These mutations precisely match those that we reported in our previous work, and they identify the evolved citrate-using mutants as having evolved in the population designated Ara-3 of the long-term evolution experiment, as opposed to any of the other 11 populations in that experiment. And one could go on and on from there to confirm the findings in our paper, and perhaps obtain additional data of the sort that we are currently pursuing.
Before I could send anyone any bacterial strains, in order to comply with good scientific practices I would require evidence of the requesting scientist’s credentials including: (i) affiliation with an appropriate unit in some university or research center with appropriate facilities for storing (-80ºC freezer), handling (incubators, etc.), and disposing of bacteria (autoclave); and (ii) some evidence, such as peer-reviewed publications, that indicate that the receiving scientist knows how to work with bacteria, so that I and my university can be sure we are sending biological materials to someone that knows how to handle them. By the way, our strains are not derived from one of the pathogenic varieties of E. coli that are a frequent cause of food-borne illnesses. However, even non-pathogenic strains may cause problems for those who are immune-compromised or otherwise more vulnerable to infection. Also, my university requires that a Material Transfer Agreement be executed before we can ship any strains. That agreement would not constrain a receiving scientist from publishing his or her results. However, if an incompetent or fraudulent hack (note that I make no reference to any person, as this is strictly a hypothetical scenario, one that I doubt would occur) were to make false or misleading claims about our strains, then I’m confident that some highly qualified scientists would join the fray, examine the strains, and sort out who was right and who was wrong. That’s the way science works.
I would also generally ask what the requesting scientist intends to do with our strains. Why? It helps me to gauge the requester’s expertise. I might be able to point out useful references, for example. Moreover, as I’ve said, we are continuing our work with these strains, on multiple fronts, as explained in considerable detail in the Discussion section of our paper. I would not be happy to see our work “scooped” by another team – especially for the sake of the outstanding students and postdocs in my group who are hard at work on these fronts. However, that request to allow us to proceed, without risk of being scooped on work in which we have made a substantial investment of time and effort, would be just that: a request. In other words, we would respect PNAS policy to share those strains with any competent scientist who complied with my university’s requirements for the MTA and any other relevant legal restrictions. If any such request requires substantial time or resources (we have thousands of samples from this and many other experiments), then of course I would expect the recipient to bear those costs.
So there you have it. I know that I’ve been a bit less polite in this response than in my previous one, but I’m still behaving far more politely than you deserve given your rude, willfully ignorant, and slanderous behavior. And I’ve spent far more time responding than you deserve. However, as I said at the outset, I take education seriously, and I know some of your acolytes still have the ability and desire to think, as do many others who will read this exchange.
P.S. Did you know that your own bowels harbor something like a billion (1,000,000,000) E. coli at this very moment? So remember to wash your hands after going to the toilet, as I hope your mother taught you. Simple calculations imply that there are something like 10^20 = 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 E. coli alive on our planet at any moment. Even if they divide just once per day, and given a typical mutation rate of 10^-9 or 10^-10 per base-pair per generation, then pretty much every possible double mutation would occur every day or so. That’s a lot of opportunity for evolution.
P.P.S. I hope that some readers might get a chuckle out of this story. The same Sunday (15 June 2008) that you and some of your acolytes were posting and promoting scurrilous attacks on me and our research (wasn’t that a bit disrespectful of the Sabbath?), I was in a church attending a wedding. And do you know what Old Testament lesson was read? It was Genesis 1:27-28,[6] in which God created Man and Woman. It’s a very simple and lovely story, and I did not ask any questions, storm out, or demand the evidence that it happened as written at a time when science did not yet exist. I was there in the realm of spirituality and mutual respect, not confusing a house of religion for a science class or laboratory. And it was a beautiful wedding, too.
P.P.P.S. You may be unable to understand, or unwilling to accept, that evolution occurs. And yet, life evolves! [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pur_si_muove] From the content on your website, it is clear that you, like many others, view God as the Creator of the Universe. I respect that view. I find it baffling, however, that someone can worship God as the all-mighty Creator while, at the same time, denying even the possibility (not to mention the overwhelming evidence) that God’s Creation involved evolution. It is as though a person thinks that God must have the same limitations when it comes to creation as a person who is unable to understand, or even attempt to understand, the world in which we live. Isn’t that view insulting to God?
P.P.P.P.S. I noticed that you say that one of your favorite articles on your website is the one on “Deceit.” That article begins as follows: “Deceit is the deliberate distortion or denial of the truth with an intent to trick or fool another. Christianity and Judaism teach that deceit is wrong. For example, the Old Testament says, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.’” You really should think more carefully about what that commandment means before you go around bearing false witness against others.
Elements censored in the reply[edit]
Keen readers at Conservapedia noticed that the phrase "[Ed.: citation omitted due to spam filter]" was contained in the second of the professor's replies at their site. Inquiries about this withholding of information were made by some readers at Conservapedia. After at least two users were blocked for pursuing the issue it was revealed that the offending link was to none other than a certain RW. It was further established that the initials RW referred to a "Wiki claimed to be Rational"- in other words, the very wiki you're reading right now. This ironic desire to conceal data caused some concern at Conservapedia and mirth at RationalWiki. Our article above has the full information included in the professor's reply. For those who are interested, the link Conservapedia censored is Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.
As a final irony Conservapedia subsequently erased from the talk page all references to their failure to print the entire response.
Also, a lesser point is that the emphasis (bolding) in the second reply is from the original, but was omitted in Conservapedia's transcription. This was almost certainly a simple oversight.[note 1] (UPDATE: As of August 21, 2015, the bolding appears to have been replaced. It is unknown when this happened.)
Consequences[edit]
Mr. Schlafly certainly intended that his letters to Prof. Lenski would have the effect of somehow discrediting his work or discomforting him in some way. In the event the consequences couldn't have been more different.
As a result of Mr. Schlafly's tomfoolery he raised the status of Prof. Lenski's evolution-demonstrating paper from the status of "highly significant" to "Internet science-blog phenomenon." It is difficult to think of any other action which would have so raised the profile of this research.
Many non-specialists no doubt took an interest in the exchange. For many, the take-home sound bites would have been "Scientist proves Evolution in Lab" and "Religious Fundamentalists don't Understand Science." Others may have gone on to gain a deeper understanding as a consequence.
Conservapedia once again became the laughingstock of the Internet. And this time the blame couldn't be put on any alleged parodists. Mr. Schlafly personally started the ball rolling, continued with it against the publicly expressed doubts of his associates, and went back a second time when he felt he didn't like the first answer.
By refusing to include the link to RationalWiki in Prof. Lenski's second reply, Mr. Schlafly did more than any other individual to raise RationalWiki's profile on the net. Amazingly, Conservapedia then compounded the error by clumsily attempting to hide its own open correspondence concerning the matter.
Schlafly showed his take of the episode like this: "Richard Lenski of Michigan State University was rude and demeaning when replying to a member of the public who asked about his research."
In conclusion, it is difficult to imagine a course of action more incredibly, enormously, staggeringly counter-productive to his cause than that undertaken by Mr Schlafly.
Schlafly currently spends his days editing (and censoring content of) this tripe that poses as an encyclopedia article.
Beating a dead horse, horse kicks back[edit]
Conservapedia letter to PNAS[edit]
On 4 August 2008, Conservapedia then drafted and emailed, over Andrew Schlafly's signature, this letter to PNAS:[7]
Identification of flaws in the following paper published in PNAS: Blount ZD, Borland CZ, and Lenski RE, "Historical contingency and the evolution of a key innovation in an experimental population of Escherichia coli," 105 PNAS 23, pp. 7899–7906 (June 10, 2008).
Andrew Schlafly, B.S.E., J.D.
Author Affiliations:
www.conservapedia.com, teacher of pre-college students
The following flaws in this PNAS paper negate its claim that E. Coli bacteria evolved through a beneficial mutation:[8]
1. Figure 3 depicts an "historical contingency" hypothesis around the 31,000th generation, but the abstract states that mutations "arose by 20,000 generations." The paper fails to admit that the Third Experiment disproved the contingency hypothesis depicted in Figure 3.
2. Both hypotheses propose fixed mutation rates, but the failure of mutations to increase with sample size disproves this. If the authors claim that it is inappropriate to compare for scale the Second and Third Experiments to each other and to the First Experiment, then it was also an error to treat them similarly statistically.
3. The paper incorrectly applied a Monte Carlo resampling test to exclude the null hypothesis for rarely occurring events. The Third Experiment results are consistent with the null hypothesis, contrary to the paper's claim.
4. It was error to include generations of the E. coli already known to contain trace Cit+ variants. The highly improbable occurrence of four Cit+ variants from the 32,000th generation in the Second Experiment suggests an origin from undetected, pre-existing Cit+ variants.
5. The Third Experiment was erroneously combined with the other two experiments based on outcome rather than sample size, thereby yielding a false claim of overall statistical significance.
The underlying data for this publicly (NSF) funded research have not been publicly released, despite requests for such release and NSF policy that "data collected with public funds belong in the public domain."[9]
Randy Schekman, Editor-in-Chief, PNAS, University of California at Berkeley (by email and postal mail)
New Scientist (by fax - 0171 261 6464)
Rep. Brian Baird, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education of the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology (by postal mail)
Judicial Watch (by email)
As with the letter to Prof Lenski, the letter was a joint effort by editors from Conservapedia, with the initial draft being drawn up by DinsdaleP. User Stitch75 provided some constructive criticism, both on the content and style of the letter.
Schlafly disregarded any and all advice, silencing Stitch75 with:
“”'Stitch75', you seem to think that the truth depends on whether PNAS accepts it. It doesn't. Lenski's paper is badly flawed regardless of whether he admits it, PNAS admits it, or you admit it. That's the beauty of the truth: it doesn't require admission by anyone. I'm fine with Lenski and PNAS refusing to admit the flaws in their paper. After all, if they really cared about quality then I doubt they would have published their flawed paper after merely 14 days or less of peer review.[10]
It is possible — and the suggestion was raised — that Schlafly deliberately submitted a flawed letter, which would enable him to cry "censorship" when it was not published.
On August 24, 2008 Andrew Schlafly posted a news item on the front page of Conservapedia that notification had been given, by PNAS, to all the co-authors of Lenski's paper regarding the above letter. The editorial board would review the letter and consider one of the following: acceptance, rejection, or revision. They settled on "rejection," as the following reply shows.
PNAS reply to Mr. Schlafly and his Conservapedia[edit]
Dateline: September 11, 2008.[11]
A member of the Editorial Board has evaluated the letter and concluded that PNAS cannot publish it for the following reasons:
From what I take to be the underlying issue from the numbered points, Mr. Schlafly's main concern has to do with the fact that one experiment failed to yield a statistically significant result, and this happened to be the experiment with the largest sample size. Every experiment has limited power to detect a difference of any given magnitude, and so in a series of experiments some may yield non-significant results even when the null hypothesis is false. The non-significant experiment may even be the one with the largest sample size. There is nothing exceptional in this--it is a matter of chance. Nevertheless, from a statistical point of view, it is proper to combine the results of independent experiments, as Blount et al. did correctly in their original paper. If the overall result is significant, as it is in this case, then the whole series of tests is regarded as significant. Mr. Schlafly seems to suggest that experiments differing in sample size cannot be combined in an overall analysis, and if this is what he is suggesting, he is wrong.
I think Letters published in PNAS should raise points that in themselves, or in conjunction with the authors' response, should be of wide interest to the readership of PNAS or should illuminate some obscure or subtle point. The issues raised by Mr. Schlafly are neither obscure nor subtle, but are part of everyday statistical analysis at a level too elementary to need rehearsal in the pages of PNAS.
Mr. Schlafly's final comment about release of data is uncalled for. My understanding is that the authors have made the relevant materials available on their web site. This seems to me to meet the requirement that "data collected with public funds belong in the public domain." If Mr. Schlafly believes that the disclosure is incomplete, that is an issue that needs to be argued with the original funding agency, not with the readers of PNAS.
Conclusion[edit]
In a 2012 paper, Blount et al. identified and sequenced the mutations leading to the Cit(+) phenotype. By demonstrating the actual series of mutations that eventually give rise to the phenotype, the scientists eliminated any concerns of horizontal gene transfer or contamination.[12]
Analysis of the Lenski Paper
Conservapedia talk:Lenski dialog - RW's restored version of the talk pages: (1)(2)(3)
Conservapedia:Schlafly's alleged Flaws in Lenski's Study
Lenski results challenge creationism
Release the data
The same data on Conservapedia
PZ Myers's take on Pharyngula
All-time classic creationist pwnage, from Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column
Creationist critics get their comeuppance, New Scientist
Bacteria evolve; Conservapedia demands recount, Ars Technica
talk.origins thread
Conservapedia & Distrust of Science: When You Needn’t Win the War to Make the Point, by AmesG
↑ Hanlon's Razor applies. If Schlafly read and copied the email in a plaintext format, as opposed to viewing it as HTML, he wouldn't have seen it.
↑ Dawkins, Richard (2009) "The Greatest Show on Earth" page 131 (Chapter 5 "Before Our Very Eyes"), Simon and Schuster, ISBN 1416594787
↑ Review: The Greatest Show on Earth, Young Australian Skeptics
↑ Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab, New Scientist
↑ How Biblical!
↑ The process discussed on Lenski's website.
↑ Genesis 1:27-28
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
↑ Emailed to PNAS "with minor improvements"
↑ Detail is at "Flaws in Richard Lenski Study" and its talk page.
↑ Data Archiving Policy, National Science Foundation
↑ Screenshot of talk page. The corresponding history for that page does not include links to the opening few comments.
↑ PNAS Response to Letter
↑ Genomic analysis of a key innovation in an experimental Escherichia coli population, Nature
Retrieved from "https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Lenski_affair&oldid=2094190#Conservapedia_letter_to_PNAS"
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Tag: The Creeps
I bought two handfuls of vinyl
February 17, 2013 May 29, 2015 Posted in Vinyl / LPsTagged Alexander O´Neal, Bruce Springsteen, Carole King, Classic album, Genesis, Journey, LP, music, Prince, Record Player, Records, Rolling Stones, Spotify, The Creeps, Vinyl11 Comments
The last records I bought was some LPs and a couple of CDs the summer of 2012 – and a thats about it…
Not to understand that I haven´t bought any music lately – because I have, only digital – from iTunes and downloading free mixtapes from the net.
A few weekends back I went the city, in my case Oslo, Norway and finally got time to visit my favorite second-hand record store Råkk&Rålls (sic.) and bought a couple of handfuls of vinyl.
Well, here is my “new” records – can you recognize any of these?
The two handfuls of records – I bought was;
Carole King “Her Greatest Hits”
Singer/songwriter Carole King is one of the worlds greatest songwriters, a living legends who´s up there with song-writers like Burt Bacharach, Diane Warren and more – she has written hundreds of songs – and is the writer behind classic songs like “You Make Me Feel, Like a Natural Woman”, “You´ve Got A Friend”. Her “Tapestry” album is one of the really great classics everyone should own!
The brown drawn sleeve of various versions of Carole King is a great metaphor, for her dry, yet kinda soulful voice – that fits perfect for her simple and honest classic songwriting.
This greatest hits compilation with full title “Her Greatest Hits -Songs of long ago” contains 12 tracks taken from 6 of her solo albums, standout tracks is; “It´s too late”, “Feel The Earth Move” and “Corazon”
IF YOU USE SPOTIFY – LISTEN TO THE ALBUM HERE!
Alexander O’Neal “Alexander O´Neal”
The late and great Alexander O´Neals selftitled 1985 album, was produced by Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis of former Prince protoges The Time – these days known as super songwriters and producers par excellence! Guess who has produced all the biggest songs of Janet Jackson? Yes! Jam & Lewis. Back to Alexander O´Neals selftitled debut album contains the 10 minute long funky “Medley:Innocent/Alex 3000/Innocent II” could fit into any The Time/Prince album from the same time. The album is worth that song alone! Fun fact: Alexander O´Neal was close to become a member of The Time.
IF YOU USE SPOTIFY – LISTEN TO THE ALBUM HERE! (contains additional tracks)
Toto “Hydra”
Toto´s a musicians band; Super pro-musicians who has worked with almost everyone, from Michael Jackson to Roger Waters. Hydra was their second album, and an album that contains a more pop/prog songs, than the soft-rock songs they later became so famous for. The most Toto´ish songs is the cryptic “99” and “Mama”
The album cover is quite cool with a blurry picture of a leather clad anonymous longhaired man with an enormous sword against a brick wall in a dark backstreet. Mysterious cover.
Rolling Stones “Black & Blue”
The Rolling Stones soul album “Black & Blue” includes two of my favourite songs, the funky disco of “Hot Stuff” and the wonderful but sad soul song “Fool To Cry” I love the Stones when they flirt with the softer side, like they do on this soulful album, and flirts with other sounds than the typical Rolling Stones-rock.
I have to question the album cover. The close-up of Mick Jagger & Keith Richards + Bill Wyman. All looking like punks and rather stoned. An odd choice of cover for their most soulful album. Despite that “Black & Blue” is one of my personal Rolling Stones favourite albums.
Genesis “Genesis”
When an album starts as good as Genesis self titled album it got to be good. “Mama” is one of the really huge classics in the Phil Collins Genesis line up, a dark ballad about a man´s longing for a prostitute. Phil Collins voice is fantastic on this song – and according to Wikipedia the hah-hah´s is inspired by Grandmaster Flash´ “The Message”. Being the last album before they became a mainstream pop band with the huge success of “Invisible Touch” and the Spitting Image video “Land of Confusion”. Other great songs off “Genesis” album is the pop song “That´s All” and the two-part “Home By The Sea” / “Second Home By The Sea” – and this is just side A of the album. A great start, the rest is up to you to check out for yourself
IF YOU USE SPOTIFY – YOU CAN LISTEN TO THE ALBUM HERE! (contains additional tracks)
The Creeps “The Blue Tomato”
Swedish band The Creeps was a really soulful and funky pop/rock record that contained the wonderful “Ooh, I Like It”. Vocalist Robert Jelinek must be one of the best vocalists in Sweden ever! Listen to his voice on songs like “Right Back On Track”, “SMASH!”, “I´d Better Start Running” and the superfunky “Way Cool”. Actually the whole album is worth every penny there is.
Another fun fact: I also have this album on CD, and when Norwegian chocolate-company Nidar was making a commercial for their chocolate coated corn candy “Smash!” a friend of mine who worked for Nidar told me they needed a theme song and asked me for tip – and I mentioned The Creeps had a song called exactly that “SMASH!”. I lent he my CD of The Creeps “The Blue Tomato” and they ended up using the song off my CD in the final commercial ad (Didn´t find it on YouTube, but will update the post if I find it at a later time!
Journey “Escape”
“Don´t Stop Believing” has become a soft-rock staple. The genius trick of using this song as the last song of the final episode of “The Sopranos” was a fantastic way to make this great song known to new listeners.
The song has also been used in pop-culture TV-series “Glee” with great success. My wife can´t listen to Journeys “Don´t Stop Believing” without start telling how it makes her think about Glee (she´s a huge Glee fan!). Other songs worth mentioned here is “Who´s Crying Now” a song that makes anyone think about much under-rated soul legend Randy Crawford, the singer behind classics like “Street Life” and “Almaz” and “Who´s Crying Now” to mention a few of her classic songs.
This Journey album is worth owning for “Don´t Stop Believing” alone!
Rolling Stones “Emotional Rescue”
The first Rolling Stones of the 80´s is the 1980 album “Emotional Rescue”. The album’s title track was the first single off the album – and is one of the few disco songs released by the Stones. Here and there you can her disco influences on the album and “Dance pt. 1” reached the top 10 on the Billboard Dance Charts.
The beautiful ballad “Indian Girl” – a song that reminds me a bit like a slower version of Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” – again a song in which Van The Man sounds more than a bit like the Rolling Stones Mick Jagger. “Indian Girl” should be up there with “Angie”.
Fun fact: The vinyl edition I bought included a huge poster with pictures with the album sleeve pictures. Tried to figure out if this a limited edition, but still haven´t found any info about this. Does anyone out there know?
Bruce Springsteen “The River”
The title track off this album is probably one of Springsteen’s finest songs ever and my personal favorite. The ultimate edit of the song is to be found on Bruce Springsteen & The E-street Band Live 1975-85 – a 11 minute epic edition, that starts with a 6 minute spoken part by Springsteen! Check it out here on YouTube!
I became a late Springsteen fan myself, and happen to be a bigger fan of the ballad-part of his career, than the rock star years. My favorite albums is his acoustic albums “Nebraska”, “Tunnel of Love”, “The Ghost Of Tom Joad” and my personal favorite “Devils & Dust”.
“The River” (album) is a great album to see all his sides; the pop singer in “Hungry Heart”, the afore-mentioned singer-songwriter in the title track – and the rocker several tracks on this album.
Prince “1999”
The Purple Ones 1982 album “1999” came in two different sleeves and edits; the iconic purple with 1999 drawn on – and this one as pictured above. When I caught my hand in it, I happen to forget that is was 1999, because its so many years since i saw this sleeve. I managed to mix it up with his late 70s albums like “Controversy” so my happiness in discovering it was “1999” was big! I checked the album on Wikipedia – and found that the edit I got is 1999 edited down to a single album containing only 7 tracks, compared to the original double-edit containing 11 tracks.
In the mid-80s I collected all albums by Prince on tape. I got hooked in ´86, and “Kiss”. I bought his back catalogue and every album up to “Lovesexy” on tape. In 1987 I got my first record player – and bought “Sign´O´the Times” and “Purple Rain” on vinyl. Then came CDs – and I started collecting all his albums on the digital format. And still do ´til this day. But after I got a new record player in the early 2000s I started re-collecting Prince´ albums on vinyl. It seems like my record buying goes in circles!
“1999” is the first Prince album to contain what became the recognizable Minneapolis sound. The sound of Prince and his friends, protoges and nemesis. With songs like the title track, “Little Red Corvette” and on of my favourite Prince-slow jams (in a style that has followed up til this day) “Free”. The album ends with the funky “Lady Cab Driver”, a beat driven track, with a fantastic spoken part in the middle. A perfect ending on the edited album. I will without doubt track down the double-album edit, to get the whole picture – and going to continue to complete my Prince collection.
IF YOU USE SPOTIFY – LISTEN TO THE ALBUM HERE! (the 11 track double album)
To quote Bugs Bunny Th..th…that´s all folks; That´s all ten records I bought, for a small handful of money: 10 records for only 250 Kr (norwegian kroner) that equals 33,75 EURO/45 USD/29 GBP. A good bargain for 10 classic second-hand records if you ask me!
…Hang on for more second-hand album record reviews…to be continued…
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How to write compelling “happy” characters
09/08/2018 in on writing • 8 Comments
What on earth are “happy” characters?
We all know what an “unhappy” character is. They’re the street rat who’s turned to thievery for survival, the high-flying businessman with a tragic past, the orphaned boy living in a closet under the stairs. They’re the insecure ones, the ones with unhealthy habits, stuck in terrible situations, or miserable with their lot in life. Most main characters are unhappy in some significant way. That’s what makes it a good story, right?
“Happy” characters aren’t quite so easy to define, and they’re definitely less common. When they do pop up in stories they’re usually supporting characters rather than the MC, so we don’t get to spend as much time in their head or looking through their eyes. What does, and does not, constitute a “happy” character may also be a matter of opinion, but I have outlined my view on the situation below.
Happy characters ARE:
Friendly, empathetic and likeable, regardless of whether they are introverted or extroverted or somewhere in between
Well-adjusted, self-aware and capable of adapting to different situations without having an enormous meltdown
Good at what they do, or else are accepting of their faults and flaws and work to rectify those they can
Have a peaceful and happy past, or have come to terms with and worked through any issues resulting from past trauma
Ultimately “happy on the inside”…which usually translates to also being “happy on the outside”
Happy characters ARE NOT:
Happy ALL of the time (at least, not necessarily), because happy is an emotion and not a personality
Lonely, neglected, or feel that something significant and/or important is missing from their lives
Carrying massive grudges or vowing revenge after an actual or perceived slight (because “happy” characters have learned to let this stuff go)
Angsty about anything to the point it starts to have an impact on their life, especially in a negative way
Those that feign happiness but cry themselves to sleep at night (i.e. “happy on the outside” but not “happy on the inside”)
Why “happy” characters can be so hard to write
While editing my WIP fantasy novel Old Blood, I noticed something interesting—and perhaps not really that surprising—about a character I consider to be “happy”. One of my MCs, Asa, is laid-back, always true to himself, and doesn’t agonise over things he can’t change. He’s fascinating and unique to me because I KNOW him in and out, but on the page his character comes across as…flat.
“Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
The reality is, when it comes to stories, “happy” can be boring if it’s not handled carefully. Readers engage more with flawed characters facing a crisis than they do well-adjusted characters living perfect lives. And think about it: is a character who doesn’t question themselves, or make mistakes, or grapple with less-than-pleasant emotions while the world falls apart around them actually believable? Probably not.
But I don’t think that’s enough reason not to write “happy” characters. Why can’t your hero(ine) come from a loving family, have had a peaceful childhood, know who they are and what they want, and still provide an engaging vehicle through which to tell a story? The trick is finding a balance between that “happy” persona of your character and adding enough conflict that it makes things uncertain, and thus exciting!
How to make your “happy” characters more dynamic
For the last several weeks I’ve been brainstorming ways I can make Asa a more dynamic character, especially in the early part of the series before the stakes get ramped up. I don’t want to change who he is—he’s the counterbalance for the rest of my questionably-sane cast!—so I’ve had to think quite deeply about my options. The advantage of this is that I have come up with a few different ways to spice up “happy” characters, which are now listed below.
💎 Give them an obvious flaw
Remember, “happy” characters are comfortable in themselves, but this doesn’t mean they can’t be flawed. Maybe they’re shy, or have a funny laugh that draws all the wrong attention, or a disability which they won’t let get in their way! They can still be “happy” while being challenged every day.
😢 Know what makes them “sad”
Even the happiest of people have bad days, and no one is happy all the time. Determine what sorts of things will upset your character, what will get them down, what will make them curl up and cry. Then make sure it happens to them enough that readers remain invested in their story!
❌ Make a mistake
Everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect. Let your “happy” character make a mistake, or even several mistakes. Let them question themselves and everything they know, have them puzzle it out and learn a valuable lesson. They’ll only be stronger and wiser for it!
💔 Break their heart
Readers hate it when someone hurts the lovable, “happy” character—and that is an EXCELLENT thing. It will make them feel passionately about the story, so don’t be afraid to have a love interest break up with your character or a close friend betray them. The bigger the hurt, the better.
💣 Set them up to lose everything
Okay things are escalating a bit now, but the higher the stakes grow in your story, the greater the chance your “happy” character will lose out. It’s up to you whether their life actually will or won’t fall apart, but that doesn’t matter so long as the reader thinks it might!
💀 Lead them down a dark path
There’s nothing more compelling than taking your “happy” character on a walk on the dark side. The key here is determining the WHY and the HOW. Perhaps they’ve been deceived? Perhaps it’s for the greater good? Perhaps, after one of the above, they’ve forgotten the light? So many options…
Examples of “happy” characters done well
I thought I’d conclude this discussion with a few examples of characters I would classify as “happy” and have been written very well. Of course, this is a matter of opinion, so if you disagree be sure to let me know in the comments below! There may be a few *spoilers* in this section, so READ AT OWN RISK. You have been warned!
August Frey – from A Thousand Perfect Notes
August was one of the first that came to mind when making my list of “happy” characters. She’s such a ball of sunshine; unafraid to be her quirky self, unintimidated by MC Beck’s constant rebuffs, and a loyal, supportive friend. But this is well balanced by a touch of naivete regarding Beck’s situation, and the utter devastation and heartbreak she experiences towards the end of the book. It keeps things real!
Seth Morgan – from Wicked Lovely
I unashamedly adore Seth, so I had to include him here 🙂 He is a key character in 3/5 books in the series and is selfless, calm, reasonable and wise. Sounds cringe-worthy, right? Wrong. Seth is put through the wringer throughout the series, and when his LI becomes an immortal faery queen he questions everything. But despite everything (torture, heartbreak, risk of death etc.), he doesn’t give up and manages to remain true to himself.
Stevie Rae Johnson – from House of Night
Peppy, peaceful, eternally happy country bumpkin Stevie Rae is a vampyre fledgling and best friend to the series’ MC, Zoey. She began as a borderline annoying character to me because she was so happy but then…well…she DIED. And was brought back as an evil vampyre who killed innocent people. This was pretty extreme, but it was a fascinating arc and a great example of a “happy” character turning temporarily dark and then having to redeem themselves!
Frodo Baggins – from The Lord of the Rings
I’ll preface this by saying that I haven’t read the books, but the movies will suffice, I think! As you (hopefully) know, Frodo begins the series as a happy young hobbit living a perfectly peaceful and content life when he is suddenly burdened with an evil Ring that has a mind of its own. His journey is utterly compelling because of his apparent innocence…it’s no coincidence the baby-faced Elijah Wood was cast to play him in the films BTW.
How would you define a “happy” character? Do you have any examples? What do you think is most important to remember when writing “happy” characters?
Tags:characters ideas planning stories writing
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One thought on “How to write compelling “happy” characters”
M.L. Davis
Love this post so, so much. great tips , advice and examples 🙂
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it! It’s such a fascinating concept to me, especially since so many books these days feature what I deem “unhappy” characters (which are, admittedly, fun to write).
I’m so glad you gave examples of happy characters. Up until that point, I imagined them to be flat and boring. But your right, they can still be put through incredible trials and maintain their virtues. Good old, Frodo. 💕
Yes! This is why I had a hard time getting my head around what a “happy” character actually looks like. It’s not about FEELING happy all the time (because you’re right, that’s boring). It’s more about being content and confident in themselves despite the challenges they face!!
This was a fun post! I was actually wincing every time you suggested making a happy character’s life rough. 😂 I feel like I’m a pretty happy person who’s had a real nice wonderful upbringing. I’m definitely a people pleaser, which to me isn’t a flaw, but I know some people think I’m a doormat lol. It’s tricky because happy people are real, but their stories aren’t always filled with conflict. Good luck with your happy character!
Thanks Madeline! You’re absolutely right that “happy” people exist (obviously), which got me wondering why there are few stories about them. A story has to have some kind of conflict to make it interesting, but conflict can mean many things! Knowing how to use different types of conflict to bring out the different facets of a “happy” character is key!!
Jared @dabook.club
I love this! Happy character’s don’t have to be happy all of the time! LIterally, everything in this post is so true! If a person were always happy, they would get annoying and not seem realistic. No one’s perfect, and that’s why I think it’s important in books to show that characters can be more than a 2d character with no emotion. Loved this post!
Thank you Jared 😊 You’re right that one dimensional characters can be so boring and annoying, but I don’t think you have to give a character a traumatic backstory to make things interesting. Don’t get me wrong, angsty characters are fun to write and read about, but it’s definitely possible to create realistic and engaging characters that are ultimately satisfied with their lives. It just takes a bit more thought and work to get there!!
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Antitrust Creativity and Content Opinion
Why we need to protect the online gig economy from those that want to destroy it
K Fletcher May 14, 2019 0 Comments
The unions did nothing for Detroit. At one point the wealthiest per capita city in the U.S, Detroit had an incredible potential to develop into one of the most famous cities globally. Culturally rich and innovative in one of the most lucrative industries, the city was poised to become unforgettable for all the right reasons. Then, between 1945 and 1957, twenty-five automobile plants were built in the suburbs outside of the city of Detroit.
It was in 1945, three months after the end of WWII that the United Auto Workers lead a 113-day strike against General Motors which won them a significant raise increase. Ultimately the push for this policy, along with other policies, lead to it costing $1500 more to produce a car in Detroit than elsewhere. This was what caused industry to flee Detroit, and plunged the city into what seemed like a hopeless depression only decades later.
Now manufacturing and the automobile industry are old pieces of our economy, and they have already succumbed to cycles of governmental regulation which have shaped them, for better or for worse, into the forms that they take today.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 30% of American jobs require driving some level of passenger vehicle. A great portion of our labor exists in the aftermath of the automotive boom. Instead of developing cars, we operate them.
During 2014 there were 1.6 million truck drivers in America and 800,000 delivery truck operators. Conservative speculation estimates that there are 2 million drivers employed by Uber in America alone.
If the freelance economy, facilitated by companies such as Uber, Etsy, and Upwork, will not be the future of our economy, then it will at least continue to play a major role in how millions of America make a living.
The IPO of Uber had an uneven launch. It was the most anticipated IPO to come out of Silicon Valley since the IPO of Facebook, and the results mirror that of the social media giant. Facebook closed its first day with an 11 percent decline.
Uber closed its first day with a 7.62 decline. IPOs have proven difficult for several Silicon Valley companies, which leads to challenges. It is not during this time that the companies are at their strongest. Despite this, it is during the IPO of Uber that several publications and public figures think it is appropriate to raise demands against the company and squeeze further while Uber is in a precarious position.
Recently politicians such as Bernie Sanders have said that they ‘stand with the Uber and Lyft drivers’ citing that no one should have to work between 70 and 80 hours a week to get by. This is a touching statement, and a sentiment that is easy to relate to, but it harkens back to post-war Detroit.
Politicians and unions always hide behind the best interests of the workforce, but people such as Sanders, who hasn’t held a tradition job for longer than a year, can not be trusted to police naturally occurring economic events. He, and many other progressives, have no real world experience which would allow them insight into the inner workings of our economy.
Uber, and companies like it, are not corporations that build up business throughout the communities that they come out of. They are direct responses to the demands of the free market. After the advent of the smartphone, it was natural for industries to change to accommodate the evolving technology.
Uber does not stand alone. It has many competitors, especially in the global market. These competitors are not competing for real estate, deals, or employees in the traditional sense, but for the time of those who chose to work through their apps, and for the money of those who choose to use their apps.
This is a direct transaction between client and talent, which is already weighed down by the costs that the company takes from supplying the talent with the opportunity to work with their client.
The company is entitled to taking such a fee, like Uber’s 22% they take from all rides or the typical 20% that Upwork takes from its freelancers. They are entitled to this money because they do supply opportunity which otherwise wouldn’t exist. Their fee is the cost of opportunity which would not exist without the platform they provide.
The solutions that progressives offer to the financial difficulties of Uber drivers are ridiculous. San Francisco would like to add another surcharge to every ride, which seems like an interesting move from a city which cannot figure out how to budget effective sanitary measures to keep feces from coating their streets.
Pressure on Uber will not play into the interest of those who work with them, as it will only go the way of Detroit. The industry will fail under the demands of unions who demand wages which do not mirror the health of the market.
Freelance opportunities, and independent business such as Etsy shops, are industries currently booming, providing millions of Americans with a much-required income. It’s not easy to make it on any of the platforms, and there is a hustle required to make a living at all, but that’s not these companies fault. It is an issue with the market.
The companies aren’t responsible for the success of the freelancers and small business which utilize their services, but responsible for a platform which gives them a fair deal. They do not employ those who use their platform but allow them the opportunity to practice their trade.
If someone can’t make a living through these services it’s due to luck, their own personal failings, or the living conditions in their environment. Uber is not responsible for the cost of rent in New York City, Austin, or San Francisco.
The Democratic establishments of those cities have more to do with the struggles that their citizens face than those who offer the opportunity to make a living to all levels of society. When Sanders attacks Uber he misses his mark, as it is the cities which he campaigns in which strangle who he claims to stand with.
Our economic issues stem from economic disparity, which has more to do with the government and changes in the industry than they have to do with any individual actors. If there was a healthier middle class then people would be able to tip better with less stress and pay higher rates for luxury goods, such as Etsy jewelry.
Under Trump, the economy has started to recover and we are able to see that there are booms in many of the freelance industries. It is only progressive interference, such as the censorship of YouTube, which resulted in a $70 billion market cap loss. Regulation has strangled several personalities on YouTube, resulting in the loss of several occupations which had been earned through the individual effort of those successful on the platform.
If the technologies that the world relies on are to bring us into the future, then government regulation should be the last thing demanded. Freelancer platforms and riding sharing apps cannot carry the burden that employers are expected to. If we are looking for big tech overreach then it would be much more crucial to look at the sins of Facebook, Google, and Twitter than the sins of platforms which actually have competition.
Google and YouTube are the two most visited websites globally. Facebook is the dominant social media network for businesses, and Twitter hosts much of the political dialogue that occurs within the American public. All of these platforms pose a bigger threat to the American way of life than whether or not those who make a living through Uber are employed by that company or not.
Ultimately that issue is to be addressed by the market, which will cause platforms to fail as they cannot secure workers or business. The government can only alter that process by causing businesses to fail due to regulations, or keeping inefficient companies afloat through undeserved subsidies.
In addition to this, most Uber drivers drive with other apps such as Lyft. This is reflective of how much freedom the drivers have in the industry, as they can switch between the apps at a moment’s notice, and are allowed to register the same vehicle with both companies.
If the drivers are to be treated as employees of these competitor companies, then that liberty will certainly be stripped from them. Progressives claim to be working in the interest of the drivers, but it is most likely their efforts will only take liberties and opportunities away from the drivers.
Our concerns as a public must relate to the long term issues of our country. Pay rates and the policies of private businesses are temporal matters that will have different iterations after another decade of inflation and development.
Let the markets grow naturally so that the appropriate amounts of opportunities can arise, and enforce companies to respect the rights which we are given by our constitution. It is more important that we can speak freely in 2040 than it is for freelancers to be paid a ‘fair rate’ in 2019 which won’t match the cost of living in 2025.
YouTube says new “creator-on-creator harassment” rules are coming
K Fletcher
K Fletcher is a US-based news and opinion writer with insight into political issues across the internet. He covers politics for Reclaim. [email protected]
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No Josh Allen Equals Less National TV For Wyoming Football
Seneca Riggins, Townsquare Media
Five Wyoming football games will be shown on national television during the upcoming 2018 college football season.
The Mountain West Conference and its national TV partners, ESPN and CBS Sports Network, announced the 44 games chosen for national distribution Tuesday.
Wyoming will be featured on CBS Sports Network three times and ESPN Networks twice. The Cowboys will have three national appearances at home and two on the road.
The first known TV game will be the home opener against Washington State on Saturday, Sept. 1. It will be shown on CBS Sports Network, and kick-off will be at 1:30 p.m. The next time the Pokes will appear on TV is also on CBSSN in their conference debut at home versus Boise State Sept. 29. That will be a 5:00 p.m. kick-off.
UW’s first appearance on one of the ESPN Networks will be their game at Fresno State Oct. 13. Kick-off time will be announced 12 days (Oct. 1) before the game. The Cowboys next road game will also be on TV, as the annual “Border War” against rival Colorado State has been moved to Friday, Oct. 26 and will be on CBS Sports Network at 8 p.m.
The final known TV game is the home finale Nov. 17 versus Air Force. It will be an ESPN Network game and kick-off will be announced 12 days (Nov. 5) before the game.
Additional telecasts by AT&T SportsNet, Spectrum Sports (for select Hawai’i games) and Stadium will be announced at later dates. At the time those televised games are announced it is anticipated that additional game times will also be released.
Wyoming is coming off back-to-back eight-win seasons, consecutive bowl appearances and a victory in last year’s Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.
Here’s the 2018 Cowboy Football schedule:
Date Opponent Time Television
8/25 at New Mexico State TBA TBA
9/1 WASHINGTON STATE 1:30 p.m. CBSSN
9/8 at Missouri TBA TBA
9/15 WOFFORD TBA TBA
9/22 BYE Week
9/29 BOISE STATE* 5:00 p.m. CBSSN
10/6 at Hawai’i* TBA TBA
10/13 at Fresno State* TBA ESPN Networks
10/20 UTAH STATE* TBA TBA
10/26 at Colorado State* 8:00 p.m. CBSSN
11/3 SAN JOSE STATE* TBA TBA
11/10 BYE Week
11/17 AIR FORCE* TBA ESPN Networks
11/24 at New Mexico* TBA TBA
12/1 MW Champ. Game+ TBA TBA
Games in CAPS are home games
All times shown are Mountain Time
*Indicates Mountain West Conference game
+The Mountain West Football Championship Game will be played at the home stadium of the divisional champion with the highest national ranking.
Filed Under: College Football, Mountain West, TV, Wyoming Cowboys
Categories: News, Sports
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4.5 Penelope's Dream
Древнегреческая и древнеримская мифология
Пенсильванский университет
Myths are traditional stories that have endured over a long time. Some of them have to do with events of great importance, such as the founding of a nation. Others tell the stories of great heroes and heroines and their exploits and courage in the face of adversity. Still others are simple tales about otherwise unremarkable people who get into trouble or do some great deed. What are we to make of all these tales, and why do people seem to like to hear them? This course will focus on the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, as a way of exploring the nature of myth and the function it plays for individuals, societies, and nations. We will also pay some attention to the way the Greeks and Romans themselves understood their own myths. Are myths subtle codes that contain some universal truth? Are they a window on the deep recesses of a particular culture? Are they a set of blinders that all of us wear, though we do not realize it? Or are they just entertaining stories that people like to tell over and over? This course will investigate these questions through a variety of topics, including the creation of the universe, the relationship between gods and mortals, human nature, religion, the family, sex, love, madness, and death. *********************************************************************************************************** COURSE SCHEDULE • Week 1: Introduction Welcome to Greek and Roman Mythology! This first week we’ll introduce the class, paying attention to how the course itself works. We’ll also begin to think about the topic at hand: myth! How can we begin to define "myth"? How does myth work? What have ancient and modern theorists, philosophers, and other thinkers had to say about myth? This week we’ll also begin our foray into Homer’s world, with an eye to how we can best approach epic poetry. Readings: No texts this week, but it would be a good idea to get started on next week's reading to get ahead of the game. Video Lectures: 1.1-1.7 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 2: Becoming a Hero In week 2, we begin our intensive study of myth through Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey. This core text not only gives us an exciting story to appreciate on its own merits but also offers us a kind of laboratory where we can investigate myth using different theoretical approaches. This week we focus on the young Telemachus’ tour as he begins to come of age; we also accompany his father Odysseus as he journeys homeward after the Trojan War. Along the way, we’ll examine questions of heroism, relationships between gods and mortals, family dynamics, and the Homeric values of hospitality and resourcefulness. Readings: Homer, Odyssey, books 1-8 Video Lectures: 2.1-2.10 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 3: Adventures Out and Back This week we’ll follow the exciting peregrinations of Odysseus, "man of twists and turns," over sea and land. The hero’s journeys abroad and as he re-enters his homeland are fraught with perils. This portion of the Odyssey features unforgettable monsters and exotic witches; we also follow Odysseus into the Underworld, where he meets shades of comrades and relatives. Here we encounter some of the best-known stories to survive from all of ancient myth. Readings: Homer, Odyssey, books 9-16 Video Lectures: 3.1-3.10 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 4: Identity and Signs As he makes his way closer and closer to re-taking his place on Ithaca and with his family, a disguised Odysseus must use all his resources to regain his kingdom. We’ll see many examples of reunion as Odysseus carefully begins to reveal his identity to various members of his household—his servants, his dog, his son, and finally, his wife Penelope—while also scheming against those who have usurped his place. Readings: Homer, Odyssey, books 17-24 Video Lectures: 4.1-4.8 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 5: Gods and Humans We will take a close look at the most authoritative story on the origin of the cosmos from Greek antiquity: Hesiod’s Theogony. Hesiod was generally considered the only poet who could rival Homer. The Theogony, or "birth of the gods," tells of an older order of gods, before Zeus, who were driven by powerful passions—and strange appetites! This poem presents the beginning of the world as a time of fierce struggle and violence as the universe begins to take shape, and order, out of chaos. Readings: Hesiod, Theogony *(the Works and Days is NOT required for the course)* Video Lectures: 5.1-5.9 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 6: Ritual and Religion This week’s readings give us a chance to look closely at Greek religion in its various guises. Myth, of course, forms one important aspect of religion, but so does ritual. How ancient myths and rituals interact teaches us a lot about both of these powerful cultural forms. We will read two of the greatest hymns to Olympian deities that tell up-close-and-personal stories about the gods while providing intricate descriptions of the rituals they like us humans to perform. Readings: Homeric Hymn to Apollo; Homeric Hymn to Demeter (there are two hymns to each that survive, only the LONGER Hymn to Apollo and the LONGER Hymn to Demeter are required for the course) Video Lectures: 6.1-6.7 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 7: Justice What counts as a just action, and what counts as an unjust one? Who gets to decide? These are trickier questions than some will have us think. This unit looks at one of the most famously thorny issues of justice in all of the ancient world. In Aeschylus’ Oresteia—the only surviving example of tragedy in its original trilogy form—we hear the story of Agamemnon’s return home after the Trojan War. Unlike Odysseus’ eventual joyful reunion with his wife and children, this hero is betrayed by those he considered closest to him. This family's cycle of revenge, of which this story is but one episode, carries questions of justice and competing loyalties well beyond Agamemnon’s immediate family, eventually ending up on the Athenian Acropolis itself. Readings: Aeschylus, Agamemnon; Aeschylus, Eumenides Video Lectures: 7.1-7.10 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 8: Unstable Selves This week we encounter two famous tragedies, both set at Thebes, that center on questions of guilt and identity: Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Eurpides’ Bacchae. Oedipus is confident that he can escape the unthinkable fate that was foretold by the Delphic oracle; we watch as he eventually realizes the horror of what he has done. With Odysseus, we saw how a great hero can re-build his identity after struggles, while Oedipus shows us how our identities can dissolve before our very eyes. The myth of Oedipus is one of transgressions—intentional and unintentional—and about the limits of human knowledge. In Euripides’ Bacchae, the identity of gods and mortals is under scrutiny. Here, Dionysus, the god of wine and of tragedy, and also madness, appears as a character on stage. Through the dissolution of Pentheus, we see the terrible consequences that can occur when a god’s divinity is not properly acknowledged. Readings: Sophocles, Oedipus Rex; Euripides, Bacchae Video Lectures: 8.1-8.9 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 9: The Roman Hero, Remade Moving ahead several centuries, we jump into a different part of the Mediterranean to let the Romans give us their take on myth. Although many poets tried to rewrite Homer for their own times, no one succeeded quite like Vergil. His epic poem, the Aeneid, chronicles a powerful re-building of a culture that both identifies with and defines itself against previously told myths. In contrast to the scarcity of information about Homer, we know a great deal about Vergil’s life and historical context, allowing us insight into myth-making in action. Readings: Vergil, Aeneid, books 1-5 Video Lectures: 9.1-9.10 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 10: Roman Myth and Ovid's Metamorphoses Our consideration of Vergil’s tale closes with his trip to the underworld in book 6. Next, we turn to a more playful Roman poet, Ovid, whose genius is apparent in nearly every kind of register. Profound, witty, and satiric all at once, Ovid’s powerful re-tellings of many ancient myths became the versions that are most familiar to us today. Finally, through the lens of the Romans and others who "remythologize," we wrap up the course with a retrospective look at myth. Readings: Vergil, Aeneid, book 6; Ovid, Metamorphoses, books 3, 12, and 13. Video Lectures: 10.1-10.9. Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. *********************************************************************************************************** READINGS There are no required texts for the course, however, Professor Struck will make reference to the following texts in the lecture: • Greek Tragedies, Volume 1, David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, trans. (Chicago) • Greek Tragedies, Volume 3, David Grene and Richmond Lattimore , trans. (Chicago) • Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, M. L. West, trans. (Oxford) • Homeric Hymns, Sarah Ruden, trans. (Hackett) • Homer, The Odyssey, Robert Fagles, trans. (Penguin) • Virgil, The Aeneid, Robert Fitzgerald, trans. (Vintage) • Ovid, Metamorphoses, David Raeburn, trans. (Penguin) These translations are a pleasure to work with, whereas many of the translations freely available on the internet are not. If you do not want to purchase them, they should also be available at many libraries. Again, these texts are not required, but they are helpful.
Art History, Greek Mythology, History, Mythology
I thoroughly enjoyed this course. Greek and Roman Mythology has always been something I was interested in and this class introduced many new ways I could actually look at these myths.
This is an excellent course with an excellent instructor. The course uses primary sources in translation and teaches the student different ways of analyzing and interpreting myths.
Identity and Signs
As he makes his way closer and closer to re-taking his place on Ithaca and with his family, a disguised Odysseus must use all his resources to regain his kingdom. We’ll see many examples of reunion as Odysseus carefully begins to reveal his identity to various members of his household—his servants, his dog, his son, and finally, his wife Penelope—while also scheming against those who have usurped his place. Readings: Homer, Odyssey, books 17-24. Video Lectures: 4.1-4.8. Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week.
4.1 Odysseus Meets the Suitors 11:59
4.2 Signs as a Way of Knowing 10:33
4.3 What Does Penelope Know? 12:38
4.4 The Scar 11:01
4.5 Penelope's Dream 8:13
4.6 The Bow 9:36
4.7 Reunion (Almost) 12:25
4.8 Reunion 9:15
Peter Struck
Выбор языкаАнглийскийКитайский (упрощенное письмо)Румынский
Book nineteen bring, brings things to a head for us.
We've seen Odysseus and Penelope coming together in our last discussion.
Prior discussions we've talked about Odysseus giving his lie to Penelope, then
having his scar spotted by Eurycleia. And now, as a kind of coup de gras to what
happens in Book nineteen, Penelope drops some things on Odysseus.
She goes ahead and tells him her dream. Book twenty, that's going to follow this
as loaded with divine signs, each of which is confirming that Odysseus is about to
come or is already here. The dream of Penelope that was perhaps the
most elaborate and most carefully wrought of all of these divine signs, suggesting
that Odysseus is indeed really here. And, it's, it's in a, in an almost, move
of vertiginous ingenuity. Homer has Odysseus involved in his own
self-revelation to Penelope but through his own disguise.
Let's keep an eye on how all these moving parts moving parts work.
But, before we do, I'd like to introduce another universal law.
What's been happening in these secret codes of knowledge back and forth with
Odysseus and Athena, and then Odysseus and Telemachus, and the, the special messages
that they send one another is that they, we have some proprietary knowledge.
Knowledge that not everybody knows, but only a select few know.
This is secrecy and it's worked to great a great degree in this part of the story.
I'm going to actually lay down a universal law here that secrecy creates intimacy.
This is universal law number six, I believe, and like all universal laws, is
pretty much universal. Guaranteed to be true.
You can use it in, who knows someday maybe we'll publish you know, a book on, laws of
universe according to Greek mythology. Structures universal laws.
Universal law number six, secrecy creates intimacy.
Proprietary knowledge makes people feel closer together.
And there's a corollary to this universal law which says, that if you want to flirt
with someone, tell them you had a dream about them.
However, this corollary should only be used with extreme caution, it has a very
high degree of difficulty. If you just walk up to someone and say,
hey, I had a dream about you, they might think, you know, that's kind of creepy.
It's a little bit too intimate. Don't, you know, too much information.
Please don't go on. But, you can see what Penelope does with
this particular corollary in this part. And, and works out okay for her.
Remember, the back and forth that's been happening, the two of them are quiet in a,
in a quiet conversation in the firelight. There some serving maids around the edges.
But, the two of them have their own sort of private audience.
They're having conversations back and forth.
He's told his lies to her, she's ordered the foot washing Eurycleia has spotted the
scar. Penelope in all this seems like she's
sensed something's going on but she never says and Homer, Homer never says it.
And so, she knew it was Odysseus but there's stuff that's been happening in
Book nineteen. And Penelope's not unobservant.
So, the she is sitting on a chair emulated with ivory, we learn at page 392.
Odysseus is looking at her with eyes made of horn, we hear on page 397.
Eyes made of horn. Now, Penelope says, okay stranger, you can
sleep we'll, we'll put a bed down for you. I wanna take care of you like you are a
guest. Not regal bed but we're you know, kinda
take care of you. This is an indication from Penelope that,
you know, even though you are a stranger, I want to treat you a little better.
I'm interested in you, is kind of what that message is.
And, she says, but you know, before I do, I want you to help me because I recently
had this dream and I need you, stranger, to help me interpret the dream.
She tells him that an eagle comes down and kills a bunch of birds that had been
feeding in a trough at her house. She's upset at the violence and the, and
the and the carnage. And then, the eagle flies over to her, as
if to reassure her, and says, I am Odysseus.
I am here in order to set your house right.
And all is going to be well because I'm back.
And then, the eagle flies away. She then says to this stranger, stranger,
I want you to be the interpreter of my dream.
Now, functionally, what she's asking to Oddy, asking Odysseus, when she asks him
that, she wants him to be the interpreter of her dream.
Well, her dream already has one of those. It already has an interpreter.
The eagle interprets the dream. So, when she asks Odysseus to be the
interpreter, she's also simultaneously asking him to please, be the eagle.
She's asking Odysseus, then, not only to be the interpreter of her dream, but also,
by the language of her dream itself, to be Odysseus.
She's asking the stranger to be Odysseus. At this point, Odysseus kind of starts to
almost be at a loss for words, which is kind of interesting to see.
I mean, Odysseus, the great talker, is never at a loss for words.
And says, well, my goodness, interpreting this.
It looks like the eagle kind of got it, and it seems like Odysseus is back.
And it seems like he's about to kill all these suitors.
So, yeah. That kinda seems like what the dream means
to me. At which point, Penelope does one of her
wonderful things, oh, you know stranger, you might be right.
But, you never know. Dreams are often times just flitting
fantasies, they don't mean anything. Sometimes they're true, sometimes they're
false. Those that are true come out of a gate of
horn, those that are false come out of a gate of ivory.
Well, earlier in Book nineteen, we've been told Penelope is sitting on a chair inlaid
with ivory. She is associated with the gate of false
dreams. Homer had, tells us that Odysseus is
looking at her with eyes made of horn associating him with the god, gate of true
dreams. Now, what's happening with those
associations is very subtle. And I could only suggest, I don't know for
sure, but it seems to me that Homer is making a suggestion in associating
Penelope with the gate of false dreams that what she's really telling him here is
a story to carry on what she's already been doing in Book nineteen, to test.
To test. Let me tell you this dream, let's see what
you make of it. And in looking at his reaction, he's going
to then, she's going to then learn something about who this person is.
It could be that Penelope's dream is something she's just made up in order to
test Odysseus. And when Homer has her sitting on a chair
inlaid with ivory, associating with false dreams, it could be that that's what's
happening. And when Homer has Odysseus associated
with horn, it could be that he's now speaking the truth saying, yeah, Odysseus
really is coming to set things right. Very subtle things I wouldn't necessarily
make a big case out of it. But, it seems to me that the dream is a
world that is packed with hidden meanings. I've made stretches into a number of those
different layers of metadata that might be built in here.
The, what we know for sure is that Penelope claims to Odysseus that she had a
dream, that Odysseus is here and he's come and set her house right.
She's asking him whether, what he thinks about that, and whether he thinks that
might be true. He's saying, yes, indeed.
It's true. From here, Book twenty will lay down the
signs that show that the rest of this show in many other ways that this message is
corroborated by other divine signs which will lead us to the doorstep of the Book
21 and a lot of changes about to take place in the house of Penelope and
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Home World Taliban kill more than 30 members of Afghan security forces and militias
Taliban kill more than 30 members of Afghan security forces and militias
KABUL (Reuters) – The Taliban launched a series of attacks on security checkpoints in four Afghan provinces early on Thursday, killing 32 members of the security forces and pro-government militias, provincial officials said.
Both sides in Afghanistan’s 17-year war have kept up attacks this winter, with the Taliban inflicting a heavy toll on government forces, and the U.S. military and their government allies killing Taliban field commanders with air strikes.
At the same time, tentative peace efforts have been under with U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad holding three rounds of talks with the Taliban, although the insurgents called off a fourth round this week.
The latest Taliban attacks came in the northern provinces of Kunduz, Baghlan, Takhar, and Badghis in the west.
Qarluq said 25 Taliban fighters were killed.
In neighbouring Baghlan and Takhar provinces, the Taliban killed 16 members of pro-government militias in attacks on outposts, officials said.
They also said the Taliban suffered heavy casualties.
To the west, in Badghis province, Jamshid Shahabi, spokesman for the governor, said six members of the security forces were killed and 10 wounded in clashes.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the attacks, and said in statement that the militants had killed dozens of members of the security forces and captured a large number of weapon and ammunition.
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The worst animal bites and stings a human can experience
Crazy facts about luxury cars
The countries with the highest and lowest levels of corruption
The most thrilling amusement parks in Europe
Gun control laws: celebrities who are either for or against stricter legislation
These abandoned locations have been reclaimed by Mother Nature
S is for sightseeing, the countries beginning with S -
How many countries and territories in the world start with the letter S? More than you probably think, actually.
Click through the gallery for a tour and find out some fun facts along the way about each destination.
Spain - The second largest country in Western Europe is also one if its most culturally diverse. Pictured is the Alhambra Palace in Grenada, Andalusia.
Spain - Away from the hotter south, northern Spain is sometimes referred to as "Green Spain" and is no less alluring. Pictured is the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, in the Basque Country.
Slovakia -
Once part of Czechoslovakia, the Slovak Republic eventually became known as Slovakia. The capital, Bratislava, is distinguished by its impressive castle (pictured).
Slovakia - The National Park of High Tatras is one of the country's most attractive tourist destinations.
Singapore - The island city-state is one of Southeast Asia's wealthiest go-getting destinations, and a so-called regional economic "tiger."
Singapore - Founded as a British trading colony in 1819, the country gained its independence in 1963.
Slovenia - In 1991, Slovenia won independence from Yugoslavia. Ljubljana, the capital, stands on the site of a Roman city called Emona.
Slovenia - The already picturesque Lake Bled is enhanced by a church located on an islet. The Julian Alps provide a suitable romantic backdrop.
Saudi Arabia - A sovereign Arab state extending across most of the northern and central Arabian Peninsula.
Saudi Arabia - Regarded as the birthplace of Islam, the country's Masjid al-Haram Mosque in Mecca is the destination of the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
Seychelles - An archipelago and sovereign state scattered across the Indian Ocean, the destination is a luxury tourism hot spot.
Seychelles - Mahé, home to the capital, Victoria, is the largest island, followed by Praslin Island.
Switzerland - The Matterhorn, with its near-symmetrical pyramidal peak with a summit at 4,478 m (14,692 ft), is one of the most recognized mountains in the world.
Switzerland - Zurich, Geneva, and Basel have each been ranked among the top ten cities in the world in terms of quality of life, according to Mercer.
Scotland - Scotland's Highlands and islands are among the most dramatic and picturesque in the United Kingdom.
Scotland - The capital city of Scotland is one of the UK's most popular tourist destinations. Reasons to visit include The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts festival.
Santa Lucia - Santa Lucia is a sovereign island country in the West Indies located in the eastern Caribbean Sea. (Photo: Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
© Flickr/Creative Commons
Santa Lucia - Part of the Lesser Antilles, its capital is Castries.
South Africa - South Africa, the southernmost country in Africa, is appreciated for its wines, wildlife, and cities like Cape Town (pictured), situated beneath the landmark Table Mountain.
South Africa - One of the world's great safari vacation destinations, the country's Kruger National Park is one of Africa's largest game reserves.
Sweden - Stockholm, the Swedish capital, is known for its colorfully decorated metro, often described as the longest art gallery in the world.
Sweden - About 15% of Sweden lies north of the Arctic Circle.
South Korea - The name "Korea" is derived from the word Goryeo, also spelled Koryŏ, a dynasty that ruled from the 10th to 14th centuries.
South Korea - The 14th-century Haedong Yonggungsa Temple at Busan is especially popular with visitors on Buddha's birthday.
Senegal - Located on the west coast of Africa, its capital city is Dakar. The Great Mosque is a landmark of Senegal's second city, Touba.
Senegal - The Gambia River snakes westwards through the country, although the name Senegal comes from the Senegal River.
Serbia - Located in southeastern Europe, the country was once part of Yugoslavia. Its capital, Belgrade, features the impressive Church of Saint Sava (pictured), among other notable landmarks.
Serbia - The Tara National Park, in the Dinaric Alps, is blessed with verdant forested slopes, dramatic ravines, and crystal-clear waterways.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines -
Moored in the Caribbean Sea, this sovereign state is part of the Lesser Antilles.
(Photo: Flickr/CC BY 2.0)
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - Boasting French and British colonial history, the state is often referred to as just Saint Vincent. Its capital is Kingstown.
Swaziland - One of the smallest countries in Africa, Swaziland is known for its homesteads, clusters of traditional beehive huts covered with dry grass.
Swaziland - The annual Umhlanga, or Reed Dance ceremony, is one of the country's most popular cultural events.
São Tomé and Príncipe - An African island nation, the islands are part of a volcanic chain located in the Gulf of Guinea.
São Tomé and Príncipe - Colonized and settled by the Portuguese in the 16th century, the country's capital and largest city is São Tomé.
Sri Lanka - An island nation anchored off the south of India in the Indian Ocean. Dambulla, in the middle of the country, is celebrated for its cave temple complex (pictured).
Sri Lanka - Sri Lankan stilt fishing is a tradition that goes back centuries. The beach at Weligama is a good place to see stilt fishermen perched on their wooden poles.
Saint Kitts and Nevis -
This is the smallest sovereign state in the Western Hemisphere. The capital, Basseterre, is located on St. Kitts.
Saint Kitts and Nevis - The smaller islands of Nevis are distinguished by Nevis Peak, a potentially active volcano.
Suriname - The smallest country in South America has Dutch as its official language, although Sranan Tongo—English-based creole—is the lingua franca.
Suriname - A colonial-era gunpowder house in Fort Nieuw Amsterdam disguised as a church. Places of worship were often spared attack during hostilities. (Photo: Flickr/CC BY 2.0)
Sint Maarten - An island country in the Caribbean, Sint Maarten suffered considerable damage in 2017 as a result of Hurricane Irma.
Sint Maarten - Sint Maarten is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and lies on Saint Martin Island.
Samoa - These Polynesian islands include Savai'i, one of the largest islands in the South Pacific.
Samoa - Pictured is the Samoa Methodist Church in Apia, the Samoan capital, on Upola Island.
Sicily - An autonomous region of Italy, Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Pictured is Cefalù, with its beach and 12th-century cathedral.
Sicily - The ancient theater of Taormina, which dates back to the third century BCE, is an island landmark. Mount Etna looms large in the distance.
Solomon Islands -
The Soloman Islands lie east of Papua New Guinea, the largest of which is Guadalcanal, where the country's capital, Honiara, is situated.
Solomon Islands - During WWII, Guadalcanal Island was the scene of the Guadalcanal Campaign, which saw fierce fighting between Japanese and US troops.
Saint Pierre and Miquelon - Seldom visited, this French archipelago is located off the Canadian island of Newfoundland. Pictured is Saint Pierre. (Photo: Flickr/CC BY 2.0)
Saint Pierre and Miquelon -
The self-governing territory encompasses a number of smaller islands. Pictured is the sparsely populated Miquelon Island.
Sudan - The famous and intriguing Meroe pyramids built in the Nubian style amaze visitors and historians alike.
Sudan -
Equally astounding is the large mud brick temple-tomb known as the Western Deffufa, located in Kerma.
(Photo: Wikimedia/CC BY 2.0)
© Wikimedia/Creative Commons
South Sudan - An aerial view of Juba, South Sudan's capital.
South Sudan - South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011. In 2013 civil war broke out, which has since damaged the young nation.
Syria - The historic ruins of the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, photographed before its further destruction during the country's civil war. (Photo: Flickr/CC0 1.0)
Syria - A view of the temple in 2016. A plan has been drawn up to rebuild the temple using surviving remains.
S is for sightseeing, the countries beginning with S
What are the countries that begin with S?
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A Decadent Girl, by Ramón Casas, 1899
Decadence (pronounced: DEK-a-dence) means a state in which people are behaving in a way that is regarded by some people as being morally bad. The adjective is 'decadent'. It has nothing to do with the word decade (10 years).
1 Where the word came from
2 Decadence and society
3 Decadence and the arts
4 Colors that symbolize decadence
Where the word came from[change | change source]
“Decadence” comes from the Latin words “de” (from) and “cadere” (to fall). Thus it means to fall from a higher state of being.
Decadence and society[change | change source]
Decadence is usually a state in a society which used to be good but has become bad. Many people have started to behave in a way that others think is shocking and society does not function as well as it did before. Of course, not everyone will agree what is “good” or “bad”, but some societies, such as Sodom and Gomorrah, are thought to have been decadent.
Decadence and the arts[change | change source]
Aubrey Beardsley's drawings for Salome such as this one are regarded as art that expresses a "decadent" mood
The end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century is often called the fin de siècle (end of century). It is an example of a supposed decadent society in literature and art.
In France there were several writers who were happy to be called “decadent”. They included Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé. In France, the symbolist artists such as Gustave Moreau regarded themselves as "decadent". In England decadent artists included the author Oscar Wilde and visual artists such as Aubrey Beardsley. The "decadents" advocated living a "decadent lifestyle", which means a lifestyle based on seeking the maximum possible amount of aesthetic pleasure.
In the early 1970s, glam rock musicians such as David Bowie called themselves "decadent". David Bowie's 1973 album Diamond Dogs is about the theme of decadence. Glam rock musicians and fans of glam rock music signaled that they were decadent by wearing platform shoes. The popular 1976 film Rocky Horror Picture Show was a humorous depiction of "decadence".
People of the goth subculture, which began in the early 1980s among fans of the band Bauhaus, generally regard themselves as being "decadent". One way they may symbolize themselves as being decadent is by wearing fishnet stockings.
Colors that symbolize decadence[change | change source]
The color lavender is usually used to symbolize decadence. Both of the books in the "further reading" list below are colored different tones of lavender. In the 1890s, the color mauve was used to symbolize decadence--the 1890s were called the mauve decade.
Further reading[change | change source]
Decadence: the strange life of an epithet By Richard Gilman--New York: 1979--Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Dreamers of decadence: the symbolist painters of the 1890s By Philippe Julian 1971
Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Decadence&oldid=5590553"
This page was last changed on 3 February 2017, at 18:50.
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PMCs and Security Sector Reform: A Mismatch A dismal anniversary: four years of violence in Syria
Water, security, and the state
By Paula Hanasz On March 18, 2015
Water security and insecurity are terms used with increasing frequency. And the fear of water wars looms larger as water scarcity problems become more acute in some parts of the globe.[1] The reasoning is straightforward. As populations grow, there is increasing competition for the finite resource of water; competition creates tension, which in turn may lead to conflict; if conflict cannot be resolved peacefully, it may manifest violently or even lead to outright war.[2]
Ensuring water security, then, is in part ensuring competition over water is low. It is about “ensuring that every person has reliable access to enough safe water at an affordable price to lead a healthy, dignified and productive life, while maintaining the ecological systems that provide water and also depend on water”[3]. This understanding of water security is well established in international development.
But how does the idea of water security fit into thinking on national security? First of all, what is security? Like water, it is hard to grasp yet it is embedded in everything – and when it’s lacking, there are grave problems.
Security is an inherently subjective concept. In a constructivist understanding of the world, which stresses the relative nature of phenomena in international relations, security cannot be objectively measured. There is no way of determining how insecure any actor – be it an individual, a community, or a state – really is, and inferences can only be made based on their statements and actions.[4]
Moreover, the notion of security now extends beyond its traditional, state-based, military concept. The Copenhagen School, which was instrumental in developing a broad understanding of security, has identified five security sectors: military; environmental; economic; society; and politics.[5]
The military sector of security concerns the two-level interplay of the armed offensive and defensive capabilities of states and states’ perceptions of each other’s intentions. The political involves the organisation stability of states, systems of government and the ideologies that give them legitimacy. The economic considers the access to resources, finance and markets that is necessary to sustain acceptable levels of welfare and state power. The societal is about sustainability within acceptable conditions for the evolution of traditional patterns of language, culture, religion, national identity and custom. The environmental incorporates the maintenance of the local and the planetary biosphere as the essential support system on which all other human enterprises depend.[6]
Water security can exist as a sub-set within each of these sectors because there are economic, social, political, environmental and even military aspects to water management. But of the five security sectors, environmental security is most closely associated with water security in policy and, indeed, frequently used interchangeably with water security.
Both water security and environmental security are neologisms arising out of the realisation among international relations scholars that the environment is not endlessly abundant and perpetually resilient, and that environmental issues does not respect state or institutional borders. Since the late 1960s there has been a growing awareness that ecological health must be an essential ingredient in any recipe for (inter)national order.[7]
The environment in general, and water specifically, can be both an object to be secured, and a source of risk.[8]Environmental security arises primarily out of resource capture, and ecological marginalisation.[9] This is not to imply, however, that environmental threats are somehow entirely external or divorced from state action. Indeed, whenever the environment is raised to the level of a security issue, some degree of human responsibility is implied.[10]
Culpability for environmental degradation and resource depletion is frequently difficult to establish. The onus of responsibility for environmental restitution is therefore often unclear, and complicated by the fact that those who may suffer environmental insecurity are not necessarily those directly responsible for the resource capture or ecological marginalisation leading to it (e.g., water or air pollution is an example of environmental insecurity that could be felt away from the source of the pollution). Furthermore, environmental insecurity may affect a number of countries at once (for example, through air or water pollution)[11] and as such, presents a classic collective action problem.
Water security too is a collective action problem.[12] It requires the protection and improvement of freshwater, coastal and related ecosystems, and sustainable development while ensuring every person has access to enough safe water at an affordable cost to lead a healthy and productive life.[13] On the international scale, water security involves the multiple goals of ensuring peace, human security and environmental protection in the process of planning and implementation of water resources development and management of basins shared by two or more countries.[14]
The difficulty of ensuring international water security is that the reasonable, equitable and sustainable utilisation of international water courses has long been constrained by national sovereignty and security priorities. Transboundary water management is a wicked problem, with competing interests of agricultural uses, industrial development, environmental sustainability, water sanitation, hydroelectric energy production, etc.
These uses compete for prominence at the national level, and are sometimes irreconcilable with the same competing priorities of neighbouring littoral states. That is to say, the pursuit of one nation’s water use priorities may be considered a security threat to another.[15] For example, if an upstream nation retains water during summer months for hydro-electricity production during winter, its downstream neighbour may be left with inadequate water supply for its agricultural production during the peak growing season.
Cooperation between states regarding transboundary water management has been traditionally seen and interpreted as infringing the sovereignty of riparian states.[16] This approach has been strengthened by the rise of democratisation in the post-Cold War era. An increasing number of people in different states across the globe now understand sovereignty as the exclusive right to exercise supreme political authority over a geographical region, a group of people or oneself, and that this sovereignty is held directly by the people.[17] With this narrow understanding of sovereignty it is perhaps not surprising that the mere suggestion of another national or trans-national coalition making decisions affecting one nation’s territory or social welfare, even positively, can create emotional backlash and a securitisation of water issues.
However, the post-Cold War era of democratisation and globalisation has also seen a proliferation of influence of non-state domestic actors in national decision-making on traditionally foreign policy debates. The definitions of the concepts of sovereignty and security have also begun to evolve, and while these changes entail new threats to collective action problems such as international water security, they also present new opportunities.[18]
It is becoming clear that water insecurity and water conflict cannot adequately be dealt with through the traditional tools of national defence alone.[19] A strong argument can be made, for example, for the re-examination of water management cases through the lens of human security rather than state sovereignty, as commonly done in the past.[20] Another approach could be to reconceptualise water security through a conflict management lens.[21]
This is an approach already being taken by Tufts University professor Shafiqul Islam and MIT professor Lawrence Susskind in their pioneering work on Water Diplomacy. They posit that water conflicts are most constructively understood as differences in values and how to translate those values into policies and actions within the political domain.[22] As such, water security can be achieved by taking a non-zero-sum approach to negotiations with an emphasis placed on value creation.[23]
The Water Diplomacy approach is interesting because it returns to the inherent subjectivity of security. After all, with no objective measures of insecurity, can water security be attained through means other than negotiations based on perceived threats and interests?
Paula Hanasz is a PhD Candidate, Australian National University.
[1]Kibaroglu, A., Brouma, A.D., & Erdem, M., 2008, ‘Transboundary water issues in the Euphrates-Tigris River Basin: Some methodological approaches and opportunities for cooperation’ in Pachova, N.I., Nakayama, M., & Jansky, L. (eds.), 2008, International Water Security: Domestic Threats and Opportunities, United Nations University Press, United States of America, p. 224
[2]Cosgrove, W. J., 2009, Water Security and Peace: A Synthesis of Studies Prepared under the PCCP-Water for Peace Process, UNESCO, Technical Documents in Hydrology, PCà CP series, No. 29, SC-2003/WS/51, p. 4
[3] Mirumachi, N., 2008, ‘Domestic issues in developing international waters in Lesotho: Ensuring water security amidst political instability’ in Pachova, N., Nakayama, M., & Jansky, L., (eds.), 2008, International Water Security: Domestic Threats and Opportunities, United Nations University Press, Tokyo, p. 36
[4]Warner, J.F., & Meissner, R., 2008, The politics of security in the Okavango River Basin: From civil war to saving wetlands (1975-2002) – a preliminary security impact assessment’ in Pachova, N.I., Nakayama, M., & Jansky, L. (eds.), 2008, International Water Security: Domestic Threats and Opportunities, United Nations University Press, United States of America, p. 256
[5]Emmers, R., 2007, ‘Securitization’ in Allan, C. (ed.), 2007, Contemporary Security Studies, Oxford University Press, Bath, p. 110
[8]Barnett, J., 2007, ‘Environmental Security’ in Allan, C. (ed.), 2007, Contemporary Security Studies, Oxford University Press, Bath, p. 184
[9]Homer-Dixon, T., & Levy, M.A., 1995, ‘Environment and Security’, International Security, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Winter 1995-1996), pp. 189-198, the MIT Press, p. 192
[10]Al-Rodhan, N.R.F., 2007, The Five Dimensions of Global Security; Proposal for a Multi-Sum Security Principle, Lit Verlag, Zurich, p. 51
[12] Qaddumi, H., 2008, ‘Practical approaches to transboundary water benefit sharing’, Working Paper 292, Overseas Development Institute, p. 3
[13]Mirumachi, N., 2008, ‘Domestic issues in developing international waters in Lesotho: Ensuring water security amidst political instability’ in Pachova, N.I., Nakayama, M., & Jansky, L. (eds.), 2008, International Water Security: Domestic Threats and Opportunities, United Nations University Press, United States of America, p. 36
[14]Pachova, N.I., & Jansky, L., 2008, ‘Domestic drivers of international water security on the Danube’ in Pachova, N.I., Nakayama, M., & Jansky, L. (eds.), 2008, International Water Security: Domestic Threats and Opportunities, United Nations University Press, United States of America, p. 61
[15] Mirumachi, N., 2008, ‘Domestic issues in developing international waters in Lesotho: Ensuring water security amidst political instability’ in Pachova, N., Nakayama, M., & Jansky, L., (eds.), 2008, International Water Security: Domestic Threats and Opportunities, United Nations University Press, Tokyo, p. 37
[16]Pachova, N., Nakayama, M., & Jansky, L., 2008, ‘National sovereignty and human security: Changing realities and concepts in international water management’ in Pachova, N.I., Nakayama, M., & Jansky, L. (eds.), 2008, International Water Security: Domestic Threats and Opportunities, United Nations University Press, United States of America, p. 289
[18]Jansky, L., Nakayama, M., & Pachova, N.I., 2008, ‘Introduction: From domestic to international water security’ in Pachova, N.I., Nakayama, M., & Jansky, L. (eds.), 2008, International Water Security: Domestic Threats and Opportunities, United Nations University Press, United States of America, p. 2
[19] Chellaney, B., 2011, Water: Asia’s new battleground, Georgetown University Press, Washington DC, p. 50
[21] Wolf, A., Kramer, A., Carius, A., & Dabelko, G.D., 2005, ‘Managing Water Conflict and Cooperation’, State of the World 2005, The Worldwatch Institute, p. 94
[22]Islam, S., & Susskind, L.E., 2013, Water Diplomacy; a Negotiated Approach to Managing Complex Water Networks, RFF Press, New York, p. 89
[23]Islam, S., & Susskind, L.E., 2013, Water Diplomacy; a Negotiated Approach to Managing Complex Water Networks, RFF Press, New York, pp. 14-18
Tagged with: diplomacy • environment • peace
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Bacardi Cries Foul over Havana Club License Granted to Cuba
CaribbeanCubaCuban Relations
By PanAm Post Staff On Feb 19, 2016
While the Cuban government sold millions of Havana Club cases across the world, in the United States only Bacardi was authorized to sell the brand. (Bio Bio)
EspañolBacardi, one of Latin America’s most famous spirits producers, has formally requested the United States to revoke a licence that it granted the Cuban government to sell the Havana Club rum on US soil.
The permit, issued in December 2015, gives Cuba the rights over Havana Club at the US Patents and Trademark Office (USPTO), which will allow it to sell the famed rum in the United States once the commercial embargo between both countries is lifted.
In 1960, the Cuban government confiscated the José Arechabala company, the producer of Havana Club. Bacardi assures that it bought the brand’s rights from its rightful owners, the Arechabala family.
Bacardi claims it is the sole proprietor of the Havana Club trademark in the United States and it has requested that the US Treasury revoke the license, as it clashes with previous rulings of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
Furthermore, the Bermuda-based firm assures that the permit goes against the US government’s practice of not acknowledging confiscated trademarks or firms.
“None of the recently announced policy changes toward Cuba remotely suggest that the United States should set aside well-established law and ignore the Congressional mandate of Section 211 to protect the rights of confiscated property owners and their successors,” Bacardi said in a statement.
The firm’s standoff with the Cuban regime goes back to the time when the rum was produced on the island, but it abandoned the country in 1959 when Fidel Castro came to power.
In January 2016, the USPTO ruled that the Cuban state-owned firm Cubaexport is the rightful owner of the rum, reversing a string of judicial victories by Barcadi.
Created in 1862, Bacardi is the largest privately held spirits maker in the world and produces Havana Club in Puerto Rico.
Every year, the Cuban government sells millions of Havana Club cases to over 100 countries except the United States through a joint venture with Pernod Ricard, the french beverage manufacturer.
Sources: 14 y medio; El Nuevo Herald.
BacardiCuban embargoHavana Club
PanAm Post Staff 1344 posts 0 comments
The Human Cost of Venezuela’s Capital Control Nightmare
Donald Trump Is No True Republican
The Global Order Ignores Venezuela Because it Presents an Inconvenient Truth
Argentina: It’s Time for President Macri to Take on the Airline Unions
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DESTINATIONS argentina air-travel-33
To Argentina
There are direct daily flights between Buenos Aires and several North American cities, with New York and Miami being primary departure points. Many airlines also serve Buenos Aires via Santiago de Chile or São Paulo in Brazil, which adds only a little to your trip time.
Aerolíneas Argentinas, the flagship airline, operates direct flights between Buenos Aires and JFK once a day and Miami twice a day. Since its renationalization in 2008, Aerolíneas' reputation for chronic delays has greatly improved, although strikes do still ground planes.
Chilean airline LAN is Aerolíneas' biggest local competition. LAN flies direct from Buenos Aires to Miami, and via Santiago de Chile or Lima to JFK, Dallas, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, often in partnership with Brazilian airline TAM. LAN also allows you to bypass Buenos Aires by flying into Mendoza and Córdoba from JFK and Miami, both via Santiago de Chile.
U.S. carriers serve Buenos Aires, too. There are direct flights from Atlanta on Delta and from Houston on United; American flies nonstop from JFK, Miami, and Dallas.
Flying times to Buenos Aires are 11–12 hours from New York, 10½ hours from Atlanta, Dallas or Houston, and 9 hours from Miami.
Within Argentina
Most domestic flights operate from Buenos Aires, so to fly from the extreme south of the country to the extreme north, you often have to change planes here.
Aerolíneas Argentinas and its partner Austral link Buenos Aires to more Argentine cities than any other airline, with flights running to Puerto Iguazú, Salta, Mendoza, Córdoba, Bariloche, Ushuaia, and El Calafate at least once a day. LAN also flies to these cities. Andes Líneas Aéreas operates flights between Buenos Aires, Salta, and Puerto Madryn; and sometimes provides direct service between Puerto Iguazú and Salta and Córdoba, bypassing Buenos Aires.
Air Passes
Aerolíneas Argentinas has two coupon-based air passes, the South American Pass and the Visit Argentina Pass, both of which must be purchased before you arrive. Although you do not need to fly in and out of the continent with Aerolíneas to take advantage of either, prices are cheaper if you do. Each allows you to travel to between three and 12 destinations, using one coupon per flight; coupons from the two passes may also be combined.
The South American Pass includes all countries the carrier serves within the region (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela). All routes operate from Buenos Aires, except Rio de Janeiro to Puerto Iguazú and Santiago de Chile to Mendoza. Coupons cost between $90 and $250. The Visit Argentina Pass is valid for domestic flights. Coupons cost $180 each except for ones covering Patagonia, which cost $220 (prices drop to $150 and $200, respectively, if you fly into Argentina with Aerolíneas). The downside with these passes is that each connection you make through Buenos Aires counts as a flight and, therefore, requires a coupon. If you want to visit Buenos Aires, El Calafate, and Iguazú with the Visit Argentina Pass, for example, you would need to buy four coupons.
If you plan to take at least three flights within Argentina or South America in general, you might save money with Visit South America pass offered by the OneWorld Alliance (of which LAN is a member). Flights are categorized by mileage; segments (both domestic and international) start at $160.
Airline Contacts
Aerolíneas Argentinas. www.aerolineas.com.ar.
Andes Líneas Aéreas. www.andesonline.com.
American Airlines. www.aa.com.
Delta Airlines. www.delta.com.
LAN. www.lan.com.
United Airlines. www.united.com.
Airline Security Issues
South American Pass. 800/333–0276; www.aerolineas.com.ar/en-us/cheap_flights/south_american_pass.
Visit Argentina Pass. 800/333–0276; www.aerolineas.com.ar/en-us/cheap_flights/visit_argentina.
Visit South America Pass. 866/435–9526; www.lan.com/en_us/sitio_personas/southamericanairpass/index.html.
Airports in Argentina are mostly small, well maintained, and easy to get around. Security at most isn't as stringent as it is in the States—computers stay in cases, shoes stay on your feet, and there are no random searches.
Buenos Aires' Aeropuerto Internacional de Ezeiza Ministro Pistarini (EZE)—known as Ezeiza—is 35 km (22 miles) southwest of the city center. Ezeiza is the base for international flights operated by Aerolíneas Argentinas and its partner Austral; both airlines run a limited number of domestic flights to Puerto Iguazú, El Calafate, Bariloche, Trelew, Córdoba, Ushuaia, and Rosario from here as well. These all depart from the newest terminal, C; inbound international flights on Aerolíneas, however, arrive at Terminal A, a pleasant, glass-sided building. Other major international carriers also use Ezeiza’s Terminal A. SkyTeam-member airlines (including Delta) are the notable exception: they operate entirely out of Terminal C. At this writing, Terminal B is being renovated.
A covered walkway connects all three terminals. Both A and C have a few small snack bars, a small range of shops—including a pharmacy—a public phone center with Internet services, and a tourist information booth. The ATM, 24-hour luggage storage, and car-rental agencies are in Terminal A.
Avoid changing money in the baggage claim area. The best exchange rates are at the small Banco de la Nación in the Terminal A arrivals area; it's open round the clock.
Most domestic flights operate out of Aeroparque Jorge Newbery (AEP). It's next to the Río de la Plata in northeast Palermo, about 8 km (5 miles) north of the city center. Both it and Ezeiza are run by the private company Aeropuertos Argentinos 2000.
Elsewhere in Argentina
Several other airports in Argentina are technically international, but only because they have a few flights to neighboring countries; most flights are domestic.
Aeropuerto Internacional de Puerto Iguazú (IGR) is close to Iguazú Falls; it's 20 km (12 miles) from Puerto Iguazú and 10 km (6 miles) from the park entrance. The northwest is served by Salta's Aeropuerto Internacional Martín Miguel de Güemes (SLA), 7 km (4½ miles) west of the city of Salta.
The airport for the wine region and western Argentina is Aeropuerto Internacional de Mendoza Francisco Gabrieli (MDZ), usually known as El Plumerillo. It's 10 km (6 miles) north of Mendoza. Northern Patagonia's hub is Bariloche, 13 km (8 miles) west of which is the Aeropuerto Internacional San Carlos de Bariloche Teniente Luis Candelaria (BRC), known as the Aeropuerto de Bariloche. The gateway to southern Patagonia is Aeropuerto Internacional de El Calafate Comandante Armando Tola (ECA), 18 km (11 miles) east of El Calafate itself.
Aeroparque Jorge Newbery. 11/5480–6111; www.aa2000.com.ar.
Aeropuerto Internacional de Ezeiza Ministro Pistarini. 11/5480–2500; www.aa2000.com.ar.
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Pentridge: Voices From The Other Side
Author: Rupert Mann
Publisher : Scribe Publications
Imprint : Scribe Publications
Availability date : November 2017
Author : Rupert Mann
Members of the last generation of inmates and staff return to the now-forgotten prison to tell the true and brutal story of Pentridge before developers bury it forever.Rupert Mann has worked with the past all his life, and is interested in how we use, forget, and celebrate it today. This priceless work, completed over five years, is an attempt to hear the voices of the last generation who lived and worked at Pentridge Prison, now the only ones who can tell the tale before the site is redeveloped and its true history is lost.Within the forgotten and decaying walls of this once shining fortress, fifteen people returned to their memories and to Pentridge - many for the first time since being released or having retired up to 60 years before - to bear witness to its end and to be photographed amongst the decay as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.They include former prisoners, such as Jack Charles, Billy Longley, and Ray Mooney; former staff, such as Peter Norden and Pat Merlo; musicians who played there, such as Paul Kelly; and Brian Morley, a legal witness to Ronald Ryan's execution in 1967.Pentridge was, for 146 years, a concentrated crossroads of disparate song lines and an integral if unwanted part of Melbourne's identity. In its cells, corridors, and halls can be found the remnants of an endless litany of love, hate, loss, and discovery, friendship and conflict, political dealings and petty squabbles. There is no betrayal, affirmation, or epiphany that has not occurred there. And during all those years, life was messily split between jailer and prisoner by bluestone and iron. This is their collective story.
Rupert Mann is a cultural and built-heritage specialist in urban environments, a writer, and photographer. He has worked with indigenous communities in Australia and remote tribes in Papua New Guinea, and was a co-founder of the community-based lobby group Melbourne Heritage Action, which lobbied successfully for the City of Melbourne to upgrade its heritage lists and strategies.Rupert has lived in China, where he trained with a Beijing circus, and currently lives in Yangon, Myanmar, where he works with the Yangon Heritage Trust and recently co-authored the Yangon Heritage Strategy.Rupert has created several photographic works focussing on neglected urban heritage, including a portrait of Kuala Lumpur's infamous Pudu jail days before it was demolished, and a record of Bangkok's Hopewell street art recently removed during an upgrade of the city's railway network.Pentridge has fascinated him since childhood, and this work represents the culmination of an eight-year project to ensure that the place's history is not buried during redevelopment.
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← Immigration Won’t Let Her Bring Her Partner Home
Going Home for the Holidays, Tips for LGBT Folk →
Ending the HarmCaused by Religion-Based Bigotry
Posted on April 22, 2010 by ketcham
Genetics and Prop 8: Human Sexuality Has Deep Biological Roots
By Dean Hamer and Michael Rosbash
Published by Faith in America at http://www.endtheharm.com/ Reprinted by permission
There was an elephant in the San Francisco courtroom where lawyers contested the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the California law that prohibits the marriage of same-sex couples. One key issue should influence every aspect of the Perry vs. Schwarzenegger proceedings yet remained unspoken: What makes people gay? Is it a choice or is it innate?
Most geneticists consider sexual orientation a phenotype — namely, an observable set of properties that varies among individuals. Although physical phenotypes like height and weight are easier to quantify, behavioral phenotypes are intensely studied in animals and humans. Research from many directions leads to a strong conclusion: Human sexual orientation has deep biological roots.
Moreover, the empirical evidence for the role of genetics in human sexual orientation has been quietly but steadily mounting over the last 15 years. Studies of twins — the mainstay of quantitative human genetics — have been conducted on large populations in three countries. The results unambiguously demonstrate that heritability plays a major role in sexual orientation and far outweighs shared environmental factors such as education or parenting.
During the early 1990s, there was an unfortunate flurry of less-than-convincing findings on specific genes and sometimes over-hyped media announcements. Indeed, critics of sexual orientation inheritance are fond of pointing out that there is no single identified “gay gene.” However, they fail to mention that the same is true for height, skin color, handedness, frequency of heart disease and many other traits that have a large inherited component but no dominant gene. In other words, sexual orientation is complex, i.e., many genes contribute to the phenotype.
Gay genes appear paradoxical at first blush. From the perspective of natural selection, how could they persist in the population if they lead to fewer offspring? Recent research has uncovered several plausible explanations. For example, one set of studies found that the same inherited factors that favor male homosexuality actually increase the fecundity of female maternal relatives. By balancing the number of offspring, they would contribute to maintaining these genes over the course of evolution. This explanation may not be exclusive but serves to illustrate that the Darwinian problem is not necessarily overwhelming.
There have been other surprises. One is the importance of epigenetics — changes that alter gene expression without a change in the DNA code of an affected gene. This is evidenced by the lopsided number of maternal versus paternal factors in male sexual orientation and by unusual patterns of DNA modification in mothers of gay men. Epigenetic changes may also explain the finding that a male’s probability of being gay is increased by his number of older brothers.
Although these factors are neither genetic in the traditional Mendelian sense nor fully understood, they are still biological and affect phenotype in an involuntary manner. Who chooses his number of older brothers?
All of these findings demand the conclusion that most gay people no more choose their sexual orientation than most heterosexuals. (”Most” is used here to indicate that — like almost everything biological — these are statistical data and do not apply uniformly.) This conclusion is also consonant with our memories: Most of us were stunned as unsuspecting adolescents to discover our sexual orientation — heterosexuals and homosexuals alike.
Biology cannot be avoided in determining whether fundamental rights are protected under the equal protection clause of our Constitution. This is because “immutability” is one of the factors that determine the level of scrutiny applied to possible violations and that determine whether gays are awarded “suspect class” status, which would give them more constitutional protection. Heritability is not necessary for immutability or suspect class status (religion is the usual counter-example), but it should be sufficient; we do not choose our genes, nor can we change them.
The court of public opinion may be the ultimate arbiter, and here there is cause for optimism about what education can achieve. Recent studies in college classrooms show that exposure of students to information on the causes of homosexuality has a direct influence on opinions about gay rights. This fits with polling data showing that people who believe that gays are “born that way” are generally supportive of full equality, whereas those who believe it is “a choice” are opposed.
The importance of education is also underscored by the extent to which a lack of education is problematic. One national survey found that 70% of those who think being gay is a choice favored the re- institution of sodomy laws. This would turn some 15 million Americans into common criminals for simply being who they are. Science education must help people understand that phenotypic variation, including sexual orientation diversity, is an immutable feature of human biology.
Dean Hamer is a molecular biologist who works on human genetics and HIV prevention and is the author of scientific books, including “The Science of Desire.” Michael Rosbash is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a professor at Brandeis University who studies circadian rhythms.
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Spirit First Martial Arts
quality martial arts instruction in traditional Okinawan karate and kobudo
SFMA Shop
SFMA History
Karate History
Styles We Teach
Kaze Uniforms
Brief History of Karate Do
The history of Karate Do has come down to us through oral records over the centuries. It is recorded, that in the mid. 5th century A.D. an Indian Buddhist monk traveled to the Shaolin Monastery in China, where he discovered unfit monks afraid to venture out into the country to spread their faith. The visitor, known as Bodhidarma (Chinese) or Dharuma (Japanese), taught the Shaolin monks a combination of Ch'an meditation (Zen in Japanese), breathing, and fighting techniques principally for the improvement of their own health. The martial virtues of discipline, humility, restraint and respect are attributed to his philosophy. Over time, this fighting system was further developed by the monks and with the incorporation of local martial methods become the art known as "Shaolin Temple Boxing".
A number of significant events occurred during the 14th and 15th centuries with the growth of strong trade ties between China and offshore islands of the Ryuku chain (Okinawa-Japanese):
A trade and political delegation consisting of 36 Chinese families and businessmen officially settled on Okinawa in the late 1300's. These families brought with them a variety of skills, including Chinese martial arts.
The islands were then first unified by King Sho Hashi in 1429.
In 1477, King Sho Shin started the next Sho dynasty by destroying the former and soon decreed that all arms were banned on the islands, as a result the emphasis on the Te (empty hand) fighting arts were driven underground and so progressed secretly.
In 1609, Okinawa was seized by the Japanese Satsuma Samurai clan, for refusing to recognize Japan's newest Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu. Following the successful invasion the Shogunate banned the Okinawa people from carrying weapons yet again, which only further fueled the importance of developing the martial arts as a means of survival. All training was done in secret and in small groups. Letters of introduction to the new Sensei from a practitioner's current teacher or person of influence were usually required if students were to be taught new or advanced arts. This secret training also provided the impetus for the adaptation of traditional tools as weapons.
During the development of what we now know as Karate-Do, different Ryu (styles) came about through the studies of the various Chinese Chuan Fa arts, introduced into Okinawa by those 36 families and by the many noted Okinawan practitioners traveling to China and studying for many years (principally Fujian province). Upon returning home these now skilled Martial artists, began teaching in their home villages, blending this new knowledge with the local martial arts traditions. These blended arts developed their own flavours in the villages where the practitioners settled. The different styles of karate were named for these districts and towns, such as Naha-te, named for Naha - Okinawa's capital; or Shuri-te, named for Shuri - the home of Okinawa's ancient kings; and Tomari-te, named for the port of Tomari. Later, Naha-te, with its circular movements and emphasis on internal strength, developed into Goju Ryu, Shuri-te, known for its speed, combined techniques and natural linear movements, developed into Shorin Ryu and Tomari-te, the combination of both, soon became part of Shuri-te. These are the roots of modern Karate Do in all its forms as many organisations were publicly formed to promote the arts. Over the centuries of occupation, the now direct Japanese influence saw the martial arts and philosophies of the Samurai finding their way into the local self defence systems.
It was not until the early 20th century that the formalisation of the name "Karate Do" came into being and training continued to spread into and through the school system of Okinawa and to Japan’s main land. After the Second World War the Ryukyu islands' arts spread around the world.
At Spirit First Martial Arts Dojo we practice and teach traditional Okinawan Shorin Ryu Karate and Kobudo, which consists of Chubu Shorin Ryu, Machimura Seito Shorin Ryu and Koga Ryu Kobudo (weapons' art) martial arts.
Located in Springwood, Queensland, we deliver karate classes to students from Springwood, Underwood, Slacks Creek, Rochedale, Rochedale South, Daisy Hill, Shailer Park, Loganholme, Tanah Merah and other Qld. suburbs.
History of Karate
History of SFMA
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© Copyright 2013 Spirit First Martial Arts
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Australia vs India 2011-12
India vs Australia: Michael Clarke's Tryst With 'Tuk Tuk' In Bengaluru
3rd Test Day 2: Vijay, Pujara Fight for India After Smith's 192 at MCG
As It Happened - India vs Australia, 3rd Test, Day 2 at MCG
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Top 10 Sachin Moments
Australia beat Sri Lanka to win CB series
CB Series 1st final: Australia go past Sri Lanka
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Captain Dhoni happy to step aside for a suitable candidate
India vs Australia: 4th Test, Day 3
Virat Kohli celebrates his century on Day 3 of the fourth Test match against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series at the Adelaide Oval. (AP Photo)
Zaheer Khan celebrates the dismissal of Shaun Marsh with his teammates on Day 3 of the fourth Test match against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series at the Adelaide Oval. (AP Photo)
Ravichandran Ashwin celebrates the dismissal of David Warner with his teammates on Day 3 of the fourth Test match against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series at the Adelaide Oval. (AP Photo)
R Ashwin prepares to bowl on Day 3 of the fourth Test match against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series at the Adelaide Oval. (AP Photo)
Virat Kohli celebrates his 100 runs with Ishant Sharma while batting on Day 3 of the fourth Test match against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series at the Adelaide Oval. (AP Photo)
Peter Siddle celebrates taking a wicket on Day 3 of the fourth Test match against India in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series at the Adelaide Oval. (AP Photo)
Wriddhiman Saha reacts after being bowled by Ryan Harris Day 3 of the fourth Test match against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series at the Adelaide Oval. (AFP Photo)
Brad Haddin catches VVS Laxman off the bowling of Nathan Lyon on Day 3 of the fourth Test match against India in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series at the Adelaide Oval. (AFP Photo)
VVS Laxman drives in front of Brad Haddin on Day 3 of the fourth Test match against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series at the Adelaide Oval. (AFP Photo)
Peter Siddle celebrates with Ricky Ponting who caught Sachin Tendulkar off his bowling on Day 3 of the fourth Test match against India in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series at the Adelaide Oval. (AFP Photo)
Peter Siddle rushes forward after taking the wicket of Sachin Tendulkar on Day 3 of the fourth Test match against India in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series at the Adelaide Oval. (AFP Photo)
Peter Siddle rushes forward after taking the wicket of Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar (L) on Day 3 of the fourth Test match against India in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series at the Adelaide Oval. (AFP Photo)
Virender Sehwag leads his team on to the Adelaide Oval for the national anthems prior to the start of play on Day 3 of the fourth Test match against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series at the Adelaide Oval. January 26th marks Australia Day and India Republic Day respectively. (AFP Photo)
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Analysis, Colonel Cassad / Boris Rozhin, Commentary & Analysis, Diplomacy & Negotiations, Donbass, Elections in Donbass, Minsk Negotiations, Novorossiya, Russia, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Briefly on some important matters
Posted by babeuf79 ⋅ Mar 6, 2016 ⋅ 6 Comments
Filed Under Abkhazia, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, Alexander Khodakovskiy, Coal, Donbass, DPR, France, Germany, Junta, Kiev Junta, LPR, Minsk Agreements, Novorossiya, Purgin, Pushilin, Sergei Lavrov, South Ossetia, Surkov, Zakharchenko
iginal: Colonel Cassad
Translated by Alexander Fedotov / Edited by @GBabeuf
Another meeting of the Normandy Quartet on a settlement in the Donbass ended inconclusively. They were preceded by talks within the Minsk contact groups, where all the progress was expressed in the agreements banning military exercises near the front lines, and an abstract mine-clearance in the Donbass. On other topics nothing was agreed. The Normandy Quartet acted in the same spirit. The “main achievement” was that the Europeans were willing to hold elections in the Donbass in the first half of 2016 (no date, no distinct parameters and obligations). The parties agreed with this and parted until the next time, especially since the junta did not support this initiative.
“This meeting was one of the most difficult of all those we held,” the German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said of its results. He added that he is not satisfied either with the situation in the east of Ukraine or with the results of the meeting itself, as well as the way in which Kiev and Moscow conducted the negotiations.
The foreign ministers agreed that local elections in eastern Ukraine should be held during the first half of 2016, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. “We have expressed the desire that these elections take place before the end of the first half of 2016,” he told reporters.
Russia was ready to support the proposal by Germany and France to hold the elections in the Donbass within the first half of the year, said the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, in his turn. “Such a proposal was made today by our German and French colleagues. We were ready to support them, but the Ukrainian side has asked that this is not insisted on, and as a result no consensus has arisen,” the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Given the uncertainty, and the context of the Russian-American conflict, Russia can force a change in the situation in April this year, when the DPR and the LPR will hold elections to local authorities. On the other hand, if it sticks to the strategy of freezing the conflict, it is more likely that the elections will be delayed until the autumn of 2016 or even to 2017, as Zakharchenko once stated. So far, the new deadline is April 20, 2016. Somewhere between late March and early April it should become clear whether elections will be held on time or will be delayed for another six months.
In general, the political process in the Donbass is more dead than alive, so the sides registered the failure of regular talks with an intensification of attacks. Yesterday the DPR claimed 400 bombardments; today they have not yet knocked out the statistics, but they are claiming that homes were destroyed and civilians injured. The junta claims that its positions were fired on fifty-seven times in the night. Three KIA from the 80th Mechanized Brigade by the village of Toshkovka—their “Hummer” hit a mine laid a year ago by the UAF.
In the photos, WIA from the Donbass arrive at a Kiev hospital. In recent days, sixteen people were brought, of whom eight were seriously wounded.
In general, a strategic stalemate persists in the Donbass—both sides are inviting their opponents to make the first move both militarily and politically, but neither wants to make any concessions or be exposed by striking the first blow. Therefore, on the background of numerous and inconclusive negotiations, a sluggish war continues with periodic exacerbations. It is still very difficult to say when and how it will end.
The internal struggle continues in the republics. If, in the LPR, officials are mainly concentrating on the unravelling effects of the Lyamin case, in the DPR, in addition to the fight for control of resources and financial flows and their centralisation, the torpid political theatre of pushing Khodakovsky from the power structures continues. For these purposes, in an appendage to the information campaign waged against Khodakovsky by media people related to Zakharchenko, a commission to investigate Khodakovsky’s activities was established in the People’s Council of the DPR. This path is certainly more correct than if he were to be eliminated as primitively as was Bednov. As I have already mentioned several times, killing undesirables is no way out, but rather is a great way to harm the republics.
In the case of Khodakovsky, there is an indication of the creation of a specific political opposition to Zakharchenko, which was joined by Purgin and Bezler. As is not difficult to see, all three of them in one way or another had conflicts with Zakharchenko and were removed from power in favour of the Zakharchenko-Pushilin duo. Therefore, their interests partly converge, as without bringing down Zakharchenko and his entourage it would be difficult for them to expect to maintain their influence in the republic. It should be noted that Khodakovsky and Purgin were cited last summer by General Petrovsky as possible replacements for Zakharchenko. At the time it was described as “intrigues of DPR-enemy, Petrovsky”. But it is not difficult to notice, half a year after the allegations, both Purgin and Khodakovsky lost their positions, which suggests that the findings from this leak were made. Regarding the prospects of the conflict, as Zakharchenko and Pushilin are people appointed by Surkov, their opponents have for various reasons dropped out of the arena and have been forced either to seek support in other offices in Moscow, or else to rely on their own strength. Since Zakharchenko is closely linked with Minsk, it is now difficult to replace him for political reasons, and thus the card of economic abuse is being played. “The struggle against ‘the Lyamin collective’ and oligarchic influence” is now in the mainstream. For the opposition to Zakharchenko the situation is eased by the fact that Timofeev, aka “Tashkent”—about whom a lot of Lyamin-style compromising material has been revealed—is still close to Zakharchenko. The active information campaign in the media is an obvious attempt to get heard by Moscow over the heads of the immediate curators.
The bottom line is that the fight against crime and to bring economic flows out of the shadows will continue regardless of the political confrontation, although both sides are committed to these activities, in spite of the existing background associated with racketeering, misuse of Russian economic aid and redirection of coal and other flows from where they should flow. In relation to Khodakovsky, as I wrote earlier, it would be desirable to remove him from the political life of the republic. Regarding his opponents, it would be great if Khodakovsky also took “Tashkent” into political oblivion with him. People need to see the republic comprehensively and systematically cleansed of evil elements, and not just one group pushing another from the trough. People will then have more trust in the authorities and people will actually see positive changes.
Of the essential points, it is worth noting that a number of sources confirmed that vehicle number plates and passports of the DPR and the LPR were informally recognised in Russia.
Russia recognized DPR and LPR passports. Residents of the Donbass who have received national identity cards of the DPR and the LPR can freely cross the borders of the republics and of the Russian Federation, as well as stay on the territory of the Russian Federation. The information was confirmed to the correspondent of the portal ‘Eurasia’ by the Office of the Border Service of the FSB [Federal Security Service –trans.] of Russia in the Rostov region. This also applies to auto transport bearing number plates of the Novorossiya republics. “Persons who have vehicles with number plates issued in either the DPR or the LPR have every right to move on the territory of the Russian Federation as participants in international traffic,” the special correspondent of ‘Eurasia’ was told in the Office of the Traffic Police, in the Ministry of Interior of Russia in Moscow.
This was, frankly, an expected move, on which not much attention will be focused due to the Minsk Agreement and blah blah blah… De facto, the republics continue to emerge as unrecognised state formations. Bulk certification of the republics’ population with their own passports and holding their own elections are successive steps along the way. As a maximum, the republics may, on the international level, be considered as part of the Ukraine in the same way that Transnistria is listed as a part of Moldova—though de facto they are two different states, one of which simply has not received adequate international legitimacy and just is biding its time. Abkhazia and South Ossetia had to wait over fifteen years for their first international recognition. I would prefer that things are not so delayed in the case of the Donbass. The people of the Donbass earned their freedom and the right to choose how they will live with their blood.
PS. Alena Smetanina aka “Gyurza” in the main picture.
« Regarding the aggravation of the situation in the DPR
Widows of Donbass war: at the gates of grief »
6 thoughts on “Briefly on some important matters”
Thanks for the article. I confess it is somewhat beyond my understanding, but I wish all the best for the inhabitants of the Donbass, for their future peace and prosperity.
Posted by robinmorritt | Mar 6, 2016, 22:19
Like with Robin, it is somewhat beyond my understanding, but I too wish the best for the people of Donbass, though it rather bemuses me that, apparently, the ‘leaders’ are not a lot different from the Kiev corrupt bunch.
Posted by gerryhiles | Mar 7, 2016, 05:04
Since you are having difficulty, I will explain:
Banderastan dreamed of becoming another Greece and it succeeded beyond its wildest dreams (or should we say nightmares), leaving it in a delusional state, unable to recognize that Minsk means Novorossiya and no Minsk also means Novorossiya.
Marx himself was deluded – as evidence of this we have him putting himself, with his labor theory of value, up there with Aristotle while
he is actually down the bottom screwing up trade. I am not surprised that Marxist delusions exist in Novorossiya in that the rulers of the nascent state (and hopefuls) appear to regard seigniorage (aka theft by watering down the currency supply by issuing Razoos) as a right whereas every major religion, and common sense too, regard the issuance of the Razoo (in its manifold forms – the Brass Razoo, Amerazoo, Sterlazoo, Rublazoo, Kangaroozoo, Novorazoo,…) as haram.
I will now, tongue in cheek, introduce myself as a political economist who has made two great discoveries
1. a new class: namely the class of people holding fast to patently stupid ideas: the muddle class.
2. a proper estimate of the size of the proletariat: namely everyone with the possible exception of the big bourgeoisie; this means that the bourgeoisie is precisely big bourgeoisie.
The muddle class and bourgeoisie are maintained by the bourgeoisie with the wealth expropriated from the muddle class by fiat (the most important mechanism), restrictions on trade, and other means including the (mis)education system, and It seems neither Zakharchenko nor the hopefuls will behave honestly – the nascent state forms, people polish their images, and people are greedy (they can’t print gold), and fearful of the BIS.
Now do you understand that stupidity is nearly universal?
Posted by Jalaluddin Morris | Mar 7, 2016, 08:37
OMG a demagogue, just what we need.
Excluding you Mr Morris?
“The muddle class and bourgeoisie are maintained by the bourgeoisie with the wealth expropriated from the muddle class …”
What on Earth does that mean? Seems very muddled for such a self-elevated intellect.
You’ll have to do better than this to demolish Marx, regardless that actually intelligent criticism is justified.
Have you even really read Marx extensively?
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← Inconvenient Truth #82: The real story of Benghazi
Inconvenient Truth #77: Ebola →
Tanks and grenade launchers in the Los Angeles School District: You got a problem?
Posted on September 18, 2014 by SleepNoMore
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Los Angeles Unified School District police officials are considering whether they need the armored vehicle and grenade launchers they received from the U.S. military.
The military hardware at the disposal of LAUSD police officers includes a 20-foot-long, 14-ton armored transport vehicles, much like the ones used to move Marines in Iraq combat zones. The armored vehicle is worth $733,000, and the school district’s police force got it from the government for free.
How would LAUSD use such a vehicle?
“For us? That vehicle would be used for extraordinary circumstances,” LAUSD police Chief Steve Zipperman said.
The armored vehicle, which is stored at a secret location, has been in the department’s possession since July.
“It’s something that we believe is a life-saving vehicle,” Zipperman said. “And certainly we realize we need to take a look, is this the best alternative right now for us until we find something else that is more conducive to a police-type of rescue.”
The district is also in possession of grenade launchers, which it received for free from the military after 9/11. Neither the armored vehicle nor the grenade launchers have ever been used. But the district doesn’t plan on keeping them.
“It’s a piece of equipment that’s not essential for our mission, so we will be disposing of those,” Zipperman said.
The armored vehicles and heavy artillery distributed to local agencies became a national issue in the wake of the riots in Ferguson, Mo.
“I can’t allow whatever political ramifications or analysis in Ferguson suggest how I want to make a decision on how to best make sure we respond at the LAUSD,” Zipperman said.
The chief says the armored vehicle will stay but will only be deployed on his direct orders with the approval of the school superintendent.
“To suggest that it’s a threatening type of equipment or equipment for a show of force, that is not the case,” Zipperman said.
This entry was posted in Police State, Problem Reaction Solution, Terrorism. Bookmark the permalink.
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News » James L. Griffith, M.D., Joins Prestigious Group of Leaders at GW
James L. Griffith, M.D., Joins Prestigious Group of Leaders at GW
Laura Otto
Griffith-website_875x400.png
“Doctors are healers. Healing is sometimes about curing disease, but more often it’s about relieving pain and disability,” said James L. Griffith, M.D., chair of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), as he reflected on his role as a psychiatrist. “Only psychiatry, among the disciplines of medicine, both treats disease and enriches beyond disease to impact other sources of suffering that I saw around me — particularly abuse, neglect, and exploitation of other human beings.” In time, Griffith explained, he would understand his mission was not just to become a healer, but to learn how to teach healing.
Griffith’s reflection came as part of his formal installation as the Leon M. Yochelson Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences on Aug. 11. “At no point have I ever considered any job other than teaching at a medical school,” added Griffith, who joins a distinguished group of leaders who have held this title, including Jerry Wiener, M.D., David Mrazek, M.D., and Jeffrey S. Akman, M.D. ’81, RESD ’85, Walter A. Bloedorn Professor of Administrative Medicine, vice president for health affairs, and dean of SMHS.
Established in 1982 by Joseph E. Rankin, M.D. ’46, former clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at SMHS, and his late wife Eunice C. Rankin, this endowed professorship honors the career of Leon M. Yochelson, M.D., who created and served as the first chair of GW’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.
GW Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Steven Lerman praised Griffith for the great strides the department has made under his leadership and stressed the importance of these endowed professorships. “These endowments allow us to bring together individuals who are most committed to scholarship, service, and teaching the next generation of students,” he said.
The celebration was particularly special for Akman, who recognized and honored his friend and colleague, describing Griffith as an outstanding academic physician, healer, and humanitarian with exceptional clinical teaching skills and a strong commitment to the department. “I quickly developed a deep admiration for his commitment to education, training and scholarship, as well as his creative efforts to understand and integrate the many disparate and highly complex aspects that make us human,” he said.
Under Griffith’s leadership, the department developed an innovative four-year global mental health track; drew praise for the psychiatry residency program’s curriculum in global mental health, mental health policy and advocacy, psychotherapy training, and psychiatric care for medically ill patients; and provided national leadership in translating basic neuroscience research into humanistic psychiatric therapy.
An advocate for humanism in psychiatry, Griffith stressed that the mentally ill are often discriminated against and stigmatized around the world. He mentioned the work of Michael Morse, M.D., M.P.A., a fourth-year psychiatric resident at SMHS, as an example of the efforts the department is undertaking to combat mental health stigma. “Michael is creating community-based training for Palestinian mental health professionals in Jerusalem,” he said.
Griffith, better known to his friends and colleagues as “Griff,” completed his residency in neurology at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine in 1979. He joined the GW faculty in 1994 and has served as interim chair of the department since 2011. Griffith also serves as a psychiatric consultant for Northern Virginia Family Services in the Program for Survivors of Torture and Severe Trauma.
Other accolades include the Distinguished Teacher Award from SMHS and the 2003 Psychiatrist of the Year and 2014 Distinguished Service Award — both presented by the Washington Psychiatric Society. Most recently, Griffith was selected by Washingtonian Magazine as a 2014 “Top Doctor in Washington.”
“Promoting mental health promotes civil society,” he said. “This becomes our contribution to peace building.”
As a department, Griffith said, “our goals are to engage fully in mental health policy, advocacy, and political action to restore humanity for our patients and to translate neuroscience research into treatment innovations that can relieve the suffering of the mentally ill.”
To lead this department as the Leon M. Yochelson Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences is a privilege, says Griffith. “We have mission, which I believe we can accomplish. For this, I continue to work more hours and sleep less than I did when I was a resident.”
GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences Taps James Griffith, M.D., as Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Dr. James Griffith, Recognized by the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture
James L. Griffith, MD, Receives Oskar Pfister Award from American Psychiatric Association
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Schoolwide Learning Expectations (SLEs)
Extended Daycare
Saint Barnabas Parish School
Developing Catholic Christians, Lifelong Learners and Caring Citizens
As a small Roman Catholic school serving Long Beach and Signal Hill, St. Barnabas Parish School’s mission is simple: To provide a meaningful Catholic education and promote academic excellence for each student. We create a nurturing and respectful environment with the highest level of integrity in order to enrich our students’ spiritual and social development.
If you are interested in checking out the school or in applying for the 2017/18 school year please contact the school. More information is available on our Admissions Page.
The school is located at: 3980 Marron Ave., Long Beach, CA 90807, the office phone number is (562) 424-7476.
School office hours are Monday- Friday 7:30 am to 3:30 pm
St. Barnabas was founded by the Sisters of the Holy Cross in 1946 and opened with 290 pupils enrolled in grades one to eight. In 1977, a kindergarten was opened. When the Sisters of the Holy Cross withdrew in 1994, the first lay principal was appointed to continue the school’s mission. A day care center was opened in the fall of 1994 in the former convent. In 2013 we opened our first Transitional Kindergarten class with 24 students who are now part of the St. Barnabas family.
St. Barnabas is a proud part of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles School System.
The school has one class per grade, from TK through 8th.
The main school entrance is on North Marron Avenue, which is gated during the school day between Marshall and Marron Place. Visitors can page the office for admission at the gate on the intersection of Marron Ave. and Marshall.
In addition to the main school building the school also makes use of the Parish Hall and the former convent building which has been renovated to house the Preschool program and is also the location for after-school care.
You can follow the school on Twitter: @stbarnabaslb or like us on Facebook to keep up to date on school activities and events.
Beauty and the Beast, Jr.
Our annual school play and fundraiser, Beauty and the Beast Jr., will be held Friday March 8th and Saturday March 9th at St. Joseph High…
New Basketball Courts
Thanks to a generous donation by the Lalonde family and Crew, Inc. and all those who contributed to Spring Event’s Support Our Sports, we have…
Annie is coming December 9th and 10th
The cast members have been working hard to present a great family-friendly show for our SBS families and friends! The performance is approximately one and…
Parish Festival 2018
Friday, Oct. 19th from 4:30 pm-10:30 pm & Saturday, Oct. 20th from 4:30 pm-10:30 pm Join our annual parish community celebration and enjoy the following…
@StBarnabasLB on Twitter
SBS Spring Event
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More than 180 business leaders urge Seattle City Council to reject jobs tax
Signatories urge Council to work with the region to develop a balanced approach
Over 180 business leaders, who collectively employ or through their associations represent approximately 700,000 jobs in the Seattle region, signed a letter today urging the Seattle City Council to reject a call for $75 million to $150 million in new annual taxes. Instead, signatories encourage the Council to work with the region to first develop a balanced approach that includes reform, efficiencies and priority programs with measurable outcomes to reduce the unsheltered homeless population in Seattle and King County.
These business leaders represent a range of small, medium and large employers, who share the concern expressed by the more than 300 small businesses that sent a letter to the Seattle City Council on March 14, 2018.
The letter addresses the Seattle City Council’s inability to effectively address homelessness during a period of record annual tax revenue. The letter states that while spending by the City of Seattle has increased by 39% in four years - outpacing both population increases and inflation by a rate of nearly 4 to 1 – the number of unsheltered homeless has increased by 37%.
Taxes paid by businesses into the General Fund total $700 million annually, accounting for an estimated 57% of Seattle’s General Fund revenue.
Seattle’s General Fund and voter-approved spending has grown from $1.28 billion in 2012 to $1.78 billion in 2016, a 39% increase.
Over the same period, Seattle’s population grew by only 11%, and cumulative inflation was only 6.8%.
The number of unsheltered homeless in Seattle has increased by 37% in the last three years despite the City of Seattle’s increased spending.
Despite record tax revenues, on March 19, 2018, it was announced that the Seattle City Council had overspent the City’s revenues by an estimated $15-20 million this past year.
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« SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Daily Appointments Schedule for July 28, 2010
Secretary Clinton’s Remarks on the Plane Crash in Islamabad »
MOTB Hillary Clinton in New York
July 28, 2010 by still4hill
Well I just have to share these pictures from yesterday because she looks so happy! She was going into Vera Wang’s to meet Chelsea. I love the jacket, very playful.
Posted in Hillary Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State | Tagged Clinton Wedding, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, MOTB, Secretary of State | 75 Comments
on July 28, 2010 at 4:57 pm | Reply marco
…a wonderfull smile !!
on July 28, 2010 at 5:17 pm | Reply Lilly
Wow! Thank you, Still! It´s nice to see Hillary as she´s enjoying this time with her little girl 😉 Okay, Chelsea isn´t little anymore, but I think that she´ll always be the little princess for Hillary and Bill.
on July 28, 2010 at 6:23 pm | Reply still4hill
It’s true. Actually, Hillary is still Dorothy’s little girl!
on July 28, 2010 at 5:43 pm | Reply discourseincsharpminor
2nd, 3rd, & 4th from the bottom – LOL! That’s why we don’t wear shinny underclothes with light fabrics. On the positive end, maybe people will stop saying she’s flat-chested now.
on July 28, 2010 at 5:47 pm | Reply rachel
I didnt know people said that about her. It’s obvious she’s not.
I thought the sheen was coming off the fabric of the jacket. I don’t know why people say that about her. Oh, well, I’m always saying it. She has a pretty figure, and isn’t flat-chested at all.
on July 28, 2010 at 10:05 pm | Reply discourseincsharpminor
If that’s the case, shiny fabric is one spot is usually a sign of wear. The question then becomes how did she wear down the fabric there. I sense the involvement of a misbehaving squire!
on July 28, 2010 at 10:25 pm | Reply still4hill
Bad Bill!
Too much “resting”.
on July 28, 2010 at 5:54 pm | Reply pcfs
Well the gowns are carried out by Huma. Looks like two gowns. Mayb Huma is in the wedding. Gee they are all going to have a great time.
on July 28, 2010 at 6:04 pm | Reply jillforhill
Sally Quinn got owned when the interviewer asked if the Clintons invited her. Sally Quinn is such a sad person. As Hillary said “I will never allow that woman near my family”.
She also was going for her above-it-all, decreeeing-from-Above position in Society, being OH-so-understanding at why “some A-Listers” didn’t get invitiations: “500 guests is a *very* large number. Most weddings are THREE HUNDRED —-or less! You only invite those CLOSE to you, not campaign DONORS.”.
She was about to stay on in her UpThere role, but the interviewer made it personal and asked whether SHE was invited.
She appeared taken aback and said, after collecting herself, “Oh, NO. (pause) We’re not close to the Clintons.”
“Oh, NO. (pause) We’re not close to the Clintons.”
Is that the ‘royal we’ coming from Queen S*!t-For-Brains? She seems like such a miserable person.
She was so mad when she was asked if she was going to the wedding. It was funny. She is just mad that no one wanted to hear about her son’s wedding.
LOLOL!!! Thanks for sharing that, jillforhill. Guessing the interviewer had a hidden agenda in choosing her. 😀
who is sally quinn and who is her son and why would she think she would be invited I am lost on these things.
Married to Ben Bradlee (see Washington Post/All the President’s Men) Washington hostess – former/sometimes guest columnist who went to war with Hillary the day she set foot in DC. Don’t know much about the son except that I think he has a disorder of some kind.
Mymomsanut-itis?
LOL!!! That too!
Sally Quinn is a women who slept her way to where she is now. Called the Clintons trash and other not nice things about them. She lost her column because all she did was talk about her son’s wedding and the readers were complaining. She never liked hillary or bill because they would rather spend time with chelsea than washington insiders.
And we don’t like her.
Because she is a very arrogant, unpleasant individual based on what she feels comfortable saying about others.
on July 28, 2010 at 9:52 pm | Reply Linnette
great pictures, Hillary in a different role. And she said once she love going shopping, which she can’t do anymore.
Yes, she did say that. She was having fun, and it’s fun to watch!
on July 28, 2010 at 10:01 pm | Reply jillforhill
Here is what Hillary and Bill think of dowd,quinn and others in the great taylor branch book:
“On Monday, USA Today ran a front-page article on the soon-to-be-released book chronicling a series of secret interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch held with President Bill Clinton throughout the Clinton presidency. The piece focused on a bizarre episode in which Russian President Boris Yeltsin during a visit to Washington in 1995 ended up in his underwear and drunk on Pennsylvania Avenue, trying to hail a cab. As for the Lewinsky affair, Clinton told Branch, he “just cracked” under political and personal pressures. USA Today also noted that Clinton and Al Gore had an explosive conversation following the 2000 election. But the newspaper provided only a few details on this meeting.
I’ve obtained a copy of the book, and that encounter, as Clinton recalled it to Branch, was more than dramatic; it was also weird.
During the discussion, Clinton told his vice president that he was disappointed that Gore had not used him in the last ten days of the 2000 campaign in strategically significant state—Arkansas, Tennessee, New Hampshire, and Missouri. But Clinton said he could understand that. What was more upsetting for him, Clinton remarked to Gore, was that Gore had not crafted a more winning message during the campaign, that he had not campaigned on any grand themes. Clinton insisted to Gore that he hadn’t cared about how Gore had referred to Clinton—and his personal scandal—during the campaign. Paraphasing this portion of the conversation, Branch writes that Clinton told Gore, “To gain votes, he would let Gore cut off his ear and mail it to reporter Michael Isikoff of Newsweek, the Monica Lewinsky expert.”
At one point in the conversation, Gore told Clinton that he was still traumatized by having been caught up in the fundraising scandals of the 1996 Clinton reelection campaign, and he indicated that he blamed Clinton. Clinton could hardly believe this, and he told Branch that Gore was probably in shock from the election or unhinged, remarking, “I thought he was in Neverland.”
In this same conversation, Gore pressed Clinton for an explanation of his affair with Lewinsky, noting that Gore had stood by him throughout the ordeal without Clinton ever confiding in him. There was little to say, Clinton replied. But Clinton did say that he was sorry. Gore responded that that this was the first time Clinton had apologized to him personally. This angered Clinton, who countered that he was only repeating what he had already said publicly. Moreover, Clinton noted, Hillary had more to resent that Gore did, and she had just campaigned successfully for Senate by unabashedly citing the Clinton-Gore record—not running away from it. Gore responded with his own anger, insisting that Clinton’s character had been at the root of his failure to win the White House. Clinton acknowledged that he had not confessed to those closest to him, but that he was glad he had not talked more about the affair, for that would have made the controversy even worse.
The 707-page book, titled The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, is a fascinating read, full of the most inside information on the policy fights, political tussles, and personal controversies of the Clinton years. I haven’t finished the book, but here are other intriguing portions that caught my attention:
* In an interview with Branch shortly after he left office, Clinton passionately defended his last-minute pardon of Marc Rich, the fugitive financier. Summing up Clinton’s outrage over the dust-up caused by the pardon, Branch describes the now ex-president’s rant: “They said Clinton had a conflict because Rich’s ex-wife was a donor to his library. Lord have mercy, he cried, Papa Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger and others before the Iran-contra prosecutions may have targeted Bush himself. Nobody fussed.” Clinton showed no remorse to Branch about this pardon.
* In 1996, when Washington author Sally Quinn was telling people that Hillary had not written her book, It Takes a Village, Branch suggested to the First Lady that she invite Quinn and her husband Ben Bradlee to the White House. “You know,” Hillary shot back, “she has been hostile since the moment we got here. Why would we invite somebody like that into our home. How could she expect us to.” Branch writes, Hillary “said Quinn and her friends simply invented gossip for their dinner circuit. They had launched one juicy affair between Hillary and a female veterinarian attending Socks, the Clinton family cat, with tales about how somebody discovered them in flagrante on a bedroom floor in the White House.”
* After the 1998 congressional elections, Clinton bemoaned the fact that GOP Rep. Jim Bunning had narrowly won a Senate seat in Kentucky. Branch writes, “He said Bunning, a former baseball player, was so mean-spirited that he repulsed even his fellow know-nothings. ‘I tried to work with him a couple times,’ said Clinton, ‘and he just sent shivers up my spine….I know you’re a baseball fan and everything, and you don’t like to hear it, but this guy is beyond the pale.'”
* When Clinton prepared for military strikes against Iraq in 1998, he griped about former President Jimmy Carter. “[Republican Senator Bob] Dole will support me,” he told Branch. “Carter will probably criticize me. Carter always criticizes, but he doesn’t have much positive to say.”
* In 1997, when Senate Republicans were opposing Clinton’s pick for CIA chief, Anthony Lake, Clinton told Branch he considered Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican (who had once been a Democrat) and a leading Lake detractor, to be a dogged and spiteful man. Clinton added that Shelby was supported by two GOP “know-nothings” on his Senate committee, Jon Kyl of Arizona and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma.
* In 1996, Esquire magazine was looking for a writer to contribute a pro-Clinton article to its election issue. After Clinton hit snags with Texas columnist Molly Ivins, Harvard professor Thomas Patterson, and bestselling crime author John Grisham, Branch took on the assignment.
* In 1994, after Bob Woodward’s book on the budget battles of Clinton’s first year in office, The Agenda, came out, Clinton told Branch he suspected that the major sources for Woodward were George Stephanopoulos, Paul Begala, and Alan Greenspan.
* In 1994, Hillary Clinton told Branch that a year earlier she had been at a dinner party where Henry Kissinger had whispered to her that if her health care plan became law he would never be allowed to see his personal physician again. Hillary had tried to explain to Kissinger why this was not true. But, Branch writes, “she said Kissinger merely scowled and growled behind his ‘game face’ of impregnable secret knowledge.” Hillary also disclosed to Branch that she had dreamed of being at a banquet with Kissinger and telling him that her health care reform effort was not dead and “there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.”
* In 1995, Clinton predicted to his confidantes that Colin Powell would challenge him in 1996, while Hillary and Gore contended that the retired general would not. After Powell declared he would not run, Branch writes, the president did not call Powell, fearing this would “advertise his relief.” Clinton’s “mistaken prediction about Powell,” Branch adds, “seemed to gnaw at Clinton.”
* Toward the end of 1995, when Japan was in the midst of political and economic crises, Gore urged Clinton to visit Japan. Clinton, though, nixed the dates Gore suggested, saying, “Al, I am not going to Japan and leave Chelsea by herself to take” her junior-year midterm exams. This caused a big fight between the two.
* Following his 1996 reelection victory, Clinton was mad about revelations of Democratic Party campaign finance irregularities. He feared—after Whitewater—that this could be a legitimate scandal. He was annoyed that Democratic Party officials could not provide him answers about what had gone wrong. But, Branch writes, “he thought fund-raiser Terry McAuliffe vaguely knew.” Referring to antagonism toward him within the press at this time—especially at The Washington Post and The New York Times—Clinton declared, “I am bitter about it.”
* In 1997, after New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote an acerbic column about Clinton and golfer Tiger Woods—maintaining that the the two green-eyed hucksters deserved each other—Clinton told Branch, “She must live in mortal fear that there’s somebody in the world living a healthy and productive life.”
It’s a good book. I laughed at this bit.
Hillary walked in from the bedroom and froze. She was wearing her bathrobe, a head towel, and a layer of grayish face cream with a few white spots. Neither she nor the President spoke, but I said “Excuse me,” as she retreated.
I’m glad she had the robe on!
on July 29, 2010 at 6:40 am | Reply discourseincsharpminor
I’m sure she was too. 😉
on July 29, 2010 at 12:12 am | Reply discourseincsharpminor
LOL, Boris.
The most famous BilLOL.
BTW, sorry for posting a video instead of a link. Curse you, YouTube!
on July 29, 2010 at 12:37 am | Reply still4hill
NONONO!!!! I PREFER the video. I’d have gone back and made it visible. It’s easier this way.
LMAO! Awwww Boris! He loved Hillary. Kept a picture of her in his office.
Is it just me or is it just not possible to not end up laughing with them?
True! But only for people with a sense of humor. They are so funny, both of them. (I really need a funny POTUS.)
Me too, but not just any funny POTUS. I laughed at Dubya for eight years, but I wouldn’t want him back.
This the interview with taylor branch
It has been nearly forty years since three young Democratic activists named Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham, and Taylor Branch moved into a small apartment together in Austin, Texas, to wage a presidential campaign for George McGovern. In the decades since, the Clintons have taken that political fire to the center of American political life, while Branch has chosen a quieter course, writing three definitive volumes on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and winning both the Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur “genius” grant. Yet at the height of Bill Clinton’s ascent—for the full eight years of the presidency—the historian and the politician reunited for a secret project, hidden from even Clinton’s closest aides. Meeting late at night and sometimes through the night, Clinton and Branch embarked on a series of seventy-nine conversations about politics, the presidents, the Whitewater investigation, and yes, even Monica—recording every word for posterity. Acutely aware that their tapes could be subpoenaed at any moment and desperate to avoid making them public, Clinton squirreled away the cassettes in his sock drawer and has never spoken of them nor made them public. But this month, Branch releases a 670-page mammoth tome, The Clinton Tapes, that mines those conversations and delves into Clinton’s presidency and state of mind through a tumultuous and historic eight years. Branch sat down on the sprawling porch of his Victorian home in Baltimore to discuss the project, the experience, and the book.—WIL S. HYLTON
Let’s start in the fall of 1992. Out of nowhere, the president-elect calls you up and invites you to a dinner party at Katherine Graham’s house. What happened?
It was bizarre. When we were kids, we were buddies down in Texas, trying to get McGovern elected. We lived together, but I hadn’t seen him in twenty years, and I had no idea why he asked me to dinner. I had kind of reprocessed him out of my friendship, into being a politician. This is a guy who’s run off to run for Congress in Arkansas, when all the rest of us were very alienated, and had this pile-driver political career, and so I had reprogrammed him away from somebody that you could know as a regular person. This is a president of the United States! He may just be all greed and selfishness. I was definitely tamping down my expectations.
Had you been a supporter in the campaign?
No! I thought his “forgotten middle class” sounded like Nixon’s “silent majority.” It was a formula—part of being a member of this species called “politician.” But within twenty seconds, I completely reconnected with him. He just knocked me over intellectually. He comes up and out of the blue asks me all these questions about historic preservation, saying, “I read your footnotes, and I want to make sure there are things like that for historians in fifty years.” Even if I hadn’t known him, even if it had been Richard Nixon or George W. Bush, I would have been floored that he was thinking about that already. This guy who hadn’t even taken office yet is thinking about raw material for historians fifty years later.
Within weeks, you were swept up in a whirlwind with him—staying up all night to write the inaugural address, being onstage during the ceremony, and then actually entering the White House for the first time with Bill and Hillary.
The day before, I thought I was going down to hear a final reading of the inaugural and wound up working all night, then being onstage with no seat or anything, just crouched down. And after the parade, he said, “Come on, let’s go to the White House!” So it was just the three of us walking in, he and Hillary and me! I mean, he literally didn’t know where the Lincoln Bedroom was. We were wandering around, poking in closets.
How did you decide to begin recording interviews for history?
He was angling to get me to move into the White House as house historian. But I responded more to the notion of preserving his thoughts. I only realized later on what a tremendous commitment that meant for him. Because the only time he could fit me in was when he was tired. There were stunning moments; I would be talking to him late at night and his eyes would go up, just roll back in his head. He would fall asleep in the middle of a sentence.
At the end of each session, sometimes late at night or even early the next morning, you would drive home to Baltimore and talk into a tape recorder the whole time. It must have been exhausting for you as well.
I would do those dictations until I dropped. I would sit here outside the house and dictate notes until I fell asleep in the truck. Because I felt that it was a significant experience that I should preserve. But on the tapes, there are a few times where it’s amazing: I would yawn involuntarily four times a minute! Because my workday on the King books always started at five in the morning, and sometimes I wouldn’t know I was going to go down to the White House until six at night. They would call up and say, “Can you come down at eight?” And I’d scramble and go down there, have this session with him, and it’d be two o’clock in the morning, and I’d be driving and dictating, then wake up the next morning again. But having that drive home to Baltimore for dictation was a forced habit that turned out to be very good.
The level of detail in your conversations is overwhelming. You discuss the most minute foreign-policy details, political calculations. Did you need to expand your reading habits to keep up with him?
Not really, because I actually didn’t know a lot of that stuff! I would just set a subject out there and say, “This seems to be a significant topic.” I didn’t know the background and the parameters; he would explain those. And sometimes I would set a subject out there and he would give me what was already in The New York Times. Sometimes he would say, “We’re going to appeal. End of story.” And we’d move on.
The Bill Clinton in this book is very different than the version we came to know in the press. You describe a guy who was steadfast and idealistic, very different from the wishy-washy, flip-flopping caricature who let Dick Morris tell him what to do.
It was almost like a credential for old liberals to look down on Clinton, because if you looked down on Clinton, you could say, “He’s betrayed liberalism,” but you didn’t have to uphold anything yourself. All you had to do was talk about what a shit he was or what a sellout he was and you could get this cheap credential.
Meanwhile, you’re seeing this guy whose face is red with allergies, he’s so tired that his eyes are rolling back in his head.… He’s the last fighting baby boomer.
Well, yeah. For example, I admire Obama greatly, but if you compare Clinton and Obama on the National Rifle Association, Obama said, “It’s not worth it.” Right from the get-go. “You can’t win.” And Clinton was going after the NRA and assault weapons and cop-killer bullets the whole time. And he paid for it, and maybe it was a mistake, because it certainly hurt him in the 1994 congressional elections. But he did stick to his guns, as it were. He took risks. On Haiti—restoring Aristide. I would hear him say it: “This is going to hurt my presidency.” Or, “I could go down the tubes for this.”
In all the Kennedy and Johnson tapes you’ve listened to, do you hear the same resolve?
In some ways, Kennedy was just the opposite. People would idealize him, but then on the tapes, you hear him trying to kill Castro and all this other stuff. It’s disillusioning. And Johnson does the Civil Rights bill, but then he does the Vietnam War—and you hear them saying essentially, “We know this is not going to work, but we’re going to do it anyway.” Then Nixon promises to end the war, and four years later the war is still going. Then you have Watergate. So it was kind of like we had this post–World War II optimism about politics that was yanked out of our generation by hard experience. In some ways, Hillary and I were more typical of our generation than Bill. We were bruised and disillusioned with politics. We had more in common with each other politically than either of us had with Bill. He seemed to be on automatic pilot: “I’m going to run for office!” At the time, I didn’t connect that to idealism. I connected it to ambition. The notion that it came from a sense of idealism didn’t rear up for me until I was able to watch him in the White House, seeing why he would do things.
How did you contain that for eight years, listening to people say the opposite about him?
I couldn’t communicate with people, because I felt like I was in a different galaxy. I just dropped out. I didn’t see a way of fighting it that didn’t endanger the project. I couldn’t challenge my friend [Washington Post critic] Jon Yardley, who would sit around and bitch and moan about Clinton: “He’s no good, he doesn’t care about anything, he doesn’t believe in anything.” I couldn’t say, “Jon, I know that’s not true.” I couldn’t start that conversation, because the only way I could combat it would be to say, “I’ve been around Clinton a lot, and my experience is totally different.” And then some story would come out that he had these tapes, and they would get subpoenaed. So I just basically had to be quiet and not talk to people.
There are several parallels between Clinton and Martin Luther King—both are southern, same generation, men of faith, orators. But then there’s adultery. How did you process that?
Very painfully. I can’t say I’ve got any great answers. I think King got something good out of it, in a perverse way. He was driven to seek penance by public sacrifice for private failings. He would preach about the mystery of evil: Why could we not cast out this demon? But you know, with Clinton, I just had this assumption that when you hear all this, some of it’s true. I assumed that he had resolved to make it true no longer. Which is pretty much what King did. He resolved openly to his aides, “There’s too much at stake here. I’ve got to stop this.” And some of the greatest regret in King’s life was that he couldn’t do it. With Clinton, what he said was that it was a real lapse of feeling sorry for himself. He said it had to do with politics. Now, most people think that these compulsions have to do with more fundamental human things. I don’t know whether that’s true. All I know is that he said it happened when he thought he was doing a good job and got sucker punched. I didn’t read the Lewinsky stuff until I was working on the book. It was so tawdry. It was depressing to me. It’s fervid and tormented and brief. There were two bookends to it: He had these trysts with her during the shutdown and then banished her to the Pentagon or wherever the hell she went, and then she came back in that period right after the ’96 election, when he thought [the Whitewater investigation] was going to go away and it didn’t. He says he was feeling sorry for himself because of what was going on in politics, and that he just lost it. That’s what he said.
Was he a Lothario in 1972?
No, and I was sharing an apartment with he and Hillary. I had just separated from my wife, had virtually no social life, and they were all over each other. The only story was that we were having a hard time getting this woman politician to endorse McGovern, and the McGovern campaign sent in a guy who had worked for Jack Kennedy. So he met her, and came back and said, “She just needs to get laid. I know just the guy.” We were stunned. And then we realized he was serious! He went to the phone to call this guy in Boston and bring him down to Texas! And Clinton took the phone from him and said, “We’re not gonna do that, and if you do that, we’re leaving.” I didn’t do anything. I was paralyzed. And in retrospect, if Clinton was cynical about women, I would think he would have been more like that guy. Now, maybe he developed it later. I really don’t know.
It was interesting to read your descriptions of Bill and Hillary. Halfway through the impeachment trial, the doorman at the White House refused to let you in because they were making out in a hallway.
Well, that only happened once. I don’t know if their relationship is romantic, but it’s not cold. Sometimes when I tell people that they finish each other’s sentences, people say, “That’s because it’s a power alliance.” Like a medieval marriage between the prince of Spain and the queen of Austria. But there’s warmth there. There’s communion. They would hold hands. How much eroticism is in there, I have no idea. But it was striking.
Have you shown them the book?
I just took two copies up to Chappaqua last week. Hillary has it in Africa now, and he’s been off on this North Korea thing. But he did call. He’s called a couple of times to fuss about things. But he has enormous tolerance for honest criticism. I think he can take it raw, as long as he doesn’t detect that it’s done for malice. I was trying to show him the way he really is, and I think he respects that.”
Thanks for those posts, jillforhill! I know I have read the second one and might have bookmarked it. The first I have not seen.
1. Gore is a jackass
2. Hillary is the best
3. Bill is a great dad
I love that they were making out in the hallway and that hillary knows who her friends are and does not kiss butt
Look what Gore did to Tipper! Making out in the hallway … so cute.
What did he do (aside from leave her after 40 years)?
That! Preceded by screwing around! Shame on him! (& I VOTED for him and for Edwards – Well. Kerry/Edwards).
on July 28, 2010 at 10:41 pm | Reply rachel
now I remember that chick. Who was it that wrote that Bill started balling after he found out Chelsea read the star report?
Exactly still4hill. Bill did not owe gore anything. It was between him,hillary, and chelsea. I also liked that helping chelsea studying was important to them.
Al Gore – the only man in the world that can believe Bill cheating on Hillary was really about him.
To clarify, the ‘him’ I was referring to is Al.
I think the old saying “those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” to gore,the edwards,the kerrys and the republicans like newt,barr, and others.
The one I dislike more than gore is edwards,he went to the senate floor during impeachment and said bill was a bad dad and brought up chelsea’s name. That crossed the line with me because you do not bring up the children.
Yes – the worst ones are Edwards and Gingrich – impeaching Bill WHILE screwing around!
Weren’t several of them guilty of that?
Probably – he’s the one stuck in my mind.
on July 29, 2010 at 2:27 am | Reply rachel
add mark sanford to that list.
on July 29, 2010 at 12:58 am | Reply villager4ever
I’d like to chime in, jillforhill. Your ‘dissertation’ is simply amazing and quite enlightening. I’ve been an avid fan of the Clintons from the time I saw them on TV in 1992, a young couple with such high level of accomplishments bringing the most memorable times of economic prowess to our country.
Reading through, I became reflective of how I watched Starr on his daily briefings on the steps of the hill and it was mind-boggling how determined he was to destroy a human being, his eyes and body showing the determination. The only reasoning I can think of at the time and to the present is pure jealousy – jealous of seeing this accomplished person rise to power, with charisma and intelligence we haven’t seen for a long time. As I look back, spending millions of dollars to go after someone like he did was not the way to right a wrong. But then, who am I to judge?
Today, we celebrate the Clintons for their parenting skills in bringing their daughter Chelsea Victoria to the world for all of us to love and admire and be inspired. God bless them.
on July 29, 2010 at 1:03 am | Reply still4hill
Well said, villager4ever! I propose a toast: To the Clintons!
on July 29, 2010 at 1:30 am | Reply pcfs
Villager4ever, How gracious to see a lovely comment of the Clintons. Yes their parenting skills does show the world how very much we admire them. God Bless them always.
Thanks Jillforhill for all your insight on the Clintons. They are amazing. This is the happiest time of their life right now.
I pray that they enjoy and love every moment this weekend.
You are all so sweet. I have never in my life heard of an MOTB Party, but that is what you all made tonight. It’s a new tradition, begun around our fav MOTB, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
I wish she could have been here with us, but that would have subtracted from her time with her family. Luckily it is archived. Some day, maybe, she will see this party we threw for her. The first ever MOTB Party!
I have to credit all of you, because it was unplanned, spontaneous, and both nostalgic and fun.
Great job! Party on those who are still up. Me? I am closing for the night. great party!
on July 29, 2010 at 8:00 am | Reply jillforhill
Thanks for the kind comments. I want to say thanks to still4hill for starting this great blog.
Agreed. Thank you, Still4Hill.
on July 29, 2010 at 10:36 am | Reply Maria Dizon
Awww. I missed the party!! LOL
Love Hillary’s pic.. shes just sooo classy! Thanks Stillfor Hill
I love all of you, and thank you! Seems Hillary never had a bridal shower or bachelorette party, so thank you for the spectacular surprise MOTB party you all put together for her last night!
See this. Very sweet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/opinion/29collins.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss
I missed this. It’s been on Politico for an age. Thought you’d like it.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0710/Clinton_heads_to_NY_ahead_of_wedding.html?showall
That’s where I got the picture on Tuesday! LOL!!! The circle closes!
Teeny tiny mention of the GMOTB, Mrs. Rodham.
But a BIG member of the wedding! Dorothy ROCKS! She gave us Hillary! I love her!
on July 29, 2010 at 6:54 pm | Reply footsoldier
GLAD SHE IS PICKING VERA – OSCAR OVERDRESS HER AND SHE NEED TO LOOK SLIMS. SEE HUMA DID NOT GO ON HER HONEYMOON YET.
Chels picked Vera. Hillary picked Oscar and I am VERY WORRIED about his penchant lately for lace overlay (Hillary’s 2009 Inaugural *ihateit* and Huma’s wedding gown). It MIGHT work on Huma because she’s so slender. It’s way too busy for Hillary, who IS the show. The dress should just be ON her. It should not distract from her pretty self. She’s petite. Monochromatic is best per Elizabeth Arden.
on July 29, 2010 at 7:09 pm | Reply birdie
i luvr Hillary so much! thank you for your pics still4hill and your wordpress blog here!
Oscar will do great,chelsea may have got final say. Chelsea asked hillary to let her hair grow long so she could wear it up. They will both look beautiful.
I hope you’re right about Chelsea. I saw the “hair requirement.” Fingers are x she will look SMASHING! I need her to, to help her become POTUS! 😉
… to help her become POTUS!
The race for the presidency has officially become a beauty contest. (Be honest, you know it was practically one already.)Considering what our politicians look like I’m afraid of the swimsuit competition – especially since Gingrich is thinking about running in 2012. Yuck!
It IS! It is lookism, but it is true. Right now, Hillary looks beautiful, brave, and powerful. So, GO HILLARY!
Huma looked amazing, IMO, but she’s already gorgeous, young, and very slender. If you can’t make someone like that look good, you need to find another profession. The MOTB is about double Huma’s age, a minimum of four inches shorter, and… well… not as slim and not lacking in the curve department, so dressing her well takes more effort. She’s also a very conservative dresser overall, so it’s hard to come up with something flattering that’s modest enough to meet her standards.
Madame Secretary is a very forgiving woman. I wouldn’t hire someone who said of my body “from the waist up she really looks great” and then proceeds to make me a dress that looked like it had been borrowed from the Queen of England.
Yes, that’s the thing. Huma CAN wear (and SHOULD) ovelays. She is so slender and the lace picked up her hair and enhanced her curves. On Hillary, overlays are a distraction. She is the show – her face, skin, neckline, and cleavage. The dress does not need to add anthing to Hillary. Just cover the necessary parts artfully.
I just hope he doesn’t make her look like she’s in her 90’s like her mother (who looks fabulous for what? 92?)
on August 9, 2014 at 10:58 pm | Reply Hillary Clinton’s ‘Hard Choices’ Retrospective Part Two: Across the Pacific Chapter 4 China: Uncharted Waters | Still4Hill
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Descriptive Article, Human Rights, Military History, People, Political History, The Year 1968, US-Postwar United States (1945-early 1970s) February 26, 2019 March 6, 2019
Saviors Rising from the Ashes of the My Lai Massacre
by Mario Sosa
My Lai Massacre Monument | Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
My Lai village, 1970 | Courtesy of Flickr user manhhai
In the midst of a war-torn Vietnam, three U.S. infantry companies moved into the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968. Under direct orders to eliminate Viet Cong soldiers, U.S. troops killed livestock and burned houses to prevent the Viet Cong from resupplying. This was to be a simple mission, but the events that unfolded made this mission into one of the most brutal encounters in the Vietnam War.1 In only a few hours, a squad of U.S. soldiers would massacre approximately 300 to 500 villagers. Many villagers lined up in ditches to be executed. As their homes burnt, dozens of women and children were shot, stabbed or raped. These atrocious acts halted when a U.S. helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson, and his small crew comprised of Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta, intervened. Their reconnaissance mission suddenly turned into a rescue mission.2 Reflecting back on the My Lai massacre decades later, Colburn, Thompson’s gunner, recalled seeing the Vietnamese “begging for mercy.” He explained, “there was no mercy until Thompson arrived.”3
Hugh Thompson Jr., 1966 | Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr. was a tall and slender twenty-five-year-old American pilot, who was born and raised in Georgia. In his childhood, a well-disciplined Thompson once fought with several boys in school who had been making fun of a handicapped child. In 1961, he was 18 when he joined the U.S. Navy. After three years, he left the Navy and briefly returned to civilian life. Soon after, he re-enlisted into the U.S. Army and arrived at Vietnam in 1967 as a warrant officer, a reconnaissance pilot with the 123rd Aviation Battalion. His job involved flying into enemy territory and spotting enemy positions.4
On March 16, 1968, Thompson was flying his helicopter with his crew above My Lai when he noticed bodies of all ages laying across rice paddies. This scene confused him, since there were no reports of a battle that took place. From above, Thompson saw a young woman who lay wounded. He threw a smoke grenade down and signaled for medical back-up. After calling for help, ground command responded with “Yes, I will help her.” Only a few minutes later, a captain arrived at the scene only to push the injured woman with his foot and open fire on her with an M-16. Upon witnessing this, Thompson said to himself, “She’s history, and I’m sitting here. My God, he just killed her.” Realizing that Americans were responsible for killing these civilians, Thompson and his crew decided to take action.5
As they flew by, Thompson glimpsed at least one hundred more bodies lying in a ditch. Several soldiers had been shooting at those who attempted to escape. Swiftly, Thompson landed his helicopter and asked to speak to whoever was in charge. Sergeant Mitchell, a nearby officer, told him that the only solution to helping those in the ditch was to end their misery. Thompson, believing this to a cruel joke, ordered Mitchell to help the villagers. Mitchell simply replied, “OK, Chief, we’ll take care of it.” A lieutenant, William Calley, stepped in and too showed little concern for the villagers. Thompson, irritated, told the lieutenant, “There’s lots of wounded here,” to which Calley’s response was a simple “Yes.” Thompson asked Calley to call for support, but Calley, a higher ranking officer, insisted that nothing could be done. Knowing there was no point in further arguing with Calley, Thompson bitterly returned to his helicopter and took off. By getting the troop’s attention and with lieutenant Calley’s arrival, Thompson believed that he halted the killings. Unfortunately, as soon as Thompson was in the air, the men below continued to fire at the villagers.6
In the three months since they arrived in Vietnam, Charlie Company, the soldiers who instigated the My Lai massacre, had seen four of their men killed and thirty-eight wounded. Most of these deaths and injuries came from mines, booby traps or distant snipers. The Viet Cong’s guerrilla tactics prevented the U.S. soldiers from fighting back. Only two days before the My Lai massacre, a landmine blew apart a well-liked sergeant in the company. One day prior to the massacre, the commander of Charlie Company, Captain Ernest Medina, prepared his men for the upcoming operation. He convinced them that tomorrow’s attack would be the perfect opportunity to avenge their fallen comrades. Medina’s speech reinforced the idea that the Vietnamese were subhumans who had to be “hosed down” and “wasted.” According to Army intelligence, the area around My Lai was a Viet Cong stronghold and its inhabitants were either Viet Cong guerrillas or sympathizers. However, when Charlie Company arrived on the morning of March 16, no guerrilla fighters were present. They only found civilians going about their lives – many of whom cooking rice for breakfast. Sa Thi Qui, a survivor of the massacre, later said that the villagers were initially not afraid because U.S. troops had previously passed through the village; some of them had given candy to the children.7
This quick snapshot was taken by a U.S. soldier during the My Lai Massacre on March 16, 1968. The women and children shown here would be killed only moments after this picture was taken | Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
After witnessing Calley and others shooting at the villagers, Thompson knew he needed to intervene. Differences in radio frequencies prevented him from contacting Colonel Henderson, the commander of the Americal Division’s 11th Infantry Brigade. If he returned to a landing zone to notify his superiors, more civilians would have been murdered by the time something was done.8 While he was looking at his options, Thompson saw several women and children in a field rushing towards a nearby bunker below. Not far from the group were about ten soldiers running after them. He radioed Danny Millians, his friend who was a pilot flying nearby, about the situation, and then Thompson flew his helicopter close to the bunker. Both he and his two crewmates knew that these villagers would die in a matter of minutes. Thompson looked at his crew and boldly told them, “These people are going to die. I’m not going to let this happen. We’ve got to do something. Are you guys with me?” Without pausing to think, Andreotta replied, “If we’re going to do something, we better do it right now!” Eighteen-year-old Colburn wondered, “How did we get into this?” In a race against time, the helicopter dashed towards the open rice paddy field.9
As Thompson landed his helicopter in the field between the Vietnamese civilians and the incoming U.S. troops, he was afraid of what might happen to him. He and his crew might be killed in a firefight or even spend the rest of their lives in jail. However, despite the dangers, Thompson was determined to prevent any more deaths. With the engine still on, Thompson stepped off the helicopter to confront the officer in charge who was about fifty yards away. Meanwhile, Colburn and Andreotta, carrying several machine guns, kept a close watch from a safe distance hoping that this would not lead to a violent showdown. At the same time, Millian flew his gunship close by to assess the situation. Thompson walked towards the lieutenant in charge, Stephen Brooks of the 2nd Platoon in Charlie Company. “Hey, there’s some civilians over here in this bunker! Can you get them out,” called Thompson. Brooks sneered, “We can get them out with a hand grenade!”10
Vietnamese workers near My Lai, 1971 | Courtesy of Flickr user manhhai
The two men got into a heated argument. Colburn and Andreotta could barely hear Thompson screaming from a distance. After a five minute verbal confrontation, Thompson headed back to the helicopter. A fuming Brooks held back his anger as he stared at the gun-wielding Colburn and Andreotta. When Thompson reached his aircraft, he told his crew to prepare for confrontation. He told them, “They’re coming this way. I’m going to go over to the bunker myself and get these people out. If they fire on these people or fire on me while I’m doing that, shoot ’em!” They nervously stayed still, pointing their guns toward the floor in fear that they would accidentally fire at the U.S. troops. Colburn was more concerned that one of the soldiers would try to flush the villagers out of the bunker with a grenade. While still cautious, Brooks and his men sat down for lunch and cigarettes.11
Out of the one hundred U.S. soldiers that entered My Lai that day, only about thirty participated in the murders. Although the majority of the soldiers did not partake in the massacre, they also made no attempts to stop it. Several of those soldiers later testified that they chose not to intervene for fear of being shot among the madness.12 For those that took part in the killings, they likely experienced “battlefield frenzy”: a mental state that embattled their minds. With this mindset of anger and revenge, they felt no remorse over killing the villagers.13
With Colburn and Andreotta on the lookout, Thompson headed inside the bunker. He found a total of nine Vietnamese civilians – five children, two men, and two women. One of them was an old, frail man and one of the children was tightly gripping a woman’s leg. The villagers were initially scared of Thompson, but slowly their trust grew, and they followed him out. Thompson, distraught, realized not everyone would fit inside the helicopter. Using his radio, Thompson called for back-up. Millians and Brian Livingston, another gunship pilot, answered. Aware of the danger of the situation, both still agreed to help. Colburn and Andreotta continued to tensely watch the American soldiers resting from afar. Uneasy, Colburn waved his hand at the soldiers as a friendly gesture and one of them waved back. Millians unconventionally landed his aircraft. Both he and Thompson realized that there would still not be enough room for the civilians. It would take two trips to escort them all to safety. With Livingston flying close by for protective support and Thompson stationed on the ground with the Vietnamese civilians, Millians took two round-trips in flying the villagers to safety a couple miles away. After twenty minutes, they had safely evacuated all nine of these villagers.14
The ditch where Charlie Company gathered and killed approximately 170 villagers. | Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
With the civilians free from harm, Thompson and his crew took off from the field. Thompson hovered in the vicinity to see if there were any more survivors. They found a ditch full of bodies and Andreotta, believing that he saw movement, told Thompson to land the helicopter. Once landed, Thompson stayed in the aircraft while Andreotta and Colburn silently searched through the pile of corpses. Andreotta stepped down into the ditch, walking past corpses. He spotted a young boy, covered in blood. Although he was stuck under a few bodies, he was alive and unharmed. Andreotta found him, silent but terrified, clasping onto a corpse full of bullet holes – his mother. After pulling him out, he picked the boy up and gave him to Colburn, who stood above on the edge of the ditch. The three of them returned to the helicopter and Thompson took them to a hospital in Quang Ngai City. Seeing that the boy had no family left, Thompson gave the boy to a nun to be placed in a nearby orphanage.15
A memorial dedicated to the Vietnamese lives lost in the massacre; My Lai | Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Military authorities ignored Hugh Thompson’s account of the massacre. It was not until a year later on November 1969 that the public even became aware of the massacre. In the following months, two dozen American soldiers were tried for military crimes. Lieutenant William Calley, charged with 102 counts of murder, received a life sentence. However, in November 1974, he got out of prison with a dishonorable discharge by President Nixon. 16 Thompson later spoke of the massacre as “one of the saddest days of my life…I just could not believe that people could totally lose control like the way it happened.”17
Sadly, Glenn Andreotta, only twenty years old, died in combat three weeks after the massacre.18 But, Thompson and Colburn reunited two decades later in 1989 to interview for the award-winning BBC-TV documentary film Remember My Lai.19 In seminars, talks and presentations, Thompson and Colburn advocated for moral and ethical leadership in combat. Both men returned to My Lai on March 1998, the thirtieth anniversary of the massacre, to pay their respects. They even reunited with Do Hoa, the eight-year old boy they rescued.20
Their bravery did not go unnoticed. Major Milliam Eckhardt, the main prosecutor during the My Lai trial case, later remarked, “When you have evil, sometimes, in the midst of it, you will have incredible, selfless good. And that’s Hugh Thompson.” Hugh Thompson, Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta (posthumously) were eventually rewarded with the Soldier’s Medal for their display of heroism outside of combat.21 The massacre at My Lai shows us that no matter how bad a given situation can get, there will always be people who will rise up and take action against the cruelty demonstrated by other human beings.
In 1998, thirty years after the My Lai massacre, Hugh Thompson Jr. and Lawrence Colburn gather at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. to be awarded the Soldiers Medal. | Courtesy of AP Press
Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2018, s.v. “American Massacre of Vietnamese Civilians at My Lai Is Revealed,” by Wendy Hicks. ↵
Vietnam War Reference, Library Volume 3: Almanac, 2001, s.v. “Nixon’s War (1969-70).” ↵
Howard Jones, My Lai : Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent Into Darkness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 88. ↵
“Hugh Thompson,” The Times (London), January 11, 2006. ↵
Howard Jones, My Lai : Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent Into Darkness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 86-88. ↵
Howard Jones, My Lai : Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent Into Darkness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 88, 89. ↵
Claude Cookman, “An American Atrocity: The My Lai Massacre Concretized in a Victim’s Face,” The Journal of American History 94, no. 1 (2007), 155, 156. ↵
Howard Jones, My Lai : Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent Into Darkness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 105. ↵
Howard Jones, My Lai : Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent Into Darkness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 105, 106. ↵
Howard Jones, My Lai : Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent Into Darkness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 106-107. ↵
Gale Encyclopedia of American Law, 2010, s.v. “My Lai Massacre,” by Batten Donna. ↵
Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), 160. ↵
1968, Charlie Compay, conflict, helicopter, Hugh Thompson Jr, massacre, Memory, military conflict, my lai, Vietnam
Mario Sosa
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Thomas Fraire says:
The Vietnam war was a widely debated topic in the US while it happened a lot of innocent people died for this cause. It was very well written and I really enjoyed learning about an area of history I am not very familiar with. Congrats on your nomination it was very noble that he refused to kill innocent people and stayed loyal to his beliefs.
Makenzie Santana says:
Vietnam is one of the many countries that has put innocent people through so much during the wars. I applaud Officer Thompson for his noble bravery fighting for the murder of civilians, hardly anyone else had that kind of courage and used the excuse of “doing their jobs”. If only all the soldiers were like Thompson, it could of saved so many more lives and prevent this horrific time in history for the people of Vietnam.
Sarah Uhlig says:
I thought that Thompson was a great officer and his quote from the first couple of paragraphs really show the awful truth of how people die in such situations. I admire the dedication and hard work that this team had during these times. It was sad to read about what happens to these people during the battles and how women and children are treated because of these mass killings. We need more people like Thompson.
Noah Wesolowski says:
While I know that there were many other incidents like this in Vietnam which was one of the many reasons the war was unpopular and why the soldiers when returning home were not respected as much as other soldiers in the past wars. Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr. was a very brave man to be able to stand up against the injustice of killing civilians where most others would say they were just following orders to kill innocent people and it was a part of war.
Explanatory Article, Journalistic Explanatory, Political History, United States History, US-Contemporary United States (1968-present)
Gated Innovation: The Microsoft Monopolization Case
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The Armada: One of The Decisive Battles of History
In 1588, the great Armada set sail from Spain. This huge fleet consisted of 130 ships, including 22 great Gallons, huge ships just laden with guns and other firepower.
The reasons Philip II of Spain sent out this powerful fleet was because the protestant English had been helping the Dutch, who were trying to overthrow the Spanish rulers in the Netherlands. Also, English privateers such as Sir Francis Drake had been pirating the richly laden Spanish ships on their way back from the Americas. And when Queen Elizabeth of England had beheaded the Roman Catholic Queen Mary of Scots, Philip finally sent out his ships.
The fleet was to sail through the English channel to the Spanish Netherlands, pick up troops waiting there, and then land them on Britain, then these troops would march to Buckingham palace and sieze Elizabeth.
Philip’s first big mistake was to put the fleet under command of Medina Sidonia, his best General, also a man who had never been to sea.
The English sighted the Armada off Lizard, and sent the signal to London through lighted beacons. (like in the movie Lord of The Rings when Minas Tirith called for help through the beacons to Rohan). The English fleet put to sea, but could do nothing while the Spanish kept in their tight formation. So the Spanish fleet went hulking on, but when they reached the Dutch harbour where the troops were waiting to be picked up they had to stop, and stopping meant going out of formation.
The second they stopped, the English began firing at long range, farther than the small Spanish guns could shoot, and even better, the Dutch Sea Beggars under Justin of Nassau, (brother of the Prince of Orange) had blockaded the harbour, and so the Spanish had to go back a little and find a shallower spot to take on the armies. But, of course, the Beggars had already been through and removed the depth markers. So around Calais in France, the Spanish finally found what seemed to be a good spot, and so they cast down anchor and waited for the army to arrive.
Meanwhile the English were doing serious damage, but the Spanish could do nothing back. At last it grew dark, and the English withdrew. The Spanish knew there would be another attack in the morning, so were ready to cut loose the anchor and get out of the way of any fireships.
Sure enough, in the night, about eight fireships loomed towards them. The Spanish panicked, cut loose their cables and tried to flee. All but one escaped the fireships, but the others ran into each other, and some got stuck in the sand bar. When light dawned, the English renewed their attack, and just tore apart the Spanish. The Spanish could not flee as the wind was against them, and many ships were sunk. At last the wind changed, and the Spnaish fled. They could not go back through the strait as they had come, as the English were there waiting for them, so they sailed up the coast intending to go around Scotland and so back to Spain that way.
The poor Spaniards were driven by hunger, and those who were not taken by hunger were sunk in storms. Only 52 out of the 130 ships that sailed so proudly from Spain returned to their homeland.
The reason the Enlish had won this battle is because of their long-range cannons that fired 42-pounders (the wheight of the cannon balls) a range almost twice as far as the Spanish guns.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized on March 13, 2012 by Captain Belaq.
← 18th Century Naval Cannons Iron Ore of Elba →
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China’s Didi backs Uber rival Careem to expand its global footprint into the Middle East
Jon Russell @jonrussell / 2 years
A week after its first investment in Europe, Chinese ride-sharing giant Didi Chuxing is spreading its wings once again after it announced a financing deal with Careem, an Uber rival in the Middle East that is valued at more than $1 billion. The size of the investment was not disclosed.
Yes, Didi is backing yet another Uber rival in another corner of the world.
Aside from Taxify, the Europe and Africa Uber competitor that it invested in earlier this month, Didi has shares in Lyft in the U.S., India’s Ola, 99 in Latin America and Southeast Asia’s Grab. It also owns equity in Uber courtesy of the unique terms of the acquisition of the Uber China business last year.
In that respect, it makes sense that it is considering investments in basically any ride-sharing company in the world. Beyond giving it the potential to expand its service through acquisitions or partnerships at a later, these deals also help Didi — which is the world’s second highest value tech company behind Uber — to put Uber under some pressure. The firm can help its global partners b giving them more money and providing the expertise and tech capabilities that it has developed from serving 400 million users in China.
As the saying goes: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
“Didi Chuxing brings leading edge AI capabilities, insight and expertise to our organization as we enter our next phase of growth,” Careem CEO Mudassir Sheikha said in a statement. “This evolution in our long relationship will enable Careem to more effectively pursue growth opportunities through continued innovation and sustainability.”
Dubai-headquartered Careem started out five years old as a scrappy Uber competitor, but it has grown into quite a formidable business in its own right. Back in June, it raised $500 million from investors that include auto giant Daimler at a valuation of $1.2 billion — that’s up on the $1 billion valuation that it scored when it raised the first part of that round in December 2016. In total, Careem has raised just shy of $570 million to date, and its other backers include Rakuten and Saudi Telecom Company (STC).
As for its business, Careem operates in 80 cities across 13 countries in the Middle East and North Africa. It claims to have over 12 million registered customers and in excess of 250,000 drivers. It has even played the Didi big brother role. Back in July, it invested an undisclosed sum into Egypt-based Swvl.
Following this investment Didi said its “global framework of collaboration” now covers over 60 percent of the world’s population across 1,000 cities. That gives a clear insight into what its next ambition is having already driven Uber out of China via that acquisition deal.
Things might be about to get a little more complicated if SoftBank, which has invested alongside Didi in many of its global deals, backs Uber. Following media reports, CEO Mashayoshi Son yesterday confirmed his interest in doing a deal with Uber, but he said that SoftBank is also weighing a deal with Lyft.
Note: This post was updated to correct Careem’s financing history
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The 4 most dangerous missions heroic US troops carried out on D-Day 75 years ago
Katie Sanders, Business Insider
(The National WWII Museum)
"Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well-trained, well-equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely."
As the sun set on the blood-stained beaches of Normandy, France on June 6, 1944, Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's message to the thousands of Allied troops dispatched to carry out the largest amphibious landing in military history rang true.
The invasion, codenamed Operation Neptune and remembered as D-Day, sent roughly 156,000 British, Canadian, and American troops to the Nazi-occupied French coast by air and sea, beginning the multi-month Battle of Normandy and the liberation of Western Europe from Hitler's Wehrmacht. This week, as millions gather in Normandy to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day, National WWII Museum senior historian Rob Citino emphasized that the impact of the landings came at a tremendous human toll. By the end of the Normandy campaign, hundreds of thousands of Allied and Axis soldiers and civilians had died and been wounded, with those involved in the initial landings suffering disproportionately.
"Certain sectors and certain minutes, casualties were 100 percent," Citino said.
Citino described the most perilous jobs American troops performed to help make the D-Day landings a World War II turning point. "It was bad enough but would have been worse," he says.
D-Day Dangerous Jobs Normandy Invasion the greatest generation world war ii history
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Tag Archives: Yonge and Bloor Toronto
Frank Stollery store-demolished 2015
Frank Stollery’s store at Yonge and Bloor Streets in the 1970s. Toronto Archives F124, S 1465, fl 0685, it. 109
During the mid-1950s, I was a teenager and worked for one summer at the Imperial Bank at Yonge and Bloor Streets. Each day, on my lunch hour, if I strolled south on Yonge Street, I passed by Stollerys and gazed in the display windows. However, I never ventured inside the store as I knew that the prices were beyond my means. My employment at the bank was $28 per week. At the time, I knew nothing about Stollerys’ long and distinguished history in the city of Toronto’s retail trade.
Frank Stollery was born in Yorkville in 1879, during the days when it was a semi-rural community, surrounded by fields and farms. When he was a boy, residents of Yorkville journeyed to Toronto via the horse-drawn streetcar service on Yonge Street, its terminal being King Street near the St. Lawrence Market. Frank quit school when he was 14, which was not uncommon in that day. He found employment in a shop where he learned the skills required to cut men’s shirts and ties. Being adventurous, he relocated to Montreal and by age 20 was a foreman in a Montreal clothing factory, earning $12 per week. At age 21, he joined the Royal Canadian Regiment, but remained in service only a year. Returning to Toronto in 1901, he borrowed $1000 from his father and opened a haberdashery shop on Yonge Street, south of Bloor. A few years later, he relocated his business to the southwest corner of Bloor and Yonge Streets (1 Bloor Street West). He rented the property, but in 1928, purchased the site and commenced renovations. He also purchased the building to the south of his shop and incorporated it into the store.
However, in 1929, the City expropriated 20 feet on the north side of his shop to widen Bloor Street. This essentially created a situation in which Stollerys and many of the other businesses on the south side of Bloor Street were unable to operate, until the widening had been completed. Undaunted, Stollery demolished a portion of his shop behind the hoarding, and began the construction of a new structure. However, he continued operating in the remainder of the premises until the new building was completed.
The attractive new structure opened about 1930 or 1931. It possessed two-storeys, with large display windows on the ground floor. The windows on the second floor were topped with rounded Roman arches, and the roof possessed red tiles. The decorative stone carvings on the facade reflected Art Deco, with modern Italian trends. The store’s display windows became famous as they were meticulously arranged to feature the most up-to-date styles of expensive suits, jackets, raincoats, ties, shirts, and pyjamas.
Frank retired in 1968, selling the business to his son Arthur, and Ed Whaley, each owning 50 percent of the enterprise. Whaley managed the store, while Frank remained a silent partner. Whaley renovated the store and also leased the building to the immediate south, including it as part of the shop. When the business was at its peak in the 1970s and 1980s, it employed 100 people and it was assets were valued at $30 million.
Frank Stollery died on January 1, 1971 at his home at 32 Teddington Park Avenue, near Yonge Street, seven blocks north of Lawrence Avenue. In the years ahead, due to internal business problems, the store became neglected, the display windows becoming rather shoddy. By the second decade of the 21at century, the value of the land where the shop was located was astronomical. It was sold and quickly demolished in 2015, its demolition accomplished within a single weekend.
Sources: “Toronto Architecture—A City Guide,” by Patricia McHugh— www.thestar.com—www.mountpleasantgroup.com (Mike Filey)— www.theglobeandmail.com—torontoist.com
The camera is pointed at the southwest corner of Bloor and Yonge Streets in 1912. The Frank Stollery men’s shop is on the corner. The photo provides a good view of the west side of Yonge Street, south of Bloor in the second decade of the 20th century. Toronto Archives, F 1231, Item 1691.
Frank Stollery’s shop in 1922, the north facade of the premises facing Bloor Street. The windows have awnings that sheltered potential customers from the summer sun. Sadly, few modern stores offer this feature. Toronto Archives, F 1034, item 816.
Stollery’s in 1923, shadows indicating that it was taken in the morning. The policeman operates a traffic sign as there was no stop lights. Toronto Archives, F1231, Item 2089.
Stollery’s store in 1928, when the shop to the south of it was being incorporated. To accomplish this, half of the old store was demolished. The photo also contains Peter Witt streetcars that began service in Toronto in 1921. Toronto Archives, F1244, item 7393.
The camera is pointed toward the northwest corner of Yonge and Bloor in the 1970s. This is the building that opened in 1930-1931. The red-tiled roof, second-storey rounded windows and the ground-floor display windows are visible. Toronto Archives, F124, File 2, Item 109.
Gazing south on Yonge Street from Bloor Street in the 1980s. A third storey has been added, its facades constructed of glass. Toronto Archives, S 1465, fl0614, Item 002.
Photograph of the southwest corner of Yonge and Bloor in 2013. The camera looks south on Yonge.
Frank Stollery’s store in 2013.
Another book on theatres, published by Dundurn Press, is entitled, “Toronto’s Movie Theatres of Yesteryear—Brought Back to Thrill You Again.” It explores 81 theatres and contains over 125 archival photographs, with interesting anecdotes about these grand old theatres and their fascinating histories.
Posted by Doug Taylor on September 13, 2016 in Bloor Street West Toronto, Doug Taylor, Toronto history, Frank Stollery Toronto, historic Toronto, historic toronto buildings, historic Yonge Street, local history Toronto, tayloronhistory.com, Toronto history, Toronto's lost buildings
Tags: Frank Stollery Toronto, Yonge and Bloor Toronto
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This Week in Security: Border Searches, Insecure Journalists, and Quantum Computers
ThreatVector > Spotlight
by Cylance Research and Intelligence Team | January 12, 2018
CBP Updates Electronic Device Search Guidelines
The U.S. Department of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), charged with border inspections and other duties, have released updated guidelines on searches of traveler’s devices when crossing the U.S. border. While the border itself is notorious for being a place where the Fourth Amendment doesn’t fully apply, the sheer magnitude of data available on electronics subject to search has brought increased scrutiny to border searches.
The updated guidelines describe some specific practices and limitations of border searches involving electronic devices. For example, “Basic” searches may be conducted with or without suspicion, and must be done in view of the device’s owner. Basic searches are described as not involving external devices being connected to the device being searched, and only involving information that would be normally accessible manually interacting with the phone. Meanwhile, “Advanced” searches involve using devices external to the phone to access and copy information.
The policy also clarifies that searches should be limited in scope only to information resident on the device itself, rather than anything stored in a cloud service accessible from the phone. Regarding passwords, screen locks, encryption and other privacy-preserving tools, the searching agent may ask the traveler for assistance in unlocking the device. If an officer is “unable to complete an inspection of an electronic device” due to such a security measure, then the device may be detained.
While this may seem like a “reigning in” of border searches to some, the reality is that the CBP itself reports a 59% increase in searches of electronic devices from 2016 to 2017, with a total of 30,220 electronic device searches in 2017. It seems likelier that these guidelines are more about streamlining the searching process rather than limiting its privacy impact, and that the CBP foresees electronic device searches becoming a much more common activity.
While much has been speculated about the best way to maintain your digital privacy at the border, it’s a complicated issue. The short and incomplete recommendation we can give is to simply not have sensitive information resident on any devices you cross the border with. This could mean downloading files from cloud storage only once past the border, or perhaps having separate devices just for traveling.
Journalists Still Lacking in Digital Security
Effective digital security training is no easy task, but safely using technology is an increasingly crucial skill for journalists. Journalists handle all kinds of digital information when researching stories, and often need to preserve confidentiality of both the material they have, as well as their sources who may be placing themselves in extreme danger for simply speaking to journalists.
With extensive documentation of digital attacks on journalists, as well as the non-digital threats journalists face, digital security is quickly becoming a mandatory skill for all journalists.
In response, many schools have begun incorporating digital security training into their programs. However, there is still much left to be desired. Many schools do not offer any digital security training, and even fewer make it mandatory. Of the schools that do offer digital security training, most devote fewer than two hours to it, meaning actual retention of the material is unlikely. However, many of the schools that do offer training integrate it into their usual coursework, rather than as a separate workshop, moving towards holistically educating in digital security skills.
This a great way to normalize digital security concepts as core to journalistic work, rather than as an extra elective course the especially nerdy students take.
WPA3 is On the Way!
Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2) has been the standard for secure WiFi for years, but it has finally begun showing some weakness with the KRACK attack. To address the weaknesses of WPA2, and provide improved features, the WiFi Alliance has announced the latest version of the WPA standard, WPA3.
Expected to be available mid-2018, WPA3 brings some new features to WiFi. For example, many wireless internet of things (IoT) devices don’t have a display, making initial network configuration a bit awkward. WPA3 adds support for configuring these devices wirelessly with another WiFi-connected device, streamlining this step.
For security, WPA3 vastly improves open WiFi security, providing Individual Data Encryption for clients. This way, even networks that aren’t access-controlled with a passphrase can enjoy encrypted communications, preventing easy WiFi sniffing attacks. There are also changes to mitigate brute-force attacks, and provide more security for even short passphrases. Keep an eye out for WPA3-compliant hardware and software!
Actually, 49 is a Pretty Big Number
Intel unveiled at CES that they have a functional 49-qubit quantum test processor. But what does that mean beyond being a milestone to hype in a keynote? Most people are aware by now that the fundamentally different mechanics quantum computers use mean they can tackle certain problems so complex that classical computers aren’t worth using to solve them. For example, cryptographic schemes whose security relies on the difficulty of factoring integers on classical computers are vulnerable to quantum computers.
First, this solidifies Intel as a serious competitor in the quantum computing game. Second, this number of qubits is around the threshold for when simulations of quantum computers on classical computers are unreasonable, meaning you need an actual quantum computer.
While the chip is impressive, the biggest contribution is likely the techniques involved in the construction and operation of the chip, rather than the computations the chip itself can perform. However, this is quickly approaching hardware that would be useful for niche research purposes, like simulating chemical interactions.
As for cryptography, some highly technical work suggests that it will require a quantum computer with thousands of physical qubits before even the weakest vulnerable schemes are broken. Nothing to lose sleep over, but a good motivator to continue work on post-quantum cryptographic schemes. Once these computers can crack something like RSA-1024, we’ll want to have multiple secure post-quantum schemes, and implementations of them, that are as adopted and mature as RSA is now. Until then, you can experiment with a quantum computer IBM makes freely available on the web!
Cylance Research and Intelligence Team The Cylance Research and Intelligence team explores the boundaries of the information security field identifying emerging threats and remaining at the fore front of attacks. With insights gained from these endeavors, Cylance stays ahead of the threats. Author's Bio
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Brahms' Symphonies
South German Philharmonic OrchestraHans SwarowskyJohannes Brahms
Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68: I. Un Poco Sostenuto - Allegro
Hans SwarowskySouth German Philharmonic OrchestraJohannes Brahms
Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68: II. Andante Sostenuto
Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68: III. Un Poco Allegretto E Grazioso
Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68: IV. Adagio - Allegro Non Troppo
Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73: I. Allegro Non Troppo
Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73: II. Adagio Non Troppo
Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73: III. Allegretto Grazioso
Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73: IV. Allegro Con Spirito
Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90: I. Allegro Con Brio
Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90: II. Andante
Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90: III. Poco Allegretto
Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90: IV. Allegro
Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98: I. Allegro Non Troppo
Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98: II. Andante Moderato
Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98: III. Allegro Giocoso
Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98: IV. Allegro Energico E Passionato
Other Albums by South German Philharmonic Orchestra
Mendelssohn:Joyful imagination
South German Philharmonic Orchestra
Beethoven: Ethereal Flow
Munich Symphony Orchestra
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1 "Winter Daydreams" - Suite No. 4 "Mozartiana"
Berlioz: Benvenuto Cellini Overture - Symphonie fantastique
Franck: Symphony in D Minor - Symphonic Variations - Massenet: Orchestral Suite No. 4 "Scenes Pittoresques"
Classique pour la creativité
Close your Eyes and Feel again
New Years Fireworks!
The Vienna State Opera Orchestra
Library Studies
Sweet Memories for Old Couples
Music Inspired by Animals
Natural Sounds for a Natural Birth
A Bank Of Violets: Music Inspired By William Shakespeare
Saint-Saëns: Carnival of the Animals
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 - "Pastoral"
Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 'Romantic' - Symphony No. 2
Beethoven: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36 (Digitally Remastered)
Beethoven: Concerto for Violin & Orchestra in D Major, Op. 61 (Digitally Remastered)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 - Schubert: Symphony No. 8 "Unfinished"
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TV ReviewsSupernaturalSeason 9
Supernatural: “Stairway To Heaven”
SupernaturalSeason 9
"Stairway To Heaven"
Supernatural is no stranger to riffing on pop culture, but “Stairway To Heaven,” from its title on, really presses on the gas with the references—there’s a ton going on in this episode, most of it not so good. At the outset, Cas has “noticed” that the Winchesters use the names of “popular musicians” for their aliases and selects Christina Aguilera, which is the kind of thing he’d have done in, what, season four? The “hiding place” for the portal to Heaven showcased some of Metatron’s favorite stories (like Lord Of The Rings and Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade), and the rest of his actions bring to mind the framing of “Meta Fiction.” But the allusions, intentional or not, that pepper the episode under the surface are full of unfavorable comparisons.
Part of that is because a lot of the episode is made up of the sort of things that don’t really gain charm from Supernatural’s low-budget approach to the mythic, particularly the glow in the dark paint that revealed the “Why was six afraid of seven?” riddle and the fact that Metatron had an angelic summit at a bowling alley. “There’s nothing like this in Heaven.” Yes, because, as Gadreel points out, it’s a bowling alley. The contrast between the ridiculousness of the setting and the supposed stakes of the conflict is something the show recognizes, and can often mine for both tension and stakes, but here it just doesn’t work at all. “Authenticity,” Tyrus tells Metatron. But most of the comparisons that flag themselves suggest the ways that “Stairway To Heaven” is anything but.
The “angelic suicide bombing” plot comes off as a sad, poorly executed version of a Battlestar Galactica script that aired 10 years too late (yes this is a bit harsh, but this story is also really bad). So… there’s a “conspiracy” of angels who are blowing themselves up in Cas’ name, mostly so that Cas can feel bad about it and the other angels can eventually abandon him. Whether or not this is something that Cas wants to happen, the episode’s attempt to let him off the hook by revealing Metatron to have been behind the attacks doesn’t really ring true to the hard questions that telling a story like this ought to raise: What does it mean for Cas to be a leader? What sort of sacrifices should he accept? How can he minimize loss of life while still trying to defeat Metatron? These are all questions this season has asked, albeit half-heartedly, during Cas’ nomadic period. And the consequences for Cas here—a horribly burned Josiah serves merely to make Cas guilty for no reason whatsoever. His lines aren’t particularly well delivered, and it’s sort of unclear why, exactly, he hates Cas so much.
The scene near the end of the episode in which Cas is asked to make a politically expedient moral sacrifice for the greater good (killing Dean to keep his army) for little reason other than forcing this sort of dilemma also entails another unfortunate comparison: the last season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Cas’ army leaves him alone for reasons that feel extremely forced, designed to send the hero (because at this point Cas is probably more the hero of the season than either Winchester) to his lowest point. (We also get a narrative time bomb: Cas’ stolen grace, which will apparently burn out and take Cas with it.) This standoff, in which the angels demand that Cas kill Dean as a sign of good faith and “proof” of his intentions, is… dumb. Like Buffy, Cas is struggling with questions about leadership and responsibility that he’s not sure he’s ready to deal with, and that part of her story is generally considered a failure (though I’d defend some of that last season) even after seven seasons, where Cas gets an army and loses it in just a couple of episodes, and with far less long-term character development.
Thankfully, we don’t have to turn very far for our last pop-culture analogue: early seasons of Supernatural. Crazy Animal Dean is definitely setup for next season (there was some speculation in the comments that we’d have a Winchester battle, which is plausible although I’m still skeptical) but it became the focus of the end of the season super abruptly, and is sucking a ton of oxygen away from the other political machinations while continuing to be a knockoff of Evil Sam and pretty much ever other alteration to the brothers. (Remember when Bartholomew was a thing?) Dean gets exactly two good moments here, not coincidentally both with Cas—his attempt to call out Cas’ previous evil actions as “God,” which Sam dismisses for no reason other than convenience, and his grizzled, sweet affirmation of their bond at the end. Other than those, though, the Mark appears to have just amped up all of Dean’s older assholish tendencies, and then some. He has selective memory (claiming he’s never wanted to kill himself, though there are probably a few scenes from earlier in the show’s run that might beg to differ), he tortures people (in another faux-Battlestar turn), and worst of all he gets to attack a woman and say, “Honey, there ain’t no other men like me.” Dean is not a good villain to have around. The Mark doesn’t make him “gritty,” it just makes him unpleasant and terrible.
And, somehow, this marks two weeks in a row that the show has killed off a recurring female character. Tessa’s had a few solid appearances over the series’ run, dating back to season two, and her disposal here is absolutely baffling. There’s a ton of stuff happening (it is the last episode before the finale after all, which wait, what, let’s come back to that), but that doesn’t mean the script couldn’t spend a few seconds, if not mourning, at least remembering Tessa. As it is, she’s just introduced to be a name we know in Metatron’s plan, and that’s it, which is really disappointing. At this rate, there aren’t going to be many recurring characters left for the writers to kill—maybe Hannah will come back? Regardless, “Stairway To Heaven” might exploit Tessa even more than Metatron.
And given that he’s the big bad of the season, it’s kind of a problem that watching the beginning of this episode I had to ask myself: Who is Metatron? In his first scene with Gadreel, Curtis Armstrong plays Metatron as almost buffoonish, trying on a trench coat and bumbling a bit—this is a fun enough version of the character, but a very different one from the mastermind he was positioned as at the end of last season. As “Stairway To Heaven” goes on, we realize Metatron is still very much that mastermind, but the fact that it’s even conceivable for the writers to make such an about-face with the character does not say good things about where we are with either Metatron or the season as a whole. Tyrus gets it right when he calls Metatron “A nerd trying to be one of the popular kids,” but as the prank that Metatron pulls on Cas—leading him to a fake Heaven that looks like a high school prom and the body of one of his angels—indicates, that nerdy passion for books curdled into hatred and a need to write his own story. This is really great—if only Metatron had been pulling stuff like it from the very beginning of the season.
Metatron has, of course, sent the suicide bombers himself, something that is not only an obvious twist the script thinks is really clever, but also obviously sets up Gadreel’s betrayal, something that’s been telegraphed for most of the season. Though he’s great in the bowling alley scene (“Old shoes and alcoholism?”) Tahmoh Penikett’s (hey, BSG!) acting for most of the episode is… not the best, mostly requiring him to yell in a stilted voice, even when he turns traitor and heads to Cas. It’s not his fault, but still. It’s especially a bummer, because it looks like this was Gadreel’s sendoff. Dean, fueled by the rage of the Mark and First Blade, cuts the angel open, sending him, Sam, and Cas back to square one. I guess this is a decent enough consequence of the Mark, but the big twist heading into the finale is just killing another character and sending the show, more or less, back to its status quo from the beginning of the season. This season has had a lot of plates spinning at different times, and it’s simply chosen to add more rather than actually resolve anything or try to set its many threads to dovetail for a cohesive finale. As Metatron might say, at least it’s flipping the script?
“He’s always a little angry.”
“Prime numbers can be intimidating.”
“I don’t get this whole Cas love fest either.” Some great quotes in this one, at least.
Metatron is playing Monopoly instead of checkers, and always builds a hotel on Boardwalk. I don’t think he understands how to play Monopoly.
Dean’s moment with Cas there at the end is a good indication that maybe this show should retool itself as Ackles and Collins just kinda kicking back with a 12-pack, maybe with banjos?
Finale predictions?
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The X-Files: “The Unnatural” / Millennium: “Seven And One”
“The Unnatural” / “Seven And One”
“The Unnatural”
“Seven And One”
“The Unnatural” (season 6, episode 19; originally aired 4/25/1999)
In which aliens play baseball
Every time I watch “The Unnatural,” I start out scoffing at how corny it is and end the episode with the damn thing’s hooks in me. It’s an episode that, by all rights, shouldn’t work whatsoever, but it gets by on a sense of nostalgia and an almost aching sincerity. It’s a reminder that at the height of its powers, this show used the very elasticity of its premise to become all manner of things. Can you think of a series on the air today that would devote nearly an entire episode to a 1940s-set flashback about black baseball players of the era, then interweave a story about aliens in a way that feels mostly elegant? This is not to mention that that flashback would feature neither of the show’s regulars, relegating both of them to the sidelines of the story. Though there are shows that might attempt individual elements of the above, I don’t know that there’s any on the air that would do all of them at once. And who can blame our modern producers?
And, yes, let’s get this out of the way first. “The Unnatural” is a little—okay, a lot—corny. The script by David Duchovny occasionally tries too hard, particularly when he has the characters in the 1940s talk in a sort of folksy patois that’s meant to denote they have great wisdom or what-have-you. The early banter between Mulder and Scully—particularly when they’re exchanging proverbs and platitudes—is also a little clumsy, and when we meet Arthur Dales (this one a different Arthur Dales from the Arthur Dales we already know, though apparently also his brother), he seems to spend all of his time talking like an old man in a movie. In particular, there’s an incredibly hokey speech he gives about what makes a man that is impossible to watch without repeated eye rolls. Also, apparently, all great baseball players were actually aliens, which is a ridiculous idea on its face, though at least the episode doesn’t take Dales at face value on this one.
In addition, “The Unnatural” leans heavily on the magical black man trope, a trope that was already well-worn at best and offensive at worst when this episode was made. It’s not even just that baseball player Josh Exley is such a good player that his home runs seem to travel for miles. He’s also impossibly caring and warm-hearted and fun-loving. He’s the best friend a guy could ever have, able to overcome both a racial and species barrier through his simple, loving ways. And, oh yeah, he’s literally magical, in that he’s an alien who loved baseball that can shape shift and apparently becomes an actual human being through sheer force of will. Duchovny’s script does some interesting things with the idea of how the grey aliens might feel like outsiders in our society, but the whole premise is such a wholesale take on this trope that it’s not hard to feel just a touch uncomfortable with the whole endeavor.
As I said, though, “The Unnatural” somehow works. I think it’s the fact that the episode turns mournful in its last quarter that finally saves it. The stuff about the Cactus League baseball teams is entertaining enough—and I love the team name of the Roswell Grays—but it also feels as if it’s been ported in from another series entirely. (I’m not even certain the episode gets the alien mythology down accurately. Has the Bounty Hunter always been a Grey?) Once the episode reaches its emotional core, however, and once Exley and the young Dales are becoming friends and Exley is sharing with Dales the secrets of his species, it becomes remarkably warm. The X-Files was such a chilly show that it’s easy to forget that it could do something sweet and lovely and moving, and I think “The Unnatural” ultimately works because it embraces this side of the show’s profile.
It also helps that as Exley, Jesse L. Martin is terrific. The script asks him to play more of a saint than a human being (you know what I mean), but with his wide grin and aw shucks demeanor, Martin finds the dignity in Exley that Duchovny’s script doesn’t always locate. (The scene where Exley’s true form is first revealed to Dales threatens to fall apart at any moment, and Martin somehow carries it solely through his voice.) Frederic Lane is a bit stiff as the young Dales here, but the young Dales is meant to be something of a stiff character, so it’s at least consistent with his prior appearances. (The need for this to be a different Dales muddles things a bit, but it’s easily forgivable, as the producers had to make a quick judgment call after Darren McGavin had a stroke in the course of production.) The scenes when Exley and Dales can finally be honest with each other give Martin and Lane some nice material to play, and the two have an easygoing chemistry that makes the characters easy to care about—no small feat in an episode that’s just introduced one of them.
Duchovny’s visual sense also gives the episode plenty of pizazz. He sometimes overplays his hand—as in a slow pan in on a television that is showing what will be the next scene in black and white—but he mostly lets this all play out like a weird American folk tale, with the images of Exley’s alien reflection or those baseballs Mulder and Scully hit turning into winking stars making for some lovely little motifs that Duchovny doesn’t call too much attention to. I’m particularly fond of the shot of the Klan galloping across the baseball field to attack the game in the teaser. It’s an unlikely image, but Duchovny gives it a grounded nature that gives it the requisite weight while preserving the whimsy of the whole “aliens playing baseball” thing. It’s a tricky balancing act Duchovny manages here, and even if his script sometimes veers too far into cornpone, his direction is very good throughout.
In the end, “The Unnatural” works because it takes this very silly idea and proceeds to take it seriously. It gradually loses the corniness and the “magical black guy”-ness that hold it back a bit in the beginning and just goes whole hog. If it’s going to be about this world of outsiders traveling the backroads of 1940s America, it’s going to have African-Americans singing spirituals and Exley having to sacrifice himself and everything it can possibly think of to provoke an emotional reaction. It’s shameless, but it works, particularly since Duchovny knows exactly when to puncture the weightiness with a joke. He also knows exactly how to leave the episode, with Mulder and Scully at the ballpark, hitting balls off into the night. It may have nothing to do with anything, but it still connects them to a noble man the episode has just improbably managed to make us care about. Most of all, “The Unnatural” works because it just feels so utterly itself. It’s hard to think of another X-Files like this one. It’s hard to think of another episode of television like this one, period. That it can ultimately make us feel for these characters, well, that’s the icing on the cake.
This seems to be one of those X-Files episodes everybody remembers, probably because of the novelty of the premise. When I mentioned watching it on Twitter, I got a flood of “Oh, that one was my favorite” responses, which doesn’t always happen.
It’s fun to see how flirty Scully is in her two scenes with Mulder. This isn’t really an episode for her, but it’s always nice to see her act like she’s having fun when she’s not around him.
I am utterly undecided on those baseballs turning into winking stars. It should set off my cheese-o-meter, but it somehow just works, dammit. Maybe it’s my Mulder/Scully shipper heart coming to the fore.
“Seven And One” (season 3, episode 19; originally aired 4/30/1999)
In which Hank Schrader is a shape-shifting demon or… something
In a way, it’s too bad that Chris Carter didn’t get a chance to debut Millennium a few years later. At that point, the idea of “franchise” TV series was in full swing, with Law & Order and CSI opening up new versions of the original series to improve their producers and network’s profit margins. The more I watch Millennium, the more I’m conscious of how much Carter and his producers seemed to want to give the show an X-Files feel without actually making The X-Files. If they’d been able to franchise the earlier show, however, then they could have just gone whole hog and done something like The X-Files: Bible Mysteries. In its third season, Millennium has drifted uncomfortably close to this from time to time, and that’s made for some rather bland episodes of TV.
On the other hand, it’s also made for absolutely bugnuts, fucking crazy episodes of television that I can’t exactly call good but are certainly episodes I’m glad I’ve seen because they’re a nice reminder of how really talented people can make interesting things that don’t really hold together as a whole. Say what you will about the show’s ultra-grim first season or its weird Biblical mélange in season two. Those were two seasons of television that knew what they wanted to do and were remarkably efficient in accomplishing that task. I have absolutely no clue what season three is trying to do, other than come up with a new version of the series that would be more successful. But that desperate flailing makes for some entertaining TV, mostly because it’s made by people who obviously know their goose is cooked, but they have to play out the string anyway.
To that end, I sometimes feel as if these third season reviews should simply consist of me describing in explicit detail what happens in each episode of the season. This is already a show that was never as highly watched as Carter’s earlier show, but even with that stipulation, you come up against the fact that most people who watch the series drop out somewhere early in this season, during that long, deathly dull stretch of episodes that begins the season. By and large, the episodes Zack and I are watching are like uncharted territory. Plenty of people have been here before, and some of them have left maps, but it still feels like we’re headed into a land where there be monsters, and maybe we should leave more detailed floorplans for everybody who follows.
For instance, if I were to ask you to picture a Millennium episode, would you ever picture something that begins with a bunch of grimly smiling children dancing to a Backstreet Boys song? I’m going to wager you would not, yet that’s exactly what this one does. It’s set at Jordan’s birthday party, which is one thing, but it’s then coupled with Frank being informed by Catherine’s father that, hey, kids grow up so quickly, and this time will all be over soon and blah, blah, blah. But then, as if the show were parodying its own preponderance of grim moments, Frank starts having visions of death and destruction and flowers decaying and himself drowning while Jordan blows out the candles on her birthday cake. It’s as if the series saw that Suddenly Millennium parody I posted last week and decided to turn to it for notes. It’s completely nonsensical and goofy, but it’s also kind of awesome just how thoroughly the show has lost control of its tone at this point.
This episode was written by Carter with right-hand man Frank Spotnitz, and it’s a grand mess. I went to fact check something that happened on the invaluable fan site This Is Who We Are, and I got sucked into reading the synopsis of an episode I’d just watched because of how much it seemed like a weird dream I’d already half-forgotten. Did the episode really end with Frank getting trapped in a bathroom that continued to fill with water, in defiance of physics? (Yes, I know. Demons.) Did it really feature that lengthy monologue delivered by Dean Norris of all people, about how he’d seen people like Frank lose it time and time again, and everyone should watch out for him really snapping? Did it also conclude with Emma running into a version of herself, who then pointed the gun at her own head and pulled the trigger, before her corpse completely disappeared? The answer to all three of these questions is yes, but I’m half-convinced I’m making all of this up.
Like a lot of episodes this season, “Seven And One” is attempting to add up to something about how the end of days is coming, and the year 2000 will bring Satan back to Earth or something. In looking over my reviews of this season, I seem to say “or something” a lot, because I’m not entirely convinced Carter and his writers had any idea where they were going with this. They sure seem to just be tossing shit at the wall and hoping that some of it sticks for many of these episodes, and this one is no exception. Part of the problem, I think, is that any time you decide to create a villain who’s non-corporeal, you’re stuck with having to find a way that the villain defeats itself too much of the time. Whatever it is that Frank and Emma are chasing—maybe it’s Group member Mabius, but it sure seems far more demonic in nature—it only is defeated when it shoots itself in the head. That might make for a freaky ending, but it doesn’t really make for coherent storytelling.
That might be okay if I thought for a moment that all Millennium wanted to do was toss as much freaky shit at us as it could come up with. But I think the series still wants to say something profound about the nature of evil or about how those who are forced to gaze into the darkness are unable to stare for too long without blinking. The problem is that these philosophical queries are all well and good when you’re high and hanging out in the dorm room late at night, but they’re kind of dull to build a television series around. This means that the lasting impressions these third season episodes leave viewers with mostly have to do with the weird little fillips around the edges of any given episode.
At the same time, though, those weird fillips are really fucking weird, and that has to count for something, right? I hesitate to call this bad TV, even though it pretty clearly is bad TV. No, this is a season of TV made by professionals who knew the clock was ticking and were desperate to find some answer outside of the normal boxes. Maybe if this series had aired even five years later, it would have just been another X-Files. But by attempting to find some answer to what version of Millennium would be better off than all of the ones the public had already rejected, Carter and his writers created this glorious mess of a TV show, one that’s bad but in an utterly fascinating way you can’t look away from. These are people who know their shit but don’t know how to make this work, no matter how hard they try, and something like that is always going to be at least a little fun to watch.
It’s very strange to me that Dean Norris is in this episode, even if I’m perfectly aware that he had a career before Breaking Bad. His voice has gotten much deeper over the years, though, hasn’t it?
Poking around on fan sites has given me all sorts of explanations for what people think was going on in the series’ mythology, but I almost prefer the idea that we have no clue whatsoever. It makes the series that much more gloriously random.
I always like when the show clumsily works Frank’s status as a single parent or his status as a grieving widower into the storyline, because it immediately has to, say, ship Jordan back off to her grandparents’ house so she doesn’t get stalked by the second coming of the Polaroid stalker.
I will say that Lance Henriksen kills that monologue about when he and his friends swam in the lake, and one of them never came back out because of a prank his brother pulled. It shouldn’t work, but it does.
Seriously. The Backstreet Boys. Wonders never cease.
Next week: Zack and the Lone Gunmen hang out again in “Three Of A Kind,” then watches as Millennium tries again to make Emma an interesting character in “Nostalgia.”
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TV ReviewsVeronica MarsSeason 1
Veronica Mars: "Credit Where Credit's Due"/"Meet John Smith"
Rowan Kaiser
Veronica MarsSeason 1
"Credit Where Credit's Due"/"Meet John Smith" / "Credit Where Credit's Due"/"Meet John Smith"
"Credit Where Credit's Due"/"Meet John Smith"
“Credit Where Credit's Due” (Episode 2, Season 1; originally aired 9/28/2004)
Paris Hilton.
Consciously or unconsciously, TV Club Classic is an attempt to create a canon of television shows. There's a reason we're doing Veronica Mars and not, say, Birds of Prey. Or Newsradio instead of Dharma & Greg. There is an assumption that these series are still worth talking about, as well as likely to garner traffic (i.e., popular), years after their release. This means that they are, in a sense, timeless. Even though we're no longer in the milieu in which these series were created, they're still meaningful pieces of culture, more than simply historical cultural artifacts. If you want to say that's a definition of art, I won't argue against it.
Yet, Paris Hilton.
On the other hand, “timeless” may be somewhat misleading. Everything represents the context in which it was created, even when that's not immediately apparent. Star Trek: The Next Generation is built around the ideals of classical liberalism, although it was at a time when those ideals were becoming frayed at the edges, leading to some of the best episodes. A little later this led to more cynical science fiction like The X-Files, Babylon 5, and Deep Space 9. Or, on a more superficial level, Seinfeld may still be funny, but it also represents the 1990s in hairstyles, clothing, cultural norms, and lack of widespread cell phone usage. At any rate, one could go so far as to say that if a series doesn't say anything about its context, its likelihood of being classic is essentially non-existent.
Again, Paris Hilton.
I'm not sure there's any better way for Veronica Mars to say that it's set in the early 2000s than to have Paris Hilton guest starring in a (mostly) unironic role. Stunt casting is a good, if cheap, way to drive viewers to a show, and for a second episode of a UPN show, it might even have been wise. I don't know if people ever really liked Hilton enough that this was worthwhile for Veronica Mars, but theoretically, it might have – but at what cost?
It doesn't seem to have damaged the show's reputation – when I see fans mention it, it's usually laughed off as an aberration – but it certainly did damage this episode. A mystery surrounds Weevil's grandmother, a maid at Logan's house, and a bunch of credit card fraud. Hilton plays Logan's girlfriend, who, along with Weevil's cousin (or brother?) Chardo, actually does the deed. For the episode to work, Hilton has be seen as beautiful enough to fall for, charismatic enough to convince Chardo that he should be an utter moron for her, and conniving enough to get away with cheating for so long. While first is debatable (and I personally am on the negative side of that), the rest are certainly not true, and Veronica Mars seems to know that, relegating Hilton's character Caitlin to silence most of the time when she's on-screen, while keeping her off-screen as much as possible. The case-of-the-week gets disrupted simply because her presence is so awkward.
Still, even without Hilton, this episode would be awkward. Some of it is intentional, as new characters are introduced and try to deal with Veronica Mars. Some of it is inevitable, as the second episode of a series typically has formal, re-introduction issues. And some of it just isn't done very well. Throwing Veronica and Duncan together thanks to a random newspaper assignment is about as contrived as television gets, though it does serve some dramatic purpose.
There's still a lot to like here, especially as the episode progresses and the characters fall into more comfortable beats. Veronica and her father especially have a nice chemistry. Some of the interesting directorial choices from the pilot remain, as a few Dutch angles are sprinkled throughout the episode (although the commercial breaks seem oddly placed). On the other hand, I'm still having trouble distinguishing between the various white boys in the series, and, although I like that Dandy Warhols song, the main credits left me cold. Still, it's early yet.
“Meet John Smith” (Episode 3, Season 1; originally aired 10/12/2004)
Perhaps the Veronica Mars writers realized they had a California White Boy Lookalike problem, because this episode effectively serves as a way to distinguish the three. Logan has the least to do, but he's been set up the best, playing the role of the clownish asshole. Troy, a friend of Veronica's ex Duncan has just moved into a town, and immediately finds himself attracted to Veronica. His flirtation tends to put him on the screen regularly, and if nothing else, I find myself able to discern Troy from the others because he has the roundest face.
This is a roundabout way of saying that “Meet John Smith” fulfills the important role of introducing Duncan Kane as a character instead of just simply a symbol of what Veronica lost after Lily Kane's murder. He's depressed, and trying to get off of anti-depressants pushed on him by his mother. His parents are also portrayed as horrible people, in the simplest of shorthand – they took away his dog for peeing in the wrong place. They talk about him as if he isn't there at the dinner table. It's no wonder that he launches himself off of the bleachers in an unplanned stunt. Yes, it's a bit over the top, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. And, given that he lost a sister less than a year before, it's probably not really over the top at all.
Duncan's introduction is only peripherally connected to the other main threads of the episode, although they all work together thematically in a meditation on children and parents. The case-of-the-week involves a fellow student of Veronica's who decides to hit on her by inventing a missing father case, when his father is actually dead. Except that Veronica actually succeeds at seeming to find a father via mail – and the kid, Justin, is only just now examining his memories of his father's “death” and his mother's stories.
It turns out the father got a sex change instead, which seems awfully contrived. It gives the chance for Melissa Leo to show some range as the male-to-female transsexual, which is always nice, but there's no discussion about how Justin managed to forget things like the fact that there wasn't a funeral, or that he somehow forgot that his parents were having likely massive fights. But this is fiction, and mysteries in particular rely on contrivance. I suspect that nagging voice in my head that complains about contrivance is going to have to be silenced as I move forward on Veronica Mars.
I do have to say that I admire the maturity with which the show handled the potentially hot-button issue of transgendered people and transphobia. Justin's initial reaction to his father's transition is to call her a “circus freak” and run away. Veronica doesn't handle this by hitting him head on with a massive lecture about how the transgendered are important and deserve rights, as a lesser show might. Instead, she gently tells Justin to take note of how far his father drove just to see him at his video store every so often. It's a nice touch, and it also encourages Veronica to go investigate her mother, only to discover a dead end. I guess that resolution will have to come later.
Jake Kane has his first speaking lines in these two episodes, though he's still very much a cipher. The way fate conspires to put him in the same place as Veronica is clever. More interesting – Lily Kane's traffic tickets serve as a kind of ghost influencing events from beyond the grave, and give Veronica a break in the main case. However, the big reveal from the pilot – that her mother is back in town – isn't mentioned in the second episode, yet it's a crucial part of the third. The show uses an interesting distribution of information which I quite like.
Weevil's a crucial character in both of the first two episodes – probably the most important non-Veronica character – but doesn't show up in the third. The distribution of characters is almost as interesting as that of the information, and probably just as wise.
The class issues of Veronica Mars are immediately built up again when Weevil confronts Logan, who taunts him by saying that his grandma does a great job of cleaning house.
“Man, you really hold a grudge.”
“Should I follow you?”
“That was beautiful, man.”
I like to believe that, six years later, Veronica's still driving into San Diego to hang out with Hank and Britt in Ocean Beach.
“Have you been playing nice with the other children?”
“White male. Pint-sized. Desperate.”
“Mark me down as skeptical.”
The third episode had a running-commentary voiceover that I wasn't a huge fan of. Hope they tone that down (having seen the 4th episode now, they tone it down).
Recent from Rowan Kaiser
The Sense8 finale is equally beautiful and incoherent—just like the show itself
How on Earth did Sense8 forget to provide emotional resolution in its finale?
Sense8’s quest for justice sends its characters home, with poignant results
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Can I Travel to Canada If I Have a Valid Green Card but My Passport Expired?
Lisa Maloney, Leaf Group Updated March 15, 2018
If you cross the Canadian border, you need a valid passport or a green card. (Photo: Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images )
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Although a lawful permanent resident of the United States – AKA green card holder – cannot hold a United States passport, having a valid passport from your country of origin makes travel much easier. It's the only universally accepted method of photo ID for travelers, and when paired with your green card, it makes visiting Canada simple and easy. If your passport has expired, you can still visit Canada – but only by certain means, and only if you can provide other valid photo ID.
No Air Visits Without a Passport
Unfortunately, you can't travel to Canada by air with an expired passport. Here's why: Although U.S. green card holders don't need a visa to enter Canada, you do need an electronic travel authorization, or eTA, to enter by air. And to get that eTA you need a passport from your country of origin, which you must also present for verification when you enter the country, along with your green card.
You Can Visit By Land and Sea
The requirements for entering Canada by land (driving), rail, or sea (including cruises) are more lax. All you have to do is prove your lawful permanent resident status – easily done with your green card – and provide photo ID. If your passport were valid, it would serve as photo ID. But you can also use other government-issued IDs, such as a driver's license or military ID. Note: In some circumstances, a U.S. citizen can use a birth certificate for proof of citizenship when entering Canada, but green card holders cannot.
Conditions for Entering Canada
Be aware that even if you present the proper documents at the border, you (and anyone else) may be denied entry to Canada if the border officers determine you fall into an "inadmissible" category. These are quite broad and include serious health problems, links to organized crime, a history of human or international rights offenses, and criminal convictions. The best-known example of the latter is DUI, which usually precludes you from entry to Canada. But you may still gain entry if you can convince the border officer that you have been rehabilitated, and in some circumstances you can be given a temporary resident permit that allows you to enter despite other excluding factors.
Getting Back Into the United States
Canadian law requires that you keep your identification and proof of U.S. lawful residency status with you while you're in the country. You'll need the same documents to get back into the United States. As a general rule, most visitors to Canada are admitted for up to six months. You can apply to extend this period, but lawful permanent residents of the United States who are out of country for more than 180 days are subject to new immigrant inspection procedures. If you're gone from the U.S. for more than one year, you'll need a reentry permit.
Government of Canada: I Am a Lawful Permanent Resident of the U.S...
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: International Travel as a Permanent Resident
Government of Canada: How Do I Apply for an eTA for Travel to Canada?
Government of Canada: Determine if You Are Inadmissable
Government of Canada: Overcome Criminal Convictions
Government of Canada: Minor Children Travelling to Canada
U.S. Customs and Border Protection: Traveling Outside of the U.S.
Government of Canada: How Long Can I Stay in Canada as a Visitor?
Government of Canada: Find Out If You Need a Visa
Lisa is the author of the award-winning "Moon Alaska" guidebook, and has penned hundreds of articles about the joys, adventures and occasional miseries of travel for local and national publications including Via, Northwest Travel & Life, Matador, Roots Rated, The Brand USA and more.
Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images
Maloney, Lisa. "Can I Travel to Canada If I Have a Valid Green Card but My Passport Expired?" Travel Tips - USA Today, https://traveltips.usatoday.com/can-travel-canada-valid-green-card-but-passport-expired-108575.html. 15 March 2018.
Maloney, Lisa. (2018, March 15). Can I Travel to Canada If I Have a Valid Green Card but My Passport Expired? Travel Tips - USA Today. Retrieved from https://traveltips.usatoday.com/can-travel-canada-valid-green-card-but-passport-expired-108575.html
Maloney, Lisa. "Can I Travel to Canada If I Have a Valid Green Card but My Passport Expired?" last modified March 15, 2018. https://traveltips.usatoday.com/can-travel-canada-valid-green-card-but-passport-expired-108575.html
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NextCan Ethics be the First Philosophy?
The Jesuit priest Michel de Certeau was a collaborator of Lacan and a director of one of the Lacanian Schools. He is also an anthropologist; in the following essay, he provides a perspective on Lacanian theory as an intimate outsider to the Lacanian movement. The following essay is quoted from the journal “Representations, No. 3 (Summer, 1983), pp. 21-39. Published by: University of California Press.” It can also be found in Heterologies: Discourse on the Other, 1986 by Michel De Certeau (Author), B. Massumi (Translator). Chapter 4, p. 47ff.
(Numbers throughout the text refer to the footnotes at the bottom.)
Lacan: An Ethics of Speech
The Tragi-Comedy
“The Artist Goes On”
The Lie and Its Truth
Freud’s Return
A Christian Archaeology
A Politics of Speech?
HE SPEAKS – TO HIS PATIENTS, to the members of his School, to the seminar’s audience, a bit everywhere. Such, he says, is his profession as an analyst. He turns this speaking into a way of withdrawing. It is the very act of his theory, the gesture which formulates this theory; it is also a lifetime’s paradox. He attracts because he withdraws. Departures are scattered throughout his career: in 1953, he leaves the Societe de Paris; in 1963, the Association Psychanalytique Internationale; in 1980, the Ecole Freudienne de Paris, the “School” which was formed sixteen years earlier by the “act” which created it in the name of an aloneness: “I establish – just as alone as I have always been in my relationship to the psychoanalytic cause….”1 Even his strategies are inspired by a detachment which often excludes even his closest companions (a characteristic evidenced by Freud, who preferred what was distant, as if a separation created the analytic space). According to the legend (and not without reason), “Lacan” designates a rhetoric of withdrawal. This proper name cuts out the silhouette of a scandalous character: in the small world of intellectuals, this character disdains the social code which impels these intellectuals to run to the media in search of a wider presence; in the field of research, he violates the rule which bases the saleability of knowledge upon the readability of its statements. What he sets forth he will not allow to be understood. His audience contravenes the apparent laws of publicity. He did not want that publicity. That all came upon him like a sickness; it seized him when he was over sixty. One does not start life over again at that age. In any case, this is not it. “I realized that what made up my path was the realm of I want to know nothing about it.” 2 No compromise, neither on television nor in the good years at Vincennes nor during the series of lectures outside France. A coyness perhaps (for isn’t this too a game?), this withdrawal is the violent gesture which constitutes his thought and which gives birth to all its brilliance. He grounds speech just as he theorizes about it and just as he upholds its act.
Lacan belongs to no one. He is not situated, not entrapped in his own discourse, where certain faithful think they hold him, not chained to an institution and to a genealogy, not even to his own. He speaks and he is alone: both are aspects of the same battle. He is Other, as he signs in this final declaration of 1980: “If it should happen that I leave, you may say that it is only in order to be at last Other. One can be happy being Other like everybody else after a life spent, in spite of the Law, trying to be Other.” 3 It happened. The passing figure has left. He never stopped leaving, replac ing his body (physical body, doctrinal body, social body) by the inductive signifiers of a “speech” which is called “Lacan.” Such a politics of substitution is completed just when he becomes “Other like everybody else.” His name remains with the stormy School where it is embalmed, like Empedocles’ sandals on the banks of the Etna. 4 The “writings” are but the sandals of this passing figure, the result of the withdrawal which upheld his speaking. I am not concerned here, then, with the tomb (“theoretical” or not) which a group might raise for its own benefit by using these “writings”- the “good of the city” is the imperative from which Lacan withdraws. 5 I don’t care to repeat the lesson, but rather to distinguish the act which turns his discourse into the ethics of a speech.
I shall begin where it all ended: the last years of the Seminar. It was then said that the old man was declining. What ever happened to the Seminars of the old days, begun at the Sainte-Anne Hospital (1953), limited to a few analysts-students? There we were among our own kind. From the Freudian texts, the Master was carving the blocks of a psychoanalytic organon (Ego, psychoses, object, unconscious, transference; 1953-1964), before focusing on the question of the Other and on the corollary concepts of the “objet petit a” and the “crossed out subject” (1964 – 1974).6 During this second period, things are already deteriorating. Into the hall of the Ecole Normale Superieure, which provides a theater for the proceedings after 1964, the audience spreads, grows, overflows, increasingly beyond control. The “proper” place, i.e., the Ecole, fills up with anybody and anything. But in 1968, the administration no longer puts up with the “dirtiness” which reigns, and uses the physical disorder as a pretext to banish the intellectual disorder. Once again, Lacan moves. He then must carry the crowd which plagues his speech. He leads it like the pied piper to the Pantheon (the land of the dead), but at the same time he seeks to restore “proper” places by rearranging the department of psychoanalysis (Vincennes), by establishing a “headquarters” of the School (69, rue Claude-Bernard), and by strengthening the initiatory procedures of membership (the “permit”). In a strategy responding to its broader appeal, the Lacanian apparatus, which formerly articulated a public speech on a discipline’s silent labor, now undergoes a geographical mapping which sets in different places, on the one hand, a speech, devoted to the scientific “immorality” of a “free speech,” and, on the other hand, the professional and didactic choice of a School set on a street: both elements carry the same label, “Lacan.” The isolation and thus the visibility of the institutional conditions of analysis provoke, within the School itself, a series of surprises, destructive revisions, and tensions which have continued to grow. Exposed, the power behind the “free speech” must nonetheless be itself taken in hand by the theory based upon it. But first, what happens to this speech dislocated from the professional circles … unleashed, released in the crowd?
This is the period of the “Borromean links.” With bits of string, the Master would produce a metatheory in terms of topology: a possibility. The demonstration is not conclusive, even if it puts into play the encounter of two polar extremities of language (the scriptuary statement of the most formal kind and the oral misunderstanding of the dialogue) and even if it offers a general theory of space for thinking out metonymy (a psychoanalytic and literary process more fundamental than metaphor). These two points are so intriguing that I, like many others, would like to believe in them; but the essential is not here. Lacan goes on to a theoretical rite: the slow erosion of conceptual content releases the theatrical act which built it. The gesture which reorganized the field of analytic practices and categories repeats itself, slowly freeing itself from the elements which it delineated and carrying only aphorisms and fragments, relics and seashells, the debris of the successive stages which guided its trajec tory. All the work pursued through the thesis on La Psychose paranoiaque (1932), the “Discours de Rome” (1953), the Seminar (after 1953), the Ecrits (1966), and so on all this work was needed so that the teaching, which emerged late, after years of practice, could end at last in a purified form which offers little more to grasp and which reduces the psychoanalytic exercise to its essence of being identically act and theater … a speech.
Serious people are kindly requested to stay away. In the depths of the revered Faculty of Law (1968-1980), there re-emerges the ancient alliance (“relatives in joking”) between a wisdom beheaded of its knowledge and a curiosity not yet handicapped by power. Here nothing useful is produced; for the public, there is no required preparation, no entry fee, no permanent check. But the actor is at work. In this commedia dell’arte, where the art of the analyst takes the stage, a starring role is assumed by the speaking body, and especially by this body’s throat. Coughing, slightly grumbling, clearing the throat-like tatoos on the process of phonation-punctuate the chain of words and indicate all their secret of being “for the other” and of producing for the listeners the effects of meaning, of the signified. The signifiers are all the more understood in so far as there is misunderstanding about what they designate. Another emblem of the speaking body, the sigh, introduces into the discourse something which troubles this body (the price of a pleasure?), which interrupts discourse (the time of another story) and which pulls back (”Are you still there?”). These corporal indicators bring speech to what they do not know. They reappear in the work of many Lacanians, and rightly so. These criteria of belonging are more trustworthy than a theoretical or clannish policy of exclusion. In the current confusion, their use must be extended, with the didactic strings remaining the Master’s property.
In fact, this mimicry is only part of the repertory of a theatrical art which consists of the loss of the body in order to speak and which holds a place close to the art of Artaud. Like his “patient,” the analyst lets his discourse recount that part of his story which “escapes” him and which “flushes” (like a hare is flushed) the Other, represented by all those anonymous and scattered listeners. But he also knows that the swarming of interpretations engendered in the crowd will never confer a meaning or an acceptable image upon the word games or ramblings received from the Other whom he does not know. And, indeed, he does not ask for this result. He is speaking for the Other, as one would speak in one’s hat, fruitlessly. But he is speaking “thanks to” that iconoclastic crowd which shatters and disperses the image of himself, an image which he might expect to be sent back to him in return for what he brings about. Aa an analyst, he “expects” from this audience, he says, “nothing more than to be the object thanks to which what I teach is not self-analysis.” 7 Otherwise, this theater would be reduced to a hysterization of the actor (assuming a body for the other); this process calls forth a paranoid interpretation by the listeners (a proliferation of signifieds born of the question, “What then does he want from us?”). He thus “operates” only insofar as the actor does not take pleasure in his public.8 The analyst is dependent on listeners from whom, supposedly, he hopes to get neither his pleasure nor his own identity. By stepping back (“I want to know nothing of it”), he holds the difference separating the speaking (symbolic) from an identification (imaginary).
This exercise resembles a prayer to which and for which nothing would answer. A midrash once said, “Praying is speaking to the wall.” 9 Lacan turns speech into a conception close to this rabbinical austerity. The Other is there, but we can expect nothing from it except the desire which is produced by being deprived of it. Perhaps the sharpest expression of speech is to be found in one of those “formulas” which, in Lacanian language, appear to be quotations and fragments from an original dis course: “I am asking you to refuse what I am giving to you because that’s not it.” 10
Speech as comedy: a “fundamental failure” of action in order to return to the desire which resides there, a ceaseless fading of the object, a scorn for knowledge, an ambiguity of meaning in witty words, mutual misunderstandings among the characters on stage. Lacan the actor pulls out all the gimmicks through which a theory of desire unfolds. The use of these classic tricks and the secret of the theory mold the same gestures and the same cuteness. What takes place there is something like the laugh provoked by the undefined misfiring of the action and of the things themselves. Such a smile appeared on the faces of gods who were not tricked. But, in order to become human, Lacan identifies himself with the “tragic dimension” of the “being for-death.” For him, the art of laughing is an art of dying. This art is constantly reborn from the impossibility which brought it forth. It is even haunted by a fury against those presences whose quiet stability hides their destiny of disappearing in order to nourish desire. One must die in order to speak, as one dies of pleasure, “finally Other.” Sometimes the actor dies, sometimes he gargles. The “Lacanian mass” is a tragi-comedy which tells us exactly what it does: it speaks.
Speech, like dreams, would be an “act of homage to missed reality.” 12 If we were to follow Lacanian speech from its theatrical conclusion back to its psychiatric beginnings, we would find that speech traces the history of a “style.” In fact, this theory of the psychoanalytical act develops an aesthetics, if we understand this to mean that the signifiers “operate” by doing without the things which they seem to signify. My first thesis is: Lacan is first of all an exercise of literature (a literature which would know what it is). Maybe it is a scandal within the discipline, but why will literature always be labeled “not serious”? If we follow Lacan where he leads, towards a “speaking” [dire] whose nature is revealed by its analytical experience, he points towards the “truth” of literary practice.
Freud opened up this perspective as early as the Studies on Hysteria (1895), with a gesture which joined the discovery of psychoanalysis with the necessity of betraying scientific discourse and of moving into the camp of the “novelists” and “poets.”13 Throughout his life, he took models, conceptual figures and key examples from literature; the discipline he created remains colored by the “authority of the poet.”14 And “the poetics of Freud’s work” constitutes the “first entry way into its meaning.”15 Far from forgetting this lesson, Lacan stresses it with research which, even in his early publications, probes into “style.” Thus, even before his dissertation, in 1932, his study of a “schizography” is directed towards defining, within pathological writing, the procedures “related to procedures uniformly present in poetic creation.”16 In 1933, Lacan’s thesis opens onto “the problem of style,” that is, onto a group of questions “forever unresolvable for an anthropology which is not freed from the naive realism of the object”: 17 here begins his “literary” polemic against the object.
Except for Freud’s writings (and especially the most “literary” among them, such as The Science of Dreams, On jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, and the Psychopathology of Everyday Life), Lacan comments particularly on literary master pieces: Sophocles, courtly poetry, Marguerite de Navarre, Shakespeare, Sade, Joyce. His discourse is punctuated with bits of poems (Eluard, Aragon, etc.) which implant in the language something which, in the absence of setting out a said, open up a speaking [dire]. Those links which attracted him to the Surrealist movement between the two wars (Breton, and others) refer back not only to the “literary” reception of Freud in France, but also to a theoretical alliance.18 Moreover, Lacan adds rhetoric, dialectics (in the Aristotelian sense), grammar and especially poetics to the Freudian list of “auxiliary sciences” (a list already including “literary history and criticism”), sciences which allow for the thinking-out of psychoanalysis.19 This addition is characteristic: it signals, between literature and psychoanalysis, a crossroads which hence forth carries Lacan’s name.
This coincidence is astonishing. For example, does not the relationship to the text remove from the analysis the entire relationship of analyst to analysand? Does one read a text as if it were lying on the couch? Indeed, Freud himself did not hesitate to cross this Rubicon again and again, from his analysis of Schreber, made exclusively on the basis of the text, to the examination of numerous literary, historical and anthropological documents. Yet, these movements from cure to reading question the analytic “reception” of the literary work and, conversely, the passage from oral experience to the scriptuary production of the psychoanalyst himself. The writing is the result and the fiction of the oral relationship. At issue is, finally, the psychoanalytic tradition itself; for Lacan, this central question stands between Freud’s texts (to which he calls us back) and the psychoanalytical disciples (whom he wishes to train). This question deals with how to read Freud. The interaction between Freudian readings and literary readings will bring forth, between them, the relationship of a voice to the text. The shifter of this interaction is the Seminar (a “lectio” in the medieval sense of the term) through which the equivocal relation between two kinds of text mediates the oral relation between the Master and the disciples.
A questioning of precisely what Lacanian practice draws from the literary text brings out three elements. First, “literary” describes the return of the voice in the text. In the vocabulary of Jakobson, priority is given to the “poetic function,” which “promotes the palpability of signs” and which seeks in them that which “sounds better.”20 This valorization of sound, the key to paranomases, alliterations, rhymes and other phonic games, seeds an oral transgression through the semantic organization of the discourse, a transgression which displaces or cuts the articulated meanings and which renders the signifier autonomous in relation to the signified. This sonorous wave spreads across the syntactic landscape; it permeates it with leeways, charms and meanderings of something unknown. The analyst’s ear practices precisely on hearing the murmurs and the games of these other languages. It makes itself attentive to the poetics which is present in every discourse: these hidden voices, forgotten in the name of pragmatic and ideological interests, introduce into every statement of meaning the “difference” of the act which utters it. The signifiers dance within the text. Loosened from the signified, they multiply, in the gaps of the meaning, the rites of inquiry or response – but to which Other are they directed? From this point of view, “literary” is that language which makes something else heard than that which it says; conversely, psychoanalysis is a literary practice of language.
If the literary text displays the stirrings of the enunciative act in a system of statements, it also exhibits the procedures which articulate these two terms, that is, the diverse circuits which alter the statements by imprinting on them what the speak ing subject wants of the other. At issue here is rhetoric, and no longer poetics. But this rhetoric could not be reduced to a descriptive catalogue of “manners” (or tropes) of ornamenting the discourse. It is rather (as already in The Science of Dreams or in On jokes) the logic of “displacements” (Verrschiebungen) and of “distortions” (Entstellungen) which the relationship to the other produces in language. Among these altering relationships, which are presented in a particular combination in each literary text and which contain a logic to be elucidated by a rhetoric, Lacan preferred the metaphor and the metonymy.21 I wonder, however, if the metonymic “displacement” (or, as he translates, the “swerving”) may have asserted itself for him as more fundamental insofar as the topology to which teaching of recent years refers would be a development of the spatial problematic suited to metonymy: Lacanian topology would then represent an effort to elaborate a new rhetoric in contemporary discourse and, more particularly, a “metonymic” logic. In any case, a “literary” question once again defines the way in which a psychoanalytic theory sets forth the formalities of its practices.
More broadly, through mutual misunderstandings induced by the “letter” (identified to the signifier), literature explores the realm within which the entire human journey unfolds – the realm of trickery. It works within this trickery; it traces there a “truth” which is not the opposite of error, but, within the lie itself, is the symbolization of the impossibility at play. Now it is striking that Lacan sees in one of Freud’s most remarkable stagings – or rather he hears there – the Moses of psychoanalysis dedicating himself to leading his people: “Whatever it is, I must go there.” Where? – To the realm of trickery…. “There is the country where I lead my people,” and this takes place “through thirst for truth.” 22 Whoever goes into this region is a psychoanalyst, like that solitary being (a monk) who in past times ventured into the desert. But even there “the artist always goes ahead” and “opens the way for him.” 23 Thus did Marguerite Duras, opening with Jacques Hold the “field of the lie, immense but with iron limits,” the “kidnapping” of Lol V. Stein. But where is Lol V. Stein? “There she is naked. Who is there on the bed? Who, does she believe ?” 24 The novel introduces “this image of the self in which the Other clothes and dresses you, and which leaves you when you are stripped of it, to be what underneath ?” 25 Lacan compliments Marguerite Duras for this lie, for “proving to know, apart from me, what I teach”; in a unique instance, he invokes “what (she) witnesses for me” – he quotes this voice – in order to authorize the “support” which he finds in her novel.26
With a different theoretical apparatus, the psychoanalyst proceeds in turn in the steps of the “artists” who went before. Is it astonishing that he has recourse, just like his “sick patient,” to the “ever constant procedures of poetic creation”? Studies of Lacanian procedures themselves are, of course, now numerous; their wide range includes genres ranging from the polemics of serious linguistics to the jocularity of friendly stylistics.27 It would be pointless to review these studies here. What is essential is to recognize in them the grouping of operations brought about in language by the “speaking subject.” These literary traits are a theory’s gestures, its ways of going forward. They may outline the “linguistics of speech” which Roland Barthes believed still impossible and which constituted a “new way of thinking.” 28 In any case, it appears impossible to reduce this linguistics to, or to measure it by, the linguistic systems from which it has constantly distinguished itself (“language is not the speak ing subject”), while still borrowing concepts from these systems and nonetheless using them as metaphors. 29 Only an inversion of image, a mutual misunderstanding in itself quite revealing, can explain that Lacan appears as a “psycholinguist” on American posters. His very endeavor requires a questioning on the internal necessity which leads analytical speech to a poetic writing and which turns this experience into the elucidation of what constitutes the practice of literature.
In order to join in the dance which brings together the lie and the truth (as once were the living and the dead), we must return to the psychoanalytic cure and proceed from there to the analytical discourse, which is “the social link determined by the practice of an analysis.” 30 This practice starts out as a mutual trickery, a general postulate of a “psychoanalytic” cure, that is, one founded exclusively on the treatment of language. At the beginning, the analyst is “presumed” by his patients to “know”; he functions as object of their belief. As for these patients, they expect from him what at heart they do not want to know (the secret of their “trouble”) and they instead want only an ear to hear their symptoms. This locus brings the “medical” relationship back to the status of an ordinary conversation, but, when the social codes respect, and impose respect for, this game of trickery, the cure begins with the way in which the analyst separates himself from this respect.
What, then, is an analyst? Lacan answers that, “Whoever it may be,” he is put in the position of “supposed knowledge,” he has grasped and does not forget the state of this knowledge; thereafter, he becomes capable of “operating” with this hand of cards, if and only if he does not identify with this position and does not turn what is given to him into an object of pleasure. His formula would be: “there is only that,” the lie, but it deceives my desire, “which is not that.”
On his part, the analysand constantly keeps his concern for protecting the knowledge which he supposes resides in the other. He fears less being tricked than tricking his analyst. He arranges his admissions in order to preserve what he believes about the other: “If I had told it to you earlier, you would have believed….” His narrative works at fostering and maintaining the belief which makes his interpretation possible. It is, after all, the patient who interprets. The analyst coughs slightly, mumbles “Hum, hum,” says “Do you think so?” while the analysand wonders endlessly about the meaning of these clues. What trials am I undergoing? What does he want of me? What truths are hiding in this enigma? The patient is in the situation of a jealous person whose interpretations of the other proliferate. He formulates his tales. Then, what “returns” to him from his suppositions about the other is something else in himself; here is a part of his own “forgotten” story, about which he learns, little by little, that, constituted by relationships to others (parents and so on), it does not come from the analyst’s knowledge. At last, there is here nothing to believe, except that each person’s historicity is founded on what the other makes believed. The locus of the supposed knowledge is but the stage on which the other’s lack of knowledge plays. But here again, the ghost appears only if the analyst does not take the stage on his own account, if he does not take himself as the image of the self which is addressed to him, if he accepts the “abjection” of being merely the representative of what he knows not, and finally if he upholds the “vanity” of a discourse which takes its operativity from a fiction. 31
This “abjection” is nonetheless an art. Like the tightrope walker whom Kant holds up as the paragon of the art of doing, 32 the analyst seeks, by imperceptible comments, to remain balanced between a corporeal presence (a fondness) supportive of the analysand’s assertions and the necessary separation (Lacan refers even to a “disdain”) which evokes or signals the ambiguity of these assertions. In Freud’s words, it is a “matter of tact.” This “tact” consists in drawing out from the other what is unknown. It is the art of slipping the gamble of words’ meaning into their own chain so that the analysand unearths a signifier (a “small bit of truth” in Freud’s words), like a bone deposited by the past, from which he now fashions his speech, that is, the (ethical) act of upholding alone his desire in the very language of the trickery imposed on him by his history.
The fundamentals of this truth were set down by Lacan from 1936 onwards in analyzing what he calls “the mirror stage.” This childhood drama is not only, for him, a developmental stage (between six and eighteen months), but also an “exemplary function.” 33 While the child has only bodily experiences, dispersed, consecutive and changeable, he obtains from the mirror the image which makes him one, though in terms of a fiction. In a “flutter of jubilant activity,esthetic” he discovers that he is one (a primordial form of the self>, but this discovery occurs through that alienation which identifies him with what is other than him (a specular image). The experience can be put into the formula, I am that. The self takes shape only in self-alienation. Its capture begins at birth. From this exemplary episode emerges the matrix of an “alienating identity” to be reaffirmed in secondary identifications. From its origins, this matrix sets the self up as the “discordance of the subject with its own reality,” and it calls forth the workings of the negative (“it isn’t that”) through which the subject is marked off within the lie of its identity (“I am that” ).34
The movement from the “specular self” to the “social self” by way of language renders the effects of this matrix more complex, but does not modify its structure. Here is not the place to trace stratification and intertwinings which have been the subject for many years of teaching. It is enough to say that by formulating the analytical experience on a theory of the subject, this matrix furnishes a password for the interpretation – aesthetic ranges favored by Lacan: the iconic and the literary. This matrix makes it possible to examine anew the issues it raised: the images which awaken the “flutter of jubilant activity” of the child caught up by the appearance of his enigmatic identity; the literature which produces, with a text, the narcissistic scene of an interminable discordance; the myth itself, which makes “one” from a group (sym-bol) by giving it the fiction which presupposes and denies its social practices; and so on. In all these fields, the lie is the element in which its truth can emerge, the truth that the Other always institutes the subject by alienating it.
In the matter of the relationship to the other, the manner in which Lacan refers back to Freud provides, as indeed it should, a model. “Return to Freud”: such is Lacan’s plan. By this return, Lacan aims at a text whose author he never knew. A dead man is there only through his discourse, just like Sophocles and Shakespeare, but the only dead man who truly counts is the father. The central role which Lacan gives to the “name of the father” and to the setting-up of the law through the father’s death already indicates the weight of this reference-or gives this reference its weight.
Even more can be perceived on another scene, in the commentary where Lacan analyzes “the tragedy of desire” which constitutes, in his view, Shakespeare’s Hamlet (a work haunted by the importance already given to it by Freud and by Freud’s interpretation). 35 In this locus of the father, the ghost of Freud rears up at the same time as that of the king assassinated by those close to him. The law the king imposes demands the death of whoever reigns in his palace in his place. As Lacan emphasizes, Hamlet does not encounter a dead man in this ghost, but rather death itself, and the action he is commissioned to undertake can be accomplished only if it is fatal, an achievement of the being-for-death. Nonetheless, however determined Hamlet may be (he does not hesitate about the justice of the murder he must commit and he is entirely guided by it), he takes oblique paths, he “dawdles.” This grace period, the length of a lifetime, is a time devoted to the mother. More precisely, he creates an interspace for the “interventions” to which, on the ghost’s commands, Hamlet must respond, by precious words, literary conceits, slipped in between his mother and the love which binds her to the traitor Claudius: “O, step between her and her fighting soul, Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works, Speak to her, Hamlet.” 36
Avenging me while waiting death, speak. Put “precious” words between her and the object with which she identifies. The commentator’s voice adds, ” ‘Between her and her . . .”: it’s our work, that. ‘Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works’: to the analyst is addressed this appeal.”37. By whom, if not by Freud; and to whom, if not to Lacan? Is it appropriate to decipher what is said about Lacan through the discourse of Shakespeare? It would be fruitless, because the essential is spelled out in its entirety, literally, in the Shakespearean “dream.” Yet, two corollaries allow us to specify the functioning of the name, on the one hand, and of Freud’s work, on the other hand. The first such corollary deals with the intransigent unicity of the Freudian reference in Lacan’s discourse. Why speak of a single reference? Where does this unique reference, among many others, come from? It is not enough merely to invoke the discipline which carries its founder’s name. We know, after Moses and Monotheism, that the preservation of the name (Name) goes along with the betrayal of the “reality” (Wesen) which it designates, and that, by a customary exchange in traditions, this very “reality” returns under other names.38 The history of the Freudian current tells us much about the correctness of the Freudian thesis, a history which is precisely what Lacan seeks to rethink. For him, the name of the lost one is unique, as, in monotheism, only the Separated is one. Just as unique is the name of what psychoanalysts hate and seek to forget. Only the Other, this repressed, is the unique. Behind the work which consists, with the “conceits,” in separating the fighting subject, the “fighting soul,” from its alienating identifications and thereby reinstating the desire for the absent, there is in Lacan, just as in Hamlet, a fury alternately ironic and violent. This fury runs through the entire range of the discipline which spreads and prospers thanks to this loss. The leitmotiv? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. To avenge the father eliminated by his horde, Lacan turns Freud’s name into the foreign signifier by which the unique returns, forever inseparable from death.
But in relation to the irreparability of this separation, what positive form will the interpretation of the Freudian work take? How can one remain “faithful” to Freud? This point is strategic for Lacan, whose first preoccupation was always to train analysts and thus to ensure the transmission of the analytic experience. He talked everywhere of “my teaching,” and he tested its progress, its achievements and the “remainder” which he held back as an impregnable future. But is not the very possi bility of a conformity with Freud forbidden to whoever can lean only on someone absent? The debates engendered by this suspicion have led, in the Freudian School, to increasingly rigorous supervision (the institution always has to take the deficits of theory in hand). But the questioning also carries a theoretical response: the relation ship to the absent already molds the Freudian discourse, so that the position in which Freud’s departure leaves us reiterates what he elucidated in his writings and can then become the guide for their reading. In this respect, the after-Freud may be conceived as a return of Freud, and not only as a return to Freud. His texts do not designate a past to be rediscovered. They articulate what, in different scenes in the psychic struc ture, does not cease being the return to that Other which constitutes the subject as a relationship to an impossible object. According to this hypothesis, the “patients,” like ghosts, still breathe what is articulated in Freudian discourse.
But what is, after all, this Other whose irreducible brilliance streaks through the entire work? “The Other is there precisely as it is recognized, but as it is not known.” 39 “This Other [is] that I call here the dark God.” 40 Such formulations, and a thousand others similar to them, like the analyst’s apparatus, gradually bring the strange impression that the house is haunted by monotheism. This monotheism resides in the concepts scattered throughout the discourse, concepts whose theoretical (and/or mythical) promotion is most often marked by a capital letter: the Word [Parole] is articulated on the Other by the Name of the father, the Desire, the Truth, and so on. Repeated throughout is the monotheistic form of the capital letter singular, an index of something which, under the signifier of the Other, always amounts to the same.
All this is not something which Lacan would render hidden and mysterious. On the contrary, he reiterates that “there is a One” which is always the Other. 41 On condition that one “never have recourse to any substance” nor to “any being,” 42 “speaking [dire] brings God” and “as long as something will speak, the hypothesis God will be there.” 43 Such a hypothesis, such a “song” (an expression of the mystics) does not come from a void. In Lacanian discourse, it has its history, its narratives and its theoretical loci: it is Christian. Trailing its apparitions, one is impressed by the corpus which is there quoted and commented upon: Biblical and evangelical texts; theological texts (St. Paul, St. Augustine, Pascal, of course, and also authors of a theological inclination like Nygren and Rousselot); and especially mystical texts (Hadewijch of Antwerp, Master Eckhart, the Imitation of Christ or Internal Consolation, Luther, Theresa of Avila, Angelus Silesius, etc.). They punctuate the Lacan ian space where they figure as exordia (where does it begin?) or as exits (where to end?). To this fundamental grillwork is added the central figure of the speaking analyst, “Master of tr uth,” 44 even “director of conscience,” 45 a “saint” who “wastes away,” 46 one whose speaking, devoted to the price which the body must pay for having access to the symbolic, is a speech structured like that of the person praying.
Certain indications point to an even more precise identification. Let us remember, for instance, the strange dedication introducing Lacan’s thesis of 1932: “To the Reverend Father Marc-Francois Lacan, Benedictine of the Congregation of France, my brother in religion.” 47 Lacan knows what he says. “Religion” here means the “religious congregation,” and “brother in religion” points to a brotherhood based not on blood but on a common sharing in the Order. This statement, which is, like the “purloined letter,” placed in the most obvious place and for this very reason obscured from view, highlights “Benedictine” characteristics which I had not before noted: Lacan’s conception of the “master” (according to the rules which characterize “spiritual guidance”); the definition of a “work” which is essentially “speech” (like the Benedictine Opus Dei); the practice of literature as an exercise of desire (in conformity with the monastic tradition of lectio divina );48 and the very idea of a School of truth where membership is determined by an experience involving the subjects and where the abbas (elected) holds both the authority of discourse and the power of manage ment. In Lacan’s circle, the “monk” (monos) and the ascetic of the speech which he upholds (with humor, even with a ferocious irony found in monastic speech patterns), the founder of a “congregation” in a desert labeled as “worldly,” all gather together the practitioners of a desire whose truth can liberate those alienated from their identity. Even the militancy of the spiritual warriors of other times (at war with which demons?) and even their rebellious freedom from public authorities are indices of the Freudian School of Paris.
No more than Freud does Lacan underestimate the religious belief to which he does not adhere. What can be done today with this weighty history, if one rejects giving the illusion of repressing it? The West has for three centuries been concerned with the question of what to do about the Other. Georges Bataille is a witness to this for Lacan himself, whose analysis concerns equally his relationship to Freud and his relationship to Christianity.
We know what value Freud placed upon allegiances likely to extend psychoanal ysis to non-Jews. In this respect, under the figure of what Lacan would represent as “spiritual,” does Christian history introduce into Freudian theory a gap narrower than under the “theological” figure so characteristic of Jung? What are the effects of Lacan’s “spiritualism” on the Jewish tradition as articulated in Freud’s work? It is probably too early (before the publication of all of Lacan’s texts) and too daring to follow these celestial battles into sidelines of theory. If we consider only what touches on speech, an “archaeological” divergence still appears determinative. The Jewish tradition is rooted in the biological, familial and social reality of a present and identi fiable “body” distinguished from others by “election,” a body persecuted through endless wanderings, a body transcended by Scriptures marking on it an unknowable sign. But Christianity received its form of being apart from its ethnic origin, with a break from its heredity. The “separation” giving rise to the Christian Logos has as an index the very loss of the body which should hold the place of all others, that of Jesus, so that the “evangelical” word, born of this disappearance, must itself take charge of the creation of ecclesiastical, doctrinal or “glorious” bodies destined to be substitutes for the absent body. The word itself becomes the source of a “sacrament” in place of the body. Perhaps Christianity also receives, from its relationship to this absence, its way of rebelling against history in the name of the Logos-a style of “defiance” which hardly belongs to the Jewish tradition. The residue of this “detachment,” through a defiance of the word and the trials which it brings against the “biological” element, can be used to gage, in Lacan’s theoretical, professional and social determinations, the difference which a Christian history has introduced into Freudianism.
Such an archaeology emerges from Lacan’s work only as it is transformed by what he does. The transformation consists in rethinking, in terms which are no longer those of the past, the return of religious history. This is the task for a theory. In Freud, it leadS’to Moses and Monotheism, a work he “simmered” for years (“after Totem and Taboo, he thought only about this story of Moses and the religion of his fathers” ).49 To this masterwork, Lacan offered a counterpart in his Ethique de la psychanalyse (1959-1960) which he consistently held to be the strategic point of his teaching, the only Seminar which he really wanted “to write.” 50 These two confrontations gave birth to major works, but it is quite revealing that the first opened on to a theory of writing (the heart of the Freudian work), while the second produced an ethics of speech (the springboard of Lacanian thought).
A non-Freudian discourse, which held sway during the post-War years, shared in the genesis of the Ethique: Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Mind. In Kojeve’s commentaries (which profoundly marked the content and the style of the Seminar), in Koyre’s or Hyppolite’s analyses, Lacan founded the theoretical model of an historical development whose successive “figures” manifested the movement of absolute knowledge which ultimately emerges from its last positivity, religion. In his Ethique, he rethinks both the Moses and the Phenomenology. The original path he blazes between them favors ethical figures like Aristotle, St. Paul, poets of courtly love, Sade, Kant and others, through whom a thought of desire is led through to the ambiguous relationships of reality and pleasure as Freud elucidated them. In limiting oneself to what concerns Christianity, one has access to ethics when, instead of identifying oneself with one’s object, belief rejects the illusion and, thereby, speaks its truth. Ethics is the form of a belief removed from the alienating imagination where it would guarantee the real and shed into speech that which is said by the desire instituted by this lack. Like Beckett’s Godot, the Other is not only the ghost of a God removed from the history where the passage of his believers remains nonetheless engraved, but also the general structure whose theory is made possible by the erasure of the religious positivity and by acceptance of its mournings.
Freudian analysis operates as the instrument which enables Lacan to localize, within an erotic or esthetic framework, an ascetic practice for supporting a desire which cannot be identified with an act. Already for Kant, the categorical imperative does not deal with the possible: it is unconditiona l.51 For Lacan, it is the very relationship to the impossible that determines an ethics. The ethics meets in man “this last request to be deprived of something of the real,” or “this speaking essence” which weds him to death. 52 “The only thing of which one can be guilty,” finally, “is having given in to one’s desire.” “There is no other good than that which can serve to pay the price for access to desire,”-that which can only do so without “breaching not only every fear, but also all pity.” 53 This ethical anarchism constitutes the way of taking the question of the subject seriously, a question inherent in the history of Christianity. In contrast, the commentary on Sophocles’ Antigone sets forth an ethics based upon “the good of the city.” Creon’s morality, which in essence recalls that of Aristotle, always rests on a “morality of the master.” It requires the sacrifice of desire for the benefit of the city. Every new power, however revolutionary it might be, repeats Creon’s law: “Keep on working…. Leit be well understood that there is, in any event, no occasion to show the least bit of desire.” This “morality of power,” emphasizes “civil requirements,” and repeats in a hundred ways whatever smashes speech: “As for desires, you will have to forget them.” 54
How, then, are we to understand the history of the School in which Lacan appeared, in turn, as Master of Truth, as Maffioso hatching his plots in the arcane circles of the “family,” and as a dying Sardanapalus wiping out his seraglio? It is not a matter of meddling, once again, in the recent episodes (1980) which repeated, in a violent way, the tragi-comedy of the Pantheon within the Freudian School, nor of outlining, as an indiscreet and grotesque enterprise, the psychology of a character whose strong friendships, and even tender attachments, had their consequences in tricks and hatreds. One must instead analyze the politics to which this speech gives rise since, in the form of an institution, it is wrought within the game of power plays. Its charter (1964) defined the School as “the organism in which a work must be accomplished – a work which, in the field opened by Freud, restores the cutting blade of the plough to its truth, whic! brings the original praxis which it instituted under the name of psychoanalysis back to its proper duty in our world and which, through assiduous criticism, denounces the deviations and compromises which slow its progress while degrading its work.” An “added note,” in specifically stating some procedural modalities, affirms, moreover, that “this charter holds as naught simple habits,” that is, the legal apparatus of a common right, independent of the task which specifies a particular association. 55 In this superb exodus, a “spiritual” model is recognized, with its “monastic” archaeology. A challenge sets it up. From the start, it does not obey the law of possibility. To the “world” it opposes a “duty.” Speech must create its own body, a body missing in the “world” in which the truth is misunderstood. The institution is thus a “School.” It even has the very form of a teaching facility: speech must give birth to a body which it defines in its entirety. To return to the past which structures it, this “genesis” appears to be supported by a provocation of “Christian” style. While, in the “genesis” of the Jewish Bible, speech does not create, but instead separates, producing some distinction in the initial chaos and effecting thus an “analytical” distribution of space, in the Christian “genesis” of the New Testament, speech gives birth to a body, it is the word which becomes flesh, a.fiat. It is from this difference that the Lacanian project already takes its bearing.
The School is characterized by its fascinating and haughty ambition to regulate all institutional actions upon the ethics of the speaking subject. It is the School of desire set up by an object which is never an “it.” The School therefore functions in various ways. The relationship to the only Master always escapes being fixed. Through the groups or “cartels” are pursued, among four or five psychoanalysts, the processes of transferance liberated from the dual relationship. The “permit,” or initiation into the place of the analyst, to revive the terms already proposed by the charter, consists in testing and controlling the analytic style of the candidates. The meetings and the establishment of the “headquarters” aim at thwarting on stage and by public confrontation the tribal law of the sectarianism formed among colleagues of the same generation, or among “descendants” of the same analyst. Finally, the Seminars and the congresses extend the schooling of the members of the School (as if these theaters of knowledge served as an erudite and social alibi for the “alleged” knowledge of the analytical practice) and, in fact, make possible the symbolizing, in a tragi-comic, theoretical and quasi-choral speech, of the solitary asceticism of the daily exercise. Within, the School is thus the course of treatment insofar as it never “ends” and will never be ended until human energy is exhausted.
Viewed from the outside, the institution has a double function. On the one hand, it publicly “represents” the subject who is supposed to know (the institution is its address)-that is, it takes up socially the belief whose demystification is the precise goal of the cure. On the other hand, it provides legal accreditation (in the name of a profession and of a serious establishment) for the price to be paid for this access to the symbolic supposedly handled by analysis. These two functions uphold each other: a belief is founded on that which it takes away, it is reinforced by that which it with draws and, finally, it works because one pays it.
All this was forcefully articulated and thought out. Why then the violence, the tensions and ultimately the failure? Simply because history does not obey the speech that challenges it. Certainly the radical authoritarianism of the Lacanian truth struck the heart of a societal disease, of the pathogenic and uncritically accepted moment created by the substitution of the individual for the subject. It aggravated as much as it explained the problem. But the difficulties did not come from the outside. The success instead revealed a fundamental (founding) impracticability of the undertaking. Once beyond the threshold of the “primitive” intimacy among first participants of the same experience, once also the legitimacy which the School received by opposing itself to the ruling psychoanalytical Associations was lost (this opposition endowed the institution with the very function of speech and concealed its own problems from it), then the School of truth appeared for what it really was, an institution like the others, commit ted to debates concerning the “position” of the analysts, to the power plays among them and, also, a problem that is just as political, to their “fantasm of omnipotence.” The activities at the University of Vincennes (1968), which required the confrontation with legal structures independent of the analytical experience, marked the beginning of a divisive reconsideration destined to bring the School out of its rootedness in speech, that is, out of itself. Practice and theory had to tear themselves away from the isolated double scene of the School and the couch. But how could we have dealt with these questions in the name of experience which had held “for naught” the legal means for their regulation?
The tactics remained: playing tricks with history; trying to betray history in order not to “give in to one’s desire.” These are Lacan’s subtleties, founded on a radicalism of speech. From this point of view, Lacan is the anti-Machiavelli, if one recognizes the work of Machiavelli for what it is, an ethics of the “good of the city” and a theory of political ethics. What Lacan himself did not betray could end only in failure. His institutional adventure, this trip of his desire, must have itself terminated by this “failing”: this is not that. Fundamentally, the retreat of 1980, as surprising as it was in its outcome, was inscribed in its ethics. It still “spoke” in separating itself from this love object, which became in turn an alienating identity. From there it reiterated, forty years later, the gesture which it called forth in 1946: “I have removed myself for many years from every resolution of expressing myself.” 56
In Les petites annonces, Catherine Rihoit recalls the following words of Lacan on Freud: “I think he missed the mark. Like me, in a very little time, everyone will have had his fill of psychoanalysis.” Whatever is the future of the psychoanalytical institution, Lacan, by his “misfiring,” will hold on to his speech. Like the texts which he did not cease to awaken, his writings, tortured and broken in conceits, concetti, by this speech, keep this speech loud enough to be heard. But if it is true, according to Freud, that the tradition does not stop cheating on its founder, will Lacan still be heard in those places where one claims possession of his heritage and his name, or will he return under other names?
Jacques Lacan, Acte defondation de L’Ecole Freudienne de Paris, June 21, 1964. The Charters appear in the Annuaires published by the Ecole Freudienne de Paris. [I have provided references to available translations of Lacan’s works. Unless otherwise noted, all other translations are mine.-Trans.]
Lacan, Encore: Le Seminaire, Livre XX (Paris, 1975), p. 9.
This declaration, dated January 15, 1980, figures as an epigraph in a special issue of Liberation (September 11, 1981), the best among a number of periodical issues devoted to Lacan since his death.
The figure of Empedocles haunts Lacan’s texts at key moments. See, for example, Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York, 1977), pp. 102-104.
Lacan, “Ethique de la psychanalyse,” an unpublished seminar from the academic year 1959-1960.
The paths taken by Lacan’s thought have been the object of much study and interpretation: see particularly the schema outlined by Jacques-Alain Miller, “Jacques Lacan, 1980-1981,” Ornicar? (September 9, 1981), 7-8.
Lacan, Television (Paris, 1974), p. 10.
In the Ecrits: A Selection, p. 77, Lacan quotes Antoine Tudal: “Between man and the world, there is a wall.”
Lacan, Encore, p. 101.
Lacan, “Hommage fait a Marguerite Duras, du Ravissement de Loi V. Stein,” Cahiers M. Renaud et J.-L. Barrault, 52 (December 1965), 9.
Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York, 1978),p. 58.
Freud, Studies on Hysteria, trans. James Strachey (New York, 1966), p. 299ff. Cf M. de Certeau, “The Freudian Novel: History and Literature,” Humanities in Society, 4:2-3 (1981), 121-41.
See Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, trans. James Strachey (New York, 1961), p. 22.
Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection, p. 102.
Lacan, “Ecrits ‘inspires’: Schizographie,” De la psychose paranoiaque (Paris, 1975), pp. 365-82.
Lacan, “Le Probleme du style,” ibid., pp. 383-88.
See David Steel, “Les Debuts de la psychanalyse dans les lettres francaises, 1914-1922,” in Revue d’histoire litteraire de la France (1979), pp. 62-89.
Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection, p. 76.
Roman Jakobson, “Closing Statements: Linguistics and Poetics,” in T. A. Sebeok, ed., Style in Language (New York, 1960), pp. 350-77.
Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection, pp. 146-78.
Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts, pp. 32-34.
Lacan, “Hommage fait a Marguerite Duras,” pp. 9-10. Lacan echoes Freud’s comment in his analysis of Jensen’s Gradiva, “The novelist has always gone before the scholar.”
Marguerite Duras, Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stem (Paris, 1976), pp. 106, 187.
Lacan, “Hommage fait a Marguerite Duras,” p. 10.
Ibid., pp. 9, 14.
These studies range from Georges Mounin’s first analysis to Francois George’s L’Ef fet’yau-de-poele (Paris, 1979). See especially the semiotic presentation of the “rhetorical games” in J.-B. Fages, Comprendre Lacan (Paris, 1971) and the philosophical study of P. Lacoue Labarthe and J. -L. Nancy, Le Titre de la Lettre (Paris, 1972).
In Communication, 16 (1970), 219,223.
Thus the rigorous study of Gilbert Hottois, “La Hantise contemporaine du langage: Essai sur la situation philosophique du discours lacanien,” in Confrontations psychiatriques, 19 (1981), 163-88, evaluates Lacan in the context of linguistic philosophy. As Wittgenstein would have said, “It misses the point.”
Lacan, Television, p. 27.
Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts, pp. 136-46; Television, pp. 28-29.
Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft, s 43, in Werke, ed. W. Weischedel (Insel-Verlag, 1957), V, 401-402.
Lacan, Les Ecrits techniques de Freud: Le Seminaire, Lwre I (Paris, 1973), p. 88.
See Lacan, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience,” Ecrits: A Selection, pp. 1-7.
“Le Desir et son interpretation: Seminaire de 1958-1959,” TS, pp. 376-577 (lectures from March 4 to April 29, 1959). After Freud’s interpretations, Hamlet became a center of “family” interest, with the commentaries of Jones (1910), Rank (1919), and others.
Hamlet, Act III, Scene iv. Lacan translated this passage in “Le Desir et son interpretation,” lecture of March 11, 1959. [See Lacan, “Desire and the Interpretation of Desire in Hamlet,” trans. J. Hulbert, Yale French Studies, 55/56 (1977), 11-52.-Trans.]
Freud, Moses and Monotheism, trans. Katherine Jones (New York, 1967), pp. 4-7. See M. de Certeau, L’Ecriture de l’histoire, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1978), pp. 337-52.
Lacan, Les Psychoses: Le Seminaire, Livre III (Paris, 1981), p. 48.
Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts, p. 275.
Lacan, Encore, pp. 25, 63.
A recurrent eponym of Lacan; see for example, Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection, p. 98.
Lacan, “Ethique de la psychanalyse,” Seance XXVII.
Lacan, Television, pp. 28-29.
This dedication was corrected in the second edition (1975) of the thesis: “To my brother, the Reverend Father Marc-Francois Lacan, Benedictine of the Congregation of France.” The “Congregation of France” designates the group of Benedictine abbeys subject to the Abbey of Solesmes.
See for example Dom Jean Leclercq, Le Desir de Dieu et l’amour des lettres (Paris, 1957).
Lacan, “Ethique de la psychanalyse,” Seance XIV.
“It is perhaps today, among all the Seminars which ought to be published by someone, the only one which I will revise myself, which I will turn into an essay [ecrit].” Encore, p. 50; see also pp. 9, 54, 65. There are in Lacan’s work numerous references to “the ethics of psychoanalysis”: see for example “Hommage fait a Marguerite Duras,” p. 13.
See Lacan, “Ethique de la psychanalyse,” Seance XXIV; Ecrits: A Selection, p. 321.
Lacan, “Ethique de la psychanalyse,” Seance XI; Lacan calls this request the “vacuole.”
Ibid., Seance XXVII.
See note 1 above.
Lacan, “Propos sur la causalite psychique,” Ecnts (Paris, 1966), 151.
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Statement Game
Filed under: Toronto FC
All signs at Toronto FC training on Thursday pointed to a confident bunch of players ready to make amends for the dismal loss at BMO Field that opened the 2009 home schedule. The pace was frenetic, the tackles crunched and everyone said the right things about forgiving and forgetting in the wake of a game where distinguishing which team was the expansion club would have been lost to the uninformed.
The team even acknowledged that it might have been guilty of reading its own press ahead of facing the expansion Sounders, who came in to a stadium where few have left with more than one-point and wrestled away the whole three.
For the first time in the franchise’s short history, it was humbled in front of the people who lifted it up.
But as mentioned, the attitude was right on Thursday; and with coach John Carver away all week watching the TFC Academy play in Texas, the coaches who remained deserve a lot of credit.
Next up is FC Dallas; a team with no points to show and no problem with BMO Field in 2008.
This makes the second home game of the season a veritable Catch-22. On the one hand TFC should beat FCD, a team with no points and no press to read. But on the other hand, it is those teams that present a serious challenge, and if TFC are unable to take three points it will feel like a loss.
To be honest, a meeting with New England or one of the other jack rabbits in the Western Conference might be a better opponent for a team ready to pounce. But dealing in hypothetical is pointless. Despite the Catch-22 nature of the match on Saturday, it also presents a humbled team with the opportunity to learn yet another lesson: vengeance.
Toronto has served as the bounce back team for numerous clubs in its two-year existence. Convincing three-points against a struggling team will go a long way in establishing the re-configured TFC as a serious contender in a league that at the current is bereft of one.
Once again, it is an important weekend on the lakeshore.
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How Christianity Defeated Nazism
Diana Lesperance July 9, 2013 September 10, 2013 Apostasy, Atheism, Jesus Is the Hope of the World, Nazism
The debate over the beliefs of Adolph Hitler continues to rage. Atheists claim Hitler was a Christian.
Members of the Confessing Church
Christians claim Hitler was an atheist. This post will not try to resolve this issue. Instead what I’d like to show was how it was Christians who ultimately opposed and defeated Hitler.
The German Confessional Churches, made up of evangelical Christians, formed the only organized internal opposition to Nazism. They did this on the basis of opposing the false Reich Church of “German Christians.” The “Confessing Church” was made up of many evangelical denominations.
The argument of the Confessing Church was that the German Evangelical Church was being corrupted by the “German Christians” of the Third Reich. The “Theological Declaration of Barmen” was written in 1934 to oppose Hitler’s national church and the attempt by the Nazis to change their beliefs and try to control them. The Barmen Declaration made several points which were preceded by the words “We reject the false doctrine . . . ” (I will be paraphrasing.)
. . . that there is another revelation to humanity outside of the Word of God.
. . . that there are areas of a Christian’s life that are not subject to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, that could be lorded over by another.
. . . that the church could abandon the Gospel message in exchange for other political or ideological messages.
. . . that the church could give itself to “special leaders vested with ruling powers.”
. . . that the church could become an organ of the state.
. . . that the church could place the work of the Lord into any arbitrarily chosen man-made purpose or plan.
The Confessing Church, made up of 6000 pastors, said that the “Christianity” of Hitler and his national church had errors and they rejected the false doctrine of the German Christians, criticizing them for supporting the Nazis.
This caused the Nazi regime to rage against the Confessing Church.
Karl Barth, who argued against the liberal “historical critical” theology of Friedrich Schliermacher (which contributed to Karl Marx’s loss of faith) wrote the Barmen Declaration. He sent the Declaration directly to Adolph Hitler. Within the year Barth was forced to resign from his position at the University of Bonn because he refused to swear an oath to Hitler. He was exiled from Germany.
Martin Niemoller formed the “Pastor’s Emergency League” in response to Hitler’s appointed bishop of the German Evangelical Church, Ludwig Muller, who was using the “Aryan Paragraph” (a law used to block Jews from holding positions of public service) to defrock pastors of Jewish descent. In 1936, as leader of the Confessing Church, Niemoller wrote a memorandum to Hitler in which he argued that the Nazi regime was anti-Christian, anti-semitic, and demanded that the regime stop interfering with church affairs.
As a result of the church refusing to go along with Hitler’s Reich Church, hundreds of pastors of the Confessing Church were arrested. Martin Niemoller was arrested and sent to two different concentration camps.
Another leader of the Confessing Church was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Two days after Hitler came to power, Bonhoeffer went on the radio and warned against following Hitler and being seduced by a cult of leadership. His “Bethel Confession” spoke about anti-semitism being a false doctrine. He was actually involved in the failed plot to assassinate Hitler. He ended up in Tegel prison, the Buchenwald concentration camp, and was finally hanged at the Flossenberg concentration camp.
Hitler conquered 21 nations, including much of Europe (Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Denmark, Yugoslavia, Greece, Norway, the Netherlands, Hungary, Belarus, Ukraine, Luxembourg, Libya, Tunisia, East Prussia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia). He was also attacking Great Britain, but the United States tried to stay out of the war (other than helping to provide arms and food through the Lend-Lease Act).
It wasn’t until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor that the United States was willing to declare war. Four days later Hitler declared war against the United States. At this point, Great Britain was the only democratic nation left standing between Hitler and the United States. The U.S. entered WWII and began to fight against Hitler.
If the United States hadn’t joined the battle against Hitler, it’s doubtful that England would have been able to stand. The United States, that bastion of creationism, fundamentalist Christianity, evangelicalism, and biblical inerrancy, led the charge against Hitler. The invasion of Normandy on D-Day (as portrayed in Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan”) was accomplished by American, Canadian, and British forces. Great Britain, another bastion of Protestant Christianity, almost stood alone against Hitler for a time.
To blame Nazism on Christianity, when it was Christian believers within Germany who opposed Hitler at the outset, and it was Christian nations who fought wars against Nazism, is an unjust charge. As I try to reveal in this blog, Christian believers have been heroic in their opposition to tyranny. Their battle against Hitler’s Nazism is a great example of how Christians have been at the forefront of the battle against evil.
It’s also important to note that the Christianity that embraced Nazism wasn’t interested in preserving sound doctrine. They were willing to compromise biblical Christianity in order to bring about their German paradise on earth. They abandoned the truth of the Gospel and were willing to follow Hitler as Lord instead of remaining faithful to Jesus and his Word. As a result, they became a sad, ugly, compromised people who will be remembered by history as a failure and scourge against humanity.
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john zande says:
Well, you might want to re-think your position. Hitler was most definitely a Christian and won the support of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches. Regardless, saying Hitler killed in the name of Christianity is an absurdity. He used Christianity, yes, but it wasn’t his motivation. Despots are despots.
Still, you might find the following interesting. These are excerpts from a speech made by Hitler early in his career taken from a book called My New Order, a collection of some of the more significant speeches he made from 1922-1941 (edited by Raoul de Roussy and published by Reynal & Hitchcock). In this speech Hitler proclaims his devotion to the Christian religion, thus laying the basis for the support he eventually obtained from the Roman Catholic and Lutheran religious establishments of Germany. The speech was made on April 12, 1922:
“My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.
“In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison.
“Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.
“As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.
“And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery.
“When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exploited.”
Christianity has always been at war with itself. Because of the historical-critical theology that entered the church (incidentally, through the work of German theologians) much of the church had stopped trusting in the scriptures. The Christians who didn’t stop believing in the Bible were the members of the evangelical Confessing Church, who took their stand on the Word of God. If Hitler was a Christian, then why were his greatest enemies members of the church? There’s a difference between false teachers who abandon the scriptures, and teachers who believe in the fundamental teachings of Christianity. This is why the apostle Paul cried: ”
“Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. (Acts 20:28-31)
“If Hitler was a Christian, then why were his greatest enemies members of the church?”
Well might you ask why France and Britain (two armies composed predominantly of Christians) fought countless wars over the centuries, or why the United States and Spain (two armies composed predominantly of Christians) fought in 1898? I could, of course, go on and list scores of Christian filled armies fighting each other, but I think you get the point.
Also, the Nazi’s greatest enemy was the Communist Russians. The US didn’t even get involved until countries like Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and even India had been fighting for three full years before the Americans even rolled out of bed. Regardless, it was the Russians who absorbed the full brunt of the German Wehrmacht then took Berlin in 1945 and defeated Germany, not the Western allies.
There is no doubt that Christians have fought each other in wars. This doesn’t disrupt my worldview. As I said, there are divisions within the church. The Civil War in the U.S. is one example of this. Southern Christians claimed that they had a biblical right to hold slaves, while the northern Christians argued that was absurd. The abolitionists were overwhelmingly Christian. This is why it’s so important to preserve sound doctrine. (And perhaps why the apostle Paul cried about savage wolves who were false teachers rising up in the midst of the church.)
I see the cause of most wars being that of wrong doctrine.
Yes, the Communists fought Hitler too.
To your last point first: No, the Communists didn’t just “fight Hitler too.” They bore the full weight of the Nazi’s, suffered the greatest losses of all allied nations, and ultimately defeated Germany. That is a historical fact. The Germans had 200+ divisions on the eastern front, compared to just 80 on the western front. The Americans (when they finally got involved three years late) had a total of 15 divisions in Europe… a number that grew to 60 by the time the Russians took Berlin and ended the war. Most of those divisions, though, never saw any action and returned Stateside without ever firing a shot.
Now, we actually agree that’d it be good if Christians did maintain sound doctrine. 42,000 Christian sects leaves a lot of room for disagreements. As Ghandi said:
“I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
And yet the Christians have been the source of so many blessings to the world!
Gandhi’s Hinduism, with its caste system, widow-burning, animal worship and idolatry wasn’t exactly the hope of the world.
Perhaps you never thought of how much of an impact Jesus had on the world. Here’s my perspective. (It’s a short piece.)
http://narrowwayapologetics.com/2011/11/29/the-gospel-of-jesus-transformed-the-world/
Interesting piece from a psychological perspective. It’s nothing but 400 words that are a textbook example of conformational bias. You’ve cherry picked history and arranged it in a specific way to support your beliefs. That doesn’t make those 400 words definitionally true. In fact, your unbelievably loose use of “facts” is an indication that you’re not at all interested in reality, and instead will go out of your way to deny it.
That’s fine, it’s your right, but it doesn’t make it real.
You say Jesus had an impact on the world, and yet he didn’t say anything new or even marginally useful. He didn’t mention bacteria, pasteurization, or the importance of dental hygiene. He didn’t explain lightning, the tides, the sun, our position in the solar system, the galaxy, gravity, the composition of the atmosphere, or dispense the formula for sun block. He didn’t point anyone in the direction of morphine, teach a soul about the nature of asthma, epilepsy, atoms, genetics, subatomic particles, the periodic table, volcanology, the causes of headaches, muscle cramps, prenatal care, plate tectonics, architecture, evolution, or tell a single living being about the science of corrective-optics. He didn’t mention anything about better, faster, safer forms of transportation, communication technology, math, the metric system, a new swimming technique, scuba diving, blast furnaces, magnetic compasses, quartz watches, wind turbines, the wonders of reinforced concrete, ball bearings, immunization, New Zealand, the physics of flight, thermal dynamics, podiatry, water purification, desalination, stainless steel, umbrellas, telescopes, microscopes, macroeconomics, paper, washing machines, tupperware, bicycles, bras, buttons, refrigeration, or even introduce a single new spice to spruce up otherwise bland Judean recipes. He didn’t even say that an average sized adult is a composite of some 7, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 flavoured atoms arranged on a 4.54 billion year old planet circling a middle-aged 4th or 5th generation star on its 23rd trip around the centre of a galaxy composed of about 200 billion stars in a 13.7 billion year old universe peppered with hundreds of billions of galaxies glued together in super clusters along expanding tendrils held in-place by the indirectly observed but otherwise still utterly mysterious dark matter.
I’m sorry, but the character Jesus said nothing new or useful. Even the so-named Golden Rule is not new. It’s plagiarised. The concept dates back to the Egyptian Middle Kingdom (c. 2040–1650 BCE) “Now this is the command: Do to the doer to cause that he do thus to you.” It also emerged in the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (1780 BCE), as well as in 6th century BCE Taoism, “Regard your neighbour’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbour’s loss as your own loss,” in 5th century BCE Confucianism, “Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself,” in 4th century BCE Mohism, “For one would do for others as one would do for oneself,” and was articulated by the Greek, Pittacus (640–568 BCE), who said: “Do not do to your neighbour what you would take ill from him.”
Well, I would like to know how the world came out of the darkness of cannibalism, infanticide, blood sport, widow-burning, etc . . . in your worldview.
And while Jesus may not have said anything about the things you listed, His followers had a lot to say. Two of them come to mind quickly: gravity and pasteurization. I would venture to say many more things on that list were developed by Christians.
Not many blessings came from atheists, though. Sorry.
Oh, Diana, I really don’t whether to take you seriously or not. With some of the stuff you say I think you’re surely kidding, that no one could possibly think in such a way and exercise such wilful ignorance.
So you admit Jesus said absolutely nothing new or even marginally useful. Good for you!
In my article on how the gospel transformed the world, I explained two revolutionary teachings of Jesus . . . his views on slavery, and his views on children. These statements were radical. And his followers lived out his Words. The early church set slaves free, and Christians have been nearly the only group who have historically started orphanages and fought against infanticide and abortion.
I’m not ignorant, and I don’t appreciate being disparaged.
Apologies, i’d never seek to disparage you. Just some of your comments catch me off guard and I have trouble knowing if you’re being serious or not.
Now, what views on slavery?
matthew chapter 5:17-20
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
By that its clear Jesus is pro-slavery as detailed in Lev.25:44-6, Exod.21:2-8, Eph.6:5, Col.3:22, Exod.21:7-8, Luke.12:42-8, Exod.21:20-1, Deut.15:17. If he was anti-slavery he would have said “Forget the Torah!” He didn’t say that.
You talk about infanticide and abortion but there appears to be some confusion here. Nowhere in the bible does it outlaw abortion. In fact, if you actually read the bible you’d see that the Middle Eastern god Christians worship is quite definitively pro-abortion, personally and passionately performing many terminations and ordering countless more.
In Hosea 9:11-16, the son of Beeri prays for his god to intervene in earthly affairs and wreak havoc on the unborn of an entire population. “Give them, 0 Lord: what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts… Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.” To paraphrase, Hosea pleads that the people of Ephraim can no longer have children, to which the Christian god dutifully obeys and makes all their unborn children miscarry. Now, terminating a pregnancy unnaturally is unmistakably what we today call an abortion.
In Hosea 13:16 the Christian god is utterly diabolical as he dashes to “pieces” the infants of Samaria and orders “their pregnant women [to be] ripped open by swords.” This, self-evidently, describes mass abortions of such barbarity that it’s hard to even fathom.
In Numbers 5:11-21 a bizarre and abusive ritual is described which is to be performed by a priest on any woman suspected of adultery; a ritual which results in an abortion. In the text a potion is mixed and the accused woman is brought before the priest who says, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband may the Lord cause you to become a curseamong your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell.” As clear as day this is a definitive description of an induced abortion; an act where poison is forcibly given to ruin the foetus and rid a woman of another man’s child.
In Numbers 31:17 Moses commands “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every women that hath known man by lying with him.” In other words, kill all women that are or could be pregnant, which is plainly abortion for the foetus.
In 2 Kings 15:16 the Christian god again orders pregnant women to be “ripped open,” which is both abortionand homicide on a mass scale. “At that time Menahem destroyed the town of Tappuah and all the surrounding countryside as far as Tirzah, because its citizens refused to surrender. He killed the entire population and ripped open the pregnant women.”
In total there are in fact twenty-six separate instances where this Middle Eastern god performs abortions on demand, conducts infanticide (the intentional killing of newborns), and murders toddlers en masse; acts recounted from 1 Samuel 15:3 to Isaiah 13:15-18 where this god not only smashes babies to death but also orders the rape of their mothers. In a word the Christian god is a heinous baby-killing, foetus-destroying monster, and as it turns out his son is also no friend of the unborn. In the Gospel of the Egyptians Jesus not only demands total abstinence but preaches for the outright separation of the sexes, stating that “sorrow” and what he repeatedly calls “error” will remain with man for just “As long as women bear children.” The statement is quite explicit: don’t ever get pregnant, and if you do then abortion is better than birth.
Thank you for the apology, John. I appreciate that you are rational and humble.
This passage about Jesus fulfilling the law and the prophets is one of the main reasons I believe the Gospel message. The incredible ways that Jesus did this are beyond human ability to create. I don’t think any mystery writer could have weaved together the incredible ways Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets.
I know this post is long, so if you want to skip the parts between the dotted lines, I understand. I just wrote it for anyone who might be interested.
First of all, there are many ways Jesus fulfilled the law. In fact, believers are constantly astounded by how intricately Jesus fulfilled the law.
One way he fulfilled the law was by fulfilling the Sabbath. The Sabbath was the seventh day of rest that the Jews were commanded to obey. Jesus fulfilled the law of the Sabbath by becoming our rest for us. (Hebrews 4:9-11) He said his burden was light and his yoke was easy. Christians no longer practice the Sabbath. They worship on Sunday, rather than Saturday. They enter into his rest and no longer do religious works for salvation. (They are saved by grace through faith.)
Jesus fulfilled the law when he became the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. His death on the cross was similar to the Exodus story, which described the lamb, whose blood would be placed on the doorposts of the home, causing the death angel to pass over that home. (Hebrews 9)
Jesus fulfilled the law when he became the unleavened bread of the Exodus story. Leaven is a symbol of sin and false teaching (1 Cor. 5:6-8, Matt. 16:12). Jesus fulfilled this feast by being sinless and being the TRUTH.
Another way that Jesus fulfilled the law was by becoming a tithe (firstfruits) for us. (Leviticus 23:10) He fulfilled the tithe by becoming the firstfruits from the dead when he was resurrected. (1 Cor. 15:20) Christians are no longer bound by a tithe, instead we are told to be cheerful givers. We are also promised that there will be a resurrection for us because of what Christ did for us.
Jesus fulfilled the law when he became a light to the Gentiles. In the law of Moses, the people were commanded to leave behind the gleanings (or leftovers) of the harvest for the poor and aliens. (Lev. 23:22) This would be fulfilled at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came down and the gospel was preached in all languages, offering salvation to all, not just the Jews. (Acts 10:34-35)
These fulfillments of the law were actually the first 4 feasts that would be celebrated every year by the Jews. They would be celebrated according to the seasons. The feasts celebrated during the early rains were the fulfilled at the time of the early church. Three more feasts are waiting to be fulfilled at the end of the age (or at the time of the latter rains). These three feasts are the feast of trumpets (representing the return of Jesus), the feast day of atonement (representing the salvation of the Jews), and the feast of tabernacles (representing the time when we will all be with the Lord).
There are so many other ways in which Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets. And none of it has to do with Jesus expecting or commanding Christians to obey the law to perfection. It has to do with how it’s impossible for anyone to keep the law. That is why Jesus came. How could any human conceive of a way to have even a made-up, fictional character fulfill all these things? And I’ve barely scratched the surface of the way Jesus accomplished these things.
The greatest concern I feel burdened about is how to convey the magnificence of what I’m trying to explain. He was the manna from heaven. He was the living water. He was the high priest in the order of Melchizedek. He is the “I AM.” He is the Word become flesh. He became a slave for us. (Philippians 2:7) He became a curse for us. He became sin for us, so we could become righteous before God. He offers us mercy because his blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat. All of this is explained in the scriptures.
I haven’t even begun to explain the way Jesus fulfilled the prophets.
The story of Jewish history and the giving of the law is actually a way to PROVE the reality of God’s plan for the salvation of humanity through Jesus Christ. One random fact doesn’t prove anything, but the cumulative effect of ALL the fulfillments makes the Bible a miraculous book. This is why some of the brightest and best minds in the history of the world have loved and received Jesus. It isn’t a decision based on emotion alone, but a decision based on knowledge. And the more I learn, the more I am in awe of what God did and how he accomplished it.
To say that the story of Jesus was just created by pasting together myths, fictional narratives, sayings, and borrowed phrases (as Ken Humphreys does) is a ridiculous claim because only a Christ could have conceived of a Christ. Who could have created the amazing Jesus portrayed in the Gospels and explained further by Paul?
wpmember7 says:
I believe that only an anti-Semite could sympathize with wicked Hitler and his evil regime. Many evil men have done atrocious things to humanity in the name of God…but we know the difference between those who love the Lord and those who are anti-Christ’s like Hitler. Adolph Hitler just took the Bible and rewrote it to fit his purpose in trying to annihilate God’s chosen people, the entire race of Jews. Adolph Hitler was obviously a child of Satan and filled with the spirit of darkness. “Love thine enemies” was I’m sure a command by Jesus that HItler was never heard to quote!
And “loving thy neighbour” was why the US dropped nuclear bombs on Japan?
Is it not loving to give people what they ask for? Think. The loving God sends people to Hell for eternity…because that’s what they ask for.
Hitler was a hybrid beast birthed out of a blend of pseudo-science, philosophy, and corrupted religion. There was no truth in him . . and look at the suffering that came about as a result. Hitler’s racial theory actually came from a portion of Hegelian philosophy known as “Herder’s Expressivism.” This was the belief that all nations/races contributed something special to humanity. Their contribution was one way God was able to “express” Himself on earth.
“Herder believed that all men belonged to a culture, and the highest expression of that culture could only be found in community. Each community had a ‘Volkgeist’ or national spirit which provided its people with their inspiration or creative impulse.
For example, the Athenian community produced the Parthenon, democracy, and great philosophers. The Egyptian community produced the pyramids, hieroglyphics, and mummification. Each society had a different way of expressing themselves, which Herder would say was that community’s expression of God in the physical realm. Herder believed no other community could replace the other’s contribution.”
(from “The Narrow Way”) p. 218
Jews were dispersed to all nations in AD 70 . . . so to Herder (and Hitler!) their presence in each country contributed to the corruption of the expression of God on earth. This crazy view, along with Luther’s anger at the Jews for not receiving Christ, even after the knowledge of grace was restored during the Reformation, led to the Antisemitism of the German people. Hitler was able to tap into this false ideology–and at the time he seemed to be intelligent –able to understand the great German philosopher George Hegel (who incorporated a blend of Kant and Herder into his philosophy). But because Hitler corrupted the truth of the Bible he was the worst kind of traitor to the Lord. His views on God were skewed. He actually believed he was serving God by preserving the Aryan expression of God on earth. Of course this wasn’t taught in the Bible, but was a human construct that had its source in philosophy. The Holocaust was committed in order to please God! This is how far we can go astray when we no longer trust that the Bible is the truth!
*Confirmation bias, sorry 😦
Hi John…it’s been a while…
Hey Diana, indeed.
How’s everything with you and your family? Good, I hope.
Yes…going well…the comment about America and Hiroshima is difficult to respond to. The atom bomb is so horrendous…it’s difficult to justify in any way.
True. Not an easy subject.
In Washington I saw the detonation pins in the Smithonian. Just seeing them made me physically ill. I had to go outside. Powerful experience.
They should make detonation pins for the aborted unborn in America alone. So many more of them. Makes me ill too.
Yes…bloody carnage…and most of the burning (through saline abortions) and cutting and sucking that has been done to babies in the womb wasn’t done to save anybody (around 6/10 of 1 percent). Poor innocent ones. Where is our heart?
Pingback: My Philosophy of History | The Narrow Way
I want to thank Diana for her overview of some of the ways Jesus fulfilled the Law. It was wonderful! You are a great defender of the faith!
(My comment above was a “Reply” to John’s 1st post, but it looks like it’s a reply to Diana….oh well, just wanted to make that clear.)
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Majority favors new civil rights laws to protect LGBT people: poll
By Tal Axelrod - 06/13/19 09:35 AM EDT
A slim majority of Americans favors new civil rights protections for the LGBT community, according to a new Gallup poll released Thursday.
About 53 percent of Americans said they believe new civil rights laws are needed to reduce discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The poll’s release comes about a month after the House passed the Equality Act, which includes protections for LGBT people from discrimination in employment, housing and other areas.
The bill, which was passed two days after Gallup began surveying for the poll on May 15, is unlikely to be taken up in the Senate. President Trump Donald John TrumpCNN's Camerota clashes with Trump's immigration head over president's tweet LA Times editorial board labels Trump 'Bigot-in-Chief' Trump complains of 'fake polls' after surveys show him trailing multiple Democratic candidates MORE has also indicated he opposes the legislation.
Backing for new LGBT protections has ticked up slightly since the last time Gallup polled for legislative support in 2017, rising 2 points from 51 percent.
Support for new legislation falls sharply along partisan lines, with 74 percent of Democrats backing new laws, while only 27 percent of Republicans say that legislation is needed.
Despite existing opposition to new civil rights laws, an overwhelming majority (93 percent) support ensuring LGBT individuals have equal employment opportunities.
Fifty-five percent of Americans say they believe that most people feel same-sex relations are acceptable, a figure that marks a significant increase from the 21 percent who said the same thing in 2001, the only other time Gallup has asked the question.
The perceptions of acceptance of the LGBT community has risen by double digits among all demographic groups.
Americans are more likely to personally believe same-sex relations are moral (63 percent) or that they should be legal (83 percent).
“This suggests there is a disconnect between how Americans actually feel about same-sex relations and what they believe others think,” Gallup notes.
The Gallup poll surveyed 1,017 adults from May 15 to 30 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Tags Gallup Donald Trump civil rights Equality Act LGBTQ rights LGBT
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9 Teaching Resources That Tell the Truth About Columbus.
Join us: facebook.com/unitedhumanists
The times they are a-changing for Christopher Columbus
Finding good teaching materials for Columbus Day is like searching for a needle in a haystack. States and cities are increasingly recognizing Indigenous Peoples, but appropriate and readily available lesson plans have fallen behind the trend.
The times they are a-changing for Christopher Columbus. In 1990, only three states failed to honor the genocidal and delusional navigator. The word is getting out, though, and this year, 16 states will not celebrate him. One by one, cities are also taking matters into their own hands. Seattle will now recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day, following Minneapolis and San Francisco.
But still, even reputable organizations like the National Education Association don’t offer a single online Columbus Day lesson plan we’d recommend. There are a few decent videos out there, but most of them say Natives came from Asia. Others gloss over the genocide as if worried about the delicate ears of the children they teach. But is it the children or the adults who feel the need to insulate their thin-skinned patriotism?
Consider the thoughts of Wisconsin high school student, Savana Stuhl, 17, who said, “I was probably in fifth grade when my mom told me about Columbus. At first I didn’t believe her because at school he was called a hero, he found America, he came here first. Then my mother read me a book about the true story that he wasn’t the first one here.” Stuhl now feels even very young children should be told the truth. “I think younger kids could handle it. It is important they know he wasn’t a hero.”
In Prescott, Wisconsin, AP History teacher Jeff Ryan agrees. “I would argue that anyone who thinks students aren’t capable of weighing different perspectives, boy that’s a dangerous way to think,” he said. Ryan’s lesson plans include the writings of Friar Bartolome Las Casas, who detailed the atrocities after Columbus’s arrival in horrific detail.
Describing the resistance of some people to accept the truth, Ryan said, “If factual information is so brand new, something they have never heard before, and if it is the opposite of what they believe, then they think it is biased. The challenge as a teacher is not about trying to change minds. It is about opening minds, and doing it rationally.”
In Wisconsin, ACT 31 makes Native Studies mandatory. “And it is filtering its way into primary and elementary grade levels,” Ryan said. I have an 8-year-old who came back from her first grade class—she told me, ‘You know Columbus was an explorer, but he did some really bad things. He did mean things to the Native people.’”
In this new era of honesty in history, where can teachers go for good information? We came up with a list of nine resources: good ideas, books and one lesson plan that work even for very young children.
Rethinking Columbus
The most highly recommended reading, by Oyate.org and American Indian Children’s Literature, is Rethinking Columbus. The book offers this summary: “…the Columbus myth is a foundation of children’s beliefs about society. Columbus is often a child’s first lesson about encounters between different cultures and races. The murky legend of a brave adventurer tells children whose version of history to accept, and whose to ignore. It says nothing about the brutality of the European invasion of North America.” Writings from N. Scott Momaday, Cornell Pewewardy, Barb Munson, Rosalie Little Thunder, Winona LaDuke and many more. It is a readily available source that offers a real Native perspective.
A whitetail deer in winter.
Putting Columbus on Trial
Teachers in McDonald, Pennsylvania, celebrated Columbus Day by putting Columbus on trial, where students gave Columbus a life sentence of imprisonment. In Texas, students learned not only of the import/export trade of gold and jewels, but also of smallpox blankets.
Lies My Teacher Told Me
Lies My Teacher Told Me About Christopher Columbus, What Your History Books Got Wrong by James W. Loewen, is the perfect antidote for teachers who want to show not only the truth about Columbus, but see a chart showing how textbook historians have hidden the truth from students. It’s a double lesson that teaches about Columbus and encourages students to do their research.
The American Discovery of Europe
For high school students, the book The American Discovery of Europe by Jack D. Forbes presents the refreshing news that Natives were already traveling the world, and were met in Ireland and other countries more than a decade before Columbus arrived on these shores.
There was not one YouTube video about Columbus that was found to be suitable. Avoid them. The only decent video we found was on the paid subscription site Brain Pop. The video, activities, and additional reading on The Columbian Exchange do more than gloss over the subject of Natives, and gives serious weight to the genocide and slavery.
Columbus Day Books
There are two books, both named Columbus Day, that are suitable for young children. One by Holiday Histories and the other by Vicki Liestman. They are not thorough, but are fair.
Columbus’s Journals
Columbus’s journals offer many ideas for lesson plans. Exploring stereotypes, cultural norms, religious freedom, are all lessons that could be drawn from his journals.
Showing students a slideshow of anti-Columbus Day protests by modern day Natives shows mainstream children that indigenous people are still here and have strong feelings about the celebration.
Two Perspectives
Columbus Day From Two Perspectives offers students in grades 4-6 an opportunity to learn about what happened to the Taino people who suffered at the hands of Columbus and his men. The Lesson Plan website even asks for Columbus Day lesson plan submissions, admitting they only have a very few.
“The truth shouldn’t be hidden. Instead of hiding it, people should be able to learn from it,” said Anton Wazlawik, 17, a senior at Prescott High School in Wisconsin. “I feel grateful that our school hasn’t censored that information. Instead of tempers flaring, we should look at the facts. There are too many people who feel their way is the only.”
Source: https://bit.ly/2lBg8cq
Author Hemley GonzalezPosted on October 31, 2018
Millions Are Hounded for Debt They Don’t Owe. One Victim Fought Back, With a Vengeance.
On the morning a debt collector threatened to rape his wife, Andrew Therrien was working from home, in a house with green shutters on a cul-de-sac in a small Rhode Island town. Tall and stocky, with a buzz cut and a square, friendly face, Therrien was a salesman for a promotions company. He’d always had an easy rapport with people over the phone, and on that day, in February 2015, he was calling food vendors to talk about grocery store giveaways.
Therrien was interrupted midpitch by a call from his wife. She’d gotten a voicemail from an authoritative-sounding man saying Therrien was in some kind of trouble. “I need to verify an address to present you with your formal claim,” the man had said. “Andrew Therrien, you are officially notified.”
A few minutes later, Therrien’s phone buzzed. It was the same guy. He gave his name as Charles Cartwright and said Therrien owed $700 on a payday loan. But Therrien knew he didn’t owe anyone anything. Suspecting a scam, he told Cartwright just what he thought of his scare tactics.
Cartwright hung up, then called back, mad. He said he wanted to meet face-to-face to teach Therrien a lesson.
“Come on by, asshole,” Therrien says he replied.
“I will,” Cartwright said, “and I hope your wife is at home.”
That’s when he made the rape threat.
Therrien got so angry he couldn’t think clearly. He wasn’t going to just let someone menace and disrespect his wife like that. He had to know who this Cartwright guy was, and his employer, too. Therrien wanted to make them pay.
At the same time, he worried that the call might not be a swindle. What if some misinformed loan shark really was coming for them? But Therrien didn’t have any real information he could take to the police.
Then he remembered Cartwright had left a number with his wife.
He dialed.
Somewhere—at the top of a ladder of dirty debt collectors that Therrien would spend the next two years relentlessly climbing—a man named Joel Tucker had no idea what was coming.
“You’ll never get your money back. You might as well get blood out of it”
Earlier this year, I met Therrien, 33, at a Panera Bread restaurant in central Providence. He had reluctantly agreed to be interviewed, on the condition that I not reveal his hometown or his wife’s name.
Therrien had been caught up in a fraud known as phantom debt, where millions of Americans are hassled to pay back money they don’t owe. The concept is centuries old: Inmates of a New York debtors’ prison joked about it as early as 1800, in a newspaper they published called Forlorn Hope. But systematic schemes to collect on fake debts started only about five years ago. It begins when someone scoops up troves of personal information that are available cheaply online—old loan applications, long-expired obligations, data from hacked accounts—and reformats it to look like a list of debts. Then they make deals with unscrupulous collectors who will demand repayment of the fictitious bills. Their targets are often poor and likely to already be getting confusing calls about other loans. The harassment usually doesn’t work, but some marks are convinced that because the collectors know so much, the debt must be real.
The problem is as simple as it is intractable. In 2012 a call center in India was busted for making 8 million calls in eight months to collect made-up bills. The Federal Trade Commission has since broken up at least 13 similar scams. In most cases, regulators weren’t able to identify the original perpetrators because the data files had been sold and repackaged so many times. Victims have essentially no recourse to do anything but take the abuse.
Most victims, that is. When the scammers started to hound Therrien, he hounded them right back. Obsessed with payback, he spent hundreds of hours investigating the dirty side of debt. By day he was still promoting ice cream brands and hiring models for liquor store tastings. But in his spare time, he was living out a revenge fantasy. He befriended loan sharks and blackmailed crooked collectors, getting them to divulge their suppliers, and then their suppliers above them. In method, Therrien was like a prosecutor flipping gangster underlings to get to lieutenants and then the boss. In spirit, he was a bit like Liam Neeson’s vigilante character in the movie Taken—using unflagging aggression to obtain scraps of information and reverse-engineer a criminal syndicate. Therrien didn’t punch anyone in the head, of course. He was simply unstoppable over the phone.
When Therrien dialed the number Cartwright had left, a woman answered and said she worked for Lakefront Processing Solutions in Buffalo. She’d never heard of Charles Cartwright, though, and implied he must be some kind of freelancer or bounty hunter. Regardless, she said, Therrien could clear everything up by making a payment. Her records indicated that he owed a payday lender called Vista.
Therrien had indeed once taken out a loan, but he didn’t think it was from Vista. He’d been selling copiers at the time, and when his boss stiffed him on a $20,000 commission, he turned to an online lender to make a car payment. Therrien says he paid back the debt promptly. He was offended by the Lakefront woman’s suggestion that he was a deadbeat. “I’m a person who believes in personal friggin’ responsibility,” Therrien tells me. “I signed an agreement. And I fulfilled my obligation.”
On his laptop, Therrien started digging. He found a securities filing saying Vista had merged with a company called That Marketing Solution Inc. After paying a few dollars to an online people-search service, he got its president on the line. “You sold my personal information to a bunch of thugs,” Therrien recalls telling the man. “I want to know why, and I want to know what you’re going to do about it.” Within hours, the company provided a letter saying that Therrien had never borrowed from Vista.
Armed with proof the debt was invalid, Therrien turned back to Lakefront. More searches yielded a corporate parent, owned by two Buffalo men. Therrien called them, then their lawyer. When the lawyer stalled, Therrien bombarded him with more calls, at home and on his cell—enough to put Lakefront off him for good. (The parties eventually reached a confidential settlement, and Lakefront—whose name I found in a public record—declined to comment.)
By the morning after Cartwright’s call, Therrien’s fears of a psycho collector had been assuaged—no one had showed up at his house. But swatting down Lakefront turned out to be just the first round in a game of whack-a-mole. More collection agencies contacted him, his wife, his brother, even his grandparents. The calls made it clear to Therrien that an overarching force was at play. His name had to be getting on these lists somehow.
Each night, after his wife went to sleep, he cracked open his laptop to comb lawsuits, unearth filings, and uproot the owners of the agencies calling him. When he got names, he’d phone them, often surprising them at home, and make clear that he wouldn’t go away until they’d revealed who supplied their debt portfolios. “Here’s the deal,” he’d say. “I don’t really care about you. There’s a million guys like you out there. You’ll never get your money back. You might as well get blood out of it. Tell me what I need to know to put these guys in jail.”
Sometimes, Therrien would make a small payment on the fake debt, then check bank records to see where it went. He found people with convictions for counterfeiting, stock fraud, drug dealing, and child molestation. He started a spreadsheet, Scums.xlsx, to keep track. On weekends he’d harangue them from his couch while watching New England Patriots games. He used persuasion techniques he’d learned selling copiers, some drawn from a book called Getting Into Your Customer’s Head. On the phone, Therrien is a savant. He has an instinct for when to be a friend—one gruff payday lender tells me, sheepishly, that he simply doesn’t know why he speaks with Therrien so frequently—and when to be a bully.
Therrien would threaten to report the collectors to regulators unless they helped him figure out what was going on. “You are either with me in this, or you are against me,” he wrote to one man. Others he tried to shame. “If my intentions are right, I’ll have God on my side,” Therrien emailed one source. “You may not love poor people, but He does.”
The targets were shocked by Therrien’s doggedness. In their world, complaints are common, but most victims give up after being promised they won’t be called again. One shady-debt player tells me he suspected Therrien was an undercover federal investigator because he’d gathered so much information on his business. “It’s an obsession, it’s unbelievable, an outright vigilante crusade,” another says. “It doesn’t seem to equal the harm that was done to him.”
Therrien knew his fixation seemed odd. He didn’t tell his friends and family much about his nighttime activity. But the collectors’ threats brought back feelings of rage and fear that he’d struggled to suppress since childhood. He grew up in working-class Connecticut, where his father was a factory man and his mother had a series of part-time jobs. Therrien says they mistreated him and his brother, and he moved out at 16 after an incident he won’t discuss. He told me he regrets not doing more to protect his brother. (Therrien’s father is dead, and his mother denies she did anything wrong.)
In college, Therrien worked at a J.Crew store, where a customer spotted his talent for sales and offered him a job. Therrien makes a good living now, and he takes pride in being a more responsible person than his parents—paying his bills on time, going to church on Sunday, and taking care of those close to him. “If it’s just about me, I don’t particularly give a f—,” he tells me, with an incongruous laugh. “You call my wife, and you call my grandparents? You just opened up a door that got really f—ing ugly, and now I’m going to make sure that I just ruin your life.”
As more collectors yielded to Therrien’s persistence and talked, he dropped his pursuit of Charles Cartwright, concluding that it was an untraceable alias, and focused on understanding their business. Phantom debt, he learned, is blended with real debt in ways that are almost impossible to untangle.
Americans are currently late on more than $600 billion in bills, according to Federal Reserve research, and almost one person in 10 has a debt in collectors’ hands. The agencies recoup what they can and sell the rest down-market, so that iffier and iffier debt is bought by shadier and shadier individuals. Deception is common. Scammers often sell the same portfolios of debt, called “paper,” to several collection agencies at once, so a legitimate IOU gains illegitimate clones. Some inflate balances, a practice known as “overbiffing.” Others create “redo” lists—people who’ve settled their debt, but will be harassed again anyway. These rosters are actually more valuable, because the targets have proved willing to part with money over the phone. And then there are those who invent debts out of whole cloth.
Portfolios are combined and doctored until they contain thousands of entries. One collector told Therrien that he’d paid cash at a diner for a thumb drive with a database containing Therrien’s name. Some collectors told him they thought the files were partially legitimate; others knew their paper was completely falsified. Yet they continued to trade it, referring to the people they pursued as deadbeats and losers. The more Therrien learned, the more disgusted he grew with everyone involved.
His search for the ur-source rarely traveled in a straight line. For a time, Therrien focused on Buffalo,one of the poorest cities in the U.S. and a hub for the collections industry—home to agencies that work the oldest, cheapest paper. Debt collector is a more common job there than bartender or construction worker, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As Therrien wore down as many Buffalo collectors as he could, one name kept surfacing: Joel Tucker, a former payday-loan mogul from Kansas City, Mo. By the summer of 2015, Therrien was convinced he’d found his guy.
“A person that you f—ed with too many times”
Therrien needed an ally inside the Kansas City racket. He found one in Frampton “Ted” Rowland III, a middle-aged insurance-broker-turned-predatory-lender whose company was listed as the original creditor for one of Therrien’s supposed loans. When Therrien called, Rowland said he was sorry—and kept talking. His life was falling apart. He’d been sued by the FTC over his lending practices, he’d lost all his money, and his wife was leaving him. Therrien sympathized. He sensed Rowland was a good man who’d made a bad choice out of a desire to provide for his family. They started to speak regularly, and Rowland told Therrien he blamed Tucker for everything.
Tucker had created the local industry with his two brothers. Scott, the oldest, was the brains. He’d served time in prison for a scam in which he’d pretended to work for JPMorgan Chase & Co. The middle son, Blaine, was popular and a talented musician. Joel, tall and handsome, was a natural salesman. But when he was 21, he was selling furniture and working at a mini-mart, so hard up that he got arrested for bouncing a $12 check. (The case was dismissed.)
In the mid-1990s, Scott opened a payday-loan store and gave his brothers jobs. Lending money to people who don’t have any is surprisingly profitable. In states where such stores are legal, such as Missouri, they’re more common than McDonald’s franchises. But in the 15 states where such stores are against the law, there are millions of desperate people willing to pay for fast cash and no one to give it to them. Scott pioneered what he thought was a clever legal loophole that would give him access to that market: He created websites that were owned on paper by an American Indian tribe, which could claim sovereign immunity from regulators. Those sites charged as much as $150 interest on a two-week, $500 loan—an annualized interest rate of about 700 percent.
The loophole was ridiculously lucrative. Scott’s operation generated $2 billion in revenue from 2003 to 2012. He bought a private jet and spent more than $60 million to start his own professional Ferrari racing team. Around 2005, Joel split to start a company that would allow anyone to get into online payday lending—supplying software to process applications and loans and offering access to a steady stream of customers. All the clients had to bring was money and a willingness to bypass state law. Word spread around Kansas City’s country clubs and private schools that if you wanted to get rich, Joel Tucker was your man.
With Tucker’s help, one property management executive and his son, a general contractor, started a lender that saw $161 million in revenue over eight years. An investor presentation from that period shows that Tucker was personally clearing tens of millions of dollars in profit per year.
One of his clients was Rowland, until the gravy train crashed in 2013. Under pressure from regulators, banks stopped doing business with the sketchiest payday lenders, making it hard for them to issue loans and collect payments. In 2014 federal authorities raided Rowland’s office, and the FBI began investigating the Tucker brothers. Blaine committed suicide by jumping off a parking garage in 2014; Scott was charged two years later with racketeering, and prosecutors called his tribal arrangement a sham. (He declined to comment.)
By the time Therrien came looking for Joel Tucker in the fall of 2015, he’d become a hard man to find. Twice divorced, he was moving from place to place, ducking his creditors. A booking photo from the time when he was briefly imprisoned for failing to show up for court in an unrelated lawsuit shows him with bristly gray hair and dark circles under deep-set blue eyes. Therrien couldn’t find a working phone number for him—not even when he reached his 81-year-old mother, Norma. She claimed not to know where he was.
Therrien’s tactics grew more intense, mirroring those of the debt collectors he loathed. As he had in Buffalo, he developed a network of sources in Kansas City, figuring out who hated whom and playing them off each other. He got a burner app that provided disposable numbers for his smartphone, with any area code he wanted. He called wives, widows, business partners, even a waitress who’d once worked at a restaurant the Tuckers owned. He’d have his sources drive by places where he thought Tucker might be living, to look for his car. He told one broker’s mother-in-law that she should investigate who her daughter was married to. Therrien acknowledges that sometimes he went too far.
By November 2015 he developed a simple theory. Tucker’s business had given him access to a huge database of people who’d applied for loans—including, just maybe, the one Therrien had taken out in his copier-selling days. What if, when Tucker was broke and needed money, he’d taken applicants’ personal information, invented loan balances, and sold the list as a portfolio of delinquent debt?
Therrien took his hypothesis to the FBI and FTC. His emails were breathless and confusing, but the authorities were patient, taking his calls and talking to him at length. It was clear they knew about Tucker, but Therrien got frustrated by what he saw as inaction. “There are millions of people out there being threatened daily by these actions and I’m doing my part to try and stop it,” he wrote to an FTC investigator in early 2016, begging him to hold Tucker accountable.
“I’m giving you the opportunity to come clean”
January 2016 saw a breakthrough: A former employee of Tucker’s agreed to arrange a call between him and Therrien to clear the air. Therrien couldn’t believe his unseen antagonist was willing to talk. So anxious he couldn’t sit down, he set up a recording device in his home office, put his phone on speaker, and called.
Tucker seemed hyper and defensive, telling Therrien that if any of the portfolios he’d sold now contained phantom debt, they must have been doctored after leaving his hands. “F—ing shame on them,” he said. “Wasn’t me. It had to have been them.”
Therrien was trying to hold back his anger, but his voice wavered. He wanted to impress Tucker, mentioning tidbits he knew about his business. Tucker didn’t understand why Therrien, this guy he’d never met, was so extravagantly invested.
“I’ll tell you why I care,” Therrien said calmly. “I’ll tell you why I care. I believe, and I’m just telling you what I believe, you sold my personal information 21 separate times. I’ve gotten close to 100 f—ing calls, and because I’ve gotten those 100 calls from scumbag collectors that you facilitated, I’m going to make sure that that kind of shit ends now.”
Tucker was incredulous: “You think this is my fault?”
“You got desperate because you spent two dollars for every dollar you had,” Therrien said.
“What are you talking about? Are you trying to micromanage my life? You don’t know jack shit about me.”
“I know what happened. You f—ing stole money from people,” Therrien said. “I’m giving you the opportunity to come clean.”
“I don’t know who you are, Andrew,” Tucker said. “Who are you?”
“A person that you f—ed with too many times.”
When Therrien played the tape for me, I was amazed at how fluently he channeled emotion—his own and Tucker’s—to get what he wanted. Incredibly, by the end of the half-hour call, Tucker was offering to help Therrien collect evidence about crimes committed by other people in the payday-loan business. “We need to get this stuff resolved,” Tucker said on the tape, with a sigh. “’Cause this—it’s not healthy for anybody.”
The two men started talking and texting a few times a week. “I think he has a mental illness that allows him to think he did nothing wrong,” Therrien told me. (Tucker didn’t respond to most of my emailed questions and kept putting off interview requests. “Lies are not stories,” he wrote in one email. He said that any debt he’d sold was legitimate.)
Tucker’s denials made Therrien hate him more, but Therrien masked his feelings to keep the conversation going. The one-year anniversary of his quest was approaching, and he wanted real evidence of wrongdoing—something Tucker couldn’t deny and officials couldn’t ignore.
Therrien soon obtained two crucial sets of documents to that end. In March 2016 he flew to California to meet a debt broker, who handed over some contracts Tucker had signed. Separately, Therrien received an email from the manager of a collection agency, to whose conscience he’d spent weeks appealing. The email, whose subject line read “Have faith in the good in heart,” included actual phantom-debt files, with names and Social Security numbers. The metadata yielded a new name: Rob Harsh, Tucker’s IT guy. (The author of the email died of a drug overdose a few months later.)
In May 2016, Therrien emailed his discoveries to the FTC. A lawyer replied right away: “Andrew, we need to talk about this.” Therrien also gave his intel to some private lawyers who were going after Tucker in Texas. They contacted Harsh, and in August 2016 he submitted an affidavit to the court. Harsh, who declined to comment for this story, testified that Tucker had asked him to manipulate a database of almost 8 million payday-loan applications, writing in a made-up lender and adding an amount owed of $300 for each person.
Therrien had been right all along.
Vindication didn’t make Therrien happy, not even when the FTC suit against Rowland’s company took a karmic swerve that drew in Tucker, directing him to return $30 million he’d received in ill-gotten profits from the business. Tucker told the court he was broke.
Meanwhile, Rowland was spiraling. He confided in Therrien that he was considering suicide, and one day that summer he called Therrien to say goodbye. “Don’t do anything stupid,” Therrien texted him afterward. “I may be callous with you lately but I still care and don’t want anything bad to happen.” Therrien told me he’d informed the police of Rowland’s plan and that they had intervened. But that October, Rowland shot himself. His death added to Therrien’s outrage at Tucker and other predatory lenders like him who hadn’t faced any real legal consequences.
Finally, in December 2016, the FTC sued Tucker for selling phantom debt. According to the regulator, everything had happened pretty much as Therrien imagined: Tucker had invented more than 7.7 million fake debts and sold them to a series of middlemen for $4.2 million. This September, a judge ruled for the agency, ordering Tucker to pay back that money on top of the $30 million he already owed.
The FTC has never credited Therrien, and Michael Tankersley, an agency lawyer, declined to discuss their interactions. But Tankersley told me that Harsh and the California broker were two key sources of information establishing Tucker’s wrongdoing.
Therrien, as usual, was unsatisfied. He was still getting calls from collectors, for one thing. And he felt that if he’d done a better job investigating, Tucker would be facing criminal charges—not a civil fine he’d never end up paying. Therrien has stayed in touch with the FBI’s Kansas City office. An FBI spokeswoman declines to say whether Tucker is being investigated, but three of his associates told me that agents had contacted them about his debt sales.
After the ruling against Tucker, Therrien heard from him for the first time in months, and they started talking again. Amid their conversations, which were recorded, Tucker’s brother, Scott, was convicted on all 14 charges he faced. Without directly asking Therrien to drop his vendetta, Tucker seemed to be pleading for mercy. “I’ve f—ing had enough harm done,” he said. “I’ve lost a brother. Got a brother going to prison. Put it this way, Andrew. I’m tired, buddy. I’m f—ing tired.”
“I’m tired too,” Therrien replied, “because I’m still getting harassed by these motherf—ers.”
Source: https://bloom.bg/2k0OJzA
Most shooters got their guns legally, didn’t have diagnosed mental illness, new FBI report says.
Most shooters got their guns legally, didn’t have diagnosed mental illness, new FBI report says
As mass shootings filter in and out of the news cycle at an almost dizzying pace with each new tragedy, the FBI has continued to probe why these atrocities continue and what can be done to stop them.
In a new report released Wednesday, the bureau shed light on behaviors of shooters before they acted out, finding most obtained a gun legally and did not have diagnosed mental health issues, points that run contrary to some popular beliefs.
Active shooting incidents have continued to plague the nation but last year, there were 30 incidents across the U.S. — the highest number since the FBI began tracking the phenomenon. Last year also broke a record for the highest death toll in any single year.
“Faced with so many tragedies, society routinely wrestles with a fundamental question: can anything be done to prevent attacks on our loved ones, our children, our schools, our churches, concerts and communities?” the study says. “There is cause for hope because there is something that can be done.”
The 30-page report examines active shooter incidents from 2000 to 2013 and suspects in 63 cases, finding suspects showed signs before they attacked but law enforcement wasn’t notified in more than half the cases until it was too late.
Forty percent of suspects purchased a firearm or multiple guns legally for the sole purpose of an attack. Another 35 percent already legally owned a gun before planning an attack, meaning 75 percent of active shooter incidents reviewed by the FBI legally owned the gun they used in the attack.
The remaining suspects stole, borrowed or purchased a weapon illegally.
The FBI could only verify that 25 percent of the gunmen examined in the study had any type of mental illness diagnoses, including disorders affecting mood, anxiety and personality.
The study noted, although, that a large portion of shooters, about 62 percent, were dealing with stressors in their lives such as depression, anxiety and paranoia before their attack.
Those symptoms don’t mean the suspect was necessarily dealing with a mental illness and the conclusion that all active shooters are mentally ill is both “misleading and unhelpful,” the bureau said.
“In light of the very high lifetime prevalence of the symptoms of mental illness among the U.S. population, formally diagnosed mental illness is not a very specific predictor of violence of any type, let alone targeted violence,” the study says. “Careful consideration should be given to social and contextual factors that might interact with any mental health issue before concluding that an active shooting was ’caused’ by mental illness.”
Source: https://usat.ly/2lQ1ZrV
A Helpful Guide to Overcoming Consumerism.
“Wanting less is a better blessing than having more.” —Mary Ellen Edmunds
Owning less brings great benefit to our lives: less stress, less debt, more time, more freedom.
But wanting less brings even more. Removing ourselves from the culture of consumption that surrounds us allows wonderful habits to emerge in our lives: contentment, gratitude, freedom from comparison, and the opportunity to pursue greater significance.
Breaking free from excessive consumerism is an essential step not just for a simplified life, but for any life that desires to be lived intentionally. How then we can realize this freedom? What steps can we take to break free?
A Simple, Helpful Guide to Overcome Consumerism
1. Admit it is possible. There are numerous persons throughout history and the present who have adopted a minimalist lifestyle that rejects and overcomes consumerism. Find motivation in their example. And admit you can join their ranks. Victory always begins there.
2. Adopt a traveler’s mentality. When we travel, we take only what we need for the journey. As a result, we feel lighter, freer, more flexible… we understand why there is a growing movement to stage our bedrooms like hotel rooms. Adopting a traveler’s mindset for life provides the same benefit—not just for a weeklong vacation, but in everything we do. Adopt a mindset that seeks to carry only what you need for the journey.
3. Embrace the life-giving benefits of owning less. Rarely are we invited to consider the benefits of owning less. But when the practical benefits are clearly articulated, they are quickly understood, easily recognized, and often desired. Of course, these benefits are only fully realized when we actually begin living with less. An important step to overcome consumerism is to embrace the reality that there is more life to be found in owning less than can be found in owning more.
4. Become acutely aware of the consumer-driven society in which we live. Our world will lead you to believe your greatest contribution to society is the money that you spend. We are faced with 5,000 advertisements every day calling us to buy more. As a result, average consumer debt equals $8,000/household, shopping malls outnumber high schools, Americans spend more on jewelry and shoes than higher education, and 93% of teenage girls rank shopping as their favorite past time. Recognizing the consumeristic mindset of our world will not immediately remove you from it, but it is an absolutely essential step in the journey.
5. Compare down. Theodore Roosevelt once remarked, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” He was, of course, absolutely right. As we begin comparing our lives and possessions to those around us who have more, we lose joy, contentment, and happiness. And we begin trying hard to close the gap. This is because we always compare upward—looking at those who have more. But we could begin breaking through the consumerism-trap if we began taking greater notice of those who need more and spending time with people who have less and remain joyful in their circumstances.
6. Realize your money is only as valuable as what you choose to spend it on. The financial resources we have earned or been given hold great potential. They can be used to provide for those without. They can be used to bring justice and hope to a world desperately searching for both. And we ought to dream bigger dreams for our money than the clearance rack at a department store.
7. Consider the full cost of your purchases. Usually when we purchase an item, we only look at the sticker price. But this is rarely the full cost. Our purchases always cost us additional time, energy, and focus (cleaning, organizing, maintaining, fixing, replacing, or removing). Making a habit of intentionally factoring those expenses into our purchases will allow our minds to make more competent and confident decisions about our consumption habits.
8. Turn off the television. Television glamorizes all that it needs to glamorize in order to continue in existence. Corporations don’t spend $50 billion every year on television advertisements because they think they can get you to buy their product, they spend that much money because they know they can get you to buy their product. Television is an industry built on the assumption that you can be convinced to spend (and overspend) your money. You are not immune.
9. Make gratitude a discipline in your life. Gratitude serves little purpose in us as merely a response to positive circumstances. Gratitude holds its greatest potential as an attitude in undesired circumstances. Embrace it as a discipline during seasons of plenty and seasons of want. And begin focusing more on your blessings than your troubles.
10. Practice generosity. The surest path to contentment is generosity. Giving forces us to recognize all we possess and all we have to offer. It allows us to find fulfillment and purpose in helping others. Remember, generosity always leads to contentment with far greater efficiency than contentment leads to generosity.
11. Renew your commitment daily. We are bombarded every single day with advertisements from nearly every flat surface we encounter. Rejecting and overcoming consumerism is a daily battle. Expect it to be such. And recommit every morning—or every hour if necessary.
To exist is to consume. But we were designed to accomplish things far greater.
The sooner we remove ourselves from overconsumption, the sooner we realize our truest potential.
May it be so in your life and in mine.
Source: https://bit.ly/2ILnUty
Ten Lies Distort The Gun Control Debate
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In a ritual as central to American life as football on Thanksgiving, each new mass shooting spawns a wave of unfocused political energy that quickly dissipates into “thoughts and prayers.” No matter how many people die, no matter the cruelty of the methods or the youth and innocence of the victims, we cannot translate our outrage into sensible gun control measures.
Key to this failure has been a dense fog of misinformation, shrouding debate and thwarting any potential response. Cutting through the gun lobby’s campaign of confusion will be key to building public consensus around reform. Unless we pierce this fog and develop a focused political agenda, Las Vegas will recede from consciousness, one more mass slaughter on our way to the next one.
Here’s a review of the top ten lies obscuring the gun debate.
Lie #1: There is no connection between mass gun ownership and gun deaths.
It seems obvious that a country flooded with guns will have higher rates of gun deaths than countries with few of these weapons. Why are land mines and hand-grenades forbidden in the so-called “Land of the Free,” despite their obvious value in home defense? Because everyone understands that placing these killing machines in circulation would get a lot of people killed. So why don’t we recognize the same problem with guns?
Obvious answers are never enough for us, so America has been running a deadly experiment on this question for decades. The results are exactly as you would expect. Mass gun ownership leads to higher rates of gun death. Careful regulation can limit that death toll, but not eliminate it.
We are not the only wealthy, stable country with broad gun ownership, though it’s a small club. Switzerland provides a useful comparison, since it is the only place that comes close to our levels of gun ownership, with about half of our per capita firearm ownership. Their experience demonstrates the obvious realities.
Though gun ownership among the Swiss is relatively common, regulations are tight by American standards. All guns are tracked. Many of the guns in private hands are issued by the government. Sale and possession of ammunition is tightly controlled. With a few exceptions for less-lethal weapons, every private gun sale is recorded.
Thanks to careful regulation and lower rates of gun ownership, the Swiss suffer lower rates of gun related deaths and injuries than the US. Despite these constraints, Switzerland experiences much higher rates of gun death than their less-armed neighbors. In other words, regulation can help, but the connection between gun ownership and gun deaths is unavoidably linear.
Lie #2: We don’t need stronger gun regulation because gun violence is declining.
This lie is fun because of the way it depends on careful framing. Gun violence, defined as crimes committed with guns, has been declining for decades. That makes sense, since crime in general has been declining for decades. However, despite a lower crime rate, guns are now competing with automobile accidents for one of the leading causes of premature death in the US. When accidents and suicides are included in the statistics, gun deaths have been consistently rising while most other causes of death declined. And when gun deaths and injuries are compared to rates in other countries, it is hard to build a chart big enough to properly picture America’s towering rates of slaughter.
Lie #3: We didn’t have this problem “in my day” because people loved Jesus and didn’t play violent video games.
According to Franklin Graham, gun violence happens because Americans “turned our backs on God.” His “kids these days” explanation of gun carnage is a favorite of drunk uncles in MAGA caps all over the country. Though these claims frequently sour Thanksgiving dinners, they lack empirical support.
Mass murder has always been a feature of American life, from the slaughter of Native Americans, to the lynchings of black citizens. We just haven’t always had such broad, unregulated, cheap access to such incredibly lethal toys. There’s nothing new about “lone wolf” killings, either, though our modern flood of unregulated high-powered weapons has made them more common and deadly. School shootings are as old as school. Young Matthew Ward murdered his teacher in front of the class in Louisville in 1853. He was acquitted.
Until fairly recently, our most lethal single instance of “lone wolf” mass murder was a school bombing carried out in 1927 in rural Michigan, killing 44 people. The most lethal era to be a police officer in the US was the first third of the 20th century. Thousands of black Americans were killed in mass-violence in the same era, like the white riot that destroyed Tulsa’s “Black Wall Street” in 1921.
In general, we are living through an era of declining crime and mayhem. Gun deaths stand out now against a backdrop of relative public calm.
Lie #4: The Second Amendment blocks gun regulation.
Americans happily place curbs on our rights to religious freedom, blocking people from committing acts of violence, fraud or abuse in the name of faith. Free speech is limited by laws banning libel or incitement. Americans have a constitutionally protected right to obtain an abortion, yet many of the same people advocating Second Amendment absolutism suddenly lose interest in the constitution when the subject turns to reproductive rights. As a general rule, people tend to cite constitutional protections when they don’t want to debate the merits of an issue. Gun advocates are passionate about civil liberties until those liberties become inconvenient.
Lie #5: The solution to gun violence is more gun ownership.
This lie would be too bizarre to earn column space, but politicians are actually using it build policy, putting guns in places like schools, churches and bars. There is no empirical basis for the claim, but it is sometimes accompanied by one misleading data point.
In a twist on Lie #2, gun advocates sometimes point out that a massive rise in gun sales in recent decades has coincided with a long decline in crime rates. Reductions in crime have also coincided with a long trend of rising ocean temperatures, and an increase in the number of black quarterbacks in the NFL. Without some explanation of cause, this factoid is useless.
Further complicating this argument is an inconvenient fact – crime rates have been falling in recent decades all over the civilized world. How has the surge in US gun sales somehow triggered simultaneous declines in criminal activity in Britain, Germany, France and so on? It hasn’t, because there is no connection between US gun sales and declining crime rates.
There’s another interesting dimension to this lie. Gun sales have surged in recent years in the US, but gun ownership is declining. Fewer American households own a gun than at any point in the past half a century. Only three percent of gun owners possess about half of all the weapons in circulation in the US. Today in the US, the average gun owner possesses eight weapons. America has far more guns in private circulation than at any time in its history, but three quarters of Americans do not own one. Mass gun ownership has no relationship to declining crime rates.
Lie #6: Chicago has tight gun restrictions and mass gun violence. Ergo, gun laws don’t work.
Chicago’s seemingly intractable problem with gun violence is one of America’s fondest fascinations. It’s also a myth. Chicago has more gun murders than other large cities like New York and Los Angeles, thanks mostly to its long, unsecured border with North Alabamastan (sometimes called Indiana). However, Chicago’s murder rate still lags far behind the nation’s leaders, many of which are in red states with loose gun restrictions.
America’s capital of gun violence is in deep-red Louisiana. New Orleans suffers from four times the rate of gun murders as Chicago. Such terrifying urban hellscapes as Kansas City, Memphis and Atlanta all rack up much higher rates of gun violence than Chicago. Expand the inquiry beyond crime, to include accidental gun deaths and suicide, and Chicago simply recedes from the frame. The obvious conclusion also happens to be an empirical fact: states with high levels of gun ownership have higher levels of gun death.
With its supposedly restrictive gun regulations, why should Chicago even show up on the list? Only through a determination to avoid the obvious can one struggle with this question.
A Chicagoan can walk across a street into Indiana and purchase firearms from an unlicensed seller with no tracking of that transaction. That person can then walk back across the street into Chicago and commit a crime. This is a common practice. Most of the guns used in a crime in Chicago are originally purchased in Indiana or Mississippi. And of course, Indiana’s rate of gun deaths is roughly a third higher than in Illinois.
In a strictly technical sense, most of those untracked transactions are illegal. However, our gun laws have been crafted to make enforcement virtually impossible, a fine introduction to the next lie.
Lie #7: We should enforce existing gun laws before imposing new ones.
Calls for more determined enforcement of existing gun laws are the most darkly cynical lie in the debate over guns. Our gun laws are carefully crafted to be unenforceable.
One law stands out as the most critical obstacle to enforcement of gun restrictions. A minor provision of the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act bans states or federal agencies from building gun registries. Six states already possessed some form of registry, thus were exempted, but further efforts to break the enforcement of gun regulations made it difficult for them to leverage that information in any useful way.
Congress has protected gun companies from lawsuits. Threats from the NRA have blocked the Centers for Disease Control from researching gun deaths. State and federal laws block law enforcement officials from effectively tracking weapons used in crimes.
Chicago’s frustrating efforts to crack down on gun traffickers illustrates the problems with existing gun laws. Absence of tracking makes enforcement impractical if not impossible. This blind spot fosters a rich climate for illegal gun traffickers in Indiana. Even when federal officials catch someone funneling weapons illegally into Chicago, obtaining convictions is difficult. Police invest little in enforcement efforts because prosecutors regularly decline cases. Prosecutors decline these cases because convictions are so rare. Without federal help, local law enforcement in Chicago has almost no means to stop the flow of guns. Without smart laws, even federal assistance has limited value. Calls to focus on enforcement of existing laws, rather than reforms, are a cynical ploy.
Lie #8: We need guns to protect ourselves from the government.
Claims of a Second Amendment right to overthrow the government may be false, but they get us very close to understanding the honest motives behind the gun lobby.
Until 2008, no federal court had ever recognized an individual constitutional right to own a firearm. If anyone imagined that the Constitution protected a right to use violence to overthrow the government, that idea was put to rest in 1794, when George Washington marched an army across Pennsylvania to squash citizens’ “Second Amendment remedies.”
If the Second Amendment was about resisting the government, why have we only enjoyed a personal right to firearms for less than ten years? And why don’t we have the right to obtain other critical supplies for our jihad, like mortars, land mines and fighter planes?
A dark truth lurks in the “Second Amendment remedies” lie. What fuels the most passionate wing of the gun lobby is the American tradition of mob violence. A population armed with infantry weapons is no match against the organization and equipment of a modern nation-state, but with the inaction or complicity of local law enforcement a well-armed population can run riot over unprotected minorities.
What happens when citizens take up arms against the government? Study the history of the Black Panthers. Despite being reasonably well-armed and organized, they were systematically hunted down and killed until the movement died out. Absent some zone of safety, protected by complicit law enforcement or benefiting from a smaller “sub-state,” private use of weapons is ineffective. Reconstruction featured many similar examples. Racist militias failed to capture New Orleans in the Battle of Liberty Place in 1874 despite being reinforced by Confederate veterans and strengthened with weapons captured from US forces. However, these same militias found success in the rural countryside, where they enjoyed the complicity of local law enforcement.
Private weapons are ineffective in resisting the government, but highly effective as an unrecognized extension of government. Well-armed white paramilitaries were the lynchpin of Jim Crow, waging a campaign of terrorism in black communities. Their private activities allowed local governments to impose crippling limits on black citizens while escaping accountability. Many black Americans were armed as well, but their weapons did them little good. Racist militias could operate with the tacit backing of local law enforcement, while any use of force by black residents in self-defense was be ruthlessly punished.
Behind the “Second Amendment Remedies” lie lurks a dark reality: private arsenals have always been the bloody left hand of white supremacy. When gun enthusiasts shrug off the mass slaughter of innocent civilians to preserve “freedom,” they aren’t talking about your freedom or mine.
Lie #9: No legislation can curb gun deaths in the US.
Americans now have more guns in circulation than citizens. No credible regulatory scheme, no matter how smart or ambitious, is likely to bring the rate of gun deaths in America in line with global standards anytime soon. Whatever we achieve politically in the near term can only be a down-payment on a better world for our children.
There are a few smart measures that could begin to slow the carnage and place us on a path to a safer future. If we start soon and persist over time, future generations can enjoy lives relatively free from mass gun violence while preserving their historic right to own weapons. Perhaps our most promising model would borrow lessons from the regulation of our other most dangerous product – automobiles.
No one is permitted to drive on our roads without obtaining a license. Every automobile is registered. Every transaction is taxed. All vehicle owners are required to maintain insurance to cover potential harm. Despite tight regulation, car ownership is ubiquitous. Cars remain a major cause of injury and death, but insurance has played a critical role over the years in driving safety improvements. More than any other force, insurance companies’ advocacy and political pressure has driven the industry to improve safety and curb highway deaths.
Our habit of imposing complicated and confusing restrictions on weapons by type and shape is largely theater, designed to create a sensation of progress while avoiding the fundamental problem. Instead, we should adopt a simpler, more powerful solution. Register every gun and every gun sale. Require gun owners to obtain a license. Make liability insurance a requirement for every gun owner, tracked to every gun. Require proof of insurance for every sale. Track sales of ammunition, just like we track the sale of Sudafed. Make these gun and ammunition registries available to law enforcement. It is a simple, constitutional approach that preserves the right of responsible adults to own as many weapons as they want, so long as they can demonstrate responsible, safe ownership.
Registration and insurance would not stop every crime, just like they fail to stop every automobile death. They would, however, begin to bring down gun deaths almost immediately. Faced with registration and insurance costs, declines in casual gun ownership would accelerate. It would become very expensive to maintain a gun-nut arsenal of dozens of weapons. Insurance costs would power the spread of trigger locks, gun safes and other safety protections. Registries would empower police to enforce gun laws. Liability suits and criminal actions against irresponsible gun owners would severely constrain criminals’ access to weapons. Instead of waiting for the ATF to crack down on illegal sellers, lawyers representing murder victims would quickly bankrupt today’s crop of amateur gun smugglers. Liability risks on sellers and insurers would make it more difficult for the obviously mentally ill to build an arsenal.
Personal freedom, constrained by personal responsibility, with limits imposed by markets rather than government. It’s an approach to gun control that any Republican should love, right?
Lie #10: Americans oppose tighter gun regulation.
When presented with concrete proposals to regulate guns, majorities of Americans almost always favor them. That support is so universal that it spreads across partisan lines. In fact, a ballot proposal on gun control passed in Nevada of all places. More than 90% of gun owners support universal background checks. A majority of Republicans support a national gun registry.
These ten lies have confused the public and diffused the political momentum of gun control advocates. A clearer understanding and concentrated focus will be key to achieving any legislative progress. We should approach this problem like our lives depend on it.
Source : https://bit.ly/2MUODHr
Black-ish Taught Me More About Slavery in 22 Minutes Than My Entire Education.
The whole issue of slavery is one fraught with a legacy of pain, trauma and, yes, white guilt, and this country didn’t even apologize for this mass tragedy until 2009. If you think I found out that little stat from a history book, nope—I learned it from the season premiere of ABC’s Black-ish, which produced one of the black-est episodes of prime-time TV in a long time.
In it, Dre (Anthony Anderson), the patriarch of the family of now seven, attends a school play starring his twins on the subject of Christopher Columbus (first, the straight way, and then the “woke” way—where Columbus is called a slavery pioneer and massacres Native Americans).
During the show, Dre starts grumbling to his dad (Laurence Fishburne) about the b.s. of the notion that Columbus “discovered” America, before he gets up and rants about how racist and historically incorrect the play was.
As usual, there is biting sarcasm woven into the Black-ish storyline, with the teacher of the class saying that she had “bused in minority students after the last incident,” to which Dre responds, “Honestly, if I wanted my kids around this many minorities, I would have taken them to a Tyler Perry play and shamelessly enjoyed it.” Dre then asks the teacher why no “black holidays” are celebrated, and then lies about celebrating Juneteenth, the holiday many black Americans observe on June 19 to mark the end of slavery.
Mulling it over, Dre then takes the issue of Juneteenth to his job at the ad agency, where they’ve brought in singer Aloe Blacc (playing himself) to help them with some new jingles. Blacc then sets up the scene for the most heartwarming part of a most creative episode, a video done by the Roots on how Juneteenth began, a send-up of Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill”:
With the episode featuring more musical numbers set during slavery and lines like, “We celebrate the Fourth of July, but not the day all Americans were free,” Kenya Barris and his Black-ish writing team prove that they are some of the most deft comedic writers on the scene today, with the ability to handle thorny, black-ass topics while managing to be honest and funny AF.
In its last three seasons, Black-ish has taken on the subjects of “black names” (the Johnsons’ new baby is named Devonte—yes, like dude from Jodeci); HBCUs vs. predominantly white institutions; and biracial identity, all with depth and humor.
Barris told EW that he was really “proud” of the episode and that it forced him to examine his own scorn for “black holidays”: “Yeah, the episode talks about how talking about slavery makes white people uncomfortable, I get that. At the same time, it’s not indicting of anything contemporary. It really is more indicting, if anything, of black culture and being afraid of making other people uncomfortable, and thus disregarding our own past.”
I may be prone to hyperbole sometimes, but I say that this just may be one of the best TV episodes of all time. It took some of the best of black culture—music and comedy—and explicated a deep, dark reality with historical accuracy, authenticity and, yes, black love.
It was for us, by us, but white folks might learn a thing or two, too.
Source: https://bit.ly/2tC7sHt
Ancient village discovered in Canada is 10,000 years older than the pyramids.
The discovery of a 14,000-year-old ancient village in Canada could forever alter our understanding of early civilization in North America. Researchers estimate the settlement is way older than the Giza pyramids, and have found artifacts dating all the way back to the Ice Age. The village is one of the oldest human settlements we’ve ever uncovered in North America – and lines up with the oral history of the Heiltsuk Nation.
Researchers from the Hakai Institute and University of Victoria, with local First Nations members, unearthed revealing artifacts on Triquet Island, around 310 miles northwest of Victoria, Canada. They’ve found fish hooks, spears, and tools to ignite fires. Thanks to the discovery of the ancient village last year, researchers now think a massive human migration may have happened along British Columbia’s coastline.
Archaeologists once thought humans might arrived in North America via a land bridge between Russia and Alaska, and then moved forward on foot. But the recent discovery suggests people moved down the coast possibly in boats instead; the coastal route likely came before the inland route.
University of Victoria PhD student Alisha Gauvreau, who was part of the excavation, told CTV News Vancouver Island, “I remember when we get [sic] the dates back and we just kind of sat there going, holy moly, this is old. What this is doing is just changing our idea of the way in which North America was first peopled.”
The find fits right in with the oral history of a First Nations government in British Columbia, the Heiltsuk Nation. For generations they’ve told stories of ancient coastal villages. William Housty of Heiltsuk Nation told CTV News Vancouver Island, “To think about how these stories survived all of that, only to be supported by this archaeological evidence is just amazing.”
Source: https://bit.ly/2Kj4TU2
Author Hemley GonzalezPosted on October 6, 2018
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Read Next: Woodstock 50 to Hold Open House for Local Residents Before Permit Review Tuesday
January 17, 2018 6:28PM PT
Nicolas Winding Refn, India’s Times Bridge Invest in MUBI Streaming Service
By Patrick Frater and Stewart Clarke
CREDIT: Courtesy of Mubi
Danish film maker, Nicolas Winding Refn and Indian investment group Times Bridge have invested in specialty streaming service MUBI.
Unlike the global leaders in streaming with all-you-can-eat content menus, MUBI operates by operating a limited and rotating selection of just 30 movies. It contends that curation (selection by humans, not algorithm) creates a community of active users. After 10 years in operation, it currently claims 8 million registered users.
Deal terms were not disclosed. But they are understood to be similar to the revised arrangements under which China’s Huanxi Media became a backer in November 2016. In that deal Huanxi paid $2 million for a 1.6% ownership stake, valuing MUBI at $125 million.
Times Bridge, the investment arm of the Times of India group, which counts stakes in Uber, Vice and AirBnB, regards the investment as strategic. It will provide MUBI with local knowledge, talent outreach and commercial and festival partnerships. India, which is currently waking up to streaming video, already represent MUBI’s third largest market. Subscriptions are sold at INR500 per month in India and at $8.99 in the U.S.
Winding Refn (“The Neon Demon,” “Only God Forgives”), is expected to provide advocacy and add brand value to the company which already counts Working Title’s Eric Fellner as an angel investor. Winding Refn previously produced new brand identity for MUBI.
“(Times Bridge) have shown a highly sophisticated understanding of our business and our goals in the region. India is a unique opportunity for us to engage with a passionate community with deep cultural ties to film,” said MUBI’s founder and CEO Efe Cakarel, in a statement.
“MUBI is an original idea with a decade’s worth of proven appeal amongst fans of independent cinema worldwide. Film is inextricably linked to India’s heritage and, in a country with rapidly-changing tastes, we are confident that the MUBI platform will delight a meaningful audience seeking high-quality, curated, global cinema,” said Rishi Jaitly, CEO of Times Bridge.
MUBI recently signed a multi-year SVoD deal with NBCUniversal across 11 territories. The company recently released a series of titles including Berlinale Panorama opener “I, Olga Hepnarova,” Rachel Lang’s “Baden Baden” and Eugene Green’s “The Son Of Joseph,” Bruno Dumont’s Cannes Palme d’Or contender “Slack Bay,” Ildiko Enyedi’s Berlin Golden Bear winner “On Body & Soul,” and winner of the Silver Bear Grand Jury prize “Felicite.” Coming soon is controversial Chinese animated drama “Have A Nice Day,” which debuted in Berlin last year and is currently on release in China.
Efe Cakarel
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D.A. Files 64 Charges in Bel-Air Weapons Stockpile Case
The L.A. County District Attorney’s office has filed 64 counts against Girard Saenz, the man who allegedly kept a stockpile of more than 1,000 weapons at a Bel-Air home linked to the Getty family. Saenz is accused of illegal possession of assault weapons, transferring handguns without a dealer license, possession of short-barreled shotguns, and possession [...]
BMI Promotes David Levin to Senior VP of Digital Licensing
BMI today announced that David Levin has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Licensing, effective immediately. In his newly expanded role, Levin is responsible for all of BMI’s domestic licensing and revenue generation, encompassing radio, television, digital media, cable, satellite and general licensing. Levin, who will oversee teams in New York and Nashville, reports [...]
Warner Music Acquires Musical Theater Indie First Night Records
Warner Music Group has acquired First Night Record, an independent record label for West End and Broadway musical theatre cast recordings. The company will be overseen by WMG’s Arts Music Division, led by President Kevin Gore. First Night co-founder John Craig will join the Arts Music team under a multi-year consulting agreement to identify and record musical theatre productions in [...]
Woodstock 50 to Hold Open House for Local Residents Before Permit Review Tuesday
If nothing else, the producers of Woodstock 50 are persistent. After two permit applications to hold the troubled festival at the Vernon Downs racetrack in Upstate New York were rejected by the town of Vernon codes office, the producers and venue owner Jeffrey Gural today invited the local community “to embrace the Festival’s spirit of [...]
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Sydney, Australia, is to be home to Industrial Light & Magic’s fifth production hub. The Disney-owned special effects company currently has facilities in San Francisco, Vancouver, London and Singapore. The decision to open the Sydney outpost was announced Monday local time by executive creative director and head of ILM Rob Bredow, ILM executive Luke Hetherington, [...]
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GAMES Preview
Nintendo on Switch availability, battery life, leaks, and the 3DS’s future
Willie Clark@_willieclark January 18, 2017 10:30 AM
Above: Switch from Nintendo.
Image Credit: Nintendo
In a worldwide broadcast on January 12, Nintendo announced the release details for its new hybrid console, the Nintendo Switch. The system will launch on March 3 for $299. Games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Edition will be coming at or near launch. The console will be getting new online features and will also be region free.
But we still had more questions. GamesBeat sat down with David Young, Nintendo of America’s assistant manager of public relations, at the Switch event in New York City. We still don’t know plenty of information about the Switch or how Nintendo is approaching some of its features and services, but Young was able clarify several questions that we had.
On availability
Above: Some retailers have already stopped preorders for the Switch.
Actually finding a Nintendo system can sometimes be tricky. The NES Classic release last fall was plagued by inventory issues, and the Wii was also known for being quite hard to find. The Switch launch on March 3 isn’t that far away, and some retailers have already stopped preorders. Is supply going to haunt the Switch as well?
“What we’re doing is, of course, we want to meet demand, right?” Young said. “I mean, it doesn’t do us any good not to, right? I mean, it’s in our best interest, and we certainly will do our best to meet that. Mr. [Nintendo president Tatsumi] Kimishima announced that during that launch window, you know, he announced a worldwide number of what’s available — I believe he said there was two million … so that’s in that launch window. So that’s the, you know, sort of the starting point, and then, we’ll have ways to react depending on what happens there, right? I mean, there’s probably some levers to pull if we need to accelerate things.”
We previously reported what we believed would be the Nintendo Switch specs. Now that more details about the system are out there, we tried to see what we could find out about the inner hardware of the new console.
Young did say that the system is “more powerful than Wii U.” The console tops out at 1080p (no 4K) in TV mode and goes up to 720p in handheld mode. It also only uses Wi-Fi and will not use 4G or LTE for any type of wireless connection, Young believed. For surround sound, it does not have an optical out, instead handling sound passing via HDMI.
Nintendo has claimed the Switch can have up to six hours of battery life, but some games — like the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild — will drop the length to around half that.
Young said that two factors figure into the battery life. It depends on the game — how much it is using components like the GPU and CPU — and also confirmed that the Switch will have user settings like screen brightness that players can use to try to maximize the life of the battery.
The future of the 3DS
Above: Young says Nintendo’s portable 3DS line isn’t going anywhere, even with the portable nature of the Switch.
Most of the titles shown for the Switch were console caliber offerings. With the system also being portable, however, I wondered if it would ever see smaller 3DS-style games that we could also play on a TV.
Young emphasized that the Switch is a home console that can be taken on the go, not the other way around, and that the Switch launch won’t mean the end of the 3DS.
“The Nintendo 3DS line is very healthy,” Young said. “We’ve had a great year. We’ve had several months of year-on-year growth … so that’s not going away. You know, we’ve got a good lineup of games we’re talking about in 2017 … so yeah, that business is strong. It’s not going anywhere. So, we’re still a company that makes, you know, the on-the-go games for the handheld system and these great experiences for the home console. But now, you can take your home console with you.”
Online plans
For Switch’s online ecosystem, Nintendo is for the first time moving to a paid model. The online services will be free at launch and then will start charging sometime in the fall. Players who subscribe will be able to play Switch games online, use a smart phone app for online lobbies and voice chat, and also get to play a free NES or SNES game each month (but only for that month). Yet, it’s still another cost for people in an area where Nintendo has traditionally struggled and lagged behind the competition.
“Yeah, you know, this’ll allow really a more robust kind of environment and development of that online,” Young said.
And as for voice chat, it sounds like that functionality will only be in the smart phone app, not something that is actually going to be part of the Switch system itself.
“Right,” Young said. “That’s what we’ve been discussing, is that this app will allow you [to use] the voice chat.”
Young, however, didn’t have anything to share regarding the Virtual Console plans for the system.
“That is another wait and see,” Young said.
On leaks
Nintendo first revealed the Switch in October and then didn’t talk any more about the console until the event this week. That left plenty of time for leaks, with Nintendo fans eager to learn more about the company’s latest device.
I was curious how it felt for someone who worked at Nintendo to see information spread in such a fashion and if they were even aware of the information that has been coming out.
“Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we keep our eyes open on those kind of things,” Young said. “And it is disappointing because, you know, you want to deliver a message with the maximum impact, right? And so, we design things like today, right? And like the broadcast from Japan last night. You want to have things that are synchronized and timed and sometimes, when [there are] leaks, it will interfere with that. But, you know, we do the best we can, right? Sometimes, these things happen when you have this information spread in a broad way, you know. There’s somebody that always wants to say, ‘Hey, I know something you don’t know,’ and post things. And that stuff happens. But I think, for the most part, we did pretty well on moving through and sharing the information. And today, I think, is going really great for us.”
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Hannemann announces decorated military veteran Les Chang as running mate, files for 2014 Governor’s race
Posted on June 3, 2014 Updated on July 19, 2014
Mufi Hannemann and Les Chang officially file to run as a team for Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii.
Mufi Hannemann announced that his running mate for the 2014 gubernatorial race will be Windward Oahu resident and decorated Air Force Veteran Les Chang. They will run together as candidates of the newly formed Hawaii Independent Party (HIP).
Both Hannemann and Chang officially filed their nomination papers at the State of Hawaii, Office of Elections in Pearl City at 1:30 today, kicking off the team’s campaign for Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii.
Les Chang and Mufi Hannemann
Les Chang is a distinguished graduate of the University of Hawaii AFROTC program where he earned a BA in Education. He went on to an outstanding career serving his country for 30 years with major responsibilities for enhancing the quality of life for military members and their families throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.
His last military assignment prior to retirement as an Air Force Colonel was being in charge of the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) Pacific Region with 8,000 employees and $1.1 B annually in revenues. When he left, Chang was recognized for leading the largest positive turnaround in employee morale and customer satisfaction in AAFES world-wide.
The Lt. Governor candidate’s military awards and decorations include: Defense Superior Medal, Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal, with 4 bronze oak leaf clusters, and the Air Force Commendation Medal.
He joined the City and County of Honolulu as the Director of the Department of Parks and Recreation with the Hannemann administration from 2004 to 2010. He developed a laser-like focus on the make-over, repair and maintenance of city parks. Under Chang’s leadership, the City’s nearly 300 parks and gardens were transformed to be open and accessible to all users young and old and their ohana.
“Les and his wife Sharon love our nation and have a deep affinity for Hawaii which is why he returned to the land of his birth. He has a track record as a capable, caring and experienced leader, who totally immerses himself in the service of his community,” said Hannemann. “I’m honored that he has stepped up and answered the call to run with me.” “He is exactly the kind of hard-working professional that is needed to fix state government. For example, I envision him playing a prominent role on issues dealing with PACOM and the military, our second largest industry and the veterans in our State, and lending his ideas to enhance State parks and programs centered on the youth and elderly.”
Hannemann has vowed to return to the collaborative management style, often focusing on going back to the basics, that he and other directors like Les Chang brought to the City and County of Honolulu. “The Hannemann administration made things happen and got a lot of things done for the people,” said Chang.
“We all benefited from an exceptionally well-managed city for the Mayor’s six years at City Hall.” Hannemann has embraced the spirit of the Hawaii Independent Party, and adopted a theme of “Think Independently…Come Home To The Middle.”
“Our objective is to serve the people—not make decisions for them based on any one political ideology or without their input,” said Hannemann. “The will of the people must be respected and they want government to function efficiently, and put the needs of the people first, and that is exactly what we are going to do with coleaders like Les Chang.”
This entry was posted in Hawaii Governors Race 2014, Mufi Hannemann and tagged Filing, Governor, Hawaii, Les Chang, Lieutenant Governor, Office of Elections.
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Polonization Is Back: Law and Justice in Katowice After 2018
5 lipnia 2019 5 lipnia 2019 Tomasz Kamusella
In the wake of the 2018 local and regional self-governmental elections in Poland, the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party did not win an outright majority of mandates in the Silesian Region (Voivodeship). With 22 mandates, PiS was destined not to govern the region. The pro-Silesian coalition of other parties had at their disposal 23 seats in the Silesian Regional Assembly (Sejmik Wojewódzki). However, in an underhand ploy, PiS offered positions and salaries to the coalition’s member of this assembly, namely, Wojciecha Kałuża, and his family. He joined the PiS group, and was rewarded with the post of Deputy Regional President (Wicemarszałek), while his wife was summarily employed in the management of the state-owned coal mining company, Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa SA. Regional President (Marszałek) Jakub Chełstowski did not see this event as a blatant example of corruption. Law and justice, as peculiarly construed by PiS, finally arrived in the Silesian Region. The slogan of ‘good change’ (dobra zmiana), as propounded by PiS since its electoral victory in 2015, has proved to be none other than money for the hand-picked few, not values; and the growing erosion of the rule of law, instead of upholding the law.
The PiS chairman, Jarosław Kaczyński, is a self-declared ‘modest MP’ in the Polish Parliament (Sejm). In reality, in breach of the Constitution and the basic principles of democracy, he gives orders to the Polish President and Prime Minister. Kaczyński rules Poland with no democratic mandate to do so. Likewise, he was unable to accept that his near-dictatorial monopoly on power in the country, could be incomplete at the level of the self-government in the Silesian Region. It is the second largest and richest region in Poland after Mazovia, which houses the Polish capital of Warsaw. Furthermore, it is well known that Kaczyński holds a dim view of the Silesians, whom he considers to be ‘crypto-Germans’ (zakamuflowana opcja niemiecka). From this perspective, in his view, the Silesian Region is still ‘dangerously un-Polish,’ as proved by the 2011 census, in which almost 1 million people declared their nationality as Silesians, and half of them indicated that their home language is Silesian.
Obviously, the Polish state administration does not accept these ‘Silesian results’ of its own census; neither the previous governments, nor the current PiS one. While the former Polish cabinets grudgingly accepted the grassroots development of the Silesian culture, the standardization of the Silesian language, and the nascent publishing industry in this language; PiS appears to have taken up the mantle of etnonationalist polonizers. The PiS regional administration installed in 2018 in the Silesian Region, first of all, cut financing and projects that aspired to help with the development of the Silesian culture and literature.
And now, in 2019, the opportune moment came to liquidate the flagship regional quarterly Fabryka Silesia, edited by the renowned Silesian journalist and writer, Krzysztof Karwat. In PiS’s typical manner of equivocation, the word ‘liquidation’ was not uttered. In early 2019, the publication of this journal was ‘suspended,’ and recently the editor’s email account was made defunct. Fabryka Silesia uncovered the multicultural past of (Upper) Silesia, and celebrated the region’s continuing multiculturalism, which is such a unique phenomenon in today’s ethnolinguistically homogenous Polish nation-state. That was the periodical’s undeclared ‘sin’ in PiS’s eyes, for which it had to be ‘punished’ with this undeclared closure.
The policy of crude and unthinking polonization is back in Upper Silesia. Poland claimed the easternmost sliver of this region at the end of the Great War by proposing that the majority of its inhabitants were Poles. In interwar Poland’s autonomous Silesian Region, rapidly disillusioned by the Polish authorities, numerous Silesians wanted to send their children to German-medium schools and voted for regional and pro-German parties. Their wishes were disregarded, and only the pro-governmental parties were allowed access to the region’s politics. After World War II, Poland was granted with the German section of Upper Silesia. Almost all the population were retained as ‘autochthons’ (‘ethnic Poles not fully conscious of their Polishness’) to be re-educated as self-conscious Poles, that is, polonized under duress. As a result, during the communist period, close to a million left for (West) Germany, as convinced Germans. After the fall of communism, which heralded a democratic and European Poland, the Silesians thought that in line with the 1997 Constitution’s very American (that is, civic) definition of the Polish nation, it would be sufficient to be a law-abiding citizen, who works hard and pays taxes. That language and culture would be deemed a person’s private matter, like religion. That in the enlarged European Union, polyglotism and the skill of moving between cultures and languages will be cherished. That, at long last, the Silesians, their past, languages and culture woul be properly appreciated.
Not really. PiS’s ‘good change’ is the straight way back to the past, relentless polonization under an authoritarian regime. In PiS’s Silesia there is no place left for the Silesians and any diversity.
Tomasz Kamusella
Poseł-nacjonalista kpi ze Ślązaków. Jest za, a nawet…
Góry Złote – wakacyjne bliskie destynacje
Jan Hahn: Władza i pieniądze
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Owensboro lands professional basketball team
OWENSBORO, Ky. (Aug. 25, 2015) — Professional basketball is coming to Owensboro with the relocation of the Shreveport-Bossier Mavericks to Kentucky’s fourth largest city.
The franchise is renamed the Kentucky Mavericks with home games at the 5,000-seat Owensboro Sportscenter.
“Owensboro’s growth as a destination for tourism, corporate relocations and our overall appealing family lifestyle proves why the Mavericks are coming here,” said Shannon Wetzel, executive director of Visit Owensboro. “The Mavericks add another entertainment venue for visitors to Owensboro.”
The former American Basketball Associaiton team recently joined the Premier Basketball League. Following the move the Mavericks went 66-0 during the team’s two-year tenure in Shreveport. The team is currently on a 92-game winning streak that included two ABA championships.
“We play fast-paced, fast-break basketball,” said coach Steve Tucker, the most winning coach in ABA history. “We look forward in bringing our style of basketball to a state, and city, with a passion for the game.”
The inaugural home game is Jan. 9, 2016, against the Rochester Razorsharks, the 2015 PBL champions.
Information about the Kentucky Mavericks is available at www.mavup.com. Follow the team on Facebook at www.facebook.com/KentuckyMavericks.
Find out more about Owensboro and Daviess County at visitowensboro.com or by calling (270) 926-1100. Stay informed of Owensboro events and happenings through Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/VisitOwensboro.
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A Complete: All Singles
Girl on the Run (album)
A Complete: All Singles is a greatest hits album by Japanese singer Ayumi Hamasaki, released on September 10, 2008 to commemorate her tenth anniversary with Avex Trax. It compiles all of Hamasaki's singles from 1998 to 2008, with one new track.
The album was promoted with one single, new track "Mirrorcle World". Released on April 8, 2008, it debuted at number one in Japan, selling over 250,000 copies and receiving a platinum certification, Hamasaki's first single to do so since "Blue Bird" in 2006. The album's track listing omits two of Hamasaki's singles, these being "A Song Is Born" and "Together When...". The first press of the album came in a special box along with a forty-eight-page photobook that includes previously unreleased alternate single covers. The album was released in 3CD and 3CD+DVD formats.
A Complete debuted at number one in Japan, with first-week sales of 538,876 copies. In its 38-week chart run, it sold 852,259 copies in Japan. It became her best-selling album since (Miss)understood, and was certified 3x Platinum for shipments of 750,000 copies to stores. In Taiwan and China, it became the best-selling Japanese album of 2008. A Complete was the eighth best-selling album of 2008 in Japan and the third best-selling by a female artist, behind Namie Amuro's Best Fiction and Utada Hikaru's Heart Station.
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/A_Complete:_All_Singles
Wasting Time may refer to:
Timewasting
Idling
time sink
as a proper name:
Wasting Time (album), a 2000 album by Mest
"Wasting Time" (Kid Rock song), 2000
"Wasting Time" (Collective Soul song), 1993
"Wasting Time" (Thirsty Merc song), 2003
"Wasting Time" (Blink-182 song), 1996
"Wasting Time", a song by Jack Johnson from On and On
"Wasting Time (Eternal Summer)", a song by Four Year Strong from Enemy of the World
Wasting Time (Blink 182 album)
Wasting Time (Collective Soul Song)
Wasting My Time (disambiguation)
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Wasting_Time
Girl on the Run is Victoria Silvstedt's first and only studio album. It was released in 1999 and produced and managed by Huma. It includes the three singles: "Hello Hey", "Rocksteady Love" and "Party Line".
Chart performance
On Discogs
swedishcharts.com Girl on the Run
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Girl_on_the_Run_(album)
astoryofyou.com
achildofourtime.com
abefortas.net
exerciseasateam.com
asmusicas.com
asasbahasaarab.com
bahasaarabasas.com
asabranca.org
germantimes.com
youareasgoodasyourbestdeal.com
powerofavision.net
agameofthronesgenesis.org
sauditimes.com
aashoroadtest.com
officeofsecretaryofstate.com
boliviatimes.com
itsamatterofchoice.org
fromthetimeoforigin.com
anewpointofview.com
acompilationoftalks.com
Waste Time, Fire Theft
Dont wanna waste time
Is it a matter of mind?
Dont wanna lose control
I've gotta say goodbye my love
We just couldnt get it right
It was a matter of time
All i wanted was to stay there in your arms
but when the door opened
I had to say goodgye ...goodbye
And i knew that it was not a phase
And i waited all those years to hear you say
I always loved you... only you... only you
But i knew that it was just a phase
my juliet
though i still have dreams of you and i together again
i cant afford to lie
i had to say goodbye... goodbye
We didnt know the future
but we did what was right
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Rossini (surname)
Rossini (cocktail)
A surname or family name is a name added to a given name. In many cases, a surname is a family name and many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name". In the western hemisphere, it is commonly synonymous with last name because it is usually placed at the end of a person's given name.
In most Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking countries, two or more last names (or surnames) may be used. In China, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Madagascar, Taiwan, Vietnam, and parts of India, the family name is placed before a person's given name.
The style of having both a family name (surname) and a given name (forename) is far from universal. In many countries, it is common for ordinary people to have only one name or mononym.
The concept of a "surname" is a relatively recent historical development, evolving from a medieval naming practice called a "byname". Based on an individual's occupation or area of residence, a byname would be used in situations where more than one person had the same name.
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Surname
Rossini may refer to:
Andrea Rossini (1990– ) Italian footballer (goalkeeper)
Fausto Rossini, (1978- ) Italian footballer (forward)
Gioachino Rossini, (1792–1868), Italian composer
Tournedos Rossini, a French steak dish created for the composer
Giuseppe Rossini, (1986- ) Italian-Belgian footballer
Jonathan Rossini Swiss footballer
Luigi Rossini, (1790 - 1857) Italian artist
Stefano Rossini, (1971- ) Italian footballer
Stefano Rossini (footballer, born 1991), Italian
Rossi (surname)
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Rossini_(surname)
The Rossini is a type of alcoholic mixed drink made with sweet sparkling wine (prosecco) and puréed strawberries. The cocktail features the most popular alternative to the classic Bellini.
The name origin
The drink was named after the Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini.
Being the variation of Bellini, Rossini is based on the same preparation. Cut two thick slices from one strawberry and reserve. Puree the remaining strawberries and pour into two champagne flutes. Top up with Prosecco and serve with the strawberry slice on the rim of the glass.
Bellini. Peach juice or purée are used instead of strawberry syrup and purée
Mimosa. Strawberry component is replaced by orange juice
Tintoretto. Consists of champagne and pomegranate juice
Puccini. Similar to the Mimosa, but contains tangerine juice.
– Source:
List of cocktails
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Rossini_(cocktail)
brownleerossini.com
lawrencebrownlee.net
rossinilive.com
brownleemozart.com
lawrencebrownleeinc.com
lawrencebrownleeonline.com
brownleedonizetti.com
gioachinorossini.net
lawrencebrownlee.org
lawrencebrownleegroup.com
gioachinorossini.org
gioachinarossini.net
musicianrossini.com
rossinicoin.com
gioachinarossini.com
starrossini.com
rossiniarias.com
rossinilive.net
virtuosorossiniarias.com
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Lindsay Lohan Had Esurance Donate $10,000 To Her Community Service Organization
Courtney Enlow 02.17.15 4 years ago
If you haven’t been following the trials and tribulations of Lindsay Lohan’s community service, here’s some background:
In 2012, Lohan hit an 18-wheeler and was charged with reckless driving. She was sentenced to 240 hours of community service. By November 2014, she’d only completed half. So the judge extended the time for her to complete, to January 28th. In that time between, Lohan went on vacation to Bora Bora and caught a mosquito virus, and also took a questionable selfie. That gave her nine days to complete 80 hours of community service, which she alleges she did. But her service included autograph signings and meet-and-greets, as well as allowing kids to work-shadow her… except she wasn’t working at the time.
So, the prosecutor in the case stated his doubts about the validity of her volunteer work, and tomorrow she has to go back into court and the judge could ask CSV, her community service organization, for more information about her service hours. And, now, news comes that Lohan asked Esurance to donate $10,000 to the organization because she “likes what the org does for poor kids.”
Now that you’re all caught up, here’s the issue with that:
The problem … Lindsay’s due back in court Wednesday because the prosecutor has challenged her community service. It’s possible the judge could ask CSV for more info about Lindsay’s community service and the money could taint the legitimacy of CSV’s response.
Lindsay’s lawyer, Shawn Holley, says, “TMZ has stooped to a new low. To take Lindsay’s positive efforts in supporting CSV and turn them into something negative simply to sell a story is offensive.” She adds, “Lindsay has been involved in helping to raise funds for this wonderful organization since she started her community service there and she has continued her work as a volunteer, even though her community service was completed weeks ago.”
Looks like we’ll see Wednesday if the judge accepts the donation as a good deed, or something else.
Source: TMZ
TOPICS#Lindsay Lohan
TAGSCOMMUNITY SERVICEesuranceLindsay Lohan
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15 Worst Trades in Toronto Maple Leafs History (Part 3 of 3)
2013 UPDATE: I have refreshed and expanded this list on another website. Check out the series here: Introduction, #21-25, #16-20, #11-15, #6-10 and #1-5.
Welcome to Part Three of the worst trades in Toronto Maple Leafs history, the final look at some of the darkest (and dumbest) days in Toronto hockey.
To recap, here is the list so far from Part One (which can be read here):
#15: Toronto trades Tukka Rask to the Boston Bruins for Andrew Raycroft
#14: Toronto loses Gerry Cheevers to the Boston Bruins in the Intra-League Draft
#13: Toronto trades Fredrick Modin to the Tampa Bay Lightning for Cory Cross and a 7th Round Pick in 2001 (Ivan Kolozvary)
#12: Toronto trades Larry Murphy to the Detroit Red Wings for Future Considerations
#11: Toronto trades Kenny Jonsson, Sean Haggerty, Darby Hendrickson and a 1st Round Pick in 1997 (Roberto Luongo) to the New York Islanders for Wendel Clark, Mathieu Schneider and D.J. Smith
And from Part Two (which can be read here):
#10: As compensation for signing RFA Mike Craig, Toronto sends Peter Zezel and Grant Marshall to the Dallas Stars
#9: Toronto trades Lanny McDonald and Joel Quenville to the Colorado Rockies for Pat Hickey and Wilf Paiement
#8: Toronto loses Brian Bradley to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 1992 Expansion Draft
#7: Toronto trades Jason Smith to the Edmonton Oilers for a 2nd Round Pick in 2000 (Kris Vernarsky)
#6: Toronto trades Darryl Sittler to the Philadelphia Flyers for Rich Costello, a 2nd Round Pick in 1982 (Peter Ihnacak) and Future Considerations (Ken Strong)
And now… on with the not-so-grand finale!
#5: Toronto trades Russ Courtnall to the Montreal Canadiens for Jon Kordic and a 6th Round Pick in 1989 (Mike Doers)
Poor Gord Stellick… he’ll never live this trade down. The Leafs needed a goon, and the Habs were interested in Russ Courtnall. Apparently rather than haggle, the Leafs’ response was “Sure, why not.” How did the trade work out? Sadly, even worse than its reputation. Kordin got 446 penalty minutes and 16 points in 104 games as a Leaf, while Courtnall gradually improved over parts of four seasons with the Habs. He ended up with 82 goals and 195 points in 250 games for Montreal. I know other trades have had closer margins in terms of the numbers, and ranked lower. But this is one of those trades that just lives in infamy. Plus the Leafs have had very, VERY few scoring wingers over the past 20 years, and barely a handful that were drafted by Toronto. What’s worse, the Leafs traded Kordic and Paul Fenton for a 5th round pick for… Alexei Kudashov. Wow. Meanwhile, the Habs turned Russ Courtnall into Brian Bellows, who won a Stanley Cup with the Habs. And Courtnall kept on being a decent offensive player (and I believe an all-star) with the Dallas Stars.
#4: Toronto trades Bernie Parent and a 2nd Round Pick in 1973 (Larry Goodenough) to the Philadelphia Flyers for a 1st Round Pick in 1973 (Bob Neely) and Future Considerations (Doug Favell)
There are bad trades… and then there are truly wretched trades. This one falls into the second category. Toronto had a young goaltender on their roster that left the club to play in the World Hockey Association, which instantly made him an outcast in the eyes of Leafs management and ownership. Having played previously in Philadelphia with the NHL’s Flyers and the WHA’s Blazers, he requested a trade to Philadelphia. His request was granted… and in his first two seasons with the Flyers, Bernie Parent won two Stanley Cups, two Conn Smythe trophies as the MVP of the playoffs, and two Vezina trophies. So he was the best goaltender in the league, and the most valuable player on the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions. He was also incredible during the regular season, posting a record of 177-60-57 in 298 games over six seasons. Doug Favell meanwhile was a complete bust. He was decent for the Leafs in his first season, just plain AWFUL in his second, and gone his third season lasted just three games before he was shipped to the Colorado Rockies.
And the Leafs failed to make a significant impact with the draft pick. They had two other first rounders that year. The other two (Lanny McDonald and Ian Turnbull) were stellar picks. Bob Neely posted decent numbers as a defenseman, but after four seasons and change he was gone, and he only played 22 games after leaving Toronto. Not much staying power. Essentially, the Leafs received four seasons (3 of them decent) from a mid-level defenseman and two seasons (one of them good) from a back-up goaltender from a man who was possibly the best money goaltender in the 1970s. BRILLIANT!!! And don’t give me that 20-20 hindsight crap; Parent posted better numbers in his two seasons in Toronto than Favell did in his entire career.
#3a: Toronto trades a 2nd Round Pick in 2000 (Ivan Huml) to the Washington Capitals for Dmitri Khristich
#3b: The Chicago Blackhawks claim Steve Sullivan from Toronto via waivers
On the surface, the first trade looks harmless. Boston didn’t do much with the draft pick, and Khristich’s numbers in year one (30 points in 53 games) suggest a decent hockey player. Don’t let that fool you, he was AWFUL. His second season (9 points in 27 games) was so bad the Leafs dumped him on Washington for a 3rd round pick in 2001 (which turned into Brendan Bell… who then, in keeping with Leafs’ tradition, turned into 17 games and 5 points from Yanic Perreault). Khristich is the closest thing to a Maple Leaf player that I hated except for Mike Craig. So on the surface, you’re probably wondering… a 2nd round pick for a 6-time 27+ goal scorer isn’t that huge of a risk, why is this trade so high? Two reasons. First, the rumours (which I believe) were that Boston walked away from Khristich’s arbitration settlement, thus making him essentially a UFA. Instead of just SIGNING him, Leafs GM Pat Quinn traded a 2nd round pick to Boston for Khristich’s rights to “keep the peace”.
The second reason why this trade is so high was that, in order to make space for Khristich, Quinn put a young, small forward on waivers. Quinn preferred veterans, and big tough players. And the Chicago Blackhawks plucked Mr. Sullivan off waivers. Steve Sullivan, since leaving Toronto, posted seven consecutive seasons where he scored 22+ goals and recorded 60+ points. By the way, that would have placed him SECOND in Leafs scoring for five of those seasons, third for another, and somewhere in the Top Five for that final season. Yes, I am saying that in those seven seasons, five of those seasons lacked a Leafs player named Sundin scoring 60 or more points. Sullivan scored 303 points in 370 games for Chicago, raising his stock such that the Nashville Predators traded for him at the 2004 trade deadline at a cost of two 2nd Round draft picks. He then scored 158 points in 150 games for the Predators before sitting out the 2007-08 season due to injury. Just a terrible, TERRIBLE trade, one that confirmed the Leafs squandered all the resources they received (Sullivan, Jason Smith and Alyn McCauley) from the Doug Gilmour trade. Imagine how good that trade would look if those three players were still in Leaf uniforms today, over 10 years after Gilmour was sent to New Jersey.
#2: Toronto trades Randy Carlyle and George Ferguson to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Dave Burrows
Most people will question this trade being so high on the list, especially considering the Pittsburgh Penguins were hardly a powerhours during the late 70s and early 80s (which ultimately led to their getting Mario Lemieux 1st overall in 1984). Dave Burrows did absolutely nothing for Toronto. In just over 2 seasons, he recorded 32 points in 151 games, and then he was gone. George Ferguson meanwhile recorded four straight 20-goal seasons, and was even a strong performer in Pittsburgh’s first-round exists (15 points in 22 games). But Randy Carlyle was the true gem of this deal. He played 397 games as a Penguin, recording 323 points. As a DEFENSEMAN. In fact, he won the Norris trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman, recording 83 points in 1980-81. He then went on to play another 564 games for the Winnipeg Jets, recrdong another 306 points. Despite playing on some truly terrible teams that rarely made the playoffs, he still recorded 31 points in 53 playoff games after leaving Toronto. Again, as a defenseman.
But wait, it gets worse (as if we needed worse giving up a consistent 20-goal man and a 1,000-game defenseman) is that the Penguisn were SMART with their assets. Ferguson and the 1st overall pick in 1983 were traded to the North Stars for Minnesota’s pick and two players. The players didn’t amount to much, but Pittsburgh selected long-time Penguin Bob Errey. And Carlyle was traded to the Jets for a 1st round pick in 1984 and Future Considerations. The FC ended up being Moe Mantha. Mantha recorded 168 points in 232 games for the Penguins, before becoming part of the Paul Coffey trade, which (after the ’91 Cup) in turn led to the trade that brought Kjell Samuelsson, Rick Tocchet and Ken Wregget to Pittsburgh (helping the Penguins get the ’92 Cup). As for Doug Bodger, after contributing 167 points in 299 games, Pittsburgh dealt him to the Buffalo Sabres for goaltender Tom Barrasso (an important part of the ’91 and ’92 Cup wins). So the Penguins turned Randy Carlyle into various components of one of the few back-to-back Cup champions of the last 20 years. *sigh* It’s very depressing writing about a team that knows how to continually turn over their high-value assets into new, long-term assets. If only Craig Patrick had been Leafs’ GM… he would have moved Tucker, McCabe and possibly Sundin in 2005, rather than signing them to no-movement clauses after yet another 1st-round exit.
#1: Toronto trades a 1st Round Pick in 1991 to the New Jersey Devils for Tom Kurvers
And here we are… the most infamous trade in Toronto Maple Leafs history. Now I know that earlier I stated that I ignore the draft choices made by other teams, because there is no guarantee that Toronto would have chosen that player (i.e. the Islanders choosing Roberto Luongo with the draft pick from the Leafs). However, in this case I can argue that Toronto would almost assuredly have chosen a player of consequence. Of the 22 players chosen in the first round, 17 have played in at least 575 NHL games as of August 2008. Of the other five, two of them still managed to play over 100 games (and one of them was traded for Markus Naslund). That’s a 77% chance that Toronto would have had received 575+ games from a first rounder, and an 86% chance of receiving 100+ games (which is more than they got out of Tom Kurvers).
Right off the bat, I will state this; Tom Kurvers was NOT an bad acquisition. The year before the Leafs acquired him, they went 28-46-6 and missed the playoffs. With him in 1990-91, they went 38-38-4 and scored 78 more goals than the year before. Kurvers recorded 52 points and a respectable -8 rating in 70 games, along with 3 assists in 5 playoff games. Quite decent, and demostrating that Kurvers was worth trading for, albeit not for a first round pick. But then the next season, with just 3 assists in 19 games, the Leafs (on their way to a 23-46-11 season where they missed the playoffs by 11 points) dealt him to Vancouver for Brian Bradley. Yes, that would be the very same Brian Bradley that the Leafs held onto for for one-and-a-half seasons, before letting him go in the ’92 Expansion Draft (for nothing) to the Tampa Bay Lightning. So in total, dealing their 1991 1st Round Draft Pick resulted in 55 points in 89 games from Tom Kurvers, and 42 points in 85 games from Brian Bradley. To summarize, dealing the first rounder gave Toronto 97 points in 174 games. Of the 17 first rounders to play more games than the Leafs received for Kurvers/Bradley, the LOWEST point total was 128. And that was from a defensive defenseman. So by this math alone, the Leafs screwed up enough for this trade to end up in the top ten trades that make it possible for jerseys like this to exist:
And now comes the clincher. The Leafs were bad in 1990-91… so bad that they were on pace to finish last in the NHL behind the Quebec Nordiques. And Toronto was feeling the sting of Kurvers not working out as expected. So the Leafs traded prospect Scott Pearson and a pair of 2nd Round picks to Quebec; the Nordiques selected Tuomas Gronman and Eric Lavigne. However, you cannot say the trade did nothing for Quebec. What it did was send three regulars to Toronto; Aaron Broten, Lucien Deblois and Michel Petit. They weren’t exactly all-stars, but they were regular players on Quebec. Their removal necessitated their replacement with younger, less talented players. The Leafs even picked up another Nord (Claude Loiselle) near the trade deadline. Now why you ask would the Leafs trade Pearson (their 1988 1st Round choice) and a pair of second round picks for three players from the worst team in the league? Because by making Quebec slightly worse and Toronto slightly better, it diminished the chances of Toronto finishing last overall in the league. Sounds like a noble goal… except the SOLE reason the Leafs did this was to avoid their last-place finish turning their draft pick into the first overall draft choice. This would result in New Jersey turning Tom Kurvers… into teenage phenom Eric Lindros.
Before you say so what… in 1991, Eric Lindros was THE next great player. Not an Alexander Daigle “he might be the next one”… we’re talking a Sidney Crosby “he WILL be the next one”. Lindros scored 71 goals and 149 points in 57 games during his last juniour year. He was so good that he was picked as an 18-year-old to play on the 1991 Canada Cup team. A team so deep that Steve f’n YZERMAN never dressed for a single game. And even though his career can be called disappointing, Lindros still recorded 372 goals and 865 points in 760 games. Fortunately for the Leafs, their Quebec raids paid off, and the Nordiques finished last in the league, giving them the first overall draft pick. The funny part is, rumours swirled a year later that Toronto offered a package including Doug Gilmour, Wendel Clark, Dave Ellett and possibly Felix Potvin to Quebec for Lindros before the Nordiques finally dealt him to Philadelphia.
But getting back to the trade. We already know that it potentially cost Toronto the only true superstar this generation of Toronto fans would have seen (I like Gilmour and Sundin, but neither one of them was a superstar… the last one we had was Sittler). The Leafs breathed a sigh of relief; Quebec’s finish and the San Jose Sharks joining the NHL meant New Jersey picked third. And the Devils chose very, VERY well; Scott Niedermayer. Niedermayer is one of the true great defenseman of this (or possibly any) generation. He scored 476 points in 892 games with New Jersey, winning Stanley Cups in 1995, 2000 and 2003 (and very nearly another one in 2001). He then signed with the Anaheim Ducks as a free agent, where he added another 157 points in 209 games, and a fourth Stanley Cup ring in 2007. He also won a Memorial Cup (the Canadian Juniour Hockey championship), and gold medals at the World Juniour Championship, the World Championship, the World Cup (of hockey) and Winter Olympics. The man was a winner on every single stage that he played. The truly sad part… picking first or third (assuming they were smart enough to pick Niedermayer) would have given the Leafs a TRUE franchise player who would have spent 10+ seasons in their uniform. Any number of players from the 1991 draft could have boosted the club’s fortunes longer term than Kurvers/Bradley. You want scoring? Peter Forsberg went 6th overall, and other options included Brian Rolston, Alexei Kovalev, Markus Naslund, Glen Murray and Martin Rucinsky. Defense? Scott Lachance, Aaron Ward, Richard Matvichuk and Philippe Boucher all played 700+ quality games. Even a “bust” like Pat Falloon scored 322 points.
This was the trade that truly bottomed out the franchise at the end of 1980s. Think of a 19-year-old Eric Lindros or Scott Niedermayer playing on the 1992-93 Leafs alongside Gilmour, Andreychuk, Clark and Potvin. It would have completely changed the dynamic of the team. And Sundin would have had some help keeping the team from being awful in the mid-to-late 1990s. Lindros or Niedermayer might have been enough to turn one of those Conference Finals runs into a Stanley Cup Final apperance… or heaven forbid, a win. And worst-case scenario, Lindros might even have helped out the Blue Jays.
That’s the beauty, and the pain of sports… the what-if’s, the could-have-been’s, and the wish-they-weren’ts. But then that’s also the reason why lists like this are possible. Every team has their share of glorious moments and tragic instances, and it’s unfortunate that Toronto has had more than their share. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these “Top 15” worst trades in Toronto Maple Leafs history as much as I enjoyed reading them. I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of bad Leaf trades, and no matter what happens we will always cling to our hope that another Gilmour-type trade will bring the franchise back to life. Go Leafs Go!
August 6, 2008 Posted by the1jasontaylor | Sports | Darryl Sittler, Doug Gilmour, Eric Lindros, Hockey, Hockey Trades, Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, NHL, Scott Niedermayer, Stanley Cup, Toronto Maple Leafs, Wendel Clark | 23 Comments
Welcome to Part Two of the worst trades in Toronto Maple Leafs history. One thing I should mention is that I did not consider any trades from before 1967. The reason is because the Original Six NHL was incredibly different from the one today, and the majority of awful Leaf trades happened after the 70’s anyways.
And now, on with the list!
Right off the bat, I will admit to some fairly blatant bias here. I HATE Mike Craig. I hated him in Minnesota/Dallas, and I LOATHED him in Toronto. I have never hated a Maple Leaf player before or since; but I hated Mike Craig. He was a 15-goal, 30-point player that the Leafs signed to an offer sheet for who-knows-what reason. And in 3 seasons in Toronto, 172 games… he managed 20 goals. No, not a season… TOTAL. 20 freakin’ goals and 50 points. Oh, and in the playoffs? One assist in 8 games. ARGH. And the compensation package was ridiculous. Peter Zezel didn’t last very long with the Stars, but he was an incredibly competent checking centre for a grind line that the Leafs SORELY lacked for a number of years after the Berg-Zezel-Osborn combination was disbanded. What’s worse, the Leafs also lost decent prospect Grant Marshall (their first round pick from 1992!). He played 402 games with Dallas, recording 134 points as a decent two-way player. And SINCE Dallas, he has played another 298 games. Oh, and did I mention he’s won a pair of Stanley Cups, one with Dallas and one with New Jersey? A strong two-way forward who has (so far) played 700 career games, and the loss of Zezel for 172 games from Mike f’n Craig. It would have been better if Cliff Fletcher (or whoever made the decision to sign Craig) offered me $20 to ro shambo him. No I’m not bitter, why do you ask?
This was a trade that began the franchise’s descent into the hell that was the 80s, a decade in which the Leafs had a record of 301-481-98 between 79-80 and 89-90 (a win percentage of .398, during a time in which surrendered 660 more goals than they scored). It is also widely reported that the deal was intended to demotivate Leafs captain Darryl Sittler. Only in Toronto would a personal vendetta come before the success of the club.
Pat Hickey was an unexpected bonus at first; he recorded 22 goals in just 45 games during his first half-year with the club. But the next season he was quite ordinary, and one game into the following season he was gone. Meanwhile his counterpart Joel Quenville was a servicable defenseman for Colorado, following the club to New Jersey. He went on to play 710 games after leaving the Leafs.
At first glance, the superstars in this trade worked out well. Toronto got 187 games and 203 points out of Paiement, while Colorado got 142 games and 141 points from McDonald. Paiement even recorded a stellar 40 goals and 97 points in his first full season in Toronto. But when he dropped to 18 goals and 58 points the following seasons, the Leafs traded him to Quebec for Miroslav Frycer and a 7th rounder. Yes, that’s right; Miroslav Frycer was all the Leafs had to show for dealing heart-and-soul Lanny McDonald. Colorado didn’t fare much better; they dealt McDonald to Calgary, where he played another 492 games (!!!), and won a Stanley Cup in his final season (1988-89). Lanny scored 66 goals in his first full season in Calgary, and ironically Joel Quenville ended up in Calgary as well.
This trade is #9 for two reasons. First, looking at the numbers, the trade isn’t as bad as you might suspect. Paiement’s contributions in Toronto were superior to McDonald’s in Colorado, and the Rockies traded McDonald for spare parts Bob MacMillan and Don Lever. This prevents the trade from being higher. But what keeps this trade in the “Top” 10 is the fact that the Leafs were TRYING to shoot themselves in the foot to hurt their captain, AND they squandered the resources they received (Paiement) for a player (Frycer) who was a regular “contributor” on some of the worst Leaf teams of all time.
While this is technically not a trade, the Leafs had the option to leave anyone they wanted available in the expansion draft for Ottawa and Tampa Bay. Mike Krushelnyski was nearing the end of the road, as was Mike Foligno. Joe Sacco was a nothing prospect of limited potential. Mike Eastwood, Dave McLlwain, Ken Baumgartner. Granted, I’m not 100% certain who was protected, but there had to be someone else besides Bradley that could be protected. He finished sixth on the club in scoring in 91-92! But for whatever reason, the Leafs let Tampa Bay snag him. And what happened? He scored 42 goals and 86 points for the Lightning, and then proceeded to record 300 points in 328 games over six seasons before retiring due to injuries. He was the Lightning’s face of the franchise until Vincent Lecavalier came along, and he lead the Bolts from game one to their first playoff birth in 1996. And the Leafs let him walk for nothing. Just to put Bradley’s 300 points in perspective; do you know how many Leafs have scored 300 points in Toronto? 32 players. In 72 YEARS.
#7: Toronto trades Jason Smith to the Edmonton Oilers for a 2nd Round Pick in 2000 (Kris Vernarsky) and a 4th Round Pick in 1999 (Jonathon Zion)
Leafs GM/Coach Pat Quinn was not a fan of Jason Smith, and shipped him off to Edmonton. And you know what we kept hearing on TV and in the papers for the next few years? “We could really use a big, physical defenseman to clear the net and project (Curtis) Joseph in goal.” Gee, where can we find one of those? Oh, I know… EDMONTON. Jason Smith became one of the most popular Oilers since Doug Weight and Ryan Smyth, playing 542 games and eventually being named team captain. He has since been traded to Philadelphia, which caused Oiler Ethan Moreau to say the following: “I didn’t even ask who we got. I don’t really care right now if we’re better or worse, it’s more the human side of it. You lose a great friend and a great leader, the longest standing Oilers captain of all time.” Obviously a very talented, very respected player. And a true leader. Well the LEafs must have gotten something good in return, right? Hell, you already know the answer to that; if it was “yes”, then it wouldn’t be on this list. Mr. Zion (who sounds like an extra from the Matrix) never played in the NHL. Kris Vernarsky played 17 games… but not in Toronto. The Leafs traded him to Boston for Ric Jackman. And RIGHT before Jackman became a decent defenseman for a few seasons… the Leafs traded him for Drake Berehowsky. So to sum up, the Leafs traded an additional 619 games (and COUNTING) of Jason Smith for 42 games (and 8 points) from Ric Jackman, and 9 games (3 points) from Drake Berehowsky. Huzzah.
This was a dark day for the Toronto Maple Leafs. They traded their captain, their best player since Dave Keon, and a man just 84 points away from becoming the first Toronto player ever to record 1,000 points in a Maple Leaf uniform. And he would have done it for SURE; he recorded 178 points in 191 games as a Flyer, and then added one last season in Detroit before retiring and going on to the Hall of Fame. It’s just sad what they settled for in return. Ken Strong? 15 NHL games, then disappeared to Austria for a decade. Rich Costello? 12 NHL games. Only Peter Ihnacak made the club. He recorded 28 goals and 66 points and then recorded just 201 points in his final 337 games as a Leaf before returning to Europe. He’s right up there with Frycer as regulars on some of the worst hockey teams in Toronto (and NHL) history. A dark day, a bad trade… and a team that will likely not see a 1,000 point scorer in our lifetime; Sundin has 987 points as a Leaf, but he’s as good as gone, and the next closest active Leaf is Tomas Kaberle with 402 points.
It’s trades like these that give people the justification to make photos like THESE.
Well that wraps up the second portion of our list. Part Three has been posted here after a few days break (necessitated by a combination of the time required to compile and rank the trades, and a need to walk away from the sheer amount of RAGE that builds up whenever I research just how truly godawful these trades were). Feedback is always welcome, either here in the comments or via email at jt.urbaneblog@gmail.com.
July 29, 2008 Posted by the1jasontaylor | Sports | Darryl Sittler, Hockey, Hockey Trades, Lanny McDonald, Maple Leafs, Mats Sundin, NHL, Stanley Cup, Tomas Kaberle, Toronto Maple Leafs, Wendel Clark | 3 Comments
15 Worst Trades in Maple Leaf History (Part 1 of 3)
I know this blog is pop-culture focused, but sports are definitely a part of popular culture. And one sport that struggles for popularity outside of a few stronghold countries is hockey. But like any sport, there are a few teams that are institutions. Baseball has the Yankees, basketball has the Lakers and Celtics… hockey has the Original Six teams. And possibly the most painful of those teams to be a fan of is the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The picture above shows the four most popular Leafs captains of the past 30 years. None of them were allowed to retire as Leafs captain, and two of them were dealt in such brutal trades that they fall into the list which begins shortly. You see the Leafs were once a storied NHL franchise, rich in success, talent and Cup wins. A number of factors helped contribute to their downfall; then the NHL began expanding, the rival World Hockey Association began siphoning off talented players, and the infamous Harold Ballard took over as majority owner and drove what little pride remained from Maple Leaf Gardens. Some teams would be able to persevere through these challenges, if they can continue to make smart personnel moves. Unfortunately… the Leafs have made more than their share of bad trades since they won their last Stanley Cup some 40 years ago. Here are the first “highlights” from that group.
DNQ: Toronto trades Rick Vaive, Steve Thomas and Bob McGill to the Chicago Blackhawks for Ed Olczyk and AL Secord
This trade is mentioned frequently as an awful trade, due to Vaive’s success with the team (and the fact that he is one of only two players to score 50 goals in a single season wearing a Leafs jersey). However, the numbers tell a different story. Vaive played just 106 games in Chicago, scoring 55 goals, before being dealt to Buffalo, where he was a shadow of his former self, and he faded away a few seasons later. Thomas was strong for the Blackhawks, but not a star; he recorded 198 points in 231 games before being shipped off to the New York Islanders. Bob McGill was servicable, but didn’t do much of note in four seasons with Chicago.
Now Al Secord was a mistake to acquire, one which the Leafs rectified just a year and a half later by shipping him to Philadelphia. But Ed Olczyk was spectacular. He averaged 37 goals and 84 points in his 3 full seasons with Toronto. And when he was traded to Winnipeg, he netted the Leafs Dave Ellett, who was a huge component of the beloved ’92 and ’93 Leafs teams. Given Olczyk’s performance and Vaive’s disctinct lack of staying power post-Leafs, I’d actually call this trade a win rather than a loss. And ironically enough, everyone but Vaive ended up having a second stint with the team that traded them (Olczyk and Secord played again in Chicago, while Thomas and McGill were Leafs in the 90s).
Dis-Honourable Mention: Toronto trades Alyn McCauley, Brad Boyes and a 2003 1st Round Pick (Mark Stuart) to the San Jose Sharks for Owen Nolan
People talk about this trade like it was the end of the world. I will freely admit, losing McCauley (hero of the 2002 playoff run) sucked, as he has turned into a terrific defensive player. But he wasn’t critical to the team. And while Brad Boyes was a 40-goal scorer last year with St. Louis. But he has never been anything above average until last year, and he’s been traded twice SINCE this deal. And Mark Stuart was a bust, never even playing for San Jose. Owen Nolan’s pickup was heralded as the “right move” in 2003 because of his strong clutch play and leadership reputation. Yes he bombed, and yes he had a bitter divorce with the team due to injury lawsuits. And his acquisition was a mistake. BUT… it isn’t bigger than the 15 mistakes coming up next. And on a side note, it is intensely depressing that Boyes was the first NHLer drafted by Toronto to get 40 goals in a season since Wendel Clark, who was drafted in what, 1986? So very, very sad…
I will fully admit that I have some bias here. I knew the SECOND we traded for Raycroft that it was a mistake. NO Bruins goaltender since Andy Moog has ever been good for more than 18 months. Jon Casey, John Blue, Blaine Lacher, Jon Grahame, Byron Dafoe, Bill Ranford (the second time), Jim Carey (not the actor)… the list goes on. And you can add Raycroft to this list. If Rask even turns out to be HALF as good as people thing, this trade will still belong on this list. And it’s not the first time Toronto gifted a great goaltender to Boston.
Okay, so technically this isn’t a trade. And losing Cheevers was necessary to keep both Johnny Bower and Terry Sawchuk, the goaltending tandem that won the Leafs the Stanely Cup in ’67. But come ON, did they have to let Gerry CHEEVERS go? The guy won two Stanley Cups with Boston, helped win the Summit Series against the Soviet Union in 1972, posted a record of 230 wins, 102 losses and 72 ties in 418 games, and won FIFTY-THREE of 88 playoff games with the Bruins. And he came up with the coolest goalie mask ever. How could they let him go for NOTHING???
I was hesitant to put this on the list, because I sincerely doubt Modin would ever have developed into a decent hockey player in the hockey fishbowl that is Toronto. However, he developed into a solid forward for Tampa Bay, averaging 24 goals a season over six years with the club, including three seasons of 50+ points and two 30-goal seasons. You know, the kind of seasons one needs from decent offensive wingers, which have been sorely lacking from Toronto for a number of years. Meanwhile poor Cory was a healthy scratch half the time, and despised by many fans the other half of the time. Funny story; I attended a game in Tampa during the late 90s between Florida and Tampa. 8 fights, 3 of them involving Enrico Ciccone. These four guys in front of me were riding Cory ALL night, taunting him every time he touched the puck. Anyways, on one play a Lighting player was hit VERY hard into the glass and knocked out, leading to a huge brawl. The arena erupted into jeers and everyone was pumped up. All of the sudden, one of the four guys went “Oh its okay, it was only Cory.” And all four promptly sat back down again, calmly sipping their beers and waiting for play to resume, despite the rest of the arena calling for blood.
This trade irks me to no end. Toronto traded for Murphy from Pittsburgh, and the guy recorded 60 points. As a DEFENSEMAN. And Leaf fans rode him mercilessly. I’m pretty sure the last Leaf defenseman to do that was Al Iafrate in 89-90, and I don’t think it happened again until Bryan McCabe two seasons ago (and look how beloved he is). Anyways, the Leafs were SO desparate to get rid of Murphy that Detroit simply had to pay 2/3 of what was left on his contract. That’s right; the Leafs paid 1/3 of Murphy’s salary AND got nothing in return. And all he did was score 171 points over the next four seasons and win two Stanley Cups. And DURING those two Cup wins, he scored 26 points in 42 games for the Wings. ARGH.
#11: Toronto trades Kenny Jonsson, Sean Haggerty, Darby Hendrickson and a 1st Round Pick in 1997 (Roberto Luongo) to the New York Islanders for Wendel Clark, Mathieu Schneider and D.J. Smith.
Okay, first off you can COMPLETELY ignore the fact that the Islanders selected Luongo. There is no guarantee that the Leafs would have picked him. Had the Leafs owned Luongo’s rights and traded HIM to New York, then this trade would be much higher on the list. Anyways, fans were SCREAMING for Wendel to return to Toronto, and ownership sadly listened. Clark got 15 points in 13 games after returning, and then scored 30 goals the next season. But Fletcher alledgely turned down an offer of a 1st rounder from Pittsburgh for Clark that year, uttering the infamous “draft-shmaft” quote. Clark played one more mediocre season in Toronto before leaving as a free agent. Meanwhile, while Haggerty was a bust and Hendrickson was back in Toronto the next season, Kenny Jonsson was a fixture in New York for a decade. He played 597 games for New York, recording 232 points, many of them in a time where quality Leafs blueliners were few and far between. Never mind the first rounder; Jonsson was a rare gem; a Leafs draft pick that blossomed, and played quality hockey for nearly a decade. Mathieu Schneider is the only reason this trade wasn’t in the “Top” 10; he was solid for the Leafs, and then traded for Alex Karpovtsev, who in turn brought in Bryan McCabe. Still, an awful trade compounded by the fact that Clark walked for nothing, and he could have brought a first rounder back.
I know this was a longer read for a blog, but like I said; I’m a long-time Leafs fan, and this blog has finally given me a forum to vent on just how frustrating it can be to BE a Leafs fan at time. I hope you’ve enjoyed Part 1; Part 2 (Trades #6-10) is posted here, and Part 3 (Trades #1-5) is posted here. Feedback is always welcome!
July 28, 2008 Posted by the1jasontaylor | Sports | Doug Gilmour, Harold Ballard, Hockey, Hockey Trades, Maple Leafs, NHL, Stanley Cup, Toronto, Toronto Maple Leafs, Wendel Clark | 7 Comments
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Bio: Wilding, Mr./Mrs. Burford (7 Nov. 1940)
Contact: Crystal Wendt
Email: crystal@wiclarkcountyhistory.org
Surnames: Wilding, Gerhardt, Gower, Albaugh, Carter, Irish, Raine, Dodte, Allen, Millard, Longenecker, Sellers, Butterfield, Erickson, DeMert
----Sources: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark County, Wis.) Thurs., 7 Nov. 1940
A wedding reception was held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. A. E. Wilding Sunday for Mr. and Mrs. Buford Wilding. The guests included: Mr. and Mrs. M. E. Wilding, Mr. and Mrs. J. O. Wilding, Mr. and Mrs. Wilding Gerhardt and family, Mr. and Mrs. Lee Gower of Granton, Mr. and Mrs. George Albaugh and Lucile Wilding, Mr. and Mrs. Hubert Carter, Marshfield; Mr. and Mrs. Harold Irish, Mr. and Mrs. Everett Raine and family, Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Dodte, Mr. and Mrs. Lee Allen, Mr. and Mrs. Ed. Millard and daughter, Rev. and Mrs. George Longenecker, Mr. and Mrs. Nate Sellers, Mrs. Belle Butterfield, Morris Erickson and Mr. and Mrs. E. DeMert.
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