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Four Decades After Burning Confederate Flag, Activist Says the Struggle Continues
In Charleston, South Carolina, we speak with Brett Bursey, director of the South Carolina Progressive Network, who calls himself the oldest living Confederate prisoner of war. He says he is still out on bond after he burned the Confederate flag in 1969. Bursey knew Rev. Clementa Pinckney and says, “I feel a responsibility to Clementa to take advantage of the sacrifice he made to challenge the hypocrisy and bigotry” of Governor Nikki Haley and Republican lawmakers who backed voter ID legislation and blocked the expansion of Medicaid eligibility in the state.
AMY GOODMAN: Brett Bursey is with us right now, director of the South Carolina Progressive Network. He burned the Confederate flag in 1969. He calls himself the oldest living Confederate prisoner of war. Brett Bursey is head of the South Carolina progressive coalition.
Brett, welcome to Democracy Now! Your thoughts, as just behind us, the body of Reverend Pinckney, in the hearse now, as it is taken slowly around the corner to College of Charleston?
BRETT BURSEY: Well, Amy, first, let me say that I was a good friend of Clementa’s. And when he came to the state House, he was 23, 24 years old. The Progressive Network does a lot of policy work and for the Black Caucus, and Clementa was one of our sponsors for a clean elections bill, and he was our spokesperson about the corrupting influence of money on politics for several years. I knew the wife, the kids.
And it’s just – it’s been such an impactful thing that I feel a responsibility to Clementa, and the other people that are dead, to take advantage of the opportunities their sacrifices made to challenge the hypocrisy and the cynicism that fuels the bigotry, that will still be there if they take the flag down. I mean, the governor has come out and said, “Take the flag down.” She wouldn’t have done that if this hadn’t happened. I mean, she has a little understanding of how negative her policies impact people, refusing to take the Medicaid expansion money. We’ve knocked on doors in South Carolina to talk to people about – that didn’t get any healthcare. And when we told them that the governor said they didn’t want it, we don’t need it, they wanted to know why. And we told them, “Well, you’ll have to call the governor. I can’t explain why she would deny you healthcare.” And so, it’s disingenuous and hypocritical, what we’re seeing, all these politicians coming out an decrying –
AMY GOODMAN: And the voting rights?
BRETT BURSEY: – decrying racism. Where have they been?
AMY GOODMAN: Voting rights?
BRETT BURSEY: Nikki was a big champion of photo ID bills that would have kept people from voting. And we found a dozen people and had a successful case, Section 5 case, in the Department of Justice to block the bill. And they rewrote the bill in Washington, D.C., in court, and the court said you don’t need a photo ID under the new photo ID law. So it was just tremendous kabuki theater that disenfranchises people. We have the lowest – least competitive elections in the nation, that 75 percent of our legislators are elected with no opposition. And that the idea that the people that are championing our democracy have shut the process down, we have profound problems. And I really do feel that some of this energy that’s coming from this terrible tragedy is going to help direct some energy toward solving some of these longer institutional problems that we have.
AMY GOODMAN: Brett Bursey, can you talk about what you did in 1969?
BRETT BURSEY: Well, it’s kind of like what I just said. I mean, I was raised in the South. I graduated from Beaufort High School 1966, a segregated high school, and came up to the University of South Carolina, then got involved with the Southern Student Organizing Committee, which was a civil rights group that was formed when the white people left SNCC. And I was a state traveler for SSOC in ’68 and ’69. The occasion of the flag burning at the university was on the anniversary of the Orangeburg massacre, when in 1968 students at State University, which is the school’s historic black college in Orangeburg, were gunned down by highway patrolmen. Three of them were killed, 29 injured. And no one –
AMY GOODMAN: You’re talking Orangeburg, the Orangeburg massacre.
BRETT BURSEY: Orangeburg, the Orangeburg massacre.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain it very quickly. You’re talking about February of?
BRETT BURSEY: February 8, 1968.
AMY GOODMAN: Right before Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis.
BRETT BURSEY: That was in April. And so, the event where the flag was burned was the first anniversary, in ’69, of the Orangeburg massacre. And I put on an event called – we were going to call it Black Awareness Week, but we called it White Awareness Week.
AMY GOODMAN: But Orangeburg is so important. I remember when President Obama was first running for president –
BRETT BURSEY: He mentioned it.
AMY GOODMAN: – and he went bowling, and he gutterballed, and everyone was making fun of him. But what was so significant is he’s an African-American man bowling, because Orangeburg was about a bowling alley, is that right?
BRETT BURSEY: It was about a bowling alley.
AMY GOODMAN: About integrating a bowling alley. And the police, without warning, opened fire on the students who were fighting for that integration of the alley.
BRETT BURSEY: Yes, and no one was ever punished for that killing. Cleve Sellers, one of the organizers – he was working with SNCC – ended up spending, I think, a year in jail.
But the flag was burned, in part because the university was using the flag, the Confederate flag, and playing “Dixie” at sporting events, a sea of Confederate flags. And we marched up to the president’s house and demanded they quit doing that, and he said, “OK.” And we felt all empowered. We marched up to the Legislature, which was across the street from the university, and that was the first time I realized that all 170 legislators were white, and there hadn’t been a black legislator since the end of Reconstruction in the 1890s. We went back to the campus. This is now – the flag was on the dome at the time. The flag went up April 12th, 1961, on the anniversary, 100th anniversary, of the start of the Civil War, which of course was brought to you by people here in Charleston, South Carolina. And we burned the flag. And I was arrested five days later for defacing or defiling or casting contempt by word or deed upon flags of the Confederacy.
AMY GOODMAN: So you burned the flag where?
BRETT BURSEY: On the university campus, in front of the president’s house.
AMY GOODMAN: You were arrested.
BRETT BURSEY: Yeah. Yeah, I was arrested, and –
AMY GOODMAN: Did you go to jail?
BRETT BURSEY: I went to jail, paid my bond, got out, and I’m still awaiting trial.
AMY GOODMAN: So you call yourself?
BRETT BURSEY: Well, it’s – yeah, it’s a partially humorous term that I feel I’ve earned, in being the oldest living Confederate prisoner of war. I had – it’s one of the worst things, clearly, I ever did in the eyes of authorities in South Carolina. I’ve been identified as someone that did that, and beaten up in police custody because of that.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you, Brett Bursey, for joining us. The hearse has just moved on. Brett Bursey, director of the South Carolina Progressive Network, burned the Confederate flag back in 1969. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back here in front of the Mother Emanuel church in Charleston, South Carolina, in a minute.
Confederate Flag at Dodge Courthouse Stirs Controversy
A Confederate battle flag flies Wednesday next to a memorial to Confederate war dead near the Dodge County Courthouse, in the background, in Eastman. (Photo: Grant Blankenship /…
Caryn Grant,
South Carolina Massacre: Why Don’t We Call Killing of Nine Black Churchgoers an Act of Terrorism?
Why are so many politicians and much of the media afraid to call the mass shooting an act of terrorism? We discuss the double standards in coverage of…
Massacre at South Carolina’s Emanuel AME an Attack on Historic Landmark of African-American Freedom
The church attacked in the Charleston, South Carolina, massacre that left nine people dead is home to the oldest black congregation south of Baltimore.
Juan González,
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Functional Needs and Irrational Wants
The iPhone is like a pocket Porsche -- it comes in iconic, arguably artistic designs like a Porsche. The difference is that it's affordable to a lot more people. Artistic, iconic design leads to strong brand value and purchase decisions driven not just driven by rational, functional needs but also by irrational wants (desire, lust, envy, communicating status, etc.). Some consumer products have an inherent artistic element that goes beyond purely functional needs: cars, smartphones, fashion, furniture, and so on. Conversely, some consumer products are almost entirely functional in nature -- people buy or use them because of functional needs, not because of irrational wants. Some examples of purely functional products/services might be: hard drives (Christensen's famous example from The Innovator's Dilemma), backhoes, commodities like steel or glass, Internet search engines, and artificial intelligence.
If you're selling a purely functional product, Christensen's "good enough" concept is particularly important. That's because irrational wants don't come into play, and the buyer can easily determine what's good enough by comparing the product's functional, measurable performance attributes with the particular job the buyer needs to get done. So a buyer can look at a hard drive, for example, examine its data retrieval rate and storage capacity, and compare that to his functional needs -- how he'll be using the computer and how many photos, videos, and documents he needs to store -- to determine whether the hard drive is good enough or whether it overserves.
As noted in other posts, the best way to keep functional product elements from overserving is to make sure improvements are meaningful and actually used by buyers.
Another great way to prevent functional overserving is through technological leaps that change consumer expectations of what's good enough. This happens when a company comes up with a breakthrough product that makes consumers think that existing alternatives -- that consumers previously felt were good enough -- aren't good enough anymore. The consumer's perception of what's good enough isn't static: it's relative and changing depending on the latest breakthroughs and what's available in the marketplace.
If a sustaining technological leap or breakthrough creates a large enough performance gap between the breakthrough product and existing incumbent alternatives, it may allow the entrant to establish the beachhead needed to effectively enter an existing market. An entrant with a sustaining improvement/innovation normally doesn't do well because incumbents respond vigorously. The exception may be an entrant with a surprise breakthrough product that catches incumbents off-guard -- you could argue the original iPhone succeeded this way.
Two challenges for an entrant with a breakthrough product may be: (1) the lack of a recognized, trusted brand; and (2) ramping up manufacturing, distribution, and marketing fast enough to take full advantage of the sales opportunity. Incumbents are highly motivated to "fast follow" the entrant's breakthrough product with similar products. The key question here is whether incumbents can quickly acquire the capabilities needed to compete with the breakthrough. In the original iPhone's case, Blackberry and Nokia were unable to fast follow the iPhone with similar products because they lacked Apple's integrated hardware and software capabilities. As a result Apple had the time needed to ramp up iPhone production and distribution. Apple's strong brand also helped.
Returning to this post's original subject, a person buying a Porsche or an iPhone -- or any other product with an inherent artistic element -- considers (1) functional needs but is also influenced by (2) irrational wants like the desire/lust for something beautiful. The good enough standard is highly relevant to the functional needs part, but may not be very relevant to the irrational wants part. And irrational wants become even more of a factor when the product is distinguished by iconic, artistic design. So a product with an artistic element may overserve a buyer's functional needs but still be something the buyer wants to purchase because of irrational wants -- a Porsche or a Ferrari is a good example of this.
You could almost look at a product on a sliding scale: as a product's artistic/iconic elements go up, the relevance of what's good enough -- and the danger of overserving -- go down. The ideal situation may be a product with improving artistic elements and improving functional elements: the key here is that functional elements must improve in a meaningful way that's valued by consumers (to prevent unused, overserving features that actually end up degrading functional performance and ease of use).
Applying another Christensen concept, when the buyer's "job-to-be-done" encompasses purely functional needs, overserving is a greater risk. When the buyer's job-to-be-done is broad, encompassing both functional needs and irrational wants, there's less danger of overserving.
Art vs. Algorithms
Industrial design sometimes rises to the level of art, and art doesn't commoditize. Artistic design creates tremendous brand value and is very hard to copy, and close copies are never valued as highly as the original. Examples of companies producing iconic products and industrial art include Braun, Ferrari, Porsche, Apple, and Tesla. Industrial art has driven the brand value of each of these companies.
Conversely, algorithms and machine learning methods can be copied, and the copy is valued just as highly as the original because the product's appeal is based purely on functional needs. Much of the theory behind algorithms comes from educational institutions and is in the public domain. As noted above, Christensen's good enough concept -- and the danger of overserving -- is much more relevant with purely functional products.
So if you're an investor, it seems to make sense to invest in companies that make products that aren't purely functional. The ideal situation may be a company that makes a product with artistic elements, and that is committed to iconic design. This kind of business model is (1) hard for competitors to copy and (2) reduces the danger of creating an overserving product (since buyers in this kind of market are driven by both functional needs and irrational wants).
This post has been amended since it was first written.
Ferrari, Tesla, Google, Apple, Nokia, Porsche, Blackberry, Braun
Art Doesn't Commoditize
July 04, 2015 by Bill Esbenshade
Just a quick post on whether Apple is becoming a more "art-like" company, based on the following evidence:
Jony Ive is promoted to Chief Design Officer;
Marc Newson, whose furniture and watch designs closely resemble functional art, is hired by Apple;
Trent Reznor, Jimmy Iovine, Dr. Dre, and Zane Lowe are hired to help curate the artistic content of Apple Music.
As noted by Horace Dediu in John Gruber's Talk Show #125 podcast, Apple seems to be moving away from algorithmic solutions toward more curated, artistic solutions that require taste and human judgment. Some people say Apple is moving into the realm of luxury or fashion. I think Apple is aiming higher than this, and wants its products and services to be so functionally and aesthetically pleasing that they rise to the level of functional art -- much like the Braun record player shown below, which was designed by Dieter Rams (whom Jony Ive repeatedly cites as a major influence) and is now shown in New York's Museum of Modern Art:
More and more it seems like Apple is being led by gifted artists who can help Apple create not just great products, but artistic products. And Apple communicates that effort to consumers by focusing on and releasing just a few products at any given time. Great artists focus on just a few things, and release/display those few things very carefully (in appropriate galleries and exhibits), to let the public know the artist's work is special. Apple does the same thing with its products.
And from a business perspective, the beauty of this strategy is that art doesn't commoditize: because art is the nuanced outcome of thousands of intuitive judgments about what's beautiful and tasteful -- with countless decisions about brushstrokes, composition, materials, colors, and so on -- it's not fungible. While art can be closely, mechanically, and fraudulently copied, the copy is never valued as highly as the original. There's only one "Starry Night," one Dieter Rams record player (like the one above), and one Apple Watch. From a disruption theory standpoint, art is never "good enough" and really isn't judged on that basis. People don't buy an artistic object based on whether the object is good enough, they buy it because it's a source of pleasure and they want it.
Another fascinating aspect of Apple's more artistic approach is that Apple can deliver the iPhone, the iPad, and the Apple Watch to an enormous mobile device market, a global market much bigger than the one Braun catered to. Apple can deliver functional art at a mass scale.
July 04, 2015 /Bill Esbenshade
Apple, Braun
Showcasing Design and Improving Affordability Through Design
August 19, 2014 by Bill Esbenshade
I'm currently reading Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible, edited by Sophie Lovell (Phaidon Press Limited, 2011) and available as an e-book. The book talks about the history of Braun, where Rams was a designer. Braun was founded in 1921. In 1967 Gillette purchased a controlling interest in Braun, and in 1984 Braun became a wholly owned subsidiary of Gillette. In 2005 P&G bought Gillette, effectively taking ownership of Braun. Over the years Braun has made a range of consumer products, including radios, televisions, hi-fi stereos, shaving products, and kitchen appliances. The company has always focused on high-end industrial design, often at the expense of short term profits. The question that came to my mind was, why didn't Braun have greater, more widespread success, allowing it to grow and survive as an independent company? Why didn't its products become more pervasive?
The only answer I could think of was that Braun failed to adequately showcase and market/distribute its products. If a company differentiates its consumer products based on superior industrial design, it has to showcase those products, almost like a functional art gallery. And the best way to showcase, and to let customers directly experience the aesthetic and functional benefits of superior design, is through an all-in commitment to company-branded retail stores (rather than showcasing and distributing product through in-store display stands at independent retailers like Target or Wal-Mart). If you're competing based on high-end industrial design, then you need to control the environment where the design is viewed, similar to how an artist carefully chooses how his art is displayed.
Imagine if Braun had showcased and distributed its products in a fashion similar to Apple's retail store efforts. Braun could have raised consumer awareness/appreciation for high-end industrial design, in addition to increasing distribution. Braun could have started small, adding retail stores as sales and product "buzz" grew.
A company can design the best consumer products in the world, but if it doesn't showcase and distribute them well, expanding distribution as appropriate, then a well-designed product won't have the impact it could. You have to give people the opportunity to try out and experience the functional and aesthetic benefits of a well-designed product.
And use good design to make products more affordable. Dieter Rams famously said that "[g]ood design emphasizes the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it," that good design "does not make a product more powerful, valuable, or innovative than it really is," and that well-designed products "are not burdened with non-essentials." When a product is kept simple, intuitive, and useful, and is stripped of unnecessary, overserving features, it naturally becomes more accessible and affordable. See post titled "Apple's Design Strength Prevents Overserving." Good design enhances accessibility and affordability. Adherence to good design principles keeps products affordable, accessible, and focused on the job-to-be-done, which helps prevent low end and new market disruption. See Concepts page and discussion of Clayton Christensen.
Meaningful product improvements/innovations that solve unmet jobs-to-be-done make sense, but incumbents like Apple must avoid wasting time, money, and resources on overserving, overpriced product extensions/improvements that appear safe in the short term, but that actually leave incumbents vulnerable to low end and new market disruption. See post titled "Rosetta Stones and Strategic Balance." In growing the market for existing products, incumbents must make meaningful product improvements while still keeping products as simple and affordable as possible. In creating profitable new markets, incumbents must create useful, intuitive new products that squarely address important jobs-to-be-done.
August 19, 2014 /Bill Esbenshade
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November 7, 2018 by Michael A. Ventrella
Good news about election 2018
We didn’t get everything we wanted, true, but only the most naive thought we would. Admittedly, I thought we’d do better than we did in the Senate, but there’s plenty of good news about yesterday’s election:
We took the House by a pretty big margin. This means there is finally a check on the President’s power. You know, how it is supposed to be no matter which party is in charge.
Colorado elected the first openly gay governor.
In Kansas and Wisconsin, conservative Republican governors who had ruined the economies with their stupid “trickle down” policies were rejected as both went Democratic. Kansas also flipped a House seat, with the first Native American woman being elected (who is also a lesbian).
We also elected two Muslim congresswomen, the first black congresswoman in Massachusetts, the first female senators in Arizona and Tennessee, and over 100 women to various offices.
Utah will never elect a Democrat, but new Senator Mitt Romney isn’t a crazy Trump guy, so that’s a half win and probably the best we can expect from Utah.
The bigot Kim Davis — the woman who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples — lost her seat.
Florida voted to restore felons’ voting rights. Everyone should have the right to vote, and with minor crimes now being categorized as felonies, this was a major prohibition. And it’s especially important in states where blacks are arrested with more frequency.
In Michigan, voters passed a referendum to end gerrymandering in their state by requiring an impartial committee to redraw districts.
Here in Pennsylvania, state-wide Democrats held their seats by really big margins. We made major gains in the gerrymandered state House and Senate (gaining 10 House seats and 5 Senate seats). We added four more Democrats to Congress (including flipping a seat in my district so now I have a Democrat representing me in Washington), going from 13 Republicans and 5 Democrats to 9 and 9.
Yes, Beto in Texas didn’t win, but he was never really expected to. He did much better than almost anyone thought, and he, along with other Democrats who did better than expected, show that the way to do well in red states is not to just be a “Republican lite.” After all, as it’s been said, if given a choice between a Republican and a Republican, voters will choose the Republican every time.
Florida and Georgia governor races were extremely close, and progressive black candidates did very well in these southern states. In Georgia, the person running the election was also the person running for Governor (this is like a judge deciding a case where he is the defendant). He’s a crook who cheated as much as he could to win, and the Democrat has yet to concede because the votes are very close.
So overall, a good night and a repudiation of Republicans and Trump. Not as huge as we had hoped, but still good.
This entry was posted in Elections, Uncategorized and tagged Election results 2018. Bookmark the permalink.
← Statue of Limitations
But … bone spurs! →
Hodor!
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How Communism Imposes Self-Censorship in the USA — Part 3
Added 4 months ago by The BL in In Great Minds
Many global news agencies have branches operating inside China. China has an enormous commercial market and it is very rewarding for these media conglomerates to do business with China.
But in order to broadcast to the Chinese people, you must agree to the Chinese communist regime’s censorship rules. This includes restrictions on social media platforms, such as Google and Facebook.
But that has no effect on what these social media platforms and broadcast media companies do in the free world. Or does it?
In Part 3 of The BL’s In Great Minds series Understanding Communism, Doctor John Lenczowski, talks about how communism is imposing self-censorship in the United States.
The policy of detente involved the self-censorship by American presidents about the realities of Soviet communism. It involved not telling the people the truth about Soviet human rights violations, about the vast system of slave labor camps, called the gulag archipelago, about the military buildup, about the activities, the espionage, the disinformation, the covert influence operations of the KGB.
These were all forbidden subjects. I call them the three taboos: Don't talk about the military, the secret police and intelligence services, or human rights violations. Because if you talked about those things, then the Kremlin would be mad at you, and wouldn't give you a visa and you couldn't go visit the country where you are the expert.
And so the scholars censored themselves, the media censored themselves, and American presidents and American Cabinet members censored themselves, the statesmen were doing it in the interest of peace.
I'm making, you know, quotation marks with my fingers. And the scholars and the media were doing it out of their own self-interest.
If you are a correspondent in Moscow, and you write about one of the three taboos, they will eject you from the country.
And if your successor comes and writes about one of the three taboos, then the Soviet authorities just might shut down your newspapers or television stations, or bureau in Moscow.
Everybody was encouraged, essentially, to censor themselves. And the best reporters when they came back to America from their tour of duty in Moscow, would write a book about what they saw that they could not report on the front pages of the elite American press.
But how many people read those books, compared to the front pages of the elite newspapers? And then, of course, the Kremlin played the access game, not just by using visas. This is a closed society. They could restrict the reporters' access to Soviet officials.
How did the reporters get their news? Well, most of them would go to a bar in a luxury hotel where ordinary Soviet citizens could not go. And their so-called semiofficial source would come and visit them in the bar and tell them about what's going on behind the closed doors of the Kremlin.
So that's how they got their stories. And if they wrote this stuff down uncritically, and they wrote what the Kremlin was feeding them, then they would be rewarded by getting more and more access to senior officials within the Soviet government with the highest price being an exclusive interview with the general secretary of the Communist Party, that would be emblazoned across the front pages of The Washington Post.
And I know who some of those reporters who were, who were getting that price. And the more you cooperate with the propaganda system, the more you were rewarded with scoops, exclusive stories that will help you sell more newspapers. This was a complete manipulation of the media.
And then, of course, they recruited agents of influence in our media. Some were witting, and some were unwitting. We learned about this from a KGB defector by the name of Stanislav Levchenko. Levchenko was one of the top experts on East Asian affairs in the Soviet Union. And the KGB pressed him into service and he became head of the KGB's active measures operations. That means disinformation, forgeries, and covert influence operations in Tokyo.
He recruited about a dozen members of the Japanese media to be Soviet agents of influence. He recruited the editor-in-chief of the largest conservative newspaper in Japan. He recruited the righthand man to the publisher of the largest newspaper in Japan. He recruited another ten or so working journalists, reporters. And he recruited about a half dozen members of the Japanese parliament, all to be agents of influence.
If he could do this in Japan, do you think that they could do it in the United States? The answer is yes. And we have also other documented examples of Soviet agents of influence in the media in various different countries in Europe and around the world.
The point is that the effect of the policy of detente was the psychological anesthetization of the American people and the people of the West.
A secondary effect was that the people living behind the Iron Curtain were seeing that the Soviet Union and the Communist Party ruling over them was so powerful that they could induce the peoples of the Soviet Union to censor themselves and not speak the truth. They were so powerful that they could cause Western leaders to censor themselves.
If you play ball with me, I’ll play ball with you. That’s a baseball reference on the surface, but its deeper meaning is far more nefarious in nature. In this context, it spells corruption on a global scale. We know about crony capitalism and backroom deals between lobbyists and politicians.
The rich favor the rich and the politicians get rich by pushing policies that favor their own pockets. But not too many of us know about the backroom deals our public figures and political leaders make with governments from foreign lands.
Often these deals are not in the best interest of either of its peoples.
Don’t miss Part 4 of the BL’s “In Great Minds” series, Understanding Communism. Doctor John Lenczowski talks about the scope of communist infiltration in the US.
For the BL, I’m Rich Crankshaw with “In Great Minds.”
Is Communist China An Enormous Threat To The USA? — Part 7
CPAC 2019 - Sue The U: A Crash Course in Fighting Censorship Part 1
Do You Know What Communism Really is? — Part 1
He Decided To Bully A Girl In The Middle Of School, Had No Idea She’s Trained In Self-Defense
Can the President of the U.S. successfully defeat communism? — Part 5
Miss USA, Miss Teen USA, Miss America are all black women for first time in pageant history
Spoiled Kids in Walmart. Epic temper tantrum. Self Control Fail. Total mayhem rotten little bratz
Businessman Proudly Poses With ‘Baby Elephants’ He Shot In Africa – Claims It Was Self Defense
Walmart has announced that they are replacing self-checkout machines with something better
Boy Decided To Bully A Girl In The Middle Of School, Had No Idea She’s Trained In Self-Defense
A Pakistani American Startup Fighting Media Censorship
The BL news-A step toward robotic self-awareness
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← A Personal History of the British Record Industry 73 – Ronald (Ronnie) Bell.
Disc & Music Echo, June 7, 1969 →
Posted on June 6, 2019 by dhvinyl
With The Beatles forever in the news I thought I’d share this piece with you. It was written nearly 20 years ago as the preface to a book I planned to spend the early years of my retirement writing. All the transcript interviews you’ve seen here were undertaken as material for the book. As time went by – over 80 interviews later, I realised that a) retirement was a fantastic way of life and my time, which I thought might be plentiful was even busier and more exciting than employment, and b) no one can ever write definitive book about the record industry. It is forever changing and even recent histories are quickly out of date.
So I mulled over what I should do with these interviews and decided I should just let you read them exactly as they took place…and on reflection, I’m delighted I did.
But I came across this piece when wanting to reassure myself that all the contents of my old Mac had been safely transferred to the new one. It is self explanatory!
Preface -The Beatles – the act nobody wanted!
“What a stupid name for a band – and now you look back and could they ever have been called anything else” (Tim Blackmore)
More words have been written about The Beatles than anyone has life left to read. But if there is one example above all other of the way in which the music business has succeeded despite itself, it is with The Beatles. Put simply, they could not get a record contract. Manager Brian Epstein was an important name to record companies. As proprietor of NEMS Record shop in Liverpool and local chairman of the Retailers’ association, the four major record companies – EMI, Decca, Pye and Philips needed his co-operation. So he was listened to wherever he went, but when it came to touting a new band which had never played live in London, rejected as well.
One of the problems was that The Beatles was a group that played and sang – something quite new to the UK. All earlier bunches of musicians were either jazz bands or skiffle groups, or were essentially a lead singer with backing musicians who occasionally, like The Shadows and The Tornados, were allowed to make an instrumental single or two themselves. There were groups aplenty in America, though there too, few played as well as singing. And anyway, in 1962 America was quite definitely another world, one still largely based on songs and songwriters, with little desire to build an international career for their new rock’n’roll artists, other than through the constantly touring cinema and ballroom package shows. Everyone lived from single to single and even the bill toppers had to make do with a twenty-minute slot. These were the days before the LP, before television became a true force, and before global success became a financial necessity.
Another problem was laziness on the part of the record companies. Or rather, they were so spoilt for choice in London they felt no need to travel further than Soho’s “2 I’s” coffee bar to seek new talent. That’s where they’d “found” Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard, the two biggest new British stars of the late fifties, and that’s where all the hopefuls gathered to join the queue. With only four companies, each with a growing number of American labels to deal with, there was a limit to the new British names needed. And anyway, the business was in London – the companies were all there, the songs publishers were all there, and the radio station was there.
Then there was The Beatles’ demonstration tape itself. Recorded at Decca’s West Hampstead Studios on January 1, 1962 under the supervision of A&R assistant Mike Smith, the fifteen tracks embraced only three Lennon & McCartney recordings, the rest being the then ritual cover versions of American hits of the previous ten years.
Rejected by Decca, Pye and Oriole following earlier “pass” letters from the Columbia and HMV labels at EMI, Epstein resorted to his friends at retail. It was at the suggestion of Bob Boast, manager of the HMV shop in London’s Oxford Street, that Epstein substituted the 15-track tape for 78rpm discs, a service provided by the shop. The cutting engineer Jim Foy expressed an interest and, on learning that three of the songs were original, directed Brian to EMI’s publishing company, Ardmore and Beechwood, located upstairs. Ardmore & Beechwood’s General manager Sid Coleman heard the songs, realised that George Martin, head of EMI’s ‘novelty’ label Parlophone, was the one recording manager at EMI not to have passed judgement, and an appointment was made on 13 February, 1962. The rest……….eventually, is history. Love me do was first recorded at Abbey Road on June 6, 1962, though not, as is well documented, with Pete Best on drums. What is not so well documented is that George Martin was not there either, the session being conducted by his assistant Ron Richards. Only when engineer Norman Smith suggested that George be present did the relationship, and the legend, begin.
Listening today to those early demonstration songs, it is easy to understand why the rejection letters came. Consider also that Columbia and HMV passed the opportunity on the basis of the Polydor single My Bonnie, recorded in Germany with lead singer Tony Sheridan. Little wonder that the man from Decca was said to have told Epstein “You have a good record business in Liverpool, why not stick to that?” (1)
Perhaps if Mike Smith from Decca, or Tony Meehan, the former Shadows’ drummer working there in A&R and named by at least one person as the man who turned down the group, or any of the others, had travelled to Liverpool and witnessed the excitement, things might have been very different. Perhaps if Brian Epstein had done a deal with Larry Parnes, the most prominent pop star manager of the day, things would have moved faster. Perhaps…perhaps.
Even today, struggling for stories in the silly season, a national newspaper will send “demo” tapes to record companies by well-known artists and delight in printing the ‘pass’ letters. They fail to understand the way in which A&R (Artists and Repertoire) people work. The supply of hopeful musicians will always vastly outweigh the demand, and as a result, the selection begins almost exclusively by word of mouth, followed by the sight of a live performance. Never, well hardly ever, does an unsolicited demonstration disc or download result in a contract. You can bet your life that, once he’d struck gold with The Beatles, Brian Epstein never again made a demonstration tape for any of the many artists he subsequently represented.
Tony Barrow, a Liverpudlian who subsequently became The Beatles’ press officer, was a sleeve note writer at Decca at the time. as well as writing his “Diskery” column on the Liverpool Echo and was one of the endless names on Brian Epstein’s list of people to talk to in London.
“I was a Decca person and he was interesting anyone he possibly could at that stage. He knew the retail side (of record companies) but not the artistic side at all. He didn’t know any A&R men and he didn’t know anyone on “Melody Maker” or the “New Musical Express.” So he was interested to come across someone like me.”
Having listened to Epstein’s speech and the acetate of his new group discovery, Barrow “did what I didn’t have any right to do, which was ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you.’ It was nothing to do with me, I wasn’t there to hire or sign. But when (he) had gone I didn’t ring the A&R department, but (Beecher Stevens, Head of) the marketing department and said ‘This guy is a retailer so maybe you’ll feel you have to give him an audition. Don’t ask me about the band because I can’t assess it from what he’s played me, but if he’s an important Decca customer…..so that phone call was one of several triggers. The local salesmen were also coming back to London saying ‘There’s a guy up there with a band who thinks he should have an audition.” It was the marketing department that forced the A&R department to lay on the original audition on New Year’s Day (1962)
“It was Mike Smith (who took the audition) because Dick Rowe was away. Dick Rowe was in charge and he went on his holidays saying, ‘There’s this band, this artist, do them for me and let me know about them when I get back.’ Mike thought enough of that audition to say to me (I was keeping in touch for the (Liverpool) Echo, nothing else at that stage): ‘Dick isn’t back yet but I’m sure you can say that they’re going to get a Decca contract.’ That actually appeared in my column in the ‘Echo’ – Local group about to make good. Watch this space. They’re about to sign with Decca. Then Dick Rowe gets back and makes his classic remark about groups with guitars are out and in any case, Liverpool – what can be do up there? What’s that other one you’ve got? Brian Poole and the Tremeloes? Where are they from? Tottenham? Oh yes, we’ll have them. On our doorstep, a group we can with without having to hike all the way up to Liverpool every time we want to see them.”
Tony Bramwell, whose long career in the music industry began as a junior in Brian Epstein’s organisation, agrees, though differing on the geography.
“Decca Records had decided to sign only one of the two groups they had under consideration and they signed the Trems – a guitar group….simply because (they) lived closer. They came from just down the road in Dagenham, Essex – just outside London – which was a great deal more convenient for meetings and rehearsals than Liverpool.” (5)
Barrow also reminds us that it was this January 1, 1962 audition tape which resulted in Epstein being rejected by everyone he visited.
“People think The Beatles must have been so bad that they gave all these auditions and none of them were successful. It’s not like that at all. Epstein had nothing else but the Decca tape to hawk around and it was that tape that was turned down. You may well think that was a very stupid thing for the man to do, because if you’ve been turned down by a major like Decca, he must have realised that this was not going to be picked up very readily by anyone else either. You would have thought he’d have put some money into recording them locally. This was feasible; it was perfectly possible to do it – he had loads of money. If he’d been five or ten years later in the business, he’d have done that. (But) he was totally new to it. If he’d taken (the tape) to other people and readily admitted ‘Don’t go by this tape too much; I’m just trying to give you some idea; come and see them in Liverpool; believe me they’re ten times better than this’ or whatever.’ “
Despite the reality that The Beatles were turned down by just about everyone, one man was stuck with the tag. Tony Hall worked at Decca at the time as Head of Promotion.
“Dick Rowe is always put down as the man who turned down The Beatles. Andrew (Loog Oldham) is saying (Dick’s) the man who signed the Stones. Very positive. I heard the tape. I would have passed musically, but I heard the voices and the personalities between the really abysmal music, and the personalities I thought were worth investigating. But the music was shit; deserved to be turned down; unfair to criticise him passing.”
Tony Calder whose music business life started at Decca in 1961, agrees:
“Dick always got labelled as the guy that turned down The Beatles. I’ve got to tell you anybody would have turned down that tape – it was pretty shit. He played it to me a couple of times and said ‘Do I deserve this?’ I loved Dick Rowe – he was one of the nicest people. After I left and was involved with Andrew (Loog Oldham, original manager of the Rolling Stones) we were sitting there with a No.1 record (with the Stones) and no money. He would say ‘Bring us any record’ and we’d get any record and take it to him and he’d give us £200 on a Friday for it because he knew we had no money. He never put them out – he was amazing.”
Another of Decca’s team of producers at the time was Bunny Lewis, by then running his own Ritz label for stars such as Craig Douglas and the Caravelles.
“There was that scurrilous story that’s become part of pop history. It’s not true, about Dick Rowe and The Beatles. Total nonsense. It wasn’t him, it was a fellow called Smith. First of all Brian Epstein came along to Decca with a pretty ghastly demo of The Beatles. At that time EMI had the Shadows who were hot, and this sounded very much like the Shadows, not very exciting. So Dick Rowe said to Mike Smith, one of our junior producers, “You’d better give them a test.” So he gave them a test and at the same time he tested Brian Poole (and the Tremeloes), and he preferred Poole. He took them to Dick Rowe and said ‘I prefer Brian Poole’ and Dick said ‘well, you’re the fellow producing it, do what you like.’ But the story stuck that it was poor old Dick – it wasn’t.”
“George Martin had Parlophone, which was the poor man’s label. I had Lorrae Desmond with him. He was a hell of a nice fellow to work with and a good musician, but he hadn’t had any real success except for Peter Sellers and funny things like that. But he had a liaison with Dick James. He’d recorded him or something. Brian Epstein found his way into Dick James’s office and Dick pointed his nose towards George Martin, and you know the rest”
Tony Barrow agrees. “It seems to me that George Martin wanted to get into the pop side of things and was being urged to do so by his masters. Other people at EMI were the golden boys; he was not. He was the guy who was recording all kinds of absurd things that occasionally would sell enough to give his department some profit. He was known as the madman, he was the eccentric guy.”
Alan Lockie produced for EMI.
“I was in Ardmore and Beechwood when The Beatles made their test recording in the HMV shop (below). The Ardmore & Beechwood guys phoned Norman (Newell) who was in Spain and then called George Martin.”
Wayne Bickerton, himself a Liverpudlian and a musician, remembers hearing of Brian Epstein’s frustration at his inability to attract any interest from London.
“I can remember being in a flat with a man called Joe Flannery who was the manager of the band I was in (Lee Curtis & the Allstars). He was talking about Brian coming back (from London) saying ‘these people, they just can’t see it, yet another failure, yet another record company.’ Like Mike Smith and Dick Rowe, Dick saying to Mike: ’OK, make a choice, Brian Poole and the Tremeloes or The Beatles?’ ‘The Tremeloes.’ I had to live with that for all time!
Memories play tricks, so not all of these stories can be true. But they coincide on one point – The Beatles and Brian Epstein were just one step away from possibly never making a recording.
Ron Richards was George Martin’s assistant at Parlophone.
“George (Martin) asked me to listen to this tape that Sid Coleman (Ardmore and Beechwood Publishing) had sent over. Norrie (Paramor) had already turned it down. The thing was that Wally (Ridley), Norrie and Norman (Newell) all had successful acts at the time, so they weren’t in a hurry to sign any unknown kids. George didn’t (have any successful acts). So that’s how George came to take them up. I think he was the last one to hear them. So he asked me to listen to this tape of The Beatles. I must admit I wasn’t terribly impressed at the time. He saw in them more than I did. If it had come to me I would have turned them down, because I had Shane Fenton and the Fentones. But George did a good job with them. Because he wasn’t so au fait with rock & roll, he allowed The Beatles to more or less do their own thing. If they had been with Norrie, or particularly with Wally, he would have said: ‘You do it this way, you do it that way’ and they may not have taken off like they did, but George virtually let them get on with it.
(Sid Coleman) made a record with (them) that I’d given him called How do you do it. They hated the song and made a terrible job of it. So then George asked me to produce them with Love me do and I did. I went in the studio – he had gone out with his girlfriend at the time – and he came back at ten-o-clock and asked them ‘Is there anything you don’t like?’ and George Harrison said ‘I don’t like your tie.’
I was the one who got rid of Pete Best. I was the first one in the studio with The Beatles for rehearsal. George asked me to take them into (Abbey Road) No.3 studio one afternoon. He rehearsed them with Please please me and one or two others. I had a thing about drummers in those days and I wanted him to do a double beat on his bass drum and he (Best) couldn’t do it. I thought ‘Well, he’s useless’. I said to George ‘Look, that drummer’s useless. You’ll have to get another one’. The next thing I hear they’ve got this drummer, Ringo. Ringo came into the studio when I was recording Love me do and I didn’t trust him. I’d never heard him play so I didn’t know if he was good, bad or indifferent, so I booked a session drummer to be safe – Andy White. He did the session and I told Ringo to go down and play the maracas (or, as Geoffrey Emerick remembers it – tambourine), which he did.”
Geoffrey Emerick had only just joined EMI as an assistant recording engineer, and fate was to pair him with The Beatles virtually from his first day at the Abbey Road studios. He began work under the auspices of established engineer Norman Smith
“The conversation turned to the Beatles session we’d done earlier that week and all of the problems the drummer (Ringo Starr) was having. Apparently, the drummer they had turned up with for the artist test…had been so bad that he had been sacked a couple of months later.”(7)
Tony Barrow feels this autocratic approach was one of the key reasons why The Beatles’ early creativity was seemingly stifled.
“What it really should have taken was a Larry Parnes of the recording industry, but in those days there were no such people. It was the day of the A&R department; it had complete control. I think when The Beatles went into the recording studios for the first time. They found it a very unfriendly workplace. The producer was in control, the producer would say precisely where in the room they had to stand…’this is your microphone…no you can’t have that microphone over there…’ It was almost like the ‘X’ on the floor in the television studio. Because that’s how it was set up for a four-piece, that’s how it was done. Bright lights, very clinical, not conducive for musicians to work. They hated that. They also got the treatment every other newcomer got. The producer would say ‘OK, I’ve got a songwriter for you – his name’s Mitch Murray’. The tie up was directly between producers and music publishers. They brought the songs in. There was the great B-side thing where either the B-side actually written by the producer and was rubbish, or the producer would have written a couple of lines and would say to the band ‘OK, this is going down as band-producer and I want a quarter of the (royalties) on this.’
Wally Ridley at the time was regarded as the Godfather of EMI, having been responsible for a stream of huge hits for HMV in the 1950’s.
“I never thought, and I still don’t to this day think they’re the best singers. I don’t think they’re the best instrumentalists…. but the thing they had, the thing that I preached about and the thing that I bought 20,000 shares in were their songs – that was their magic. You can forget everything else. Give me the songs.” (2)
Wayne Bickerton whose link to The Beatles came via Pete Best, who after being dropped by The Beatles joined the band he was in, Lee Curtis & The Allstars, makes this assessment.
“Before The Beatles came along, the UK music industry had no real significance. What The Beatles did was twofold. They changed the whole face of popular music and turned the United Kingdom into a serious exporting industry. If they hadn’t done that, God knows where we would be today – I think that’s something that hasn’t really been acknowledged. They broke the mould, turned the whole damn business upside down and made people realise – hey, we’ve got something special; we can take it back across the pond, which they did and other acts followed over the next 20 years. Everybody who earns money, from a record company to the Performing Rights Society has The Beatles to thank.”
Colin Burn, long-serving EMI employee remembers his first encounter.
“I first met The Beatles when they came in to do The Friday Spectacular (an EMI sponsored programme for Radio Luxembourg, recorded at the Company’s Manchester Square, London, headquarters). They were miming on stage, had only just released their first record. They had driven down in a van and were parked outside EMI and were sleeping there overnight. They hadn’t got any money, not a bean. I gave them loads of cups of coffee and we had sandwiches and biscuits upstairs.”
LG (Len) Wood was Managing Director of EMI from 1959 to 196?, and a hugely influential figure in the British music industry.
“(Brian) Epstein had taken the group (on) the rounds. He’d gone to three of our four A&R men and been turned down, he’d been to Decca and been turned down and he was pretty disconsolate. But by the grace of God he went into the HMV shop in Oxford Street where there was a private recording studio, so if you were a private person and you wanted to make a little recording or have something transferred from disc to tape or tape to disc, you would go in there and have it done. Epstein had got some demonstration tapes which (the A&R men, apart from George Martin) had turned down, so he thought, well, ‘the best thing to do is to go round the music publishers and see if I can get any support there.’ But to do that he needed to have the tapes transferred to disc…. and when he called for them next day the young man who was running the studio just made the comment that he thought there were very attractive recordings and ’why don’t you get a recording deal?’ Epstein, I suppose, explained to him what his problems were, and the fellow said to him, ‘ Well, EMI’s music publishing company is on the next floor, the fellow’s name is Coleman, Why don’t you have a word with him?’ Coleman liked the recordings but again said ‘If I’m to get involved in this you’ve got to have a record deal.’ It was explained to him what happened and he said ‘have you tried George Martin?’ And he hadn’t. So he (Coleman) rang through for George Martin and asked George if he would give them an audition. Which George did, wasn’t terribly impressed, but thought there might be something there and signed them up.” (3)
Then there are the “might-have-been” stories. Jeffrey Kruger, whose London Flamingo Club was a unique source of new jazz talent for Tony Hall’s Decca-owned Topic label in the Fifties, is one for whom life could have been different.
“I knew Brian Epstein via NEMS – he was one of our main dealers who helped sell Ember Records and I didn’t want to upset him. He told me he had this group and couldn’t find a record company interested in recording them. He called me to say he was coming to London and made an appointment to have lunch with me on the Monday. On the way down on the Sunday his parents made him go to a Jewish wedding. He sat next to Dick James and his wife at the wedding and was pressured by his family to do a deal with Dick for the publishing. Dick confirmed to me years later that if Brian hadn’t gone to that wedding, I’d have got the publishing and the recordings”
Dick James’s slant on events, as recalled in 1974, is somewhat different.
“A young songwriter called Mitch Murray came to see me with songs one day and I very much liked one of them entitled How do you do it. He’d been walking it around Denmark Street for about six months without any success. I took the song to George Martin who liked it and said he’d try it out with a new group from Liverpool called The Beatles. But when we heard their versions both George and I agreed it wasn’t very good. George offered to put it on the B-side of Love me do, the first Beatles’ single, but I thought it was too good for a B-side. So George said he’d try and make it the A-side of their next disc. Nothing happened for about four months, and then in late October 1962, George rang me. That telephone call was the turning point, though I didn’t realise it at the time. George said he had some bad news for me. He explained The Beatles didn’t feel they could do much with the song…… then he gave me some good news. The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein was looking for a publisher to work with him full-time because he had a number of other artists he wanted to launch. He wanted a publisher who would really work the song, the artist and the record – and George had strongly recommended me.” (4)
Epstein met James and played him ‘Please please me’. James immediately played it over the phone to Phillip Jones, producer of Thank Your Lucky Stars who booked them there and then for the first show after the record’s release, January 12, 1963. Don Arden, however, is convinced that the phone call was a set-up, that James knew Thank Your Lucky Stars had wanted The Beatles, had pre-arranged the phone call to impress Epstein. (6). It obviously worked!
“At this point I didn’t even have the song, but my enthusiasm apparently impressed Brian Epstein and I was certainly impressed by his enthusiasm. So the deal was done and we went to lunch. Over the meal he told me the Mitch Murray song was going to be recorded by another of his groups, Gerry & the Pacemakers. At last our faith in the song was justified. Not only did Please please me make No.1, but so did How do you do it. We went on to chalk up seven No.1’s in seven months.” (4)
Tony Bramwell agrees that it was the promise of national television that clinched the deal, but also his naivety in the long-established world of music publishing, “He blindly believed everything that Dick James told him, and thought he was lucky to have found him.” (5)
John Burgess, at that time Norman Newell’s assistant at EMI, has his slant on the story.
“EMI missed out on the publishing purely and simply because Sid Coleman, signed the first two sides the Beatles recorded at the HMV shop. Sid had sent the demos over to George Martin, which was unusual for Sid because he was Norman Newell’s best friend. However, Norman was in America at the time and Sid felt he had to make a fairly quick decision so he sent them to George instead. Norman asked him afterwards why he hadn’t sent them to me. I don’t know what my reaction would have been. He heard the tracks and liked them, and I think those two or three titles still remain with EMI Publishing today. George then got hold of Dick James, who was struggling at the time, almost going bust, because he felt that Dick would do a better job than EMI. He didn’t get involved, just recommended it, and Epstein did the deal. Dick James actually offered George a large percentage and George rejected it. (I think) George was the only guy at EMI to have heard The Beatles. I’m pretty sure Norrie (Paramor) never heard them because he was tied up with Cliff Richard or Ruby Murray at the time.”
Publicist Tony Barrow was at the heart of The Beatles’ phenomenon. How does he remember it?
“The way I’ve always thought of it is of the whole thing being an enormous Cinemascope screen and we were standing with our nose right up against the screen. We couldn’t possibly see the complete picture at the time and it was only years afterwards that we were able to sit back in the stalls and re-run the whole thing that we appreciated the enormity of it all.”
So – just as Thomas Edison and Emile Berliner had no concept of what they had invented, so the most important band in the history of popular recorded music nearly never recorded at all. And some of those still remembered primarily for their Beatle associations, can point to luck as the key factor.
Why? Because music is all about personal taste and business is about making profit. The music business is all about balancing the two. It’s a thread that we will see appearing time and time again as we journey through this extraordinary business.
(1) The Complete Beatles Chronicle, Mark Lewisohn, p.53
(2) EMI interview with Chris Ellis, 1996
(3) EMI interview with Rupert Perry
(4) Music Week April 27, 1974
(5) Magical Mystery Tours – My Life with The Beatles, Tony Bramwell, Robson Books, 2005
(6) Mr Big, Don Arden, Robson Books, 2004
(7) Here, There & Everywhere – My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles, Geoff Emerick, Gotham Books, 2006
Copy © David Hughes 2019. Photos from Google search and for illustration purposes only.
About dhvinyl
Lifelong obsession with music, 33 years in the music business, 40 years immersed in selling old records, 18 years retired!
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This entry was posted in A Personal History of the British Record Business, Uncategorized and tagged Alan Lockie, Brian Epstein, Colin Burn, Dick James, Dick Rowe, Geoffrey Emerick, George Martin, Jeffrey Kruger, Joe Flannery, John Burgess, L.G.Wood, Larry Parnes, Mike Smith, Mitch Murray, Norman Newell, Norrie Paramor, Ron Richards, Sid Coleman, The Beatles, Tim Blackmore, Tony Barrow, Tony Bramwell, Tony Calder, Tony Hall, Wally Ridley, Wayne Bickerton. Bookmark the permalink.
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S/PRST/1998/2
Original: English
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL
At the 3852nd meeting of the Security Council, held on 30 January 1998 in connection with the Council's consideration of the item entitled "The situation in the Middle East", the President of the Security Council made the following statement on behalf of the Council:
"The Security Council has noted with appreciation the report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) of 20 January 1998 (S/1998/53) submitted in conformity with resolution 1122 (1997) of 29 July 1997.
"The Security Council reaffirms its commitment to the full sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity and national unity of Lebanon within its internationally recognized boundaries. In this context, the Council asserts that all States shall refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.
"As the Security Council extends the mandate of UNIFIL for a further interim period on the basis of resolution 425 (1978), the Council again stresses the urgent need for the implementation of that resolution in all its aspects. It reiterates its full support for the Taif Agreement and for the continued efforts of the Lebanese Government to consolidate peace, national unity and security in the country, while successfully carrying out the reconstruction process. The Council commends the Lebanese Government for its successful effort to extend its authority in the south of the country in full coordination with UNIFIL.
"The Security Council expresses its concern over the continuing violence in Southern Lebanon, regrets the loss of civilian life, and urges all parties to exercise restraint.
"The Security Council takes this opportunity to express its appreciation for the continuing efforts of the Secretary-General and his staff in this regard. The Council notes with deep concern the high level of casualties which UNIFIL has suffered and pays a special tribute to all those who gave their life while serving in UNIFIL. It commends UNIFIL's troops and troop-contributing countries for their sacrifices and commitment to the cause of international peace and security under difficult circumstances."
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The Bitter Pill
uniteforlife.org
High Serotonin Dangers
Pregnancy, Breastfeeding and Meds
Psychiatric Reform
In Memory of Thomas Szasz
MOTHERS Act Action Page
SSRIs – Wonder Drugs From Hell
Posted on August 3, 2010 by Amy James
Evelyn Pringle February 7, 2006
The Glenn McIntosh family has to introduce 12-year-old Caitlin, with a photograph because that is all they has left. Caitlin committed suicide 8 weeks after being prescribed the SSRIs, Paxil and Zoloft.
“We were told that antidepressants like Paxil and Zoloft were wonder drugs, that they were safe and effective for children. We were lied to,” Caitlin’s father said.
According to Glenn, his daughter was a straight “A” student, an artist, and a talented musician who loved animals and wanted to be a veterinarian.
With the onset of puberty, Caitlin seemed to be having trouble coping, and was also having sleeping problems due to a mild seizure disorder.
“We wanted to help, of course,” her father explains, “so we took her to our family physician, who prescribed her Paxil.”
Right off the bat, Caitlin did not do well on Paxil, so the doctor took her off the drug. About a week later the family went to see a psychiatrist and Caitlin was put on Zoloft.
According to Glenn, “She then started having strong suicidal ideations, along with severe agitation known as akathisia and hallucinations, and she was put in the adolescent ward of a mental hospital to balance her meds.”
Once she entered the hospital, the situation got worse as Caitlin was put on more and more psychiatric drugs to treat symptoms and behaviors that Glenn says he now realizes were caused by the SSRIs to begin with.
When she was released from the hospital, the downward spiral continued until the day that Caitlin used her shoe laces to hang herself in a bathroom at school.
“Let me be very clear about something,” Glenn said, “the dramatic and severe symptoms that led to my daughter’s suicide manifested only after she started taking antidepressant drugs.”
“The pharmaceutical companies have known for years that these drugs could cause suicide in some patients,” Glenn said. “Why didn’t we?”
Grieving the loss of their 14-year-old daughter Dominique, Lorraine and Robert Slater also make the point that, “informed parental consent is only possible as long as full disclosure is made by the pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, and the medical community.”
“How can teenagers be allowed to be given antidepressants that were never approved for adolescent consumption, only for adults?” Lorraine wants to know. “How come the medical profession doesn’t fully disclose the possible harmful and fatal effects of medication as well as watch carefully for diverse effects on its adolescent population?”
Shortly after she was prescribed Celexa, Dominique attempted suicide. She was treated by several mental health professionals after her initial adverse reaction to the first SSRI.
And, each time they met with professionals, her parents explained that the drugs seemed to maker Dominique’s condition worse rather than better. Unfortunately, as so often happens, the adverse reactions and behaviors caused by the SSRIs, were treated as a worsening of an underlying condition and Dominique was prescribed other drugs from the same class.
“Dominique’s mind and behavior were slowly being altered to the point that she became very agitated, irrational, ultimately suicidal,” her mother recounts, “because none of the so-called medical professionals acknowledged the drug’s role in her irrational and suicidal behavior or properly withdrew her from their suicidal effects.”
On February 6, 2003, Dominique was switched to the SSRI Effexor, and during the two weeks that followed, her doctor doubled the dose.
The morning of February 21, 2003, Robert dropped his daughter off at school and they said goodbye as usual. Around 11 am, Dominique told her teacher she needed to go outside for some fresh air. She left classroom and never returned.
Next to nothing is known about Dominique’s activities from the time she left school on February 21, until her body was found 3 weeks later in the Delta Mendota canal in California on April 14, 2003.
Lorraine is still racked with guilt and blames herself for giving her daughter the prescribed medication. “How can you imagine I feel, knowing now that I was slowly poisoning my daughter every day as I was dispensing her antidepressant medication?” she said.
Tom and Kathy Woodward’s daughter, Julie, who had no history of suicide or self-harm, hung herself in a matter of days after being prescribed Zoloft. “Julie began experiencing akathisia almost immediately,” Tom recalls.
But he knew nothing about Zoloft’s side effect of “akathisia” at the time. The doctor had stressed that Zoloft was safe and had very few side effects. He never advised Tom and Kathy about the possibility of violence, self-harm, or suicidal acts and the information they received with the drug never mentioned self-harm or suicide either.
According to her parents, Julie was a young woman who had everything to live for. Just weeks before her death, she had scored high on her SATs and was excited about starting college.
However, “instead of picking out colleges with our daughter, my wife and I had to pick out a cemetery plot for her,” Tom said. “Instead of looking forward to visiting Julie at school, we now visit her grave,” he added.
Like so many other cases of suicides of young people on SSRIs, Julie’s body apparently could not handle the drug. “We now know from a blood test from the coroner’s office, that she was not metabolizing the drug,” Tom said.
Tom and Kathy are angry at government officials. “The FDA has placed the interests of the drug industry over protecting the American public,” Tom said, “if the trials don’t favor a drug, the public never hears of them.”
“It is clear that the FDA is a political entity,” he continued, “and its leadership has protected the economic interests of the drug industry.”
Tom believes that suppressing unfavorable studies should be illegal, “the drug industry must be compelled to produce all of their findings and studies,” he said.
Cheryl and Mark Miller lost their 13-year-old son, Matthew to suicide, after a psychiatrist gave him Zoloft. His parents were told that Matt had a chemical imbalance that could be helped by a new, wonder drug called Zoloft.
“It was safe, effective, only two minor side effects were cautioned with us – insomnia, indigestion,” they said.
While on the drug, Matt became agitated, could not eat, sleep, or sit still. The night before the family was set to leave for vacation, Matt hung himself in a bedroom closet from a hook, barely higher than he was tall.
“To commit this unthinkable act,” Mark said, “he was able to pull his legs up off the floor and hold himself that way until he lost consciousness.”
His parents had no warning of their son’s plan to kill himself. Mark had never spoken about suicide or threatened to commit suicide.
Mark and Cheryle have since learned that Matt’s doctor has served as “a well-paid spokesman for Pfizer,” the maker of Zoloft.
Terri Williams’ 14-year-old son, Jacob, was an exceptional athlete and participated in both the varsity and junior varsity football teams at his school.
In September 2000, Jacob seemed to lose interest in school activities except for football, and a conflict arose with regard to his grades and school attendance. As a result, his parents attended a conference in October 2000, at which the school administrator suggested that Jacob might be depressed and recommended seeking medical help.
Terri contacted Jacob’s pediatrician and made an appointment for the same afternoon. The doctor prescribed Prozac, and three weeks later increased the dose.
Shortly after he started taking the drug, Jacob complained of having strange bad dreams and shortly after the dose was increased, his mother noticed an aggressive behavior which had not been there before. “Jacob also became destructive and destroyed some of his favorite things,” Terri said.
When questioned, Jacob told his mother, “I don’t know what is making me do this.” Terri wrote it off to normal adolescent behavior and did not pursue the issue further.
On December 5, 2000, Terri found Jacob’s body hanging from the rafter in their attic. He had hung himself with his own belt. He left a letter on the ladder leading up to the attic for his parents, thanking them for giving him 14 years of a happy life.
After her son’s death, his friends told Terri that they had noticed the same changes in Jacob, that he had become short tempered and verbally aggressive.
“Had I known that this was a potential side effect, suicide,” Terri said, “I would have never allowed my son to take the drug Prozac.”
And the sad fact is, the FDA could have warned Terri, because by 1998, according to the FDA’s adverse reaction reporting system, Prozac alone had already accumulated over 40,000 adverse reaction reports, including over 2,100 deaths, far more than any other drug in the history of the reporting system.
Posted in 2006, Celexa, Effexor, FDA, Glaxo, Lexapro, Paxil, Pfizer, Prozac, SSRIs, suicide, Wellbutrin, Zoloft
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Washington Technology Online Telecom Watch
Lucent Shines in Wireless Market: Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, N.J., in 1996 captured the largest share of the wireless office market - 32 percent - of any one company, according to a report by Frost & Sullivan. Lucent had an even larger - 48 percent - share of the wireless local area network market.
Revenues for the wireless market in 1996 were $390 million; $218 million for wireless LAN, according to Frost & Sullivan.
Lucent has a great head start in a growing area; the research firm predicts that the wireless LAN market will triple to more than $600 million by 2000.
Online Stock Pointers: PointCast Network, the popular "push technology" service that brings World Wide Web information to the masses, has formed an agreement with online investing service E-Trade Group Inc., Palo Alto, Calif. PointCast users can get free research reports on 7,000 stocks and invest online for a commission fee.
The company reports include market charts, stock prices and analyst forecasts. The first trade for PointCast viewers will be free. The companies' Web sites are http://www.pointcast.com and http://www.etrade.com.
NationsBank Ranks First in Technology: In the past nine months it has been available, NationsBank Corp.'s PC Banking service has attracted 250,000 users. The service lets customers see account balances, plan budgets, transfer funds and pay bills online.
A 1996 Vanguard Technology Survey commissioned by Merrill Lynch ranked NationsBank, Charlotte, N.C., first among United States banks in using technology to better serve customers. The bank offers software called Managing Your Money.
We Are Our Computers: Digital certificates will be the big news in intranet identification, not passwords or personal identification numbers, says a new report by Forrester Research, Cambridge, Mass.
Such IDs will be safer, especially when issued by a known certificate company such as VeriSign or CyberTrust, Forrester said.
Paul Callahan, who wrote the report, said that over the next two years people will have the same number of digital certificates on their PCs as credit cards and other IDs in their wallets. Additionally, he said, certificate management will become a full-time job at companies.
-Shannon Henry
©1997 Washington Technology. All rights reserved.
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Washington Technology Online Contracts
and the Law
Keane Federal Systems Inc., a subsidiary of Keane Inc., was awarded a $21 million contract to provide agencywide network workstation deployment and user support services for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
BDM International Inc., McLean, Va., won a $5.7 million contract with the Philatelic Fulfillment Service Center of the U.S. Postal Service. BDM will build and install a computerized system for the world stamp-collecting community to order and receive new and current U.S. stamps and other philatelic items.
Signal Corp., Fairfax, Va., was awarded a six-year, $32 million contract from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Under the contract, the company will provide information technology services. Subcontractors on the contract include DynCorp of Reston, Va., and RMS Technologies Inc. in Lanham, Md.
IBM Corp.'s Global Government Industry division in Bethesda, Md., won a $35 million contract from the U.S. Census Bureau to develop a network technology solution that will enhance the way users access, search, tabulate, extract and electronically purchase census data over the Internet.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration awarded two $4 million contracts to Boeing North American's Space Systems division and Lockheed Martin Space Mission Systems & Services, both in Houston. Under the contract, they will study the feasibility of consolidating some of the agency's space operations to one contractor in order to save money and free up funding for new projects.
Vistronix Inc., Vienna, Va., won an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract worth up to $500,000 to provide the Maryland State Department of Education with services supporting the analysis, design, development, installation and documentation of an MSDE information system.
Unisys Corp.'s federal systems division in McLean, Va., won a $6.8 million contract from the Defense Information Systems Agency, Joint Interoperability Engineering Organization to provide automatic data processing support for the Nuclear Planning and Execution System.
MAK Technologies Inc. based in Cambridge, Mass., was awarded a Marine Corps Systems Command contract for design and construction of a Marine amphibious assault video game. According to the company, it is the first video game to be co-funded and co-developed by the Department of Defense and the entertainment industry. The contract is worth $70,000.
AbTech Corp. of Charlottesville, Va., announced several contract awards. The company was awarded a $750,000 Phase II SBIR contract by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for the application of Statistical Network data mining to target detection and classification. The company was also awarded a $529,992 Phase II STTR contract by the U.S. Air Force Avionics Directorate to integrate new pattern learning algorithms for automatic target recognition applications. The company also was selected for funding of a Phase I SBIR contract by the U.S. Navy's Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division for the development of C4I data mining tools. The contract is worth $750,000. Finally, the company was awarded a $749,950 Phase II STTR contract by the U.S. Air Force Aeronautical Systems Center to develop an advanced data mining and performance analysis tool.
Contracts highlights contracts awarded by the federal government or a contractor. To include your company, send a press release to Contracts Editor, Washington Technology, 8500 Leesburg Pike, Suite 7500, Vienna, Va. 22182; fax at (703) 848-2353; e-mail news@technews.com.
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Model charts ICON
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07/16/2019 (Tue)
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07/16/2019, 12:00am CDT
Global German Standard (7 days) from 07/16/2019/00z
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Global German Standard (ICON) (7 days)
This product displays output from the German global model (ICON). Global models produce forecasts for the entire world usually twice daily. Choose any country in the world using the menus to the left where you will also find a diverse range of products to choose from including temperature, pressure, precipitation, and much more. The German model runs 7 days out into the future but, like all models, gets less accurate as time goes on.
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Author: Smith, T.C.
You may also wish to search for items by Smith, T. and Smith.
Clouthier, D.J.; Harper, W.W.; Klusek, C.M.; Smith, T.C., The electronic spectrum of monoiodosilylene (HSiI) revisited, J. Chem. Phys., 1998, 109, 18, 7827, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.477429 . [all data]
He, S.-G.; Li, H.; Smith, T.C.; Clouthier, D.J.; Merer, A.J., The Renner-Teller effect and Sears resonances in the ground state of the GeCH and GeCD free radicals, J. Chem. Phys., 2003, 119, 19, 10115, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1618219 . [all data]
Hostutler, D.A.; Smith, T.C.; Li, H.; Clouthier, D.J., The electronic spectrum, molecular structure, and oscillatory fluorescence decay of jet-cooled germylidene (H[sub 2]C[Double Bond][sup 74]Ge), the simplest unsaturated germylene, J. Chem. Phys., 1999, 111, 3, 950, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.479187 . [all data]
Smith, T.C.; Clouthier, D.J.; Sha, W.; Adam, A.G., Laser optogalvanic and jet spectroscopy of germylene (GeH[sub 2]): New spectroscopic data for an important semiconductor growth intermediate, J. Chem. Phys., 2000, 113, 21, 9567, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1319936 . [all data]
Smith, T.C.; Clouthier, D.J.; Steimle, T.C., Hyperfine structure and the Stark effect in the electronic spectrum of the SiCH radical with implications for microwave spectroscopy and radioastronomy, J. Chem. Phys., 2001, 115, 2, 817, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1378818 . [all data]
Smith, T.C.; Evans, C.J.; Clouthier, D.J., Spectroscopic detection of the SiCCl free radical, J. Chem. Phys., 2002, 117, 14, 6446, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1506683 . [all data]
Smith, T.C.; Evans, C.J.; Clouthier, D.J., Discovery of the optically forbidden S[sub 1]--S[sub 0] transition of silylidene (H[sub 2]C[Double Bond]Si), J. Chem. Phys., 2003, 118, 4, 1642, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1531618 . [all data]
Smith, T.C.; Li, H.; Clouthier, D.J., Spectroscopic Characterization of Silicon and Germanium Methylidyne: Fundamental Astrophysical and Organometallic Building Blocks, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1999, 121, 25, 6068, https://doi.org/10.1021/ja990713l . [all data]
Smith, T.C.; Li, H.; Clouthier, D.J.; Kingston, C.T.; Merer, A.J., The electronic spectrum of silicon methylidyne (SiCH), a molecule with a silicon--carbon triple bond in the excited state, J. Chem. Phys., 2000, 112, 8, 3662, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.480518 . [all data]
Smith, T.C.; Li, H.; Clouthier, D.J.; Kingston, C.T.; Merer, A.J., The electronic spectrum of germanium methylidyne (GeCH), the prototypical organogermanium compound, J. Chem. Phys., 2000, 112, 19, 8417, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.481479 . [all data]
Smith, T.C.; Li, H.; Clouthier, D.J., The ground state of silylidene (H[sub 2]C=Si), the silicon analog of vinylidene, from stimulated emission pumping and wavelength-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy, J. Chem. Phys., 2001, 114, 20, 9012, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1368384 . [all data]
Smith, T.C.; Li, H.; Hostutler, D.A.; Clouthier, D.J.; Merer, A.J., Orbital angular momentum (Renner--Teller) effects in the [sup 2]«PI»[sub i] ground state of silicon methylidyne (SiCH), J. Chem. Phys., 2001, 114, 2, 725, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1331316 . [all data]
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Posts Tagged 'neoconservative'
Moderate, pragmatic and unloved: Greece’s liberal parties
Tags: bailout, blue apple, coalition, constantinos alexacos, cooperation, costas simitis, creative minority, crisis, debt, democratic alliance, dimiourgia xana, dimitris rigopoulos, dora bakoyannis, drasi, emmanuel schizas, EU, free market, Greece, greek, harry van versendaal, hayek, imf, liberal, liberalism, LOL Greece, malcom gladwell, memorandum, neoconservative, neoliberal, new democracy, nikos xydakis, PASOK, politics, program, recreate greece, society, stafanos manos, syriza, thodoris georgakopoulos, tilemachos chormovitis, tipping point, tsipras, tzimeros, versendaal, voxversendaal
“In Greece, a liberal is called a ‘neoliberal’ and is perceived as a ‘neoconservative’,” says Constantinos Alexacos, an architect who ran as a candidate with the Drasi party in the May 6 elections.
Big shocks change perceptions but the spectacular meltdown of Greece’s two-party system, dominant since the end of the military dictatorship in 1974, has failed to shake off at least one: mainstream distrust in liberalism.
Socialist PASOK and the New Democracy conservatives suffered a drubbing on Sunday, seeing their combined share of the vote sink to an all-time low of 32 percent. Nevertheless, none of the country’s liberal parties — Democratic Alliance, Drasi (which merged with Liberal Alliance ahead of the vote), or Dimiourgia Xana (Recreate Greece) — won enough votes to make it into Parliament. The three garnered a combined 6.5 percent, or 411,536 votes, as a huge chunk of support went to the anti-bailout parties away from the center of the political spectrum.
The poor showing has prompted a fair deal of frustration and soul-searching among self-described liberals in this debt-wracked nation. If there is one thing they all agree on it’s that their doctrine is a perennial victim of bad publicity. For a wide range of reasons, liberalism is still a dirty word for many, particularly those on the left.
“Like capitalism, liberal ideologies in Greece have been defined by their opponents, not their supporters. We’ve allowed others to tell the Greek population what we are, what we believe, who we are aligned with,” says Emmanuel Schizas, editor of the LOL Greece blog.
“Essentially, if you call yourself a liberal, the reasoning goes, you are pro-war, pro-monopolies, a corporatist, unfeeling and uncaring, and have a casual tolerance for corruption, inequality and the suppression of political rights,” adds Schizas.
It’s quite an exasperating situation for people who have traditionally espoused such values as individual freedom, rule of law, active but accountable government, free but responsible markets, and mutual toleration.
Most liberals have called for a smaller government, fewer civil servants, privatizations and further deregulation of closed professions. But the fact that liberal parties chose to back the deeply unpopular austerity policies attached to the EU-IMF bailout deal didn’t do much to promote their ideas. Worse, some liberal commentators say, the parties paid the price of endorsing ideas that were not, in fact, related to their political religion.
“Most liberals around the world have strongly opposed policies like those included in the memorandum,” says Tilemachos Chormovitis, a contributor for the liberal Ble Milo (Blue Apple) blog. “You can’t solve a debt crisis by accepting more loans. Instead of putting forward their own program against the tax-heavy policies of the memorandum and the stubborn statism of the left, liberals tagged along with the worn-out parties that backed the program,” he says.
To be sure, allergy to liberal ideas goes further back and has systematically been fed by the system of nepotism, clientelism and corruption that took hold of Greek society after populist PASOK rose to power in 1981. Any attempts to contain the country’s gigantic and profligate state ran against the interests of the ruling parties and their voters. Over time, liberal reforms were seen as coming together with a self-destruct button.
“There comes a point on the road to serfdom where so much of a country is dependent on government subsidies, government-sanctioned rents and government-upheld false economies, that liberalizing it will simply kill it,” says Schizas with a mention of F.A. Hayek’s 1944 classic.
Implementing liberal economic reforms, he says, was bound to take a hefty toll on the well-being of hundreds of thousands of people — at least in the medium term. “In an aged and inflexible society such as ours, people don’t bounce back from such setbacks; they stay down,” he says.
It’s hard to miss the uncomfortable truth at the core of the liberal creed: “The liberal parties are in the business of pointing out trade-offs; telling people they can’t have everything. That’s been a widely unpopular way of thinking in Greece since the ‘change’ of 1981,” says Schizas, referring to the late Andreas Papandreou’s famous campaign slogan which heralded the massive, but often misguided, program of wealth redistribution which was to follow.
The trade-off idea is a far cry from the populist, pie-in-the-sky idealism that has animated Greek parties seeking to appease an audience that had grown increasingly spoiled during the past 30 years. Furthermore, this cold, instrumental approach to politics, observers say, is out of synch with the all-too-human qualities of politicking. “Politics is not engineering. It’s chaotic, it does not follow a straight line. Just like life,” Kathimerini commentator Nikos Xydakis says, acknowledging SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras’s deft timing and political opportunism. “Politics requires Machiavellian ‘virtue,’ the ability to adapt to any given situation by doing whatever is necessary,” he says.
Wrong leaders, wrong audience
Analysts also voice reservations over whether Drasi leader, veteran politician and ex-minister Stefanos Manos and former New Democracy heavyweight Dora Bakoyannis, who now heads Democratic Alliance, are the right people for the job.
The biggest handicap, journalist and urban activist Dimitris Rigopoulos suggests, is that the vast majority of voters see them as part of the problem, not the solution. “Manos and Bakoyannis are both associated in the collective consciousness with Greece’s discredited political establishment,” he says.
Parallel to this, experts say, there’s an issue with the audiences that these parties have chosen for themselves. Drasi, which likes to see itself as the ‘orthodox’ libertarian party, tanked outside the main urban centers while drawing a disproportionate share of the vote from the alumni of elite schools. One of the most common criticisms against liberals is that they are haughty and elitist.
“You get the impression that many of these people feel unfortunate to have been born in Greece and often treat their compatriots with disdain. Naturally, they have failed to identify with the masses and the biggest chunk of support comes from posh districts like Filothei or Kolonaki,” Chormovitis says.
Meanwhile, most of the support for Democratic Alliance appears to come from the reservoir of voters connected to Dora Bakoyannis’s family — which includes her father and ex-Premier Constantine Mitsotakis and her late politician husband Pavlos. “If we’re being charitable, it would be best to say that not all of them care about liberal this and liberal that; they have personal loyalties,” says Schizas.
Still far from tipping point, but…
Some observers are rather reserved about the future of Greece’s liberal movement. “Greeks — at least those who did not vote for the leftovers of the old system and those who didn’t abstain — voted for sterile reaction and conservatism,” says journalist and blogger Thodoris Georgakopoulos.
The ballot, he says, shows that Greece’s creative minority — those who find solutions to the challenges, which others then follow — is still far from reaching what writer Malcolm Gladwell calls “the tipping point” – “that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire,” bringing about disproportionate change in society.
“If Greece’s creative minority had really reached the tipping point, the country wouldn’t have gone bankrupt in the first place,” Georgakopoulos says.
But true to their creed, liberals remain optimistic about the future. For Rigopoulos, a journalist with Kathimerini and founding member of the Atenistas citizens’ group, Greece is for the first time witnessing the conditions for the emergence of a genuinely liberal, reformist movement.
“Until five years ago, the so-called liberal front was reduced to a mostly isolated, demonized faction inside New Democracy plus a few scattered voices inside PASOK — the legacy of Costas Simitis, as it were,” he says in reference to the former modernist-minded premier. As intense polarization fades, new forces are being unleashed — “for better or for worse,” he says.
But unless they decide to join forces, liberals will find it hard to reach the tipping point. Ironically, although they are proud of their pragmatism and consensual habits, Greek liberals were in these elections represented with three distinct groupings. While bigger parties are struggling to form a unity government, liberal party officials have over the past few days been in talks to cooperate ahead of possible new elections. “Working with other people and parties has always been part of the solution as far as Drasi is concerned,” says Alexacos.
Others are less sure about the prospect. Chormovitis, for one, questions whether a liberal coalition would in fact succeed in even amassing the combined 6.5 percent won by the three parties on May 6.
“I am not so sure that Bakoyiannis’s election base in Crete or Evrytania would vote for a liberal coalition party that would not feature herself as leader, or that the fans of Manos and Tzimeros would throw their weight behind one of the most worn-out politicians of the post-1974 period,” says Chormovitis in reference to Thanos Tzimeros, the young advertiser who led Dimiourgia Xana, the surprise package among smaller parties.
Schizas insists parties should call on their supporters to discuss and approve a common platform first. “The liberal parties have never tried to develop a potential common policy platform and are instead focusing on horse-trading among themselves,” he says.
But whether they choose to cooperate or not, Schizas says, Greece’s liberals must above all reach a point where they are defined not by association, but by their actual program. “As long as we are the pro-banker people, the pro-gay people, the pro-bailout people, the pro-privatization people, the anti-minimum-wage people, we are easy prey.”
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SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1) vs. MERRILL'S MARAUDERS (16)
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1) vs. GUADALCANAL DIARY (16)
ACTING:
The acting in “Saving Private Ryan” is very good. Tom Hanks was nominated for Best Actor (he unbelievably lost to Roberto Benigni; the second biggest head-scratcher of the 1999 Academy Awards) and it is a nuanced portrayal of a reluctant warrior. The supporting cast is strong and there are no weak performances. Even Vin Diesel (thankfully not in the film long enough to do damage) ups his game and dies well. Speaking of which, SPR has the highest quality of death scenes that I have seen in a war movie.
“Guadalcanal Diary” is a small unit movie with the usual suspects from 1940s war movies. William Bendix (“Taxi”) provides the comic relief, Anthony Quinn (“Soose”) is the ethnic character, LLoyd Nolan (Sgt. Malone) is the tough sergeant, Preston Foster (Father Donnelly) is the “father” figure. Most importantly, Richard F’in Jaeckel (“Chicken”) makes his acting debut. The acting is average. No one stands out, but no one embarrasses themselves either. They all make their country proud.
FIRST QUARTER SCORE:
Saving Private Ryan 10
Guadalcanal Diary 7
CLICHES:
SPR was lauded for creating a new style war movie when it came out and many of the masses swallowed this analysis. In reality, it merely puts a different spin on the classic war movie template. It is after all a hero leading a small unit on a mission. The hero is forced to assume command. The unit is heterogeneous with the ethnic dude (the Jew Mellish), the gruff sergeant (Horvath), the griper (Reiben), the humane medic (Wade), the religious bumpkin (sniper Jackson), and the newbie (Upham). Possibly as a joke (I hope) Spielberg even has Reiben‘s jacket labeled “Brooklyn”. That is either hilarious or pathetic. There is a conflict within the group between Reiben and Horvath that is resolved by external pressure. There is a ritual recalling the peaceful past (listening to the song on the gramophone). The movie clearly alternates from combat to rest/exposition. The movie does lack a redemption character.
It is a little unfair to criticize GD for clichés when they were fresh for back then. It some ways it helped establish the template. However, it must be pointed out that many of the plot elements and characters had already been established by WWI movies like “All Quiet” and “The Lost Patrol”. It starts with a thank you to the USMC. There is a heterogeneous group (see above). There is an observer (the war correspondent, although he is underused). There is a mascot (a little dog). Episodes alternate between opposites (action to rest). Rituals like preparing weapons and mail call occur. They leave the battle as a new unit comes in. However, there is no reluctant leader or redemption character so it could have been worse.
HALF TIME SCORE:
Guadalcanal Diary 14
SPR combines two standard war movie plot tropes. The first half is the patrol on a mission and the second half is a last stand. Both segments incorporate the “who will survive?” angle. Although not groundbreaking as far as those tried and true elements, the way the screenwriter handles them is quite good. The objective is certainly outside the box- a mission to rescue one soldier. The plot is very manipulative of the audience and takes advantage the non-war movie veterans who would find much of it fresh. It pulls all the emotional strings reaching a crescendo at the end. It throws in a German character to link key scenes and contive the ending. As ridiculously implausible as this arc is, it is not embarrassing like in “The Big Red One”. The flow from action to rest is very smooth. It is a real roller coaster ride, in a good way.
GD is based on the famous non-fiction book by Richard Tregaski. This is part of the problem. The book is boring and the movie is too loyal to it. It flows from non-action to action, but it is not a roller coaster ride because the combat is brief and unsatisfying. The plot is more about character development, but you can have more balance between that and action than this film provides.
THIRD QUARTER SCORE:
COMBAT:
Although incorrectly credited with modernizing the war movie plot, SPR can be credited with taking war movie combat to a new level of realism. It is popular these days to downplay the greatness of the movie, but the opening scene is still the most amazing combat scene ever filmed and has not been topped after fifteen years and many challengers. That one scene will be remembered as a seminal moment in war movie history. It’s easy to forget that many WWII veterans vetted that scene as the closest cinema has come to the real thing. I also would like to remind everyone that Dale Dye was the technical advisor. What sometimes is overlooked is that the movie also has a great combat set piece at the end. The choreography of this intense last stand is laudable. The violence is as graphic as the opening plus the deaths are more emotional.
The Battle of Guadalcanal was one of the most intense battles of the Pacific. You certainly would not get that impression from this movie. The unit lands on the first day (which granted was a day without much action in actuality) and they stay until Nov. 10. They are stationed at the air field which was under consistent attack throughout the period they were on the island. That was more than three months. In the actual campaign there were several noteworthy battles and yet the movie does little to recreate them. In fact, at one point the narrator refers to “weeks of constant fighting” which is news to the audience. Granted, the movie is not about combat. However, what little combat there is is underwhelming to say the least. There is the mission to capture a Japanese unit that results in an ambush with only one survivor and two hot pursuit type attacks that are brief and totally old school. It is asking too much for a 1943 movie to replicate the combat of SPR, but it is not asking too much for it to emulate “Wake Island” or “Bataan”.
COLOR ANALYSIS:
As with all #1 vs. #16 match-ups, this was a mismatch. You can say what you want about the sappiness of “Saving Private Ryan”, but its stronger elements overwhelmed “Guadalcanal Diary”. GD is a nice little movie and should be thankful just for making the tournament. In this case, David never had a chance against Goliath.
P.S. It's a lucky thing for SPR that the match did not end in a tie because I would have to give the edge to GD for its amazing poster. OMG I shirtless Marine hoisting a squirming "squint-eyed monkey" over his head! Priceless.
THE ELITE EIGHT
A Bridge Too Far (5) vs. Cross of Iron (7)
The Longest Day (2) vs. Attack! (11)
The Bug Red One (3) vs. When Trumpets Fade (9)
Labels: March Madness WWII Combat Movies, Saving Private Ryan. Merrill's Marauders, war movie reviews, war movies
HISTORY OR HOLLYWOOD QUIZ: The Longest Day
DUELING MOVIES: Buffalo Soldiers (1997) vs. Rough...
#18 - Stalag 17
MARCH MADNESS FINALS
THE FINAL FOUR
THE ELITE EIGHT!
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1) vs. MERRILL'S MARAUDERS (1...
MARCH WAR MOVIE LEADERSHIP WATCHALONG: 12 O'Clock...
THE LONGEST DAY (2) vs. THE DEVIL'S BRIGADE (15)
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Home » Fashion » Alexandra Armour, Joseph Stein
Alexandra Armour, Joseph Stein
Alexandra Sarah Armour and Joseph Werner Stein were married March 30 at the Breakers Palm Beach in Palm Beach, Fla. Cory J. Ciklin, chief judge of the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal, officiated.
Mrs. Stein, 28, is senior manager focused on consumer insights and strategy at Jetblack, a retail tech start-up company in Manhattan that features shopping by text messaging. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania.
She is the daughter of Louise D. Armour and Lester Armour III, of Palm Beach. The bride’s father, a former professional polo player who is a member of the Polo Hall of Fame, now owns a horse and cattle ranch in Aiken, S.C. Her mother serves is a managing director, portfolio manager and a co-head of Tiano, Armour & Smyth Wealth Managers at J.P. Morgan Securities in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Mr. Stein, 29, is a founder of Luxstone Partners, a real estate company that owns and operates mixed-use and multifamily properties in the New York towns of Mount Vernon, Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow. He graduated summa cum laude from Binghamton University, and is studying for a master’s degree in real estate finance and development at N.Y.U.
He is a son of Dr. Marjorie Stein and Dr. Mark Stein of Scarsdale, N.Y. The groom’s mother is a radiologist at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. She is also a professor of radiology at Montefiore and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, also in the Bronx. His father is a urological surgeon in private practice in Manhattan and the Bronx, with affiliations with NewYork-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai Hospital.
The couple met through mutual friends in Manhattan in January 2013.
Rihanna Shows Off Her Hot Body In Sheer Yellow Bra & Panties From Her Savage X Fenty Lingerie Line
Drinking While Pregnant: An Inconvenient Truth
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Home / 2014 / July
July 25, 2014 Drama, Favorites 0 211
a movie about the life of Mason, his sister Samantha, and his parents (played by Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette, who in the film are divorced from the beginning). What is so unique about the movie is that the same cast plays the family, filmed over 12 years (Mason must have been about 6 or 7 when the film starts). The concept is really innovative, but the result is stunning and emotionally powerful. We get to see this family, and the political and social culture in which it is embedded, change as Mason grows up; the music choices as well …
July 17, 2014 Animation, Favorites 0 226
The LEGO Movie – What I think must be the first movie about LEGOS! Emmett is a guy who goes through his days in the same way, doing the same routine over and over again (kind of living in la-la land), when he falls down a deep hole and enters a different world in which he is mistaken for being a special person who has been pre-ordained to save the world. I laughed so much; the sight gags and the plays on other movies were very, very funny, and I found myself constantly reminded of the old Monty Python style …
July 13, 2014 Favorites, SciFi 0 273
The story picks up from the last (Rise of the Planet of the Apes; the evolved apes have been living in the forests outside of San Francisco for 10 years, during which time they have seen no humans and believe that they may be gone. However, humans show up one day seeking a power source to restore electricity to San Francisco and the humans living there. I found the movie very satisfying as a science fiction picture with really great special effects. The story moves back and forth seamlessly between overarching themes of war, collaboration, and survival and very individual …
July 6, 2014 Drama 0 322
zThe new movie by the director of Once. Dan (Mark Ruffalo) is a down-and-out producer who gets canned by the partner with whom he originally built the company; Gretta (Kiera Knightly) has just been dumped by her boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine) and is reluctantly singing in a bar when Dan hears her. The movie is the story of Dan and Gretta creating the demo tracks that will give her the break she needs into the music business. The movie was a mixed bag for me. The aspects that worked for me were (a) it was an interesting commentary on the …
July 5, 2014 Documentary 0 218
Documentary about the court cases that led to the overturn of Proposition 8 in California (the voter initiative defining marriage to be between one man and one woman). I really enjoyed the movie because (a) I learned a lot – I did not, for example, realize that the two attorneys who handled the case were the same two who were on opposite sides of the Gore versus Bush case that went to the Supreme Court; b) it spent a lot of time in interviews with the two couples who were plaintiffs in the case; c) it was fun to see …
A Coffee in Berlin
July 4, 2014 Drama, Foreign 0 257
Film of the day in the life of Niko, a 20-something college dropout and his various adventures. The film is in black and white, and the jazzy soundtrack gives the film and light and spirited feel (similar to some of Woody Allen’s movies). I really enjoyed the scenes of Berlin – the director clearly loves the city and captures it well in pictures, and I really liked watching Niko discovering his own meaning of life through the experiences that define his transition into adulthood. Thumbs up for a moving that really doesn’t have much of a plot but was for …
July 3, 2014 Horror 0 285
this was actually a pretty clever movie that is a cross between a mockumentary and Blair Witch Project. A guy and his girlfriend set off to make a documentary about the legend of Bigfoot. The first part of the movie is actually quite funny – they interview a string of odd characters having had some connection to Bigfoot. The two then go off into the woods to the site where Sasquatch was supposedly caught on camera. The rest of the movie is about their foray into the woods. I really enjoyed the movie for its humor, its creepiness in the …
July 2, 2014 Favorites, SciFi 0 349
Snowpiercer – In this wonderful and well-crafted futuristic sci-fi film, an attempt by the world powers to lace the atmosphere with a substance to reverse global warming goes wrong; the planet becomes frozen and humanity becomes extinct except for a few thousand who live on a train that circles the planet. The people are divided into social classes by car; the film begins with those in the tail cars of the train who live in squalor and are subjugated and controlled by those who inhabit the engine. Curtis, played by Chris Evans (Captain America, and almost unrecognizable to me), is …
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Police: Officer thrown down flight of stairs when Lowell party turns into violent melee
Kimberly Bookman
LOWELL, MASS. (WHDH) - A police officer in Lowell was thrown down a flight of stairs over the weekend and several people were arrested when an out-of-control party turned into a violent melee, officials said.
Officers responding to an apartment on Westford Street for noise complaints issued a warning to partygoers on two occasions but had to return to the home for a third time when orders to quiet down went ignored.
Charlie Mith, 23, threatened one officer, threw a punch at him and shoved him down a flight of stairs, according to a police report.
“During the course of the altercation, Mr. Mith was also yelling, stating that he was going to kill police officers, screaming that over and over again,” Prosecutor Andrew Ineson said.
One officer could be heard frantically calling for backup as things escalated at 23-year-old Charles Kong’s birthday celebration.
“Send more units to Westford Street. Tell them to hurry up! We need taser deployment,” an officer said as he radioed in for help.
Mith was tased and taken into custody. Kong was also arrested, along with 22-year-old Tevin Siriouthay, 22-year-old Anthony Guerra and 28-year-old Michelle Meak, the police report indicated.
Empty beers cans and liquor bottles were left scattered all over the property.
“Everybody likes to have a party once in a while but you have to stay within the parameters. If it gets loud, you have to take it down. If they tell you to knock it off, you knock it off. You don’t turn it into a big brawl,” neighbor Jerry Ryan said.
All five individuals have since been released from custody. They are due back in court at a later date.
(Copyright (c) 2019 CNN. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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Home / Neighborhoods / Latham
Latham in Colonie, NY
Far enough from the bustling city of Albany to enjoy a peaceful suburban lifestyle, but close enough to live the excitement of a big city for a while, Latham is perfectly situated for anyone who likes to visit the big city, but also value peace and quiet. Latham is also well-known for the quality of its schooling system, making the area a great place to raise a family.
Real Estate in Latham
The cozy hamlet of Latham is home to typical suburban housing and spacing, with range from Capes to Victorians, and areas with houses in close contact for a neighborly feel and other areas with large yards and tree barriers for a sense of privacy.
Commercial property is also available, especially on the well-traveled route of Troy Schenectady Road, where most Latham locals go to find everything they need.
Latham architecture varies by price and location, but is typical of most suburban cities. A-frames, Capes, Victorians and Tudors are popular in the area.
The hamlet of Latham is near Albany Airport, close to Crossgates Mall, and is home to the Latham Circle Mall, one of the oldest indoor shopping areas in the U.S. It is almost exactly due north of Albany, and is located in the town of Colonie.
For more information, visit the Town of Colonie website (includes Latham).
More Albany Neighborhoods »
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Flash art, 2010
Flash art, 2010 / Interview by Luciano Marucci, published in Flash Art, July 2010
Paiting and Sculptire in Physical Cultural Emotional Spaces
Luciano Marucci: In revisiting your artistic career we deduce that your current production has become more open and complex, although it remains firmly subjective.
Alfredo Pirri: Subjectivity and openness aren’t completely in contrast; an attunement of the two allows me to speak to others from an individual and locatable position through the work. This is an open gesture, a generous one; an offer with no safety net… the work projects itself towards the eyes of those who watch, it travels towards them to create a complex relationship. In my work I’ve always realised how necessary, and at the same time how hard, that balance is. I think the artist – at least in my view – runs after his own work, he follows is as it moves from one extreme to another: from the large to the small, from the private to the public; its path is real, it isn’t metaphorical. In moving, the artist takes with him a portion of one side and pours it into the other, attempting to homogenise something which is different, by nature. This toing and froing creates a dynamic and harmonic tension which gives the work its very life… my work happens in this movement.
LM: The spatio temporal and ideal expansion also points to a will to ‘expose’ thought, through words and through writing in order to make it become part of the work.
AP: Writing and talking aren’t integral parts of the work. If anything, we could say that the work produces words within us. Through words we attempt to give shape to a rituality and to a community which we want understanding and caregiving. Through the work, day by day, we build up our vocabulary: without the work there would be no vocabulary, one generates the other, but the act of speaking never comes close to the act of making, in fact it tends to keep itself at a distance from it; in the best cases, it is so distant that from its place words wouldn’t suffice to describe it. I myself feel authorised to talk about my work to prove that I have a distance from it, from the pieces which result from these processes. If I owned the work competely and integrally, showing the work to the world in a perfect symbiosis with words, there would no longer be a reason for the work to exist. The true aim of words is to give musical shape to the distance which separates us from the work, letting us hear the melody of that distance.
LM: In your constant experimentation you follow a para-scientific method, which combines traditional and more evolved techniques. Do you think this engenders new creative possibilities?
AP: All techiques are based on the necessity of reaching a certain result, the result for which they were initially developed, and it’s normal to mix techniques in order to obtain a certain result. It’s the principle of every composition. Earlier, I was speaking about the necessary complexity for a work to take shape: this complexity isn’t only about a way of working, but also about a way of knowing which allows for a synthetic work of art to appear. This is my method, it’s what I’m interested in; I’m not that interested, on the other hand, in finding the new. I’d like my work to be unoriginal, something to be gazed upon with simplicity and immediacy.
LM: This circular activity, which passes through behaviour, construction, communication, is undoubtedly to be applauded. But doesn’t organicity run the risk of limiting innovation, or the exploration of other themes?
AP: The organicity (as well as the organism) of a work of art is a result which completely outweighs the sum of behaviour, construction, communication. Its quality isn’t determined by the life of its author, by the way it’s made, by the language it speaks. Its body is unstable, subject to change; it is modelled according to how it’s held in a given moment. It’s like holding a baloon tight in your hands: the air you compress on the one side always appears on the other. The part in excess, the one whose formation we hadn’t predicted, is the part which wanders off in search of new forms, of different meaning…
LM: Isn’t instability in contrast with the search for an equilibrium?
AP: An equilibrium is the result of a continuous movement, of a set of uncertain steps; we shouldn’t see it as still. After all, a tightrope walker who stays still for too long eventually falls off.
LM: The reccurring projectuality, the use of extrapictorial materials, compositional accuracy, and starkness of the work make me think of a common ground with design…
AP: Design is based on such a dangerous balance… it offers us the choice between a useful object and pointlessly playful one. In my work, project and materials disappear into the piece, they no longer affirm anything about their presence, they don’t wish to attract or seduce, or to seem useful or useless.
LM: Recently, are you thinking more of institutional spaces? And are you particularly interested in religious spaces? Does the artefact aim to transcend, apart from interacting with with physical and cultural, historical or modern space?
AP: I’m interested in the shape and in the narrative charge of these places, in how they attract us to the point of embracing us… and then leave us lonely. I’m not only talking about religious spaces, but of all choral space: the square, the museum, the historic site… spaces where the collective and the public merge with the individual. Places that form alliances and disaporas at the same time. The pieces I develop for these places combine these opposed aspects, producing a narrative which is fragmented but evocative of stories. I like to think that the same thing happens in smaller or more private, more intimate spaces… Maybe the work always turns a space into something undefined which belongs to everyone’s memory and history.
LM: Could we see these projects of yours as extensions of painting and of sculpture into space, aimed at a simultaneous vision?
AP: I think any project that works offers that, an ample and simultaneous vision capable of holding together distant times and places: the big and the small, the past and the future.
LM: Visual arts need other constitutive elements to define and transmit its identity.
AP: Of all arts, it’s those we call visual which pose the questions first, while other art forms tend to arrive later. It’s the only true avantgarde, maybe because it doesn’t have the influence of temporality… that’s its privilege, and its curse. Its primacy is develped in linguistic and social microscopic folds, where its diapason is prepared, and which eventually attunes the other arts and taste in general. Sometimes, though, reality ferociously anticipates its visions, and the avantgarde becomes terrorism… This is what often happens: reality hijacks the space of art, displaying all of its destrictive clumsiness… I don’t mean art should self-generate, but I do think it can be characterised by something atemporal: not outside of human time but in constant opposition to historical time. Art is a well, a sort of black hole within which all disciplines precipitate, and from which they reappear in a renewed form. And naturally, it has its genesis in a relationality to everything else; my work is also like that, just that for me the best art happens when it forgets its origins, when it shows itself unbound to all the facts, images, phaenomea which pointed it to this or that solution.
LM: What are the most functional contaminations, in your work?
AP: I’ve spoken elsewhere of a performative aspect of my work; by this I mean something which comes from the work but which is diffused into space and invades it, not something real, or something concerned with time – an opening up of perception which is at the same time theatre, architecture, narration… a completely imaginary dimension which keeps the work immobile yet in motion for the viewer’s gaze. Even when I work in real space, I want it to come across as if it were representational, rather than physical, space; spaces which are also transformed by the spectator, whose presence or movement alters the image. I’m interested in creating the living impression of being inside an image, but not of being still inside it: rather, giving the sense that the spectator enters into a struggle with the image’s essential solitude, and with the contaminations which generated it. My work takes shape in a friction, between a bastard knowledge on the one hand and, on the other, a feeling of belonging to the specificity of art, to its legitimate and direct filiation.
LM: Do you frequent artists many in Rome?
AP: Meetings happen when the right places for meeting exist, and these no longer exist, or not yet. Frequentation, amongst artists or amongst anyone, happens when you share facts and ideas, and these are no longer meeting grounds, but grounds of mere exchange. So now frequantations have become singular, and the sharing of ideas has become a sharing of information…
LM: Do you spend time mostly with intellectuals and experts, to better your knowledge?
AP: I try not to frequent experts of any category or discipline; specialists bore me. Whereas I happily spend time with open people who don’t use their knowledge to offend, but who offer their knowledge to you like a headily scented flower.
LM: Do you have an ideological relationship with the everyday?
AP: When I was a student I was an anarchist, and I was fascinated by the writings of the Situationists. I fondly remember Raoul Vaneigem’s Traité de savoir-vivre à l’usage des jeunes générations. I have never given up on the idea that ideology is constructed every day, rather than once and for all.
LM: Do you think the work of art (which is generally meant for an élite) has the power to modify the perception of the world?
AP: I think the destiny of the work of art is to become an integral part of a people, to offer a people a form, a way, an imagination. More precisely, I think the pathway of the work of art and the pathway of a people run parallel, and that as such, they’re destined to meet at the point of infinity, where the dream of art and the popular dream will finally come together.
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Danica Patrick waves as she's introduced before the start of the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, in Indianapolis Sunday, May 27, 2018. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Danica Patrick ends racing career with crash at Indy 500
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Danica Patrick trudged out of the infield care center with her head down, mirrored sunglasses covering the disappointment in her eyes.
There was no hiding it in her voice.
"It was definitely not the way that I wanted it to end," she said softly.
The 36-year-old Patrick crashed out of the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, ending her racing career at the track that made her famous. She lost traction on a slippery surface, spun as she exited Turn 2 and then slammed into two walls before coming to a stop.
She finished 30th, her lowest spot in eight starts at "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing."
"Definitely not a great ending," she said. "But I kind of said before I came here that I feel like if it's a complete disaster — complete like as if not in the ballpark at all, look silly — then people might remember that. If I win, people will remember that.
"But probably anything in between might just be a little part of a big story, so I kind of feel like that's how it is, you know."
The big story, of course, is her place in racing history. The former NASCAR star is the only female driver to lead laps in the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500, creating a strong brand and becoming a role model for little girls everywhere.
She decided last season to end her racing career and start the next chapter of her life. She created the "Danica Double" as a farewell tour, running one final time in the Daytona 500 and the Indy 500.
She also crashed at Daytona in February and finished 35th. She spent the last few months getting re-acclimated to an Indy car after a seven-year hiatus and looked like a contender while qualifying seventh.
The final stop was a celebratory send-off that included dozens of family, friends and photographers following her every move before the finale.
Patrick stood stoically behind her bright green race car during pre-race pageantry, with boyfriend and Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, her parents and sister by her side. Patrick's face was glistening, sweat rolling down her back in near-record-breaking heat. A crewmember quickly turned on a small, powerful fan. Patrick's hair started blowing in the wind, turning her pose into an impromptu photo-shoot — likely her last one in a firesuit.
"I was definitely nervous," she said. "I had all my people around me, so I was in good spirits."
Just before the singing of the national anthem, with the crowd as quiet as it would be all day, one fan screamed from the grandstands, "Let's go Danica!" She smiled, turned and waved.
After the anthem, she hugged her parents and sister and then got a long embrace from Rodgers. He whispered in her right ear, gave her a kiss and then smacked her on the butt as she maneuvered to get her helmet on and slide into the cockpit. Rodgers headed upstairs to watch the race from a luxury suite.
Patrick dropped several spots shortly after the green flag, battling an ill-handling Chevrolet for Ed Carpenter Racing. She was the first driver to make a pit stop in hopes of making a few changes.
She was running in the middle of the field on Lap 68 when she spun sideways, hit the outside wall and then caromed across the track and into an inside barrier. She was evaluated at the care center and released.
She answered a few questions outside the building and then got a golf cart ride for another media session. The final news conference of her racing career came with a hiccup. The television broadcast got piped over loudspeakers as she was trying to talk.
"Take my mic away," she said, only half-joking. "I'll leave. I don't even want to be here because I'm pretty sad."
Patrick was a polarizing figure in racing, and that increased exponentially when she moved from IndyCar to NASCAR beginning in 2010. She struggled to run up front despite driving for a powerhouse Stewart-Haas Racing team much of her career, and she wound up with just seven top-10 finishes in five full seasons.
Still, she is respected and, in some cases, revered at Indianapolis, where fans remember her leading the 2009 race before finishing third. She was surrounded by autograph-seekers all month, and she got one of the loudest ovations during driver introductions Sunday.
Patrick said earlier this week she had no regrets about her career, and that she doesn't think she will have the itch to come back. Instead, she plans to spend time on her burgeoning business empire and with Rodgers.
"I'm very grateful for everybody and for being able to finish it up like I wanted to," she said. "It still was a lot of great memories this month, a lot of great moments this year."
More AP auto racing: https://racing.ap.org
NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series
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The End Times For Beginners
Welcome to the course!
The Goal: removing confusion and fear (7:05)
Important terms and motifs in the End Times Scriptures (10:55)
The End Times in the Gospels
Matthew 16, 24 and 25 (33:37)
Mark 8 and 13 (20:58)
Luke 17 and 21 (21:06)
John 6 and 11 (16:16)
Acts 1 and 3 (11:36)
The End Times in Paul's Letters
1 Corinthians 15 (14:32)
1 Thessalonians 4 and 5 (12:56)
1 Timothy 4 (7:08)
The End Times in the Letters of Peter, John and Jude
2 Peter 3 (16:02)
1 and 2 John (14:02)
Jude (13:39)
The End Times in the Old Testament Prophets
Balaam: First Prophet to see the End Times - Num. 24 (13:12)
Psalms - The King is coming to reign on David's Throne: Psalm 2, 24, 72, 90, 91 and 110 (35:16)
Isaiah: The Day of Vengeance - Isa. 2, 10, 11, 13, 14, 61 and 63 (38:03)
Jeremiah: Jacob's Trouble - Jer. 23 and 30 (10:56)
Ezekiel: Israel Returns, Gog/Magog, Millennial Temple - Ezek. 37-48 (43:12)
Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Zephaniah: Jesus comes to judge the surrounding nations (27:30)
Micah and Nahum: The Assyrian is the Antichrist (9:34)
Habakkuk: Mystery Babylon and the return of Jesus (10:44)
Zechariah: 4 Horsemen, 2 Witnesses, Great Tribulation and return of Jesus (37:41)
Malachi: Unity of the Saints, Elijah to come before Jesus Returns (14:41)
Daniel gets his own section... (0:54)
Daniel: Key to the End Times
Sealed until the time of the end (11:39)
Jesus quoted Daniel twice as End Time signs (10:07)
3 Kingdoms mentioned over and over: Dan. 2, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11 (15:46)
Babylon is Iraq/Syria (5:33)
Persia is Iran (4:35)
Javan is Turkey (5:57)
Last Kingdom is future to all the Prophets, hence the mystery (6:30)
Chapter 7: The 4 End Time Beast Kingdoms (28:43)
Chapter 8: End Time battle of the Ram vs the Goat (28:15)
Chapter 9: Master Prophecy of the Temple in Jerusalem and Jesus the Messiah (31:20)
Chapter 10: Behind the Veil: Principalities revealed (22:10)
Chapter 11: End Time wars: King of the North (the Assyrian) vs King of the South (Egypt) (41:22)
Chapter 12: final Destiny of the Saints and the timeline of the last 7 years (13:56)
The Revelation...of Jesus Christ (22:45)
The Revelation of Jesus IS the 2nd Coming IS the Day of the Lord (19:19)
The Seals: overview of the entire End Times (53:14)
The Trumpets: Zooming in on the Tribulation (66:14)
The 2 Witnesses and the 3rd Temple (36:12)
Revelation 12 is the Master Template (47:48)
The Beast vs the Jews and the Church (54:23)
The Bowls: God's Wrath (43:33)
Mystery Babylon (47:02)
The return of Jesus and imprisonment of Satan (26:32)
The Messianic Kingdom, with and without evil (33:34)
The End of the End is just the Beginning... (31:06)
The Beast, the Antichrist and the False Prophet
The Beast from the Sea: a Kingdom/Empire (10:50)
The 7 Heads of the Beast and the 10 Horns on its Heads (20:30)
The modern nations that make up the Beast Kingdom (8:52)
The Beast from the Earth: the individual False Prophet. Satan's Enforcer (16:12)
The Little Horn: the Antichrist (16:18)
The Mark, Image and Number of the Beast (19:13)
Psalms - The King is coming to reign on David's Throne: Psalm 2, 24, 72, 90, 91 and 110
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Should Bo go?
Bo Pelini argues with the official during the Colorado game. Bruce Thorson-US PRESSWIRE
Top 6 reasons for Bo Pelini to go to Miami:
• Obviously, the weather is better. Albeit humid.
• He wouldn’t have to recruit that far outside of Dade County.
• More money.
• The fans there would appreciate his sideline behavior. The Miami chancellor wouldn’t chide him for it.
• He wouldn’t be the only game in town. They’ve got South Beach, the Dolphins, Lebron James and actual celebrities.
• The entire state’s mood isn’t dependent upon the success of his team.
Top 6 reasons to stay in Lincoln:
• Sellout crowds. Mind-boggling popularity.
• Better facilities, and you don’t have to drive in Miami traffic.
• Miami media won’t be as kind as Nebraska media. The Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel and Dan Lebitar won’t hesitate to tell it like it is.
• He can use this as leverage to get more money here.
• He is the celebrity here. (This could be a pro or con.)
• It would mean more to win a championship here.
I’ve seen the future of journalism
Quite simply, I’m stunned.
When I started this blog a couple of months ago, I didn’t know where I was headed or how I would get there.
I still don’t, actually.
But I’m amazed at all the people who are ready to help me get there. I’m also amazed at how many people have found me here in the blogosphere – it’s a weird Web world when one unpaid blogger can generate nearly the same amount of traffic on stories she generated while working for the only newspaper in town.
I know exactly how many hits my “top stories” drew while working for the Lincoln Journal Star, and I know how many hits my stories here are getting, and let me tell you this, we are almost at the same level already, just a few months in, with no advertising other than a couple of guest appearances on Jack & John’s radio show and a story in Buy Lincoln (with more to come).
The only place I’ve advertised is Facebook – and I’m now a believer in the power of social networking.
I’m also a believer in you, my readers, who have astounded me. So far, I’ve had a reader offer to sell ads for me – for free. I’ve had a reader offer to take photos for me – for free. I’ve had a reader offer to write stories from Washington, D.C., for me – for free. I’ve had prominent elected officials tell me “thank you” for writing these stories that would go untold.
But most of all, I’ve had readers interested enough to check out the blog every day. Truthfully, I didn’t know if anyone would be able to find the blog – but they have. Every day, more people are signing up for e-mail subscriptions, which alert them every time I post a blog. I haven’t started tweeting, but I’m thinking I probably should.
I’ve also been asked to be a regular guest on Fridays on KLIN’s Drive Time Live, talking about my blog and other blogs, which I will start doing today.
Now I think I understand why newspapers are cutting, cutting, cutting: If one unpaid blogger can scoop a newspaper with dozens of reporters, imagine what a full-fledged nonprofit news website could do? I’m a newspaper lover, but I hate the fact that we have to mow down forests full of trees to print papers every day. I look forward to the day when newspapers are mostly online – but I know online papers won’t be able to support the kind of staffing that is now paid for with print advertising.
I’ve always been of the opinion that the Brave New World of journalism won’t kill newspapers, but I believe eventually, newspapers will be all online, and there will be fewer reporters then.
It’s already happening. When I left my job, a colleague and friend told me about a content mill that I could write stories for. It’s called Demand Studios – and basically they pay like $7.50 to $30 per story. Go to journalismjobs.com and you’ll see these big ads for Demand Studios. There are still journalism jobs out there, too, but not as many, and Demand Studios and other content mills seem to have the money to buy the biggest ads.
But what’s different is Demand Studios is hiring freelance writers to write about topics readers have inquired about on sites like about.com and livestrong.com.
You go to this website where they’ve got thousands of story ideas, you pick one and write it up. It gets edited by another freelance copy editor, and if you do it according to their somewhat rigid style, you get paid. Quickly, into a Paypal account.
But they’re paying peanuts for these stories, and lots of out-of-work journalists are doing them.
This journalist who referred me to Demand Studios said he made about $30,000 in 18 months, just writing these stories on the side of his full-time job. I don’t know how in the world you could make that much money doing it, unless you’re writing a lot of them off the top of your head — which a lot of their writers seem to do.
I got approved to be a writer, but I’ll be damned if I could find a single story I wanted to write for them. They were the most obscure, weird stories I’ve ever seen. And if I ever felt like a person on an assembly line while working for a newspaper, this was worse. If only they could get a computer to write the stories for them – well, they’re getting close.
And yet, if you go to journalism websites looking for jobs, these are the biggest dogs out there hiring.
I’ve seen the future of journalism, and it is scary.
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Hasbro Consolidates Most of Its Global Media at OMD
MediaCom retains Latam
By Noreen O'Leary
Hasbro has consolidated the bulk of its global media business at OMD, which was the incumbent in 15 international markets, including Europe and China, sources said.
Among the new markets added by the Omnicom media agency is the U.S., which had previously been handled by Interpublic Group's Initiative. GroupM’s MediaCom, meanwhile, retained the toy maker’s business in Latin America, sources said.
Hasbro's annual media spending worldwide is estimated at $300-$350 million. In the U.S. alone last year, Hasbro spent nearly $100 million in media, according to Nielsen.
The media decision follows Hasbro’s shift of a sizable share of global creative business to WPP's Grey. In the media pitch, WPP offered a broader GroupM solution to the Pawtucket, Rhode Island company.
The agencies either did not return calls or referred calls to Hasbro, which could not immediately be reached.
http://adweek.it/17WgrEG
Monrovia Nursery Company
Azusa, California
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Powering the Gateway
HALIFAX – The port of Saint John and the Greater Moncton airport seem poised to be New Brunswick’s main contributions to an economic development plan that could pump thousands of job and billions of dollars into Atlantic Canada.
On Friday a report commissioned by the federal government stressed great potential in a so-called Atlantic Gateway initiative. The idea is to build the region as an entry and exit point for international commerce.
Stronger marketing and improvements to local infrastructure, it says, will increase the amount of goods that enter local sea and airports and then travel by rail and road to North American markets. Specifically, the report cites immense potential in growing container traffic from emerging economies in Asia. The key is to make the Atlantic provinces the key eastern access point for trade coming through the Suez Canal.
“The study clearly demonstrates that an Atlantic gateway would help strengthen the region’s economy and Canada’s position in international trade,” said Peter MacKay, the federal minister responsible the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
“The race is on to capture a growing share of the container trade coming from China, India and the Americas. We need to be better at marketing our assets and we need to be more efficient to win the race,” he told a luncheon crowd gathered in a packed downtown Halifax ballroom.
“Success means greater prosperity for Atlantic Canada through a more robust presence and increased participation in international commerce.”
According to the study, the economic boost of the gateway could, by 2025, produce 61,100 new jobs, $2.1 billion in wages and $3.4 billion in GDP growth. Yet most indicators, from the focus of MacKay’s speech to the opinion of local regional development experts, points to Nova Scotia, and specifically Halifax, as having the most to gain in direct benefits.
“New Brunswick is very much a secondary (area). That’s the message that has to get out here,” said Charles Cirtwill, acting president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, a Halifax-based think tank, following the announcement.
“This isn’t a question of does the main gateway go to the port of Saint John, because it simply will never happen,” Cirtwill said of Halifax’s all-but-declared status as the main peg. New Brunswick, he predicted, will be the beneficiary mainly of indirect spin-offs, particularly as goods make their way over land – to and from the Nova Scotia capital.
The role of Saint John, the province’s largest seaport, is still to be defined. But the report lists it as key to container traffic and boosting the number of cruise ships that visit the area.
Capt. Al Soppitt, the port’s president and CEO, hopes Saint John and Halifax can forge a strong partnership as the gateway is developed.
“Together we can form a powerful alliance. We’re both (working) under capacity,” he said in an interview. “I think there is opportunity for both.
“We’re going to make sure Saint John is a leader in this initiative.”
InterVISTAS Consulting Inc., the main firm behind the 144-page report, is now set to study the idea of a southern New Brunswick gateway, which will plug into the main project, Soppitt said. The report also discusses an expected boost in air travel and air cargo. Listed as the province’s major airport, the Moncton facility looks primed to be a second hub, behind Stanfield International in Halifax.
Rob Robichaud, the airport’s CEO, says he is pleased to see airports mentioned in the plan.
“It makes excellent sense that we would be considered a cargo gateway,” he said of site’s close proximity to road and rail and warehousing facilities.
“Not all communities will be, on day one, benefiting as much as (perhaps) Halifax,” he continued, “but as time progresses more communities will benefit.”
MacKay said specific funding amounts and exactly which communities and facilities should expect a cash windfall is all yet to be decided. In its last budget, the federal government allocated $2.1 billion for so-called for gateway projects – basically efforts to boost trade to and within Canada. A separate pot of $1 billion dollars has already been invested into gateway projects on the west coast.
Premier Shawn Graham could not comment directly on the report late Friday, having yet to receive a complete copy. He hopes some of the gateway money will be used to improve the province’s highways, which will serve as gateway arteries to the U.S.
Graham rarely refers to the Gateway project – in stark contrast to Nova Scotia’s Rodney MacDonald, one of the project’s main boosters. Still, Graham downplayed any slant toward Nova Scotia.
“I feel there is going to be a benefit here to the entire region,” he said.
By Atlantic Institute for Market Studies| 2007-10-06T00:00:00+00:00 October 6th, 2007|In the Media|Comments Off on Powering the Gateway
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Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues (Print ISSN: 1544-0036; Online ISSN: 1544-0044)
Exploring the Social Entrepreneurial Intentions of Senior High School and College Students in a Philippine University: A PLS-SEM Approach
Patrick Adriel H Aure, De La Salle University
This research explored the social entrepreneurial intentions (SEI) of senior high school and early college students through partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLSSEM). Anchored on the studies of Hockerts (2017) and Mair and Noboa (2006), this research extended their SEI conceptual model by examining grit (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews & Kelly, 2007), agreeableness (Donnellan, Oswald, Baird & Lucas, 2006), and prior exposure to social action programs as antecedents that are hypothesized to be mediated by empathy, moral obligation, social entrepreneurial self-efficacy and perceived social support. Findings showed that for all respondents, the relationship of SEI with agreeableness are mediated by empathy, self-efficacy and perceived social support. Self-efficacy and social support mediated grit and SEI. To determine the difference between the drivers of SEI among senior high school and early college students, multigroup analysis was conducted. This study is relevant for proposing policies, regulations, and interventions that specifically target nascent social entrepreneurs at the early stages of their student lives.
Social Entrepreneurial Intentions, Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling, Grit, Agreeableness
Over the years, social entrepreneurship has continued to garner attention in scholarship and practice. Although much has been written about how organizations and entrepreneurs can utilize business practices to solve society’s problems (Dees, 2012; Mair, Robinson & Hockerts, 2006), conceptualizations and definitions of the term still vary. Dees (2001) has been cited among various authors as one of the pioneers of social entrepreneurship as a field of study. He characterized social entrepreneurs as pursuing social value instead of focusing on commercial value, harnessing opportunities that serve mission and advocacies, engaging in innovation, acting bold despite limited sources, and shows accountability to the stakeholders and beneficiaries served for the initiatives pursued. Although social entrepreneurs are becoming recognized across the global, regional, and national levels, there is still much to be done to increase these changemakers. In a special report released by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (Bosma, Schott, Terjesen & Kew, 2015), social entrepreneurs who are involved in starting up their social enterprises is 3.2% among 58 GEM economies, while commercial entrepreneurial activity averages around 7.6% globally. Current social entrepreneurs who are already leading and operating their own social entrepreneurial initiatives are around 3.7%. Most of the social entrepreneurial activities are associated with the young demographic, specifically 18-to-34-year-olds. Despite the visibility and recognition of social entrepreneurship at the global scale, there is still much to be done to increase the number social entrepreneurs across different countries. Given the role of social entrepreneurs in solving various problems, it is important to study what factors drive a person’s intention to engage in social entrepreneurial activities. The studies of Ayob, Yap, Sapuan & Rashid (2013), Chipeta and Surujlal (2016), Hockerts (2017), Politis, Ketikidis & Diamantidis (2016) and Prieto (2011), targeted undergraduate or postgraduate students, given that these respondents are more predisposed to think about their careers after education. In effect, most of these papers’ recommendations for policies are catered to students who are more career-oriented already.
One of the objectives of this paper is to test the SEI model of Hockerts (2017), which was grounded on the ideas of Mair and Noboa (2006) and the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). The first research question is: What is the significance and extent of effect of the predictors-prior experience, empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy, and perceived social support-on SEI? Another objective of the paper is to explore what variables can extend the SEI model. Certain dimensions of personality represented by the Big Five model, such as openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism are posited to have an influence on social entrepreneurial intentions (İrengün & Arıkboğa, 2015; Nga & Shamuganathan, 2010). Moreover, Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews & Kelly (2007), mentioned that grit is associated with personality traits. Specifically, their study found a correlation between grit and conscientiousness. Given the other studies’ findings that conscientiousness could have an influence on intention, it is interesting to explore whether grit also has an effect on SEI. Exploring these extensions of the SEI model is suitable for PLS-SEM (Hair, Hult, Ringle & Sarstedt, 2014; Lowry & Gaskin, 2014). Furthermore, another variable that this paper examined is a student’s prior exposure to social action programs such as school-driven outreach initiatives. As theorized by Ajzen, these variables can be considered as background factors or antecedents that are mediated by the main predictors of intention. Therefore, the second research question is: What is the significance and extent of effect of agreeableness, grit, and prior exposure to social action programs on SEI, as mediated by empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy, and perceived social support?
The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) is the theoretical foundation for understanding intentions (Ajzen, 1991 & 2015; Miles, 2012). The theory surmises that an individual’s intentions best explain and predict one’s behaviour, with the following assumptions: (1) people behave in a systematic and rational manner; (2) actions are steered by conscious motives; and (3) individuals contemplate on the possible repercussions of actions before deciding to act. The TPB has been refined in various ways within the context of entrepreneurship (Kautonen, van-Gelderen & Fink, 2015; Liñán & Fayolle, 2015; Miles, 2012; Schlaegel & Koenig, 2014), as well as social entrepreneurial intentions (Ayob, Yap, Sapuan & Rashid, 2013; Bacq, Hartog & Hoogendoorn, 2016; Cavazos-Arroyo, Puente-Diaz & Agarwal, 2016; Chipeta & Surujlal, 2016; Forster & Grichnik, 2013; Griffiths, Gundry & Kickul, 2013; Hockerts, 2015 & 2017; Mair & Noboa, 2006; Politis, Ketikidis & Diamantidis, 2016; Prieto, Phipps & Friedrich, 2012; Rantanen & Toikko, 2013; Smith & Woodworth, 2012; Tiwari, Bhat & Tikoria, 2017; Urban & Teise, 2015; Yiu, Wan, Ng, Chen & Su, 2014; Zeng, Zheng & Lee, 2015). Mair and Noboa identified (1) empathy as a proxy for attitudes towards behaviour, (2) moral judgement as a proxy for social norms, (3) self-efficacy as a proxy for internal behavioural control, and (4) perceived presence of social support as a proxy for external behavioural control. Various researchers have also determined that personality, especially the Big Five dimensions (Baldasaro, Shanahan & Bauer, 2013; Cooper, Smillie & Corr, 2010; Donnellan, Oswald, Baird & Lucas, 2006; Goldberg, 1992), have an effect on commercial and social entrepreneurial intentions (Chlosta, Patzelt, Klein & Dormann, 2012; İrengün & Arıkboğa, 2015; Nga & Shamuganathan, 2010; Prieto, 2011; Wood, 2012). For this study, the Big Five dimensions were used as possible background factors that could influence SEI. In addition, grit was added as possible background characteristic that could have an influence on intention as well. However, instead of directly linking these variables with intention, this study followed the theory espoused by Ajzen (1991 & 2015), wherein background factors are considered as antecedents. As such, these background factors are mediated by the main TPB predictors in terms of their relationship with intention. Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework that this particular study tried to test through structural equation modelling. Following the model advanced by Ajzen (1991 & 2015), grit, prior experience, prior exposure to social action programs, and the five personality traits were considered as background factors. Empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy, and perceived social support, which were posited by Hockerts (2017) and Mair and Noboa (2006) as proxies for TPB predictors, were considered the main influencers of SEI. All indicators were considered reflective, and they were derived based on existing scales (Donnellan, Oswald, Baird & Lucas, 2006; Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews & Kelly, 2007; Hockerts, 2015).
Figure 1: Proposed Extended Model Of Social Entrepreneurial Intentions
Hockerts found out that prior experience has a significant positive influence on social entrepreneurial intent. Furthermore, Hockerts also examined that the relationship between prior experience and social entrepreneurial intentions can be mediated by empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy and perceived social support.
H1-1a Prior experience has a direct positive influence on social entrepreneurial intent.
H1-1b Prior experience, mediated by empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy and social support, has significant positive indirect influence on intention.
The theory of Mair and Noboa, as tested by Hockerts, posited that empathy, defined as an emotional response of concern and concern caused by seeing someone else in need, has a positive relationship with social entrepreneurial intentions. Moral obligation (characterized by the perception that societal norms imply a responsibility to help marginalized people), self-efficacy (person’s belief that individuals can contribute towards solving societal problems), and social support (perceived support an individual expects to receive from her or his surrounding) were also posited to positively influence intention.
H1-2 Empathy has a significant positive influence on social entrepreneurial intent.
H1-3 Moral obligation has a significant positive influence on social entrepreneurial intent.
H1-4 Self-efficacy has a significant positive influence on social entrepreneurial intent.
H1-5 Perceived social support has a significant positive influence on social entrepreneurial intent.
The findings of various authors showed that among the Big Five personality traits, agreeableness has the strongest statistically significant relationship with intentions. However, when agreeableness and the aforementioned predictors are regressed using a forced-entry model, agreeableness lost its predictive power. Moreover, Ajzen (1991 & 2015) suggested that in accordance with TPB, personality and a person’s characteristics should be considered as background factors mediated by TPB variables.
H2 The big five personality traits, mediated by empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy, and social support, have significant positive indirect influence on social entrepreneurial intent.
Personality, which can be represented by the psychometrically validated Big Five model, are hypothesized by various authors to have an influence on social entrepreneurial intentions (İrengün & Arıkboğa, 2015; Nga & Shamuganathan, 2010). In addition, Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews & Kelly, (2007) mentioned that grit is associated with personality traits, especially conscientiousness, although psychometric tests revealed that grit measures a different characteristic compared to the Big Five personality traits. Therefore, it is interesting to explore whether grit also has an effect on SEI.
H3 Grit, mediated by empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy, and social support, has a significant positive indirect influence on social entrepreneurial intent.
In addition, this particular study posited that similar to prior experience in terms of involvement with social organizations and solving social problems, a students’ exposure to social action programs may have an indirect effect on one’s social entrepreneurial intention. The researchers decided to keep the element of prior exposure to social action program different from the construct of prior experience to preserve the scales advocated by Hockerts (2017). Moreover, this construct is more context-specific to students in the Philippine university studied in this paper due to the abundance of outreach and social action programs they can choose to participate in.
H4-1 Prior exposure to social action programs, mediated by empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy, and social support, has a significant positive indirect influence on social entrepreneurial intent.
H4-2 Prior exposure to social action programs, mediated by moral obligation, has a significant positive influence on social entrepreneurial intent.
H4-3 Prior exposure to social action programs, mediated by self-efficacy, has a significant positive influence on social entrepreneurial intent.
H4-4 Prior exposure to social action programs, mediated by perceived social support, has a significant positive influence on social entrepreneurial intent.
This study is set in a Philippine private business college, which is perceived as one of the best business schools in the country and a signatory of the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) advocated by the United Nations. The university aims to develop future business leaders that can reconcile making profits with serving society, especially the poor and marginalized. The university is seen as a potential breeding ground of future social entrepreneurs and is ripe for a study exploring what drives its business students’ social entrepreneurial intentions. The research design primarily used the survey method, featuring established questions from various authors (Donnellan, Oswald, Baird & Lucas, 2006; Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews & Kelly, 2007; Hockerts, 2017). The Likert scales used ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), except for the question on prior exposure to social action programs, which was measured in a binary manner (0 for no, 1 for yes). As a tool for analysis, partial least squares structural equation modeling was employed as recommended by Hair, Hult, Ringle & Sarstedt (2014) and Lowry and Gaskin (2014). Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is recommended when the data does not follow a normal distribution and when the relationships contain multiple mediating relationships (Hair, Hult, Ringle & Sarstedt, 2014; Lowry & Gaskin, 2014). The sample size was computed based on the recommendations of Hair, Hult, Ringle & Sarstedt, (2014). With the maximum number of arrows pointing at a construct (in this case, the posited mediating variables) equaling to 8, setting the significance level to 0.05, a statistical power of 80%, and minimum R2 of 0.25, the recommended minimum sample size is 84. This study was able to gather data from 270 respondents, which is above the recommended minimum. Furthermore, there were 153 college students and 117 senior high school students that responded. Thus, both groups have sufficient sample size suitable for multigroup analysis. The data was gathered through Google Forms. This research utilized purposive sampling, targeting senior high school and undergraduate business students of a private business school. Senior high school and undergraduate students are one of the most important stakeholders in terms of understanding predisposition to social entrepreneurial initiatives, given how educators and policy-makers can design programs for their learning-showing how understanding their intentions are critical for unearthing insights (Ayob, Yap, Sapuan & Rashid, 2013; Chipeta & Surujlal, 2016; İrengün & Arıkboğa, 2015; Prieto, 2011; Tiwari, Bhat & Tikoria, 2017).
To perform PLS-SEM, the SmartPLS 3.0 (Ringle, Wende & Becker, 2015) software was utilized. All latent variables were considered to have reflective indicators. Factor analyses, tests of construct validity and reliability, tests for discriminant validity, tests for multicollinearity, and model fit were all performed in SmartPLS 3.0, as guided by Hair, Hult, Ringle & Sarstedt, (2014) and Lowry and Gaskin (2014). The usual PLS algorithm method and bootstrapping (J = 10,000) were employed as suggested by Ringle, Wende & Becker, (2015). As recommended by Kock (2014), this study utilized one-tailed p-value tests of significance since the a priori hypotheses inferred on the direction and signs of the variables relationships, which is backed by prior research.
Discussion of Results
This study was able to gather data from 270 respondents. There were 153 college students and 117 senior high school students that responded. The variables were measured through indicators established by various researchers. The personality questions were lifted from the Mini-IPIP (Donnellan, Oswald, Baird & Lucas, 2006). Grit questions came from the scale created by Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews & Kelly, (2007). Scales about the prior experience, empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy, and social support were sourced from the study of Hockerts (2017). The question on prior exposure to social action program was asked as a Yes/No question. Statistical tests were used to assess the construct reliability and validity of the variables in the model. The values indicated acceptable levels of Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability which is a > 0.60 (Lowry & Gaskin, 2014), except for conscientiousness, which had a poor rating for Cronbach’s Alpha. To remedy this, future research should explore including more questions about conscientiousness and personality traits in general to increase validity; although for conscientiousness, its composite reliability is acceptable. On the other hand, the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) was acceptable since no value was below 0.50.
To assess discriminant validity, cross-loadings of the questions were examined through factor analysis conducted in PLS-SEM. Indicators or questions pertaining to grit and agreeableness were removed until cross-loadings were deemed acceptable. Lowry and Gaskin (2014) proposed that the difference between the main values and cross-loaded values should not exceed 0.20. The final cross-loadings matrix showed that there are no significant cross-loadings of the indicators on other latent variables. To test for multicollinearity, it is essential to look at variance inflation factors of the indicators (VIF). All VIFs were less than 10.00 (or conservatively, less than 4.00), hence there was no significant multicollinearity among the indicators. To further assess discriminant validity, it is also important to satisfy the Fornell-Larcker criterion, wherein the square root of the average variance extracted (AVE) of each latent variable should be higher than their respective correlation coefficients with other latent variables. The Fornell-Larcker criterion was satisfied by the model. Since the tests for reliability, validity, and multicollinearity were satisfied, the structural model and its paths can be analysed with greater confidence. The following Table 1 features path estimates and p-values, which was the result of the PLS algorithm and bootstrapping (J=10,000) procedure performed through SmartPLS 3.0, as recommended by Hair, Hult, Ringle & Sarstedt, (2014) and Lowry and Gaskin (2014).
Results Of The Pls Algorithm Bootstrapping And Multigroup Analysis
Paths Path Estimates (All) p-Values (All) Path Estimates (College) p-Values (College) Path Estimates (Senior High) p-Values (Senior High)
Agreeableness->Empathy 0.485 0.000* 0.527 0.000* 0.482 0.000*
Agreeableness->Moral Obligation 0.281 0.000* 0.255 0.001* 0.343 0.000*
Agreeableness->Self-Efficacy 0.328 0.000* 0.356 0.000* 0.379 0.000*
Agreeableness->Social Support 0.257 0.000* 0.300 0.000* 0.304 0.002*
Conscientiousness->Empathy -0.046 0.318 0.039 0.376 -0.003 0.488
Conscientiousness->
Moral Obligation -0.050 0.277 0.038 0.389 -0.053 0.286
Conscientiousness->Self-Efficacy 0.004 0.475 -0.083 0.215 0.148 0.046*
Conscientiousness->Social Support -0.073 0.159 -0.088 0.376 -0.079 0.488
Empathy->Intent 0.188 0.003* 0.005 0.477 0.391 0.000*
Extraversion->Empathy -0.015 0.406 0.049 0.270 -0.052 0.295
Extraversion->Moral Obligation 0.017 0.398 0.063 0.229 -0.019 0.424
Extraversion->Self-Efficacy 0.039 0.251 0.018 0.400 0.078 0.169
Extraversion->Social Support 0.109 0.030* 0.074 0.154 0.198 0.017*
Grit->Empathy 0.074 0.137 0.060 0.225 -0.004 0.483
Grit->Moral Obligation 0.244 0.001* 0.270 0.001* 0.278 0.001*
Grit->Self-Efficacy 0.229 0.000* 0.287 0.000* 0.265 0.002*
Grit->Social Support 0.187 0.002* 0.225 0.000* 0.142 0.074
Moral Obligation->Intent 0.002 0.491 -0.009 0.466 -0.069 0.281
Neuroticism->Empathy 0.168 0.003* 0.088 0.185 0.257 0.001*
Neuroticism->Moral Obligation 0.005 0.470 -0.037 0.357 0.011 0.453
Neuroticism->Self-Efficacy 0.007 0.452 0.005 0.479 0.003 0.487
Neuroticism->Social Support 0.009 0.438 0.013 0.452 -0.007 0.472
Openness->Empathy 0.010 0.439 -0.032 0.365 0.039 0.329
Openness->Moral Obligation 0.072 0.122 0.018 0.420 0.213 0.009*
Openness->Self-Efficacy 0.116 0.028* -0.020 0.405 0.321 0.000*
Openness->Social Support 0.128 0.018* 0.126 0.092 0.227 0.007*
Prior Exp->Empathy 0.143 0.010* 0.125 0.067 0.235 0.003*
Prior Exp->Intent 0.191 0.000* 0.227 0.000* 0.148 0.016*
Prior Exp->Moral Obligation 0.081 0.144 0.120 0.119 0.027 0.393
Prior Exp->Self-Efficacy 0.035 0.300 0.164 0.023* -0.139 0.071
Prior Exp->Social Support 0.120 0.039* 0.245 0.001* 0.013 0.459
Prior SAP->Empathy 0.055 0.146 -0.006 0.468 0.146 0.034*
Prior SAP->Moral Obligation 0.016 0.384 -0.064 0.176 0.143 0.046*
Prior SAP->Self-Efficacy 0.037 0.246 -0.039 0.281 0.154 0.033*
Prior SAP->Social Support 0.003 0.482 -0.043 0.256 0.070 0.222
Self-Efficacy->Intent 0.388 0.000* 0.418 0.000* 0.413 0.000*
Social Support->Intent 0.127 0.024* 0.198 0.011* 0.117 0.097
The first set of hypotheses (H1) tested the findings of Hockerts (2017) anchored on the proposed model of Mair and Noboa (2006). The results of the path analysis revealed that prior experience has a statistically significant positive influence on empathy, social support, and intention. Empathy, self-efficacy and perceived social support have a statistically significant positive influence on intentions, as expected. However, moral obligation did not predict intention. In this case, only empathy and social support partially mediated the relationship between prior experience and intention. As such, the results of the PLS algorithm and bootstrapping only partially validated the findings of Hockerts. The second set of hypotheses (H2) tested the relationship of personality with empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy, social support, and intention. The results of the tests revealed that agreeableness positively influenced all the aforementioned predictors. A look at the total indirect effect of agreeableness on intention revealed a statistically significant relationship (b=0.268, p<0.001). In terms of the specific indirect effects, self-efficacy (b=0.138, p<0.001), self-efficacy (b=0.138, p<0.001) and social support (b=0.037, p=0.034) fully mediated the relationship between agreeableness and intention. Furthermore, extraversion positively influenced social support, but the total effects indicated that social support did not facilitate mediation between extraversion and intent (p=0.221). Neuroticism positively influenced empathy, although no mediation happened in terms of neuroticism’s total effect on intent (p=0.163). Openness positively influenced self-efficacy (specific indirect effect to intention: b=0.045, p=0.045) and social support (specific indirect effect to intention: b=0.016, p=0.086), and the total effects suggested that these two variables mediated openness and intent (p=0.042). The third set of hypotheses (H3) tested the relationship of grit with empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy, social support and intention. The results of the tests revealed that grit positively influenced moral obligation, self-efficacy, and social support with statistical significance. A look at the total indirect effect of grit on intention revealed a statistically significant relationship (b=0.132, p<0.001). In terms of specific indirect effects, self-efficacy (b=0.138, p<0.001) fully mediated the relationship between grit and intention. In addition, social support functions as a full mediator but only with a marginal statistical significance (b=0.026, p=0.061). The final set of hypotheses (H4) tested the relationship of prior exposure to social action programs with empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy, social support and intention. The results of the tests revealed that prior exposure to social action programs only affected empathy at a marginal statistical significance (b=0.075, p=0.074). Therefore, general to all respondents, prior exposure to social action programs were not mediated by the predictors with regards to its relationship with intention. The r-squared values of the model showed that the other latent variables explained 45.4% of the variance in social entrepreneurial intentions, which is acceptable in field of social science (Lowry & Gaskin, 2014).
Multigroup analysis (MGA) was conducted through SmartPLS. The MGA validated that for both groups, agreeableness positively influenced empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy and social support. Grit positively influenced moral obligation, self-efficacy and social support. Prior experience positively influenced empathy and intent. Self-efficacy and social support positively influenced intent. For the early college group, prior experience positively influenced social support. Social support also positively influenced intent-therefore, social support mediated partially mediated the relationship between prior experience and intention. On the other hand, for the senior high school group, empathy positively influenced intent. Prior exposure to social action programs positively influenced empathy, moral obligation and self-efficacy. Therefore, for senior high school students, empathy and self-efficacy fully mediated the relationship between prior exposure to social action programs and intention. Moreover, for the senior high school group, more personality dimensions influenced the TPB predictors. Openness influenced moral obligation, self-efficacy and social support. Extraversion influenced social support. Conscientiousness influenced self-efficacy. Neuroticism influenced empathy. As such, compared to the college group, personality played a bigger role in influencing SEI as background factors for the senior high school students.
Conclusions and Recommendations for Future Research
The results of the general PLS-SEM analysis and the multigroup analysis only partially validated the model of Hockerts. Overall, prior experience and self-efficacy were the best predictors of social entrepreneurial intention. The other variables in the model of Hockerts had various influences depending on the groups. Therefore, policy-makers should prioritize interventions and advocacy campaigns anchored on building the self-efficacies for both groups. These programs should be able to expose both groups to circumstances where they can solve social problems or be involved in managing social organizations. The succeeding research questions and hypotheses explored the role of grit and personality traits as background factors that affected intentions through mediators. For both groups, agreeableness positively influenced empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy and social support. For the total effect for both groups, agreeableness influenced intention as mediated by self-efficacy. For college students, social support also mediated the relationship between grit and intention. Specifically, for senior high school students, empathy mediated the relationship between agreeableness and intention. In terms of grit, its relationship with intention is mediated by self-efficacy. Moreover, personality traits such as conscientiousness and openness played a bigger role in influencing the main SEI predictors for senior high school students. Overall, policy-makers should cultivate an environment that fosters grit and agreeable personality traits-these are two background factors that affect intention as shown by the two groups. However, the interventions must be tailor fit to the groups. For example, early college student policies should encourage group learning given the significance of perceived social support; while for senior high school students, further exposure to social action, problems, and organizations can heighten empathy, which then influences intention. Generally, policy-makers and academic institutions can design development programs that expose students to managing and jumpstarting social enterprises side-by-side with mentorship, group learning and learn-by-doing mechanisms. Other background factors may be explored to have a better appreciation of the model.
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Tag: craft
Posted on November 30, 2017 March 28, 2019
Increasing Creativity and Entertainment
Minecraft for increasing creativity and entertainment
The saying that – all work and no play make you a boring person – is a fact. As a human being, you have to relax between your daily chores. Today, computer games have changed the concept of play. In video games, you enter and become the virtual protagonist of your game. To win, you have to develop your wit and acquire expertise to overcome your foes. Enter the world of Minecraft and be entertained to the fullest while increasing your creativity to the max.
The world of Minecraft
Minecraft is a sandbox construction game where you to place blocks and start your adventure. Players of the game use avatars to:
Make or wreck various types of blocks,
Create wonderful structures,
Make artwork, and
Do much more.
All activities are performed in an environment that is three-dimensional and over different and many player servers in multiple game modes. This computer game has three play modes: survival, creative, and hardcore.
You can go to the website for a user-friendly beginners guide to play the game.
Follow the game guide every step of the way. Here, you are instructed how to:
Download the game;
Create blocks into breathtaking structures;
Choose a platform for your game;
Play with other players;
Learn techniques to travel biomes;
Fend off monsters from destroying your structures;
To win the game, you have to defeat Ender Dragon; and
Share tips on playing carefully and using limited resources;
Observe the rules of the Game
Always use your common sense while in the game.
Be fair and make the activity a fun game for everyone.
Cheating or dishonesty is taboo; it has no place in the game.
Conduct of Warfare must be followed thoroughly.
Do not abuse game mechanics or plugins.
Every player has his own freedoms and rights that must be respected.
Observe properly the boundaries of the Chat Channels.
Respect the staff of the server, as well as everyone else.
Why Minecraft is the best game for you?
It is the safest venue to play accommodating up to 10 buddies.
In the world you have created, you are the boss. Play it your way!
It is a 24/7 game plan. It is always online.
It is an eco-saver. Only the owner of a Realm needs to pay – your friends get in for free!
More options as some platforms are offer pricing tiers and better deals.
Be part of the game
The video game was created by Swedish inventor Markus Alexei Persson founder of Mojang AB. Minecraft was made with inspiration from the best features of various video games. In a three-dimensional environment, players interact after placing and breaking various types of blocks. They could build structures, create blocks and do artwork. They could use single or multiplayer servers across multiple game modes. The cost is so competitive but the enjoyment of playing the game is above any price. Either single or multiplayer game modes can be purchased and played using the downloadable stand-alone launcher. Minecraft has reached 24 million sales.
You should not miss the chance to enter the World of Minecraft and make the most out of the game. For more information, go to https://www.acemanwolfmc.com
Minecraft is a sandbox game. This means that a set of open ends game, without a specific goal or constraining guidelines. There are different levels and types of play, adding to the open-ended aspect, and offering a level of flexibility, creativity, and choices not often seen in video games. This makes it a game that players and families of players, can easily be adapted to their interests, their interests and boundaries and styles of play. Game settings may vary from the completely calm creative mode, where all materials and supplies are at hand, and the players never die, in survival mode that can be set at different levels of difficulty. In survival, players must collect resources and craft their tools while still alive. There are several levels of difficulty to survive range completely peaceful (in other words, not monsters) difficulty levels, including a variety of monsters, or mobs, like spiders, skeletons, and zombies. In survival mode, even when placed in silence, players can succumb to hunger, falls, drowning and other deaths. This ability to adjust the level of difficulty, as well as to control the level of peace is one of the attractions of the game for many families.
The Game Modes
Minecraft has several different game modes that work in radically different ways. You can choose the game to start a new world.
Creative – Minecraft This is for people who do not want to worry about fighting the world. Allows players access to different types of blocks away, not monsters breed in the world. Just load the game and build!
Survival – The basic mаn against a wіld mоdе. Survival spawn’s monsters іn the wоrld and is forcing players to build resources and harvest them. the players respawn on death
Hardcore – This is just like a survival mode, but it is difficult to lock to hard and the world must be removed when the player dies. Everything is there! This mode is not currently available in the version of the Xbox 360.
Adventure mode – Turning this mode, it is іmроѕѕіblе for players tо break most оf thе blocks without thе рrореr tооlѕ. It is intended for players who play custom maps. It is available only on the PC and cannot be selected when a new single player begins. It is about how to use the command console “game mode 2”
Appearance And Playing
Building Blocks: Minecraft is sometimes specifying as Lego for the computer, but I think it is a far too simple analogy. The truth is that the base game is made up of dozens of different types of blocks, but is much more complex. The truth is that there are no curves and all the market and is made up of pixels, making it rudimentary. However, the base material may be modified, combined, and the production of more complex items. These raw materials are different types of stones of various ores, a variety of trees, many edible and decorative plants, and animal’s plethora.
Raw Materials: Raw materials can be manufactured in other forms. For example, ores such as iron can be extracted, and then burned in a furnace, whereby the ingot or bars. This can be in this kind of tools and equipment such as axes, shovels, picks, hoes, swords, armor, scissors, cans, doors, gates and over again. Of course, the player must first create a craft table from wood taken from trees and furnace crafted from stone excavated, and the oven has to be driven by coal or charcoal, which can also be obtained. At the same time, the player has to be sure to find enough food to avoid hunger, and if you do not calm at the level of survival, to create a shelter that will protect them from the monsters that appear at night.
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A Challengingly Good Year: An update from the System Advisory Committee on Curriculum
Julie Bruno, Vice President, Past Co-Chair of SACC
Michelle Grimes-Hillman, Co-Chair of SACC
As most of us can attest, decisions made in the Chancellor’s Office directly affect the day-to-day workings of our colleges. Never is this fact more obvious to faculty than when they are creating or revising curriculum. As colleges work to address the educational goals of their students and meet the curricular requirements of the Chancellor’s Office, issues may surface that could adversely affect curriculum and curriculum procedures at local colleges. When warranted, these curricular issues come to the System Advisory Committee on Curriculum (SACC) for consideration. SACC, a collaborative committee with membership including representatives from faculty, administration, and the Chancellor’s Office, is charged with investigating, deliberating, and providing recommendations to the Chancellor’s Office to address or resolve curricular issues and improve Chancellor’s Office policies and procedures.
SACC considered a number of issues during the past year. Unfortunately, our ability to address certain issues, such as concerns with information in the Program and Course Approval Handbook, was impeded by the vacancies of key positions in Academic Affairs. In spite of these difficult conditions, we did make progress in resolving several issues, as evidenced by the committee’s recommendations captured in our meeting summaries and information disseminated at the Curriculum Institute as well as the Chancellor’s Office memorandums published in May.
However, we were unable to resolve all issues, and a few matters that SACC worked on this last year will continue into the next:
Program and Course Approval Handbook (PCAH): SACC will collaborate with the Chancellor’s Office to revise the PCAH in an effort to address the concerns that came to light during the past year as local curriculum chairs, articulation officers, and curriculum specialists attempted to implement directives from the PCAH. As this work continues, the SACC faculty representatives will rely on their colleagues in the field to identify concerns and provide specific examples and rationale for any proposed changes.
Program Goals: SACC is considering a recommendation to the Chancellor’s Office to revise the program goals in the Curriculum Inventory for traditional (non-Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT)) associate degrees. Currently, four possible program goals exist for associate degrees: transfer, career technical education (CTE), CTE and transfer, and other. Moreover, the PCAH limits the use of a local general education pattern for traditional (non-ADT) transfer degrees and only permits the use of CSU or IGETC pattern. These two conditions have created significant restrictions on the development and revision of traditional associate degrees that include a local general education pattern, thereby constraining colleges in serving students transferring to private or out-of-state colleges and universities.
These two issues will consume a substantial amount of time and effort; however, there are a few other matters that remain on the SACC agenda for the coming year:
Implementing progress indicators for noncredit courses, including elevating the priority of Title 5 changes to add Satisfactory Progress (SP) (Resolution 14.02 S14)
Coding of English as a Second Language (ESL) courses for the Data Mart basic skills progress tracker tool (Resolution 9.04 S14)
Developing guidelines for the enrollment of community service and credit students in classes
Changes to Education Code regarding auditing language (Resolution 6.02 F11)
Developing guidelines for collaborative programs (formerly conjoint programs) to create partnerships between and among colleges for programs and degree offerings including ADTs.
Although the work of SACC continues, the faculty membership will be changing. This past year, our representatives created an effective, collegial, and collaborative environment at SACC and should be commended for their efforts. Many thanks to Marie Boyd (Chaffey College), Cori Burns (Cosumnes River College), Erik Shearer (Napa Valley College), and John Stanskas (San Bernardino Valley College) for their service. SACC welcomes the new faculty representatives who began their tenure in August: Dolores Davison (Foothill College), Dave Degroot (Allan Hancock College), Craig Rutan (Santiago Canyon College), and Jolena Grande (Cypress College). Marie Boyd will also remain as a faculty representative for the coming year, serving for a second year on the committee. Finally, ASCCC Curriculum Committee Chair Michelle Grimes-Hillman (Mt. San Antonio College) will take over as the faculty co-chair of SACC.
As always, updates on SACC’s work will be provided at ASCCC curriculum regional meetings, plenary sessions, and listserv postings as well as through the SACC meeting summaries located at http://extranet.cccco.edu/Divisions/AcademicAffairs/CurriculumandInstruc...
The articles published in the Rostrum do not necessarily represent the adopted positions of the academic senate. For adopted positions and recommendations, please browse this website.
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Health Skin Disorders Infectious Diseases Head, Ears, and Nose Skin Care All Topics
Conditions and Diseases / Mad Cow Disease
What British animals were driven mad by a disease called bovine spongiform encephalopathy?
Cows.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy called by the british press in 1996?
A serious disease of sheep and cattle?
Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy: Scrapie in sheep and Mad Cow disease (or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy)
What disease in farm animals is the failure of electro conduction in the brain?
Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy.
What is a disease of cattle or sheep?
Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy: Scrapie in sheep and Mad Cow disease (or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), cows can get TB and sheep can get foot and mouth
What is a prion disease?
A prion disease (transmissible spongiform encephalopathy) is a disease caused by prion aggregations. Some prion diseases include bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease), kuru, scrapie, chronic wasting disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
What is another name for Bovine spongiform encephalopathy?
How does bovine spongiform encephalopathy occur at a molecular level?
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, occurs only at a molecular level in one species, as any other communicable disease does. It is also known as Mad Cow Disease.
What disease is the same as Mad Cow disease?
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy is the same name as "Mad Cow disease" in cattle. There is also CJD or Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in humans; Scrapie in sheep; Chronic Wasting Disease or CWD in deer; Tranmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy in other ruminants.
What do prions cause?
There are a range of transmissible spongiform ensephalopathies that affect the brain or other neural tissue. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease Chronic wasting disease Scrapie Feline spongiform encephalopathy Kuru Fatal familial insomnia Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome
What types of mad cow disease?
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, Scrapie, Chronic Wasting Disease, and Cruetzfeldt-Jakob Disease.
What is the full form of FSE?
Feline spongiform encephalopathy a disease caused by prions in cats.
What is the official name of mad cow disease?
Bovine spongiform Encephalopathy BSE for short.
What is the full name of mad cow disease?
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or BSE for short
What is mad cow in latin?
Mad Cow Disease is a layman's term for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.
What is the medical term for mad cow disease?
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy...otherwise known as BSE or mad cow disease.
What is a human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy?
The human form of the disease is called variant Creutzfeld-Jacobs Disease, or vCJD.
Do only goats and sheep get scrapie disease?
Goats and sheep can get scrapie, a transmissable spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). Other animals can get TSE's but they are called different names eg Mad Cow Disease etc
What is the proper name for mad cow disease?
The scientific name for mad cow disease is bovine spongiform encephalopathy, abbreviated BSE.
What is a well known prion disease?
There are multiple prion diseases, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or "mad cow disease."
What is a disease in cattle associated with prions?
One disease of cattle caused by a prion is BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) aka Mad Cow Disease
What is BSE or CJD?
BSE-Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. Mad cow disease CJD-Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Human version of mad cow disease
Is there a cure for mad cow?
No, there is no cure or treatment for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, the scientific name for mad cow disease).
Who called bovine spongiform encephalopathy mad cow disease?
The term "mad cow disease" was a field name for the disease until laboratory testing gave it the more descriptive name of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (based on the signature lesions in the brain tissues). Media outlets preferred the term "mad cow disease" because it was more sensational and easier for the general public to understand.
What is mad cow disease for short?
If you mean what it is short for, nothing, mad cow disease is a nickname. The real name of mad cow disease is Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).
What type of medication is used for mad cow disease?
There is no medication for mad cow disease (also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy). Cows which suffer from this disease will die, they cannot be cured.
Was mad cow disease in Europe?
Yes, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, the scientific name for mad cow disease) was in Europe during the epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s.
How does the virus of mad cow get its energy?
Mad Cow Disease or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy is NOT caused by a virus, it is a PRION, which is a mis-folded protein.
What are some diseases caused by prions?
Diseases caused by prions: • spongiform encephalopothies • BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, aka Mad Cow Disease) • CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) • kuru • scrapie in sheep
What has the author Colin L Masters written?
Colin L Masters has written: 'Subacute spongiform encephalopathy (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease)' -- subject(s): Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
Was mad cows disease caused by fungus?
NO. Mad cow disease (more properly called Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) is caused by a prion which is a mis-folded protein, not a fungus.
What country did mad cow disease originate?
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, the scientific name for mad cow disease) was first discovered in the United Kingdom in the early 1980s.
Can bad beef cause mad cow disease?
No, that is a common misconception. Mad cow disease is only caused by beef that is contaminated with prions from a cow that has BSE or Bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
What treatments are available for the mad-cow disease?
There are no treatments for BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the scientific name for mad cow disease) and there are no cures - it is a progressive neurologic disorder that is 100% fatal.
How is Prion detected in animals?
Prions are a relatively newly discovered infectious agent that consists primarily of protein. It is believed that prions are the transmissible cause for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, otherwise known as "mad cow disease." There is no current evidence to suggest that animals are capable of "detecting" prions.
Do proteins cause mad cow disease?
In a matter of speaking, yes. Mis-folded proteins are what cause "Mad Cow Disease," also known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in cattle or Creuztfeldt-Jakobson's Disease in humans.
What is a disease that has a second letter O?
Gonorrhea is one, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy is another. Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease caused by a bacteria, whilst BSE is a neurological diseased, thought to be caused by Prions.
How can the mad cow disease be treated or cured?
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, the scientific name for mad cow disease) cannot be treated or cured - it is progressive and 100% fatal in all cattle that contract it.
What is the short name for mad cow disease?
I don't know about "short", but Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy is the official name. It's often abbreviated BSE, which might be what you were looking for.
How many people have died from mad cow disease?
Thus far, only about 160 people, mostly in Britain, have died of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which humans get from cows that had bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy is a food-borne illness also known as?
The popular name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is mad cow disease. While this disease can be a food-borne illness, international food safety agencies have put regulations and laws in place to prevent the spread of BSE. Because of this, the number of human infections with BSE (called variant Creutsfeld-Jacob disease or vCJD) has been dropping every year throughout the world.
Is mad cow disease rna or DNA?
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, the scientific name for mad cow disease) is caused by a prion, a normal protein that is mis-folded and cannot be broken down by the body.
What country is mad cow disease from?
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, the scientific name for mad cow disease) was first identified in the United Kingdoms (UK). It has since spread to multiple countries throughout Europe.
How do you get rid of mad cow disease?
The prion that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, the scientific name for mad cow disease) is very resistent to degradation. The two methods to destroy the prion are by incineration and by alkaline hydrolysis.
What causes a disease but are not considered to be living organisms?
Viruses are not considered living organisms but can cause disease. Prions that cause Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow disease, aka vCJD- variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease when in humans) are not living organisms as they are just misfolded protein particles.
What condition mimics Alzheimer's It has something to do with hydrocephalus and funny walking?
Alzheimer's is pathological similar to many diseases. You might be thinking of bovine spongiform encephalopathy or Creutzfeld Jacobs disease (CJD) in humans.
What treatments have been used in the past for mad cow disease?
To the best of my knowledge, no one has tried to treat bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, the scientific name for mad cow disease). This is because the disease is caused by a prion, a misfolded protein, and there are no medications that can reverse the misfolding.
What are some examples of infectious protein?
Infectious protein, also known as a prion, is best known as the cause of mad cow disease (which is technically called bovine spongiform encephalopathy). Scrapie, a disease of sheep, and kuru, a disease that affects cannibals, are also caused by prions.
What is a prion?
Prions A prion is an infectious protein that is misfolded. These proteins can aggregate in the brain and other neural tissue, forming amyloids. Diseases associated with prions include bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease), scrapie, kuru, chronic wasting disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Prions are still poorly understood by researchers, and prion diseases (transmissible spongiform encephalopathies) remain untreatable.
Is mad cow disease a bacteria?
No, mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) is caused by a faulty (misfolded) protein called a prion, which can carry the disease between individuals. For example: humans get it from eating infected tissue, receiving infected blood transfusions or it can also be genetic.
How is mad cow disease transferred?
MCD is transferred if you eat beef that is contaminated with prions from a cow that has BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy). For cows, it is spread by eating feed that contains contaminated animal by-product.
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Translations English to Spanish English Language Literature & Language All Topics
Languages and Cultures
What is the only Ute language?
The Ute language is called Ute, and it is a dialect of Southern Numic.
How does the Ute language sound?
Here is a link to a Ute dictionary with spoken pronunciation.
What was the Ute Indian language Called?
The Ute Indian language, Ute meaning the people from the northwestern Utah/Colorado regions, is called Ute in English. The entire tribe is calleds themselves Nuchu, the people, and there are many bands and families with various names. Each band has it's own dielect of the Uto-Aztecan language, however Utes usually refer to the language generally as Nuchu. the India Indian language is called Sanskrit
What is the word ''wolf'' in ute Indian language?
Sinapu is the Ute word for Wolf/Wolves.
What language did the utes speak?
Ute is classed as a Uto-Aztecan language belonging to the Numic branch. It is therefore closely related to the Comanche, Shoshone, Panamint, Mono, northern Paiute and Chemehuevi languages. It is also very distantly related to the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs. The word paa in Ute means water; this word is practically identical in all the Numic languages mentioned above and gives the tribal name Paiute (really paa-Ute or water Ute). The Ute people call… Read More
What is the meaning of the word Comanche?
In their own language it means Nuiminu (the people) In the language of their neighbors the Ute people it means "the enemy"
What has the author Ute Dons written?
Ute Dons has written: 'Descriptive adequacy of early modern English grammars' -- subject(s): English language, Grammar, Historiography
Is the Ute an Australian icon?
Holden was the first car manufacturer to come up with the Ute, the only problem is Holden is an American company.
What does Utah mean in the Ute Language?
Utah comes from an Apache Indian word (yuttahih), which means people of the mountains.
Is the Ute language related to the Shoshone language?
Yes, they are both part of the Uto-Aztecan language family. A few examples of words will show the distant connection between them: English..........................Shoshone........................Ute man...............................dainape'.........................tangwace water.............................baa', paa........................paa wolf................................bia'isa............................sinaa-vi white..............................dosa..............................toha black...............................duhu..............................toohoo ten.................................seemoten.......................toghumesueni
What is the strongest ute in the world?
well that everyone that has a ute thinks that there ute is stronger then any ute but the truth is ford couirer
What are all the all 4 letter words that end with the letters ute?
In the English language there are 26 possibilities. Use the alphabet and insert each one of the alphabet letters in turn in front of 'ute', ... aute, bute, cute, dute, etc.
Where is the Ute Public Library in Ute located?
The address of the Ute Public Library is: 130 Main St, Ute, 51060 4056
What is the birth name of Ute Lemper?
Ute Lemper's birth name is Ute Gertrude Lemper.
What is the birth name of Ute Ohoven?
Ute Ohoven's birth name is Ute-Henriette Ulmen.
What are the names of the native Americans that lived in Colorado?
northern ute, southern ute, and mountain ute.
Where did Utah get it name?
Utah is named for the Ute Native American tribe that is native to the area. The Mormon Pioneers originally wanted to name the state "Deseret" which means honeybee, but government officials decided to name it "Utah" instead, which means "the top of the mountain" in the Ute language.
What did the ute Indians eat?
How did ute Indians eat
Where is there a timeline of the ute?
The best place to find a timeline of the ute is at History of the Ute in Australia, at the site on the link below.
What is the phone number of the Ute Public Library in Ute?
The phone number of the Ute Public Library is: 712-885-2237.
Where did the Ute Indians come from?
The Ute Indians came from Utah
What is 'Thank you' in Ute?
ute stands for tribes
When was Ute Oberhoffner born?
Ute Oberhoffner was born in 1961.
Who discover ute?
the person who discovered ute is brigham Young
When was Ute Springer born?
Ute Springer was born in 1970.
How tall is Ute Springer?
Ute Springer is 165 cm.
When was Ute Stein born?
Ute Stein was born in 1945.
How tall is Ute Stein?
Ute Stein is 168 cm.
When was Ute Uellmer born?
Ute Uellmer was born in 1946.
How tall is Ute Uellmer?
Ute Uellmer is 170 cm.
How tall is Manami Ute?
Manami Ute is 167 cm.
How tall is Ute Willing?
Ute Willing is 159 cm.
How tall is Ute Lemper?
Ute Lemper is 5' 9".
How tall is Ute Lubosch?
Ute Lubosch is 172 cm.
How tall is Ute Reiber?
Ute Reiber is 178 cm.
When was Ute Geweniger born?
Ute Geweniger was born in 1964.
When was Holden Ute created?
Holden Ute was created in 2000.
When was Ute Hommola born?
Ute Hommola was born in 1952.
When was Ute Thimm born?
Ute Thimm was born in 1958.
When was Ute Noack born?
Ute Noack was born in 1961.
When was Ute Kostrzewa born?
Ute Kostrzewa was born in 1961.
When was Ute Rührold born?
Ute Rührold was born in 1954.
When was Ute Berg born?
Ute Berg was born in 1953.
When was Ute Bock born?
Ute Bock was born in 1942.
When was Ute Steindorf born?
Ute Steindorf was born in 1957.
When was Ute Wetzig born?
Ute Wetzig was born in 1971.
When was Ute Heidorn born?
Ute Heidorn was born in 1962.
How tall is Ute Heidorn?
Ute Heidorn is 168 cm.
When was Ute Hiersemann born?
Ute Hiersemann was born in 1966.
How tall is Ute Hiersemann?
Ute Hiersemann is 164 cm.
When was Ute Kampowsky born?
Ute Kampowsky was born in 1979.
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Ugly Liberal Media Bias Infiltrates the 'Most Beautiful' List
Jeff Bercovici, AOL.com
Do you find Democrats better looking than Republicans? If so, you're in agreement with The Hill, which just published its annual list of the 50 most beautiful people on Capitol Hill. Numerically, it's not even close: 28 of the honorees are Democrats (including No. 5, Ben Dunham -- pictured here -- a 31-year-old environmental aide to New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg). And another two on the list say they lean in that direction. With three of the listees identifying themselves as independents, that leaves only 17 Republicans -- barely one-third of the total.
Having noticed this skew, I was just about to dial Rush Limbaugh and alert him to another blatant instance of liberal media bias when I decided to give The Hill's editor-in-chief, Hugo Gurdon, a chance to explain himself. Naturally, Gurdon claims there's "absolutely no political bias in it" -- just as you'd expect from a fiendishly brilliant practitioner of liberal media bias.
"All I can tell you the 50 are selected from their photographs without any attached information," says Gurdon, in a British accent that immediately gives him away as an unrepentant elitist. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder is our newsroom."
If there's a slant, he says, it's probably because there are simply far more Democrats working on Capitol Hill at the moment. "The Democrats have substantial majorities in both chambers, and they control all the committees," he says. "If everyone were just picked entirely at random, you would get more Democrats than Republicans."
This is the place when your typical shifty-eyed pointy-bearded turtleneck-wearing Journolist member would point out that, while the last list from when Republicans still controlled Congress doesn't seem to be available online anymore, the one from 2008, when they still held the executive branch, did feature slightly more Republicans than Democrats (23 vs. 22, with five declaring no affiliation). But since I'm not some kind of Media Matters lackey, I'll just leave you to draw your own conclusions.
As always, I'll give the last word to my guest, Hugo Gurdon: "This is a piece of summer fun which we do each year, and the question about which party they're attached to doesn't come into it."
Spoken like a true Marxist.
50 Most Beautiful People
'Gone With the Wind'-inspired mansion is up for sale
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Roy Moore announces new Senate campaign
Jon Ward
Jun 20th 2019 4:41PM
Roy Moore’s announcement Thursday that he would once again run for the U.S. Senate in Alabama sent a shudder through the Republican Party and raised a question: Could the GOP have avoided this scenario by uniting early around a credible consensus candidate?
Moore is a former state Supreme Court chief justice who last appeared on the scene in the winter of 2017, when he was the Republican nominee for the Senate in a special election. His candidacy crashed and burned amid charges of sexual misconduct involving minors from earlier in his career, and Moore’s loss to Doug Jones marked the first time Alabama had sent a Democrat to the Senate in 20 years.
Yet now Moore is back for, well, more. He called the accusations against him “false” and cited the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh — which featured allegations of sexual assault against the judge — as an event that will make voters more skeptical of the charges against him.
“If they didn’t see through it then, they saw through it with Kavanaugh,” Moore said. “I’m in the race.”
Moore will be able to count on support from some number of hardcore supporters who view the allegations against him as politically motivated, or made up, or irrelevant, and he is helped by the absence of a clear consensus candidate in the Republican Party. There are two Republicans who have already declared: Rep. Bradley Byrne, from the state’s southwest corner, and former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville.
But Alabama insiders say neither of those two candidates are formidable enough to easily defeat Moore, especially in a primary in which 50.1 percent or more will be needed to avoid a runoff.
Two other politicians seen as credible — Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth and Rep. Gary Palmer — have declined to run. Ainsworth shut the door definitively two months ago, but Palmer has not.
“I would hope that there would be stronger viable candidates. Gary Palmer would be the preference,” said Hatton Smith, a Republican businessman who has chaired fundraising efforts for mainstream candidates in the past.
However, even Palmer and Ainsworth are likely not strong enough to have cleared the field, other Alabama Republicans said.
When Jones beat Moore in 2017, Smith said it was a case of “good over evil” and said he looked forward to Republicans finding a candidate who could beat Jones in 2020. But Smith told Yahoo News in an interview Thursday that if Moore were again the Republican nominee in 2020, he and many other Republicans he knows would vote for Jones again, as they did in 2017.
“There will be a lot of mobilization of people who are Republicans who will not vote for Moore under any circumstances, and you can count me as leading the opposition,” Smith said.
Scenes from inside Doug Jones and Roy Moore election night parties
A supporter of democratic U.S. Senator candidate Doug Jones cries as Jones is declared the winner during his election night gathering the Sheraton Hotel on December 12, 2017 in Birmingham, Alabama. Doug Jones defeated his republican challenger Roy Moore to claim Alabama's U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by attorney general Jeff Sessions.
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Supporters react as results show a tight race between Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore during his election night party in the RSA Activity Center on December 12, 2017 in Montgomery, Alabama. Mr. Moore is facing off against Democrat Doug Jones in the special election for the U.S. Senate.
(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Supporters celebrate after media began to call the election for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Doug Jones, at his election night party in Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. December 12, 2017.
(REUTERS/Marvin Gentry)
Supporters of democratic U.S. Senator candidate Doug Jones celebrate as Jones is declared the winner during his election night gathering the Sheraton Hotel on December 12, 2017 in Birmingham, Alabama. Doug Jones defeated his republican challenger Roy Moore to claim Alabama's U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by attorney general Jeff Sessions.
Democratic U.S. Senator elect Doug Jones greets supporters during his election night gathering the Sheraton Hotel on December 12, 2017 in Birmingham, Alabama. Doug Jones defeated his republican challenger Roy Moore to claim Alabama's U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by attorney general Jeff Sessions.
Supporters of Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore watch for results at an election night party in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 12, 2017. Democrat Doug Jones scored a victory Tuesday in a fiercely contested US Senate race in conservative Alabama, dealing a setback to US President Donald Trump, whose candidate could not overcome damaging sexual misconduct accusations. With 92 percent of precincts reporting, former prosecutor Jones secured 49.5 percent of the vote compared to Roy Moore's 48.8 percent, CNN and other networks reported.
(JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
Supporters of Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore hug as they watch results at an election night party in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 12, 2017. Democrat Doug Jones scored a victory Tuesday in a fiercely contested US Senate race in conservative Alabama, dealing a setback to US President Donald Trump, whose candidate could not overcome damaging sexual misconduct accusations. With 92 percent of precincts reporting, former prosecutor Jones secured 49.5 percent of the vote compared to Roy Moore's 48.8 percent, CNN and other networks reported.
UNITED STATES - DECEMBER 12: Alabama Democrat Doug Jones poses for a selfie as he celebrates his victory over Judge Roy Moore at the Sheraton in Birmingham, Ala., on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017. Jones is faced off against Judge Roy Moore in a special election for Jeff Sessions' seat in the U.S. Senate. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
Supporters of Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore wait for results at an election night party in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 12, 2017. Democrat Doug Jones scored a victory Tuesday in a fiercely contested US Senate race in conservative Alabama, dealing a setback to US President Donald Trump, whose candidate could not overcome damaging sexual misconduct accusations. With 92 percent of precincts reporting, former prosecutor Jones secured 49.5 percent of the vote compared to Roy Moore's 48.8 percent, CNN and other networks reported.
A supporter holds a sign at Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore's election night party in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S. December 12, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman
A supporter holds up a "Bikers For Trump" sign as he attends Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore's election night party in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S. December 12, 2017.
(REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman)
A supporter of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore prays after media began to call the election for rival candidate Democrat Doug Jones, at Moore's election night party in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S. December 12, 2017.
A costumed supporter checks results on her phone at Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore's election night party in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S. December 12, 2017.
(REUTERS/Carlo Allegri)
A supporter holds a sign during Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Doug Jones' election night party in Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. December 12, 2017.
A supporter wearing a "Bikers For Trump" emblem on his hat attends Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore's election night party in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S. December 12, 2017.
"Make America Great Again" hats lie on a table at Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore's election night party in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S. December 12, 2017.
Supporters pray during the invocation at Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore's election night party in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S. December 12, 2017.
Supporters of Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore wait for polls results at an election night party in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 12, 2017. Alabama voters were casting the last ballots Tuesday in a pivotal US Senate contest between a Republican dogged by accusations he once preyed on teenage girls and a Democrat seeking an upset win in a deeply conservative southern state.
MONTGOMERY, AL - DECEMBER 12: A woman wears an 'I Voted' sticker as she awaits the arrival of Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore for his election night party in the RSA Activity Center on December 12, 2017 in Montgomery, Alabama. Mr. Moore is facing off against Democrat Doug Jones in the special election for the U.S. Senate.
Supporters recite the Pledge of Allegiance as they await the arrival of Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore for his election night party in the RSA Activity Center on December 12, 2017 in Montgomery, Alabama. Mr. Moore is facing off against Democrat Doug Jones in the special election for the U.S. Senate.
Democratic Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Doug Jones acknowledges supporters at the election night party in Birmingham, Alabama, U.S., December 12, 2017. REUTERS/Marvin Gentry
Attendees react to election results during an election night party for Roy Moore, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Alabama, in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S., on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017. Democrat�Doug Jones�delivered a stunning upset defeat to Republican�Roy Moore�in a U.S. Senate race in deep-red Alabama that had split the GOP even before its controversial nominee was accused of inappropriate conduct with teenage girls. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images
An attendee uses her phone during an election night party for Roy Moore, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Alabama, in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S., on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017. Democrat�Doug Jones�delivered a stunning upset defeat to Republican�Roy Moore�in a U.S. Senate race in deep-red Alabama that had split the GOP even before its controversial nominee was accused of inappropriate conduct with teenage girls. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Attendees pray during an election night party for Roy Moore, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Alabama, in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S., on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017. Democrat�Doug Jones�delivered a stunning upset defeat to Republican�Roy Moore�in a U.S. Senate race in deep-red Alabama that had split the GOP even before its controversial nominee was accused of inappropriate conduct with teenage girls. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images
BIRMINGHAM, AL - DECEMBER 12: Democratic U.S. Senator elect Doug Jones (L) kisses his wife Louise Jones (R) during his election night gathering the Sheraton Hotel on December 12, 2017 in Birmingham, Alabama. Doug Jones defeated his republican challenger Roy Moore to claim Alabama's U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by attorney general Jeff Sessions. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Supporters of Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore sing gospel after election results show Moore lost, in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 12, 2017. Democrat Doug Jones scored a victory Tuesday in a fiercely contested US Senate race in conservative Alabama, dealing a setback to US President Donald Trump, whose candidate could not overcome damaging sexual misconduct accusations. With 92 percent of precincts reporting, former prosecutor Jones secured 49.5 percent of the vote compared to Roy Moore's 48.8 percent, CNN and other networks reported. / AFP PHOTO / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
BIRMINGHAM, AL - DECEMBER 12: Democratic U.S. Senator elect Doug Jones greets supporters during his election night gathering the Sheraton Hotel on December 12, 2017 in Birmingham, Alabama. Doug Jones defeated his republican challenger Roy Moore to claim Alabama� U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by attorney general Jeff Sessions.�(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)� (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Because of this, Moore’s entrance into the race is good news for Jones, who is probably the most vulnerable incumbent senator of any in the entire country. Jones’s best hope of being reelected rests on a rematch with Moore, according to one knowledgeable Alabama Republican.
That view is shared by an Alabama Democratic leader, who called the Moore candidacy a “great opportunity” for Democrats.
“Roy Moore doesn’t represent Alabama values, which is why he was rejected by a bipartisan group of Democrats, Republicans and Independents in 2017,” the state House minority leader Anthony Daniels told Yahoo News. “If we want to create opportunity for all Alabamians we need senators like [Doug Jones], not people who will embarrass our state and chase away job creators, like Moore.”
Trump, who had backed Moore the last time he ran for Senate even after the sexual misconduct allegations surfaced, has recently tried to wave Moore off from a run. In late May the president tweeted that “if Alabama does not elect a Republican to the Senate in 2020, many of the incredible gains that we have made during my Presidency may be lost.”
“Roy Moore cannot win, and the consequences will be devastating,” Trump said.
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, has been even more scathing. “If you actually care about #MAGA more than your own ego, it’s time to ride off into the sunset, Judge,” Trump Jr. said.
One person close to Trump said it’s unclear whether the president will continue to criticize Moore, but another Alabama Republican insider said that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will advocate for Trump to push Moore out of the race.
“McConnell’s going to stay on him for that and it’s an easy thing to do for McConnell that doesn’t cost [the White House] anything,” said the Alabama Republican.
But this Republican insider said he has watched Moore come back from political purgatory before, and the past is a cautionary tale for those who might underestimate Moore now.
“He’ll win when nobody expected him to win and we’d all get together and say we’re never going to let that happen again,” the Republican insider said. “This will be another test.”
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Home > Trends & Insights > ASB to Issue Final Going Concern Standard
ASB to Issue Final Going Concern Standard
The Auditing Standards Board (ASB) has unanimously voted to issue a final going concern standard. This standard will align the AICPA’s auditing guidance with accounting guidance issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in 2014. Here’s a closer look at the going concern assumption and the responsibilities for identifying and disclosing “substantial doubt” about a company’s ability to operate as a going concern over the next year.
A Fundamental Assumption
The going concern assumption underlies all financial reporting under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). It presumes that a company will continue normal business operations into the future. When liquidation is imminent, the liquidation basis of accounting is used instead.
In 2014, the FASB issued Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2014-15, Presentation of Financial Statements—Going Concern (Subtopic 205-40): Disclosure of Uncertainties About an Entity’s Ability to Continue as a Going Concern. Under the updated accounting guidance, the final responsibilities to decide whether there’s a going concern issue and to provide related footnote disclosures shift from external auditors to the company’s management.
FASB’s going concern standard requires management to decide whether there are conditions or events that raise substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern within one year after the date that the financial statements are issued (or within one year after the date that the financial statements are available to be issued, to prevent auditors from holding financial statements for several months after year end to see if the company survives).
Substantial doubt exists when relevant conditions and events, considered in the aggregate, indicate that it’s probable that the company won’t be able to meet its current obligations as they become due. Examples of adverse conditions or events that might cause management to doubt the going concern assumption include recurring operating losses, working capital deficiencies, loan defaults, asset disposals, and loss of a key franchise, customer or supplier.
After management identifies that a going concern issue exists, it should consider whether any mitigating plans will alleviate the substantial doubt. Examples of corrective actions include plans to raise equity, borrow money, restructure debt, cut costs or dispose of an asset or business line.
A Consistent Approach
The ASB’s Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 132, The Auditor’s Consideration of an Entity’s Ability to Continue as a Going Concern, is intended to promote consistency between the auditing standards and accounting guidance under U.S. GAAP.
SAS 132 will supersede SAS 126, The Auditor’s Consideration of an Entity’s Ability to Continue as a Going Concern (Redrafted). The update will be effective for audits of financial statements for periods ending on or after December 15, 2017.
At the time SAS 126 was issued, FASB standards didn’t address management’s responsibilities for evaluating substantial doubt about an entity’s ability to continue as a going concern—but the FASB was contemplating updating its guidance. After the FASB issued ASU 2014-15, the ASB issued four new auditing interpretations to SAS 126. The issuance of these interpretations represented a short-term interpretive guidance. SAS 132 will provide more detailed, long-term guidance.
In general, the ASB’s updated guidance will require auditors to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence regarding management’s use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements. The update also will call for auditors to conclude on the appropriateness of management’s assessment. In addition, the update will address uncertainties auditors face when the going concern basis of accounting isn’t applied or may not be relevant.
The ASB decided that SAS No. 132 won’t apply to audits of single financial statements, such as balance sheets, and specific elements, accounts or items of a financial statement. Some auditors contend that the evaluation of whether there is substantial doubt about a company’s ability to continue as a going concern can be performed only on a complete set of financial statements at an enterprise level.
Some ASB members expressed concern that, because of the interrelationship of all the auditing standards, highlighting exclusion of a specific standard could have unintended consequences. In the future, the ASB plans to perform additional research on the standard’s applicability in audits of single financial statements or specific accounts.
Tackling Going Concern Assessments
In addition to aligning U.S. auditing standards with U.S. GAAP, the ASB will model its new guidance after international auditing standards. With all of the standard-setting bodies on the same page, it’s clear that management will need to understand how to implement effective policies and procedures to identify going concern issues, as well as how to provide the appropriate documentation to satisfy external auditors.
Ricardo Martinez, CPA
Ricardo graduated from Santa Clara University in 1998 and joined Armanino as a Senior Audit Manager. He is a CPA and member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Prior to joining Armanino, Ricardo worked for KPMG’s audit group where he had over 12 years of experience conducting audit and advisory services. Ricardo also spent time in KPMG’s global methodology department revising the global firm’s audit and internal control methodologies.
ricardo.martinez@armaninollp.com
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PROJECT ASCENDANCE | PART I
RACIAL AND GENDER GAPS IN STEM PARTICIPATION
In 2016, Artemis Connection launched Project Ascendance, a study on the racial and gender divide in STEM fields. An initiative of our 4.5% Giving Back Promise, Project Ascendance seeks to build a body of research and create actionable plans for women and minorities to advance their careers in STEM. This blog series shares preliminary findings from our research, based on individual interviews, literature review, and analyses.
To understand what it is that causes racial and gender gaps in participation in STEM careers, we wanted to explore the impact of early educational experiences on women and racial minorities. During the last few months, we’ve interviewed over 150 women and racial minorities in leadership roles and/or with computer science degrees—most in STEM fields. We asked our interviewees to consider how early interests and abilities were or were not shaped around STEM subjects, and how exposure to various professionals informed their own ideas of a potential careers.
First, a little background. Contemporary research points to the fact that gender and minority gaps in STEM participation can be traced back to early education, where negative attitudes toward science and stereotypes significantly contribute to the gender gap in STEM participation in middle school and high school.[1] Whether a student will participate in STEM subjects in middle and high school depends largely on whether they were introduced to these subjects in elementary school and their early interest in these subjects. From childhood through high school, boys express more positive interests and attitudes toward STEM than their female peers.[2]
Interest in STEM and associations of STEM with boys often begin before elementary school. The divergent socialization of boys and girls leads girls to frequently perceive a “mismatch between their self-image and belonging in STEM” and consequently lowers their aspirations for STEM careers.[3] In addition, parents often treat boys and girls differently, estimating their children’s abilities differently based on gender stereotypes, which in turn contributes to sex differences in behavior.[4]Such socialization influences a child’s perception of his or her own abilities, especially toward gender-stereotyped subjects like math and science.
Our research on the impact of K-6 education on gender and minority gaps in STEM careers reveals two key preliminary findings:
1. Exposure to STEM at home or through a role model during early education years, particularly for women, can help individuals develop interest in a STEM field.
Interviewees whose parents or other family members worked in STEM careers or were technically inclined were more likely to show early interest in STEM subjects. Comments from interviewees supporting this finding include:
“I wanted to be an engineer very clearly around 7th-8th grade. I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I looked up to my Dad.”
“I had a very technically oriented family. My mother and father were engineers who worked with their hands. My dad encouraged my interest, brought me books, and taught me how to fix things myself with my hands.”
“My grandfather exposed me to electronics. He was a physicist and was into infrared. He got me these encyclopedia science books to help me understand how the world worked. My stepdad was a physicist and was also influential in that sense. And my mom, a CPA, was good at math, so I picked up on that as well.”
2. Children who have early exposure to STEM professionals—along with early encouragement of their interest in STEM—are more likely to view a STEM career as a desirable and viable pathway for themselves.
Conversely, children who had neither early exposure nor early encouragement of STEM often did not understand or have any awareness of viable career paths in STEM fields. Women described not knowing or having anyone in their lives who worked in STEM (especially women) to whom they could relate. Interviewees also said:
“I don’t think I understood what most jobs were. My mom was a secretary. and I knew what doctors and lawyers did, but I didn’t know what an engineer or scientist did. I knew the jobs of people I looked at every day.”
“I was a military brat. Everyone’s mom was teaching at a school where we were stationed, and everyone’s father was an engineer or did some professional work for the military. I never considered doing what my dad did.”
“I wanted to be a doctor or a teacher. Both sounded cool, and I knew doctors made lots of money.”
“My Dad bought me the Atari that could store code, so I coded a library program. I loved that computers were something that I could control, like when people finally get to drive a car.”
“I went to a circuit building class out of nowhere as a kid, and I loved the electronics field a lot more. It was still building things and seeing how they worked, but it was a lot more tangible.”
“My Dad was an engineer before becoming a lawyer, and my grandfather was an engineer. I was very close to both. I saw engineering didn’t mean I was necessarily stuck in a lab.”
In our next post, we will talk about preliminary findings for middle- and high-school aged students. While we can’t point to early childhood exposure to STEM as the only cause for gender and racial gaps in STEM careers, it does seem that there are opportunities during early childhood for boys and girls to be socialized, exposed, and encouraged in STEM activities that might result in greater opportunity in these fields for women and minorities.
[1] Hill, Catherine and Christianne Corbett. 2015. Solving the Equation: The Variables for Women’s Success in Engineering and Computing. American Association of University Women Report. Washington, DC: American Association of University Women.
[2] Iskander, Tiffany E., Gore, Paul A., and Amy Bergerson. 2013. Gender Differences in Expressed Interests in Engineering-Related Fields ACT 30-Year Data Analysis Identified Trends and Suggested Avenues to Reverse Trends. Journal of Career Assessment. 21(4): 599-613.
[3] Hill and Corbett, p. 103.
[4] National Academy of Sciences. 2006. Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering. Washington, DC: Natioanl Academy of Sciences.
ASCEND Summit (7)
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access (9)
Future of Work: Preparing Tomorrow’s Workforce
We Believe in Giving Back – 4.5% Annual Report 2017-2018
What’s the Difference Between Dignity and Respect?
Christy Johnson is an entrepreneur and educator, and Founder & CEO of Artemis Connection. She believes that people are an organization's most important asset and by having a diverse workforce, organizations will have the most innovative solutions.
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Introducing: Alan Hempsall
Sure to be a great addition to the Manchester electronic scene, the subliminal impulse organisation have organised a slew of events around Manchester’s Northern Quarter on the 5th and 6th of July. Before that, there’s a launch party this coming Thursday at Aatma, so we thought this would be a good time to catch up with the man behind (and in July also in front as his band Scissorgun support Wrangler) the scenes, Alan Hempsall.
First up Alan, could you tell us a bit about yourself?
I was born in Levenshulme in 1960. I went to the local primary and comp then shunned 6th form to go to Macclesfield Art College in 1977. Started playing in bands with mates I’d met in Levenshulme the same year. This was also the year I formed Crispy Ambulance.
What motivates you and inspires your music, art and events?
I’ve never understood what motivates me as regards creativity goes, it works by feel (subliminal?) and if I try to analyse it, I’m afraid it might leave me. Certainly, other people’s work inspires me greatly and it’s refreshing to find these things are still around if you look hard enough. There’s so much out there and you still have to work as hard as you ever did to find great art. I do draw influences from other artist’s work. I don’t think there’s any shame in saying that. I think that’s one of the great things about creativity, we keep cannibalising one another.
With Crispy Ambulance you certainly became a part of Manchester’s musical history and still push boundaries with the electro-industrial Scissorgun. What musical changes have you seen over the years in Manchester?
The main things that seem to have changed about music are the things that are influenced by the advent of the internet and smartphones. Those factors alone are so massive that people from any walk of life will say it. A lot of venues now operate on much more of a business footing, probably because they’ve had to in order to survive. All of which is fair enough. Clubs need to get smart to endure.
So, where you’d just be able to walk into the Band on the Wall and get a gig 40 years ago, nowadays that’s not quite so easy but it’s nice to see more people starting up their own nights in pop up venues. Seeing this trend gain traction in the last couple of years is one of the things that got me thinking about the festival. Up to now subliminal impulse have put on 8 multi media arts night in Manchester since 2015.
Tell us more about the subliminal impulse festival, including what made you decide to curate the event – it’s certainly created a bit of a stir with the announcement of the headline acts.
It’s fantastic to be working with CARTER TUTTI and Wrangler and we wouldn’t have a festival without that to start the ball rolling. But all of these DIY electronic nights cropping up all over the country made me realise that we could build a whole weekend around these two significant appearances. All the grass roots stuff in the satellite venues will be free admission and I like the inclusivity that that represents. I think it chimes with the times. I also like the counter-culture angle, that’s something we lost a bit in the nineties and noughties.
Being a musician, promoter and a festival curator are certainly very different beasts – how are you finding the role of coordinating such a large event, compared to your regular nights?
The variation between musician and curator is massive. Playing at your own night is fine, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. The tricky bit is striking the right balance. Scissorgun will be supporting Wrangler but the festival isn’t about me. It’s about shining a light on all the people out there doing their own thing, unaware even of each other, but somehow on the same page. Needless to say, the nights where we’re booked to play a gig by a promoter are a breeze by comparison. As curator you suddenly have a duty of care to everything and everyone
Carter Tutti play Band on the Wall on the 5th of July, with Wrangler playing Soup Kitchen the following night. You can information on the other events which are free to attend on the subliminal impulse website, as well as Twitter and Facebook.
By Mark Buckley|2019-04-29T22:02:16+01:00April 29th, 2019|
About the Author: Mark Buckley
Overly opinionated on everything, co-owner of AnalogueTrash and avid Scandinavian synthpop fan. Most likely to be found eating salt and pepper tofu or swaying to moody electronica in a dirty goth club. Will write glowing reviews for cat pictures.
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In Charles Stross' 2013 science fiction novel, Neptune's Brood, the universal interstellar payment system is known as "bitcoin" and operates using cryptography.[227] Stross later blogged that the reference was intentional, saying "I wrote Neptune's Brood in 2011. Bitcoin was obscure back then, and I figured had just enough name recognition to be a useful term for an interstellar currency: it'd clue people in that it was a networked digital currency."[228]
Every 2,016 blocks (approximately 14 days at roughly 10 min per block), the difficulty target is adjusted based on the network's recent performance, with the aim of keeping the average time between new blocks at ten minutes. In this way the system automatically adapts to the total amount of mining power on the network.[7]:ch. 8 Between 1 March 2014 and 1 March 2015, the average number of nonces miners had to try before creating a new block increased from 16.4 quintillion to 200.5 quintillion.[86]
Bitcoin (BTC) is known as the first open-source, peer-to-peer, digital cryptocurrency that was developed and released by a group of unknown independent programmers named Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. Cryptocoin doesn’t have any centralized server used for its issuing, transactions and storing, as it uses a distributed network public database technology named blockchain, which requires an electronic signature and is supported by a proof-of-work protocol to provide the security and legitimacy of money transactions. The issuing of Bitcoin is done by users with mining capabilities and is limited to 21 million coins. Currently, Bitcoin’s market cap surpasses $138 billion and this is the most popular kind of digital currency. Buying and selling cryptocurrency is available through special Bitcoin exchange platforms or ATMs.
To make things easier, this page displays the logos and the symbols beside the name of the cryptocurrency – it is therefore impossible to make a mistake when looking at the numbers. The logos, names, and symbols appear in the first, second and third column, respectively. The names and symbols of the listed cryptocurrencies are actually links. Clicking on these links a new page with individual data about the chosen coin will be displayed, though it might take some time for the data to load.
The price of bitcoins has gone through cycles of appreciation and depreciation referred to by some as bubbles and busts.[159] In 2011, the value of one bitcoin rapidly rose from about US$0.30 to US$32 before returning to US$2.[160] In the latter half of 2012 and during the 2012–13 Cypriot financial crisis, the bitcoin price began to rise,[161] reaching a high of US$266 on 10 April 2013, before crashing to around US$50. On 29 November 2013, the cost of one bitcoin rose to a peak of US$1,242.[162] In 2014, the price fell sharply, and as of April remained depressed at little more than half 2013 prices. As of August 2014 it was under US$600.[163] During their time as bitcoin developers, Gavin Andresen[164] and Mike Hearn[165] warned that bubbles may occur.
To realize digital cash you need a payment network with accounts, balances, and transaction. That‘s easy to understand. One major problem every payment network has to solve is to prevent the so-called double spending: to prevent that one entity spends the same amount twice. Usually, this is done by a central server who keeps record about the balances.
Cryptocurrencies have been compared to Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes[77] and economic bubbles,[78] such as housing market bubbles.[79] Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital Management stated in 2017 that digital currencies were "nothing but an unfounded fad (or perhaps even a pyramid scheme), based on a willingness to ascribe value to something that has little or none beyond what people will pay for it", and compared them to the tulip mania (1637), South Sea Bubble (1720), and dot-com bubble (1999).[80]
Various journalists,[205][210] economists,[211][212] and the central bank of Estonia[213] have voiced concerns that bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme. In April 2013, Eric Posner, a law professor at the University of Chicago, stated that "a real Ponzi scheme takes fraud; bitcoin, by contrast, seems more like a collective delusion."[214] A July 2014 report by the World Bank concluded that bitcoin was not a deliberate Ponzi scheme.[215]:7 In June 2014, the Swiss Federal Council[216]:21 examined the concerns that bitcoin might be a pyramid scheme; it concluded that, "Since in the case of bitcoin the typical promises of profits are lacking, it cannot be assumed that bitcoin is a pyramid scheme." In July 2017, billionaire Howard Marks referred to bitcoin as a pyramid scheme.[217]
Darknet markets present challenges in regard to legality. Bitcoins and other forms of cryptocurrency used in dark markets are not clearly or legally classified in almost all parts of the world. In the U.S., bitcoins are labelled as "virtual assets". This type of ambiguous classification puts pressure on law enforcement agencies around the world to adapt to the shifting drug trade of dark markets.[76]
Monero is the most prominent example of the cryptonite algorithm. This algorithm was invented to add the privacy features Bitcoin is missing. If you use Bitcoin, every transaction is documented in the blockchain and the trail of transactions can be followed. With the introduction of a concept called ring-signatures, the cryptonite algorithm was able to cut through that trail.
Transactions that occur through the use and exchange of these altcoins are independent from formal banking systems, and therefore can make tax evasion simpler for individuals. Since charting taxable income is based upon what a recipient reports to the revenue service, it becomes extremely difficult to account for transactions made using existing cryptocurrencies, a mode of exchange that is complex and difficult to track.[67]
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the founders of the Gemini Trust Co. exchange, reported that they had cut their paper wallets into pieces and stored them in envelopes distributed to safe deposit boxes across the United States.[101] Through this system, the theft of one envelope would neither allow the thief to steal any bitcoins nor deprive the rightful owners of their access to them.[100]
Central to the appeal and function of Bitcoin is the blockchain technology it uses to store an online ledger of all the transactions that have ever been conducted using bitcoins, providing a data structure for this ledger that is exposed to a limited threat from hackers and can be copied across all computers running Bitcoin software. Every new block generated must be verified by the ledgers of each user on the market, making it almost impossible to forge transaction histories. Many experts see this blockchain as having important uses in technologies such as online voting and crowdfunding, and major financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase see potential in cryptocurrencies to lower transaction costs by making payment processing more efficient. However, because cryptocurrencies are virtual and do not have a central repository, a digital cryptocurrency balance can be wiped out by a computer crash if a backup copy of the holdings does not exist, or if somebody simply loses their private keys.
A cryptocurrency is a type of digital or virtual currency that doesn’t need to exist in a physical form to have value. These days cryptocurrencies have become extremely popular due to their decentralized exchange system between peers, making it essential for everyone to stay up to date with latest cryptocurrency news today. Our original top cryptocurrency news will help you stay up to date about everything that’s happening in the crypto world. Whether you are simply curious about the industry, are just starting out with cryptocurrencies or are a seasoned trader, we will make sure that staying up to date with the Latest Cryptocurrency News will be worth your time. The interesting thing about cryptocurrency news is that the industry is still very young and that the space is always evolving. New cryptocurrencies are popping up every day with certain projects clearly using blockchain technology better than others. Staying up to date with cryptocurrency news today will ensure you to hear all about the interesting coins that are out there - particularly the disruptive ones that could be mass adopted and are pushing the boundaries of the cryptocurrency industry forward. The aim of cryptocurrency news today is not only to keep you up to date on all the cryptocurrency news, but to educate you on all the technological developments in the space, to portray an interesting vision of where the industry is headed, and to keep you informed on security measures to be aware of in order to protect your cryptocurrencies.
Though transaction fees are optional, miners can choose which transactions to process and prioritize those that pay higher fees.[77] Miners may choose transactions based on the fee paid relative to their storage size, not the absolute amount of money paid as a fee. These fees are generally measured in satoshis per byte (sat/b). The size of transactions is dependent on the number of inputs used to create the transaction, and the number of outputs.[7]:ch. 8
Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.
2) Pseudonymous: Neither transactions nor accounts are connected to real-world identities. You receive Bitcoins on so-called addresses, which are randomly seeming chains of around 30 characters. While it is usually possible to analyze the transaction flow, it is not necessarily possible to connect the real world identity of users with those addresses.
The market of cryptocurrencies is fast and wild. Nearly every day new cryptocurrencies emerge, old die, early adopters get wealthy and investors lose money. Every cryptocurrency comes with a promise, mostly a big story to turn the world around. Few survive the first months, and most are pumped and dumped by speculators and live on as zombie coins until the last bagholder loses hope ever to see a return on his investment.
The first cryptocurrency to capture the public imagination was Bitcoin, which was launched in 2009 by an individual or group known under the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto. As of February 2019, there were over 17.53 million bitcoins in circulation with a total market value of around $63 billion (although the market price of bitcoin can fluctuate quite a bit). Bitcoin's success has spawned a number of competing cryptocurrencies, known as "altcoins" such as Litecoin, Namecoin and Peercoin, as well as Ethereum, EOS, and Cardano. Today, there are literally thousands of cryptocurrencies in existence, with an aggregate market value of over $120 billion (Bitcoin currently represents more than 50% of the total value).
^ Jump up to: a b c d e Joshua A. Kroll; Ian C. Davey; Edward W. Felten (11–12 June 2013). "The Economics of Bitcoin Mining, or Bitcoin in the Presence of Adversaries" (PDF). The Twelfth Workshop on the Economics of Information Security (WEIS 2013). Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 May 2016. Retrieved 26 April 2016. A transaction fee is like a tip or gratuity left for the miner.
The unit of account of the bitcoin system is a bitcoin. Ticker symbols used to represent bitcoin are BTC[a] and XBT.[b][72]:2 Its Unicode character is ₿.[1] Small amounts of bitcoin used as alternative units are millibitcoin (mBTC), and satoshi (sat). Named in homage to bitcoin's creator, a satoshi is the smallest amount within bitcoin representing 0.00000001 bitcoins, one hundred millionth of a bitcoin.[2] A millibitcoin equals 0.001 bitcoins; one thousandth of a bitcoin or 100,000 satoshis.[73]
Computing power is often bundled together or "pooled" to reduce variance in miner income. Individual mining rigs often have to wait for long periods to confirm a block of transactions and receive payment. In a pool, all participating miners get paid every time a participating server solves a block. This payment depends on the amount of work an individual miner contributed to help find that block.[92]
While cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that are managed through advanced encryption techniques, many governments have taken a cautious approach toward them, fearing their lack of central control and the effects they could have on financial security.[81] Regulators in several countries have warned against cryptocurrency and some have taken concrete regulatory measures to dissuade users.[82] Additionally, many banks do not offer services for cryptocurrencies and can refuse to offer services to virtual-currency companies.[83] Gareth Murphy, a senior central banking officer has stated "widespread use [of cryptocurrency] would also make it more difficult for statistical agencies to gather data on economic activity, which are used by governments to steer the economy". He cautioned that virtual currencies pose a new challenge to central banks' control over the important functions of monetary and exchange rate policy.[84] While traditional financial products have strong consumer protections in place, there is no intermediary with the power to limit consumer losses if bitcoins are lost or stolen.[85] One of the features cryptocurrency lacks in comparison to credit cards, for example, is consumer protection against fraud, such as chargebacks.
^ "Bitcoin: The Cryptoanarchists' Answer to Cash". IEEE Spectrum. Archived from the original on 4 June 2012. Around the same time, Nick Szabo, a computer scientist who now blogs about law and the history of money, was one of the first to imagine a new digital currency from the ground up. Although many consider his scheme, which he calls "bit gold", to be a precursor to Bitcoin
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This 1970 Plymouth GTX barn find has plenty of potential
BoldRide
Aug 7th 2016 at 1:00PM
There are few things as rewarding as restoring a classic car from the ground up — or in this case, the rust up. This is a 1970 Plymouth GTX, and though it's definitely seen its better days, it's an American classic with plenty of potential for the right buyer.
It's up for grabs on eBay right now, with a current bid of just under $12,000 (US) per this writing. But it's climbing fast.
The car itself hasn't seen the road since 1986, according to BarnFinds, having been stored away in a garage only to be uncovered recently and listed as it. It has a 440 V8 with a 4-speed and the optional A33 Track Pak option, painted in lime green and featuring a black vinyl top.
Brand new, this car was built for the drag strip. The Track Pak allowed for 375 horsepower with a four barrel carb, meaning it could get up and go from a dead stop in just 5.7 seconds, which was pretty quick for 1970.
It might seem like a lot of work considering the condition, but at auction, these cars go for well north of $50,000, depending on how expertly restored they are. This one has plenty of potential if someone is willing to put in the work.
This post originally appeared on Boldride.
Automotive History
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Making Hall History
By Carroll Rogers Walton
Chipper Jones boarded a private jet bound for his personal tour of the Hall of Fame in golf pants and flip flops.
He also wore the harried expression of a former professional athlete who just rushed from a charity golf tournament through Atlanta traffic and skipped lunch.
Only after the twin engine Cessna had climbed several thousand feet, and the hastily-purchased Chick-fil-A sandwich started to work on his stomach, did Jones let the reason for this April trip — an orientation for his upcoming induction — sink in.
“We are off to Cooperstown, New York,” he said, eyebrows raised, peering out the window.
Eight-passenger corporate jets don’t come with flight attendants announcing final destinations. But soon-to-be Hall of Famers entering a new kind of rarefied air often need a little confirmation.
“I still don’t think I’ve really come to grips with any of it,” Jones said, as he pulled out a pair of reading glasses and a copy of USA Today, neatly folding it open to the crossword puzzle. “I don’t think it will until I get up on that podium, and I’ve got all those guys sitting behind me. It’s almost like I’m getting my first big league camp again, like I really don’t know if I belong. But I’m going to sit in the back of the locker room, keep my mouth shut and speak when spoken to.”
For Jones, that “locker room” will have a familiar feel, relatively speaking, because sitting behind him on July 29 will be three of his former teammates, his former manager and his longtime general manager. Jones joins the Braves’ big three pitchers Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz, as well as their former manager Bobby Cox and GM John Schuerholz. Going in with that kind of company makes Jones’ induction even more unique.
Like Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz, Jones was elected on the first ballot. That makes the Braves the first club to have four first-ballot teammates who spent 10 or more seasons with the same club, according to research done by Jayson Stark. (Jones spent 19 seasons with Atlanta, Smoltz 20, Glavine 17 and Maddux 11.)
“That’s got to be unprecedented, but so was our run,” Jones said of the quartet’s longevity with the Braves. “It’s cool to be involved in something that you know quite probably will not be done again. You know nobody is going to hit in 56 straight games. You know nobody is going to play 2,700 straight ball games again. Fourteen straight division titles is—I won’t say never—but it’s pretty untouchable.”
The first overall pick in the 1990 draft, Jones was playing at low Class A in the Braves’ organization when they went worst-to-first in 1991 with Smoltz, Glavine and Steve Avery headlining a young rotation. Jones was a rookie in 1995, the year Atlanta won its only World Series, with Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz all pitching together in their prime. Jones and Smoltz were both still playing for the Braves when they won their 14th straight National League East division title in 2005.
Jones, Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz spent 10 years together as teammates in Atlanta, from 1993-2002. That includes 1994 when Jones was out with a knee injury and 2000 when Smoltz was out with Tommy John surgery.
Since 1960, only the Giants have had that many Hall of Famers play together longer. At least four Hall of Famers played for the Giants for 12 straight seasons from 1960-71, and in five of those years, there were five: Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry.
“There are a lot of people who are good that I’m sure never get a chance to show how good they can be because they’re not in the right environment,” said Braves broadcaster and Hall of Fame pitcher Don Sutton, who played against those Giants teams of the late 1960s in his time with the Dodgers. “They’re good actors in the wrong play . . . I think these three (Braves pitchers) came along at the right time, when the Braves had an owner (Ted Turner), a general manager and a manager committed to doing whatever it took to win and have everybody play for the same goal and not shortchange your teammates. To a man, I think the three pitchers benefited from it and, heck, Chipper was a vital part in it.”
Jones put it much the same way.
“Our general manager was going to be proactive and give us a chance to win every year,” he said. “We had a manager who we loved to play for. We had a good gig. We were allowed to play ourselves into shape in spring training. Bobby trusted us because we proved to him that we would do it.”
And then there was golf. Cox let his starting pitchers play as much as they wanted to in their off time.
“I have a theory as to why Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz stuck together,” Jones said. “Because (if they left) it would mess up their golf game. For me it was a little different. I’m a Southern kid, and I never wanted to play anywhere else. I wanted to play within driving distance of my parents and friends (in Pierson, Fla.) I immediately took to Atlanta when I moved here in 1992. It was an easy fit. Put me in a big city and I wouldn’t have liked it as much.”
Jones was the only one of the Hall of Fame foursome to stay in Atlanta throughout his career. He hit in the heart of the Braves’ order—primarily No. 3—from the time he broke into the everyday lineup in 1995 to the year he retired in 2012. Even Maddux calls Jones “the face of the franchise.”
“Every at-bat mattered to him,” Maddux said. “He never gave away an at-bat, never gave away a pitch, was always prepared, was never surprised when it was his turn to hit. When you’re getting 600 at-bats a year, not many guys can do that. You’ll see guys get two hits and the next at-bat, ‘Well, I got two hits,’ and they’re just up there (going through the motions,) but not with Chipper. If he got two, he wanted three.”
Ranking Top 10 MLB Draft First Rounds Over Last 40 Years
Rarely is the best player in a draft class the No. 1 pick. Yet the best player in that class is almost always a first rounder.
DOMINANT DECADE
Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz formed the core of the dynastic 1990s Braves. All four played for Atlanta from 1993 to 2002 and all four were first-ballot Hall of Fame selections. The Braves during this period won the National League East in every completed season. They won the 1995 World Series and claimed the NL pennant in 1996 and 1999. Here is how the Hall of Famers fared during this 10-year period.
Hall of Famers Performance WAR Awards
Greg Maddux 178 W, 2.51 ERA, 171 ERA+ 65.0 1993, 1994, 1995 CYA
Chipper Jones .309 AVG, 253 HR, 143 OPS+ 44.4 1999 MVP
Tom Glavine 169 W, 3.25 ERA, 132 ERA+ 43.1 1998 CYA
John Smoltz 106 W, 3.25 ERA, 65 SV, 131 ERA+ 29.3 1996 CYA
The day Jones got the call that he had been named to 97.2 percent of the Hall of Fame ballots, Glavine and his wife sent a bouquet of white orchids and a bottle of Dom Perignon to Jones’ house. He followed it up with a phone call. Maddux sent a text, saying, “Hey congrats, Larry.” Smoltz congratulated Jones during a live television interview on MLB Network that evening.
Just those reactions give a good indication of how different their personalities are. Jones believes that’s a big part of why Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz enjoyed playing together.
“You’ve got the one guy who’s serious and all business in Glavine, and you’ve got the two jokers,” Jones said. “You had the one boisterous joker in Smoltzy, the center of attention, and then Doggie (Maddux) would fly under the radar and show up when you least expect it. But man, when they walked through the tunnel out into that dugout they were different guys.”
Jones said their differences helped keep them friends, on and off the field.
“I think if they would have been alike, they probably would have butted heads,” he said. “I never heard them say something mean about each other, behind another’s back. They loved the competition between them. They really pushed each other and there was no animosity. It was more of a sibling rivalry. They did everything together. They worked out together, they played golf together, they played cards together.”
Sutton, who broadcasted Braves games for the entire 14-year-run, believes all the time they spent talking pitching contributed to their Hall of Fame careers.
“They were talking pitching all the time,” Sutton said. “When I played, a lot of times we were trying to figure out where we were going fishing tomorrow.”
Sutton briefly pitched in a Dodgers’ rotation with two other Hall of Famers—Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale—but he still gives the nod to the Braves rotation of the 1990s for its greatness over time.
“Over a long career . . . you can make the argument that those three were the best three Hall of Famers to ever pitch together,” he said. “I had the privilege of playing with Sandy and Don. Sandy’s the greatest, most dominating pitcher I ever saw. The ’54 Cleveland Indians had some pretty good people, but I think it’s hard to argue with what those three guys accomplished.”
If you ask Jones, one of those accomplishments was helping him get to the Hall.
“I wouldn’t be sitting here,” Jones said, from his seat on that chartered jet headed to Cooperstown. “Without those three pitchers.”
—Carroll Rogers Walton is a freelancer based in Charlotte. She wrote “Ballplayer” with Chipper Jones.
All-Time No. 1 Farm Systems
We've been ranking farm systems since 1984. We looked at the top MLB organization each year and several notable prospects from that time.
All-Time No. 1 Prospects
Here are the all-time No. 1 Baseball America prospects, including 2019 No. 1 Vladimir Guerrero Jr. As an added bonus, we've included who was No. 2 each year as well.
Numbers Game: 15 Prospects Who Were Born To Be Stars
It was obvious even when these players were teenagers that they were bound for major league stardom.
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Daily Ratings & News for Costco Wholesale
Complete the form below to receive the latest headlines and analysts' recommendations for Costco Wholesale with our free daily email newsletter:
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Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ:BBBY) PT Lowered to $13.00 at Robert W. Baird
Karyopharm Therapeutics (NASDAQ:KPTI) Cut to Hold at ValuEngine
Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ:COST) Given New $290.00 Price Target at Robert W. Baird
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Posted by Ron Greene on Jul 14th, 2019 // Comments off
Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ:COST) had its target price boosted by Robert W. Baird from $270.00 to $290.00 in a report published on Thursday, BenzingaRatingsTable reports. They currently have an outperform rating on the retailer’s stock.
A number of other brokerages have also recently commented on COST. Gordon Haskett cut Costco Wholesale from an accumulate rating to a hold rating and set a $244.90 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, May 29th. They noted that the move was a valuation call. Morgan Stanley cut Meili from an equal weight rating to an underweight rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $14.00 to $4.20 in a research note on Monday, June 3rd. BidaskClub cut Xencor from a sell rating to a strong sell rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 11th. BMO Capital Markets set a $275.00 price objective on Costco Wholesale and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Friday, May 31st. Finally, Zacks Investment Research upgraded HB Fuller from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 11th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eighteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Costco Wholesale has a consensus rating of Buy and an average price target of $259.39.
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COST stock opened at $279.44 on Thursday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $258.90. Costco Wholesale has a 12-month low of $189.51 and a 12-month high of $280.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 0.48 and a current ratio of 0.98. The stock has a market capitalization of $122.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 40.91, a PEG ratio of 3.92 and a beta of 0.94.
Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ:COST) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 30th. The retailer reported $1.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the Zacks’ consensus estimate of $1.83 by $0.06. Costco Wholesale had a return on equity of 25.03% and a net margin of 2.41%. The firm had revenue of $34.74 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $34.72 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.70 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 7.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts predict that Costco Wholesale will post 8.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
Costco Wholesale declared that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Friday, April 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the retailer to reacquire up to 3.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.
In related news, Director Susan L. Decker sold 1,646 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $268.25, for a total value of $441,539.50. Following the transaction, the director now owns 41,803 shares in the company, valued at $11,213,654.75. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Susan L. Decker sold 2,790 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $254.62, for a total value of $710,389.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 45,405 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,561,021.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 28,136 shares of company stock worth $7,380,374. Insiders own 0.21% of the company’s stock.
Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Northstar Group Inc. increased its holdings in Costco Wholesale by 1.0% in the second quarter. Northstar Group Inc. now owns 19,396 shares of the retailer’s stock valued at $5,125,000 after buying an additional 191 shares during the last quarter. Country Club Trust Company n.a. increased its holdings in Costco Wholesale by 1.4% in the second quarter. Country Club Trust Company n.a. now owns 6,766 shares of the retailer’s stock valued at $1,788,000 after buying an additional 92 shares during the last quarter. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. increased its holdings in Costco Wholesale by 9.6% in the second quarter. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. now owns 3,452 shares of the retailer’s stock valued at $912,000 after buying an additional 301 shares during the last quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co increased its holdings in Costco Wholesale by 13.2% in the second quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co now owns 23,954 shares of the retailer’s stock valued at $6,624,000 after buying an additional 2,789 shares during the last quarter. Finally, HMS Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Costco Wholesale in the second quarter valued at about $132,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.08% of the company’s stock.
Costco Wholesale Company Profile
Costco Wholesale Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates membership warehouses. It offers branded and private-label products in a range of merchandise categories. The company provides dry and packaged foods, and groceries; snack foods, candies, alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages, and cleaning supplies; appliances, electronics, health and beauty aids, hardware, and garden and patio products; meat, bakery, deli, and produces; and apparel and small appliances.
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Cohen & Steers Reit & Pfd Icm Fd Inc To Go Ex-Dividend on July 16th
Cantor Fitzgerald Analysts Give Amarin a $35.00 Price Target
Gladstone Capital Upgraded to Hold at Zacks Investment Research
Clarus Raised to Buy at Zacks Investment Research
LivePerson Research Coverage Started at KeyCorp
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Paul has been a judge on The Great British Bake Off since the start, with the most recent series ending on a high of 15.6 million viewers
Recipes from Paul
Pea Pancetta and Parmesan Tart
Chocolate and Cherry Roulade
The son of baker, Paul Hollywood originally trained as a sculptor before his father persuaded him to join the family business. He went onto become head baker at some of the most exclusive hotels including Cliveden, Chester Grosvenor and The Dorchester where he gained a reputation as an innovator and one of the country’s finest artisan bakers.
Following his apprenticeship and success at some of the UK’s top hotels, Paul took the opportunity to travel extensively through Cyprus, Egypt and Jordan, visiting remote villages to discover ancient techniques for baking bread and, on one occasion, travelling to a Bedouin encampment and baking in the desert on an upturned cooking pot. Paul began his media career on Carlton Food Network and Taste in 2002 where he co-presented two tv series with James Martin.
Paul has been a judge on The Great British Bake Off since the start. He has also judged Junior Bake Off and celebrity versions for Sport Relief and Comic Relief and Stand Up To Cancer. The show is now seen in more than 18 countries around the World including the US and Australia. In May 2013 he appeared as judge on the new US version of Bake Off, The American Baking Competition which aired on CBS.
He has appeared in many of his own series: Paul Hollywood’s Bread; Pies & Puds; City Bakes Series 1 and 2; Paul Hollywood's Big Continental Road Trip; A Baker's Life. He authored a best-selling book ‘100 Great Breads’ which has been published in ten countries and seven languages, and was voted ‘top bread and pastry book’ by the Gourmand Academy. His second book How to Bake, published by Bloomsbury, came out in summer 2012 and quickly went on to the top of the bestseller lists. The book to accompany his Bread series came out in February 2013 with the Pies and Puds book hitting shelves in October 2013 to coincide with the programme of the same name. Paul Hollywood's British Baking came out in October 2014 and Weekend Baker launched in 2016. His most recent book, A Baker's Life was published in November 2017 and accompanied his series on C4.
Paul makes regular contributions to The Telegraph, The BBC Good Food Magazine, Olive Magazine, Waitrose Magazine and has written for both The Observer and The Daily Mail. Paul advises and trains at Corporate level, he has created a range of part-baked breads, baking mixes and kitchen bake wear, as well as hosting and presenting large demonstrations and award ceremonies.
See your favourite chefs LIVE!
Find your favourite chefs at a Show near you...
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Aldred Still In Contention For MBNA North West Football Award
Defender One Of Four Finalists In Category
Tom Aldred is one of four finalists competing to be named League One Player of the Year at the MBNA North West Football Awards.
The defender, who was initially on a shortlist of seven, is up against Fleetwood Town's Jimmy Ryan and former Blackpool players Peter Clarke and David Perkins to win the accolade.
Elsewhere, young winger Bright Osayi-Samuel has missed out on a final place in the Rising Star category, having initially been nominated for the award.
All winners of MBNA North West Football Awards will be announced on Monday 14 November, when the ceremony takes place at Emirates Old Trafford.
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Hall of Memory medallion
Exclusive to the Australian War Memorial SHOP:9348980002807
The Hall of Memory, set above the Pool of Reflection, is the heart of the Australian War Memorial. Flanked by the Roll of Honour, and home to the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier, the Hall of Memory is a sacred place.
Artist Napier Waller, a former Australian serviceman who was injured at Bullecourt in 1917, was commissioned to design the Hall of Memory. Despite only having one arm, Waller was actively involved in the construction of the stained glass windows that encircle the room, and the glorious Byzantine-style mosaic that spans the the full interior of the Hall. The Hall of Memory was officially dedicated in May 1959.
Sixty years on, the Australian War Memorial has released this commemorative medallion.
The medallion is finished in a burnished nickel tone and features a full-colour depiction of the Byzantine mosaic, encircled by the attributes: Audacity, Endurance, Decision, Patriotism, Chivalry, Loyalty, Coolness and Control. The Australian War Memorial logo appears on the reverse side of the medallion, encircled with the attributes: Ancestry, Resource, Candour, Devotion, Curiosity, Independence and Comradeship.
Presented in a classic black box, the medallion is accompanied by a small commemorative booklet.
The medallion measures 6.4 cm in diameter.
Winged Victory medallion
Inspiring hope in the aftermath of the First World War, the iconic symbol of Winged Victory (based on the Grecian goddess Nike) appeared in various fo...
Large Vehicle Poppy
Commemorate on the move with this large vehicle poppy (suitable for truck/bus). Moulded from durable plastic, this large red poppy can be easily fast...
Handcrafted poppy bunch (5 stems)
One hundred years ago, on 11 November 1918, the First World War came to an end. To mark this historic anniversary, 62,000 handcrafted poppies were di...
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Jan 27 'Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am' Presents A Personal Perspective Of A Miraculous Life [Sundance Review]
If we do not tell our own stories, someone else will paint a picture of our lives and call it the truth. Prolific writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Toni Morrison has been writing her story and chronicling the lives of Black folk for nearly 50 years. Though her work is world renowned, her personal history and life’s journey has remained somewhat mysterious.
In director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders intimate documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, the audience is taken on a journey through the Beloved author’s life, from her humble beginnings in Lorain, Ohio, to her days as an editor at Random House and then as a lecturer at Princeton University. Using Morrison’s own recollections along with anecdotes from her childhood and earlier years, the author and Greenfield-Sanders construct a picture of a woman who single-handedly reshaped literature not just for Black folks, but for lovers of language and the written word across the globe.
Toni Morrison’s life did not begin with her birth in 1931. Instead, The Pieces I Am stretches backward —two generations before Morrison — to her grandfather, who would proudly boast to anyone listening that he’d read the Bible from cover to cover five times. Literacy has never been a given for members of the Black community which is why for Morrison — who learned to read at age three— books have always been somewhat of a miracle.
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, Toni Morrison, documentary films
Jan 27 'Premature' Is A Gripping Account Of A Young Black Woman's Sexual Awakening [Sundance Review]
Jan 27 Nikyatu Jusu On Her Evocative Black Vampire Film 'Suicide By Sunlight' [Sundance Interview]
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The Salvation Army- Erin Gilmour School for the Blind
#31 Mackey Street
http://www.salvationarmybahamas.org
Charities/Non-profit Organizations
Schools - Special Academic Education
Visit : http://www.salvationarmybahamas.org
The story of The Salvation Army is a story of people helping people. The services provided by the Army in The Bahamas touch up to 40,000 lives every year. Since its establishment in 1931, The Army has worked tirelessly to help those who need a helping hand , a hot meal , a shelter from abuse, a way to earn a living with dignity if not with sight, a respite from the world that has shunned or hurt them. Through its spiritual ministries as well as its feeding, education, temporary residence and welfare programs, The Army has been on the frontlines of war against desperation and hopelessness, striving to win the battle for human triumph with God's help.
People Helping People - 242-393-2100
Salvation Army's Mop Workshop For the Blind
Since 1945 the Salvation Army's Mop Workshop has produced the finest mops for the local Bahamian Market. The mops are made by blind and visually impaired adults providing an opportunity for them to work with dignity and pride. The employees receive full and equitable pay for their work, while gaining a sense of self-reliance and independence. All of the workshop net profits go back into the community through the Salvation Army's social service programs. Through gifted hands we are breaking the barriers of disability in an amazing way. The Salvation Army's Mop Workshop works with the highest quality of antimicrobial yarns. The antibacterial wet mop will eliminate up to 99.9% bacterial, yeast and other microorganisms. The technology reduces the level of microorganisms on surface and protects against the negative effects of mold and mildew. The use of the mop controls odor causing microbial growth which is perfect for restaurants, hospitals, convenience stores, hotels, fast food outlets, schools etcetera where cross contamination is possible and/or cleaning of public areas.
The mops made by the workshop lasts up to ten times longer than conventional cotton mops because of the anti-microbial protection stopping the growth of microorganisms that can rot and shorten the life of other mops. The Salvation Army Mop Workshop has a track record in manufacturing a quality product.
The administrative offices (or divisional headquarters) for The Salvation Army are located on 31 Mackey Street, Nassau. From this location The Salvation Army coordinates all of its programs and services rendered in The Bahamas. The divisional commander is directly responsible for the Army's work and business in The Bahamas, and is ably supported at divisional headquarters by other Salvation Army officers, advisory board members, employees and volunteers. The Salvation Army in The Bahamas falls under the administrative jurisdiction of the Caribbean Territory, with territorial headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica. The Salvation Army's international offices are in London, England, where the General, the Army's world leader, gives guidance to the organization in 113 countries around the world.
How It All Got Started
In 1931 Colonel Mary Booth, then territorial commander for The Salvation Army in the Caribbean, was on her way to Bermuda from the territorial headquarters in Jamaica when the ship she was sailing in made a brief stop at the port in Nassau. Colonel Booth disembarked the vessel, and a quick tour of parts of Nassau coupled with passionate pleas from several of the local residents were all it took for her to be convinced that the work of The Salvation Army was needed in The Bahamas. On her return to headquarters in Jamaica, she quickly sent two Salvation Army officers to begin the work, which officially commenced in Nassau in May 1931. The Salvation Army began its religious work and social service programs in Governors Harbour, Eleuthera, in 1932, and in Freeport, Grand Bahama, in 1985.
The Salvation Army in The Bahamas is widely known for its work with the blind and visually impaired. The School for the Blind has its beginnings in Grants Town in 1948 and the Workshop for blind adults began a year later. Both the school and workshop have had several locations over the years before settling at their current locations on Mackey Street and Ivanhoe Road, respectively.
"DOING THE MOST GOOD"
"Service is our watchword, and there is no reward equal to that of doing the most good to the most people in the most need."
Evangeline Booth,
daughter of The Army's founder, William Booth.
Christian Organizations
Women s Shelters
Red Shield Family Services
Hands For Hunger
The Salvation Army - Thrift Store #1
Bahamas Humane Society
Bahamas National Feeding Network
Children's Emergency Hostel
Ginoska Center for Academic Excellences
Bayview Academy
JamboreeKids Pre-School
The Big Apple Academy
Blairwood Academy
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How Will The Celtics Replace Jae Crowder?
By Jack Bardsley 3 years ago
With 16 games left in the regular season and only a one game lead on the Miami Heat for 3rd place in the East, the Celtics are in the midst of a “make or break” portion of their season.
The good news is that they’ve had their backs against the wall all year, and have responded remarkably well thus far. Since they fell to 19-19 in mid January, they’ve managed to save their season by going 20-8 in their last 28 games. They even ripped off 14 consecutive home wins before their loss to the Rockets last Friday, the longest streak for a Celtics team since 1991.
Boston now has their sights set on home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs if they can maintain their current place in the standings. In order to do so, they’ll have to overcome their toughest challenge yet. Winning without their best two-way player and emotional leader.
Brad Stevens announced Sunday that Jae Crowder will be “out a couple of weeks, minimum” with a high ankle sprain.
Crowder has been a force for the C’s this season, and has been their most important player who isn’t named Isaiah Thomas. He leads the team in steals with 1.8 per game, good for 13th in the NBA.
He’s also the best shot-blocking and rebounding wing player that the Celtics have. He’s fourth on the team in blocked shots behind big men Amir Johnson, Jared Sullinger, and Kelly Olynyk and third in rebounds behind Johnson and Sullinger.
On offense, Jae’s 14.4 points per game is good for third on the team behind Isaiah and Avery Bradley and he has the highest field goal percentage (45%) of any wing player.
Aside from his statistical production, what will be missed most about Crowder is his leadership. If I were to name a captain for this current Celtics team it would be #99.
I’m sure he’ll do everything he can to be a motivational voice from the bench for the next couple weeks, but his on-court vocal presence will be a void that will be tough to fill. Luckily, thanks in no small part to Brad Stevens, this Celtics team as a whole seems to have a unique chemistry. I’m hopeful that they can work with Brad to overcome another obstacle, just like they’ve been doing ever since their second half turnaround in 2014-2015.
There’s obviously plenty of speculation as to how exactly the Celtics will replace Crowder in the starting lineup. The most common answer is Evan Turner, but then you’re taking away that crucial spark that he provides as a confident scorer off the bench.
Regardless of who starts, replacing Jae Crowder is going to be a group effort. A lot will be placed on the shoulders of Jonas Jerebko, which could be a scary thought on the offensive end. This will also be an opportunity for 20 year-old James Young to show whether or not he’s ready to be a solid contributor in the NBA.
Defensively, the C’s have their work cut out for them right away following Crowder’s injury. Their next three match-ups feature three of the best scoring small forwards in the league in Kevin Durant, Paul George, and DeMar DeRozan.
Normally, Jae would be assigned to cover them. In his absence, Marcus Smart is likely the best replacement. A tall task for the 22 year-old, but Marcus has already established himself as an elite perimeter defender and he hasn’t exactly been known to back down from any challenges.
It should be an interesting couple weeks for the Celtics. If they can maintain the three seed until Crowder is healthy, then Brad Stevens is a lock for Coach of the Year.
Follow Jack Bardsley on Twitter @BostonsBigFour
Photo via Fansided.com
Tags: Amir Johnson, avery bradley, boston celtics, brad stevens, DeMar DeRozan, Indiana Pacers, Jae Crowder, jared sullinger, Jonas Jerebko, Kelly Olynyk, Kevin Durant, Marcus Smart, Miami Heat, NBA, Oklahoma City Thunder, Paul George, Toronto Raptors
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1 thought on “How Will The Celtics Replace Jae Crowder?”
Pingback: 2015-2016 Celtics Season Recap (Highlights) – Boston's Big Four
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Maria Ellis
Bradgate Films founder and producer
With many years' experience producing short films and music promos, Maria turned her attention to feature films and formed Bradgate Films to support a growing slate of projects. Maria's background prior to producing was in law and banking.
She received her law degree in 2001 and a post graduate diploma with a commendation the following year. Maria has since gained extensive experience in banking, operating within the operations management area for a multi-national bank. This business and legal experience has enabled Maria to successfully negotiate and acquire rights to the slate of feature projects owned by Bradgate Films and to forward the company's first feature "Ashes" through development and into production.
Maria co-executive produced 35mm short film "Gone Fishing", written and directed by Chris Jones at Living Spirit Pictures and also "In the Daze of Things" written and directed by Gael Zaks. Her first feature film as producer, "Ashes" is now complete.
Roger Bird
Roger has worked in the entertainment business for 20 years. He joined Bradgate Films to help co-produced feature film Ashes and is now actively involved in producing two follow-up features for the company.
Before finding his place in the film business, Roger spent many years as a professional performer and band leader. He has written and produced for stage, and has successfully managed his own band "Mood Indigo". This act has appeared on television and radio, and enjoyed residencies at many of the nation's top venues including Ronnie Scott's and Birmingham's Jam House. He made a memorable appearance as the only live act at the James Bond 40th Birthday party at Cannes Film Festival.
More recently Roger has been involved in the management and development of original music acts including Nottingham's Jake Bugg and singer/songwriter Robyn Hughes-Jones.
Alan Coulson
Screenwriter and director
Alan has been writing professionally for the screen for 10 years, working extensively in both the UK and the US. He wrote two new Judge Dredd movies for Morris Ruskin of Shoreline Entertainment, based on the 2000AD comic book character and has written novel adaptations and original screenplays for producers worldwide.
His first horror film, "Parasite", directed by Andrew Prendergast, was produced and released in 2004 by Rebellion.
Prior to his time as a screenwriter he was actively involved in directing and producing short films, music promos and stage plays. He wrote and directed video sequences for the hugely successful stage play "Mood Indigo" which ran throughout the midlands in 2005 and was produced by Off The Shelf Productions. Alan has directed over 30 music promos, as well as live events and short films, including producing 35mm short film "Secret Friends", directed by Mark S Jones in 2000; and was a co-executive producer of "Gone Fishing", written and directed by Chris Jones (Alan also directed the "slow motion" sequences in the film).
His directorial debut feature film "Ashes" is now complete.
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'Sharing economy' companies like Uber and Airbnb aren't really 'sharing' anything
Rob Killick,
IB Times UK
Demonstrators hold signs during a protest organized by the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance against ridesharing services Uber and Lyft.
REUTERS/Stephen Lam
Transport for London's proposed crackdown on Uber taxi service has triggered a polarised response from the public.
Uber supporters in their tens of thousands have signed an online petition defending the taxi service, while detractors claim it is ripping off its own staff as well as the British taxpayer. While this row is specifically about Uber, there is a broader context to this as Uber is the most famous and successful example of what has become known as the "sharing economy".
The sharing economy is a description for an amorphous and wide-ranging set of businesses and practices across the world. Many claims, sometimes conflicting, have been made about the sharing economy. Some critics of Uber, for example, see it as an example of unbridled capitalism, while others such as the left-wing economist Paul Mason see it as a "route to dotcommunism", a death knell for the market economy.
How are we to understand such an apparently contradictory phenomenon? There are three observations I would like to make:
A lot of what is called sharing is not really sharing
Much of what is claimed to be new about the sharing economy is not really new
The sharing economy, however defined, is not a solution to the big economic problems we face.
Pirate capitalists
Airbnb cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky and founder and owner of Nasty Gal Sophie Amoruso
Michael Kovac/Getty
So what aspects of the sharing economy are not really about sharing? Having friends to stay over on a Saturday night is sharing. Handing them a bill with their breakfast makes me a hotelier. Giving somebody a lift is sharing. Charging them for it makes me a cabbie. Lending somebody a tenner until tomorrow is sharing. Charging them 6% interest for it is usury.
None of these things are sharing, they are selling. There is nothing wrong with selling, but I suppose the selling economy is a tautology. Indeed, the ultimate form of "sharing" in this sense would be prostitution, although I do not think the IPO [Initial public offering] for that is imminent.
Why does the misnomer matter? Because of the moral, environmental and ethical claims that are being made for the sharing economy. That somehow it is taking us away from traditional forms of ownership and into a new and more cooperative world. If anything it is taking us in a different direction, towards the monetisation of everyday transactions between people and a less communal and more individuated approach to the world, as if we are all involved in a permanent car boot sale of our time, skills and possessions.
What can we say is new about the sharing economy? Generally these types of services are the product of the internet and the capacity for disintermediation that it has brought. But disintermediation is a posh word for cutting out the middle man, and there is nothing very new about that. The internet has undoubtedly changed things by allowing mass peer-to-peer connectivity and that has definite consumer benefits.
"The internet-driven changes are the latest phase of a centuries-old economic system, not the harbinger of a new one." - Rob Killick
However, the real winners in this process have been the pirate capitalists who have moved in and used the technology to break up and disrupt existing industries. This has been and forever will be the story of capitalism: creative destruction. The internet-driven changes are the latest phase of a centuries-old economic system, not the harbinger of a new one.
Airbnb has become hugely successful because it has adopted another old truism of the capitalist economy: sweat your assets. Do not leave what for most people is their most valuable asset, their house, empty when they go away. Uber is succeeding partly because it has solved a problem that was fixed a while ago in the heavy transport industry: do not have an empty vehicle on the return journey. Peer-to-peer lending is a more extensive version of the "friends and family" approach to seed funding entrepreneurs and start-ups. At present peer-to-peer funding does not appear to be able to address the problem which faces most growing businesses once they have got past the start-up phase: the step up funding of £2m to £10m or more of which there is a huge dearth in this country.
These and other innovations can be useful and valuable for their users. But they do not point the way to a different world. They are simply adapting traditional business methods through the use of new technology, and good luck to them.
Austerity-driven sharing
A woman waves a Greek flag during an anti-austerity pro-government rally in front of the parliament building in Athens
Lastly, I would say that however smart and innovative some of these new businesses are, they do not have the potential to solve the big economic problems we face. The sharing economy really got going because of the recession and the economic pressures and opportunities it helped to create.
But sharing is operating on the periphery of the global economy, not at its centre. The taxi industry undoubtedly benefited from a one-off productivity increase through Uber and the like. But there appear to be few other major industries which can benefit in the same way from this kind of disruption. Also, in the case of both Uber and Airbnb, they are displacing existing services and therefore not contributing much extra demand in the broader economy.
There is evidence in the US, which is more advanced than Europe in the sharing economy, that many people have been forced into renting and driving cabs because their wages have stagnated and their living standards fallen. They have been driven, literally in some cases, towards sharing by austerity. Low productivity in many Western economies has led to stagnating wages. Inadequate productive investment by both big businesses and governments has been a major factor in causing low productivity.
Until the twin problems of low productivity and inadequate investment are addressed the main sharing that is going on will be sharing out the misery.
Read the original article on IB Times UK. Copyright 2019. Follow IB Times UK on Twitter.
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Goldman Sachs execs are jockeying for power in the firm's big new private investing unit — and the stakes couldn't be higher
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Robert Gallo
Robert Gallo is a Director for the Institute of Human Virology with five videos in the C-SPAN Video Library; the first appearance was a 1990 Forum as . The year with the highest average number of views per program was 2009 with an average of 135 views per program. Most appearances with Peter Hawley (2), Anthony S. Fauci M.D. (2), Richard Hindin (2). Most common tag: HIV/AIDS.
Appearances by Title:c. January 1, 2009 - Present Director, Institute of Human Virology Videos: 1 c. August 10, 1992 - Present Chief, Tumor Cell Biology Laboratory, National Cancer Institute Videos: 3
c. - c. August 10, 1992 Videos: 1
Global Threat of HIV
In observance of the 25th anniversary of the publication of four groundbreaking Science Magazine articles on the discovery of HIV…
Cable Response to HIV/AIDS
As part of an initiative by the cable industry to promote AIDS education and prevention, Doctor Berkley and Doctor Gallo talked…
AIDS Vaccine Research and Treatment
AIDS researchers participated in a town meeting on the latest developments in AIDS treatment and research. The panel of AIDS…
HIV/AIDS Epidemic: A Current Profile
Dr. Novello spoke to an audience at a forum sponsored by the National Cancer Institute in Washington, DC, on the current…
Filter By All Event Types Forum - 4 Speech - 1
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Ontario to introduce zero tolerance legislation for drug-impaired driving
The province of Ontario announced on Monday morning that it will introduce legislation this fall that will include zero tolerance for drug-impaired driving for several classes of motorists.
Premier Kathleen Wynne and Minister of Transportation Steven Del Duca announced the plans in Toronto for legislation this fall that would “increase the consequences and costs for those who drive under the influence of drugs, including cannabis.” The measures are part of Ontario’s comprehensive cannabis plan, introduced in advance of the federal government’s plan to legalize recreational cannabis by July 2018, the Office of the Premier said in a statement.
That plan, introduced on Sept. 8, includes Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) oversight of approximately 150 standalone cannabis retail stores. The plan, among other items, also includes: a proposed minimum age of 19 to use, purchase and possess recreational cannabis in Ontario, which will be allowed in “private residences” are prohibited in public places, workplaces or when inside a motor vehicle; a “coordinated enforcement strategy” to help shut down illegal cannabis dispensaries; and, for those under 19, a focus on “prevention, diversion and harm reduction without unnecessarily bringing them into contact with the justice system.”
For Ontario’s zero tolerance legislation, the new, tougher laws against drug-impaired driving will include zero tolerance for: young drivers aged 21 and under; novice drivers – G1, G2, M1 and M2 (motorcycle) licence holders; and all commercial drivers.
Related: Drug-impaired driving incidents in Ontario’s York Region up in 2016, “trend indicates continuing increases”: police
“Zero tolerance means that drivers should not get behind the wheel if they have any detectable presence of drugs or alcohol in their system,” the statement explained. “For cannabis, the federal government will be approving a screening device and setting the thresholds for detectable presence in the coming months.”
Ontario’s legislation will also increase monetary penalties for all drivers who fail, or refuse to perform, a sobriety test. For young, novice and commercial drivers, proposed penalties include a three-day licence suspension on first occurrence and a penalty of $250, with suspensions and penalties increasing with subsequent occurrences.
As the federal legalization of cannabis approaches, Ontario also plans to convene a summit in the fall with policing partners, public health and other stakeholders. The summit will be an opportunity to identify the resources necessary to address illegal storefront cannabis sales, proposed provincial offences, enforcement, opportunities for coordination and collaboration, and associated resource requirements.
Related: MPI launches public awareness campaign on drug-impaired driving
According to the 2014 Ontario Road Safety Annual Report, 29% of all road fatalities that year involved a driver impaired by drugs and/or alcohol, the Office of the Premier reported in the statement.
Teresa Di Felice, director of government and community relations with CAA South Central Ontario (CAA SCO), said in a press release on Monday that “we applaud the provincial government for taking the necessary proactive steps to address road safety ahead of cannabis legalization.”
“The measures announced today will align drug-impaired and alcohol-impaired offences for young and novice drivers, ensuring there is a zero tolerance while they are in their formative years of driving and most at risk of being in a crash,” Di Felice went on to say. “Similarly, the zero tolerance levels proposed for commercial drivers, is an additional measure to help keep Ontario’s roads safe.”
Web-based Drug-Impaired Driving Learning Centre launched
Ontario to introduce new offence for careless driving causing death or bodily harm
Almost two-thirds of drivers feel drug-impaired drivers pose a serious threat to traffic safety: TIRF poll
MPI launches public awareness campaign on drug-impaired driving
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Bethenny and Fredrik
Weekly Pregame
Has Fredrik Eklund Ever Slept with a Woman?
Bethenny & Fredrik: Secrets Revealed
Watch hilarious unseen footage from this season!
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Bethenny & Fredrik: The Blooper Reel
Bethenny and Fredrik Talk Sex
Bethenny and Fredrik Go to "Twiniversity"
Bethenny Frankel Gives Some Strangers an Eyeful
Does Bethenny Frankel Make the Best Cheeseburger?
Is Fredrik Eklund Outdoorsy?
Can Bethenny and Fredrik Take on a Tribeca Townhouse?
Bethenny Frankel Talks Millennials
What Does Fredrik's Design Team Really Think of Bethenny?
Bethenny Frankel Does Trust Falls with the Construction Crew
Fredrik Eklund and Derek Kaplan Are on an Epic “Babycation”
Is Bethenny Frankel Ready to Settle Down?
Fredrik on the Good and the Bad to Being a New Dad
Bethenny's Message for Wendy Williams After Shady Comments
This Is Where Things Stand Between Bethenny and Jill
Fredrik and Derek Are Each Dads to One of Their Twins
Carole Revealed to Bethenny Her Philosophy on Sex
@Bethenny
Bethenny Frankel is a self-made businesswoman, TV producer, multiple New York Times bestselling author, and mother. Bethenny is the Founder & CEO of Skinnygirl, a lifestyle brand offering practical solutions to women, including the recent launch of the Skinnygirl Jeanswear Collection, which sold out on HSN within its first few hours. She has been part of the popular Bravo series The Real Housewives of New York City from the beginning and can be seen as a guest shark on ABC’s critically acclaimed series Shark Tank. Bethenny became an instant fan favorite, showcasing her entrepreneurial prowess and gut instincts alongside the panel of investors. Bethenny has also been named one of the Top 100 Most Powerful Celebrities by Forbes. Bethenny is always ahead of the curve and identifies and capitalizes on business opportunities.
Not fulfilled by business alone, Bethenny founded B Strong, a charity providing real-time emergency assistance to women in crisis, diverted from their potential success. Bethenny’s life’s experiences have inspired her to help other women in crisis find their own strength and resilience with the launch of B Strong, in partnership with Dress for Success. B Strong: Find Your Yes, is a crisis intervention initiative that provides real time emergency assistance to women who face crises on their road to success.
Additionally, Bethenny established “B Strong: Disaster Relief,” partnering with Global Empowerment Mission to create this worldwide initiative. Their program provides people with much needed gift cards, bank cards, and critical supplies so they are able to deliver in real time. They collect aid and donations from across the country to help individuals and their families affected by the recent natural disasters impacting Texas, Florida, Mexico, Northern California, Dominica, The U.S. Virgin Islands, and New York City. As a result of Bethenny’s efforts, B Strong had marshaled over 10 million pounds of aid that was destined primarily for Puerto Rico. Bethenny helped coordinate the chartering of 55+ private planes to help deliver aid and relief to those hit hardest by the disaster. B Strong has also supported immediate aid programs in Guatemala following the Volcano De Fuego eruption, North Carolina following Hurricane Florence and the Florida Panhandle following Hurricane Michael. Over 10,000 individuals, companies, and foundations have contributed to B Strong’s efforts. Raising approximately $1.25 million in cash cards and collecting over $20 million worth of disaster relief to distribute, this has been called one of the largest privately-run humanitarian efforts in US history.
As a runner up on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, her success then led her to Bravo’s The Real Housewives of New York City, followed by the spin-off series, Bethenny Getting Married? and Bethenny Ever After… Viewers were captivated by her wit, wisdom, and humor as they followed her personal life becoming a mother and her professional journey creating the Skinnygirl empire. She eventually brought her distinct voice and candid point of view to Bethenny, where she hosted her nationally syndicated daytime talk show program. Bethenny started her own TV production company, B Real-ity, producing two seasons of FYI’s Food Porn, and was the creator, producer, and star of Bravo’s hit real estate show Bethenny and Fredrik.
From becoming a natural food chef and marketing Bethenny Bakes, her healthy baked goods service, to selling “Princess Pashminas" at house parties, and creating the low-calorie cocktail category with the launch of Skinnygirl Cocktails, Bethenny has always identified and capitalized on business opportunities. A true entrepreneur, to further build Skinnygirl Cocktails, Bethenny partnered with Beam Suntory in 2011 to grow her portfolio to include wines, flavored vodkas, and ready-to-drink cocktails. Since the launch of Skinnygirl Cocktails, she has expanded the Skinnygirl brand into a global lifestyle empire, featuring products for women that offer practical and stylish solutions to everyday problems. With the launch of the Skinnygirl Jeanswear collection in September 2018, Skinnygirl has become more than a brand, but also an attitude that helps empower women to lead healthy lives and feel strong, honest, and fearless. Some of the many other Skinnygirl products include microwave popcorn, candy, salad dressings, coffee, tea, liquid sweeteners, water enhancers, shapewear, and most recently candles, skin, and body care.
She is the five-time New York Times bestselling author of: Skinnydipping, A Place of Yes: 10 Rules for Getting Everything You Want Out Of Life, Naturally Thin: Unleash Your Skinnygirl, Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting, The Skinnygirl™ Dish: Easy Recipes for Your Naturally Thin Life, and I Suck At Relationships So You Don’t Have To. She has also authored Skinnygirl Solutions: Simple Ideas, Extraordinary Results, the children's book, Cookie Meets Peanut, and the cocktail book, Skinnygirl Cocktails.
Fredrik Eklund
@FredrikEklundNY
Real estate entrepreneur, television personality and bestselling author Fredrik Eklund is known for his signature high kicks and unstoppable energy on the Emmy-nominated hit television series Million Dollar Listing: New York and is a producer and star of Bravo’s new real estate show Bethenny and Fredrik. Founder of the top sales team at prestigious real estate firm Douglas Elliman, Fredrik regularly breaks sales records and was named the number one real estate team in New York City by REAL Trends and the Wall Street Journal in 2017 with close to $1 billion in closed sales this year alone.
Often working on a building for years before it hits the market, Fredrik vets locations, interviews architects, and works with designers to customize each space to appeal to target buyers. Redefining what it means to be a real estate broker in today’s market, Fredrik is changing the New York skyline, one luxury high-rise at a time.
Born and raised outside of Stockholm, Sweden, Fredrik understood the nuances of negotiation from a young age. At four years old, he performed a one-man show on a makeshift stage in his living room, inviting his family and neighbors to attend and charging five kroners per seat. At seven, he signed up to sell Christmas calendars and was obsessed with being the number-one seller out of thousands of kids. He crafted a sales strategy and went door to door, sometimes spending hours with his customers. That winter, he broke all sales records for the calendar company and learned his first of many lessons in the art of the sell: authenticity and earned trust are the cornerstones of a successful transaction.
At 10 years old, Fredrik visited New York City for the first time and was instantly hooked, captivated by the vertical landscape of gleaming towers. He vowed to return one day to make his mark. Fredrik went on to study at the Stockholm School of Economics and subsequently co-founded an Internet company and worked for the investment bank SEB in Stockholm, London, Singapore and Tokyo.
At 25, Fredrik returned to Manhattan armed mostly with a pair of well-worn sneakers and resolute determination to achieve success in an as yet unknown field of endeavor. During his first year in real estate, Fredrik sold $50 million worth of property and was nominated for Rookie of the Year by the Real Estate Board of New York. To date, he has closed more than $5 billion in residential sales, is consistently setting records, and has a client list that includes major celebrities such as Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, Gigi Hadid, John Legend and Chrissy Teigen, Daniel Craig, Alec Baldwin, and Jennifer Lopez. His active listings currently exceed $2 billion and includes his new development portfolio. In addition, he is the founder of Scandinavia's most high-end residential real estate brokerage with 50 employees, two offices, and $1 billion in closed sales this year. Despite his success, Fredrik remembers to not take himself too seriously.
Fredrik is married to abstract painter Derek Kaplan, and share twins, Milla and Freddy. He spends weekends with his husband, dogs, and kids in their Georgian mini-mansion in Connecticut. Known for being part "shark" in business, Fredrik is a softy at home, where he enjoys cooking, photography, and taking care of his puppies and family. He also launched his own wine, High-Kick, now sold in six countries and counting, and his rosé wine officially is the number-one new rosé in Sweden.
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Women’s History Month: The Conviction of Lady Lorraine
Brescia University’s Student Activities Planning Board welcomes Dwandra Nickole Lampkin to campus in Taylor Lecture Hall (Science Building) on March 27th at 7:30 p.m. in honor of Women’s History Month. This event is free and open to the public.
Ms. Lampkin is an actress, playwright, and associate professor of theatre at Western Michigan University. She will present, The Conviction of Lady Lorraine, a one-woman show she wrote based on one woman’s search for insight found in another woman’s fight for justice.
While visiting a river city in the Deep South, Dee Dee (a writer) has a brief but powerful encounter with a woman (Lady Lorraine) on a mission, a mission that has lasted over two decades. This encounter leaves a lasting impression on Dee Dee and she finds herself back in the river city a year later in hopes that Lady Lorraine will allow her to write her powerful story of conviction. After being told “NO”, Dee Dee finds herself searching for answers in all of the wrong places, and is forced to reevaluate where she has been looking.
Ms. Lampkin has performed regionally at the Denver Center Theatre Company, the Indiana Repertory Theatre, the Huntington Theatre in Boston, and the Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis. Some of her television credits include Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, Third Watch, and the critically acclaimed series, Wonderland. Ms. Lampkin received the ASPIRE Creative grant to aid in the research and writing of The Conviction of Lady Lorraine.
She received her MFA in Acting at the National Theatre Conservatory, and is a member of Actor’s Equity Association (ABA) and the Screen Actor’s Guild, (SAG).
This activity is made possible, in part, with support from the Indiana Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
For more information, please visit http://www.dwandra.com
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Eugen Joseph Weber
American historian
Originally published in the Britannica Book of the Year. Presented as archival content. Learn more.
This article was originally published in the Britannica Book of the Year, an annual print publication that provides an overview of the year’s most-notable people and events. Unlike most articles on Britannica.com, Book of the Year articles are not reviewed and revised after their initial publication. Rather, they are presented on the site as archival content, intended for historical reference only.
Eugen Joseph Weber, Romanian-born American historian (born April 24, 1925, Bucharest, Rom.—died May 17, 2007, Los Angeles, Calif.), was a noted authority on modern European—particularly French—history. Among his highly regarded works were Action Française: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth-Century France (1962) and Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914 (1976). He was also known for his popular textbooks, which included A Modern History of Europe (1971) and Europe Since 1715: A Modern History (1972). Weber was educated in England and France but moved to the U.S. in the mid-1950s. He was on the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles, from 1956 and served as the university’s dean of the College of Letters and Sciences from 1977 to 1982. Weber was honoured for his contributions to French culture when he was awarded the Ordre National des Palmes Académiques in 1977. A collection of his essays, My France: Politics, Culture, Myth, appeared in 1991.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Karen Sparks, Director and Editor, Britannica Book of the Year.
Joan Wallach Scott
Joan Wallach Scott, American historian, best known for her pioneering contributions to the study of French history, women’s and gender history, and intellectual history as well as to feminist theory. Her work, which was influential well beyond the confines of her own discipline, was characterized…
Pierre Pithou
Pierre Pithou, lawyer and historian who was one of the first French scholars to collect and analyze source material of France’s history. Reared as a Calvinist, Pithou received his lawyer’s robes at Paris (1560) after he had earned recognition by his essays on Roman laws. On the outbreak of the…
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André Duchesne, historian and geographer, sometimes called the father of French history, who was the first to make critical collections of sources for national histories. Duchesne was educated at Loudun and Paris and devoted his early years to studies in history and geography. His first work,…
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Ilse Bing: In 1931 Bing met Hendrik Willem van Loon, a Dutch American writer based in New York who became her patron and her entrée into the American art world. He introduced her work to art dealer Julien Levy, who exhibited her photographs at his gallery in the exhibit “Modern European…
Henry Adams, historian, man of letters, and author of one of the outstanding autobiographies of Western literature, The Education of Henry Adams. Adams was the product of Boston’s Brahmin class, a cultured elite that traced its lineage to Puritan New England. He was the great-grandson of John Adams…
history of France
The Guardian - Obituary of Eugen Weber
American Civil War, four-year war (1861–65) between the United States and 11 Southern states that seceded…
Pearl Harbor attack
Pearl Harbor attack, (December 7, 1941), surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor…
World War I, an international conflict that in 1914–18 embroiled most of the nations of Europe along…
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French writer
Kathleen Kuiper
Last Updated: May 31, 2019 See Article History
Patrick Modiano, (born July 30, 1945, Boulogne-Billancourt, France), French writer who in more than 40 books used his fascination with the human experience of World War II to examine individual and collective identities, responsibilities, loyalties, memory, and loss. In 2014 he became the 15th Frenchman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. Upon announcing the prizewinner, the Swedish Academy cited “the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation.” Because of his obsession with the past, Modiano was sometimes compared to Marcel Proust, though their styles and concerns were quite different.
Modiano was born in a suburb of Paris, shortly after the end of World War II, to a somewhat shadowy Jewish Italian businessman and a Flemish actress. By Modiano’s own account, he was much influenced by his geometry teacher, experimental writer Raymond Queneau, who, among other things, introduced him to the literary world. Modiano’s first novel, La Place de l’Étoile (1968; “The Star’s Place,” a reference to the yellow star that Jews were forced to wear on their clothing), concerns a Jewish collaborator and is possibly based on Modiano’s father. In 1972 his third novel, Les Boulevards de ceinture (Ring Roads), won the French Academy’s Grand Prix du Roman. His novel Rue des boutiques obscures (1978; Missing Person)—a thriller in which a man searches for his own identity—won the Prix Goncourt.
Modiano published more-or-less regularly every year or two. Among his best-known volumes are Dora Bruder (1997; Eng. trans. Dora Bruder, U.K. title The Search Warrant), an attempt to reconstruct the life of a missing Jewish girl; and a memoir of his first 21 years, Un Pedigree (2005; Eng. trans. Pedigree). Modiano’s entire oeuvre was honoured in 2014, when he was awarded both the Prix de la Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Nobel Prize. His later novels included Souvenirs dormants (2017; Sleep of Memory).
Modiano wrote a children’s book (Catherine Certitude, 1988) and worked on several films. With French film director Louis Malle, Modiano wrote the screenplay for Malle’s Lacombe Lucien (1974), about a bored teenager who becomes an informer for the Gestapo during the German occupation of France. He likewise cowrote the screenplay for Egyptian director Moshé Mizrahi’s film version of Modiano’s novel Une Jeunesse (1981; film 1983) and was involved with several other films, even playing a cameo role in Chilean director Raúl Ruiz’s Genealogies of a Crime (1997).
Modiano became a noted writer of what the French call autofiction, the blend of autobiography and historical fiction. His writing style was described by one critic as “so spare and elliptical that the words seem only lightly attached to the page.” Throughout his body of work, the reader can readily sense the author’s perception of the unknowability of other people and the ambiguity of events; it is dark writing with a light touch. In a review of Honeymoon, the English translation of Modiano’s Voyage de noces (1990), one reviewer wrote, “At times he reads like a strange cross between Anita Brookner and the Ancient Mariner, forever buttonholing the reader with his own brand of exquisite angst.” Though they are usually set in a specific time and place, so much so that wartime Paris is almost a character in his books, Modiano’s works speak a universal truth about the human condition.
French literature: Other literature of the 1970s
The novels of Patrick Modiano used a nostalgic fascination with the war years to explore problems of individual and collective identities, responsibilities, and loyalties.…
World War II, conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during the years 1939–45. The principal belligerents were the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies—France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China. The war was…
Nobel Prize, any of the prizes (five in number until 1969, when a sixth was added) that are awarded annually from a fund bequeathed for that purpose by the Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel. The Nobel Prizes are widely regarded as the most prestigious awards given for intellectual achievement…
Swedish Academy
Swedish Academy, Swedish organization devoted to the preservation and elevation of the Swedish language and its literature. The academy awards various literary prizes, including the Nobel Prize for Literature. The academy was founded by King…
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More About Patrick Modiano
1 reference found in Britannica articles
contribution to French literature
In French literature: Other literature of the 1970s
Boulogne-Billancourt, France
“La Place de l’Étoile”
Nobel Prize (2014)
Prix Goncourt (2014)
Roger Martin du Gard
Nobel Prize (all)
Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobelprize.org - Biography of Patrick Modiano
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Richard Henry Stoddard
American critic and editor
Richard Henry Stoddard, (born July 2, 1825, Hingham, Mass., U.S.—died May 12, 1903, New York, N.Y.), American poet, critic, and editor, more important as a figure in New York literary circles in the late 19th century than for his own verse. Abraham Lincoln, An Horatian Ode (1865) and parts of Songs of Summer (1857) and The Book of the East (1867) can still be read with interest.
Stoddard spent most of his boyhood in New York City, where he became a blacksmith and later an iron molder, but in 1849 he gave up his trade and began writing for a living. He served as a literary reviewer and editor for a number of New York newspapers and magazines. His wife Elizabeth was a novelist and poet, and their house was a leading gathering place for writers and artists in the last 30 years of the 19th century. Stoddard’s autobiography, Recollections Personal and Literary, was published in 1903.
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Poetry, literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm. Poetry is a vast subject, as old as history and older, present wherever religion is present, possibly—under…
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Hingham, town (township), Plymouth county, eastern Massachusetts, U.S. It lies on Hingham Harbor (an inlet of Massachusetts Bay), about 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Boston. Settled in 1633, it was incorporated in 1635 and named for Hingham, England. During the 19th century it was a bustling…
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British Council in Poland proudly supports Equality Parade 2018
British Council in Poland is marching together with The British Embassy in the Equality Parade, promoting equal opportunities and diversity – the values it has stood for since opening in Poland 80 years ago.
Human rights are universal and apply equally to all, without distinction. The promotion and protection of the rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT+) people is a core part of the UK’s human rights work. United Kingdom focuses on tackling violence and discriminatory laws and practices; ensuring the full and equal enjoyment of human rights; and promoting equality and tolerance. This is done by working with partner countries and through international organisations.
Using the cultural resources of the UK, the British Council creates friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries. This year British Council marking this 80th anniversary proudly supports the Warsaw Equality Parade.
“The main purpose of British Council is to create dialogue between people from different cultures, to build greater trust and tolerance. The concepts of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion sit at the core of this mission - so countering all forms of discrimination based on sex, age, race, disability, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation is extremely important to us. That's why we proudly support the Equality Parade”. Simon Gammell, Country Director, British Council
British Council in Poland was awarded with a ‘Rainbow Bee’ (“Tęczowa Pszczoła”). According to research conducted by LGBT Business forum, the British Council is the only organisation on the Polish market which has implemented a antidiscrimination policy in the workplace in its full scope. The jury also recognized our commitment to promoting equal opportunities in the area of sexual orientation and identity at external conferences.
More information on equal opportunities, diversity and inclusion can be found at www.britishcouncil.pl/en/about/equal-opportunity-diversity
As part of Equality Month British Council, British Embassy and Gutek Film cordially invite to a special screening of a film "Call Me by Your Name". It is a 2017 coming-of-age drama film directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by James Ivory, based on the 2007 novel of the same name by André Aciman. Set in Northern Italy in 1983, Call Me by Your Name chronicles the romantic relationship between Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet), a 17-year-old living in Italy, and his father's 24-year-old American assistant, Oliver (Armie Hammer). The film won the Oscar and BAFTA awards for the Best Adapted Screenplay.
The event takes place at Muranów Cinema on 13 June 2018 at 20:00 as part of the Equality Festival and the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the British Council in Poland.
The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We create friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries. Using the UK’s cultural resources we make a positive contribution to the countries we work with – changing lives by creating opportunities, building connections and engendering trust.
We work with over 100 countries across the world in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society. Each year we reach over 20 million people face-to-face and more than 500 million people online, via broadcasts and publications.
Founded in 1934, we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body. The majority of our income is raised delivering a range of projects and contracts in English teaching and examinations, education and development contracts and from partnerships with public and private organisations. Eighteen per cent of our funding is received from the UK government.
The British Council in Poland performs educational activities through the teaching of English at our reputable language centres and partner schools in Warsaw, Cracow and Wroclaw, and cooperating with exam centres, which offer British language and professional exams throughout the country. Our cultural, educational and social projects aim at sharing the achievements of the United Kingdom. Working effectively with diversity and promoting equality of opportunity is an essential part of our work.
The British Council has been working with Poland since1938. In 2018 we are marking this 80th anniversary with a series of events celebrating cultural relations and exchange between the UK and Poland.
For more information, please visit: www.britishcouncil.pl. You can also keep in touch with the British Council through twitter.com/plBritish,www.facebook.com/BritishCouncilPolska and blog.britishcouncil.org.
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WBT Transforms ‘Menopause’ Into an Uproarious, Must-See Event
Published: Thursday, March 7, 2019 By: Evelyn J. Mocbeichel Source: EXAMINER MEDIA
On the surface, one would think a subject about a woman’s exasperating physical experience would not be a source for entertainment. But a popular stage production provides a unique take about the topic.
“Menopause the Musical,” with its current engagement at Westchester Broadway Theatre (WBT), highlights all these women’s experiences in an absolutely comical way, in song, dance, and dialog. The national tour from GFour Productions, winner of 44 Tony Awards and 54 Drama Desk Awards, is on a limited run at WBT through Sunday, Mar. 24.
Perfect for a ladies’ night out, I invited a friend to join me instead of my spouse. However, there were plenty of men there enjoying the humor in it all, too. Not knowing what to expect the 90-minute play to be about, we were thoroughly entertained from the start to its fantastic conclusion. Of all the wonderful shows at WBT, this one had the most audience laughter on a non-stop basis – from both genders in attendance.
“Menopause the Musical” is a groundbreaking celebration of women who are on the brink of, in the middle of or have survived “the change.” Now celebrating 17 years of female empowerment through hilarious musical comedy, the play has evolved as a grassroots movement of women who deal with life adjustments after 40 by embracing each other and the road ahead.
Set in an upscale department store, four women meet while shopping for lingerie on sale. After noticing unmistakable similarities among one another, the cast jokes about their woeful hot flashes, mood swings, wrinkles, and weight gain. They form a sisterhood and unique bond with the entire audience as they rejoice in celebrating that menopause is no longer “The Silent Passage.”
The four women depicted are from various backgrounds – a business executive, a soap opera star soon to be replaced by a younger actress, a Midwestern housewife in New York City with her husband who is attending a convention and an aging, mellow flower child. Cast members Megan Cavanagh (Earth Mother), Donna J. Huntley (Professional Woman), Debby Rosenthal (Soap Star) and Roberta B. Wall (Iowa housewife) were spot on in their character portrayals.
WBT casting is routinely superb and each role was flawlessly executed by the actors on stage. A shout-out to the powerful vocals of Huntley, the comedic timing and expressions of Cavanagh, the sassy portrayal by Rosenthal and the enthusiastic motions and physical comedy of Wall. As an ensemble, they were extraordinary in singing, choreography, and chemistry.
Stage design is also creative with the backdrop of “Bloomies” department store. Each floor the women visited provided a chance for costume and set changes and songs and dance numbers to perform. Speaking of songs, the music is upbeat and hysterically funny as favorites from the 1950s through the ‘70s were sung with the same melody, only the words were changed to reflect the women’s life experiences.
With more than 20 classic hits, including “Stayin Alive,” “I’m Sorry, The Great Pretender,” “My Guy,” “I Got You Babe,” “Only You” and many more, it was impossible not to tap your feet along with each number.
Don’t miss this production if you like to laugh, enjoy great music and watch four fabulously talented actors on stage turn an often-whispered subject into a great night of entertainment. Enjoy a delicious dinner or lunch at either an evening production or afternoon matinee.
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Lee Castro
MeRCY and Bishop Tell Us Who's the Better Rapper
Lee Castro | May 10, 2013 | 8:07am
It's been 10 years in the making, but rappers Bishop and MeRCY have finally delivered a collaborative project. The two best friends released a full-length, My Brother's Keeper, in April. What was originally intended to be only a mixtape, resulted in 14 clean tracks with an addictive old school sound.
New Times spoke with the two about their friendship, how they keep each other in check, and who's the better rapper.
New Times: How good of friends are you two?
Bishop: We've known each other for 11 years, and I would say our friendship is significant. MeRCY is probably my best friend.
Mercy: The way we first met was college. It was some type of elective class, probably public speaking. I was writing raps. I see Bishop behind me, I didn't know at the time, but he was writing raps at the same time. So I turned around and said, "Yo, you rap nigga?" The same way he was writing his raps was similar to mine. Ever since then that's where it started.
What is it about solidified's production that catches both of your attention?
MeRCY: I think he knows our sound and what we're looking for. He makes sure when he makes a beat, whether it's only for Bishop or only for me, he makes it different and, in someway, it compliments our style. Bishop's sound is a little more emotional. Mine's is a little bit more dark and gritty. He manages to compliment our style when we're both together as a group or as solo artists.
Being close friends, will you still being critical with what each other writes, and make it be known if a bar is just not good?
Bishop: We never want to encourage each other to not put our best effort forward. If I know MeRCY is in the booth, and his energy is just not on that record I'll be like, "Yo, you could do that a little different." He'll go back at do it. And vice-versa.
In my group, nobody is censored. The way we talk to each other, if you hung out with us, if it were your first time, you would think we didn't like each other.
MeRCY: You have to have tough skin to be with us. We crack jokes. We're real blunt with our emotions. We'll say what it is.
Bishop, do you look at MeRCY as a big brother or he's just family, period?
Bishop: I look to him as a big brother. He's very instrumental to everything I've done musically. And over the last 10 years I've learned a lot from him, period.
&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://illustrious.bandcamp.com/album/my-brothers-keeper-2"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;My Brother&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;s Keeper by Bishop &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp; MeRCY&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;
Aside from a few singers, you didn't have any features. Was that a conscious choice?
MeRCY: We wanted to keep it in-house, first of all. We didn't want it look like we're relying on features.
Bishop: This is the first full-fledged album with all original music, and this is the first time me and MeRCY are doing this and taking it seriously. And we owe it to ourselves for the most part.
On top of that, there's 14 songs, two rappers. You already know, two rappers splitting records, you keep adding another feature that just takes away from what we're doing.
What's the next video going to be?
Bishop: That's something we're discussing right now because there's a lot of ideas. A lot of records I feel we could do visuals for. I don't want to say which one is first.
MeRCY: I feel that we might do at least four more videos. I feel like there could be a video for each song, and we actually made it that way too.
We're working on a few songs. I think we're looking to do "YSL" next. Everybody wants us to do "That's On Everything." We're looking to do a video for "Sunset Strip."
Taking into account sibling rivalry, who's the better rapper?
Bishop: (Laughs) That's not for us to decide. If you ask me I'm going to say MeRCY. If you ask MeRCY he's going to say Bishop.
Follow @CountyGrind
©2019 New Times BPB, LLC. All rights reserved.
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Subscribe To Hair Is Set As NBC's Next Live Musical Updates
Hair Is Set As NBC's Next Live Musical
By Mick Joest
In an age where live television events are a network's best shot at big ratings and lots of ad-money, live televised musicals can be a hot commodity. NBC has been airing them for a while now, and will continue to do so as it just announced the next production it will broadcast to audiences in spring 2019. NBC will stick with the rock musical theme of its most recent Jesus Christ Superstar Live In Concert and attempt to wow audiences with a production of Hair Live!.
Hair Live! will recount the tale of hippies and the Vietnam war as the main character Claude struggles with his decision to resist the draft with his hippie friends or give into his parents' pressure and join the war effort. The Broadway production was highly controversial at the time, but found success and lived on beyond its original opening on Broadway in April 1968. Since then, the musical has been performed worldwide, had three number one singles, and a feature-length film. Suffice to say, NBC knew what it was doing snagging this musical up, as while the 60s have come and gone, this musical definitely still has its fans.
Hair Live! will be executive produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, who have produced NBC's live musicals since the network aired the live musical for The Sound Of Music Live! back in 2013. Zadan and Meron doted on Hair in a joint statement and said the musical's most recent Broadway revival is evidence of its timelessness. NBC chairman Robert Greenblatt seemed to agree with the producers as he added the show's theme of young people protesting and fighting for what they believe in is just as relevant as it is today as it was back then.
NBC's decision to air Hair Live! is interesting, as the show caused a fair deal of controversy in its initial runs for some of its scenes. Audiences likely won't have the same problems audiences of the past did, although it will be interesting to see how NBC decides to tackle the big nude scene the production first gained notoriety for. The obvious answer seems to be that the Peacock Network won't air it, or the production will do a censored version of the scene. That said, should NBC decide to air some fully naked bodies in primetime as some sort of statement, that'd certainly have the potential to be the most exciting musical production the network has aired to date!
As mentioned, NBC will air Hair Live! sometime in spring of 2019. While musical fans will have to wait for that, they won't be bored as there will be plenty of great television to catch in the meantime. Visit our summer premiere guide to see a list of all shows new and premiering in the coming months, as well as where and when to watch them.
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BVI remains under drought watch: only 3.5 inches of rain in 2015
Tortola, British Virgin Islands, July 9th, 2015 (DDM) - Rainfall totals for the British Virgin Islands for the first half of 2015 are significantly low in comparison to previous years, resulting in substantial impact to farming grounds.
Rainfall statistics accumulated by the Department of Disaster Management (DDM) for the period January to June reveal a total of only 3.5 inches of rainfall, with the majority occurring in January and February. Comparing the same period in 2014, rainfall totals were at 13.5 inches.
This significant reduction in precipitation has resulted in a drought watch being issued for the BVI. A drought watch means that a drought is possible and governments are encouraged to take action to implement drought management plans which include the protection of water sources, implementation of conservation practices and monitoring and repair of infrastructure to minimise loss as a result of leakage.
The prolonged dry period is not unique to the BVI as records indicate that this is the worst drought in the Caribbean in the past five years and there is concern that the impact on crops, livestock and reservoirs could worsen in the coming months.
Forecasters have indicated that the intense dry conditions is as a result of El Nino, a phenomena which results in the warming of the tropical Pacific and affects global weather patterns. Forecasters had previously indicated that the El Nino will cause a quieter than normal hurricane season with shorter periods of rainfall. The few tropical disturbances that have formed have not had any significant effects on water supply.
Chief Agricultural Officer, Mr. Bevin Braithwaite detailed the extent of local impact saying “The foliage is significantly dry, creating difficulty for farmers in finding suitable pasture for their animals. The limited water supply is causing considerable reliance on subsidised feed which has to be imported. Government is examining ways to assist local farmers.”
Mr. Brathwaite also indicated that the drought forced the cancellation of the annual Mango Array & Tropical Fruit Festival.
The Virgin Islands Fire and Rescue Service has not reported any significant increase in bush fires. However, they are cautioning residents not to engage in any outdoor burning during this particularly dry period.
Director of the Department of Disaster Management, Ms. Sharleen DaBreo said “This part of the season is drier than usual and temperatures are above normal. There is an indication that the heat is becoming uncomfortable for many residents, primarily children and the elderly. It is important that these vulnerable groups are kept cool as they are most susceptible to the effects of heat.”
Stressing the importance of conservation, Ms. DaBreo said, “With the drought watch now in place, residents are urged to conserve water and monitor their homes and businesses to ensure that leaks are detected and repairs made urgently.”
Many Caribbean islands are being affected by the drought conditions with Puerto Rico being among the worst hit by water shortage which is affecting 1.5 million people. The Government of Puerto Rico has been forced to impose strict rationing and use the local National Guard to distribute water and impose fines on persons and businesses which use scarce water resources improperly.
A drought warning is currently in place for Puerto Rico, St. Lucia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Dominica, Martinique and the western side of Belize.
The Caribbean Agricultural research and Development institute has reported that the drought has resulted in more than $1 million in crop losses, tens of thousands of dollars in livestock losses and water systems are near collapse. In addition, many hotels are being affected and have curtailed water usage as a result of reservoirs being far below capacity.
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Noel Gallagher's As It Was Oasis music ban because of Liam's Twitter jibes
Noel Gallagher banned his brother Liam Gallagher from using Oasis music in his film 'As It Was' because of his Twitter jibes at him and his family.
The 'Shockwave' singer previously claimed Noel was trying to "sue him" over the use of clips of their former band's songs within the movie and recently hit out at his ex-bandmate and his "little people" for the ban.
Noel, 52, has now slammed Liam, 46, as "f***ing dumb" for thinking he'd let him use any their songs and referred to his younger sibling as a "misogynist sexist prick" and called him out for "trolling" his kids - Anais, 19, Sonny, eight, and Donovan, 11 - and his wife Sara MacDonald on the social media app.
Asked in an interview with Variety if it was true that he imposed the music ban, he said: "Oh, I turned it down, yeah. If some f***ing moron is going to make a film slagging me off, calling my wife a ****, after trolling my kids on the Internet, after being a filthy little misogynist sexist prick who cannot keep his f***ing mouth off Twitter, and then call me to ask me a favour, I'm like, 'Wow. You are as dumb as you f***ing look.'
"I don't give a f*** what music you have in your film; you're not putting any of mine in.
"It's like, 'Can I ask you a favour?'
"'No, you can't. Go f*** yourself.'
"You're not using my songs to sell his f***ing film."
When asked if he plans to watch 'As It Was', the 'Black Star Dancing' hitmaker admitted that just seeing his sibling's face makes him want to "take out a McDonald's with a machine gun".
The 'Wonderwall' songwriter insisted he has "better things to do" than watch the documentary, which shows Liam with his formerly estranged daughter Molly Moorish, 22 - who he met for the first time last year - and taking his sons Gene, 18, and Lennon, 19, on the road with him.
He also accused him of attempting to "rewrite history" and mocked the 'Wall of Glass' hitmaker for his "jogging" which is shown in the film.
Asked if he plans to go to the cinema to see it, he sad: "Uh, no. I couldn't think of a reason that would make me want to watch it, considering that every time I see that ****'s face, I want to f***ing take out a McDonald's with a machine gun.
"So I don't think I'll be going to the local cinema to watch him rewrite f***ing history (about) what a great guy he is; what a wonderful family man.
"I've got better things to do with my time.
"You should go and see it, though. Apparently there's a lot of jogging in it. I don't know about you, but I like to see my favorite rock stars jogging. Don't you?"
Liam wanted to "break" Noel's "f****** jaw" after he refused to let him use their songs.
The outspoken rocker - who has been at loggerheads with Noel for years after a backstage bust-up between the brothers at their concert in Paris in 2009, which led to the demise of the Britpop group - insisted he was not "sad" and didn't "cry" over it, but he was left fuming and felt like smashing the 'Wonderwall' songwriter and his manager's windows in when he found out.
He fumed: "Him and his little people saw it and took the Oasis music out of it because that's all he's got left, d'ya know what I mean. Let him get on with it.
"It doesn't make me sad, it makes me f****** mad. I'm not a p****, I'm not sad about it, I want to break his f****** jaw and his daft f****** manager, but that's what happens. I'm not sad about it, I didn't go home and cry, I just wanted to go and f****** put their windows through."
The documentary - helmed by Charlie Lightening - shows a softer side to the rock star who is alway spouting off on Twitter, and Liam admitted that an endless supply of drugs and fame wasn't why he joined a band in the first place.
In February, Liam claimed Noel was threatening to take legal action over use of their songs.
He later claimed it was footage of Liam's performance at the One Love Manchester benefit concert - which was held following the Manchester terror attack at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017 - that Noel had an issue with.
As It Was
SPLITSVILLE
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BRANGELINA
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The concert will include all of the songs from “Simply Broadway,” including “If I Were a Rich Man” from “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Stars” from “Les Miserables“ and “The Impossible Dream” from “Man of La Mancha.”
Mitchell said “Simply Broadway” will be a concert to see.
“It’s never the same thing twice. I’m literally doing totally different songs every day,” he said. “I’m saying something totally different, you know, depending on the audience, the concert, what I’m feeling like. There’s all these different permutations of me in a concert form. ... It’s never the same thing twice and that’s what I love about that.”
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Cohort of business leaders fuel two school board candidates’ campaigns
By Oliver Morrison - July 18, 2014
PHOTO: Oliver Morrison
Chris Caldwell (left) and Roshun Austin (right) listen in at community forum for Shelby County Schools candidates on July 14. Many of the same business leaders have donated to their two campaigns, totaling nearly $20,000 each.
A group of Memphis business leaders and their spouses have financially fueled the campaigns of Shelby County Schools board candidates Chris Caldwell and Roshun Austin, according to financial documents submitted by both candidates in recent days.
Of the 24 donors Caldwell listed, 18 of them gave the exact same amount of money to Austin. For example on June 16 Charles Burkett, the president of First Tennessee, gave $1,000 to Caldwell and also gave $1,000 to Austin.
Of the $23,950 Caldwell raised and the $23,000 Austin raised, the same 18 donors contributed more than $19,000 to each candidate. They include mostly CEOs and presidents of Memphis-based companies, which are members of the Memphis Chamber of Commerce. The companies include local giants such as Fed Ex and AutoZone, as well as smaller companies such as Baker Donelson and Jordan Enterprises. The Chamber of Commerce’s JOBS Political Action Committee also donated $3,000 to both candidates after an interview process.
The Chamber of Commerce has played a larger role in local politics in recent years. It is currently under fire by police and firemen for the its endorsement of the city’s pension and health care reform plan.
The upcoming school board election is hotly contested in several districts, especially in Districts 1 and 9, where Austin and Caldwell are running. Shelby County Schools will face several major challenges under the new board, as they transition their focus away from merging two districts toward competing for students with six new municipal school districts, as well as charter schools and the Achievement School District.
Money raised for the campaign is used to pay for candidates’ political strategists and advertising campaigns. It also allows them to hire poll workers and purchase campaign signs. The limit for school board race donations is $1,500 for individuals and $7,400 for Political Action Committees.
The other school board candidates’ fundraising has apparently not kept up. None of them have raised more than $3,000 between April and June, according to the current financial disclosures listed on the Shelby County election commission’s website. Seven of the other candidates’ disclosures are currently not posted, so it’s unclear how much money they’ve raised.
Caldwell and Austin chalked up the extent of their shared donors to coincidence.
“In Memphis, although it’s a big city, it’s a small town,” said Austin. “The same people have interest in the same things.”
She said many of the shared donors are connected to the Hyde family. J.R. and Barbara Hyde each gave the maximum amount allowed for an individual, $1,500. “The Hydes have a very big interest in education,” Austin said.
Caldwell said that he wasn’t sure why there was so much overlap because his campaign manager, Brian Stephens, handles his finances.
“I wasn’t invited to whatever event happened to raise the money,” said Caldwell. “The people that were the ones that I contacted, they were the smaller donations.”
Caldwell said it’s possible that his and Austin’s shared funding base is connected to the fact that they’ve both hired Caissa Public Strategy, a political consulting firm that Stephens works for. But he said his donors will not influence his decisions as a school board member.
“Other than sending thank you notes, I’ve never had any conversation that would be the kind of thing that there were any kind of expectations for donations,” said Caldwell. “And I’ve voted my conscience every time.”
But the donations are essential to support his campaign. “I have ordered my yard signs, I have a phone bank, I’ll have poll workers, I’ll have mailings and possibly a robocall,” said Caldwell. “It’s mainly name recognition and trying to differentiate yourself and, in my case, trying to let people know how hard I worked and the kinds of things I’ve helped the board accomplish.”
One of the 18 donors, Daniel Richards — an accountant whose wife, a vice president for FedEx, also donated to the race — donated $1,000 to each candidate. He said he prefers to keep his motives private.
“My wife and I reviewed a bunch of candidates and we thought they would do a good job,” Richards said.
Read Roshun Austin’s disclosure form here:
Read Chris Caldwell’s disclosure form here:
Read the disclosure forms of the other candidates that have been released here:
By Oliver Morrison omorrison@chalkbeat.org
In this story: Baker Donelson, Barbara Hyde, Chris Caldwell, Roshun Austin, Shelby County Schools
How I Lead
Why one Memphis principal reads bedtime stories to students via Facebook Live
Study: For toddlers, video-chatting can’t replace in-person, supportive learning
Charter contract review
Memphis superintendent wants to play a bigger role in improving charter school performance
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Irish Arts Center Expansion Program Approved
City Council • UDAAP Designation • Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
Rendering of the new Irish Arts Center on 11th Avenue. Image credit: Ciaran O’Connor, Office of Public Works, Ireland
Program will permit a new 30,000-square foot facility and expansion of community garden. On September 10, 2014, the City Council voted unanimously to approve an application which would facilitate the Irish Arts Center’s construction of a new facility and expand the existing Juan Alonso Community Garden. The application was proposed by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. The new Irish Arts Center will be located on 11th Avenue between West 51st Street and West 52nd Street. The Garden expansion will improve a 1,255-square foot paved driveway at 555 West 51st Street and incorporate the space into the existing public garden.
The Irish Arts Center is presently located in a three-story tenement building at 553 West 51st Street where it has been housed since 1974. The current Center features a 99-seat performance space, a small lobby used as an art gallery and dance studio, and several small rooms on the upper floors for classrooms, meeting space, and offices. The new Center will consist of a 30,000-square foot facility in an L-shaped lot fronted on 11th Avenue between West 51st Street and West 52nd Street, and extending along West 51st Street between 10th Avenue and 11th Avenue. The new Center will consist of a five-story building on the 11th Avenue side of the lot, a three-story building on the West 51st Street side, and a two-story building at the rear of the lot connecting the two. The new Center will feature a dedicated performing arts theater, dance rehearsal studio, classrooms, office space, ground-floor community space for small performances, and outdoor terraces.
On June 4, 2014, Manhattan Community Board 4 held a public hearing and voted unanimously to recommend approval of the project. On July 7, 2014, Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer issued her recommendation approving the application. The borough president praised the community-based planning and cooperation between the Center and the neighborhood that went into the proposal, saying “This collaboration has ensured the best possible project and has resulted in a proposed building that is appropriate to its surroundings.” On July 9, 2014, the City Planning Commission held a public hearing on the proposal. Eleven speakers spoke in favor of the proposal, including HPD’s Deputy Director for Manhattan Planning, the Chair of Hell’s Kitchen Land Use Committee for Community Board 4, and Noel Kilkenny, Ambassador and Consul-General of Ireland in New York City. In his testimony, Consul-General Kilkenny called the new Irish Arts Center “another great chapter in the enduring relationship between Ireland and New York City.” No public opposition was raised against the Center. On August 6, 2014, the Commission voted unanimously to approve the application.
On September 3, 2014, the City Council Subcommittee on Planning, Dispositions, and Concessions voted unanimously to approve the Center expansion. In the hearing, Council Member Mark Treygar called the expansion “long overdue”, saying “You cannot discuss New York City history without discussing the great contributions by American Irish New Yorkers.” Aidan Connolly, Executive Director of the Irish Arts Center, testified that the new Center would be “a place for Irish artists to work with their New York counterparts of all backgrounds on projects that expand the notion of what it is to be an Irish and American and indeed a global cultural citizen in the 21st century in New York City.” On September 4, 2014, the Land Use Committee voted unanimously to approve the expansion. At the City Council’s stated meeting on September 10, 2014, Council Member Corey Johnson, in whose district the Center is located, said the current Center is “severely hampered by the limited space, aging infrastructure, and operational inefficiencies provide by its current accommodations. This project will allow the organization to thrive and continue to contribute to the artistic diversity of New York City.” The full Council voted unanimously to approve the expansion.
City Council: LU 0112-2013 (Sep. 10, 2014); Public Hearing LU 0112-2013 (Sep. 3, 2014).
By: Michael Twomey (Michael is a CityLaw Fellow and a New York Law School Graduate, Class of 2014)
Tags : Aidan Connolly, City Council, Council Member Corey Johnson, Council Member Mark Treygar, HPD, Irish Arts Center, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Manhattan Community Board 4
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Published on Civil Service World (https://www.civilserviceworld.com)
Home > Brexit staff redeployments revealed as ministers prepare to trigger Operation Yellowhammer
Brexit staff redeployments revealed as ministers prepare to trigger Operation Yellowhammer
Written by Beckie Smith on 22 March 2019 in News
Eight-hundred staff on the move, hundreds of millions in wage costs and holiday bans – how the civil service is preparing for Brexit day
Departments have begun to reveal the extent of staff redeployment across the civil service as Whitehall ups its preparation for a no-deal Brexit, with some workers barred from taking annual leave.
A CSW analysis of answers to parliamentary questions and policy documents reveals that one department is expecting to spend nearly £200m on extra staffing costs next year, while several are growing their Brexit units in preparation for a potential no-deal departure from the EU.
Ministers are expected to decide whether to activate emergency no-deal plans, known collectively as Operation Yellowhammer, in the coming days. Under terms agreed by EU leaders this week, the UK has until 12 April to set out its withdrawal plans or leave the EU without a deal. A longer extension of the UK's EU membership, lasting until 22 May, will only be granted if MPs approve the deal agreed by prime minister Theresa May and the EU last year. They have so far voted down it twice.
HMRC to delay tax fines to free up staff for Brexit [1]
Cabinet Office recruiting for no deal Brexit contingency staff pool [2]
Ready, aim, hire: how is Brexit reshaping the civil service? [3]
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs expects to spend around £190m on additional staff it has hired on Brexit in 2019-20, according to David Rutley, a minister in the department. The estimate includes the costs of pay, pension and national insurance contributions and other overheads, he said.
As of 31 January, the Defra group – which includes the central department and its more than 30 agencies and public bodies – had recruited an extra 2,200 civil servants to work on its Brexit preparations, Rutley said. More than 80% of the department’s workload is affected by the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
Requests for leave denied
Meanwhile, others are bracing for a sudden increase in workload after the UK leaves the EU. Among them is the National Crime Agency, which told staff in January that they would not be allowed to book annual leave in April.
An agency spokesperson told CSW the ban, which applied to any leave that had not already been approved, was to mitigate the impact of a potential no-deal scenario, which would have “a significant effect on the work of the NCA”.
“It is extremely important the NCA has sufficient officers available to respond to whatever challenges that may arise and to ensure there is resilience to maintain operational business priorities,” they said. “In order to achieve this, some minimum staffing levels and leave restrictions were introduced at the beginning of this year, on a purely temporary basis.”
CSW understands the NCA is one of a number of departments restricting leave. Last month Valerie Vaz, shadow leader of the House of Commons, told MPs that some civil servants were having leave rescinded amid uncertainty over the withdrawal arrangements.
Asked about Vaz’s comments by CSW, a Cabinet Office spokesperson said: "Annual leave is a matter for individual departments and no policy instruction has been given by the Cabinet Office."
Brexit “buddy” loans
Meanwhile, staff are being shuffled between departments to ensure those with the heaviest Brexit workloads have the capacity they need to prepare. By the end of this month, between 700 and 800 civil servants will have been seconded to other departments to aid the Brexit effort. Appearing before the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee on 28 February, civil service chief executive John Manzoni said around 300 people had moved already and up to 300 had been “matched” to other roles.
The Department for Education, one of the departments whose work is least affected by Brexit, had been the main “donor”, Manzoni said. The Ministry of Defence was providing staff to local resilience groups in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, while the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Work and Pensions had also offered up staff, he added.
By 22 February, DfE had loaned 70 civil servants to other departments to help with their Brexit preparations, according to education minister Anne Milton. “The civil service is focused on delivering the government’s most pressing priorities, so it is only sensible that we make use of the resources and expertise we have available to make sure the UK is prepared for all Brexit scenarios on exit day,” Milton said.
Milton was responding to a question about secondments from Labour MP Gareth Thomas – one of a number of parliamentarians putting written questions to departments in the absence of central reporting on internal or intra-departmental staff moves.
In another, international development minister Alan Burt revealed that as of 15 March, his department had deployed 74 of its staff on short-term loans related to Brexit. Just under a third – 23 – had been seconded to Defra since December. Sixteen had taken secondments at the Department for International Trade and seven each at the Foreign Office and the Department for Exiting the European Union.
Burt said 15 had gone to the Border Supply Impact Group – a committee set up by the Brexit-focused Border Delivery Group of officials to pull together live operational information about the border.
Moves were decided after a “prioritisation exercise” to determine how many people the DfID could spare while delivering its essential business and the UK’s 0.7% aid commitment, he added.
Internal reshuffles
Ministers have also been answering questions about their internal staff shuffles to support departmental Brexit preparations. Europe minister Sir Alan Duncan said the Foreign Office had created 550 Brexit roles in the UK and overseas “to strengthen our diplomatic network in the UK and across Europe so that we are better able to represent and promote British interests and engage with our European partners in support of a successful EU exit”.
In MHCLG, which last year advertised for "resilience advisers" to deal with post-Brexit emergencies and help local areas mitigate disruption, 90 staff had been seconded to the department’s various Brexit teams as of last month. These teams had been “built up in a phased and gradual manner to reflect the increase in work associated with our exit from the EU”, totalling around 60 staff at the beginning of the year, according to Northern Powerhouse minister Jake Berry, with a further 30 pulled from their day jobs more recently as preparations ramped up.
Since December, the Department of Health and Social Care has also added to its 70-strong central team of policy and project-delivery officials, who provide advice to minister on Brexit. As of 11 February, the team had grown to 95, with civil servants pulled in from other areas of the department.
By the end of January, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy had seconded around 350 of its staff from their primary roles to support its Brexit work; the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport had moved more than 110 staff to Brexit work by mid-February.
Other staff within these departments were also working on Brexit preparations alongside their primary roles or being redeployed within individual directorates, ministers said. In DHSC, for example, communications, analytical and legal staff were providing advice on Brexit-related areas such as the supply of medicines, health minister Stephen Hammond said.
But not all departments have revealed how their deployment of staff has been affected by Brexit. In the Home Office, for example, immigration minister Caroline Nokes said it was “not possible” to answer a direct question about how many staff had been seconded to deal with no-deal preparations.
“This is because staff are generally engaged across a range of workstreams, which will include business as usual activity as well as Brexit preparations, across both deal and no deal scenarios,” she said.
Beckie Smith
Brexit [4]
HR [5]
Government and politics [7]
Beckie Smith is a reporter for CSW who tweets Beckie__Smith [8].
Twitter [10]
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Source URL: https://www.civilserviceworld.com/articles/news/brexit-staff-redeployments-revealed-ministers-prepare-trigger-operation-yellowhammer
[1] https://www.civilserviceworld.com/articles/news/hmrc-delay-tax-fines-free-staff-brexit
[2] https://www.civilserviceworld.com/articles/news/cabinet-office-recruiting-no-deal-brexit-contingency-staff-pool
[3] https://www.civilserviceworld.com/articles/feature/ready-aim-hire-how-brexit-reshaping-civil-service
[4] https://www.civilserviceworld.com/tags/brexit
[5] https://www.civilserviceworld.com/tags/hr
[6] https://www.civilserviceworld.com/categories/employment
[7] https://www.civilserviceworld.com/categories/government-and-politics
[8] https://twitter.com/beckie__smith
[9] https://www.facebook.com/civilserviceworld
[10] https://twitter.com/CSWnews
[11] http://www.civilserviceworld.com/
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hough North Vietnam defeated and absorbed South Vietnam 43 years ago, Americans remain divided over their role in that country, as responses to last year’s ten-part PBS documentary, The Vietnam War, made clear. A veteran proud of my service in Vietnam, I watched the series—purportedly an even-handed examination of the war—and saw one more rendition of the antiwar case, made by those who didn’t even acknowledge the existence of counter-arguments.
The series, produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, has several problems. First, it isn’t really about the war. At the end of the program, the producers tell us, “The Vietnam War was a tragedy,” one they call “immeasurable and irredeemable.” Still, “meaning can be found in the individual stories.”
Second, the documentary downplays the patriotism of those who fought. Contrary to Burns, Novick, and most interpretations, the U.S. military in Vietnam was not an army of unwilling draftees, in which minorities were seriously overrepresented. In fact, two thirds of those who served—and 73% of those who died—were volunteers.
Third, Burns and Novick do not do justice to the war’s purposes, which were serious despite the flawed strategy to achieve them. Vietnam’s geographic position and cultural strengths made it, as historian David Halberstam wrote years ago, “one of only five or six nations in the world that is truly vital to U.S. interests.”
Fourth, The Vietnam War persists in describing the conflict as a civil war. But as surely as North Korea invaded South Korea, North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese and their American supporters have consistently dismissed American scholars, such as the late Douglas Pike, who long ago stated this fact. But in 1983, Vo Nguyen Giap and Vo Bam, North Vietnam’s chief strategists during the war, admitted that the country’s Communist Party decided in 1959 to begin the armed struggle against the Saigon government. The North Vietnamese subsequently built the “Ho Chi Minh” trails to move men and supplies to South Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia, violating those countries’ neutrality. These events, long before American combat units came to Vietnam in 1965, confirm the U.S. justification for its action in Vietnam.
But by far the biggest problem with the PBS series is that it ignores much of the revisionist scholarship that casts the Vietnam war in a different light. These interpretations contend that the United States, far from being destined to lose the war, had a number of opportunities to win it.
According to the conventional assessment, embraced by Burns and Novick as if there were no alternative, the United States could never have won, given the nature of the war and the determination of the Vietnamese Communists. The key contentions are drearily familiar: Southeast Asia in general, and South Vietnam in particular, were not vital strategic U.S. interests. The “domino theory” was false—the fall of South Vietnam to the Communists would not lead to the collapse of other non-Communist regimes in Southeast Asia. The South Vietnamese government, utterly corrupt, never commanded the allegiance of South Vietnam’s people, which meant it was always destined to lose a civil war to the indigenous Viet Cong. Finally, Ho Chi Minh was more of a nationalist than a Communist.
In short, the Vietnamese Communists were too resolute, the South Vietnamese government too corrupt, and the Americans too clueless to fight the kind of war that would have secured victory. Vietnam was destined to be a quagmire, and America was destined to lose there. As one American veteran, a lieutenant who fought in Vietnam in 1965, told Burns and Novick, “We have learned a lesson…that we just can’t impose our will on others.”
But, of course, war’s only purpose is to impose one’s will on the enemy. A nation that does not intend to do so, in the expectation of achieving a more secure, more just peace, has no business resorting to war.
Over the past 20 years, however, observers have challenged the conventional assessment. Some have traced our defeat to a flawed national strategy devised by civilian policymakers, especially by Robert McNamara, secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968. Others have indicted U.S. military leadership, both in Washington and Saigon, for adopting a defective operational strategy.
The producers of the PBS series appear oblivious to the revisionist views of writers such as Mark Moyar, whose groundbreaking work on the Vietnam war poses the most important challenge to the assumption that America’s defeat in Vietnam was inevitable. Lewis Sorley appears briefly in the series, but his assessments of Generals William Westmoreland and Creighton Abrams are not deemed worthy of discussion.
The most astute American observer of Vietnamese Communism, Douglas Pike, doesn’t get a mention despite the fact that his analysis of Communist strategy goes a long way in explaining the dynamic of the war. As these scholars show, the United States was not destined to lose in Vietnam. America’s defeat was the result of bad strategy and bad decisions at all levels, from Washington to Saigon.
Lacking the Will
In Triumph Forsaken, one of the most important books written on the Vietnam war, Mark Moyar, now a senior advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development, posed a stark challenge to the conventional view. Published in 2006 by Cambridge University Press, the first of two projected volumes, Triumph Forsaken focuses on the period from the defeat of the French by the Viet Minh in 1954 to the eve of Lyndon Johnson’s commitment of major U.S. ground forces in 1965. Moyar’s thesis is that the United States had ample opportunities to ensure the survival of South Vietnam, but failed to develop the required strategy.
Triumph Forsaken demonstrates that one of the main weaknesses of the orthodox view is its constricted historical horizon. For the most part, the historians whose views shape the PBS series have assessed the war as if the only important decisions were made in Washington and Saigon, neglecting those made in Hanoi, Beijing, and Moscow. Moyar demonstrates the Clausewitzian principle that war is a struggle between two active wills, showing that the North Vietnamese strategy was greatly affected by U.S. actions.
Nothing illustrates the orthodox-revisionist divide more than the respective treatments of South Vietnam’s president Ngo Dinh Diem. In the orthodox view, Diem was a tyrant losing control of his country, a Catholic running roughshod over a predominantly Buddhist populace. Moyar contends that, in fact, Diem was an effective leader who put down the organized crime empires that had thrived before his rise to power. He was no democrat, but his legitimacy in the eyes of the Vietnamese people rose from his ability to wield power effectively and provide security for the targets of Communist insurgency. Indeed, under Diem’s leadership, the insurgency had been largely stymied by 1960.
Moyar cites Communist documents that acknowledge the North’s lack of success in the period leading up to November 1963, when Diem was deposed and assassinated in a military coup. Diem’s government had been killing and capturing Communist cadres in unprecedented number, which had caused many survivors to defect. Moyar argues that by far the greatest U.S. mistake was to acquiesce in the coup, a decision that “forfeited the tremendous gains of the preceding nine years and plunged the country into an extended period of instability and weakness.”
“I can scarcely believe that the Americans could be so stupid,” Ho Chi Minh said of the coup, understanding its import immediately. The Hanoi Politburo recognized the opportunity that the coup afforded the Communists. “Diem was one of the strongest individuals resisting the people and Communists,” it said. “Everything that could be done in an attempt to crush the revolution was carried out by Diem. Diem was one of the most competent lackeys of the U.S. imperialists.” And indeed, the coup encouraged the Communists to push for a quick victory against the weak South Vietnamese government before the Americans intervened.
As conditions continued to deteriorate, John Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, was forced to consider an American escalation of the war in order to save South Vietnam. He did not, as many have argued, use the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident as an excuse to escalate U.S. involvement. That claim is belied by the fact that Johnson saw intervention only as a last resort to avoid defeat in South Vietnam and, he thought, the subsequent toppling of the Southeast Asian dominoes. Indeed, most observers at the time criticized Johnson for not responding forcefully enough to the Tonkin Gulf incident. Major U.S. ground intervention did not begin until nearly a year later.
Moyar argues that Johnson rejected several aggressive strategic options formulated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. These included offensive ground operations by South Vietnamese forces in Laos to interdict the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) lines of supply down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and similar actions north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The chiefs also recommended major airstrikes. But Johnson instead accepted the advice of civilian advisers who were enamored of academic “limited war” theories such as the one espoused by Thomas Schelling, who advocated gradual escalation as a means of signaling U.S. intentions. Rejecting these more aggressive options meant that Johnson was left with the choice of abandoning South Vietnam, a step fraught with grave international consequences, or fighting a defensive war within South Vietnam at a serious strategic disadvantage.
Would more aggressive actions have succeeded? We don’t know for sure, but I was personally persuaded in 1983 by Douglas Pike, then director of the Indochina Archive at U.C. Berkeley, based on a paper he delivered at a Wilson Center symposium on the war. He observed that “the initial reaction of Hanoi’s leaders to the strategic bombings and air strikes that began in February 1965—documented later by defectors and other witnesses—was enormous dismay and apprehension. They feared the North was to be visited by intolerable destruction which it simply could not endure.” But as it became increasingly apparent to Hanoi that the air campaign was severely circumscribed, North Vietnamese leaders concluded that the United States lacked the will to do what victory required.
Pike then made an extraordinary claim, comparing the 1965 air campaign to the “Christmas bombing” of 1972. Officially known as Linebacker II, this massive, around-the-clock attack far exceeded in intensity anything that had gone before. Hanoi was stunned. “While conditions had changed vastly in seven years,” Pike continued, “the dismaying conclusion to suggest itself from the 1972 Christmas bombing was that had this kind of air assault been launched in February 1965, the Vietnam war as we know it might have been over within a matter of months, even weeks.”
General Westmoreland
Another revisionist argument, also ignored by the PBS documentary, holds that even with the mistakes which hamstrung U.S. policy and strategy in Vietnam, the United States came close to victory after 1968. This argument turns on operational strategy—how the war was actually fought in Vietnam. The focus of this debate is General William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (COMUSMACV).
An early Westmoreland critic was Marine General Victor Krulak, commander of Fleet Marine Force, Pacific. But the most influential historical criticism of Westmoreland’s conduct of the war has come from Lewis Sorley, a career Army officer who served in Vietnam, earned a doctorate in history from Johns Hopkins, and is the author of A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam (1999) and Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam (2011).
The PBS documentary ignores the critical debate between the Army and the Marines over how to fight the war. Westmoreland’s operational strategy emphasized the attrition of the PAVN in a “war of big battalions”—multi-battalion, and sometimes even multi-division sweeps through remote jungle areas in an effort to fix and destroy the enemy with superior fire power. The battle of the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965 was an example of his preferred approach.
The battle convinced Westmoreland that his concept was correct. In a head-to-head clash, an outnumbered U.S. force spoiled an enemy operation and sent a major PAVN force reeling back in defeat. But for Krulak, Ia Drang represented an example of fighting the enemy’s war—what North Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap predicted would be “a protracted war of attrition.” As Krulak noted in First to Fight (1984), by 1972, “we had managed to reduce the enemy’s manpower pool by perhaps 25 percent at a cost of over 220,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese dead. Of these, 59,000 were Americans.”
For his part, Westmoreland was critical of the Marine Corps approach in Vietnam, which unlike his own, took counterinsurgency seriously and emphasized small wars. In his memoir, A Soldier Reports (1976), Westmoreland writes:
During those early months [1965], I was concerned with the tactical methods that General Walt and the Marines employed. They had established beachheads at Chu Lai and Da Nang and were reluctant to go outside them, not through any lack of courage but through a different conception of how to fight an anti-insurgency war. They were assiduously combing the countryside within the beachhead, trying to establish firm control in hamlets and villages, and planning to expand the beachhead up and down the coast.
Westmoreland believed the Marines should, instead, “have been trying to find the enemy’s main forces and bring them to battle, thereby putting them on the run and reducing the threat they posed to the population.”
The Marines employed an approach in Vietnam, the “Combined Action Program,” first used in Haiti, Nicaragua, and Santo Domingo in the 1920s and ’30s. “Marine Corps experience in stabilizing governments and combating guerrilla forces was distilled in lecture form at the Marine Corps Schools…beginning in 1920,” Krulak wrote. The lectures appeared in Small Wars Manual in 1940, later adopted as an official publication.
According to Krulak, the Marine Corps approach in Vietnam had three elements: emphasis on pacification of the coastal areas in which 80% of the people lived; degradation of the ability of the North Vietnamese to fight by cutting off supplies before they left Northern ports of entry; and engagement of PAVN and Viet Cong main force units on terms favorable to American forces. Westmoreland, according to Krulak, made the “third point the primary undertaking, even while deemphasizing the need for clearly favorable conditions before engaging the enemy.”
The Army-Marine Corps debate can best be understood by looking at the PAVN strategy, another element the PBS series ignores. According to Douglas Pike’s PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam (1986), the Vietnamese Communists followed a strategy they called dau tranh (struggle) consisting of two operational elements: dau tranh vu trang (armed struggle) and dau tranh chinh tri (political struggle). These operational elements were envisioned as a pincers designed to crush the enemy. Armed struggle had a strategy “for regular forces” and another for “protracted conflict.” Regular-force strategy included both high tech and limited offensive warfare; protracted conflict included both Maoist and neo-revolutionary guerrilla warfare. Political struggle included dich van (action among the enemy), binh van (action among the military), and dan van (action among the people).
As Pike observes, to resist dau tranh both arms of the pincer had to be blunted. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces decisively defeated armed dau tranh. Pike contends that “the American military’s performance in this respect was particularly impressive. It won every significant battle fought, a record virtually unparalleled in the history of warfare.” But the Allies never dealt successfully with political dau tranh, which led ultimately to defeat.
Pike observes that a constant struggle existed between Giap and the professional generals, on the one hand, and party leader Truong Chinh and the political generals, on the other. From 1959, when the Lao Dong Party in Hanoi decided to launch dau tranh in the South, until 1965, the political was dominant. The emphasis on armed struggle became prevalent afterwards, until mid-1968. Four more shifts in emphasis would occur between 1969 and 1975, according to Pike.
The Later Years
During his time as commander in Vietnam, Westmoreland focused U.S. attention on military victory, especially the part of the strategy that relied on regular forces. But he ignored the political struggle and the “protracted conflict” element of armed struggle. Accordingly, he did little to train the Vietnamese army, a policy endorsed by Secretary of Defense McNamara, who claimed that by the time the Vietnamese were trained, the Americans would have won the war.
In A Better War, Sorley examines the largely neglected later years of the conflict, concluding that the war in Vietnam “was being won on the ground even as it was being lost at the peace table and in the U.S. Congress.” Sorley argues that Westmoreland’s tactics, which emphasized the attrition of PAVN forces in a “war of the big battalions,” squandered four years of public and congressional support for the war. “Search and destroy” operations, that is, were usually unsuccessful, since the enemy could avoid battle unless it was advantageous for him to accept it. But they were also costly to the American soldiers who conducted them and the Vietnamese civilians who were in the area.
Creighton Abrams succeeded Westmoreland as commander shortly after the 1968 Tet Offensive, joining Ellsworth Bunker, who had assumed the post of U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam the previous spring, and William Colby, a career CIA officer who coordinated the pacification effort. Abrams’s approach was similar to that of Krulak and the Marines, emphasizing not the destruction of enemy forces per se but protection of the South Vietnamese population by controlling key areas. He then concentrated on attacking the enemy’s “logistics nose” (as opposed to a “logistics tail”): since the North Vietnamese lacked heavy transport within South Vietnam, they had to pre-position supplies forward of their sanctuaries before launching an offensive.
Fighting was still heavy, as exemplified by two major actions in South Vietnam’s A Shau Valley during the first half of 1969: the 9th Marine Regiment’s Operation Dewey Canyon and the 101st Airborne Division’s epic battle for “Hamburger Hill.” But now PAVN offensive timetables were being disrupted by preemptive allied attacks, buying more time for “Vietnamization,” the shift of military responsibilities from the U.S. to South Vietnam.
In addition, rather than ignoring the insurgency and pushing the South Vietnamese aside as General Westmoreland had done, Abrams followed a policy of “one war,” integrating all aspects of the struggle against the Communists. The result, says Sorley, was “a better war” in which the United States and South Vietnamese essentially achieved the military and political conditions necessary for South Vietnam’s survival as a viable political entity.
Many commentators, including some authors of official Army histories, argue that the changes from Westmoreland to Abrams were evolutionary, primarily stemming from the failure of the Tet Offensive, which cost the PAVN and Viet Cong so many casualties that they had to change their strategy and tactics. But extensive recordings that Sorley used to write A Better War conclusively refute such an interpretation. After Tet, the PAVN tried three times in the next 12 months to achieve major military victories through general offensives, even though it continued to suffer very heavy casualties with nothing to show in return. It was not until after Tet 1969 that Vietnam’s Communists abandoned this approach.
Unfortunately, the specter of Robert McNamara has led analysts to over-emphasize the early years of the war at the expense of the fighting after Tet 1968. All too often, the history of the war has been derailed over the question of when McNamara turned against the war and why he didn’t make his views known earlier. But as Colby observed in a review of McNamara’s disgraceful memoir, In Retrospect (1995), by limiting serious consideration of the military situation in Vietnam to the period before mid-1968, historians leave Americans with a record “similar to what we would know if histories of World War II stopped before Stalingrad, Operation Torch in North Africa, and Guadalcanal in the Pacific.”
Most studies examining the period after Tet emphasize the diplomatic attempts to extricate the U.S. from the conflict, treating the military effort as nothing more than a holding action. For example, historian Ronald Spector’s After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam (1993), compares Vietnam to World War I: each conflict was a “stalemate” but “neither side was prepared to admit this fact.” Both the Communists and anti-Communists, he observes, made maximum efforts to break the stalemate during 1968.
Sorley disagrees, arguing that to truly understand the Vietnam war, it is imperative to come to grips with the years after 1968. He contends that far from constituting a mere holding action, the approach followed by the new team constituted a positive strategy for ensuring the survival of South Vietnam. Bunker, Abrams, and Colby operated from a different understanding of the war. They employed diminishing resources in manpower, materiel, money, and time as they raced to render the South Vietnamese capable of defending themselves before the last American forces were withdrawn. In the process, they came very close to achieving the goal of a viable nation and a lasting peace.
The dominant assessment’s defenders have replied that Sorley’s argument is refuted by the fact that South Vietnam did fall to the North Vietnamese Communists. They have repeated the claim that the South Vietnamese lacked the leadership, skill, character, and endurance of their adversaries. Sorley has acknowledged the shortcomings of the South Vietnamese and agrees that the U.S. would have had to provide continued air, naval, and intelligence support. But, he contends, the real cause of U.S. defeat was that Congress and Richard Nixon’s administration threw away the successes achieved by American and South Vietnamese arms.
Chances of Survival
The proof lay in the Communists’ 1972 Easter Offensive, the biggest offensive push of the war, greater in magnitude than either the 1968 Tet Offensive or the final assault of 1975. The U.S. provided massive air and naval support and there were inevitable failures on the part of some Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) units. But all told, the South Vietnamese fought well, blunting the Communist thrust, then recapturing much of the territory that had been lost to Hanoi.
Finally, so effective was the 11-day “Christmas bombing” campaign (Linebacker II) later that year that the British counterinsurgency expert, Sir Robert Thompson, commented, “You had won the war. It was over.” But three years later, despite the heroic performance of most ARVN units, South Vietnam collapsed against a cobbled-together PAVN offensive. What happened to cause this reversal?
First, the Nixon Administration, in its rush to extricate the country from Vietnam, forced the South Vietnamese government to accept a cease-fire that permitted PAVN forces to remain in the south. Then, in an act that shames the United States to this day, Congress cut off military and economic assistance to South Vietnam. Finally, President Nixon resigned over Watergate and his successor, Gerald Ford, constrained by Congress, defaulted on promises to respond with force to North Vietnamese violations of the peace terms.
We cannot say with assurance that South Vietnam would have survived after 1975. But its chances of survival were much improved by Abrams’s approach. It is impossible not to speculate about the opportunities and advantages that were lost by not pursuing Abrams’s approach, rather than Westmoreland’s, from America’s entry into the war.
The point is not that the Vietnam revisionists’ argument is unassailable. It is, rather, that a major public television documentary series that never even acknowledges the existence of more than one interpretation of the war is either lazy or dishonest, doing a disservice to the program’s subject and viewers, as well as to the troops who fought in that conflict.
Some political and ethical issues do not present opportunities for nuance and compromise.
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"We've cut the head off the snake"; local reactions to the death of bin Laden
By Jeff Piorkowski/special to cleveland.com
SOUTH EUCLID -- How times have changed in just a few days.
On April 28, Notre Dame College held a symposium on the topic of counter-terrorism.
“I don’t think Osama bin Laden’s name was even mentioned. Maybe just in passing,” said history professor Gregory Moore, director of the Center for Intelligence Studies and chairperson of the college’s Department of History and Political Science.
The name of the man behind the 9-11 attacks of 2001 was very much on the lips of people just a few days later, however, after word started spreading late the night of May 1 that bin Laden had been killed as part of a U.S. Navy SEALs operation.
The Notre Dame symposium largely dealt with southern Asia, perhaps making a point that the capture of bin Laden, of late more the symbolic leader of the terrorist group al-Qaida, may not have been in the forefront of Americans’ minds after a decade of eluding the U.S. military.
'Letting justice
take its course'
Reaction to bin Laden’s killing has taken many forms around this country, from outright jubilation, to concern.
“I hope that for some people of faith who lost loved ones on 9-11 that they are now in a place of peace,” said the Rev. John Thomas Lane, pastor of St. Paschal Church, 5384 Wilson Mills Road, Highland Heights.
But, as a Christian, Rev. Lane said of mankind and the killing of bin Laden, “We don’t have the right to play God and take someone’s life. We believe in justice and letting justice take its course.
“It all makes me wonder when will the violence end?”
'Terrorism a lot
like marketing'
Dr. John Hatzadony is a security, intelligence and anti-money-laundering compliance professional with expertise as a strategic member of the Department of Homeland Security. Like Moore, he spoke at the Notre Dame counter-terrorism symposium.
“Personally, there was an amount of closure that came over me,” Hatzadony said of bin Laden’s killing. “There probably was that sense for a lot people like me who were affected enough by 9-11 to want to do something about it.”
Hatzadony, now a Notre Dame professor, was teaching at Hiram College pre-9-11. He believes he was at the time the first college professor in the area teaching about terrorism in his classes. After Sept. 11, Hatzadony left education to join the Department of Homeland Security.
Hours after news of bin Laden’s death, he said he had talked to several former contacts with whom he had worked in the department and they, too, felt a sense of closure.
When asked what he believed the al-Qaeda response would be, Hatzadony said, “That’s the concern. There’s no question there are a lot of possibilities.”
Hatzadony said there will be some bin Laden followers who won’t continue the fight, and some who will seek vengeance.
“There are some ‘franchise guys’ who weren’t necessarily close to bin Laden, but who received (terrorist) training in the al-Qaeda style who will probably attempt to do something,” he said.
“I was telling my national security class today that (bin Laden) gets a lot of (revered treatment) for heading 9-11. Somebody will have to do something bigger or greater to get that kind of treatment again.
“Terrorism is a lot like marketing,” he added, stating there is always a need to capture the attention of followers by doing something of a larger magnitude than before.
Hatzadony said with al-Qaeda’s symbolic leader gone, it might take a while for terrorists to mount a response in the short term.
Two major types of
retaliatory measures
John Carroll University psychology professor Thomas Evans, who teaches classes in terrorism and violence and aggression, believes the United States faces a greater risk of terrorist retaliation from al-Qaeda.
“I believe (bin Laden’s death) will bring a sense of justice to many Americans and some relief,” Evans said in an interview May 2. “But I hope it doesn’t make them drop their vigilance, because there will be some retaliatory measures taking place.”
Evans was surprised after bin Laden’s death was announced.
“It provided some closure; we finally got bin Laden,” he said. “I’m happy that our security agencies are working together in a way that allows us to achieve our goal.”
But Evans believes there will be two major types of retaliatory measures that Americans will need to watch for.
“One will start shortly,” he said, “small types of terrorist stunts, such as (an object resembling) a pipe bomb found on a bridge in San Diego (May 2).
“These will probably be done by home-grown al-Qaeda followers and people who are self-ordained members of al-Qaeda.”
The second type, Evans said, will likely be more large scale. These acts will be planned by the remaining hierarchy of al-Qaeda, possibly by Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s second in command, he said.
“There will be an attempt to commit a major retaliatory strike, which will require high-level organizational skills that the remainder of the formal al-Qaeda organization would have to be involved in,” he said.
'The movement can be
expected to continue'
Evans said al-Qaeda is a movement, rather than something under the direct control of bin Laden.
“Since we’ve cut the head off the snake, so to speak, the movement can be expected to continue,” he said.
“On the other side of the coin, I believe the elimination of bin Laden represents an elevation in our technical and intelligence abilities. So a great many of those following al-Qaeda will be aborted, and then the movement will begin to lose momentum.”
One symptom of the reduction of al-Qaeda’s power, Evans said, is the amount of discontent and revolutionary behavior being seen in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries.
“That shows the people are tired of dictators and tired of suppression,” he said. “These people are not anti-American, but anti-suppression.”
Evans, a Lyndhurst native, worked as an intelligence officer and profiler for the Central Intelligence Agency for about 10 years between 1965 and 1981. He was also a U.S. Marine, serving in the infantry from 1959-1965.
'I thought he might be
closer to the border'
Moore, meanwhile, gave much credit to U.S. intelligence operatives stating they have vastly improved their techniques in the past 30 years. He further said he was surprised bin Laden had been living in Abbotabad in the northern part of the country, 30-35 miles from the capital city of Islamabad.
“I thought he might be closer to the border,” he said.
U.S. military leaders did not inform their Pakistani counterparts about the raid on bin Laden’s compound as it appears Pakistan’s leaders knew the wanted man was residing in their country.
Some say this apparent protection of bin Laden shows Pakistan proved it was not a U.S. ally as it purported itself.
“The problem for Pakistan is that they have different groups like al-Qaeda and LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group India blames for terrorist attacks in that country, including the 2008 Mumbai massacre that killed almost 200) in their back yard, and there is also an insurgency against their government,” Moore said.
“(Pakistan) want(s) American funds to help them, but these guys are right in their back yard.”
See more local news at cleveland.com/sunmessenger
Staff writer Ed Wittenberg contributed to this story.
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Patriarch: Holy Land Christians ‘pray, weep, suffer and wait’ with Jesus
In this file photo, Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal of Jerusalem waves after celebrating Easter Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem’s Old City April 5. Patriarch Twal discussed the struggles faced by many Christians in the Middle East in a session at the World Meeting of Families Sept. 25. (CNS photo/Ammar Awad, Reuters)
PHILADELPHIA (CNS) — Christian families in the Holy Land bear their daily suffering with hope, knowing that the cross is the cost of following Christ, said Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal of Jerusalem.
“We are a Church of Calvary, and it is something that we have to accept,” he said during a session of the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia Sept. 25.
“Jesus says all who follow him will have to pick up their cross,” he continued. “We must take these words seriously. If we want to follow him, we have our daily cross.”
The Latin-rite archbishop of Cyprus, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories contributed to a panel at the international four-day congress on the theme, “The Way of the Cross, the Way of the Heart: Suffering and the Family.”
Patriarch Twal said the causes of the suffering experienced by families in the Holy Land are many: the confiscation and occupation of lands, the Israeli separation barrier, travel restrictions, checkpoints, administrative detentions, emigration, religious fanaticism and radicalism.
“More than ever, religious fundamentalism and violence in the name of God is the worst of all our challenges,” he said.
The security barrier or wall, which separates families and parishes, is an expression of “other walls in the heart of the human being, distrust and misunderstanding,” he said.
He spoke of a parish priest whose mother died because Israeli officials did not allow her through a checkpoint for dialysis.
Recently described as a “wall of shame” by an Italian pilgrim, he said, it is “more than shameful” that “many people who come to visit don’t see the wall and don’t even want to see it.” An entire generation of Christians only know this reality, he said.
Many Christian families, however, have decided to leave. Today, only about 10,000 Christians live in Jerusalem, compared with about 250,000 Muslims and 500,000 Jews, he said.
The families that left are among the almost 20 million people worldwide today who have fled their homeland because of war, persecution and oppression, he said.
“And every day an estimated 42,000 more join the exodus,” most making their way to Europe, where there is “total confusion” about whether or not to welcome refugees, he said.
He said families in the Holy Land share struggles similar to the Holy Family, who were once refugees in Egypt. He urged meeting participants to find ways to express their solidarity and support to Christians in the Holy Land.
“But being a Church of Calvary, we don’t forget that we are a Church of resurrection, of hope, of future,” he said, noting that signs of hope exist.
“We have many wonderful committed young couples,” he said, and the seminary is filled to capacity with 35 seminarians.
Patriach Twal said Christians in the Middle East trust in the words of Jesus, that they need not be afraid, for they are not alone and Jesus is with them.
And just like Jesus on the Mount of Olives, the patriarch said, “We pray, we weep, we suffer and we wait.”
By Laura Ieraci, Catholic News Service. Follow Ieraci on Twitter: @lauraier.
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More breast-feeding could lower breast cancer rates by thousands
By Michelle Castillo
June 7, 2013 / 3:57 PM / CBS News
Breast-feeding isn't only good for the developing infant: It helps mom out too.
A study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology on June 5 revealed that if people stuck with the recommended length of breast-feeding their newborn for at least one year, there would be 5,000 fewer cases of breast cancer, 54,000 fewer cases of hypertension and almost 14,000 less heart attacks in women each year. The researchers say low breast-feeding rates are racking up billions of dollars in health care costs each year.
"We know that 60 percent of women don't even meet their personal breast-feeding goals, whether it's three or four or six months," author Dr. Melissa Bartick, assistant professor of medicine, said to TIME. "We need to do more to support women so they can breast-feed longer. There are thousands of needless cases of disease and death that could be prevented."
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies are breast-fed exclusively for the first six months of life, and then have breast-milk supplementally given to them until they at least a year. Breast-feeding can continue as long as the mother, baby and physician feel it is appropriate. Solid food should only be introduced starting at six months of age, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently discovered that 40 percent of parents are giving their children solid food by the time they reach 4 months.
The World Health Organization recommends even longer breast-feeding, with complementary foods through a child is 2-years-old and beyond.
Though rates have increased in the U.S., only 45 percent of mothers are still breast-feeding at some level by six months, and only 23 percent continue on for one year.
It is recommended that women breast-feed because it provides protection for the babies, from the early "liquid gold" colostrums full of nutrients and antibodies produced at the end of pregnancy to the mature milk that has the right amount of fat, sugar, water and protein to nourish a healthy child. Breast milk is easier to digest, and the hormones and antibodies inside may help ward off diseases for the child.
Children who are breast-fed have lower rates of necrotizing enterocolitis, a gastrointestinal tract disease, respiratory infections, asthma, type 2 diabetes, and obesity, although the last factor was debated in a March 2013 study in JAMA. Some other studies have shown that breast-feeding can lower rates of type 1 diabetes and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) as well.
Mothers can also benefit from breast-feeding. In addition to helping mothers bond with their children and helping them save time from boiling milk, breast-feeding saves money. Formula and supplies cost about $1,500 a year, and breast-fed children get sick less often -- which means less sick days for the parents.
In addition, breast-feeding has shown to lower rates of type 2 diabetes, breast cancer, ovarian cancer and postpartum depression in women.
The new study is a response to a 2010 study in Pediatrics, which Bartick was a lead author on, that looked at how low breast-feeding rates impacted children and subsequent costs to society. It revealed that about 900 babies would be saved if 90 percent of mothers breast-fed their children exclusively for the first six months of their lives. In addition, low breast-feeding rates leading to infant deaths leads to a societal cost of $13 billion, that study found. The figure was calculated from many factors including the potential wages lost by the children who did not grow up to be adults.
"We got a million inquiries saying, 'That doesn't include the women!' We wanted a complete picture," Bartick remarked.
Researchers from Harvard University used a model to simulate the lives of about 2 million U.S. women from the age of 15 to 70. They looked at outcomes for five diseases that are linked to lower rates if a mom breast-feeds: Breast cancer, premenopausal ovarian cancer, hypertension, heart attack and type 2 diabetes. They also looked at health care costs over their theoretical lifestimes.
The researchers factored in the current breast-feeding rate -- about 25 percent of moms breast feed the entire recommended 12 months -- and the ideal breast-feeding rate, which would be about 90 percent of mothers.
In addition to the lower adverse health events, they found out that if 90 percent of mothers breast-fed for a year it would cost $860 million less in health care fees. The study showed that the low rates of breast-feeding cost society $17.4 billion from maternal deaths before 70.
Experts are trying various methods to boost breast-feeding rates. A May 2013 study in Pediatrics showed that giving babies that lost a lot of weight minimal amounts of formula actually increased long-term breast-feeding rates. Ninety-five percent of mothers whose infants were given early limited formula (ELF) were still breast-feeding at three months at some level, compared to 68 percent of mothers who did not receive ELF.
First published on June 7, 2013 / 3:57 PM
Michelle Castillo
Michelle Castillo is an associate editor for CBSNews.com.
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And the Oscar nominees are ...
"Amour"
"Amour," Michael Haneke's intimate portrayal of an aged couple grappling with illness and the specter of loss, is nominated for Best Picture. The film's star Emmanuelle Riva is nominated in the Best Actress category. Hanaeke is also nominated for Best Director.
Credit: Sony Pictures Classics
"Argo"
"Argo," Ben Affleck's thriller about a CIA scheme to save Americans from Iran amid the 1979 hostage crisis, is nominated for Best Picture. Actor Alan Arkin is nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category.
Credit: Claire Folger
"Beasts of the Southern Wild"
"Beasts of the Southern Wild," a Sundance favorite that uses magical realism to evoke a child's world in the Louisiana bayou, is nominated for Best Picture. The film's director Ben Zeitlin and its star Quvenzhan
Credit: Fox Searchlight
"Django Unchained"
"Django Unchained," Quentin Tarantino's bloody revenge saga about a former slave hunting white oppressors just before the Civil War, is nominated for Best Picture. One of the film's stars, Christoph Waltz, is nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
Credit: Weinstein Company
"Les Miserables"
"Les Miserables," Tom Hooper's musical epic set against an uprising of freedom fighters in 19th century France, is nominated for Best Picture. The film's stars Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway were nominated in the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories, respectively.
Credit: Universal
"Life of Pi"
"Life of Pi," Ang Lee's story of a free-thinking Indian youth cast adrift on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger while traveling to a new life in North America, is nominated for Best Picture. Lee also is nominated for Best Director. Altogether, it received 11 nominations.
Credit: undefined
"Lincoln"
"Lincoln," Steven Spielberg's drama of the 16th president's fight to eradicate slavery, leads the race for this year's Academy Awards, with 12 nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor. Spielberg is also nominated for Best Director.
Credit: David James/Disney/DreamWorks II
"Silver Linings Playbook"
Silver Linings Playbook," a comedy-drama about a man released from a mental institution, probably prematurely, is nominated for Best Picture. The film's director, David O. Russell, also is nominated along with four of the film's stars.
"Zero Dark Thirty"
"Zero Dark Thirty," Kathryn Bigelow's chronicle of the hunt for U.S. public enemy No. 1, Osama bin Laden, is nominated for Best Picture. The film's star Jessica Chastain is nominated for Best Actress.
Credit: Sony Pictures
Daniel Day-Lewis is nominated for best performance by an actor in a leading role for playing President Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln."
Day-Lewis is a two-time winner of the Best Actor Oscar, for "My Left Foot" and "There Will Be Blood." He also received Best Actor nominations for "In the Name of the Father" and "Gangs of New York."
Credit: Dreamworks
Bradley Cooper is nominated for best performance by an actor in a leading role for playing a bipolar former teacher who's released from a mental hospital and returns to his parents' home in "Silver Linings Playbook."
This is Cooper's first Oscar nomination.
Credit: The Weinstein Company
Hugh Jackman is nominated for best performance by an actor in a leading role for playing Jean Valjean in "Les Miserables."
This is Jackman's first Oscar nomination.
Credit: Universal Pictures
Joaquin Phoenix is nominated for best performance by an actor in a leading role for playing a WW II veteran who become the fiercest defender of a cult in Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master."
Phoenix has been nominated twice before, for Best Supporting Actor ("Gladiator") and Best Actor ("Walk the Line").
Denzel Washington is nominated for best performance by an actor in a leading role for playing a pilot battling both an NTSB probe into a fatal plane crash and his own alcoholism in "Flight."
Washington is a two-time Oscar-winner, for "Glory" and "Training Day." He also received three additional nominations, for "Cry Freedom," "Malcolm X" and "The Hurricane."
Credit: Paramount Pictures
Jessica Chastain is nominated for best performance by an actress in a leading role for playing CIA analyst Maya, who is tracking the whereabouts of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in "Zero Dark Thirty."
Chastain was nominated last year for Best Supporting Actress for "The Help."
Credit: Columbia Pictures
Jennifer Lawrence is nominated for best performance by an actress in a leading role for playing a young widow who acts as a go-between for her bipolar friend and his estranged wife in "Silver Linings Playbook."
Lawrence was previously nominated for Best Actress for "Winter's Bone."
Emmanuelle Riva is nominated for best performance by an actress in a leading role for playing an octogenarian stroke victim who is the center of her husband's universe in Michael Haneke's drama "Amour."
This is Riva's first Oscar nomination. At 85, she becomes the oldest performer to receive a Best Actress nomination.
Quvenzhane Wallis is nominated for best performance by an actress in a leading role for starring in "Beasts of the Southern Wild," a tale of magical realism about a young girl in the Louisiana bayou.
Wallis, 9, becomes the youngest female ever nominated in an acting category.
Naomi Watts is nominated for best performance by an actress in a leading role for playing a tourist whose family is torn apart by a tsunami in "The Impossible."
Watts was previously nominated for Best Supporting Actress for "21 Grams."
Credit: Summit Entertainment
Alan Arkin is nominated for best performance by an actor in a supporting role for playing producer Lester Siegel in "Argo."
Arkin won Best Supporting Actor for "Little Miss Sunshine," and was nominated for Best Actor for "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming," and "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter."
Credit: Warner Bros.
Robert De Niro is nominated for best performance by an actor in a supporting role for playing the OCD father of Bradley Cooper in "Silver Linings Playbook."
A two-time Oscar-winner (for "The Godfather Part II" and "Raging Bull"), De Niro has also received nominations for "Taxi Driver," "The Deer Hunter," "Awakenings" and "Cape Fear."
Philip Seymour Hoffman is nominated for best performance by an actor in a supporting role for playing the charismatic leader of a cult in "The Master."
Hoffman, a Best Actor Oscar-winner for "Capote," was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor for "Charlie Wilson's War" and "Doubt."
Credit: PHIL BRAY
Tommy Lee Jones is nominated for best performance by an actor in a supporting role for playing the abolitionist Rep. Thaddeus Stevens in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln."
Jones won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in "The Fugitive." He was nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category for his performance in "In the Valley of Elah."
Christoph Waltz is nominated for best performance by an actor in a supporting role for playing a bounty hunter in "Django Unchained."
Waltz won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for "Inglourious Basterds."
Credit: ANDREW COOPER SMPSP
Amy Adams is nominated for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for playing the wife of a cult leader in Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master."
Adams has been nominated three times previously for Best Supporting Actress, for "Junebug," "Doubt," and "The Fighter."
Anne Hathaway is nominated for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for playing the tragic Fantine in the musical "Les Miserables."
Hathaway was previously nominated for Best Actress for "Rachel Getting Married."
Sally Field is nominated for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for playing first lady Mary Todd Lincoln in "Lincoln."
Field has won two Oscars for "Norma Rae" and "Places in the Heart."
Helen Hunt is nominated for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for playing a sex surrogate in "The Sessions."
Hunt won an Oscar for Best Actress in "As Good as It Gets."
Jacki Weaver is nominated for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for playing the mother of a mentally unstable son in "Silver Linings Playbook."
Weaver was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for "Animal Kingdom."
"Brave"
"Brave" is nominated for best animated feature film of the year.
Credit: Pixar
"Frankenweenie"
"Frankenweenie" is nominated for best animated feature film of the year.
Credit: AP/Disney
"ParaNorman"
"ParaNorman" is nominated for best animated feature film of the year.
Credit: AP Photo/Focus Features
"Wreck-It Ralph"
"Wreck-It Ralph" is nominated for best animated feature film of the year.
Credit: AP Photo/Disney
"The Pirates! Band of Misfits"
"The Pirates! Band of Misfits" is nominated for best animated feature film of the year.
Credit: Sony Wonder
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Dave Brubeck: 1920-2012
Legendary jazz pianist Dave Brubeck stands on stage following a performance to celebrate his 85th birthday at London's Barbican Hall on Dec. 6, 2005.
Credit: AP Photo/Alastair Grant
Jazz musician Dave Brubeck plays a keyboard at his induction with 12 other honorees into the 2008 California Hall of Fame at The California Museum on Dec. 15, 2008, in Sacramento, Calif.
Dave Brubeck performs along with his Dave Brubeck Quartet, Nov. 16, 2005, at the Schauspielhaus theater in the southern city of Nuremberg, where he served as a GI during WWII.
Credit: TIMM SCHAMBERGER
Jazz musician David Brubeck holds his lifetime achievement award at the 38th annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 28, in Los Angeles.
Credit: JEFF HAYNES/AFP/Getty Images
Dave Brubeck and Wynton Marsalis perform during "A Celebration of America" by Jazz at Lincoln Center and The Rockefeller Foundation at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Jan. 19, 2009, in Washington.
Credit: Theo Wargo/Getty Images
Dave Brubeck performs during "A Celebration of America" by Jazz at Lincoln Center and The Rockefeller Foundation at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Jan. 19, 2009, in Washington.
Musician Dave Brubek speaks at the Apple Store Soho on July 21, 2009, in New York.
Credit: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images
Musician Dave Brubek performs at the Apple Store Soho on July 21, 2009, in New York.
Kennedy Center honorees Bruce Springsteen, left, and Dave Brubeck engage in conversation as they and the other honorees prepare to pose for the formal group photo following the Artist's Dinner at the U.S. Department of State on Dec. 5, 2009, in Washington.
Jazz legend Dave Brubeck, recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors, arrives at the awards ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Dec. 6, 2009.
Credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images
Dave Brubeck receives a honorary doctorate in Music during the 2010 George Washington University commencement at the National Mall on May 16, 2010, in Washington.
Credit: Kris Connor/Getty Images
Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck at his piano as he celebrates his 85th birthday at London's Barbican Hall after a performance with the London Symphony Orchestra, Dec. 6, 2005.
Dave Brubeck rehearses at Sirius Satellite Radio studios in New York on July 12, 2007.
Credit: Richard Drew/Getty Images
Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, R.I., Aug. 23, 1981.
Credit: AP Photo/Paul Mello
American composer, pianist and jazz musician Dave Brubeck. Brubeck, a pioneering jazz composer and pianist died Dec. 5, 2012 of heart failure, after being stricken while on his way to a cardiology appointment with his son.
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65 Percent of Children Live in Households on Federal Aid Programs
By Terence P. Jeffrey | December 10, 2014 | 4:44 AM EST
(AP File Photo)
The Census Bureau reported in a study released this week that 65 percent of American children lived in households taking aid from one or more federal program as of the fall of 2011.
"Almost two-thirds (65 percent) of children," said the Census Bureau, "lived in households that participated in at least one or more of the following government aid programs: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Medicaid, and the National School Lunch Program."
How to be dependent on government is now one of the earliest life lessons America is teaching nearly a supermajority of children.
The percentage of children living in households participating in TANF, food stamps, WIC, Medicaid or the National School Lunch Program has been on the rise.
In 2003, according to the Census Bureau, there were a total of 72,658,000 children 17 and under in the United States, and 40,337,000 of these children — or 56 percent — lived in households receiving aid from one of more of these programs.
That included 30,023,000 children in the National School Lunch Program, 18,175,000 in households on Medicaid, 8,287,000 in households on food stamps, 4,808,000 in households on WIC, and 2,347,000 in households on TANF.
By 2011, there were 74,294,000 children 17 and under and 47,939,000 of these children — or 65 percent — lived in households receiving aid from one or more of these programs.
That included 34,959,000 in the National School Lunch Program; 26,350,000 in households on Medicaid; 17,321,000 in households on food stamps; 6,350,000 in households on WIC; and 2,279,000 in households on TANF.
Children living in households that have never taken federal assistance are now a minority in the United States. In the future, they will be among a minority of adults.
The new willingness among Americans to live on government largesse is matched by another trend: disregard for marriage and traditional family life.
As recently as 1970, according to the Census Bureau, 85.2 percent of American children were living with two parents.
Of the 74,294,000 children 17 and under in the United States in the fall of 2011, 50,442,000 — or 68 percent — were living with two parents. However, 3,760,000 of those children were living with two parents who were not married, leaving only 46,682,000 children — or 63 percent — living with two married parents.
"The economic status of children living with cohabitating parents more closely resembled single-parent families," the study said. After children living with a single parent, they were the most likely to be in poverty.
Among children living with one parent, 40.9 percent were in poverty. Among children living with two unmarried parents, 37.3 percent were in poverty. And among children living with a guardian (including a grandparent or another relative), 29.8 percent were in poverty.
But among children living with two married parents, only 14.0 percent were in poverty.
The data published in this Census Bureau study also suggests that disrespect for marriage and traditional family life is a homegrown product of the United States. Children who have at least one immigrant parent are more likely to live with two married parents.
Almost 73 percent of children who had at least one foreign-born parent, the study said, lived with two married parents. But only 59.8 percent of children whose parents were both born in the United States lived with two married parents.
The ultimate struggle for the future of America is not political or economic, but cultural. It is between those who believe in self-reliance and traditional family life and those who do not.
Terence P. Jeffrey
Bio | Archive
More from Terence P. Jeffrey
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Home > Shows > Secret Drug Conspiracy/ Psychic Sleuthing
Date Sunday - December 10, 2017
Host Richard Syrett
Guests John Potash, Sloan Bella
Joining Richard Syrett in the first half, author and researcher John Potash detailed how a group of opium-trafficking families came to form an American oligarchy and eventually achieved global dominance as they directed the CIA in operations such as MK-Ultra to push LSD and other drugs on leftist leaders and left-leaning populations at home and abroad. Potash began with an examination of the John Lennon assassination, saying that the accused killer, Mark David Chapman, had been trained by CIA handlers to learn how to shoot a gun accurately, and had been a patient at a mental health facility known to have direct Agency connections. He also claimed that the doorman at the building where Lennon was killed was a CIA operative who had been involved with the Watergate break-in, as well as the Bay Of Pigs invasion. Potash and Richard drew parallels between the Lennon and RFK assassinations, such as the evidence of possible mind control and second shooters.
Potash said that the CIA sent a raft of agents and "a ton of LSD" to the UK in 1965 in order to popularize the drug amongst the pop culture and especially the artists and musicians at the time. He believes that the drug did not open up perceptions, but instead "generally made people less competent" and less likely able to promote left wing causes effectively. He also said that there is strong evidence that Jimi Hendrix was murdered when he fired his manager who was a British secret agent and that Rolling Stones founding member Brian Jones was drowned in his swimming pool when intel agents learned he was openly turning away from psychedelic drugs.
In part two, psychic medium, trained astrologer, and modern-day metaphysician, Sloan Bella returned for an update on her most recent work and predictions along with her work solving and laying the groundwork of the circumstances on a series of mysterious high profile celebrity deaths. Bella said she ran away from home at age 12 just after the spirit of late musician Jimi Hendrix began communicating with her. She didn’t realize it was Hendrix until many years later, when she heard a band covering his music and realized who the spirit was. "I thought he was just my pretend friend," Bella recalled.
She also described what she has sensed as the spirit of Nirvana founder Kurt Cobain and her impression that he "took his own life not of his free will." Bella believes the musician was manipulated by unstable forces which caused him to commit suicide. Bella also spoke about her interactions with late model/ actress Anna Nicole Smith and the strange premonitions she received about the cause of her death. For many years, she has also worked with police on missing persons cases, who she said for the most part "come to you on their own" in order to avoid publicity, and that most of the law enforcement who seek her out are detectives. She says her abilities make her feel like she is "useful on this planet." In the last hour, Bella gave live readings for callers.
johnpotash.com
sloanbella.com
Drugs as Weapons Against Us
Bumper music from Sunday December 10, 2017
Take A Letter Maria
R.B. Greaves
What A Man
Linda Lyndell
All Night Worker
Johnny Taylor
People Get It Together
Bright Side Of The Road
Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)
Heartaches and Pain
Crazy In The Night (Barking At Airplanes)
Kim Carnes
Art Bell: Somewhere In Time
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Bon Jovi // Alec John Such
“Livin’ on a Prayer” is Bon Jovi’s second single from their Slippery When Wet album. Written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora with Desmond Child, the single, released in late 1986, was well received at both rock and pop radio and its music video was given heavy rotation at MTV, giving the band their first #1 on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. The single also became Bon Jovi’s second consecutive #1 Billboard Hot 100 hit[1] and has become the band’s signature song, topping fan-voted lists and re-charting around the world decades after its release.
The album version of the song fades out at the end, with a song length of 4:10. However, the version playable on the music video games Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2 retains the original studio ending of the song, where the band revisit the intro riff and end with a talkbox solo. This version of the song ends at 4:53.
The song is also featured in the 2001 movie Rock Star. The song was sung by Sri & David to a sold out house at Mint in San Francisco on 8/20/2011.
Bon Jovi Bassist Alec John Such was born November 14, 1956. He left the band in 1994, and has not been officially replaced. As well as playing bass guitar, Such sang backing vocals and occasionally took the lead for part of ‘Blood on Blood’ at live shows. He is of Hungarian descent (his surname is Szűcs in Hungarian).
Hugh McDonald took over Such’s position as bassist, having already played on Slippery When Wet and all subsequent albums that followed. He also played bass on “Runaway” on Bon Jovi’s debut. However, he is not an “official” member of the band, since the members agreed not to officially replace Alec and therefore does not appear on album artwork or publicity shots.
After leaving Bon Jovi, Such has managed a couple of local New Jersey bands, and also owns a motorcycle shop in New York City. Alec managed the Chicago-based rock band 7th Heaven in 1998 along with James Young of the band Styx.
Alec cameoed with Bon Jovi live on stage in 2001 during “Wanted Dead Or Alive” at the Tweeter Center in Camden, New Jersey and Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
Alec Opens the main Groove with a Classic must know Bass Groove.
bassbruce
great tutorial,helped immensely.thank you so much. VERY EFFIN COOL!!!!
Cocosbassment
Thanks dude,
Let me know if there are any transcriptions you’d like to see in the future.
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Home Tags Nick Lowe
Tag: Nick Lowe
THE IMAGE EFFECT: Are Editors Outdated?
Matt O'Keefe - 09/02/2015 5:30 pm
This is the first in a planned series of articles about the “Image Effect.” Over the past 20+ years Image Comics has grown from...
SDCC ’14: Spider-Verse panel Recap
by Alexander Jones This early in the morning, it’s tough to get comics fans to wake up for anything. Luckily here at San Diego Comic-Con,...
“They Won’t All Get Along”: Dan Slott and Nick Lowe on...
Steve Morris - 03/24/2014 4:42 pm
It’s been an age since I went onto a Marvel conference call – heck, it’s been an age since I did anything over here...
Marvel’s Next Big Thing – Matt Fraction Discusses Inhumanity
Marvel announced a conference call tonight with writer Matt Fraction and editor Nick Lowe, to discuss the upcoming 'Inhumanity' which will target the Marvel...
Marvel’s Next Big Thing: All-New X-Men
It's time for another Marvel conference call, this time as Brian Michael Bendis and Nick Lowe talk about All-New X-Men #1. And I was...
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15-year-old boy charged with first-degree murder in Foote Homes shooting
A 15-year-old boy has been charged in the death of a teenage girl, according to the Memphis Police Department.
15-year-old boy charged with first-degree murder in Foote Homes shooting A 15-year-old boy has been charged in the death of a teenage girl, according to the Memphis Police Department. Check out this story on commercialappeal.com: https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/crime/2016/04/27/15yearold-boy-charged-with-firstdegree-murder-in-foote-homes-shooting/90513076/
"The suspect responsible for the murder of the 15-year-old victim has been identified as Yamar Calvin," said MPD spokeswoman Karen Rudolph.
Calvin was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder and criminal attempt felony to wit: first degree murder, Rudolph said.
Amberiya Davis, 15, was found laying in the grass with a gunshot wound inside the Foote Homes public-housing complex on Vance Avenue just east of Downtown late Monday night. She died at Regional Medical Center, Rudolph said.
The initial investigation revealed a silver or gray Infiniti drove through the complex and the suspect leaned out and shot Davis, Rudolph said.
Earlier that day, a separate victim was shot in the arm when he got caught in the middle of a fight taking place in the complex, Rudolph said.
Read or Share this story: https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/crime/2016/04/27/15yearold-boy-charged-with-firstdegree-murder-in-foote-homes-shooting/90513076/
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Telco mandate from Brussels ideal opportunity to update privacy laws
Following the European Council’s mandate to telcos to inform their customers if their data is lost, data security specialist Imperva is calling on the UK government to update its privacy legislation to require all technology service companies to do likewise.
“Whilst it’s good news that this amendment to the EU Directive will apply to telcos, it’s a great shame that it does not apply to other technology firms such as Internet service providers, as was originally requested by the European Parliament,” said Amichai Shulman, Imperva’s chief technology officer.
“The news comes as the European Commission has warned the UK government that it has failed to adequately enact European privacy laws and, as a result, has until the end of the year to resolve the situation,” he added.
According to Shulman, the Commission appears to be concerned that current UK privacy laws do not fully comply with the European E-Privacy Directive and the Data Protection Directive.
This is, he explained, an ideal time for the UK government to `kill two birds with one stone’ and amend its privacy legislation to meet the Commission’s requirements, as well as extend the scope of the European Council’s mandate on telecoms companies to include all Internet service firms.
“What we have year is the exact opposite of a perfect storm – a perfect calm, if you will – that could engender some extremely positive changes to UK legislation that will appease the mandarins in Brussels, as well as the population as a whole,” he said.
“The UK government is a good position on this, so now is the time to act and make everyone a winner as far as technology-related data privacy is concerned,” he added.
South West Comms Scoop Blue Riband Award
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CSC signs seven year contract extension with Zurich Insurance
CSC has revealed that it has secured a seven year extension to a contract with Zurich Insurance Group to provide IT application services.
Derek du Preez September 12, 2012
The existing deal was originally penned in July 2004 and covers application maintenance and development services in the UK, the USA, Switzerland, Canada, Germany and Italy.
Services will commence under the new agreement as of 1st January 2013 and Zurich Insurance has reserved the right to extend the contract by an additional three years, which would give it a 10 year term.
“Zurich’s selection of CSC underscores our wealth of experience in the insurance industry and the success of our global service delivery team,” said Ray August, president of CSC’s Financial Services Group.
In other news, it was recently revealed that CSC will receive £68 million from the government under a deal which ends a £2.9 billion contract to provide care records systems to the National Health Service.
The Department of Health said at the time that it was saving £1 billion on the contract, which has seen CSC struggle to deploy the Lorenzo system in trusts across the UK.
National Outsourcing Association backs CSC redundancy plans CSC announces further 640 job cuts
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Realizing the vision:SMEET Precast - Qatar
SMEET Precast is a one-stop-shop for builders of the future Qatar. During 2012, its modern production facility in Mesaieed Industrial City in Qatar began producing building materials for the fast growing Qatari construction market.
SMEET Precast entrusted Elematic with its investment in a precast concrete production factory. This factory will be the most modern precast factory in the region. The facility covers a massive area of 300,000 square meters and is to be commissioned in phases. Once operational, Phase 1 of the facility will house all the equipment required to produce all wall and floor elements. The new plant incorporates a state-of-the-art hollow-core slab production line consisting of six 150-meter-long casting beds. The Elematic Extruder E9 produces 150 mm, 200 mm, 265 mm, 320 mm and 400 mm-thick hollow-core slabs. The production line also includes BedMaster EL411 and Saw EL 130 machines to guarantee high-quality end products. The new factory also includes two casting beds for beams and columns that produce units for integrated frame and skeletal systems. For the manufacture of wall elements, the factory has been equipped with hydraulic tilting tables with aluminum side shutters and the FaMe fastening method. “In order to run a smooth and uninterrupted production process, the co-operation deal also includes a long-term maintenance agreement as well as installation service and a selection of other support services,” says Elematic’s area sales director Raimo Juhantalo. When selecting the supplier for its precast factories, SMEET researched the choices carefully. “After conducting a very in-depth and objective evaluation based on a clearly defined marking scheme, Elematic was ranked as number one in all technical rating criteria,” says Engr. Majid Al-Bader, CEO of SMEET. “The co-operation with Elematic has been very fruitful and we are looking forward to continuing our work together in the future,” he says. “Good, long-term relationships with our customers made it possible to find the best solution to meet SMEET’s needs”, says Mr. Juhantalo. ”The Middle East continues to be one of the most important markets for Elematic, and we are pleased to be able to develop the precast market together with innovative companies like SMEET.”
Precast at the core of SMEET's strategy
SMEET was established in 2010 by Qatari Real Estate Investment Company, Barwa Real Estate Company, and the First Investor. Engr. Al-Bader says that his company is committed to the Qatar Vision 2030, which has been reflected in SMEET’s business strategy. According to its vision, SMEET Precast aims to be the premier manufacturer and supplier of quality precast building solutions and precast building materials in Qatar and the region. The company's strategy for reaching this goal is to provide a complete package of services that are realized by teams of experts and specialists: structural engineers, technicians, surveyors, production specialists, foremen, and safety-certified installation crew. The precast market in Qatar, along with the expanding investments in real estate and infrastructure projects, continues to develop rapidly and presents a huge potential opportunity for capable suppliers. “We are very confident that precast has a bright future in Qatar. SMEET is determined to be the leading manufacturer of precast products in the MENA region,” says the SMEET CEO. The precast industry has high barriers for entry due to the relatively large investment, local licensing, and permitting requirements and, of course, extensive technical know-how,” he continues. “SMEET has already become one of the key players in serving landmark projects in Qatar. The company specializes in the production and supply of Ready Mix and Precast Concrete for the construction industry and our current focus is on these market segments,” Al-Bader explains. The company is also working towards setting up a number of satellite plants which will serve key customer projects. “This production capability and versatility enables the company to meet all concrete requirements demanded by our customers,” says Engr. Al-Bader. Although the initial focus is primarily upon cement-based products for the construction industry, SMEET is planning to be active in other building materials as well. It offers its customers a full range of value-added services, including concrete consultation, concrete solutions, precast design consultation, and the erection of precast concrete at construction sites. SMEET Precast offers the best solution for every need SMEET’s own experts bring with them a great deal of knowledge acquired over years of work experiences in Europe, Asia, and the Gulf countries. “Their working partnership with GCC’s foremost consultants, developers, and contractors of mixed-use developments, housing compounds, official and residential blocks, car parks, industrial buildings, stadia and civil engineering projects have endowed them with valuable knowledge over the years,” says Engr. Al-Bader. Precast building systems include frame and skeletal structures, which are widely used for multi-story buildings. These are ideal for buildings which require a great degree of flexibility, such as industrial buildings, shopping malls, parking structures, and sporting facilities. They incorporate an assembly of bearing and non-load bearing walls with hollow-core slab floorings. Precast facades are both decorative and structural and constitute an economical solution since they reduce the need for columns, beams, and shear walls. The most widely used type of precast flooring is pre-stressed hollow-core slabs, which have many advantages over cast-in-situ floors. “A major advantage of precast technology is the economy and speed of erection,” Engr. Al-Bader points out. Precast concrete is a sophisticated product that can be customized to the highest standards according to customers’ requirements. SMEET Precast is designed to have capacity for a large volume of special infrastructure precast units, such as railway sleepers, tunnel elements, and quay walls, to meet the increasing demands of Qatar’s infrastructure investments.
Proven quality and well-managed processes
SMEET Precast’s design team works together with the client at all stages of the project. “Our quality management system is based on the ISO 9001:2008 standard, thus ensuring that operations are regulated in compliance with this standard,” explains Engr. Al-Bader. The stereotypical image of the concrete industry being grey and having a negative impact on the environment is something SMEET wants to change. CEO Al-Bader says that SMEET is determined to redefine the outdated perceptions of precast building. “We match together the rapid advancements in science and technology with determination, dedication, commitment, and good governance. SMEET will be heading the transformation and development of the building materials industry in the region,” he explains.
Qatar looks ahead
In recent years, Qatar’s oil and gas revenues have enabled the country to attain one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. The country’s immense wealth has kept it stable during the past years and the focus has been on improving infrastructure and providing services for the Qatari people. Qatar is now looking at the period up to and after the World Cup 2022, says Elematic’s Juhantalo. SMEET and its owners are aiming to be a major participant in the state’s infrastructure projects. In the private sector, the country is facing a great need for low-cost housing for workers. The plan is to build large “Labour Cities” with all services for up to 50,000 inhabitants. Furthermore, Qatar is investing in future generations by building educational facilities in Education City, a 14-square kilometer area designed to serve students from school age to research level. Education City hosts branches of six US universities, one UK university, and one French university, and it is the flagship project of the Qatar Foundation. The construction of the Medical University of Qatar is already ongoing. Engr. Al-Bader and his colleagues are very confident about the future. “Based on recent studies and forecasts, it is anticipated that the construction industry in the state of Qatar will witness a significant boom before the World Cup 2022 and after towards the Qatar Vision 2030. It is expected that a large number of strategic projects will be launched and started during the coming years. Such projects will create huge opportunities for building material manufacturers and great potential for precast products. SMEET intends to take a major share of these projects,” concludes Al-Bader. Elematic has delivered the following products to SMEET Precast in Qatar: Complete hollow-core slab production line
Casting beds 6 pcs, each 150 m long for hollow-core slabs
Casting beds 2 pcs for beams and columns
Extruder E9 for production of 150 mm, 200 mm, 265 mm, 320 mm and 400 mm-thick hollow-core slabs
Slab Saw EL1300
BedMaster EL411Tilting tables FaMe fastening method, magnets, and side forms ELiPLAN ERP Software
SMEET company facts
Qatar country facts
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Can We Really Make Money While Making the World a Better Place? - by Lee Capps
December 19, 2017 8:30 AM | Rachel Duch (Administrator)
There’s a certain fast-food restaurant near my home that has a distinct impact on our community. First of all, it does meet the need for quick, inexpensive food. It also employs local teenagers. In addition, however, it accounts for at least half of the litter in nearby yards and alleys (both packaging and discarded fries and burgers), the drive-through window creates long lines of cars that extend into the street and cause traffic snarls (particularly during morning rush hour) as well as unpredictable and piercing noise for surrounding homes as teenage voices ask, “Can I have your order?” Finally, the nutrition that it delivers is suspect at several levels. So, while it delivers some measure of value to our community – and certainly to its employees and corporate shareholders – it also leaves a sizable negative footprint.
On December 1, CEOs from our chapter heard about an entirely different approach to providing value to a business’ stakeholders. Brian Schultz, CEO, shared how Studio Movie Grill (SMG) seeks to provide value to all of its stakeholders, especially the communities in which it operates. SMG operates 30 theaters in 8 states with a total of 314 screens. It creates a complete experience, including in-theater dining, and its declared purpose is to “open hearts and minds, one story at a time.” It pursues that purpose with five clearly defined stakeholders:
Guests (parents) – helping them to be better parents
Team members (employees) – ensuring a healthy level of compensation and a positive work experience
Communities (schools) – strengthening relationships with the parent community
Vendor-Partners (distributors) – creating a broader distribution for independent films
Investors – bringing in more guests and revenue
Through the lens of their purpose and stakeholder commitments, SMG has created numerous initiatives that extend beyond offering good movies. In the Dallas area, it started with a single school fundraiser that grew to 100 hosted events throughout its locations. They have created special events for youth with disabilities, adjusting sound and lighting to create a welcoming experience for the children and their families – offering a “family night out” opportunity that was previously unimagined. And, they now have a location in the neighborhood of Chatham on the South Side of Chicago.
Why Chatham, and not Schaumburg or Oak Brook or the North Shore? Because Chatham is a neighborhood that can benefit from a well-run, community-focused source of family entertainment. The theater has become an anchor that employs local youth, supports local schools and offers both fine movies and dining. Many local residents come to the theater for a family meal, whether or not they see a movie.
Conscious Capitalism includes four key pillars, and two of them are higher purpose and stakeholder value. Studio Movie Grill demonstrates both of these can be real in a business that makes money while making the world a better place.
Can Work Improve Our Health? - by Lee Capps
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” Or, so said Confucius (supposedly). While it may sound a bit trite, there is much truth in this old adage. Our work occupies the majority of our waking hours. If it is something we dread or something that creates high stress, it can diminish our health, both physically and psychologically. Can our work do the inverse as well – contribute to improving our overall health and well-being?
Conscious Capitalism Chicago is exploring this possibility – not as wishful thinking, but as a practical reality. At our July 20 event, four leaders from the healthcare sector engaged in this inquiry with us. And, on September 28, Raj Sisodia, co-founder of Conscious Capitalism, will continue the conversation with us, exploring examples of how business can help restore the health of our bodies, minds and souls.
In July, Andrew Sykes, CEO of Habits at Work, a collective of researchers, actuaries and consultants who empower positive habit creation for companies and their employees, said we need to acknowledge “our complicity in work being fundamentally unhealthy.” Andrew asked us if we had ever taken the attitude that ‘I will sacrifice myself at the altar of my company’? I have to admit, I’ve been there. Whether it’s the number of hours or plane flights or cups of coffee, we sometimes consider such measures to be a badge of honor, somehow reinforcing the collective myth that success is giving up our lives? Andrew challenged the business leaders present to shift their mindsets and declare that it doesn’t have to be that way. We can design our work in a way that makes a difference to the performance of human beings. The ultimate promise should be: “come and work here, and we’ll send you home in the best shape of your life.”
It sounds ambitious – and perhaps unrealistic. But, our other panelists echoed Andrew’s perspective. Lyle Berkowitz from Abundant Venture Partners, a purpose-based incubator focused on improving the human condition, said that “the whole healthcare system is aligned to get the results we’re getting – it only kicks in when we get really sick. In many ways, being healthy is counter-productive for our healthcare systems.” We’ve got to focus on designing our work and our lives to nurture our health – and increased energy and performance will follow. Ari Levy, founder of SHIFT, an integrated wellness center (where we met) noted that the keyword is “conscious”. He said that we tend to be largely unconscious much of the time, and healthy work would mean being thoughtful and intentional about our behavior and practices. Patty Riskind, CEO of SIMnext, a developer of simulation software for training healthcare professionals shared that ironically the “most unhealthy employees work in the healthcare industry”, and that as leaders we need to set the tone to change behavior and improve outcomes.
So, can work be a source of health and well-being? We think so. Join us on September 28 to delve more deeply with Raj Sisodia. Raj maintains that most businesses take healthy and whole people and – over time – stress them out and burn them out, adversely impacting their health and happiness as well as their families. Yet, he says it doesn’t have to be that way. Business can be a source of healing, making broken people whole again – and being extraordinarily successful at the same time.
My Biggest Mistake–What’s the Chink in Your Armor? - by Nina O'Neil
How often do you think CEOs gather over a meal to discuss the humbling experience of their biggest mistake? Or reveal that chink in their personal armor?
Not too often, right?
It’s only human to look good in front of our peers and feel as though we have all the answers or only share our victories with each other. The facade in business can be “everything is fantastic,” “we are killing it,” or “sales are through the roof”. It’s the business equivalent of answering “I’m fine” when asked how we are.
Yet, the business leaders on the journey of Conscious Capitalism who gathered for our recent CEO breakfast have found value not only in sharing best practices, but also in being vulnerable to share those moments (or chinks) when they had failed and what they had learned from those experiences. Below’s a smattering of what they shared.
Chinks in Armor
One leader openly shared his company’s journey aligning itself with its core values and making people their top priority. Making this choice exposed a lot of practices and relationships that were not aligned with their foundational values, resulting in their choice to to walk away from their largest client.
While this move had a significant cost,and they felt like they were taking a step back, it really allowed them to move forward, while staying true to their operating principles.
Another leader shared the challenging decision to keep or fire an employee who had an encyclopedic knowledge of their product technology, but who was also killing morale. Postponing and fretting over the decision had had a high cost in the culture, until the employee finally moved on.
Lesson learned? Not only to make sure new hires are a fit with creating the culture, but also to make decisions sooner before the cost becomes too high.
Across the conversations, it was clear that being willing to be vulnerable and share mistakes can not only be liberating for the leader, but it also creates a culture in which employees are more self-expressed and less afraid to fail.
It’s important to share our stories. And, our stories also include challenging moments.
Yet, what becomes possible when we authentically share those moments where we don’t do our best or we let our team down or we cost our company time or money?
If we have the courage to allow them, those opportunities for learning can open up new pathways for ourselves as leaders as well as for our businesses.
So, let your people see the chink in your armor – what have you got to lose?
CEOs Share Highlights from the Annual Conscious Capitalism Conference - by Thea Polancic
CC2017, the annual Conscious Capitalism conference, is behind us now, leaving a wake of inspiration and meaningful connections behind it. This year, 400 leaders converged in Philadelphia for two very full days of keynotes and breakout sessions. In conjunction with the conference, 45 chapter leaders from all over the world spent an additional full day sharing ideas, building skills and learning from each other.
The movement is certainly alive and well, and expanding rapidly across the globe.
Two members of our Chicago community presented practicums at CC2017: Katlin Smith, CEO of Simple Mills, and Dan Golden, CEO of BeFoundOnline. Katlin’s session was titled: “The Art of Un-Compromise: Growing without Diluting Your Principles.” Dan’s session focused on “The Ownership Culture: How to Build a Culture of Employee Engagement and Empowerment.” They both graciously agreed to spend an evening and share an encore of their Philly sessions with our Chicago community. Here’s a sense of the wisdom they shared with us:
Based on her experience with Simple Mills, Katlin gave us some insight into how to enable a company to grow without compromising its purpose and values:
Be clear about your purpose and stay in touch with it as you grow. Know what your “lines in the sand” are – what absolutely won’t you do as you grow?
Align your employees and other stakeholders’ interests around what the product stands for and product quality, and the metrics you use to measure success.
Have a battle plan for “grey decisions” – the calls you have to make in situations that aren’t cut and dried, may have conflicting demands, and require time to think and different perspectives from team members.
Dan, with his trademark candor, humor and humility, shared how BeFoundOnline created an ownership culture using appreciative inquiry and open book management. The BeFoundOnline team navigated difficult times by engaging all the employees in brainstorming, voting and aligning together on how to handle the challenge of losing
a significant chunk of revenue when a major client departed.
Through the transparency and empowerment of open book management, even the newest, youngest employee was able to contribute to a solution that helped the whole company meet its annual plan and enable the whole team to receive their bonuses.
“You’ve completely changed how I’m going to handle my staff meeting tomorrow!”
Our Chicago group responded enthusiastically to Katlin and Dan’s insights. As we wrapped up and shared takeaways, one leader shared, “You’ve completely changed how I’m going to handle my staff meeting tomorrow. I was going to focus on a list of customer service issues that are frustrating me, and instead I’m going to focus first on the much longer list of what we’re doing right, and how we can learn from them. I’ve never started a meeting with what’s going right before!”
Rumi Spice: Leading Across Cultures - by Chris Johnson
“Yesterday is gone and its tale told. Today new seeds are growing.” ~~ Rumi
Crimson, spicy-sweet, and essential to a perfect paella or seafood risotto, saffron is known the world over as the Queen of All Spices or Red Gold.
Saffron is variously grown in Iran, Spain, and Kashmir yet it’s in Afghanistan where you’ll find the highest quality saffron. The high altitude, dry winds and intensely arid climate create an ideal environment to grow the purple crocuses f
rom which saffron comes.
What comes to mind when most of us think of Afghanistan, however, isn’t saffron or delectable dishes, but pictures of war-torn lands, stories of terrorist activity, and the reality of the opium drug trade.
Kim Jung and Keith Alaniz, two of the three founders of Rumi Spice, a local Chicago start-up, joined us recently to share quite a different story of Afghanistan.
Deployed to address war, terrorism and drug trafficking as US Army soldiers, what Kim–as a platoon leader in search of roadside bombs, and Keith–as a regional expert working with tribal elders, observed stood in stark contrast to the devastation all around them.
They saw a proud people with a rich culture and history. They saw a generosity of spirit amongst the Afghani farmers. They saw a land covered in tiny purple flowers that contain the rarest, most expensive of spices: Afghan saffron.
Later, back in the US, Kim and third founding member, Emily Miller, had been accepted into Harvard Business School and were in search of a project. While still in Afghanistan, Keith contacted them with an idea.
He’d met Haji Yosef, a local Afghani saffron farmer who could only sell his saffron in the local market. After 30 years of war the Afghanis had effectively been cut off from the international marketplace, and without investment in agriculture, Afghan farmers had few prospects for growth, making them susceptible to the influence of the Taliban’s pressure to grow poppies.
Could this be the project that Kim and Emily were looking for at Harvard?
Kim set out to find out, despite her parents thinking she was a bit crazy. She bought a ticket to Afghanistan where she met up with Keith and Haji Yosef. Deeply moved and inspired by Haji’s story, they set to “become entrepreneurs like Haji Yosef, to start a business, and to do something with this one wild and precious life that actually meant something.”
Rumi Spice was born.
Named after the Persian poet, Rumi, whose life and teachings involve coming home to a spiritual center, Rumi Spice’s purpose is ‘to lay a foundation for peace, one saffron flower at a time.”
To that end, Rumi’s stated purpose is at the core of everything they do: “economically empowering Afghani farmers, inspiring Afghani women through earning direct wages, building out Afghanistan’s agricultural infrastructure, and reinvesting back into the community.”
Rumi is the largest foreign employer in agriculture in Afghanistan. They currently partner with more than 90 farmers, employing more
than 300 women in Herat, the saffron capital in Afghanistan, to hand-harvest the delicate crimson stigmas of the flowers. This delicate, labor intensive work can only occur in the early morning hours of a two-week period each fall, the primary reason that saffron is the most expensive spice in the world at $109/oz. In fact, it requires almost 175,000 flowers to create a single kilogram of saffron.
While the average Afghani household earns around $500/year, Afghan farmers can more than triple their income with saffron while providing an alternative to poppy and opium farming – one of the primary sources of income for the Taliban.
Uniquely positioned to overcome barriers with their social networks and in-country expertise, Kim, Keith and Emily have built important relationships, partnerships, and organizational infrastructure necessary to operate within and out of Afghanistan to bring this top-quality, sustainably farmed saffron to customers around the world.
In addition to its unique flavor, saffron’s amazing health benefits range from improved respiration and heart health to reduced inflammation and pain. Its healing properties have been known throughout time as it is an excellent source of minerals like copper, potassium, calcium, manganese, iron, selenium, zinc and magnesium.
Chosen by world-class chefs and Michelin-rated restaurants, Rumi’s additional products and luxury items include saffron gemmies, saffron cocktails, green tea and saffron mixes.
Kim, Keith and Emily see their competitive advantage as their ability to navigate the Afghan business landscape, which is built on trusted relationships and strengthened by their insistence on quality. Rumi’s Afghani saffron received the highest rating at the International Taste & Quality Institute in accordance with ISO Standard 3632 at an outstanding rating of 236. The Institute has rated Afghan saffron #1 three years running.
“The social impact piece is great, but this saffron stands on its own.” At Rumi they believe that a for-profit, social enterprise is the solution to long-term post-conflict development, and Afghan peace is worth fighting for.
When asked about what they’ve learned in building their business, they shared the following:
Do it as a business, not as a hobby—make the commitment to a larger purpose.
It’s all about the relationships.
Develop standards for quality or there would be no business.
Get comfortable being uncomfortable working in a new culture.
Purpose. Leadership. Culture.
This conscious company is making its mark in the world in big ways. On May 7,2017 all three founders appeared on Shark Tank in hopes of securing investment monies for their growing business. After presenting their business case, graciously addressing the pushback they received, shark Mark Cuban agreed to finance them to the tune of $250,000 in exchange for 15% of their business.
Learn more about Rumi Spice. Check out Chicago Tonight’s story from this spring.
Gold Eagle Brand: Building a Culture Where Everybody Matters - by Nina O'Neil
How do you not only bring an 85-year-old company into the 21st century, but innovate to create a sustainable future?
This was a question that Marc Blackman, CEO of Gold Eagle Brands, and his team were asking. Golden Eagle Brands is a Chicago-based manufacturer of fuel stabilizers and ethanol treatments. They have built a family of brands that are driven to protect and preserve the things you love.
The challenges that Gold Eagle was facing as a company were both external and internal.
External Challenges
The way people buy products has changed over the last 10 years and will only continue to change as e-commerce grows. Many retailers are closing their doors, so it poses the challenge of how to connect products to the market. The way we communicate has changed. Digital and social media are replacing TV as a way to effectively connect with customers and build a brand. And consumers want to feel that connection to a brand as they buy their products – they don’t just want to hear about the product, they want to hear about the company.
Internal Challenges
How do you make an 85-year-old manufacturing company on the Southwest side of Chicago, sexy and attractive to millennials and continue to create a work environment where people can thrive?
You realize that as a company, you need to change.
Marc became involved with Conscious Capitalism and saw the impact it can have on business. Marc shared, “You have to be successful, but business owners are going to be the stabilizing force. Gold Eagle has always been known as a great place to work with a family culture, but as we learn about what it takes to be successful in the future, we see that our good culture can be so much better.”
How are they doing it? For starters: Marc and his executive team made the commitment to transforming their work culture. By reading, Everyone Matters, by Bob Chapman the CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, they became interested in learning how well they are balancing their operating performance, operational stability and people-centric leadership.
Barry-Wehmiller created the BW Leadership Institute. They they teach companies how to implement their Truly Human Leadership model.
Marc and Dan Stewart, Head of HR for Gold Eagle Brands, paid a visit to Barry-Wehmiller company in Saint Louis to learn from the BW Leadership Institute and are kicking off a workshop with their team at Gold Eagle Brands this month.
Here are some of the things that they have learned so far as they start implementing this model:
To transform a culture, you must have early adopters, some mavericks, and have people ready to jump in of their own volition.
Empower 20 people who will be ready to jump in early – people who want to be better leaders, from any part of the company – and they don’t need to be part of the leadership team.
Leadership needs to use their ears more than their mouths and put their egos aside. Assume that the people who do the work know better than the leaders do.
When you start to empower people and leave them feeling that they really matter, they will take responsible and start setting an example.
Celebrate and acknowledge the team when something great happens. Make it a part of the culture, and make it a heartfelt recognition.
Hand-in-hand with their efforts to evaluate culture, Gold Eagle invested in transforming its physical space. Their older office space was ready for an upgrade. They were intentional in their design by creating spaces that inspire collaboration, attracts more millennials and has natural light filling rooms and a floor plan of open space. The new space is truly inspiring. The impact on the company has been connecting the teams, enabling them to communicate more face-to-face with larger, open meeting spaces and a new physical environment that fosters collaboration.
Gold Eagle Brands is among the many companies who are authentically purpose-driven and passionately changing their corner of the world by creating cultures in which their employees are thriving, their stakeholders are served and their leaders are inspiring, creating value and making their companies profitable.
We look forward to checking back with Marc and his team for updates on their cultural transformation. This is how business transforms – one conscious company, leader and employee at a time.
Stable Brands Stumbling - by Nina O'Neil
April 22, 2017 3:41 PM | Anonymous
In the last month we’ve heard about big brands like Pepsi, United Airlines and Fox News and their epic failures to connect to their stakeholders, serve their customers and create a safe culture for employees to thrive.
In case you missed it, Pepsi caught flack for a commercial, featuring Kendall Jenner, that tried to capitalize on the protest movement of this new political climate we are living in, in a very manipulative way. Not only did the ad NOT tug at our heartstrings and have people rushing out to buy a Pepsi, it missed the mark so badly that there was immediate consumer backlash and the ad was pulled rather quickly.
United Airlines had its worst week ever when, in a bad customer service move, security was called to remove a customer who refused to give up his seat when the flight was overbooked and they needed to make room for a flight crew. The scene of the man being brutally dragged off the plane and humiliated in the process was filmed by other passengers and played over and over again in the news media, in what must have been a very slow news week. To make matters worse, the CEO of United Airlines issued an initial statement that left an impression that he was blaming the victim for the situation and not taking any responsibility for the actions of the United Airlines staff or the authorities who removed the man.
And in other news, Fox News fired Bill O’Reilly over longstanding sexual harassment allegations and settlements of over $13 million dollars to women who were either current or former employees of Fox News. Make no mistake, this wasn’t conscious capitalism at work; this was a financial move, as it wasn’t until advertisers started pulling ad revenue from the O’Reilly Factor, fearing backlash from their consumers. Fox realized that O’Reilly was becoming a liability, and they took action.
That’s enough to make even the most optimistic person feel disheartened about the state of business and the future of our society.
But for every Fox News, United and Pepsi we have seen wonderful responses from other companies working hard at transformation.
In April, Dove released a case study of how they hacked Shutterstock’s search results to portray women that reflect society with their IMAGE_HACK campaign. The New York Police Department is working alongside the New York Housing Authority to improve customer relations. The New York Time’s article, Customer Service in Blue, highlights, “As New York City’s police department, the largest in the country, undergoes a transformation in how it serves and relates to the communities where faith in law enforcement has eroded, it is a good moment to ask just how happy the customers are.” And the American Association of Universities released their Campus Activities Report: Combating Sexual Assault and Misconduct. They, along with 60 institutions are working to make American campuses safer for every student. The report offer examples of campus activity now underway to better inform universities about sexual assault and sexual misconduct on campus, and to affect change.
It’s a shame initiatives like these aren’t viral pieces consumed en masse and applauded. But if we look for it, remain aware of it, we can find inspiration in private enterprise, government and within our strongest institutions.
Purpose & Work - by Nina O'Neil
March 28, 2017 3:39 PM | Anonymous
Purpose, Uncategorized | 1 comment
We live in a time where many people are asking the question “What’s my purpose?” That question can come at any given time… when we reach midlife or when we experience a life change (divorce, death of a loved one, job loss, health scare).
To explore this very topic, Conscious Capitalism Chicago hosted Tim Kelley, acclaimed speaker and author of True Purpose: 12 Strategies for Discovering the Difference You Are Meant to Make.
People have the view that purpose is something that we do outside of work. Some of this may come from economics… we “work toward retirement”. Our end goal is to avoid work and maximize leisure, so we end up living into this future that assumes meaning lies outside or beyond what we do for a living.
The context that we live in suggests that people go to work not expecting to find meaningful value but expecting to find economic value by trading time for money. Current movements, like Conscious Capitalism, are trying to break down this belief that somehow purpose and work cannot go together.
Why is Purpose So Important?
About one third of people are purpose-driven. Purpose-driven people are more likely to stay with a company if they find meaning in their work. And if they find meaning in their work, they are more productive and create better relationships with their co-workers. Their co-workers are fellow travelers on a mission to change the world. This is why purpose-driven companies seek out purpose-driven employees.
Purpose-driven leaders are usually more inspiring. Leaders who are only managing – just moving around parts or who are only focused on the bottom-line of profit – typically do not engage our hearts.
Purpose is also a good guide in a confusing world. Classic business strategy that is based on predicting the future and planning moves ahead like chess is not as effective in this current market. It’s difficult in this market to be able to predict and plan for the future. A company with a larger purpose has a rudder to deal with the uncertainty, because the purpose will help guide their decision-making and bring them back on course when the waters get rough.
Companies that are authentically “on purpose” and who share that purpose with their employees and customers tend to have a loyal fan base and the relationship becomes one of a shared movement, rather than a transactional exchange of goods and services. There is also plenty of data to support that purpose driven companies are profitable and sustainable over time. A company does not trade profit for purpose, in these business models, profit becomes a natural outcome of a purpose driven company.
So How Do I Find Me Some Purpose?
You can start by asking questions like:
What am I passionate about? What lights me up?
What am I meant to do?
What is the greatest positive impact I could have on the world?
During our session with Tim, he led us through an exploration of purpose at work and in life, and he went further to facilitate an exercise to help us connect to our own purpose. Tim’s book True Purpose, is a helpful guidepost for the journey. This excerpt of the book serves as a practical resource to get you started.
Here’s a parting thought on purpose: when you become clear about your purpose, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you need blow up your current life or find a new job. We can bring who we are and our purpose into our own current workplace or life situation and create greater fulfillment right where we are.
What’s your purpose?
Katie Simmons on April 18, 2017 at 8:07 am
Thank you for this reminder on seeking purpose-driven work. I have found it particularly powerful to retaining my clients. They can see my passion and that builds a relationship of trust and loyalty lasting many years.
Perspectives from the Conscious Capitalism CEO Summit 2016 - by Nina O'Neil
The theme of this year’s Annual Conscious Capitalism CEO Summit was Confidence and Humility: The Dynamic Duo of Conscious Leadership. 225 CEOs from around the world converged in Austin, TX this past October to connect and learn, from each other and from other conscious leaders, how to put Conscious Capitalism into practice in their businesses and within themselves.
For Thea Polancic, Founder and Chair of the Chicago Chapter, author Brené Brown’s work with the group on vulnerability and shame was especially engaging. Vulnerability is at the core of conscious leadership and is our access to courage. It’s what is at the source of creativity, innovation and change – things that many organizations are looking to impact.
Brown challenged the group to be vulnerable and confront what she calls “face plant moments” of failure. Leaders who are willing to be vulnerable and authentic enough to tell themselves the truth about those times that they’ve failed, can create a space in which employees are free and feel safe to share their mistakes – and humanity – with no consequences.
Joining Thea this year were a cadre of CEOs from the Chicagoland area. A few of them shared their experiences of being at the Summit with us and our members who weren’t able to attend the Summit, at our December CEO breakfast.
Corey Blake
CEO, Round Table Companies
Corey Blake, CEO of Round Table Companies, a storytelling company that helps companies and individuals be seen, is a CEO Summit veteran. This was Corey’s third summit and he shared that he continues to attend because he has found a tribe that is aligned on values.
Corey particularly resonated with Brené Brown’s session. (He shared that he felt that starting in that way created room for the participants to let go of titles and be more human with each other – not easy in a room of two hundred plus senior executives.) Each year, Corey’s team provides the “Vulnerability is Sexy” wall. Throughout the summit, leaders share their observations about how they’re experiencing the keynotes and conversations they engage in, and his team translates them into a wall-sized unique graphic interpretation.
According to Corey, his participation in conscious capitalism has helped his company create more aligned relationships with their customers and has impacted the quality of work his team is able to produce for those clients.
Nancy Pautsch
CEO, Envision IT
Envision IT is an IT consulting company that prides itself on being a group of talented and compassionate people who are “Purpose-Full”. This was Nancy’s first time attending the CEO summit, although she personally has been on the journey of becoming a conscious leader building an exemplary, purpose-driven company for a few years.
As a first timer, Nancy said that she went in with no expectations, but committed to being open, learning, and experiencing as much as she could from the speakers and her fellow participants. Nancy shared that she found the practicums to be especially valuable, providing the opportunity to hear stories from other CEOs about their journeys, and the victories and challenges of implementing the principles of conscious capitalism in their organizations.
Nancy resonated with the talks that emphasized the capitalism part of conscious capitalism. John Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods) and Arthur Brooks (President of the American Enterprise Institute) both made compelling case for capitalism to as a powerful force for good in the world. Brooks challenged the group to remember that money isn’t inherently evil… it is instead the attachment to money that is the source of people working against the greater good.
Nancy has had personal success with helping to guide Envision IT into a thriving “firm of endearment”. She shares that the key to building a company with a solid foundation is to build it from the perspective of “doing the right thing.” She and her team at Envision IT are doing just that.
Kaitlin Smith
CEO, Simple Mills
Simple Mills is a start-up food company with a mission to produce products that are both healthy and delicious; and was also a first time attendee at this year’s summit. She shared her experience in an excellent article entitled Four Insights from the Most Revolutionary CEO Summit in the Country at Inc.com.
Closing our breakfast conversation, her comments felt almost prophetic. She reminded us that the world is changing quickly, and capitalism itself is going to continue to evolve before our eyes in the coming years.
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Jonathan Keane—
2015-05-17 12:34 pm | Last updated 2017-03-08 11:29 am
Researchers say they’ve figured out how to make online voting as easy as ordering from Amazon.
Democracy only truly works if citizens participate. And that means we need to vote—something a surprisingly low percentage of Americans actually do. One way to boost voter turnout: online voting. But so far, no one has figured out how to make online voting safe from hackers, malware, and other vote-manipulation techniques.
Until, perhaps, now.
Researchers at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom claim to have created a system that alleviates the threat of malware on voters’ computers—the main problem keeping online voting from becoming a reality.
The technique, called Du Vote, would allow the voter to use an independent hardware device that would produce a unique code, which would then be entered into their computer to submit a verified ballot, thus mitigating the risk of vote manipulation.
A viable online-voting system can’t come soon enough. The 2014 midterm elections saw the lowest voter turnout since 1942, according to the United States Elections Project, with just 35.9 percent of voting-eligible Americans making it out to the polls. In the 2008 presidential election, which enjoyed the highest turnout since 1968, only 61.6 percent of eligible Americans voted.
United States Elections Project
A variety of factors lead to low turnout rates in U.S. elections, but one obvious one stands out: The fact that Election Day lands on a Tuesday means anyone who can’t get off work or find someone to take care of the kids may simply not be able to make it. Add in some good ol’ apathy, and it’s easy to see how some 40 percent of voting-eligible Americans simply fail to cast a ballot. By making voting as easy as buying new socks on Amazon, the theory goes, far more citizens will exercise their democratic right.
Professor Mark Ryan, who led the research, likens Du Vote that of Internet banking in the U.K., where a similar sort of device is used to login.
“We’re going a little bit further because we’re not just doing it to authenticate the user,” says Ryan, “we’re doing it in order to help the user through the voting process, which will in a way deprive the untrusted platform of a knowledge of your vote and the ability to interfere with your vote.”
In other words, nobody would be able to mess with your vote because it would remain secure from any outside intrusion.
The small piece of hardware never connects to the computer so it cannot become infected. “It’s a completely standalone device, but it does have some data,” explains Ryan. “It’s got a unique key, which is unique to you the voter.” Through this, Du Vote’s creators claim, you avoid the threat of malware that may already be on your computer.
In addition, the Du Vote system also detects threats rather than simply attempting to prevent them. Malware could impact the vote after the number from the voting device has been entered into the computer, says Ryan, but it would be detected.
“The malware could change the code, but because it doesn’t have information about the key that’s embedded in the device, it wouldn’t be able to change the code into another valid code,” says Ryan. “The best it could do would be invalidate your vote, but if it does, you’re going to see that because the vote is going to be rejected by the server. It can’t undetectably change your vote.”
Still, Ryan concedes,no system is ever 100 percent secure.
Online voting has been tried—and tabled—in several jurisdictions. Estonia, which has perhaps the most famous online voting system, conducts online voting for hugely significant elections, such as its parliamentary vote, which has seen an uptick in online voting. The problem with Estonia’s system, says Ryan, is that they still can’t verify whether votes are real or manipulated.
“They don’t have [verifiable outcomes] in Estonia, and they don’t have that in any of the countries that have trialed any kind of electronic voting,” says Ryan. “This is really a major problem, because in Estonia, you’re vulnerable to whatever software they’ve chosen, the client side or at the server side.”
Norway has also tried to implement Internet voting systems, which officials say were all very secure. Last year, it decided not to proceed with Internet voting as it still “remained politically controversial”. Meanwhile the U.S.-based non-profit Overseas Vote Foundation, which includes a team of academics, is carrying out ongoing research to develop verifiable and secure online-voting techniques.
Verifiable outcomes, while also maintaining the privacy of the ballot, are vital, says Ryan, especially for voter confidence and dealing with voters or candidates who want to contest results.
The topic of remote Internet voting or electronic voting is renewed every so often when a large election takes place. The recent U.K. general election sparked the conversation again. In one April survey, six out of 10 voters said they believed smartphone voting would improve turnout. However, the growth of state-sponsored cyberattacks has once again highlighted the need for even greater security checks.
Ryan and his colleagues say they have a couple more years of research ahead of them before Du Vote could be deployed, but Ryan believes it may be ready for the 2025 U.K. general election. To do so, the system must move beyond academia and into the business world, where hardware manufacturers could help with deployment.
Ryan says his team has spoken with Northern Ireland company Opt2Vote, and they have identified a number of other potential collaborators, such as Scytl and Smartmatic.
The next step for the Du Vote team is more funding and more tests. The team is currently seeking funding from the British government to continue its research. This will be followed by trail tests, such as working with one constituency or even using the relatively small student elections at the University of Birmingham, to help fine-tune the system.
So, will you be casting a ballot over the Internet anytime soon? No, probably not. Online voting is coming—but we’ll just have make do with the old-fashioned system for a little bit longer.
Photo via Vox Efx/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Jonathan Keane is a freelance writer living in Dublin, Ireland. He mostly covers technology and business. His writing has appeared on BBC News, Tech.eu, Mashable, and Digital Trends.
2014 Election 2016 2016 Election Du Vote Internet Freedom Voting
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Sports ›
Baseball ›
Longhorns cruise in game one victory over New Orleans
Published on April 22, 2017 at 1:33 pm
By Alex Briseño
Texas couldn’t get anything going early on at the plate — then junior Travis Jones stepped into the box.
Jones stood at the plate with the score locked at zero and two outs, but one swing changed that. The junior left fielder sent a line drive over the right field fence into Comal Street, giving the Longhorns a 2-0 lead in the third inning.
Two-out runs have been the theme for the Longhorn ballclub this season. Friday night was no different. Five of the seven runs the Longhorns plated occurred with two outs in their 7-1 victory over New Orleans Friday night at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.
“It’s huge,” head coach David Pierce said. “Knowing that the inning is still alive with two outs and just staying within yourself and having quality at bats is how you end up getting a two-out rally and that’s what we did tonight.”
Sophomore Nick Kennedy took the mound for Longhorns in game one, but head coach David Pierce said he didn’t tell Kennedy he’d be starting till the day of the game.
“I was sitting in my car,” Kennedy said. “I was going to class and they told me I was starting and I was like ‘Come on, what the heck? What are we doing?’
Pierce also said Kennedy has been fighting a sickness. However, neither that or the late notice seemed to affect his performance.
Kennedy retired six out of the first seven batters he faced en route to shutting out the Privateers in his six inning performance.
“I thought Nick pitched really well,” Pierce said. “He’s sick, but he came out and gutted it up. He was really good with his fastball for a good fastball hitting team.”
As Kennedy refused to give up a run, freshman David Hamilton hit an RBI single in the fourth to make the score 3-0. One inning later, senior first baseman Kacy Clemens sent his eighth home run of the season over the right field fence to increase the Longhorns’ lead to 4-0.
Clemens wasn’t done. With bases loaded in the seventh the senior first baseman sent a shot to center field to break the game open by giving the Longhorns a 6-0 lead.
However, Clemens said he still isn’t at his best.
“Honestly, I don’t feel very comfortable at the plate right now,” Clemens said. “I really don’t. I’ve been missing a lot of pitches that I think I should hit … I’ve got to get better at hitting my pitch earlier in the count.”
The Longhorns extended their lead to 7-0 before the Privateers managed to plate one run in the top of the ninth. But that’s all the Longhorns (26-15) allowed in the win.
The Longhorns will be back in action for game two against New Orleans at 4 p.m. at UFCU Disch-Falk Field on Saturday.
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Many people lent a hand after the storm
"We could pick up the phone and call anyone. Nobody refused"
Many people lent a hand after the storm "We could pick up the phone and call anyone. Nobody refused" Check out this story on dailyworld.com: https://www.dailyworld.com/story/news/local/2015/08/29/many-people-lent-hand-storm/71393514/
Jordan Arceneaux, jarceneaux@gannett.com Published 4:31 p.m. CT Aug. 29, 2015 | Updated 4:34 p.m. CT Aug. 29, 2015
Marie Renaud(Photo: Freddie Herpin, Daily World)Buy Photo
The Yambilee Building in Opelousas, home to its namesake festival for decades, became an emergency home for Hurricane Katrina evacuees 10 years ago.
It started with a phone call between friends.
"Yvette Cravins called me as she was passing near Wal-Mart," said Marie Renaud, who on the spur of the moment became one of the shelter organizers. "She said 'Mrs. Marie, you should see all of the people sleeping in the ditches and laying on the side of the road with no place to go.'"
That compelled the two women to suggest the Yambilee building as a refuge for the hundreds of people who flocked to Opelousas.
In a matter of days, Renaud said, close to 1,000 people were staying there.
"We negotiated with the state to wait a week before we allowed the Red Cross in the building," said Robbie Sebastien with the Yambilee association. "That week allowed us to move some of the previously scheduled events into that time."
Renaud said the Yambilee functioned as a shelter and served evacuees three meals a day for six weeks. She said local psychiatrists offered their services there free of charge to anyone who needed them.
Her husband Charles Renaud, Joe Taylor and future Opelousas mayor Reggie Tatum rigged up computers and internet access for shelter occupants.
In the weeks that followed, Marie Renaud said, they found 200 houses in St. Landry Parish for people to live in. Some people who moved in then still live in those houses, she said.
Utility company Cleco offered free household electricity vouchers for the evacuees.
Other locations — Bellevue Street Baptist Church, Our Lady Queen of Angels Church, Holy Ghost Catholic Church and Opelousas High School — also became temporary shelters after Katrina.
"We could pick up the phone and call anyone," Marie Renaud said. "They were coming or would send someone. Nobody refused."
For that, she thanked every person and organization that helped in any way.
"It was a humbling experience," she said earlier this month. "Seeing a family that had lost everything get a new start without a burden was great."
Read or Share this story: https://www.dailyworld.com/story/news/local/2015/08/29/many-people-lent-hand-storm/71393514/
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3.10 Reunion: Father and Sons
Greek and Roman Mythology
Myths are traditional stories that have endured over a long time. Some of them have to do with events of great importance, such as the founding of a nation. Others tell the stories of great heroes and heroines and their exploits and courage in the face of adversity. Still others are simple tales about otherwise unremarkable people who get into trouble or do some great deed. What are we to make of all these tales, and why do people seem to like to hear them? This course will focus on the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, as a way of exploring the nature of myth and the function it plays for individuals, societies, and nations. We will also pay some attention to the way the Greeks and Romans themselves understood their own myths. Are myths subtle codes that contain some universal truth? Are they a window on the deep recesses of a particular culture? Are they a set of blinders that all of us wear, though we do not realize it? Or are they just entertaining stories that people like to tell over and over? This course will investigate these questions through a variety of topics, including the creation of the universe, the relationship between gods and mortals, human nature, religion, the family, sex, love, madness, and death. *********************************************************************************************************** COURSE SCHEDULE • Week 1: Introduction Welcome to Greek and Roman Mythology! This first week we’ll introduce the class, paying attention to how the course itself works. We’ll also begin to think about the topic at hand: myth! How can we begin to define "myth"? How does myth work? What have ancient and modern theorists, philosophers, and other thinkers had to say about myth? This week we’ll also begin our foray into Homer’s world, with an eye to how we can best approach epic poetry. Readings: No texts this week, but it would be a good idea to get started on next week's reading to get ahead of the game. Video Lectures: 1.1-1.7 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 2: Becoming a Hero In week 2, we begin our intensive study of myth through Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey. This core text not only gives us an exciting story to appreciate on its own merits but also offers us a kind of laboratory where we can investigate myth using different theoretical approaches. This week we focus on the young Telemachus’ tour as he begins to come of age; we also accompany his father Odysseus as he journeys homeward after the Trojan War. Along the way, we’ll examine questions of heroism, relationships between gods and mortals, family dynamics, and the Homeric values of hospitality and resourcefulness. Readings: Homer, Odyssey, books 1-8 Video Lectures: 2.1-2.10 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 3: Adventures Out and Back This week we’ll follow the exciting peregrinations of Odysseus, "man of twists and turns," over sea and land. The hero’s journeys abroad and as he re-enters his homeland are fraught with perils. This portion of the Odyssey features unforgettable monsters and exotic witches; we also follow Odysseus into the Underworld, where he meets shades of comrades and relatives. Here we encounter some of the best-known stories to survive from all of ancient myth. Readings: Homer, Odyssey, books 9-16 Video Lectures: 3.1-3.10 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 4: Identity and Signs As he makes his way closer and closer to re-taking his place on Ithaca and with his family, a disguised Odysseus must use all his resources to regain his kingdom. We’ll see many examples of reunion as Odysseus carefully begins to reveal his identity to various members of his household—his servants, his dog, his son, and finally, his wife Penelope—while also scheming against those who have usurped his place. Readings: Homer, Odyssey, books 17-24 Video Lectures: 4.1-4.8 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 5: Gods and Humans We will take a close look at the most authoritative story on the origin of the cosmos from Greek antiquity: Hesiod’s Theogony. Hesiod was generally considered the only poet who could rival Homer. The Theogony, or "birth of the gods," tells of an older order of gods, before Zeus, who were driven by powerful passions—and strange appetites! This poem presents the beginning of the world as a time of fierce struggle and violence as the universe begins to take shape, and order, out of chaos. Readings: Hesiod, Theogony *(the Works and Days is NOT required for the course)* Video Lectures: 5.1-5.9 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 6: Ritual and Religion This week’s readings give us a chance to look closely at Greek religion in its various guises. Myth, of course, forms one important aspect of religion, but so does ritual. How ancient myths and rituals interact teaches us a lot about both of these powerful cultural forms. We will read two of the greatest hymns to Olympian deities that tell up-close-and-personal stories about the gods while providing intricate descriptions of the rituals they like us humans to perform. Readings: Homeric Hymn to Apollo; Homeric Hymn to Demeter (there are two hymns to each that survive, only the LONGER Hymn to Apollo and the LONGER Hymn to Demeter are required for the course) Video Lectures: 6.1-6.7 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 7: Justice What counts as a just action, and what counts as an unjust one? Who gets to decide? These are trickier questions than some will have us think. This unit looks at one of the most famously thorny issues of justice in all of the ancient world. In Aeschylus’ Oresteia—the only surviving example of tragedy in its original trilogy form—we hear the story of Agamemnon’s return home after the Trojan War. Unlike Odysseus’ eventual joyful reunion with his wife and children, this hero is betrayed by those he considered closest to him. This family's cycle of revenge, of which this story is but one episode, carries questions of justice and competing loyalties well beyond Agamemnon’s immediate family, eventually ending up on the Athenian Acropolis itself. Readings: Aeschylus, Agamemnon; Aeschylus, Eumenides Video Lectures: 7.1-7.10 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 8: Unstable Selves This week we encounter two famous tragedies, both set at Thebes, that center on questions of guilt and identity: Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Eurpides’ Bacchae. Oedipus is confident that he can escape the unthinkable fate that was foretold by the Delphic oracle; we watch as he eventually realizes the horror of what he has done. With Odysseus, we saw how a great hero can re-build his identity after struggles, while Oedipus shows us how our identities can dissolve before our very eyes. The myth of Oedipus is one of transgressions—intentional and unintentional—and about the limits of human knowledge. In Euripides’ Bacchae, the identity of gods and mortals is under scrutiny. Here, Dionysus, the god of wine and of tragedy, and also madness, appears as a character on stage. Through the dissolution of Pentheus, we see the terrible consequences that can occur when a god’s divinity is not properly acknowledged. Readings: Sophocles, Oedipus Rex; Euripides, Bacchae Video Lectures: 8.1-8.9 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 9: The Roman Hero, Remade Moving ahead several centuries, we jump into a different part of the Mediterranean to let the Romans give us their take on myth. Although many poets tried to rewrite Homer for their own times, no one succeeded quite like Vergil. His epic poem, the Aeneid, chronicles a powerful re-building of a culture that both identifies with and defines itself against previously told myths. In contrast to the scarcity of information about Homer, we know a great deal about Vergil’s life and historical context, allowing us insight into myth-making in action. Readings: Vergil, Aeneid, books 1-5 Video Lectures: 9.1-9.10 Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. • Week 10: Roman Myth and Ovid's Metamorphoses Our consideration of Vergil’s tale closes with his trip to the underworld in book 6. Next, we turn to a more playful Roman poet, Ovid, whose genius is apparent in nearly every kind of register. Profound, witty, and satiric all at once, Ovid’s powerful re-tellings of many ancient myths became the versions that are most familiar to us today. Finally, through the lens of the Romans and others who "remythologize," we wrap up the course with a retrospective look at myth. Readings: Vergil, Aeneid, book 6; Ovid, Metamorphoses, books 3, 12, and 13. Video Lectures: 10.1-10.9. Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week. *********************************************************************************************************** READINGS There are no required texts for the course, however, Professor Struck will make reference to the following texts in the lecture: • Greek Tragedies, Volume 1, David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, trans. (Chicago) • Greek Tragedies, Volume 3, David Grene and Richmond Lattimore , trans. (Chicago) • Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, M. L. West, trans. (Oxford) • Homeric Hymns, Sarah Ruden, trans. (Hackett) • Homer, The Odyssey, Robert Fagles, trans. (Penguin) • Virgil, The Aeneid, Robert Fitzgerald, trans. (Vintage) • Ovid, Metamorphoses, David Raeburn, trans. (Penguin) These translations are a pleasure to work with, whereas many of the translations freely available on the internet are not. If you do not want to purchase them, they should also be available at many libraries. Again, these texts are not required, but they are helpful.
Art History, Greek Mythology, History, Mythology
I thoroughly enjoyed this course. Greek and Roman Mythology has always been something I was interested in and this class introduced many new ways I could actually look at these myths.
This is an excellent course with an excellent instructor. The course uses primary sources in translation and teaches the student different ways of analyzing and interpreting myths.
Adventures Out and Back
This week we’ll follow the exciting peregrinations of Odysseus, "man of twists and turns," over sea and land. The hero’s journeys abroad and as he re-enters his homeland are fraught with perils. This portion of the Odyssey features unforgettable monsters and exotic witches; we also follow Odysseus into the Underworld, where he meets shades of comrades and relatives. Here we encounter some of the best-known stories to survive from all of ancient myth. Readings: Homer, Odyssey, books 9-16. Video Lectures: 3.1-3.10. Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week.
3.1 Odysseus and the Cyclops19:58
3.2 Cycle Two: Circe 7:34
3.3 The Underworld 12:42
3.4 Cycle 3: The Cattle of the Sun 13:19
3.5 Food/Not Food 9:07
3.6 Structuralism 16:29
3.7 Inner and Outer Worlds 9:56
3.8 Extracting Knowledge 8:10
3.9 Meanwhile Telemachus... 4:58
3.10 Reunion: Father and Sons 7:29
Peter Struck
Select a languageChinese (Simplified)EnglishRomanian
So, in thirteen through sixteen, there's a kind of reunion that's happening about
Odysseus to his native land but it's happening in fits and starts.
He's constantly lying, he's telling people half truths and full lies.
He's making connections with people but not quite his own inner circle yet.
Well that's, this changes in Book sixteen. He does have an actual reunion that comes
with someone in his, in his inner circle. He gets reunited with his own son,
Telemachus, in quite a moving scene. The beginning of sixteen, as it starts, is
quite, quite interesting stuff, isn't it? There's a wonderful simile that starts
this book off. I thought we'd take a chance to, to take a
look at this. Homeric similes Homer uses similes to
tremendous effect through the poems in both the Iliad and the Odyssey.
In they work slightly different in each epic.
In the Odyssey what we often get is a way for the, the characters in the story to
change places. They get compared to things that seem like
other characters should be being compared to.
And so, connections are drawn among the characters inside the stories.
Let's take a look at this example. Telemachus comes home.
And when he does, we hear Odysseus looking at him and thinking about him.
And then, the narrative seamlessly moves in this direction.
Straight to the prince he rushed, and kissed his face, and kissed his shining
eyes. Both hands, as the tears rolled down his
cheeks. As a father brimming with love, welcomes
home his darling only son in a warm embrace, what pain he's borne for him and
him alone. Home now, in the tenth year from far
abroad. So, the loyal swineherd hugged the beaming
prince. He clung for dear life, covering with
kisses, yes, like one escaped from death. Now, what has Howard done in the simile?
Well, we got into it quite subtly, it's a little bit hard to tell at the very
beginning. Who's the one who's running straight to
the prince and kissing him? It seems like it could be Odysseus.
Welcome, welcoming him like a father welcomes someone home.
He's been gone for a long time. Well, look what's happened here.
Homer has put Eumaeus in the place of Odysseus.
So, Eumaeus here, gets to be the father figure that Homer is not quite ready to
have Odysseus be. Odysseus still needs to keep his distance,
keep far away. Telemachus gets to get reconciled with a
kind of father figure here by the simile but in this case, it's Eumaeus.
So, Eumaeus gets a chance to play Odysseus here.
But then also, read a little bit further, it's as long, in a subtle way, Telemachus
gets a chance to be Odysseus, too. Because when Eumaeus welcomes him home, he
welcomes him home like someone who's been gone for ten years from far abroad.
Long away and being far abroad in, in, in far away voyages.
So, Telemachus, although he hasn't been gone for twenty years he's been gone for
ten. It's in a way, he's compared to Odysseus'
ten, at least the ten years of Odysseus' absence where he, himself, is far away.
So, each character gets a chance to kind of step into the shoes of the other, and
they show some really wonderful connections between them.
Now Eumaeus at that point, goes off on his mission, and Odysseus, to bring messages
to Penelope, and Odysseus is alone with Telemachus.
At that point, Athena leaves and notice what she does when she leaves, she gives a
kind of wink, she nod, gives a nod and well, wrinkles her eyebrows over at
Odysseus as if, hey now's the time. This wink back and forth between them,
secret sign, a secret conveyance of information between Athena and Odysseus.
Telemachus doesn't see her. Telemachus is not in on it yet.
Odysseus is involved in his own circle of knowledge with Athena, Telemachus in a, in
a different circle of knowledge that is not overlapping.
Soon enough, these two are going to overlap.
But for now they're in slightly different worlds.
At that point, Odysseus reveals himself to Telemachus and the revelation of father to
son is abrupt. It's not gradual.
Eumaeus is going to take a long time for Odysseus to come back and get ready to get
to know him, but with Telemachus, he jumps right out and, and he's ready to show
himself to Telemachus. Telemachus is confused, doesn't realize,
wait a minute it can't really be you. And then they just break down and have a
wonderful tender embrace. Telemachus quickly mistakes Odysseus for a
god, and just like Odysseus did when he washed up on Scheria, he is quick to say
no, no, no. I'm not a god.
No, no, no, I'm not a god. When, when a, when a hero is identifying
him or herself, what the hero does first is to disclaim a divine aspect.
That shows great deference to the divinities.
So, you got to say, no, no, no, I'm not more than I am.
I'm just a human being. So, Odysseus does that just as he does on,
on the island of Scheria. After the long tender embrace and tears
wetting the ground, Odysseus is ready for business.
Let's get down to business. Tell me about the suitors.
How many are there? How are they armed?
How, you know, unarm them and what's our plan?
He lays everything out and gets right down to business.
Now, in this communication that we've seen between Odysseus and Athena, we've seen
this kind of sly, careful way that they come back and forth but we're only just
now getting introduced to the real secret communication, that's going to be
happening in these closing books. That's the one between Odysseus and
Penelope. Eumaeus is off and remember, the journey
that he is off on, he is going to bring a message from the stranger that's washed up
on shore to Penelope. Eumaeus will be shuttled back and forth
bringing messages between the Penelope and Odysseus at first.
Soon enough, Odysseus is going have his chance to make his own case, to make his
own pitch to Penelope. We'll see that the lying will continue.
It's not about to just waltz right in, and, say, hi honey, I'm home.
That doesn't work so well, we've seen that in Agamemnon's case and he's going to have
to make his way though more subtly and more slyly to Penelope.
We're also going to need to keep an eye on what Penelope knows.
It's not a simple case of her not quite knowing what's happening.
There are some points in her narration, in her story of how the events are, are
coming that make us wonder about how much Penelope knows and when she knows it.
It seems like she's moving along this course of events not just as a passive
player but as a very active player. She makes an entrance now in this next
part of the epic. Here's that there was some plot against
her son, comes down and scolds the suitors.
And at that point, after she drops her bombs, and, and lays down some nasty words
against the suitors, she disappears and goes upstairs, and goes to sleep.
You'll notice that Penelope does a lot of this in the coming book.
She'll come down, make some statements, go upstairs, I've got the vapors, I've got to
go to sleep. When she does this kind of disappearing
act though watch out because oftentimes something has gone on in the message that
should just, that she's just laid down. Someone's overheard something that she
intended or, it's hard to tell. And it's going to carefully, subtly move
this back and forth. That subtleness that Odysseus is conveying
through his own techniques is going to be met with a similar kind of.
And even more an Even deeper kind of subtleness, caution, and circumspectness
in the figure of Penelope.
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Craig Fogel Online
CELEBRITY GHOST STORIES
JOURNEYS OF IDENTITY
SEUSSICAL (2010)
THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE
SIGN LANGUAGE WORK
Craig Fogel is a New York-based actor and a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts
where he studied at CAP21 and Playwrights Horizons Theater School
He is the creator and star of DON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER, a new comedy on YouTube and, because he is fluent in American Sign Language, he frequently collaborates with Deaf and Hard of Hearing artists and creatives.
Contact: craigfogel(at)gmail.com
Enjoy browsing this site for news, photos, videos, and more from New York-based actor, Craig Fogel.
LATEST NEWS UPDATE
(last updated 7/3/19)
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Record Breakers
> Record Breakers
Watching Record Breakers as a child I could never make my mind up as to whether Norris McWhirter was the most amazing or the most boring man on the planet. I wondered whether he was able to keep his awesome amount of record breaking trivia to himself at home, or if every time somebody mentioned anything at all he was unable to contain himself. ‘Norris dear, there’s a good film on tonight.’ ‘Is there? Did you know that the film with the shortest title ever to be nominated for an Oscar was the Algerian/French-made “Z” in 1970?’ ‘Oh…was it really dear?’ Stifles a yawn. Record Breakers ran for 29 years during the children’s television slot on the BBC. Presented by the perma-grinning, tap-dancing Roy Castle from its inception in December 1972 until 1994, it showed the viewers a different world record each time; looking into the who, when and how of it was achieved. Originally the show stayed largely in the studio, but after a couple of years the team were allowed out to visit record breaking sites all over the world, including countries such as Australia, Canada and the US.
Roy was accompanied on the show by both Norris McWhirter and his identical twin brother Ross, who also had an duplicate depth of knowledge about world records past and present, gained whilst editing The Guinness Book of Records for countless years. You name it; if it was bigger, faster, louder or stronger than anything else, the photographic memories of the McWhirters would be able to tell you all about it in detail. This was put to the test during Record Breakers in a segment where the children in the audience would ask them questions based on world records, and it was an extremely rare occasion when either of them didn’t know the answer. After Ross was killed in 1975, Norris continued this tradition of record breaking interrogation in ‘Norris on the Spot’.
A highlight of each Record Breakers show would be a world record attempt in the studio; over 300 new records were achieved during the show’s run. These covered feats of endurance, strength, speed and utter insanity (‘I’ll be trying for the ‘Number of sausage rolls you can balance on your ears whilst hopping backwards and whistling a traditional Scottish folk song’ record.’ ‘Really? Um, why?’)
Castle broke nine world records whilst on the programme. One of these was Fastest Tap Dance, where he somehow managed to hit a mind-boggling 24 taps a second. He went so quickly you couldn’t even see his feet, just a blur where they should have been. It was ridiculously fast. Try tapping your feet now… get even close to five taps a second? No, thought not; how on earth did he do it? I like to imagine that the bottom half of his body was being electronically controlled by an out of sight McWhirter, but in fairness to Castle it’s more likely that he was just very, very good at tap dancing. Another record involved him sustaining a wing walk for nearly three and a half hours and he also jumped off of Blackpool Tower, although which record this was for now escapes me. Biggest free fall? Loudest scream? Fastest pant-wetting? He managed to break both these records without being sick which should somehow also be a record. Castle – especially his feet and his stomach - was outstanding.
The show closed with Castle’s trumpet rendition of Dedication (‘Dedication’s what you need, if you want to be a record breaaaaaa-ker…..yeah!’) and is probably one of the most recognisable children’s theme tunes ever.
Roy had been blessed with all-round entertainment skills from an early age. Trained as a dancer, he also sang and acted, appearing in the Royal Variety Show in 1958 and having minor success in the charts in 1960 with festive tune Little White Berry. He had his own show on the BBC a few years later, and appeared in films Dr Who and the Daleks, Dr Terror’s House of Horrors and classic comedy film Carry on Up the Khyber. He was a talented jazz trumpeter and used this skill on stage at the Shaftsbury Theatre in 1967 whilst appearing with Jimmy Edwards (and his impressive moustache) in the farce Big Bad Mouse. Castle was great friends with legend of comedy Ronnie Barker and (after Roy had begun his stint on Record Breakers) they starred together in an episode of Barker’s series Seven of One in 1973. Castle also stood in for Bruce ‘Didn’t they do well?’ Forsyth as host of one episode of The Generation Game in 1975.
Record Breakers ran for 30 series; 22 of them presented by Castle, and for a while there was also an extra annual show; All Star Record Breakers. This was broadcast at Christmas every year from 1974 until 1982, and was a musical extravaganza. The presenters from the BBC children’s programmes would join Roy for songs and dance routines, and to act out a classic story at the end. In the 1977 edition Castle was at the head of a record breaking charity tap-a-thon outside the BBC Television Centre; can’t imagine the Beeb’s admin staff getting much work done that day, with the sound of thousands of tap shoes all hitting the concrete at the same time.
When Roy died of lung cancer in 1994 Cheryl Baker (who had assisted him during his later series) took over the helm alongside the always-laughing-to-the-point-where-it-starts-to-become-really-irritating Kris Akabusi and the wacky big glasses of ‘madcap’ Mark Curry. For two series there was also the slightly surreal addition of Ronald Reagan Jr (yep, the son of the ex-US president) who introduced segments about US records. In 1998 athlete Linford Christie egotistically had it renamed Linford’s Record Breakers before it switched back to plain ol’ Record Breakers for the last series in 2001.
As well as this Record Breakers also did the occasional special, focusing on one particular sport or activity (which was often – for reasons unknown – dominoes). In 1994 the team presented two Castle-based editions paying their respects to the late record king; Roy Castle Tribute Special and Record Breakers: Roy Castle Personality Plus.
The Record Breakers brand eventually came to a close in 2001, and rightly claimed its place as an icon in the history of children’s television. It had had the potential to be one of the most boring kids’ ‘educational’ shows (‘Oh look, more dominoes…’) but the BBC struck lucky when they hired Roy Castle. His cheery charm, extraordinary range of talents and the willingness to try anything for a record attempt were a huge draw and he turned potential dull facts into an entertaining and occasionally edge-of-your-seat ‘will he/ won’t he break the record?’ watch.
RosalindBrookman
Record Breakers Last post by Trickyvee
Do You Remember Record Breakers?
80s Viewer on 2013-01-17 15:34:58
RIP Roy Castle.
Chris T on 2012-08-19 15:25:59
There was also a section in the programme where the children in the audience could ask Norris McWhirter a record-related question and he almost always knew the answer. I only remember him not knowing the answer once - the question was "Which tree has the most leaves?" I still don't know the answer lol.
Domino Rally
Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
Button Moon
A Sharp Intake Of Breath
Against The Wind
'Allo 'Allo
Animal Magic
Baa Baa Blacksheep
Terry And June
Jon Cryer
Raleigh Styler Mag
Applejacks
Leslie Nielsen
Tamagotchi Pets
Stylophone
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Study of Church Governance and Unity by GC Secretariat
published September 25, 2016 ( PDF file )
This study of the foundations and function of Seventh-day Adventist Church policy and its relationship to unity brings together references from the Bible, the Spirit of Prophecy, and Adventist history for the purpose of informing and guiding the Church in relation to policies concerning the ordaining and credentialing of Seventh-day Adventist pastors. It also contributes to the discussion about unity in light of the vote at the 2015 General Conference (GC) Session not to allow divisions to decide on the matter of women’s ordination in their territories. As we move forward, there will continue to be dialogue at administrative levels regarding the issue of compliance with policy.
But what is the connection between unity and policy? The present GC Working Policy is the fruit of 150 years of collegial, prayerful, and frequently prolonged discussions among church leaders from around the world chosen by church members to represent them. Measures became policy only when a majority agreed on them, and usually only after a wider consensus was reached. Although the GC Working Policy is set out in numbered and lettered paragraphs, its chief purpose is not to produce a perfect bureaucratic system but to foster unity and mission. Its role in promoting unity has assumed even greater importance as a result of developments since the 2015 GC Session, arising from its vote on ordination.
Ever since the Seventh-day Adventist Church first established criteria for the ordination of ministers at the 18th GC Session in 1879, the world Church has set such criteria. Since 1930, the GC Executive Committee has delegated to unions responsibility for selecting candidates for ordination, based on the criteria set by the world Church. (1)
Starting in 2012, however, a few unions have, in effect, claimed the right to set criteria for ordination, disregarding the 1990 GC Session action not to allow women to be ordained to gospel ministry, (2) and the decisions of the 1995 and 2015 Sessions not to allow variances from this policy. Since the 2015 GC Session, some unions and conferences have diverged from GC Working Policy by discontinuing ordinations, and commissioning or licensing all new pastors; issuing ministerial licenses and/or commissioned-minister credentials or licenses to all pastors in their territories, including those previously ordained; and allowing commissioned or licensed ministers to function as ordained ministers.
This study articulates the world Church’s position on ordination, ecclesiastical governance, and church unity. It explores the relevant issues at a greater length than is possible in a summative statement. While it analyzes GC Working Policy and other governing documents of the Church, because Adventists hold that “the Holy Scriptures are the supreme, authoritative, and the infallible revelation of [God’s] will” and that the writings of Ellen G White “speak with prophetic authority and provide comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction to the church,” (3) it also considers passages from the Scriptures and the Spirit of Prophecy that provide important context for the provisions of denominational policy. Church organization and governance, like all aspects of church life, should be based on the Bible, as Ellen White indicated shortly after the landmark 1901 reorganization of the Church. (4) This study shows that there is a spiritual and theological dimension to policy compliance—that sometimes complying with church policies, is a matter of living according to biblical principles, and applying Christ’s commands to the life of the Church. The study sketches out important historical and contemporary principles of Adventist Church governance and in particular our practice and policies relating to church workers engaged in pastoral ministry. It makes the case that inspired writings, our history, and denominational policy all plainly indicate that unions and conferences should not unilaterally depart from what has been agreed by the world Church.
1. See “Unions and Ordination,” GC Secretariat Statement (Aug. 2015), available at https://www. adventistarchives.org/unions-and-ordination-statement.pdf.
2. Fifty-fifth Session, July 11, 1990, Session minutes in GCC Minutes, 1990: 1039–40 (available at http://documents.adventistarchives.org/Minutes/GCC/GCC1990-07.pdf ). See below, n.160.
3. “Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists,” nos. 1 and 18. The Fundamental Beliefs are printed in the Yearbook (Seventh-day Adventist Church Yearbook 2016, 6–9), and are available https://www.adventist.org/fileadmin/adventist.org/files/articles/official-statements/28Beliefs-Web.pdf
4. Ellen G. White, “Consumers, but not Producers,” April 25, 1901 (i.e., two days after the conclusion of the GC Session of that year), MS 35, 1901: “The Lord declares that His church is not to be governed by human rules or precedents. . . . I am oppressed with the thought of the objectionable human management seen in our work.” It should instead be a manifestation of “truth-loving, Bible-believing Christians” (emphasis supplied).
Continue to next section. II. Unity and Policy
Study of Church Governance and Unity - Sept. 2016 3. Role of Policy II. Unity and Policy III - Diversity, Unity and Authority IV. Authority in Spirit of Prophecy V. Unilateralism VI. Application VII. Conclusion
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The Wonderful Generation
Written by James Dowd in Creative
You are a member of the most fortunate generation in the history of mankind, and you don't even know it. And, it's not just because of what you have now, but because of what you didn't have when you were a kid.
As children, we climbed trees, took things apart, and fell down a lot. We grew up in a time when our playtime radius stretched miles. We looked at hills and forests, wondered what might be on the other side, made up stories, and adventured out there to places that represented possibility and personal expression. Our parents pushed us out the door and told us not to come back until dinner, or until we were bleeding. We'd swim great distances, build things with our little hands, and give our own unique meaning to things we’d discover.
We had TV, but we couldn't sit too close to it, and we certainly couldn't take it with us. Sure, we also had Gameboy, dial-up, and Oregon Trail to entertain us and spark our sense of imagination for a time, but they were novelties, sideshows. We were the main event in our lives each and every day, because we didn't have access to constant, ever-changing entertainment, unless it was the entertainment we created within our own minds.
But now, we live in a world of daily innovations, developments, and breakthroughs. We are witness to the great transition into a fully digital age where information and content are commonplace. The sad fact is, despite this flood of inspiration, so many of us have become numb to the things that could once fascinate. We look deeper and deeper every day into space and discover Earth-like planets so often, I'm not even sure if I'm supposed to be excited anymore.
We have access to nearly all of the world's knowledge, and we can even attach it to our wrists, but we risk forgetting how exciting it all is without something to compare it to. So, we look back on our wild youth, and reach deep inside our memories to find a true sense of wonder. We're fortunate to be able to remember a time where when we didn't know something, we asked, we sought, we explored, we made it up. Now, everything we could ever want to know is a simple Google search away, but we still have the power to wonder.
We are the last to grow up without the internet, so only we truly know the awesome power of those little information machines we carry with us everywhere we go. We'll likely be the last to drive cars (Thanks a lot, Google!), so we'll be the last to truly know the personal freedom of the open road. We'll be the last to have gotten lost without GPS, discovering a sense of adventure and accomplishment in finding our way home. And, we’ll be the last to experience the power and emotion of a developed photo, whether we waited one hour or even longer. Instead, our memories are to be forever outsourced to social media where they’re no longer our own. Those single photos of our youth, which encompassed so much emotion, are now replaced by 100 digital options easily captured and just as easily forgotten.
There’s great value in our growing access to technology, of course. Skype meetings and Slack chats, for example, save us and our employers time and money, but you know what I truly miss? Getting to the airport early during business trips, disconnecting, and having a beer while watching the strange mix of people passing by, and wondering about their stories — what strange adventures they might be on. It’s a moment I experience less and less each year, but will always enjoy. I have the past, but others may not. It’s a potential extinction of experiences.
Wonder doesn’t just have to be a state of play — it can also inspire great work. Gaming industry creative, Aaron LeMay, utilizes wonder as a technique to unleash fresh thought and creativity by challenging himself and his team to step outside, be more present, and less judgemental in relation to the behaviors of people, ads, and products. “I like to unplug and say, ‘Hmm, I wonder what is going on in that person’s day to have them do that?’ said Aaron.
That means a business trip is an opportunity for a fresh view of new worlds that may inspire better, stronger work. By being present, and not using devices to connect ourselves to our everyday home life, we can instead use our sense of wonder to connect to new people and places. What may come of it could change not only your work, but the world itself, as Martin Lindstrom references in his study of Small Data, Disney revolutionized its parks by simply observing how people wait in line at a church in Rome.
As more information and innovation become commonplace, and the more we absolutely know and can easily achieve, uncover, and possess, the less we experience, the less we wonder. So, never forget your device-free youth, and your sense of imagination. Never forget the power of child-like perspective. Never forget what it's like to make up your own stories. Embrace your curiosity and imagination, and rediscover the ever-changing world around you. We are the last to experience so much discovery, the last to wholeheartedly wonder.
We are the Wonderful Generation, a fortunate flicker in existence with the ability to experience two great ages in human history, so don't let those last remnants of a forgotten analog past disappear without letting them influence your eager view of the future. Unplug whenever possible, wander, wonder, and maybe listen to some birds. Let it inspire you and your work, every wonderful day.
Note: Special thanks to photographer Niki Boon whose work inspired this article, and who graciously allowed me to use her photographs to bring it to life. Find more of Niki’s incredible work here.
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Communiqué: His Majesty the King Gives His High Instructions to Establish a Field Hospital in Juba
His Majesty King Mohammed VI has given His high instructions to establish a multi-specialty field hospital as of January 23, 2017 in Juba, as part of a humanitarian mission for the people of the Republic of South Sudan.
The two Houses of the Parliament unanimously adopt the Bill on the approval of the Constitutive Act of the African Union
The Moroccan Parliament, with its two chambers, unanimously adopted, Wednesday and Thursday, January 19th and 20th, 2017, during the first plenary session, the Bill N°01.17 on the approval of the constitutive act of the African Union (AU), signed 11 July 2000 in Lomé (Togo), as amended by the Protocol adopted 3 February 2003 in Addis-Abeba (Ethiopia) and 11 July 2003 in Maputo (Mozambique), in the presence of the Minister Delegate to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Mr. Nasser Bourita.
Participation of Morocco in the International Conference for Peace in the Middle East
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Mr. Salaheddine Mezouar, took part, on Sunday 15 January 2017 in Paris, which is part of the initiative for peace in the Middle East launched by France at the meeting of 3 June 2016, with the participation of more than 70 countries and international organizations.
Bamako Summit Hails King Mohammed VI’s Initiatives for Sustainable Development in Africa
Bamako 01.16.2017
The Bamako Summit on Partnership development and peace was held on 13 and 14 January 2017. The Heads of State and Government participating in the summit, held on January 13-14 under the co-presidency of French President François Hollande and Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Highlighted the holding, on the sidelines of COP22 in Marrakech and at the initiative of the King, of the 1st Africa Action Summit, affirming, in this regard, the vital role of renewable energies in accelerating the continent’s development.
Mr. Mezouar represents His Majesty the King at the 27th Africa-France Summit
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Mr. Salaheddine Mezouar represented, Friday 14 January 2017 in Bamako, His Majesty King Mohammed VI, May God Assist Him, at the 27th Africa-France Summit.
Mr. Mezouar Represents His Majesty the King at Inauguration of Ghana President
Accra 01.07.2016
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Mr. Salaheddine Mezouar represented His Majesty King Mohammed VI, on Saturday in Accra, at the inauguration ceremony of the President-elect of Ghana Nana Akufo-Addo.
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Concert review | Bruce Springsteen rocks like it's still the '80s
Curtis Schieber, For The Columbus Dispatch
Though few artists would regret releasing an album such as Bruce Springsteen's fifth release, 1980's "The River," whose 20-song double album raised eyebrows for its length and sprawling themes, the Boss revisited the entire album, song-for-song, in Value City Arena on Tuesday night. The tour supports "The Ties That Bind: The River Collection," a multi-CD reissue.
Rethinking or retooling an album once it is released is far less likely than regretting it.
Though few artists would regret releasing an album such as Bruce Springsteen�s fifth release, 1980's �The River,� whose 20-song double album raised eyebrows for its length and sprawling themes, the Boss revisited the entire album, song-for-song, in Value City Arena on Tuesday night. The tour supports �The Ties That Bind: The River Collection,� a multi-CD reissue.
The first four albums were �young man�s records,� said Springsteen, as he introduced the program for the first part of the evening. With �The River� the songwriter began to explore his place in the larger community and his role in its smaller orbit, the family.
It was interesting that � as heard Tuesday night � more of the young man was present in those songs than he might have imagined.
Most important for the sold-out arena crowd, the singer, at 66, was able to rock nearly as hard as when the album was released. All-out rockers such as �Sherry Darling,� which steamrolled into the audience on the back of Charlie Giordano�s Hammond organ, and �Crush On You,� a classic rock-and-roll song that feels like one still, displayed not only his still-potent energy but the killer ensemble playing of a seasoned band, most of which has honed its communal chops for decades.
To wit, drummer Marvelous Max Weinberg nailed the bottom all night with bassist Garry Tallent, while the double guitar attack of Nils Lofgren and Steve Van Zandt made the sound swing and also crunch. All of the E Street band seemed to be living as though it were 35 years ago.
But the first part was all about coming to terms with personal history for Springsteen.
When he performed romantic songs such as �Drive All Night,� which testified maybe a bit too long, and �I Wanna Marry You,� he sounded like the familiar romantic of his earliest days. When he rocked out in tunes such as �Cadillac Ranch� and others, he sounded like the party boy of old.
And when he delivered songs such as �The Price You Pay,� �The River� and �Fade Away,� he seemed to be finding that he saw the fallout all along.
If �Hungry Heart� � a celebratory performance Tuesday night that featured Springsteen surfing all over the crowd � was a sign that even when reality sets in, life is still good, �Independence Day� suggested he knew even then what growing up would mean.
If there was a song that with relistening sounds more significant and devastating today than it did Tuesday night, it was the album�s closer, �Wreck On The Highway.� A grim scenario finishing the cycle of songs, it seems to suggest it doesn�t matter because it might all slip away at any moment. On Tuesday, it was almost perfunctory, as if the writer had come to realize that the meat of the record is, in fact, the meat of life.
Springsteen began a second show of hits without stop as deadline called.
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Historical Wars Documentaries
Historical Wars, History, War
World War II began on September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany and most of the other members of the Commonwealth of Nations followed suit.
Battlefields, Historical Wars, War
510 minutes 2014 8.0/10
World War I was unlike any war anybody had seen before. This war introduced machines and airplanes, armored battleships and oversized zeppelins, tanks and poison gas.
Historical Wars, History, Modern Era, War
In October 1962, the entire world was on stand by holding its breath because just a few miles from the Florida coast, the two great superpowers were at a stand-off.
Crime, Crime History, Historical Wars, Judaism, Religion, War
April 19th, 2012 is Holocaust Memorial Day. Today we are presenting a 1950 documentary about the Nuremberg Trials. The trials were held in 1945-47 to try the highest ranking Nazis against crimes of humanity.
Biography, Historical Wars, Scientists, Society, War, Weapons
The legendary Manhattan Project: the makers of the Atomic Bombs used on Japan to end World War II. Only one nuclear scientist ever quit the project before completion: Joseph Rotblat.Based on moral grounds, he would later win the Nobel Peace Price .
Historical Wars, Modern Era, War
In the closing months of World War II, defeat was imminent for the Germans. The invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 – D-Day – opened a second Allied front, and the Allies began overtaking a host of German positions; Paris was liberated on August 25; Romania and Bulgaria surrendered in quick succession.
Historical Wars, War
The Second World War in Colour documents World War 2 as the troops saw it – in full colour. This three-hour digitally remastered video presents a rarely-seen picture of the war.
This feature-length documentary focuses on the efforts by troops in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War to oppose the war effort by peaceful demonstration and subversion.
The Panama Deception documents the untold story of the December 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama; the events which led to it; the excessive force used; the enormity of the death and destruction; and the devastating aftermath.
Nazi Concentration Camps was entered as evidence at the 1945 Nuremberg Trials of Rudolf Hess, Hermann Göring, and 22 other Nazi officials in the aftermath of World War II.
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Stop Start Tango in Darlington’s Market
Darlington’s Indoor Market was transformed on December 5, from 10am till 3pm, when locals were invited by Anton Hecht, Creative Darlington and the stall-holders to get involved in a tango art film project.
Participants were invited to partner tango dancer Lauren Rafferty, who moved around the market. Each member of the public was shown how to do a few moves, choreographed by Debbie Waistell of the D Project, and was filmed with the dancer. Many participants had not danced before this event, and age was no barrier to people’s involvement.
Says Anton: “The stall-holders themselves also got involved, with the butcher doing a particularly exciting dip. In the final film with the dancer they dance through the market with all the different partners popping in and out of shot for a few seconds each.”
Anton has a history of creating videos in unique settings, including bus stops and Newcastle’s Grainger Market. Watch his Darlington video here.
Creative Darlington has helped him and other artists to secure grants from the Arts Council England to develop new work in Darlington, alongside supporting artists and arts organisations to finance their activities through sponsorship, fundraising and philanthropy.
For further information, please contact Anton Hecht on antnhec@gmail.com or 07950 566 523.
Photographs: Jason Berge
Nicola Rayner
Nicola Rayner was editor of Dance Today from 2010 to 2015. She has written for a number of publications including The Guardian, The Independent and Time Out Buenos Aires, where she cut her teeth as a dance journalist working on the tango section. Today she continues to dance everything from ballroom to breakdance, with varying degrees of success. Her debut novel, The Girl Before You, is out now as an ebook and available on Amazon, with the paperback following on August 22.
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Item 303 Disclosure Duty Case Off Supreme Court’s Docket Due to Reported Settlement
By Kevin LaCroix on October 25, 2017 Posted in Securities Laws
As I noted at the beginning of the U.S. Supreme Court’s current term in my summary of securities cases on the Court’s docket, one of the three key securities cases the court was to consider this term was Leidos, Inc. v. Indiana Public Retirement Systems. As discussed in greater detail here, this case, which was to be argued on November 6, 2017, was to address the recurring question of whether the failure to make disclosure required by Item 303 of Reg. S-K is an actionable omission under Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5. However, as a result of developments in the case, the case is now in “abeyance,” oral argument in the case has taken off the calendar, and the case ultimately may be removed from the court’s docket altogether.
Item 303 of Reg. S-K states in pertinent part that in its periodic reports to the SEC, a company is to “[d]escribe any known trends or uncertainties that have had or that the registrant reasonably expects will have a materially favorable or unfavorable impact” on the company. Guidance provided by the SEC on Item 303 clarifies that disclosure is necessary where a “trend, demand, commitment, event or uncertainty is both presently known to management and reasonably likely to have material effects on the registrant’s financial conditions or results of operations.”
The federal circuit courts have reached contrary conclusions on the question of whether or not Section 303 creates an affirmative duty of disclosure. The Second Circuit has held that Item 303 does create an actionable duty of disclosure, while the Ninth and Third Circuits have held that it does not. The court agreed to take up the Leidos case on a writ of certiorari to the Second Circuit in order to address what the petitioner described as a “deep split of authority” on the question. The existence of the split, the petitioner argued, creates the possibility of a divergence of outcomes based simply on the court in which a case is filed.
The Leidos case and its pendency before the Supreme Court attracted a great deal of attention, although not all of it favorable to the Court’s consideration of the questions presented. For example, Stanford Law Professor Joseph Grundfest, in a law review article about the case (discussed here), referred to the case as a “nothing burger,” because, he contended, regardless of which way the Court comes out in the case, the outcome will make little practical difference.
My own view about Leidos was that the case was important not only because of the split in the circuits but also because the question of whether or not Item 303 creates an actionable disclosure duty comes up all the time. Plaintiffs armed with the benefit of hindsight frequently attempt to allege in reliance on Item 303 that the securities suit defendant has failed to allege known risks, trends, or uncertainties.
While I continue to believe these issues are important, it now appears that the Supreme Court likely will not be considering these issues this term.
On October 6, 2017, after the case had been fully briefed and just a month before oral argument was scheduled in the case, the parties filed with the Supreme Court a Joint Motion to Recalendar Argument and to Stay Proceedings (here). In their Motion, the parties advised the Court that they had “reached an agreement in principle to settle this dispute,” and that the parties “are now preparing the settlement documentation.” The parties requested that the Court remove the case from the oral argument calendar and hold the case in abeyance while the parties take steps to obtain settlement approval. The parties stated that they would advise the Court before May 31, 2018 whether a settlement has been approved. They asked that if the district court has not granted final approval that the Supreme Court set the case for oral argument in the October Term 2018.
On October 17, 2017, the Supreme Court granted the parties’ motion to hold the case in abeyance, and further ordered the same day that the case be removed from the November 6, 2017 argument calendar.
As the Goodwin Proctor law firm noted in its October 24, 2017 summary of these developments in the case, unless the district court declines to approve the parties’ settlement, this outcome of the case “leaves pending the hotly debated circuit split between the Second Circuit, on the one hand, and the Third and Ninth Circuits, on the other hand,” as to whether Item 303 creations an actionable duty of disclosure.
In its own October 24, 2017 memo about the developments in the Leidos case, the Sherman & Sterling law firm noted that “investor plaintiffs will like seek to capitalize on the Second Circuit’s decision by continuing to bring Item-303 base claims within the Second Circuit,” in light of which, the law firm memo suggests, “eventual review by the Supreme Court remains likely.”
The Hunton & Williams law firm, in its October 2017 memo about Leidos, speculated that as a result of the Leidos case coming off of the Court’s docket, the existing circuit split will likely deepen, adding that “Already district courts outside the Second and Ninth Circuits have had to choose which approach to follow, with predictably inconsistent results. As new cases continue to be heard, other circuits will likely weigh in on the question eventually. Undecided circuits may well take notice of the SEC’s amicus brief in the case, which supported the position advanced by the investor plaintiffs.”
Tags: Disclosure Duties, Item 303, Leidos, U.S. Supreme Court
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What’s In Your Back Pocket?
by Suzanne Richardson | Feb 5, 2009 | Articles, Entrepreneur, Internet Business, Investing, Wealth
For nearly three decades, Ernie Bjorkman was an anchorman for a Denver TV station. Then one day last month, after signing a yearlong contract, he was let go. But Ernie wasn’t worried, because he had something in his back pocket. He’d been going to veterinary...
Use the 24-Hour Rule to Cure Yourself of This Success-Thwarting “Bug”
by Suzanne Richardson | Feb 3, 2009 | Articles, Entrepreneur, Internet Business, Productivity, Self-Improvement, Wealth
The most common cause of failure, says Michael Masterson, is procrastination. The thief of dreams. You’re a procrastinator if you have ever said something like… “I’m definitely going to lose weight this year. I’ll start exercising on Monday.” Or,...
How to Improve Your Mind, Life, and Career
by Suzanne Richardson | Feb 2, 2009 | Articles, Entrepreneur, Internet Business, Self-Improvement, Skill Development, Wealth
As Groucho Marx said, “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” It would appear that more Americans than ever agree with Marx, according to The New York Times, which recently revealed the results of a report from the...
What’s Missing From YOUR Business?
by Suzanne Richardson | Jan 28, 2009 | Articles, Entrepreneur, Internet Business, Wealth
The hotel in downtown Cleveland is clean and quiet. The staff is courteous and helpful. The rooms are spacious, and fitted with nice-looking furniture and flat-screen TVs. But, in room 528 at least, something is missing… The king-size bed has only one night table....
Do You Have Bad Writing Habits?
by Suzanne Richardson | Jan 21, 2009 | Articles, Self-Improvement, Skill Development
“I’ve recently noticed a little ‘quirk’ in your writing style,” Charlie Byrne mentioned to me the other day. “It’s a particular ‘thing’ you do a lot. Not necessarily bad, but now that I noticed it, I see it a...
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‘Just cause’ eviction protection extended to…
‘Just cause’ eviction protection extended to all Hayward renters
Goes into effect immediately
By Peter Hegarty | phegarty@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
HAYWARD — All residential renters in the city are now protected from eviction unless there is “just cause,” such as failing to pay rent, engaging in crime or violating the terms of their lease.
The protection was already in place for most rental housing in Hayward under the city’s rent ordinance. But on Tuesday the City Council voted unanimously to extend it to the entire estimated 22,237 rental units in the city.
Previously, renters in units built before July 1, 1979, when the ordinance was enacted, enjoyed just-cause protection. Now tenants in units built after that date also will, as well as renters in condominiums, houses and those living at a property where the landlord owns four units or less — a previous exemption.
“We all know that we are losing people in this city because they are being priced out and they are being evicted,” Mayor Barbara Halliday said. “And they don’t know their rights and they don’t know how to defend themselves.”
The council’s action came after it heard from dozens of speakers, including landlords who said the protection will prevent them from getting rid of bad tenants because they will take advantage of the law.
Extending just-cause went into effect immediately because the council adopted the legislation as an urgency ordinance.
“This is about standing up and giving the people in our community — that have made this community — some protection,” Councilwoman Elisa Marquez said. “That’s all we are asking. We are not taking any rights away from (property) owners.”
Landlords now must notify current tenants of their just-cause eviction rights before April 5, or 30 days after the council’s vote. They also must notify all future tenants before they begin renting.
” ‘Just cause’ is a basic legal protection,” said Jackie Zaneri, an attorney with Centro Legal de la Raza, which provides legal services to immigrants and people on low-income. “It lets tenants breathe easy in their home. It alone won’t solve the housing crisis. But it will help stop mass community displacement since we are not just going to build our way out of this.”
But landlord Ken Williams said property owners face hurdles to enforce an eviction, even without just-cause in place.
Williams said he ended up in a legal quagmire about a year ago after he went to evict a tenant who had not paid rent for about five months — only to discover the individual had sublet the unit, moved out-of-state and was in turn collecting money for the property.
“I need to have the ability to address issues on an individual-by-individual basis,” Williams said. “If the government comes in, at a local or national level, and tells me, ‘one size fits all,’ you are going to find that it doesn’t.”
Along with failing to pay rent, other grounds for eviction under Hayward’s ordinance include a tenant substantially damaging the property, bothering neighbors after being told to stop, or who will not let the landlord into the building, even with written notice.
Evictions are also allowed if a landlord wants to move into the unit or wants to allow certain family members to move in.
State law allows landlords to evict a tenant in order to sell the property or otherwise permanently get out of the business of renting the home under certain conditions.
Christina Morales, the city’s housing division manager, told the council that 55 percent of Hayward residents are spending more than 30 percent of their household income on rent, citing a 2017 survey.
Rents also increased in the city 46 percent while the median income of renters increased 25 percent between 2013 and 2017, according to a city report.
“The basis of this is that housing production has not kept pace with population growth in the city of Hayward,” Morales said.
At its Feb. 26 meeting, the council asked that extending just-cause to all rental units be brought forward as a matter of urgency due to fears that some landlords may try to evict tenants before other possible changes in the rent ordinance happen.
Those changes, which the council is set to consider later this year, include giving tenants the right to a system of mandatory mediation and potential binding arbitration when a landlord seeks to raise rent by more than five percent over a 12-month period.
The right to mediation and arbitration, however, would apply only to units constructed before July 1, 1979, when the city’s rent ordinance took effect, and would exempt single-family homes, as required by state law.
The extended just-cause protection does not apply to hotels and motels, hospitals, transitional housing, skilled nursing facilities and shared housing where the property owner lives in the unit.
East Bay Editors' Picks
housing-crisis
Peter Hegarty
is a reporter for the Bay Area News Group. Contact Peter at 510-748-1654.
Follow Peter Hegarty @Peter_Hegarty
Why this Bay Area county has one of California’s highest child poverty rates
Oakland crash: Boy, 17 gravely hurt; 3 others injured
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Creating schools that 'fit our kids'
Aspen Institute educator panel releases report on practices that support students' social, emotional and academic development
CCSSO
Social-emotional learning (SEL) can help all students achieve — not just those who have experienced trauma or have behavior issues. SEL also creates a school culture that is “inclusive of
and responsive to” diversity. Those are among the statements made Monday by a panel of educators as part of the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development.
The members of the panel — including superintendents, teacher leaders and administrators — say that integrating SEL into academics helps teachers better manage their classrooms, but that high-quality professional development is necessary in order for teachers to develop this level of skill in teaching.
“It’s about us ensuring that schools fit our kids rather than demanding that our kids fit the mold of school,” Sydney Chaffee, a 9th grade humanities teacher at Codman Academy Public Charter School in Boston and the 2017 National Teacher of the Year, said Monday at an event in Washington.
At a time when the nation is looking for solutions to violent tragedies like the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL — and debating whether it’s better to arm teachers or hire more mental health professionals — the panel’s statements take on greater significance.
“Essential to creating and sustaining a positive school culture is the degree to which students feel known, cared about, appreciated and included, and have a meaningful voice in the community of the classroom and the school,” write the authors of "The Practice Base for How We Learn: Supporting Students’ Social, Emotional, and Academic Development."
The report is a companion document to one released last fall by the commission’s scientific panel, which asserted that learning is a social, emotional and cognitive process, and that when educators “deliberately and thoughtfully” connect these domains in the classroom, students benefit.
"It’s not about one particular lesson, one particular framework; it’s about the culture that shepherds you as a student or as a teacher toward caring and focusing on these issues," said Ron Berger, the chief academic officer for EL Education, a network of over 150 schools in 30 states. "We need to build school communities so when new kids enter, they feel, 'In my old school I could be a jerk; in this school that’s not OK.'"
The report says that as educators develop their own social-emotional competencies, they not only serve as role models for students, but might also be protecting themselves from burnout, whether they are relatively new teachers or at a later stage in their career.
The speakers on Monday's opening panel also talked about the need to include teachers' voices in the planning and implementation of SEL efforts. Jillian Ahrens, who teaches at Memorial School in Cleveland and is vice president of the Cleveland Teachers Union, said an emphasis on SEL is even built into the union's collective bargaining agreement with the district.
Aspen Institute
"It is critical that we look at how we support teachers. Teaching can be a lonely field," Ahrens said. "Adults may need to practice some of these skills."
She added that, in the classroom, simply having students work in groups doesn't mean that they are developing social-emotional skills, but that it's important in the midst of lessons to talk about issues such as respect and responsibility.
The authors also highlight the importance of consistency in SEL programs and messages to students at the school level, as well as the importance of district and state leadership to support schools through funding initiatives and standards. In addition, district-level positions dedicated to SEL — which have been increasing nationwide — can also help ensure that SEL is always considered as part of other initiatives and school operations. Sheldon Berman, the superintendent of Andover (MA) Public Schools and the moderator of the panel, said that these leaders can focus on monitoring a district's progress toward SEL goals.
In response to a question about teacher preparation, Julia Sarmiento, the SEL coordinator for the Hillsborough County (FL) Public Schools, said it's also important to include SEL in new teacher orientation programs.
Not 'one or the other'
The educators say there is a place for both explicit instruction in SEL competencies — and giving students opportunities to practice them — as well as weaving it into the curriculum.
“Every academic subject area provides opportunities for students to think through
social and emotional issues,” the report says. “Literature and social studies offer occasions to discuss how fictional or historical characters handled social or
emotional situations, and what might have happened if they had dealt with these situations differently."
At the event, Berger stressed that because students spend so much time in school, it's better for educators to address SEL "intentionally" and not "haphazardly and poorly." He added that schools with an intentional focus are also helping students achieve and get into college.
"It’s not as if you have to choose one or the other," he said. "They’re synergistic is the way that when you focus on character and social-emotional skills, kids get the skills to be able to compete academically as well."
Partnerships with families as well as community-based organizations also reinforce SEL outside of the classroom and give students opportunities to apply emotions such as compassion.
"Even in the news now, we see where some students are taking action," Sarmiento said. "They are taking what they have been learning and they are having a voice."
In January, the commission released a report on its progress as well as information on what is coming during the remainder of its work. Early next month, the commission is expected to release a report that adds parents’ and students’ voices to the conversation.
The practices and learning environments described in Monday’s report are “achievable,” the authors write. “The time has come to accelerate the work of bringing the integration of social, emotional, and academic development to every district, every school, every classroom, and every student,” the report says. “This work deserves a place at the forefront of our nation’s education agenda.”
Filed Under: K-12 Curriculum
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Physically settled commodity derivatives in MiFID II
The main fundamental change MiFID II brings into the commodity market is that the scope of financial instruments will include physically-settled derivatives traded on an OTF (except for those already regulated under REMIT).
MiFID II Amendments
Rule:
Physically settled derivatives traded on regulated markets, MTFs and OTFs => financial instruments
=> physically settled REMIT products traded on an OTF (REMIT carve-out)
=> C6 energy derivatives contracts
This is consistent with the original European Commission's conception, which was to include into the financial instruments' scope all commodity contracts:
(1) traded on any type of trading venue and
(2) that can be physically settled (both preconditions to be applied cumulatively).
The underlying motives were economic equivalency of these commodity contracts to financial instruments and their ability to be used like financial instruments as well as exposition to similar risks (see MEMO/14/305).
It needs to be noted, however, that commodity derivatives that can be physically settled are already within the scope of MiFID if they are traded on regulated markets or MTFs, hence, in essence, an OTF has only been added to the above MiFID-relevant set of trading venues.
Firms trading commodity derivatives who are not currently authorised under MiFID will need to examine whether they can continue to remain exempt from authorisation.
"Under MiFID I, trades of wholesale energy products that are physically settled are generally not considered to be "financial instruments"" (Eurelectric letter to European Commissioners of 10 April 2015 EURELECTRIC concerns regarding proposed MiFID II implementing rules).
The key terms that need to be accounted for when thinking about MiFID II regulation for physically settled commodity derivatives are:
- "REMIT carve-out", and
- "C6 energy derivatives contracts".
Both represent exclusions to the general rule of subjecting all commodity derivatives contracts traded on any type of trading venue that can be physical settled to financial market infrastructure and equally, both were added at later stages of the MiFID II legislative process.
MiFID II Annex I Section C6 Financial instruments
"Options, futures, swaps, and any other derivative contract relating to commodities that can be physically settled provided that they are traded on a regulated market, a MTF, or an OTF, except for wholesale energy products as defined in Article 2 paragraph 4 of Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011 traded on an OTF that must be physically settled"
Section C6 of Annex I excludes wholesale energy products within the scope of REMIT that are traded on an OTF and that must be physically settled. Therefore, these excluded wholesale energy products do not qualify as financial instruments and are consequently outside the scope of MiFID, EMIR and the CRD IV package ("REMIT carve-out").
It needs to be underlined that wholesale energy products as defined in REMIT in order to remain outside MiFID II must be physically settled (Level 2 measure sets out detail on this).
The reason for exclusion of wholesale energy contracts covered under the Regulation on the integrity and transparency of the wholesale energy markets (REMIT) from the scope of financial instruments was that these contracts "are subject to a certain level of regulation and supervision comparable with financial markets legislation and so their exclusion is justified as a proportional amendment to avoid unnecessary dual regulation" (at least MEMO/14/305 explains the issue in this way).
Indeed, REMIT created almost entirely self-standing legal framework for specifically designated scope of products and, in the absence of the REMIT carve-out, these measures would be, at least partially, overlapping.
This argument does not equally apply to the second exclusion (for coal and oil - so-called "C6 energy derivatives contracts"), for which decisive occurred the lacking clearing habits and the need for smooth transition. Thus, the transitional provision was foreseen, under which competent authorities are able to exempt from certain EMIR requirements non-financial counterparties' oil and coal derivatives which are traded on an OTF and must be physically settled (i.e C6 energy derivatives contracts).
C6 energy derivatives contracts' under MiFID II mean options, futures, swaps, and any other derivative contracts mentioned in Section C6 of Annex I relating to coal or oil that are traded on an OTF and must be physically settled.
Article 95 MiFID II
1. Until 3 January 2021:
(a) the clearing obligation set out in Article 4 of Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 and the risk mitigation techniques set out in Article11(3) thereof shall not apply to C6 energy derivative contracts entered into by non-financial counterparties that meet the conditions in Article 10(1) of Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 or by non-financial counterparties that shall be authorised for the first time as investment firms as from 3 January 2018; and
(b) such C6 energy derivative contracts shall not be considered to be OTC derivative contracts for the purposes of the clearing threshold set out in Article 10 of Regulation (EU) No 648/2012. C6 energy derivative contracts benefiting from the transitional regime set out in the first subparagraph shall be subject to all other requirements laid down in Regulation (EU) No 648/2012.
2. The exemption referred to in paragraph 1 shall be granted by the relevant competent authority. The competent authority shallnotify ESMA of the C6 energy derivative contracts which have been granted an exemption in accordance with paragraph 1 and ESMA shall publish on its website a list of those C6 energy derivative contracts.
The increased significance of C6 energy derivatives contracts under MiFID 2 is involved with the fact that in the transitional period after the entry into force of the MiFID II Directive, until 3 January 2021:
(a) the clearing obligation set out in Article 4 of Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 (EMIR) and EMIR collateralisation requirement will not apply to C6 energy derivative contracts entered into:
- by non-financial counterparties below the EMIR clearing threshold, or
- by non-financial counterparties that will be authorised for the first time as investment firms as from the date of entry into application of the Directive; and
(b) such C6 energy derivative contracts will not be considered OTC derivative contracts for the purposes of the EMIR clearing threshold (Article 95 MiFID II).
It needs to be stressed these C6 energy derivative contracts benefiting from the above-mentioned transitional regime will be subject to all other applicable EMIR requirements - other than the collateralisation risk mitigation techniques as well as the EMIR reporting requirement.
For further remarks on regulatory framework for C6 energy derivatives contracts, in particular, how to interpret their scope, see here.
It follows, special treatment for commodity derivatives traded on a regulated markets, MTFs and OTFs after entry into force of MiFID II Directive has been reserved for OTF-traded and physically-settled:
1) oil,
2) coal,
3) wholesale energy products defined in REMIT.
It is, however, noteworthy, as opposite to the "REMIT carve-out" (REMIT-defined wholesale energy products), which has a permanent, unconditional and comprehensive character, exemption for oil and coal:
1) is conditional (exemption can be granted by the relevant competent authority),
2) is temporary (untill 3 January 2021),
3) has limited extent (refers only to exhaustively-listed EMIR provisions),
4) as opposite to REMIT carve-out, still leaves C6 energy derivatives contracts categorised in the scope of financial instruments - which entails being subject to other MiFID II provisions, position limits including.
MiFIR recitals accentuate that the technical standards specifying the clearing obligation in accordance with EMIR must take transitional exemption for C6 energy derivative contracts into account and do not impose a clearing obligation on derivative contracts captured.
The national competent authority has to notify ESMA of the C6 energy derivative contracts, which have been granted an exemption in accordance with the above provisions. ESMA's task is to subsequently list exempted instruments on the ESMA's website.
Article 90(4) MIFID II
By 1 January 2019 the Commission shall prepare a report, after consulting ESMA and ACER, assessing the potential impact on energy prices and on the functioning of the energy market as well as the feasibility and the benefits in terms of reducing counterparty and systemic risks and the direct costs of C6 energy derivative contracts being made subject to the clearing obligationset out in Article 4 of Regulation (EU) No 648/2012, the risk mitigation techniques set out in Article 11(3) thereof and their inclusion incalculating the clearing threshold pursuant to Article 10 thereof.
If the Commission considers that it would not be feasible and beneficial to include those contracts, it shall submit, if appropriate, a legislative proposal to the European Parliament and the Council. The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 89 of this Directive to extend the 42-month period referred to in Article 95(1) of this Directive once by two years and a further time by one year.
At the latest by 1 January 2019 the European Commission is required to prepare a report assessing the potential impact on energy prices and on the functioning of the energy market as well as the feasibility and the benefits in terms of reducing counterparty and systemic risks and the direct costs of C6 energy derivative contracts being made subject to the following EMIR provisions:
- the clearing obligation (Article 4), and
- the risk mitigation techniques (Article 11(3)), and
- inclusion in calculating the clearing threshold (Article 10).
If the Commission considers that it would not be feasible and beneficial to include these contracts, it will submit, if appropriate, a legislative proposal to the European Parliament and the Council.
The Commission will, moreover, be empowered to adopt delegated acts to extend the transitional period once by two years and once by one year (Article 90(4) MiFID II).
When the derivative contract "must be physically settled"?
The element that is common to both categories of OTF trading excluded from the general MiFID II rules i.e. the permanent exemption for REMIT wholesale energy products and the temporary exemption for oil and coal C6 energy derivatives contracts is they "must be physically settled".
Recital 10 of MiFID II gives only general indications for the precise meaning and scope of this expression, referencing to the delegated act and mandating to take into account "at least the creation of an enforceable and binding obligation to physically deliver, which cannot be unwound and with no right to cash settle or offset transactions except in the case of a force majeure event or other bona fide inability to settle physically.
Enforceable and binding obligation
An enforceable and binding obligation to physically deliver is considered to exist if the party to the contract entitled to receive the underlying commodity has an unrestricted and unconditional right to physical delivery.
It is also required, there must be no option for either party to the contract to replace physical delivery with cash settlement or to cancel out the contractual obligation for physical delivery by netting against other contractual obligations (see ESMA's Consultation Paper on MiFID/MiFIR of 22 May 2014 (ESMA/2014/549), p. 279).
Broad range of delivery methodologies
The term "physically settled" is interpreted by the European financial regulator to incorporate a broad range of delivery methodologies including:
i. physical delivery of the relevant goods themselves;
ii. delivery of a document giving rights of an ownership nature to the relevant goods or the relevant quantity of the goods concerned (such as a bill of lading or a warehouse warrant); or
iii. another method of bringing about the transfer of rights of an ownership nature in relation to the relevant quantity of goods without physically delivering them (including notification, scheduling or nomination to the operator of an energy supply network) that entitles the recipient to the relevant quantity of the goods.
Operational netting
The technique for "operational netting" as a specific form of settlement in power and gas markets does not prevent a contract from being considered as "must be physically settled".
The European financial regulators' view is the performance of such practices in energy markets is not in itself the sole determinant for the application of financial regulation (see ESMA's Technical Advice to the Commission on MiFID II and MiFIR of 19 December 2014, ESMA /2014/1569, p. 403).
However, in order to remain beyond the scope of financial regulation operational netting must be understood as a process required by the rules or requests of a Transmission System Operator (TSO) or an entity performing an equivalent function at the national level which must not be at the discretion of the parties to the contract.
Operational netting is handled in different ways in different Member States of the European Union, however, there is the number of features common, which clearly delineate this process from other offsetting.
These key distinctive characteristics of the operational netting in the power and gas markets include:
- a third party, such as a TSO, requires the parties to the contract to net the flows at the point of delivery for operational efficiency and balancing of network capacity,
- the participants have to have all operational arrangements and approvals in place to make and take physical delivery as though it were taking place on a gross basis,
- nominations to the TSO happen on a net basis for administrative convenience rather in accordance with the instructions and operational rules of the TSOs,
- operational arrangements do not involve the netting of contracts or transactions, which remain separate and provide for transfer of title.
The significant observation is, moreover, operational netting of power and gas contracts still results in physical delivery, albeit on a net basis, by contrast, contracts not for physical settlement are characterised as those which do not require entering into contractual arrangements with system operators, registering of contracts with system operators, submitting of schedules and are not subject to balancing rules.
Overall, it appears operational netting will not be on the collision course with MiFID II new rules for physically settled commodity derivatives.
Force majeure clauses and other bona fide inability to perform
ESMA notes in the case of force majeure that no instrument can be a 100% accurately described as "must be physically settled", as practically all instruments appear to contain such force majeure provisions that would prevent physical delivery.
Therefore ESMA considers that the existence of force majeure provisions should not prevent a contract from being characterised as "must be physically settled" for the purposes of further specifying wholesale energy products under Section C6 and C6 energy derivative contracts.
The same applies to other bona fide inability to perform the contract on a physical settlement basis.
The above assumptions took the form of legal language in Article 5 and Recitals 3 and 4 of the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/565 of 25 April 2016 supplementing Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards organisational requirements and operating conditions for investment firms and defined terms for the purposes of that Directive.
This thread is further commented upon in the separate article: Contracts that must be physically settled" under the MiFID II framework.
Commodity derivatives 'having the characteristics of other derivative financial instruments'
Criteria for differrentiating commodity derivatives traded outside regulated markets, MTFs, and OTFs are described in the separate article: Commodity derivatives having the characteristics of other derivative financial instruments.
MiFID II carbon credits' treatment
Emission allowances are brought within the scope of financial instruments and MiFID II (for details see here), however, certain exemptions are available:
1) exemption for EU ETS operators;
2) MiFID II ancillary activity (or "commodity derivatives trader") exemption - Article 2(1)(j).
MiFID II, however, does not contain an exemption for firms specialising in professional emissions trading on own account, consequently, such emissions brokers which are not licensed under MiFID will be squeezed out of the market.
Effects of subjecting derivatives market participants to MiFID II requirements
When the conditions for MiFID II exemptions are not fulfiled it means falling within the scope of MiFID II, which, among others, results in authorisation requirements, being subject to the trading and clearing obligation, potentially being subject to prudential requirements under CRD IV and the application of multiple orher regulatory restrictions.
The regulatory impact have been shortly assessed in the ESMA's Discussion Paper on MiFID II/MiFIR of 22 May 2014, ESMA/2014/548 and the below remarks refer thereto.
Capital requirements
If firms cannot make use of an exemption under MiFID II, capital requirements under the new banking regulatory framework will apply to them.
The CRR (Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on prudential requirements for credit institutions and investment firms and amending Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 imposes quantitative requirements and disclosure obligations pursuant to Basel III recommendations on credit institutions and investment firms, including own funds definition, minimum own funds requirements and liquidity requirements.
However, under Article 498 (1) of CRR some commodity dealers falling within the scope of MiFID II are transitionally exempt from the CRR's provisions on own funds requirements until 31 December 2020 if their main business consists exclusively of providing investment services or activities relating to commodity derivatives (for details see CRR commodity dealers exemption).
Clearing thresholds
Moreover, investment firms falling within the scope of MiFID II will be considered to be financial counterparties rather than non-financial counterparties under Article 2(8) EMIR.
Therefore, they will not be able to benefit from the clearing thresholds easement available to the latter under Article 10 EMIR.
Clearing hedging exemption
Hedging exemption under EMIR is not available for financial counterparties.
Trading obligation
An additional consequence of being classified as a financial counterparty will be that the trading obligation (i.e. the obligation to trade derivatives which are subject to the clearing obligation and sufficiently liquid on certain trading venues only, cf. Article 28 MiFIR) would apply in full without being subject to a threshold (besides financial counterparties trading obligation applies also to NFCs+).
For firms that will fall under MiFID II it is also worth keeping in mind that the hedging exemption in relation to the position limits regime will only apply to non-financial entities as Article 57(1) of MiFID II states that position limits shall not apply to positions held by or on behalf of a non-financial entity which are objectively measurable as reducing risks directly related to the commercial activity of that non-financial entity.
Pre-trade transparency
Preceding remark applies also to pre-trade transparency requirements - derivative transactions of non-financial counterparties which are objectively measurable as reducing risks directly related to commercial activity or treasury financing activity of the non-financial counterparty or of the group are not subject to pre-trade transparency requirements in accordance with Article 8(1) MiFIR.
Regulatory uncertainties relating to physically settled commodity derivatives under MiFID I
UK FCA statement of 11 September 2013:
"Physically settled gas and power forwards that are traded on multilateral trading facilities (MTFs) are 'financial instruments' for the purposes of MiFID, and 'OTC derivatives' or 'OTC derivative contracts' for the purposes of EMIR."
Clear and uniform regulatory set-up for physically-settled commodity forwards, as implemented through the MiFID II, can't be overestimated.
Under MiFID I in application until 3 January 2018 the situation is more complex.
When someone refers for instance to the UK FCA statement of 11 September 2013 (classifying the physically-settled commodity forwards traded on MTFs as 'financial instruments' for the purposes of MiFID I, and 'OTC derivatives' or 'OTC derivative contracts' for the purposes of EMIR) or to the ESMA letter to the European Commission of 14 February 2014 acknowledging that the different transpositions of MiFID across EU Member States mean that 'there is no single, commonly adopted definition of derivative or derivative contract in the European Union', there should be no doubt that the regulatory intervention, as implemented in MiFID II, was extremely needed.
ESMA letter to the European Commission of 14 February 2014 on physically settled commodity forwards:
"With reference to physically settled commodity forwards, it should be noted that the interpretation and application of definitions in points 6 and 7 of Section C of Annex I to MIFID (C6 and C7) is not convergent across the EU. These definitions have given rise to the following queries:
a. C7 explicitly applies to "futures" and "forwards" whereas C6 omits any reference to forwards.
Consequently, there are divergent views with regard to whether physical forwards traded on a regulated market or a MTF fall within MiFID's scope.
b. C6 and C7 apply to instruments which can be "physically settled". However, "physically settled" is not a defined term under MiFID. Further, C5 refers to instruments that "must be settled in cash or may be settled in cash at the option of one of the parties" whereas C6 and C7 refer to instruments that "can be physically settled".
Consequently, determining what is meant by can, may and must be physically settled should be considered for the identification of the contracts that fall within the definition of derivatives.
Contracts under point a. above and for which the definitions under point b. are relevant, are not clearly identified as derivatives across the Union."
The European Commission letter of 26 February 2014 to ESMA on this issue (Markt/G3/PO/or/(2014) s. 510569) practically postpones the wind-up of the problem till the MiFID II implementing acts, which means we will face the regulatory uncertainty until 3 January 2018 (i.e. the MiFID II entry into force).
MiFID II Articles 90(4), 95, Annex I Section C6
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/565 of 25 April 2016 supplementing Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards organisational requirements and operating conditions for investment firms and defined terms for the purposes of that Directive, Article 5, Recitals 3 and 4
ESMA's Consultation Paper on MiFID/MiFIR of 22 May 2014 (ESMA/2014/549), p. 279
ESMA's Technical Advice to the Commission on MiFID II and MiFIR of 19 December 2014, ESMA /2014/1569, p. 403
ACER's Recommendation No 01/2015 of 17 March 2015 on the regime applying to the derivative contracts referred to in Section C.6 of Annex I of MiFID II which have the characteristics of wholesale energy products that must be physically settled according to Article 4(1)(2), second subparagraph, and Article 89 of MiFID II
CEER (Council of European Energy Regulators) letter of 19 March 2015 to the European Commission
CEER Press Release (PR-15-05) of 20 April 2015
UK FCA statement of 11 September 2013
ESMA letter to the European Commission of 14 February 2014
European Commission letter of 26 February 2014 to ESMA on this issue (Markt/G3/PO/or/(2014) s. 510569)
Commission Delegated Regulation of 18 May 2016 - relaxed legal corset on energy traders
Last Updated on Thursday, 20 April 2017 21:42
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Sam Smith Wins Favorite Male Artist at 2014 American Music Awards
North American Tour Kicks off January 9
SAM SMITH WINS FAVORITE MALE ARTIST – POP/ROCK AWARD AT 2014 AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS
Smith Performs On “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” On December 1
“I’m Not The Only One,” The Follow-Up To His Breakthrough Hit “Stay With Me,”
Marks Smith’s Third Top 10 Hit On Billboard’s Hot 100 In 2014
North American Tour Kicks Off January 9 And Includes Soul Out Shows
At NYC’s Madison Square Garden And The Forum In Los Angeles
HOLLYWOOD, CA – Sam Smith continues his winning streak, taking Favorite Male Artist – Pop/Rock honors at the 2014 American Music Awards. In the past month, the acclaimed British artist has won the VH1 2014 You Oughta Know Artist Of The Year award and a Q award, and swept the MOBO Awards with wins in four categories. He will perform on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” next Monday, December 1.
“I’m Not the Only One,” his new single, has entered the Top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100, marking Smith’s third Top 10 hit this year, a feat unrivaled by any other male artist in 2014. It follows his 4x multi-Platinum breakthrough hit, “Stay With Me,” which was played across eight radio formats and climbed to No. 1 at five formats.
In The Lonely Hour (Capitol Records), his first full-length album, made chart history in the U.S., selling more copies in its first week of release than any other U.K. male artist debut in the 23-year history of SoundScan, and bowing at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. It entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 1. The Associated Press gave the album a “Grade A,” hailing it as “a passionate, heart-wrenching album,” and The Washington Post observed, “‘In the Lonely Hour’ shows off every facet of Smith's voice to goose pimple-raising effect.”
Smith will return to the U.S. in January 2015 for his third North American headline tour in less than a year. The arena and theatre run includes a concert at Madison Square Garden that sold out in minutes and a two-night stand The Forum in Los Angeles.
SAM SMITH ARENA/THEATRE TOUR 2015
January 9 Atlanta, Ga. Fox Theatre
January 10 Nashville, Tenn. Grand Ole Opry House
January 12 Fairfax, Va. Patriot Center
January 13 Philadelphia, Pa. The Liacouras Center
January 15 New York, N.Y. Madison Square Garden
January 17 Boston, Mass. Agganis Arena
January 19 Montreal, QC Bell Centre
January 20 Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre
January 22 Detroit, Mich. Masonic Temple Theatre
January 23 Chicago, Ill. UIC Pavilion
January 24 St. Paul, Minn. Roy Wilkins Auditorium
January 26 Broomfield, Colo. 1st Bank Center
January 29 Los Angeles, Calif. The Forum
January 31 San Francisco, Calif. Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
February 2 Seattle, Wash. Key Arena
February 4 Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena
Bass Player LIVE! 2014 Announces Artist Additions
TRENDING: Sam Smith, Disclosure Premiere “Omen” Video
Lorde Announces North American Tour Dates For Fall 2014
Initial Artist Line-Up Announced For CMJ Music Marathon 2014
The Struts Named On The Verge Artist For iHeartRadio
AES Educational Foundation Announces Awards for 2014
2014 Billboard Music Awards Announce Finalists
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German mayor known for liberal migrant policy stabbed
Tuesday 28 November 2017 - 10:40am
Andreas Hollstein, Mayor, City of Stadt Altena, speaks at The 2017 Concordia Annual Summit at Grand Hyatt New York on September 18, 2017 in New York City.
BERLIN - The conservative mayor of a small town in western Germany who is known for his liberal migrant policy was stabbed in the neck at a snack stand on Monday evening and seriously hurt.
A man who witnessed the attack in the town of Altena told German television that a man, probably under the influence of alcohol, stabbed the mayor in the neck with a 30 cm long knife while shouting criticism of his asylum policy.
"The security authorities believe that there was a political motive to this attack," said Armin Laschet, premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
READ: Taxi driver stabs policeman to death: police
The attacker was arrested and state prosecutors in Hagen are investigating attempted murder, media reported.
Nobody was immediately available at the prosecutors office.
The 57-year-old mayor, Andreas Hollstein, who has written a book about his fight against the far-right, was badly hurt but was treated in hospital and has said he is back home with his family.
Under his leadership, the town of Altena has taken in more refugees than it was allocated.
READ: A rare lifeline for migrant children in South Africa
Chancellor Angela Merkel and many other politicians have expressed their shock at the attack.
"I am horrified by the knife attack on the mayor Andreas Hollstein - and very relieved that he can already be back with his family. Thanks also to those who helped him," Merkel said via her spokesperson on Twitter.
The attack is reminiscent of the stabbing two years ago of a candidate for mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, in an anti-refugee attack. She was seriously hurt but went on to win the election and become mayor.
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Michigan State faces another big hurdle with Nick Ward out indefinitely
Michigan State found a way to get a win on Sunday with Nick Ward sitting on the bench for the bulk of the second half.
Michigan State faces another big hurdle with Nick Ward out indefinitely Michigan State found a way to get a win on Sunday with Nick Ward sitting on the bench for the bulk of the second half. Check out this story on detroitnews.com: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/michigan-state-university/2019/02/17/michigan-state-faces-another-big-hurdle-nick-ward-out-indefinitely/2899372002/
Matt Charboneau, The Detroit News Published 6:44 p.m. ET Feb. 17, 2019 | Updated 8:44 p.m. ET Feb. 17, 2019
Michigan State's Cassius Winston, Matt McQuaid, Kenny Goins and Xavier Tillman talk about the win over Ohio State. The Detroit News
Michigan State's Nick Ward, his injured hand wrapped in tape, reacts on the bench during the second half of the Spartans' win. (Photo: Al Goldis, AP)
East Lansing – Michigan State found a way to get a win on Sunday with Nick Ward sitting on the bench for the bulk of the second half.
Now Michigan State will have to see how it fares with the junior center being out an indefinite amount of time as the team announced on Sunday evening that X-rays showed Ward suffered a hairline fracture in his left hand during No. 11 Michigan State’s 62-44 victory over Ohio State at Breslin Center.
“They felt like he might have dislocated a finger or something here,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. “I won’t know until they go through all the medical procedures, but it was a problem for us in the second half.”
The tests confirmed that problem will likely persist for at least the immediate future. In a statement released after the game, it says there is no timetable for Ward’s return and that he will be evaluated on a weekly basis with the hope he’ll return before the end of the season.
The loss of Ward comes at a critical time for Michigan State (21-5, 12-3). With just five games left in the regular season, the Spartans are tied for first place in the Big Ten with Michigan. The rivals face each other in Ann Arbor next Sunday, a game Ward almost certainly won’t play in. They square off one more time in the regular-season finale on March 9 in East Lansing.
Michigan State is already playing without junior guard Joshua Langford, who had season-ending surgery on his foot two weeks ago. He played in just two Big Ten games.
Ward scored nine points and grabbed six rebounds on Sunday, but all his points and four of the rebounds came in the first half when Ward played almost 16 minutes. The injury occurred at some point late in the half, though Izzo wasn’t clear on when or how it happened.
“Late in the first half, I guess,” Izzo said. “I didn't even see it. I don't know if he fell or he got hit on a rebound but when they came in… On the bench they said he hurt his hand and … it was hurting then, and they thought there was something wrong then. I don't know how many minutes left in the half, but not many.”
The training staff worked on Ward in the locker room and the 6-foot-9 center came back on the court just before the second half began. He was replaced by Xavier Tillman to start the half, but less than a minute in Tillman picked up his third foul and Ward checked in.
He lasted just 1:27 and asked to come out of the game. Trainers continued to work on the hand and with just more than 15 minutes to play, Ward asked to go back in the game. He did, playing another 2:03 before sitting the rest of the game.
“We thought maybe he could go,” Izzo said, “but he just felt like he couldn't go much.”
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo discusses Sunday's win over Ohio State. The Detroit News
With Tillman battling foul trouble, it led to more extending playing time for freshman Thomas Kithier, who had two points and three rebounds in 10 minutes.
“We got a lot out of Kithier,” Izzo said. “He'll sleep well tonight. His 10 minutes will be like an hour of work.”
Those minutes will almost certainly increase now as Kithier likely joins the frontcourt rotation with Tillman and Kenny Goins. Freshman Marcus Bingham Jr. could also be called on for regular minutes.
Season low
Michigan State is seventh in the nation in defensive efficiency and leads the Big Ten in field-goal percentage defense.
It was that play that helped the Spartans overcome a difficult offensive game as they held Ohio State to 44 points, including just 13 in the second half. That’s the fewest points Michigan State has allowed in a half all season while the Buckeyes were just 4-for-21 (.190) shooting in the second half and didn’t make a basket for the final 7:40.
“At halftime I think everybody made a commitment that we have to guard better,” Izzo said, “because we're going to have days where the ball doesn't go in. The better we guarded, the better our break went and the better the ball went in a little bit.”
Michigan State 62, Ohio State 44
Michigan State's Kenny Goins, grabs a rebound against Ohio State's Andre Wesson during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Sunday, Feb. 17, 2019, in East Lansing, Mich. At left is Michigan State's Kyle Ahrens. Michigan State won 62-44. Al Goldis, AP
Cassius Winston #5 of the Michigan State Spartans celebrates from the sidelines during a game against the Ohio State Buckeyes in the second half. Rey Del Rio, Getty Images
Ohio State's Kaleb Wesson, right, shoots and draws a foul against Michigan State's Xavier Tillman during the first half. Al Goldis, AP
Michigan State's Cassius Winston, left, drives against Ohio State's Kaleb Wesson during the first half. Al Goldis, AP
Ohio State's Kaleb Wesson, top, works against Michigan State's Nick Ward during the first half. Al Goldis, AP
Kyle Ahrens of the Michigan State Spartans shoots the ball over Luther Muhammad of the Ohio State Buckeyes in the first half. Rey Del Rio, Getty Images
Michigan State's Nick Ward (44) goes up for a dunk against Ohio State's Justin Ahrens (10) and Andre Wesson (24) during the first half. Al Goldis, AP
Kaleb Wesson #34 of the Ohio State Buckeyes blocks the shot of Nick Ward #44 of the Michigan State Spartans in the first half. Rey Del Rio, Getty Images
Cassius Winston #5 of the Michigan State Spartans shoots the ball while defended by C.J. Jackson #3 and Andre Weeson #24 of the Ohio State Buckeyes in the first half. Rey Del Rio, Getty Images
Cassius Winston #5 of the Michigan State Spartans drives to the basket while defended by Kaleb Wesson #34 of the Ohio State Buckeyes in the first half. Rey Del Rio, Getty Images
Andre Weeson #24 of the Ohio State Buckeyes battles for a loose ball against Kenny Goins #25 of the Michigan State Spartans in the second half. Rey Del Rio, Getty Images
Michigan State's Kenny Goins, right, draws a charging foul against Ohio State's Musa Jallow (2) as Michigan State's Thomas Kithier, left, defends during the second half. Al Goldis, AP
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo gives instructions during the second half. Al Goldis, AP
Head coach Chris Holtmann of the Ohio State Buckeyes reacts as his team plays the Michigan State Spartans in the first half. Rey Del Rio, Getty Images
Thomas Kithier #15 of the Michigan State Spartans grabs a rebound in the second half. Rey Del Rio, Getty Images
Luther Muhammad #1 of the Ohio State Buckeyes shoots the ball and draws a foul from Matt McQuaid #20 of the Michigan State Spartans in the second half. Rey Del Rio, Getty Images
Michigan State's Cassius Winston (5) shoots against Ohio State's Musa Jallow during the second half. Al Goldis, AP
Michigan State's Nick Ward, right, talks with Joshua Langford, center, and Jack Hoiberg, left, while on the bench during the second half. Al Goldis, AP
Jack Hoiberg #10 of the Michigan State Spartans celebrates his made basket during a game against the Ohio State Buckeyes in the second half. Rey Del Rio, Getty Images
Kaleb Wesson scored 12 points and was the only Buckeye in double figures. Guard C.J. Jackson had scored in double figures in six straight games but scored just eight while forward Andre Wesson had reached double figures in the last three games before scoring four on Sunday.
“We've just got to keep taking good shots,” Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann said. “I think you give Michigan State credit, too, for how they defended, particularly in the second half, but really throughout the game.”
Slam dunks
Michigan State senior Kenny Goins had 10 points and 10 rebounds for his fourth career double-double. All have come this season, including in games against Kansas (17 points, 11 rebounds), Iowa (19,14) and Maryland (14, 12).
… Senior Matt McQuaid didn't turn the ball over for the seventh straight game.
mcharboneau@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @mattcharboneau
Tigers' 12-run, 19-hit barrage tempered by another rough outing by Zimmermann
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The burning question as Tigers' Daniel Norris begins second half: Is there more?
How the Black Sox World Series-fixing scandal unfolded 100 years ago
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Astronomers map a record-breaking 1.2 million galaxies to study the secrets of dark energy
Astronomers announced this week the sharpest results yet on the properties of dark energy -- hundreds of scientists from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III collaborated to make the largest-ever, 3-D map of distant galaxies
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC)
IMAGE: This is a section of the three-dimensional map constructed by BOSS. The rectangle on the far left shows a cutout of 1000 sq. degrees in the sky containing nearly 120,000... view more
Credit: Jeremy Tinker and SDSS-III.
Astronomers announced this week the sharpest results yet on the properties of dark energy. Hundreds of scientists, among them Marcos Pellejero Ibañez and Jose Alberto Rubiño from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), and other Spanish institutions as the Instituto de Ciencias del Cosmos from the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Instituto de Física Teórica (UAM-CSIC) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III), collaborated to make the largest-ever, three-dimensional map of distant galaxies. The scientists then used this map to make one of the most precise measurements yet of the dark energy currently driving the accelerated expansion of the Universe.
"We have spent a decade collecting measurements of 1.2 million galaxies over one quarter of the sky to map out the structure of the Universe over a volume of 650 cubic billion light years," says Dr. Jeremy Tinker of New York University, a co-leader of the scientific team that led this effort. "This map has allowed us to make the best measurements yet of the effects of dark energy in the expansion of the Universe. We are making our results and map available to the world."
These new measurements were carried out by the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) program of SDSS-III. Shaped by a continuous tug-of-war between dark matter and dark energy, the map revealed by BOSS allows astronomers to measure the expansion rate of the Universe and thus determine the amount of matter and dark energy that make up the present-day Universe. A collection of papers describing these results was submitted this week to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
BOSS measures the expansion rate of the Universe by determining the size of the baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the three-dimensional distribution of galaxies. The original BAO size is determined by pressure waves that travelled through the young Universe up to when it was only 400,000 years old (the Universe is presently 13.8 billion years old), at which point they became frozen in the matter distribution of the Universe. The end result is that galaxies are preferentially separated by a characteristic distance, that astronomers call the acoustic scale. The size of the acoustic scale at 13.4 billion years ago has been exquisitely determined from observations of the cosmic microwave background from the light emitted when the pressure waves became frozen. Measuring the distribution of galaxies since that time allows astronomers to measure how dark matter and dark energy have competed to govern the rate of expansion of the Universe.
To measure the size of these ancient giant waves to such sharp precision, BOSS had to make an unprecedented and ambitious galaxy map, many times larger than previous surveys. At the time the BOSS program was planned, dark energy had been previously determined to significantly influence the expansion of the Universe starting about 5 billion years ago. BOSS was thus designed to measure the BAO feature from before this point (7 billion years ago) out to near the present day (2 billion years ago).
The map also reveals the distinctive signature of the coherent movement of galaxies toward regions of the Universe with more matter, due to the attractive force of gravity. Crucially, the observed amount of infall is explained well by the predictions of general relativity. This agreement supports the idea that the acceleration of the expansion rate is driven by a phenomenon at the largest cosmic scales, such as dark energy, rather than a breakdown of our gravitational theory.
New methodology
Marcos Pellejero Ibañez, doctoral student at the IAC, and José Alberto Rubiño, researcher at the same center, along with Chia-Hsun Chuang, from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics, have devised a new method for extracting cosmological BOSS data. Considering the cosmic microwave background and three-dimensional map of galaxies from BOSS to infer the cosmological parameters with minimal assumptions about dark energy, tested different models of the dark energy and confirmed that the used in the last 18 years, based on Einstein's cosmological constant, fits naturally.
"While it is computationally complex, we have shown that it is possible to do a thorough analysis combining these two cosmological observations and using increasingly complex evolutionary models of the Universe", explains Pellejero. Rubiño also adds that "the combination of these two sets of exceptional data (the Planck satellite and BOSS) has also enabled us to establish the best cosmological bounds about the sum of the masses of the three families of neutrinos and their relative contribution to the overall density of matter".
More information about this methodology in this article: "The clustering of galaxies in the completed SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: double-probe measurements from BOSS galaxy clustering & Planck data - towards an analysis without informative priors": http://arxiv.org/abs/1607.03152
Main article: "The clustering of galaxies in the completed SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: cosmological analysis of the DR12 galaxy sample". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.03155
Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. The SDSS-III web site is http://www.sdss3.org/.
SDSS-III is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS?III Collaboration including the University of Arizona, the Brazilian Participation Group, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Florida, the French Participation Group, the German Participation Group, Harvard University, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, the Michigan State/Notre Dame/JINA Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, New Mexico State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the Spanish Participation Group, University of Tokyo, University of Utah, Vanderbilt University, University of Virginia, University of Washington, and Yale University.
Elena Mora
emora@iac.es
http://www.iac.es/?lang=en
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
COMETS/ASTEROIDS
PLANETS/MOONS
SATELLITE MISSIONS/SHUTTLES
SPACE/PLANETARY SCIENCE
STARS/THE SUN
Map of the Large-Scale Structure of the Universe (IMAGE)
Section of the 3-D Map Constructed by BOSS (IMAGE)
http://www.iac.es/divulgacion.php?op1=16&id=1106〈=en
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Published: 07:00 January 3, 2018
Home EU MEMBER STATES BULGARIA Bulgaria president vetoes anti-graft bill
Bulgaria president vetoes anti-graft bill
PHOTO BY: Flickr/NATO/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
“I believe that the adopted law not only does not create an adequate legal basis for tackling corruption but will even make it difficult to fight it,” President Rumen Radev said in a statement.
A draft law aimed at fighting corruption was vetoed by President Rumen Radev on January 2. He said the bill would be ineffective.
Radev’s veto came one day after Bulgaria, the European Union’s poorest country, assumed the six-month, rotating presidency of the bloc for the first time since it joined the EU in 2007.
As reported by the Reuters news agency, the bill, which was approved by the parliament on December 20, entailed the creation of a special anti-graft unit meant to investigate persons occupying high public office as well as assets and conflicts of interest.
But analysts said the unit’s objectivity could be limited by the fact its management would be appointed by parliament under the legislation, and it therefore might not be truly independent and could be used by those in power to persecute opponents.
“I believe that the adopted law not only does not create an adequate legal basis for tackling corruption but will even make it difficult to fight it,” Radev, who was elected in November 2016, said in a statement.
Kornelia Ninova, leader of the main opposition Socialist Party, endorsed Radev’s veto saying it gave “a golden chance” for the government and its majority in parliament to produce effective anti-corruption legislation.
According to Reuters, Bulgaria made scant progress towards stamping out graft and organised crime, and the European Commission has repeatedly rebuked the Black Sea country for failing to prosecute and sentence allegedly corrupt officials.
Bulgaria is the EU’s most corrupt country, according to Transparency International.
Corruption has deterred foreign investment since communism collapsed in Bulgaria in 1989, and the EU has kept Sofia as well as neighbouring Romania – for the same rule-of-law failings – outside its Schengen zone of passport-free travel.
In a separate report, the BBC noted that the president’s decision to veto the bill is embarrassing for Bulgaria. It was hoped this would get the issue off the political agenda before Bulgaria took over the EU presidency, BBC central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe says.
Bulgaria’s governing centre-right coalition has not yet commented on the president’s move.
anti=corruption
Kornelia Ninova
Rumen Radev
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In reversal, Independence OKs utility 'smart meters'
Mike Genet mike.genet@examiner.net @GenetEJC
There will be digital smart meters for Independence utility customers, after all.
In an out-of-the-blue scenario, a City Council majority Monday approved entering into a contract with Core & Main to install advanced metering infrastructure – more popularly known as smart meters.
Core & Main and Honeywell had both been turned down two weeks ago by 5-2 votes. They offered two different types of systems, but Core & Main’s had been the first choice for city staff and the Public Utilities Advisory Board from the beginning.
The $29.45 million Core & Main contract had not been on Monday's agenda. Council Member Curt Dougherty, who had voted for the Honeywell contract, reintroduced the agenda item, and Scott Roberson, who had preferred Core & Main from the beginning, seconded the motion. Dougherty said later that he and Roberson had talked about bringing up the matter again, knowing both had similar views on the possible benefits to the city.
“He wanted one vendor, I wanted another; we both think it's the right thing to do,” Dougherty said, adding that he went with Core & Main “in the spirit of compromise.”
The city's aim with smart meters is to save money. According to latest estimates the city could realize a net savings of $44 million over 15 years with the Core & Main deal, break even in about eight years and cut 15 full-time positions. With the Honeywell deal, 15-year savings project to be about $40.5 million, with a break-even point in nine years and 14 positions cut.
“Is this a rehash of what we buried two weeks ago?” Council Member Tom Van Camp asked before the vote, to which Dougherty said yes.
He and Roberson voted yes, as did John Perkins – a no vote on both counts two weeks ago – and Mayor Eileen Weir, who had voted yes on both counts. Van Camp, Mike Huff and Karen DeLuccie voted no Monday.
Perkins asked to confirm that the council's resolution from two weeks ago that any contract negotiation include an opt-out policy, meaning in many cases a customer can refused to have it installed at his home.
“We've discussed this for four years, spent half a million on consultants and three engineering firms told us we should do this, and they have no dog in the fight,” Dougherty said. “This one's going to give the water guys the meter they wanted, and we get it all in one simpler contract.”
Roberson said that after he and Dougherty talked he would second the motion to bring back the contract, adding that he didn't talk about the matter with any other council members prior to the meeting.
In addition to being the less expensive contract, Core & Main offered more secure technology and boasts more experience installing smart meters, Roberson said.
“I think it is going to be a huge benefit to the city and the citizens,” he said. “In years down the road it could help us avoid rate increases. This will go beyond any of us on the council. It's a very far-sighted decision, and I'm glad enough of the council supported it.”
Weir said she didn't anticipate smart meters coming up for a vote again.
“I thought the matter was settled, and after all these years debating this issue people had their minds made up,” she said. “I said two weeks ago that I respect everybody's position, and I became convinced since we postponed it last April that this truly is the way to modernize the city and start realizing the cost benefits this technology will bring.”
“I know we have invested $500,000 of our citizens' money into this, and our time and energy into being advised on it, and every one said we should do this.”
Back in June 2015, the council had directed the city manager to explore the feasibility of smart meters. A request for proposals first went out in April 2017, but when Core & Main's contract first came up in that fall, the council punted on that decision, then turned it down in April 2018. The majority of council members cited further consideration for the best technology and implementation options as reasons for voting no. In August 2018, the council heard presentations from the five finalist vendors. Core & Main was the lone vendor to offer the point-to-point system, and Honeywell rated the highest for mesh systems.
Both Kansas City Power & Light and the Kansas City, Kansas Board of Public Utilities use smart meters, and Sugar Creek (which uses KCP&L) announced it will be installing them for water this spring.
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