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Tiffany Building
In 2010, APL leveraged its real estate expertise to add value to the iconic Tiffany Building, built in 1987 and renovated by renowned architect Kengo Kuma. The acquisition was facilitated by a European bank with whom APL has a strong relationship.
Located on the Ginza strip, Japan’s premier luxury commercial district, the 10-story building houses a flagship store of Tiffany & Co., a restaurant in the basement, and offices on the upper levels. APL recognized the opportunity to reduce property expenses and lease-up significant existing vacancies on the office floors at higher rents, capitalizing on the strong brand and image of the building. APL was able to take the office occupancy from 53% to 100%, while also achieving an increase in rental rates.
Location Tokyo, Japan
Property Type Retail/Office
Property Size 5,870 square meters
APL is a private firm that invests in real estate, renewable energy, and private equity transactions.
Explore APL
Work With APL
© 2019 Asia Pacific Land. All rights reserved
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Break The Rules: Career Lessons
Nate Steere
As the current president of the UFC, Dana White has overseen the UFC's return to popularity and taken it to the next level. White's management has taken the UFC to pay-per-view, sold-out events and a reality TV show. The former promoter is now the face and voice of the UFC.
Rule broken: Know when to walk away
By the end of the ‘90s, the UFC was struggling. Public perception of the sport was low, and no-holds-barred fighting had been banned in 36 states. With the UFC struggling, its owners were looking to sell. White used his promotional know-how to craft a plan for the UFC. He contacted a wealthy childhood friend who purchased the UFC and installed White as president. Under his leadership, the “dying” sport has seen a resurgence in popularity many major-league teams can only dream of.
As the cofounder and CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs had been a mover and shaker in the tech industry for decades. After resigning from Apple in the ‘80s, Jobs continued to work in the tech field, until his return to Apple in 1996 spurred the company's meteoric rise to fame with the iOS line of devices.
Rule broken: Play with the big boys
Throughout his career, Jobs had passed up opportunities to get in bed with larger companies when it didn't serve his vision. A prominent example was his refusal to make the Mac OS compatible with non-Apple PCs. In his role at Pixar, Jobs was also willing to let the company's profitable relationship with Disney come to an end when Disney would not agree to his terms. Finally, when he returned to Apple in 1996, the company was far from the titan it is today. With struggling profits and market share, Apple was hardly the most attractive position Jobs could get. All of Apple's woes, however, were secondary to the vision he had for the company.
The chef at elBulli, Ferran Adria is listed among the best chefs in the world, often holding the No.1 spot on those lists. His restaurant, elBulli, has been named Restaurant magazine's No.1 restaurant in the world a record five times (2002 and 2006 to 2009), finishing a more-than-respectable second place in 2010.
Rule broken: Focus on your core business
With that kind of publicity and acclaim, many would expect Adria to be obsessively committed to his work in the kitchen. In fact, elBulli is only open for a limited time each year, typically about six months. The other half of the year is devoted to Adria's growth as a chef and exploration of new ideas. Reservations for his restaurant are booked on a single day, and the restaurant turns away literally millions of customers each year. In spite of this, the restaurant has operated at a loss for over a decade, relying on sales of books, products and Adria's income as a presenter. As both the best restaurant and hardest reservation in the world, then, it was no small surprise when Adria announced earlier this year that elBulli would be closing for two years, and that the current format is “finished.” He claims not to have a plan for what's next, simply telling journalists: “Our challenge is just to find out if there's anything beyond what we've already done."
Successful Man
5 Lessons On Starting A Business
This Is The Most Sensible Career Advice You've Ever Heard
Trending News: Learn How To Flip Obstacles Into Opportunities
Want To Be Your Own Boss? You Need To Look Into Startup Accelerators
15 Valuable Business Lessons I learned From My First Year Of Entrepreneurship
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Odilon Redon: Literature and Music
Head of a Martyr on a Dish (St John) (detail; 1877), Odilon Redon. Courtesy Kröller-Müller Museum
In ‘Odilon Redon: Literature and Music’, the Kröller-Müller Museum looks at the oeuvre of French artist Odilon Redon (1840–1916). With a large number of paintings, pastels, drawings and lithographs, the exhibition shows the important role that literature and music play in Redon’s life and work.
Redon was painter, pastelist, draughtsman and lithographer, but he also learned to play violin and piano and acquired a love of literature at an early age. He had close friendships with writers and composers, is himself active as a writer and gives music recitals. For him, music, literary themes and visual art were inextricably linked. In his own time, he was already highly praised for his unique way of combining these different expressive powers in his work, embodying the popular late 19th-century concept of synaesthesia: the idea that a more intense experience can be created by appealing to several senses simultaneously.
Find out more about the Odilon Redon exhibition from the Kröller-Müller’s website.
Preview the exhibition below | See Apollo’s Picks of the Week here
The Cyclops (c. 1914), Odilon Redon. Photo © Kröller-Müller Museum
Head of a Martyr on a Dish (St John) (1877), Odilon Redon. Photo © Kröller-Müller Museum
The egg (1885), Odilon Redon. Courtesy Kröller-Müller.
The reader (c. 1895–1900), Odilon Redon. Courtesy Kröller-Müller
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Benefit for Catholic Education Raises Spirits, $800,000
Archdiocese Staff
News, Schools
The more than $800,000 expected to be raised by the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s annual gala for education will support 160 scholarships and contribute to an endowment fund for future educational needs.
Tyler Tate, gala chairman and president of Lewis Contractors, thanked the more than 800 people gathered for the eighth annual event Sept. 24 at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront for helping families that might not otherwise be able to send their children to Catholic schools.
Tate was among the speakers at the gala who pointed out the success of the archdiocese’s Catholic schools: 99 percent graduation rate from high school, with 98 percent heading on to college; and SAT scores 150 points above the Maryland average, among other statistics.
He noted that while it is important to raise “smart kids who think critically,” it is more important to help parents raise good kids.
“Good kids grow up to be good men and women and good Baltimoreans and good Americans. And we need that right now,” Tate said. “Supporting Catholic schools, providing for these scholarships is more than just giving kids a chance – and a good chance at that. By supporting Catholic schools, you are helping build good kids into good men and women.”
The gala especially supports the archdiocese’s Partners in Excellence program, started 20 years ago by Cardinal William H. Keeler, archbishop of Baltimore, and Raymond “Chip” Mason. Over the years, PIE has provided more than $28 million in partial, need-based scholarships for elementary and high school students in Baltimore City.
One of the students assisted by PIE regaled the crowd with his tales of studying at a Catholic school in Baltimore. Jeremy Freeman, who now teaches first grade in Baltimore via the Teach for America program, thanked his mother, Geneva Freeman, for making the sacrifice to send him to Father Charles Hall School.
“Without her guidance,” he said, “I would not be standing here tonight. While she herself did not attend a Catholic school … she knew that a Catholic school would lay a strong solid foundation for me both inside and outside the classroom, and I credit this foundation for much of the success I have experienced since that graduation day in 2004.”
Freeman said his teachers pushed him to be the best he could be, in a way that affirmed what he was learning at home. “They showed me the power of hard work and helped me to understand that nothing is accomplished alone.”
Freeman graduated from Cornell University in 2105 with a bachelor’s degree in applied economics and management. He accepted a position with Teach for America, which provides teachers for low-income schools. Each corps member, as the teachers are called, makes a two-year commitment. Freeman is teaching at William Pinderhughes Elementary/Middle School in West Baltimore.
Another Catholic school alumnus addressed the gala crowd. Kelly Wright, a weekend anchor for Fox News Channel and nationally known recording artist, mixed his message with song, paraphrasing Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me” with lyrics about students and Partners in Excellence.
Wright noted that the song, which first came out in 1971, was popular when he was a student at St. Maria Goretti High School in Hagerstown, “and it still has the same message today. We still have issues and trouble in our land because somewhere along the line, we have forgotten to show mercy. Somewhere along the line we have shown hostility instead of humility.”
“I understand that the ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people,” he continued. “And the opposite is true as well: the greatness of a nation begins in the homes of its people. So if home is where the heart is, where’s your heart? As you affect the lives of the children in your home, they will spread that to their school, to their church, wherever they might go.”
He said Catholic education was “poured into him” by his mother, June Lorraine Overton Wright, who at the age of 16 was sexually assaulted. He said he does not consider himself a “product of rape. I’m a product of love and courage.”
“Don’t get it twisted, because you totally miss the importance and the relevance and the significance of what God did there.”
He had been attending public school in Washington, D.C., which was not working for him. His mother made the choice to send him to a Catholic school where changes began to take place in his life. He said his mother determined that her son would not be raised to be mediocre, and just accept “getting by,” but rather, “My son must produce excellence.”
His mother eventually sent Wright to live with his grandmother in Hagerstown where he could attend St. Maria Goretti. He said he still has great friendships from his time at the school.
“It goes to the heart of people partnering for excellence and June (his mother) not willing to accept that her son would become a statistic in the worst way. Instead she planted seeds of excellence in me; the school reinforced it,” he said. He learned at home a sense of purpose and value that God had created him for something good.
Closing the banquet, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore thanked the attendees for helping young people use their God-given talents to become the people God has called them to be.
He acknowledged the success of the students in Catholic schools and noted that the support of Catholic students is essential. “My faith, our faith, compels us to do this,” so that the dignity and worth of each child is affirmed and they can see the beauty of God’s creation through the eyes of faith.
The entertainment included the pep band from The John Carroll School in Bel Air, the choir from Archbishop Spalding High School in Severn and a dance troupe from Mercy High School in Baltimore.
– See more at: http://www.catholicreview.org/article/home/benefit-for-catholic-education-raises-spirits-800-000#sthash.zkXv0jTr.xTS8NzfW.dpuf
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‘Gift box’ introduces Pan Am Games visitors to problems of trafficking
By Evan Boudreau
TORONTO – With thousands expected in Toronto for the July 10-26 Pan Am Games, Faith Alliance to End Human Trafficking’s gift box project is aimed at sharing with guests the horrors of selling souls.
Designed to resemble an open gift box, those who come upon it during the Pan Am Games and the Aug. 7-15 Parapan Am Games are able to step inside the structure’s 161-square-foot footprint, where they will be exposed to the plight of human trafficking, the hardships associated with the crime as well as information regarding who to contact if human trafficking is suspected.
The project “will educate people about the very real, local face of human trafficking and empower them to take action to end it,” said Kelly Colwell, the project’s coordinator.
The gift box is on the lawn outside of St. James Anglican Cathedral in downtown Toronto, where it will remain for the games’ duration and beyond. Students from the OCAD University designed the box, which stands almost 13 feet tall.
Those who visit the display between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. will be welcomed by volunteers armed with information and ambition to spread awareness.
“It is an incredible visual that people will stop and look at, and then we will have an opportunity to have a discussion,” said volunteer Kathy Tanel. “I hope that it is going to serve the purpose that we want it to.”
That purpose is driving home the reality that human trafficking happens in Toronto, in Ontario and across Canada. According to the federal government’s 2012 National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking, about 90 percent of human trafficking within Canada involves domestic victims.
“Many people are not aware that human trafficking is a problem here in Canada,” Colwell said, explaining why Faith Alliance embarked upon the gift box project.
Gift boxes first appeared during the London Olympics in 2012. Launched by Stop the Traffik and the U.N. Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking, the project has since appeared in about 100 locations across four countries.
Sister Therese Meunier, congregational leader of the Sisters of St. Joseph Toronto and a member of the executive of Faith Alliance, called the gift box project a step toward change.
“Each of us has the power to drive change,” she said. “Our desire to raise awareness and to connect people with resources is a step in that direction.”
In quake-hit Nepal, monsoon hampers relief work
Video of Planned Parenthood doctor prompts calls for investigation
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The Cummings Twins
Sat, 14 Sep - Sun, 22 Sep
During the London Design Festival. Contemporary Collective Gallery in partnership with Bankside Hotel, presents The Cummings Twins.
Mark and Paul Cumming’s intention is to create phenomenological experiences, with an interest for the occult, mysticism, technology and zeitgeist. The subject of transcendence is critical to their work and its relationship to contemporary culture. They produce artworks namely sculptures and audio-visual performances too – being multidisciplinary they utilize any medium that suits the project best.
During the London Design Festival, The Cummings Twins will present a series of events and performances including their infamous Gong Performance.
Mark and Paul Cumming’s intention is to create phenomenological experiences, with an interest for the occult, mysticism, technology and zeitgeist. With a specific focus in Hermetic wisdom and Druidic practices the subject of transcendence is critical to their work and its relationship to contemporary culture. They produce artworks namely sculptures and audio-visual performances too – being multidisciplinary they utilize any medium that suits the project best.
The Cummings twins have technology as their mainstay but with maturity their work has flourished with a sense of spirit behind everything they do. Their current projects include ‘Polygondaydream’ that involves the creation of sculptures and also ‘The Mystery School of Sound’ that is a performance music piece relating to Hermeticism and the healing arts.
LEGEND AND LEGACY
In 2006 after leaving university studying fine arts Mark and Paul Cummings headed straight for the heart of London settling a stone’s throw away from the Square Mile. They began a project that ran for about three years. Based in the epicenter of the city and immersed themselves in technology and urban culture. This was 10 years before digital Shoreditch and at the infancy of commercialized Internet; before this it was dominated by programmer geeks and not many artists had yet entered this realm.
This was before the noise of the Internet grew and they had a lot of exposure and quickly became renowned for making very intense videos and digital artworks. Photography, video, music, animation and programming were the main tools for the production of shorts, interactive pieces and installations.
They soon became a household name within the digital art scene at the time. They were known as digital Punks working under the pseudonym of AZ2Lab. Their work was showcased around the world in events and exhibitions such as Japan, South Korea, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland and the UK to name a few and they were also very widely published.
This brought attention from the commercial world and they began producing work for Diesel, Nike, Deutsche Telecom and many other international brands. All that was good came to an abrupt end - as they decided to leave advertising and push into the art world.
While still maintaining their digital heritage the twins started painting in earnest back to what they felt was traditional. Producing large-scale landscapes that covered the topic of politics and social critique.
Though seemingly hyperrealist there was always a computer involved at the starting point of the projects. The paintings were readily accepted into the national shows such as Mostyn Contemporary amongst others. The News Presenter John Snow chose the painting titled ‘Roadside’ for his own personal critique when the painting was shortlisted for the prestigious Threadneedle Prize 2010.
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Transport Canada updates flight-time/duty-time regulations
Delta CEO hits out at GCC carriers; reports September traffic
International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC), a wholly owned subsidiary of American International Group, has delivered the final 737-800 to American Airlines, which is the last of a 15-aircraft sale-leaseback program. 0 20.Nov
Transport Canada’s new flight- and duty-time regulations for professional pilots in Canada (view here https://www.canada.ca/en/transport-canada/news/2018/12/overview-of-the-new-regulations-on-flight-crew-fatigue-management.html) have been welcomed by the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), which calls it long-overdue.
“We’ve worked diligently to secure updated science-based, flight- and duty-time regulations which for years has been one of the most important aviation safety issues for flight crews in Canada,” said Capt. Dan Adamus, ALPA Canada President. “While the regulations announced today do not address all of our concerns and recommendations, they are a significant improvement over the current rules and will improve aviation safety.”
“These regulations bring Canada in line with the rest of the world and above all, improve safety for passengers and flight crews alike,” added Capt. Tim Canoll, ALPA International President. “Flying while fatigued is simply unsafe. These new rules will give pilots and operators the guidance they need to ensure the crew are fully rested before reporting for duty.”
ALPA says that it will continue to work with industry and government stakeholders to advocate for future safety enhancements that help ensure a safe and robust commercial aviation system in Canada.
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All Hospitals & Wellness centres
List of Hospitals in Nairobi
Displaying 1 - 5 out of 6 hospitals.
Medical Facility (112)
Tunis (1)
The Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya
Aga Khan University Hospital, 3rd Parklands Avenue, Limuru Road, Nairobi, Kenya
The Aga Khan Hospitals are a network of international hospitals based in Dar es Salaam, Mumbai, Kisumu, Mombasa, Nairobi and Pakistan.
Maintaining ISO accreditation.
Conducting regular Continuing Medical Education (CME) programmes for health care professionals.
Aga Khan University Hospital Nairobi, (AKUH) has become the first in sub-Saharan Africa, to introduce a new advanced brain, head, neck and spine surgery technology.
The Karen Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya
The Karen Hospitals – Nairobi P.O. Box 74240-00200 Langata Road-Karen Nairobi, Kenya
The Karen Hospital is a private multi-specialty hospital in Kenya.
12 Bed State of the Art ICU
24 Hour Dialysis Center
The Karen Hospital has a world class Operating Theatre with three operating rooms which caters to both major and minor cases.
Kenyatta National Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya
Kenyatta National Hospital, P.O Box 20723-00202, Nairobi, Kenya
The Kenyatta National Hospital is the oldest hospital in Kenya.
The Nairobi West Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya
The Nairobi West Hospital, Gandhi Ave, Nairobi, Kenya
Vision of maintaining status as an affordable, accessible, optimal quality healthcare provider.
Gertrude's Children's Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya
Gertrude's Children's Hospital, Muthaiga Nairobi 42325 - 00100 Kenya
Gertrude's Children's Hospital is a charitable trust, meaning that all profits are ploughed back into the hospital. It is run by a Board of Trustees who offer their services voluntarily in the day-to-day running of the hospital, since they are responsible for all policy decisions.
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Blackstone to buy Vungle, settle founder lawsuit
Rebecca Falconer updated Mar 21, 2019
Sanders: U.S. must follow New Zealand's lead and ban assault weapons
Photo: Scott Eisen/Getty Images
Democratic Presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said late Wednesday the U.S. must follow New Zealand's lead in banning assault weapons, and it should do so by taking on the National Rifle Association — which swiftly rejected the call.
QuoteThis is what real action to stop gun violence looks like. We must follow New Zealand's lead, take on the NRA and ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons in the United States"
The big picture: Sanders was speaking out in support of New Zealand's swift move to ban all military-style semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles, in response to in response to Friday's Christchurch terrorist attack. Prominent Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) also praised New Zealand's swift action.
The other side: NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch cited the Second Amendment in defense of not changing the law in the U.S.
Go deeper: Bernie Sanders: Everything you need to know about the 2020 candiate
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Architecture Alain Carle Designs a Private Retreat with Stunning Views of the St. Lawrence River
Alain Carle Designs a Private Retreat with Stunning Views of the St. Lawrence River
La Charbonnière by Alain Carle, in Quebec resort village Cap-à-l'Aigle, opens up to the St. Lawrence River like a sculptural viewfinder.
James Brittain
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Email
opens up to the St. Lawrence River like a sculptural viewfinder.
Montreal architect Alain Carle is known for his respect of the natural landscape and efforts to keep it intact, often designing his houses to work around challenges presented by nature. Most of his residential projects are situated on wooded sites, wrapped in walls of trees that create a sense of a private wilderness retreat, even where there may be nearby neighbours or adjacent roadways.
While the site for La Charbonnière, Carle’s latest masterpiece, features a thick tree line of evergreens, a large section of the land had already been cleared before Carle came into the picture. Part of a sprawling residential development, a section of the lot was stripped in order to expose and optimize views of the St. Lawrence River.
Opening up to the water like a viewfinder, the structure is clad in blackened timber – in this case, charred cedar – a choice that has become a calling card for the architect. Working with the existing terrain, Carle pushed the sculptural form against a slope, allowing two storeys to sit at ground level.
“The exterior volumetry is abstract and intriguing,” Carle says. “It emerges from the soil, like a sculptural object, facing the river’s monumentality.”
The main floor is split into two wings that are connected by a centre volume, which backs a glass-walled hallway with a dry sauna. These spaces overlook an open terrace on the river side, which features a stone floor that extends into the interior. The rustic, textural flooring runs through the master bedroom in the smaller wing, as well as the open concept kitchen and living room in the larger one, and references the rocky lawn beyond.
Below this main living space, a second bedroom, third bath and a games room are lined up behind another floor-to-ceiling window that opens the sleeping area up to sweeping views of nature.
Architecture, Canada,
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Darren Williamson Wednesday, November 7th 2018, @20:00. With Juventus taking the spoils from Old Trafford, the pressure is now on Jose Mourinho’s side to get something in Turin and pull away from the rest of the group.
Juventus vs Man. United: Predictions, Betting Tips & Odds
Wednesday, November 7th 2018, @20:00
Juventus Stadium, Turin
Juventus 57/100 | Draw 11/4 | Man. United 5/1
Bet Now With Bwin
Predictions | Betting Tips | Odds | Statistics
With Juventus taking the spoils from Old Trafford, the pressure is now on Jose Mourinho’s side to get something in Turin and pull away from the rest of the group.
If Manchester United were to have a solid chance of topping the group after their draw at home to Valencia, they had to beat Juventus at Old Trafford but failed to do so due to a Paolo Dybala goal.
With the reverse fixture at the Juventus Stadium, Jose Mourinho’s side will be hoping for a mini-miracle of sorts.
Juventus have the joint best home form in Serie A with 16 points from six games whilst Manchester United have the sixth best away form, with 10 points from six games as well. Each side have only played one home and away game respectively, both picking up wins.
You can expect Mourinho to lead with a defensive approach in this one and hope Lukaku and co. can break down Juventus’ defense but more importantly, than they can hold off the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Paolo Dybala. That, however, seems unlikely, 2-0 Juventus.
1×2 Prediction
Score Prediction
Juventus to be winning at half-time and full-time
The Bianconeri have been winning at half-time and full-time in their last four Champions League matches. Considering how straight forward their visit to Old Trafford was, the odds for this are great.
Juventus to win to nil
With four wins from their last four games in Europe as well as three clean sheets in a row, it’s hard not to see Juventus winning and even keeping a clean sheet against what should be a backs to the wall performance from Manchester United.
1 x 2 Odds
Unsurprisingly these two giants of European football have met on no less than 12 occasions, dating back to 1976 where United won the first ever encounter in a UEFA Cup group game.
There have been some classics between these two teams, most notably the 1999 Champions League semi-final where the Red Devils came back from at one point, a 3-1 aggregate deficit to win 4-3 and advance onto the Champions League final, subsequently winning it.
Juventus’ Argentine forward Paulo Dybala is the second highest scorer in the Champions League this season with four goals, including the winner against Manchester United last matchday.
The Bianconeri are only the second team not to concede a goal in the Champions League this season along with Borussia Dortmund.
Manchester United have the joint third most goals in away games this season in the Champions League with three.
Juventus midfielder Miralem Pjanic and United midfielder Paul Pogba are the joint highest scoring midfielders this season with two goals a piece.
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Fossils unearthed at Big Bend identify new dinosaur species
Historical marker commemorates reported alien abduction
Posted: Jun 24, 2019 / 01:22 PM CDT / Updated: Jun 26, 2019 / 01:30 AM CDT
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) — A historical marker has been placed near the river where two men in southern Mississippi said they were abducted by aliens in 1973.
News outlets report the city of Pascagoula dedicated the marker Saturday at Lighthouse Park.
Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker said they were on the shores of the Pascagoula River when what appeared to be aliens pulled them onboard a UFO, examined them for about 30 minutes and then returned them to Earth.
Both reported the event to the sheriff’s department and were checked out at a hospital after it happened Oct. 11, 1973. The story has become known worldwide.
Parker published a book about the experience in 2018. Hickson died in 2011. Both said many people doubted their story. A few witnesses have come forward to corroborate some details.
More Weird News Stories
BERLIN (AP) — German authorities say a busy stretch of highway had to be shut down after a truck carrying 17 tons of cocoa caught fire.
Police said the fire started when the truck was on the A14 autobahn near the town of Grabow, between Berlin and Hamburg, on Monday.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A St. Louis couple has rolled all 7s and 11s with the birth of their daughter.
J'Aime Brown was born at 7:11 p.m. on July 7, which convenience store chain 7-Eleven marks as 7-Eleven Day. Her birth weight? Seven pounds and 11 ounces, obviously.
PALM HARBOR, Fla. (AP) — A 75-year-old Florida man says he kicked an alligator in the snout after it attacked his dog.
Buddy Ackerman says the 8-foot (2.44-meter) gator came from a retention pond near his Palm Harbor condominium earlier this week and grabbed the dog while they were out for an early morning walk.
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Thanksgiving Mass for SS Mary and John Wolverhampton
By Józef Łopuszyński
Last Saturday’s Holy Mass at St Mary & St John R.C. Church, Wolverhampton was one of joy and thanksgiving for the work which had taken place to ensure that the church would to be taken off Historic England’s risk register.
The main celebrant was His Grace Archbishop Bernard Longley- read the Homily.
Invited guests included the Architect Stephen Oliver, local MP Eleanor Smith and the Mayor and Mayoress of Wolverhampton who stayed for the reception afterwards in the Parish Hall.
Recently, high level masonry had been crumbling in the 160 year old building, and a section of the church had to be closed off to parishioners due to the danger of falling masonry within the building.
With the help of the Archdiocese's development team, the church secured £241,000 from the Heritage Lottery fund and £20,000 from National Churches fund for an extensive restoration project. The parish was able to raise the extra £45,000 towards the £310,000 required.
The church now also has a new access ramp and glass panels so that people can see inside the church when the doors are shut.
Above: Masonry works completed and integrated with the existing stonework
Author: Caroline Bletso
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Biz on TV
Biz New Orleans
Conquering Water
Pamela Marquis,
Randy Newman’s song, “Louisiana 1927” pretty much sums up New Orleans’ interminable challenge with having just way too much water. “Louisiana, Louisiana. They’re tryin’ to wash us away.” And as the sea levels continue to rise, we continue to ask, “How exactly do we keep from being washed away?”
Mayor LaToya Cantrell is moving to implement recommendations in the 2013 Urban Water Plan, designed to deal with stormwater in a way that shifts the emphasis from pumping water out of the city to holding it in place with retention and detention systems, rain gardens and permeable paving. There have also been a few new businesses created to address all this water.
On March 21, Luisa Abballe and Arien Hall of Mastodonte took home the first place prize of $10,000 at The Water Challenge, presented by Greater New Orleans Foundation, the first of three annual pitch competitions known collectively as PitchNOLA. The series is organized by Propeller, a nonprofit that helps local entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses with a particular focus on addressing inequalities.
“We were nervous before we started our pitch, but once we got going it was easy,” said Abballe. “I guess it’s because we’re so passionate about what we do.”
They must have done something right because they also took home the Audience Favorite Award of $500.
Mastodonte is a New Orleans-based construction company that provides a full range of construction services including stormwater management, construction design consultation, operating a build team and green infrastructure landscaping. The company also does ponds, rain gardens, water features and installs rain barrels.
“We try and put in water retention systems that store water as close to where it falls as possible and allows it to slowly permeate back into the earth’s surface, instead of being pumped into the grey infrastructure system,” says Abballe.
Hall says the company will use the prize money to finish building a greenhouse to grow plants for landscaping projects and to expand the business.
“We’re going to hire two more staff, ” says Hall. “Right now it’s just me and Luisa. And we’re going to set up general liability and worker’s compensation insurance. Right now we have a steady flow of clients. I think we are at the end of our start-up days and moving into our growth phase. I’m hoping in five years we’ll both be making six figures.”
Mastodonte is also doing a great deal of work on the Community Adaptation Program in Gentilly. The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA) was a sub-recipient of a $141 National Disaster Resilience Competition grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It provides $5 million for residential stormwater management improvements to owner-occupied single-family homes with household incomes at or below 80 percent of the area median income in the Gentilly area.
NORA expects the program to divert and detain stormwater runoff on more than 200 properties with an average grant award between $10,000 and $25,000. The improvements are designed and installed at no cost to the homeowner.
“We are excited to be able to do this work,” says Hall.
The company, in an effort to call attention to environmental and socio-economic justice issues, also offers apprenticeships to minority youth and hosts educational workshops and programming for the community.
“The best thing you can do for your home is to get rid of the concrete,” advises Abballe.
And if you’re wondering about the origin of the name, here’s the story according to Abballe.
“Juggernaut was our original name but we thought it sounded too clunky so we looked the word up in French because New Orleans is a French city and the translation that came up was Mastodonte, a prehistoric elephant that roamed all of North America.”
Categories: Labors of Love
Inspired by New Orleans, Local Paint Brand Expands Offerings and International Reach
Biz Minute 7-15-19
The Cost Of Sex Trafficking And My Days Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s Mansion
Young Leadership Council Announces 2019 Role Model Class
New and Notables
Hogs for the Cause Boasts Biggest Fundraising Year to Date
Photo Finesse
Biz Minute 7-9-19
© 2019 Biz New Orleans.
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https://www.blackenterprise.com/baltimore-african-american-festival-performer-10-facts-about-performer-johnny-gill/
Baltimore African American Festival Performer: 10 Facts about Performer Johnny Gill
by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton
The next performer being featured today for The 10 Facts series, regarding the performing acts at the Baltimore African American Festival (which will take place June 21st and 22nd in Baltimore, Maryland at the Camden Yards Sports & Entertainment Complex) is New Edition member, Johnny Gill.
Let’s see what you are going to find out about him as I am sure there is something you don’t know about him before you clicked on this link.
1. Johnny Gill actually became popular recording a duet with his childhood friend, Stacy Lattisaw, ‘Perfect Combination.’
2. After Bobby Brown was kicked out of New Edition, people thought Gill was brought in to replace him, when in fact, he was brought in to replace lead singer, Ralph Tresvant, who was going to pursue a solo career. Ralph delayed that move and stayed on when Johnny joined.
3. Although New Edition was on the MCA label at the time, Johnny Gill recorded his self-titled album on the legendary Motown imprint.
4. He has a son named Isiah Gill.
5. In 2008, he started touring with best friends, Ralph Tresvant and Bobby Brown in a group titled, Heads of State.
6. Gill had plans to pursue a degree in electrical engineering, but opted to go forward with his singing career.
7. Although he found major success with Motown, he had 2 albums before that under Atlantic Records.
8. May be the only artist to have 2 self-titled albums, Johnny Gill (Atlantic-1983) and Johnny Gill (Motown-1990).
9. Starred in the 2009 stage play A Mother’s Prayer, which also starred Robin Givens and Shirley Murdock.
10. Aside from being a solo artist, he was also a part of a duet with Stacy Lattisaw and 2 singing groups, New Edition and LSG (Gerard Levert/Keith Sweat/Johnny Gill).
Baltimore African American Festival: 10 Facts o...
African American Festival Performer: 10 Facts a...
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Changes to marriage laws in UK to be announced next week
Changes to the marriage laws are set to be announced next week. Picture: Press Assocation (PA)
Jennifer Logan
Published: 16:17 Saturday 27 October 2018
Changes to the marriage laws are set to be announced in next week’s budget, the Government has said.
A cash boost proposed for the hospitality sector will mean more hotels, restaurants and pubs could be able to hold weddings following a review of marriage law, a spokesman said.
The chancellor is expected to say he wants to make the outdated rules around wedding venues ‘simpler and fairer’, and reduce red tape, while continuing to ensure the dignity of marriage ceremonies is preserved.
To do so, he is expected to say the Government will ask the Law Commission to review the laws around wedding venues in England and Wales.
A spokesman said: “In its 2015 report, the Law Commission established a strong case for the need for reform. So the review will look widely at how and where marriages can take place in England and Wales.
“It will also look at how to accommodate the increasing demand from couples to have a legally binding ceremony outdoors, which is permitted in Scotland.”
The current red tape for getting a licence to hold weddings includes needing to identify a specific room where the ceremony would take place, and that it must be part of a building rather than in the open air or under a marquee, the Government said.
The licence holder must also make sure that no food or alcoholic drinks are sold or consumed in the specific area 1 hour before and during the proceedings.
This means many small business owners are put off trying to get a licence, which drives up the cost for couples, and restricts choice.
A spokesman said: “Surveys show the average wedding costs between £20,000 and £30,000, which includes an average cost of around £4,500 for venue hire.
“This can mean some people who want to get married are put off by the expense.
“Relaxing restrictions would make it cheaper and simpler for couples to get married, potentially supporting more people to get married.
“While the laws around who can get married have evolved substantially in recent years, the laws on how and where marriages must take place have remained largely unchanged since 1836.
“This review will help the law keep pace with modern Britain, while helping people keep the cost of living down.”
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Sanctions and anti-money...
Sanctions and anti-money laundering bill: a crucial step for NGOs and developing countries
Author: Rowan Popplewell
Parliament yesterday passed a bill which gives the UK government new powers to respond to gross violations of human rights overseas and clamp down on tax avoidance in British Overseas Territories.
The Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill will provide the UK with the ability to implement sanctions on individuals, companies and states, and tackle money-laundering once it leaves the EU.
At first glance, it is a dry, technical piece of legislation, but it has the potential to make a real difference to the lives of millions of people around the world. This is because the bill:
Enables the UK to issue sanctions in response to gross human rights violations through the introduction of a so-called Magnitsky clause.
Makes it easier for NGOs to deliver humanitarian aid and resolve conflicts in countries such as Syria and Yemen by giving the government the power to issue exceptions and general licenses for actions that may otherwise be subject to sanctions.
Reduces money laundering and tax avoidance in British Overseas Territories through the introduction of public registers of beneficial ownership.
While there is still much work to be done, the bill is a crucial step in the right direction. This progress would not have happened without the support and action of peers and parliamentarians from across the political spectrum, and tireless campaigning of civil society groups (including several Bond members), who have worked hard over many years to raise awareness of these issues and advocate for change.
Public registers of beneficial ownership
Tax havens cost developing countries an estimated $170 billion in revenues every year. The introduction of public registers of beneficial ownership are an important tool for improving transparency in these jurisdictions, which makes it easier for poor countries to claim their fair share of these revenues, i.e. money that can be spent on public services such as education and health care.
A cross-party alliance of backbench MPs, led by Dame Margaret Hodge (Labour) and Andrew Mitchell (Conservative), secured an amendment at Report Stage, which requires British Overseas Territories, such as the British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands, to publish open, public registers of company ownership by the end of 2020.
The measure will play an important role in the fight against money laundering and tax avoidance by helping civil society, journalists and the general public to understand who owns companies registered in these territories and track where the money is flowing.
Magnitsky clause
Named after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was tortured in police custody in Russia and then died from his injuries, Magnitsky clauses allow governments to issue sanctions in response to gross human rights abuses.
The UK government announced that it would amend the bill so that it would include a Magnitsky clause following the attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury earlier this year. The government had previously voted down amendments to introduce similar powers at previous stages of the bill.
This new clause enables the government to place sanctions on individuals implicated in gross violations of human rights, and has the potential to become an important tool in the fight against human rights abuses around the world if used properly.
Exceptions and licenses for humanitarian and peacebuilding action
The bill also contains provisions which allow the government to issue exceptions and general licenses for humanitarian and peacebuilding activities in countries subject to sanctions. This will make it easier for NGOs to deliver life-saving assistance and work to tackle the root causes of conflict in countries such as Syria and Yemen.
While the bill marks an important step in the right direction, much of the hard work to create a new framework for exceptions and licenses still needs to be done through the production of guidance and secondary legislation in the coming months and years.
In a letter to Bond, the government said that it intends to build exceptions and general licenses for humanitarian, peacebuilding, development and reconstruction activities in to sanctions regimes when they are created or amended, where the need for such provisions is anticipated. The government will continue to issue individual licenses for NGOs on a case-by-case basis to allow them to respond to situations as they arise.
Bond and others from across civil society will work with the government to ensure that they deliver on this commitment.
Rowan Popplewell
Rowan is Bond's policy manager focusing on civic space and the operating environment. She supports organisations from across the development and environment sector to respond to restrictions on advocacy and campaigning in the UK.
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Diane Kingston OBE
We must hold the UK government accountable for its global leadership on universal health coverage and HIV.
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Shukri Abdi drowning: Police call for 'calm' after tragic death
Shukri Abdi drowning: Police call for 'calm' after tragic death in Bury
POLICE have called for 'calm' in the community and on social media after the death of a 12-year-old who drowned in Bury.
Shukri Abdi drowned in the River Irwell, near Dunster Street, on June 27 — five weeks before her 13th birthday.
An ongoing police investigation has found there is currently “nothing to suggest that bullying led directly to her death.”
Det Insp Andrew Naismith, of Greater Manchester Police’s Bury district, and the senior police officer leading the investigation, has called for 'calm' amid 'serious accusations' being made against the four children who were with Shukri at the time of her death.
An inquest opening at Heywood Coroner’s Court this morning was attended by Shukri’s mother Zamzam Ture, as well as other family members and friends. Ms Ture previously described Shukri as a “quiet girl” who was “so happy and so focussed on her future.”
Family members have claimed that Shukri was being bullied at Broad Oak Sports College in Hazel Avenue, where she was a pupil. Campaigners also claim her death is suspicious, particularly because she could not swim.
Senior Coroner for Greater Manchester North, Joanne Kearsley said at the inquest: “There has been widespread reporting of potential bullying accusations. There is currently an ongoing review by the school and the outcome of their investigation will be made available to the police.”
In the wake of the incident, a petition was launched calling for a “full and transparent investigation”, which has been signed by more than 54,000 people. A major protest was staged outside Broad Oak on Friday afternoon, with hundreds of parents calling for “justice for Shukri.”
Shukri was the eldest of Ms Ture’s five children, the family having moved to Bury in 2017 from a refugee camp in Kenya. Originally from Somalia, Ms Ture had fled to the camp due to violence in her homeland.
Zamzam Ture
Oak Learning Partnership Multi Academy Trust, which Broad Oak became part of in April this year, are reviewing their bullying policy and other procedures relating to the welfare of children at Broad Oak.
A meeting of school and police representatives as well as family members, is due to be held this afternoon.
The inquest heard that, on the afternoon of June 27, Shukri left school with four other children, all of whom have since been interviewed by police.
“They all went down to the water to play that evening after school”, said Det Insp Naismith. “Unfortunately, Shukri got into difficulty, went into the deep end of the water, and unfortunately she has drowned.
“The investigation is still ongoing and we are talking to a number of people but at this stage, there is nothing to suggest there is anything related to third-party involvement, or bullying or coercion in relation to getting Shukri down to the river.”
He emphasised that there is an ongoing police investigation which is hoped to be concluded within the next four to six weeks.
CCTV footage is currently being reviewed by officers, however Det Insp Naismith said that there is no CCTV from the river or the path leading to the river.
READ > 'She had her whole life ahead of her': Devastated mum of Shukri Yahya speaks about her heartache
Police told the inquest hearing they had received two calls about the incident on June 27 – one from Shukri’s mother reporting her daughter missing at about 8pm.
They later received a second call, from “the friends” who had been with Shukri, alerting them to the fact that the 12-year-old girl was in the water.
Fire crews, police and ambulances attended.
Det Insp Naismith, said: “It was quite clear quite quickly that Shukri had been in the water for 20 to 30 minutes.
“A rescue mission was launched by the emergency services. However, unfortunately, Shukri was recovered at 11.27pm and pronounced dead at 11.54pm.
“The family were informed and I then launched a full-scale investigation into the circumstances surrounding her death.”
He added: “I would like to offer my condolences to the family. I know this is a difficult time but I would also like to ask that there is some calm on social media and in the community.
“There were four other children involved in this from four very difficult backgrounds who are clearly having some very serious accusations pointed at them.”
The inquest has been adjourned until December 9 this year.
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Home Life There are 6 k...
There are 6 key reasons we probably won’t see the next major ‘Grand Theft Auto’ game until at least 2020
Ben Gilbert, Business Insider US
Sorry folks: You’re unlikely to see a new “Grand Theft Auto” game for at least a few more years.
One major reason for that is the fact “Grand Theft Auto 5” is still a major seller more than five years after launch.
When a sequel does arrive, it’s most likely to be on the next generation of gaming consoles.
Nearly five years after the launch of “Grand Theft Auto 5,” the game continues to quietly dominate. As of late 2018, it had sold over 100 million copies.
It’s the third-best-selling game of all time, just below “Tetris” and “Minecraft.” That’s because it keeps selling – “GTA 5” has been one of the 20 best-selling games in the US every month since it launched, barring a single month when it dropped to No. 21.
And the studio that made “GTA 5,” Rockstar Games, just released a new game: “Red Dead Redemption 2.”
“Red Dead Redemption 2” is conceptually similar to the “GTA” series, in that it’s an open-world, third-person action game. Tonally, it’s very different.
It’s for these reasons, broadly speaking, that we’re most likely still years away from the next entry in the “Grand Theft Auto” series.
But, as you might expect, it’s much more complicated than that.
1. “GTA 5” keeps selling.
Rockstar Games/Take-Two Interactive
Games like “Grand Theft Auto 5” – third-person, story-driven, open-world action games – don’t usually enjoy sales performances like “GTA 5” has had. Most games in general don’t enjoy the type of sales performance of a title like “GTA 5.”
It is an anomaly, statistically speaking. “Its performance is just other worldly,” The NPD Group’s Mat Piscatella told Business Insider in an email last year. NPD tracks game sales data in the United States. “No other title comes anywhere near close,” he said.
Since “GTA 5” went on sale in September 2013, it has been one of the 20 best-selling games every month but one. “The only time it didn’t was October 2014 when it hit at #21,” Piscatella said.
Simply put: Why release a new “GTA” when the most recent one is still selling so well?
In fact, Rockstar Games reissued “GTA 5” in a “Premium Edition” earlier this year. It comes with additional content and a bunch of virtual money to use in “GTA Online” – the massively popular online component of “GTA 5.”
2. “GTA Online” is very popular.
The latest expansion to “GTA Online” was called “After Hours,” and it included characters from “GTA” history.
Speaking of, “GTA Online” is quite popular. It’s not clear exactly how popular it is, as Rockstar Games doesn’t release player numbers. When we asked last year, representatives declined to answer.
Here’s what we do know about how popular it is: Rockstar Games said in January 2018 that “GTA Online” had more players in December 2017 than it did at any previous time. Which is to say that more and more people were playing “GTA Online” over time.
It’s not surprising, either. With over 100 million copies sold, the game needs only 1% of buyers to be playing “GTA Online” for it to have a million players. And given Rockstar’s previous comments on player growth, we can assume that it’s probably much more than 1%.
We also know it’s popular enough that Rockstar keeps making major additions – and those additions aren’t cheap to make.
Part of what makes “GTA Online” so alluring is it takes the open world of the offline game and turns it into a multiplayer playground. You can take on heists with friends, or go racing around San Andreas, or become a business magnate.
Better still: It costs nothing to play other than the initial price of the game. There are virtual items and bonuses you can buy within “GTA Online,” but it’s otherwise an infinite extension of an already massive open-world game.
3. It doesn’t make sense to release a new “GTA” game anywhere near “Red Dead Redemption 2” because it could hurt sales of both.
Games like “Grand Theft Auto 5” are rare.
Not just open-world, third-person action games – there are lots of those every year – but games with massive worlds brimming with possibility. Those games tend to be beloved. I’m talking about stuff like “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” or “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.” The kind of games where players spend hundreds of hours exploring, long after the main story has ended, just for the thrill of it.
These are also the games that sell huge, record-setting numbers. They break out of the “core” gaming audience and enter the mainstream. And they sell for years.
But there can be only so many of those games. They are the exceptions – even the most hardcore players don’t have time to focus on multiple massive open-world games.
In so many words: Putting out a second massive open-world game in “GTA 6” anywhere near the release of “Red Dead Redemption 2” would be a mistake.
It could limit both games, prompting people to choose one or the other, fall off of the first one to pick up the second, or simply skip the first for the second. If history is any indication, Rockstar intends to continue selling “Red Dead Redemption 2” long after its October 2018 launch.
4. Rockstar puts out games infrequently, historically speaking.
Rockstar / Grand Theft Auto V
“Red Dead Redemption 2” is Rockstar’s first new game since “GTA 5,” which launched in September 2013. Before that, “Red Dead Redemption” launched in May 2010. And prior to that, “Grand Theft Auto IV” launched in April 2008.
Besides a publishing deal Rockstar made with an outside development studio (to publish 2011’s “L.A. Noire”), the company has a steady cadence of one major game launch every two to three years – sometimes it goes even longer, as in the five-year gap between “GTA 5” and “Red Dead Redemption 2.”
Given that history, it’s unlikely that Rockstar is suddenly changing the way it operates and releasing two major new games anywhere near each other.
5. Rockstar Games almost certainly isn’t capable of simultaneously developing “Red Dead Redemption 2,” “GTA Online,” and “GTA 6.”
Rockstar / GTA V
Making gigantic games like “Red Dead Redemption” and “Grand Theft Auto” is extremely resource-intensive. It takes hundreds of people, hundreds of millions of dollars, and years of coordinated work to create these massive games. “GTA 5” reportedly employed more than 1,000 people in its creation.
Things get even more complicated when the concept of continual development gets introduced, as is the case with “GTA Online.” It’s a living game that requires maintenance, community support, and additional content generation – and that means a dedicated staff.
Given that Rockstar Games has been focused on creating “Red Dead Redemption 2” for the past several years and is continually working on “GTA Online,” it’s unlikely that it could also be in full production on a new “Grand Theft Auto” game.
To be clear, it is extremely likely that Rockstar is already working on “GTA 6” in some capacity. It’s even been mentioned by major Rockstar execs at least once in the past, though purely in a conceptual sense. But the work is almost sure to be preliminary at most, still years away from a finished product.
6. By the time a new “GTA” game is complete, new versions of the Xbox and the PlayStation are likely to be available.
Just like “Grand Theft Auto 5,” both the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 are nearing their fifth anniversaries – both consoles came out in fall 2013. Also like “GTA 5,” neither is going anywhere just yet.
According to the early rumors and reports, new Xbox and PlayStation consoles are in the works – but they probably won’t arrive until 2020 at the earliest. Neither Microsoft nor Sony is anywhere close to ready.
Given Rockstar’s history of launching a game every few years, and the impending launch of “Red Dead Redemption 2,” it looks as if Rockstar’s next “GTA” game is unlikely to arrive on the current generation of consoles.
Perhaps it’ll end up like “GTA 5,” which arrived on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 as the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 launched. It was one of the last major game launches on a console generation coming to an end, which then transitioned to a new generation even more successfully – “GTA 5” launched one year later on the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4.
Either way, we’re unlikely to see “Grand Theft Auto 6” anytime soon.
GTA VI
Strauss Zelnick
The NPD Group
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Sen. Dodd reiterates support for lasting backstop
Mark A. Hofmann
Catastrophes P/C Legislation & Regulation P/C Insurers Terrorism More + Less -
WASHINGTON--The chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee vowed again Wednesday to seek "a more permanent federal commitment" to the existing federal terrorism insurance backstop.
Before he heard a panel of witnesses offer their opinions on what should be done about the backstop, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said that "we continue to see a need to provide a federal backstop to protect our people, businesses and critical infrastructure" from future terrorist attacks. The current federal backstop that would help insurers deal with claims arising from a future catastrophic terrorist attack is slated to expire Dec. 31.
Sen. Dodd said earlier this month that he did not want the committee to renew the program every couple of years. He repeated that contention Thursday.
He also made clear that he does not intend to wait until the last minute to get a bill through the committee.
"We're going to try to move on this," said Sen. Dodd after listening to the witnesses' concerns. "We'll be trying to move as quickly as we can," he said, but did not set a timetable.
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BuzzFeed News Homepage
This Single Mum Gets By On $160 A Week After Rent
As rents have steeply increased over the years, Rent Assistance has not kept up.
Hannah Ryan
BuzzFeed News Reporter, Australia
Brianna Muir and her daughter.
Brianna Muir, 28, has no idea what she would do if she were to be evicted.
She lives with her daughter in a three-bedroom house in Berkeley, just south of Wollongong on the NSW South Coast. She pays $340 a week in rent, which leaves her with about $160 a week for everything else.
Muir has been on Newstart since her daughter turned eight six months ago. The unemployment benefit pays up to $601.10 a fortnight to single parents. She also receives the Family Tax Benefit.
Muir hasn’t been able to find a job within school hours, and after-school care would be too expensive, she said. Searching for suitable jobs — Newstart recipients must apply for 20 a month — after eight years of not working is “very confronting, very nerve-wracking”, she told BuzzFeed News.
Muir also receives Commonwealth Rent Assistance, the supplement for recipients of income support who rent. For single parents with one or two kids, the maximum Rent Assistance payment is $161.14 each fortnight.
All up, with child support, her income is about $1,000 per fortnight.
Living on her budget is not easy. She avoids meat, relying on a fortnightly veggie hamper from a local charity. “I just make sure that the rent and bills are paid and then whatever’s left over, we just kind of work with,” she said.
When Muir moved in, her rent was considered expensive for Berkeley, a relatively disadvantaged area (she had a flatmate to ease the cost). But thanks to a “really good landlord” her rent hasn’t gone up in six years, and now she thinks she’d struggle to find another place for a similar price. “I’ve just watched the rent go up around me,” she said.
“If we lost this house, I honestly don’t know,” Muir said. “We would have to look at some sort of share house arrangement maybe.”
Tracey Nearmy / AAPIMAGE
Rent Assistance has been “woefully low” for a long time, according to National Shelter executive officer Adrian Pisarski, who is calling for it to be raised by 40%.
One reason is that as rents have steeply increased over the years, Rent Assistance has not kept up because it is pegged to the Consumer Price Index.
Of the 1.3 million people receiving Rent Assistance, over 40% are in rental stress — meaning over 30% of their income goes on rent.
The situation is particularly bad for people on Newstart, like Muir. In mid-2018, over 60% of Newstart recipients getting Rent Assistance were in rental stress, and a quarter were spending at least half their income on rent.
The numbers are also dire for students on Youth Allowance. Nearly three-quarters (74.1%) are in rental stress, and well over a third (40.7%) are spending more than half their income on rent.
The worst affected age group across all welfare payments is the young: recent data revealed that 57.4% of young people aged 24 years or under receiving Rent Assistance were experiencing housing affordability stress.
Ashley Cain-Grey.
Ashley Cain-Grey, 24, took two gap years to be able to afford to move to Sydney for his degree. After school, he spent two years working in a pharmacy in his home town of Armidale in order to qualify as “independent” for Youth Allowance.
Now studying commerce and media at the University of New South Wales, Cain-Grey told BuzzFeed News Youth Allowance and Rent Assistance have “never actually paid for my rent”.
“Obviously it helps to get me over the line, but if I were to just use the amount I get, which is on average about $570 a fortnight, I’ve never actually had a rental that has been at that price — let alone taking into account money for food, etc.”
Cain-Grey is currently paying $275 a week to live in a share house with three others. It’s $30 cheaper than his last rental, which was closer to campus.
He considers himself lucky to have found a good quality property for that price. “When we were searching they could be expensive, like $280 or $300, and not that great,” he said. “The rooms would be tiny, or really oddly shaped. And then if you wanted a good quality house you had to pay through the nose for it.”
Even with this cheaper rent, Cain-Grey said it is difficult to get by, and it would be impossible for anyone in Sydney to rely on Youth Allowance and Rent Assistance without working on the side.
Balancing study and casual work has come at a cost to his studies, he said. He has dropped down classes to be able to manage, which has meant his degree, and his reliance on Youth Allowance, have lasted longer than he planned.
Mick Tsikas / AAPIMAGE
Newstart and Youth Allowance recipients on Rent Assistance are particularly prone to housing affordability struggles because their rents have to be higher before they qualify for the payment, according to Anglicare’s deputy national director Roland Manderson.
Whereas pensioners qualify when their rent is 13% of their income, rent must be at least 27% of income for Youth Allowance recipients. “If you’re on Youth Allowance you are in rental stress even before you start,” he said.
While Manderson describes a Rent Assistance increase as “urgent”, he told BuzzFeed News it needs to come along with more social housing supply.
Anglicare’s Rental Affordability Snapshot showed this week that only two properties out of 69,000 in the country were affordable for someone on Newstart or Youth Allowance.
“There’s a good argument to be made that in a tight rental market, part of what increasing Rent Assistance does is goes to increased rent,” Manderson said. Addressing the supply side too would mean low-income renters “wouldn’t be competing for such a scarce resources."
Neither major party has pledged to increase Rent Assistance. Labor’s rental affordability plans have centred on policies to encourage the private sector to build 250,000 new affordable homes and tax incentives encouraging more build-to-rent projects. Meanwhile, the Coalition is arguing that Labor’s plans to partially wind back negative gearing would increase rents.
Muir believes that politicians have “no concept of what it’s like to live so close to the bone”.
“To have your bank account hit zero days and days before payday and have to think, ‘How am I going to get through to the next pay day?’”
Increasing Rent Assistance would help, she said. “It’s at the point when every dollar makes a difference.”
This Is How Hard It Is To Find An Affordable Rental When You're On Welfare Hannah Ryan · April 29, 2019
Hannah Ryan is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Sydney.
Contact Hannah Ryan at hannah.ryan@buzzfeed.com.
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Только в Общая и теоретическая социология Расширенный поиск
Общая и теоретическая социология
Jesse Russell, Ronald Cohn
York Railway Institute A.F.C
Аннотация к книге "York Railway Institute A.F.C"
High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! York Railway Institute is a sports club in Acomb, York, North Yorkshire, founded in 1886. The club plays football, rugby, tennis and hockey. It is most notable for its football team, which won the Northern Counties East Division One championship during the 1987-88 season.
География, краеведение
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$4.5M in settlements over deaths tied to doc in murder case
By: KANTELE FRANKO, Associated Press
Updated: Jun 19, 2019 - 7:20 AM
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An Ohio hospital system has reached nearly $4.5 million in settlements so far over the deaths of patients who allegedly received excessive painkiller doses ordered by a doctor now charged with murder.
At least 29 wrongful-death lawsuits have been filed against the Columbus-area Mount Carmel Health System and now-fired intensive care doctor William Husel, who pleaded not guilty to murder charges in 25 deaths that occurred between 2015 and 2018.
His lawyer has said Husel was providing comfort care to dying patients, not trying to kill them.
Mount Carmel has reached settlements in seven cases to date, plus two that didn't involve lawsuits.
"It is our hope that these settlements will bring some measure of closure and comfort to the families," Mount Carmel said in a statement. The hospital system has also publicly apologized for the patient deaths.
The settlements range from $200,000 to $700,000. In most cases, patients' families get two-thirds or less of the payouts from the hospital's insurers. The rest goes to their attorneys.
The families and the lawyers aren't commenting on the settlements, citing related confidentiality agreements.
The hospital system has asked a court to pause proceedings in the other lawsuits while Husel's criminal case is pending. Mount Carmel said it is working with families' attorneys in the civil cases "to resolve these matters fairly" outside of court.
Mount Carmel might have an interest in settling cases before Husel's potential criminal trial to avoid the risk that information exposed during such a trial would point to more liability by the hospital system - a scenario that would "add zeroes to the settlement checks," said Michael Benza, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Mount Carmel found that Husel ordered potentially fatal drug doses for 29 patients over the past several years. It said six more patients got doses that were excessive but did not likely cause their deaths.
Inspectors found that the doctor overrode a dispensing system to access large doses of drugs in many of the cases. Mount Carmel has since tightened its drug policies and access .
All but one of the patients were at Mount Carmel West hospital in Columbus. The exception, 70-year-old Robert Lee of Upper Sandusky, Ohio, was treated at Mount Carmel St. Ann's in suburban Columbus after suffering a heart attack in October 2017.
Lee's death was among the 25 that led to murder charges. His relatives didn't sue, but in probate court filings associated with a $675,000 settlement, they alleged that medical records show Husel ordered an excessive dose of fentanyl for Lee before having an "end of life" discussion with the family.
"Based on that, it appears that Dr. Husel made the unwarranted decision to end Mr. Lee's life before he had discussed that with the family," the filed statement said. "While family members agreed that life support would be withdrawn, they did not agree to anything that would have hastened the death of their loved one."
Mount Carmel won't comment on specific cases, except to note that the patient in the most recent lawsuit, 55-year-old Drake Mills, wasn't among the patients it found to be affected by Husel's alleged misconduct.
Mills died in June 2018, about two weeks after abdominal pain sent him to the emergency department, according to the lawsuit. It alleges he was given a lethal combination of fentanyl and other medication in conjunction with efforts to withdraw a ventilator, but doesn't specify who ordered or administered the drugs in question.
Follow Franko on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/kantele10 .
Police investigating shooting near site where man was gunned down
Move over, Amazon Prime: Target announces competing Prime Day deals
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Bayer Brazil’s Theo van der Loo
The president of Bayer Brazil shares his views on how to keep a workforce innovative, socially aware and ahead of the competition.
Boyden’s Leadership Series presents discussions with business and thought leaders from organisations across the globe. The series focuses on topical issues that offer executives, political leaders and the media insight into current trends in business and talent management in the global marketplace.
This issue features Theo van der Loo, President of Bayer Brazil. In the interview, he shares insights on the importance of staying focused to achieve the best financial results, as well as the key characteristics he believes keep a workforce innovative, socially aware, and most importantly, ahead of the competition.
Van der Loo has been President and Country Speaker for Bayer in Brazil since 2011. He is a native Brazilian and has lived in Europe, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in business, followed by an MBA in the United States. He returned to Brazil in 1980, starting as a management trainee in the pharmaceutical industry. He then joined Schering AG in Brazil as Marketing Director, while working across Berlin, Mexico City and Madrid. When Bayer acquired Schering, van der Loo became responsible for the Bayer HealthCare Division, moving ultimately into his current role.
During his career, he has been elected Chairman of the Board of Interfarma (Brazilian Research-Based Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association) four times. He is also currently a Board Director at Sindusfarma (Industry Syndicate of Pharmaceutical Products in the State of São Paulo) and the German Chamber of Commerce - São Paulo, as well as a member of the Advisory Board at ETCO.
Boyden: Could you tell us about Bayer Brazil, and how it fits into the global organisation as a whole?
Van der Loo: Bayer Brazil is a significant business with around 4,000 employees, and is in fact, in terms of sales, the fifth most important country for Bayer on a global basis. Brazil is one of the major agricultural countries in the world, and consequently our Crop Science division accounts, by far, for most of our sales here in Brazil.
Nevertheless, across our pharmaceuticals, consumer health and animal health divisions, Brazil is also seen as a key market due to its large population and global economic importance. Bayer has been in Brazil for
121 years, so we are well known, and we have always enjoyed a strong relationship with the local stakeholders, Germany, and all of Bayer’s other global operations. We have a very well-known slogan in Brazil, which is 95 years old: “Se é Bayer, é bom.” (”If it’s Bayer, it’s good.”)
Boyden: How is Bayer’s structure different from other life sciences companies?
Van der Loo: One of Bayer’s big differentiators is that we are currently the only global life science company dedicated to human life, animal life and plant life or agriculture. This makes us stronger, because we are fully dedicated to making life better for people worldwide. This is reflected in our global slogan, “Science for a Better Life.”
I started in Brazil in 1980 as a trainee, working as the assistant to the general manager. It was during this time that I learned how essential good people skills are to achieve positive business outcomes. My role involved lots of interaction with my manager’s direct reports to get tasks done, though as a trainee, I had very limited authority. Being able to establish good personal and working relationships with everybody has absolutely been fundamental to my success.
I later moved into marketing, where the salesforce became my major “client”, because as a product manager, I needed them to be successful in implementing our strategy and related action plans. Building trust and staying humble are paramount when dealing with every type of person that makes up the demographic of any company. As I progressed further, I realised that while hitting targets and maintaining good relationships with senior management was the priority, to be really successful in an organisation you need good working relationships with people at all levels, across multiple disciplines.
For me, though, the most important thing has been to stay focused on learning. You must learn from every experience, and this is something I’ve always tried to do. Asking for feedback from colleagues has been very helpful and keeps me motivated to improve. Over the years, I made many mental lists of things that I would have done differently. I would also try to read as much as possible, particularly if there was an area I didn’t feel completely comfortable with, to help me prepare for the next step.
Boyden: What is the current operating environment like for Bayer in Brazil, and how has this evolved over the years given recent economic cycles?
Van der Loo: In our current political and economic environment we’re experiencing unprecedented change. Obviously, Brazil has often experienced economic ups and downs, but despite this I would say that during the most recent years, Bayer has strengthened its overall position in the market while becoming an employer of choice. For example, to fill the annual vacancies of 200 apprentices five years ago, we received between 8,000 and 10,000 applications. Last year we had over 76,000, which is a very good sign. It’s always been important to us to implement measures to attract young talent.
Exposure in the press, social and digital media has also helped us with this mission. Our employees are truly motivated. Since we began participating in career surveys, Bayer has been honoured as one of VOCÊ magazine’s “Best Companies to Work For” five times in a row. We were also recognized by VOCÊ as one of the “Best Companies to Start Your Career” three times in a row.
Boyden: Which areas do you think present the most opportunity for the company?
Van der Loo: For Brazil today, it’s crop science, because we are one of the biggest agro countries in the world. Our country has a very strong differentiator from the U.S., which is that we can do two harvests a year because of the climate. This also makes Brazil very important in the global arena for crop science.
Our innovative pipeline in the healthcare field is another area of growth opportunity. Added to this, Brazil is also one of the top economies in the world. We have the fifth-largest population, with a lot of very young people. Brazil will always be a major country, and I think all divisions of Bayer can benefit from the growth that Brazil will continue to have in the future. There has been some turbulence – and in Brazil it happens – but it’s cyclical and the economy will always come out and then grow again. This is why we must focus our strategies on the medium and long term.
Boyden: Bayer has a huge focus on promoting innovation and providing benefits to society. Could you tell us more about this?
Van der Loo: There is innovation everywhere at Bayer, ranging from our products to our internal practices, as well as the work we do to support new and exciting digital health start-ups. Within crop science, digital farming is transformational. For example, by using satellites and drones, you can see where plant diseases are spreading, meaning you can react faster and treat the specific area instead of spraying the entire crop as a preventative measure – optimizing the use of agrochemicals.
Alongside our product innovation, as a culture we try to stay innovative and share experiences through our internal portal, “We Solve”. Employees from anywhere around the world can post problems, challenges or questions, and anyone at Bayer can then propose solutions. We are also reaching outside of Bayer for innovation, through our Grants4Apps Accelerator (grants4apps.com), which is designed to help people develop new and very innovative projects.
Boyden: Have your leadership skills come naturally to you, or is this something you learned over time?
Van der Loo: I guess it´s a little bit of both. I’ve always liked to be involved in leadership activities. I was in leadership positions in college, and I genuinely feel motivated by people. Over years of experience, I’ve naturally strengthened my emotional intelligence, and I’ve learned to be patient, resilient and intuitive. I also think it’s important not to transfer any frustrations onto employees, to always support people even when they make mistakes, and to keep personal concerns separate.
As a leader, delivering strong financial performance is clearly imperative, but environmental and social considerations are increasingly important. A diverse workforce is also key to achieving this. To give you an example, we have an LGBT program at Bayer called “BLEND”, which is very active across the firm globally. In Brazil we are also dedicated to improving ethnic diversity, as more than 50% of Brazil’s population has African roots. This is not always reflected across Brazilian companies, so there is still some work to be done.
Boyden: As you mentioned, Bayer is a diverse business operating in lots of different areas. When you’re looking at talent, what attributes do you most value?
Van der Loo: In addition to the technical and professional competencies needed for the specific role, people skills are always important. You also need people who are open to innovation, can adapt to new challenges, and are dedicated to serving clients. Trust and collaboration are essential, particularly in matrix organisations like Bayer.
Employees should always be humble and respectful of others, and I think people in management positions in particular should be open to feedback and suggestions from colleagues. I also highly value candidates who are actively involved in other areas like volunteer work. We must also bear in mind that the younger generation thinks differently. It´s important that we adapt to this by being more flexible and move away from any form of prejudice. Equally, I would say that the biggest deal-breaker would be if you cannot trust a person, or if they refuse to collaborate with others. Similarly, a bad reputation among former colleagues would also be a concern, as well as negative results from background checks.
Boyden: Over your nearly 30-year career, what would you say has been the single best decision that you’ve made?
Van der Loo: The most important thing I’ve done throughout my career is maintain focus. I’ve always focused on aggressively growing businesses that are the most profitable, and have looked for areas where the competition is weaker, meaning that results can be delivered faster.
For example, early in my career I noticed there was no recognised market leader in the women’s healthcare arena. Our company had the best product portfolio in this segment. The strategy was to start actively behaving as the leader. I presented this concept to the management and received financial support to grow the business. The growth was significant.
Along with improving our market lead in women’s healthcare, we delivered social programs in schools, such as sexual education to help avoid pregnancies amongst teenagers. This was something that was very meaningful for me, because it was important to help ensure that women were using our products correctly, and equip them with the right information to make informed choices. The ability to combine important social work for Brazil, while bringing benefits to the business, has given me the most satisfaction.
For further insight into the rise of social media and related trends in talent development, see the latest edition of The Boyden View.
The views and opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of Boyden; only those of Theo Van der Loo.
Brazil and Emerging Opportunities for Talent
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Boyden’s Aurea Imai shares insights on the local market for executive talent in healthcare and life sciences.
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From the Archives: How the Right got the Clinton impeachment wrong
On this day in 1999, President Bill Clinton was acquitted by the US Senate after an impeachment process that paralysed American politics. The Republicans' obsessive pursuit of Clinton had helped bring their standing to its lowest level in decades, reported our Washington correspondent, Jennifer Hewett.
By Jennifer Hewett
February 11, 2019 — 11.00pm
US President Bill Clinton is welcomed to Sydney on November 18, 1996 Credit:Rick Stevens
First printed in the Sydney Morning Herald on February 13, 1999
The Republican prosecutors making their final, furious call for the removal of Bill Clinton this week clearly believed in the righteousness of what they were doing. There was no humour, little charm and there were thick helpings of moral outrage.
That sense of unrelenting conviction is a big part of the Republicans' much bigger problem. For months, Republicanism has been defined largely by the image of the 13 angry white men who first dominated the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee and then became the prosecutors in the Senate.
Now even the illusion of their grand cause is gone, vanquished by the simple arithmetic of Senate numbers and the more complicated calculations of public attitudes.
But what is left in its place?
Despite confident assertions by the Senate majority leader, Trent Lott, that the Republicans will promptly return to the business of government and selling their agenda for the country, the vacuum won't be easily filled.
The Republican Party has let Americans know very clearly what it is against - Bill Clinton. Just what it is for is less clear.
This is exacerbated by the imminent prospect of a presidential candidate nominating process in which the religious Right will be even more insistent.
Yet polls already show the Republicans' public standing is at its lowest in decades, partly because they seem just too extreme and negative in an era of complacency. The impeachment process has only made their harsh image seem harsher still.
One Democratic senator attracted rueful laughs with his line about the trial being like watching endless re-runs of The Fugitive, with the Republicans in the role of the obsessed - and wrong-headed - policeman.
The pursuit in the House of Representatives was every bit as dogmatic, reflected in a Republican leadership that stubbornly refused to compromise on allowing a censure vote of the President and finally stunned the nation with the final vote to send the matter to trial.
In the Senate, the trial became a stern morality play, with the prosecutors slowly becoming prophets of doom as they realised that not enough senators would vote to convict.
Not as free as it used to be... A cartoon published the time of the article Credit:Ron Tandberg
Such reluctance is hardly surprising. Two-thirds of the public do not share the prosecutors' view of Clinton as an unrepentant scoundrel who needs to be booted out to save America's soul, and this percentage has not shifted much since well before the impeachment process began. What has hardened over that time is the majority view of the Republicans as the party of a dangerous moral absolutism and divisive anger.
The White House lawyer, Charles Ruff, rubbed this image in during his closing argument. "I believe their vision to be too dark, a vision too little attuned to the needs of the people, too little sensitive to the needs of our democracy," he said of the prosecutors and, by extension, the whole party.
These points resonate with the public because they seem to reflect the plight of the Republicans at a time when pre-Monica logic would have suggested they could only benefit from Clinton's all too obvious failings.
In part, this is thanks to the President's remarkable ability to steal the core of their favourite issues while removing some of the sharper edges. But it is already obvious that many Americans are also becoming increasingly sensitive to the idea of a party that seems overly moralistic and judgmental.
One question will be whether the Democrats have succeeded in doing to conservatism what the Republicans did to liberalism in the 1980s - making it a dirty word. The term is becoming associated in the public mind with a particularly doctrinaire form of right-wing fundamentalism.
Now that the impeachment struggle is over, the public may be more prepared to consider what else the Republicans have to offer.
But the beginning of the Republicans' self-destructive pattern was evident well before Monica madness took hold. The seeds were contained in the triumph of the conservatives in the 1994 congressional elections, when Newt Gingrich's revolutionary army swept into Washington and took control of the House for the first time in 40 years.
As it turned out, however, America was not really endorsing the type of revolution the Republicans had claimed. They just didn't like Clinton's liberal policies much and they appreciated the rhetoric about getting rid of the excesses of big government only as long as the cuts didn't affect them directly.
The mood changed dramatically after the Oklahoma City bombing showed the dangers of anti-government fanaticism.
The ever-agile Clinton also moved rapidly back into the centre - actually what used to be thought of as the Republican centre, in many cases - and conducted an extremely effective guerilla war against those still fighting out on the right.
He co-opted their old issues such as fighting crime and drugs and reforming welfare and cutting the budget deficit. He spiced up his moderate appeal with pro-family gestures such as support for school uniforms and more paid leave to look after sick children.
And all the while, the economy continued to boom.
By 1996, Clinton had easily won re-election and the Democrats had come close to retaking the House.
The Republican class of 1994 had still not got the message, propelled by a fury against a man who broke so many rules and kept getting away with it.
The party machinery had also moved consistently further to the right, particularly thanks to a new generation of Christian activists who thought issues such as abortion and the right to prayer in school were the most fundamental questions facing the country.
These activists had expanded into new areas of power, adopting the old feminist slogan of the personal being the political. They agreed with the feminist contention that personal morality and behaviour should determine fitness for public office.
By the time Clinton was found to be a serial flasher, of course, the women's movement had preferred to sidestep such principles on the ground that the President's policies for women were so much better than his opponents'. The political was the personal, after all. But the radical Right instead saw in Clinton the tarnished proof of its contention that a strict morality (or at least the Right's idea of it) was the key to political and national salvation.
I believe their vision to be too dark... too little attuned to the needs of the people, too little sensitive to the needs of our democracy.
Charles Ruff, White House lawyer
One reason these passions could grow was the absence of other big national and international threats. With communism safely interred and the economy booming, it was time for a new war against a new enemy.
Ronald Reagan's apocalyptic 1980s battle against the Evil Empire was suddenly transformed into the struggle within the United States itself. And by infiltrating the tired party structures with their energy and commitment, the activists have assumed an influence well out of proportion to their numbers.
This also reflected a change in the Republican Party's base away from the old North-East and towards the more fiery conservatism of the South.
Its representatives dominate the leadership positions in the House, with the surviving moderates condemned to bit parts.
Gingrich, formerly Speaker, has gone, quickly followed by the Speaker who wasn't, Bob Livingston, on the grounds of his adultery. But the non- descript Dennis Hastert will remain largely invisible in a party that has Tom deLay - aka the Hammer - as its House majority leader. It means a conservative grip on the party from both the top and the bottom.
The 30 or so Republican moderates in the House who were supposed to save the President from the impeachment vote last December, for example, didn't suddenly evaporate because they were persuaded by the power of their colleagues' arguments that he did need to be so punished.
They were listening to brutal messages from their party organisations back home. If these members voted against impeachment, they would face challengers in their primaries. They would never make it past the State party guardians who held the only key.
The formal end of the trial won't end that sense of fury and rectitude cheated. Instead, it will stay around to complicate greatly the next election. The Republicans have a majority of only six in the 435- member House and their control of the Senate is at risk.
Most Republicans concur that their best bet politically would be to fashion a new appeal based on tax cuts. Beyond that, they disagree vehemently.
The obvious answer is an attractive presidential candidate who can unite the party while appealing to a more general audience. It shouldn't be impossible. The party already has the obvious model of success in the many Republican governors who are governing from the conservative wing of the party while still trying to emphasise more concern for individuals and a general sense of inclusion.
George W. Bush, the Republican front-runner and an extremely popular Governor of Texas, calls it compassionate conservatism. He has done well attracting blacks and Hispanics and women - all normally weaknesses for the Republican party - without losing his right-wing credentials.
But first he has to get through primaries dominated by the even more righteously right wing.
So far, he has been fairly silent about impeachment and the evils personified by Clinton. Nor has he made a crusade out of issues such as abortion and adultery. His own personal history - before his marriage, he insists - was clearly full of wine and women and probably drugs. He is refusing to comment beyond saying he has learnt from his mistakes.
It will be fascinating to see whether he can pass the exacting standards of the Republican morality police.
Jennifer Hewett is National Affairs Columnist at The Australian Financial Review and writes a daily column on politics, business and the economy.
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Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity (OIED)
Compliance & Oversight
Timeline of Diversity and Inclusion Efforts
Confronting Issues of Race and Inclusion at Brown
As part of the development of Pathways to Diversity and Inclusion: An Action Plan for Brown University (released February 1, 2016), the University compiled a timeline of significant milestones in Brown’s journey to become a more diverse and inclusive campus. This timeline recognizes the commitment and essential contributions of past and present generations of students, faculty and staff to improve diversity and inclusion at Brown.
The very foundation of Brown University is built upon the belief held by its students, faculty, staff and alumni that they are obligated to identify ways to make Brown stronger and better. The Pathways plan (DIAP) builds on a long legacy of work and activism; the timeline is presented as an appendix of the DIAP that recognizes the critical role of this campus activism. The timeline includes links to an archive of documents that provide the details and historical context of some of the events listed.
It is not possible to capture all the extraordinary efforts that have contributed to the long history of efforts to confront issues of racism and discrimination at Brown. Other projects, such as the Blacks at Brown, History of Brown Women, the LGBTQ timeline, and others trace a more detailed history of representation of underrepresented groups at the University. They were an invaluable resource in developing this timeline focused on activism leading to major milestones.
The timeline project is the first time Brown has sought to compile a unified history focused on University efforts, campus activism and alumni initiatives to improve diversity and inclusion. It would not have been possible without the contributions of alumni, archivists and administrators across campus assisting in the review and documentation of generations of efforts.
Starting in the 1960s
The timeline represents only a partial span of Brown’s 251-year history. At the University’s founding in 1764, Brown opened its doors to students without regard to religious affiliation (ahead of its time among institutions of higher education). In 1850, Brown’s fourth president, Francis Wayland, sought to reach a more diverse mercantile class through flexible, elective degree programs—a model of open and rigorous liberal education that was embraced even more fully in 1969 when Brown adopted the “New Curriculum.” Women were first admitted to Brown in 1891 through the Women’s College that became Pembroke College, and women increasingly took classes with men on the Brown campus through the 1930’s.
Yet it was not until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s that Brown was compelled to look more critically at its practices, policies, and campus environment with respect to race and other areas of inclusion. Campus efforts to foster inclusion across race and ethnicity were fueled largely by student activism in the form of such large-scale events as the 1968 Walkout, the 1975 takeover of University Hall, and the 1985 occupation of the John Carter Brown Library. Women’s issues also came to the fore in the decade before full coeducation became official in 1971. The examination initiated in 2003 of Brown’s historical ties to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the exploration of race and inclusion at Brown after what has become known as the “Ray Kelly Affair” of 2013 further contributed to a decades-long journey toward building a better Brown for all members of the campus community.
The development of what has become the Pathways to Diversity and Inclusion plan commenced shortly after the 2014 release of the report on the Ray Kelly Affair. It has been informed by later activism ignited in early fall 2015 by campus reaction to columns focused on race that were published in the Brown Daily Herald student newspaper, as well as subsequent activism around issues of race at Brown and at colleges and universities across the country. It culminates with the release of the DIAP.
Appendix B: A Timeline: Confronting Issues of Race and Inclusion
Full Pathways to Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP) (67 pages, with all appendices)
DIAP Action Plan Only, with Appendix A (27 pages)
Appendix A: DIAP Summary of Actions and Implementation Framework (5 pages)
Appendix B: A Timeline: Confronting Issues of Race and Inclusion at Brown (19 pages)
Appendix C: Professional Development Opportunities for Spring 2016 (2 pages)
Appendix D: Summary of Community Input (11 pages)
Appendix E: Oversight of Diversity and Inclusion at Brown University (5 pages)
Appendix F: Data on Historically Underrepresented Groups at Brown (5 pages)
Appendix G: Opportunities For Engagement With The Local Community (4 pages)
November 2016 Appendix A update
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Premier Ford won’t guarantee future of full-day kindergarten after next year
ALLISON JONES, THE CANADIAN PRESS | posted Thursday, Jan 31st, 2019
Premier Doug Ford isn’t guaranteeing that full-day kindergarten will continue beyond the next school year.
The program was introduced by former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty and was fully rolled out in 2014. It saves families thousands of dollars a year in child care costs, but it costs the government $1.5 billion a year.
Ford’s government is conducting education consultations, including the possibility of removing class size caps for kindergarten and primary grades, and the premier was asked Wednesday about the future of full-day kindergarten.
“I can tell you that there’s going to be all-day kindergarten next year and we’ll sit down and you’ll hear from us in the future,” he said.
“I can assure you one thing – any decision that’s made is going to be better, it’s not going to be worse. As far as I’m concerned, there’s a lot of areas of education that are broken that need to be fixed.”
Ford said he just wants what is best for students, but a government document frames the current consultation as one that is required, given “the province’s current fiscal circumstances.”
The Progressive Conservative government is trying to trim a deficit they peg at $14.5 billion – though the financial accountability officer says it’s closer to $12 billion.
Charles Pascal, an education expert who served as an adviser to McGuinty, said full-day kindergarten has been shown to provide an important foundation for children.
“It’s shameful in terms of removing something that is already showing, through evidence, how good the program is in terms of child outcomes,” he said.
“The research that’s been done over the last number of years shows that when it comes to social, emotional and literacy gain, the full-day learning program…is improving the outcomes of kids.”
The Ministry of Education’s own research shows that full-day kindergarten reduces risks in language and cognitive development, and means kids are more likely to achieve academic success in Grade 1.
Research from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education also showed that kids who had been in full-day kindergarten scored higher on reading, writing and number knowledge, and were better able to self-regulate, or manage stresses.
Sam Hammond, president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, said cutting full-day kindergarten would mean the government is turning its back on students.
“We find it absolutely disturbing that this government would suggest that to balance a budget to deal with the deficit that they’re going to put in an austerity measure that could possibly see the elimination of full-day kindergarten for students four and five years old,” he said.
“If they want to enhance the program and they want to do the best for students, reduce the class size cap in kindergarten from 29 to 26. Maintain the program, maintain the teacher and (early childhood educator) and maintain the play-based learning.”
Currently, the kindergarten class size cap is 29 students, and the average of class sizes across any board can’t be more than 26. For the primary grades the cap is 23 students, but at least 90 per cent of classes in any board must have 20 or fewer students.
The consultation document also says there is an average child-to-educator ratio of 13:1 in kindergarten classrooms, as most have a teacher and an early childhood educator. It asks what the implications of the two-educator model are on student outcomes, educator working conditions and value for money. The document also asks if there are other models the ministry should consider.
NDP education critic Marit Stiles said she is getting calls from panicked parents, worried that full-day kindergarten is on the chopping block.
“No parent should have to worry that their kids will miss out on the advantages of full-day kindergarten,” she said in a statement. “It’s unconscionable for the Ford Conservatives to consider making our youngest students pay for their cuts.”
Bruce McArthur guilty plea sparks call to widen missing persons review
COLIN PERKEL, THE CANADIAN PRESS | posted Thursday, Jan 31st, 2019
The head of an independent investigation into how Toronto police handle missing persons reports has called for an expansion of her mandate to include cases involving serial killer Bruce McArthur, her lead counsel said Wednesday.
In a letter to the chairman of the city’s police services board, Gloria Epstein said McArthur’s unexpected guilty plea Tuesday removes the need for a restriction on his case that was meant to safeguard his right to a fair trial, according to Mark Sandler.
“We are asking that the restrictions be removed to enhance Justice Epstein’s ability to examine the full range of relevant events and make necessary recommendations going forward,” Sandler said in an email.
“We believe that the proposed changes to the terms of reference will assist us in answering the questions posed by members of the community about the investigations of missing persons in Toronto, particularly in relation to those who are vulnerable or marginalized.”
The police services board did not respond to a request for comment.
Following McArthur’s arrest early last year, the board approved the independent probe amid significant concern in the LGBTQ community about how police had looked into missing-person reports. Those concerns included fears that the handling of such investigations was being tainted by “implicit or explicit, specific and systemic bias.”
The review is focusing on policies and procedures related to missing-persons investigations as well as on how Toronto police officers investigated the disappearance of members of the community who were later found to have been killed.
For example, Toronto police spent 18 months looking into the disappearance of three missing men before concluding in 2014 there had been no foul play. The men were ultimately found to have been among McArthur’s eight admitted murder victims.
Epstein, a former justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal, began her review last summer.
However, her terms of reference precluded “prejudicing any ongoing criminal investigation or criminal proceedings.” The stricture applied specifically to the prosecution of McArthur, who pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder on Tuesday. All his victims had ties to Toronto’s gay village.
Earlier this month, Epstein named members to an advisory panel to help her work. She has said she expects to finish her work around April 2020.
Asked today about McArthur, 67, and the possibility of a public inquiry into his crimes, Premier Doug Ford said he thought police were being “dumped on a little bit” and called for more public support for their efforts.
“I never said we aren’t going to,” Ford said of calling an inquiry. “We won’t rule out any further investigations on it.”
Ford won’t commit to act on integrity commissioner recommendations on Taverner
THE CANADIAN PRESS | posted Thursday, Jan 31st, 2019
Premier Doug Ford says he will listen to the integrity commissioner’s findings on the appointment of his friend as Ontario Provincial Police commissioner, but he isn’t committing to abiding by them.
Toronto police Supt. Ron Taverner was named last year to the job of the province’s top cop and critics say that as a long-time friend to the premier, the hiring raises concerns about potential political interference.
Taverner’s appointment has been delayed until after the integrity commissioner completes an investigation, but Ford has indicated it would go ahead whenever the review is finished.
The premier was asked Wednesday if he would abide by J. David Wake’s findings.
“I have a great deal of respect for him and I’ll be sitting down and listening to what he has to say,” Ford replied.
If the integrity commissioner finds a provincial politician has violated the Members’ Integrity Act, he can recommend various penalties, but the legislature – under the majority Progressive Conservatives – could reject the recommendation.
Ford said as he travels across the province, no one is concerned about Taverner’s appointment.
“The only people that talk about it is the media, no one else,” he said. “Do you know what people are concerned about? People are concerned about health care, mental health…people are looking for jobs. People aren’t worried about that.”
Taverner is a longtime Ford ally who initially did not meet the requirements listed for the commissioner position. The Ford government has admitted it lowered the requirements for the position to attract a wider range of candidates.
Deep freeze taking toll on GTA transit
NEWS STAFF | posted Thursday, Jan 31st, 2019
Toronto and the GTA remains under an extreme cold warning, as the bitterly cold temperatures continue to grip the region.
Thursday was the coldest morning of the winter season. At 2 a.m. the temperature at Pearson airport hit -22.6 C with a windchill of -38.
The frigid temperatures have also affected transit across the GTA, with frozen switches, doors and signals being the most common on-and-off issues.
The TTC has been plagued with weather-related issues over the past couple of days, including shutdowns of Line 3. The line was once again shut down on Thursday morning due to the weather. Shuttle buses are running.
Service on the UP Express will also be operating on reduced hours — running every 30 minutes instead of every 15 minutes. On Wednesday evening, service was suspended because of weather-related equipment issues.
“What we need to do today is bring some of those trains into the shop for an extended period of time and let them properly thaw out,” Metrolinx spokesperson Matt Llewellyn said.
Environment Canada issued the extreme cold warning on Monday, the day after a massive snowstorm blanketed the GTA.
680 NEWS meteorologist Jill Taylor said the windchill is expected to be between -30 to -38 through to very early Friday morning.
Taylor said the high on Thursday will be -14 C but the wind will make it feel like -26 C this afternoon. It will continue to be cold overnight as the windchill drops to -30.
Sarah Mclachlan to host this year’s Juno Awards in London
THE CANADIAN PRESS | posted Wednesday, Jan 30th, 2019
Singer Sarah McLachlan will host this year’s Juno Awards in London, Ont.
McLachlan, who rose to fame in the 1990s with international hits including “Angel” and “Building a Mystery,” has won 12 Junos including an international achievement award and a humanitarian award.
At the nominations announcement this morning in Toronto, Junos president Allan Reid introduced McLachlan as one of Canada’s most beloved artists.
Pop superstar Shawn Mendes is among the leading nominees, who also include Calgary-born Jann Arden and last year’s Junos host Michael Buble.
Mendes is nominated for trophies including songwriter of the year, artist of the year, album of the year and the fan choice award.
Arden and Buble are in the running adult contemporary album of the year.
Quebec honours mosque shooting victims with memorial encouraging dialogue, acceptance
Two years after a gunman killed six worshippers in a Quebec City mosque, banners with the names and faces of the victims were unfurled Tuesday night as a word chosen by family members to describe their loved one was read out.
Mamadou Tanou Barry — smiling. Ibrahima Barry — intelligent. Khaled Belkacemi — devoted. Abdelkrim Hassane — pious. Azzeddine Soufiane — courageous. Aboubaker Thabti — generous.
It was one of many emotional moments as hundreds of people gathered at Universite Laval for the ceremony paying homage to the victims.
“I have trouble imagining the feeling of horror that must have overcome you faced with all this violence,” Premier Francois Legault said, addressing the victims’ families. “I hope that you feel this breath, this gust of solidarity. I hope it brings you a little comfort. That is the true face of Quebec: a united people who know how to show solidarity.”
Khaled Belkacemi’s children, Megda et Amir, thanked the first responders who arrived at the mosque on the night of Jan. 29, 2017, as well as “all those who speak of acceptance and of peace.”
Politicians from all three levels of government were in attendance, as were representatives of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths.
Earlier in the day, Quebec City announced it would honour the victims of the shooting with a memorial park to be built near the site where they were gunned down.
Mayor Regis Labeaume said the tragic event left families and an entire community in mourning, and the memorial will ensure the victims are not forgotten.
“This artistic creation invites dialogue and friendship, on one side of the street and on the other,” Labeaume said. “The concept inspires respect and harmony between diverse communities.”
The centrepiece of the park will be a monument created by Quebec artist Luce Pelletier called “Vivre Ensemble” (Live Together). She said she chose to place a tree in the middle to represent “the cycle of life and the resilient force of nature.” The park is slated to be inaugurated on Jan. 29 2020.
Boufeldja Benabdallah, president of the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre, was present with widows and children of the victims at the unveiling of a scale model. “Violence can and must be converted into friendship, kindness and recognition,” Benabdallah said. “That is the meaning of this memorial.”
Alexandre Bissonnette pleaded guilty to the killings last year and is to be sentenced Feb. 8 on six counts of first-degree murder. If the judge orders that the six life sentences be serviced consecutively, Bissonnette would not be eligible for parole for 150 years.
In Ottawa, the Canadian Muslim Forum and Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, called on the federal government to declare Jan. 29 a national day to combat Islamophobia. Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said the federal government is still in discussions to identify a suitable way to commemorate the tragedy.
“We will arrive at a solution that reflects a consensus, because these are questions that require a consensus to go forward,” he told reporters.
TIMELINE: Key dates in the case of serial killer Bruce McArthur
A timeline of key events in the case of Toronto serial killer Bruce McArthur based on information released by police:
September 2010 – Skandaraj Navaratnam, 40, disappears from Toronto’s gay village.
Dec. 29, 2010 – Abdulbasir Faizi, 42, is reported missing to Peel Regional Police, west of Toronto. He was last seen in Toronto’s gay village.
October 2012 – Majeed Kayhan, 58, of Toronto, is reported missing.
November 2012 – Police launch Project Houston to investigate the disappearances of Faizi, Navaratnam and Kayhan.
April 2014 – Police close Project Houston, saying none of their findings would classify anyone as a suspect of a criminal offence.
August 2015 – Soroush Mahmudi, 50, of Toronto, is reported missing.
May 2016 – July 2017 – Police believe Dean Lisowick, 43 or 44, of no fixed address, was killed by McArthur during this time span.
April 14, 2017 – Selim Esen, 44, is reported missing.
June 26, 2017 – Andrew Kinsman, 49, is reported missing.
August 2017 – Police launch Project Prism to investigate the disappearances of Esen and Kinsman.
September 2017 – Project Prism officers identify McArthur “as someone to be included or excluded as being involved in the disappearance of Andrew Kinsman.”
Dec. 8, 2017 – Police Chief Mark Saunders says the force will review its practices in missing persons investigations. He says there’s no evidence to suggest a serial killer is walking the streets of Toronto.
Jan. 17, 2018 – Police uncover evidence suggesting McArthur was responsible for both Kinsman and Esen’s deaths, along with the deaths of other unidentified people.
Jan. 18, 2018 – McArthur is arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Esen and Kinsman. Police say McArthur is believed to be responsible for other deaths.
Jan. 19, 2018 – McArthur has his first court appearance.
Jan. 29, 2018 – McArthur is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Mahmudi, Kayhan and Lisowick. Police say more victims may be identified.
Feb. 8, 2018 – Police say they’ve recovered the remains of six people from planters at a house where McArthur worked as a landscaper, and say they expect more charges.
Feb. 13, 2018 – Police say excavation at the home’s backyard turned up no human remains, but suggest they may “revisit the scene” when the weather warms up.
Feb. 23, 2018 – Police lay a sixth charge of first-degree murder against McArthur, identify Navaratnam as one of the alleged victims whose remains were found in the planters.
March 5, 2018 – Police say they’ve recovered the remains of a seventh person linked to McArthur.
April 11, 2018 – Police lay a seventh murder charge against McArthur in Faizi’s death.
April 16, 2018 – Police lay an eighth murder charge against McArthur in the death of Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, who came to Canada from Sri Lanka.
Jan. 29, 2019 – McArthur pleads guilty to all eight charges of first-degree murder.
Windchill in the -30s expected for the GTA
NEWS STAFF | posted Wednesday, Jan 30th, 2019
The GTA is back in the deep freeze and it is expected to stay frigid for the remainder of the week.
Environment Canada issued the extreme cold warning for Toronto and the rest of the GTA on Tuesday.
The national weather agency said the windchill will be between -30 and -35 over the next couple of days.
Conditions are expected to improve on Friday as milder air moves in.
There will be some sunshine on Wednesday but that won’t be enough to warm up the temperatures. 680 NEWS meteorologist Jill Taylor said the high will be 17 C but will feel like -30 C with the wind. The windchill will dip further to -32 overnight.
The cold stretch will continue on Friday morning with the temperature near -20 C but it will warm up as the day progresses.
Click here for tips on how to stay warm.
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Now boarding: The aviation sector
By Emily Wright2011-12-09T00:00:00+00:00
George Osborne’s autumn statement hinted at support for airport projects, including the £50bn Thames Estuary hub - but haven’t the best seats already been nabbed by a few framework contractors and consultants? Building finds out how to fight your way to the front of the queue
It might not be a bad time to head for the airport - and not just because of the distinct December chill in the air. The airline industry in the UK carries 235 million passengers each year and over 2.3 million tonnes of freight. In terms of construction, BAA will spend over £16bn at Heathrow over the next 10 years, and £1.1bn will be spent on refurbishing and improving Gatwick over the next five. Birmingham airport is looking to extend its runway and there is about £300m of work in the pipeline at Stansted, as BAA looks to improve the airport’s assets before selling it off in the next 18 months.
It’s an exciting time in aviation at the moment. There is a lot happening, particularly around Heathrow, and there is a lot to look forward to there and at other airports
Sean Kelly, Wilson James
Then there is the fact that the airport and aviation sector is not reliant on government spending: “In the middle of a recession or in tough economic times, any sector which is not subsidised and where investment comes from outside government sources is worth looking at seriously,” says Michael O’Callaghan, director of aviation at Morgan Sindall. “And the aviation sector in the UK is the second biggest in the world after the US.”
While the sector doesn’t rely on government funding, it does need backing for projects. And in last week’s autumn statement, chancellor George Osborne suggested that this would be the case for all airport projects bar the third runway at Heathrow. His implicit support for a £50bn airport in the Thames Estuary, designed by Foster + Partners, was particularly well received by industry.
But with the opportunities, so too must come the challenges. The economic crisis has had a dramatic impact on passenger numbers, particularly across Europe - in Athens, they are down by as much as 30%, while in the UK the drop is nearer 10%. It could also be argued that the renewed talk of a Thames Estuary hub and the shelving of Heathrow’s third runway has merely increased uncertainty over the future of the airports sector in and around London. And with the major airport operators still using frameworks for a proportion of their major construction projects, just how much of this work is available to be won anyway?
We spoke to some of the key clients and major companies operating in the aviation sector to find out where the opportunities were, and how easy it was for other - particularly smaller - firms to get involved.
‘An exciting time’
With the lion’s share of the upcoming work in this sector based at Heathrow, BAA’s programme control director, Stephen Livingstone, explains a bit about what’s in the pipeline: “Our shareholders have continued to secure funds to continue with the investment plans we set in 2008 which was a spend of £4.3bn up to 2013. In 2012 we will invest in excess of £1bn and in 2013 we will spend around £700m. Although a lot of the works for 2012 are now under contract with the main contractors, there is still a great deal of subcontracting work for tier two, three and four companies in 2012. And in 2013 and beyond, all of our works will be tendered and everything is still available to be won. Next year we will see a lot of major projects going into fit-out and refurbishment phases which will create a lot of opportunity for companies with this sort of expertise.”
Much of this fit-out work is at the new Foster-designed Terminal 2 building, but BAA has hinted that, from 2013, attention will turn to the upgrading and refurbishment of the 99 million m2 Terminal 3, estimated to be worth £1bn over the next 10 years.
At Gatwick, meanwhile, there is a £5.5bn programme in the pipeline covering the next five years, with a large proportion yet to be tendered. The airport, which was bought by US investment fund Global Infrastructure Partners from BAA back in 2009, is also in a comparatively rude state of financial health, bucking the trend of many of its rivals as they suffer from declining passenger numbers. Last week it reported a 43% rise in operating profit to €139m (£119m) in the six months to the end of September, while passenger volumes rose by 8.5% year on year to 19.7 million. Announcing the results, Stewart Wingate, the airport’s chief executive, said: “We continued to implement our €1.4bn investment programme during this period, investing in excess of €23.4m each month to deliver improved facilities for our passengers and airlines.”
It is expected that this investment will continue throughout 2012 and beyond, particularly against the backdrop of such strong results.
“It’s an exciting time in aviation at the moment,” says Sean Kelly, aviation operations director at Wilson James. “There is a lot happening, particularly around Heathrow, and there is a lot to look forward to there and at other airports. Sensible long-term planning and appropriate expertise has seen this sector become significantly more resilient in recent years.”
Morgan Sindall is currently working at Heathrow, Gatwick and at some of the UK’s other regional airports, including Birmingham and Manchester. Director of aviation O’Callaghan agrees that there are plenty of opportunities, especially for SMEs: “Every airport in the UK is almost an infrastructure hub or small city in its own right. There are about 76,500 people working at Heathrow every day - it really is a small city. So much needs to be provided - not just the airports but the supporting infrastructure, the pavements, runways, stands, hangars, factories, shops, hotels, pubs, food outlets, car parks. And main contractors like us need specialists to make this happen - lots of them.
“To put it into context, we are working on one £50m building at Gatwick and we will need to work with in excess of 25 major subcontractors and another 70 smaller firms on this scheme alone. The majority of that work is still available. In terms of how much work we have available as one firm, across the UK at the moment - I would say £2bn.”
He adds that there is likely to be a spate of additional refurbishment and improvement work as airports respond to the proposal that the airport regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority, will have the power to fine airports for poor performance - for example, if there was a repeat of the problems caused by the snow last year at Heathrow.
Beyond the capital
And it’s not just the major London airports with work up for grabs. Paul Willis, head of aviation at consultant EC Harris, says: “Birmingham is looking to extend its runway, Edinburgh is looking set for sale formally next year, which will create opportunities as a result, Stansted will be sold [after the Competition Commission ruled that BAA had to offload it, along with either Glasgow or Edinburgh], probably in a couple of years, and so will be investing around £300m in its assets before then. And there is ongoing development work happening at Manchester airport, too.”
He adds that opportunities overseas should not be discounted, as UK firms with previous experience in the sector are well received by foreign clients and developers. And while the European market is being hit hard by the current economic situation, it’s a different story in Asia and South America: “Europe is under pressure at the moment with passenger numbers right down. But in Asia there has been an explosion of opportunity in the airports sector as countries are responding to dramatic growth. China and India are the particularly active areas - the second airport in Beijing, which we are working on, will be the biggest in the world at 700,000m2. That’s compared to 450,000m2 at [Heathrow] T5, so you can see just how big this project is. And the design and construction work is all still available and very much open to UK companies as far as I can tell. There has been no concern over us working on the scheme. Generally in the UK we have a lot of good British firms in this sector working overseas as expertise is welcomed by the international clients.”
Gridlock fears
While the opportunities sound tempting, this sector does need to be approached with some caution, particularly at a time when the global economic situation is dissuading people from spending on overseas travel. “There is some nervousness in the sector,” concedes EC Harris’ Willis. “We are seeing a slowdown in traffic numbers as less people want to spend money on flights and we will be keeping a careful eye on what happens over the Christmas season. Then there are the ongoing challenges around the future of the London airport portfolio. Personally, I feel that the Heathrow expansion plans are paramount to aiding the UK economy, but it appears a state of gridlock has been reached with government on that one.”
The drop in passenger traffic has, inevitably, had a knock-on effect on how this sector is faring and Nigel Cole, head of aviation at Mace, says that as airport clients are desperate to cut back on spending, winning work is becoming increasingly competitive - with inevitable consequences: “Clients are looking for exceptional value and for the contractor to take on as much risk as possible at the moment. This means that one or two contractors are pricing extremely low, and they are likely to win the work as a result. It’s not something we’re prepared to do but we have 20 years’ experience and expertise in baggage systems, which puts us in a slightly stronger position than some others who might be priced out.
Every airport in the UK is almost a small city in its own right. So much needs to be provided. and main contractors like us need specialists to make this happen - lots of them
Michael O’Callaghan, Morgan Sindall
“In terms of how contractors are, or could respond to this I would recommend looking at each project individually and making a decision based on the situation, scheme by scheme. If you have a general statement saying you’ll deliver certain things across all projects, this is where you’ll come unstuck.”
Cole adds that tendering for work is not the only challenge in the market at the moment. there’s also the small matter of delivering schemes to clients’ exacting criteria: “Clients are very tough in aviation and airports. They have significant expectations regarding the delivery and quality of each and every job, which is quite arduous in terms of time and manpower. You have to abide by the rules and regulations and you have to make sure you have the resources to deliver the scheme you have promised to the client’s standards. You have to perform excellently every time and all the time. I think this high level of pressure will continue through 2012 as passenger numbers are unlikely to rise significantly over the next year.”
Winning the work
The trick, as in any tough market, is to know exactly what the client wants. Industry figures are quick to identify many of the usual suspects: experience of similar projects, the ability to demonstrate value for money, and to deliver on time and on budget. BAA’s Livingstone adds: “We want our supply chain to understand exactly what we’re aiming to deliver. My advice to firms wanting to get involved would be to research us, understand exactly what we do and talk to our ombudsman. Then we can ensure we contact the existing supply chain at the right stage to ensure the best possible chance.”
Perhaps the key phrase here is “the right stage” - companies may need to wait until there is a requirement for their particular expertise. For example, 2012/13 is likely to be a good year for refurbishment and fit-out specialists to approach tier-one contractors at Heathrow and Gatwick, as many major projects are reaching their final phases.
Livingstone also stresses the importance of fresh approaches, and suggests that this may offer a way into the BAA fold for new companies: “There needs to be a focus on new technology and innovation, from BIM through to LEED. And of course, our key challenge is to always offer absolute value for money - we want our supply chain to come up with new, fresh ideas on innovations that will help us achieve this.
“We are looking for firms with a clear differentiator - what can you bring that nobody else can?”
Estuary plan takes off
When the idea of an airport in the Thames Estuary was revived by London mayor Boris Johnson back in 2008, it was initially dismissed as pure pie-in-the-sky thinking. But now things are looking very different.
With the coalition government shelving of plans for a third runway at Heathrow, the need for an additional hub in the South-east has become more acute. The latest proposal for the Thames Estuary airport, by Foster + Partners and Halcrow, was unveiled on 2 November at the Institution of Civil Engineers, and last week’s autumn statement suggested that the government was warming to the notion, as the chancellor pledged to “explore all options for maintaining the UK’s aviation hub status”.
The response from industry has been understandably positive, as hopes rise that the proposed scheme could boost not just UK construction, but the economy as a whole.
Simon Tolson, senior partner at law firm Fenwick Elliott and a specialist in construction, says: “The chancellor’s statement was not all bad news - there were some positive notes such as the commitment to infrastructure projects including a hint at the backing of the Thames Hub airport, which would be an extremely exciting project for the industry.”
Simon Storer, communications and external affairs director at the Construction Products Association, says: “There is certainly a need for a strategic approach to airport expansion in the South-east, and if a third runway for Heathrow is ruled out, then the proposals for a Thames Estuary airport project look very exciting.
“Our Victorian ancestors were very capable of delivering grand projects - they did so many times over and there is plenty of evidence of this all around us - but I worry that we have lost this ability. My concern is that we will wake up in 20 years’ time and say ‘if only’ - by which time the world will have moved on and our economic decline will be permanent. This is why projects such as these are so crucial.”
'I will not be taken for granted': BAA's boss on frameworks
...or to put it another way, BAA’s five-year framework is just a large feather bed, and the military brain behind its new procurement policy wants contractors to fight for their work
BAA client profile: Join the crew
In the first of a new series on key clients, Emily Wright meets the men to know at BAA to find out where the opportunities are and what the airport operator is like to work for in the post-framework era
Costain bags £50m worth of airport contracts
Wins include £18.6m contract to refurbish Manchester airport’s main runway
1 Readers' comment
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Ep.282: Paco Underhill
Cannabis Economy > Ep.282: Paco Underhill
Celebrated Author, Paco Underhill joins us to share that when he was doing research for commercial zoning issues for cities on the roof of the SeaFirst Bank building in Seattle he had an epiphany. He would do for merchants of any kind what he was doing for cities- helping them understand what customers were doing in their respective establishments and sharing what the merchants could do to improve their customer’s experience. He literally wrote the book on it- “Why We Buy,” which came from an article that Malcolm Gladwell wrote about Paco for the New Yorker. Paco discusses how he goes about helping merchants providing some insight on what drives customers and how that’s changed over the years. And finally, we discuss his passion which is helping with homelessness through Urban Pathways.
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/canneconomy/Paco_Final_-_9_5_17_5.42_PM.mp3
Speaker 1: Paco underhill, celebrated author Paco Underill joins us to share that when he was doing research for commercial zoning issues for cities on the roof of the seafirst bank building in Seattle. He had an epiphany he would do for merchants of any kind, but he was doing for cities, helping them understand what customers were doing in their respective establishments and sharing what the merchants could do to improve their customer's experience. He literally wrote the book on it, why we buy, which came from an article that Malcolm Gladwell wrote about Pako, where the New Yorker pocket discusses how he goes about helping merchants, providing some insight on what drives customers and how that's changed over the years. And finally we discussed his passion, which is helping with homelessness through urban pathways. Welcome to cannabis academy. I'm your host Seth Adler. Check us out on social with the handle can economy. That's two ends in the world economy. Pako underhill. What way
Speaker 3: is there to introduce you other than your name? Pockle underhill. I sometimes intra introduced myself, seth as a refugee from the world of Aca demia that some 30 plus years ago, I was a poor part time adjunct instructor in a doctoral program in environmental psychology here at City University in New York City. After teaching a terrible seminar, I decided I felt the same way about teaching as I do about sex, which is that I'd rather practice my profession than talk about practicing my profession. I see. I see. I was wondering where you were going to go with that and I'm. We had a nice safe landing. There is. It's what happened. So you rather than talk about it, you want it to do it. And so then what did you do? My, my specialty 30 years ago was doing the research that would look at commercial zoning issues for different cities based on their top graphy.
Speaker 3: Okay. And I had my moment of epiphany on the roof of the seafirst bank building in Seattle where 60 floors up. I was installing the timelapse cameras to record the traffic patterns on the street. Speed low was A. I'm a Seattle morning and there was a stiff wind blowing and I could feel the building rocking in the breeze up 60 floors up. The bright sunshine, somewhat unsettling, I would imagine. I realized then I'd be rather swimming and Parana infested rivers than doing the job that I did. I'm a tall guy, but I really don't like heights. And I promised myself then that I would reinvent my profession. Now if I'm doing the math correctly, I'm pretty sure that this is after a reinvention from years back. So we found you in this interview as an adjunct professor, but before that wasn't there a nightclub business, you know, I came to New York City and um, through circumstances beyond my control here, I did have a role in nightclubs.
Speaker 3: I was one of the first owners of the ear in known to many music aficionados in downtown New York City. It's a, it's a compartment of my life that I enjoyed while I was there. But I was very happy to close the doors. I just feel like we have to ta. I mean, you, you would. John Lennon was around and so I feel like we should write at least mention it. Well, uh, there's a story that I tell that, uh, you know, courtesy of Yoko Ono, um, who, uh, knew one of my partners in one of the nightclub businesses and we were at a picnic at her house up in Rockland, Rockland County, John and Yoko and Julian were there. And after lunch I went to John, I said, a bunch of us are going to walk up the creek and go to this, this waterfall, we now and take a swim. And John said, well, I don't have a bathing costume. And I turned to him and said, neither do we. So what? I don't know whether that's a peculiar de extinction, but having led John Lennon to his first skinny dip here.
Speaker 4: I feel like, yeah, it should be mentioned if we're going to talk about. Well, you know, what, where you've been and what you've done. Right. Well, uh, thanks seth. But I, uh, I hope there are other things that go onto my tombstone. So let's get into that. So you're standing on a, the Scitech, a tower or a tower and realizing you're not going to do that anymore. And so I guess when did you find the pen, right? Because these books that you've written. Okay, well,
Speaker 3: about, um, six weeks ago I was cleaning out a corner of one of my drawers and found a very nice rejection letter from the Minnesota quarterly for a short story that I had been admitted as a junior in, in college as, as a junior in college. I had probably 20 rejection letters and some of them very nice letters from the New Yorker saying we really enjoyed your story. It made it past a number of cuts. But if one person had accepted a story back then, I would've probably been a writer. Um, so the act of turning out written copy has been something that's been part of my character for a long time. And the fact that it eventually got to be books here is a testament to a typical trajectory. But I had to do a number of other things first before I got the platform to be able to get a publisher to say we want your books.
Speaker 3: Right. Understood. So what did you do when you climbed down from the tower there? We, a week after that experience on the roof of the seafirst bank. I was standing in a bank in New York City and I was frustrated standing in line and realized that the same tools that I'd been using to look at how a city works, I could take inside a bank or a store or an airport or a museum and start to dissect how those work. It took me almost 10 years from that point. I owned some, some, some bars and restaurants. We were part of the music in history. And One night I was at the, at the bar with the director of marketing to epic records. And I said, I can do a deconstructive, a record store in a way that's going to help you be able to sell music. And um, the guys name I think was Dan Beck and he said, why don't you write something up to me? Okay. So I wrote something up. I said my dad did it and I didn't hear anything for months. And then out of the blue somebody calls and says in our files, we found this proposal and we'd like to do it.
Speaker 3: And so I made my paragraph initiatives voyage out to Palisades Plaza here, Palisades Park in New Jersey to a, to a music store and set up my cameras there and brought some students in to help me look at how people move through it and came up with a series of often some painfully simple stuff about how to make that store function better. So painfully simple being what? What are we talking about for? For example, we have images in our time lapse of the shoppers for singles. Back then, this was back in the back in the eighties. I remember we're still 45 and bought a region Franklin's respect yet the, the billboard top 100 chart put next to the single section at a comfortable height for an 18 year old to read because that's who it put the sign up as opposed to the 12 year old that was actually buying the records.
Speaker 3: Got It. And my thesis was, is if you put the sign at the right height, you will be able to generate more sales. Simple, pure and simple, right? Second piece was, um, at that point people sold cassettes and albums and yet the number of people shopping albums was almost four times the number of people shopping cassettes because it was a easier meet medium to be able to look for something as short. And yet the sales of albums and cassettes were the same. So we proposed a series of ways of being able to reorganize the section to be able to, uh, reorganize the store to be able to even out the traffic across the floor. Yeah. Third thing is that my cameras caught a shoplifter at work. Part of the reason why I knew he was pro as he was getting multiple copies of the same record.
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These are the richest professional wrestlers! Here you will find a listing of all the highest paid WWE superstars, past and current. Top-card draws like John Cena, Hulk Hogan and The Rock have managed to pin-down some incredible salaries, especially when they have second careers as movie stars. See them in order in the Top 50 Richest Wrestlers list.
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Erica Mena’s Bio, Age, Husband, Height, Instagram, Etc.
August 14, 2018 January 23, 2019 Natalie
American reality show personality and a businesswoman, Erica Mena is also a popular model and an author. Besides, she is a famous figure in the media came to fame after an appearance in Love & Hip-Hop: New York. Additionally, she started modeling in her first print ads at age 14. Also, her success can be measured by the number of glamour magazines that she has featured in, including being the cover girl in some. Furthermore, she has written two books about her life that cover her harsh childhood and love life, ending in single motherhood.
New York City, New York, U.S
Model, Author, Businesswoman
5 feet 7 inches (1.70m)
Puerto Rican, Dominican
Waist Size:
Bra Size:
Hip Size:
Erica Mena was born on November 8, 1987, Bronx, New York City. Erica was born and raised in her birthplace. Additionally, she is American and is of Puerto Rican & Dominican descent.
Besides, she has a rough childhood . Her father was a drug dealer , and the family has faced lots of problems. Plus, she has an older sister. Her single mother alone raised Erica and her sister.
Erica began sketching dresses at the age of eight, and she has dreamed of becoming a successful model since childhood. At the age of 14, she participated in the program ‘Jennifer Lopez Look-Alike,’ and she was crown.
After winning the contest, she worked as a model in the music video of Young Gunz’s ‘Can’t Stop-Wont Stop.’ When she was sixteen years old, she won second MTV contest ‘Say What Karaoke.’
Erica showed her modeling talents in different magazines like Maxim, King and many more. She also worked as a model in several music videos like Breathe by Fabulous, and Yo.
Later, in 2009, she appeared in the reality show ‘Kourtney and Kimi Take Miami.’ This appearance in the show made her famous on the television.
From 2011 to 2015, Erica Mena appeared as a supporting cast in season 2 of the reality show ‘Love & Hip Hop: New York’ and appeared as the main cast from season 3-5. In 2013, she starred in the shows, ‘The Show With Vinny’ and ‘The Trisha Goddard Show.’
In 2014, she featured on the show ‘106 & Park,’ and in 2017, she appeared on another show called ‘Wild n Out.’ Besides that, she also worked as a co-host in ‘Bad Girls Club’ from 2016 to 2017.
Erica Mena appeared in the reality show ‘Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta ’ on season 7 of 2018 as the main cast. The show premiered on 9 March 2018 and still running on VH1. Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta is the highest rated franchise in cable television history.
Husband And Ex-Boyfriends Of Erica Mane
Erica Mane has been involved in several relationships in the past. Erica was married to an American rapper, Raul Conde. However, she did not reveal the dated of their marriage and the place.
After marriage, the couple welcomed their baby boy in 2007 named, King Conde. After some years of marriage, they decided to separate from each other and got divorced. Now she is a single mother and has full custody of her son.
After that, she dated rapper Bow Wow known as Shad Moss for six months, and later she engaged with him in Septemeber 2014. The couple met in 2014, and she moved on to Bow Wow’s house in December in the same year.
After a short period of being together, the couple broke up, but they never disclosed the reason behind it.
Prior to Bow Wow, she was in a relationship with Chinx Drugz from 2013 to 2014. She has been linked up with several guys. She has dated celebrities like Fabolous, DJ Envy, Havoc, and Scott Storch.
Back in 2017, she was in a relationship with Cliff Dixon.
They began dating in November 2017 and separated in April In 2018.
Erica Mena dated both women and men and she admitted that she is bisexual. She began dating with Cyn Santana in 2013, but they ended up in 2014. After the horrible breakup, Erica reunited with Cyn on the show ‘Love & Hip Hop’ in 2017.
Cyn Santana was pregnant at the time. Erica also took a photo with Cyn and Joe Budden together. Moreover, she flung with another female, Trina who is a rapper.
The duo was seen snuggling together, and even they had shared their photos on the social media. After a couple of months, they split up from each other.
Around the same time, the TV personality romantically involved in a relationship with rapper Safaree Samuels. A source close to the Love & Hip Hop reported the two started dating in early November 2018.
They were seen walking hand-in-hand IN MATCHING FUR COATS at the Jazz-Nets game at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
The couple has also taken their relationship to the next level as they got engaged Dec 25, 2018, at her Atlanta home in front of close friends and family on Christmas Eve .
She announced her engagement via her Instagram account showing the enormous diamond ring which worth around $175,000 and was designed by him and his friend, Trax NYC. She wrote,
I’m absolutely the luckiest woman in the world ❤️💍👑 A Man who has never been afraid to love me. A MAN who has been here and knows everything I been through. Everything before this- It no longer matters. ❤️💍Wedding date set. To our family and friends- Check your mailbox very soon ❤️💍 Custom made and designed by @iamsafaree & @traxnyc 💎 14CTS in Asscher cut Russian cut and a cushion cut center stone diamond – Every single detail was @iamsafaree idea ❤️💎👑 You truly are a KING 🤴🏿👑
A post shared by Erica Mena Samuels (@iamerica_mena) on Dec 25, 2018 at 7:41am PST
As of now, her relationship status is single and living a happy life with her son, King.
Age, Height, Weight, And Body Measurements
As her birthdate, she is 32 years old. Erica is bold and sexy and has an hourglass body figure. Her bra size is 34C. Mena has a height of 5 feet and 7 inches.
Besides, she is blessed with a hot figure. Her body measurement is 34-24-39 inches. Furthermore, she has got long, hot and sexy legs. Many people fall for her bold sexy waist .
Moreover, her shoe size is 8 (US) and dress size is 2 (US).
Erica is a TV personality who is active in all social media. She has 4 million fan followers on Instagram and 671k followers on Twitter. She has also an account on Facebook.
Net Worth Of Erica Mena
Her exact monthly and annual income is under review. She has appeared in many television shows and garnered a tremendous amount of money throughout her career.
The primary sources of her income come through her modeling and brand endorsements of L’Oreal , Roca Wears , Tommy Hilfiger and many more. Besides modeling, she earns an impressive wealth from the reality shows.
The reality star and model, Erica Mena has an estimated net worth of $350,000, as of 2019.
Apart from the glamor industry, she is an author. Furthermore, she has authored ‘Chronicles of a Confirmed Bachelorette, Underneath It All and Featherbone.’ In her books, she also writes about her personal experiences including her love life . Further, you can get her books on Amazon.
Back in May 2015, reality star Mena bought a BMW i8 car for her ex-boyfriend, Bow Wow but Bow Wow sold a car for $250,000 in September 2015. But the reason for selling the car is more shocking.
Rapper Bow Wow told TMZ ,
“I ain’t really care for it. I get bored with stuff fast.”
For more current updates like our Facebook page and also follow us on Instagram.
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An Comann Ceilteach
cò sinne
ceistean bitheanta
cuir fios gu
Dealbhan-camara
Ceangalan
Celtic League GS Urges Taoiseach to Act Over Torture Case
As the deadline for Ireland the reopen a ECtHR torture case, involving internees in the north of Ireland in the early 1970s, fast approaches the Celtic League General Secretary (GS) has written to the Taoiseach urging action.
“A Dhuine Uasail
‘The Hooded Men’ European Court of Human Rights Appeal
On the 18th of January 1978 the European Court of Human Rights judged in the case of Ireland versus the United Kingdom that the treatment of the ‘Hooded Men’ on 9th of August 1971 was not tantamount to torture, but it was accepted by the court that the men, who had been interned in the North of Ireland, had been the subject of ‘inhumane and degrading treatment’. It is clear that the European Court’s judgement was seriously flawed in that it was based mainly on medical evidence that the UK Government had provided.
New evidence has now emerged about the case from an undercover investigative team of journalists and a programme was broadcast on RTÉ’s Primetime television on the 4th June 2014. ‘The Torture Files’ programme shows explicitly, through evidence obtained by the Pat Finucane Centre and RTÉ Prime Time held in the British National Archives, how the UK Government had not disclosed all the available information to the court about the techniques that had been used on the ‘Hooded Men’.
It is now absolutely necessary that an appeal of the case is made to the European Court of Human Rights, not only in the interests of those that were tortured in Ireland by the British armed forces, but for the other victims from around the world who have been subjected to the same treatment by British and American armed forces in areas like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, because of the precedent set by the incomplete judgement made by the European Court of Human Rights in 1978.
It is my understanding that there is a time limit of six months to launch an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights following the emergence of new evidence about historic cases. From the emergence of the new evidence and broadcast on 4th June 2014, the deadline of Thursday 4th December 2014 is fast approaching.
I urge you to launch an appeal on the basis of the new found evidence with immediate effect.
Is mise, le meas
Rhisiart Tal-e-bot
Link to earlier post on this issue on the main League web site here:
Irish Government Urged to Act Torture Case
(Please note that replies to correspondence received by the League and posted on CL News are usually scanned hard copies. Obviously every effort is made to ensure the scanning process is accurate but sometimes errors do occur.)
ISSUED BY THE CELTIC LEAGUE INFORMATION SERVICE.
The Celtic League has branches in the six Celtic Countries. It works to promote cooperation between these countries and campaigns on a broad range of political, cultural and environmental matters. It highlights human rights abuse, monitors all military activity and focuses on socio-economic issues
Internet site at:
https://groups.yahoo.com/group/celtic_league
Copyright © 2019 An Comann Ceilteach
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(-) Task Force Report
Arctic Imperatives
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We found 2096 results
indigoBooksgeorge macdonald
: We found 2096 results
The Princess And The Goblin
by George MacDonald
See the Series
|June 9, 2011
Princess Irene lives in a castle in a wild and lonely mountainous region. One day she discovers a steep and winding stairway leading to a bewildering labyrinth of unused passages with closed doors - and a further stairway. What lies at the top? Can the ring the…
|April 7, 2015
C. S. Lewis said everything he wrote was influenced by George MacDonald. According to Lewis, there is "hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continuously close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself." Writing a preface and selecting…
Flashman and the Mountain of Light: From the Flashman Papers, 1845-46 by George MacDonald Fraser…
by BookRags
|June 16, 2015
This study guide includes the following sections: Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries & Analysis, Characters, Objects/Places, Themes, Style, Quotes, and Topics for Discussion.
George Macdonald's Fantasy Novels (complete And Unabridged) Including: The Light Princess, Cross…
|January 23, 2013
George MacDonald is famous for his poignant fairy tales and fantasy novels. He was a great inspiration to many writers of his time including C. S. Lewis, who wrote "Picking up a copy of Phantastes one day at a train-station bookstall, I began to read. A few hours…
|October 17, 2017
THE CLASSIC FANTASY NOVEL THAT INSPIRED THE LORD OF THE RINGS and THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, NOW FEATURING PLAYFUL ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAPANESE MANGA ARTIST OKAMA! In a lonely mountain kingdom, eight-year-old Princess Irene explores the labyrinthine halls of her…
Captain in Calico
by George Macdonald Fraser
|July 19, 2016
The first unpublished novel from the historical fiction legend, George Macdonald Fraser, featuring the unscrupulous and brilliantly entertaining pirate, Calico Jack Rackham.New Providence, 1720s. When infamous pirate Captain 'Calico' Jack Rackham returns from…
A children's classic with stunning new artwork When young Mossy hears the legend that anyone who manages to find the end of a rainbow will be rewarded with a golden key, he becomes determined to do exactly that. But finding the golden key is the…
|August 1, 1984
"If ever there was a time when I felt that 'watcher-of-the-skies-when-a-new-planet' stuff, it was when I read the first Flashman ."–P.G. Wodehouse The first novel in the Flashman series Fraser revives Flashman, a caddish bully from Tom Brown's Schooldays…
Thomas Wingfold, Curate
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books…
by Macdonald, George
The classic fantasy that influenced C. S. Lewis and Tolkien, considered one of George MacDonald's most important works, is the story of the young man, Anodos, and his adventures in fairyland which ultimately reveal the human condition. "I write, not for…
Flashman (The Flashman Papers, Book 1)
Coward, scoundrel, lover and cheat, but there is no better man to go into the jungle with. Join Flashman in his adventures as he survives fearful ordeals and outlandish perils across the four corners of the world.Can a man be all bad? When Harry Flashman's…
The Fantastic Imagination of George MacDonald, Volume III: The Princess and the Goblin, the…
George MacDonald's classic fantasies, fairy tales, and supernatural stories are collected in three volumes. This volume includes The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, The Light Princess, and The History of Photogen and Nycteris. It also includes…
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indigoBooksm. scott peck
M. Scott Peck
: We found 30 results
The Road Less Traveled, Timeless Edition: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and…
by M. Scott Peck
|February 4, 2003
Now featuring a new introduction by Dr. M. Scott Peck, the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the classic bestseller The Road Less Traveled, celebrated by The Washington Post as “not just a book but a spontaneous act of generosity.” Perhaps no book…
The Road Less Traveled and Beyond: Spiritual Growth In An Age Of Anxiety
|January 2, 1998
The culmination of a lifetime of Dr. M. Scott Peck’s counseling, lecturing, and writing, and the conclusion of the classic bestselling Road trilogy, The Road Less Traveled and Beyond leads us to a deeper awareness of how to live rich, fulfilling lives in a…
People of the Lie
In this absorbing and equally inspiring companion volume to his classic trilogy— The Road Less Traveled, Further Along the Road Less Traveled , and The Road Less Traveled and Beyond —Dr. M. Scott Peck brilliantly probes into the essence of human evil.…
Audio Book (Cassette)
The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
Now featuring a new introduction by Dr. M. Scott Peck, the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the classic bestseller The Road Less Traveled, celebrated by The Washington Post as “not just a book but a spontaneous act of generosity.” Perhaps no book in this…
Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Towards Spiritual Growth
Further Along the Road Less Traveled takes the lectures of Dr. Peck and presents his profound insights into the issues that confront and challenge all of us today: spirituality, forgiveness, relationships, and growing up. In this aid for living less…
A World Waiting To Be Born: Civility Rediscovered
|March 1, 1994
Just as The Road Less Traveled provided hope and guidance for individuals seeking growth, this major new work by M. Scott Peck, M.D., offers a needed prescription for our deeply ailing society. Our illness…
Glimpses Of The Devil: A Psychiatrist's Personal Accounts Of Possession,
The legendary bestselling author and renowned psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, whose books have sold over 14 million copies, reveals the amazing true story of his work as an exorcist -- kept secret for more than twenty-five years -- in two profoundly human stories of…
Denial Of The Soul: Spiritual And Medical Perspectives On Euthanasia And Mortality
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We’re Not in Shangri-La Anymore: Both China and Japan Need Doses of Reality
By Nicole Yeo
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If there is anything that the most anticipated speeches at the 2014 International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Asia Security Summit highlighted, it is that both the Chinese and Japanese have their strategic heads in the clouds, or at least, stuck in Shangri-La.
During his closing remarks at IISS’ 2014 Shangri-La Dialogue, Singaporean Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen articulated a general consensus among participants on the “hard hitting” nature of the remarks made at this year’s iteration of the region’s de facto defense summit. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, this year’s keynote speaker, did not mince words about the active role he envisions the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) playing in order to ensure “peace, order and stability” not just for Japan, but on behalf of Japan’s Southeast Asian counterparts as well. Chinese Lieutenant General Wang Guanzhong, Deputy Chief of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) General Staff Department, veered from his scripted speech to chastise American and Japanese remarks made earlier, commenting with frustration that “assertiveness has come from the joint actions of the United States and Japan, not China.”
Although analysts did note the more pointed comments that key speakers directed at each other, the comments themselves are not terribly surprising. What is more perplexing about the juxtaposition of Abe’s and Wang’s speeches was their structural similarity. Both speakers emphasized their respective country’s role as an instrumental force for peace in the region. Both speakers highlighted the need for regional dialogue and cooperation, and also endorsed ASEAN-centric mechanisms as a critical part of the regional architecture. Both also went to significant lengths to emphasize their countries’ active military-to-military ties. Finally, both underscore the importance of settling territorial disputes through peaceful means. If one were to explore these core points in both Abe’s and Wang’s speeches in a vacuum, it would seem that Japan and China share several strategic interests.
Why, then, did Abe all but mention China by name as a threat to the territorial sovereignty of Japan and its neighbors in the region? Why did Wang propose both confidence-building measures and hotline arrangements to dispel “misperceptions and miscalculations” with Russia, ASEAN member states and even the United States, but not with Japan?
World War II references or recently trendy World War I analogies aside, a key factor that currently fuels the obstinacy of both China and Japan against sustaining engagement with each other on critical defense and security issues within the region is each state’s view of itself as exceptional in all ways.
Force for Peace
Wang’s speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue reflected not only his country’s official view of itself as peaceful, but also China’s assumption that other states also know that they are inherently peaceful. This assumption has led the Chinese to perceive that players like the United States and Japan intentionally play up an imagined threat that China poses to the region as part of an anti-China political conspiracy. There are clearly many in the United States and in the Asia-Pacific region who continually grapple with how to accommodate China’s peaceful rise. However, the uncertainty and distrust surrounding China’s maritime interests are not an illusion. If China asserts its right to “take countermeasures against others’ provocation [in the maritime domain]” as Wang said, then the Chinese also have to accept that the rest of the world also reserves the right to do the same. This year’s Shangri-La remarks show that China fails to understand or admit that strategic distrust will not be resolved by feeding to the rest of the world more images of China’s lack of a “gene for invasion” or of Shangri-La (apparently, like China) as a “beautiful, serene, harmonious and prosperous homeland.” This fundamental Chinese misunderstanding is a major impediment to any serious dialogue or meaningful engagement in the region.
Peaceful Dispute Resolution
For Japan, despite having formally recognized the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, the state has deliberately resisted submitting its territorial dispute with China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands for international arbitration. While Abe’s speech praised the Philippines for their efforts to settle their own South China Sea territorial dispute with China through international arbitration, Japan insists that there are no grounds for the arbitration of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands because there is no dispute over what is already Japanese sovereign territory. However, there have been suggestions that Japan should be leading by example. If Japan is going to continue to applaud the Philippines and articulate its stand on the importance of the rule of law, Japan’s words could stand to be bolstered by the country exercising its right to take legal action against China.
Admitting to a Problem
Abe and Wang would like to have the world believe that their respective countries are the region’s biggest champion of regional cooperation, dialogue and a rules-based system. The only problem is that based on both Chinese and Japanese official worldviews, the burden is on the other to get with the program. What would really be more helpful in relieving some of the region’s tensions would be, even if privately, admitting that they are part of the problem.
(Written by Nicole Yeo/CNAS; Photo Credit: The International Institute for Strategic Studies)
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Invest in You: Ready. Set. Grow.Self-made millionaire: A simple chart changed the way I think about money
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'This Is Us' star Chrissy Metz on her worst credit card fail, why she shops at Costco and her Warren Buffett mindset
Published Wed, Mar 20 2019 9:36 AM EDT Updated Mon, Mar 25 2019 3:47 PM EDT
Jenna Goudreau@Jenna_Goudreau
VIDEO17:0917:09
'This Is Us' star Chrissy Metz on being broke, practicing a Warren Buffett...
Chrissy Metz went from being broke with 81 cents in her bank account one minute, to starring in NBC mega-hit "This Is Us" practically the next. Today, the 38-year-old Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated actress is also known for FX's "American Horror Story" and a best-selling book, "This Is Me." And, she stars in the upcoming movie "Breakthrough." Metz's journey to financial independence hasn't always been easy, but it's taught her priceless lessons about money and the importance of being real and responsible about your financial situation.
Metz sat down with me for CNBC Make It's new series Money Talks to chat about everything from why she still refuses to splurge to how much money her character Kate Pearson makes.
CNBC Make It: So I'm a huge "This Is Us" fan, and I've been dying to know what you think your character Kate Pearson's salary is in a given year. And Kate's brother Randall's — he lives in that big house.
Chrissy Metz: Yeah, I know Randall makes at least six figures, although now he's a politician [on the show]. At least six figures previously.
Kate — sister does not have a steady income. You know she's an aspiring singer and moves in with her husband Toby. So Chris Sullivan [who plays Toby] and I always joke about it. I'm like, I'm glad that you're supporting her singing career. I would say she makes less than $30,000. And I think that's from Kevin, Kate's brother [who she used to work for]. He's like, "Here's a little severance pay."
Scene from NBC's "This is Us," featuring Chrissy Metz as Kate and Chris Sullivan as Toby.
Ron Batzdorff | NBC
You've been really open about how your family struggled with money. You said your mom didn't even always eat to make sure you and your siblings had enough food. How did that affect you, and how did that shape your money philosophy?
Goodness, I guess I didn't really have one. I mean I had a credit card at 18 years old and I bought perfume with it. I think I spent, like, $200 on a couple of bottles of perfume and I think I ended up spending, like, $2,300 after interest and all is said and done. I was like, "Oh, I'm never doing this again."
So it's been sort of trial and error and figuring out what's right for me and just sort of educating myself about it and talking about it and being honest about it, which is not always easy.
You have been really open about your finances, and now you're working with Turbo on the #RealMoneyTalk campaign, which encourages people to talk about money.
Absolutely. It's all about just being honest and talking about money and being open about, how do you do this? Let's get real, because there's such a stigma around our finances and who am I as a person if I don't have money or the financial freedom that I would like to have. So it's just about talking and being honest, which I think if we do more often, it will become easier.
Why do you think it has been such a taboo subject?
I think it's been taboo because, as we've seen in history, particularly with women, we were housewives or the stay-at-home moms who didn't have anything to do with the finances and had no idea what that looks like and felt very dependent on their significant other or even their family if they weren't married. So there are not conversations about it because there's still a stigma attached to that. And now obviously women are running things and they're much more independent and they're CEOs and they're doing all these incredible things. Hopefully as we evolve, so do our conversations.
In the spirit of being open about money, I would love to know how much cash you carry on you. And what else is in your wallet.
"This Is Us" star Chrissy Metz and CNBC Make It managing editor Jenna Goudreau
I hardly ever carry cash. My wallet is really not that exciting.
I've had this wallet for probably almost four years. It's really good inside, because there's multiple places, also a zipper and also secret, like if you want to put some bills that you don't want anyone to know about. I got a very expensive wallet and it's not functional and I'm kind of bitter about it.
How much did this wallet cost?
I think I got it at Nordstrom Rack, and i think it was like $44? She's already paid for herself.
I have my California driver's license. And then I have an American Express, which I never thought I'd ever have. And it's the hard, thick one. It's the business account. Crazy life. ... Then I just have a debit card. I have my SAG AFTRA card ... performer since 2005!
Oh, I got my Costco card. My best friend had been begging me to join Costco. I'm like, we don't need that much toilet paper! Well, we need that much toilet paper. So now I am an executive member at Costco because we buy a lot of toilet paper.
Chrissy Metz of NBC's "This Is Us" shows off her Costco membership card
I try to keep a little change just because of parking meters in LA.
I read that when you booked "This Is Us" you had 81 cents in your bank account. How is your life changed now that you have money?
Yeah, 81 cents is quite accurate. Scary.
Diddy once said "mo' money, mo' problems," and sometimes that's accurate. I mean, you have a bigger life, a lot of responsibilities, and I'm basically a business.
I often ask, you know my castmates or other actors, like, how did you do this? Because it's uncharted territory for me. So it's exciting and it's wonderful, but it's also overwhelming. It's only been three years in, so it's all very new to me.
But you know, I don't have to lie and say, "Oh I can't go to dinner tonight because I'm not feeling well," because now I can pay for dinner or I can take friends out. And that's really important to me. Not that lying is ever condoned, folks. Just saying we want to save face sometimes. And buying presents, ones that I would love to give but haven't been able to do before.
What do you splurge on and what do you refuse to spend money on?
I don't know what splurge means, because I don't think I've ever done that.
I mean, even if I were at the grocery store and I'm like, "Do we really need that much toilet paper?" Yes, I'm on a hit show, but I don't know how long it's going to last and I want to be smart about the future.
Is there something that you refuse to spend money on?
Gosh, I guess I really don't spend money. like I went to buy a purse, probably a year and half ago, and the credit card was declined because the bank was like, "fraudulent charge! This much money never been spent! Something's wrong."
Just because I have the money or might have a bit of a cushion doesn't mean I'm like, "make it rain!" I'm not interested in that. I've been broke once, you know what I mean?
What are some of the big money mistakes that you've made in the past and what did you learn from them?
I think being frivolous and not realizing what it was that I had in my bank account. I was like, "I don't have any money so who cares? Let's go spend it!" The money that I did have. But that is not smart.
You mentioned credit cards — did you rack up credit card debt?
After that credit card/perfume debacle, I was like "I don't want a credit card ever again!" And then I realized how they work. And if you spend the money, you got to pay it back folks! In a timely manner!
Educate yourself and have a plan. That's something I never really did. I had a plan for a lot of other things — finding a man, my career. But not my finances.
Do you have heroes that you look up to, like Warren Buffett or someone else?
You know, I heard recently that he lives in the same house [he bought in 1958].
Warren Buffett's Omaha residence is relatively modest
Orjan F. Ellingvag | Getty Images
He eats this one particular breakfast that's like $1.99. I'm like, am I doing it wrong? Did I spend too much on that latte?
I want to talk to him about that. Why does he do that? And maybe it's out of comfort.
But also, Justin [Hartley who plays Kevin Pearson on "This Is Us"] is like, get this kind of car. I'm like, "I have a lease." He just bought this gorgeous Porsche. I'm like, don't put that on me because you got a really nice Porsche. I don't need a new car. My car works fine.
So you've got a little bit of the Buffett mentality in you.
I guess I do, now that I'm thinking about it. But not ... I like breakfast. And maybe his $1.99 breakfast or whatever it is, is delicious but I'll spend money on some breakfast.
For people watching who want to make it and want to reach their potential, what is your best piece of advice?
If you believe in yourself and you want something and it comes from the soul, the spirit, the heart of you, you have to pursue it. I think I credit my success to just working really hard and not giving up and standing in line long enough.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Don't miss: ' Brooklyn Nine-Nine' star Terry Crews reveals the biggest money mistake he ever made
Terry Crews on supercharging your productivity and what he values more than money
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Beyond China
It may surprise you to hear there are other economic contenders in Asia besides China. The dragon certainly is getting most of the attention from the Chicago, U.S. and global business communities, to say nothing of media outlets like this one. But China is not the only happening land across the Pacific. Here's a quick look at the economic, political and business essentials of some other Asian hot (and not-so-hot) spots:
Population: 127.4 million
GDP growth (2006 forecast): 3%
GDP per capita: $30,700
Inflation: 0.3%
Exports: $565.5 billion
Imports: $454.5 billion
Unemployment rate: 4.5%
The skinny: The once-feared economic power (remember the 1980s, when Japanese companies were buying up everything from Manhattan skyscrapers to Hollywood studios?) is only now beginning to emerge from its "lost decade." Led by higher consumer spending and business investment, the Japanese economy is expected to grow 3% this year. That's meteoric compared with the anemic 1990s, when Japan suffered under deflation, rising unemployment and a series of coalition governments that seemed powerless to turn things around. But does this rebound have legs? Japan's economy has seen several mini-recoveries in the last decade, each of which quickly sputtered out. "It's certainly a recovery story now," says Sam Wilkin, senior consultant at British economic research firm Oxford Analytica. "Once interest rates begin to rise, though, it's anyone's guess how this will play out."
GDP growth (2006 forecast): 4.6%
GDP per capita: $3,700
Inflation: 15.4%
Exports: $52.2 billion (2004)
Imports: $36.3 billion (2004)
The skinny: Indonesia was hardest hit by the December 2004 tsunami, which devastated large parts of its coastal Aceh province, killing more than 100,000 people and causing more than $4 billion in property damage. Last month an earthquake killed thousands more. Reconstruction could take a decade, economists warn. But even before these latest natural disasters, Indonesia's business climate wasn't so hot. It's never fully recovered from the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, and it struggles with an enormous population (the world's fifth-largest), weak banking and legal institutions, frequent runs on the currency, widespread corruption and high inflation, which currently tops 15%. Did we mention it's also a growing base for Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism?
Population: 4.4 million
The skinny: This city-state wedged between Indonesia and Malaysia has long been the envy of other so-called "emerging countries" around the world. The envy continues. After turning Singapore into the model of a clean, safe and efficient economy, the government is now transforming it into a major research and development hub for the pharmaceutical and banking industries. Led by rising demand for its pharmaceutical and electronics exports, Singapore's economy is expected to grow 6% this year. Inflation and unemployment, meanwhile, remain low by any standard. "It's an extremely good climate for doing business," Mr. Wilkin of Oxford Analytica says.
Population: 64.6 million
Inflation: 6%
The skinny: Thailand is the 2006 case study of what happens when politics messes with economics. The nation has been gripped by a constitutional crisis in which more than 100,000 people hit the streets this spring to protest alleged corruption, nepotism and abuse of power by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Mr. Shinawatra, a billionaire businessman, won snap elections in April, which were boycotted by opposition parties and eventually scrapped by Thailand's Constitutional Court. The matter remains unresolved, as the nation's courts try to sort out the mess. "It's creating a lot of uncertainty and businesses hate uncertainty," Mr. Wilkin says. Thailand's economy, which has been recovering from the December 2004 Tsunami disaster, is expected to grow at a 5% clip in 2006, though economists warn that number could fall to 4% if the political stalemate drags on. Inflation, meanwhile, remains a perennial problem, made worse by the global spike in energy prices.
Imports: $170 billion
The skinny: Perched 95 miles off the Chinese mainland, Taiwan lies in the growing shadow of its larger and rapidly emerging neighbor. Accordingly, its economy and political climate are significantly affected by whatever happens across the choppy waters of the Taiwan Strait. The big fear? That some hotheaded Taiwanese leader will one day claim independence from China, provoking a military response from Beijing, which still views Taiwan as a renegade province. That could lead to a larger regional conflict, perhaps involving the U.S. military. "While unlikely, the risk is not insignificant," warns Oxford Analytica's Mr. Wilkin. Potential combat aside, the Taiwanese economy is in excellent shape right now, thanks to strong export demand from China, the U.S., Japan and the European Union. GDP is growing at an annual rate of 6.4%, while inflation remains low.
The skinny: Like Taiwan, South Korea lives in a tough neighborhood that affects its economic and political climate. But North Korea's constant saber-rattling has toned down of late as South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S. collectively pressure Pyongyang to curb its nuclear ambitions. That stability has helped South Korea's economy, which is forecast to grow at a 5% clip this year, despite rising interest rates and a stronger currency.
Population: 1.09 billion
Imports: $77 billion (2004)
The skinny: It's tough to summarize a sprawling and complex emerging economic power like India, but here goes: huge country and huge potential, both for service companies looking for cheap English-speaking labor and manufacturers seeking factory workers. The economy is humming along nicely, too, with GDP growth forecast at 8% this year and relatively low inflation. It's also the world's largest democracy, has nuclear weapons and is forever squabbling with its neighbor, Pakistan. So pay attention.
Sources: Oxford Analytica, CIA "World Factbook," Economist Intelligence Unit
&Copy;2006 by Crain Communications Inc.
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Toy industry looks for ways to ensure safety
By By Michael Oneal and Tribune staff reporter The Associated Press contributed to this report
Aug 09, 2007 | 2:00 AM
"Devastated" by the blizzard of recent recalls, U.S. toy companies of all sizes are rushing to test products manufactured in China, said Carter Keithley, president of the Toy Industry Association, a New York-based trade group for U.S toy manufacturers and importers.
Recognizing that "there clearly are gaps" in the industry's testing practices, Keithley said the industry is even contemplating whether it needs to invite federal regulation to ensure that its products are safe.
Keithley said that the entire industry is "just devastated by what's happened here," especially the recall initiated by Mattel Inc. involving almost 1 million Elmo, Big Bird, Dora and Diego toys made by the company's Fisher-Price subsidiary in China.
He remains confident that most toys coming from China are safe. But he also acknowledged that parents can't help but be wary of wooden toys painted with the sorts of bright colors implicated in the recalls or toy jewelry cast from unknown metal.
Keithley said he spent three hours Wednesday meeting with the American National Standards Institute, a non-profit group that helps businesses assess testing standards to make sure they are adequate. He has charged the group with auditing the industry's voluntary testing and safety standards "to analyze what else needs to be done" to ensure goods are manufactured to specification.
"Maybe we should have mandatory testing to mandatory standards," he said. "Other industries have done that without federal government intervention and we would hope to do the same thing." But he acknowledged that may not be possible and the industry may need federal oversight.
HIT Entertainment, the London-based owner of the Thomas & Friends brand, said in a statement that its contracts demand the highest quality and safety. But the company also acknowledged that contracts can't provide adequate protection against the damage a recall can do to a brand's delicate image among parents and kids. To fight against breaches in the safety net, HIT said it plans to launch its own third-party testing of licensed products.
Separately, Mattel identified the Chinese vendor that made the recalled Elmos and Doras. It said Lee Der Industrial Company Ltd., located in Guangdong province, made the 967,000 toys sold under the Fisher-Price brand in the United States between May and August.
Mattel spokeswoman Jules Andres said Tuesday that the company has "ceased accepting shipments from the facility."
mdoneal@tribune.com
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School award
A first school in has picked up a Silver Artsmark for its commitment to the arts.
The Artsmark, given to Ellington First School, near Ashington, by the Arts Council, is one of 298 awarded nationally.
It recognises schools which provide arts opportunities ranging from drama to music, design, literature dance and sculpture.
The scheme also encourages schools to work in partnership with artists and arts groups.
Kevin Vardy, head of Ellington First School, said: "I am delighted that the Arts Council has recognised us."
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Big Data, Not Big Brother: New Data Protection Laws and the Implications for Independent Media Around the World
By Ayden Férdeline
CIMA Digital Report
Cutting Through the Complexity: Privacy, Data Protection, and Personal Information
Key Historical Developments in Privacy Law
Understanding Websites and Analytics and Balancing Interests
User Tracking by Independent Media Outlets in Developing Countries
Immediate Privacy Gains Are Possible
Appendix A—Tracking Domains Identified Through Study
Appendix B—Small Publishers Studied
Appendix C—Large Publishers Studied
Appendix D—Study Setup and Testing Parameters
Share Resource:
For years, the road to news media financial sustainability was said to be paved with data—digital news outlets were counseled to collect as many details about their readers as possible in order to deliver more relevant content as well as to support more lucrative, targeted advertising. Yet, more recently, citizens and policymakers alike have grown concerned about the pervasive tracking of web users. This has led to a new wave of data protection laws and regulations worldwide that seek to empower people and curtail the excessive collection of personal data.
– New analysis of the user tracking practices of 50 independent news sites in 10 developing countries.
– 92 percent of digital media outlets analyzed employed third-party tracking devices
– Over 150 unique companies are monitoring website visitors on the media outlets analyzed. Many of these operate in an opaque manner and do not disclose for whom they are collecting data.
For years, the road to news media financial sustainability was said to be paved with data—digital news outlets were counseled to collect as many details about their readers as possible. Tracking audiences was considered essential for optimizing search engine results, creating content that people want to read, and supporting targeted advertising to fund journalism.
But what started as a way to improve the user experience came with a downside for website viewers: it entailed collecting and processing their personal information, often without their knowledge or consent. Moreover, the drive to collect data has resulted in many independent media outlets in the Global South unknowingly permitting third parties, many of which cannot be identified, to invasively monitor their visitors. Worldwide, citizens and policymakers are increasingly cognizant of the risks that the burgeoning data economy poses to personal privacy. In recent years, a wave of next-generation data protection laws have emerged that seek to restrict the collection, usage, and sharing of personal information. This is not necessarily a good news story for those news institutions that had successfully harnessed the value of analytics to grow advertising revenue or to better understand their audiences. These data protection regulations have, by design, severely hampered the environment within which many smaller digital media outlets operate. While these laws do not entirely restrict the use of analytics, they do restrict the use of analytic applications that place people at risk of harm. Indeed, there is growing evidence that some of the tracking mechanisms employed by digital news sites are potentially doing just that.
To get a better understanding of how new privacy regimes will affect media in the Global South, this paper assembles a new set of findings on the websites of 50 small, independent news publishers from 10 developing countries. It shows that third-party trackers are collecting audience data when people read articles, write comments, send in news tips, and share pieces on social networking platforms. One independent publisher in Nigeria, for instance, had 523 third-party cookies on its homepage collecting audience information. In total, over 150 companies— not all of which could be identified—were found to be invisibly tracking the visitors to these 50 websites. They were collecting IP addresses, which can identify geographic locations, the titles and URLs of news articles read, search queries, and other data. Once collected, this information could be sold to advertisers or further exchanged with other third parties. It could even reach the hands of governments.
From a media development perspective, the failure of media outlets to protect their visitors against invasive tracking by third parties is troubling for two reasons. First and most importantly, it places the privacy and safety of a publication’s readers in jeopardy. Readers need to feel confident that visiting independent news sites, especially those covering sensitive issues, will not put them in danger. Second, from a business perspective, when publishers give away information about their audiences for free, they cede valuable leverage for negotiating with advertisers. In essence, the outsourcing of analytics to third parties potentially puts readers at risk and weakens a site’s ability to truly take advantage of the interactions it has with its readers. Taken together, the findings of this study suggest an important new frontier for the media development community and the need to build stronger awareness about and strategies for managing the threats posed by tracking the readers of independent media.
This report also provides an overview of the latest regulatory developments in the data protection field, such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). While much of the public debate has been about policy changes in Europe, the impact has been much broader in geographic scope. The changes underway directly impact independent news outlets in many developing countries. This review of new laws is followed by a detailed description of the various trackers currently used on news websites, and the ways that they potentially come into conflict with new data protection laws and regulations. Then, the report analyzes research on web tracking technologies used by news media websites in 10 developing countries, exposing pervasive tracking that ultimately may not benefit either the readers or the news organizations themselves. And finally, it concludes with suggestions about how news organizations and other media development stakeholders might be able to take advantage of the global shift in data protection laws and regulations to strengthen independent media.
“The findings of this study suggest an important new frontier for the media development community and the need to build stronger awareness about and strategies for managing the threats posed by tracking the readers of independent media.”
What is privacy?
A generally accepted definition of privacy is “the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others.”1
What are data protection laws?
Data protection laws are frameworks that seek to regulate the collection, storage, and processing of information about individuals.
Is all data protected by data protection laws?
No. Data protection laws apply only to personal and sensitive information. Data protection laws do not protect nonpersonal data,2 anonymized data, or public data.3 This is an important distinction because many common data analytic practices do not use personal information at all.
There is no universal definition of what is or is not personal information. However, a common definition found within many national laws and international agreements modeled after the European Union’s GDPR is that personal data “means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.”4 Some data elements very clearly count as personal or secret information, such as a name or passport number. But the answer is not so straightforward for other elements. For example, a date of birth in and of itself is not personal information. But if that can be combined with a street address and one’s gender, it could be used to identify someone, and in that instance should be treated as personal information.5
“Worldwide, citizens and policymakers are increasingly cognizant of the risks that the burgeoning data economy poses to personal privacy.”
As the internet has grown in social and economic importance, more and more people have begun engaging with technologies that surreptitiously undermine their privacy. Businesses have emerged with business models that are based on gathering, using, and selling personal information without the data subject’s knowledge or explicit consent.
Media companies have also begun using similar data sets to understand reader preferences, follow up on stories, and create content that responds to audience demand. Personal information has come to be seen by some companies as an economic asset to be harvested or as a tool to better inform editorial decisions. At the same time, individuals have reported feeling powerless to stay in control of how their personal information is being used. Increasingly, however, there are regulatory barriers that restrict these activities.
As of March 2019, 134 countries had enacted data protection laws,6 while 26 others7 had drafted legislation with some degree of government support. While there are exemptions within many data protection laws for journalistic activities like newsgathering, there are almost always implications within these laws for the “business side” of media companies and journalistic institutions. These laws are particularly likely to apply if a news organization’s website collects data about its audience, loads elements onto a webpage from a third party, or uses cookies. It would not be feasible for most entities to adhere to the unique laws of 134 countries; however, it is also not necessary to do so. Adopting the highest data protection standard available is the most straightforward approach to compliance. At this time, that standard is the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Achieving compliance with the GDPR and its principles of accountability and data minimization would place most media organizations in good standing, even if they operate in a different regulatory environment.
Although European nations represent a minority of those jurisdictions with data protection laws, Europe continues to have an outsized influence on the development of data protection laws in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. This is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future because the Council of the European Union has advised the European Commission that it cannot negotiate away privacy rights in trade agreements.8 Countries that wish to trade with the European Union, and, in particular, have data flows with the trading bloc, will thus face pressure to implement data protection laws that are influenced by the European standard.
“Although European nations represent a minority of those jurisdictions with data protection laws, Europe continues to have an outsized influence on the development of data protection laws in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.”
Privacy rules and norms that govern action or inaction related to our personal information have been interpreted in a similar way around the world for some time. In 1974 the United States adopted the Privacy Act,9 a federal law that sought to safeguard information about individuals held by federal agencies. The act codified into law the recommendations developed by an independent advisory committee in 1973 that had analyzed the consequences of using electronic systems to maintain records about people.10 Their report shaped our contemporary understanding of information privacy and it remains relevant some four decades later. In short, the committee recommended adopting five principles:
1. There must be no secret record-keeping systems.
2. Individuals must be able to find out what information about them is in a record and how it is used.
3. Information cannot be obtained for one purpose and then used for another purpose without the consent of the individual concerned.
4. There must exist a right to correct inaccurate records.
5. Organizations are responsible for ensuring that their record-keeping systems are secure and reliable, and must take precautions to prevent the misuse of data.
Following the passage and implementation of the act, the United States advocated for these principles internationally. Today, they can be found in every major privacy protection instrument, including the African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s Cross-Border Privacy Rules, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States’ Data Protection Bill, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data, the Council of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data, the European Union’s Data Protection Directive, and the GDPR. The GDPR came into effect in 2018. It was a major revision to European law that significantly built upon the principles contained within the US Privacy Act of 1974 and the values advanced within the EU Data Protection Directive of 1995, aiming to prohibit the excessive collection, use, and disclosure of personal information without disproportionately impeding commerce, free expression, or freedom of association. Whether this balance was successfully achieved remains hotly debated, but what is uncontested is that this legislation forced companies around the world to review their data processing activities.
GDPR in a Nutshell
The GDPR codifies into law a risk-based approach to protecting the privacy of natural persons. It requires privacy by design and by default, mandates accountability for data controllers, and grants individuals new rights, including the rights to erasure and to control and transparency over how their personal information will be used. The GDPR states that personal information must be retained for the shortest period of time possible and that there must be limits on who can access it. It also imposes significant restrictions on how and when personal information may be shared with third parties. Further, the GDPR grants new protections to sensitive information like medical data, and Article 7 states that if an individual is asked to consent to a data processing practice, their consent must be a “freely given, specific, and unambiguous” indication of their intent. Most strikingly, the penalties for noncompliance are set at €20 million ($22.4 million) or 4 percent of global revenue, whichever is higher, even where there is no ill intent on the part of the data controller.
A major difference between the GDPR and other data protection laws is that it has extraterritorial effect, meaning that enforcement is theoretically possible outside of the borders of the European Union. This has made Europe, in the eyes of some, the “world’s data police.”11 The consequence of this is that under the GDPR, even organizations outside of the European Union must comply with the GDPR when they process data belonging to individuals in the European Union. Because of the global nature of the internet, it is easy to imagine a European resident who is protected by the GDPR visiting the website of a publisher, say, in Belarus or Mongolia. At least in theory according to European Union regulations, that Belarusian or Mongolian publisher must adhere to the GDPR if collecting analytic data about that European resident. If such extraterritorial enforcement actually happens, there would be profound implications here for the digital media ecosystem worldwide.
At this point in time it is difficult to know what obligations will actually be enforced on entities located outside of the European Union. One of the largest ambiguities that the internet presents, when it comes to the applicability of legislation, is that it is a space where conventional nation-state borders do not exist and where traditional modes of interstate legal cooperation have struggled to keep pace with the realities of a Web 2.0 world. This is why earlier data protection laws have been difficult to enforce and why the European Union, in the GDPR, has sought to make its legislation applicable in all environments. The fear, however, is that this jurisdictional overreach could lead to a legal arms race that could have unpredictable and unintended consequences. So far, the GDPR’s enforcement bodies have been reluctant to impose penalties on data controllers outside of the European Union. In one notable example, the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office sent a letter to the Washington Post advising that its website did not comply with the GDPR, but it did not take any formal enforcement action.12 This suggests that, at least for now, the European Union will rely on indirect means of enforcing the GDPR outside of its borders, incentivizing self-compliance through fear of reputational damage.
GDPR Is the New Global Standard
Ten countries outside of Europe have now updated their earlier data protection bills to enact many (or all) of the principles contained within the GDPR. This trend appears to be continuing, with new or updated bills pending in Algeria, Indonesia, Thailand, and Tunisia that appear to have been modeled after the GDPR. Pakistan, which does not have any data protection legislation at present, currently has a bill under consideration that would adopt large chunks of the GDPR.
“I assume that lawmakers just copied and pasted the GDPR and left some things out actually,” said Salwa Rana, legal officer at Media Matters for Democracy in Pakistan.13 “And these things were that you need to inform the data subject of any leak that takes place, that the data subject has the right to be forgotten, and extraterritoriality.” Rana said the question of extraterritorial application is one that remains unaddressed. “This was one of the main questions that was raised in one of our consultations: Is enforcement of the law going to be limited to Pakistan? The problem is that we have the federal investigation authority which is going to be responsible for any violations under this law outside of Pakistan, yet under the proposed legislation, they haven’t given them any power.” While the GDPR’s exemptions for journalistic activities remain in the proposed bill, media organizations in Pakistan have not been actively involved in drafting this law. “There hasn’t been much response from media companies, but I feel like the way this law is going, they are going to have to begin participating.”
Regardless of whether or not more countries adopt the GDPR’s provisions, given the global nature of the internet and many businesses’ desire to trade with member states of the European Union, a need to comply with the GDPR has incentivized businesses such as Microsoft to voluntarily adopt higher privacy and data protection standards for their entire operations worldwide, even where they are under no legal obligation to do so.14
GDPR Implications for the Media Industry
Article 4 (7) of the GDPR defines a data controller as “the natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data.” By this broad definition, it is difficult to imagine any media organization with either a list of subscribers or a website with analytic functions that would not be considered a data controller. As a result, any journalistic institution whose content is accessible to European residents will need to think carefully about how the GDPR may impact their business development activities or editorial functions. Some potential ramifications include the following:
Impacts on Newsgathering
The GDPR states that the
… processing of personal data solely for journalistic purposes, or for the purposes of academic, artistic or literary expression should be subject to derogations or exemptions from certain provisions of this Regulation if necessary to reconcile the right to the protection of personal data with the right to freedom of expression and information.15
While this language provides the media with significant leeway to be able to publish journalistic work, it does not assist journalists in accessing information for journalistic purposes.
Ioana Avadani, executive director of the Center for Independent Journalism in Bucharest, said the GDPR has been used in Romania to protect those in positions of power.16 “What we witnessed immediately after the GDPR is that institutions started to invoke the GDPR as a reason not to release information,” she said. “They were not keen on releasing information before, so what they got is just another reason, and they are very happy that this is a legal reason to justify their less-than transparent attitude.”
Avadani pointed to an example of a protest that occurred in August 2018 where riot police in Bucharest behaved in a violent manner and physically assaulted demonstrators. After a journalist asked who had authorized this action, the police invoked the GDPR and refused to name the authorizing officer. “It was a clear case of public information, and they still refused to say it because they wanted to protect the government,” said Avadani. Their next reaction was to use the GDPR to attempt to force the journalist to reveal their source, claiming the police department had an obligation under the GDPR to investigate a data breach. “It was not a genuine concern for the protection of the police officer’s privacy, it was just a way to protect the authorities.”
This is not the only case of the GDPR being abused in Romania. RISE Project, a non-profit investigative journalism organization, was threatened with a €20 million ($22.4 million) fine from Romania’s data protection authority after publishing a post on Facebook that accused a prominent Romanian politician of theft. RISE Project subsequently published a letter it had received from the National Supervisory Authority for Personal Data Processing, which demanded that it disclose within 10 days “how and when RISE Project obtained the information ultimately posted to Facebook, who their source was, how they stored the documents, and what other personal information RISE Project has on [the politician] and their friends,”17 or face a penalty of €20 million. While it is doubtful such a fine would stand up in the highest courts of the European Union, for smaller media outlets the fear of costly, ongoing litigation could ultimately have a chilling effect on journalism.
“Right to Erasure” Impact
The “right to erasure,” also known as the right to be forgotten, has garnered significant attention but is often misunderstood. The right is not absolute, with Article 17 (3) of the GDPR offering a public interest exemption intended to safeguard against predicted abuses. The problem is that the GDPR’s Recital 153 states that “Member States law should reconcile the rules governing freedom of expression and information, including journalistic, academic, artistic and or literary expression with the right to the protection of personal data pursuant to this Regulation.”18 This means that there could be a patchwork quilt of interpretations for how this article should be implemented. Unfortunately, in Romania, the data protection authority has settled upon a definition that seems to have prioritized the right to privacy over freedom of expression in all circumstances.
Ziarul de Iasi, a local newspaper in Romania with a circulation of 5,000 copies per week, received a right to erasure request to delete an article from its online archive. After the newspaper refused to remove an article from nine years earlier about a public figure who had engaged in improper behavior, the National Supervisory Authority for Personal Data Processing sent a letter imposing a fine of 3,000 leu ($725) per day until the article was deleted. “For a local newspaper this is huge,” said Avadani. “In this particular case, Ziarul de Iasi is going to challenge the request in court. However the editor-in-chief told me if he keeps receiving requests like this, he may not be able to afford to keep challenging them.”
Impacts on Internal Operations and Website Functionality
Under the GDPR, data controllers are obligated to ensure that both their data processing practices and the data processing practices of third parties comply with the regulation. This necessarily requires that media organizations more closely scrutinize the activities of the third-party vendors they work with.
Ala’a Alzghoul, an information systems specialist with Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism in Jordan, explained how the GDPR prompted his organization to develop internal procedures for assessing how third parties handle personal information.19 “For example, we use Google Analytics to collect some data for the user experience. Before we added their plug-in, we first read the privacy policy of Google Analytics and asked for every detail as to what data this tool is collecting, we tracked what they actually do, and we mention those details in our privacy policy.” Alzghoul explained that the GDPR also prompted Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism to develop new procedures for handling personal information. “To prevent any data leakages, we moved from regular databases to encrypted databases,” he said. “We have a new policy to protect the personal data that we collect, and to prevent employees [from] just copying the data onto their laptops. But this happened because of the GDPR, not because we were afraid of the laws here in Jordan.”
“When first-party content is downloaded, a website visitor would reasonably expect that they are sharing their IP address to access that content. The situation becomes murkier with third-party content.”
When someone visits a newsstand and buys a printed newspaper, they receive a complete product. But when a visitor browses a webpage, their web browser does not download one file. Rather, the web browser reads the code, downloads the required content from various sources, and renders the page. This all happens in milliseconds. The output may appear to the reader as one complete package, but more happens behind the scenes than many people realize, with content typically being downloaded from both first-party and third-party sources.
When content is being downloaded, the browser sends an HTTP request to either retrieve information from a server or send data to a server.20 As part of this interaction, the server obtains the visitor’s IP address to learn who it is interacting with. You could think of an IP address as the return address on a letter you mail; it is a unique number that essentially identifies you by the device you’re using to connect to the internet, and can be linked to all the online activity you engage in on that device.
When first-party content is downloaded, a website visitor would reasonably expect that they are sharing their IP address to access that content. The situation becomes murkier with third-party content. Because the website viewer’s IP address is being collected by an external source with which they do not have a direct relationship—and since these third-party content elements can either be invisible, blend into the webpage, or just load on the webpage without the individual’s explicit consent—their IP address would be collected by a third party without the individual’s knowledge or approval.
Moreover, it is rare that only an IP address will be captured. While an IP address does constitute personal information, it is extremely common for third parties to collect information on individuals through cookies, web beacons, and application program interfaces, among other technical measures, as people browse digital properties. These allow for individuals to be targeted in a much more granular manner and to be tracked across the entire internet.
Historically it has even been possible for companies to track website viewers without using cookies or web beacons or deploying application program interfaces. There are various fingerprinting algorithms that have enabled data sets to be analyzed in a manner that, for all practical purposes, could uniquely identify an individual with a high degree of accuracy. When a visitor downloads a file from a third party, the third party necessarily obtains a user agent string (the website visitor’s operating system, web browser type, and version number) and accepts headers (the type, version, and capabilities of the browser that is making the request so that the server returns compatible data). If JavaScript is enabled, it can communicate the names of browser plug-ins that are installed, and these plug-ins can be called upon to share system-specific attributes. Many of these attributes are, in and of themselves, harmless, but when aggregated, can effectively and easily lead to the identification of a user.21
To grasp how the tracking of readers involves a variety of distinct and independent entities, imagine a scenario in which an individual lands on a fictitious new site, NewsWebsite.com, to read an article on nutrition. The reader’s presence on the site is collected by Analytics.com, a third-party audience measurement tool firm that NewsWebsite.com has enabled on its website. Analytics.com collects data from millions of websites using cookies, and this data could include the visitor’s past shopping behavior, interests, time zone, ethnicity, browser language preferences, and gender, among other information. Based on these data compiled by Analytics.com, another third-party, Shopping.com, knows that the visitor is female, aged 40, and previously spent $60 on a book. Shopping.com could now infer that the visitor is likely to be interested in hardcover recipe books, and so sends a request to Advertising.com to load an advertisement for a hardcover recipe book on the next page that the visitor loads on the NewsWebsites.com site. In this scenario, personal data about the reader would have been circulated with at least four different entities, some of which the reader herself might not even know about.
Over the past three years web browsers and mobile devices have begun masking header information by default. This reduces, but does not entirely eliminate, the potential for reidentification through this manner. These changes have arguably been implemented in reaction to new privacy regulations like the GDPR, which oblige data controllers to provide individuals with an effective means of exercising their data rights. Users with older mobile devices or web browsers that have not been updated may be particularly vulnerable to identification through fingerprinting.
This report’s analysis of news websites in developing countries sheds light on the pervasiveness of user tracking on these news sites. Of the 50 small, independent publishers studied, 92 percent contained third-party tracking devices such as cookies and web beacons. Most of the tracking devices whose owners we could identify were transmitting data to the United States or the European Union.
However, 15 percent of the tracking devices we found on independent news websites had no easily identifiable ownership. Some of the most pervasive trackers on independent news websites in Kenya, Nigeria, and Ukraine, for example, actively masked their identities. In such cases the average website visitor would not know who is collecting their personal information or for what purpose. At least when the owner of a cookie can be identified, users can make contact with them to exercise their rights.
Overall, the analysis included 100 news websites in Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Syria, Ukraine, and Uruguay—five small publishers and five large publishers in each country. The measurements were conducted using the open source OpenWPM platform, which was developed by scientists at Princeton University. This tool has been used in 22 academic studies, and it allows researchers to systematically and reliably quantify, understand, and uncover the ways in which website users are tracked across the measured websites.22 The OpenWPM tool was deployed using a local virtual private network (VPN) to imitate the website experience of a local website visitor (with the exception of Syria, where sites were visited using a Turkish VPN).
The small, independent publishers chosen for analysis were selected based on recommendations from respected journalists and media policy advisors in the field. The ownership structures and funding sources of these websites were also taken into account to verify their independence. To be included, the sites also had to be posting original content consistently for three or more years. For the large publishers, we included the five most visited news websites in the given country in January 2019, per Alexa Internet’s rankings. In Uruguay, the top three most visited news websites were Argentine, so instead the analysis included the five most visited news websites that were published out of Uruguay.
While the study was not exhaustive, it is significant because it found that over 150 companies—not all of whom we could identify—were invisibly tracking the visitors to these 50 independent news websites. They were collecting IP addresses, which can identify one’s geographic location, the titles and URLs of news articles read, search queries, and other data. Once collected, this information could be sold to advertisers or further exchanged with other third parties. Any data that are collected are also vulnerable to being stolen in a data breach, or obtained by a government through a court order.
The situation was no better for large, mainstream media websites in the same countries. Overall, 98 percent of the large news websites that we analyzed contained third-party cookies. With the exception of websites reviewed from Brazil and Nigeria, the large news websites contained more third-party cookies than their independent counterparts did.
Uses and Purposes of Tracking Devices
In the analysis of 50 independent news websites, seven common uses of tracking devices were identified—along with one uncommon, but problematic, use.
Ninety-two percent of the independent media websites and 98 percent of the mass media websites reviewed contained third-party trackers of some kind. In the context of independent media websites, these trackers were most commonly deployed for audience measurement purposes, followed by advertising and marketing purposes, and then by the inclusion of social media share buttons.
According to Valentina Pavel, who researches data ownership at Privacy International, “user tracking and exploitation of data is still the default for news websites, but this is changing.”23 She said readers are looking for something else and that publishers can turn data protection principles to their competitive advantage. “Be fair and clear to your readers, show them you have been thoughtful about the way you are handling their data, and collect only the type of data that is necessary for the smooth running of the website and explain in plain language why you made those choices.” She noted that large publishers like the New York Times have dropped behavioral advertisements from their websites altogether without suffering any revenue impact and believes this has paved the way for smaller publications to do the same. “People are looking for real guarantees that their data is not going to be exploited, so by all means, don’t sell or share user data, and stop or limit using first- or third-party cookies,” said Pavel. “If others do it, why can’t you?”
“Some of the most pervasive trackers on independent news websites in Kenya, Nigeria, and Ukraine, for example, actively masked their identities. In such cases the average website visitor would not know who is collecting their personal information or for what purpose.”
Around the world, data protection laws and regulations are changing the digital ecosystem; by extension, they are changing the online publishing world too. Coming into compliance with new data protection laws like the GDPR and other applicable regimes can be difficult, and that appears to be a leading reason that some website owners have not taken action.
One simpler mechanism of coming into compliance with the GDPR is to migrate away from using third-party tools, services, and applications and to instead use self-hosted tools. This immediately limits exposure to the data collection and processing practices of third parties, and grants readers a greater degree of privacy protection, as information that could lead to their identification will no longer be circulating outside of the websites they’re visiting.
“While it will take additional effort by website operators, safeguarding the privacy rights of visitors may be good for business.”
A year after a new wave of data protection regulations such as the European Union’s GDPR have come into effect, the websites of media outlets continue collecting great volumes of personal information—but often unintentionally, and typically for other parties. That so many media institutions have failed to safeguard this asset—to both protect the privacy and safety of their readers and to be in a better negotiating position with advertisers—suggests that education, capacity building, and direct support of independent news outlets is needed to improve their analytics activities and ensure that they safeguard reader privacy.
Indeed, the findings in this report reveal that the current level of preparedness among smaller media companies in the Global South to protect their readers from being identified and to protect the commercial value of their analytics data is low. Experts consulted for this report said that this is unfortunate as many of the most common data analytic practices that independent media outlets engage in and benefit from do not require the use of personal information at all.
While it will take additional effort by website operators, safeguarding the privacy rights of visitors may be good for business. This, in turn, could help improve the commercial viability of independent media. Research from the World Economic Forum shows that in the $3 trillion global data economy, online news sites are unusually well-trusted relative to search engines, social networking platforms, and even financial institutions.25 Yet, so far, a handful of players like Facebook and Google have led the business of online data collection and marketing, which has allowed them to harness the value of the data that they have collected from websites whose content they do not control. This research reveals that independent media websites commonly leak personal information to third parties under the following scenarios: when analytic tools are used to measure audience demographics, when split tests are conducted to experiment with new website design features, when social media “share” buttons are embedded into webpages, or when content recommendation engines are deployed to personalize a website’s content to make it relevant to the reader.
Maintaining and building upon the high degree of trust that exists between a publisher and its readers may be the long-term solution to addressing data privacy concerns while simultaneously developing an effective business model. “Media sustainability in the long run is actually going to be based on your own user base rather than that of advertisers,” said Tanja Maksic, a researcher with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.26 This, in turn, could result in digital publishers developing greater negotiating power and leverage with third-party advertising exchanges or, alternatively, being able to sell premium subscriptions to readers. “Look at your internal organization, what you are collecting, what you are doing with it, how you are protecting it,” said Maksic, “and craft your economic sustainability around your user base and meet their demands and their standards.” Louise Marie Hurel, an internet governance researcher at Brazil’s Igarapé Institute, agreed. “I think this is inevitable really. Enforcement of data protection laws may be ad hoc, but that same degree of uncertainty should not mark your relationship with users who are accessing your content.”27
From a media development perspective, news organizations around the world need better support and training on how to safeguard their valuable audience data, both to protect the privacy rights of their readers and for commercial purposes. Practical primers on complying with data protection laws and regulations, sharing best practices, regularly auditing websites to understand what tracking devices are present and what they are doing with data, and developing and exchanging benchmarking information could all help smaller media outlets find a competitive advantage over the advertising networks and platforms that have absorbed the bulk of online advertising dollars to date. Ultimately, a new business model for journalism will require both savvy use of data and an abiding respect for readers’ privacy.
The following 167 companies were found to be sending data to 246 domain names by way of third-party cookies installed on the websites of independent media outlets.
We analyzed the websites of the following small publishers on April 11, 2019:
We analyzed the websites of the following larger publishers on April 11, 2019:
Tests using OpenWPM were initially conducted on a sample of 40 websites on March 24, 2019, and repeated on April 11, 2019, usingthe full group of 100 websites. OpenWPMwas installed from GitHub using Git revision b3ead7e38892095950806e8bcbb2e1129c27ca96.Tests were performed using the Kubuntu18.04 operating system, with Python 2.7.15rc1 and Python 3.6.7 and Firefox 67.0b4. Testing was done under VPN connection.
Testing Parameters
The OpenWPM “demo.py” script was usedas a template and modified. The value of NUM_BROWSER was set to 1 to use only one web browser and to be sure that the websites were crawled in the given order. The browser was not headless. Flash was enabled. Cookie_instrument (experimental) was enabled.The following is the sequence of commands used for each website:
Visit the homepage and wait for 120 seconds
Dump flash cookies
Dump profile cookies
To prevent data contamination, the previously generated SQLite database was deleted before each new recording.
Ayden Férdeline is a Technology Policy Fellow with the Mozilla Foundation, where he researches the ongoing development and harmonization of global data protection standards. He previously supported the Internet Society’s global public policy team and was a researcher for the data and analytics group YouGov. He is an alumnus of the London School of Economics and is based in Berlin, Germany.
Ayden Férdeline
Alan Westin, Privacy and Freedom (1967), 7.
Nonpersonal data include information that does not concern a natural person. For instance, a data set of daily temperatures in a city would constitute nonpersonal data.
Anonymized data include information that was originally personal information but has been transformed in such a way that the link between it and the natural person has been cut. Many data analysis activities are performed on anonymized data.
European Union Law, “Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation),” Article 4 (1), April 27, 2016, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=celex:32016R0679
This is known as the Mosaic Effect. In a study published in Science in 2015, researchers found that four data points are enough to uniquely and accurately reidentify an individual in 90 percent of cases. See Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye1, Laura Radaelli, Vivek Kumar Singh, and Alex “Sandy” Pentland, “Unique in the Shopping Mall: On the Reidentifiability of Credit Card Metadata,” Science 347, no. 6221 (January 2015): 536-539, http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6221/536.full
The number of countries with adopted data protection laws as of March 27, 2019, is 134. The geographical distribution of the 134 laws is the following: Africa (26), Asia-Pacific (22), Europe (54), Latin America and Caribbean (23), Middle East (7), and North America (2).
In alphabetical order: Barbados, Belarus, Brunei, Dominica, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands, Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia (substantial revision to existing law), Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Montserrat, Nigeria, Saint Helena, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Virgin Islands, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Mark Scott and Laurens Cerulus, “Europe’s New Data Protection Rules Export Privacy Standards Worldwide,” Politico, January 31, 2018, https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-data-protection-privacy-standards-gdpr-general-protection-data-regulation/.
Robert Gellman, Fair Information Practices: A Basic History (April 10, 2017), available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2415020
Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Automated Personal Data Systems, Records, Computers and the Rights of Citizens, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, US Department of Health and Human Services, July 1, 1973, https://aspe.hhs.gov/report/records-computers-and-rights-citizens.
Sarah Gordon and Aliya Ram, “Information Wars: How Europe Became the World’s Data Police,” Financial Times, May 20, 2018, https://www.ft.com/content/1aa9b0fa-5786-11e8-bdb7-f6677d2e1ce8
Rebecca Hill, “Washington Post Offers Invalid Cookie Consent under EU Rules – ICO,” The Register, November 19, 2018, https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/19/ico_washington_post/.
S. Rana interviewed by A. Férdeline via Skype, March 14, 2019.
Julie Brill, “Microsoft’s Commitment to GDPR, Privacy and Putting Customers in Control of Their Own Data,” Microsoft, blog post, May 21, 2018, https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/05/21/microsofts-commitment-to-gdpr-privacy-and-putting-customers-in-control-of-their-own-data/
General Data Protection Regulation, “Processing of Personal Data Solely for Journalistic Purposes or for the Purposes of Academic, Artistic or Literary Expression,” Recital 153, via Intersoft Consulting, https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-153/.
I. Avadani interviewed by A. Férdeline via Skype, March 19, 2019.
“OCCRP Strongly Objects to Romania’s Misuse of GDPR to Muzzle Media,” Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, November 9, 2018, https://www.occrp.org/en/40-press-releases/ presss-releases/8875-occrp-strongly-objects-to-romania-smisuse- of-gdpr-to-muzzle-media .
General Data Protection Regulation, Recital 153.
A. Alzghoul interviewed by A. Férdeline via Skype, March 14, 2019.
Please note that this is an oversimplification of the process. Please refer to the following technical document for a more complete explanation of how HTTP requests work: R. Fielding, J. Gettys, J. Mogul, H. Frystyk, L. Masinter, P. Leach, and T. Berners‑Lee, “Hypertext Transfer Protocol,” IETF, June 1999, https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt .
See, for instance, P. Laperdrix,W. Rudametkin, and B. Baudry, “Beauty and the Beast: Diverting Modern Web Browsers to Build Unique Browser Fingerprints,” 37th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, 2016, https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2016; N. Nikiforakis, A. Kapravelos, W. Joosen, C. Kruegel, F. Piessens, and G. Vigna, “Cookieless Monster: Exploring the Ecosystem of Web-Based Device Fingerprinting,” 34th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, 2013, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ document/6547132/.
For further information on the intricacies of how the OpenWPM tool works, please see the Princeton Web Census website at https://webtransparency.cs.princeton.edu/webcensus/.
V. Pavel interviewed by A. Férdeline via email, February 26, 2019.
“Turn on Privacy-Enhanced Mode,” YouTube Help, 2019, https:// support.google.com/youtube/answer/171780?visit_id=0- 636595692661723869-3019304114&rd=1.
Vasudha Thirani and Arvind Gupta, “The Value of Data,” World Economic Forum, 2017, https://www.weforum.org/ agenda/2017/09/the-value-of-data/.; In a 2014 poll, 56 percent of respondents in countries with less than 25 percent internet penetration answered 5, 6, or 7 on a seven-point trust scale to indicate that they trust online news sites to protect their personal data. This compares with 40 percent trusting search engine companies, 37 percent trusting companies that provide social networking services, and 29 percent trusting online marketers and advertisers. The only stakeholder group more trusted than the media were banks and financial institutions, who were trusted by 61 percent of respondents. Source: William H. Dutton, Ginette Law, Gillian Bolsover, and Soumitra Dutta, The Internet Trust Bubble: Global Values, Beliefs and Practices (World Economic Forum, 2014), http://www3.weforum.org/docs/ WEF_InternetTrustBubble_Report2_2014.pdf.
T. Maksic interviewed by A. Férdeline via Skype, February 8, 2019.
L. Hurel interviewed by A. Férdeline in Kobe, Japan, March 13,
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Uber appeals licensing ban in London
The company is seeking to have its license to operate in London restored
By Sarah D. Young
Uber is fighting to keep its license to operate in London after its bid to renew its license in the British capital was denied last fall. The ride-hailing company will appear in Westminster Magistrates' Court on Monday to appeal the decision.
In September, the Transport for London regulatory agency rejected Uber’s application to renew its license to operate in London. The agency argued that Uber London Limited "demonstrated a lack of corporate responsibility" in how it reports serious incidents.
Based on its shortcomings in the arena of public safety and security, the agency declared that the company is not “fit and proper to hold a private hire operator licence.”
Uber claims to have changed
Since then, Uber has implemented a number of changes to its business model, including reporting crimes directly to police and controlling drivers' working hours.
“Over the past year we’ve been working hard to put right past mistakes as we’ve gone through a much-needed period of reflection and change,” Uber’s UK general manager Tom Elvidge wrote in the London Evening Standard newspaper.
“Our new global CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, is establishing a new culture and direction for the company from the top, while in the UK we’ve brought in three experienced independent directors to help us stay on the right track. If there are times when we fall short, we are committed to being open, taking responsibility for the problem, and fixing it.”
The court hearing kicks off today and is expected to last several days. Uber has been allowed to operate normally in London during the appeal process.
Sarah D. Young has been a columnist for a blog aimed at Millennials and has also worked in early childhood education and has been a reading tutor to at-risk youth. Read Full Bio→
Email Sarah Young
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Revealed: The millions spent by the NHS on negligence claims
The figure has risen by almost £2 million in a year
Debora Aru
Hospital ward (Image: Peter Byrne/PA Wire)
The NHS in Coventry and Warwickshire paid out nearly £17million in negligence claims last year.
Figures from NHS Resolution, which handles claims on behalf of NHS trusts, show that the NHS had to pay £16.9m in negligence claims in the area in the financial year 2017/18.
The total is made up of £9.2m in actual damages, £1.8m in defence costs and £5.8m in claimant costs.
It is up from £15.3m in 2016/17.
Amounts paid out in Coventry and Warwickshire
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust alone paid £10.7m in 2017/18 - the biggest amount for a single hospital trust in the area.
Nuneaton's George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust had the second highest amount paid out at £3.4m.
South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust paid out £2.8m - the third highest amount in Coventry and Warwickshire.
There are four clinical negligence schemes that cover defence and claimant legal costs as well as damages.
One, the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST), is for incidents that occurred after April 1995.
Another, the Existing Liabilities Scheme (ELS), is for those that occurred before that period.
Coventry and Warwickshire hospitals
The third covers claims against former Regional Health Authorities abolished in 1996 and the last covers clinical negligence liabilities transferred to the Department of Health following the abolition of health bodies.
Because figures from NHS Resolution only include CNST and ELS, it means that the total amount paid under all four schemes could be even higher.
Of the £16.9m, £66,998 was paid by the South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust for clinical claims against NHS organisations where the incident took place before April 1, 1995.
Total paid out by NHS trust in 2017/18
George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust: £3,369,799
South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust: £2,803,475
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust: £10,678,851
Nationally, total payments relating to NHS clinical schemes increased by £520.4 million (30 per cent) from £1.7bn to £2.2bn.
This is despite the number of new clinical negligence claims falling slightly from 10,686 received in 2016/17 to 10,673 in 2017/18.
Why has the amount increased?
NHS Resolution said the cost increase was partly due to pay-outs for claims that were made in previous years.
However, £404 million of the additional expenditure nationally was because of a change in the Personal Injury Discount Rate (PIDR) on March 20, 2017.
The PIDR is a way to calculate the appropriate amount of compensation to claimants who have suffered life-changing injuries.
The PIDR was changed by the government in such a way that the cost of large personal injury claims, with an element of future loss of earnings, have gone up significantly.
This change has been branded ‘foolish’ by experts.
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents health service organisations across the healthcare sector, said: "It is right and fair that there must be reasonable compensation for patients harmed through clinical negligence and we need to do everything we can to eliminate these mistakes.
"But the justifiable case for compensation has to be balanced against society’s ability to pay and the fact that we have a free at the point of use health care system.
"Money that is used for this purpose cannot be used for frontline care. At a time when NHS finances are already under enormous strain, this just makes things worse.
"Unless we deal with this, a sizeable chunk of the new money being promised will be swallowed up by these claims rather than used for much-needed investment to help the mass of patients.
"Part of this [the increasing amount spent] is down to a foolish change in the way compensation is calculated, which will hopefully be addressed by Parliament, but this still paints a hugely troubling picture.”
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What did the trusts say?
A spokesperson for the University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust told CoventryLive that 206 claim payments were made in 2017/18, and clarified that claims made against the trust are in line or below other hospital trusts of their size.
The spokesperson said: “More than 800,000 people receive excellent treatment at our hospitals each year, but in the small number of cases where our high standards are not met, we take these incidents extremely seriously.
“In cases where errors are highlighted, whether or not claims are made, we work hard to ensure lessons are learned from these incidents to ensure that the patient experience continuously improves.”
They added that claims are handled on a rolling basis and are often resolved years after they are first made.
CoventryLive has also contacted the George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust and the South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust for a comment.
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George Eliot Hospital
South Warwickshire
University Hospital Coventry
North Warwickshire
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Fabian Birkowski
Polish preacher, b. at Lemberg, 1566; d. at Cracow, 1636. He completed his studies at the University of Cracow , where he also began to teach philosophy in 1587. After having taught there for five years he entered the Dominican Order (1592), and devoted himself for some time to a deeper study of theology. Thereupon he began his career as a preacher in the church of the Holy Trinity at Cracow where the king attended Divine worship. During fourteen years his fame as a preacher drew immense crowds. Sigismund III was much attached to him and often consulted him on matters temporal and spiritual. He induced Birkowski to follow the court when it was transferred to Warsaw. He also appointed him court-preacher to his son Wladislaw. In the crusades of 1617 and 1618 against Turkey, Russia and Walachia, the friar took no small part, and some of his best sermons were delivered to the soldiers. Two years before his death he retired to his monastery and never left it save to preach on some great occasion or in behalf of charity. Birkowski is considered one of the greatest orators of Poland. His contemporaries spoke of him as the "Sarmatian Chrysologus", and posterity has not found anyone superior to him in purity of diction in the sixteenth century. He uses Scripture quotations very often, though he also refers frequently to Virgil, Horace and Homer, and among letter writers to Justus Lipsius. He has no respect for the learning and temper of Erasmus. Of his sermons only a few have been published. There are three volumes of sermons for Sundays and Holy Days, besides panegyrics on St. Josaphat, Sigismund III, his wife Constantia, and sermons on the Blessed Virgin delivered in camp.
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St. Cecilia (Elementary)
Explore the Bible - The Ancient City of Sodoma
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Liberal budget offers lots of 'vision' but few new numbers: Aaron Wherry
Politics·Analysis
The Liberals are selling a vision of what they hope will eventually be. In lieu of a new tax cut or benefit, in the place of any big new investment, that will have to suffice.
Liberals limited by previous spending commitments and reluctance to raise new revenue
Aaron Wherry · CBC News · Posted: Mar 22, 2017 10:50 PM ET | Last Updated: March 23, 2017
Finance Minister Bill Morneau listens to a question during a press conference at the media lockup before tabling his budget in the House of Commons. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)
At a dozen points in the budget document, the Liberals interrupt their announcements to explain "What Success Will Look Like."
Canada, we are told at one point, "will have one of the most skilled, talented, creative and diverse workforces in the world." The country "will be on the leading edge of discovery and innovation." Commute times will be shorter. Cities will be more livable. The air will be cleaner. Being a parent will be easier.
That is what the Liberals are selling: a vision of what they hope will eventually be.
In lieu of a shiny new tax cut or benefit, that will have to suffice.
Because this wasn't particularly a budget about numbers.
Liberals spend on training and innovation while holding line on most taxes
Not until the seventh page of his 11-page budget speech did Finance Minister Bill Morneau offer what could be described as a "new" number: $11 billion for a national housing strategy.
But two caveats are necessary. First, the money is to be distributed over 11 years. And, second, all of it is covered by funding already announced for "social infrastructure" last fall.
The total amount of new funding committed to "building stronger communities and neighbourhoods" for the next fiscal year is just $20 million. Indeed, across the entirety of this new budget, there is a mere $1.3 billion in "new" announcements and much of that is covered by reallocating funds that were previously committed.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau discusses his second federal budget. 8:53
"There's not a lot of new, new money in the budget," remarked one reporter when Morneau was presented to the journalists who spent the day locked up with the budget book. "Is it that you overspent in the last one?"
"Our plan is very much about a long-term vision," responded the finance minister.
"We set about as soon as we got into office, dealing with middle class anxiety, increasing confidence in Canadians. We also set out long-term objectives for investment. And that's what we're identifying today, the long-term vision."
Few numbers to throw around
A government official had actually already answered that reporter's question ahead of Wednesday's budget. "The budget's a public policy document and I think the story will be much more into where the country needs to go as opposed to dollar amounts," the source told The Canadian Press earlier this week.
Budget has long since become a loose term, in Ottawa anyway. The annual spring exercise functions as more of an elaborate announcement of government priorities with big numbers attached than a detailed accounting of how public funds will be allocated.
But in this case, the government was very much limited in how many numbers it could throw around. First, by the commitments it has already made. Second, by its reluctance to raise new revenue.
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A review of the tax system's various credits and exemptions, completed internally last year, holds the potential for new funds and Morneau warned that changes could be coming. "Let me be clear," he said. "All Canadians must pay their fair share." But for now the tweaks are relatively minor.
That tax review joins a science review, a defence policy review and an expert panel's report on youth employment in remaining to be seen. Throughout the budget are references to other items and details that will become clear in the "coming months," including a whole new organization to deal with skills development. A review of government spending is promised for next year's budget.
Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose responds to the federal budget. 6:52
Still to be seen too, of course, is how Donald Trump will impact economic policies and tax rates in the United States. If the president is successful in dramatically reducing American rates, for instance, it might be harder for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Morneau to justify asking for a higher share here. Unless, of course, the economy significantly improves.
All of which leaves this budget feeling something like a placeholder, even while it does any number of potentially interesting things.
Superclusters, smart cities and AI
There are more than 60 pages on skills development and innovation. There is a suggestion that 40,000 child-care spaces "could" be created in the next three years. And, in perhaps the government's bravest move of the day, the non-refundable public transit tax credit is eliminated: one of the Conservative government's inventions, the Liberals are scrapping it on the grounds that it doesn't result in significantly more people using public transit.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair responds to the federal budget 5:16
There are also a half-dozen measures that might be regarded as quintessentially Liberal.
A "gender statement" is attached to the budget to analyze how the government's measures will impact women and men differently. Funding is committed to create an LGBTQ2 secretariat within the Privy Council Office to assist the prime minister's LGBTQ2 adviser (Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault). A "Prime Minister's Gold Medal" in scientific excellence will be created. About $350 million is committed across several initiatives to help the government and its agencies collect more and better data.
Sprinkled within are references to "superclusters" and "smart cities." There will soon be a "Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy."
But including last year's promises, it remains to be seen how much of it will be completed or demonstrable by October 2019, when the next election is scheduled to be held. The promised infrastructure bank is now scheduled to be up and running by late 2017. And much of the promised infrastructure spending is scheduled for the next decade.
The Liberals look to 2025
On its signature commitment to infrastructure, the government cast its eyes to 2025. To see that day, the Liberals will have to be re-elected twice more. And for all that progress to seem secure, the federal government will also probably have to figure out how to balance the budget.
A vision is, by Morneau's account, part of what Canadians previously lacked (in addition to policies that addressed their stresses).
"People were left without a clear vision for growth at a time of unprecedented change," he told the House of Commons on Wednesday.
So the Liberals are selling the vision thing.
Now they have just 2½ more years to make that seem like something more than a hazy dream.
OPINION| Federal budget 2017 — Mostly gusts of pleasant smelling warm air
Aaron Wherry
Parliament Hill Bureau
Aaron Wherry has covered Parliament Hill since 2007 and has written for Maclean's, the National Post and the Globe and Mail.
Follow Aaron on Twitter
Liberals' 1st gender-sensitive budget identifies gaps, funds possible fixes
Federal budget 2017: Highlights of Bill Morneau's 2nd budget
Budget 2017: Liberals spend on training and innovation while holding line on most taxes
Billions in defence equipment purchases postponed until 2030s in Liberal budget
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B.C. man killed in Ethiopian plane crash remembered for his enthusiasm, giant smile
Messent was to join a delegation from the United Nations Association in Canada in Nairobi, Kenya.
Erin Haluschak
Mar. 12, 2019 12:10 p.m.
The death of B.C. man Micah Messent in the Ethiopian Airlines crash Sunday that killed everyone on board has prompted a huge reaction and tributes from friends, co-workers and well-wishers on social media.
Messent, who graduated from G.P. Vanier Secondary School in the Comox Valley in 2013, was selected to join a delegation from the United Nations Association in Canada to the fourth session of the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, this week.
He posted on his Instagram account Saturday about attending the assembly and received dozens of well-wishes from family and friends. Sunday afternoon, dozens more messages of condolence and heartbreak filled the page.
Comox Valley brewery Gladstone Brewing Co. posted on Facebook Monday afternoon their condolences as Messent was employed by the Courtenay company.
“Micah came into every shift with enthusiasm and a giant smile; he was courteous, big-hearted and destined for amazing things,” read the post.
READ MORE: Courtenay man among Ethiopian Airlines crash victims
“His success over the last couple of years and the determination he had toward achieving his goals was astounding. His arc being cut short so suddenly is nothing less than a tragedy.”
Outdoor retailer giant Mountain Equipment Co-op posted Monday afternoon Messent had a positive energy, ability to make everyone feel included and commended his commitment to make the world a better place.
“Micah will be greatly missed by the outdoor community and beyond,” noted the post.
Following his time at Vanier, Messent went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in Indigenous Studies at Vancouver Island University and was working as an Indigenous relations analyst for the B.C. Ministry of Environment.
The Nanaimo-based post-secondary school offered counselling services for students and employees for those affected by the tragedy.
They noted Messent was “an engaged member of our community, contributing his time, energy and talents to his fellow students. Our hearts go out to his family and friends at this difficult time.”
Messent served his Indigenous Youth Internship Program placement with the BC Parks branch of the Ministry of Environment and was passionate about his work to protect the world around him.
Gaynor Bereza wrote on Facebook his passing has inspired her to make more changes in her life and the environment one plastic bottle, straw or piece of beach junk at a time.
“It may seem petty, but it is something I can do in the face of such a loss of a bright spark in our home town.”
– With files from Laura Baziuk
erin.haluschak@comoxvalleyrecord.com
How would you improve travel on BC Ferries?
Canada ranks 59th based on share of women in elected legislatures
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President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin shake hands during a photo ceremony at the 2017 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
Photo: Mikhail Klimentyev
Trump says he believes Putin’s denials over election meddling
DA NANG, VIETNAM —
President Donald Trump said he is done confronting Vladimir Putin over accusations that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election and said he took the Russian leader at his word when he said that his country did not seek to interfere, CNN reported.
"He said he didn't meddle. He said he didn't meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew from Da Nang to Hanoi in Vietnam. "Every time he sees me, he says, 'I didn't do that.’ And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it."
The two leaders chatted Saturday as they walked together during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, Reuters reported.
Although White House officials said no formal meeting between the two leaders was planned, the two men shook hands at a dinner Friday evening and again at the start of Saturday’s main APEC meeting.
Television cameras caught the two leaders talking as they headed toward the area designated for a group photograph, Reuters reported.
Putin said he had a normal dialogue with Trump and described the President as civil, well-educated, and comfortable to deal with.
Trump is in Vietnam on the fourth leg of a 12-day tour of Asia.
Post by U.S. Department of State.
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Christina School Board looks to limit its own access to public information
Christina School Board considers a policy that would allow the board president to block other members from requesting data from the school district.
Christina School Board looks to limit its own access to public information Christina School Board considers a policy that would allow the board president to block other members from requesting data from the school district. Check out this story on delawareonline.com: https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/education/2018/07/11/christina-school-board-debates-policy-limiting-member-requests-data/767371002/
Jessica Bies, Delaware News Journal Published 10:30 a.m. ET July 11, 2018 | Updated 12:04 p.m. ET July 11, 2018
Here are some of the top stories we're following for today. 1/29/19 Damian Giletto/The News Journal
Outgoing Christina School Board President George Evans (left) has proposed a new policy that would require all board members to submit data requests to the board president for transmission to the superintendent.(Photo: William Bretzger, The News Journal)Buy Photo
Christina School Board members voted Tuesday night to formally consider a new rule that would allow the board president to block other members from requesting information from the district.
The proposed policy, which could be altered when it comes up again for the formal approval, would demand that board members submit all "administrative requests" to the board president, who would then choose, at his or her discretion, what was sent to the superintendent for action.
Those in favor of the policy say it will save district staff from performing needless, time-consuming and expensive searches for information. Those who oppose it say it will prevent elected board members from being fully informed or research controversial topics that the powers-that-be don't want explored.
The discussion illustrates the battle over how the board operates and communicates with district staff.
Christina votes no on 'sanctuary' for undocumented kids
The proposal was voted down on June 12 when it was first introduced by then-board president George Evans. It was re-introduced by him and then-board member Harrie Ellen Minnehan on June 26, but a vote was postponed until Tuesday. Since then, Minnehan's term has ended.
The board's first reading of the proposed policy ended with it being approved 4-3, and it will now move on to the next stage of adoption. Board members Elizabeth Paige, John Young and Angela Mitchell voted no. Newly elected board president Meredith Griffin cast one of the "yes" votes.
Young charged that the policy would, as written, allow the board president to act in an “arbitrary and capricious manner” and unilaterally deny or alter data requests.
Christina School District board members Elizabeth Paige (left) and Keeley Powell during a board of education meeting Tuesday at Sarah Pyle Academy in Wilmington. (Photo: William Bretzger, The News Journal)
“This policy will be far and away the most controlling document that any school board has imposed on itself," he said, voicing confusion over why Evans introduced it.
Young also thought the policy would make it difficult for board members to effectively govern the district.
Evans said he wanted to make sure individual board members couldn't make burdensome data requests for their sole gratification. With the policy in place, the board president will be able to review requests and address ones that "aren't consistent with the mission and goals" of the group as a whole, Evans said.
“No, I wouldn’t find that this policy is ... restrictive in any form or fashion," Evans said Tuesday.
The proposed rule, in addition to dividing the school board, raises questions about what led Evans to propose the policy in the first place. The group's history suggests that there are several different factors that could be at play.
What got us here?
1. This board asks questions. Unlike some Delaware school boards, the governing body of the Christina School District asks a lot of questions, both in and out of public board meetings.
Two board members in particular — Young and Paige — are known for wanting as much information as possible before voting and have had votes tabled until they get what they want.
They've also accused district staff of hiding information from them so they'll approve contracts. Last July, Paige "pulled" a resolution from the consent agenda so board members could talk about it further before a vote.
Christina School Board member John Young (Photo: William Bretzger/The News Journal)
The consent agenda is usually for noncontroversial action items the school board can vote on en masse, without any discussion. But the contract being considered that night was with a company that had been the focus of negative media reports and rumors of child abuse and violence.
Since then both Paige and Young have asked repeatedly that items be taken off the consent agenda for further discussion.
As a result, contracts are no longer put on the consent agenda at all, meaning they have to be considered individually even if they involve fairly mundane topics such as fixing potholes or performing maintenance on the district's fridges.
2. Several board members have requested data. Evans said several board members have requested information from the district that required inordinate amounts of time and expense to compile, althoughhe could not provide a specific example.
"There are requests that require a great deal of work," he said, questioning whether tying up district resources to satisfy a board member's curiosity is worth the time and effort.
Earlier this year Young asked for emails exchanged between a News Journal reporter and the district's public information officer, Wendy Lapham, and did not receive them in their entirety.
He then submitted a Freedom of Information Act request, getting the district's attorney involved, and was told it would cost $800 to compile the emails. Young filed a complaint about the costs with the Delaware Attorney General's office, which ruled the petition moot, in part because Young's request was not as specific as it could be. He intended only to request a few emails, not all emails ever exchanged between the two parties.
Evans said the FOIA request was a factor in the new policy.
3. The board is also very vocal. Compared to other state school board, Christina's discusses a lot, sometimes in circles. This has created tensions between its members and district staff. In addition, both Young and Paige frequently talk to the media, but Minnehan had at times deferred comment to the board president.
Several of the board's policies suggest that the board president, who is elected by the board members, should be running the show.
One board policy says the president shall "serve as spokesperson for the board at news conferences and similar public functions unless the president has designated another member to do so."
Another policy says "board members must act in the best interest of the district and be able to subordinate self-interest."
The proposed rule is based on a similar philosophy of presidential supremacy and deference to district leaders. Evans has told board members in meetings that they need to treat Superintendent Richard Gregg and other staff more respectfully.
4. The balance of the board has shifted. Last year, the Christina School Board's composition changed with the election of two new members, Mitchell and Griffin. Griffin, Minnehan and another board member, Fred Polaski, voted in Evans as board president, replacing Paige. Evans is more deferential to and less likely to buck system authorities than Paige was.
Since then, school board members have voted along similar lines, most notably in February when approving a memorandum of understanding with Gov. John Carney that called for closing two elementary schools.
Evans, Polaski, Griffin and Minnehan voted in favor of the partnership agreement, while Paige and Young voted against it. Mitchell abstained.
Minnehan's seat has been filled with another new member, Keeley Powell, who was sworn in Tuesday night. She voted to approve a first read of the new policy.
5. The district has a new motto. As part of its new strategic plan, the Christina School District has adopted the motto "One District, One Vision, One Voice."
In a description of the new policy, Evans changed that to "One district, One Vision, One Voice of the Board," once again calling for a more cohesive governing body.
Paige questioned whether or not the new policy would really unite the board, however.
She said she'd rather talk to Superintendent Gregg, with whom she has a good relationship, one-on-one than go through the board president.
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Contact Jessica Bies at (302) 324-2881 or jbies@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @jessicajbies.
Looking for more education news? Visit delawareonline.com/education. Submit story ideas at delonline.us/2i2tugB.
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Read or Share this story: https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/education/2018/07/11/christina-school-board-debates-policy-limiting-member-requests-data/767371002/
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UCLA men’s basketball gains and losses…
SportsCollege Sports
UCLA men’s basketball gains and losses in Steve Alford’s first season
By Jack Wang | jwang@scng.com | Daily News
PUBLISHED: April 3, 2014 at 1:04 pm | UPDATED: August 28, 2017 at 7:49 am
HEADING OUT
PG Kyle Anderson, So., 6-9, 230 — Anderson was the key to UCLA’s offense all season, and was closer than anyone else in college basketball to averaging a triple-double. Now headed to the NBA, his 14.6 points, 8.8 rebounds and 6.5 assists will be tremendously difficult to replace.
G Zach LaVine, Fr., 6-5, 180 — The talented freshman will likely be a mid to late first-round pick in the NBA draft, but didn’t contribute much to the Bruins at the end of the season. He scored just 11 points in his final five games, going 0 for 8 from beyond the arc over that span.
G Jordan Adams, So., 6-5, 220 — UCLA’s leading scorer is reportedly putting his name in the NBA draft, but could still decide to return for his junior year. He led the team with 17.4 points and set a new school record with 95 steals.
COMING IN
F Kevon Looney, 6-9, 220 — The five-star recruit is the gem of UCLA’s 2014 recruiting class, and gives the Bruins an instant starter in the frontcourt. Looney is a versatile forward who can shore up the team’s rebounding as well as find his own shot.
C Thomas Welsh, 7-0, 245 — A McDonald’s All-American like Looney, Welsh projects as a solid four-year big man for UCLA. The 7-footer has improved his game dramatically over the past year, and should contribute off the bench immediately.
G Isaac Hamilton, 6-5, 185 — A five-star prospect in 2013, Hamilton was forced to sit out this past season after breaking his letter of intent with UTEP. An explosive scorer, he will likely play both guard spots — or start immediately if Adams leaves.
F Jonah Bolden, 6-8, 205 — Bolden verbally committed to UCLA shortly after the end of the November signing period. The Australian native is long and can hit the outside shot.
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Jack Wang
Jack Wang covers the Chargers, the latest NFL team to relocate to Los Angeles. He previously covered the Rams, and also spent four years on the UCLA beat, a strange period in which the Bruins' football program often outpaced their basketball team. He is a proud graduate of UC Berkeley, where he spent most of his time in The Daily Californian offices in Eshleman Hall — a building that did not become earthquake-safe until after his time on campus.
Follow Jack Wang @thejackwang
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Video of deadly Paramus bus crash shows driver enter Rt. 80, make hard left across 3 lanes
The video was recorded by a state Department of Transportation traffic camera positioned some distance from the crash site on Route 80 in Mount Olive.
Video of deadly Paramus bus crash shows driver enter Rt. 80, make hard left across 3 lanes The video was recorded by a state Department of Transportation traffic camera positioned some distance from the crash site on Route 80 in Mount Olive. Check out this story on dailyrecord.com: https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/paramus/2018/11/09/video-paramus-school-bus-crash-shows-driver-make-left-across-rt-80/1945210002/
Steve Janoski, North Jersey Record Published 4:13 p.m. ET Nov. 9, 2018 | Updated 5:30 p.m. ET Nov. 9, 2018
The deadly May 17 Paramus school bus crash was recorded by a state Department of Transportation traffic camera on Route 80 in Mount Olive. Paul Wood Jr., NorthJersey
A school bus carrying middle school students from Paramus was ripped from its chassis in an accident with a dump truck on Route 80 west. May 17, 2018. Mount Olive, NJ(Photo: Bob Karp/Daily Record)Buy Photo
Editor’s note: NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey sued for access to this video, which was initially denied by the State of New Jersey. Our reasons were twofold: As journalists, we must protect the public’s right to know and defend the First Amendment. And as members of the community we serve, we wanted to answer lingering questions about how a field trip by a Paramus middle school turned deadly. These are not easy decisions to make and we don’t take them lightly. However, the public’s right to know how an accident occurred - one involving public employees and public school children on a public road - outweighed other concerns regarding the publication of this video.
The state Attorney General's Office released a video Friday of the horrific Route 80 bus crash earlier this year that left a Paramus teacher and student dead and injured dozens of others.
The video was recorded by a state Department of Transportation traffic camera positioned some distance from the crash site. NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey requested the video shortly after the crash, but its release was denied by the state police.
The recording was released on the order of state Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson following a lawsuit by Gannett Co., the parent company of NorthJersey.com.
The grainy recording is not explicit in nature. But it does illuminate actions taken by the bus driver as he appears to make a 90 degree left turn across three lanes of highway traffic in a bus filled with Paramus fifth-graders on a school trip to Waterloo Village.
A red dump truck enters the bottom of the frame about 30 seconds in. As it travels west in the middle lane, the bus, driven by Hudy Muldrow, Sr., approaches the highway from an on-ramp in the upper right-hand corner of the frame.
After a slight hesitation, the bus crosses the lanes, appearing to aim for an official-use-only highway turnaround across the median. The dump truck broadsides the bus. The video pauses at the moment of impact and ends shortly after. The collision ripped the body of the bus from its chassis, although that is not discernable in the video.
Story continues below gallery
Two dead in Mount Olive crash involving Paramus school bus
A school bus carrying middle school students from Paramus was ripped from its chassis in an accident with a dump truck on Route 80 west May 17, 2018. Bob Karp/Daily Record
A school bus carrying middle school students from Paramus was ripped from its chassis in an accident with a dump truck on Route 80 west. May 17, 2018 in Mount Olive, NJ. Bob Karp/Staff Photographer
As parents try to reunite with their children, one woman tries to comfort another who appears to be in distress. Some fifth grade students from East Brook Middle School were involved in a fatal accident on their way to a field trip, Thursday, May 17, 2018. Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
Some students were visually upset as they reunited with parents at the school. Some fifth grade students from East Brook Middle School were involved in a fatal accident on their way to a field trip, Thursday, May 17, 2018. Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
Theo Ancevski, 11, was in the bus from East Brook Middle School that crashed. He escaped through an emergency exit. His father, Pavle, is with him. NorthJersey.com
A woman walks by a police vehicle as parents try to reunite with their children at East Brook Middle School. Some fifth grade students were involved in a fatal accident on their way to a field trip, Thursday, May 17, 2018. Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
A school bus carrying middle school students from Paramus was ripped from its chassis in an accident with a dump truck on Route 80 west May 17, 2018. Bob Karp/DailyRecord.com
A dump truck was also involved in the serious accident on Route 80 in Mount Olive, according to state police. Bob Karp/Daily Record
A school bus carrying middle school students from Paramus was ripped from its chassis in an accident with a dump truck on Route 80 west May 17, 2018. William Westhoven/NorthJersey.com
Parents arrived at East Brook Middle School in Paramus to pick up their children on May 17, 2018. The Paramus bus involved in a serious accident on Route 80 in Mount Olive is believed to have been carrying students from the school. Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
Some students were visually upset as they reunited with parents at the school. Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
Some students were visually upset as they reunited with parents at East Brook Middle School following a fatal accident on their way to a field trip, Thursday, May 17, 2018. Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
Parents and students were visually upset as they reunited at the school. Some fifth grade students from East Brook Middle School were involved in a fatal accident on their way to a field trip, Thursday, May 17, 2018. Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
The scene of the fatal bus crash on Route 80 in Mount Olive. Bob Karp/DailyRecord.com
Students, believed to be sitting on one of the two busses not involved in the crash, head back to East Brook Middle School. Thursday, May 17, 2018 Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
Dylan Demail, a seventh grader, looks back at East Brook Middle School, after being picked up by his mother. Thursday, May 17, 2018 Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
Jackie Hutschneider, 10, was on one of the two buses that was not involved in the accident but when she was on her way home she did not know the condition of some of her friends who were involved in the fatal school bus accident. Some fifth grade students from East Brook Middle School were involved in a fatal accident on their way to a field trip, Thursday, May 17, 2018. Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
Alejandro Garcia, a seventh grader, said he does not know if someone he knows was on the bus. Thursday, May 17, 2018 Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
A parent with her child who was not involved in the accident speaks with the media at East Brook Middle School. Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
Students are reunited with parents at East Brook Middle School after a bus accident on Route 80. Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
Kathy LaFaso is shown with her son, Austin LaFaso, 11, who was on one of the two buses not involved in the accident. Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
Austin LaFaso, 11, who was on one of the two buses not involved in the accident, was still shaken, as were other students. Some fifth grade students from East Brook Middle School were involved in a fatal accident on their way to a field trip, Thursday, May 17, 2018. Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com
The scene of a fatal school bus accident on Route 80. Gene Myers/NorthJersey.com
A school bus carrying middle school students from Paramus was ripped from its chassis in an accident with a dump truck on Route 80 west. May 17, 2018. Mount Olive, NJ Bob Karp/Staff Photographer
Muldrow, 77, an employee of the Paramus Board of Education, has since been charged with two counts of death by auto for allegedly causing the deaths of East Brook Middle School student Miranda Vargas, 10, and teacher Jennifer Williamson-Kennedy, 51.
He has not been charged with assault by auto for injuries caused to the 42 surviving passengers, which include students and teachers.
Criminal charges will likely be presented to a grand jury within the next two months.
The bus Muldrow was driving was part of a three-bus caravan on its way to Waterloo Village in Stanhope when the May 17 accident occurred.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
More on the Paramus school bus crash
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Read or Share this story: https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/paramus/2018/11/09/video-paramus-school-bus-crash-shows-driver-make-left-across-rt-80/1945210002/
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Why Single-Payer Would Make Health Care Worse for Americans
Meridian Baldacci / Robert Moffit / September 25, 2018
Advocates of single-payer health care—like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., with his “Medicare for All” legislation—suggest Americans would enjoy a health care utopia if only the government took over.
But claims of lower costs and better, more efficient care are widely overblown. Here are the facts.
What Is Single-Payer?
A “single-payer” health system is a government-controlled health care system. Government is the “single-payer.” In most versions of single-payer, most private health insurance is either outlawed or restricted, and most public health programs are absorbed into the single, national health insurance program.
While there are a variety of “single-payer” proposals—including several state proposals—Sanders’ “Medicare for All” bill is the most prominent. His plan would finance the national insurance program through a combination of payroll and income taxes, and it would replace private and employer-sponsored health insurance and existing government health programs—including Medicare itself.
Under the Sanders plan, only the Veterans Administration and the Indian Health Service would remain largely as they are today.
How Much Would It Cost?
The cost of a single-payer system would depend upon its design, benefit levels, and scope of coverage. In the case of Sanders’ proposal, estimates consistently show that the plan would impose dramatic obligations on the federal taxpayer, and that the proposal would incur substantial annual deficits. For example:
The Urban Institute estimates 10-year spending of $32 trillion, only about half of which would be covered under Sanders’ funding options
Mercatus Center’s Charles Blahous estimates a 10-year $32.6 trillion increase in federal spending. Even “doubling all currently projected federal individual and corporate income tax collections would be insufficient to finance the added federal costs of the plan.”
Economist Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University estimates $24.7 trillion in additional federal spending, and also estimates an average deficit of $1.1 trillion per year.
The Center for Health and Economy estimates a 10-year net cost of up to $44 trillion, and an annual deficit of $2.1 trillion.
Would Single-Payer Reduce Administrative Costs?
Advocates argue that single-payer would save the nation money by reducing administrative costs, eliminating the administrative expenses of marketing and advertising private health insurance, managing private benefits and utilization, and securing profits.
Advocates claim that administrative costs would be much lower in a Medicare-like system than under a system dominated by private insurance. Payment would be based on the Medicare model, where annual administrative costs are about 2 percent of total costs.
But pointing to Medicare’s low percentage of administrative costs is over-simplistic and misleading.
Per capita administrative costs may be higher in Medicare. For instance, in 2009 they were $509 in Medicare and $453 in private insurance. Medicare costs are lower as a percentage of the total only because total claims costs tend to be much higher in Medicare than in private insurance. This is because Medicare’s older and less healthy population file the claims costs.
Medicare shifts administrative costs to doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, and other medical professionals who must comply with Medicare’s huge and complex regulatory requirements. Compliance with tens of thousands of pages of Medicare rules, regulations, guidelines, billing, and other paperwork requirements consumes vast amounts of time, energy, and effort on the part of the private-sector professionals who participate in the Medicare program.
Medicare fails to effectively control waste, fraud, and abuse in the program. This failure of administration results in the staggering loss of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars each and every year. Private-sector health plans, policing their billing, have no comparable record in accumulating such enormous losses.
How Would Single-Payer Control Health Costs?
Single-payer would control costs by capping the amount spent on health care through a global budget, imposing a system or price controls or payment reductions on doctors and other medical professionals, or some combination of both.
In a normal market, cost control is a function of supply and demand. Where there is no market, there are no such market forces, and the control of costs must be ultimately an administrative or legislative function.
Government officials cannot control demand—they can only control supply. So, in effect, cost control in the single-payer system is inevitably supply control. Control over the supply of medical services is secured through a global budget, price controls, or regulations on payment and price.
Under the Sanders proposal, for example, cost control is secured by a global budget and by imposing Medicare payment rates. Blahous, a former Medicare trustee, estimates that under the Sanders proposal, provider payments would be cut by an estimated 40 percent by using Medicare payment rates.
Using Medicare payment rates throughout the entire American health care economy would hurt patients. Already, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services projects that “nearly half of hospitals, approximately two-thirds of skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), and over 8 percent of home health agencies (HHAs) would have negative total facility margins.”
Would Taxes Go Up Under Single-Payer?
The tax burden would be enormous, roughly doubling the current tax obligations for today’s taxpayers.
One funding option Sanders proposes is a 7.5 percent payroll tax, plus a 4 percent income tax on all Americans, as well as a wide variety of specialized taxes on investments and taxes targeted to higher-income Americans. (He outlines these tax proposals as options, but they are not included in the latest version of his bill.)
The problem is that even the proposed set of new federal taxes are insufficient to fully fund the Sanders program. One estimate suggests the proposal would require combined payroll and income taxes of 20 percent. In a fully-funded Sanders program, a vast majority of working Americans would pay more for health care than they do today:
71 percent of all working families.
85 percent of taxpaying Medicaid recipients.
66 percent of taxpaying Medicare recipients.
65 percent of young adult workers.
57 percent of workers in firms under 50 employees.
The bottom line: Compared to what most Americans pay for health care today, a fully funded program—as envisioned by Sanders—would cost more for 71 percent of the nation’s working families, including low-income families, according to Thorpe.
Would Everyone Get Equal Access to Health Care Under Single-Payer?
No. The British and Canadian experiences with single-payer demonstrate that universal government coverage is not the same thing as universal access to quality care. Moreover, social inequalities in accessing care, based on wealth or political influence, are often exacerbated.
In 2017, Canadians were on waiting lists for an estimated 1,040,791 total procedures. Often, wait times are lengthy. For example, the median wait time for arthroplastic surgery (hip, knee, ankle, shoulder) ranges from 20 weeks to 52 weeks.
In the British National Health Service, cancelations are common. Last year, the National Health Service canceled 84,827 elective operations in England for nonclinical reasons on the day the patient was due to arrive. The same year, it canceled 4,076 urgent operations in England, including 154 urgent operations canceled two or more times. Times of high illness are a key driver in this problem. For instance, in flu season, the National Health Service canceled 50,000 “non-urgent” surgeries.
In Canada, private insurance is outlawed (as it would be under Sanders’ proposal). In 2017, “an estimated 63,459 Canadians received non-emergency medical treatment outside Canada.” In Britain, private insurance is permitted—but it is an additional cost to the taxes that British citizens pay for the National Health Service. Escaping the system is an option for the wealthy, or for those who are willing to forego other expenditures to get the care they want or need.
Government-run health care cannot deliver on its promises. It would impose unprecedented taxes on Americans, deliver subpar care to patients, and put government in charge of personal health care decisions. Americans deserve better.
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Why We Are Winning!
By: David M. Weinberg
This is the text of a dinner talk I gave this past Friday night in Hebron on “Why Israel in Winning” and “Defeating the Campaign to Delegitimize Israel.” The talk was delivered to a group of the American Friends of Hebron, at the Gutnick Center adjacent to the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, on Shabbat Parashat Chaye Sarah 5772, November 18, 2011.
Let me begin with a true story that I was witness to at the Chaim Sheba Medical Center (Tel Hashomer Hospital) in Israel. I do public affairs work for the hospital.
Many Palestinian children sick with cancer are treated in Tel Hashomer’s Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital. Several years ago, there was an eight-year-old Palestinian child from Gaza at the hospital, ill with a rare form of cancer. He was clearly going to die without a bone marrow transplant.
Sheba worked hard to obtain permission to enter Gaza and test the child’s relatives, until they found an 18-year-old brother who was an almost perfect bone marrow match. The problem was that Israeli authorities didn’t want to grant this brother entry into Israel for the operation, because he was a Hamas activist.
A number of doctors at the hospital are senior activists in the Israeli NGO, Physicians for Human Rights, and they successfully petitioned the Israeli Ministry of Defense to grant special dispensation, and allow the older brother into Israel, in order to save his little brother’s life.
The older brother arrived Friday afternoon. Friday night, the doctor’s began the delicate procedure. Within a 24-hour window, you need to suppress the patient’s immune system, harvest the bone marrow from the donor brother, and transplant. The procedure began.
But Friday night at midnight the donor brother from Gaza disappeared. Just disappeared. Gone! The doctors went crazy. One nurse said: I saw two General Security Service agents come and take him away. The “Shin Bet” secret service had spirited the 18-year old away. This was a death sentence for the sick eight-year-old Palestinian child.
What do you do? The hospital director called the Prime Minister’s Office in the middle of the night; which called the Shin Bet. Where is my bone-marrow donor, he demanded to know!
Yes, we took him away, explained the Shin Bet. You see, they had been eavesdropping on the 18-year-old’s cell phone conversations. From within an Israeli hospital, to which he had been specially brought in order to save the life of his younger brother, this youthful Palestinian terrorist was giving instructions on the phone to the Hamas in Gaza how to get past security at Tel Hashomer Hospital and blow the place up!
The director of the hospital asked the young terrorist be returned to the hospital for a few hours in order to save the eight-year-old’s life. The Shin Bet brought him back at 3 am in leg irons to donate bone marrow, and the doctors indeed managed to save his baby brother’s life. Then the 18 year old terrorist was whisked away again.
I wanted to publicize the story, but at the time, the secret service blocked this. Now let’s say I had been able to relate the story to a senior foreign journalist – like The New York Times correspondent in Israel. Do you think the paper would have run the story? Do you think that would have made such a story favorable-to-Israel a front page feature? Unlikely. I can tell you from years of professional involvement as the spokesman for Israeli academic, medical, tourist and government institutions – just how difficult it is to get story placed that doesn’t fit the conventional, politically-correct line about Israel being the victimizer and the Palestinians the victim.
Obviously, this is a story that makes our blood boil. Why? What lessons do we draw from such a true story? As the starting point for our discussion tonight of the campaign to delegitimize Israel – and why I think Israel is successfully combating this campaign – why I think that Israel is winning! – I want to think through, talk through, the meaning of this story with you. And I want to connect the story to the story of Hebron; to our presence, and the meaning of our presence, this Shabbat evening in Hebron.
Firstly, in response to the telling of this Sheba story, the basic emotion aroused in the heart of most Israelis – in most of you too, I assume – is a sense of unfairness.
The story feeds into Israelis’ sense of being taking advantage of by the Palestinians, and unappreciated by the world. Of Israel being humane and compassionate, while its enemies being inhumane and uncaring.
The story exacerbates the sense of feeling isolated and demonized; when in fact, the demons are those would blow up an Israeli hospital that is going out of its way to treat Palestinians, even to treat Hamas family members.
The story breeds in Israeli indignation, and leads Israelis to want to mount a counterattack.
Up to this point, I think I’ve accurately described the reactions of most of you to this story; the reactions that I think most Israelis have.
From here on, however, Israelis’ reactions begin to fragment, depending on one’s personal political perspective. How to counterattack? Here Israelis begin to differ.
Friends of mine of the Left, including many of the doctors at the hospital, point with pride to the fact that Israel treats such Palestinians despite their animosity, and the story I just told you just reinforces their commitment to continue to do so.
Humanity and high morals, they say, is what distinguishes – us from them! It distinguishes the compassionate, liberal Jewish and Zionist ethical worldview – from the medieval and violent, radical Islamic worldview.
And so, friends on the Left say, they will continue to be true to their higher morals and heritage – despite Palestinian ugliness. And maybe, they say, our compassion will one day help the Arabs understand our desire for peace. After all, hospitals are one of the few places that Arab and Jew (as well as Jew and Jew) have the chance to meet each other. Maybe this brings peace closer.
Friends of mine on the right reach the opposite conclusion. We’re stupid for bringing the Palestinians into our hospitals out of an imagined sense of benevolence, they say. The Arabs neither appreciate our compassion, nor will this change their views on how fiercely they are going fight to destroy the Jewish state, they add.
The Palestinians take Israeli assistance when they have to – especially since their Arab brethren in neighboring states don’t let them in for medical treatment – and then they continue to raise their children – the same kids Israelis save — to be suicide bombers!
Either way, the Sheba story I’ve told you this evening creates a dilemma. It creates cognitive dissonance. It doesn’t fit easily into the way that any Israeli – right or left – wants to structure their world.
This cognitive dissonance is exacerbated by the way in which the intellectual climate and the tone of international debate about Israel and Israeli policies have become venomously poisoned.
It is, alas, becoming acceptable in some parts of the world to talk about Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity; to seek criminal prosecution of Israeli leaders and military men in international courts; to term Israel an apartheid state; to discuss divestment from Israeli companies; to publish blood libels about Israeli soldiers; to publish op-ed articles in the most respected journals expressing sympathy for the so-called Palestinian “right” of return and to advocate for a “one-state” solution; to turn tyrants into celebrities and grant them media attention as if they were rock stars.
Think of Mahmoud Ahmadenijad’s annual tours of New York City, where he has dinner with 1,000 friends at Grand Hyatt, and lunch with 50 select American opinion-makers at the Intercontinental, and then wags his finger at the world from the UN General Assembly podium.
You all know that the assault on Israel is augmented by organizations that present themselves as global guardians of human rights; groups like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, and Oxfam, who publish report after report, applying the labels of war crimes, massacres, deliberate attack on civilians, disproportionate force, collective punishment and ethnic cleansing to Israel’s actions. These human rights superpowers are trafficking in an entire world of “lawfare” against Israel, using the language of international law and human rights to criminalize Israel.
In short, you can solidly make the argument the marketplace of ideas in polite, intellectual company has expanded to include delegitimization, even demonization of Israel.
You might say that it is a scary world. There is a lot to fear. A lot to pray about.
Fear, by the way, is not necessarily a bad thing. Our sages say that a bit of trepidation is useful. King Solomon writes in Mishlei (Ecclesiastes): “Ashrei adam mefahed tamid.” It is good to always be a bit afraid. Rabbi Soloveitchik famously taught that true tefilla (prayer) arises from a sense of fear and trepidation. From distress (tzara). “Only the sufferer truly prays,” wrote the Rav. “If man does not find himself in narrow straits, if he is not troubled by anything, if he does not know what tzara is — then he need not pray. G-d needs not thanks nor hymns. He wants to hear the outcry of man, confronted with a ruthless reality. He expects prayer to rise from a suffering world cognizant of its genuine needs.”
On Rosh Hashana we pray: “Make all the world fear you, oh G-d, and impose your trepidation on all creation, and all mankind will be in awe of you and bow down to you….”
The midrash in the book of Esther says that nothing galvanized the Jewish People to teshuva, repentance, more than the shekalim of Haman, the silver coins that he paid to King Achashverosh as bribe money in order to get a royal edict to kill all the Jews. Haman’s shekalim, says the midrash — Haman’s threat to annihilate the Jewish people – was more effective at moving Jews to repentance than the prophecies and admonitions all 46 prophets in Tanach, the Bible!
So, our concern for Israel, our trepidation over the intellectual climate about Israel – should galvanize us to prayer. And there no better place to do that on Shabbat Chaye Sarah than in the Me’arat HaMachpela (the Cave of the Patriarchs) here in Hebron.
NOW, I WANT TO TURN EVERYTHING THAT I HAVE SAID SO FAR on its head, and make the opposite argument!
I want to show you, I want to convince you, that Israel’s situation, our collective situation as a Jewish People, is much better than we sometimes make it out to be. I am going to prove to you that Israel is not losing the battle, but winning the battle!
I want to demonstrate to you, by conducting a brief strategic survey, that the people of Israel are strong and resilient, and more united than ever; that the Arab threat to Israel is overblown; that what I described just now as an ‘international assault’ on Israel isn’t nearly as bad as it sometime seems; and that the hard-political-left in Israel, which is behind so much of international criticism of Israel, is fading.
I want to show you that Israel is winning!
Let’s start with the international BDS campaign, the effort to apply boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli products, academics, artists and scientists. It’s not working!
Sure, like you, I know about billboard boycott campaigns in Seattle, divestment resolutions at British universities, Israeli film festival protests in Toronto, and the occasional pop star that declines to perform in Israel.
But most of the big names in popular cinema and music are performing in, and coming to, Israel. Most of those boycott and divestment initiatives have been deflected or voted down. The bark of the BDS movement is much worse than its bite. There is no BDS tsunami against Israel; it is a problem, but not a growing threat.
The same applies to flotilla assaults and other so-called freedom riders who try to bust our borders with noisy nuisance demonstrations. They’re just that: a nuisance, and nothing more. Even the unfriendly global media is growing tired of them. The Irish and Canadian ships that tried to reach Gaza two weeks ago – were a non-story, and a 24-hour story at that.
So I say to you that we are winning! Israel is winning!
What about Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, and Oxfam? Well, their charges of war crimes, disproportionate force, and ethnic cleansing are beginning to sound ever-so-hollow, even to non-Zionists, in a world where the Syrians and Iranians are busy slaughtering their own people by the dozens every day.
The Israeli counterparts of the post-nationalist, hard-left-wing international organizations (that are source of so much lawfare) – are watching their sources of funding are drying up. European Union countries, which have collectively contributed close to $100 million a year to left-wing non-profit organizations in Israel, are on the verge of economic collapse. The EU is imploding, and its ability to harm Israel and to continue funding the hard-left agenda in Israel – is fading.
So I say to you – we are winning!
Much more significant is that there is no diplomatic tsunami! The Palestinian Authority’s rush to statehood at the UN has been halted in its tracks, and observers are beginning to catch on that the Palestinians really are not ready for statehood. The elephant in the room – the Iranian-backed Hamas government in Gaza and its growing influence within the PA – is simply too large to ignore.
Talk to any level-headed Western diplomat today and, after peeling away the standard layers of political correctness, you’ll find that it is sinking in that the chances for a ‘comprehensive, grand peace deal that settles all claims’ between Israel and the PA – is simply not in the cards; not at anytime in the foreseeable future.
The hackneyed notion that “all it would take for comprehensive peace is an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines” – is fading. In private, policy-makers – even European diplomats! – talk quietly about long-term conflict management; not about grand conflict resolution. As Moshe Bogie Yaalon (Israeli Vice Premier and Minister of Strategic Affairs) says: “Solutionism” is the wrong paradigm.
And I’ll tell you that this is a good thing, a useful thing, an important development. Because while we all want comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, Palestinian demands and expectations have to be dialed down for this to be realistic. And that is going to take time. Serious people understand this.
So I say to you that we are winning!
The greatest contribution to this changed tenor of serious debate about Arab-Israeli diplomacy has been made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu did one super-critical and brilliant thing over the past two years; something whose long-term strategic value to Israel cannot be underestimated or ignored.
Benjamin Netanyahu placed on the table the need for Palestinian recognition of Israel as Jewish state.
You all need to understand and appreciate this well. This is a game-changing contribution to Israel’s diplomatic arsenal. Our demand for up-front, clear and ambiguous Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state – which the Palestinians just don’t seem willing to provide or capable of giving Israel! — has exposed the real root of conflict. The core of the conflict, as Netanyahu told Congress this year, is not Israeli concessions, but Palestinian rejectionism. The peace process is not primarily about the establishment of a Palestinian state, but about Arab recognition of a Jewish state.
And I want you to know that this argument has sunk in. Even our less-than-best friends, people who think that Netanyahu is a liar – like Obama and Sarkozy – have formally adopted Israel’s demand for Palestinian recognition as a Jewish state, as part of their formal political language.
Even more important is that a national consensus has emerged in Israel with regard to the Palestinians, which Netanyahu faithfully represents. The consensus grants Palestinians independence in theory, but in practice recognizes that they can’t be given sovereignty anytime soon. Israel is not going to be pushed into any precipitous withdrawals or risky new disengagements. This construct is profound because Israelis, for a change, are not blaming themselves for the current stalemate in peace diplomacy. This self-assurance, this rare consensus, gives Israel tremendous buoyancy and strength.
Israel also has real, true friends in the world. Take the government of Canada, for example. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has led a conceptual revolution in how Canadians think about the world, and that includes a deep understanding of and appreciation for Israel’s security dilemmas. Harper and his colleagues have stood up for Israel, often as a lone voice, in the G-8, the G-20, the UNHCR, IAEA, and the UNGA. Just last week, Canada changed its votes in favor of Israel on seven resolutions at the UN, and this weekend Canada is to sign new agreements for military and defense intelligence cooperation with Israel.
The Czechs and the Italians and the Australians and others, too, have demonstrated their close sympathy for Israel’s struggles. And there are strong pro-Israel, evangelical Christian and other, audiences, in almost all Western states.
Let’s take a look at the Arabs. The Arab world is going to be preoccupied with its revolutions and upheavals and economic crises for many, many years to come. Islamists who come to power will threaten Israel and rail against Israel, but will have little or no ability to truly threaten Israel for a decade or two at least. They will be beset by internal turmoil and socio-economic demands of almost-impossible dimensions.
Even the Turks are about to be hit by gargantuan economic crisis; Erdogan isn’t going to be able to establish his pan-Mideast Turkish empire so easily or quickly. In addition, there isn’t going to a ruler in Syria who can demand that Israel hand over the Golan Heights (– something that was always an unfair demand) with any international resonance or credibility, for decades and decades, if ever.
You’ll challenge my argument, of course, by pointing to Teheran. The Iranian challenge to Israel, to the monarchical Arab states, and to the West is significant. Their drive to obtain nuclear weaponry is real. Iran seems to be riding high, growing in influence, and gaining in the race for the bomb. International sanctions and pressures against Iran to date haven’t been nearly serious enough. And sanctions – even so-called ‘crippling sanctions’ – probably won’t do the trick.
That’s all true. Which is why the Iranian are going to be stopped! Yes indeed, they are going to be checked and rolled back. They have to be. Even Barack Obama’s administration isn’t blind to this. Talk to people in the know, even Obama critics, and they’ll tell you that defense cooperation between Washington and Jerusalem has never before been better. Never has it been more intense and concrete. This means cooperation against Iran. Things will yet happen on the Iranian front. Sabotage and viruses are just the beginning.
So again I say to you – we are winning!
As for the Israeli home front: Many Israelis on the political right feel that the political left has an injurious lock on critical junctures in Israeli public life: the judiciary, the media, and academia. But the anti-religious, anti-nationalist and hard-political-left-wing public is in demographic decline in Israel. Mainstream secular Israel is rediscovering its Jewish roots.
Witness the explosion of Biblical allusions, songs about G-d, and lyrics taken from Jewish prayers that are washing across the pop music scene in Israel. Education Minister Gideon Saar has reintroduced Jewish and Zionist content into the primary and secondary school curriculum, and over the course of the next generation this too will have salutary impact. This is very, very important, and very hopeful!
The Ultra-Orthodox too are starting to come out of their self-imposed ghettos of poverty and isolationism, and will increasingly moderate themselves and have an impact on matters of state, not just in matters of religion.
Thus the balance of gravity in Israeli politics has shifted to the Center-Right, and it is likely to remain that way for decades.
In grand historical perspective, of course Israel is winning! The Jewish People survived two thousand years of Diaspora and Holocaust, and has managed to ingather the exiles, and build a magnificent, strong and vibrant state. Israel simply sizzles with creativity and vibrancy! Social protests and all – it is a great place to live (especially in comparison with the crumbling Arab Middle East states around Israel). Our economy is strong, and our technological edge formidable. We may even become an energy exporter!
And thus I assert – Israel is winning!
I admit that the overall rosy picture that I am trying to paint has its flaws. In particular, my assessment doesn’t sufficiently take into account three worrying and serious problems.
The first significant problem is what I call American strategic fatigue.
You see, Israel needs a strong America, engaged and projecting power in the Middle East, especially at this time of great political instability. A strong and confident U.S. posture in the region is critical to confronting the growing power of Iran and radical Islam.
But what if the United States doesn’t want to lead? What if America is tired? That, I fear, is the case. America under Obama largely wants out of the Middle East: out of Iraq; out of Afghanistan; and to a certain extent, out of Israeli-Palestinian affairs, too.
And it’s not just strategic fatigue. It is hard to shake the feeling that Obama no longer wants to project American power in the Middle East also because he no longer believe in the justness of doing so. Obama’s difficulty in openly identifying with American exceptionalism is well known. He seems embarrassed by, and has often apologized for, the exercise of American power.
Now add American policy confusion to this picture. From the burst of American military activism in Libya – to its lack of activism against Assad of Syria. From its abandonment of Mubarak in Egypt – to its misguided attempt to block Saudi intervention in Bahrain. From its coddling of Erdogan – to its brutishness towards Netanyahu. All this reinforces the view that Washington has become both confused and unpredictable – which perhaps is even more frightening than a tired superpower.
A second serious problem that I see developing is the danger of Israel becoming a wedge issue in American politics. I’m not going to dwell on this at length now, but just witness the way in which Israel has become a political football between Democrats and Republicans in the current presidential race in the US. This is very dangerous for Israel over the long term. We want and need support for Israel to remain a bipartisan issue, as much as possible. Obama is largely to blame for this growing divide, and it is a great danger to Israel.
A third strategic, long-term danger is the decline of American Jewry. I don’t have enough time to detail this for you here tonight, but through assimilation and intermarriage and the embrace of liberalism as a sort of alternative religion – American Jews are distancing themselves from Israel. J Street is not an insignificant phenomenon, especially its attraction to American Jewish youth.
J Street has unfortunately spent most of its resources bashing long-standing supporters of Israel – calling them extremists and right-wingers and accusing them of a ‘silencing’ – and listing things that Israel must be made to do. All this, instead of calling out the dangers of Iranian nuclear weapons or Palestinian anti-Semitism. That’s why they fret over the “Jewish soul” instead of working to save and protect the physical Jewish State of Israel.
This too is a long term threat to Israel.
I am very cognizant of these potential dangers, both American strategic fatigue and American Jewish fatigue. Yet I still claim that in the grand scheme of things, we have the upper hand, and yes, that we are winning!
So let me summarize: I argue before you tonight that the overall strategic balance is in Israel’s favor. There are positive trends and helpful currents in play that can be taken advantage of. While there are many threats and enemies out there, Israel and Israelis needn’t be paralyzed by fear or be depressed. There is what to work with, and Israel can positively direct its destiny.
One place from which Israelis and Jews can draw inspiration is this week’s Torah portion (parasha), known as Chayei Sarah (in which the patriarch Abraham purchases the fields and cave of Machpela in Hebron as a family burial ground; and in which he buries the matriarch Sarah). In fact, the parasha contains almost exactly the same type of ipcha mistavra, two contradictory assessments of reality, which I outlined before you tonight.
And just like my assessment, the parasha reaches a positive conclusion.
Did you ever ask yourself this question? How can the Torah in this week’s parasha say that at the time of his death Abraham had been blessed with everything?
[“Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people” (Gen. 25: 8); and “Abraham was old, well advanced in years, and God had blessed Abraham with everything” (Gen. 24: 1)].
How can Rashi say that all of Sarah’s years were equal in goodness? After all, neither Abraham nor Sarah had an easy life. Theirs were lives of trial, in which their faith was tested at many points.
Consider: Abraham and Sarah were commanded by God to leave everything that was familiar: their land, their home, their family, and travel to an unknown land. No sooner had they arrived than they were forced to leave because of famine. Twice, Abraham’s life was at risk when, driven into exile, he worried that he would be killed so that the local ruler could take Sarah into his harem. Sarah herself had to say that she was Abraham’s sister, and had to suffer the indignity of being taken into a stranger’s household.
Then there was the long wait for a child, made even more painful by the repeated Divine promise that they would have as many children as the stars of the sky or the dust of the earth. Then came the drama of the birth of Ishmael to Sarah’s servant Hagar. This aggravated the relation between the two women, and eventually Abraham had to send Hagar and Ishmael away. One way or another, this was a source of pain to all four people involved.
Then there was the agony of Akedat Yitzhak, the binding of Isaac. Abraham was faced with the prospect of losing the person most precious to him, the child he had waited for so long.
So again, how can Rashi say that all of Sarah’s years were equal in goodness? How can the Torah say that Abraham had been blessed with everything? That he was completely at peace when he died?
I can make the question even tougher! Four times (12:7, 13:15, 15:18, and after his circumcision) Abraham is promised the Land of Israel.
Yet by the time Sarah dies, Abraham has no land at all, and he is forced to prostrate himself before the local Hittites and beg for permission to acquire even a single field with a cave in which to bury his wife. Even then he has to pay what is clearly a massively inflated price: four hundred silver shekels. This does not sound like the fulfillment of the promise of “all the land, north, south, east and west”!
Then, in relation to children, Abraham is four times promised many, many children, who would become a great nation (12: 2, 13:16, 15:5 and 17:5). Yet he had to wait so long for even a single son by Sarah that when God insisted that she would indeed have a son, both Abraham and Sarah (at different times) laughed.
One way or another, whether we think of children or the land – the two key Divine promises to Abraham and Sarah – the reality fell far short of what they might have felt entitled to expect.
So how can the Torah say that Abraham had been blessed with everything? That he was completely at peace when he died?
British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks answers this question by referring to our parasha.
In Chayei Sarah, says Rabbi Sacks, Avraham does two things: he buys one plot, the first Jewish piece of land, in the Land of Israel, and he arranges for the marriage of Isaac.
One field and a cave was, for Abraham, enough for the text to say that “God had blessed Abraham with everything.”
One child, Isaac (by then married with children) was enough for Abraham to die in peace.
It is said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. “It is not for you to complete the work but neither are you free to desist from it” (Mishna Avot 2: 16).
Abraham did not need to see all the land in Jewish hands, nor did he need to see the Jewish people become numerous. He had taken the first step. He had begun the task, and he knew that his descendants would continue it. He was able to die serenely because he had faith in God and faith that others would complete what he had begun.
To start something significant, to know that you are part of a larger narrative, and to believe that others will continue what you began – is to achieve satisfaction in life. Abraham and Sarah had that faith, and they were able to complete their lives with a sense of fulfillment.
That is exactly what is happening here with the small 80-family Jewish community of Hebron. It is a small beginning. Inch by inch, apartment by apartment, house by house, building by building, incrementally – The Jewish Community of Hebron grows, hanging onto each parcel of land for the broader world Jewish community.
The brave people who live here in Hebron despite difficult political and security conditions, have the satisfaction of starting something significant, of placing their lives in G-d’s hands, of being part of a larger narrative, and of believing that others will continue what they began – and that is satisfaction in life.
It is a great sacrifice! It is what Rav Soloveitchik calls the secret of sacrificial action, and this is what wins battles. And we are winning, thanks to the brave and righteous people who live here in Hebron!
We are also winning because we are here, all of us, the many tens of thousands of Jews that are here in Hebron this Shabbat, from across Israel and around the world. Because we provide moral and financial support to the Jewish community in Hebron. Our presence here, 70 years after the Arabs led a massacre of the Jews of Hebron (in 1929), is proof that we are winning!
You know, we say Magen Avraham every day in tefilla; and we say Magen David in the brachot of the haftara every Shabbat and Yom Tov. Why do we use the phrases Magen Avraham and Magen David (and never Magen Yitzhak or Magen Yaacov)? Perhaps it is because both Abraham and King David reigned here in Hebron! Or perhaps, as the Aruch Hashulchan says in Tractate Nedarim, it is because “both Abraham and David had many enemies… and G-d protected them and saved them because they were brave and He loved them for this.”
G-d is our Magen Le-Dorot; Bizchut (in the merit of) Avraham Avinu and David Hamelech, who established their homes and their kingdoms, in Hebron. Zechutam, and the zechut of today’s modern-day defenders of Hebron, yaamod lanu lezechut hayom. Thanks to them, and thanks to you – we are winning!
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Categories: Israel, Israel-Diaspora Relations, Israeli diplomacy, Politics, Religion and State in Israel, Strategic Affairs, Zionism |
peace Middle East Palestinian Arab-Israeli conflict settlements Jewish Netanyahu Israeli-Palestinian Arafat democracy Sderot Israel Egypt Obama Iran Peace Process Jerusalem Orthodox terrorism government
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Taylor Swift tops Forbes’ list of highest-earning entertainers
Taylor Swift has beaten Kylie Jenner to be named the world’s highest earning entertainer.
The US singer topped Forbes’ Celebrity 100 after raking in £148 million over the last year.
Ed Sheeran was the highest placed British star on the list, which ranks the world’s top paid celebrities in music, sports and entertainment according to what they made over the last 12 months.
Swift made the number one spot – which she also held in 2016 – thanks to her music, touring and endorsement deals.
Keeping Up With The Kardashians star and make-up mogul Jenner was hot on her heels with £136 million.
Beach Bum nude lip may be my new go-to Deep Sea Dreams & Aqua Mama on the eyes all from the #SummerCollection launching 7/10
A post shared by Kylie (@kyliejenner) on Jul 4, 2019 at 9:33am PDT
Jenner’s brother-in-law Kanye West returned to the list after a four-year hiatus. The rapper and designer, who is married to Jenner’s half-sister Kim Kardashian, was third with £120 million.
Singer-songwriter Sheeran was fifth with £88 million.
Ed Sheeran is fifth on the list (Ian West/PA)
Six actors from the Marvel Universe also made it into the Celebrity 100 thanks to the success of Avengers: Endgame.
Forbes said Chris Hemsworth, Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Bradley Cooper and Paul Rudd benefited in “back-end points”, as each got a piece of the film’s estimated £560 million profit.
Several sports stars made the list, including Lionel Messi (£101 million ) and Cristiano Ronaldo (£87 million).
The Celebrity 100 ranks “front of the camera” stars around the globe using their pre-tax earnings from June 1, 2018 to June 1, 2019, before deducting fees for managers, lawyers and agents.
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Award-winning author infuses Georgia history into her books
Paul Floeckher
Updated: Jan. 27, 2015, 4 p.m.
Pamela Bauer Mueller has twice received a Georgia Author of the Year award.
Not bad for someone who didn’t even plan to write that number of books.
“I thought I would be a one-book author,” Mueller said.
Ten books later, Mueller paid a visit Thursday to South Effingham High School. She spoke to six groups of history and education classes and also told stories to the children in the pre-kindergarten program taught at SEHS.
Georgia history runs through Mueller’s books. “An Angry Drum Echoed” profiles Indians who lived in coastal Georgia during colonial times, and “Splendid Isolation” looks back at the “Jekyll Island Millionaires’ Club” that helped establish modern American industry and finance.
Mueller told the high school students she typically writes a historical novel in about six months, after researching the subject for six to eight months. Writing about actual people and events is less time-consuming than writing fiction, Mueller explained, since she doesn’t have to make up stories.
“I can write faster than most authors because I’m writing about real things,” she said.
Mueller never set out to be an author, though. After graduating from college with a degree in Spanish, she was a flight attendant, model, actress, and Spanish teacher.
While working as a U.S. Customs inspector, Mueller decided to write a children’s book as a tribute to her two daughters. “The Bumpedy Road” — told from the perspective of the family cat, Kiska — had a modest printing of 500 copies.
“But all of the sudden, they were gone,” Mueller said.
The book’s popularity was evident whenever Mueller — accompanied by Kiska — visited schools. Students encouraged her to write another book, she said.
Mueller wrote a trilogy of Kiska books, becoming a full-time author prior to the third one. She then branched out to writing historical novels.
Her seventh, “Lady Unveiled,” tells the story of Kitty Greene. Though possibly best known as the wife of Revolutionary War hero Nathanael Greene, she played an instrumental role in Eli Whitney inventing the cotton gin.
Mueller stressed to the students the importance of research in her work. She dives into researching the subjects of her books, including visiting the areas where they lived.
“I immerse myself in my characters,” she said. “They all come to life for me, little by little.”
For example, Mueller spoke with descendants of Neptune Small, the subject of her novel “Neptune’s Honor.” Small was born into slavery on the Thomas Butler King family’s plantation in Glynn County.
King’s wife Anna taught Small to read and write, though doing so was against the law. The book tells Small’s story of love, loyalty and honor, including him accompanying members of the King family to fight in the Civil War.
“I love Neptune,” Mueller said. “I think Neptune is the most amazing man I’ve ever heard of.”
Despite her commitment to accurate research and precise writing, Mueller said she has learned a life lesson from being an author. She told the students that “nobody’s perfect and you just live with your mistakes.”
A first run of one of her books will be only 2,000 copies, Mueller explained, because she is bound to find a typographical error once it’s already printed. That is even with the help of an editor and five paid proofreaders.
“Even after five proofreaders, every book I’ve had has at least one mistake,” Mueller said. “My mom is the one who always catches it. And she’s 94.”
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Teaching is a privilege
Countys teacher of the year strives to make a difference
Janine Manior, the Effingham County School System teacher of the year, tries to make learning fun for students such as Drake Caldwell, Brittany Nease and John Moses. - photo by Photo by Sandi Van Orden
Sandi Van Orden
Updated: Dec. 16, 2008, 5 a.m.
Janine Manior said the honor isn’t just in being named teacher of the year, it’s in being able to teach kids.
The South Effingham Elementary School third grade teacher was named the Effingham County teacher of the year and admitted she was shocked.
“I was very surprised,” she said. “I was honored. It feels great to be appreciated and recognized for the hard work that you do every day. I feel appreciated by the kids every day, but to have your peers recognize you, I was very honored because it’s a privilege to teach kids.”
Manior has been teaching for 11 years and has been at SEES the entire time. She was a paraprofessional at Effingham County Middle School before becoming a teacher.
South Effingham Elementary Principal Cheryl Christain first met Manior when Manior was working for the PrYmeTYme at the school.
“I watched her interact with the kids out here,” Christain said. “I kept noticing this girl and how calm her group was and how she interacted with them, and I thought, ‘who is she?’”
Christain introduced herself to Manior a few days later and found she was going to become a teacher.
“As time went on, I told her, ‘as soon as you get done or you’re close, come and see me,’” Christain said. “And she did, and I was fortunate enough to have a position for her, and she’s been here ever since.”
She said Manior has many positive qualities, but the most significant is that she genuinely cares for her students.
“I’ve never seen her lose her patience,” Christain said. “I’ve never seen her display any attitude that appeared that she was frustrated, or that she had had enough of a student that she was irritated with a student, no matter what she just keeps plugging along, and she’s got this great patience.”
She said Manior has clear expectations for her students.
“She doesn’t put up with foolishness, and she expects them to work and to learn,” Christain said. “But she provides such a positive classroom environment, and on a staff, on a faculty she’s just a dream because she just provides such a positive inspiration for everyone. If you ask her to do something or need something she’s always available.”
Christain said the other teachers on Manior’s hall say, “they wouldn’t know what to do without her because she keeps them organized.”
“We adore her. She’s fabulous,” Christain said.
Manior said her desire to work with students and her love for the subject drew her to teaching, and she enjoys working with the kids and making a difference in their lives. A language arts teacher, Manior also expressed a love for the content she teaches.
“I love reading, and I love to get them excited about learning also,” she said.
She said she enjoys the variety of experiences she has as a teacher.
“Every day is different and you have different experiences,” Manior said. “Teachers are counselors, we’re friends and we’re instructors. We’re able to impact their lives every day. They look to someone positive, and they look to a role model, and they want you to listen to them.”
Manior said students take in information and are able to give that information back, but they also “want you to listen to their ideas.”
“They’re very creative and innovative,” she said, “and it’s nice to see them grow as the year goes on. Just from August I can see a big change.”
She said she enjoys watching the students grow each year because with each new group of students the process is different.
Manior said the hardest part of her job is the time constraints. There are a lot of areas that are required to be taught, and that limits some of the things that she may want to teach that aren’t as important in the curriculum.
“We have seven hours to teach, and during those hours we have lots of things that we need to do for different students that takes time,” she said. “It can be done — you just have to prioritize what you have to get done in that particular day. Sometimes it can be overwhelming for a new teacher because you have lots of tasks that have to be completed, and you have to manage your time wisely in order to get them completed.”
Manior said she hopes her students remember her as a caring teacher.
“I would say as a warm teacher, one who’s caring, one who has high expectations for them because I expect them to succeed because they have so many different strengths,” she said. “You have some who are artistic, you have some who are wonderful writers, you have some who are very dramatic and they could be an actor or an actress, you have some who are more logical and with their mathematics their very strong with that.”
Manior said she encourages her students to pursue their strengths.
“Every child is different, and I try to remember that,” she said.
On Wednesday Drake Caldwell, Brittany Nease and John Moses were working on a group project for Manior. All three described Manior as nice.
“She teaches us good things, and she’s always in a good mood,” Nease said. “When she works with us, she makes it fun.”
Caldwell described Manior as exciting, and said he enjoys reading for her class.
Nease said the students commonly work in groups, and that it is nice to help each other.
“It’s a lot easier to help each other,” Moses added.
Nease also described Manior as patient, and a teacher who explains thing to her students.
“She loves reading, and she collects snow globes,” she said. “When we’re acting up, she doesn’t holler like most teachers do she just says quit that. She (has) a really soft voice.”
Manior and her husband Greg, a teacher and the head football coach at South Effingham High School, have two children, Daria and Dexter. She hopes her students remember her high expectations and that she cares about them.
“They have the ability,” she said. “I believe they should learn the basics, so they can pursue whatever it is in their career, and when they become an adult, so they can become a productive member of society. One day they will grow up and choose their career.
“That’s what I would want them to remember — that I really noticed what their strength was, and that I tried to bring it out, and that I had high expectations. That’s the main thing because they can do well if they set their mind to it.”
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HOMEPAGE LIFESTYLE
How to Contest Power of Attorney
By: Michaele Curtis
How to withdraw a divorce
How to Get a Restraining Order Cancelled
What Is a Declaratory Judgment?
How to Relinquish Power of Attorney
How to file for a petition for writ of mandate
Power of attorney (sometimes called POA) is an agreement in which one person allows another to have the right to act on his behalf in legal and financial matters. The intent is for those who cannot or may have difficulty acting on their own behalf to appoint a secondary agent. The POA holder is supposed to act in the principal's best financial or legal interests. If you suspect that this is not the case, you may have grounds to contest the power of attorney.
Be sure that you have grounds to contest a POA. Technical grounds would be issues with the witnesses, notarization or preparation of the POA papers. Forgery of any of the signatures on the POA papers would be another reason to contest a POA. You might also have a case if the principal was not in a mentally sound state when the signature was made. On the other hand, if the POA holder has not been acting in the best interests of the principal, you also may have grounds to contest a POA.
Gather evidence to present in court, including statements from witnesses or doctors who can attest that the principal was not in a sound mental sound when signing the POA agreement. If the signatures were forgeries, you should have several copies of the principal's signature and consider hiring a handwriting expert. If you suspect that the POA holder has been abusing his power of attorney, provide concrete evidence in the form of financial and legal records.
File a motion with the civil court in the municipality where the original power of attorney was signed. Filing fees vary, depending on the location. You will be given a date and time for a hearing.
Serve the POA holder with legal notice of the court hearing. You can do it yourself or have another person do it. However, you may be asked to provide proof that you delivered the notice. Consider using a professional process server or sending the notice via certified mail.
Arrive at the court hearing on time and with all evidence in hand, including any witnesses or experts you need to prove your point. Present your case to the judge in as calm and professional matter as possible. Although some courts may rule immediately, be prepared to wait several weeks to receive a ruling in those municipalities that deliver them by mail.
Understanding Power of Attorney
Contesting Power of Attorney Agreement With a Forged Signature
Contesting Power of Attorney
Contesting a POA can be a long and complicated process. Consider hiring an attorney to advise you and make the process smoother.
Michaele Curtis began writing professionally in 2001. As a freelance writer for the Centers for Disease Control, Nationwide Insurance and AT&T Interactive, her work has appeared in "Insurance Today," "Mobiles and PDAs" and "Curve Magazine." Curtis holds a Bachelor of Arts in communication from Louisiana State University.
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Verhoef building world’s first electric freefall lifeboat
Dutch builder Verhoef is constructing the world’s first electrically powered freefall lifeboat. The first of the new aluminum 32-passenger lifeboats, which recently passed its final drop tests, will be deployed on an offshore platform in the new Valhall Flank West oilfield project in Norway. The contract includes an option for similar lifeboats in the future.
Torqeedo has provided an integrated electric propulsion system for the vessel, consisting of a 50kW (80hp) Deep Blue inboard electric motor powered by three 30.5kWh Deep Blue batteries with technology by BMW i. The system is designed to withstand the heavy g forces of freefall launch and provide 30 minutes at full speed, followed by 10 additional hours at 50% maximum speed. The electric system also includes an inverter to drive a water spray pump, which is a requirement in case the craft drives through burning oil on the water’s surface.
According to Verhoef CEO Martin Verhoef, a primary motivation behind the switch to electric power is to reduce the high maintenance costs of diesel engines currently in use. “Experience has shown that diesel lifeboat engines require a great deal of ongoing maintenance and repair. Soot accumulation in the seldom-run engines can cause internal damage and negatively affect the performance and reliability of the evacuation system. Electric propulsion also eliminates the need to transport, store and handle diesel fuel on the platform.”
The company estimates that the electric propulsion system will reduce operating costs by 90-95% compared with combustion-powered lifeboats. The built-in connectivity function will enable remote monitoring of the condition of the electric system from shore. The system also comes with a nine-year battery capacity warranty.
“This is what the industry has been waiting for to reduce its OPEX and carbon footprint,” added Verhoef. “We are convinced that electric propulsion will be the wave of the future for lifeboat technology. While we are focusing initially on applications like oil platforms, which have shorter distances to travel to reach shore, we believe this technology will also ultimately transform the shipping and cruise industry as well.”
- May 2019
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Chemistry (General)
Chemistry - General
Advances in Heterocyclic Chemistry
Advances in Heterocyclic Chemistry, Volume 129
Serial Editors: Eric Scriven Christopher Ramsden
Published Date: 20th March 2019
View all volumes in this series: Advances in Heterocyclic Chemistry
1. Recent advances in carbazole syntheses
Savvas N. Georgiades and Persefoni G. Nicolaou
2. Metal-catalysed direct arylation of 1,2-azoles
Maria Koyioni and Panayiotis A. Koutentis
3. Pyrroloquinolines, imidazoquinolines, and pyrroloquinazolines with a bridgehead nitrogen
Florea Dumitrascu, Florentina Georgescu, Emilian Georgescu and Mino R. Caira
4. Advances in synthesis and chemistry of aziridines
Girija S. Singh
5. The literature of heterocyclic chemistry, part XVII, 2017
Leonid I. Belen’kii and Yulia. B. Evdokimenkova
Advances in Heterocyclic Chemistry, Volume 129 is the definitive series in the field—one of great importance to organic chemists, polymer chemists and many biological scientists. Because biology and organic chemistry increasingly intersect, the associated nomenclature also is being used more frequently in explanations. Written by established authorities in the field from around the world, this comprehensive, updated release includes chapters on Metal-Catalyzed Direct Arylation of 1,2-Azoles, The Literature of Heterocyclic Chemistry, Part XVII, 2017, Pyrrolo-, Imidazoquinolines and Pyrroloquinazolines with a Bridgehead Nitrogen, Synthesis and Reactions of Arsole, Stibole, and Bismole, Advances in Synthesis and Chemistry of Aziridines, and more.
Considered the definitive serial in the field of heterocyclic chemistry
Serves as the go-to reference for organic chemists, polymer chemists and many biological scientists
Provides the latest comprehensive reviews written by established authorities in the field
Combines descriptive synthetic chemistry and mechanistic insight to enhance understanding of how chemistry drives the preparation and useful properties of heterocyclic compounds
Graduate students and research workers in academic and industrial laboratories, organic chemists, polymer chemists and biological scientists
About the Serial Editors
Eric Scriven Serial Editor
Eric Scriven was educated in the UK and appointed lecturer in organic chemistry at the University of Salford in 1971. He joined Reilly Industries in 1979, and was Head of Research & Development 1991-2003. He is now Publishing Editor of Arkivoc and is based at the Department of Chemistry, University of Florida in Gainesville. His research interests are in heterocyclic chemistry, especially pyridines. He has over 100 publications and patents in heterocyclic chemistry. He has also published and consulted in the field of technology management. He was a founding editor (with Hans Suschitzky) of Progress in Heterocyclic Chemistry now in its 25th year. He has collaborated with Alan Katritzky and others as an Editor-in-Chief of Comprehensive Heterocyclic Chemistry 2nd and 3rd editions. He has edited two other works, Azides and Nitrenes (1984), and Pyridines (2013).
Christopher Ramsden Serial Editor
Chris Ramsden was born in Manchester, UK in 1946. He is a graduate of Sheffield University and received his PhD in 1970 for a thesis entitled ‘Meso-ionic Compounds’ (W. D. Ollis) and a DSc in 1990. Subsequently he was a Robert A. Welch Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Texas (with M. J. S. Dewar)(1971-3), working on the development and application of semi-empirical MO methods, and an ICI Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of East Anglia (with A. R. Katritzky)(1973-6), working on the synthesis of novel heterocycles. In 1976 he moved to the pharmaceutical industry and was Head of Medicinal Chemistry (1986-1992) at Rhone-Poulenc, London. He moved to Keele University as Professor of Organic Chemistry in 1992, where he is now Emeritus Professor. His research interests include the structure and preparation of novel heterocycles, three-centre bonding in the context of the chemistry of betaines and hypervalent species, and the properties of the enzyme tyrosinase and related ortho-quinone chemistry. He was an Editor-in-Chief of ‘Comprehensive Heterocyclic Chemistry III’ and a co-author of ‘The Handbook of Heterocyclic Chemistry, 3rd Edn, 2010.
Keele University, Staffordshire, UK
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Wet outfield worried both teams
1951dESPNcricinfo staff
ESPNcricinfo staff
South Africa's coach Russell Domingo has suggested the second Twenty20 in Durban went ahead at the insistence of match referee Chris Broad, despite the captains and umpires agreeing the outfield was too wet.
The game was reduced to seven overs a side and while both teams were ultimately happy to get some match practice in ahead of the World T20 in Bangladesh, it seemed for much of the day that play was unlikely. After a delay of two and a half hours, play began and Australia won the abbreviated contest, but both teams would have been concerned about possible injuries given the wet outfield.
Domingo said he thought the captains Faf du Plessis and George Bailey, together with the umpires Adrian Holdstock and Shaun George had agreed the match should not go ahead. However, he said he believed Broad had made the decision for the match to be played.
"It was a little bit odd because both captains agreed to not give it a go because of the outfield, and the umpires decided not to give it a go," Domingo said. "I think it was overturned by the match referee. At the end of the day it turned out to be a great spectacle for the crowd, but there's always a threat of serious injuries when conditions are like that. But it's done now, and everyone's okay."
With both teams set to depart for the World T20 after the third match in Centurion and further rain expected over the next few days, it was not out of the question that the entire series could have been washed out. Brad Hodge, who was named Man of the Match after striking two sixes in the last over of Australia's successful chase, said it was a tough decision whether play should have gone ahead.
"It was a 50-50 call," Hodge said. "The problem is, you're leading up to a Twenty20 tournament which is pretty important and both sides would have been worried about injures. It was a pretty good game of cricket in the end ... You've come all the way to South Africa, you want to play cricket. You don't want washouts in all three games."
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Marvel's Agents of SHIELD - Far From Super
Posted by DAJB Saturday, September 28, 2013
Just a few days after it aired in the US, we here in dear ol' Blighty got to see the pilot episode of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD for ourselves last night. Anthony has already posted his initial thoughts, but what did we think of it on this side of the Pond?
Well, as far as this particular Brit is concerned, it was ... ordinary. For those of us of a geeky disposition, there was nothing so bad that you'd feel compelled to reach for the remote but, for anyone not already versed in the world of Marvel comics, there was nothing to make you want to continue watching the next episode either.
Even Marvel realised an apostrophe-'s' would spoil their logo.
Fanboys and girls have a tendency to over-react to news of any forthcoming show with a SciFi or fantasy theme, especially if it's based on a comic, and that leaves a lot for the show either to overcome or live up to. Ben Affleck as Batman? The internet has already decided that simply has to be dreadful. How could it be otherwise? A TV show based on the work of the GCPD but without Batman? Pfft! Why would anyone watch that? Constantine? Yay - sign us all up now! And so it was for Agents of Shield (it's no use - I can't keep pandering to the tawdry marketing gimmick that is the "Marvel's" prefix!) Even before the first frame had been shot, comic fans worldwide were working themselves up into a frenzy of anticipation.
Agent Coulson. Just the man you want in charge
when there's a clean-up in Aisle 3.
It would be superb! It will be written by Joss Whedon! It's a superhero show without superheroes! (Huh? Then why all the negative reaction to the GCPD show?) It would star Agent Phil Coulson from all those wonderful movies! Yay! Except ... wait a minute. Agent Phil Coulson is boring. I mean, don't get me wrong - he's supposed to be boring. The reason we love him is precisely because he remains down-to-Earth, bland and ordinary, even while surrounded by larger-than-life egocentric super-beings. He's a foil, not a leading character. Take away the Gods and monsters, and he's your average guy who could just as easily be managing your local supermarket or cashing your paycheck at the bank.
To work as an interesting character, Coulson needs to be surrounded by superheroes. And, frankly, so does the show. As if to underline this fact, the first advert break last night included a trailer for Thor: The Dark World, and my interest level in the show peaked immediately. Of course, it subsided again as soon as the show resumed but, for that brief moment, I had a glimpse of why the show wasn't working and just how good it could have been.
Non-entity crisis
Sadly, Coulson's team adds little to the mix. A group of uniformly pretty and largely interchangeable young men and women, they really bring nothing of any particular interest to the table. Oh wait ... one of the girls had a pristine English accent of the type you only hear in drama schools and middle class dinner parties, and one of the guys had a British accent too. I'm not sure which British accent he had, but I think it was supposed to be Scottish. If so, I'm sure we can look forward to him referring to single malts in the very near future. Yup. As far as characterisation is concerned, that was about as deep as it got.
The full team. Can you spot the difference?
For me, great characters can save a mediocre show. Without characters we can identify with and care about, however, the show is going to need a fantastic premise and/or absolutely jaw-dropping special effects of the type we've never seen before. That's why we all loved The Matrix in spite of Keanu Reeves, right? So how did Agents of SHIELD measure up in the story department?
So so, is the answer. Pedestrian, would probably be the kindest description. I don't think I'm giving away too much of the plot if I say it's about a secret organisation dedicated to "containing" super-powered beings. The trouble is, we've seen it all before and the show wears its influences on its sleeve for all to see. In fact, at times, there's possibly more entertainment value to be had from spotting the ingredients that Whedon has borrowed/stolen from elsewhere than there is in watching the show.
'The Hood' as seen in 'Smallville'. I mean 'Arrow'. I mean ... oh, you get the idea.
The pilot starts with a couple of seconds from the Avengers Assemble movie (yes, that's what it was called on this side of the Pond!) to remind us that we're in a New York which has become aware of the existence of aliens, superheroes and all manner of inexplicable tech. It ends on a car gag (yes, the car gag!) appropriated from Men in Black. In between, there are whole scenes which could have been taken direct from the likes of Mission Impossible, Heroes, Alphas, Arrow and even Marvel's own X-Men-in-all-but-name series, Mutant X. In short, the show feels ... tired. And if a show feels tired after only the pilot episode, it doesn't bode well for the future.
Future shocks
To be fair, there are hints of more interesting plot lines to come, foremost among them being the question of just how is it that Agent Coulson is alive. I mean, we all saw him killed by Loki, right? He believes he was only technically dead for a mere eight seconds before being revived, but there are suggestions of something more at work here. Is he a clone? A Rimmer-style "hard-light" hologram? A cybernetic being? Someone resurrected with alien tech, gamma radiation or super soldier serum?
We don't know. And therein lies another problem: Whedon has a track record of hinting at bigger things at work behind the scenes and never fully resolving them. He did it with Firefly. He did it with Doll House. He seems to believe that because Buffy ran for seven seasons and its spin-off Angel ran for five, his shows will always run indefinitely and he can therefore afford to continue to tease us with the promise of better things to come, never considering the possibility that something stamped with the Whedon brand might actually be cancelled before he has a chance to deliver. Will that happen to Agents of SHIELD? Only time will tell, but based on the lacklustre pilot episode, I wouldn't bet against it.
Agent Coulson dying in the 'Avengers' movie. His TV show may not be far behind.
For now, I'm prepared to give the show the benefit of the doubt and I'll be tuning in next week for the second episode. I'm by no means hooked, however. Unless it picks up quite dramatically, I'm probably not going to make it beyond the third. I just don't have that kind of super-stamina. Do you?
review, tv
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Pensioner dies in South Wootton fish pond
Published: 18:00, 25 January 2016
Lynn News Web Site Fillers
A pensioner died after falling into a fish pond despite the efforts of his wife and neighbours.
Beryl Smith fought for more than 20 minutes to pull her 70-year-old husband Melvyn who was known as John, from the pond at their home in Burghley Way, South Wootton.
Mrs Smith told yesterday’s inquest in Lynn that she wonders if there was anything more she could have done.
After recording a verdict of accidental death, coroner Jacqueline Lake told her: “There was nothing more you could have done. You did all you could to help him.”
The hearing was told that Mrs Smith found her husband struggling to get out after hearing his shouts for help at about 6.30pm on July 29.
After 20 minutes of trying to pull Mr Smith, who was a “big man”, out of the pond, she ran into the street to call for help.
Her neighbour Stuart Mitchell heard her calls and with help from his 18-year-old son Michael managed to get Mr Smith out of the pond.
They tried to resuscitate Mr Mitchell before the arrival of paramedics. He died in Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital on July 30.
The hearing was told Mr Mitchell died as a result of drowning.
Mrs Lake said: “I would like to add my thanks to the neighbours for the help they provided. They came as quickly as the could.”
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Pros Predict Pacquiao-Thurman
Shields Gets Title Shot in Fourth Pro Bout
By Fight Sports
Claressa Shields accomplished everything an amateur boxer could imagine.
She was the dominant figure in women’s amateur boxing in recent years, going 77-1 and capping her brilliant career in the unpaid ranks with a second consecutive Olympic gold medal at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games as she became the first American to win back-to-back boxing gold medals.
Now, in just her fourth professional fight, Shields can accomplish what every pro dreams of — winning a world title.
Shields will challenge Nikki Adler for her women’s super middleweight world title — as well as fight her for another organization’s vacant belt — on Aug. 4 in the main event of a "ShoBox: The New Generation" card (Showtime, 10 p.m. ET/PT) at the MGM Grand Detroit, which is not far from Shields’ hometown of Flint, Michigan.
"It is a dream come true for me to be fighting for a major world title in just my fourth professional fight," Shields said. "I thank the champ, Nikki Adler, and her team for accepting the challenge and for coming to the U.S. for this championship (fight). This fight is not only a milestone for me; it also is the biggest fight of the year in women’s boxing.
"I want to thank Showtime for their commitment to me and for their support of women’s boxing. I promise to be in the best shape of my life and to give all my fans a performance to remember."
The 22-year-old Shields (3-0, 1 KO) turned pro in November on the Andre Ward-Sergey Kovalev I undercard in Las Vegas and then made history in March when she knocked out Szilvia Szabados in the fourth round in a "ShoBox" main event at the MGM Grand Detroit. It was the first time a women’s fight had ever headlined a boxing card on premium cable.
On June 16, Shields rolled to a shutout eight-round decision win against Sydney LeBlanc in Detroit and now she is back on Showtime in a world title bout.
"This second main event telecast on Showtime represents yet another historic step forward in the journey of Claressa Shields," Mark Taffet, her co-manager, said. "Claressa is committed, in return, to pursuing the biggest and best fights available as the profile of women’s boxing in the U.S. and around the world continues to grow. This world title fight against Nikki Adler, a monumental challenge for Claressa in only her fourth pro fight, shows how committed Claressa is to fulfilling her dreams and leading the sport to unprecedented levels."
Shields, who has also fought as a middleweight, wanted to challenge unified women’s middleweight world titleholder Christina Hammer (21-0, 9 KOs) of Germany. But Shields told ESPN that Hammer’s camp dragged its feet so she decided to move up to super middleweight, where Adler has a belt.
"We moved up from 160 to 168 and we did that because Hammer was taking too long to give us a chance to fight," Shields said. "I wanted to fight for a world title. I wanted my respect. I know I’m the best female fighter alive and the best to ever put on a pair of gloves. If I have to have a world title to prove that, that’s what I have to do. So we gave Adler a call and I’m glad she had heart and is willing to fight and give a young fighter like me a chance. I feel I have everything I need to beat her. I look forward to fighting her."
Shields has had one eight-round bout and will be in a scheduled 10-rounder for the first time against Adler. She said she is not concerned with having the stamina to go the distance if needed.
"I’m fine," she said. "In my last fight I fought a really good eight rounds and I felt like I could have gone more. I am in the best shape of my life and I know what I’m getting prepared for. All I have to do is get prepared and everything will fall into place. Adler has fought 10 rounds before and this is my first time. I give her that. But she’s never fought against a fighter as good as me, as fast or strong as me. She’s never seen anything like me.
"I’ve watched her fights. I feel like she can’t beat me. I may go in there and jump on her or I may use my jab for the first two or three rounds. Who knows? But I know I can outbox her and if that doesn’t work I know I can outbrawl her too."
Original Story: ESPN
BoxingchampionshipClaressa ShieldsNikki Adlertitle shot
Cerrone Injured, Lawler Fight Likely Rescheduled
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Deferred prosecution agreements in the UK and US
June 2013 | EXPERT BRIEFING | LITIGATION & DISPUTE RESOLUTION
financierworldwide.com
In an era of global enforcement of economic crime, the introduction of Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) follows developments in the UK designed to tackle corporate offending. The rationale for a DPA in the UK is that corporate crime is firstly, difficult to investigate and secondly, difficult and costly to prosecute. Companies that enter into a DPA will have to fulfil certain undertakings, over a specified period of time, in exchange for an agreement not to prosecute. If, at the end of a specified period, the prosecutor is satisfied that the corporate has fulfilled its obligations, there will be no prosecution. This approach is analogous to the US.
DPAs originated in the US and are widely used as an enforcement mechanism for issues arising under the Foreign and Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Lanny Breuer, former head of the DOJ, stated that they have “become a mainstay of white collar criminal enforcement”. DPAs are attractive to corporates as they avoid the stigma of a prosecution, save time and can limit the negative effects of a long investigation and prosecution.
How do the US and UK models compare?
DPAs are enacted in section 45 and Schedule 17 Crime Courts Act 2013 which was given Royal Assent on 25 April 2013. The legislation will have retrospective effect, apply to wrongdoing that is alleged to have occurred before the commencement of the Act, and are likely to commence in early 2014. DPAs will only apply to offences that are specified in the Act, which include conspiracy to defraud, cheating the public revenue and statutory offences covering fraud, bribery, VAT, money laundering, theft and others. In the US, DPAs can be used for a broader type of offending but are mainly used for FCPA offences, health and safety and environmental offences.
Similar to the commencement of the Bribery Act, the legislation provides the template, but the Code itself will determine the shape DPAs will take. Guidance in the form of a Code of Public Prosecutions must be published by the DPP and the SFO, that will identify the principles that prosecutors will apply in considering whether a DPA is a suitable disposal for a case. Likewise, the Sentencing Council will publish guidelines on penalties after conviction for economic crimes covered by DPAs. It is anticipated by the government that these will offer the certainty around potential penalties which could be agreed under a DPA. The legislation promotes the twin principles of transparency and consistency – principles which are said to be lacking with a US DPA.
Unlike the US model, the UK prosecutor must secure the Crown Court’s approval, on two separate occasions, in the discussions with the prosecutor to satisfy the Court that the DPA being entered into is in the interests of justice and is fair, reasonable, and proportionate. The first hearing will be held in private, after negotiations commence but before the terms of the DPA are agreed. Interestingly the test the judge has to apply was referred to in SEC v Bank of America No9 Civ 6829 (JSR), 10 Civ 0215 (JSR).
Once the terms are agreed the prosecutor will then proceed to a final hearing during which the Court will again consider whether the terms of the DPA are in the interests of justice and are fair, reasonable, and proportionate. Only then is the DPA approved. The court may reject the DPA at either stage. Judicial involvement and sanctioning of a DPA is seen as critical in the UK system and is one of the central differences to the US procedure. The approach also reaffirms the principles of open justice and judicial oversight articulated by Thomas LJ in R v Innospec[2010] Crim. L.R. 665.
Whilst transparency in any justice system is essential, there is an element of uncertainty with the UK model which may cause difficulties as the Court may reject the DPA either at the early stage or at the conclusion of the discussions with the prosecutor. If it is the latter, it could leave a company in a difficult and potentially unfair position. The US system, by contrast, simply requires that criminal information is filed in Court, making the criminal charges public knowledge.
There is no doubt that the UK is making efforts to tackle corporate offending in a fair and transparent manner. At first glance, DPAs appear to be a sensible way forward because, if they are used successfully, they will save time, allow victims to be compensated quickly, save costs incurred in lengthy investigations and prosecutorial processes and allow a corporate to take remedial action which will reduce reputational damage. However, it is likely that DPAs, like Civil Recovery or The Attorney’s Guidance on Plea Discussions in Cases of Serious and Complex Fraud, may not be the automatic green light to alternative tools to be used by enforcement agencies in the UK. It will be interesting to see if the UK authorities place similar emphasis as their US counterparts do, on cooperation, internal investigations conducted by outside counsel, remedial action and the impact of a prosecution on innocent third parties (the US tendency to focus on these factors was identified by US Government Accountability Office in its testimony to the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives in June 2009).
How the political thinking will impact on the agreement to enter into a DPA remains to be seen, especially as the SFO appears to be taking a strong ‘no deals approach’ to its functions. Therefore, the only certainty at present is that a DPA, in principle, undoubtedly signals a radical change in the way corporate offending is treated in this jurisdiction, for corporates, prosecutors and the judiciary alike.
Kathleen Harris is a partner at Arnold & Porter LLP. She can be contacted on +44 (0)20 7786 6100 or by email: kathleen.harris@aporter.com.
Kathleen Harris
Arnold & Porter LLP
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St. Peter's AC's Tom McGrane added 40cm to his season’s best at the National League opening round in Belfast on Sunday
He also managed the Louth men's and women's team who performed excellently
sport@dundalkdemocrat.ie
St. Peter's AC's Tom McGrane.
St. Peter's AC's Tom McGrane has a busy day at Sunday's opening round of the National League at the Mary Peters Track in Belfast. Manager of both the Louth men's and women's team, he also managed to add 40cm to his season’s best, set when winning the Leinster title at the beginning of June, to take silver in the M55 shot put with a throw of 10.06m.
Under his watch, the women proved that they were more than capable of making an impact in the top grade, as they finished second on points behind Dundrum South Dublin AC. The men’s team also performed very well as they finished third on the day, behind City of Lisburn AC and County Meath. Both teams go into this Sunday’s second round fixture at the Morton Stadium in Santry, Dublin, ranked sixth overall and so are on target to qualify for the final by finishing among the top eight teams.
Two athletes scored maximum points by winning their events in Belfast – Emily Rogers (St. Peter’s) in the high jump and McGrane (St. Peter’s) in the shot put.
Several athletes also scored highly by finishing second in their events – Geraldine Finegan (North East Runners) in both the pole vault and shot putt, Mary Leech (Drogheda & District) in the 1500m, Shauna McMahon (Blackrock) in the discus, Conor McMahon (Ardee & District) in both the high jump and long jump, Ruarcán Ó’Gibne (Boyne) in the 1500m, Conor Durnin (St. Peter’s) in the triple jump and Darren Weldon (Ardee & District) in the hammer.
Third place finishes were recorded by Karen Costello (Dunleer) in the 3000m, Emily Rogers in the hammer, Katelyn Quinn (Glenmore) in the javelin, Lee McGuinness (Drogheda & District) in the 200m, Conor McMahon in the 400m hurdles, Darren Weldon in the discus, Brendan Rogers (St. Peter’s) in the weight for distance and the 4x400m team of Lee McGuinness, Kieran McGrath (Drogheda & District), Andrew Kelly (Drogheda & District) and Ruarcán Ó’Gibne.
The other athletes on the teams also played their part and can be proud of their performances; among them were: Maria Smith (St. Gerard’s), Kelly Breen (Blackrock), Orla O’Connor (Drogheda & District), Hannah Reilly (Blackrock), Eilish Brady (St. Peter’s), Rosemary Gibson (North East Runners), Sharon Olatunde (Dundealgan), Sarah Clarke (Blackrock), Nicola Welsh (Dunleer), Shane Larkin (Drogheda & District), Tom Cummins (Boyne), Kevin Olandujoye (Dundealgan) and Anthony Dillon (Dunleer).
Several of these athletes will also be in action at the Lourdes Stadium in Drogheda this Thursday evening, as the Louth Senior, U20 and Masters’ Championships will be staged, starting at 6:30pm.
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Emmerdale cast remember ‘favourite human being’ Freddie Jones after death at 91
The cast of Emmerdale have remembered Freddie Jones as one of their “favourite human beings” after his death at 91.
The star of Hollywood films such as Dune, The Elephant Man and Firefox, he was most recently known for playing Sandy Thomas for more than 12 years in the soap until last year.
A statement from the ITV show said: “Everyone at Emmerdale is deeply sad to hear about the death of one of the show’s most brilliant actors and favourite human beings, Freddie Jones.
Everyone at Emmerdale is deeply sad to hear about the death of one of the show's most brilliant actors and favourite human beings, Freddie Jones. #Emmerdale pic.twitter.com/ES4YkDjHj9
— Emmerdale (@emmerdale) July 10, 2019
“Freddie was part of Emmerdale for many years and he brought his unique, energetic, infectious, twinkle to every scene he was in.”
He became a regular on Emmerdale in 2006 and announced his departure in 2018, saying he could not justify staying, even though he had been offered another year on the show.
Mark Charnock who plays Marlon Dingle, said: “I was one of the fortunate few to share a dressing room with Freddie for more than a decade.
“He was an amazing man. I can’t begin to describe the affection the entire cast and crew held for him. He was truly adored.
“He would light up the set with his wit and charm and privately was the most hilarious, fascinating company.
“He’d worked everywhere, with everyone and his anecdotes were gold dust and like many others, I’ll treasure my friendship with him forever.
“People like Freddie don’t come along very often and everyone at Emmerdale knew what it meant to have him in our cast. So lucky. A brilliant actor An absolute gent.”
Charlotte Bellamy, who played his daughter-in-law Laurel Thomas, added: “I was in awe of his professionalism, humour and his zest for life.
“He spent his last working years here at Emmerdale where he was loved and respected by us all. The world is a poorer place without him.”
His agent Lesley Duff told PA Jones died in the evening of July 9 after a short illness.
She added: “Freddie was a much loved and admired actor, known for his triumphs in classical theatre, film and television.
“He will be greatly missed by all who had the pleasure of knowing him and most especially his family.”
The father of fellow actor Toby Jones, he became an actor after a mid-life career change, having previously worked as a laboratory assistant while performing in amateur theatre on the side.
His first acting credit was on the TV mini-series Androcles And The Lion in 1960 and he worked steadily on the small screen, including as Claudius in the TV mini-series The Caesars.
His big-screen debut was in Marat/Sade in 1967 and he also appeared in literary dramas such as Far From The Madding Crowd and Nicholas Nickleby, as well as the 1987 version of Vanity Fair.
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Reviews » Blu-ray Reviews » Miracle Mile (Blu-ray)
Miracle Mile (Blu-ray)
Kino // R // July 28, 2015 // Region A
Review by Justin Remer | posted June 27, 2015 | E-mail the Author
The Movie:
The familiar cliche goes, "They don't make 'em like they used to." After watching the newly reissued offbeat thriller from 1988, Miracle Mile, my reaction is more like, "They've never made 'em like this -- even then." Sure, there are echoes of other cult-y '80s movies throughout Miracle Mile -- the plot involves a desperate man trying to make his way through the nocturnal underworld of a city after a date goes awry, as in After Hours, while the setting recalls the eerily desolated Los Angeles of Night of the Comet -- but this film's humor is much bleaker and sparser, and its plot is potentially the most fatalistic I've seen in American film outside of a straight-up horror movie.
If you are a fan of cult flicks and what I've said so far intrigues you, I suggest you stop reading now and just check out the movie. I turned on Miracle Mile only knowing the main cast (Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham) and the director (Steve De Jarnatt, Cherry 2000), and that seems like a pretty great way to approach it. The cast -- including numerous familiar faces in supporting roles -- is uniformly excellent, and De Jarnatt demonstrates that he just might be one of the great unsung speculative storytellers. So see Miracle Mile.
Okay, if you need a little more to go on, here's a bit of the story. Harry Washello (Edwards) is an average joe who thinks he might have just found the girl of his dreams, Julie Peters (Winningham), while visiting the La Brea Tar Pits. They hit it off, because they are both young people with old souls -- Harry plays trombone in an old-timey jazz band and Julie spends most of her time with one or the other of her estranged grandparents (John Agar and Lou Hancock). Harry agrees to pick Julie up for some late-night dancing after she gets off her shift at Johnie's Coffee Shop. He sets his alarm to wake him from a nap for his midnight rendezvous, but (since this is a movie) the power goes out, and he ends up being three and a half hours late.
At this point, the movie seems like it's prepping to set Harry off on a wild wee-hours adventure to prove his love for Julie. But the movie has something much more Twilight Zone-y in store for our protagonist. Arriving for his date at around 4 a.m. puts Harry in the position of answering the pay phone outside of Johnie's at exactly the moment when a fateful call comes in. A low-level worker in a missile silo in North Dakota thinks he's calling his dad to let him know that the launch sequence has been initiated and the US will nuke the Soviets in 50 minutes, with an expected retaliation in 70. At first, Harry thinks it might be a prank, but then he hears the man on the other end of the line get shot dead.
The rest of the film is meant to play out in real time, as Harry must figure out what to do with his 70 minutes before potential nuclear annihilation. He talks to the other early morning patrons of Johnie's -- which include Star Trek: The Next Generation's Denise Crosby, Robocop's Robert DoQui, and Natural Born Killers' O-Lan Jones -- most of whom come to believe Harry's story and decide to book it to the airport to get on a chartered flight out of town. Crosby's character, who is a powerful business woman, books a helicopter to fly out her friends from the top of a nearby skyscraper. One of the coffee shop cooks steals Harry's car, so he has to figure out a way to get Julie from her apartment building and back to the helicopter before it flies away or the bomb hits -- whichever comes first.
The smartest thing about Miracle Mile's set-up is arguably also its most counter-dramatic. The threat of nuclear attack creates a ticking clock for Harry, but it's a clock counting down to an unguaranteed moment that he can neither alter nor thwart exactly. Though the story plays out essentially in real time, director Steve De Jarnatt does not go the Hitchcockian route and make the audience supremely aware of the passage of every second to gradually ratchet up the tension. Instead, he creates a more chaotic sense of time, in which we know we're getting closer to the supposed launch but we don't if Harry has enough time to execute his plan or if he will be too late or if, in the end, none of it will even matter. The film also implicitly forces a new viewer to constantly question whether the information Harry got is true, especially as he spreads it to other people, like Julie's grandparents or a friendly thief played by Forrest Gump's Mykelti Williamson, and to question whether or not that makes Harry a greater instrument for destruction than this unconfirmed imminent bombing.
This storytelling approach is arguably effective, because it makes the audience feel as lost as the characters in the film would be, but it also creates a queasy dread for which the film never quite provides relief or catharsis. There's a purity to the film's point-of-view that makes its story's trajectory and eventual ending feel completely appropriate, but I expect it will take a few more re-watches down the road to come to terms with what it says about an everyman's ability to cope with the potential decimation of his world. This particular viewer is not completely won over by Miracle Mile, but I have such admiration and respect for what it attempts and mostly achieves, that I urge you to watch this movie and swish it around your mind for a bit.
The Blu-ray
The Video:
Dirt, specks, and minor damage are the noteworthy drawbacks of this AVC-encoded 1080p 1.85:1 transfer. For the most part, it's an attractive, colorful, and fairly sharp presentation with minimal digital compression issues, but man, that dirt just comes in hard and heavy now and again. It's not enough of a distraction for me to dissuade you from checking this disc out, but it seems a shame that none of the assets owners wanted to shell out for a little clean-up on the really speckled moments.
The Audio:
Tangerine Dream's synth-based musical score is the main star of this DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo audio mix, with a powerful, robust presence that nicely carries many of the dialogue-free moments and then blends in well with both the effects-filled action moments and more typical dialogue scenes. Everything sounds clean and clear and damage-free.
2 Audio Commentaries - There's a little bit of overlap between these two discussions, since both involve director Steve De Jarnatt, but there's a lot of unique and valuable material in each track. The first offering is a discussion between De Jarnatt and critic Walter Chaw, who is such a fan of this film he literally wrote the book on it. Their discussion is largely focused on the story and the themes, with some appreciation of the performances and discussion of the shooting process mixed in. The second commentary track is more completely focused on what happened during the production and the design of the film, and it features De Jarnatt with cinematographer Theo Van De Sande and production designer Chris Horner.
Excavations from the Editing Room Tar Pits: 28 Year Old VHS Dailies (HD upconvert, 11:20) - A montage of visually striking deleted moments, outtakes, unused alternate angles, and the like. Like the film, it starts off kind of fun but gets more chilling as it goes along.
Harry and Julie: An Interview with Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham (HD, 12:23) - A charming but slightly underdeveloped chat between these two longtime friends, going all the way back to their high school experiences and hopping from topic to topic.
Supporting Cast Reunion (HD, 14:24) - Ten of the cast members -- pretty much everyone notable who is still alive, besides Mykelti Williamson -- are assembled in Johnie's Coffee Shop to discuss memorable moments from the shooting and what they are up to now. Cinematographer Theo Van De Sande also appears briefly.
Alternate Diamonds Ending (HD, 4:30) - The only difference here totals a few seconds, but for some reason, they included the entire end credits roll along with this alternate ending.
Trailers - for this film and Cherry 2000
I don't love Miracle Mile (yet), but it has gotten under my skin so effectively that I expect I will continue to think about it for weeks to come. With its cornucopia of new supplemental materials, Kino Lorber's Blu-ray seems to be implying that this is a cult film ripe for wider discovery and appreciation. I wholeheartedly agree. Highly Recommended.
Justin Remer is a filmmaker, oddball musician, and frequent wearer of beards. His new single, "Bop Shoo Bop," is now available to stream or download on Bandcamp, Spotify, Amazon, Apple, and wherever else fine music is enjoyed.
Find the lowest price for 'Miracle Mile (Blu-ray)'
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INTERNET & COMPUTERS
ARCHAELOGY
MYSTERY & STRANGE
The Origin Of Some Valentine's Day Traditions
Gary Ruplinger
WORLD OTHER ARTICLES
02/04/ 2006
Ahh, Valentine’s Day. It comes every February 14th, and men all over the country stop and pick up the obligatory dozen roses, piece of jewelry, or box of chocolates.
But did you ever wonder about some of the early traditions of Valentine’s Day? And no, Valentine’s Day was not created by the department stores to get men to spend more money on jewelry.
For example, in the middle ages, men and women would draw names to see who their valentines were. Then for the next week, they would wear these names on their sleeve. Now wearing your heart on your sleeve means that it’s easy for other people to know your feelings.
In Wales carved wooden love spoons were given as gifts on Valentine’s Day. The most popular decorations were hearts, keyholes, and keys. The decorations meant, “You unlock my heart.”
In some countries, a young woman would receive a gift of clothing from a young man. If the woman kept the gift, it meant she’ll marry him.
It was believed that if a woman saw a robin flying on Valentine’s Day she would marry a sailor. If she saw a sparrow, she’d marry a poor man and be very happy. And if she saw a goldfinch, she’d marry a millionaire.
And have you ever wondered where the tradition of giving Valentine’s Day cards began? The first valentine was sent by the Duke of Orleans after being captured in 1415. He sent it to his wife. Commercially, valentines were first produced by Esther Howland in the 1840s. She sold $5,000 in cards during her first year, an incredible amount of money at the time. Today over a billion valentines are sent each year to teachers, children, wives, and sweethearts, and are mostly purchased by women.
Giving flowers on Valentine’s Day can be traced back to the 1700s in Sweden when Charles II brought the Persian poetical art called “The Language of Flowers” to Europe. Throughout the 18th century, floral lexicons were published, allowing an entire conversation to take place with a bouquet of flowers.
source: www.isnare.com
About the Author: Gary Ruplinger is a featured writer for www.BestValentinesDayGifts.com . To learn more about Valentine's Day and Valentine's Day Traditions, visit the site.
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Member of MTV's Hit Show, The Buried Life
5 Steps To Make The Impossible Possible
Ben Nemtin is on a mission to achieve the unthinkable. From playing basketball with President Obama to streaking a soccer field, from raising over $400,000 for charity to placing a record-breaking $250,000 bet on roulette—Ben’s bucket list quest has inspired millions to strive for greatness. Ben weaves the compelling story of how The Buried Life grew from 100 impossible dreams scribbled on a piece of paper into a global movement of millions and skillfully connects his story to the fabric of our daily lives.
Ben’s message of radical possibility combined with his ‘5 Steps to Make the Impossible Possible’ leaves audiences not only inspired but also equipped to tackle the seemingly insurmountable. Ben’s system of achieving any impossible goal demystifies daunting tasks and turns ‘dreams’ into ‘projects’ by creating a digestible pathway to success. Mediocre is crowded, raise your bar and surprise yourself.
Why Book Ben Nemtin?
Ben Nemtin has shown audiences from 200 to 20,000 how to make the impossible possible. Ben delivers a high-octane message that motivates audiences to shake off mediocrity, achieve more and energizes them to not only unbury the life they want but also give back to others.
Ben is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Do You Want To Do Before You Die? and the star of the MTV show The Buried Life. As the co-founder of The Buried Lifemovement, Ben’s message of radical possibility has been featured by major media outlets including The Today Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, Inc., ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC News. Oprah called Ben’s life work “truly inspiring.” An acclaimed keynote speaker, Nemtin has presented his '5 Steps to Make the Impossible Possible' to business conferences and corporate leadership teams around the world, garnering standing ovations from Amazon, Microsoft, Nationwide, Viacom, Verizon, Levi's, Harvard, and more.
In a pit of depression, Ben and his three best friends decided to create the world’s greatest bucket list to make them feel alive. They bought a rickety old bus and criss-crossed North America, achieving the unthinkable. And most importantly, every time they accomplished a dream, they helped a complete stranger cross something off their bucket list. From playing basketball with President Obama to streaking a professional soccer field, from raising over $400,000 for charity to placing a record-breaking $250,000 bet on roulette—Ben’s bucket list quest has inspired millions to chase their dreams and realize that impossible is possible.
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→→Linguistics→Past Research & Resources→Documentation and Description→A Grammar of Yeri
Yeri is a Torricelli language spoken in Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea. The language is spoken in a single village called Yapunda, and is severely endangered, with approximately 100 speakers. The youngest generation speaks only Tok Pisin, and speakers under 40 often speak a simplified variety of the language.
This project aimed to document an unsimplified variety of the language while this was still possible, and included the production of a grammar, a corpus of glossed texts in a variety of genres, and a dictionary of the language. Some of the unusual documented characteristics included infixes which occur following the first syllable of the verb stem, a typologically rare infixation site, and affixes which occur on almost all parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, ideophones, and possessive pronouns. The language is SVO, displays extensive argument marking, shows realis/irrealis distinctions on the verb, and makes frequent use of multi-verb clauses.
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newsinspiration9 High-End Events to Follow and Learn From
9 High-End Events to Follow and Learn From
No matter your background, you've most probably heard about events such as the Met Gala, The World Economic Forum, the Robin Hood Gala, ... What do they have in common?
Two things: high-end planning and very special attendees. If you to learn how to master planning events from the best, you might want to look into and follow these top 9 high-end events where not even a fly will be able to pass by security.
The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.
World Economic Forum on Instagram: “A selection of the best pictures...
The Met Gala, formally called the Costume Institute Gala and also known as the Met Ball, is an annual fundraising gala for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York City. It marks the grand opening of the Costume Institute's annual fashion exhibit.
@metgala2019_ on Instagram: “Tonight’s #MetGala2018”
Robin Hood Gala
The Robin Hood Foundation is a charitable organization which attempts to alleviate problems caused by poverty in New York City, United States.
Erin Patrice O'Brien on Instagram: “Behind the scenes at the Robin...
Every winter in Utah, the Sundance Film Festival becomes the ultimate gathering of original storytellers and audiences seeking new voices and fresh perspectives. Their annual program includes dramatic and documentary features and short films; series and episodic content; and New Frontier, showcasing emerging media in the form of multimedia installations, performances, and films.
Sundance Institute on Instagram: “Day 8 recap. #sundance”
One Young World is the preeminent global forum for young leaders aged 18-30 and gathers the brightest young leaders from around the world, empowering them to make lasting connections and develop solutions to some of the world's most pressing issues.
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The Snowflake Ball, tonight in New York City, celebrates the humanitarian and charity efforts that UNICEF and its partners accomplish throughout the year by bringing together philanthropists and supporters from near and far. The gala coincides with Giving Tuesday, a national awareness day that encourages all Americans to give to charity at the start of the holiday season.
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Whitemead Forest Park, the family woodland resort set in the heart of the Forest of Dean, has re-launched following a £3m redevelopment of the entire site, including accommodation, the bar and restaurant area, and communal facilities and venues.
Designs for the improved site placed an emphasis on creating the ultimate haven to relax and unwind, and the resort is now open to guests to enjoy.
Owned by membership organisation Boundless (formerly CSMA Club), Whitemead’s redevelopment, which spanned three years, has led to the creation of four additional full-time jobs at the resort.
A number of ‘glamping pods’ – individual wooden pods featuring futon and bunk beds, and full amenities – have been installed at the park, with a view to further increasing the number of pods during 2017.
Featuring stylish modern décor and furnishings throughout, the resort’s newly-configured restaurant has been designed to provide an intimate and sophisticated dining experience for guests and visitors, while the new café layout offers a bustling and vibrant atmosphere.
The bar has been relocated to become a focal point for the main communal area, and the function venue, which is available to hire for weddings, parties and corporate events, has been redecorated in line with the rest of the space, enhanced by a brand new ceiling and lighting scheme.
The park’s 32 premier apartments and 12 log cabins - all self-catered - have been newly decorated throughout, and have been fitted with stylish new kitchens, flooring and bathrooms – including en-suites, as well as luxurious new soft furnishings, and lounge and dining furniture.
The park’s camping and caravanning pitches have been resurfaced, roadways widened and the area sympathetically landscaped within its beautiful forest setting.
A new guest services desk has been positioned at the park’s main entrance to welcome guests, and has been integrated with the resort’s shop which will also extend its opening hours.
A second phase of development is currently being planned to allow the outdoor dining area to be covered, which will provide additional dining capacity all year round.
Mandy Thomas, general manager at Whitemead Forest Park, said: “All of the staff here and I are really excited about the changes to the resort, and it’s really pleasing to be able to provide additional jobs for people in the area as a result.”
Carl Fillery, chief executive of Boundless, said: “The £3m that has been invested in developing the park is aimed at creating a relaxing and stylish haven within the beautiful woodland surroundings that we’re lucky to be at the heart of.
“Whether staying as a couple, with friends or as a family, the park has been designed to provide something for everyone. The reconfigured shared space gives guests the choice of either a more intimate, or a more communal experience, including a range of options for dining and entertainment.
“All accommodation has been brought up to the same high standards, and we’re really excited to now reopen to provide guests with the ultimate forest holiday experience.”
To book a stay at Whitemead Forest Park visit boundless.co.uk
Also see : Boundless Breaks
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Chinle Team Fighting Childhood Obesity
By FBN on July 11, 2016 in Local News
Chinle’s “Growing Healthy Dine Families” team has been recognized for its efforts to fight childhood obesity.
The Canyon Ranch Institute Healthy World Scholarship is honoring four groups across the nation that improve the health and well being of children through healthy eating. Besides Chinle, Greenville, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia and Wilkes County, North Carolina are receiving scholarships.
The teams live and work in these communities and are comprised of 15 experts in health care, food service, education and non-profit innovation.
Chinle, with a population of more than 4,500 people, is a center of tribal, county, Bureau of Indian Affairs and other federal offices. In response to the nearly 20 percent obesity rate in Navajo children who are ages two and five, the Chinle team, with support from the Navajo Area Indian Health Service (NAIHS), is seeking to expand Family Spirit, an existing early childhood home-visiting program developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health.
“We hope this new curriculum will add culturally-tailored guidance on infant/toddler nutrition and physical activity to Family Spirit’s already evidence-based programming on parenting and promoting childhood health and wellness,” said Florence Wu, M.D., head of the Department of Pediatrics at the Chinle Comprehensive Health Care Facility of Navajo Area Indian Health Service. “We are grateful for the opportunity to learn new ways from experts at Canyon Ranch Institute to nurture health and create bright futures for one of the most at-risk populations in this country, Native American youth.”
The program strives to prevent childhood obesity and diabetes in this rural region by developing strategies and curriculum that focus on physical activity in younger Navajo populations.
“Our team is excited about the opportunity to learn innovative ways to care for the human body, mind and spirit,” said Crystal Kee, senior research program coordinator at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for American Indian Health.
As part of the award, the four winning teams will travel this month to the Canyon Ranch health and wellness resort in Tucson to meet with leaders in the fields of fitness and nutrition.
The goal at Canyon Ranch is to nurture a collaboration that will create lasting change in low-income communities where the nutrition and general health of children is a growing concern.
“Good nutrition is essential to children’s growth and development, but children in low-income communities often have limited access to healthy food,” said Canyon Ranch Institute Executive Director Jennifer Cabe, M.A., who is also a CRI board member. “We know that many of the chronic diseases that people experience are related to eating unhealthy foods and unhealthy portions. By supporting these teams now, Canyon Ranch Institute and Canyon Ranch are investing at the community level in changing systems and organizations that directly influence what low-income children eat every day.”
“We’re excited to see how each team uses their scholarship experience to produce even greater positive changes in the health of children and the communities where they live,” said Maggie King, manager for the CRI Healthy World Scholarship program.
Chinle is located in Apache County, near the geographic center of the Navajo Nation. The name in Navajo means “flowing out,” and is a reference to the location where the water flows out of Canyon de Chelly.
Canyon Ranch, winner of many travel and leisure awards, has been recognized as a pioneer of the wellness lifestyle for almost 40 years, working to create practices that educate, inspire and empower people to prevent disease and embrace a life of wellness.
Canyon Ranch was founded by Mel Zuckerman, who – “overweight, sedentary and desperate – checked himself into a fat farm in 1978. After just 10 days of physical training and healthy eating, he realized that he felt wonderful, that he had changed his life forever and that he wanted to help other people change theirs.” FBN
By Betsey Bruner, FBN
About FBN
View all posts by FBN →
Childhood, Chinle, Feature, Obesity
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Outdoorsman Makes Career of Protecting Forests
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Real Madrid plotting move for Manchester United star
by Luke Greenwood share
12/10/2014 | 04:52pm
Real Madrid are thought to be lining up Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea as a long term replacement for Iker Casillas, according to the Daily Mirror.
De Gea has been outstanding for Manchester United over the past 12 months, and delivered a man of the match performance in their latest Premier League win against Everton.
The Spaniard denied Leighton Baines from the penalty spot with the score at 1-0, before producing two world class saves in the closing minutes to preserve United’s 2-1 lead.
He was arguably the club’s most consistent player last season also, showing just how far he has come following a shaky start to his United career.
Real Madrid have been watching his performances closely, and view him as the ideal successor to Iker Casillas, who has dropped down the pecking order in Spain.
The Champions League winners completed the signing of Costa Rica’s World Cup goalkeeper Keylor Navas in the summer, with Spanish newspaper Marca claiming Casillas is on the verge of being forced out.
Liverpool and Arsenal have both been linked with a possible loan move for the Spanish World Cup winner in the summer.
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Electric Vehicles Are Driving Demand For Lithium - With Environmental Consequences
James Ellsmoor Contributor
Lithium, sometimes referred to as "white petroleum", is a key component in energy storage and in recent years demand has skyrocketed
The company's metal organic framework membranes substantially decrease the price of lithium production by optimizing the extraction process and increasing output yields
As the world moves towards a low-carbon future, there is a growing range of technological advancements facilitating the transition away from fossil fuels. Transportation and energy production are two sectors that desperately need to reduce emissions, and developments in electric vehicles and battery storage are rapidly changing both markets. Lithium, sometimes referred to as "white petroleum", is a key component in energy storage and in recent years demand has skyrocketed . This week delegates are gathering in Chile, the country with the world's biggest lithium reserves, at the 11th Lithium Supply & Markets Conference to discuss the latest advances in the industry.
See also: Are Electric Vehicles Really Better For The Environment?
Separation ponds at SQM Lithium mine, Atacama Desert, Chile. Almost three-quarters of the world’s lithium raw materials come from mines in Australia or briny lakes in Chile, giving them leverage with customers scrambling to tie-up supplies. The mining nations hope to bring refining and manufacturing plants that could help kickstart domestic technology industries.
Open commons.
Large scale batteries as a storage option for renewable energy on main electricity grids reached prominence after Elon Musk challenged himself to upgrade South Australia’s energy grid within one hundred days. It took only sixty-three days for Tesla to build a 100MW lithium-ion battery, the largest in the world, capable of kicking in as the state’s backup power source within less than a second. Using renewable energy as its prime power source, the battery helped improve the viability of renewables in South Australia, smoothing out issues with the intermittency of supply.
This mega-battery kicks in to stabilize the energy grid in the event of coal-powered plants or wind farms unexpectedly shutting down. In December 2017, a major coal generator in the neighboring state of New South Wales tripped, depriving the grid of over 689MW of capacity. However, the batteries kicked in within a second, assuring there would be no blackout.
The storage system has also cut energy costs for consumers in South Australia. By buying and selling power during fluctuating demand, the Tesla battery generates revenue, making close to $1.4 million AUD ($960,000 USD) through five days of volatile prices. As a result of its flexibility and improvement over current energy storage options, it has led many utility companies to consider the future uses of large-scale batteries. However, there are some outstanding issues that are threatening to limit the growth of lithium batteries.
A Finite Resource
The growing use of lithium batteries to store energy has exposed one of the dirtier sides of transitioning to a low carbon economy. To create these batteries, there is a need for a range of rare earth metals that require heavy mining and manufacturing that emit significant emissions. Furthermore, major components such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt exist in a finite amount that is unlikely to meet the current and future demands for battery units. So what options are available to help meet present and future needs, and how can it reduce pollution in the process?
See also: Global Population Without Access To Electricity Drops By 400 Million Since 2010
An Avinor AS electric two-seater plane stands on the tarmac ahead of its inaugural flight at Oslo airport, Norway. Norway’s aviation industry is now readying to go electric using lithium batteries.
© 2018 Bloomberg Finance LP
Studies looking into the sustainability of electric vehicles point out that with the high demand for new electric vehicles, the auto industry will benefit from economies of scale and as more cars are built, the more efficient and less polluting the manufacturing process. Additionally, as more batteries are created for these electric vehicles, it will create a market for the recycling of these storage devices, thereby reducing the need for new mining endeavors.
By the year 2025, lithium demand is expected to increase to approximately 1.3 million metric tons of LCE (lithium carbonate equivalent) - over five times today's levels. For example, the Volkswagen Group aims to launch more than 70 electric car models in the next 10 years, closely followed by a host of other automakers. In order to increase lithium supply to meet the boom in electric vehicle demand, companies such as Energy Exploration Technologies (EnergyX) are working on breakthrough direct-extraction technologies that they hope will provide increased production capabilities on both existing brine reserves and previously non-viable brine sources. The company's metal organic framework membranes substantially decrease the price of lithium production by optimizing the extraction process and increasing output yields .
“Our goal is to develop rapid, low-cost, lithium extraction and separation membranes with high recovery rates and minimal environmental impact,” explains Teague Egan, CEO of EnergyX. “This, in turn, will dramatically improve output, as well as production economics for existing producers, and their customers beyond that.”
Hard Truths & Imperfect Solutions
The drawbacks of the mining industry itself have weighed heavily against the rise of batteries. Mining rare earth and heavy metals emit large amounts of emissions whilst also having a noticeable impact on the environment. Around half of lithium mining comes from brine extraction while the rest is hard rock mining, which has even more damaging consequence to the environment. Shifting resource extraction away from hard rock to brine, with new technologies that leave a small footprint and low energy consumption such as EnergyX, can reduce environmental impacts. Increasing demand for batteries could lead to new lithium mines being set up outside of current operations in Australia, Chile, China and Argentina.
See also: Smart Cities: The Future Of Urban Development
Visitors inspect a brine pool at a Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM) lithium mine on the Atacama salt flat in the Atacama Desert, Chile, on Wednesday, May 29, 2019. Almost three-quarters of the world’s lithium raw materials come from mines in Australia or briny lakes in Chile, giving them leverage with customers scrambling to tie-up supplies. The mining nations hope to bring refining and manufacturing plants that could help kickstart domestic technology industries. Photographer: Cristobal Olivares/Bloomberg
The use of responsible mining companies has also been put forward as a way to promote safer industry standards that will reduce harmful environmental effects as well as ensure that labor laws are met. Whilst it is not a perfect solution, there are many ways to mitigate and reduce the impacts of batteries meant for electrical vehicles.
If the Tesla battery in South Australia and the effectiveness of current electric vehicles are anything to go by, lithium batteries will have a very important role in creating a low-carbon world. A recent study shows that the United States could reach 80% of its energy demands through renewable energy, with the biggest shortfall being the lack of infrastructure to store the power produced and the price tag associated to setting it up - upwards of $2.5 trillion USD.
Many startups and investors are also looking to find a breakthrough in battery storage technology that could supplant or complement lithium-ion batteries or find a way to make them more efficient and less costly. One of these programs, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, is funded by several billionaires including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, with the aim to find solutions for a zero-carbon future through over $1 billion in investment.
See also: Blockchain Is The Next Big Thing For Renewable Energy
The South Australian battery system offers a new avenue for large scale battery storage: a gradual replacement program. Such a program would use low-carbon energy sources such as nuclear and natural gas using carbon capture technology to replace fossil fuel power baseline energy needs, with batteries being installed as backup systems until they are able to gradually replace the aforementioned energy providers. Energy storage is clearly an integral part of our low-carbon future, and new techniques will be needed to maximize the use of our limited lithium resources.
James Ellsmoor
James Ellsmoor is a Forbes 30 Under 30 entrepreneur, dedicated to his passion for sustainable development and renewable energy.
James is Co-Founder and Director of ...
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Obama To Offer New Tax Breaks For Workers In Election Year Budget Pitch
Published March 04, 2014 Reuters
President Barack Obama will propose an expansion of popular tax credits for middle class and working poor Americans on Tuesday in a fiscal 2015 budget designed to serve as a blueprint for Democrats in this year's congressional elections.
The budget, which would also create automatic retirement accounts known as IRAs for some 13 million workers, has little chance of getting enacted.
But it codifies the president's policy priorities ahead of the November race, in which Democrats hope to keep control of the U.S. Senate and Republicans hope to expand their majority in the House of Representatives.
The budget signals a shift away from last year's emphasis on deficit cutting to a more pronounced focus on poverty reduction, a legacy-oriented goal the president is highlighting as he faces less than three years left in office.
Obama will unveil the document during a visit to a local elementary school at 11:30 a.m. EST.
His proposal would expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, a government anti-poverty measure that is meant to encourage low-income Americans to work. The expansion would cover some 13.5 million people who do not have children.
It would also make the program available to younger workers who are not currently eligible, the White House said.
The expansion, which would cost $60 billion, would be funded by closing loopholes such as the tax break for "carried interest," profits earned by wealthy investors who run private equity and other funds.
The budget also puts an emphasis on saving for retirement. It proposes to create automatic Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) for those who do not have access to savings plans sponsored by employers.
"About 13 million workers would begin contributing to retirement savings through auto-IRAs as a result of this proposal," the White House said.
DEMOCRATIC PRIORITIES
The White House signaled last month that its new budget would not extend the olive branch to Republicans that was offered in its proposal a year ago.
Officials said the president would drop a suggestion to change how the government calculates inflation for Social Security and other federal benefits that could have led to income drops for older Americans.
The change, which was unpopular with Obama's base, was meant to show Republicans the president was serious about deficit reduction. But the White House did not feel Republicans responded with a similar concession and dropped the idea.
Instead, the 2015 document will include proposals to boost spending on infrastructure projects, job training, and preschool education programs - all Democratic priorities.
It expands a tax credit to help parents pay for childcare, benefiting 1.7 million families, and makes permanent a tax credit related to paying for college educations.
"The president's budget will show in real terms the choices we can make to expand economic opportunity and strengthen the middle class," the White House said.
The budget outlines how some $1.014 trillion will be spent on government agencies' discretionary programs ranging from the military to national parks. That level, roughly in line with this year's cap of $1.012 trillion, was set by a recent budget deal hammered out by lawmakers.
That figure is less than a third of the approximately $3.5 trillion the government is likely to spend next year. The rest will be paid out automatically through federal benefits programs that mostly care for the elderly and poor, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
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01.25.2007 | POLITICS
Maybe there was a delay in his computerized voice system. Or maybe Stephen Hawking wanted a dramatic pause equal to the power of the words. Whatever the case, a long ten seconds passed between the Cambridge mathematician's roundup of the twin perils hanging over mankind like a double-bladed guillotine -- nuclear weapons and climate change -- and the following sentence, which would have been chilling even if they weren't uttered in the robot voice of the wheelchair-bound genius:
"It is now five minutes to midnight."
Thus ended Hawking's opening statement at Wednesday's simultaneous Washington/London press conference convened by the board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The presser announced a two-minute advance of the Doomsday Clock's minute hand, its 18th movement since 1947. That was the year the Cold War turned mutually atomic, and scientists at the University of Chicago hatched the clock as a way to remind humanity how close it was to destroying itself in a spasm of nuclear firepower. Since then, the clock has gotten as close as two minutes to midnight (1953) and as far away as 17 (1991).
The optimism of the "17 minutes" years faded fast. By 1995, it was obvious the nuclear powers felt no urgency in making the most of what Jonathan Schell called the "gift of time." The United States and Russia kept their still massive arsenals cocked on hair-triggers. Global military spending hovered at Cold War levels. Concerns grew over leakage of the post-Soviet nuclear stockpile. Bin Laden. India. Pakistan.
Then the Bush administration rode into town waving blueprints for space weapons, missile defenses, tactical nukes, and dark new doctrines. They trashed arms control treaties like so many bongs left on State Department desks by previous administrations.
The 9/11 attacks opened up a window of fire to consider and address the mounting dangers of this "second nuclear age," which does not supplant but merely compounds the dangers of the first. It was an opportunity lost. The national security debate was soon defined by saber-rattling, fear-mongering, and the blasts of war. There it remains today. Iraq is the "most crucial" issue facing the new Congress according to Jack Murtha, chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee.
Maybe. But as the 18 Nobel Laureates at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists remind us, there are other national security fronts that require urgent tending to. High-profile hearings on Iraq should not be held at the exclusion of hearings initiating a nuclear debate long overdue. In the last 15 years, public concern over and knowledge about nuclear issues has faded, despite the ascendance of an abstract, fatalistic and generally uninformed panic over nuclear terrorism.
But this is no time for forgetting, or for fatalism. There are hard policy levers that impact the probability of both nuclear terrorism and the still extant possibility of full-scale nuclear war. The new Congress must grasp this and rain legislative hellfire down on a raft of Strangelovean policies and programs currently in place or seeking funding. This means canceling some weapons while submitting them to fierce public inspection and ridicule, and boosting funds for and explaining the importance of nonproliferation programs that actually enhance national security.
The 110th can't save the world. Real progress will take new executive leadership and arduous diplomacy to reopen and deepen the U.S.-Russia disarmament process, and to close the Non-Proliferation Treaty loophole that allows countries to enrich and reprocess their own nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes. In the meantime, Congress can begin raising awareness of nuclear issues. It can kill or stall destabilizing nuclear-related programs where they can, retarding administration and Pentagon efforts to create a world of more nukes at home through obscene levels of defense spending, and less nukes abroad through the application of mindless, counterproductive and hypocritical force.
High on any list of congressional priorities should be expansion of the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, known as Nunn-Lugar after its authors. Since its passage in 1991, CTR programs operated by the departments of Defense and Energy have helped decommission and secure thousands of warheads in the former Soviet Union. They've also tightened safeguards at hundreds of supply depots holding nuclear material. Any serious and honestly fought "war on terror" would involve steroid injections for globalizing CTR, which last year saw its funding slashed to under $400 million for the first time since 1991.
More than 1,400 metric tons of highly enriched uranium and 500 tons of plutonium still sit in poorly guarded facilities around the world. A global lockdown must be accelerated.
We also need a mental shift in what constitutes defense spending. Along with expanding its programs, CTR should be integrated "into the concept of homeland defense and the war on terrorism -- not foreign aid," says Kenneth N. Luongo, executive director of the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council. "These programs are a first line of defense against WMD threats to the United States and its allies, and they should be considered a high national security priority."
Where would we find the money to expand CTR and other nonproliferation efforts?
As easy as plucking petals off a daisy. The 110th should reduce, redirect and rescind funds going to programs that increase the risk of nuclear war, nuclear proliferation, or both. Juicy targets include missile defense (aka, The Maginot Inch), all space weapons research, and "Complex 2030," the Department of Energy's sneaky beast of a proposal to reinvent and expand the entire U.S. nuclear supply chain in the name of "consolidation."
Missile defense should be first in line for a Thorazine shot and a straightjacket. The boondoggle has the unique triple-attribute of being corrupt, dysfunctional and destabilizing. It's also a pretty penny, sucking up some $10 billion a year. (That number, incidentally, equals the total price tag Harvard's Graham Allison puts on securing the world's remaining vulnerable fissile material depots.) Even though rigged tests of the program's marquee ground-based system have mostly proved embarrassing, the Missile Defense Agency has been curiously relieved of all congressional reporting requirements. This should change, and its funding should be drastically reduced to match its pathetic performance and questionable utility in an age of suitcase nukes and stateless nutcases.
"After four years [missile defense] is still back where it started," writes Philip Coyle in a recent issue of Current History. Coyle, a senior advisor to the Center for Defense Information and former director of the Operational Test and Evaluation office in the Department of Defense, points to "a troubling lack of clarity [in] public discourse regarding both the rationale for and the technical progress toward this kind of defense." Coyle's successor in the Defense Department issued a report last year admitting, "[missile defense] flight tests still lack operational realism."
So does MDA's spiraling annual budget, expected to hit a staggering $18 billion by 2016.
Congress should also choke funding for space weapons R&D, currently in the billions and threatening to spark a space arms race with profound implications for global security, not to mention our ability to use the heavenly commons for peaceful purposes. Though there exists a rare global consensus against weaponizing space, the Bush administration has officially declared outer space the domain of the United States Air Force, international law and opinion be damned.
Alongside futuristic Pentagon projects like space lasers and the "Long-Rod Penetrator," the Missile Defense Agency is also eager to breach the space weapons taboo with its Space-Based Interceptor. Congress should pull the plug on all these programs. Aside from being destabilizing, attempts to rule space are likely to be futile.
"It takes great hubris to believe that space can be controlled by military dominance," Michael Krepon, director of the Stimson Center's Space Security Project, writes in Defense News.
"Asymmetrical space warfare is a game that a growing number of countries can play. The characteristics of sensors that make satellites so valuable also make them vulnerable to some forms of interference. A bag of marbles that costs two dollars, properly inserted into space, can wreck a satellite that costs hundreds of millions of dollars."
Krepon further argues that the militarization of space will lead to the deterioration of major power relations, making proliferation more likely and harder to stop.
Then there is "Complex 2030," a proposal to consolidate and update the entire nuclear complex, including the opening of a new plutonium "pit" facility capable of producing 125 new bombs a year. Estimated price tag: $150 billion over 25 years. The Bush administration and the Department of Energy argue that the overhaul is necessary to maintain the country's deterrence capability and close aged plants, but arms control experts who have read the fine print say otherwise.
"The current nuclear stockpile is not in need of replacement, all of the existing nuclear weapons sites would still be in operation under the new plan, and the fundamental environmental problems of weapons production would not be solved," states a joint report issued by more than a dozen nuclear watchdog groups, including Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Furthermore, the increased design, production and testing capabilities of Complex 2030 could spark a new nuclear arms race."
The report suggests Congress couple a rejection of "2030" funds with hearings on the future of our nuclear arsenal and posture. In these hearings, fundamental questions should be asked about the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy.
If Murtha and Co. can pull their head out of Iraq long enough to take this advice, committee chairs might find some surprising voices for change. Among them, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, both of whom have had late-career conversions to the cause of comprehensive arms control leading to universal abolition.
In a Jan. 4 Wall Street Journal op-ed coauthored with George Schultz, William Perry, and Sam Nunn, Kissinger acknowledged that the world "is now on the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear era," and that "unless urgent new actions are taken, the United States soon will be compelled to enter a new nuclear era that will be more precarious, psychologically disorienting and economically even more costly than was the Cold War deterrence."
That's about the size of it. But it should have been obvious to Kissinger and everyone else a long time ago that the endgame was coming. The major nuclear powers cannot continue to simultaneously refine their arsenals while keeping the rest of the world in 1944 by threat of force; only a madman thinks threats and preemptive strikes constitute a coherent or sustainable nonproliferation strategy. Nor can we continue to allow the production of fissile material and expect it to remain forever out of dangerous hands. We cannot have our yellow cake and eat it, too.
If we don't come to grips with the dead-end of the nuclear double-standard, and begin soon the brave and historic grapple with the nuclear genie, we race toward a climax as awful as it is certain. The writing -- and the clock -- is on the wall.
This article originally appeared on AlterNet.com.
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Finding the cause of Tom’s rare syndrome
MDP syndrome (Mandibular hypoplasia, Deafness and Progeroid features) is an extremely rare metabolic disorder that prevents fatty tissue from being stored underneath the skin. These are the characteristic features:
mandibular hypoplasia (a small lower jaw)
tightening of the skin
lipodystrophy (a reduction in fat under the skin)
low testosterone levels in males
contractures of the long tendons of the toes resulting in claw toes and joint stiffness
MDP syndrome was first described in 2010 when 7 cases were reported by a group from Texas, USA. None of the patients described had an affected parent, nor were they known to be from consanguineous families where recessive inheritance is most likely.
We suspected that as neither of Tom’s parents have an MDP syndrome, it was likely to be caused by a de novo mutation. A de novo mutation is an alteration in a gene that arises as a result of a mutation in a germ cell (egg or sperm) of one of the parents. We sequenced the protein-coding regions of around 20,000 genes in Tom and both his parents and then looked for a genetic variant present in Tom but neither of his parents.
In the POLD1 gene on chromosome 19, we found 3 bases missing from Tom’s sequence:
The POLD1 gene is expressed in all cells in the body and encodes the catalytic subunit of the DNA polymerase delta, an enzyme crucial for DNA replication. The 3 base pair deletion, described as c.1812-1814delCTC, results in the deletion of a serine residue at position 605 (p.Ser605del) within the active site of the DNA polymerase. Functional studies by our collaborators from the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, showed that this single amino acid deletion abolishes DNA polymerase activity.
The same mutation has subsequently been found in other patients with MDP syndrome. A second missense mutation, p.Arg507Cys, has been found in a few other cases. Many of these people had also waited many years for a diagnosis. This long period between presentation of symptoms and obtaining a genetic diagnosis is often described as a “Diagnostic Odyssey”. Genetic testing for MDP syndrome is now available for patients throughout the world. Our Diabetes Genes website also includes recommendations for clinical management.
If you would like to know more about the discovery of the POLD1 mutation causing MDP syndrome, we suggest you read An in-frame deletion at the polymerase active site of POLD1 causes a multisystem disorder with lipodystrophy, Weedon MN et al 2013, Nature Genetics.
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Davenport floods as barrier fails
By Margery A. BeckAssociated Press
May 1, 2019 at 11:55 AM May 1, 2019 at 6:53 PM
DAVENPORT, Iowa — Crews evacuated buildings and cars Tuesday afternoon after a flood barrier failed along the Mississippi River, sending floodwaters rushing into downtown Davenport.
The National Weather Service sent an alert around 4 p.m. of a flash flood emergency in Davenport, urging people downtown to immediately seek higher ground. Public works officials reported that a temporary flood barrier had failed and that many people sought shelter on the rooftops of downtown buildings.
"It was just the one barrier, so we're not expecting the flooding to spread beyond what we're seeing now," Davenport Public Works Director Nicole Gleason said. "That could change with heavy rain."
Gleason said crews and volunteers scrambled Tuesday afternoon to fill sandbags for other downtown businesses looking to keep the floodwaters out of their buildings.
The breach hit as communities in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri prepare for record or near-record crests along the river. The National Weather Service already issued flood warnings for areas directly on either side of the river in 10 states, "all the way to the Gulf of Mexico," said meteorologist Mike McClure in Davenport.
The floodwaters had overtaken vehicles and the first floors of some buildings on the river's edge, and rescue crews could be seen launching boats into the floodwaters to retrieve people stranded by the sudden surge.
Mayor Frank Klipsch said there were no reports of injuries. He asked that people stay away from downtown while officials work to evacuate the area.
"This is a couple blocks of one part of our city. It's fortunately a relatively small area being flooded," Klipsch said.
In Iowa, some cities on the river's banks — including Davenport and Muscatine — had already closed some low-lying streets and erected flood walls and sandbag barriers.
Flood watches have been issued for larger tracts around in the river in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri, as well as sections of Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, as heavy rain that began in some places Monday was set to continue into Wednesday.
The rain comes as the Mississippi River is set to reach record or near-record crests in Iowa, Illinois and northern Missouri.
In suburban St. Louis, the river is expected to reach 9 to 10 feet above flood stage Saturday at several locations in northeast Missouri and at Quincy, Illinois. With up to 4 inches of rain possible in the region through Friday, the weather service cites a high risk of flash flooding and warns that river forecasts could rise even higher.
If the river reaches the projected 24.2 feet in Louisiana, a town of 3,300 residents some 90 miles north of St. Louis, roads and highways will be covered, railroad tracks will be swamped, and the Champ Clark Bridge crossing the river will have to close, Pike County, Missouri, Emergency Management Director Al Murry said.
Water that high also could threaten levees that protect thousands of acres of farmland.
"The potential for cropland damage if you have a levee burst — that's a really big deal," Murry said.
At 5 p.m., the Mississippi River at Davenport was recorded at 21.88 feet — the fifth highest for the spot ever recorded, according the National Weather Service. That's approaching the record crest of 22.6 feet set in July 1993.
The river's expected to crest Wednesday evening a few inches short of the record.
The gauge in nearby Muscatine showed the river just under 3 feet below the July 1993 record of 25.6 feet. It's expected to crest a little more than a foot under the record at Muscatine, where officials have placed new berms and are diverting downtown traffic.
Associated Press writer Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.
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Taiwan Corruption Report
Corruption does not represent a major obstacle for business operating or planning to invest in Taiwan. However, there are several reports of official corruption. These can be traced back to the close ties between politics and business which have raised the risks of corruption particularly in public procurement. Petty corruption, however, is very uncommon in most sectors. Taiwanese anti-corruption law is primarily contained in the Anti-Corruption Act, the Criminal Code and the Organic Statute for Anti-Corruption Administration and the government generally implemented these laws effectively. Taiwan’s Agency Against Corruption defines low-level gratuities; therefore, any facilitation payment could be viewed as a bribe by the courts.
The judicial system presents businesses with moderate corruption risks. Bribes and irregular payments are occasionally exchanged in order to obtain favorable court decisions (GCR 2015-2016). The judiciary suffers from political interference and the impartiality of judges is apparent when it comes to settling high-profile and politically sensitive cases (BTI 2016, HRR 2015). More than half of surveyed citizens perceive the judiciary to be corrupt (GCB 2013). On a more positive note, and in an effort to contain corruption within the courts, Taiwan established a rating and removal system for monitoring corrupt judges (FitW 2013). Businesses find the courts’ ability to settle disputes and challenge government regulations as poor (GCR 2015-2016).
In one corruption case, former president Chen Shui-bian and his wife were convicted on corruption and money laundering charges. Chen Shui-bian was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment in addition to the 17 years he is already serving for corruption. His wife has received over 19 years in prison and a fine of USD 5.45 million (ICS 2013).
Companies do not contend with high corruption risks when dealing with the police. Business executives believe Taiwan’s police services can reliably enforce law and order (GCR 2015-2016). There are effective mechanisms in place to investigate and punish abuse and corruption (HRR 2015). There were no reports of police impunity during 2015 (HRR 2015). Notwithstanding, the police is perceived as one of the most corrupt public institutions by more than half of surveyed Taiwanese households (GCB 2013).
Corruption in the public services does not present businesses with high risks. Companies rarely report having to pay bribes to officials to obtain public utilities (GCR 2015-2016). In effect, reports of corruption cases in the bureaucratic apparatus are rare (BTI 2016). Nonetheless, inefficient government bureaucracy is ranked as the second-most problematic factor for doing business in Taiwan (GCR 2015-2016). Likewise, the burden of government regulations is also perceived as problematic to doing business (GCR 2015-2016).
Starting a business and obtaining a construction permit is less time-consuming that the regional average (DB 2016).
Property rights are protected in Taiwan, and the judiciary enforces contracts effectively (BTI 2016). In the same vein, business executives perceive the protection of property rights in Taiwan as being strong (GCR 2015-2016).
In one corruption case, in late 2015, the former Deputy Mayor of New Taipei City, Hsu Chih-chieh, was indicted on charges of corruption. Hsu had accepted bribes, gold bars and luxury watches from two real estate developers in return for expediting the approval and review process of several urban development projects (HRR 2015).
Corruption in the tax administration does not appear to be a major problem in Taiwan. Bribery and irregular payments are rarely exchanged when meeting with tax officials (GCR 2015-2016). Paying taxes in Taiwan is more time-consuming compared to regional averages totaling 221 hours per year, yet the number of payments is less than half that of neighboring countries (DB 2016).
With the leak of the Panama Papers in 2016, it was revealed that Taiwan topped the list of countries acting as safe tax havens with 19,600 people and companies hiding money in the country (South China Morning Post, May 2016).
Trading across borders in Taiwan carries a low corruption risk for companies. Transparency is ranked as rather high and bribes and irregular payments are rarely exchanged in meetings with tax officials (GETR 2014, GCR 2015-2016). Furthermore, business executives perceive the efficiency of customs procedures (formalities regulating the entry and exit of merchandise) as being efficient (GCR 2015-2016).
The public procurement sector in Taiwan presents business with high corruption risks. Surveyed companies state both that public funds are sometimes diverted to companies, individuals or groups due to corruption and that government officials sometimes show favoritism when deciding upon policies and contracts (GCR 2015-2016). Furthermore, business and politics are closely linked raising the risks of corruption in the sector (FitW 2015). Public procurement and tenders are governed by the Government Procurement Act (GPA). Under the Act, a procurement project with a value of over TWD 1 million is required to be published on the Public Construction Commission‘s (PCC) website. The PCC publishes all major projects that require open bidding, in accordance with the requirements set by the GPA. Taiwan acceded to the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Government Procurement, which embodies the principles of transparency and fair and effective competition.
In one corruption case involving the state rail sector it was found that railway officials accepted bribes and sex services in exchange for helping businesses secure contracts for eight rail projects worth over TWD 1.1 billion over the last six years. The court sentenced 14 people, seven of which were officials from the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) including a former deputy head of the TRA, in the case to 17 years’ imprisonment. A construction agent and six businessmen were also sentenced to five years in prison for bribing officials (The Standard, Sep. 2016). Lai Su-Ju, a Taipei city council member holding a high position within the ruling nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party, and with close ties to the president of Taiwan, also received a ten years’ imprisonment sentence for demanding a bribe from a company seeking a construction contract (FitW 2015). Companies are, thus, recommended to use a specialised public procurement due diligence tool to mitigate the corruption risks associated with public procurement.
The government of Taiwan has a comprehensive legal anti-corruption framework in place and implementation is regarded as effective (HRR 2015). The Taiwanese Anti-Corruption Act, Criminal Code and Organic Statue for Anti-Corruption Administration criminalize corruption in the form of active bribery, passive bribery, bribery of foreign officials and attempted bribery, while money laundering is criminalized under the Money Laundering Control Act. Both the Anti-Corruption Act and the Criminal Code provide for extraterritorial jurisdiction, thus Taiwanese companies can be prosecuted for corruption committed outside Taiwan (NRF 2014). The Corruption Punishment Statute /Anti-Corruption Act and the Criminal Code stipulate the penalties for corrupt activities, punishable by a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and a fine of up to USD 3.3 million. The Agency Against Corruption ethics guidelines outline acceptable low-level gratuities and gifts; they are not explicitly called facilitation payments. Yet, any facilitation payment could be viewed as a bribe by the courts (NRF 2014). Taiwan also has a set of comprehensive laws and regulations designed to target corruption and to build clean and transparent governance, such as the Political Donations Act, the Lobbying Act, the Act on Property-Declaration by Public Servants and the Act on Recusal of Public Servants due to Conflicts of Interest. The Witness Protection Law offers protection for witnesses who testify in criminal cases concerning areas such as money laundering, election fraud or bribery by public officials. The Law also requires the identity of the witness to be kept anonymous. The Anti-Corruption Informant Rewards and Protection Regulation provides protection for whistleblowers; the name, gender, date of birth, identification numbers and address of a whistleblower must be kept confidential. Elected officials and specified appointed public officials are subject to financial disclosure laws and can be sentenced to imprisonment for repeatedly failing to comply (HRR 2015).
The Ministry of Justice, responsible for fighting corruption, is perceived insufficiently independent to crack down of violations and had initiated politically motivated investigations against politicians (HRR 2015). Taiwan is neither party to the UN Convention Against Corruption not the OECD Convention on Combatting Bribery.
The Constitution guarantees freedoms of speech and of the press, and these rights are respected by the government (HRR 2015). Taiwan’s media environment is considered to be among the freest in Asia and has a vigorous and diverse press that reports aggressively on government policies and corruption allegations (FotP 2015). Media outlets are privately owned in Taiwan and Taiwanese law prohibits government and political parties from owning or running broadcast media companies, and government entities and political parties are also required to divest themselves of stakes in all broadcast companies (FotP 2015). Nonetheless, the concentration of media ownership has raised concerns about its impact on press freedom (HRR 2015). One of the effects is felt in journalistic reports in favor of the Republic of China, which can be traced back to political considerations and the influence of Taiwanese business with close ties to China (HRR 2015). The government does not censor, restrict or monitor internet content (HRR 2015). The media environment is considered ‘free’ (FotP 2015).
Taiwan has one of the most vibrant civil societies in Asia, with numerous NGOs engaging in different public activities and featuring high-degrees of social and institutional trust (BTI 2016). All NGOs must register with the government, and those working with human rights, social welfare and environmental issues are active and can operate without harassment (BTI 2012). The Ministry of Justice, also responsible for combatting corruption, cooperated with civil society organizations and Taiwanese authorities have generally been cooperative and responsive to the views of NGOs (HRR 2015).
World Bank & IFC: Doing Business 2016.
The Standard: ‘Railmen jailed over sex bribes’, 1 September 2016.
South China Morning Post: ‘Chinese dominate list of people and firms hiding money in tax havens, Panama Papers reveal’, 10 May 2016.
Freedom House: Freedom in the World – Taiwan 2015.
US Department of State: Human Rights Practices Report – Taiwan 2015.
Freedom House: Freedom of the Press – Taiwan 2015.
Norton Rose Fulbright: Taiwan 2014.
World Economic Forum: Global Enabling Trade Report 2014
US Department of State: Investment Climate Statement – Taiwan 2013.
Transparency International: Global Corruption Barometer 2013.
Bertelsmann Foundation: Transformation Index – Taiwan 2012.
The Control Yuan of the Republic of China: Sunshine Acts – Laws and Regulations.
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STAMFORD, Conn., September 16, 2015
Gartner Survey Shows More Than 75 Percent of Companies Are Investing or Planning to Invest in Big Data in the Next Two Years
Skills, Governance, Funding and ROI Challenges Set to Increase
Investment in big data continues to increase in 2015, but not as rapidly as in previous years. More than three-quarters of companies are investing or planning to invest in big data in the next two years, a three percent increase over 2014, according to a recent survey of IT and business leaders by Gartner, Inc. The survey, which was conducted among 437 Gartner Research Circle Members in June 2015, included global organizations across all industries, both Gartner clients and nonclients.
"This year begins the shift of big data away from a topic unto itself, and toward standard practices," said Nick Heudecker, research director at Gartner. "The topics that formerly defined big data, such as massive data volumes, disparate data sources and new technologies are becoming familiar as big data solutions become mainstream. For example, among companies that have invested in big data technology, 70 percent are analyzing or planning to analyze location data, and 64 percent are analyzing or planning to analyze free-form text."
Organizations typically have multiple goals for big data initiatives, such as enhancing the customer experience, streamlining existing processes, achieving more targeted marketing and reducing costs. As in previous years, organizations are overwhelmingly targeting enhanced customer experience as the primary goal of big data projects (64 percent). Process efficiency and more-targeted marketing are now tied at 47 percent. As data breaches continue to make headlines, enhanced security capabilities saw the largest increase, from 15 percent to 23 percent.
"As big data becomes the new normal, information and analytics leaders are shifting focus from hype to finding value," said Lisa Kart, research director at Gartner. "While the perennial challenge of understanding value remains, the practical challenges of skills, governance, funding and return on investment (ROI) come to the fore."
When asked about ROI for big data efforts, the majority of those companies with plans to invest in big data and those that have invested, expect a positive ROI. However, a large proportion of companies (43 percent of those planning to invest and 38 percent of those that have already invested) don't know if their ROI will be positive or negative. This uncertainty highlights the challenges in determining the value of big data projects.
One of the more significant changes in this year's survey findings is the role within the organization that initiates big data projects. Last year, 37 percent of big data projects were initiated by the CIO, while 25 percent were initiated by business unit heads. In 2015, the roles are nearly tied, at 32 percent and 31 percent, respectively.
"Business leaders are taking a more active role in information and analytics projects as awareness of the value of data-driven decision making grows," said Mr. Heudecker.
More detailed analysis is available in the report "Survey Analysis: Practical Challenges Mount as Big Data Moves to Mainstream."
Big data trends will be discussed at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2015, October 4-8 in Orlando, Florida. Members of the media can register for the event by contacting Christy Pettey at christy.pettey@gartner.com.
About Gartner Symposium/ITxpo
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world's most important gathering of CIOs and other senior IT executives. This event delivers independent and objective content with the authority of the world's leading IT research and advisory organization, and provides access to the latest solutions from key technology providers. Gartner's annual Symposium/ITxpo events are key components of attendees' annual planning efforts. IT executives rely on these events to gain insight into how their organizations can use IT to overcome business challenges and improve operational efficiency.
Additional information from the event will be shared on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Gartner_inc and using #GartnerSYM.
Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2015 include:
September 28-30, Cape Town, South Africa
October 4-8, Orlando, Florida
October 19-22, Sao Paulo, Brazil
October 26-29, Gold Coast, Australia
October 28-30, Tokyo, Japan
November 2-5, Goa, India
November 8-12, Barcelona, Spain
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT), is the world’s leading research and advisory company and a member of the S&P 500. We equip business leaders with indispensable insights, advice and tools to achieve their mission-critical priorities today and build the successful organizations of tomorrow.
Our unmatched combination of expert-led, practitioner-sourced and data-driven research steers clients toward the right decisions on the issues that matter most. We are a trusted advisor and objective resource for more than 15,000 organizations in more than 100 countries — across all major functions, in every industry and enterprise size.
To learn more about how we help decision makers fuel the future of business, visit gartner.com.
Viveca Woods
viveca.woods@gartner.com
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Wellington man talks about serving in World War II
Today, at age 99, J.D. Feaster still goes with his wife, Maurene, to Thursday morning coffees sponsored by the Wellington Area Chamber of Commerce and even drives, still. He’s led a fruitful life, a long-time business man, a private pilot who once flew his own plane and a former Rotary Club president.
Feaster lives today, having survived the last major German offensive of World War II, the Battle of the Bulge, which took place between December of 1944 and January of 1945. He remembers being in mountainous terrain, feet freezing and hiding with other soldiers in a foxhole, so cold their breath would turn to ice on the walls of the hole.
“Who you are in a foreign country in the bad weather and all that and people trying to eliminate you, you did everything you did to survive,” Feaster said. “That’s about what it amounted to. There were different times I was in places where I was scared.”
Feaster was born in Wichita in 1920, but for most of his childhood, he lived in Oxford. At around age 21, he was drafted into the Army in 1942, went through basic training in Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri. He recalls drills, such as having to take 20-mile hike, carrying a heavy pack back.
Following basic training, he took a train to Fort Ord, California.
“Basically all I was doing was training, guarding the coastline of California because some people around LA had seen Japanese submarines,” he said. “We Were guarding rail roads and bridges. They used our unit to send on maneuvers in the Mojave desert for three months. It was 120 degrees a lot of days. There was nothing but cactus and scorpions.”
The Army was preparing to leave and fight its African campaign. Much of the terrain on the continent was similar to the desert and the men were testing their equipment to see if it would withstand the hot, sandy conditions.
Feaster didn’t go to Africa.
A sergeant in a motor crew, Feaster and other men were ordered by their colonel to start a new division, 99th division in McCone.
“I had a platoon of people I was training,” he said. “Every unit in the army is involved in a division -- engineers, radio, -- to me, it was no problem, I was a young kid. You just flew with it like anything else.”
He recalled being in England and Belgium, crossing a bridge across the Rhine River all night, hearing German soldiers and not knowing where they were, being shot at by Germans and men getting their feet frozen in the snow.
“You could stomp your feet,” Feaster said. “That could get the circulation going, but it wouldn’t stop your feet from being cold.”
The infantry lost a lot of men, he said.
“You just lived with it,” he said. “It was something you had to do and you did it.”
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Geoffrey Biddle started taking photographs when he was a senior in high school, in 1967. He has been a location photographer, working for a wide variety of editorial and corporate clients, and he has taught photography extensively, including at Parsons School of Design, where he served as Assistant Chair of the Photography Department from 1994 to 2000. He has collaborated with his wife, Jane Gottesman, on two projects, Game Face: What Does A Female Athlete Look Like? and Showing. His books include Alphabet City (University of California Press, 1992), Sydney and Flora (Turtle Point Press, 2009), and God Bless America (2007). His work is in multiple collections, including the Museum of Modern Art. The Alphabet City photographs and papers were acquired by The New York Public Library in 2017. He is at work on a memoir entitled Rock in a Landslide.
geoffreybiddle@gmail.com
@geoffreybiddlephoto
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Where is Taplow?
Taplow is located in the county of Buckinghamshire, South East England, one mile north-east of the town of Maidenhead, four miles west of the major town of Slough, and 24 miles west of London. Taplow lies just east of the Berkshire border. Taplow falls within the district council of South Bucks, under the county council of Buckinghamshire. It is in the SL6 postcode district. The post town for Taplow is Maidenhead.
Taplow on a map
Bounding box showing extent of Taplow
Location of Taplow within the UK
Which county is Taplow in?
Taplow is in the ceremonial county of Buckinghamshire, the historic county of Buckinghamshire, and the administrative county of Buckinghamshire.
Where is Taplow in Buckinghamshire?
Taplow is situated towards the southernmost extremity of Buckinghamshire, and towards the easternmost extremity of Buckinghamshire.
Location of Taplow within Buckinghamshire
What is the postcode for Taplow?
The nearest postcode to the centre of Taplow is SL6 0EU.
Where is Taplow in SL6?
Taplow is situated roughly centrally between the southernmost and northernmost extremities of the SL6 postcode district, and towards the easternmost extremity of the SL6 postcode district.
Location of Taplow within SL6
What is the post town for Taplow?
The post town for Taplow is Maidenhead. Taplow is in the SL6 postcode district, which corresponds to the post town of Maidenhead.
What is the latitude and longitude of Taplow?
The centre of Taplow is located at position 51.53145° latitude and -0.6906° longitude.
-0.6906°
What is the easting and northing of Taplow?
The centre of Taplow is located at the grid reference easting 490924 and northing 182206 within the British National Grid (OSGB36) system.
What are the nearest towns to Taplow?
Position of Taplow relative to nearby towns. Distance is measured from the centre of Taplow to the centre of the town.
Taplow is 1 mile north-east of Maidenhead
Taplow is 4 miles west of Slough
Taplow is 5 miles north-west of Eton
Taplow is 5 miles south-east of Marlow
Taplow is 5 miles north-west of Windsor
Taplow is 6 miles south of Beaconsfield
Taplow is 7 miles south-west of Gerrards Cross
Taplow is 7 miles south of High Wycombe
Taplow is 8 miles north of Bracknell
Taplow is 9 miles north-west of Egham
What are the nearest cities to Taplow?
Position of Taplow relative to nearby cities. Distance is measured from the centre of Taplow to the centre of the city.
Taplow is 21 miles south-west of St Albans
Taplow is 24 miles west of London
Taplow is 24 miles west of City of Westminster
Taplow is 26 miles west of City of London
Taplow is 29 miles south-east of Oxford
Taplow is 42 miles north-east of Winchester
Taplow is 48 miles north of Chichester
Taplow is 52 miles west of Chelmsford
Taplow is 53 miles north-east of Southampton
Taplow is 54 miles north of Portsmouth
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‘Rent Live’s’ Jordan Fisher on his 15-year journey to the live musical
Hunter Ingram More Content Now
Jan 25, 2019 at 10:23 AM Jan 25, 2019 at 10:23 AM
To the masses, “Rent” is that musical that taught the world there are 525,600 minutes in a year. But to a generation or two of theater kids, gay men and musical fans, “Rent” was a seismic Broadway story of loss, love and the inescapable touch of the AIDS epidemic in 1990s New York City. Today, its message of living for today is performed in city theaters and high schools across the country every year, its songs are well-worn selections at karaoke bars, and a big-screen adaptation in 2005 elevated its intimate scale to varying effect. But on Sunday, the brainchild of the late playwright Jonathan Larson is going where it’s never gone before - primetime TV. Fox is staging “Rent Live” (8-10 p.m. Jan. 27), the latest in a string of live musical productions that have spawned a few recent technical marvels (“Grease Live,” “Jesus Christ Superstar Live”). Jordan Fisher is among those generations inspired by the musicality and inclusivity of “Rent,” which he was first introduced to about 15 years ago. Fisher remembers soon after, he told a mentor he was staking his claim on being the first person of color to play “Rent’s” Mark, the white, Jewish filmmaker born into privilege who acts as the story’s narrator (originally played by Anthony Rapp). But Fisher takes a beat to put that dream into context. “This is coming from a guy mixed with a bunch of ethnicities from a small football town about 20 minutes outside Birmingham, Alabama,” he said. “In the 90s, I was the only kid around that looked like me. But I saw myself in Mark and I wanted to see that represented.” In the intervening years, Fisher, now 24, became a triple-threat artist with a solid resume on stage and live on TV. He won a recent cycle of ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” a title he segued into a co-hosting stint on “Dancing With the Stars Juniors.” He’s been in the Broadway company of “Hamilton” and was a breakout in “Grease Live,” dusting off the underrated song “Those Magic Changes” with just a guitar and a cool confidence in the heat of live madness. But he’s never lost that yearning to play Mark, a role he was fought for after “Rent Live” was announced - and a persistence that paid off. This week, Jordan and the rest of the fast-and-furious production’s cast and crew entered the homestretch, polishing the edges of its intricate vision and direction, co-helmed by Michael Greif, the director of the original Broadway production. “I’m pretty amped,” Fisher said. “You get in the trenches with these people and it flies by, and I knew it going into this. I’m gonna snap my fingers, blink my eyes and it’s going to be the last couple of days before the show and here we are. We only get one shot at this.” The last few months of rehearsal have been long days and tough challenges, but Fisher said that’s what forges the family necessary to get to “Rent’s” heart and soul. In the core cast is fellow “Grease Live” alum Vanessa Hudgens, singer Tinashe, Brandon Victor Dixon (fresh from his Emmy-nominated turn in “Jesus Christ Superstar”), Brennin Hunt, Kiersey Clemons, Mario and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” favorite Valentina. While “Rent” remains of a specific time, when communities were being decimated by AIDS and HIV, Fisher said this 2019 staging was never about retooling it to fit the needs of today. “The content does that for us,” he said. “‘Rent’ resonates with people across generations because it’s really great art.” Its primetime slot does mean that some curse words and suggestive material will be sacrificed to the network censors. But in their absence, Fisher said Greif is infusing the show with ideas he’s been itching to try out since staging the original. Fisher also had the freedom to play Mark as “more tortured than I’ve ever seen him portrayed.” But the integrity of the original is never compromised in this new telling. Fisher said Larson’s sister, Julie, and father, Al, have been on set every day and are executive producers on the show. He remembers tears forming in Al’s eyes after being asked what he thought of one rehearsal. “He just hugged me and said, ‘Thank you,’” Fisher said. Just days until showtime, Fox released a promotional clip of the cast huddled in a circle on the industrial-influenced set, singing an a capella version of the show’s earworm opener, “Seasons of Love.” Fisher said the video was actually shot while the group harmonized to record the soundtrack version with music playing in their ears. But seeing a new perspective of that moment has been emotional. “It’s vulnerable and beautiful and raw hearing and seeing that moment in that way,” he said. “It’s a testament to the heart of this cast and crews, how deeply we care about Jonathan’s story.” Hunter Ingram can be reached at Hunter.Ingram@StarNewsOnline.com. Hunter is a member of the Television Critics Association.
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Bode Carl (current)
Carl Bode made several test flights with the FW-61, the precursor of modern helicopters (archive family Bode)
Carl (or Karl) Bode was born in Kiel/Germany on February 25, 1911. After the compulsory school he graduated as an engineer in the high technical institute of Hannover. Much later he started his activity as an airplane test pilot for various German builders. His career as a helicopter pilot started in September 1937. In that period in fact the newly founded Focke-Wulf company, builder of the famous FW 61 helicopter (which is is usually considered the first helicopter capable to perform all the classic manoeuvres of this aerodyne), was looking for a new test pilot. Bode accepted the offer and continued the test flights of the prototype. In 1938 inside the Deutschlandhalle of Berlin he became the first pilot to fly indoor. With this prototype he established numerous records, walloping those precedently set. On June 20, 1938 he flew non-stop for 230 km and on January 29, 1939 he set an altitude record climbing to 3'427 meters. Despite some accidents during the tests, the success of the flights was evident. For these reasons the German company started the construction of a larger helicopter known as FA 223 Drache (Dragon). The first prototype was tested by Bode in August 1940. As its predecessor the Drache had a side-by-side rotor configuration.
During the test flights of the new helicopter Bode was again victim of some accidents which ended fortunately without serious consequences for him.
With this helicopter he transported passengers, materials, light vehicles, armaments, parts of aeroplanes victim of emergency landings. The Drache could be equipped with doubles controls and used for the training of the pilots. During the war he also flew with the small autogyro FA 330 Bachstelze towed by an U-Boot and the Focke FA 225, an experimental autogyro which could carry nine soldiers and was towed by an aeroplane.
Carl Bode obtained the Swiss commercial helicopter pilot licence nr. 7 (SFA)
By the end of the conflict the German pilot had logged complessively 195h18min of flight sharing out as follow: 36h 28min on the FA 61, 156h29min on the Drache and 2h13min on the Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri, another helicopter built in limited series by the Germans. At the end of the WWII the Allies prohibited almost all the flying activities in Germany. Consequently Bode was forced to cease to fly and worked as a mechanic. He then took the decision to emigrate to Switzerland where he continued his flying career. In the Spring of 1952 he obtained the civil licence as sailplane pilot, followed on April 3, 1952 by the private airplane pilot licence. On August 3, 1952, trained by Sepp Bauer, he began the helicopter pilot school flying on the Hiller 360 of Air Import. After 7h36min of flight as PIC, on March 3, 1953 he obtained on the airport of Zürich the Swiss private helicopter pilot license nr. 7. On September 14, the Federal office for civil aviation (FOCA) issued him the commercial pilot licence nr. 7.
Spring 1954 - Carl Bode (on the right) along with the first pilots working for Air Import: Emil Müller, Albert Villard and Sepp Bauer
At the same time he went in France where he was trained at the Fenwick Aviation school to fly with the Bell 47D-1 and G models. In that period Bode was a technical consultant and member of the Deutsche Studiengemeinschaft Hubschrauber e. V. of Stuttgard. By the the Spring of 1954 he was employed by Air Import as flying instructor and flew with the Hiller 360 and the UH-12B. In May 1955 Germany joined the NATO and the military and commercial flight activities restarted. Bode decided to return to his homeland where he found a job as an instructor and technical responsible of the Hubschrauber Vertriebs G.m.b.H (HVG). HVG based on the airfield of Hummerich near Kretz/Andernach has been the first commercial helicopter company founded in Germany.During 1958 he was trained by the Heeresflieger der Bundeswehr (German Army Aviators Corps) on the airfield of Niedermendig/Eifeld. From June 13, 1958 until July 24, he completed the transition course on the Sikorsky S-58, and then from July 30, until August 25, he learned to fly with the Vertol H-21. As a test pilot on June 7, 1959 he did the first flight at the controls of the Merckle SM67 prototype, the first turbine powered helicopter built in Germany. With this model he also had an accident in which he was seriously injured. However his flying activity continued. He became technical consultant for the German military services until 1971 and then chief quality officer of the Flugtechnischen Werke (VFW) Fokker of Bremen until his retirement in 1973. During his long career he piloted over 100 different aerodynes. The helicopter list comprends among the ones already mentioned: SNCASO SO 1221 Djinn, Sikorsky S-51, S-64, S-65, Brantly B-2, Alouette 2 and probably several others. Bode was an excellent pilot, cautious and scrupulous, and as he self admitted probably always attended by a guardian angel.
He passed away on November 16, 2002 at the age of 91 years.
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Honing in on the melodious foundation that first brought the multi-PLATINUM trio together, Lady Antebellum returns to radio airwaves today with "You Look Good," while concurrently announcing it as the debut single off their sixth studio album HEART BREAK (Capitol Nashville), to be released June 9. After taking time to pursue solo projects last year, Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood simultaneously share plans to return to the road, with more than 65 shows planned in six countries on their YOU LOOK GOOD WORLD TOUR, presented by Nabisco. With more than 18 million album sales worldwide, seven-time GRAMMY award winning group Lady Antebellum has earned six PLATINUM singles, nine chart topping hits, countless other awards including Billboard Music Awards, People's Choice Awards and Teen Choice Awards, while also taking home ACM and CMA "Vocal Group of the Year" trophies three years in a row.">
Lady Antebellum - Kelsea Ballerini, Brett Young
Honing in on the melodious foundation that first brought the multi-PLATINUM trio together, Lady Antebellum returns to radio airwaves today with "You Look Good," while concurrently announcing it as the debut single off their sixth studio album HEART BREAK (Capitol Nashville), to be released June 9. After taking time to pursue solo projects last year, Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood simultaneously share plans to return to the road, with more than 65 shows planned in six countries on their YOU LOOK GOOD WORLD TOUR, presented by Nabisco. With more than 18 million album sales worldwide, seven-time GRAMMY award winning group Lady Antebellum has earned six PLATINUM singles, nine chart topping hits, countless other awards including Billboard Music Awards, People's Choice Awards and Teen Choice Awards, while also taking home ACM and CMA "Vocal Group of the Year" trophies three years in a row.
Start:August 13, 2017 Time: 6:00 PM
End:August 13, 2017 Time: 11:59 PM
Where:Merriweather Post Pavilion, 10475 Little Patuxent Pkwy, Columbia, Maryland, United States, 21044
Ticket Price:$56.75 - $199.00
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Naval Medicine
Rear Admiral William T Sampson, Commander, North Atlantic Fleet, to Secretary of the Navy John D. Long, 6/1/1898
Rear Admiral William T Sampson, Commander, North Atlantic Fleet, to Secretary of the Navy John D. Long
U. S. Flagship New York, 1st Rate,
Off Santiago de Cuba, Cuba,
June 1st, 1898.
S I R :--
Having recently inspected the hospital arrangements at Key West, Florida, I must report them to you as, in my opinion, unsatisfactory. Twelve beds are reserved at the Marine Hospital for Naval patients, and the so-called Army General Hospital has four hundred and fifty beds, exclusive of fifty kept for yellow fever cases. These are distributed though the convent and school buildings--offered first to the Navy--and a tobacco factory about a mile distant.
2. With our present squadron force above seven thousand men, it must be estimated that at least two percent of hospital cases will occur constantly, exclusive of casualties, thus giving a daily occupancy of one hundred and forty beds. In fact, already, after a month’s experience--(and the force was not as large at the beginning of the month as it is now)-- there are eighty naval cases in hospital against one from the Army. Should a military force of fifty-thousand men be employed with Key West as a base, one thousand hospital cases, exclusive of casualties, should be counted upon daily. The inadequacy is plain.
3. The means of transportation are so limited that should the “SOLACE”, or other vessel arrive with a large number of wounded, it would take many hours to convey them to the hospital from the landing.
4. No records of the cases are kept beyond what is contained in the general register of patients. This, as explained to me by the Surgeon in charge(1) because he has no one to keep them--(2) because no blank forms such as are used in the Navy had been provided. He asks for the services of an experienced apothecary for this service.
5. The Surgeon in charge complains that, although the hospital has been in operation for a month, no money has been received from the Navy to defray expenses.
6. Our men sent to these hospitals pass entirely out of Naval control and professional care so that the experience in military surgery which would be so valuably to the Medical Officers of the Navy is lost to them.
7. This war is not yet over and no man can say when it will be. It is therefore not too late to correct in some sort the present state of affairs. Building known as “la [Brisa]”--a pleasure resort on the windward face of the Island, would, I understand, be readily converted into a hospital, and several tobacco factories might be had. It would even be preferable, to my mind, to have our men treated in tents and have them still under Naval control [under] [existing] [arrangements].
[William T. Sampson]
Source Note: CbCy, DNA, RG 313, Entry 41, vol. 3, p. 410.
Pre-War Planning
Destruction of the Maine
Naval War Board
Coastal Defense
Naval Operations in the Caribbean
Naval Militia
Blockade of Northern Cuba
Telegraphy and Cable Cutting
Battle at Punta de la Colorados
Rescue of the Winslow
Bombardment of San Juan
Flying Squadron and the Search for the Spanish Fleet
Scuttling the Merrimac
Naval Operations at Santiago de Cuba
Naval Operations Guantanamo
Capture of Guam
Convoy and Landings at Daiquiri
Blockade of Puerto Rico
Joint Operations Santiago de Cuba
Blockade of Southern Cuba
Battle of Santiago Bay
Eastern Squadron
Blockade and Siege of Manila
Joint Operations Puerto Rico
Naval Operations Manzanillo
Surgeon General of the United States Navy William K. Van Reypen to Secretary of the Navy John D. Long, 4/25/1898
Captain Alfred T. Mahan to Secretary of the Navy John D. Long, 6/3/1898
More Documents (15)
Secretary of the Treasury Lyman G. Gage to Secretary of the Navy John D. Long, 6/8/1898
Establishment by Congress of the Navy Hospital Corps, 6/17/1898
Commander Andrew Dunlap to Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, Commander, North Atlantic Fleet, 6/19/1898
Passed Assistant Surgeon Andrew R. Wentworth to Medical Inspector Michael C. Drennan, 6/20/1898
Commodore Winfield S. Schley, Commander, Flying Squadron, to the Officers of the Flying Squadron, 6/21/1898
Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, Commander, North Atlantic Fleet, Circular Letter Number 56, 6/22/1898
Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, Commander, North Atlantic Fleet, Circular Letter No. 63, 6/30/1898
Commodore George C. Remey, Commandant, Key West Naval Base, to Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, Commander, North Atlantic Fleet, 7/4/1898
Secretary of the Navy John D. Long to Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, Commander, North Atlantic Fleet, 7/5/1898
Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, Commander, North Atlantic Fleet, Memorandum to the North Atlantic Fleet, 7/11/1898
North Atlantic Squadron General Order Number 14, 7/14/1898
Commander Bowman H. McCalla to Captain French E. Chadwick, Chief of Staff, North Atlantic Fleet, 7/18/1898
Secretary of the Navy John D. Long to Pastor Horace F. Barnes, 7/18/1898
North Atlantic Fleet Squadron Bulletin No. 54, 8/5/1898
Report of the Surgeon-General of the Navy, 10/1/1898
Command Diaries
Squadron Bulletins
Demobilization
William T Sampson, Key West, Florida, New York, SOLACE, Secretary Of The Navy, Cuba, Santiago De Cuba, John D Long, North Atlantic Fleet
Additional Resources for Naval Medicine
List of Ships and Commanders
American Ships and Commanders
Spanish Ships and Commanders
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The E3 Media and Business Summit, formerly known as the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), and commonly known as E3, is an annual trade show for the computer and video games industry presented by the Entertainment Software Association. It is only open to game industry professionals, journalists, and guests of exhibitors, such as celebrities. E3 was usually held in the third week of May of each year at the Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC) in Los Angeles.
As of 2007, E3 is invitation-only, meaning that instead of around 60,000 attendees at E3 there were only around 3,000-5,000. The reason for this change is to allow for a more intimate atmosphere where business will be emphasised. A separate conference called Entertainment for All Expo has been created to accommodate the public demand for a major, annual video game event.
Many games (and consoles) have been and will continue to be announced at E3, including Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, which were both announced at E3 2006.
In 2008, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was announced at Nintendo's press conference.
Retrieved from ‘http://www.grandtheftwiki.com/index.php?title=E3&oldid=4191’
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Vertine, Meleto, Rietine, Castagnoli, Starda, Monte Luco della Beraredenga, Montecastelli
The Chianti Castles route
La Strada dei Castelli del Chianti
Violet Itinerary - Vertine, Meleto, Rietine, Castagnoli, Starda, Monte Luco della Beraredenga, Montecastelli
After reaching the important crossroads of Molinlungo, you take the road to the left towards Radda. Almost at the beginning of this road, after a wonderful view on Vertine, another road on the right heads to San Piero in Avenano. This village was first mentioned in 995 and its title was transferred to the parish church of Spaltenna, then to the church of Gaiole. It is a very rare example of gothic country church with three large naves.
Meleto Castle
If you take road on the right instead you will immediately see the Castle of Meleto on the crest, surrounded by centuries-old trees. It can be reached via a road on the same side. Not very much is known of the origins of Meleto castle. It was probably built at the end of the 12 C by a line of the Ricasoli family. It was occupied for a short time by the Sienese in 1478, but a further siege in 1529-30 was unsuccessful. The present building has an almost square outline that encloses an older tower. The two cylindrical towers on the southern and eastern corners where possibly built in the 15 C. The latter is very well preserved with a scarp wall base and machicolations at the top. The rest of the building, around a small, elegant courtyard in Renaissance style, was completely rebuilt during the Baroque period, as the corbelled windows and the massive portal in the south-western façade testify.
Continuing beyond Meleto, you go on climbing until you reach Rietine on the right. This is the site of a castle which is known to have been inhabited by a certain Azzo of the Ricasoli family in 1039, and the family continued to own it after that date. Nowadays no remains of the castle can be located. A bit further on, you find Castagnoli, a castle donated to the Abbey of Coltibuono in 1104. It is mentioned as "Castagno Aretino" in the Poggibonsi ruling in 1203 that delimited the frontiers between Siena and Florence. The Sienese besieged it unsuccessfully during the Aragonese war in 1478-79. The castle looks now like a mighty polygonal stone block with various rounded edges. There is a picturesque courtyard in the centre that can be accessed through a large arch in the southern part and a very narrow lane in the western part.
From Castagnoli you ascend eastwards on a beautiful panoramic road through a wooded region and, just before reaching Monteluco, on a road on the left, you go down to Starda, a picturesque village in a magnificent position.
When you reach the non-picturesque facilities of a TV repeater, take the path through the thick pine woods and climb to Monte Luco della Berardenga. This was one of the most important castles and the richest in history on this border area between Siena and Florence. It is mentioned for the first time in 1085 as a donation by the Berardenghi family to their Berardenga abbey. Although a part of it was donated to the Bishop of Siena at the beginning of the 12 C, it remained basically a property of the Berardenghi family. It was a frequent object of contention because of its position. In 1176 Siena had to surrender it to the Florentines and this was confirmed in 1203. However the Sienese reconquered it in 1261, destroyed it and obliged the Berardenghi family to sell it to them for 500 Liras. After a few years, the Florentines occupied it again, rebuilt it and, since then, this castle has given its name to one of the "terziere" (thirds) of the Chianti area. It achieved great importance due to its frontier position, even during the Aragonese wars. The Sienese, who managed to reoccupy it yet again in 1527, set fire to it and had it dismantled. Thereafter it was never rebuilt. Today only few remnants of wall and a cellar remaining amongst the woods.
Montecastelli
Continuing on from Monteluco for some km on the road that descends to San Gusmè and Castelnuovo Berardenga and leaving it just before Capannelle for a forest road on the right, you reach Montecastelli, a castle of the Ricasoli family, known since 1203, and which revolted against the Florentine Republic in 1391. It was retaken by the Florentines, was conquered by the Sienese in 1432, who had to surrender it with the peace of Ferrara, but seized it again in 1478, and destroyed it. After that Florence took possession of it but never wanted to rebuild it. Nowadays many ruins in the wood and a tall stone wall with beautiful corbels remain.
Brown Itinerary - Pieve di Spaltenna, Vertine, Uliveta, S. Donato in Perano, Vistarenni
Red Itinerary - Tornano, Morelline, Cacchiano, Monte Lodoli
Yellow Itinerary
Orange Itinerary - Campi, San Sano, Monteluco di Lecchi, San Polo in Rosso, Galenda, Le Selve
Blue Itinerary - San Giusto a Rentennano (alle Monache), Lucignano, La Torricella, Castello di Brolio
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Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP Files Class Action Suit against Apple Inc.
Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP (http://www.rgrdlaw.com/cases/appleinc/) today announced that a class action has been commenced by an institutional investor on behalf of purchasers of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) common stock during the period between November 2, 2018 and January 2, 2019 (the Class Period). This action was filed in the Northern District of California and is captioned City of Roseville Employees Retirement System v. Apple Inc., et al., No. 19-cv-2033.
The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 permits any investor who purchased Apple common stock during the Class Period to seek appointment as lead plaintiff. A lead plaintiff acts on behalf of all other class members in directing the litigation. The lead plaintiff can select a law firm of its choice. An investors ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than 60 days from today. If you wish to discuss this action or have any questions concerning this notice or your rights or interests, please contact plaintiffs counsel, Darren Robbins of Robbins Geller at 800/449-4900 or 619/231-1058, or via e-mail at [email protected]. You can view a copy of the complaint as filed at http://www.rgrdlaw.com/cases/appleinc/.
ALSO READ: Deluxe Corporation Announces New Deluxe eChecks Relationship with The Hanover Insurance Group
The complaint charges Apple and certain of its officers with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Apple designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. The Companys most well-known products include its iconic iPhone smartphones, the iPad tablet computer, and the Mac personal computer. The iPhone, which is one of the Companys flagship products, generated approximately two-thirds of Apples revenue in 2018.
The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, defendants made materially false and misleading statements and/or failed to disclose adverse information regarding Apples business and prospects. Specifically, defendants failed to disclose that: (a) the U.S.-China trade war had negatively impacted demand for iPhones and Apples pricing power in greater China; (b) due to Apple discounting the cost of replacement batteries to make up for the Companys prior conduct of intentionally degrading the performance of the batteries in older iPhones, the rate at which Apple customers were replacing their batteries in older iPhones, rather than purchasing new iPhones, was negatively impacting Apples iPhone sales growth; (c) as a result of slowing demand, Apple had slashed production orders from suppliers for the new 2018 iPhone models and cut prices to reduce inventory; and (d) defendants decision to withhold unit sales for iPhones and other hardware, which was a metric relevant to investors and their view of the Companys financial performance, was designed to and would mask declines in unit sales of the Companys flagship product. As a result of this information being withheld from the market during the Class Period, the price of Apple stock was artificially inflated to more than $209 per share.
ALSO READ: Create the Ideal Game Day Gathering Space
Then on January 2, 2019, after the close of trading, Apple disclosed that, for the first time in 15 years, Apple would miss its prior quarterly revenue forecast amid falling iPhone sales in China, its third-largest market after the United States and Europe. The Company announced first quarter fiscal 2019 revenues of only $84 billion, far below the expected range of $89 billion to $93 billion the Company had announced just eight weeks earlier on November 1, 2018. The Company also admitted that in addition to macroeconomics in the Chinese market, the price cuts to battery replacements a year earlier to fix the Companys prior surreptitious conduct had hurt iPhone sales. This news caused the market price of Apple common stock to decline more than $15 per share, or more than 9%, from a close of $157.92 per share on January 2, 2019 to a close of $142.19 per share on January 3, 2019.
Plaintiff seeks to recover damages on behalf of all purchasers of Apple common stock during the Class Period (the Class). The plaintiff is represented by Robbins Geller, which has extensive experience in prosecuting investor class actions including actions involving financial fraud.
Robbins Geller is a national law firm representing investors in securities litigation. With 200 lawyers in 10 offices, Robbins Geller has obtained many of the largest securities class action recoveries in history. For five consecutive years, ISS Securities Class Action Services has ranked the Firm in its annual SCAS Top 50 Report as one of the top law firms in both the amount recovered for shareholders and the total number of class action settlements. Robbins Geller attorneys have helped shape the securities laws and recovered tens of billions of dollars on behalf of aggrieved victims. Beyond securing financial recoveries for defrauded investors, Robbins Geller also advocates for corporate governance reforms, helping to improve the financial markets for investors worldwide. Please visit http://www.rgrdlaw.com for more information.
ALSO READ: Carmell Therapeutics to Present at the 21st Annual BIO CEO & Investor Conference in New York
https://www.linkedin.com/company/rgrdlaw https://twitter.com/rgrdlaw https://www.facebook.com/rgrdlaw
Darren Robbins
Robbins Geller
800/449-4900 or 619/231-1058
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Position: Designer
b.10 June 1928, d.8 May 2012.
Set Designer / L’Amour Des Trois Oranges, 25 May 1982 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / L’Amour Des Trois Oranges, 04 June 1982 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / L’Amour Des Trois Oranges, 17 August 1982 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / L’Amour Des Trois Oranges, 20 July 1983 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / L’Amour Des Trois Oranges, 06 October 1983 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / L’Amour Des Trois Oranges, 21 October 1983 at Theatre Royal, Plymouth view performance details
Set Designer / L’Amour Des Trois Oranges, 27 October 1983 at Apollo Theatre, Oxford view performance details
Set Designer / L’Amour Des Trois Oranges, 05 November 1983 at Gaumont Theatre, Southampton view performance details
Set Designer / L’Amour Des Trois Oranges, 12 November 1983 at Theatre Royal, Norwich view performance details
Set Designer / L’Amour Des Trois Oranges, 17 November 1983 at Theatre Royal, Nottingham view performance details
Set Designer / Where The Wild Things Are, 09 January 1984 at National Theatre, London view performance details
Set Designer / Where The Wild Things Are, 27 January 1984 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / Higglety Pigglety Pop!, 13 October 1984 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / Where The Wild Things Are, 13 October 1984 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / Where The Wild Things Are, 20 October 1984 at Apollo Theatre, Oxford view performance details
Set Designer / Higglety Pigglety Pop!, 20 October 1984 at Apollo Theatre, Oxford view performance details
Set Designer / Where The Wild Things Are, 27 October 1984 at Gaumont Theatre, Southampton view performance details
Set Designer / Higglety Pigglety Pop!, 27 October 1984 at Gaumont Theatre, Southampton view performance details
Set Designer / Where The Wild Things Are, 03 November 1984 at Theatre Royal, Plymouth view performance details
Set Designer / Higglety Pigglety Pop!, 03 November 1984 at Theatre Royal, Plymouth view performance details
Set Designer / Higglety Pigglety Pop!, 10 November 1984 at Palace Theatre, Manchester view performance details
Set Designer / Where The Wild Things Are, 10 November 1984 at Palace Theatre, Manchester view performance details
Set Designer / Higglety Pigglety Pop!, 17 November 1984 at Theatre Royal, Norwich view performance details
Set Designer / Where The Wild Things Are, 17 November 1984 at Theatre Royal, Norwich view performance details
Set Designer / Higglety Pigglety Pop!, 05 August 1985 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / Where The Wild Things Are, 05 August 1985 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / Higglety Pigglety Pop!, 28 September 1985 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / L’Heure Espagnole, 22 July 1987 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / L’Enfant Et Les Sortileges, 22 July 1987 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / L’Enfant Et Les Sortileges, 07 August 1987 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / L’Heure Espagnole, 07 August 1987 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / L’Enfant Et Les Sortileges, 03 September 1987 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / L’Heure Espagnole, 03 September 1987 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / L’Heure Espagnole, 09 October 1987 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / L’Enfant Et Les Sortileges, 09 October 1987 at Glyndebourne view performance details
Set Designer / L’Enfant Et Les Sortileges, 28 October 1987 at Apollo Theatre, Oxford view performance details
Set Designer / L’Heure Espagnole, 28 October 1987 at Apollo Theatre, Oxford view performance details
Set Designer / L’Enfant Et Les Sortileges, 04 November 1987 at Mayflower, Southampton view performance details
Set Designer / L’Heure Espagnole, 04 November 1987 at Mayflower, Southampton view performance details
Set Designer / L’Heure Espagnole, 11 November 1987 at Palace Theatre, Manchester view performance details
Set Designer / L’Enfant Et Les Sortileges, 11 November 1987 at Palace Theatre, Manchester view performance details
Set Designer / L’Heure Espagnole, 18 November 1987 at Hippodrome, Birmingham view performance details
Set Designer / L’Enfant Et Les Sortileges, 18 November 1987 at Hippodrome, Birmingham view performance details
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Start by marking “Native Tongue (Native Tongue, #1)” as Want to Read:
We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin.
Preview — Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin
(Native Tongue #1)
Suzette Haden Elgin
Called "fascinating" by the New York Times upon its first publication in 1984, Native Tongue won wide critical praise and cult status, and has often been compared to the futurist fiction of Margaret Atwood. Set in the twenty-second century, the novel tells of a world where women are once again property, denied civil rights and banned from public life. Earth's wealth depend Called "fascinating" by the New York Times upon its first publication in 1984, Native Tongue won wide critical praise and cult status, and has often been compared to the futurist fiction of Margaret Atwood. Set in the twenty-second century, the novel tells of a world where women are once again property, denied civil rights and banned from public life. Earth's wealth depends on interplanetary commerce with alien races, and linguists--a small, clannish group of families--have become the ruling elite by controlling all interplanetary communication. Their women are used to breed perfect translators for all the galaxies' languages.
Nazareth Chornyak, the most talented linguist of the family, is exhausted by her constant work translating for trade organizations, supervising the children's language education, running the compound, and caring for the elderly men. She longs to retire to the Barren House, where women past childbearing age knit, chat, and wait to die. What Nazareth comes to discover is that a slow revolution is going on in the Barren Houses: there, word by word, women are creating a language of their own to free them from men's control. ...more
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Published 2000 by Feminist Press at the City University of New York (first published 1984)
Native Tongue (Native Tongue, #1)
1876756055 (ISBN13: 9781876756055)
Native Tongue #1
Nazareth Chornyak
Other Editions (20)
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Popular Answered Questions
Is there sexual assault in this book?
Valentina Nope! The premise of the book involves the repeal of the Nineteenth Amendment where women lose all rights and agency; however, there is also strict…moreNope! The premise of the book involves the repeal of the Nineteenth Amendment where women lose all rights and agency; however, there is also strict protection for them against abuse and mistreatment at the hands of the men who control them. This is stated basically in the first few pages.
There is the occasional threat of domestic abuse (something along the lines of "If I keep arguing with him, he might hit me") but no sexual assault or violence against the women in this book.(less)
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Oct 18, 2015 Althea Ann rated it it was ok
Read for book club.
OK, first off: Suzette Haden Elgin is clearly a separatist, who believed that both women and men would be better off apart from each other. (Not that she seemed to care much about what might be better for men.)
I do not agree with this premise (not even a tiny bit) - but I'm not demeriting the book for holding a viewpoint I disagree with.
There are some interesting ideas brought up - but most of them are dropped, never to be picked up again. Elgin was a linguist, and as such, d Read for book club.
There are some interesting ideas brought up - but most of them are dropped, never to be picked up again. Elgin was a linguist, and as such, did have some interesting thoughts about language acquisition and communication.
However - it's just not a very good book. The language is clunky and awkward, giving the book a feel more like it was published in the 50s than in the 80s. One of the members of my book club theorized that this was done on purpose (a theory bolstered by the fact that language was Elgin's professional specialty!), but I have read one other book by her, published over a decade earlier, and that one was pretty similar in tone and style. (And it was even worse, as a work of literature. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) So I'm concluding that this was just her writing 'voice.'
The premise of the book is that in a near future, when Earth has made contact with multitudes of alien races, communicating with those races in order to hammer out trade agreements has become of primary economic importance. It has been discovered that the only way to communicate with humanoid aliens is to have them send a representative who will interact with a human infant, until that infant picks up the alien language as its 'native tongue.' Only the babies of thirteen Linguist families, who all live in communal houses on Earth, are trained to this important work. Both the Linguists and the larger Earth culture have become extremely misogynistic: women have the status of slaves. However, the Linguist women have been secretly working on creating a "Womens' Language" which they see as the tool of their liberation.
Well, Elgin may have been a linguist, but she certainly was not an economist or a sociologist. The whole situation, as described, feels very poorly thought out.
We have the Linguists, for one. They are the tiny group on which the entire human economy (not just Earth, but a plethora of colonies, which, we are told, are easy and cheap to travel to) depends on. However, they are portrayed as a hated group who have to pretend to be poor and live in ascetic, horrid situations, denying themselves even the smallest luxuries, in order to avoid inciting more hatred. This is just ridiculous. In reality, they'd be like oligarchs (as someone in my book club said) and would not care at all if they were loved or hated. They could have their own private planets, if they wanted.
Similarly - the linguist women are half of the Linguists. They are needed, desperately. Sure, they've been brought up to be slaves, but they're already shown as being smart, savvy, and secretly rebellious. They could also go on strike. Hell, they could've applied for political asylum from another humanoid species - we're explicitly told that other planets' cultures have gender equality. It just doesn't make sense with the author's givens, why they'd just do as they were told.
For that matter though, it doesn't make sense why the Linguists have their monopoly. We're specifically told it's not a genetic difference that gives them their abilities. Sure, people think talking to aliens is 'icky' and 'taboo' - but if the government is willing to experiment and sacrifice non-linguist babies to try to open up communication with non-humanoid aliens (so far, an impossibility), why on earth wouldn't they do the same to break the Linguist monopoly on communication with humanoid aliens?
Speaking of the "impossibility" of communication with non-humanoid aliens, the most ridiculous part of the book is when (view spoiler)[ the baby physically self-destructs because it can't understand the alien language. (hide spoiler)] It was just like those old TV shows where something is entered into a computer and it goes "Does Not Compute... Does Not Compute..." and then blows up. This is just not how lack of comprehension works. (It's not how computers work, either.)
For a book prominently featuring the idea of communication with aliens, it's also quite disappointing that there is not one single alien character developed. We don't know how a single alien thinks; what their cultures want, or how or why they are sending representatives to Earth to teach babies their languages. None do any real interacting with any of the characters. Big missed opportunity....
Last complaint... the ending. (view spoiler)[I really wanted it all to end with the women speaking the new language, and making all the men 'blow up' like the baby did. But it didn't happen. Instead, the men decide that they want to send the women away so they don't have to deal with them, and the women are happy. But they're still subservient, not truly liberated. (hide spoiler)] It was completely anti-climactic and disappointing.
From this review, there's a good possibility I should've read this instead: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more
Jul 30, 2007 Wealhtheow rated it it was amazing
Shelves: sci-fi, sociology
Absolutely excellent. I know The Handmaid's Tale gets more press and praise, but this is a far more realistic and chilling misogynist future. There's really so much meaty stuff, and I'm so far from eloquent, that I'll just say read it and leave it at that.
Jul 19, 2011 Kaion rated it it was amazing
Recommends it for: people who read language blogs, the multi-lingual, feminists
Recommended to Kaion by: (Feminist Reader's Network Aug '11 Group Read)
Shelves: sf, feminism, series, reviewed
Noting the passing last week of Suzette Haden Elgin: linguist, verbal self-defense teacher, feminist genre writer, & founder of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. I read Native Tongue in my first push of reading harder sci-fi a few years ago, and found her approach to the genre really eye-opening. Though perhaps her hopes for the embrace of a universal, revolutionary women's language were disappointed, her writing was proof enough of how writing can change perception.
R.I.P. Suzette Had Noting the passing last week of Suzette Haden Elgin: linguist, verbal self-defense teacher, feminist genre writer, & founder of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. I read Native Tongue in my first push of reading harder sci-fi a few years ago, and found her approach to the genre really eye-opening. Though perhaps her hopes for the embrace of a universal, revolutionary women's language were disappointed, her writing was proof enough of how writing can change perception.
R.I.P. Suzette Haden Elgin: Author, Poet, Verbal Self-Defense Coach [io9]
To make something “appear" is called magic, is it not? [...] There is a continuous surface of the body, a space that begins with the inside flesh of the fingers and continues over the palm of the hand and up the inner side of the arm to the bend of the elbow.
I will name the “athad” of the person. Imagine the athad, please. See it clearly in your mind— perceive, here are my own two athads, the left one and the right one. And there are both of your athads, very nice ones.
Where there was no athad before, there will always be one now, because you perceive the athad of every that person you look at, as you perceive their nose and their hair [...] I have made the athad appear... now it exists.
Native Tongue is a spectacular example of ‘idea’ science-fiction. Its ideas are about feminism and aliens and human expansion, but the most important ones are on the power of language.
In Suzette Haden Elgin’s dystopia, women’s rights regressed in the later 20th century in a bout of religious fervor and neo-conservatism. Two centuries into the future, women are legally “minors”: maintained under the guardanship of male relatives at all times and lacking basic rights. Seen as lesser beings, they are valued only for their labor and reproductive abilities. Meanwhile, humans have expanded through the galaxy, through colonization and trade with Alien worlds. This contact is largely facilitated through the work of “Lingoes”, fifteen Earth-bound linguist families (“Lines”) who have specialized and monopolized the business of Ali-Human translation and diplomacy.
Despite their education, the women in the Lines are as oppressed as those outside, perhaps even more so under the strict patriarchal order of the Lines. In addition to the the usual indignities (labor exploitation, denial of liberty, etc), they also lack reproductive liberty: forced to bear as many children as possible in order to meet the unsatiable demand for imperialistic expansion. But the women of the Lines are working on a secret project that may change all that— Láadan, a new "female" language that they hope will one day unite all the women of the galaxy.
Why? Elgin holds a Ph.D in linguistics, and Native Tongue plays on the idea that human languages themselves, used for countless years in a patriarchal context, are indeed major tools of female repression. On the same note, language can be the tool of female empowerment, and importance of creating words for the expression of female PoV, for concepts previously inexpressible, such as:
raimmelh: to refrain from asking, with evil intentions; especially when it’s clear that someone badly wants to ask—for example, when someone wants to be asked about their state of mind or health and clearly wants to talk about it.
is tantamount. It is the “magic” that is creation of the world anew, and this insurgent potential of language that holds together Native Tongue’s disparate themes around the journeys of Nazareth Chornyak, a young woman of the Lines who's been spotted the have great potential, and Michaela Landry, a nurse whose trained demeanor masks her mission of revenge against those who killed her young son.
Elgin's dystopia addresses other themes such as human expansion driven by resource scarcity and the limits of human perception and language acquisition. But it is the parts of Native Tongue that are most concerned with the creation of Láadan that are its most transcendent and riveting. Elgin is on shakier ground explaining how this dystopia came about. It’s more than a little hard to swallow women losing all powers of majority by the end of the 20th century!— though these fears offer a historic value from the height of the Reagan era.
Another potential drawback is while Native Tongue's narrative threads end more or less satisfactorily, Elgin leaves the implications of “what next” in the overthrow of the old world order open. The way the novel ends leaves me to presume that this is covered in the two sequels, though judging by the reviews, not in a way that is satisfying to all.
As it is, however, Native Tongue is a powerful and radical message of female empowerment, delivered not only in the intelligent 'science' of linguistics but also compelling 'fiction' that documents the concerns of feminism in the era it was written. Rating: 4.5
Also I learned a ton about linguistics and Láadan is just frequently damn cool:
doroledum: Say you have an average woman. She has no control over her life. She has little or nothing in the way of a resource for being food to herself, even when it is necessary. She has family and animals and friends and associates that depend on her for sustenance of all kinds. She rarely has adequate sleep or rest; she has no time for herself, no space of her own, little or no money to buy things for herself, no opportunity to consider her own emotional needs. She is at the beck and call of others, because she has these responsibilities and obligations and does not choose to (or cannot) abandon them. For such a woman, the one and only thing she is likely to have a little control over for indulging her own self is FOOD. When such a woman overeats, the verb for that is “doreledim”. (And then she feels guilty, because there are women whose children are starving and who do not have even THAT option for self-indulgence.)
Jul 07, 2011 Rhiannon rated it liked it · review of another edition
Recommended to Rhiannon by: The Feminist Readers Network
Shelves: read-in-2011, its-a-gender-thing, end-of-the-world, future-times, owned, spaaaace, clubbies, lady-writer
This book had an amazing concept. It was full of amazing ideas (the creation of a secret language for an oppressed second class - women). But, it lacked several things, in my opinion, that prevented it from living up to the proclamation: "feminist science fiction classic."
One of those things was characterization. The first one hundred or so pages in the book had no distinct character for the reader to engage with. There are several plot points expounded in male points of view that readers are su This book had an amazing concept. It was full of amazing ideas (the creation of a secret language for an oppressed second class - women). But, it lacked several things, in my opinion, that prevented it from living up to the proclamation: "feminist science fiction classic."
One of those things was characterization. The first one hundred or so pages in the book had no distinct character for the reader to engage with. There are several plot points expounded in male points of view that readers are supposed to be disgusted by (and are disgusted by!); there is one storyline involving a woman, lacking any real depth, killing out of revenge; and then, there is the mention of some other characters who may be important later. That's it.
In my opinion, having no characters with any emotional depth for the reader to latch onto at the beginning of the story was a serious flaw. It made the pace slow, and frustrated my sense of who or what to believe in in this story.
Another problem I had with this book was the "good guys/bad guys" dichotomy applied by the author. It's simple: All women are good (even the one lady who systematically kills people), all men are bad (even the one guy who appeared to treat a female character like she was equal in intellect and status). I, personally, don't like my contemporary fiction to be so black/white. It is boring, and it is not believable. It narrows the reader's frame of mind and ability to objectively engage with the work. And, if done kind of poorly (as it was here - (view spoiler)[killing babies! C'mon! (hide spoiler)]), it comes off as petty and trite: an authorial position, a fable, a one-dimensional opinion piece - and not a work of fiction.
The final problem that I had with the book was this - the notion that women should have their own language in the first place. Don't get me wrong! I love imagining the subversive power that a secret language has for the oppressed secondary citizen! It was wonderfully done, and very inspiring! But...
Elgin, and by extension, her characters, believe that one's native language creates one's reality - how one perceives the world (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis), and allowing the women in this story to create and use their OWN language will change their reality. I am all for that notion, ladyface!
The problem with all this is that Elgin really believes - IN REAL LIFE - that women should have a language separate from men. And - in doing so - that we would be essentially better off as separate from them altogether? (What's up, Charlotte-Perkins-Gilman-Radical-Crazypants?)
She believes there are things one can experience as a woman that men could not possibly conceive of. We-ellllllll....
1. There are things that an other experiences that a member of an elite, ruling, or "mainstream" class could not possibly conceive of, true... But, women are not the only other in any conceivable reality, and sometimes, even if they are the other in one reality, they may be the elite, ruling, mainstream in another (in Elgin's case, see: female linguists v. female non-linguists - who dictates what language is/means/can be in that scenario? A-hem, linguists. So, already female non-linguists are the double-other, yes?)
2. The notion of putting "Experience Before Language" and writing "outside of the patriarchy" is a nifty one (Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva, Showalter)...But, does it call for an entirely new language, or simply a new way of USING language? See, the manipulation of a language already existing is, in my opinion, the more subversive and empowering act...
3. The terms that Elgin includes in her Laadan Dictionary seem to be:
I. several ways of experiencing empathy
II. descriptions of situations that make one feel overworked and unappreciated
III. different ways that a body is touched, wants to be touched, doesn't want to be touched
I find these to be somewhat generalized as "female" concepts. They border a tad on the side of the insulting. This is because these are HUMAN concepts, and can occur with MEN as much as they can with WOMEN. They have simply been ASSOCIATED with WOMEN, as a "norm," and not ALLOWED to be ASSOCIATED with men - because of the SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER.
Right? Guys? You experience empathy, right? You feel unappreciated? You sometimes want to be touched, or are uncomfortable when someone is trying to touch you, right? But, you're not allowed to talk about it, because doing so would be UNMANLY, right? Michael Kimmel? Are you there? Can you hear me? Let's all talk about this. In English. Our language. Together.
Overall, I would recommend this book for its interesting obsession with language and reality. For its "Oh no, they didn't!" factor. But, Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale) did it better: she gave us better reasons for these fucked behaviors, gave us a couple of good men to save our faith in the HUMAN race, made me love Offred (sorry, Nazareth, not gonna happen), and made me cry. She wins. ...more
Jun 07, 2008 Nathan added it
I'll never forgive the university professors who made me read this novel. Some of the sci-fi elements in it were interesting and it posed some compelling linguistic questions but mostly it was just tiresome. The majority of the narrative is the kind heavy-handed man-hating that has done more to hurt the cause of feminism than further it. Every man in the novel is a cowardly, misogynistic tyrant while every woman is a long-suffering, angelic saint. I found the whole thing simply tedious.
Jul 20, 2012 Mary Holland rated it it was amazing
Shelves: permanent-collection
Women have no rights and are the property of men. Aliens communicate with humans through the families of the linguist 'Lines', who have a monopoly on learning Alien languages. The women of the Lines, as restricted and patronized as any other women, have developed a secret language for women only. If the men find out, they're doomed. But the Aliens are watching ...
I read this book years ago (it was published in 1984) and I had an immediate visceral reaction: yes, she's right. The male characters Women have no rights and are the property of men. Aliens communicate with humans through the families of the linguist 'Lines', who have a monopoly on learning Alien languages. The women of the Lines, as restricted and patronized as any other women, have developed a secret language for women only. If the men find out, they're doomed. But the Aliens are watching ...
I read this book years ago (it was published in 1984) and I had an immediate visceral reaction: yes, she's right. The male characters patronize, humiliate, and denigrate their women. They treat them as not-very-bright semen receptacles. Any woman who has sat in a meeting with men will recognize the interactions. Elgin created an actual 'women's language' called Laadan which is still active today, and I think, like Tolkien, the language came before the story.
It's interesting that current reviews on amazon refer to the book as dated and several people say it's history and things are not like this today. Well, things may be better, or we at least have the concept they should be better, but this is not dated.
Oct 21, 2008 Stephen rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: 1980-1989, world-in-the-shitter, alien-cultures, to-re-read, invasion, political-fiction, agent-provocateurs
4.5 stars. Excellent story with well drawn characters (both male and female) and an original premise. Recommended!!
Apr 05, 2013 Kaila rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: dystopia, science-fiction, 2013
Upon buying:
Just look at how amazing that cover is. HOW COULD I SAY NO.
Upon finishing:
The cover had disappointingly little to do with the book. I wanted babies in giant test tubes presided over by gigantic happy aliens, ok?
I am torn as to what I should rate this book. I think it's a 3.5 but I'll round up. Parts of the feminism were so ridiculous that after a while I was like God I get it, women's lives suck in your future! Women are considered minors in this crappy future, and can't hold jobs or Upon buying:
I am torn as to what I should rate this book. I think it's a 3.5 but I'll round up. Parts of the feminism were so ridiculous that after a while I was like God I get it, women's lives suck in your future! Women are considered minors in this crappy future, and can't hold jobs or buy anything without their husband's say so. I mentioned this to my boyfriend and he shot back "Well women basically weren't citizens until the 1800s. They couldn't acquire much wealth or be landowners, they were basically slaves."
Damn, he's totally right. So this book is basically the shitty Dark Ages but in the future. Lots of alien languages are part of this future, coincidentally, but very few actual aliens.
The thesis put forth is basically - language is empowering. Feminism is empowering. What's more empowering than a language meant just for women?
Edit: OH MY GOD IT'S A TRILOGY. Time to acquire. Oh yes, my pretties. ...more
Nov 17, 2012 Jenny rated it it was ok
I enjoyed it the first time I read it (I've studied Linguistics myself, which made it interesting) and I occasionally enjoy re-reading. But the re-reads expose more and more holes in the plot that get more and more irritating.
How on earth did the US constitution get amended at a time when women still had the vote? And why does a change to the US constitution apparently affect the whole world?
Why do Linguists live so austerely as a public relations measure when they can see for themselves that it I enjoyed it the first time I read it (I've studied Linguistics myself, which made it interesting) and I occasionally enjoy re-reading. But the re-reads expose more and more holes in the plot that get more and more irritating.
Why do Linguists live so austerely as a public relations measure when they can see for themselves that it doesn't work?
If there's nobody on Earth who can speak Alien Language X, how do the Linguists persuade an alien who speaks it to come and live in their Interface and teach it to a human baby? What does the wretched alien do all day when it's not talking to a baby?
If the languages are being learnt by babies and toddlers, how do they become so proficient in all the vocabulary and cultural nuances that never come up in the conversations of babies and toddlers?
And if Teenager Y is the only person in the universe (apart from a couple of toddlers) who speaks both X and English - where do the dictionaries come from that the second-best backups look things up in?
And how (view spoiler)[ when the men towards the end spotted all the 'charming concepts' the little girls were coming up with, did those men know what the girls were talking about, if the girls were talking in Laadan? If they weren't, why weren't they? Are we supposed to believe the girls were talking about Laadan (which we know they knew was top-secret) in front of their fathers in a language their fathers understood? Why would they use a long-winded English (or whatever) paraphrase for a concept when they'd got a language that expressed it one word? (hide spoiler)]
Dec 27, 2007 Mikhaela rated it really liked it
Shelves: speculative-fiction
Considering how obsessed I am with dystopian science fiction, I can't believe I never read this feminist cult classic until now. It's not as well-written as the Handmaid's Tale, but it's still pretty amazing.
The stuff about language reminds me a lot of 1984 and the Newspeak dictionary--the idea that taking away words for certain concepts or creating/encoding words for others can change the way people think and behave and affect whether they have the capacity to rebel against an authoritarian re Considering how obsessed I am with dystopian science fiction, I can't believe I never read this feminist cult classic until now. It's not as well-written as the Handmaid's Tale, but it's still pretty amazing.
The stuff about language reminds me a lot of 1984 and the Newspeak dictionary--the idea that taking away words for certain concepts or creating/encoding words for others can change the way people think and behave and affect whether they have the capacity to rebel against an authoritarian regime.
The book's biggest flaw is gender essentialism. The women in the book are for the most part unreservedly good and nurturing and sweet. The men are pretty much evil bigoted pigs, although a few are a little more complicated than that. The book seems to advocate creating a women's world and women's language that totally writes off all men as irredeemable. (Although despite that, all the characters in the book also seem to be heterosexual, which is a whole other issue).
That said, it's still a great and fascinating read. Plus one of the heroines of the book is an assassin spy named Michaela, so how could I not love it?
Jul 05, 2010 Miriam marked it as to-read
Shelves: science-fiction, gender
[Update Feb 2015: SHE has passed away. http://catherineldf.livejournal.com/2...]
I've been seeing the sequel to this book in my public library (a ratty paperback) since I was a kid, and wanted to read it, but have never found the first volume.
Feb 05, 2012 Sarah rated it did not like it
Recommended to Sarah by: Goodreads
Shelves: female-author, american-author, read-in-2012
When your novel starts with a board meeting, you know you're in for a real thrill ride. I feel like this was written by an author with good ideas and solid linguistic knowledge, but no real feel for writing fiction. The multiple plots meshed together awkwardly. The characters were mostly one-dimensional, particularly the male linguists. Almost everything was told, not shown.
Does this have value, as the essay in my edition* claims, as a feminist document? I don't know. In 1984 when this was publ When your novel starts with a board meeting, you know you're in for a real thrill ride. I feel like this was written by an author with good ideas and solid linguistic knowledge, but no real feel for writing fiction. The multiple plots meshed together awkwardly. The characters were mostly one-dimensional, particularly the male linguists. Almost everything was told, not shown.
Does this have value, as the essay in my edition* claims, as a feminist document? I don't know. In 1984 when this was published, I was too busy being the biggest feminist in my fourth-grade class to really relate to what the author is talking about. I think it's highly problematic that all the men are evil and most are stupid. One of the back cover blurbs says that this novel will "inspire those who believe that women's words can change the world." OK, but that wasn't really anything I ever doubted. Of course, the 1980s were a foul decade, and maybe people needed more reassurance back then.
*By the way, this edition had so many typos in it, you would not believe it. ...more
Nov 08, 2010 Joe Schmutz rated it it was amazing
Shelves: female-authors-read
This fiction is one of the more masterful pieces of literature of the 20th century. It should be considered for inclusion in reading lists for English majors. Don't let that terrorize you. The book is engrossing; the plot is multilayered; the concept is unique; and the characters are easy to understand.
On the surface it's about learning to communicate with life forms so alien, it requires human children to interact with aliens during the child's language forming years. A secondary plot line deal This fiction is one of the more masterful pieces of literature of the 20th century. It should be considered for inclusion in reading lists for English majors. Don't let that terrorize you. The book is engrossing; the plot is multilayered; the concept is unique; and the characters are easy to understand.
On the surface it's about learning to communicate with life forms so alien, it requires human children to interact with aliens during the child's language forming years. A secondary plot line deals with the continued struggle between man and woman. Underlying all that is a theme dealing with freedom of speech.
This book has me scrabbling for every novel Ms. Elgin brings out.
Jul 30, 2012 M rated it it was ok · review of another edition
Shelves: science-fiction
First let me say that the "concept" of this book is definitely 5 stars. The idea that a language can influence culture and behavior, and ultimately the outcome of history is really brilliant. However, the author fails to take this brilliant idea beyond the concept. The plot drags, the storytelling is boring, the characterizations are flat, and the flow is cumbersome.
There are so many flaws in this story. The characters are terribly two -dimensional, almost to the point of being inhuman. For exam First let me say that the "concept" of this book is definitely 5 stars. The idea that a language can influence culture and behavior, and ultimately the outcome of history is really brilliant. However, the author fails to take this brilliant idea beyond the concept. The plot drags, the storytelling is boring, the characterizations are flat, and the flow is cumbersome.
There are so many flaws in this story. The characters are terribly two -dimensional, almost to the point of being inhuman. For example, the women are asexual and the men are cave-mannish. The author doesn't give any single character any type of profound thoughts that would add to the character development. You can sum up the male thought processes in four words: "Man smart. Woman dumb." You can sum up the women's thought processes in five words: "Male species=Rapist baby-killers. There is no back story that explains or, more importantly, supports the reasons behind the supposed change in the constitution. Many of the chapter openings are just trite. The story drags horrendously. There are chapters where the author can't decide if she is writing a murder mystery, complete with a femme fatale, or if she is writing a thriller with evil basement Pentagon scientists. Most of the time the dialogue is just confusing or seemingly incomplete. All-in-all, I would strongly recommend that any teacher looking to assign feminist sci-fi literature consider something other than Native Tongue; Grass by Sheri Tepper or The Handmaid's Tale are much better choices. ...more
Jun 17, 2015 Dana DesJardins rated it it was ok
The premise that language shapes worldview is attractive but much disputed. Audre Lorde famously said that one cannot use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house, which seems to be the foundation of this very angry book. Other reviewers have noted the chracter traits seem to line up positively and negatively along gender lines, and I think Haden Elgin was conscious enough of trying to avoid that to introduce some (underdeveloped) outliers to offset that criticism. That said, I thought The premise that language shapes worldview is attractive but much disputed. Audre Lorde famously said that one cannot use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house, which seems to be the foundation of this very angry book. Other reviewers have noted the chracter traits seem to line up positively and negatively along gender lines, and I think Haden Elgin was conscious enough of trying to avoid that to introduce some (underdeveloped) outliers to offset that criticism. That said, I thought the idea of women as so socially devalued was an example of reductio ad absurdum that commented obliquely on our current struggle for reproductive rights, wage equality, and legislative representation. (Haden Elgin was writing more than two decades ago, which makes her observations that much more damning.)
I kept reading past my fatigue with the writer's cliches and the flawed central premise, that linguists had somehow become an almost genetically insular group of "Lines," because the book really engages with its ideas, and the ideas are provocative. That said, I think the comparisons to Atwood are aspirational; the latter's MadAddam trilogy addresses how language and gender interact while not parading a homogeneous cast and syntactic banality. ...more
Nov 28, 2008 Shane rated it it was ok
Shelves: dystopia
A nice concept, badly executed. From reading this I got the image of the author sitting behind a typewriter bashing the keys while screaming 'All men are bastards!' over and over again.
Besides that, the dystopian society is just not very well realised. Why are women second class citizens? *shrug* As far as I remember, it isn't mentioned. I would have to assume it's because all men are bastards.
Having more of the language in the actual book would have been nice.
For a good feminist dystopian stor A nice concept, badly executed. From reading this I got the image of the author sitting behind a typewriter bashing the keys while screaming 'All men are bastards!' over and over again.
For a good feminist dystopian story, read The Handmaid's Tale. This is mediocre.
Aug 16, 2009 Bridget rated it it was ok
The premise of this book is intriguing - a future where a combination of alien contact and patriarchal rule has led to a subculture of women-centered linguistics. Sadly, focuses mostly on the male perspective, never makes the world believable, and never really delves into the "revolutionary" idea of a female language.
Jul 25, 2018 Stephen rated it liked it
After this book I should really give up on 2nd wave feminist scifi and linguistic scifi. Not that this wasn't one of the better examples of both that I've read recently, but I realized as I was reading that doesn't mean much.
I picked this book up because I wanted to try to more linguistic scifi and I had some hope because the author was a linguistics professor. I had high hopes that this wouldn't be yet another book that relied on an outdated and largely discredited linguistic theory known as Sa After this book I should really give up on 2nd wave feminist scifi and linguistic scifi. Not that this wasn't one of the better examples of both that I've read recently, but I realized as I was reading that doesn't mean much.
I picked this book up because I wanted to try to more linguistic scifi and I had some hope because the author was a linguistics professor. I had high hopes that this wouldn't be yet another book that relied on an outdated and largely discredited linguistic theory known as Sapir-Whorf (the strong version). But apparently the author none the less buys it. Seriously, this is a bad enough theory that I found someone suggesting this book be read as fantasy.
And that's not even the only bad linguistics. The idea of the women's language is just off in so many ways. The encodings that the linguists say are new words that no language has had before aren't always. One of the examples in the book is a word that distinguishes romantic love from familial love (she uses a more complicated definition, making it sounds like a concept not already in language, if as a phrase instead of a word), but Ancient Greek had a half dozen words for love getting even more complicated.
And then there's the assumptions that men wouldn't have the same interest for men as for women, that naturally men are lessing caring and other such b.s. ...more
Apr 17, 2019 Rianna rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Recommends it for: everyone, but mainly people who like feminist novels and/or dystopia science fiction
Shelves: for-me, favourites, genre-feminism, for-university, 2019, english, books-i-own, genre-dystopia
36/52 books read in 2019.
5/20 bookshelf reads in 2019.
Note before my rambling review that isn't neat or eloquent:
I definitely recommend you get yourself a physical copy to read this. The beginning chapters were a little confusing when I tried to read them on my ebook version, hence it took me ages to get through them the first time I tried, but this book is definitely worth it and picks up really quick after that.
I absolutely love this book.
Granted, this love needed some reading time to grow, b 36/52 books read in 2019.
Granted, this love needed some reading time to grow, because holy moly those male characters are infuriating and it starts with a flash forward, so it took a little bit before I figured it all out, but the more I read, the more I fell in love.
Every single one of the female characters is interesting. The dystopia they live in is horrifying and fascinating at the same time.
And then there is the female language, Láadan. I want to learn this so badly. I mean, I am a Dutch student of English who is learning Spanish in her spare time, so it is not that odd that I want to learn another language, but it sounds so cool and the example of a Láadan dictionary in the back just made me more excited.
ALSO the Feminist Press is reprinting the entire trilogy and they all look gorgeous... so you can bet your ass I am getting all three of them! ...more
Jun 10, 2018 Megan Bell rated it it was amazing
Shelves: 2018
It’s a damn shame this feminist science fiction cult classic trilogy is out of print today. Elgin was a linguist, and this novel explores a world where women’s rights have been revoked, but the birth of a women’s language may change everything. Also ALIENS! Native Tongue is not a subtle book but it is a fascinating one, narratively, historically (2nd Wave feminism, Moral Majority), and in how it interacts with linguistic theory. I’m really looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy.
Jan 04, 2010 Rebekah rated it really liked it
Native Language by Suzette Haden Elgin offers us an alternate present where men have taken back all the rights of women. In this new reality not only are women property again there are Aliens and a certain few family lines have learned to train their young to speak those languages. In general they have trapped themselves. The general population hates them for their absolute dependancy and the government encourages a media that lies about their excess just to feed that hatred.
I don’t know how mu Native Language by Suzette Haden Elgin offers us an alternate present where men have taken back all the rights of women. In this new reality not only are women property again there are Aliens and a certain few family lines have learned to train their young to speak those languages. In general they have trapped themselves. The general population hates them for their absolute dependancy and the government encourages a media that lies about their excess just to feed that hatred.
I don’t know how much I can suspend the disbelief that women would allow themselves to loose all rights. This bit of socio-political fiction seems totally far fetched. That someone could publish one article and have it be believed. In the next few years biology backwashes as well while male chauvinist laws take over the governments world wide. I would think women would have to be as backwards as they think they are, but that makes this not really our reality. I suppose you could relate this to the loss of rights of any minority, but it is still very hard to believe.
I think I almost like the idea of language gathering at infancy, though the result of this is that children are forced into work at very young ages because the knowledge they acquire is so valuable an asset. When the government man argues about how cruel and unfeeling the linguists are to their children, the leader fires back quite quickly with the well then why doesn’t the government step in and take our children from us and place them in nice loving “normal” families. And the simple truth is that they don’t because they want those children working hard. They want those babies born faster and parents taking drugs to encourage multiple births if possible. It is a sad world that the linguistic families have created for themselves by controlling supply and refusing to let the knowledge out of their hands. They made more money than they could use, but at a great cost.
Then there was the government’s attempts to take back the monopoly. They didn’t believe that the linguist couldn’t learn non-humanoid languages, i suppose they thought it was some big myth to control the demand or simply uncomfortable. So the government continues to destroy human children while they attempt to prove the linguists wrong. I can’t say I believe that humans could self-destruct from simply being forced to try and perceive something non-humanoid, but it does provide a stark view of “government work” and tolerances for cruelty when someone says do it and we don’t care how.
It raises the question of would reality actually change with a new language to describe it. I can’t say it would change as drastically as they imply. Women actually change their existence through a new language. They stop nagging and be come over attentive because they have some sort of mental release from their subjugation. The fact that the men got frustrated when they got their “Eden”. Women were obedient and attentive and suddenly they didn’t have someone to fight against and they hit an emotional wall. Too much of a good thing won’t do.
There are more parts to this story, which was written as a trilogy, though I have read that the other books are not as good. Perhaps the suspensions of disbelief simply stretch too thin. I had to search for this book, so perhaps if the others turn up I will read them, but not dig for them.
I will point out the version I checked out from the library had many typo’s. Sometimes to the detriment of comprehension as I wondered if a he was supposed to be a she. Most of them could be read through, but I find it a tad unacceptable in a major published work. ...more
May 21, 2010 Michèle rated it really liked it · review of another edition
At first it was the cover. I couldn't resist the cuuute little baby facing the smiling alien!
Then, I plunged head first in the linguist families who facilitate human communication with alien races (that's the SF part). I met the struggling women of the Lines, poor Nazareth Chorniak being bred like cattle and ill-treated... in a future dystopian American society where the 19th Amendment was repealed in 1996 and women have been stripped of civil rights.(That's the social part. By the way, in that At first it was the cover. I couldn't resist the cuuute little baby facing the smiling alien!
Then, I plunged head first in the linguist families who facilitate human communication with alien races (that's the SF part). I met the struggling women of the Lines, poor Nazareth Chorniak being bred like cattle and ill-treated... in a future dystopian American society where the 19th Amendment was repealed in 1996 and women have been stripped of civil rights.(That's the social part. By the way, in that society, the guys live in constant moral misery, having to compete, always bickering, and seeing other men as rivals).
A group of women, led by Nazareth, create a new language as an act of resistance. So they revolt, not with violence, but with words, inventing the Laadan. At first Laadan helps woman getting a sense of community, then, as they grow more confident and serene (in the second book), there is an effect on the men in the Linguist families, not a disneyan "over the board" reversal of attitude, but they find themselves more at ease in their relations with their womenfolk.
This is one of the first SF novels I read that spoke to me.
Years later, I proposed a panel on "Klingon vs Laadan" at the 30th Wiscon. I assisted to this conference where Mrs Elgin, inventor of the Laadan, and John Ford, inventor (at least, one of the inventors) of the Klingon discussed the very different destinies of the invented languages. Klingon, rather overtly masculine, had a whopping sale. Laadan, like the vine, crept slowly, mostly discreet.
But the idea of the use of the language to express feminine, and other new ideas and concept. In fact, the native tongue trilogy is the contrary of the Novlang of 1984. Where the Novlang diminished the number and variety of words to express concepts, Laadan make them bloom and multiply.
I do not speak fluent Laadan, but I did look at the self-tutorial. For starters, the first sound of a sentence indicates its nature : request, information verified-witnessed by the interlocutor, information from a trusted source, information by hearsay... Only for that, Laadan is a breakthrough.
To this day I strongly believe, and live by, that the words we use secretly shape our minds. Whatever language we live in, we have to make an effort and find ways to keep in touch with the complex and subtler feelings that English - or French - have no words for.
The page on Laadan ...more
Feb 25, 2018 Sapphire rated it it was amazing
Shelves: science-fiction, feminist-science-fiction, fiction, language-linguistics, read-in-2018
I loved this book-
- the Sapir-Whorfian ideas around language constructing reality / language can change the world
- the idea of "encodings" and capturing women's lived reality in new words (some of the words in Laadan that she gave us really resonated with me personally)
- the notion that someday exolinguistics would be a huge asset to humankind, which I think has been poorly explored in a lot of science fiction (thank you, "Universal Translators" & babel fishes)
- recognition that alien cultur I loved this book-
- recognition that alien cultures would not be monolithic, but would likely have a number of languages (I love that this was written by a linguist- makes me think of why I loved that another gender-based work of scifi, Left Hand of Darkness, was written by the daughter of a famed anthropologist)
- the complexity of the misogyny she constructed in the culture; it felt very real
- the women!!!! the joy in becoming an OLDER woman in this culture, the way the separatist women of the Barren house were the most free
- the way the women were ALREADY communicating behind the backs of men, just sans a formal language, and the plan that the men never saw coming (this makes me think of another feminist scifi book as well, the Gate to Women's Country- the men had no idea what was coming)
- speaking of men underestimating women... the first chapter with Michaela Landry gave me CHILLS
- the fact that all linguist children learn to sign!
The things I disliked (or wish she explored more)-
- the slow pace of the book and how everything only really took place at the end (much of the government plot and the more man-centric chapters seemed unnecessary to me)...
- the last chapter didn't leave me with what I wanted, to be honest... it wasn't satisfying to focus (and not even fully wrap up) the government plot rather than leave us with more on the women
- past the first chapter she was in, Michaela's motives seemed odd to me... but I was happy with her overall arc
- I think she could have explored how different children came to be influenced by the alien cultures they studied ...more
Oct 19, 2015 Janice rated it it was ok
Shelves: sci-fi-book-club
Native Tongue explores a dystopic future in which women have lost all legal rights and humanity has colonized the solar system and made contact with multiple alien species. The main thrust of the book follows the efforts of a group of female linguists to create a language for women that will change their oppressed position in life.
Some interesting concepts here—it isn't surprising that the author, a linguist, has put more thought into the potential challenges of communicating with aliens than mo Native Tongue explores a dystopic future in which women have lost all legal rights and humanity has colonized the solar system and made contact with multiple alien species. The main thrust of the book follows the efforts of a group of female linguists to create a language for women that will change their oppressed position in life.
Some interesting concepts here—it isn't surprising that the author, a linguist, has put more thought into the potential challenges of communicating with aliens than most sci-fi authors bother with. For me this is the strongest thread in the book. But I found the men vs women main thread mostly tedious. Yes, the patriarchy is bad. Yes, it could even be worse, as it is on this future Earth. But even in a patriarchal society most fathers feel affection for their daughters, brothers for sisters, etc. And even in the most repressive societies there are examples of families that quietly, perhaps only behind closed doors, value the minds and hearts of the women in their families. Not here. The men are universally awful. If they are not actively sneering and belittling the women around them, they are murdering babies. No exaggeration. I would have appreciated more nuance and less cartoonish thuggery from the male cast of characters.
I also have difficulty with the main premise here: that a language for women would solve the problems with patriarchy. The purpose of language is communication, and severing communication by splitting language into that for men and that for women would only reinforce the mostly artificial, socially constructed divide between the sexes, the divide that leads to problems in the first place. It also reinforces the idea that biological sex is a simple duality that maps perfectly onto constructed gender. This is one way the book had not aged well. We now know things are more complicated than this. ...more
Apr 14, 2009 Eri-chan rated it really liked it
I found this book surprisingly enjoyable. The plot and characters are excellent, and it is very well written. The feminist angle is laid on pretty thick, and as such there are parts which angered me quite a bit, but once I got past the first few chapters that started to fade away as the plot gained momentum. Elgin has created a society and a future that is both fascinating and infuriating, an appropriate backdrop for the machinations of these heroic women whose intelligence is so inconceivable t I found this book surprisingly enjoyable. The plot and characters are excellent, and it is very well written. The feminist angle is laid on pretty thick, and as such there are parts which angered me quite a bit, but once I got past the first few chapters that started to fade away as the plot gained momentum. Elgin has created a society and a future that is both fascinating and infuriating, an appropriate backdrop for the machinations of these heroic women whose intelligence is so inconceivable to the men who rule them. Their subversive plot to gain independence through language is original and exciting, and the book as a whole is unlike anything I've encountered previously.
Haven't read the two follow-up books to this, and I doubt I will - according to people whose opinions I trust, they are an embarrassment compared to this classic. Definitely will be worth a reread at some point in the future. ...more
Jun 26, 2011 Bondama rated it really liked it
I can't review this book until my friends in the Feminist group have finished it!!
Apr 20, 2017 Christopher Roberts rated it it was amazing
Shelves: science-fiction, dystopian, feminist-fiction, aliens
In the narrow sub-genre of feminist science fiction, this is definitely one of those books that deserves to be more widely read. Elgin's goal with this book, and its sequels, seems to me to be a misguided one because we don't live in a society like the one she portrays in this book, but the story she built around this concept is told with sly humor and just enough nods to pulpy sci-fi tropes to reel in unsuspecting readers with its bold political message.
A lot of the negative reviews of this b In the narrow sub-genre of feminist science fiction, this is definitely one of those books that deserves to be more widely read. Elgin's goal with this book, and its sequels, seems to me to be a misguided one because we don't live in a society like the one she portrays in this book, but the story she built around this concept is told with sly humor and just enough nods to pulpy sci-fi tropes to reel in unsuspecting readers with its bold political message.
A lot of the negative reviews of this book online question the plausibility of the society the book portrays. This happens with every Sci-Fi dystopia. Elgin keeps it vague enough that I never found anything in it to be bothersome, though I did find the major idea, that women's rights would go completely in reverse so drastically, to be a bit hard to swallow but its necessary for the premise of the book.
I also see a lot of negative reviews harping on Elgin not being the right kind of feminist. I personally don't know much about her views but who cares? I care if she could create an interesting and compelling work of art. A lot of this has to do with the ending, which I found to be more of a drool punchline than anything else. ...more
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Mar 26, 2018 Deanna rated it liked it
Shelves: read-it-for-uni, feminism, sci-fi
I read this for a class on feminist literature. It is honestly unlike any book I’ve ever read — the premise is starkly feminist, but in an almost off putting manner... which, of course, led to great conversation in a classroom setting but hindered my interest in the novel (even though I usually love feminist books). There isn’t anything especially unique about Elgin’s writing style, except maybe the fact that she includes (mostly useless) snippets of fictional poems/articles/etc. at the beginnin I read this for a class on feminist literature. It is honestly unlike any book I’ve ever read — the premise is starkly feminist, but in an almost off putting manner... which, of course, led to great conversation in a classroom setting but hindered my interest in the novel (even though I usually love feminist books). There isn’t anything especially unique about Elgin’s writing style, except maybe the fact that she includes (mostly useless) snippets of fictional poems/articles/etc. at the beginning of each chapter. The biggest problem I found was that it was never made clear who the protagonist was. Sure, there are several voices being used as first person narrators throughout the novel — and that’s usually okay — but I felt that Elgin was sloppy with the way she executed it... to the point where at the end of the novel I felt that I missed out on the character-reader bond I usually get from a good book. Despite these issues, I still enjoyed reading this book for class and especially the conversations that came from it. ...more
Mar 12, 2018 Joel D rated it it was amazing
Shelves: finished-2018, top-picks
I almost can't fathom how much I liked this book. That is, it's almost weird for me and I don't quite know why. I am boggled by the fact that this book isn't ranked alongside 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale for excellent dystopic future novels.
Why do I like it so much?
I think a big part of it was the elegance with which the world is constructed for the reader. Explanations are rarely laboured. Rather, you understand what's going on from the characters, from their observations, from little interludes I almost can't fathom how much I liked this book. That is, it's almost weird for me and I don't quite know why. I am boggled by the fact that this book isn't ranked alongside 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale for excellent dystopic future novels.
I think a big part of it was the elegance with which the world is constructed for the reader. Explanations are rarely laboured. Rather, you understand what's going on from the characters, from their observations, from little interludes at the start of each chapter. It's quite an easy, seamless even, immersion into the world of the novel.
And then the linguistics stuff is great and if you are at all interested surely this is a big plus. I don't get into all the linguistic theory stuff but just as part of the plot I enjoyed all the stuff about languages and acquisition and the whole concept of interfacing and the Linguists etc.
And then I think it's a great Feminist read which is perhaps more delightfully droll than other similar books I've read. There's a certain wittiness to it, and an edge of resilience and subversion in the women of the novel that was great to read. ...more
Jan 29, 2019 Michael Carl rated it liked it
I'd long intended to get around to this cult favorite, first drawn to the book by the discovery of Suzette Haden Elgin's Láadan. The broad ideas and a handful of concepts she came up with are truly compelling, but none of them really feel tied together. It felt like the language and the social commentary and her notions of what a future dystopia might look like came first, in isolation, and were never fully integrated into a truly readable narrative. I almost put the book down on several occasio I'd long intended to get around to this cult favorite, first drawn to the book by the discovery of Suzette Haden Elgin's Láadan. The broad ideas and a handful of concepts she came up with are truly compelling, but none of them really feel tied together. It felt like the language and the social commentary and her notions of what a future dystopia might look like came first, in isolation, and were never fully integrated into a truly readable narrative. I almost put the book down on several occasions, but ultimately powered through because I liked what she was trying to do so much, but I doubt I can finish the trilogy. ...more
Feminist Science ...: Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin (November '14) 8 35 Dec 30, 2014 08:38PM
SciFi and Fantasy...: What did you think of Native Tongue 1 37 Sep 08, 2012 05:44PM
Science Fiction > Dystopia
About Suzette Haden Elgin
Suzette Haden Elgin was an American science fiction author. She founded the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and is considered an important figure in the field of science fiction constructed languages. Elgin was also a linguist; she published non-fiction, of which the best-known is the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense series.
Born in 1936 in Missouri, Elgin attended the University of California Suzette Haden Elgin was an American science fiction author. She founded the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and is considered an important figure in the field of science fiction constructed languages. Elgin was also a linguist; she published non-fiction, of which the best-known is the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense series.
Born in 1936 in Missouri, Elgin attended the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in the 1960s, and began writing science fiction in order to pay tuition. She has a Ph.D. in linguistics, and was the first UCSD student to ever write two dissertations (on English and Navajo). She created the engineered language Láadan for her Native Tongue science fiction series. A grammar and dictionary was published in 1985. She is a supporter of feminist science fiction, saying "women need to realize that SF is the only genre of literature in which it's possible for a writer to explore the question of what this world would be like if you could get rid of [X], where [X] is filled in with any of the multitude of real world facts that constrain and oppress women. Women need to treasure and support science fiction." [1]
In addition, she published works of shorter fiction. Overlying themes in her work include feminism, linguistics and the impact of language, and peaceful coexistence with nature. Many of her works also draw from her Ozark background and heritage.
Elgin became a professor at her alma mater's cross-town rival, San Diego State University (SDSU). She retired in 1980.
Other books in the series
Native Tongue (3 books)
Books by Suzette Haden Elgin
Trivia About Native Tongue (Na...
8 trivia questions
More quizzes & trivia...
Quotes from Native Tongue
“First principle: there's no such thing as reality. We make it up by perceiving stimuli from the environment - external or internal - and making statements about it. Everybody perceives stuff, everybody makes up statements about it, everybody - so far as we can tell - agrees enough to get by, so that when I say 'Hand me the coffee' you know what to hand me. And that's reality. Second principle; people get used to a certain kind of reality and come to expect it, and if what they perceive doesn't fit the set of statements everybody's agreed to, either the culture has to go through a kind of fit until it adjusts...or they just blank it out.” — 3 likes
“We are men, and human words are all we have: even the Word of God is composed actually of the words of men.” (HUNTING THE DIVINE FOX, by Robert Farrar Capon,” — 2 likes
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The global response to HIV in men who have sex with men
Chris Beyrer, Stefan D Baral, Chris Collins, Eugene T Richardson, Patrick S Sullivan, Jorge Sanchez, Gift Trapence, Elly Katabira, Michel Kazatchkine, Owen Ryan, Andrea L Wirtz, Kenneth H Mayer
Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) continue to have disproportionately high burdens of HIV infection in countries of low, middle, and high income in 2016. Four years after publication of a Lancet Series on MSM and HIV, progress on reducing HIV incidence, expanding sustained access to treatment, and realising human rights gains for MSM remains markedly uneven and fraught with challenges. Incidence densities in MSM are unacceptably high in countries as diverse as China, Kenya, Thailand, the UK, and the USA, with substantial disparities observed in specific communities of MSM including young and minority populations.
Advocacy and human rights, ARV/ART, Basic and Clinical Science, Care and treatment, Gay men and other men who have sex with men, Gender, Gender sensitive and transformative approaches, Governance, HIV prevalence and incidence studies, HIV programming and implementation science, International cooperation, Key and vulnerable populations, Men, People living with HIV or AIDS, Policy, Prevention, Prevention programming, Reproductive Health and Family Planning, Sexual and reproductive health/rights advocacy, SRH advocacy, Stigma and discrimination
gay men, bisexual men, men who have sex with men (MSM), MSM, incidence densities, access to services, HIV incidence, key populations, stigma and discrimination
HIV Nursing Matters, Issue 2
This issue of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society's "HIV Nursing Matters" online magazine focuses on vulnerable populations, including TB in prisons and intimate partner violence in the context of HIV.
This issue of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society's "HIV Nursing Matters" online magazine focuses on key populations.
Accelerating the Implementation and Scale-up of Comprehensive Programs for HIV Prevention, Diagnosis, Treatment and Care for Key Populations: LINKAGES Approach and Lessons Learned
In all countries where there is an HIV epidemic, certain subgroups of the population are at greater risk of HIV than others. These “key” populations include female sex workers (FSWs), men who have sex with men (MSM), transgender people, and people who inject drugs.
HIV prevalence and behavioral and psychosocial factors among transgender women and cisgender men who have sex with men in 8 African countries: A cross-sectional analysis
Sub-Saharan Africa bears more than two-thirds of the worldwide burden of HIV; however, data among transgender women from the region are sparse. Transgender women across the world face significant vulnerability to HIV.
Status of HIV Epidemic Control Among Adolescent Girls and Young Women Aged 15-24 Years - Seven African Countries, 2015-2017
In 2016, an estimated 1.5 million females aged 15-24 years were living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in Eastern and Southern Africa, where the prevalence of HIV infection among adolescent girls and young women (3.4%) is more than double that for males in the same age range (1…
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Chiropractic Myths
Over the years a number of myths pertaining to chiropractic have been created, mostly by economic competitors and those with differing philosophies. While the majority of myths have no basis, they do exist and cause some confusion to individuals unfamiliar with chiropractic care.
Spinal Adjustments Hurt
Spinal Adjustments Are Dangerous
Chiropractic Doctors Lack Education Compared With Medical Doctors
Chiropractic Is Not Scientific
Chiropractic Care Is Expensive
You'll Have To Continue Chiropractic Care For The Rest Of Your Life
Chiropractors Only Treat Back Pain
Quite the contrary. Many patients feel instant relief immediately after their treatments. In fact, most look forward to their chiropractic treatments. In patients suffering from severe bouts of back or neck pain, some discomfort may be experienced for obvious reasons, however, for most patients this is not the case.
Chiropractic spinal adjustments are extremely safe when performed by chiropractors. In fact, chiropractic adjustments are among the safest treatments for most back and neck problems. According to a 1993 Ontario Ministry of Health commissioned study,
"There is no clinical or case-control study that demonstrates or even implies that chiropractic spinal manipulation is unsafe in the treatment of low-back pain. Some medical treatments are equally safe, but others are unsafe and generate iatrogenic (doctor-induced) complications for low-back pain patients. Our reading of the literature suggests that chiropractic manipulation is safer than medical management of low-back pain."
Lead investigator of the study, Pran Manga, Ph.D., however, did warn that spinal adjustments performed by health care professionals other than qualified doctors of chiropractic were potentially harmful and less effective:
"Indeed, several existing medical therapies of low-back pain are generally contraindicated on the basis of the existing clinical trials. There is also some evidence in the literature to suggest that spinal manipulations are less safe and less effective when performed by nonchiropractic professionals."
On December 8, 1994, the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) of the US Department of Health and Human Services released clinical practice guidelines for the management of acute low back pain. Their guidelines were developed after extensive study of the diagnostic and treatment methods used for acute low back pain. Their findings included:
The risk of serious complications from lumbar spinal manipulation is rare;
Conservative treatment such as spinal manipulation should be pursued in most cases before considering surgical intervention;
Prescription drugs such as oral steroids, antidepressant medications and colchicine are not recommended for acute low back problems.
The training and education endured by chiropractors is extremely thorough and demanding, similar to that of medical doctors with the exception of pharmacology and surgery.
Prior to entering chiropractic college, the aspiring chiropractor requires 2-4 years (depending on the college attended and the state one wishes to practice in) of premed undergraduate studies. Once completed, the student must next complete 4-5 academic years of studies at a chiropractic college. This includes extensive training in anatomy, physiology, pathology, neurology, radiology, differential diagnosis, chiropractic adjustive techniques, biomechanics , and other health-related studies.
In addition, prior to graduation each student must successfully complete several hundred clinical hours of "real" patient management in a clinical setting under professional supervision. Most chiropractic colleges also require students to partake in clinical externship programs which place them in actual chiropractic offices, further enhancing their clinical practice skills.
Near or soon after graduation, the new doctors of chiropractic must successfully complete rigorous National and State Board examinations prior to obtaining a license to practice chiropractic. Once licensed, most states require that chiropractors receive annual continuing education to ensure that a high level of competency is maintained.
Chiropractors have always sought to provide the safest and most effective healing methods for their patients. In order to achieve this, the chiropractic profession has been dedicated to conducting scientific studies to improve their diagnostic methods and treatment techniques. In the last 20 years chiropractic health care has established an impressive array of scientific research that demonstrates the efficacy, safety and cost effectiveness of chiropractic care. There are many further studies currently underway, and several have been performed by medical doctors and government researchers in both the U.S. and a number of other countries.
In fact, the chiropractic profession has accumulated a greater number of scientific trials on chiropractic than the medical profession has accumulated for many of the treatments rendered by medical doctors. According to David M. Edy, M.D., Ph.D., professor of health policy and management with Duke University, North Carolina, only 15 percent of all medical interventions are supported by solid scientific evidence. Paul G. Shekelle, M.D., M.P.H., of the RAND Corporation made the following statement on ABC's 20/20:
"There are considerably more randomized controlled trials which show benefit of this (chiropractic care) than there are for many, many other things which physicians and neurosurgeons do all the time."
Research clearly disproves this myth. Chiropractic care has been consistently shown to be cost effective in a number of government and workers' compensation board studies.
According to The Manga Report, a 1993 Canadian government commissioned study,
"There would be highly significant cost savings if more management of low-back pain was transferred from physicians to chiropractors... Users of chiropractic care have substantially lower health care costs, especially inpatient costs, than those who use medical care only."
According to an economic analysis conducted in Richmond, Virginia,
"By every test of cost and effectiveness, the general weight of evidence shows chiropractic to provide important therapeutic benefits, at economical costs. Additionally, these benefits are achieved with apparently minimal, even negligible, impacts on the costs of health insurance."
When the State of Florida's Workers' Compensation Board conducted research in 1988 on treatment costs associated with injured workers who received care from either chiropractic doctors or medical doctors, they found chiropractic treatment costs were 58.8 percent of the treatments costs rendered by medical doctors ($558 vs. $1,100 per case).
Most doctors of chiropractic promote a preventative type of lifestyle which has been construed by adversaries to mean that chiropractic care requires a lifetime of commitment. Actually, recommending that patients return for periodic spinal care is no different that what dentists recommend to their patients in order to prevent cavities and gum disease.
Just as it would be ludicrous to believe that visiting a dentist once per lifetime would ensure permanently healthy teeth and gums it's equally as silly to think that visiting a chiropractor a few times will ensure a lifelong healthy spine. Our spinal tissues undergo daily bombardment of stresses originating from bad postural habits, suboptimal work environments, psychological stress, and hectic lifestyles just to name a few.
For these reasons, after the resolution of acute problems patients are given the option to receive periodic spinal checkups which acts to minimize the likelihood of future recurrences or development of new problems. The preventative approach in health care has been gaining much recognition as of late and there has been a large push in the medical community and health insurance industry to incorporate preventative programs into mainstream medicine.
It's really that simple. Periodic care to prevent future problems - safe, natural, convenient care now to avoid nasty and complex problems later.
Chiropractors provide effective treatment for all types of soft tissue disorders and not just back and neck ailments. This includes conditions of the joints of the extremities like the ankle, knee and shoulder.
What you may not be aware of is chiropractic's success in treating a number of non-soft tissue conditions like dysmenorrhea (painful menses), ulcers, migraine headaches, and ear infections in children. While we cannot claim to cure these conditions, we believe that many of these problems can be mimicked, aggravated and some times caused by disruptions in the nervous system as a result of spinal abnormalities. By correcting these spinal abnormalities like the vertebral subluxation, chiropractic has helped thousands of individuals overcome these conditions and regain control of their lives.
A number of studies have also supported these findings. In one such study, spinal manipulative therapy was compared with standard medical treatments in the treatment of duodenal ulcers. The researchers Pikalov, MD, and Kharin, MD, found those subjects receiving spinal manipulations took an average of 16 days to heal vs. 26 days to heal in the standard medical treatment group.
JMPT 1994;17(5):310-313
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Hesse president vents frustration over Germany’s delayed regulations
German Amusement Industry and the Hesse Coin-Op Association, Hessen state president Volker Bouffier called for a “sensible compromise” on online gaming that would boost business while protecting players.
Success in business and customer protection are not mutually exclusive,” Volker Bouffier declared to a room of gaming industry representatives this August. Speaking at a parliamentary evening hosted by two coin-op industry trade bodies, the Conservative politician and president of Hesse delivered a damning verdict on the state of online gaming regulations in the country.
“We urgently need a sensible compromise,” he said, adding that “the enjoyment of gambling does not have to lead to personal ruin.”
Bouffier said he had been calling for the regulation of online gambling since his time as minister for the interior and sport in Hesse between 1999 and 2010, “and back then we didn’t even have smartphones”.
Sportsbetting and gambling regulations are a devolved matter in Germany, which means that any new law must be agreed upon by all sixteen states of the Federal Republic – the vast majority of which have coalition governments. Over the few years, the inability of state presidents to reach a consensus on the heavily criticised Interstate Treaty on Gambling has led to long periods of dead-lock during which prospective operators have been unable to obtain a licence.
Northern state Schleswig-Holstein, a traditionally pro-gaming state that set up it own breakaway online jurisdiction between 2012 and 2013, prompted further uncertainty last year when they decided to vote down an amended version of the Interstate Treaty. The amendments would have implemented a uniform sportsbetting licensing framework throughout the country, as well as instigating regulations such as a monthly deposit limit. At the time, state ministers in Schleswig-Holstein said the Treaty was in violation of EU law, and declared that they would instead look at once again establishing their own regime.
Speaking at the parliamentary evening in August, Dr. Heinz-Georg Sundermann, CEO of Lotto Hessen, described Schleswig-Holstein’s decision not to ratify the treaty as a “classic political mistake”, because at the very least, the treaty would have made provisions for a regulated sportsbetting sector. “In mainstream politics, we are not at top of the agenda,” he said.
At present – and pending a long-awaited regime liberalisation – online casino games are illegal in Germany, although a number of remote operators have gained access to the market under other EU licences. The number of people gambling through digital channels has soared over the past decade, prompting other countries across the continent to try and put in place fit-for-purpose online regimes over the past few years, but discussion around online gambling in Germany is still “stuck in the stone age”, said Bouffier.
Meanwhile, state governments continue to come under pressure from industry lobbyists, as the German Sportsbetting Association (DSWV) and German Online Casino Association (DOCV) continue to push for change. This August, the DSWV announced that it had further strengthened its membership with the entry of two major sportsbetting firms: Playtech’s B2B betting subsidiary BGT Sports, and international betting group Kindred.
Commenting on the current regulatory stalemate, DSWV president Mathias Dahms said: “It is incomprehensible that today the federal states haven’t issued a single sports- betting licence, even though, from 2012, the Interstate Treaty on Gambling provided for the opening of the gaming market to private operators.
“As a representative of all of relevant private betting firms in Germany, the DSWV will continue to work towards an amendment to sportsbetting regulations that offers legal certainty to consumers and providers and permits the authorities to take action against illegal black market offers.”
But despite forceful words from state politicians and industry stakeholders, many experts believe that the deadlock on online casino gaming and sportsbetting is likely to continue for some time, leaving licensed operators to battle it out in an unregulated grey and black market.
60 leading influencers to deliver content-rich learning programme at ICE Africa
Kamara: ICE Africa can bring investment and economic contributions to the fore
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Canada Needs To Revamp Its Strategy On Global Food Security
The deflated loonie and a marathon drought in California are mostly to blame for the jump in food prices here in Canada. Meanwhile the same forces -- economic and climate instability -- threaten to keep an estimated 795 million people hungry around the world.
Development Unplugged By the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, Canada’s national coalition of civil society organizations working globally to achieve sustainable human development
Radius Images via Getty Images
Close-up of Man Holding Wheat, High Atlas Mountains, Morocco
Steep jumps in food prices in recent months should remind us in Canada of the imperative to ensure people's right to adequate food around the world -- something the new Liberal government can help do by refreshing Canada's 2009 Food Security Strategy.
The University of Guelph's Food Institute estimates the average Canadian household paid $325 more at the grocery checkout last year and projects that food bills will grow by another $345 in 2016.
Climate change will only multiply current vulnerabilities.
The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the agricultural sector absorbs about 25 per cent of all damages caused by climate-related disasters such as drought and flooding. Climate change will only multiply current vulnerabilities.
Less than a decade ago, the world was gripped by a major food price crisis. Soaring oil prices, which quadrupled between 2003 and 2008, were partly to blame as the price of maize and wheat doubled and that of rice nearly tripled. Weather shocks intensified by climate change's effects offer a credible explanation for the poor harvests. The Economist declared the situation a "silent tsunami" on its front page in April 2008.
The crisis was a clear call for the international community to recognize the inadequacies of our global food system and became a catalyst for action and policy change.
Under the Harper government, Canada responded by transforming how it sources food aid -- food destined for humanitarian crises would no longer come from Canadian farmers, but from closer to the affected region.
The former Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) followed up with its first-ever Food Security Strategy in 2009.
The strategy took a more comprehensive approach to food aid than ever before by focusing not just on immediate humanitarian relief but looking for medium and long term solutions to hunger.
Canada was also the first G8 country to fulfill its $1.18 billion dollar commitment made under the L'Aquila Food Security Initiative (AFSI).
But the 2009 strategy didn't go far enough.
The new Liberal government has a great opportunity to buttress our international leadership position by refreshing the strategy with a new focus on the links between food security, climate change adaptation, environmental sustainability and human rights.
Using the United Nation's newly-minted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a roadmap, Canada's food security policy should support a multiplicity of environmentally sustainable agricultural systems at the local, regional and global level, and build the resilience of people's livelihoods and food systems to threats and crises.
Progress has already been made. Despite significant population growth, the number of hungry people around the world shrunk by 216 million between 1990 and 2015. Yet the global level of hunger and malnutrition still remain unacceptably high.
In South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, progress in reducing hunger has been slow, and in some cases gains have been reversed by protracted crises. These same regions also have a high prevalence of hidden hunger -- the lack of micronutrients.
To truly do more than just provide short-term relief during humanitarian crises, the government is in a great position to make climate-smart agriculture and other sustainable agricultural practices, gender equality, and pro-poor development policies in fragile and low income food deficit countries part of Canada's food security agenda.
The SDGs have put hunger high on the global development agenda for the next 15 years. Goal 2 calls for an end to hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrient and promoting sustainable agriculture. These are calls Canada must answer with strong commitments and bold initiatives in a revamped Food Security Strategy.
The right to adequate food is a basic human right. Few would disagree that global food security and nutrition is an important moral and international policy issue for Canada.
And as climate change and economic instability increasingly threaten people's ability to put food on the table the world over, we need to build more resilient food systems.
As we work toward the 2030 Agenda, the imperative to "leave no one behind" and the Brundtland Report's notion of "sustainability" must inform our shared vision of a common future, by ensuring that this generation's right to food does not jeopardize the right to food of future generations -- a future of zero hunger.
Kai-Hsin Hung researched the policy agenda-setting process that led to Canada's Food Security Strategy and 2009 AFSI commitments as part of his master's degree in Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. You can read his full paper here.
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MORE: 2030 Agenda blog Food prices food scarcity food security goal number 2 hunger Politics sdgs Sustainable Development Goals what's working
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Pagan Holidays - or God's Holy Days - Which?
Which Day is the SABBATH of the New Testament?
Come Help Humanity
Coming THE EMANCIPATION OF EUROPE
Gene H Hogberg Church of God
Present chilly relations between Washington and Moscow are resulting in appeals for a new European superpower to arise.
"THE INTERESTS and objectives of the United States and the West European countries are Increasingly diverging," warns Pieter Denkert, president of the European Parliament.
The "sheer number of disputes between the United States and Western Europe has gradually eroded... mutual respect and confidence," writes President Denkert in the Winter 1983-84 edition of Foreign Policy magazine.
Conflicts over trade policy constitute a major and growing irritant between the United States and its European allies.
Add to trade problems an equally serious dispute — the approach that the West should take toward the ever-increasing power of the Soviet Union.
How to Deal With Moscow
In simplest terms, many West Europeans do not share the perspective of the administration in Washington toward the Soviet Union. In Europe there is a growing feeling that President Ronald Reagan is imposing his world view on Europeans. They see him as attempting to enlist them in a new crusade against communism everywhere.
Europeans contend Americans are unpredictable in the conduct of foreign affairs. They cite as clear evidence the widely divergent policies of former President Jimmy Carter and Mr. Reagan.
Europeans claim a more pragmatic view of world affairs, a more sophisticated and realistic approach toward the Soviet Union. This perspective is perhaps best summarized by former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany in the weekly Die Zeit:
"By virtue of nearly 1,000 years of common history, the Europeans know the Soviets better than people can be expected to in Georgia or California. This European know-how should be put to good use. The Europeans want not just military security but also detente and cooperation with the Soviet Union."
From the American perspective, however, Western Europe is too weak, too accommodating to growing Soviet power.
The editors of one of Britain's leading weekly magazines, The Economist. in the cover story of the January 21 issue, set about the task of explaining to Europeans "why a lot of people in America do not understand Europe's way of looking at the world." The editors displayed on the cover of the magazine the caricature of a European male, under the title "How to recognize a European (through American eyes)."
The artist drew attention to various parts of this composite European's anatomy with such notations as "Angry eye on Reagan," "Blind eye to Russia," "Bleeding heart," "Limp wrist," "No guts," "Weak-kneed," "Cold feet" and "Knee jerks."
No doubt many in Europe would take great exception to such a portrayal. But that was exactly the point the editors of The Economist were making: that the caricature represents the growing perception Americans have of Europeans. And, in the field of international relations, perceptions often count more than realities, which can be quite different.
Stockholm Conference
In general, Europeans are worried over the freeze in U.S. — Soviet relations. The freeze has led to the suspension, on the part of Moscow, of both the Euromissile. and strategic nuclear arms control talks.
The new Cold War atmosphere between East and West was very much in evidence at the 35-nation Conference on Confidence — and Security-building Measures and Disarmament in Europe (CSDE). The conference was held in Stockholm. This writer was in attendance.
The conference was convened to deal with rather small and technical items, such as the notification of troop maneuvers on both sides of the Iron Curtain. It is hoped that such so-called " — confidence-building measures," if agreed upon by the delegations that are to carry out the task over the next two to three years, can lead to implementing solutions to more significant East-West issues.
The way the conference started, it was immediately obvious that little was going to be achieved, at least in the short run.
In his unusually stern remarks on the opening day, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz delivered an unequivocal condemnation of the division of Europe since 1945.
The West had not erected this barrier, maintained Mr. Shultz. He then emphasized: "Let me be very clear. The United States does not recognize the legitimacy of the artificially imposed division of Europe. This division is the essence of Europe's security and human rights problem and we all know it."
The following day was Moscow's turn. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko delivered a blunt speech highly critical of U.S. policies worldwide.
With regard to Europe, Mr. Gromyko complained that "militarism, enmity and war hysteria are being exported to Western Europe along with the missiles" — a reference to the new Pershing II and cruise missiles being delivered by the United States to its West European allies.
The two speeches did little to lay the groundwork for confidence-building measures.
Eastern Europe Worried
With the Cold War seemingly on again, the nations of both Western and Eastern Europe find themselves being squeezed uncomfortably between the two superpowers — and, as a consequence, closer to each other.
In Stockholm the East bloc foreign ministers dutifully echoed Mr. Gromyko's words. But it is known that nearly all the Warsaw Pact countries, too, are concerned over rising tensions on the Continent. Especially worrisome to them are announced Soviet plans to place new intermediate-range missiles in Eastern Europe to counter the NATO deployment.
Late last year, former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt reported to the West German Bundestag: "I also know that in East Germany and in Czechoslovakia people are... frightened. They don't want to soon see Soviet nuclear SS-21 rockets and SS-22 rockets stationed there.... That applies to Hungary where I recently visited [and also] to Bulgaria....
"The more the two world powers conduct themselves antagonistically, the closer the people of the eastern parts of middle Europe and of the western parts move together and the closer the Germans come together in both parts of the Fatherland."
The maverick nation of Romania, in particular, has been an outspoken critic of the growing nuclearization of the Continent — from both sides. Moscow was shaken when Romania's President Nicolae Ceausescu hinted, early this year, at the theoretical possibility that Romania might not renew its membership in the Warsaw Pact when the initial treaty expires next year.
Atlantic Rift Widens
In Western Europe, there is a growing perception that the United States is equally to blame for the worsening conditions, especially in the aftermath of the deployment of the first of the new missiles.
Perhaps this perception was best summarized by the lead editorial in the January 3 Financial Times of London. It said: "The American shield now looks, to a significant and vocal minority, more like an American threat.... In military and economic terms... the Atlantic appears to be getting wider."
Just how wide the Atlantic is becoming was best displayed by the activities at another conference, this one a three-day closed-door meeting in Brussels, Belgium. This conference immediately preceded the more publicized Stockholm affair. Delegates to the Brussels meeting consisted of former government officials who still are highly influential in their respective countries.
The headline in the January 16 Times of London summarized the net result of this high-level get-together: "Bitter Speeches Betray a Mutual Loss of Trust by Europe and America."
The Brussels conference was entitled "The Future of NATO and Global Security." But, revealed France's former Foreign Minister Jean Francois-Poncet, "everyone of us knew that the real title was 'Atlantic Disagreements' and... we got it."
What several participants described as "a growing crisis of mutual understanding" surfaced in speeches by two former U.S. cabinet members, Henry Kissinger and James Schlesinger, and West Germany's former chancellor, Helmut Schmidt.
Mr. Schmidt lashed out at what he called the "self-contradictory behavior" of the U.S. government toward the Soviet Union. He further warned that Washington's "egoistic economic policies" such as maintaining high interest rates and running up huge annual budgetary deficits could soon ruin the Western alliance system.
William G. Hyland of the United States, a specialist on Soviet affairs and a former member of the U.S. National Security Council, said that Mr. Schmidt's speech was a prime example of "the growing gap between the United States and Europe that could end in catastrophe."
Mr. Hyland told the Europeans that disenchantment was also mounting in the United States, where one now hears the argument that remaining in NATO may not necessarily be in U.S. interests. He referred to an unnamed American general, one known for outspoken views, who has taken bets that the United States will quit NATO by 1990 — just six years away — in retaliation to the Europeans' refusal to "take on" the Soviet Union.
Mr. Schlesinger, the former U.S. Defense Secretary, lectured the European NATO allies on what he said was their lack of support of the alliance. He. also said it was time for the European allies to read a bit of American history, which gives a warning against "entangling alliances" — advice offered to the fledgling American republic by its retiring first president, George Washington.
At this remarkable conference, said Mr. Francois-Poncet, there was "a strange but uncomfortable feeling of drifting apart between the United States and Europe. The mood is bad."
Divorce from America?
The verbal cross fire in Brussels adds yet more substance to the dangerous feeling, on both sides of the Atlantic, of "let's go our separate ways."
The generally pro-American columnist for the Sunday Telegraph in Britain, Peregrine Worsthorne, wondered whether the time might not be ripe for Western Europe to consider an amicable "early divorce" from the United States.
Mr. Worsthorne observed in his November 13, 1983 column that there is a "reduction in fear of the Soviet Union" among West Europeans despite the continuing Soviet military buildup. The commonly held view on the Continent is that the Soviets are having such economic difficulties in their own Eastern bloc that a Warsaw Pact attack on Western Europe is simply out of the question.
The Europeans, Mr. Worsthorne added, are not nearly as interested, as is the United States, in combating communist inroads in Central America or other parts of the world. That is Washington's own business, seems to be the prevailing notion. Meanwhile West European nations might consider reaching "an understanding" with the Soviet Union with regard to Europe's security.
Influential circles in the United States as well are wondering out loud whether there should not be a new order of things. The lack of West European support over the U.S. military intervention in Grenada is cited as a prime example of Allied unconcern for U.S. security interests in the Western Hemisphere.
To make matters worse, the West Europeans unanimously went along with a U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning the U.S. action.
"The lesson," fumed New York Times columnist William Satire, "is that our NATO partners are interested exclusively in... [being] protected by American troops and America's nuclear umbrella while reserving the right to undermine American security everywhere else. That removes the 'mutual' from mutual defense....
"If that is the case," continued Mr. Satire with a surprising proposal, "the time is coming for an independent European defense, with the U.S. offering for sale the latest intermediate missiles but not the rental of our troops.... 'Wayward sisters, depart in peace,' Horace Greeley told the seceding states [before the U.S. Civil War of 1861-1865]."
Drift from Europe, Shift to Asia
Mr. Greeley, it should be noted, was famous for another piece of advice: "Go West, young man, go West." The United States is economically and, even ethnically, "going West."
Influential U.S. business leaders confidently predict that America's future is in the Pacific world. Statistics bear them out. In 1982-83, for the first time in history, overall U.S. trade with the Pacific nm nations exceeded that with the Atlantic nations.
Moreover, 40 percent of America's immigrants each year now come from Asia (with the same percentage from Latin America), as opposed to only 16 percent from Europe and Canada. From 1930 to 1960, 80 percent of U.S. immigrants came from Europe and Canada.
Given enough time, the United States would become an Asian — and Third World — origin nation — and this is a profound shift that few, even in the United States, fully comprehend.
And even without this new shift to the Pacific, it must be realized America's close security ties to Europe since the end of World War II are out of character with the American historical experience. The Economist, referred to earlier, editorialized:
"The Americans are not, as too many Europeans think they are, a collection of intermarried Europeans who happen to have moved sideways across the Atlantic, plus some blacks and Hispanics. They are the descendants, in overwhelming majority, of people who left Europe because they wanted to be free or rich and the old world kept them squashed and poor.
"So they shook Europe's dust off their feet.... The act of going to America was a deliberate decision ... to turn their backs on the unsatisfactory politics of the world they were leaving behind."
Deep within the American psyche, furthermore, is a longing to drop out of world power politics. "Despite decades of costly international experience," writes Eugene V. Rostow, former director of the U.S. Arms Control ' and Disarmament Agency, in the February 20, 1984 issue of The New Republic, "the American mind still dreams about the golden century of isolationism between 1815 and 1917.... We have not yet learned to think like a great power. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union plays hard and well, on the basis of meticulous preparation, in the ancient tradition of chess.
"It is clear what the Soviet leaders are up to. While the Russians distract us by secondary though important moves in the Caribbean and the Middle East, they are lunging to neutralize Western Europe by detaching it from the United States."
"Emancipation of Europe"
What is to be the outcome of the strained U.S. — West European ties? One far-reaching and sobering speculation was presented in an article in the Spring 1983 issue of Foreign Policy. Entitled "Freedom for Europe, East and West," the article was written by Klaus Bloemer, an official in the Press and Information Office of the West German government. Mr. Bloemer states that the views expressed are his own, not necessarily those of his government.
"It is a harsh truth," writes Mr. Bloemer, "that the political emancipation of Europe-East and West — will proceed with difficulty as long as Western Europe remains utterly dependent upon the United States." What is now required, this official adds, "is a vision — a farsighted plan to end the confrontation in Central Europe that, for 35 years, has passed for normality."
Instead of perpetuating close ties to the United States, Mr. Bloemer maintains that "countless historical, geographic, cultural and strategic interests require that West European countries enter into some kind of security relationship with the Soviet Union."
As far as the nations of Eastern Europe are concerned, continues this West German official, they no longer adequately fulfill their function as a buffer zone for the Soviet Union.
The 110 million East Europeans, he maintains, "represent a potentially disruptive political and social force" within the Soviet orbit. And economically, their bleak economies constitute an acute drain on Soviet resources.
This presents West Europeans with the opportunity to offer the Soviets and their East European partners what Mr. Bloemer calls "a New Deal — Marshall Plan — type proposal" to modernize their economies.
"An essential precondition for such an evolution," he adds, "would be ending both Soviet and American military presence in East and West European countries," with "a West European defense organization" arising to replace the departing Americans in the West.
Western Europe would continue to recognize the Soviet Union's "legitimate security requirements," but in return for this recognition and the offering of massive economic assistance, the Soviets hopefully would allow much greater freedom for their East European satellites, similar to that enjoyed by Finland.
The end result, Mr. Bloemer hopes, will be the "Finlandization of Moscow's European allies" and — note this — the emergence of "two self-governing halves of Europe" (emphasis ours throughout).
Understanding "Finlandization"
The term "Finlandization" is normally used in the mass media to convey willing West European subservience to Moscow. As such, it is incorrect. Moreover, it is highly offensive to the Finnish people who, faced with the geographical fact of life of an 800-mile border with the Soviet Union, have nevertheless managed to preserve their Western-style independence.
Looking at it from the perspective of the East Europeans, said Mark E. Austad, former U.S. ambassador to Finland, "the East Europeans would love to be Finlandized."
Soviet expert Nora Beloff adds that "the whole concept of Finlandization needs to be reversed." Writing in the July 30, 1982, Daily Telegraph of London, Ms. Beloff stressed how important Finland is to the Soviet Union, especially in trade.
Finland, moreover, is not strapped with the chronic economic problems of the East bloc, increasingly an economic burden for Moscow. "That is why," said Ms. Beloff, "sooner or later, Moscow must be persuaded to see that it is in its own economic as well as security interests to Finlandize the satellites and set the people free."
The prognostication of Mr. Bloemer, Ms. Beloff and others might be very close to the way political relations in Europe ultimately will materialize, as indicated in the Bible, in the second chapter of the book of Daniel.
Like it or not, just over the horizon in world events is the final end-time revival of the Roman Empire, just before the restitution of the Kingdom of God on the earth to bring world peace at last. This final restoration is pictured as the toes of a great image in the form of a man. The feet of this image are "partly of iron and partly of clay" (verse 33, Revised Authorized Version), meaning it "shall be partly strong and partly fragile" (verse 42).
The ancient Roman Empire was divided. The Europe to come could well be composed of two confederated halves: "five toes" representing Western and a part of Central Europe, the other five comprising the nations of Central or Eastern Europe, perhaps existing in a Finlandized form, giving consideration to the security interests of the Soviet Union.
"Five Fingers" on the Trigger
The eastern half of a new Europe may well remain neutralized and "nuclear free." This meshes with ideas that have been in circulation for the past few years.
For example, Sweden's independent Palme Commission has advocated the idea of a corridor in Central Europe free from battlefield nuclear weapons.
In Bulgaria, party leader Todor Zhivkov is pushing for a nuclear-free zone in the Balkans that would encompass his country plus Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia and Romania.
The western half of Europe, however, would still need to protect itself — were the Americans to depart.
In this light, one should take serious note of an article that appeared in the December 11, 1983, New York Times, written by Melvyn B. Krauss, a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution in California. In it, Mr. Krauss argued for what he called the "de-Americanization" of European defense — a, concept on which Mr. Kissinger — in Brussels, also said he would make proposals.
It would be better, Mr. Krauss said, for the new Pershing II and cruise missiles now going into Europe to be controlled by the Europeans themselves. He feels there would be less public reaction in Western Europe against them. "Such a 'de-Americanization' of European defense would be better for western security," said Mr. Krauss.
But would it be good for American security in the future? That is a question no one seems to be asking.
Continued Mr. Krauss: "Far more credible to Moscow... would be for Europe to have its own nuclear deterrent. The obvious problem raised by a nuclear West Germany could be circumvented by the establishment of a European defense force so that instead of a single finger there would be a single hand with five fingers on the crucial red button."
The Soviets would never permit Western missiles in a future Finlandized Eastern Europe, but could conceivably permit a united defense force consisting of the five-fingered Western "hand" of a 10-nation confederated European third force to have nuclear weapons.
Moscow would likely demand a military nonaggression pact, in addition to infusions of economic aid, from Western Europe. Such an arrangement might prove very tempting to the sluggish industries of Western Europe that have been falling steadily behind the U.S. and Japan in the high-technology race.
Call for European "Superpower"
The late 78-year-old French philosopher — author Manes Sperber, in an address in Munich, West Germany, last year, called for Europe to become its own superpower: "Instead of being the bone of contention between two superpowers, Europe itself must become a superpower, neither expansionist nor revengeful, but utterly determined through its own sufficiently strong defense forces to deter anyone who might feel emboldened to want to take possession of it because of its weakness."
Others, however, are not so bold. At the Stockholm security conference, a British Broadcasting Corporation reporter was interviewed by a Swedish television newswoman. The interview occurred after Secretary of State Shultz said that the United States did not recognize the post — World War II division of Europe. The newswoman asked her BBC counterpart whether he felt a reunited Europe could ever come about. He replied: "Unless there is a major political earthquake, it [a divided Europe] is a fact we will have to live with."
But not forever, according to your Bible.
Not far down the road, there will occur a major political earthquake that will astound the whole world, when a new superpower system arises in Europe to stride for a brief period across the world scene (Rev. 17:8).
Plain Truth Magazine May 1984 Vol 49, No.5
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“The easiest way to think about it is: You have a breathalyzer strapped to your leg that’s testing you every 30 minutes, 24 hours a day,” said Nancy Cladis of Idaho Monitoring Services, which is contracted to provide and manage alcohol-monitoring and GPS devices for Ada County.
Idaho Monitoring Services has 80 to 100 SCRAM bracelets in use for the Ada County program at any given time — about double the number that were in use in 2008 but still a small percentage of defendants.
Last year, 178 people on pre-trial release in Ada County wore them for a combined total of 11,222 days; there were 59 violations. Also, 116 people who were on misdemeanor probation wore them for a combined 7,667 days; there were 86 violations.
So what’s limiting wider use of the ankle monitors? The simple answer: Defendants have to want to wear them and cover the cost.
Pre-trial defendants can opt to stay in jail rather than agree to conditions of release, said Judge Melissa Moody, administrative district judge for the Fourth Judicial District.
“As a practical matter, folks want to get out but they may not be able to afford to get out if the judge puts the requirement of a SCRAM bracelet,” Moody said, noting that the added cost on top of posting bond is more than many can afford. “$285 a month. That’s a really big consideration, and judges are aware of that.”
Moody said she believes the SCRAM bracelets are an effective tool for monitoring and keeping people on track. She’s even heard that from defendants themselves.
“They told me, ‘Judge, downloading every single day, multiple times a day. I just felt like someone is always watching me,’” Moody said.
But it’s not a cure-all, she said. For example, it won’t stop someone from getting drunk and then driving, in the way that an ignition interlock device will prevent DUI driving (drivers must blow into the device before the car will start).
Devices can save jail space, taxpayer money
Wearable alcohol-monitoring devices have been around more than a dozen years. They’ve garnered national attention over the years, thanks to celebrities who have worn them after run-ins with the law, including Lindsay Lohan, Tracy Morgan, Andy Dick, Nicole Richie and Eve.
In Ada County, the devices are used to closely monitor defendants on pre-trial release and those out on parole or probation. They are targeted primarily at those considered moderate or high risk for drinking, violating terms of their release, Cladis said.
The monitors are one way to free up beds at the crowded jail while also protecting the community, said Ada County Sheriff’s spokesman Patrick Orr. They are also a cost savings for taxpayers.
The cost of housing someone at the Ada County Jail for one day: about $90. The cost of SCRAM bracelets is $9.50 a day, or about $285 a month — and the wearers pay that.
When defendants or probationers balk at the cost, Cladis has a pointed response: “How much do you spend a day on alcohol?”
The traditional, most common method of monitoring for alcohol and/or illicit drug use is urinalysis, or testing of urine samples. Those are often referred to as a “UA.”
Those tests cost about $12.50 per test, and it requires defendants to go to specified locations one or more times a week to provide samples. It provides snapshots but not a clear picture of whether a person is staying sober.
“Someone who is just subject to urinalysis, they could consume alcohol between their UAs and it might not be noticed,” said Ada County Deputy Prosecutor Tamera Kelly, who oversees the magistrate unit that prosecutes all misdemeanor DUIs.
Remote breathalyzers also now in use
Canyon County Probation contracts with Sentinel Offender Services for its alcohol-monitoring system, called BART.
They aren’t using ankle monitors. But they do have 30 to 40 people who are using remote breathalyzers, said Canyon County spokesman Joe Decker. Users blow into the devices — and a camera takes their photo to ensure no one else is blowing for the person — and the test results are transmitted to authorities.
Those cost $8 per day, and the users cover that cost.
“The reason more aren’t in use is because it’s an offender pay situation, and a lot of the offenders can’t afford that,” Decker said.
Ada County also uses the remote breathalyzers; about 40 of those are in use at any given time. The cost to wearers is slightly less than the SCRAM bracelets: $7.50 a day.
While Ada County has been using alcohol-monitoring bracelets for more than a dozen years, the Idaho Department of Correction has used them for about three years.
There are one to five probationers or parolees using these devices (TAD bracelets and Soberlink breathalyzers) at any given time, according to Jeff Ray, a spokesman for the Department of Correction.
“This is due to budget and cost,” Ray said. “Unless ordered otherwise by the jurisdictional authority, they are intended to be used as an intermediate sanction and utilized for short periods of time with demonstrated compliance.”
SCRAM bracelets distracting?
The SCRAM monitors weigh just under 6 ounces. Once they are “installed,” they are not removed, even in the shower. They test for alcohol every 30 minutes, around the clock, vibrating a little bit during each test.
Isn’t that a distraction? Most only notice it when they’re going to bed, said Scott Nelson, who works with Cladis.
“People get used to it,” he said. “They don’t like it the first couple days, and then they don’t complain.”
The data collected by the monitors throughout the day is downloaded to a base station (kept in the person’s home or at work). Once the device is synced up with the base station, the data is available to Idaho Monitoring System and county officials — who check the results daily, or more often if needed.
“Once the data comes in, it plots out on a graph,” Cladis said. “It shows when they started drinking, the peak and when they sobered up.”
The SCRAM bracelets do not have GPS capability. So if an offender is being monitored for alcohol use and is also restricted from going to certain places, he or she might have devices strapped to both ankles. That’s not common, Cladis said, but it is done. The remote breathalyzers provide location information.
The alcohol monitors are a constant reminder to wearers, and that seems to help with compliance, Cladis and Nelson said.
The devices send a notification if they are tampered with, as if someone tries to put something between their skin and the sensor on the monitor. There’s an alert sent if they are cut off or otherwise removed.
“It’s successful because the offenders know they can’t drink without getting caught,” Cladis said.
Katy Moeller: 208-377-6413, @KatyMoeller
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Tagged: FEMA
On the Homefront - the HSDL Blog
by HSDL Staff · Published December 27, 2012 · Last modified May 18, 2016
New Year, New You – Get Emergency Ready with FEMA
For 2013, FEMA encourages one of your New Year Resolutions to include emergency ready preparations for you and your family. With FEMA’s ‘Resolve to be Ready’ campaign, the integration of technology and preparedness has lead to the creation of the FEMA mobile app, printable emergency plans, and a Family Emergency...
by HSDL Staff · Published October 31, 2012 · Last modified May 18, 2016
Federal Activities in the Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy
“At the direction of President Barack Obama, the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] continues to coordinate federal government assistance — including Department of Defense-provided aid — to support states in response and recovery of Hurricane Sandy[.]” Involvement in the response to this storm also includes U.S. Northern Command, more than...
by HSDL Staff · Published August 22, 2012 · Last modified May 18, 2016
Get Your Business Ready for Any Kind of Disaster at Free National Preparedness Month Webinar Series
“This summer millions of business across the country were forced to close their doors in the aftermath of power outages, approaching wildfires, and flooding caused by tropical storms. Business interruptions, even if it lasts just a few hours, cost business owners greatly in terms of lost productivity and profits. You...
by HSDL Staff · Published May 3, 2012 · Last modified May 23, 2016
FEMA Releases 2012 National Preparedness Report
Presidential Policy Directive 8: National Preparedness (PPD-8) describes the Nation’s approach to preparing for the threats and hazards that pose the greatest risk to the security of the United States. The Directive requires a National Preparedness Report (NPR), an annual report summarizing the progress made toward building, sustaining, and delivering...
by HSDL Staff · Published April 26, 2012 · Last modified May 23, 2016
1 Year Anniversary of April 25-28, 2011 Tornado Outbreak
Nearly one year ago today the third largest tornado outbreak in US history (since systematic tornado record keeping began in 1950) was recorded on April 25-28, 2011. The areas most affected by the devastating tornadoes included the Southern, Midwestern, and Northeastern United States. In particular, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee,...
Guide to Improving Your Community’s Awareness
The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the International Association of Chiefs of Police have partnered “to develop community-based strategies and tools to improve the public’s awareness and reporting of suspicious activity.” The guide Resource Guide to Improve Your Community’s Awareness and Reporting of Suspicious Activity for Law Enforcement and Community...
National Severe Weather Preparedness Week, April 22 – 28
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have partnered in recognition of the first anniversary of “one of the largest tornado outbreaks in U.S. history” to raise public awareness of what to do during severe weather and help save lives. “Last April, tornadoes...
by HSDL Staff · Published March 13, 2012 · Last modified May 23, 2016
It’s Flood Safety Awareness Week 2012!
This week (March 12-16), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have partnered together to promote Flood Safety Awareness Week 2012. If you are a first responder or other emergency management personnel, live in a flood prone area or would just like to...
by HSDL Staff · Published March 8, 2012 · Last modified May 23, 2016
FEMA Seeks Community Input on National Preparedness
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is requesting community input using an online collaboration tool on four working drafts of the National Planning Frameworks and the initial draft of the Recovery Federal Interagency Operational Plan, which are part of Presidential Policy Directive 8/PPD-8: National Preparedness. “This forum provides an opportunity...
by HSDL Staff · Published February 15, 2012 · Last modified May 24, 2016
“Leaning Forward: Go Big, Go Early, Go Fast, Be Smart”: FEMA for the Future
In addition to a report of its activities for the previous year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has released a document detailing its short and long-term vision. Entitled “2012 The State of FEMA” , this is a new product in FEMA’s march toward a National Preparedness Goal. FEMA Administrator...
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7 Things Entrepreneurs Should Watch During President Trump's First 100 Days
Trump has promised fast--and controversial--action on a number of complicated policy issues. Here are the ones most likely to affect entrepreneurs.
By Lindsay BlakelyManaging editor, Inc.com@lindsayblakely
After one of the most contentious and divisive election seasons in recent history, on January 20 the United States will swear in Donald J. Trump as the country's 45th president. Whether or not you agree with his politics, a few things are clear about Trump. First, he has no government experience that might offer clues as to how he'll govern the country. Second, he's a populist with a penchant for late-night Twitter rants. And third, he's likely to continue to keep people guessing about his next moves.
Perhaps the best guidepost available (aside from his tweets) is Trump's 100-day plan, which he unveiled before election day. It's been customary since Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933 to use the first 100 days in office as a measure of a president's effectiveness and influence. With that tradition in mind, here's a list of the proposals Trump promises to pursue by April 29 that are most likely to affect business owners.
1. Repeal and replace Obamacare.
Trump told the New York Times on January 10 that he wants Congress to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act simultaneously--and that he expects to see a new plan and a vote on it within weeks. Several congressional Republicans on board with repealing the ACA have balked at the aggressive timetable, arguing that swift action shouldn't happen before a comprehensive plan is in place. And Republicans don't necessarily agree on what should replace Obamacare.
Expect any plan put forth to put a big emphasis on health savings accounts and a larger role for states. It will also likely target the employer coverage mandate and associated fines for non-compliance, Michael Bodack, president of the New York-based benefits firm York International told Inc. in November.
Regardless of how quickly the legislative process happens, any changes would likely be phased in over a number of years, as insurers would need time to adapt their plans and Republicans are acutely aware of the risk of scaring Americans--especially those with preexisting conditions--who depend on the coverage Obamacare offered them.
2. Labor regulations.
The president-elect wants to enact the Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act, which he claims would encourage employers to provide on-site childcare services, though he has not yet explained what the incentives would be or how they would work. The act also proposes six weeks of partially paid maternity leave for mothers who don't already receive paid leave from an employer.
Trump may weigh in on another labor law issue that is not on his 100-day plan: On the campaign trail, he promised to get rid of President Obama's overtime rule--which doubled the salary eligible for overtime pay to $47,476. He couldn't undo it on his own, but he could work with Congress to make changes to it or to rewrite the rule, which is currently in limbo since a federal judge in Texas blocked it in late November.
3. Business regulations.
Trump's 100-day plan states that he wants to require that for every new federal regulation, two must be cut. He's already given some indications as to which regulations would be in the crosshairs: The labor law above is a potential candidate. Likewise, the president-elect has been very vocal about wanting to "dismantle" the Dodd-Frank law and Volcker Rule, two pieces of banking regulation passed in the wake of the financial crisis. Doing so, however, would be far from straightforward, and many say deregulating Wall Street's banks would go against his populist messages of looking out for working class Americans. It wouldn't do much to help small business owners get bank loans either, as my Inc. colleague Maria Aspan points out.
Another area to watch, particularly for tech companies, is Net Neutrality, which is currently protected by Federal Communications Commission rules. The rules prohibit internet service providers from blocking access to or charging extra to access certain data or content. Trump hasn't specifically called for changes to the rules, but he's appointed two Net Neutrality critics to the FCC, and in 2014 he claimed that Net Neutrality would "target conservative media" in a puzzling tweet.
In addition, the future for green energy companies may hang in the balance. Trump has selected Scott Pruitt, a climate change denier, as his pick to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and has promised to lift restrictions on fossil fuel companies. While the president-elect hasn't specifically said he'd cut alternative energy credits, they could become a target in his plan to slash government spending.
4. International business.
Trump promises to end the Offshoring Act and slap a "very large border tax" on companies that lay off employees and move their business abroad but ship their products back to the U.S. (He's previously stated this tariff could go as high as 35 percent on such products.) Economists and even some Republicans have criticized this plan, arguing that companies would simply pass the costs onto consumers.
Trump vows to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he has called "the worst trade deal in history" and blamed for lost U.S. manufacturing jobs. Changes to the pact could have broad implications for businesses that trade across the Canadian and Mexican borders. Trade between these countries has increased from $290 billion in 1993 to more than $1.1 trillion in 2016, and while some jobs have left the U.S., the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says that 6 million U.S. jobs depend on trade with Mexico alone. Even if Trump doesn't revise or withdraw from NAFTA, notes NPR, his administration could undermine it by hassling companies engaged in cross-border business. In other trade matters, relations with China could also see strain, as Trump has said he wants to label the country a "currency manipulator." And he's no fan of the Trans Pacific Partnership.
5. Creating jobs at home.
In addition to tax changes (more on that below), Trump's plan to grow the economy focuses largely on generating more jobs in the fossil fuel economy (in coal and onshore and offshore drilling for oil and gas) and as a result of new infrastructure projects. He's specifically called for moving forward with the Keystone Pipeline project and has said he wants public-private partnerships to spur investment in water and environmental infrastructure projects.
6. Immigration.
There are plenty of potential ramifications in this thorny debate for small and midsize companies. Trump has promised to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border and deport massive numbers of illegal immigrants. To be sure, it's not likely that he would succeed in pushing through a plan to remove all 11 million undocumented immigrants. (House Speaker Paul Ryan recently said of Trump's proposed deportation force, "in Congress, that is not happening.") But a crackdown would directly affect an array of industries that historically have relied on the labor pool of an estimated 8.1 million undocumented immigrants who work (or look for work) in the U.S. Trump has also threatened to ban Muslim immigration, create a registry of Muslims in the country, surveil mosques, and introduce "extreme vetting" of visa applicants' religious beliefs.
Tech companies should watch the H-1B visa program, which Trump may decide to reform. H-1B visas were designed to help U.S. companies recruit high-level talent abroad for specialty tech and science jobs. The program isn't perfect--outsourcing companies often grab a huge share of the 65,000 temporary visas the government awards annually and then use them to fill low-level jobs. But big tech companies such as Microsoft depend on the program. In a meeting with the heads of Silicon Valley's biggest tech companies, Trump suggested he might increase the application fees to discourage businesses from bulk filing.
7. Corporate taxes.
Within the first 100 days, Trump says, he wants to lower the corporate tax rate from its current 35 percent to 15 percent, as well as allow overseas revenue to be brought back at a 10 percent rate.
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