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Batty, Francis de Witt (1879–1961)
Francis de Witt Batty, n.d.
State Library of Queensland
Francis de Witt Batty (1879-1961), Anglican bishop, was born on 10 January 1879 at Waltham Green, London, youngest son of Rev. William Edmund Batty and his wife Frances Beatrice, née Jebb. Named after his mother's ancestor, the Dutch patriot Jan de Witt, he was usually known by his second name. Waltham was a poor parish and in 1892 his father accepted the living of Finchley in a residential district of London. The change of surroundings and his education at St Paul's School in 1890-97 helped to give him that ease of movement amid the governing classes which was to be one of his chief characteristics. He entered Balliol College, Oxford, graduating with a second-class in Litterae Humaniores in 1902 (M.A., 1905).
Balliol exercised a decisive influence on Batty who responded with a lifelong affection for the college. He was a wide and intelligent reader all through his life; he was not a professional scholar but Oxford gave him a sound understanding of philosophy, classical literature and some history. More important, he made friends with men who were to be future leaders in church and state, became aware of Britain's imperial obligations and opportunities, and acquired that sense of high moral responsibility combined with an aloofness of manner and a rueful acknowledgment of the weaknesses of lesser mortals which he always retained.
Family influence and the impression made by a junior undergraduate, William Temple, later archbishop of Canterbury, were important in Batty's decision to enter the Church. He declined an offer to read theology at Balliol and in 1902 entered Wells Theological College. Here he obtained an insight into the corporate spiritual life, was grounded in liberal religious learning and came to disdain those Church 'parties' whose contests were then particularly virulent. On 4 October 1903 he was made deacon and became an assistant curate at Hornsey, a London suburb. His vicar, St Clair Donaldson, gave Batty thorough tuition in his craft. When Donaldson was appointed bishop of Brisbane in 1904, Batty went as his domestic chaplain and secretary. Priested by the Bishop of London on 29 May he reached Brisbane on 19 December.
Batty lived at the official residence with the bachelor archbishop and was soon asked to assist in much of the administration of the diocese. He also helped at the cathedral, took religious instruction classes and in 1909-16 edited the Brisbane Church Chronicle and lectured at St Francis's (Theological) College. Significantly, he accompanied Donaldson, and sometimes represented him, at meetings with governors, politicians and ecclesiastics. He acquired a wide knowledge of the workings of church and state, an easy familiarity, which he treasured, with important people, and a somewhat Olympian attitude, enhanced by his quizzical sense of humour, to local problems and personalities. He probably learned little about 'grass-roots' conditions—his attitude to local radicalism and later to the conscription referenda made this evident.
Although he could never wholly identify himself with Queensland, Batty's sense of commitment became deeper. He was made sub-dean and canon residentiary of St John's Cathedral in 1916, and as such took over the whole responsibility for the running of the cathedral and was closely involved in the St Martin's War Memorial Hospital Appeal. He spoke frequently in the diocesan synod and represented his diocese in the wider councils of the Church. While lamenting what seemed to be a decline in standards, he worked vigorously for the Australian College of Theology, becoming a fellow in 1924. He published pamphlets on Church reunion and the ministry of healing. When Donaldson was translated to Salisbury in 1921, Batty, though severely tempted, chose not to follow him home. His relations with the new archbishop, Gerald Sharp, were generally good. With Rev. C. T. Dimont, he publicly stated his debt to his mentor in St. Clair Donaldson … (London, 1939). Meanwhile, his links with Queensland became stronger. On 7 January 1925 he married Elizabeth Meredith Davis (1893-1972), matron of St Martin's Hospital. That year he became dean of Brisbane and in 1930 succeeded his friendly rival H. F. Le Fanu as coadjutor bishop. He retained his deanship and acted as administrator of the diocese in Sharp's absence.
Batty was elected bishop of Newcastle, New South Wales, and enthroned on 3 March 1931. He thought it 'the most enviable diocese in Australia': compact in area but varied in composition, with a strong intellectual tradition, a good supply of clergy and a large endowment in a pastoral property. He had family ties with the district and had long venerated the founder-bishop William Tyrrell. He rejected the chance of becoming bishop of Adelaide in 1941.
In depression-ridden Newcastle, Batty encouraged the registrar and diocesan trustees to reduce reliance on the endowment and to provide for greater financial responsibility by the parishes. While this policy freed funds for special projects and promoted parochial self-reliance, it bore hardly on the weaker areas. He was less successful in coping directly with the problems of people in mining parishes—he lacked the common touch of his predecessor G. M. Long but was made acutely aware of the challenge to the Church posed by current social issues.
Batty found at St John's College, Morpeth, a group of scholars, including E. H. Burgmann, Roy Lee and A. P. Elkin, who, in a series of publications, were trying to relate Christianity to modern developments in sociology, politics and international affairs. His meeting with Temple during a visit to Britain in 1933 stimulated his own thinking on these lines. In 1955 the college came under the sole control of Newcastle and he hoped that a connexion would be set up with the new university college. Under him Newcastle became a focal point for earnest thinking about contemporary issues in a Christian context. During World War II the Christian Social Order Movement received strong support and Batty himself, stimulated by a Roman Catholic journalist and under the enthusiastic patronage of the governor, Lord Wakehurst, initiated 'Religion and Life Week'. Batty became a radio broadcaster of distinction, although he failed to secure a licence for a Church radio station at Newcastle. At the 1948 Lambeth Conference, he played a considerable part in social justice discussions and was not committed to a distinct secular position. His (Bishop) Moorhouse lectures in 1939 had made it clear that he held to traditional propositions; they were published as Human Nature (Sydney, 1941). He criticized the conservative stance in theology and politics but he was also a strong critic of some Labor government policies of the 1940s.
Batty was associated with Donaldson in early discussions for reform of the 'legal nexus' between Australian dioceses and the Church of England and emerged as a proponent of the draft constitution first tabled in 1926. Although consistently English in his loyalties, he actively opposed those who feared the jurisdictional independence of an Australian Anglican tribunal. He always disliked extremes of churchmanship and the ecclesiastical quarrels motivated by them. In the later 1940s he supported strongly, though with some compunction, Bishop Wylde of Bathurst in the 'Red Book' case, fearing a revival of divisions over ritual. By 1945 Batty had emerged as the 'minister in charge of the Bill' (as he termed himself). Despite patient negotiation he had to confess by 1950 that the prospect of agreement seemed remote, but enough consensus was reached in 1955 for legislative action to begin. He was widely regarded as one of the principal architects of the constitution which was received in 1961. He also favoured an ecumenical approach and was a persistent exponent of discussions about Christian reunion. From 1937 he belonged to a group of Anglican and Protestant churchmen who studied possible bases of agreement, although he remained reluctant to proceed too rapidly.
In the 1950s Batty remained active, travelling overseas, and promoting new lines of Christian thought. It is probable that his diocese, faced with post-war problems of expansion and finance, would have benefited more by his direct attention, but he became increasingly content to leave these affairs to his subordinates. He did not resign until 1958, when he was in his eightieth year, and then presided over the synod which elected his successor. Batty lived in quite active retirement at Double Bay, Sydney. Survived by his wife, he died on 3 April 1961 and was buried in Morpeth cemetery, next to W. Tyrrell, whom he had commemorated in a short play, and whose centenary of appointment he had celebrated with much ceremony in 1947.
A. P. Elkin, The Diocese of Newcastle (Syd, 1955)
Church of England (Brisbane), Reports of the Proceedings of Synod, 1904-30, and General Synod, Proceedings, 1905-60
‘Synod reports’, Church of England, Diocese of Newcastle Year Book, 1930-58
F. de W. Batty, Memoirs (Diocesan Registry, Newcastle)
Batty papers (St James's Church, Sydney)
Elgin papers (privately held)
Verney papers (privately held)
Wakehurst papers (State Library of New South Wales)
Wylde-Batty correspondence (Diocesan Registry, Bathurst, New South Wales).
Taylor, Alexander John (brother-in-law)
K. J. Cable, 'Batty, Francis de Witt (1879–1961)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/batty-francis-de-witt-5155/text8649, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 16 July 2019.
Anglican bishop
magazine/journal editor
radio religious broadcaster
religious writer
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Grattan, Clinton Hartley (1902–1980)
by Laurie Hergenhan
Clinton Hartley Grattan (1902-1980), journalist, author, historian and commentator on foreign affairs, was born on 19 October 1902 at Wakefield, near Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, son of Leonard Grattan, journeyman baker, and his wife Laura, née Campbell, both from Nova Scotia, Canada. His forebears were Scots, English, Irish and French-Swiss, the patronymic supposedly being changed from Gratteau to Grattan. Hartley deeply admired his maternal grandfather, a subsistence farmer and mineworker. His family background contributed to his pro-labour views and to his sense of being something of an 'outsider' in American society, though he always identified strongly, if critically, with the better aspects of American democracy.
Failing to gain a place at Harvard University, Grattan nevertheless valued his Alma Mater, Clark College, Clark University (A.B., 1923), Worcester. His most influential teacher was Harry Elmer Barnes, a polymath and a crusader for radical causes. Grattan saw himself as inheriting the left-liberalism of Barnes and others who sought to harness the social sciences in a struggle for social justice. By temperament, background and education, Grattan became a dissenter with a liking for combative polemics and a belief in ranging across the disciplines. He was a proponent of American cultural independence in the debates of the 1920s and subsequently a supporter of parallel impulses in Australian culture.
In 1925 he took up journalism in New York, having already begun writing iconoclastic articles on American literary figures for H. L. Mencken's American Mercury. On 22 October 1926, in New York, Grattan married with Unitarian forms Beatrice Kuper, an actress who used 'Kay' as her stage surname; they were to be divorced in 1937. He published three books in 1929 and more followed. While pursuing a career as an Americanist, he had visited Australia in 1927 when he accompanied Beatrice who was touring with the musical, Sunny. He devoted himself to learning about the 'new' country—which he felt could not be as dull as it seemed—by collecting books and reading widely in its literature. Although he made no contact with the intellectual community, he regarded Australia as a fascinating 'experiment' in democracy. The outcome was a slim booklet, Australian Literature (Seattle, 1929), one of the earliest attempts to synthesize nineteenth- and twentieth-century literary history so as to establish what was characteristically 'Australian'.
His essay earned the immediate interest of such writers as Miles Franklin, Nettie Palmer and Katharine Susannah Prichard because it detected a promise of distinctiveness in Australian literature and did not see it as a branch of Anglo-European culture. In his voluminous later writing, much of it in leading New York journals and newspapers, he expanded his interests into socio-cultural questions, politics, economics and international relations. The span and tone of his work appealed to Australian artists and intellectuals who promoted their country's independence in the 1930s and 1940s.
Among them were people whom Grattan met on his next and most substantial visit to Australia—made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation—in December 1936-September 1938: besides Franklin, Palmer and Prichard, he met Bert Evatt, Brian Fitzpatrick, Brian Penton, Sir Herbert Gepp, Percy Stephensen, Keith Duncan, William Macmahon Ball, and the economists Colin Clark and (Sir) John Crawford, his friend thereafter. Through Geoffrey Remington, Grattan forged links with the Australian Institute of Political Science. He published influential articles in the institute's journal, the Australian Quarterly, on Joseph Furphy (as an inspirational radical nationalist) and on Australian society's lack of self-definition and direction. Grattan lamented the country's conservatism in the late 1930s.
Following a speculative and influential article, 'An Australian-American Axis?' in Harper's Magazine (May 1940), he again visited Australia for nearly two months in 1940. His brief was to report on wartime conditions and opinion in Australasia. He produced a 49-page typescript, 'Australia and New Zealand Today', which was confidentially circulated in both countries, and which summed up their situations and future possibilities. Introducing Australia (New York, 1942) resulted from both his 1936-38 and 1940 tours. An accessible, professionally informed, generalist study, the book was widely read and served not only to introduce Australia to Americans, but, as Franklin pointed out, to interest Australians in their own country. It also appealed to younger nationalists, such as Geoffrey Serle and Stephen Murray-Smith.
In the mid- and late 1930s Grattan had moved farther to the left, without becoming a communist supporter. He married a former sweetheart Marjorie Sinclair Campbell on 3 June 1939 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In January 1942 he was appointed an analyst with the Board of Economic Warfare, Washington, a sign at last of his official recognition as an American expert on Australian affairs. Chaired by Martin Dies, a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives (which was investigating un-American activities) accused Grattan of being both a communist and a Nazi sympathizer, forcing him to resign in April. This bitter disappointment threw him back on freelance journalism in New York. He consequently experienced financial difficulties and moved with his family to nearby Katonah.
After being employed by the Ford Foundation in the 1950s, Grattan produced The Southwest Pacific to 1900 and The Southwest Pacific Since 1900 (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1963) which he and Sir Keith Hancock regarded as his magnum opus. The work was an ambitious synthesis and drew on a lifetime's study. It was well received, but some reviewers pointed out its limitations as a generalist history in which the component parts—Australia, New Zealand, 'the Islands' and Antarctica—tended to coexist separately. The approach, especially in 'the Islands', lacked a post-colonial perspective that characterized the work of later historians.
In 1964 the University of Texas at Austin bought Grattan's vast collection of Australiana and South Pacificana, which had become legendary among his steady stream of visitors from Australia. He accepted a post at the university as curator of his collection, with some lecturing duties in history; later made professor, he retired in 1974. On his seventh and final visit to Australia in 1977, he received an honorary LL.D. from the Australian National University in belated recognition of his contribution to the study of Australian culture. Survived by his wife, and their son and three daughters, he died on 25 June 1980 at Austin.
Grattan's wish that his ashes be scattered over Sydney Harbour testified to his extraordinarily enduring attachment to Australia. The country's most important foreign observer, he was, as Serle has said, its most persistent, productive and embracing.
D. Oliphant (ed), Perspectives on Australia (Austin, Texas, US, 1989)
L. Hergenhan, No Casual Traveller (Brisb, 1995), and for publications
Meanjin Quarterly, 33, no 3, Sept 1974, p 229
Overland, 121, Summer 1990, p 70
J. J. Healy, Bibliography of Grattan's Writings (manuscript) and Grattan papers (Grattan Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centre, University of Texas at Austin).
Henry, Alice (friend)
Franklin, Stella Maria Sarah Miles (friend)
Laurie Hergenhan, 'Grattan, Clinton Hartley (1902–1980)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/grattan-clinton-hartley-10343/text18311, published first in hardcopy 1996, accessed online 16 July 2019.
Wakefield, Massachusetts, United States of America
Austin, Texas, United States of America
Australiana collector
contemporary-affairs commentator
historian (general)
literary critic
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2014, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, 169 min, USA, Dir: Christopher Nolan
In the not-too-distant future, life on Earth can no longer sustain itself. It’s up to Cooper, a pilot-turned reluctant farmer-turned astronaut, to lead a team into space to look for new worlds to inhabit. Combining family drama with eye-popping visuals and mind-expanding philosophical inquiry, Nolan’s sci-fi epic stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow and Michael Caine and won an Oscars for its stunning visual effects. “An enormous undertaking that, like all the director’s best work, manages to feel handcrafted and intensely personal, “Interstellar” reaffirms Nolan as the premier big-canvas storyteller of his generation, more than earning its place alongside THE WIZARD OF OZ, 2001, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and GRAVITY in the canon of Hollywood’s visionary sci-fi head trips.” - Scott Foundas, Variety.
Emma Thomas
Lynda Obst
Jonathan Nolan
Hoyte Van Hoytema
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Stories indexed with the term ‘seventh hour’
Column: The Case for Free Public Schools
By Ruth Kraut
Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan – along with two plaintiffs – filed suit against the Ann Arbor Public Schools for the school district’s plan to charge students who want to take a seventh class in a semester.
Ruth Kraut
The lawsuit argues that the Michigan Constitution requires a free public education for all Michigan students, and that charging for a seventh hour is unconstitutional. Kary Moss, ACLU of Michigan executive director, outlined the position in an ACLU press release: “Allowing this model to continue will open the floodgates for any district in the state to charge for every conceivable part of their students’ education creating a two-tiered system in which students who have money get ahead, while those who do not fall behind.”
In early June, I wrote my first column for The Chronicle, about three aspects of the AAPS budget proposal. ["Column: Disparate Impact of AAPS Cuts?"] One of the areas I wrote about was seventh hour, a term that refers to the option of taking a seventh class during a semester, rather than the more standard six classes.
I was concerned about issues of equity – about Skyline students being able to acquire 7.5 credits in a year without paying, while Pioneer and Huron students could only earn 6 credits in a year for free. I was concerned about students losing access to the arts. I was concerned about disparate impacts.
I assumed that – as with many other proposals – this idea was poorly conceived, but legal.
A couple of days after my column was published in The Chronicle, I talked with the ACLU’s Kary Moss. (Full disclosure: Kary is a friend of mine, and we frequently discuss education issues. And that first Ann Arbor Chronicle column ended up as “Exhibit 4” in the ACLU complaint.)
Kary suggested to me that she was concerned about seventh hour, too – because she believed the move to charge tuition was unconstitutional.
Unconstitutional?! That thought had not even occurred to me. [Full Story]
Column: Disparate Impact of AAPS Cuts?
Editor’s note: This marks the launch of a new column in The Chronicle, focused on Ann Arbor Public Schools and other educational issues. Readers might know Ruth Kraut from her commentary on Ann Arbor Schools Musings, where she’s been writing about these issues for several years. For recent background on The Chronicle’s coverage of AAPS, see “Milestone: Why You Keep Running a Marathon.”
Next week, the board of the Ann Arbor Public Schools will need to cut about 5% from the district’s budget. That’s a reduction of about $8.6 million. Teachers have already taken a 3% pay cut.
Per-pupil funding for next year ($9,025) will be less than the per-pupil funding of 12 years ago in 2001-2002 ($9,034). So it’s no surprise that we’re at the point where cuts are painful. Cutting teachers, cutting programs – none of it is happy news. There will be consequences. The question is, what kind of consequences?
In the civil rights world, a “disparate impact” occurs when a policy is non-discriminatory in its intent but affects a “protected class” of people in a disproportionate way. In Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, for example, these protected classes include race, religion, color, national origin, age, sex, height, weight, and marital status.
AAPS is a district with a large achievement gap – between white students and African American and Hispanic/Latino students. And this gap has persisted for many years. Although in state civil rights law, income is not a protected status, income is highly correlated with race, age, and marital status. District-wide, there is also an achievement gap that is related to income: Poor kids are more likely to do poorly in school.
So it’s important to consider the AAPS budget from a perspective of potential disparate impacts. On the surface, the proposed budget cuts treat all students equally. But if we look deeper, would we find that certain budget cuts worsen – or perhaps improve – the achievement gap?
Three proposed budget cuts have raised a significant amount of opposition this year: (1) eliminating high school transportation; (2) cutting reading intervention teachers; and (3) cutting seventh hour or making it a tuition-only option. Together, these three account for just under $1.5 million of the $8.6 million in cuts. Do these cuts, in particular, have a disparate impact on any groups? [Full Story]
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Building values-based leadership and civic engagement in California’s youth is important to me. That is why I am proud to volunteer for California YMCA Youth & Government.
California YMCA Youth & Government has provided outstanding statewide educational and social experiences close to 100,000 middle and high school youth for more than 70 years.
Together we can achieve so much more. Every gift makes a difference. Everyone has a role to play. Please join me and give today.
Join George's Team!
Team YMCA
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Tyler Wright
YMCA of Greater Long Beach
Glendale YMCA
Home Start a Team Join a Team Register as a Campaigner Give Contact Us
The mission of California YMCA Youth & Government is to build values-based leadership and civic engagement in California’s youth to strengthen our democracy.
©2019 YMCA of the USA. All rights reserved.
http://www.facebook.com/YOUTHandGOVERNMENT,http://www.twitter.com/calymca,http://www.youtube.com/user/calymca The mission of California YMCA Youth & Government is to build values-based leadership and civic engagement in California’s youth to strengthen our democracy.
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UH Habitat for Humanity designs 'ultimate playhouse'
Katie McEvily
A playhouse would have been a unique addition to this year's Frontier Fiesta, but a lack of funds has put a damper on the festivities.
Since last semester, the University of Houston Habitat for Humanity has worked on designs for an ultimate play space. This playhouse was meant to be constructed for display at Frontier Fiesta, where interested buyers could bid on it during a silent auction.
With only a week left to build and still no resources, however, Habitat was forced to change its plans.
"It didn't happen because we'd been looking for donations, and kind of surprisingly, we didn't get any," said Habitat president Damola Osinulu. "It would have been really great if we had been able to build it, but we really had no funds. Simply because of the nature of the organization, we have to rely on other people to fund us."
The idea for a playhouse came about after the Architecture Alumni Association approached Habitat for volunteers on its second annual Archis' Icehouse at Frontier Fiesta. In return for contributing time and manpower to the festival booth, Habitat could promote its mission to the entire campus and possibly raise money for future projects.
"We've been looking for a way to get more UH students involved in (Habitat) activities, not just architecture students," Osinulu said. "I think there is room for improvement among the UH community."
The playhouse was also intended as a way to make Frontier Fiesta a more family-oriented affair.
"When you think about it, a lot of UH students are actually people with children," Osinulu added. "We thought this was a great way to have something for the kids."
The group of committed volunteer designers wanted their concept of the ultimate playhouse to be fresh and inventive.
The first schematic design centered around a reconfigureable system. Moveable components could be added or subtracted according to the size of the owner's backyard or the age of the child. Osinulu said the whole idea was that the play station wouldn't be a set system, but rather a system that could grow and change with a child's growth.
Based on a 9-foot cubic area surrounding the playhouse, final plans incorporated all the desired flexibility in a framework of four inch, by four inch, by 10 foot wood posts.
A treehouse would top off the play area. From there a child could explore other elements like crawling through a tube, climbing a cargo net, exiting on a slide or bobbing on a see-saw. The entire structure would also be set within a sandbox, again accommodating different age groups. As with any project, Habitat dealt with endless design possibilities.
"We had enough to start building, but a lot of the discovery, I think, would have been while we were building," Osinulu said. "But that's part of the fun. After all, it was also supposed to be a fun project for Habitat members."
Seeking donations from local lumberyards proved unsuccessful for the group. Osinulu admitted the budget was a bit too high, but certain factors could not be ignored. For instance, the necessary posts for construction had to be weather-treated, a more expensive type of wood.
Despite the contribution setbacks, Habitat has completed the designs and will be displaying them at Archis' Icehouse. Following earlier plans to auction the playhouse, a computer-rendered model and ink drawings will be set up for those wishing to make a silent bid.
Osinulu said the change in plans could not have worked out any better for the organization. From the sale, Habitat will keep the leftover funds to expand membership and avoid future predicaments that retard construction efforts. And until there is a buyer, deadline pressure is no longer an issue.
"Now we won't have to rush through the work," Osinulu said. "It's a fun experience, not just a tedious exercise."
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Tears for a Colonel
I've already written about becoming more wistful, misty-eyed since beginning HRT in June, but I had not experienced the torrent of uncontrollable tears that I have heard others describe. That changed today.
This morning I had a beautiful waking dream. It must have been 1970 or 1971, and in my dream I woke in the basement family room of my oldest sister's house in Oxon Hill, MD. I was on one of her orange couches, where I always slept when we came to visit. My nephew, then scarcely ten years old came bouncing into the room, and I thought he looked so funny in his plastic frame glasses. (That's the pot calling the kettle black, as I also wore large plastic frame glasses back then.) Then my brother-in-law breezed in, running to grab something from the back, followed by my sister. I felt so wonderful that I both laughed and cried to think what wonderful times those were even if I was not able to talk to anyone about my deepest troubles.
I woke fully to find myself in my bed here in Bucharest, happily sobbing uncontrollably and not able to stop. I would just get the tears to slow, and then I would think of my nephew again as he was in those days and as the fine man he has become. Again I was reaching for the Kleenex.
My nephew is a full army colonel today with his own family and young children. He has not said so to me directly, but I don't think he fully approves of these changes in his uncle. That's OK. I remember how he cried at my wedding in 1982, and my own tears start again.
By the time the floodgates closed, I had a large pile of Kleenex on the floor. I got up, dressed, and went for an easy early morning bike ride around the Bucharest Sea.
Now, as I write these words, my eyes again become misty. This is for you, nephew, tears for a colonel.
CSC: The Only Limitations Are the Ones You Bring with You -- or -- So How Far Back Does This Go? (Part 5)
Back from my first overseas adventure in the Soviet Union, in the fall of 1978 I was out of graduate school and in need of a job. At the time I thought I would just find something, anything, that would allow me to get by for two or three years and figure things out. Little did I know I was about to enter upon a career that lasted more than 25 years.
There it was, a full page ad in the Washington Post in August or September of 1978:
Wanted: Physicists, astronomers, and mathematicians with BS or higher degrees who know a little about programming to work on contracts with Goddard Space Flight Center.
I'm sure the real words of that ad were punchier, but that was the gist of it. I interviewed in October and started work the Monday after Thanksgiving, moving to Maryland and finding a room in a shared group house. On $14,000/year starting salary, I couldn't afford an apartment of my own.
CSC loved slogans. "CSC: Part of it, proud of it," was the most common one in corporate advertisements and on posters, but the one I liked most was:
CSC: The only limitations are the ones you bring with you.
How funny I thought that slogan was then, how much like the Soviet propaganda I had seen everywhere that summer. As the years went by, however, I came to see it not just as funny, but also as an ironically truthful description of my own life.
I've already described the fun I had through the years at CSC doing flight dynamics and attitude determination for missions starting with Magsat and ending with Hubble Space Telescope. I'm still friends with several of the people I met on my first day on the job in 1978, and some of them may be reading this today. Although we decry the heartlessness of corporate America, I felt that at least in work, I had a family, a wonderful group of people to work with and to laugh with.
Part of our "Tacky" Crew on the PASS Project for Hubble Space Telescope
In my personal life, I was willing myself to be normal. Here I am, at the start of a new job, living on my own with my own income, and with a clear path ahead if only. . . .
Lifespring, one of the EST-like self-improvement programs of the early 1980s, became the rage at CSC in 1980. One of the senior CSC analysts, in fact the very one who had interviewed me in 1978, took me out to lunch, trying to talk me into signing up for "The Basic." I resisted, but then he got me. "I know what your life is like," he said. "You go home to your hobbies, but I don't think you have ever gone on a date. You are all alone." I still said no, but then to spite him called Lifespring myself and registered the next day.
Over the next year I did the whole program. "The Basic" was followed by "IPE intermediate" and then "TC advanced." I now look back and think of Lifespring as psychology without a license conducted by charismatic facilitators whose real loyalty is to the company's bottom line, but Lifespring influenced me in dramatic ways that set my path for better or worse -- and I really do mean for both the very best and the very worst -- for years to come.
In the "TC advanced" program, we had small groups in which we were to help each other on our most important personal issues. Of course, I said not a word about the issue, but I willingly jumped at my group's suggestion that what I needed most was to date as many women as I could over the months of the program. No one could believe that I was still a virgin, in fact had never masturbated, and had never been on a real date. I became the group's mascot, as both the men and women urged me on, encouraging me at every step. I loved the attention, and I more than anyone else wanted this to work. "Surely my problem is that I have never even tried to live a normal life, isn't it? Surely if I start to meet women as men meet women, I will find what it is that I have never felt or understood?" Or, as Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote so simply two decades later, surely "Love will cure me?"
I filled and overfulfilled the plan. Well, OK, I was no Casanova, but over three or four months I had gone on at least a dozen full-fledged dates. My small group was all over me with cheers and hugs the day I announced I had lost my virginity.
So what was wrong with this picture? The night when I gave up my virginity, I felt it was all backwards. The roles were wrong. I did everything to give pleasure that I had read or been told about, but when the time came for my own pleasure, I found I couldn't care less. I wanted to be caressed and held in the way I had been doing the holding and caressing. As my partner started to look and wonder what was wrong, I closed my eyes and imagined a complete role reversal. Only then was I able to continue. That's the way it was that night, and that's the way it has been ever since. Of course, I said not a word. Surely, with time this will change?
I remember being taken one evening to Shepherd Park, a raw strip club on Georgia Avenue near the DC line. I had never been to such a club before. As the friend who brought me sat back with his beer to enjoy the show, I looked around and saw that the other guys in the dark club seemed to be having a wonderful time watching, tipping, and yelling encouragement to the dancers. I felt nothing, just a sense of wonder that anyone would come to such a show and commiseration with the bored expressions on the faces of the dancers. But I had earned another stripe on my road to normalcy.
Finally, one evening I was in the Lifespring office, making calls to people who had been to a guest event, trying to convince them to sign up for the full program. It was a slimy job that I did not enjoy, but eventually I made one call that was different. The young woman who answered had a slight accent, so after the Lifespring pitch, I asked where she was from. I found out she was a history graduate student doing research for a Ph.D. I forgot about Lifespring and started to talk about my own travels in the Soviet Union. We met face to face several weeks later at another Lifespring event, and eventually I invited her for dinner and to see the full six-hour Soviet film version of "War and Peace." I joined her at a political rally protesting U.S. involvement in Nicaragua or wherever it was that we were intervening at the time. "Wow," I thought, "Maybe this is what it's about, friendship based on mutual interests and caring?"
We were married in the summer of 1982. It was the best and worst decision of my life, and I suspect my spouse would say the same. We have a wonderful grown son, now age 22 and quite the independent, cultured, graceful, successful young man that every parent dreams of. We loved, we cried, we took care of aging relatives in their final days, and we made our home in Silver Spring the envy of our neighbors through never ending fix-it projects and renovations.
I entered the marriage without saying a word about my internal struggle, so convinced I was that through marriage and love and building a family, I would cure myself. "It" would simply go away, never to trouble me again. I could not have been more wrong. . . .
This is all I will say concerning my marriage that lasted from 1982 through 2007, although our divorce was final only in 2010 and was followed by post-divorce litigation that lasted into this year. I will, of course, write about what happened to me and the consequences through these years, but I respect my ex-spouse's privacy and feelings. I will never mention her name, where she came from, where she is today, or anything else that could even hint at her identity. I can only hope that someday there will be peace between us, that we can be in the same room for our son's marriage or for the birth of a grandchild.
How We Kidnapped Irina Nita
Did you know that we kidnapped Irina Nita? Now, before any of my Romanian readers call the police or ask Interpol to put out an all points bulletin, I hasten to inform you that Irina asked us to kidnap her. We only complied with her request by hijacking the Washington portion of the International Visitors Leadership (IVL) program that has just taken her to the U.S. for three weeks.
My readers outside Romania are probably asking, "Who is Irina Nita and what is this about kidnapping and hijacking?" Let me explain.
Irina Nita is executive director of ACCEPT, the Romanian national NGO for advancement of LGBT rights. I've had some involvement with ACCEPT for several months now, but I only met Irina about three weeks ago when I sat down to interview her for my U.S. Embassy report on the current situation and prospects for transgender individuals in Romania. At the end of our conversation, I asked if there was anything I could do for her, and she proceeded to tell me that she hopes to organize a specialist conference on transgender legal and medical issues in Bucharest next year. She said should would like to have American participation in this workshop but had no knowledge of or contacts in the U.S. transgender community. She asked if I could help her. She then added that she was about to travel to the U.S. on an IVL program sponsored by the U.S. State Department.
That was all I needed to get started on a hijack plan, but I knew I could not do it alone. I'm a beginner at this sort of thing, and I needed professional help for an operation of this sort. I turned to my "Oceans Eleven" team consisting of Anne Vonhof at the Office of Personnel Management, Chloe Schwenke at USAID, Shannon Doyle at MAGIC-DC, and my good Foreign Service friend Kay. They assembled the list of U.S. experts on transgender issues for Irina to meet. Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies (GLIFAA) with leadership from Policy Chief Paul Kim anointed us an ad-hoc GLIFAA committee. With that title, I approached the Public Diplomacy office at Embassy Bucharest. I got a cool reception at first and was told that Irina's schedule was already fixed with little possibility for change. I insisted, however, and they sent on our list of additional meetings to the program office in Washington.
A few days later I received an e-mail from Meg Poole at Meridian House. Meg, it turns out, was in charge of Irina's program. Not only was the Washington portion of the program not fixed, Meg was having trouble reaching anyone to set up meetings during the summer vacation season. Anne jumped right in with names and telephone numbers for people she knew were available. Mara Keisling from the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) started calling Meg as well, saying she was ready to meet Irina at almost any time or place. Kay stepped forward to host a luncheon for Irina with a number of transgender activists and specialists in attendance. In the end, we got transgender-related meetings set up for Irina at the Human Rights Campaign, USAID, NCTE, the Whitman Walker Clinic, and at a number of other organizations and government offices.
Irina will also travel to Atlanta, San Francisco, Des Moines, Atlanta, and Albany, New York, on what will be mainly an LGB itinerary. The Washington component, however, now has a decidedly T shade that it would not have had otherwise. At Irina's request we successfully cracked our way into an existing USG program and rearranged the parts. Never before have I so thoroughly enjoyed being part of a hijacking.
Travel well, Irina. Drum bun. It's "wheels up" in Bucharest. We'll see you in a few weeks.
PS -- Anne Vonhof managed to open more closed doors for us in Washington than I thought possible. The next time I stand in front of a locked bank vault, I want Anne next to me to speak the magic words.
Under Transylvanian Moons -- or -- So How Far Back Does This Go? (Part 4)
I just spent a weekend near Sighisoara in the heart of Transylvania. It was a homecoming of sorts to a place I never thought I would see again. I was there once before, 33 years ago to the week in August 1978.
This brings me to the second passion of my life, one that helped me to survive and find meaning when I was not yet ready to come to terms with myself. When I left UVa in 1976, I was at the start of my first great personal purge even if at the time I did not know that this was the term. Having failed to overcome my fears in college, I decided I could will this away if I just worked hard enough at it. That would be much simpler, wouldn't it, than coming out and dealing with the consequences? Over the next two years of graduate school at Yale, I was able to keep that resolve, more or less, but my interest in astronomy and in almost everything else waned. After two years, I decided that was it, that I was not PhD material. I took my MS degree in the spring of 1978 with no clear idea what I would do next.
What carried me through were things Russian. Incurable romantic, I first fell in love with things Russian when I saw the movie Doctor Zhivago in the late 1960s. Then I read short stories in translation in high school and began learning about Russian history. How strange, I thought, that a country and a people could evolve to be so different from us in the mid-20th century USA. When I entered UVa in 1972 and was told I had to take a language, I chose Russian.
I regretted my choice a few times that first year. Russian was far harder than any of the physics or math courses I took, but after two years I realized I was starting to get somewhere. It took me two months to work through Turgenev's First Love (Первая любовь) on my own, but from there I kept going. I wanted to read Chekhov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Bulgakov in the original. By the time I took my UVa degree in 1976, I had a double major: physics-astronomy and Russian language and literature. At Yale there was a young émigré actress who tried to put together a small amateur theater group. I was to play Bayan in Mayakovsky's The Bedbug (Клоп). We never did get that production to stage, but I still remember some of my lines. Олег Баян от счастья пьян. I also learned that as shy and scared as I was, there was at least one forum where I could lose my inhibitions.
At loose ends in the summer of 1978, I heard of an eccentric Russian language professor from Boston College who ran a small touring company called Pioneer Travel (www.pioneerrussia.com/about_pioneer.php) that ran summer driving and camping tours across the Soviet Union from the Baltic to the Black Sea. I got the last seat available on one of the four VW minivans that were to set out that summer, and I camped out in Boston's Logan Airport to get a $99 first come, first served ticket on PanAm to Amsterdam.
Part of our Merry Little Crew, 1978
From the Netherlands we made our way through Germany and Scandinavia, finally crossing into the Soviet Union from Finland. A few hours after crossing the border, I found myself walking the streets of Leningrad at this, the height of the White Nights. I felt I had landed on another planet. Everything, absolutely everything was so different from what I had grown up with. I remember clearly trying to explain to one of the first Russians I met what were the strange things, such as driver's license and a checkbook, that I was carrying with me. I remember how hard many of the people I met tried to explain to me their reality. It was the beginning of a love affair that has never died.
Transylvania by Train & Bike 2011
I have come to think of the transgender journey as one of transitioning cultures, traveling from one country to another. We grow up in one culture and are expected to abide by its rules and strictures, but if we prepare ourselves well enough for the journey, we can live in another culture and come to feel as comfortable in it as in the culture we were born into, perhaps even more so. It was walking the streets of Leningrad in the summer of 1978 that I first came to feel on my own skin that the reality I had been surrounded by since birth was not the only reality. I knew and could see with my own eyes that the Soviet system was deeply flawed, but I also saw that there was a positive side I had never known about, a side that was missing from my own society.
Transylvanian Country Roads
I will have cause to come back again and again to things Russian and the role they played in helping me find my way both then and later, but for now let me return to Transylvania.
We crossed the border from the Soviet Union into Romania on August 17. My friends in Romania may be particularly surprised to read my first impressions from my journal that day:
It was perhaps 6:00pm that we entered our first large Romanian town, Bacau. I must have forgotten what life was like outside the Soviet Union, for I was shocked at what I saw here. The main street was clean, wide, and modern. The buildings were new and stylish, unaffected by Soviet instant aging. Store windows were filled with consumer goods; the people were well dressed. Most surprising, there were no long Soviet lines.
Clock Tower in Saschiz
The next day we drove on to Sighisoara and wandered the ancient, non-touristed streets of the old town in the fading evening twilight. I felt I had gone back through the centuries. We camped that night under a full moon.
With Ancha, 2011
What would I have thought then if anyone told me I would return to Transylvania exactly 33 years later? More than this, at that time when I was doing my best to bury my transgender side, could I have imagined that on this return visit I would be betwixt and between, but more Robyn than my former self? It was a beautiful, tranquil weekend of riding my bicycle through the lush, rolling hills, enjoying long talks with the inn-keeper Ancha, and just being at peace. The moon was full. Another circle had closed.
Posted by Robyn Ann Jane Alice McCutcheon at 10:04 PM No comments: Links to this post
WahooWa! -- or -- So How Far Back Does This Go? (Part 3)
In Part 1 of "So How Far Back Does this Go?" I wrote:
Let me return to the diary I kept in college. I never did "find myself tearing out these two pages at some time in the future," but the entire volume I kept in 1975 is missing. That was the year in which I made my first abortive attempt to come out, dressing in public and corresponding with the gender clinic at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. I know I wrote my heart out that year.
1972-76 for me were the years of "WahooWa!" -- the rallying cry of the University of Virginia. I traded New York City for sleepy Charlottesville, Virgina, the home of UVa, the "Princeton of the South," known also as The University or Mr. Jefferson's University. Thomas Jefferson's home Monticello is here, and it is said that Mr. Jefferson -- he always was and always will be Mr. Jefferson to students -- watched through a telescope as the university he designed was built in the valley below his home. In my mind I can almost see him at the eyepiece, studying at a distance to see if his architectural plans were being followed.
The Lawn at The University
For most Americans the college years are a chance to spread one's wings and start living a semi-independent life in a dormitory or apartment and learning what it means to open a bank account, cook one's own dinner, and in general find out just what is involved in living on one's own. It is a time of experimentation and wildness along with study and preparation for a future life.
I entered The University to fulfill my dream of becoming an astronomer. I chose a joint major in physics and astronomy. I took my first paying job as a night observer at the Leander McCormick Observatory with its historic 19th century, 26-inch Alvan Clark refracting telescope. I worked shifts that went from sunset to 10pm or from 2am to sunrise. During those shifts I had the observatory to myself as I loaded photographic plates and maneuvered the telescope to photograph star fields for the Astronomy Department's parallax program to determine star distances. Although Virginia is a southern state, it could get very cold in that unheated dome on winter nights. Sometimes I would welcome a bank of clouds that would give me an excuse to retreat to the heated office next door. There I would rummage through drawers and cabinets, a treasure trove of astronomical history. I was always on my own, and I was often dressed entirely in female clothing.
In Charlottesville I no longer had my sister's wardrobe to experiment with, but I had my own bank account and could buy what I wanted. I was too afraid to go into the women's departments at local stores, but I lived for the mail order catalogs from Sears and Montgomery Wards. I would save my money, place my order, and wait for the notice in the mailbox that I should come to the post office to pick up a parcel.
Leander McCormick Observatory
I was still young, shy, and scared. I dressed at home and at work and on the three mile walk to and from the observatory. On those walks I would choose the darkest path where I was pretty sure I wouldn't meet anyone. Terrified of encountering a professor or classmate who knew me, I would turn on my heels and walk the other way if I saw anyone coming in my direction. I did not understand that I could have passed easily with just a little work. Back then, contact was to be avoided. If there was a knock on the door of my apartment, I would pretend I was not home. No one was allowed into this secret world, a world that scared me to death even as I wished it could be my world in reality.
And as this was going on in my private life, I took the full math sequence through partial differential equations and physics through quantum mechanics. I fell in love with the Russian language. (That is a story for another installment.) I wasn't in the top tier of students by any means, but when I "took my degree" -- UVa-speak for graduation -- it was with high honors.
When the weather was nice, I loved to read the New York Times on Sunday afternoons in one of the formal gardens on the university grounds. A watershed event in my life took place one Sunday in 1975 when the New York Times Review of Books published a review of Conundrum by Jan Morris. I remember shaking from excitement. Just from the review I understood that I was not alone. Transsexualism was not just Christine Jorgensen, a character in a Gore Vidal novel, and a handful of rumors. Here was a respected British writer and journalist -- a person who had ascended Everest with Hillary in 1953 -- who was writing openly and honestly about her transition from James to Jan in mid-life.
At the Focal Plane of the 26-inch Refractor
When Conundrum made it to the University's Alderman Library, I read it cover to cover in a single sitting. I was enthralled and in tears. In the weeks to come I wrote and wrote in my diary as I got the nerve to read everything I could about transsexuality in the university's science and medical libraries. In the pre-Internet days, everything depended on the library, and UVa had good ones. I learned of a Gender Identity Clinic at Johns Hopkins and wrote there, receiving back an invitation to come in and talk.
But I never followed through. Even when I learned that sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) was being performed at the UVa medical center, I was too afraid to walk through the door. The only son of my father, a self-made man who had great expectations for his children, I could not overcome the fear of coming out. In my high school years I would write notes to my Dad, telling him things I was too fearful to tell him face to face. I would place the notes in his briefcase, only to retrieve them later for fear that they might actually be read. With that level of fear, how was I going to talk about THIS out loud? There were no support groups for gays that I knew of in Charlottesville, let along transgender, a word that hadn't even been coined yet. I would feel ashamed to knock on the door of a psychologist. Who would stand behind me? Who would hold my hand? Surely everyone would abandon me, declaring me insane? Maybe they would be right to think me so?
This, my first non-coming out, turned into my first purge. I had been accepted for graduate school at Yale, and in a matter of weeks my Mom, Dad, and sisters would be coming to Charlottesville for my graduation and to pack me up for the move north. I gathered together my small wardrobe, carefully wrapping everything into bundles, and walked a long distance to a deposit them in a dumpster from which I knew I would not be able to retrieve them.
Looking back today, I wish I could hug that young, scared person who was me in 1976. Little did she know how much she would have to go through, how many torments lay in store, how much she would hurt and how she would hurt those she loved. It's probably good she didn't know. It would have been too much to bear.
I went off to New Haven, Connecticut, fully purged and with a simplistic belief that I could just wish this away by paying it no mind and keeping my eyes on the task at hand. Being "cured" seemed so much easier and desirable than dealing with this.
But my interest in astronomy flagged as my romance for the night sky met the reality of a Ph.D. program. My overall interest in living fell to a low that I would try to hide with a smile. I could purge my wardrobe, but I could not purge my mind. It's then that I began to think of transsexuality as the white noise of my life. Like the 3-deg background radiation that permeates the Universe in all directions as an echo of the Big Bang, so this was everywhere. The best I could do was drown out the noise with other noise that comes with over-achievement and overwork. I didn't know then that I had begun a cycle, that just over a decade later I would feel a life and death necessity of talking to someone, to anyone who would listen and help ease the pain. When I finally did cross that line, the results were even more terrible than I had feared in 1976. . . .
But that is a story for another installment of "So How Far Back Does this Go?" Like most Americans, I look back with nostalgia at my college years, and I have a special place in my heart for Charlottesville, The University, and Leander McCormick Observatory. For the first time I timidly tried to be me, and for a brief moment I got close. My "WahooWa" was a timid, scared one, but I look back now and realize that as timid as it was, the voice was really, truly mine.
Interlude: Bucharest by Bicycle
Graffiti: Moldova is Romania
Many old friends and colleagues from my years on Hubble are probably wondering, "Is she still riding that bicycle, or has this T thing taken over her life with the speed of a overloaded tandem careening down a mountain road without brakes?" To all assembled lovers of two wheels I hereby declare, I'm still riding.
1989 Revolution Began Near Here
There's a deeply embedded T side to my riding a bicycle that almost no one would have guessed, but I will get to that in one of my "So How Far Back Does this Go?" entries. For the moment I just want to share the joy of riding in Bucharest, where this summer I have again become an urban cyclist as I once was for many years in the Washington, DC, area. I ride my bike to the Embassy in the morning. It's not even three miles from my home, but having the bicycle at work means I'm ready to go when the workday ends. I ride to my electrologist appointments, I ride to the market, and I ride just to explore Bucharest and the immediate countryside. Unlike in Tashkent, where I had an $800USD Honda with no gas gauge, I own no motorized transportation here, and thus the inspiration to ride is all the greater.
Ceausescu's People's Palace
Concert Hall
Mind you, this is urban cycling, not a pleasant ride in the park, although there are also some very beautiful parks. Bucharest is a very busy city with too many cars, not much infrastructure, and too many drivers in a hurry. As in the Soviet Union, cars were out of reach to all except the lucky and well-positioned during communist times. This all changed after the revolutions of the late 1980s. When Ceausescu fell in December 1989 and the doors of capitalism opened wide, the Romanian love affair with the automobile began and has not abated despite gridlock traffic and excellent, fast public transit. Everyone just has to own a car. It's a status symbol of wealth and well-being.
Chased by a Truck
Riding a bike in central Bucharest on a workday is about the same as riding in Manhattan or in downtown Washington, DC, during rush hour. There is a laughable system of bike lanes on sidewalks that is entirely unusable because of pedestrians and cars parked on the sidewalks. (I could mount my soapbox and lecture that bike lanes on sidewalks are dangerous by definition and should be banned everywhere, but I'll resist the temptation. . . .) That means I'm in the traffic lanes with the cars and trucks just as I used to be in the U.S. and as I still appear on the cover of the Maryland Bicycle Safety Guide. Since there are scarcely any hills in Bucharest, I'm able to keep up with the motorized traffic for extended spurts. In the very center sometimes it is impossible even for a bicycle to make headway in the gridlock, and then I find myself walking the bike on the sidewalk with the pedestrians.
Romania's Arc de Triomphe
As always, riding a bicycle is a great way to explore, and that's what I like most on weekends. I've been here long enough now that I don't mind getting lost and then figuring out how to get back on familiar ground. Some of the nicest districts are those I discover by accident. Bucharest was once known as the Paris of the East, and there are still back streets where one can find the atmosphere of the inter-war city that once was.
A Quieter Ride
Will I continue riding when the snows of winter come? Probably not. I did that for years in the U.S., but I will now let you in on a secret: it's not fun. There is nothing like a 35F (2C) rain to soak and chill a body to the bone. (The trick, as Peter O'Toole says in Lawrence of Arabia, was in not minding it.) Here I will enjoy the warm, long days of summer riding and switch to metro, bus, trolley, and tram for the bad winter days.
Astronomers' Street
Question for future thought: Should I trade in my trusty Atlantis for a Terry? My bicycling friends will smile and say, "So, she had to end on a T note after all, didn't she?"
CSC: The Only Limitations Are the Ones You Bring ...
Under Transylvanian Moons -- or -- So How Far Back...
WahooWa! -- or -- So How Far Back Does This Go? (P...
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Search for tag "Zaynul-Muqarrabin"
1818 May Birth of Mullá Zaynu'l-`Ábidín (Zaynu'l-Muqarrabín), Apostle of Bahá'u'lláh, in Najafábád. Najafabad; Iran Zaynul-Muqarrabin (Mulla Zaynul-Abidin); Apostles of Bahaullah; Births and deaths
1851 (In the year) Mullá Zaynu'l-'Abidín (Zaynu'l-Muqarrabin), a prominent mujtahid, became a Bábí, in Najafábád. Najafabad; Iran Zaynul-Muqarrabin (Mulla Zaynul-Abidin)
1890. 15–20 Apr E. G. Browne was granted four successive interviews with Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí. [BBD43; BBR225; BKG371; GPB193]
See BBR225–32 for Browne's own account of the visit.
See BBR229–31, BKG371–3 and DH110 for Browne's pen portrait of Bahá'u'lláh.
'Abdu'l-Bahá gave Browne the manuscript of A Traveller's Narrative: the Episode of the Báb in the handwriting of Zaynu'l-Muqarrabín for him to translate. [EGB54, BW11p510]
BFA1:445; Balyuzi, Edward Granville Browne and The Bahá'í Faith and Momen, Selections From the Writings of E. G. Browne.
E.G. Browne was also in the presence of Bahá’u’lláh in the Junayn Garden (occurred some time during his five day visit to Bahjí from April 15th to April 20th in 1890). [Reflections on the Bahá'í Writings.] Akka Edward Granville Browne; Bahaullah, Life of; Bahaullah, Pen portraits of; Pen portraits; Portraits; Travelers Narrative (book); Zaynul-Muqarrabin (Mulla Zaynul-Abidin); Bahji; Junayn gardens
1903 (In the year) The passing of Mullá Zaynu'l-'Ábidín, surnamed Zaynu'l-Muqarrabín (the Ornament of the Near Ones) in 'Akká. He was born in Rajab, one of the villages of Najafábád near Isfahán to a family of Muslim clerics in May 1818. He had first heard of the Báb's claim while on pilgrimage in Karbilá in 1844 and became a believer in 1851. He met Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád after His return from Kurdistán in 1856. He was among the believers who were exiled from Baghdád in July of 1868 and under his leadership and guidance the believers in Mosul became a model community. He was invited by Bahá'u'lláh to come to 'Akká in Sep-Oct 1885 and shortly after that Baha'u'lláh asked that the community in Mosul be abandoned. [EB274-276]
Jináb-i-Zaynu’l-Muqarrabín was well versed in Islamic jurisprudence. After the revelation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, he was authorized to submit questions concerning the laws. The treatise, titled Questions and Answers, an appendix to the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, is a compilation he made of Bahá’u’lláh’s answers to questions concerning the laws of the Most Holy Book. It took more than two decades for "Questions and Answers" to be published in Persian and much longer to be published in English and other languages. [KA9]
See Some Answered Questions" and Its Compiler by Baharieh Rouhani Ma'ani published in Lights of Irfan, 18, pages 425-452. In this paper the author compares the similarities and differences of Questions and Answers and Some Answered Questions.
For an image Zaynu’l-Muqarrabín see Picture Gallery (miniature by Ethel Rosenberg). Rajab; Najafabad; Iran; Mosul; Iraq Zaynul-Muqarrabin (Mulla Zaynul-Abidin); Kitab-i-Aqdas (Most Holy Book); Laws; Questions and answers (Aqdas); Risalih-i-Sual va Javab (Questions and Answers); Ethel Rosenberg; In Memoriam; Births and deaths
1910 (In the year) The publication of Questions and Answers in the East. It was a document comprising exclusively of answers Bahá’u’lláh revealed in response to questions about the laws of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. Questions were submitted in writing and answers were likewise revealed in writing. It is by nature of small size regarded as an appendix to the Most Holy Book. Its compiler was Zaynu’l-Muqarrabín, one of the erudite, devoted and trusted followers of Bahá’u’lláh. He was a mujtahid (specialized in Islamic jurisprudence) before embracing the Bábí and Bahá’í Faiths. Bahá’u’lláh authorized him not only to ask questions about the laws of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, but also to compile Risálih-i-Su’ál va Javáb (Questions and Answers).
The text of Questions and Answers, though compiled during Bahá’u’lláh’s ministry, remained unpublished until 1910. Its English translation was published together with the authorized English translation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas in 1992-3. The reason for the delay in the publication of Questions and Answers was the necessity for Bahá’u’lláh’s Book of Laws to be translated and annotated under the aegis of the Universal House of Justice. Without the Book, the appendix would have had no source of reference. [Lights of Irfán vol. 18 p430-432]
See Chronology 1993 Zaynul-Muqarrabin; Questions and Answers; Kitab-i-Aqdas (Most Holy Book) Bahaullah, Writings of
1993 Mar The English translation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas was published. [BW92–3:44] [CBN vol 5 no 10 Mar93 pg1] [CoB310-13 UHJ Message 5Mar93] [VV142]
For the significance of its publication see BW92–3:45–6.
For its place in Bahá'í literature see BW92-3p45-6, p105-118.
This date also marks the first publication in the West of Questions and Answers, a document comprising exclusively of answers Bahá’u’lláh revealed in response to questions about the laws of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. See Chronology 1910. BWC Kitab-i-Aqdas (Most Holy Book); Translation; Publications; - Basic timeline, Condensed; - Basic timeline, Expanded; Questions and Answers; Zaynul-Muqarrabin; Z****
Picture Gallery of Early British Bahá'ís (1998). Published in honor of the UK Baha'i Centenary, 1998/99. [about]
Some Answered Questions" and Its Compiler, by Baharieh Rouhani Ma'ani, in Lights of Irfan, 18 (2017). Overview of the life of Laura Clifford Barney and her role in assembling and publishing the book Some Answered Questions, and a comparison with the appendix to the Kitab-i-Aqdas called Questions & Answers. [about]
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National Australia Bank former employee in court charged over falsifying home loan contracts
Photo: Andrew Matthews has been charged with 49 counts of obtaining property by deception. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)
A former National Australia Bank employee has faced a Melbourne court charged with falsifying dozens of home loan contracts, allegedly resulting in him illegally pocketing more than $800,000.
Andrew Matthews fronted the Melbourne Magistrates Court for a brief hearing a week after NAB revealed it had sacked 20 bankers and disciplined another 32 over the sale of mortgages without accurate customer information and documentation.
The 36-year-old, who was named NAB's mobile banker of the year for regional Victoria in 2015, worked at the Seaford branch, in Melbourne's south-east, until he was sacked in July last year when the alleged scam was uncovered.
The ABC understands Mr Matthews is accused of getting dozens of customers to sign a document wrongly claiming they had been referred to NAB through the bank's Introducer Program, between 2012 and 2016.
The program rewards people who do not work for the bank for referring new customers.
Mr Matthews is accused of conspiring with another man to split the commissions.
He faces 49 counts of obtaining property by deception, one charge of attempting to obtain property by deception, one of conspiring to defraud and three counts of possessing proceeds of crime including a Ferrari and cash totalling $825,176.
In a statement, NAB said it identified the alleged scam through its internal checks and review processes and immediately reported Mr Matthews to police.
It said Mr Matthews was not one of the 20 bankers it last week announced had been sacked.
But it is understood those loans were also organised through the bank's own staff and its Introducer Program.
Mr Matthews is on bail and will return to the Melbourne Magistrates' Court in February for a committal mention.
This article was first published by http://www.abc.net.au/news
Author: Emma Younger
Last modified onWednesday, 02 May 2018 03:05
More in this category: « CBA to refund $16m to 140,000 customers, scraps insurance products We've had 'significant failures,' ANZ Bank tells royal commission »
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21. Sleep and cognitive preservation
Home » 21. Sleep and cognitive preservation
Mary Morrell.
Sleep disruption and cognitive impairment
A growing body of evidence suggests that sleep disruption, especially associated with Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA), produces a consistent pattern of deficits in cognition, particularly in relation to attention, episodic memory, and executive function. However, explanations vary regarding how sleep disruption affects cognition, and reliable evidence is hard to find. This issue may relate to the many, common comorbid conditions that are present in patients with sleep disruption, especially older people, such as OSA. This presentation will review the evidence for cognitive impairment in sleep disruption, using OSA as a model, and focusing on the methodological and theoretical challenges of exploring the effect of sleep on cognition. To conclude, the presentation will review future directions for the field including suggestions of core design elements for future studies.
Where do we go from here? The number and type of studies exploring the extent to which sleep impacts on cognitive function is growing exponentially. Given the increasing prevalence of road traffic and work-place accidents, the large number of shift-workers, and the links between sleep disruption and cognitive dysfunction in older people, this focus is warranted. However, little is known about who is most at risk of cognitive impairment, and subsequent dementia. Defining who, why and how future studies can provide treatments to the most vulnerable individuals are important targets. It is hoped that the B-DEBATE will enable the field to focus on these questions and support the development of future researchSleep disruption and cognitive impairment.
As a student, Professor Morrell developed an interest in the control of breathing during sleep which continues to drive her research at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London.
Professor Morrell’s research focuses on the causes and consequences of sleep disordered breathing; particularly the impact of intermittent hypoxia on the brain. Her aim is to translate physiological research into improvements in patient care. Recently, she developed a UK respiratory-sleep network facilitating multi-center trials. The network has previously completed a trial to determine the impact of treating OSA in older people, and is currently investigating mild OSA. Mary has served on the American Thoracic Society Board of Directors, the Physiological Society Executive Board and she is a Past-President of the British Sleep Society.
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Listings for Sky Movies Drama on Monday, July 15 2019
04:15 Taps Film Army cadets Tom Cruise and Sean Penn go to extreme lengths to protect their academy when it is threatened by local developers. Gripping drama. Contains offensive language. (1981)(121 mins) Also in HD
06:25 The Butterfly Tree Film Father and son Al and Fin find themselves entranced by a mysterious florist as they attempt to deal with the death of Fin's mother. Drama with Wildlife's Ed Oxenbould. (2017)(93 mins) Also in HD
08:10 All The Right Moves Film Young football player Tom Cruise hopes a college scholarship will help him escape small-town life, but clashes with his coach threaten to derail his dreams. Sports drama. (1983)(87 mins) Also in HD
09:50 Babel Film The accidental shooting of tourist Cate Blanchett in Morocco has a world-wide ripple effect. Drama with Brad Pitt. Contains strong language, sex and flashing images. (2006)(137 mins) Also in HD
12:20 Tristan + Isolde Film A chance meeting between English knight James Franco and Irish princess Sophia Myles leads to a passionate yet perilous affair. With Rufus Sewell. Violent scenes. (2006)(121 mins) Also in HD
14:30 I Can Only Imagine Film The inspiring story of singer Bart Millard, who escaped an abusive childhood and went on to write the biggest selling Christian pop song of all time. With Dennis Quaid. (2018)(105 mins) Also in HD
16:25 The 2019 Top Ten Show Film Which movies are doing the best business at home and across the pond? Clips from the UK and US Top Ten show you the best of what's on offer on the big screen. Also in HD
16:40 Anything Film After attempting to take his own life, small-town widower John Carroll Lynch moves to Los Angeles where he begins to bond with his eccentric Hollywood neighbours. Drama. (2017)(90 mins) Also in HD
18:20 The 15:17 To Paris Film True-life drama focusing on the lives of three US backpackers who thwarted a terrorist attack on a high-speed train. Clint Eastwood directs. (2018)(90 mins) Also in HD
20:00 Say Anything... Film Classic teen romance from Jerry Maguire director Cameron Crowe. A beautiful and brilliant high school student finds herself pursued by charming underachiever John Cusack. (1989)(96 mins) Also in HD
21:45 The Leisure Seeker Film Warm comedy-drama starring Donald Sutherland and Helen Mirren as a long-married couple who embark on a golden-years road trip in their family's old camper-van. (2017)(109 mins) Also in HD
23:45 My Cousin Rachel (2017) Film Young heir Sam Claflin vows revenge against his late cousin's wife, but soon finds himself falling under her spell. Dark romance with Rachel Weisz. (2017)(102 mins) Also in HD
01:40 An Officer And A Gentleman Film Classic romantic drama starring Richard Gere as a troubled trainee naval officer who falls for Debra Winger's sassy factory girl. Strong language/moderate sex and nudity. (1982)(122 mins) Also in HD
03:50 To Sir With Love Film New teacher Sidney Poitier tries to inspire the students of a rough east London school using his own unorthodox methods. Touching drama co-starring Lulu. (1967)(100 mins) Also in HD
06:00 The Forgiven (2017) Film Roland Joffe's drama stars Forest Whitaker as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, summoned to a maximum-security prison by a notorious murderer seeking clemency. With Eric Bana. (2017)(115 mins) Also in HD
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Libyan plane hijacked, lands in Malta
A man who said he was armed with a grenade hijacked a Libyan plane which landed on Malta Friday with 118 people on board, Malta's prime minister and government sources on the Mediterranean island said.
After more than an hour on the tarmac, the plane's door opened and a first group of women and children were seen descending a mobile staircase.
"First group of passengers, consisting of women and children, being released now," Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said on Twitter, adding in a later tweet that 50 passengers in all were being let off the plane.
The Airbus A320 had been on a domestic Libyan route operated by Afriqiyah Airways from Sabha in southern Libya to the capital Tripoli but was re-routed.
"The Afriqiyah flight from Sabha to Tripoli has been diverted and has landed in Malta. Security services coordinating operations," Muscat said on his official Twitter account.
"It has been established that Afriqiyah flight has 111 passengers on board: 82 males, 28 females, 1 infant," he said. There are also seven crew members.
Muscat later spoke to Libya's prime minister-designate Fayez al-Sarraj, the head of the north African country's fledgling unity government.
The plane could be seen on the tarmac surrounded by military vehicles and all flights in and out of the airport were initially either delayed or diverted to destinations in Italy.
- 'Negotiations under way' -
There were conflicting reports about the number of hijackers.
Maltese government sources told AFP that there was a single hijacker on board who had told the crew that he had a grenade and would release the passengers only if his as yet unspecified demands were met.
A source from Libya's unity government spoke of "hijackers" on board.
"Negotiations are under way to guarantee the security of all the passengers," the source said, without specifying who was negotiating.
An Afriqiyah Airways source said two hijackers had threatened the pilots with an explosive device, probably a grenade.
Malta International Airport tweeted that there had been "an unlawful interference" but that operations had now resumed.
Flights from Brussels, London and Paris had been due to land at the airport on Friday and were delayed.
The flight from Paris has since been able to land, according to the airport's online arrivals board.
All outgoing flights were shown as delayed.
Libya has been in a state of chaos since the 2011 overthrow of Moamer Kadhafi left warring militias battling for control of different parts of the country.
Forces loyal to a fledgling national unity government recently took control of the coastal city of Sirte, which had been a bastion for the Islamic State group since June 2015.
Western powers have pinned their hopes of containing jihadism in the energy-rich North African state on the government but it has failed to establish its authority over all of the country.
A rival authority rules the country's far east, backed by the forces under military strongman Marshal Khalifa Haftar who have been battling jihadists in second city Benghazi.
Only local airlines -- banned from European airspace -- operate in Libya, with flights to Tunis, Cairo, Amman, Istanbul and Khartoum.
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SET ON THE RIGHT PATH
Legal expert explains why Ukraine is emerging as a ‘hidden gem’ for international port investors
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Ukraine slumped to $2.2bn in 2017, falling from the $10.7bn peak of 2008. The post-Euromaidan deterioration of the investment climate, political instability and the significant devaluation of the local currency are only partly to blame. A focus on a commodity-based economy is not particularly attractive to foreign investors and corruption in courts and law enforcement agencies are not incentivising businesses to take risks.
Despite the Ukrainian leadership’s appeals to invest in the country, Ukraine remains a difficult place to do business. Investors still face issues such as regulatory risk relating to land ownership and capital flows, problems with registration and ownership of property, complicated tax administering, lack of trust in the judiciary, oppressive enforcement agencies and unlawful actions by the Prosecutor General’s Office, the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) and police. Corruption continues to hold back Ukraine’s rapid economic recovery and impede its healthy development.
FDI, without doubt, is the key to Ukraine’s sustainable and healthy economic development and should be the basis for decisive economic growth. The attraction of FDI should be one of the highest priorities for the Government and its agencies. But if perceived corruption continues, then all attraction efforts will be in vain.
During the last few years, Ukraine’s leadership has established a few important institutions, such as the police, the Supreme Court, and new anti-corruption agencies, but the reform process has been mixed. In a European Business Association survey, 57% of those surveyed were ‘dissatisfied’ with the investment climate in 2017; that number has now decreased by 20%, but 38% of investors are still unhappy with the business climate. The biggest reason given for dissatisfaction was the high level of corruption, second only to a lack of trust in the judicial system and the lack of land reform.
Port problems
According to the Ukrainian State Property Fund, 70% of Ukraine’s port infrastructure is outdated. The dire need for modernisation in ports coupled with the growing demand for port grain handling facilities to cope with increasing exports have turned considerable attention to infrastructure projects. The Government’s ministry of infrastructure, with the support of international finance institutions, has launched several infrastructure projects including dredging works in Chornomorsk and Yuzhny ports, concession projects in Kherson and Olvia ports, and realisation of the Via Carpatia and Gо Highway.
Even with this challenging business climate, Ukraine’s ports sector is attracting investment and will continue to do so as long as the authorities in charge implement and maintain critical changes, such as introducing support teams to government ministries. These teams – such as Spilno Office, Reform Support Team of the Ministry of Infrastructure, and the National Investment Council – are not only critical for the delivery of the much-needed reform priorities, but they are also the talent that will spearhead a business climate change.
The Ukrainian government has also taken a number of practical actions on a legislative level. A new draft law on concessions and a legal framework for inland waterways is in Parliament and expected to be voted on and approved this year.
Already, there are encouraging signs in the Ukrainian port sector: P&O Maritime started operations in Ukraine in January and other world-leading port operators such as DP World and Hutchison Ports are eyeing port assets in Yuzhny and Chornomorsk.
Local, private port operators are not lagging behind either. Private port operator TIS is launching a modern grain terminal jointly with the global trader Cargill, while another grain terminal is under construction in the port of Mariupol.
Ukraine is thus emerging as a hidden gem for international investors targeting high returns in a strategically important location next to major European markets. While the risk posed by corruption and complex legislation should not be underestimated, these challenges can be overcome.
Government support complemented by a favourable attitude from funding institutions is invaluable, but this must be paired with comprehensive and dedicated guidance from international and local business consultants to unlock the value and prise the pearl from the shell on the Black Sea coast.
Rachid Bouda is a port expert for Odessa-Ukraine at Ukraine-based law firm Interlegal.
Source: http://www.portstrategy.com/news101/world/europe/set-on-the-right-path
Posted by Rachid Bouda Без рубрики
« Seaways. — 2018. — July
Yap Yin Soon: “Subject to review” clauses – Is there an intention to be immediately bound? »
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Baseball Notches 14-5 MASCAC Tournament Win over Salem State
Bridgewater St. (17-20) 0 0 0 0 0 4 1 3 6 14 16 3
Salem St. (18-20) 0 0 2 1 1 0 0 1 0 5 12 5
2B: Liam Bell; Gavin Sparkman; Colin Josselyn; David Skiendiel
2B: Kyle O'Connor; Mike Griffin
WESTFIELD, Mass. -- David Skiendiel went 4-5 and drove in three run as fifth-seeded Bridgewater State University posted a 14-5 come-from-behind victory over #4 Salem State University in the opening round of the 2019 Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) Baseball Tournament on Wednesday afternoon at Bud and Jim Hagan Field in Westfield.
The win marked the Bears' first MASCAC Tounrament victory in seven years.
With the win, Bridgewater State (17-20) advances to the double-elimination portion of the tournament and will face top seed and tournament host Westfield State University at 3:00 p.m. today. The Vikings (19-19) are eliminated from the tournament with today's loss.
The Vikings jumped out to a 2-0 lead on a two-run single by Madoc Fischer in the bottom of the third inning. A sacrifice fly off the bat of Traverse Briana in the fourth and another by Brendan Greene in the fifth extended the lead to 4-0.
The Bears rallied to tie it at 4-4 in the top of the sixth as they scored four runs off five hits. The inning was highlighted by an RBI single by Dominic Precopio and a pair of RBI doubles by Gavin Sparkman and Skiendiel.
Two Salem fielding errors and a sacrifice fly by Precopio put the Bears out in front, 5-4, in the top of the seventh.
Bridgewater sent nine men to the plate and pushed across three runs to take an 8-4 lead in the top of the eighth. Skiendiel and Lewis Robinson rapped RBI base hits in the frame while the third run scored on a wild pitch.
The Viking cut the deficit to 8-5 in the home half of the eighth on a RBI single by Rebello. David Kearns came on with the tying run at the plate in the frame and got a big strikeout to end the inning and maintain the lead for the Bears.
The Bears put the game out of reach with a six-run, ninth inning. The inning featured three hits, including an RBI single by Skiendiel and a two-run double by Liam Bell, as well as a pair of walks and two key Salem errors.
Alex McGrath picked up the win in relief for Bridgewater. McGrath (2-1) allowed a run on three hits over 2 2/3 innings with two walks and four strikeouts. Kerns earned his team-leading fourth save of the season.
Jarrett Archambault worked the first five innings for the Bears and gave up four runs (three earned) on nine hits with three walks and a pair of strikeouts.
Bell (2-for-6, 2R, 2RBI), Precopio (2-for-4, BB, R, RBI), Robinson (2-for-6, R, RBI), Sparkman (2-for-6, 2R, RBI) and Kevin Bresciani (2-for-4, 2BB, 2R) each had a pair of hits for the Bears. Colin Josselyn reached safely in four out of his five plate appearances as he walked four times and doubled.
Brock Riley took the loss for Salem in relief of starter Andrew McLaughlin. Riley (4-6) gave up four runs (three earned) on four hits with two walks and a strikeout. McLaughlin pitched into the sixth as he allowed four runs on nine hits in 5 1/3 innings with a walk and a strikeout. Shawn Rebello and Fisher each had two hits for the Vikings.
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Russia 16. Juli 2019
HDI 0.795 Population 144.6 m
Unemployment rate 7.1%3) Women in Parliament 8%
UN Education Index 0.93 Poverty n/a 2)
Gini-Index 31.0 (2002)
Source: UNDP: Human Development Report 2005. Figures for 2003 - if not indicated otherwise. 1) Annual growth between 1975 and 2003. 2) Population living below $ 1 (1990-2003). 3) Unemployment rate according to ILO data.
Russia’s political and economic development has been greatly influenced by the policies of Vladimir Putin, who was elected president at the beginning of 2000. When he took office, the parameters for the development of a market-based democracy were in place, albeit incomplete and not enforced. A tradition of the rule of law, civil society and democracy was lacking, which also hampered progress in the establishment of a market-based democracy.
In democratic transformation, no substantive progress was achieved during the period examined. President Putin consolidated his power in 2000 through measures that do not reflect democratic standards. The list includes marginalizing political actors outside the federal executive, asserting control over nationwide mass media, harassing politically relevant NGOs and violating human rights in the fight against Chechen rebels in the Northern Caucasus. These practices persist today.
This is due to the fact that the political leadership obviously does not consider a qualitative enhancement of democratic transformation one of its key tasks. Nevertheless, President Putin has stabilized the political system. Fair elections are largely guaranteed, albeit with heavily manipulated campaigns in favor of pro-presidential forces.
Transformation toward a market economy progressed in Putin’s first term (2000-2004).. Reforms of the tax code and land ownership laws have been achieved. However, implementation has been rather inefficient due to growing bureaucracy, corruption and political interference. The social security system remains poorly financed and insufficient. Despite these shortcomings, Russia is experiencing an economic boom.
At the end of Yeltsin’s presidency (1998-99), political actors moved to consolidate power for the short term. Once Putin took office, a long-term development strategy was quickly drawn up and has been transferred smoothly into legislation. More recently, and especially in 2004, liberal market reformers appear to have lost influence in the Kremlin. Internal conflict connected to this shift has hampered economic reforms.
It should be stressed that Russia’s political leaders are concerned primarily with stabilizing the political system and generating significant economic growth. The violation of fundamental democratic rights and market principles appear to be acceptable byproducts of this policy. Moscow considers its record thus far successful. However, when measured by the normative standards of a market-based democracy, there remain considerable deficits in both political and market economy development.
Russia’s economic and political transformation process began in the second half of the 1980s with the reforms of Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. But the defining influences for post-Soviet Russia were the reforms of Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
One of the first milestones in democratic transformation was the Russian presidential election in June 1991, which Yeltsin won. Afterwards, conflict arose between the reform-oriented Yeltsin and the rather conservative parliament. In the fall of 1993, Yeltsin ended the political stalemate with the violent, unconstitutional dissolution of parliament. In addition, a commission close to the president drafted a constitution calling for a federal presidential republic. The constitution was approved by a referendum of the Russian people in December 1993. Parliamentary elections were held at the same time as the referendum. Outspokenly antidemocratic parties won 43% of the vote. During the next six years, there was no significant change in this balance of power. Considerable resistance to democratic trends was observed at the regional level, where a variety of political constellations developed. Some exhibited authoritarian traits often exceeded the broad authority granted to them by the constitution.
While the Russian constitution expressly provides for a democratic rule of law, the reality under President Yeltsin was characterized by significant democratic deficiencies. This resulted not only from anti-democratic forces that blocked reform projects in Parliament and ignored democratic requirements at the regional level, but also from executive policies of the Yeltsin administration characterized by political manipulation and pressure on the mass media. This environment allowed non-democratic actors such as the so-called oligarchs to gain considerable influence in political decision marking.
The first milestone in Russia’s transformation toward a market economy was the 1992 reform package. Its core components were the liberalization of prices and mass privatization. However, instead of the anticipated upswing, Russia found itself facing a prolonged economic crisis. GDP declined by more than 60% by 1998. Russia was competitive on the world market only as an exporter of raw materials. Imported goods dominated many sectors of the domestic market. Capital spending shrank dramatically while capital flight remained high. Core economic reforms, such as a new tax code and land ownership laws,, languished in the legislative process. The protracted economic crisis also adversely affected the population’s standard of living. Social inequality increased considerably. Economic problems culminated in a dramatic financial crisis in August 1998.
Yeltsin never enjoyed the approval of more than 10% of the population after 1996. In a move to groom his successor, Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin as prime minister in 1999. The new Yedinstvo party, with close ties to Putin, achieved unexpected success in the December 1999 parliament elections to the State Duma, placing a close second to the Communists. Yeltsin resigned at the end of the year, and Prime Minister Putin took over as acting President as prescribed by the constitution. In the March 2000 presidential elections, Putin won an absolute majority n the first round. He was re-elected in March 2004 with an even stronger mandate.
More than half of the Russian population approves of Putin’s leadership. He is seen as a decisive actor. His military campaign against separatists in the Northern Caucasus and his tough stance on business oligarchs has won him support. The political reforms of 2004 increased central control over regional governments raised constitutionality questions. Extensive violations of human rights in the Chechen war and new constraints on press freedom and NGOs were also part of Putin’s policies.
Russia’s stateness is seriously questioned only in the northern Caucasus. Since the beginning of the second Chechen war in September 1999, the Russian army has been unable to achieve full control of the region. Rebels regularly attack representatives of Russia’s central power throughout the region, and have committed several terrorist acts in the region of the northern Caucasus and in the Russian capital. Apart from the northern Caucasus case, there are no serious limitations on the state’s monopoly on the use of force.
All citizens have the same civil rights. However, there are many cases of discrimination by representatives of state agencies against Russian citizens belonging to ethnic minorities from the north Caucasus region.
There is separation of church and state. However, the Russian Orthodox Church holds a privileged status and other religious groups, including the Catholic Church, have occasionally complained about discrimination. The political process is secularized.
Apart from Chechnya, the state has established basic infrastructure throughout the country, including administrative institutions, fundamental administration of justice, and implementation of political decisions. However, bureaucratization, corruption, and a lack of funds have caused performance to be uneven.
Outside Chechnya, there are no serious restrictions on the voting process. However, election campaigns are heavily manipulated in favor of pro-presidential forces.
In the formal political decision-making process, elected representatives have full power to govern. The power of the elected president to govern is undisputed, as well as the parliament’s decision-making competencies, as outlined in the constitution. However, the actual imbalance between the elected representatives in favor of the President weakens parliamentary control. Especially in the second half of the 1990s, so-called oligarchs, who lacked any democratic legitimization, were seen as powerful forces behind the president. As Putin’s reaction to political interference by oligarchs has shown on already three occasions (the Gusinsky-Affair, the Berezovsky-Affair and the Yukos-Affair), he is not willing to accept this interference. It can now be observed that members and former members of the secret service are gaining influence under Putin. As they receive formal positions within the state executive branch, their participation in the formal political decision-making process is legitimate and in line with the democratic institutions, though their intention may be – and on some occasions definitely is – anti-democratic.
However, considerable restrictions on rights to organize and communicate politically exist. The national government largely accepts freedom of association and freedom of assembly, but there have been substantial violations of these rights in some regions. As the demonstration against social welfare reforms in January 2005 indicated, even spontaneous demonstrations against the government, which violate the registration rules, are tolerated in many regions. However, flexibly arranged construction sites and considerations about security concerns are commonly used to prohibit demonstration. The effects of a number of demonstrations have been minimized by state-organized "counter-demonstrations."
NGOs critical of the national or regional government have on many occasions been subject to harassment by state agencies. This harassment is not the result of insufficient legislation, but of informal pressure. It takes the form of extensive controls by state inspectors (tax, fire, etc.), which often use their power to hamper the work of NGOs with the use of extensive visits, confiscation of documents and sanctions or fines. On several occasions, NGOs claimed that burglaries in their offices had been committed by state representatives with the primary aim of destruction or theft of work-related documents. The mass media are subject to influence from the executive branch. During Putin’s first term, private media with nation-wide reach have systematically been brought under (at least indirect) state control. Media coverage of elections is systematically manipulated. There are extensive restrictions on freedom of the press in covering the war in Chechnya.
Serious deficiencies exist in the checks and balances among the executive, legislative and judiciary branches, even though the powers are institutionally differentiated. As the president has a stable majority in parliament, the legislature exercises its review functions only to a very limited degree. The upper chamber of Parliament will be additionally weakened through the appointment of governors by the president, as half of the chamber consists of representatives of the governors. There are serious indications that the executive branch influences decisions by the judiciary on a regular basis.
The judiciary is fundamentally independent, but lower-court decisions in particular are often influenced by corruption and political pressure. In specific high-profile cases like the Yukos affair, principles of equal treatment and formal court proceedings have been violated in the interest of the national government.
Political and bureaucratic corruption is perceived as high in Russia. Corrupt officeholders with political connections often elude adequate prosecution.
Civil liberties are affected to some degree by the lack of legal constraints on government action, and by the bureaucracy’s sometimes selective application of the laws. Since the beginning of the second Chechen war in September 1999, all parties to the conflict have continuously engaged in massive violations of human rights there. Arbitrary arrests and abductions, torture, rape, extortion and looting by Russian security forces are hardly ever prosecuted. So far, there has only been one high-profile case where a Russian officer has been sentenced for abductions of Chechen civilians.
Apart from the limitations on the rule of law described above, democratic institutions are stable. However, the bureaucracy’s implementation of legislated provisions often remains a serious problem. Most relevant actors view institutions of the democratic state as legitimate.
There is no serious opposition to the political system as it is being reshaped by President Putin. However, specific democratic institutions have on several occasions been ignored when they were perceived as hampering the realization of concrete political goals. In summary, the acceptance of democratic institutions is for most actors more a pragmatic consideration than one of principle.
So far, Russia has been unable to establish an organizationally stable, socially rooted party system. The relevant political parties are predominantly personality-oriented voting associations. The Communist Party is the only party with an organized mass base—a state of affairs that is probably not helpful to democratic consolidation. The party with the biggest faction in parliament, United Russia, was founded in 2001 by a merger of the two main rivaling parties of the prior elections, which both of which had been founded only in 1999. Of the nine factions formed in the Parliament elected in 1999, only three are represented in the Parliament elected in 2003. As a result of weak political parties and of the election victory of pro-presidential United Russia, Parliament has ceased to function as an efficient check on the executive power. In the Parliament elected in 2003 the political opposition has been permanently marginalized. Accordingly, political reforms meant to strengthen the party system – mainly by favoring bigger parties – are unlikely to have an impact in the short run.
The range of interest groups in the political sphere is limited. Important social interests are underrepresented. The political leadership’s reaction to the interest groups’ work has essentially been no more than symbolic. Putin has stressed the need for a strong civil society in several well-publicized speeches, but at the same time he has blamed Russian NGOs for accepting support from foreign donors. NGOs critical toward the government have been excluded from the dialogue between state executive and civil society and they have on several occasions been harassed by state agencies. The successor to the socialist labor union, which traditionally cooperated closely with the state and the management, has retained dominance. As a result, labor unions seldom adopt a critical stance toward government policies. Moreover, they lack financial and organizational potential to act independently. Organizations representing business interests had to be created from scratch after the end of the Soviet Union. As the biggest entrepreneurs, the oligarchs, represented their interests individually, the main business organization, the Russian Union of Entrepreneurs and Industrialists, remains weak. Its critical stance on the Yukos affair has recently confirmed that it can be sidelined by the state.
The population’s approval of democracy per se as voiced in representative polls is moderate to high depending on the wording of the question. In an opinion poll, conducted by the Moscow-based Institute of Interdisciplinary Social Studies (IKSI) in summer 2004, 40% of the respondents gave a positive evaluation of the term “democracy” and 25% a negative one, with the remaining 35% opting for a neutral evaluation. Moreover, when asked about specific democratic principles, including democratic elections, accountability and civil rights, the majority of the Russian population does not consider any of these principles to be important, as polls by institutes like the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), the Russian Public Opinion & Market Research Group (ROMIR) or the Levada-Center regularly indicate. When asked which rights and freedoms they personally considered to be important, only 6% of the respondents opted for freedom of expression, 5% for religious freedom, 3% for the right to elect representatives to the state organs of power, 2% for press freedom, 1% for freedom of assembly. In the same opinion poll, social and economic rights, like the right to medical care and the right to housing or work, all gained the consent of more than a third of the respondents (FOM polls in summer 2004). In summary about a quarter of the population is openly opposed to democracy, whereas not much more than 10% can be counted as strong democrats. Accordingly, the huge majority of the Russian population has no strong opinion on democracy. This implies a sort of silent consent to democratic norms, but no principal opposition to undemocratic norms.
Self-organization in civil society encounters strong barriers, namely a burden of the Soviet past, where NGOs did not exist, and harassment by the state executive. Typically, it takes the form of legal controls by state inspections for tax and fire, etc., which often use their powers to hamper the work of NGOs. NGOs are unevenly distributed, flourishing mainly in the mega-cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and are often spontaneous and temporary. Many Russian NGOs have been brought into existence only by the engagement of international organizations and sponsors. According to the World Value Survey from 1999, two-thirds of the Russian population does not belong to any voluntary organization. General trust is also relatively low developed with only 35% of the population agreeing that people in general can be trusted.
The key indicators show a relatively high level of socioeconomic development for Russia. Measured in terms of HDI, the country’s level of development permits adequate freedom of choice for almost all citizens. There is no indication of fundamental social exclusion on the basis of poverty, education or gender discrimination. The economic boom, which started in 1999 and led to a rise in GDP of about one-third until 2004, has been accompanied by a doubling of average wages. An important contribution to the income of the rural population comes from household plots used for agricultural production. Most of their output does not reach the market because it is consumed domestically. The dimension of this subsistence economy is hard to estimate. According to Russian statistics, its share in Russian agricultural production is up to 40%.
However, at the same time social inequality as indicated by the Gini coefficient has increased markedly. Reasons for this are among others long-term unemployment, an insufficient pension system and a flat income tax rate. There are considerable regional differences in levels of socioeconomic development within Russia. Financial readjustments among regions do not materially reduce these discrepancies. As many Russians have additional unofficial income and as definitions of the poverty line differ, there are various estimates of the amount of Russians living in poverty. According to official Russian data, 24% of the population was living in poverty in 2002. The World Bank, using its own calculation, quoted 20%. In both cases, there is a marked decline over recent years. For 1999, the official Russian figure was 42% and the World Bank figure 28%.
The foundations of market economy-based competition are assured by the institutional framework. Prices on the domestic market were decontrolled in 1992. By now, price regulation by the state is restricted to utilities. The state also subsidizes prices for agricultural products. The national currency is not freely convertible and there are restrictions on cash exports. However, they do not form a serious problem for the transfer of profits. Foreign trade has been liberalized and at present, remaining restrictions are not more extensive than in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Russia expects to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) soon; agreement on WTO entry with the European Union was reached in spring 2004. However, state economic policy remains skewed in favor of politically influential large corporations. The Yukos affair demonstrated that competitive companies can be eliminated by bureaucratic means for reasons not related to economic policy.
Additionally, broad sectors of the economy defined as significant to national security are shielded from competitive pressure. The “natural” monopolies in the natural gas, electricity and transportation industries have not yet been reformed despite year-long debates. However, for the liberalized part of the economy the anti-monopoly agency functions rather efficiently with exceptions on the regional level, where some administrations have blocked competition. The informal sector amounted to 30% to 50% of GDP in the late 1990s. According to the Russian government its size has been reduced considerably with the economic reforms under President Putin. However, empirical studies are not yet available.
Foreign trade has been liberalized in principle, but substantial regulatory exceptions remain, such as imports of agro-food products or cars and on exports of some metals. Russian tariffs have presented stumbling blocks in negotiations to join the WTO.
Though the liquidity of the Russian banking sector has improved remarkably since the financial crisis of 1998, it remains severely underdeveloped and is still not able to perform its economic function as a financial intermediary. Russian banks are not yet able to compete internationally. In the wake of Russia’s WTO negotiations, they have been assured that they will get protection from foreign competition. At the same time, differentiation of the Russian banking sector is increasing and seems to be functioning. State regulation of the banking has some deficits, but by and large seems to be adequate. Banks have been forced to adopt international standards, though at a lower pace then originally planned. However, there is a lack of supervision. The Central Bank is rather inefficient and according to World Bank surveys of Russian entrepreneurs in 1999 and 2002, considered to be highly corrupt.
After the 1998 financial crisis, which caused significant inflationary pressure as the ruble lost around 70% of its value against the U.S. dollar, the government and the independent central bank were able to bring inflation under control and stabilize the exchange rate through a consistent budgetary and monetary policy.
Since Putin took office in 2000, the country has adhered to a austerity policy that regularly leads to budget surpluses. These made a significant reduction of foreign debt possible. The fact that monetary policy is integrated into a general economic policy concept is also indicated by the stability fund, which was introduced to save the state budget’s windfall profits from high oil prices for the future. This fund has successfully been defended against demands for increased state subsidies.
There are formal property rights and the regulation of the acquisition of property is defined formally in law. With the exception of the sale of farmland, the legal provisions are practical. However, they are not consistently implemented or adequately safeguarded by law, especially against state intervention. For example, high level state officials have repeatedly cast doubt on the validity of the privatization auctions conducted in the 1990s. In another example, in 2004 the oil company Yukos was deprived of its right to trade Sibneft shares that it had acquired legally. Critical observers described the Yukos affair as re-nationalization. Some property rights, especially copyrights, minority shareholders’ rights, and creditors’ rights in bankruptcy proceedings are ignored on a regular basis.
Private enterprise is the backbone of the economy, but state enterprises continue to exist alongside private businesses, as do market concentrations tolerated by the state, especially in the “natural” monopolies such as natural gas, electricity and railroads.
Parts of the social security system, especially health care, are well developed in Russia, but they do not cover all risks for all strata of the population. There is almost no state support for the unemployed. Though they have been increased considerably in recent years, pensions are still insufficient to survive on. Without additional income, such as a job in the shadow economy, private farming or family support, these social groups are at risk of slipping into poverty. The big cities have large numbers of homeless people whom state social facilities completely fail to reach.
The state-organized health care system suffers from a lack of funds, especially in rural areas, leading to significant shortages of care delivery. Economic improvement since 1999 has mitigated the country’s social problems, but with only limited improvement so far in the state’s social insurance systems. Under President Putin the reform of the state’s social welfare system has aimed at liberalization. However, most Russians lack the financial means for private insurance and especially in the pension system private companies are underdeveloped.
Equality of opportunity is not fully assured. There are substantial differences from one region to another. Members of non-Russian ethnic groups, especially those from the Caucasus, suffer systematic discrimination in the educational system and on the job market. Social exclusion extends to people living in the Northern Caucasus, where in some regions living standards are far below the Russian average and a quarter of the population is unemployed and wages are fare below the national average. There are considerable communities of homeless individuals in large Russian cities. In the whole of Russia, women have equal access to education but are underrepresented in the political system and in business management.
After the dramatic deterioration in macroeconomic fundamentals caused by the 1998 financial crisis, an improved economic environment - characterized by an undervalued ruble, rising prices for Russian exports of raw materials in the world market, and low real wages - laid the foundations for significant economic improvement. Since Putin took office in 2000, the state’s economic policy has attempted to maintain this upswing with comprehensive economic reforms. During the period from 1999 to 2004, Russia’s economy has grown on average by 7% a year. At the same time, all key macroeconomic indicators have improved considerably, apart from the unemployment rate which remains close to 10%. Inflation has been brought down to 10%. Due to high world market prices for Russian raw material exports, the foreign trade balance is positive and the state budget runs a surplus. Russia has used this surplus to reduce its sovereign debts.
Russian economic policy is focused on medium-term economic growth. President Putin has set ambitious goals for GDP growth over the next years, which he presents as top priority. Ecological concerns are entirely subordinated to growth efforts, despite a considerable legacy of environmental damage from the Soviet era. Accordingly, environmental aspects are only on the political agenda when they promise to deliver economic gains, as in the case of emissions trade (Kyoto protocol) or marketable innovations. The long-term political effort to reduce the economic dependence on raw material production would also reduce negative environmental effects. However, environmental concern is hardly ever mentioned as a reason for this strategy. The limited institutional base for environmental protection, in both state and NGO settings, has been weakened further by administrative reforms under Putin. Most of the responsibility for environmental questions has been transferred from a now dissolved separate ministry to the ministries dealing with the respective branches of industry.
Russia inherited from the Soviet Union an educational system with comparatively high standards, able to compete on a world scale in some segments. Under post-Soviet conditions, however, the country has been unable to put this educational potential to good economic use. Rather, Russia has faced mass emigration of top personnel. Funding shortages have now greatly reduced the quality of the state educational system. The private educational sector has not developed far enough to make up this deficiency. Research and development is still up to world standards in some areas, e.g. space technology, but in general, Russia is below the level of OECD countries in quantitative as well as qualitative terms. Russia spends 1.2% of its GDP on research and development and 3.1% on education.
3.1 Level of difficulty
The level of difficulty of the transformation tasks faced by Russia’s leadership can be considered moderate. Structural socioeconomic conditions that will dominate the political process for the long term are comparatively positive, with a high level of education, a moderate level of economic development, and quite a homogeneous and conflict-free society, apart from the Northern Caucasus. Weak traditions of civil society and deficits in the rule of law and in governmental administration have an adverse impact on transformation into a market-based democracy.
3.2 Steering capability
While Russian policies under President Yeltsin (1993-99) presented a largely desolate picture of incompetence and short-term power grabs, after President Putin took office in 2000, he immediately defined clear, long-term priorities that have dominated the policies of his administration until today. However, these long-term priorities are not consistent with the idea of a transformation to a market-based democracy. Politically, the main aim is control by the state executive over the legislative process and over the implementation of policy measures.
Accordingly, political reforms have served to consolidate the power of the presidency by improving control over parliament and over regional administrations. It has to be noted here, that contrary to many claims by Western observers, these political reforms as such are not undemocratic. Many of the measures proposed by Putin in 2004 have been demanded by Western analysts in the 1990s to promote a stable political system, especially the election of all Duma deputies through national party lists. This would mean the abolition of single-mandate districts. Other proposals are to strengthen the party system and parliamentary factions as well as develop stronger control by the center over regional governors in order to force the regions to accept the supremacy of national legislation. The increased control over regional administrations threatens Russia’s federal system but not democracy, which can exist in centralized states like France as well.
The main problem with these political reforms is that they increase the power of a president who is willing and able to use informal ways to circumvent the checks and balances of weak democratic institutions. Accordingly, the real threat to Russia’s democracy is the use of informal political pressure to increase state control over mass media, NGOs and interest representation by business elites. Informal pressure is probably also applied by the state executive to influence the judicial branch. This pressure indicates more than everything else that Putin’s main goal in the sphere of politics is control and with that stability and predictability but not democracy as such.
In the economic sphere, the state executive under President Putin has initiated a number of reforms aimed at the introduction or strengthening of market mechanisms; the land market has been liberalized, the tax system has been rationalized and the social welfare system is being liberalized. Negotiations over WTO membership are being pursued seriously. In most cases members of government are directly responsible for these reforms because they want to transform Russia into a market economy. However, for President Putin, the strengthening of market mechanisms seems to be more a means than an end in itself. His declared major long-term economic goal is dynamic GDP growth. A considerable part of the Russian political leadership is not convinced that market mechanisms are the best way to achieve economic growth. Moreover, when economic aims collide with political ones, the latter seem to dominate. A good example for this is the Yukos affair. Excessive tax demands, fines and the initiation of legal proceedings against major shareholders and the management have been used to destroy one of Russia’s best performing companies. The affair is also bad for the general investment climate as it demonstrates how vulnerable even big business is to political pressure.
Thus, it can be stated that the Russian political leadership prioritizes and organizes its policies according to strategic aims. However, these strategic aims do not focus on the development of a market-based democracy and in practice they quite often hamper the development of a market-based democracy, especially in the political sphere.
The executive branch has responded flexibly and has proved that it is able to learn to organize the political decision-making process. With its talent for power politics and the President’s great popularity, the executive branch has enough political authority to push its reforms through the legislative process. It remains to be seen whether it also has enough control over government administration to implement reform policies nation-wide. In this case, a learning process can be observed as the attention of the state executive is increasingly being devoted to administrative reform and the fight against corruption. However, so far it is not clear whether the political leadership will be up to this challenge.
Although the reforms under President Putin have improved resource efficiency considerably, Russia is still far from having achieved an effective use of resources. While a stringent austerity policy has yielded significant progress in the use of government funds, the use of staffing and organizational resources continues to languish because of the problems of an oversized, often corruptible and only modestly competent administrative apparatus.
The state budget has been consolidated and is showing a surplus since the beginning of Putin’s presidency. The level of state debt has been considerable reduced, leading to regular upgrades in the investment ratings of Russia’s sovereign debt. The processes of budget planning and spending discipline have been improved considerably. Whereas in the 1990s the state budget was often agreed only long after the beginning of the relevant year, this has never happened under President Putin. Spending targets have normally been met. However, there is no effective audit process and reports by the parliament’s audit chamber have, on most occasions been ignored.
With a share of 2% in total employment, the bureaucracy of the Russian state executive is not oversized in international comparison. However, its organizational structure and code of behavior is generally assessed as leading to considerable inefficiencies. The Russian government has reacted by instituting administrative reforms in 2003. As complete restructuring necessarily usually leads to short-term inefficiencies, it is still too early to assess the reform. What can be said is that Russia does still not have an efficient state administration. As a result, the coherent strategy of the political leadership that is being translated into legislation is regularly distorted during implementation. In the wake of reorganization, new conflicts between governmental agencies have emerged.
The implementation of policies is also hampered by a considerable degree of corruption. According to a World Bank survey from 2002, a third of Russian companies regularly bribes state officials. On the basis of representative polls in 2001, the Russian INDEM institute has estimated that more than $30 billion are annually paid as bribes in Russia. The government has reacted to this problem with a far reaching administrative reform. One of the main aims of this reform is to reduce the leeway of bureaucrats and to simplify business regulation in order to reduce opportunities for bribe extortion by state officials. As this reform is still ongoing, it is too early to assess its results.
Another obstacle to resource efficiency is a serious division of the Russian government into two ideologically opposed camps. The liberal reformers who were initially in charge of economic policy under President Putin have increasingly been sidelined by politicians with a secret service or law education background. Some of the liberals’ major reform projects, aimed at reforming companies close to the state like the gas or electricity monopolies, have been repeatedly delayed. The political pressure on Yukos has also been heavily criticized by members of the liberal camp. Putin’s economic adviser called it the scam of the year and spoke about Russia's transition to a model of state interventionism at a press conference in December 2004.
In summary, the views of both government camps are consistent with the strategic policy goals set by Putin. However, their ideas about ways to realize these goals are on many occasions incompatible and as a result some policies have counterproductive effects on other policies. Even more importantly many policies are not implemented properly due to bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption.
3.4 Consensus-building
Putin has achieved considerable progress in consensus-building compared with his predecessor Yeltsin in the 1990s. The notion of the “Putin majority” has now become a fixture in the country’s political vocabulary. Parliamentary opponents of reform have been successfully marginalized. Putin’s opponents in the regions have also seen their position weakened. A large majority of the population supports the president.
The appeal for broad-based collaboration to overcome the “state of emergency” has been a core component of Putin’s political rhetoric. Thus, the political leadership has been successful at depolarizing conflicts and has managed political cleavages in a way that makes escalation highly unlikely. For example, a partial transfiguration of the past has been taking the place of a social processing of historical acts of injustice. However, it should again be noted that the consensus developed under Putin is not primarily oriented to creating a market-based democracy. The major political actors agree on the Putin model of a ‘controlled democracy’ and a limited market economy. That means they accept the existing political and economic system, including democratic elections, as the primary means of transferring political power. However, they do not agree on market economy and democracy as strategic long-term aims and they do not object to violations of democratic standards, as in the case of biased election campaigns, and to violations of market principles, as in the case of the Yukos affair.
Strong supporters of reforms toward higher democratic standards are no longer represented in the political system. Strong supporters of liberal economic reforms have influential posts in the state executive, but they are not able to determine policies on their own.
As the development of politically active NGOs is seen as a potential threat to state control, the political leadership has only made very limited efforts to develop social capital among citizens and social groups. These efforts focus on apolitical forms of social organization and are mainly symbolic in nature. However, highly publicized meetings of leading politicians with representatives of NGOs may have a positive impact on public opinion. At the same time, NGOs engaging in politics or receiving support from abroad are being criticized by the leadership and are often subject to harassment by state agencies. The political leadership has in some spheres tried to create pseudo-NGOs under state sponsorship.
The political elite has increasingly restored symbols of the Soviet past. The reform of state symbols has returned Soviet symbols that had been rejected in the 1990s. Even the Stalin era of most severe repression is increasingly represented in a positive light. On the surface, this is due to the preceding 60th anniversary of the victory over fascist Germany. However, the underlying trend is the rise of political elites close to the former Soviet secret service and the military to political power. A critical assessment of the Soviet system and an examination of human rights violations of the past is nearly exclusively conducted by NGOs, which often face indirect harassment or at best ignorance from representatives of the state executive.
3.5 International cooperation
While Russia under Yeltsin cooperated with international partners like the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it often misused international aid for inappropriate purposes, and applied it only to a very limited degree toward improving policies. President Putin, by contrast, rejects international aid. His public explanation is that Russia does not need foreign help in order to develop. It can arrange the necessary measures on its own. First, this idea fits in with the president’s rhetoric of “national self-awareness.” Second, it makes Russia less vulnerable to foreign criticism of how it deals with basic democratic rights.
Nevertheless, within its conceptual framework, the Russian government behaves consistently in international politics, and is therefore considered reliable by its foreign policy partners in the West. Russia has been included in the G8, although economic indicators do not support this decision. Russia has also made progress toward joining the WTO, especially through an agreement with the European Union. Russia joined the Kyoto protocol in 2004. For foreign investors, Russia still poses a higher political risk than Western countries. This is reflected in the ratings of international organizations like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. They have increased Russia’s ratings but the country still ranks below Western market economies. The country’s risk for foreign direct investors was highlighted in 2004 by the Yukos affair. Nevertheless, foreign direct investment in Russia reached a high point in 2004. The logical conclusion is that most foreign investors are willing to accept the higher country risk in order to participate in Russia’s economic boom. Thus, foreign investment is not attracted by a credible government policy but by economic prospects. The government’s policy has been contrary to business interests on many occasions, leading to critical remarks from Western politicians including the EU Commission and the ministries of foreign affairs of Sweden and Norway.
In relations with neighboring countries, Russia still applies a foreign policy concept based on ideas of regional hegemony. However, Russia has been unable to transform the CIS into its own “backyard”. It has accepted a U.S. military presence in Uzbekistan. It has not been able to pressure Turkmenistan into closer economic or political cooperation. Most importantly, Russia has not been able to prevent the political changes in Georgia and Ukraine in 2003-2004, although it was heavily opposed to them. In both cases, a political leadership closely connected to Russia was replaced by a political opposition critical of Russia’s role in the region and interested in closer relations with the European Union. International cooperation has been selective and rules set by regional and international organizations have sometimes been ignored when they were perceived as being contrary to Russia’s national interest.
4.1 Democratic development
Even before the period under review, the core characteristics of a democratic system had been formally established in Russia. There were especially significant deficiencies at the beginning of the period in the freedom of the press, an independent judiciary, combating corruption, and the social rooting of political parties and interest groups. There has been no visible progress in these areas during the period although the government appears to have serious intentions to reform the judiciary and to fight corruption. The development of the mass media and of NGOs, on the contrary, has been hampered by pressure from state agencies.
The massive human rights violations and restrictions on freedom of movement and freedom of the press, all of which have been associated with the second Chechen war since 1999, have been a considerable setback for the country’s democratic development.
Irrespective of these setbacks, the political system has remained stable under President Putin. The majority of the Russian population is not opposed to democracy as a system of government and supports the “Putin system.” In summary, Russia’s stateness and the quality of its political system have not changed significantly since President Putin consolidated his political power in 2000.
4.2 Market economy development
The socioeconomic situation improved slightly during the period under review. This development is mainly the result of economic recovery and less of state-sponsored measures. Accordingly, the improvement has been especially significant since the effects of the economic boom reached society in 2000. The dimension of this boom is described in the table below. It is noteworthy that unemployment has not been reduced substantially despite of high economic growth in a stable macroeconomic environment.
Table: Development of macroeconomic fundamentals (2000-2004)
7.1¹
Export growth in %
Import growth in %
10.9¹
Investment (FDI) in % of GDP²
Tax Revenue in % of GDP
Unemployment in % (ILO)
8,0¹
Budget deficit in % of GDP
Current account balance in billion $
60.1²
Sources: EBRD – Transition Report 2005; Russian Federal Service for Statistics; Bank of Finland Institute for Economies in Transition. ¹estimated; ²Citibank Russia
The economic reforms initiated under President Putin substantially improved the formal institutional framework for market-economy action in several segments of the economic system. However, despite the strong quantitative and qualitative improvement in overall economic development serious problems remain in the economic regime. Regulatory deficiencies exist are still found in the banking system and capital market or the social system. Deficiencies in implementation are to be found in many areas of policy. Most importantly, the changes in the formal institutional framework have not been implemented in full in many policy areas because of bureaucratic inefficiencies, corruption or political interference.
As president Putin has successfully consolidated his power, any major changes in Russia’s political and economic development are unlikely before the end of his second term in 2008. Putin has made his political and economic aims clear, which allows for a solid prognosis.
In the political sphere most of Putin’s reform projects will go unchallenged. A change in the laws governing political parties and elections will lead to fewer relevant political parties. Regional governors will be appointed by the president and no longer elected. This will weaken the governors’ powers and strengthen the Kremlin’s in regional affairs.Reforms will also mean that regional governments will lose certain authorities to the national government. Political pressure on mass media and politically active NGOs will persist. The armed conflict in Chechnya will continue, as will the massive human rights abuses committed by the Russian military.
In the economic sphere, the executive branch will focus on the promotion of growth. However, it is presently unclear at present whether that means further liberal market reforms, like the break-up of natural monopolies and the reform of utilities, or whether the government will focus exclusively on control measures like the fight against corruption and administrative reform. It is also not clear how often the government will intervene directly in economic activities as it did during the Yukos affair. Russia’s economic policy seems to be standing at a crossroads.
However, an abrupt change in policy seems unlikely, as does a sudden recession. The government will continue to profit from the large revenues generated thanks to the high price of oil. There is no opposition to a continued policy of austerity. Therefore, economic growth is likely to continue, and development of the market economy will be limited.
Putin’s goals are clear and he is unwilling to alter his position in reaction to international criticism. External supporters of Russia’s development can either try to find a niche within the current system or withdraw altogether from Russia. It is not possible—at this juncture—to predict any significant changes when Putin’s second term ends in 2008.
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Paul McDonagh welcomes new signing Melissa Mitchell
McDonagh appointed as Development Coach
Report by David Brenchley
Page last updated at 3:20PM UTC, Wednesday, 14 August 2013
The Charlton women’s team are pleased to confirm the appointment of Paul McDonagh as head coach of the newly-formed development squad.
McDonagh is an experienced coach who is currently studying for his UEFA A Licence and also works as head scout and academy manager at Dartford FC.
The former Gillingham and Ebbsfleet United player has already had a number of training sessions with the Addicks and has overseen two friendly wins, including a 9-1 victory over Rusthall at the weekend.
After a highly-competitive recruitment process for the role, Paul came out on top and is now looking forward to helping shape the next generation of Charlton women’s team players.
He said: “I’m looking forward to being able to coach in-game tactics a bit more. I’m looking forward to basing my coaching around also trying to win the game as well as developing the players.
“It’s the sort of role that suits me currently in terms of it gives me the opportunity to really help develop players and that is what, at this stage in my career, is something I can offer a lot.
“I would like to think I can give them a good balance of technical and tactical information because they are still at an age where they need both.
“It’s not all about tactics and winning, you have to take on board some technical stuff as well. I’m looking forward to getting involved with it and hopefully they will really enjoy it.”
The development squad has been set up with the intention of providing a transition phase between youth football and senior football.
The squad will mainly be made up of players who were in our under 17 squad last season, with the addition of a number of talented youngsters brought in from other teams.
They will compete in the South-East Counties Division One, the highest possible tier they could be fast-tracked into, and McDonagh’s main aim this season “is to get everyone better”.
He added: “Seeing their standard at the beginning of the season, giving them individual things to work on and by the end of the season lets tick that box and if you get better at that halfway through the season, let’s maintain it and give you another challenge.
“In terms of results this season, I want to win as many games as possible. I’ve not seen the league we are in, in terms of the level of opposition so it’ll be interesting to see that.”
After injury forced him to end his playing career, Paul has held a number of coaching positions, including first team coach at Thamesmead Town and manager at both Rusthall and Bearsted.
In the women’s game, he was Centre of Excellence coach at Gillingham Ladies and, last season, managed Surrey University’s women’s football team.
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Adaptation and Discovery
Adventures in storytelling and other creative arts
Award Winning Fiction!
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Review: Pirates of the Caribbean 5: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Reminding myself that the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise was inspired by a theme-park ride is useful. As a writer of historical fiction, I find myself enjoying the movie much more. Such is the case for the fifth installment of the series Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales where fine acting and first class special effects shoulder most of the burden for creating an entertaining film. The caliber of the actors and producers, however, suggest this movie had much more potential than what was delivered on the big screen.
Multiple story lines bog down the plot in Dead Men Tell No Tales, and many viewers will find the story hard to track. New characters are introduced on top of a cast that had already expanded under the first three films. Dead Men Tell No Tales sequentially follows the third film (At World’s End), complicating matters, because the fourth film (On Stranger Tides) was a “one-off.” The story tried to capitalize on the popularity of Jack Sparrow and his crew independently of the established story line in the first three films, creating a nonlinear break in the story.
Dead Men Tell No Tales picks up with a young Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites, The Giver, Gods of Egypt), the child of Elizabeth Swan (Kiera Knightley, Bend it Like Beckham, Pride and Prejudice) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom, Curse of the Black Pearl, Troy, Lord of the Rings) on a quest to find the Trident of Poseidon, which legend holds will break all the curses of the sea including his father’s. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp, Curse of the Black Pearl, Platoon, Edward Scissorhands) holds the key to finding the trident through his bewitched compass, which will reveal the location of its owner’s most prized object. Through a series of comedic mishaps, Henry discovers and joins forces with Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario, Maze Runner, Wuthering Heights), who also happens to be searching for the trident to vindicate her father’s scientific calculations left to her in a diary. Corina, however, is about to be hanged as a witch because no one believes her scientific ruminations as a brilliant astronomer.
When Jack Sparrow gives up his compass for a drink in a local tavern, a crew of undead Spanish Navy sailors led by Captain Armando Salazar (Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men, Skyfall, Before Night Falls) are released to continue their quest to rid the seas of pirates. This puts Captain Barbossa‘s (Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech, The Book Thief, Life and Death of Peter Sellers) pirate fleet in jeopardy. Barbossa is captured by Salazar, and his life is saved only when he relents to find Jack Sparrow. Everyone is now on the quest to find the Trident of Poseidon—Henry Turner to release his cursed father from the Flying Dutchman, Corina Smyth to prove her scientific brilliance, Barbossa to retain his power over the seas, and Salazar install himself as lord over the seas.
Keeping all this straight in difficult, and Dead Men Tell No Tales is prone to dialogue that fills in details and background for the audience (a classic case of Show Don’t Tell) with predictable results—slowing down the action. This is a problem because the Pirates of the Caribbean films are built on action sequences that include protracted sword fights, running duels among pirate ships and their pursuers, and chases through towns and jungles. Dead Men Tell No Tales has those scenes—one in particularly has Jack Sparrow dodging a ghost’s attempt to skewer him with a pike as he jumps from cannon to cannon between Bardem’s ship and the resurrected Black Pearl.
Juggling so many characters and story lines creates challenges for directors in a format as structured as film, where the the entire story must take place in a 2-3 hour window. Few characters really have a chance evolve. Henry Turner stays the same brash, precocious young man throughout the movie, although he falls in love with Corina. Salazar stays the same revenge and hate-filled pirate hunter. Corina becomes slightly less headstrong. While Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan make an appearance, but their time on the screen is not long enough to have a meaningful impact on the plot except to set up a sixth film. (Hint: stay seated through the final credits.) The lone exception is Barbossa whose hardcore piratical worldview sets up a personal dilemma that forces him to make a tragic but noble choice—and let’s Geoffrey Rush show his experienced acting chops.
Thus, the plot fails to bring much fresh to the story. The characters come off as flat despite excellent acting by the entire cast. (Even the brief part played by and credited to Paul McCartney—perhaps the only time a beetle is welcome on a wooden ship—was well done and, for me, worth the movie theater ticket price.) Dead Men Tell No Tales’ special effects, particularly those applied to the renderings of Salazar and his crew and the final battle for the trident, are also state of the art, so don’t be surprised to see a few technical Oscar nods to this movie next year.
Nevertheless, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is an entertaining film that stays well within the framework and spirit of the first three films in the franchise.
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This entry was posted in Books, Film Reviews, Films, Showing vs telling and tagged Dead Men Tell No Tales, film critique, Jack Sparrow, movie review, pirates, Pirates of the Caribbean on May 28, 2017 by SR Staley.
Review: Kong: Skull Island Box Office Blockbuster Falls Short
Kong: Skull Island continues to hold its own at the box office, generating $164 million in domestic revenues after seven weeks in theaters and $395 million outside the U.S. The film is definitely headed for a profitable ride, thanks in large part to the Chinese market. It’s persistence at the box office justifies a review, even if late, with a few comments about the story and its execution.
The film, directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, has a fine cast, and a plausible premise (as far as King Kong monster movies go): Bill Randa (John Goodman, Raising Arizona, Monsters, Inc.), a government scientist, has discovered scientific evidence of a strange creature on a remote island that requires investigation. Set in 1973, the waning days of the Vietnam War, the movie enlists an expert tracker (the Thor film franchise’s Tom Hiddleston as James Conrad) to help hunt the animal, a team of scientists to study it, and a military helicopter escort commanded by the aggressive Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson, Pulp Fiction, Dejango Unchained, The Hateful Eight). To counter balance the testosterone is a pacifist photo journalist (The Room‘s Brie Larson as Mason Weaver).
The digital effects are first rate. Many reviewers have commented on the exceptional attention given to animating Kong, one even going so far as to say the digitized gorilla steals the scenes from the live action actors. For the most part, I agree. That’s part of the problem with the film.
As a viewer, most people will connect more with Kong than any of the 13 actors and actresses listed as “stars”. The CGI artists create more believable action a tension between Kong and his underground nemesis Skullcrawler, who is inadvertently roused to the surface by indiscriminate fire bombing in an attempt to kill Kong. One by one, the platoon of non-stars and co-stars is picked off by either Kong (who is a misunderstood hero) or the skullcrawlers.
This points to a second problem: the cast is simply too big. Although Kong: Skull Island is within the larger King Kong franchise, the characters are not recurring. As such, viewers simply can’t get close enough to the characters to care much about them. This probably for the better, even intentional, since they all pretty much die. In fact, the character viewers are most likely to care about, forgotten World War II aviator Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly, Boogie Nights, Talledega Nights, Guardians of the Gallaxy ), enters the film half way through. Brie Larson’s character survives, but her character doesn’t have much depth—she begins as a pacifist, and finishes as a pacifist basically able to say “I told you so, peace is good.”
Third, much of the detail surrounding the actualization of the monsters appears to have been forgotten. For example, a major fight scene between Kong and Skullcrawler takes place in a lake. As they thrash about trying to kill each other, characters watching on the edge of the lake never experience unsettled water or a wave that would be inevitable from such a fight. In another example, somehow twelve helicopters lead the team in the island even though they are transported on a ship capable of carrying six.
Fourth, the humans are plot devices, not characters that drive the story. All of them are expendable, and none have a meaningful arc. The movie is really about the monsters (and to its credit doesn’t seem to forget this). All the players do is position themselves to be killed by the monsters. Sometimes, as in the case of Bill Randa’s demise, the acts seem implausibly suicidal. This isn’t unusual in a monster film, but the best movies in this genre use the story as social commentary. In the original King Kong movie, viewers are left to wonder who is the real monster. We use the story to reflect upon ourselves. Skull Island adds nothing new.
The plot holes, transparent plot devices, and careless squandering of acting talent combined to make a weak movie. That said, if someone is looking for a lot of great digital effects, a really cool rendering of a giant gorilla, and some fantastic supernatural fight scenes in an exotic jungle location, Kong: Skull Island is hard to beat.
This entry was posted in Film Reviews, Films, writing and storytelling and tagged film review, Kong Skull Island, movie review, story telling on April 29, 2017 by SR Staley.
Review: La La Land entertains with music, dance, and substance
The contemporary romantic dance musical La La Land continues to post strong earnings at the box office, generating $40 million domestically and $68 million worldwide (double its production budget). The film is destined to generate much more as a Golden Globe nominee and potential Oscar contender. I will be surprised if the film fails to bring home a major award.
Written and directed by Damien Chazelle (Whiplash, 10 Cloverfield Lane), the plot follows the two aspiring artists in Los Angeles—Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a jazz pianist unwilling to compromise on the purity of his art, and Mia (Emma Stone), an aspiring actress who finds the rough and tumble world of Hollywood dispiriting and overwhelming.
The characters are well developed, and their arcs are clearly defined over the course of the story. Sebastian’s intransigence in the face of pressures to bow to bland public musical tastes is artfully depicted in a scene in a lounge (managed by the reliably excellent J.K. Simmons) where he is fired for straying into free form jazz rather than remain focused on the uninteresting background music he was hired to play. His unwavering commitment to art nearly leaves him destitute but secures the admiration of Mia through a serendipitous meeting in the lounge.
La La Land incorporates much of Chazelle’s hard earned experience, as well as that of Gosling and Stone, into its scenes, giving the film a gritty realism while effectively driving the plot. For example, Mia is performing a heartfelt line when one of the casting director’s takes a personal call, an event borrowed from Gosling’s own auditioning experience. The callous nature of Hollywood and the film industry, as well as the idolatry that draws so many into it, is captured well through these small vignettes which increasing drive Mia to a breaking point when she stakes her savings and professional aspirations on a one woman show.
Chazelle’s story masterfully plays off the differing paths of the lead characters as it builds to the climax, a penultimate point that challenges the characters’ commitment to themselves and their art. But the weave of the story is much more complex than a simple clash of futures or paths. One of the more innovative techniques Chazelle uses reels back through time to chart different courses for the characters at key plot points. This begins at the outset of the film when the characters are introduced after a grand dance number choreographed on an LA freeway so congested traffic has come to a stop. But the technique is used several times to convey different outcomes, allowing the audience to internalize the storytelling technique while pondering more substantive questions about decisions and relationships. This becomes crucial for the film’s climax, bittersweet third act that focuses on the emotional and professional state of the characters to highlight what is ultimately a story about the choices we make and the personal consequences of those decisions.
The film is grand and soaring, much like the most audacious mid-twentieth century musicals, but the story is more complex and artful than many of the classics. Drawing inspiration from classic musicals, including Singing in the Rain and the Umbrellas of Cherbourg, as well as performances by theatrical numbers by Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and others, Chazelle has crafted a film that plays homage to this bygone film genre as well as the real-life experiences of those trying to make it in today’s film industry.
La La Land is distinguished by its production values, ability to entertain, and financial success as a contemporary musical. More interestingly, Chazelle’s determination to tell a complicated story adds to the richness of the film, giving his experienced actors the freedom to explore their characters and relationships. The ending will not be satisfying to many, but this is also his point: real life involves choices and meaningful trade-offs. Our decisions about which choices to make lead to different outcomes, and the results may not be completely satisfying even as we accomplish our professional goals.
This entry was posted in Characters development, Film Reviews, Films, writing and storytelling and tagged Damien Chazelle, emma stone, film reviews, La La Land, musical, ryan gosling on January 6, 2017 by SR Staley.
How to fix Jack Reacher
I recently saw the Tom Cruise action film Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. The movie was very serviceable as an action film—lots of fights, car chases, and take downs of bad guys—but I was disappointed overall. I personally believe Cruise is one of our best actors, and he, like Matt Damon, is capable of filling action hero roles quite capably even as he progresses through his mid-50s. (In fact, the sci fi action movie Edge of Tomorrow remains one of my favorite movies.) Even though Cruise has an entire wikepedia page devoted to his awards, he may be the best actor currently working yet to receive an acting academy award. Jack Reacher doesn’t come close to other movies in quality despite the talents of Edward Zwick, the academy award winning director of Shakespeare in Love and critically acclaimed films such as Glory, Legends of the Fall, and The Last Samurai. Why?
I explored this question using a rubric that includes seven criteria to help me think through a film’s overall quality and pinpoint its strengths and weaknesses. I’ve done similar things for character development in novels (see here and here).
Never Go Back is part of the Jack Reacher thriller series penned by British novelist Lee Child. The story puts former military policy investigator Jack Reacher into the center of a conspiracy to swindle the U.S. government out of millions of dollars through illegal arms sales. The inciting incident is the arrest of Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), who is in charge of Reacher’s old unit. She’s jailed for espionage, but is really a target for assassination because her investigative work uncovered the arms trafficking scheme. Reacher also learns of a paternity suit in the course of the investigation that claims he is the father of a 15 year-old girl, Samantha Dayton (Danika Yarosh). When Turner’s attorney is murdered, Reacher is framed for the crime. The assassins quickly link Dayton to Reacher, expecting to use her as a pawn to trap and kill Reacher. So, the film is off and running as action adventure crime thriller.
I thought Never Go Back was a enjoyable action movie, but fell short of being an excellent one. It relied too much on formulas, and not enough on creative storytelling. So, how did this movie fall short? What made the difference between mediocre and great? These are my thoughts based on my film criticism rubric.
Production values & artistic scope. Overall, the film didn’t have anything that pushed the envelop. The cinematography was state of the industry, but not state of he art. In leading action films such as Mission Impossible or Jason Bourne, technology is used to augment action sequences. Creative editing slows or hastens the pace. The camera shots engage the viewer with different angles and perspectives to illuminate motivation, create suspense, and immerse the viewer. I didn’t see much of this creative use of standard film tools and techniques in Never Go Back. It was yoeman’s work, for sure, but not much beyond it.
Plot, internal consistency & composition. The plot wasn’t particularly creative;
“good guy, but flawed, cop uncovers duplicitous arms dealer” is a pretty worn concept. Buddy rescue stories are also pretty common. The fact that the new boss of Reacher’s old unit is a woman (Turner) might have been innovative in the 1980s and 1990s, but in the 2010s it’s almost cliche. Similarly, the emotional threat of a family member being used to derail the good guy cop is also pretty common (remember Lethal Weapon?). Reacher is a drifter and loner, much like old western heroes, and being tied down by an unwanted child is also a familiar plot device (recall True Grit, Shane, etc.). While the story had an internal consistency—few loose ends left around at the end—its plot and composition were pretty stale. Also, the subplot of the uncertainty about paternity seemed contrived to add some humanity to the hardened soldier turned outlaw. In part this was necessary because Major Turner could pretty much take care of herself. So, some character had to be vulnerable, and that ended up being the teenager that might be Reacher’s daughter. She was never fully integrated as an essential element of the plot.
Story plausibility and dialogue. Okay, this is a bit of a stretch for action films—they are almost always implausible—but my assessments are put in the context of the genre. The dialogue was straightforward without nuance in Jack Reacher. The banter was standard and straightforward, with little wit; Audiences weren’t asked to interpret much beyond what was said by the actors. In fact, I found very little in the way of compelling visual storytelling, in contrast to other similar films such as Deepwater Horizon and Jason Bourne. What makes cinema different from literary forms is the ability to show character and emotion through facial expressions, physical action, and reactions to events and other people without resorting to dialogue to tell the story. Visuals substitute for literary description. The actors were asked to do little more than straightforward acting in the film.
Context in terms of genre. The film’s plot is relevant to the action film genre. After all, the U.S. is winding down the war in Afghanistan, and those weapons can easily be diverted. But the story doesn’t unfold in a creative way. The theft of arms is a standard plot for military television series such as NCIS or JAG. The theme simply is transported onto the big screen in a formulaic way. Even adding a corrupt inside guy n the military isn’t presented in an innovative or creative way.
Entertainment & audience engagement. Never Go Back was entertaining, but it didn’t keep me engaged evenly throughout the film. If I had received a phone call or text message, I would have been willing to leave the theater to take it believing I wouldn’t miss much by the time I returned. In part, this is because the film was predictable and lacked imagination. This movie could have easily gone straight to DVD and saved for late night parties for your teenager.
Character depth & arc. None of the characters really grow. At the end of the film, Major Turner is redeemed and goes back to her job running Reacher’s old unit. She is restored to her position rather than given new responsibilities, and her relationship with Reacher is not significantly deepened. Reacher goes back on the road, taking up his vigilante lifestyle, and the girl goes back to school (albeit this time living with her real mother who has cleaned up her act). Ironically, its the teenager—Samantha—that grows the most. She realizes the truth about Reacher, develops true feelings for him, but takes on a more mature and adult role as daughter to her mother. Unfortunately, Reacher and Turner on the leads in the movie, not the girl.
Social message & relevance. The film has virtually no social relevance or meaningful message, except that Jack Reacher might not forsake the child he may have fathered. The film ends with Samantha giving Reacher a phone for him to contact her, but he doesn’t embrace the new relationship. Similarly, showing bad guys as bad guys doesn’t really advance our understanding of human nature, or reveal new ways of looking at human relationships. It’s all standard formula action movie fodder.
I am not sure how these aspects of the film could be “fixed,” but actors, producers, and directors of Tom Cruise and Edward Zick’s stature and experience can certainly find ways to do it. I didn’t feel like I was ripped off sitting in the movie theater, but I certainly expected more and I believe the principals could have given more. With a production budget of $60 million, they could have. On the other hand, the film has generated nearly the same amount in domestic revenue and $136 million worldwide. So, in at least a commercial sense, the film is a success despite its artistic flaws.
This entry was posted in Books, Characters development, Film Reviews, Films, Keys to Success and tagged character development, film critique, film reviews, jack reacher, storytelling, tom cruise on November 26, 2016 by SR Staley.
The art of visual storytelling: Deepwater Horizon
The action film Deepwater Horizon has a lot of elements that make it one of the best movies of the year—a smart screenplay, excellent action, immersive special effects, and a compelling narrative. (See my review at the Independent Institute here.) Missed in almost all the reviews of the movie, however, is a brilliant example of foreshadowing through visual storytelling that, frankly, drives much of the success of the film overall.
As a story, Deepwater Horizon faced what many writers would think is a fatal flaw: everyone knows the ending. Deepwater Horizon was the name of the oil rig at the center of the world man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history (and perhaps the world): The Gulf Oil Spill. The full costs of the spill exceeds $45 billion by all accounts, and BP Oil is shelling out more than $50 billion in compensation, fines, and reparations as a consequence of the blow out.
Everyone knows what happened. Where’s the suspense? How can this be built into the story?
The film was marketed as a heroic action film, showing how ordinary men and women responded to an unthinkable event (even though they technically had trained for one). This is all fine and good, except that the filmmakers, like most storytellers, want their audiences to be fully vested in the characters—we had to care about them, really care about them, to want to know how they get out of this mess. So, we (the audience) needed backstory.
Some films will accomplish this through flash backs, or dreams, or memory tricks. Deepwater Horizon doesn’t use these techniques. The story (by Matthew Sand with screenplay help from Matthew Michael Carnahan) starts with the protagonist, rig technology guru Mike Williams, waking up in bed with his wife the morning he is heading out to the rig for a long assignment.
Boring. Most people in a relationship get up with their partner or spouse every day. And many, military people in particular, see their partners and spouses deploy for months and years at a time. Nothing extraordinary here. Some reviewers have dismissed this scene as an “obligatory” nod to family and traditional values. But I think this is much more significant and critical to the story.
Conflict drives stories, and these small personal conflicts—the husband going to work, not seeing his kids, etc.—are very minor in the greater scheme of things, particularly in the context of the world oil spill in history. A cardinal rule of writing is that the “inciting incident“—the event that drives the plot and arcs of the main characters—must begin early in order to catch the attention of readers and viewers. They don’t have to finish the arc, but characters must start down the road to transformation to keep the story fresh. And conflict drives the actions of the characters and builds tension in the plot.
Sand and Carnahan do something clever. They write in the 10-year old daughter, Sydney, who is giving a presentation on her dad’s job (played by Mark Walhberg) to her elementary school class. She describes (beginning at minute 9 in the collection of trailers emedded below) how, way back in time, dinosaurs roamed the earth. When they died, the dinosaurs became big bad black monsters (oil) that were trying to escape. When humans drill for oil, the monsters try to escape (the oil gush). Her Dad’s job is to put a lid on the hole that keeps the monsters in the hole, using honey to illustrate how mud is used to block the hole.
During the entire presentation, the daughter is showing what happens by first taking an opened soda can representing the oil reserves that will be tapped, driving a hole in the top using one of her father’s tools to represent the men drilling for oil, and then containing the oil by putting honey down a brass pipe fitting (the oil pipe) until it stops seeping from the can. Everyone is happy, proud of the daughter for coming up with such a simple, clever way to explain a very complicated job to her kids who, like most adults, know little, if anything, about oil drilling and its dangers. Then a chemical reaction leads to the soda exploding from the can—the “blow out”. The family runs from the spraying soda, showing they are powerless to stop it. Since it’s just a soda can, it’s all fun and games.
However, what Sand and Carnahan have done is use foreshadowing to bring the inciting incident into the earliest scenes while providing backstory that shows a close, respectful loving family at breakfast. Now, however, with our advance knowledge and the privilege of knowing the ultimate end—tragic blow out—we know that this family will be threatened, perhaps even torn apart or destroyed. We just don’t know how. We are invested in the main character. This is not an obligatory scene pandering to audience sensibilities; it’s critical to the story’s development and engaging the viewer.
Most of the reviews have focused on how the technical language of oil drilling is handled in the action sequences. Most people will not be able to follow the language, but it’s not necessary. Indeed, when I saw this scene, I realized that an important part of the sequence was to explain to the audience just how the blow out was supposed to be handled. The scene, and the daughter’s explanation, visually and orally explained the basic principles behind drilling and the tactics used to prevent a blow out.
But the scene also accomplishes something much more. It brings the inciting incident upfront in the film, into the opening minutes of the story. Now the audience is focused on whether Mike Williams—the father, the oil rig operator—will survive, whether he will make the right decisions, and, if he survives, how he perseveres through a tragedy that killed eleven men, injured scores of others, devastated an entire region of the Gulf of Mexico, and fundamentally changed the way deep water oil exploration is managed and regulation.
This is one reason why I believe Deepwater Horizon is one of the best films of 2016, and another reason writer’s can learn a lot from successful films and screenwriters.
This entry was posted in Characters development, Film Reviews, Films, writing and storytelling and tagged character development, Deepwater Horizon, inciting incident, Mark Wahlberg, plot points, storytelling, visual storytelling on November 13, 2016 by SR Staley.
Jason Bourne and visual storytelling
I once read in a book on writing screenplays that movies are 80% visual, and this is one reason why movies are so successful at connecting with audiences. Humans are visual animals, and they interpret their surroundings based on sight. All the senses are important, but when it comes to identifying or assessing threats, or devising strategies, we rely on our eyes more than any other sense.
I was reminded of this while watching the most recent Jason Bourne film based on the Robert Ludlum character and novels. The film is a direct sequel to The Bourne Ultimatum, and it’s aptly titled because the story in this movie is really about Jason Bourne trying to uncover his true identity. The entire cast–Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, relative newcomer Alicia Vikander and others–does a great job save for Julia Stiles playing Nicky Parsons (whose performance I thought was rather wooden). The plot is fast paced with two extended car chases, which should be enough to keep teenagers in age and heart more than engaged. In other words, Jason Bourne is an example of a big-ticket action film that’s also well produced on a big budget.
But that’s not what really impressed me.
Rather, the first 15 or 20 minutes of the film seemed like a masterful example of visual storytelling. We must have been five or ten minutes into the film before any meaningful dialogue was spoken by the main characters. Yet the entire story was essentially set up with visual cues and action.
The opening scenes have Nicky Parsons (Stiles) hacking into the CIA’s database to download files on the covert assassin programs run by the agency’s director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones). All she says, in effect, is the password to get into the warehouse were a platoon of hackers is working in a wikileaks manner to uncover dark secrets held by government. We immediately know she is active in trying to identify and expose the covert CIA assassin programs–Blackbriar, Treadstone–when she discovers a new program Iron Hand which is the surveillance programs of all surveillance programs. She also uncovers files that identifies Bourne’s father as a key player in setting up the initial Treadstone program. All this is done through Nicky’s actions–her expressions as she discovers different components, her fingers as she works the keyboard, the computer monitor as files and file folders appears–as movie goers look over her shoulder as she hacks away. She clicks on folders, opens and scans files, downloads them, and then escapes after the CIA identifies the hack and shuts the operation down. Thus, we, as onlookers, put the pieces together. We discover that the CIA is active in its covert program, the agency is more ruthless than ever, Nicky is hot on the trail and scared, and she still is doing a lot of legwork for Bourne. She cares.
In another highly effective exercise in visual storytelling, driven in part because Jason Bourne is a man over very few words, the director (Paul Greengrass) establishes that Bourne is alive and well, but living under the radar. Visual scenes with very little dialogue other than crowds yelling words depict Bourne in underground, presumably illegal, fights in Greece. That’s how Bourne now earns his living–cash in a cash society so nothing can be traced. No words are spoken by Bourne, but we know he is living a gritty, exhausting, meticulously low profile existence. And he’s tough and fit.
These are just a few of the sequences that depict a talented director and filmmaker practicing the art of “Show don’t telll.” For those interesting in film as visual storytelling, and thinking outside the box for ways to “show don’t tell” in narrative fiction writing, studying the first 15 minutes of Jason Bourne is well worth the effort.
This entry was posted in Film Reviews, Films, Showing vs telling, writing and storytelling and tagged Jason Bourne, matt damon, show don't tell, story telling, visual story telling on August 31, 2016 by SR Staley.
Dystopian literature and the reality of apocalypse
SR Staley standing before the iconic image of the atomic bomb’s aftermath: the A-Bomb Dome.
I recently spent some time at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. This is a transformative experience for many people because it’s the first time they connect the horrors of war to their lives in a tangible way. I can’t say I was transformed–I contemplate and reflect on violence a lot in my writing, whether it’s Isabella’s ethical struggles with death and life, Luke’s attempt to combat bullies, or the effects of campus sexual assault–but I found several elements of the peace park sobering and humbling. The atomic bomb truly was horrific in its ability to concentrate power, suffering, and obliterate human existence.
I’ve written more extensively about this on the Independent Institute’s blog, The Beacon, noting,
While many visitors to the peace park see the A-Bomb Dome as the iconic symbol of the horrors of total war, I didn’t find it a compelling image. It’s a building. The real horrors of war on what it does to human beings and our ability to create, innovate, and improve our lives. The Dome represents the destruction of physical space, and indirectly places. Dystopian YA novels get it right: The horrors of war are really human tragedies.
In Hiroshima alone, thousands of children were killed, most instantly, when the bomb blew up. Many of the survivors had to live in a world that is strikingly similar to the post-apocalyptic worlds in which novels such as The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Fifth Wave are set. In someways, many contemporary dystopian novels are, perhaps, imaginations of a world in which humans failed to show the restraint they did in the aftermath of World War II.
This entry was posted in Teen & YA fiction, writing and storytelling and tagged atomic bomb, dystopian fiction, Hiroshima, hiroshima peace memorial park on June 4, 2016 by SR Staley.
A pirate, a ninja, and a gens de couleur walk into a bar in 1784 New Orleans….
Tortuga Bay, 2016 Eric Hoffer Award Finalist!
A pirate, a ninja, and a gens de couleur wak into a bar in 1784 New Orleans….
The punchline? I think this is my next action/adventure series, probably launching after the third book in The Pirate of Panther Bay series is published by SYPP in 2017. The new series will follow three sets of characters as they branch out on their own at the end of the third book: Isabella and Juan Carlos, Gabrielle and Louis, and the ninja (yet to be named). New Orleans provides a provocative blend of Spanish and French colonial cultures. Adding a Japanese to the mix has the potential to ramp up tension and conflict immeasurably!
At the end of Tortuga Bay, I had decided to take Isabella to the U.S., cruising up the west coast of Florida to St. Marks, then Pensacola, and ending her journey in New Orleans. (I have plans for Isabella and Juan Carlos, there.) I wanted to make the third book a little more fun, however. So, I was thinking about adding a ninja. A Ninja? you (a reasonable person) might ask?
I already had a free black (gens de couleur) added to the cast up Isabella’s daring and desperate escape from Port-au-Prince and Dr. D’Poussant’s henchmen. Why another character? In part, each of my novels explores cultural conflict. The Pirate of Panther Bay series stretches challenges readers on a number of different fronts, both in terms of how colonial powers viewed slavery as well as pirates. Fundamental differences in the value of human life are explored in The Pirate of Panther Bay, as Isabella struggles with her place in the world as an escaped slave under the contradictory philosophy and social psychology in play in Catholic, colonial Spain. In Tortuga Bay, differences between and shifting alliances among France and Spain are central to the story. So, I think the third book is ripe for a new take on cultural differences. Why not add an Asian influence?
The glory days of the Ninja, masters of ninjutsu, were in medieval Japan between 1500 and 1700. Japan was unified in 1700, and the role of the ninja declined precipitously as their services against warring clans where no longer needed. This actually sets up the back story for my ninja pretty well. Since the demand for their skills largely disappeared, a ninja would have little reason to stay in Japan (particularly if the government was trying to shut them down). Yet, their skills would be particularly well suited for pirating, even in the Caribbean.
While the ninja were in decline after 1700, they didn’t disappear altogether. Indeed, their training forms the basis of To-Shin do, a self-defense oriented martial art created by Stephen K. Hayes. Hayes is a member of the Black Belt Hall of Fame and is credited as one of the key figures leading the revival of ninjutsu and introducing it to the U.S. (Also, my black belt is in To-Shin Do, and this marital arts provide the foundation for my novels A Warrior’s Soul and Renegade.)
Shiraishi Island, Japan. This old fishing village will be the boyhood home of the ninja in the third book in the Pirate of Panther Bay series.
The character really came together for me while visiting Shiraishi Island in the Seto Sea. The island would have been a tiny fishing village at the time, but my character will be discovered by a old ninja traveling through rural Japan. The old man will discover the talent of my character and bring him to a training facility in the mountains of the fabled Iga Provice of Japan. Then, he will make his way to the Caribbean. This is all backstory, but this background will be essential as his own series takes off from the Pirate of Panther Bay series.
I am very excited about this new series prospects!
This entry was posted in Characters development, martial arts, Pirate of Panther Bay, Tortuga Bay, writing and storytelling and tagged Caribbean, colonialism, Isabella, Japan, New Orleans, ninja, pirate of panther bay, Shiraishi Island, SYPP, Tortuga Bay on May 29, 2016 by SR Staley.
Tris Prior is more than just a buff, kick-butt character
I know that books typically have more depth than films, but YA fiction has tended toward the simplistic and straightforward rather than the complex and layered. Thus, I’ve written the last two posts on the Divergent film series, thinking that the books were not that much more complex than the books (see here and here). I was wrong. Or at least I am revising my thoughts based on the first of Veronica Roth’s novels in the series.
I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the book version of Divergent had a lot more going on than than a kick-butt heroine finding herself among the rubble of post-apocalyptic Chicago. Actually, the character of Tris Prior had a lot more going on. I have already written about how Tris is a much stronger heroine than Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games series. My belief if more firmly entrenched now that I’ve read Divergent.
Veronica Roth has given Tris a grand character arc that establishes her female protagonist as a deep thinker motivated by ideas. She just doesn’t want to be brave, she aspires to the nobility implied in selflessness for a higher cause. Hence, she carries the tattoos of both Dauntless, her chosen faction, and Abnegation, her family’s faction (which she never completely leaves emotionally). Indeed, her discovery and reconciliation of these “divergent” aspirations via her romantic relationship with fellow Dauntless faction member Four becomes a primary element of her identity as she leads the rebellion against Erudite. This is a far more subtle and meaningful transformation than that Katniss undergoes in the more survivalist focused Hunger Games.
Seeing Tris on this journey via Roth’s words was an unexpected pleasure, and elevates her to one of my favorite heroines in fiction.
Other heroines worth reading in fiction? Try
Careen in the dystopian Resistance series by Tracy Lawson (Counteract and Resist).
Isabella in the historical fiction Pirate of Panther Bay Series by SR Staley (The Pirate of Panther Bay and Tortuga Bay)
This entry was posted in Books, Characters development, Heroes and villains, Teen & YA fiction, writing and storytelling and tagged character arc, divergent, heroines, Isabella, pirate of panther bay, strong characters, Tris Prior, Veronica Roth on April 7, 2016 by SR Staley.
Where do good female characters come from?
While recently researching blog posts about the Divergent film series, I ran across a 2011 blog post from Veronica Roth, the author of the novels, that also discussed the origin of Tris Prior, her kick-butt female protogonist. Many readers might think that Tris was always the center of the story, but not so! Here’s what Ms. Roth writes:
“…Divergent really happened when a bunch of these pieces of inspiration suddenly coalesced in my mind as I was writing, and I got about thirty pages of a story from Four’s perspective down, and then set it aside because it wasn’t so good. It was only when I discovered Beatrice that I was able to write the full book, four years later.”
The observation that caught my attention was that she had started writing Four’s (Tobias Eaton’s) story, not Tris’s. But it was boring so she stopped, and didn’t get back to it until four years later!
Her experience is strikingly similar to mine when I was crafting The Pirate of Panther Bay back in 2000. At the time, I was writing a young-adult romance about pirates because I thought it would be exciting and different. The protogonist started out as a male. But after about 50 pages (I got further than Ms. Roth), I put the manuscript down because it was boring! My story was just another pirate trolling through the Caribbean for loot. Ugh.
I am not sure how Ms. Roth “found” Beatrice, but Isabella’s “birth” was actually quite analytical. Since I was writing fiction, and story turns on conflict, I asked myself what would happen if I made the pirate captain female? The story became much more interesting, because virtually any plot putting a woman at the center in a leadership position in the 1780s was going to create conflict and tension. This was particularly true on pirate ships where crews were superstitious and almost always banned women on their vessels. For Isabella to get on the boat in the first place, she would have to overcome significant hurdles. She would also have to be strong–she couldn’t be a stowaway or consort, or start out in a typical role. The path to the captaincy of a pirate ship simply couldn’t take that route.
More importantly, the conflicts created a fascinating story line that allowed me to really flesh out Isabella’s character as well as the major male protagonists. Each of the major characters had a dramatic arc and singular journey that would feed of each other. The results have been great, particularly in the most recent installment, Tortuga Bay.
I hope Veronica Roth talks more about the literary beginnings of Beatrice Prior. I found her character to be very similar to Isabella in terms of personality and temperament.
Now, if I can just get The Pirate of Panther Bay made into a major motion picture….
This entry was posted in Characters development, Keys to Success, Pirate of Panther Bay, SR Staley, Teen & YA fiction, writing and storytelling and tagged character arc, character development, divergent, Isabella, pirate of panther bay, storytelling, Tris Prior, Veronica Roth on March 29, 2016 by SR Staley.
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Freshening Up
By Sean Carroll | November 29, 2012 10:09 am
You may have noticed that all the Discover blogs now have a new look. (One that is still being tweaked, so don’t expect to see my headshot up there for very long.) In fact the whole site has been updated, so there may have been some issues in page loading times and so on. All part of the shakedown process, and hopefully things should be back to normal soon.
CATEGORIZED UNDER: Cosmic Variance
By Sean Carroll | November 25, 2012 2:25 pm
Many writerly friends of mine swear with a straight face that they never look at reviews of their books. I have tried but failed to comprehend the inner workings of these alien minds; personally, as much as I know it might pain me, I can’t help but read reviews. Sometimes I might even learn something! Or at least be gratified, in this nice review of The Particle at the End of the Universe by Adam Frank at NPR.
Or, on the other hand, simply be amazed and astonished. The most amusing “review” so far has come from one of the good readers at Amazon, working under the nom de plume “Chosenbygrace Notworks,” and coming with the to-the-point title “Arrogant atheist `science’.” Apparently Chosenbygrace is not handicapped by actually having read the book, but did hear me talk on Coast to Coast AM. Here’s the opening:
Sean Carroll is a typical atheist physicist who arrogantly disregards creationists to the point where he does not even acknowledge they exist unless prompted (like happened on Coast to Coast AM tonight). The liberal media and filled with money sapping money-obsessed morons like this, willing to indebt any generation of Americans into becoming slaves. It’s already happened, and Americans in general are all debt slaves because of atheism-theoretical-physics cultists like this, and the idiot atheists who worship delusional morons like this.
It goes on, but, you know, probably the gist has been conveyed. The physics/atheism connection is a classic, of course, but I hadn’t been aware that we in the cult were also responsible for plunging Americans into debt. 5 out of 425 people found the review helpful, so at least someone is being helped! (In fairness, the Amazon review by Ashutosh Jogalekar probably does a better job of conveying what’s in the book than any I’ve yet seen.)
Other reviews are puzzling, and I have to mention one in particular. Read More
CATEGORIZED UNDER: Higgs, Personal, Words
By Sean Carroll | November 22, 2012 12:59 pm
This year we give thanks for an idea that is central to our modern understanding of the forces of nature: gauge symmetry. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation of momentum, effective field theory, and the error bar.)
When you write a popular book, some of the biggest decisions you are faced with involve choosing which interesting but difficult concepts to tackle, and which to simply put aside. In The Particle at the End of the Universe, I faced this question when it came to the concept of gauge symmetries, and in particular their relationship to the forces of nature. It’s a simple relationship to summarize: the standard four “forces of nature” all arise directly from gauge symmetries. And the Higgs field is interesting because it serves to hide some of those symmetries from us. So in the end, recognizing that it’s a subtle topic and the discussion might prove unsatisfying, I bit the bullet and tried my best to explain why this kind of symmetry leads directly to what we think of as a force. Part of that involved explaining what a “connection” is in this context, which I’m not sure anyone has ever tried before in a popular book. And likely nobody ever will try again! (Corrections welcome in comments.)
Physicists and mathematicians define a “symmetry” as “a transformation we can do to a system that leaves its essential features unchanged.” A circle has a lot of symmetry, as we can rotate it around the middle by any angle, and after the rotation it remains the same circle. We can also reflect it around an axis down the middle. A square, by contrast, has some symmetry, but less — we can reflect it around the middle, or rotate by some number of 90-degree angles, but if we rotated it by an angle that wasn’t a multiple of 90 degrees we wouldn’t get the same square back. A random scribble doesn’t have any symmetry at all; anything we do to it will change its appearance.
That’s not too hard to swallow. One layer of abstraction is to leap from symmetries of a tangible physical object like a circle to something a bit more conceptual, like “the laws of physics.” But it’s a leap well worth making! Read More
CATEGORIZED UNDER: Science, Top Posts
Time-Reversal Violation Is Not the "Arrow of Time"
Looks like the good folks at the BaBar experiment at SLAC, feeling that my attention has been distracted by the Higgs boson, decided that they might be able to slip a pet peeve of mine past an unsuspecting public without drawing my ire. Not so fast, good folks at BaBar!
They are good folks, actually, and they’ve carried out an extremely impressive bit of experimental virtuosity: obtaining a direct measurement of the asymmetry between a particle-physics process and its time-reverse, thereby establishing very direct evidence that the time-reversal operation “T” is not a good symmetry of nature. Here’s the technical paper, the SLAC press release, and a semi-popular explanation by the APS. (I could link you to the Physical Review Letters journal server rather than the arxiv, but the former is behind a paywall while the latter is free, and they’re the same content, so why would I do that? [Update: the PRL version is available free here, but not from the PRL page directly.])
The reason why it’s an impressive experiment is that it’s very difficult to directly compare the rate of one process to its precise time-reverse. You can measure the lifetime of a muon, for example, as it decays into an electron, a neutrino, and an anti-neutrino. But it’s very difficult (utterly impractical, actually) to shoot a neutrino and an anti-neutrino directly at an electron and measure the probability that it all turns into a muon. So what you want to look at are oscillations: one particle turning into another, which can also convert back. That usually doesn’t happen — electrons can’t convert into positrons because charge is conserved, and they can’t convert into negatively-charged pions because energy and lepton number are conserved, etc. But you can get the trick to work with certain quark-antiquark pairs, like neutral kaons or neutral B mesons, where the particle and its antiparticle can oscillate back and forth into each other. If you can somehow distinguish between the particle and antiparticle, for example if they decay into different things, you can in principle measure the oscillation rates in each direction. If the rates are different, we say that we have measured a violation of T reversal symmetry, or T-violation for short.
As I discuss in From Eternity to Here, this kind of phenomenon has been measured before, for example by the CPLEAR experiment at CERN in 1998. They used kaons and anti-kaons, and watched them decay into different offspring particles. If the BaBar press release is to be believed there is some controversy over whether that was “really” was measuring T-violation. I didn’t know about that, but in any event it’s always good to do a completely independent measurement.
So BaBar looked at B mesons. I won’t go into the details (see the explainer here), but they were able to precisely time the oscillations between one kind of neutral B meson, and the exact reverse of that operation. (Okay, tiny detail: one kind was an eigenstate of CP, the other was an eigenstate of flavor. Happy now?)
They found that T is indeed violated. This is a great result, although it surprises absolutely nobody. There is a famous result called the CPT theorem, which says that whenever you have an ordinary quantum field theory (“ordinary” means “local and Lorentz-invariant”), the combined operations of time-reversal T, parity P, and particle/antiparticle switching C will always be a good symmetry of the theory. And we know that CP is violated in nature; that won the Nobel Prize for Cronin and Fitch in 1980. So T has to be violated, to cancel out the fact that CP is violated and make the combination CPT a good symmetry. Either that, or the universe does not run according to an ordinary quantum field theory, and that would be big news indeed.
All perfectly fine and glorious. The pet peeve only comes up in the sub-headline of the SLAC press release: “Time’s quantum arrow has a preferred direction, new analysis shows.” Colorful language rather than precise statement, to be sure, but colorful language that is extremely misleading. Read More
CATEGORIZED UNDER: arxiv, Science, Time, Top Posts
Shindig!
By Sean Carroll | November 15, 2012 8:47 am
This afternoon, 6pm Eastern/3pm Pacific, is the fun event I mentioned before: a “virtual book tour” discussion on a new-ish platform called Shindig. The idea is that I sit here with my webcam, talking to you and showing some pictures; you sit where you are, with your own webcam, as a potentially-participatory audience member. You can virtually “raise your hand” to ask a question, either by text or by audio in the post-talk Q&A. Different audience members can break off into groups to chat about things by themselves. It’s all free and open and quite experimental, so we’re trying to coax as many people into participating as possible. Certainly saves time (and fossil fuels) in comparison to jetting around the country.
The topic, of course, will be the new book, or really just the basics of the Higgs search and the Large Hadron Collider. I will give a brief overview, very casual, and anyone there should feel free to ask whatever they like.
Here’s an example of a Shindig event, featuring A.J. Jacobs.
Should be fun. Join us if you can!
CATEGORIZED UNDER: Higgs, Personal
Time and Space, Remapped
A short two-person dance, with a twist. Or more accurately, a shear: time is remapped so that there is a delay that increases as you move from the top of the frame down to the bottom. Or in math: (x’, y’, t’) = (x, y, t – y), in some units. Via Terence Tao and Alex Fink.
CATEGORIZED UNDER: Entertainment, Mathematics
Top Ten Amazing Higgs Boson Facts!
To celebrate the publication of The Particle at the End of the Universe, here’s a cheat sheet for you: mind-bending facts about the Higgs boson you can use to impress friends and prospective romantic entanglements.
1. It’s not the “God particle.” Sure, people call it the God particle, because that’s the name Leon Lederman attached to it in a book of the same name. Marketing genius, but wildly inaccurate. (Aren’t they all God’s little particles?) As Lederman and his co-author Dick Teresi explain in the first chapter of their book, “the publisher wouldn’t let us call it the Goddamn Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing.”
2. Nobel prizes are coming. But we don’t know to whom. The idea behind the Higgs boson arose in a number of papers in 1963 and 1964. One by Philip Anderson, one by Francois Englert and Robert Brout (now deceased), two by Peter Higgs, and one by Gerald Guralnik, Richard Hagen, and Tom Kibble. By tradition, the Nobel in Physics is given to three people or fewer in any one year, so there are hard choices to be made. (Read Chapter 11!) The experimental discovery is certainly Nobel-worthy as well, but that involves something like 7,000 people spread over two experimental collaborations, so it’s even more difficult. It’s possible someone associated with the actual construction of the Large Hadron Collider could win the prize. Or someone could convince the Nobel committee to ditch the antiquated three-person rule, and that person could be awarded the Peace Prize.
3. We’ve probably discovered the Higgs, but we’re not completely sure. We’ve discovered something — there’s a new particle, no doubt about that. But like any new discovery, it takes time (and in this case, more data) to be absolutely sure you understand what you’ve found. A major task over the next few years will be to pin down the properties of the new particle, and test whether it really is the Higgs that was predicted almost five decades ago. It’s better if it’s not, of course; that means there’s new and exciting physics to be learned. So far it looks like it is the Higgs boson, so it’s okay to talk as if that’s what we’ve discovered, at least until contrary evidence comes in.
4. The Large Hadron Collider is outrageously impressive. The LHC, the machine in Geneva, Switzerland, that discovered the Higgs, is the most complicated machine ever built. (Chapter 5.) It’s a ring of magnets and experimental detectors, buried 100 meters underground, 27 kilometers in circumference. It takes protons, 100 trillion at a time, and accelerates them to 99.999999% the speed of light, then smashes them together over 100 million times per second. The beam pipe through which the protons travel is evacuated so that its density is lower than you would experience standing on the Moon, and the surrounding superconducting magnets are cooled to a temperature lower than that of intergalactic space. The total kinetic energy of the protons moving around the ring is comparable to that of a speeding freight train. To pick one of countless astonishing numbers out of a hat, if you laid all the electrical cable in the LHC end-to-end it would stretch for about 275,000 kilometers, enough to wrap the Earth almost seven times.
5. The LHC was never going to destroy the world. Remember that bit of scaremongering? People were worried that the LHC would create a black hole that would swallow the Earth, and we would all die. (It was never quite explained why the physicists who built the machine would be willing to sacrifice their own lives so readily.) This was silly, mostly because there’s nothing going on inside the LHC that doesn’t happen out there in space all the time. There was a real setback on September 19, 2008, when a magnet kind of exploded, but nobody was hurt. The current casualty list from the LHC mostly consists of people’s favorite theories of new physics, which are continually being constrained as new data comes in.
6. The Higgs boson isn’t really all that important. The boson is just some particle. What’s important is something called the Higgs mechanism. What really gets people excited is the Higgs field, from which the particle arises. Modern physics — in particular, quantum field theory — tells us that all particles are just vibrations in one field or another. The photon is a vibration in the electromagnetic field, the electron is a vibration in the electron field, and so on. (That’s why all electrons have the same mass and charge — they’re just different vibrations in the same underlying field that fills the universe.) It’s the Higgs field, lurking out there in empty space, that makes the universe interesting. Finding the boson is exciting because it means the field is really there. This is why it’s hard to explain the importance of the Higgs in just a few words — you first have to explain field theory!
7. The Higgs mechanism makes the universe interesting. If it weren’t for the Higgs field (or something else that would do the same trick), the elementary particles of nature like electrons and quarks would all be massless. The laws of physics tell us that the size of an atom depends on the mass of the electrons that are attached to it — the lighter the electrons are, the bigger the atom would be. Massless electrons imply atoms as big as the universe — in other words, not atoms at all, really. So without the Higgs, there wouldn’t be atoms, there wouldn’t be chemistry, there wouldn’t be life as we know it. It’s a pretty big deal.
8. Your own mass doesn’t come from the Higgs. We were careful in the previous point to attribute the mass of “elementary” particles to the Higgs mechanism. But most of the mass in your body comes from protons and neutrons, which are not elementary particles at all. They are collections of quarks held together by gluons. Most of their mass comes from the interaction energies of those quarks and gluons, and would be essentially unchanged if the Higgs weren’t there at all. So without the Higgs, we could still have massive protons and neutrons, although their properties would be very different.
9. There will be no jet packs. People sometimes think that since the Higgs has something to do with “mass,” it’s somehow connected to gravity, and that by learning to control it we might be able to turn gravity on and off. Sadly not true. As above, most of your mass doesn’t come from the Higgs field at all. But even putting that aside, there’s no realistic prospect of “controlling the Higgs field.” Think of it this way: it costs energy to change the value of the Higgs field in any region of space, and energy implies mass (through Einstein’s famous E = mc2). If you were to take a region of space the size of a golf ball and turn the Higgs field off inside of it, you would end up with an amount of mass larger than that of the Earth, and create a black hole in the process. Not a feasible plan. We haven’t been looking for the Higgs because of the promise of future technological applications — it’s because we want to understand how the world works.
10. The easy part is over. The discovery of the Higgs completes the Standard Model; the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood. That’s pretty impressive; it’s a project that we, as a species, have been working on for at least 2,500 years, since Democritus first suggested atoms back in ancient Greece. This leaves plenty of physics that we don’t yet understand, from dark matter to the origin of the universe, not to mention complicated problems like turbulence and neuroscience and politics. Indeed, we’re hoping that studying the Higgs might provide new clues about dark matter and other puzzles. But we do now understand the basic building blocks of the world we immediately see around us. It’s a triumph for human beings; the future history of physics will be divided into the pre-Higgs era and the post-Higgs era. Here’s to the new era!
A Book Full of Particles
Publication day! In case it’s slipped your mind, today is the day when The Particle at the End of the Universe officially goes on sale. Books get a bit of a boost if they climb up the Amazon rankings on the first day, so if you are so inclined, today would be the day to click that button. Also: great holiday present for the whole family!
A very nice review by Michael Brooks appeared in New Scientist. (It’s always good to read a review when you can tell the author actually read the book.) Another good one by John Butterworth appeared in Nature, but behind a paywall.
Brief reminder of fun upcoming events:
Today (Tuesday the 13th), you can Ask Me Anything over at Reddit, starting at 2pm Eastern, 11am Pacific. Of course you lovely blog readers already know everything worth knowing, but I’m looking forward to dodging personal queries from people around the world. (And hopefully explaining a little physics.)
Thursday I’ll be doing an online chat in a platform called Shindig. That’s 6pm Eastern, 3pm Pacific. Fire up your webcam and you can be part of the virtual audience.
FAQ: Yes, you should have no trouble reading and understanding it, no matter what your physics background may be. Yes, there are electronic editions of various forms. Yes, there will also be an audio book, but it’s still being recorded. No, nobody has yet purchased the movie rights; call me. Yes, I know that the Higgs boson is not literally sitting there at the end of the universe. It’s a metaphor; for more explanation, read the book!
Writing this book has been quite an experience. Unlike From Eternity to Here, in this case I wasn’t writing about my own research interests. So for much of the time I was acting like a journalist, talking to the people who really built the Large Hadron Collider and do the experiments there. It’s no exaggeration that I went into the project with an enormous amount of respect for what they accomplished, and came out with enormously more than that. It’s a truly amazing achievement on the part of thousands of dedicated people who are largely anonymous to the outside world. (But for the rest of their lives they get to say “I helped discover the Higgs boson,” which is pretty cool.)
Of course, being who I am, I couldn’t help but take the opportunity to try to explain some physics that doesn’t often get explained. So once you hit the halfway point in the book or so, we start digging into what quantum field theory really is, why symmetry breaking is important, and the fascinating history of how the Higgs mechanism was developed. (I had to restrain myself from going even deeper, especially into issues of spin and chirality, but this is supposed to be a bodice-ripper, not a brain-flattener.) At the end of the book, as a reward, you get to contemplate the role of the internet and bloggers in the changing landscape of scientific communication, as well as all the fun technological breakthroughs that we will get as a result of the Higgs discovery. (I.e., none whatsoever.)
Hope you like reading it as much as I liked writing it.
CATEGORIZED UNDER: Higgs, Personal, Science, Top Posts
Dara O Briain School of Hard Sums
This is an actual TV show in the UK (based on a Japanese program), broadcast on a channel called Dave. In it, Dara O Briain and mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, along with special comedy guests, take on math puzzles (and compete against school-aged math whizzes in the process).
Watch at least the first segment, to see Dara come up with a frikkin’ ingenious solution to a geometry problem.
Could there be a show like this broadcast on TV in the US? Of course not. We only have a thousand channels, there’s no room!
CATEGORIZED UNDER: Mathematics, Media
Publicity Machine Sputters Into Gear
By Sean Carroll | November 6, 2012 2:56 pm
Now that you’ve voted, I know what question you must be asking yourself: where can I go to hear Sean do things like relentlessly flogging his new book, The Particle at the End of the Universe, in stores November 13? Well you’ve certainly come to the right place. Here are some upcoming opportunities in various media.
Here’s a video I just did with Chris Johnson, who is working on a book entitled “A Better Life: 100 Atheists Speak Out on Joy and Meaning In a World Without God.” Hear me at my arrogant, hubristic best. (I am talking about the difficulties of defining meaning in a purposeless universe but somehow managed to work in the Higgs boson.)
This weekend both Jennifer and I will be speaking at Skepticon 5, in Springfield, Missouri. Apparently there will be other speakers, as well.
Local folks, on Monday Nov. 12 I’ll be participating in an event called Uncorked, sponsored by Pasadena music/art organization MUSE/IQUE. The show is headlined by innovative cellist Matt Haimovitz, and his supporting cast includes me and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. (None of the preceding is a joke.)
On book release day, Tuesday, I’ll be doing a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything). Scheduled to start at 11am Pacific time. Head over there to pester me about all the questions you think I avoid over here.
Later that day I’ll be on Attack of the Show, which I believe is broadcast live at 4pm Pacific, then webcast Wednesday morning at 10am Pacific.
That night, for you insomniacs, I’ll be on Coast to Coast AM, starting at 11pm Pacific.
This could be quite cool: on November 15 at 3pm Pacific, I’ll be doing an online presentation/Q&A on a new platform called Shindig. (See an example here.) I will give an informal talk, then anyone following from online who has a webcam can “get up on stage” with me and ask questions, or different audience members can chat amongst themselves. Could be awesome, or a disaster, we’ll have to see.
Friday the 16th I’ll be on Science Friday. Presumably a more focused discussion than on Coast to Coast.
Back here in Pasadena, on Sunday Nov. 18th I’ll be giving a public lecture on the Higgs boson at the Skeptics Society at 2pm Pacific. Apparently this will also involve a live webcast, so tune in.
On Thursday November 29 I’m scheduled to be on a plucky little cable TV show called the Colbert Report. Due to the vicissitudes of television, these things tend to get un-scheduled and re-scheduled with abandon, but that’s the current plan.
A day later I’m in Portland, giving a public talk at the First Congregational Church.
A week after that I’m in Toronto, appearing on a public panel on Dec. 7 talking about the Higgs.
And that’s it for 2012, as far as I currently know. Come January I’ll be in the UK for a bit, which should be fun. The above looks like a long list, but several of them are local and/or electronic, so I have high hopes for continuing to get actual work done over the next couple of months.
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Grelle Forelle
Grelle Forelle is an electronic music club in Vienna, Austria, located in the 9th district on the banks of the danube canal, which opened it’s doors for the first time in December of 2011. The musical focus is Techno, but the club showcases a variety of genres including House, Hip-Hop live shows, and alternative concerts. The club’s identity is not defined in terms of a restrictively narrow focus, but rather by an eclectic commitment to “underground” music of highest quality. Over the last few years Grelle Forelle has positioned itself as a space to educate as well as to entertain. It is hoped that the range of artists shown at the club hints at the strides Vienna has taken to emerge out of the shadows of its European neighbours and establish itself as a hub for the underground in its own right. Grelle Forelle <>< was conceptualised with the aim of developing Vienna’s party infrastructure firmly in mind, and marks one more step towards the continued evolution of the city as a respected contributor to international club culture.
The club has a strict policy prohibiting photography, video and audio recordings. These measures are meant to ensure a secure space for guests to express themselves freely and openly in a private environment throughout the club.
office@grelleforelle.com
http://www.grelleforelle.com/
https://www.facebook.com/GrelleForelle/
https://www.instagram.com/grelle_forelle/
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Ethan Hawke Is The Schemer, Penn Badgley The Hero in Exclusive Character Cards for CYMBELINE
by Adam Chitwood March 5, 2015
Opening in theaters and VOD on March 13th is Cymbeline, writer/director Michael Almeredya’s retelling of William Shakespeare’s play of the same name. The film re-envisions Shakespeare’s tale as a violent crime epic between a biker gang led by King Cymbeline (Ed Harris) and corrupt cops. And in anticipation of the film’s release, we here at Collider have been provided with a a pair of exclusive character cards for Ethan Hawke and Penn Badgley to debut. Hawke plays Iachimo, who is dubbed “The Schemer” in this character piece, and Badgley plays “The Hero” Posthumus.
Almeredya has experience in re-interpreting Shakespeare as he directed the 2000 film Hamlet, also starring Hawke, so it’ll be interesting to see what he brings to the story of Cymbeline. Check out Hawke and Badgley’s character cards below. The film also stars Milla Jovovich, John Leguizamo, Dakota Johnson, Anton Yelchin, Bill Pullman, and Delroy Lindo.
Here’s the official synopsis for Cymbeline:
Academy Award® nominees Ethan Hawke (Best Supporting Actor, Boyhood, 2014) and Ed Harris (Best Actor, Pollock, 2000) lead a powerhouse cast including Milla Jovovich, John Leguizamo, Penn Badgley, Dakota Johnson and Anton Yelchin, with Bill Pullman and Delroy Lindo in a gritty story of a take-no-prisoners war between dirty cops and an outlaw biker gang. When extortion, betrayal, and fiery passions threaten his criminal empire, a drug kingpin (Harris) is driven to desperate measures in this explosive, modern retelling of Shakespeare’s timeless play.
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• Cymbeline • Ethan Hawke • Penn Badgley • Poster
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Governor Cuomo Announces Opening of $28 Million Mixed-Use Housing Development In Peekskill
Lofts on Main Pairs 75 New Affordable Homes with Ground Floor Commercial Space to Revitalize Peekskill's Downtown Arts District
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the opening of Lofts on Main, a $28 million mixed-use housing development in Peekskill's downtown arts district. The newly constructed development offers 75 apartments for local artists and residents with a variety of income levels, as well as 7,200 square feet of ground floor commercial space.
"New York's $20 billion housing plan continues to create vibrant neighborhoods where New Yorkers want to live, work and play," Governor Cuomo said. "By combining affordable housing with new commercial space, Lofts on Main is revitalizing Peekskill's Main Street and building a stronger local economy in the Mid-Hudson Region for all to enjoy."
"Peekskill has become a destination for artists who have transformed the downtown experience for more than a decade," said Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, who made today's announcement. "The new Lofts on Main is more than just a building - it is a recognition that painters, photographers, musicians and more enrich our society while driving tourism and economic vitality. This investment in affordable housing and commercial space will further advance the momentum in the arts district and continue progress in the Mid-Hudson region."
Lofts on Main is part of the Governor's unprecedented $20 billion, five-year Housing Plan to make housing accessible and combat homelessness by building or preserving more than 100,000 affordable homes and 6,000 with supportive services. The plan is a comprehensive approach to statewide housing issues and includes multifamily and single-family housing and community development. Since 2011, HCR has invested nearly $846 million in the Mid-Hudson region that has created or preserved affordable housing for nearly 28,800 residents.
Lofts on Main is comprised of two four-story buildings with 49 one-bedroom apartments and 26 two-bedroom loft-style apartments. Twelve apartments are reserved for persons with physical disabilities. The Housing Action Council will provide referrals and services for these residents with physical disabilities.
Fifty of the apartments will be available to households with incomes at or below 50 percent of the area median income with a preference for artists. Six apartments will be available to households with incomes at or below 90% of the area median income and 18 apartments will be available to households at or below 100% of the area median income. One two-bedroom apartment serves as an onsite superintendent's unit.
Lofts on Main has four commercial ground floor spaces occupied by Ty's Bread Basket BakeShop, The Evolution Gallery, Nourish Hair & Body Salon and Green's Natural Foods.
Building amenities include a gallery space in the lobby for resident artists to showcase their work and two studio/performance practice spaces. There is a large courtyard between the two buildings available as a performance and meeting space. Additional building amenities include a laundry room, fitness room, community room and rooftop terrace with views of the Hudson River. Lofts on Main was designed with numerous energy efficient features including EnergyStar appliances and highly efficient heating, cooling and ventilation systems.
Located on Main Street between Division and Nelson Streets, Lofts on Main is within walking distance from City Hall, the public library and the Metro North train station. Downtown Peekskill has undergone a revival over the past 15 years, becoming a hub and regional destination for arts and entertainment. Home to the Paramount Theatre, numerous cafes, art galleries, restaurants and music venues, the City of Peekskill fosters a thriving artist community in need of affordable housing.
State financing for the development included state and federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits that generated $10.9 million in equity and $5.2 million in subsidy from New York State Homes and Community Renewal. The New York State Energy Research and Development Agency provided $187,500 and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation provided brownfield tax credits that generated $3.7 million in equity. The Community Preservation Corporation provided a $15.5 million construction loan and a $6.8 million SONYMA-insured permanent loan. The project developer is Kearney Realty and Development.
Homes and Community Renewal Commissioner RuthAnne Visnauskas said, "Governor Cuomo understands that when we pair affordable housing with ground floor retail space, we reactivate Main Street commercial corridors to create vibrant, walkable neighborhoods. By providing affordable housing and artist workspaces, Lofts on Main is building Peekskill's reputation as a regional artistic hub and boosting the local economy. This is a win-win for everyone involved. Congratulations to all of our partners for the completion of this beautiful new development."
Alicia Barton, President and CEO, NYSERDA, said, "Lofts on Main demonstrates the key role energy efficiency can play in creating mixed use spaces that provide quality and comfort for residents who live and work there while reducing harmful emissions and moving us closer to achieving the New York's aggressive clean energy goals. As part of Governor Cuomo's nation-leading clean energy and climate agenda New Yorkers statewide are seeing tangible benefits that improve their lifestyle and lower their energy bills."
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Basil Seggos said,"The development of Lofts on Main is a shining example of what DEC hopes to achieve through our rigorous oversight of the Brownfield Cleanup Program, which is bringing formerly contaminated sites back into productive use across the state. We are proud to see that the Brownfield Cleanup Program is protecting public health and the environment and benefiting the Peekskill community in the process."
Senator Pete Harckham said, "Lofts on Main is the kind of mixed use affordable housing project that will help continue to revitalize Peekskill's city center, while ensuring that lower income residents and the physically disabled aren't displaced from the area. By providing live/work lofts in the heart of the city, the developer and the city are ensuring a vibrant city center. This is what great planning and state financing can help achieve."
Assemblymember Sandy Galef said, "Having state dollars allocated towards affordable housing is very important to the communities in my district. This significant project will help facilitate the artist community in Peekskill, which has contributed a very special component to life in the city."
Westchester County Executive George Latimer said, "Peekskill is growing stronger, and when our downtowns thrive our County thrives. By constructing a mixed-use development dedicated to our local artists and residents of all income levels, we are providing more opportunities for all people to call Westchester County home."
Peekskill Mayor Andre Rainey said, "Lofts on Main creates more high quality housing options for local residents while also supporting economic growth and activity along Main Street here in downtown Peekskill. We are proud of Peekskill's reputation as an inclusive and vibrant artistic community. We are grateful to all of our state and local partners for working with the City of Peekskill to deliver this beautiful new development. Congratulations to all."
Rafael E. Cestero, President and CEO of CPC, said, "Housing is the backbone of strong, vibrant communities and we've seen that put into action here in Peekskill. For years, CPC has partnered with the community to finance mixed-use housing projects that have helped to spur its revitalization as a thriving center for the arts. We're excited to have had the opportunity to help transform this formerly vacant lot into a resource of affordable housing and active artist space for the Peekskill community. My thanks to Governor Cuomo, HCR, Kearney Realty, and our partners at Wespath Benefits and Investments."
Ken Kearney, Principle, Kearney Realty and Development, said, "The Lofts on Main was one of the first developments to utilize NY State Homes and Community Renewal innovative Middle Income Housing Program. This funding combined with Housing and Brownfield credits as well as private financing from CPC provided the necessary funding to produce this impactful downtown revitalization project. We thank all of our partners who join with us today to celebrate the grand opening of The Lofts on Main."
Rose Noonan, Executive Director, Housing Action Council, said, "The Housing Action Council is pleased to celebrate the opening of Lofts on Main which not only offers affordable housing for artists but also contributes to the growth and excitement of downtown Peekskill."
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Home » Regional and Individual Influences on Use of Mental Health Services in Canada
Regional and Individual Influences on Use of Mental Health Services in Canada
Diaz-Granados, Natalia; Georgiades, Katholiki; Boyle, Michael H.
Canadian Journal of Psychiatry;Jan2010, Vol. 55 Issue 1, p9
Objective: Knowledge is lacking on the extent to which area-level characteristics contribute to variations observed in the use of mental health services. This study examined the influence of area- and individual-level characteristics on the use of mental health services. Methods: Data from a nationally representative, population-based, cross-sectional survey, the Canadian Community Health Survey-Mental Health and Well-Being, consisting of adults aged 15 years or older (n = 36 984), were linked to Canadian 2001 Census profiles according to health region boundaries (n = 97). Multilevel multivariable logistic regression modelling was used to: estimate variation in 12-month self-reported use of health services for mental health reasons between health regions; and, estimate the effects of individual- and area-level need, health resources, and sociodemographic factors on self-reported 12-month use of medical services for mental health reasons. Results: There was a 2.1% and 3.5% regional variation for general practitioner-family physician (GP-FP) and psychiatric health service use during 12 months, respectively. Most of the regional variation observed was explained by number of physicians per health region and regional and individual need factors. Adults who were middle-aged, had a post-secondary education, low-income, were separated, widowed, or divorced, and Canadian-born were significantly more likely to use GP-FP and psychiatry services for mental health reasons at the individual level, even after adjusting for area- and individual-level need factors. Conclusions: Most area-level variation was explained by the availability of health region resources and individual-level need factors. After accounting for need, numerous sociodemographic factors retained their association with use of mental health services. Additional efforts are needed at the area and individual level to reduce inequities through appropriate targeted care.
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Write For Contemptor
Fever Swamp
Government is launching new aero model
Justin Baragona
Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..”, comes from a line in section 1.10.32.
There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don’t look even slightly believable. If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn’t anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet.
airplanebusiness
Justin Baragona is the founder/publisher of Contemptor and a contributor to The Daily Beast. He was previously the Cable News Correspondent for Mediaite and prior to starting Contemptor, he worked on the editorial staff of PoliticusUSA. During that time, he had his work quoted by USA Today and BBC News, among others. Justin began his published career as a political writer for 411Mania. He resides in St. Louis, MO with his wife and pets.
Conference for the world business
Construction of buildings leads the profit
New business plan for next year
Energetic youths for future business
International marketing has new deal
State management further on progress
© Contemptor 2015-2019. All rights reserved. Contemptor by Themebeez
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UCSB Begins MPSF Title Search at Stanford
April 14, 2016 at 5:09 am by Ryan Burns
A week after knocking off now No. 7 Pepperdine and No. 5 Stanford by a score of 3-1 each to finish the regular season, the No. 6 UCSB men’s volleyball team will travel north for a rematch with the Cardinal in the first round of the MPSF playoffs.
The Gauchos are riding high ahead of the match, carrying a five-game win streak into the postseason following their strong finish to league play. UCSB finished the regular season 19-9 overall, 14-8 in the MPSF for fifth in the conference standings.
Soaring through the air, Bobby Curtis jump serves. Dustin Harris / Daily Nexus
Nonetheless, Stanford put together an impressive season as well, losing just three matches all year before losing its last two against UCLA and the Gauchos last week, resulting in the Cardinal drop from first place in the conference to fourth. Still, Stanford managed to finish with a 19-5 overall and 17-5 MPSF record.
In its meeting last weekend versus the Cardinal, UCSB outhit Stanford .360 to .299 thanks to what was arguably senior Jonah Seif’s best performances of the season. The setter recorded his sixth double-double of the year with 47 assists and 10 digs and was all over the court in the four-set victory.
“Jonah’s been phenomenal the past couple months,” junior libero Parker Boehle said of his teammate. “He’s always the one to let us know that we’re fine no matter how bad the situation, and we can always look to him to come up big.”
Seif also outshined Stanford’s setter James Shaw in last Saturday’s clash, who was honored as the National Player of the Week ahead of the last week of league play. Shaw tallied 31 assists before tweaking his ankle on a block in the fourth set, ending his night.
The Gauchos will be a man stronger going into their postseason rematch with redshirt junior outside hitter Jacob Delson returning from an ankle injury of his own.
As Santa Barbara’s leading hitter, averaging 3.29 kills/set, Delson was back on the bench on Saturday, but Head Coach Rick McLaughlin decided not to risk playing the outside hitter with their first round match in mind.
In Delson’s absence, sophomore Hayden Boehle was called upon to fill the void left by Delson’s injury, putting on his best performance of the year at outside hitter after splitting playing time with his brother Parker at libero for most of the season. Against Stanford, Hayden recorded his first double-double of the season with a career-high 12 kills on .526 hitting to go with 10 digs.
“It helps knowing that guys like my brother Hayden can step up,” Parker Boehle said. “It makes us even more confident that we have a guy [Delson], who’s been a key player for so long that’s ready to contribute.”
When the teams met at Stanford earlier in the year, the Cardinal sent the Gauchos home in straight sets. Starting with a home loss to Long Beach State, Santa Barbara went 3-7 in its next 10 league games, including the loss to the Cardinal, but UCSB has improved much since then.
“That loss was one of our worst games, but we’ve put it in the past and last week [against Stanford] we were able to show that we’re a new team,” Boehle said. “We put that game behind us. Later in the season, we’ve had this new mentality where we’re taking every practice, every game a lot differently than we have in the past.”
The changes have shown, and since their mid-season skid the Gauchos have gone undefeated as they tune up for the postseason, the biggest win of which was the final match of the season against then No. 3 Stanford.
“We’re fired up to play them again after beating them on our home court,” Boehle said. “We’ve had a great week of practice so far, and we’ll be ready to play them again this weekend.”
The match between fourth-seed Stanford and fifth-seed UCSB will take place Saturday, April 16 at Maples Pavilion in Stanford, at 7 p.m. A live stream of the first round meeting is available at pac-12.com/live/stanford-university.
With a win, the Gauchos will face the winner of eighth-seed UC Irvine v. first-seed and national No. 1 BYU in the MPSF semifinals.
A version of this article appeared on page 18 of April 14, 2016’s print edition of the Daily Nexus.
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The Formation of the New Testament
Why these twenty-seven books? As a pastor, this is a question that I get quite often. If we regard the New Testament is the "final authority in faith and life," we should have good reasons for doing so. In this essay, I lay out the basis for our understanding of why these books, and these books only, belong in the collection we call the "Word of God."
A Brief Word On Councils
Before we begin, I need to quickly disavow an error that is repeated in various forms by many different people—that the twenty-seven books of the NT were not "canonized" until the church councils of the fourth century AD. The most common claim is that this was at the Council of Nicea in 325. This is simply wrong. The primary purpose of the Council of Nicea was to address the Arian controversy regarding the divinity of Christ, and also the comparatively minor issues of the date of Easter and certain points of canon law. The first official church council to rule on the books of the New and Old Testaments was the Synod of Rome in 382.
Moreover, it is erroneous to think that there was no NT canon until it was declared to be so by a church council. First, Scripture bears greater authority than any church council, so it’s not as if any council could confer such a status on the NT writings. After all, we know that the church already regarded Paul’s letters as Scripture in the first century (e.g., 2 Pet 3:16). Were these churches wrong in doing so, simply because they hadn’t been declared such by an official ecumenical council? Second, the mere fact that certain books are regarded as Scripture implies that they are canonical, for what is canon but a list of books that are regarded as Scripture? Such lists existed long before either Nicea or the Synod of Rome. And even without actual lists, any church that has books that it holds to be Scripture has a “canon.” The church councils are the wrong place to look, if we are asking when the NT books were canonized. Rather, we should ask when the books that we call the New Testament were regarded as Scripture.
The New Testament's Perspective
The place to begin is in the New Testament writings themselves, where we can already see the development of a canonical awareness—an understanding that Scripture was once again being written, and that these writings bore the same divine authority as the Old Testament.
In John 14:26 and 16:12–14, Jesus, speaking to his disciples in the upper room, tells them that they would not simply be recalling whatever they could about him and elaborating on it. Rather, they would be helped by the Spirit of God, who would teach them and help them to remember “all” that he had said to them, that they would be guided into “all truth” and into a knowledge of “the things that are to come,” and that the knowledge they would receive would be that which belongs to Jesus.
In numerous places, Paul blatantly says that his proclamation is the Word of God (1 Cor 14:37; 2 Cor 13:2–3; 1 Thess 2:13; 4:18; 2 Thess 3:6; 4:15; 2 Pet 3:1–2). Here, Paul and Peter are writing at a time when most of the apostles were still alive. Therefore, while their writings were being received as Scripture, the majority of their teaching was delivered through what they preached. And so, when they write of things such as “the Word of God which you heard from us,” “the traditions received from us,” and “the commandment . . . through your apostles,” they are speaking of the apostolic preaching, which is accurately enshrined in their written Word.
Of the passages mentioned in the previous paragraph, 1 Corinthians 14:37, 1 Thessalonians 4:8, and 2 Thessalonians 4:15 refer to the letters themselves, and not to merely oral teaching. The advantages of the written word were that it allowed them to communicate over long distances without having to travel, it gave a solid, permanent witness to what they had said, it allowed for copying and widespread distribution, and it preserved their teaching after their deaths.
Hebrews opens with an affirmation that the revelation given in Jesus Christ is at least on par with (if not in some sense superior to) that which was given in the OT (Heb 1:1–2).
First Peter 1:10–12 expresses the idea that the same spirit that inspired the prophets inspired the apostles.
There are two places in which the NT authors affirm other NT books as Scripture. The first is 1 Timothy 5:18, where Paul quotes Deuteronomy 25:4 alongside Luke 10:7, referring to both as “Scripture.”
At the end of his second letter, Peter writes, “And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Pet 3:14–16). Peter here calls Paul’s letters “Scripture” and lumps them in with the rest of what he takes to be written divine revelation, which probably includes other NT books as well.
These are snapshots that give us glimpses of how the early Christians were thinking about the books that came to be known as the New Testament. None of these passages seem to have been written in order to teach that we should regard these books as Scriptures. Rather, this seems to be mutually understood by both their writers and their recipients.
Evidence from the Early Church Fathers
As we move into the period of the early church fathers, we find a strong reverence for the authority of Jesus' apostles, as well as an understanding that many of the books of our NT bore this very authority.
In AD 96, Clement of Rome wrote about how “the apostles received the gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ. . . . So then, Christ is from God, and the apostles are from Christ. Both, therefore, came of the will of God in good order” (1 Clem 42:1–2). Clement also urges his readers, the Corinthian church, to read Paul’s first letter to them, and quotes parts of the Sermon on the Mount, giving it equal authority to the OT (13:1–2). It has also been argued that Clement shows knowledge of Romans, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, and 1 Peter.
Ignatius of Antioch, who wrote letters to seven churches during a visit to Rome (ca. 115 AD), quotes Matthew, Luke, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians and 1 Thessalonians as authoritative.
Polycarp, writing his Epistle to the Philippians in 107 AD, quotes the NT about 100 times, clearly giving it equal, if not greater, authority than the OT. He quotes or strongly alludes to Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Hebrews, 1 Peter, and 1 and 3 John. He even couples Ps 4:4 and Eph 4:26 together, calling them “these Scriptures” (12:4).
Papias (60–130 AD) clearly viewed both Matthew and Mark as canonical.
The Epistle of Barnabas (ca. 130) quotes Matthew with the formula “it is written."
From this, and other evidence, it seems rather clear that, although not collected into one larger canon (i.e., the New Testament), these books, as well as others in our NT canon, were circulated and read as Scripture.
It’s important to keep in mind, again, this is what we can reconstruct from the fragments left to us from history. The fact that other NT books might not be mentioned does not mean that they were not regarded as Scripture as well, any more than a Pastor’s use of, say, five books of the Bible in a given sermon would indicate that he only holds those five books to be canonical.
Evidence from Heretical Groups
Also from the second century, we know of several important heretical groups which, ironically, began to force the church to more sharply define which books bore the genuine mark of apostolic authority and which ones did not. The most glaring example of this is Marcion, a gnostic who held that Jesus came to save the world from the God of the OT, whom he saw as evil and inferior. He advocated a canon containing only Luke and ten of Paul’s letters, purged of references that paid high regard to the OT. This is actually the first canonical list that we know of, and its value for us is that attests to the acceptance of Luke and of the Pauline corpus among early Christians, even if we are speaking here of a heretical sect.
Another example of an important heretical movement were the Montanists, who followed the teachings of Montanus, a charismatic leader who claimed to be the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit and who, along with other so-called prophets and prophetesses, would enter into a trance-like state and declare what he and his followers believed to be the Word of God. Yet even among these heretics, the oracles of their leaders were not seen to bear the same authority as Scripture itself.
The gnostic work, Gospel of Truth, treats the Gospels, Acts, Paul’s letters, Hebrews, and Revelation as authoritative.
The ever-increasing number of early sub-Christian heretical movements, of which these are just some examples, pushed the church to more clearly define what was and what was not apostolic Scripture. The earliest written evidence of the orthodox’s response is the second-century Muratorian Canon (named after its finder), written in Rome, which lists all of our NT books except Hebrews, James, and 2 Peter (and possibly also 1 Peter—it’s omission seems to be a scribal error). It also contains the Apocalypse of Peter, which the author of the list expresses hesitations about, noting that it is not universally accepted (in contrast to the others). It should be noted that this document is fragmentary and its meaning is sometimes unclear.
Other Early Figures
Sometime between 170–85 AD, the Syrian church leader Tatian produced a harmony of the four canonical Gospels called the Diatessaron. For him, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the four authoritative sources on Jesus' life, despite other inferior so-called gospels that were circulating at this time.
Writing at about the same time, Irenaeus, who was a well-known bishop of Lungdunum in Gaul, and whose views therefore express what was mainstream among the orthodox, recognized twenty-two NT books as authoritative, with the exception of Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, and 3 John. It should be noted that Irenaeus did, however, include the Shepherd of Hermas. In his work, Against Heresies, he charges Marcion with the error of modifying Scripture, since the latter removed the OT, did not regard large portions of the New, and purged the remaining documents of whatever didn't conform to his beliefs. Here he also explicitly affirms the sole legitimacy of the four canonical gospels. (3.11.8). His contemporary, Terullian, used roughly the same books.
Origen, also writing at this time, has a more straightforward discussion of the issue, and labels the works also attested to in Irenaeus and Tertullian as “undisputed,” while noting the others to be less certain among some. He does, however, seem to view Hebrews, James, and Jude as Scripture (based on how he quotes them—Hebrews is quoted, apparently as Scripture, over 200 times). In fairness, it should be noted that Origen is also sympathetic to the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Acts of Paul, 1 Clement, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, and the Shepherd of Hermas.
Summary of the Early Years
Based on this and other evidence, here’s what we can say about the New Testament canon by 220 AD:
The Gospels: Universally accepted
Acts: Universally accepted
Paul: Universally accepted
Hebrews: Accepted in the East; not recognized in the West until the fourth century; it is noteworthy that the hesitancy is due to the fact that it is anonymous—authorship was an important criterion for the early church; they needed to know who wrote it!
James: Generally accepted
1 Peter: Universally accepted.
2 Peter: Unknown; possibly accepted in the Muratorian canon as the Apocalypse of Peter; it has been postulated that the reason the church expressed so much caution with respect to 2 Peter is because of the preponderance of Petrine forgeries that were being circulated.[1]
1 John: Universally accepted
2 and 3 John: Disputed; may have been attached to 1 John.
Jude: Generally accepted.
Revelation: Generally accepted.
Thus, we have widespread acknowledgement of 23 of the 27 books of the NT. It is important to realize that everything significant that we believe as Christians can be well-established by these books. In fact, even if we only had the Gospels and Paul, we would have this. One might even go so far as to say that even if we only had one of the four Gospels, or one of Paul’s letters, the basic content of our faith—trust in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sin and reconciliation before God—would still be established. This is not to say that the contested books were unimportant, but (and this is extremely important) we should not be duped into thinking that the only way that Christianity can be true is if all 66 books of the Bible (or even the 27 books of the NT) can be proven to be the Word of God. The truthfulness of who Jesus is, our sin predicament, who God is, Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the primacy of faith in appropriating the salvific benefits of Jesus’ work, are in no ways in jeopardy if certain aspects of Scripture are called into question. Of course, we should love and treasure the Scriptures, and live by them; but if someone is in doubt about certain issues pertaining to the canon, he or she should not jump to the false conclusion that such doubts undermine the whole of Christianity.
It is also important to remember that most churches at this time were still heavily localized and autonomous. There was no governing body to officially declare what was and was not Scripture, which is why, at this time, we cannot speak of any official position of “the church.” Again, what we have are historical snapshots of what was taking place.
The Next Phase
Our impressions of these snapshots are confirmed as we continue to move into the next centuries of the church. Eusebius (ca. 260–340 AD), for example, confidently labels some books as homologoumena (“recognized books”) and others as antilegomena (“disputed books”). The former are comprised of the four Gospels, Acts, Paul, Hebrews (believing it to have been written by Paul), 1 Peter, 1 John, and Revelation (with some hesitation—there were doubts regarding its authorship that prevented universal acceptance; again, note the importance of authorship). The latter are comprised of two groups: Those books that are not universally recognized and should be regarded as Scripture (James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John) and those that also are not universally recognized but should not be regarded as Scripture (the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Didache, and Barnabas).
The first actual list that confidently corresponds exactly with our New Testaments is the thirty-ninth Festal Letter of Athanasius, written in 367 AD. Of these books, he writes, “Let no one add to these, nor take from these.”
In the West, the 27 books of our NT were officially recognized as the set and exclusive canon at the Synod of Rome in 382 AD. This ruling was upheld shortly after in subsequent councils, such as the synods of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397). It should be noted that several churches adopted canons slightly different from the standard one accepted in the West and in the East.[2]While the Ethiopian Orthodox Church recognizes our 27 books, it adds eight more.[3]The Syrian Peshitta, on the other hand, excludes 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation. These are exceptions, however, and obviously do not reflect mainstream Christian thought at any point in history.
Ultimately, we must see the recognition of the NT canon to be a function of the Holy Spirit’s role in guiding Christ’s church into all truth (John 16:13). In recognizing these books as canon, the church was doing just that—recognizing the authority that the books intrinsically possessed, as opposed to conferring them with authority that was the church’s to grant. The canon, in other words, is not an authoritative list of books; it is a list of authoritative books. The church did not make certain books canonical; it recognized them as possessing the apostolic character that qualified them as such. It is impressive indeed to consider that the canon is not something that was declared by an ecclesial hierarchy, but rather grew as a grassroots phenomenon among localized churches that saw the need to further define Scriptural authority in the face of heresy. In so doing it carried on the canonical trajectory already evident within the NT itself. And when formal councils eventually did weigh in on the matter, they did not do so by announcing which books they had decided were to be regarded as canon; all of them simply stated which books they had received as canonical.
Ultimately, the reason we accept the traditional canon of the New Testament is because we have confidence in the providence of God to give his church those books as authoritative Scripture which actually are authoritative Scripture. This is confirmed in our hearts when we read the NT, which is to be expected in light of what Jesus says regarding himself in John 10:2–5:
He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.
I am also reminded of the words of the unnamed disciples who encountered the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus: “Did not our hearts burn within us when he spoke to us on the road?” (Luke 24:32)
There are, of course, other things that can be taken into consideration with respect to the NT canon. For example, we might speak of their early dates, and their origins in the apostolic era and, in many cases, from the apostles themselves. We may speak of their value as the primary sources of Jesus’ life and teaching, and of the history of the early church. We may speak of their inerrancy, and of the fact that no convincing errors are present in them (in my opinion, of course, as well as the opinions of many other very well-informed individuals). All in due time.
Does all this give us an airtight argument, whereby we have no choice but to accept the 27 books of the NT as God’s exclusive canon? No, it does not. But, having known the books fairly well for some years now, and having studied them, and having seen how they mesh together, and how sophisticated and solid their arguments are, and how well they interlock with the OT Scriptures, and how uniform their theology actually is, and, most of all, how God ministers to the hearts of his people and bears witness by his Spirit through them, we have every reason to believe that they are the Word of God. After all, if we believe in a God who created the universe, and who cares about human evil and seeks to do something about it, and who desires to communicate his truth to us, I know of no other candidate for special divine revelation that even comes close to the New Testament Scriptures (except, of course, for the Old Testament Scriptures!). Further, I know of no convincing intellectual reasons (historical or otherwise) that compel me to doubt their truthfulness. If anything, my investigations into alleged “contradictions” and factual “errors” in the Bible have only left me more impressed with the truthfulness of the biblical texts.
[1]Michael Green, The Second Epistle General of Peter and the General Epistle of Jude (2nd ed; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 14–15.
[2]The opinion of the Greek churches was solidified by acceptance of Athanasius’ letter.
[3]These eight books are the Sirate Tsion, Tizaz, Gitsew, Abtilis, 1 and 2 Dominos, Clement, and Didascalia. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church also accepts the OT apocryphal books.
Tagged with testament, new, canon, scripture, canonization, becker
What Is Faith?
Hebrews Intro Part 2
gary - July 10th, 2019 at 11:05pm
In reality, the evidence for the divine inspiration of the New Testament is quite poor. Here are the facts:
https://lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpress.com/2019/07/10/best-evidence-against-the-divine-inspiration-of-the-new-testament/
Should Christians Keep the Sabbath?
Does the Bible Condone Slavery?The Historical Reality of the Elijah and Elisha NarrativesThe Formation of the New TestamentHebrews Intro Part 1Hebrews Intro Part 2What Is Faith?
Was the Resurrection of Jesus a Repackaged Pagan Myth?
11 archaeology authorship author becker belief bible canonization canon deeper elijah elisha evidence faith hebrews history introduction intro new provenance reason scripture slavery study summary testament trust
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Monthly Play Readings
Upcoming Auditions
The Bedford Connection
The ECCO Newsletter
- Getting involved
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- Monthly Play Readings
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- FEATS
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Home / The Club
The ECC was originally formed as The English Comedy Club in 1909 as an amateur society dedicated to performing English language theatre for the expatriate community in Brussels. It is the oldest established English language theatre company on mainland Europe. It has since been joined by several other companies including the American Theatre Company (ATC), the Irish Theatre Group (ITG), the Brussels Shakespeare Society (BSS) and the Brussels Light Opera Company (BLOC), to provide a thriving English Language Theatre community in the Capital of Europe. You can find out more about upcoming productions from all of these groups at the Theatre in Brussels web site. The club is based in “The Warehouse”, a complex of buildings in the Schaerbeek area of the city which it co-owns with the ATC and ITG. The buildings include rehearsal rooms, a set building workshop, store rooms containing our extensive collection of props, furniture, costumes and set building materials, and a small but well equipped Studio Theatre with a capacity of 65.
The club performs a number of full length theatrical productions each year as well as many other events detailed below. The membership currently stands at a little over a hundred people from all walks of life, and indeed of all nationalities, and with a variety of interests from the actors and actresses to the set designers and builders, lighting and sound engineers, right through those who perform the less lauded but equally vital roles such as staffing the bar or organising ticket sales.
Play Readings
Kerry Lydon (Chair)
Fiona McGinnis (Treasurer & Costumes rep)
Sara Hammerton (ACTS & ECCO)
Bryony Ulyett (Secretary & ECCO / Publicity)
Anna Holmén (CAST)
Andy Ing (FEATS liaison)
Steve O’Byrne (Website & Youth Theatre Summer School coordinator)
Janet Middleton
Lyn Wainwright
Boff Muir
You can contact the club using this email address: info@ecc.theatreinbrussels.com.
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THE DHOL FOUNDATION
Established in 1990 The Dhol Foundation began as a weekly workshop teaching the art of playing the North Indian Dhol Drum to students in the UK later opening classes worldwide. In 1996, Johnny Kalsi introduced Dhol to the GCSE curriculum and composed structured exams and answers for schools.
Along their career, they have produced for many Bhangra artists but it was when Kalsi broke out to the World Music Scene when The Dhol Foundation began to appear at major festivals and on more movie soundtracks.
In 2001 Johnny Kalsi produced and released their debut album “Big Drum Small World”. A track from the album titled “Drummers Reel” made the Hollywood Award Winning Scorsese film “Gangs of New York”.
In 2003, Johnny Kalsi composed a piece of music for the Hollywood film The Incredible Hulk and Sea Monsters.
The second album “Drum-Believable” was released in 2004, with The Dhol Foundation reaching new heights.
In 2005, The Dhol Foundation Collaborated with Natasha And Daniel Bedingfield at the Brit Awards 25th Anniversary.
“Drums & Roses” was released in 2007 and “Drum-Struck” in 2010 has proven to be huge crowd pleasers at Festivals.
End of 2011 TDF Opened the Royal Variety Performance alongside Stomp & the Japanese Drumming outfit Kodo & also performed for Live Earth at Wembley Stadium.
In 2012 David Arnold asked Johnny Kalsi & The Dhol Foundation to perform for the Olympic Closing Ceremony in a stand alone performance. Shortly after Johnny Kalsi took his band to Singapore where they took part in performances at the Singapore Grand Prix along with Sir Tom Jones, Rhianna and Justin Bieber.
Mid Year 2012 they were on Channel 4 for Stand up to Cancer with Alan Carr & Davina McCall & helped raise over £8 Million.
In July 2013 Johnny Kalsi & The Dhol Foundation performed over 3 nights at HRH Queen’s Coronation Gala Celebration at Buckingham Palace. Their latest album ‘Basant’ was released in 2018. “Basant” meaning Spring is the best production to date. Full of more exciting collaborations and many featured artists from around the Globe.
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Legal Admisibility
The Legal Admissibility of information stored on Electronic Document Management Systems:
The documents can be scanned and stored electronically and the paper copy can be destroyed. However if you plan to keep the original along with the electronic, the paper copy will have to be presented as a primary evidence. In order to make electronic copy act as primary evidence, the authenticity of scanning system or scanning company will have to be proved along with the proof of destruction.
EDS follows the following key points to Maximising the evidential weight of digital records that we scan for our every customer:
Create and maintain a procedures manual. Describe all procedures related to the operation and the use of our system including input, output and operation.
Maintain an audit trail. The digital system must contain a secure record of all read-write accesses to the data. Audit trails should enable you to assess the historical content of the data file whenever necessary.
Set and document access permissions available to the digital system. Only permit staff with relevant access rights to create new records.
Confirm that facilities within the digital system are adequate to ensure that data accuracy and data authenticity are preserved throughout the lifetime of your records.
Document system procedures and operations to show how the system operates and to demonstrate that it was operating correctly.
Document any special techniques we use, such as compression.
Plan for the long term preservation of your records so that you can read and retrieve them for as long as they are needed.
Ensure that you adhere to the hardware manufacturer’s recommendations for the operational environment of the system.
Audit compliance with the Code periodically to demonstrate that you are meeting its requirements.
Can I store documents photographically or electronically, and destroy the originals?
Original documents, such as deeds, guarantees or certificates, which are not your own property, should not be destroyed without the express written permission of the owner. Where the work has been completed and the bill paid, other documents, including your file, may be stored, for example, on a CD ROM, computer system or microfilm and then destroyed after a reasonable time. In cases of doubt the owner’s written permission should always be sought. If it is not possible to obtain such permission you will have to form a view and evaluate the risk. When seeking owners’ permission to microfilm or store data electronically and destroy documents, you may wish to reserve the right to make a reasonable charge for preparing copies if they are later requested. See question 4(a) above for the requirements of Customs and Excise.
What is the evidential value of a photographically or electronically stored document where the original has been destroyed?
There is a dearth of judicial authority on this topic and, until the law and practice on the subject of microfilmed or electronically stored documents are clarified, it is only possible to provide general guidelines. The Society has been advised that:
A microfilm of any document in a solicitor’s file will be admissible evidence to the same extent, no more and no less, as the document itself, provided that there is admissible evidence of the destruction of the document and identification of the copy.
Written evidence of the destruction of the original and of identification of the copy will enable the microfilm to be adduced in subsequent civil proceedings (under the Civil Evidence Act 1968) and in criminal proceedings (under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984).
What procedures would the Society recommend where an original document is stored electronically or photographically and then the original is destroyed?
Written evidence of the destruction of the original and of identification of the copy must always be preserved in case oral evidence is no longer available when needed (see question 7(b) above).
There should be a proper system for:
(i) identifying each file or document destroyed;
(ii) recording that the complete file or document, as the case may be, has been photographed;
(iii) recording identification by the camera operator of the negatives as copies of the documents photographed; and
(iv) preserving and indexing the negatives.
If a microfilm, electronically or photographically stored data is required to be produced in evidence, a partner or senior member of staff should be able to certify that:
(i) the document has been destroyed;
(ii) the microfilm, electronically or photographically stored data is a true record of that document; and
(iii) the enlargement is an enlargement of the microfilm, electronically or photographically stored data.
Microfilm copies of some documents (e.g. coloured plans) can be unsatisfactory, in which case the originals should be preserved
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CounterCorp
Putting an end to business as usual
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Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility — A coalition of religious organizations seeking global justice and sustainability by integrating social values into corporate and investor actions (New York, NY)
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Fairphone — A social enterprise started in 2010 to raise awareness about conflict minerals and the sourcing, production, distribution, and recycling of electronics that has evolved into a project to create a "sustainable" smartphone (Amsterdam, Holland)
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Making Change at Walmart — A coalition of Walmart workers, union members, small business owners, religious leaders, community organizations, women’s advocacy groups, elected officials, and ordinary citizens who believe that changing Walmart is vital to rebuilding our economy and strengthening working families (Washington, DC)
Oil Change International — Dedicated to exposing the true costs of fossil fuels, and to identifying and overcoming barriers to the inevitable transition to clean energy (Washington, DC)
Walmart Watch — Seeks to hold the largest corporation in the United States fully accountable for its impact on America's communities, workforce, retail sector, environment, and American economy (Washington, DC)
Corporate Crime Blotter — CounterCorp's daily litany of accusations, investigations, indictments, lawsuits, settlements, and convictions for breaking the law. Also available as a Twitter feed (San Francisco, CA)
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Dirt Diggers Digest — A Corporate Research Project blog edited by Phil Mattera that chronicles corporate misbehavior and how to research it, trends in financial disclosure, and new sources of information (Washington, DC)
FairWarning — A non-profit public-interest website that provides information and investigative journalism on issues of health, safety, reckless corporate conduct, and lax government oversight (Los Angeles, CA)
Inter Press Service — An international news agency dedicated to raising the voices of the global South and civil society on issues of economic development, corporate globalization, human rights, and the environment (Rome, Italy)
Left Business Observer — An 8-page monthly newsletter on economics and politics in the U.S. and the world at large, edited by Doug Henwood (Brooklyn, NY)
Pro Publica — An independent, non-profit news organization that conducts investigative journalism in the public interest, including regular stories on corporate crime, abuse, and malfeasance (New York, NY)
Wikileaks — An international transparency advocacy organization that publishes submissions of secret and classified information from anonymous sources, including extensive evidence of corporate crimes and abuse.
Behind the Label — A multimedia news website covering the stories of people fighting for fundamental human and labor rights against the goliath global clothing industry (New York, NY)
Center for Labor Research and Education — Conducts research, provides information, and develops innovative policy perspectives and programs on issues related to labor and employment for students, scholars, unions, employers, policymakers, and the public (University of California at Berkeley)
Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy — An interdisciplinary research and education initiative that aims to expand public understanding of issues and ideas that illuminate the character of American capitalism and the working class that sustains it (University of California at Santa Barbara)
China Labor Watch — An independent non-profit organization that promotes the fair redistribution of wealth under globalization through in-depth investigative reports on the Chinese factories that make products for large U.S. companies, educating the international community on supply-chain labor issues, and political pressure on corporations to improve conditions for workers (New York, NY)
Clean Clothes Campaign — dedicated to improving working conditions and supporting the empowerment of workers in the global garment and sportswear industries (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Institute for Global Labor and Human Rights — Investigates and exposes abuses of human and workers rights by multinational corporations in less-industrialized countries, supports workers in asserting their fundamental rights, and educates consumers about their role in the global economy (Pittsburgh, PA)
International Labor Rights Forum — Dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide by promoting the enforcement of labor rights through public education and mobilization, research, litigation, legislation, and collaboration with labor, government, and business groups (Washington, DC)
National Council for Occupational Safety and Health — A federation of state and local coalitions of labor unions, health and technical professionals, and others interested in promoting and advocating for worker health and safety (Raleigh, NC and Los Angeles, CA)
Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior — Brings concerned students, scholars, labor activists, and consumers together to monitor corporate behavior, advocate for workers’ rights, and provide in-factory training to workers in South China (Hong Kong, China)
United Students Against Sweatshops — A national network of student groups working to end sweatshops and other labor abuses, particularly for campus and garment workers who make licensed collegiate apparel (Washington, DC)
Workers Independent News — Focuses on bringing the issues, concerns, and voices of workers, their families, communities, and organizations to the widest possible audience via terrestrial radio, Internet streaming, podcasts, websites, and print publications (Madison, WI)
Workers Rights Consortium — An alliance of over 175 college and university affiliates that conducts investigations and issues reports on working conditions in factories around the globe, to protect the rights of workers who make apparel and other products (Washington, DC)
ALEC Exposed — An archive of more than 800 "model" legislative bills secretly crafted and voted on by the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a behind-closed-doors collaboration between Big Business and conservative state politicians to radically re-structure state laws (Madison, WI)
American Antitrust Institute — Seeks to increase the role of competition, assure that competition works in the interests of consumers, and challenge abuses of concentrated economic power in the American and world economies (Washington, DC)
Center on Corporations, Law & Society — A project of the Seattle University School of Law that focuses on the nature of the modern corporation and its impact on individuals and society (Seattle, WA)
Center for Justice and Democracy — A national consumer organization dedicated to protecting citizen's access to independent civil courts for redress against misconduct by big corporations and other powerful institutions and special interests, which is threatened by so-called “tort reform” (New York, NY)
Coalition for Sensible Safeguards — An alliance of concerned citizens and consumer, small-business, labor, scientific, good-government, health, environmental, and public-interest groups that view government regulations as an important means of maintaining quality of life and a broadly beneficial economy (Washington, DC)
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund — Helps local groups and municipalities create laws that assert their right to self-governance, and the subordination of corporate privileges to community interests (Chambersburg, PA)
EarthRights International — Specializes in fact-finding, legal actions at the forefront of the movement to hold corporations accountable for their human rights, labor, and environmental practices (Washington, DC)
National Consumer Law Center — Since 1969, the NCLC has used its expertise in consumer law and energy policy to work for consumer justice and economic security for low-income, older adults, and other disadvantaged people in the U.S. (Boston, MA)
Taxpayers Against Fraud — A non-profit public-interest organization that supports the use of so-called "whistleblower" laws to combat corporate fraud against the government, and protect public resources through public-private partnerships between whistleblowers, their attorneys, and government regulators and prosecutors (Washington, DC)
UN Working Group on Human Rights and Transnational Corporations — Promotes the dissemination and implementation of the UN's Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and provides advice at the national, regional, and international levels for enhancing access to effective remedies for those whose human rights are affected by corporate activities (Geneva, Switzerland)
Lobbying and Influence
Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU) — A coalition of 200 European civil-society organizations, trade unions, academics, and public affairs groups concerned with the increasing influence of corporate lobbyists on the European Union political agenda (Brussels, Belgium)
Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) — A research and campaign group working to expose and challenge the privileged access and influence that corporations and their lobbyists enjoy in European Union policymaking (Brussels, Belgium)
Integrity in Science — Combats corporate influence on science and science-based public policy by monitoring federal advisory committees, scientific literature, and the media for undisclosed conflicts of interest; encouraging strong disclosure policies; publishing the weekly Integrity in Science Watch e-newsletter, and maintaining a database of scientists' ties to industry (Washington, DC)
PR Watch — A non-profit investigative reporting group whose information and analysis focuses on exposing and countering spin, public relations (PR) campaigns, and other propaganda from corporations, industries, and government agencies (Madison, WI)
Shut the Chamber — A campaign to educate and organize communities across the country to fight the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by exposing its direct role in advancing undemocratic and socially destructive public policies, and coordinating a national campaign to urge small businesses to pull out of the Chamber (Madison, WI)
U.S. Chamber Watch — Promotes transparency and accountability in American politics by shedding light on the funding and activities of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — the nation's largest private-interest lobby — and challenging its misrepresentations, distortions of fact, and anonymous funders (Washington, DC)
Business Alliance for Local Living Economies — Works to create and strengthen networks of independent, locally owned, and sustainable businesses that meet the needs of their workers and communities, and support fair and equitable democratic societies (Bellingham, WA)
Center for the Advancement of the Steady-State Economy — Educates citizens, organizations, and policymakers on the conflict between continuous economic growth and environmental protection, economic sustainability, and international stability (Arlington, VA)
Center for Cooperatives — Pursues a research, educational, and outreach agenda encompassing all aspects of the cooperative business model — including development, finance, structure, and governance — across multiple business and social sectors (University of Wisconsin at Madison)
Find.Coop — A comprehensive, cooperatively managed public database of co-ops and other economic entities and initiatives working toward an ethical solidarity economy in North America.
Independent We Stand — A movement of independently-owned local businesses across the U.S. dedicated to educating their communities about the importance and the benefits of 'buying local' (Virginia Beach, VA)
Institute for Local Self-Reliance — Promotes innovative strategies, catalytic policies, and working models to support equitable and environmentally sustainable community development (Minneapolis, MN)
It's Our Economy — Dedicated to changing the dynamic of our current economy, which is designed for the wealthiest among us, to one built on principles of equity, cooperation, and sustainability (Washington, DC)
Main Street Alliance — A national network of state-based small business coalitions that helps small business owners to promote public policies that are good for their businesses, employees, and the communities they serve (Seattle, WA)
New Economy Working Group — A virtual policy "think tank" working to re-frame orthodox economics to address the financial, social, and environmental imperatives of the 21st Century (Bainbridge Island, WA)
Post-Growth Institute — An international network of people tackling the myriad social, political, and environmental problems caused by the widely held belief in perpetual and unsustainable economic growth, and exploring and promoting alternatives such as a "steady-state" economy (Sydney, Australia)
Strike Debt — Arose from a coalition of Occupy Wall Street groups looking to build popular resistance and alternatives to all forms of debt imposed by banks, and an economy where we owe debts to friends, families, and communities — not the 1%. We are not a loan! (New York, NY)
Sustainable Economies Law Center — Facilitates the growth of sustainable, localized, and just economies through education, legal research, and advocacy to support practices such as barter, cooperatives, community-supported enterprises, sharing, local currencies, eco-villages, urban agriculture, and local investing (Oakland, CA)
U.S. Federation of Workers Cooperatives — A national grassroots membership organization that supports the growth and development of worker cooperatives, democratic workplaces, and educational outreach to the public through conferences and other events, resource referrals, and networking and training opportunities.
U.S. Solidarity Economy Network — Works to build an equitable, pluralistic, and mutually beneficial economy that recognizes the primacy of social welfare, democracy, and sustainability over profits and the unfettered rule of the market (Amherst, MA)
Privatization and the Public Commons
Center for the Study of the Public Domain — Promotes research and scholarship on the public domain's contributions to speech, culture, science, and innovation; encourages debate about the need for balance in "intellectual property"; and translates academic research into public policy solutions (Duke University, NC)
In the Public Interest — A comprehensive source of information on privatization and responsible contracting for citizens, public officials, advocacy groups, and researchers to ensure that public contracts with private entities serve the public interest over the long term (Washington, DC)
On the Commons — A strategy center founded in 2001 that seeks to shift away from our market-based system through new, collaborative ways of working and foster a commons-based society (Minneapolis, MN)
Owners' Rights Initiative — An informal alliance of businesses, trade associations, and non-profit organizations that fights over-reaching corporate copyright claims by promoting the fundamental premise that if you buy something, you own it, and have the right to lend, sell, or give it away (Washington, DC)
Public Patent Foundation — A not-for-profit legal services organization at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law whose mission is to represent the public interest in the patent system to avoid the negative effects that over-patenting, unmerited patenting and excessive patent rights can have on society (New York, NY)
Question Copyright — Dedicated to highlighting the restrictive effects of distribution monopolies, re-framing the way the public thinks about notions of ownership and control, and helping artists and their allies realize the potential of open distribution.
Real-World Economics
Center for Popular Economics — A non-profit collective of political economists who examine the causes of financial inequality and offer tools and resources for people to develop their own economic analyses, progressive economic analysis for activists and educators organizing for social change, and opportunities for economists to engage with and learn from activists (Amherst, MA)
Center on Capitalism and Society — Examines the misconceptions of orthodox economics that not only fail to explain but actively distort how we understand history, make policy, and view capitalism (Columbia University, NY)
Dollars & Sense — A bi-monthly magazine of economic news, analysis, and critiques of the mainstream media's coverage of the economy (Boston, MA)
Institute for New Economic Thinking — Provides fresh insights and thinking to challenge current outdated and inadequate economic theories and models, and support the emergence of innovative and ethical economic strategies, paradigms, and practices (New York, NY)
International Forum on Globalization — A research and educational institution that provides critical analysis of the cultural, social, political, and environmental impacts of economic globalization (San Francisco, CA)
International Student Initiative for Pluralism in Economics — A collaboration of 65 associations of economics students from 30 countries seeking more open, diverse, and pluralist economics curricula
New Economics Foundation — An independent "think-and-do tank" that promotes real economic well-being through innovative solutions that challenge mainstream thinking on economic, environment, and social issues (London, UK)
New Economics Institute — Helping people to envision a new economics and economy that are designed to enhance human well-being and ecological health (Great Barrington, MA)
Re-Thinking Capitalism — Aspires to create conceptual and empirical tools of economic practice and regulation, both locally and globally, that give capitalism a future that may diverge from its past (University of California at Santa Cruz)
Toxic Textbooks — A movement to encourage schools and universities to use economics textbooks that accurately describe and honestly engage with the real world (London, UK)
Subsidies and Tax Breaks
EarthTrack — Works to develop accurate and comprehensive information on government interventions — ranging from tax breaks, below-market loans or insurance, and loan guarantees to direct grants, regulatory exemptions, and subsidies — that harm the environment, with a primary focus on energy markets (Cambridge, MA)
Too Much — A weekly newsletter edited by Sam Pizzigati about the economic distortions and inequality that result from the symbiosis between corporate excess and government tax policies, hosted by the Institute for Policy Studies (Washington, DC)
U.S. Uncut — A "horizontal" movement to demand an end to the corporate tax avoidance, inspired by a somewhat similar "anti-austerity" effort in Britain called UK Uncut (Your town, U$A)
Wal-Mart Subsidy Watch — Tracks the various forms of government welfare that are provided to the world's largest and most-profitable retailer (Washington, DC)
This page is updated on an ongoing basis. To suggest additional resources, contact the webmaster.
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http://crystalball.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/threes-company/
Republican presidential polling leader Donald Trump signed a pledge earlier this year agreeing to support the eventual GOP nominee, but that agreement is certainly not legally enforceable. If Trump wants to run as a third-party or independent candidate, there's nothing stopping him. Trump is aware of this: The weekend before Thanksgiving, he retreated to his pre-pledge position, saying that 1 he needs to be “treated fairly” by the GOP in order to rule out an independent bid. Some senior Republicans naturally wonder if the only outcome Trump will regard as fair is his installation as the party nominee.
Any list of prominent third-party possibilities has to start with Trump, and not just because the flamboyant billionaire could hypothetically fund such a campaign (although he still hasn't put that much of his own money into his current effort and has run the nation's first, free Twitter-based campaign). While presidential campaigns always feature more than just the two major party nominees, some years the non-Republicans and non-Democrats only get a few votes, while in other years they win several percentage points or more. If he ran as an independent it's possible that Trump could be in the latter category, in part because he is in some ways similar to the two most successful third-party candidates of the past half-century: George Wallace and Ross Perot.
Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama, ran on a platform of law and order and white grievance in 1968 and got 13.5% of the vote -- after having soared as high as the mid-20s in some polls. Wallace was the last third partier to win a state: He captured five Southern states and came close to denying Richard Nixon an Electoral College majority. This circumstance likely would have made Hubert Humphrey president because the Democrats solidly held the House of Representatives, which picks the president if no one gets a majority (with each state delegation getting a single vote).
In 1992 Perot, a Texas businessman, was a populist who ran against free trade, national deficits, and political gridlock. Perot outdid Wallace in some surveys, actually reaching the 40% level in June. In November, he didn't win any states, but 18.9% of the electorate chose him to go to the White House. (Four years later, in Perot's second and final run, he fell to 8.4%.)
Neither Wallace nor Perot were true economic conservatives. Wallace was a Southern populist willing to use tax money for middle and working class needs, and while a deficit hawk, Perot was against tax cuts that added to the national debt. At the very least Wallace and Perot were to the left of the current Republican economic consensus, which is precisely where Trump's economic policy lies. Trump pulls from the platforms of both Wallace and Perot, and there's a sizable audience for this approach. In the 1970s, Oakland University sociologist Donald Warren called the audience “Middle American Radicals,” or MARS, voters who are suspicious of both big government and big business and who feel that government helps the rich and the poor but not the middle class. John B. Judis wrote a fascinating piece 2 for National Journal recently about how Trump, like Wallace and Perot before him, has activated these voters, who generally have low-to-mid levels of income and education. Pat Buchanan, who sought the GOP nomination in 1992 and 1996 and won New Hampshire in the latter, was another MARS-aligned candidate.
While Perot most likely took from both Bill Clinton and President George H.W. Bush in 1992, Trump's role as a third-party candidate in 2016 might be more akin to Wallace's, except he could succeed where Wallace failed in denying the Republicans the White House.
But let's turn this around: What happens if Trump is the Republican nominee? Could that create a deep GOP split and a third-party run by a “true” Republican?
Perhaps an establishment Republican running under the “Real Republican Party” flag or some other hastily-organized third-party banner could be an alternative for moderates and conservatives who cannot vote for Trump. While the other Republican presidential candidates signed the same symbolic loyalty pledge to the party nominee that Trump signed, we are already hearing that some prominent Republicans would oppose Trump if he were the party's nominee. Perhaps one of them could run for president.
We have been reliably told that a fair number of Republican governors and U.S. senators would either sit on their hands entirely or simply issue a paper “endorsement” of Trump, should he be crowned in Cleveland next summer. Maybe that is just bold and premature talk, or perhaps it is real. After all, much the same thing happened in 1964, when Barry Goldwater captured the Republican presidential nomination to the dismay of the GOP establishment. Prominent Republican governors such as Nelson Rockefeller of New York, George Romney of Michigan (father of Mitt), and Bill Scranton of Pennsylvania had little time for Goldwater, as did dozens of GOP members of Congress hoping to hold on in November. While none mounted a third-party bid in 1964, it is not impossible that a senior officeholder will do so in 2016 -- not so much with hopes of winning but rather to send a message about what the Republican Party's future should be. The odds are against it, yet nothing can be preemptively ruled out in an election that is already one of the wildest in modern history.
The calendar will help to determine whether there's a truly prominent third-party candidate on the ballot. Filing deadlines for independent presidential candidates vary by state, but a majority fall in August. That is after the conventions -- 38 states' deadlines are after the RNC ends on July 21 -- but not so far after them that a spurned candidate could easily turn around and get on many state ballots. A candidate who wants to get on every ballot will have to start much earlier than that: For instance, the deadline for an independent to get on the ballot in Texas, the second-biggest state, is May 9. So maybe it would be helpful to the Republicans if Trump hangs around in the primary -- so long as he doesn't win the nomination -- just long enough for a national third-party bid to be out of reach.
Table 1: Independent filing deadlines by date and ballot access requirements
Notes: *Indicates that a state permits an independent candidate to use a partisan label on the ballot (other than “independent”). Some signatures requirements are estimates.
Source: Ballot Access News, November 2015 issue 3
What we do know is that there will be other options for voters besides the two major-party nominees, although at the moment the likeliest non-major-party candidates are quite minor.
Of the roughly 1,400 people who have filed 4 with the Federal Election Commission as presidential candidates, fewer than half are Democrats or Republicans. Nearly all of these candidates will put no effort into their self-styled campaigns, but a few will. The Green Party's Jill Stein, who ran in 2012, is running again. She won 0.36% of the vote last time. The most prominent 2012 third-partier, Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson, won about one percent nationally. Johnson, a former Republican governor of New Mexico who ran for president as a Republican during the 2012 cycle before launching his third-party bid, also says that he plans to run again in 2016 although he has not yet filed with the FEC.
While the last three presidential campaigns have featured only minor third-party campaigns, there have been several prominent ones over the last century. Perhaps the most famous and impactful was Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive “Bull Moose” splintering of the Republicans in 1912. Roosevelt finished ahead of GOP President William Howard Taft nationally, allowing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to easily capture the White House despite winning just 41.8% of the national popular vote. Roosevelt's popular-vote performance -- 27.4% -- is the best of any non-Democratic or non-Republican nominee since 1856, the first year both parties had a presidential nominee.
Throughout the early part of the 20th century, the Socialist Party nominee (often Eugene Debs) would get a few percentage points worth of the vote, with 1912 marking the Socialists' high-water mark (Debs got 6.0% in that fractured election). The next major third-party insurgency was in 1924, when Sen. Robert La Follette Sr. of Wisconsin, a Republican running under the Progressive Party banner, got 16.6% nationally and won his home state. La Follette also finished second in several western and Midwestern states, ahead of the weak Democratic nominee, John W. Davis; overall, Republican Calvin Coolidge easily won the election.
President Harry Truman's historic come-from-behind victory in 1948 featured two notable third-party candidates: State's Rights segregationist Strom Thurmond, who squeezed Truman from the right and won four Deep South states, and Progressive ex-Vice President Henry Wallace, who pressed Truman from the left though he failed to win any states. Thurmond and Wallace split about 5% of the national popular vote.
George Wallace and Ross Perot's third-party efforts are discussed earlier. Two others worth mentioning are John Anderson's independent run as a moderate Republican in 1980 and Ralph Nader's Green Party effort in 2000. Anderson won 6.6% in 1980, though he took votes about evenly from winner Ronald Reagan and losing incumbent Jimmy Carter. Anderson's showing was “an underrated marker on the country's road towards its current political geography,” the New York Times' Nate Cohn recently argued. Anderson did much better in the North and West than the South, and some of the places where he did well, like New England, are more Democratic now than they were back then (see Cohn's map of Anderson's performance 5). In 2000, it is almost certain that Nader, who won 2.7% nationally, prevented Al Gore from winning Florida and probably New Hampshire as well, either of which, if flipped, would have given Gore the White House. Gore lost Florida by just 537 votes while Nader got 97,488 statewide, and Nader's 22,198 Granite State votes were about three times George W. Bush's 7,211-vote plurality there. The point here isn't to re-litigate the contentious 2000 race; it is merely to point out that Nader's third-party bid had a decisive impact on its outcome.
Table 2: Independent and third-party performance, 1912 to 2012
Note:*In 1968, one faithless elector in North Carolina cast his vote for George Wallace rather than Richard Nixon. In 1972, one faithless elector in Virginia cast his vote for Libertarian John Hospers rather than Nixon.
Source: Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections
There are other possibilities for independent or third-party candidacies, ones that might hurt Hillary Clinton in November. Former Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) withdrew from the current Democratic contest and suggested he might well end up on the ballot as an independent. In a close election, a la Nader, Webb could draw critical votes from Clinton. Webb straddles party lines on some issues (such as gun control and defense) but it is difficult to imagine many Republicans migrating to his banner -- unless the GOP nominates Trump or perhaps Ben Carson or Ted Cruz. Webb would try to occupy “middle ground,” though in this era of strong partisan polarization, the middle of the road is merely a six-inch wide yellow line where you get hit from both sides.
Or how about former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg? His positions on social issues are equally, if not more, liberal than Clinton's, and Bloomberg is a billionaire with a willingness to do what the more miserly Trump has not -- spend freely to win an election. Bloomberg certainly wouldn't do Clinton any good and could cost her the election under the right set of circumstances. However, he has shown no sustained interest in such a candidacy as yet. Maybe a Clinton-Trump or Clinton-Cruz matchup would draw him into the race.
Finally, while we are speculating with abandon, we might as well throw in California Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA), the Democrat who is in his fourth and last term as chief executive of our nation-state. Brown has thrice run for president (1976, 1980, and 1992), and no one that ambitious could possibly get the urge to run completely out of his system. If Brown saw an opening -- say, a weakened, wounded Hillary Clinton and an extremely controversial GOP candidate headed for summer nomination -- might he not give the White House one more try? In addition, Brown ran against Bill Clinton in 1992 in a testy primary season; while there is no ongoing feud with the Clintons, it is fair to say there isn't an excess of mutual admiration between them either. It's true that Brown would be 78 years old by Inauguration Day 2017, but is age a compelling issue anymore? Ronald Reagan left office at 77, and both Bob Dole in 1996 and John McCain in 2008 were in their 70s when they were GOP presidential nominees. Hillary Clinton will be 69, Sanders will be 75, and Joe Biden will be 74 at swearing-in time. Nowadays, a respected, relatively youthful vice presidential candidate would suffice as an acceptable insurance policy for most Americans.
Whew! That got fanciful, didn't it? We're just about out of extremely improbable scenarios. Nonetheless, at this early point, given the explosive environment developing around the 2016 election, no one should be surprised at anything. We didn't even mention the possibility of a wealthy celebrity deciding to take the plunge. Will Smith has been making noises 6 about a candidacy for an unspecified office. Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger are free and available, having already served terms in California posts (though Schwarzenegger, who is not a natural-born citizen, would need a constitutional change to run for president). And Kanye West, who has all but announced 7 for the White House in 2020, could move up his plans by four years.
Are these things any stranger than the TV host of The Apprentice becoming the Republican presidential frontrunner? Not really, not in 2016.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/11/22/donald-tr ump-open-to-independent-bid-if-gop-doesnt-treat-hi m-fairly/
http://www.nationaljournal.com/s/74221/return-midd le-american-radical
http://ballot-access.org/2015/11/28/november-2015- ballot-access-news-print-edition/
http://www.fec.gov/press/resources/2016presidentia l_form2pty.shtml
https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/6584196158742 15936
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/will-smith-wont-rule-ou t-future-politics
http://www.bdcwire.com/kanye-as-president/
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Home » Geography and Environment » Natural Environment » Reserves and Protected Natural Areas » Roland Cooper State Park
State Parks of Alabama
Roland Cooper State Park
Thomas V. Ress, Athens, Alabama
Roland Cooper State Park is located in Wilcox County, six miles northeast of the town of Camden. The park sits on the shores of the William "Bill" Dannelly Reservoir (also known as Miller's Ferry), a 22,000-acre lake that was impounded in 1969 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the Miller's Ferry Lock and Dam. The park was established on land leased from the Corps and was named Bridgeport State Park. The name was changed to its present name in the 1970s to honor William Roland Cooper, a politician from Camden who served in the Alabama Senate.
This 236-acre park is a popular destination for anglers, who use it as a base when fishing the waters of the reservoir. Dannelly Reservoir is one of the most renowned angling destinations in the region for its large populations of game fish, and the park often hosts regional bass tournaments. Largemouth bass and crappie are the most sought-after prizes, and anglers are frequently rewarded with largemouth bass weighing more than three pounds. Channel and blue catfish also are frequent catches in the reservoir, and blue catfish weighing more than 30 pounds have been pulled from the lake. Other common fish are hybrid striped bass, striped bass, and bream. Anglers may rent johnboats, and there are boat launches in the park as well for boat owners. Amenities for non-anglers include a par 36, 3,300-yard, nine-hole golf course with a driving range and a clubhouse, constructed in 1972. The golf course is laid out among hills and offers picturesque views of the lake.
Recreational vehicle campers can rent one of 47 modern campsites with views of the reservoir. Campsites include picnic tables, grills, water, and electrical and sewer hook-ups. A bathhouse and laundry facilities are conveniently located within the campground. A separate primitive camping area has 13 sites near the water. Picnic areas are located amid a towering pine forest overlooking the lake and include tables, grills, pavilions, and rest rooms. The pavilions have tables and fireplaces, and there is a playground nearby. The park also has six two-bedroom furnished cabins for rent; each features a stove, refrigerator, dishes, cooking utensils, central heat/air, television, and barbeque grill.
The park's 1.5 miles of nature trails provide views of the reservoir. One trail follows the shoreline of the reservoir, offering hikers glimpses of Canada geese, ducks, great blue herons, turtles, and beavers. The other trail winds through pine forests in the heart of the park, and travelers often encounter deer, snakes, and other wildlife.
Published: August 12, 2010 | Last updated: March 12, 2019
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Faculty of Science and Information Technology »
MCT »
The World Disney Studios History
Author Topic: The World Disney Studios History (Read 462 times)
tusar.mtca
Department of MTCA| Yes! I CAN DO............
The Walt Disney Company started in 1923 in the rear of a small office occupied by Holly-Vermont Realty in Los Angeles. It was there that Walt Disney, and his brother Roy, produced a series of short live-action/animated films collectively called the ALICE COMEDIES. The rent was a mere $10 a month. Within four months, the ever-growing staff moved next door to larger facilities, where the sign on the window read "Disney Bros. Studio." A year later, in 1925, the Disneys made a deposit on a Hyperion Avenue lot in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles. Construction began on the new studio shortly thereafter. During the next 14 years, many changes took place at the Disney studio: Mickey Mouse was "born" in 1928, followed by Pluto, Goofy, Donald Duck, and the rest of the Disney gang.
MOVE TO BURBANK
In 1937, Disney's innovative first full length animated feature, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, was released to critical acclaim and worldwide success. In order to expand and meet the expectations of his audience, Walt saw a need to increase the size of his studio. With profits from SNOW WHITE, he made a deposit on 51 acres of land in Burbank and began designing a modern studio specifically for the purpose of making animated films.
Walt was personally involved with all aspects of designing the studio. From the layout of the buildings to design of the animators' chairs, nothing was left to chance. His main concern was to produce a self-sufficient, state-of-the-art production factory that provided all the essential facilities for the entire production process.
Walt and company discuss the progress made at the new Studio lot.
The Animation Building, housing the Disney Artists and animators, was planned in the center of the lot. Across a small street were built the Inking and Painting and the Camera buildings, where the artwork was completed and photographed.
Next to Camera, in the Cutting building, the post production process occurred. Sound facilities included dubbing, scoring, effects, and voice recording studios. Many of the buildings were linked together by an underground tunnel, so even in bad weather, the process of making animated films was not disrupted. To enhance the campus-like setting, all of the utilities were placed underground which was an innovation for 1940.
During the 1940s and 1950s many prominent animated features were produced in Burbank, including FANTASIA, BAMBI, CINDERELLA, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, and PETER PAN.
LIVE ACTION PRODUCTION
Beginning in the late 1940s, Disney launched into the production of live-action features and television programs. The Studio lot was subsequently expanded during the 1950s, to include sound stages and production craft facilities.
Sound Stages
Many of the interior scenes for Disney films were shot on five live-action sound stages.
Stage 1 is part of the original lot that was built in 1940. It was first used for filming the live-action scenes for FANTASIA. Stage 2 was built in 1949 in conjunction with Jack Webb, who used the stage for the filming of the television series DRAGNET. A popular television show filmed there was THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB. Stage 2 is one of the largest sound stages in Los Angeles at approximately 31,000 square feet.
In 1954, Sound Stage 3 was built specifically for 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, complete with watertank. Stage 4, completed in 1958, was first used for DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE. In 1988, it was divided into two television stages, thus creating Stages 4 and 5.
Well-known tenants on our stages have included Disney classics such as DAVY CROCKETT, MARY POPPINS, POLLYANA, THE LOVE BUG, BLACKBEARD'S GHOST, PETE'S DRAGON, and BEDKNOBS & BROOMSTICKS. Other well-known tenants have included ARMAGEDDON, HOME IMPROVEMENT, ELLEN, MTV, MADONNA, BROTHERS AND SISTERS, NATIONAL TREASURE 2, and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN I, II & III.
Riverside Lot
Across the street from the Studio now stands the new Feature Animation Building and The ABC Building. This is where Walt was planning to build a place called Mickey Mouse Park. There were to be lifelike statues of Mickey and Donald, and guests could take pictures with their favorite characters and enjoy a train ride. However, as Walt's ideas continued to grow, he realized more space was needed to fulfill his dreams. Shortly thereafter he acquired more than 200 acres of orange groves in Anaheim, California. Those orange groves became the site of Disneyland.
The back-lot shops were built to provide the many crafts and services required by live action productions. The Machine Shop, which is no longer in use, housed machines and equipment that produced innovative camera and projection objects for the film industry. During the construction of Disneyland in the mid-fifties, this shop's engineers designed and hand-built many of the automobiles, train parts, boats, trams and carts that were required by the new park. Hollywood Records now occupies the building.
Close by you'll find the Electric / Plumbing building containing machines and equipment for repairing and maintaining the many systems within the Studio complex.
Nearby was the Staff Shop where they made molds, plaster casts, and fiberglass figures, many of which are in use at Disneyland and Walt Disney World.
The Electric/Plumbing building has its own machines for installing and repairing all plumbing and mechanical equipment within the Studio, along with equipment for work in sheet metal, welding, and plastics.
Next to Electric/Plumbing was the Special Effects shop, where our craftspeople created the myriad of unique effects that have come to be associated with Disney films. Flying cars, spaceships, miniature paddle wheelers, and medieval armor that comes to life are just some of the effects produced by this department.
The Paint Shop, which is in another large metal building, does everything from spraying cars and furniture to be used on a movie set, to spraying the set itself.
Other prominent shops throughout the back-lot include Sign Graphics, Craft Services, and the Mill.
Back Lot
For more than 30 years, the back-lot featured exterior sets used for outdoor live-action filming. These consisted of a Western Street, Zorro Pueblo, Residential Street, and Town Square.
Most of the buildings on the Western Street were constructed in 1958 for the ELFEGO BACA and TEXAS JOHN SLAUGHTER television shows. Other productions which modified the structures for filming were DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE, THE LOVE BUG, THOSE CALLOWAYS, and THE APPLE DUMPLING GANG. The last major feature films to utilize the street extensively were HOT LEAD AND COLD FEET and THE APPLE DUMPLING GANG RIDES AGAIN.
Sets representing a downtown area were constructed in 1965 for THE UGLY DACHSHUND and FOLLOW ME BOYS. They were changed extensively for various films, and then completely demolished in 1981 to make way for a new town set for SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES.
There were four original buildings on the Residential Street originally constructed in 1960 for THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR, including the main house and garage used for the laboratory. Other houses were used for THE SWAMP FOX and the original THAT DARN CAT.
A well-known set was constructed for the ZORRO television series in the 1950s. This was once the Pueblo de Los Angeles with a fort, a jail, a square, an inn, and a church. Later, one of the old Spanish squares was redesigned to become a French village. Hills, pools, berms, and caves were built nearby for other productions.
With the increased use of "on location" shooting, the back lot sets were gradually replaced by the Property building, the Zorro parking structure, the Frank Wells office building, and Stages 6 & 7.
The Golden Oak Ranch
Walt Disney first leased the Golden Oak Ranch, which is situated in the nearby Santa Clarita area, in the mid-1950s for the SPIN AND MARTY segments of THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB. Because of the variety of natural settings available there, the Studio purchased the 700-acre property in 1959. Disney films shot at the Ranch include: OLD YELLER, TOBY TYLER, THE PARENT TRAP, THE SHAGGY DOG, FOLLOW ME BOYS, and more recently THE SANTA CLAUSE, PEARL HARBOR, PRINCESS DIARIES II and the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN II & III.
A western street was created for the renowned television miniseries ROOTS II in the late 1970s, and remained an active filming location until it's removal in 2008. Other ranch sites include a rural bridge on a lake, an entertainment and event venue, "THE GOLDEN OAK HALL," farm houses, barns, fields, country roads, tree groves, a forest area, a creek bed, and a running waterfall. Currently being developed is a pine lake designed to give the feeling of a High Sierra setting.
The Golden Oak Ranch is used by the entire industry and has been seen in LASSIE, BEVERLY HILLS 90210, CHARMED, RED DRAGON, MURDER SHE WROTE, DIAGNOSIS MURDER, BONANZA, INDEPENDENCE DAY, PROFILER, CSI, MY NAME IS EARL, ENTOURAGE, BOSTON LEGAL, BONES, SONS OF ANARCHY, GHOST WHISPERERS, AMERICAN IDOL and so many more.
Film imaging facilities have existed at the lot from its earliest days, starting with the Process Lab, building which was adjacent to Inking and Painting. Through the years the building housed a motion picture laboratory, primarily employed for animation, and photo/visual effects facilities.
In the 1950s, as live-action films increasingly played a major role in the success of the studio, so did the inclusion of visual effects. Such memorable films as 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA and DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE began a tradition of combining complex optical effects with miniatures and matte paintings to create rich fantasy worlds on the screen. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the Process Lab, renamed Photo Effects and then Visual Effects, was home to the distinguished artists and technicians responsible for the effects seen in MARY POPPINS, THE ABSENT MINDED PROFESSOR, BLACKBEARD'S GHOST, BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS, PETE'S DRAGON, and TRON.
During the 1980s, the unit was named Buena Vista Visual Effects Group and expanded its facilities into the Camera building to include a motion-control stage. In 1990, the unit became Buena Vista Visual Effects (BVVE) and shifted rapidly to digital-imaging technologies. Rooms within the Camera building, which formerly housed multi-plane cameras used to shoot animation, were filled with computer equipment. BVVE transitioned to Buena Vista Imaging in 1996.
Today, Buena Vista Imaging occupies the Camera building, providing a full range of photo-optical and digital-imaging services, which include a black and white lab, digital workstations, film recorders and scanners, optical printers, and title graphics.
Post Production Sound
The Main Theater is a state-of-the-art digital sound dubbing and screening facility that was first used to mix the sound for FANTASIA. Sound mixers blend dialogue, music, and sound effects tracks to the various levels appropriate for a movie theater. The acoustics are designed to simulate a theater that is three-quarters full. Although the theater is empty during the mixing session, extra padding in the seats and specially designed walls absorb and reflect the sound. This helps the sound mixers to know what the final product will sound like when it is released to the public.
Stage A, situated next to the Main Theater, was originally used for scoring. For many years, the music for innumerable Disney movies and cartoons was recorded here. In 1985, the stage was converted to a dubbing stage and theater. Like the Main Theater, Stage A is an all-digital, state-of-the-art dubbing facility.
Stages B & C were designed to provide sound elements for the animated films. Because of the Studio location near the Burbank Airport, special priority was given to soundproofing with "building within a building" design for noise reduction.
Stage B is known as the dialogue stage, where character voices were recorded for many animated classics including ALICE IN WONDERLAND, LADY AND THE TRAMP, PETER PAN, and THE JUNGLE BOOK. The tradition continues today, as Stage B is still used for such recent films as ALADDIN, THE LION KING, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, and THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME. Today, that tradition continues not only on Disney films, but also with Pixar hits such as TOY STORY, BUGS LIFE, TOY STORY 2, and MONSTERS INC. Stage B accommodates Automatic Dialog Replacement (ADR), a process that allows the talent to re-record their dialogue. One such use is for scenes shot on location, where an talent's lines were destroyed by outside sound or noise, such as a plane flying over at the time of filming.
Stage C was originally used for the recording of various sound effects for the animated features and short subjects. Many of the unique sound-effects props and gadgets for these processes were invented by Disney technicians. Today, Stage C serves as a dubbing stage for film and television. It was recently renovated in 2001 and like the other stages it features an all-digital, state-of-the-art film console.
Source: http://studioservices.go.com/disneystudios/history.html
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Home › eBooks › Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Updated Edition
Editor Harold Bloom cites the literary origins of Gabriel García Márquez as “Faulkner, crossed by Kafka.” A Colombian writer and Nobel Prize winner, Márquez is best known for his novels One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. In this updated edition, Bloom's Modern Critical Views presents a balanced portrait of the author and journalist through an examination of his work. Essays gleaned from a cross-section of literary publications reveal critical interpretations, and a Márquez chronology, bibliography, and an index, plus perceptive comments by Harold Bloom complete this thoughtfully prepared resource.
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President Barack Obama - Term 1 and 2 Thread
20058 posts • Page 666 of 669 • 1 ... 663, 664, 665, 666, 667, 668, 669
Re: President Barack Obama - Term 2 Thread
by UncleKG » Tue Jan 17, 2017 1:10 am
K.C.Journey Fan wrote: 4 days left of 8 years, and can you believe this?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/democrats-bu ... l#comments
Don't you hate it when people are mistaken? http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/12/19/half-republicans-think-trump-won-popular-vote-clinton-won-286m/95612570/
UncleKG
K.C.Journey Fan wrote:
UncleKG wrote:
K.C.Journey Fan wrote: Well, chalk up another one for liberal assholes. One and a half centurys of family tradition.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/apnewsbreak- ... 22225.html
Grasping at straws on this one. Truly amusing.
Denile is a river in Africa.
Clearly it states when they had to get rid of the elephants, it tanked. But why waste time trying to explain to a brain washed liberal?
No, clearly it said there was a dramatic drop in ticket sales after the Elephants were removed. It also says attendance has been declining for a decade, and it also says there were a number of reasons, one of which was removing the Elephants. As the CEO said, "There isn't any one thing," said Kenneth Feld, chairman and CEO of Feld Entertainment.
You do know it's spelled "denial," right?
Fact Finder wrote:
UncleKG wrote: Great start to the MLK weekend for Drump, huh? So much for him being more "reserved" on Twitter after the election. Insult a Civil Rights icon and a major U.S. city all in one fell swoop. I have to give him credit, he definitely knows how to keep himself in the headlines, and that's really what seems to be most important to him.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/14/democrats-celebrities-and-republicans-defend-democratic-rep-lewis-after-trumps-tweets.html
Anyone who pays attention to U.S. politics knows how far both parties have moved away from what their parties believed in decades past. Based on his beliefs at that time, do you think (Alabama Gov.) George Wallace would more likely be a Democrat or a Republican in 2017?
Fact Finder wrote: These libs, like Uncle, try to tell us how bad Trump is for calling out Hillarys shit.
I don't think I've defended Hillary. I'm not a Hillary supporter. I'm a Trump detractor. Big difference.
K.C.Journey Fan wrote: Washington Post. Next he'll use Huffington Post, something from Moveon, ect. Then he talks about Facts. Laughable. Do we get to see The New York Times? How about MSNBC?
The Washington Post is one of America's leading daily newspapers. I realize they're not loved on the same level as a Breitbart in your world, but yes, they're a legitimate news source. Sorry to disappoint. Also, I believe it's you who just shared an MSNBC clip, wasn't it?
I do have to ask, why do you feel the need to focus on me instead of on the topic at hand? I talk about Drump, and you then try to make it about me. I don't know you, so your opinion of me doesn't matter. How about focusing on (trying to) defend "your guy?"
Like, explaining why he freaks out EVERY TIME SNL does a Drump skit. https://www.yahoo.com/tv/snl-trump-baldwin-fox-news-sean-spicer-191649493.html You'd think he was the first candidate/president they've ever made fun of. How about actually acting presidential (or at least try to) and focus on the many, many tasks he has ahead of him instead of responding to every perceived slight? I've never seen such a thin-skinned person. In his words, "SAD!"
Last edited by UncleKG on Tue Jan 17, 2017 2:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
YAWN !
The lack of knowledge on Republican voters' part making you sleepy?
Maybe this will give you some pep in your step. Kellyanne Conway bashing Drump multiple times as a pundit (before they showed her the $$$ and she went over to the dark side). https://mediamatters.org/research/2016/08/19/here-s-how-trump-s-new-campaign-manager-attacked-him-cable-news-pundit/212524 Hypocrisy at its finest!
K.C.Journey Fan wrote: The super-rich shelter their money from exorbitant federal, state, and local taxes.
Mr. "I don't pay taxes" Drump is a liberal, by your definition. And not supporting animal acts in circuses doesn't make you a liberal. It makes you a decent human being.
by Memorex » Tue Jan 17, 2017 3:50 am
Gotta go with the Uncle on this one. Last time I went to the circus, maybe 18 years ago, I ended up back with the animals post-performance. Swore right then and there I would never support the circus again. It was not cool.
by Boomchild » Tue Jan 17, 2017 4:49 am
UncleKG wrote: Fear-mongering. Yes, we need to be vigilant, but give this "one of the biggest problems facing the U.S." rhetoric a rest. The facts/stats simply don't bear this out. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/23/youre-more-likely-to-be-fatally-crushed-by-furniture-than-killed-by-a-terrorist/?utm_term=.1bfb06218e2f
It's not fear mongering to say that the problem stems from the centuries old problem that the moderate and radical Muslims have been at war with each other. It's not fear mongering to say that it is them that have to solve the problem within their own religion. It's not fear mongering to say that no outside influence or actions is going to ultimately solve the problem. With respect to the article you have posted, last I checked furniture doesn't attack and kill people over an ideology. Furniture doesn't brain wash and indoctrinate human beings into radical beliefs that call for a worldwide caliphate. The longer the true solution to radical Islam is ignored the more the "statistics" will change and not for the better.
Crowder discusses this whole comparison between "faulty furniture" and Islamic terrorism. Feel free to check it out. The time marks where he goes into this is 1:02 to 2:51.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSmPSmrsmkA
Last edited by Boomchild on Tue Jan 17, 2017 5:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." George Washington
Boomchild
I focused on you because you focus on me. Here's an idea, don't comment on my posts, and no matter how cherry picked your "facts" are, I'll not comment on yours. Frankly, it's a waste of my time. Your News sources are well known to be liberal slanting and anti Trump. Your a fine example of one of the few things Glenn Beck has been right about. Your world is emursed in liberal news. It's all you read, and it's all you believe. Very sad. At least people are figuring out CNN. The leading source of "Fake News". Reality is, Obama's economy sucked. Eight years of a 1% GDP. Yes,employment is up. Full of $9.00 jobs and people working two, sometimes three to get by. I could go on about giving Iran Billions in ransom, being a international laughing stock, but again, reality is wasted on you. again, you can ignore my posts. Think of the time you'll gain not cherry picking and distorting, and I can ignore your blather. I'll just let Fact Finder tear you apart. I love it when liberals find one little thing to twist and then he piles on the facts. Haven't seen that for a while. Besides, after Friday, when the trash is removed from the White House, I think he's pulling the plug on this thread anyway. By the way, I think everyone here has figured out your a Sanders Socialist. I'd be ashamed of that too if I were you. Oh ya, your Trump, Russia , CIA story pretty much has been exposed as horse shit. Of course on your news sources, you won't read anything about it. If Trump is pissing off someone like you, GOOD !
I welcome Fact Finder attempting to "tear (me) apart." Actually, the average GDP growth is about 2.1%. (Not great, by any means).
Speaking of laughing stock, read the articles on ANY news outlet about how European leaders are reacting to Trump's latest spew.
I'm not ashamed of what I believe, and no, I'm not a Sanders socialist (you're big on trying to label people. Sorry I don't fit in your pigeon holes. I know it must be frustrating for you). I've said nothing about being in favor of universal healthcare or free college tuition, have I?
"My" Trump, Russia, CIA story? I didn't write the thing, but apparently there's enough smoke there on Drump's Russian ties and their meddling in the election to warrant a congressional investigation, so time will tell on that.
Drump does piss me off, because I care about our country and I have zero confidence in his ability not to screw it up six ways from Sunday. Then again, if I piss off someone like you (and from your multiple rants about me, I'm confident I do) and show you that your emperor has no clothes, my day's not wasted.
I check out Fox News.com on a daily basis. In fact, I read it before I go to any other websites. You know, because they're "fair and balanced." Sorry to shoot down your whole, "you're emursed (it's "immersed," FYI) in liberal news" argument.
I don't comment on your stories because you're the one who posts them. Don't flatter yourself. I comment on things I see I disagree with, or I know to be false, misleading or incorrect. You just seem to post a lot of that stuff.
K.C.Journey Fan wrote: ""My" Trump, Russia, CIA story? I didn't write the thing, but apparently there's enough smoke there on Drump's Russian ties and their meddling in the election to warrant a congressional investigation, so time will tell on that. "
Was exposed on Fox, and a few other websites to be exactly what I say most, if not all of your posts are, a lie. Obama's avg GDP was1%. Lying again.Like I said, a waste of time.
To quote Axl Rose, "It's so easy...'
“The average growth rate for economic recoveries since the 1960s is 3.9 percent ranking the Obama recovery, with an average GDP growth rate of just 2.1 percent, among the slowest in history,” said Sen. Dan Coats (R.-Ind,), who chairs the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/
But, I mean, what does the Republican chairman of the Joint Economic Committee know?
UncleKG wrote: Lewis is far from the only one questioning the legitimacy of Trump's win, given the evidence of Russian tampering.
A laugh every time someone hangs Hillary's loss and Trumps win on Russian hacking or Russian tampering. First off, our government leaders should be the last ones pointing fingers on this subject. Due to the fact of how our government has interfered and attempted to manipulate foreign elections. The most recent example being their involvement to undermine the re-election of Netanyahu. As to the election, any alleged foreign "tampering" or "hacking" is far from the reason Hillary lost the election. The democrats lost because they chose a extremely flawed and questionable candidate. Hillary was the one that chose to setup the questionable private email server while being SOS. Hillary chose to then lie and fabricate when explaining what she did while using it. Which of course was exposed by the FBI investigation. It was Hillary that chose not to distance herself from her connections to The Clinton Foundation both while being SOS and running for POTUS. It was Hillary's campaign that chose to collude with democratic activist groups to incite violence at the opposing candidates rallies and got caught red handed. It was Hilary that attacked and delegitimized millions of voters by calling them a "basket of deplorables". With how long she has been in politics, one would think she would have known that last thing you do is attack or disparage the voter. It was Hillary's campaign staff that got caught colluding with the press on articles and with getting debate questions in advance. It was the DNC that got caught colluding with Hillary to ensure she was the winner of their primary election. When you look at all this stuff, her loss has more to do with these issues then some "outside" influence.
Boomchild wrote:
None of which dismisses the evidence Russia tampered in our election, which ANY American, regardless of political affiliation, should be incensed over. But apparently there's quite a few who don't see a problem with it since it likely benefitted their candidate. That's messed up. On a related note, I'd love to hear Trump say something about foreign policy that hasn't already been said by the Kremlin. Seriously, he sounds like "Putin's Greatest Hits."
K.C.Journey Fan wrote: It's 1% avg for 8 yeras. Just got off Rambler .ru and Pravda. They are applauding Trump for bitch slapping NATO and telling other countries to pony up their fair share. Russia has already told the New world Order, something Obama, and I'm sure you, to screw off, and put a arrest warrent out for Soros. They are also looking at nuclear options with the current idiot in the White House. The only other story on Trump is they applaud him for admitting tha US should not have gone into Iraq. Of course that would have turned out far better had Obama not fucked it up and pulled out. He could have made a new deal, as Bush suggested to him. Caught you lying again, unless your using CNN Asia or Europe. As I've said many times, if Americans could watch that, they would understand why the world hated us and screamed treason.
The Obama economy summed up.
http://budget.house.gov/uploadedfiles/p ... record.pdf
So, let me understand. I shared the figure cited by Sen. Dan Coats (R.-Ind,), who chairs the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, and so I'm "lying?" Right.
You're pulling from Pravda, Comrade? You sure love you some Russia, don't you? Drump would be proud.
Would it have turned out far better if Obama had not pulled troops out? We'll never know. You're an expert on military policy now? Bush signed the "Status of Forces" agreement, correct? Obama could have done a far better job of negotiating the terms under which the troops would have stayed, but blame doesn't lay solely on him.
Drump (now) says we never should have gone into Iraq? Man, what incredible political insight. What a keen mind he must have to come to that conclusion. We shouldn't have gone into Iraq. In other news, the sky is blue and water is wet.
UncleKG wrote: None of which dismisses the evidence Russia tampered in our election, which ANY American, regardless of political affiliation, should be incensed over. But apparently there's quite a few who don't see a problem with it since it likely benefitted their candidate. That's messed up. On a related note, I'd love to hear Trump say something about foreign policy that hasn't already been said by the Kremlin. Seriously, he sounds like "Putin's Greatest Hits."
Frankly I have zero trust in our federal government which includes our intelligence agencies and anything associated with it. Which means I am skeptical of "the evidence". If anything this is a "pot meet kettle" situation. I find it highly suspicious that our leaders in government paid little attention to foreign hacking situation prior to election season. It is clear that the alleged hacking was not the "lynch pin" to her loss. It's all just a smoke screen to detract from the REAL reasons for her loss and to detract from what was uncovered during and after the election. Foreign hacking didn't create things like more votes being submitted then the number of registered voters in Detroit. Mind you, said votes were for the losing candidate. Americans should be more incensed by all the "home grown" corruption and rigging. That is the bigger threat then anything coming from outside our nation.
Boomchild wrote: It is clear that the alleged hacking was not the "lynch pin" to her loss. It's all just a smoke screen to detract from the REAL reasons for her loss and to detract from what was uncovered during and after the election. Foreign hacking didn't create things like more votes being submitted then the number of registered voters in Detroit. Mind you, said votes were for the losing candidate. Americans should be more incensed by all the "home grown" corruption and rigging. That is the bigger threat then anything coming from outside our nation.
Speaking of being skeptical of "the evidence," that whole Detroit thing smacks to me of human error based on what I've read. If you want to talk about "home grown" rigging that actually happens (and extremely often), let's talk gerrymandering like the kind the GOP tried to pull off in NC.
Sincere question: how do you propose they solve the problem within their own religion? Radicals aren't going to listen to reason.
I watched the clip. Yes, furniture doesn't have an evil ideology. Having said that, I'm not going to huddle in fear in my house because there's an incredibly small chance (one in 20 million) that if I go to a public event in the U.S., I'm going to be killed by a terrorist act, and I'm not going to not move the couch downstairs when the time comes because it may fall on me.
UncleKG wrote: Speaking of being skeptical of "the evidence," that whole Detroit thing smacks to me of human error based on what I've read. If you want to talk about "home grown" rigging that actually happens (and extremely often), let's talk gerrymandering like the kind the GOP tried to pull off in NC.
Yeah, all those dead people that ended up voting was due to simple "human error". Give me a break. It's clear the people that are running the elections are rigging things and that is a bigger threat then something that could come from the outside. No matter how you slice it, one act doesn't justify or excuse the other.
Last edited by Boomchild on Tue Jan 17, 2017 10:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
by Boomchild » Tue Jan 17, 2017 10:07 am
UncleKG wrote: Sincere question: how do you propose they solve the problem within their own religion? Radicals aren't going to listen to reason.
I don't have all the answers but it's clear that the problem germinates from within the religion itself. They could at least remove those clerics that continue to spew the radical viewpoints that the moderates claim do not represent them. They could expose and turn over to the authorities those in the Muslim communities that are involved in all the various aspects of terrorism and further it's cause instead of turning a blind eye to it. They could start to reform the religion that does away with the practices that go against the aspects of human rights and personal freedom. If they were to abolish the practice of Sharia Law, that would be a big step in the right direction.
UncleKG wrote: I watched the clip. Yes, furniture doesn't have an evil ideology. Having said that, I'm not going to huddle in fear in my house because there's an incredibly small chance (one in 20 million) that if I go to a public event in the U.S., I'm going to be killed by a terrorist act, and I'm not going to not move the couch downstairs when the time comes because it may fall on me.
The point isn't about being in fear that someone won't go out in public. It's about seeing the problem for what truly is. It isn't about that even though It doesn't impact a certain part of a population that it isn't a problem that could effect said part of the population. It's about the Islamic terrorism that goes on daily around the globe. It's the fact that it is growing in areas were it hasn't before. The whole accidents with furniture and comparing it to a religious terrorism movement is not an argument. It like saying since a child has more of a chance of drowning in a pool then being molested by an adult we shouldn't concern ourselves with child molestation.
by UncleKG » Tue Jan 17, 2017 11:58 pm
It sure does. They found six more Clinton votes and 131 Trump votes. After new numbers started coming in and Clinton was losing more and more, that idea sure faded fast. Why don't you scan back a few pages and read postings. Right now, you look like a liar.
I look like a liar? Again, I'm just citing recognized news sources, Einstein. http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2016/12/18/detroit-ballots-vote-recount-election-stein/95570866/
Here are a couple of other explanations offered. "Reasons for the under-counted and over-counted votes are unclear, although in some cases people may have signed in to vote, then left before casting their ballots because of long lines. Machine malfunctions also may have played a role; on Election Day, more than 80 optical vote scanners broke down in Detroit."
The head of the state elections board said, "“We don’t have any suspicion of fraud. We generally approach this as human error ." Now, you can choose to call him a liar, but by stating what he said, that doesn't make me one.
But, as Drump suggests about the Russian tampering, if it had no effect on the outcome of the election, who cares? Drump lost Detroit in a landslide, not by a couple of hundred votes.
Last edited by UncleKG on Wed Jan 18, 2017 12:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
by UncleKG » Wed Jan 18, 2017 12:06 am
Nope, just showing you up as the liar you are, then you try to spin out by attacking me, just like an asshole...By the way, Obama could have cut a deal to leave a force in Iraq to help keep it stable, which it WAS when he took office. Dumbasses like you think it was thye right thing to do just splitting. I would wager you "think" Obama did a great job with Syria.Was Obama the Comander and chief, yes. He NEVER even tried to talk with Iraq. He simply said "Time to go." By the way, your sources are wrong again and Trump is on record saying we shouldn't have gone into Iraq within the first few months of the war. Of course you are only going to read and repeat liberal propaganda.Obama," Hey Mitt, the cold war called. they want their policies back". Hey Barrack, Putin beat you like a bitch. How sad for our country.
He didn't come out unequivocally against the war until a year after it started, not "within the first few months." Guess it's time to start throwing out the "liar" accusation, right? http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/22/donald-trump/trump-still-wrong-his-claim-opposed-iraq-war-ahead/ Condemn the source all you want, but Drump's quotes are taken from his interviews. Guess your propaganda is mistaken...again.
"Most damning to Trump’s claim is a September 2002 interview in which Trump said he supported the Iraq invasion. Shock jock Howard Stern asked Trump if he supported the looming invasion. Trump responded, 'Yeah, I guess so.'"
The tape doesn't lie.
You have no idea how I feel about the troop withdrawal, and as you'll see if you actually read my post, I said Obama could have cut a deal to leave a force in Iraq. Pay attention.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/314513-trump-approval-polls-are-rigged-against-me
by Memorex » Wed Jan 18, 2017 12:32 am
UncleKG wrote: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/314513-trump-approval-polls-are-rigged-against-me
I would say in an election where all the polls were wrong (I believe purposely) and half the country voted for Trump and he has had several "successes" already re jobs and such, that 40% number is about as real as the tooth fairy.
Memorex wrote:
That could absolutely be true. I think it's likely lower than that. "Half the country" didn't vote for Drump. 26% of registered voters did.
Looks like the inauguration is gonna' be "yuge." It must be all those people who want to see 3 Doors Down and "Big and Rich." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2017/01/12/200-buses-have-applied-for-city-parking-on-inauguration-day-1200-have-applied-for-the-womens-march/?postshare=701484268731497&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.2ba5a88ed20d
Drump tweeted, "People are pouring into Washington in record numbers." No, Drump, they're not, no matter how much you wish it were so.
He's also tweeting about John Lewis again. Lewis had said this was the first inauguration he's missed since being in Congress, but he skipped GW's as well. Now Drump is calling him out on it, which is infinitely amusing coming from a man who spews blatant falsehoods on a daily basis (like the one I just posted).
by Memorex » Wed Jan 18, 2017 1:18 am
I follow the polls because they tell me to. http://elect2016.us/huffpost-latest-for ... f-winning/
At least all of the protesting this election season has been grass roots, true, deep-down feelings. Oh, wait, more ads asking people to protest for money? You don't say. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... 0-agitate/
by UncleKG » Wed Jan 18, 2017 2:14 am
Memorex wrote: At least all of the protesting this election season has been grass roots, true, deep-down feelings. Oh, wait, more ads asking people to protest for money? You don't say. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... 0-agitate/
Creating American jobs, huh? I expect Drump will be tweeting to try and take credit for it shortly. Given only 200 bus passes have been applied for, I'm sure he'll be happy to have those protestors there to boost attendance numbers.
by Boomchild » Wed Jan 18, 2017 3:30 am
Fact Finder wrote: 71 hours and 40 minutes.
Best gift I have received in years is about to happen.
UncleKG wrote: Lewis had said this was the first inauguration he's missed since being in Congress, but he skipped GW's as well.
You are a liar again. He skipped Bush's for the same reason. It's purely a stunt, and frankly beneath the actions of a senator.
You really should try to pay more attention. I mention G.W. right there in black and white. Do you feel the Republicans who skipped Obama's inauguration also displayed actions beneath their office?
Last edited by UncleKG on Wed Jan 18, 2017 7:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
K.C.Journey Fan wrote: I'm telling you guys, this dumbass is nothing but a waste of time. all he's doing is cherry picking and twisting details.
The article doesn't say there's only been 200 bus parking passes requested? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2017/01/12/200-buses-have-applied-for-city-parking-on-inauguration-day-1200-have-applied-for-the-womens-march/?postshare=701484268731497&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.75c3b634899a
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Home > Draycott
Photographs of Draycott
in Derbyshire, England
Draycott, This is located in Derbyshire.
If you have any comments for the guest book or questions to ask then use the link top/right.
Photos of Draycott, Derbyshire, England.
Draycott is a narrow, elongated village situated between Derby and Long Eaton. The best known land mark in Draycott is Victoria Mill. Having connections with the Nottingham lace trade, Building of Draycott’s Victoria Mill was started in 1888 and was established as one of the most important lace factories in the world. When it was completed in 1907, it was the largest manufacturing mill in Europe.
The four-storey building with its green-capped ornamental clock tower dominates the skyline. Currently (Winter 2004) this mill is being converted into 113 one and two-bedroom luxury apartments. For more information on the Victoria Mill development please visit the
website here .. www.victoriamill.com
In order to get their Derbyshire lead from Derby to the river Trent at Trent Lock, the Romans built a straight road between the two. A small community settled along this road, mentioned in the Doomsday Book in 1086 as Draicott (Dry Cote). The people at the tiny village of Wilne, located just south of Draycott gradually moved to Dry Cote as this was on higher land and not subject to the flooding.
Draycott was for several centuries a farming community, but as industry grew so did Draycott. Draycott people are traditionally known as ‘Neddies’.
The Olympic pub on Station road was built in the mid 19th century, At one time used by the railways with stables to the rear, Coachmen would bring and take people to and from the railway station.
Draycott Primary school is located on Hopewell road , just south of the railway line.
The former Derby Canal used to run under Derby Road (A6005) where Nooning Lane joins it.
This 100m section of the Derby Canal has been partially excavated in order to reduce seasonal flooding of the area and the railway, which it runs next to. The Derby Canal trust in partnership with Railtrack have invested £1/2 million in a flood alleviation scheme. The former Derby canal WILL return to Draycott and be back in use within a few years thanks to the Derby and Sandiacre Canal Society, see their website here ... www.derbycanal.org.uk
For a map of the local area click HERE
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Escaping from Bullshit
Andrew Chrucky
Category: Definition of Bullshit
The Prevalence of Humbug by Max Black
A greatly expanded version of the Stanton Griffis Lecture at the Cornell Medical School, New York City, March 1980. A variety of versions have been delivered at Cornell University, the University of New Mexico, Dartmouth College, and elsewhere. Published in The The Prevalence of Humbug and Other Essays (Cornell University Press, 1983). Originally published in a slightly different form in Philosophic Exchange, vol. 13, 1982.
It would be a wonderful thing for mankind if some philosophic Yankee would contrive some kind of "ometer" that would measure the infusion of humbug in anything. A "Humbugometer" he might call it. I would warrant him a good sale.
— P. T. Barnum
Humbug has the peculiar property of being always committed by others, never by oneself. This is one reason why it is universally condemned. No doubt we can agree that humbug is a Bad Thing; but what are we agreeing about? It proves astonishingly hard to say. In trying to understand what humbug is, which is my main objective, one soon finds that no satisfactory definitions are available. I therefore propose to use for the most part an inductive approach. I shall offer a number of varied examples for consideration, hoping that we can eventually arrive at some reasonably satisfying analysis of this elusive concept. There should be time, also, to reflect on the mischief that humbug can work, and to consider some ways of curbing the disposition to produce it.
Chekhov’s Lady
My first exhibit is drawn from Maxim Gorky’s reminiscences of Chekhov:
Once a plump, healthy, handsome, well-dressed lady came to him and began to speak a la Chekhov: "Life is so boring, Anton Pavlovich. Everything is so grey: people, the sea, even the flowers seem to me grey. . . . And I have no desires . . . my soul is in pain … it is like a disease."
"It is a disease," said Anton Pavlovich with conviction, "it is a disease; in Latin it is called morbus fraudulentus."
Fortunately, the lady did not seem to know Latin, or, perhaps, she pretended not to know it.1
Morbus fraudulentus — literally, "the fraudulent disease" — is not listed in manuals of pathology, although the disorder is endemic, infectious, and seriously injurious to thought, feeling, and action. (A medical friend has compared it to rheumatism.) The Latin label is too opaque for common use, but "humbug" serves nicely. Chekhov’s lady provides us with a clear example of humbug.
Bernard Shaw on Disarmament Conferences
My next example is taken from an interview granted by George Bernard Shaw to an American journalist (M. E. Wisehart) in 1930, on the eve of a naval conference. When the interviewer called the coming meeting a "disarmament conference," Shaw strenuously objected:
" ‘Don’t!’ exclaimed Mr. Shaw. ‘Everyone knows it’s an armament conference! . . . The question is not ‘Shall we do away with armament?’ but ‘How much armament?’"
The interviewer referred to the preliminary conversations between the British prime minister and President Hoover as "an event of great historical importance," and went on to say:
"It is a harbinger of international understanding and good will. It has brought the English-speaking peoples together as never before and shown them that in sentiment, friendship, respect and good will they are united."
Shaw exploded:
"Do you really believe that?
Humbug."
When the interviewer said, "Why do you say ‘humbug’?," Shaw replied:
"Because, generally speaking, Englishmen and Americans do not like one another. Now they are asked to pretend that they do. And this pretense of being affectionate cousins is as dangerous as poison. Better to confess our dislike — our hatred, if you please — and ask ourselves what it is all about. Then there would be the possibility of ridding ourselves of it."2
The Shavian Probe
Bernard Shaw’s formula, "Do you really believe that?" is a useful device; but it needs to be generalized into "Do you really mean that?" in order to fit cases involving something other than belief. In this form, it is a useful blunt instrument that deserves a label. I propose to call it the Shavian probe.
Unfortunately, it won’t always work. No doubt, a journalist who actually thought in terms of bringing nations "together as never before" so that they become "united" in "sentiment, friendship, respect and good will" would be well advised to change his occupation — perhaps to that of a speech writer for presidential candidates. So in the case I have cited, Shaw’s accusation of humbug seems justified.
But what are we to make of the following episode? On January 25, 1980, Mary McCarthy said, in an interview with Dick Cavett on Public Broadcasting, that Lillian Hellman was "a bad writer, overrated, a dishonest writer." Well, true or false, justified or not, there was no humbug about that. But on being asked by Mr. Cavett what was dishonest about Miss Hellman’s writing, Miss McCarthy continued: "Everything. I once said in an interview that every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’" Well, did she really believe that one could lie by using the words "and" and "the"? Hardly — unless she was using "lie" in some extraordinary and unusual sense. But no doubt Mary McCarthy was in earnest, and did mean what she said, was using just the words she wanted. That leaves the question of whether McCarthy committed humbug still unsettled: we have to undertake a difficult and controversial evaluation of the speaker’s feeling and attitude.
According to Miss Hellman’s lawyer, his client may get damages for defamation if she can show that "the person making the allegedly defamatory remarks either knew them to be untrue or uttered them without caring whether they were untrue." A philosophical logician might object that truth, in the sense of conformity with ascertainable matter of fact, is not in point. Yet a writer can be dishonest while saying something that is neither true nor untrue: common sense would regard some caricatures as libelous even if they were uncaptioned. When the lawsuit is ultimately heard, it will be interesting to see how judge and jury will cope with the possibly extenuating effects of context — and with such controversial issues as the applicable legal constraints on emotive or offensive language.
Some Preliminary Comments
Chekhov’s lady and Shaw’s interviewer provide clear cases of humbug. I think of them as touchstones of usage — paradigm cases. For me, the two examples are cases of humbug if anything is; if you disagree, then your usage of the key word probably differs in certain respects from my own.
These paradigm cases have some readily discernible features that are worth noting, for future reference in struggles with more controversial examples.
One reason why "Humbug!" is so offensive an exclamation is that it charges the speaker with some kind of falseness. But in neither of our cases was the speaker supposed.to be lying. For Chekhov’s lady was not necessarily lying when she said that everything looked and felt "grey" to her: perhaps she used that very word in her private thoughts. Humbug need not entail lying in the strict sense of that word — even though humbug can be akin to outright lying.
We can usefully distinguish between the speaker’s message, as I shall call it, and his or her stance. By the message I mean whatever is explicitly or implicitly said about the topic in question; while I reserve the term "stance" for the speaker’s beliefs, attitudes, and evaluations, insofar as they are relevant to the verbal episode in question. To illustrate: If you say to me in a confident way, "The plane leaves at four o’clock," you are not saying that you believe what you say, because that is not the topic on which you are supplying information. But of course, by speaking as you do, in a standard situation in which trustworthy information is normally expected, you are giving me reason to believe that you are not deliberately misleading me.
Similarly, Mary McCarthy, to return to the earlier example, was not saying that she despised the subject of her scathing comments, nor was she overtly claiming to be sincere, but clearly she spoke as one who expected her remarks to be taken as a sincere expression of contempt. (Try saying: "She’s disgusting — but of course I don’t feel disgust." That would be a paradox: we could make some sense of it, but not without hard work.)
Now, the pejorative implication of a charge of humbug is commonly leveled against the content of a message (a remark or a text) rather than at what I have called the speaker’s stance: then it usually has the force of "Stuff and nonsense," denigrating the message without necessarily imputing falseness or insincerity.3
Consider the following mini-dialogue:
First speaker: As McLuhan has taught us, the medium is the message.
Second speaker: Humbug!
Here I take the second speaker to be rejecting McLuhan’s absurd slogan, that is, rejecting the substance of what is being said: there need be no imputation about the sincerity of the speaker’s “stance.” For he or she may genuinely regard McLuhan’s widely quoted fragment of pseudo-wisdom as profoundly illuminating. No matter: without impunging a speaker’s stance, we can sometimes condemn what is being said as balderdash, claptrap, rubbish, cliche, hokum, drivel, buncombe, nonsense, gibberish, or tautology. With so rich a vocabulary for dismissing the substance of what is said, we could dispense with this use of "humbug. " That useful word might well be reserved for criticism of a speaker’s stance — to discredit the message’s provenance rather than its content. I shall respect current usage, however, by sometimes using "humbug" in the sense of "piece of humbug."
What then is the prima facie charge against a speaker accused of humbug? Well, some of the words that immediately suggest themselves are pretense, pretentiousness, affectation, insincerity, and deception. Often there is also a detectable whiff of self-satisfaction and self-complacency: humbug goes well with a smirk. A common symptom is clever-me-ism, as in Jack Horner’s case. In this respect, it resembles cant, which Dr. Johnson memorably defined as "a whining pretension to goodness, in formal and affected terms."
To say that humbug has something to do with insincerity and deception is to point in the right direction, but does not sufficiently identify the word’s meaning. Let us see whether the history of the word’s changing uses can provide a more specific analysis.
A Short History of the Word’s Shifting Meanings
I used to think that the word "humbug" came into general use in the nineteenth century — possibly because I took the Victorians to be especially prone to hypocrisy. To my surprise, I discovered that its career dates from the middle of the eighteenth century, when it seems to have entered the language as "a piece of fashionable slang" (Century Dictionary) of unknown origins. It may have been used originally in the restricted sense of a false alarm, a hoax, or a practical joke. But its meaning was uncertain even from the start. In 1751 a writer (quoted in the Century Dictionary) complained about it in the following terms:
There is a word very much in vogue with the people of taste and fashion, which though it has not even the ‘penumbra’ of a meaning yet makes up the sum total of the wit, sense and judgement of the aforesaid people of taste and fashion! [He gives quotations] Humbug is neither an English word nor a derivative from any other language. It is indeed a blackguard sound made use of by most people of distinction! It is a fine make-weight in conversation, and some men deceive themselves so egregiously as to think they mean something by it!
Dr. Johnson did not include the word in his dictionary (1775), possibly because he thought it too coarse or vulgar to be noticed.
By 1828, the first edition of Webster’s dictionary treated "humbug" as an approximate synonym for "swindle" or "fraud." As a noun, Webster says, it refers to "an imposition under false pretences"; and as a verb it means "to deceive; to impose upon" — or, as we might nowadays say, "to con." So the relatively innocent old sense of a practical joke had made way by then for something more obnoxious.
An explicit example of this use occurs in The Pickwick Papers, when Mr. Pickwick furiously upbraids Mr. Winkle for pretending to be able to skate:
Mr. Pickwick . . . uttered in a low but distinct and emphatic tone, these remarkable words, —
"You’re a humbug, sir."
"A what!" said Mr. Winkle, starting.
"A humbug, sir. I will speak plainer if you wish. An impostor, sir."
Readers familiar with The Wizard of Oz may remember the unmasking scene, in which the Great Wizard is finally revealed as a timid old man, who confesses to having been making believe.
"I’m supposed to be a Great Wizard."
"And aren’t you?" [Dorothy] asked.
"Not a bit of it, my dear; I’m just a common man."
"You’re more than that," said the Scarecrow, in a grieved tone; "you’re a humbug."
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of 1966 contains the following entries:
for the noun’s head sense, "something designed to deceive and mislead" (with cross-references to QUACKERY, HOAX, FRAUD, and IMPOSTURE);
for the verb, "impose on" (with cross-references to DECEIVE, CAJOLE, and HOAX);
for its application to a humbugger, "a person who usually willfully deceives or misleads others as to his true condition, qualities, or attitudes, one who passes himself off as something that he is not" (with cross-references to SHAM, HYPOCRITE, and IMPOSTOR).
The general impression left by this rather confused set of definitions is of adherence to the strong nineteenth-century equation of a humbug with an impostor or swindler. But that identification fails to reflect present usuage. If a main sense of "humbug" were that of something designed to deceive and mislead, a skillfully constructed wig would have to count as a prime example. If a humbugger is a person who willfully deceives others, then the pseudo-Arabs lately used by the FBI to "sting" congressmen would be properly described as humbugs.4 Something is plainly wrong.
By relying too much on the entries in earlier editions, the makers of Webster’s Third have overlooked the present dilutions of the old intensely pejorative implications of "humbug." I hope that in the end we can do somewhat better, by considering some further examples of clear cases and test cases.
Russell’s Tirade
Consider now the following glimpse of the private behavior of a famous philosopher. In a charming book of reminiscences, Rupert Crawshay-Williams tells of accompanying Bertrand Russell on a trip to inspect a house that was being remodeled for Russell’s use. When the two friends arrived, they had to suspend a lively discussion of a new book by the pragmatist F. C. S. Schiller.
On meeting the builder and the architect, who were awaiting his arrival, Russell at once launched a furious denunciation of their supposed delinquency. He brushed aside their excuses, called the architect a liar, and hardly allowed the others to finish a sentence.
The tirade rolled over them until both of them were left floundering and gasping.
Russell ended off by demanding a complete change in their future behaviour. He stopped talking and walked smartly out to the car; we got in; I started the engine;
‘So Schiller was really making the context of the statement part of its meaning’, said Russell.
Elizabeth and I were still stunned.
‘But Bertie’, we said, ‘you seem quite calm!’
‘I am quite calm’, he said. ‘That’s taught them a lesson I think, hasn’t it?’
‘We certainly think they were impressed. Do you mean to say’, we asked, ‘that the whole explosion was deliberate and contrived?’
‘Yes indeed’, said Russell, ‘it was the only thing to do — the only way of making an effect.’
‘Well, I suppose it may work’, I said. ‘But I did think you were being just a little bit unfair at times.’
‘Unfair!’ Of course I was being unfair.’5
Crawshay-Williams, reverting to a previous conversation, then said: "There you are . . . it’s what we were saying last night: you’re an aristocrat, and I’m merely a gentleman." Fair comment, although a proper English gentleman may not call himself a gentleman, except ironically.
Ghotbzadeh’s Indignation
At the end of January 1980, the Canadian government announced the escape of six American diplomats who had been sheltered in the Canadian embassy in Teheran.
According to the news reports, one of the so-called embassy militants responded by crying, "That’s illegal! That’s illegal!" When the Iranian foreign minister, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, later met reporters, he took the same line, calling the secret operation a "flagrant violation" of international law.
"’They have violated the laws they claim to defend,’ Mr. Ghotbzadeh said of the Canadians. He denounced ‘so-called international laws’ as having been made only ‘for the suppression of the small nations by the big ones.’"6
To this egregious nonsense Ghotbzadeh added a veiled incitement to violence — "Canada will pay" and "Everybody is free to do whatever they want" — apparently intending "an open invitation to Iranians around the world to take action against Canada or Canadians"; also an allegation that he must have known to be a lie, to the effect that he had received an apology from the Canadian prime minister, with an accompanying explanation that "the action had been for political reasons in Canada" (both immediately denied by Joe Clark).
In this farrago, I am particularly interested for present purposes in the role played by what is surely a prime case of humbug, the implicit presentation of the speaker (what I have previously called his "stance") as one who, himself respecting international law, is therefore entitled to complain of an alleged violation. Ghotbzadeh’s own explicit denunciation of "so-called international law" merely adds to the confusion of what an editorial in the New York Times called his "flagrant logic."
Emerson’s Friendship
Ralph Waldo Emerson says the following about friendship, in his celebrated essay with that title:
The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed: there is no winter and no night: all tragedies, all ennuis vanish, — all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity but the forms all radiant of beloved persons. Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years.7
4 Well, all of us have sometimes been kept waiting for a good friend, but a delay of a thousand years is, as the English say, a bit much. But Emerson is relentlessly enthusiastic about friendship:
Happy is the house that shelters a friend! It might well be built, like a festal bower or arch, to entertain him a single day. Happier, if he know the solemnity of that relation and honor its law! It is no idle bond, no holiday engagement. He who offers himself a candidate for that covenant comes up, like an olympian, to the great games where the first-born of the world are the competitors. He proposes himself for contest where Time, Want, Danger, are in the lists, and he alone is victor who has truth enough in his constitution to preserve the delicacy of his beauty from the wear and tear of all these.8
Surely there is something suspicious about this exaggerated rhapsodizing. Indeed, the very last paragraph of the essay suggests that Emerson might really have preferred the kind of friend that need never be met:
It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a friendship greatly on one side, without due correspondence on the other. Why should I cumber myself with the poor fact that the receiver is not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain unto ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion. If he is unequal he will presently pass away; but thou art enlarged by thy own shining, and no longer a mate for frogs and worms, dost soar and burn with the gods of empyrean.9
"It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain"; "thou art enlarged by thy own shining." Enlarged or puffed up? Emerson sometimes reminds me of Mr. Pecksniff, who is described on his first appearance in Martin Chuzzlewit as "a moral man, a grave man, a man of noble sentiments, and speech." Dickens says of him (in connection with his calling his daughter Mercy a "playful warbler"):
"Playful — playful warbler," said Mr. Pecksniff. It may be observed in connexion with his calling his daughter "a warbler," that she was not at all vocal, but that Mr. Pecksniff was in the frequent habit of using any word that occurred to him as having a good sound and rounding a sentence well, without much care for its meaning. And he did this so boldly and in such an imposing manner that he would sometimes stagger the wisest people with his eloquence and make them gasp again.
The Czar’s Vodka
The back cover (The New Yorker’s issue of January 21, 1980, displays a richly colored photograph captioned "The spirit of the Czar lives on." We see an impressively bearded man, head tossed back, with a smidgeon of a smile, dressed in full regimentals, with scarlet jacket, white sash, and enough medals to start a collection. In one hand he holds a wineglass, with the other he is fondling the neck of a fine borzoi. Meanwhile his czarina, with an equally lavish display of evening dress and jewels, squats on the imperial carpet to play with a couple of borzoi puppies. And the message? This, in part:
It was the Golden Age of Russia, and the Czar reigned supreme. Europe, Asia: all the empire was his. Regal coaches carried him in elegance, but with his Cossacks he rode like thunder. Hunting wild boar in the northern forests, hosting feasts for a thousand guests in the Great Palace, no man could match the Czar’s thirst for life. And his drink? The toast of St. Petersburg. Genuine Vodka.
(I omit the brand me of what I think of as “Humbug Vodka.”)
It would be a waste of time to criticize this text by asking such questions as why the pseudo-czar is wearing all those medals, and why he "rode like thunder," and whether he really did thirst for life as nobody else could, and what all this has to do with the barely perceptible difference between one vodka and another. We know that good sense and relevance have nothing to do with the case, the desired effect on the impressionable reader being achieved if favorable associations are created.
Zaftig Bedfellows
Consider now the following item from the "Personal" columns of The New York Review of Books (February 21, 1980):
ZAFTIG FEMALE WANTED. NYC male, 35, editor/author, lean, reasonably good-looking, financially secure. Seeks woman Renoir would have painted, 25-35, with pretty face, stable personality. Excellent opportunity to share museums, movies, affluence, quiet conversations, caring, maybe marriage. NYR, Box 2956.
If you think this hard to beat for vulgarity, listen to the journal’s own puff, on the same page, for its new English affiliate:
AMERICAN INTELLECTUALS too warm and bloody open for you? Prefer treacle in your tarts, not your mail? Tired of being mashed by provincial American bangers? Woo your very own little gooseberry fool abroad merely by running an accurate but winning Personal Ad in the columns of The London Review of Books.
A rare example, this, of puffing a go-between. It might be called pimping for a pimp — or metapimping.
The Cornell Ship
Ceremonial and political occasions invite humbug. Here is a prime example from the early history of Cornell University:
On Inauguration Day, October 7, 1868, the new university had so many more students than it could handle that "the department of geology was confined to a single room adjoining the coal cellars, and demonstrations in natural history were conducted in the vacant space next to a furnace." The campus consisted partly of "a ravine six or eight feet deep, bridged by two dirt causeways."10 Against this kind of backdrop, George William Curtis delivered an elaborate address with the following peroration:
Here is our university, our Cornell, like the man-of-war, all its sails set, its rigging full and complete from stem to stern, its crew embarked, its passengers all ready and aboard; and even as I speak to you, even as the autumn sun sets in the west, it begins to glide over the waves as it goes forth rejoicing, every stitch of canvas spread, all its colors flying, its musical bells ringing, its heartstrings beating with hope and joy.11
"Complete from stem to stern" — and students in the coal cellars! The university’s cofounder and president, Andrew Dickson White, "looking out over the ragged cornfield and the rough pasture land and noticing the unfinished buildings and the piled-up rubbish," felt that no words "could fail more completely to express the reality," and Ezra Cornell confessed that there was "not a single thing finished."12 Curtis, one might say, was operating on the principle of "Take care of the sounds and the nonsense will take care of itself." The sentiments were appropriately edifying, and the elaborately studied and rehearsed phrasing evoked the expected applause.
Academic Humbug (Veblen)
Any survey of the varieties of humbug should include specimens of the pretentious verbiage that infests scholarly writing. I reproduce the following from Thorstein Veblen’s book The Theory of the Leisure Class (part only of an extraordinarily long paragraph) for the pleasure of resuscitating H. L. Mencken’s commentary on it.
In an increasing proportion as time goes on, the anthropomorphic cult, with its code of devout observances, suffers a progressive disintegration through the stress of economic exigencies and the decay of the system of status. As this disintegration proceeds, there come to be associated and blended with the devout attitude certain other motives and impulses that are not always of an anthropomorphic origin, nor traceable to the habit of personal subservience.
Not all of these subsidiary impulses that blend with the bait of devoutness in the later devotional life are altogether congruous with the devout attitude or with the anthropomorphic apprehension of sequence of phenomena. Their origin being not the same, their action upon the scheme of devout life is also not in the same direction. In many ways they traverse the underlying norm of subservience of vicarious life to which the code of devout observances and the ecclesiastical and sacerdotal institutions are to be traced as their substantial basis.13
Here we have garrulity laced with jargon. Mencken says that Veblen "achieves the effect, perhaps without employing the means, of thinking in some unearthly foreign language — say Swahili, Sumerian or Old Bulgarian — and then painfully clawing his thoughts into a copious but uncertain and book-learned English." As to the long passage he quotes, Mencken concludes that Veblen is trying to say "that many people go to church, not because they are afraid of the devil but because they enjoy the music, and like to look at the stained glass, the potted lilies and the rev. pastor." Mencken says that "this highly profound and highly original observation" might have been made on a postage stamp, thereby saving a good deal of wasted paper.14
Misfires and Violations
With these varied examples of ostensible humbug before us, we can ask what it is about such episodes that inclines us to regard all of them, in spite of their obvious differences, as instances of the same complex phenomenon. Do we mean the same thing each time, or are we perhaps applying the pejorative label to cases connected only by shifting similarities, rather than by the presence of some detectable common property?
Let us first recall the great amount and variety of information normally transmitted in even the simplest and most familiar kind of conversation. Suppose the driver of a stationary automobile asks me the way to, say, Route 13. I would normally take for granted much concerning the speaker’s situation and competence that is unsaid, indeed much that would mark the episode as perplexing if it were said: for instance, that the driver wants to get to the highway in question, that he is en route to some other destination, and that he doesn’t know how to proceed. Also, on the evidence of his question, that he is a native English speaker who knows what he is saying and hasn’t made a slip of the tongue. Correspondingly, I assume that he himself is making parallel assumptions about my own understanding of his problem and willingness to help. (I shall ignore any further information possibly conveyed by signs of anxiety, distress, and the like.)
I propose to speak in such cases of the framing presuppositions of the initiated verbal transaction — or, more briefly, of the conversation’s framework. Establishing the framework — an operation so commonplace that we normally fail to notice it — determines the character of the initiated conversation in a way that is crucially important for the possibility of a successful outcome. (Of course much talk has little discernible purpose, amounting to no more than friendly chatter or cocktail-party babble.)
The centrality of the role played by what I have called the conversation’s framework can be highlighted by cases of willful falsification of the presupposed understandings. Suppose that on being asked by a stranger, "Do you know the way to the campus from here?" I simply reply, "Yes." That will probably get me a look of resentful incomprehension, especially if I respond to the further question "Would you like to tell me how to get there?" by saying, "No." Please notice that, far from lying, I may be literally — yet quite inappropriately — telling the truth. In such a case I would of course be willfully violating the conditions that normally enable the kind of conversational exchange in question to proceed. No doubt I would be resentfully regarded as "trying to be funny." If I then suffer a change of heart, pursue the departing stranger, and, having caught up with him, say, "Would you like me to tell you the way?" he may play the same down-putting game by saying, "No!"
I shall now contrast two different kinds of ways in which intended exchange of information may fail. The first type of case, which I shall call a misfire, results from ignorance or incompetence on the respondent’s part: I might mishear the number of the highway in question, or get the number right but not know how to get there, or I might even be suffering from some painful personal anxiety that made me unable to help. In the absence of such impediments I might be simply inept in giving intelligible and useful instructions. Such misfires — or as our president recently called them, in his usual euphemistic mode when caught blundering, "failures of communication" — are sufficiently common to induce caution in relying on testimony or authority, however generally reliable and useful. But the risk of misfire is no ground for radical skepticism about the feasibility of successful communication in relatively unproblematic cases. If one stranger doesn’t know the way, perhaps another does; if some passer-by is too stupid to understand my problem or too selfish to help, perhaps another will.
Far more serious than such occasional hitches in communication (“misfires,” in my terminology) are breakdowns in communicative interaction induced by deliberate falsifications of the constitutive framework. To start with relatively innocuous but still potentially pernicious abuses of this sort: a prankster might perversely pretend not to understand the motorist’s question, or pretend to be unable to speak (pointing meaningfully at his own throat), or even deliberately act as if he were a lunatic. (The case I previously considered of an absurdly literal interpretation of a polite formula would also fall under this heading.) In such a case I propose to speak of a violation of the standard framework. Violations, unlike misfires, are not the predictable and excusable consequences of human ignorance or incompetence. They maliciously trade on and undermine the implicit understandings that underpin successful communication and cooperation, and hence erode the foundations of social existence. (Imagine a society in which joking was so common that one could never be certain whether communications were serious or maliciously disruptive.) Violations of the understandings that sustain communication must be regarded as perversions of verbal interaction, animated by deliberate deceit.
How Humbug Differs from Lying
We have already seen that violations of the communicative framework need not consist in the utterance of falsehoods. If I reply on the telephone to the question "Have you got any sausages today?" by saying, "No," and continue in the same vein, saying that I won’t have any in the foreseeable future, and the like, everything I say may be literally true, but I shall deceive the other as if I were deliberately lying. As William Blake said (in Auguries of Innocence):
A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
There is good reason, however, to regard conscious and deliberate falsity — what Immanuel Kant calls "intentional untruthful declaration" — as having primary theoretical importance. Sissela Bok, in her valuable book Lying, is following a long-established tradition when she confines her discussion to explicit lying, defined as the production of an utterance expressing what the speaker disbelieves.15 Let us call such an utterance, with acknowledgment to Shakespeare, the lie direct. Until further notice, when I speak of lying I shall mean the utterance, as if believed, of an assertion disbelieved by the utterer.
Moralists have long regarded brazen lying (the deliberate assertion of "the thing that is not," or at least "the thing thought to be not") as meriting the severest reprobation. Montaigne said,
"Lying is indeed an accursed vice. We are human beings, and hold together only by speech. If we knew the horror of it, and the gravity, we should pursue it with fire, and more justly so than other crimes."16
In such statements as this, lying is regarded as a cardinal vice, an unforgivable sin against humanity. Such a view led Immanuel Kant to claim — implausibly, I think — that we have an absolute duty not to lie, even when a truthful reply would lead an intending murderer to his victim. If this rigoristic condemnation of lying and the corresponding elevation of truthfulness to a supreme virtue were justified, it would be hard to understand the absence of references to lying in the Ten Commandments (except in the special prohibition against "bearing false witness") or in other religious compendia of vices and virtues.
Traditional defenses of such rigor are unconvincing. Kant, like other writers on the subject, notices the damage inflicted on the liar himself, but reserves his most earnest condemnation for the damage inflicted by a lie on all humankind. But as much can be said about all vice: every criminal injury to an individual also damages the moral fabric of society. Nor is a lie the worst injury: violence and willful cruelty may be regarded as at least equally damaging to the moral character of the perpetrator and as a violation of general obligations needed for social life.
A plausible justification of the prominence assigned to the vice of lying is suggested by a gloss of Montaigne’s contention that as human beings "we . . . hold together only by speech." It is obvious that children could not learn to speak if they were reared only by adults who lied to them irresponsibly and at random. For in such an environment a child could not even learn the common names of familiar objects. Closely connected with this point is the familiar observation that the liar is parasitic on general, though not universal, veracity: lying, as a species of deceit, would be futile in the absence of general efforts to be truthful. It seems reasonable to conclude that a liar is, in a radical way, sapping the foundations of social institutions, all of which depend on the general effectiveness of speech. The liar is indeed an enemy of society, who tends to undermine all possibility of civilized intercourse. Universal lying would destroy intelligible speech.
Still, an endorsement of Montaigne’s emphasis on the gravity of shamelessly explicit lying needs some supplementation, if it is not to be misleadingly one-sided. The immediate harm done by a successful lie direct — the deceitful generation of a false belief by concealed violation of the standard framework — can often be achieved more efficiently, and with less fear of detection or reprisal, by indirect means. One can intimate "the thing that is not" by implication, by significant silence, or even by the double bluff of pretending to lie while actually speaking the truth (as in the classical Minsk-Pinsk joke). (The annals of espionage are a rich source for this kind of deception.) Such maneuvers, a standard resource of advertising and diplomacy, are secure against the accusation of explicit and knowing mendacity: the offender can always plead that he didn’t literally say anything that he himself disbelieved. Given the prevalence and effectiveness of such indirect ways of achieving the disreputable benefits of lying, it is surprising that we have no better label for indirect verbal deception than the lawyer’s tag of suggestio falsi. We might perhaps speak in such cases of virtual lying. (Webster defines the relevant sense of "virtual" as "being functionally or effectively but formally not of its kind.")
With virtual lying, we are at last in the close neighborhood of the kind of humbug that "functionally or effectively" implants false belief. For in such cases there is characteristically a conscious discrepancy between the utterer’s beliefs and the false beliefs to be implanted. Such cases cannot properly be regarded as cases of outright lying, but are all the more pernicious for that reason. The person who composed the vodka advertisement probably believed that the drink he was puffing was virtually indistinguishable in taste and sedative power from any of the competing brands on the market. In eschewing direct lies or even, for the most part, virtual lies for which he might be accountable, he was relying on the powerful forces of suggestion and association — with all the flummery of the czar’s legendary court and so on — to implant what would have been a naked lie if it had been explicitly stated. The difference between such cases of humbugging deception and outright or even virtual lying is not in the content of the communicated message, or in the intention to deceive by implanting false beliefs, but rather in the sophistication of the means used to achieve the purpose.
The continuities between explicit lying, virtual lying, and what I now propose to call falsidical humbug (I borrow the term "falsidical" from W. V. Quine) have tempted many writers to regard the conventional distinction between lying and humbug as superficial and ultimately misleading. Indeed, some writers will assimilate to lying even relatively harmless efforts to make a good public showing.
Thus Adrienne Rich, in her notes on lying, says:
"We have expected to lie with our bodies: to bleach, redden, unkink or curl our hair, to pluck eyebrows, shave armpits, wear padding in various places or lace ourselves, take little steps, glaze finger and toe nails, wear clothes that emphasized our helplessness."17
(One supporting myth regards only nudity as genuinely natural and "truthful," all concealment or clothing being counted as hypocritical.)
The tendency here illustrated to convert similarities into supposedly profound underlying identities (dressing and personal adornment as "really" the same thing as lying) is a constant temptation for philosophically inclined scholars in search of excitingly paradoxical insight.
For a splendid example one might turn to George Steiner and his startling rediscovery of "the creativity of falsehood," which he characterizes as "a seminal, profound intuition" of the Greeks.18
Linguists and psychologists (Nietzsche excepted) have done little to explore the ubiquitous, many-branched genus of lies. . . . Constrained as they are by moral disapproval or psychological malaise, these inquiries have remained thin. We will see deeper only when we break free of a purely negative classification of ‘untruth’, only when we recognize the compulsion to say ‘the thing which is not’ as being central to language and mind. We must come to grasp what Nietzsche meant when he proclaimed that ‘the Lie — and not the Truth is divine!’19
Steiner quotes Nietzsche again, approvingly, as saying, in The Will to Power:
"There is only one world . . . and that world is false, cruel, contradictory, misleading, senseless. . . . We need lies to vanquish this reality, this truth, we need lies in order to live. Steiner seems himself to endorse the view that "lying is a necessity of life" by which "man violates an absurd confining reality" in a way that "is at every point artistic [and] creative."20
This confused and shoddy defense of lying is what Jeremy Bentham would have called "nonsense on stilts." Steiner here seems to be emulating that kind of German metaphysician than whom, according to Carlyle, none could dive deeper or emerge muddier. It is a prime example of the kind of academic or scholarly humbug that consists of saying more than you can reasonably mean, for the sake of the booming sound of your periods (what the older rhetoricians called "bomphoiologia"). If you fail to make the distinctions that I have been proposing between plain lying, virtual lying, pretentious inflation of belief, and so on, proceeding so far, in Steiner’s case, as to regard hypothetical if-then statements as cases of lying, you will end with a conceptual gruel in which everything looks like everything else and all intellectual distinctions have vanished in the service of grandiose obfuscation.
Still, a decent respect for the conceptual distinctions between plain and fancy lying and the allied but distinguishable varieties of deceptive humbug, such as I am here advocating, leaves as yet undiscussed the question of relative harm. The subversive effects of the brazen liar in undermining the foundations of linguistic institutions might be compared to outrageous violations of the constitutive bases of other institutions. There is something peculiarly monstrous about a judge who accepts bribes, a farmer who adds poison to his corn, or a doctor who infects patients in order to ensure a steady income. Yet the adulteration of food, to stay with that example, may, in the not very long run, be even more harmful than outright poisoning. The most serious indictment of falsidical humbug is that, without directly striking at the roots of linguistic institutions, it tends progressively to adulterate speech and thought. As a recent writer has well said,
[The] "distortion of values, this insidious numbing of what we once knew without question as true or false, can be blamed, in part, on the language we hear and read every day and night."21
The Complexities of Self-Deception
When humbuggers say what they themselves disbelieve, evading the risks of lying while reaping its benefits, the gross discrepancy between utterance and actual belief (the speaker’s stance) can sometimes be established beyond all reasonable doubt. If the perpetrator rebuffs the Shavian probe — "Do you really believe that?" — by insisting that he or she really did believe it, bolstering the original humbug by a brazen lie, perhaps tone, facial expression, or actions will expose the fraud. I call such conscious deception first-order humbug.
Humbug is often less obvious and forthright. Suppose a college student told Vladimir Nabokov that he was the greatest writer since Gogol (an imaginary but plausible episode). Any eavesdropper who knew the student’s shaky standing in Nabokov’s course on Russian literature might question the flatterer’s sincerity; but how is the imputed bad faith to be established against reiterated protestations of sincerity? If we suppose the flatterer to be subjectively honest, we might still impute self-deception. If so, we shall have a good example of a self-humbugged humbugger producing what I shall call second-order humbug.
Although self-deception is perhaps as common as lying, there is a difficulty in understanding how it can possibly occur. Consider the conditions for successful deception of one person by another. If somebody else is to be successfully deceived, what I say must seem initially plausible and my assertion of it must provide some reason for the other’s acceptance. Hence my own disbelief must be concealed. Should any of these conditions be violated, the attempted deceit will fail: if you say that you are the illegitimate son of the monarch, as one of the British spies used to do, your hearer will probably think that you must be joking (the intended effect); if you show by a wink that you don’t believe what you say, your hearer will not succumb to the intended deception. The deceptive appearance must masquerade as reality.
How can one hide one’s own disbelief in an intended act of private deception? Is it not absurd to say to oneself, "I don’t believe such-and-such and yet I am going to believe it?" One cannot be an authority for oneself, and nothing that I know that I disbelieve can be a reason for me to believe it. And how can I fail to know my own disbelief? Ivy Compton-Burnett once said in an interview, "I don’t think there is such a thing as self-deception. When people say they do things unconsciously and subconsciously, I am quite sure they do them consciously."22
The following argument for the impossibility of self-deception seems to be conclusive: Humbug requires concealment of a deceptive intent; but if the speaker and the audience are identical, as in soliloquy, there can be no such concealment; so there can be no such thing as self-deception.
One might respond by pointing to clear cases of what we call self-deception — as when a woman shows by words and actions that she still believes in her son’s survival, although she possesses proof of his death in battle. Anybody persuaded by the impossibility argument would presumably retort that what happens in such an instance is misdescribed as deception and ought properly to be called something else. But this would amount to an arbitrary change in language, motivated by nothing better than obstinate defense of a dubious argument.
The impossibility argument is underpinned by the following conceptions: "Either you know that you believe what you say or else you don’t. And in either case you can’t be mistaken." Knowledge of one’s own belief is immediately accessible; and there is no middle term between belief and disbelief. Both contentions are wrong: knowing one’s momentary belief is not, like a sneeze, a hit-or-miss affair; and various degrees of awareness may be involved.
Consider the following typical example. Before meeting my doctor to hear the latest report on some chronic affliction, I resolve to take a cheerful view. Then, while the doctor talks, I withdraw attention from, blank out, anything that begins to sound like bad news, while attending closely to encouraging remarks. In this way I end by genuinely believing a comfortable but wrong conclusion, based on deliberately selected and distorted evidence. When I close my ears in this way against a sentence that starts "Unfortunately your blood pressure . . ." so that I barely hear the rest of the sentence, do I know what the doctor says? Do I believe what he says? Am I aware of using a strategy of selective attention in support of a predetermined verdict? In each case the answer has to be "Yes and no."
Do I hear the bad news about the blood pressure? Unless I am an unusually talented self-deceiver, I probably do — as shown by the fact that I may reluctantly be able to dredge it up into full consciousness later. But the censored news is relegated to the back of my mind; I know it as I know that I am writing a letter when I am attending to something other than the act of writing. One might say that I have twilight awareness of the suppressed material. (There is no need yet to invoke the unconscious.) Do I believe what I hear in this twilight way? Again, yes and no. Yes, because unless I do believe it, on my doctor’s unquestioned authority, I have no need to suppress it; no, since I manage to prevent the very question of belief from rising into full consciousness. Parallel verdicts apply to the overall program of selective attention and wishful distortion that I execute. I know what I am doing as I know that I am walking even while I am thinking about something else; but having a normal distaste for distortion of evidence, I need to mask my disreputable strategy.
The foregoing analysis of what might be called, in Jean-Paul Sartre’s terminology, "bad faith" (mauvaise foi) seems to fit the most familiar cases of self-deception. But it does not fit severe cases of the repression of unwelcome thoughts or tidings, where the strategy of selective attention and rejection can induce neurotic symptoms. Yet it does fit such testimony as the following, from a recent discussion of obesity: "Even while on a binge [of gobbling] one vows to start a diet tomorrow and emerge from it miraculously transformed."23
A further feature of the process of selective attention and repression of unwelcome input in the service of what might be called wishful acceptance deserves notice. In brushing aside the bad news of which he is at least partly aware, the self-deceiver makes the welcome good news part of his consciousness, part of himself, as it were, while doing his best to pretend that what he partly hears and would like to forget simply has not happened. But it has happened and he knows that it has. So there is a kind of dissociation at work, as in the familiar cases of motives that are suppressed as unworthy. So long as the self-deceiver is in the initial stages of the process sketched above, he has a "divided self," a state of strain that is disagreeable to all but accomplished hypocrites.
The constant practice of self-deception may produce a character that cheats as effortlessly as a bird sings: the mask eventually becomes ingrown, fits the face as closely as a death mask. Exposure of such inveterate self-deception is difficult, since it requires a critical judgment of a whole way of life. When we are coping with confirmed hypocrisy rather than momentary self-deception, a verdict of humbug seems euphemistic.
Yet the exposure of episodic self-deception is sometimes both practicable and useful. Second-order humbug can sometimes be detected even if the producer is unshakably convinced of subjective honesty and sincerity. It would itself be an act of humbug, however, to suppose that the critic can pride himself on being free of self-deception. Selective and differential attention, repression, and dissociation are features of all perception and thought. And even wishful acceptance is not necessarily reprehensible when it leads to beneficial results, at least in the short run. Should we denigrate the wishful belief that one is going to win a contest when self-verifying predictions are involved?
Is Humbug Ineradicable?
Ought implies can, say the moralists. So before considering antihumbug remedies, we ought first to hear the vehement objections of those who consider such a project dangerously quixotic because, as one writer has put it, "deception is an inevitable aspect of human action." That quotation comes from a critical review of Sissela Bok’s book on lying — the only adverse notice of the book that I have come upon — by David Bazelon.24
Bazelon reproaches Bok for exclusive attention to outright and explicit lying — which he regards as a "disastrous" limitation — and he heartily dislikes her recommended maxim that "no one should lie except on the rarest occasions." Bazelon thinks such concentration on the impracticable "best" will "unavoidably assure that lesser forms of deception will be used more frequently, accompanied by a greater sense of virtue." He himself (a "lumper" rather than a "splitter") wants attention to be paid to "the phenomenon of deception in full, rich context." Lying should always be regarded, he claims, as "the major form of modern power," short of actual violence, and hence "an actual or potential aspect of all action involving two or more people." Convinced as Bazelon is, then, of the ubiquity and inevitability of lying as an exercise of power over the deceived, he ends with the following remark and conclusion:
"Once the ubiquity of deception is appreciated, and also its central relation to power, the need of power to achieve one’s purpose, the issue clearly becomes — which lie to tell, when, to whom, and for how long."
Since Bazelon is operating with so broad and comprehensive a definition of lying as a mode of deception, his argument, if sound, ought to apply equally well to humbug. No doubt Bazelon would say: The only sensible questions are how to humbug, when, to whom, and for how long. This conclusion might appeal to anybody impressed by the prevalence of humbug; but before succumbing to its attractive cynicism, we ought to notice that the implied argument is invalid.
Think of parallel reflections about, say, dirt or infection: to the effect that since perfect cleanliness is a chimera, the only questions sufficiently practical to be worth considering are how much dirt to tolerate and in which circumstances. As a correction to an impracticable perfectionism, the position is acceptable. But surely indefensible is the suggestion that there is no harm in dirt, or that nothing needs to be done about it. It would be a gross example of the fallacy, for which there is no special label, of arguing from ideal impracticability to permissive laissez-faire.
We need not be committed to the Utopian project of a society completely free from humbug in order to hold, as I do, that the evil should be combated to the best of our ability. Humbug may well be as ineradicable as degeneration and death, but that is a poor reason for indifference or complacency.
Coping with Humbug
I shall now try to keep my original promise to say something useful about how to cope with humbug. I hope you will agree that while humbug has the short-term advantages of devious hypocrisy over naked felony, it is indeed an insidious and detestable evil.
In order to cope with humbug we need, of course, to be sensitive to its occurrence. One soon develops a nose for it. Indeed, there is a danger of becoming tiresomely overzealous in its exposure.
For short-term remedies, I recommend first the ploy that I earlier called the “Shavian probe” — the deliberately naive and rather impolite challenges expressed by the questions "Do you really believe that?" and "Do you really mean that?" (If the answer is yes, one might then use one of G. E. Moore’s favorite expressions: "How extraordinary!") A more elaborate maneuver is to take the humbugging formula literally in order to reveal its latent exaggerations and absurdities. Thus if somebody solemnly delivers the shoddy bit of proverbial wisdom that "the exception proves the rule," one might trump it by saying, "Quite so. The more exceptions, the better the rule!" But a more useful therapy is to translate humbug into plain and clear English. Such translation is especially effective in coping with learned humbug. (The abuse involved is a kind of converse of the emperor’s clothes — too many clothes and no emperor.) Strongly to be recommended also are humor, parody, and satire. (The glorious response, for instance, of the philosopher Samuel Alexander, in his deaf old age, shaking his ear trumpet with laughter on being introduced to a Harvard professor: "I must be getting very deaf — I thought you said he was a professor of business ethics!") Required reading might well include Flaubert’s dictionary of received opinions,25 Frank Sullivan’s interviews with Mr. Arbuthnot, the cliche expert,26 and some of the splendid parodies of Russell Baker.27
Fortunately, literature provides wonderful portraits and caricatures of accomplished humbugs — Dickens’ Pecksniff, Uriah Heep, Podsnap, and many more; Moliere’s Tartuffe and Alceste; and the confidence men of Herman Melville and Thomas Mann. And much can be learned from a long line of exemplary anti-humbuggers, among whom I include Dr. Johnson, Samuel Butler, Sydney Smith, Anton Chekhov, George Orwell, Vladimer Nabokov, E. B. White, and Adlai Stevenson.
It would be satisfying to be able to end with some concise and accurate definition. The best I can now provide is the following formula:
HUMBUG: deceptive misrepresentation, short of lying, especially by pretentious word or deed, of somebody’s own thoughts, feelings, or attitudes.
This definition covers only first-degree humbug. For second-degree humbug, produced by a self-deluded speaker or thinker, the unsatisfactory reference to thoughts and so on would need to be replaced by something like "thoughts . . . that might be revealed by candid and rational self-examination." I must leave the problems concealed in this all too brief formulation for another occasion.
Plenty of work remains to be done. For, as Miss Mowcher liked to say: "What a world of gammon and spinnage it is!" and "What a refreshing set of humbugs we are, to be sure!"28
1. Maxim Gorky, Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Andreev (New York, 1959), p. 79.
2. The Mentor (Springfield, O.) 18 (1930): 16.
3. Of course, criticism of the substance of a remark will often imply censure of its producer. When Scrooge, in Dickens’ Christmas Carol, responded to his nephew’s cheerful greeting of “Merry Christmas!” with the unforgettably scornful “Bah! Humbug!” he reinforced his disgust by the rhetorical question “[W]hat right have you to be merry? what reason have you to be merry?” A little later he said: “If I could work my will, . . . every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”
Similarly, in the wonderful first chapter of The Pickwick Papers, Mr. Blotton (the haberdasher from Aldgate), in calling Mr. Pickwick a humbug, plainly intended a personal insult, later expunged by the frank declaration “that, personally, he entertained the highest regard and esteem for the honorable gentleman; he merely considered him a humbug in a Pickwickian point of view” (another tantalizing glimpse of our elusive quarry).
4. The point is well made in the second chapter of P. T. Barnum’s Humbugs of the World (New York, 1866), the only book, to my knowledge, devoted to examination of humbug and its practitioners. He there says: “[A]s generally understood, ‘humbug’ consists in putting on glittering appearances — outside show — novel expedients, by which to suddenly arrest public attention, and attract the public eye and ear” (p. 20); and “An honest man who thus arrests public attention will be called a ‘humbug,’ but he is not a swindler or an impostor” (p. 21). Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-91), often called the Prince of Humbugs, deserves to be better remembered than as the co-founder of the Barnum & Bailey circus. An international celebrity in his day, a favorite of Queen Victoria and a friend of Horace Greeley, Mark Twain, and Thackeray, he was an honest and harmless humbug, a magnificent advertiser, showman, and entertainer. Fortunately, his extraordinary career can now be enjoyably followed in Neil Harris’ fine biography, Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum (Boston, 1973).
5. Rupert Crawshay-Williams, Russell Remembered (London, 1970), pp. 18-19.
6. New York Times, January 31, 1980, p. Aio.
7. Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York, 1926), p. 139.
10. Carl L. Becker, Cornell University: Founders and the Founding (Ithaca, N.Y., 1944), pp. 132, 134.
13. The opening section of the first paragraph of chap. 12 of Veblen’s book, quoted from H. L. Mencken, Prejudices: First Series (New York, 1919), pp. 67-68.
14. Ibid., pp. 66-67, 69.
15. Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life (New York, 1978), p. 14.
16. From the essay “Of Liars,” in The Essays of Montaigne, trans. E. J. Trechmann (New York, 1946), I:30.
17. Adrienne Rich, “Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying,” in On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose (New York, 1979), p. 188; my italics.
18. George Steiner, After Babel (New York, 1975), p. 220.
19. Ibid., pp. 221-22.
21. M. F. K. Fisher, “As the Lingo Languishes,” in The State of the Language, ed. L. Michaels and C. Ricks (Berkeley, 1980), p. 270.
22. Kay Dick, Ivy and Stevie (London, 1971), p. 10.
23. Sylvia Robinow, review of Marcia Millman, Such a Pretty Face: Being Fat in America, in New Republic, April 12, 1980, p. 35.
24. Times Literary Supplement, August n, 1978, pp. 908-10.
25. Flaubert’s Dictionary of Accepted Ideas, trans, and ed. Jacques Barzun (Norfolk, Conn., 1954).
26. See, for instance, the fine examples collected in George Oppenheimer, Well, There’s No Harm in Laughing (Garden City, N.Y., 1970), formerly titled Frank Sullivan through the Looking Glass.
27. Russell Baker, So This Is Depravity (New York, 1980).
28. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, chap. 20.
Author chruckyPosted on April 26, 2019 June 12, 2019 Categories Definition of Bullshit, Philosophers analyze the concept of bullshitLeave a comment on The Prevalence of Humbug by Max Black
Six Kinds of Bullshit
I wrote that there are six areas which one can find things which are unacceptable, i.e., which are “bullshit.” Expressed in neutral terms, they are — without being exhaustive — the following:
1. Appraise importance, relevancy, and genuineness.
2. Appraise the truth value: factual falsity or logical inconsistency.
3. Appraise the worth of an argument.
4. Appraise the worth of an excuse or justification.
5. Appraise the meaningfulness of a piece of prose.
6. Appraise actions, practices, and institutions.
Let me illustrate each of these.
1. What is and what isn’t important is, of course, relative to our goals and interests. And since our goals and interests vary, so will the importance and relevancy of the means to achieve these goals. But let’s be realistic. To do anything, you have to be alive and healthy; so, staying alive and healthy has an importance and priority over other goals and interests. Now, consider a person who has to be self-sufficient — as an extreme, consider a person stranded on an island. He can stay alive and healthy by using the resources available to him on the island. What is important and relevant in his case is survival techniques, the sort Boy Scouts learn and Bear Grylls exhibits. The city-dweller, by contrast, can buy everything he needs and desires, if he has the money. So, it is important for him to get money — to make a living.
2. To make his way either on the island or in the city, a person has to have knowledge, and knowledge is of the what is true. If he is living in fictions, he will not survive either on the island or in the city. Take note of what Bear Grylls knows, and also knows how to do it.
3. Many things are known indirectly, either by hearsay, by induction, and by deduction — by circumstantial evidence, as lawyers say. You should be able to judge accurately the worth of each. If you don’t, you may wind up with fictions — with falsehoods. Since almost everything we know about the changing world comes by way of the news and editorials, it is important to have a keen sense of bullshit detection.
4. People you rely on may not pan out. And when confronted, they will offer a justification or an excuse for why they failed. Some excuses may be genuine; others, not. Can you distinguish between a genuine person and a bullshitter?
5. I can’t tell you how many times I listened to lectures or tried reading articles and books, without being able to understand. At first, I put the onus on myself, thinking that I was not familiar enough with the topic, or did not have a clear command of the English language, or that the topic was, as they say, “too deep” for me. As I grew older, and more read, I realized that now I could make a distinction between what was intrinsically incomprehensible (or relatively so), and where I lacked the background knowledge. There are such things as nonsense or meaningless sentences, contradictions, and a whole slew of unclarities due to ambiguity, vagueness, sloppy sentence constructions, highfalutin language, pomposity, needless verbiage and double talk.
6. As to human institutions, this is like a garbage heap. There are superstitions, religions, pseudo-science, stereotypes, prejudices, but most importantly bad political institutions, which control the nature of economics, i.e., the way one survives. Here there is a division between those who want to preserve the status quo — the Conservatives or the Right; and those who want to change things for the benefit of the common people — the Left. The conservatives are those who are successful in their economic status, or who have religious tribal allegiance. The left are mostly teachers and writers, but also those who are not economically successful. Conservative like capitalism; leftists do not.
Author chruckyPosted on January 18, 2019 January 18, 2019 Categories Definition of BullshitLeave a comment on Six Kinds of Bullshit
Neil Postman, “Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection”
Neil Postman, also in 1969, published Teaching as a Subversive Activity.
Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection
by Neil Postman
(Paper, Delivered at the National Convention for the Teachers of English [NCTE], November 28, 1969, Washington, D.C.)
With a title like this, I think I ought to dispense with the rhetorical amenities and come straight to the point. And I almost will. Almost, because I want to make two brief comments about the title. For those of you who do now know, it may be worth saying that the phrase, “crap-detecting,” originated with Mr. Ernest Hemingway who when asked if there were one quality needed, above all others, to be a good writer, replied, “Yes, a built-in, shock-proof, crap detector.” I am sure he was right; as I am also sure that his reply is equally applicable to at least two dozen other questions, among which is the question, “What is the one thing you need in order to survive a professional conference?” If any of you requires further information on the origins of the word “crap,” may I refer you to the December 1st issue of Newsweek Magazine, p. 63, in which there is a full page story devoted to Thomas Crapper, the father of the modern toilet.
As for the word in the first part of my title, it has no such illustrious beginning. So far as I can find out it was spread, if not originated, by Gypsies about a hundred years ago, and may be having its most glorious moment at this convention — for, as you can well imagine, this is the first time it has appeared in print in an official program produced by and for the English teachers of our nation. I trust that lexicographers of all persuasions will take not of that fact, since in that way, I might, at long last, make some contribution to the subject of linguistics.
Now, to the point. As I see it, the best things schools can do for kids is to help them learn how to distinguish useful talk from bullshit. I think almost all serious people understand that about 90% of all that goes on in school is practically useless, so what I am saying would not require the displacement of anything that is especially worthwhile. Even if it did, I would still be able to argue that helping kids to activate their crap-detectors should take precedence over any other legitimate educational aim. I won’t attempt such arguments here because of the lack of time. Instead, I will ask only that you agree that every day in almost every way people are exposed to more bullshit than it is healthy for them to endure, and that if we can help them to recognize this fact, they might turn away from it and toward language that might do them some earthly good.
Thus, my main purpose this afternoon is to introduce the subject of bullshit to the NCTE. It is a subject, one might say, that needs no introduction to the NCTE, but I want to do it in a way that would allow bullshit to take its place alongside our literary heritage, grammatical theory, the topic sentence, and correct usage as part of the content of English instruction. For this reason, I will have to use 15 minutes or so of your time to discuss the taxonomy of bullshit. It is important for you to pay close attention to this, since I am going to give a quiz at the conclusion.
Now, there are so many varieties of bullshit and, again time is so limited, that I couldn’t hope to mention but a few, and elaborate on even fewer. I will, therefore, select those varieties that have some transcendent significance. Now, that last sentence is a perfectly good example of bullshit, since I have no idea what the words “transcendent significance” might mean and neither do you. I needed something to end that sentence with and since I did not have any clear criteria by which to select my examples, I figured this was the place for some big-time words. Thus, we have our first variety of bullshit — what some people call, pomposity. The title or theme of this conference — Dreams and Realities — is another good example of pomposity. In the first place, I find it very difficult to believe that any group of English teachers can be all that familiar with what most people call “reality.” It is a fair guess that there are very few people living on this planet who regard as “real” the things most English teachers like to talk about and the fact that English teachers have not generally noticed this may be of transcendent significance.
In the second place, I don’t know what “dreams and realities” is intended to mean. I do not deny that it is a classy phrase, but it does challenge one to task, whose dreams? And whose realities? Surely not those of the thousands of black kids who go to school in this city. Or for that matter, kids any place. Perhaps it refers to the dreams and realities of English teachers, in which case, we probably should translate the phrase to read, “Our aims and our failures.” Not classy, but more to the point. In any event, the phase is not worth dwelling upon except to say that it is a good example of the triumph of style over substance, which is the essence of pomposity.
Now, pomposity is not an especially venal form of bullshit, although it is by no means harmless. There are plenty of people who are daily victimized by pomposity in that they are made to feel less worthy than they have a right to feel by people who use fancy titles, words, phrases, and sentences to obscure their own insufficiencies. Many people in our profession dwell almost exclusively in the realms of pomposity, and quite literally, would be unable to function, if not for the fact that our profession has made respectable this form of bullshit. With the possible exception of the field known as educational administration, English teaching probably includes more pompous language than (you ready for this?) any other “discipline.” If you have some doubts about this, may I suggest that you review the NCTE Convention programs of the past ten years. I may be mistaken, but I am under the impression that some years ago someone gave a speech entitled, “The phoneme — Whither goest?”
A much more malignant form of bullshit than pomposity is what some people call fanaticism. Now, there is one type of fanaticism of which I will say very little, because it is so vulgar and obvious. I am referring to what is called bigotry. With a few exceptions, such as Spiro Agnew, most people know that statements like, “Niggers are lazy” or “Fat Japs are treacherous” are deadly and ignorant, and not to be taken seriously. I want only to remark here that some of us who should know better have been slow to recognize that at least as much bullshit is generated by H. Rap Brown as by, say, Agnew. Statements like “Cops are racist pigs” make no more sense than any other form of bigotry. And I would include in this the statement that “Black is beautiful.” That is bigoted bullshit no matter who it comes from or how righteous his cause. I can assure you that the great proletarian revolution will be hastened, not retarded, by acknowledging that black men are as capable of generating bullshit as white men.
But there are other forms of fanaticism that are not so obvious, and therefore perhaps more dangerous than bigotry, and one of them is what I can Eichmannism. Now, Eichmannism is a relatively new form of fanaticism, and perhaps it should be given its own special place among the great and near-great varieties of bullshit. At this point, I would judge it to be a branch of fanaticism, because the essence of fanaticism is that it has almost no tolerance for any data that do not confirm its own point of view. Here I want to provide an example of Eichmannism so that you will see why I think it is essentially fanatical. The example also points to, I think, some singular characteristics of Eichmannism.
Some months ago a young man presented himself to me requesting to be admitted to a Masters Degree program in communications offered by my university. He is the author of an intriguing book on the subject of media and cybernation. He has written a half-dozen articles on the subject, has lectured at major universities in this country and abroad, and was the principal investigator of an extensive research effort into the relationship of television and sensory bias. There was one difficulty. He does not have what is called a Bachelors Degree. I was not entirely sure why he wanted a Masters Degree, but it seemed perfectly clear that he was “intellectually capable” of pursuing such studies. I will not report on the various episodes that followed my request that he be accepted into the M.A. program. They are both boring and hideous. Here was the result: His application was denied because, and I quote, “by definition, one cannot be qualified for an M.A. program unless he holds a Bachelors degree.” And there you have the essence of Eichmannism. Eichmannism is that form of bullshit which accepts as its starting and ending point official definitions, rules, and categories without regard for the realities of particular situations. It is also important to say that the language of Eichmannism, unlike other varieties of fanaticism, is almost always polite, subdued, and seemingly neutral. A friend of mine actually received a letter from a mini-Eichmann which began — “We are pleased to inform you that your scholarship for the academic year 1968-69 has been cancelled.”
In other words, Eichmannism is especially dangerous because, as Hannah Arendt has shown us, it is so utterly banal. That means, among other things, that some of the nicest people turn out to be mini-Eichmanns. When Eichmann was in the dock in Jerusalem, he actually said that some of his best friends were Jews. And the horror of it is that he was probably telling the truth, for there is nothing personal about Eichmannism. It is the language of regulations, and includes such logical sentences as, “If we do it for one, we have to do it for all.” Can you imagine some wretched Jew pleading to have his children spared from the gas chamber? What could be more fair, more neutral, than for some administrator to reply, “If we do it for one, we have to do it for all.”
One final point about Eichmannism, and I would like to state it as Postman’s First Law — so perhaps you will want to write this down: “Everyone is potentially somebody else’s Eichmann. So be careful.” Postman’s Second Law is: “Everyone is already somebody else’s Eichmann. You weren’t careful enough.”
There are two other dreadful varieties of bullshit that require more than a word or two of explanation, and one of them is what may be called inanity. This is a form of talk which pays a large but, I would think, relatively harmless role in our personal lives. But with the development of the mass media, inanity has suddenly emerged as a major form of language in public matters. The invention of new and various kinds of communication has given a voice and an audience to many people whose opinions would otherwise not be solicited, and who, in fact, have little else but verbal excrement to contribute to public issues. Many of these people are entertainers, such as Johnny Carson, Hugh Downs, Joey Bishop, David Susskind, Ronald Regan, Barbara Walters, and Joe Garagiola. Before the communications’ revolution, their public utterances would have been limited almost exclusively to sentences composed by more knowledgeable people or they would have had no opportunity to make public utterances at all. Things being what they are, the press and air waves are filled with the featured and prime-time sentences of people who are in no position to render informed judgments on what they are talking about and yet render them with élan and, above all, sincerity: like Joey Bishop on the sociological implications of drugs, Ronald Regan on educational innovation, Johnny Carson on campus unrest, David Susskind on anything, and Hugh Downs on menopause. “Menopause,” he said once, “is a controversial subject.” (This statement prompted a postcard from me on which I asked if he was for it or against it.) Inanity, then, is ignorance presented in the cloak of sincerity, and it differs from the last variety of bullshit that I want to mention, namely, superstition, in that superstition is ignorance presented in the cloak of authority. A superstition is a belief, usually expressed in authoritative terms for which there is no factual or scientific basis. Like, for instance, that the country in which you live is a finer place, all things considered, than other countries. Or that the religion into which you were born confers upon you some special standing with the cosmos that is denied other people.
Our own profession has generated, of course, dozens of superstitions, on which, incidentally, many professional conferences have been based. Among the more intriguing of these are the beliefs that people learn more efficiently when they are taught in an orderly, sequential and systematic manner; that one’s knowledge of anything can be “objectively” measured; and even that the act of “teaching” facilitates what is known as “learning.” By far, the most amusing of all our superstitions is the belief, expressed in a variety of ways, that the study of literature and other humanistic subjects will result in one’s becoming a more decent, liberal, tolerant, and civilized human being. Whenever a professor of literature alludes to this bullshit in my presence, I invariably think of the Minister of Propaganda for the Third Reich and the ideological head of the Nazi Party, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, who at the age of 24 received his Ph.D. in Romantic Drama at the University of Heidelberg. Sometimes, I even think of the professor of literature himself, and wonder if he would dare offer his own life as an illustration of the benefits that will accrue from humanistic studies. In any case, I have not noticed that English teachers are any more humane than, say, garage mechanics or certified public accountants.
There are, as I said earlier, dozens of other forms of bullshit, including several varieties I have been using in this speech. Perhaps my most obvious is what might be called earthiness, which is based on the assumption that if one uses direct, off-color, four letter words like crap and shit, one somehow is making more sense than if he observed the proper language customs. Earthiness is the mirror image of pomposity, and like it, rarely advances human understanding although, naturally, there are times when it does, as in the present instance. In any event, I must now refrain from mentioning any other varieties because inevitably we must come to the question: What, if anything, can be done about all this bullshit? Well, the first thing to say is that we should not expect too much to be done in school, no matter what teachers do. As Carl Rogers has said, teaching is a vastly overrated activity; and any impression to the contrary is, in my opinion, mostly superstition.
In the second place, teachers — especially English teachers — have not shown up to now a serious interest in educating children in the rational, functional, or human uses of language, which is probably why we know so little about how to do it. When teachers do take an interest in language at all, they are usually drawn to something like phonemics or tagmemics, which serves the purpose of providing them with a respectable exemption from dealing with what language is about. Such teachers usually say things like, “I am interested in studying language qua language.” I will resist the temptation to comment on that, except to say that when I hear such talk by own crap-detector achieves unparalleled spasms of activity. In the third place, even if teachers were to take an enthusiastic interest in what language is about, each teacher would have fairly serious problems to resolve. For instance, you can’t identify bullshit the way you identify phonemes. That is why I have called crap-detecting an art. Although subjects like semantics, rhetoric, or logic seem to provide techniques for crap-detecting, we are not dealing here, for the most part, with a technical problem. Each man’s crap-detector is embedded in his value system; if you want to teach the art of crap-detecting, you must help students become aware of their values.
After all, Spiro Agnew, or his writers, know as much about semantics as anyone in this room. What he is lacking has very little to do with technique, and almost everything to do with values. Now, I realize that what I just said sounds fairly pompous in itself, if not arrogant, but there is no escaping from saying what attitudes you value if you want to talk about crap-detecting. In other words, bullshit is what you call language that treats people in ways you do not approve of.
So any teacher who is interested in crap-detecting must acknowledge that one man’s bullshit is another man’s catechism. If you will keep in mind that I understand this perfectly well, I will venture to say what are some of the attitudes that both teachers and students would have to learn if they are to help each other to recognize everyone’s bullshit, including their own.
It seems to me one needs, first and foremost, to have a keen sense of the ridiculous. Maybe I mean to say, a sense of our impending death. About the only advantage that comes from our knowledge of the inevitability of death is that we know that whatever is happening is going to go away. Most of us try to put this thought out of our minds, but I am saying that it ought to be kept firmly there, so that we can fully appreciate how ridiculous most of our enthusiasms and even depressions are. I am not saying, of course, that nothing matters; but if the thought keeps crossing your mind that you will be dead soon, it is hard to work up any passion for such questions as: What are the implications of transformational grammar for the teaching of writing? Reflections on one’s mortality curiously make one come alive to the incredible amounts of inanity and fanaticism that surround us, much of which is inflicted on us by ourselves. Which brings me to the next point, best stated as Postman’s Third Law: “At any given time, the chief source of bullshit with which you have to contend is yourself.” The reason for this is explained in Postman’s Fourth Law, which is that almost nothing is about what you think it is about — including you. With the possible exception of those human encounters that Fritz Peris calls “intimacy,” all human communications have deeply imbedded and profound hidden agendas. Most of the conversation at the top can be assumed to be bullshit of one variety or another. For instance, if you think that my main reason for giving this talk today is to make some contribution to the teaching of English profession, then your crap-detector needs to go back to the shop. If it doesn’t get fixed, you may even get to believe that the main reason you came to this conference was to learn something that will be professionally valuable to you. You have to keep remembering that that is only what you told your boss in order to get a few dollars and/or permission to come. Now, there is no problem here as long as you recognize all that as bullshit, and yourself as its source. This is why, incidentally, it is almost always better to deal with a corrupt man than with an idealist. A corrupt man knows all about bullshit, especially his own; which is another way of saying, he has a sense of humor. An idealist usually cannot acknowledge his own bullshit, because it is in the nature of his “ism” that he must pretend it does not exist. In fact, I should say that anyone who is devoted to an “ism” — Fascism, Communism, Capitalism — probably has a seriously defective crap-detector. This is especially true of those devoted to “patriotism.” Santha Rama Rau has called patriotism a squalid emotion. I agree. Mainly because I find it hard to escape the conclusion that those most enmeshed in it hear no bullshit whatever in its rhetoric, and as a consequence are extremely dangerous to other people. If you doubt this, I want to remind you that murder for murder, General Westmoreland makes Vito Genovese book like a Flower Child. Another way of saying this is that all ideologies are saturated with bullshit, and a wise man will observe Herbert Read’s advice: Never trust any group larger than a squad.
So you see, when it comes right down to it, crap-detection is something one does when he starts to become a certain type of person. Sensitivity to the phony uses of language requires, to some extent, knowledge of how to ask questions, how to validate answers, and certainly, how to assess meanings. But if that were all there was to it, S. I. Hayakawa wouldn’t now be one of Ronald Regan’s best friends. What crap-detecting mostly consists of is a set of attitudes toward the function of human communication: which is to say, the function of human relationships.
Now, I said at the beginning that I thought there is nothing more important than for kids to learn how to identify fake communication. You, therefore, probably assume that I know something about now to achieve this. Well, I don’t. At least not very much. I know that our present curricula do not even touch on the matter. Neither do our present methods of training teachers. I am not even sure that classrooms and schools can be reformed enough so that critical and lively people can be nurtured there. For all I know, there may be so few English teachers interested in the matter that it is hardly worth talking about. Nonetheless, I persist in believing that it is not beyond your profession to invent ways to educate youth along these lines. I’m not quite sure why I believe this except that one of my own cherished superstitions is that breast-fed babies grow up to be optimistic adults, and I was prodigiously breast-fed; in fact, until an age that most of you would consider unseemly. If you will keep in mind that my optimism is based on pure bullshit, then I will close by stating Postman’s Fifth and final law: There is no more precious environment than our language environment. And even if you know you will be dead soon, that’s worth protecting.
Author chruckyPosted on October 8, 2018 October 13, 2018 Categories Definition of Bullshit, Bullshit DetectionLeave a comment on Neil Postman, “Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection”
James Fredal,”Rhetoric and Bullshit”
James Fredal,”Rhetoric and Bullshit,” College English, Volune 73, Number 3, January 2011.
Author chruckyPosted on October 8, 2018 Categories Definition of Bullshit, Bullshitter, Linguistic BullshitLeave a comment on James Fredal,”Rhetoric and Bullshit”
A type of bullshitter
“Ultracrepidarianism” — Wikipedia
Author chruckyPosted on January 20, 2018 Categories Definition of BullshitLeave a comment on A type of bullshitter
Bullshit! Featuring Harry Frankfurt
Author chruckyPosted on July 8, 2017 July 8, 2017 Categories Definition of BullshitLeave a comment on Bullshit! Featuring Harry Frankfurt
G. A. Cohen’s commentary on Harry Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit”
G. A. Cohen, Finding Oneself in the Other, 2012: Chapter 5: “Complete Bullshit.” This chapter is a reprint of an article which appeared in Sarah Buss and Lee Overton, eds., Contours of Agency: Themes from the Philosophy of Harry Frankfurt, 2002. In this festschrift, Frankfurt replied: “Reply to G. A. Cohen.” In this piece, Cohen marks the important distinction between a bullshitter and bullshit.
See also: William Lewis, “Is there less bullshit in For Marx then in Reading Capital?”
Author chruckyPosted on November 21, 2016 January 1, 2017 Categories Definition of BullshitLeave a comment on G. A. Cohen’s commentary on Harry Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit”
Sophists, the bullshitters of ancient Greece
The following description of the sophists is taken from Frank Thilly, A History of Philosophy, 1914.
Sophists
The new movement was represented by the Sophists. The term Sophist originally meant a wise and skilful man, but in the time we are describing it came to be applied to the professional teachers who traveled about, giving instruction for pay in the art of thinking and speaking, and preparing young men for political life. [The name gradually became a term of reproach, partly because the Sophists took pay, partly owing to the radicalism of some of the later Sophists, which scandalized the conservative element.]
To this task they devoted themselves with feverish zeal. “If you associate with me,” Protagoras is reported to have said to a young man, “on the very day you will return a better man than you came.” And when Socrates asks how he is going to bring this about, he answers: “If he comes to me, he will learn that which he comes to learn. And this is prudence in affairs, private as well as public; he will learn to order his house in the best manner, and he will be able to speak and act for the best in the affairs of the State." [Plato’s Protagoras.] In order to fit himself for a career, it was necessary for the young man to perfect himself in dialectics, grammar, rhetoric, and oratory. Such subjects the Sophists began to study with a practical end in view, and thus broke the soil for new fields of investigation. They also turned their attention to moral and political questions, and so gave the impetus to a more systematic and thorough treatment of ethics and the theory of the State. As the moral earnestness of the times declined, and the desire to succeed at all hazards intensified, some of the later Sophists, in their anxiety to make their pupils efficient, often went to extremes; it became the object of instruction to teach them how to overcome an opponent in debate by fair means or foul, to make the worse appear the better cause, to confuse him with all sorts of logical fallacies, and to render him ridiculous in the eyes of the chuckling public.
The critical spirit of the age, which had, in a large measure, been fostered by philosophy, began to react upon philosophy itself and led to a temporary depreciation of metaphysical speculation. Thought weighs itself in the balance and finds itself wanting; philosophy digs its own grave. No two philosophers, so it is argued, seem to agree in their answers to the question of the essence of reality. One makes it water, another air, another fire, another earth, and yet another all of them together; one declares change to be impossible, another says there is nothing but change. Now, if there is no change, there can be no knowledge: we cannot predicate anything of anything, for how can the one be the many? If everything changes, there can be no knowledge either; for where nothing persists, how can we predicate anything of anything? And if we can know things, only so far as they affect our senses, as some hold, again we cannot know, for then the nature of things eludes our grasp. The upshot of it all is, we cannot solve the riddle of the universe. The truth begins to dawn on the Sophist that the mind of man is an important factor in the process of knowing. Thinkers before him had assumed the competence of human reason to attain truth; with all their critical acumen they had forgotten to criticise the intellect itself. The Sophist now turns the light on the knowing subject and concludes that knowledge depends upon the particular knower, that what seems true to him is true for him, that there is no objective truth, but only subjective opinion. "Man is the measure of all things," so Protagoras taught. That is, the individual is a law unto himself in matters of knowledge. And from this theoretical skepticism, the step is not far to ethical skepticism, to the view that man is a law unto himself in matters of conduct. If knowledge is impossible, then knowledge of right and wrong is impossible, there is no universal right and wrong: conscience is a mere subjective affair. These consequences were not drawn by the older Sophists, by men like Protagoras (born about 490 B.C.) and Gorgias, but they were drawn by some of the younger radical set, by Polus, Thrasymachus, Callicles, and Euthydemus, who are spokesmen in Plato’s Dialogues. Morality to them is a mere convention; it represents the will of those who have the power to enforce their demands on their fellows. The rules of morals are contrary to " nature." According to some, laws were made by the weak, the majority, in order to restrain the strong, the " best," to hinder the fittest from getting their due: the laws, therefore, violate the principle of natural justice. Natural right is the right of the stronger. According to others, the laws are a species of class legislation; they are made by the few, the strong, the privileged, in order to protect their own interests. That is, it is to the advantage of the overman that others obey the laws so that he can the more profitably break them.
“The makers of the laws,” says Callicles in the Platonic dialogue Gorgias, “are the majority who are weak; and they make laws and distribute praises and censures with a view to themselves and their own interests; and they terrify the stronger sort of men, and those who are able to get the better of them, in order that they may not get the better of them; and they say that dishonesty is shameful and unjust; meaning by the word injustice the desire of a man to have more than his neighbors; for knowing their own inferiority, I suspect that they are too glad of equality. And therefore the endeavor to have more than the many, is conventionally said to be shameful and unjust, and is called injustice, whereas nature herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she shows, among men as well as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races, that justice consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior. For on what principle of justice did Xerxes invade Hellas, or his father the Scythians? (not to speak of numberless other examples). Nay, but these are the men who act according to nature; yes, by heaven, and according to the law of nature: not, perhaps, according to that artificial law, which we invent and impose upon our fellows, of whom we take the best and the strongest from their youth upwards, and tame them like young lions, — charming them with the sound of the voice, and saying to them, that with equality they must be content, and that the equal is the honorable and the just. But if there were a man who had sufficient force, he would shake off and break through, and escape from all this; he would trample underfoot all our formulas and spells and charms and all our laws which are against nature: the slave would rise in rebellion and be lord over us, and the light of natural justice would shine forth.”
Thrasymachus talks in the same strain in the Republic:
“The just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all, in private contracts: wherever the unjust is the partner of the just you will find that when the partnership is dissolved, the unjust man has always more and the just less. Secondly, in their dealings with the State: when there is an income-tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income; and when there is anything to be received the one gains nothing and the other much. Observe also what happens when they take an office; there is the just man neglecting his affairs and perhaps suffering other losses, and getting nothing out of the public, because he is just; moreover he is hated by his friends and acquaintances for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways. But all this is reversed in the ease of the unjust man. I am speaking as before of injustice on the large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is most apparent; and my meaning will be most clearly seen if we turn to that highest form of injustice in which the criminal is the happiest of men, and the sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable, — that is to say tyranny, which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not little by little but wholesale; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as profane, private and public; for which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating any of them singly, he would be punished and incur great disgrace, — they who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of temples, and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made slaves of them, then, instead of these names of reproach, he is termed happy and blessed, not only by the citizens, but by all who have heard of the consummation of injustice. For mankind censure injustice, fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man’s own profit and interest.” [Jowett’s translation of Plato’s Dialogues.]
Significance of Sophistry
Owing to the hostile criticisms of Plato and Aristotle, as well as to the nihilistic teachings of some of the younger Sophists, the importance of the Sophistic movement in the history of thought was long misjudged. It is only since Hegel and Grote attempted to give a fairer estimate of these thinkers that justice has been done them. There was good and there was evil in their teachings. Reflection and criticism are indispensable to sounder conceptions in philosophy, religion, morals, politics, and in all fields of human endeavor. The appeal to reason was commendable in itself, but the fault lay in the inability of Sophistry to use the instrument of reason in anything like a constructive way. The Sophists brought philosophy down from heaven to the dwellings of men, as Cicero said, and turned the attention from external nature to man himself; with them the proper study of mankind was man. But they failed to recognize the universal element in man; they did not see the forest for the trees, they did not see man for men. They exaggerated the differences in human judgments and ignored the agreements. They laid too much stress on the illusion of the senses. They emphasized the accidental, subjective, and purely personal elements in human knowledge and conduct, and failed to do justice to the objective element, the principles which are accepted by all.
Nevertheless, their criticisms of knowledge made necessary a profounder study of the problem of knowledge. The older speculators had naively and dogmatically assumed the competence of the mind to reach truth; in denying the possibility of sure and universal knowledge, the Sophists forced philosophy to examine the thinking process itself and opened the way for a theory of knowledge. In employing all sorts of logical fallacies and sophisms, they made necessary a study of the correct laws of thought and hastened the birth of logic.
The same thing may be said of moral knowledge and practice. The appeal to the individual conscience was sound: from mere blind, unintelligent following of custom, morality was raised to the stage of reflective personal choice. When, however, the appeal became an appeal to mere subjective opinion and self-interest, it struck a false note. Independence of thought easily degenerates into intellectual and moral anarchy; individualism, into pure selfishness. Yet in this field, again, Sophistry rendered a service: radical criticism of the common notions of right and wrong and public and private justice, made necessary a profounder study of ethics and politics, — a study that was soon to bear wonderful fruit.
The great value of the entire Sophistic movement consisted in this: it awakened thought and challenged philosophy, religion, custom, morals, and the institutions based on them, to justify themselves to reason. In denying the possibility of knowledge, the Sophists made it necessary for knowledge to justify itself: they compelled philosophy to seek a criterion of knowledge. In attacking the traditional morality, they compelled morality to defend itself against skepticism and nihilism, and to find a rational principle of right and wrong. In attacking the traditional religious beliefs, they pressed upon thinkers the need of developing more consistent and purer conceptions of God. And in criticising the State and its laws, they made inevitable the development of a philosophic theory of the State. It became necessary to build upon more solid foundations, to go back to first principles. What is knowledge, what is truth? What is right, what is the good? What is the true conception of God? What is the meaning and purpose of the State and human institutions? And these problems, finally, forced the thinkers of Greece to reconsider, from new angles, the old question, which had been temporarily obscured, but which no people can long ignore: What is the world and man’s place in nature?
See also the Wikipedia article “Sophist“
Author chruckyPosted on August 9, 2016 August 30, 2016 Categories Definition of BullshitLeave a comment on Sophists, the bullshitters of ancient Greece
Definition of “Bullshit”
To understand the title “Escaping from Bullshit,” one must have an understanding of what is bullshit. We who speak English already know intuitively what it is; otherwise, we would not know when to use the word or what to make of someone who uses it. But apparently from reading essays which attempt to define the term, they only get it partially correct. So I will try to spell it out in such a way that you will say “Of course that’s what it means, it’s obvious.”
To get a handle on what is bullshit, we must start with when the word is used. It is used paradigmatically as an exclamation, more precisely, as an explicative: “Bullshit!” It is a response to some claim or proposal.
For example, in most cities in the US, one must pick up the excrement of one’s pet dog from the sidewalk, grass, or street. I see your dog leaving a pile, and I see you watching him, and after he finishes, you simply walk away. I, in my civic duty, call out to you to pick-up the pile left behind. And you reply that I am mistaken; that pile was left by some other dog. I respond with righteous indignation: “Bullshit, I saw you watching your dog take a dump.”
Now, when I say these words, I am expressing righteous indignation because either what is obvious to me is being questioned, or I am being treated as a fool for saying what was obvious – so, yes, I do wish to say something abusive for this insult to my intelligence and veracity.
Here, then, is my succinct dictionary (lexical) definition of “bullshit”:
It is a ubiquitous dysphemistic exclamation of negative appraisal expressing -– in paradigm cases — righteous indignation in an abusive and vulgar tone. The righteous indignation is about the challenge to one’s veracity.
We can call this the paradigm use of “bullshit.” Other uses are truncations. I mean that it could be used without expressing righteous indignation, but retaining the abusive rejection. And, in some circles, even the abusive element is missing. “Bullshit” becomes simply a vulgar term of rejection.
As I said, the primary use of “bullshit” is as an exclamation. Its secondary use is simply the dysphemistic negative appraisal without expressing the righteous indignation, but now implying a strong conviction of being right in the negative appraisal; otherwise why use a dysphemistic term? And, finally, it is just a vulgar term of negative appraisal.
Why is it ubiquitous? It is a ubiquitous term because it applies to appraising all sorts of things. Using neutral terms, the word “bullshit” is used for the following:
It is used to negatively appraise importance, relevancy, and genuineness.
It is used to negatively appraise the truth value: factual falsity or logical inconsistency.
It is used to negatively appraise the worth of an argument.
It is used to negatively appraise the worth of an excuse or justification.
It is used to negatively appraise the meaningfulness of a piece of prose.
It is used to negatively appraise actions, practices, and institutions.
The word “bullshit” is a relatively modern term and it is a term that is not used in polite company. To use it is – well – rude, and perhaps marks you off as not complying with the standards of polite etiquette. Well, etiquette changes, and things like, for example, wearing a hat for a man indoors, especially in someone’s home, seems to be tolerated, ignored, or made nothing of. The word “bullshit” has also received wider usage and tolerance.
In any case, in former times, in polite , especially British, academic circles, if one felt some kind of righteous indignation at someone’s claim, one had a repertoire of words as humbug, poppycock, drivel, and moonshine.
I have particularly in mind a passage in the writings of C. D. Broad, who I consider to be one of the best philosophers in the twentieth century. But my point here is not to praise him, but to focus on how he expressed his rejection of an idea which he felt was to him especially irksome. The idea he was rejecting was the proposition that people should do both physical and intellectual work. This is an idea which was promulgated by some socialists and anarchists, explicitly so by Peter Kropotkin. Broad was a self-conscious snob –- an elitist –- and sarcastically pointed out that chambermaids can get some satisfaction from knowing that they are serving to promote such intellectual gems as himself. Normally, Broad provides arguments for his claims, but, in this case, he resorts to aloof condescension. And blows off the proposal with the word “moonshine.” And he does this, ironically, in a chapter devoted to Spinoza –- a philosopher who made his living by grinding lenses, i.e. by combining intellectual and physical labor.
If you wish to suppress abuse and the expression of righteous indignation, but express the negative appraisal, then, of course, you can use less abusive language or the neutral terms of evaluation.
See Mark Peters, Bullshit: A Lexicon, 2015.
Author chruckyPosted on July 4, 2016 February 12, 2019 Categories Definition of Bullshit, Using the word "bullshit"Leave a comment on Definition of “Bullshit”
Bullshitter
One would think that a bullshitter is one who throws out bullshit. Well, this may be true of a crude or unsophisticated bullshitter, but it is not true of a master bullshitter.
Before we get to that, let us think of what kinds of people we tend to classify as bullshitters. A few types immediately come to mind: salesmen, politicians, and lawyers. What do they have in common? Well, they are all trying to sell or convince us of something. This is obvious with the salesperson. His goal is to have us buy whatever he is selling. The politician wants us to give him our vote, and the lawyer wants us to bring in the verdict he is fighting for. Harry Frankfurt says that the bullshitter is slovenly with truth. Yes and no. Personally, he may have a high regard for truth; but in the context of his sales pitch, he may think it irrelevant what the truth is as long as he can persuade us.
The case which fits Frankfurt’s idea of a bullshitter as slovenly and careless with the truth is a student who has been assigned to write a 10 page paper, and has exhausted his idea at the end of the second page. His goal is not to write about the truth; his goal is to get a good grade, at least a passing grade; not to fail. So, he uses whatever filler material seems appropriate, including plagarism. This, to me, is a paradigm of Frankfurt’s bullshitter as indifferent to truth. There are also the cases where an ignorant person is asked for his opinion, and he offers it as if it were based of some source of information or some critical reflection, but, in reality, is just something that popped into his head. Such a person is acting for the sake of making an impression, without really a concern for the truth. And such a person too fits Frankfurt’s definition of a bullshitter as someone who is indifferent to the truth.
However, a person who really does not care about truth (or the making of appraisals) is not a bullshitter, but a fool. Frankfurt’s description of a bullshitter as indifferent to truth is better labeled as a description of a fool. A fool is someone who is indifferent to appraisals (including the truth) or as someone who is incapable of making good appraisals.
The sophisticated bullshitter, in contradistinction to Frankfurter’s indifferent bullshitter, is very much interested in the truth. He knows that truth is power. The sophisticated bullshitter — qua salesman, politician, and lawyer — convinces us not by resorting to bullshit, but by selective omissions. The car salesman points out all the good features of the car, but fails to mention the bad features.
The best bullshitters are newspeople and journalists who select the news and slant it as they wish. They convince us by omission. Parodying the law, they tell us the truth and nothing but the truth, but they omit to tell us the whole truth. And it is in this ability to omit and slant that we have the makings of a sophisticated bullshitter.
Let me illustrate. I have said that a sophisticated bullshitter will manipulate his rhetoric through omissions of relevant information, which is, in fact, how much of the news media manipulate information. For example, in the present presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders was hardly mentioned, until in the later stages of campaigning when it became awkward not to mention him. Now that the Republican and Democratic Parties have picked their nominees for president, note that Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee, is hardly ever mentioned. Talking about Stein would be a form of advertisement for her, and since the corporate world does not want Stein to be president, the strategy is to act as if she did not exist. By not mentioning Stein, the media is making it appear that the only (viable candidates are Clinton and Trump. [As it turned out, Trump won despite the media’s attempt to ridicule him. Why? Because instead of ignoring him as they did with Sanders and Stein, they gave him an enormous amount of free publicity. But it doesn’t really matter who won for those in power or for us, both Trump and Clinton are agents of the oligarchs.]
Bullshitter as a deceiver
I was searching for a word for broadcasting information, and I thought that perhaps the word “propaganda” was used in this neutral way. But if it did have that meaning, it no longer has it. It now means broadcasting deceptive and slanted information. I then looked up the wikipedia entry for “deception.” It listed the following forms of deception:
Lies: making up information or giving information that is the opposite or very different from the truth.[2]
Equivocations: making an indirect, ambiguous, or contradictory statement.
Concealments: omitting information that is important or relevant to the given context, or engaging in behavior that helps hide relevant information.
Exaggerations: overstatement or stretching the truth to a degree.
Understatements: minimization or downplaying aspects of the truth.[1]
Yes, a sophisticated bullshitter would use all these except for lies. Lies are for unsophisticated bullshitters — unless you are a leader of a country and keep repeating big lies.
Another technique for manipulation is to distract attention from the importan and relevant material to the unimportant and irrelevant. See: Distraction principle.
See Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders, 1957.
Author chruckyPosted on July 3, 2016 March 22, 2017 Categories Definition of BullshitLeave a comment on Bullshitter
Using the word "bullshit"
Bullshit and Philosophy
Bullshit Beliefs
Prevalence of Bullshit
Bullshit in Philosophy
Bullshit Detection
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Bullshit scholarship
Bullshit Institutions
Racial Bullshit
Bullshit Arguments = Fallacies
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Bullshit News
Bullshit in Education
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Bullshit masquerading as Democracy
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Escaping Bullshit
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The Magic of Comet Hunting
David H. Levy, Jarnac Observatory
November 29, 2013 · Solar System Exploration
Levy D. The Magic of Comet Hunting: David H. Levy, Jarnac Observatory. The Galactic Inquirer. 2013 Nov 29 [last modified: 2018 May 24]. Edition 1.
David Levy, Jarnac Observatory
Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!
Comets, importing change of times and states,
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky. (1.1.2-3)
–William Shakespeare, I Henry VI
In the opening lines of one of William Shakespeare’s earliest plays, the great amateur astronomer, as I like to call him, wrote about the majesty of comets. When he wrote that comets import change of times and states, he had something else in mind other than a comet literally plowing into Earth, with devastation so great as to destroy most of life here. Usually no larger than a village, a comet moves about the Sun, slowly and faintly when it is far away, then more quickly and becoming more active and luminous as it closes in from a place beyond Jupiter — plummeting past the orbits of Mars and the Earth.
Those of us who saw spectacular comets in 1996, 1997, 2007, and hopefully this year, will not soon forget those almost fearsome sights in the heavens. In March 1996, Comet Hyakutake, the first of two prominent comets that year, sported a filmy tail that stretched across the entire sky. The sight was remarkable, even in our time when we supposedly understand what a comet is and how it orbits the Sun.
Comet Hyakutake (Copyright Doug Zubenel)
Superstition and History
Past cultures, dating back to biblical times, were terrified by comet appearances so baffling that those who viewed them kept detailed records of their paths across the sky. “A comet appeared in the heavens like a twisting serpent,” wrote the Byzantine historian Nicetus Choniaties in 1182, “now writhing and coiling back upon itself; now it would terrify people with its gaping mouth; as if lusting for human blood, it seemed about to slake its thirst.”1 As late as 1528, the pioneering French surgeon Ambroise Paré wrote of a comet: “So horrible was it, so terrible, so great a fright did it engender in the populace, that some died of fear; others fell sick… this comet was the color of blood; at its extremity we saw the shape of an arm holding a great sword as if about to strike us down. At the end of the blade there were three stars. On either side of the rays of this comet were seen great numbers of axes, knives, bloody swords, amongst which were a great number of hideous human faces, with beards and hair all awry….”
Now we keep records for different reasons. We want to learn about comets, and their orbits, and most especially we want to track those comets that could someday pose a threat to our home planet.
A Personal Retrospective
I have kept records of every observing session I have undertaken since the late 1950s, including notes on every one of the almost two hundred comets I have greeted during my lifetime so far. Of all the comets I have seen, the brightest was Comet Hyakutake. On its best night it straddled the entire sky, its head positioned not far from the North star. Once my eyes were adapted to the darkness I could trace its diaphanous tail stretching all the way to the constellation of Corvus deep in the southern part of the sky.
I began my search for comets on 17 December 1965. The idea to start a patrol actually was seeded during the summer of 1965, when I was a camper at the Adirondack Science Camp near Lewis, New York. This was a wonderful place. Designed to instill in the minds of its campers an admiration for nature, for me it accomplished that beyond my wildest dreams. Decades later, my wife and I continue to use the place every summer for an astronomy retreat.
Back in 1965, our camp director had instructed us to come up with a science fair project, but not one typical of high school science fairs. He wanted his charges to excel, to come up with ideas so challenging that they might fail, and even if they succeeded, last a lifetime. I did propose something but it was hardly what I should have done, and after the summer ended I still thought about trying something more ambitious. Meanwhile, on September 18, 1965, Kaoru Ikeya and Tsutomu Seki, two amateur astronomers from Japan, discovered an eighth magnitude comet that was heading for a very close passage around the Sun. In late October I saw that comet in the predawn sky above Montreal.
As I walked toward my French Oral examination at Westmount High School in Montreal on a brisk morning that fall, I knew that one of the questions would involve my career plans. I needed to come up with something that was believable, but also something that could be easily translated into French. I thought about the comet, and suddenly it hit me: I want someday to discover a comet. Mr. Hutchison, the examiner, stared at me in disbelief when I said “Je veux découvrir une comete.” (I want to discover a comet.) He was rather surprised but accepted my answer, adding that “if you don’t discover one within twenty years, I will come back and lower your grade.”
Thus I began my comet search a few minutes before midnight, through a break in the clouds on the evening of December 17. A few months later, during the summer of 1966, I missed finding Comet Kilston by a few telescopic fields of view. Over the ensuing years my search waxed and waned, but it never stopped. On Tuesday, November 13, 1984, nineteen years after I began, at last I discovered my first comet.
Over the subsequent years, I have found or co-discovered 23 comets. In 1989 I participated in a photographic patrol, joining with Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker to locate 13 comets. One of these turned out to be the first comet to collide with a planet. In its spectacular crash into the atmosphere of Jupiter in May 1994, this comet gave humanity a lesson in one of the most basic acts in all of nature — that when comets hit planets they deposit materials that could lead, eventually, to the dawn of life. This notion of comets possibly delivering the seeds of life (“panspermia”) was confirmed when spectroscopic studies of the impacts on Jupiter revealed the presence of ammonia (NH3), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), carbon disulfide (CH2), hydrogen cyanide (HCN), and other compounds fundamental to prebiotic chemistry.
(Top) Fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 shortly before their collision with Jupiter in May 1994 (NASA, ESA, and H. Weaver and E. Smith (STScI)). (Bottom) Effects of the collisions between these fragments and Jupiter’s atmosphere (Hubble Space Telescope Comet Team and NASA).
Later I developed several electronic imaging searches, some by myself, and others in collaboration with other observers. It was during one of these searches, a program done with Canadian amateur astronomer Tom Glinos, that Comet Jarnac (P/2010 E2) was discovered. In the late winter of 2010, Glinos reported a newly found object that he thought was an asteroid. However, other observations confirmed that it sported a dusty coma, and therefore was a comet. According to the rules of such discoveries, the comet is named not for the discoverer (Glinos) but instead for the place of discovery (my own Jarnac Observatory).
I was especially gratified by that particular discovery because it brought me back to some of my earliest observing sessions held at my grandfather’s cottage, named Jarnac after the area of its Canadian location, Jarnac au Quebec. In particular I recall an observing session there on the evening of August 11, 1962, during which my Grandfather William, Grandmother Genie, and I observed a brilliant Perseid meteor falling to the west in a darkening sky. Its estimated magnitude was minus 10, as bright as the Moon at quarter phase. On the following night, August 12, I observed 112 meteors as the Perseid meteor shower reached its maximum. My grandfather died early in 1973. I think he would have been thrilled that all these years later, a comet bearing the name of his beloved cottage would fly forever through the Solar System. I cannot imagine a more appropriate gift to honor the memory of my grandfather than that.
A Predawn Comet Search
In hopes of sharing what it’s like to search for comets, I would like to describe a typical predawn observing session that I conduct nowadays.
Only 90 minutes of darkness remain as I crawl out of bed, walk the hundred or so feet to my observatory, roll open its roof, and turn Miranda, my 16-inch reflector, to the east. The sky has darkened a lot since I left it a few hours ago. Save for distant coyote calls and an occasional chirping of a cactus wren, the world around me sleeps. Wendee, my wife, is sound asleep inside our home. The night is still, poetic, and gorgeous. Starting and aligning the telescope’s encoder system takes about a minute, but does nothing to spoil the artistry of this moment. Then I spend a much longer time setting up a group of telescopes in my observatory building, plus the big 25-inch telescope that I used to co-discover Comet Jarnac three years ago, in the building just to the south. Soon I’m ready to go, and I begin searching the sky in a prescribed pattern, moving the telescope from north to south near the eastern horizon at the rate of about a field per second.
As I search, my mind goes back to earlier times rich in comet sightings and lore. Such a period, the 1740s, comes to life this morning from an old book, An Essay towards a History of Comets, that I’d been reading. Those were the times of discoverers like Dirk Klinkenberg from The Hague and Jean-Philippe de Chéseaux of Lausanne, and their remarkable comet of 1744. Between March 6 and 9, of that year, the comet displayed an overwhelming fanned tail that featured as many as 11 rays.
The Great Comet of 1744, Comet de Chéseax-Klinkenberg (Wikipedia Commons)
Still at my telescope, I have completed my first pass in a small up-and-down sweep that gradually moves from north to south. I return north, begin searching an area closer to the Sun, and return to my reverie. Who else, over time, has shared this passion for the cometary phantoms of the celestial opera? A hundred centuries ago, an early American native might have gazed at some long-departed comet from the very spot on which I now sit. More recently, this passion has been pursued by people like Jean-Louis Pons, who holds the record of at least 27 visual discoveries, and George P. Bond, who observed from Harvard College Observatory as Donati’s Comet completed its magnificent visit in 1857.
In each age, comet enthusiasts were amazed at how much their generation had learned about comets from the previous one. So it is with our time. Today we have the benefit of multiple spacecraft encounters with comets, a comet’s collision with Jupiter, and comets being found in record numbers. In a sense we are far ahead of those earlier people, but in a greater sense we are not ahead of them at all. The great French scientist Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis predicted the return of what would become known as Halley’s Comet, but he died in July 1759, just a few months before the comet announced its presence. I saw Halley’s comet in 1986, four returns later, as part of the most ambitious observing program ever mounted for a single comet, the International Halley Watch. Included in its massive, 26-CD archive are the data from groundbased observatories and amateur astronomers, as well as from five spacecraft that studied the comet. Three of these craft, the Soviet Vega missions and the European Space Agency’s Giotto, made very close passes by the comet and took in situ measurements and photographs. Halley, Maupertuis, and all the other people who have felt a passion for comets would have been astounded.
Nucleus and inner coma of Comet Halley as imaged by the Giotto space probe (European Space Agency)
With the first tinge of dawn appearing in the east, I swing Miranda back north again, lower the observing chair, and begin a final pass right at the horizon. It was during such a pass that one night during the summer of 2000 I independently discovered Comet 2P/Encke as it made one of its many returns about the Sun since the French comet hunter Pierre Mechain, and later Jean-Louis Pons, and still later Caroline Herschel, and even later Pons again, first picked it up at the close of the 18th century and the opening of the 19th. When I spotted that little comet, I felt that I was part of a chain of people who, throughout history, has identified with this visitor from space that comes by every 3.3 years. And it is quite a chain: On January 17, 1786, Pierre Mechain found the comet at fifth magnitude. Nine years later, on October 20, 1805, Caroline Herschel, observing from England, discovered the comet as it returned. On that same night, Jean-Louis Pons discovered it. Meanwhile, when the celebrated German mathematician Johann Franz Encke calculated an orbit for this comet, he was surprised to conclude that it might return every 12 years. On November 26, 1818, Pons once again discovered this very same comet. Encke then connected Pons’s new comet to the 1805 one, but in so doing he shortened the orbital period from 12 to 3.3 years, and he connected it to the discoveries of Mechain and Herschel.
Since then, many people have recovered or observed Comet Encke, including Horace Tuttle in 1875. This famous cometeer had co-discovered comets Swift-Tuttle and Tempel-Tuttle, the parent comets of both the Perseid and Leonid meteor showers. But at the time of his recovery of Encke on January 25 that year, Tuttle was three days into a U.S. Navy court martial on charges of stealing more than $8000 from the United States Navy—a very large amount of money at the time. Three weeks after Tuttle recovered Encke’s Comet, the court found him guilty, but he received a light sentence, signed off by President Grant, of a dishonorable discharge from the Navy but no prison time. One speculates that Tuttle’s fame with comets helped get him off.
Stories like this one show that the saga of comets is enriched by its human side. As I made my own “recovery” of a faint Encke’s comet that morning, I was thankful that I didn’t have eight thousand dollars to account for. But in a sense I was right there with Tuttle as he made his find during a terribly difficult period of his life. That human side of comets is something I think of now as I struggle to see the stars as they disappear into a brightening sky. As I close up the telescope and the roof and return to bed, my thoughts are filled with the sight of the Milky Way straddling overhead in a quiet, ethereal starfilled sky, in that last quiet hour before the end of night.
Lucien Rudaux and Georges de Vaucouleurs, Larousse Encyclopedia of Astronomy (New York: Prometheus Press, 1959), 241.
Carbon · comets · H20 · milky way · PAHs
David A. Czuba
David’s wonderful way of threading human history, personal history, and scientific discovery is contagious. How can one not go out and invest in a scope or binoculars, and then, into early hours with a thermos of hot drink, see a celestial object that inspires them to a life of inquiry and critical thinking? The astronomy bug is contagious, and we’re fortunate to have eloquent, dedicated folks like David to keep spreading it.
Dick Luecke
Mr. Levy demonstrates that he is as nimble with words and historical connections as he is with his scope, Miranda. A real treat for us.
I particularly enjoyed Levy’s vivid description of his pre-dawn routine. If felt as though I was sitting beside Levy and Miranda as they made their north-south sweeps.
Corey Silver
I think that the solitude and silent discovery one can find in amateur astronomy were brilliantly explained in this article-it made me want to do it myself. For that reason, I have two questions:
1) Can one do anything worthwhile with a small, baseline telescope?
2) About how far from a major city do I have to be to eliminate most light pollution?
RHS-AP Physics II
Michael Deneen
Hi Corey, one can do worthwhile things even with a pair of binoculars. Have you thought of cataloging the variations in variable stars? Check the AAVSO (aavso.org, of course). And there is no magic distance from lights; it gets better the farther away you get. Rockport is OK, Arizona is better.
I concur with Michael Deneen that a good pair of 7×50 binoculars can provide an easy introduction to comets (when they come around), stars and nebulae in the Milky Way, prominent star clusters, and even the moons around Jupiter. The next step is to attend a star party hosted by your local amateur astronomy club. The Gloucester Area Astronomy Club (http://gaac.us/) would be the club for you in Rockport, MA. You will be able to look through some very nice telescopes and find out what interests you most. Only after doing that do I recommend that you get (or build) your own telescope.
Samuel Azucena
I was very intrigued at the suggestion that comets spread materials which are necessary to the advent of life on other planets. That being said, are there any further studies on the subject (other than the Jupiter collision) that could help us understand the beginning of life on other planets and how comets can be a catalyst for this ?
An AP Physics student at RHS
The prospect for comets delivering the building blocks of life on Earth — or for delivering life itself — has been formalized in the paradigm of “panspermia.” I recommend that you check out Wikipedia and other entries on panspermia.
Derek Graham Hepworth
Scientific poetry would be a fitting descriptor for this article, for it gives detailed explanations of the discovery and uses of comets, as well as in a flowing, wonderful manner. David Levy’s descriptions of comet searching are incredible, both in scientific research and word craft. In terms of scientific research, Levy backs up the little external research given with a reputable source: The Larousse Encyclopedia of Astronomy. He proceeds to detail his own discovery and research, showing how his discovery of a comet less than 20 years after his high school graduation could be related to other discoveries, recoveries, and observations of comets throughout both ancient and modern human history. His exact descriptions of his days looking for comets with his messy, yet strangely organized, labs mirror what he describes as the process for many great astronomers.
Levy proceeds to use human history to his advantage, with his descriptions of the fear of comets as a standout. Levy expertly expounds how early civilization reacted to the large, wonderful displays of comets: with fear. Levy paints a picture of a rapturous society, trusting in the end of times as soon as they view an event beyond their comprehension. These societies included the feudal systems of the middle ages, where, in 1182, a Byzantine historian described a comet as a serpent. According to this historian, the serpent twisted, shooting through the sky with a gaping mouth, apparently ready to devour all of humanity. This trend continued onward, even through the renaissance. In 1528, pioneering surgeon Ambroise Pierre described how the tail of a comet frightened the populace, even pushing some through to an early death. Levy’s poetry and scientific description of comets and comet-searching is enchanting, to say the least, and I look forward to reading more of his articles.
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More Support for UN LGBT Human Rights Expert
by our Editors in History & Politics , 10 februari 2017
The United Nations General Assembly again gave its support to the independent LGBT human rights expert at the UN. A proposal by Burkina Faso to make the expert's work impossible was voted out. In cooperation with other organisations and governments, COC Netherlands has worked hard for this victory.
COC Netherland’s international policy staff member Joyce Hamilton: ‘This is a victory for LGBTs worldwide. The UN again recognizes that LGBT rights are also human rights, that sexual orientation or gender should not be grounds for discrimination and violence anywhere in the world. This is of historical importance’.
A group of countries led by Burkina Faso recently submitted a proposal that would make the work of the independent LGBT human rights expert Vitit Muntarbhorn impossible. The proposal was rejected by a majority of 84 countries. 77 countries voted in favour of Burkina Faso's proposal, and 16 countries abstained from voting.
In cooperation with colleague organizations, COC Netherlands coordinated the opposition to Burkina Faso's proposal. This led to a declaration signed by 870 human rights and LGBT organizations from 157 countries in support of the independent LGBT human rights expert.
What makes this victory extra special is that the cooperation of those against LGBT human rights was broken. South-Africa and Cape Verde voted in favour of the LGBT human rights expert, unlike other members of a bloc of African countries that often works together in fighting LGBT rights. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (IOC), an alliance of Islamic countries in the UN and normally fiercely against LGBT rights, for the very first time ever did not voice its opinion on the subject.
Earlier in November, the independent LGBT human rights expert had been under attack in the preparatory committee of the UN, and even then the attack of those opposing LGBT rights was warded off.
The Thai human rights expert Vitit Muntarbhorn was appointed the first ever Independent Expert Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity for the UN and was commissioned to map violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) and the promotion of LGBT human rights. His appointment was the result of years of lobbying by the international LGBT movement, including COC Netherlands, within the UN.
UN Appointment Independent Expert for LGBT Human Rights
published Nov 2016
Security Council Hearing on Anti LGBT Violence by IS
published Oct 2015
Situation Deteriorating for LGBTs in the Crimean and Eastern Ukraine
Gay Sauna Amsterdam
Expo My Porn Eye: The Influence of Gay Porn on Art
Make Way For Hairy and Bearded Guys at the Amsterdam Bear Weekend
Leather, Rubber & Twisted gear
Cruise bar with big darkroom
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Art Museums and Galleries Museums & Attractions
Hiroshima Museum of Art
February 14, 2012 September 10, 2017 Paul Walsh 5085 Views 0 Comment art, culture, museum
Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso and many more works by great modern European painters are on display in this very pleasant city center museum. Hiroshima Museum of Art is a private museum, established in 1978 by Hiroshima Bank to commemorate the 100th anniversary of its foundation. Its collection is divided between about 90 modern European paintings by many well known artists, and about 90 works by modern Japanese painters in the Western style.
With its European collection, although focusing on the Impressionists, the museum aims to provide an overview of the 150 years of modern European painting from French Romantic period to the Ecole de Paris. Just about all of the 90 paintings are by well-known artists, including Delacroix, Courbet, Corot, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rousseau, Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Utrillo, Chagall, and Modigliani. There are also several pieces of sculpture.
The other half of the collection displays about 90 examples of yōga Western style oil paintings by Japanese artists from its beginnings in the late 19th and early 20th century to the present. These include works two of its leading exponents Kuroda Seiki and Kishida Ryusei. Several special exhibitions held throughout the year (the price of admission to apecial exhibitions also includes admission to the permanent collection).
Small and manageable, a visit to the Hiroshima Museum of Art provides an excellent opportunity (especially if you go on a weekday) to view works by some of the world’s greatest painters at a relaxed pace free from crowds. The European art is displayed in a distinctive round building (described by one author as, “Like a muffin”) in the center of a walled compound, which lies beyond the museum foyer and gift shop. On entering the building, you find yourself in a kind of circular courtyard, in the center of which stands a bronze statue of Venus by Maillol, bathed in natural light coming from a glass cupola set into the top of the domed ceiling. On the walls which encircle the central space are some lovely sketches, also by Maillol. From here you take your pick of the four galleries which also encircle the central area.
The range on display means that it is likely to be at least something to please most visitors. The museum owns eight paintings by Picasso which cover the artist’s career from 1900 through to 1970, and the museum owns one of three versions of Daubigny’s Garden painted by Van Gogh in the final months of his life. My personal favorites are the paintings by Soutine and a study from Rodin’s controversial Monument to Balzac.
Lists and photographs of paintings in each gallery
From the Romanticism to Impressionism
Neo-Impressionists and Post-Impressionists
Fauvisme and Picasso
Ecole de Paris
Modern Japanese paintings of Western Style
My most recent visit was on a weekday afternoon at a time when was no special exhibition showing. There were only only two or three other visitors in the museum, so we each had a room of our own, so you can really take your time and get up close to the works of art on display.
Finally, Robert Ginsberg has this to say on the Hiroshima Museum of Art in his essay in Philosophy and architecture;
The art works in Hiroshima are more beautiful because they are in Hiroshima. This museum maximizes their existence as human joys. This would be a good art museum anywhere in the world. Though upon entering the museum we tend to forget that we are in Hiroshima, or even in Japan, the statue under the dome lovingly reminds us before we leave that this slection and arrangement is an achievement of Hiroshima. The museum addresses what it is to live in a city that had been destroyed by an atom bomb but which insists on its worth as civilized community. “Here in Hiroshima,” the museum says to us, “we know the value of beauty and love.”
Closed: December 29-January 2
Adult ¥1000
College & High School Students ¥500
Elementary School Students ¥200
Admission to special exhibitions varies, but usually includes admission to the permanent collection. You can find a list of the museum’s paintings on load to other museums in Japanese here.
Address: 3-2 Motomachi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima-shi, Hiroshima-ken
View Hiroshima Museum of Art in a larger map
← Hiroshima pushes clean diesel
Molly Malone’s →
Paul Walsh
Paul arrived in Hiroshima "for a few months" back in 1996. He is the co-founder of GetHiroshima.com and loves running in the mountains.
Hiroshima City Numaji Transportation Museum
June 18, 2012 jjwalsh 0
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art
January 12, 2012 Paul Walsh 0
Guerilla art group Chim↑Pom pull exhibition after “Pika” sky drawing controversy
October 27, 2008 Paul Walsh 0
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Ex-CIA director quits Harvard over Chelsea Manning posting Featured
Ex-acting CIA director Michael Morell has resigned from his post at Harvard over its hiring of Chelsea Manning.
Announcing his resignation as a senior fellow, Mr Morell said he could not be part of an institution "that honours a convicted felon and leaker of classified information".
Harvard later withdrew Ms Manning's invitation as a visiting fellow, but said she remained welcome as a speaker.
She was convicted of espionage in 2013 after leaking secret documents.
In his resignation letter, Mr Morell condemned Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, saying its "decision will assist Ms Manning in her long-standing effort to legitimise the criminal path that she took to prominence", and may serve to encourage other whistleblowers.
He added: "I fully support Ms Manning's rights as a transgender American, including the right to serve our country in the US military."
On her Twitter page, Ms Manning responded to Mr Morell's departure by writing "good", and said the debate around her appointment was "nothing to do with trans rights".
The former Army private also retweeted a review of Mr Morell's 2015 book in which he defended the use of drone strikes and torture techniques against terror suspects.
Mr Morell served in the CIA for 33 years, including three as deputy director under the Obama administration.
He was acting director of the agency for several months in 2011, replacing Leon Panetta when he was named defence secretary, then again from November 2012 to March 2013, when Gen David Petraeus resigned over an extra-marital affair.
Morell retired in 2013 and was named a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School.
Why did Harvard backtrack?
Ms Manning - who served seven years in a military prison after sharing US government documents with Wikileaks before her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama - was initially named as a visiting fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School on Wednesday.
But after a day of backlash, Harvard released a statement saying that designating her as a visiting fellow had been a "mistake".
The Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, Douglas Elmendorf, said the university "did not intend to honor [Ms Manning] in any way or to endorse any of her words or deeds, as we do not honor or endorse any fellow".
However, he said, the title is viewed by some people as an honorific, "so we should weigh that consideration when offering invitations".
Mr Elmendorf said the faculty's approach to visiting speakers is "to invite some people who have significantly influenced events in the world, even if they do not share our values".
He apologised to Ms Manning, adding that she was still welcome "to spend a day at the Kennedy School and speak in the Forum".
Origin: bbc/GhAgent
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inquiries.bn@glamco.info
Aircraft Ground Handling
Ground Handling Gallery
Logistics/Trading Services
Fixed Base Operations
Air And Sea Cargo Brokerage
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Glamco Aviation
Glamco Aviation (B) Sdn Bhd (Glamco) is a private Brunei-owned and Brunei-managed company with over 30 years’ experience in the aviation business. We are now a leading player in Brunei’s aviation industry.
Founded in 1983 before Brunei gained its independence, we initially provided aircraft and helicopter spares to the Royal Brunei Air Force and Brunei Shell Aviation Department. We also provided ground-handling services to private and corporate operators at Brunei International Airport (BIA).
Over the years, we have increased our range of services and developed close operating relationships with many foreign manufacturers and OEMs. This enables us to offer competitive rates and excellent service worldwide. Thanks to our strong working relationships with internationally recognised principals, we offer unrivalled consultancy services both in Brunei and in ASEAN.
To augment our services, we built the first of our two hangars in 2008, with further business growth prompting the addition of a second in 2012.
Following Brunei’s national challenge to identify, formulate and deliver plans to develop local industry (particularly the aviation sector), our motto of “Service With Excellence” has been our guiding principal over the years. As business conditions change, we continue to demonstrate flexibility, efficiency and commitment to our global client base.
Pengiran Dato Abidin is a well-known and highly decorated retired officer in Brunei Darussalam. Before assuming the chairmanship of the Glamco group of Companies, he was Chief of the Royal Brunei Air Force from 1991 to 1997 and Commander of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces until his retirement in 1999.
His distinguished military career and professional experience in the field of aviation has been a key factor in developing our business and understanding of clients as well as in actively promoting and developing Brunei’s aviation industry.
SHRAN J SINGH - MANAGING DIRECTOR.
As the founder of Glamco Aviation (B) Sdn Bhd, Managing Director Shran has been the driving force of the Glamco Group of Companies in Brunei. A keen aviator himself, he has transformed his passion into a high-quality business specialising in providing Aircraft and Helicopter Spares and Services, Ground Handling and Ramp Services, Military Equipment and Consultancy Services for Major US & European Defence Companies.
Shran regularly attends Defence & Aviation exhibitions around the world to keep abreast with the latest advances and technologies. With over 30 years of experience, Shran and the Glamco Team offer an unrivalled service as a dynamic, forward thinking and multi-disciplined service provider synonymous with quality and customer focus. Glamco has received a number of accolades and citations for its impeccable facilitation and aircraft handling services to a large number of aircraft operators flying into Brunei International Airport.
Building on proven success in engaging customers and principals, Shran is now consolidating Glamco's pioneering position into further enhancing service levels and increasing market share.
Fatimah has been with the company for over 30 years. Starting in Admin and HR, she was in charge of staff recruitment and training before taking over the finance role which she holds to this day. She also handles all matters relating to liaison with the various government departments with which Glamco deals.
+673 245 1757 or Fax: +673 2452112
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CHAPTER I. NATIONALISM AND SECTIONALISM (1815-1830)
The history of the United States is the history of a growing nation. Every period of its life is a transitional period, but that from the close of the War of 1812 to the election of Andrew Jackson was peculiarly one of readjustment. It was during this time that the new republic gave clear evidence that it was throwing off the last remnants of colonial dependence. The Revolution had not fully severed the United States from the European state system; but now the United States attained complete independence and asserted its predominance in the western continent. It was in this period that the nation strengthened its hold on the Gulf of Mexico by the acquisition of Florida, recognized the independence of the revolting Spanish-American colonies, and took the leadership of the free sisterhood of the New World under the terms of the Monroe Doctrine.
The joyous outburst of nationalism which at first succeeded the dissensions of the period of war revealed itself in measures passed in Congress, under the leadership of Calhoun and Clay; it spoke clearly in the decisions of Judge Marshall; and in the lofty tone of condemnation with which the country as a whole reproached New England for the sectionalism exhibited in the Hartford Convention. [Footnote: Babcock, Am. Nationality (Am. Nation, XIII.), chaps, ix., xviii.; Gallatin, Writings, I., 700.]
It was not only in the field of foreign relations, in an aroused national sentiment, and in a realization that the future of the country lay in the development of its own resources that America gave evidence of fundamental change. In the industrial field transportation was revolutionized by the introduction of the steamboat and by the development of canals and turnpikes. The factory system, nourished by the restrictions of the embargo and the war, rapidly developed until American manufactures became an interest which, in political importance, outweighed the old industries of shipping and foreign commerce. The expansion of cotton-planting transformed the energies of the south, extended her activity into the newer regions of the Gulf, and gave a new life to the decaying institution of slavery.
From all the older sections, but especially from the south and its colonies in Kentucky and Tennessee, a flood of colonists was spreading along the waters of the west. In the Mississippi Valley the forests were falling before the blows of the pioneers, cities were developing where clearings had just let in the light of day, and new commonwealths were seeking outlets for their surplus and rising to industrial and political power. It is this vast development of the internal resources of the United States, the "Rise of the New West," that gives the tone to the period. "The peace," wrote Webster in later years, "brought about an entirely new and a most interesting state of things; it opened to us other prospects and suggested other duties. We ourselves were changed, and the whole world was changed. . . . Other nations would produce for themselves, and carry for themselves, and manufacture for themselves, to the full extent of their abilities. The crops of our plains would no longer sustain European armies, nor our ships longer supply those whom war had rendered unable to supply themselves. It was obvious, that, under these circumstances, the country would begin to survey itself, and to estimate its own capacity of improvement." [Footnote: Webster, Writings (National ed.), VI., 28.]
These very forces of economic transformation were soon followed by a distinct reaction against the spirit of nationalism and consolidation which had flamed out at the close of the War of 1812. This was shown, not only in protests against the loose-construction tendencies of Congress, and in denunciations of the decisions of the great chief-justice, but more significantly in the tendency of the separate geographical divisions of the country to follow their own interests and to make combinations with one another on this basis.
From one point of view the United States, even in this day of its youth, was more like an empire than a nation. Sectionalism had been fundamental in American history before the period which we have reached. The vast physiographic provinces of the country formed the basis for the development of natural economic and social areas, comparable in their size, industrial resources, and spirit, to nations of the Old World. In our period these sections underwent striking transformations, and engaged, under new conditions, in the old struggle for power. Their leaders, changing their attitude towards public questions as the economic conditions of their sections changed, were obliged not only to adjust themselves to the interests of the sections which they represented, but also, if they would achieve a national career, to make effective combinations with other sections. [Footnote: Turner. "Problems of American History," in Congress of Arts and Sciences, St. Louis, II.]
This gives the clew to the decade. Underneath the superficial calm of the "Era of Good Feeling," and in contradiction to the apparent absorption of all parties into one, there were arising new issues, new party formations, and some of the most profound changes in the history of American evolution.
The men of the time were not unaware of these tendencies. Writing in 1823, Henry Clay declared that it was a just principle to inquire what great interests belong to each section of our country, and to promote those interests, as far as practicable, consistently with the Constitution, having always an eye to the welfare of the whole. "Assuming this principle," said he, "does any one doubt that if New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and the Western States constituted an independent nation, it would immediately protect the important interests in question? And is it not to be feared that, if protection is not to be found for vital interests, from the existing systems, in great parts of the confederacy, those parts will ultimately seek to establish a system that will afford the requisite protection?" [Footnote: Clay, Works, IV., 81, 82; Annals of Cong., 18 Cong., 1 Sess., II., 1997, 2423.]
While the most prominent western statesman thus expressed his conviction that national affairs were to be conducted through combinations between sections on the basis of peculiar interests, Calhoun, at first a nationalist, later the leader of the south, changed his policy to a similar system of adjustments between the rival sections. John Quincy Adams, in 1819, said of Calhoun: "he is above all sectional and factious prejudices more than any other statesman of this union with whom I have ever acted." [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, V., 361, VI., 75.] But Calhoun, by the close of the decade, was not only complaining that the protective policy of certain sections set a dangerous example "of separate representation, and association of great Geographical interests to promote their prosperity at the expense of other interests," but he was also convinced that a great defect in our system was that the separate geographical interests were not sufficiently guarded. [Footnote: Am. Hist. Assoc., Report 1899, II., 250.] Speaking, in 1831, of the three great interests of the nation - the north, the south, and the west - he declared that they had been struggling in a fierce war with one another, and that the period was approaching which was to determine whether they could be reconciled or not so as to perpetuate the Union. [Footnote: Am. Hist. Rev., VI., 742; cf. J.Q. Adams, in Richardson, Messages and Papers. II., 297; J. Taylor, New Views, 261; [Turnbull]. The Crisis, No. 2.]
We see, therefore, that, in the minds of some of the most enlightened statesmen of this decade, American politics were essentially a struggle for power between rival sections. Even those of most enlarged national sympathies and purposes accepted the fact of sectional rivalries and combinations as fundamental in their policies. To understand the period, we must begin with a survey of the separate sections in the decade from 1820 to 1830, and determine what were the main interests shown in each and impressed upon the leaders who represented them. For the purposes of such a survey, the conventional division into New England, middle region, south, and west may be adopted. It is true that within each of these sections there were areas which were so different as to constitute almost independent divisions, and which had close affiliations with other sections. Nevertheless, the conventional grouping will reveal fundamental and contrasted interests and types of life between the various sections. In the rivalries of their leaders these sectional differences found political expression. By first presenting a narrative of forces in the separate sections, the narrative of events in the nation will be better understood.
A sectional survey, however, cannot fully exhibit one profound change, not easy to depict except by its results. This was the formation of the self-conscious American democracy, strongest in the west and middle region, but running across all sections and tending to divide the people on the lines of social classes. This democracy came to its own when Andrew Jackson triumphed over the old order of things and rudely threw open the sanctuary of federal government to the populace.
‹ AUTHOR'S PREFACE up CHAPTER II. NEW ENGLAND (1820-1830) ›
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Films and Movies
Plans for a prequel to The Hunger Games, on the occasion of the new book
Movie studio Lionsgate is working on the development of the new Hunger Games film, and now, author Suzanne Collins, have announced that there will be more next year, and a new book will be published in the same series.
“We can’t wait for Suzanne’s next book will be published,” said Joe Drake, of Lionsgate, which is distributing responsible for all the Hunger Games movies at The Hollywood Reporter.
“We have been in contact with her during the writing process, and we look forward to continuing to work with the film,” said Drake. The new book by phil Collins is 64 years old, and the beginning of the first Hunger Games book series for print.
The first of four Hunger Games movies with Jennifer Lawrence in the lead role, was released in 2012 and it resulted in a worldwide $ 3 billion (nearly € 2.7 billion) on it. Also, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, and Elizabeth Banks, were to be seen in the series.
Exciting news Hunger Games fans: A prequel to the novel, set in 64 years before the events of The Hunger Games is coming out September 2020! Read more here: https://t.co/nA7wAYX4Fz
Avatar AuteurScholasticMoment of plaatsen13:03 and 17 of June, 2019 at the latest
Check out the trailer for The Hunger Games
Sophie Turner is, according to Boy George, is mentioned for the lead role in a biopic
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Telefilm Taiki wins two prizes at film festival in Russia
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India in Lithuania would like to congratulate Deimantas Valanciunas, a Professor at Vilnius University, who participated in the 10th World Conference of the Hindi language Vishwa Hindi Sammelan. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi also attended the conference. Mr Valanciunas got an award of appreciation for spreading the Hindi language and keeping it alive. It is indeed something to celebrate, as people like Mr Valanciunas are doing so much to build the bridges between India and Lithuania. We hope that the connections between India and Lithuania will become even closer in the following years.
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MIRACH ENERGY LIMITED
Unaudited First Quarter Financial Statement and Dividend Announcement for the Period Ended 31 March 2019
Financials Archive
Financial Statement (471 KB)
Note: Files are in Adobe (PDF) format.
Please download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these documents.
Review of Performance
(A) INCOME STATEMENT/STATEMENT OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME
Turnover Analysis
Total revenue for the Group reported was US$1.074 million for the period ended 31 March 2019.
The revenues are generated from the property construction and development business, as well as management services provided to agriculture business partners in Malaysia.
The cessation of production at Kampung Minyak ("KM") Oil Field since February 2017 resulted in nil revenue generated from exploration and production business.
Cost and Earning Analysis
Subcontractor costs are derived from the cost of construction of property in Malaysia and infrastructure cost in relation to the agriculture business in Malaysia.
Other income in 1Q2019 fell by 96% as compared to 1Q2018 due to the one-off US$0.560 million waiver of an amount due to a third party that occurred in 1Q2018. Depreciation and amortization in 1Q2019 increased by 300% as compared to 1Q2018 due to the adoption of SFRS(I) 16 as discussed in Note 5. In addition, other expenses in 1Q2019 increased by 96% as compared to the same period in 2018 mainly due to the expenses incurred to operate the agriculture business in Malaysia.
Total comprehensive income of US$0.175 million generated in 1Q2019 as compared to US$0.166 million in the 1Q2018 was mainly due to the increase in revenue, which was offset by the increase in subcontractor cost and the increase in other expenses.
(B) BALANCE SHEET/STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSTION
The non-current assets of the Group as at 31 March 2019 increased by US$0.167 million as compared to 31 December 2018 mainly due to the increase in right-of-use asset as a result of the Group's adoption of SFRS(I) 16. There was also an increase in bearer plant from the agriculture business in Malaysia in 1Q2019 entirely due to exchange gains during the quarter.
The current assets of the Group as at 31 March 2019 increased by US$2.042 million as compared to 31 December 2018. This was mainly due to the receipt of the share placement proceeds upon the completion of the placement of shares on 5 March 2019, as well as the increase in trade and other receivables generated from the agriculture business in Malaysia.
The current liabilities of the Group as at 31 March 2019 decreased by US$1.171 million as compared to 31 December 2018. This was mainly due to the decrease in trade and other payables of US$1.420 million, which was largely due to the payment of RM4.500 million (approximately US$1.075 million) to the vendors of RCL Kelstar Sdn. Bhd. to further settle the outstanding amount due to them. The decrease in the share placement deposits of US$0.314 million also contributed to the decrease in trade and other payables, as these deposits were realized following the completion of the placement of shares on 5 March 2019.
As a result of the above description, the net current liabilities and net assets of the Group as at 31 March 2019 decreased by US$3.213 million and increased by US$3.289 million respectively, as compared to 31 December 2018.
(C) CASHFLOW STATEMENT/STATEMENT OF CASHFLOWS
Cash Flow & Working Capital
Cash and cash equivalent position (inclusive of exchange effects) increased by US$1.309 million for 1Q2019 as compared with 31 December 2018.
Net cash flows used in operating activities was US$1.806 million for 1Q2019. There was a increase of US$0.954 million as compared to 1Q2018. This was mainly contributed by the increase in profit before tax and the decrease of trade and other payables.
Net cash generated from financing activities was US$3.143 million in 1Q2019. This was mainly due to the receipt of the share placement proceeds upon the completion of the placement of shares on 5 March 2019.
Update on Use of Proceeds from the Placement and Convertible Loans
For the placement of shares in 3Q2018, the Company raised US$4.05 million in total. The amount from the proceeds have been fully utilized as at 31 March 2019. The list below summarized the usage of the proceeds.
For the placement of shares in 1Q2019, the Company raised US$3.11 million in total. The amount from the proceeds unutilized as at 31 March 2019 amounted to US$2.76 million. The list below summarized the usage of the proceeds.
Property and Construction Business
Our Malaysian subsidiary, Premier Mirach Sdn. Bhd. ("PMSB"), has provided an update on the construction and development of 213 units single-storey terrace houses in West Malaysia State of Perak which was awarded to PMSB for a gross development value of RM20.500 million (approximately US$5.022 million). As of 31 March 2019, the construction activity for the first housing project situated in the Malaysia State of Perak is at 15.92% completion and has generated US$0.077 million revenue for the Group in 1Q2019. PMSB expects to complete the project in April 2020, with progressive billings to continue in the next twelve months. The second construction project has not commenced due to ongoing discussions with the developer.
Agriculture Business
On 18 July 2018, the Group completed the acquisition of 70% equity interest in RCL Kelstar Sdn. Bhd ("RCL"), which enabled it to participate in a new agriculture development project in Malaysia.
RCL was incorporated to hold the business of a multi-storey agricultural project ("Project") in Malaysia in cooperation with the Kelantan State Economic Development Corporation ("KSEDC"). RCL has secured the right to jointly develop the Project together with KSEDC. The Project is a multi-crop agriculture land development with 50 years concession on a total area of approximately 5,500 acres. RCL is in the midst of obtaining the necessary approvals and permits, including logging permits, to commence logging and land clearing activities.
As at 31 March 2019, RCL had entered into three separate cooperation agreements with business partners, whereby the partners are allowed to cultivate, harvest or sell durian trees and fruits on approximately 1,650 acres or 30% of the concession land. RCL will provide management services to these partners and in turn collect management fees from these partners. In 1Q2019, RCL generated revenue of RM3.960 million (approximately US$0.970 million) through the provision of management services to the partners, and RCL will continue to fulfill its obligations in the next twelve months. RCL will further look for other business partners to cultivate the land separately.
Management Services Business
The Group's wholly-owned subsidiary Mirach HP Management Pte. Ltd. ("MHPM") provide business and management consultancy services. MHPM is currently working with partners in Malaysia to provide marketing and sales consultancy for their business development, and hopes to acquire more human resource along the way to further develop its business.
Oil and Gas Business
Currently, the Group still retains minority ownership (9%) of the Gunung Kampung Minyak Ltd Oil Field in Indonesia.
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https://thebogotapost.com/2017/02/08/fiscalia-financing-paramilitaries-crime-humanity/
Read more about From the Bogota Post: Fiscalía: Financing paramilitaries is crime against humanity
Human Rights Coalition Calls on ICC to Investigate Role of Chiquita Executives in Contributing to Crimes against Humanity
Fri, 05/19/2017 - 11:33 -- admin
On May 18, 2017 on behalf of affected Colombian communities, a coalition of human rights groups called on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the complicity of executives at Chiquita Brands International in crimes against humanity. To date, no executive has been held to account despite the company’s admission that it funneled millions of dollars to Colombian paramilitaries that killed, raped, and disappeared civilians. If the ICC takes up the case, it would be the first time it moved against corporate executives for assisting such crimes.
Read more about Human Rights Coalition Calls on ICC to Investigate Role of Chiquita Executives in Contributing to Crimes against Humanity
Chiquita Papers: Uncertainty Fueled Staff Concerns about Payments to Guerrillas and Paramilitaries
Chiquita’s Colombia-based staff questioned the company’s payments to illegal armed groups, and asked whether Chiquita had gone beyond extortion and was directly funding the activities of leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups, even while top company executives became “comfortable” with the idea.This is the second in a series of stories jointly published by the National Security Archive and VerdadAbierta.com documenting how the world’s most famous banana company financed terrorist groups in Colombia.
The New Chiquita Papers are the result of a seven-year legal battle waged by the National Security Archive against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and later Chiquita itself, for access to tens of thousands of records produced by the company during an investigation of illicit payments made in Colombia.
The Archive has used these records to identify individual Chiquita executives who approved and oversaw years of payments to groups responsible for countless human rights violations in Colombia, but whose roles in the affair have been unknown or unclear until now.
Read more about Chiquita Papers: Uncertainty Fueled Staff Concerns about Payments to Guerrillas and Paramilitaries
The New Chiquita Papers: Secret Testimony and Internal Records Identify Banana Executives who Bankrolled Terror in Colombia
Tue, 04/25/2017 - 12:21 -- admin
Ten years ago, Chiquita Brands International became the first U.S.-based corporation convicted of violating a U.S. law against funding an international terrorist group—the paramilitary United Self-defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). But punishment for the crime was reserved only for the corporate entity, while the names of the individual company officials who engineered the payments have since remained hidden behind a wall of impunity.
As Colombian authorities now prepare to prosecute business executives for funding groups responsible for major atrocities during Colombia’s decades-old conflict, a new set of Chiquita Papers, made possible through the National Security Archive’s FOIA lawsuit, has for the first time made it possible to know the identities and understand the roles of the individual Chiquita executives who approved and oversaw years of payments to groups responsible for countless human rights violations in Colombia.
Read more about The New Chiquita Papers: Secret Testimony and Internal Records Identify Banana Executives who Bankrolled Terror in Colombia
Chiquita Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity in Colombia?
Mon, 02/06/2017 - 13:31 -- admin
Companies who financed paramilitary death squads in Colombia’s banana growing region, including Chiquita’s subsidiary, will face charges for crimes against humanity, the Prosecutor General’s Office said Thursday. The prosecution decision is unprecedented as never before have private enterprises been charged with crimes against humanity.
Read more about Chiquita Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity in Colombia?
Chiquita Made a Killing from Colombia's Civil War
Multinational companies have benefited as paramilitaries have violently evicted thousands of people from their land, clearing the way for large-scale mining, oil or agro-industrial projects. These companies are knowingly operating in a country where death squads suppress dissent by targeting community activists and trade unionists...There is almost total impunity for the security forces and their paramilitary allies who target land activists and community leaders and those who have protested against large-scale mining, oil and agro-industrial projects.
Read more about Chiquita Made a Killing from Colombia's Civil War
PRESS RELEASE: Victory in Chiquita Case as Florida Federal Judge Orders Case to Proceed in US Courts (English/Spanish)
On November 29, 2016, a federal court in Florida issued a long-awaited ruling denying Chiquita’s last effort to have the case dismissed brought by thousands of Colombian nationals who sued Chiquita for funding the AUC paramilitary units that murdered their family members.
Read more about PRESS RELEASE: Victory in Chiquita Case as Florida Federal Judge Orders Case to Proceed in US Courts (English/Spanish)
Colombian Victims Take on Chiquita for Funding Death Squads
Thu, 12/01/2016 - 18:24 -- admin
Human rights defenders and families of victims are one step closer to justice for Colombian labor leaders and other activists murdered at the hands of right-wing paramilitaries paid by U.S. banana giant Chiquita Brands as a U.S. court gave the green light Wednesday for the trial to move forward against the company and its top executives.
Read more about Colombian Victims Take on Chiquita for Funding Death Squads
Coca Cola facing terrorism support charges in Colombia
Coca Cola is one of more than 50 companies facing terrorism support charges in Colombia. Among those companies are Chiquita and Drummond, both of which International Rights Advocates are actively litigating in US courts for their involvement in human rights violations in Colombia.
To read more, see here: http://colombiareports.com/coca-cola-facing-terrorism-support-charges-co...
Read more about Coca Cola facing terrorism support charges in Colombia
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About Helena Sheehan
Other professional positions / activities
Selected Chapters
DORAS catalogue of publiations
Multimedia Productions
Selected Past Articles
Selected Reviews
Select PageHomeAbout Helena Sheehan Other professional positions / activities SabbaticalsLatest PublicationsBooks Pamphlets Selected ChaptersArticles DORAS catalogue of publiations Online Articles Multimedia Productions Selected Past Articles Selected ReviewsLectures & Presentations International conferencesContact
Chapter 5: The 1970s: Progress, Pressures and Protests
Ireland in the 1970s
By the beginning of the 1970s, Ireland was well and truly caught up in the stepped-up tempo of social change. There was a rising tide of social protest, a tendency to take politics out onto the streets, a will to challenge what was called ‘the establishment’ and to experiment with new forms of cultural expression. For many, it was true, it was only a superficial trendiness, an unfocused grasping after innovation or a passive flowing with the tide. But for others, it was a deep questioning of old ideas and values, a highly focused pursuit of alternatives and an active commitment to social causes.
In the past decade in Ireland, the nature of ‘the establishment’ had changed. The new Ireland of Lemass, while still under attack from the right, was now coming under attack from the left. The Lemass era had brought to power an intellectually and culturally impoverished nouveau riche, who believed in prosperity but not much else, at least not very profoundly. They were energetic and full of cocktail party chatter, but they had no clear vision, no coherent values. However, in the new mood, which put a strong emphasis on public morality, the issue was no longer simply the maintenance of frugal self-sufficiency or the pursuit of expansive prosperity, but also the question of how that prosperity was produced and distributed. The management ethos of the Irish Management Institute was not designed to deal with matters of social justice. In an atmosphere giving a high profile to radical, and even socialist, ideas and movements abroad, the issue was no longer simply provincialism versus cosmopolitanism, but of conflicting brands of cosmopolitanism. The new forces, with new links to the wider world, took a dim view of Industrial Development authority executives wining and dining potential American investors and preferred to be outside the American embassy protesting against the consequences of what America was actually investing in Vietnam.
In the north, there was the new wave of the traditional ‘troubles’, rooted in decades of residual resentment and sparked off by the new mood of mass movements on the march world wide. The civil rights movement in the north of Ireland was directly influenced by the civil rights movement in the south of the USA. They were moved by the same spirit. They used the same tactics. They sang the same songs. Indeed, We Shall Overcome was echoing the world over. The parallel went further. Just as the peaceful civil disobedience of the SCLC gave way to the more militant and violent black panthers, so did the initiative pass from NICRA to a new IRA armed campaign. The decade was full of civil strife, bombs and bullets, men on the run, internment, direct rule, republican splits, the proliferation of paramilitaries, the emergence of centre parties, two nationists, peace people, political initiatives, loyalist lockouts, republican hunger strikes and on and on, in an escalating cycle of schism and violence. In the south, there was the spillover effect of events in the north. The various shades of republicanism had their organisational networks through the republic. Sinn Fein (Official), Sinn Fein {Provisional) and the Irish Republican Socialist Party contested elections and engaged in various forms of legal political activity, while the Official IRA, Provisional IRA and INLA had their active service units and engaged in various forms of illegal political activity. 1
There were also housing action demonstrations, student sit-ins, contraceptive trains; campaigns against EEC entry, against the Offences Against the State Act, against inequitable taxation of the PAYE sector; campaigns for resources protection, equal pay, contraception and divorce. There were issues and causes galore, one issue for some, another for others, randomly combined for yet others or coherently integrated for still others in a strategy in pursuit of a full-blooded socialist alternative to the existing system. The Labour Party, for its part, had announced at the beginning of the decade that “the seventies will be socialist” and then proceeded to play its part in ensuring that it would not be so. Within Fine Gael, the older blueshirt element came under challenge from a newer ‘just society’ grouping, representing a cautious but significant move of the older establishment towards some sort of accommodation with social democratic impulses. In 1973, Fianna Fail, after sixteen years in power, fell, to be replaced by a Fine Gael-Labour Coalition, but were back in government again by 1977. For the left, it made little difference, addressing the same sort of protests, pickets, mass meetings and marches to one as to the other.
The women’s liberation movement began to be a formidable presence in Irish life, not so much in its particular organisational forms and activities, but more in the whole atmosphere of questioning traditional sex roles that gave rise to it. Women who never attended a women’s meeting began to perceive themselves in a new light and to work out their lives in terms of a new range of options. Enlightened men adjusted with equanimity, if not always with ease. Unenlightened men adjusted as well, if without equanimity and with remarkably less ease.
The ever more liberal atmosphere of Irish life brought a new climate for the arts and a new situation for the artist in relation to Irish society. Writers became ever more explicit and more critical in dealing with such matters as religion, sex, politics and class. Even within the theatrical establishment, there was a steady succession of challenging works by such authors as Brian Friel, Eugene McCabe, Tom Murphy, Tom Kilroy and others. Outside it, there was much experimentation, with new theatres, new companies and new forms popping up everywhere. There was the like of Plunkett’s The Risen People at the Project and Arden and D’ Arcy’s Non-Stop Connolly Show at Liberty Hall. There was street theatre all around Dublin city centre. There was also the memorable and exciting visit of the radical 7:84 company creating a highly innovative theatre elsewhere on the celtic fringe.
For some, the new climate provided the opportunity to use art as a means for a public coming to terms with matters of public importance. For others it brought a retreat from the public arena into their own private obsessions. A more ambivalent establishment did not make such a clear target for an artist to attack and to define himself over against in exile, in censored literature and in despairing self-destruction. A more liberal atmosphere could also be more indifferent. Without coherent orthodoxies to rebel against and without the clarity of vision to construct alternatives, there was a tendency towards forms of cultural expression that were more and more indulgent of individualist idiosyncracy, indifferent to philosophical coherence and dissociated from social context. This was the case with a myriad of forms: ranging from the sincere, if shrunken, worlds of masturbatory novels and highly precious theatrical productions to the pompous pretentiousness of pseudo-avant-garde paintings to the nihilistic nastiness of the punk aesthetic in dress, movement and music. Certainly it was hard to specify any common criteria for what was considered art any more.
RTE in the 1970s
The push and pull of the various forces struggling to find their place in Irish society played themselves out in relation to RTE as well. There were new pressures from political left and right, from furious feminists and happy-at-home housewives, from nationalists and two-nationists and from a host of other sources. There were also continuing pressures from Irish speakers, from catholic traditionalists, from rural and urban dwellers. All were judging the televisual picture of reality against their own perceptions of it and finding RTE wanting in one respect or another.
The pressures from the politicians, particularly those in power, continued to build and reached crisis point with the dramatic government dismissal of the RTE authority in 1972. In the course of following the understandable journalistic goal of exploring the political motivation of those in command of the armed campaign in the north, RTE came into conflict with the Fianna Fail government, which summarily replaced the entire RTE authority with a new one. RTE’s enthusiasm for the change in government the next year and the appointment of Conor Cruise O’Brien, critic of the previous government’s policy on RTE, as minister for posts and telegraphs, was short-lived. The amending legislation which he introduced in 1976 did limit the arbitrary exercise of government power in this domain. But, by issuing a more specific directive, prohibiting interviews with members of proscribed organisations, he strengthened the force of section 31 of the Broadcasting authority Act 1960 in its effect on everyday broadcasting practice in RTE. These events, along with being starved of adequate finance through lack of support from successive governments, left a legacy of suspicion and resentment between politicians and broadcasters.
When the question of a second channel arose, the minister proposed not creating RTE2, but re-broadcasting BBC1 instead. Following a survey showing this to be contrary to public wishes, the decision was made in favour of RTE2. However, due to financial problems, RTE2 only came on air in 1978. Because the issue was posed as between BBC1and RTE2, as between foreign and indigenous culture, the issue of an independent Irish channel was not raised at this time. Stemming from the second channel debate, RTE staff, particularly through the RTE trade union group, mobilised to influence public opinion in favour of RTE and to extract from RTE various guarantees regarding broadcasting practices and working conditions.
There was also the emergence of an ad hoc group calling itself Citizens for Better Broadcasting and publishing a series of position papers entitled Aspects of RTE Television Broadcasting. Among those putting their names to this analysis were acadmics, clerics, trade unionists, and theatre directors such as: Augustine Martin, Gearoid O Tuathaigh, Tony Coughlan, Kader Asmal, Austin Flannery, James McDyer, Terence McCaughey, Michael Mullen and Tomas MacAnna. Their study of RTE schedules revealed an increasing percentage of imported material and, correspondingly, a decreasing percentage of home produced material, as well as an imbalance in the sources of imported material, parallel to the imbalance in global flows analysed by UNESCO and causing international concern. Their recommendations were that home produced programmes should occupy the dominant share of the schedule; that there should be more Irish language and regional programming; that imported programmes should be selected from the widest possible sources. Their proposals also included support for public service broadcasting from public funds in the same manner as support for education and health services and control by a body appointed by the oireachtas to be representative of the whole community, including RTE staff, and to be dismissed only by an oireachtas majority. Their publication also expressed regret at the decline of authentic debate on the central issues in the life of the nation.
RTE Drama in the 1970s
The style of RTE drama in the seventies was shaped by many factors, from the central issues in the life of the nation to the exigencies of budget allocations and new developments in the technology of television production. Regarding the latter, the most obvious development, as far as the audience was concerned, was the introduction of colour in the mid-seventies. They might also have noticed a more sophisticated visual style, a more extensive use of locations and a faster pace of plot development, without being precisely aware of the extent to which any of this was due to such factors as increasing use of film and improvement in video editing facilities.
The level of output remained reasonably high, relative to the limited resources of the country and size of its audience. Over the decade, there was on average a new home produced single play every month, plus many more serials, series and mini-series. Although the balance shifted towards more original written-for-television material, there was still considerable adaptation of works written for other media. Adaptations of foreign classics included Andorra, The Rehearsal, The Promise, The Father, The Diary of a Madman, Uncle Vanya, The House of Bernarda Alba, The Strong Are Lonely, and Mother Courage and Her Children. For the most part, the works of such authors as Frisch, Anouilh, Strindberg, Arbuzov, Gogol, Chekov, Lorca, Hochwaelder and Brecht were given fairly standard productions and retained their original settings. Once in a while, they were more freely adapted and put in an Irish setting, such as in Fine Girl You Are, Hugh Leonard’s adaptation of Chekov’s The Darling. Productions of Irish theatrical classics included Synge’s Riders to the Sea. O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars and Joyce’s Exiles were RTE/ Abbey co-productions. More contemporary works of Irish theatre given RTE productions included John Murphy’s The Country Boy, Tom Murphy’s Famine and The White House, Brian Friel’s Crystal and Fox, Eugene McCabe’s King of the Castle, Sam Thompson’s Over The Bridge and John Boyd’s The Flats. Literary works dramatised for television included: The Branchy Tree, Brian Friel’s Mr. Sing, My Heart’s Delight, Frank O’Connor’s The House That Johnny Built, Eric Cross’ The Tailor and Ansty, Kate O’Brien’s The Last of Summer and Aidan Higgins’ Langrishe, Go Down.
Irish Television Drama Outside RTE
Of course, not all of the Irish television drama being watched by Irish audiences was provided by RTE. Perhaps the most memorable adaptations of Irish short stories were provided by Granada under the anthology title The Sinners and shown on RTE as well as ITV. These plays of 1973 were consciously intended to break British attitudes of condescension towards the Irish. The producer, Brian Armstrong, looked for particularly ‘meaty’ stories for this series of 12 one hour plays. He used Irish settings, Irish actors and Irish scriptwriter Hugh Leonard to dramatise works of Irish authors Sean O Faolain, Frank O’Connor, James Joyce, James Plunkett and Brian Friel. They were excellent and quite unforgettable productions, which impressed Irish audiences, as well as British ones, with what Irish talent could actually do. Granada also made an adaptation of Frank O’Connor’s An Only Child. Other ITV companies also produced Irish drama from time to time, with productions such as HTV’s co-production with CBS, an adaptation of Brian Moore’s novel Catholics, set on an island off the west coast of Kerry. BBC produced a fair amount of Irish drama as well, again most of it in the way of literary adaptation, which included Joyce’s Stephen D and Two Gallants, O’Connor’s First Confession and Macken’s The Island of the Great Yellow Ox.
It was not all adaptation though. There was also the comedy series Me Mammy written by Hugh Leonard and performed by Irish actors. There were also serious and controversial works dealing with the dilemmas of Northern Ireland politics, although there was a lot of water under the bridge between Sam Thompson’s Cemented With Love in 1965 and The Legion Hall Bombing in 1978, both of which were postponed before finally being transmitted.
Other Irish television drama was made by Irish independent producers, often co-funded and transmitted by RTE. Films such as Kieran Hickey’s Exposure and Criminal Conversation, Bob Quinn’s Poitin, Joe Comerford’s Traveller and Down the Corner, Tom McArdle’s The Kinkisha and Robert Wynne Simmons Double Piquet fell into this category. There was also The Hebrew Lesson made by the Dublin Film Cooperative at Ardmore Studios.
Occasionally too, there was an American television movie made in Ireland employing some degree of Irish talent, such as the thriller Cry of the Innocent.
RTE not only promoted, transmitted or co-funded these types of production, but made its first forays into the field of co-productions. As well as the plays co-produced with the Abbey theatre, RTE entered into its first co-productions with BBC. The first was in 1975, a psychological thriller by Michael Judge, Full Fathom Five, changed somewhat from its RTE production ten years earlier. The second was in 1979, a Harold Pinter adaptation of the Aidan Higgins novel Langrishe, Go Down.
New Initiatives in RTE Drama
However, most Irish television drama was in-house RTE production, though all of it was produced and received in a cultural environment characterised by exceptionally high exposure of both programme makers and audience to what was being done in television elsewhere. There were new genres, most often Irish versions of television genres being developed abroad. The popularity of imported medical series with Irish audiences gave rise to the indigenous Partners in Practice. The addiction of viewers to police series was given an injection from home sources in The Burke Enigma. The pull of the historical epic was meant to draw the audience fond of BBC costume drama to the saga of Kilmore House spanning 150 years of Irish life. The foreign sitcoms were given domestic analogues in The Lads, The Lodgers, What The Butler Missed, I Try To Ignore It But I Love It, Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow and Up in the World. For those who liked BBC productions of Beckett and Pinter, there was Wesley Burrowes’ surreal play The Becauseway, “a play about reality, using none of the conventions of realism”, It was set in an indeterminate time and place, but definitely a long way from 1970s Leestown. For those who admired the socially crusading drama-documentary of British television drama, like Cathy Come Home and Spongers, there was RTE’s A Week in the Life of Martin Cluxton. 3 This sort of drama was given greatest scope later in the decade when Louis Lentin, as head of drama, instituted the regular Thursday Playdate slot, in a conscious attempt to achieve in Irish television what Armchair Theatre did in bringing a new wave of social drama to British television. 4
There were serious efforts to stimulate the writing of original drama dealing with contemporary Ireland for production by RTE. Donall Farmer, as head of drama, approached established Irish writers to write for RTE. In addition, RTE sponsored a television drama competition and sent out guidelines on how to write for television to try to find new writers. It gave RTE productions to both the winner and the runner-up in this project: Liam MacUistin’s The Glory and the Dream in 1971 and Maureen Donegan’s Who Me? in 1972.
Another attempt to stimulate contemporary drama was the highly experimental Caravan series. The formula, devised by producer Tony Barry, was to send a researcher into a town or industrial plant and to construct from interviews a broad picture of the social groupings, issues and problems of the place. Writers Michael Judge, Carolyn Swift and Eoghan Harris would then produce a series of open-ended sketches reflecting this picture. Following this, an outside broadcast unit would arrive in the place, actors would perform the sketches and then the production team would conduct an open-ended discussion of the pertinent issues sparked off by the sketches, combined with contributions by local singers, dancers and musicians.
Only two of the programmes had been transmitted when the series was taken the air due to various controversies and legal complications arising from It. Spotlighting the atrocious wages paid to outworkers in the knitwear and footwear industries in Kilkenny and satirising the manners and mores of the nouveau riche who had built empires on smuggling in Drogheda, brought strong representations and protests from the local chambers of commerce and the Legion of Mary. Querying the role of the medical officer in Waterford Glass, in terms of his ties to the owners and the alleged difficulties of workers in acquiring sick certificates brought a libel suit upon RTE. Although producers wanted to let the matter go to court, RTE’s legal officer advised against it. 5 RTE settled out of court and took the series off the air.
This pattern was what most characterised the RTE drama of the seventies: RTE, through its programme makers, venturing as close as they found desirable or possible to giving a picture of the problems and possibilities at the cutting edges of contemporary Irish society and RTE, through its management, sometimes pushing full-steam ahead and other times applying the brakes, flattening out, apologising, giving way to pressure and taking programmes off the air in mid-run. The overall picture, looking back on it, was one of great vision and verve, punctuated by moments of reaction and failure of nerve.
The Riordans
Wesley Burrowes analysed the situation, as it presented itself to him, in terms of “a nervous tic in the face of RTE”:
“It will rarely happen that a specific person in authority will say “This is unacceptable”. He will more likely say that, while he personally sees nothing wrong with it, his immediate superior is not so broad-minded and perhaps it might be better to change it. If you ever meet the superior, he will say the same about his superior, and so on up the ladder. My own view of the Tic (if I may use this as a collective term for nervous men) was that they tended to pre-judge the conscience of the viewers, instead of consulting their own” 6
Burrowes outlined a number of incidents from the mid-sixties through the seventies relating to the writing of The Riordans, in which the tic intervened on behalf of Sean Citizen. Not surprisingly, the touchy subjects were sex and politics. Again, not surprisingly, more the former than the latter. The one incident relating to politics involved Tom Riordan’s standing for election as an Independent in a bye-election. Interventions involved revising scripts to water down his speeches, justified on the basis that it would not do that he should be seen as so obviously more honest and clever than party candidates. All of the other incidents related to sexual morality and transgressions thereof. There were two attempts to introduce a storyline in which Maggie Nael would become pregnant. Overruled both times, Burrowes sought alternative strategies. The first time the unmarried mother story was introduced via an outsider, an English protestant one at that, to distance it and to make it less highly charged for an Irish catholic audience. The second time, as Maggie had already begun to display “symptoms which the most sheltered of viewers couldn’t mistake”, Burrowes had to go running to a doctor for an escape route to find an alternative cause of the same symptoms, which he felt was a cheat and cast a shadow over the programme for some time afterwards. Even a bit of humour caused problems, as when Johnnie Mac, pleased as punch at Julia becoming pregnant, was asked if he suspected anyone in particular. Another instance came after Benjy and Maggie had married and Benjy’s eyes (and a bit more than his eyes) began to wander. An attempt to explore the effects of an extra-marital affair on a marital relationship resulted in the scripts being gutted, which Burrowes regarded as a triumph for hypocrisy. Nevertheless, even the kiss behind the bush, which survived the slicing, brought the farcical condemnation of the programme as a sex orgy in the chambers of the Tuam town commissioners.
Indeed, what the powers-that-be at RTE let through was far more than what a significant strand of the Irish audience thought iappropriate. The nervousness of RTE management over what viewers and their elected representatives would take in the way of progressive programming did not come from nowhere. Many in RTE were aware of a double standard in their audience, in that completely different criteria of acceptability were applied to home produced programmes from what were applied to imported ones. As Burrowes characterised this in relation to The Riordans:
“Irish viewers seem to accept fairly equably (even enthusiastically, in the case of The Brothers and Rich Man, Poor Man) any amount of sex and sadism, as long as it is foreign-made, while retaining the strictest of standards about what RTE produces”. 7
Again and again, any hint of sexual transgression on the part of any of the Riordans whether Benjy in a compromising position with a woman, before or after marriage, or Jude, a separated woman, having a relationship with a divorced man, was met with a chorus of indignation. In relation to a controversial bit of dialogue between Jude Hyland and Ed Phipps, Burrowes observed that, if Shirley MacLaine were to express the same sentiment to Jack Lemmon, there would be no problem, but viewers wouldn’t have their own Benjy or Jude letting them down. More than once, RTE in general and Wesley Burrowes in particular were accused of subverting the morals of the nation. What really raised the roof was the issue of contraception, when their own much-loved Maggie went on the pill and the much-revered parish priest was implicated in the decision. The moral dilemmas of both Maggie Riordan and Fr. Sheehy, to whom she went for advice, were posed with the utmost care. Maggie had just experienced a difficult birth and had been warned against the medical consequences of another pregnancy. Fr. Sheehy, despite the rigidity of the church’s teaching on the matter, sympathised and advised her it was a matter for her own individual conscience.
It was an accurate reflection of what was going on at that time when younger catholic women were going on the pill in that spirit and younger catholic priests were taking that sort of stance, or even going further, in opposition to papal proclamations. It was also an indicator of the progressing protestantisation of catholicism, expressed in what came to be called “a la carte catholicism”. Nevertheless, individual viewers, provincial newspapers and county councils heaped censure upon RTE, Wesley Burrowes and everyone connected with propagating, or even acknowledging, such views.
Many of the audience were confused with all the changes that had taken place in catholicism and in Irish society. They wanted the old clarity, not an analysis of the new confusion. Mary Riordan, more than the rest, spoke for them. She could not accept the breakdown of her daughter’s marriage and a discussion of it with her son encapsulated the disorientation of all like her, who had accepted a total identification between morality and church edict. In a scene in which Mary was going on about ‘this annulment nonsense’, Michael told her that she would have to get used to it. She replied that she never would. Michael, pushing her to examine her premises, elicited the reason that she was against it was because it was against everything she always believed in, ie, everything the church had always taught her. Michael, pushing further, asked how she would feel if the church’s decision were to grant the annulment:
Mary: “I would feel let down.
Michael: “You wouldn’t agree with the decision?”
Mary: “No, I certainly would not.”
Michael: “But, don’t you see, then your argument wouldn’t be with Jude? It would be with the church.”
Mary: “Ah You’re only trying to confuse me with all this smart talk. It’s not right, Michael, and it never will be.”
For many of the audience, Mary and Minnie should have been left to hold on to their old beliefs and to get on with all of the trivia of their female busy-ness, without being subjected to all of this ‘smart talk’ pressing against older traditions of Irish society at this time. However, if they had, The Riordans would have been just another soap opera, full of cups of tea and petty gossip, but devoid of the sociological significance that gave it its essential. dramatic tension and made it such a pioneering achievement. Despite the interventions of ‘the tic’ on behalf of the audience and despite the howls of protest from the most conservative and complaining section of the audience when there was no such intervention, The Riordans managed to bring “to the surface with almost relentless zeal every possible transgression of the traditional Irish family enshrined in the 1937 constitution,” 8 In doing so, as Luke Gibbons perceptively put it, it “helped to dispel the idea that marriages were made in heaven, even if their material purpose was to facilitate the inheritance of various tracts of earth,” 9
In the end, The Riordans got away with it, no doubt because the controversial issues, especially those relating to sexual morality, were raised with a deeply rooted authenticity within a long-established sympathy for popular and credible characters. It was also because of the skilful style of scriptwriting that represented a range of points of view that never veered very far to the left and kept balanced at centre or just left of centre, It gave much scope to the expression of views considerably to the right of centre, without ever giving way to the pressures to over-balance in that direction. By the end of the decade, it was possible to proceed with storylines that went much further than ones that had been over-ruled in early or mid-decade. Even Maggie, never mind Benjy, could have an affair by the late seventies.
However, the series that notoriously did not get away with it was The Spike. Although The Spike was taken off the air in mid-run, amidst a storm of protest and blaze of publicity, following upon an infamous nude scene, the Issues involved were actually far more complicated and even now need careful unravelling for the record.
The Spike began what was to be its ten week run in January 1978. It was set in a post-primary co-educational public sector school in an unspecified urban working class area in its own time. It was, in actuality, quite specifically set in Dublin, both in the locations used in its production and in the clear associations it had in the minds of its audience. It was, even more specifically, shot in the Ringsend Technical Institute with classes actually in session and cast with pupils from Ringsend and Ballymun, giving it an authenticity that blurred the line between fact and fiction. It was, in fact, meant to be a rigorously realistic picture of a particular sector of the Irish education system, grounded in the authenticity of its scriptwriter’s own experience as a teacher in that sector.
It was furthermore intended to shed light on certain features of the Irish education system in general and of Irish society as a whole, which accounted for the inequalities and incongruities manifest in that particular sector. It was strongly implied that its analysis of that system, although presented in a fictional format, could be verified by an objective factual study of that system in reality. Its credibility was clearly staked out as standing or falling in terms of this sort of verisimilitude. Although the official name of the fictional school in question was St. Aidans, it was commonly called the Spike, because, it was said, it was once a workhouse, but also because, it was inferred, the dark shadow of that sort of world still hung over it. The Spike was pictured as a dumping ground for rejects which had been weeded out, according to the highly questionable criteria of a selection process in the Irish educational system that was tied to the class divisions of Irish society and to the role of the church in maintaining those divisions.
The author, Patrick Gilligan, pulled no punches in setting out his anti-establishment point of view. Despite his commitment to the VEC sector and his respect for the wisdom inspiring the 1931 Vocational Education Act, the reality on the ground, as he saw it, was that this sector was distinguished by a stigma. Although the vision of education as a community process dedicated to the total development of human potential sometimes managed to shine through the murk and sordidity of schools like the Spike, the darkness more often prevailed over the light. In explaining why, he wrote in the RTE Guide:
“Irish society , with its genius for division along class lines, is in no doubt at all about the role of the public sector school. The Spike is a scrap heap. Scrap can be refined into nobler metal, but the process is tiresome and costly and there are always more insistent priorities than the undeserving poor.” 10
The script, through all ten episodes, was full of class-conscious dialogue, mostly showing the contempt of the tu’pence ha’penny for the tu’pence or the anger, coupled with absurd deference, of the tu’pence to the tu’pence ha’penny. The script was permeated with the seething resentment between the ex-woodwork-teacher-turned-acting-principal and his more academically qualified colleagues; between the night class ladies with furs and fake Foxrock accents and the scrubbers (or the sanitary technicians, as they preferred to be called); between religious orders running the publicly subsidised private schools and teachers committed to the public sector ones. It also gave expression to the pathetic aspirations to upward mobility of those at the bottom, such as the prostitute who wanted to overcome her illiteracy to make the transition from working in Joe’s chip van to Erin’s Isle, so as to mix with nice people and have a good class client.
Even worse, there were the aspiring ambitions of the wife of the public sector principal who insisted on sending their daughter to a private boarding school so that “at least she won’t marry into the flats”. Along the way, the series touched on many problems rooted in class inequality: poverty, prostitution, illiteracy, anti-social behaviour in social institutions, domestic violence, child labour, lack of study time for students with bread winning responsibilities, lack of career opportunities, political hypocrisy and power struggles for control of the education system. Running through it all was an unmistakable indictment of those in power in both church and state for the incongruities and injustices pervading the status quo. The lines of connection were brought to sharpest expression in the final, though never to be transmitted, episode when O’Mahony, the acting principal of the Spike, went to the parliamentary secretary in indignation at the furtive and evasive activities of the religious orders: engineering the re-organisation of post-primary education in the area so that the new Spike would be run by a new board of management controlled by its competitors.
The politician quite straightforwardly set forth the political expediencies of the situation. His party, he explained, mightn’t have given the working class anything else, but they had given them aspirations, perhaps aspirations above their station. In consequence, he went on:
“They have middle class aspirations now, and middle class values, and middle class kids belong by right of tradition to the religious schools”.
But with the decline of vocations, the religious schools couldn’t cope with them in the traditional way. Nevertheless, as he saw their strategy:
“But you can’t imagine the religious letting what they see as part of their traditional enrolment drift into the godless, non-denominational Spike. What can they do? They haven’t the brothers and they haven’t the nuns. This approach is devious, but it ensures that the faith of our fathers will survive until vocations pick up again”.
As to his own complicity in a course of action in which he did not believe, he stated right out:
“No politician can afford to disregard the faith of our fathers and no government can afford to dismiss the aspirations of the would-be middle class. And stay in power”.
Although O’Mahony was furious in the face of the forces arrayed against his aims, he was not beyond turning this sort of political opportunism to his own advantage. Whatever his disapproval of the church’s grip on family life, on educational institutions and on parliamentary politics, he appealed to it when it suited him. Taking to the parliamentary secretary the knowledge given to him in confidence that his main competitor for the job of permanent principal was divorced, he put it to him:
“Your party has publicly set its face against any weakening of the family unit. Not out of conviction, but because the pulpit controls the marginal votes. She will have the responsibility of shaping young minds”.
Thus the hypocrisy lying behind the rigidity of Irish domestic law was brought into the picture as well. So too were other targets set up for critical exposure or at least for ironic comment: the IMI management ethos, sexual prudery, assertiveness training, youthful IRA activism, artistic dilettantism, republicanism and revisionism. Striding through all the various elements of this hectic and even chaotic scenario was the figure of Jer O’Mahony, bellowing at staff and students, as if a ganger on a building site, and uttering pronouncements of his own homespun philosophy relating to every matter at hand. Although hardly the most enlightened or coherent of men, his point of view predominated over all others, as rowdy pupils, jaded teachers, indifferent parents, cynical politicians, liberated women, parasitic wives and daughters, scurrilous special branch men, pretentious artists and a host of others came and went, projected alternative points of view and moved on. Although the action centred on the hustle and bustle of the tumbling down school, it opened out onto the streets of Dublin, houses, flats, offices, government buildings, courts and graveyards and covered a formidable amount of ground in its ten episodes.
Not that Irish viewers saw that much of it. The fifth episode was the last to be transmitted. This episode concerned the night classes held at the Spike, being a school with a heavy commitment to adult community education, in addition to its responsibilities to youth in the area of the post-primary curriculum. The episode was full of the author’s characteristic humour, which he felt to be an important dimension of the series, so as not to present a picture of unrelieved gloom. The camera cut throughout from the corridors to the classrooms, highlighting three classes in particular: the Bernard T Mullins confidence course, the ‘know your fur’ class and the ‘cleaning science’ class. While its humour had its moments, such as Bernard T. Mullins reeking of whiskey to get himself the confidence to face a new confidence class or a candidate for the modelling position declaring she had the specified measurements only to be told she was confusing inches with centimetres, but on the whole the humour was glib and clumsy and usually missed the mark. It would have been worth tackling Irish inhibitions regarding verbal and tactile communication and worth exploring negative attitudes to the human body implicit in the taboo against nakedness, even perhaps with a touch of well-aimed humour. But this script was most definitely not the way to do so and the humour was most emphatically not well-aimed.
In the course of one night’s confidence class, those who began too shy to speak were, by the end of the session, wandering the corridors mauling total strangers out of the blue. When the principal walked in the middle of the ‘shy class’ they were invited to practice their touches on him, from the matey arm around the shoulder to the ‘friendly crotch touch’. In the course of one night’s art class, the art teacher began by making an aggressive case for the necessity of a nude model, waxing eloquently on serpentine lines of beauty and undulating curves. He then found a suitable model in a woman from the shy class who proceeded to undress and come on to him seductively. He proceeded to lose his composure completely and dismiss the class. He ended up declaring ludicrously that he would not expose what was suddenly his fiance to the vulgar gaze of bankers, butchers and spinsters. It was too false to be funny, even for those who might have wanted to laugh and saw the comic potential in the material. It was too crude to elicit any real sympathy, even among those predisposed to be open-minded in broaching such subjects.
Regarding the notorious nude scene, it must be said that, however heavy-handed the script, the style of shooting brought to it by the director, Noel O Briain, was extremely cautious and restrained. Once undressed, the woman’s body was first seen from side and front angles from behind a screen. Then when posing for the art class, the body was first shot from behind only from the hips up in a medium close-up, followed by a view of the full body from the side, but only in long shot. When turning to the classical reclining pose, there was only a long shot of the full body and a medium shot from the hips up. Nevertheless, no matter how good or bad the script, no matter how delicate or brash the direction, all hell broke loose over the fact that there was a nude scene at all. This was the centre of focus in the furore that followed and it remains in popular memory as the rock on which The Spike foundered and the reason why it was taken off the air.
The truth was that there were pressures building up against the series the whole time it was in production and that there was a climate of hostility established against it before it ever went on the air. There were rumours and press reports of rumblings and reservations in the department of education before anyone even saw it. There were objections from the christian brothers, who had heard the name of the school was to be St. Aidan’s, seemingly believing that running a school by the same name gave them proprietary rights over its use. Once it was on the air, Brother Vivian Cassells denounced the series as having nothing to offer and called on RTE to take if off the air after the fourth episode, and to “consign the remaining six to the obscurity they deserve.” The television columns and letters pages of the national and provincial press were full of negative reviews and condemnations of the programme for vulgar and obscene language, for poor production standards, for gross distortion in its picture of the education system. There were features on schools taking pains to demonstrate how unlike the Spike they were. Even the more favourably disposed reviewers criticised it for being exaggerated and heavy-handed. Tom O’Dea, in The Irish Press, bent over backwards to find its redeeming features, but had to admit it showed ‘signs of overloading’. 12 Ken Gray, in The Irish Times, called it ‘gross exaggeration’ and sympathised with actors struggling with intractable material. He also commented on a ‘naive, adolescent approach to sex’. 13
The Spike began to appear on the agendas of political bodies. Press reports of official condemnations added their weight to the mounting pressures. Waterford county council called it a slur on teachers. Fermoy urban council called it vulgar and suggestive. RTE could be in no doubt that they were broadcasting over troubled waters. However, once the nude scene appeared, the troubled waters swelled to flood proportions. The founder of the League of Decency, JB Murray, suffered a heart attack, attributed to the stress caused by the sight of the naked female body on the television screen. His wife told the papers that the family had tried to stop him watching it, but he insisted on doing so. He got very worked up at the nude scene and was phoning the newspapers to complain when he came to grief over the ‘filthy play’. 14 The incident received much publicity and took its place in the folklore of modern Ireland, as virtually all factions agreed on its symbolic significance in giving sharp and concrete expression to the characteristic tensions and ironies of Irish society in the television era.
In the days and weeks that followed, The Spike in general, and the nude scene in particular, were the talk of the town in virtually every town and townland in the country. Those who missed it felt they had missed a crucial event in the life of the nation. RTE’s drama policy, the nation’s morals and Madeleine Erskine’s body were on centre stage in the most heated cultural controversy of decades. It was a major talking point in homes, schools, offices and pubs. It was a prominent item on the agenda of the most diverse meetings. It was a point of reference in court cases. Day by day, the lore surrounding it swelled, reaching ever more farcical heights of hilarity, at least for those who were not too angry or too bruised to see the funny side of it. Jim Fitzgerald claimed he had been assaulted by a fat elderly lady, who asked him if he had been in The Spike, and then thumped him when he said yes. RTE was flooded with phone calls, telegrams and letters of protest. There was a new wave of resolutions from public bodies, this time not only condemning the series, but demanding it be banned. There were newspaper editorials calling for its withdrawal. The Fine Gael spokesman on education, Eddie Collins, urged the director-general to put a stop to the programme as “an indefensible and unjustifiable attack on the teaching profession and authorities.” 15 . In the discussion leading up to Limerick county council’s unanimous condemnation, it was said that there was no school in Ireland even remotely resembling the Spike and it was asked what was the reason for concocting a school where everybody, teachers and students alike, seemed depraved. It was then claimed that problems had arisen in a Limerick city school, where there had previously been no problems, that were directly attributable to The Spike. 16
When the announcement came that the series was to be withdrawn, it was front page news. Sub-editors found it impossible to resist a spate of articles headed “The Spike is spiked and The spiking of The Spike. Telegrams of congratulations and resolutions of support came pouring into RTE.
However, if the decision went a long way towards relieving the pressure brought to bear from outside, it in turn pressed hard upon the points of pressure from inside. The decision, not surprisingly, sparked off a bitter controversy within RTE. The director-general, Oliver Maloney, who took the decision, defended the decision on the basis that the series “had failed to achieve its programming objectives.” 17 The RTE authority backed the director-general and stated that the series was making RTE a “target of ridicule.” 18 The controller, however, took sharp issue with the director-general. Muiris Mac Conghail, who was controller at the time of its transmission though not at the time of its production, issued a confidential memorandum to programme makers, which was discussed at an unprecedented meeting of all production staff and union representatives within RTE and quoted in the public press. Mac Conghail stated unequivocally that the decision would be seen ”as a victory for and by those whose criticism of the series are provoked by prudish, or indeed, illiberal and censorious considerations”. To cease transmission in mid-run was “to give substance and definition for a long time to a rather narrowly-based articulation of morality”. It would have, he asserted, “serious implications for future drama policy”. He admitted that much of the criticism had been well-founded, but he felt that there was a “slightly hysterical note prevailing in the public debate and that there was “frankly, also a considerable class reaction to the series”. He believed that the series did not transgress public morality or acceptable public taste and should be continued. 19 Basically his view, as he expressed it publicly later, was that RTE made two mistakes in relation to The Spike: the first was putting it on and the second was taking it off. Although it was badly written and made under difficult conditions, it was withdrawn for the wrong reasons. RTE should have taken more time over it and then stood by it. Instead, it was done in a hurry and RTE lost its confidence and its courage. 20
Noel O Briain, the producer, also defended the programme strongly at the time. He denied that the nude scene was meant to titillate and argued that its purpose was to examine attitudes to nudity. He pointed to the double standard of the audience, who had not complained of nude scenes in foreign programmes transmitted by RTE. He asked:
“Why was it all right for an American or a black woman to appear naked on Irish television screens but not an Irish woman” ? 21
Looking back, he conceded that the series should have been done in a more subtle way, but believed it should have been allowed to continue and find its way. He was convinced at the time, and remained so, that it was taken off more for its controversial view of the education system than for any other reason. 22 Patrick Gilligan, the author, also referred to the double standard of the audience and considered the opposition to the The Spike to be a vote for imported programmes. He pointed to the programme’s high TAM ratings and insisted that it had considerable support. As to charges of crudity, this was debatable. 23 Coming to his defence was fellow scriptwriter David Hayes, who referred to Gilligan as a “victim of our two-tone morality, whiter than white on the surface and murky underneath”. This, he believed, was the reason for RTE giving in to the craw-thumpers. 24 Jim Fitzgerald, talking to the press with a plaster on his forehead, denounced the decision as censorship and as a return to the days when Sean O’Faolain and Frank O’Connor were banned. He asked if RTE was going to be controlled by JB Murray and the League of Decency. 25 Others, while inclined to sympathise with the aims of the series, found it difficult to sympathise with its execution. Michael Judge, himself both a teacher and a scriptwriter, felt it was ham-fisted and chaotic, that it was almost as if it had gone on a suicide course. 26 Still others were anxious not to let off the hook those who hid behind its inadequacies in execution to avoid facing the facts that it was its intention to disclose. The jesuit sociologist, Micheal MacGreil, suggested that there might have been more truth in the stricken series than most people had been prepared to admit. 27 The Irish Times education correspondent, Christina Murphy, asked how different the public reaction would have been, if it had been the most sophisticated production RTE had ever put in the can. She conjectured:
“ The cries of horror would have been only marginally less vocal. I doubt if the League of Decency would have accepted a nude scene, however tastefully and relevantly presented. I equally doubt the ability of many teachers to accept an honest look at vocational schools written by Shakespeare and produced by Lew Grade”. 28
Although the presentation was gauche and this resulted in an air of incredibility, she nevertheless believed The Spike had a lot to say which was very true. Her own coverage of vocational schools confirmed the facts about students working in the evenings, about problems of classroom discipline, about rows over nude models in art classes, about teachers making passes at pupils and pupils making passes at teachers. 29 Hot Press asked why it was that extreme conservatism was always considered more respectable than liberalism. 30
Nevertheless, the battle lines were drawn and many who jumped into the fray were ill-disposed to take pains over the finer points of the aesthetics or politics of the series. The taoiseach, Jack Lynch, used the occasion of the Jacob’s awards to express his support for the decision to take The Spike off the air, despite the fact that he had not seen it. Needless to say, his insistence that, “speaking objectively”, the director-general and the RTE authority had been right, did not go down very well with the programme makers in attendance. The forces were lining up to rub salt in the open wounds. The Irish Catholic went out of its way to point out that, for once, RTE liberals could not blame the bishops. It was the plain people of Ireland who had called them to account for their artistic crudity and moral laxity. 31 While this claim was not completely without warrant, there was also evidence of a certain degree of orchestration of the public response by church institutions. For example, in the letters that came into RTE, there were a number from the same class at Presentation Convent, all using almost the same language, each claiming to be an individual child offended by the programme. JB Murray meanwhile thanked the plain people of Ireland for the enormous number of cards and messages of support that came pouring into St. Vincent’s Hospital. He took exception to the remarks of Muiris MacConghail and Jim Fitzgerald, which he regarded as offensive, and was glad to see the tables turned on such liberals who had too often got their way.
Meanwhile, the trade unions took their stand. The producers union, the Workers Union of Ireland, supported the stand taken by the controller. The actors union, Equity, did as well and expressed its members determination that the actors involved, particularly Madeleine Erskine, not be victimised. The teachers unions, in this case, were on the other side. On and on it went. It even found its way onto the order paper of Dail Eireann, when Dr. Noel Browne, TD asked if the cancellation of the series was to be taken as the precedent for a new form of censorship.
The audience research service at RTE issued several very detailed reports on The Spike, both before and after cancellation. The opinions of the panel were somewhat more complex and differentiated than those who took the initiative to write in or phone the station. The bottom line, however, in the post-cancellation survey, was that 66% believed that the series as a whole was poor. 56% approved of RTE’s decision to stop transmission, while 39% disapproved. 49% said RTE should not transmit the remaining episodes. 26% advocated transmission and a further 21% recommended transmission linked to a studio discussion of the series. (RTE Audience Research Reports February 28, March 3 and Apri126, 1978).
In retrospect, it can be said that The Spike was a brave, sincere and progressive attempt to use drama to raise public consciousness on public issues of considerable public importance. However, it was, it also must be said, an attempt that fairly clearly failed to achieve its objectives. This was both because of external pressures, which were unquestionably unfair and excessive, and because of internal deficiencies, which put its defence on weak ground when it came under such stridently strong attack. Without doubt, it ran to ground for many reasons. The question remains as to whether it would have been taken off if controversial matters had been raised with greater subtlety and sophistication, if the scriptwriting had been more adept, if production standards had been higher. On balance, there is still reason to believe that the pressure to do so would have been there, no matter how impressively it had been done, due to its explicit treatment of human sexuality, its unflattering picture of the education system and its oppositional stance in relation to the exercise of power by both church and state.
Perhaps the most controversial material was in the untransmitted episodes. Most certainly the transmission of these would have heated up the already heated controversy to boiling point. The next episode scheduled to go out concerned youthful IRA activity and the influence of an Irish teacher’s fervent nationalism upon his idealistic students. After showing the atmosphere of mystification of nation, sex and death in the Irish class, matters came to ahead with the news that a boy in the class had been blown to bits transporting explosives at the border. Although at first full of heroic tribute to the lad’s patriotism and supreme sacrifice, the first real pressure upon the teacher’s convictions brought an abrupt volte face, turning from the most traditional and romantic republicanism to the most cynical and flippant revisionism. Again the author short-circuited any serious reflection on the serious issues involved by substituting an abrupt volte face for which no psychological grounding had been given. With the characterisation so lacking in credibility and the issues at stake getting such short shrift, it would have surely failed to achieve either dramatic effect or moral enlightenment.
Another episode which might not have gone down very well, with either liberal or conservative sections of the population, though for different reasons, was the one on prostitution. On the one hand, it elicited a certain sympathy for prostitutes by highlighting the plight of Rosaleen who had left school at eight and who had to overcome both illiteracy and fear of being fried by her pimp-cum-chip-van-proprietor. It also showed prostitutes as having a certain pride in earning their money, which made them seem superior to nagging and grasping wives. On the other hand, it enunciated only two points of view regarding prostitution. The first was that of the police superintendent, who believed that the world’s oldest profession provided a socially necessary safety valve and that its elimination would leave a dangerous vacuum. The second was that of O’Mahony, who believed that it was a degraded life and wanted to set up night classes for prostitutes to offer them a way out, by teaching them deportment, nutrition, social skills and home making. Essentially, his idea was to reform them by making them marriageable. As O’Mahony analysed their situation, what it came down to was this:
“I can’t imagine a girl wanting to spread herself under a jobber for a fiver, when she could marry him and have the lot.”
Although it told a certain truth, however unintended, about the sordid side of the institution of marriage that might put it below the institution of prostitution, it was hardly a very progressive point of view. Between the police superintendent and the school principal, and perhaps the author wavering between the two, there seemed no point of entry to the sort of expansion of horizons for women which feminists of the day had in mind.
The author’s engagement with the sort of issues raised by the women’s liberation movement, as relevant to the scenario he had staked out, was quite primitive. Such confrontation as there was was most explicit in the final episode, in which the struggle for power within the school converged with a contemporary form of the age old battle of the sexes. Finding the most formidable competition for the top post in the form of a young female, who was not only highly attractive, but had higher academic qualifications, O’Mahony’s reaction was a combination of an unreconstructed horniness and sexist deviousness. The script throughout the series in general, but in this episode in particular, was full of sexist humour, which would have been all right if there had been anything else in the script to counterpoint it or to highlight it with some sort of critical edge. However, there was no indication of anything in the author’s own point of view rising above it. Running through the series was a particular male view of the female of the species, and not a very mature or sophisticated one at that, dominated by a somewhat adolescent, voyeuristic approach to female sexuality. It was a viewpoint of men superficially aware of the impact of the women’s liberation movement, but not significantly affected by it.
In the end, there was little ground for anyone to stand on to defend it. Those who would have been willing to accept a critical perspective on the education system and explicit reference to human sexuality were undercut by the clumsiness of treatment of the issues, the superficiality of the characterisation and the immaturity of the underlying point of view.
The legacy left by The Spike is hard to assess. If the result was to emphasise that new ground should be broken with much greater care and that the critique of existing social systems and of prevailing sexual mores should be approached with greater maturity and sophistication, there would have been something to show for this unfortunate episode in Irish television history. If, however, no such explicit lesson was drawn from it, and the result was to reinforce a posture of nervousness and timidity and a reluctance to risk offending any sizeable section of the audience, it may have actually set back efforts to open up drama to the terrain of dealing with the controversial growing points of contemporary society.
Social and Political Satire
Not all of the tension generated by this sort of timidity resulted in programmes being taken off the air. However, the failure to give full support to controversial programmes brought a certain disaffection among those who were willing to risk sailing close to the wind.
This was the case with some of the best political and social satire produced by RTE, particularly the two Niall Toibin series If the Cap Fits (1973) and Time Now, Mr. T (1977). Every programme in these two series was a veritable tour de force on the part of Niall Toibin, who did much of the scriptwriting and played an enormous number of roles.
In the course of the short sketches of If the Cap Fits, he appeared as ninety different characters, encompassing such roles as taoiseach, RTE newsreader, RTE arts presenter, IRA chief of staff, unionist ideologue, Dublin trade union leader, sports journalist, bishop, priest, nun and a host of others, leaving virtually no prototypical figure of contemporary Irish life with its comic potential untapped. The characters were not simply vague types, however, but cut to the bone in the way the taoiseach was so acutely Liam Cosgrave, the IRA chief of staff so obviously Cathal Goulding, the bishop so recognisably Eamonn Casey. Some were amalgams. The Dublin trade union leader was conceived as a combination of Mickey Mullen and Mattie Merrigan, though when Niall Toibin had occasion to see either of them afterwards, he thought it very funny that Mickey Mullen took it to be Mattie Merrigan and Mattie Merrigan took it to be Mickey Mullen. 32
In the longer sketches of Time Now, Mr. T, he gave in depth interviews uncovering the layers of personality in guises ranging from St. Patrick to Edna O’Brien. He came forward as well as the midlands auctioneer raging war alike on communists, street traders and taxmen, as the northern protestant savant expounding on the nature of the southern state, as the cynical Corkman seeing Dublin imperialism in an RTE announcer’s “good evening”, as another Dublin trade union leader with a difficult wife. The scripts were highly literate and the performances were extremely energetic, generating an effervescent humour that was both intelligent and earthy at the same time. Many of the laughs came from verbal ironies based on misconceived metaphors, malapropisms, mispronunciations, mistranslations, incongruous juxtapositions, double entendre and grandiloquent phraseology applied to banal realities. There was the taoiseach’s speech about “the fledgling filly that was our free state” and the need to root out “mongrel foxes and other vermin” and to deal with “this ring of shysters and shop stewards”. There was the RTE continuity announcer giving a posh but ignorant pronunciation to every other word. There was the commentary on the film Last Tango in Dingle, full of pseudo sophisticated jargon about the “screen dialectic” and “aesthetic-didactic conflict”, full of small nation pride in a product unique in that “almost two of the actors were Irish and another almost Irish, another almost an actor”. The Irish film with English subtitles translated “led thoil” as “right on” and “A bhfuil tu fuar?” as “Are you frigid?”. Then the credits rolled on and on:
script by Dominic Behan
adapted by Hugh Leonard
based on an original idea by Ulick O’Connor
based on a novel by Bryan MacMahon…
There was also the sketch of a programme Eyeball to Eyeball with Proinsias Mac Anguish talking to Sean Mac Giolla Stiophan beginning every sentence in historical send-up:
“you were born in O’Connell Street in 1916…
“you were chief of staff of six wings of the republican movement
“your motherless child scheme
“your two left wing tracts: “Ireland further from God” and “Ireland even further from God”…
Then there was the ponderous intellectual taking his stand against violence and refusing to give the Oliver Cromwell memorial lecture on the same platform as Cathal Goulding. There was the attempt to put crime in context in giving the biographical details of a pickpocket, “stricken with poverty in his adultery”.
Although the humour was highly verbal, the nuances of facial and gestural performance, as well as the skills of makeup and wardrobe in establishing each persona, gave it a visual dimension that did much to intensify the pleasure in its ironies and to justify the use of television as a medium. Often the humour was in visual / verbal juxtaposition, such as in a sequence which consisted simply of a succession of stills of Fianna Fail government ministers with only laughter on the sound track. Sometimes the visual aspect carried the humour, as when featuring artefacts embodying the tackiness of Irish visual culture and connecting the Irish film industry with diversification in the direction of a company making plastic porcupines for children’s baths and Pope Paul lampshades.
No one could say that these series chose soft targets. They took on the institutions of church and state, legal and illegal organisations, indeed RTE itself. Those involved knew they were dealing with controversial material and were not surprised to meet with oppositional calls and letters from certain sections of the audience. However, both Niall Toibin and Brian MacLochlainn, the producer of the series, were disappointed at the lack of support within RTE. When Niall Toibin did a sketch as a female social worker discussing self-abuse, there were phone calls and letters protesting, to which RTE responded with apologies. Toibin naturally felt let down and left to wonder whether the amount of stick was really worth it. He concluded that the country was obviously not ready for satire. There was, he believed, a huge amount of self-righteousness in the country that needed to be pulled up by laughing at it. The attempt to do so had brought him criticism such as he had never faced in his career. He was beset with accusations of trying to pervert, corrupt and deprave the entire Irish nation. Brian Mac Lochlainn, for his part, felt let down when RTE would not approve another series. 33
Another series of the same era, most definitely RTE’s bravest and best period for social and political satire, was the long running and fondly remembered Hall’s Pictorial Weekly. It had its origins in the Newsbeat programme, in which its editor Frank Hall scoured the highways and byways of Ireland in search of colourful characters and off-beat situations. According to Hall, it occurred to him one day that he would be much more the master of the situation, if he simply sat at home and wrote the sketches, instead of beating the bushes. 34 As it happened, Hall wrote a script about “the finest minister for hardship which this country ever had”, which Eamonn Morrissey masterfully played as Liam Cosgrave. The character caught on like wildfire. It continued and developed over the next years and became indelibly sketched on folk memory. Other characters emerged too as cartoon counterparts of various familiar figures of the times. The programme is best remembered for its anarchist lampooning both of specific politicians and of the political process itself. Its great contribution, as John Boland put it in Hibernia, was in its lampooning of the political, cultural and business leaders of “our parish pump society in which private malice never matured into public satire”. 35 Although Toibin and Hall were willing to challenge their audience to come to that sort of maturity and much of the audience were more than willing to get into it, others were not. Brigid Hogan O’Higgins complained about it in the Dail. Other national politicians refrained from public comment on it. Provincial politicians, however, did not refrain and county councillors were forever giving out about the slagging of county councillors. All the same, problems arose over meetings of the Longford urban district council conflicting with the programme for councillors who didn’t want to miss it.
Hall’s Pictorial Weekly was at its strongest during the 1973-1977 term of the Fine Gael-Labour coalition government. So sharp and constant was its satirical send up of the government ministers of the time, that it is generally accepted that the programme played an important part in bringing the coalition into disrepute and perhaps even contributed to bringing it down. Once the coalition was out and Fianna Fail was back in again, the programme was never quite the same. There were still funny sketches about Bord Failte and nuns joining trade unions and RTE reporters getting progressively more drunk at every press session they attended. It even had a go at highlighting the hilarity surrounding The Spike scenario. However, the edge seemed to have gone out of its political satire, which was always the programme’s strong point. The columnists began to observe a slide, attributed to the programme being soft on Fianna Fail. The character based on the taoiseach, Jack Lynch, was essentially a benign figure. Despite the fact that there were as many targets worthy of satirical treatment as ever, at least in the view of the commentators, the programme never quite managed to rise to it in their opinion.36 This did not stop Fianna Fail councillors from giving out about such satire as was directed towards them. However, their Fine Gael and Labour counterparts were quick to point out that they had only become unhappy with Frank Hall since the change of government. Their opponents found it quite amusing to observe their response, now that the boot was on the other foot. 37
As it turned out, with one thing or another, including Eamonn Morrissey moving on and Frank Hall becoming the film censor, Hall’s Pictorial Weekly came to the end of its long run by the end of the decade. In its time, it went very close to the bone and it was to RTE’s credit to have sustained such a sharp production for so long. According to producer Peter McEvoy, those involved in making the programme often felt that RTE management was nervous enough about what they were doing, but they never intervened and the programme always proceeded with a free hand. The politicians may have been unhappy and may indeed have complained, but they would have placed themselves in a ridiculous situation, if it ever came to libel suits, in the act of identifying themselves with ludicrous fictional characters. 38
Political Drama: North and South
Satire was not the only mode of dramatic response to the character of political life in contemporary Ireland. It was, however, the only arena in which the politics of contemporary Ireland, at least of the Republic of Ireland, received up front, center stage dramatic treatment. Otherwise anything that was so explicitly political was only present as a subtext or else it was either set in the past or set in the north.
There were strong subtextual currents giving a more sober look at the darker side of the political culture of the southern state. They were really only glimpses, but they were often pictures which struck a resonating chord and left a lingering impression. Reinforcing a growing cynicism about politicians, there were the images of the cynical and opportunist Paco Kelly TD, the parliamentary secretary in The Spike and the ambitious and amoral Willie Burke, the up-and-coming politician come night-club-owner, symbolising certain lines of connection between criminal and political activities in The Burke Enigma. In one of the rare televisual images of a left wing activist, there was the combat-jacketted maoist in A Week in the Life of Martin Cluxton, whose politics of class struggle was undercut by its status as impotent pub talk. In a less pessimistic vein, there were the ongoing activities of Tom Riordan in his continuing role as a county councillor in The Riordans. However, most of the drama of contemporary politics was preoccupied with Northern Ireland. Some of it was set in the south, dealing with the spillover effect of the current ‘troubles’ in the country as a whole. Sometimes it was incidental and soft-centred as in the 1974 episodes of The Riordans, when children from the violent north were brought down to the more peaceful south for the Christmas season of good will. However, in 1978, after The Riordans had moved from serial to series form, it took a harder look at the choices posed by the north to those adhering to republican traditions in the south. In an episode called The Class of 64, the centre of dramatic confrontation was in the dilemma of Benjy Riordan, when he found himself torn between his past principles and his present compromises. The conflict emerged in a particularly acute form, when Stevie, an old college friend, came seeking help as a wounded IRA man on the run, and when Maggie, despite the dangers of non-co-operation, persisted in her uncompromising hostility to the armed campaign. To Stevie, Benjy represented betrayal. As he put it to him:
“Nothing like a wife and child and a few hundred acres to change your principles”.
For his part, Benjy had fond memories of college days and singing ballads like Kevin Barry. He still wanted to see a united Ireland, but had learned to be content with what he had. So had many others. With the onset of the troubles and with the years since, the tide had gone out and left those like Stevie high and dry. To Maggie, they could afford to be rebels in those days. There wasn’t much at stake for them then, but now it was necessary to make a choice. It was necessary to decide whether to spill blood or not. Benjy felt that both Stevie and Maggie were too uncompromising. Maggie felt that Benjy still wanted to have it both ways. In the end, resolution came when Benjy disarmed Stevie, who seemed to be asleep, and signalled the gardai who were waiting outside due to Maggie’s earlier decision. The viewer was left to decide whether Stevie had really fallen asleep or only pretended. Although the ambivalence of the resolution was the real point of the episode, it presented at least one way of posing the choices in a plausible way, which drew on the credibility and identification built up in relation to long-established characters.
Of course, credibility and identification could also be established, although differently, in shorter series and single plays. In other forms as well, there was an attempt to mobilise these in relation to the human dimensions of the northern situation. The Spike had also attempted to portray the divergent paths taken by those in the south who had felt called upon to make choices in relation to the north and to face the consequences of their republican principles in their own lives. The episode concerning the idealistic student turned IRA volunteer, who was blown to bits at the border, and the idealistic teacher turned coward and cynic the first time his beliefs came under any pressure, failed to reach its audience at all. Even if it had been broadcast, it would almost surely have failed to establish credibility or identification, because of its serious deficiencies in characterisation.
A more substantial piece challenging southern attitudes to the northern strife was Alun Owen’s play Passing Through. The plot concerned the catalytic effect of the presence of an outsider asking questions of the locals, amidst the niceties of Dublin’s suburban lounge bar culture. Peter Field, a high flying international news correspondent, moving from one of the world’s war zones to another, was passing through Dublin on his way to Belfast. He insistently probed beneath the surface pleasantries and asked people to state their point of view, when they wished only to skirt around the edges of a subject or to avoid it altogether and get on with a bit of light craic. Not that Field was above the craic. It was just that he got his kicks by turning over stones to see what would crawl out. He persistently pushed all and sundry to declare their political allegiances, in an atmosphere in which this had heretofore been studiously avoided. One by one, he stormed their defences:
Peter: “How do you feel about a united Ireland?”
Will: “You’re joking. I don’t talk politics in bars.”
Peter: “No? Well you should. You’re an Irish American and your people pump a lot of money into this country that winds up as guns. So I think I’m entitled to ask”.
Moving to the next:
Peter: “ Just how far is Belfast from where we are now?”
Liam: “100 odd miles.”
Peter: “I’ d have thought it more like a thousand, there’s not much mention of it around here. “
Liam: “Why would there be? Don’t we get it in the papers, on the telly, on the wireless, sure there’s no escaping it. We all know it’s there. Jaysus, they wouldn’t let you forget it, but I don’t feel inclined to ruin my Sunday morning jar over a pack of mad dogs killing each other above. If I was to worry about anything, it’ d be making sure it don’t come down here.”
Then, after a brief skirmish with a businessman, for whom the bottom line was that bombs were bad for business, Field turned to his natural antagonist, a parlour provo:
Peter: “So, right off, what’s your answer to this mess in the north?”
Dick: “I think like we all think when we’re honest with ourselves. I wish you and your soldiers would get to buggery out of our country and leave it to us. We’ll settle it. Are you answered?”
Peter: “You’ve a point, but what about all the innocent that might get killed?”
Dick: (Dismissively) “Oh, for Jaysus sake, will they amount to any more than the guilty that are going at the moment?”
After a bit of diversion and one of the group singing under his breath “Glorio, glorio to the bold fenian men”, the exchange flared up again:
Dick: “I’ve never heard so much codology in me life. You’re going there with a set of attitudes as rigid as railway lines without points”
Peter: “And so far as I’m concerned, you haven’t got an original idea on the subject, just a set of inherited, insular, provincial prejudices that have no relationship to the contemporary world which you seem determined not to live in.”
Jolyon: “Dick, you must make allowances for a situation that’s defied solution for ten years.”
Dick: “Ten years is it? Eight hundred and ten more like.“
Peter: “You’re talking ancient history, man.”
Eamonn: “Can you not agree to disagree?”
Dick: “That’s you, Eamonn, anything for a quiet life and a merc in the garage. I give up.”
Peter: “I wish a few more of your countrymen would,”
Dick: “You’ve no need of worries there. Most of hem have, just pray it’ll go away or at least sweep it under the carpet.”
Then an attempt to push his fellow countrymen into the scuffle:
Peter: “This is a hell of a country, but seemingly you take it in your stride.”
Jolyon: “I’m a bit lazy about social attitudes and refrain from shouting ‘to hell with the pope’ on the quays.”
As for his old friend, a Welsh author living in Ireland as a tax exile, who had been resolutely staying clear, his taunts constantly met with expressions of his non-committed stance:
Dai: I’m apolitical, always have been.”
To which his friend astutely replied:
Peter: “one is, except politicians”.
Continuing to give his verdict on his friend and on the country:
Peter: “ you’ve managed to make your selfishness seem a virtue. This country’s perfect for you. There’s no edge or worry about the place. It’s ostrich land, perfect for you, Dai, but not much use to me in what I’ll be looking for.”
Will: “ Well, I’ll give you this. You certainly managed to stroke the complacent cat’s fur the wrong way.”
In an interesting twist to the tale at the end, raising questions about the activities of foreign intelligence services in Ireland, the British and American neighbours of the Welsh writer were agents, long aware of Field’s continuing history of being a thorn in the side of their agencies. After his activities in Korea, Aden, Vietnam, etc, turning out stuff that was truthful and dangerous the decision had been taken that he be terminated. The north of Ireland was to be the end of the road.
Revealing as it was about certain types of foreigners resident in Ireland, the real point of the play was to use their presence to counterpoint the manners and mores of the natives. As seen by Louis Lentin, who, as head of drama, commissioned the work for RTE:
“Alun Owen uses this situation to present a recognisable and telling picture, not of the foreigners, but of the local Irish and their wives, of the lip service that permeates so much of Irish society at all levels. Who fears to speak of ’98 can be sung and sung loudly, but who bothers to really speak of anything? Of the North? Of 68-79? Anybody? Field may be a troublemaker, but at least he speaks to the point. Ireland of the welcomes is all very well… on the wall.” 39
It was a challenging play that hopefully left somebody somewhere with lingering thoughts about the questions it raised.
Of course, most of the drama dealing with the north was set in the north. There was, first of all, the 1970 revival of Sam Thompson’s controversial 1960 play Over the Bridge, which the troubles had made more topical than ever. Taking advantage of the new production of the play on the stages of the Lyric (Belfast) and the Gaiety (Dublin), Chloe Gibson arranged for an RTE production in the same year. Drawing on his own experience as a worker and trade union activist in the Belfast shipyards, Sam Thompson turned to dramatised portrayal to highlight the strident sectarianism within the shipyards and the dilemma it posed for the trade union movement. In a confrontation between an anti-sectarian trade union leader and an orange rabble rouser, with most of the rank and file foundering on the fences, the tension built to a shattering climax, when the trade union leader was beaten to death by the men he had so conscientiously served, creating a vivid symbol of the brutal tragedy of the situation.
Another play which had come from the Belfast stage was John Boyd’s The Flats. Set in strife-torn Belfast in 1970, it adopted a semi-documentary style, recording in a matter-of-fact way the immediate realities of familial and tribal upheaval, in the escalating cycle of hostility prevailing at the time, in an attempt to convey the essential tragedy of the situation in a particular sort of way. Although from a protestant background, the author focused the drama on a catholic family, whose home was in the middle of the firing line. Within the Donellan household, the conflict centred on the militant involvement of father and son in the local citizens defence committee, against the wishes of mother and daughter. It captured the claustrophobia, the squalor and the sense of siege enveloping the world of Unity Flats. It communicated a sense of the communal disruption and dispossession as experienced on the ground.
Set in Glasgow flats was another stage play bearing on the northern conflict given a television production by RTE. On one level, The Sash by Hector McMillan was a Romeo and Juliet love story across the orange and green divide. A young woman, pregnant and nerve shattered, had come to stay with her aunt in Glasgow for a bit of peace and solace away from the strife of Belfast, only to be confronted with the 12th of July belligerence of the Glasgow variety of bigoted orangemen. Her aunt, Miss Shaughnessy, was a strident foe of protestant triumphalism, symbolised primarily by her neighbour in the flat below. Bill McWilliam was big, bragging, boozy orangeman, who believed:
“If you give the taigs an inch, they’ll be over us like that”
When his son declined to wear the sash his father wore he was furious. The play was not, however, simply the protestant-boy meets-catholic-girl and how hopeless it all is when caught in the vicious cycle of sectarian prejudice and violence. The play was essentially about the emergence of a spark of hope in those who could come to realise:
“Yet all the blood we both have drawn
‘Twas red, not orange or green.”
It was a play with a message and a clearly left of centre one at that:
“Tell them to hell with orange and green.
Match your banner to the colour of your common blood.”
Not relying entirely on adaptation, however, RTE produced four original written-for-television plays set in the north, all by Eugene McCabe. The earliest, made in 1970, was The Funeral. It was basically the story of an ill-starred and isolated gentleman farmer, Cecil Maxwell, who reluctantly decided to attend the funeral of a catholic neighbour, thereby bringing upon himself the blackest crisis of his bleak life. Underneath the hearty and smiling welcome, he sensed the daggers. He was, for the author, the vehicle for his elegy for the rural Anglo-Irish, who had failed to adapt.
The most distinguished achievement of RTE in this area was its award winning production of McCabe’s Victims trilogy of the mid-seventies. It was a new departure for RTE in the scale and style of its production and was filmed on location in colour. All three plays were set in the present in the same part of Northern Ireland, the rural farmlands of South Fermanagh, involving crucial episodes in the lives of a loosely inter-related set of characters. A minor character in one story would be a major character in the next and vice versa. There was a definite build-up in the nature of the tension in each story.
The first story, Cancer, centred on the lives of two elderly bachelor brothers living in a derelict small farm. The play opened with overhead shots of an idyllic countryside, almost as if a travelogue panorama, with a similarly engaging musical sound track. This idyll was quickly shattered, however, first by RTE news of northern troubles on the car radio, then by the army helicopter and then by the discovery that the two men in the car were travelling to visit one’s brother in hospital dying of cancer. Cancer, through the play, functioned both literally as the physical disease killing one man’s body and metaphorically as the psycho-social disease killing the soul of both a particular man and a whole community. Dinny McMahon, with all of his spitting, venomous bigotry, was portrayed as in fact sicker than his brother Joady with terminal cancer. In every possible situation, Dinny was growling and grumbling at the British Army, at the UDR, at his protestant neighbours, at his catholic neighbours, even at his dying brother. Even their catholic neighbours saw the protestant caricature of catholics embodied in them. With nothing to do all day but draw the dole and sit by the fire, they couldn’t even manage to wash themselves or keep their house decent. Whatever their hostility to protestants, it wasn’t as if they were really even catholics, with never a mass or any other religious practice. At the same time, whatever their anti-establishment rumblings and the implication that they were communists, a neighbour made it clear that she knew what real communists would do with the likes of them.
The second story, Heritage, traced the growing crisis, building out of more overtly political forces, in the lives of a protestant family of working farmers and part-time soldiers in the UDR. The tension centred on the situation of Eric O’Neill, 21 year old farmer and UDR member, living under the same roof as his estranged parents. Torn asunder, being pushed and pulled from all sides by people with conflicting points of view and by forces he could neither comprehend nor control, he was without definite beliefs, without clear loyalties, without a firm centre from which he could sort it all out and hold his ground. Within his community, within his own family, within his own soul, the contending forces bore down upon him, bringing increasing confusion and terror. Within the community, he felt all around him the sinister presence of the anonymous killers, who had him on their death list, everywhere watching, waiting, scraping, clawing, gorging like rats. Yet he thought of the catholic neighbours he knew, all good, hard working people. He saw as well the sinister side of the protestant community of which he was a part. He listened to their talk of blind hatred and looked around the church full of loving tributes to violent death. Yet there were those he cared for, particularly Rachel, nurse and neighbour who cared for him as well. Within his family, he had given in to pressure from his mother and uncle to join the UDR, however alienated he felt from their hard, hating, humourless, sexless, black sectarianism. He felt a sympathy for the position of his father, who did not wish him to join the UDR and did his best to stand clear of sectarian divisions. His father had come in the previous story to visit Joady McMahon, his catholic neighbour who was dying. His attitude was:
“If one neighbour in ten thousand wants to kill me or mine, I’ll not hate them all for that one”.
Eric’s uncle George had also come into the previous story, declaring his determination to fight to the last ditch and promising blood by the floods, lest any pope come to the townland of Invercloon. Within this second story, Dinny McMahon of the first story made an appearance, taking his stand with a gun against the hunting party from the big house, composed of characters to come into the foreground in the third story of the trilogy. In a church scene as well, there were other minor characters to become major characters in the next story. Amidst it all, there was much talk of bravado and of cowardice. What was or wasn’t cowardice was a hotly contested matter, however. Eric was pressured to feel a coward if he did not join the UDR and, at the same time, a coward for giving in and joining.
Within himself was the worst conflict, a conflict that froze him in impotence, a conflict he felt unable to resolve, a conflict that brought him to the worst cowardice of all: the inability to choose, the inability to respond, the inability to act. He saw himself as afraid of his uncle, afraid of his mother, afraid to choose between his father and his mother, afraid of catholics, afraid of protestants, afraid to love, afraid to hate, afraid to live and afraid to die. He saw himself as standing for nothing, as risking his life for something he didn’t believe in or even understand:
“I dunno why I’m in this uniform, who I’m fighting, or what the fight’s about I’d as lief be dead.”
In the end, he decided he was already dead. Pushed further, becoming like a cornered animal, when his uncle implicated him as accessory after the fact in a blood-for-blood murder when out together on patrol, he came down at least on the side of being more afraid of living than of dying. Tired of being afraid, he crashed through a British Army checkpoint and made other jumpy soldiers the instrument of his own death and final release from his dilemmas.
There were many dimensions to McCabe’s way of telling this story of the twenty four hours leading to the death of this young man. Underneath the particularities of the events were estimable insights into psychological processes and into sociological forces. Especially interesting was his treatment of the way in which sectarian tensions were connected to stunted personal development in general and sexual paralysis in particular. In the case of Eric’s parents, both gave him their versions of their relationship. According to his mother, she had kept her marriage vows, reared his sons and kept his house for a man who treated her with a cruel silence and used her ‘unnatural’ from the start.
According to his father, he had never heard her laugh, nor ever seen her body for the whole of their thirty years together. In his view, she hated bodies, both her own and his. She could live on black bread and water, the bible and hating catholics. In the case of his uncle, his blind bigotry had made him sexless, living all his life in a womanless house, just as the two brothers on the other side of the divide in the previous story did. In the case of Eric himself, he loved Rachel and she loved him, yet he could hardly kiss her without embarrassment and awkwardness. When she reached out to him painfully and asked him why he had never really touched her, he could not respond, frightened even more of her mind than her body. When she begged him for comfort in her shattered grief when her father and brother were killed, he was hopelessly inadequate.
Also interesting was his glimpse behind the sectarian conflict on the ground to the larger structure of power keeping everything as it was. In a play for some sort of lucidity, Eric’s father asked:
“What’s he fighting for, woman? God and country? The queen? I’ll tell you what he’s fighting for! The big boys who splash more on weekends whoring than he’ll make in a lifetime… there’s goms who’ll die to keep them at it. That’s your cause, son… pound notes, millions of them, and the men who have them don’t care a tinker’s curse who kills who as long as they keep their grip, and if that’s coward’s talk, I’ll stay one.”
But the lucidity was unable to break through the darkness of his son’s ill-fated life. And so one more death in the north.4o
The third story, Siege dealt with even more overtly political forces in even more explicit confrontation. Opening at the Inver show with the union jack flying overhead and the strains of Land of Hope and Glory blaring from the loudspeakers, members of the Provisional IRA mingled in the crowd and stalked their prey. Amongst the locals, there was talk of George Hawthorne’s being released, after being questioned in connection with a double murder, and of the rumours that his nephew Eric O’Neill’s death at an army checkpoint had been suicide. George was nevertheless as blustering as ever in his bigotry. Meanwhile, in Monaghan, the IRA unit came together to be briefed in the McAleer home, full of the kitsch iconography of catholic nationalism: the sacred heart, the madonna, Patrick Pearse, the two Johns: Kennedy and Roncalli, and Lourdes water. In a sickroom smelling of fish and lysol was the prototypical catholic mother, thanking God every day for her three green fields and two strong sons.
The IRA unit selected by the army council for this special mission was a determined, but divided, group. There were Mrs. McAleer’s two strong sons, Pascal and Pacelli, played as comic tweedledum and tweedledee figures in black berets, in a way that was out of key with the production as a whole. They were meant to be atavistic creatures, who killed as ritualistically as they prayed, who carried out the orders of the army council in the same way as they participated in the holy sacrifice of the mass. Their mother had decreed they had a score to settle for their father and for all the dead generations and so be it. They were, as the dominant mother figure typically wanted her sons to be, brave clean living and sexless boys. Their mother was proud to say of them:
“they’ve got nerve, don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t interfere with girls.”
They were quite without complexity, without maturity, without irony, but they were also without guile, without egoism and without viciousness. Jack Gallagher, in contrast, was devious, macho and vicious. He was, in McCabe’s description, a natural mechanism of terror and disorder. He did not, never would, want peace and harmony. 4l He was full of racial, political and personal hatred. When he spoke of it, with his twisting mouth and bloodshot eyes, the words came out jerking and sadistic and built into a low key fury. There was blood lust on him. He had to taste blood, to kill or be killed. There was the other sort of lust on him as well. The enemy was for killing and the opposite sex was for screwing in ditches and cars. He boasted of his prowess at both: how the girls whimpered, how the targets spun, stumbled and fell, date, street, townland, all reported in detail.
Martin Leonard, the commanding officer of the group, was quite different again. There was an authority in his presence that created an aura of determination, discipline and detachment, an air about him that did not easily reveal the doubts, the fears, the dilemmas. He had killed before, though unlike Gallagher, he had never seen the face of a victim, nor did he welcome the prospect. He took no joy in killing and often awoke in a sweat after hearing screaming and seeing images of what he had done. He was, in McCabe’s words, a tired priest of violence who had ceased to believe in the creed. As seen by Kevin McHugh, who played the part, his will to believe had eroded, though he was still committed to carrying through a programme in which he no longer believed. He was efficient, but jaded. 42 He no longer had clear answers for the why and wherefore of it all, but he was proceeding and commanding nonetheless. Sexually, he was more of a mystery than the rest. All that was clear was that he exercised restraint, did not let it distract him from the tasks at hand and was able to deal with a woman without sexually baiting her, again unlike Gallagher.
The woman most at issue was Isabel Lynam, the fifth member of the group, another character of a certain complexity. A high profile ideologue of the movement (modelled on Maria Maguire who played this sort of role in the Provisional IRA in the early seventies), she was attracted to men of violence, while at the same time distrusting them and being distrusted by them. She was the only member of the group who had never killed before. She had freely chosen to stand with the men of vivid words and violent action in contrast to the hollow crafty manoeuverings of politicians like her father, a TD. She had found it easy enough to propagate violence from a platform, but found it
“different now that it prowled to her side, the bloody midwife of regeneration, a ruthless animal with dripping mouth and glassy merciless eyes.”
The sharpest contrast among members of the group, at least the one that kept flaring up in open friction, was between Gallagher and Lynam. Resistant to his sexual baiting and repelled by his sadistic bloodthirstiness, she did not conceal her contempt. He responded by taunting her as “Mise Eire Nua, calling her a “gutless, middle class yacker”, and turning sexual rejection backwards declaring “I don’t pick over garbage.” The contrast between Leonard and Lynam was of a far more subtle nature. They knew they shared each other’s doubts about both ends and means, although he was far more reluctant to air them or to swerve from a decided course of action. The greatest point of tension was in their different relationship to the gun. As he took out a pistol and proceeded to give a terse, clinical instruction in its use, his voice seemed far away, as she was overcome with the gleaming phallic awfulness of it. She reacted to his unfastening the catch of her bag and thrusting in the pistol as if to rape. The sexual tension between them was further nuanced by his knowledge of her army council affairs and her recent abortion and by his later refusal of her seductions. Isabel Lynam was not only strongly played off against the men involved, but also against the various women who came into the story. She was brought into sharp contrast with the republican mother figure in a scene in which she was brought up to Mrs. McAleer’s bedroom, a chamber with both strong uteral and sepulchral connotations. The mother macree was fecund and fatalistic, completely circumscribed by the earthy fundamentals of the unending cycle of birth, hunger, blood and death. She could not comprehend this younger woman who was childless, who tampered with the natural order of things in taking up men’s work of war, who believed neither in God nor in her Ireland. She could only ask:
“Are you a communist, child?”
And she could only respond to the complexities of her beliefs and the character of her commitment in declaring:
“Too much learnin’ is the ruination of the world. All a body needs is faith in God, his blessed mother, faith in your people and faith in your country.”
Mrs. McAleer was, she perceived, a rural version of her own more urban, genteel mother, who devoted herself to poodles and jesuits. Further contrasts and confrontations and further nuances of character came to light, as the operation which had brought them all together got underway and the scene expanded to take in the variety of persons and postions at the other end of the northern spectrum.
The plan was to go to the big house and to hold the gentlefolk and their guests hostage until three specified comrades were released from Long Kesh. Inver Hall was the home of Col. Armstrong, a retired British Army officer and member of the landed aristocracy, who had considered himself above the battle. His captors, however, considered his ambivalence as insidious as the bigotry of his compatriots and reminded themselves that the wealth, power and privilege of his like had been gained by force and fraud, even If sanctioned by the rule of law and pulpit. On his side, however, it seemed:
“all so unfair. We were never absentees. My grandfather cut rents to half and nil during the famine, mortgaged the estate to feed tenants, catholic and protestant, one of my cousins signed the treaty for the Irish side…”
Through him, McCabe returned to the imagery of cancer. After declaring his belief that nationalism was a disease, he continued:
“The cancer is in the room and may kill us shortly.”
Among his guests was Alex Boyd-Crawford, a neighbour, somewhat less liberal:
“We never employed papists, family tradition. They all cheat, lie and thieve, careless, superstitious, stupid. When you hear this from the nursery onwards, right or wrong, it tends to stick.”
Going one better, Canon Plumm insisted it was right, citing a study proving “they’ve a lower IQ than negroes.” Another guest, an American academic, Professor Stuart Caldwell, who shared Col. Armstrong’s interest in military history, felt obliged to remark that the study was controversial. Pursuing the argument, Canon Plumm, full of rotund gravitas, displayed the full force of his bigotry:
“To the Irish, no one else. What they’ve done down there in 60 years is not in doubt: ruined Dublin, painted pillar boxes green and produced more lunatics and alcoholics per square mile than other country in the world. This is a proven fact.”
There were also two women present, the wife and daughter of Col. Armstrong. Harriet, the wife, was a cultured woman, who had turned to drink in her despair at her inability to cope with her situation. She had found marriage to be a cruel trap. She thought military history a subject indistinguishable from pornography. She loved poetry and she hated all that reeked of blood and empire. Her daughter, Millicent, pregnant with her first child, was educated, but lacked empathy. She was less vulnerable than her mother.
In a series of exchanges between the captured and their captors, there were various forays into exploring the ground that united and divided the assembled company. There was first the shock of recognition between Millicent and Isabel who realised they had been at Trinity College together. The dialogue between them quickly passed from awkward recognition to sharp accusation:
Millicent: “Impassioned at debate, I remember. I listened then, I’ll listen now.”
Isabel: “This is not a college debate”
School days over, each adjusted to what company the other was keeping. Millicent remarked on the faces of Isabel’s IRA comrades and said she could imagine them doing anything, but not her.
Isabel: “I find their faces less horrific than the painted ones round your walls.”
Millicent: “You can maim, cripple, blind the innocent. For what?”
Isabel: “You’ve never been colonised. You wouldn’t understand.”
Millicent: “I can try if you can explain.”
Isabel: “I don’t have to.”
Millicent: “You can’t. You’ve had your student pub crawls, your bedsit affairs, hitched about and got stoned. So now you’re a graduate. Work’s a bore. What next? Backroom politics with mindless killers. A taste of terror before you die. It’s beyond contempt.”
Isabel: “When you stop killing us, we’ll stop killing you. It’s as simple as that.”
Millicent: “What have I – we – got to do with killing you?”
Isabel: “Everything.”
Although there were moments of confused compassion, particularly between Isabel and Harriet, it was mostly mockery and hostility. Gallagher was compulsively taunting. Using Boyd-Crawford’s hearing aid like a microphone, he asked loudly:
“Do you think there’s any hope for peace in our time, sir?”
Prior to pistol whipping the face of an oil painted brigadier on the wall, he lashed out at those present, their ancestors and their contemporaries:
“When we look for common rights the way you got your empire, all your lackeys in the press and commons yap: hang them, hang them. Mother of parliaments? A fat knacker’s wife who’s flayed half the bloody world. Your mock monarchy and zoo-keeping dukes and public schools, all stiff upper prick and regiments of back-street rats and buggering horatios. You have deported, degraded, starved and tortured us and still do and no apology and never will, but smirk and snigger at stupid Paddy, dirty Paddy.”
When Pascal played the tin whistle, it neutralised the creeping terror, at least for his comrades, as each note not only carried its own sound, but evoked centuries of racial memory. It had a different effect on the hostages, however, especially on Canon Plumm. In response to an assertion that the Irish language was the key, he let loose:
“To what? Chicken in the rough? Non-stop reels of jig-jig trash? The great, great show with endless whining lamentations manufactured by jackeens for plough boys and shop girls. “
Reflections on the role of women came into play as well. A news report on the kidnapping listed the men involved, but made no mention of the women. Harriet felt it acutely, not only for herself, but for her daughter who was, after all, a bachelor of arts. This then provoked further thoughts:
“Bachelor? Should it not be spinster of arts? Sounds miserable. Dog’s nice; who likes bitch? Bulls are magnificent; cow’s stupid. Boars fierce; sows eat their young. The language itself is perverse to the female. Men only. We re under sentence and the BBC don’t know we exist.”
So it went, through a long night which most present feared would be their last. Come morning, one hostage shot and two released, the British Army arrived ‘full of beans and bitters’. The crunch time had come and the hardest choice had to be made. The terms had been decreed: the three specified IRA men would be released from Long Kesh, but there would be a three-for- three exchange. It was decided that two bombing technicians and a suspect propagandist were the most expendable. And so the hostages were released, Gallagher and Leonard took off by helicopter with their three comrades from Long Kesh, the five deemed least expendable to the movement, as Pascal and Pacelli McAleer and Isabel Lynam went to their fates.
Although the scripts in the trilogy were richly-textured and multi-layered texts, with nuances not always adequately captured by the production, the trilogy was nevertheless a most impressive contribution to creating a culture true to its time and a fine achievement both for the author and for RTE. Michael Garvey, the head of drama at the time, regarded it as a “gothic achievement”. 43 Wesley Burrowes, who played a part in initiating the project and editing the work of his fellow writer, considered it one of the best things RTE ever did and felt it confirmed McCabe as the “best writer we have”. 44 Cancer won the script award for the author at the International Film Festival in Prague and a Jacobs award for the director, Deirdre Friel.
British Television Drama and Northern Ireland
It was to RTE’s credit that, whatever its limited resources, it gave such emphasis to dramatic treatment of the northern conflict. British television, in contrast, did not, at least not in the 1970s, nor were they interested in buying in the McCabe trilogy. Considering the estimable resources of British television and the sheer amount of television drama, home produced and imported, dealing with so many other problems, both near and far, there would seem to be a certain dereliction of duty in this regard. It took until the 1980s for British television drama to come through in this respect.
Addressing himself to this situation in 1980, Richard Hoggart wrote in The Listener that only nineteen plays in twelve years had dealt with the ‘troubles’, whether about Northern Ireland itself or about the effects in Britain. Anything on the troubles, he pointed out, was regarded as very sensitive and involved reference upwards, discussion, delay, denial of repeats or relegation to late night slots. Most drama that made it through, in his opinion, used stock characters and stock attitudes, with the result that the audience was denied the help of drama in coming to terms with the complexity of the situation. There was not so much direct censorship as indirect censorship, arising from the fact that Northern Ireland was considered a switch off subject or a dangerous one.45
Northern Ireland did occasionally get a look in. For example, in the 1976 Thames series Bill Brand on the political and personal life of a left-wing Labour MP, there was an episode giving a fair degree of attention to the passage through parliament of a further prevention of terrorism bill. Although a government backbencher, he put forward an amendment to reduce the period in which a suspect could be detained without being charged from ten days to three, bringing him into conflict both with his own party and with the opposition who wanted to raise the period from ten days to fourteen. In a wide ranging attack on the erosion of democratic freedoms and on the capitalist system itself, Brand stressed that the politics of terror was a bankrupt politics, but challenged those heckling him and going on about ‘men of blood’ to consider all men of blood, including currency speculators who murdered by telephone. As to what to do about Ireland, Brand insisted:
“The problem of Ireland will not be solved by passing anti-democratic laws in Britain. The problem of Ireland will be solved by the Irish, when the British government, acting on behalf of the people, relinquishes the imperialist role it has exercised these last three centuries.”
This speech was made against the political background, both within the fiction and in real life, of a wave of IRA bombs in Britain. The speech brought forth threats from a neo-fascist group, an attack on his family home and demands from within his constituency that he resign. It was a brave effort by its author Trevor Griffiths to show the capacity of a television drama series to deal convincingly with ideological conflict in an up-front way.
Among the other British television companies in the ITV system, there was occasionally a play of relevance to Anglo-Irish politics, such as the STV production Just Another Saturday, a 1975 play by Peter McDougall, showing the sectarian rivalry in Glasgow as not unlike that of Belfast (as Hector McMillan had also shown in The Sash). Thames 1979 production of Stewart Parker’s I’m a Dreamer Montreal gave a light-hearted treatment of the heavy scene that was Belfast at the time, which some reviewers felt conveyed the embattled essence of Belfast life better than many a heavy treatment of it. The play went at the subject obliquely, by honing in on the dream world constructed by a music librarian by day and show band singer by night to cocoon himself from the harsh reality of Belfast life. However, any such cocoon was shown to be exceedingly precarious in the face of such pervasive turmoil.
As to the BBC, its 1976 production, Your Man from the Six Counties concerned a 12-year-old Belfast boy, whose life had been so pervaded by turmoil that he had never known what life was like without the constant presence of bombs and bullets and sectarian hatred until he was sent to stay with an aunt and uncle in the 26 counties. The BBC was responsible for producing the drama relating to Northern Ireland which generated the greatest controversy. The Legion Hall Bombing was a 1978 Play for Today production. It was a drama-documentary reconstructing an actual trial in September 1976 in the Diplock courts under the emergency powers act, in which the Belfast youths were accused of planting a bomb which went off at a British Legion whist drive. As it came out, the viewer was left to make up his or her own mind whether the accused was guilty or not. What did come through was that, in the conditions of Northern Ireland, witnesses and jurors were often too frightened to identify defendants or to find them guilty, but also that dispensing with jury and normal rules of evidence also set justice at risk. Problems, which put those involved in the production at odds with the BBC, caused transmission to be delayed for six months. When it did go out, it did so without the names of Caryl Churchill as author or Roland Joffe as director, who had taken their names off the credits, because of modifications which they did not approve. The play has often been cited as evidence of direct censorship in British television, as has Brian Phelan’s Article 5 in 1975, which made passing reference to the use of torture in Northern Ireland at a time when British interrogation techniques were under investigation by the European Commission for Human Rights. Although the play had been commissioned by the BBC, it was never screened.46 There was also Kenneth Griffith’s biography of Michael Collins, Hang Out Your Brightest Colours, which was banned by the IBA.
Drama of Rural Life
Drama need not always deal with bombings, kidnappings, legislation, elections or overt expressions of political allegiances in order to be political. Much of RTE’s drama of the 1970s focused on contemporary Ireland in a way that showed how individual lives were shaped by presumptions and pressures stemming from larger structures of power, making it political in a broader and deeper sense of the term. Much of it, even if only subconsciously, registered the psycho-social consciousness of the shifting nexus of power relations and the displacement of traditional customs and values. Some of it, quite consciously, presented a forceful critique of the authoritarianism of the old Ireland or of the pretensions and false promises of the new Ireland.
The drama of rural life became much tougher and probed further into the bleak side of country matters. Apart from The Riordans which continually explored the problems and possibilities of life as experienced in the context of rural Ireland, there were a number of single plays which highlighted particular aspects of country life. The Irish language plays Saolaiodh Gamhain, An Carabhan, Teangabhail and An Taoille Tuile presented vivid pictures of the poverty and arduousness of the way of life of those who had to engage in back breaking labour in harsh conditions to eke out even a subsistence existence. Each of these in their different ways showed the effect of such conditions on vital relationships. In the case of Teangabhail and An Taoille Tuile, the effect was tragic in blighting young love in fragile relationships. In the case of Saolaiodh Gamhain and An Carabhan, the effect was to make the old, who had lived all their lives in such circumstances, unfit for any other.
Emigration was quite naturally a recurring theme. Some plays focused on the drama of the decision to emigrate or not to emigrate. The Country Boy explored the roots of emigration in the economic structure of rural Ireland and the exercise of patriarchal authority on the family farm. The problem was refracted through the experience of two brothers, both facing the same dilemma, each in their time considering emigration as the solution, but coming to different decisions as to what way to go. The Emigrant showed a family in a dwindling community still attempting to scratch out a living and resist emigration. In the end, a widow determined to hold her family together had to pay the price of severing it from its roots. Although the note in the RTE Guide attempted to back away from any considerations of the social context or solutions to the problem of emigration and presented the play as simply about human nature,47 this was setting up an unreal and unworthy dichotomy.
Other plays looked at the effects of emigration and followed into foreign parts the lives of those who left rural Ireland. Taking a light hearted look at the acute form of Irishness characterising those who huddled around such expatriate centres as the Wild Harp of Erin All Ireland Social Recreational & Workingmen’s Club Birmingham was Ron Hutchinson’s If You’re Irish.
Giving a more sober view of men emigrating to find work in Britain to support the family back home was Maeve Binchy’s Deeply Regretted By, in which an emigrant’s death brought to the surface the hidden complexities of the double life he had been leading for so many years. It gave an insight into the difficulties of both those who left and those who stayed, both facing the responsibilities of married life without any of its comforts.
Showing the severe isolation and remarkable human resources of a ‘grass widow’ left behind on the very edge of civilisation for months on end every year, while her husband went to work in Scotland, was Mr. Sing, My Heart’s Delight. There was a peculiar sense of the mingling of joy and sadness in these sort of plays, particularly in Mr. Sing, My Heart’s Delight, a play of great lyrical beauty, despite the bleak presence of acute poverty, both material and cultural, and extreme loneliness. There was a certain mythic, elemental quality to it, rising above the specificity of its setting, in its portrayal of the power of the human spirit in an isolated illiterate old woman, whose soaring imagination and irrepressible joie de vivre triumphed over all economic and cultural constrictions of sexual and social repression.
Whether as text or subtext, whether in its old or new forms, emigration was a persistent presence. The plays of this period threw up a number of memorable images of the deep psychic dislocations it forced on simple people, most of them ill fit to cope with its complexities. Sometimes it was those leaving like the landless labourer in King of the Castle. Other times it was those returning, like the older brother back on his holidays with his American wife in The Country Boy, or the young woman back to be married, after earning her dowry in America in An Taoille Tuile, or the failed actor, seeking to recapture what he had left behind in Conversations on a Homecoming. The lingering feeling was of uprooted branches blown in the wind, of elements never to be firmly grounded, of people who were neither here nor there. There were moments of acute awareness of the drift of rural decay and depopulation. There were revelations of the layers of madness and viciousness resulting from it. Going a long way towards illuminating the offensiveness of those on the defensive and explaining why Maguire in King of the Castle constantly behaved like a threatened animal was his perception that:
“There’ll be nothin’ here soon but Scobers, tinkers and tourists”.
King of the Castle was far and away the outstanding play for cutting through the layers of pretence to the lacerating tensions and brutish realities of life on the land. For its author, Eugene McCabe, it represented “a disquieting revelation of the second face of Cathleen Ni Houlihan”, 48 Originally a stage play, first presented at the Gaiety Theatre during the 1964 Dublin Theatre Festival, it won the Irish Life award for new plays. One critic predicted at the time that it would never be shown on RTE. 49 In proving this prediction wrong in 1977, RTE went as far as it has ever gone in presenting in dramatic form an uncompromisingly honest and devastatingly unflattering picture of Irish society. In this production, RTE also pushed to the limits of what it would dare in its raw and explicit exposure of the darker side of human sexuality and all the predatory and vulnerable emotions surrounding it. It was a play the Daily Telegraph had characterised as having “the obvious, naked, unambiguous impact of an animal in heat”. 50
The critics and professionals generally heralded it in the superlatives, even if the audience found it difficult to accept. Louis Lentin, who directed the RTE production, considered it “the best Irish play for a quarter of a century”, 51 Christopher Fitzsimon said that it gave a more honest and uncompromising view of Irish society than any other play of its period. Of all the works of the decade, it was the one which best expressed the viciousness and rapacity of the affluent, but spiritually impoverished, new middle class in the period of economic expansion which occurred under the government of Sean Lemass. 52 However, its very truthfulness was its problem. As Hilton Edwards observed, there were more in Ireland who wished to disbelieve it than to accept it. 53
King of the Castle was set on a large Leitrim farm at the beginning of the Lemass era, The big house, once inhabited by the local gentry, was now occupied by Scober McAdam, the new man of the era, the self-made, prosperous entrepreneur, and his young wife Tressa, who was in miles over her head in her attempt to play the role of the new lady of the manor. Typifying in their opposite ways the barrenness of the nouveau riche, each occupied the big house differently. She had a desire to do and decorate in the old ways of the gentry, but still had a peasant perception of people of ‘quality’ and knew she hadn’t the ‘breeding’ to fill their shoes. He, however, had no regrets about their passing and being replaced by those who made their way by buying and selling. In a scene capturing their different attitudes to the big house, they said to each other:
Tressa: “You don’t ever fit it right”
Scober: “If you can pay for it, you fit it.”
The play opened with the hired men working on the land during the annual threshing. Their speech was overflowing with both class antagonism and sexual innuendo. In the matter of the inequality of wealth, they seethed with the impotent resentment of the dispossessed. In the matter of sexual fertility, however, they conspired with peasant cunning to take their consolation and their revenge in their perception that here the tables were turned. The play was permeated with a sense of the legacy of centuries of famine, poverty, serfdom and cultural constriction. It was also suffused with the symbolism of harvest and of fertility.
The tie of sex to land and livestock and to buying and selling was strongly emphasised. It came piercing through, over and over, on level after level, in the multi-layered and richly-textured narrative of its superbly constructed text. The woman, played with a suitable brooding edginess by Fionnuala Flanagan, was constantly referred to by means of the imagery of farm animals, whether horses, pigs, dogs or cows. She needed to be ‘the right breeding sort’. She was ‘chewing her cud’. She was ‘a bitch in heat’. When the metaphors were mixed, it could as often be down the evolutionary ladder as up. It could even drift into the realm of mechanical and technological artifact. “Bonnet never lifted,” her husband was assured when he got her. When more human terms were used, it was more often generic or patronymic than individual. Her husband often addressed her as ‘woman’, just as she addressed him as ‘man’. Alternatively, all around, including her husband, called her ‘Mullarchy’s daughter’. Even in direct address, her husband often called her ‘daughter’. She was never addressed by her individual first. name, although the men frequently were. Any intimation of individuality was dismissed with the assertion “She’s a woman, like any other”.
Not that the imagery the men drew upon to express their perception of themselves or each other rose very far or very often above the level of the farm animals. They spoke of themselves as stud to the mare, as dog to the bitch. Occasionally, there was a feeble effort to articulate something rising above this. In his effort to persuade a journeyman to impregnate his wife in order to provide him with an heir to stop the mockers, the conversation turned to the nature of sex:
Scober: “What men and women do. An itch. A scratch. It’s gone. It’s nothing unless a growth comes from it.”
Matt: “It’s more than that. I’m not a dog.”
This was an assertion quickly discredited by the action. Despite the previous refusal to oblige on the part of both Matt and Tressa, the only two voices even trying to contest the barnyard mentality in relation to human sexuality, when sexual intercourse did happen between them, it was violent, atavistic and brutish, not unlike the manner of animals in heat. It followed a cruel and ugly encounter between them, in which she taunted him about not having the kind of licence they have for bulls, boars and stallions and he called her a bitch. She derided his masculinity and scoffed at him for being landless, for labouring on someone else’s land and for having only himself to blame for having to emigrate. She lauded her husband’s superior masculinity in his ownership of land, in his power to buy and sell. She gave her definition of the difference between a man and a messer. It was all this that brought them to blows and then to sex. The only distinctively human elements were the emotional cruelty and the market forces.
It was a far cry from cute anecdotes of laughing leprechauns and lovable lads and lassies. It was an even longer way from sublime stories of an isle of saints and scholars. It did not speak well for those who would be the first to defend the prescriptions and prohibitions of catholic moral theology and for the elements who might be first to come down hard on anybody challenging it all as a matter of principle. All but Scober were practising catholics.
Maguire, the most malicious mouth at the table, was the least likely to forget to bless himself before and after meals. It was even a long way from The Riordans. Whatever the grievances and gossip between neighbours, the rural community of Leestown was basically benign. People more often helped than hindered one another. Good loomed larger than bad, all things considered. It was the opposite in King of the Castle. The community was so permeated by tension, greed, hostility and ill-will that the overriding feel was one of malevolence. Even the woman, who in the beginning had seemed most the victim of greed and hardness, came through by the end as the hard and greedy victimiser. Enquiring about the crop, the tons and tons of what had been harvested by the labours of others, she tensely proclaimed herself and her husband set for the winter and let the rest be dammed:
“Let the criers cry outside the gates. We can shut our ears.”
And yet in such an atmosphere, no one could be home and clear. The oppressors were oppressed as much by their own oppressiveness as that of others. All were both victimisers and victims in this intricate web of victimisation. Taking little consolation from all that had been gathered to the big house or from the gatherers being shut out of its gate, Tressa realised:
“Only it’s a dark time…winter … and lonely…the garden’s like a graveyard.”
Despite the fact that all the outward structures of the rural community and traditional religion were intact, the reality was that every individual was ultimately alone and living by codes that were more an odd blend of pagan primitivism and capitalist competitiveness than those of the official catholic nationalist ideology.
It was not a picture of the rural community that the rural community was prepared to accept. Whatever controversy was generated by the play in the theatre audience was nothing compared to that sparked off in the television audience. During transmission, there were a number of calls to RTE, mainly from women, saying the play was ‘filthy’. The television columns of the provincial papers were scathing. They vied with each other to find terms negative enough to express their revulsion. The papers insisted that they were being inundated with calls and letters, indicating that their readers were up in arms. The critic in the Cork Evening Echo heaped scorn on theatre people and what they regarded as great theatre. Whatever this elite thought of King of the Castle, he told his readers:
“you and I and thousands of others know full well that its theme is crude and vulgar and very much foreign to our way of life.” 54
The reaction in Leitrim was particularly vehement. People had allowed their children to stay up in their provincial pride at a play being set in their county, despite the fact that RTE had made it very clear that it was to be regarded as adult fare. The next meeting of the Leitrim county council was overflowing with outrage. Councillor Joe Mooney declared the play to be “a slander on the people of Leitrim.” It “made dirt of the women of Leitrim”. He asked why Eugene McCabe “hadn’t the guts to locate this filth in his own county”(Monaghan). He warned that the play could lead to a “new wave of permissiveness”. It was the sort of thing that might have gone down well with the “so called intelligentsia in Dublin”, but country people were “shocked, annoyed and appalled”. 55 It was also discussed at the Castlebar urban district council. Councillor Richard Morris was to the fore in voicing his disgust at what he described as ‘filth’ and ‘trash’. In his opinion, the majority of people working in RTE were “depraved minds, dropouts from society or winos”. He thought the director-general should be asked for a public apology. 56 Such an apology was not forthcoming. The RTE authority, according to Bob Collins, who was its secretary at the time, sent out many letters defending the production. 57
The reaction was similar in the case of Tom Murphy’s The White House, another RTE production of controversial theatrical material in the same year, which also gave a very sharp-edged view of rural life. The White House, originally a 1972 Abbey Theatre production, consisted of two plays, both set in a pub in an East Galway town, involving the same set of characters, separated by the lapse of a decade. (A later version, re-written and produced by Druid in 1985, collapsed the two plays into one under the title Conversations on a Homecoming.)
Although Tom Murphy was inclined to consider himself as not consciously political or sociological, 58 his realisation that the writer must transcend what is merely autobiographical or purely local gave his plays an organic political and sociological significance. The White House was a work of striking social relevance in the way it registered the crises in personal and communal identity resulting from the political and sociological shifts in Irish society in the 1960s and 1970s. It gave forceful expression, as Fintan O’Toole perceptively put it, to the confusion and disorientation of
“an Ireland caught between one failed dream and another, between a gaelic rural idyll and a modern industrial paradise.” 59
Speeches of Farewell, the first of the two plays, was set on November 22, 1963, the night of the assassination of John F Kennedy, in the pub called the White House. The pub was owned by JJ Kilkelly, a man totally caught up in the Kennedy mystique. JJ presented himself as a man of flair and initiative, a man of advanced ideas and rationalist rhetoric, very much in the Kennedy mould. He even contrived to make the most of his physical appearance, which bore a vague resemblance to that of JFK. Full of the high-flown rhetoric of the new frontier, JJ was the man who would blow away the cobwebs of bigotry and insularity of traditional small town Ireland and lead the way into the fresh air of the liberal, cosmopolitan era of Lemass, Kennedy and Roncalli. Drawn into the world of his brave new pub, swathed in pseudo-Kennedy charisma and a mythic Camelot aura, were his self-effacing supportive wife and a group of younger acolytes, who shared his battles and his dreams.
As the play unfolded, the chinks in the armour of the king and his bold knights could be glimpsed. Despite all the surface confidence and clarity, there were mounting revelations of just how vulnerable were their characters and how confused their vision. Underneath the bold rhetoric of a new cultural world, there turned out to be only a collection of vague notions, shallow opinions and rag-tag prescriptions. Their great confrontation with clerical authority was over a nude painting. They believed that the country-and-western system itself was unyielding and uncompromising in its drive for total sentimentality. They thought that there should be no division between bar and lounge. Such was their analysis of the system and programme for an alternative. Indeed, so shaky were the foundations of this ramshackle edifice that the death of John F Kennedy, and JJ’s total collapse in the face of it, were enough to bring the whole lot tumbling down for all concerned, with their very identity, individual and collective, exploded to bits.
In the second play, Conversations on a Homecoming, the full weight of the vulnerability of the characters and the tenuousness of their beliefs came into clearer view and sharper relief. Gathering for a reunion ten years later, on the occasion of the return of one of their group who had emigrated, the characters progressively disclosed the changes the ensuing years had wrought in them. The play consisted essentially of pub talk, beginning in sobriety, moving to inebriation and then back full circle to sobriety again. In the course of the cycle, the layers of pseudo-sophistication and self-deception were painfully peeled away to reveal each character in disillusioned nakedness. Their former guru, JJ, whose character was the centre of focus in the first play, was only a haunting off-stage presence in the second. While he was on the tear in a pub that in their heyday was referred to as the opposition, the focus shifted to those he left high and dry when he went under.
The dialectic forming the centre of dramatic tension was the confrontation between the two characters at the extreme ends of the spectrum between illusion and disillusionment. Michael, the returned emigrant, was a failed actor still clinging to a rose-coloured view of their glory days and an inflated estimation of JJ and the White House. Tom, a teacher who stayed in the town, was, in contrast, the most bitter and cynical of the lot. It was he who took it upon himself to be the agent of interpretation of the past and to be the instrument of dismantling others fond illusions regarding it. As the night proceeded towards full revelation, it became apparent that the two were meant to be alter egos, two sides to a whole person, whose interaction might produce some sort of resolution to the dilemma of them all. At one point, another character remarked of them:
“The two of ye together might make one decent man”.
The effort to move from confusion and self-delusion to clarity and sanity was short-circuited somewhat and stopped short of going the whole way, at least by the end of the play. For the time being, a frustrated search left only numbness in its wake. As one of the characters admitted, he was “not able to feel anything anymore”. As to whether some sort of healing and a sadder but wiser wholeness might come in time, the possibility was left open, at least for those still somehow striving. Others were write-offs in one way or another. JJ would continue to descend into alcoholic disintegration. “Mrs”.would continue to put on the brave face on the downward spiral of self-effacing degeneration. Liam would take control of the White House, in the way of the new breed of the old gombeen, who were taking control of much else in the country.
Like other works of Tom Murphy, The White House dealt with confrontation between the brutal realities of modern life and the efforts of people to find solace in faiths and fantasies and to construct sanctuaries and places of refuge for themselves. In the first play, the White House, such as it was, was shown to be functioning as a sanctuary for a collection of characters in their glory days, as a place where they found moments of vulnerable union against the long loneliness of their individual lives. In the second play, they confronted each other and their own shattered dreams, standing in the ruins of their dilapidated refuge. In so doing, they stood for much more than just their individual characters in their individual place. Their predicament, and their words in articulating it, somehow spoke with the weight of the expectations and losses of so many others. The shabbiness of the White House, both in its rise and in its fall, was a suitable symbol of the sham of lreland’s preening itself in the reflected glory of the Kennedy mystique in its hour upon the world stage. Constructed in such a way that two evenings in the lives of a small set of characters in a single pub could create resonances of so many days and nights in the lives of so many other people in so many other places, it was bound to set off reflections on the social history of its times in anyone serious enough to think upon its meaning. The force of the contrast between the one scenario and the other was lost to a considerable degree in the later Druid version, arguably to its detriment, giving ample cause for a preference for the RTE version. In any version, however, it was substantial and searching drama. Even the minor images of the play, like the cutting down of trees to make Easter egg boxes, were the sort to stay in the mind and to stir reflections on proportions and priorities and the way things were ordered in the world from one era to the next.
Not that large sections of the television audience were inclined to such reflections. Head of drama, Michael Garvey, saw it as a production that would have its audience fighting against it, but felt it was RTE’s contribution to their growth. 60 Unfortunately, perhaps, those who might have been engaged in such growth preferred to do it in relative silence. Those who were not, however, were anything but silent. There was uproar in a number of local government bodies. It was the occasion for a resolution condemning “the recent permissive trend in RTE programmes,” which received the unanimous support of Midleton urban council and for a resolution protesting against the “scandalous filth of RTE programmes” passed unanimously by Youghal urban council. 61 At Cork county council, there was criticism of The White House as ‘obscene’ and ‘absolutely disgraceful’ and there was a unanimous motion deploring the ‘low standard’ of RTE programmes. 62 At North Tipperary county council, there was also a unanimous resolution condemning it. 63 At Castlebar urban district council, it was considered ‘scurrilous and filthy’ and Councillor Frank Durcan called upon the RTE authority to remove those involved in putting it on air. 64 For their part, the West Donegal Fine Gael executive protested against it as blasphemy and a gross insult to christian principles. 65 Agreement on this point seemed to form the basis of ecumenical harmony in Cashel. Soon after a notice criticising the moral standards of RTE was read out at all catholic masses at St. John the Baptist Church, 66 the protestant dean of Cashel declared it was “time to cry halt to the grossly offensive programmes on RTE”. 67 In the provincial press, television columnists, editorial writers and letter writers gave out about the ‘profanity’ , ‘vulgarity’ , ‘ depravity’ , ‘ obscenity’ , ‘irreverence’ and ‘blasphemy’ they attributed to The White House. A line that gave the characters a laugh over a book entitled The Life Story of the Little Flower being catalogued under horticulture in the local library even had viewers taking offence on the basis of their devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux. One irate letter writer to The Irish Independent was disgusted at what he called “disrespect to the Little Flower” and suggested it was “time such sick people got out of RTE”. 68 Other correspondents called on RTE to “clean up its dirty mess” .69
Coming to the defence of his work, Tom Murphy responded to Limerick city councillor Thady Coughlan, who had called it ‘unadulterated filth’ 70, with the suggestion that the filth might be in the mind of the beholder, rather than in what it beheld. Tomas MacAnna considered Coughlan’s remarks as ‘absolutely silly’ and prompted more by electioneering than any other motive. 71 Reviewing the production in The Irish Times, Ken Gray was of the opinion that the Irish public found it embarrassing to hear on television the sort of talk that went on in their pubs. Whatever the problem, he insisted, the solution was not to pillory the playwright. The play might have been depressing, but it was strong and powerful and uncomfortably accurate in its observations. It was also full of compassion. As far as he was concerned, it was a credit to the resolution, courage and integrity of the drama department of RTE that it was done well enough to provoke such cries of shame an disgust. 72 Tom O’Dea in The Irish .Press felt he dialogue was a bit too polished and left some questions hanging in the air, but there was enough hard truth in it that he “could hear the sound of approaching vigilantes, diverted temporarily from their pursuit of Niall Toibin (during the run of Time Now, Mr.T) to go after Tom Murphy. 73
In an interesting reversal of the point periodically put by people within RTE regarding its audience’s double standard, in accepting in imported programmes what they refused to accept in home produced ones, an editorial in the Cork Examiner accused RTE of having a double standard that worked in the opposite way. It cited, as evidence for this, RTE’s taking off the air in mid-run the US serial Executive Suite for less than what it allowed to go through in The White House and other home produced dramas of the era. 74
Law and Order, Class Conflict and Rural Life
Not all the rural drama with any sort of critical edge got the audience’s back up to the same extent as King of the Castle and The White House with their raw revelations and shattering emotional catharsis. Other plays shed their own sort of light on the problems, but with a lighter touch and a less threatening challenge to their audience.
Niall Sheridan’s A Dog’s Life dealt with the comic side of life in a remote garda station, but also gave cause to consider something of the serious side of the struggle for survival of men who were trapped, both by habitual attitudes and socio-economic facts. Showing life on the other side of the law was Bob Quinn’s film Poitin, with its acute observations, not only of poitin makers, but of community life in Connemara, where traditional ways were being threatened, not only by the forces of law and order, but by poverty, unemployment and emigration. It got a showing not only on RTE, but abroad, where it played its small part in breaking the force of stage-Irish stereotypes of west of Ireland life.
Drama which put a strong emphasis on class antagonism in the rural community did much to undermine these stereotypes from within. Apart from King of the Castle, which took a hard and clear approach to it, and The Riordans, which went for a softer and more ambiguous treatment of it, there were a number of other productions taking it on, each in their own way. Jennifer Johnston’s The Gates focused on the barriers of prejudice and poverty between those born of the landed gentry and those born of their hired labour on a country estate. A young girl, whose father had been banished for marrying outside his class, came into the family estate which her uncle had let run to seed. In enlisting the help of her uncle’s odd job man, in her efforts to bring the place back to its former glory according to plans her father had been unable to carry out, she misjudged the barriers of class standing in the way.
Liam O’Flaherty’s Teangabhail also dealt with the matter of relationships formed in the shadow of rural class structure. When a young landless labourer and the daughter of the man for whom he was working fell in love, their home was caught in the stranglehold of class distinction, with cruel consequences coming as if by some kind of historical inevitability. A similar storyline, though away from the agricultural division of labour on the land and into the industrial division of labour in the country town, was developed in James Douglas’ Too Short a Summer. In the summer before he was to enter university, a young lad went to work at the local brickworks, where his father was also employed. Upon becoming involved with his employer’s daughter, all sorts of problems emerged. Reaction to their impending marriage and the change in his career plans served to expose the unyielding class structure of the town, both in terms of the bitterness from below and the snobbery from above, explored particularly in terms of Carmel’s mother, who was living on her status as queen of small town society, and Conor’s father, whose son was the focus of his own frustrated ambitions.
In a yet sadder story of the suffocating effects of life in a small town, Eugene McCabe’s Roma showed how the solace taken even in a highly repressed relationship was crushed in the cruelty thriving in the constricted lives of those at the margins of the social structure. Looking at the society from the point of view of those for whom it had no respectable place, a bleak picture emerged. Benny, the odd job man in a chipper, living in a loft with a drunken beggar, sustained only by his religious faith and secret love for his employer’s daughter, delivered a hard verdict on local life, even before the little he had was taken from him:
“This town is rotten, like the bad end of a city. Sometimes it seems God’s deaf or blind or gone asleep. Sometimes it seems there’s no cure”.
Even those for whom he worked were near enough to the bottom of the heap. An Italian family running a fish and chip shop, they had moved from one part of Ireland to another, trying to find a place for themselves in Irish society. The wife was still clinging to pathetic hopes of social mobility, at least through her daughter. Inciting Maria to study hard, Mrs. Digacimo explained why:
“With education, maybe you marry a doctor. For you, cara mia… a good life… you no want this?”
For her husband, however, there were no more illusions. The life they had was the only sort of life they would ever have. No matter where they went, it would be the same. Their lot, as he sadly saw it, was to realise that:
“we belong nowhere, Gina, we belong with louts and drunks and half-wits and… there is nothing else, but now and tonight and tomorrow and the next day ’till we die…”
Perhaps the most marginalised elements in the social structure were the travelling population. Various plays dealt with the class tensions between the travelling community and the settled community, whether in a serious vein in Voices in the Wilderness or in a comic romp in God’s Gentry. The Riordans gave extraordinary attention to such tensions during the whole course of its run. As a serial, there were both regular and transient characters who were travellers past and present, whose lives shed light on various aspects of the situation from various angles. As a series, an episode called The Outsider gave it tighter treatment and took it on from an unusual and ironic angle. Although The Riordans exposed all sorts of attitudes to travellers in the community, the scripts were invariably written in liberal sympathy for their plight. It was never in rose coloured hues. However, this particular episode specialised in the shades of grey. In it, a rogueish traveller and his family came to squat in the home of Eamonn Maher, a settled traveller and a long established and respected character. This, naturally enough, caused considerable disorientation in a whole range of characters. There were all sorts of interesting reversals. As one character expressed it:
“I’ve been at evictions before, but never before where everyone was on the landlord’s side”.
Playing on the reversals he set in motion, the traveller told the story of the good shepherd in reverse to the priest. He accused him of:
“guarding the church to be sure the black sheep doesn’t get in and contaminate the other ninety-nine.”
Posing the issue in a black and white way that belied his canny sense of the greyness of it all:
“There are two classes – those that get moved on and those that do the moving. You’re one or the other”.
Using every device to play upon residual guilt in the community, he brought all the mythlcal imagery he could muster to bear on the confrontation, from the bible:
“I’m not going through any agony in the garden for you”
To Hollywood and the wild west:
“There’s a stage at noon… Don’t worry, I’ll be on it”.
Even after it had finished as serial and series, a once-off special called On the Feast of Stephen featured the Riordans facing Christmas season, with a case of two traveller kids and a missing turkey.
Although The Riordans dealt with the ambiguities, the thrust was towards clarifying the situation and sorting out the issues. The opposite was the case with Traveller, an independent film directed by Joe Comerford, written by Neil Jordan and shown on RTE. There were some revealing moments in the film, showing aspects of Irish society through the alienated eyes of two young travellers. It punctured some of the glossy balloons of both religious observance and republican ritual. The emptiness of the relationship between catholicism and the everyday lives of its adherents came across with particular vividness in the church presiding over the arranged marriage of Michael and Angela, in a farcical wedding ceremony in which both questions and responses were uttered in the most perfunctory way, underlining the huge discrepancy between the words and the reality.
In their smuggling sojourns north of the border, there were incidents indicating something of the weight of dead heroes upon living non-heroes and the shallowness of the routine singing of rebel songs. However, long sections of the film were opaque, unfocused and incoherent. Indeed, the film itself, in its overall impact, was opaque, unfocused and incoherent. This endeared it to the avant-garde critics, who stretched flimsy material to its limits to find hidden meaning in its fabric or acquiesced in its incoherence by praising it for not subordinating image to plot and for not prioritising narrative over circumstance.75 There might have been those who found some inherent value in minimal dialogue, inaudible speech, a non-synchronous sound track, disconnected images, dark to black lighting, long static sequences and diffuse to disappearing narrative, but others did not. It also provoked an alienation of boredom, impatience or even hostility that did nothing to enhance understanding. Traveller might have been a film about characters who had little to say, who were inarticulate in relation to themselves, to each other and to their world, but this did not demand or excuse a film that had so little to say, that was itself so inarticulate in relation to them, to their relationships, and to their world. There was nothing in it remotely striving for explanation or reaching for an overview.
McCabe’s work, by contrast, did reach forward in this way, even though there was never any smug bottom line. Though it was most often done in subtle and intricate ways, sometimes it was carried in a more overt and direct device. In Roma, for example, Mr. Digacimo peered at his daughter’s copybook and enquired:
Paulo: “Physical and psychological terrain. Fancy. Do you know what it means?”
Maria: “Yes.”
Paulo: “Tell us.”
Maria: “Where you live determines how you think and behave.”
Paulo: “Does it?”
Maria: “Partly.”
So, the implication was, it was more than individuals moving within what scope there was for free will that stood indicted for the way things were.
Drama of Urban Life and the Rural-Urban Interface
Of course, the way things were was changing. The physical and psychological terrain was shifting. The trend towards rural depopulation and the movement to towns and cities accelerated with increasing industrialisation. While the main trend continued to be in this direction, there was a countervailing trend to disillusionment with urbanisation and industrialisation and to counter-cultural romanticisation of rural life. The trend was strongest in the most highly industrialised countries. Hippie and quasi-hippie types fantasised about return to the land and alternative lifestyles. Armed with the Whole Earth Catalogue and Mao’s Little Red Book, they dropped out of MIT or UCLA or UCD and headed off to Vermont or New Mexico or Connemara to set up communes and to grow organic sunflower seeds. The natives, particularly in the west of Ireland, were naturally somewhat puzzled and bemused by the influx of exotic refugees from the city lights. It would seem a subject crying out for dramatic treatment, both serious and comic, though it has received surprisingly little. It was not left untouched, however.
Thomas Kilroy’s Farmers took on such a scenario. Set in a run down farmhouse inhabited by two couples, one pair Irish and the other American, Kilroy probed beneath the flight from urban life and explored the uncertainties and insecurities motivating the four central characters. Playing the characters off against each other, the Irish couple came over as the more conventional. Between the women, Nuala’s intolerance was set against Judith’s resilience. As to the men, Sean was more positive, seeking the simple life to aid his work as a poet, whereas Peter was more cynical and in flight from the pressures of American life. Of the two other characters who came into the picture, one was a child, the daughter of Sean and Nuala. The other was a local farmer, symbolic of the indigenous community in which the farm was set. The inability of the four refugees to respond appropriately to his overtures underlined their position as outsiders and the irony of their playing at being farmers.
Eugene McCabe’s treatment of the flight from urbanisation brought further complexities into a consideration of its incongruities. It was not so simple to retreat to the agricultural realm as a haven from the industrial world, when confronted with the growing industrialisation of agriculture. In The Apprentice, a wealthy builder’s son, disillusioned with his father’s lifestyle, opted to go to agricultural college, in search of an alternative lifestyle closer to nature. Upon discovering that the policy of the college was to fertilise every inch of land, to pour feed into animals to fatten them fast and to make maximum profits by whatever means, he in turn became disillusioned with the alternative.
The interface between rural and urban life was constantly surfacing in Ireland’s indigenous television drama in a way that distinguished it from imported material and that reflected the growing pains of the socio-historical transitions, co-incident with and integrally tied to the introduction of television.
With all that the televisual picture of rural life revealed of its dark side, what the counterpart of urban life offered was anything but a contrasting brightness. Its dark side was darker still and loomed much larger in the total picture of the city as a form of social organisation.
Bringing the rural-urban interface immediately into play was one of RTE’s most prominent urban dramas, the award winning A Week in the Life of Martin Cluxton. Young Martin De Porres Cluxton was first seen walking the green hills of the west of Ireland, along with a group of other boys and a christian brother in charge. It soon became apparent that the boys were juvenile offenders, whose school outing belonged to a borstal type of institution. Sent away for theft, his third offence, Martin had got to the point where he no longer remembered Dublin or even what his parents looked like. The rationale behind his sentence seemed to be that rural retreat under religious supervision was suitable treatment for unhealthy symptoms of urban disease.
The play was concerned with the week in the life of Martin Cluxton in which he was released from the reformatory and returned to Dublin. It traced the transition from country to city, from inside to outside, from school to dole queue, from institution to home. It quickly became clear that Martin would never be at home, even at home, in the off-hand and even threatening reception given him by his own family. His status as a no-hoper, not only in the past, but in the present and future, was underlined everywhere he went, in his encounters with friends, neighbours, priests, social workers, delinquents and dropouts, in his signing on at the labour exchange, in his fruitless job applications, in his sense of having nowhere to go and nothing to do.
Influenced by the social-realist trend in British television drama in the 1960s, especially the more radical work of Ken Loach and Tony Garnett, the play, the brainchild of Brian Mac Lochlainn who co-authored, produced and directed it, employed the innovatory techniques of drama-documentary to give a realistic and closely observed picture of the culture surrounding chronic unemployment. Particularly interesting were the devices used to carry the striving for meaning and explanation, arising out of the narrative. A series of authority figures would periodically turn from playing their roles in the story to direct address to camera commentary on the situation and offering various interpretations of causes and consequences. Also on the sound track were voice over pieces, embodying the reflections of Martin and others on what was happening and why. Various bits of dialogue, pub talk and radio interviews in the background, as well as the whole thrust of the narrative, embodied a strong drive towards elucidation. Throughout the play, there were strong undercurrents rejecting catholic authority or charity, on the one hand, and rejecting 1960s style radical opposition, on the other. Priests and brothers spoke as realising that their resources were inadequate to the tasks. The pub revolutionary discoursing on class struggle and the philosophising drop-out were portrayed as impotent in the face of the problems they raised. The one may have realised that:
“Babies don’t get bit by rats in Foxrock”.
and the other may have come to see that:
“The whole society is based on waste.”
but the viewer was left with a strong feeling that neither could or would do anything about it. What then was the bottom line, as far as the motivating perspective underlying the play was concerned ? According to Martin McLoone:
“Throughout the play, then, what is highlighted is the lack of professional state-funded support systems, again the social democratic structures which would alleviate the problems… In the end, therefore, A Week in the Life of Martin Cluxton rejects Catholic charity, socialist organisation and rural escape as solutions to the problems of contemporary urban society. In doing so, it calls for the development of a caring welfare state reinforcing the message of Tolka Row and anticipating the message of Strumpet City.” 76
While this analysis may have over-stated the degree of conscious communication of message across a range of productions, it was a reasonable enough reading of the deep structure underlying this production, as well as others of the period.
Another project of Brian MacLochlainn’s, who was very committed to the dramatic depiction of Dublin working class life, was an urban six hour serial, The Burke Enigma. It was cops and robbers Dublin style, an indigenous version of the imported television crime series. It adopted many of the conventions of the genre developed elsewhere: the use of film, authentic locations, rapid cutting; action-adventure sequences full of fisticuffs, car chases, arrests and interrogations; a plot structured around crime, investigation and solution. It was particularly influenced by British versions of the genre, such as Z Cars and The Sweeney. It was intended to be more than just a crime thriller with a Dublin setting, however. It was meant to engage in an exploration of certain themes beyond what the genre normally allowed. It set out to be a dramatic investigation of such matters as the nature of urban crime and its relation to legitimate business and to political power, the role of the matriarchal family and the existence of contrasting approaches to police methods.
The story was triggered by the murder of Mrs. Burke, the matriarch of the Burke family. This was the enigma, the mystery to which subsequent investigation was to find the solution. The plot developed by looking into the lives of each of the suspects, ie, the various members of the Burke family. The Burke family was described as:
“Your old Dublin family with the rosary beads in one hand and the hatchet in the other.”
They were a mafia type family modelled on the Dunne family, who had built an empire based on various types of racketeering, prostitution, and money lending. Their rackets had spawned various legitimate businesses in an intricate web in which the straight half fed off the bent half and vice versa. Their accumulated power and possessions had also won them the protection of people in high places. Each of the big and bad Burke family had their own story. Willie Burke particularly embodied the tie-in of criminal activity to political and business activity. An up-and-coming politician, he was also a night club owner, as well as being implicated in pornography, prostitution, arson and fraud. His wife, Sandra, was a younger and perhaps even tougher version of the deceased matriarch, up to her eyes in various rackets and not reluctant to call upon her husband’s connections with senior gardai. In the course of following them and the rest of the family, all sorts of aspects of the black economy came to light, as well as such matters as emigration, homosexuality and suicide.
The dominant point of view running through the serial was that of the police, more specifically that of the two detectives investigating the Burke murder. It was through their eyes that Dublin, the Burke family, the Garda Siochana and all else was seen. The differences between the two detectives were central to the serial. McGettigan, the older of the two, representing an older type of cop, was a Dublin detective with a Donegal background. His basic approach to crime was psychological, empirical, methodical and patient. It was to investigate, to accumulate evidence and to draw upon a shrewd knowledge of human behaviour gleaned from years of experience. He was liberal and humanitarian. He was cultured and interested in the arts. Hannon was a younger and a newer type of cop. A tough, streetwise jackeen, his inclination was to punch first and ask questions later. He was impatient and violent and aggressive. Although representing the official forces of law and order, he was disposed to use whatever methods he thought appropriate, whether within the law or not, and not only in the pursuit of justice. He was not beyond the pursuit of private vendetta either. At one point, he was suspended from the force for insubordination. At another point, he was on the verge of resignation. Both were highly individualist characters, more than willing to fight their corner against bureaucratic authority, but in very different ways. In terms of the genre, one was more in the mould of Maigret, Friday, Kojak, Columbo or Furillo, while the other was more in the mould of Regan, Starsky and Hutch, Bodie and Doyle, Dempsey or Crockett. In one episode, McGettigan himself described their divergent approaches:
“When I went into the guards in ’43, it seemed to be the simplest job in the world. Now it gets more complex every day… Take me and Hannon – we’ve different attitudes to the same job. Hannon looks at Dublin and sees all the things wrong -all the rot. The only way he thinks of curing it is with tough arm stuff. To be in the guards for him means a clean ticket to mop up the city. Stamp out any smell of trouble. To hell with the pimps and the winos and the prostitutes…l’ve no romantic notions about the city. The prostitutes are as much a part of it as the bishops. I wasn’t employed by the force to change history, just to do me job, use me brains, do me best and go home and forget about it. That’s what I think.”
Reviewers generally praised The Burke Enigma for the realism of its portrayal of contemporary Dublin and for the stylishness of its methods of production. Some qualified their general approval with complaints that came down to the rhythm and pace of plot development. It was in many cases compared favourably withThe Spike which had preceded it earlier in the same year, 1978.
In an academic analysis of The Burke Enigma, Mary Kelly postulated that the reason why The Burke Enigma was accepted as realistic by its audience and The Spike wasn’t had a lot to do with the degree to which they drew upon the existing conventions of a popular television genre.77 The implication of this being that the audience’s expectations and judgemental criteria were derived more from their accumulation of previous television viewing than from their direct experience of the reality represented or their knowledge of it from other sources. It was probably so and becoming increasingly so. As far as the criticisms of The Burke Enigma went, Mary Kelly put these down as well to the audience’s expectations engendered by foreign examples of the television crime genre. Because the pace of plot development was slowed down by the more detailed characterisation of the criminal elements and by the examination of police methods and because the serial form spread the building of climax and resolution over six episodes, the norm of simple characterisation and fast climax and resolution within each episode was upset. In her more substantive critique of the narrative itself, as it resonated with existing ideological discourses in Irish society, she focused on two central and interrelated themes running through it. The thematic values she perceived as pervading the serial were a treatment of crime, violence and evil as endemic to the city and an ambivalence towards competitive individualism. Regarding the first, her point was that it was simply posited, as if in no need of justification:
“There is no analysis of the social sources of crime, rather crime is presented as part of the very nature of cities.”
Regarding the second, she placed it in the context of the particular stage in Ireland’s ideological development:
“This concentration on competitive individualism as a source of good when represented by the police and as a source of destructive evil when represented by the [Burke] family is interesting. It is an ambivalence which articulates well…with a deep ambivalence in Irish culture and ideology towards individualism and especially competitive individualism. On the one hand, we reject it, it is not part of the romantic image of what it means to be Irish, which has been particularly prevalent in Irish drama and visual culture. On the contrary, we equate it with modernity, with urbanisation and industrialisation, with materialistic values. We counterpose these with the higher values of a sense of community, a belief in the family, a commitment to national (and often rural) traditions. And yet our economic system rewards the successful competitive individualist, such as Tony O’Reilly or Fergal Quinn, and our media delight in recounting their activities and successes; the IDA and government alike proclaim the need for native entrepreneurs.”
She concluded that The Burke Enigma was more questioning than the usual television crime drama, but that it was also more ambivalent. It showed the various shades of grey, rather than the usual black and white stereotypes. Despite these features which upset viewers’ genre expectations, it won acceptance because of its large measure of conformity to established genre conventions and to existing and accepted ideological values. 78
This very acceptance formed the basis of Eoghan Harris’ critique of The Burke Enigma. For him the lack of public controversy surrounding it meant that it had failed to meet the criterion of what he called ‘Dowling’s law’, which he formulated thus:
“No television programme which failed to offend a substantial section of Irish vested interests can be said to have discharged its obligations to Irish society”. 79
Harris, who had an alternative conception of the serial, felt it was too much of a Z Cars type of script and was produced with a great deal of cooperation with the gardai. He believed it could have been done with more originality and bite to it.
For his part, Brian Mac Lochlainn believed that its acceptance meant that it had fulfilled its aims. It helped to make people aware of the existence of the Dunnes and raised public consciousness of the nature of their activities. He insisted that it did not compromise in its treatment of the gardai and exposed the existence of serious corruption in Dublin Castle.80 On the question of the realism of this representation of the gardai, Kevin McHugh, who played Willie Burke and, like Brian Mac Lochlainn, was the son of a guard, expressed reservations. In his opinion, it had the realism of a plausible fiction in the manner of a plot from The Sweeney or Columbo, but it did not have the realism of a drama documentary exposing the true nature of the gardai. The degree and level of corruption ascribed to the force were not credible in the latter sense, nor was it accepted as such by the audience in whom it touched no nerve as revealing something about Irish society. 81 In any case, Brian MacLochlainn had hoped the series would develop into a continuing drama, a sort of Store Street Blues. A second series was actually written, but ran into a situation where all deals were off with a change in head of drama. Plans to do a follow up to A Week in the Life of Martin Cluxton also ran into various obstacles over the years.
Occupying the same territory as Martin Cluxton were the people in Heno Magee’s two plays I’m Getting Out of this Kip and Hatchet. Showing the poverty, claustrophobia, frustration and violence of the lives of those living in urban slums, they made the lot of subsistence farmers, landless labourers, grass widows and other unfavoured rural elements look blissful. In both plays, someone from the area who had emigrated and made good in England returned to provide a point of contrast to a bleak, brutalised, trapped existence in Ireland and to hold out leaving Dublin for another country’s cities as the only conceivable solution to the inexplicable problems of this country’s cities. In I’m Getting Out of this Kip, the only hope to come into the life of no hoper Jimmy Carter, living in corporation flats with his alcoholic father and defeated mother, was the return of his older brother, who seemed to be doing well in England. In Hatchet, the cycle of snarling violence bred by a culture of chronic unemployment, overcrowded housing and general impoverishment was quite forcefully portrayed. It focused on the conflicting loyalties, brought to a point of personal crisis in the life of Hatchet Bailey. He had earned his name at the age of 14 in facing the animal gang and cracking skulls in defence of his father, the Digger, a hard man, long on the dole, illiterate, in and out of prison. Hatchet was caught in the middle between his widowed mother, constantly inciting him to live up to his name and to fight her battles for her, and his young wife Bridie, pulling him in the opposite direction. He began to consider emigration as the means of escape from the environment that had marked him as a man of violence. Unable to analyse his environment, he nevertheless knew there was something drastically wrong with it and with what it had made him. Hatchet recounted a parable told to him by his probation officer and applied it to himself:
“A man went out to find his enemies and he found no friends. Now a man went out to find his friends and he found no enemies.”
Bridie, for her part, wanted little more out of life than a bit of peace, away from the suffocating matriarchal presence and the violence. She wanted to be out of his mother’s home, where she could do nothing “not even dream” and to have a home of their own. She wanted only “no more waking up and hating it”. The strength of Heno Magee’s plays was in their descriptive accuracy, in portraying the problems and pressures of the population trapped in the cultural milieu of Dublin corporation flats. The weakness, however, was in the lack of an analytical power probing further. They were strong on description of consequences, but weak on insight into causes. They assumed that individuals needed to be understood in their environmental context, but focused only on the most immediate environmental context and failed to pursue larger questions of sources or solutions.
Class Consciousness
The same could be said of much of RTE’s drama of the period, both urban and rural, both comic and tragic. There was a strong class consciousness running through it, for example, but it was stronger descriptively than analytically. Much of it had a very light touch indeed. Up in the World, for example, was a ten part comedy series built around a family’s transition from one residential area to another in an up market direction. There was much scope for comic relief in the situation, especially in the actions of the loquacious father of the family, not anxious for his new neighbours to know of his humbler origins. Giving an indication of the spirit running through much of it was an RTE Guide article by Norman Smythe, RTE drama script editor and script writer:
“Life has become infinitely more complex since the spread of democratic ideas and one of our great losses has been the blurring of recognisable differences between classes. In the good old days, there was a clear cut distinction between the landed gentry and the landless peasants, between the people of quality and the rabble, between the bosses and the workers… It was a stable world where the lower orders knew their place and kept to it with the exception of a few dissidents who sought to rise about their station. The world…ran smoothly, governed by gentlemanly principles agreed to in a good-humoured way by both sides… Alas, times have changed and the pendulum has swung over. An Irish emigrant hears the Women’s Liberation Movement marching up Fifth Avenue past Tiffany’s. A Bantu washing dishes in a Wimpy Bar in Tottenham Court Road hears the cry of equality from a Professor of Applied Physics on his way to catch the train to his six bedroom house in Wimbledon. I was born somewhere between the swing of the pendulum and owing to the negligence of my father in not overcoming the inconvenience of poverty, I had to indulge in manual labour from an early age”. 82
Observing and registering the marks of class and ringing the signs of some of the changes, yes. Doing so in witty style and in clever images, yes. But leaving us any the wiser about the nature of class and the real character of contemporary changes, no. Certainly the bitterness of Irish labour history and the legacy of 1913, not to speak of generations of agrarian struggle, played no part in this placid picture.
Nevertheless, out of his own working experience of a world of navvies, barmen, night watchmen and factory workers, Smythe wrote several plays meant to fulfill RTE’s perceived need for drama relating to the world of work in an increasingly industrialised society. The Rag Pickers, The Seamen and The Prison were close-up studies of relationships among men thrown together through their work that simply did this without any wider aspirations.
Whether as a major or minor theme, workplace relationships came increasingly into play. In series, such as Partners in Practice, The Spike and The Burke Enigma, and in plays, such as People in Glass Houses and Oh Mistress Mine, and in RTE-supported films such as Exposure, these were to the fore. In certain domestic drama, such as Up in the World and What Happens When it Snows? , these came into the picture to shed light on how a character’s behaviour at work was related to his behaviour at home. In the latter, for example, the fact that the father of the family, a fitter in a jam factory, was considered a scab by his workmates constituted an important dimension of the overall characterisation.
Along way from the factory floor was the milieu of Kevin Grattan’s People in Glass Houses, which took a semi-serious look at the machinations at the upper echelons of the work force. Looking at the urban nouveau riche thrown up by the Lemass era in their working lives, the play was full of the modern management manual jargon coming to dominate the business conducted in the new high-rise office blocks, the mushrooming glass houses popping up all around Dublin. In this world, career manoeuvering was covered with layers and layers of empty spoof about decision analysis, goal setting, creative feedback, ongoing systems, executive self-starters, quantifying segments. In one moment of truth, one up-and-coming executive, manoeuvering between two rival finance houses, found it difficult to sustain the bluff and abruptly changed key. He put it to his interviewing board:
“All this delegating, arbitrating, quantifying…
I’m surprised you have any time to get any work done…”
It was far from a radical critique of the parasitic character of financial speculation, but it did put a tiny prick into the inflated egos of the lightweights who rose to the top on the high tide of Ireland’s economic expansion. It was only the tip of the iceberg in what called out for dramatic exposure in this quarter, but it has unfortunately been an area left otherwise untouched.
Another look at the nouveau riche of this era was Kieran Hickey’s film Criminal Conversation shown on RTE. It opened on the high-rise world of advertising and projected some vivid images of the ethos of the PR milieu at an office Christmas party. The main focus of the film, however, was the domestic life of the superficially self-admiring, but deeply insecure, new Ireland. In the course of an evening dinner party, the masks came off and the reality behind the public roles stood revealed. Ironically, the truth was told only when pretending. The use of charades as a narrative device was itself a rather cutting comment on the manners and mores of Ireland’s new managerial middle class.
Drama of Suburban Life
The new sprawling suburbs became the locus for several successive, though short-lived, serials of the seventies. Southside was meant to break new ground for RTE, to be a suburban counterpart to the urban Tolka Row and the rural The Riordans. It was meant to be distinguished by the setting, by the kind of people, by the type of concerns and by the adult treatment of these. It was intended to have great topicality at a time when the men in dark suits and slim briefcases seemed to be well and truly on their way in a culture not far removed from its peasant past. Set in the semi-detached suburbia of Cork, it made the point that urban and suburban life was not confined to Dublin. It dealt with the problems of an unofficial parents association, a trade union secretary , travellers, a priest involved in social action being stifled by his superiors. Above all, it took on marital breakdown, not the sort marked by sudden and spectacular crisis, but the much more common sort marked by slow and barely perceptible disintegration. The serial centred on two couples, each of whom had drifted apart and found themselves simply sharing a house with someone they had once married.
The next season brought a sequel entitled Newpark Southside, set on a new housing estate, with the Maher family moved from the foreground into the background. It also brought certain changes in tone, theme and treatment. Believing that Southside had gone too far in its emphasis on social comment and had made comedy incidental, it was decided to reverse the order, so that comedy struck the dominant note. Whereas the aim of Southside had been to say out loud what many Irish people spoke about only in whispers, the aim of Newpark Southside was more to entertain. However, the author of both serials, David Hayes, was anxious to make the point that, while the tone would be lighter, the comedy was to have its serious side and the laughter would have an edge to it. It would no longer have the urgency and intensity of direct social comment, but it would cast a cold eye on the changes taking place in the Ireland of its day and deal courageously with the relevant issues. There was still a concern with such problems as those of men who had worked their way up and were squeezed out by rationalisation and of people who found themselves in marriage that didn’t dramatically break up but simply died over a number of years. Both serials were permeated by the assumption that suburbia created the conditions for a particular brand of social malaise.
Also suburban in setting was Partners in Practice, a medical series set up to give the Irish television audience, long familiar with Emergency Ward 10, Dr. Finlay’s Casebook, Marcus Welby M.D. and Dr. Kildare, an indigenous version of a popular genre. It was also to acknowledge the social importance of the population shifted into the huge housing estates in Ireland’s mushrooming suburbs. The small fictional village of Sallybawn at the foot of the Dublin mountains, which had suddenly sprouted a vast residential growth, was modelled on Tallaght with its endless expanse of ticky-tacky houses and few amenities. One amenity Sallybawn was to have, however, was a new health centre. Sallybawn Health Centre, the central locus of the series, was to be the embodiment of the new medical scheme introduced in April 1972, characterised by a choice-of-doctor scheme, a staff of public health nurses and social workers, and equal health care for every section of the community, whether from corporation or private estates.
Each of the stories highlighted various aspects of life in this sort of seventies sprawling suburb, presenting the new face of working class life. There were suburbs and suburbs. Tallaght / Sallybawn was a world away from Foxrock or Portmarnock. In one episode, a Sallybawn character was saying what many were saying about Tallaght at the time, wondering what sort of planning, or lack of planning, had created such a place, a community with no community centre (in any sense of the term). Then turning around and answering her own question, the social worker saw the explanation in the triumph of market forces over social planning. Or put to it in her terms:
“But, of course, community centres and libraries and playgrounds aren’t as lucrative as shopping centres and supermarkets.”
Various storylines took up such matters as juvenile delinquency, industrial accidents, class differences, professional relationships, emigration, overcrowded housing, illness, domestic strife, children watching television violence, lost souls in the urban crowd and much more. However, like Southside and Newpark Southside, it ran one season and disappeared nearly without trace. In trying to trace the reasons, different people came up with different answers. For Carolyn Swift, the main writer, there were problems with casting and other aspects of production. The opinion of critics probably carried some weight, particularly that of Hugh Leonard who slated it, though Arden and D’ Arcy praised it highly.83 For Michael Judge, another writer involved in the series, the trouble was with the unevenness of the writing and the pace being too slow for the television audience of the day. 84
Later, there were a few single plays set in suburbia, though certainly not as many as there should have been to give due scope to the problems deserving of dramatic treatment at this developing edge of Irish life. Briarsville Forever in 1977, written by Kevin Grattan and directed by Louis Lentin, was the sort of play promoted by Louis Lentin when he became head of drama in 1978 and instituted the Thursday Playdate spot. Believing that the television play should start where current affairs left off, he took the position that the television play could highlight social issues by showing new dimensions to them and by leaving a more memorable impact. Coming out of the author’s own experience of a new estate much like the fictional Briarsville of this play, the dreams and disappointments of those seeking a better life in the suburbs were brought up for consideration. Building the story around a young newly married couple, who had sunk all their savings into a house that had turned out to be damp, draughty and even dangerous, the difficulties of organising a concerted campaign among residents provided further reason for discouragement. Working through the residents association, a plan to picket the show house in protest against the shoddy workmanship ran into resistance from residents, who could think no further than their fear of adverse publicity and its effect on property values.
Collective activity or any sort of community spirit was being progressively eroded by the possessive individualism of suburbia. A second thread of the play was the state of marriage on the new estates and the world of women who got caught up in the world of pyramid selling, regarded by the author as ‘the opium of the harrassed suburban housewife’, though few others would have regarded it as such a central target. The connection with current affairs came, not only in drama taking matters up where current affairs left off, but the other way round as well, with news coming in where the fiction left off. A headline in the Evening Herald not long after read: “residents row is echo of RTE drama”.
Moving a few steps down-market again was Jim Sheridan’s Mobile Homes, an RTE version of a Dublin Theatre Festival play which caused a bit of a rumpus, mainly because of the presence of an outdoor toilet. RTE’s rather infelicitously phrased announcement of the play had “the author playing the title role”. Sheridan, who played, not a mobile home, but an inhabitant of one, presented an extraordinarily bleak picture in this drama documentary of life on a Dublin site. It showed tenants struggling for the most elementary of rights, coping with the cold and the dark after the landlord had cut off the electricity in retaliation, on top of the already intolerable conditions of cramping and lack of proper sanitation, not to mention explosive tensions from other sources. Amidst all this, a child was born and a child died. The death of the child was brought on by the conditions of this most impossible and degrading way of life. This play provided one of the very few occasions on which any character, let alone a central character, was a committed socialist. Sheridan, primarily through his own character of Shay, a painter of other people’s houses with none of his own, showed rather simply how Engels’ writings on housing had helped some at least to see their unhappy lot and their small-scale endeavours as part of a larger process, moving hopefully towards a larger solution. Several scenes raised political questions in very explicit terms. In one scene, Shay’s father asked him:
“Who will organise vagabonds and riff-raff -the communists ”
To which he replied:
“Maybe, but anyway, we are not vagabonds and riff-raff.”
Which was as far as things got before violence ensued and a woman’s labour came on.
Class Structure, Social Systems and the Politics of RTE Drama
Even though the possibility of collective action in response to social injustice was only sketchily raised and left hanging in the air, it was at least raised in away that was absent in other productions like A week in the Life of Martin Cluxton, Hatchet, I’m Getting Out of this Kip or even The Spike. The fact was that, even in these productions, which RTE would point to as its strongest contributions in the way of urban drama or in the way of socially conscious drama, RTE had failed to come to terms with the real texture of contemporary urban life and particularly with its cutting edge. Even across the whole range of its drama, it had fallen far short of giving an adequate picture of the real social canvas of its constituent culture. It had been most remiss with respect to its representation of working class life and strikingly negligent in relation to the most socially conscious and culturally advanced elements of urban life.
What RTE has considered its prototypical working class drama has tended to focus on lumpen life, ie, on the culture of chronic unemployment, criminality and social welfare dependency. In other words, its working class drama has tended to focus on people who did not work. Part of the problem has been a lack of clarity about the nature of class. There has been a tendency to identify the working class by shabby clothes, flat accent, rough manners, lack of education, corporation flats, rather than by work. There has correspondingly been a tendency to identify the middle class by decent clothes, posh accent, cultivated manners, education, private housing, rather than by relationship to means of production. The Cluxtons and the Baileys were putatively working class, as were the kids in Down the Corner, a film made by the Ballyfermot community arts workshop co-funded by RTE. The teaching staff of The Spike, the medical staff of Partners in Practice, the detectives of The Burke Enigma and the residents of Southside, Newpark Southside and Briarsville Forever were regarded as middle class.
However, if more historically based and sociologically accurate definitions were to be applied, the profile would look different. Properly used, class is a term for locating a person’s place in the social division of labour and distribution of wealth, for specifying their relationship to the means of production, distribution and exchange. The great divide is ownership or non-ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. Defining the working class as those dependent on wage labour for their livelihood and the middle class as those with a stake in the private ownership of the means of social production, distribution and exchange, then even well-dressed, well-spoken, educated and home-owning teachers, social workers, nurses and guards would be working class, so long as they lived by wage labour and they had no stake in the ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. Correspondingly, even the most badly-dressed, inarticulate, uneducated person, who owned land, stocks or shares, a shop, a pub, a van or other business would not be working class, however hard working.
Under capitalism, there are two major forces, capital and labour, generating the two major classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie, today the dominant class, originated under feudalism as the middle class between the aristocracy and peasantry, as merchants, who were neither lord nor serf, but made their way by buying and selling. There are also minor classes, such as the aristocracy, which has survived the mode of production which gave rise to it. There are also sub-classes. In terms of ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, there is a huge difference between major shareholders in major multinational corporations and small shopkeepers. The haute bourgeoisie has amassed unprecedented wealth and the petite bourgeoisie may be economically quite marginal and even on the verge of impoverishment. In terms of those of no property (in the productive/ commercial sense), there is a substantial, if shifting, divide between those who work and those who do not. The proletariat is socially productive and has a culture shaped by the structure of work discipline. The lumpen proletariat is the opposite. The chronically unemployed as a subclass tend to have a culture that is unproductive, undisciplined, individualist and even anti-social, while the aristocracy is a parasitic and privileged upper class, the lumpen proletariat is a parasitic and impoverished underclass.
All of the above classes and subclasses warrant dramatic treatment, but the drama of any aspect of life within the social order would be enhanced by clarity about the nature of class structure and the real texture of the spectrum. Lumpen culture was and is undoubtedly in need of dramatic exploration, perhaps more fully and more sharply than what RTE has done. However, an insightful exploration of either working class life or lumpen life has been subverted by the confusion of the two and the pre-occupation with one at the expense of the other. It was certainly inappropriate to set out to give a dramatic picture of working class life and then to put those who did not work on centre stage. It has done scant justice to those whose hands have built our homes, whose brains have advanced our knowledge, whose leadership has pushed forward the struggle for social justice, to make the no-hopers, the spoofers and the ruffians the norm. The working class has been presented, not as a majority class whose labour has made the world go round and whose voice has demanded only what was their right, but as an aggregate of individuals, who were impotently idling or lashing out or chancing their arms.
In a liberal mode, they were represented as in need of liberal compassion and social democratic intervention, rather than in a conservative mode, as in need of criminalisation and authoritarian retribution. They were presented as dole fodder rather than as jail fodder. But these were not the only possible modes of representation of the working class. No matter how far to the right or left of this view individual producers, writers, heads of drama or controllers were, their actual productions embodied the dominance of a vaguely liberal sympathy for the inexplicably underprivileged. It was a tendency to operate on a set of implicit assumptions, rather than to bring them into explicit expression. It did not bring liberal sympathy into sharp conflict either with conservative complicity in class privilege or with a radical critique of the structural inequalities inherent in class society. It was a tendency to hug the ground just left of centre, not veering too much either to the left or to the right.
The best of these productions were characterised by vivid exposure, even reforming zeal. They were distinguished by close observation of local consequences, but not by a clear vision of wider socio-historical causes or alternatives. Whatever may have been intended, what came out was a condescending view of the working class, either as helplessly oppressed and needing middle class handling or as somehow inherently funny, functioning as a foil for middle class manners and calling forth middle class indulgent good humour. There was little sense of the working classes as competently organised to defend its own class interests, to read books, to discuss theories, to articulate its own views of the world. There was little sense of a working class subculture as characterised by work discipline, trade union organisation, adult education, labour songs, stories and rituals, political oratory, campaigns for social reforms, community festivals, sports, dances and a host of other activities that were far from the images of ineptitude, ignorance and squalor that were to the fore.
It was not that there were not corporation flats full of down-and-outs, drug addicts, drunkards, hard chaws, whinging wives, loud-mouthed scrubbers, hard-necked whores, scheming chancers and blundering buffoons. It was that the cities of the seventies also had their labour leaders, their left wing intellectuals, their radical feminists, their political activists in many causes. They were not to be seen in RTE drama, except in the most fleeting and marginal way, if at all. There were Martin Cluxtons and Hatchet Baileys bewildered by it all, but there were no Bill Brands, with ideas about the whys and wherefores of it all, trying to make a difference. The class struggle, the emergence of new social forces, the movements that made these times most memorable for many, were missing from the televised representations of the era in drama. Nor were the powers-that-be, the most strident of the old social forces, the interests that managed to stem the tide of social change, much in evidence either. Nor were their working class defenders, the militant craw thumpers, the catholic actionists and the blueshirt remnants. There was no real Irish equivalent of Alf Garnett or Archie Bunker. There was no dramatic representation, other than fleeting satirical sketches, of any elements with any sort of ideological edge.
It was also that the cities of the seventies were full of ordinary, decent, hard-working men and women whose lives, both at home and at work, threw up situations other than crime, corruption and violence, but more than worthy of dramatic treatment under the heading of urban or working class drama. The changing lifestyles of the times, penetrating to all sections of the population, gave much scope for drama. RTE did give a certain amount of dramatic attention to such people and such situations, but often without dramatic clarity about their place in the class structure of their society as it was relevant to the situation being explored.
Because of the lack of penetration into the reality of class in the lives of characters portrayed, the real structure of the social order shaping the parameters of their lives never came into sharp focus. The existing social order, in its basic structure, was taken as given, however much certain reforms within that structure might have been thought necessary or desirable. Capitalism was taken as given. When its flaws were exposed, the dilemma revolved around the polarity between the human and the inhuman faces of capitalism. The assumption, usually implicit and unexamined, was that individuals making a moral choice could put humanist considerations above commercial ones and solve such problems as were faced, without the necessity of any change in the structure of the social order. There was never a clear sense of the problem of social inequality as being systemic in nature, necessitating a systemic response in solution. Because the system never came into sharp relief as a system, the need to do anything about it as a system never arose. This would go a long way towards explaining why political activism, particularly the radical politics of either left or right varieties, were on the scale of marginal-to-absent in the overall picture.
The same could be said of the drama dealing with class tensions in a rural context. Resentment between landless agricultural labourers and their land owning employers surfaced again and again. It was represented as constructing barriers of communication, as blighting young love, as generating personal hostility and sexual tension. It was not represented as stemming from a historically contingent form of social organisation, whereby one class could appropriate the surplus value created by another. Class differences tended to be accepted as a historically inevitable condition, the abuses of which could be mitigated by mutual understanding and good will among individuals. It posed no structural problems, only personal ones, which could be resolved by everyone either knowing their place or being a bit more flexible about the rules for moving from one place to another.
King of the Castle was perhaps the most bitter expression of class tensions on the land. It showed the impotence of class tensions that did not rise to the level of collective class consciousness and structural confrontation. Class tension seethed and fed on itself and consumed all enveloped by it. It was a disintegrating and destructive force rather than an integrative and constructive force. The Riordans tended to keep class tension somewhere in between. Matters such as the wages and conditions of agricultural labourers were periodically raised and then diffused, as Eamonn Maher, Batty Brennan and Pat Barry all eventually found personal solutions in the way of upward mobility. Along the way, problems which arose gave rise to ineffectual personal resentment or effectual confrontation and resolution. It was always in terms of each individual dealing with it alone on a personal basis, never turning to collective solidarity. Unlike the agricultural labourers on NY Estates in Emmerdale Farm, the Leestown variety never took the path of union organisation, despite the advancing unionisation of rural workers in the country at the time. All the same, the issues were sometimes raised with real bite, even between highly sympathetic and long established characters. At one point, Eamonn Maher resigned, leaving Tom Riordan unable to comprehend what had happened. Farmhands were hired and fired. They did not resign. Trying to understand, Tom asked Eamonn:
“All the time you worked here did I treat you fair?”
Eamonn proceeded to explain that, when Comerford had gone off, Tom had offered to lend him Eamonn for a day or two. Still not seeing, Eamonn explained further:
“Well, you don’t lend things you don’t own…
you’d look after me, all right, the way you’d look after the tractor or the stock”.
It was a revelation of cutting condescension in the most benevolent of characters. Nevertheless, things were patched up on a personal level. Eamonn was soon back working for Tom and eventually acquired his own land.
Exemplifying the pattern noted by sociologists, this sort of social mobility was hostile to class-collective action, because, as David Fitzpatrick put it:
“it encourages queue-jumping rather than conspiracy among frustrated queuers to take over the bus.” 85
Across a range of other social issues raised in The Riordans, Luke Gibbons noted a similar tendency to blur and diffuse class tensions. Remarking on the relative absence of forms of collective action, which transcend familial and affective ties, he cited Jude’s dispute with a rackrenting landlord. Although it coincided with an actual campaign among flat dwellers in real life, Jude’s personal situation was mediated through Tom Riordan’s intervention, acting both as her father and as county councillor. The need for organised campaigns for concerted resistance at a more engaged level was alluded to, but never really developed. 86
Most of the time, it was individuals up against other individuals. The extent to which individuals were differentially placed to be unequal in the struggle was often raised, but never fully explored. Michael Judge’s The Decoy looked at the personal dimension of urban development in the conflict between a property speculator and a shoemaker who was a sitting tenant in a building now marked for other purposes. It was a conflict between one determined to make maximum profits and the other determined to defend his shop to the death. It was a story less about social forces than about personal relationships and the pressures people put on one another. Some pushed. Some resisted. Others got caught in the middle. In the process, each one changed. It did, however, give occasion to think about the nature of the social forces which had set off such changes. An explanation of how different individuals coped with a corrupt society was John Montague’s story A Change of Management, adapted for RTE by Eugene McCabe. Some simply took on accepted values and triumphed. Most blew with the wind. Others discovered they couldn’t beat the system and joined it. A few resisted and were destroyed.
Images of the Family
Choices between acceptance or resistance came much nearer to home for most, in fact, in the home. Conflicts easier to comprehend than those involving class forces and social institutions were those nearest to hand, ie, within the family. In this domain, RTE drama did play its part in demonstrating that the family unit was by no means the unproblematic basic unit of social organisation that de Valera’s constitution and the bishops pastorals made it out to be. Far from being a warm and secure haven from the vicissitudes of the larger world, the family home was shown to be rent with vicissitudes of its own. Far from relieving the pressures of the outside world, the families of Martin Cluxton and Hatchet BaIley only intensified the pressures. The family itself was both victim and victimiser in the face of these social pressures. The family was shown to be less a site of supportive relationships than an arena of threatening conflicts and authoritarian structures.
Alternatively, it was a vacuum of casual neglect and acute loneliness. There were few homes in the dramas of the day that were not riddled with marital, parental or sibling tensions. There were few crowded houses that were not full of very lonely people. There were tensions between husband and wife in King of the Castle, Heritage, The Spike and Criminal Conversation. There were conflicts between mothers and sons in The Burke Enigma, Hatchet and Sons and Mothers; between mother and daughter in A Cheap Bunch of Nice Flowers; between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in Hatchet; between father and sons in The Country Boy; between fathers and daughters in The Spike, between brothers in Cancer and Only the Earth. There were conflicts between all of these in The Riordans.
Admittedly, conflict is the stuff of drama and placid families leading uneventful, harmonious lives are not. Also the while heritage of post-ibsenite drama was to focus on family conflict. Even so, RTE drama gave a picture of family life at odds with the official ideology. The official ideologues were not hesitant to say so. Drama showed that the placid exterior often hid a muted sort of disharmony, which was very deep indeed, even if it was not loud. From the loneliness of old age in The Cruel Fondness, to the gulf between people who once married in Southside and Exposure, to the isolation of the odd-one-out child in Partners in Practice, there were many who felt acutely alone amidst all the clatter and superficial contact of family life. The urban homes shown, those of the Cluxtons, the Baileys, the O’Mahonys, the Burkes and most others, were major disaster areas. In The Burke Enigma, Joe Burke tried to articulate what he felt about the stifling, claustrophobic influence of the family:
“I mean the whole family thing – it’s like a vice .You don’t get room to breathe, to be yourself… No one gets away. The family has a hold on you… All of us, we’re all caught in the web”.
Other plays too took on the drama of the individual struggling to define him/herself, over against the stultifying weight of the family. Some focused on generational conflict. The Glory and the Dream showed a bright lad from a working class background, wanting to go to university, instead of settling into a dead-end job, as family expectations laid down. Too Short A Summer showed another lad wanting to do the opposite, but meeting the same sort of resistance. What Happens When It Snows? , James Douglas’s play about “that fecund and most frightening of jungles, the family”, showed how thorny things could get, when a son returned home with the girl with whom he’d been living in sin in England. The Apprentice was also about a break with parents’ lifestyles.
These plays generally reflected the social shifts that had opened a new range of options for those at life’s crossroads, which were not always comprehensible or acceptable to those who had no such options. The emerging stress on the rights and needs of the individual, struggling against the demands, not only of the family, but of the larger community, showed the developing displacement of more traditional quasi-feudal values by more modern bourgeois values. This pattern manifested itself in the whole range of productions, revealing the ambivalence regarding individualism that Mary Kelly noted in relation to The Burke Enigma to be deeply rooted in the Irish mentality of the times. The pressure of the demands for individual identity and self-expression upon the stability of the traditional family unit began to show and to play itself out in ever more complex ways. It was evident, not only in offspring wanting to fly the coop and go their own way, but in new dimensions coming into relations between the sexes.
Conflicting Norms of Sexual Morality
It was possible to detect a struggle between old and new norms of sexual morality. Even where the old norms were in force among the characters, there was sometimes a new edge of critical exposure in the author’s portrayal of the characters. Even in stories in which there was no hint of characters questioning the traditional norms in principle, there were revelations of a complexity of experience that nearly compelled a violation of the simplicity of their surface acceptance. It was more than norms and transgressions of those norms due to fallen human nature. It was that there were hints, not so much in the character’s own perceptions of their situations, but in the author’s construction of the scenario, that the problem might be with the norms and not with those who transgressed them. This was rarely taken to its limits and followed through in a really satisfactory way, but even such hints could play their part in puncturing the hegemony of unquestioned traditional norms.
The revelations that things were not what they seemed in what might have looked like the most normal of lives made one wonder. The exposure of an unsuspected complexity in what seemed the simplest of lives gave cause for thought about the validity of trying to fit life’s flow into such rigid bounds. There was the slip of the tongue, revealing a liaison that implied illegitimacy, from the old Donegal woman in Mr. Sing, My Heart’s Delight. There was the illicit and violent intercourse between the religious and repressed Matt and Tressa in King of the Castle. There was the discovery of bigamy in the comings and goings of a west of Ireland man working in England in Deeply Regretted By. Such moments hit a nerve and carried a sort of paradigmatic force that left one thinking about how much more was hidden beneath the surface of even what looked quite traditional.
Of course, with the changing times, the surface was starting to look less traditional. There were sexual liaisons outside the bounds for all to see. In The Riordans, there was Jim Hyland leaving Jude Riordan and remarrying abroad. There was Jude taking up with a man with a foreign divorce. There was Paddy Gorey returning home with Shelagh and living in sin in Leestown. There was the unmarried mother from England. Interestingly all these stories had a foreign connection, suggesting that the forces subverting traditional morality were external rather than internal to Irish society or that Irish morality was a hot house plant that could not survive in the open air. In Exposure, there was Oliver’s affair with Caroline, whose presence created an uneasiness and a threatening quality, very tied to the fact that she was not only a professional woman and divorced, but foreign. In time, however, it became more possible to introduce such stories without the foreign influence.
The forces contributing to the disintegrating marriages and adulterous liaisons in Criminal Conversation were quite indigenous, a fact which was given particular emphasis by a character’s involvement in a “Be Irish” television campaign, full of Sean O’Riada music,” I am Ireland “ poetry and lush green scenery. Perhaps the most daring illicit liaison of all, only possible by the end of the decade, was that of the married and much Ioved Maggie Riordan with Pat Barry. By this time too, Wesley Burrowes could introduce unmarried mothers of the home-grown variety in Sons and Mothers.
The weight of the community on such transgressive relationships lay very heavily indeed. Jude was under constant pressure from the Marys and the Minnies. Sheelagh was refused pub service by her own sister, Julia Mac. Caroline was confronted with the furtive nastiness of the women working in the hotel and with the symbolic rape of the rifling of her room by Oliver’s frustrated and repressed mates. Drama raised issues with which the community did not want to cope. Regarding contraception, Maggie Riordan went on the pill and all hell broke loose, even more in the real community than in the fictionl one.
Regarding broken or disintegrating marriages, Helen Diffley in Whose Child? had to stay legally married to a man she hadn’t even heard from in ten years, whether she liked it or not, like her many real life counterparts. No matter what Frank and Margaret and Charlie and Bernadette in Criminal Conversation and all like them might decide they wanted to do, when confronted with the ruins of what once were marriages, they faced the state’s law of criminal conversation and the church’s prohibition on divorce.
The picture of Irish marriages among those who stayed together and might never consider separation or divorce was not very edifying either. The gulf of understanding and sympathy separating Scober and Tressa McAdam or Hatchet and Bridie Bailey was continents wide and oceans deep. The relationship between Jer O’Mahoney and his wife resembled guerilla warfare. That between John Willie and Sarah O’Neill was a veritable wastleland. Of course, there were also Tom and Mary Riordan, in what would have been considered a middling-to-good-marriage, but they at all times related to each other across the gulf of the traditional sexual division of labour, in which the opposite sex was always a semi-alien species. They were not exactly inspiring exemplars of mature sexual passion either. Sex was definitely something for the young. It was impossible to conceive of Tom and Mary in the act. Among the young, sex was something for men. Bridie either let Hatchet “have his way” with her or had a headache, as the case might be.
The overall picture of sexuality in Irish society that came through was, it must be said, somewhat sordid. The sordidity, the kind born of the cycle of sexual repression and illicit indulgence, was there in Irish society and needed dramatic treatment, though it received more enlightened treatment from some authors than from others.
McCabe’s various plays went closest to the edge and did so with the greatest insight. His images struck nearest to the raw nerves of Irish sexuality. There were images of severe sexual repression in Eric O’Neill’s paralysis in the face of Rachel’s emotional and sexual needs; in John Willie O’Neill’s marriage to a woman who hated bodies, both his and hers which he had never seen; in Paschal and Pacelli McAleer, who walked through life as semi-automatons that didn’t smoke, didn’t drink and didn’t ‘interfere with girls’, though they might well blow them to bits; in Joady and Dinny McMahon’s slovenly and spiteful womanless house; in Benny Brady’s praying in a loft while Joe masturbated. There were images of atavistic and bestial sexuality: in the view from Benny’s loft of pissing and puking and gropes and groans from the town’s hot blood; in the predatory sexual parrying of Gallagher the provo gunman, who notched up girls he screwed in ditches in the same way as he did with the targets he made into corpses; in Scober McAdam’s view of sex as an itch, a scratch, a growth; in Maguire’s cocky strut of taunting offers of his services as a stud; in Matt and Tressa’s violent intercourse; in Mrs. McAleer who seemed as if she could give birth to her sons full-grown. There were also more sophisticated, if not respectable, images of modern sexual expression: in Isabel Lynam’s affairs and abortion; in Harriet Armstrong’s experience of marriage as a cruel trap.
Kieran Hickey’s films also cut quite close to the bone and produced some penetrating images of Irish sexuality in the seventies. Exposure and Criminal Conversation, both written by Kieran Hickey and Philip Davison and directed by Kieran Hickey, were made by BAC Films in co-operation with RTE and transmitted by RTE.
Exposure, which won the arts council script award for 1977, was the story of three male surveyors from Dublin working on a government assignment for a week in the west of Ireland and their reactions to an attractive foreign female on a photographic assignment staying in the same small seedy hotel. The three men, who were conceived as in a sense the same man at three different ages, personified in a most striking way the immaturity of Irish male sexuality, what Hickey considered to be “the condition of chronic adolescence in the Irish male”87 The film explored the dynamics of male bonding between the three and the build-up of erotic tension between the four, once Caroline entered the picture and embarked on an affair with Oliver. Oliver, the youngest, was the only unmarried member of the trio. The other two, Dan and Eugene, were married and shown in telephone contact with their wives in Dublin. Both were revealed as achingly lonely within their marriages. Dan, longer married, was resigned to it. He had been lonely for 23 years. He had left his wife years ago, even if he still lived under the same roof and had rows with her over the phone when away. Eugene, not so long married, was disappointed and frustrated, but still held out some bleak hope for the sort of bond with his wife that would ease his loneliness. He reached out painfully for some sort of expression of affection, while she chattered on superficially and insensitively about her mother, the baby, cups of tea, television and mass.
On the Sunday, the three went to mass and then the four went on a picnic, having an idyllic sort of day, full of high spirited joie de vivre, with Caroline taking zany photographs. In the evening, when the two, Oliver and Caroline, went off for an intimate dinner, the other two, Dan and Eugene, sunk into their sorrows. In their frustration and resentment and fear, they broke into Caroline’s room and started throwing her things around, taking particular delight in mocking her underwear and smashing her camera, as symbolic expressions of their fear of her, both in terms of her liberated sexuality and in terms of her professional skill and economic independence. It was meant to be a symbolic rape of her as a woman and repudiation of her as a professional. When Oliver and Caroline returned, Oliver behaved weakly, and faced with the choice, essentially betrayed her for them. Sunday night ended with Caroline left on the stairs crying, as the female victim of male psychological violence.
In a most interesting pattern of narrative closure, there was then a reversal of point of view, which drastically changed the overall resonance of the film. On Monday, the impact of the previous day was first experienced in terms of the re-bonding of the three in a mock-triumphant mood at the bar, deciding “she was bad news anyway”. However, the scene shifted to Caroline upstairs, developing the photographs of the previous day, which had the effect of bringing the preceding events into focus from her point of view. In the final scene, the crucial still of the film, a photograph of the three, all jovial, arm-in-arm and smiling at her, came up before Caroline’s day-after eyes, stirring reflections of how much cruelty and violence lay latent under the most affable and accepting surfaces. Just at the crucial point of exposure, she then switched on the light and watched the photograph fade, in a purposeful act of retaking control over the production of images and enacting her symbolic triumph in mastering the meaning of the story.
Another interesting aspect of this film was the way it flew in the face of personal and professional prejudices about stories with a message in the sense of having a symbolic meaning or carrying an ideological charge. The tightly structured narrative of this film was such that every character, every line of dialogue, every image and every action had an explicit symbolic function. Yet there was not the slightest hint of cardboard characterisation. There was not a word that did not flow naturally off the tongue. There was no esoteric imagery. There was nothing the least bit false or forced in the movement of the plot.
Most importantly, it was a challenging diagnosis of some of the diseases making Irish sexuality the somewhat sickly creature it often was. It was an analysis of male sexual attitudes that gave evidence of a healthy response in the more sensitive among the male of the species to some of the questions raised by the feminist currents of the time. It was not, however, the sort of weak response to feminist fury, whereby men were the evil doers and women were absolved from all evil. It mightn’t have been a very flattering picture of the Irish male, but it wasn’t exactly counterposed to a romanticised view of the Irish female. The Irish women came across as sexually repressed and repressive, in the nastily nagging or busily frigid wives and in the jealous and bitchy hotel landlady.
Criminal Conversation was also a very sensitive exploration of Irish sexuality in the seventies, though perhaps the threads were not quite so masterfully pulled together at the end to make its intended point. The reference of the title was to an old law, still on the books at the time, whereby a husband could take an action in the courts against another man for adultery.88 The film spotlighted the incongruities in the situation of the nouveau riche caught between the conceptually vague new Ireland and the legally persistent old Ireland. It showed them to be floundering in a moral vacuum in which they had no secure guidelines within which to act, nor any credible criteria by which to judge their own actions or those of others. The central issue was adultery: what to do about it and how to judge it when done, especially once it became clear who was and was not doing it. At the outset, there was Frank chatting up every female he encountered and trying to diffuse the tension from his wife Margaret, who was uptight about his carry-on. By the end, after an evening of truth, it transpired that it was Margaret who had been having an adulterous affair and that it was Frank who never had. All he ever did was the chatting-up. All the same, it left him unsure of his moral ground in coming to terms with his wife and his best friend. After all, to say:
“You went too far, Charlie. You don’t mess around with your best friend’s wife”
was hardly to stand the high moral ground. In many ways, they were all shown to have no real ideas or values, whether old or new, that were firmly their own. In the reaction to the two films in Ireland, Hickey was made to feel as if he had touched raw nerves and violated taboos. This was not exactly surprising in view of the fact that he had. In the reaction abroad, there was a certain resistance to its images, which so decisively ran counter to the foreign stereotypes of Ireland. The people in these stories were modern and difficult men and women, far from the archaically simple lads and lassies of their stage Irish expectations. Hickey found Americans to be particularly slow-witted about them, which again was hardly surprising. 89
There were other authors as well, who touched on such areas, but few with the same sort of penetration as Eugene McCabe or Kieran Hickey. Some perhaps felt that the light touch might be more effective or more acceptable to the audience. It was a strategy that went badly wrong in the case of the infamous nude scene in The Spike. Other productions handled the material with a better grip and with greater skill, although no degree of finesse would have protected such forays from the wrath of the prudish section of the audience, which was still formidable and highly vocal.
Joe O’Donnell’s The Lads was highly controversial, first as a stage play, then as a television play in 1972, followed by a television series, a six part sitcom, in 1975. Set in a Dublin flat occupied by four young bachelors whose male bonding involved a common interest in ‘birds and booze’, it highlighted, in a lighter vein than Exposure, the condition of chronic adolescence in the Irish male and the threat posed by the liberated female. In a similar spirit, Wesley Burrowes’ Silver Apples On the Moon, in the same territory as Criminal Conversation, cast a satirical eye on the woes of the womaniser and the double standards of morality, in the face of the discovery that what was sauce for the goose might also be for the gander.
Changing Roles of Women
There was evidence in RTE drama of the seventies of the changing definitions of male and female roles working their way through Irish society at the time. It was more evident in some productions than in others. There were many portrayals of women in very traditional roles. This was hardly surprising, as so many people still played such roles. Such portrayals could in fact be quite insightful. There was Tom Murphy’s character called by no name other than “Mrs”, symbolic of her own annihilation in nurturing the male ego. There was Eugene McCabe’s Mrs. McAleer, the republican mother maccree, counterpointed by the new generation IRA woman, Isabel Lynam, with her own ideas, her own liberated sexuality and her own involvement in military operations. There was Wesley Burrowes’ Mary Riordan, constantly counterpointed by a whole range of other characters with other notions of women’s role.
Other traditionalist portrayals lacked such critical edge. Hatchet’s young wife Bridie and her sister Angela were perhaps more old-fashioned than his mother. In the way of the old adage, women put up with sex for the sake of marriage and men put up with marriage for the sake of sex. All, that is, except those who managed to escape the trap, like the bachelor, Joey, who asked:
“Why buy a cow, if ye only want a pint of milk?”
It was not that it was not true that men worked and women wanted men to sort everything out for them and that women exchanged sexual favours for security and a standard of living. It was that there was more to it and some authors gave little indication of knowing this was so. Females were still being portrayed primarily as daughters, wives and mothers. Young girls’ dreams were of romance, even if experience led time and again to a rainbow’s end in a dustbin, as in Irish Revel and An Taoille Tuile. Their education was geared, not to their intellectual development or employment prospects, but to enhancing their bargaining position on the marriage market. Thus Maria in Roma was told to study hard, so:
“with education maybe you marry a doctor”
and Fiona in The Spike was sent to private school so:
“at least she won’t marry into the flats”.
Marriage was the be-all and end-all of life for a woman, whereas it was one aspect of a fuller life for a man. Thus O’Mahony’s scheme for the rehabilitation of prostitutes was “to make them marriageable”. It was to trade a life where sex was sold to a succession of men who paid her for it one act at a time for a life in which it was sold to one man in exchange for all his worldly goods. It was to put aside a life in which they spread themselves under a jobber for a fiver for a life in which they could take him for all he was worth. Sex was a currency and the market had to be played to get the most for it. Thus there was the maid who tricked her employer into providing her with house and husband by spinning one of the oldest tales in the book in God’s in His Heaven. Marriage was the road to social mobility and wives lived off both a husband’s earnings and his social status. Thus there was the boss’s wife and queen of the small town in Too Short A Summer. There was the principal’s wife making constant demands in The Spike. There was the confidant in her husband’s career moves in People in Glass Houses. When a marriage failed, it left a woman in a limbo, which it never did for a man, because it was never the whole meaning of his life.
Thus the enormous difficulties for women, like Jude Riordan and Helen Diffley, trying to put their lives back together again.
Motherhood was the ultimate fulfilment for a woman in the traditional conception. As Maguire in King of the Castle put it:
“What’s a woman for? To drain a man, make a child, rear a man”.
Otherwise, she was considered good for nothing. When Isabel Lynam became pregnant by the IRA chief of staff, she asked herself, was she
“a mere seed bed for his own image.”
The ultimate task was to give birth to a son. Anything she wanted done in the world, she did it through her sons, like Mrs.McAleer with her three green fields and two brave sons and Mrs.Bailey with her constant incitement to her son to settle her scores.
However, the portrayal of women was beginning to open out and to reflect the new range of options opening to women. There were an increasing number of women portrayed as other than or more than daughters, wives and mothers. There were more and more working women coming into the picture. In The Lads, there was a female researcher. In The House that Johnny Built, there was a female doctor. In Partners in Practice, there was a female doctor, who also had a family, as a central character. There was also a storyline about a woman writer. There were, of course, women working as nurses and social workers, jobs more traditionally open to women, if they had to work. There were also a number of women working as teachers in The Spike, O Mistress Mine, Miracles and Miss Langan and Assault On a Citadel. Teaching was, of course, another profession more traditionally open to women. These seventies teachers were not, however, the traditional types. Miss Corduff (The Spike) challenged Mr.O’Mahony for the job of principal and had higher qualifications. She was also divorced. Miss Toomey (Oh Mistress Mine) was the first female teacher in an all-male establishment. Miss Langan (Miracles and Miss Langan) was far more free thinking than was the norm. Miss Jenny (Assault On a Citadel) had an affair with a priest.
These new women tended to be strong, confident and articulate, sometimes more so than the men with whom they were involved. Miracles and Miss Langan and The Cuckoo Spit both concerned relationships between older women and younger men. These women were not only older, but intellectually and emotionally more advanced. Needless to say, these new women caused problems for the men who had to contend with them. Winnie, the woman researcher in The Lads with a mind of her own and with a shrewd way of assessing those she met, caused the lads to engage in some unaccustomed questioning and soul-searching. Dr.Rita O’Brien in The House That Johnny Built was more than a match for Johnny and defeated the calculating bachelor’s matrimonial plans. Jenny in Assault On a Citadel. brought Ned to a crisis in his vocation. Susan in Miracles and Miss Langan challenged Ben to come to life on an emotional level.
There were institutional problems brought to light as well. With the arrival of the new female teacher at the all-male St. Jude’s in O Mistress Mine, the manners and mores of both class room and staff room received a severe jolt. When told that his plans for the new school in The Spike took little account of the projected female enrolment or the projected female staff, O’Mahony could only ask:
“You want more toilets. Is that it?
Obviously some had come a long way and others had not.
These seventies women violated many taboos, both in the pursuit of their professions and in the expression of their sexuality. They got higher degrees. They sought responsible jobs. They spoke their minds. They carried guns. They posed nude. They had affairs. They even seduced priests, They were not to every body’s liking. They were anathema to those to whom the taboos were still sacred and inviolable.
Perhaps some of the ground had been cleared earlier in the seventies in Granada’s series The Sinners. These stories, set in earlier decades, insightfully explored the taboos twisting Irish life into its particular contours and blighting the course of intellectual, emotional and sexual development. The enormous psychological gap between the sexes, tied to the segregation of the sexes in the sexual division of labour, was constantly evident. TJ Mooney, the philosophical philanderer in One Man, One Boat, One Girl, made his considered pronouncement on the matter:
“I have decided that in what is commonly called love man creates woman after his own unlikeness.
In love woman is man’s image of what he is not”.
Of course, once love was gone, the unlikeness proceeded in all its practical consequences. Men worked to pay for the home, but women ran it. As Mr. Lomasney in The Mad Lomasneys surveyed the domestic scene around him:
“I had no say in this. No one gives a damn about me. Except on payday.”
Contrasting Approaches to Religion
A thread running through a number of The Sinners stories was the link between sexuality and religion. The pressure put upon the innocent and natural flowering of human fellow feeling among young nuns and brothers during their summer studies by the stern and sick strictures of the local priest was the theme of The Man Who Invented Sin. The repressiveness of the jansenistic attitude to sexuality, shaping Irish catholicism, was a constant undercurrent. The young Englishman in One Man, One Boat, One Girl asked about the secret of his success with the girls replied:
“I ain’t got no tricks, Alphonsus – Maybe the fack o’ the matter is
I’m not afraid of ‘ern, like all you bloomin’ Irish”.
It seemed to be an effect of Irish catholicism that could survive belief in its doctrines. Rita Lomasney put it to Ned Lowry:
“You may think you’re a great fella because you read Tolstoy and don’t go to mass,
but you’d be just as scared stiff if a girl offered to go to bed with you.”
Rita’s sexual waywardness was put down to a lack of religious fervour. Trying to pinpoint her uneasiness with her daughter, Mrs. Lomasney observed:
“Another girl would have a favourite saint or a favourite nun. Not Rita.”
After she was dismissed from her job as a teacher for trying to seduce a seminarian, who had come home with a breakdown, she was sent off to the care of her aunt Sister Mary Gonzales. Like many who deviated, Rita never challenged the norms. She could still say of Ned:
“I was proposed to by the finest man in Cork –or would be if he had any religion in him. “
The emptiness of unquestioned beliefs and unthinking observance of rituals was a subtext of many stories. In Exposure , Oliver attended mass after sleeping with Caroline the night before and intending to do so again the night after. In King of the Castle, neither Matt nor Tressa would ever miss mass, nor raise the slightest questions about the church’s teachings. In Traveller, Michael and Angela could not go off on their awkward cohabitation and arranged smuggling operation without muttering the meaningless words of the marriage ritual. In Deeply Regretted By, Patrick Healy went through all the same motions – wedding, baptisms, communions, etcetera, in his second bigamous marriage as he did in his first.
Religion on RTE was a frequent presence. Most of it was still reverential in tone and seemed to be based on the assumption that the whole of the audience believed in the same thing and worshipped in the same way. The angelus, the mass, the God-slot talk shows, Radharc documentaries, the extravagant coverage of the pope’s visit and many other manifestations were constant reminders of the place of the Catholic Church in Irish society. So too were such dramas as Inquiry at Knock (for the centenary of the alleged apparition at Knock), Maloney and The True Story of the Horrid Popish Plot (both further treatments of the life of Oliver Plunket). There was also the constant presence of an unchallenged catholicism in a whole range of productions in the characters’ speech, in the iconography of their homes, in their customs and beliefs.
Although perhaps marginal to the overall flow, there were occasional challenges to catholic hegemony on the airwaves. The presence of spokespersons for other religions, whether tame ecumenists or rabid unionists, was seldom very challenging to basic beliefs. The Late Late Show debate on atheism was. So great was the interest aroused by it that it extended into a further session on a subsequent night.
Drama also played its part in reflecting and advancing a more critical approach to religion. It was not so much in challenging basic beliefs. There was not a single production dealing with a crisis of belief, loss of faith or the problems of being an atheist or agnostic in a theistic society, at least not as its central theme. There was very rarely a character who was explicitly presented as an unbeliever. There was Ned Lowry in Granada’s The Mad Lomasneys, for example, but his character was not developed in the direction of an exploration of his lack of belief in the text. Lack of belief, when it was occasionally present, was always present as subtext rather than text.
It was McCabe who gave it its most forceful moments. When asked what he believed in, Scober McAdam at least had a clarity that stood out from the muddiness of the rest. He believed that, when he died, he would be buried and rot in the ground. What he believed in was land:
“We come from it, live off it and go back to it. What else is there?”
He thought that the poor in former times had to believe in what came after, because they had nothing else. He then proceeded to mock those who still believed and the primitive, superstitious nature of their beliefs:
“Croagh Patrick, Lough Derg, Knock – knock, knock, who’s there?”
When asked about her beliefs, Isabel Lynam declared firmly that she did not believe in God. Her intelligent, questioning approach to all sorts of things was counterposed to the rock of ages, uncomprehending resistance of Mrs Aleer to whom all was simple:
Wesley Burrowes also allowed the question of belief to surface in scenes in which Mary Riordan worried about her son Michael’s loss of religion. She became agitated at signs of his free thinking and at his challenge to her to give a logical justification of beliefs she accepted on faith.
However, in bringing a critical edge into the treatment of religion, it was more a matter of exploring the contradictions within catholicism, with characters who still basically believed, than in counterposing them to those who did not. There were Niall Toibin’s satirical sketches. There were other storylines in The Riordans. There was exposure of the church’s complicity in class privilege in The Spike. There was a particularly Irish tradition of anti-clericism, which pointed to the reactionary stance of the clergy and to the faults of the institutional church, without ever raising questions about the existence of God or the validity of catholic doctrine. There were numerous examples of the evil done by those exemplary in the rituals of religious observance. There was the harm done to the travellers in The Riordans, whose embitterment was traced back to eviction by a landlord who was
“a good sodality man…gives to the foreign missions”.
There were the criminal activities of the Burkes:
“Your old Dublin family with the rosary beads in one hand , and the hatchet in the other”.
There were the McAleer brothers who blessed themselves as the victim’s body twitched.
There were images indicting catholicism and protestantism alike. Again the sharpest were those of McCabe. Asked if she believed in Jesus Christ, Isabel Lynam answered:
Isabel Lynam: “Not yours”.
Mrs McAleer: “There’s only one Jesus Christ”.
Isabel Lynam: “Dozens, Mrs Mac, and they hate each other”.
When John Willie O’Neill thought of the two traditions, he said to his son:
“Catholics kneel under plaster saints. We sit with Christ under guns and swords”.
Eric O’Neill shared his father’s alienation from these “loving tributes to violent death”, but soon reaped the harvest of his heritage in his own violent death. Nor was it only christianity brought up for such scrutiny. In her reflections at gun point, Harriet Armstrong went further back:
“The old testament…reeks of blood and empire.”
Less negative about the role of religion in Irish society were productions which turned on the differing reactions of the faithful to the post-Vatican II changes in the Catholic Church.
Much of it dealt with the new types of priest emerging out of catholicism’s aggiornamento. In The Riordans, Wesley Burrowes tried to draw Fr. Sheehy, as a priest of the new age, while avoiding the obvious stereotypes of the:
“swinging priests, singing priests, rebel priests, laicized priests” 90
His crisis in his vocation and his departures from orthodoxy in his liberal stress on individual conscience over ecclesiastical authority were very credibly handled. In Legion of the Rearguard, Criostoir O’Floinn’s play, which was originally to be called Aggiornamento, Fr. Hackeen, the new curate in a provincial town, proposed to transform the old St. Patrick’s temperance club into a modern youth club. However, the old guard in the town had other ideas and were determined to protect the status quo.
By the seventies, the decline in vocations had become a problem of major proportions in the church. Not only were fewer and fewer entering novitiates and seminaries, but, among those who did enter, more and more were leaving. The Spike dealt with the efforts of the church to protect its power in the educational sector in the face of this decline. Other productions probed the forces involved and the motives of those who left. Miracles and Miss Langan was a not very mature play by Neil Jordan about a seminarian, who left the seminary and began a relationship with a female fellow teacher in the school where he went to work. It did not leave the audience much wiser, either about the social forces or about the psychological dimensions of ‘vocations’ .It was an attempt to show people frozen, both emotionally and sexually, by their backgrounds, but it never really penetrated into their characters or their conditions with any sort of fruitful insight.
Of course, the most disturbing phenomenon to traditional catholics was not so much the decline in entrants or even the departure of seminarians, monks and nuns. The most threatening development was the laicisation of priests, something quite outside the experience of previous generations of catholics. These priests left for many reasons, but it was no secret that many left to get married. It was starting to seem like a veritable exodus and it was only right that it should receive serious dramatic treatment.
Sean Walsh’s play Assault on a Citadel gave it such serious treatment. As the author was himself a laicised priest, who subsequently married, the play was grounded in his own intimate experience of the milieu. The play revolved around the dilemma of Ned, a country curate having a clandestine affair with the local teacher and coming to a crossroads in which he felt he had to decide whether to stay or to leave the priesthood. In an attempt to resolve his personal conflict and to come to a decision, he went off to a monastery to make a spiritual retreat. However, far from finding the monastery a source of solace from the conflicts besetting him, it was brought home to him that the conflicts were there too and indeed in the church itself. The title of the play was meant to be a metaphor within a metaphor within a metaphor. Ned’s priesthood, the monastery, the church itself: all were citadels and all were under attack. Although for the monastery Vatican II was only a ripple with the waves still well from the shore, the older monks nevertheless felt dislodged and disoriented from what had reached them of the changes. As Brother Senan confided to Ned:
“Well, lately, like, there’s unrest among us where there never was before. The older ones, like meself, don’t take to the changes too well. We mightn’t say it out, but it’s there just the same. Ah, God be with the old days; black was black, white white an’ divil the grey. Time gone by, there were mortal sins – meat on Fridays, a dance of a Sunday, not fastin’ during Lent, goin’ to a service in a protestant church, even for a neighbour’s funeral – and now we’re told they’re not. One year I’m prayin’ to a saint, the next I’m told not to bother. Sure, what way o’ goin’ on is that ? It’s not that long ago devotion to the little flower was all the go; now you hardly hear her mentioned…A priest leavin’ to get married? In my day, Father, unheard of… and you could tell one! Now they wear all sorts – jeans an’ jackets, an’ anoraks. Some with long hair. Mix that much, they do, the people don’t know anymore where it’s safe to use bad language. So I say to meself if there’s a great fallin’ off in the country, what must it be like in the towns an’ above in the city?”
From the garden to the organ loft, it was the same story. In Fr. Cormac’s analysis, television drama came into play as well in eroding the old order:
Ned: “It’s well for ye in ways – out of it.”Cormac: “You think we can’t be got at ? God bless your innocence, Father ! They’re coming at us from all angles. The mass media, huh! They haven’t left us alone since the Vatican council. A full frontal attack! The world we turned away from, right there in the community room! Programmes and plays from pagan England, God between us and all harm ! And make no mistake about it, Father, it’s leavin’ its mark…”Ned: “I can imagine.”
Cormac: “This year, so far, three gone by the wayside, two priests and a brother.”
Ned: “You mean …?”
Cormac: “Gone altogether. To get married. Rudolf’s in London on a two year dispensation – trying’ to make up his mind. Ignatius is gone off with a nun long since. And still no word of Athanasius.”
Ned: “Athanasius?”
Cormac:” Must be three years gone now. Just hung up his habit and walked away. Not so much as a by-your-leave or a note of explanation…”
Ned:” It’s the same story in the diocese.”
Cormac:” Trickle, how are you! More like an exodus!”
Everywhere he went, there was a sense of siege. Even from his spiritual director, the glib Fr. Xavier, came another list of woes:
“Oh, we’re takin’ a bit of a hammerin’ at the present time, I’ll admit that. All this free thinkin’ since Vatican …God, I remember the time when you could hardly blow your nose without permission. And now look at us! The whole world goin’ to Hell, headlong! Terrible things happenin’ – divorce an’ contraception an’ abortion, wife swappin’, communal livin’, people not botherin’ anymore to go to mass or the sacraments, doin’ what they like… Even holy wedlock is goin’ by the board. A few more years, Father, mark my word, and a handful o’ mad priests round the world’ll be the only ones wantin’ to get married.”
In their worries about the church, the monks all sounded much the same. In their attitudes to Ned and his dilemma, they were quite different. For Fr. Xavier, Ned’s anguished story was matched by a string of cliches. Indeed, the loquacious Xavier must have summoned every cliche in the book in his exhortations to Ned. For him, it was simply a matter of temptation and rising above temptation. A bit of effort, a few prayers and he’d be as right as rain. It was as simple as that. It was a tug of war between flesh and spirit and he had to deny the flesh for the spirit.
“Sure all you’re sayin’ is you’re human. And you know as well as I do, you have to be a man to be ordained – and that means a full quota of the basic equipment. The sacrament of holy orders puts an indelible mark on the soul, but it 1 doesn’t take one whit from the body.”
His body was nonetheless the citadel of the holy spirit and, he was told, the devil and his legions would stop at nothing to assault it. As to the woman involved:
“Let her go her own way. If she’s all you make her out to be, she won’t have that much bother getting a man on the open market … You know the drill. No meetings, no messages. A clean break, it’s the only way. Platonic friendship, how are ya! You’d only be tormentin’ yourself, doin’ the devil’s work for him. If you just keep your head, you’re home and dry…”
As to the alternative:
“Out there, it’s dog eat dog… tied to a woman, brats hangin’ out… your mother wouldn’t be able to lift her head…”
For Xavier, there was no real empathy and there was no real decision to be made.
“You are all ifs, buts and maybes. Stick to the facts – your ordination.”
But with Fr. Cormac there was a kind of empathy or at least a respect for the validity of his love for a woman and a recognition that there was a real decision to be made and more than one way to go in righteousness. His last words to Ned were:
“But if you decided to…to… well, I’d hope you’d step out with your head high. Aye, and put out of your head every last word you ever heard about fire and brimstone and the wrath o’ God. If there’s no going back, there should be no looking back, either.”
Meanwhile, there was the woman, Jenny, waiting to hear of his decision. In the television version of the play, Jenny was a secondary presence and her feelings were largely unexplored. In the radio version, Jenny and her feelings were more to the fore. In the television version, it was never clear whether or not Ned and Jenny had actually made love. In the radio version, it could scarcely have been clearer. Indeed, a particular interior monologue dramatising Jenny’s point of view, was an interesting illustration of the gap between what was perceived to be possible on radio, as opposed to what was perceived to be possible on television:
“I stumbled on a hillock, you kept me from falling. I knew what I had always known: that for all that you were still a man. I went a woman’s way then, tempted you, let you think you were tempting me. Oh, say me the ten commandments, when my mind’s not in a whirl, my heart beating like a wild bird in a snare, my secret places moist and throbbing for the relief that only the quivering thrust of a man can bring… Say me the sixth and the ninth when I’m scarfed and on my knees in a cold church of a winter’s morn and I’ll beat my breast, readily enough, and say “mea maxima culpa” but don’t whisper in my ear “thou shalt not” when the weight of your body is pinning me down and you’re…I won’t hear, d’you see. Even-if it’s thundered, I won’t hear… “
It was a powerful portrayal of a woman with her own professional career, her own economic independence, her own emotional force and her own sexual expressiveness. At all events, Ned made his decision, at least his decision to apply for laicisation. Having come to realise that he had left the security of his family for the security of the church and had never had to face insecurity, standing on his own two feet, he decided he had first to face the world on his own to be in a position to decide to face it with Jenny.
Covering some of the same ground was the adaptation of Brian Moore’s novel Catholics as a television film, made as a Welsh/ American co-production by HTV and CBS. It also showed that there was no place too cloistered or too remote to be touched by the intellectual and social changes, which Vatican II both reflected and promoted. It also indicated the resistance put up by those whose world was under siege from the new ways and the contradictory position they found themselves in, holding to conservative traditions based on obedience to authority, once the authority had turned liberal.
It was actually set in the future, in the closing years of the 20th century, on an island off the west coast of Kerry. The story concerned the controversy generated by Muck Abbey, where the monks had clung to the Latin mass, private confession and such traditional practices. Pilgrims were coming from all over Europe to their mass on the slopes of Coom mountain, attracting much publicity and television coverage. Following Vatican IV’, moves were underway to come to an understanding between christianity and buddhism, and the threat of a catholic counter-reformation was becoming an increasing source of embarrassment. The Vatican was determined that Muck Abbey be brought into line. For years, the old abbot had stoutly ignored the directives of his ecclesiastical superiors. The film, which made a genuine effort to grapple with ideas, centered on the encounter between the old abbot and a young priest dispatched from Rome, who believed in christianity as the best agent of social change and prayed in the lotus position. Adding to the complexity of the intellectual confrontation, there was the most poignant revelation of the abbot’s own loss of faith after he had been a priest for many years and a disclosure of how he had coped and even carried on as abbot.
Most of RTE’s own drama, which actually attempted to come to terms with ideas, was set, not in the present or in the future, but in the past. There was the five part series The Treaty Debates, giving a dramatised documentary account of the Dail speeches of 1921-22, which conveyed a striking picture of the assumptions and values of the period. There were also a number of dramatised biographies of Irish thinkers, which tended to have a sharp interpretative edge and to concentrate on conflicting ideas rather than to give soft hagiographical accounts of the facts of their lives. This was particularly true of the Portraits series, giving controversial interpretations of The Dean (Swift), The Chief (Parnell), The Canon (Sheehan) and The Rebel (O’Casey), written by Eugene McCabe, Anthony Cronin, Eoghan Harris, John Arden and Margaretta D’ Arcy. It was also particularly true of Gale Day, McCabe’s probe of Pearse’s character, which touched on many dimensions and challenged the picture many were given at school. Of his attitude to women, for example, the verdict was:
“Their lower, or even their lighter side, he little understood…”
There was also the Wits and Dreamers series, featuring dramatised biographies of various figures of the Irish literary revival, such as Synge, Gogarty, Gregory and Moore, written and directed by James Plunkett. Other biographical productions were: Mr. Joyce is Leaving Paris, a portrait of the artist as an older man; That Rooted Man, a centenary tribute to Synge; A Little Man Dying, the last reflections of Oliver Goldsmith; I Stood Well With All Parties, an aristocratic perspective on the ‘golden age’ of Dublin, based on the memoirs of Sir Jonah Barrington; When Handel Played in Dublin, a picture of Handel’s personal renaissance, coinciding with his visit to Dublin and the first performance of Messiah.
Another biographically-based production was Teems of Times, Dominic Behan’s account of the life and times of the Behan family. The ten part series gave a fair picture of Dublin ‘in the rare auld times’. It encompassed the family’s births, marriages and deaths, the community’s schools, strikes, unemployment, evictions, emigration, politics, pub talk and pawn shops. The 1930s came through as hard times for working class Dublin. Life for the Behans and their friends and neighbours had its distinctive joys and colourful craic, but it also seemed to have more than its fair share of sadness and struggle. The small events of their lives were sketched against such larger events of the nation as the general elections of 1932 and 1933, the eucharistic congress of 1932, the building workers’ strike of 1937, the blueshirts, the slum clearances, the economic war. The material was there in abundance, but the production somehow didn’t quite work. The stage-Dubliner carry-on was laid on too thick and was a bit hard to take. It was not only that the paddy-wacking style of performance and the music-hall type of production seemed inappropriate to the material, but the cardboardy, claustrophobic type of studio settings flattened out and constricted material that called for more expansive open-air treatment.
There was also the fact that, although it was urban, working class drama, it was off the mark in meeting the needs of the contemporary audience for urban, working class drama. It pictured an idealised form of the already archaic urban community of the tenement. It projected a milieu with more lumpen and peasant qualities about it than proletarian elements. It focused more on the rural modes brought into the urban context than the new urban modes of the urban context. It illustrated a tendency in Irish urban writing, analysed by Fintan O’Toole, to make an increasingly urban and industrialised reality palatable by wrapping it up in rural, folksy images. The classic location for Irish urban writing has been the tenement which, in O’Toole’s argument, was essentially an urban version of a rural setting. Tenements were a physical embodiment of decline, being the former homes of the ascendancy fallen into the hands of the poor, imposing a sense of a fall from the past rather than a ground for the future. The tenement came across as an enclosed world, a self-contained community, in which everybody knew about everybody else, more like the rural communities than the constant collision with strangers in city life. The tenement was presented as an urban community, where the main point of contact between people was in the domestic sphere, rather than in the world of the streets and the world of work, the distinctive elements of urban experience. The old peasant women in the rural folk play were transformed into Dublin ‘ould wans’ in the tenement play with little jarring effect. 91
There was a fair amount of historical drama on RTE, sometimes giving the impression that RTE was more comfortable in dealing with Ireland’s past than its present. The drama set in the past tended to be much more explicitly sociological and political than that set in the present, opening it to the sort of charge made by Michael D Higgins:
“The gatekeepers of television and film feel yesterday is safely within the perimeters of the allowable. Today’s structures are without. Nostalgia as a convention prevails. Realism is the realism of the past…they make programmes about dead and dying radicals and movements long gone, rather than the messy and dangerous present.” 92
The programmes about dead radicals and past movements were not only documentaries and drama documentaries based on factual accounts of Irish history. There was also drama based on fictional reconstructions of periods in Irish history. This was often done by foregrounding fictional characters against the backdrop of real historical events. Sometimes real historical figures interacted with fictional characters in the overall scenario.
RTE’s most ambitious project in this mode was the eight part series Kilmore House in 1976, covering a canvas of 150 years of Irish history. It focused on the particular events in the lives of the members of the fictional Walsh family, occupants of the catholic big house, set against the background of the grand events in the life of the nation between 1803 and 1945. The courtship of John Michael Walsh was set against the rebellion led by Robert Emmet. Patrick Walsh fought a duel after being called a coward for not coming out in support of Daniel O’Connell’s cause of catholic emancipation. He was involved in land disputes and new railways, against the backdrop of the famine. Michael Walsh proposed to sell the family business to support the fenians. Dr.Shane Walsh found himself torn between his sympathies for tenement families and his own family’s capitalist interests and capitalist values in a scenario haunted by the figure of James Larkin and the gathering storm between capital and labour. Fergus Walsh, an ardent socialist, found himself in a master-servant relationship that challenged both his radical principles and the fortunes of the family business. A visit from an American cousin coincided with de Valera coming to power, depression and economic war. Finally, Shay and Declan Walsh returned from service in the British forces during World War II to find Kilmore House in danger of being sold out of the family. The series sunk nearly without trace, barely remembered by the audience and entirely wiped by RTE (unusual for drama made in this period). It was generally felt that production standards were not up to scratch.
There were also other productions dealing with particular periods within this larger canvas, ranging from Tom Murphy’s powerful Famine, probing the whole psychological legacy left by the famine, to softer evocative period pieces like Kate O’Brien’s The Last of Summer and Aidan Higgins’ Langrishe, Go Down, both dealing with relationships between foreigners and natives, against the claustrophobia of Ireland at the onset of war.
Aside from RTE in-house productions, there were dramas from other sources shown on RTE and set in Ireland’s past. There was Carlo Gebler’s National and Film Television School (London) diploma film in 1979, The Beneficiary, a reworking of a Chekov story set in Ireland at the turn of century. A dowry-less woman, who married into a prosperous family, plotted her revenge, when denied her inheritance. There was the Dublin film co-operative’s The Hebrew Lesson in 1973, a story of a conflict between a young IRA volunteer and an elderly Jew, who advocated peaceful dialogue as an alternative to violent action.
Verdict on the Decade
All in all, Irish television drama covered an enormous amount of ground in the seventies. Whatever it did or didn’t do as fully as the temper of the times might have seemed to warrant, it still did a great deal. Although it has been judged here as falling short in many respects, the overarching impression left by it was of a series of honest and impressive attempts to come to terms with the temper of the times.
It was an overwhelmingly liberal phenomenon, which was the source of both its vitality and its inadequacy. Liberalism 93 was and is a vital force in Irish society, still fighting for its place against formidable conservative forces. Insofar as Irish television drama captured this liberal thrust, it generated enormous controversy and manifested its continuing vitality. Liberalism was and is, however, an inadequate force for coming to grips with the problems with which it grapples, for it tends to deal with particular factors in a piecemeal fashion and lacks the synthesising power to put things in full socio-historical context and to achieve holistic perspective. Irish television drama has constantly stopped short of full penetration and total vision. Its strengths and its limitations have been the strengths and limitations of liberalism.
Notes to Chapter 5
1. SCLC was the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights organisation founded by Martin Luther King. NICRA was the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Assciation. The INLA was Irish National Liberation Army, the military wing of the IRSP.
2. Citizens for Better Broadcasting, Aspects of RTE Television Broadcasting, nd (1976)
3. When asked about the connection, co-author and director of A Week in the Life of Martin Cluxton Brian MacLochlainn responded that he was directly and deeply influenced by the British television drama of the time and made clear in his interview for the job of producer-director at RTE that he was impressed by the work of Ken Loach and Tony Garnett within BBC’s Play for Today format and would like to do that sort of thing within RTE. Interview with Brian MacLochlainn, February 25,1986.
4. Interview with Louis Lentin, January 24, 1985. In the 1970s, heads of drama in succession were: Chloe Gibson, Donall Farmer, Michael Garvey and Louis Lentin.
5. Interview with Eoghan Harris, July 17, 1984. 1
6. Wesley Burrowes, The Riordans, Dublin, 1977, p.20.
7. ibid. p.18.
8. Luke Gibbons “From Kitchen Sink to Soap” in Television and Irish Society, McLoone and MacMahon (eds), Dublin, RTE/IFI 1984, p.39.
9. ibid, p.41.
10. Patrick Gilligan, RTE Guide, January 20,1978.
11. Brother Vivian Cassells, Irish Independent, February 23,1978.
12. Tom O’Dea, Irish Press, February 4 and 11,1978.
13. Ken Gray, Irish Times, February 20,1978. ,
14. Irish Times, February 25,1978.
16. Ibld.
17. Irish Times, March 3,1978.
19. Confidential memorandum from Muiris MacConghail to department heads, producer /directors, production assistants, reporters and presenters, March 2,1978.
20. Muiris MacConghail, RTE/lFI Summer School, July 6, 1984.
22. Interview with Noel a Briain, June 21,1985.
23. Drogheda Independent, March 10,1978.
26. Interview with Michael Judge, November 14,1984.
27. Irish Times, April 24, 1978.
29. Irish Times, March 13,1978. 30. Hot Press, March 4, 1978.
31. Irish Catholic, March 9,1978.
32. Interview with Niall Toibin, May 8, 1985.
33. Brian MacLochlainn, RTE / lFI Seminar, July 6, 1984; Niall Toibin, Irish Times, March 11,1977 and interview, ibid.
34. Irish Independent, February 26,1983.
35. Hibernia, April 6, 1978.
36. Southern Star, March 25, 1978; Hibernia, April 6, 1978; Connacht Sentinel, Apri125, 1978.
37. Dungarvan Leader, ApriI28,1978.
38. Intervew with Peter McEvoy, April 17, 1986.
39. Louis Lentin, Introduction to Passing Through, Dublin, Turoe, 1977, p.7.
40. The texts of Cancer and Heritage are published in short story form under the title Heritage and Other Stories Dublin, 0’Brien. 1985.
41. Eugene McCabe’s Victims, Cork, Mercier, 1979, is the Siege story in the form of a novel.
42. Interview with Kevin McHugh, December 5,1985.
43. Interview with Michael Garvey, July 16,1985.
44. Interview with Wesley Burrowes, April 29, 1986.
45. Richard Hoggart, The Listener, February 28,1980.
46. Philip Schlesinger, Graham Murdock and Philip Elliott, Televising Terrorism, London, Comedia,1983, pp.132-136.
47. RTE Guide, November 25,1971
48. RTE Guide, October 3,1977.
50. cited in RTE Guide, January 18,1979.
52. Christopher FitzSimon, The Irish Theatre, London, Thames and Hudson, 1983. p.195-196.
54. Pat O’Hare, Cork Evening Echo, October 8,1977.
55. Roscommon Herald, October 4, 1977; Longford Leader, October 14, 1977. Leitrim Observer; October 15,1977.
56. Connacht Tribune, October 21,1977.
57. Interview with Bob Collins, September 12,1986.
58. Interview with Tom Murphy in In Dublin, May 15,1986.
59. Fintan O’Toole, Sunday Tribune, December 8,1985.
61. Cork Examiner, March 10,1977; Cork Evening Echo, March 12,1977.
62. Corkman, March 18,1977.
63. Nenagh Guardian, March 26, 1977.
64. Western People, March 19,1977.
65. Sunday News (Belfast), March 20,1977.
66. Irish Press, March 14,1977.
68. Irish Independent, March 11,1977.
70. Cork Evening Echo, March 9,1977.
72. Ken Gray, Irish Times, March 14,1977.
73. Tom O’Dea, Irish Press, March 5 and 19,1977.
74. Editorial, Cork Examiner, March 9,1977.
75. Kevin Rockett, IFT News, V, 2, 1982; Kevin Barry, “Discarded Images: Narrative and the Cinema”, The Crane Bag, vol. 6, no.1, 1982.
76. Martin McLoone, Television and Irish Society, op. cit., p.66-68.
77. Mary Kelly, “The Burke Enigma”, paper delivered to RTE-IFI Summer School, July 1984.
79. formulated by and named after Jack Dowling of Sit Down and Be Counted, cited in interview with Eoghan Harris, July 17,1984.
80. Interview with Brian MacLochlainn, February 25, 1986.
81. Interview with Kevin McHugh, June 19, 1986.
82. Norman Smythe, RTE Guide, March 26,1971.
83. Interview with Carolyn Swift, December 11,1984.
85. David Fitzpatrick, “Class, Family and Rural Unrest in 19th Century Ireland”, in P.J Drudy (ed) Ireland: Land, Politics and People, Cambridge University Press 1982, p.55, cited by Luke Gibbons in Television and Irish Society, op. cit., p.43.
86. Luke Gibbons, op. cit., p.43-46.
87. Interview with Kieran Hickey, July 23,1984.
88. Criminal Conversation is no longer actionable.
89. Interview with Kieran Hickey, op. cit.
90. Wesley Burowes, The Riordans, op. cit.
91. Fintan O’Toole, “Going West: the Country Versus the City in Irish Writing”, The Crane Bag, vol. 9. no.2, 1985.
92. Michael D. Higgins, “The Tyranny of Images”, The Crane Bag, vol. 8, no.2, 1984.
93. Liberalism in the broadest sense of the term refers to an attitude of mind favourable to ecomomic development, civil liberties and cultural progress. In this sense, liberalism indicates support for humanistic, democratic and secular principles in contrast to conservatism, which appeals to traditionalist, authoritarian and religious norms. In this sense, the term liberal embraces all those who oppose conservative values. In Ireland, this tends to be those who take a relatively independent line vis a vis the authority of the Catholic Church or the Orange Order. However, in more precise historical usage, liberalism refers to the political philosophy occupying the middle ground between conservatism and socialism. It emerged as the ideology of the progressive bourgeoisie in a society in the process of industrialisation, struggling for equality before the law and freedom for market forces over against feudal restrictions and inherited wealth and privilege based on blood and land. As opposed to the outlook of the aristocracy or peasantry based on pre-capitalist norms or that of the proletariat based on post-capitalist norms, it is based on capitalist norms of individualism, particularism and pluralism over collectivism, organicism and coherence. Wherever on the spectrum, from laissez-faire to social democratic shades of opinion, the liberal sees whatever reforms may be necessary in isolation and does not call into question the nature of the system. In this sense, liberals are distinguished from both conservatives and radicals, as those who support social reform, but tackle such issues as arise one by one by piecemeal social engineering, which can be accommodated within the capitalist system.
originally published 1987
revised 2001
© Copyright 2015 Helena Sheehan. All Rights Reserved.
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Brooke Davis, Lost & Found
January 06, 2015 / Kirsty Manning-Wilcox
I must admit by January I'm deep in schmultz and thrillers. Truly, madly deeply.
Not actively seeking 'literary' ... just something I can dip in and out of at the beach.
My sister, an avid reader, picked this debut by Brooke Davis off her bookshelf and insisted I read it. Said it was wonderful and deeply original. It didn't quite fit my holiday 'brain slow' criteria, but I'm jolly glad I've read it. It's like a jolt of the finest lemon sorbet on a hot day, rather than good old rum and raison or chocolate.
The cover promises to "make you laugh, cry and feel a little wiser" and indeed I did. All of it.
Written in a vein of "Little Miss Sunshine" , a seven year old girl Millie is abandoned by her mother as short while after her father's death. So begins her quest to find her mother with the aide of two unlikely elderly companions and a delightful and slightly terrifying roadtrip ensues.
Lost & Found joins other Australian books in the league of Burial Rites and Rosie Project as she snared multiple international publishing deals and will be published into at least 20 countries. This debut author deserves it.
Here's a wonderful article on the ABC talking about her grief, finding the topic and writing the book.
The Blurb, by Hachette Australia (RRP $26.99)
The heart-warming Australian debut that's been sold around the world will have you laughing, crying and, by the end, feeling just a little wiser...
'[an] enchanting debut... Lost & Found is a highly entertaining road trip and much, much more...bubbling with warmth and humour, it also explores loss, death, love and trust.' THE WEST AUSTRALIAN At seven years old, Millie Bird realises that everything is dying around her. She wasn't to know that after she had recorded twenty-seven assorted creatures in her Book of Dead Things her dad would be a Dead Thing, too. Agatha Pantha is eighty-two and has not left her house since her husband died. She sits behind her front window, hidden by the curtains and ivy, and shouts at passers-by, roaring her anger at complete strangers. Until the day Agatha spies a young girl across the street. Karl the Touch Typist is eighty-seven when his son kisses him on the cheek before leaving him at the nursing home. As he watches his son leave, Karl has a moment of clarity. He escapes the home and takes off in search of something different. Three lost people needing to be found. But they don't know it yet. Millie, Agatha and Karl are about to break the rules and discover what living is all about. PRAISE for LOST & FOUND 'heartbreaking and funny and brilliant' HERALD SUN 'a lovely, whimsical story' GOOD READING
Brooke Davis grew up in Bellbrae, Victoria, and attempted to write her first novel when she was ten years old. It was genre-busting foray into the inner-workings of a young teenage girl's mind-Anne of Green Gables meets The Baby-Sitters Club meets Are you there God? It's Me, Margaret titled Summer Sadness. Fortunately it remains unfinished, as she quickly realised she didn't know the first thing about sadness, or being a teenager. Lost & Found is her first proper novel, and she was lucky to write it as part of a PhD at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. She still lives there (in Perth, not at university), and is sometimes allowed to work at a very nice bookshop nearby. Much to Brooke's surprise, Lost & Found proved to be the buzz book of the 2014 London Book Fair. The translation rights have since been sold into sixteen countries and major deals have been confirmed in the United States and Great Britain.
January 06, 2015 / Kirsty Manning-Wilcox/ Comment
Liane Moriarty, Big Little Lies
Liane Moriarty: The Husband's Secret
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Chris represents victims in Motorcycle Accidents in Los Angeles
He devotes all his time and energy on car accident cases. That’s why Chris consistently delivers excellent results for his clients.
Frequently Asked Questions About Motorcycle Accidents in Los Angeles
Motorcyclists have the same rights to use Los Angeles‘ roads and highways as anyone else, but unfortunately they face serious risks due to the negligence or inattention of others. At the Law Offices of Christopher Montes de Oca,our Los Angeles motorcycle accident attorneys are proud advocates for the rights of riders, and we work hard to pursue the compensation you deserve after a crash that results in significant injuries and property damage. If you need options after a motorcycle wreck, call on our experienced team of personal injury lawyers.
Motorcycle accidents in Los Angeles roads cause serious injuries
Due to the relative lack of protection riders have compared to the average passenger vehicle, motorcycle accidents tend to result in severe injuries. The following are some of the most common our Los Angeles personal injury attorneys see:
Road rash: This painful injury occurs when a rider slides across hard pavement, typically because of a collision or by losing control due to loose gravel. The friction can rub way layers of protective clothing, and in many cases there’s long-term nerve damage that results.
Head injuries: Even if you’re wearing a helmet, you may still suffer a significant head injury, leading to a cracked skull, concussion or brain damage. In addition to being fatal, a traumatic brain injury has the potential to leave victims disabled for the rest of their lives.
Broken bones: When a rider is thrown off a bike, the impact could cause broken bones throughout his or her body. Most commonly, we see injury victims who have broken their arms and legs, or dislocated their shoulder.
Spinal cord injuries: Neck and back injuries are also quite common as a result of motorcycle accidents, and they may leave the victim with nerve damage, paralysis and a number of other long-term medical conditions. In many situations, these injuries take some time to show symptoms — sometimes days or weeks after the impact.
Many motorcycle accidents are completely preventable. A large portion of them are caused by inattentive driving on the part of other motorists, who often fail to look out for motorcycles when out on our roadways. Distracted driving, intoxicated driving and reckless driving are other dangerous factors.
Why you should contact an experienced Los Angeles motorcycle injury attorney
The serious nature of motorcycle accident injuries means that there are often high, long-term costs associated with medical care. Injury victims may no longer be able to perform their job duties or enjoy the activities they once loved. With this in mind, it’s absolutely critical that you speak with a Los Angeles motorcycle accident lawyer as soon as possible after your crash to fully explore your options for seeking monetary damages.
Meet with a Skilled Motorcycle Accident Attorney in Los Angeles
After a motorcycle crash in the Los Angeles area, reach out to the experienced personal injury lawyers at the Law Offices of Christopher Montes de Oca — even if you do not initially believe you have experienced significant injuries. For a free initial consultation, give us a call at 562-901-4664 or contact us online today.
Chris is proud and humbled to be named as one of the top car accident lawyers in Los Angeles for four straight years. Among those honors, Chris is recognized as a Super Lawyer Rising Star. Each year, no more than 2.5% of the lawyers in the state receive this award.
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at Friday, April 23, 2010 | 0 comments | srilanka, tourism
Tourism is rebounding so quickly in Sri Lanka after the end of the island’s civil war that in one or two years the country will lack the hotel capacity to meet visitor arrivals, according to the head of the country’s biggest listed company.
Ajit Gunawardene, chief executive of John Keells, said Sri Lanka’s existing tourist infrastructure could handle a maximum of 800,000 visitors a year, comfortably meeting expected demand this year of 500,000.
But in the next one or two years, visitors arrivals are expected to double and then double again two years later to 2m, suggesting that unless the country embarks on a hotel construction boom it will fail to meet demand.
“This gives you an indication of the type of momentum we want to maintain,” Mr Gunawardene said.
Investors in Sri Lanka are betting that the island’s violent past is behind it following the defeat of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam last May in its battle for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east.
Hopes of political stability have been fuelled by landslide victories in the presidential and parliamentary elections this year by the incumbent leader, Mahinda Rajapaksa, and his ruling coalition, the United People’s Freedom Alliance.
Sri Lanka’s market is up 22 per cent so far this year.
The rally has been led by John Keells, which accounts for about 10 per cent of market capitalisation and is expected to be one of the key beneficiaries of the economic recovery given its interests in hotels, ports and retail.
“The UPFA’s win bodes well for policy continuity and investment-led growth,” said Anushka Shah, an economist at Citigroup.
Tourist arrivals have risen for 10 consecutive months since May and were up 29.3 per cent in the nine months ended March 31 compared with a year earlier.
Mr Gunawardene said John Keells had begun renovating existing hotels and building new ones to meet the tourism boom.
It is upgrading its major hotel in Colombo, overhauling a hotel in Trincomalee in the war-torn east as well as building more tourist hotels in the popular south.
John Keells also plans to participate in the expansion of Colombo’s port, which is strategically placed on shipping lanes between Europe, the Middle East and China.
The group is expected to bid with its partner Denmark’s Maersk for an additional terminal when the port’s capacity is increased to 16m twenty foot equivalent units a year over the next decade. That would make it South Asia’s biggest port.
Tenders for the three new terminals in phase I are expected to be valued at about $500m.
By Joe Leahy in Colombo
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Is LOST the New START?
Wednesday, June 6th, 2012 and is filed under Blog, Foreign Policy
There is a real and present danger to our sovereignty and drilling rights off the coast from the so-called Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). At first, many of us suspected that this was a feeble effort on the part of a few special interests to resurrect a dinosaur treaty from the 80s that was never ratified by the US. However, there are a number of Republicans who have hinted that they are open to consideration of this onerous globalist treaty.
As we’ve noted before, among other things, LOST established a UN oversight board to divvy up all of the resources mined from the deep seabed and the extended continental shelf for the “common heritage of mankind.” The International Seabed Authority gets to decide how our revenues from seabed mining are redistributed to “developing” nations. Moreover, any complaint against the US brought by other member nations, which there undoubtedly would be many, must be decided by the UN authority. As we know, these countries do not exactly have our interests in mind.
Unfortunately, even Jon Kyl, who is a supposed opponent of the treaty, is showing signs that he is willing to play ball with supporters of the treaty. This, from The Hill:
Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), the Senate’s second-ranking Republican, said Congress should pass legislation codifying the parts of the Law of the Sea Treaty the United States is comfortable with, in essence separating “the wheat from the chaff.”[…]
“Congress could enact a statute that makes the navigational parts of the treaty, which codify the historical practice of seafaring nations, the law of the land,” Kyl told an American Enterprise Institute panel on sovereignty Monday evening, according to his prepared remarks.
“Then the Senate need not ratify the treaty, which still contains unacceptable provisions, including issues related to the exploitation of the seabed. A statute, in effect, can separate the wheat from the chaff. And the United States will contribute to the clarification of customary international law, by contributing its practices and legal opinions on the law of the sea.”
So here again we have Senator Kyl willing to pass parts of a bad treaty that are not necessary to sustain our security and prosperity in the first place. After all, if navigational rights are part of customary international law, then why do we need to sign onto a new treaty to affirm those rights? This will not end well.
We’ve seen this rodeo before with Jon Kyl attempting to “cleanse” a terrible treaty from the onerous provisions, but ultimately securing passage for Democrats. In 2010, Obama convinced the Senate to ratify the New START Treaty with Russia, an agreement that ostensibly committed us to unilaterally disarm and cut our nuclear weapons arsenal. In order to win the 67 requisite votes, Obama swindled several credulous Republicans into voting for the treaty on condition that he would commit to investing more than $4 billion into modernizing our nuclear weapons and facilities.
Well, it turns out that Obama lied. Obama’s proposed budget eliminates that funding. At the time, Kyl’s negotiation with Obama regarding weapons modernization helped secure the support of Republicans like Lamar Alexander. While Kyl personally voted against ratification of START, 13 Republicans supported it, granting Obama more than enough votes to ratify the treaty. We don’t need a repeat with LOST.
Republicans must stay away from LOST – completely. Is it really that hard to get 34 Republicans to protect our sovereignty?
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Najib will be Prime Minister for full term until 14GE in 2018? Don’t count chickens before they hatched
On his final day in New York just before his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak sent a very specific message back home to friends and foes alike that he would serve out in full his second term as Prime Minister of Malaysia and that the next 14th General Election would be held in 2018 and not earlier.
This is to pierce the balloon of the hottest topic in conversational circuits in the country – the possibility of a no-confidence motion against Najib as Prime Minister when Parliament reconvenes for the 2016 Budget on Oct. 19.
Najib was so satisfied with his nine-day visit to New York and the United Nations and the speech he was to deliver in the UN in the next few hours, that he allowed hubris to set in, telling US business leaders that “the government is here to stay”, that he was “not in a hurry to go back home for fear of losing my job or something like that” and that he will call for a general election when his mandate expires in 2018.
Has the danger passed that Najib might not survive this year as Prime Minister of Malaysia and the possibility of passage of a no confidence motion in the forthcoming Parliament?
It will be wise to fall back on the adage that one should not count the chickens until they are hatched, and the same applies to the possibility, for the first time in Malaysian history, of a no confidence motion against the Prime Minister.
On sheer numbers alone, this seems an impossibility, as although the Prime Minister is a minority Prime Minister securing only 47% of the popular vote in the 13th General Election in May 2013, he is head of the Umno/BN coalition which commands 133 MPs or 60% of the parliamentary seats.
Furthermore, there are reasons to believe that Najib may have been assured of parliamentary support in any “no confidence” motion from outside his cluster of 133 parliamentary seats – except that nobody really knows how solid are these 133 MPs behind Najib if faced with a vote in a “no confidence” motion.
Malaysia is today facing a “perfect storm” of a multitude of political, economic and nation-building crises.
The ringgit has dropped 21 per cent so far in 2015 and is Asia’s underperformer.
Najib asked the US investors to ignore the “noise” back home in Malaysia related to 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MD) and look instead at the “real” fundamentals of a resilient economy despite the current economic volatility, but unless Najib come clean on the two major scandals on the 1MDB and the RM2.6 billion “donation” in his personal bank accounts, confidence of both local and foreign investors are not going to be restored.
However unlikely or even “impossible” at present to envisage a scenario in the forthcoming Parliament where a vote of no confidence against Najib as Prime Minister become the subject-matter of MPs, there are powerful factors and forces gathering momentum heading in this direction.
Openly, the Prime Minister and UMNO President for 22 years, Tun Dr. Mahathir had called for Najib’s removal as Prime Minister.
He has today been joined by the longest-serving MCA President, Tun Dr. Ling Liong Sik who has joined Mahathir’s campaign for the ouster of Najib as Prime Minister.
Liong Sik said he attended the Bersih 4 rally in Perth, Australia to support a vote of no confidence against Najib, as he had taken people’s money and put it into his personal accounts which should not happen.
Will there be more veteran UMNO/Barisan Nasional leaders who will come out into the open to support the call for a new Prime Minister and who will dare to be the first from the present batch of 133 UMNO/BN MPs to step forward to “bell the cat” by supporting the call for a new Prime Minister?
This will be a moral and political dilemma facing every UMNO/BN MP, especially with the worsening of the multitude of political, economic and nation-building crisis caused by the deliberate revival of the race card after the 34-hour Bersih 4 rally, which was a patriotic carnival of human rights attended by hundreds of thousands of Malaysians regardless of race, religion, region or politics in pursuit of the Malaysian Dream for good governance and clean, free, fair elections transcending race and party politics.
Najib’s speech to the UN General Assembly was a big let-down, for it was a reminder to Malaysians of the wide gulf between the Prime Minister’s international speeches about the virtues of moderation and the need to margnialise extremists and the sad reality back home where the politics of extremism, hatred and lies are rearing their ugly heads, aided and abetted by the powers-that-be.
The next few weeks will be interesting times for Malaysian politics and governance.
Media statement (2) by Lim Kit Siang in Gelang Patah on Saturday, 3rd October 2015
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Namwali Serpell in conversation with Ismail Muhammad
« Mike Boughn + Sunnylyn Thibodeaux – poets!
All the Sweeter »
reading from and discussing her new novel
The Old Drift
from Hogarth Books
On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. Here begins the epic story of a small African nation, told by a mysterious swarm-like chorus that calls itself man’s greatest nemesis. The tale? A playful panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction. The moral? To err is human.
In 1904, in a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond. As the generations pass, their lives – their triumphs, errors, losses and hopes – form a symphony about what it means to be human.
From a woman covered with hair and another plagued with endless tears, to forbidden love affairs and fiery political ones, to homegrown technological marvels like Afronauts, microdrones and viral vaccines – this gripping, unforgettable novel sweeps over the years and the globe, subverting expectations along the way. Exploding with color and energy, The Old Drift is a testament to our yearning to create and cross borders, and a meditation on the slow, grand passage of time.
Namwali Serpell was born in Lusaka and lives in San Francisco. Her first novel, The Old Drift, is forthcoming with Hogarth (Penguin Random House) in 2019. She won the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing for her story, “The Sack.” In 2014, she was chosen as one of the Africa 39, a Hay Festival project to identify the most promising African writers under 40. In 2011, she received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Her first published story, “Muzungu,” was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2009, shortlisted for the 2010 Caine Prize, and anthologized in The Uncanny Reader. You can read her writing in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Tin House, Triple Canopy, The Believer, n+1, McSweeney’s, Bidoun, Cabinet, The San Francisco Chronicle, The L.A.Review of Books, Public Books, The Guardian, and in these six short story anthologies. She is associate professor of English at UC Berkeley. Her first book of literary criticism, Seven Modes of Uncertainty, was published in 2014 by Harvard UP. Visit: www.namwaliserpell.com
Ismail Muhammad is a writer and critic living in Oakland, California, where he works as the reviews editor of The Believer. His work has appeared in Bookforum, The Nation, and Slate.
Advance praise for THE OLD DRIFT:
“Recalling the work of Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez as a sometimes magical, sometimes horrifically real portrait of a place, Serpell’s novel goes into the future of the 2020s, when the various plot threads come together in a startling conclusion. Intricately imagined, brilliantly constructed, and staggering in its scope, this is an astonishing novel.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred)
“In this smartly composed epic, magical realism and science fiction interweave with authentic history, and the ‘colour bar,’ the importance of female education, and the consequences of technological change figure strongly. It’s also a unique immigration story showing how people from elsewhere are enfolded into the country’s fabric… Serpell’s novel is absorbing, occasionally strange, and entrenched in Zambian culture—in all, an unforgettable original.”
—Booklist (starred)
“Comparisons with Gabriel García Márquez are inevitable and likely warranted. But this novel’s generous spirit, sensory richness, and visionary heft make it almost unique among magical realist epics.”
—Kirkus (starred)
“It’s hard to believe this is a debut, so assured is its language, so ambitious its reach, and yet The Old Drift is indeed Namwali Serpell’s first novel, and it signifies a great new voice in fiction. Feeling at once ancient and futuristic, The Old Drift is a genre-defying riotous work that spins a startling new creation myth for the African nation of Zambia…Serpell’s voice is lucid and brilliant, and it’s one we can’t wait to read more of in years to come.”
—Nylon, “50 Books You’ll Want to Read in 2019”
“In turns charming, heartbreaking, and breathtaking, The Old Drift is a staggeringly ambitious, genre-busting multigenerational saga with moxie for days. . . . I wanted it to go on forever. A worthy heir to Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
—CARMEN MARIA MACHADO, author of Her Body and Other Parties
“From the poetry and subtle humor constantly alive in its language, to the cast of fulsome characters that defy simple categorization, The Old Drift is a novel that satisfies on all levels. Namwali Serpell excels in creating portraits of resilience—each unique and often heartbreaking. In The Old Drift the individual struggle is cast against a world of shifting principles and politics, and Serpell captures the quicksand nature of a nation’s roiling change with exacting precision. My only regret is that once begun, I reached the end all too soon.”
—ALICE SEBOLD, author of The Lovely Bones
“An astonishing novel, a riot for the senses, filled with the music and scents and sensations of Zambia. Namwali Serpell writes about people, land, and longing with such compassionate humor and precision there’s an old wisdom in these pages. In short, make room on your shelf next to a few of your other favorites: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and Edwidge Danticat jump to mind. It’s brilliant. This woman was born to write!”
—ALEXANDRA FULLER, author of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
“It’s difficult to think of another novel that is at once so sweepingly ambitious and so intricately patterned, delivering the pleasures of saga and poetry in equal measure. The Old Drift is an endlessly innovative, voraciously brilliant book, and Namwali Serpell is among the most distinctive and exciting writers to emerge in years.”
—GARTH GREENWELL, author of What Belongs to You
“The Old Drift is a dazzling genre-bender of a novel, an astonishing historical and futuristic feat, a page-turner with a plot that consistently and cleverly upends itself. Playfully poetic and outright serious at once, it is one of the most intelligent debuts I’ve read this year. No matter your reading preference, there’s something in it for you.”
—CHINELO OKPARANTA, author of Under the Udala Trees
“If, as she writes, ‘history is the annals of the bully on the playground,’ then in The Old Drift, Namwali Serpell wreaks havoc on the Zambian annals by rewriting the past, creating a new present, and conjuring an alternative future. In refusing to be bound by genre, Serpell is audacious and shrewd. This is a Zambian history of pain and exploitation, trial and error, and hope and triumph.”
—JENNIFER MAKUMBI, author of Kintu
“The Old Drift is an extraordinary meditation on identity, the history of a nation, love, politics, family, friendship, and life. Serpell’s prose is dazzling. Darting back and forth through the decades and mixing different genres, Serpell has delivered an original, remarkable, magical work that both delights and challenges.”
—CHIKA UNIGWE, author of On Black Sisters Street
Free, San Francisco
http://www.citylights.com/info/?fa=event&event_id=3398
City Lights Books
San Francisco , CA 94133 United States + Google Map
http://www.citylights.com
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Home > Announcements > Train regulations from June 28 to July 23 due to track renewal work
By Kerala Rail News Jun 26, 2018
Ernakulam: Traffic block for Complete Track Renewal works, engaging TRT (Track Re-laying Train) machines, will continue at Aluva-Idapalli section during the night from 28th June 2018 to 23rd July 2018 excluding Tuesdays and Wednesday. The service of following trains will be regulated during the period, except on 03rd, 04th, 10th, 11th, 17th and 18th July 2018.
Train No 16128 Guruvayoor-Chennai Egmore Express scheduled to depart from Guruvayur at 21:25 hrs will have a late start from Guruvayur at 23:25 hrs (Late by 120 minutes) from 28.06.18 – 23.07.18, except on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
REGULATION OF TRAINS
Daily Express Trains
1. Train No 16348 Mangalore-Thiruvananthapuram express, will be regulated for 90 minutes at Angamali station, except on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
2. Train No 16344 Madurai-Thiruvananthapuram Amritha express will be regulated for 30 minutes at Aluva, except on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Weekly Express Trains
1. On 02nd, 09th, 16th and 23rd July 2018(Mondays), Train No 19260 Bhavnagar-Kochuveli weekly express will be regulated for 45 minutes at Angamali.
2. On 28th June, 05th, 12th and 19th July 2018(Thursdays), Train No 16311 Bikaner-Kochuveli weekly express will be regulated for 45 minutes at Angamali and Train No 16360 Patna-Ernakulam weekly express will be regulated for 80 minutes at Aluva.
3. On 29th June, 06th, 13th and 20th July 2018(Fridays), Train No 16333 Veraval-Thiruvananthapuram weekly express will be regulated for 45 minutes at Angamali.
4. On 30th June, 07th, 14th and 21st July 2018(Saturdays), Train No 16335 Gandhidham-Nagercoil weekly express will be regulated for 45 minutes at Angamali.
5. On 01st, 08th, 15th and 22nd July 2018(Sundays), Train No 16337 Okha-Ernakulam Biweekly express will be regulated for 45 minutes at Angamali, Train No 07115 Hyderabad-Kochuveli weekly express will be regulated for 140 minutes at Aluva and Train No 22634 Hazrat Nizamuddin-Thiruvananthapuram weekly express will be regulated for 45 minutes at Angamali.
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Bill Rudolph
Chuck Perlow
Yarone Zober
Andrew Raynovich
Christine Vann
Izzy Rudolph
Adam Perlow
Kristen Ford
Lisa Tiche
Jeff Yates
Thomas Belan
After 20 years in Lawrenceville, Art All Night becomes a South Side event
The Highline Building offers 80,000 square feet for Art All Night to do its thing, which is a free, non-juried, uncensored, rough-and-tumble 22-hour art show with music ricocheting around the building.
By Scott Mervis for Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh – Art All Night began 21 years ago at the vacant G.C. Murphy’s building on Butler Street and since then has gone round-the-clock in 13 different locations, all in Lawrenceville.
This year, for the first time, Art All Night, a grass-roots project of the Lawrenceville Corporation, does the unthinkable and leaves the neighborhood, even crossing a river to the South Side, to hole up at The Highline (formerly known as the Terminal Building) at 333 East Carson St.
“We start planning in February,” says Kate Bechak, the Art All Night 21 Poobah, “and our first goal is to find a location. We’ve been so lucky for the last 20 years that we’ve been able to come up with something. Our bottom line is maybe 40,000 square feet, and there’s not a lot of spaces like that. We worked really hard to find a place in Lawrenceville, but, unfortunately, there wasn’t anything that quite fit our needs.”
Last year’s space, the warehouse on 35th Street, is in use, and the previous two locations, the Arsenal Terminal and Willow Street, have transitioned to residential in the increasingly upscale neighborhood.
It began, in 1998, with about 200 people checking out 101 pieces of art, and last year, it was more like 20,000 visitors and 1,050 pieces — which still range in quality from finely crafted, beautiful artwork to a hot mess.
Artists, of any level, can register on the Art All Night website and submit one piece of artwork that is ready to hang. The drop-off is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, firm, and it must be picked up on Sunday between 2:30 and 5:30 p.m.
As always, some of the art will happen right on the spot with the live painting teams and demonstrations from the Pittsburgh Glass Center and a woodworker.
The soundtrack is a main band stage, coffeehouse acoustic stage and, new this year, an open jam stage much in the spirit of the event.
Ms. Bechak says, “The developer of the Highline Building was very eager to work with us, he’d heard of Art All Night, and was excited to make things happen.”
She admits that in Lawrenceville, “A lot of people are upset, but a lot of the businesses, they see what’s happening and they completely understand we weren’t able to find anything.”
In the future, just like the art part, it’s anything goes.
“We really foresee that we will return [to Lawrenceville],” she says. “We have that as a goal. I think people are reading this as a moment of departure, but we’ve love to come back when we find that location.”
Scott Mervis: smervis@post-gazette.com.
© 2018 McKnight Realty Partners, LLC
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Syria: Cultural Patrimony Under Threat
Jun 23, 2017 through Nov 3, 2017
As Syria’s ongoing civil war, staggering death toll, and displacement of thousands of refugees threatens to destroy Syrian culture, the Palace of the Governors will display seven albums of photographs of historic sites in Syria taken between 1899 and 1909. Entitled Syria: Cultural Patrimony Under Threat, the exhibition will includes a multi-functional information kiosk with insights into Syrian people and culture.
Partnering with Curators Without Borders, a non-profit that specializes in innovative museum collaborations for humanitarian response, the exhibition highlights the vast collection of albumen prints, showing not only the historic sites now destroyed in Syria, but representations of its people in adjacent collections within the Photo Archives.
As New Mexico has been the home to many diverse groups through its millennia who sought refuge from social, political, ethnic and religious strife, it continues to welcome most recently Syrian refugee families who are escaping the terrors of life in Syria today. The principal message of the exhibition is one of shared concern, empathy, unity, and support for those suffering amid diaspora.
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遊客: 註冊 | 登錄 | 會員
巴菲特班 洪瑞泰 (Michael On) » 舊討論區 » 德國..化學..LINDE AG (德國 LIN,美股 LNEGY)
標題: 德國..化學..LINDE AG (德國 LIN,美股 LNEGY)
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用戶註冊天數 1896
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發表於 2018-1-21 11:52 資料 私人訊息
德國..化學..LINDE AG (德國 LIN,美股 LNEGY)
http://www.the-linde-group.com
http://www.the-linde-group.com/en/about_the_linde_group/company_profile_2/index.html
In the 2016 financial year, The Linde Group generated revenue of EUR 16.948 bn, making it one of the leading gases and engineering companies in the world, with approximately 60,000 employees working in more than 100 countries worldwide.
The strategy of The Linde Group is geared towards long-term profitable growth and focuses on the expansion of its international business with forward-looking products and services.
ResponsibilityLinde acts responsibly towards its shareholders,business partners, employees, society and the environment in every one of its business areas, regions and locations across the globe. The company is committed to technologies and products that unite the goals of customer value and sustainable development.
The Group comprises three Divisions: Industrial Gases & Healthcare
The largest division, Gases, has three segments: EMEA (Europe,Middle East and Africa), Asia/Pacific and the Americas. These segments are further subdivided into nine Regional Business Units (RBUs).
In addition, Linde has established five Global Governance Centres (GGCs) for the Gases Division which are centrally managed and operate across the regions: GGC Merchant & Packaged Gases (liquefied gases and cylinder gas), GGC Electronics (electronic gases), GGC Healthcare, GGC Operations and GGC Deliver.
The Group has also set up the Group-wide function Opportunity & Project Development in order to take better advantage of business opportunities.
https://finance.google.com/finance?q=ETR%3ALIN&ei=aQxkWpnLDouX0ATF6paIAw
https://finance.google.com/finance?q=OTCMKTS%3ALNEGY&ei=FAhkWrHFN8id0QTE-r6IAw
Linde AG is a Germany-based company engaged in the industrial gases manufacture. The Company operates through three segments: Gases, Engineering and Other. The Gases segment offers a wide range of compressed and liquefied gases, as well as chemicals to various industries, including energy, steel production, chemical processing, environmental protection and welding, as well as in food processing, glass production and electronics. The Engineering division offers planning, project development and construction of turnkey industrial plants, such as petrochemical and chemical plants, refineries, fertilizer plants, as well as olefin, natural gas, air separation, hydrogen and synthesis gas plants. The Other segment comprises logistics services of the Company's subsidiary Gist, which specializes in the distribution of chilled food and beverages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Linde_Group
The Linde Group, registered as Linde AG (FWB: LIN), is a German multinational chemical company founded in 1879. It is the world's largest industrial gas company by market share as well as revenue. Linde shares are traded on all the German stock exchanges and also in Zürich, and the Linde share price is included in the DAX 30 index. The group is headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
The Linde Group has over 600 affiliated companies in more than 100 countries,[3] with customers in the industrial, retail, trade, science, research and public sectors.
In September 2006 the company acquired its UK based competitor The BOC Group, and subsequently disposed of its non-gas interests. Linde's former materials handling business was rebranded as KION Group in September 2006 and sold in November 2006 to KKR and Goldman Sachs for ��4bn. In March 2007 the BOC Edwards semiconductor equipment business was sold to CCMP Capital for ��685m.[4]
Linde's revenue in 2016 were ��16.948 billion, with 59,715 employees.[2]
Following the BOC acquisition, The Linde Group has become the world's largest industrial gas company. In 2005, Linde AG and BOC together had 21% of the world's market in industrial gases followed by Air Liquide with 19%, Praxair with 13%, Air Products & Chemicals with 10%, Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation with 4%, Airgas with 3% and Messer Group with 1%.[5]
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Jun 10, 2016 by David Meyer Lindenberg -
O’ Mighty Preet! Save Us From Seabrook!
June 10, 2016 (Mimesis Law) – In April, we reported on an ambitious project: the FBI was investigating the NYPD, as well as high-ranking officials like corrections union president Norman Seabrook, for possible corruption.
The FBI became interested in NYC law enforcement after they tapped the phones of two wealthy businessmen, Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg, during a prior investigation. Allegedly, the feds learned of a number of improper relationships between Rechnitz and Reichberg, Seabrook and top NYPD brass. It was claimed that the businessmen gave them expensive trips, cash and even diamonds; in exchange, they received on-demand police protection.
The businessmen were also prominent donors to, and allies of, Mayor Bill de Blasio. After news of the FBI probe became public, Preet Bharara, Manhattan U.S. Attorney and self-styled anticorruption crusader, made waves by claiming to be hard at work looking at de Blasio for possible involvement. The mayor ultimately reached out to the FBI through his lawyer and offered to help the investigation. The NYPD, for its part, responded by transferring and, in some cases, suspending the cops involved.
That was in April. Now it’s June, and a lot has changed. First and foremost, Rechnitz has turned into the fed’s best friend: as a DoJ press release puts it, Rechnitz is now “a cooperating witness for the Government.”
Flipping Rechnitz was a watershed moment for the DoJ’s case. For the most part, there’s been little concrete fallout from the investigation, but that has now changed. The feds, led by Bharara, are officially on the warpath.
The first official to be prosecuted is Seabrook, who was arrested June 8th and charged with taking bribes. Bharara made a good choice: Seabrook is an extraordinarily unsympathetic figure, the chieftain of a giant public union widely perceived as one of the main impediments to fixing NYC’s dysfunctional criminal justice system.
Among other people, the corrections union represents the guards on Rikers Island. In 2015, Kalief Browder, a young black man, committed suicide after being sent to Rikers at age sixteen after he was charged with stealing a backpack. He ended up spending three years in the jail, two of which were in solitary confinement, and was starved and beaten by the prison guards until he tried to hang himself with his own bedsheets. He became a cause célèbre for reformers after his case was dismissed and he was released, but the damage he suffered was too much to bear. He committed suicide.
Video of Browder’s abuse at the hands of the guards emerged, and there was an almighty outcry. (Notably, Bharara and the DoJ released a report denouncing conditions at the jail as “inspired by Lord of the Flies.”) But the corrections union, led by Seabrook, a former Rikers’ guard, adamantly opposed any kind of reform. A New York Times op-ed shows how Seabrook went to bat to keep conditions at Rikers – including six-figure salaries for guards – exactly as they were. Seabrook himself receives a $300,000 salary, courtesy of the taxpayer, and spends it extravagantly.
And Seabrook’s alleged crime is unlikely to win him many friends. According to the U.S. Attorney’s criminal complaint, he got involved in an embarrassingly plebeian scheme to sell his access to the union’s pension fund.
According to the DoJ, one day, Seabrook complained to Rechnitz that he wasn’t getting enough personal mileage out of administering union money. Rechnitz recognized this as a problem in need of fixing and introduced him to hedge fund manager Murray Huberfeld. Huberfeld, Rechnitz and Seabrook allegedly worked out a deal wherein Seabrook would invest $20 million from the union’s pension fund with Huberfeldt. In exchange, Seabrook would get 2% of the profits, or an estimated $100-150 thousand. Rechnitz, for his part, would get $60,000 in fraudulent billings from Huberfeld’s firm.
The complaint has a lot more – for instance, it alleges that Seabrook got mad after receiving a first installment of a mere $60,000, even though it was hand-delivered to him by Rechnitz in a Salvatore Ferragamo bag. Comical as details of this sort may be, what they really do is highlight the feds’ narrative. Seabrook bad, DoJ anti-Seabrook, therefore DoJ good. But must we really cheer on the DoJ because for once, they’re making life hard for someone we don’t like?
To put it mildly, there are problems. For instance, to prosecute Seabrook for bribery, the feds charged him with honest services wire fraud. But as Fault Lines’ resident prosecutor, Andrew King, pointed out, “honest services wire fraud” is intrinsically absurd. Ignoring for the moment that the law was successfully challenged on constitutional grounds, the statute as it exists today is nothing more than a way for the government to circumvent the limitations of the federal bribery statute, which only applies to federal officials, to prosecute employees of the states. Federalism? What federalism?
And Bharara’s motives may be less than pure. In the name of fighting corruption, he’s secured some highly dubious convictions against high-profile people. The pageantry and spectacle of prosecuting an elected official may be good for Bharara’s image, but is a prosecutor’s ambition really the standard by which a criminal justice system should operate?
Even those who don’t care if the wrong man wields the wrong power, as long as he uses it to go after the right person, should be worried about the ramifications of letting the feds get away with their hypocrisy. Letting the federal government clean house is tempting because it’s easy: you don’t have to assume responsibility, which could be why the New York Times likes the idea so much.
The problem is that the feds have a very dirty house of their own. Asking these people who so often flagrantly disregard the rule of law to restore it for ourselves is absurd. They have no moral authority to fix the problem, and allowing them to act as if they did will blind us all the more to their failings.
We must resist the temptation to praise the feds for doing to us what they’re unwilling to do for themselves. If we don’t, we’ll have no right to criticize them next time they abuse their power. Seabrook isn’t worth that.
fault linesFBINorman SeabrookNYPDPreet Bharara
2 Comments on this post.
After Two Decades of Abuse, P.O. Matthew Corder Finally Convicted
26 July 2016 at 11:07 am - Reply
[…] embarrassing that the feds had to step in to do what state prosecutors couldn’t. It’s appalling that when cops like Chief White swing […]
NYPD’s Integrity at the Point of a Gun
20 February 2017 at 9:33 am - Reply
[…] But on the whole, this indictment may be a rare example of a genuinely good thing. Of course, it’s heartening to see charges brought against cops, something that still happens far too rarely. But it’s also that the charges were brought by the Manhattan DA and his Public Corruption Unit, not Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the city‘s self-styled anti-corruption crusader. […]
Daniela Vargas Paid a Fair Price
by David Meyer Lindenberg - Mar 6, 2017
Playing the Hand You’re Dealt in Prison ...
Andrew Lee Thomas: Disclose If You Want Them ...
by David Meyer Lindenberg - Feb 27, 2017
Don’t Donate to “BLM Leader” ...
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Category: Family, Reviews
Flint Lockwood thinks he’s a genius. But none of the things he invented are things that make sense or are useful. However, he has the support of his mother but when she dies, he’s left alone with his father who thinks he should give it up. When the community that he lives in is in an economic crisis because their primary source of income, a sardine cannery, was shut down, Flint decides to try his latest invention, a machine that can turn water into food. But something goes wrong and the machine ends up in the atmosphere. Later it starts raining food. The shifty mayor tries to use this as a way to help their community, but when Flint senses something wrong with the machine, the mayor convinces him to ignore it. However, as Flint predicts, chaos ensues.
Director: Phil Lord, Chris Miller
Actors: Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Neil Patrick Harris, Bruce Campbell, Andy Samberg, Mr. T
Classification: G8+ General
Dinner for Schmucks
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid
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New Dining Hall and country music cafe: major changes coming to food venues for fall semester
Holocaust survivor, peace advocate and MTSU guest speaker Eva Kor passes away
MTSU Associate Athletic Communications Director arrested on drug charges
“Hands Free Law”: What you need to know on July 1
Middle Tennessee State University's Digital News Source
SGACoverage of Student Government
Forrest Hall
CommunityNews from Murfreesboro and the surrounding area
Blue Raider Football
Contact Sidelines
LifestylesMusic
Bonnaroo 2016: Buzz bands deliver load late-night lineup on Day 2
Sidelines 3 years ago
The logo for the 2016 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival (Big Hassle)
MANCHESTER, Tenn. — Day 2 of the 15th annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival featured an undercard filled with rising stars of hip-hop, rap and soul world, along with late-night risings stars of psychedelic pop, dance music and electronica.
Aussies Tame Impala live up to hype
Late-night sets are always a key part of the Bonnaroo experience, with this year being no different. The most talked-about late set this year came courtesy of Tame Impala, an Australian psychedelic pop-rock band fronted by songwriter Kevin Parker.
At times sounding like an amplified version of the Beatles during their psychedelic period — Parker’s vocals sound eerily similar to John Lennon’s — the band provided trippy songs with visuals to match, including pulsating color effects on the screens and confetti showers during select tracks.
Kicking off well after midnight early Saturday on the Which Stage, Tame Impala played through fan favorites such as the guitar-driven “Elephant” and the vocoder-heavy “Let It Happen” and included the recent set list addition of “Daffodils,” a disco/funk-inspired track Parker wrote for Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Special” album.
As many Bonnaroovians headed back to camp to call it a night after 2 a.m., you could hear the band’s signature cut “Feels Like It Only Goes Backwards” echoing across the campgrounds, wrapping up Day 2 in a melodic, dreamlike fashion.
— John Connor Coulston, MTSU Seigenthaler News Service, Twitter: @jccoulston
Chainsmokers close with Halsey’s help
Half past midnight early Saturday morning, Bonnaroo crowds found themselves revived from the unforgiving Friday heat with waves of electronic beats pouring from The Chainsmokers through throbbing speakers at the This Tent.
Budding into music stardom, The Chainsmokers consist of American DJs Andrew Taggart and Alex Pall, whose niche is producing trancing electronic dance music. The two had their big break in 2014 with the hit single “#Selfie.”
Since then, they have produced addictive elecrtro-pop mixes with some of today’s leading female vocalists, including Daya, ROZES and Charlee.
Fans gathered in front of stage festooned with neon balloons, glow sticks, body suits and what even appeared to be twinkling cotton candy while waiting to create light shows in synchronization with The Chainsmokers’ magnetic pulses.
The DJs brought their own technicolor light show, however, that outstretched This Tent and flashed over all of Centeroo.
Screams immediately exploded from fans as The Chainsmokers kicked off their performance with frantic scratching meshed with the lyrics to “Where You Been?” by 2 Chainz. They continued playing familiar mashups fans could sing along to, including remixes with lyrics from “Shut Up and Dance” by Walk the Moon, “Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand, and “Ride” by Twenty One Pilots.
Even though The Chainsmokers played their recent hits, “Roses” and “Don’t Let Me Down,” they repeatedly urged the crowd to prove that they were “real fans” who enjoyed their music prior to those releases.
This command only revved up fans just before Taggart and Pall played a new track, during which they requested the help of fellow Bonnaroo artist Halsey to sing. Halsey immediately hopped on stage, and the trio cranked out The Chainsmokers’ original and fresh song “We Ain’t Never Getting Older” that was released for the first time at the Coachella festival in April.
After the band jammed to “Don’t Let Me Down” one last time, the crowd chanted for an encore, but the last flicker of neon stage lights signaled The Chainsmokers officially had said goodnight to Bonnaroo.
— Amanda Freuler, MTSU Seigenthaler News Service, Twitter: @AmandaFreuler
French electronica group M83 shows diversity
The French group has been touring in support of their recent album “Junk,” which was released in April. Anthony Gonzalez heads the band as its primary songwriter and vocalist. Gonzalez has said “Junk” was inspired by music and television of the 1980s, and this influence was apparent throughout the band’s synth-driven, neon-tinged set.
Gonzalez and his bandmates played a wealth of fresh material from the new album as well as fan favorites from 2008’s “Saturday = Youth” and 2011’s critically acclaimed “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.” The infectious saxophone line of “Road Blaster” contrasted with the melodic yelps of the band’s hit song “Midnight City.”
Such musical diversity was present throughout the entirety of the band’s performance.
M83’s epic, swirling synths set the musical foundation for many standout moments. The band played an intense rendition of “Oblivion,” a grandiose pop piece written for the 2013 sci-fi film of the same name. Another memorable moment was the perfect precision of the electric guitar solo during “Go,” thus proving that M83 was here to do what many of the artists at Bonnaroo do best: be rock stars.
— Evan Dunne, MTSU Seigenthaler News Service, Twitter: @RippedDanger
Rapper Tyler, the Creator banters, entertains
Tyler, the Creator leapt onstage, eyes wide, arms flailing and sporting his signature green hat, to make his first Bonnaroo appearance Friday night in front of a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd at This Tent.
Bringing his trademark rebellious attitude to The Farm, the young leader of the Odd Future rap group was accompanied by fellow Odd Future members Taco and Jasper as the DJ and hype man, respectively.
Before Tyler erupted onto the stage, the crowd chanted “Golf Wang” and “Tyler” as they awaited the young rapper’s performance. The tension was as thick as the hot air surrounding the anxious crowd, and after Taco primed the audience by telling everyone to put their hands up, the crowd burst into a frenzy as Tyler opened with a wild performance of “What the (expletive) Right Now,” a single inspired by Kanye West’s “Freestyle 4” from his recent album “The Life of Pablo.”
Delivering the back-and-forth concert banter for which Tyler is known, he remarked that he “had underestimated Tennessee.” He went on to say that he wasn’t sure if anyone here would even know who he was, but the Bonnaroo fans convinced him otherwise with their enthusiastic appreciation.
He later said he “would find someway to get back here next year,” for Bonnaroo 2017.
As Tyler played both singles and tracks from across his discography, the crowd followed the lyrics perfectly, even singing some verses themselves at Tyler’s request. His pointing out people in the crowd and having conversations onstage played up to his nonchalant humor that makes his stage presence so entertaining.
The set progressed with fan favorites such as “Domo 23,” “She” and eventually Tyler’s first widely acclaimed hit, the gritty and aggressive “Yonkers.” The song was split into two versions, the first being Tyler’s altered lyrics and the second being the crowd’s faithful rendition of the original. He finished with “Tamale,” a fast-paced and erratic song that inspired the crowd to give their all as the set came to a close.
— Tanner Dedmon, MTSU Seigenthaler News Service, Twitter: @TannerDedmon
Vince Staples leads off night’s hip-hop onslaught
In what will be remembered as a powerhouse display of hip-hop performances Friday night at Bonnaroo, rapper Vince Staples was the one to initiate the viscerally energetic tone that would transpire throughout the remainder of the evening.
In a night that saw hip-hop artists such as J.Cole, Tyler, the Creator, Bryson Tiller and even a guest appearance by “it” kid Chance the Rapper, it was Vince Staples who brought forth the youthful, rebellious nature of hip-hop to the lively Bonnaroo crowd in his Friday night slot at the This Tent.
“We’re going to have a good time tonight, everybody,” Staples proclaimed to the crowd. “I’m going to need you to bounce with me.”
Opening up his set with “Lift Me Up,” a single from his debut album “Summertime ’06,” immediately brought the crowd into a fervor. The record explores Staples perspective on being a young, black man in America, expressing his frustrations on constantly being abused and neglected by society and pleading for someone to lift him above those looking to bring him down.
Hailing from Long Beach, Calif., the 22-year-old rapper, although known for his dry sense of humor, rarely engaged in trivial chit-chat with the crowd. He opted instead to use as much time as he could in his hour-long set delving into his catalog and establishing a personal connection with the audience through his lyrics, which are ofttimes bluntly chilling in their delivery.
When Staples did address the crowd, however, it was in a humorously playful tone. He told the crowd how pleasantly surprised he was arriving at The Farm for the first time.
“There is so many friendly white people,” he said, presumably at least half-jokingly.
Vince closed the set with his breakthrough single “Blue Suede” from his “Hell Can Wait” EP, the record that garnered him so much attention in the first place and solidifying himself as an artist for whom to keep a close eye on.
Before leaving the stage, Vince walked up in front of the rambunctious crowd and jumped into their outstretched hands. The crowd preceded to lift him up, thereby completing the mission Staples set forth at the beginning of his set. On a night filled with hip-hop heavyweights, at this moment, Staples rose above all.
— Evan Brown, MTSU Seigenthaler News Service
Leon Bridges brings the new soul
Acclaimed young soul singer Leon Bridges delivered a smoothly passionate performance to fans young and older who packed The Other Tent Friday night.
The Fort Worth, Texas native began his set with “Smooth Sailin’,” a rhythmic track that set the tone for the night and transported the crowd from Manchester, Tenn. to New Orleans and back again.
Although only 26 years old, Bridges’ songs construct a vibe of a time passed. His music remains deeply influenced by tunes of the 1950 and 1960s.
With a humble beginning of playing shows at open mic nights, Bridges has graduated from being a dishwasher to quickly becoming a household name among soul fans, selling out Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium this spring and playing at festivals such as Sundance Film Festival and SXSW.
Crowd favorites included Bridges’ hit single, “Coming Home” and an old-school cover of Ginuwine’s 1996 R&B banger “Pony.”
— Brinley Hineman, MTSU Seigenthaler News Service, Twitter: @_briiindle
GRiZ mixes old school with electronica
Bonnaroo 2016’s lineup is full of electronica artists and various DJs; GRiZ made sure to stand out from the rest.
The electronic producer also known as Grant Kwiecinski brought the heat to Bonnaroo at his early Friday night set at the Which Stage. The Michigan-born artist is known for his fusion of saxophone with electronic beats, which in turn creates a soulful funk sound.
What makes GRiZ unique is his blend of old with new. This defines his studio work and spices up his live show.
After a few original beats, James Brown’s “Get On Up” got a fresh remix for the ages, flowing into a saxophone melody. GRiZ’s stage mates played guitar as he DJed, intertwining organic, old-school rock elements with modern EDM.
The set stopped about a third of the way through due to technical difficulties, so the band called upon Jessie Arlen, which is featured heavily on the 2015 release “Say It Loud,” to come out and sing a rendition of “Over the Rainbow.”
After the lull was over, the show resumed with the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” theme song ending in a dramatic bass drop and smooth vocals, inciting the largest reaction from the audience of the evening.
The dancing continued with a sax-fueled version of the rock classic “Shout.” GRiZ’s set concluded with a brand new song that had the fans jamming along just as the sun began to set.
— Olivia Ladd, MTSU Seigenthaler News Service, Twitter: @LivSlaton
Shires holds her own on smaller stage
Armed with a powerful voice and a fiddle, Nashville-based country artist Amanda Shires proved that Bonnaroo isn’t just about the big shows at her New Music on Tap Lounge early evening set Friday.
The small stage, usually reserved for up-and-coming artists, competes with the festival’s second-largest stage close by. The Texas native had the area to herself for most of the show but was later forced to turn it up a notch when GRiZ’s DJ set began a few hundred yards away.
“I’m really super glad y’all are all here right now,” Shires said. “There’s nowhere in the world better to be.”
Shires’ set relied heavily on her 2013 studio album, “Down Fell The Doves,” recorded with the assistance of now-husband Jason Isbell as well as Todd Snider. Shires occasionally swapped her fiddle for an acoustic guitar while she powered through her set, including tracks such as “Devastate,” “Wasted and Rolling” and “Look Like a Bird.” To top off her performance, she tried out a couple of new songs off her upcoming record, due in September.
Shires isn’t a new face at ‘Roo, having performed alongside Justin Townes Earle and Isbell in previous years. She’ll also be part of the Bluegrass Situation SuperJam featuring Ed Helms and friends at 8:15 p.m. Sunday. And if that’s not enough, she’ll likely be a part of husband Isbell’s What Stage star set Sunday, as well.
— Dylan Aycock, MTSU Seigenthaler News Service, Twitter: @dylskye
Colorful MisterWives brings Big Apple to big stage
“Pure Imagination” is not the kind of song you’d expect to hear at Bonnaroo, but that’s exactly what New York City-based indie pop band MisterWives walked (danced, rather) out to for their late-afternoon set Friday at the sprawling What Stage.
With a background of a colorful elephant, octopus and dinosaur and a flower-wrapped drum kit, the colorful scene felt like it was ripped from a glow-in-the-dark paint rage party. Singer Mandy Lee and band members William Hehir, Marc Campbell, Etienne Bowler, Jesse Blum and Mike Murphy obviously came to the ‘Roo ready to entertain.
“Playing Bonnaroo has been our biggest dream, and we owe it to each and every one of you,” said Lee before performing “Our Own House,” title track of their debut album and the last song of the night. “Now we want to see how Tennessee holds it down.”
To summarize the set of MisterWives in three words: It. Was. Fun.
— Sara Snoddy, MTSU Seigenthaler News Service, Twitter: @Sara_Snoddy
St. Lucia shows his ’80s influence
Synth-pop newcomer Jean-Philip Grobler, known by his stage name St. Lucia, grabbed the attention of festival goers at the Which Stage Friday afternoon.
Opening the hourlong set with “Rescue Me,” a jam laced heavily with ’80s influence, the South African born-and Brooklyn-based St. Lucia cranked out banger after banger with the aid of his band, pausing briefly to thank the crowd and meekly admitting his thrill at being onstage at Bonnaroo.
“I’m deeply excited inside,” he said.
St. Lucia kept the stage talk to a minimum, instead focusing his efforts on a different form of crowd connection by physically entering the swarm of lively people to perform part of “Love Somebody,” pausing to sing on a fan’s Snapchat, which earned him a slide in Bonnaroo’s Snapchat story.
Crowd favorite and hit single “Physical” highlighted St. Lucia’s focus on creating ‘80s-inspired pop infused with electronic influences.
Andra Day starts Day 2 in soulful style
The words, “Is anyone feelin’ soulful today?” followed by a massive outcry from the crowd, marked soul singer Andra Day’s appearance at the Which Stages she began one of the first sets on a very packed musical day Friday.
Based in Los Angeles, Day has had a very busy last couple of years. Recording a cover of Jessie J’s hit “Mamma Knows Best” skyrocketed her to internet fame as it peaked at No. 2 on the YouTube Music Charts. Warner Bros. Records took notice and soon released her debut album “Cheers to the Fall” in August 2015.
On stage, the 31-year-old looked like a stripped-down version of her usual Billie Holiday-esque persona, complete with her signature do-rag but without the fur frills. The singer’s recent live performances include the 2016 Grammys, and she recently took part in a tribute to Muhammad Ali with John Legend at Spike TV’s “Guys Choice 2016” on June 4.
Her voice was no worse for the recent wear.
Slowly, people began trickling in to see her, like bees drawn to the honey-sweet sound of her piercing, cabaret-ready voice.
“For me, I like this to be a conversation,” said Day at the end of her first song, “Forever Mine.” “See? We’re talkin’ now, and I like to talk about my influences. Any Nina Simone fans?”
Her wailing notes carried throughput “Honey or Fire,” a fitting title for the juncture between her powerful voice and her mesmerizing stage persona. Day reassured the crowd that she’d be back.
“Ya’ll are family now, a part of the team,” she said. “So I guess I’ll have to do shows out here all the time.”
This article was published in cooperation with the Seigenthaler News Service. To see the version of this article that ran in The Tennessean, click here.
To see our full archive of Bonnaroo coverage, click here.
To contact Lifestyles Editor Olivia Ladd email lifestyles@mtsusidelines.com.
For more updates, follow us at www.mtsusidelines.com, on Facebook at MTSU Sidelines and on Twitter/Instagram at @Sidelines_Life.
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MT clinches championship spot with 1-0 win
Randall Sharp | Contributing Writer 5 years ago
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Peanut Pond project plows forward
The large multi-family residential development above the southwest shore of Peanut Pond received a couple of council approvals this afternoon as the project continues to move ahead.
The 54-unit project will fill the empty land between the pond and Highway 3, behind the Super 8 Motel. Council approved an Official Community Plan amendment and a zoning amendment that will allow the development.
Planning director Gina MacKay told council the developer has given the town a cheque for $200,000 to pay for part of the needed upgrades to Vedette Drive, which will be the main access to the project.
The plans call for a pedestrian trail along the shore of Peanut Pond. It will be open to the public when the adjacent mobile home park site is redeveloped, although there are no current plans.
Councillor Brian Harvey was the only dissenting vote on the two amendments, telling his colleagues he has concerns about the lack of detailed drawings of the project.
Plans call for up to 28 of the 54 townhouses to contain basement suites, which, according to MacKay, “are in line with the town’s policy on encouraging affordable rental units to be located within walking distance of the town’s amenities.”
Tesla gifts 16 charging stations to the town
Sixteen new electric car charging stations will be coming to Osoyoos thanks to an offer from Tesla.
According to a report from senior planner Don McArthur, Tesla approached the town with a proposal to install eight Tesla-specific charging stations and four generic ones at the under-used town parking lot at 8513 74th Avenue.
Four other Tesla chargers will be installed at another, as yet undetermined site in the town. All 16 stations will be paid for by Tesla.
Councillor CJ Rhodes told council that the town created the parking lot after an abandoned house was destroyed by fire several years ago. “No one ever uses the parking lot,” he said.
One of the attractions for council is that visitors to the town will be able to patronize businesses in the downtown area as their cars are plugged in.
McArthur said that four of the Tesla-only sites will be just for car charging. The other eight will be available for anyone wishing to park their vehicles for the allowed time period.
Regional pool idea just keeps on ticking
The idea of a regional pool just won’t go away and council today agreed to support another bid for a grant to fund a feasibility study.
According to a report from Chief Administrative Officer Barry Romanko, “In 2017 an initiative was started to develop a regional pool, in partnership with Oliver, the RDOS and the Osoyoos Indian Band.”
Unfortunately, that project fell apart.
The town of Oliver is asking for the BC Rural Development Fund for $100,000 to help fund a new feasibility study and the application needs letters of support from the partners.
Osoyoos has $40,000 in the 2019 budget to provide a contribution if it becomes necessary.
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Are you satisfied with the Scott administration’s transparency?
Stacey Singer
September 23, 2014 Florida, Politics.
Investigative reporters discovered Rick Scott and other Florida elected officials have been taking hunting trips to King Ranch, in Texas. (AP Photo/Paul Iverson)
Soon after Gov. Rick Scott was sworn into office, his transition team emails were deleted. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to the governor, found no evidence that Scott was responsible.
Last year, Scott created a blind trust that held his personal investments. Best practices dictate that a blind trust investment manager have no contact with its owner. But Scott’s trust is controlled by a longtime family associate who manages other Scott family accounts. It has held shares in companies that do business in Florida, including one building a natural gas pipeline. The Florida Ethics Commission, whose board is appointed by the governor, has signed off on the arrangement.
Gov. Rick Scott, (L), walks along with golf legend Jack Nicklaus during a campaign stop in Wellington. (Bill Ingram / Palm Beach Post)
Scott is the first Florida governor to travel in his own private jet. He said it was about saving taxpayers’ money. But its effect is to leave his itinerary and travel companions out of the public record.
Thanks to reporting by the Tampa Bay Times, it’s become clear that Scott has taken at least one “fundraising” trip to the King Ranch in Texas, where he joined other Republican elected officials on a hunting trip courtesy of U.S. Sugar and King Ranch, via the Republican Party of Florida. On getting news inquiries about the trip, Scott reimbursed the party for his expenses. U.S. Sugar had given $95,000 to the Republican Party of Florida for at least 20 weekend trips, according to the newspaper. The company is seeking approvals to build a city on farmland already under option to the state for Everglades restoration.
Now, we hear that Scott and his top staff may have occasionally used private email accounts and cellphone texts to communicate, even as they invited the public to read their official emails on line. Tallahassee trial lawyer Steven R. Andrews, who is suing the Scott administration over a property dispute, had been told no public records about his dispute existed. He’s asked the court to force Google to reveal information about the private accounts.
Tallahassee Circuit Judge Charles A. Francis has sided with Andrews, and has ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi and Scott to stop fighting Google’s release of the information.
It’s at odds with Scott’s invitation to the public to search his emails on a government website called Sunburst.
“Since my first day in office, I have committed to making sure the citizens of our state have access to the information they need to hold their state government accountable,” Scott said on May 3, 2012. “I invite Floridians to view my emails, as well as those of my leadership team, to learn more about how we are working to make Florida the best state for businesses to grow and expand and create jobs.”
Scott has promised transparency and accountability. Are you satisfied that he has delivered?
Should PBSO give up control of the Palm Beach County Jail?
Would the All Aboard Florida train service help or hurt South Florida?
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Becky Cross (2010)
Becky Cross came to OHMA from Muskingum University. As an undergraduate Becky's focus was on the gentrification occurring in Columbus, Ohio’s historic district. Here, she explored the re-development of a historically middle-class African American neighborhood transforming into an affluent community of same-sex couples using oral history narratives, and the PBS documentary “Flag Wars.” In 2009, she was Muskingum University’s first Forensic intern and produced a publication in the “Ohio Forensics Manual” entitled: Establishing Legacy through Relationship: Exploring the Coaching Paradigm in Higher Education as “Inspired” Narrative. This work inspired by the University’s decision to “clean house,” which included the disposal of hundreds of Speech and Debate team trophies dating back to the 1960’s. While studying at Columbia, she used oral history interviews from CUNY’s “Women’s Activist Voices” collection to better understand activist identity of second wave feminists. Her thesis was entitled: Our Foremothers: Constructions of Activist Identity in the Second Wave of Feminism, which attempts to reconcile some of the tensions of contemporary feminist identity constructions by examining the lives of ordinary women from the second wave of feminism. Currently, Becky is living in Cleveland, Ohio and working as the manager of external relations for the region's largest small business support organization. The Council of Smaller Enterprise (COSE), a non-profit organization that provides advocacy on legislative and regulatory issues and educational resources to help Northeast Ohio’s small businesses grow. Recently, she interviewed 13 small business owners from northeast ohio for a video documentary displayed at COSE's 40-year anniversary annual meeting.
Tags Feminism, Film
Katy Morris (2011)
Katy Morris is a fourth-generation Wyomingite and a graduate of Smith College where she majored in the study of women and gender with a concentration in race and culture. She studies the history of sexuality in the United States with a particular focus in sexual geographies and rural spaces. As a displaced country girl, Katy is interested in understanding the intersection of lesbian and rural Westerner identities. For the past few years, she has been traveling around Wyoming interviewing lesbians in their 50s and 60s about their experiences of love and hardship in the Cowboy State. While at OHMA, she continued her research on Wyoming lesbian history and produced a 40 minute documentary featuring the stories she has collected.
Lauren Taylor (2008)
Lauren Taylor: I grew up in New England, lived for years in the North West, and moved to New York City in 2014. In 2015 I received my MA in Oral History from Columbia University. I conducted my Masters thesis work with the NYPD Guardians Association, a fraternal organization for black police. The oral history of the Guardians Association can be accessed via the Columbia Rare Books & Manuscripts Library, as well as a collection of the organization's newsletters.
My BA from Oberlin College in 2009 was in Narrative Arts. There, I completed an individually designed major, which examined narrative theory, folklore, and explored in-depth tools for communicating narrative in visual arts and storytelling performance.
Prior to my time with the Columbia Oral History MA program, I was a professional storyteller, and a freelance personal historian in the North West. I led workshops and trainings, and managed projects for a variety of organizations and families.
These days, I am based in Brooklyn and I continue to manage several oral history projects. My recent clients have included the Brooklyn Historical Society, the New York Preservation Archive Project, and the Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Tags Social work, Reminiscence, Feminism
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Thanks to the hit title track, Billy Joel's breakthrough album remains a radio staple. Joel brought an old fashioned sense of Broadway flair to the sensitive singer-songwriter genre, and the album has aged very well. "The Ballad of Billy The Kid" remains one of his best numbers.
- Linda Ryan
Billy Joel - Piano Man 1998-02-01
Travelin' Prayer
'Aint No Crime
You're My Home
The Ballad Of Billy The Kid
Worse Comes To Worst
Stop In Nevada
If I Only Had The Words (To Tell You)
Somewhere Along The Line
1973 Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment
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Active NASA missions
December 31, 2011 ChrisDMarshall
As we close out another year we are going to take a look at some of the other NASA missions that are active in the Solar System exploring other planets. While the future looks a little uncertain at the moment due to the growing budget crisis there are plenty of spacecraft still in operation.
Voyager 1 & 2
Artist concept of NASA's Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
We start our journey with two of the longest serving craft in the NASA fleet, Voyager 1 & 2 launched in 1977 have been traveling away from earth ever since and continue to function. Their primary mission was to explore Jupiter and Saturn after making a number of discoveries at each their missions where extended. Voyager 2 went on to explore Uranus and Neptune. They are now traveling at the very edge of our solar system in the region called the Heliosheath where the influence of the solar wind from the sun is almost complete diminished. We don’t currently know when the craft will actually exit the solar system however it is expected to be close. At the time of writing Voyager 1 was 17 billion km from the sun and Voyager 2 was 14 billion km away. At this distance it takes more than a day for a signal to travel to the craft and back at the speed of light. The craft are expected to operate until ~ 2020 when they will no longer have enough power for their instruments. Follow the progress of the Voyager’s at there website.
Cassini-Huygens Mission
Next we take a look at the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft which is currently in orbit around Saturn. Launched in 1997 the craft spent almost 7 years travelling to the Saturn system before entering into orbit. Cassini-Huygens is actually two physical spacecraft and Orbiter which is named Cassini and is still in orbit today and a lander named Huygens which descendant into the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan shortly after the combined craft arrived at Saturn. Initially designed for a four year mission in orbit around Saturn the mission has been extended several times with the current plan to crash the orbiter into Saturn in 2017. Follow the progress of Cassini at it’s website.
Diagram of the Cassini Spacecraft
Artist's concept of Dawn with Vesta and Ceres. Image credit: William K. Hartmann Courtesy of UCLA
Next we visit a spacecraft that will be the first two orbit two different objects in the Solar System, currently in orbit around the asteroid Vesta providing a wealth of information about the rocky object, once it’s mission is complete it will then travel onto the dwarf planet Ceres and again go into orbit. Both objects are found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and are believed to have been created when the Solar System was created. The decade long mission including travel time will allow scientists to learn more about the creation processes. Follow Dawn’s progress at it’s website.
The Messenger spacecraft is the first to orbit Mercury after spending more than 6 years traveling to the planet and covering more than 7.9 billion kilometers. Unlike most of the other planets traveling to Mercury was a lot more complex due to how close it is to the Sun instead of a direct approach which would have constant accelerated the craft Messenger had to flyby Earth, Venus and Mercury several times before finally inserting into orbit.
Follow Messenger’s progress at it’s website.
The New Horizon’s spacecraft will be the first to fly-by Pluto, launched in 2006 the craft is rapidly approaching Pluto but still has just under 1300 days until closest approach. New Horizons is often erroneously given the title of Fastest Spacecraft Ever Launched, when in fact the Helios probes are the holders of that title. To be more specific New Horizons achieved the highest launch velocity and thus left Earth faster than any other spacecraft to date. It is also the first spacecraft launched directly into a solar escape trajectory, which requires an approximate velocity of 16.5 km/s (36,900 mph), plus losses, all to be provided by the launcher. In January 2007 New Horizon’s speed was increased by a gravity assist from Jupiter sending it hurtling towards Pluto at 8,900 mph faster. However due to the gravitation influence of the Sun even at that distance the craft has slowed as it progresses towards Pluto. New Horizon’s is now closer to Pluto than any previous spacecraft has been, the next significant event in the journey won’t occur until August 2014 when it will cross Neptune’s orbit. Flyby of Pluto will occur in July 2015 when all the science instruments will be pointed at the planet to gather as much information as possible.
After the successful completion of the primary mission to Pluto the craft may approach other Kuiper belt objects before leaving the Solar System in 2029.
Follow New Horizon’s progress at it’s website.
The last spacecraft we will look at today is the newest craft Juno, launched in August 2011 the craft began a five year journey to Jupiter to explore the origin and evolution of Jupiter. Expected to arrive in July 2018 the craft will then orbit Jupiter 33 times gathering information about the amount of water in it’s atmosphere, measure the composition, temperature, cloud motions of the giant planet. Map Jupiter’s magnetic and gravity fields and explore the magnetosphere near the the planet’s poles.
Follow Juno’s progress at it’s website.
Posted in Missions, SpaceTagged with Cassini, Dawn, Juno, Messenger, NASA, New Horizons, Voyager
And then there were six
Pale Blue Dot
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Brady welcomes additional breast services meeting in Newry
Community, Politics, What's On
Sinn Féin MP Mickey Brady has welcomed the move by the Department of Health to hold an additional public consultation meeting in Newry next month on the future of breast services.
Speaking to Newry Times, the Newry and Armagh MP said, “I welcome the decision from the Department of Health to add an extra date to its series of public meetings on the future of breast and stroke services.
“I had previously raised concerns that the initial list of public consultation meetings on the future of breast services did not include a meeting in Newry.
“I called on the Department of Health to review this decision and add a public meeting in Newry given the level of concerns about the future of breast services locally.
“I am pleased that the Department has now added a public meeting in the Canal Court Hotel, Newry, on Tuesday, 23 July from 7pm to 9pm.
“I would encourage anyone in the Newry area who is concerned about the future of breast services to go along to the meeting and make their voice heard,” he added.
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Aretha Henry’s Mrs. Jones Album Packs a Sweet Punch
Singer-Songwriter Aretha Henry Releases Passion-Filled Fourth Studio Album, Mrs. Jones. LISTEN to song samples from the album on Amazon by clicking HERE!
Aretha Henry has released her fourth studio album, Mrs. Jones. Earlier this year, the Singer-Songwriter released a self-titled EP which included the well-received singles ‘Love Language ‘ and ‘Bless Your Judgmental Heart’.
JaSupreme July 7, 2019 Neo-Soul, New Music Release, New R&B/Soul Releases, New Singles, News-Update, Song Samples Permalink
Chart-topping Pop-soul recording artist ARIKA KANE releases new single, “I LOVE YOU”
“I LOVE YOU” is best known as originally performed by the first lady of Bad Boy Entertainment and R&B superstar, FAITH EVANS.
“I LOVE YOU” was originally produced by Buckwild, Mario Winans and Sean Puffy Combs and written by Anthony Best, Faith Evans, Jennifer Lopez, Bobby Springsteen, Issac Hayes, Mario Winans, Mechalie Jamison and Sean Puffy Combs.
JaSupreme July 2, 2019 Neo-Soul, New Music Release, New R&B/Soul Releases, New Singles, News-Update, Nu-Soul, Video Permalink
After Featuring On Spotify’s Sweet Soul Sunday and Acoustic Soul, Singer-Songwriter Sharlene-Monique Returns with ‘Diamond Woman’
Sharlene-Monique is no stranger to the music industry, having previously received support from Spotify, featuring on playlists such as Acoustic Soul, Sweet Soul Sunday and New Indie and Alt.
JaSupreme July 2, 2019 International, Neo-Soul, New Music Release, New R&B/Soul Releases, New Singles, News-Update, Nu-Soul Permalink
The Roots’ “The Tipping Point” to be Reissued on 2LP for 15th Anniv. on July 12th, 2019
The Roots’ ‘The Tipping Point’ To Be Reissued For 15th Anniversary On 2LP July 12 Via Geffen/Urban Legends
Provocative Fusion Of Alternative Hip-Hop And Neo-Soul Being Repressed On Limited Edition Double Vinyl
LOS ANGELES, July 2, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — In honor of its 15th anniversary, The Roots‘ legendary sixth album The Tipping Point is available once again via Geffen/Urban Legends.
JaSupreme July 2, 2019 LP's/Records, Neo-Soul, New Music Release, New R&B/Soul Releases, News-Update, Nu-Soul, Rap/Hip-Hop Music, Re-Issues, Video Permalink
Raheem Devaughn Releases New Single “JUST RIGHT” (Testify)” | LISTEN!
3-time Grammy nominated singer-songwriter-producer and 2019 NAACP Image Award nominee’ for Outstanding Male Artist, RAHEEM DEVAUGHN Releases New Single, “JUST RIGHT” (Testify)” from his upcoming 7th studio album release, “The Love Reunion”, coming June 28th, 2019
“JUST RIGHT” (Testify), was written by The Love King, Raheem Devaughn and produced by Tim Kelley (one half of multi-award winning producers, Tim & Bob). “Just Right is an infectious anthem composed to celebrate not only women of black & brown color but all women globally,” mentions Raheem.
JaSupreme May 10, 2019 Neo-Soul, New Music Release, New R&B/Soul Releases, New Singles, News-Update, Nu-Soul, Video Permalink
U.K. R&B Singer Ricardo Williams to Release New EP, “Intermission Vol. 1” on April 30th, 2019 | LISTEN!
R&B Singer Ricardo Williams set to Release EP, “Intermission Vol 1” on April 30th, 2019
Rising UK R&B star, Ricardo Williams gives us volume 1 of one of the best R&B projects of 2019, straight off of the back of his critically acclaimed release (Come Over) featuring R&B Royalty Teedra Moses.
JaSupreme April 29, 2019 EP's, International, Neo-Soul, New Music Release, New R&B/Soul Releases, New Singles, New Voices of Today, News-Update, Nu-Soul, Video Permalink
NEW VOICES! U.K. R&B Group Brother Zulu Releases New Single “Honey” | LISTEN!
‘Future Soul’ group Brother Zulu release debut single ‘Honey’
‘Honey’ is a slow-burning slice of neo-soul. A modern-day crooner for a new generation, ‘Honey’ is the debut release from ‘Future Soul’ collective Brother Zulu.
JaSupreme April 24, 2019 International, Neo-Soul, New Music Release, New R&B/Soul Releases, New Singles, New Voices of Today, News-Update, Nu-Soul, Video Permalink
Sy Smith Releases New Album “Sometimes A Rose Will Get A Remix” – Available NOW | LISTEN!
Singer Sy Smith returns with new Remix Album “Sometimes A Rose Will Get A Remix” – Available NOW
Following the success of last year’s Sometimes A Rose Will Grow In Concrete, Sy Smith has just released Sometimes A Rose Will Get A Remix, a brand new remix album made available for streaming and purchase now.
JaSupreme April 9, 2019 Neo-Soul, New Music Release, New R&B/Soul Releases, New Reggae Releases, New Singles, News-Update, Nu-Soul, Reggae, Video Permalink
NEW VOICES! Singer Tyler Dumont Releases New Single “Don’t Mean It” | WATCH VIDEO!
A vocalist on the rise, Tyler Dumont, is now making major noise on the digital radio waves with “Don’t Mean It”
From early on, Dumont was confident of what dreams she would chase for her career path. A finalist on Diddy’s Making of the Band 3 on MTV, Dumont is now achieving those dreams in the recording studio with her single, “Don’t Mean It,”
JaSupreme April 4, 2019 Neo-Soul, New Music Release, New R&B/Soul Releases, New Singles, New Voices of Today, News-Update, Nu-Soul, T.U.M.S. News, Video Permalink
R&B Singer Rahsaan Patterson to Release New Album “Heroes & Gods” on May 17th, 2019 | LISTEN to New Single “Sent From Heaven”!
RAHSAAN PATTERSON
ONE OF R&B’S MOST UNIQUELY MOVING VOICES EXTENDS MUSICAL BOUNDARIES ON SHANACHIE DEBUT HEROES & GODS OUT MAY 17TH
CHECK OUT NEW SINGLE “SENT FROM HEAVEN” FROM
POWERHOUSE SINGER/SONGWRITER’S FIRST RECORDING IN SEVEN YEARS!
Los Angeles based singer/songwriter and actor Rahsaan Patterson is used to being in the limelight. This summer marks his 35th anniversary in the entertainment industry.
JaSupreme March 11, 2019 Neo-Soul, New Music Release, New R&B/Soul Releases, New Singles, News-Update, Nu-Soul, Song Samples Permalink
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Niobrara County Library - Sonny McFarlane (April 5, 1927 - April 5, 1927)
"The medicine chest of the soul." - Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes
WYLD Cat
Historicals
Reading Wyoming
Sonny McFarlane (April 5, 1927 - April 5, 1927)
The Lusk Herald
McFarlane Infant Dies Shortly After Birth
A little son was born to Mr. and Mrs. A. L. McFarlane on Tuesday, April 5th at Crawford, Neb. The little chap lingered but a short while, the flame of life flickering out about two hours after birth.
The remains were brought to Lusk Wednesday afternoon and after a short service at the cemetery, with Miss Mary E. Bakewell officiating, the little one was laid to rest.
(Click here to view area cemetery records)
Related Obituaries:
Dorothy Helen Dobson (March 14, 1917 - April 19, 1995)
Anna Gorsuch (March 3, 1866 - June 24, 1933)
John Wesley Gorsuch (1850 - December 1, 1927)
Rebecca Gorsuch (1860 - December 17, 1931)
Kathleen Hunter (February 25, 1911 - July 18, 2003)
Joseph Astin Manning (June 9, 1918 - February 25, 1971)
Phyllis Jane Manning (September 3, 1926 - October 22, 1997)
Albert L. McFarlane (April 1, 1892 - August 21, 1957)
Albert E. McFarlane (February 2, 1861 - February 8, 1948)
Archie Alexander McFarlane (March 19, 1888 - January 9, 1935)
Bonnita Cecelia McFarlane (December 30, 1930 - April 1, 1931)
Frances Irene McFarlane (December 28, 1895 - October 7, 1980)
George McFarlane (1898 - May 31, 1898)
Irene McFarlane (Date Unknown - January 4, 1931)
Mary Ina McFarlane (May 10, 1907 - July 14, 1975)
Mary Jane McFarlane (March 22, 1868 - August 7, 1903)
Ralph Hugh McFarlane (May 8, 1903 - December 16, 1960)
Robert Eugene McFarlane (December 8, 1944 - January 6, 2012)
Zona McFarlane (August 3, 1882 - May 27, 1979)
Helen Willson (1895 - September 24, 1979)
Related Birth Records:
Related Historical Entries:
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Dw. Dunphy On… The Jennifer Aniston War Games
Written by Dw. Dunphy• January 10, 2011• Film
Popdose.com’s Dw. Dunphy wonders aloud why Jennifer Aniston does so many rom-coms, and arrives at a WOPR of an answer.
In the final act of the film War Games, the renegade program “Joshua” has taken control over NORAD‘s central super-computer WOPR. The program runs through scenario after scenario, plan after plan and tactic upon tactic to win the game – being a nuclear war. The command center lights up, with the large screen above strobing the array of digital war games, each demonstration ending in failure. We will return to this scene later on.
It is hard not to like Jennifer Aniston, even though the latest fairly unsubstantiated news of her using a racial slur against a woman of Asian descent is disconcerting. The excuse given: it was the booze talking. My response to that: it didn’t work for Mel. If this is true, it won’t work for Jen either. But she will still maintain a degree of likability, and it is not hard to lend your sympathy to her. It is something not directly transmitted, but interpreted, through her choices of movie roles. I don’t recall off the top of my head a part she’s played that was thoroughly without redeeming qualities. Even when the characters are at their most conflicted, even when they should be more shrill, assertive, or downright evil, they wind up being lovable. One interprets the pathology of Aniston’s choices of roles being that she just doesn’t like characters like those.
The side effect is that she has left a filmography of toothless romantic comedies in her wake, none of which have served her career particularly well. Her next venture is Just Go With It, starring Adam Sandler as a lascivious horndog and Aniston as his friend with children. He borrows his best friend’s brood to bag the busty beach babe, but it doesn’t take a fortune teller to guess he’ll fall for the more grounded, less shallow Aniston in the end. This plot thread has been woven into movies for as long as there have been movies; certainly long before Hughes and Deutch’s Some Kind of Wonderful.
I understand why she’s trapped in rom-coms, at least to some degree, and just as Aniston’s latest bears striking resemblance to other films, so does her life. She is not the first actress to have been on the losing end of a triangle, an American sweetheart who loses her husband to the raven-haired seductress with a reputation, only Debbie Reynolds had a child when Eddie Fisher hooked up with Elizabeth Taylor. Aniston never had a baby with Brad Pitt, but now that Angelina Jolie has been collecting kids like baseball cards, I’m sure she could spare Jen some doubles from her deck.
It is unfair to lash out against Aniston’s more recent bouts of exhibitionism though. The celeb followers say it is a desperate cry for attention from Pitt, as if to shout at him from across the crowded supermarket, “Look what you’re missing out on, baby.” That gives way too much power to Pitt, and has the effect of making Aniston seem unstable or, worse, like the stalker-ish girl who had the best ‘stuff’ ever and can’t get it in her head that it is over. That, in and of itself, is a demeaning impression being heaped upon her. Had she not been married to Pitt once, her cover for GQ or some of her other appearances would have been viewed as a form of empowerment. It would be read as, “just because you’re 40+ doesn’t mean you’re dead.” And yet the tabloids and star-watchers easily interpret this as a wildly inappropriate acting-out of the nyaah-nyaahs, leaving one to ask what Aniston should be doing – should she not be a public person? Should she hide under thick sweaters and glower at the cameras to show how “deep,” and “scarred,” and “ready for the rest of her life” she is?
By the same token, however, her constant focus on the romantic comedy as preferred role of choice, the flaying of every screwball trope, and the half-imparted desire to work through all of them to find “the real thing” has passed its own freshness date; it did that a long time ago. Adversaries are forced to work together, get to know each other, find love. Fail! Next!
Couple meets-cute, experiences trouble along the way, overcomes adversity and finds love. Fail! Next!
Friends fall into plot contrivance, realize they’ve always been more than friends, and find love. Fail! Next!
Strangers bump into each other and spend the next 80 minutes trying to find each other again. They do, and fall in love. Fail! Next! …and so on.
It occurred to me that this is a lot less like Aniston playing it safe in the shallow, familiar end of the pool than it is like Joshua piledriving war game, after war game, after war game, looking for the crack in the strategic armor, to break the opponent’s front and to win. It also occurred to me that the movie War Games, which in two years will reach the ripe age of thirty, is so much better than most of Aniston’s films (I don’t count the always terrific Office Space, which is instead a film featuring Jennifer Aniston, not a film starring her).
But if I had the ability to offer a small piece of advice to her, it would be that Joshua realized the game was not winnable, and if the psychology of her choices in film roles is to live vicariously through characters that win, find love in the end and do not fail, that’s hardly a page out of reality. It’s time for her to break the cycle and try something new, mostly for herself and the career she could have. It’s certainly not for the moviegoer who, at this stage of the war game, has already pulled Joshua’s plug.
Tags: Adam Sandler, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Debbie Reynolds, Dw. Dunphy, Eddie Fisher, Elizabeth Taylor, Jennifer Aniston, Joshua, Just Go With It, War Games, WarGames Last modified: January 12, 2011
TV Review: “Shameless”
Death by Power Ballad: Steve Perry, “Running Alone”
The Popdose Interview: International Pop Overthrow Founder David Bash
The Popdose Interview: Paul Steel
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Wine & Cheese with John Smolens
Name: Wine & Cheese with John Smolens
Website: https://www.mcleanandeakin.com/event/john-smolens
On Wednesday, July 31st at 6pm we will be welcoming John Smolens to the store to discuss his latest novel, Out. This is a free wine and cheese event, reservations are requested. To RSVP please call us at 231.347.1180, email us at events@mcleanandeakin.com or reserve online through Facebook or Eventbrite. Out, the sequel to John Smolens’s internationally acclaimed novel Cold, finds the former constable Del Maki recovering from surgery and haunted by the recent loss of his wife. His house, set deep in the woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, becomes a haven for refugees during a fierce blizzard. First his pregnant physical therapist’s car won’t start. Then her two lovers come for her—and after each other. After her current boyfriend saves an enigmatic Finnish woman from freezing to death in the storm, they are followed by her former boyfriend, a petty thief who is armed and seeks revenge. As the weather worsens, leading to a power outage, damage from a fallen tree, and a fire, tensions rise. Forced to abandon the house, their flight through the snowbound forest leads to a bad deal with a deadly result. John Smolens’s novel Cold was lauded for its “stunning brutality and uncommon tenderness.” In the sequel, Out, nature and human nature again collide, illuminating the difference between being rescued and being saved. John Smolens has published ten works of fiction, most recently Wolf’s Mouth, which has been selected as a Library of Michigan Notable Book. In 2010 he was the recipient of the Michigan Author of the Year Award from the Michigan Library Association.
McLean & Eakin Booksellers 307 E. Lake St. Petoskey, MI 49770
Wednesday, July 31st 6pm
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A general view of the site of a car bomb attack that targeted servicemen during the funeral of an ex-army commander in the Libyan city of Benghazi, on July 11, 2019. - A car bomb exploded during the funeral of Khalifa al-Mesmari, a special forces chief under Libya's ousted leader Moamer Kadhafi, killing at least three people and wounding 15, a hospital said. (Photo by Abdullah DOMA / AFP)
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Home All Candidates for Supervisor of District 1 Answer Questions at Town Hall Meeting
Candidates for Supervisor of District 1 Answer Questions at Town Hall Meeting
Tis the season to be political as voters file into the ballot box and candidates make their last minute pleas. The scene was no different last Wednesday on the USF campus as students attended a Town Hall Meeting where candidates running for supervisor of District One responded to student questions and concerns and discussed why they should be elected.
The USF Politics Society sponsored the event, which was comprised of seven out of the nine candidates, Jason Jungreis, Brian J. Larkin, Sue Lee, Eric Mar, Sherman D’Silva, Alicia Wang, and Nicholas Belloni. The candidate who is elected for District One supervisor of the Richmond district will serve as the link between our neighborhood’s voice and the city’s planning.
President of the Politics Society, Megan Hanley, began organizing the event at the beginning of the month. “I wanted students to see how they can be a part of politics, and how they can control politics- how money is spent, where money is spent, and that ultimately the people making these decisions are just like you and me,” said Hanley.
Sophomore Vivian Geiseler, who has yet to declare a major, left the discussion with a better understanding of whom she wants to vote for. “Having a face to face gives a whole other dimension, rather then their informational pamphlets,” she said.
Assistant professor of politics Corey Cook moderated the discussion, which ran just over an hour in length. Vice President for University Life, Margaret Higgins was also in attendance to show her support. “We live, we learn, we work in District One,” said Higgins. The panelists were equally grateful for the political platform, which was mirrored by candidate Sue Lee who said, “I’m thrilled that you are here tonight, because hopefully it will inspire you to get involved in public service.”
Lee, and the other candidates, called themselves friends. “Our common goals definitely outweigh our differences,” said candidate Brian Larkin. Larkin later evoked laughs out of the audience after stating he wouldn’t be such a stranger to the USF campus now that he knows where the place is. The mood turned serious however, when the issues of the new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, which would streamline the 38 Geary bus line, and the city’s budget problem were discussed. Like everywhere else in the country, San Francisco is feeling the effects of the nation’s downward spiraling economy. For the rest of this year and 2009, the city will experience a shortfall of $338 million, which is a result of decreases in state budget cuts and an increase in city operating costs.
To bridge the budget gap candidates explained the problem of redundant spending and the need to either reduce city cost increases or increase revenues.
Questions for the candidates were mainly concerned with the safety of students crossing between Lone Mountain and Main campus as well as having the buses that run around campus become more frequent and offer night services. The candidates skirted around these questions and no direct answer was given, but they did acknowledge the need for reliable, faster transit service. The panelists were put on the spot when Hanley asked if they would offer office hours on campus, internships, and take part in forums and discussions like this in the future. The candidates were genuinely receptive to the idea as Nicholas Belloni said, “Free labor…I love it!”
Ultimately, the candidates left with a better understanding of the issues concerning USF students and students left with a better idea of whom they want to vote for. “Now that I’ve been here, I have my top candidates picked out,” said graduate student Steve Gotfredson.
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Lupe Rocks Sold Out Homecoming Concert
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Showmag.com
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Reviews - Theater
Author: January Riddle
“What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant? That she loved Mozart and Bach, the Beatles, and me?” Except for the heroine’s exact age and the musical references, these first lines from the 19...
Henry Prego Sings Sinatra: Live From the Sands
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Call him Ol’ Blue eyes; or The Voice; or Chairman of the Board. However you identify him, Frank Sinatra was America’s crooner incarnate. From his resonate, uniquely recognizable baritone to his innate interpretive abilities (both as a vocalist and a...
Neil Patrick Harris Directs Nothing to Hide
News - Flash
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Earlier this year, an unlikely series of events led two of the world’s most gifted sleight-of-hand artists, Derek DelGaudio (2011 Close-Up Magician of the Year) and Helder Guimarães (2011 Parlour Magician of the Year), to share a stage. Fresh from sold...
Wonderettes Sequel Releases New Cast Album
Roger Bean’s The Marvelous Wonderettes: Caps and Gowns, the eagerly awaited sequel to the popular off-Broadway jukebox musical The Marvelous Wonderettes, has a brand new cast album. The show opened July 7th at Laguna Playhouse to sparkling reviews. "Y...
A Hammer, A Bell, and a Song to Sing
Quick! Name your favorite folk musician! Is it Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, John Lennon, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie? Now, name your favorite social justice song! Is it "Blowin’ in the Wind?" "Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier?" "We Shall Overcome?"...
Room 105: The Highs and Lows of Janis Joplin
Some called her “The Queen of Psychedelic Soul.” Many proclaimed her as “The Queen of Rock and Roll.” Those closest to her knew her as Pearl. However you refer to her, Janis Joplin was a pop phenomenon of legendary proportions. Not only wa...
Han Nah
Since the celebrated television series M*A*S*H ended its 13-year run in 1983, rarely, if ever, has the Korean War been the focus of a script – not for TV, in film or on stage. It’s little wonder that that mid-century Asian conflict is referred t...
Best known as a 1933 movie musical spotlighting Busby Berkeley’s spectacular choreography, 42nd Street began as a novel, authored by Bradford Ropes. It wasn’t until 1980 that 42nd Street was transfigured into a stage musical – with a book by Micha...
Dramatist David Mamet’s 2008 play, November, is a frail political farce that is lacking in substance and nearly devoid of genuine comedy. What it does have, along with its A-list cast – which includes Ed Begley Jr. and Felicity Huffman – is plenty...
HBO's "Ethel"
Emmy Award-winning documentarian Rory Kennedy – Ms. Kennedy won Television’s top trophy of achievement for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special for her 2007 HBO film, “Ghost of Abu Ghraib” – has now created a most moving celluloid account of her moth...
Theresa Rebeck’s Seminar had its Broadway premiere in November of 2011. It starred British Actor Alan Rickman in the role of a reputed writing guru who is charging aspiring scribes $5,000 apiece to take part in his brutal 10-week fiction writing semin...
Conceived by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Murray Horwitz, and originally directed by Maltby, Ain’t Misbehavin’ is a vivacious musical revue that pays homage to the African-American musicians of the 1920s and 30s who comprised part of what is now referred...
Krapp's Last Tape
Krapp’s Last Tape is a one-act play by that enigmatic 20th century scribe Samuel Beckett. It has one actor onstage for less than an hour. During that nearly sixty minutes under the scrutiny of the limelight, the character, named Krapp, celebrates his ...
Though The 39 Steps is a melodramatic novel, first published 1915 and authored by John Buchan, it is probably best known as a 1935 film by that master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. In the early 2000s, Patrick Barlow adapted the novel and screenplay to ...
The Two Foscari
Author: Michael Van Duzer
With the Verdi Bicentennial fast approaching, many opera companies will choose to celebrate by delving into some of his early, more obscure, operas. LA Opera has chosen to blaze that trail by opening their 2012 – 2013 Season with I Due Foscari (The Tw...
It is no accident of the times that finds Artistic Director Christopher Ashley staging and directing La Jolla Playhouse’s riveting production of Glengarry Glen Ross. Fit for our time and place is David Mamet’s acerbic, darkly humorous, slice of li...
Son of Forgotten Hollywood Forgotten History
First there was Forgotten Hollywood Forgotten History. It was a thin but readable study of character actors from cinema’s Golden Age. Now, author Manny Pacheco gives us more of the same in his sequel treatise, Son of Forgotten Hollywood Forgotten Histor...
How Obama Got His Groove Back
We’ve heard President Obama carry a tune at the Apollo Theater recently. Now, thanks to the zany imaginations of Nicholas Zill and Derek Jeremiah Reid, we are treated to a comedy conceit that has Mr. Obama (Derek Jeremiah Reid) pining to be a soul sin...
Pasadena Playhouse Announces Exciting Changes
Sheila Grether-Marion, Chair of The Pasadena Playhouse Board of Directors, made three important announcements today. Elizabeth Doran, currently the Managing Director of The Actor’s Gang, will join The Playhouse as its new Executive Director on S...
The Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion warns that it’s going to happen to us too. Didion first cautioned about one of life’s unwelcomed guarantees in her 2005 memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking. It chronicles Didion’s encounters with the raw existential emotion of grief, ...
Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Announces Awards for 2019
April 9, 2019…Los Angeles…TheLos Angeles Drama Critics Circle announced the recipients of its 50thannual awards for distinguished achievement in theatre last night, Monday, April 8, 2019, at Pasadena Playhouse. Wenzel Jones presided over the festivities, and Christopher Raymond served as music director.
There were four recipients of the 2018 Production award: Cambodian Rock Band (South Coast Repertory), Come From Away (Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre), Cry It Out (Echo Theater Company), and Sell/Buy/Date (Geffen Playhouse / Los Angeles LGBT Center). Awards in 17 other categories celebrated a wide range of Los Angeles theater, with 17 different productions taking home honors. Celebration Theatre’s Cabaret took home the most awards for a single production, with six, including a nod for Revival. Antaeus Theatre Company received the most awards, with three of its productions winning a combined seven trophies. In a competitive category, Tom Hanks received a lead actor award for his performance as Falstaff in The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles production of Henry IV.
In addition, the LADCC presented eight previously announced special awards, including the Ted Schmitt award for the world premiere of an outstanding new play to Lauren Yee for Cambodian Rock Band, the Margaret Harford Award for sustained excellence in theater to Sacred Fools Theater Company, and the inaugural Theater Angel award for distinguished service to Los Angeles theater to Yvonne Bell.
The complete list of award recipients is as follows:
PRODUCTION (4):
Cambodian Rock Band, produced by South Coast Repertory and Honorary Producers Carolyn and Bill Klein and Samuel and Tammy Tang, South Coast Repertory.
Come From Away, produced by Junkyard Dog Productions, Jerry Frankel, Latitude Link, Smith & Brant Theatricals, Steve & Paula Reynolds, David Mirvish, Michael Rubinoff, Alhadeff Productions, Michael Alden & Nancy Nagel Gibbs, Sam Levy, Rodney Rigby, Spencer Ross, Richard Winkler, Yonge Street Theatricals, Sheridan College, Michael & Ellise Coit, Ronald Frankel, Sheri & Les Biller, Richard & Sherry Belkin, Marlene & Gary Cohen, Allan Detsky & Rena Mendelson, Lauren Doll, Barbara H. Freitag, Wendy Gillespie, Laura Little Theatricals, Carl & Jennifer Pasbjerg, Radio Mouse Entertainment, The Shubert Organization, Cynthia Stroum, Tulchin Bartner Productions, Gwen Arment/Molly Morris & Terry McNicholas, Maureen & Joel Benoliel/Marjorie & Ron Danz, Pamela Cooper/Corey Brunish, Demos Bizar/Square 1 Theatrics, Joshua Goodman/Lauren Stevens, Just for Laughs Theatricals/Judith Ann Abrams Productions, Bill & Linda Potter/Rosemary & Kenneth Willman and La Jolla Playhouse and Seattle Repertory Theatre, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre.
Cry It Out, produced by Chris Fields and Rachael Zambias / Echo Theater Company, Echo Theater Company at Atwater Village Theatre.
Sell/Buy/Date, produced by Geffen Playhouse / Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center, Andrew Carlberg, and Foment Productions, Geffen Playhouse / Los Angeles LGBT Center.
MCCULLOH REVIVAL (3):
Cabaret, produced by Michael Matthews, Michael O’Hara, Jay Marcus, Mark Giberson, Alan Wethern, David Tran, Parnell Damone Marcano, Constance Jewell Lopez, Celebration Theatre.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, A Noise Within.
The Little Foxes, Antaeus Theatre Company.
LEAD PERFORMANCE (5):
MaameYaa Boafo, School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play,Center Theatre Group/Kirk Douglas Theatre.
Tom Hanks, Henry IV, The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles.
Kasey Mahaffy, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, A Noise Within.
Alex Nee, Cabaret, Celebration Theatre.
Conrad Ricamora, Soft Power, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre.
FEATURED PERFORMANCE (2):
Rob Nagle, The Little Foxes, Antaeus Theatre Company.
Daisuke Tsuji, Cambodian Rock Band, South Coast Repertory.
ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE (2):
Come From Away, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre.
SOLO PERFORMANCE (1):
Sarah Jones, Sell/Buy/Date,Geffen Playhouse / Los Angeles LGBT Center.
WRITING (2):
Molly Smith Metzler,Cry It Out, Echo Theater Company.
WRITING ADAPTATION (1):
Patrick Marber,Three Days in the Country, Antaeus Theatre Company.
MUSICAL SCORE (1):
Irene Sankoff and David Hein,Come From Away, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre.
MUSICAL DIRECTION (2):
Ian Eisendrath, Come From Away, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre.
Anthony Zediker, Cabaret, Celebration Theatre.
CHOREOGRAPHY (1):
Janet Roston, Cabaret, Celebration Theatre.
DIRECTION (2):
Jennifer Chang, Vietgone, East West Players.
Geoff Elliott, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, A Noise Within.
SET DESIGN (2):
Stephen Gifford, Cabaret, Celebration Theatre.
John Iacovelli, The Little Foxes, Antaeus Theatre Company.
LIGHTING DESIGN (2):
Matthew Brian Denman, Cabaret, Celebration Theatre.
Andrew Schmedake, Native Son, Antaeus Theatre Company.
COSTUME DESIGN (2):
Allison Dillard, BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!),Moving Arts at Atwater Village Theatre.
Allison Dillard, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Celebration Theatre.
SOUND DESIGN (2):
Jeff Gardner, Native Son, Antaeus Theatre Company.
Joshua D. Reid, A Christmas Carol, Geffen Playhouse.
CGI/PROJECTION (1):
Kaitlyn Pietras and Jason H. Thompson,Vietgone, East West Players.
SPECIALTY (2):
Thomas Isao Morinaka and Aaron Aoki for Fight Choreography,Vietgone, East West Players.
Jim Steinmeyer for Illusions, Stagecraft, and Magic Carpet, Aladdin, Hollywood Pantages Theatre.
The LADCC special award recipients were as follows:
The Margaret Harford Award for sustained excellence in theatre was awarded to Sacred Fools Theater Company.
The Polly Warfield Award for an excellent season in a small to mid-size theatre was awarded to Echo Theater Company.
The Ted Schmitt Award for the world premiere of an outstanding new play was awarded to Lauren Yee for Cambodian Rock Band, originally produced by South Coast Repertory.
The Kinetic Lighting Award for distinguished achievement in theatrical design was awarded to sound designer Robert Oriol.
The Joel Hirschhorn Award for distinguished achievement in musical theatre was awarded to La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts & McCoy Rigby Entertainment.
The Milton Katselas Award for distinguished achievement in direction was awarded to Cameron Watson.
The Gordon Davidson Award for distinguished contribution to the Los Angeles theatrical community was awarded to Native Voices at the Autry.
TheTheater Angel Awardfor distinguished service to Los Angeles theater was awarded to Yvonne Bell.
The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle was founded in 1969. It is dedicated to excellence in theatrical criticism, and to the encouragement and improvement of theatre in Greater Los Angeles. The 2018 membership consisted of:
Frances Baum Nicholson, Southern California News Group, Stage Struck Review
Paul Birchall, Stage Raw, Stage & Cinema
Katie Buenneke, LA Weekly, Stage Raw
Erin Conley, On Stage & Screen
Ellen Dostal, BroadwayWorld LA, Musicals in LA
Lovell Estell III, Stage Raw, Arts in LA
Shirle Gottlieb, Arts in LA, StageHappenings.com
Margaret Gray, Los Angeles Times
Hoyt Hilsman, Huffington Post
Harker Jones, Edge Media Network
Deborah Klugman, Stage Raw, LA Weekly, Capital & Main
Jenny Lower, Stage Raw
Dany Margolies, ArtsInLA.com, Southern California News Group
Myron Meisel, Stage Raw
Terry Morgan, Stage Raw, TalkinBroadway.com
Steven Leigh Morris, LA Stage Alliance
Melinda Schupmann, ShowMag.com, ArtsinLA.com
Jonas Schwartz-Owen, Theatermania.com, ArtsinLA.com
Don Shirley, LA Observed
Les Spindle, EDGE LA
Rob Stevens, haineshisway
Neal Weaver, Stage Raw, ArtsinLA.com
50TH ANNUAL LOS ANGELES DRAMA CRITICS CIRCLE NOMINATIONS
50TH ANNUAL CELEBRATION
OF LOCAL THEATRE
BY LOS ANGELES DRAMA CRITICS CIRCLE
KICKS OFF WITH 2018 NOMINATIONS
February 15, 2019…Los Angeles…The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (LADCC), which presented its first awards for excellence in Los Angeles, Orange County, and Ventura County a half-century ago, has begun the gala celebration of its 50th anniversary by announcing its nominations for the year 2018 (Dec. 1, 2017 – Nov. 30, 2018).
The LADCC is further thrilled to announce that this historic occasion will take place on Monday, April 8, 2019 at one of the region's most historic and beautiful theatres, Pasadena Playhouse, at 39 S. El Molino Avenue in Pasadena.
Although Pasadena Playhouse is hosting the LADCC Awards for the very first time, onstage host Wenzel Jonesof IMRU, the LGBTQI Radio News Magazine on KPFK 90.7, has served in that capacity numerous times, most recently in 2018. Noted local composer-conductor Christopher Raymond will serve in the capacity of musical director for the second consecutive year. The entire production will be in the hands of stage manager Heatherlynn Gonzalez, veteran of more than a decade's worth of LADCC service.
Standard general admission tickets are $40 and can be purchased at https://2019criticsawards.brownpapertickets.com/ (a small service fee applies) or at the door if available. All purchased tickets will be held at Will Call. The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. with a pre-show reception in the courtyard. The show will commence at 7:30 p.m. Nominees will receive instructions via email regarding how to claim complimentary tickets. Inquiries to: criticsawards2019@gmail.com.
One or more plaques will be presented in each of 18 categories. Seven special awards will also be presented.
The LADCC special award recipients are as follows:
The Margaret Harford Award for sustained excellence in theatre will be awarded to Sacred Fools Theater Company.
The Polly Warfield Award for an excellent season in a small to mid-size theatre will be awarded to Echo Theater Company.
The Ted Schmitt Award for the world premiere of an outstanding new play goes to Lauren Yee for Cambodian Rock Band, originally produced by South Coast Repertory.
The Kinetic Lighting Award for distinguished achievement in theatrical design goes to sound designer Robert Oriol.
The Joel Hirschhorn Award for distinguished achievement in musical theatre goes to McCoy Rigby Entertainment
The Milton Katselas Award for distinguished achievement in direction goes to Cameron Watson.
The Gordon Davidson Award for distinguished contribution to the Los Angeles theatrical community will be presented to Native Voices at the Autry.
The nominees for the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards for theatrical excellence in 2018 are as follows:
· A Picture of Dorian Gray, A Noise Within.
· Cambodian Rock Band, South Coast Repertory.
· Come From Away, Center Theatre Group / Ahmanson Theatre.
· Cry It Out, Echo Theater Company.
· Sell/Buy/Date,Geffen Playhouse / Los Angeles LGBT Center.
· The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.
· Vietgone, East West Players.
McCulloh Award for Revival (plays written between 1920 and 1993)
· A Streetcar Named Desire, Boston Court Pasadena.
· Cabaret,Celebration Theatre.
· Cabaret,La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.
· Haiti,Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum.
· Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, A Noise Within.
· The Hothouse, Antaeus Theatre Company.
· The Little Foxes, Antaeus Theatre Company.
Lead Performance
· MaameYaa Boafo in School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play,
Center Theatre Group / Kirk Douglas Theatre.
· Graham Hamilton in The Hothouse, Antaeus Theatre Company.
· Tom Hanks in Henry IV, Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles.
· Sylvia Kwan in Vietgone, East West Players.
· Kasey Mahaffy in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, A Noise Within.
· Saundra McClain in A Raisin in the Sun, A Noise Within.
· Alex Nee in Cabaret, Celebration Theatre.
· Joe Ngo in Cambodian Rock Band, South Coast Repertory.
· Adam Peltier in Red Speedo, The Road Theatre Company.
· Conrad Ricamora in Soft Power, Center Theatre Group / Ahmanson Theatre.
· French Stewart in Finks, Rogue Machine Theatre.
· Paul Yen in Vietgone, East West Players.
Featured Performance
· JD Cullum in The Hothouse, Antaeus Theatre Company.
· John Perrin Flynn in 100 Aprils, Rogue Machine Theatre.
· Sarah Hollis in A Raisin in the Sun, A Noise Within.
· Wesley Mann in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, A Noise Within.
· Rob Nagle in The Little Foxes, Antaeus Theatre Company.
· Felix Solis in Cost of Living, TheFountain Theatre.
· Daisuke Tsuji in Cambodian Rock Band, South Coast Repertory.
Ensemble Performance
· Come From Away, Center Theatre Group, Ahmanson Theatre.
· Cult of Love, IAMA Theatre Company.
· School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play, Center Theatre Group,
Kirk Douglas Theatre.
· Vietgone,East West Players.
· Sarah Jones, Sell/Buy/Date, Geffen Playhouse / Los Angeles LGBT Center.
· Jefferson Mays, A Christmas Carol, Geffen Playhouse.
· Jennifer Chang, Vietgone, East West Players.
· Nike Doukas, The Hothouse, Antaeus Theatre Company.
· Geoff Elliott, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, A Noise Within.
· Annie Tippe, Cult of Love, IAMA Theatre Company.
· Chay Yew, Cambodian Rock Band, South Coast Repertory.
· Inda Craig-Galvin, I Go Somewhere Else, Playwrights Arena.
· Bernardo Cubría, The Giant Void in My Soul, Ammunition Theatre Company.
· Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Gloria, Echo Theater Company.
· Molly Smith Metzler, Cry It Out, Echo Theater Company.
Writing (Adaptation)
· Sean Graney, The Pirates of Penzance, Pasadena Playhouse.
· Patrick Marber, Three Days in the Country, Antaeus Theatre Company.
Musical Score
· Sara Bareilles, Waitress, Hollywood Pantages Theatre.
· Dengue Fever + others, Cambodian Rock Band, South Coast Repertory.
· Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, Dear Evan Hansen, Center Theatre Group,
Ahmanson Theatre.
· Irene Sankoff and David Hein, Come From Away, Center Theatre Group,
Music Direction
· Ian Eisendrath, Come From Away, Center Theatre Group, Ahmanson Theatre.
· Matthew MacNelly, Cambodian Rock Band, South Coast Repertory.
· David O, Cabaret, La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.
· Anthony Zediker, Cabaret, Celebration Theatre.
· Janet Roston, Cabaret, Celebration Theatre.
· Dana Solimondo, Cabaret, La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.
· Sergio Trujillo, Ain’t Too Proud, Center Theatre Group /Ahmanson Theatre.
· Sergio Trujillo, On Your Feet, Hollywood Pantages Theatre.
· Tom Burch, The Pirates of Penzance, Pasadena Playhouse.
· Stephen Gifford, Cabaret, Celebration Theatre.
· John Iacovelli, The Little Foxes, Antaeus Theatre Company.
· Stephanie Kerley Schwartz, A Raisin in the Sun, A Noise Within.
· Ken Booth, Henry V, A Noise Within.
· Matthew Brian Denman, Cabaret, Celebration Theatre.
· Andrew Schmedake, Native Son, Antaeus Theatre Company.
· Steven Young, Cabaret, La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.
· Allison Dillard, Bliss, Or Emily Post Is Dead, Moving Arts.
· Allison Dillard, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Celebration Theatre.
· Terri A. Lewis, The Little Foxes, Antaeus Theatre Company.
· David Kay Mickelsen, Cabaret, La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.
· Josh Bessom, Cabaret, La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.
· Mikhail Fiksel, Cambodian Rock Band, South Coast Repertory.
· Jeff Gardner, Native Son, Antaeus Theatre Company.
· Joshua D. Reid, A Christmas Carol, Geffen Playhouse.
CGI/Video
· Lucy Mackinnon, A Christmas Carol, Geffen Playhouse.
· Kaitlyn Pietras and Jason H. Thompson, Vietgone, East West Players.
· Nicholas E. Santiago, Arrival & Departure, The Fountain Theatre.
· Klint Flowers for Wigs and Makeup, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead,
A Noise Within.
· Thomas Isao Morinaka and Aaron Aoki for Fight Choreography, Vietgone,
East West Players.
· Dane Oliver for Fight Choreography, Haiti, Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum.
· Jim Steinmeyer for Illusions, Stagecraft, and Magic Carpet, Aladdin,
Hollywood Pantages Theatre.
Every effort has been made to ascertain proper credits for our nominees. We regret any errors or omissions. Any that come to our attention will be corrected on our LADCC website, in the event program, and (when applicable) on a recipient’s award plaque.
The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle was founded in 1969. It is dedicated to excellence in theatrical criticism, and to the encouragement and improvement of theatre in Greater Los Angeles.
The 2018 membership consisted of:
Ellen Dostal, BroadwayWorld LA, Musicals in LA, The Three Tomatoes
Deborah Klugman, Stage Raw, LA Weekly, ArtsBeatLA.com
Citations by production:
Cambodian Rock Band (South Coast Repertory)…………………………………8
Vietgone (East West Players)………………………………………………………7
Cabaret (Celebration Theatre)…………………………………………………… 6
Cabaret (La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts)………………………… 6
The Little Foxes (Antaeus Theatre Company)…………………………………….5
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (A Noise Within)……………………… 5
Come From Away (Center Theatre Group / Ahmanson Theatre)………………..4
The Hothouse (Antaeus Theatre Company)……………………………………….4
A Christmas Carol (Geffen Playhouse)……………………………………………. 3
A Raisin in the Sun (A Noise Within)………………………………………………3
Sell/Buy/Date (Geffen Playhouse / Los Angeles LGBT Center)………………… 3
Cry It Out (Echo Theater Company)……………………………………………….2
Cult of Love (IAMA Theatre Company)………………………………………… 2
Haiti (Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum)……………………………………… 2
Native Son (Antaeus Theatre Company)………………………………………….. 2
The Pirates of Penzance (Pasadena Playhouse)………………………………… 2
School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play (Center Theatre Group /
Kirk Douglas Theatre)………………………………………………………………2
100 Aprils (Rogue Machine Theatre)………………………………………………..1
Ain’t Too Proud (Center Theatre Group / Ahmanson Theatre) ………………….1
Aladdin (Hollywood Pantages Theatre)…………………………………………….1
Arrival and Departure (The Fountain Theatre)………………………………… 1
Bliss, Or Emily Post is Dead (Moving Arts) ……………………………………… 1
Cost of Living (The Fountain Theatre) ………………………………………… 1
Dear Evan Hansen (Center Theatre Group / Ahmanson Theatre) ……………….1
Finks (Rogue Machine Theatre)…………………………………………………… 1
The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk (Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts) 1
The Giant Void in My Soul (Ammunition Theatre Company)…………………… 1
Gloria (Echo Theater Company)…………………………………………………… 1
I Go Somewhere Else (Playwrights Arena)……….………………………………….1
Henry IV (The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles)………………………………. 1
Henry V (A Noise Within)…………………………………………………………… 1
On Your Feet (Hollywood Pantages Theatre)……………………………………….1
A Picture of Dorian Gray (A Noise Within)………………………………………… 1
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Celebration Theatre)………………………………..1
Red Speedo (The Road Theatre Company)……….…………………………………1
Soft Power (Center Theatre Group / Ahmanson Theatre)…………………………1
A Streetcar Named Desire (Boston Court Pasadena)………………………………. 1
Three Days in the Country (Antaeus Theatre Company)………………………… 1
Waitress (Hollywood Pantages Theatre)…………………………………………… 1
Citations by company:
Antaeus Theatre Company…………………………………………………………….12
A Noise Within………………………………………………….………………………10
Center Theatre Group……………………………………….…………………………..9
South Coast Repertory…………………………………………………………………..8
East West Players………………………………………………………………..……… 7
Celebration Theatre………………………………………………………….………… 6
Geffen Playhouse………………………………………………………………….…… 6
La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts………………………………………… 6
Echo Theater Company…………………………………………………………..…… 4
Hollywood Pantages Theatre..................................................................................... 3
The Fountain Theatre………………………………………………………..………… 2
IAMA Theatre Company……………………………………………………………… 2
Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center……… 2
Pasadena Playhouse…………………………………………………………………….…2
Rogue Machine Theatre……………………….……..………………………………… 2
Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum………………………………………………………2
Ammunition Theatre Company………………………………………………………… 1
Boston Court Pasadena…………………………………………………………………… 1
Moving Arts…………………………………………………………………………………1
Native Voices at the Autry…………………………………………………………………1
Playwright’s Arena…………………………………………………………………………1
The Road Theatre Company……………………………………………………………….1
Sacred Fools Theater Company……………………………………………………………1
The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles..............................................................................1
Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.............................................................1
Robby Awards 2018
The 33rd Annual Robby Awards for Excellence in Los Angeles Area Theatre were presented by long time theatre critic Rob Stevens at a laugh and song-filled evening at Sterling’s Upstairs at the Federal in North Hollywood on Monday, February 4. Linda Hart and Bruce Kimmel co-hosted the show which featured performances by nominated actors Eileen Barnett, Erica Hanrahan-Ball, Ashley Fox Linton, Cassandra Marie Murphy, Jeffrey Scott Parsons, Jenna Lea Rosen, Shaunte Tabb Massard and Robert Yacko from their shows. Former Robby Award winner Jane A. Johnston also delivered a dramatic rendition of “The Ladies Who Lunch”. Other previous Robby Award winners Belinda Balaski, Carole Cook, Richard Doyle, John Iacovelli, Michael Kearns and Tom Troupe also presented awards. Cook had the audience roaring with laughter at her take down of Stevens and her reactions to her husband Troupe’s comments.
Hollywood’s Celebration Theatre was the big winner of the night, taking home nine awards—five for PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT and four for CABARET. CABARET tied for Best Musical of the year with Me + You Productions’s SPRING AWAKENING. Hollywood’s The Fountain Theatre’s production of THE CHOSEN won Best Drama as well as two other awards while Pasadena’s A Noise Within’s production of NOISES OFF was named Best Comedy. Twenty-two productions at sixteen different Los Angeles venues won awards.
TERI RALSTON AWARD FOR PRODUCTION (TIE)
Cabaret, Celebration Theatre
Spring Awakening, Me + You Productions
VIRGINIA CAPERS AWARD FOR DIRECTOR (TIE)
Jessica Hanna, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Celebration Theatre
Michael Matthews, Cabaret, Celebration Theatre
MICHAEL G. HAWKINS AWARD FOR ACTOR
Alex Nee, Cabaret, Celebration Theatre
MICHELLE NICASTRO AWARD FOR ACTRESS
Kelly Lester, Cabaret, McCoy Rigby Entertainment
GARY BEACH AWARD FOR SUPPORTING ACTOR
Jason Graae, Nice Work If You Can Get It, Musical Theatre West
LISA ROBINSON AWARD FOR SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Stephanie Fredricks, High Society, Musical Theatre Guild
DOM SALINARO AWARD FOR CHOREOGRAPHY
Peggy Hickey, Nice Work If You Can Get It, Musical Theatre West
ELAN MCMAHAN AWARD FOR MUSICAL DIRECTION
Jennifer Lin, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Celebration Theatre
JOHN RAITT AWARD FOR MUSIC & LYRICS
Irene Sankoff and David Hein, Come From Away, Ahmanson Theatre
LIES AND LEGENDS AWARD FOR ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE
Kevin Carolan, Harter Clingman, Nick Duckart, Chamblee Ferguson, Becky Gulsvig, Julie Johnson, Christine Toy Johnson, James Earl Jones II, Megan McGinnis, Andrew Samonsky, Danielle K. Thomas, Emily Walton, Come From Away, Ahmanson Theatre
BILLY BARNES AWARD FOR BEST CABARET PERFORMANCE
Jeffrey Scott Parsons, Comfy, Sterling's Upstairs at The Federal
NAN MARTIN AWARD FOR PRODUCTION
The Chosen, The Fountain Theatre
MARTIN BENSON AWARD FOR DIRECTOR
Emma Rice, The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, The Wallis
RAY STRICKLYN AWARD FOR ACTOR
Dor Gvirtsman, The Chosen, The Fountain Theatre
SALLY KEMP AWARD FOR ACTRESS
Lesley Manville, Long Day's Journey Into Night, The Wallis
RICHARD DOYLE AWARD FOR SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alan Blumenfeld, The Chosen, The Fountain Theatre
BELINDA BALASKI AWARD FOR SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Anna Stromberg, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Blanket Fort Entertainment
MICHAEL DEVEREAUX AWARD FOR PLAYWRITING
Maureen Huskey, The Woman Who Went To Space As A Man, Son of Semele
CAROLE COOK AWARD FOR PRODUCTION
Noises Off, A Noise Within
RON LINK AWARD FOR DIRECTOR
Geoff Elliott, Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, A Noise Within
TOM TROUPE AWARD FOR ACTOR
Paul Rodriguez, Steambath, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
LU LEONARD AWARD FOR ACTRESS
Nike Doukas, Three Days in the Country, Antaeus Theatre Company
ALBERT LORD AWARD FOR SUPPORTING ACTOR
Armin Shimerman, Three Days in the Country, Antaeus Theatre Company
DEE CROXTON AWARD FOR SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Lila Hood, Bad Jews, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
JOHN IACOVELLI AWARD FOR SCENIC DESIGN (TIE)
Pete Hickok, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Celebration Theatre
John Iacovelli, The Little Foxes, Antaeus Theatre Company
PROJECTION DESIGN AWARD
Aaron Rhyne, Love Actually Live, The Wallis
PAULIE JENKINS AWARD FOR LIGHTING DESIGN
Matthew Brian Denman, Cabaret, Celebration Theatre
GARLAND RIDDLE AWARD FOR COSTUME DESIGN
Allison Dillard, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Celebration Theatre
STEVE "CANYON" KENNEDY AWARD FOR SOUND DESIGN
Martin Carillo, The Woman Who Went To Space As A Man, Son of Semele
SPECIAL AWARD FOR WIG DESIGN
Byron Batista, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Celebration Theatre
SPECIAL AWARD FOR FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY
Dane Oliver, Haiti, Theatricum Botanicum
SPECIAL AWARD FOR THE RETURN OF GOOD POLITICAL SATIRE
Joe Keenan, Everybody Rise! A Resistance Cabaret, Rockwell Table & Stage
Laguna Playhouse Announces Ellen Richard as its Interim Executive Director
May 3, 2016…Laguna Beach, Calif…Laguna Playhouse Board of Directors announced today that, later this month, Ellen Richard will be joining Laguna Playhouse as its Interim Executive Director. The Playhouse announced late last year that it was undertaking a national search guided by Arts Consulting Group (ACG) for an Executive Director to succeed Karen Wood who had held this position for the past eight years.
Commenting on the appointment Joe Hanauer and Paul Singarella, Co-Chairmens of the Board of Directors, said “In the midst of our search we encountered this wonderful opportunity to engage Ellen while we continue to seek appropriate long-term leadership. To have found someone with the extraordinary qualifications that Ellen has is thrilling. She is the recipient of six Tony Awards as producer at New York’s Roundabout Theatre Company where she was Managing Director. Ellen also has strong successes in supervising the construction of theatres in New York and also in San Francisco at the American Conservatory Theater, a rare and valuable skill set considering the contemplated major remodel and expansion of the Laguna Playhouse.” Laguna Playhouse Artistic Director Ann E. Wareham adds, “We are pleased and proud to have Ellen Richard, truly a rock-star in our field, join us as our interim Executive Director who will help guide the Playhouse during this transition.” Comments Ellen Richard, “I have quickly grown fond of Laguna Beach and the Playhouse. I embrace this extraordinary opportunity to join one of the country’s top regional theatres at this time in its remarkable 95-year history. I look forward to helping the Playhouse and working with their incredible Board of Trustees and Ann E. Wareham.”
ABOUT ELLEN RICHARD
Ellen Richard served as Executive Director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco from 2010 through 2015. During her tenure, Ms. Richard negotiated a deal to buy the Strand Theater in tech corridor of Mid-Market San Francisco, helped raise the $34,000 million to renovate and operate it and steered the design and construction for the project which opened in May of 2015. The complex featured two performance spaces and has won multiple awards. She opened the 50 seat Costume Shop Theater, a 49-seat “black box” venue used for the company’s Master of Fine Arts students and for shows by other local companies. Ms. Richard was also credited with expanding the company’s educational efforts, coming up with programs like the San Francisco Semester, which brings undergraduate acting students to ACT from around the world, and Stage Coach, a community theater mobile unit that reaches into diverse neighborhoods
She was also Executive Director of The Second Stage Theatre in New York City. During her tenure at Second Stage, which began in 2006 (through 2009), she was responsible for the purchase contract of the Helen Hayes Theatre, growth in subscription income of 48 percent, and growth in individual giving of 75 percent, as well as conceptualization of a highly successful gala format and “Second Generation,” a giving program through which donors enable deserving New York City youth to experience live theater. Under Ms. Richard’s leadership, Second Stage provided the initial home for the Broadway productions Everyday Rapture, Next to Normal, and The Little Dog Laughed.
From 1983 to 2005, Ms. Richard enjoyed a rich and varied career with Roundabout Theatre Company. The Roundabout that Ms. Richard joined was a small nonprofit theater company in bankruptcy. By the time she departed as Managing Director, Roundabout had become one of the country’s largest and most successful theater companies of its kind, with net assets in excess of $67 million dollars. Ms. Richard is the recipient of six Tony Awards as producer, for Roundabout productions of Cabaret (1998), A View from the Bridge (1998), Side Man (1999), Nine (2003), Assassins (2004), and Glengarry Glen Ross (2005). As producer of more than 125 shows at Roundabout, she had direct supervision of all management and marketing functions. She created Roundabout’s “Theatre-PLUS” programs, which include singles, teachers, family, gay and lesbian, wine tasting, and the 7 p.m. “Early Curtain” series, all of which grew to represent more than 10 percent of Roundabout’s 40,000 subscribers.
As director of design and construction at Roundabout, Ms. Richard was responsible for more than $50 million of theater construction for 11 projects. She conceptualized the three permanent Roundabout stages — The Broadway venues of Studio 54 and the American Airlines Theatre, and the Off-Broadway venue The Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre She directed the location search for Cabaret and oversaw the creation of the production’s environmental Kit Kat Klub. Prior to her tenure at Roundabout, Ms. Richard served as business manager of Westport Country Playhouse, theater manager for Stamford Center for the Arts, and business manager for Atlas Scenic Studio. She began her career working as a stagehand, sound designer, and scenic artist assistant.
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Fenerbahce extends team captain Mahmutoglu
Days after punching its fifth consecutive Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four ticket, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul moved to keep the core of its roster intact for the future by extending team captain Melih Mahmutoglu's contract for three more years, the club announced on Tuesday. The sharpshooting Mahmutoglu (1.91 meters, 29 years old) is in his sixth season with Fenerbahce. During that time he played in 126 EuroLeague games, averaging 4.0 points and knocking down a 41.5% of his three-point attempts. A die-hard Fenerbahce fan his entire life, Mahmutoglu grew up with Anadolu Efes Istanbul and started his professional career with one of its satellite teams, Pertevniyal. He later played for Darussafaka, spent time with Galatasaray, Antalya and Erdemir, before joining Fenerbahce in the summer of 2013. As a team captain, he made history when lifting the EuroLeague trophy in 2017, becoming the first player ever for a Turkish team to do so. He also has helped Fenerbahce win four Turkish League and two Turkish Cup titles.
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Cigarette, electrical fault ´may have caused´ Notre-Dame fire
PARIS: A poorly stubbed-out cigarette or an electrical fault could have started the devastating fire that ripped through Paris´ Notre-Dame cathedral in April, French prosecutors said Wednesday, while ruling out any criminal intent.
The statement by prosecutors, which also said an investigation was being opened into possible negligence, was the first official evaluation of the causes of the April 15 fire at the world heritage landmark that shocked France and the world.
But well over two months after the fire, it still offered no concrete conclusions over what caused one of the most catastrophic fires involving a cultural monument in the history of Paris.
French investigators were examining many hypotheses "including a malfunctioning of the electrical system or a fire which started with a badly stubbed-out cigarette", said a statement.
But it said there was no evidence to back up any theory of "a criminal origin" to the fire.
The statement, signed by chief Paris prosector Remy Heitz, said the preliminary conclusions had been based on 100 interviews with witnesses.
But it emphasised that the investigation had still not identified the actual cause of the fire, even if "certain failures" had been laid bare.
It was not yet possible to conclude whether an electrical fault or a cigarette is the most likely theory, it added.
"Deeper investigations, using significant expertise, will now be undertaken," it said.
The statement said a preliminary investigation for negligence had been opened, without targeting any single individual.
The inquiry has been entrusted to three investigating magistrates who have the power to press charges against anyone suspected of negligence.
In April, a spokesman for scaffolding company Le Bras Freres which had been involved in restoration work admitted that workers had smoked on the site from time to time.
"We regret it," the spokesman said at the time, adding: "In no way could a cigarette butt be the cause of the fire at Notre-Dame."
The April 15 inferno felled the steeple and consumed the 12th-century lattice of oak beams supporting the roof. However, to global relief, the two great medieval main towers of the edifice survived.
The damage to the beloved landmark, which survived the French Revolution and two World Wars, triggered an international outpouring of emotion and pledges of donations towards its reconstruction.
President Emmanuel Macron has set an ambitious target of five years to restore it.
Up to 150 workers have been working at the cathedral daily since the fire, continuing to remove debris and stabilise the structure.
On June 15, two months after the fire, clerics conducted the first mass inside the cathedral since the blaze, donning hard hats along with their robes for their safety.
Macron has called for an "inventive" rather than identical reconstruction of the 19th-century steeple, but polls show the French favouring a more conservative approach.
A YouGov survey published at the end of April showed that 54 percent want the iconic cathedral to be rebuilt in identical fashion.
Legislation on the reconstruction has been blocked in parliament over disagreements between the upper and lower houses and is now only expected to be adopted at the end of July.
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Category Archives: Fiat
How to Make Sure Your Pet is Safe in Your Car
More than 30 percent of pet owners prefer to take their furry companions with them when they drive around town, or head out for a road trip. You might even see a few dogs here and there in the warmer months with their heads hanging out the backseat windows. Just like a child that is dependent of you, it is your responsibility to make sure that pet is safe.
Here are a few ways to keep your pet safe while in the vehicle:
Do not engage with your pet while driving. This includes most of all, not petting your dog while you are driving. This could lead to your pet becoming over stimulated and excited, which could lead to your pet jumping on you, but even more so it takes your eyes off the road. The most important thing when driving no matter the circumstance, is to make sure you keep your eyes on the road ahead, and are alert.
As cute as it is for your pet to hang their head out the window, and for those to say how cute it is when their ears flop in the wind. The scary truth is there are a number of serious pet injuries that occur when pets are allowed to hang their head out the down window. First off if you are driving over 40 miles per hour, your dog shouldn’t have their head out the window, as it could damage their ears. Second, all it takes is a small pebble or something else to skip up and cause serious harm to your pet. So to avoid a serious vet bill, or even worse—we recommend keeping your pets head in the vehicle.
Never leave your pet in the car alone. This is the same serious condition that we are facing now with parents leaving their children unattended in the vehicle for too long. Even on a sunny fall day, the temperatures within your vehicle can hit triple digits, and cause serious harm or worse to your pet.
Those are just a few of the tips for you and your pet when you plan to take them with you on your text car ride. A car ride can be something any pet looks forward to still, but you also need to be aware of the worst possible outcome, and how to avoid it.
Source: Arrigo FIAT Palm Beach
This entry was posted in Fiat on October 27, 2014 by Dicky Phillips.
Fiat: A car company going beyond 4 wheels
Fiat is a multinational automobile company based in Turin, Italy. In the standard history of all present automobile corporations in the planet, Fiat may be one of the oldest (if not the oldest) in existence. This corporation dates back as far as 1899 and it was founded by a group of investors pioneered by Giovanni Agnelli. For its archaic prominence in Europe, Fiat stands side by side in prominence with two other famous car manufacturing companies: the German company Volkswagen and the renowned French manufacturer Renault. Ironically for a car company, it did not really measure up with famous automobile producers in contemporary times like Chrysler, Dodge, Mercedes Benz and Toyota. However, it is also notable to consider that they have shares to a variety of independent car manufacturers like Chrysler, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Maserati.
It is interesting to note that Fiat’s prestige is bolstered by its flexibility. Meaning to say, this company does not only deal with cars. They also get involved into other types of businesses. Fiat may not have top-of-the-line commercial vehicles that customers buy, but they have other wares that more than double the number of customers that strictly automobile producers cater to.
So what does Fiat produce other than cars?
Source: http://www.fiatusaoflanghorne.com
Public Works Equipment
Fiat has a huge contribution in the field of agriculture and engineering construction. This company, under the title Fiat Industrial, owns 88% of the shares of CNH Global NV. This company is based in the United States but they also operate throughout five different continents by bringing quality agricultural equipment, construction components, and financial services. CNH Global has over 37 facilities worldwide.
This company’s contribution to the railway industry can be traced back in World War II. Fiat Ferroviaria is one of the proudest names in the business for providing locomotive technology not only in Italy but also in other parts of Europe. Their global coverage reaches as far as South America. Their groundbreaking achievement is the development of the Pendolino “tilting train,” the pioneering prototype in the 1970’s. In 1990’s Fiat’s Ferroviaria was sold to Alstom.
Perhaps one of the oldest (if not the oldest) non-automobile business they undertook was in the department of defense. SAFAT or Societa Anonima Fabbrica Armi Torino was an affiliate of Fiat during the World War I effort. Apart from building artillery tractors for the French and Italian army, they were also known for producing machine guns, especially for the pioneering air force. However, they were beaten by the Regia Aeronotica in the bid to become an exclusive provider of arms and ammunition for the flying regiments.
Fiat’s finest addition to their expansive business empire includes the recreation sector. The Agnelli family owned a village in the southern part of the great Alps and this has been the chief motivator for their real estate speculation. Due to its promising location, Fiat was able to establish the Sestriere skiing facilities, courtesy of its namesake alpine village. Like most of their subsidiaries, these facilities were sold in 2006.
This entry was posted in Fiat on November 27, 2013 by Dicky Phillips.
Fiat will be Introducing 5 New Models Over the Next 2 Years
Source: http://www.fiatusaofhurst.com
Alfredo Altavilla, the head of business development at Fiat, announced the decision of the brand to introduce 5 new models over the 2 years. It was later on affirmed by the brand’s spokesman wherein four new models of its 500 family cars and an updated version of Panda will be introduced. The decision of the brand was toward the fulfillment of its goals in the next few years.
Fiat’s Goals for the Next Few Years
In an interview made with Altravilla, the desire of the brand to leave the accounts of Africa, Europe, and Middle East by year 2015 was confirmed. It wanted to focus on new things aside from spending so much time in expanding and developing the range of the 500 models which will be done with the assistance of Russia. It hopes to improve sales output in the market, too. Fiat is one of the many automakers that suffered a slow growth in the European market.
How Will Fiat Redesign its Models?
The brand wants to get a good sales output in the European market so it comes with the decision of producing more solid compact cars or getting into the premium market. It decided to redesign both models because they outperform its other models. The 500 model is greatly known for its good commercial strength which never faded. The Panda model gained a positive feedback from car buyers because of its elegant look. As part of the redesigning plan, Fiat will be introducing a SUV like version of Panda which will be named “Pandone.” However, buyers of Fiat cars fear that if it continues to redesign Panda, its price will change. It will not be one of its low cost cars anymore.
Benefits of Redesigning the Models
Fiat did several things to increase its sales worldwide not just only the European market. It reached the point of merging with Chrysler in which there was a minimal growth on sales reported. Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Fiat, revealed that sales for 2013 increase compared to last year. The brand wanted more in the next 2 years so it will be introducing five more models to get the attention of buyers, both existing and potential.
Next advantage of the redesigning is the strengthening of the brand’s standing in the auto industry which is mainly dominated by giants like Ford, General Motors Corporation (GMC), and Toyota. The brand hopes to become part of European market’s top automakers once again. Based on the information released by the European Automobile Manufacturer’s Association (ACEA), Fiat does not fall on the top 10 list of the market’s top auto brands. There were several drops noticed in Fiat’s standing. Its market share dropped to 20 percent only and its new car sales both in the EFTA and EU markets fell a little bit. So Fiat became eager to do something and it came up with the decision of introducing new models to see growth in the next few years. The brand may be struggling but it does not stop regaining whatever it has before.
The 57th Anniversary FIAT 500
FIAT is about to launch a truly nostalgic vehicle this coming spring. It is a special 57th anniversary edition of the FIAT Nuova Cinquecento (New FIAT 500 in English – meaning, of course, new when it was initially released). This small city car came out in the late 50s (1957 to be exact) and was a popular town and city car of the era, remaining in production in various forms until the 1970s.
The modern incarnation sports classic 16 inch wheels, a retro brown leather interior ivory trim and grey door panels, and badges on the nose and tails just like back in the days. It comes in lovely pastel colors – light green, light blue, or white. The models having the first two colors offset the color of the body with white mirrors and roof.
The engine for these nostalgic gems is a FIAT 1.4 liter MultiAir 4 cylinder. There is an option as regards the transmission to which this engine is yolked. Customers can choose either a 5 speed manual or a 6 speed automatic transmission. Other options include a higher quality audio system a sport tuned suspension.
Why is FIAT going to the trouble of doing all this? It’s really not all that much trouble. It’s sometimes possible to see these sorts of anniversary re-releases as crass and profit-driven. It usually doesn’t cost an auto maker as much to re-issue a tried and true vehicle, even with the improvements, as it does to come out with current and cutting edge designs and technologies. And they can, of course, charge a nice hefty price for vintage editions of classic cars.
However, perhaps this is a bit cynical. The release of the vehicle seems redolent with symbolic meaning for FIAT. Rather than viewing it as the re-issue of just another updated classic vehicle, FIAT is presenting the 500’s return as a celebration of “the rebirth of FIAT and its product range.” Jason Stoicevich summed it up this way: “The 1957 Edition celebrates the Cinquecento, the icon of our brand, and its unique cachet of Italian style, efficiency and engaging road manners…” FIAT is seeing some high times these days, so it seems fitting that it would want to celebrate some of its hard earned status as a leading global auto maker.
Source: Holt FIAT of Ft Worth, TX
The Italian Connection
The Fiat Group is a major key player not just in automotive production, but also with various joint ventures and license productions as well. It is the largest vehicle manufacturer in Italy, a distinction it had retained since 1910. It also meant simultaneously owning plants not just for cars but for industrial and agricultural vehicles as well. Aside from the small Fiat city cars that dominate the cities in Europe, it has several partnerships, acquisitions and alliances with other giant European carmakers such as Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Chrysler, Lancia, Ducato and Ferrari. Its CEO, Sergio Marchionne has since steered the company into being one of the top five automakers who have survived and garnered success over the years. It was even tagged in 1968 as “the most dynamic automaker in Europe”. An understatement considering Fiat made military machinery, vehicles, and aircraft during World War I and II. Fiat stands for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino or Italian Automobile Factory of Turin.
No other car manufacturer in Europe has been awarded 12 times as European Car of the Year in the span of 40 years. These Fiat car models were Alfa Romeo, Fiat Bravo/Brava, Fiat Punto, Fiat Panda, Fiat 500, Fiat Uno, Lancia Delta and Fiat 124, 128, and 127. Alfa Romeo cars are known for being one of the best looking cars of its time. Its world-renowned main features are its exterior and interior styling, which is the benchmark for Alfa Romeo cars, including a highly developed platform and suspension system. Fiat Bravo and Brava cars are small family cars that known for precise handling and better comfort in terms of driving experience. The Fiat Panda on the other hand is your basic “modern day” car, a basic no frills utility vehicle. It may have a cheap, “boxy look” in the early years but it is utilitarian and practical in many aspects. In Europe, it could be seen as Polish police cars, Italian forest service cars, and Swiss postal mail delivery service cars. Fiat Punto is a super mini car popular among amateur racing car drivers low cost and easy availability of its spare parts. Lancia Delta is a compact luxury car best known for dominating the World Rally Championships in late 80’s and early 90’s. The Fiat 500 is a city car that known for its enormous practicality making it a popular vehicle in Europe. Compare these to the models that are sold in the states like the 500 L and the Abarth, which can be seen online at Pomoco FIAT of Newport News.
Moving Further
With the Japanese and US automakers wanting a larger share of the car market, Fiat and Lancia cars were consequently withdrawn in the US market particularly in 1984. Even Alfa Romeo exited the US market in 1995, while Maserati sales increased briskly since 2002. Fiats worldwide operations makes it Italy’s largest industrial concern and continues to do so as plans of expanding to third world markets are in their time table.
Fiat, to date, continues to produce luxury cars but has now expanded into manufacturing smaller cars as well. With its success as one of the top European auto manufacturers in the world, it is certain that it would continue on with its heritage of excellence in design and superior performance in any car class.
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Brothers in Unity for Mutual help
This page covers the 1911 national railway strike and the events that took place afterwards
THE FIRST OFFICIAL
RAILWAY STRIKE 1911
Between 1910 and the start of First World War in 1914, the trade union movement started to take momentum, with the trade unions wanting their employers to recognise their existence, along with demands for better pay and working conditions for their members.
In July and early August 1911, railway workers in various parts of the country, dissatisfied with the working of conciliation boards, unofficially went on strike. In the railway worker’s minds, the conciliation boards had been ineffective at raising wages and reducing hours, as the railway companies had found ways around the awards. Indeed, many of the railway workers had nicknamed them ‘confiscation boards.’ The root cause was because groups of railway employees, particularly in the North West, were inspired by two recent large and successful strikes that occurred amongst dock and shipping workers. ‘As workers in other industries began to strike and to secure some advances, so railwaymen became even more impatient about the conciliation scheme.’
Some of the first strikes were among Midland Railway workers who unofficially came out on in early August demanding increased pay and shorter hours. However, the action that had started in Liverpool soon spread toManchester and other parts of the north and midlands, as well as other railway companies such as the London and North Western and Great Central railways. The interaction between workers of different railway companies allowed these unofficial actions to spread. Approximately 50,000 railway workers in Britain were on strike before union leaders got involved.
On the 15th August in Liverpool, around which the storm was now blowing, between 40 and 50 delegates from four of the five railway unions met. The delegates came from the Association of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (A.S.L.E.F.), The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (A.S.R.S.), the General Railway Workers Union (G.R.W.U.) and the United Pointsmen and Signalmen's Society (U.P.S.S.). Only missing, were representatives of the Railway Clerk’s Association (R.C.A. (T.S.S.A.). The first resolution they passed laid out their issues with the conciliation scheme: -
‘We hereby declare that this unfortunate condition of affairs has been created largely by the vexatious attitude of many of the railway companies towards the working of the scheme of conciliation and arbitration, agreed to in 1907 by the Board of Trade and the railway companies and this society (The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants).’
The delegates then issued an ultimatum, and agreed:
‘…to offer the railway companies twenty-four hours to decide whether they are prepared to immediately meet the representatives of these societies to negotiate a basis of settlement of the matters in dispute affecting the various grades.’
Nervous about the country shutting down, and keen to avoid a strike, the government stepped in. Firstly, the Prime Minster Herbert Asquith invited a number of railway managers to a meeting to discuss the issues, assuring them that they would be given all the support necessary to continue services as normal. Indeed, Asquith declared that he would ‘use all the civil and military forces at his disposal’ to make this happen. This was followed by a meeting between representatives of the Board of Trade and union officials, at which the latter laid out their grievances. Firstly, there was the long-standing complaint over the conciliation scheme, but they also demanded recognition by the railway companies. In essence, the unions had used the situation, which had not been created by them, to push this second agenda.
The suggestion proffered by Asquith was the formation of a Royal Commission to investigate the workings of the conciliation scheme. The unions, worried about how long the commission would take to report and the fact that there was no guarantee that they would be recognised, rejected this offer. Thus, on the evening of the 17th August 1911, the railway unions issued a historic telegram was sent out to 2,000 railway centres across the country
"Your liberty is at stake. All railwaymen must strike at once. The loyalty of each means victory for all.”
It was signed by the general secretaries of the four unions. The first national rail strike was on and it was obeyed across the length and breadth of the country, the government and railway management’s worst fears were realised.
The thousands of men on strike were promptly joined by many thousands more. In response, and with a view to keeping its promise, the government deployed 58,000 troops across the network at key points, such as junctions, stations and signal boxes.
The South Eastern Railway officials stated that their men are loyal and only 50 men had come out, and a full service was being maintained.
On the London and South Western Railway only two members of the staff went on strike, engine drivers and firemen met on Friday at Eastleigh near Southampton, and favoured postponing any action as present, notification being expressed at the manner in which the Directors had always treated them. The Executive will meet again on tomorrow to consider the situation.
The trains on the L.S.W.R. were running on time, highlighting the fact that in many cases strike action was about localised disputes, rather than nation-wide injustices in employee pay and conditions.
Further, it emphasised that union leadership had, not unreasonably, hijacked the unofficial strikes to make a bid for recognition in the eyes of the railway company managers Recognition came, in a non-official sense, on the 19th August when for the first time the government brought together round the same table union officials and railway managers. Shortly after, the unions instructed their members and all others on strike, to return to work. The unions also accepted Asquith’s proposed Royal Commission to look at the conciliation scheme. In truth, nothing much had changed and the unions had basically accepted the scheme offered on the 17th August. Thus, this suggests that they wished to show the government and railway companies what they were capable of.
MANIFESTO TO THE MEN
The members of the Executive committees of the four railwaymen's society issued the following manifesto to throughout the country on Friday morning of the 18th August at 1.20 a.m.
Had the companies met the representatives of the men, the present position would have been saved. The companies arrogantly refused this, and by so doing denied the railway workers of this country what has been conceded to every other class of worker. As the men throughout the United kingdom have shown their unchangeable determination not to tolerate this state of affairs any longer, we call upon every railwayman to join his fellows, and so strike a united blow for deliverance from petty tyraony: and also help to obtain higher wages, shorter hours and a more humane life for all.
The strike of 1911 was a vital step towards railway companies acknowledging the existence and place of the unions within the industry. In truth, nothing much had changed, however, the unions had demonstrated their strength to act and the railway companies and government could no longer just fob them off with ad hoc arrangements and a lack of recognition.
The strike may not have been very well supported in the Southern part of the country and was mainly supported in the major industrial towns and cities in the north of England and South Wales. With such a variation in regional pay and working conditions, indicates that railwaymen and particularly Enginemen and Firemen in the south and east of England had in comparison to their counterparts in the north of England and South Wales. But due to the successful outcome of the strike. This meant that A.S.L.E.F. (along with other railway unions) finally got recognition it deserved within the various railway companies throughout the country.
The strike didn’t last long, and only about 200,000 of the country’s 600,000 railway workers struck.
The Locomotive Journal
page 417.<?<p>
THE GREAT RAILWAY STRIKE.
Railwaymen are not used to striking neither does the general public expect them to strike, in fact they are looked upon as public property to be used only in the public service—and as such they have been used It is true there has, in times past, been one or two strikes on individual companies but never have we before had a national strike which affected all companies There is always a cause before an effect, and on this occasion there can be no doubt there was a cause, for there were already thousands of railwaymen on strike before the trade unions declared a general strike The reason that 50,000 men struck regardless of their organizations and the advice given by their Executive officer's, can only be that the treatment which the men were receiving could no longer be endured and if further proof was needed the very fact that the majority of the railway servants spend their lifetime in the service provides that proof Nay, it even goes further: it proves that the men generally cannot be such very bad servants or they would not be allowed to remain in the service for such a great number of years Now the position that the trade unions and the leaders and officers were faced with was that all those thousands of men had lost their situations some had struck others had been discharged others refused to do their work and so forth and many thousands more would have joined them m sympathy and the problem that the trade union leaders were confronted with was how to get those men reinstated and to prevent others from ceasing work It was felt that it was absolutely necessary that the railway companies should meet the trade union officials and we were satisfied that no real reason could be put forward by the railway companies for refusing to meet them, and, as a matter of fact, so soon at as they did meet them a means of arriving at a settlement was found, and it is only fair to say that had the request been conceded and a meeting have taken place before the strike occurred, that it would not have been necessary for the strike to have occurred Not only so, but when the meeting did take place we were able to prove that the whole of the men who were out, either m sympathy with their fellows or otherwise, were entitled to be taken back , that they were taken back by agreement on both sides proves the justice of the demands of the trade union leaders and the response that was made by the men on so short notice to the request to come out on strike, as the only method of convincing the railway companies that there was something really wrong and that the men were determined to have redress, must convince the most sceptical that the men's cause was a just one After a brief but magnificent struggle a settlement has been arrived at between the representatives of the workers and the railway companies, as follows .—
TERMS OF SETTLEMENT OF THE
RAILWAY DISPUTE
We have pleasure in sending you herewith the text of the settlement arrived at between the Board of Trade your representatives and ilie representatives of the railway companies yesterday —-Signed on behalf of the Board of Trade and of the railway companies and trade unions of railway employees
1 The strike to be terminated forthwith and the men's leaders to use their best endeavours to induce the men to return to work at once.
2 All the men involved in the present dispute, either by strike or lock-out including casuals, who present themselves for work within a reasonable time to be reinstated by the companies at the earliest practicable moment, and no one to be subjected to proceedings for breach of contract or otherwise penalized.
3. The Conciliation Board to be convened for the purpose of settling forthwith the questions at present in dispute so far as they are within the scope of such boards, provided notice of such questions be given not later than 14 days from the date of this agreement. If the Sectional Boards fail to arrive at a settlement the Central Board to meet at once.
[Any decisions arrived at to be retrospective as from the date of this agreement].
It is agreed for the purpose of this and the following clause “rates of wages" includes remuneration whether by time or piece work.
4. Steps to be taken forthwith to effect a settlement of the questions now in dispute between the companies and classes of their employees not included within the conciliation scheme of 1907, by means of conferences between representatives of the companies and representatives of their employees who are themselves employed by the same company, and failing agreement, by arbitration to be arranged mutually or by the Board of Trade.
[The above to be a temporary arrangement pending the Report of the Commission of as to the best means of settling disputes.]
5. Both parties to give every assistance to the special Commission of Inquiry, the immediate appointment of which the Government has announced.
6. Any question which may arise as to the interpretation of this agreement to be referred to the Board of Trade.
Mr. Claughton stated that upon certain representations of the Government Sir Guy Granet and himself had authority from the companies to meet the representatives under the special circumstances and with a view of discussing the suggested terms of agreement. The terms have been discussed and agreed.
Sir Guy Granet and Mr. Claughton further stated that the recommendation of the Royal Commission would be loyally accepted by the railway companies, even though they be adverse to the contention of the company on any question of representation, and should a settlement be effected, any trace of ill-will which may have arisen during the strike will certainly be effaced.
We are, yours faithfully,
J. E. WILLIAMS, Gen. Sec. A.S.R.S.
A. FOX, Gen. Sec. A.S.L.E. & F.
T. LOWTH, Gen. Sec. G.R.W.U.
S. CHORLTON, Gen. Sec. U.P. & S.S.
TO THE RAILWAY WORKERS OF
THE <?<span>UNITED KINGDOM.
After a brief but magnificent struggle a settlement has been arrived at between the representatives of the railway workers and the railway companies sitting in joint conference, and it has been decided to ask you to accept this settlement and to return to work at once.
It is necessary to point out that the present dispute originated in Liverpool and district, where nearly 10,000 railway workers came out on strike for better conditions and were immediately dismissed from the service of the companies.
In order that these men should have their positions secured other men came out at Manchester, Stockport, Sheffield and other centres, and there was a general demand for a, national stoppage. The Executives of the four railway organizations met at Liverpool and determined to give the companies 24 hours' notice that unless a settlement of the matters in dispute was arrived at between them and the whole of the organizations concerned, the whole of the men on the railways would be called out. 'When this statement was made public the Government at once sent for the managers and representatives of the companies, and also the four secretaries of the men's societies to meet it. At first there was no response to the overtures of the Government and the President of the Board of Trade, and they then wired for the whole of the members of the Joint Executive to come to London. Without going into details, it is only necessary to state here that the efforts to bring the parties together proved abortive and a strike was declared. So magnificently did the men respond to the call that within 48 hours the representatives of the Railway Companies' Association met the representatives and officials of the men's societies face to face to negotiate a settlement. That settlement secures that all the men who had been dismissed, or had come out on strike, should return to their work with full and complete unanimity, and thus the immediate and first object of the strike was secured, viz. :
No man who responded to the call of his leaders should suffer, and those who struck work should not only return to their former position, but we have an absolute GUARANTEE that no malice will be shown by the companies; and we have also secured the very definite pledge that all the long-standing grievances of the men shall be immediately considered and in a manner foreign to our past experience.
An urgency commission is to be Immediately set up which will consider the whole question of settling disputes between the companies and our men, adjusting conditions of service, the working of conciliation boards and the question of representation. It is important to remember that the railway companies have agreed in writing to accept the findings of that body, even if it recommends "recognition" of the unions. We have no hesitation in saying that in addition to having won official recognition in negotiating the present dispute, our evidence before the Commission will be such that] justifies us in saying before many weeks are over railway workers will have won a charter long enjoyed by every other class of the community. We would, therefore, urge you to loyally accept the agreement and demonstrate your confidence m the Executives and representatives of the four societies who, by working together, have not only shown their power and taught their opponents a lesson, but by the loyalty which has been displayed have swept away the petty tyranny that has for years been the cause of so much unrest.
In cases where we are not bound by the Conciliation Agreement of 1907 the grievances of the men in respect to remuneration, &c, are to be immediately considered by representatives of the men and the railway companies, it being understood that the men may select as their representatives any of their fellow employees, irrespective of the grade to which they may belong and the place where they may be residing.
This splendid success has only been accomplished by the justice of our cause, the perfect cohesion and unanimity of purpose between the four Executives conducting the campaign, and the loyalty and courage of the rank and file of our organizations. It must be clearly understood that this settlement is contingent upon the promises of His Majesty's Government and the representatives of the Railway Companies' Association being faithfully adhered to. Every assistance will be given to the Government and the railway companies to establish with us a lasting peace in the railway service PROVIDING THEY DO THEIR PART. Prudence demands that we shall still remain ready to take up the battle-axe again should occasion require.
In this dispute we have to thank the Labour Party, especially Messrs. Ramsay Macdonald, A. Henderson, and G. H. Roberts, for the splendid assistance rendered both in Parliament and during the negotiations which have been proceeding.
This settlement was not arrived at until a statement had been made by the Board of Trade that the lock-out at the conditions of the railway worker J enable him to enjoy a more human Liverpool would be withdrawn immediately satisfactory existence the railway dispute was settled.
We urge every non-unionist to immediately join one or other of the organizations concerned and do their part in assisting us to further improve
Yours fraternally,
BRIGHTON LOCO-MEN &
including extracts from the book
Lawson Billinton: A Career Cut Short
By Klaus Marx
On Thursday, 17th August, telegrams were dispatched to all parts of the country calling out the men. On Friday, 18th, the scene at most London termini was that work was to continue be proceed smoothly, though at a reduced volume, with the help of 58,000 troops being place at major stations and signal-boxes. With the call for a national for strike by all four railway societies, across the country, the Enginemen at Brighton and other locomotive shed on the Brighton line decided to report for work as normal.
There was disorganisation in traffic which was mainly due to the state of affairs in the Victoria area, where a few signalmen and Enginemen had struck in support of the strike, which resulted in the Company had to put spare men in their places, and this led to suspensions of train services. The strike of the signalmen had caused the greatest difficulty, inasmuch as the men who have been put in their places were not so thoroughly acquainted with the district and the traffic, and in order to make things easier for a time and to ensure the safe running of trains certain trains were withdrawn, and with not many people traveling it is no use travelling empty trains, and some trains remained were kept back. At the New Cross depot, the Company officials stated that only 30 men were out on strike, but the union leaders declared this number should was threefold.
Soldiers manning Balham Intermediat Signal Box during the 1911 strike
There was, however, no problems with the railway men in the Brighton area, who all continued to work as usual.
The attitude of the Brighton loco-men during the strike has appeared to puzzle the leaders of the trade unions. A meeting on the Saturday evening, 19th August, was held outside the Brighton locomotive shed, which was well attended, with about 100 Enginemen and Firemen in attendance, from both Societies, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen & the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. They discussed the strike at some length, it was the opinion expressed at this meeting, that, had the Conciliation Agreement being worked by the other companies in the spirit of the Brighton Company, there would have been no serious trouble. Those present unanimously decided that whatsoever the result of the main meeting, that was being held in York Place Hall, might be they would not come out on strike.
There was much stentorian proclamation of the fact that the strikers regarded Brighton men as “cowards.” This showed how little the Strike leaders knew of the service on the Brighton line. As several of the Brighton speakers had to confess, they really had no quarrel with their masters. If every company acted like the London Brighton and South Coast Railway Company, said two spokesmen there would be no strike. It is quite possible there may be miner differences in the working of such a complicated business; but there is not the slightest reason why these cannot be rectified in a friendly spirit. There is machinery for the purpose. It has worked well on the line, simply because both sides want it to be beneficial. In a word, the Brighton Enginemen are perfectly content with their lot, and all they ask is to be left alone.
THE BRIGHTON GAZETTE
LOYAL RAILWAY SERVANTS
Good often comes out of evil. People who take a philosophical view of things are inclined to think the recent upheaval in the railway world demonstrates several good points about the majority of the railway men , who are really servants of the public as much as postmen and policemen. It was almost worth running the risks of discomfort and inconvenience to evoke such a magnificent manifestation of loyalty among all the grades of the London and Brighton Railway staff employed in the Brighton district and Sussex in generally. Nothing could be more instructive than the clear demarcation between the peaceful and turbulent zones. One sees exactly how Socialism entered into the disturbance. Some of the apostles came to Brighton on Saturday to make bad blood; but the Brighton men knew how to take care of themselves on their own ground, and the visitors met with no success. The splendid pluck of the Brighton engine drivers and firemen in gently telling the London emissaries, that they would have nothing to do with their game and will not be forgotten by the travelling public. The entire staff at the Brighton end of the line, have displayed great moral courage under their reputation among their fellow townsmen.
During the meeting it was decided that the Loco men at Brighton would remain loyal to the Railway Company and not join the call for a national railway strike. The meeting also decided that they would send a deputation made up of representatives from both trade unions to meet the Railway Company Locomotive Superintendent Lawson Billinton to enumerate their grievances. The deputation was made up of eight delegates from both A.S.L.E.F. & A.S.R.S. trade unions that represented Enginemen and Firemen at Brighton. The eight delegates consisted of Bros. Auckett, Bolton, Davis, Jack Enves (A.S.L.E.F. Branch Sec.), Thomas Hatcher (A.S.L.E.F.), Knapp, John Tompsett and one other. The deputation was also to represent the non-Society Enginemen at Brighton.
Later on that evening, a second meeting of the Brighton branches, of all four railway unions, in York Place Hall. Mr. J. Waterhouse (Chairman of the Brighton branch of the General Railway Workers Union) took the chair. Mr. Waterhouse read letter from trade unionists asking why they were holding back in Brighton and appealed to them not to be seen as “blacklegs.”
Representatives of the local branches then spoke of the current situation, the trend of the speeches of the local men was that if the Conciliation Agreement had been worked by all companied in the spirit of the London Brighton and South Coast Railway Company, there would be have been no serious trouble. The speakers included Mr. Gill, Secretary of the local branch A.S.R.S., and Mr. Pargettar of Newhaven. The former declared that had the working of the Conciliation Boards been carried out on the other railway in the same honest, straightforward, and just manner in which there would never have been any need to hold that meeting that night (hear, hear). with one of two exceptions they on their line had the finest of conciliation schemes in existence in the country, but of the scheme adopted in 1907 he said that it was most unwieldy and in some case absolutely unworkable. The scheme brought forward was on which they endeavoured to carry out both in the letter and the spirit, but it had been broken willfully by nearly the whole of the railway companies, thus making it absolutely necessary that what occurred in 1907 should occur to-day again. His complaint regarding the Brighton system was that they had never had a second meeting after the one which Lord Beesbourough presided. That was the only complaint he had against the Board on the Brighton system. So far as Brighton men were concerned, in the running department and in the workshops he had no knowledge - and if anyone had he ought - of any grievances of the road which could not be settled by the Central Board (hear, hear). The men on the Brighton system had no reason whatsoever to object to the scheme he regretted that he had to take that position that night. They had however, been forced into the position by the Railway Association trying to over-ride the workmen throughout the country. He maintained that it was quite as right that the workmen through out the country should have an organisation and fight with the same weapons as the Railway Companies themselves (applause). He could not understand why grievances could not be settle by arbitration without injury anyone.
Having touched upon alteration in the working arrangements of the Enginemen and Firemen he spoke of the dissatisfaction caused in the Brighton works some time ago by what he alleged to be improper treatment on the part of the Superintendent of that period; and dealing with present conditions of the Works said he saw no reason why, if given time, things should not, under Mr. Billinton Superintendentance, resume something like the position they were in that gentlemen's Father's time (hear, hear). He thought they had the sympathy of the Board of Directors in this matter (hear, hear), and he hoped that in a short time - in less than a year or two - they would have got back into the old system of working in the shops being the late Mr. Billinton's time, when he thought that neither the Company nor the men had much to grumble at. The crux of the whole question was simple. Although they had very little to complain of with regard to the Conciliation Board on the Brighton System, he wanted to see a little more tacked to to it. He thought the men would be pleased to accept the scheme, but he wanted the agreement made broader and wider, as that instead of dealing with hours and wages only, it would deal with the conditions of service also (applause). If that were done and it where adoptes with a few minor matters altered be thought it would be a splendid, workable scheme, and probably the finest in the exception of the North Eastern (hear, hear).
Mr Pargettar, of Newhaven, said that, in connection with the working of the Conciliation Boards, he had written the London Brighton and South Coast Railway Company about 150 letters, and had had numerous interviews.On every occasion he had been most courteously received by the Company; had been able to discuss matters with them and in almost every case to come to a satisfactory settlement with them. "To have to fight in the face of that is hard, but our experience on the Brighton line is not the experience of men on other railways. They had numerous difficulties under this scheme; and I agree with Mr. Gill that had the other railway companies dealt as honestly with the scheme as the Railway Directors and Chief Officials of this Company endeveavoured to do, there would not be this meeting tonight."
Mr. Carey, an ex-railwaymen, then moved:- Having heard the speakers at this meeting, we are of the opinion that this lamentable strike need not have taken place had the Railway companies carried out the Conciliation Agreement in an honest and straightforward manner, and resolve to give the Joint Executive every assistance to obtain victory.
He supported this in a speech, strongly urging the men to fight, declaring that a general strike was the only way of getting a fair share of the world's products, and that it ought to have taken place twenty years ago, - The motion was seconded by Mr. Deighton. When put to the meeting a majority of those present vote for it ;ten voted against it, and many did not vote. It was declared carried almost unanimously.
On Saturday, there were an unusual scenes in New England Road and the neightbouring district when the workmen in the Loco Department of the L.B.S.C.R. left work at noon. The men flock down the streets as usual and departed to their respective home. At the headquarters of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servervants near the Loco Works, a number of men gathered to read Friday night's announcements on the Society board exhibited in a window. There it was notified where men were out. The loco-men at other loco sheds in the area (Newhaven, Eastbourne St Leonards), were waiting to see what the Brighton men will do, according to the statement on the board.
On Saturday 19th, August, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, posted notices at London <?<st1:state w:st="on">Victoria station, requesting that any interference with their staff in the execution of their duty should be at once reported to the General Manager, as the Government have undertaken to afford protection. The staff who remain loyal are also assured that their devotion will be suitably recognised by the Company.
The London Brighton and South Coast Railway Company also gave notice that the following ordinary week-day service which were suspended to-day will be remained on and from Monday next.
The Company claimed that non one of the Brighton Company’s men south of Croydon have come out on strike, and a number of men who struck work nearer London have applied for reinstatement.
On Monday 21st, August, the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway resumed a normal service.
Engine Driver John Tompsett (left) & his fireman on a Marsh's Atlantic Class
THE AFTERMATH OF THE RAILWAY UNREST
Relations between the former Locomotive Superintendent Douglas Earle Marsh and the Loco men on the L.B.S.C.R. had been extremely fraught and strained, and when Lawson Billinton became the caretaker Locomotive Superintendent owing to Douglas Earle Marsh’s indisposition.
The deputation was hoping for a different approach from new ‘home-grown’ incumbent. Billinton chose to adopt a more conciliatory approach, namely to listen the men’s complaints and promise to see what could be done to resolve them.
Billinton received the deputation on the 21st August, 1911,he met a deputation of Brighton Drivers and Fireman to discuss their grievances, at the Brighton Locomotive offices. This was held against the background of a national railway strike. The Locomotive men had held a meeting two days earlier at which 80-100 men present had decided to be loyal and not strike. They represented both societies and non Society men and elected eight delegates to see Billinton and enumerate their grievances.
The deputation had requested that Mr.John Richardson, the Outdoor Superintendent might be present as they did not want to go over his head. Billinton explained that Mr. Richardson unfortunately had to go to London.
The deputation presented a list of grievances.
1 Low rated firemen, firemen on the main line not receiving main line pay, whereas firemen are working locals.
2 Nine hour Sunday turns.
3 No time to get ready in London on a lot of main line turns, due to the Traffic Department using them for shunting, etc.
4 Some of the firemen want an extra quarter of an hour for booking on, as at present they have not sufficient time to get ready 5 Limit of loads for goods trains
6 Meal times for crane drivers.
7 Mess rooms for Enginemen.
8 Passes allowing Enginemen and Firemen to be available to ‘All Stations’
Other issues were also brought up during the course of this meeting which included:
eye sight tests, smoke nuisance and resultant fines.
Thomas Hatcher Brighton Branch Chairman
Billinton wanted to wait until some decision as been reached in regards to the original grievances which are now the subject of a Royal Commission, and nothing can be done until the results are known. Billinton made it known to the deputation that he was always ready to see the men who are working for the Company.
The deputation expressed their sympathy with Billinton regarding the position he found himself in. It was felt by the deputation that some had men had been led away by paper twaddle and some hot-headed men.
Billinton passed on a message from the Directors and General Manager that they appreciated your loyalty to the Company. It is a pity other depots did not raise any questions before taking the drastic steps they did. It is extraordinary that intelligent men should run their against a brick wall in the way they have done. Billinton took it as a personal compliment that the Brighton men behaved in the way they did.
The deputation left feeling they had been listened to, that there was movement in the issues discussed and by and large they were not disappointed.
In October 1911, the local press reported that 'railway were called into the waiting room at Brighton station to be thanked officially for not striking'. Even a grateful public, relieved that their daily commuting had not been interrupted, patronised a 'thanks' fund raised by public subscription, the major payment being £94 16s 6d. to 'central Traffic and Platelayers'.
It was October 1912 before the review of terms of service for Enginemen, Firemen and Cleaners was published in a memorandum, responding to the proposals for revision by representatives of their grades and discussed by deputations with the Locomotive Engineer by direct negotiations, and not under the conciliation scheme. It was agreed the terms set by the Board be accepted by members of all the grades in full settlement of the whole of their demands, with the reservation that the Locomotive Engineer was instructed to enquire into and report upon the result to certain cleaners, of the system of payment by piecework, compared to payment at daily rates, In December at a meeting with engine cleaners, Billinton reported that he could not recommend any alteration beyond that sanctioned in the above mentioned minute. This rate was made uniform across the whole system.
With the national success of the 1911 strike, it led the way for many more Enginemen to join A.S.L.E.F. the 'Society', which resulted with many new A.S.L.E.F. Branches being formed, were there was sufficient demand, such Branches as Newhaven in June 1912 & Three Bridges in May 1913. Where there was insufficient numbers of new Branch, these members would be encouraged to join a nearby Branch, For example the Horsham Branch included members from depots such as Midhurst, Littlehampton & Bognor, there may have also been members from nearby Three Bridges depot.
One of the main reasons why loco-men started to join the 'Society', was because they wanted to have an independent voice of their own on and their representatives to be experienced in their craft trade. This would lead to representation being concentrated on the issues that effect loco-men only,this was main the reason why many loco-men started to leave the A.S.R.S. (N.U.R.) and join the ranks of A.S.L.E.F.
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“Suite Française,” a Novel
“Suite Française,” by Irène Némirovsky; translated by Sandra Smith
Irène Némirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903 and immigrated to France to escape the Russian Revolution. She was a successful writer in France before the Nazis invaded. She died in Auschwitz on August 17, 1942.
“Suite Française,” by Irène Némirovsky is a historical novel written as the author, a Russian Jew, is in the midst of the Nazi invasion of Paris and the subsequent Nazi occupation of France. That Némirovsky wrote at all, with the struggle to stay alive in order to save her husband and small daughters, is remarkable; that her writing is exceptional is a miracle.
“Suite Française” is two novellas, depicting life in France from June 4, 1940 as the Nazis invade Paris, to July 1, 1941 when they pull out of France to join in the invasion of Russia. The first novella “Storm in June,” opens with the thunderous sounds of the German Army advancing on a sleeping Paris. Némirovsky’s characters exhibit a range of human reactions to the catastrophe of war, some doing what they deem necessary to preserve a privileged life and some merely trying to stay alive as they react to the invasion.
The second novella, “Dolce,” takes place in a Nazi occupied French village, with only women, children and old men remaining. The French have lost the war, but the war continues in the form of internalized struggle. The villagers struggle to find some normalcy with the enemy billeted in their very homes. There is, on the surface, collaboration but with an undercurrent of resistance and real acts of heroism and honor carried out by some individuals. In occupied France, whether in Paris or a provincial village, Némirovsky’s characters show us that not all occupying troops were monsters and not all Frenchmen were honorable.
The most poignant part of this book is the story of how it came to be a book. Before Némirovsky was arrested July 13, 1942 by the French police who were enforcing Nazi race laws, she gave a suitcase to her two small daughters, which they took with them into hiding. The suitcase contained a leather-bound notebook in which Némirovsky had written what would become “Suite Française.” Denise, her eldest daughter, saved the notebook for fifty-six years before reading it. She had been fearful that reading, what she thought was a journal, would bring back horrific memories of a childhood in hiding and the death of her parents in concentration camps.
After reading her mother’s book, Denise had it published in France, sixty-two years after her mother had left it with her. “Suite Française” was awarded the French Prix Renaudot for 2004. This was the first time the prize has been awarded posthumously.
Posted by Annie at 9:12 AM
Labels: German invasion, German occupation of Paris, Irène Némirovsky, Prix Renaudot, Sandra Smith, Suite Française, WWII
Liz Sinnreich July 10, 2008 at 10:26 AM
I recently read your post about Irène Némirovsky and wanted to let you know about an exciting new exhibition about her life, work, and legacy that will open on September 23, 2008 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage —A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York City. Woman of Letters: Irène Némirovsky and Suite Française, which will run through the middle of March, will include powerful rare artifacts — the actual handwritten manuscript for Suite Française, the valise in which it was found, and many personal papers and family photos. The majority of these documents and artifacts have never been outside of France. For fans of her work, this exhibition is an opportunity to really “get to know” Irene. And for those who can’t visit, there will be a special website that will live on the Museum’s site www.mjhnyc.org.
The Museum will host several public programs over the course of the exhibition’s run that will put Némirovsky’s work and life into historical and literary context. Book clubs and groups are invited to the Museum for tours and discussions in the exhibition’s adjacent Salon (by appointment). It is the Museum’s hope that the exhibit will engage visitors and promote dialogue about this extraordinary writer and the complex time in which she lived and died. Please visit our website at www.mjhnyc.org for up-to-date information about upcoming public programs or to join our e-bulletin list.
Thanks for sharing this info with your readers. Let me know if you need any more.
-Liz Sinnreich (executiveintern@mjhnyc.org)
Yaqub Nipu September 13, 2018 at 5:41 AM
ssfs
I Can See Clearly Now...
Ding Dong!
Crash and Dash
Happy Birthday Beatrix Potter!
Heights Theater for Sale
The Pompous Painter
Welcome A New United States Citizen
To Refinish or Not to Refinish?
Stolen Identity
The Historic American Building Survey: Online Hist...
My First Magazine Cover
Blogging Business: Update
Beatrix Potter Watercolor Brings £289,500 at Aucti...
Sir Joshua Reynolds: a Belated Birthday Observance...
A Good Book and the Right Chair
Photocraft
Calming Places
Hare Today
Feline Failure
A Premonition
Coke Habit
Joyeux Anniversaire, Monsieur Proust!
Update: “Suite Française,” by Irène Némirovsky
Cats in the Antiques Business
Remembrance: 7 July, 2005
From Sap to Scrap Bucket
U.S. Independence Day
Nesting With Freud
Blooms Around The Bunny Bungalow
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Worcester Park Royal British Legion plans fund raising weekend
Worcester Park's Royal British Legion have a fund raising weekend coming up at the end of July (30th-31st) which consists of a Battle of the Somme Ceromonial evening (Sat 30th) with a LIVE big band (this is only for Legion Members)
"On Sunday 31st we have our RBL Worcester Park Poppy Walk consisting of 5 miles sponsored walk from and back to the club on Central road from 11am. This event is open to non members also.
"Its a great day followed by a buffet and live music back at the club. You can sign up in the club for £5 where you will recieve a sponsor pack and a TShirt to wear on the walk. In addition if people would like to sponsor all of our walkers collectively they can donate on our Virgin money giving page .
All donations will go to the Royal British Legion. To access the givung page go to POPPY WALK
Hundreds pay their respects in range of Somme events
Hundres of people from across the borough paid their respects on Friday July 1 to those that were killed and injured on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.
The events started with a civic service of remembrance lead by the borough's Mayor Councillor Richard Clifton and organised by the Wallington and Carshalton branch of the Royal British Legion. At the service wreaths were laid by a range of representatives from the local authority, the uniformed services and from the community.
During the service the names of the 27 men from Wallington and Carshalton killed on the first day were read and as the ceremon y drew to a close the bells of nearby All Saints Carshalton were rung half muffled in tribute to those and all men who were killed. Bells were also rung in tribute by the other towers of the borough
Attention then turned to the front of St Helier Hospital where as dark descended images of World War One soldiers emerged on the facia of one of the borough's most iconic buildings.
Hundreds stood and watched as images - which came from Sutton's Heritage Collection of glass plates taken by photographer David Knights-Whittome; ‘Photographer to the King’ currently being conserved, digitised and catalogued thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund - as they rose out of a field of poppies.
Battle of the Somme remembrance service will be this evening
Three short blasts of a whistle signified the start of the borough's commemmoration of The Battle of the Somme.
Members of Carshalton and Wallington Royal British Legion gathered at Carshalton War Memorial to take part in the tribute to the war dead at 7.30am
This was the start of events in the borough.
The borough’s act of remembrance will take place at Carshalton War Memorial in an event which has been organised by Carshalton and Wallington Royal British Legion.
The event is open to the ex-service personnel and the public.
The Mayor and other local dignitaries and members of the Royal British Legion will pay tribute with a short act of remembrance at 8pm.
During this event the church bells at All Saints, Carshalton, will ring half muffled and these will be joined by bells from St Dunstan’s Cheam which will also ring half muffled in honour of the fallen and stricken soldiers.
The bells of All Saints, Benhilton, will already have signalled this event by earlier in the week ringing their own tribute.
As darkness descends attention will turn to the facia of St. Helier Hospital where the borough’s unique collection of glass plate images of soldiers who left from this area to go to war will be projected.
The projection will start at 9.30pm and will run for one hour. Photographer David Knights-Whittome's shop was at 18 High St, Sutton.
Images of WW1 soldiers to be projected on to St Helier Hospital
The lights will be dimmed at St Helier Hospital on Friday evening (1 July) as the portraits of hundreds of local World War One soldiers will be projected across the front of the hospital.
To mark the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 2016 (one of the deadliest engagements of the First World War, during which more than a million people were injured or killed), people from across the community have worked together to organise the touching slideshow to display stunning images of local men and women to the public for the first time.
Sutton choirs can take part in unique act of remembrance
Choirs in Sutton will have a unique opportunity to be part of the borough's remembrance events following the launch of a new piece of written specifically for choirs.
Memorial Ground is a new piece of music written by Oscar-nomainted composer David Lang to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.
The world premiere takes place this Saturday at East Neuk Festival and that same day the score and learning resources will be released for free download on our website. Choirs are then encouraged to perform the piece around Remembrance Day this November (or of course any time suited to them!). What makes the piece really special is that choirs can add their own commemorative texts to a section of the piece, for example, a roll call of names from a local war memorial.
Here is a link to the info pack for choirs REMEMBRANCE
Unique act of remembrance acknowledges start of Somme battle
July 1 2016 marks the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. July 1 1916 was the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army - on the first day of the Somme Offensive alone the British Army suffered over 60,000 casualties.
Groups from across the borough are combining to deliver a unique act of remembrance for those that died in the Somme Offensive. In the days running up to Friday July 1st and on the day that the battle started a range of commemoration events will acknowledge the sacrifice of those from the borough and nationwide who died or were injured.
All are invited to attend the event
Whistle blasts will signify the beginning of Battle of Somme
It was to the sound of whistle blasts at 07.30 on July 1st, 1916 that there started the Battle of the Somme, during which more than one million men were wounded or killed, making it one of the bloodiest battles in human history.
Carshalton & Wallington Royal British Legion Branch are one of a number of groups from across the borough combining to deliver a unique act of remembrance for those that died in this battle, World War One’s largest, that itself ended November 18th, 1916.
At 07.30 am on Friday July 1st whistle blasts will echo across the ponds by Carshalton War Memorial followed by an Act of Homage by Carshalton & Wallington Royal British Legion Branch.
North Cheam's forgotten past includes WW1 munitions factory
Discover the history of North Cheam which includes the story of the largest fireworks factory in the world, its use as a munitions factory in World War 1, its Roman road and lost rivers, and some of the characters who've lived in the area. Join a guided two-hour walk, led by Tony Brett Young, starting and finishing at St Oswald's Church, Brock's Drive, North Cheam SM3 9UW.
Contact Tony for more details and to reserve a place. Telephone 020 8652 7622 or email abrettyoung@hotmail.com. Time: 2pm, 19 June. Cost: £5 (£4 for Friends of Sutton Life Centre)
1916 Fancy Dress Dance raised money for Star and Garter Home
During the First World War Sutton High School for Girls, Cheam Road, continued to function. Each quarter it produced a school magazine. these magazines are now part of a World War One school archives - available at world war1 schoolarchives
With the kind permission of Sutton High School we are able to reproduce articles from the magazines which were produced during 1914 and 1918 which give a unique insight into the Great War and its impact on local people and our locality.
Increased grant available for inclusion of WW1 in borough festival
The call has gone out to all of the borough's organisations and residents who are looking to take part in Sutton's Imagine Festival which is the largest festival of the arts in the borough that grants of up to £800 are now available to help them fulfill their ambitions.
But for one group / individual the grant can rise to £1,500 if it wishes to combine the theme of the Festival HG Wells with the borough's ongoing commemorations of the centenary of World War One. H G Wells lived and wrote during both wars which often filtered into his most accomplished works.
Brickway Builders
Brickway Builders is a bricklaying and landscaping company based in Surrey covering all areas in London and the south east.
Headed up by Will Stevenson and Lee Owen, they have between them nearly two decades of experience. The company has a vast range of building activities.
Brickway Builders focuses mainly on extensions and new builds, a lot of work is subcontracted to them from other building companies who know their reputations are secure in the hands of Brickway.
For more details click here.
Sutton Remembers...
An archive of all of the news items, activities and events that have been undertaken, highlighted and captured by the Borough's World War One Commemorative Steering Group.
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classic 1965 Cheoy Lee Offshore 27 sloop
Hull # 1547
About this boat
CL Offshore 27 Specs
Cheoy Lee Association
a last minute anode change
Written on Monday, April 30, 2018 at 12:18
An amazing turnaround for this haul out, and with everything finished by Thursday afternoon, I went to the boatyard on Friday to retrieve the boat only to find that there were unexpected delays with getting her launched. I’d hoped to get her out early in the day, at slack tide, but that wasn’t possible. The river current is critical to work around but by the time they’d splashed her it was after 15:00 at which point the current was at full force.
As I was warming up the engine at the lift dock, the boatyard manager rushed over to tell me that he’d made a change with the shaft anode. They’d checked what I’d done and thought it was too loose, and so they’d instead put on a different anode that fit tightly. He shared the pictures of it with me.
This is interesting to me because this anode comes with a nut assembly that allows it to screw onto the shaft, and the anode to attach to it from there. New anodes are far more readily available than the original anode I’d searched high and low for.
I was in a crunch when he told me about this. I needed to get the boat away from a dock that was downriver to the fast current. The boatyard workers took a workboat over to pull the bow off the dock so I could motor away.
Then I had to deal with getting back into my slip against the current with weather that was cold and rainy. With that done, I waited until today to return to the boatyard to pay for the replacement anode, something I hadn’t been asked to do.
This boatyard was the best experience I’ve had with a lift yard in all these years. They allowed me to work on my boat inside the yard. They undertook work that I had expected to do myself, and hadn’t charged me for it. The manager hadn’t asked to be paid for these changes, but today I went in and paid him nonetheless. I want to recommend this boatyard to anyone in my area. Proudly.
boatyards, maintenance
Comments Off on a last minute anode change
bottom painting is done
some additional anchor system items
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Copyright © 1999-2019 classic 1965 Cheoy Lee Offshore 27 sloop
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Swim Staff
Anne Sievers has been involved in the sport of swimming for most of her life and has been a coach or swim lesson instructor for over 20 years. She has taught hundreds of kids to swim in Columbia while helping others to advance their skills to the next level as competitive swimmers. While coaching at Mizzou she helped the Tigers earn top-25 rankings during the dual meet season and with several individual swimmers qualifying for the NCAA championships. With all her years of teaching lessons and over 10 years of summer league coaching, she is excited to be on the pool deck at West Broadway Swim Club. Sievers brings a passion for the sport and developing all athletes of all levels in the pool!
She started competing in Illinois at the age of 8 before moving onto swim at the University of Michigan. As a swimmer, Sievers was a 10-time All-American, 5-time Big Ten Champion being named “Female Athlete of the Year” her senior season. She is the only athlete in Illinois swimming history to be named “Illinois Swimmer of the Year” on four separate occasions. She held numerous state records with some still standing today. On the international level, Sievers represented the United States on multiple occasions on several national teams. She was a finalist at the US. Olympic Trials in 1992 and 1996, narrowly missing the Olympic Team in 1996.
Holly Larson is starting her 4th year on Sievers’ staff as an assistant coach. She started her swimming career at West Broadway Swim Club. She swam for West Broadway for 3 summers before she started to train year-round as a competitive swimmer for the Columbia Swim Club. Larson also swam for Hickman High School as a varsity swimmer for 3 years. Larson was a breaststroke and IM specialist. She is in her last semester at MACC after which plans to finish her degree in elementary education with a minor in coaching at either CMU or Missouri State.
Anna Wilcoxin was a competitive swimmer for 11 years. She started her career at the MAC before joining CSC at the age of 10. Wilcoxin qualified for state all 4 years while competing for Rock Bridge High School. Her specialty was backstroke and butterfly. She was a multiple-event sectional qualifier for CSC as well. Anna will be a freshman at Mizzou in the fall where she plans to major in education.
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State confirms 6 cases of measles in Cook County
by Michelle Manchir
Lab tests pending for three babies diagnosed with measles at a Palatine day care center have been confirmed as positive for measles, state health officials announced Friday night.
The Illinois Department of Public Health had announced earlier this week that five babies at KinderCare Learning Center in the north suburb had been diagnosed with the respiratory disease, but that only two cases had been confirmed with lab testing.
The Friday announcement means there are now six confirmed cases of measles in Cook County this year. The first was a Cook County resident, who officials have identified only as an adult, who became ill in late January.
Health officials are still investigating the source of the disease, a state health department statement said.
On Friday, a suspected case of measles in Lake County proved negative, according to Lake County health officials. There also was a reported case of measles in downstate Madison County that the state health department "no longer considers … to be a case of measles," according to the statement.
Measles is a respiratory disease that can cause severe health complications, including pneumonia, encephalitis and, in rare cases, death. The virus is transmitted by contact with an infected person through coughing or sneezing and can remain alive in the air and on surfaces for up to two hours.
Officials said the KinderCare children were all under a year old, meaning they were too young to get the vaccine that guards against measles, mumps and rubella.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians all recommend that children get their first dose of the vaccine at 12 to 15 months, and a second shot at 4 to 6 years.
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White House readies crackdown on asylum seekers coming through Mexico
The departments of Justice and Homeland Security released the text of an interim regulation Thursday afternoon outlining new restrictions on asylum that will be the subject of a presidential proclamation, expected to be issued by the White House on Friday.
The interim rule, which will be published in the Federal Register and open for public comment Friday morning, establishes “a mandatory bar to asylum eligibility” for refugees crossing the southwestern border between official ports of entry. It contains a finding that granting asylum in those circumstances “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”
During a call with reporters Thursday afternoon, senior administration officials explained that Trump would be exercising the same “use of authority that the Supreme Court upheld in Trump v. Hawaii,” better known as the travel ban case, to make such a determination about migrants who enter the U.S. from Mexico.
Under existing U.S. law, anyone who is physically present in the country is eligible to apply for asylum here, regardless of how they entered the country. Many Central American asylum seekers, and others who pass through Mexico from other parts of the world, cross the border unofficially and wait to be apprehended by Border Patrol officers. Others present themselves at official ports of entry, of which there are 48 between San Diego and Brownsville, Texas. But the procedure for dealing with them has been the same: Anyone who expresses a fear of returning to their home country is referred to an asylum officer with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, who conducts what’s known as a “credible fear” interview to assess whether the person has a “well-founded fear” of persecution because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. If they qualify, the practice has been to release them into the population for a hearing on granting asylum status, which can take months or years. Read more
Read also: Journalist in Saudi Arabia ‘is killed during torture while in custody of the regime’ after he was accused of exposing violations committed by the royal family
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Shai Agassi
homepage: http://www.betterplace.com/company/leadership-detail/shai_agassi/
Shai Agassi launched Better Place, a company dedicated to solving the problem of sustainable mobility, to help bring about an end to oil dependence. He works directly with government leaders, auto manufacturers, energy companies and others to make his vision of zero-emission electric vehicles powered by renewable energy a reality in countries around the world.
In 2008, Israel became the first country to embrace the Better Place model of building an open network to enable mass adoption of electric vehicles and delivering transportation as a sustainable service. Today, Agassi and Better Place are in discussions with more than 25 countries, major auto manufacturers and other potential partners around the globe. TIME Magazine recently named Agassi one of its "Heroes of the Environment 2008."
Before founding Better Place, Agassi was president of the Products and Technology Group at SAP AG and a member of the software company's executive board. Agassi is also an active member of the Forum of Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum, where he focuses on climate change and transportation issues.
Lecture:
[syn] 201 views, 1:36:53
From IT to Cleantech: New Sources of Innovation
as author at MIT World Series: Brunel Lecture Series on Complex Systems,
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Category: Entrepreneurship
Igor Cornelsen’s Top Tips For Investing In Stocks in Brazil
One thing that has gotten the attention of people is how resilient Brazil has proven to be. People have wondered what Brazil is doing right that other countries weren’t. There are a lot of factors that play into the health of the economy of Brazil. One of the factors is the regulations. Given those regulations, it is important to know how to succeed within those regulations. Igor Cornelsen has some tips for people that are looking for ways to profit from Brazilian stocks. People who follow these tips will improve their chances of being successful like Igor.
As read on Medium, one of the tips that Igor has when it comes to investing is connecting with natives. For one thin, Brazil is a very social climate. Therefore, people will be more willing to connect and talk with one another. Another thing is that business and finance rely a lot on the relationships that are built. People need to network in order to survive. In other words, Brazil does not have room for islands. It is important for people to take the time to build the types of networks they need in order to build a successful enterprise. Igor Cornelsen, himself has networked with others in order to find the right businesses to invest in.
Igor also advises people to be ready for regulations as well as know the restrictions of foreign currency. For one thing, people need to know what they are getting into so that they can not only succeed, but do so in a way that does not attract negative reactions from the authorities. One of the most important factors of success is in knowing about many different methods to succeed. For one thing, the person that is aware of different methods for success will be better able to at least avoid failure with something to fall back on. Plus, according to Igor things are looking up for the economy, so it’s a great time to invest. PRLog has the full story, as Mr. Cornelsen breaks down how there is a new image for the economy, a way out of crisis.
Author whitechalk22Posted on November 30, 2016 Categories EntrepreneurshipLeave a comment on Igor Cornelsen’s Top Tips For Investing In Stocks in Brazil
Doe Deere and Lime Crime Destined for Greatness
Lime Crime is a makeup product line begun by an intelligent young woman, a transplant from Russia, Doe Deere, who has single-handedly taken her brand and created a firestorm of interest and controversy. Lime Crime was started on Ebay in 2004 by Deere and thanks to her leadership and insight has never looked back. Deere is helping to rewrite the fashion standards for the brave new world we all inhabit. In interviews, Deere has blatantly gone against all the fashion rules. She is truly a rebel with a cause, and her cause is the advancement of her makeup company, Lime Crime, into a major player for cosmetic sales in America and Europe.
Deere is not without detractors, but the adage that all publicity is good for the product holds true and may even be a part of her business model. Deere’s revolutionary appearance, which you can see on her blog, with chiffon blue hair, expressive lips and eye makeup on top of her diminutive frame is seen everywhere that Lime Crime makes an appearance. The success of her makeup company is directly related to Deere herself. She was recently honored by being named as one of the “Top Inspiring Female Entrepreneurs” by Self Made Magazine.
The simple truth may be that Deere is an enigmatic and beautiful young woman whose life is fantasy and all people can relate to that sense of otherworldliness that is her playground. She has repeated in interviews that she is lucky to be playing like a child with colors and living the life of an artist, and a business mogul in her fantasy world. Deere has become an icon and her company, Lime Crime, is on its way to becoming a brand and garnering even greater success for Deere and more attention and credibility to her fellow unicorns who inhabit this fantasy world of business and life. Check out her product line on Doll’s Kill.
Author whitechalk22Posted on September 29, 2016 February 13, 2018 Categories Entrepreneurship1 Comment on Doe Deere and Lime Crime Destined for Greatness
What Russia Needs to Boost Their Economy
Educator and Skolkovo Foundation creator Alexei Beltyukov says Russia can get its economy out of the doldrums if they just follow his advise. Beltyukov insists that the Russian economy was on the slide before the clash with Crimea. Although there were predictions that things were on the up rise, it didn’t quite pan out that way.
The Russian market are shaken. The stock index dropping by 10 percent didn’t help. In fact, it is estimated that Russia lost some $7 billion. This is devastating in comparison to 2013 when only $63 billion was lost for the entire year.
Russia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has also slowed in the last few years. Although the prediction was a modest 3.2 percent, it turned out to be a dismal 1.2.
Alexei Beltyukov says something must be done immediately to help the situation. He says that businesses need more support from the government if they want to stimulate the economy. Beltyukov’s Skolkovo Foundation helps several entrepreneurs gain their footing. Consultation, business strategies and tax breaks are only a small part of what they receive.
Beltyukov says if he can do this, he knows others in Russia can do the same. “It’s all about inspiring people to do their best.” Through his foundation’s assistance, more than 10,000 jobs have been created.
The foundation has a passion for helping others. Beltyukov says he is hopeful that the Russian government will get on board and do their part. “A rising tide lifts all boats,” says Beltyukov. “If we have any chance of regaining what was lost, everyone in a position to do so must help.” Beltyukov is an INSEAD graduate, so he definitely knows what he’s talking about in that regard. Only time will tell if Russia will listen.
Author whitechalk22Posted on September 20, 2016 Categories EntrepreneurshipLeave a comment on What Russia Needs to Boost Their Economy
Adam Goldenberg Changes the Online Shopping Trend with Fashion Subscription Membership
Adam Goldenberg helped introduce fashion subscription membership to the world in 2010, changing the online shopping environment. Goldenberg is Co-founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of TechStyle Fashion, a leading global online fashion subscription company. He and business partner, Don Ressler formed the company as JustFab Inc. and recently had its name changed to TechStyle Fashion Group on businessoffashion.com. The company started offering apparel collections with an audience of women only, and presently, has an audience to include children, athletes, active individuals, men, and all size women. Between 2012 and 2013, Goldenberg helped to expand operations to Canada, U.K., France, Spain, and Germany.
TechStyle first brand is JustFab, followed by FabKids, Fab Shoes, Shoe Dazzle, Fabletics, and FL2 brands. All TechStyle’s brands offer consumers VIP Membership to benefit the company and its shoppers. Subscription membership costs a member $39.95 per month, which is $479.40 yearly, if the member decides to shop every month. The online fashion subscription membership is one of the best marketing strategies introduced to the internet for branding and marketing at http://www.crosscut.vc/adam-goldenberg. It guarantees revenue on a monthly basis for the company and offers members inexpensive trendy and quality fashion, including clothes, shoes, handbags, athletic & sportswear, and accessories.
Within six years, Adam Goldenberg and the TechStyle team have worked thoroughly to perfect customer service and grow its brands in national and international markets. Fabletics Brand was founded by Goldenberg, Kate Hudson and Ressler in 2013 and received speedy growth in two years, making it the fastest rising brand of them all. The brand opened six locations this year and expects to open up to 100 new Fabletics stores nationwide, by 2021.
When comparing the new online shopping trend to traditional shopping trends, online subscription membership offers shoppers the best benefits economically. Adam Goldenberg became an entrepreneur as a teenager after successfully building a website and information technology support. Since JustFab Inc. launched its first brand, JustFab TechStyle Fashion has introduced six new brands and reached a broader audience.
The new name integrates every aspect of the company and Goldenberg. He has years of experience in technology, marketing, and the fashion industry. In addition to rebranding JustFab Inc., Adam Goldenberg also created successful marketing and branding strategies to increase global and national growth and subscription memberships.
Author whitechalk22Posted on September 4, 2016 September 26, 2016 Categories Entrepreneurship1 Comment on Adam Goldenberg Changes the Online Shopping Trend with Fashion Subscription Membership
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HomeSportWhat are the best marathons held worldwide?
What are the best marathons held worldwide?
The Marathon traces its beginnings from a legend from Greece where supposedly, a Greek soldier named Pheidippides ran two hundred forty kilometers to bring news about the Battle of Marathon according to Herodotus. Nonetheless, modern marathon which became an Olympic event in 1986 covers an official distance of 26 miles and 385 yards. Presently, contemporary athletes join best marathons in the world as they are challenged to maintain or even improve their personal record. In fact, around 500 marathons are held in different countries around the world. However, only a few running events can be considered as best marathons since the event usually requires qualifying time for participants. To be specific, some of the best marathons like the Boston marathon requires a male forty year old and above to complete the course in less than 3 hours and 20 minutes. The qualifying time depends in the age group and gender which can be very discriminating for the common folks.The Best marathons typically include the Five Marathon majors: Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London and New York City.
The Flora London Marathon is known as one of the best marathons since it challenges professional runners in which thousands of people cheer the athletes which can be awesome for a beginner. The track passes through historic places with various twists and turns that makes the run exciting. However, the cobblestone footpaths near the Tower of London should be noted by runners.
The Berlin Marathon is also regarded as one of the Best Marathons since aside from a record breaking course, one gets to run through historic places as well as modern hi-tech shops that showcase the old and new Berlin. Aside from the great sights, the event is effectively managed by the organizers. The route is rather flat, wide and straight so no uphill challenges like London marathon.
The Boston Marathon is considered as the oldest marathon event in the world. However, as aforementioned, the strict qualifying time disqualifies a lot of recreational runners from joining it. To become a participant would mean belonging to an elite group of runners who have concentrated all their focus for this event. Surely, the crowds cheer makes you feel like it’s an Olympic event.
Indeed, joining the best marathons of the world is a dream come true for every runner.
Things you need to know about beginner marathon training
How To Prepare Before Wrestling Duals
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Henrietta Fore (UNICEF) and Mark Lowcock (OCHA) on the Democratic Republic of the Congo - Press Conference (25 March 2019)
25 Mar 2019 - Press conference by Ms. Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of the UN International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and Mr. Mark Lowcock, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator will brief reporters on their recent visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
English 2 Jan 2014
Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency...
Daily Press Briefing with guest: Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General for...
Briefing by the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency...
English 3 Nov 2014
Peter Salama, Global Ebola Emergency Coordinator (UNICEF) on UNICEF’s response...
English 9 Jul 2019
Liu Zhenmin (USG DESA), Francesca Perucci (UN Statistics) on…
Gustavo Meza-Cuadra (PSC) on the programme of work of the Security…
Frank Laczko (IOM) on the launch of a new report entitled “Fatal…
WHO - Press Conference : Update on Ebola operations in DRC (Geneva…
Special Rapporteur on Executions (OHCHR) - Press Conference:…
Press Conference: Chantal Line Carpentier (UNCTAD) on the launch…
The situation in South Sudan - Press Conference (26 June 201…
UN Geneva Director General - Press Conference (Geneva, 25 June…
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Dr. Sandra Knapp
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
Natural History Museum, London
Biological and related sciences
Plant Science (Botany)
Biodiversity Informatics
Honorary Doctorate, University of Stockholm, Sweden, 2011
Sir John Burnett Medal, National Biodiversity Network (NBN), United Kingdom, 2009
Peter Raven Outreach Award: American Society of Plant Taxonomists, 2009
Prix P.J. Redouté, JASPE literary prize for books on botany/gardening; awarded for Potted Histories in the French translation Le voyage botánique,
American Association of University Women Educational Foundation Fellow, 1984
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Outstanding Teaching Assistant award, Cornell University, 1983
Vaile Prize for Botany, Pomona College, 1978
Lectures, Membership in scientific bodies
English, French, Spanish
1986: Botany
I attended university at the liberal arts institution Pomona College in Claremont, California USA and received my BA in 1978. I then began my studies in plant ecology at the University of California at Irvine before transferring to Cornell University (Ithaca NY USA) in 1980 to work with the late Dr Michael D Whalen for my doctorate on taxonomy of Solanum section Geminata (Solanaceae) – a group of Neotropical forest trees and shrubs in the nightshade family. I took a year off during my PhD to collect plants in Panama for the Missouri Botanical Garden, then returned to finish my PhD in 1986. I spent much of my time during my PhD in the field in South and Central America, collecting and studying plants in their natural environments. I came to the Natural History Museum in 1992 to manage the international programme Flora Mesoamericana and have been there since, enjoying my work on the nightshade family and wide range of other biodiversity-related topics.
Knapp, S. 2002. Tobacco to tomatoes: a phylogenetic perspective on fruit diversity in the Solanaceae. Journal of Experimental Botany 53: 2001-2022.
Knapp, S. 2008. Taxonomy as a team sport. In: Q. Wheeler (ed.) The New Taxonomy, pp. 33-53. Systematics Association Special Volume 76. CRC Press, London.
Knapp, S. 2010. On "various contrivances": pollination, phylogeny and flower form in the Solanaceae. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, series B, Biological Sciences 365: 449-460.
Knapp, S. 2013. A revision of the Dulcamaroid Clade of Solanum L. (Solanaceae). PhytoKeys 22: 1-432.
Särkinen, T., R.G. Olmstead, L. Bohs & S. Knapp. 2013. A phylogenetic framework for evolutionary study of the nightshades (Solanaceae): a dated 1000-tip tree. BMC Evolutionary Biology 13: 214.
Knapp, S., M.S. Vorontsova & J. Prohens. 2013. Wild relatives of the eggplant (Solanum melongena L.: Solanaceae): new understanding of species names in a complex group. PLoS ONE 8(2): e57039. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0057039.
Complete list of publications
Solanaceae Source (www.solanacceaesource.org)
Flora Mesoamericana
Chili pepper phylogeny and evolution
Biodiversity conservation in South America
Evolution of plant domestication
Plant-insect interactions in Solanaceae
Fellow and Past Botanical Secretary of the Linnean Society of London
Member of BBSRC Biosciences and Society Strategy Panel
Member of Panel National Geographic Society Global Exploration Fund-Northern Europe
Many professorship juries and grant evaluation panels in Europe and USA
I regularly appear in programmes on the BBC, particularly on Radio 4 (e.g., The Life Scientific – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0477pgv)
Exploration and plant collecting
Popular book authorship
Three children, born 1987, 1989 and 1990 – one now a theoretical astrophysicist, one an artist and the other in financial public relations. Great dinner table conversations!
Dr. Sonja-Verena Albers
Biological and related sciences Molecular biology, molecular microbiology, biochemistry, membrane protein biochemistry
Prof. Dr. Anna Akhmanova
Biological and related sciences Cell Biology, Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Microscopy
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Abbasid Caliphs
The Abbasid caliphs were the holders of the Islamic title of caliph who were members of the Abbasid dynasty, a branch of the Quraysh
Quraysh tribe descended from the uncle of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib. The family came to power in the Abbasid Revolution
Abbasid Revolution in 748–750, supplanting the Umayyad
Umayyad Caliphate. They were the rulers of the Abbasid Caliphate, as well as the generally recognized ecumenical heads of Islam, until the 10th century, when the Shi'a
Shi'a Fatimid Caliphate (established in 909) and the Caliphate of Córdoba
Caliphate of Córdoba (established in 929) challenged their primacy. The political decline of the Abbasids had begun earlier, during the Anarchy at Samarra
Anarchy at Samarra (861–870), which accelerated the fragmentation of the Muslim world into autonomous dynasties
"Abbasid Caliphs" on:
Islam (/ˈɪslɑːm/)[note 1] is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion teaching that there is only one God
God (Allah)[1] and that Muhammad
Muhammad is the messenger of God.[2][3] It is the world's second-largest religion[4] and the fastest-growing major religion in the world,[5][6][7] with over 1.8 billion followers or 24.1% of the global population,[8] known as Muslims.[9] Muslims make up a majority of the population in 50 countries.[4] Islam
Islam teaches that God
God is merciful, all-powerful, unique[10] and has guided mankind through prophets, revealed scriptures and natural signs.[3][11] The primary scriptures of Islam
Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the verbatim word of God, and the teachings and normative example (called the sunnah, composed of accounts called hadith) of Muhammad
Muhammad (c
"Islam" on:
Al-Khayzuran
Al-Khayzuran bint Atta (Arabic: الخيزران بنت عطاء) (died 789) was the wife of the Abbasid
Abbasid Caliph
Caliph Al-Mahdi
Al-Mahdi and mother of both Caliphs Al-Hadi
Al-Hadi and Harun al-Rashid. She is known for the great influence in state affairs she wielded during the reign of both her spouse and that of her sons, from 775 until 789.Contents1 Life1.1 Reign of Al-Mahdi 1.2 Reign of Al-Hadi 1.3 Reign of Harun al-Rashid2 Legacy 3 See also 4 References 5 BibliographyLife[edit] Al-Khayzuran was from Jorash, near modern Bisha, Saudi Arabia. She was kidnapped from her home by a Bedouin
Bedouin who then sold her in a slave market near Mecca
Mecca to Al-Mahdi
Al-Mahdi during his pilgrimage
"Al-Khayzuran" on:
Muhammad Ibn Ali Ibn Abdallah
Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Abdallah or Muhammad al-Imâm was the son of Ali ibn Abd Allah ibn al-Abbas and great-grandson of al-‘Abbas ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib, the uncle of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad
"Muhammad Ibn Ali Ibn Abdallah" on:
Battle Of Talas
The Battle of Talas, Battle of Talas
Battle of Talas River, or Battle of Artlakh (Chinese: 怛羅斯戰役; Arabic: معركة نهر طلاس) was a military engagement between the Arab Abbasid
Abbasid Caliphate along with their ally the Tibetan Empire
Tibetan Empire against the Chinese Tang dynasty, governed at the time by Emperor Xuanzong. In July 751 CE, Tang and Abbasid
Abbasid forces met in the valley of the Talas River
Talas River to vie for control over the Syr Darya
Syr Darya region of central Asia. After several days of stalemate, the Karluks
Karluks originally allied to the Tang defected to the Abbasids and tipped over the balance of power, resulting in a Tang rout
"Battle Of Talas" on:
Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea
Caspian Sea in the west to China
China in the east and from Afghanistan
Afghanistan in the south to Russia
Russia in the north. It is also colloquially referred to as "the stans" as the countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix "-stan", meaning "land of".[1] Central Asia
Asia has a population of about 70 million, consisting of five republics: Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan (pop
"Central Asia" on:
Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate
Caliphate (Arabic: ٱلْخِلافَةُ ٱلأُمَوِيَّة, trans. Al-Khilāfatu al-ʾUmawiyyah), also spelt Omayyad,[2] was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty
Umayyad dynasty (Arabic: ٱلأُمَوِيُّون, al-ʾUmawiyyūn, or بَنُو أُمَيَّة, Banū ʾUmayya, "Sons of Umayya"), hailing from Mecca. An Umayyad clan member had previously come to power as the third Rashidun
Rashidun Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan
Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644–656), but official Umayyad rule was established by Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, long-time governor of Syria, after the end of the First Muslim Civil War in AD 661
"Umayyad" on:
Abd Al-Rahman I
Abd al-Rahman I, more fully Abd al-Rahman ibn Mu'awiya ibn Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan
Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (731–788), was the founder of a Muslim dynasty that ruled the greater part of Iberia for nearly three centuries (including the succeeding Caliphate of Córdoba)
"Abd Al-Rahman I" on:
Emirate Of Córdoba
The Emirate
Emirate of Córdoba (Arabic: إمارة قرطبة, Imārah Qurṭuba) was an independent emirate in the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula ruled by the Umayyad dynasty with Córdoba as its capital. After the Umayyad conquest of Hispania
Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711–718, the Iberian Peninsula was established as a province under the Umayyad Caliphate. The rulers of this province established their capital in Córdoba and received from the Umayyad Caliphate
Umayyad Caliphate the title of wali or emir. In 756, Abd al-Rahman I, a prince of the deposed Umayyad royal family, refused to recognize the authority of the Abbasid Caliphate
Abbasid Caliphate and became an independent emir of Córdoba. He had been on the run for six years after the Umayyads had lost the position of caliph in Damascus
Damascus in 750 to the Abbasids
"Emirate Of Córdoba" on:
Al-Andalus (Arabic: الأنْدَلُس, trans. al-ʼAndalus; Spanish: al-Ándalus; Portuguese: al-Ândalus; Catalan: al-Àndalus; Berber: Andalus), also known as Muslim Spain, Muslim Iberia, or Islamic Iberia, was a medieval Muslim territory and cultural domain occupying at its peak most of what are today Spain and Portugal. At its greatest geographical extent in the 8th century, a part of southern France—Septimania—was briefly under its control
"Al-Andalus" on:
Zaydi Shi'a
Zaidiyyah or Zaidism (Arabic: الزيدية az-zaydiyya, adjective form Zaidi or Zaydi) is one of the Shia
Shia sects closest in terms of theology to Hanafi
Hanafi Sunni
Sunni Islam.[1] Zaidiyyah
Zaidiyyah emerged in the eighth century out of Shi'a
Shi'a Islam.[2] Zaidis are named after Zayd ibn ʻAlī, the grandson of Husayn ibn ʻAlī and the son of their fourth Imam Ali ibn 'Husain.[2] Followers of the Zaydi Islamic jurisprudence
Islamic jurisprudence are called Zaydi and make up about 35–42% of Muslims in Yemen, with the vast majority of Shia
Shia Muslims in the country being Zaydi.[3][4] Zaidis dismiss religious dissimulation (taqiyya).[5] Zaydis were the oldest branch of the Shia
Shia and are currently the second largest group after Twelvers
"Zaydi Shi'a" on:
Ottoman Conquest Of Egypt
The Ottoman–Mamluk War of 1516–1517 was the second major conflict between the Egypt-based Mamluk Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire, which led to the fall of the Mamluk Sultanate and the incorporation of the Levant, Egypt and the Hejaz as provinces of the Ottoman Empire.[1] The war transformed the Ottoman Empire from a realm at the margins of the Islamic world, mainly located in Anatolia and the Balkans, to a huge empire encompassing much of the traditional lands of Islam, including the cities of Mecca, Cairo, Damascus and Aleppo
"Ottoman Conquest Of Egypt" on:
Idrisid Dynasty
The Idrisids (Arabic: الأدارسة al-Adārisah) were an Arab-Berber[1][2] Zaydi-Shia[3] dynasty of Morocco,[4] ruling from 788 to 974. Named after the founder Idriss I, the great grandchild of Hasan ibn Ali, the Idrisids are considered to be the founders of the first Moroccan state.[5][6]Contents1 History 2 The dynasty2.1 Rulers 2.2 Timeline 2.3 Offshoots3 See also 4 Notes and references 5 Sources 6 External linksHistory[edit] The founder of the dynasty was Idris ibn Abdallah
Idris ibn Abdallah (788–791),[7] who traced his ancestry back to Ali ibn Abi Talib[7] and his wife Fatimah, daughter of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. After the Battle of Fakhkh, near Mecca, between the Abbasids
Abbasids and a Shiite party, Idris ibn Abdallah fled to the Maghreb
"Idrisid Dynasty" on:
Coordinates: 32°N 6°W / 32°N 6°W / 32; -6Kingdom of Moroccoالمملكة المغربية (Arabic) ⵜⴰⴳⵍⴷⵉⵜ ⵏ ⵍⵎⵖⵔⵉⴱ (Berber)FlagCoat of armsMotto: لله، الوطن، الملك (Arabic) Allah, Al Watan, Al Malik ⴰⴽⵓⵛ, ⴰⵎⵓⵔ, ⴰⴳⵍⵍⵉⴷ (Berber)"God, Homeland, King"Anthem: النشيد الوطني المغربي (Arabic) ⵉⵣⵍⵉ ⴰⵏⴰⵎⵓⵔ ⵏ ⵍⵎⵖⵔⵉⴱ (Berber) Cherifian AnthemDark green: Internationally recognized territory of Morocco. Lighter green: Western Sahara, a territory claimed and mostly controlled by Morocco
"Morocco" on:
Aghlabids
French Algeria
Algeria (19th - 20th centuries)French conquest French governorsResistance Pacification Emir
Emir Abdelkader Fatma N'SoumerMokrani Revolt Cheikh BouamamaNationalism RCUA FLN GPRAAlgerian War 19
"Aghlabids" on:
Ifriqiya
Ifriqiya or Ifriqiyah (Arabic: إفريقية Ifrīqya) or el-Maghrib el-Adna (Lower West) was the area during medieval history that comprises what is today Tunisia, Tripolitania (western Libya) and the Constantinois (eastern Algeria); all part of what was previously included in the Africa Province of the Roman Empire.[1]. The southern boundary of Ifriqiya was far more unchallenged as bounded by the semi-arid areas and the salt marshes called el-Djerid. The northern and western boundaries fluctuated; at times as far north as Sicily otherwise just along the coastline, and the western boundary usually went as far as Béjaïa
"Ifriqiya" on:
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Why are Denver's jails still crowded?
Nine years ago Denver voters approved a $378 million bond package that upgraded the city's antiquated, unsafe and crowded criminal justice facilities — a project that brought new structures and modern touches but strangely did not solve a glaring problem.
The jails are still crowded.
After a net gain of 864 beds from the bond project, the city is now looking at spending millions more to build more jail space or hire more jail staff.
Though Denver has implemented numerous diversion programs to keep people out of jail and crime rates have fallen, the city's jails continue to fill.
By next year, officials say, the jails could be overcrowded once again.
"That surprises me," said James Mejia, who was the justice center's project manager at the time. "We had projections that it would be a couple more decades before the facilities would be full. ... I am saddened to hear that if that is the case."
In a strange conundrum, jail bookings have decreased but the jail population has increased. Inmates are simply staying in jail longer.
Felony filings have increased 30 percent since 2010 to nearly 6,500 filings in 2013. Those cases take longer to get to trial.
One day last week, nearly 40 percent of the jail's population was classified as "pre-trial felons," according to the sheriff's department.
One reason for the recent uptick in felony cases may be rooted in technology.
In recent years, the city has upgraded its fingerprint and DNA detection systems, and in July of last year opened a new, $28 million crime lab. Those programs immediately struck gold.
In one year, police say, there has been a 42 percent increase in forensic leads on fingerprints and a 129 percent increase on DNA-related leads.
"Our hits are going through the roof," said Denver Police Commander Matt Murray. "People who go in on a traffic warrant are getting arrested on felonies when they get a hit (from their fingerprints) on a case. We are catching more people. But there is an unintended consequence. With an increase in this technology, you are putting more people in jail."
Last month Denver Sheriff Gary Wilson told City Council members if inmate trends continue, the jail's total rated capacity of 2,330 average daily inmates is expected to be exceeded by 2015.
Further, Wilson predicts that number could hit 2,512 by 2018.
Denver's jail facilities actually have more space that is not being used — two shuttered facilities at the Smith Road complex and an unfinished floor on a jail building constructed in 2012 with bond money.
If those buildings were opened, capacity at the county jail on Smith Road and the downtown detention center would total 2,698 beds.
To reopen the two shuttered and old facilities on Smith Road would add 368 more beds, but the sheriff's department would need to increase staffing by 51 people at an estimated cost of $3 million a year. That would likely be a budget item that would need City Council approval.
To finish the unfinished third floor on the new facility on Smith Road would add 128 new beds, but the city would need to spend an additional $6 million. A funding source has yet to be identified, but it would not come from the 2005 justice center bond. Those dollars have already been spent.
Why do we appear to be right back where we were in 2005 after spending hundreds of millions of dollars?
Wilson said plans were not short-sighted and taxpayers weren't fooled. But critics say the system is broken and the issue will never be solved by adding more jail space.
"The problem wasn't that the previous jail was too small," said Christie Donner, director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, who fought the 2005 vote for a new justice center. "There were significant problems of how we used jail beds. We still haven't solved those problems."
In the campaign of 2005, voters were told many things that didn't materialize.
They were promised a new downtown courthouse with 35 courtrooms. Instead, one with 29 courtrooms was built, with six courtrooms "shelled" for later use.
They were told a separate parking garage would be built with 451 public spaces. Instead, one was built with 233 public spaces.
They heard a new building would be constructed at the jail on Smith Road with room for 385 inmates. Instead, one was built for 256 inmates with the top floor delayed for possible later construction.
One promise that was kept is bringing the project in on budget. It's no wonder.
No question the bond that was approved by 56 percent of voters was necessary because the city had decrepit and dangerous facilities. But the campaign never suggested the jails would fill again 10 years after the election.
"If you build it, they will come," said Maureen Cain, policy director for Colorado Criminal Defense Bar Foundation.
Cain said many people in jail are on pre-trial holds because they cannot afford to pay bond amounts. A disproportionate number of those are minorities. A recent study of the jail population on one day last year found that 70 percent of the pre-trial detainees were minorities, she said.
They stay in jail awaiting their court appearances and then get probation when they are sentenced, said Donner.
"We put them in jail before they are convicted," she said. "Then after they are convicted, they are on community supervision. How much sense does that make?"
In 2005, the city created a 32-member Crime Prevention and Control Commission to work with criminal justice agencies on ways to reduce crime, cut recidivism and manage the jail population.
Statistics show the commission's work has paid off, reversing a 46-year trend of yearly population increases at Denver's jail.
Specifically, the commission has reduced the average daily jail population by 546 inmates a day through various programs, according to Regina Huerter, executive director of the commission.
Nearly 80,000 jail bed days were saved in 2013 by placing pre-trial inmates on electronic monitoring, according to the city's 2014 budget.
An estimated 94,300 jail bed days were saved due to the pre-trial supervision program that determines a defendant's eligibility to be released from jail before trial.
Other programs are worth noting.
The city stopped jailing people for failing to pay fines or failing to pay their RTD tickets. A sobriety court has reduced bed stays. And the city's Chrysalis Program has worked to get prostitutes off the streets and out of jail.
The city is about to launch a program that focuses on a "front-end user" population of 299 frequent fliers into the criminal justice system. They are generally homeless transients, mentally ill and addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Of those offenders, 299 accounted for 14,283 charges over a seven-year period.
Last year, the total criminal justice expenses for arresting, jailing and prosecuting 208 of those offenders was nearly $3 million. Each of them spent an average of 72 days in jail.
Their expenses aren't just for criminal justice interactions.
A total of 239 of those front-end users also were seen at Denver Health in 2012, visits that included detox, emergency room and psychiatric stays. Only a handful had health insurance. The total cost for health care was $8 million.
"They are an expensive group," Huerter said.
The city is creating a separate court process for the front-end users — flagging them when they are arrested and setting them up for a special program that will attempt to deal with their mental illnesses or addictions.
In sentencing, for example, front-end users could start treatment in jail or have an option to serve their time in the Fort Lyon Residential Treatment Center.
"It really is a population that we can catch," Huerter said. "We feel we can cut in half their total cost and reduce their likelihood of offending."
Denver County presiding judge John Marcucci, in his chambers recently, flipped through photos of prostitutes' mug shots. Their faces showed the destruction of life on the streets over time. He has photos on the wall of some of those women who went through the Chrysalis Program and are in recovery with their children in group home.
The judge's eyes misted over, fearing people will focus only on the increasing numbers of inmates and not understand the work he and others like Huerter and Sheriff Wilson have been doing to reduce the population.
"We are trying to make our system better and temper that with justice," Marcucci said. "We are doing everything we possibly can to make sure we have the right people in jail."
Read more: Meyer: Why are Denver's jails still crowded? - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_25636303/why-are-denvers-jails-still-crowded#ixzz308vbOpJv
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Man spends 16 years in solitary for a crime he did not commit
The United States Department of Justice -- Clemency Initiative
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole at the Press Conference Announcing the Clemency Initiative
Washington, D.C. ~ Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Good morning and thank you all for being here. I am pleased to announce a Department of Justice initiative to encourage qualified federal inmates to petition to have their sentences commuted, or reduced, by the President of the United States.
Last year, the Attorney General launched a new “Smart on Crime” initiative. Smart on Crime was conceived with an eye toward addressing the crises caused by a vastly overcrowded prison population and with a goal of redirecting some of the dollars we spend on prisons to prosecutors and law enforcement agents working to keep our streets safer. It is designed to strengthen the criminal justice system, promote public safety, and deliver on the promise of equal justice under law.
In 2010, President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced unfair disparities in sentences for offenses involving crack cocaine. But the Fair Sentencing Act did not apply to those who were sentenced before its passage. And now there are many people in federal prison who were sentenced under the old regime – and who, as a result, will have to spend far more time in prison than they would if sentenced today for exactly the same crime. The fundamental American concept, equal justice under law, requires that our laws be enforced fairly – and not just going forward, but it is equally important that we extend this fairness to those who are already serving prison sentences for their crimes.
Last December, President Obama took steps toward addressing this situation by granting commutations to eight men and women who had each served more than 15 years in prison for crack cocaine offenses. For two of these individuals, it was the first conviction they’d ever received – yet, due to mandatory guidelines that were considered severe at the time, and are out of date today – they and four others had received life sentences. Since that time, the President has indicated that he wants to be able to consider additional, similar applications for commutation of sentence, to restore a degree of fairness and proportionality for deserving individuals. The Justice Department is committed to responding to the President’s directive by finding additional candidates who are similarly situated to those granted clemency last year, and recommending qualified applicants for reduced sentences.
We are launching this clemency initiative in order to quickly and effectively identify appropriate candidates, candidates who have a clean prison record, do not present a threat to public safety, and were sentenced under out-of-date laws that have since been changed, and are no longer seen as appropriate. While those sentenced prior to the Fair Sentencing Act may be the most obvious candidates, this initiative is not limited to crack offenders. Rather, the initiative is open to candidates who meet six criteria: they must be (1) inmates who are currently serving a federal sentence in prison and, by operation of law, likely would have received a substantially lower sentence if convicted of the same offense today; (2) are non-violent, low-level offenders without significant ties to large-scale criminal organizations, gangs, or cartels; (3) have served at least 10 years of their sentence; (4) do not have a significant criminal history; (5) have demonstrated good conduct in prison; and (6) have no history of violence prior to or during their current term of imprisonment.
Identifying worthy candidates within our large prison population will be no easy feat. A good number of inmates will not meet the six criteria. But we are dedicating significant time and resources to ensure that all potentially eligible petitions are reviewed and then processed quickly to ensure timely justice.
First, we have put in place an extensive screening mechanism. Next week, the Bureau of Prisons is notifying all federal inmates of our initiative and providing them with these six criteria. If an inmate believes he or she fits these six criteria, the Bureau of Prisons will provide them with an electronic survey to fill out that will allow Department lawyers to efficiently screen whether the petition merits further consideration.
Second, I am pleased to announce that all inmates who appear to meet these six criteria will be offered the assistance of an experienced pro bono attorney in preparing his or her application for clemency. In January, I gave a speech to the New York State Bar Association in which I called upon private attorneys to volunteer to assist potential candidates in assembling commutation petitions – ones which provide a focused presentation of the information the Department and the President will consider – in order to meaningfully evaluate whether a petitioner qualifies under this initiative. Since that time, dedicated and experienced criminal defense and nonprofit lawyers have responded to that call. These numerous groups and individual attorneys, who are calling themselves Clemency Project 2014, will be working with inmates who appear to meet the six criteria and request the assistance of a lawyer. I am very grateful for the work of these volunteers and am confident that their commitment and expertise will result in high-quality petitions that the Department of Justice will be able to process on a more efficient basis.
Third, the Department of Justice is detailing lawyers to the Pardon Attorney’s Office on a temporary basis to review applications for commutation submitted under this initiative. These attorneys – importantly, to include those with experience as federal prosecutors – will provide the rigorous scrutiny that all clemency applications must undergo while providing the additional eyes necessary to review the numerous additional petitions that are invariably likely to be submitted. In addition, we are taking the unusual step of working with the Federal Public Defender Service to try to get some of their attorneys detailed to the Pardon Attorney’s Office to support this initiative. I will be personally involved in ensuring the Pardon Attorney’s office has the resources needed to make timely and effective recommendations to the President.
Fourth, once we have made a preliminary determination that a petition is worthy of serious consideration, we will consult with both the United States Attorney’s Office and the trial judge that handled the case to get their views on the propriety of granting the application.
Finally, I want to thank Ron Rodgers for his service as the United States Pardon Attorney. Over the past several years, Ron has performed admirably in what is a very tough job. He has demonstrated dedication and integrity in his work on pardons and commutations. In the tradition of Senior Executive Service attorneys in the Department, Ron has asked me to allow him to move on to another assignment within the Department. I told him I would do that, but only after he helped with the transition to new leadership in the Pardon Attorney’s Office. In that vein, I am pleased to announce that Deborah Leff will be coming in to lead the Pardon Attorney’s Office. Debby has committed her career to the very basis of this initiative - achieving equal justice under law. As Acting Senior Counselor for Access to Justice, her fundamental mission has been to help the justice system deliver outcomes that are fair and accessible to all. She has worked to increase access to legal counsel and legal assistance for those who are unable to afford lawyers. And, she has also been instrumental in the standing up of Clemency Project 2014. Importantly, she is known in both the Department and the legal community as a dedicated advocate and public servant. I am confident that she will do a wonderful job providing recommendations to me and the President on this initiative and on the clemency process going forward.
Let there be no mistake, this clemency initiative should not be understood to minimize the seriousness of our federal criminal law and is designed, first and foremost, with public safety in mind. Even low-level offenders cause harm to people through their criminal actions, and many need to be incarcerated. Our prosecutors and law enforcement agents worked diligently and honorably to collect evidence and charge these defendants, and then fairly and effectively obtained their convictions. These defendants were properly held accountable for their criminal conduct. However, some of them, simply because of the operation of sentencing laws on the books at the time, received substantial sentences that are disproportionate to what they would receive today. Even the sentencing judges in many of these cases expressed regret at the time at having to impose such harsh sentences. And several United States Attorneys are proactively providing names of individuals they believe should be part of this initiative. Correcting these sentences is simply a matter of fairness that is fundamental to our principles at the Department, and is a commitment that all Department of Justice employees stand behind.
In the same vein, it is important to remember that commutations are not pardons. They are not exonerations. They are not an expression of forgiveness. Rather, as the President said, they are an “important step toward restoring fundamental ideals of justice and fairness.” He noted that “many of [these individuals] would have already served their time and paid their debt to society” had they been sentenced under current law. For our criminal justice system to be effective, it needs to not only be fair; but it also must be perceived as being fair. These older, stringent punishments that are out of line with sentences imposed under today's laws erode people’ s confidence in our criminal justice system. I am confident that this initiative will go far to promote the most fundamental of American ideals - equal justice under law.
House Judiciary passes bill to limit solitary confinement for mentally ill
The Colorado House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved a bill that would restrict prison officials from placing inmates in "long term" solitary confinement if they are mentally ill.
The bill, introduced following the slaying of prisons chief Tom Clements last year, already passed the Senate. Clements was killed by a parolee who spent several years in administrative segregation, also known as solitary.
The bill now goes to the House Appropriations Committee.
If the bill is enacted into law, the Colorado Department of Corrections would have 90 days to evaluate all offenders in solitary confinement.
If the department determines the offender is mentally ill, the state would have to move them to a step-down unit, a prison for the mentally ill or other housing.
Rep. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, said the bill is important for offenders in solitary confinement who are mentally ill, but he added that it will come with costs. According to the current amendment those costs will be about $1.6 million a year.
"Keeping mentally ill patients out of administrative segregation is crucial," agreed Rep. Lois Court, D-Denver. "But there is so much more to be done."
Kellie Wasko, deputy executive director of CDOC, said that 1,979 Colorado inmates, or about one in 10, have been diagnosed with a serious mental illness and of those 1,400 are in the general population.
The Senate bill is sponsored by Sens. Lucia Guzman D-Denver, and Jessie Ulibarri, D-Westminster, and Rep. Joseph A. Salazar of Thornton.
"Warehousing prisoners with mental illness in long-term solitary confinement is a cruel, costly and unlawful practice that unnecessarily jeopardizes public safety," said Denise Maes, the American Civil Liberties Union's Colorado public policy director.
In testimony Maes said rehabilitation strategies are critical, because 97 percent of prisoners will be released into communities.
She said solitary confinement cells are a bit bigger than a king-size bed and offenders stay there more than 22 hours a day where they "sleep, eat and defecate — one lives their entire daily life in that cell."
Read more: House panel OKs bill limiting solitary confinement for mentally ill - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_25614896/house-considers-bill-limiting-solitary-confinement-mentally-ill#ixzz2ziAuW2ly
Solitary Nation
Warning Extremely Graphic
With extraordinary access, award-winning producer and director Dan Edge takes you to the epicenter of the raging debate about prison reform. "Solitary Nation" offers an up-close, graphic look at a solitary confinement unit in Maine’s maximum-security prison with firsthand accounts from prisoners and staff whose lives are forever altered by this troubled system.
Man spends 16 years in solitary for a crime he did...
The United States Department of Justice -- Clemenc...
House Judiciary passes bill to limit solitary conf...
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1984-85 Central Red Army Igor Larionov Jersey
Born on this date in 1960, Igor Larionov began his career with Khimik Voskresensk of the Soviet League in the 1977-78 season, scoring 3 goals in 6 games. He also appeared in the European Junior Championships that same season, igniting a long and illustrious international career.
He would three more seasons for Khimik, raising his point total to 7 in 1978-79 and 18 in 1979-80 before erupting for 45 points from 22 goals and 23 assists in 43 games in 1980-81. During that span Larionov would also appear for the Soviet Union in a pair of World Junior Championships, twice scoring 6 points in 5 games while earning gold medals in both 1979 and 1980, and then joining the senior national team for the 1981 Canada Cup tournament, which also saw the Soviets come home with the championship title as Larionov contributed 4 goals in 7 contests.
As was regularly the case, when a player began to stand out as an elite talent, he would find himself on the roster of the Central Red Army club, and Larionov was no exception. Identified by coach Viktor Tikhonov as just such a player, he began his career with CSKA Moscow in the fall of 1981. He immediately made his presence known by setting a career high with 31 goals on his way to 53 points in 46 games while centering a line with wingers Vladimir Krutov and Sergei Makarov, the trio striking fear into the hearts of opponents as the KLM Line. Red Army would win the Soviet League championship in 1981, and for the next seven seasons, Larionov and Red Army were an unstoppable force, eventually winning titles during each of Larionov's eight seasons with CSKA.
A personal highlight for Larionov came during the 1987-88 season when he scored 32 assists and 57 points, both personal bests while in the Soviet League. His efforts were recognized when he was named the league's Most Valuable Player.
After joining CSKA in 1981-82, Larionov made his World Championship debut, immediately earning a gold medal thanks in part to his 10 points in 10 games. A second gold followed in 1983, a tournament which saw him rack up 12 points in just 9 games. He also toured North America as part of the 1983 Super Series, which saw the Soviets playing against NHL club teams.
His Olympic debut came in 1984, where Larionov quickly earned a gold medal in his first attempt, followed later in the year by his second Canada Cup. His streak of gold medals was interrupted with a bronze in the 1985 World Championships, but gold soon hung around his neck once again in 1986.
The famed Green Unit, which consisted of the KLM Line with the additions of Alexi Kasatonov and Slava Fetisov on defense
1987 saw a return to North America, has he participated in Rendez-vous '87, the two game series which pitted the Soviet National Team against a squad of NHL All-Stars. Later that spring, he added a silver medal to his collection at the World Championships. Prior to the start of the 1987-88 league schedule, Larionov took part in the third Canada Cup of his career.
Larionov guarded by Wayne Gretzky during the 1987 Canada Cup
After the calendar changed over to 1988, he captured his second Olympic gold medal following a fine effort, which saw him score 13 points in 8 games in Calgary.
Larionov then earned his fourth gold medal at the World Championships in 1989, but despite all the undeniable success he enjoyed in both the domestic league an international competition, all was not well behind the scenes, as Larionov had grown dissatisfied with the authoritarian rule over the players by Tikhonov, which extended into the players personal lives, as they were sometimes confined to barracks for training up to 11 months out of the year.
Finally, after having been drafted by the Vancouver Canucks back in 1985, Larionov was allowed to leave to play in North America for the 1989-90 season.
His North American career would run another 14 seasons and include time spent with not only the Canucks, but the San Jose Sharks, Detroit Red Wings, Florida Panthers and New Jersey Devils. he would even take a year away from the NHL, playing the 1992-93 season with HC Lugano in Switzerland prior to joining the Sharks.
While with Detroit, he enjoyed his greatest NHL success, winning Stanley Cups in 1997, 1998 and 2002, the first of which earned him membership in the exclusive Triple Gold Club for players who have won the World Championships, Olympics and Stanley Cup. He and long time Soviet National teammate Slava Fetisov became on the 7th and 8th members to join the club, which still numbers just 25 players, only six of which are Russians, now 15 years later.
Slava Kozlov, Slava Fetisov, Sergei Fedorov, Valdimir Konstantinov
and Larionov, known as "The Russian Five" pose
after winning the 1997 Stanley Cup
Further, he is one of only four players, along with Fetisov, Joe Sakic and Scott Niedermayer, to have won not only the three championships of the Triple Gold Club, but also either a Canada Cup or World Cup as well as gold at the World Junior Championships, and one of only two, with Fetsov, to add the Soviet League title as well.
With the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's, Larionov's international career would resume at the inaugural World Cup of Hockey in 1996, only now for the Russia National Team.
Larionov's first appearance for the Russia National Team in 1996
With the continuing playoff success of the Canucks, Sharks and especially the Red Wings, Larionov was unavailable for the World Championships each spring, but had one final opportunity to skate on the international stage, that coming in 2002 at the Olympics in Salt Lake City, where he earned a bronze medal as team captain to close out his stellar international career, which included 8 gold medals (4 World Championship, 2 World Juniors and 2 Olympic), 2 silvers (1 World Championship and 1 European Juniors) , 2 bronze (1 World Championship and 1 Olympic) and a Canada Cup.
Larionov was inducted into both the Hockey Hall of Fame and the IIHF Hall of Fame in 2008 in recognition of his stellar career.
Today's featured jersey is a 1984-85 Central Red Army Igor Larionov jersey. Much more striking visually than the spartan Soviet National Team jerseys of the same era, the Red Army jerseys benefit from the addition of the blue shoulders and stripes as well as the red stars on the shoulders and of course the hammer and sickle contained within.
Despite the communist ideals of the Soviet Union and amateur status of it's national team players, Red Army was not above entertaining the the occasional sponsorship from time to time, as seen on the back of this particular sweater!
This beautiful jersey is finished off with Larionov's name on the back in Cyrillic lettering and the very European style #8 with it's multiple layers of outlines and drop shadowing completing the look.
Bonus jersey: Today's bonus jersey is a 1990-91 Vancouver Canucks Igor Larionov jersey as worn during the early days of his NHL career following the domination of the Soviet portion of his career.
The Canucks had retreated from the wild jersey styles they had worn from 1978 to 1989, returning to a more conventional white jersey at home in 1989 in time for Larionov's arrival in Vancouver. They would continue to use this style throughout the 1996-97 season when a change in ownership led to an entirely new look, including not only the team logo but it's colors as well.
Today's video section begins with perhaps Larionov's best known goals, his triple overtime game winner in the 2002 Stanley Cup Finals, his second of the game.
Here is a look at Larionov's playing career, which includes footage from his early career in the Soviet Union.
Finally, not a Top 10, but a Top 15 goals scored by Larionov.
Labels: CSKA Moscow, Larionov Igor, Vancouver Canucks
2004-05 Cologne Sharks Dave McLlwain Jersey
On this date in 1992, Dave McLlwain played his first game with the Toronto Maple Leafs, tying Dennis O'Brien's NHL record, as it was McLlwain's fourth different team of the season!
McLlwain was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins 172nd overall in the 1986 NHL Entry Draft and began his tour of the NHL with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1987-88 by playing 66 games. He spent most of the following season with the Muskegon Lumberjacks of the IHL, but did get into 24 games with the Penguins.
The Penguins dealt him to the Winnipeg Jets for the 1989-90 season, in which he would have his best NHL season, scoring 25 goals and 26 assists for 51 points. Limited to 60 games in 1990-91, his production declined to 25 points.
The 1991-92 season began with McLlwain playing three games for the Jets, but was traded on October 11th to the Buffalo Sabres. His stay in Buffalo was brief, as having played just five games, McLlwain was on his way to the New York Islanders as part of the blockbuster deal involving Pierre Turgeon that brought Pat Lafontaine to the Sabres on October 25th.
McLlwain played 54 games for the Islanders, scoring 23 points, but then was dealt yet again to the Toronto Maple Leafs on March 10, 1992, where he played the final 11 games of the season and tied the NHL record by suiting up for his forth different NHL club of the season on this date in 1992.
In all, McLlwain played in 73 games that season, scoring 10 goals and 18 assists for 28 points, no doubt affected by the constant upheaval and time spent integrating into each club's schemes and learning his ever-shifting linemates.
He was able to call Toronto home for the entirety of the 1992-93 season, but was claimed by the Ottawa Senators in the waiver draft for the following season. He responded with 17 goals and 26 assists for the second highest total of his NHL career of 43 points.
McLlwain was limited to just 43 games in 1994-95 and spent most of 1995-96 with the Cleveland Lumberjacks of the IHL, scoring 75 points in 60 games, as well as appearing in 18 games with the Penguins, who acquired McLlwain from Ottawa.
McLlwain while with the Lumberjacks
After splitting time between the Lumberjacks, 75 points in 63 games, and the New York Islanders, where he played in four games, McLlwain's NHL career came to a close. His NHL totals were 501 games played, 100 goals and 107 assists for 207 points.
Even though McLlwain's NHL career was at an end, his playing days were far from over, as he spent the 1997-98 season with the Landshut Cannibals of the German DEL and the following two seasons with SC Bern of the Swiss National League A where he averaged more than a point per game, with 103 in 84 games.
Having played for 21 clubs in 13 seasons, McLlwain finally found stability when he signed with the Cologne Sharks (Kölner Haie) of the DEL, where he played nine seasons, winning a championship in 2002 and leading the team in scoring four times, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007 (the latter two leading the entire DEL) and was also named team captain.
McLlwain as captain of the Cologne Sharks
Today's featured jersey is a 2004-05 Kölner Haie (Cologne Sharks) Dave McLlwain jersey. This jersey is very representative of the typical European club team jersey, with all the elements of the basic jersey being dye-sublimated and numerous sponsorship logos, with perhaps a few being sewn on from time to time.
Today's bonus jersey is a 1991-92 Toronto Maple Leafs Dave McLlwain jersey as worn when McLlwain tied the NHL record by playing with the Maple Leafs, his fourth different team in that season.
This jersey features the NHL 75th Anniversary patch as worn on all players jerseys during the 1991-92 season.
Extra Bonus jersey: Here is the jersey presented to Dave McLlwain in the occasion of this 500th game in the DEL.
Today's video section begins with a goal by McLlwain during his rookie season with the Penguins when he knocks a puck out of mid-air past John Vanbiesbrouck of the New York Rangers.
Next, we feature a tribute to McLlwain that recounts his entire career, from the Kitchner Rangers in junior hockey, to the Pittsburgh Penguins representing the NHL portion of his career and then his time with Cologne in the DEL.
Sorry about the Whitney Houston as the choice of music. Germans. What can you say? These are the same people who like David Hasslehoff.
To read more on McLlwain, here is an extensive interview with "the heart, soul and brain" of the Cologne Sharks from their own website.
Labels: Cologne Sharks, DEL, McLlwain Dave
1999-00 Jacksonville Lizard Kings Ray LeBlanc Jersey
Massachusetts native and goaltender Ray LeBlanc played junior hockey for the Kitchener Rangers of the Ontario Hockey League in Canada in 1983-84. He then crossed back into the United States for 1984-85 for two seasons in the Atlantic Coast Hockey League, first with the Pinebridge Bucks and then the Carolina Thunderbirds for the 1985-86 season, where he had a stellar 33-9 record on the way to the playoff championship.
LeBlanc while with the Kitchener Rangers
He moved up to the IHL the next season, joining the Flint Spirits for the next three seasons, highlighted by being named Rookie of the Year in 1987 and posting a 27-19-8 record in 1987-88. After 15 games with Flint in 1988-89, he moved first to the Saginaw Hawks for 29 games and also made one appearance for the New Haven Nighthawks of the AHL that same season.
He settled back into the IHL for 1989-90, splitting time between the Fort Wayne Komets and the Indianapolis Ice, where he found a crowded crease, as future NHLers Darren Pang and Jimmy Waite were also on the roster which would go on to win the Turner Cup that season. LeBlanc was 15-6-2 in 23 appearances for Indianapolis.
LeBlanc with the Ice
LeBlanc began the 1990-91 season with the Ice, but after 3 games he found himself back in Fort Wayne for the majority of the season where he was one of six goaltenders to see time for the Komets.
He had the highest profile season of his career in 1991-92 when he was with the United States National Team for the early part of the season in preparation for the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. He played in 17 games in preparation for the Games, going 5-10-1.
The US was placed in Group A, which they won with a 4-0-1 record with a wins to open play over Italy, a shutout against Germany, a 4-1 win over Finland, another shutout, this time 3-0 against Poland and a 3-3 draw with Sweden, giving many hopes of a repeat of the gold medal of 1980. The US had an easy time of it in the Quarterfinals with a 4-1 win over France, but then a 5-2 loss to the Unified Team, consisting of several former members of the recently disbanded Soviet Union and a 6-1 thumping by Czechoslovakia left the US just shy of a medal in fourth place. Having started all 8 games, LeBlanc finished the tournament with a 5-2-1 record with a 2.20 goals against average and a .943 save percentage.
In goal for the United States
Following the Olympics he was back with the Indianapolis Ice, but was called up by the Chicago Blackhawks, making his NHL debut at the age of 27 on this date in 1992, leading Chicago to a 5-1 win over the San Jose Sharks. Unfortunately for LeBlanc, the depth of the goaltending situation in Chicago was stacked against him, with no less than Waite, Ed Belfour and Dominik Hasek in line in front of him! Chicago's plan was to play LeBlanc in an NHL game so he would qualify to be the goaltender they exposed for the upcoming NHL Expansion Draft, allowing them to protect the three incumbents.
LeBlanc's NHL debut with the Blackhawks
Following his win for Chicago, it was back to Indianapolis for the rest of the season and all of 1992-93. He opened the following season with the Ice, but was sent to the Cincinnati Cyclones after just 2 games. With the Cyclones he was 17-9-3.
During his time with the Cyclones
For 1994-95, LeBlanc found a home back in Chicago, only this time with the Wolves of the IHL where he would spend the next four seasons.
LeBlanc back in Chicago, but still in the IHL
After 14 appearances with the Wolves in 1997-98, he joined the Flint Generals of the United Hockey League, where his veteran experience led to a 12-4-5 record.
For the final two seasons of his career, LeBlanc played for the Jacksonville Lizard Kings of the ECHL before retiring at the age of 35 with just the single game for the Blackhawks on his NHL resume.
Today's featured jersey is a 1999-00 Jacksonville Lizard Kings Ray LeBlanc jersey, which is based on the template of the Washington Capitals jerseys of the era with the "checkmark" waist striping.
The Lizard Kings lasted from 1995-96 through the 1999-00 season after moving south from Louisville, Kentucky where they were known as the Ice Hawks. The club suspended operations in hopes of returning when a new arena was completed in 2003, but never were revived.
Bonus jersey: Today's bonus jersey is a 1995-96 Chicago Wolves Ray LeBlanc jersey. The Wolves wore this classically styled jersey for the early years of their existence, having been founded in 1994-95 in the IHL. playing there until the league's demise in 2001, having won the Turner Cup in 1998 and 2000. They were one of the teams absorbed into the AHL, where they have won the Calder Cup in 2002 and 2008.
Today's video section are highlights of Czechoslovakia at the 1992 Olympics, which includes footage of the bronze medal game against the United States with LeBlanc in goal. Not much LeBlanc, but it's the best we could do.
Labels: Chicago Wolves, Jacksonville Lizard Kings, LeBlanc Ray
The Team That Won the Stanley Cup Without Playing For It - The 1895 Montreal Victorias
The Stanley Cup was donated by Lord Stanley of Preston in 1982 and was originally called the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup to be given to the top amateur club in Canada. The first era of the Stanley Cup from 1893 to 1914 was known as the Challenge Cup Era, as there was no playoff system to determine the holder of the cup.
The Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup
The first team awarded the cup was the Montreal Hockey Club, also known as the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association, or Montreal AAA for short, based on the club being the champions of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada over four other clubs, two also from Montreal (the Crystals and the Victorias) and one each from Ottawa and Quebec. They secured the AHAC tile on this date in 1893 with a 2-1 victory over the Crystals. That promoted the Montreal Hockey Club to a 7-1 record over Ottawa's 6-2 mark and the season title - and with it, the prestige of being the first team to possess what would come to be known as the Stanley Cup.
A championship ring from the 1893 Montreal Hockey Club
Haviland Routh would lead Montreal AAA and the AHAC in scoring that season with 12 goals in seven games played, while Billy Barlow contributed 7 goals and George Lowe and Archie Hodgson 6 each. Tom Paton in goal led the league with a 2.3 goals against average, allowing 18 goals in the Montreal Hockey Club's eight games.
The original Stanley Cup holders, the 1893 Montreal Hockey Club
Things were more complicated the following season when four of the five clubs in the AHAC tied for first place with identical 5-3 records! There was no tiebreaker system in place at the time, so an agreement was made for a playoff to occur. First, Quebec dropped out of consideration and it was then determined that the Montreal Hockey Club would play an elimination game against the Montreal Victorias, with the winner to face the Ottawa Hockey Club simply because Ottawa was given special consideration because they were from out of town! The Montreal Hockey Club prevailed 3-2 over the Victorias and then defeated Ottawa 3-1 to retain the cup for another year.
The 1894 Montreal AAA club with the AHAC trophy
dwarfing the original Stanley Cup bowl
Herbert Collins was in goal for Montreal AAA that season and he too led the league with a 1.875 goals against average. Routh and Barlow led the club in scoring with 8 goals apiece, which was tied for third in the league.
The following season saw another unusual set of circumstances arise as the trustees of the cup were still finding their way when it came to the rules regarding possession of the cup, as the 1895 AHAC regular season champions were the Montreal Victorias with a record of 6-2, who expected to be awarded the cup as champions of the league of the current cup holders.
But not so fast.
Unusually, the trustees ruled that the Montreal Hockey Club would first have to defend the AHAC's rights to the cup against a challenge from the Queen's University Golden Gaels of the Ontario Hockey Association to determine if the cup remained with the AHAC.
In a game played on this date in 1895, the Montreal Hockey Club defeated Queen's University 5-1 in the first official challenge for the Stanley Cup in a game played at the Victoria Rink in Montreal thanks to goals by Clarence Mussen, Clarence McKerrow, Hodgson and a pair by Routh.
The Victoria Rink
Thanks to Montreal's defeat of Queen's University, the cup remained with the AHAC, but not with the Montreal Hockey Club, as the Monreal Victorias were now holders of the Stanley Cup as the 1895 league title holders thanks to a playoff game they were not involved in!
The 1895 Montreal Victorias pose with the Stanley Cup
won for them by the Montreal Hockey Club!
Today's featured jersey is a 1894-95 Montreal Victorias jersey. The Victorias represented the Scottish population of Montreal and wore burgundy sweaters with a "V" logo in various fonts during their early days. Like many clubs in the late 1800's the Victorias were named after Queen Victoria of England.
Today's video is a look at Lord Stanley, the origins of the cup and other related facts about the cup.
Labels: Montreal AAA, Montreal Victorias
Larry Murphy Career Jersey Retrospective
Born on this date in 1961, defenseman Larry Murphy, played in 1,615 games over 20 NHL seasons and currently ranks 8th in career games played despite having retired 15 years ago.
After being drafted fourth overall in 1980, Murphy began his career with the Los Angeles Kings in 1980-81 scoring 16 goals and set NHL records with 60 assists and 76 points for a rookie defenseman.
After posting 66 and 62 point seasons in Los Angeles, Murphy would be traded early in the 1983-84 season to the Washington Capitals where he would continue to put up strong numbers, the best of which was in 1986-87 when he set a career high with 23 goals plus 58 assists for 81 points.
Murphy was dealt to the Minnesota North Stars along with Mike Gartner in a blockbuster deal for Dino Ciccarelli and Bob Rouse in March of 1989 after six seasons with the Capitals. After finishing up the 1988-89 season with Minnesota, he would play one full season with the North Stars, scoring 68 points, and then a half a season in 1990-91 before once more being traded, this time to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The move to Pittsburgh would allow Murphy to experience a deep run into the playoffs for the first time in his career, never having made it past the second round during his ten previous seasons. As the Penguins progressed through the 1991 playoffs, they first defeated the New Jersey Devils in seven games, the Capitals in five and Boston Bruins in six, giving Murphy the chance to skate for the Stanley Cup against his former club, the North Stars. The Penguins dispatched Minnesota in six games, earning him the first Stanley Cup of his career as he contributed 23 points in 23 games.
In his first full season in Pittsburgh, Murphy scored 77 points in 77 games, thanks in part to the fourth 20 goal season of his career. He would add another 16 points in 21 playoff games as the Penguins would capture their second consecutive Stanley Cup.
The following season Murphy had his career best offensive season with 85 points and another 20 goal season with 22. After two more seasons with the Penguins, Murphy was dealt to the Toronto Maple Leafs for the 1995-96 season. His stay was not a long one however, as he was shipped to the Detroit Red Wings at the trading deadline during his second season with Toronto.
Murphy ended up playing more playoff games with Detroit than regular season games as the Red Wings charged through the playoffs that season and defeated the Philadelphia Flyers for the 1997 Stanley Cup, the third of Murphy's career.
Motivated by the injuries suffered by Vladimir Konstantinov while still celebrating their Stanley Cup victory in 1997, the Red Wings followed up that success with another championship in 1998, giving Murphy four Stanley Cup championships, and making Murphy the only player to win four Stanley Cups in the decade of the 1990's.
He would close out his career with three additional seasons with the Red Wings, which included playing 57 games in his final season of 2000-01, one of which was the 1,600th game of his 21-year career, only the second player to reach that mark after Gordie Howe. His final total of 1,615 games was an NHL record for defensemen at the time. He would complete his career with 287 goals and 929 assists for 1,216 points, third all time for defensemen when he retired behind only Ray Bourque and Paul Coffey.
In addition to his four Stanley Cup titles, Murphy also won a Memorial Cup in Canadian junior hockey with the Peterborough Petes.
Internationally, Murphy played for Canada in the 1980 World Junior Tournament and the 1985, 1987 and 2000 World Championships, earning a silver medal in 1985.
Murphy scored a goal and two assists in the final game of the 1987 Canada Cup as Canada took the championship. He was also a member of the championship winning Team Canada squad in the 1991 Canada Cup as well.
Today's first featured jersey is a 1982-83 Los Angeles Kings Larry Murphy jersey. The Kings wore this style from 1980-81 through 1987-88 until adopting the black and silver of the Los Angeles Raiders of the NFL.
Today's second featured jersey is a 1987-88 Washington Capitals Larry Murphy jersey. The original style of Capitals jersey was used from their inaugural 1974-75 season through the 1994-95 season until the club changed to a new blue, white and black color scheme. This jersey would return in 2015-16 as a throwback alternate jersey.
Today's third featured jersey is a 1989-90 Minnesota North Stars Larry Murphy jersey. One of the oddities of the North Stars jersey history, their white jerseys would receive the added black trim way back in 1981-82, but the road green jerseys did not get the same treatment of the added black until the 1988-89 season - seven years later! This style, finally with the added black stripes, would only be used from three seasons until a new look arrived for the 1991-92 season which saw the end of the green jerseys and the beloved N-Star logo.
Today's fourth featured jersey is a 1994-95 Pittsburgh Penguins Larry Murphy jersey. After winning back-to-back Stanley Cups, the Penguins could not leave well enough alone and debuted a new pair of home and road jerseys for the 1992-93 season. This diagonally lettered jersey draws it's inspiration from the Penguins original jerseys from the 1967-68 season, which were lettered in the same manner and only lasted one season. This new black jersey would remain in used through the 1996-97 season.
Today's fifth featured jersey is a 1996-97 Toronto Maple Leafs Larry Murphy jersey. After the success of their Turn Back the Clock jerseys used during the 1991-92 season on the occasion of the NHL's 75th anniversary, the Maple Leafs debuted this style for the 1992-93 season, which had the TBTC jersey's throwback leaf logo now used as this jerseys secondary shoulder patches.
The 1996-97 season, during which this jersey had the Maple Leaf Gardens 65th Anniversary patch, was the final season for this exact style, as the font for the name and numbers would change to an unfortunate modern font, which looked out of place on the otherwise classic jersey. Another font change, which included the addition of silver trim and a new shoulder monogram "TML" logo arrived in 2000-01. Eventually, the team would return to this style with the one color name and numbers in 2010-11 with the addition of a lace-up collar.
Today's sixth featured jersey is a 1999-00 Detroit Red Wings Larry Murphy jersey. The Red Wings debuted their first white jersey in 1934-35, with white arms adorned with a red stripe. They would change to red sleeves with a white stripe in 1961-62, which has remained essentially unchanged ever since. This jersey has the NHL 2000 patch worn by all teams in one of their colors.
Today's first video is Murphy scoring his 1,000th NHL point while with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Next, Murphy teaches you how to properly kill a penalty in a session of "Lessons with Larry".
Labels: Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota North Stars, Murphy Larry, Pittsburgh Penguins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Washington Capitals
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1996 Finland National Team Raimo Helminen Jersey
After beginning his career in the Ilves Tampere junior system, including making his international debut at the European Junior Championships for Finland in 1982, Raimo Helminen made his debut their senior team in the Finnish SM-liiga for the 1982-83 season with 31 games while he split his time with the junior team that season.
For 1983-84, Helminen, born on this date in 1964, won a silver medal at the World Junior tournament in 1984 and just one month later he made his Olympic debut in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia where the 19 year old appeared in six games, scoring 2 points.
Helminen with Ilves in 1983-84
Helminen finished third in league scoring for Ilves with 21 goals and a career best 57 points in 36 games in 1984-85 as the club won their first league championship in their history. He then made his debut at the 1985 World Championships where he continued his offensive output with 4 goals and 9 points in 10 games.
Helminen had been drafted by the New York Rangers in 1984 and moved to the NHL for the 1985-86 season, appearing in 66 games, scoring 10 goals and 40 points as a rookie. He was back with the Rangers for the 1986-87 season, but things did not go nearly as well, as he only produced 6 points in 21 games and spent time with New Haven in the AHL before a late season trade saw him sent to the Minnesota North Stars for the final 6 games of the season.
New York Ranger Raimo Helminen
Before the next season began, Helminen was back on the international stage, playing for Finland in the 1987 Canada Cup tournament. He was back in Tampere with Ilves, racking up 43 points in 31 games, including 20 goals. He also appeared in his second Olympics, scoring 10 points in 7 games as Finland won their first ever medal with a silver in Calgary.
Helminen while playing for Finland in the late 1980's
Note the green gloves from Ilves
He gave the NHL another try in 1988-89, this time with the New York Islanders, but his play was hampered by back problems. He would total 24 NHL games that season and another 16 with the Springfield Indians of the AHL, where he averaged a point per game.
For 1989-90, he moved to Malmö IF in the Swedish second division, where he starred with 26 goals and 56 points in 29 games to help Malmö earn a promotion to the Swedish Elitserien for the following season.
Helminen would play the next six seasons for Malmö, which included becoming the first foreign born player to win the Swedish scoring title in 1993, with 42 points in 40 games, and winning a league championship in 1992 and again in 1994, a season during which he scored 20 goals and 54 points in 38 games.
Helminen during his time in Sweden with Malmö
During this time period Helminen played in his third and fourth Olympics in 1992 and again 1994, earning a bronze medal as well as playing in the World Championships in 1992 (silver) and 1994 (silver). He was also a member of the first Finnish World Championship winning team in 1995 when the Finns defeated the Swedes in Sweden, triggering joyous celebrations back home in Finland. Helminen contributed 8 points in 8 games on his way to the gold medal.
Helminen skates away from a sprawling American goaltender
Garth Snow during the 1994 Olympics
1996 was also a busy year for him internationally, as he participated in both the World Championships in the spring and then the inaugural World Cup of Hockey that fall prior to returning to Tampere to play for Ilves from 1996-97 onward.
Helminen back with Ilves
He was named Player of the Year in 1998 and named team captain in 1999, a position he would hold through the remainder of his long career. He continued to score at a high pace, reaching 50 points twice and topped 40 five times over the next eight seasons, an impressive feat considering the shorter Finnish season, having never played more than 56 games in any season. During his final season of play in 2007-08, he was the oldest player in the league at 44 years of age.
Helminen during his retirement ceremony
His international career also continued to rack up successes as the Finns were now a nation to be reckoned with. Helminen would play in the 1997 World Championships, the 1998 Olympics (bronze), the 1998 World Championships (silver), the 1999 (silver), 2000 (bronze), 2001 (silver) and 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. The 2002 Olympics were Helminen's record sixth Olympic Games.
Helminen battles Mats Sundin of Sweden
during the 1998 World Championships
That fall he would play in his 11th and final World Championships to conclude his full international career with one World Championship gold, seven silver (one World Junior, five World Championship and one Olympic) and three bronze medals, two Olympic and one at the World Championship.
He would continue to play for Ilves until the 2007-08 season before announcing his retirement after 751 games, 161 goal and 420 assists for 581 points in Finland as well as 226 games and 199 points in Sweden's Elitserien and another 117 games and 59 points in the NHL.
Helminen holds the record for the most international games at 331, scoring 52 goals and 207 points, with his 155 assists and 207 points being Finnish career records internationally.
Helminen was recognized when he set the
record for most international appearances
His number 41 was retired by Ilves and Helminen was inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame in 2012.
Ilves honored Helminen by retiring his #41
Today's featured jersey is a 1996 Finland National Team Raimo Helminen jersey from the inaugural World Cup of Hockey. This attractive "waving flag" style of jersey marked Nike's entry into being the jersey supplier for the IIHF, which continues to this day. This style was worn through the 1997 World Championships until new styles were debuted for the 1998 Olympics.
photo courtesy of Classic Auctions
Bonus jersey: Today's bonus jersey is a 1987-88 Minnesota North Stars Dave Ganger jersey which was previously worn by Helminen during his six games with the North Stars at the end of the 1986-87 season. During that time period a jersey with so much life remaining it in would generally be reused after simply swapping one player's nameplate for another, giving some jerseys an interesting but sometimes difficult to prove history.
Occasionally, jerseys would also undergo number changes as well, further clouding it's past and requiring nearly forensic examination for evidence of changes in customization to suggest previous wearers.
Here is a look at the career if Helminen followed by an interview with him in Finnish.
Labels: Finland, Helminen Raimo, Minnesota North Stars
1977-78 Cleveland Barons Dennis O'Brien Jersey
Dennis O'Brien played his junior hockey with the St. Catharines Black Hawks in the Ontario Hockey League in 1968-69. The defenseman was then selected by the Minnesota North Stars in the 1969 NHL Amateur Draft in the second round, 14th overall.
He spent the entire 1969-70 season honing his craft with the Iowa Stars of the Central Hockey League, the only season that edition of the Stars would exist. While with Iowa, he was credited with 20 points from 2 goals and 18 assists in 72 games while amassing a league leading 331 penalty minutes, 73 more than the notorious Andre "Moose" Dupont.
During the following season of 1970-71, O'Brien split time between the minor league Cleveland Barons of the American Hockey League and made his NHL debut with the North Stars of the NHL. He played exactly 27 games with each team and scored his first NHL goal on his way to a total of three for the season. When the North Stars qualified for the playoffs, O'Brien got his first taste of postseason play with nine games for the North Stars.
O'Brien during his early days with the North Stars
Now established as a genuine NHLer, O'Brien would play six full seasons on the Minnesota blueline. His stay at home, hard hitting defensive style would not earn him many points, but it would make him a steady, reliable member of the North Stars defensive corps. In five of his six seasons in Minnesota, O'Brien would play at least 70 games five times with a high of six goals and 24 points in 1976-77.
O'Brien during the 1976-77 season,
wearing the next generation of North Stars jersey
O'Brien would begin his eighth season with the North Stars in 1977-78 but after 13 games he was claimed on waivers by the Colorado Rockies on December 2, 1977. He would see action in 16 games for the Rockies before being traded to the Cleveland Barons on January 12, 1978. He would log 23 games in Cleveland prior to again being placed on waivers. Then on this date in 1978, O'Brien became the first player in NHL history to be with four different NHL teams in one season when he was claimed by the Boston Bruins!
O"Brien during his brief time in Cleveland
Once with Boston his situation was again settled, as there was still enough time to play in the Bruins final 16 games of the regular season and contribute to the Bruins playoff effort, as Boston made it all the way to the 1978 Stanley Cup Finals.
After all the movement from team to team to team to team the previous season, O'Brien must have been relieved to play the entire 1978-79 season with the Bruins, save for a pair of games with the Rochester Americans in the AHL.
O'Brien found a measure of stability in Boston
O'Brien briefly laced up his skates for one final season in 1979-80 with three games with the Bruins and six games with the Binghamton Dusters in the AHL before retiring.
His final stats were 592 games played, scoring 13 goals and 91 assists for 122 points and 1,017 penalty minutes, with his highest being 187 in 1975-76.
Today's featured jersey is a 1977-78 Cleveland Barons Dennis O'Brien jersey as worn during his record setting season during which he became the first player to play for four different NHL teams in a single season. To date, only one other player has equalled that amount, Dave McLlwain in 1992, who coincidentally joined his fourth team on the same date of March 10th.
The Barons only existed for two seasons, yet there are detail differences between the jerseys used both years. This particular jersey does not have the state of Ohio shaped sleeve patches, which contained the arm numbers during the Barons first season. Additionally, the sleeve numbers were relocated to the red shoulder areas for their second and final season. Also, the sans-serif font for the player names was changed to a serifed font as seen on today's featured jersey.
Bonus jersey: Today's bonus jersey is a 1970-71 Minnesota North Stars Dennis O'Brien jersey as worn during his rookie season in the NHL. The North Stars wore this particular style from the start of their second season of 1968-69 through 1971-72 and always without names on the back.
Today's video clip is a pretty intense fight between the Cleveland Barons and the Boston Bruins, two of the clubs O'Brien played for in 1977-78.
Labels: Cleveland Barons, Minnesota North Stars, O'Brien Dennis
The 2017 Minnesota State High School Boy's Hockey Tournament
The 2017 Minnesota State Boys' Hockey Tournament continues today with the start of the Class AA tournament following yesterday's Class A Quarterfinals. Class AA consists of the top 64 schools by enrollment in the state and Class A is for the remaining schools. In terms of enrollment, Class AA is roughly for schools with 1,200 students or more, with the largest of the Twin Cities suburban schools reaching enrollments of 3,000.
Often compared to the Indiana State Boys' Basketball Tournament or the Texas and Florida State Football Tournaments as the most important nationally for their sport, the Minnesota State Boys' Hockey Tournament is a four day festival of excitement, color and sound as the parents, relatives, fans, cheerleaders (on skates!) and bands from 16 schools all travel to the state capital of St. Paul to cheer on their teams as they compete on the ice at the home of the Minnesota Wild, the Xcel Energy Center, in front of sellout crowds of up to 19,500 fans!
Such is the stature of the tournament, that in 2014 KSTC-TV brought in no less a talent than nationally known broadcaster Gary Thorne to handle the television play-by-play duties along side Minnesota hockey legend, Lou Nanne's expert commentary, with last year being Nanne's 53rd year working the state high school tournament.
The tournament began back in 1945 in St. Paul. After a stop at the home of the Minnesota North Stars, the Met Center, for eight years in the 1970's, the tournament returned to St. Paul at the new St. Paul Civic Center, known for it's clear boards, which you can see below in one of today's videos. For nearly 50 years the tournament was played as an eight team, single class tournament, which lent itself to classic David versus Goliath matchups, as the smaller schools from the northern part of the state traveled down to the big city to take on some of the largest schools attendance-wise in the state.
Somewhat controversially, the tournament split into two classes in 1994 based on enrollment. While schools in the smaller enrollment Class A have the option to move up and play in Class AA, the tournament lost something special in the process. Still, it is the largest state sports tournament in the United States in terms of attendance and viewership, as all the championship bracket games are broadcast on local television and 135,618 fans attending in 2015.
Despite the Xcel Energy Center having hosted NHL playoff conference finals, the 2004 NHL All-Star Game and the NCAA Frozen Four twice, with the nearby University of Minnesota winning the title in 2002 and the in-state University of Minnesota Duluth taking home the national championship in St. Paul in 2011, on March 4, 2016 22,244 fans attended the semifinals of the state tournament, setting a new record for the largest crowed to ever attend a hockey game in Minnesota, breaking the record of 21,609, which was also a session of the State High School Tournament in 2015.
Many NHL veterans have participated in the tournament, including Neal Broten, Phil Housley, Reed Larson, John Mayasich, Mike Antonovich, Henry Boucha, Mark Parrish and current NHLers T. J. Oshie of the Washington Capitals, the New York Islanders Brock Nelson and Blake Wheeler, captain of the Winnipeg Jets. Of the 19 Minnesota players taken in the first round of the NHL Entry Draft between 2000 and 2009, 13 of them played in the state tournament.
Phil Housley of the South St. Paul Packers
Many rivalries, dynasties, villains and favorites have emerged over the years, with small schools from up north such as Eveleth, Greenway of Coleraine, International Falls and Warroad always being sentimental favorites. Roseau, in particular, has been one of the only small schools (with an enrollment of just 341 compared to 27 Twin Cities schools between 2000-3100 students, and well below the 1,300 cut-off point for Class AA status) to move up to AA and succeed with championships in 1999 and 2007.
Other schools have had their runs, with Eveleth in the late 40's/early 50's, International Falls in the 1960's, Bloomington Jefferson dominating in the early 1990's, but none more so than Edina, with 12 championships, the first coming in 1969, four in the 1970's, three in the 1980's, one in 1997 and most recently in 2010 and back-to-back in 2013 and 2014. All those titles, as well as seemingly annual tournament appearances, put the Hornets at the top of the list of "teams you love to hate", as teams from the tony Minneapolis suburb Edina are considered to be "the rich kids", even sporting green and gold jerseys in the color of money, earning the Hornets the derisive nickname the "Cake Eaters", which they annoyingly wholly embrace!
Edina celebrating one of their 12 state titles
Aside from Edina, schools on the outs with the general public are the private schools, such as The Academy of Holy Angels (champions in 2002 and 2005), Hill-Murray (1983, 1991, 2008) and most recently St. Thomas Academy (who played in the smaller Class A, winning championships in 2006, 2008, 2011, 2012 and 2013 until moving up to Class AA in 2014).
Those private schools are considered to have the advantage of being able to recruit the best players to attend their schools rather than take what comes their way in the case of the traditional public schools who draw students from their local geographic region. This "class war" is an age old argument between the public and private schools and is only magnified with the arrival of a smaller school from the north, such as when tiny Roseau makes an appearance in St. Paul, and is one of the driving forces behind the ongoing popularity of the tournament, as every great drama must have its villain.
Since its inception, Class A has been a battle between the smaller private schools, with Benilde-St. Margaret's, St. Thomas Academy, Totino-Grace and Breck winning 12 championships and the smaller schools from the northern part of the state now given a chance to compete for a state title, with classic schools like Eveleth and International Falls able to win their first titles since the early 1970's and first time winners like Hermantown, Red Wing and four time Class A champion Warroad flying the flag for the public schools who have captured 13 titles since the two class system was introduced.
The 2012 Class AA tournament was won by Benilde-St. Margaret's, whose players all wore large patches in support of paralyzed teammate Jack Jablonski. Tied at 2-2 with less than a minute remaining in the semifinals, the Red Knights scored the game winning goal with less than 24 seconds remaining. They then stormed to the championship when Grant Besse set twitter ablaze with his five goal performance, three of which were shorthanded(!), as the Red Knights steamrolled Hill-Murray 5-1 to win an emotional championship with all thoughts on Jablonski, who was in attendance to enjoy the storybook victory that will be talked about for years to come.
Benilde-St. Margaret's players wearing
#13 patches in support of Jack Jablonski
This year's tournament began Wednesday with the quarterfinals in Class A with Monticello-Annandale-Maple Lake (MAML) from 25 miles northwest of the Twin Cities metro area vs #2 Delano from 20 miles west of the metro area, with the MAML pulling off the upset 3-2 win. #3 Mahtomedi from northeast area of the Twin Cities faced Northfield from 20 miles south of the Twin Cities, with the Raiders prevailing 3-1 to advance to face Monticello-Annandale-Maple Lake. Defending champions and #1 ranked Hermantown from just northwest of Duluth, took on Luverne from the far southwest corner of the state, with Hermantown surviving with a 3-2 overtime win. Finally in the nightcap, the only private school in Class A, #5 St. Cloud Cathedral from an hour northwest of the Twin Cities faced #4 ranked East Grand Forks from the northwest corner of the state on the border with North Dakota, with Cathedral Crusaders winning 6-3 to advance to face favored 27-1-1 Hermantown.
Class AA begins today and sees a vastly different looking field than tournament regulars would expect to see. During section playoffs, upsets abounded with many of the top ranked teams falling and falling early, as #1 Benilde-St. Margaret's, #3 Minnetonka, #4 Holy Family Catholic, #5 Blaine, defending champions #7 Lakeville North, seemingly annual participant #11 Edina, #12 Elk River, #13 Duluth East, #14 St. Thomas Academy, #15 Centennial, also virtually annual participant #16 Hill-Murray all failing to make it to St. Paul this year. And of those who did make it to the State Tournament, not one of the field of eight is a private school for only the fourth time since 2000.
In today's first game, #2 St. Thomas Academy (23-4-1), a private school from the Twin Cities takes on Lakeville South (18-9-1) from the southern edge of the metro area. The survivor of that game will face the winner of #3 Moorhead (22-3-3), another school from the northwest part of the state across the Red River from Fargo, North Dakota, and Hill-Murray (19-5-4), a private school from St. Paul and virtually annual state tournament participant.
The upper half of the Class AA bracket that plays in the evening session begins with a rematch of last year's championship game, defending state champions Wayzata (10-17-1) from the west metro area facing the #1 rated Eden Prarie (21-4-2) squad, led by arguably the best player in the state and future University of Minnesota Golden Gopher Casey Mittelstadt, whose decision to return for his senior season of high school hockey and shoot for a state title for his school with his friends rather than leave school to play junior hockey was written up in no less than the New York Times! Despite Wayzata being the only team in the tournament with a losing record, they are battle tested, having played in the toughest conference in the state and had a hellish non-conference schedule to prepare them for today's game. The final game of the day sees the only classic Iron Range school #5 Grand Rapids (20-7-1) from northern Minnesota 3 hours drive from St. Paul facing #4 Maple Grove (22-6) from the northwest Twin Cities suburbs, with the winner facing the team that advances out of the Wayzata vs. Eden Prairie clash.
Eden Prairie has to like the way things have gone so far, as #2 Edina, #3 Stillwater, #4 Holy Family, #5 Centennial, #7 Elk River and #8 Lakeville North, as ranked by the Let's Play Hockey newspaper, all fell in the section playoffs and they then drew the only team with a losing record in the tournament and their #1 ranking allows them to avoid the #2 and #3 tournament seeds until a possible meeting in the championship final.
It's a huge deal to make it "to state" in Minnesota. This past week thousands of fans attended the eight section finals just for right to go to the state tournament, which for the kids involved means staying in a hotel in the big city, playing in an NHL arena with your buddies that you grew up with in front of all your family and friends while having your games televised live throughout the state. Many players have gone on to win national championships in college and even in the NHL, and over and over again when asked for their greatest hockey memory, the answer frequently comes back "playing in the state tournament in high school." Not necessarily winning it, just playing in it.
Once, a hockey writer quoted former three time national champion University of Minnesota and 1980 "Miracle on Ice" USA Olympic coach Herb Brooks as saying that winning a state championship with St. Paul Johnson in 1955 was one of the best moments in his career. Brooks called the writer to inform him that he had been misquoted. He said it was the best moment.
Herb Brooks, back row far right, celebrating with his St. Paul Johnson
teammates after winning the state championship in 1955
Moose, Tigers, Zephyrs, Raiders, Hawks, Cardinals, Crusaders, Green Wave, Cadets, Cougars, Spuds, Pioneers, Trojans, Eagles, Thunderhawks and Crimson.
16 teams, 4 days, 135,000 fans, some seriously bad hair, 16 bands, 2 champions. There's nothing else quite like it!
And just how important has the hockey hair become to the tournament? Last year sports broadcasting powerhouse ESPN sent former Los Angeles Kings head coach and their lead hockey analyst Barry Melrose to do a feature story, not on the hockey games, but the hockey hair, popularized by the All Hockey Hair Team videos posted annually on You Tube since 2011. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Minneflowta.
Today's featured jersey is a 2005 Warroad Warriors Zach Larson jersey. This jersey was worn by players at Warroad High School from 2001 to half way through the 2008-09 season. Warroad won the Class A championship in 2003 and 2005 wearing jerseys from this set.
Larson defied superstition and wore this jersey during their undefeated (29-0-2) championship season of 2005 and was a teammate to current Washington Capitals and 2014 United States Olympic standout Oshie, who is the all-time leading scorer in Warroad history with 104 goals and 137 assists for 241 points in just 93 games. Oshie led the entire state of Minnesota in 2004-05 with 37 goals and 100 points.
Warroad Warrior T. J. Oshie
Other notable hockey players to come from Warroad include United States Olympian Gigi Marvin, current New York Islander Brock Nelson, Dave Christian, a member of the Miracle on Ice 1980 gold medal winning USA Olympic team, who would go on to play 15 NHL seasons with Winnipeg, Washington, Boston, St. Louis and Chicago, Dave's father Bill Christian and uncle, the late Roger Christian, who won gold medals in the 1960 Olympics, and Boucha, a 1972 silver Olympic medalist who would play for Detroit, Minnesota, Kansas City and Colorado of the NHL. During it's history, no United States Olympic hockey team has ever won a gold medal without having a player on the team from tiny Warroad!
This is a classic looking jersey in the style and colors of the old Boston Bruins jerseys of the mid 70's to the mid 90's and is one of the few remaining schools to use a Native American nickname and imagery, while others such as Grand Rapids, Minneapolis Southwest and Burnsville all discontinued their use. The use of the Warriors name by Warroad High School is approved by the local Ojibwe band of Chippewa Indians who designed the logo used on the Warriors jerseys.
Due to the multiple years of service the jerseys often see, names on the back are seldom, if ever, worn on high school jerseys.
Bonus jersey: Today's bonus jersey is an Anoka Tornadoes jersey. While many schools create brand new logos for their teams, such as Warroad's locally designed logo, many other appropriate logos from various professional and college teams, either directly or slightly modified. Anoka has been using the logo from the NHL's defunct Atlanta Flames for years, resisting the urge to change the flames in the center of the logo to a tornado, saving that for frequent use as their secondary shoulder logo.
2003 state champions Anoka have been home to one NHLer, Steve Alley, who played 105 games for the Birmingham Bulls of the WHA in 1977-78 and 1978-79 and 15 games for the Hartford Whalers divided between 1979-80 and 1980-81.
Let's see if we can possibly capture the event, spirit and emotion of the tournament with today's video selections, beginning with a look at last year's excitement.
Here's some classic footage from 1984 with St. Paul Johnson defeating Hill-Murray showing the unique clear boards from the St. Paul Civic Center and everyone wearing Cooperalls!
Check out the explosion of joy as Hill-Murray captures the state title in 2008 over Edina.
Labels: Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament
The GAG Line - Rod Gilbert, Jean Ratelle and Vic Hadfield
The formation of the New York Rangers famous GAG Line actually dates back to 1950 in the suburbs of Montreal when Rod Gilbert and Jean Ratelle were just 10 years old. Gilbert lived next to the Brothers of Sacred Heart School where Ratelle was a student. The both played pickup hockey on the school grounds and became good friends. Gilbert recalls, when I first saw him on the ice, I said, "You play with me all the time, okay?" Two years later the duo even played at the Montreal Forum in the finals of a peewee tournament.
When he was just 14, Gilbert was signed to play junior hockey by Yvon Prud'homme, who worked for the New York Rangers. Gilbert told Prud'homme, "I have a friend I've been playing with since I was a kid and he's better than me. Sign him up and we'll play together." Prud'homme took the teenage Gilbert's scouting advice and signed Ratelle without ever seeing him play.
The pair played together for the Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters, renamed the Guelph Royals in 1960, junior hockey from 1958-59 through 1960-61. Right wing Gilbert led the team in scoring in 1959-60 with 39 goals and 91 points while center Ratelle was right with him, scoring an equal 39 goals on his way to 86 points as the duo finished second and third in the Ontario Hockey Association.
Gilbert and Ratelle were on the 1959-60 OHA All-Star Team
The following season Gilbert again led the team with 54 goals and 103 points with Ratelle again second with 40 goals and 101 points for the Royals as the pair finished 1-2 in OHA scoring, 14 points clear of their nearest pursuer. Both players also made their NHL debuts that season, with Ratelle playing 3 games, scoring twice, while Gilbert played for the Rangers once.
Gilbert debuted with one game in 1960-61
Meanwhile, Vic Hadfield was playing his way toward the NHL via a different route, playing junior hockey for the St. Catharines Teepees of the OHA and the Buffalo Bisons of the AHL. Hadfield, claimed by New York from the Chicago Black Hawks in the 1961 Intra-League Draft, made his Rangers debut in 1961-62, seeing action in 44 games, but only scoring 3 goals and 1 assist, giving little clues as to what was to come.
In 1964, Gilbert and Ratelle's junior hockey coach Emile Francis became the Rangers General Manager and the following season, their Head Coach. One of his first moves was to put the large and rugged Hadfield on a line with Gilbert and Ratelle for the 1965-66 season. Up to that point, the Rangers had missed the playoffs seven out of the last eight seasons, a difficult feat in an era where four of the six NHL teams made the playoffs.
After missing the playoffs his first season as head coach when Francis took over 20 games into the schedule, the Rangers would make the playoffs in nine consecutive seasons.
Up to this point, Gilbert had had some success at the NHL level, scoring 24 goals and 64 points in 1963-64 and 25 goals a year later. Hadfield's best season to date was 18 goals and 38 points in 1964-65 while Ratelle had only managed a high of 14 goals and 35 points.
Rod Gilbert
It took the newly created line some time to find their game as Gilbert only played in 34 games in 1965-66 and the lowly Rangers finished in the basement with just 18 wins in 70 games, 27 points out of a playoff spot.
For the 1966-67 season, Ratelle was the one who had to deal with an injury, as he only saw time in 41 games, scoring a dismal 11 points. Meanwhile, Gilbert returned to health and set a new career best with 28 goals. The rest of the Rangers roster was on the upswing was well, as Francis added key pieces such as goaltender Ed Giacomin, and the club improved to a winning 30-28-12 record for a 25 point increase and their first spot in the playoffs since 1962.
Gilbert, Hadfield and Ratelle celebrate a goal against the rival Bruins
The hockey landscape was forever changed with the 1967-68 season when the NHL expanded by six teams, doubling the size of the league. This played into the hands of the established Original 6 clubs, as the newcomers were soundly defeated by the established teams on a regular basis, as many players not nearly good enough to play in the previous version of the six team NHL were now regular competition for the veteran clubs. While it was Hadfield's turn to have a limited season, playing in 59 of the Rangers 74 games, it was enough for him to score 20 goals, while Gilbert hit new highs with 29 goals and 77 points while Ratelle led the team in scoring with 32 goals and 78 points as he and Gilbert finished fourth and fifth in the NHL scoring race behind the likes of Stan Mikita (87), Phil Esposito (84) and Gordie Howe (82) and ahead of Bobby Hull (75), putting them among the league's elite.
Rod Gilbert on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1967
As the Hadfield-Ratelle-Gilbert line totaled 81 goals in 74 games, the New York sportswriters dubbed the line the GAG Line, which stood for Goal-A-Game.
"Jean and I knew each other's moves so well, we didn't even have to look," said Gilbert. "We needed someone who could do some of the dirty work in the corners and position himself in front of the net without being pushed around. Vic Hadfield was the perfect compliment for us."
"I was aggressive, and being aggressive for so long, I had more space on the ice because people stayed away from me. You have to stick with what go you there," said Hadfield scouting his own style of play.
Vic Hadfield attacking the Kings goal
In 1968-69, the line lived up to their nickname, scoring a combined 86 goals as they finished one, two, three in Rangers scoring, led by Ratelle's 32 goals and 78 points. Once again, Gilbert was a single point back with 77 while Hadfield had 26 goals and 66 points, a leap forward for him, having never scored even 40 previously.
Ratelle led New York in scoring in 1969
While Ratelle had 32 goals and 74 points in 1969-70, Walt Tkaczuk led the Rangers with 77 as they were fifth and sixth in the NHL. Hadfield managed 20 goals and 54 points, while Gilbert had a down year with 16 goals and 53 points in 72 games.
For the 1970-71 campaign, Tkaczuk edged Ratelle 75 points to 72 while Gilbert returned to form with a 30 goal, 61 point season for third on the team. Hadfield meanwhile, had his fourth consecutive 20 goal season with 22.
The GAG Line, Hadfield, Ratelle and Gilbert
It all finally came good for the GAG Line in 1971-72 when everything turned to gold. On February 17th at the Los Angeles Kings, Ratelle scored his 40th goal of the season from Gilbert and defenseman Brad Park.
On February 23rd, Hadfield, who had been named the Rangers team captain that season, hit 40 at home in Madison Square Garden with assists from Gilbert and Ratelle.
Then, on this date in 1972, five games later, Gilbert scored his 40th goal of the season from Jim Neilson and Bobby Rousseau to make the GAG Line the first line in NHL history with three 40 goal scorers during a 3-3 tie against Chicago.
Over the Rangers final dozen games, the trio did not slow down, as they completed their dream season as Ratelle finished with 46 goals and 63 assists for 109 points. Hadfield remarkably finished with 50 goals and 56 assists for 106 points, never having more than 31 goals in any other season in his 16 year NHL career. Hadfield was also the first Rangers player to ever score 50 goals in a season.
Hadfield celebrates becoming the first Ranger
to score 50 goals in a season
Gilbert was third on the club with 43 goals and 54 assists for 97 points. All three players set career highs in goals, assists and points, save Gilbert who had 61 assists three seasons later. It was the only 100 point season for Ratelle and Hadfield.
Overall, Ratelle was third, Hadfield fourth and Gilbert fifth in league scoring and in goals, Hadfield (2nd), Ratelle (5th) and Gilbert (7th), and in assists, Ratelle (3rd), Hadfield (4th) and Gilbert (6th) were all on the league leader board. Impressively, Ratelle's team leading 109 points came from just 63 games, as he was leading Esposito in the scoring race when he broke his ankle and missed a month of the season.
Hadfield, Ratelle and Gilbert
In the playoffs, the Rangers defeated the defending champion Montreal Canadiens in six games and the previous season's other finalist, the Black Hawks, in four straight to reach the Stanley Cup Finals for the only time in the history of the line, only to run into the Esposito and Bobby Orr led Boston Bruins at their peak, who denied the Rangers the cup in six games, thanks in part to the injury to Ratelle, who was limited to just six ineffective playoff games, scoring just one assist.
Ratelle battling the Bruins Derek Sanderson
The line would play two more seasons together with Ratelle leading the team in scoring again in 1972-73 with 41 goals and 94 points (sixth overall) and Gilbert second with 25 goals and 84 points while Hadfield had 28 goals. During their final season together, the GAG Line lived up to their name yet again, combining for 91 goals in 78 games, as Gilbert was second behind Park's 82 points with 36 goals and 77 points as Ratelle had 28 goals and 67 points while Hadfield had 27 goals and 55 points, his seventh consecutive season of 20 goals or more for New York.
The line was broken up on May 27, 1974 when Rangers captain Hadfield was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins in a cost saving move. He would have a pair of 30 goal seasons for the Penguins until a knee injury early in the 1976-77 season ended his career. His final career totals were 1,002 games played with 323 goals and 389 assists for 712 points.
Rangers captain Hadfield
Ratelle was the next to leave, dealt to the Bruins in a blockbuster deal that saw himself, Park and Joe Zanussi in exchange for Esposito and Carol Vadnais after 13 games of the 1975-76 season. He continued to excel with the Bruins, scoring 30 goals twice and 25 or more three additional times. His career was the longest of the three, with his last season being 1980-81, his sixth with the Bruins. Ratelle would lead the Rangers in scoring four times and the Bruins twice. He would finish his career with 1,281 games played with 491 goals and 776 assists for 1,267 points and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1985. Individually, he won the Bill Masterton Trophy in 1971 and the Lady Byng Trophy in both 1972 and 1976. The Rangers have announced that they will retire Ratelle's jersey #19 during the 2017-18 season.
Jean Ratelle led the Rangers in scoring four times
Gilbert would play four more seasons for the Rangers, including equaling his stellar 1971-72 point total in 1974-75 when he had 36 goals and a career high 61 assists for 97 points to lead the Rangers for the second of three times. He again had 36 goals in 1975-76, his fifth season of 30 goals or more. Gilbert's final totals were 1,065 games played, all with the Rangers, 406 goals and 615 assists for 1,021 points. He won the Masterton Trophy in 1976 and the Lester Patrick Trophy in 1991. His #7 was retired in 1979, the first number retired in the 54 year history of the Rangers. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1982.
Gilbert played 18 seasons with the Rangers
Today's first featured jersey is a 1971-72 New York Rangers Vic Hadfield jersey. The Rangers wore only blue jerseys for their first 25 seasons, finally adding a white jersey in 1951-52. Other than detail changes, such as the addition of sleeve numbers in 1963 and names on the back in 1970, which then became vertically arched in 1990, the Rangers white jerseys are unchanged since their introduction over 65 years ago, making them a true classic in the history of the NHL.
Today's second featured jersey is a 1971-72 New York Rangers Jean Ratelle jersey. The Rangers debuted in 1926 wearing jerseys not too dissimilar to the one worn by Ratelle in 1971-72. The original white lettering changed to red for their second season of play. The font still used for the cresting arrived in 1941 and the drop shadow on both the crest and the numbers came a year later. In 1951 the laces were added to the collar and they arrived at today's style when the sleeve numbers arrived in 1963.
This jersey would be used through 1975-76 before a new, modern jersey was worn for two seasons with the Rangers shield as the main crest. In 1978-79, this style returned, only with Rangers replaced by "New York" on the front until reverting back to "Rangers" in 1987.
Today's third featured jersey is a 1971-72 New York Rangers Rod Gilbert jersey as worn during the GAG Line's record setting season when all three members became the first line in which each member scored 40 goals.
Gilbert wore #7 for a combination of reasons, first being the #9 he wore in juniors was in use by Rangers star Andy Bathgate, #7 was popular in New York due to Mickey Mantle and there were seven members of Gilbert's family, counting his parents and four siblings.
Bonus jersey: Today's bonus jersey is a 1977-78 New York Rangers Rod Gilbert jersey from his final season in the NHL after the departure of both Hadfield and Ratelle, making him the only one of the three to wear this style, which was first introduced by then General Manager John Ferguson Sr. in the 1976-77 season and was the first departure in club history from the iconic diagonal "RANGERS" cresting.
After proving unpopular with the tradition bound Rangers fans, this style was only used for two seasons, the first without names on the back of the road jerseys and, thanks to a new NHL rule requiring them, with them on the back for the 1977-78 season. Names were always worn on the home white jerseys.
After being let go by the Rangers in 1978, Ferguson became the general manager of the Winnipeg Jets and reprized the exact same jersey template for the Jets beginning with their inaugural NHL season in 1979, with the only differences being the font for the name and numbers and, naturally, the team logo. The Jets would use this style all throughout the 1980's.
In today's video section, the excellent Legends of Hockey profile on Gilbert.
Next, ten minutes of footage of the Rangers and the GAG Line taking on the Maple Leafs from the 1970-71 season.
Labels: Gilbert Rod, Hadfield Vic, New York Rangers, Ratelle Jean
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The Ahellil of Gourara
Performed during collective ceremonies, the Ahellil is a poetic and musical genre emblematic of the Zenete population of Gourara. This region in southwest Algeria includes some one hundred oases populated by over 50,000 inhabitants of Berber, Arab and Sudanese origin. The Ahellil, which is specific to the Berber-speaking part of Gourara, is regularly rendered at religious festivities and pilgrimages as well as secular celebrations, such as weddings and community events. The Ahellil is closely linked to the Zenete way of life and its oasis agriculture, symbolizing the cohesion of the community living in a harsh environment and, at the same time, transmitting the values and the history of the Zenete population in a language that is at risk of disappearing.
Simultaneously interpreted as poetry, polyphonic chant, music and dance, this genre is performed by a bengri (flute) player, a singer and a chorus of up to a hundred people. Standing shoulder to shoulder in a circle surrounding the singer, they slowly move around him while clapping their hands. An Ahellil performance consists of a series of chants in an order decided by the instrumentalist or singer and follows an age-old pattern. The first part, the lemserreh, includes everyone and encompasses short, well-known chants that are sung late into the night. The second, the aougrout, concerns only the experienced performers who continue until dawn. The tra finishes with daybreak and involves only the most accomplished performers. This threefold structure is also reflected in the chant performance, which begins with a prelude by the instrumentalist, followed by the chorus picking up certain verses, and ending with it chanting in whisper and slowly building up into a powerful, harmonious whole.
This tradition is threatened due to the dwindling number of occasions on which it is performed. This decline is linked to the rarity of traditional festivities. The migration of young people to the cities and the prevailing preference to listen to widely available Ahellil recordings rather than actively participating in live performances.
Inscribed in 2008 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (originally proclaimed in 2005)
© Text and images: UNESCO
Etiquetas: Africa, Algeria, Cultural Heritage, Music
Exhibition: Up Where We Belong: Native Musicians in Popular Culture
Dates: July 1, 2010 – January 2, 2011
Place: National Museum of the American Indian, Fourth Street & Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, DC
This panel and object exhibition highlights Native people who have been active participants in contemporary music for nearly a century. Musicians like Russell "Big Chief" Moore (Gila River Indian Community), Rita Coolidge (Cherokee), Buffy Sainte-Marie (Cree), and the group Redbone are a few of the Native performing artists who have had successful careers in popular music. Many have been involved in various forms of popular music—from jazz and blues to folk, country, and rock. Up Where We Belong: Native Musicians in Popular Culture tells their stories and histories, and provides visitors the opportunity to hear samples by music greats and discover musicians with whom those exceptional musicians collaborated. Visitors will also learn about artists who inspired the musical greats as well as the contemporary artists they themselves influenced.
Native people have been active in contemporary music for nearly a century. Many Native artists have had successful and influential careers in almost every form of popular music. “Up Where We Belong” tells their stories and histories and provides visitors the opportunity to hear music and discover artists with whom these exceptional musicians collaborated. Visitors will also learn of the musical greats who inspired these artists, as well as the growing number of contemporary performers who follow in their path.
“Whether they basked in the limelight or played supporting roles, Native musicians have made an enormous contribution to American music as we know it today,” said Kevin Gover (Pawnee), director of the museum. “They forged new sounds, worked with some of the greatest names in the music industry and inspired current Native and non-Native performers who continue to build on their legacy, and we are proud to honor them in this exhibition.”
In addition to a video that discusses the musicians and their histories, the museum has gathered several personal objects to display. These include a colorful, full-length leather coat that belonged to famed electric guitarist Jimi Hendrix (Cherokee heritage). The Hendrix family also loaned other items, including a Fender Stratocaster guitar reproduction, a Gibson Flying V reproduction (neither are on display) and a leather necklace and pouch. Other objects to be displayed include Link Wray’s (Shawnee) 1958 Danelectro Longhorn guitar, a double-platinum album from heavy metal drummer Randy Castillo (Isleta Pueblo) and the famous green guitar from funk guitarist Stevie Salas (Apache).
The first theme is “In the Spotlight,” which focuses on Native performers who represent the diversity of artistry in American music. These artists include Academy Award-winning folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie (Plains Cree), renowned jazz musician Oscar Pettiford (Cherokee/Choctaw), singer and songwriter Peter La Farge (Narragansett) and instrumental innovator Wray (Shawnee).
“Encore” is the second segment of the exhibition and features artists who represent the span of Native achievement in mainstream music over the past half century. Some worked for years in the industry without wide acknowledgment of their Indian heritage, while others received recognition for integrating their Native identity into their music and for bringing Native themes to a wider audience. These artists include jazz saxophonist Jim Pepper (Kaw/Creek), heavy-metal singer Chuck Billy (Pomo) and singer Debora Iyall (Cowlitz).
The final portion of this exhibition, “Keeping the Beat,” highlights Native artists already achieving recognition across musical genres. These stars include country-music singer Crystal Shawanda (Ojibwa), blues-rock singer and guitarist Mato Nanji (Lakota) and singer, songwriter and musician Samantha Crain (Choctaw).
Visitors will be able to use hand-held MP3 players, available at a cart at the entrance of the exhibition, that have a playlist of complete and excerpted tracks of artists featured in the exhibition, including Mildred Bailey (Coeur d’Alene), Johnny Cash, Rita Coolidge (Cherokee), Robbie Robertson (Mohawk) and the group, Redbone.
© Text and images: National Museum of the American Indian
Etiquetas: Exhibitions, Music, North America
Fonio Casserole
What's fonio?
White fonio (Digitaria exilis) is the most important of a diverse group of wild and domesticated Digitaria species that are harvested in the savannas of west Africa, and considered to be the oldest cereal here. Fonio is the smallest of all species of millet. It is one of the primary cereals of southern Sudan and Ethiopia in Africa. It has potential to improve nutrition, boost food security, foster rural development and support sustainable use of the land.
Fonio has continued to be important locally because it is both nutritious and one of the world's fastest growing cereals, reaching maturity in as little as six to eight weeks. It is a crop that can be relied on in semi-arid areas with poor soils, where rains are brief and unreliable. The grains are used in porridge and couscous, for bread, and for beer.
Some regions in which this crop is important are the Fouta Djallon region of Guinea and the Akposso area of Togo. It is much used in Guinea, where it is eaten at nearly every possible meal.
The small grains make it difficult and time-consuming to remove the husk. Traditional methods include pounding it in a mortar with sand (then separating the grains and sand) or "popping" it over a flame and then pounding it (which yields a toasted color grain; this technique is used among the Akposso).
According to the mythology of the Dogon people of Mali, among whom it is known as pō tolo, the supreme creator of the universe, Amma, made the entire universe by exploding a single grain of fonio, located inside the "egg of the world".
The recipe: Fonio Casserole
(by http://shellyfish.wordpress.com/)
•1 cup Fonio
•5 cups vegetable broth
•2 large carrots, diced
•1 large onion, chopped
•450g/1lb cooked garbanzo beans, well rinsed if canned
•1 can chopped tomatoes
•chopped garlic (up to your garlic preferences)
•1 tablespoon cumin
•1 teaspoon cayenne
•2 teaspoons turmeric
•1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
•1/2 cup fresh parsley, mixed in just before serving
Mix everything in a casserole dish, cover, and bake at about 350ºF/180ºC for 35min. Take it out and give it a stir, add some water if it’s looking dry, and put it back in until the carrots are tender, probably about a half an hour depending on the size of your carrot chunks. Let it sit a few minutes (like, while you’re chopping & rinsing your parsley), and add the parsley. Then it's already prepared and it can serve as a side dish for any good meat.
Etiquetas: Africa, Guinea, Mali, Recipes, Traditional food
Baguette express
El món del vending està d’enhorabona. Diria que les primeres màquines expenedores devien ser les de bales de xiclet. Després van venir les de tabac. Després les de cafè. Van seguir les de pastisseria industrial... Fins i tot jo havia sentit a parlar d’unes màquines expenedores de sopa de fideus al Japó (per a aquells nipons que no poden esperar a arribar a casa per a prendre’s un bol d’Udon). Fins i tot al metro de Barcelona n’hi ha de llibres de butxaca... Però a partir de l’any vinent els francesos tindran una altra màquina expenedora als seus llocs públics: una màquina expenedora de baguettes... calentes!
L’invent és de l’empresa de Ripoll RIPLEG GRUP, S.L., que ha creat un prototip de màquina que cuina i dispensa baguettes en un minut. La màquina de vending té capacitat per a 110 bares de pa precuinades que es guarden a baixa temperatura, i abans de sortir, es couen en un forn a alta temperatura durant 60 segons.
L’empresa preveu inundar el mercat francès amb 1200 màquines que començarà a produir en breu a partir del prototip.
La col•laboració de Ripleg amb una empresa francesa ha permès innovar la tècnica capaç de servir el pa tan ràpidament.
Ara només ens queda esperar que inventin la versió catalana: una màquina expenedora de Bikinis. Calents, és clar!
Etiquetas: Tecnologia
62nd Tribal Art Auction at Zemanek-Münster
Date: Saturday, 2010 September 4th, 2 pm
Preview: Wednesday, September 1 to Friday, September 3 – 10 am to 7 pm and Saturday, September 4 – 9 am to 1.30 pm
Place: Auctionhouse Zemanek-Münster, Hörleingasse 3-5, D-97070, Würzburg, Germany
Contact: info@tribal-art-auktion.de
Webpage: www.tribal-art-auktion.de
Catalogue: http://www.tribal-art-auktion.de/downloads/catalogue170.pdf
The upcoming 62nd Tribal Art Auction on September 4, will have a special part regarding Tanzania - all exhibits of the former exhibition "Tansania - Glaube, Kult und Geisterwelt".
Once again, you may expect a substantial offer of authentic old objects from Africa, America and Oceania. About 500 objects are shown in the catalogue with highlights from Gabon, Nigeria, Mali, the Ivory Coast, Congo and Indonesia.
A special part is given to the region of East Africa, and here in particular to Tanzania. Some 200 objects, all exhibits of the former exhibition "Tansania - Glaube, Kult und Geisterwelt" could be acquired for this auction. The exhibits, shown in 2007/2008 in the "Kultur- und Stadthistorische Museum" of the City of Duisburg and once again in 2009 in the "Haus der Völker", Schwaz (Austria) were taken from the private collection Ralf Schulte-Bahrenberg, who died in January 2010.
Ralf Schulte-Bahrenberg (1934-2010) was concert organizer of many domestic jazz festivals and co-organizer of Germany concerts of the Rolling Stones and Beatles.
About Zemanek-Münster:
The Zemanek-Münster art auction house in Würzburg has been involved with African art since the beginning of the nineties and it has become Europe's only auction house that specializes exclusively in non-European art.
The company started in 1978 as a small and distinguished antique shop for European art in Würzburg. Its first art auction was held seven years later, initially in rented rooms. In addition to their premises in Würzburg, Zemanek-Münster had been running art auctions for many years in Miltenberg (Frankfurt am Main) and following the reunification of Germany in 1989 in Dresden, the provincial capital of Saxony. In 1992 Zemanek-Münster moved into their premises in the Hörleingasse, Würzburg, an old blacksmith's shop in former times. In the summer of 2007 the auction house was renovated to provide more exhibition space and a new glass roof also considerably improved presentation.
In 1990 Zemanek-Münster was already reacting to emerging changes on the arts market. In 1991 the company started to specialise in non-European art with the separation of the Africa collection belonging to the late artist and great collector Joachim Schlotterbeck, who died in 2007.
The family run company today has eight full-time employees, who are art historians and ethnologists for European art and non-European art. The extended team also includes photographers, layouters and other enthusiastic employees. Their professional qualifications, academic application and the dedication with which auction catalogues are compiled have gained them a high degree of customer trust. The company is now widely regarded for its integrity, reliability and fairness in dealings with bidders and consignors all over the world.
These constant high standards have led to the success of this small, family-run company at an international level. In addition, amicable relationships with both customers and employees and a warm and welcoming atmosphere all form part of the Zemanek-Münster company philosophy and have proved a decisive factor in the success of the art auction house. The future is also in safe hands: David Zemanek, the older son, who grew up surrounded by art and is a qualified art-ethnologist himself, will take over in the future.
Etiquetas: Africa, Artifacts, Tribal Art
Albanian Folk Iso-Polyphony
Traditional Albanian polyphonic music can be divided into two major stylistic groups as performed by the Ghegs of northern Albania and the Tosks and Labs living in the southern part of the country. The term iso is related to the ison of Byzantine church music and refers to the drone accompanying polyphonic singing. The drone is performed in two ways: among the Tosks, it is always continuous and sung on the syllable ’e’, using staggered breathing, while among the Labs, the drone is sometimes sung as a rhythmic tone, performed to the text of the song. Rendered mainly by male singers, the music traditionally accompanies a wide range of social events, such as weddings, funerals, harvest feasts, religious celebrations and festivals such as the well-known Albanian folk festival in Gjirokastra.
Albanian iso-polyphony is characterized by songs consisting of two solo parts, a melody and a countermelody with a choral drone. The structure of the solo parts varies according to the different ways of performing the drone, which has a great variety of structures, especially in the popular style adopted by all groups performing this music. Over the last few decades, the modest rise of cultural tourism and the growing interest of the research community in this unique folk tradition have contributed to the revival of Albanian iso-polyphony. However, the tradition is adversely affected by poverty, the absence of legal protection and the lack of financial support for practitioners, threatening the transmission of the vast repertoire of songs and techniques. The rural exodus of young people to the bigger cities and abroad in search of jobs compounds this danger. Given these conditions, at the present time, the transmission of this tradition is maintained through professional folk artists, rather than within the family structure.
Etiquetas: Albania, Cultural Heritage, Music
The Last Gods of Easter Island
The Lost Gods of Easter Island is a BBC documentary written and presented by David Attenborough. It explores the history of the civilization of the remote Easter islands. Attenborough embarks on a personal quest to uncover the history of a strange wooden figurine carving which turned up in an auction room in New York during the 1980′s.
The auction catalogue indicated that the carving was from Easter Island and the auctioneers told him that the sculpture had come from a junk-shop dealer in Pennsylvania. He knew that the, “grotesque head, attached to a body grossly elongated and as thin as a stick,” was more important than the auctioneers believed it to be and had such presence and power that he bought it.
He began an investigation to trace the origins of the artifact — an investigation that spans the globe and leads him on voyages to Russia, Australia, England, the Pacific, a Tahiti beach and finally to one of the most remote places on earth; and 15 years later, in a personal detective story that combines art, anthropology, and history traces the origin of the carving and in doing so tells the story of a forgotten civilization and of a people who inhabited one of the most remote places on Earth.
Etiquetas: Oceania, TV & Cinema
The Wodaabe of the Sahel
Name: Wodaabe (or Bororo)
Living Area: Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Central African Republic (Africa)
Population: 45.000 (1983)
Language: Fula
In the Fula language, woɗa means "taboo", and Woɗaaɓe means "people of the taboo". This is sometimes translated as "those who respect taboos", a reference to the Wodaabe isolation from broader Fulbe culture, and their contention that they retain "older" traditions than their Fulbe neighbors. In contrast, other Fulbe as well as other ethnic groups sometimes refer to the Wodaabe as "Bororo", a sometimes pejorative name, translated into English as "Cattle Fulani", and meaning "those who dwell in cattle camps". By the 17th century, the Fula people across West Africa were among the first ethnic groups to embrace Islam, were often leaders of those forces which spread Islam, and have been traditionally proud of the urban, literate, and pious life with which this has been related. Both Wodaabe and other Fulbe see in the Wodaabe the echos of an earlier pastoralist way of life, of which the Wodaabe are proud and of which urban Fulbe are sometimes critical.
The Wodaabe keep herds of long-horned Zebu cattle. The dry season extends from October to May. Their annual travel during the wet season follows the rain from the south to the north. Groups of several dozen relatives, typically several brothers with their wives, children and elders, travel on foot, donkey or camel, and stay at each grazing spot for a couple of days. A large wooden bed is the most important possession of each family; when camping it is surrounded by some screens. The women also carry calabashes as a status symbol. These calabashes are passed down through the generations, and often provoke rivalry between women. The Wodaabe mostly live on milk and ground millet, as well as yogurt, sweet tea and occasionally the meat of a goat or sheep. This is a rarity for them as they don't often have enough animals to spare for meat.
Wodaabe religion is largely but loosely Islamic. Although there are varying degrees of orthodoxy exhibited, most adhere to at least some of the basic requirements of the religion. Islam became a religion of importance among Wodaabe peoples during the 16th century when the scholar al-Maghili preached the teachings of Muhammad to the elite of northern Nigeria. Al-Maghili was responsible for converting the ruling classes among Hausa, Fulani, and Tuareg peoples in the region.
The code of behavior of the Wodaabe emphasizes reserve and modesty (semteende), patience and fortitude (munyal), care and forethought (hakkilo), and loyalty (amana). They also place great emphasis on beauty and charm.
Parents are not allowed to talk directly to their two first born children, who will often be cared for by their grandparents. During daylight, husband and wife cannot hold hands or speak in a personal manner with each other.
The Wodaabe are sexually liberal; unmarried girls may have sex whenever and with whomever they wish. The Wodaabe practice polygamy. The first marriage is typically arranged among members of the same lineage by parents when the couple are infants (called koogal); later additional "love marriages" (teegal) are also possible, when a woman leaves her husband and joins another one. A bride stays with her husband until she becomes pregnant after which she returns to her mother's home, where she will remain for the next three to four years. She will deliver the baby at her mother's home and then she becomes a boofeydo which literally means "someone who has committed an error." While she is boofeydo, she is not allowed to have any contact with her husband, and he is not allowed to express any interest in either her or the child. After two to three years, she is permitted to visit her husband, but it is still taboo that she should live with him or bring the child with her; this only becomes permissible when her mother has managed to purchase all the items that are necessary for her home.
Well-known by: the Gerewol and Yaake dances.
At the end of the rainy season in September, Wodaabe clans gather in several traditional locations before the beginning of their dry season transhumance migration. The best known of these is In-Gall's Cure Salée salt market and Tuareg seasonal festival. Here the young Wodaabe men, with elaborate make-up, feathers and other adornments, perform the Yaake: dances and songs to impress marriageable women. The male beauty ideal of the Wodaabe stresses tallness, white eyes and teeth; the men will often roll their eyes and show their teeth to emphasize these characteristics. Wodaabe clans then join for the remainder of the week-long Gerewol: a series of barters over marriage and contests where the young men's beauty and skills are judged by young women.
Some words in their language:
hello: no ngoola daa
my name is ___: Ko ___ njeyaa mi.
yes: ee, qeeyi
no: ala
goodbye: mi yahee
© Photos and text: Wikipedia
Etiquetas: Africa, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Niger, Nigeria, Peoples, Tribes
The Way of Tea
Show: The Way of the Tea
Date: Friday 10 September, 14:00 and 15:00
Place: Room 92, British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG
Webpage: www.britishmuseum.org
A free demonstration of the Japanese tea ceremony in the Mitsubishi Corporation Japanese galleries.
Presented and supported by the Urasenke Foundation.
The History of the Tea Ceremony:
The popularity of tea is worldwide, but nowhere in the world does tea contribute as much to the cultural milieu as in Japan. There the preparation and drinking of tea has acquired esthetic significance and has developed into a distinct artistic accomplishment.
Tea was originally brought to Japan in the 9th century, by the Buddhist monk Eichū (永忠), who had returned to Japan from China. This is the first documented evidence of tea in Japan. The entry in the Nihon Kōki states that Eichū personally prepared and served sencha (unground Japanese green tea) to Emperor Saga who was on an excursion in Karasaki (in present Shiga Prefecture) in the year 815. By imperial order in the year 816, tea plantations began to be cultivated in the Kinki region of Japan. However, the interest in tea in Japan faded after this.
In China, tea had already been known, according to legend, for more than a thousand years. The form of tea popular in China in the era when Eichū went for studies was "cake tea" (団茶 dancha)—tea compressed into a nugget in the same manner as Pu-erh. This then would be ground in a mortar, and the resulting ground tea decocted together with various other herbs and/or flavorings.
The custom of drinking tea, first for medicinal, and then largely also for pleasurable reasons, was already widespread throughout China. In the early 9th century, Chinese author Lu Yu wrote The Classic of Tea, a treatise on tea focusing on its cultivation and preparation. Lu Yu's life had been heavily influenced by Buddhism, particularly the Zen–Chán school.[citation needed] His ideas would have a strong influence in the development of the Japanese tea ceremony.
Around the end of the 12th century, the style of tea preparation called "tencha" (点茶), in which matcha was placed in a bowl, hot water poured into the bowl, and the tea and hot water whipped together, was introduced by Eisai, another Japanese monk returning from China. He also brought tea seeds back with him, which eventually produced tea that was of the most superb quality in all of Japan.
This powdered green tea was first used in religious rituals in Buddhist monasteries. By the 13th century, when the Kamakura Shogunate ruled the nation and the samurai warrior class ruled supreme, tea and the luxuries associated with it became a kind of status symbol among the warrior class, and there arose tea-tasting (闘茶 tōcha) parties wherein contestants could win extravagant prizes for guessing the best quality tea—that grown in Kyoto, deriving from the seeds that Eisai brought from China.
The next major period in Japanese history was the Muromachi Period, pointing to the rise of Kitayama Culture (北山文化 Kitayama bunka), centered around the elegant cultural world of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and his villa in the northern hills of Kyoto, and later during this period, the rise of Higashiyama Culture, centered around the cultural world of Ashikaga Yoshimasa and his retirement villa in the eastern hills of Kyoto. This period saw the budding of what is generally regarded as Japanese traditional culture as we know it today.
Tea ceremony developed as a "transformative practice", and began to evolve its own aesthetic, in particular that of wabi. Wabi, meaning quiet or sober refinement, or subdued taste, "is characterized by humility, restraint, simplicity, naturalism, profundity, imperfection, and asymmetry [emphasizing] simple, unadorned objects and architectural space, and [celebrating] the mellow beauty that time and care impart to materials." Murata Jukō is known in chanoyu history as the early developer of this, and therefore is generally counted as the founder of the Japanese "way of tea". He studied Zen under the monk Ikkyū, who revitalized Zen in the 15th century, and this is considered to have influenced his concept of chanoyu.
By the 16th century, tea drinking had spread to all levels of society in Japan. Sen no Rikyu, perhaps the most well-known—and still revered—historical figure in tea ceremony, followed his master, Takeno Jōō's, concept of ichi-go ichi-e, a philosophy that each meeting should be treasured, for it can never be reproduced. His teachings perfected many newly developed forms in Japanese architecture and gardens, fine and applied arts, and the full development of chadō, "the "way of tea". The principles he set forward—harmony (和 wa), respect (敬 kei), purity (清 sei), and tranquility (寂 jaku)—are still central to tea ceremony.
Many schools of Japanese tea ceremony have evolved through the long history of chadō and are active today.
©Text by Wikipedia, Photo by British Museum
Etiquetas: Asia, Cultural Heritage, Japan, Shows
Intangible Cultural Heritage
The term ‘cultural heritage’ has changed content considerably in recent decades, partially owing to the instruments developed by UNESCO. Cultural heritage does not end at monuments and collections of objects. It also includes traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as oral traditions,performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts.
While fragile, intangible cultural heritage is an important factor in maintaining cultural diversity in the face of growing globalization. An understanding of the intangible cultural heritage of different communities helps with intercultural dialogue, and encourages mutual respect for other ways of life.
The importance of intangible cultural heritage is not the cultural manifestation itself but rather the wealth of knowledge and skills that is transmitted through it from one generation to the next. The social and economic value of this transmission of knowledge is relevant for minority groups and for mainstream social groups within a State, and is as important for developing States as for developed ones.
Intangible cultural heritage is:
•Traditional, contemporary and living at the same time: intangible cultural heritage does not only represent inherited traditions from the past but also contemporary rural and urban practices in which diverse cultural groups take part;
•Inclusive: we may share expressions of intangible cultural heritage that are similar to those practised by others. Whether they are from the neighbouring village, from a city on the opposite side of the world, or have been adapted by peoples who have migrated and settled in a different region, they all are intangible cultural heritage: they have been passed from one generation to another, have evolved in response to their environments and they contribute to giving us a sense of identity and continuity, providing a link from our past, through the present, and into our future. Intangible cultural heritage does not give rise to questions of whether or not certain practices are specific to a culture. It contributes to social cohesion, encouraging a sense of identity and responsibility which helps individuals to feel part of one or different communities and to feel part of society at large;
•Representative: intangible cultural heritage is not merely valued as a cultural good, on a comparative basis, for its exclusivity or its exceptional value. It thrives on its basis in communities and depends on those whose knowledge of traditions, skills and customs are passed on to the rest of the community, from generation to generation, or to other communities;
•Community-based: intangible cultural heritage can only be heritage when it is recognized as such by the communities, groups or individuals that create, maintain and transmit it – without their recognition, nobody else can decide for them that a given expression or practice is their heritage.
The List of Intangible Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding which came into being in Abu Dhabi, includes 12 elements proposed by States Parties to the Convention and whose viability is endangered, despite the efforts of the community or group concerned. By inscribing an element on this List, the State undertakes to implement specific safeguards and may be eligible to receive financial assistance from a Fund set up for this purpose.
The Representative List already included 90 elements, following the incorporation of the 90 masterpieces proclaimed before the Convention entered into force. It is now augmented by 76 first elements inscribed according to criteria defined in the operational directives of the Convention. These elements must help enhance the visibility of the intangible cultural heritage and raise awareness regarding its importance; they must benefit from measures to promote their continued practice and transmission, and must have been nominated by States with the active and widest possible participation of the communities concerned, and with their free, prior and informed consent.
The Committee also selected 3 safeguarding programmes, projects and activities that it considers best reflect the principles and objectives of the Convention. The Committee hopes to use this register of good practices to raise public awareness of the importance of intangible heritage and the need to safeguard it.
Etiquetas: Cultural Heritage
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Who's Who In Amandium >
Outstanding Scientist
Applied Biochemist and Molecular Biologist
Outstanding Scientist of the Philippines (Biochemistry)
National Academy of Science and Technology
(Vital C Consultant/Lecturer)
Dr. Jose M. Oclarit born in Saray, Salay, Misamis Oriental, Philippines. Dr. Oclarit comes to Mountain View College with a string of impressive academic credentials.
In 1979 he finished his BS Zoology/Marine Biology from the Mindanao State University, Marawi City and 1987, his Master of Science in Physiology from the University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City. In 1984, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan conferred on him his Ph.D. in Applied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. His research title was: Chemical and Biological Studies of Bioactive Compounds Obtained from Marine Sponges of Japan.
He was a post doctoral fellow in molecular biology and fatty acid analysis (1996-1997) at the Chugoku National Industrial Research Institute (now the National Institute for Advanced Science and Technology) in Kure City, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. He also had post doctoral experience on calcium regulation related to depression and other neurological disorders (Nov. 2001 – February 2002) under the tutorship of Dr. Lukasz Konopka of the Edward Hines, Jr. Hospital for Veteran Affairs, Hines, Illinois, USA.
In 1996, Dr. Oclarit received the National Outstanding Young Scientist of the Philippines Award (Applied Biochemistry). This is the most prestigious award for science in Philippines which is awarded yearly by the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), the highest collegial body of Philippine Science affiliated with the Royal Society of London, England.
This award was given in grateful recognition of his outstanding contribution to science for having discovered two novel compounds: (1) Clathrynamide, an anticancer agent against human myeloid cells. This is found in the first chapter of his Ph. D. dissertation and is published in Tetrahedron Letters, the international journal of organic chemistry; (2) 7,7-bis (3-indolyl-p-cresol), a novel antibiotic against Gram-positive bacteria.
This is published in the international journal, the Natural Products Letters. Both molecules were patented in Japan by Ajinomoto and Suntory companies, respectively, since they were the ones that funded the research projects.
The other awards he received includes: National Outstanding Researcher in Industry and Energy for 2000 (National Level – First Place); Regional-Zonal Best Paper Awardee (First Place) 1999; Outstanding Professor of Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT) 1997 in the field of Applied Biochemistry; Outstanding Recognition for Science and Technology (1994) given by the government of Iligan City; National Outstanding Achievement Award (in Microbiology) in 1999 by the Philippine Association of Japanese Ministry of Educational Scholars in collaboration with the Japanese Information and Cultural Center, Manila; and International Grand Award Winner on Research in Microbiology (2nd Place) during the 53rd International Science and Engineering Fair held at Louisville, Kentucky, USA in 2002. (This is the annual Science Olympics of all science fairs worldwide participated in by 40 countries and the 50 states of the United States.
The Who’s Who in the World cited him eight consecutive times from 1996-2003 as Scientist in Applied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. A consistent honor student from the elementary grades to college, Dr. Oclarit was a scholar at the MSU-IIT, a national science scholar at the UP Diliman, and a MONBUSHO (Japanese Ministry of Education and Science) scholar. He emerged No.1 among all the applicants of the Japanese scholarship from the southern Philippines. This scholarship enabled him to undertake his doctoral studies at Hiroshima University.
Before connecting with MVC as a full professor of molecular biology and biochemistry and a research scientist, Dr. Oclarit was a professor of applied biochemistry and molecular biology at the Department of Biological Science, MSU-IIT. He was an adjunct professor in Oncogenesis, College of Medicine, MSU, Marawi City, and for a number of times a visiting scientist at the National Institute of Advanced Science and Technology and the Chugoku National Industrial Research Institute, Agency of Industrial Science and Technology, both in Japan.
Dr. Oclarit has been invited to speak in international scientific meetings. He was a speaker and a participant in the International Conference on OCEANS (May 11-14, 2009 – Bremen, Germany); the Alfred Russel Wallace International Conference (2008 – Indonesia); the International Faith and Learning Seminar (2008 – Loma Linda, CA, USA; the International Conference on OCEANS (2007 – Scotland, UK); the International Symposium on Biotechnology: Basic and Application (2003 – Spain); the International Symposium on Marine Bioprocess Engineering (1998 – the Netherlands); the Asian Network on Microbial Researches (1999 – Thailand; 1998 – Indonesia); and the 7th Asian Chemical Congress (1196 – Japan)
Dr. Oclarit has also been given international travel and grants to visit China, Germany, the USA, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Japan, Spain, France, and Thailand.
At present, he is a consultant and lecturer of Vital C Health Products, Inc. His most common topic of lectures concerns on the (The Physiology of Super Ant-Oxidants: Mechanisms and Effects) this explains why human being get sick (the cells, the immune system) and why Vitamin C and other anti-oxidants and minerals can prevent and eventually cure these diseases.
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info@amparo.org.au8.30am to 4.30pm07 3354 4900Building 3, Level 2, 53 Prospect Road, Gaythorne, Q 4051
TRANSLATED FACTSHEETS
AMPARO Advocacy
AMPARO Advocacy defends, protects and promotes the rights and interests of vulnerable people from a non-English speaking background who have a disability.
About AMPARO Advocacy
History of AMPARO Advocacy
Management Committee and Staff
Social Advocacy and Guiding Principles
Systemic Advocacy
Queensland Accessing Interpreters Working Group (QAIWG)
Engaging with Diverse Communities in preparing for the NDIS
Combined Advocacy Groups of Queensland (CAGQ)
NDIS Resources
Factsheets – Understanding NDIS and disability
Factsheets – Understanding NDIS and disability VIDEOS
Factsheet – NDIS Information for Interpreters
The NDIS and interpreters and translators
Working with Interpreters and developing cultural competence
NDIS- Community Radio Interviews
NDIS CALD Strategy
Publications/Research & Reports
NDIS and CALD Communities Symposium
AMPARO Advocacy speaks, acts and writes on behalf of vulnerable people from a culturally and linguistically diverse background with disability to defend, protect and promote their rights and interests so their fundamental needs are met. Individual advocacy is provided in a way that respects and meets language, cultural and religious needs of the person and is based on the principles of human rights, social justice and inclusion.
AMPARO Advocacy recognises that societal responses to vulnerable people can be extremely inadequate and strong social advocacy on their behalf is often needed. The people with whom we work are those most likely to be at risk and least able to represent or defend their own interests and whose fundamental needs are not being met – inadequate food, clothing, income, support, housing, health and wellbeing, safety and freedom from harm, having someone who cares.
We work to assist refugees and migrants with disability and their families who are experiencing social and economic marginalisation to identify their unmet needs and to address issues of disadvantage, discrimination and neglect. Individual advocacy is provided to people living in the Brisbane area who meet the eligibility criteria AMPARO Advocacy advocates for a diverse mix of people who differ in age, disability, language, culture, living arrangement, relationships and life situations.
To receive individual advocacy the person must:
have a disability;
be from a non-English speaking background for whom language and /or cultural differences make it difficult to understand and negotiate systems and services that support people.
be vulnerable and not having their fundamental needs met;
be between 0-65years of age;
live within the Brisbane area.
To be accepted for individual advocacy the organisation must have the capacity and resources to offer assistance.
AMPARO Advocacy will accept requests for advocacy assistance from individuals with disability, family members or friends, and organisations.
If you need an interpreter to speak with someone at AMPARO Advocacy you can call the Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS) on 131 450 and ask them to contact AMPARO Advocacy on 3354 4900.
All new referrals are discussed at fortnightly staff meetings to determine eligibility and AMPARO’s capacity to accept the person for individual advocacy. Organisations can locate a referral form on this website.
A useful advocacy resource
This website has been developed by Disability Advocacy Network Australia Limited (DANA) to support advocacy for people with disabilities in connection with the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)
DANA is committed to the vision of an Australia that includes and values people with disabilities and respects human rights for all. Thoughtful use of NDIS funded services and supports can make a strong contribution to achieving this vision.
Whether you are a person with a disability, a family member or an independent disability advocacy agency, we aim to inform you about the rights and entitlements of people with disabilities under the NDIS and about how to engage with the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) to achieve supports that suit the wishes and circumstances of a person with disability.
You can browse the site for general information or use the main navigation menu and search function to find information about specific issues.
Individual advocacy stories
At risk of homelessness
Habib and his wife and children are Australian citizens, but were originally refugees from Afghanistan who entered the country around 8 years ago. Habib experiences an acquired brain injury as a result of violence he experienced while fleeing Afghanistan. Habib’s brain injury precludes Habib from working. Habib spends much of his time at home playing with his children or volunteering at their school, which he enjoys.
A referral was made to AMPARO Advocacy around property issues Habib and his family were experiencing. They live in private rental accommodation that is overseen or managed by a multicultural service provider. After a property inspection, Habib has been accused by his landlord of keeping the house in an unreasonable condition, and there is an indirect threat by the landlord that the family may be asked to leave the property. In addition, Habib has received a bill for over $5,000 from the multicultural service provider to remedy alleged damages he has caused to the property over a number of years. Habib is confused and very concerned that his family is about to be evicted. He also cannot afford to pay the $5,000 bill and is unsure why he has received this. The family, due to language barriers, does not understand what is going on and feel very distressed.
AMPARO Advocacy considered Habib was in a precarious position in terms of potential imminent homelessness. Through discussing the bill with Habib and his wife through a Dari interpreter, AMPARO Advocacy also ascertained that many of the items on the $5,000 damages bill were in fact not a result of damage caused by the family, but issues that had arisen in the home as a result of reasonable wear and tear that the family had raised with the multicultural service provider. Also, on examination of the property, AMPARO Advocacy observed that the property was an older property with low quality fixtures and finishing’s; and were somewhat surprised as the multicultural service provider had indicated it was a newer property. While Habib agreed to cover any costs related to damage caused by himself and his family, the family were not prepared to pay for issues to the property which they had not directly caused – but, in fact, had requested to get fixed. AMPARO Advocacy was also concerned that this bill had built up over a number of years and had not been previously addressed by the multicultural service provider.
AMPARO Advocacy supported the family to seek advice and representation from their local Tenancy Advocacy and Advice Centre, including attending appointments with them. Under the terms of their contract, the family learnt that the landlord could issue them with a notice to leave the property at any time. This placed the family in a very tenuous and difficult position in trying to negotiate to have the $5,000 bill decreased; as they were concerned that any conflict could result in a notice to leave. Through an interpreter, the family was advised of their rights to pursue the matter through the legal system.
The matter remains ongoing – a positive outcome of AMPARO Advocacy’s involvement being that when contacting the multicultural service provider the family is now represented by the Tenancy Advocacy service, which has created a greater sense of transparency and accountability around their matter. Interpreters are also being used by the Tenancy Advocacy service to clarify background facts, provide the family with advice and obtain their instructions. Importantly, the family feels they understand “what is happening”. Habib’s CRPD right to an adequate standard of living and social protection (Article 28), while still precarious, is nevertheless being protected and promoted.
At risk of being excluded from the educational system
AMPARO Advocacy has advocated on behalf of a young boy called Raja from a Liberian background who was at serious risk of being excluded from the Queensland education system due to a lack of appropriate educational, medical and therapeutic assistance. Raja arrived in Australia under the Humanitarian Program with his sole parent and five older siblings in mid-2006. His mother reports that she had not experienced any concerns regarding Raja’s behaviour until he commenced school in Australia. Prior to coming to Australia Raja had been living in a refugee camp for 3 years with his family and had not had access to any formal education.
Within a few months of commencing school in Australia it was identified by the teachers that Raja was experiencing significant learning difficulties, and was struggling to follow directions given by his teachers. He was frequently suspended from school due to physical and verbal aggression towards his peers and teachers and was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome and Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder. Before AMPARO Advocacy became involved Raja had attended several different Special Education Units attached to various primary schools. He had only attended a Special Education Unit at high school for less than six months when he was expelled. Raja was very unhappy with being separated from his peers and felt the stigma of being seen to be different and was at serious risk of dropping out of school permanently. Raja was at serious risk of missing out on receiving a secondary school education and the long term impact of this would have been devastating.
Raja’s mother was struggling as a single parent and sole income earner to cope financially and emotionally to support her family in a new country. She had limited proficiency in English and required an accredited interpreter, particularly when having important information explained to her regarding her son or when needing to make important informed decisions. Language and cultural barriers meant that the family required much assistance to negotiate the educational system to ensure Raja was included in the best educational environment to meet his needs.
AMPARO Advocacy was also concerned that Raja’s diagnosis was formed without a culturally appropriate assessment of his needs for support.
Our advocacy efforts focused on ensuring:
Culturally sensitive cognitive, speech and language assessment for Raja.
Raja could attend an inclusive school and receive the best supports possible so that he could complete his secondary education.
Teaching staff having access to support and information to provide the educational support that would enable Raja to continue his education without the risk of further suspensions or expulsion from school.
After much negotiation, Raja was enrolled in an inclusive independent secondary school, however he was again at serious risk of being expelled after attending this school for one month.
To achieve our goals for Raja over the past two years AMPARO Advocacy has worked closely and attended many meetings, with Raja’s mother, his teachers and the principal of the independent school to secure individualized support for Raja to pursue the subjects he is interested in so that he could complete his senior school education.
The school is staffed by a multi-disciplinary team of teachers, counsellors, youth workers and family workers with a philosophy of providing holistic support for attending students.
According to Education Queensland an inclusive education “builds communities that value, celebrate and respond to diversity. It is underpinned by respectful relationships between learners and school community members. It is supported by collaborative relationships with parents and communities through communication, learning partnerships, participation and consultative decision-making.”
To assist in maintaining Raja’s school enrolment, AMPARO Advocacy secured the involvement of behavioural specialists who undertook an appropriate cognitive, speech and language assessment taking into consideration Raja’s cultural and language background and previous lack of educational opportunities. These finding were summarized in a comprehensive report with specific recommendations which were implemented by Raja’s teachers.
AMPARO’s experience is that some government and non-government services are still not utilizing accredited interpreters. Advocacy was needed to ensure the presence of an accredited interpreter for every meeting Raja’s mother attended regarding medical, therapeutic and educational issues.
Advocacy efforts were also directed at securing appropriate therapeutic intervention from the Mater Hospital specialist clinic for children and support from the family General Practitioner. Language and cultural barriers required the advocate to attend many of these appointments to ensure:
Onsite accredited interpreters were always provided
The advocate had a thorough understanding of Raja’s complex support needs
Raja’s mother understood the issues her son was facing and could make informed decisions of his behalf.
Raja has successfully maintained his enrolment at the school now for the past two years, studying those subjects that interest him and will soon complete grade ten. His teachers are working very closely with Raja and his family. He is attending school as required, participating to a greater extent across all school activities, growing in confidence and taking on more responsibilities. ‘
The wider impact of mental illness
AMPARO Advocacy has been assisting Andrea, a woman who came to Australia under the Humanitarian Program, and who is a sole parent with 2 young children. She has been suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other serious mental health issues which have led to the family becoming socially isolated and to a string of events involving Centrelink, housing, and health services, and to Andrea being hospitalised and ultimately to Child Safety placing the children in care.
A combination of mental illness and a limited English proficiency meant that important written correspondence in English from Centrelink requesting a review of her income was not responded to, and as a result Andrea’s Centrelink benefit was ceased. This led to the automatic debit usually made to the Department of Housing for rent was unpaid. Housing then sent Andrea a letter to remedy this breach, but again due to illness and limited English the importance of this letter was not recognised. Stress levels were exacerbated from living in a home whose garden and exterior were being regularly vandalised and impacted by high traffic noise and pollution. Applications for a housing transfer were being regularly cancelled due to a lack of response to letters requesting further information.
Sadly as Andrea did not see herself as being unwell she did not understand the need to attend medical appointments regularly and did not take the medications prescribed for her. Andrea became so unwell that that she was unable to leave the home and the children were staying home from school. AMPARO advocated for the local mental health team to become more involved and they organised for her to be hospitalised and to receive the necessary mental health treatment. Unfortunately, as there were no family or friends who could care for her children, Child Safety was notified that she would be going to hospital and her children were taken into care. The Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal granted a short term order for a Legal Guardian and an Administrator to be appointed for 3 months.
AMPARO Advocacy’s initial role was to inform Centrelink and the Department of Housing that Andrea’s was very unwell and to provide them with the appropriate information so that Andrea’s benefits were reinstated and backdated and her rent was paid to prevent the family’s eviction.
Advocacy was needed to involve appropriate services so that as soon as Andrea was able to come out of hospital she would have additional support so that her children could be returned to her. To ensure that the Department of Child Safety returned her children to her care as soon as possible the advocate attended court hearings and meetings with Child Safety.
Once out of hospital, and the children returned, AMPARO’s role has been to provide ongoing advocacy during the recovery process to ensure that Andrea remains well and that ongoing appropriate mental health support has been available. A move to a quieter home in a different suburb is seen as important to this recovery process.
To summarise AMPARO’s advocacy efforts to support Andrea included:
Ensuring that appropriate interpreters who respect confidentiality were in attendance at all meetings and interpreted all correspondence.
Advocating with Centrelink for Andrea’s income benefit to be reinstated as a matter of urgency.
Working with the Department of Housing to remedy the breach notice and to pay the rent arrears, preventing Andrea and her family from being evicted and becoming homeless.
Advocating for the necessary supports to be put in place to allow Andrea to return home, and for the swift return of her children.
Addressing the communication breakdown between Andrea’s general practitioner and mental health team to ensure each were aware of the medications being prescribed by the other.
Supporting Andrea to discuss and address her concerns with the mental health team and to attend regular appointments.
Supporting Andrea at court regarding Child Safety orders and in meetings with the Department of Child Safety.
Supporting Andrea at QCAT re the dismissal of the Guardian and Administrator and to ensure that outstanding funds were returned to her in a timely manner.
Supporting the appointment of an appropriate service to provide complex case management support for an initial 6 month period.
Advocating for the appointment of a service to provide ongoing support in the longer term through the Personal Helpers and Mentors Program (PHaMs), and for the service’s use of interpreters. Services were reluctant to become involved as they were unaware that they could access fee-free professional interpreting services through the Translating and Information Service (TIS).
Supporting Andrea to raise her concerns at the Mental Health Tribunal hearing regarding the involuntary treatment order.
Advocating for the family’s housing transfer application to be backdated to the first application date, and to be prioritised due to health and safety concerns.
Assisting Andrea to provide Child Safety with the contact details of friends who could care for her children should she become unwell again
Andrea is now well on the way to recovery, with both the involuntary treatment order to cease shortly. Andrea’s caring well for her family and her English is improving rapidly through regular attendance at TAFE. An application has been made for Australian citizenship and the family are at the top of the housing transfer listing. AMPARO Advocacy continues to advocate for this housing transfer and for a service to support Andrea in the longer term.
Esperance's Story
Esperance leads a full and active life in Brisbane with her family and is involved in many community activities. She discusses her life growing up in Congo with polio, how she settled in Australia, and her plans and hopes for the future.
Click here to watch on YouTube
Shahram's Story
Shahram is from Iran and has a vision impairment, he discusses how he has overcome obstacles and barriers to successfully study and work in Brisbane Australia
Thao's Story
Thao is a Vietnamese woman and the mother of two children, one of whom has autism. Thao discusses their journey from diagnosis to the present, and the dreams they share for their son's future.
Claude and his Family’s Story
Jacqueline and Nasibu are from Burundi, and live in Brisbane with their six children. In this video they speak in Kirundi, their first language, about Claude’s needs for support and assistance to live a good life.
Hoe Say's Story
Hoe Say and his family are of Burmese ethnicity and have lived in Australia for the past seven years. In this video Hoe Say and his mother Ye Kyaw speak about their journey and their hopes for the future.
Address: Building 3, Level 2, 53 Prospect Road, Gaythorne, Q 4051
Email: info@amparo.org.au
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Economy of Greece
Title: Economy of Greece
Subject: Economy of Moldova, Economy of Iceland, Greek government-debt crisis, Agriculture in Greece, Greek economic miracle
Collection: Economy of Greece, European Union Member Economies, Financial Crises, Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development Member Economies, Stock Market Crashes
Greek agriculture, shipping and tourism
1 euro (ευρώ) = 100 cents (λεπτά)[1]
Calendar year[2]
BSEC[2]
€182.054 billion (nominal; 2013)[3]
€216.465 billion (PPP; 2012)[3]
$241.796 billion (nominal; 2013 est.)[4]
$265.632 billion (PPP; 2013 est.)[4]
43rd (nominal, 2013 est.)[5]
50th (PPP, 2013 est.)[6]
1.6% (Q3 2014 est., year-on-year)[7]
€17,400 (nominal; 2012)[3]
€19,500 (PPP; 2012)[3]
$21,857 (nominal; 2013 est.)[4]
$24,012 (PPP; 2013 est.)[4]
services: 80.6%; industry: 16%; agriculture: 3.4% (2012 est.)
−1.7% (October 2014)[8]
35.7% at risk of poverty or social exclusion (2013)[9][10]
Gini coefficient
34.4 (2013)[11][12]
4,793,367 (August 2014)[13]
services: 70.3%; industry: 16.7%; agriculture: 13% (2012 est.)[14]
25.9% (August 2014)[13]
Average gross salary
€19,807 (2012; annual)[15]
Average net salary
€10,676 (2012; annual, equivalised)[16]
Median net salary
€9,513 (2012; annual, equivalised)[16]
shipping (4th; 2011),[17][18] tourism, food and tobacco processing, textiles, chemicals, metal products; mining, petroleum[2]
€27.57 billion ( −0.1%; 2013 est.)[20]
petroleum oils (not crude), etc 38.88%, aluminium and articles thereof 4.38%; electrical, electronic equipment 3.75%; pharmaceutical products 3.48%; plastics and articles thereof 3.32%; vegetables, fruits, etc 3.18%; iron and steel products 3.03% (2012)[21]
Turkey 10.8%,
Italy 7.5%,
Germany 6.2%,
Bulgaria 5.5%,
Cyprus 4.8%,
USA 3.8%,
UK 3% (2012)[21]
crude petroleum oils, etc 37.47%; electrical, electronic equipment 6.48%; pharmaceutical products 5.92%; machinery, etc 4.2%; ships, boats, etc 4.13%; plastics and articles thereof 2.72%; cars, car parts, motorcycles, etc 2.72% (2012)[21]
Russia 12.6%,
Saudi Arabia 5.6%,
China 4.8%,
Netherlands 4.6%,
France 4.2% (2012)[21]
FDI stock
$40.1 billion (57th; 31 December 2013 est.)[2]
-€6 billion (3.1% of GDP; 2012, provis.)[22]
Gross external debt
€418.881 billion (2013 Q3, provisional)[23]
Net international investment position
-€213.907 billion (2013 Q3, provis.)[24]
€317.499 billion (Q2 2014 est.)[25]
€22.257 billion (12.2% of GDP; 2013 est.)[26]
47.0% of GDP (2013 est.)[26]
Outlook: Stable
AAA (T&C Assessment)
Outlook:[30] Stable
$7.524 billion (March 2014)[31]
The economy of Greece is the 43rd or 50th largest in the world at $242 billion or $283 billion by nominal gross domestic product or purchasing power parity respectively, according to World Bank statistics for the year 2013.[5][6] As of 2013, Greece is the thirteenth-largest economy in the 28-member European Union.[3] In terms of per capita income, Greece is ranked 37th or 40th in the world at $22,083 and $25,331 for nominal GDP and purchasing power parity respectively.
A [34] The country is also a significant agricultural producer within the EU. With an economy larger than all the Balkan economies combined, Greece is the largest economy in the Balkans and an important regional investor.[35][36] Greece is the number-two foreign investor of capital in Albania, the number-three foreign investor in Bulgaria, at the top-three foreign investors in Romania and Serbia and the most important trading partner and largest foreign investor of the Republic of Macedonia. Greek banks open a new branch somewhere in the Balkans on an almost weekly basis.[37][38][39] The Greek telecommunications company OTE has become a strong investor in Yugoslavia and other Balkan countries.[37]
Greece is classified as an advanced,[40] Globalization Index for 2010 and 34th on the Ernst & Young’s Globalization Index 2011.[43]
The country's economy was devastated by the Second World War, and the high levels of economic growth that followed throughout the 1950s to 1970s are dubbed the Greek economic miracle. Since the turn of the millennium, Greece saw high levels of GDP growth above the Eurozone average, peaking at 5.9% in 2003 and 5.5% in 2006.[44] The subsequent Great Recession and Greek government-debt crisis, a central focus of the wider Eurozone crisis, plunged the economy into a sharp downturn, with real GDP growth rates of −0.2% in 2008, −3.1% in 2009, −4.9% in 2010, −7.1% in 2011, −7.0% in 2012 and −3.9% in 2013.[45][46][47] In 2011, the country's public debt reached €355.141 billion (170.3% of nominal GDP).[48][49] After negotiating the biggest debt restructuring in history with the private sector, Greece reduced its sovereign debt burden to €280.4 billion (136.5% of GDP) in the first quarter of 2012.[50] Greece returned to growth after six years of economic decline in the second quarter of 2014,[51] and was the eurozone's fastest-growing economy in the third quarter.[52]
Strengths and weaknesses 1.1
Eurozone entry 1.2
2010–2014 government debt crisis 1.3
Primary sector 2
Agriculture and fishery 2.1
Secondary sector 3
Mining 3.2
Tertiary sector (Services) 4
Maritime industry 4.1
Telecommunications 4.2
Tourism 4.3
Trade and investment 5
Foreign Investment 5.1
Trade 5.2
Taxation and tax evasion 8
Tax evasion 8.1
Wealth and standards of living 9
National and regional GDP 9.1
Welfare state 9.2
Largest companies 9.3
Currency 10
Charts gallery 11
See also 12
Further reading 14
Athens Tower, a symbol of the postwar Greek Economic Miracle from 1950 to 1973.
The evolution of the Greek economy during the 19th century (a period that transformed a large part of the world due to the Industrial revolution) has been little researched. Recent research from 2006[53] examines the gradual development of industry and further development of shipping in a predominantly agricultural economy, calculating an average rate of per capita GDP growth between 1833 and 1911 that was only slightly lower than that of the other Western European nations. Industrial activity, (including heavy industry like shipbuilding) was evident, mainly in Ermoupolis and Piraeus.[54][55] Nonetheless, Greece faced economic hardships and defaulted on its external loans in 1826, 1843, 1860 and 1894.[56][57]
Other studies support the above view on the general trends in the economy, providing comparative measures of standard of living. The per capita income (in purchasing power terms) of Greece was 65% that of France in 1850, 56% in 1890, 62% in 1938,[58][59] 75% in 1980, 90% in 2007, 96.4% in 2008 and 97.9% in 2009.[60][61]
The country's post-World War II development has largely been connected with the so-called Greek economic miracle.[62] During that period, Greece saw growth rates second only to those of Japan, while ranking first in Europe in terms of GDP growth.[62] It is indicative that between 1960 and 1973 the Greek economy grew by an average of 7.7%, in contrast to 4.7% for the EU15 and 4.9 for the OECD.[62] Also during that period, exports grew by an average annual rate of 12.6%.[62]
Greece enjoys a high standard of living and very high Human Development Index, ranking 29th in the world in 2012.[63] However, the severe recession of recent years has seen GDP per capita fall from 94% of the EU average in 2009 to 75% in 2012.[64][65] Actual Individual Consumption (AIC) per capita fell from 104% of the EU average to 85% during the same period.[64][65]
Greece's main industries are tourism, shipping, industrial products, food and tobacco processing, textiles, chemicals, metal products, mining and petroleum. Greece's GDP growth has also, as an average, since the early 1990s been higher than the EU average. However, the Greek economy also faces significant problems, including rapidly rising unemployment levels, an inefficient public sector bureaucracy, tax evasion, corruption and low global competitiveness.[66][67]
Greece is ranked 69th in the world on the Corruption Perceptions Index, alongside Bulgaria, Italy and Romania.[68] Greece also has the EU's lowest Index of Economic Freedom and Global Competitiveness Index, ranking 119th and 81st in the world respectively.[69][70]
Bank of Greece
(companies listed)
Greece topics
Greece portal
GDP growth rates of the Greek economy between 1961 and 2010.
After fourteen consecutive years of economic growth, Greece went into recession in 2008.[71] By the end of 2009, the Greek economy faced the highest budget deficit and government debt-to-GDP ratios in the EU. After several upward revisions, the 2009 budget deficit is now estimated at 15.7% of GDP.[48][49] This, combined with rapidly rising debt levels—127.9% of GDP in 2009—led to a precipitous spike in borrowing costs, effectively shutting Greece out of the global financial markets and resulting in a severe economic crisis.[72]
Greece was accused of trying to cover up the extent of its massive budget deficit in the wake of the global financial crisis.[73] The allegation was prompted by the massive revision of the 2009 budget deficit forecast by the new PASOK government elected in October 2009, from "6–8%" (estimated by the previous New Democracy government) to 12.7% (later revised to 15.7%). However, the accuracy of the revised figures has also been questioned, and in February 2012 the Hellenic Parliament voted in favor of an official investigation following accusations by a former member of the Hellenic Statistical Authority that the deficit had been artificially inflated in order to justify harsher austerity measures.[74][75]
Average GDP growth by era[44]
−3.825%
The Greek labor force, which totals approximately 5 million, at 2,032 average hours of work per worker annually in 2011, is ranked fourth among OECD countries, after Mexico, South Korea and Chile.[76] The Groningen Growth & Development Centre has published a poll revealing that between 1995 and 2005, Greece was the country whose workers worked the most hours/year among European nations; Greeks worked an average of 1,900 hours per year, followed by Spaniards (average of 1,800 hours/year).[77]
As a result of the on-going economic crisis, industrial production in the country went down by 8% between March 2010 and March 2011,[78] One of the sectors hardest hit has been the garment industry, a traditional mainstay of the economy. while the volume of building activity saw a reduction of 73.1% between January 2010 and January 2011.[79] Additionally, the turnover in retail sales saw a decline of 9% between February 2010 and February 2011.[80]
Between 2008 and 2013 unemployment skyrocketed, from a generational low of 7.2% in the second and third quarters of 2008 to a high of 27.9% in June 2013, leaving over a million jobless.[81][82][83] Youth unemployment peaked at 64.9% in May 2013.[84]
Eurozone entry
Greece entered the Eurozone in 2001.
Greece was accepted into the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union by the European Council on 19 June 2000, based on a number of criteria (inflation rate, budget deficit, public debt, long-term interest rates, exchange rate) using 1999 as the reference year. After an audit commissioned by the incoming New Democracy government in 2004, Eurostat revealed that the statistics for the budget deficit had been under-reported.[85]
Most of the differences in the revised budget deficit numbers were due to a temporary change of accounting practices by the new government, i.e., recording expenses when military material was ordered rather than received.[86] However, it was the retroactive application of ESA95 methodology (applied since 2000) by Eurostat, that finally raised the reference year (1999) budget deficit to 3.38% of GDP, thus exceeding the 3% limit. This led to claims that Greece (similar claims have been made about other European countries like Italy)[87] had not actually met all five accession criteria, and the common perception that Greece entered the Eurozone through "falsified" deficit numbers.
In the 2005 OECD report for Greece,[88] it was clearly stated that "the impact of new accounting rules on the fiscal figures for the years 1997 to 1999 ranged from 0.7 to 1 percentage point of GDP; this retroactive change of methodology was responsible for the revised deficit exceeding 3% in 1999, the year of [Greece's] EMU membership qualification". The above led the Greek minister of finance to clarify that the 1999 budget deficit was below the prescribed 3% limit when calculated with the ESA79 methodology in force at the time of Greece's application, and thus the criteria had been met.[89]
The original accounting practice for military expenses was later restored in line with Eurostat recommendations, theoretically lowering even the ESA95-calculated 1999 Greek budget deficit to below 3% (an official Eurostat calculation is still pending for 1999).
An error very frequently made in press reports is the confusion of the discussion regarding Greece’s Eurozone entry with the controversy regarding usage of derivatives’ deals with U.S. Banks by Greece and other Eurozone countries to artificially reduce their reported budget deficits. A currency swap arranged with Goldman Sachs allowed Greece to "hide" 2.8 billion Euros of debt, however, this affected deficit values after 2001 (when Greece had already been admitted into the Eurozone) and is not related to Greece’s Eurozone entry.[90]
A study of the period 1999-2009 by forensic accountants has found that data submitted to Eurostat by Greece, among other countries, had a statistical distribution indicative of manipulation; "Greece with a mean value of 17.74, shows the largest deviation from Benford's law among the members of the eurozone, followed by Belgium with a value of 17.21 and Austria with a value of 15.25".[91][92]
2010–2014 government debt crisis
Greek government debt levels between 1999 and 2010.
By the end of 2009, as a result of a combination of international and local factors the Greek economy faced its most-severe crisis since the restoration of democracy in 1974 as the Greek government revised its deficit from a prediction of 3.7% in early 2009 and 6% in September 2009, to 12.7% of gross domestic product (GDP).[93][94]
In early 2010, it was revealed that through the assistance of
Articles slanted towards recent events from October 2011
Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from February 2012
Articles to be expanded from November 2011
CS1 uses Ελληνικά-language script (el)
CS1 Greek-language sources (el)
CS1 Ελληνικά-language sources (el)
European Union member economies
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member economies
Stock market crashes
Aegean civilizations
Minoan civilization
Mycenaean period
Greek Dark Ages
Roman era
Byzantine era
Latin states
Ottoman era
Modern Greece
Greek countries and regions
Megali Idea
Greek economic miracle
Cuisine (wine)
Flag and national colours
Philhellenism
Name of Greece
Names of the Greeks
United States-specific
Automotive industry crisis
California budget crisis
Housing bubble
Housing market correction
Banking losses and fraud
Anglo Irish Bank hidden loans controversy
Libor scandal
Société Générale trading loss
Forex scandal
Seán FitzPatrick
Allen Stanford
Government entities
Federal Home Loan Banks
Federal Housing Finance Agency
Federal Housing Finance Board
Government National Mortgage Association
Irish Bank Resolution Corporation
National Asset Management Agency
Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight
Office of Financial Stability
UK Financial Investments
Government policy and spending responses
stability and reform
Anglo Irish Bank Corporation Act 2009
Banking (Special Provisions) Act 2008
China–Japan–South Korea trilateral summit
Commercial Paper Funding Facility
Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
Irish emergency budget, 2009
Irish budget, 2010
Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program
Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility
Troubled Asset Relief Program
2008 United Kingdom bank rescue package
Bank stress tests
Stimulus and recovery
2008 European Union stimulus plan
2008–09 Keynesian resurgence
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Chinese economic stimulus program
Economic Stimulus Act of 2008
Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009
Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008
National fiscal policy response to the Great Recession
Zero interest-rate policy
Government interventions,
rescues, and acquisitions
List of banks acquired or bankrupted during the Great Recession
Non-banking
Securities involved
and financial markets
Auction rate securities
Collateralized debt obligations
Collateralized mortgage obligations
Mortgage-backed securities
Social responses
Tea Party protests (United States; c. 2009)
May Day protests (Europe, Middle East and North Africa, Asia; 2009)
Occupy movement (worldwide)
2000s energy crisis
Central Asia: 2008
Effects on museums
Future of newspapers
World food price crisis
Financial crisis of 2007–08
List of countries by public debt
Economy of Europe
Nick Malkoutzis Greece – A Year in Crisis – Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, June 2011
New study on the "Economic, Social and Territorial Situation of Greece" – European Parliament, Committee on Regional Development's delegation to Greece, 13 – 15 July 2011
The Greek Economy – a bi-monthly publication by the Hellenic Statistical Authority on the state of the economy
The Greek Exports – Database of Greek Exporters
Greek Banks Digest – (in English)
World Bank Summary Trade Statistics Greece
Tariffs applied by Greece as provided by ITC's Market Access Map, an online database of customs tariffs and market requirements.
Pasiouras, Fotios. Greek Banking: From the Pre-Euro Reforms to the Financial Crisis and Beyond (Palgrave Macmillan; 2012) 217 pages; covers the mid-1990s to 2011.
Manolopoulos, J. Greece's 'Odious' Debt: The Looting of the Hellenic Republic by the Euro, the Political Elite and the Investment Community.. London, May 2011: Anthem Press.
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^ a b "Fiscal data for the years 2009‐2012" (PDF). Piraeus: Hellenic Statistical Authority. 11 October 2013. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
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^ a b c d e "Fruits and vegetables (annual data)".
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^ a b c d "Fishery statistics; Data 1995-2008".
^ "Industrial turnover - mining, quarrying and manufacturing".
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^ "Βιομηχανικά Προϊόντα (PRODCOM) (Παραγωγή και Πωλήσεις)".
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^ a b "Greek shipping is modernized to remain a global leader and expand its contribution to the Greek economy". National Bank of Greece. nbg.gr. 11 May 2006. Archived from the original on 31 August 2007. Retrieved 8 April 2007.
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^ a b c "Company Profile". Athens:
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Greek Financial Audit, 2004
List of Greek subdivisions by GDP
Charts on the Economy of Greece
Greek social expenditures as a percentage of GDP (1998–2009)
Distribution of income in Greece over the years
Distribution of total income in Greece over the years
Employment and unemployment in Greece since 2006
Greek GDP, Debt (various) and Budget Deficit over the years
Greek GDP, Debt and Deficit (Int. 1990 Geary-Khamis dollars)
Greek bank deposits (including repos) since 1998
Domestic bank deposits of Greek households by type of account
Domestic lending by domestic banks in Greece since 1980
House Price Index, Greece (including flats)
Charts gallery
Prior to the adoption of the Euro, the majority of Greek people had a positive view of the new currency (64%).[200] In February and June 2005 however this number fell considerably, to only 26% and 20% respectively.[200] Since 2010 the number has risen again, and a survey in September 2011 showed that 63% of Greeks had a positive view of the Euro.[200]
Between 1832 and 2002 the currency of Greece was the Drachma. After having signed the Maastricht Treaty, Greece applied to join the Eurozone. The two main criteria to join the Euro currency were, that the EU country upon application time, was not allowed to exceed a public deficit of -3.0% of GDP and the debt burden should show a declining trend if it was above 60% of GDP. Greece managed to comply with the strict criteria, after having submitted its 1999 annual public account. On 1 January 2001, Greece officially joined the Eurozone, with the adoption of the Euro at the fixed exchange rate ₯340.75 to €1. In 2001 the Euro however only existed electronically, so the physical exchange from Drachma to Euro only happened on 1 January 2002. This was followed by a ten-year period for eligible exchange of drachma to Euro, which ended on 1 March 2012.[199]
Forbes Global 2000[198]
(US$ billion)
1 National Bank of Greece 10.4 -16 137 1
2 Bank of Greece 5.4 0.3 210.7 0.4
3 Coca Cola HBC 9.3 0.3 9.5 10.2
4 Hellenic Telecom 6.2 0.6 10.7 3.7
5 Alpha Bank 4.6 -1.4 76.9 0.5
6 Public Power Corporation 7.7 0 21.2 2
7 Piraeus Bank 3.9 -8.6 62.5 0.3
8 Hellenic Petroleum 13.8 0.1 9.7 3.3
9 OPAP 5.2 0.7 2.3 2.8
10 Motor Oil 12.8 0.1 3.4 1.2
According to the Forbes Global 2000 index, Greece's largest publicly traded companies as of May 2013 are:
Greece is a welfare state which provides a number of social services such as quasi-universal health care and pensions. In the 2012 budget, expenses for the welfare state (excluding education) stand at an estimated €22.487 billion[187] (€6.577 billion for pensions[187] and €15.910 billion for social security and health care expenses),[187] or 31.9% of the all state expenses.[187]
Eurostat data for 2010[197]
(€ mn)
(% of total)
(% EU average)
0 a 0 0 -100 0 0
1 Attica 106,635 48 -3.51 25,900 106
2 Northern Greece 55,163 24.83 -4.73 15,400 63
3 Central Greece 38,767 17.45 -3.03 15,600 64
4 Central Macedonia 30,087 13.54 -5.19 15,400 63
5 Aegean Islands and Crete 21,586 9.72 -4.84 19,200 79
6 Crete 10,955 4.93 -3.79 17,900 73
7 Thessaly 10,742 4.84 -6.55 14,600 60
8 West Greece 10,326 4.65 -2.90 13,800 57
9 Sterea Hellas 10,059 4.53 -1.25 18,100 74
10 Peloponnese 9,436 4.25 -3.97 16,000 65
11 East Macedonia and Thrace 9,054 4.08 -1.69 14,900 61
12 South Aegean 7,476 3.37 -5.40 24,100 99
13 West Macedonia 5,281 2.38 -3.30 18,000 74
14 Epirus 4,917 2.21 -2.36 13,700 56
15 Ionian Islands 4,029 1.81 -6.22 17,200 70
16 North Aegean 3,155 1.42 -7.04 15,800 65
– Greece 222,152 100 -3.86 19,600 80
– EU 12,279,589 5527.56 4.49% 24,500 100
100 z 1000000000000000 1000 100 1000000000 1000
Eurostat data for 2009[194][195][196]
Total GDP
(€ bn)
% growth
1 Attica €110.546 47.7 0.8 €29,100
2 Central Macedonia €32.285 13.9 −1.3 €17,900
3 Thessaly €11.608 5.0 −1.3 €17,000
4 Crete €11.243 4.9 −1.6 €19,900
5 West Greece €10.659 4.6 −3.6 €15,500
6 Central Greece €10.537 4.5 −1.7 €20,500
7 Peloponnese €9.809 4.2 −0.7 €17,900
8 East Macedonia and Thrace €9.265 4.0 0.9 €16,500
9 South Aegean €7.646 3.3 −2.8 €26,800
10 Epirus €5.079 2.2 −0.2 €15,300
11 West Macedonia €5.506 2.4 −1.9 €20,300
12 Ionian Islands €4.130 1.8 −7.4 €19,100
13 North Aegean €3.330 1.4 −3.3 €17,900
14 Mount Athos N/A N/A N/A N/A
– Greece €231.643 100.00 −0.5 €20,500
– EU €11,745.353 N/A −5.8 €23,500
In terms of GDP per capita, Attica ranks first (€29,100),[195] followed by the South Aegean (€26,800)[195] and Central Greece (€20,500).[195] Epirus (€15,300)[195] and West Greece (€15,500)[195] have the lowest values. Greece's average GDP per capita in 2010 was €21,900,[196] below the EU average of €24,400.[196]
According to Eurostat, Greece's most economically important regions in 2009 were Attica (which contributed €110.546 billion to the economy)[194] followed by Central Macedonia (€32.285 billion),[194] Thessaly (€11.608 billion),[194] Crete (€11.243 billion)[194] and West Greece (€10.659 billion).[194] The least important were the North Aegean (€3.330 billion)[194] and the Ionian Islands (€4.130 billion).[194]
The country's two largest metropolitan areas account for 57% of the national economy.
GDP per capita of the regions of Greece in 2008.
Revenues of Greece between 1999 and 2010 as a percentage of GDP, compared to the EU average.
National and regional GDP
Wealth and standards of living
Following similar actions by the United Kingdom and Germany, the Greek government is in talks with Switzerland in order to tax bank accounts in Switzerland owned by Greek citizens.[193] The Ministry of Finance has revealed that Greek Swiss bank account holders will either have to pay a tax or reveal information such as the identity of the bank account holder to the Greek internal revenue services.[193] The Greek and Swiss governments are to reach a deal on the matter by the end of 2011.[193]
The Tax Justice Network has said that there are over €20 billion in Swiss bank accounts held by Greeks.[190] The former Finance Minister of Greece, Evangelos Venizelos, was quoted as saying "Around 15,000 individuals and companies owe the taxman 37 billion euros".[191] Additionally, the TJN puts the number of Greek-owned off-shore companies to over 10,000.[192]
Greece suffers from very high levels of tax evasion. In the last quarter of 2005, tax evasion reached 49%,[188] while in January 2006 it fell to 41.6%.[188] A study by researchers from the University of Chicago concluded that tax evasion in 2009 by self-employed professionals alone in Greece (accountants, dentists, lawyers, doctors, personal tutors and independent financial advisers) was €28 billion or 31% of the budget deficit that year.[189]
The Ministry of Finance expects tax revenues for 2012 to be €52.7 billion (€23.6 billion in direct taxes and €29.1 billion in indirect taxes),[187] an increase of 5.8% from 2011.[187] In 2012, the government is expected to have considerably higher tax revenues than in 2011 on a number of sectors, primarily housing (an increase of 217.5% from 2011).[187]
The lowest VAT possible is 6.5% (previously 4.5%)[184] for newspapers, periodicals and cultural event tickets, while a tax rate of 13% (from 9%)[184] applies to certain service sector professions. Additionally, both employers and employees have to pay social contribution taxes, which apply at a rate of 16%[184] for white collar jobs and 19.5%[184] for blue collar jobs, and are used for social insurance.
Greece's corporate tax has dropped from 40% in 2000[184] to 20% in 2010.[184] For 2011 only, corporate tax will be at 24%.[184] Value added tax (VAT) has gone up in 2010 compared to 2009: 23% as opposed to 19%.[184]
Also under the new austerity measures and among other changes, the personal income tax-free ceiling has been reduced to €5,000 per annum[185] while further future changes, for example abolition of this ceiling, are already being planned.[186]
The Greek tax system is a tiered one, as Greece employs the system of progressive taxation. Greek law recognizes six categories of taxable income:[184] immovable property, movable property (investment), income from agriculture, business, employment, and income from professional activities. Greece's personal income tax rate up until recently ranged from 0% for annual incomes below €12,000[184] and 45% for annual incomes over €100,000.[184] Under the new 2010 tax reform, tax exemptions have been abolished.[184]
Taxation and tax evasion
A number of oil and gas pipelines are currently under construction or under planning in the country. Such projects include the Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI) and South Stream gas pipelines.[175]
In addition to the above, Greece is also to start oil and gas exploration in other locations in the Ionian Sea as well as the Libyan Sea, within the Greek exclusive economic zone, south of Crete.[181][182] The Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Climate Change announced that there was interest from various countries (including Norway and the United States) in exploration,[182] and the first results regarding the amount of oil and gas in these locations are expected in the summer of 2012.[182] In November 2012, a report published by Deutsche Bank estimated the value of natural gas reserves south of Crete at €427 billion.[183]
In 2011 the Greek government approved the start of oil exploration and drilling in three locations within Greece,[180] with an estimated output of 250 to 300 million barrels over the next 15 to 20 years.[180] The estimated output in Euros of the three deposits is €25 billion over a 15-year period,[180] of which €13–€14 billion will enter state coffers.[180] Greece's dispute with Turkey over the Aegean poses substantial obstacles to oil exploration in the Aegean Sea.
Greece has 10 million barrels of proven oil reserves as of 1 January 2012.[2] Hellenic Petroleum is the country's largest oil company, followed by Motor Oil Hellas. Greece's oil production stands at 1,751 barrels per day (bbl/d), ranked 95th worldwide,[2] while it exports 19,960 bbl/d, ranked 53rd,[2] and imports 355,600 bbl/d, ranked 25th.[2]
In 2008 renewable energy accounted for 8% of the country's total energy consumption,[176] a rise from the 7.2% it accounted for in 2006,[176] but still below the EU average of 10% in 2008.[176] 10% of the country's renewable energy comes from solar power,[129] while most comes from biomass and waste recycling.[129] In line with the European Commission's Directive on Renewable Energy, Greece aims to get 18% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.[177] In 2013 and for several months, Greece produced more than 20% of its electricity from renewable energy sources and hydroelectric power plants.[178] Greece currently does not have any nuclear power plants in operation, however in 2009 the Academy of Athens suggested that research in the possibility of Greek nuclear power plants begin.[179]
Energy production in Greece is dominated by the Public Power Corporation (known mostly by its acronym ΔΕΗ, or in English DEI). In 2009 DEI supplied for 85.6% of all energy demand in Greece,[174] while the number fell to 77.3% in 2010.[174] Almost half (48%) of DEI's power output is generated using lignite, a drop from the 51.6% in 2009.[174] Another 12% comes from Hydroelectric power plants[175] and another 20% from natural gas.[175] Between 2009 and 2010, independent companies' energy production increased by 56%,[174] from 2,709 Gigawatt hour in 2009 to 4,232 GWh in 2010.[174]
A distillation facility owned by Hellenic Petroleum.
The oil rig in Kavala.
View of a wind farm, Panachaiko mountain.
In 2010 Piraeus handled 513,319 TEUs,[171] followed by Thessaloniki, which handled 273,282 TEUs.[172] In the same year, 83.9 million people passed through Greece's ports,[173] 12.7 million through the port of Paloukia in Salamis,[173] another 12.7 through the port of Perama,[173] 9.5 million through Piraeus[173] and 2.7 million through Igoumenitsa.[173] In 2013, Piraeus handled a record 3.16 million TEUs, the third-largest figure in the Mediterranean, of which 2.52 million were transported through Pier II, owned by COSCO and 644,000 were transported through Pier I, owned by the Greek state.
According to Eurostat, Greece's largest port by tons of goods transported in 2010 is the port of Aghioi Theodoroi, with 17.38 million tons.[169] The Port of Thessaloniki comes second with 15.8 million tons,[169] followed by the Port of Piraeus, with 13.2 million tons,[169] and the port of Eleusis, with 12.37 million tons.[169] The total number of goods transported through Greece in 2010 amounted to 124.38 million tons,[169] a considerable drop from the 164.3 million tons transported through the country in 2007.[169] Since then, Piraeus has grown to become the Mediterranean's third-largest port thanks to heavy investment by Chinese logistics giant COSCO. In 2013, Piraeus was declared the fastest-growing port in the world.[170]
The ministry responsible for tourism is the of which 948 km are [2] The Greek road network is made up of 116,711 km of roads,
Between 1975 and 2009 Olympic Airlines was the country's flag carrier, but financial problems led to its privatization in 2009. Both Olympic Air and Aegean have won awards for their services; in 2009 and 2011 Aegean Airlines was awarded the "Best regional airline in Europe" award by Skytrax,[166] and also has two gold and one silver awards by the ERA,[166] while Olympic Air holds one silver ERA award for "Airline of the Year"[167] as well as a "Condé Nast Traveller 2011 Readers Choice Awards: Top Domestic Airline" award.[168]
As of 2012, Greece has a total of 82 airports,[2] of which 67 are paved and six have runways longer than 3,047 meters.[2] Of these airports, two are classified as "international" by the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority,[165] but 15 offer international services.[165] Additionally Greece has 9 heliports.[2] Greece does not have a flag carrier, but the country's airline industry is dominated by Olympic Air, the largest airline by number of destinations served, and Aegean Airlines, the largest airline by number of passengers carried.
The Egnatia Odos, part of European route E90.
Imports and exports in 2012[21]
(€ mil)
0 a 0 -1 0 a 0 -1
1 Russia 5,967.20132 12.6 1 Turkey 2,940.25203 10.8
2 Germany 4,381.92656 9.2 2 Italy 2,033.77413 7.5
3 Italy 3,668.88622 7.7 3 Germany 1,687.03947 6.2
4 Saudi Arabia 2,674.00587 5.6 4 Bulgaria 1,493.75355 5.5
5 People's Republic of China 2,278.03883 4.8 5 Cyprus 1,319.28598 4.8
6 Netherlands 2,198.57126 4.6 6 United States 1,024.73686 3.8
7 France 1,978.48460 4.2 7 United Kingdom 822.74077 3
#α OECD 23,849.94650 50.2 #α OECD 13,276.48107 48.8
#β G7 11,933.75417 25.1 #β G7 6,380.86705 23.4
#γ BRICS 8,682.10265 18.3 #ε BRICS 1,014.17146 3.7
#δ BRIC 8,636.02946 18.2 #ζ BRIC 977.76016 3.6
#ε OPEC 8,090.76972 17 #γ OPEC 2,158.60420 7.9
#ζ NAFTA 751.80608 1.6 #δ NAFTA 1,215.70257 4.5
#a European Union 27 21,164.89314 44.5 #a European Union 27 11,512.31990 42.3
#b European Union 15 17,794.19344 37.4 #b European Union 15 7,234.83595 26.6
#3 Africa 2,787.39502 5.9 #3 Africa 1,999.46534 7.3
#4 America 1,451.15136 3.1 #4 America 1,384.04068 5.1
#2 Asia 14,378.02705 30.2 #2 Asia 6,933.51200 25.5
#1 Europe 28,708.38148 60.4 #1 Europe 14,797.20641 54.4
#5 Oceania 71.70603 0.2 #5 Oceania 169.24085 0.6
# World 47,537.63847 100 # World 27,211.06362 100
24 z 1000000000000000000 101 24 z 1000000000000000000 101
the International Organisations or Country Groups list and ranking presented above (i.e. #greek_letters and/or #latin_letters),
is not indicative of the whole picture of Greece's trade;
this is instead only an incomplete selection of some major and well known such Organisations and Groups;
rounding errors possibly present
Greece is also the largest trade partner of Cyprus (exports 23.0%, imports 21.6%)[163] and the largest import partner of the Republic of Macedonia (19.0%).[164]
Imports and exports in 2011; values in millions[162]
– European Union €22,688.5 – European Union €11,377.7
– Total €42,045.4 – Total €22,451.1
1 Germany €7,238.2 1 Denmark €2,001.9
2 Italy €6,918.5 2 Italy €1,821.3
3 Russia €4,454.0 3 France €1,237.0
4 China €3,347.1 4 Netherlands €1,103.0
5 France €3,098.0 5 Russia €885.4
Since the 2009 crisis, Greece's negative balance of trade has decreased significantly from €43.3 billion in 2008 to €19.3 billion in 2013.[20][161] Imports saw an overall decrease of around 5% in 2013, while exports were stable.[20]
Graphical depiction of Greece's product exports in 28 color-coded categories.
Greece invested €1.38 billion in Bulgaria between 2005 and 2007[158] and many important companies (including Bulgarian Postbank, United Bulgarian Bank Coca-Cola Bulgaria) are owned by Greek financial groups.[158] In Serbia, 250 Greek companies are active with a total investment of over €2 billion.[159] Romanian statistics from 2005 show that Greek investment in the country exceeded €3 billion.[160]
Since the fall of communism, Greece has invested heavily in neighbouring Balkan countries. Between 1997 and 2009, 12.11% of foreign direct investment capital in the Republic of Macedonia was Greek, ranking fourth. In 2009 alone, Greeks invested €380 million in the country,[157] with companies such as Hellenic Petroleum having made important strategic investments.[157]
In recent years a number of well-known tourism-related organizations have placed Greek destinations in the top of their lists. In 2009 Lonely Planet ranked Thessaloniki, the country's second-largest city, the world's fifth best "Ultimate Party Town", alongside cities such as Montreal and Dubai,[155] while in 2011 the island of Santorini was voted as the best island in the world by Travel + Leisure.[156] The neighbouring island of Mykonos was ranked as the 5th best island Europe.[156] Thessaloniki will be European Youth Capital in 2014.
[151] (OSE). Most of the country's network is standard gauge (1,565 km),[2] while the country also has 983 km of narrow gauge.[2] A total of 764 km of rail are electrified.[2] Greece has rail connections with Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia and Turkey. A total of three suburban railway systems (Proastiakos) are in operation (in Athens, Thessaloniki and Patras), while one metro system is operational in Athens with another under construction.
Among the member states of the European Union, Greece was the most popular destination for residents of Cyprus and Sweden in 2011.[154]
Greece attracts more than 16 million tourists each year, thus contributing between 18.2% to the nation's GDP in 2008 according to an OECD report.[151] The same survey showed that the average tourist expenditure while in Greece was $1,073, ranking Greece 10th in the world.[151] The number of jobs directly or indirectly related to the tourism sector were 840,000 in 2008 and represented 19% of the country's total labor force.[151] In 2009, Greece welcomed over 19.3 million tourists,[152] a major increase from the 17.7 million tourists the country welcomed in 2008.[153]
Tourism in the modern sense has only started to flourish in Greece in the years post-1950,[149][150] although tourism in ancient times is also documented in relation to religious or sports festivals such as the Olympic Games.[150] Since the 1950s, the tourism sector saw an unprecedented boost as arrivals went from 33,000 in 1950 to 11.4 million in 1994.[149]
The Temple of Poseidon in Sounion, popular tourist destination.
The island of Santorini.
Greece has tended to lag behind its European Union partners in terms of Internet use, with the gap closing rapidly in recent years. The percentage of households with access to the Internet more than doubled between 2006 and 2013, from 23% to 56% respectively (compared with an EU average of 49% and 79%).[147][148] At the same time, there has been a massive increase in the proportion of households with a broadband connection, from 4% in 2006 to 55% in 2013 (compared with an EU average of 30% and 76%).[147][148] However, Greece also has the EU's third highest percentage of people who have never used the Internet: 36% in 2013, down from 65% in 2006 (compared with an EU average of 21% and 42%).[147][148]
Other mobile telecommunications companies active in Greece are Wind Hellas and Vodafone Greece. The total number of active cellular phone accounts in the country in 2009 based on statistics from the country's mobile phone providers was over 20 million,[146] a penetration of 180%.[146] Additionally, there are 5.745 million active landlines in the country.[2]
Between 1949 and the 1980s, Southeast Europe.[145] Since 2011, the company's major shareholder is Deutsche Telekom with a 40% stake, while the Greek state continues to own 10% of the company's shares.[145] OTE owns several subsidiaries across the Balkans, including Cosmote, Greece's top mobile telecommunications provider, Cosmote Romania and Albanian Mobile Communications.[145]
OTE headquarters in Athens.
Greece, shipping services
"Exports":
Global ranking[17]
5th 5th 5th 4th 3rd 5th -b 5th 6th 4th
Value (US$ million)[17]
7,558.995 7,560.559 7,527.175 10,114.736 15,402.209 16,127.623 -b 17,033.714 18,559.292 17,704.132
Value (€ million)[17]
8,172.559 8,432.670 7,957.654 8,934.660 12,382.636 12,949.869 -b 12,213.786 13,976.558 12,710.859
Value (%GDP)
5.93 5.76 5.08 5.18 6.68 6.71 n/a 5.29 6.29 6.10
"Imports":
Global ranking[143]
14th 13th 14th -b 14th 16th -b 12th 13th 9th
Value (US$ million)[143]
3,314.718 3,873.791 3,757.000 -b 5,570.145 5,787.234 -b 6,653.395 7,846.950 7,076.605
Value (€ million)[143]
2.60 2.95 2.54 n/a 2.42 2.41 n/a 2.06 2.66 2.44
"Trade balance":
1st 2nd 1st 1ste 1st 1st -b 2nd 1st 2nd
4,244.277 3,686.768 3,770.175 10,114.736e 9,832.064 10,340.389 -b 10,340.389 10,380.319 10,712.342
4,588.785 4,112.037 3,985.791 8,934.660e 7,904.508 8,302.940 -b 7,443.063 8,067.208 7,630.140
3.33 2.81 2.54 5.18e 4.27 4.30 n/a 3.22 3.63 3.66
GDP (€ million)[3]
137,930.1 146,427.6 156,614.3 172,431.8 185,265.7 193,049.7b n/a 231,081.2p 222,151.5p 208,531.7p
b source reports break in time series; p source characterises data as provisional; e reported data may be erroneous due to relevant break in "Imports" time series
[144][143] Similarly counting shipping services provided to Greece by other countries as quasi-imports and the difference between "exports" and "imports" as a "trade balance", Greece in 2011 ranked in the latter second behind Germany, having "imported" shipping services worth US$7,076,605 and having ran a "trade surplus" of US$10,712,342.[17] ranked higher during that year.South Korea, Germany and DenmarkCounting shipping as quasi-exports and in terms of monetary value, Greece ranked 4th globally in 2011 having "exported" shipping services worth $17,704,132; only
The latest available data from the Union of Greek Shipowners show that "the Greek-owned ocean-going fleet consists of 3,428 ships, totaling 245 million deadweight tonnes in capacity. This equals 15.6 percent of the carrying capacity of the entire global fleet, including 23.6 percent of the world tanker fleet and 17.2 percent of dry bulk".[142]
In terms of ship categories, Greek companies have 22.6% of the world's tankers[139] and 16.1% of the world's bulk carriers (in dwt).[139] An additional equivalent of 27.45% of the world's tanker dwt is on order,[139] with another 12.7% of bulk carriers also on order.[139] Shipping accounts for an estimated 6% of Greek GDP,[140] employs about 160,000 people (4% of the workforce),[141] and represents 1/3 of the country's trade deficit.[141] Earnings from shipping amounted to €14.1 billion in 2011,[139] while between 2000 and 2010 Greek shipping contributed a total of €140 billion[140] (half of the country's public debt in 2009 and 3.5 times the receipts from the European Union in the period 2000-2013).[140] The 2011 ECSA report showed that there are approximately 750 Greek shipping companies in operation.[140]
Greece is ranked fourth in the world by number of ships (3,695), behind China (5,313), Japan (3,991), and Germany (3,833).[32] A European Community Shipowners' Associations report for 2011–2012 reveals that the Greek flag is the seventh-most-used internationally for shipping, while it ranks second in the EU.[139]
Greece has the largest merchant navy in the world, accounting for more than 15% of the world's total deadweight tonnage (dwt) according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.[32] The Greek merchant navy's total dwt of nearly 245 million is comparable only to Japan's, which is ranked second with almost 224 million.[32] Additionally, Greece represents 39.52% of all of the European Union's dwt.[139] However, today's fleet roster is smaller than an all-time high of 5,000 ships in the late 1970s.[135]
During the 1960s, the size of the Greek fleet nearly doubled, primarily through the investment undertaken by the shipping magnates Onassis and Niarchos.[138] The basis of the modern Greek maritime industry was formed after World War II when Greek shipping businessmen were able to amass surplus ships sold to them by the United States Government through the Ship Sales Act of the 1940s.[138]
Shipping has traditionally been a key sector in the Greek economy since ancient times.[135] In 1813, the Greek merchant navy was made up of 615 ships.[136] Its total tonnage was 153,580 tons and was manned with 37,526 crewmembers and 5,878 cannons.[136] In 1914 the figures stood at 449,430 tons and 1,322 ships (of which 287 were steam boats).[137]
16.1% of the world's total merchant fleet is owned by Greek companies, making it the largest in the world. Greece is ranked in the top 5 for all kinds of ships, including first for tankers and bulk carriers.
Neorion shipyard, located in Ermoupolis.
The Port of Thessaloniki.
Tertiary sector (Services)
Greek Aluminium company
Emery mine of Naxos
Gold mine, Thasos
Marble quarry, Sifnos
Calcium carbonate loaded in the port of Argostoli
Industrial production (manufacturing) in Greece (2010; provisional data)[134]
Value (€)
1 Portland cement 699,174,850 6 Ready-mixed concrete 438,489,443
2 Pharmaceuticals (medicaments of mixed or unmixed products (other), p.r.s., n.e.c) 670,923,632 7 Beer made from malt (excluding non-alcoholic beer, beer containing <= 0.5% by volume of alcohol, alcohol duty) 405,990,419
3 Waters, with added sugar, other sweetening matter or flavoured, i.e. soft drinks (including mineral and aerated) 561,611,081 8 Milk and cream of a fat content by weight of > 1% but <= 6%, not concentrated nor containing added sugar or other sweetening matter, in immediate packings of a net content <= 2l 373,780,989
4 Hot rolled concrete reinforcing bars 540,919,270 9 Cigarettes containing tobacco or mixtures of tobacco and tobacco substitutes (excluding tobacco duty) 350,420,600
5 Grated, powdered, blue-veined and other non-processed cheese (excluding fresh cheese, whey cheese and curd) 511,528,250 10 Cheese fondues and other food preparations, n.e.c. 300,883,207
– Total production value: €17,489,538,838
– p.r.s.: packed for retail sale; n.e.c.: non elsewhere classifiable
Industrial production (manufacturing) in Greece (2009)[133]
1 Portland cement €897,378,450 6 Cigarettes €480,399,323
2 Pharmaceuticals €621,788,464 7 Beer €432,559,943
3 Ready-mix concrete €523,821,763 8 Dairy €418,527,007
4 Beverages (non-alcoholic) €519,888,468 9 Aluminium slabs €391,393,930
5 Rebars €499,789,102 10 Coca-Cola products €388,752,443
In 2009, Greece's labor productivity was 98% that of the EU average,[132] but its productivity-per-hour-worked was 74% that the Eurozone average.[132] The largest industrial employer in the country (in 2007) was the manufacturing industry (407,000 people),[132] followed by the construction industry (305,000)[132] and mining (14,000).[132]
Between 1999 and 2008, the volume of retail trade in Greece increased by an average of 4.4% per year (a total increase of 44%),[132] while it decreased by 11.3% in 2009.[132] The only sector that did not see negative growth in 2009 was administration and services, with a marginal growth of 2.0%.[132]
Between 2005 and 2011, Greece has had the highest percentage increase in industrial output compared to 2005 levels out of all European Union members, with an increase of 6%.[131] Eurostat statistics show that the industrial sector was hit by the Greek financial crisis throughout 2009 and 2010,[132] with domestic output decreasing by 5.8% and industrial production in general by 13.4%.[132] Currently, Greece is ranked third in the European Union in the production of marble (over 920,000 tons), after Italy and Spain.
The fuselage for the Dassault nEUROn stealth jet is produced in Greece by the Hellenic Aerospace Industry.
Secondary sector
In 2007, Greece accounted for 19% of the EU's fishing haul in the Mediterranean sea,[130] ranked third with 85,493 tons,[130] and ranked first in the number of fishing vessels in the Mediterranean between European Union members.[130] Additionally, the country ranked 11th in the EU in total quantity of fish caught, with 87,461 tons.[130]
[129] Greece is a major beneficiary of the
In 2010, Greece was the European Union's largest producer of cotton (183,800 tons) and pistachios (8,000 tons)[127] and ranked second in the production of rice (229,500 tons)[127] and olives (147,500 tons),[128] third in the production of figs (11,000 tons) and [128] almonds (44,000 tons),[128] tomatoes (1,400,000 tons) [128] and watermelons (578,400 tons)[128] and fourth in the production of tobacco (22,000 tons).[127] Agriculture contributes 3.8% of the country's GDP[2] and employs 12.4% of the country's labor force.[2]
Fish farming, Argolic gulf
Vineyard in Naoussa, central Macedonia.
Primary sector
Greece exited its six-year recession in the second quarter of 2014,[51][7] but the challenges of securing political stability and debt sustainability remain.[126]
By July 2014 there was still anger and protests about the austerity measures, with a 24-hour strike among government workers timed to coincide with an audit by inspectors from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and European Central Bank in advance of a decision on a second bailout of one billion euros ($1.36 billion), due in late July.[125]
In 2013, Greece became the first developed market to be reclassified as an emerging market by financial services companies MSCI and S&P Dow Jones Indices.[122][123][124]
Public sector workers have come out on strike in order to resist job cuts and reductions to salaries as the government promises that a large scale privatisation programme will be accelerated.[120] Immigrants are sometimes treated as scapegoats for economic problems by far-right extremists.[121]
The financial crisis – particularly the austerity package put forth by the EU and the IMF – has been met with anger by the Greek public, leading to riots and social unrest. Despite the long range of austerity measures, the government deficit has not been reduced accordingly, mainly, according to many economists, due to the subsequent recession.[115][116][117][118][119] Consequently, the country's debt to GDP continues to rise rapidly.
On 15 November 2010 the EU's statistics body Eurostat revised the public finance and debt figure for Greece following an excessive deficit procedure methodological mission in Athens, and put Greece's 2009 government deficit at 15.4% of GDP and public debt at 126.8% of GDP making it the biggest deficit (as a percentage of GDP) amongst the EU member nations (although some have speculated that Ireland's in 2010 may prove to be worse).[111][112][113][114]
As a consequence, there was a crisis in international confidence in Greece's ability to repay its sovereign debt, as reflected by the rise of the country's borrowing rates (although their slow rise - the 10-year government bond yield only exceeded 7% in April 2010 - coinciding with a large number of negative articles, has led to arguments about the role of international news media in the evolution of the crisis). In order to avert a default (as high borrowing rates effectively prohibited access to the markets), in May 2010 the other Eurozone countries, and the IMF, agreed to a rescue package which involved giving Greece an immediate €45 billion in bail-out loans, with more funds to follow, totaling €110 billion.[106][107] In order to secure the funding, Greece was required to adopt harsh austerity measures to bring its deficit under control.[108] Their implementation will be monitored and evaluated by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF.[109][110]
According to Der Spiegel credits given to European governments were disguised as "swaps" and consequently did not get registered as debt because Eurostat at the time ignored statistics involving financial derivatives. A German derivatives dealer had commented to Der Spiegel that "The Maastricht rules can be circumvented quite legally through swaps," and "In previous years, Italy used a similar trick to mask its true debt with the help of a different US bank."[101] These conditions had enabled Greek as well as many other European governments to spend beyond their means, while meeting the deficit targets of the European Union and the monetary union guidelines.[96][102] In May 2010, the Greek government deficit was again revised and estimated to be 13.6%[103] which was the second highest in the world relative to GDP with Iceland in first place at 15.7% and Great Britain third with 12.6%.[104] Public debt was forecast, according to some estimates, to hit 120% of GDP during 2010.[105]
[101][100][99][98][97][96] Dozens of similar agreements were concluded across Europe whereby banks supplied cash in advance in exchange for future payments by the governments involved; in turn, the liabilities of the involved countries were "kept off the books".[96][95]
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Ex-W.A.S.P. Guitarist CHRIS HOLMES Films Sequel To Infamous Pool Interview, Says He's Been Sober For More Than 20 Years
Former W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes is perhaps best known for the infamous scene in the 1988 movie "The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years" in which he was interviewed while floating in a swimming pool, fully clothed and visibly quite intoxicated while his mother sat poolside. The interview stood out in stark contrast to the more light-hearted and humorous interviews conducted by director Penelope Spheeris, which mostly portrayed rockers as good-natured, though often dimwitted or deluded, party animals. During the interview, Holmes smiled drunkenly at the camera, deeming himself "a full-blown alcoholic" and "a piece of crap" despite his band's success, and punctuated his remarks by guzzling from three bottles of vodka. At the end of the interview, Holmes upends a full bottle of Smirnoff over his head as he rolls out of his inflatable chair and into the water.
Fast forward to 2017 and Duke TV has posted brand new pool interview with Holmes — conducted by his wife Sarah — which starts out with the same exact questions Chris was asked in the "Decline Of Western Civilization" scene. Check it out below.
Asked if he drinks very much, Chris said: "You've gotta drink something to stay alive. I drink Diet Pepsi, Gatorade, Powerade. I hate the water out of the tap. But I like Sparkletts. If you're asking about alcohol, no, I don't drink alcohol anymore. [I stopped] a long time ago — February 6 of '96. Why do I not drink anymore? After six DUIs, they throw you in jail, and it's really hard to drink in jail. And they'll make you quit, the government, or they'll lock you up."
He continued: "I've learned when somebody's drunk that they don't do really too much that's really constructive. They have a fun time, but they're not that smart. Drinking turns you into an idiot. A lot of people like to be idiots. I used to be one — probably the biggest one there was. But as you get older, things change.
"When I stopped drinking, I'd see all my friends drinking and they'd just turn into idiots. I was the one leading the pack anyway, so I'm not one to talk about being an idiot and drinking."
Asked if he thinks the "rock and roll lifestyle" turned him into an alcoholic, Chris said: "Drinking alcohol gives you something to do when you're on the road. If you don't have alcohol and you do drugs or whatever, you need something to do, something to keep you preoccupied. Drinking's easy, 'cause you've always got alcohol and everybody drinks at shows."
"The Decline Of Western Civilization" received a deluxe box set release in June 2015 from Shout! Factory. The four-disc set was made available in both Blu-ray and DVD formats, and contains Penelope Spheeris's "The Decline Of Western Civilization" (1980), "The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years" (1988) and "The Decline Of Western Civilization Part III" (1998), a 40-page book containing an essay written by rock historian Domenic Priore ("Riot On Sunset Strip: Rock 'N' Roll's Last Stand In Hollywood"), rare stills, and bonus features, including extended interviews, a commentary recorded by Dave Grohl in February 2015, and more. This was the first-ever official Blu-ray or DVD release of the films.
"The Decline Of Western Civilization" box set features a new 2K high-definition scan of each film, supervised by director Penelope Spheeris. In keeping with the spirit of the rebellious times in which they were shot, the vintage aspects have been respected, and the films retain their original feel.
A couple of years ago, Spheeris spoke to Goldmine magazine about the Holmes scene in "The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years". She said: "When I shot Chris Holmes, you know, I thought we didn't get the interview. I remember saying, 'We're going to have to reshoot this.' Because we didn't get anything. The guy's just sitting there screwing off and we didn't get anything. And then I saw Jon and Val [Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris], who are the producers, and I told them, we're going to have to reshoot that interview with Chris Holmes. And they said, 'Well, too bad, because we don't have enough money to reshoot it.' So I tried to cut something together and include it. I would never have imagined it would be the most talked about and kind of most memorable moment of the movie."
Asked what happened in the five or ten minutes after she finished the interview with Chris Holmes, Spheeris said: "I think I was so stunned… You know how when you're in shock and you don't remember what happened? I don't remember! I don't remember him afterwards. Because I was just horrified that I didn't get an interview. I'm sure somebody must've given him a towel and… you know, most of that, [Penelope's daughter] Anna [Fox, who was instrumental in assembling the bevy of extras for the elegant box for the recently released 'The Decline Of Western Civilization' trilogy], when she put the DVD extras together, she pasted together all of the interviews from beginning to end. And so you can see in there the entire progression — or I should say digression — of his interview. And most of that clear liquid was pool water, by the way."
Spheeris offered more details about how the scene was shot during a separate interview with Rolling Stone. She said: "I don't remember if the pool was my idea or Chris's idea, but it was my idea to have his mom come down, 'cause I knew Sandy [Holmes]. She looks like she knows how far she can go with what she says to him. Like, she can't be too critical or he's just gonna go off on her.
"I didn't know he was going to be as drunk as he was. When we finished the interview, I took [cinematographer Jeff] Zimmerman behind a tree and said, 'I don't got this interview. We're gonna have to film him again.' But the great thing about doing documentaries is you just have to let them lead you. It turned out to be the most memorable thing.
"What I liked about the scene is you had all these younger kids talking about how they were gonna make it, but Chris was sort of an example of, 'Okay, I made it. Are you sure you want this?' That's why I liked it just from a filmmaker's standpoint. It counterbalanced all those crazy dreams that those kids had that were not gonna happen. It was a reality check.
"By the way, the first half of the bottle of vodka was real, and after that he was filling it up with pool water."
In a 2014 interview with Metallväktarna, Holmes stated about his appearance in "The Decline Of Western Civilization": "I get a lot [of questions] about that. [People wanna know], 'Was it alcohol? Were you drunk?' Or whatever. Yeah, I was drunk. I'm not known to be a liar. In fact, I was real drunk; I couldn't even talk. So a lot of people ask me, 'How do you feel about that being on TV?' or whatever. The only thing I don't like is where some kid will come up to me and go, 'Man, that's the coolest! I wanna live like that.' And, to me, personally, that's, like, me going down the tubes. And why would somebody wanna live like that?"
STEEL PANTHER singer Michael Starr told The Verge that the Holmes scene in "The Metal Years" "shaped my whole career, to be quite honest with you. At that point, heavy metal was at its peak. It was awesome to be drunk, floating in a pool. You knew you had a disease and you were going to kill yourself eventually, but that was cool back then. People just looked at that and said, ‘Wow, this guy knows how to party. Everybody knows how to party.'"
Holmes joined W.A.S.P. in 1982 and remained with the group until 1990. In 1996, Holmes rejoined W.A.S.P. and stayed with the band until 2001. Holmes has not played with W.A.S.P. since.
Tags: w.a.s.p.
NITA STRAUSS Says 'It's Been Great' Touring With Her Manager/Boyfriend JOSH VILLALTA
DAVE MUSTAINE Was 'Very Flattered' To Be Asked To Participate In 'Experience Hendrix' Tour
GUS G. Releases Music Video For 'Don't Tread On Me'
YNGWIE MALMSTEEN Pays Tribute To DEEP PURPLE, THE BEATLES, JIMI HENDRIX, THE ROLLING STONES On 'Blue Lightning' Album
METALLICA: Pro-Shot Footage Of 'Dream No More' Performance From Birmingham
RED DRAGON CARTEL
The Hunt For White Christ
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An exciting Japanese folktale
This story is about a clever boy from a small Japanese village who is too small to be of any real help working in the fields. So he is sent to a nearby monastery to become a monk. But all he wants to do is draw cats, which annoys the monks when he keeps drawing instead of focusing on his lessons. They finally give up on him, saying that his passion for drawing makes him better suited to be an artist. An old priest sends him on his way with a bit of cryptic advice, and with that, the boy embarks on an unforgettable adventure.
Most folktales involve a hero who wins through being kind and good. What made this one particularly interesting to me was that the boy is true to his passion, and he listens to (and remembers) advice, and that is what saves him in the end. He survives because of his talent, not through being good or kind. The illustrations are a perfect accompaniment to the text – they are Japanese in style, using watercolor, cut paper, and an airbrush. With a few simple strokes, Sogabe captures the emotions of the boy in the story.
Hodges cites the source for her story: it was originally published as a pamphlet in Tokyo by Takejiro Hasegawa, and she adapted it from a 1918 publication of Japanese Fairy Tales by Lafcadio Hearn. A note in the back of the book talks about the history of the story and the life of Lafcadio Hearn, who collected and retold folktales and legends from Japan. The book makes for an exciting read-aloud, with evocative language and pictures that complement the tone and style of the text.
The Boy Who Drew Cats by Margaret Hodges, illustrated by Aki Sogabe (Holiday House, 2002)
Labels: 2002, adventure, ages 6-10, artists, cats, fantasy, folktales, historical fiction, Japan, Picture books, rereads, reviews
Nymeth July 15, 2007
This sounds wonderful! I love folktales, but I have yet to properly explore those of Japan. Thank you for the wonderful review.
Anonymous April 28, 2008
I'd love to read a brief assessment of this story from each of my wonderful students. Please post your review to this page. Write one solid paragraph. Sign with your first name only.
-- Casey
Paulette Palacios April 29, 2008
The young boy continues to follow his dreams despite his family pushing him away to do something worth while. All though after leaving the first temple- he still goes and tries to accommodate his family, but still follows his dreams of drawing cats. He definitely is a clever young boy for still trying to accommodate him self and his family. The boy because he follows his dream as well ends up doing something better for the community.
Vicki April 29, 2008
In his story "The Boy Who Drew Cats", Lafcadio Hearn offers a moral or lesson to the readers or his story. The story tells readers that although someone or something seems unimportant initially, they may end up being important or valued for something never expected. Hearn says "But the youngest child, a little boy, did not seem fit for hard work." Because the family values hard work and labor, they felt the boy would not be useful to their family, so they sent him to be a priest. After some while, the boy discovered he was a talented artist. He used his artistic skills to draw cats in the abandoned temple, which in turn killed the goblin that had haunted the temple. So the boy ended up being very useful in a way he had never expected. Many other people had tried to rid the temple of the goblin, but only the artwork of the boy was powerful enough to do it. "Then he knew that the goblin had been killed by the cats he had drawn...Afterward that boy became a very famous artist. Some of the cats which he drew are still shown to travelers in Japan." The family thought they were sending away a weak little boy who would be a priest for the rest of his life, when he was really strong and more important than anyone could have imagined.
I feel that this story starts out with a simple straight thought, almost making Hearn predictable. The twist comes in at the fifth paragraph, “Avoid large places; -keep to small”, this line maybe too complex for a small child to understand. Unlike the start of the story it does not simply and clearly explain the quote in following paragraphs after the fifth paragraph.
--Naomi
Melissa Harrison April 29, 2008
Britney Luckey April 29, 2008
- True meaning can be found in this timeless tale. The moral of the story could be read as though everyone has purpose in the world; no matter how big or small the role, it can become very meaningful and worthwhile. Although the boy is "...weak and small..." (Par. 2), the nameless boy still finds a role suited for him. Also, another point that could be interpreted from the story could be that everyone has his or her own pros and cons. For what the boy lacked in strength he made up for in imagination and "clever thinking." The cats he infinitely drawn were seen as time wasting "in a way" to others, though, they became very useful for something another suggested to the youth.
--Britney
It is interesting to read a folktale from another culture. Obviously, I have grown up being exposed to American and Western versions. This story, however, holds true to the same main characteristic of any folk tale- it has a moral. When the boy has been asked to leave the temple, he is reminded to “avoid large places at night;-keep to the small.” The boy carries this advice with him through out the rest of his journey to the larger temple. Remembering the advice, also aids in saving his life when he sleeps in a cabinet in the large temple. The stories simple moral is accessible to children, even if though certain ideas are slightly more complex, like keeping to small places, which is another characteristic of folktales. This moral, of remembering others advice, can be applied to any situation, in any culture, proving the similarities in values through out the world as well.
The writing style of the story “The Boy Who Drew Cats” is light and elegant like a tasty tofu. It has a favorable peaceful temple setting as tofu’s white form, with a slight soy-sauces climax elaborates the taste of the story. Even though the story doesn’t have detailed description about the characters and the setting, the atmosphere is well developed through the story. The atmosphere is gradually become intense when the boy stayed at the isolated temple. The most fascinating part of the story is the boy’s drawing cat came alive. I think it came real and protect is master because the boy drew the cats devotedly with love. The story attains to the children of its main theme: listen to elders. The boy saved his life because he remembered the priest’s reminding. Children should listen well to others’ advices to “avoid the dangerous place at night” as the story.
Lafcadio Hearn’s, “the boy who drew cats”, talks about an average family with average lifestyles, and one son who just didn’t fit in. This story to me seems to have more of a spiritual approach. About a meek little kid who was rejected by his family, and was sent to become a priest, but was kicked out due to the fact that he drew cats. But later as he traveled to another church for a second chance, he saves himself as well as the town fro m the wretched goblin, with his cat drawings that supposedly ate the giant rat. This story shows that god has a purpose for everyone in this world. Which makes you think what yours?
--Jeffrey
The era in which this story was written is the most telling clue to the interpretation of it's meaing. I imagine that during 1898 the profession of art was not highly revered in Japan, priesthood was probably a more honorable position. The youngest boy in Hearn's story is clever and therefore his family decides the best role for him is to become a priest; although all he really wants to do is draw cats. I believe that Hearn wrote this story as an attempt to validate the plight of the artist in Japan. The drawings of cats, which seem to be problematic for the young boy eventually earn him fame and respect, for without the boy's art, the town would have been destroyed.
bartlett lentini April 29, 2008
Our boy grows up doing chores and helping his parents in every way he can. He has this talent of drawing but never gets a chance to let it grow. His cleverness gets him places. He was so clever and his parents noticed this and sent him away to become a priest. The boy develops an obsession with cats. Much like other artists his concentration becomes everything he does. Eventually the priest does not want to deal with this boy drawing cats everywhere and sends the boy on his way. Will he make it as an artist or a priest? The last think the priest said to him was “avoid large places at night;-keep to small” I don’t understand this and neither did our boy, until the end. The priest sends our boy on his way and the boy tries to see if the temple in the next town over will accept him. All the priests from this temple have been frightened away by the goblin. Little does our boy know that the images of cats that he draws on the walls in boredom would come to life and kill the goblin rat that was infesting that temple. His drawings were the result of pressure from his family and religious confusion. In all actuality the drawings are his way of expressing himself. These cats are more than just drawings; they are the boys’ dreams and desires balled up into drawings. They come to life in this temple because the boy is there and they can’t just leave the goblin rat alone. The goblin is evil. That is why the boys drawings are taking life, they are reacting according to the boys subconscious.
-Bartlett Lentini
Thiana April 29, 2008
This Japanese fairy tale tells a story about a young boy that is too small to be a farmer. His parents decide that he should be a priest. While he is an acolyte, he beings to draw pictures of cats everywhere. The priest decides that the boy is not fit to be a priest. This probably made the boy feel unimportant. The priest says to him "Avoid large places at night; keep to small." This is then used by the boy when he is in the large temple in the next town. The boy draws more cats on a screen the temple; he then remembers what the priest had said and finds a small place to sleep for the night. In the morning the boy discovers that the cats have killed the goblin that had taken over the temple. The lesson that is being told is that even if you are small you are still capable of big things.
aris Slater April 29, 2008
This story is, like it sounds from the beginning, a children’s story. Full of fables and lesions, but it is still more interesting then conventional children’s stories that follow time old motifs and the usually characters. No, this one has goblins and paper cats that come to life. The story has qualities that in a way make this fable a good way of introducing Japanese life and culture to the U.S. It talks of home life, and the poverty some farming families encountered, also the roll of children and how they were put to use as soon as possible and those who were not useful around the farm were sent off for some other endive. It also introduces the religious practices of the area, and vocabulary that goes along with it, like acolyte. Lastly we are giving a glimpse into their old founded beliefs of demons and goblins, and some counter form that wins out over the goblin. All these qualities touched on could be part of some common motif that appears in Japanese folk tales, but because it is Japanese that keeps it more interesting, because to America it s new and foreign.
-Aris
Darla D April 29, 2008
Wow - it's been very fun and informative reading everyone's thoughts about this folktale. Thanks for stopping by my blog!
:: Derek ::
There has been a unique establishment of optimism and bravery being portrayed within the story of “The Boy who drew Cats.” The young boy seems so intent in becoming an acolyte that he becomes embodied in doing what he is told rather than taking things into his own hands. The only upside to this extravagant and feeble-minded young boy is his ability to listen very carefully and discreetly. He strikes fear in himself before the fear has actually become apparent in the end of the story. Although the young boy hides himself in a small place, the actuality of staying away from large places at night relatively opened a unique door in this young boys obsession in drawing cats. The inventiveness and stability that his talent provided for himself has become obscured in the fairy tale world of this goblin that haunts the abandoned church. Maybe this goblin represented the inner talent waiting to break out or maybe it was the inability for the boy to cope with change, thus resulting in the gory death of the goblin the night the boy hid away. He was safe within that small place he confided himself to, but it seemed to stand for a more purposeful acknowledgement of self-identity. His inability to cope with the change in his identity and having to step away from what others were forcing him to do had become in itself, too difficult. This fear he captured within the abandoned church was just the motivation and inspiration that he needed to accept. It is possible to think that the young boy was specifically born to draw these cats, which we do not know if they are cute or violent portrayals, and draw them particularly to ward off the fear that was previously envisioned by him and the priests, through the goblin itself. Was this his purpose or was this his vision of a dream that the young boy had already had the night he fell asleep in the church? Maybe this is a story of the mysterious events that transcribe in our lives and how we can find our own identity in the most unusual places. This story screams out individuality and purpose within the catechisms that life has continually provided for us every day. It is not what other tells you to do but rather what you enforce yourself to do and not strike fear in the most common barricades of life.
This folktale is full of life observations and guide to social hierarchy. The main character Young Boy is rejected first from farming and thus his family, he was "very clever,-cleverer than all his brothers and sisters; but he was quite weak and small, and people said he could never grow very big. So his parents thought it would be better for him to become a priest than to become a farmer"(second paragraph). The statement being made is, if you are not physically fit you must be meant to be a priest. One cannot help the way one is born and the author knows this. It is stated more clearly in the fifth paragraph when it is explained that the nature of the boy to draw cats everywhere, disregarding the priest cannot be helped. "He drew them because he could not really help it. He had what is called 'the genius of an artist,'". However it should be asked why it should be accepted to disobey an authority such as a priest and not be punished? Is it then saying if your art is useful then it is accepted or is an artist really worth something?
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Harley-Davidson Service bulletins
Thread: Harley-Davidson Service bulletins
North Hills/Pine Grove, CA
I have a lot of Early H-D Service Bulletins. Looking for numbers that I am missing. Numbers in parentheses are the number of duplicates I have for trading.
Number Date
46 March 20, 1917
48 April 2, 1917
64 December 5, 1917
65 February 8, 1918 (1)
65 Revised June 15, 1920 (1)
66 February 15, 1918
66 Revised Sept. 15 1920 (1)
67 February 11, 1918 (1)
71 March 5, 1918
74 July 1, 1921 (2)
77 August 12, 1918
78 Revised March 15, 1921 (1)
81 Revised May 10, 1921 (1)
81 June 20, 1919 (1)
83A July 10, 1919
83C April 1, 1921 (1)
86 June 15, 1920 (1)
87 September 1, 1920 (1)
88 October 15, 1920
89 November 1, 1920
90 Feb. 25, 1921 (1)
91 March 1, 1921 (1)
92 April 15th, 1921
93 Dec. 10, 1921 (1)
95 Oct. 1, 1922 (2)
96 Jan. 30, 1923
97 Revised Nov. 20 1923 (1)
98 Oct. 10, 1923
99 Nov. 1 1923 (1)
100 April 1, 1924 {1)
101 July 15, 1924 (1)
102 June 10, 1926 (1)
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