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Amelia Curran Readies 'Watershed' LP, Premieres New Single
Amelia Curran last released a full-length album in 2014 with They Promised You Mercy, and she's finally revealed plans for the follow-up. Watershed will arrive on March 10 through Six Shooter Records.
The 11-song offering was recorded in Toronto over the summer and fall of 2016, and was co-produced by Curran and Chris Stringer. The new songs hear Curran further embracing her role as an advocate for mental health (she founded the St. John's-based It's Mental to provide education, service and support for those battling mental illness), fighting stigma and calling for "compassion and unification as a breakwater against the sea of cruelties we inflict upon each other, and upon ourselves."
"The root of advocacy is somewhere near exhaustion and rage," Curran said, expanding on the struggles that inspired the latest material. "I am tired and I am angry."
The full album has been prefaced with a new track titled "Gravity," which hears Curran delivering a feminist message atop horns and bass-heavy power chords, taking things in a grittier, rock'n'roll direction than we're used to hearing from the musician.
In addition to the new LP, 2017 will also see Curran deliver her first literary publication. Relics & Tunes collects lyrics and notes from the singer-songwriter herself into book form, and it will be released by Breakwater Books later this year.
Find the full tracklisting for Watershed down below, then hit play to give the brand new single "Gravity" a listen. You'll also find a series of tour dates below as well.
1. Move A Mile
2. Watershed
3. Sunday Bride
5. Come Back For Me
6. Act of Human Kindness
7. Stranger Things Have Happened
8. No More Quiet
9. Try
10. Every Woman Every Man
11. You Have Got Each Other
04/25 London, ON - Aeolian Hall *
04/26 Picton, ON - The Regent Theatre *
04/27 Peterborough, ON - Market Hall *
04/28 Ottawa, ON - National Arts Centre *
04/29 Creemore, ON - Avening Hall *
04/30 Ridgeway, ON - The Sanctuary *
05/02 Bayfield, ON - Old Town Hall *
05/03 Hamilton, ON - Hamilton Public Library *
05/13 Ottawa, ON - National Arts Centre ^
* with Donovan Woods, Hawksley Workman, Tim Baker
^ headlining show
More Amelia Curran
Amelia Curran
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by Ian McEwan
Previous ideaNext idea
credit: Annalena McAfee
Last month, as the earth passed close to the meteor shower known as the Perseid cloud, as it does every year, the following sentence appeared on the BBC news site. “Experts advise finding a dark location, away from artificial light, and an unobstructed view of the sky.”
These words are probably untrue (a serious matter for a news service), for no expert would stoop to such fatuous and condescending advice. Unintended comedy apart, this counsel encapsulates reasonable jitters pervading the BBC. It remains the brilliant, indispensable part of our national culture. But the vultures in the form of commercial media interests and their friends in government are circling. They aim to dispose of the indispensable. In response, the Corporation sometimes twists itself into apologetic postures of bland populism. You hear it in the dead of night, in the chirpy upbeat electronic jingles separating half-bite-sized news tidbits, and in the three note call signs and drumbeat messages dramatising the one fact you do not need to know: that you’re listening to the BBC World Service.
You hear it in the alteration of the simple, intimate format of the Reith lectures. Nothing wrong with the speakers (Atul Gawande last year, Stephen Hawking this) but the cheery stage management of a presenter, the jolly atmosphere of Roadshow, the pre-arranged interventions from the audience, or the earnest applause of Any Questions have downgraded a noble institution. The fear, I would guess, is that moron’s call, the charge of elitism. Stand your ground, BBC. Don’t duck – or the vultures will get you.
Ian McEwan is a bestselling novelist and Booker Prize-winning author
Why vote? We will feed in readers' favourite ideas to the government's consultation on the future of the BBC, and profile them heavily in the media. We believe the debate over the BBC's future is too narrow and focused on cuts - it's missing strong, positive ideas about what public broadcasting can and should be. By voting, you can have your say on what those ideas should be - and if you've got your own, share them with us→
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Home News Alton City Council bans kratom
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Alton City Council bans kratom
Alton City Council members passed a new ordinance Wednesday banning the possession and sale of the botanical substance, Mitragyna speciosa, commonly referred to as kratom.
According to an Alton Police Department press release, kratom is new to the area and sold in some stores locally, but the drug is not new. The Food and Drug Administration has been researching this substance for several years following claims the drug could help with opioid addiction, but no evidence to support those claims has been established. In fact, the FDA advised the drug has similar effects to narcotics like opioids and carries similar risks of abuse, addiction and, in some cases, death.
An FDA public health advisory about kratom released Nov. 14, 2017, says it is “a controlled substance in 16 countries, including two of its native countries of origin, Thailand and Malaysia, as well as Australia, Sweden and Germany. Kratom is also banned in several states, specifically Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Tennessee, and Wisconsin and several others have pending legislation to ban it.”
The exact verbiage of the ordinance is as follows:
Kratom Prohibited
7-15-1: PURPOSES: This chapter is enacted to protect, preserve and promote the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of the City of Alton by prohibiting the possession, distribution or delivery of any substance containing Kratom as hereinafter defined, it being the specific finding of the City of Alton that such substances have a dangerous effect upon anyone using said substances and have no practical medicinal or beneficial purposes.
7-15-2: DEFINITIONS: When used in this chapter, the following words have the meanings as hereinafter provided;
DELIVER: the actual, constructive, or attempted transfer from one person to another of Kratom, whether or not there is an agency relationship, and includes a sale;
DISTRIBUTE: to deliver other than by administering or dispensing Kratom;
KRATOM: includes any product, material, compound, mixture or preparation containing any quantity of the following substances having a stimulant effect on the central nervous system, 7-Hydroxymitragynine, Mitragynine, and Epicatechin;
POSSESS: means with the knowledge of the presence and nature of a substance, either actually or constructively to be in control of a substance. A person has actual possession if he has the substance on his person or within easy reach and convenient control. A person who, although not in actual possession, has the power and intention at a given time to exercise dominion or control over the substance either directly or through another person or persons is in constructive possession of it.
7-15-3: GENERAL PROHIBITION: It shall be unlawful for any person to possess, distribute or deliver any substance containing Kratom as defined in this chapter.
“The Alton Police support the City Council’s decision to ban kratom and will begin enforcement of this ordinance immediately,” the press release states.
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Alton featured
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Jaime Pressly defends her choice to call one of her kids her 'favorite'
She said her critics "need to relax."
Hayley FitzPatrick
Do parents really have a favorite child?Michael, Sara and Keke wonder if parents secretly have a stronger bond with one of their kids.Paul Archuleta/Getty Images, FILE
Jaime Pressly shared a post earlier this month that garnered some mixed responses from critics.
The actress and mother to 12-year-old son Dezi and 2-year-old twins Leo and Lenon posted a photo on Instagram with Dezi in which she described him as her "favorite son."
"That’s right I said it," she wrote in the caption of her post. "I have a favorite son although I luv all 3 of my boys with everything I have in me."
"Dez and I have a special bond that no one else will ever match because we’ve grown up together," she added.
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After receiving some mixed feedback on the post, the actress addressed some of her critics while appearing on "The Talk" earlier this week.
"I was just being honest...I mean, look, I love, like I said, all three of my boys, but the two little ones are twins and they're turning two tomorrow, so the 12-year-old is my favorite," she said.
"All three of my boys are my favorite for different reasons. But when it comes to, like, traveling on a plane... [the] 12-year-old? My favorite," she joked. "When it comes to dressing yourself, he can dress himself -- [the twins] they don't even know how to say 'shirt.'"
The actress also said those taking issue with her comments "need to relax."
"He's my favorite for many reasons, but that doesn't mean that I don't genuinely love all three of my boys," she said.
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CLASSES: Actors Lab with Christine Probst
by Erik Abbott | 23 Dec, 2016 | Actors, Blog - what we are up to, Classes, Uncategorized
Trust Truth!
Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg (Actors Rep) is excited to announce Actors Lab and Acting Classes with Christine Probst.
Laboratory: A safe place of experimenting, exploring, success, failure, imagination and fun.
Have you ever watched a play or a film and thought, ‘I don’t believe them!’ ?
Well. We are going to search for truth. At the actor’s core is truth, truth about the character and, more importantly, oneself. To find the truth of the character you must be confident in your own truth.
We will explore in weekly classes the actor’s truth. Truth in body, truth in voice and truth in being.
The classes are geared for every level and experience, ages 15 and up.
Progress is only possible through commitment — commitment to the classes, commitment to the work (in and out of the classes), commitment to the other members of the class, and commitment to yourself.
Requirements for the first class: a sturdy notebook — something you will love to use, everyday, and loose, comfortable clothing.
Beginning Tuesday, 24 January at Vedanza, 18 rue de Louvigny, L-1946, Luxembourg.
Classes continue 31 January, 7 February, 14 February, 28 February and 7 March (Tuesdays).
Classes meet from 7pm – 10pm.
Cost: € 300 (€ 50 discount if payment received by 3 January).
To register or for additional information, contact Erik Abbott at Actors Rep: ActorsRep.Erik@gmail.com
Christine Probst is a professionally trained actress with over 20 years of experience, she holds a BFA (Bacheors of Fine Art) in Acting from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. She studied (and continues to study) Voice and Movement with the Centre Artistique International Roy Hart. Christine has acted professionally in Luxembourg (Actors Rep, Théâtre National du Luxembourg, Théâtres des Capucins / Luxembourg Ville) and the United States (ActOut Productions, Rosebriar Shakespeare, and the Reality Theatre, among others).
Christine Probst in THE FEVER / Photo credit: Carole Reckinger
She has taught a variety of levels and ages in acting for over 10 years, including for the Luxembourg Accueil and the Lycée des Garçons in Esch-sur-Alzette, and founded the Youth Theatre programme for the New World Theatre Club. Christine’s teaching incorporates several different methods and techniques to help the actor find his or her path to understanding the character. She believes that not one single method or style of acting is for every actor. Christine will take the actor through a series of exercises related to relaxation and imagination, as well as extensive voice and body work to free the actor’s physicality and develop a sense of being fully present onstage.
Actors Rep General Auditions — 10 January 2017
by Erik Abbott | 15 Dec, 2016 | Actors, Auditions, Blog - what we are up to, Uncategorized
Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg (Actors Rep) announces General Auditions, Tuesday, 10 January 2017:
at Vedanza, 18 rue de Louvigny, L-1946, Luxembourg, from 7pm to 10pm.
These are general auditions. We are not casting for any specific production.
The auditions are open to performers aged 15 and up
Auditioners are asked to prepare a two-minute monologue in English, ideally memorised. Auditioners may also be asked to read a short piece. Copies will be available at the auditions.
Please bring or email a headshot.
Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg is a professional English-language theatre company.
We are committed to delivering passionate, thought provoking professional English-language theatre in Luxembourg.
Formed in 2012, Actors Rep debuted with Edward Albee’s The Goat Or, Who is Sylvia? in 2013 (in collaboration with Théâtre National du Luxembourg — TNL) and has presented five productions since, mostly recently Wallace Shawn’s The Fever, in October.
For an audition slot, please send a request to Artistic Director Erik Abbott:
ActorsRep.Erik@gmail.com
BREAK-A-LEG!
HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM ACTORS REP!
DEAR SANTA… Returns! The Holiday Treat is Back!
Workshop: The Great Luxembourg Play Bake-Off!
Actors Rep and #WTF HAPPENED? at the KC Fringe: A Reflection
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Happy New Year from Actors Rep! - Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg (Actors Rep) on Actors Rep 2017 Production Photo Gallery
What’s On: November 17th-19th | City Savvy Luxembourg on Actors Rep Presents BIG BOYS at Arendt House, November 17-19, 2017
Actors Rep Autumn 2017 Season! - Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg (Actors Rep) on BIG BOYS
Actors Rep Autumn 2017 Season! - Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg (Actors Rep) on #WTF Happened?
Erik Abbott on Acting Workshop with Peter Zazzali
Blog – what we are up to
Flowers in The Desert
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Adam Granger Music and Publications
Fiddle Tunes for Guitar
Lessons with Adam
On Relaxation
© Adam Granger
Last summer, my wife generously agreed to accompany me on a drive from St Paul to Tennessee for a week's worth of work. I'm a full-time musician and, in my early dotage at age 61, I care less and less for the romance of getting in a car alone and driving all over creation to play gigs. Having the brains of the outfit along helped immeasurably and, in a gesture of appreciation, I agreed to listen on the drive to Jane Austen's Victorian masterpiece Pride and Prejudice--all nine CDs of it. Along about Champaign-Urbana, when protagonist Elizabeth Bennett has spent the afternoon—hers and ours—agonizing over the fact that Mr Darcy had furrowed his brow during a visit the week before, I finally said (not too plaintively I hope), “These people never DO ANYTHING!”
Indeed, the most dramatic thing that happened between St Paul and Cincinnati was when Miss Bennett walked a couple of miles to a neighboring manor, on disc five, and got her petticoats dirty. (Of course, the prole in me can't ignore the fact that the reason the English nobility were able to chill with their buds was because they had seventeen million people in the working class doing everything for them but tweezing their nose hairs. And even there, Lord Chiswick—well, never mind. The point is that they spent much of their abundant spare time lying out.)
Now, this is not yet another sermon about Americans not knowing how to relax. Rather, it's a reflection on our perception versus our reality, as regards opportunities to relax. Over the last century and a half, we Yankees have fought for fewer working hours and more leisure time, but we tend not to use that hard-won time doing nothing, if you follow my syntax. The fact is, we hold the act of doing nothing simultaneously in awe and at arm's length (with a dash of disapprobation thrown in): it's an unattainable but perhaps undesirable grail.
My St Paul neighborhood has more porches and decks than Scrooge McDuck has dollars, but I never see anyone using them. Including us. Whoever had these added, or bought houses that already had them, imagined themselves the contented couple, sitting outside, watching the world going by, waving at the neighbors and, for the nonce, doing nothing. The same with the coveted but generally seldom-used fireplace: intent goes up against reality, and intent loses.
What's going on? Well, several things. First, we are legitimately more busy than our forebears: they had no orthodontists, soccer games, shopping malls or samba classes. Once they had run the hounds, flounced their crinoline and lit Jeanette Isabella's torch (none of which takes very long, really), there was nothing left to do but obsess over Mr Darcy's furrowed brow. For days.
Another factor was mentioned earlier: somewhere along the line, we (Americans, especially) came to equate doing nothing with shiftlessness and failure. Kicking back on the porch for an hour after a hard day's work became conflated with being a ne'er-do-well who has nothing better to do than to hang out and wait for trouble to come sauntering by. Idle hands and all that.
A third factor is a sense of fair play: my wife is constitutionally unable to do nothing if there is something to be done. The problem with that is that there's always something to be done. She comes from a large family and, in their tiny, packed house, by the time they'd all gotten everything done it was usually so late that their attempts, finally, to kick back would result in their falling asleep uncomfortably upright in their chairs in front of Jay Leno. While this is in one sense admirable, it has to be said that, by this system, no one ever gets any guilt-free down time.
On the seventh day, God rested. Was there nothing left for God to do, or was God trying to tell us that we are supposed to spend 14% of our lives in true repose, undone chores notwithstanding? And, if that's the case, then how on earth are we to achieve this? Cancel Caitlyn's soccer? Let Tanner's gaptooth go uncorrected? Of course not. But in a typical day, mini-moments to smell the roses often present themselves. Here are a few personal examples:
A local big-box hardware store has a sloped moving ramp which carries me between levels. This trip takes ninety seconds—a good chunk of time, actually: enough for a quick reverie (I just have to be sure I snap out of it before reaching the end of the ride). Delays at a railroad crossing near my house afford opportunities for nonspecific reflection (don't ask me how I learned this, but the secret here is to put the car in park first). Waiting for my number to be called at the license bureau? Another opportunity for compulsory inactivity. Ditto driving through Chicago. And let's not forget plane travel.
All right, this is getting a tad preachy, and I know I promised, and I'm sorry. It's just that, although we may not have time in our schedules for these delays, there they are, nevertheless, and what are you gonna do? Race the train? Run up the ramp? Jump the license bureau line? No, you're there for the duration, as the army used to say, and all I'm suggesting is that you might want to try turning gasket pressure tests such as these into dollops of relaxation.
And besides, these delays are nothing compared to what our ancestors faced. We may have to endure a seven-hour transoceanic flight, but even the busiest 19th-century Type A robber baron had no choice but to veg for a full week if he wanted to get to Europe. And, before 1900, he couldn't even contact the rest of his cohort by wireless during the voyage. Talk about a slacker.
And so, practicing what I'm trying not to preach, I'm going to listen again, on my next long drive, to the story of Miss Bennett and her soiled petticoats and Mr Darcy and his furrowed brow. There's an opportunity for personal betterment that I missed the first time around, and I aim to carpe the diem.
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How Valium Affects The Brain and Body
How Does Diazepam Work? Diazepam belongs to a class of drugs called benzodiazepines. Primarily used to induce a calming effect, the drug, popularly known as Valium, is used to treat a broad range of conditions. Due to its calming effect, conditions that involve some form of agitation are a primary target for treatment.
What does Valium do for anxiety? Valium is effective in the treatment of anxiety owing to its calming effect. A person suffering from anxiety and/or panic attacks can benefit from the anxiolytic effects of diazepam through a titrated treatment regimen.
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How Does Valium Work in General?
What Does Valium Do to The Brain?
How Long Does Valium Take to Work?
Does Valium Work for Everyone?
A member of the family of classical benzodiazepines, diazepam is useful because of its anticonvulsant and anxiolytic properties. The substance differs with most other anticonvulsants in that it has no effect on glutamate decarboxylase or on GABA levels. Diazepam has been shown to reduce acetylcholine release, a factor thought to contribute to its calming effects. When administered, it utilizes micromolar benzodiazepine binding sites while acting as a calcium channel blocker (CCB), significantly impeding reuptake of depolarization-sensitive calcium at voltage-gated calcium channel (VGCC) sites (primarily glial cell.)
Diazepam affects Type A GABA receptors through positive allosteric modulation. This increases binding of GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), a powerful inhibitory neurotransmitter present in the Central Nervous System (CNS.) How fast does the Valium work? Increased binding of GABA to its receptors takes either 1-5 minutes or up to 40 minutes depending on whether taken intravenously or orally respectively and results in decreased activity at key CNS sites including the limbic and cortical systems. When this happens, the brain experiences an overall slowdown demonstrated in the calm that results from taking it.
Valium for Anxiety
A person suffering from anxiety or panic attacks can benefit from taking diazepam as an anxiolytic aid. When taken, it reduces activity in key areas of the CNS involved in anxiety, resulting in a calming effect.
Valium for Insomnia
Diazepam can provide the relaxing effects needed to allow sleep to occur. While effective, it alters not only sleep patterns but also the very architecture of sleep resulting in longer but poorer quality of sleep.
Valium for Spasms
By depressing the cortical systems of the brain, diazepam reduces the number of motor impulses sent to musculoskeletal structures, resulting in relief from muscle spasms.
How Long for Valium to Take Effect?
Valium has a relatively long half-life of between 30 and 56 hours so bioavailability of the substance allows for peak effects to build up over this period. From this, it can be inferred that diazepam takes a maximum 56 hours to reach peak pharmacological levels, although in most cases, the time is significantly shorter than this.
How Quickly Does Valium Work?
Valium pharmacokinetics depend on the mode of administration. The administration is done in one of four ways: orally, intravenously, intramuscularly, and via a suppository.
Oral: Bioavailability is 100% and will take up to 40 minutes to take effect. Peak pharmacological effects set in 30-90 minutes after administration.
Intravenous (IV): Taken in diluted form due to its damaging effects on veins, bioavailability is 100% and once taken, effects set in within 1-5 minutes.
Intramuscular (IM): With 100% bioavailability, effects set in within 15-30 minutes of administration. Peak plasma levels are achieved 15 minutes to 1 hour after administration for both IM and IV routes.
Suppository: Bioavailability is lower at 90% with peak effects being experienced after 10-45 minutes.
Diazepam is effective in the treatment of a host of conditions, but success varies from person to person. Factors such as age, the condition being treated, comorbidity (other conditions occurring simultaneously), contraindications, interactions, and others determine whether taking diazepam will result in positive effects or not. The substance also has dangerous side effects that must be weighed against the possible benefits of taking it.
Valium Pros and Cons
Pros: Diazepam has been shown to be effective in the long-term treatment of conditions that respond well to the drug. Valium for spasms is an example. Persons using the medication can also taper down their dosage relatively easily without long-lasting side effects. Easy availability through drug classification also makes diazepam a desirable choice for those taking it.
Cons: Diazepam adverse effects include confusion, anterograde amnesia, and chronic sedation. When used over a long time, Valium action can lead to tolerance and dependence, resulting in substance abuse and addiction. Depression and impaired motor function are also side effects that come with long-term use. Overdose may lead to coma and possible death due to respiratory arrest.
Useful Yet Deadly
Diazepam is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines as one of the most effective and safe medications required in a health system. This denotes its importance and efficacy in treating various debilitating conditions. However, recognition of the drug by the Department of Justice in the Controlled Substances Act and subsequent classification as a Schedule IV drug does mean there are dangers associated with taking it. Any person taking it must, therefore, do so with extreme caution and under strict medical supervision. Abuse can lead to serious side effects with possibly deadly outcomes.
https://www.dea.gov/drug-scheduling
https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/21cfr/21usc/
Addiction Resource » Addictive Substances: The Anatomy of Drug Addiction » What is Diazepam? The Risks of a Common Prescription Drug » How Valium Affects The Brain and Body
Published on: April 23rd, 2018
Nena Messina, Ph.D.
Nena Messina is a specialist in drug-related domestic violence. She devoted her life to the study of the connection between crime, mental health, and substance abuse. Apart from her work as management at addiction center, Nena regularly takes part in the educational program as a lecturer.
Michael Sentell
I have suffered from panic attacks for several years especially when the time changes and it gets dark early. This medication has helped me very much . I had tried several different medications prior to this which simply did not help me however this one , once in my system , does . It acts very quickly within a few minutes and has a calming effect .The only side effect I have noticed is that it does effect my memory at times such as setting objects down and having a hard time remembering where i placed them .Also be advised due to Federal laws a drug test is required every three months if this medication is used over a prolonged period of time.
That’s most likely just your state been taking for years and no drug test from doctor
I’ve recently begun having panic attacks during this time of year as well! Came out of no where. I didn’t understand.
Diazepam for Essential Tremors. New to this drug but seems to help.
William Letten
I am 87 years old. Suffered from the age of 10 years often very severe have usually coped very well, but not recently. As I am ageing it is getting worse so very concerned I have used Diazapan which has helped, but my doctor does not want to prescribe it, thus leaving me in a huge dilemma
Learn More About Valium
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Alumni Spotlight (4) Apply Alumni Spotlight filter
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Georgetown remembers its much beloved Rabbi Harold White, who spent more than half a century at Georgetown teaching, counseling and promoting interreligious understanding.
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Georgetown Law Center recently launched a new video channel that will showcase video content that especially relates to the Law Center, its students and its mission. In this video, Dean William...
Video of the Month: Georgetown—Summer School Edition
It's summertime, but Georgetown's campus is still buzzing with activity. In this month's featured video, Tiffany Lam (NHS'17) gives us an inside look at summer school on the Hilltop.
Mo Elleithee, Institute of Politics and Public Service
With the 2016 presidential election fast approaching, Mo Elleithee (F'94) thinks it's time to bring some new voices to the table to help improve our nation's current political process. He also thinks...
Video of the Month: 5th and 50th Reunion Alumni Share Why They Come Back
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Learning Society Magic
For five years, transforming student experience through community building.
What’s Behind a Good Night’s Sleep?
Researching placebo effects in insomnia treatment.
A Cup of Medicine
Fung-Lung Chung can’t wait to find out if his mother’s belief in the health-promoting properties of the hot green tea she served after meals will be scientifically validated by a new Georgetown...
Honoring A Legend
The 18th Annual Founders Day event in April honored the contributions of Donald “Coach” Knowlan, MD (R’60, W’82, H’04), doubling as a 90th birthday celebration with 200 of his closest friends, former...
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Faculty Point of View
What’s (not) in my white coat?
I spend every day in the cath lab, wearing scrubs and a surgical gown or lead apron, doing heart catheterizations and valve replacement procedures, with no outpatient or hospital duties.
Partnering for Health in Almost Heaven
An ongoing collaboration with a community in West Virginia has provided students in Georgetown’s online master’s degree program in nursing with insight into rural health challenges.
Reflections on medicine with Julie Silver, MD (M’91)
Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School
Research and Education: Synergy in Community
Since its launch eight years ago, the annual MedStar Health-Georgetown University Research Symposium brings together researchers, residents, academics, and collaborative partners from across the...
I found a home at Georgetown
When he finished high school in 1951, the fastest kid on Long Island had track scholarship offers from top schools around the country, allowing him an education his family could otherwise not afford.
Cons of Probiotic Labels
Shopping for a good probiotic? Reading the labels may not provide enough information to weigh the options, according to a research team led by Georgetown University Medical Center.
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Alumni Pass On Hoya, College Advice to #GeorgetownBound Students
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Black Student Alliance Celebrates 50-Year Legacy of Community and Support
Georgetown’s Black Student Alliance marks history and milestones on its 50th anniversary.
Black Student Alliance Celebrates its 50th Anniversary
Campus organization launched to provide support and sense of community for African-American students continues its legacy fifty years later By Chelsea Burwell Photo by Ndeye Ndiaye (C'18). The 1960s...
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Understanding the Healing Power of Music
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Reflections on Medicine with Sylvia Morris
Sylvia Morris (M’98)
CURA Fosters Connections
Connecting and Uniting Residents and Alumni program was founded in 2005 with the goal of connecting Georgetown medical alumni with each other.
What's in my white coat with Charles Read
An interview with Charles “Chip” Read (M’85, R’88, W’91), a pulmonary and critical care physician at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.
Practicing Medicine, Practicing Art
Alumni artists Rupa Marya (M’02), Stephen Madigan (M’80), and Saeed Marefat (M’85) draw inspiration from medicine and the arts.
Crafting Artful Care
Children and families discover the art of healing through Tracy’s Kids.
In Perfect Harmony
“We don’t really understand why creativity is so healing. But it’s restorative, like sleep, and nobody understands that either.” — Dr. Caroline Wellbery, Arts & Medicine’s faculty advisor.
Adam Green teamed up with cognitive neurologist and neuroscientist Peter Turkeltaub, MD, PhD, of Georgetown University Medical Center, seeking interdisciplinary answers.
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You are here: Home / News / Russian Bride / ‘Inequality in your dog collar’: the way the Religious Discrimination...
‘Inequality in your dog collar’: the way the Religious Discrimination Bill fingers more capacity to the effective
Zany entertainer Jeff Beacher — whom created the vaudeville that is outrageous “Beacher’s Madhouse” — once tipped the scales at an astonishing 415 pounds. Their bulk took its cost on their sex and health life. Right right Here, the 40-year-old informs The Post’s Jane Ridley what sort of belly surgery changed their life — and helped him look for a long-lost friend.
I’d always been fat, however it’s something else whenever you’re therefore fat, you can’t find your penis.
That’s what happened certainly to me. At significantly more than 400 pounds and 5 legs 7 ins tall, I’d have to hunt around in my own flab to find it before we went along to the restroom or effort to possess intercourse.
It’s not at all something I’m proud to acknowledge, however it’s crucial to split the taboo. I’m believing that, in accordance with plenty of overweight guys, for each and every 20 to 30 pounds I gained in fat, We lost an inches from my manhood.
My fat problems date back into my youth in Woodmere, longer Island, whenever I would comfort-eat to feel much better. “Guess what? You’re adopted!” my older sibling said once I was 12. It absolutely was a shock as well as the thing that is first reached for had been a donut. Despite the fact that my moms and dads had been the best into the world, the ability resulted in a feeling of psychological insecurity and concern with abandonment.
Because the full years passed, we piled in the pounds. I obtained into stand-up comedy and developed this fat, funny persona that we now understand was something to disguise behind. We established the “Beacher’s Madhouse” revue show at Madison Square Garden’s Paramount Theatre in nyc in 2002 — presently at best russian bride site reviews The Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles — once I ended up being 26 years of age. The year that is following ever the showman, I stripped right down to a Speedo in the exact middle of a gambling establishment and belly-flopped in to the 10,000-gallon tank for your fish to advertise my brand brand brand new show in Las vegas, nevada. It surely caused a splash.
Warning: Graphic content:
We became good friends utilizing the likes of Miley Cyrus and Mariah Carey, whom adored the show featuring its trademark monkeys and midget that is flying. But eating out with A-listers — often having two luxurious lunches, two multi-course dinners chased by 20 vodka Red Bulls — didn’t help my fight with the bulge. Certainly one of my functions utilizing the midgets ended up being the Mini-Chips, our type of the Chippendales, where we’d strip naked on phase. I wasn’t a sight that is pretty.
My sex-life didn’t stop simply because I became 350 pounds and I’ve slept with an increase of than 100 females up to now. After my gf of half a year went down with my lead midget in November 2007, we mostly had sex with groupies. Nonetheless, by 2014, as a result of my 415-pound bulk and my shrinking penis, it had been hard to have sex that is full it doesn’t matter what jobs were utilized.
“I’m too drunk to have an erection,” I’d say to your groupies. My libido diminished, but I’d lie to share with my buddies about all of the intercourse I happened to be getting.
The Religious Discrimination Bill, as well as the “religious freedom” motion from where it sprang, aren’t about protecting faith, stopping discrimination or freedom that is enhancing.
They have been about offering privilege and power to people who curently have them, at the cost of those that do not.
The Bill overrides current discrimination legislation by providing medical practioners, whom curently have significant energy, additional capacity to withhold their valuable solutions from those many in need of assistance, so long as there’s a spiritual basis for it.
The Bill overrides work that is fair by providing every budding workplace bully free rein to take care of their colleagues and clients like dust, provided that they are able to frame their ill-treatment of other people when it comes to a “statement of belief”.
The Bill overrides Tasmania’s anti-discrimination supply against offensive, humiliating and language that is intimidating a legislation that protects typically stigmatised teams – individuals with impairment, LGBTIQ people, racial minorities, solitary moms and dads – from those effective people in culture who stigmatise them. Meanwhile, the federal Bill leaves in destination all of the many rules that protect politicians, the effective additionally the wealthy from being defamed, offended or insulted.
The balance will appoint a Religious Freedom Commissioner, regardless of the Ruddock Panel finding no proof religious freedom will be violated, and despite there being no gender or sexuality identification commissioner to offer some stability.
False narratives
What’s the rationale for punching all of these holes in a lot of of this current anti-discrimination defenses that have actually protected susceptible Australians for half a hundred years?
Just how do proponents for the Government’s appalling Bigots’ Charter justify giving unique appropriate privileges to spiritual individuals and their thinking that aren’t open to other folks and their philosophy?
And exactly why will Australian churches have government-appointed and defender that is taxpayer-funded apologist and strike dog.
Whenever describing on their own, the Bill’s defenders repeat the title of a rich celebrity rugby player, Israel Folau, who’d their agreement terminated after he intentionally and over and over repeatedly broke its terms, terms he had consented to, by damning LGBTIQ people to Hell.
Once and for all measure they throw when you look at the title of the Catholic Archbishop, Julian Porteous, who had been expected to wait a conciliation over a booklet he issued suggesting partners that are same-sexn’t entire individuals and “mess with young ones”. As he declined to alter a good word that is single instance up against the booklet had been fallen.
January 16, 2020 /by Lilit
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The list of selected staff publications may be searched by keyword or author and can be sorted by year.
Sort by AuthorPublication Date
Gifford, Daniel
“Star-Spangled Turkeys: Patriotism in Thanksgiving Postcards.” The Ephemera Journal. Vol. 17, No. 1, September 2014.
“Rural Americans, Postcards, and the Fiscal Transformation of the Post Office Department, 1909-1911.” The Winton M. Blount Postal History Symposia: Selected papers, 2010-2011. Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2012.
“Star-Spangled Turkeys: Patriotism in the Visual Culture of Thanksgiving, 1863-1913.” Mid-Atlantic Almanack. Vol. 16, 2007.
Gonzalves, Theodore
Migrant Musicians: Filipino Entertainers and the Work of Music Making. With R. Zamora Linmark, Karen Tongson, and Sarita Echavez See. Center for Art and Thought, 2013.
The Day the Dancers Stayed: Performing in the Filipino/American Diaspora. Temple University Press, 2009.
Filipinos in Hawai'i. With Roderick N. Labrador. Arcadia Publishing, 2011.
Gonzalves, Theodore (ed.)
Carlos Villa and the Integrity of Spaces. Meritage Press, 2012.
Stage Presence: Conversations with Filipino American Performing Artists. Meritage Press, 2007.
Graddy, Lisa Kathleen
First Ladies: Political Role and Public Image, co-authored with Edith P. Mayo, Scala Publishers Ltd., 2004
Grassmuck, Jan
"Youth Employment and Education: Possible Federal Approaches," with Josh Green, Budget Issue Paper, Congressional Budget Office, July 1980.
Grassmuck, Janice
"The Federal Effort for High Schools." Staff Draft Analysis, Congressional Budget Office, January 1980.
"Federal Compensation of Federal Lands: The Estimated Cost of Tax Equivalency," Staff Draft Analysis, Congressional Budget Office, September 1979.
"Young People with High School Problems: Dropouts and Low Achievers," Staff Draft Analysis, Congressional Budget Office, March 1980.
Green, Rayna
"Magnolias Grown in Dirt," Southern Exposure, 1977; reprinted in J. Zandy. Calling Home: Working-Class Women's Writings. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990.
A much-cited essay on bawdy oral traditions among Southern women, with special reference to particular traditions in my own family.
"More Than Meets the Eye: Gertrude Kasebier’s ‘Indian’ Photographs," with Helena Wright, guest editor. The History of Photography Journal (Winter 2000).
Examines the “Indian” photographs by Gertrude Kasebier, in NMAH collections, and compares her work to the clichés of 19th century Native photography.
"The Pocahontas Perplex: Images of American Indian Women in American Culture," The Massachussetts Review. 16 (Autumn): 698–714; reprinted in E. DuBois and Ruiz. Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History. London: Routledge, Kegan and Paul, 1990; reprinted in S. Lobo and S. Talbot. Native American Voices: A Reader. New York: Longman, 1998.
A much-reprinted article used widely in collegiate curricula (Native Studies and Women’s Studies); deals with images and representations—visual, material, philosophical—of Native American women in American culture; the centrality of some of the representations (the Princess and the Squaw) to American popular culture and American identity.
"By The Waters of the Minnehaha: Music, Pageants and Princesses in the Indian Boarding Schools." with John Troutman. In M. Archuleta, T. Lomawaima and B. Child. Away From Home: American Indian Boarding Schools. Phoenix, AZ: The Heard Museum, 1999.
Explores government and missionary attempts to assimilate Indians in boarding schools, and many of the student’s adaptive strategies for cultural preservation and resistance.
"Native American Food," in Kirlin, eds. Smithsonian Folklife Cookbook, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991.
On Native foodways from all major cultural regions (Plains, Northwest Coast, Southeast, Northeast, Southwest) and on the death and rebirth of Native agriculture, subsistence, and food production. With recipes.
"American Indian Women: Diverse Leadership for Social Change" in Albrecht and Brewer, eds. Bridges of Power: Women's Multicultural Alliances. Santa Cruz, Calif.: New Society Publishers, 1990; re-edited from “Culture and Gender in Indian America,” Sojourner: The Women's Forum 15 (September, 1989).
An essay which sets out some of the historical and cultural perameters of Native gender roles, cultural change, and political power in Native America.
Pissing in the Snow And Other Ozark Folktales, editing and "Introduction," by Vance Randolph. Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976; ix–xxix; Avon Paper edition, 1977. In print, University of Illinois Press, 1999, in its 15th edition; in print and in its 20th edition, 2003.
A collection of heretofore-unpublished tales of the noted Ozark collector and folklorist, Vance Randolph, which I edited and brought to publication.
From Ritual to Retail: Pueblos, Tourism and the Fred Harvey Company. Producer/Director. 17 minute documentary short video. Produced in association with the exhibition, Inventing the Southwest: The Fred Harvey Company and Native American Art, 1995, Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ.
A film which explores the impact of the Fred Harvey Company and early 20th century tourism on Native art and culture.
"American Indian Art in Oklahoma" Oklahoma Today Special Issue on American Indian Art, (December, 1990).
"Vance Randolph's 'Unprintable' Tales." Mid-South Folklore. 3, no.3 (1976).
An article on bringing Vance Randolph’s “bawdy” Ozark folktales to print.
Heartbeat: Voices of First Nations Women, 1995, and Heartbeat II, 1998. Producer, with Howard Bass. CD/audiocassette recording. 79 minutes. Smithsonian Folkways.
A landmark sound recording in 2 volumes, of the music of contemporary American Indian women.
"Kill the Indian and Save The Man: Indian Education in the United States." Introduction to To Lead and To Serve: Indian Education at Hampton Institute, 1978–1923. an exhibition catalog. Charlottesville: Virginia Foundation on Humanities and Public Policy, 1989.
An introduction to an exhibition on Indian education at Hampton Institute with a brief history and analysis of US policy and practice in the education of Indians in the 19th and twentieth centuries.
Find more publications by other Smithsonian authors and others.
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What do you think you're doing?
A critique of ELT teacher trainers
Bibliography for Theory Construction in SLA
SLA: Behaviourism and Mentalism
Posted on September 17, 2018 by geoffjordan
The Shift From a Behaviourist to a Cognitivist View of SLA
Before proceeding with the review of SLA, I need to recap the story so far, in order to highlight the difference between two contradictory epistemologies. I do so for two reasons. Firstly, we are seeing a return to behaviourism in the guise of increasingly popular, and increasingly misinterpreted, usage-based theories of language learning such as emergentism. The epistemological underpinnings of these theories are rarely mentioned, particularly by ELT teacher trainers who either clumsily endorse them or airily dismiss them. Secondly, it gives me an opportunity to restate the implications of the shift to a more cognitive view of the SLA process.
Behaviourism has much in common with logical positivism, the most spectacularly misguided movement in the history of philosophy. Chasing the chimera of absolute truth, the logical positivists, most famously, those in the Vienna Circle, formed in the early 1920s in order to clean up language and put science on a sure empirical footing. The mad venture was all over before the second world war broke out, but not so behaviourism, which slightly preceded it with the 1913 work of pioneering American psychologist John B. Watson, and went on to outlive in when B.F. Skinner took over after WW2.
Watson, influenced by the work of Pavlov (1897) and Bekhterev (1896) on conditioning of animals, but also, later, by the works of Mach (1924) and Carnap (1927) from the Vienna School, attempted to make psychological research “scientific” by using only objective procedures, such as laboratory experiments which were designed to establish statistically significant results. Watson formulated a stimulus-response theory of psychology according to which all complex forms of behaviour are explained in terms of simple muscular and glandular elements that can be observed and measured. No mental “reasoning”, no speculation about the workings of any “mind”, were allowed. Thousands of researchers adopted this methodology, and from the end of the first world war until the 1950s an enormous amount of research on learning in animals and in humans was conducted under this strict empiricist regime.
In 1950 behaviourism could justly claim to have achieved paradigm status, and at that moment B.F. Skinner became its new champion. Skinner’s contribution to behaviourism was to challenge the stimulus-response idea at the heart of Watson’s work and replace it by a type of psychological conditioning known as reinforcement (see Skinner, 1957, and Toates and Slack, 1990). Important as this modification was, it is Skinner’s insistence on a strict empiricist epistemology, and his claim that language is learned in just the same way as any other complex skill is learned, by social interaction, that is important here.
The strictly empiricist epistemology of behaviourism outlaws any talk of mental structure or of internal mental states. While it’s perfectly OK to talk about these things in every day parlance, they have no place in scientific discourse. Strictly speaking – which is how scientists, including psychologists should speak – there is no such thing as the mind, and there is no sense (sic) in talking about feelings or any other stuff that can’t be observed by appeal to the senses. Behaviourism sees psychology as the science of behaviour, not the science of mind. Behaviour can be described and explained without any ultimate reference to mental events or to any internal psychological processes. The sources of behaviour are external (in the environment), not internal (in the mind). If mental terms or concepts are used to describe behaviour, then they must be replaced by behavioural terms or paraphrased into behavioural concepts.
Behaviour is all there is: humans and animals are organisms that can be observed doing things, and the things they do are explained in terms of responses to their environment, which also explains all types of learning. Learning a language is like learning anything else – it’s the result of repeated responses to stimuli. There are no innate rules by which organisms learn, which is to say that organisms learn without being innately or pre-experientially provided with explicit procedures by which to learn. Before organisms interact with the environment they know nothing – by definition. Learning doesn’t consist of rule-governed behaviour; learning is what organisms do in response to stimuli. An organism learns from what it does, from its successes and mistakes, as it were.
The minimalist elegance of such a stark view is impressive, even attractive, – especially if you’re sick of trying to make sense of Freud, Jung, or Adler, perhaps – but it makes explaining unobservable phenomena, whatever they happen to be, problematic, to say the least. Still, for Amerrican scholars immersed in the field of foreign language learning in the post WW2 era, a field not exactly renowned for its contributions to philosophy or scientific method, behaviourism had a lot going for it: an easily-grasped theory with crystal clear pedagogic implications. The opposition to the Chomskian threat was entirely understandable, but, historically at least, we may note that their case collapsed like a house of cards. Casti (1989) points out that a Kuhnian paradigm shift is nowhere more completely and swiftly brought about in the 20th century than by Chomsky in linguistics.
In his 1957 Verbal Behaviour, Skinner put forward his view that language learning is a process of habit formation involving associations between an environmental stimulus and a particular automatic response, produced through repetition with the help of reinforcement. This view of learning was challenged by Chomsky’s (1959) Review of Skinner’s Verbal Behaviour, where he argued that language learning was quite different from other types of learning and could not be explained in terms of habit-formation. Chomsky’s revolutionary argument, begun in Syntactic Structures (1957), and consequently developed in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965) and Knowledge of Language (1986) was that all human beings are born with an innate grammar – a fixed set of mental rules that enables children to create and utter sentences they have never heard before. Chomsky asserted that language learning was a uniquely human capacity, a result of Homo Sapiens’s possession of what Chomsky at first referred to as a Language Acquisition Device. Chomsky developed his theory and later claimed that language consists of a set of abstract principles that characterise the core grammars of all natural languages, and that the task of learning one’s L1 is thus simplified since one has an innate mechanism that constrains possible grammar formation. Children do not have to learn those features of the particular language to which they are exposed that are universal, because they know them already. The job of the linguistic was to describe this generative, or universal, grammar, as rigorously as possible.
So the lines are clearly drawn. For Skinner, language learning is a behavioural phenomenon, for Chomsky, it’s a mental phenomenon. For Skinner, verbal behaviour is the source of learning; for Chomsky it’s the manifestation of what had been learned. For Skinner, talk of innate knowledge is little short of gibberish; for Chomsky it’s the best explanation he can come up with for the knowledge children have of language.
In SLA Part 1, I described how, under the sway of a behaviourist paradigm, researchers in SLA viewed the learner’s L1 as a source of interference, resulting in errors. In SLA Part 2, I described how, under the new influence of a mentalist paradigm, researchers now viewed learners as drawing on their innate language learning capacity to construct their own distinct linguistic system, or interlanguage. The view of learning an L2 changes from one of accumulating new habits while trying to avoid mistakes (which only entrench bad past habits), to one of a cognitive process, where errors are evidence of the learner’s ‘creative construction’ of the L2. Research into learner errors and into learning specific grammatical features, gave clear evidence to support the mentalist view. The research showed that all learners, irrespective of their L1, seemed to make the same errors, which in turn supported the view that learners were testing hypotheses about the target language on the basis of their limited experience, and making appropriate adjustments to their developing interlanguage system. Far from being evidence of non-learning, errors were thus clear signs of interlanguage development.
Furthermore, and very importantly in terms of its pedagogic implications, interlanguage development, seen as a kind of built-in syllabus, could be observed following the same route, regardless of differences in the L1 or of the linguistic environment. It was becoming clear that (leaving aside the question of maturational constraints for a moment) learning an L2 involved moving along a universal route which was unaffected by the L1, or by the learning environment – classroom, workplace, home, wherever. Just as importantly, the research showed that L2 learning is not a matter of successively accumulating parts of the language one bit after the other. Rather, SLA is a dynamic process involving the gradual development of a complex system. Learners can sometimes take several months to fully acquire a particular feature, and the learning process is anything but linear: it involves slowly and unsystematically moving through a series of transitional stages, including zigzags, u-shaped patterns, stalls, and plateaus, as learners’ interlanguages are constantly adjusted, reformulated, and rebuilt in such a way that they gradually approximate more to the L1 model.
A picture is thus emerging of SLA as a learning process with two important characteristics.
Knowledge of the L2 develops along a route which is impervious to instruction, and
it develops in a dynamic, nonlinear way, where lots of different parts of the developing system are being worked on at the same time.
As we continue the review, we’ll look at declarative and procedural knowledge, explicit and implicit knowledge, and explicit and implicit learning, and this will indicate the third important characteristic of the SLA process:
3. Implicit learning is the default mechanism for learning an L2.
We’ll then be in a stronger position to argue that teacher trainers who advise their trainees to devote the majority of classroom time to the explicit teaching of a sequence of formal elements of the L2 are grooming those trainees for failure.
For References See “Bibliography ..” in Header
← SLA Part 3: From Krashen to Schmidt
SLA Part 4: Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis →
The Work of Penny Ur
SLA Part 5: Pienemann’s Processability Theory
SLA Part 6: Processing Input
Teacher Trainers in ELT
Encounters with Noticing Part 1
Teacher Trainers
Brian Tomlinson on Coursebooks
Rachael Roberts on Coursebooks
Do teacher trainers promote good practice?
Alan Maley: Elephant? What elephant?
Teacher Trainers As Mediators
Why teach grammar?
Living in a glass house
An email exchange with Jim Scrivener about ELT
Teacher Education, Teacher Development: Mushy Peas
What Is Teacher Development?
How we Learn an L2
SLA Part 1: Contrastive Analysis
SLA Part 2: Cognitive Theories
SLA Part 3: From Krashen to Schmidt
SLA Part 4: Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis
SLA Part 7: Two final processing models
SLA Part 8: Emergentism
SLA Part 9: Nativism vs Emergentism
SLA Part 10: Summary
Scott Thornbury
The Works of Scott Thornbury: Part 1
Notes on Thornbury’s Performance Approach to Language Learning
Hugh Dellar
The Works of Hugh Dellar Part 1
Massed v Distributed Practice in ELT
Coursebooks Out!
Copley: Neoliberalism & ELT Coursebooks
Coursebooks and the commodification of ELT
Coursebooks: A Recap
Sandy Millin on Stop Flying
Thomas Keller on The Marxist TEFL Group
Thomas Keller on Adrian Holliday: Who’s a…
eflnotes on The Marxist TEFL Group
geoffjordan on The Marxist TEFL Group
End of Year ELT Quiz
Against Intellectual Sloth, Part 2.
Against Intellectual Sloth
Atkinson’s Beyond the brain Essay
TEFL Equity Advocates and the Marek Kiczkowiak Academy
Geoff Jordan Stuff
Thornbury: Fence-Sitting & Slime-Sprawling
Reflections of 2017, Part 1
What science is not
A Reply to A. Holliday’s “Why we should stop using native-non-native speaker labels”
Gagged!
The gentrification of inner cities
TEFL Equity Advocates: a conflict of interests
A reply to Andrew Walkley’s post on teaching a unit from the “Outcomes” Coursebook
Grammar and vocabulary teaching: What a difference a brain makes
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Collectibles and Memorabilia
"Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" 1999 Movie Poster Signed by Mike Myers Elizabeth Hurley Verne Troyer - $600.00 VALUE
"Cathy Rigby is Peter Pan" 2000 Broadway Musical Poster Signed by Cathy Rigby - $600.00 VALUE
"Copycat" 1995 Movie Poster Autographed Signed by Sigourney Weaver - $600.00 VALUE
"Fargo" 1996 Movie Poster Autographed Signed by William H. Macy Steve Buscemi - $600.00 VALUE
"Gloria! Heaven's What I Feel" Original Sheet Music Edition Gloria Estefan Framed Signed Circa 1998 - $1,500 VALUE
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Reasons for first line ART modification over the years during the ART scale up in Uganda
B. Castelnuovo1,
F. Mubiru1,
I. Kalule1 &
A. Kiragga1
During the initial scale up of ART in sub-Saharan Africa, prescribed regimens included drugs with high potential for toxicity (particularly stavudine). More recently a growing number of patients requires second line treatment due to treatment failure, especially following the expansion of viral load testing. We aim to determine the reasons and risk factors for modification of first line ART across the years.
We included patients started on standard first line ART (2NRTI + 1 NNRTI) between 2005 and 2016 at the Infectious Diseases Institute, Kampala, Uganda. We described the reasons for treatment modification categorized in (1) toxicity (2) treatment failure (3) other reason (new TB treatment, new pregnancy). We used Cox proportional hazard to identify factors associated with treatment modification due to toxicity.
We included 14,261 patients; 9114 (63.9%), were female, the median age was 34 years (IQR: 29–40), 60.8% were in WHO stage 3 and 4. The median BMI and CD4 count were 21.9 (IQR: 19.6–24.8) and 188 cell/µL (IQR: 65–353) respectively; 27.5% were started on stavudine, 46% on zidovudine, and 26.5% on a tenofovir containing regimens. We observed 6248 ART modifications in 4868/14,261 patients (34.1%); 1615 were due to toxicity, 1077 to treatment failure, 1330 to contraindications, and 1860 patients following WHO recommendation of phasing out stavudine and substituting with another NRTI. Modification for drug toxicity declined rapidly after the phase out of stavudine (2008), while switches to second line regimes increased after the implementation of viral load monitoring (2015). Patients with normal BMI compared to underweight, (HR: 0.79, CI 0.69–0.91), with CD4 counts 200–350 cells/µL compared to < 200 cells/µL (HR: 0.81− CI 0.71–0.93), and started on zidovudine (HR: 0.51 CI 0.44–0.59) and tenofovir (HR: 0.16, CI 0.14–0.22) compared to stavudine were less likely to have ART modification due to toxicity. Older patients (HR: 1.14 per 5-year increase CI 1.11–1.18), those in WHO stage 3 and 4 (HR: 1.19, CI 1.06–1.34) were more likely to have ART modification due to toxicity.
Toxicity as reason for drugs substitution decreased over time mirroring the phase out of stavudine, while viral load expansion identified more patients in need of second line treatment.
During the initial scale up of ART in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), recommended ART regimens included cheaper drugs [1], particularly stavudine, which are proved to be effective for the treatment of HIV [2], but have high potential for toxicity, [3,4,5]. In Uganda from 2003 to 2008 the typical ART regimens included stavudine or less frequently zidovudine, plus lamivudine plus nevirapine or efavirenz [6]. In 2008 the Uganda Ministry of Health (MoH) recommended a systematic national drug substitution from stavudine to other nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase (NRTI) regardless of the presence of toxicities [7, 8], preceding the 2010 WHO recommendation of replacing stavudine with zidovudine or tenofovir [9]. Tenofovir is an nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor which has shown a better safety profile than stavudine and zidovudine [2], and several observational studies demonstrated that modifications in the first 2–3 years on ART due to toxicities are less frequent in patients started on tenofovir [5, 8, 10,11,12,13]. Other relatively common reasons for ART modifications in SSA, less common in resource rich settings, are contraindications due to tuberculosis treatment or pregnancy. Specifically patients who are on nevirapine containing regimens and diagnosed with tuberculosis are switched to efavirenz to avoid drug–drug interactions, and up to year 2012 [14] women who became pregnant while on an efavirenz were switched to nevirapine due to the fear of teratogenicity.
Simultaneously, along with the scale up of ART, a growing number of patients on first line ART have required second line treatment using algorithms informed by potential acquired [15] or transmitted resistance [16]. In most settings in SSA, treatment failure has been identified using clinical and immunological criteria as indicated by the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines [1, 17]. Starting in 2010 [9], due to the suboptimal sensitivity and specificity of these criteria [18,19,20], the WHO suggested that, where possible, prospective viral load (VL) monitoring should be used. In Uganda routine VL monitoring scale up was initiated in December 2014, and VL testing has been performed at the national testing hub located at the Central Public Health Laboratories of the Uganda MoH.
In a context with limited treatment options there is need to sustain patients on a potent first line regimen as long as possible, while ensuring minimal toxicity and continuous efficacy of the drugs. ART modifications in busy clinical setting in SSA often have organizational and staff implications since a “modification visit” may last longer, due to additional counseling and education, and requires more trained staff; monitoring rates of ART modification is also critical in order to ensure continuity of drug supply. At patient level, even a single drug substitution can potentially disrupt the dietary or sleeping routine, as well as worsen adherence due to change of the drug timing or misunderstanding of the new schedule.
With this work we aim to determine the reasons and frequency of modification of first line ART regimens in HIV infected adults in a large urban over the years during the ART scale up in Uganda. We also aimed to determine factors associated to modification of first line ART due to toxicity.
The study was conducted at the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI), a center of excellence for HIV treatment and care [21], with over 35,000 adult patients ever registered, and over 8000 active patients.
Since IDI inception in 2004, ART has been initiated and prescribed following the contemporary WHO guidelines [1, 9, 17], including the recommended CD4 count threshold, and the first line regimens of choice. At the IDI clinic ART was monitored using bi-annual CD4 count, combined with a confirmatory ad hoc VL [22] for patients suspected of treatment failure treatment failure. From December 2014 annual viral load testing became available for all patients nationally. Therefore, patients with treatment failure were initially identified using immunologic criteria according to the WHO guidelines; only patients with a confirmatory viral load testing > 1000 were switched to second line; after the implementation of viral load monitoring patients with 2 consecutive viral measurements > 75 copies/ml are considered for switch to second line.
Patients and follow up
This study was a retrospective analysis of all patients started at IDI on standard first line ART (2NRTI + 1 non-nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase (NNRTI)) since the program inception in 2005 up to the end of 2016 with the closure of the database at the end of 2017 In our program at each visit after ART start the provider (a doctor or a nurse, depending on the general health condition of the patient [23]) takes the medical history, vital signs and performs physical examination. ART regimen, adherence, toxicity and laboratory tests are also reviewed, and ART and other medications are prescribed.
The information obtained during the clinic visits is entered in real time by the health providers into the IDI electronic medical record system, the Integrated Clinic Enterprise Application (ICEA) [24]. ART regimens are pre-coded and entered by choosing the correct code from a drop down. To eliminate the omission of important steps, or inconsistencies, automated queries were created within the database, and many fields are mandatory, and must be filled-in before the record can be considered valid and saved. In the context of ART regimens, if a health provider enters a regimen code different from the one entered on the previous visit, this activates a mandatory field asking for the “reason for ART change”. The reasons for ART change are also categorized and pre-coded and appear in a drop down. This check prevents both omitting the reason for ART change, but also erroneously entering and prescribing a regimen different from the one the patient is taking, in case no change was planned.
Data collection and analysis
The following data was extracted from the electronic medical records database: gender age, body mass index (BMI), WHO stage, ART start date, CD4 count at ART start, ART regimen categorized by zidovudine, stavudine, and tenofovir based, and reason for ART modification.
We described baseline characteristics stratified by gender and we used Chi square for categorical variables and Kruskal–Wallis tests to compare proportions and medians for non-normally distributed variables.
We described the reasons of any treatment change by year categorized in (1) toxicity (2) treatment failure (3) contraindication (new tuberculosis (TB) treatment, new pregnancy). Patients switched off stavudine without experiencing drug toxicity were not categorized as “switched due to toxicity” but as a separate group where ART was modified following MoH recommendations of national drug substitution. We calculated time to first drug substitution due to toxicity in patients initiated on ART before and after 2008 (year of national switch from stavudine). We also obtained the probability of time to first drug substitution stratified by gender and initial ART regimen (categorized as stavudine, zidovudine and tenofovir based regimens) using Kaplan–Meier survival methods and compared using log rank test.
To identify factors associated with treatment change due to toxicity we used Cox proportional hazard model which included the following covariates: sex, baseline CD4 count (categorized as < 200, 200–350, and > 350 cells µL), age in 5-year increases, WHO stage, baseline body mass index (BMI categorized as: underweight: < 18.5; normal: 18.5–25; overweight: > 25), and regimen at ART initiation (zidovudine versus stavudine versus tenofovir based). Variables with P valued < 0.2 in the bivariate models were considered for inclusion in the multivariate Cox regression model.
A total of 14,792 patients were started on ART during the study period (2005–2016); 501 patients were started on triple NRTI or blinded regimens as part of clinical trials; 14,261 were started on standard first line regimes and were included in the analysis. The majority, 9114 (63.9%), were female, the median age was 36 years (IQR: 30–42), and the median time on the first line was 2.8 years (IQR: 0.6–5.7).
Table 1 displays the characteristics at ART start of all patients and stratified by gender.
Table 1 Characteristics at ART start by gender patients initiated on standard first line antiretroviral therapy at the Infectious Diseases Institute Kampala, Uganda
Generally, females were younger (median age 34 years (IQR: 29–40), versus 38 in males (IQR) 33–44, P value: < 0.001). As compared to females, male patients were sicker at presentation and ART start, with a higher proportion in WHO stage 3 and 4 (69.7% versus 55.8%, P value: < 0.001), had a lower BMI (median 20.8 (IQR: 19–22.9) versus 22.7 (IQR: 20.1–25.8, P value: < 0.001), were more likely to be underweight (19.4% versus 12.1, P value: < 0.001), had a lower CD4 count [153 cells/µL (IQR: 65–353) versus 210 cells/µL (IQR: 80–380)] and had a higher proportion with CD4 count < 200 cells/µL (59.3% versus 48.2%, P value: < 0.001).
A similar proportion (46%) of males and females were started on zidovudine based regimens; a higher proportion of women were started on stavudine as compared to males (28.2% versus 25.6%), while a higher proportion of males being started on tenofovir based regimens as compared to females (27.9 versus 25.6%) (P: 0.007).
In total we observed 6248 ART modifications in 4868/14,261 patients (34.1%), of which 1130 (23.2%) had ≥1 modification; 1615 modifications were due to toxicity, 1077 due to first line treatment failure, 1330 for contraindications, and 1860 patients had ART modified following MoH recommendations of substituting stavudine with another NRTI.
When comparing patients with single and multiple drug changes (for any reason) we found that in the group of patients with multiple switches there was a higher proportion of females (24.3% versus 21.2%, P = 0.17), of patients with CD4 count < 200 cells/µL (71.8% versus 62.9%), with advanced stage diseases (WHO 3 and 4 69.9% versus 64.8%, P = 0.002), patients started on stavudine (74.4% versus 56.5%, P < 0.001) and started in the 2005–2008 period (80.5% versus 69.0%, P < 0.001). Figure 1 shows proportion of patients with no ART modifications, modification for toxicity, treatment failure, and contraindication per year from 2005 to 2017. Of note the proportion of the total patients in care with ART modification for drug toxicity increased overtime in the first period from 2.7% in 2005 to 7.6% in 2008, declining rapidly to 2.4% in 2009, after the systematic phase out of stavudine, with only 0.8% at the end of the study period (2017). On the other hand, while an increasing proportion of patients per year were switched to second line due to treatment failure, the highest proportion (4.2%) was observed in 2015, during the first year of routine viral load monitoring. We also observed a declining trend in modifications for contraindication, from 3.1% in 2005 to 0.4% in 2017.
Reasons for antiretroviral treatment modification in patients started on standard antiretroviral first line regimen at the Infectious Diseases Institute
Overall the incidence of first drug modification for toxicity gradually reduced from 76.6 (CI 71, 6–81.8) per 1000 person years at risk in 2005 to 26.2 (CI 9.8–69.8) in 2017, with a drop from 38.9 (CI 36.7–41.2) in patients stated on ART before 2008 to 26.4 (CI 24.4–287) per 1000 person years in patients started from 2009 onwards (P < 0.001).
In total 1733 (12.5%) patients had an ART modification due to treatment toxicity. We did not find a difference in the cumulative probability of ART modification due to toxicity by gender (males: 0.19, CI 0.17–0.21 versus females: 0.24, CI 0.22–0.26) (P = 0.15), while we observed a higher probability of ART modification in patients started on stavudine (0.36, CI 0.34–38) compared to patients started on zidovudine (0.19, CI 0.11–0.16) and tenofovir (0.06, CI 0.05–0.07) (P value < 0.001) (Fig. 2).
Cumulative probability of ART modification due to toxicity stratified by ART regimen in patients started on standard antiretroviral first line regimen at the Infectious Diseases Institute
In multivariate analysis patients who were less likely to change drugs due to toxicity had normal BMI as compared to patients who were underweight, (HR: 0.73, CI 0.64–0.83, P value: < 0.001), had a CD4 counts between 200 and 350 cells/µL (HR: 0.73− CI 0.65–0.83, P value: < 0.001), as compared to < 200 cells/µL, and patients started on zidovudine (HR: 0.51 CI 0.44–0.59, P value: < 0.001) and tenofovir (HR: 0.16, CI 0.14–0.20, P value: < 0.001) as compared to stavudine. Older patients (HR: 1.14 per 5-year increase in age CI 1.11–1.18, P value: < 0.001), those in WHO stage 3 and 4 (HR: 1.19, CI 1.06–1.34, P value: < 0.001) were more likely to change regimen due to toxicity (Table 2).
Table 2 Cox regression analysis for risk factors for treatment modification due to toxicity in patients started on standard antiretroviral first line regimen at the Infectious Diseases Institute
In this work we describe the reasons for ART modification in a large urban clinic in Uganda over a long period (13 years) of time.
Most of the ART modifications were due to reasons other than treatment failure, consisting mainly in single drug substitution due to toxicity and contraindications. In our setting it is paramount minimizing any ART substitution, since once a drug combination is modified in absence of a viral load and a drug resistance test, ideally it should not be given to the same patient again. This in turn results in making the availability of future ART combinations rationed, in a context of an already limited variety of regimens. Additionally, if a modification occurs while a patient is unknowingly on treatment failure, it is likely that resistance to the new drug will develop. During most of the study period routine VL testing was not available; even after viral load testing was implemented, in our settings the use of viral load is restricted to ART monitoring at specific strict intervals (12 months).
Almost one quarter of the patients experienced more than a switch for any reasons; among patients with multiple switches we found a higher proportion of female, low CD4 count and advanced disease, ART start regimen containing stavudine and starter in 2005–2008,
Additionally, low CD4 count, and WHO stage 3 and 4, were found to more frequent in the group with multiple switches as compare to patients who experienced a single, suggesting that advance diseases and stavudine use may be associated to multiple events.
Drug contraindications as a reason for change were mainly attributed to NNRTI, particularly to nevirapine. Due to drug–drug interaction between nevirapine and rifampicin, these drugs are never co-administered in our settings. Of note, after a peak in 2008, drug modifications due to contraindications experience a decrease. We believe this was due to both a decrease in diagnosis of TB cases in our clinic [25], and the shift to using tenofovir, lamivudine/emtricitabine, and efavirenz as the preferred first line ART choice also in child bearing age women after the implementation of the 2012 WHO guidelines (EFV recommended as the NNRTI of choice in pregnant women).
Toxicity was a common reason for treatment modifications; overall tenofovir based regimens had a lower drug substitution as compared to stavudine and zidovudine, similarly to what is reported in studies from similar settings [5, 13]. Our study also shows that ART modifications due to toxicity reduced dramatically after stavudine phase out, demonstrating that the expected effect, the reduction in ART regimen modifications driven by side effects, was in fact achieved. Our study showed that sicker patients, reflected by low CD4 count, low weight, and more advance WHO stage of disease, are at risk of treatment modification due to toxicity.
Our results are consistent with previously published data that show that patients in more advance stage of disease are more likely to experience side effects [4, 26], probably due to new opportunistic infections, and to co-administration of other medications. This points out to another advantage of starting ART as early as possible, because in addition to other clinical benefits, it could increase the durability of first line ART.
In 2015 we observed a peak of ART modifications due to treatment failure, up to 4.2% of the patients in care. This sudden increase can be explained by the scale up of routine viral load monitoring in a setting were patients were earlier monitoring using only CD4 count; it is likely that a large number of patients who did not meet criteria for clinical and immunological failure, had a detectable viral load. It has to be noted that after 2015 we recorded lower rates of switch to second line (1.8% in 2016, 1% in 2017). This can be explained by several factors; first of all, in our specialized center we usually attain high levels of adherence to first line ART and viral suppression, even among patients on ART for a long time, with 95.8% of patients on first ART for 10 years having viral suppression [27]. Secondly, but not less important, delays in switching patients with viral failure have been reported from our [28] and other similar settings [29] and therefore this proportion presented may not reflect all patients in need of second line treatment. While viral load monitoring may have increased the detection of patients with treatment failure, it is important that these patients are timely switched to second line treatment.
Our study has some limitations. First of all, this is an analysis of a single treatment site, and additionally a specialized HIV care centre, and therefore only reflects practices at that centre, and may not be generalizable. Of note at our clinic we did not experience drugs stock outs or modification in ART regimen due to unavailability of other drugs as reported in our studies [30]. It has also to be noted that the low switches of patients on tenofovir may not reflect the magnitude of tenofovir related toxicity; annual creatinine for kidney toxicity has not been routinely performed because not supported by the national program, as well as bone mineral density measurements due to high cost of Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA). Another limitation is the possibility of informative censoring of patients lost to follow up, who may have disengaged from care due to drug side effects, as well as suboptimal adherence and treatment failure; we may have underestimated the actually magnitude of ART modifications required.
Additionally, before 2015 ART when ART was monitored using CD4 count which have low specificity to detect treatment failure [18, 31, 32], the numbers of patients in need to switch to second line treatment were certainly underestimated, similarly to other programs with no viral load monitoring [33]. For this reason, we did not perform a multivariate analysis to identify predictors of ART modification due to treatment failure. We also did not perform a similar analysis to assess factors associated to modification due to contraindication, since these reasons were heterogeneous. Finally risk factors for drug substitution for toxicity in the multivariate analysis take in account only the first drug substitution.
Despite being data routinely collected, an evaluation of the data in our database revealed low rate of missing and inconsistent data [24].
In our study most of the ART modifications were due to reasons other than treatment failure, consisting mainly in single drug substitution due to toxicity and contraindications. The contribution of toxicity as reason for drugs substitution decreased over time mirroring the phase out of stavudine and the increasing availability of better tolerated regimes. Substitutions for contraindication also declined, due to a decrease in cases of tuberculosis and to the WHO recommendations of using efavirenz in pregnant mothers. New regimens including the integrase inhibitor dolutegravir are currently being expanded in some African countries including Uganda, calling for further future investigations on reasons for ART modification.
antiretroviral treatment
body max Index
DEXA:
dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry
ICEA:
Integrated Clinic Enterprise Application
IDI:
MoH:
NRTI:
nucleoside reverse transcriptase
NNRTI:
non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase
TB:
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The study was self-funded.
Infectious Diseases Institute, College of Health Sciences, Makerere University, Mulago Hospital Complex, P.O. Box: 22418, Kampala, Uganda
B. Castelnuovo
, F. Mubiru
, I. Kalule
& A. Kiragga
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BC conceived the analysis and wrote the first draft of the manuscript; FM executed the statistical analysis, AK supervised the analysis and the manuscript writing, IK supported the data extraction and analysis. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Correspondence to B. Castelnuovo.
The protocol “Analysis of routinely collected data to evaluate, monitor, and assess outcomes at the Adult Infectious Diseases Clinic (AIDC), Kampala, Uganda” was reviewed and approved by the Makerere University Faculty of Medicine Research and Ethics Committee (Approval Number: 120-2009) and the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (Approval Number: HS 683). The investigators obtained verbal or written consent waiver, but all patients information is analyzed after stripping it of unique personal identifiers.
The authors declare that they no competing interests.
Castelnuovo, B., Mubiru, F., Kalule, I. et al. Reasons for first line ART modification over the years during the ART scale up in Uganda. AIDS Res Ther 16, 31 (2019) doi:10.1186/s12981-019-0246-y
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12981-019-0246-y
Antiretroviral treatment modifications
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Taylor Flake MS
Career Development | Leaders in Transition
Taylor Flake has joined AIR Consulting after a 20-year successful career with one of the world’s premier talent academy companies, PepsiCo. He led the Talent Development function for their largest division (50,000 employees) where he oversaw the leadership development of hundreds of executives. He developed a Critical Experience Career Model currently used by PepsiCo’s 260,000 associates to successfully navigate career opportunities. He has a deep passion for helping leaders identify and close their developmental opportunities. He has demonstrated this capability as a certified internal coach of high potential leaders the past ten years. Taylor knows how to support leaders in getting off to “fast start transitions” by conducting new leader assimilation sessions to shorten the time required to reach peak performance.
Another area of Taylor’s expertise is in creating high performing teams. He helped lead the global effort to establish an agile team practice that is revolutionizing the way work gets done across PepsiCo; dramatically accelerating innovation, cutting bureaucracy and empowering decision making. Taylor developed a broad business background by serving as the Human Resource Executives on several senior operating teams in both domestic and international markets which achieved industry-leading performance.
Taylor holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Organizational Communications with a minor in Psychology from Brigham Young University and Master of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations from West Virginia University. He is certified in Hogan Assessments and as a Cambria Inside Edge Coach. He also completed the Principle of Organizational Dynamics course from University of Columbia and is currently enrolled in College of Executive Coaches – ICF Accredited Coach Training Program.
Taylor brings a breadth of experience and a global perspective gained through many diverse assignments both domestic and international. Taylor, his wife and children have recently moved from New York to a horse ranch in Utah.
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the Jersey Shore in this farce as Tony and Joey encounter an assortment of nuts—evangelical snake handlers, New Age pagans, Satanists and Voodooists—during their attempt to deliver the stolen Popemobile to their buyer.
(L to R ) Bill Potter. Jeremiah Dillard photo by Peter Kuo
Traffic, directed by Connie Regan and Vaughan Ellerton, drove onto the Chapel Street Players stage on the final day of March and runs through April 8th. This play has plenty of laughs and a diverse cast. Act One moves along at a nice pace with only minor bumps in the road. The dialogue seems forced at times and left me wondering if Bill Potter (Joey) had forgotten his lines and had to resort to ad-libbing his way through the scenes, but I ultimately decided it was the actor’s (or director’s) chosen delivery style. The squabbling between the brothers is initially funny, but wears thin quickly, becoming less funny as the play goes on. There are bright moments in the play, including a very funny motel exorcism scene. The play satirizes religion, so those easily offended by that type of humor should take that as a disclaimer. Additionally, Joey drops F-bombs like a B-52 over Iraq, so audience members should be prepared for that, particularly if bringing children to the show. Act Two is where the play hits a speed bump and limps to the side of the road, forcing the audience to endure ‘til the end and wishing fervently to push the OnStar button for roadside assistance…or at least an editing pen. The problem is that, at two hours and forty-seven minutes, the play is a bit too long. That’s not to say there aren’t still big laughs to be had (some of the biggest came in the second act), but the playwright should have put a sharper point on his editing pencil and cut repetitive material and material that simply didn’t work. It would be interesting to see this play after a laying on of hands in the form of a critical review/re-write.
(L to R) Marlene Hummel, Sharon Brown photo by: Peter Kuo
Jeremiah Dillard played Tony with great conviction as his brother’s unwitting accomplice and drew laughs each time he (literally) came under the spotlight to denounce his faith. Brooks Black shined as Millie and Colleen Boyle, Marlene Hummel, and Sharon Brown were hilarious as novice exorcists. As always, CSP does wonders with their small stage. Vaughan Ellerton gets kudos for a smart, functional set design as well as for the cleverly engineered Popemobile, which nearly stole the show.
Here’s where the rubber hits the road. Holy Traffic is not the best production to hit the CSP stage, but it isn’t horrible, so take a pew and take a chance on this original production before it closes. If you don’t like it, you can always pray for deliverance.
Holy Traffic! runs through April 8 (visit http://chapelstreetplayers.org/ for specific show dates/times and other offerings by CSP).
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Spokane, WA University of Washington Phoenix. AZ
I'd like to welcome everyone to my page! Wishing all the young vaulters and athletes of all sports the best of luck. Success isn't an accident....train hard!
Walker Weighs in on Record-Breaking Pole Vault Trio
Clearing the Comfort Zone
USA Record Holder Brad Walker Joins WSU T&F Staff
View Brad's News Archive →
Imagine running full speed carrying a long pole and catapulting nearly 20 feet in the air over a bar! Brad Walker does this for a living and has jumped higher than any American in history.
Born in Aberdeen, SD, the American record holder attended Unversity H.S. in Spokane, WA prior to his career with the University of Washington, where he graduated with a degree in Business. While competing for the Huskies, Brad was a two-time NCAA Indoor champion and two-time Pac-10 champion. Walker has been a leader in USA Pole Vaulting…
About Brad
Coach: Dan Pfaff
Training hurdles: Back Problems
Special skills: Coaching
Agent: Karen Locke
Bio Image Credit: Vaulter Magazine
Awards/Records
Pole Vault American Record Holder - 19' 9.75"
Team Brad:
Train Like a Champion
Mizuno Athletics
Hot Vaults - Brad Walker
VIDEO: Watch the Holla Atcha Boy Interview I did with Jamie Nieto
RT @CSLewis: From A Grief Observed by #CSLewis https://t.co/MKHEbhKZ9A
Tweeted by @SkyWalkerPV on January 23rd, 2019
ARTICLE: Read a post I did for Vaulter Magazine here
https://t.co/4EXg8XbUus
Tweeted by @SkyWalkerPV on January 22nd, 2019
ARTICLE: Read here about my back injury and recovery
Born in Aberdeen, SD, the American record holder attended Unversity H.S. in Spokane, WA prior to his career with the University of Washington, where he graduated with a degree in Business. While competing for the Huskies, Brad was a two-time NCAA Indoor champion and two-time Pac-10 champion. Walker has been a leader in USA Pole Vaulting since graduating from UW, earning honors as a four-time Indoor USA champion, five-time Outdoor USA champion, the 2006 World Indoor Championship, the 2007 World Championship, and represented the USA on the 2008 and 2012 Olympic teams.
Off the track, Brad has a passion for Childrens' Hospitals and enjoys reading and cooking.
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Atilla Lab
at the University at Buffalo
Lipid-centered Interests
G. Ekin Atilla Gokcumen (Ekin Atilla), J. Solo Associate Professor of Chemistry
B.S. Chemistry, Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey (2003)
Ph.D. Chemistry University of Pennsylvania (2008) Advisor: Eric Meggers
Postdoctoral Researcher, Harvard Medical School/Dana Farber Cancer Institute (2009-2013) Advisor: Ulrike Eggert
ekinatil@buffalo.edu
Laura Parisi (Chemistry Ph.D. candidate), joined November 2014
B.S Chemistry, Rochester Institute of Technology
Research interests: My research focuses on studying the roles of lipids during necroptosis, a form of programmed necrotic cell death. I am currently investigating the roles very long chain fatty acids and ceramides, two classes of lipids which accumulate during necroptosis, using a variety of techniques including mass spectrometry, fluorescence imaging, gene editing/silencing and small molecule-based approaches.
Alec Millner (Graduate student in Medicinal Chemistry Ph.D program), joined November 2017
B.S. Chemistry and Applied Biological Sciences, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
Research Interests: My research is focused on inducing cellular senescence through drug therapy and studying the changes in the lipidome. I am particularly interested in changes in sphingolipids and their involvement in senescence.
Daniel Lu (Graduate student in Medicinal Chemistry M.S program), joined November 2018
B.S. in Chemistry, National Taiwan University
Shadi Khoya (Graduate student in Medicinal Chemistry Ph.D program), joined November 2018
B. S. in Biochemistry, College of Mount Saint
Apoorva Pradhan (Graduate student in Medicinal Chemistry Ph.D program), joined November 2018
Bachelor of Pharmacy, Mumbai University
MS in Pharmaceutical and Medicinal chemistry, MCPHS University
Logan Running (Chemistry Ph.D. candidate; joint graduate student with the Aga group, Department of Chemistry, UB), joined November 2018
B. S. in Biochemistry, Potsdam College
Sarah Comer (undergraduate researcher, class of 2022)
Justin Bassett (undergraduate researcher, class of 2020)
Ph.D. Students:
Dr. Darleny Y. Lizardo (Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry, September 2018); currently a postdoctoral fellow, at the University of Pittsburgh
Dr. Eryn K. Matich (Ph.D. in Chemistry, September 2018); currently a postdoctoral fellow, at the University of Arkansas Medical School
Dr. Nita Chavez (Ph.D. in Chemistry, May 2019); currently a research scientist at Merck)
Dr. Nasi Li Dr. Nita Chavez (Ph.D. in Chemistry, May 2019); currently a research scientist at Merck) (Ph.D. in Chemistry, September 2019); currently a research scientist at Vertex)
M.S. Students:
Isin Tuna Sakallioglu (M.S. in Medicinal Chemistry, May 2017); currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Nebraska
Laura Morrow (M.S. in Medicinal Chemistry, February 2019)
Alyssa Aldrich(M.S. in Medicinal Chemistry, May 2017, currently researcher at Roswell Park Cancer Institute)
Postdoctoral researcher:
Virginia Del Solar Fernandez (currently postdoctoral researcher in the Neelamegham lab in Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at UB)
Undergraduate researchers:
Nate Foley (class of 2022)
Alexis Cardarella (B.S. 2019)
Madison Matheis (B.S. 2019)
Vichea Khoy (B.S. 2019)
Emily Chou (undergraduate researcher, Chemistry; joined Purdue University, Health Physics Graduate Program in Fall 2018)
Dorcas Nsumbu (undergraduate researcher, Chemistry)
Luke Izydorczak (undergraduate researcher, Medicinal Chemistry BS/MS)
Ming Zeng (currently associate scientist in Wuxi Apptec)
Jun Hui Yeoh (currently in UB Chemistry Graduate Program)
Ying San Leung, McNair Scholar, (Graduated 2016)
Mike Olyer (REU student, 2015)
Kasey Morrow (REU student, 2014)
Chris Brais (currently in UB Chemistry Graduate Program)
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24-year-old Asian Man Arrested for Alleged Hate Crime After Attacking Black Men in LA
Ricky Riley
Qu’s mugshot provided by Irvine police on March 30, 2016.
Irvine, California police arrested a 24-year-old Asian man Wednesday in a suspected hate crime after he struck a Black man with a metal pipe and hurled racial slurs at the victim’s teenage brother.
A 16-year-old Black teen was waiting for his older brother after sports practice at Irvine High School when Christopher Qu approached the young man with a metal pipe.
The teen — who is currently on spring break — was reportedly called racial slurs during the interaction with Qu. In a matter of a few minutes, the Black teen’s brother — who is also 24 — drove up to fend off the assailant, but he was struck with the metal pipe. In this unprovoked attack, Qu continued to spew racial epithets at both men.
According to police reports, Qu head-butted the teen’s brother and struck him with the pipe multiple times. The brothers were able to jump into their car and call authorities.
“The two victims are really nice, good people. They didn’t know the suspect. They didn’t provoke the suspect,” Irvine police spokeswoman Farrah Emami told media. “They were innocent victims in this case. They didn’t do anything wrong.”
The local news outlet KTLA reported that Qu was taken into custody on the suspicion of committing a hate crime. He was also arrested for suspicion of felony assault and assault with a deadly weapon.
The teen’s brother was the only person hurt in the altercation. The older victim was left with a laceration to his face and cuts and bruises on his arms, a police press release stated. The younger brother wasn’t physically harmed but still mentally distraught over the incident.
It is believed that Qu has a history of violence.
KTLA also reported that Qu, described as Chinese, was arrested February 23 and released March 22 from Orange County’s maximum security jail.
Police also have discovered the metal pipe, covered in the victim’s blood. It was found in the school parking lot, the release stated.
Here is the police report in full:
Screenshot of Irvine Police Department Press Release
Race In America
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‘Speak Volumes’: Two Black Women Appointed as Judges in California, Where It Rarely Happens
California Man Exonerated in 1998 Murder Case Sues Sheriff’s Investigators Over False Conviction
Driver Was Legally Drunk: New Details Emerge On Family Whose SUV Plunged Off California Cliff
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Samsung Galaxy Note 10 5G model will come, Verizon says
The Samsung Galaxy Fold was released ahead of the Huawei Mate X 5G but its launch has been canceled. In the US, AT&T postponed the release and moved it to June. Review units are now being recalled from the press as Samsung is set to fix the issues and do an investigation. In China, employee training and launch were also canceled. The
Samsung Galaxy Fold display breaking before market launch doesn’t sound ideal so let’s set aside the foldable phone for now and focus on the next premium flagship to roll out: the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.
The next-gen Galaxy Note model will be the Samsung Galaxy Note 10. To be honest, we’re not sure if the South Korean tech giant will still use the Galaxy Note 10 name because an old tablet is already known as the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 from 2012.
It is said the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 will have a bigger and better screen. It may arrive with a new S Pen camera as a recent patent was granted. Like the Samsung Galaxy S10, the Note 10 may also implement a quad camera design and a keyless design.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 may be out in two variants–the regular Note 10 and a bigger Note 10 Pro. This may be the first time the South Korean tech giant is releasing the Note series in multiple models.
Verizon has confirmed the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 can be listed as a 5G phone. It will definitely support the carrier’s 5G cellular network.
The 5G model of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 will follow the Galaxy S10 5G version. We’ll just have to wait for further rumors, leaks, and of course, the official announcement. We’re anticipating more interesting information will be released especially now that Samsung is busy discovering what happened to the foldable display. Hopefully, Samsung will make significant changes to production and implementation.
Samsung Galaxy Note 10 likely to have a quad camera setup
Samsung Galaxy Note 10 could be out in multiple models
Galaxy Note 10 Pro could be one variant's final name
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Angela Haggerty
Journalist, broadcaster and editor
Praying for the soul of Celtic
I’ve often imagined how I would feel the first time I visited St Mary’s in Abercromby Street, that very place Celtic Football Club was created. I always thought it would be a quiet moment on a quiet day, but a special one, reflecting on the part Celtic has played not only in my life, but throughout the generations of my family. I could never have imagined my first experience of that historic spot would be, 125 years after the club was founded to help, support and look after the poor and vulnerable, to bear witness about the events I witnessed at a Celtic supporters’ march and the behaviour of Strathclyde police.
And to punctuate the moment further, the jolt in the stomach came when another witness in the room remarked that, in these darkening days at Celtic, the club was missing someone.
Tommy Burns.
The weight of that statement was heavy indeed. As the club and the fans appear to be heading towards a standoff after allegations over Celtic’s relationship with Strathclyde police and sharing information about fans, the lack of a figure like Tommy, who ‘got it’, further compounds the loss of a great man.
Tommy Burns breathed Celtic. The blood of the club did not run through his veins, but the other way around; the blood, sweat and tears of men like Tommy Burns ran through the veins of the club, and that’s what made, and still makes, Celtic. The fans made the club, the heritage made the club, the last 125 years of battling against the odds made the club, and none of that existed without the unquestioning dedication from the fans to everything Celtic stood for – charity, generosity, compassion, inclusion and justice.
Just a week ago, around 200 fans were met with a police presence in equal number. Police vans, a helicopter, horses and officers on foot were deployed to deal with a march organised by the Green Brigade to, ironically, draw attention to what they claim is police harassment and fan criminalisation under new Scottish government legislation.
The Green Brigade and Celtic may have issues to iron out – the much heard of broken seats in section 111 we hear so much of these days, for example – but what happened last week did not just concern the Green Brigade and some over zealousness during games, it concerned the whole support. Those people were men, women and children. Photographs have emerged showing teenage boys being arrested and a young girl in tears, utterly distraught at the events unfolding around her.
Those everyday citizens were held against their will for an hour just for showing their support to their football club and to fellow fans. All pleas of ‘illegal procession’ were put into serious question when it emerged that the same Strathclyde police officers attended a demonstration just an hour before – which had been banned by acting chief constable Campbell Corrigan himself in a letter delivered to organisers three days before it took place – without making a single arrest. Their behaviour was described as “commendable”. Yet, 13 people were arrested at the Green Brigade march. Strathclyde police confirmed to Al Jazeera journalist Andrew McFadyen that no officers were injured. This was hardly a violent, rowdy rampage through the streets of Glasgow and questions have got to be asked.
A couple of days after the march, Celtic Football Club released at statement in which it said any suggestion of collusion between the club and Strathclyde police was “quite frankly, ludicrous”. You could have been forgiven for expecting the next sentence to say something about being “paranoid”. That old chestnut.
Fascinatingly, this excellent piece published by Al Jazeera highlighted that Rangers fan group, the Union Bears, have experienced much of the same treatment from the police as the Green Brigade, yet have made substantially less noise about it.
It would appear that had it not been for the Green Brigade’s stubborn and absolute refusal to accept a shift in the policing of football games, the Scottish government’s attempt to create a new category of ‘trouble’ to encompass football fans would have largely gone unquestioned.
The fighting spirit of the Celtic support remains strong, but it is at odds with those in charge of running the club. Respected members of Celtic supporters’ groups have begun speaking out about concerning discussions during meetings with Peter Lawwell and if any of the allegations regarding the passing of information to the police about fans the club views as troublesome are cemented, the club will be in crisis. Trust is everything. Only months after the big name mass at St Mary’s to celebrate Celtic’s 125th anniversary, Celtic fans gathered in the church hall to give witness statements about harassment, and the opportunity was not organised by the club.
It’s at times like this that Celtic needs a man with the heart and integrity of Tommy Burns to help carve a way forward. The fact that this generation can’t pinpoint their Tommy Burns may well be the point that the core fans are trying to make. Celtic PLC is losing the Celtic way.
Your move, Mr Lawwell.
5 thoughts on “Praying for the soul of Celtic”
gerry31 March 23, 2013 at 9:30 pm Reply
From everything I’ve read & the footage I’ve seen its clear police were looking for a reaction from the Celtic support they kettled.
It’s to the immense credit of those fans that they did not retaliate in any way & maintained their cool. I’m sure police PR already had their stories written and were ready to press the send button telling of violent thugs and how their brave officers protected the public from marauding hoards.
I can’t help feeling that there is considerable heat on the police at the minute though they won’t admit it. I hope everyone who was detained last Saturday complains. ‘Kettling’ is by no means settled as a lawful method of dealing with the public whether they wear hats and gloves to protect themselves from the elements or not!
For my own part I’m tired of these ‘collusion’ allegations.
Everything I’ve read indicated that Celtic wanted to detain someone who either allegedly broke a seat or was in the vicinity of a seat being broken. Nothing wrong with that. Similarly if police have ongoing investigations celtic are duty bound to provide information so long as police can provide sufficient details that information is required for bona fide reasons.
As far as I’m concerned there’s nothing ‘collusional’ about that! Collusion to my mind is a wholesale unwarranted sharing of information and I don’t see any evidence of this.
However this personal vendetta strathclyde police have against the green brigade in particular is a disgrace. We often hear that young people should be more interested in politics yet when they become so they’re jumped on.
Maybe the green brigade’s crime is to have leanings opposed to those in authority, but they of course like everyone else have rights to freedom of speech & expression, or do they?
The poppy protest was the topping point and made this personal for strathclyde police. I completely agree with the banner albeit would have preferred better spelling. Police were happy to brief of their desire to ‘smash the green brigade’ so long as it remained off the record.
Unlike some I don’t believe ‘all cops are bastards’! I have respect for police but I expect then to show respect in return. Police, like other occupations behave reasonably when approached reasonably but there’s always exceptions. In any case the heads of police were responsible not the ordinary cop.
In a democracy its important to separate police from politics but Chief Inspector House is deep in political doodoo.
Salmond needed his assistance for the ‘shame game’ publicity stunt summit which Celtic should have politely declined.
I hope as many Celtic fans as possible attend George Square on the 6th. This is an important issue and its important we stand together.
I’ve a feeling police will be charming on the day and I’ve no doubt Celtic fans will do the club proud.
cokeymac March 24, 2013 at 12:58 am Reply
Great wee read, would love to show my support with GB on 6th April, Hibs at home but wife & kids going, so will stay back… God Bless the Green Brigade
TheGoose March 24, 2013 at 8:49 am Reply
The GreenBrigade are a bunch of pissed up Neds whom think they are Celtic Football Club.
They’re not.
Stop trying to glorify/sanctify this scum by linking Tommy Burns name to this group of idiots. They are a minority whom bring shame to Scottish Football & Celtic.
Gavin Mac Cana March 24, 2013 at 11:01 am Reply
TheGoose can you substantiate your claims? Scum? In what way are they scum; prey tell.
I’m taking it you support another club outwith Celtic?
Jeanette Findlay March 24, 2013 at 11:49 am Reply
Interesting piece Angela and clearly written from the heart but can I just make a couple of points. If you read the minutes of the last meeting of the Celtic Trust (published on their site) with Peter Lawwell then you will see that Celtic plc have openly admitted to passing the names/phone numbers of fans to the police; when asked why, they said ‘because that is what we do’. Gerry31 and I have already had this out, but I can confirm that they are not under any obligation to pass information unless they have a court order and when they do, it has to be on a case by case basis, not just because it is ‘what they do’. You would expect them (and us) to co-operate with the police in the case of a serious or violent crime but not in relation to banners and songs. So the ‘allegations’ don’t need to be ‘cemented’ they have been openly admitted.
The other point I would make is that the session yesterday, and most of the activities around the Offensive Behaviour Act have been organised by Fans Against Criminalisation of which the GB is a founding member together with another four organisations; also, by no means the majority of those attacked by the police on Saturday 16th are GB members, so it is wrong to continue to say, for negative as well as for positive reasons, that this is all about the Green Brigade. It is not, it is about an attack on the civil liberties of Celtic fans (in fact, all fans) and about how we organise, as Celtic fans, to resist these attacks. It does the GB no service, and it is inaccurate, to continue to fixate on them as either the villains of the piece or the only goodies.
Having said all of that, I liked the piece, and keep fighting the good fight.
Why the word Sevco matters
HaveYourSay On Bute
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Conferenciantes
Conferenciantes pasados
Stories from the Ground: Tales of Courage
octubre 9, 2018 vuelo6
Animus Talks > Animus 2016 > Stories from the Ground: Tales of Courage
Stories from the Ground: Tales of CourageAnimus 2016 | – PANEL –
During the 2016 Animus Summit, Giselle Blondet interviews two honorees of L’Oreal’s “Women of Worth” program, Kenelma Figueroa and Anitza Urquía. “Women of Worth” (Mujeres de Valor in Spanish) is L’Oréal Paris’ signature philanthropic program, honoring those who go above and beyond, selflessly volunteering their time to empower others. Each year, 10 extraordinary women are chosen from thousands of nominations and honored for the impact they’ve made across a variety of charitable causes.
Anitza Urquía is the Founder of The Teras Autism Center, which offers brain re-training therapies for children with autism and ADD. It also works with adult patients with conditions such as Alzheimer’s and dementia, creating new neural reactions and leading them to recover lost skills. The Center was founded in 2009, inspired by her own experience of being the mother of a girl with autism and in response to the scarcity of existing services for this population.
Kenelma Figueroa is Current leader of the project “Models for Society Inc.”, which is dedicated to provide tools for the development of self-esteem and how to better project oneself. Through free refinement and modeling workshops that benefit girls and boys between the ages of 6 and 12. In 2015, she was recognized as a distinguished philanthropic citizen and was nominated as a woman of impact by the JCI (for its acronym in English).
Giselle Blondet is one of the most treasured Puerto Ricans on the island, with 35 years of experience in the entertainment industry. As an actress, host, philanthropist and businesswoman, she has become one of the most recognized Hispanic leaders in Latin America. Giselle is the face of L’Oreal Paris in Puerto Rico and of the company’s “Women of Worth” campaign on the island. Her success in an industry usually led by men has positioned her as one of the most influential women on television. She’s also the CEO of Blondet Productions, Inc.
Cobian Media es una compañía de medios progresiva que se dedica a crear plataformas que promueven el crecimiento económico. Unimos una cultura de pensadores e innovadores a través de diferentes eventos, mientras que les ofrecemos las herramientas necesarias para que puedan desarrollarse.
Conviértete en un Conferenciante
Conviértete en un Auspiciador
Conviértete en un Voluntario
Producido por Cobian Media © 2020
Diseñado y administrado por Vuelo6
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Natural history and treatment of hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus coinfection
Seth D Crockett1 &
Emmet B Keeffe2
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) coinfection is not uncommon as a result of similar routes of infection. Patients who are coinfected represent a unique group with diverse serologic profiles. Combined chronic hepatitis B and C leads to more severe liver disease and an increased risk of hepatocellular carcinoma. Furthermore, coinfected patients represent a treatment challenge. No standard recommendations exist for treatment of viral hepatitis due to dual HBV/HCV infection, and therefore treatment must be individualized based on patient variables such as serologic and virologic profiles, patient's prior exposure to antiviral treatment, and the presence of other parenterally transmitted viruses such as hepatitis D virus and human immunodeficiency virus. The natural history and treatment of patients with HBV and HCV coinfection is reviewed.
Hepatitis B and hepatitis C viruses are the most common causes of chronic liver disease worldwide. Acute infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) or hepatitis C virus (HCV) may result in chronic infection, which occurs at a high rate in infants infected with HBV and the majority of individuals infected with HCV. Chronic HBV and/or HCV infection can progress to cirrhosis and be complicated by hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Coinfection with both viruses can occur because of shared routes of infection. Patients with dual HBV and HCV infection have more severe liver disease, and are at an increased risk for progression to HCC [1–4]. Coinfected patients represent a diverse group with various viral replication and immunity profiles. Because of their distinct clinical course and heterogeneity, identification of patients who are candidates for therapy and selection of the optimal antiviral therapy is a challenge for clinicians. Herein we review the natural history of HBV/HCV coinfection, current understanding of the interactions between these hepatotropic viruses, and the limited literature on treatment of coinfected patients.
Approximately 350 million people are infected with HBV worldwide [5], and the World Health Organization estimates that approximately 170 million people are infected with HCV [6]. The exact number of patients infected with both HCV and HBV is unknown. One Eastern European study found a rate of dual infection in 0.68% of a randomly selected healthy population of over 2200 individuals [7]. In patients with chronic hepatitis B, estimates of the rates of HCV coinfection vary from 9% to 30%, depending on the geographic region [8]. One Italian study found that rates of dual infection increased with age, and was more common in patients over 50 years of age [9]. These numbers may underestimate the true number of patients with both viral infections because no large-scale studies have been performed, and there is a well-described phenomenon of "serologically silent" occult HBV infection (i.e. patients with negative hepatitis B surface antigen [HBsAg] but detectable serum HBV DNA) in patients with chronic hepatitis C [10].
Screening for Coinfection
Persons with a first episode of acute hepatitis should be screened for all viral causes including HBV and HCV. Some patients may be inoculated with both viruses simultaneously and will present with acute hepatitis due to both viruses. In addition, HBV superinfection in patients with chronic hepatitis C, and HCV superinfection in patients with chronic hepatitis B have both been reported [11–13]. Therefore, episodes of acute hepatitis in patients with known chronic HBV or HCV infection, especially those with ongoing risk behavior for infection with the alternative virus such as injection drug users, should raise suspicion and prompt screening for superinfection. In addition, as will be described below, silent or occult HBV infection in patients with chronic hepatitis C may alter patients' clinical course and response to therapy [14, 15]. However, this phenomenon requires further study regarding its clinical significance before routine screening of HCV patients for HBV DNA can be recommended.
Interaction of Hepatitis Viruses
Several studies have shown that the HBV and HCV interact with each other and affect immune responses. HCV infection can suppress HBV replication, as demonstrated by studies showing that patients with chronic hepatitis B who are coinfected with HCV have lower HBV DNA levels, decreased activity of HBV DNA polymerase, and decreased expression of HBsAg and hepatitis B core antigen in the liver [16–18]. Furthermore, patients with chronic HBV infection who become superinfected with HCV can undergo seroconversion of hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) and HBsAg to respective antibodies [19–21]. Sheen et al. [22] conducted a longitudinal follow-up study of a large series of HBV infected patients and found that the annual incidence of HBsAg seroconversion was 2.08% in coinfected patients compared to 0.43% in patients with HBV monoinfection, and a subsequent study confirmed these results [23]. Several mechanisms of replicative interference of HBV by HCV have been proposed. Shih et al. implicated the hepatitis C core protein in suppression of HBV [24]. A subsequent study found that the hepatitis C core protein suppressed HBV enhancer activity, thereby affecting transcription [25]. This inhibitory effect appears to be more pronounced with HCV genotype 1 both in vitro and in vivo [25, 26].
Several authors have reported that HBV can reciprocally inhibit HCV replication as well [27, 28]. Specifically, HBV DNA replication has been shown to correlate with decreased HCV RNA levels in coinfected patients [29]. In one Italian study, coinfected patients had a rate of HCV RNA clearance of 71% compared to 14% with HCV monoinfection [26]. HBV replication in coinfected individuals may result in more liver inflammation, as demonstrated by studies in which HBV replication correlated with elevated ALT levels, while HCV replication did not [28, 30, 31]. Furthermore, coinfected patients have been demonstrated to have lower levels of both HBV DNA and HCV RNA than corresponding monoinfected controls, indicating that concurrent suppression of both viruses by the other virus can also occur. [32].
Overall, the available evidence demonstrates that both viruses can inhibit each other simultaneously; either virus can play a dominant role; both viruses have the ability to induce seroconversion of the other; the chronology of infection has a role in determining the dominant virus; and HBV and HCV can alternate their dominance [8]. However, the overall dominant effect appears to be HCV suppression of HBV [11, 32, 33].
Different scenarios of infection have been described with dual infection with HBV and HCV including acute dual viral hepatitis, occult HBV coinfection of chronic hepatitis C, and superinfection by either virus in patients with preexisting chronic hepatitis due to the alternative virus. In addition, coinfected patients are often found to have evidence of both HBV and HCV infection without a clear chronology of infection. In areas with high endemic rates of HBV infection due to vertical transmission, coinfection can generally be assumed to be due to HCV superinfection. In other geographic areas, the sequence of infections is less clear. Acute coinfection or superinfection with either virus can lead to fulminant hepatitis, chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis and HCC (Figure 1).
Infectious scenarios and treatment window for patients coinfected with hepatitis B and hepatitis C viruses. HBV = hepatitis B virus, HCV = hepatitis C virus.
Acute Hepatitis due to Dual Infection
Few studies have been reported on simultaneous acute hepatitis with HBV and HCV, but it appears that HBV and HCV interact in acute infections similar to their interactions in chronic infection. Simultaneous coinfection via an accidental needle stick that resulted in acute hepatitis was first described by Liaw in 1982 [34]. The diagnosis of HBV infection was delayed for 6 weeks, possibly related to HCV interference. Simultaneous coinfection resulting in acute post-transfusion hepatitis has also been described [35]. Mimms et al [36]. studied patients with concurrent acute infection with HBV and HCV compared to those with acute HBV alone, and reported decreased ALT levels, delayed appearance of HBsAg, and a shorter duration of hepatitis B surface antigenemia in coinfected patients compared to controls, suggesting HCV suppression of HBV activity.
Occult Hepatitis B Infection
Several reports have described the entity of occult or serologically silent HBV infection, particularly as it relates to treatment outcomes [10, 14]. Occult HBV infection refers to patients who have low levels of circulating HBV DNA, but who lack both circulating antigens and their corresponding antibodies (i.e. HBsAg, HBeAg, hepatitis B surface antibody [anti-HBs] and hepatitis B e antibody [anti-HBe]). Such patients have been shown to have more severe liver disease [37]. One study found that 33% of patients with chronic hepatitis C and occult HBV infection had cirrhosis, compared to 19% of patients with chronic HCV infection without detectable HBV DNA [38]. Occult HBV may also be associated with more liver inflammation, greater histological activity of hepatitis, and higher ALT levels [14]. The effect of serologically silent infections on response to treatment will be discussed below.
Hepatitis C Superinfection
In areas of high prevalence of HBV infection such as Asian countries, the phenomenon of HCV superinfection is well described [11, 13]. Superinfection with HCV can result in suppression of HBV replication, as well as termination of the HBsAg carriage [11]. There is one case report of acute HCV superinfection resulting in HBeAg seroconversion as well as clearance of HBsAg [20]. After superinfection and seroconversion of HBsAg, HCV infection may persist and result in continued chronic hepatitis [19]. Besides its viral interaction with HBV, HCV superinfection can result in more severe liver disease and an increased risk of fulminant hepatitis [39]. The mortality rate of HCV superinfection in chronic hepatitis B patients may be as high as 10% [11].
Hepatitis B Superinfection
Superinfection with HBV in patients with chronic hepatitis C is less common. Liaw et al. reported a series of 2 patients with chronic hepatitis C with documented HBV superinfection (positive IgM anti-HBc) [12]. One 82-year-old patient who was positive for both HBV DNA and HCV RNA on admission died of fulminant hepatic failure. The second patient was HBsAg positive, but HBV DNA negative. She subsequently recovered from acute hepatitis with normalization of ALT and seroconversion of HBsAg, as well as disappearance of anti-HCV antibody, indicating a possible suppressive role of HBV on HCV infection. It is difficult to draw conclusions from this limited report, but it is reasonable to assume that there may be an increased risk of fulminant hepatitis with HBV superinfection, and that those who recover are at risk for chronic coinfection. The clearance of anti-HCV in this case suggests that superinfection may allow HBV to play the dominant role in suppression of HCV.
Fulminant Hepatitis
Several studies have addressed the role of coinfection with HBV and HCV in fulminant hepatitis. Chu et al. [39] conducted a prospective study of patients admitted with acute hepatitis C in Taiwan. Eleven patients had fulminant hepatitis, and of these, 23% had underlying chronic HBV infection, compared to 2.9% for patients without fulminant hepatitis. This corresponded to an odds ratio (OR) for chronic HBV patients developing fulminant hepatitis with HCV superinfection of 10.2 (95% confidence interval 4.7–21.9, p < 0.01). A French study of 40 patients with fulminant and subfulminant hepatitis found that 5 of 40 patients (12.5%) had acute coinfection with HBV and HCV and 3 of 40 (7.5%) had superinfection of HCV [40]. Another Taiwanese study of 25 subfulminant and fulminant hepatitis cases found similar rates of coinfection (9.4%) and HCV superinfection of chronic hepatitis B (3.1%) [41]. These studies suggest an increased risk of fulminant hepatitis with HCV and HBV coinfection and superinfection.
There are various immune profiles of dually infected patients with chronic hepatitis, and their immune profiles have a bearing on the choice of treatment. One possibility is dually active HBV and HCV, in which patients have detectable serum HBV DNA and HCV RNA. It stands to reason that these patients are at highest risk of progression to cirrhosis and decompensated liver disease, and therefore, should be considered for treatment. Another possibility is active HCV infection (positive HCV RNA) in the setting of an inactive HBsAg carrier. Such patients behave similar to patients with HCV monoinfection, and likely exhibit HCV viral suppression of HBV activity. Another possibility is active HBV infection in patients with inactive or prior HCV infection (HBV DNA positive/HBeAg positive/HCV RNA negative/anti-HCV positive). This immune profile is less common, and indicates HBV suppression of HCV. The various immune profiles have significance in regards to treatment options as will be discussed below (Table 3).
Table 3 Immune Profiles of Patients with Chronic Hepatitis due to Coinfection, and Suggested Treatments Based on Published Trials
Coinfected patients have higher rates of cirrhosis with decompensation. One cross-sectional study found higher rates of cirrhosis (44% vs. 21%) and decompensated liver disease (24% vs. 6%) in coinfected patients compared to patients with chronic HBV monoinfection [16]. Moreover, HBV replication in coinfected patients (detectable serum HBV DNA) has been correlated with higher rates of cirrhosis, Knodell score, piecemeal necrosis and fibrosis [29]. A Saudi Arabian study found that coinfected patients (compared to HCV monoinfected patients) had more decompensated liver disease with a higher proportion of cirrhosis (95% vs. 48.5%) and Child-Pugh class C (37% vs. 0%) [42].
Coinfection with HBV and HCV has been shown in many case-control studies to correlate with an increased risk of developing HCC [4, 42]. One study found a rate of HCC in coinfected patients of 63% compared to 15% in HCV monoinfection [42]. Benvegnu et al. [1] conducted a prospective study of 290 cirrhotic patients and found that coinfection (detectable anti-HCV and HBsAg) was an independent predictor for development of HCC in a univariate and multivariate analysis (p < 0.02, p < 0.05 respectively). A subsequent longitudinal study confirmed these results, and reported a rate of incidence of HCC (per 100 person years) of 6.4 in dually infected patients, compared to 2.0 in HBV and 3.7 in HCV monoinfected patients, and a 45% cumulative risk of developing HCC at 10 years in coinfected patients, compared with 16% and 28% in HBV and HCV monoinfected controls [2]. Similarly, A South African study reported an 83-fold increased for developing HCC among coinfected patients compared to patients without hepatitis B or C [43]. Because of the likely increased risk of developing HCC, coinfected patients should receive regular 6-month and possible more frequent screening with ultrasound of the liver and serum alfa-fetoprotein levels.
Well established treatment guidelines exist for patients with chronic hepatitis B and chronic hepatitis C [44–49]. In regards to HBV infection, the Asian-Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL), the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) and the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) recommend treating patients who have moderate to severe chronic hepatitis as evidenced by >2-fold elevation of ALT levels or significant findings on liver biopsy associated with HBV DNA >105 copies/mL. Patients may have detectable HBeAg associated with wild type virus or HBeAg-negative from infection with the precore or core promoter mutant virus. Currently licensed drugs for chronic hepatitis B in the United States include interferon alfa-2b, lamivudine, adefovir, entecavir, and peginterferon alfa-2a. Patients with fulminant hepatitis and decompensated cirrhosis are not likely to respond to antiviral agents and are candidates for liver transplantation (Table 1). Patients with chronic hepatitis C with detectable serum HCV RNA are candidates for 24 to 48 weeks of antiviral therapy based on genotype. Currently standard treatment for hepatitis C is peginterferon alfa-2a or 2b plus ribavirin. As with chronic hepatitis B, patients with decompensated liver disease or fulminant hepatitis (rare with acute hepatitis C) are candidates for liver transplantation (Table 2).
Table 1 AASLD Recommendations for Treatment of Chronic Hepatitis B
Table 2 AASLD Recommendations for Treatment of Chronic Hepatitis C
There is no currently established standard of care for patients who are coinfected with HBV and HCV. In general, the same treatment criteria should be applied to patients who are HBC/HCV dually infected as are applied to monoinfected patients (Tables 1 and 2). Initiation of treatment, as with both HBV and HCV, is recommended in patients with active chronic hepatitis or cirrhosis prior to decompensation (Figure 1). Given the complex interaction of HBV and HCV both with each other and with the immune system, care must be taken to select the most appropriate antiviral regimen based on serologic markers and levels of viremia. Because of its activity against both viruses, interferon therapy has been the most studied. The published data on the antiviral treatment of HBV and HCV coinfection is reviewed in the following discussion and summarized in Table 4.
Table 4 Medication Trials in Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C Coinfected Patients
Interferon is an immunomodulating medication with antiviral and antiproliferative effects and has been well studied in patients with chronic viral hepatitis. Interferon alpha (IFNα) is an approved treatment for both chronic hepatitis B and C. In appropriately selected patients with hepatitis C, interferon treatment led to sustained virological response (SVR), i.e. negative HCV RNA 6 months following completion of treatment, in approximately 10% of HCV patients. These results are improved when IFN is used with ribavirin (SVR up to 43%), and when peginterferon plus ribavirin is used (SVR up to 56%) [45]. In chronic HBV infection, IFN is indicated for patients with chronic hepatitis with elevated ALT and HBV DNA levels, and has the benefits of a lack of resistance and a durable response in those who respond to therapy. In studies of HBV patients, interferon is effective in roughly 35% of patients [50]. Peginterferon has also recently shown promise in treatment of hepatitis B [51], and peginterferon alfa-2a was recently licensed in the United States.
IFN has been the most studied agent in treatment of coinfected patients because of the wealth of experience with this agent in viral hepatitis and its proven activity against both viruses. One of the first case reports of successful treatment with IFN of a coinfected patient (resulting in HBeAg loss and a SVR of HCV infection) was published by Burt et al. in 1993 [52]. Several case series were subsequently reported. In 1995, Géhénot et al. [53] studied 16 patients with histologically proven chronic hepatitis with positive anti-HCV, HCV RNA, HBsAg, and anti-HBe (HBV DNA negative), compared to patients with chronic HCV infection alone. Treatment consisted of IFNα at 3 million units (MU) thrice weekly (TIW) for 6 months. A similar rate of sustained biochemical response (normal ALT at 6 months following treatment; SBR) was achieved in coinfected patients compared to controls (19 vs. 21%). Two patients treated with IFN seroconverted to HBsAg negative. This study demonstrated that comparable results could be obtained with interferon in coinfected patients who do not have evidence of HBV replication. A subsequent study by Weltman et al. [3] of 8 coinfected patients treated with the same regimen (IFN alfa-2b 3 MU TIW for 6 months) reported similar results, with 1 patient experiencing SBR (12.5%). The patient with SBR seroconverted at 6 months to HBsAg negative/anti-HBs positive. An Indian study of 7 dually infected patients (HBsAg, HBV DNA, anti-HCV, HCV RNA positive) used a higher dose of IFN alfa-2b (6 MU) for 6 months [54]. After 6 months follow-up, the authors reported 100% of patients lost HBV DNA, 100% of HBeAg-positive patients lost HBeAg (3/3), and 29% lost HCV RNA (i.e. SVR = 29%). Utili et al. [23] studied a cohort of 32 HBV/HCV coinfected patients, 16 of whom received IFN treatment (5 MU TIW for 12 months). They report an overall SVR rate of 43.8% for HCV infection, and this rate was increased in patients who were HBeAg negative (66.7%). Loss of HBeAg occurred in 2 of 13 patients (15.4%).
Villa et al. [55] conducted a larger prospective randomized trial of 30 patients with HBV/HCV coinfection (HBsAg-positive, Anti-HCV-positive, HCV RNA-positive), in which patients received either 6 or 9 MU IFN-α TIW for 6 months. This study found that higher dose IFN was more effective in inducing clearance of HCV RNA (31.2% vs. 0%, p = 0.045) and HBV DNA (100% vs. 0%), as well as inducing a SBR (37.5% vs. 0%, p = 0.019) compared to the lower dose. Histological scores were better in patients in the high-dose arm as well. This was the first study to suggest that higher doses of IFN may be indicated in coinfected patients.
Several studies have reported detectable HBV DNA in patients with chronic hepatitis C but negative HBsAg. This so-called "serologically silent" HBV infection or "inapparent coinfection" has been correlated with impaired response to IFN treatment. Zignego et al. [10] reported significantly worsened results in 14 chronically infected HCV patients with inapparent HBV coinfection (anti-HCV-positive, HBV DNA-positive, HBsAg-negative). Patients were treated with IFN alfa-2a TIW for 12 months. Four out of 14 patients had normal ALT levels at the end of therapy (28%), but all had relapsed within 6 month post-treatment, and thus none had a SVR. Fukuda et al. [14] also found that silent HBV infection was associated with higher ALT levels, greater histological activity scores and poor efficacy of IFN treatment. Some have proposed that the impaired response to IFN in such patients may be due to HBV-mediated down-regulation of intrahepatic IFN receptor gene expression [15].
A hepatitis C flare has been described in a coinfected patient who had HBeAg/HBV DNA clearance in response to IFN [56]. For this reason, some investigators have raised concern that IFN treatment of coinfected patients carries the risk of a severe hepatitis flare if the suppressive effect of one virus is removed, thereby allowing the other virus to become active.
Though there have been no published studies of the use of peginterferon (peg-IFN) in coinfected patients, the use of this agent will likely replace standard interferon in treatment of HBV/HCV coinfection, as peginterferon is now the standard of care for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C, and has recently been approved for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B.
Interferon plus Ribavirin
Several groups have published studies addressing treatment of coinfected patients with antiviral combination therapy with IFNα plus ribavirin. Liu et al. [57] treated 24 dually infected patients (HBsAg positive/anti-HCV positive) with IFN alfa-2a (6 MU TIW for 12 weeks followed by 3 MU TIW for 12 weeks), concurrently with ribavirin 1200 mg daily for 24 weeks. Seventeen patients were positive for both HBV DNA and HCV RNA. Results showed a SVR rate of 43% for clearance of HCV RNA, compared to 60% in similarly treated HCV monoinfected controls. Six of 17 patients with detectable HBV DNA at baseline had disappearance of HBV DNA at the end of treatment persisting to 24 weeks post-treatment (35%). A SBR rate of 43% was reported. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of combined IFN and ribavirin in coinfected patients, with a rate of SVR and SBR comparable to HCV monoinfected patients.
Hung et al. [58] treated 36 patients with HBV/HCV coinfection (HBsAg-positive/anti-HCV-positive/HCV RNA-positive) with combination IFN alfa-2b (3 or 5 MU TIW) and ribavirin (800–1200 mg/day) for 24 weeks. This study reported a SVR rate of 69% and SBR rate of 56%. Loss of HBV DNA was found in 2 of 18 patients with HBV DNA detected at baseline (11%). Interestingly, 53% of patients with negative HBV DNA at baseline had reactivation of HBV DNA at the 48 weeks of follow-up.
Chuang et al. [59] studied combination therapy with high-dose IFN alfa-2b (6 MU 3 times weekly for 24 weeks) and ribavirin (1000–1200 mg daily for 24 weeks) in 42 coinfected patients, compared to a control group of HCV monoinfected patients. The investigators found comparable rates of SVR in HCV coinfected (69.0%) and monoinfected (67.2%) patients (IFN naïve). Disappearance of HBV DNA occurred in 5 of 16 (31%) patients with positive HBV DNA at baseline. Viral interaction was evident, in that coinfected patients who achieved a SVR (compared HCV nonresponders) were less likely to achieve HBV DNA clearance (8.3% vs. 100%), and more likely to have reactivation of HBV (58.8% vs. 12.5%) or HBV flares (44.8% vs. 8.3%). Of the patients who cleared HBV DNA, 4 of 5 were patients who did not achieve a SVR with undetectable HCV RNA following combination therapy. Nonetheless, the high SVR rate for HCV infection in this population provides further evidence that IFN plus ribavirin combination therapy can be effective in coinfected patients, especially those who have active HCV replication.
As described in the above studies, successful treatment of chronic HCV infection may correlate to HBV reactivation and flaring. Yalcin et al. reported a severe hepatitis B flare in a patient with HBV/HCV coinfection (HBV DNA-negative) undergoing treatment with IFN and ribavirin [60]. This patient's hepatitis improved after discontinuation of therapy, but a relapse of HCV infection with rapid progression to cirrhosis occurred thereafter. Clinicians must exercise caution when treating coinfected patients with combination IFN plus ribavirin given this risk of HBV reactivation.
Interferon plus Lamivudine
One study of lamivudine therapy in addition to IFN for coinfected patients has been published by Marrone et al [61]. Eight patients with dually active HBV and HCV (HBeAg-positive/HBV DNA-positive/HCV RNA-positive) were treated with 5 MU of IFN and lamivudine 100 mg/day for 12 months followed by lamivudine alone for 6 months. Three patients had clearance of HBeAg, 3 had clearance of HBV DNA (37.5%), and post-treatment ALT levels normalized in 4 of 8 (50%) treated patients. Four patients (50%) also had clearance of HCV RNA that was persistent at 12 months post-treatment (i.e. HCV SVR = 50%). This initial study suggests that the addition of lamivudine to IFN may be effective in coinfected patients with chronic hepatitis C and active HBV replication. Further studies on this combination therapy in larger groups of patients must be performed in order to confirm these results.
Adefovir and Entecavir
There have been no published studies regarding treatment of coinfected patients with the newer agents adefovir and entecavir. However, these agents may be useful, particularly in patients with HBV-dominant disease. Studies need to be performed using these agents before they can be recommended for routine usage.
The United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) reported that 14 patients were transplanted for combined hepatitis B and C in the United States in 2004, and 434 patients have been transplanted for this indication since 1988 [62]. There are limited data on the post-transplant course of such patients. One small study by Huang et al. [63] reported results of 19 patients with coinfection (either acquired or persistent) following transplantation. This study found that survival of patients with HBV monoinfection was worse than that of dually infected patients, suggesting a possible beneficial role of HCV in the immunosuppressed post-transplant population. Further studies are needed to clarify the clinical course and optimal management of coinfected post-transplant patients.
Triple Infection with HBV, HCV and Hepatitis Delta Virus
Hepatitis delta virus (HDV) infects only patients with preexisting HBV infection. Triple hepatotropic viral infections with HBV, HCV and HDV can result in more severe hepatitis, and therefore compel the clinician to offer treatment [8]. Few studies have been published regarding treatment of patients with triple hepatitis virus infection. Weltman et al. [3] studied 7 patients with triple infection who received IFN therapy. One patient had a reported SBR, and 2 patients were withdrawn from treatment due to side effects. Interferon treatment is a reasonable recommendation despite the paucity of data to support its use. Further studies are needed on such patients to determine optimal therapy.
Triple Infection with HBV, HCV and Human Immunodeficiency Virus
Triple infection with HBV, HCV and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a complex clinical scenario, due to the interaction of HBV and HCV, and the impact of HIV on the immune system. In addition, a majority of patients with HIV/HCV coinfection are infected with HCV genotype 1, decreasing their response to interferon therapy and thereby rendering treatment more difficult [64]. Furthermore, HCV/HIV coinfection has been shown to result in more severe liver disease and an increased risk of liver disease-related death [65]. No standard of care exists for such patients, and treatment must be individualized and coordinated with an HIV specialist. Infection of HIV must be controlled before treatment of viral hepatitis can be considered [66]. Few studies have been performed on treatment of patients with triple infection, so treatment algorithms are often extrapolated from results of trials of patients with either HBV/HIV or HCV/HIV coinfection. IFN alone is associated with a SVR rate of approximately 17% in HCV/HIV coinfected patients, and this rate increases to 25% with the addition of ribavirin [67]. Lamivudine has been used in HBV/HIV coinfected patients, but is associated with a high rate of resistance [68]. There is promise for the use of newer agents such as adefovir, entecavir, tenofovir, and emtricitabine, but no studies have corroborated their utility in this population [66].
Summary of Treatment Recommendations
Thorough serologic and virologic testing is required in dually infected patients prior to consideration of therapy. Assessment of the "dominant" virus is helpful in determining a treatment strategy. Caution must be taken with treatment of coinfected individuals, as exacerbations of liver disease after initiation of therapy have been described, likely due to loss of viral suppression from the successfully treated dominant virus. Patients are candidates for therapy if they meet the inclusion criteria for standard treatment guidelines for either HBV or HCV monoinfection (Tables 1 and 2). In coinfected patients with HCV dominant disease, IFN plus ribavirin treatment has been well studied and has proven efficacy. In patients with HBV dominant disease, IFN with or without lamivudine is a reasonable option. Further studies of other HBV treatment agents such as adefovir and entecavir are needed before these agents can be routinely recommended, though they may be used on a case by case basis. In addition, future studies are needed to assess the effectiveness of peginterferon as well as triple therapy with lamivudine, IFN, and ribavirin in coinfected patients, though peginterferon should generally be used in place of standard interferon in coinfected patients given its proven efficacy in HBV and HCV monoinfected patients. Referral to a transplant center is indicated for patients with decompensated cirrhosis, fulminant hepatitis, or HCC in appropriate patients. In patients with triple HCV/HBV/HDV infections, few treatment studies have been published, but IFN is a reasonable treatment. Patients who have triple infection with HIV/HBV/HCV should have their care coordinated with an HIV specialist.
Coinfection with HBV and HCV is not uncommon, especially within areas of high prevalence of hepatitis B. Dual infections present unique management challenges given the complex interaction of HBV and HCV, and the propensity for developing more severe liver disease. Treatment options mostly include IFN with or without lamivudine or ribavirin. Treatment decisions should be made based upon the determination of the "dominant" hepatitis virus. Caution must be exercised in treating coinfected patients, as flares of the untreated virus may occur. No standard of care has been established for treatment of coinfected patients, and larger randomized, controlled trials are needed to clarify the optimal treatment for such patients and the role of newer antiviral agents.
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Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA
Seth D Crockett
Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA
Emmet B Keeffe
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Crockett, S.D., Keeffe, E.B. Natural history and treatment of hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus coinfection. Ann Clin Microbiol Antimicrob 4, 13 (2005) doi:10.1186/1476-0711-4-13
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Home Page Love Essays Romeo and Juliet: Innocent Victim of Love Essay
Romeo and Juliet: Innocent Victim of Love Essay
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What is this thing called love? Love is unselfish, understanding and kind, for it sees with its heart and not with its mind. Love is ecstasy and torment, freedom and slavery. Love makes the world go round. In William Shakespeare’s tragic play, “Romeo and Juliet” it is proven that love is the most dominant theme that pushes the two lovers to defy their family and their entire society. Romeo and Juliet secretely marry, and make a rash, irresponsible decision that leads to their tragic deaths. Instantly, Romeo and Juliet are attracted to each other; she by Romeo’s words, and he by Juliet’s beauty.
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When Romeo first sees Juliet, he is completely astounded by her beauty. Without even knowing the name of this lovely stranger, Romeo’s eyes take complete control over his heart and mind, and set him in a helpless state of love. He speaks of Juliet as though she is an angel; “O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright/ It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night/As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear “1. 5. 45-47. In addition, Romeo and Juliet fall in love even though they know that their love is forbidden. They make rash decisions not knowing what lies ahead.
All they care about is what they both feel for one another not thinking about the consequences that they have to face sooner or later. Their decisions are based on their passion rather than with their minds. Juliet states her rash decision when she says “Deny thy father and refuse thy name/And I’ll no longer be a Capulet” 2. 2. 36-37. She expresses her love for Romeo. Also, Juliet is so blind by her love for Romeo that she wants to forget her own name as well just to be with him. Romeo and Juliet defy their parents when they decide to marry secretely.
In addition, Romeo defies ruler. He returns to Verona after being exiled by the Prince. At the very moment Balthazar inform Romeo that Juliet is dead, he quickly decides to go back and to die with her. Romeo’s sudden decision is proven when he says; “Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight” 5. 1. 36. At the same time, Romeo knows that going back to Verona is dangerous and risky for him but he doesn’t care about any of that because the only thing he cares about is the desire to be with the one he loves even in death.
Innocence is easy to kill but hard to regain. Juliet’s love is totally pure and innocent. She has never been in love. Being a 13 year old girl, Juliet strongly believes in love, life and passion. Her fathers support this statement when he exclaims “My child is yet a stranger in the world, She hath not seen the change of fourteen years” 1. 5. 8. 9. Romeo and Juliet are both still young, immature, inexperience, and naïve. However, the unexpected death of Tybalt tarnishes their innocence.
To illustrate, Romeo kills Tybalt in order to take revenge for the death of his friend Mercutio. Taken over by anger Romeo starts fight with and kills Tybalt. Thus, he has done the wrong thing for the right reason. Benvolio explains everything to the prince by saying “Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo’s hand did slay/Romeo, that spoke him fair, bid him bethink” 3. 1. 151-152. Accordingly, Romeo and Juliet experience loss of love one, hate, and violence that result from their love. Now, they can see how cruel the world can be.
READ: 'Who do you hold responsible form Mecutio's death in Act 3 scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet and why? Essay
For instance, Romeo sacrifices himself for her. Here’s to my love! O true apothecary, Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die 5. 5. 119-120. When Juliet finally awake in the tomb to find her Romeo lying dead beside her tomb, she shows true strength, courage, and an overall passion that makes her heart believe she cannot live without Romeo, by tragically taking her own life. This brings an end to their passionate love, and to their family feud, because their parents realize love is stronger than hate.
Clearly, love is the most dominant theme that leads the two young lovers to defy their family and their entire society. In addition, they make rash, irresponsible decisions that lead them to their tragic deaths. In Shakespeare’s tragic play, Romeo and Juliet is clearly a victim of the major role of love in their tragic deaths. These two lovers are victim of tragic love, however even though they both die in a tragic way, it is indeed the only possible way that their family is going to end the feud and to get along in harmony.
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What is this thing called love? Love is unselfish, understanding and kind, for it sees with its heart and not with its mind. Love is ecstasy and torment, freedom and slavery. Love makes the world go round. In William Shakespeare's tragic play, "Romeo and Juliet" it is proven that love is the most dominant theme that pushes the two lovers to defy their family and their entire society. Romeo and Juliet secretely marry, and make a rash, irresponsible decision that leads to their tragic deaths. Inst
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Pennsylvanias Baby Trump Wants to Impeach Judges He Doesnt Like
February 7, 2018 February 7, 2018 Agnes
Its no secret that Donald Trump has a problem with the rule of law: undermining the FBI, wanting to have the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals broken up, possibly obstructing justice himself, and recently accusing Democrats lawmakers of treason.
But for every dictator, there are petty dictators: baby versions with some of the bark and none of the bite. Take the otherwise unremarkable Cris Dush, currently serving his second term as a Pennsylvania state representative. In most Februarys, Dushs greatest claim to fame is that his district includes the town of Punxsutawney, home of Groundhog Day.
But Monday, Dush grabbed headlines for proposing to impeach five justices of Pennsylvanias state supreme court, for the audacious crime of ruling a way he didnt like.
Now, as with many such politicians, its hard to know how seriously to take Dush. On the one hand, he may simply be pandering to his base, sending a ridiculous memo to his colleagues in legislature as a way of garnering press coverage like this article, and of bragging about it in the next election cycle.
On the other hand, maybe Dush actually believes what hes saying. Maybe hes not a canny opportunist but an angry white man who watches Fox & Friends every morning and has no clear understanding of the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the way democracy works. Sound familiar?
Appropriately enough, the context for Dushs memo is itself about democracy and the rule of law: voting rights.
Last month, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court invalidated the commonwealths voting districts for being unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor the Republican Party. Despite the state having more registered Democrats than Republicans, Republicans hold 13 of 18 congressional seats. Furthermore, the court ordered a new map to be approved by February 15, and threatened to draw its own map if the legislature and governor failed to agree.
On Monday, the United States Supreme Court let that ruling stand. While the Court is considering a partisan gerrymandering case of its own, Gill v. Whitford, the Pennsylvania ruling was carefully worded to be based solely on the Pennsylvania constitution, not any federal statute or provision. Normally, and here, the Supreme Court defers to state courts readings of their own constitutional provisions.
The same day of the Supreme Courts action, Dush sent his impeachment memo. Curiously, it didnt focus on the substantive issue of partisan gerrymandering, which is what this controversy is really about, but on a silly conception of separation of powers. Ordering the legislature to draw a map, Dush wrote, overrides the express legislative and executive authority of the Pennsylvania constitution, the memo states, which clearly lays out the path a bill must take to become law.
Moreover, the five justices who signed this order that blatantly and clearly contradicts the plain language of the Pennsylvania Constitution, engaged in misbehavior in office.
Both of those claims are incorrect.
First, its quite common for courts in redistricting cases to order that a new map be drawn by a certain deadline, or threaten to draw a map themselves. That has happened before in 12 states, with courts drawing their own in eight. While Dush has apparently watched Schoolhouse Rock and knows how a bill becomes a law, he has apparently not read Article III of the U.S. Constitution, its parallel provisions in the Pennsylvania constitution, or any of the relevant caselaw.
Dushs proposal is emblematic of a pattern of right-wing Republicans disparaging our democratic institutions when they dont agree with what they say
Second, and more importantly, Dushs memo conflates constitutional interpretation with judicial misconduct. Perhaps the majority of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court did err in ordering a new map to be drawn, but even if they did, thats not misconduct. Misconduct means things like disobeying a direct court order (which Joe Arpaio and Roy Moore did), obstructing justice (which Donald Trump may have done), or lying under oath (like Scott Pruitt did) or violating canons of conduct and ethics (like Devin Nunes did).
Were Dush just another third-rate state legislator, this controversy wouldnt mean much. Theres no evidence that GOP leaders in the state house are taking him up on his proposal. Theyre doing what political adversaries ought to do: filing a new claim in the district court to enjoin the order while attempting to comply with the current one. No doubt, they will be working hard to create a map that still favors their party, but doesnt favor them as egregiously as the last map.
Thats still dirty politics, but both parties do it, its entirely within the law, and its how the system works.
But Dushs proposal is emblematic of a pattern of right-wing Republicans disparaging our democratic institutions when they dont agree with what they say. The worst offender, of course, is the president, who has disparaged the FBI, federal court judges, and the free press in a way that no American president, Democrat or Republican, has ever done.
Never in our countrys history (though several times in others) has a leader called members of the opposition treasonous because they did not applaud his speech, confusing loyalty to ones country with loyalty to its leader.
Likewise Arpaios flaunting of a judicial order demanding that he dismantle his concentration camp for those suspected of being illegals, and Trumps outrageous pardon of him. Likewise Moores order that Alabama clerks under his supervision refuse to comply with the Supreme Courts decision on same-sex marriage. The list goes on and on.
Of course, Cris Dush only wishes he were Joe Arpaio let alone Donald Trump. Hed be lucky to be Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis, another petty government official who thinks her personal beliefs trump the rule of law.
But just as history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce, so too the authoritarianism of the Tweeter in Chief has trickled down to the likes of Dush. Egged on by Fox News, for whom no fact is true if you dont like what it says, thousands of mini-Trumps are spreading across the country like a red, itchy rash. And even though this outbreak will go away, the disease is still advancing.
Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/pennsylvanias-baby-trump-cris-dush-wants-to-impeach-judges-he-doesnt-like
Donald J. Trump Pennsylvania Republican Party
Nunes memo ‘a political hit job on FBI’ in service of Trump, top Democrat says
Pardoning suffragettes ‘complicated’
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Home » Articles » Hotel to office to hotel – Dexter Moren wins planning to restore Norwich hotel to its former glory Over 49355 entries
Hotel to office to hotel – Dexter Moren wins planning to restore Norwich hotel to its former glory
Dexter Moren Associates has won planning permission to refurbish and extend a Grade II listed Victorian building in Norwich to create a world class, 110 key boutique hotel with rooftop terrace and integrated co-working space
Originally built as a hotel in 1897, the Royal Hotel was converted to offices in the 1980s but now only its lower floors are occupied. Dexter Moren’s sensitive design will convert vacant upper floors of offices into vivacious guestrooms whilst adding a contemporary extension into the existing lightwell.
In its latest project with internationally renowned hoteliers Accor Hotels, the award-winning architects and interior designers will refurbish the extravagant exterior, add a lightwell extension with a graceful glazed link and further guest rooms in a simple flat parapet rooftop form. A rooftop terrace, with Sky bar and restaurant, for hotel guests, outside visitors and local residents, will nestle within the Royal’s existing roofscape, giving stunning views of Norwich Cathedral. Inside, original detailing such as the ornate Drawing Room ceiling will be kept, with the great first floor ballroom becoming an open plan co-working space.
Constructed in a traditional Flemish style by renowned Norwich Architect Edward Boardman (1833-1910), the handsome terracotta and red brick Royal Hotel sits on a prominent island site in the heart of the historic city of Norwich, within the City Centre Conservation Area and close to Norwich Castle, a Scheduled Monument and Grade I listed building.
Girish Grover, CEO at TurniT Capital said:
“There is a high demand for good quality hotels in the city centre and we have drawn on DMA’s extensive experience of working with Listed Buildings to refurbish the Royal Hotel to its original use, making it once again an important focus of attention, supporting the city’s booming tourist trade, increasing economic activity and adding to the rich heritage of Norwich.”
For the central light well extension façade, a sculptured, perforated folded metal cladding has been influenced by Edward Boardman’s original angular geometry and incorporates a pattern taken from his original facade design, interpreted in a contemporary manner. The façade is deliberately lightweight, reversible and contrasting, providing a pleasing distinction between old and new and allowing the building’s evolution to be clear and understandable.
Mark Wood, Partner at DMA said:
“The Royal will be an Ibis Styles hotel, a mid market boutique style brand whose ethos of providing an original experience through eclectic design, is perfectly suited to the conversion and refurbishment of such a historic building.
“The hotel will incorporate an interior design scheme based on a unique ‘local neighbourhood’ theme, retaining and enhancing the rich character and heritage story of this landmark building, whilst bringing it up to the standards expected of a modern 21st century hotel.”
gpad wins planning permission for prestigious City office extension and refurbishment
Seventeenth century smugglers’ hotel reinvigorated for guests and locals alike
Purcell and Manchester City Council win planning approval to restore and renew Grade I-listed Manchester Town Hall and Albert Square
Article submitted by 1 found
Dexter Moren Associates
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DLF plans to raise Rs 11,250 cr from promoters
By On December 04, 2017, 10:08 AM IST News Real Estate
Mumbai: Real estate major DLF on Friday said that it plans to raise Rs 11,250 crore through issue of warrants and debentures to its promoters, subject to shareholders approval.
“Upon completion of the… mentioned issuances and conversion into equity shares, the total additional amount of promoter or promoters group’s equity contribution to the company will be approximately Rs 11,250 crores,” the company said in a BSE filing.
The company also plans to offer and issue up to 17.30 crore equity shares of Rs 2 each, to eligible investors, in one or more tranches, in India or abroad by way of “public issue or a private placement or a qualified institutions placement”.
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Auto Components »
two-wheeler
Minimum Import Price
Anant Geete
ACMA seeks minimum import price levy on two-wheeler alloy wheels imported from China
In 2017-18, two-wheeler sales in the country stood at 2,01,92,672 units as against 1,75,89,738 units in 2016-17, up 14.8 per cent.PTI | February 24, 2019, 12:37 IST
Minimum Import Price (MIP) is a temporary measure to provide protection to domestic farmers and industry from predatory pricing of imports.
Auto component manufacturers have approached the government seeking imposition of minimum import price on aluminium alloy wheels for two-wheelers imported from China, citing difficulties faced by the domestic industry.
The Auto Component Manufacturers Association (ACMA) has written to Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu observing that "domestic manufacturers are facing difficulties in order to compete and continue a sustainable business model due to subsidy given by the Chinese government and thus making import favourable".
It requested the government to take measures to address this concern "by introducing minimum import price for a minimum of three years on aluminium alloy wheels for two wheelers" in order to encourage investments.
Union Heavy Industries Minister Anant Geete is expected to take up the issue with Prabhu next week, official sources said. The Heavy Industries Ministry implements schemes and policies for the development of India's automobile sector.
Earlier this month, the Commerce and Industry Ministry in reply to a Lok Sabha question had said the difficulties being faced by domestic manufacturers of two-wheeler alloy wheels have been brought to the notice of the government.
India is the largest manufacturer of two-wheelers in the world. In 2017-18, two-wheeler sales in the country stood at 2,01,92,672 units as against 1,75,89,738 units in 2016-17, up 14.8 per cent.
According to the ACMA, there is an annual requirement of around 35 million alloy wheels in India for two wheelers, out of which only 13 million wheels are being produced by domestic manufacturers while the remaining around 22 million wheels are being imported, mainly from China.
The government has levied anti-dumping duty on four-wheeler alloy wheels imported from China, Korea and Thailand for five years from the date of imposition of provisional anti dumping duty on April 11, 2014, and the duty is valid up to April 10, 2019.
The Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) has initiated the sunset review investigation of the prevailing duties on August 10, 2018. The investigation is underway and is to be finalised before April 9, 2019, if not extended further by the Government.
The ACMA had earlier sought inclusion of alloy wheels used in two-wheelers under the ongoing sunset review investigation.
However, sources said the Commerce Ministry was of the view that the request is not legally tenable, and has advised representatives from the industry to file a formal application seeking imposition of anti dumping duty with the DGTR.
"At present, investigation is going on four-wheeler alloy wheels and since during this, anti-dumping duty cannot be extended to another segment, we have requested the government to protect interest of domestic two-wheeler alloy wheel makers by putting a minimum import price on the item," ACMA Director General Vinnie Mehta told .
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade in consultation with the administrative ministry considers the request from the industry for prescribing MIP on import of specific goods.
"Similar to result seen in four wheelers, we foresee opportunity for investment of approximately Rs 2,000 crore and employment generation of around 5,000 people by localisation of alloy wheels for two wheelers. Further it will strengthen the Make in India initiative curbing such high number of imports," the auto component industry body said.
Anti-dumping duty has also been imposed by the Government on "flat base steel wheels" originating in or exported from China in September, 2018 for five years.
Tags : Auto Components, two-wheeler, suresh prabhu, Minimum Import Price, China, Anant Geete, alloy wheel
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[Note to Search Engines: This is Not Another Termite Poop Story.]
Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Beaten by Termite Innate Immune System (the science part)
Antiseptic procedures and germ theory, stuff now routine like doctors and nurses washing their hands to avoid contaminating patients, entered modern medicine via 19th-century applied entomology aimed at solving a mysterious silkworm population decline baffling Italy’s Agostino Bassi and France’s Louis Pasteur (See blog, The Mysteries of Colony Collapse). Today, Pasteur might be looking over the shoulder of Yuan Zeng in Xing Ping Hu’s Urban Entomology Lab at Auburn University, wondering how termites make themselves more robust and immune to disease. After working with silkworms and formulating modern germ theory, Pasteur realized that “the exclusive emphasis on the germ theory of contagious disease” was a very incomplete view of reality in need of modification; a radical notion that would be opposed by many in modern medicine even today, as germ theory has attained the status of orthodoxy and relegated the alternatives to the fringes.
Pasteur told colleagues that if he had the chance to go back to silkworm entomology again he would focus on nutrition, the environment and physiology (e.g. immunity) to increase robustness, vigor and disease resistance. Stuff that would be cutting edge in the 21st century. Stuff like termite entomologist Yuan Zeng’s study of how termite “innate immune systems” overcome MultiDrug Resistant (MDR) bacteria infecting over 2 million people annually in the USA. MDR bacteria in the USA annually kill over 23,000 “because they are untreatable with today’s drugs,” Zeng told the Entomological Society of America (ESA) annual meeting. MDR bacteria are also becoming “a significant global health threat.” An excellent YouTube video of Yuan Zeng describing her Auburn University research on termites defeating MDR bacteria is now available.
Zeng’s previous research with powdered extracts of Eastern subterranean termites (Reticulitermes flavipes) against bacteria causing human gastric distress lends credibility to traditional folk medicines containing insects. “Our previous research on disease resistance in R. flavipes workers showed that the crude extract of naive termites constitutively displayed a broad-spectrum antibacterial activity including agents responsible for human gastric infections,” Zeng told the ESA annual meeting. The logic behind using termites as medicines or drugs is that subterranean termites forage and nest in soil loaded with pathogenic microbes, making them a “source for novel antimicrobial discovery because they have evolved effective innate immune systems in confronting various harmful microorganisms.”
If a termite species is both pest and medical cure, then might an alternative to chemical fumigation be to harvest (e.g. trap or vacuum) the termites and sell them as a medicinal crop? That is a question that rarely, if ever, is asked. “Science has already proven the existence of immunological, analgesic, antibacterial, diuretic, anesthetic, and antirheumatic properties in the bodies of insects,” wrote Brazilian researcher Eraldo Medeiros Costa-Neto in an article titled ENTOMOTHERAPY OR THE MEDICINAL USE OF INSECTS. “Since early times, insects and the substances extracted from them have been used as therapeutic resources in the medical systems of many cultures. Commonly considered to be disgusting and filthy animals, many insect species have been used live, cooked, ground, in infusions, in plasters, in salves, and as ointments, both in curative and preventive medicines.”
Florida is the place where all the termites of the world seem to be coming to live. The Palm Beach, Florida, TV news recently warned of a Caribbean invasion of conehead or tree termites, known scientifically as Nasutitermes corniger. Conehead termites avoid competing with subterranean termites by building “beach-ball size” nests above ground and “brown tubes up the outside walls of houses,” and according to the TV make wood look like “shredded wheat.” Even “aggressive spraying” dating back to 2001 failed in its goal of eradication, and 100 million conehead termites nesting in 120 colonies amongst 42 properties were sprayed in 2012. Conehead termites, which are “distributed from southern Mexico to northern Argentina and the West Indies,” are “commonly used in traditional medicine in Northeast Brazil,” say scientists in Brazil. No doubt the coneheads will turn up again and again in Florida until they are finally accepted as residents. That is the nature of invasive insects.
Perhaps instead of chemical eradication programs, these termites should be harvested and exported to Brazil and elsewhere for medical use. “With the increase in microbial resistance to antibiotics, the use of natural products represent an interesting alternative for treatment,” wrote Henrique Coutinho and his Brazilian colleagues in an article titled “Termite usage associated with antibiotic therapy.” Crushed and powdered conehead termites mixed with a conventional antibiotic drug (which was failing, due to bacterial resistance) produced “a new weapon against the bacterial resistance to antibiotics” via a termite-drug synergy. In other words, mixing powered conehead termites with the drug made for a more powerful antibiotic medicine than using the antibiotic drug alone. At least the coneheads are good for something.
Yuan Zeng told the ESA and YouTube that she fed subterranean termites “sublethal concentrations of MultiDrug Resistant (MDR) pathogens, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) or Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PAOl),” which induced “an alternation of protective proteins” produced by the termite’s innate immune system. “The composition changes of proteins following the feeding of MDRs significantly inhibited the growth of P. aeruginosa and MRSA,” said Zeng. “The results of this research could be a significant breakthrough for developing novel effective drugs” to fight human disease pathogens resistant to multiple antibiotic drugs. Worldwide, millions of people stand to benefit.
Known termite immune proteins include termicin, spinigerin, lysozome, tGNBPs, and “two unidentified proteins from several termite species with potent antibacterial and antifungal activities.” However, Zeng’s termite antimicrobial compounds are different; though there is still much scientific work to be done.
In the journal “Recent Patents on Biotechnology,” Japanese researchers Toru Matsui, Gaku Tokuda and Naoya Shinzato from University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa discussed patenting termite genes for alternative energy and drug production. “Although termites are regarded as harmful because of the ability to decompose cellulosic materials such as houses made of wood,” said Matsui et al. “Termites and/or their symbionts are potentially good resource of functional genes for industrial applications…for biomass utilization, environmental remediation, and fine-chemicals production.” Several termite genes have already been patented for biofuel (cellulase) and fighting infections (antimicrobial peptides).
A fungus-growing termite, Pseudacanthotermes spiniger, is notable for producing termicin, an antifugal peptide, and spinigerin, an anti-bacterial and antifungal peptide. “These peptides and the corresponding cDNAs have been patented as useful for protection of plants from pathogenic fungi or medical purposes,” said Matsui et al. “Similarly, some chemical antibiotic compounds isolated from termites have also been patented for the use of treating a microbial infection or disease.”
“Although entomotherapy is an ancient practice, it is still relatively unknown in the academic world,” wrote Costa-Neto. “In fact, as Holt already stressed in 1885, the advance of medical science and the suppression of folk knowledge swept away belief in the medicinal qualities of insects.”
Insect species outnumber plant species 16-fold, according to an article in The Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge: “Yet very few researchers have concentrated on the medically useful properties of insects. Most research with insects revolves around getting rid of them.”
Medical Botany refers to plants used for medical or health purposes. But there is no entomological equivalent. Medical Entomology addresses arthropods as medical or pest problems; and by analogy is like Weed Science to Botany. Insects as medicinal cures or health enhancers are outliers, orphan science, folk healing curiosities; perhaps supermarket tabloid fodder alongside celebrity scandals and UFO abductions.
In South India winged subterranean termites (Odontotermes formosanus) are traditionally roasted in earthen pots and consumed for three evenings to treat asthma. But their anti-bacterial qualities have not been explored, “mainly because of the difficulty in harvesting large numbers.” Memo to South India: An abundance of potentially medicinal subterranean termites are ready for harvesting and roasting for export in south Florida, Hawaii, New Orleans, Auburn, Mississippi, etc. Perhaps in some distant future a doctor will say, “Take two powdered termites and some Vitamin C, and call me in the morning.”
This entry was posted on Friday, January 2nd, 2015 at 9:14 am and is filed under 1, Alternative Energy, Botanicals (e.g. herbs; natural products), History of Biocontrol, Termites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
3 Responses to Termites: Good Medicine (Antibiotic Alternatives)
Termite Power! | Biocontrol Beat says:
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Emily Warren Roebling #WHM19 #WomensHistoryMonth #WomenInSTEM
Last year a streetcorner was named in Emily Warren Roebling’s honor, she oversaw the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge after her engineer husband fell ill. Via BKLYNR
A streetcorner will be named in honor of pioneering Brooklyn Heights resident for her role in completing one of the greatest pieces of Brooklyn iconography there is: the Brooklyn Bridge.
Emily Warren Roebling (1843-1903) will be honored by having the corner of Columbia Heights and Orange Street co-named after her this afternoon. Roebling lived nearby, at 110 Columbia Heights, with her husband Washington Roebling.
Washington Roebling served as the Chief Engineer for the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, after his father, the bridge’s designer, John Roebling, passed away. Unfortunately, early in the construction, Washington Roebling developed caisson disease, or depressurization sickness, from the chambers used in the underwater construction of the bridge’s supports.
With her husband bedridden by the disease, Emily Warren Roebling stepped in to not only tend to his health, but to see the bridge through to completion. For fourteen years, Emily Warren Roebling oversaw the day-to-day construction of the bridge, learning about the engineering aspects of the project as she relayed information to her crippled husband.
At the completion of the project, Congressman Abram Hewitt, the future Mayor of New York, called the Brooklyn Bridge “…an everlasting monument to the sacrificing devotion of a woman and of her capacity for that higher education from which she has been too long disbarred.”
When the bridge opened in 1883, the woman who had helmed the project for nearly 14 years was the first to walk across its span. A plaque dedicated to Emily Warren Roebling, her husband Washington and his father John Roebling, stands on the crossing to this day:
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Filed under: design and architecture, holiday, women's history month, Women's History Month —
Tags: holiday, Womens History Month — by Jessie Mae
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"My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing" - Aldous Huxley
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FUNDBASE OBTAINS FINMA APPROVAL TO REPRESENT AND DISTRIBUTE FOREIGN COLLECTIVE INVESTMENT SCHEMES IN SWITZERLAND
January 12, 2015 etiennefundbase
~ First regulated hedge-fund platform for qualified investors and fund providers globally ~
By the end of December 2014, Fundbase Fund Services AG, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Pfaeffikon-based Fundbase Holding AG, received approval from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to act as representative and distributor of foreign collective investment schemes for qualified investors in Switzerland. At the same time, Fundbase has been fortunate to recruit Lilian Klose-La Scalea, who has a long track record as a hedge fund expert. As Managing Director of Fundbase Fund Services AG, she will now be responsible for expanding the company’s representation and distribution business.
Fundbase Fund Services AG, which since September 2014 has provided free access to its hedge-fund platform Fundbase.com to qualified investors in Europe and the USA, was granted the license by the Swiss financial service regulator FINMA at the end of December 2014 for representing and distributing foreign collective investment schemes. Going forward, foreign investment schemes targeting qualified investors in and from Switzerland can appoint Fundbase to act as their legal representative and thus comply with the impending deadline of 28 February 2015 for foreign fund managers (see below). This positions Fundbase as the first regulated online hedge-fund platform globally.
The platform complies with all necessary requirements for distributing foreign alternative investment products to qualified investors in and from Switzerland. In turn, the qualified and professional investors active on Fundbase.com, such as banks, family offices and asset managers, benefit from the safety of a regulated service provider of data and investment opportunities in an easy and innovative way. Building up this new distribution and representation business further expands Fundbase’s offering for foreign hedge funds.
Lilian Klose-La Scalea heads Fundbase Fund Services’ distribution and representation business
In order for Fundbase to build up its distribution and representation business with the FINMA approval, the company appointed Lilian Klose-La Scalea as managing director for the new business arm at the end of 2014. Lilian Klose-La Scalea is a highly experienced hedge-fund specialist. From 2011 she was responsible for launching Swiss Fund Platform AG as a sister company of Swiss Multi Family Office Corum Vermögensverwaltung AG. Before that she was responsible for building up the Hedge Fund Competence Center at Bank Sal Oppenheim (Schweiz) AG, which she first joined in 1994 as a client relationship manager in Private Banking. In 2004 Lilian Klose-La Scalea switched to Credit Suisse AG, where she worked as product manager in the Alternative Investments division. In 2007 she was appointed head of “Fund of Hedge Fund Advisory”. In this role, she was responsible for selecting third-party fund of hedge funds providers, as well as supervising internal training and marketing activities.
Adoption of the new European legislation in the field of alternative investments
The two FINMA approvals enable Fundbase Fund Services AG to position itself as a leading service provider for foreign alternative investments in Switzerland, as the transitional period for complying with the new rules governed by the revised Collective Investment Schemes Act (CISA) is about to end in Switzerland on 28 February 2015. By then, all foreign collective investment schemes targeted at qualified investors in Switzerland must have appointed a Swiss representative and a Swiss paying agent. According to Fundbase an estimate of 7000 foreign hedge funds have been allocated in client portfolios in Switzerland. Fundbase reckons that the majority have not yet nominated a legal representative and paying agent in Switzerland.
Fundbase’s unique value proposition is in combining its globally active hedge-fund platform based on state-of-the-art technology with its regulated service offering. “With our specialization in hedge funds, access to investors via our platform, and our offering that meets all regulatory requirements, we are able to sustainably open up the Swiss market for the world’s most innovative hedge funds“, comments Michael Appenzeller, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Fundbase Holding AG.
In the past, the offering of foreign collective investment schemes in Switzerland strictly to qualified investors was subject to almost no regulation – not on the product side nor on distributor level. Under the amended CISA rules, any offering or marketing activity performed in connection with collective investment schemes in Switzerland qualifies as distribution regardless if addressed to non-qualified investors or to qualified investors only. Consequently, all information sources for qualified investors in the area of foreign collective investment schemes, such as hedge funds or private equity investments are affect by new regulations. The end of the transition period signals Switzerland’s adoption of the European Alternative Investment Funds Managers Directive (AIFM Directive).
About Fundbase
The hedge fund platform Fundbase.com is operated by Fundbase Fund Services AG, a subsidiary of Fundbase Holding AG, a start-up company founded by a group of alternative industry and technology entrepreneurs in 2013. Its head office is in Pfaeffikon (Switzerland), and it also has branches in New York and in Bratislava. The companies belonging to Fundbase Holding AG employ around 20 people. Fundbase.com has roughly 1000 hedge funds on its platform, as well as nearly 1000 users from a global investor base. Fundbase has an Advisory Board overseeing the development of the business: Zak Mandhro, Senior Partner Technology Manager at Google San Francisco, Prof. Dr. Bertrand Meyer, ETH Zurich, Dr. Marcel van Lohuizen, Tech Lead Manager at Google Switzerland GmbH, Daniel Sauer, Head of Operation, Risk & Systems at a Swiss-based Single Family Office and Heiner Schellenberg, member of the board of directors of Proseba (Schweiz) AG.
Benedikt Gratzl: Telephone +41 44 271 93 94, media@fundbase.com
Franziska Gumpfer: Telephone +41 44 271 93 93, media@fundbase.com
Fundbase c/o TAKTKOMM AG, Geroldstrasse 33, CH-8005 Zurich, Fax: +41 44 271 93 91
PDF: Fundbase_Media Release_FINMA _English
PDF: Fundbase_Media Release_FINMA _Deutsch
Visit us at fundbase.com
Posted in Media Release
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The Federal Budget in Plain English
Lawrence J. McQuillan • Thursday October 27, 2016 5:17 PM PDT •
According to the President’s Office of Management and Budget, the 2016 federal budget looks like this (p. 115):
The 2016 Federal Budget
Receipts $3,336,000,000,000
Outlays $3,951,000,000,000
Deficit $616,000,000,000
National debt held by the public $14,129,000,000,000
Total national debt $19,765,000,000,000
Now let’s pretend this is a household budget by removing eight zeros:
The Family Budget
Annual family income $33,360
Annual family spending $39,510
New debt on the credit card $6,150
Outstanding balance on the credit card $141,290
Money owed to credit card and relatives $197,650
Clearly, this family is financially irresponsible, as rising debt and debt-service costs consume the family budget. To continue the analogy with the federal government, a large portion of the credit-card debt is from charging current consumption to the card, including groceries. This is reckless financially and changes need to happen immediately. The same is true for the federal government.
In a recent New York Times commentary titled “Ignoring the Debt Problem,” Paul A. Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Peter G. Peterson, former secretary of commerce, said:
Delaying action now will make the needed changes only more painful and difficult later on, while also increasing the risk of financial crisis before the reforms are even made. That is why the real debate should begin immediately.
Yet at the final presidential debate, both candidates missed the opportunity to clearly lay out their visions for a fiscally responsible, long-term future for our country. There’s still time to solve this problem. But our next president needs to show leadership in the first months.
At our age, neither of us will personally suffer from a failure to act. It is those with long lives ahead—grandchildren and great-grandchildren—who deserve the benefit of prospering in a nation with sound finances.
Take some advice from two observers who have been around for a while: The long term gets here before you know it.
Thankfully, the federal government has a plan. No, it’s not a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It’s a webpage that says:
There are two ways for you to make a contribution to reduce the debt:
At Pay.gov, you can contribute online by credit card, debit card, PayPal, checking account, or savings account.
You can write a check payable to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, and, in the memo section, notate that it’s a gift to reduce the debt held by the public. Mail your check to:
Attn Dept G
Bureau of the Fiscal Service
Parkersburg, WV 26106-2188
Who needs Volcker and Peterson when the government has a post office box in Parkersburg, West Virginia, to fix the problem.
God, deliver us from this absurdity.
Lawrence J. McQuillan is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Entrepreneurial Innovation at the Independent Institute. He is the author of the Independent book California Dreaming.
Posts by Lawrence J. McQuillan | Full Biography and Publications
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You are here: Home / About us / Participants
The following people participated in helping tell the story of the Texas coast’s tides.
Becky Corder – Port Aransas – Mike Stuart made a point to meet Becky Corder, partners in Port Aransas Realty, after noticing how effectively they market coastal real estate in their area. When Mike came to the coast to set up the Texas Gulf Coast Online web site, he recruited Becky as top realtors in Port Aransas. She became part of the network of realtors who serviced Texas Gulf Coast Online.
Jeff Lamkin – South Padre Island, Port Aransas and Crystal Beach – Mike Stuart met visionary developer Jeff Lamkin in South Padre Island, where Lamkin was purchasing the first tracts of what would become prime real estate holdings all along the Texas coast. Jeff became interested in Texas Gulf Coast Online after seeing the traffic and leads that the site generated as well as the prescient market analytics that Mike generated. Jeff experienced the exuberance of the real estate boom, seeing his North End land skyrocket in the ensuing boom years. He is the developer of the extremely successful Cinnamon Shore development, which is the only development on Mustang Island that weathered the economic downturn and flourishes today.
Kevin and Cookie Dean – Port Aransas and Corpus Christi – Mike Stuart met Kevin and Cookie Dean when they purchased a tract of land on Highway 361 on North Padre Island and named it Island Park Estates. Kevin saw Texas Gulf Coast Online and its offering of new Texas coastal developments, and wanted to be part of it. Mike began marketing the properties before the economic downturn and has recently turned to reviving interest in the remaining home sites in Island Park Estates. Kevin is co-founder and c0-CEO of the extremely successful Provider Power group of energy providers in New England.
Alice Donahue – South Padre, Corpus Christi and Galveston – Mike met Alice, a real estate broker and longtime South Padre Island resident, after moving to South Padre Island and attending the Island Baptist Church, where she was a member. They married in 2005, and began building a coastal-wide realty and marketing company. With a marketing boost from Texas Gulf Coast Online, Alice became the Texas coast’s number one real estate broker.
Anne Willis – Crystal Beach and Galveston – Anne, a realtor and longtime resident of Bolivar Peninsula, is effectively the mayor of Bolivar. Through her company, Swede’s Real Estate and Rentals, Anne is the dominant realtor and rental manager on the island. She and Swede’s helped Mike and Alice market and sell properties on Bolivar, and were part of Texas Gulf Coast Online’s network of brokers.
Randall Davis – Galveston and South Padre – Randall called Mike Stuart to help market his Diamond Beach, Emerald By the Sea and Sapphire luxury condo tower projects in Galveston and South Padre Island. Randall told me that no other online marketer had the reach of Texas Gulf Coast Online. Although these properties went into foreclosure after the islands were struck by the triple whammy of an economic recession and Hurricanes Ike and Dolly, Randall got back in business this year on the coast.
Paul Schexnailder – Corpus Christi – Paul, a developer and major landowner on the Island of Corpus Christi, called Alice and Mike to help him bring an international resort development to Upper Padre Island in the mid-2000s. That project did not take shape but Paul subsequently brought a cutting-edge Schlitterbahn Water Park to Upper Padre Island as part of a master plan for that fast-developing island.
Jeff Henry – South Padre, Corpus Christi and Galveston – Mike met Jeff Henry when Jeff was managing the building of the Schlitterbahn Water Park in South Padre Island. He is now at work on a fifth Schlitterbahn Water Park in Corpus Christi’s Upper Padre Island.
Gabi Hilpold – Corpus Christi – Mike met Gabi through Paul Schnexnailder when they collaborated over an upcoming luxury condo tower project on the Island of Corpus Christi. Gabi is a developer and broker-realtor with a successful vacation rental business, a member of the Corpus Christi Convention and Visitor’s Bureau marketing committee and the head of the Island Strategic Action Committee. She was born in Austria and vacationed on the Texas coast as a child.
Alex Harris – Port Aransas and Corpus Christi – Mike met Alex Harris during a stay in Port Aransas in the late 2000s. Alex, a developer and title company owner, created several successful beach town home communities in Port Aransas and the Island of Corpus Christi.
Jim Hayes – Port Bolivar and Crystal Beach – Mike met Jim Hayes in the mid-2000s when he arrived to market properties on Bolivar Peninsula. Jim is an entrepreneurial contractor who created and executed plans for hurricane-resistant beach homes and had the only insurance-backed certification for his construction on the Texas coast. Jim’s products were tested during Hurricane Ike in 2008 and proved to be ideal for the Texas Coast — his homes were the only residential structures standing on Bolivar after the storm and tidal surge subsided.
Marta Paez – South Padre – Marta and her sons Pablo and Adrian are based in Monterrey, Mexico, and her luxury condo developments draw enthusiastic buyers from Mexico and the United States. Her family-owned development company has designed, built and sold some of the most successful projects on the Texas coast, including Las Verandas, Los Corrales and Las Verandas on South Padre Island.
Also see our New Projects section
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Home » S. E. Smith » Challenging Saber
Challenging saber, p.6
S. E. Smith
“No. It will always be ‘home’ as in the place I came from, but it isn’t my home anymore,” she reflected, pausing to look up at him. “This is my home now.”
Her eyes locked with his as she tried to convey that she wasn’t talking about Hunter and Jesse’s house or the planet in general, but this house. She knew he understood when he broke the contact between them and laid his head back and closed his eyes, shutting her out. She returned her attention to his leg, moving up to his upper thigh.
Her hands moved over the thick rope of muscles and smooth skin. He was wearing his shorts. Whatever he said, the evidence pointed to his hope that she would come because he normally wore a pair of low hanging jogging pants he had picked up on Earth when he was working on the house.
“How did the painting go after I left this morning?” She asked in a soothing voice, pausing and pressing her weight down on a hard knot. “Did you get it finished?”
“Yes,” Saber replied in a clipped voice.
“What are you working on next?” She said, slipping her hands higher until they disappeared under the edge of his shorts before moving them back down along his thigh.
“The lighting,” he muttered in a slightly hoarse voice. “I finished the wiring as well. I just need to install the rest of the fixtures.”
Taylor rose to her feet. Not pausing, she quickly pulled her shirt off and tossed it to the floor. She had left her bra off after her shower.
She crawled between his parted legs with slightly trembling limbs. This was a routine he was familiar with from past sessions. In order for her to work on his upper thigh, she needed to use more of her weight. She leaned forward and began working on his thigh again before he could realize that this time it was going to be different.
A wicked sense of pleasure flooded her at the feel of the cool air on her breasts. She had purposely worn loose fitting pants and no panties. Her eyes moved to the evidence that he tried to hide, but couldn’t. The material did little to cover his arousal.
“What will you do after that?” She asked in a husky voice.
“The gardens. I… I thought I would work in the gardens,” he whispered. “I want to add some water features. I like what Hunter and Jesse did in their garden. I have some ideas that I’ll show you later.”
“I’d like that,” Taylor whispered, leaning down and pushing her hands further up his leg and under his shorts all the way to his hip. “You can tell me about it – later.”
A light groan escaped Saber before he could smother it. He just nodded his head once. Taylor knew he was highly aroused by the feel of her hands on the sensitive flesh of his hip. Pulling her left hand out, she ran it up his right leg. This time, she didn’t stop.
A shudder ran through him when he felt her hands sliding up both of his thighs to his hips. She could feel the moment he was aware that this session was different. The fact that her lips were making a trail up the inside of his right thigh along the scar from his surgery might have been his first hint.
His breath hiccupped and his eyes flew open. He raised his head just far enough to lock eyes with her. She figured seeing that she wasn’t wearing a shirt was his second clue that she was doing more than a therapy session.
“I love touching you,” she whispered just before she wrapped her right hand around his swollen cock. “Damn, but you are one hell of a handful.”
Saber laid on the couch, soaking in every precious caress of Taylor’s hands. Every time he closed his eyes, he would think of them as they worked his damaged muscles. The thing was, in his mind, he wasn't damaged anymore. He was whole, a fierce warrior that could take her, claim her, as his Amate.
For a few exquisite moments every morning and evening, he could pretend that he was worthy of loving someone as beautiful as Taylor Sampson. He could forget about the constant pain and stiffness that plagued him. Sometimes, by the end of the day, the simple task of cleaning up after a day’s work became an almost overwhelming task. That was one reason that he refused to allow Taylor to stay late. He didn’t want her to see that his leg often gave out, or his need for the cane that kept him from falling on his face.
His throat tightened when she ran her hands higher. He had to fight to keep the groan from escaping him. Her fingers were long and strong. He could just imagine them wrapped around him.
Sweat broke out on his brow when he felt her hands slide up under the edge of his shorts. It was taking every ounce of his self-control to focus on the questions she was asking him about the house.
“The garden,” he muttered hoarsely, trying to keep his thoughts on what he was saying.
“You can tell me about it – later,” Taylor whispered.
He heard her, but the words didn’t register. Her hands had moved up his thighs to his hips and his brain was short-circuiting. He hoped to hell she didn’t ask him anything else because he honestly didn’t think he could answer her.
His eyes snapped open when her left hand moved up his good leg all the way to his hip once more. Only this time instead of moving down again, her left hand gripped his hip while her right hand… a choked gasp escaped him in surprise.
His head snapped up and his blazing yellow-gold eyes locked with Taylor’s dark brown ones. She stared back at him with a combination of desire and defiance. His eyes widened when he saw her bare shoulders.
“Goddess, Taylor,” he breathed.
The sexy smile on her lips sent his senses spiraling out of control. His eyes fastened on her lips as her tongue peeked out to run along her bottom lip. A choked moan escaped when she squeezed him before sliding her hand up to the tip of him and back down.
“Tonight, I’m not leaving,” she informed him. Her eyes pools of melted chocolate.
“Taylor,” he groaned, trying to shake his head in denial even as his arms reached for her.
A low snarl escaped him when she pulled back and slid off the couch. His eyes narrowed when she raised her arms to her hair. She pulled the clip holding it back free, and tossed it on the low table before running her hands down her side to the top of her dark blue pants.
“I want you, Saber,” she said as she pushed her pants down and kicked them to the side. “I think I fell in love with you the first time I saw you.”
“You hit me with a piece of concrete,” he said, slowly sitting up. “You threw food all over me.”
A mischievous smile curled her lips. “You caught me,” she said, holding her hands out to him. “Catch me now, Saber. I need you.”
Saber swallowed as he reached for her hands and stiffly rose to his feet. He blocked all the voices in his head that were demanding that he stop and think of the consequences. He pushed all the logical reasons he should resist to the darkest recess of his mind.
“Taylor, are you sure?” He demanded in a rough voice. “Once I touch you….” He shook his head and reached a slightly trembling hand to touch her cheek. “I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”
Taylor’s laughter warmed the air, surrounding him. He closed his eyes when he felt her release his hand and step back. They popped open again in shock when her hand grazed the front of his shorts.
“I don’t plan on letting you, big guy,” she whispered huskily, turning and walking through the living room and down the hallway.
Saber’s eyes darkened to a blazing gold as he watched the seductive sway of her hips as she walked toward his bedroom. Her long hair flowed around her shoulders, making him want to reach out and tangle his hands in it. A piercing shaft of hot need, so powerful he swore he felt like he would be lucky to pleasure her before he spilt his seed washed through him.
“Goddess, I love that female, but she drives me crazy,” Saber muttered under his breath as he followed Taylor down the hall.
He would try one more time, while he still could, to convince her that this was a very bad idea. His hands curled into two tight fists as he tried to talk himself into remembering all the reasons that h
e had sworn he couldn’t be with Taylor. In fact, he had decided earlier today that he would tell her tonight not to come back.
Drawing in a deep breath as he felt a small measure of reason return to his mind, he turned the corner into his bedroom. A low grumble of pleasure escaped him at the view of her kneeling on his bed, staring at him with a soft expression. He paused briefly, before taking a slow step forward. His hands reached for the bottom of his shirt. Ripping it over his head, he tossed it to the side. His hands went instinctively for his shorts. He pushed them down, pausing only long enough to step out of them before he walked slowly toward the bed.
He started to raise his bad leg, stopping with a grimace when he felt the muscles protest. Regret flashed through him. Even the joy of making love was dampened by his limitations.
“Don’t,” she whispered, leaning forward and cupping his face between her hands. “Touch me. Feel only me,” she instructed, running her hands down over his shoulders.
Saber swallowed and nodded. He turned and sat sideways on the edge of the bed. His head turned toward her, seeking her lips. Taylor’s warmth engulfed him as she slowly pressed him back against the pillows. She briefly moved down to gently help him raise his bad leg onto the bed before moving back next to him.
His body arched when he felt her slide one silky leg over his stomach. His hands instinctively rose to steady her as she straddled him. He could feel the heat of her womanhood pressed against him. Another curse escaped him when she slid lower and he felt his cock brush against her ass.
“Taylor!” He growled, gripping her arms tightly. “I’ve wanted you for too long to play… Goddess! Where did you learn that?!” He demanded hoarsely.
Taylor had pulled one hand free and was sliding it down between them. She wrapped her hand around his cock, holding it steady so she could brush the tip through her damp curls to show him he wasn’t the only one who had been waiting.
“I’ve taken my fair share of medical classes,” she reminded him. “It isn’t all that complicated to figure out what feels good and what feels… great!”
Saber jerked when she slowly moved down his body. A loud groan escaped him at the feel of her lips against his skin. His hands fell to the bed and tangled in the covers to prevent him from wrapping them in Taylor’s hair.
Another shudder shook his long frame. Her hair, it was brushing against his skin like a soft feather, making his skin so sensitive, he was afraid he was going to embarrass himself. His legs fell apart as she continued on her determined path to his…
“Holy Goddess above!” Saber choked out when he felt Taylor’s warm lips lock around the head of his cock. “You’ll be the death of me, Taylor!”
Taylor giggled and slid her mouth further down his length, causing his head to fall back as an explosive wave of pleasure crashed over him. His fingers twisted the fabric of the covers as a loud groan escaped him. This was something a Trivator female would never do. Their species was born with sharp teeth, making this something that most males would be very hesitant to even think of trying.
“Taylor,” Saber hissed, trying not to move, but finding it impossible to keep his hips still. “I… This is too much.”
A gasping shudder escaped him when she released him with a loud smacking sound. His eyes opened and he stared at her. In that moment, he knew he was forever lost to the power of his love for her. She was looking at him with liquid eyes filled with triumph and desire. Her hair fell over one bare shoulder and down to shield her beautiful breast.
“Come to me,” he whispered, releasing his grip on the cover to hold his hands out to her.
A brilliant smile curved her swollen lips as she crawled back up his body. He slid his hands down along her side, enjoying the feel of her smooth skin against the roughness of his palms. The moment she straddled him again, he pulled her down to capture her lips with his.
Saber caught Taylor’s soft moan when her lips parted. His tongue swept in, dueling with hers before running along the smooth edges of her teeth. His cock was straining, throbbing as he remembered her lips wrapped around him. Pulling back, he stared up at her flushed face.
“I need you,” he admitted in a harsh voice. “I’ve never felt such a need before. You fire my blood, Taylor.”
Taylor smiled down at him, pushing up onto her knees. He didn’t resist when she pulled his hands to her small, but firm breasts. Her nipples were hard and swollen, begging for him to taste each sweet bud.
“I’ll have to remember that whenever you become thick-headed,” she said, throwing her head back when he pinched her sensitive nipples. “Oh!”
Saber’s eyes darkened at her response. Her hips were moving back and forth in a restless ride. He could feel the heat and dampness against his flesh. She rose up and tilted her hips. He knew what she wanted and he couldn’t have denied either one of them if his life depended on it.
He kept his eyes locked on her face as her head bowed. She stared back at him as she reached down to help guide his cock to her liquid core. Her face flushed when he pushed forward past her soaked curls. The bulbous head of his cock sank slowly into her as she relaxed against his hard length.
“Goddess, Taylor, you are so beautiful,” Saber whispered, watching her face in awe.
It was true. Her face was flushed with passion and desire. He worried that he would hurt her. She felt so tight.
His eyes widened when she leaned toward him and gripped his shoulders. Her hair fell forward, creating a curtain around them. Her lips trembled as she drew in a deep breath, her body tense for a moment before she released the breath she had drawn in.
“I love you, Saber,” she whispered, relaxing her thighs and sinking down on his cock as far as she could go.
Saber opened his mouth when he saw the flash of pain in her eyes and heard her smothered cry. Her hands curled against his skin, but she never looked away. He held his body still until he felt her begin to move. His hands slid around her waist, pulling her down onto his chest so he could roll with her.
A low whimper escaped her when he started to pull out, but he captured it. He wasn’t going to leave her, not yet. His body trembled as he began moving in slow, measured thrusts. He wanted to give her enough time to adjust.
He released her lips when she raised her legs and locked them on his hips, her heels pressing into his buttocks. Rising up slightly onto his elbows so he didn’t crush her, he pressed forward as an intense pleasure swept through him.
“I can feel you,” he murmured, bending to rub his nose against her cheek. “I can feel every delicate, beautiful inch of you as you wrap around me.”
Taylor’s hands rose to cup his cheeks. She raised her lips to press a kiss against his before gazing at him with tears in her eyes. A soft moan escaped her when he thrust deeply into her and paused.
“I can feel you, too,” she whispered. “I want you, Saber. All of you.”
Saber lowered his body over hers and began thrusting harder. His jaw clenched tightly to prevent himself from marking her. He wanted to so badly. She would always be his in his heart. There was no way he could ever have another woman. In his heart, Taylor had been his Amate from the first day he had held her in his arms.
Pressing his lips against the curve of her shoulder, he thrust once more before releasing a low groan as she came apart in his arms. His eyes closed when she locked down on him, holding him to her as she pulsed around his thick shaft. The slender thread on his self-control snapped and he shook with the force of his release.
You are my Amate, he thought desperately, holding her tightly against his body as he pumped his seed deep into her womb. In my heart, I have claimed you.
“Saber?” Taylor called out groggily the next morning.
She reached out her hand to touch Saber’s side of the bed. Rolling to her side, she ran her hand over his pillow, a smile curving her lips. He had been –incredible. It was the only word that she could think of to describe th
eir night together.
Sitting up, she looked around the room. She grinned at the tenderness that she felt. It was just added proof that last night hadn’t been a dream.
“Or rather, another hopeful one,” she muttered as she slid out of the bed. “It was a wonderful dream come true.”
She walked around the bed and stepped into the bathroom. Taking a quick shower, she wrapped a thick towel around her before stepping out of the room to retrieve the fresh change of clothes that she had brought with her. Spying her backpack, she picked it up and set it on the couch.
She pulled out a dark green pullover, jeans, panties, and the bra that she hadn’t bothered to wear last night. Glancing up, she saw Saber out in the garden. Sweat glistened on his body. He was only wearing a pair of long, jogging pants. He was moving in the familiar pattern she saw him, Hunter, and the other warriors doing during their training.
His arms moved in a beautiful, fluid motion. He had built up his upper muscle strength since his injury. The year he had been confined to a wheelchair was probably the reason. He held a long pole in his left hand and was twirling it above his head. Her hand flew to her mouth to keep the cry from escaping when she saw him turn. His bad leg gave out on him, causing him to stumble. The only thing that kept him from falling was the pole in his hand.
She saw his hand tighten on it until his knuckles shone white with his frustration. After a few moments, he straightened and tried the move again. Each time, his leg gave out on him, causing him to stumble. Her heart skipped with each move.
Tears glistened in her eyes when he tried a different move. He staggered, this time unable to catch himself. He twisted as he fell, landing on the ground where he lay staring up at the early morning sky.
Taylor dropped the clothes in her hand and walked slowly through the opened doors. Padding on bare feet, he didn’t hear her until she was just a few feet away from him. His head turned and their eyes locked. His were filled with anger, frustration and… regret. She knew hers were filled with tears. She hurt for him, with him.
Challenging Saber by S. E. Smith / Science Fiction / Romance & Love / Fantasy have rating 4 out of 5 / Based on32 votes
Other author's books:
Survivor Skills
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Dust 2_A New World Order
Edge of Insanity
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The Dragonlings’ Very Special Valentine
The Sea King's Lady_A Seven Kingdoms Tale 2
Capture of the Defiance
Destin's Hold
Embrace the Romance
Alexandru's Kiss
Night of the Demented Symbiots
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Home › New Releases › Little Fortress
Little Fortress
Laisha Rosnau
In this captivating and intricate novel Laisha Rosnau introduces us to three women, each of whom is storied enough to have their own novel and who, together, make for an unforgettable tale. Based on the true story of the Caetanis, Italian nobility driven out of their home by the rise in fascism who chose exile in Vernon, BC, Rosnau brings to life Ofelia Caetani, her daughter Sveva Caetani and their personal secretary, Miss Juul. Miss Juul is the voice of the novel, a diminutive Danish woman who enters into employment with the Caetani family in Italy before the birth of Sveva, stays with them through twenty-five years of seclusion at their home in Vernon, and past the death of Ofelia. Little Fortress is a story of a shifting world, with the death of its age-old nobility, and of the intricacies of the lives of women caught up in these grand changes. It is a story of friendship, class, betrayal and love.
“Little Fortress is a sublime novel that asks what happens when you rebel against the narrow strictures of your life. When Miss Inger-Marie Jüül rides away from her family’s farm, her story spirals through time, through two world wars, ranging from lonely Danish lighthouses to Cairo, from Italian villas to Okanagan orchards. This is a haunting, sweeping story, both mournful and stitched with a lilt of hope.”
– Eden Robinson, author of Son of a Trickster and Trickster Drift
“Little Fortress lives and breathes. Based on real people, it builds a deep and convincing world of its own. Rosnau’s portraits of three women, especially her voicing of Miss Jüül, are indelible. An unforgettable novel.”
– Alix Hawley, author of All True Not a Lie in It and My Name Is a Knife
“There’s something wonderfully subversive about Laisha Rosnau’s new novel, Little Fortress. Her women, driven by passion and pain, live on their own terms in a world that would reduce them to eccentric curiosities when they are so much more. Rosnau does a brilliant job of resurrecting and reimagining this piece of Canadian history.”
– Annabel Lyon, author of The Golden Mean and The Sweet Girl
#686 Pleasant Valley seclusion (Mary-Ann and David Stouck, The Ormsby Review, 11/12/2019)
"Rosnau’s skill as a travel writer comes to the fore in evocative, often painterly descriptions of Cairo and especially of Alexandria with its crowded streets, palm gardens, and horseback riding in the desert where every detail is sharply defined and radiant.... [Rosnau] knows the value of style, of elegantly crafted phrases, and well-turned sentences – and she never falters."
The Minerva Reader is back! (Lisa de Nikolits, The Minerva Reader, 11/01/2019)
"This is a beautiful story of endurance and survival."
Little Fortress (Candace Fertile, Quill & Quire, October 2019)
"Rosnau has done a masterful job of using the lives of historical figures as the building blocks of a stunning work of fiction."
The Chat with Laisha Rosnau (Trevor Corkum, 49th Shelf, 08/01/2020)
"What would lead a mother, her daughter, and their paid companion into exile, seemingly of their own volition, for a quarter of a century?"
E163 with LAISHA ROSNAU (Jamie Tennant, Get Lit, 02/01/2020)
An interview with Laisha about her novel.
In Conversation with "Little Fortress" Author Laisha Rosnau (Eleanor Hoskins, SAD Magazine, 19/10/2019)
"I thought about the realities of not only immigration but travel, employment and independence for women during that era. Theirs was a privileged sense of cultural displacement, perhaps. They didn't feel they belonged in either the world they immigrated to, or the one they left behind."
Give the gift of books (Dana Gee, Vancouver Sun, 20/12/2019)
"Rosnau's portraits of three women are wonderfully entertaining and insightful."
Our Top Fiction of 2019 (49th Shelf, 17/12/2019)
Chosen as one of the works of fiction that made the literary year by the staff at 49th Shelf.
Journeys to Exile (49th Shelf, 14/11/2019)
Laisha shares a list of other works that informed or are similar to her novel.
#686 Exile on Pleasant Valley Road (Mary-Ann and David Stouck,The Ormsby Review, 11/12/2019)
"We think Alice Munro would have been thrilled with this splendid novel."
Smutty Shout-Outs (Elaine "Lainey" Lui, LaineyGossip, 11/05/2019)
A shout-out and congratulations to Laisha for launching her new novel.
Vernon house's mysterious inhabitants turn out to be great fodder for novelist (Dana Gee, Vancouver Sun, 20/10/2019)
"I was taken to this huge world. I was fascinated by what created the circumstances, the psychological circumstances that would lead these women from living such huge international lives to being essentially trapped by their own volition in a house in Vernon."
'Little Fortress': A Family's Journey from Noble Life in Rome to Seclusion in Vernon (Dorothy Woodend, The Tyee, 19/10/2019)
"The novel sketch[es] out the tangled, occasionally torturous, intersections of three intermingled lives."
Laisha Rosnau explores the ties that bond in Little Fortress (Ben Bengston, north shore news, 18/10/2019)
"My parents lived up the hill from the house in which the three women eventually secluded themselves."
Canadians Joan Thomas, Laisha Rosnau feature among fall’s historical novels (Tara Henley, CBC Books, 03/10/2019)
"Little Fortress takes readers on a sweeping journey from Roman palaces to a small Canadian town, following the true story of the Caetanis family, Italian nobility who fled fascism to live in exile in the Okanagan Valley."
Vernon author’s new historical novel an exploration of the Caetani family (Brendan Shykora, 28/09/2019)
"'What fascinated me as a novelist' says Rosnau, 'was how did these women who led these really large lives […] come to then seclude themselves in a house on Pleasant Valley Road for 25 years?'"
Most Anticipated: 2019 Fall Fiction Preview (49th Shelf, 01/07/2019)
Laisha's book makes the list of most anticipated fall titles.
Read an excerpt from Little Fortress
Laisha Rosnau is the author of the best-selling novel, The Sudden Weight of Snow (McClelland & Stewart), and four critically acclaimed, award-winning collections of poetry. Her work has been nominated for several awards, including the Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Pat Lowther Award, three times for the CBC Poetry Prize, and has won the Blue Heron Poetry Prize and the Acorn-Plantos Poetry Award. Rosnau's work has been published across Canada, in the US, UK and Australia. She teaches in UBC Okanagan's Creative Writing Program. Rosnau lives in Coldstream, BC, where she and her family are resident caretakers of Bishop Wild Bird Sanctuary. Visit her website at laisharosnau.com.
For It Is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe: New and Selected Poems
25: Hockey Poems, New & Revised
A Very Special Episode
Falling for Myself
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Category Archives: Ken O’Keefe
It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To
By Sue | March 4, 2012 - 3:29 pm | October 28, 2012 anti Israel. pro Palestinian, jenny tonge, Ken O'Keefe
That outrageous interview on Today was but a mere chapter in the Jenny Tonge saga.
She may not have anticipated that her recent ill-advised antics at the Middlesex University would make the headlines so spectacularly. That is, apart from on the BBC.
The BBC were particularly reticent about the event, waiting till her ‘resignation’ was announced before they realised they had little option but to report it. Even the Guardian was quicker off the mark. Martin Bright suspects that the report in the Guardian “not known for its Zionist views” was what finally did for “Jihad Jenny”. Of course Ed Miliband’s Tweet obviously helped:
“[There is] no place in politics for those who question [the] existence of the state of Israel. Nick Clegg must condemn Jenny Tonge’s remark and demand [an] apology.”
Motes and beams.
Despite Baroness Tonge’s record of making antisemitic speeches of varying degrees of virulence and her relentless pro Palestinian campaigning, which frequently veers into full-on conspiracy theory paranoia, Nick Clegg dragged his feet interminably before deciding to dump her from his party. Previously the Lib Dems had dealt with her by imposing a series of cautious incremental demotions.Of course the BBC itself has used Mrs Tonge before, as a roving reporter. In 2004 they sent her to Israel, or rather to Gaza, as an apologist for the suicide bomber.
The clutch of below the line comments “reflecting the balance of opinion” were gratifyingly hostile to the line she took, and I’m pleasantly surprised that the BBC let them through.
The Web Article.
The BBC is not alone in giving the impression that the Baroness ‘quit’ the party – rather than being presented with an ultimatum that forced her resignation, but I think it’s fair to say that anyone who hadn’t been following the tale through Richard Millet, Student Rights, The Commentator, Guido Fawkes, etc., might glean from the BBC’s report that she was made a martyr. Martyred for the cause, scuppered below the line by the all powerful Jewish Lobby.
The strap-line implies that she had been unfairly punished for making a relatively trivial observation, which stated the obvious:
“A Liberal Democrat peer has resigned from the party after saying Israel “is not going to be there forever”
Many people have taken this line and defended her on various blogs, remarking that she was ‘only saying what’s true.’ I imagine John Humphrys would identify with this notion.
She herself complains that her comments were taken ‘out of context’, but clearly anyone who viewed the video in which she played a prominent role in what she disingenuously calls the “ill-tempered meeting” would realise that taking her comments ‘out of context’ as the BBC does here, effectively does her a huge favour. It’s viewing them in context that damns her out of hand and justifies the Lib Dems’ ultimatum and her dismissal.
The sub-heading “Proud Record” stands out. An odd choice, because it alludes, not to Jenny’s personal record, as any casual reader might assume, but to the Lib Dems’ proud record of campaigning for the rights of the Palestinians.
She was given a considerable amount of space to defend herself in the article, which included a generous number of direct quotes, although her accusation that the Zionist campaigners mouthed obscenities at her, and her complaint that:
“the leadership of my party” (ex party) did not consult me….”
“…………...seems always to abet the request of the pro-Israel lobby” looked like desperate straw clutching.
The Today Interview.
Throughout the interview John Humphrys was clearly sympathetic to Baroness Tonge. He spoke to her warmly, and sounded ‘sorry for her troubles’. He allowed her to speak virtually uninterrupted, whereas while Robert Halfon was speaking Humphrys continually interjected with helpful counter-arguments on Jenny‘s behalf. “She’s saying what she believes”
He addressed Mr. Halfon with amused cynicism. Robert Halfon seemed sadly unprepared. He kept calling her Mrs Tongue, and over-used the word ‘delegitimise’ which has become meaningless. Through over-use.
Baroness Tonge spoke with the confidence of someone who knew she was among friends, sure that what she was saying would be welcome.
“Oh, come on Robert,” she laughs beguilingly at one stage, like a person who knows the world is on her side.
“Israel is making enemies all over the Middle East” she states. She knows she can get away with insinuating that Israel has deliberately made enemies of Turkey or Egypt. She can make wildly inaccurate comments with impunity under John Humphrys’s compassionate chairmanship. She knows quite well that with the aid of – or in her words ‘abetted’ by the BBC, many listeners languish in ‘psychologically embedded’ denial of the irrational Jew-hate that Islam drums into its followers. The BBC prefers to pretend that the Islamic world – Turks, Syrians, Iranians, those liberated Egyptians and Libyans, Muslims from Arab and North African Islamic states are ‘just like us’, only perhaps, being more devout, they’re all the more motivated by benevolence and goodwill.
Although I doubt that John Humphrys has watched the video of that “Ill-tempered meeting” he was evidently aware that Jenny Tonge had been sitting next to Ken O’Keefe the dangerously unhinged antisemite who the pro Palestinian fraternity have been busy distancing themselves from recently. Oh how the BBC fawned over him not so long ago, when they hailed him as a hero after the Mavi Marmara debacle.
John Humphrys wanted to hear why Jenny Tonge hadn’t challenged crazy Ken, but failed himself to challenge her likely story: “I didn’t know I was sharing a platform (with him)”. He asked if she had applauded him, knowing full well that she had indeed, and that it was captured on the film. She got away with a blustering justification “Probably at the end of his speech I did, y’know, at the end everyone gives a little clap.”
But the most outrageous thing was that she got away with her appalling little history lesson:
“Israel was a good concept at the beginning. I wish they’d left the Palestinians where they were. Jews were in a minority when the state of israel was founded. there were very few of them there.
If they’d gone in and said okay we’re going to help you, we’re going to build up this state and we’re gonna include Palestinians from the very beginning – If they’d done that instead of persecuted(sic) them and now trying to take the whole area for themselves it would have been a very different story.”
Pointing out that this is all wrong is not an attempt to enter the debate about the history of Israel. What I am saying is that anyone who knows the first thing about the birth of Israel (and if they don’t they shouldn’t really be opining) knows that there are conflicting ‘narratives’.
The Arabs allege that they were physically displaced in 1948 to compensate European Jews for the holocaust. The Jews say that when Israel was born they begged the Arabs to stay. It’s easy to find out what each side has to say on the matter. All you have to do is read a bit from both sides to gather that there are different versions of the story, and it’s up to you to decide which version, or which parts of which version, you believe. Which story seems more credible? Which bits are evidenced? Who do you trust?
“WE APPEAL – in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months – to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.
WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.
We all know that the surrounding Arabs merely responded by launching their war of intended annihilation against Israel.” (H/T Bio)
The BBC has been methodically portraying the Jews as greedy, untrustworthy, and recently, completely batty. They’ve reported Israel in a systematically negative manner and have continually portrayed the victim as the aggressor / aggressor as victim. At the same time they’ve been doggedly whitewashing Islam, and the more crazed the Islamists appear, the more the BBC whitewashes them. So the chances are that the majority of viewers will identify with Arabs and be suspicious of Jews. They’ll follow Jenny Tonge’s propagandistic defamation-by-short-cut, referring, knowingly, to “What Israel is doing” or “How Israel is treating the Palestinians.” Having established that Israel is a brutal, heartless, racist, supremacist, expansionist pariah state, they are confident that there’s no need to explain what’s already understood. Their obsession with the notion that Israel is oppressing the Palestinians is so ingrained that any mention of any measure Israel might take in self defence is reflexively treated with derision.
Some of this might stem from antisemitism of the type with which the foreign office is tinged, or the traditionally ‘Arabist’ proclivities of those who view Johnny Arab with a mixture of awe and amusement. The Queen has never, for example, visited Israel. In the political left this uneasy feeling about Jews is coupled with a misguided empathy towards Muslims whose intolerance towards everything, including themselves, they view with an illogical disregard. The need to be thought of as liberal and tolerant could explain the BBC’s policy of treating all Muslims, bar the bogeymen Al Qaeda, with exaggerated sensitivity, and re-branding them as ‘the new Jews’. This has taken political correctness to stratospheric heights, where almost any less than reverential reference to Islam is deemed offensive.
They needn’t worry about Jenny Tonge though. She will still be keeping herself busy.
HARDto take
By Sue | June 30, 2010 - 3:46 pm | November 15, 2012 anti-Israel, flotilla, Ken O'Keefe
Israel’s image is being buried by an avalanche of negative reporting, which spans the whole gamut from the severe to the subliminal.
The wholesale acceptance of the so-called Palestinian narrative, and near total rejection of the Israeli one, questioning Israel’s right to exist, the interminable, repetitive reiteration of the number of Palestinian casualties compared with what they apparently regard as pitifully few Israeli ones that’s tacked on to almost every article. All told this makes the rehabilitation of Israel in the eyes of the world seem hopeless.
Palestinian grievances cast a sort of white noise, which surrounds the subject and blots out everything else. Any smidgeon of favourable news that does manage to penetrate this auditory barrier is met with cynicism and suspicion and dismissed as propaganda.
The BBC, under an obligation to be impartial, has taken many years to skew the balance-point. Perceived impartiality, which is in the eye of the beholder, has come to rest way off centre. To stay within the BBC charter, the goal posts have been moved a mile.
Sarah Montague, who often lets her personal left-wing anti-Israel leanings hang out, was an odd choice to interview Ken O’Keefe on HARDtalk. She probably landed the job after a rare interview she did while suddenly overcome by common sense. Overwhelming evidence had finally emerged about the truth behind the flotilla, and she grilled the female peace activist Sarah Colborne till she was toast.
Did the HARDtalk producer choose to pit her against O’Keefe hoping for a bit of controversy and sensation, the one BBC interviewer who would get sparks flying?
So she grilled him, but lightly; and the sparks flew, but not on the programme.
Hundreds of websites were ignited by HARDtalk, furious over what they saw as their hero’s interrogation by that BBC Zionist whore.
The ratio of supporters to critics of our deranged peace activist – is about …..hundreds to three. Hundreds love him, and about three people think he’s nuts.
Tattooed peace activist O’Keefe is a self-styled one-man provocateur, inciter, manipulator, self promoter, instigator of human shield activism, and US traitor. Bizarrely, he seems to have had something to do with CBeeBIES at one time. Not sure what, exactly. Just the man to entertain the kiddies.
People who are incensed if Israel even gets a mention on the air in any capacity other than as the spawn of Satan, people who regard balance as a matter of allocating wall-to-wall air-time to Palestinian victimhood and hardship, while depriving Israel of the oxygen of publicity altogether – these are the people who complain that the BBC is pro-Israel. They are the ones who tip the balance right off the scale, allowing the BBC to tell itself they’ve got it about right.
‘we get complaints from both sides, so we must be doing something right. ‘ they declare, in their complacent ignorance.
O’Keefe is clearly mentally unbalanced, and if anyone should be deprived of the oxygen of publicity, it’s him. Or as the late Linda Smith once said of someone equally repulsive, “ He shouldn’t even be given the oxygen of oxygen.”
StewGreen January 20, 2020 at 11:52 pm on Start the Week Thread 20 January 2020We discussed the prog on July 3rd 2017 page 1 , page 2 ... July 5th .. The general feeling...
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A Goop clothing line is in the works for Gwyneth Paltrow
With Goop’s success as a digital lifestyle destination, it’s no wonder Gwyneth Paltrow is looking to new avenues for expansion. The first? A clothing line.
This won’t be the first time the 42-year-old actress has sold stylish items on her site, having collaborated on capsule collections with Michael Kors, Stella McCartney and Matthew Williamson in the past.
Gwyneth Paltrow established Goop in 2008
Gwyneth’s plans involve a Goop-branded range of wardrobe staples, which will likely fall in line with the brand’s philosophy of helping readers "save time, simplify and feel inspired." The Iron Man star will eventually grow the collection to include home and beauty products.
“We’ve seen the mistakes out there,” said the company’s CEO Lisa Gersh. “We’ll take small steps.”
While Goop is primarily a lifestyle website, Gwyneth has also used it as a platform to keep fans updated on what she’s up to, and earlier this year announced her ‘conscious uncoupling’ from Coldplay singer Chris Martin there.
Despite reports that her estranged husband is now dating Jennifer Lawrence, Gwyneth recently wowed during a trip to the theatre in a black top and mid-length lace skirt combo, for the opening night of her mother Blythe Danner’s play The Country House.
Gwyneth Paltrow launches goop x DVF in collaboration with Diane Von Furstenberg
Gwyneth Paltrow reportedly dating 'Glee' co-creator Brad Falchuk
Gwyneth Paltrow abandons the 'misguided belief' that perfection is key
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Finding the 'meaning of life' may be key to staying healthy into old age
Alexandra Thompson
Elderly people with "purpose" tend to be healthier. [Photo: Getty]
Finding the “meaning of life” may be key to staying healthy into old age, research suggests.
Scientists from the University of California, San Diego, looked at more than 1,000 people between 21 and over 100 years old.
They found the over 60-year-olds with “purpose” were in better shape both physically and mentally.
Contentment in the way life has played out is thought to motivate elderly people to better look after themselves.
READ MORE: Tai chi could be the secret to staying fit into your nineties
The UK life expectancy was 79 for men and 82 for women in 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics.
While good health allows many to live well into their seventies and beyond, everything from heart disease and cancer to dementia and arthritis becomes more common with age.
The scientists set out to uncover whether finding the meaning of life could affect wellbeing.
“When you are young, like in your 20s, you are unsure about your career, a life partner, and who you are as a person,” study author Dr Dilip Jeste said.
“You are searching for meaning in life.
“As you start to get into your 30s, 40s, and 50s, you have more established relationships, maybe you are married and have a family, and you are settled in a career.
“The search decreases and the meaning in life increases.
“After age 60, things begin to change.
He added: “People retire from their job and [may] start to lose their [sense of] identity.
“They start to develop health issues and some of their friends and family begin to pass away.
“They start searching for the meaning in life again because the meaning they once had has changed.”
READ MORE: Going vegan in your seventies could ward off disease
To learn more about the impact of this, the scientists analysed participants of the Successful Aging Evaluation.
The participants completed a “meaning in life” questionnaire, which asked whether they identified with statements like, “I am seeking a purpose or mission for my life” or “I have discovered a satisfying life purpose”.
Their physical and mental wellbeing, and cognitive status, was also assessed.
Results, published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, show the participants were most likely to have “discovered” the meaning of life at 60.
While health declined with age, it was better in those who felt their life had purpose.
These individuals also reported improved mental wellbeing. Those that were searching for meaning, however, had worse cognitive function.
READ MORE: Playing board games could keep you sharp into old age
“The medical field is beginning to recognise meaning in life is a clinically relevant and potentially modifiable factor, which can be targeted to enhance wellbeing and functioning,” study author Dr Awais Aftab said.
Dr Jeste will soon research whether other personal attributes - like wisdom, loneliness and compassion - affect a person’s quest for meaning.
“It's an exciting time in this field as we are seeking to discover evidence-based answers to some of life's most profound questions,” he said.
“We also want to examine if some biomarkers of stress and ageing are associated with searching and finding the meaning in life.”
#health-editorial
#health-wellbeing
Alzheimer's vaccine could be trialled on humans in two years
Pros and cons of Veganuary
Should you do Dry January?
As Zac Efron ‘bounces back’ after suspected typhoid infection, here’s what you need to know about the illness
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Tag Archives: Jeff Sessions
Is Jefferson Davis Sessions the Next to be Indicted…Perjury!
Looks like ol’ Jefferson Davis is looking at Perjury charges…
Sessions flat out lied.
That is a crime.
BUSTED: Evidence mounts that Jeff Sessions perjured himself under Al Franken questioning
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is suddenly facing an active dilemma.
A guilty plea signed last month by one of his former Trump campaign underlings revealed this week shows he likely perjured himself during his confirmation hearing — and he doesn’t have a good option to wriggle out of it.
Sessions told Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) at the January hearing that he was “not aware” of evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government during the campaign, according to the New Republic.
He walked back those claims last month during another Senate hearing, telling Franken he “conducted no improper discussions with Russians at any time regarding the campaign or any other item facing this country.”
But court filings, and a new CNN report, show he was aware of evidence that at least one campaign associate was in contact with Russia.
George Papadopoulos, who served on the foreign policy advisory committee that Sessions oversaw, pleaded guilty Oct. 5 to lying to FBI agents in January and February.
The guilty plea Papadopoulos signed shows the campaign adviser communicated with Russians promising stolen campaign information on Hillary Clinton, and he tried repeatedly to set up meetings between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Papadopoulos told other committee members, and Trump himself, about his contacts with Russia during a March 31, 2016, meeting — and proposed arranging for the Republican candidate to meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
According to a CNN report Wednesday, Trump “didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no.”
But Sessions, then an Alabama senator and chairman of his national security team, shut down the proposal, according to one person present for the meeting and confirmed by another source.
The guilty plea shows Papadopoulos continued trying to arrange a meeting between campaign officials and Russia until at least August 2016.
J.D. Gordon, a former Pentagon spokesman and Trump campaign national security adviser who attended the meeting, told CNN that Papadopoulos “obviously went to great lengths to go around me and Sen. Sessions.”
There’s no evidence at this point to contradict Gordon’s claim — but the new revelations still leave Sessions in a position where he’s damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t.
“The good news for Sessions is that he can plausibly claim to have opposed any Russian collusion,” writes the New Republic‘s Jeet Heer. “The bad news is that, in making those claims, he opens himself up to charges of perjury.”
Posted by btx3 on November 1, 2017 in Chumph Butt Kicking, Daily Chump Disasters, High Crimes, Trump Impeachment
Tags: collusion, evidence, indictment, Jeff Sessions, lied, perjury, Russians
Al Franken Rips Jefferson Davis Sessions a New One
Posted by btx3 on October 18, 2017 in American Greed, Chumph Butt Kicking, Daily Chump Disasters, Domestic terrorism, High Crimes, Second American Revolution, Trump Impeachment
Tags: Al Franken, campaign. election, collusion, hearing, Hearings, Jeff Sessions, Jefferson Davis, lies, Russian, Senate, senator, testimony
Attempted Rise of the Third Klan Aided By the Chumph, Bannon…And Sessions
If the make the movie…It will be called “The Second Birth of a Nation”
A real sequel.
If the hot air in DC winds up with Sessions getting fired – I will jump for joy. Not the least of which reason being that the Chumph won’t get another pick at AG until the Mueller Report is out.
Alt-right activists say Trump and Bannon are giving them “space to destroy” by keeping FBI away
Top alt-right podcasters say the Trump administration is deliberately backing off investigating domestic extremists
While the neo-fascist alt-right is not entirely happy with President Donald Trump’s first few months in office, one thing for which they are grateful is that the new administration is giving them free reign to engage in building their movement, completely unencumbered by any law enforcement scrutiny of their activities.
“He’s going to give us space to destroy,” Michael Peinovich, the creator of The Right Stuff, an alt-right podcast network said during a Sunday guest appearance on “Fash the Nation,” the movement’s most popular web radio show.
Peinovich, who also goes by the pen name “Mike Enoch,” was referencing a 2015 remark by Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, then the mayor of Baltimore, which some people interpreted as giving support to rioters who committed numerous acts of violence in the city following the acquittal of several police officers who had been on trial for the death of a black resident.
“He’s going to give us space to operate, and frankly, it is space to destroy,” Peinovich continued.
“Now is the time that we have to make hay while the sun shines . . . while these investigations of ‘domestic terrorist groups’ are not being funded by the government, they’re not being pushed by the Department of Homeland Security” argued one of the co-hosts of the program, an anonymous former Republican political staffer who calls himself Jazzhands McFeels.
“ We’d probably be facing fucking [racketeering] charges or some shit like that,” Peinovich said, discussing what he believed might have happened if Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 presidential election.
“We have to use these four years to grow into something that can’t be defeated,” Peinovich said, referring to possible future investigations of neo-fascist groups.
Some parts of the Trump administration actively want to encourage the growth of the alt-right, the former Hill staffer “Jazzhands McFeels” said, claiming that Trump’s top strategist Steve Bannon secretly was trying to enable the fringe movement.
“They kind of expect us to be doing this. I’m not saying he’s our guy, but they want — at least Bannon, I would think — wants us to be able to operate in that space. So we should and we are,” he said.
Both podcasters’ statements were met with agreement by guest Richard Spencer, an alt-right editor who operates a series of niche web publications and conferences catering to self-styled racist intellectuals who has since tried to rebrand himself as more of an activist.
In 2016, Bannon told Mother Jones writer Sarah Posner that Breitbart News, the website he oversaw before going to work for Trump, was “the platform for the alt-right.” Subsequently, the White House strategist claimed that he was referring to the anti-Washington ethos that permeates the larger Republican base.
As a matter of policy, the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation do not publicize ongoing investigations but presumably, given how tightly knit the small alt-right movement is, the two podcasters likely have some knowledge about the lack of law enforcement oversight.
One government policy area which does appear to have changed under Trump is that federal grants to non-profit groups seeking to combat domestic extremism appear to have been frozen by the new administration.
Those funds were to be disbursed under a program called Countering Violent Extremism which was approved by the GOP Congress and former president Barack Obama in January of this year.
In February, Reuters reported that the Trump administration had decided to take the $10 million budget of the program, which was supposed to be given to private-sector groups trying to discourage extremism of all types, and redirect it toward counteracting Islamist influence only. The program itself would be renamed the “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism” initiative, according to the wire service. Since that time, several nonprofit groups which had been approved for funding allocations have publicly stated that they have not received any information from the federal government, despite the fact that the money was supposed to be disbursed within 30 days of approval.
“I hope the way that he [Trump] is looked back on in history is that he was the vehicle that moved the alt-right movement, the white identity movement in the United States, back into the forefront of the political scene,” Peinovich said on the podcast.
While he is not as widely covered in the political press as some other alt-right activists, Peinovich’s “The Right Stuff” podcast network currently hosts over a dozen neofascist web radio shows that in total have hundreds of thousands of downloads every week, far in excess of the audience of the some nationally syndicated radio hosts’ podcasts.
The Right Stuff has begun recovering some of its audience after Peinovich was exposed in January as having a Jewish wife. His business partner claimed after he was “doxxed” that Peinovich was “separating” from her but neither activist has ever offered any proof of the assertion.
Posted by btx3 on July 28, 2017 in American Genocide, Domestic terrorism, High Crimes, Second American Revolution, The Definition of Racism, The Post-Racial Life, Trump Impeachment
Tags: chumph, Jeff Sessions, KKK, nazi, protector, racist, supporters, trump, voters, white supremacist
Sessions (Again) Caught Red Handed Lying About Russians
The timing on his one looks like an inside job from the Chumph Administration. Sessions caught red handed lying again about Russian contacts during the election in NSA Intercepts.
They got the whole conversation on tape (like I been telling certain folks). And there is likely a LOT MORE of this nailing the Chumph’s synchophats and the CHumph to the wall.
Looks like they are throwing their boy Sessions under the bus.
WasPo is knocking it out of the park!
Sessions has now been caught in multiple lies about his meetings and discussions with Russian agents. That is not only Perjury – it is Treason. His ass needs to be removed from office immediately.
Sessions discussed Trump campaign-related matters with Russian ambassador, U.S. intelligence intercepts show
Russia’s ambassador to Washington told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race, contrary to public assertions by the embattled attorney general, according to current and former U.S. officials.
Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions — then a top foreign policy adviser to Republican candidate Donald Trump — were intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, which monitor the communications of senior Russian officials both in the United States and in Russia. Sessions initially failed to disclose his contacts with Kislyak and then said that the meetings were not about the Trump campaign.
One U.S. official said that Sessions — who testified that he has no recollection of an April encounter — has provided “misleading” statements that are “contradicted by other evidence.” A former official said that the intelligence indicates that Sessions and Kislyak had “substantive” discussions on matters including Trump’s positions on Russia-related issues and prospects for U.S.-Russia relations in a Trump administration.
Sessions has said repeatedly that he never discussed campaign-related issues with Russian officials and that it was only in his capacity as a U.S. senator that he met with Kislyak.
“I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign,” Sessions said in March when he announced that he would recuse himself from matters relating to the FBI probe of Russian interference in the election and any connections to the Trump campaign….more here…
Posted by btx3 on July 21, 2017 in Chumph Butt Kicking, Daily Chump Disasters, High Crimes, Second American Revolution, Trump Impeachment
Tags: campaign, caught again, chumph, High Crimes, Jeff Sessions, liar, lies, NSA Intercept, Putin's bitch, Russian spies, Tape, treason, trump
Kamala Harris (CA) Puts Sessions on the Hotseat!
When the only one who is willing to save your ass from a royal reaming by the former California AG, now Senator – who happens to be a woman…
Is the old guy in the corner with brain damage.
You are well and truly f*&^ed.
Kamala kicked Session’s ass on his illegitimate claim to “Executive Privilege”. So badly in fact, Republicans had to rush in a try and save his lying ass.
Posted by btx3 on June 14, 2017 in Chumph Butt Kicking, Daily Chump Disasters
Tags: Congressional hearing, Executive Privilege, hammering, Jeff Sessions, Kamala Harris, lies, treason, trump
Stopping Jeff Sessions Racist Drug War
A background on what Jeff Sessions KKK War is all about
Posted by btx3 on May 26, 2017 in Daily Chump Disasters, Domestic terrorism, Great American Rip-Off, Stupid Republican Tricks, The Definition of Racism, The New Jim Crow
Tags: DOJ, Jeff Sessions, prison, race war, sentencing, white supremacist
Sessions Brings Back Jim Crow Drug Laws
The Judicial system as a means of racial oppression…The New Jim Crow is back after a too short hiatus under Obama.Brought to us by the Grand Dragon Jeff Sessions and the KKK.
The so called “War on Drugs” in this country is, and always was a race war.
Sessions issues sweeping new criminal charging policy
Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned the sweeping criminal charging policy of former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. and directed his federal prosecutors Thursday to charge defendants with the most serious, provable crimes carrying the most severe penalties.
The Holder memo, issued in August 2013, instructed his prosecutors to avoid charging certain defendants with drug offenses that would trigger long mandatory minimum sentences. Defendants who met a set of criteria such as not belonging to a large-scale drug trafficking organization, gang or cartel, qualified for lesser charges — and in turn less prison time — under Holder’s policy.
But Sessions’s new charging policy, outlined in a two-page memo and sent to more than 5,000 assistant U.S. attorneys across the country and all assistant attorneys general in Washington, orders prosecutors to “charge and purse the most serious, readily provable offense” and rescinds Holder’s policy immediately.
The Sessions memo marks the first significant criminal justice effort by the Trump administration to bring back the toughest practices of the drug war, which had fallen out of favor in recent years with a bipartisan movement to undo the damaging effects of mass incarceration.
“This policy fully utilizes the tools Congress has given us,” the attorney general’s memo says. “By definition, the most serious offenses are those that carry the most substantial guidelines sentence, including mandatory minimum sentences.”
The new policy is expected to lead to more federal prosecutions and an increase in the federal prison population. In February, Sessions seemed to prepare for that inevitability, reversing a directive from previous deputy attorney general Sally Yates for the Justice Department to stop using private prisons to house federal inmates.
Yates said at the time that doing so was possible because of declining inmate numbers. Sessions, though, said it had “impaired the [Bureau of Prisons’] ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system” — hinting that he saw a very different future for putting people behind bars.
In speeches across the country, including his first major address as attorney general, Sessions has talked of his belief that recent increases in serious crime might indicate that the United States stands at the beginning of a violent new period. He has noted that the homicide rate is half of what it once was, but he has said he fears times of peace might be coming to an end if law enforcement does not quickly return to the aggressive tactics it once used….
Posted by btx3 on May 12, 2017 in American Genocide, BlackLivesMatter, Daily Chump Disasters, The Definition of Racism, The New Jim Crow
Tags: charging, genocide, Jeff Sessions, KKK, oppression, race war, racial control sentencing, war on drugs
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U of L wireless network – hurdles and behind-the-scenes efforts
dboyle
Last year the University committed $20,000 to upgrade the wireless in some of the older residence buildings which dramatically improved coverage for students there, plus another $80,000 to improve the coverage in classroom spaces, says Jeff Oliver, Network Team Lead in IT Services. “Over the next few months, we will be conducting tests across the campus to determine where other gaps exist.”
Wireless surveys have already been completed in University Hall and Markin Hall which has helped us to identify some issues already. IT Services staff need to physically pace off every space with equipment that measures the wireless signals which then provides visual heat maps of how well wireless signals are reaching offices and workstations. “These heat maps help us figure out where new access points will help, and where they won’t,” adds Oliver.
Wi-Fi coverage in E8 of University Hall: the darker colors represent good Wi-Fi coverage and are generally closest to the access points. The lighter areas show poorer Wi-Fi signals. The green line indicates where a staff member walked the area and the dots on the line represent ‘pings’ to the access points.
Wi-Fi signals do not penetrate solid materials well, particularly steel and concrete, or fluids. A person standing between a device and an access point can interfere and simply absorb the signals. The more obstacles, the weaker the signals.
Imagine being in a room with 10 radios that are all tuned to different radio stations…
“Noise, also known as an abundance of radio signals, is also a big problem with wireless. The more noise, the worse the connection. Imagine being in a room with 10 radios that are all tuned to different radio stations – can you listen to them all, or pick out just one? Can you pick out an individual conversation in a room where 100 people are all talking at the same time? In the wireless spectrum the same concepts apply. The more conversations going on at the same time, the more noise overall.”
The number of wireless devices brought on campus is increasing every academic year. With each additional faculty, staff or student come one to three or four additional devices, all requesting network access–many at the same time. This means that every access point must support more and more individual devices, and the access points need to be closer together as each one can only service a limited number of clients.
…there are about 25,000 wireless devices on campus of which more than 10,000 can be active and connecting to the wireless network over the course of a day.
Oliver adds there are about 25,000 wireless devices on campus of which more than 10,000 can be active and connecting to the wireless network over the course of a day. “Our maximum concurrent connections this semester so far has been 7,000, and that number can fluctuate wildly depending on the day.” Early in the semester we were alerted to the fact that some of the network infrastructure supporting the Student@UofL and Guest@UofL networks was running at capacity, which prompted us to replace some equipment with newer technology.
So how much network traffic does this number of devices equate to?
The graph above illustrates the amount of Wi-Fi traffic on the network during one week in September: it peaked out at 300MB per second. Once the new router was installed, the higher demand was easily managed as shown in the graph below and no longer has “flat spots.”
Network staff have been working to add additional access points in 80 classrooms over the past year, and expect to be finished by December. The largest classroom, PE250, will have six access points. The rest will have roughly double what they originally had, which will greatly increase the number of concurrent connections available in classroom spaces. “We are targeting approximately 40 users per access point.”
It isn’t just a matter of attaching an access point on the ceilings, additional wiring must be installed as well as network infrastructure such as switches and routers to support the increase in the wireless footprint. Much of the work must be done when the rooms are not in use.
The demand is not only on campus. Last spring, outdoor access points were added at the stadium to provide coverage in the bleacher and track areas. “The University’s wireless network is in a perpetual state of upgrade.”
The team is constantly planning and preparing for future changes in technologies. Next year about 250 aging access points are scheduled for replacement to keep up with the changing technology used in mobile devices today.
The next time you use wireless on campus, whether it works immediately or there’s a delay connecting, keep in mind the hurdles and ‘behind-the-scenes’ efforts and costs to provide the service. Oliver reminds people to report any issues to the Solutions Centre (help@uleth.ca) so that steps can be taken to correct them.
Infrastructure Maintenance & Support (18)
Markin Hall (1)
signals (1)
University hall (1)
Application Operations (2)
Application Planning (4)
Business Process (4)
Chief Information Officer (1)
Desktop Support (8)
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Portal/BI Project (2)
Service Alerts (1)
Solutions Centre (10)
Weekly Update (13)
Workshops/Seminars (1)
© 2020 University of Lethbridge, Information Technology Services (ITS)
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Bloodborne HIV
Response to Bloodborne HIV by Country
Bloodborne HIV: Don't Get Stuck!
Protect yourself from bloodborne HIV during healthcare and cosmetic services
Tag Archives: pierce
Outbreak investigations: Facing and fixing problems
Comments Off on Outbreak investigations: Facing and fixing problems Posted by davidgisselquist on May 20, 2012
If a hospital or clinic infects you or your child with HIV, you’d probably call it a disaster. Health care bureaucrats and managers call it an “adverse event.” How often do patients get HIV from health care in Africa? The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated it happens 50,000-100,000 times each year. Other estimates are higher.
That’s a lot of “adverse events.” In more than 25 years, no international agency, no donor health aid program, and no African government has done the right thing to stop them.
When a department of health finds one or several unexplained HIV infections in patients that can be traced to a suspected hospital or clinic, the recommended “textbook” response is to investigate — to invite others who attended the same facility to come for tests to see how many, if any, others are infected. By finding others infected in the same outbreak, an investigation can pin-point the errors that did the damage. This alerts health care workers to fix things they didn’t know were problems, and warns patients to demand safe care. In this way, investigations save lives.
Consider the response to “adverse events” in other countries. For example, although the US health care system is not the best or safest in the world by a long shot, US state and federal governments have been doing the right thing in response to unexplained infections of hepatitis B and C virus. In health care settings, these viruses transmit just like HIV – from patient-to-patient through blood-to-blood contact when doctors and nurses reuse instruments without sterilization.
In 10 years from 1998 through 2008, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recorded 33 investigations of hepatitis B and/or C transmission through health care in clinics, nursing homes, etc. Each investigation tested from 4 to >12,000 patients. The 33 investigations found a total of 448 hepatitis B and C infections from health care (average of 13 infections per outbreak). During the next 3 years, 2008-11, 32 investigations (including 3 from the previous list plus 29 new ones) invited a total of more than 90,000 patients to come for tests and identified a total of 217 infections (average of 7 per outbreak).
Did these investigations scare people to stay away from health care? Maybe some people got scared. But the real impact goes the other way: The fact that government is alert to investigate unexplained infections assures the public that someone is watching.
Consider the alternative – what happens when there are no investigations? Not investigating unexplained infections is like smelling smoke, ignoring it, and letting the house burn down. Or yelling at your dog to be quiet when she barks at night – and waking up to find your motorcycle missing.
Aside from a few HIV infections traced to blood transfusions, there have been no investigations of any of the thousands of recognized HIV “adverse events” in Africa. During 1991-93, for example, a WHO study in Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia identified 61 children aged 6-60 months who were HIV-positive with HIV-negative mothers. There is no report of any investigation in any of the four countries to find the source of these unexplained infections. Incredibly, the WHO study team concluded “The risk of nosocomial [hospital-acquired]…HIV infection appears low among these populations.”
Ideally, foreign experts and agencies would be at the forefront to help with investigations. That has not happened.
Lack of interest on the part of international agencies and donors leaves African governments with the task. Which government will take the lead to begin to investigate unexplained HIV infections? Investigations are not expensive in monetary terms – but they may ruffle feathers. Someone has to push — to persuade health care bureaucrats to recognize and investigate HIV “adverse events.”
AIDS, blood, HIV, iatrogenic, nosocomial abrasion, bacteria, bacterial, barbershop, blades, blood donation, broken skin, clipper, contaminated, contamination, cosmetic services, cut, dead space, deadspace, hairdresser, hairdressing, hepatitis, hiv, iatrogenic, infection, lance, lancet, manicurist, needle stick, needlestick, nosocomial, pedicurist, pierce, prejudice, prick, risk, safe, safety, saloon, scrape, scratch, skin, skin piercing, speculum, sterile, sterilization, stigma, syringe, tools, virus
Have we ignored a very simple procedure that could significantly reduce the risk of sexual transmission of HIV to men from women?
3 Comments Posted by davidgisselquist on May 9, 2012
This was written together with Joseph Sonnabend [go to or return to first circumcision page]
In 2010 there was a great deal of outraged comment about the US government’s award of $823,000 to an HIV related project in Africa. Specifically, the taxpayer dollars were to be used to teach uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex. The grant states; “If we find that men are able to practice consistent washing practices after sex, we will plan to test whether this might protect men from becoming HIV infected in a later study.”
The reasoning behind the project was based on the assumption that the reported protective effect of male circumcision was due to improved genital hygiene. This is in the project description:
“The protective effect of male circumcision on HIV acquisition may be due to improved genital hygiene. We propose to evaluate the feasibility of a post-coital genital hygiene study among men unwilling to be circumcised in Orange Farm, South Africa. Men in high prevalence settings could potentially benefit from improved genital hygiene if this intervention proved to be efficacious in reducing HIV acquisition risk” Genital hygiene was to be improved by asking men to wash their penis after sex.
Widespread criticism of such a use of public funds might have missed the main problem. As it turns out, not washing immediately after sex may actually have a significant protective effective for men at risk from heterosexual intercourse – including both circumcised and uncircumcised men
This was noted in two randomized studies of male circumcision to prevent HIV infection in the Rakai region of Uganda in 2003-2007. Although the effect of washing on HIV acquisition received some media attention at the time its relevance to HIV prevention remained generally unnoticed. It apparently also remained unnoticed or considered to be of no consequence to the applicants as well as the funders of the $823,000 grant noted above.
Combining results from these two trials, Tobian and colleagues in an article in AIDS in 2009 report information on risks for 105 HIV seroconversions in 6,396 initially HIV-negative men observed during 9,604 person years (PY) of follow-up. Half the men were circumcised for the trial and half remained uncircumcised.
These 105 HIV seroconversions represent 1.09 infections per 100 PY.
Among the questions that trial participants were asked in attempting to define risks for HIV infection was whether or not they washed their genitals after sex.
Among men who did so there were 1.35 infections per 100PY compared to only 0.38 infections per 100PY among men who did not wash their genitals. The adjusted relative risk for washing vs. not washing was 3.04 (95% confidence interval: 1.11-8.33; P = 0.031).
The authors make the following comment in their discussion,
“The finding that HIV incidence was increased with washing genitals after sexual intercourse is counterintuitive, but supports previous finding that washing the penis within 10 min of sexual intercourse increases the risk of HIV acquisition among uncircumcised men. The increased HIV acquisition with penile washing may be due to the removal of acidic vaginal secretions or the addition of water with a neutral pH may assist HIV survival and infectivity”.
The “previous finding” referred to is an earlier report by Makumbi and colleagues in 2007, who interviewed 2552 uncircumcised men enrolled in the control arm of a randomized trial of circumcision for HIV prevention in the Rakai region of Uganda (these men are included in the data reported by Tobian and colleagues in 2009). Some of the information reported by Makumbi and colleagues is shown in the last four slides in this presentation prepared by i-Base, UK.
This is one of the slides showing that there were 2.32 HIV infections per 100PY among men who washed their penis within 3 minutes of intercourse, but only 0.39 infections per 100PY among men who waited for 10 minutes or longer before washing.
If we were to express the efficacy of delayed washing in the same way that the results of PrEP trials were reported, that is as relative risk reductions, this would mean that not washing immediately, but waiting for at least 10 minutes after intercourse before washing can reduce the risk of infection by 83%. Compare this to the 44% efficacy of Truvada in the iPrEx trial, the 39 % efficacy of tenofovir gel in reducing the risk of infection in women in the Caprisa 004 trial, and the 38-66% efficacy reported for circumcision over 24 months.
Genital washing after sex may be quite common in parts of Africa. A study in Nairobi in 2004 found that a majority of men washed their genitals after sex. Here is a link to a table in the report; 60% of men reported always washing their genitals after sex.
We have had evidence that this practice may contribute to the risk of HIV infection in men since 2007. We have to wonder if the many questions this raises have been addressed, or even considered.
Could the practice of immediate post-coital genital washing contribute to the risk of sexual transmission of HIV to men?
Are there regional variations in this practice, and could this be related to HIV prevalence to some extent?
Should there be a debate on the evidence by experts, with recommendations for further research – such as adding questions to on-going or proposed studies, laboratory testing of HIV viability in semen and vaginal fluids at body temperature or conducting a trial to nail down the risk of immediate washing, or in other words, the protective effect of delayed washing?
If immediate washing increases the risk of infection does this not raise the question of the extent to which infection occurs after withdrawal?
Considering how innocuous the intervention is do we have sufficient evidence now to advise African men at risk of HIV through heterosexual contact not to clean their penis for at least 10 minutes after sex? Should a dry cloth without water or soap be used?
The study teams for these trials have more information on post-coital penis cleaning that they have not reported. We know that for uncircumcised men, wiping was safer than washing, and waiting at least 10 minutes to clean significantly reduced risk for HIV (see the last several slides in this reference. But we don’t have similar details for circumcised men. What information has been collected but not reported?
We have evidence that a common practice, at least in certain regions can substantially increase the risk of HIV infection in men through heterosexual intercourse. Considerable attention has been given to newer prevention methods in the past few years, notably pre – exposure prophylaxis and male circumcision, but almost none to the simplest of procedures that may be even more effective in preventing the sexual transmission of HIV.
Many other questions and concerns will no doubt arise as more people look at the evidence, and figure out what to do about it. Lives are at stake. Scientific competence and integrity are also at stake – researchers have overlooked and/or incompletely reported information that could save lives.
Lessons from North American outbreaks – changing needles alone is not enough
Comments Off on Lessons from North American outbreaks – changing needles alone is not enough Posted by davidgisselquist on May 5, 2012
[go to first injections page] [Note: Stephen F. Minkin (sfminkin@yahoo.com) submitted the following as a guest blog.]
The CDC [US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] first reported on four large outbreaks of hepatitis B and hepatitis C at outpatient medical facilities between 2000 and 2002. Two outbreaks occurred in a private physician’s offices in New York, one at an Oklahoma pain remediation center, and one at a hematology/oncology clinic in Nebraska. A total of 247 patients were known to have been infected at these facilities.
In addition, unsafe practices were uncovered at a phlebotomy center in California in 2001, where needles for drawing blood were reused. As a result, 15,000 people had to be tested for HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C.
Two more recent outbreaks discovered in Nevada and New York garnered considerable media attention. In November 2007, reports surfaced that a New York anesthesiologist reused syringes when withdrawing medicine from multi-dose vials. In the process he potentially exposed thousands of patients to blood-borne viruses. On December 14, 2007 the New York Department of Health contacted approximately 8,500 patients exposed by this practice and urged them to be tested for Hepatitis and HIV.
On February 29, 2008 health officials in Las Vegas closed the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada after six patients were diagnosed with hepatitis C. The outbreak was traced to nurse anesthetists reusing syringes to draw up medicine from single use vials for multiple patients.
According to the CDC,
A clean needle and syringe were used to draw medication from a single-use vial of propofol, a short acting intravenous anesthetic agent. The medicine was injected directly through an intravenous catheter into the patient’s arm. If a patient required more sedation, the needle was removed from the syringe and replaced with a new needle; the new needle and old syringe was used to draw more medication.
This was a “common practice” at this center for at least 4 years. As a result 40,000 patients were potentially exposed to this risk of hepatitis and HIV infections.
The CDC suggests two possible ways the syringes could have been contaminated.
Backflow from the patient’s intravenous catheter or from needle removal might have contaminated the syringe with HCV (hepatitis C) and subsequently contaminated the vial. Medication remaining in the vial was used to sedate the next patient.
Investigators concluded that each of these outbreaks resulted from “unsafe injection practices primarily the reuse of syringes and needles or contamination of multiple-dose vials leading to patient to patient transmission” (page 901 in this link).
The changing of needles while reusing the syringe is very, very risky and is not a WHO recommended practice (page 35 in this link).
The 2002 Oklahoma outbreak was traced back to a nurse anesthetist supervised by an anesthesiologist at a hospital outpatient clinic. In response the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) mailed copies of the AANA Infection Control Guidelines to its members.
The organization also hired a research firm to conduct a random telephone survey of Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) and anesthesiologists “to learn more about practices and attitudes on needle and syringe reuse.” A spokesperson termed the finding as “eye opening.”
Among the different categories of health professionals surveyed, 3 percent of anesthesiologists who responded indicated they reuse needles and/or syringes on multiple patients. CRNAs, other physicians, nurses and oral surgeons reported reuse at 1 percent or less.
Extrapolating the survey findings – 3 percent of anesthesiologists plus 1 per cent of CRNAs – equated in 2002 to approximately 1,000 anesthesia professionals who might have been exposing more than a million patients to the risks of contaminated needles and syringes.
They were forced to revisit the problem of the reuse because of the events in New York and Nevada. On March 6, 2008, Dr. Wanda Wilson, the AANA President, commented on the sad state of affairs.
It is astounding that in this day and age there are still nurse anesthetists, anesthesiologists and other health professionals who still risk using needles and syringes on more than one patient, or know of such activities and don’t report them. Published standards and guidelines dictate that single-use and disposal of these products is the best way to ensure patient safety. Patient safety is our primary focus – not cost savings, time savings, or any other factor
If the hepatitis C outbreaks in New York and Nevada demonstrated anything, it was that such incidents occur regardless of a provider’s degree, credentials, or title. For any group to suggest otherwise is to put its collective head in the sand—it is irresponsible, negligent, and a sure invitation for yet another Nevada or New York situation to occur.
A 1990 study by Canadian researchers experimentally examined the risk of cross infection related to the multiple use of disposable syringes connected to IV tubing during anesthesia. The authors were motivated because “the practice of reusing disposable plastic syringes for several patients is still prevalent in North American operating rooms despite warnings about possible hazards.”
In some operating rooms, the usual practice is to reuse disposable syringes while changing needles. This practice is based on the assumption, that since only needles enter the injection site, it is the only part that can be contaminated. A high proportion of reused syringes were contaminated even if only the needle had contact with blood. The probable mechanism of contamination is by aspiration into the syringe of blood remaining in the needle because of the negative pressure generated while removing the needle.
In view of these finding the authors emphasized that “changing needles alone is a useless procedure to prevent contamination.”
CDC PUBLIC HEALTH SYRINGE ADVISORY
Wait and wipe, don’t cut
1 Comment Posted by davidgisselquist on April 20, 2012
[go to or return to first circumcision page]
Last week, while looking for something else, I ran across a report that has big implications for HIV/AIDS prevention in Africa: Almost five years ago, a trial of circumcision to protect men in Rakai, Uganda, reported that intact (uncircumcised) men who waited at least 10 minutes after sex before cleaning their penis were at less risk to get HIV than men who had been circumcised: intact men who waited to clean got HIV at the rate of 0.39% per year compared to 0.66% per year for circumcised men. Although the study team reported these results to an international AIDS conference in 2007, and several newspapers wrote about it at the time, the report has dropped out of view. That is a big mistake.
Why is this report important? Here are three reasons.
First, if you are intact, this report says you don’t need to get circumcised to reduce your risk to get HIV. Use a condom, of course, if your partner has or might have HIV. But if that fails, this report says you are as safe with a foreskin as you would be without one. Just don’t clean your penis for at least 10 minutes after sex, and then wipe it with a dry cloth, without water. A later report from the Uganda study team suggests waiting to clean is good for all men, both circumcised and intact: men who didn’t “wash genitals after sexual intercourse” got HIV less than 1/3rd as fast as men who did.
Second, if you are a politician or public health official who is considering whether to go along with the largely US-promoted program to circumcise 20 million African men by 2015, you can take another close look at the evidence and options. The evidence that advocates use to promote circumcision comes from three studies (in South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda during 2002-06) that recruited thousands of intact, HIV-negative men, circumcised some and not others, and then followed and retested them to see who got HIV. All three studies reported that circumcised men got less HIV. But the study team for at least one of those trials – the trial in Uganda – has data showing that intact men who waited to clean after sex got less HIV than circumcised men.
Circumcision is expensive and dangerous and takes doctors and nurses away from other tasks. Why put scarce public resources into campaigns to circumcise millions of men if you can get the same results by advising men to use condoms, and if that fails to wait least 10 minutes after sex before wiping their penis with a dry cloth?
Third, this is another example of people reporting important evidence that contradicts well-funded misinformation about HIV risks. WHO, USAID, and other organizations pay for a lot of messages – some are true and helpful, but some are at best only partial truths. It’s important for people to speak up when they have good information about how to avoid HIV risks, even though what they say disagrees with the official “line” at the time.
Here are some examples of truth meeting official misinformation.
WHO warns UN employees they might get HIV from health care in Africa, but doesn’t warn the African public. But not everyone goes along with such misinformation. For example, Demographic and Health Surveys finds and reports HIV-positive children with HIV-negative mothers (in Mozambique, Swaziland, and Uganda) and virgin men and women with HIV. As more people speak up, Africans hear that a lot of infections come from minor blood exposures, and learn how to protect themselves.
Another example of official misinformation is WHO’s continuing promotion of Depo-provera injections for birth control without warning Africans that good evidence shows – and many experts believe – using Depo-provera increases a woman’s risk for HIV. One expert who has spoken out – eloquently and repeatedly – on this issue is Paula Donovan, a former high-ranking UNICEF official, who has had the heart and courage to challenge official misinformation.
Circumcision is another issue with a lot of well-funded misinformation, but also with many people speaking out to set the record straight (eg, see the article by Daniel Ncayiyana, editor of the South African Medical Journal, in this link). Unfortunately, crucial evidence is still unreported from the three key trials of circumcision to protect men: A lot of men in the trials got HIV despite no reported sex partners – what were their risks? None of the three study teams has reported the HIV status of any of the men’s sex partners, and only two have reported minimal information about blood exposures.
As for waiting and wiping to reduce HIV risk, here’s the record of partial and incomplete information from the 2003-06 trial of circumcision to protect men in Rakai, Uganda:
13 December 2006: The US National Institutes of Health reported that men circumcised in the trial had 48% lower HIV incidence compared to intact men, WITH NO MENTION OF POST-COITAL CLEANING.
24 Feb 2007: The Uganda study team reports selected trial data in Lancet, concluding: “Male circumcision reduced HIV incidence in men… Circumcision can be recommended for HIV prevention in men.” THE ARTICLE MAKES NO MENTION OF WAITING TO CLEAN, WHICH THE TEAM’S UNDISCLOSED DATA SHOWED TO BE MORE EFFECTIVE THAN CIRCUMCISION.
28 March 2007: WHO announces recommendations from an experts’ meeting: “Based on the evidence presented…experts attending the consultation recommended that male circumcision now be recognized as an additional important intervention to reduce the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men.” SEVERAL MEMBERS FROM THE UGANDA STUDY TEAM TOOK PART IN THE MEETING. THERE IS NO INDICATION THEY TOLD ANYONE ABOUT THEIR UNDISCLOSED EVIDENCE THAT WAITING TO CLEAN WAS MORE EFFECTIVE THAN CIRCUMCISION IN PROTECTING INTACT MEN FROM HIV.
25 July 2007: Frederick Makumbi and several other members of the Uganda study team tell an international AIDS conference: Among intact men reporting post-coital cleaning with all partners, “HIV incidence was significantly higher among those reporting cleansing within 3 minutes (2.32/100 py [person-years]), compared to those reporting a delay of more than 10 minutes (0.39/100py [person-years…).” (The best source i have found for these data is the last several slides in this link.)
So there you have it: In December 2006, the Uganda study team reported that circumcised men got less HIV than intact men. Not until 8 months later, in July 2007, did they disclose evidence that intact men who waited to clean their penises got less HIV than circumcised men. Despite their 2007 report, the Uganda study team has continued to say that circumcision is the way to go, and has said nothing more about waiting to clean as an effective option to reduce HIV risk for intact men.
Africans facing HIV risks from both blood exposures and sex need good information. Well-funded official fountains of stigmatizing misinformation blame Africa’s HIV epidemics on too much sex and too many foreskins. But there are also a lot of people offering good information and evidence. As more people speak up – telling what they know about HIV risks, even if it does not coincide with the party line – the African public will get a better idea about HIV risks and how to protect themselves.
SAVE families, stop HIV!
Comments Off on SAVE families, stop HIV! Posted by davidgisselquist on April 10, 2012
The International (formerly African) Network of Religious Leaders living with or Affected by HIV/AIDS (INERELA+) promotes SAVE as a response to Africa’s HIV/AIDS epidemic. SAVE stands for: Safe sexual and skin-piercing behavior; Access to treatment; Voluntary counseling and testing; and Empowerment. This note considers some of the ways that SAVE could strengthen HIV prevention in Africa.
AIDS was first recognized in Africa in 1982. In 2010, 28 years later, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 22.9 million Africans were living with HIV, including 1.9 million with new infections in that year. These infections are not distributed evenly. The people most at risk live in cities in 15 countries, primarily in Southern and Eastern Africa. In these cities, from 20% to more than 50% of men and women aged 15 years today can expect to get HIV at some time during their lives.
Help husbands and wives stop intra-familial HIV transmission
Unlike Western countries, where almost all HIV transmission occurs outside families, a lot of HIV transmission in Africa happens within families – mother-to-child and spouse-to-spouse transmission together account for an estimated 45% of new infections.
(a) Mother-to-child transmission: According to WHO estimates, 390,000 babies in Africa got HIV from HIV-positive mothers in 2010, accounting for an estimated 20% of 1.9 million new HIV infections in Africa in that year (390,000/1,900,000 = 20.5%, rounded to 20%).
(b) Spouse-to-spouse transmission: An estimated 30% of all HIV-positive adults in Africa are married to HIV-negative partners, and the resultant spouse-to-spouse transmission accounts for approximately 470,000 HIV infections per year, equivalent to 25% of all new infections each year (470,000/1,900,000 = 25%). (A note at the end of this blog shows the source of these data and explains this estimate.)
Most Western experts continue to identify high risk groups in Africa, as in the US and Europe, according to extramarital sex – prostitutes, clients, truck drivers, and youth are considered to be at high risk because they have more than average levels of extramarital sex. But in Africa, none of these groups defined by extramarital sex has risks as high as babies born to HIV-positive mothers (without treatment, 35% are infected in 2 years) or spouses not aware their partners are HIV-positive partners (8% per year). In other words, the term “high risk groups” in Africa applies first and foremost to persons with intra-familial risks.
With good information and with some medical assistance husbands and wives can work together to stop 700,000 infections per year – reducing mother-to-child transmission by 320,000 (from 390,000 to 70,000) and spouse-to-spouse transmission by 380,000 (from 470,000 to 90,000; see the note at the end of this blog). This would reduce total HIV transmission from all causes by 37% – from 1.9 million to 1.2 million infections per year. There are two major challenges to achieve this outcome.
The first challenge is to reform and extend couple counseling. A lot of men and women don’t think they could have HIV because they and their partner have had very conservative sex lives. Many women who test HIV-positive are afraid to tell their husbands and/or assume they got it from their husbands, so there is no reason to tell them. The best way to overcome these testing problems is to make it clear – both in public messages as well as in counseling – that a lot of HIV in Africa comes from blood exposures. This is important for couples to know – it means an HIV infection is not a reliable sign of sexual behavior. It also means that conservative sexual behavior provides no assurance that anyone is HIV-negative.
It will take some work to get people to realize that their own or their spouse’s HIV infection might well have come from a skin-piercing event, because this realization has to overcome several decades of stigmatizing and misleading half-truths – blaming victims for their infections rather than acknowledging that unsafe health care has been an important part of the problem.
Once husbands and wives can go get tested and talk with each other about their HIV test results without distrust and blame generating family crises, then couples will be better able to plan for what to do to protect babies and uninfected spouses, and to care for those who are infected. Aside from changing messages to de-link HIV from sex, testing should be readily available, with or without counseling. People should be able to buy kits to test themselves (as in South Africa). Opt-out testing is a good way to go. However, compulsory testing is almost always a bad idea.
The second challenge is for governments and donors to prioritize prevention of mother-to-child transmission in allocating scarce resources for HIV prevention. Protecting babies will take a lot of money and medical personnel. This requires: testing pregnant women; testing husbands to get them involved; giving anti-viral drugs to HIV-positive women and their new babies; and helping HIV-positive mothers wean early (after 6 months is a common recommendation, but some may want to do so earlier or later). With these interventions, infected mothers will infect less than 5% of their babies, which would cut the annual number of infections from mother-to-child by an estimated 320,000 (from 26% to 4.5% of babies born to 1,490,000 HIV-positive mothers). Even lower rates of mother-to-child transmission can be achieved with anticipated new drugs or other options.
Whereas preventing mother-to-child transmission requires substantial assistance from outside the family, once husbands and wives know one of them is HIV-positive, they can protect the HIV-negative partner with little or no outside assistance. Condoms are almost 100% effective against sexual transmission (some studies reporting lower efficacy did not consider that condom-users might have gotten HIV from bloodborne risks). If the HIV-positive partner is eligible for antiretroviral treatment and achieves a low viral load, unprotected sex may be safe. If the wife is HIV-positive, circumcising the husband might reduce his risk, but he would not be safe without other protection (eg, condoms). Couples must also take care to avoid blood-to-blood contact through shared razors, toothbrushes, syringes and needles, etc.
Stopping HIV from getting into families
Extra-familial HIV transmission threatens families as well. Some men but many more women get HIV before they are married and bring it into the marriage. But that’s not all – even among old married couples, most couples with HIV are discordant. Husbands and wives continue to import HIV into marriages. According to Western ideas about HIV epidemics that have been imposed on Africa, all these infections come from sex. But those ideas don’t fit facts. Surveys find a lot of HIV in babies with HIV-negative mothers, in young and old virgins, and in men and women married for years with no outside partners and an HIV-positive spouse.
The best way to protect families from outside risks is to warn them about all risks, from blood contacts as well as from sex. African governments could improve these warnings by belatedly asking researchers and investigators to trace a lot of HIV infections to their source to see what risks are infecting babies, young women, etc — including especially people with limited and no sexual risks.
Conclusion: focus on the family
Whereas HIV in the US and Europe has been a tragedy for men who have sex with men and has largely avoided families, in Africa it hits families hard – weakening and killing husbands and wives, interfering with child-bearing, killing babies, taking huge expenses for treatment, and threatening family trust.
African families are strong and can carry much more of the burden to fight the epidemic. To do so, they need honest information – that an unknown but important proportion of infections comes from unsterilized instruments in health care and cosmetic services. Such messages not only allow people to see and avoid risks, but also make is easier for husbands and wives to test and to share HIV test results – the foundation for intra-familial HIV prevention.
Enlisting families to cut intra-familial transmission and supporting them with programs to prevent mother-to-child transmission could cut HIV transmission in Africa by an estimated 700,000 infections per year (37% of total transmission). This can be achieved with available budgets and personnel; but because these resources are limited, governments and donors would have to prioritize. One program that competes for money and personnel asks for $1.5 billion–$2.7 billion and several thousand surgical teams to circumcise 20 million men by 2015. Critics argue, inter alia, that condoms are more reliable. But even if one ignores the critics, circumcision looks like an expensive distraction: even advocates estimate the 20 million circumcisions would reduce annual HIV transmission by less than 200,000 (10% of total transmissions) in 2015 – far less than can be achieved with the intra-familial focus proposed in this note.
Statistical note: According to WHO, 19.8 of the total 22.9 million Africans living with HIV in 2010 were adults (page 210 of this link). From national surveys in several dozen African countries over the last decade, the percentage of adults with HIV who are married ranges from roughly 53%-77% for men and 49%-69% for women (see Table below). From the same source, the percentage of adults with HIV who are married to HIV-negative partners ranges from roughly 10%-25% in the worst epidemics in Southern Africa to 25%-35% in mid-range epidemics in East Africa, to 50% in countries with low level epidemics (see Table below).
From these data, an estimated 5.9 million HIV-positive adults (30% of 19.8 million adults) are married to HIV-negative spouses. In studies that followed discordant couples who were not aware of their infections, approximately 8% of HIV-positive partners infected their spouses each year. Thus, 5.9 million HIV-positive adults in discordant couples infect an estimated 470,000 spouses each year (0.08 x 590,000 = 470,000). Assuming that expanded testing and couple counseling reaches all discordant couples, and that they use condoms and take other precautions to cut spouse-to-spouse transmission from 8% to 1.5% per year, this would reduce annual spouse-to-spouse HIV transmission in Africa by 380,000 per year, from 470,000 to 90,000.
Table: HIV in adults, married adults, and married adults with HIV-negative partners (selected countries in Africa)
Country year Sex % adults who are HIV+ % HIV+ who are married Among married HIV+ people, % with a spouse who is HIV- % of HIV+ people with a spouse who is HIV-
A B C = AxB
DR Congo 2007 Men 0.9 53 75 40
Burkina Faso 2003 Men 1.9 75 70 53
Ethiopia 2005 Men 0.9 77 73 56
Ghana 2003 Men 1.5 75 62 47
Tanzania 2007-08 Men 4.6 70 58 41
Uganda 2004-05 Men 5.0 72 45 32
Kenya 2008-09 Men 4.3 67 47 31
Mozambique 2009 Men 9.2 74 52 39
Zambia 2007 Men 12.3 56 45 25
Lesotho 2009 Men 18.0 65 33 21
Swaziland 2006-07 Men 19.7 54 21 11
Source: data are from country surveys available at this link; click on the country, and then on DHS (Demographic and Health Survey) or AIS (AIDS information surveys.
Respecting women’s human rights by telling them about all their HIV risks
Comments Off on Respecting women’s human rights by telling them about all their HIV risks Posted by davidgisselquist on March 12, 2012
(A posting for International Women’s Day, 8 March)
For many years, WHO, USAID, UNAIDS, and other international and foreign aid organizations have misinformed women in Africa about risks for HIV. Experts inside and outside these organization have challenged bureaucrats to tell women what they need to know to protect themselves. But to no avail.
WHO, USAID, and other official organizations have blocked three messages that could help HIV-negative women to avoid HIV and help HIV-positive women to retain family trust: (a) Depo-Provera injections for birth control may boost women’s risk for HIV; (b) skin-piercing procedures in health care may infect women with HIV; and (a) an HIV infection is not a reliable sign of sexual behavior.
(a) Risks with Depo-Provera injections
Beginning in the early 1990s, studies that followed and re-tested HIV-negative women to see who got HIV found that women taking Depo-Provera got HIV faster than other women (Depo-Provera, injected every 3 months, mimics the hormone progesterone). As early as 1996, the South African Medical Journal reported high level debates about whether to promote Depo-Provera in Africa.
Evidence of risk to women had no apparent impact on donors’ efforts to inject hormones into African women. From 1996 to 2009, the number of women given hormone injections (primarily Depo-Provera) increased across Africa, especially in countries with the worst HIV epidemics. For example, among partnered women aged 15-49 years, the percentage using injected hormones increased from 5.5% to 17% in Swaziland, from 12% to 19% in Lesotho, from 20% to 28% in South Africa, and from 7.7% to 22% in Namibia. These rates are extraordinary on a world scale – outside Africa, only 3.1% of partnered women used injected hormones for birth control in 2009.
HIV is not the only health threat linked to Depo-Provera. In 2004, the United States (US) Food and Drug Administration forced Pfizer, the company that makes Depo-Provera, to add a “black box” warning to packages of Depo-Provera sold in the US: “Women who use Depo-Provera Contraceptive Injection may lose significant bone mineral density… Depo-Provera Contraceptive Injection should be used as a long-term birth control method (eg, longer than 2 years) only if other birth control methods are inadequate…”
Despite evidence linking Depo-Provera to HIV (and other health risks), WHO designates Depo-Provera as safe for general use (except for women with specific serious health problems, such as heart disease or breast cancer). WHO’s claim that Depo-Provera is safe came under renewed criticism in July 2011, when a study among discordant couples (one partner infected with HIV, the other not infected) in Africa reported that women using injected hormones were more than two times as likely to get HIV compared to women not using hormones for birth control.
WHO didn’t budge. Seven months later, in early 2012, WHO declared the new evidence – along with all previous evidence – to be inconclusive. WHO reissued its advice that “women…at high risk of HIV can safely continue to use hormonal contraceptives.” WHO’s only nod to the evidence was to say “women using progestogen-only injectable contraception [primarily Depo-Provera] should be strongly advised to also always use condoms…”
Why would WHO not warn women? Paula Donovan, co-director of AIDS-Free World and a long-time former UNICEF and UN official, explains that UN officials “were afraid that African women might abandon hormonal contraceptives altogether” leading to “more pregnancies…more maternal deaths…unsafe abortions” and more infected babies. Citing and quoting several UN documents about women’s rights, Donovan charges that “WHO and UNAIDS have violated [women’s] human rights by withholding the information. They have failed to inform women that using hormonal contraceptives may carry some risk… Women have the right to make fully informed sexual and reproductive health decisions, whether or not the UN likes those decisions.”
In a later publication, Donovan reminds those who wish to promote specific birth control methods that “No global experts or family planning organizations have the right to censor the life-and-death information women need in order to weigh their own risks… Women need information: complete, uncensored, and factually correct.”
(b) Risks to get HIV from skin-piercing health care procedures
Just as international and foreign aid organizations don’t warn women in Africa about evidence that Depo-Provera increases their risk to get HIV, these organizations also don’t warn them about risks to get HIV from reused and unsterilized instruments during skin-piercing health care procedures.
From the time AIDS was first recognized in Africa in 1982, there has been a lot of evidence that women have gotten HIV during health care. National surveys find that many clinics and hospitals do not sterilize instruments. Studies link HIV to injections, operations, blood tests, and other skin-piercing procedures. And studies and surveys report unexpected infections – for example, among women aged 15-49 years in Congo (Brazzaville) in 2009, more women who claimed to be virgins were HIV positive (4.2%) than all women (4.1%).
It’s clear from what WHO and UNAIDS tell UN employees that pretty much everyone throughout the UN system knows that health care available to the African public sometimes transmits HIV. In a 2004 booklet for UN employees, WHO and UNAIDS warn (p. 9): “In several regions, unsafe blood collection and transfusion practices and the use of contaminated syringes account for a notable share of new infections.” But, “[b]ecause we are UN employees, we and our families are able to receive medical services in safe healthcare settings, where only sterile syringes and medical equipment are used, eliminating any risk to you of HIV transmission as a result of health care.”
Outside an approved clinic or hospital, WHO advises UN employees to (p. 23): “Avoid any procedures that pierce the skin, such as acupuncture and dental work, unless they are genuinely necessary. Before submitting to any treatment that may give an entry point to HIV, ask whether the instruments to be used have been properly sterilized.”
These organizations do not extend similar warnings and advice to African women. Just as not warning women about risks with Depo-Provera violates their human rights, similarly not warning women about risks to get HIV from unsterile instruments in health care violates their human rights.
(c) An HIV infection is not a reliable sign of sexual (mis)behavior
Surveys and studies routinely find HIV-positive women who report no sexual exposure to HIV – some say they are virgins, others have an HIV-negative spouse and report no other sexual partners. The almost universal response to these findings by study teams has been that women lied – no matter what they said, they got HIV from sex.
By routinely disbelieving women, researchers protect and preserve the theory that almost all HIV in African women comes from sex. This theory – which grew out of racial stereotypes of sexual behavior and survives despite evidence – guides HIV prevention messages to misinform Africans that almost all HIV infections in adults come from sex.
What happens next completes a circle of distrust: These messages encourage men who are HIV-negative to think their HIV-positive wives got HIV from sex, no matter what their wives say (and similarly, encourage wives to think HIV-positive husbands were unfaithful). This is not a trivial matter. Most African couples living with HIV are discordant – only one is infected. Among discordant couples, the wife is equally likely to be HIV-positive as the husband.
Telling men and women in discordant couples that HIV surely comes from sex is like the town trouble-maker telling people their husband or wife is running around when there’s no evidence that’s so. An HIV infection is not enough evidence to show a wife was unfaithful. Many African women get HIV from health care. HIV prevention messages that focus only on sex add insult to injury, encouraging husbands, families, and friends to blame them for sexual misbehavior.
Conclusion: Getting good information to women is a do-it-yourself challenge
If international and foreign aid organizations waste – misuse – their money to misinform women about risks, that’s too bad. But let’s not let a bunch of irresponsible bureaucrats get in the way. Women’s lives are at stake. We can get these three messages to women through churches, NGOs, community groups, unions, and just talking to friends. Even bureaucrats who keep their jobs by telling approved official half-truths during working hours can pass these messages privately to friends and other contacts. Abraham Lincoln, the US president who ended slavery, said: “You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time.” So despite the well-funded official half-truths from too many places, let’s take heart, and do what we can to get life-saving messages to women.
Denied, withheld, and uncollected evidence and unethical research cloud what really happened during three key trials of circumcision to protect men
15 Comments Posted by davidgisselquist on February 11, 2012
Mass circumcision based on assumption, not evidence
Programs to circumcise millions of men in Africa’s are based on selected evidence from three trials in South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda.[1-4] Many people think these trials showed circumcision reduced men’s risk to get HIV from sex by more than 50%.
The trials don’t say that; specifically, the trials don’t say men’s infections came from sex. None of the studies collected all information needed to measure the impact of circumcision on men’s risk to get HIV from sex — asking about all blood and sexual risks and trading and testing sexual partners.[5]
Trials in South Africa and Uganda report new infections in men according to whether the men reported any possible sexual exposure to HIV (any sex without a condom). The evidence from these two trials suggests less than a third of men’s infections came from sex (see details below). It is, of course, possible that men misreported their sexual behavior. In other words, programs to circumcise men in Africa are not based on evidence, but rather on assuming away evidence.
Were men’s sexual partners HIV-positive? We don’t know. The Ugandan trial tested most of the men’s spouses and live-in partners for HIV (including women who did not want to know their HIV status [see “eligibility criteria” in reference 6]). The trial observed most new infections in men who reported no non-marital partner. But the trial has not reported the HIV status of the long-term partner of any circumcised or intact man who got HIV during the trial.
The South African trial found most new infections in men who reported only 0-1 sexual partner after the last HIV-negative test. The Kenyan study collected but has not reported information on men’s sexual behavior during the trial; at baseline a majority reported 0-1 partners in the previous 6 months. There is no indication either trial made any effort to trace and test the sexual partners of men who got HIV during the trial. This would have been not only good research, but was also ethical — protecting women who were not the source of men’s new infections.
Evidence from these trials supports other recommendations
Beware skin-piercing risks: As noted above (and detailed below), evidence from two trials says less than a third of men’s infections came from sex. Moreover, two studies report new infections in men with specific healthcare encounters. In the South African trial: men who “attended a clinic for a health problem related to the genitals” vs. men who did not were 5.7 times more likely to get HIV; and men who reported an injection, transfusion, and/or hospitalization vs. men with none of these risks were 1.7 times more likely to get HIV. The Kenyan trial found four men new infections one month after they were circumcised. (See details below.)
Trust your body’s natural defenses: In Uganda, not washing one’s penis after sex cut men’s risk (whether circumcised or intact) for HIV. Thus, one message from the Ugandan trial is that natural defenses against HIV in sexual fluids may be as effective as circumcision (see details below and two other pages).
Beware unethical research: The circumcision trial in Uganda (together with research in a linked trial) tested many of the men’s wives and stable partners for HIV, but did not insist that women learn their HIV status or warn their husbands if women were HIV-positive. The trial followed men to see them get HIV, without warning them. The trial in South Africa followed men, at least some of whom did not know their HIV status. None of the trials required testing and warning wives and other partners when men got new HIV infections (see details below).
More details from the three trials
South Africa: The first study of the three studies to report was carried out in South Africa during 2002-05.[2] The study team solicited men willing to be circumcised, then on a random basis assigned half the men to an intervention group to be circumcised first and the other half to a control group to remain intact until the end of the study. The study team then followed and retested the men – circumcised and intact – at scheduled visits over as long as two years.
During follow-up, 20 men in the intervention (circumcision) group got HIV at the rate of 0.85% per year, while 49 men in the control (intact) group got HIV at the rate of 2.11% per year. If all the men’s infections came from sex, this says that circumcision cuts men’s risk to get HIV from sexual partners from 2.11% to 0.85% per year.
But did all or even most infections come from sex? Not according to evidence the study collected and reported. Twenty-three of the 69 men with new infections said they had no sexual partner or always used condoms from their last HIV-negative test to their first HIV-positive test. Men reporting no sexual risks got HIV at the rate of 1.11% per year. If these men are telling the truth, they apparently got HIV from blood during injections, dental care, tattooing, and other skin-piercing events. If men with no sexual risks got HIV from blood, we can estimate that men with sexual risks also got HIV from blood contact at the same rate. The rate of getting new HIV infections in men who reported at least one unprotected (without a condom) sex event was 1.86% per year. The modestly faster rate to get HIV in men reporting vs not reporting sexual risks explains less than 1/3 of the men’s infections (using standard epidemiological terms, the crude population attributable fraction of incident HIV associated with reporting any vs. no unprotected sex is 27%).
The study reported two health care exposure in men with and without new HIV infections: (a) men who “attended a clinic for a health problem related to the genitals” were 6.8 times more likely to get HIV than men without this risk;[2] and (b) men who reported injections and/or transfusion and/or hospitalization were 1.7 times more likely to get HIV than men who reported none of those events (see Authors’ reply in this link).[7]
The study team has not said what procedures men got at clinics treating genital health problems; it has also not reported HIV incidence separately for injections, transfusions, or hospitalizations. The study has not reported other healthcare procedures, such as infusions and dental care. The study has also not reported any data on skin-piercing cosmetic procedures; did they ask?
The study team could have done a better job identifying the sources of men’s infections if they had asked more questions and reported more data. But where is the failure? Did they not ask, or are they not telling? Like most studies on HIV in Africa, this study does not give other researchers’ free access to collected data (with safeguards to protect participants’ confidentiality). Also, like most studies on HIV risk in Africa, this study has not disclosed its questionnaire and data collection forms – so there is no public record of what information they collected and chose not to report (chose to withhold).
Table: What information on sex and blood risks did the three studies collect and report for men with and without new HIV infections?
Risks for HIV South Africa, 2002-05 Kenya, 2002-06 Uganda, 2003-06
Blood-borne risks
Circumcisions No report of infections after circumcision 4 infections in the month after circumcision No report of infections after circumcision
Injections Collected but not reported Unknown Unknown
Transfusion Collected but not reported Unknown Unknown
Hospitalization Collected but not reported Unknown Unknown
Injections, transfusions and/or hospitalization Increases risk by 1.7 times Unknown Unknown
Visiting a clinic for a genital health problem Increases risk by 6.8 times Unknown Unknown
Other blood risks Unknown Unknown Unknown
Sexual risks
Any vs. no partners Collected but not reported Collected but not reported Increases risk by 2.4 times
<100% condom use Collected but not reported Collected but not reported Increases risk by 1.1 times
Any vs no partners or <100% condom use Increases risk by 1.7 times Collected but not reported Increases risk by 1.6 times
Any vs no non-spouse partner Collected but not reported Collected but not reported Collected but not reported
HIV status of spouse Not collected Not collected Collected but not reported
HIV status of non-spouse partners Not collected Not collected Not collected
Intact men waiting >10 minutes to wash penis sex Not collected Not collected Decreases risk by 87%
Circumcision Decreases risk by 60% Decreases risk by 53% Decreases risk by 55%
Sources: see references in the text.
Kenya: The Kenya study,[3] 2002-06, was similar in design to the South Africa study. The study circumcised some men, then followed and retested circumcised and intact men for as long as two years to see who got HIV. Nineteen men in the intervention (circumcised) group got HIV at the rate of 1.9% over two years, while 46 men in the control (intact) group got HIV at the rate of 4.1% over two years.
How many of the 65 men got HIV from sex? The study asked men about sexual partners and condom use, but reports this information for only seven men infected during the first three months of follow-up. Five of the seven reported no sexual partners from the time they entered the trial (using sensitive tests, the study could not find HIV in blood collected then) until their first HIV-positive test after 1-3 months. The study team has said nothing about tracing and testing men’s sexual partners – did they do it and not report it, or just not do it?
As for blood-borne risks, the study reports four men circumcised in the trial had new HIV infections one month later. Contaminated local anaesthetic or instruments could have infected the men during circumcision, but the study team says nothing about what might have gone wrong. Aside from circumcisions, the study says nothing about blood-borne risks. This is a glaring oversight, because the study team had in hand evidence linking HIV in the community to blood-borne risks: While recruiting men for the trial, men who reported one or more injections in the previous six months were 2.5 time more likely to be HIV-positive vs other men; men with tattoos were 2.2 times more likely to be infected; men who had ever received saro (traditional blood-letting) were 2.1 times more likely to be infected,[8] and men who reported “blood exchange” were 18.6 times more likely to be HIV-positive.[9]
Uganda: The study in Uganda, 2003-06, followed the same design as studies in South Africa and Kenya: assigning men randomly to be circumcised or to remain intact, then following them for as long as long as two years to see who got HIV. Twenty-two men in the intervention (circumcised) group got HIV at the rate of 0.66% per year, and 45 men in the control (intact) group got HIV at the rate of 1.33% per year.[4]
During follow-up, researchers asked men whether and how they cleaned their penis after sex, expecting that washing or wiping might be protective. Intact men who cleaned their genitals after sex, but waited at least 10 minutes to do so, got HIV at the rate of 0.39% per year. Also, men who wiped only without using water got less HIV than men who used water. The authors proposed that acid in vaginal fluids “may impair HIV survival,” so that washing these away with water may “facilitate viral survival and possible infectivity.”[10]
How did the men get HIV? Six men with new HIV infections reported having no sex partners during the period between their last HIV-negative and first HIV-positive test; 10 others with new infections reported always using condoms. Taken together, the 16 men who reported no possible sexual exposure to HIV got HIV at the rate of 0.72% per year, presumably from skin-piercing events that exposed them to HIV in blood. Men who reported any unprotected sex got HIV at the rate of 1.17% per year. As in South Africa, the marginally faster rate at which men who reported sexual risks got HIV explains less than a third of the new infections observed during the trial (using standard epidemiological analyses and terms, the crude population attributable fraction of incident HIV associated with having any vs no unprotected sex is 29%).
Unlike the other two studies, the Uganda study team traced and tested most of the men’s wives (and other long-term partners) for HIV.[6] However, the study has not reported the wives’ HIV status for men who got HIV. Did they get HIV from their wives? The study team is sitting on that information.
The Uganda study team provides no data on injections and other skin-piercing events for men with and without new HIV infections, and does not say if they collected any such data.
Ethical short-comings
The three studies treated research participants in ways that would not be allowed in the US, Canada, and France, non-African countries that funded the studies:
The South Africa study recruited men and the Uganda study recruited wives without insisting they hear their HIV test results. Neither study has said how many participants did not hear their results.
The Uganda study followed men who did not know the study had found some of their wives to be HIV-positive (some of the wives also did not know) to watch the men get HIV.
None of the studies insisted that men who acquired HIV bring their wives for couple counseling. This ethical lapse – leaving wives with unknown risks – undermined the objective of the research, which was to see how much circumcision reduced sexual transmission.
Study teams for two of the three trials did not register the trials (ie, document what they were planning to do in their human subjects research) before the trial began. Both were registered only after follow-up was completed and less than one month before publication.[11, para 35 in reference 12]
1. WHO, UNAIDS. New data on male circumcision and HIV prevention: policy and programme implications. Geneva: WHO, 2007. Available at: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/43751/9789241595988_eng.pdf?sequence=1 (accessed 2 May 2018).
2. Auvert B, Taljaard D, Lagarde E, et al. Randomized controlled intervention trial of male circumcision for reduction of HIV infection risk: the ANRS t1265 trial. PLoS Med 2005; 2: 1112-1122. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1262556/pdf/pmed.0020298.pdf (accessed 2 May 2018).
3. Bailey RC, Moses S, Parker CB, et al. Male circumcision for HIV prevention in young men in Kisumu, Kenya: a randomised controlled trial. Lancet 2007; 369: 643-656. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17321310 (accessed 2 May 2018).
4. Gray RH, Kigozi G, Serwadda D, et al. Male circumcision for HIV prevention in men in Rakai, Uganda: a randomized controlled trial. Lancet 2007; 369: 657-666. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17321311 (accessed 3 May 2018).
5. Brewer, D. D., Rothenberg, R. B., Potterat, J. J., Brody, S., & Gisselquist, D. (2004). HIV epidemiology in sub-Saharan Africa: rich in conjecture, poor in data (reply to letter by Boily et al.). International Journal of STD & AIDS, 15, 63-65. Available at: http://www.interscientific.net/ijsa2004.html (accessed 2 May 2018).
6. Wawer M. Trial of male circumcision: HIV, sexually transmitted disease (STD) and behavioral effects men, women and the community. ClinicalTrials.gov, 2007. Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00124878 (accessed 2 May 2018).
7. Auvert B, Sobngwi-Tambekou J, Taljaard, et al. Author’s reply. PLoS Med 2006; 3: 0141-0143. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1360639/pdf/pmed.0030065.pdf (accessed 2 May 2018).
8. Mattson CL, Bailey RC, Agot K, et al. A nested case-control study of sexual practices and risk factors for prevalent HIV-1 infection among young men in Kisumu, Kenya. Sex Transm Dis 2007; 34: 731-736. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17321310 (accessed 2 May 2018).
9. Mattson et al. Sexual practices and risk factors for HIV among young men in Kisumu, Kenya. Available at: http://www.abstract-archive.org/ (accessed 2 May 2018).
10. Makumbi et al. Male post-coital penile cleansing and the risk of HIV-acquisition in uncircumcised men, Rakai District, Uganda. Abstract WEAC1LB, 4th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention, Australia, 25 July 2007. Available at: http://www.abstract-archive.org/ (accessed 3 May 2018).
11. Thornton J. Circumcision and HIV. Blog post 18 September 2012. Available at: https://ripe-tomato.org/2012/09/18/circumcision-and-hiv/ (accessed 2 May 2018).
12. World Medical Association. Declaration of Helsinki 2013. Available at: https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/ (accessed 3 May 2018).
Long past time to listen, believe, and investigate
1 Comment Posted by davidgisselquist on January 22, 2012
There would be no HIV epidemic if doctors and nurses in Central and West Africa had not reused syringes and needles during 1900-1960. We’d worry about other things. And health aid programs would be begging for money for other things. But no one would have heard of HIV.
The charge – accusation – that colonial health care programs started the HIV/AIDS epidemics does not come from a wacko conspiracy theorist. Jacques Pepin, an accepted mainstream scientist, elaborates the charge in his new book, The Origins of AIDS. Peter Piot, the chairman of the AIDS establishment – the long-term former head of UNAIDS – seconds the charge: “As far as the origins of AIDS are concerned…it will be difficult to come up with a better explanation than Pepin’s. The role of medical injections in the initial spread of HIV in Africa is quite plausible.”
Pepin’s story of AIDS origins begins with hunters and butchers who sometimes get blood from chimpanzees into cuts. On rare occasions, chimpanzee blood infects a hunter or butcher with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), at which point we call it HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). But it’s what happens next that’s important. Pepin argues – with a lot of evidence – that sexual transmission of HIV from a cut hunter or butcher to spouses and others was too inefficient – too slow – to sustain a chain of infection among humans. Without unsafe injections to spread HIV, the cut hunter or butcher would have died without spreading the infection. And there would be no epidemic.
But after making sense of the beginning of the epidemic, Pepin, Piot, and the rest of the AIDS establishment tell another and conflicting story. They want us to believe that although sexual transmission was too inefficient to start the epidemic, it later became so efficient that it accounts for almost all HIV infections in African adults. That makes about as much sense as saying pigs can’t take off and fly, but if you throw them into the air, then they can fly.
Mainstream AIDS experts have been persistent for almost 30 years in their claim that almost all HIV in African adults comes from sex. Let’s be clear what this claim means and where it comes from.
The claim is an accusation. Most couples with HIV in Africa are discordant – one is HIV-positive, and the other is HIV-negative. The claim that almost all HIV comes from sex accuses millions of men and women in discordant couples of having sex outside marriage. In discordant couples, women are the HIV-positive partner as often as men. Because women are generally the first partner tested (during antenatal care), the accusation that almost all HIV comes from sex targets especially women. The consequences can be harsh: A recent news story tells of a woman in Kenya who tested HIV-positive during antenatal care, and then brought her husband to test. When he tested HIV-negative, he accused her of being pregnant by another man and threw her out of the house.
Where does the claim (accusation) come from? It doesn’t come from evidence. After 30 years of research, the AIDS mainstream is still unable to point to anything different about sex in Africa that could explain how HIV infects so many people. Studies repeatedly show that sexual behavior in Africa is similar to, if not more conservative than, sexual behavior in Europe or the US. It doesn’t come from models: Models shows that sexual behavior in Africa combined with known rates of sexual transmission could not create Africa’s HIV epidemics.
On the other hand, study after study in Africa finds HIV-positive men and women who report no possible sexual exposures to HIV – such as virgins, and people with an HIV-negative spouse and no other lifetime sex partner. What do AIDS experts do with this evidence? Studies characteristically conclude that those who report no sexual risks got HIV from sex – and then lied about it. No matter what studies find and Africans say, the accusation remains: If you are African, you got HIV from sex.
The accusation that almost all HIV infections in African adults comes from sex not only blames HIV-positive adults for unwise sexual behavior but accuses and stigmatizes Africans in general for unusual sexual behavior and lack of human feelings. It’s a riff on historic characterizations of Africans as sub-human, close to animals, and backward.
Euphemistically, we could call the accusation an hypothesis, or in layman’s terms, a guess. But considering the lack of supporting evidence as well as persistent contradictory evidence, it hardly qualifies as a legitimate hypothesis waiting for tests and proof. It’s a dangerous wolf that masquerades in sheep’s clothing as a respectable hypothesis.
Which brings us to the question: Who gains? Health aid managers, health care providers, and ministries of health across Africa gain by blaming HIV-positive Africans for unwise sexual behavior. The alternative is to accept some of the blame for Africa’s ongoing epidemics. Does unsafe health care spread HIV in Africa today as in colonial times? A lot of evidence says so. To see if it’s so, and to find and stop dangerous health care procedures, ministries of health need to investigate unexpected infections. When a woman is HIV-positive with no sexual risks, it’s unlikely she is the only woman who’s been infected by the responsible clinic. How many were infected – tens, hundreds? Without looking – testing other women who visited the same clinic – we won’t know, and we won’t find the risk and stop the ongoing clinic-based HIV outbreak.
Health care professionals have a common conflict of interest that discourages them from talking about ongoing HIV transmission through health care. This common conflict of interest creates what could be called a natural conspiracy of silence about bloodborne risks for HIV. If any health care professional wants to challenge that assessment, here’s how – Call publicly for investigations of unexpected HIV infections. Show that you, at least, are not part of a conspiracy of silence about HIV transmission through health care in Africa.
Is misogyny misleading the response to Africa’s HIV/AIDS epidemics?
Everyone has prejudices. Trying to overcome them can be like playing the arcade game whack-a-mole. See it, whack it. It pops up again, whack it again. The AIDS epidemic energizes a lot of prejudices. Unfortunately, the international AIDS industry – organizations and individuals getting money to do something about AIDS, including aid agencies, researchers, and others – has not been alert to see and reject common prejudices.
For example, even though careful surveys show that heterosexual behavior in Africa is similar to behavior in the US and Europe, most AIDS experts say that sexual behavior explains Africa’s terrible epidemics. Because the AIDS industry has not yet whacked racial stereotypes of sexual behavior, it has not yet been compelled to look for something other than sex that is different in Africa, and that could help to explain how HIV can infect 5%-26% of adults (50-260 out of 1,000 adults) in 15 countries in Africa compared to only 0.3% of adults (3 in 1,000) outside Africa.
But it’s not only racism that misdirects the AIDS industry’s response to Africa’s epidemics. Another prejudice – misogyny – seems to do so as well. Features of two prominent health aid programs in Africa – circumcising men, and extending birth control to women – suggest that misogyny is a hidden influence.
Circumcision: During 2005-07, studies in Africa reported that circumcising HIV-negative men reduced their risk to get HIV by 53% (median result from three studies), but that circumcising HIV-positive men increased transmission to their wives by 49% (result from one study). Based on these studies, donors initiated crash programs to circumcise millions of African men. Critics point out that circumcised men will still have to use condoms to be safe (not just safer). But since we’re focusing on women, let’s leave aside arguments that mass circumcision is not a good way to protect men.
Let’s focus instead on what was done with the evidence that circumcising HIV-positive men increased their partners’ risk to get HIV by 49%. Notably, in the study that reported that statistic, wives of circumcised men were at especially high risk if they resumed sex before their husbands’ circumcision wound healed – 5 (28%) of 18 who did so got HIV in the 6 months after their husbands were circumcised.
Programs offering subsidized circumcisions could protect wives by requiring that men asking to be circumcised be tested for HIV, and if found to be infected bring their wives for couple counseling before proceeding with the circumcision. Instead, the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) recommends: “The offer of male circumcision should neither depend on a person undergoing an HIV test, nor on a person being…HIV-negative” (quote from page 7 of this link). As mass circumcision programs got underway, as many as 1/3rd of men resumed sex before wound healing. Lack of care to protect women suggests misogyny – or is it just careless incompetence that happens to hurt women?
Hormone injections for birth control: During the last several decades, many studies in Africa and Asia found that women taking hormone (progesterone) injections for birth control were more likely to get HIV compared to women using other birth control methods. A similar risk is found with monkeys: As early as 1996, scientists studying SIV (simian HIV) in monkeys found that progesterone implants multiplied by 8 times their risk to get SIV. Progesterone thinned the monkey’s vaginal wall and enhanced virus replication. Another HIV risk with hormone injections is that careless providers might reuse unsterilized syringes and needles, transmitting HIV from one woman to another.
Despite the evidence, WHO continues to say hormone injections are safe for all women, and donors continue to push hormone injections for birth control – especially in Africa. Outside Africa, 3% of women (partnered women aged 15-49 years) use hormone injections. In contrast, in Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland, the percentage of women using hormone injections increased from 6%-20% in 1996 to 17%-29% in 2009. In these same countries, 6%-26% of adults are HIV-positive.
Compare what the AIDS industry does to protect men vs. women: In 2011, a study among discordant couples (in which only one partner is HIV-positive) in Africa reported that women taking hormone injections for birth control were more than twice as likely to acquire HIV from their husbands compared to women using non-hormone methods. From this data, helping women shift from hormone injections to safer methods would cut their risk for HIV by 54% — as much as circumcision seemed to protect men in several recent studies. How did donors respond? Donors budget hundreds of millions of dollars to circumcise African men, but no donor has committed even one dollar to shift women from hormone injections to safer birth control methods. As of late 2011, the aid-for-family-planning industry, including notably USAID, continues to push hormone injections in Africa.
Other signs of misogyny: Outside Africa, HIV infects mostly men. Where that’s the case, researchers have identified all important risks – most infections come from anal sex among men or from sharing syringes and needles to inject illegal drugs. Knowing their risks helps men to avoid infection and thereby limits the extent of HIV epidemics. Outside Africa, only 0.3% of adults are infected.
In Africa, HIV infects more women than men. In Swaziland, for example, HIV infects 31% of women vs. 20% of men. In the 28 years after AIDS was recognized in Africa in 1983, researchers have failed to do the simple research required to identify important risks for women – that is, to trace the source of their infections.
We know some women get HIV from their husbands. But we also know that in most African countries married women with HIV are more likely to have HIV-negative than HIV-positive husbands. We know that many self-reported virgin women are HIV-positive. We know that reuse of unsterilized medical instruments is common in Africa. So we know some things. But we don’t know enough. Failure to identify women’s risks may well be the key to failure to control Africa’s epidemics.
Other evidence of misogyny comes from the AIDS industry’s frequent claims that prostitutes drive Africa’s epidemics. Throughout history, societies have blamed promiscuous women — especially prostitutes — for spreading sexually transmitted disease. Some studies in Africa have found a lot of prostitutes with HIV — but how did they get it? Notably, in most countries outside Africa, HIV is rare in prostitutes who do not inject illegal drugs. Few prostitutes in Africa inject illegal drugs, but they get other injections, such as antibiotics to treat sexually transmitted disease. Nevertheless, building on a long tradition, the AIDS industry finds it easy to blame prostitutes’ HIV infections on sex, rather than to investigate to see how much unsafe health care not only infects prostitutes, but also spreads HIV from prostitutes to others.
Finally, consider the different attention paid to sterilization of medical instruments in the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), which began in 1974 and which treats mostly children, compared to what has been done in safe motherhood and family planning programs for women. During the 1980s and later, EPI’s donors arranged dozens of surveys of injection practices in immunization programs. These surveys found lots of unsafe injections. In 1999 a WHO committee acknowledged that 30% of vaccination injections were unsafe. To address the problem, EPI’s donors belatedly shifted vaccination injections to auto-disable syringes, which break after one use.
Unlike EPI, programs promoting health care for women have not arranged surveys to see if health care is safe – e.g., how often are gloves, specula, and syringes reused without sterilization? Even so, there is a lot of evidence that women’s health care in many hospitals and clinics in Africa is not only unreliably sterile but has also infected women with HIV. For example, a 2005 national survey in Ethiopia found that 9.9% of women who gave birth in the last 3 years with delivery care from a health professional were HIV-positive vs. only 1.2% of women who gave birth but did not get such care. We don’t know where all those infections came from. Not knowing shows that no one has cared enough about women to do the simple studies to find the risks – tracing infections to their source – so that women can be warned and thereby protected. Donors’ head-in-the-sand approach to women’s exposures to unsterile instruments in health care mocks the “safe motherhood” slogan.
More than money is required to stop Africa’s AIDS epidemic – it also needs clear thinking. That is hard to do when common prejudices are not recognized and whacked. If we see and whack racial stereotypes of African sexual behavior, we’re more open to evidence pointing to other explanations. If we’re alert to whack misogyny, we’re forced to take a good look at all the ways the AIDS industry harms and stigmatizes African women. Clear thinking can help to translate good intentions into protecting and healing actions.
AIDS, blood, HIV, iatrogenic, nosocomial, Uncategorized abrasion, bacteria, bacterial, barbershop, blades, blood donation, broken skin, clipper, contaminated, contamination, cosmetic services, cut, dead space, deadspace, hairdresser, hairdressing, hepatitis, hiv, iatrogenic, infection, lance, lancet, manicurist, needle stick, needlestick, nosocomial, pedicurist, pierce, prejudice, prick, risk, safe, safety, saloon, scrape, scratch, skin, skin piercing, speculum, sterile, sterilization, stigma, syringe, tools, virus
PrePex in Rwanda: Male Circumcision Associated with Higher HIV Transmission and Higher Profits
Comments Off on PrePex in Rwanda: Male Circumcision Associated with Higher HIV Transmission and Higher Profits Posted by Simon Collery on January 10, 2012
Rwanda, which has a shockingly low number of doctors and other health personnel per patient, is claiming that they can circumcise two million men in the next one and a half years. Even Kenya, which makes exalted claims, has only managed 250,000 or so in a longer period of time. Apparently, the trick is to be unchoosy about who carries out the operation. However, if large sums of money are available, why not train more personnel? The effect would be far more significant and sustainable and would benefit health in general, not just HIV alone.
Well, there are plenty of unemployed people in Rwanda, but this doesn’t sound like the best way to spend the 100 million dollars or so, which is about the lowest amount such a program could cost. And that’s just if everything goes well. If Rwanda can barely cope with the most minor, non-invasive medical procedures, why rush into circumcising most of the adult male population when there’s no guarantee it will be of benefit? In fact, it may even do a lot of harm.
Not many Rwandan men are circumcised, but in the latest figures available for HIV prevalence among circumcised men (2005, later figures are yet to be released), the operation would appear to increase transmission. This is nothing unusual; in many countries HIV prevalence is higher among circumcised men; prevalence for circumcised Rwandan men is 3.8%, compared to 2.1% for uncircumcised men. So what evidence is the country using to persuade men to undergo this operation when they will still have to use condoms, which could protect them from HIV, unplanned pregnancy and a whole host of sexually transmitted infections in one go?
Indeed, national HIV prevalence in Rwanda is relatively low, at 3%. But female prevalence is 3.6%, whereas male prevalence is only 2.3%. As in all medium and high prevalence countries, rates are far higher among women, especially urban dwelling women, wealthy women and women with the highest levels of education. And it is not even clear if transmission from men to women is reduced by male circumcision. There is evidence that transmission from men to women may increase as a result of a mass circumcision program.
It is often claimed that HIV prevalence among Muslim populations is lower and it is even stated or implied that this is because Muslim men tend to be circumcised. In Rwanda, HIV prevalence is indeed lower among Muslim men than any other religious group. But Muslims as a whole have by far the highest HIV prevalence because female rates stand at 11.4%, compared to less than 4% for every other religious group. (It could be argued that polygamy, said to be common among Muslims, results in higher HIV rates; but rates are often lower where polygamy is common; besides, many non-Muslim groups practice polygamy, even if they identify themselves as Christian.)
Apparently the PrePex device will be used to carry out the circumcisions, a simple piece of plastic with an elastic band. This device has been widely advertised, especially through infomercials, and is backed by the Gates Foundation amongst others. One of the infomercials was run by the BBC; there’s a link to the clip in a blog post I wrote some months ago. But with HIV prevalence so low, 97% of the adult population are uninfected, how valuable could this operation really be (aside from the clear value to the manufacturers of PrePex and other commercial interests)?
AIDS, blood, HIV, iatrogenic, nosocomial abrasion, bacteria, bacterial, barbershop, blades, broken skin, clipper, contaminated, contamination, cosmetic services, cut, dead space, hairdresser, hairdressing, hepatitis, infection, lance, lancet, manicurist, needle stick, needlestick, pedicurist, pierce, prejudice, prick, risk, safe, safety, saloon, scrape, scratch, skin, skin piercing, speculum, sterile, sterilization, stigma, syringe deadspace, tools, virus
Healthcare Risks for HIV
Cosmetic Risks for HIV
Finally! 90-90-90 to stop HIV
Outbreaks and unexpected infections
Unethical and incomplete HIV research
Male Circumcision
Sex, Birth and Breastfeeding Risks
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Bands / Music, Gig Reviews, Reviews June 5, 2019 June 5, 2019
[Gig Review] The Whitlams, Bob Evans @ The Playhouse, Friday, 24 May
Rory McCartney
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Indie-pop-punk duo Cry Club's single 'Robert Smith' is a rollicking egotistical fantasy exploring self-image and the desire to appear as others want you to be - January 18, 2020
Keith Potger @ Beyond Q, Saturday, November 21 - January 4, 2020
Grace & Hugh @ Beyond Q, Sunday, 29 November - January 4, 2020
Kevin Mitchell, front man of rockers Jebediah, was in troubadour mode as his alter ego Bob Evans. He loved the Playhouse, stating it made a good change from playing the main floor in the toilet of some pub, and having to compete with the racket from the TAB and pokies.
He delivered songs of love in his slightly nasal tone, with warm strums from his fairy light bedecked guitar. Catchy tunes with beguiling rhythms flowed over us, including Nowhere Without You accompanied by piercing harmonica. Evans said the harmonica frame reminded him of his orthodontic kit at age 13.
The Whitlams celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the LP Love This City, playing most of its tracks in album order. Besides relationship topics, Whitlams songs often draw on the characteristics of Sydney, both good and bad, with the music centered on front man Tim Freedman’s terrific electric piano work.
Guitarist Jak Housden had lost his voice, but got his guitar solo in on Laugh in Their Faces. Drummer Terepai Richmond missed the trick when throwing a drumstick and attempting a blind catch behind, but he made up for it helping Jak out with the backing vocals.
Tim Freedman’s wonderful vocal tone and nuanced delivery were exemplified by his solo presentation of Buy Now Pay Later, which was just one of the many lush, atmospheric songs with great melodies included in the set. Most songs were mellow in their musical arrangements but the topics had, as Freedman said, “more causes than a university Greens meeting”, going from anti-gambling to a lack of Australian support (prior to 1999) for East Timor. The few departures from the LP included Following My Own Tracks written by the late Stevie Plunder, the “wonder from Narrabundah”.
A fantastic night of Australian music.
Filed under: Bob Evans, Canberra Theatre Centre, Jak Housden, Kevin Mitchell, Terepai Richmond, The Playhouse, The Whitlams, Tim Freedman
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[Gig Review] The Proclaimers @ The Playhouse, Thursday, May 23
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Details for: The passion of Dolssa :
The passion of Dolssa : a novel /
by Berry, Julie [author.].
Material type: BookPublisher: New York : Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House, 2016.Description: 478 pages ; 22 cm.ISBN: 9780451469922; 0451469925.Subject(s): Albigenses -- Juvenile fiction | Inquisition -- France -- Provence -- Juvenile fiction | Christian heresies -- Juvenile fiction | Faith -- Juvenile fiction | Provence (France) -- History -- 13th century -- Juvenile fiction | France -- History -- Louis IX, 1226-1270 -- Juvenile fiction | Albigenses -- Fiction | Inquisition -- Fiction | Christian heresies -- Fiction | Faith -- Fiction | Provence (France) -- History -- 13th century -- Fiction | France -- History -- Louis IX, 1226-1270 -- Fiction | France | France -- Provence | 1200-1299 | Fiction | History | Juvenile works | Historical fictionSummary: In mid-thirteenth century Provence, Dolssa de Stigata is a fervently religious girl who feels the call to preach, condemned by the Inquisition as an "unnatural woman," and hunted by the Dominican Friar Lucien who fears a resurgence of the Albigensian heresy; Botille is a matchmaker trying to protect her sisters from being branded as gypsies or witches--but when she finds the hunted Dolssa dying on a hillside, she feels compelled to protect her, a decision that may cost her everything.
List(s) this item appears in: Young Adult: Historical Fiction Awards: Click to open in new window
Young Adult Collection Young Adult Fiction YA FIC BER Available 39270004501866
I must write this account, and when I have finished, I will burn it. <br> <br> Buried deep within the archives of a convent in medieval France is an untold story of love, loss, and wonder and the two girls at the heart of it all. <br> <br> Dolssa is an upper-crust city girl with a secret lover and an uncanny gift. Branded a heretic, she's on the run from the friar who condemned her mother to death by fire, and wants Dolssa executed, too.<br> <br> Botille is a matchmaker and a tavern-keeper, struggling to keep herself and her sisters on the right side of the law in their seaside town of Bajas.<br> <br> When their lives collide by a dark riverside, Botille rescues a dying Dolssa and conceals her in the tavern, where an unlikely friendship blooms. Aided by her sisters and Symo, her surly but loyal neighbor, Botille nurses Dolssa back to health and hides her from her pursuers. But all of Botille's tricks, tales, and cleverness can't protect them forever, and when the full wrath of the Church bears down upon Bajas, Dolssa's passion and Botille's good intentions could destroy the entire village. <br> <br> From the author of the award-winning All the Truth That's in Me comes a spellbinding thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the final page and make you wonder if miracles really are possible.
In mid-thirteenth century Provence, Dolssa de Stigata is a fervently religious girl who feels the call to preach, condemned by the Inquisition as an "unnatural woman," and hunted by the Dominican Friar Lucien who fears a resurgence of the Albigensian heresy; Botille is a matchmaker trying to protect her sisters from being branded as gypsies or witches--but when she finds the hunted Dolssa dying on a hillside, she feels compelled to protect her, a decision that may cost her everything.
<opt> <anon I1="BLANK" I2="BLANK">***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof*** Copyright © 2016 Julie Berry The Convent of the Jacobins, Tolosa I must write this account, and when I have finished, I will burn it. Mine is the historian's task, to record the events of the last century, showing God's mighty hand in ridding these southern lands between the Garona and the Ròse rivers of the heresy of the Albigensians. I am asked to show future generations how God's justice was carried out by the crusade against these so-called "good men" ( bons omes ), "good women" ( bonas femnas ), and "friends of God" ( amicx de Dieu ), and how the inquisitions that followed, wrought by my brother Dominicans, finished God's holy work. The collected records of more than half a century of inquisitorial toil are mine to examine: transcripts, testimonies, and confessions from a generation now all but extinct. When searching out a history, sifting through a thousand facts and ten thousand lives, one often uncovers pieces that do not fit. The prudent choice is to cast those details aside, like chaff into the fire. The story must be understandable. The moral should be clear. Perhaps I am not a prudent man. I found pieces that haunted me, voices echoing from parchment leaves that would not let me sleep at night. I could find no rest until I searched out the truth, studied what I could learn about those involved, and found a way, with, I pride myself, a minimum of invention, to make the pieces fit. If only for me. There are those who would say this record casts doubt upon the righteousness of the Church's work. Which is why this book, written for my private satisfaction, must not outlive me. I myself have never been an inquisitor. I was, I confess, not cut out for it. But I was a patient laborer in the fields of knowledge, and so to Tolosa's archives I was sent after my university studies in París. Here I have spent nearly thirty years. It was in the days when Count Raimon's daughter Joana still ruled as Comtessa de Tolosa, before Provensa came under the rule of the king of Fransa, and when I, myself, was new to this vocation, that the bishop of Tolosa, himself a former inquisitor of renown, came home to the Convent of the Jacobins to spend his final days. It happened that I served in the hospice one evening. The ailing bishop began to speak to me. He seemed impelled to tell his tale. He confessed to a secret doubt that had plagued him through- out his life--unease over whether he had done God's will in one particular case. I reassured him with all my heart that he had done his best to serve the Lord. He thanked me with tears. In the morning, he was gone. Some months after, I found papers belonging to a priest in a seacoast vila , a priest known for composing sacred songs of great beauty. The papers made it clear he was not their author. A woman had written them, and with them, a curious and troubling account of her own spiritual journey. Names and places in the woman's account reminded me of the old bishop's testimony. And so I wondered. Later still, a lengthy narrative from a friar in Barçalona fell into my hands, painstakingly recorded. The pieces of my mystery at last began to fit. I puzzled over its connecting threads. Finally, and perhaps, rashly, I decided to stitch the pieces together, however clumsily, and record it. The gaps and errors in the sewing are my own; of its overall completeness, however, I feel certain. These voices from the past had arisen like ghosts demanding to be heard. This, I will confess, is one of the secret thrills of my historical work. But listening too closely to those voices, in these times in which I live, may also be its most terrible danger BOTILLE I swear to tell the full and exact truth about myself and others, living and dead. Why keep secrets? There's no one it would help. The dead are all I have to talk about, anyway. What harm can there be in telling their stories now? They are safe, beyond reach. There was a time when my name was Botille, when I lived with my sisters and our old Jobau. We lived by our wits, and great buckets of nerve, and anything-- anything --we could steal, or sell. Like most in Provensa, we'd seen hunger and illness. We'd grown up in Carcassona, a city broken by the crusaders before we were born. But what was yesterday's war to little girls? We'd lost our mother. That was all we had room for. She left each of us her love, her reputation, two sisters, and Jobau. And one silver crucifix to share. We begged for our dinner and stole washing from peasants to clothe little Sazia. We huddled together to keep warm at night. Jobau's drinking and his temper harried us from town to town at the hands of the bayles . We were wanderers, survivors, always searching for a home. We thrived upon it. Greedy little urchins, foolhardy little thieves. Now I see we were magic, my sisters and I. We laughed at ourselves, at Jobau and the world. Nobody's ever made me laugh like my cynical little Sazia could. You wouldn't think it to know her now. We gave Plazensa, the eldest, fits of rage with our cheek. Life was sweet, though I doubt we realized how much. Home was each other. Not walls, but the adventure of the search to find them. Our wanderings led us to a small seaside town called Bajas, and there, among vintners and fishermen, we saw an opening and decided to seek a home. We washed our faces and combed our hair and tried to make something more of ourselves. We swore we'd give up thieving. We'd grown old enough to know it was safer to be inside the law, and the arms of the vila , than out of them. We took over an old derelict tavern and dared to run it. Plazensa's brewing, our scrubbing, Sazia's fortune-telling, and my hustle brought customers in. We began to feel that we might belong, and others counted us among their neighbors and friends. Finally and forever, I believed, we could be safe. Then I met Dolssa. DOLSSA The summons came from Dominus Roger, him who'd baptized me and taught me to reverence the body and blood. Our own parish priest came to lead me to the cloister of the abbey church of Sant Sarnin, the great cathedral of Tolosa. The inquisitors wished to speak with me. My mother turned pale. She pulled me into her chamber under pretense of wrapping a scarf around me. "Daughter, hear me quickly," she said. "Answer as little as possible. Don't upset them. Say nothing about your preaching, and certainly nothing about your beloved." I would have none of this. Who were they, that I should fear them? "Speak only as you are," was her warning. "A modest and true Christian maiden. Be humble. Be still." "But Mamà," I said, "why would I be otherwise?" "My darling," she pleaded. "You don't fear them, but you should. Inquisitors have made Count Raimon send hundreds of heretics to the fires. Their verdicts--not even he dares resist them. Not anymore." She rested her forehead against mine. "You were too young to know all that happened during the war years, and even since. Your papà and I shielded you from it as best we could." I was aghast. "What has that to do with me, Mamà? I'm no heretic! Is that what you believe of me?" "Hush!" Mamà glanced at the door. "Of course you're not. You know how I feel. But you are different. You are . . ." She hesitated. "Your words give you authority. You have believers. This is some- thing the inquisitors can't ignore." "My beloved does not fear them, nor keep silence," I told her. The waiting priest tapped at the door. We both felt caught. Mamà's whisper became an urgent breath in my ear. "Youth makes you bold. Love makes you trusting. But it is madness to provoke these inquisitors. They will not like what you say about your love. Not when you're so young, and a girl." I waited for her to finish. There was no point in vexing her. But she knew she had lost. "God knows I will stand by you, come what may." Her grip upon my arms was tight. "For my sake, guard your tongue to guard your life, my daughter." DOLSSA DE STIGATA , THE ACCUSED Testimony recorded by Lucien The Cloister of t he Abbey Church of Sant Sarnin, Tolosa You wish to speak with me, Friar Lucien? Prior Pons? My priest said you wished to ask me questions. I have seen you, Friar, in the street. You pass by our house often. Tell me, what is it like to live in a convent? To take holy vows along with others? I've often wondered. My mother prayed and planned for me to enter the cloister. The thought was sweet, in a way. But my beloved told me my path was different. Silence does not serve his purpose for my life. He asks me to tell others about our love. All right. You shall ask the questions, and I will answer. Oc, I reject all heresy and false belief, and cling to the true Catholic faith. Oc , I swear to tell the full and exact truth about myself and others, living or dead. Non, I have never seen a heretic. I do not know any of the bons omes nor bonas femnas that are called heretics. I have lived a very sheltered life in my parents' home. Non , I have never listened to their preaching, nor helped them, nor fed them, nor carried gifts for them. How could I? I rarely even leave my house, Friar. I am eighteen years old. My name, as you well know, is Dolssa de Stigata. My father was Senhor Gerald de Stigata. He was a knight. He died five years ago last spring. My mother is Na Pitrella Braida de Stigata. I live with her and our few servants in my father's ancestral home here in Tolosa. I, preach? In my home, oc . I have shared my thoughts with relatives and friends on a few occasions. That is where you heard me? Through a window. You saw me. I preach that my beloved Christ is the ardent lover of all souls. That he stands beckoning to all God's children, to come taste of his goodness. To be one with him, as he is one with me. Why do I preach this? Good friar-preacher, you who wear the mantle of Blessed Dominic the Preacher, I could ask the same of you! Oc . In this room, questions are yours to ask. I preach because my beloved calls me to. My one desire is to shine his love into the world. What? Oh! Oc , since you ask, I'm laughing. How can I not? You wondered, how do I know the devil hasn't tricked me? I can only answer, if it is the devil who teaches people to trust in the love of Jhesus, then what, I wonder, should we call men of the cloth like you? Far less impertinent, good friar, than you calling my beloved a devil. Remember who my beloved is. Plainly, friar, I am a femna , and yet I speak. I do as my beloved urges me to do. Who shall forbid what my beloved commands? Oc , Sant Paul said it was a shame for women to speak in church, but I do not speak in church. I worship in church, and I speak in my own home, as a Christian woman is free to do. But oc , you guess rightly. If my beloved bid me to speak in church, I would do it. My beloved is greater than Sant Paul. Surely, you would not argue that an apostle's words are greater than the Lord's? The apostles didn't listen to Santa Maria Magda- lena, either, though she was right when she told them she had seen her Lord risen from the tomb. You accuse me of heresy. Oc , I am listening. I'll give you my answer. I can no more retract or deny what I have said about my be- loved than I could choose to stop breathing. Against my will, breath would flow into my lungs; against your will, speech will flow from them also. If you seek to silence me, I will only cry more urgently. My beloved's praise will not go unsung, not so long as I have breath. Oc , I know who you are. I know what you claim you can do to me. How can I fear you with my beloved beside me? His arm is mightier than all flesh, and I know he will protect me. BOTILLE Istruga picked, of course, the worst time possible to tell me. We wore our hair dandled up in rags to keep it off our hot necks, allowing the sun to burn our sweaty skin. Our oldest, flimsiest skirts we had pulled snug between our legs and pinned to our backs. There we were, thigh-deep in juice, stomping, squashing, mashing the cool, slimy grapes under our heels and deliciously through our toes, while the harvesters clapped and laughed and sang to Focho de Capa's fidel . It was a party. A frolic. And a bit of an exhibition. Astruga's thighs--purple, even--were nothing to be ashamed of, and as for mine, skin was skin, wasn't it? The sky was blue, the air was hot, the sea breeze stirring our little vila of Bajas was playful, and the splashing new wine was sweet on my lips, its perfume rich enough to knock me over and drown me happily in the old winepress. And that was when Astruga told me she was pregnant. Not in so many words, of course. "Look at the buffoons." Sweat rolled in rivers off her wine-red cheeks. Jacme and Andrio had linked their beefy, sun-tanned arms and were now swinging each other in idiotic loops, bawling out their song, while the other men slapped themselves and howled, and the married women shrieked with laughter. Jacme and Andrio were great laughers, those two. "They're a pair, all right," I said. My thighs ached from all the stomping, but the music compelled us onward. I'd waited ages for my turn in the press. I wasn't about to flag now. Astruga showed no signs of slowing. She leaped like a salmon through her sea of sticky wine. Always a restless one, Astruga. "I need one." Maire Maria! She needed a man. Today, not tomorrow. I sighed. Harvest frolics were known for this. All those tozẹts with their lusty eyes upon her, her buoyant chest bouncing practically into her eyeballs, and her skirts tucked up and pinned over her bottom . . . Of course she would feel herself in a mood to pick one of these young men, like a grape off the vine, and crush him against the roof of her mouth. Across Na Pieret di Fabri's neat vineyards, chestnut trees blazed with fall color, while dark, narrow cypress pines stood sentinel. Past the trees was the village proper, Bajas, crowning its round hilltop like a bald man's hat, and beyond it, the brilliant blue lagoon of the sea, my sea, that cradled and fed tiny Bajas, and con- nected her to the entire world. Paradise had stiff competition in our corner of Creation. Jacme chose that moment to scoop a handful of pulpy juice out of the vat and pour it down his throat. Purple dribbles bled into his stubbly beard. He winked at us, and old Na Pieret de Fabri, whose vineyards these were, whacked him harmlessly with her hat. I looked at all our sweaty purple tozẹts . Great overgrown boys they were, though I supposed I must call them men. "After we're done, you can take your pick of omes ." "Botille," Astruga said, her smile still as bright, "I need to speak with you." I lowered my weary leg and caught my breath. I knew what those words meant. Astruga capered like a baby goat, kicking up her heels and splashing wine into the open, leering mouths of the tozẹts dancing around the vat. And now I knew why, why she'd bribed Ramunda, whose turn in the winepress it ought to have been, to give her this chance to bounce and spin in her purple skin for all Bajas to see. She needed a husband, and fast. Perhaps, she had reasoned, if she played today well, she could find herself one. Or I could. For that was my job in Bajas. Most tozas helped the family business of catching fish or harvesting salt. Some spun wool or silk; others wove baskets, or helped their papàs and mamàs fashion clay pots. Countless others grew vegetables and tied and trimmed grapevines. But I, I caught suitors, harvested bridegrooms, wove dowries, fashioned courtships, grew families, and tied and trimmed the unruly passions of our hot-blooded young people into acceptable marriages. I brought them all to Dominus Bernard's altar in the end. Only sometimes, as now, with a baby on the way, I did not have the luxury of time to plot and plan. I watched Astruga's eyes linger on Jacme's broad face. "Jacme?" I whispered. She shrugged. "He'll do." I danced a little closer to her. "Is it he?" She looked away, and shook her head. I danced in a circle around her. If she wanted my help, she'd best not turn her eyes away from me. "Who is the father?" She turned the other way, like a naughty little toza who won't confess to stealing the honey. "Tell me," I pressed. "I have ways of making the father marry you." And I did. My sisters and I--we had ways all our own. The high flush in Astruga's cheeks cooled. "Not this time, Botille." Ah. He was married already, then. Well, no matter; Astruga was young and fresh. Weren't all the tozẹts adoring her even now? This would be easy for me. "Are you working on another match right now?" "Maybe." "If you marry off that cow Sapdalina before me, I swear, I'll claw her eyes out." It was Sapdalina's troth I was working on, and while I wouldn't call her a cow, per se, she was a challenging case. At least she wasn't pregnant. "That would hardly be fair to Sapdalina," I observed. Her angry face fell. "Oh, please, Botille. I'll do anything. You've got to help me." Astruga's skirt came unpinned and sank into the wine. She squealed and snatched it up, then thrust the soiled cloth into her mouth to suck out the blood-dark juice. Just then the church bells rang, and she let the skirt fall once more. I looked toward the village, with its white stone walls, its rising houses ready to teeter and topple one another, and the brown square bell tower of the church of Sant Martin. She'd shown me what, if I hadn't had a head full of wine and fidel tunes, my instincts should have smelled before Astruga had even spoken a word. The fruit growing in her vineyard was planted by a handsome rake, a delightful talker, a charmer if ever there was one, and the source of all my best clients. I owed him, really. Already a growing list of roly-poly babies had him as the papà they would never know. Dominus Bernard, Bajas's priest at the church of Sant Martin. " Acabansa ! Finished!" Focho de Capa, self-proclaimed lord of the revels, scooped a ladle of syrupy juice from the vat and drank it with great flourish. "Bon an!" A good year, good for the grapes. We climbed out of the vat. Itier pulled us each out by the wrist onto the platform next to the press and planted wine-stained kisses on our cheeks. We climbed down the ladder. Astruga let herself be seized about the waist by frizzle-headed Itier and led off to the table that had been set up, spread with bread, cheese, salmon, and roasted vegetables. I lingered behind to wipe a bit of the juice off my arms with a rag Na Pieret di Fabri handed me. Widow Pieret's eyes were still as blue as la mar , though her face was brown as carved chestnut and creased with as many deep grooves. Her husband, related to the lords of Bajas, had been a vintner, but his death, five years back, left Na Pieret to manage his great vineyards alone. It had been a terrible blow. Still, Na Pieret, who had never been weakened by childbearing, had borne up under the burden admirably. But today, though she smiled, she seemed tired. "What is it, ma maire ?" I genuflected, a courtesy owed to a great lady of advanced years, then I rose and kissed her cheek. All old women were "my mother," but Na Pieret was someone I could almost wish were my mother. "Ack! You are covered in viṇ ." She patted my cheek. "Smart Botille. Not a thing happens in this village but what you have a hand in it, is there?" "Oh, pah." I unraveled the damp rags from around my hair. "I won't take the blame for everything." Na Pieret leaned against the handle of her cane. I noticed her head quiver slightly. "I need your help, Botille." She spoke quietly. "I can't run the vineyards anymore." I saw how much it hurt her to speak these words, though she said them simply and without self-pity. "But your hired help, surely. They do the work for you, non ?" I looked over to the feast table, where half a dozen of her hands lounged, stuffing their faces. "Are they lazy? Do they steal from you? Sazia and Plazensa and I can put a stop to that. We'll teach them a lesson--" "No, no." Na Pieret squinted her eyes against the rays of the setting sun. "They are only as lazy as any other laborers ever were. No, they are kind to me." "Then what is it?" "I need a strong back, and eyes I can trust. I need someone who cares about the grapes like they are his own. But you know I have no children to entrust them to." The wine on my skin had dried to a slimy, sticky sheen, and I began to itch. Hot breezes from the south did nothing to help. "My mother had two daughters," Na Pieret went on. "My younger sister died last winter, leaving her two sons orphans, seven leagues from here, in San Cucufati." "Oh?" She nodded. "I want you to bring them to me. I will give them the farm, and they shall become my sons." Seven leagues? I pictured myself traveling seven long leagues with two quarrelsome little eṇfans in tow. What did she think I was, a nursemaid? "How old are they?" Na Pieret pursed her lips. "They were sturdy, useful children when I met them last," she said, "thirteen years ago." I smiled, and looked over at Astruga, busy stuffing a piece of bread into Itier's mouth. "Is either of them married?" "Botille!" Na Pieret laughed. "You haven't become one of the desperate tozas yourself, have you?" " Non , Na Pieret." I took her by the elbow and steered her to- ward the table. "But there are always plenty of them about, and now I have two more husbands to offer them." Na Pieret tapped my forehead with her swollen knuckles. "Only see to it you don't marry off my new sons to any of the silly tozas ." I shoved a half-drunk Andrio aside to make room on the bench for Widow Pieret to sit. "That, ma maire ," I said, "is a promise I doubt I can keep." Excerpted from The Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.</anon> </opt>
Berry (All the Truth Thats in Me, rev. 11/13) tells the story of (fictional) Catholic mystic Dolssa de Stigata after she escapes being burned as a heretic in 1241 Toulouse, France; mostly, however, its the story of Botille, an enterprising young matchmaker from a tiny fishing village who rescues Dolssa from starvation and detection, and thus puts herself and her village in mortal danger. Berry constructs her novel as a 1290 account by a monk, and employs both first- and third-person narrationsfrom Botille to Dolssa to the vengeful Dominican Friar Lucien who pursues Dolssa, and more. If this makes the reading experience choppy at times, it doesnt matter: Botilles spirited, down-to-earth character and style, the heart-rending suspense of the events she relates, and the terrifying context of the Inquisition in medieval Europe all render the novel irresistibly compelling. So too does the female solidarity Berry portrays among Botille and her sisters (tavern-keeper and fortuneteller) and their loyalty to the woman they rescue. Berry writes in short sentences with relatively simple language, conveying complex historical and religious matters fluently and accessibly for todays readers. Her thoughtful, sober historical note places the storys thirteenth-century issues in a valuable modern context; also appended are two glossaries (for Old Provenal and Latin words), a list of place names, and a bibliography. deirdre f. baker (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Health • Research
Low Doses Of CBD Shown To Reduce Blood Pressure
by Alexandra Hicks
Written by Alexandra Hicks
Marijuana CBD and Blood Pressure – A recent study discovered that just a single dose of Cannabidiol can effectively lower systolic blood pressure, which suggests it could be used to treat a medley of other cardiovascular disorders.
Marijuana CBD and Blood Pressure – New research published in JCI Insight found that CBD has the potential to reduce systolic pressure, which is the pressure in a person’s blood vessels while the heart beats. Their discovery is substantial because it means that CBD can be used as an all-natural, non-psychoactive, and non-addictive medication option to treat many cardiovascular disorders. CBD an extremely beneficial cannabis compound derived from the seeds and stalks of hemp plants.
In the study, scientists at the University of Nottingham in England compared the effects of a placebo versus a single 600 mg dose of CBD, administered orally, on the cardiovascular systems of nine healthy adult males. The researchers monitored a variety of the men’s cardiovascular parameters including blood pressure, heart rate, stroke volume, and skin blood blow, while they were at rest. Could Marijuana CBD and Blood Pressure be connected?
“CBD reduced resting systolic BP (–6 mmHg; P < 0.05) and stroke volume (–8 ml; P < 0.05), with increased heart rate (HR) and maintained cardiac output. Subjects who had taken CBD had lower BP (–5 mmHg; P < 0.05, especially before and after stress), increased HR (+10 bpm; P < 0.01), decreased stroke volume (–13 ml; P < 0.01), and a blunted forearm skin blood flow response to isometric exercise. In response to cold stress, subjects who had taken CBD had blunted BP (–6 mmHg; P < 0.01) and increased HR (+7 bpm; P < 0.05), with lower total peripheral resistance,” the study stated.
The above factors were also monitored while each participant was subjected to a slew of stress tests. The CBD effectively reduced systolic blood pressure by an average of “6 mmHg during rest, 5 mmHg before and after stress, and 6 mmHg in response to cold stress.” In a healthy adult, systolic blood pressure of 140mm HG or higher is considered too high, ideally, it should be around 120mmHg or less.
According to the study, “Our data shows that a single dose of CBD reduces resting blood pressure and the blood pressure response to stress, particularly cold stress, and especially in the post-test periods. This may reflect the anxiolytic and analgesic effects of CBD, as well as any potential direct cardiovascular effects,”
Also noted in the study is that CBD reduced stroke volume and increased heart rate by 7 beats per minute on average, however, there was no noticeable decline in cardiac output. These results aren’t surprising though, considering that cannabis has been studied for its cardiovascular benefits for years. In 2013, it was discovered that CBD can be used as a vasodilator. The study suggests that it can “allow for greater blood flow to normalize blood pressure and reduce the damage to arterial walls.”
Cannabidiol is also believed to be a neuroprotectant that aids in preventing cardiovascular disease and stroke. It has also been used to restore regular heart rhythm, reduce infarct size and inflammation, and preserve the remaining ventricle after a heart attack.
Nearly 75 million adults in the United States suffer from hypertension, or high blood pressure. That means around 32 percent of the population is at an increased risk for heart disease and stroke. It’s very promising that CBD has the possibility of reducing and preventing certain cardiovascular disorders. “Further research is also required to establish whether CBD has any role in the treatment of cardiovascular disorders such as hypertension,” the study concluded.
[Image credit- Pixabay]
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Alexandra Hicks
Alexandra is the managing editor at CBD Testers. She has always been interested in alternative and natural remedies, and the versatility of cannabis as a healing plant is something that greatly appeals to her. It's for this reason that she decided to work as a cannabis industry journalist and editor, to help spread accurate information about the benefits of this plant.
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Christie Digital Launches New Series of All-Weather Outdoor Digital Signage Displays
Home » Christie Digital Launches New Series of All-Weather Outdoor Digital Signage Displays
One of our CCS Presentation System partners Christie Digital continues to make innovative steps in how digital displays are used in all types of audience applications.
Christie Digital announced at the Integrated Systems Europe show in Amsterdam a new series of weatherproof LCD outdoor flat panels. The 55-inch, full 1920 x 1080 HD Christie FHD551-W panel is clearly a perfect fit for marketing in the outdoors. There are many applications for this ruggedly-built outdoor screen. Christie says it’s designed for outdoor sports venues, live events, entertainment parks, public displays, hospitalities and resorts and many other outdoor situations.
Christie Digital’s Product Manager Frank Anzures describes the new offering’s advantages to companies in both wet and dry weather zones in the video clip below:
He mentions that the FHD551-W screens are IP56 rated, which according to the specs, allows for ‘limited ingress of dust permitted (no harmful deposit) and protected against strong jets of water.’ The panel’s optimally bonded glass helps overall viewability and provides a harder screen shell which helps to eliminate or lessen scratches on the glass. Anzures says that protection offers uses in both harsh, dusty conditions and water conditions. “It’s a perfect panel for outdoor use”, says Anzures.
Christie writes in its press release that:
“The ability to use the Christie FHD551-W in landscape or portrait mode is ideal for rental staging applications, resorts, hotels and restaurants, to provide impactful content in public areas, while being rugged and durable to withstand rain, sleet, snow, and human interaction.“
CCS has offices all over the country, so we can see many audio-visual solutions for the Christie LCD weatherproof panel. Applications could include use outside sporting venues, used in state park locations to highlight hiking trails and other outdoor activities, or even use outside government and corporate buildings, as seen in the video above.
If you’re a business that sees a valuable use for such an innovative panel display, contact CCS Presentations for more details, audio-visual solution insights, consultation and installation. We will work with you in determining your needs and how we can work together on an upcoming digital signage project.
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Update: Sunday Parking charges suspended
Following on from last week’s news from Wiltshire Council that charges would be put in place on Sundays and Bank Holidays across the county, including Bradford on Avon’s car parks, an article has now been released on their website, stating that they have suspended Sunday charges.
The article can be viewed here:
http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/news/articles/investment-in-communities
Leader of the Town Council, Cllr Dom Newton said:
“We welcome the suspension of the new charges, which follows both a recent campaign and previous expressed objections from BOA Town Councillors on the impact that this would have on Town centres that are already facing significant challenges. We hope that the suspension will lead to a reversal of the policy.
Cllr Jennie Parker added:
“I am very happy to hear about the suspension of Sunday car parking charges, having spoken to many concerned people and businesses in the town. I hope this will mean the end of the idea.”
Further information will be posted as and when we receive it. Meanwhile, don’t forget that Town Councillors have also secured 2 days of free parking in BOA for Christmas shoppers, though we hope you will come along and support our independent retailers throughout the season.
Visit our CONTACT US page or reach us at:
Bradford on Avon Town Council
St Margaret's Hall, St Margaret's Street,
Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire BA15 1DE
office@bradfordonavontowncouncil.gov.uk 01225 864240
Bradford on Avon photography by Lydia Booth
Logo design by Marc Bessant with Jenny Dack
Governance and Policy
Copyright 2020 bradford on avon town council
managed by Tom Beavan
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CEBP Focus Archive
Disparities Collection
Hypothesis/Commentary
False Positives in Cancer Epidemiology
Joseph K. McLaughlin and Robert E. Tarone
Joseph K. McLaughlin
Authors' Affiliation: International Epidemiology Institute, Rockville, Maryland
Robert E. Tarone
DOI: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-12-0995 Published January 2013
Background: A recent attempt to estimate the false-positive rate for cancer epidemiology studies is based on agents in International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) category 3 (agent not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans) in the IARC Monographs Program.
Methods: The estimation method is critiqued regarding biases caused by its reliance on the IARC classification criteria for assessing carcinogenic potential.
Results: The privileged position given to epidemiologic studies by the IARC criteria ensures that the percentage of positive epidemiologic studies for an agent will depend strongly on the IARC category to which the agent is assigned. Because IARC category 3 is composed of agents with the lowest-assessed carcinogenic potential to which the estimation approach in question could be applied, a spuriously low estimated false-positive rate was necessarily the outcome of this approach.
Conclusions: Tendentious estimation approaches like that employed will by necessity produce spuriously low and misleading false positive rates.
Impact: The recently reported estimates of the false-positive rate in cancer epidemiology are seriously biased and contribute nothing substantive to the literature on the very real problems related to false-positive findings in epidemiology. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 22(1); 11–15. ©2012 AACR.
Thank you for sharing this Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention article.
You are going to email the following False Positives in Cancer Epidemiology
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Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev January 1 2013 (22) (1) 11-15; DOI: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-12-0995
The Evolving Scale and Profile of Cancer
Physicians and HPV Vaccination
HPV Genotyping as Triage Marker
Show more Hypothesis/Commentary
About Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention
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Too cute! Pink's four-year-old daughter stars in mum's 'Just Like Fire' music video
Pink's daughter Willow Sage Hart makes a cameo in her mum's new music video 'Just Like Fire' – and we can't get over how much she's grown!
Pink's daughter Willow Sage Hart makes a cameo in her mum's new music video 'Just Like Fire' - and we can't get over how much she's grown!
In the clip, Pink is busy hanging from the ceiling on her circus silks when her four-year-old daughter follows a butterfly through the looking glass into wonderland. She's even got pink highlights in her hair, just like mama's signature colour.
Pink's husband Carey Hart also appears in the clip for her tune, which appears as the main theme on Disney's Alice Through the Looking Glass movie soundtrack.
Awww. It's a family affair!
Celebrity kids: Guess their famous parent
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Home YouNow Star Gunnar Oden
Gunnar Oden
Scroll below and check our most recent updates about Gunnar Oden Net Worth, Salary, Biography, Age, Career, Wiki. Also discover more details information about Current Net worth as well as Monthly/Year Salary, Expense, Income Reports!
Gunnar Oden was born in Sweden on March 25, 1993. YouNow and YouTube musician known for gaining an audience of more than 20,000 YouNow fans performing both covers and original songs to his respective video channels. He has covered songs by artists like Ed Sheeran, Idina Menzel, and James Blunt. He first opened his YouTube channel in 2009 with a cover of John Mayer‘s “Your Body is a Wonderland.”
On CELEBS TREND NOW, He is one of the successful YouNow Star. He has ranked on the list of those famous people who were born on March 25, 1993. He is one of the Richest YouNow Star who was born in Sweden. He also has a position among the list of Most popular YouNow Star. Gunnar Oden is 1 of the famous people in our database with the age of 26 years old. Also Check Net Worth of Max Robinson, Alexia Rasmussen and William G. McGowan.
First Name Gunnar
Last Name Oden
Profession YouNow Star
Birth Sign Aries
Birth Date March 25, 1993
Birth Place Sweden
He has a sister named Agnes. He has not shared about He's parent's name. Our team currently working, we will update Family, Sibling, Spouse and Children's information. Right now, we don't have much information about Education Life.
Gunnar Oden Net Worth
Gunnar Oden estimated Net Worth, Salary, Income, Cars, Lifestyles & many more details have been updated below. Let's check, How Rich is Gunnar Oden in 2019-2020?
Gunnar Oden Net Worth: $15 Million
According to Wikipedia, Forbes, IMDb & Various Online resources, famous YouNow Star Gunnar Oden's net worth is $15 Million at the age of 26 years old. He earned the money being a professional YouNow Star. He is from Sweden.
Income Source Primary Income source YouNow Star (profession).
Gunnar Oden - Age, Height & Body Measurements
Gunnar Oden current age 26 years old. Gunnar Oden's height Unknown & weight Not Available right. Full body measurements, dress & shoe size will be updated soon.
We don't have much information about He's past relationship and any previous engaged. According to our Database, He has no children.
Does Gunnar Dead or Alive?
As per our current Database, Gunnar Oden is still alive (as per Wikipedia, Last update: January 5, 2020).
Gunnar Oden's zodiac sign is Aries. Ram is the astrological symbol and The First House is the ruling house of Aries. Tuesday is the lucky day & 7, 16, 25, 34, 43, 52, 61, 70, 79 is the lucky number for the Aries peoples.
Astrological Symbol Ram
Sun Sign Aries
Opposite Sign Libra
Ruling House The First House
Ruling Body Mars
Element Fire
Lucky Day Tuesday
The Motto I am, I do!
Lucky Color Red
Flower Honeysuckle
Symbolic Metal Iron
Lucky Numbers 7, 16, 25, 34, 43, 52, 61, 70, 79
Facts About Gunnar Oden
Gunnar Oden's age 26 years old.
Birthday March 25, 1993.
Birth Sign Aries.
One of his most popular YouTube song covers is “In the Shadows” by The Rasmus.
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Jack Sims
Alyssa Claire Welch
NoChillMikey
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The Salvation Army Emergency Shelters are Meeting the Need in Dane County
Shelter is never the solution to chronic homelessness, but it provides a safe place, a warm bed, and a hot meal for those in need.
DANE COUNTY, WI – February 12, 2019
The Salvation Army operates Dane County’s only Emergency Family Shelter and Emergency Women’s Shelter in one building on East Washington Ave. Purchased in 1977 after St. Patrick’s Catholic school for boys closed, The Salvation Army immediately set to work incorporating shelter spaces in the gymnasium and on the second floor. Four decades later, the aging building exhibits visible signs of consistently serving over-capacity and general wear and tear.
Yet the impact of this building and its operations- including seven housing programs, two emergency shelters, and two community meals each day- is not measured by the physical marks along its walls, but in the success stories that come out of it. In 2018, the women’s shelter served 473 clients; 28 percent of those leaving shelter were placed in positive housing arrangements. From October to December 2018, 70 percent of families seeking shelter were successfully diverted into stable living arrangements, and 33 of these families were permanently housed.
These successes do not come easily. Limited resources and a building ill-suited for intensive services provide meager support for the symbolic battles faced daily. Chronic homelessness exists due to myriad factors including, but not limited to: prior evictions, lost documentation, substance abuse, and medical or mental health conditions. At The Salvation Army, 15 case managers and three housing and services directors meet clients where they are at, coming alongside them in any way they can help. Staff are there for individuals and families through the success stories and the set-backs, a champion in their corner no matter the adversity ahead.
While the building is in dire need of overhaul remodeling, the programs and services therein are vital this community. Clients of the Army are kept safe, warm, and fed. The shelters, while not a solution to homelessness, meet the immense need in Dane County and will continue to do so until such a need no longer exists. The Salvation Army is here for the long haul, working to build stability and self-sufficiency, and provide a hand up in times of need.
The Salvation Army of Dane County invites those with questions or concerns to call for a guided tour of the building.
By mail, send in a check: The Salvation Army of Dane County, 3030 Darbo Drive, Madison, WI 53714
Text “DANE” to 41444
Donate online at https://app.mobilecause.com/form/2ojL6w
The Salvation Army, an evangelical part of the universal Christian church, has been supporting those in need in His name without discrimination since 1865. Nearly 33 million Americans receive assistance from The Salvation Army each year through the broadest array of social services that range from providing food for the hungry, relief for disaster victims, assistance for the disabled, outreach to the elderly and ill, clothing and shelter to the homeless and opportunities for underprivileged children. The Salvation Army tracks the level of need across the country with the Human Needs Index (Human NeedsIndex.org). Locally, 87 cents of every dollar raised is used to support programs and services in Dane County.
Related Content: Homelessness / Housing, Emergency Assistance, Media Alert / Press Release / News
Volunteering, Addiction / Recovery / Rehabilitation, 2019 Flood, Event, Utility Bills, Iowa, Disasters, Chaplaincy Program, Emergency Assistance, Homelessness / Housing, Hunger / Food, Red Kettles, Hunger / Food / Feeding, Community Center, Help Disaster Survivors, Media Alert / Press Release / News, Donations, Winter, Disasters / Emergencies
The Salvation Army Salvation Army Dane County
3030 Darbo Drive, Madison, Wisconsin 53714 | 1-800-SAL-ARMY | Privacy Policy | © The Salvation Army Central Territory
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Here She Comes Again (DJ Antonio Remix)
I Had This Thing (Remixes)
The Inevitable End
Do It Again (Remixes)
Running to the Sea (feat. Susanne Sundfør)
Tricky Tricky
Were You Ever Wanted (Lost Tapes) (feat. Lykke Li)
Shores of Easy (Lost Tapes)
Arctic Circles 3
Running to the Sea
und 83 weitere Alben
Über Röyksopp
There was a time when A-Ha carried the mantle of globally-successful Norwegian bands, but the arrival of Royksopp's Torbjorn Brundtland and Svein Berge inspired a whole new generation of melodic electronica, making Norway, and Scandinavia in general, the go-to place for hopeful A&R scouts looking for a new sound. And what a sound: gorgeous pop melodies layered over long-forgotten bits of old electronic equipment (no doubt chipped free from the very ice floes that influenced Royksopp's intimate yet sparse soundscapes).
Torbjorn and Svein met at the age of 12, and began their musical career performing Kraftwerk covers for friends. Naming themselves Aedena Cycle, they started creating their own ambient sounds reflecting their love for King Crimson, Brian Eno and the Orb -- influences that would continue to show as their production capabilities matured. Briefly joining Those Norwegians, Torbjorn sharpened his house sensibilities, and then the two friends formed Royksopp, releasing "So Easy" and signed soon thereafter by Wall of Sound. Their debut album, Melody AM, was a slow-burner that generated huge word of mouth and massive sales until even your postman could be heard whistling "Poor Leno" and "Eple." The music was a curious combination of electronica, downtempo, folk and pop -- catchy melodies and fun, uplifting beats that were especially needed in the overly po-faced prog house days at the beginning of the millennium. Global tours followed, accompanied by a number of award-winning and highly creative videos. Remixing requests started to come in, and soon it was possible to detect a specific Royksopp sound: the warmth of a good melody combined with a sparse clinical and washy Arctic rhythmic backdrop. Clearly not wanting to be pigeonholed, their next release, 2005's The Understanding, had a different feel and employed new vocalists (even using their own on some tracks), but their love of prog rock, especially the Alan Parsons Project, could still be clearly detected on tracks like "Alpha Male." Nicholas Baker
Annie, Boards of Canada, Koop, Prins Thomas, Rune Lindbaek, diskJokke
Alt Dance
Torbjorn and Svein met at the age of 12, and began their musical career performing Kraftwerk covers for friends. Naming themselves Aedena Cycle, they started creating their own ambient sounds reflecting their love for King Crimson, Brian Eno and the Orb -- influences that would continue to show as their production capabilities matured. Briefly joining Those Norwegians, Torbjorn sharpened his house sensibilities, and then the two friends formed Royksopp, releasing "So Easy" and signed soon thereafter by Wall of Sound. Their debut album, Melody AM, was a slow-burner that generated huge word of mouth and massive sales until even your postman could be heard whistling "Poor Leno" and "Eple." The music was a curious combination of electronica, downtempo, folk and pop -- catchy melodies and fun, uplifting beats that were especially needed in the overly po-faced prog house days at the beginning of the millennium. Global tours followed, accompanied by a number of award-winning and highly creative videos. Remixing requests started to come in, and soon it was possible to detect a specific Royksopp sound: the warmth of a good melody combined with a sparse clinical and washy Arctic rhythmic backdrop. Clearly not wanting to be pigeonholed, their next release, 2005's The Understanding, had a different feel and employed new vocalists (even using their own on some tracks), but their love of prog rock, especially the Alan Parsons Project, could still be clearly detected on tracks like "Alpha Male."
Nicholas Baker
Alt/Punk
Rescue (Lost Tapes)
Cooking Vinyl 1986 - 2016
Back to New Roots (Serotonin Fuelled Jazz Covers)
I Just Don't Understand You (Lost Tapes)
Medùlla
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Tag Archives: Rep Ted Lieu
2016 Elections, Congress, Corruption, Middle East
April 3, 2018 CJ
‘The Biggest Story You Never Hear About’: Reporter Sounds The Alarm On Awan Brothers Scandal
|| TGP
New Congressional documents reveal all 44 House Democrats who hired IT staffer Imran Awan waived the background check on the shady Pakistani national.
“The Daily Caller reports:
‘Every one of the 44 House Democrats who hired Pakistan-born IT aides who later allegedly made “unauthorized access” to congressional data appears to have chosen to exempt them from background checks, according to congressional documents.
All of them appear to have waived background checks on Imran Awan and his family members, even though the family of server administrators could collectively read all the emails and files of 1 in 5 House Democrats, and despite background checks being recommended for such positions, according to an inspector general’s report. The House security policy requires offices to fill out a form attesting that they’ve initiated background checks, but it also includes a loophole allowing them to simply say that another member vouched for them.
The reporter behind the new Awan report, the Daily Caller’s Luke Rosiak, joined Fox Business Network Monday to discuss his story.
“If they would have run this background check it would have found out not only multiple criminal convictions, but $1 million bankruptcy, a dozen lawsuits… it would have found a whole host of major red flags and the Democrats didn’t do any of those checks,” Rosiak told host Maria Bartiromo.
“As a result they gave these guys access to everything and IG determined that they were funneling data off the House network.”
“This is the biggest story that you never hear about,” Rosiak added.
“It’s a hack on the Congress by foreigners and the Democrats didn’t care about it, they didn’t stop it. These are the same people who were talking constantly about cyber breaches and Russia. And if you care about one, you’ve got to care about the other.”
“So why haven’t they addressed it?”
“It basically destroys that Russian narrative just because it shows that they didn’t actually care about cyber-security and they haven’t responded to this. And thirdly, it could just be a question of, do these guys have something on members of Congress?” the Daily Caller reporter said.
IT specialist Imran Awan worked for Debbie Wasserman Schultz for thirteen years since she was first elected to national office in 2004 as a Florida representative. She only fired him after he was arrested and would have kept paying her “IT expert” even after he fled to Pakistan. The Awan brothers IT ring had access to emails and computer data from an estimated 800 lawmakers and staffers.
Three Pakistani brothers who managed the IT affairs for several Democratic government officials were relieved of their duties in February on suspicion that they accessed specific computer networks without permission, also known as hacking Imran Awan, who started working for Wasserman Schultz in 2005, received $164,600 in 2016, with close to $20,000 of that coming from Wasserman Schultz.
His brother Jamal, who started working as a staffer in 2014, was paid $157,350.12 in 2016. Abid, who started working in 2005, was paid $160,943 in 2016. Imran’s wife, Hina Alvi, who was employed as a staffer since February 2007, was paid 168,300 in 2016. Rao Abbas was paid $85,049 in 2016. Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan were barred from computer networks at the House of Representatives in February.”
…Continue reading more @ The Gateway Pundit
Awam BrpsRep Ted LieuRep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
2016 Elections, Border, Corruption, Immigration, Law, Politics, Security
The True Biblical Response to Illegal Immigration and DREAMers
|| Townhall
“My Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) hosted another error-ridden town hall in Hermosa Beach last week. On immigration, he claimed to support two parts of President Trump’s proposed(?) plan: granting legal status to 1.8 million young illegals; and enhancing border security (although Lieu called the border wall “stupid”). He differed on ending chain migration and the diversity lottery. He quoted the Bible in his defense: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.” (Matthew 25:35).
My response: “Then take them into your home!” Amnesty advocates preach their open-border morality, but don’t live up to it. Moreover, Jesus’ statement is directed toward individuals who welcomed strangers into their own homes voluntarily. Any form of amnesty imposed by our government is not voluntary.
My consternation with these Biblical arguments has grown since reading this article in the Christian Post, when evangelical leaders, many of whom I respect, pressured Congress to pass some kind of DREAM Act. Pastor Samuel Rodriguez of Sacramento, CA stated in a January press conference: “The wall is a physical object created by man. 800,000 human beings created in the image of God by God.” Walls are Biblical, affirmed by God in Scripture. In fact, God commands the construction of walls around Jerusalem both the Old (Nehemiah 1:1-7:3) and the New (Isaiah 54: 12; Ezekiel 42:20).
In another letter to Congress, Evangelical leaders wrote: “Roughly 700,000 young people are poised to lose their right to work lawfully in the U.S., not to mention their dreams of a future in this country—the country they were brought to as children, without choice.” First of all, this country is not responsible for their parents’ crimes, which have harmed their children. Children should not be punished for the sins of their parents (cf. Jeremiah 31:29), but natural consequences remain. A mother breaks into my home, steals my car, and her children use the ill-gotten gains for good. I am still entitled to restoration of my property (Exodus 22). Illegal aliens are stealing this country’s space, resources, and wealth.
In response to these pro-enforcement arguments, preachers cite The New Covenant (Hebrews 8:10-012), which asserts that we are no longer under law, but under grace. However, grace is not arbitrary. Jesus died on a Cross for the sins of the world, the just for the unjust (1 John 2:2; 1 Peter 3:18). A payment must be rendered. Why should law-abiding citizens pay for lawbreakers?
If Christian leaders want to preach accurately on immigration, they should first acknowledge a few things:
Nations are God’s idea, not merely man’s construction, and rewarding illegal immigration harms nations. Genesis 11 reports God created multiple languages—and nations—to stop mankind from building the Tower of Babel. The dissolution of border security and national sovereignty are unholy gestures. To contend for amnesty based on a misplaced understanding of scripture is not tenable. There will come a time when every knee will bow, and every tongue confess Christ Jesus as Lord, but for now nation-states remain as part of God’s plan. Rampant amnesties only erode national boundaries.
Citizenship is a principle defended in the Bible. In the Old Testament, strangers were respected (Leviticus 19:34, Deuteronomy 10: 19), but they were expected to adopt all the customs of Israel, not retain their original cultural views (Numbers 15: 14-29). In the New Testament, Paul the apostle asserted his Roman citizenship to redress the abusive treatment of Roman soldiers (Acts 22:22-23:11). He also addressed his fellow Christians as “citizens of heaven” (Philippians 3:20, Colossians 3:5-16). Membership in a defined, national compact matters and should not be pushed aside. Many illegals in this country, especially DREAMers, are hell-bent on retaining and imposing a neo-pagan culture in this country, estranged and unsubmissive to our country’s constitutional rule and civic culture.
Christians are called to honor their rulers (and rules!) among the nations (1 Timothy 2:1-2; 1 Peter 2:17). To dismiss the authority of temporal rulers, especially on matters of immigration, is unholy and unwise.
Instead of championing amnesty, Christian leaders should reference the ideal immigrant: Ruth the Moabite. Unlike the 11 to 16 million illegal aliens in our country, per official tallies, Ruth did not break into her adoptive nation of Israel. She had a sponsor, her mother-in-law Naomi. There were other factors which Ruth obeyed, too (Ruth 1:16-17):
“For whither thou goest, I will go”: She would attend to Naomi, recognizing her place in her new country as based solely on the goodness of her mother-in-law. She did not enter into Israel as a political radical or busy-body.
“Where thou lodgest, I will lodge”: She would live with Naomi, not depending on someone else, particularly the state or taxpayers, to provide her housing. Her needs would come from her sponsor, not by force from other inhabitants in Israel.
“Your people will be my people”: This statement sums up assimilation perfectly. She pledged to become an Israelite. How often do our leaders today talk about the importance of immigrants adopting American customs, rather than demanding that we accommodate their foreign ways?
“Thy God [will be] my God.”: while our free society does not demand religious adherence to one creed, we should expect immigrants to embrace our cultural and moral values. For this reason, I am adamant against accepting adherents of Sharia Law, for example, or other religious sects which endanger life and property.
“Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried”: Ruth pledged a complete break with her pagan country and culture. She refused to abandon her new country or identity.
At the very least, politicians and pastors should stop shaming the public by misusing Scripture. Christians should have a ready defense when amnesty advocates distort Scripture for selfish political ends. Every country has a right to strong borders, safe citizens, and a secured sovereignty. These are not un-Christian expectations in the slightest.”
….Continue reading @ Townhall
DACARep Ted LieuTownhall
2016 Elections, Law, Politics
December 11, 2017 CJ
Democrat Ted Lieu Repeats CNN‘s Debunked Wikileaks Claim, Deletes Widely-Shared Tweet After Being Called Out
|| Law & Crime
“Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) tweeted out baseless accusations against President Donald Trump and Wikileaks before deleting the accusatory tweet after being publicly shamed for it.
He also accused Wikileaks, Trump and Donald Trump Jr. of collusion. On December 8, at 5:49 a.m., Lieu wrote:
Trump’s own CIA Director stated Wikileaks acts like a “hostile intelligence service.” Russia used Wikileaks against democracies. Now we know @POTUS & Donald Trump Jr. & others in Trump campaign were given access to hacked documents on Wikileaks. Sure looks like collusion.
Lieu’s tweet also contained a link to the now-discredited CNN report.
As noted by journalist Glenn Greenwald, Lieu’s tweet was ultimately shared in excess of 7,000 times and liked more than twice that number. Perhaps in response to being called out by Greenwald, Lieu eventually deleted his tweet–quietly and without admitting his error.
In that now-debunked story, CNNoriginally claimed an email was sent to President Trump and his eldest son regarding certain Wikileaks releases on September 4–ten days before the releases were publicly available.
In truth, the email in question was sent to Trump and his son on September 14–one day after Wikileaks published the DNC emails and began promoting them online. A report issued by the Washington Post hours after CNN published their false story provided the actual email–which was curiously missing from CNN‘s original reporting.
That same email, written by one Michael J. Erickson, also referenced other publicly-accessible emails of Colin Powell‘s available at DCLeaks.com.
CNN initially claimed their now-discredited story was a massive bombshell regarding Trump and Wikileaks.
The thrust of their initial reporting and promotion of the now-retracted story was that the media network had discovered physical evidence of an apparently nefarious relationship between the Trump campaign and Wikileaks.
Those claims–the entire basis of CNN‘s story–were ultimately shown to be false.
Law&Crime reached out to Lieu’s office for comment, but no response was forthcoming at the time of publication.”
…Continue reading more @ Law & Crime
CNNFake NewsRep Ted Lieu
Asia, Congress, Corruption, Law, Politics, Security, Terrorism
Democratic IT Staffer Arrested On Fraud Charge Has Family Links To SoCal Lawmakers
|| CBS TV Los Angeles
“LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com/AP) — Family members of a staffer for the former Democratic National Committee chair who was arrested this week while attempting to leave the U.S. for Pakistan once worked for several Southern California congressional offices.
Imran Awan was fired Tuesday by Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the same day he pleaded not guilty to a bank fraud charge in connection with a $165,000 home equity loan, authorities said.
His brother Abid Awan, was employed earlier this year by Democratic Reps. Ted Lieu, Tony Cardenas, and nearly 30 more House Democrats as a “shared employee”, according to Legistorm, a website that tracks congressional employment.
March 10 was the most recent end date for Awan’s employment under both Lieu and Cardenas, records show.
Lieu made headline in February for releasing a “how to” guide to help members of the Trump administration leak information to the media.”
….Continue reading more @ CBS Local
A MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD SECURITY BREACH IN CONGRESS
|| FrontpageMag
“Last year, eight members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued a demand that their staffers be granted access to top secret classified information.
The signatories to the letter were Andre Carson, Luis Guiterez, Jim Himes, Terri Sewell, Jackie Speier, Mike Quigley, Eric Swalwell and Patrick Murphy. All the signatories were Democrats. Some had a history of attempting to undermine national security.
Two of them have been linked to an emerging security breach.
The office of Andre Carson, the second Muslim in Congress, had employed Imran Awan. As did the offices of Jackie Speier and Debbie Wasserman Schultz; to whom the letter had been addressed.
Imran Awan and his two brothers, Jamal and Abid, are at the center of an investigation that deals with, among other things, allegations of illegal access. They have been barred from the House of Representatives network.
A member of Congress expressed concern that, “they may have stolen data from us.”
All three of the Pakistani brothers had been employed by Democrats. The offices that employed them included HPSCI minority members Speier, Carson and Joaquín Castro. Congressman Castro, who also sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, utilized the services of Jamal Moiz Awan. Speier and Carson’s offices utilized Imran Awan.
Abid A. Awan was employed by Lois Frankel and Ted Lieu: members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Also on the committee is Castro. As is Robin Kelly whose office employed Jamal Awan. Lieu also sits on the subcommittees on National Security and Information Technology of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.”
….Continue reading more @ FrontpageMag
California Swamp: CA Democrat House Members Hired Muslim Brotherhood Awan Brothers
|| Canada Free Press
“In post—9/11 America, “If you see something, say something” has become the unofficial slogan of the Department of Homeland Security, with the idea of enlisting American citizens to help identify real terrorism threats. Yet California Democrats in Congress apparently ignored this advisory with their silence, support and promotion of possible terrorists in their own workplace.
The Congressional hacking suspects—the Pakistani born Awan brothers—ran the Information Technology (IT) for dozens of Democrat congressmen and women, and could read every email and communication sent or received. Members of the California Democrat House delegation also hired the Awan brothers, along with nearly 30 more House Democrats as a “shared employee,” according to Legistorm.
In fact, the hackers appear to have had access to some of the most sensitive classified information provided to members of several intelligence oversight committees. As “shared” employees, their salaries were cobbled together with part-time payments from multiple members, on an estimated 80 House Democrats’ payrolls, the Daily Caller reported.
The California members of the House who hired the Awan Brothers (past and present), and what they paid the Awans include:
Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA 16) = $161,896
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA14) = $136,897
Rep. Xavier Becerra (Formerly D-CA34, currently California Attorney General) = $130,811
Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA37) = $106,664
Rep. Henry Waxman (Former D-CA 33) = $85,552
Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-CA 29) = $73,917
Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA 41) = $42,057
Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA26) = $79,504
Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA31) = $35,415
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA33) = $16,456
“March 10 was the most recent end date for Awan’s employment under both Lieu and Cardenas, records show.” CBS Los Angeles reported.
Ironically, Rep. Ted Lieu is something of an IT whiz kid, according to his Congressional bio: “As one of only four computer science majors currently serving in Congress, and as a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform’s Subcommittee on Information Technology, Ted is frequently sought out for his insight on technology and innovation matters including cybersecurity, cloud computing and innovation as well as the sharing and creative economy.”
It’s a darn shame Ted Lieu wasn’t sought out for his insight on cybersecurity in the House.
While Imran Awan ran technology for multiple House Democrats, he soon brought in four of his relatives—including brothers Abid and Jamal. The Awan family members appeared on the payroll of dozens of other members, collecting $4 million in taxpayer funds since 2010, the Daily Caller reported:”
….Continue reading more @ CFP
Awan BrosDebbie Wasserman SchultzRep Ted Lieu
2016 Elections, Congress, Corruption, Security, Terrorism
August 1, 2017 CJ
Awan Brothers Worked for Several California Democrats
“Imran Awan and his brother Abid worked for several dozen Democratic U.S. Representatives, including several from California, according to a recent investigative report citing congressional staff data.
CBS Los Angeles reported on Thursday (original links):
CBS singled out Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), who has been encouraging government employees to leak information to the media.
Imran Awan also worked for several California Democrats, most notably former Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), who is now Attorney General of California.
In addition, both brothers also worked for a variety of other Democrats from other states.
The various allegations involving the Awan brothers are still being revealed. The brothers were accused of owing money to a Hezbollah-linked Iraqi politician earlier this year. In addition, they allegedly sent files from the offices of members of the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees to remote servers, and stole hard drives that were later smashed.
It is still unclear how the Awan brothers were able to secure lucrative government contracts and gain access to sensitive information despite several red flags, including their financial and legal problems that ought to have resulted in any security clearance being denied.
Critics have accused former Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) of protecting Imran Awan, employing him until his arrest last week.”
U.S. Nuclear Comeback Stalls as Two Reactors Are Abandoned in South Carolina
|| NY Times
“In a major blow to the future of nuclear power in the United States, two South Carolina utilities said on Monday that they would abandon two unfinished nuclear reactors in the state, putting an end to a project that was once expected to showcase advanced nuclear technology but has since been plagued by delays and cost overruns.
The two reactors, which have cost the utilities roughly $9 billion, remain less than 40 percent built. The cancellation means there are just two new nuclear units being built in the country — both in Georgia — while more than a dozen older nuclear plants are being retired in the face of low natural gas prices.
Originally scheduled to come online by 2018, the V.C. Summer nuclear project in South Carolina had been plagued by disputes with regulators and numerous construction problems. This year, utility officials estimated that the reactors would not begin generating electricity before 2021 and could cost as much as $25 billion — more than twice the initial $11.5 billion estimate.”
….Continue reading more @ NY Times
Awan Muslim BrosNuclearNY TimesRep Ted Lieu
2016 Elections, Congress, Corruption, Digital Security, Law, Politics, Security, Terrorism
Trump-Hatred Is All About Islam
|| PJ Media
“President Trump’s overall approval rating may have fallen, but there’s one issue on which he has the support of 60% of the American public. That’s the proposed travel ban from certain Muslim-majority countries, according to a Politico-Morning Consult poll earlier this month. In fact, Trump has enjoyed the support of a plurality of all voters, Democratic as well as Republican, since he first proposed a travel ban in December 2015. Trump’s boldness horrified the Establishment but probably won him the nomination; three-quarters of Republican voters in the key South Carolina primary backed the travel ban. The whole Republican leadership abhorred him (Paul Ryan in Dec. 2015 accused Trump of “violating the Constitution”). Well, Trump won and the Republican leadership lost.
It’s always been about Islam–the camel in the living room, to coin a phrase. One and a quarter billion people, roughly a fifth of the world’s population, cannot make the leap from tribal society into the modern world. Their anguish and rage is a source of continuous instability and an occasional threat to the security of Western countries.”
Western leaders from George W. Bush to Pope Francis I struggled to avoid a clash of civilizations, praising Islam as a religion of peace. Trump, by contrast, told Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia May 21 that the onus was on them to extirpate terrorists from their countries and mosques. Trump isn’t seeking civilizational war. He’s giving Muslim leaders fair warning and a chance to avoid it.
That is what the whole kerfuffle is about. The Democrats’ notion of intersectional victimization includes Muslims as victims of Western colonialism and “people of color” (never mind that Islam launched the bloodiest wars of conquest of which we have records and created the African slave trade). The Republican Establishment and their neo-con punditeska view the Muslim world as a giant laboratory for the export of democracy. The CIA and the rest of the Deep State made a good living selling arms from the stockpile of the late Col Qaddafi (whom the U.S. helped overthrow in 2011) to “moderate Syrian rebels” — directly or indirectly abetting the rise of ISIS, as Gen. Mike Flynn warned in a now-celebrated 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency memo. The Europeans want a long-term accommodation with Islam as they drift slowly into demographic oblivion.”
…..Continue reading more @ PJ Media
MUSLIM MIGRANTS TURN GERMAN FESTIVAL INTO RAPE FEST in Baden-Wurtemberg
|| Infowars
Migrants in Germany poured into a carnival and started raping young women and attacking police.
“The so-called “asylum seekers” invaded the Volksfest in Baden-Wuerttemberg over the weekend, committing three sexual assaults on Friday alone and more throughout the festivities.One of the victims was a 17-year-old girl who was held down by three Afghan migrants, according to police.
The police also believe there’s more rape victims who have not yet reported the crimes.
“We hope that further possible victims or witnesses report to us,” said a police official in nearby Aalen.
Additionally, around 1,000 youths gathered at Schorndorf Castle near the festival grounds and chunked bottles at visitors and police.
The situation so bad that German police were forced to admit the suspects arrested included Muslim migrants, a fact they normally try to conceal from the public.
“The violence towards the police was frightening,” an official stated, adding that it was unheard of until now.
The mayor of Schorndorf, Matthias Klopfer, had some usually strong words to say about the violence, given that German politicians typically preach “tolerance” in response to migrant rape.
But it remains to be seen what will happen to the migrants who were arrested.
As I previously reported, Germany is on track to legalize rape due to the lack of prosecution against migrant rapists.
Typically, rapes by migrants are downplayed as “cultural misunderstandings” and thus the victims never receive justice, meaning that it’s practically legal for Muslim migrants to rape Germans.
“After importing real rape culture into their societies, the people of Germany are rarely successful at reporting cases against Muslim miscreants, and even more rarely at winning them,” remarked Damian Black of Return of Kings. “Police would rather cover up these crimes, including rapes of their own women, than risk their careers and income, for fear of being branded an Islamophobe in a multicultural society.”
“One national study showed that less than ten percent of men that are accused of rape are convicted.”
….Continue reading more @ Inforwars
Democrats Heard They May Have Been Hacked by Muslim IT Workers and Didn’t Even Care
|| Daily Caller
Rep. Ted Lieu gives national security access to Pakistani criminal
“House Democrats professing moral outrage over the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) have remained apparently indifferent to the likely penetration of their congressional computer systems, declining to distance themselves from five Pakistani House server administrators who are the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation.
House authorities banned the five administrators from the congressional information technology (IT) network in February as part of a Capitol Police criminal investigation in what Politico described as “serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network.”
Imran, Abid and Jamal Awan, Hina Alvi, Natalia Sova and Rao Abbas set up the email accounts and computer systems for dozens of members of Congress and their staffs, and they could read all emails and files on those systems.
A fellow congressional IT aide told The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group that potentially sensitive information was being transmitted to an off-site server.
Capitol Police seized a laptop computer tied to Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz — who resigned in July 2016 as DNC chairman following the committee’s hacking — during the investigation. The laptop was tied to Imran, her top IT person since 2005 who is under criminal investigation.
But instead of praising the Capitol Police for stopping a security breach, the Florida Democrat demanded they return the laptop to her even though it could be evidence needed to build the case. She threatened the police chief with “consequences” if it wasn’t returned.
Democrats have claimed that they deplore hacking and view cyberattacks as a dangerous frontier. Wasserman Schultz introduced an amendment Thursday aimed at blocking a “security clearance for any individual in a position in the Executive Office of the President, who is under a criminal investigation by a federal law enforcement agency for aiding a foreign government.”
Yet the lawmaker has refused to fire Imran even after House law enforcement banned him from the network.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she wasn’t familiar with the issue.
“I haven’t followed that very closely,” she said. She shrugged at Wasserman Schultz’s continued employment of Imran, saying “there are plenty of people who are under investigation who still have their jobs.”
California Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu wrote a letter accusing Trump of jeopardizing national security by not taking cyber protections seriously. He noted that he had majored in computer science in college.
Lieu gave Abid server access when the latter had a criminal record, a recent bankruptcy, a public lawsuit involving allegations of fraud in a car dealership he was running while supposedly also working on the Hill, and widespread rumors that Abid’s numerous relatives on the House payroll were running a fraudulent scheme. The lawsuit also disclosed that Abid’s business received $100,000 from an Iraqi politician who is a fugitive from the Department of Justice.
Lieu did not fire Abid until March 10, more than a month after being informed of the Capitol Police investigation and after media reports that the Pakistani’s stepmother alleged in Fairfax County court that he had used high-tech devices to wiretap and extort her.
Lieu spokesman Jack Dannibale did not respond to TheDCNF’s request for comment — both after the congressman was informed of the criminal probe and after the letter to Trump. TheDCNF asked what Lieu has done to determine if any of his congressional emails or files had been compromised and what was done to prevent a recurrence.”
….Continue reading more @ Daily Caller
Somali Cop Mohamed Noor Shoots MN Woman Dead as She Was Speaking to His Partner
“Somali American police officer Mohamed Noor shot Aussie Justine Damond dead this past weekend.
Mohamed Noor reached over his partner and shot Damond dead while she was speaking to his partner.
Damond called the police to report a possible assault down the alley behind her home. Mohamed was the first Somali officer in his precinct.
Damond was shot and killed while wearing her pajamas and speaking to another police officer after calling 911 to report a possible assault in an alley behind her home on July 15, reports The Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
Noor’s partner was described as “stunned” by the shooting.
CBS Minneapolis reported that Damond “made the 911 call and was speaking to police officers Saturday night. They were near the alley when the officer in the passenger seat reached across and shot her. A cell phone was found near Damond’s body.”
…..Continue reading more @ TGP
‘Islamization’ of Paris a Warning to the West | July 2016
Awan BrothersDNC HackIslam in GermanyRep Ted Lieu
2016 Elections, Corruption, Law, Politics, Security
July 4, 2017 CJ
Election Watchdog Group Slams California for Denying Voter Data to Commission
“The Election Integrity Project (EIP), a California-based volunteer organization that aims to increase transparency in the voting process, has slammed a decision by California Secretary of State Alex Padilla to refuse to cooperate with President Donald Trump’s Commission on Election Integrity in its efforts to investigate claims of voter fraud.
In a statement, the EIP said (original emphasis):
California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, along 25+ other Secretaries of State (SOS) has refused to cooperate with the bipartisan President’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. He was asked to simply supply the state’s voter list to the Commission so it can investigate practices that could lead to improper or fraudulent registrations and voting. The requested information is, for the most part, public information, and no more than any candidate, education organization, research organization, among others, are privy to.
Secretary Padilla states that he does not want to “legitimize already debunked claims of massive voter fraud.” California’s Election Integrity Project (EIP) asks not only when, where and how did the “debunking” take place, but more importantly, why protest an opportunity to conclusively prove through third party investigation his assertion that there is no election fraud in California? What does the Secretary have to hide?
Padilla was among the first state officials to reject the request for voter information from Kansas Secretary of Staet Kris Kobach, who is vice chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Padilla told the Los Angeles Times that he did not want to “legitimize” claims of voter fraud in California that he called “false.”
EIP President Linda Paine told Breitbart News that the organization takes privacy concerns seriously. Nevertheless, she said: “The secretaries of state can provide needed information while still protecting the privacy of voters.”
CNN Anchor Questions California Dem Rep’s Maturity
“CNN’s Brianna Keilar questioned the maturity of Democratic California Rep. Ted Lieu on Monday after he wore a “Trump Putin ’16” shirt during a Facebook Live broadcast.
Lieu called Trump’s tweets “highly disturbing” and “inappropriate” during a CNN interview Monday, but Keilar pointed out the apparent hypocrisy given Lieu’s own childish behavior on social media.
“I checked out your Facebook Live from last week where you talked about the health care bill, and the thing that struck me was really what you were wearing,” Keilar said. “You’re wearing a ‘Trump Putin 2016’ shirt. And you’ve tweeted about the president, you’ve called him ‘dumb as a rock.’”
“As you lob these criticisms at Donald Trump, is this the type of behavior that helps add to the maturity of discourse?” she asked.
Lieu argued that he uses the phrase “dumb as a rock” because Trump uses it, but Keilar wasn’t buying that line of reasoning.
“But that’s what [Trump] does,” she pushed back. “He says he’s quoting other people…he says, ‘I’m using someone else’s words.’ And you wore this t-shirt — can you speak to that for me?”
……Continue reading more @ Daily Caller
Alex Padilla California Secretary of StateRep Ted LieuVoter Fraud
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Browse: Home / SolarWinds Bolsters its Head Geek Team with Industry Expert
SolarWinds Bolsters its Head Geek Team with Industry Expert
Posted by admin on September 12, 2018 in PRESS RELEASES | 10 Views
Sascha Giese joins the ranks to help the technology professional community solve today’s IT challenges
CORK, Ireland, Sept. 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, SolarWinds—a leading provider of powerful and affordable IT management software—introduced Sascha Giese as the newest member of the company’s Head Geek™ team. Giese is currently based in the SolarWinds’ Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) headquarters in Cork, Ireland.
Giese brings a plethora of industry experience to the team, including:
Technical certifications, including being a Cisco® Certified Network Associate (CCNA®), Cisco Certified Design Associate (CCDA), Microsoft® Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA), VMware® Technical Sales Professional (VTSP), AWS® Certified Cloud Practitioner, and a SolarWinds Certified Professional® (SCP).
More than 10 years of technical IT experience, four of which have been as a senior pre-sales engineer at SolarWinds.
A close working relationship with business account management and partner enablement teams. Giese has been responsible for product training SolarWinds channel partners and customers in EMEA, with a focus on the DACH (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) region.
Regular participation in the annual SolarWinds Partner Summit EMEA, and contribution to the company’s professional certification program, SCP.
“At SolarWinds, we put a razor-sharp focus on helping technology professionals navigate the challenges and issues they face in today’s world—and the Head Geeks team plays a crucial role in making this happen,” said Darren Beck, chief marketing officer, SolarWinds. “Sascha has worked with our customers and partners for over four years, so he’s well-positioned to help the wider technology professional community solve today’s IT challenges. We’re thrilled to welcome Sascha as our newest Head Geek!”
What is a Head Geek?
SolarWinds Head Geeks™ bring over 120 collective years of real-world expertise and renowned industry credentials to provide the tech pro community with perspectives, advice, and discussion on the latest trends and challenges in technology.
The Head Geeks are experts in all areas of IT, including cloud, DevOps, enterprise, hybrid IT, security, networking, database, virtualization, and more.
Our Head Geeks engage with technology pros on THWACK®, the SolarWinds community forum; on the Orange Matter™ and Geek Speak™ blogs; in-person at events, including conferences, trade shows, and SolarWinds User Groups™; and in monthly SolarWinds Lab™ sessions, where they provide advanced technical training. They also participate regularly on various IT forums, including myITforum®, windows-noob.com, Stack Overflow™, and Spiceworks®.
Meet the Other Head Geeks
Leon Adato
Adato is a CCNA, Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE), and SolarWinds Certified Professional. His 25 years of network and systems management and monitoring experience spans the financial, healthcare, food and beverage, and other industries.
Destiny Bertucci
Bertucci holds a broad array of certifications and degrees, such as CCNA, (ISC)² Methodologies, CompTIA® IT Operations Specialist (CIOS), CompTIA Secure Infrastructure Specialist (CSIS), INFOSEC, database development degree, BS IT Security, and SolarWinds Certified Professional. In her 16 years as a network manager, she has worked in healthcare, federal, and application engineering, which allowed her to be a successful SolarWinds senior application engineer for over nine years.
Patrick Hubbard
Hubbard boasts over 20 years of hands-on experience, spanning software development, operations, applications, networks, virtualization, cloud, and more. Today, he’s helping enterprise and cloud-native teams move past DevOps hype and rationally integrate real development and operations techniques to keep businesses going forward.
LaRock has over 20 years of IT experience, holding roles such as programmer, developer, analyst, and database administrator. He is a Microsoft Certified Master, VMware® vExpert™, Microsoft Certified Trainer, and 10-time Microsoft Data Platform MVP.
Connect with the Head Geeks on THWACK
Adato: Adatole
Bertucci: Dez
Giese: saschag
Hubbard: Patrick: Hubbard
LaRock: SQLRockstar
Connect with SolarWinds
Twitter®
Facebook®
LinkedIn®
About SolarWinds
SolarWinds is a leading provider of powerful and affordable IT infrastructure management software. Our products give organizations worldwide, regardless of type, size or IT infrastructure complexity, the power to monitor and manage the performance of their IT environments, whether on-premise, in the cloud, or in hybrid models. We continuously engage with all types of technology professionals – IT operations professionals, DevOps professionals and managed service providers (MSPs) – to understand the challenges they face maintaining high-performing and highly available IT infrastructures. The insights we gain from engaging with them, in places like our THWACK online community, allow us to build products that solve well-understood IT management challenges in ways that technology professionals want them solved. This focus on the user and commitment to excellence in end-to-end hybrid IT performance management has established SolarWinds as a worldwide leader in network management software and MSP solutions. Learn more today at www.solarwinds.com.
The SolarWinds, SolarWinds & Design, SolarWinds Certified Professional, Orion, THWACK, Orange Matter, Geek Speak, Head Geek and Head Geeks trademarks are the exclusive property of SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC or its affiliates, are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and may be registered or pending registration in other countries. All other SolarWinds trademarks, service marks, and logos may be common law marks or are registered or pending registration. All other trademarks mentioned herein are used for identification purposes only and are trademarks of (and may be registered trademarks of) their respective companies.
Katie de Cozar
CCgroup
Phone: +44 7500.047.813
Katie.DeCozar@ccgrouppr.com
Katherine O’Keeffe
Phone: +353 21.5002954
pr@solarwinds.com
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3d1221cd-dd75-4ef1-b8e7-1436a9661767
Posted in PRESS RELEASES | Tagged ASEAN
Philips marks new milestones to improve people’s health across the globe at WEF 2020→
Philips once again ranked among the world’s top global companies for its commitment to action on climate change→
Philips partners with the United Nations Population Fund and the Government of Republic of the Congo to reduce maternal and newborn mortality→
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Archive for the ‘John McLean’ Category
Changes in the Sun’s Surface to Bring Next Climate Change
I can see the headlines now. We must, at all costs, get wind farms up and running ASP. Only the wind farms can save us from global cooling. The govt has decided to put heating coils on the massive wind turbine blades to help warm the earth and save us from impending DOOM. No need to read fiction, just listen to the media.
Today, the Space and Science Research Center, (SSRC) in Orlando, Florida announces that it has confirmed the recent web announcement of NASA solar physicists that there are substantial changes occurring in the sun’s surface. The SSRC has further researched these changes and has concluded they will bring about the next climate change to one of a long lasting cold era.
Today, Director of the SSRC, John Casey has reaffirmed earlier research he led that independently discovered the sun’s changes are the result of a family of cycles that bring about climate shifts from cold climate to warm and back again.
“We today confirm the recent announcement by NASA that there are historic and important changes taking place on the sun’s surface. This will have only one outcome – a new climate change is coming that will bring an extended period of deep cold to the planet. This is not however a unique event for the planet although it is critically important news to this and the next generations. It is but the normal sequence of alternating climate changes that has been going on for thousands of years. Further according to our research, this series of solar cycles are so predictable that they can be used to roughly forecast the next series of climate changes many decades in advance. I have verified the accuracy of these cycles’ behavior over the last 1,100 years relative to temperatures on Earth, to well over 90%.”
As to what these changes are Casey says, “The sun’s surface flows have slowed dramatically as NASA has indicated. This process of surface movement, what NASA calls the “conveyor belt” essentially sweeps up old sunspots and deposits new ones. NASA’s studies have found that when the surface movement slows down, sunspot counts drop significantly. All records of sunspot counts and other proxies of solar activity going back 6,000 years clearly validates our own findings that when we have sunspot counts lower then 50 it means only one thing – an intense cold climate, globally. NASA says the solar cycle 25, the one after the next that starts this spring will be at 50 or lower. The general opinion of the SSRC scientists is that it could begin even sooner within 3 years with the next solar cycle 24. What we are saying today is that my own research and that of the other scientists at the SSRC verifies that NASA is right about one thing – a solar cycle of 50 or lower is headed our way. With this next solar minimum predicted by NASA, what I call a “solar hibernation,” Full report here:
space-and-science-research-center.pdf
Tags:Al Gore, climate change, Director of the SSRC, Environment, global cooling, global warmming, John Casey, Kyoto, NASA
Posted in Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Canadian wind industry, carbon credits, carbon emissions, carbon tax, CO2 emissions, David Suzuki, David Suzuki Foundation, dishonest marketing, Elizabeth May, Enbridge wind farm, Environment, environmental extremists, environmental fraud, John Christy, John McLean, Kyoto Protocol, maurice strong, renewable energy, The green party of Canada, truth about wind farms, wind turbines, World Trade Organization | 4 Comments »
The UN Climate Change Numbers Hoax
Editor: How long can the media ignore the truth about the Global Warming Scam? The entire scam is about One World Order and the carbon tax is the vehicle to accomplish the task. The entire renewable energy business is about creating carbon credits for the large multi-national corporations. They win you lose. Not hard to understand if you open your eyes. What is to become of Al Gore, former Vice President and David Suzuki, recipient of the Order of Canada? Will the media continue to hide the truth until North America is a wind farm ghetto. Interesting times indeed.
A salute to the scientists who continue to work under difficult conditions to bring the truth forward.
By Tom Harris: John McLean Friday, December 14, 2007
It’s an assertion repeated by politicians and climate campaigners the world over – ‘2,500 scientists of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agree that humans are causing a climate crisis’.
But it’s not true. And, for the first time ever, the public can now see the extent to which they have been misled. As lies go, it’s a whopper. Here’s the real situation.
Like the three IPCC ‘assessment reports’ before it, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) released during 2007 (upon which the UN climate conference in Bali was based) includes the reports of the IPCC’s three working groups. Working Group I (WG I) is assigned to report on the extent and possible causes of past climate change as well as future ‘projections’. Its report is titled “The Physical Science Basis”. The reports from working groups II and II are titled “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” and “Mitigation of Climate Change” respectively, and since these are based on the results of WG I, it is crucially important that the WG I report stands up to close scrutiny.
There is, of course serious debate among scientists about the actual technical content of the roughly 1,000-page WG I report, especially its politically motivated Summary for Policymakers which is often the only part read by politicians and non-scientists. The technical content can be difficult for non-scientists to follow and so most people simply assume that if that large numbers of scientists agree, they must be right.
Consensus never proves the truth of a scientific claim, but is somehow widely believed to do so for the IPCC reports, so we need to ask how many scientists really did agree with the most important IPCC conclusion, namely that humans are causing significant climate change–in other words the key parts of WG I?
The numbers of scientist reviewers involved in WG I is actually less than a quarter of the whole, a little over 600 in total. The other 1,900 reviewers assessed the other working group reports. They had nothing to say about the causes of climate change or its future trajectory. Still, 600 “scientific expert reviewers” sounds pretty impressive. After all, they submitted their comments to the IPCC editors who assure us that “all substantive government and expert review comments received appropriate consideration.” And since these experts reviewers are all listed in Annex III of the report, they must have endorsed it, right?
For the first time ever, the UN has released on the Web the comments of reviewers who assessed the drafts of the WG I report and the IPCC editors’ responses. This release was almost certainly a result of intense pressure applied by “hockey-stick” co-debunker Steve McIntyre of Toronto and his allies. Unlike the other IPCC working groups, WG I is based in the U.S. and McIntyre had used the robust Freedom of Information legislation to request certain details when the full comments were released.
An examination of reviewers’ comments on the last draft of the WG I report before final report assembly (i.e. the ‘Second Order Revision’ or SOR) completely debunks the illusion of hundreds of experts diligently poring over all the chapters of the report and providing extensive feedback to the editing teams. Here’s the reality.
A total of 308 reviewers commented on the SOR, but only 32 reviewers commented on more than three chapters and only five reviewers commented on all 11 chapters of the report. Only about half the reviewers commented more than one chapter. It is logical that reviewers would generally limit their comments to their areas of expertise but it’s a far cry from the idea of thousands of scientists agreeing to anything.
Compounding this is the fact that IPCC editors could, and often did, ignore reviewers’ comments. Some editor responses were banal and others showed inconsistencies with other comments. Reviewers had to justify their requested changes but the responding editors appear to have been under no such obligation. Reviewers were sometimes flatly told they were wrong but no reasons or reliable references were provided. In other cases reviewers tried to dilute the certainty being expressed and they often provided supporting evidence, but their comments were often flatly rejected. Some comments were rejected on the basis of a lack of space – an incredible assertion in such an important document. The attitude of the editors seemed to be that simple corrections were accepted, requests for improved clarity tolerated but the assertions and interpretations that appear in the text were to be defended against any challenge.
An example of rampant misrepresentation of IPCC reports is the frequent assertion that ‘hundreds of IPCC scientists’ are known to support the following statement, arguably the most important of the WG I report, namely “Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years.”
In total, only 62 scientists reviewed the chapter in which this statement appears, the critical chapter 9, “Understanding and Attributing Climate Change”. Of the comments received from the 62 reviewers of this critical chapter, almost 60% of them were rejected by IPCC editors. And of the 62 expert reviewers of this chapter, 55 had serious vested interest, leaving only seven expert reviewers who appear impartial.
Two of these seven were contacted by NRSP for the purposes of this article – Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand and Dr. Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph, Canada. Concerning the “Greenhouse gas forcing …” statement above, Professor McKitrick explained “A categorical summary statement like this is not supported by the evidence in the IPCC WG I report. Evidence shown in the report suggests that other factors play a major role in climate change, and the specific effects expected from greenhouse gases have not been observed.”
Dr. Gray labeled the WG I statement as “Typical IPCC doubletalk” asserting “The text of the IPCC report shows that this is decided by a guess from persons with a conflict of interest, not from a tested model.”
Determining the level of support expressed by reviewers’ comments is subjective but a slightly generous evaluation indicates that just five reviewers endorsed the crucial ninth chapter. Four had vested interests and the other made only a single comment for the entire 11-chapter report. The claim that 2,500 independent scientist reviewers agreed with this, the most important statement of the UN climate reports released this year, or any other statement in the UN climate reports, is nonsense.
“The IPCC owe it to the world to explain who among their expert reviewers actually agree with their conclusions and who don’t,” says Natural Resources Stewardship Project Chair climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball. “Otherwise, their credibility, and the public’s trust of science in general, will be even further eroded.”
That the IPCC have let this deception continue for so long is a disgrace. Secretary General Ban Kai-Moon must instruct the UN climate body to either completely revise their operating procedures, welcoming dissenting input from scientist reviewers and indicating if reviewers have vested interests, or close the agency down completely. Until then, their conclusions, and any reached at the Bali conference based on IPCC conclusions, should be ignored entirely as politically skewed and dishonest.
John McLean is climate data analyst based in Melbourne, Australia. Tom Harris is the Ottawa-based Executive Director of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (nrsp.com).
Visit Canada Free Press
Posted in Al Gore, bali, Canadian government, David Suzuki, environmental extremists, environmental fraud, Global Warming, global warming fraud, Gore and Suzuki, greatest scam in history, IPCC, John McLean, Stephen Harper, Tom Harris | 3 Comments »
You are currently browsing the archives for the John McLean category.
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Features / January 6, 2014
Art Fallout: Two Post-Fukushima Triennials
The Aichi Triennale restaging of Orchestra FUKUSHIMA!, part of Project FUKUSHIMA! Courtesy Aichi Triennale
by David Balzer
“The beginning of an acquaintance,” wrote George Eliot in Daniel Deronda, “is to get a definite outline for our ignorance.” This is especially true of places: a visitor’s excitement can generate more misinformation than never having been at all. Japan—known for its hermetic, 250-year Edo period in which contact with the West was highly restricted, and equally known for its quick, subsequent dance with Western capitalism and industrialization—is especially prone to such things. It continues to present itself through the paradigm of trade, while zealously retaining its rich, coded mores and culture. In a kind of lost-in-translation exactly opposite to Sophia Coppola’s film, contemporary Japan can give tourists the mistaken impression that it, strange yet inviting, might be held in the palm of their hand.
On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami devastated the Tohoku region in northeastern Japan, causing significant reactor leakage at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Reported on worldwide, and now called “3.11” throughout Japan, the incident and its aftermath continue to colour a foreigner’s visit. I went to Japan last October as part of a press junket organized by the Japan Foundation to tour regional art sites. About a dozen journalists, including myself, expressed inevitable curiosity about how the Japanese were responding to ongoing reports of devastation and contamination at Fukushima. Various tour guides, translators, curators and artists seemed ready for our questions, but offered only fleeting thoughts. None were definitive.
Our questions did not emerge from (mere) gawping-traveller curiosity. Two of the biggest events we visited, the Aichi Triennale and the Mori Art Museum’s triennial, prompted them, for both claimed to be about Fukushima, and more loosely about disaster, reconstruction and recovery. Such themes are common in contemporary art, but there seemed a curious ambition here. I thought of Hiroshima’s Sadako Sasaki, who when ill with leukemia from radiation exposure following the 1945 American bombing of her city, folded paper cranes to effect her, and her country’s, remission. (After her death, Sasaki’s efforts were taken up by others and memorialized in Hiroshima’s Children’s Peace Monument in the city’s Peace Park, ongoing to this day.) I also thought of recent news of the Japanese government’s plan to build a 1.4-kilometre underground ice wall around Fukushima in an attempt, some said, to sweeten Tokyo’s bid for the 2020 Olympics. Our first visit in Tokyo was to the Museum of Contemporary Art’s “Crystallize” exhibition by Tokujin Yoshioka, whose large glass and crystal constructions seemed to fulfill my outlandish imagining of that Fukushima proposal: contamination suppressed with a structure of exquisite coldness, one that, in its fantastical design, recalled a sculpture or installation.
Were these triennial promises particularly Japanese? It’s not for me to say, but it’s worth noting that the contemporary-art industry is robust in Japan, supported by both private and public interests. The Aichi Triennale Organizing Committee is part of the Aichi Prefectural Government, and therefore public; much more than “Out of Doubt,” the event emanated aesthetic optimism. Our tour guides spoke briefly of dissenting, right-wing, waste-of-taxpayers’-money critiques, ones we were all, lamentably and to varying degrees, familiar with in our home countries. There seemed a better query: Was the Aichi Triennale like that Fukushima ice wall? Was it using spectacle to make promises of healing and reparation? Was it conflating seeing and believing? At any rate, the Aichi Triennale seemed sidled with a burden: to demonstrate that art can somehow participate in change, and/or act as therapy for a traumatized citizenry.
The specific title of the Aichi Triennale was the fulsome “Awakening – Where Are We Standing? – Earth, Memory and Resurrection.” In an opening statement in the event’s guidebook, artistic director Igarashi Taro writes, “I thought that, ‘If we are doing an urban type international exhibition at the timing of two years following 3.11, the theme of the Great East Japan Earthquake is unavoidable’…‘Awakening’ does not intend to make the whole festival a ‘Triennale Tribute to the Earthquake.’…The English title ‘Awakening’ has the meaning that ‘things that have not been noticed will newly become aware to people.’” The prologue is careful, but elsewhere in the guide one sees the kind of self-aggrandizement this curatorial mandate engenders, such as Japanese architect Aoki Jun’s interview with Chilean artist/architect/filmmaker Alfredo Jaar. Says Aoki: “Within the essentially swinging world, what kinds of stability can we find?…I think that this is the theme of the Triennale 2013, and it is the role that art and architecture is supposed to play in the first place.” Says Jaar: “Every enquiry and answer that society seeks can be found only in the free cultural domain. It is admirable that such a cultural domain is still left, such as the Aichi Triennale 2013, in which artists and architects are allowed to imagine a better world and ask questions of society.” A “swinging world” in search of “stability”; roles art and architecture are “supposed to play”; a triennale that “allow[s]” an “admirable” and “free” “cultural domain” in which we look for a “better world”: this critic’s eyebrow was emphatically raised.
Architecture, as Israeli journalist Galia Yahav reminded me as we bussed from venue to venue, was key to understanding all of this. Igarashi has a PhD in engineering and is a professor of architecture at Tohoku University, and his expertise appeared to push on that last concept of his title, “resurrection.” Indeed, despite contemporary architecture’s frequent insistence on conceptualizing rather than actualizing, Igarashi, as well as Aoki and the other architects he had enlisted, seemed modernist in their attachment to planning, building, retrofitting and transforming. Often in the Aichi Triennale, the very act of conceptualizing was equated with transformation, with few reservations about the act. A signature piece was architect Miyamoto Katsuhiro’s 1:1, coloured-tape plan of the Fukushima reactor on the floors, walls and ceilings of the Aichi Arts Center in Nagoya, headquarters of the event. Another Miyamoto maquette there placed irimoya- and hoygo-style roofing, typical of Shinto and Buddhist shrines, over the nuclear plant. Obviously the maquette urged for past and tradition to be implemented in Japanese strategies for Fukushima, illustrating a melancholy gulf/link between history and the present. The coloured tape suggested, in an ambitious metaphor, that the large size of the reactor could literally be swallowed and digested by the even larger Aichi Arts Center: culture trumps calamity. Neither work acknowledged futility, impossibility or irony. Both seemed striving.
In a relieving antidote, artist Yanobe Kenji qualified the Aichi Triennale’s ambition with self-awareness. “I think that I will have to present something which is almost embarrassingly positive,” he says in the guide about his sprawling work Wedding of the Sun. Yanobe is no stranger to art in response to nuclear disaster. For a performance project in the late 1990s, he went to Chernobyl dressed in an “Atom Suit”; in October 2011, his Sun Child appeared in the Expo Commemoration Park in Suita, Japan, months after 3.11. Sun Child—a large sculpture of a similarly suited Gavroche—reappeared at the Aichi Triennale as, essentially, a mascot, a key element of his sprawling Wedding of the Sun installation. Yanobe’s piece evokes the “embarrassingly positive,” but also makes awkward contemporary Japan’s aggressive culture of escapism and mollification as embodied in kawaii and anime aesthetics. Yanobe himself calls his Sun Child bittersweet, at once a kind of David-triumphing-over-Goliath and a false god of the nuclear. For Wedding of the Sun, Yanobe constructed a chapel and its accoutrements in the Aichi Arts Center and held weddings there, in what can only be read as an ultra-kitschy response to Igarashi’s interest in “awakening” and “resurrection.” The piece had particular resonance in Aichi, a prefecture recognized throughout Japan for its lavish weddings. (When our junket arrived in Nagoya, a wedding was taking place in the lobby of our hotel as if on cue; in the Aichi Arts Center, Wolfgang Puck’s café had a display table advertising elaborate wedding cakes.) And so Yanobe, who has, like Tokujin Yoshioka, collaborated with fashion designer Issey Miyake (that collaboration, an anthropomorphized dressing room called Queen Mamma, was included in Wedding of the Sun), created a meditation on Japanese industry, of which nuclear energy is only one part.
The faltering Japanese economy (due to, among other things, a declining birthrate, which the Globe and Mail recently called the “demographics of doom”) was indeed an inescapable aspect of the event, although never, to my recollection, explicitly referred to by curators. The cities we visited, including Nagoya—destroyed during World War II and rebuilt in an American grid conducive to chain stores—were bustling, but most of the Aichi Triennale’s site-specific works forced us to look intently at effects of national and global recession. We visited the Toyo Logistics Building, originally designed as a bowling alley (while there, the triennale’s affable community designer Hiroko Kikuchi showed me a fascinating old photo album of the building’s previous lives). The site worked very well as a space in which one could get lost. Even Nawa Kohei’s showy Cloud Landscape—its mountains of foam on the Toyo Logistics Building’s third floor reminding me of a rave, and tailor-made for selfies—retained mystery, its emerging shapes an eerie, chthonic response to “Awakening.” Mari Katayama’s piece at Toyo Logistics was also of note. Mari had her legs amputated when she was nine, and for the Aichi Triennale created an installation that purported to replicate her living space: a glitter-covered grotto filled with porny selfies, drawings, and childhood prosthetics. Her hideaway resembled a fallout shelter but also a materialized blog, suggesting the prolific, stylized niches of self-fashioning endemic to the millennial economy.
There were also installations at retail spaces, the latter of which, in their indeterminate, decadent states, were often as captivating as the art. In Nagoya, the Fushimi Underground Shopping Street in the Choja-machi area had an adhesive work by Taiwanese architecture collective Open United Studio, acting in counterpoint to Miyamoto’s Fukushima plans at the Aichi Arts Center, with to-scale blueprints becoming 3-D depending on where you stood, and, according to Open United Studio’s catalogue entry, “[evoking] memories of cities”—and so implying that the architect can help us focus on what is lost or never can be. (The over-thirty-years-old “Underground Shopping Street” had certainly seen better days.) The following morning we visited two of the triennale’s sites in Okazaki, just south of Toyota, home to the still-thriving car manufacturer. Among these was Okazaki CIBICO, a multilevel shopping centre with bottom floors full of 100-yen stores and vacant top floors, which, for the time being, accommodated some of the Triennale’s biggest projects. Tomoko Mukaiyama and Jean Kalman’s FALLING took up a large portion of one floor, akin to Kohei’s Cloud Landscape in spectacle—a truly cinematic, postapocalyptic space in which thousands of newspapers, stacked and crumpled, were moved by fans, amid broken pianos and floodlights which, in timed intervals, flashed brightly as if a murderous convoy were approaching. An additional element, however, for which viewers were asked to sit inside a movie theatre–like structure to watch the installation, seemed didactic and coyly metacritical. Japanese architecture collective studio velocity painted the roof of the CIBICO centre white, suspending above it a false, barely-perceptible ceiling grid of white thread. The project—pure design to the point of resembling a display at a trade show, or a Nuit Blanche piece—seemed to emblematize the general pitfalls of Igarashi’s triennale, where optimism was as obfuscating as it was constructive.
As if in direct contrast, the Mori Art Museum’s triennial in Tokyo, running to January 13, is called “Out of Doubt.” The title is short where Aichi’s is long; “Out of Doubt” suggests not only skepticism but, with “out of,” an equal acceptance of resurrection, albeit as a result of that nominal destabilizing act. As an institution and building, the Mori Art Museum is itself in stark contrast to Aichi. Founded by real-estate developer Minoru Mori, it is private, sitting on the top floors of Tokyo’s fifth-largest tower, which houses mixed-use offices, and whose edifice was purportedly designed to resemble a samurai’s armor. Before one enters the museum, there is a 53rd-floor observation deck, with a stunning panoramic view of Tokyo. The museum and its building, the centrepiece of the city’s revitalized Roppongi Hills area, has the feeling of a fortress.
Yet within that fortress, in “Out of Doubt,” important unravellings take place. In a nuanced, finely historicized essay in the exhibition’s catalogue, Mori chief curator Mami Kataoka explains that “since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the confrontational relationship not only between Japan and the US after the war, but also between the cities and the provinces, the center and the periphery, prosperity and exploitation, and economic efficiency and risk has become clearer.” Disaster is not discrete, then, and can uncover underlying, implicit ruin—that which precipitates. The clarity of trauma, in the vein of Freudian psychoanalysis, is often not one of resolution, of ways towards change, but an excavation in which deeper, more troubling topographical details emerge. It is perhaps for this reason that Kataoka enlisted two non-Japanese curators, Reuben Keehan and Gabriel Ritter, to curate “Out of Doubt.” In this way, “Out of Doubt” welcomes outsiders not, like the Aichi Triennale, with a sense of vehemence tinged with trepidation, but with curiosity, what Kataoka calls a “pure spirit of inquiry.”
And so the many pre-Fukushima works in “Out of Doubt” still speak directly to the exhibition’s interests. In the first room, Japanese Neo-Dadaist illustrator Akasegawa Genpei’s satirical drawings of 1970s political and cultural figures are shown alongside massive new woodblock prints from Kazama Sachiko, some Fukushima-themed but all influenced by the sosaku-hanga printmaking movement of Modernist Japan and by German Expressionism. Adjacent are the incredible 1950s and 1960s paintings by Nakamura Hiroshi, surrealist works that hold onto figuration as a mode of high aestheticism and purposeful dissent—against, among other things, the post-WWII American occupation, and, perhaps, that occupying country’s then-reputation as a hotbed of abstraction. The curatorial intent with these archival works is not a through line so much as a bedrock of analysis. Next rooms feature video work by Niwa Yoshinori (who was also included in the Aichi Triennale) and Koizumi Meiro that are Godard-like in their illustrations of the failures of both radical leftism and conservatism. In Koizumi’s piece, balaclava-disguised Japanese voice rarely articulated desires, often violent and sexual (or both), in a critique of their country’s tenacious obsession with propriety. In Niwa’s, the wobbly, unlikely presence of communism in Japan and, now, around the world is lampooned through a series of Just for Laughs–style pranks involving evocations of Karl Marx.
Yanagi Yukinori’s World Flag Ant Farm, an art-world staple since the early 1990s in which ants make a home in a plastic grid of coloured-sand international flags in a commentary on migration and geopolitical networking, was a cue to Kataoka’s interest in the increasing “historicization of contemporary art curating itself.” A widely curated, political work of contemporary art changes meanings over time: Can it be constructive by, rather than marking progress, reminding us of stasis and devolution? Simon Fujiwara’s series of big rocks throughout the exhibition touches on similar paradoxes. Rocks are important in Japanese culture as Shinto containers of spirits. On one work, Fujiwara applies the primitive hand stencils of Spain’s Cueva de las Manos; for another, he fashions a plastic deck chair out of stone. The gestures are full of binaries: nostalgia vs. cynicism, meaninglessness vs. openness. It’s the fulcrum on which “Out of Doubt” sits—doubt falling somewhere between idealism and nihilism.
Musicians Endo Michiro and Otomo Yoshihide, along with poet Wago Ryoichi, led Project FUKUSHIMA!, which appears in both “Out of Doubt” and the Aichi Triennale. Project FUKUSHIMA! originated in August 2011 as an outdoor music festival held in Fukushima’s Shiki no Sato park on a 6,000-square-metre area thought to have been contaminated by radiation, and covered for the festival by a furoshiki or patchwork quilt of donated cloth from across Japan. The event attracted 13,000 attendees, and another 250,000 viewers online. At Aichi, a version of the orchestra that played the festival was reassembled, live; at “Out of Doubt,” the festival is recreated as an installation, the colourful furoshiki covering a large area of ground, with a video recording of the concert playing above it. One is archival and the other ephemeral and reinterpretive, but there is, in these and the original event (which transpired online and in-real-life), a sombre sense of remove. Disaster itself is elusive—what made it happen usually being our foremost and often frustrated question, and its effects, including its capacity to absorb and deflect empathy, becoming equally vague. In a metaphor both hopeful and dark, the more we touch disaster, the more, it seems, it wants to fall apart.
David Balzer
David Balzer is the author of two books, Curationism: How Curating Took Over the Art World and Everything Else, winner of ICA London's 2015 Book of the Year, and the short-fiction collection Contrivances. He has written about art and culture for the Globe and Mail, the Guardian, Frieze, Artforum, The Believer and others, and from 2016 to 2019 was editor-in-chief and co-publisher of Canadian Art.
View recent articles by David Balzer
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Poland green bond issue will not fund coal, says official
Published on 12/12/2016, 6:37pm
Investors are sceptical about Warsaw bid to finance renewables, given its coal-heavy energy policy
Belchatow, the largest coal plant in Europe, would shut down in 2027 under Climate Analytics' scenarios (Flickr/ Kamil Porembiński)
By Megan Darby
Poland will not use revenues from a planned “green bond” for coal projects, the finance ministry said on Monday.
The coal-guzzling nation surprised many when it revealed the fundraising initiative last week, given its hostility to renewable energy.
It is seeking to raise between €500 million and €1bn in the first quarter of 2017 to finance green energy, transport, farming and forestry initiatives.
As its roadshow kicked off this week, Warsaw-based business newspaper Parkiet reported potential investors were sceptical. One suggested the money could benefit the coal sector, which supplies 85% of the country’s power.
But a government spokesperson told Climate Home: “Under no circumstances the proceeds from the green bonds can be used to buy coal assets.”
An independent review from consultancy Sustainalytics described the framework for using the funds as “robust, credible, and transparent”.
What is a green bond?
A bond is a way of raising finance. A government, bank or corporation borrows money for a fixed period of time. It pays the lender – which could be an individual or institutional investor like a pension fund – a fixed or variable interest rate each year.
The global bond market is worth more than US$100 trillion.
Green bonds are a small but growing sub-sector of the market that channel this source of finance towards environmentally friendly projects. Climate Bonds Initiative counts US$77.5bn worth of labelled green bonds issued in 2016.
Sean Kidney, chief executive of the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI), admitted he was surprised to see Poland leading on this small and growing sector of the bond market.
It is in a race with France, Luxembourg and Nigeria to release the world’s first sovereign green bond – from a government, as opposed to development bank or company.
CBI develops and monitors standards for labelling bonds as “green” in different sectors, to align with international climate goals.
While the Polish government is not using CBI’s framework, Kidney said it appeared to have “done everything the right way”.
“What we need is to see a pipeline [of green projects] and to be sure it is not just a marketing exercise,” he told Climate Home. “Investors don’t like to invest in something unless there is more of it.”
Report: Court blocks Polish coal plant, in victory for campaigners
Dave Jones, energy analyst at think-tank Sandbag, called on the bank overseeing the share issue to make sure it was used for its stated purpose.
“It is exciting that governments are now becoming interested in green bonds,” he said. “However, green bonds cannot be seen as a mechanism for merely moving money around to refund existing projects. HSBC, as leaders of this process, have a responsibility to ensure this injection of money will fund genuinely new and genuinely green investments in Poland.”
Weekly briefing: Sign up for your essential climate politics update
China is taking the green bond market by storm
Swedish bank SEB tops green bond league table
German development bank issues €1.5bn green bond
“Green” bond to fund multi-storey car park
Read more on: EU | Green bonds | Poland EU
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You are here: Home / News / Club Spotlight: Hartstown/ Huntstown FC
Club Spotlight: Hartstown/ Huntstown FC
This month Clubforce is highlighting another club using the Clubforce club management system to manage club membership, raise funds and communicate with members. The idea behind the Club Spotlight is to shine a light on the efforts of club volunteers, to draw attention to well-run amateur sports clubs and to share ideas and best practices with other clubs around the country who are looking for ideas on how to run their clubs more efficiently. The club to be featured in Club Spotlight is Hartstown/ Huntstown FC based in County Dublin.
Club of the Month: Hartstown/ Huntstown FC
In 2011 Hartstown United & Huntstown Villa joined forces to create Hartstown Huntstown FC after previous years had led to a decline in participation at the respective clubs. Since their amalgamation they have transformed as the club membership totals have soared to over 500 consisting of 450 registered players, 60 voluntary managers, coaches and committee members and continues to grow year-on-year.
Hartstown Huntstown has eighteen teams in total which includes two senior teams. The club have had a lot of success in recent years with their senior team winning three league titles in the last five years. There has been a big emphasis on the youth within the club and last year proved that as their U-14 team became league champions and also the U-13’s secured a cup title.
The club is very efficient at keeping members updated with their latest news, fixtures and results and their latest fundraising events. Interest for fundraising events increases by posting through their Facebook page which currently has 3,600 followers and their Twitter page which has 300 followers.
The club's last big fundraiser was a Strictly Come Dancing event which was in aid of mental health awareness. The club is also keen to promote their youth teams, the picture below is the club's up and coming under 7's team which was posted on the Hartstown Huntstown Facebook page.
The club website is constantly updated which has helped to generate interaction with fellow members as there is a direct link to their Twitter page.
The website is very user friendly which grants members to pay for membership and camps easily and allows members to buy their latest club gear online in their club shop section.
Moving Online With Clubforce
The club joined up with Clubforce in 2018 to register members online and have also been using Clubforce's system for camps and fundraising events. Tony Lawless, the club chairperson stated the club have only been on board less than a year and are pleased with the impact the system has had on the club, drastically reducing the administrative burden on volunteers - with the FAInet integration in particular something Tony is thankful for.
"It really makes life so much easier; it has definitely saved us many hours if not days of hassle with regards to paperwork. In previous years everything was done manually but now it’s so much more efficient - not having to send off the FAI forms is something I won’t miss," he said.
Tony also mentioned there was a great uptake in the first year of using the online system to register members.
"We pretty much had a 99% success rate with membership payments," he added before highlighting some of the time-saving the new features in the Clubforce app:
"Being able to glance at who has paid their membership has been very helpful. The days of doing up our own excel sheet are gone, and once the money is paid online it sends a direct link to the FAI which cuts out so much man hours!"
Tony noted that the club's membership information is now much easier to access, making it a far simpler process to prepare for club meetings:
"It’s brilliant really! It’s very useful for printing off reports and particularly when we have club meetings, the information is there online and I think we are actually making use of this information since Clubforce was installed."
Hartstown Huntstown are very much a club that are growing in numbers and similarly their soccer camp events seem to be evolving. The first camp that was promoted through Clubforce’s system was their 2019 Easter Camp which turned about to be a major success, "selling out in less than two weeks" according to Tony.
Due to the success of this, the club has set up another camp - the upcoming June Mini Leagues which take place next month.
"The youth system we have in the club is very well run and we do place a big emphasis on the youth teams, they are the future of the club after all. Parents being able to pay online is a big help and I think it will help members be more familiar with paying online when the club has fundraisers in the near future."
The club also hosted their Friendship Cup event which was very popular on the day and encourage the youth to interact with fellow team-mates.
Tony also made reference to the number of volunteers it took to organise these camps prior to using Clubforce and says that they system has reduced the volunteering burden considerably:
"It helps a lot with man power and its not as much strain on the parents when we’re collecting the money."
Clubforce provides a variety of different functions to make life easier for club volunteers, if you would like to see how Clubforce can help your club run more efficiently, call us today on +353-91-506048
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Gallerique
FEATURED FURNITURE
All Artists /
Jessica Dunn /
Jessica Dunn
31.5x31.5in
Commission Inquiry
About the piece
“I am a British artist living and working in Portugal for over 20 years. After my Art Foundation at Kingston Polytechnic, London, I moved to the Algarve taking advantage of the wonderful Southern light. My work has evolved from the figurative – painting in oils, observational scenes of figures against a sun-drenched backdrop of seaside life – to a more abstract and textural impression in acrylics - of land, sea and sky, influenced by the elements, intense sunlight and the rugged beauty of my surroundings. The landscape is constantly shifting and changing, through nature´s course or by human intervention. In my paintings I try to capture an impression of its transient nature. The viewer is drawn into a world, reflective, tranquil and timeless.” Jessica Dunn has exhibited extensively across Portugal, at Galerio in Lagoa, Corte Real Gallery, Hotel Tivoli Marina Vilamoura, Museu da Mãe d’Àgua in Lisbon, Galeria Cogíto in Setúbal, Eaton Gallery in London and the Biennale Internazionale Dell´Arte Contemporanea in Florence, Italy. She is a member of the Algarve Artists Network. Her work has featured in the Wall Street Journal online and Hello magazine.
I am a British artist living and working in Portugal for over 20 years. After my Art Foundation at Kingston Polytechnic, London, I moved to the Algarve taking advantage of the wonderful Southern light.
My work has evolved from the figurative – painting in oils, observational scenes of figures against a sun-drenched backdrop of seaside life – to a more abstract and textural impression in acrylics - of land, sea and sky, influenced by the elements, intense sunlight and the rugged beauty of my surroundings. The landscape is constantly shifting and changing, through nature´s course or by human intervention. In my paintings I try to capture an impression of its transient nature. The viewer is drawn into a world, reflective, tranquil and timeless.
Jessica Dunn has exhibited extensively across Portugal, at Galerio in Lagoa, Corte Real Gallery, Hotel Tivoli Marina Vilamoura, Museu da Mãe d’Àgua in Lisbon, Galeria Cogíto in Setúbal, Eaton Gallery in London and the Biennale Internazionale Dell´Arte Contemporanea in Florence, Italy. She is a member of the Algarve Artists Network.
Her work has featured in the Wall Street Journal online and Hello magazine.
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The New Politics of Strategic Resources
Since 2008, energy and food markets—those most fundamental to human existence—have remained in turmoil. Resource scarcity has had a much bigger global impact in recent years than has been predicted, with ongoing volatility a sign that the world is only part-way through navigating a treacherous transition in the way it uses resources. Scarcity, and perceptions of scarcity, increase political risks, while geopolitical turmoil exacerbates shortages and complicates the search for solutions.
Author(s) / Contributor(s): David Steven, Bruce Jones, Emily O'Brien
Topic(s): Food Security, Global Governance, International Security, Resource Scarcity
Endgame for ETA: Elusive Peace in the Basque Country
The violent Basque separatist group ETA took shape in Franco's Spain, yet claimed the majority of its victims under democracy. For most Spaniards it became an aberration, a criminal and terrorist band whose persistence defied explanation. Others, mainly Basques (but only some Basques) understood ETA as the violent expression of a political conflict that remained the unfinished business of Spain's transition to democracy. Such differences hindered efforts to 'defeat' ETA's terrorism on the one hand and 'resolve the Basque conflict' on the other for more than three decades.
Author(s) / Contributor(s): Teresa Whitfield
Region/Country: Europe
Not Just in Transit: Drugs, the State and Society in West Africa
In West Africa, civil wars have receded, democracy has gained ground and economies are growing. But a destructive new threat is jeopardizing this progress: with local collusion, international drug cartels are undermining our countries and communities, and devastating lives.
Region/Country: Sub-Saharan Africa, West Africa
Topic(s): Crises, International Security, Organized Crime, Transnational Threats
To Stay Open, Europe Needs to Close Its Doors
Dr Barack versus President Obama
Triangle of Terrorism
Negotiating with the Taliban might just work
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more trailers Martian Child
A science-fiction writer, recently widowed, considers whether to adopt a hyper-imaginative 6-year-old abandoned and socially rejected boy who says he's really from Mars.
Director: Menno Meyjes
Stars: John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Bobby Coleman
What's the nature of being a parent and of being a child? David is a widower grieving for two years. He writes science fiction and was considered weird as a boy. He meets Dennis, a foster child who claims to be on a mission from Mars, stays in a large box all day, fears sunlight, and wears a belt of flashlight batteries so he won't float away. David takes the six-year-old home on a trial. His sister and his wife's best friend offer support, but the guys are basically alone to figure this out. Dennis takes things, is expelled, and is coached by David in being normal. Will the court approve the adoption, and will Dennis stay? Can a man become a father and a child become a son?
Writers: Seth Bass, Jonathan Tolins
John Cusack - David
Bobby Coleman - Dennis
Amanda Peet - Harlee
Sophie Okonedo - Sophie
Joan Cusack - Liz
Oliver Platt - Jeff
Bud - Somewhere / Flomar
Richard Schiff - Lefkowitz
Taya Calicetto - Esther
David Kaye - Andy
Braxton Bonneville - Nicholas
Samuel Charles - Jonas
Zak Ludwig - Young David
Samuel Patrick Chu - Boy at Group Home
Ryan Morrissette - Boy at Group Home
Taglines: The story of a man becoming a father...and a boy becoming a son.
Official Website: New Line Cinema [United States] | Warner Bros. [Germany] |
Release Date: 2 November 2007
Filming Locations: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Opening Weekend: $3,376,669 (USA) (4 November 2007) (2020 Screens)
Gross: $7,486,906 (USA) (9 December 2007)
The film is based on the award-winning novelette The Martian Child, by science fiction author David Gerrold.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When David receives the letter from child services, the envelope not only has six digits in the zip code instead of five, the state is listed as "CS", which does not exist. However, an early scene includes a tight shot of the front license plate of David's car, which says at the top "COASTAL STATE" where a real license plate would say "OREGON" or whatever. The production designers invented a state, a postal abbreviation (CS), and a ZIP code; bravo for this attention to detail and imagination!
David: So what made you think that I would be a good match for a boy who spends most of his time in a box?
This film is adorable.
I work in a cinema so I'm in the perfect job not to miss any film releases including minor ones like this film. I call this film a "minor" release because it was not advertised much, just a trailer here and there but it's the type of film that make me happy to work at a cinema otherwise i would have miss out on this little treasure of a film. The story is simple , a lonely widower, also a sci-fi best selling author , adopt a child who lives in a world of his own were he convinced himself that he's a Martian who was sent to earth to study the human race. The child's rather strange, he hates the sun and doesn't smile often. At first the writer he's not sure if he's up to the task to bring up a child with such big issues but little by little he realized that he was the perfect match for the boy. In a world were we have countless film about fart jokes and people getting tortured to death , I found "Martian Child" to be a breath of fresh air. It's a sweet film without being corny. The acting is great all around.John Cusack his wonderful as always but its the young Bobby Coleman who plays Dennis the young boy who's the real star of this film he is great but also likable and god knows how this sort of character could have turned out in the wrong child actor's hands. Joan Cusack bring much of the comic moments in this film and it's nice to see her with her real life brother , I love that woman , she always add something to any film she's in. The most interesting aspect of this film is seeing the character of Dennis progression throughout the film , from a troubled boy to a happy kid , it was really well done. Somme people might found this film "overly sentimental" but I believe it's because we live in a cynical world and a film like Martian child stand out more in a time when we are not used to see a film that doesn't show violence or gross out humor. The main purpose of the film is to introduced us to two character , make us love them and see them grow together and it does a more then decent job at that. I would recommend this film to anyone who has enough of a open mind to accept a film that just wants to grab hold of our heart for 1 hour and 45 minutes. I think this film is a nice little gem and I don't care about all the critics that found it just too sentimental.For the full duration of the film I was interested by the characters and at the end I was happy for them and thats all I ask for a film , that the character are involving.
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The Classical Astrologer
Ancient and Traditional Astrology
January 3, 2020 by P. James Clark
The Great Year – Plato & the Four Yugas
The Milky Way. Photo from NGC.
The problem of describing the beginning and the end of Astrological ages is notoriously chaotic, yet it is widely assumed that this information is readily available. Nothing could be further from the truth. This article cuts a wide swath across the
A colleague recently questioned my assignment of the current Age to Aquarius), when both the sidereal and tropical Vernal point is in Pisces. The enormity of the differentials in calculations require some history and knowledge of what is referred to as “The Great Year.” There have been concerted efforts to equalize the boundaries of the constellations, but the fact remains that there are massive differences in the number of degrees covered by a given constellation. The attempts, much of it in the 20th century, has left us with the illusion that each constellation matches a sign of thirty degrees. Yet the constellations such as Leo, Virgo, Pisces and Sagittarius are much larger. Artificially equalizing the constellations causes as many problems as it is meant to solve.
Where the blue circle in the diagram (right), represents the path of the pole in the northern hemisphere over a complete cycle.
Many consider astronomy to settle these kinds of things. Surely, astronomy can provide rational and lucid answers based on science. Let’s look at “the Age of Aquarius from an astronomical perspective.”
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) – which in the 20th century assumed the duty of officially naming and defining all things astronomical – created official constellation boundaries in 1930. From the perspective of astronomy, then, the beginning of the Age of Aquarius is based upon IAU constellation boundaries, which astrologers or New Age practitioners might or might not choose to use in their computations.:” See Bruce McClure at EarthSky.
I find the term””official constellation boundaries” amusing. In reality, the constellation boundaries are what they are. Making them precisely equal in size in an attempt to tidy up the heavens has no useful purpose, not least because the “official boundaries.” are merely a convenient substitute and a construct. It doesn’t solve the problems of determining where the boundaries are and muddied the subject, doing nothing regarding the exact placement of the Vernal Equinox.
This entire approach lacks the required self-reflection to address the question as to whether or not the constellation gives us the sign or the sign gives us the name of the constellation, but this is what happens when astronomical busy-bodies try to make elements of the universe official.
So far, we still don’t have a direct relationship between signs and constellations. Of course, for everyday practical use. the questions will be ignored. Nevertheless, this presents a problem if we are attempting to ascertain the beginning or end of an astrological Age.
There is also an Indian version of this. This system is associated with metals and references to India concepts, such as Sattva and the Kali Yuga. There is no attention given to arriving at equal-sized periods., The ages are also incredibly long.
The Mahabharata (which was used by Aryabhatta in his calculations) and the Manu Smriti have the original value of 12,000 years for one half of the Yuga cycle. According to one Puranic astronomical estimate, the four Yuga have the following durations: Satya Yuga equals 1,728,000 human years, Treta Yuga equals 1,296,000 human years, Dvapara Yuga equals 864,000 human years, Kali Yuga equals 432,000 human years
Krishna Stealing the Gopis Clothing, folio of the Isarda Bhagavata Purana, India, Delhi-Agra area, 1560-65
Puranic sources, tell us that Krishna’s departure from the world marks the end of Dvapara Yuga and the start of Kali Yuga, which is dated to 17/18 February 3102 BCE We are also given a precise time of birth for Krishna. However, the detailed qualities of the Yuga largely revolve around Krishna. The Dvapara Yuga follows the Treta Yuga and precedes the Kali Yuga. According to the Puranas, this yuga ended at the moment when Krishna returned to his eternal abode of Vaikuntha There are two main pillars of religion during this age: compassion and truthfulness. The Dvapara Yuga lasts 864,000 years.. Knowledge of the Vedas is specific to the Yugas. The Dvapara Yuga is restricted to two.
The Kali Yuga is the lowest point of descent. It is a time marked by avarice and ignorance. an Age associated with the demon Kali (not the goddess).
The term has two main meanings. In scientific astronomy, it is defined as one complete cycle of the equinoxes. This translates to a period of about 25,800 years”. A more precise figure of 25,772 years.] The position of the Earth’s axis in the northern night sky currently almost aligns with the star Polaris,
Age of Taurus – Marduk became associated with Jupiter and is sometimes shown with Solar symbols including lions
The Platonic Year also called the Great Year, has a different more ancient and mystical significance. Plato theorized that winding the orbital motions of the Sun, Moon and naked eye planets forward or back in time would arrive at a point where they are in the same positions as they are today. He called this time period the Great Year and suggested that such a unified return would take place about every 36,000 years. There is no evidence that such a realignment has ever or ever will take place. (]Walter Cruttenden, Lost Star of Myth and Time (St. Lynn’s Press, 2006), p.xix–xx. Plato did not have knowledge of the Precession of the EquinoxThe origin of the Platonic Year would appear to have no connection with the precession of the equinoxes because that was unknown in Plato’s time
The crucial knowledge of the Precession of the Equinox came with the Greek astronomer Hipparchus (second century B.C) is credited Ptolemy considered Hipparccus his most important and much of what we know of his work is in the Almagest of Ptolemy.
Claudius Ptolemy has been accused of fraud for giving us the figure of 36,000 years when he had adequate information or a far lesser period. See R.R. Newton The Authenticity of Ptolemy’s Eclipse and Star Data. (1974)
No study of the Precession in Astrology, as well as the Great Ages, is complete without reference to the work of Nicholas Campion, “The Great Year: Astrology, Millenarianism and History in the Western Tradition” (Arkana/Penguin Books, 1994) Campion. in The Book of World Horoscopes, indicates that he has collected over 90 dates provided by researchers for the start of the Age of Aquarius and these dates have a range of over 2,000 years commencing in the 15th century AD. The range of dates for the possible start of the Aquarian Age range from 1447 to 3621.
The 20th-century British astrologer Charles Carter famously stated that “It is probable that there is no branch of Astrology upon which more nonsense has been poured forth than the doctrine of the precession of the equinoxes.“See ]Nicholas Campion, The Book of World Horoscopes, The Wessex Astrologer, Bournemouth, Great Britain, 1999, p. 485
Lastly, we assign events and ideas to different ages which may bring us important insights or lead us astray. For example, the Age of Aries is associated with the wars and the beginnings of monotheism and not a great deal more We might want to include Solar Cults, for example, but these were strongly represented in the Age of Taurus and the Age of Piscis. The fleeting monotheism in Egypt was soon stamped out. Judaism is touted as full-blown monotheism. Yet the Bible is replete with goddesses. If we put this n context, Judaism was a small tribal entity and monotheism outside of that world was non-existent. If we take a global view, then monotheism will not appear to be dominant in the Age of Aries. The Age of Taurus is perhaps more self eloquent because it’s a sense of beauty attracts us. Every sign will have a specific meaning for us. and it’s likely that similar themes will not be interpreted differently according to our cultural milieu. When all these elements are considered, we can say that the themes of the Ages have more in common that is commonly believed..
That we are still not in agreement on the beginning or end of any Age, may be extraordinary, but is not a failure. Indeed. we have not fallen prey to the demands of astronomical exactitude at the expensive of the visionary. Astrology is not mechanical.
Michael Wood brings a literary sensibility to this piece on The Platonic Year
“The Platonic Year, or the Great Year, is a traditional name for the period in which all the planets and fixed stars complete a cycle and return to a configuration they have occupied before, some 26,000 years according to the calculation Yeats is using — his instructors, he said, meaning the spirits who spoke to him through his wife, ‘have … adopted the twenty-six thousand years of modern astronomy instead of the thirty-six thousand years Spenser [in The Faerie Queene] took from the Platonic Year’. This Year could be divided into twelve ‘months’ that became for Yeats the spells of two thousand plus years between catastrophic historical incarnations. Such a month would, in turn, have its months, and every division, including what we ordinarily call a calendar year, would have its seasons and phases of the moon and would allow us to think, at the most immediate level, of what Yeats calls a ‘symbolical or ideal year’, incredibly long or reasonably short, ‘each month a brightening and a darkening fortnight, and at the same time perhaps a year with its four seasons’. The pattern runs all the way through the different levels and dimensions, and it’s easy to see how the Platonic Year could become for Yeats an emblem of remote but undeniable regularity, and a figure for whatever there is that ultimately, however belatedly and at whatever cost, refutes randomness and asserts the enduring principle of order, or perhaps simply of the possibility of such a principle.”
I believe that the Aquarian Age began in the early decades of the 20th century. In no small part, I’m indebted to W.B. Yeats for his visionary poetry and drama. The Second Coming is particularly notable. I’m also indebted to his A Vision and his theory of the gyres. I also find it impossible to deny the Aquarian nature of modern warfare and the proliferation of secular totalitarian states, the rapid development of technologies and a cooling of human interaction and the extreme distractions brought about by information technology. Yates was himself a Sun sign Aquarian. and close friend Rabindranath Tagore. Yates also provides a bridge, for those that can find it, with the Renaissance through Blake and the Romantics.
The Indian Yugas are not standardized and Swami Sri Yukteswar was convinced that Kali Yuga had already passed at the end on the 19th Century. He also believed in sub-ages. Dwapara Yuga is “known as the age of energy, a time of awakening consciousness and rapid advancements. The ascending Dwapara Yuga started it’s 200 year transition period in 1700 AD and the 2,000-year-long Dwapara Yuga proper period started in 1900 AD.. We have seen electricity discovered, the atomic age and the age of computers begin, in an explosion of new developments. Within this period quantum physics, space travel and digital phone/cameras have become commonplace. The science of psychology is less than 100 years old and we see how it has merged with so many other modalities to expand our awareness. With this understanding, the myriad examples of society’s changes and the surge in energy and complexity that we all feel is seen in a new light.” See Indra Rinzner The Yugas
Swami Sri Yukteswar arrived at the same period that I allocated to the Age of Aquarius, matching the Dwapara Yuga proper period started in 1900 AD. Yet there is no specific astrological reference at all The agreement where we find it is energetic. The qualities he mentions are compatible with Aquarius, not essential.
Posted in Constellations, Great Year, Traditional Astrology, Vernal Equinox
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Modelling the impact of specific food policy options on coronary heart disease and stroke deaths in Ireland
Food and Nutritional Sciences - Journal Articles
O'Keeffe, Celine; Kabir, Zubair; O'Flaherty, Martin; Walton, Janette; Capewell, Simon; Perry, Ivan J.
Copyright: © 2013, The Authors. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. This final article is available for use under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 Licence; see http://bmjopen.bmj.com
Copyright information: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
Citation: O'Keeffe, C., Kabir, Z., O'Flaherty, M., Walton, J., Capewell, S. and Perry, I. J. (2013) 'Modelling the impact of specific food policy options on coronary heart disease and stroke deaths in Ireland', BMJ Open, 3, e002837. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2013-002837
Published Version: 10.1136/bmjopen-2013-002837
Objective: To estimate the potential reduction in cardiovascular (CVD) mortality possible by decreasing salt, trans fat and saturated fat consumption, and by increasing fruit and vegetable (F/V) consumption in Irish adults aged 25–84years for 2010. Design: Modelling study using the validated IMPACT Food Policy Model across two scenarios. Sensitivity analysis was undertaken. First, a conservative scenario: reductions in dietary salt by 1 g/day, trans fat by 0.5% of energy intake, saturated fat by 1% energy intake and increasing F/V intake by 1 portion/day. Second, a more substantial but politically feasible scenario: reductions in dietary salt by 3 g/day, trans fat by 1% of energy intake, saturated fat by 3% of energy intake and increasing F/V intake by 3 portions/day. Setting: Republic of Ireland. Outcomes: Coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke deaths prevented. Results: The small, conservative changes in food policy could result in approximately 395 fewer cardiovascular deaths per year; approximately 190 (minimum 155, maximum 230) fewer CHD deaths in men, 50 (minimum 40, maximum 60) fewer CHD deaths in women, 95 (minimum 75, maximum 115) fewer stroke deaths in men, and 60 (minimum 45, maximum 70) fewer stroke deaths in women. Approximately 28%, 22%, 23% and 26% of the 395 fewer deaths could be attributable to decreased consumptions in trans fat, saturated fat, dietary salt and to increased F/V consumption, respectively. The 395 fewer deaths represent an overall 10% reduction in CVD mortality. Modelling the more substantial but feasible food policy options, we estimated that CVD mortality could be reduced by up to 1070 deaths/year, representing an overall 26% decline in CVD mortality. Conclusions: A considerable CVD burden is attributable to the excess consumption of saturated fat, trans fat, salt and insufficient fruit and vegetables. There are significant opportunities for Government and industry to reduce CVD mortality through effective, evidence-based food policies.
Food and Nutritional Sciences - Journal Articles [224]
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as © 2013, The Authors. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. This final article is available for use under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 Licence; see http://bmjopen.bmj.com
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STAR WARS Begins: A Fan Documentary (2011)
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Date Added: 8 years ago.
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Fans can be obsessive, Star Wars fans may be the most obsessive and Jambe Davdar may well be the most obsessive of them all. He has just released his third feature-length documentary/commentary chronicling the original trilogy of George Lucas’ beloved Star Wars and it’s called “Star Wars Begins“. Like his two previous documentaries, Returning To Jedi and Building Empire, Star Wars Begins is an unofficial look at the creation of the classic movie and features tons of deleted scenes, alternate takes and different angles, bloopers, original set audio recordings, and an insane amount of commentary from cast and crew, culled from probably every documentary, interview and commentary track ever made about Star Wars.
What’s really interesting about the format is that Davdar’s documentary is feature-length, and follows the flow of the original movie itself with the deleted scenes added where they would have been, and interviews placed over the top of the action they’re describing. The overall effect is much more engrossing than a DVD commentary track and the wealth of material contained makes it well worth sitting through the 14 separate YouTube clips. Personally, I’ve never heard the seen the deleted scenes of Biggs on Tatooine and hearing David Prowse saying Vader’s dialogue makes you wonder how this guy was ever gonna be the galaxy’s bad-ass.
Davdar has obviously invested a hell of a lot of time (nearly 4 years!) and effort into creating this film, and the other two parts of his own trilogy, and I doubt that anything on the forthcoming Blu-Ray box setwill go into as much detail or exude as much love for the subject matter as these films do. Watch them now on YouTube (or below) and let’s hope Mr. Lucas doesn’t send the heavy mob in.
Source: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/02/watch-star-wars-begins-...
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{{cancelledproject}} '''[[File:Logo-creatures-online-800.jpg|thumb|260px|Creatures Online Logo]]Creatures Online''' (first dubbed '''Creatures 2011''', later known as '''Creatures 4''') was an official creatures game being developed by [[Fishing Cactus]], licensed by [[Gameware Development]]. It was to be the first major Creatures game since [[Docking Station]] in 2001, and would set on planet [[Sphericus]]. The game was put on hold in late 2015, and later shelved, but a successor, entitled [[Creatures Family]], is currently in development by [[Spil Games]]. ==History== The game was officially [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/72296/2011_The_Year_of_CREATURES_return.php announced] on 16th May 2011 and was to be the first Creatures game for iOS and [[Android]]. BluesNews were able to confirm that the free-to-play game would be microtransaction-based (small fees), though "most of the content will be entirely free. [[Bigben]], the publishers, were given the rights to distribute Creatures Online, and all of the previous Creatures games in Europe. '''From the Gamasutra website:''' ''Fishing Cactus (Belgium based developer), Bigben (Publisher) and [[Gameware Development]] (the IP rights owner) are set to deliver a new [[Creatures]] game that maintains the characteristics of the earlier games. It will be free-to-play and available on PC/Mac and iOS platforms - iPod, iPhone and iPad. A collector gift box full of surprises will also be created.'' In approximately 2009, Fishing Cactus floated the idea of C4 amongst themselves and approached Gameware. Fishing Cactus then contacted BigBen Interactive about the game, and they provided funding. Grendels and Ettins would not be in the initial release of the game, as confirmed by Fishing Cactus, however they were on the "we might make them in an upgrade list". The game was to have been rendered in 3D, unlike other entries in the Creatures series. When the [[CEE|creatures evolution engine]] was updated to accommodate this, Fishing Cactus developed a [[crowd management system]]. In May 2013, Bigben partnered with ProSiebenSat.1 Games, who were to distribute, maintain and market the game in Europe. Fishing Cactus also changed the name of the game from Creatures 4 to Creatures Online. In 2016, Spil Games [http://www.spilgames.com/press/creatures-reborn-mobile-age/ announced] that they had bought the Creatures intellectual property from BigBen and were developing a free-to-play mobile game called [[Creatures Family]] to be released in 2017. ==Areas== Creatures Online would have been the first Creatures game to be set on planet Sphericus. It was to feature five environments, although it was suggested that more areas may be developed for sale in the future. The areas that were confirmed were: *[[The Hatchery]] *[[The Treehouse]] *[[Lumin Cave]] *[[Seashell Lagoon]] *[[The Cave]] ==Breed List== Creatures Online was originally announced as coming with just four Norn breeds. However, on March 2013, Fishing Cactus [http://blog.fishingcactus.com/index.php/2013/03/22/creatures-4-procedural-fur-patterns/ announced] that there would be 12 - 16 breeds included with the game. ''The breeds that have been confirmed are as follows:'' *[[Aqua Norn (C4)|Aqua Norn]] *[[Bono Norn]] *[[Brasi Norn]] *[[Choo Norn]] *[[Cavern Norn]] *[[Classical Norn]] *[[Feral Norn]] *[[Froggy Norn]] *[[Ito Norn]] *[[Kabuto Norn]] *[[Lab Norn]] *[[Lichen Norn]] *[[Myschoo Norn]] *[[Mystic Norn]] *[[Splen Norn]] *[[Tiki Norn]] *[[Wildling Norn]] ==Demos== [[File:DemoScreenshot_2.jpg|thumb|left|258px|Gamescom 2011 Demo Gameplay]]At Gamescom 2011, Fishing Cactus unveiled the first demo of Creatures Online. At the start, the player could choose either to create a male or a female Norn. Only two or three Norns could be created at the beginning. Once the player had selected the gender, they could then use sliders to customise their Norn's look and the fur colour. Once they finished, an egg appeared in the Treehouse. Like the previous games, the player could punish and reward their Norns by either tickling or slapping them. At Gamescom 2012, Fishing Cactus exhibited a second demo of Creatures Online. This demo took place in the Hatchery rather than the Treehouse, and several new features, such as Norn speech and the [[Science Kit]], were added. The demo also delivered a glimpse into some work-in-progress interfaces, such as the hatchery, the splicing machine and the Norn collections. [[Angry Nornito]] also made his first in-game appearance. The [[Creatures Online Live Session]] demo showed many aspects of the gameplay, including the introduction of the [[Owner's Kit]] and [[Supply Kit]]. A third and final demo of Creatures Online was exhibited at Gamescom 2013, where they introduced the Kabuto Norns, along with many other new breeds, along with an update to the baby Norns that reduced their head size to a more realistic standard. ==Norn Stats== At one point, Fishing Cactus considered implementing a skill system, to get the Norns to take care of plants, play with critters, repair toys and machinery etc. Skill at these tasks was intended to improve the norns' abilities and was meant to be inheritable by children. The stats were coded into genes, storing the value of each stat so that they could be inherited. Due to "side-effects" and the system not being "satisfactory", as of June 2012 its inclusion was being reassessed. ==Characters== ===Master Shee=== ''Main Page: [[Master Shee]]'' [[File:Master_Shee.png|thumb|Concept art of Master Shee]]On the 2nd of March 2012 Fishing Cactus [http://blog.fishingcactus.com/index.php/2012/03/02/fresh-creatures-news/ confirmed] that a [[Shee]] would be making an appearance in-game. The Shee featured is known as "Master Shee" and would act as a help assistant in the game and provide the player with information. He would be the first ever Shee to make an actual live appearance in-game, and his design said to been inspired by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Brown Emmett "Doc" Brown] from the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future_trilogy Back to the Future trilogy]. ==Norn Design== [[File:Norn_creatures_4_big.jpg|left|thumb|180px|The revamped Norn design]]Along with a screenshot of the actual game, one of the first concept art images Fishing Cactus [http://blog.fishingcactus.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/norn_creatures_4_small1.jpg released] on one of their blog posts was a pre-rendered image of a new Norn design that was to feature in the game, with the most prominent feature being that the Norns would have realistic fur, smaller eyes and a less cartoony appearance. Despite achieving mostly positive feedback from the Creatures Community, some members criticised the new design due to it being less cartoony and somewhat less cutesy than the previous Norns in the other games. As a result, the community member [[Norngirl]] made an [http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h78/Getchuz/Compare_norn__ngirl.png edited] version that more closely resembles the Norns in the previous games, which [[Don]] also mocked up [http://www.creaturesvillage.com/public/DonC4NornModTrio.png here]. [[Norngirl]] also made two other pics [http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h78/Getchuz/Norns_.png] and [http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h78/Getchuz/Fusionofnorn-mogwai_WhereisTail.png] as a helpful reminder of what past norns look like. ==Payment== Creatures Online would have been a free-to-play game. An online registration was necessary; the game would require you to be logged in online in order to play, and there would be levels in the game,[[File:Creatures_Shop.png|thumb|274px|The Creatures Shop]] unlocking items in the shop (named "[[The Shee Market]]" in the [[Creatures Online Live Session]]) and in the machines. There was planned to be a boxed version available to buy, containing "all the old chapters in the series (1, 2, 3, DS at least)" along with a Norn figurine, a Norn with a unique genetic code for their game and the equivalent of twenty euros in the game's virtual wallet. There would be two currencies in game: [[coin]]s, which will be collectable in-game by doing actions, and [[golden egg]]s, which would be occasionally given out as special occasions, could be traded for coins or could be bought in the shop for real money. The idea of payment in a Creatures game has garnered a lot of criticism since its announcement. However, Fishing Cactus reassured players that it would be possible to play the game without spending a single cent. The [[Crafting Machine]] was later introduced as a way for players to earn items without paying. The [[Coin Foundry]] was also a way to earn coins. ==The Gene Splicing Machine== [[File:Creatures_4_Editor.jpg|thumb|left|292px|The Norn Creator as it appeared in the Gamescom 2011 demo]]In the Gamescom 2011 demo, it was first shown that one of the many features included in Creatures Online is the [[Gene Splicing Machine]], which allowed players to create their own Norn genomes rather than choose from a list of breeds. The player could also randomize what they wanted their Norn to look like. As shown in the demo, whenever the player's Norns reproduce the player could choose what features are inherited from the parents using sliders to control each future, if wanted the Norn to more closely resemble one parent than the other. There are limits imposed from the norn's genetic code on how customisable their appearance is, as they inherit their potential appearance from their parents. The first part of the Gene Splicer allowed the player to change the physical appearance of their Norn in several ways: *'''Pattern Layout''' - Controls the layout of the Norn's fur patterns *'''Fatness''' - Controls how fat or thin the Norn is (this doesn't appear to be modifiable with the player's first Norn(s)) *'''Fur Length''' - Control how thick or thin the Norn's fur is The second part allows the player to change their Norn's fur colour and/or patterns: *'''Eye Color''' - Changes the colour of the Norn's eyes *'''Fur Base Color''' - Changes the base color of the Norn's fur *'''Fur Pattern Color''' - Changes the colour of the Norn's fur pattern *'''Fur Detail Color''' - Changes the color of the Norn's fur details As of June 2012, this was the main mechanism by which the players would be able to edit the genome of their norns - focusing on the appearance of the norn. There were no specific plans for a [[Genetics Kit]]. ==Release== Creatures Online was originally planned to be released in January 2012 on iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPodTouch), Android, PC (online client) and Mac (AppStore, online client), but the game was delayed to add more content, giving an estimated release date of Q2 2012. In June 2012, Creatures Online was delayed again, this time to Q4 2012. In November 2012, Fishing Cactus confirmed yet another delay, stating that they hoped to enter a beta phase around January or February, and that if this happened, a 'live date' of March to April 2013 was possible. The PGW page about Creatures Online had a release date of 26 April 2013, which was described by [[Lord Shee]] as being "not definitive". The game entered an in-house alpha stage on the 4th of March, and lasted about 8 weeks. In May 2013, Fishing Cactus revealed that they and BigBen had partnered with ProSiebenSat.1 Games, who will distribute, maintain and market the game in Europe. Fishing Cactus also revealed that they were changing the name of the game from Creatures 4 to Creatures Online. ProSiebenSat.1 Games booked the server network for Creatures Online, and planned to be ready with the server by roughly July 2013. A closed beta was planned to run at this time, but did not eventuate. From the middle of 2015, Fishing Cactus stopped all communication via their Facebook page regarding Creatures Online, resulting in negative backlash from many players. In July 2015, Fishing Cactus posted a Facebook comment saying that they are no longer in charge of community management and outreach for Creatures Online, suggesting fans contact BigBen Interactive instead. It is believed the game has run into publishing issues, but BigBen Interactive have assured everyone that the game has not been cancelled.https://www.facebook.com/fishingcactus/posts/10153031665194220 In November 2015, the French mobile gaming news website Pockett Videogames [https://web.archive.org/web/20151105040216/http://www.pockett.net/n27691_iPhone_Creatures_Online_en_hibernation_sur_iPhone_iPad_Android_et_PC_Mac ran a story] saying that Creatures Online had been put on "stand by" due to financial issues. Fishing Cactus posted an [http://blog.fishingcactus.com/index.php/2016/01/21/creatures-status-fishing-cactus-official-statement/ official statement] on their blog in January 2016 confirming that Creatures Online had been put on hold, and that it was now up to BigBen Interactive as to what would happen with Creatures Online. In March 2016, [[Spil Games]] announced that they had acquired the Creatures IP from Bigben and are currently in the process of developing a free-to-play creatures game called [[Creatures Family]]. It is currently unknown if the game will either be an entirely new game, or simply a renaming of Creatures Online, but Creatures Online appears to have been shelved either way, and it is unknown what will become of the current game if Spil Games wish to develop an entirely new game from the ground up. ==Third-Party Development== It was announced that [[Modding in the Creatures series|third-party development]] would not be supported at the time of Creatures Online's release, but Fishing Cactus were looking at Valve's method of allowing third-party addons for Team Fortress 2 in developing a third-party content system for Creatures Online. ==See Also== *[[Grandroids]] [[artificial life]] game by [[Steve Grand]] *[[Creatures Alchemist]] *[[Creatures Family]] *[[:Category:Unofficial Creatures games|Unofficial Creatures games]] ==External Links== * [http://creatures4-thegame.com/ Official Website] * [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYSSkrr8ySw&feature=related Official Teaser Trailer] * [http://blog.fishingcactus.com/index.php/2011/05/18/announcing-creatures-4-on-ios-mac-and-pc/ Fishing Cactus Blog] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20150428062006/http://www.bigben-interactive.co.uk/produit/game/id/5298 Big Ben Interactive's Creatures 4 Page] (archived) * [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/72296/2011_The_Year_of_CREATURES_return.php Press release, 16th May 2011] * [http://blog.fishingcactus.com/index.php/2011/08/22/the-uncensored-truth-about-creatures-4/ The uncensored truth about Creatures 4] * [http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/Creatures+4/news.asp?c=32604 Pocketgamer.co.uk] * [http://www.gameblog.fr/news_24381_gc-creatures-4-nos-impressions-inculquees Gameblog.fr] * [http://myth-games.com/news4990.htm Creatures 4: Gamescom Preview] * [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quk0QQ_PFcw Video of Gamescom 2012 demo] [[Category:Creatures games]] [[Category:Creatures Online]]
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Handouts for introductory philosophy students on various philosophical skills — from Neil Mehta (Yale-NUS)
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"Philosophers" was a category in the "Greatest of All Time" edition of Jeopardy! last night — do you know the right questions?
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Nebraska voter registration exceeds expectations
byBanner Press
County election officials are busy with early voting, both by mail and at their offices. Secretary of State John Gale says of counties that have reported totals to his office thus far, 41,938 ballots have been returned or cast in person at county election offices through October 14.
“One of the things we’re anxiously watching is how the percentage of early voting plays into the number of voters who turnout overall,” said Gale. He noted that voter registration has reached 1,198,546 which far exceeded even his expectations.
“Initially, I was hoping for around 1,185,000 registered voters. When the number gets that high, you hope that turnout increases as well. That would be a tremendous milestone in the history of Nebraska elections.”
Gale isn’t the only one talking in terms of milestones. Election Commissioner Wayne Bena said more than 21,000 voters have requested an early voting ballot in Sarpy County. “This presidential election has the potential to break all previous early voting records in my county. In fact, by the end of the week more people will have requested an early voting ballot than voted in the primary election.”
Dave Shively, election commissioner for Lancaster County, reported mailing 22,000 ballots from his office by Monday. Nearly 900 people have appeared in person to vote early. Shively said he expects volume to stay steady. “My staff and I have been extremely busy processing all of the requests and know that we’ll continue to be just as busy in the next three weeks.”
By contrast, Hitchcock County clerk Margaret Pollmann said she has had only three people show up at her office to vote. Many more have stopped by to take a ballot home with them. The majority of early voting has been by mail.
Aside from the presidential and statewide contests, Pollmann said there was plenty to motivate early voting on the local ballot alone. “We have several contested races and a recall question, both of which will likely increase our overall turnout for the general election.”
Hall County Election Commissioner Dale Baker said as of Monday, her office had issued 3,000 ballots and that in-office had been very steady. She felt certain that total early voters would surpass 10 percent of all eligible voters in her county.
“Our voter registration increased from 32,000 to 33,000 in the last two weeks,” noted Baker. “I’m confident that trend is due to the ease of online voter registration.”
Voter registration, both online and by mail will end at the close of business on October 21. If anyone wishes to register after that, they will have to appear in person at the county election office by October 28 at 6:00 p.m.
Gale reminded voters of additional deadlines, with regard to early voting:
* Registered voters can request an early ballot be mailed to them up until the close of business on October 28. Applications are available on the Secretary of State’s website at www.sos.ne.gov under the tab Voter Forms.
* Early in-person voting will continue through November 7 at any county election office.
*All early voting ballots must be received by the county election official by the close of polls on November 8. That includes those dropped off in person or mailed.
“That means that voters shouldn’t wait if they plan to mail their ballot back,” warned Gale. “During the primary election, the U.S. Postal Service cautioned that the volume of mail might cause delays prior to the election. That’s certainly to be a factor this time as well.”
Gale also reminded by-mail voters to make sure their ballot was placed in the proper envelope, sign the envelope and add the correct postage.
Brian Kruse, Douglas County election commissioner, said a record number of people in his county were choosing to vote early. “The primary reasons seem to be convenience and the ability to research candidates and issues while voting.”
Of the total ballots returned by mail and those cast in person, breakdown for the top five counties as reported to the Secretary of State’s office on Monday were as follows:
*Douglas County 17,872
* Lancaster County 8,095
* Sarpy County 5,899
*Gage County 1,146
*Hall County 1,066
D-Sign Shop
Butler County Landfill/Waste Connections
Bank of the Valley
Butler County Clinic
David City Public Schools
Edward Jones - Kory Kuhlman
Dale's Food Pride
Witter Family Medicine
Jones Insurance
Chermok Funeral Home
Future Generations Health Care Foundation
David City Discount Pharmacy
Aurora Cooperative
First National Bank of Omaha
State Farm/Eberle Insurance
Silver Sponsorship
St. Joseph's Villa & Court
St Mary's & Aquinas
David City, NE 68632
© Build Butler County 2020
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Category Archives: International Soccer
Luis Suarez Made Racial Slurs Toward Patrice Evra (Videos)
December 20, 2011 British Sports, International Soccer, Soccer, Soccer Players, Sport News, SportsFacebook, Google, Luis Suarez, Patrice Evra, TwitterDe De Tillman
Blogged By: De De Tillman ; Celebrity Blogger
Blog Source: CNN
Video Credit: YouTube (BhamUrbanNewsUK) / YouTube (seajames)
Posted: Tuesday December 20, 2011 @4:49 pm PST
Topic: Luis Suarez -Patrice Evra
Liverpool striker Luis Suarez is accused of making racial slurs toward Manchester United’s Patrice Evra during a soccer game on October 15, 2011, a Premier League match. Evra claims Suarez made several racial remarks.
Evra is from Senegal says the cameras support his claim. The British media says he may have used the word “negrito”; however, the director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics at the University of California Los Angeles, Mark Sawyer says, negrito is not considered a racial slur in Latin America and Sawyer concludes with “It’s often a term of endearment,”
Suarez is suspended for 8 matches, fined £40,000 which is $63,000 US dollars while the incident is being investagated. Football Association said, Suarez has 14 days to appeal.
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California Passes Vital Legislation to Protect Desert Water, Parks, Wildlife and Tribal Resources
The California Assembly passed and sent legislation (SB 307) to Governor Newsom today, which will require new and independent environmental review of the proposed Cadiz Inc. groundwater mining project that threatens parks, wildlife and sacred tribal lands in the Mojave Desert. The legislation, authored by Senator Richard Roth and passed under the leadership of Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, would prevent the Cadiz Inc. or other desert water export proposals from advancing potentially harmful groundwater mining projects without state review, verifying that no adverse impacts would occur to desert waters, wildlife and lands.
SB 307 protects life sustaining water sources found within Mojave National Preserve and Mojave Trails National Monument, two of California’s most ecologically fragile parks, by authorizing state agency oversight in response to recent federal deregulatory actions by the Trump administration. Defenders of Wildlife and the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) and are among the numerous environmental organizations that have supported the bill, alongside a broad range of water agencies, community and tribal leaders, elected officials, former Park Service officials, and others.
“By passing SB 307, the California legislature has sent a message to the Trump administration that science matters and will not be ignored when it comes to protecting our national treasures from the reckless Cadiz groundwater mining project,” David Lamfrom, California Desert and Wildlife Director for the National Parks Conservation Association. “For the first time, Cadiz will be subject to independent scientific review, which will no doubt prove that the numbers previously used by the company just don’t add up. Senator Richard Roth is a desert, national park and water defender for authoring this legislation to ensure that desert groundwater pumping can serve long-term needs of our wild lands, local communities and businesses.”
“The Legislature has made it clear that the era of driving California’s aquifers into overdraft conditions is over and emphasizes the importance of managing these aquifers sustainably for the future,” said Kim Delfino, California Program Director for Defenders of Wildlife. “SB 307 will protect our state’s fragile wildlife that rely on these desert lands for their survival, including the desert tortoise and bighorn sheep. The bill will create a definitive process for the state to assess proposals to export desert groundwater to other areas of the state to ensure that our aquifers remain sustainably managed and our desert lands and wildlife continue to thrive.”
"As an organization that believes in science, we are thrilled to see the legislature pass SB 307 in an effort to protect our desert lands," said Kate Hoit, Vet Voice Foundation's California State Director and OIF veteran. "Cadiz Inc. lacks the credible science to demonstrate that its groundwater mining project can move forward without causing significant harm to the environment, communities, and recreational opportunities cherished by veterans. We thank fellow veteran Senator Richard Roth (Major General, Ret.) for leading the way and applaud him on this tremendous victory for veterans."
Key provisions, facts and benefits of the bill:
• Protects important federal and state lands, including Mojave National Preserve and Mojave Trails National Monument.
• Passage marks the culmination of a multi-year commitment, originally started by Assemblymember Laura Friedman who carried similar legislation in 2017 and 2018.
• SB 307 is authored by Senator Richard Roth (Riverside), principal co-authored by Assemblymember Laura Friedman (Glendale) and Senator Anthony Portantino (La Cañada Flintridge), and co-authored by Assemblymembers Ben Allen (Santa Monica), Todd Gloria (San Diego), Marc Levine (Marin County), Luz Rivas (Arleta) and Mark Stone (Monterey Bay)
• Requires the State Lands Commission, in consultation with the Department of Fish and Wildlife and Department of Water Resources, to find no adverse impacts from proposed water export projects from this region, such as Cadiz, before groundwater pumping can be authorized.
• Provides a 15-24 month timeframe for the review to be completed upon submittal of an application by the project proponent.
• Protects a desert national park tourism economy that in 2018 alone generated $436 million dollars in economic output in local communities, created over 4,100 sustainable jobs, and generated over $161 million in labor income.
• Reconciles the science. For the first time, Cadiz must undergo environmental review by an entity that is independent and not a project beneficiary.
Defenders of Wildlife is dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities. With over 1.8 million members and activists, Defenders of Wildlife is a leading advocate for innovative solutions to safeguard our wildlife heritage for generations to come. For more information, visit defenders.org/newsroom and follow us on Twitter @Defenders.
Rebecca Bullis
rbullis@defenders.org
Western Caucus Members Push Anti-Endangered Species Act Bills, Again
It’s looking like déjà vu all over again as the Congressional Western Caucus has begun to introduce another package of anti-wildlife, anti-public lands, anti-Endangered Species Act (ESA) bills. The new package of stand-alone bills is – so far – nearly identical to draft legislation the caucus released this past fall. And, like the previous package, the bills would eliminate key protections for wildlife that have been in place for more than 45 years.
Statement from Defenders of Wildlife on Migratory Bird Protection Act Passing Out of the House Natural Resources Committee
Statement from Robert Dewey, Vice President for Government Relations, Defenders of Wildlife upon the Migratory Bird Protection Act passing out of the House Natural Resources
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Avalanche & Valeri Nichushkin Win 3-1 Against Maple Leafs
Filed Under:Colorado Avalanche News
TORONTO (AP) – The Colorado Avalanche kept Toronto at bay and got some timely scoring to beat the struggling Maple Leafs. Nathan MacKinnon had a goal and an assist, Valeri Nichushkin and Joonas Donskoi also scored, and Philipp Grubauer stopped 38 shots to help the Avalanche beat the Maple Leafs 3-1 Wednesday night.
“One of the most complete games we’ve played,” said Grubauer, who was pulled after allowing four goals on 15 shots against the Maple Leafs in Colorado on Nov. 23. “We protected the middle.”
Nazem Kadri of the Colorado Avalanche hammers Pierre Engvall of the Toronto Maple Leafs to the ice at Scotiabank Arena on Dec. 4, 2019 in Toronto. (credit: Claus Andersen/Getty Images)
Zach Hyman scored for Toronto and Frederik Andersen, starting on consecutive nights for the first time since January 2017, had 27 saves.
After killing off Jake Muzzin’s four-minute penalty for high-sticking early in the third, thanks in large part to a big stop by Andersen on Donskoi, the Maple Leafs’ first man advantage turned into a disaster.
Jason Spezza’s stick shattered on a shot and as the Toronto center tried to keep the puck in with his feet at the blue line, he got caught up with Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly. That allowed Nichushkin to move in all alone and bury his third goal of the season upstairs short-handed at 6:40.
“A tough play,” said Spezza. “I’m going to the bench and then I hear somebody yell the puck is coming, so I make a split-second decision to play it and (Rielly) yells that he’s there.
“I kind of just froze to try to not get in his way and, in turn, got in his way more. That game falls on me.”
Toronto, which had Mitch Marner back after he missed 11 games with a high ankle sprain, pushed as the period wore on and pressed late, but couldn’t get anything past Grubauer with Andersen on the bench before Donskoi iced it into an empty net with 79 seconds left.
“It was a real challenge for us defensively,” Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “The urgency was fine and some of the adjustments we’ve been working at and focusing on defensively have been there.
“While our attention has gone there, we’ve gotten away from some of the things offensively we focused on in the early going and that has caused us to revert back to some things we don’t necessarily like. We’ll have to try to fix that.”
The Maple Leafs were coming off Tuesday’s embarrassing 6-1 loss at Philadelphia — performance where Toronto was in the game in the third period only to fall apart in the waning minutes.
Star center Auston Matthews said the team “quit” with the game out of hand, leaving Andersen hung out to dry on two late goals 12 seconds apart in the final minute. Keefe — in just his sixth game as head coach — addressed the team immediately after the final buzzer in Philadelphia.
Andersen then told his coach he wanted to play against Colorado even though backup Michael Hutchinson was originally scheduled to get the start.
“The way the guys got called out after last game, I wanted to be out there,” Andersen said.
“He’s a real leader for us,” Toronto captain John Tavares said. “He sets a real tone for us and the backbone of our group. He played great, he gave us a great chance to win. It’s too bad we didn’t reward him.”
The game marked Avalanche center Nazem Kadri’s return to Scotiabank Arena for the first time since an offseason trade from Toronto to Colorado in exchange for defenseman Tyson Barrie and forward Alexander Kerfoot. Kadri, the seventh pick in the 2009 NHL draft, had 161 goals and 196 assists in 561 games with the Maple Leafs, who paid tribute to their former player with a video montage during the first television timeout.
“I came close to shedding a tear,” Kadri said. “I’m forever thankful for the fans embracing me and treating me so well.”
MacKinnon opened the scoring at 10:52 of the second period on the first power play of the night. After the Avalanche gained the zone, Mikko Rantanen snapped a cross-ice pass to MacKinnon, who had time to shoot into the top corner on Andersen from the faceoff dot for his 18th.
Toronto responded just 1:50 later when Kerfoot fed a no-look pass in front for Hyman to redirect past Grubauer for his third.
NOTES: MacKinnon, now tied for third in NHL scoring with 44 points, has goals in five straight games. … Colorado coach Jared Bednar said captain Gabriel Landeskog, who’s been out since Oct. 26 with a lower-body injury, could return Thursday at Montreal. … Rielly played the 500th game of his career. … Toronto F Andreas Johnsson left the game with a leg injury after blocking a shot in the second. … The Maple Leafs lost C Nick Shore to Winnipeg on waivers, while forward Nic Petan and defenseman Martin Marincin were loaned to the AHL’s Toronto Marlies — all moves to make room for Marner’s return off injured reserve.
Avalanche: At Montreal on Thursday night.
Maple Leafs: At St. Louis on Saturday to open a four-game trip.
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2018 student show season
Friday March 23, Junior Exhibition
Thursday March 29, BFA Exhibition (Group 1)
Friday April 6, BFA Exhibition (Group 2)
Friday April 13, BFA Exhibition (Group 3)
Thursday, April 19, MFA First-Year Exhibition (Group 1)
Friday April 27, MFA First-Year Exhibition (Group 2)
All exhibitions have opening receptions from 6-9p.
Additional viewing hours will be each following Saturday from 1-6p.
XOXO images
2.21.2018–The XOXO exhibition at the Des Lee Gallery. James Byard/Washington University
February 8 – March 10, 2018
Opening reception, Thursday, February 8, 2018, 6-8 PM
1627 Washington Avenue
Gallery hours for this exhibition will be Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 1-6 PM and by appointment.
IMAGE CREDIT: Harry Benson CBE, Judy Garland, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1965
Archival Pigment Photograph, Courtesy of Barrett Barrera Projects
The Des Lee Gallery is proud to present XOXO – a group exhibition curated by Jessica Baran of work from Barrett Barrera Projects’ collection as assembled by Susan Barrett.
“I need anything, anything that will stop me from living in the kind of death the bourgeois eat, the death called comfort.” – Kathy Acker, from In Memoriam to Identity
X marks the spot, the kiss, the nixing-out; O is the void and the hug, the encircling gesture that says that’s it and, all together, I love you truly but casually. The artworks in this show burlesque common strategies of evoking authenticity, using intimacy and self-revelation as methods for unmasking the constructedness of status quo identity.
Susan Sontag writes, “To perceive Camp in objects and persons, is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater.”
This work “camps” gender, race, class. It writes fictions of the self that become both reality and myth. Employing parody, homage, cut-up and collage, these pieces quote familiar character typologies then strip-tease their constituent parts. They are skillful fakes full of real historical grandeur, empty icons made genuine by their excess, and somber survivors of pathological glamour and the power of desire.
Artworks by Zoe Buckman, Nicole Eisenman, Fantich & Young, Chantal Jaffe, Terrence Koh, Marilyn Minter, Toyin Odutola, Mickalene Thomas and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, among others.
About Barrett Barrera Projects
Founded in 2014 by Susan Barrett (BA86/BFA86, MArch94), Barrett Barrera Projects is a multidisciplinary consulting company specializing in art, culture and contemporary fashion. Representing national and international artists who blur traditional disciplinary boundaries, Barrett Barrera Projects also organizes exhibitions for travel that assert nontraditional media as historically and artistically vital. With its affiliated commercial art space, projects+gallery, Barrett Barrera Projects brings regional, national and international artists to St. Louis. The gallery serves as a laboratory for experimentation by our represented artists as well as other leading contemporary practitioners.
About Jessica Baran
Jessica Baran is the Associate Director of Curatorial and Program Development at Barrett Barrera Projects. She has curated exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, COCA, the Charlotte Street Foundation, fort gondo compound for the arts and White Flag Projects, among other venues. She holds a BA in visual art from Columbia University and an MFA in poetry writing from Washington University and is the author of three full-length poetry collections. With Ted Mathys, she co-curates the 100 Boots Poetry Series at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.
Parabola 2017: Frankenstein
6-9p
Des Lee Gallery, 1627 Washington Ave.
The Des Lee Gallery presents Parabola 2017: Frankenstein, an exhibition that will encourage cross-disciplinary investigations relating to the various issues raised in the book. How does Frankenstein relate to the idea of the “other” in sociological contexts? What are the book’s influences on popular culture, art, and medicine? How does the “year without a winter” that is referenced in the novel relate to climate change and environmental issues?
The opening reception will take place from 6-9p December 1, with additional gallery hours from 1-6p December 2.
This exhibition is curated by MFA students Taylor Yocom and Jacopo Mazzoni, and Des Lee Gallery director Brandon Anschultz. It is made possible through the generous support of WashU’s Graduate Professional Council, the Sam Fox School, the Graduate School of Art, the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, and the Des Lee Gallery.
Process & Innovation: 20 Years of Partnerships in Print at Hand Print Workshop International
October 5, 2017 – November 11, 2017
Opening Reception: 6-8p October 5
Gallery hours are Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 1-6p and by appointment.
Dennis O’Neil’s Hand Print Workshop has fostered the work of printmakers across America and internationally, many of them leading artists from the former Soviet Union. The Hand Print Workshop: Twenty Years of Partnership in Print features a wide representation of the prints created by these artists in his Alexandria studio, including some by William Christenberry and Renee Stout, as well as works by O’Neil himself.
http://samfoxschool.wustl.edu/events/12234
(image: Alexander Djikia
Expulsion from the Garden of Eden
Screenprint on Arches 88 with cold wax and pigment
Edition 16, image size 16 x 12 inches)
Smoldering: a Project by Museum Blue
Justin Favela, Jemila MacEwan, Kat Reynolds, Rachael Starbuck, Joe Ziolkowski
February 3, 2017 – March 11, 2017
Opening Reception, Friday, February 3, 2017, 6-9p.
Gallery hours: Wednesday, Friday & Saturday from 1-6p, and by appointment.
Parabola: Reverberate
Opening Reception, Friday, December 2, 2016, 6-9p.
Additional hours to view this exhibition will be on Saturday, December 3, from 1-6p.
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Petition to stop new restaurant in Tbilisi recreational zone
Turtle Lake near Tbilisi. (Interpressnews.)
TBILISI, DFWatch–More than 1500 Georgians have signed a petition demanding a stop in the cutting of trees in a recreation zone in the hills above the capital.
The land plot was illegally sold by Tbilisi City Hall to a politician so he could build a restaurant to be used for banquets and concerts, although the area earlier was subject to a ban on any new construction work.
The zone is in the heart of a landscape for recreational use called Turtle Lake, where Tbilisi residents often come to relax, exercise and take a walk with their children.
Transparency International Georgia (TIG) claims it’s difficult to make it clear when this land plot was downgraded from a landscape-recreation zone, where any constructions are forbidden, to only a recreation zone.
“The previous government set such conditions that they have the power to revocate any regulation in every specific case if it is in their or their associate’s interests,” said architect Zurab Bakradze at a meeting against the tree cutting at Turtle Lake.
In late June 2011, Tbilisi City Hall decided to separate a land plot from this area and auction it off. According to the terms of the auction, the buyer was mandated to build a two-floor restaurant with a hall for banquets and concerts.
TIG considers the case suspicious.
“It is unclear why the Tbilisi City Hall found it necessary to auction the land plot under these narrow conditions, indicating that the privatization process might have been tailored to the interests of a specific private company,” TIG writes in a statement.
Otium LLC, owned by two companies, JSC Hotels and M|Group, where one of the shareholders was Archil Gegenava, MP from the National Movement party, bought this plot on 19 July 2011 for 650,000 GEL.
In 2013, the land plot was sold again and bought by Colorit LLC, a company co-owned by M|Group. Gegenava’s brother, Andro Gegenava, is also among the owners of Colorit LLC.
Bakradze claims that first Gegenava, whose party was in power at the time, was interested in building a restaurant there. Tbilisi City Hall first changed the status of the plot to a recreation zone and allowed construction there, and then sold it to the MP.
People have gathered several times at Turtle Lake to protect the area and wrote a petition demanding a stop in the planned construction. The petition received more than 1500 signatures in only a few days.
Later, on July 31, Tbilisi City Hall made an official statement, claiming that there is no plan to cut trees and that the owner of the property is required to build a children’s entertainment center and family type recreational zone, so that the environment wont be damaged.
TI still demands that Tbilisi City Hall explains the reasons for selling a piece of land within a protected area. Tbilisi City Hall has not commented.
By Londa Beria| 2013-08-04T00:17:44+00:00 August 4th, 2013|Categories: NGO news|Tags: Turtle Lake|0 Comments
Independent lawyers in Georgia urge parliament to condemn “clan-based” governance in judiciary
Georgian civic groups suspect government is behind smear campaign on Facebook
NGO coalition in Georgia proposes new procedure for selecting chief prosecutor
CSOs Seek Involvement in Public Defender’s Selection Process
Open Society criticizes Hungary’s government for anti-NGO law
March 31st, 2017 | 0 Comments
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Map of the District of Matatiela, sheet no. 1
Matatiele (South Africa)--Description and travel--Maps, Surveying--South Africa, Land use--South Africa--Matatiele (Eastern Cape),
Map of the District of Matatiela showing Ongeluks Nek, with surrounding areas, commonages, names of places, roads, rivers, district boundaries, and location reserves. Scale 1 English mile to 1 inch.
German East Africa. Karḗma
Karema Region (Tanzania) -- Maps., German East Africa -- Maps.
Map showing towns, villages, international boundaries, railways, roads, tracks, telegraph lines, post and telegraph offices, heights in metres above sea level, mission stations, ruins, and "Mbuga" ("Low Country, often swampy in rainy season") in the Karḗma area., Relief shown by form lines and spot heights., Projection not given., Grid reference: GDA, GDB., Index no.: D.2. & part of D.1.
The Commonage, Van Wyk's Vley. Plan B
Land capability for agriculture--South Africa--Vanwyksvlei--Maps, Irrigation--South Africa--Vanwyksvlei--Maps,
A map of Van Wyk's Vley showing the main dam and irrigable lands, the Hartebeeste River, two smaller dams, roads and the farms. No scale given.
Transvaal and Orange Free State. Philipstown
Philipstown Region (South Africa) -- Maps., Northern Cape (South Africa) -- Maps.
Topographical map indicating Philipstown, Britstown and other towns and villages, roads, railways, stations, rivers, vleis, pans and mountains in the area of Philipstown., Relief shown by form lines., Projection not given., Westernmost longitude co-ordinate estimated., Includes index to adjoining sheets., Copy 893 is torn slightly.
Transvaal (South Africa)--Maps, ,
Map showing a province in the north of South Africa which was named Transvaal from 1910 until the end of 1994, and international, intercolonial, provincial, district boundaries, with place names, railways, under construction, projected, roads suitable for motor traffic: all seasons, dry weather, roads suitable for carts, tracks, telegraphs or telephones, telegraphs or telephones along roads or tracks, provinces, frontier districts, localities, mountain ranges, peaks, valleys, capes, islands, tribes, towns of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th importance, rivers, unsurveyed, canals, marshes and swamps, plains liable to inundation, geodetic trigonometrical stations, altitudes in metres, depths in metres, wells, springs, waterholes, pools, historical ruins, wireless telegraph stations. Contours are at 200 & 500 metres & thence at 500 metre intervals. Relief shown by form lines with height in metres, tinted shading. Third edition, ground/air. Colour. Scale 1 : 2,000,000.
[Map of the Union of South Africa. Sheet 2 of 4]
South Africa--Maps, Swaziland--Maps, Botswana--Maps, , ,
Map showing the Transvaal Province of the Union of South Africa, part of the Orange Free State Province, Swaziland, part of the Bechuanaland Protectorate and the borders with Rhodesia and Mozambique, with district boundaries, cities, towns and villages, roads, railways, rivers, native reserves and locations, crown reserves, lakes, mines, mountains and hills. Some colour. No scale given.
South African War, 1899-1902 -- Maps., Sutherland Region (South Africa) -- Maps., Northern Cape (South Africa) -- Maps.
This map forms part of the Imperial map of the Cape Colony., The map shows grand trunk roads, trunk roads, branch roads, farm roads, rivers, hills, pans, railways, telegraph lines, homesteads, farm names, farm boundaries and divisional boundaries in the Sutherland area., Relief shown by hachures., The Imperial map of the Cape Colony was "compiled by the Field Intelligence Division or Department of the British Army in Cape Town during the second Anglo-Boer War. ... [P.H. du P.] Casgrain ... superintended its production ..." (Board, C. "Certainly better than nothing at all" : a re-examination of the Imperial map of South Africa 1899-1902. Proceedings of the 21st International Cartographic Conference, Durban, 2003. Available online: http://icaci.org/files/documents/ICC_proceedings/ICC2003/Papers/109.pdf (accessed 5 Sept. 2012))., "This map is not to be considered as absolutely accurate"., Projection not given., Printed in black and red., Map folds into an outer cover., The maps are mounted on linen.
Africa from Cape Correntes to Juba Islands including Madagascar, Comoro, Zanzibar Ids & c. by Order of the Right Honble the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty under the direction of Capt. W. F. W. Owens from 1822 - 1826
Sheet V., London. Hydrographical Office
Kenya Colony
Kenya--Maps, ,
Map of Kenya, showing parts of the Uganda Protectorate and Italian Somalia, including Lake Victoria, and international, provincial and district boundaries, with railways, roads and tracks, telephone or telegraph lines, mountain ranges, peaks, valleys, capes and islands, tribes, bridges, towns, rivers, canals, marsh, plains liable to inundation, geodetic trigonometric stations, water sources, historic ruins and mission stations. Third edition. Colour. Relief shown by form lines and altitude tints. Scale 1 : 2,000,000.
Carte de l'Isle Madagascar dite autrement Madecase et de S. Laurens et aujord'hui L'Isle Dauphine avecque les costes de Cofala et du Mozambique en Afrique
Africa - Madagascar
Illustrates "sea routes from the west coast of Africa to Mozambique and from Fort Dauphin on the southeast coast of Madagascar to the north, south, and to the east, to India, Surate and Malacca.", Paris. Duval, P. (Pierre), 1619-1682
Basutoland. N.E. sheet
Lesotho--Maps, Lesotho--History--To 1966--Maps, ,
Map of Basutoland [Lesotho] "prepared from a reconnaissance survey in 1904-9 by captain M.C. Dobson R.F.A.". The map shows towns, villages, "native locations", railways, telegraph and telephone lines, mission stations, ruins and rivers. Scale 1:250 000
Burghersdorp
South African War, 1899-1902 -- Maps., Burgersdorp Region (Eastern Cape, South Africa) -- Maps.
1st ed., Map showing towns including Burghersdorp, Albert, Steynsburg, Venterstad, Sterkstroom, Molteno and Maraisburg, with roads, rivers, hills, railways, telegraph lines, farm names, farm boundaries and fences, divisional boundaries, homesteads, cultivated land and trees., "Route taken by Gorringe's Flying Column with ambulance wagon, etc, and heaviest gun 15 pounder." "Other roads." "Bridletracks available for mounted squadrons and pack mules." "Tracks or roads over which guns, etc were taken on the march.", Relief shown by hachures., "G.F.N. Henderson [,] Colonel. Director of Military Inteligence"., "This map is not to be considered as absolutely accurate"., Map folds into an outer cover., Projection not given., The maps are mounted on linen.
Graaff Reinet
South African War, 1899-1902 -- Maps., Graaff-Reinet Region (South Africa) -- Maps., Eastern Cape (South Africa) -- Maps.
This map forms part of the Imperial map of the Cape Colony., The map shows roads, rivers, hills, pans, railways, homesteads, farm names, farm boundaries and divisional boundaries in the Graaff Reinet area., Relief shown by hachures., The Imperial map of the Cape Colony was "compiled by the Field Intelligence Division or Department of the British Army in Cape Town during the second Anglo-Boer War. ... [P.H. du P.] Casgrain ... superintended its production ..." (Board, C. "Certainly better than nothing at all" : a re-examination of the Imperial map of South Africa 1899-1902. Proceedings of the 21st International Cartographic Conference, Durban, 2003. Available online: http://icaci.org/files/documents/ICC_proceedings/ICC2003/Papers/109.pdf (accessed 5 Sept. 2012))., "This map is not to be considered as absolutely accurate"., Projection not given., Co-ordinates not given., Printed in black only., Map folds into an outer cover., The map is mounted on linen.
Souk el Arba
Jendouba (Tunisia)--Maps,
Map of the region surrounding Souk el Arba in northwestern Tunisia, and state, administrative, district and town boundaries, with magnetic declination, long distance roads, communication routes, local highways, irregularly maintained dirt roads, logging roads and mule tracks, remains of Roman roads, stone bridges, suspended bridges with supports, footbridges, ferries, fords navigable by vehicle or foot, forests, marshes, dunes, vines, water sources dry in summer, churches, chapels or holy places, houses, wells and fountains, water and wind mills, fixed and rotating lighthouses, port lights, redoubts, batteries, cemetries, irrigation canals, trigonometric points, telegraphs, posts. Colour. relief shown by form lines, contours and shading. Scale 1 : 50.000.
Afrique Nord-Est
Africa, Northeast--Maps, Arabian Peninsula--Maps, , ,
Map showing north east Africa, including Egypt, Libya, Eritrea, the British Sudan and Chad, and the regions around the Mediterrenean and Red Sea, including the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Yemen, Transjordan, Palestine and the French Levant, and colonial boundaries and administrative divisions. Map shows towns and important indigenous centres, main military posts, historical ruins, railways, principal Saharan routes, rivers and streams, lakes, stagnant water, swamps, important water sources, rocks and dunes. Colour. Relief is shown in form lines, hatchures and hill shading. Scale 1 : 5.000.000. [Coordinates estimated]
Africa - Egypt
London. Baldwin & Cradock
A Map of the Eastern Watershed of the Kibali - Makua - Welle - Obangi, from the itineraries of Dr. W. Junker & Major Casati
London. Frederick Warner & Co
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Assessments!
November 25, 2016 Uncategorizeddixonl2014
Whenever you take on a new job or walk into a situation where you plan to serve, you must first take a step back. Retreat. Take stock. Take notes. See what has transpired. Then form a plan of action.
Life is quite the same way around this time of the year. As you wind down to the last two months of the year, stop, look and listen. Review the past ten months. Look at your logs, journals, notes and important papers.
Ask yourself, “How did I do? Where did I grow? Where are my weak points? Where are my victories?” An honest appraisal will help you see how far you have come. And, yes progress has definitely been made, somewhere, somehow and in some areas.
Ask yourself, “How did I do in the Relationship Department? Did I make peace with some? Did I delete others from my world? How many new contacts have I added to my personal and professional worlds?”
If you compare your current state to where you were this time last year, can you see that you are better off? If so, how? If not, why?
Ask yourself, “Am I stronger and more confident? Am I less affected by the actions and thoughts of others?” Keep listing those questions as you take a personal inventory of events, feelings and reactions.
“Is my faith stronger? Do I feel like there is hope so that I can keep on thriving and surviving?”
Make those assessments. Be honest. Be candid and be fair. Give yourself a break as you look back and face situations squarely in the eye.
Then, when all of that business has been handled, start formulating that Dream List for 2017 as you carefully tie up those loose ends of 2016.
The future is bright and right ahead. So, “Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”( Hebrews 12:1 )
Lynn M. November 25, 2016
Loving: A Movie!
The slow pace of the film, Loving, symbolizes the long days that exist when living in the South and the lack of speed that it took for this interracial couple to get a fair ruling in the courts. Richard and Mildred Loving were a married couple that lived in Virginia. He was white and she was African-American and Cherokee.
In 1958, the authorities broke into their home and arrested both of them for breaking the law which did not allow mixed couples to marry. They had driven to Washington D.C. to get married. The Virginia courts told them that they had to either serve a year in prison or leave the state for 25 years.
They moved to a poor part of Washington D.C. and had three children while they lived with another family. Mildred Loving missed being around her own family and at one point she sat down and wrote Attorney General Robert Kennedy. He replied and referred her case to the ACLU. Lawyer Cohen was assigned and later teamed up with Lawyer Hirschkop, a civil rights lawyer. Then, the long process for justice began.
After one of their sons was hit by a car, the Lovings secretly moved back to Virginia, but rented a farm in a different county. She wanted enough land where the children could run freely and not have to play ball in the streets.
The two lawyers worked on the case for almost ten years and it eventually made it to the Supreme Court. Life Magazine also interviewed the couple and helped expose the outdated laws through photography. He took a famous photo of Mr. Loving resting in his wife’s lap as they watched television.
In 1967, the Supreme Court decided to hear the case. The lawyers invited the Lovings to come to DC to be present at the hearings. Mr. Loving said no and she said that she was not going without him. He was asked what he wanted to say to the justices and he simply said, “Tell them that I love my wife.”
They won and it became legal for interracial couples to marry in the State of Virginia. Other states followed suit. The charm, the love and the camaraderie of Richard and Mildred was compelling. Only the gods could have given them such an appropriate last name. Through it all, they remained solid, of one mind and quite loving to one another.
The actors were also quite convincing in their roles. Interestingly, Mr. Loving was played by Joel Edgerton from Australia and Mrs. Loving was played by Ruth Negga from Ethiopia. After comparing them to what was read and seen about the real Lovings on YouTube, these two fine actors got it right. It took two artists from other countries to show a bleak chapter in American history that happened not that long ago!
Those Old Love Songs!
Have you ever listened to a beautiful love song and then felt the need to attach its meaning to someone? In order to connect to the flow of the lyrics, you pick up the memories of a former love that you’ve already released!
Why? Because you are not currently involved in a relationship, so you unconsciously reach back into the past. Danger! Danger! The last thing you want to do is recycle what has already been placed in the dumpster.
You can stir around and stir around and chances are you will find a small salvageable piece for longer use. But nine times out of ten, you will end up trashing it again.
So when those touching love songs come on, enjoy one or two and get caught up in that false nostalgia for a few minutes. Play them sparingly, if you are at an in-between stage in relationships.
In order to avoid crying in your soup over some stale, spilled milk, you should change that tune. Put on some freeing, airy music instead. Try some nice instrumentals, a tad of jazz, some classical or even a little light rock, rap or reggae to liven your step.
But don’t become enmeshed in those love songs that make you pine for something that you’ve already discarded. Those words can pull at your heart-strings and make you travel down a guaranteed bumpy road. Again!
Instead, listen to some calm or even humorous music that allows you to think clearly and feel hopeful. The holidays are coming and you don’t want to be dizzy while seated on a tiring merry-go round at the beginning of the New Year. Be mindful of what you listen to as you prepare for your fresh, new date with destiny!
Herb Kent: A Tribute
November 6, 2016 Uncategorizeddixonl2014
Herb Kent came like a soft lantern,
Whose brilliance was turned up
To emit a more glorious light.
Its rays brightened each starry night.
We listened to his melodious voice,
On the Chicago airwaves,
That charmed us, wowed us and gave us glee.
The King of Dusties! Spinning records at those Steppers Sets.
He could transport us back to times gone by,
And fill us with the musical history along the way.
During those turbulent 60’s,
He calmed us, stilled us and
Reminded us that this too shall pass.
Then, his light dimmed with a gentle hush,
As softly as a candle is blown out.
Poof! Gone.
Yet, he breezed through his life and ours.
We are so glad that he ‘stopped on by.’
He gave us so much!
And we are the richer because of his anointed journey!
Lynn M. November 6, 2016
A November Thanks!
November’s beautiful colors of rust,
Clear away summer’s gritty sand and dust.
Horns-a-plenty filled with the new harvest,
Varieties of goodies at their best!
Gobbling turkeys and quacking ducks to dress,
Family members come and give that caress.
A great start to the holiday season,
Love shared, hearts filled are the basic reason!
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Home>Careers>Professional Licensure
The Agricultural & Biological Engineering PE Exam
Individual State Licensing Boards and Requirements
National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES)
National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE)
NSPE Ethics Webpage
Exam Preparation Resources
The Agricultural & Biological Engineering PE exam is held in April of each year.
Ag/Bio Eng PE Exam Reference List
Electronic Reference Materials
ASABE Standards Reference Collection for Takers of the Agricultural & Biological Engineering PE Exam
Webinar Series Offers Ag & Bio Eng PE Exam Preparation
NCEES Agricultural & Biological Engineering PE Exam Specifications
FE Exam & FE Reference Handbook
The Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam is typically the first step in the process leading to PE licensure. It is designed for recent graduates and students who are close to finishing an undergraduate engineering degree. The FE is a computer-based exam that is administered year-round in testing windows at NCEES-approved Pearson VUE test centers. See the FE exam specifications here. The FE contains 110 multiple-choice questions. The exam appointment time is 6 hours long, which includes a nondisclosure agreement, tutorial (8 minutes), the exam (5 hours and 20 minutes), a scheduled break (25 minutes), and a brief survey. Further details on the FE exam may be found here.
FE Reference Handbook
The FE Reference Handbook is available for free download by registering or logging into MyNCEES . Examinees are urged to familiarize themselves with this resource prior to taking the computer-based exam. A searchable, electronic copy of the handbook will be displayed on the monitor during the exam. Find further information on the handbook here.
Mentor Program for First-Time Takers of the Ag Eng PE Exam
If you're planning to take the Agricultural & Biological Engineering PE exam and would like to be paired with a mentor who can share firsthand knowledge of what to expect, please send a message to Mark Crossley.and we'll be happy to pair you with someone who has taken and passed the exam within the last few years. The mentoring program will be conducted electronically, and once a mentor/mentee pairing has been made, contact information (name and e-mail address) will be shared with each party. This benefit is only available to ASABE members. To join, please click here.
First-Time Taker Incentive Details
Repeat Taker Incentive Details
Ag & Bio Eng PE Practice Exam
Below, please find a series of practice questions to help you prepare for the Ag & Bio Eng PE exam.
Common Systems Applications
Natural Resources & Ecology
PEI is a membership community within ASABE. Founded in 1994, PEI provides a forum for engineers to understand and take action on issues affecting the vitality and continuity of the engineering profession in agricultural, food, and biological systems.
PEI's central objective is to promote the economic and social well being of the general public and of the PEI membership by providing a program to expand the application of sound engineering practices. PEI strives to foster the ideals of the professional engineer and to help the public understand the diverse and unique knowledge base the profession represents. PEI seeks to demonstrate how the profession can and does advance the quality of life and general welfare. To accomplish these broad goals, PEI works closely with people who are responsible for resolving society's technical problems to ensure that those individuals recognize the value of agricultural, food, and biological systems engineering expertise and the potential for the beneficial use of that expertise.
How to become a PEI Member
To be eligible for membership in PEI you must be a member of ASABE and be either a licensed engineer or hold an Engineering Intern classification provided the classification has been in existence for less than 10 years. PEI dues are $30 annually. These dues are used to fund projects that are above and beyond the society's base financial support. You can join PEI on your annual dues invoice or by contacting Tina Schultz.
Questions? Contact the PEI chair.
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DNotes Celebrates its 5 Year Anniversary, Founder Alan Yong Reveals the Vision of Mass Adoption Goal for 2024
By admin February 18, 2019 News
DNotes Global, Inc. today celebrates the fifth anniversary of the DNotes digital currency. Company co-founder and CEO Alan Yong marked the occasion by revealing his five-year vision for digital currency mass adoption through the continuing development and expansion of the DNotes ecosystem and intensive focus on education, awareness, and inclusiveness.
Since its launch five years ago today, DNotes has been relentlessly focused on becoming the world’s trusted, inclusive digital currency. From the start, the DNotes currency has stressed the need to make digital currency accessible and useful for people of all walks of life, everywhere in the world.
Yong and his team have always believed that mass adoption of digital currency is not something that will just happen of its own accord. Instead, that goal can only be achieved through the creation of a fully-integrated ecosystem comprised of many components, including centralized, decentralized, and hybrid bridges.
“For five years, we have worked to develop the DNotes ecosystem,” Yong said. “In addition to the DNotes coin, we have created the secure, online DNotesVault, the DCEBrief news and opinion site, the HERo platform, and innovative payment system tools like DNotesPay. In addition, we have sponsored the educational platform, DNotesEDU.”
“As we continue to roll out elements of our DNotes ecosystem, we will build upon that momentum to lay the foundation for mass adoption with components that increase digital currency awareness and education, while providing the tools people need to fully participate in the emerging digital currency revolution.”
For DNotes, 2018 was an important year. Though the cryptocurrency markets remained bearish, the DNotes team pressed onward in their mass adoption efforts. Earlier in the year, DNotes Global released DNotes 2.0, a DNotes upgrade that implemented proof-of-stake, while adding more utility to the coin. The company also created DNotes Pay and launched HERo – a platform for promoting, inspiring, and educating women in the areas of technology, entrepreneurship, and finance.
Yong stressed the important role that projects like HERo will play in the effort to achieve mass adoption of digital currency. Around the world, nations both big and small have slowly started to realize the importance of increasing female participation in their economies. It is just as important that they be fully involved and invested in this new technological revolution.
“Without female participation in the digital economy,” Yong suggested, “that economy can never achieve its full potential. Digital currency, blockchain, and every other aspect of the emerging digital age need women’s participation to achieve true success. We cannot build a truly beneficial digital economy if half the world’s population – women – are left behind.”
That firm belief in women’s increasingly important role in the ongoing effort to achieve digital currency mass adoption led Yong and his team to start 2019 with an even stronger emphasis on encouraging female participation. Though he acknowledged that the world may not see full mass adoption of digital currency for another five to ten years, the DNotes Global CEO suggested that the effort would be all but impossible without that emphasis on inclusion:
“DNotes has understood all along that inclusiveness and trust will be essential for achieving full adoption of crypto,” he said. “On our fifth anniversary since the launch of DNotes in 2014, we continue to take pride in our commitment to building a truly inclusive and accessible digital currency that can benefit everyone around the globe.”
After Four Years of Diligent Efforts to Encourage Women’s Participation in Cryptocurrency, CryptoMoms has Evolved to Become HERo
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Cluster operations include starting, stopping, adding nodes, and removing the server from the cluster.
Never stop or restart Couchbase Server before you first remove that node from a cluster.
Couchbase Server specifies limits and limitations that may affect server usage and implementation. Depending on the size of the documents passed to the view engine, the performance of Couchbase Server may be affected.
Max key length
The maximum length of the document ID (key).
Max value size
The maximum size of the JSON document.
Max buckets per cluster
The maximum number of buckets in a cluster. See section for information on how to update the maximum number of buckets in a cluster.
Max view key size
The maximum size of the key (first attribute) in the emit() function.
Max doc size for indexing
The maximum size of a document that can be indexed. The default value is set to 20 MB to ensure that all documents get indexed.
In Couchbase Server version 2.x and earlier, the view engine enforced a limit of 1MB on documents that can be indexed. As a result, when the size of a document exceeded the limit, the view engine (in version 2.x) did not index that document.
Max key-value size per document
The maximum byte size allowed to be emitted for a single document and per view. This value is the sum of the sizes of all emitted keys and values.
If a document emits a key-value pair that exceeds the specified maximum key-value size per document, an error is logged and that document is not indexed.
Function timeout
1000 ms
The maximum duration (in milliseconds) to execute all the MapReduce functions in a design document against a single document (map function) or against a list of map values or reductions (reduce or rereduce function). If the execution time for a document exceeds the specified value, the execution is aborted and that document is not indexed.
Sub-document path length
The maximum length of a sub-document path that may be used in one of the sub-document operations.
Sub-document path nesting level
The maximum number of levels a path may reference in sub-document operations.
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Protest update: 1-6 January 2017
By Ruth Hayhurst on January 6, 2017 • ( 12 Comments )
6 January 2017. Photo: Roseacre Awareness Group
Tonight DrillOrDrop starts a new weekly update on protests about oil and gas developments across the UK. In this, the first post, we report from:
Cuadrilla’s fracking site at Preston New Road, Little Plumpton in Lancashire
Protection camp at Kirby Misperton in North Yorkshire, where Third Energy wants to frack for shale gas at its KM8 well
Brockham, near Dorking in Surrey, where Angus Energy is preparing to drill a sidetrack well to increase oil production
Please let us know about news you think DrillorDrop should be reporting.
Preston New Road, Lancashire
Cuadrilla began site construction work at its Preston New Road site on the morning of Thursday 5 January. The first evidence was the installation of traffic lights and the presence of Lancashire Police outside the site.
5 January 2017. Photo: Ami Roberts
Protests outside the site began soon after the news was released.
Rickshaw protest on 5 January 2017. Photo: Ami Roberts
6 January 2017. Photo: Ros Wills
On the second day, 6 January, slow walk protests began.
Slow walk protest on 6 January 2017. Photo: Frack Off
6 January 2017. Photo: Richard Marshall
6 January 2017. Photo: Ben Dean
The pro-fracking group, Backing Fracking, used Twitter to criticise slow-walking protests for delaying general traffic on Preston New Road. Opponents said they were in the section of the road that had been closed by traffic lights.
Source: Backing Fracking Twitter feed
Kirby Misperton, North Yorkshire
The Kirby Misperton Protection Camp, established on 20 December last year when a judicial review failed to reverse the planning permission granted to Third Energy.
Today anti-fracking campaigners from Roseacre, Lancashire, visited the camp.
Visitors from Roseacre Awareness Group. 6 January 2017 Photo: Steve Spy
George Arthur posted on Facebook today (6 January 2017) about how his group, South Yorkshire Freedom Riders, had discussed the camp.
Five point pledge from the camp
Residents at the protection camp wrote this article about the objective of the camp and what conduct would be accepted.
The primary purpose of the Protection Camp is to raise awareness of the irrefutable contamination risks associated with Unconventional Gas Exploitation, by assisting the local anti-fracking community in their quest to highlight the negative impact which the Unconventional Gas industry will undoubtedly have on agriculture and tourism; the two major industries upon which the area is currently largely dependent.
The location of the Kirby Misperton Camp, approximately one and a half miles to the east of Kirby Misperton and some four hundred metres from the nearest residential property, was selected to minimise both disruption and negative impact upon the local Community.
To date, the primary concern of local residents has focused on the vehicles of visitors to the Camp, we have responded to those concerns by asking our visitors to park their cars inside the camp. While weather permits they will continue to park off the road and we will continue to look into alternative parking options.
The sole objective and focus of the Kirby Misperton Protection Camp is, and will remain, the UK Government agenda to exploit Unconventional Hydro-Carbons via the process known as High Volume High Pressure Hydraulic Fracturing. Consequently, the Protection Camp will only remain until Third Energy either renounce their intention to FRACK KM8, or have completed the test frack process.
5 pledges from Kirby Misperton Protection Camp
1). We are committed to non-violent peaceful protest against the use of High Volume High Pressure Hydraulic Fracturing and do not intend to cause any criminal damage in any direct action.
2). We will respect our neighbours and remain open to discussion with all constituents of the local Community
3). Unconventional Gas Exploitation via Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) is the only concern of the Protection Community. We are a single focus campaign and have no intention or desire to be distracted by any other issue or aspect of activity within in the locality.
4). We will care for the land on which we are living and we will return it to the landowner at the end of our campaign in the same condition in which we found it. We are prepared to put aside a bond in an independent ESCROW account that may be used if the field is not returned in a satisfactory state.
5). We will support local businesses and encourage our visitors to do the same.
The current members of Kirby Misperton Protection Camp are committed to these pledges and if new arrivals cannot live by them, they will be asked to leave.
Meanwhile, the residents of Kirby Misperton Protection Camp welcome anyone who wishes to establish for themselves the reasons why we are committed in our opposition to Unconventional Gas Exploitation. We only seek to stimulate people’s curiosity, so that they are motivated to research our concerns for themselves and then come to their own determination as to whether this is an industry they wish to see become established within the Region. Approximately eighty per cent of the County of Yorkshire has now been licenced for Unconventional Gas exploitation … and as Queensland farmer, Brian Monk, observes from his contaminated farm, in the middle of eighteen thousand fracked gas wells, drilled since 2006, “It started with just one well”
6 January 2017. Photo: Jane Ann Carter
Gilling East parish councillor, Chris Pickles, and his wife, Dagmar, helped to construct the site. 5 January 2017. Photo: Ian Crane
6 January 2017. Photo: Nick Danby
Brockham, Surrey
5 January 2017. Photo: Simone Lister
Campaigners established a camp at Brockham in Surrey in December last year when Angus Energy began preparing its site to drill a side-track well.
This week, opponents of the plans continued to carry out slow-walking protests in front of lorries delivering to the site.
Categories: Opposition
Tagged as: Angus Energy, Brockham, Cuadrilla, drilling, Fracking, Kirby Misperton, Kirby Misperton Protection Camp, Preston New Road, Roseacre Awareness Group, Third Energy
First INEOS shale gas exploration bid gets underway
New year, new comment policy
Francis Vegan says:
Should be super mad busy this lol
Looking forward to reading the ongoing story of brave battling Brits inevitably seeing off the fracking freaks
The reason for traffic delays on the main Preston to Blackpool road is because of a set of temporary traffic lights.
Those traffic lights are there because Cuadrilla have requested them.
Cuadrilla is the company who caused 50 seismic events in the area in 2011 which included 2 earthquakes which were felt many miles away. The largest event was 2.3 magnitude.
Cuadrilla have been advised by the British Geological Survey that future similar events are likely and that little is known of the fault system of the Bowland shale.
Cuadrilla have asked for future maximum levels of 2.6 magnitude.
This proposed site is much larger than the Cuadrilla Preese Hall site where the earthquakes were induced.
Communities need protecting from this unnecessary and unpredictable dangerous industry.
This industry will never be accepted by the British public.
These protests are just the beginning of a country wide refusal of the shale gas industry.
hballpeenyahoocom says:
These people really need to get a job. I they’re wealthy, they should go donate money to those who live in fuel poverty. Would have a much greater positive impact on society.
Nigel Hennerley says:
hballpeenyahoocom should have paid more attention at school…
I am not sure which cause more noise and traffic hazards,. The protest or the work program? Waste of police officers time and resources to keep the protesters in check.
TW – the whole point of the protests is to cause disruption and traffic chaos to the general public. The longer it goes on, the more people who use the roads to travel on will get upset with the protesters. This is already happening in KM where locals are fed up with them and want rid of them. Same at Balcombe when they the swampys were down there. They will deny this but I know people over there and this is what they are telling me. Agree that it is a gross waste of public money. The company will get it’s work done albeit possibly a bit slower. But they will allowed for this in their planning. From the photos it is clear that very few people are involved – after all most people have jobs and lives to lead. I also agree that if a risk assessment is undertaken it will be clear that the protesters are increasing the risk of RTAs and possibly a protester getting hurt or killed but the latter is their own choice.
Mr M says:
I’m all for debate as it is healthy in a democracy. But I’m not supportive of action that could result in serious injury or worse. Standing in front of a HGV is simply stupid, I have great sympathy for the poor drivers.
hrb says:
from the pictures it seems clear that any hold-ups are caused by the temporary traffic lights which always cause delays. there were frack free people there today but no traffic lights and therefore no delays
I think the public are becoming aware that water security is more important than gas security especially as it’s obvious that the gas will only flow (from shale) for far less that a single generation but the damaging impacts can go on far longer.
Pretty disorganised approach from the antis and yet they believe the public will not disagree with them?
Sorry, but KM was ALWAYS a side issue, where an existing gas reserve (been utilised for two generations without problems) looking to be stimulated by new technology to get more efficiency. Yet, the antis contrive to spend big money on a lost cause to challenge it legally, and then descend into the neighbourhood to stop it. The media had fun with this, but are now starting to examine with a more scientific basis. What happens when they start to show up the attempted manipulation of the planning process by outsiders and on-line abuse of locals who support the project? At the same time, FOE have been shown to be milking the issue for all they can get out of it and credibility has been lost.
If this had been a military campaign, the white flag should have been shown at the end of last week. If the antis keep shooting themselves even the most sympathetic will lose interest, the antis will become more aggressive, and the whole situation will end badly.
‘the most sympathetic will lose interest’
I presume you are referring to the Labour party, the liberal Democrats, the SNP, the Welsh Assembly, The Northern Ireland Assembly, the Green party, the Unite Union, and the majority of the British population.
Support against fracking down to a ‘trickle’ then.
Not heard of anyone recently saying ‘ yes I used to be against fracking but now I think it is a great idea’
zazz says:
As someone who grew up in a coal mining area with spoil hills all over the landscapes and regular mine collapses which killed numerous workers, I really don’t think that the level of danger being posed by the anti-frackers is worth being concerned about.
Leave a Reply to Paul Tresto Cancel reply
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FOE’s fracking leaflet – the key arguments
DrillOrDrop has identified some of the key arguments over Friends of the Earth’s disputed fund-raising leaflet about fracking.
Earlier this month, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) told the organisation not to use the leaflet again or repeat sections of it without acceptable evidence. (DrillOrDrop report).
This followed a complaint from the shale gas company, Cuadrilla, and Ken Wilkinson and Michael Roberts, two members of the public who have frequently challenged anti-fracking campaign material.
It wasn’t possible to find out much about the case because the ASA resolved the case informally. This meant it did not publish the full grounds of the complaint or any of the defence. And there was no formal ruling by the ASA council on whether Friends of the Earth had been misleading or inaccurate.
But documents have since emerged from a similar complaint by Mr Wilkinson and Rev Roberts about the same leaflet to the now defunct Fund Raising Standards Board (linked here)
DrillOrDrop has used these documents and new material from Friends of the Earth to identify the main arguments for and against the statements in the leaflet. Link to compilation
They cover issues including:
Description of chemicals used in fracking
The use of silica
Health risks, including cancer and asthma
The risk of contamination of groundwater
Friends of the Earth put forward evidence of the risk of additives used in the fracking process, the potential for water contamination and what it said were flaws in the regulatory process. The organisation said:
“We contend that there is a strong and growing body of evidence of the potential health risks from fracking.”
Mr Wilkinson argued that the industry was well regulated and regulations would reduce the likelihood of risks identified by Friends of the Earth. He said:
“Fracking has been performed offshore and onshore frequently, for decades in the UK, and there is no reason to think that the experienced regulators at the HSE [Health and Safety Executive] will not be able to cope with any slight differences.”
“We won’t be silenced on fracking”
Last week, Friends of the Earth defended the leaflet. It’s chief executive, Craig Bennett, said:
“We won’t be distracted from the real issues or silenced from telling people the truth. We continue to stand by our facts.
“Our environment needs protecting; it’s why we believe we should heed expert warnings and why we won’t apologise for rejecting this risky industry, as the people of Lancashire and their elected representatives did.”
Writing on FOE’s website and in a letter to the Lancashire Evening Telegraph last week, Mr Bennett said:
“For clarity, the ASA closed the case informally without making any ruling on our claims or their accuracy. This is in contrast to the formal ruling that the ASA made on the inaccuracy of misleading claims by Cuadrilla in 2013.
“In our case, Friends of the Earth agreed not to reuse an old leaflet, or repeat some specific wording, because the case was taking time away from vital campaigning – we are, after all, talking about an out-of-date leaflet from two years ago.
“But, one thing is certain, we continue to stand by our facts. Indeed, the scientific evidence against fracking is stronger than ever.”
Mr Bennett noted that in December 2016, the US Environmental Protection Agency had identified cases of impacts on drinking water at each stage in the hydraulic fracturing water cycle. He also said:
“A letter from 18 health professionals including Dr Adam, former Deputy Chief Medical Officer, and Dr Gerarda, former chair of the Royal College of GPs, says that ‘the arguments against fracking on public health and ecological grounds are overwhelming’.
“Vitally, if we’re to deal with climate change, fossil fuels must stay in the ground. Fracking just isn’t compatible with that.”
Mr Wilkinson, who has complained to the ASA several times about anti-fracking materials, responded:
“FoE have used justifications that do not stand up to scientific scrutiny.
“They have ignored UK law on chemicals, ignored regulations that mean many US style incidents cannot occur here, and have used very suspect sources for their conclusions, while ignoring reliable sources such as the Royal Academy of Engineering report of fracking.
“I feel that FoE are in a very difficult position, legally and morally. They are ignoring the regulator, playing fast and loose with Charity Commission standards, and continuing to mislead the public.”
Link to compilation of arguments
Tagged as: Advertising Standards Authority, arguments, asthma, cancer, case, chemicals, complaint, contamination, Cuadrilla, defend, FOE, Fracking, Friends of the Earth, health risk, Ken Wilkinson, Michael Roberts, misleading, shale gas, silenced
Views sought on permit for Doe Green CBM site
Residents to quiz regulators over Cuadrilla’s fracking site
… taken out of context. I invite anyone to read the full report – which also says “A Yale University study released in September found that Pennsylvania residents living less than two-thirds of a mile from natural-gas wells were much more likely to report skin and upper-respiratory problems than people living farther away”. “A Colorado School of Public Health analysis published in April found 30 percent more congenital heart defects in babies born to mothers in gas-well-intensive parts of that state than to mothers with no wells within 10 miles of their homes.”
And a 2013 study for the state of West Virginia found benzene, a carcinogen, above levels considered safe by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry near four of seven gas well pads where air was sampled.. ”
We’re talking about science in progress because both industry and State regulators have not shown due diligence in establishing the science in depth on these matters. The problems and timescale are compounded by inadequate baseline studies which cannot be engineered post hoc. We’ve been around this loop before TW.
The data contradicts your statement about no clustering or association by proximity. Furthermore, to quote “We knew people were getting really sick, and more and more data started coming out about air issues, and the state refused to do any real testing,” said Thomas, 60, now director of ShaleTest, an environmental data-collection nonprofit based in Texas. “And so we decided we would start doing some testing ourselves.” Observations like this stand as valid prima facie evidence (of which there is plenty) in the absence of any concrete disproof.
Size samples are also important. Congenital heart defect is rare and so are the population around fracking sites are also small. If they sample only a few sites then sampling could be an issue that make their findings less compelling.
michaelroberts4004 says:
Reblogged this on Peddling and Scaling God and Darwin and commented:
A bit more on the Friends of the Earth saga
Michael – what are you “peddling” on that blog that you keep referring to from your Backing Fracking Facebook page?
Janet Russell says:
Well and patiently argued Philip P. Scientists are not immune from finding evidence to suit their prior conviction, and under threat of funding cuts from this bigoted, cruel, and short-sighted government, many nationally funded bodies are making pronouncements which suit their paymasters. The BBC’s political news, the Arts council’s priorities, public enquiry conclusions, whether to have public enquiries, the time it take for them to give a conclusion ….. the UK Environmental Agency will be no different. May’s government already got rid of the Renewable Energy department, the EA won’t want to be “replaced” by something “better” because they express the uncomfortable truth that there is a lot or research material detailing negative health effects around fracking wells in the US waiting to be gathered together and looked at seriously.
Janet – as you seem to have difficulty finding where the Government has put the EC out of DECC – exactly where it used to be and where it should have stayed:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-business-energy-and-industrial-strategy
The department brings together responsibilities for business, industrial strategy, science, innovation, energy, and climate change.
BEIS is a ministerial department, supported by 47 agencies and public bodies.
We are responsible for:
developing and delivering a comprehensive industrial strategy and leading the government’s relationship with business
ensuring that the country has secure energy supplies that are reliable, affordable and clean
ensuring the UK remains at the leading edge of science, research and innovation
tackling climate change
Thanks Janet . Yes, in effect they (govt.) have dropped the ball on climate change and related renewable energy issues. There will be tokenism in that direction for a while, just to appear to toe the line, but I see the minister now in charge of CC doesn’t actually understand it. Same thing happening on the other side of the Atlantic.
So we’re kind of stuck with the outdated dogmatic kinds of thinking that you see amongst the pro-frackers here – averse to research and clinging to the old school ‘science’, or their idea of it. It will take a newer generation to overthrow this kind of hoary thinking after a lot more damage has been done to the environment.
I would suggest this is now simply, “we lost that argument so let’s have a different argument”!
All very interesting to some, but for those asked to give “£30 to help use the media” and having seen the comments from some of the media editorials about the FOE saga, I would suspect much more than £30 will be needed.
Editorial approach is not the same as advertising policy, but some media will now be very careful to scrutinise much more closely.
Dr Nick Riley MBE, C'Geol. FGS says:
I was on Preston station yesterday. A lady was being thoughtless, blocking a door to the café, when I was wanting to quickly grab a coffee before the Barrow train came in. She had a big badge with the slogan (slogans are what debate is now reduced to unfortunately) “FRACK FREE LANCS”. I so much wanted to change her slogan, or even make my own badge – “SO YOU WANT A FACT FREE LANCS?” – but I had to dash for the train.
Yes. Anti fracking movement is becoming more and more like a cult. A strong religous like belief in their view with less and less regards for a balanced critical review, judgement or thought of science and facts.
Yes the facts are clear………..
Geology any Human Health
Potential Health and Environmental Effects of Hydofracking.
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/health/case_studies/hydrofracking_w.html
Your badge on facts would obviously read
Cuadrilla aim to be a ‘model company’
Cuadrilla carried out 6 small fracks.
They blindly drilled through a fault
That triggered 50 seismic events
The largest event was 2.3 magnitude, caused damage to property and was felt miles away
The British Geological Survey state these events would be likely in an future operations
Cuadrilla have asked to be allowed to trigger larger events
The well casing buckled
Cuadrilla had technical problems when they abandoned the well
Cuadrilla want to make Lancashire the ” largest gas field in the whole of Western Europe”.
The majority of the community have said no, the parish council said no, the district council said no, and the county council said no but me and a few others I think it is a great idea to do lots more.
I will look out for you wearing the badge of facts unless you disagree that these are the facts to date
But now COE supports fracking, what sort of religious cult, TW?
I can quite understand the COE approach. If the world was created by their boss and he/she placed vast quantities of gas within UK shale, it follows pretty logically that it was a resource for Adam and Eve’s descendants to utilise!
Eleven, time for my apple!
Martin. I think CoE made their position based on unbiased facts and evidence. As workers of Gods their responsibility is to seek truth and act accordingly. Natural justice and the truth are the willing of Gods. Whereas the cult is more of their own personal interests and interpretation of the truth to suit their personal belief and agenda.
Quite right TW.
Perhaps COE should remind FOE limited, about commandment number 9.
More likely a post hoc rationalisation once God pointed out that they stand to make millions out of it.
Being major land holders (primary title holders of large tracts of land in England) and also being one of the few authorities, besides the State/Crown with statutory mineral rights, they will be able to drive a hard bargain with O&G. Interesting.
I doubt that financial gain is the main drive behind CoE as you tried to imply. If they are they would not have divested from fossil fuels investment.
Oh well they’ll probably change their tune if/when they get up to date on the real impacts of onshore shale gas and learn that it is not the bridge fuel that it is hyped up to be.
Very interesting, indeed Philip. I suppose there should be some praise for speculation, it is a step in the right direction, from the past towards, facts, science and the truth. However, I am not convinced this is a road to total redemption!
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Net Neutrality Update: Fallout From FCC Chair Ajit Pai's Speech Last Week
Net neutrality, outlined by the Open Internet Order, is slated for repeal by FCC chair Ajit Pai, who spoke about the inadequacies of Title II designation.
Krista Grace Morris May 01, 2017 at 3:20 pm GMT
Valery Kalantay | Shutterstock.com
Last Wednesday, April 26th, FCC chair Ajit Pai gave a speech to the Newseum, detailing his plan to repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order. Posted on the FCC website the next day, reactions to Pai’s plan range from hesitantly dubious to outright infuriated.
Ajit Pai warned the American people that net neutrality had a “longstanding goal of forcing the Internet under the federal government’s control.” He also said that “Nothing about the Internet was broken in 2015. Nothing about the law had changed, and there was not a rash of ISPs blocking consumers from accessing the content, applications, or services of their choice.”
Here are Ajit Pai’s remarks.
These claims have been widely disputed. Let’s break down Pai’s major points and the responses to each one.
Disputed Claims From Ajit Pai’s Newseum Speech
We covered Pai’s previous comments about his Net Neutrality plan, which most people assumed spelled doom for the Internet’s Title II designation and the Open Internet Order.
FCC Chair Ajit Pai detailed his plan to repeal Net Neutrality.Click To Tweet
Now that his plan has been fleshed out, let’s address the most important claims:
1. “Nothing about the Internet was broken in 2015. Nothing about the law had changed, and there was not a rash of ISPs blocking consumers from accessing the content, applications, or services of their choice.” -Ajit Pai
As we noted before, there had been several complaints of paid prioritization against large ISPs prior to the 2015 Open Internet Order, including:
In 2004, Madison River Communications restricted use of Vonage‘s VoIP communications on its network in order to stop competition with its own landline phone service.
In 2008, when Verizon was awarded a large part of the radio spectrum for roughly $9 billion USD, they were supposed to remain neutral and allow any software to run on its network. The company blocked third-party tethering apps in an attempt to force customers to pay an additional fee for use of their own tethering service. They even forced Google to remove third-party tethering apps from the apps store. They were forced to pay a $1.25 million USD settlement for failure to adhere to the guidelines of its spectrum acquisition.
Comcast‘s notorious throttling of Netflix streaming for its users, until Netflix agreed to pay Comcast in late 2013.
In 2012, AT&T blocked the use of FaceTime to its Apple iPhone customers, arguing that it used to much bandwidth. According to the affected customers, AT&T was hoping to incentivize its own voice communication services.
2. FTC Jurisdiction is “better” for American Internet Privacy
Ajit Pai argues that returning ISPs to common carrier status, which falls under the FTC regulatory jurisdiction, will allow American’s better privacy guarantees, as the FTC is “the nation’s most expert and experienced privacy regulator.”
Critics argue that Pai’s claims are false. Here are a couple of reasons why:
The FTC can only address violations after the fact. They are not able to proactively dissuade ISPs from violating basic net neutrality principles.
The FCC is allowed to put regulations in place that prevent violations.
FCC regulations that were recently shot down by congress would have forced ISPs to gain customer consent to gather and sell personal information. Under the FTC, ISPs will be able to profit off of internet user’s personal information without the user being aware.
3. “Title II regulation would reduce investment in broadband infrastructure.” -Ajit Pai
Pai cited a study from the Free State Foundation, which claimed that the Open Internet Order cost $5 billion USD in broadband investment. This foundation has ties to the dubious American Legislative Exchange Council, which has been accused of lobbying for prepackaged bills in state and federal congresses even outside the realm of specific issues.
According to the Center for Public Integrity’s Nonprofit Network tool, the two biggest telecom lobbying groups, the Internet and Television Association and the Wireless Association, which represent companies like Comcast and AT&T, contributed over $600,000 USD to the Free State Foundation. In short, the Free State Foundation is directly influenced by the biggest opponents to net neutrality.
Contrary to Pai’s claim, Free Press found that major ISPs’ investments actually increased after net neutrality rules passed. As Gizmodo mentions, business for ISPs has been good enough for AT&T to drop $2 million USD on the Trump inauguration, who was the candidate most opposed to net neutrality in practice.
Comcast even recently boasted about their “consistent investment and innovation.”
Despite the facts, Ajit Pai took this imagined lack of investment even further, asserting that the lack of investment would dissuade ISPs from building Internet infrastructure in poorer communities. There is evidence that ISPs neglect building infrastructure in poorer communities, but there is zero evidence that it is due to net neutrality.
What’s Really Going on
Critics of Ajit Pai and his policies like to point out that he was a lawyer for Verizon and is likely influenced by telecom giant interests. To the most outspoken opponents of the FCC’s current direction, it seems to be that corporate interests are outweighing consumer preference.
But there is a large contingent of influential entities arguing against Pai’s plan.
Netflix and Facebook are proponents of net neutrality, and so are almost 800 other startups that want to make sure there is a level playing field within the Internet. Engine, Y Combinator, and TechStars sent a letter to Ajit Pai, arguing that “Our companies should be able to compete with incumbents on the quality of our products and services, not our capacity to pay tolls to Internet access providers.”
Here at Edgy, we argue that leaving the Internet open to manipulation by ISPs actually stifles innovation. When people are forced to pay excessive fees and surrender their personal information for the profit of large corporations, illegal behaviors are effectively encouraged. We feel strongly that a compromise between corporate interests and consumer rights must arrive and a free and open Internet.
What do you think? Which of Ajit Pai’s points did you agree with/disagree with?
Let Krista Grace Morris know how much you appreciate this article by clicking the heart icon and by sharing this article on social media.
Krista Grace Morris
Krista is addicted to traveling and learning first-hand. She loves Sci-Fi, building systems, and fighting entropy.
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World / AIDS
As AIDS conference opens in Mexico, migrants are a focus
(FILES) In this file photograph taken on November 30, 2012, a Cambodian doctor (R) offers Anti Retro Viral (ARV) drugs to a woman (L) who is living with HIV, at the Khmer-Soviet Friendship hospital in Phnom Penh. - HIV-related deaths last year fell to around 770,000 -- some 33 percent lower than in 2010 -- the United Nations said July 15, 2019, but warned that global efforts to eradicate the disease were stalling as funding dries up. An estimated 37.9 million people now live with HIV -- a record 23.3 million of those have access to some antiretroviral therapy (ART), UNAIDS said in its annual report. (Photo by TANG CHHIN Sothy / AFP)
The spread of HIV as a serious aspect of Latin America's migration crisis -- whether through Venezuelans forced to emigrate to obtain medicine or Central American migrants unaware they carry the virus -- will be a focus of the world AIDS conference opening Sunday in Mexico City.
Some 6,000 scientists, physicians, activists and government officials are due to learn about the latest in treatments and research and discuss the human and social costs of AIDS and HIV.
At present, no program focuses on Latin America's HIV-infected migrants, said Brenda Crabtree, a Mexican physician and AIDS specialist who is co-chairperson of the conference.
Ahead of the conference, organizers took early-arriving participants to a clinic in Iztapalapa, one of Mexico City's poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods.
The Condesa Clinic welcomes patients from any country, without inquiring about their legal status, and provides free care.
While some parts of the Mexican public health system demand that a patient's papers be in order, the Condesa clinic aims to be a "sanctuary" for migrants, Crabtree said.
In Venezuela, some 120,000 people live with HIV/AIDS and need retroviral medicines, but nearly 80,000 are currently unable to obtain those drugs, she added.
About one in four foreign patients at Condesa is Venezuelan; 16 percent are Colombian; and another 16 percent come from Central American countries, clinic director Florentino Badial said.
There are also growing numbers of Haitians and Cubans.
Most of the Venezuelans and Colombians arrived legally in Mexico in search of work; most of the Central Americans are undocumented.
The Central Americans, generally less well educated, "are afraid," said Luis Manuel Arellano, a clinic employee. "But we treat them like we would any Mexican."
When a caravan brought thousands of migrants to Mexico in November, the clinic offered free testing and found six undetected cases of HIV, which were then treated.
"Migrants are not abandoned," Arellano said. "We take care of their health."
Carlos Gamez, a 32-year-old Cuban, arrived in Mexico in 2017, having just been diagnosed with HIV. He was able to find drugs at the clinic.
"If I had had to pay, it would not have been possible," he said.
"Undiagnosed cases of AIDS in Maldives may be high"
'London patient': second case ever of HIV remission
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Runal Patel
Greg Richmond
Jennifer Jilot
David J. Johns
Peter Huidekoper
Jessica Rauch
School Quality and Accountability
School Choice and Charter Schools
What Is the Belief Gap?
Charter Leaders of Color
Coffee Break Q&As
Brett Bigham
Sharif El-Mekki
ShaRhonda Knott-Dawson
Kelisa Wing
Zachary Wright
Students of Color
Blog > Accountability
Coffee Break: Richard Kahlenberg on Knocking Down School District Walls That Separate Kids by Race and Class
Posted Mar. 16, 2017 in Accountability, Charter Schools
Peter Cunningham is the founder of Education Post and serves on its board. He served as Assistant Secretary for communications and outreach in the U.S. Department of Education during the Obama administration. Prior to that he led communications for Chicago Public Schools. Full profile →
Richard Kahlenberg is perhaps the nation’s leading proponent of the idea that for kids to succeed, schools must be places where families of all economic backgrounds come together. A senior fellow at The Century Foundation, he is also a leading authority on many other aspects of K-12 and higher education.
His most recent book, co-authored with Halley Potter, “A Smarter Charter: Finding What Works for Charter Schools and Public Education,” examines two myth-busting strategies in a small but growing number of charter schools: promoting economic diversity in enrollment and amplifying teacher voice. He talked with us about innovative ways schools of all kinds can increase economic diversity in their schools and why that’s important for children in poverty.
Are you a tea or coffee drinker? How do you take it?
Even with a new testosterone-driven administration in power, I’m not afraid to say I drink tea with sugar.
You’ve focused a lot of your recent work on economic integration of public schools. Why is it important, where is it happening and how does it work?
The 1966 Coleman Report—the granddaddy of education studies—found that the biggest predictor of academic achievement is the socioeconomic status of the family a child comes from and the second biggest predictor is the socioeconomic status of the school she attends. Low-income students given a chance to attend middle class schools are as much as two years ahead of low-income students stuck in high-poverty schools on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in math. Sophisticated studies using random assignment find very powerful positive effects on student achievement when low-income students attend middle-class schools.
What’s frustrated me is that while there is a social science consensus that poverty concentrations are bad for education, there is also an outdated political consensus that there is nothing we can do about it. We’ve learned a lot about how to integrate schools since the days of compulsory busing for racial desegregation that fostered such a backlash.
Today, most districts use choice and incentives—like non-selective magnet schools—to promote diversity. And the trend is to emphasize socio-economic as well as racial diversity because using economic status avoids the legal problems associated with using race and because social science research suggests it is the economic status of classmates that most powerfully correlates with academic achievement.
Today, 100 school districts and charter schools in 32 states have adopted conscious plans to allow rich and poor kids to go to school together and learn from one another. In places like Cambridge, Massachusetts, which uses choice to achieve economic diversity in its schools, graduation rates for low-income, Black and Hispanic students are as much as 20 percentage points higher than for comparable groups in nearby Boston. And White students do better in Cambridge, too. Indeed, a growing body of research suggests middle-class and White students benefit because diverse learning environments make us all smarter.
EdBuild has done some work on how economic classes are segregated by school boundaries. What would it take to have economically-integrated schools at scale? Would urban and suburban districts ever consolidate?
I’m on EdBuild’s research advisory board and I think they’re doing fabulous work exposing economic segregation. EdBuild has noted that there are glaring economic inequalities even between some jurisdictions that sit right next to one another.
Taking economic integration to scale, ultimately requires that we move beyond artificially set barriers and walls that have been constructed between cities and suburbs in the minds of policymakers. Several metropolitan areas, including Hartford, Connecticut; St. Louis, Missouri; Boston, Massachusetts; Omaha, Nebraska; Rochester, New York and Minneapolis, Minnesota, have longstanding and successful school integration programs that reach across traditional school district lines.
Other districts, like Wake County (Raleigh), North Carolina and Louisville (Jefferson County), Kentucky, have successful school integration programs that encompass city and suburb within a single jurisdiction. We’ve heard a lot about building new walls in the election season, but we really should be knocking down artificial school district walls that separate kids by race and class.
Are public charters one tool to achieve this outcome or are they impeding economic integration? Broadly speaking, do parents need more choice in public education?
Yes, yes and yes. Charters, in theory, and sometimes in practice, can be a powerful engine for economic school integration. As my colleague Halley Potter and I note in our book, Albert Shanker, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, proposed charter schools in 1988 as places where teachers could experiment with new ideas and where students of different backgrounds could learn from one another. His model was a school in Cologne Germany where Turkish immigrant and German native students sat side by side and both groups benefited.
Unfortunately, many charter schools today are even more segregated than traditional public schools—which is a pretty difficult thing to be. Having said that, we profile in the book a small but growing number of charter schools that are intentionally diverse—the Denver School of Science and Technology, High Tech High in San Diego, City Neighbors in Baltimore, Morris Jeff in New Orleans, Blackstone Valley Prep in Rhode Island, Capital City and E.L. Haynes in Washington, D.C., Community Roots in Brooklyn and Larchmont in Los Angeles.
There are two ways to integrate schools: through public school choice that overcomes neighborhood segregation by race and class; and through housing integration that makes neighborhood schools integrated institutions. We need to push forward on both fronts.
You’ve argued in defense of teachers unions, who have been both partners in improving schools, but also opponents of reforms like accountability and choice. On balance are unions helping more than hurting? What’s their likely posture in the Trump/DeVos era?
Teachers unions are one of the most misunderstood institutions in American society. In writing Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race and Democracy, I came to realize what life was like before unions had any real power. Teachers were even more poorly paid than they are today and had very little dignity, which was not good for students. Teachers unions changed that. The highest-quality studies suggest that achievement among students is stronger in places where teachers unions are strong.
One silver lining in the Trump/DeVos era is that progressives may finally wake up and come to realize the importance of teachers unions in standing up against the privatization of American education. There will be lots of important allies in the defense of public education—superintendents, principals, public school parents and students, civil rights groups—but only the teachers unions have the political muscle to defend the institution of public education that is so vital for our democracy.
I recently wrote a piece lamenting resegregation by race of public education and asking if it is worth the fight. School boundaries mostly align with segregated housing patterns and efforts to integrate schools—like busing—have stalled. And there’s some evidence that people of color care less about integration than educational quality. What are your thoughts about integration, especially in today’s political environment?
It’s false to suggest that educational quality and integration are disconnected ideas. Middle-class schools are 22 times as likely to be high performing as high-poverty schools, in part because disadvantaged students face extra obstacles, but in part because economic segregation has an independent, negative effect on student achievement.
In today’s political environment, integrated schooling is more important than ever. Integrated schools make it more difficult for demagogues to run for office by scapegoating minorities. Integrated schools raise achievement that fuels social mobility.
After one of the most divisive elections in memory, we desperately need integrated schools that remind school children what they have in common as Americans.
Donald Trump will likely set back federal efforts for school integration, but the 100 school districts promoting economic diversity mostly created their plans on their own and school districts can continue to do so in the age of Trump. I worked with Michael Alves and John Brittain to help Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools develop an economic integration program for their dozens of magnet schools. The day after Trump was elected, the Charlotte School board voted 9-0 in support of a plan to move beyond “separate but equal” schooling and adopted an economic diversity program that is good for students, good for teachers and good for the community.
Progressives should seize upon the rhetoric of Trump and DeVos—that poor kids trapped in failing schools deserve something better—to advocate on behalf of public school choice that intentionally promotes integrated schools. Five decades of research suggests this approach will be far more effective in helping kids than private school voucher plans that are receiving so much attention.
Photo courtesy of The Century Foundation.
Accountability, Charter Schools, Academic Success, AFT, Al Shanker, American Federation of Teachers, busing, Charter Schools, Coffee Break, Coleman Report, EdBuild, education reform, Graduation Rates, high-poverty schools, income inequality, Integration, intentional diversity, James Coleman, Magnet Schools, NAEP, National Assessment of Educational Progress, Poverty, Richard Kahlenberg, School Choice, School Integration, School Integration Programs, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, segregation, socioeconomic integration, student achievement, teacher compensation, teacher pay, Teacher Unions, Teachers Unions, Trump Administration
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Coffee Break: Yamuna Menon on Connecticut Choice and Cinnabon Coffee
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Bart Johnsen-Harris,
Josh Chetwynd,
Statement: Dual EPA rollbacks weaken clean water protections against toxic coal waste
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released two proposals today to roll back clean water protections against waste from coal-fired power plants. The first proposal would overhaul wastewater rules, drastically weakening safeguards that prevent utilities from discharging toxic pollutants like arsenic, lead and mercury into America’s waterways. The second proposal would significantly extend closure dates for coal ash disposal sites, allowing utilities to continue storing toxic coal debris in ponds that can leak or overflow, for decades.
Environment America highlighted the dangers of coal ash ponds in its Accidents Waiting to Happen report. In 2014, for example, 39,000 tons of toxic coal ash and 27 million gallons of coal ash pit water spilled into the Dan River in North Carolina after a pipe burst at the Dan River Steam Station.
Bart Johnsen-Harris, clean water advocate for Environment America, issued the following statement:
“Coal waste is dangerous to both human health and our environment — the two things that the EPA is tasked to protect. We need to keep this toxic waste out of our waterways.
“These rollbacks would allow significant threats to our rivers, lakes and streams to continue. According to the EPA’s own data, power plants account for 30 percent of toxic discharges to waterways, including arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium — a cancer-causing substance. Yet the agency’s first proposal would allow these facilities to continue dumping more toxic substances into waterways.
“The EPA’s second proposal would dramatically delay the closure and cleanup of coal ash ponds, which pose risks to both groundwater and surface waters. As highlighted in our Accidents Waiting to Happen report, several of these coal ash pits are located in flood zones, creating an additional threat of contamination during severe storms.
“The sad truth is that burning coal produces arsenic, mercury, lead and selenium — toxic waste that has no place in the lakes where we swim, the rivers where we fish or the water we drink. Yet instead of transitioning us away from these toxic hazards, the EPA would allow power plants to continue dumping them into our waterways. We cannot allow our nation to go backwards on clean water.”
Josh Chetwynd
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Il y a du thé renversé au bord de la table
Adventure! Excitement! Wonders! Random thoughts by David Rajchenbach-Teller!
My public key
Re-dreaming Firefox (3): Identities
Gerv’s recent post on the Jeeves Test got me thinking of the Firefox of my dreams. So I decided to write down a few ideas on how I would like to experience the web. Today: Identities. Let me emphasise that the features described in this blog post do not exist.
Sacha has a Facebook account, plus two Gmail accounts and one Microsoft Live identity. Sacha is also present on Twitter, both with a personal account, and as the current owner of his company’s account. Sacha also has an account on his bank, another one on Paypal, and one on Amazon. With any browser other than Firefox, Sacha’s online life would be a bit complicated.
For one thing, Sacha is logged to several of these accounts most of the time. Sacha has been told that this makes him easy to track, not just when he’s on Facebook, but also when he visits blogs, or news sites, or even shopping sites, but really, who has time to log off from any account? With any other browser, or with an older version of Firefox, Sacha would have no online privacy. Fortunately, Sacha is using Firefox, which has grown pretty good at handling identities.
Indeed, Firefox knows the difference between Facebook’s (and Google’s, etc.) main sites, for which Sacha may need to be logged, and the tracking devices installed on other sites through ads, or through the Like button (and Google +1, etc.), which are pure nuisances. So, even when Sacha is logged on Facebook, his identity remains hidden from the tracking devices. To put it differently, Sacha is logged to Facebook only on Facebook tabs, and only while he’s using Facebook in these tabs. And since Sacha has two GMail accounts, his logging on each account doesn’t interact with the other account. This feature is good not only for privacy, but also for security, as it considerably mitigates the danger of Cross-Site Scripting attacks. Conversely, if a third-party website uses Facebook as an identity provider, Firefox can detect this automatically, and handle the log-in.
Privacy doesn’t stop there. Firefox has a database of Terms of Service for most websites. Whenever Firefox detects that Sacha is entering his e-mail address, or his phone number, or his physical address, Firefox can tell Sacha if he’s signing up for spam or telemarketing – and take measures to avoid it. If Sacha is signing up for spam, Firefox can automatically create an e-mail alias specific to this website, valid either for a few days, or forever. If Sacha has a provider of phone aliases, Firefox can similarly create a phone alias specific to the website, valid either for a few days, or forever. Similarly, if Sacha’s bank offers temporary credit card numbers, Firefox can automatically create a single-transaction credit card number.
Firefox offers an Identity Panel (if we release this feature, it will, of course, be called Persona) that lets Sacha find out exactly which site is linked to which identity, and grant or revoke authorizations to log-in automatically when visiting such sites, as well as log in or out from a single place. In effect, this behaves as a Internet-wide Single Sign On across identities. With a little help, Firefox can even be taught about lesser known identity providers, such as Sacha’s company’s Single Sign On, and handle them from the same panel. That Identity Panel also keeps track of e-mail aliases, and can be used to revoke spam- and telemarketing-inducing aliases in just two clicks.
Also, security has improved a lot. Firefox can automatically generate strong passwords – it even has a database of sites which accept accept passphrases, or are restricted to 8 characters, etc. Firefox can also detect when Sacha uses the same password on two unrelated sites, and explain him why this is a bad idea. Since Firefox can safely and securely share passwords with other devices and back them up into the cloud, or to encrypted QR Codes that Sacha can safely keep in his wallet, Sacha doesn’t even need to see passwords. Since Firefox handles the passwords, it can download every day a list of websites that are known to have been hacked, and use it to change passwords semi-automatically if necessary.
Security doesn’t stop there. The Identity Panel knows not only about passwords and identity providers, but also about the kind of information that Sacha has provided to each website. This includes Sacha’s e-mail address and physical address, Sacha’s phone number, and also Sacha’s credit card number. So when Firefox finds out that a website to which Sacha subscribes has been hacked, Sacha is informed immediately of the risks. This extends to less material information, such as Sacha’s personal blog of vacation pictures, which Sacha needs to check immediately to find out whether they have been defaced.
I would like to browse with this Firefox. Would you?
Tagged: cookies, facebook, Firefox, google, identity, online, passwords, paypal, privacy, security, single sign on, twitter, web
§ 8 Responses to Re-dreaming Firefox (3): Identities
Emanuele says:
I like agnostic tools. I understand average users today are not very skilled users, but I find all these efforts in protecting them from themselves a worse solution than the original problem.
A “Identity section” in which I can look at all these stuff and manage them could be good (and users can learn from it what happens during their browsing sessions). Assuming that I want this instead of that behavior is bad. It’s really really bad.
yoric says:
What part are you referring to? Making Facebook, Google, etc. cookies opt-in instead of opt-out?
for example here:
Indeed, Firefox knows the difference between Facebook’s (and Google’s, etc.) main sites, for which Sacha may need to be logged, and the tracking devices installed on other sites through ads, or through the Like button (and Google +1, etc.), which are pure nuisances. So, even when Sacha is logged on Facebook, his identity remains hidden from the tracking devices
Moreover, I didn’t understand how you want to manage the “two gmail account” scenario in your vision.
Nope. I like agnostic tools.
Well, it is protection against third-party tracking. At some point, the browser needs to have some domain-specific knowledge to block third-party tracking, just as it needs to have some domain-specific knowledge to block ads, just as it needs to some domain-specific knowledge to block malicious sites. Is that your issue?
Not 100% sure, but it will depend either on the approach I described here or making sure that we have different cookies on different tabs.
Craig Kempson says:
David, the comments regarding the “Persona” name in this and in previous parts have really made me laugh. Nicely done!
Joaquim Perez says:
Have you ever tried Multifox addon? I think it’s quite similar to your proposal. The only thing that I think that could be improved is that it should be more integrated with the password manager.
https://addons.mozilla.org/ca/firefox/addon/multifox-toolbar-button/?src=api
I’ll try it, thanks.
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Author: yoric
Categories: Firefox, In English / En anglais, Recherche / Research, Société
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by Shanna Hogan
Emily Durante
Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
Travis Alexander was a handsome, hard-working, practicing Mormon who lived in Mesa, Arizona. His good looks and easygoing manner made him popular with everyone, especially the ladies. So when he was found with a bullet wound in the face and his throat slashed, the brutal murder sent shock waves throughout his community. Who could have done something so sinister? But soon a suspect was singled out-Jodi Arias. A beautiful, aspiring photographer, Jodi had been in a long-distance relationship with Travis the year before. But Travis wasn't interested in a serious commitment; he was seeing several women during that time. When he broke up with her, that didn't stop Jodi from leaving California, moving to just a few miles away from Travis's home, and inserting herself into his daily life. Investigators found one piece of startling evidence in Travis's home that implicated Jodi. But in a bizarre turn of events, Jodi would claim self-defense. Was she a victim-or a devious femme fatale?
Shanna Hogan - Author
Emily Durante - Narrator
Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc. Edition: Unabridged
OverDrive Listen audiobook
Release date: September 9, 2013
MP3 audiobook
Number of parts: 11
True Crime Nonfiction
Tantor Media, Inc.
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Top Results for Etchells sailors in RYA British Match Racing Championships 19/20th November 2016
Cowes Etchells youth sailors once again notched up superb results in a National Match Racing Championship last weekend. Although we don’t match race Etchells in Cowes, the skills learnt in the super competitive Etchells fleet transfer easily into match racing. For 4 years now, Etchells match racers have won World, European and National match racing titles.
Last weekend was no exception: Etchells sailors dominated the RYA British Match Racing Championships with Mark Lees, Toby Mumford, James Dodd ,Toby Yeabsley and Matt Hallam making-up the winning squad.
Ten other Etchells sailors were also well-placed in the event: Quintin Bes-Green, Kate Deveraux, Fiona Hampshire, Ali Hinds, Honor Fell,Tom Williams, Jack Preece, Jack Davies Hannah Peters, and Jonty Cook
Etchells youth sailors, we salute you! WELL DONE !!
Eight Bells – Mike Till
Regarded marine artist, accomplished sailor and class leader in the Etchells fleet among others, Mike Till, 77, passed away at home on 10th October 2016 after a tough bout with bowel cancer. He passed away surrounded by his adoring wife Kathy and his children. Sailing and organizing sailing events were a key part of Mike’s life. He never let his illness slow him, whether it be sailing his XOD two weeks before, sailing with 360 other Finn at their World Championship in May, or working on a disabled sailing regatta.
A regular on the Etchells podium both nationally and internationally, Mike played key roles as Chairman of the British Etchells Association from 2003-2008, representing the British contingent as a Governor in the international governing body, and a number of important roles for the Cowes fleet. He organized 2007 World championships for the Class and pushed hard to build fleets on mainland Europe.
Mike started sailing Etchells in the late 80s, becoming Cowes Fleet Captain and helped rapidly expand the class ahead of the 1996, 2001 and 2007 World Championships based from Cowes and Lymington. He encouraged others to get out on the water by generously lending his boat. A late starter at sailing, he began in a Wayfarer sharpening his skills while raising two daughters, and progressed his way up the fleet. Always quick to help new sailors to each class he sailed, he was a welcoming figure for many to learn how to ply their boats faster, using the knowledge he accumulated. Prior to sailing, Mike was an accomplished cyclist – a sport he continued competitively for a long while – and a Kent county cross country runner.
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Topical collection on human factors and safety
Dominique Mignot1
European Transport Research Review volume 9, Article number: 41 (2017) Cite this article
The Global Status Report on Road Safety 2015 published by WHO [1, 2] indicates that 1.2 million fatalities are related to road accidents annually. The road safety challenge remains a very important issue at the worldwide level, and especially for the low and middle income countries. It is also a real challenge for the European countries. Although a reduction in road fatalities is noted in Europe, with a reduction from 10.3 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010 to 9.3 in 2013, the decrease in the number of fatalities knew a stop in recent years for several European countries such as France and Germany.
At the European level, the total societal costs of road crashes vary between 0.4% and 4.1% of the Gross Domestic Product, while the total societal costs related to serious injuries amount to between 0.04% in Ireland and 2.7% in Poland of the GDP [3].
Some previous research [4, 5] show accident causes are multifactorial, so that there is not only one cause for an accident. Alcohol, speeding and fatigue are among the most important safety factors of road accidents. For example, driving while impaired by alcohol is associated with 28% of fatal crashes [6]. At the European level, about 22% of road deaths are alcohol-related [7].
The recent Malta declaration on road safety by Transport Ministers of the Member States of the EU (March 2017) recommended to member states to “put in place enforcement plans and zero tolerance for speeding, distraction and alcohol offences” [8]. This clearly demonstrates that the role of human factors remains a crucial issue for road accidents.
This topical collection on Human factors and safety is based on a selection of papers presented to TRA 2014 meeting hold in Paris, which were delivered through four different sessions: Human behavior, factors, perception and visibility; Driver, driving simulation and naturalistic driving; Human factors in Safety and security; ADAS/automatic driving. Papers have been selected and submitted for publication. Four papers have been accepted for this topical collection.
This topical collection aims to show how it is possible to reduce road accidents and their consequences for people involved and for society with a human factors perspective. They focus on the question of alcohol linked to cultural patterns, the question of speeding related to scene comprehension, the importance of naturalistic driving for having a better knowledge of practices, and the role of management and education to prevent and reduce impact of suicides and trespasses for railway accidents.
The purpose of the paper authored by Gabriella Kosztolanyi-Ivan, Csaba Koren and Attila Borsos is to evaluate road scenes and particularly if characteristics of built-up, non built-up nature and the complexity of scenes could be linked to the speeding choice made by the driver and could explain some unsafe situations. Of course, speeding is a well-known factor of risk, but the originality of this paper is the proved link existing between built environmental characteristics and the speeding choice of the road user. That question is not completely new. Indeed, authors refer to Montel et al. works, based on reconstruction of accident scenes [9], which explained that drivers take into consideration some categories of roads when they decide of their driving and choose their speed. The authors aim is here to highlight the role and importance of the perception of road scenes by the road user. They use pictures of scenes (built-up scenes and non built-up ones and more ambiguous scenes), submitted to 500 subjects. They show “that standard deviations of speeds at not clearly identified sites are considerably higher than at clear built-up or clearly non built-up sites”. Authors develop then a tool (program) to recognize and digitize scenes and they show that if the program is able to recognize clear built-up sites and non built-up sites, it’s less obvious concerning transition sites. They also show a consistent classification between human and program. The added value provided by this paper is by proving that speed dispersion could be used as a means for determining ambiguous scenes and thus less safe scenes.
The paper presented by Yvonne Barnard, Fabian Utesch, Nicole van Nes, Rob Eenink, Martin Baumann, based on the European project UDRIVE, describes a large scale European naturalistic Driving study aiming to provide a “better understanding of what happens in the road in everyday traffic situation”. For authors, human behavior is, directly or indirectly, an important determinant of road crashes, and thus impact road fatalities and injuries. They propose a very fine state of the art about naturalistic driving and experiences with naturalistic driving studies. The methodology based on FESTA project, identified research questions across five thematic areas: Crash causation and risk, Everyday driving, Distraction and Inattention, Vulnerable road users, Eco-driving. Those research questions are used for defining vehicles equipments and instrumentation to be used during the data acquisition period. The main expected output of the project is the data collection potentially used by all partners and allowing different kind of analysis and scenarios, in order to improve driver behavior models and risk functions. At the time of the writing of this editorial, data collection have been completed and partners started the very first analysis.
The contribution of Christopher Schlembach, Gerald Furian, and Christian Brandstätter addresses the role of cultural practices and habits concerning drink-driving and their impacts on road accidents. The methodology of authors consists in defining a “traffic safety culture”, as the shared values, actions, and behaviors that demonstrate a commitment to safety over competing goals and demand. They applied this framework using the European SARTRE4 database (Social Attitudes to Road Traffic Risk in Europe) focusing on car drivers. The approach mobilizes cognitive, emotional and moral dimensions. For each of these three dimensions, authors propose an operational definition in order to apply them to the country cases. The authors show, except for the case of Serbia, that for all countries, 90% and more of the population agree that drinking and driving increases the risk of accident with another road user, showing that main part of the population is conscious of the problem. They show also that the probability to be stopped and fined by the police is not neutral on perception and attitude towards alcohol. The link between cultural patterns and road accidents is then made. It may bring new ideas concerning road safety campaigns adapted to each country.
The paper authored by Grigore M. Havârneanu, Marie-Hélène Bonneau, and Jacques Colliard highlights the question of railway suicides, which amount to two thirds of all railway fatalities. They present the main results of the European RESTRAIL project (REduction of Suicides and Trespasses on RAILway property). If recent works have focused on public transport safety, for example COST action 1103 [10], few studies deal with suicide. The authors provide a very stimulating state of the art on railway suicides and trespassing accidents, identifying international databases and studies in Europe and in United States, particularly related to possible countermeasures. If one challenge for society is the reduction of the number of suicides, the challenge for Railway stakeholders is also to limit the consequences of suicides on railway traffic and particularly on traffic disruption time. Based on an initial set of 83 measures, 38 families of measures were identified and evaluated by experts of the railway safety and security sector. For the authors, the method has demonstrated the capacity to support the selection of most cost-effective measures. The project addressed the procedural aspects of communication chain, enabled the development of a functional information reference source for all stakeholders and proposed technical specification and prototype for the situation management system. Several field pilot tests in different countries show that an evaluation of these measures was possible. Among some results, authors highlight the role of a good training for employees concerning suicides, the need of a well-focused communication among participants, or the importance of a mid-platform fencing (on rail platforms) as an anti-suicide measure or anti-trespass measures.
The whole of the papers gathered with this topical collection on Human factors and Safety cannot bring an exhaustive overview of the question, but provide a true contribution to the understanding of this issue. The papers clearly show that even if some factors are well-known (impaired driving, speeding, etc.) those factors continue to constitute a real challenge for the public decision maker. That was confirmed by the recent Malta declaration.
WHO-World Health Organisation, Global Status Report on Road Safety (2013)
Safetycube (2017) Deliverables 3.2 and 7.3
Ferrandez F (1995) Dir. L'étude détaillée d'accidents orientée vers la sécurité primaire, méthodologie de recueil et pré analyse. Presses de l'Ecole National des Ponts et chaussées, Paris, p 244
Fleury D, Brenac T (2001) Accident prototypical scénarios, a tool for road safety research and diagnostic studies. Accid Anal Prev 33(2):267–276
Martin JL, Gadegbeku B, Wu D, Viallon V, Laumon B (2016) Actualisation des principaux résultats de l’étude SAM-Stupéfiants et Accidents Mortels (ActuSAM). Université de Lyon, Ifsttar
ITF/OCDE–IRTAD (2017) Alcohol-related road. Casualties in Official Crash Statistics
Ministerial Conference on Road Safety (2017) 29 March 2017, Valetta, Malta
Montel M, Van Elslande P, Brenac T (2005) Categorisation of streets by drivers and associated expectancies: a cognitive analysis of driving activity for safer urban design. Adv Transp Stud 7:23–38
COST (2015) Operation and safety of tramways in interaction with public space. Cost action TU1103. 2011-2015
Department “Transport, Health, Safety”, Ifsttar, Lyon, France
Dominique Mignot
Search for Dominique Mignot in:
Correspondence to Dominique Mignot.
This article is part of Topical collection on TRA 2014 human factors and safety
Mignot, D. Topical collection on human factors and safety. Eur. Transp. Res. Rev. 9, 41 (2017) doi:10.1007/s12544-017-0261-9
Topical Collection on TRA 2014 Human Factors and Safety
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You're making a general point
You're making a general point, namely that for a revolutionary there's nothing to debate whether the State should do anything (fund healthcare, stop spending money on the arms industry); we should not be "fixated" on the fact that governments are cutting healthcare and increasing their military expenditure, because it is a trap to debate this. But does it follow that revolutionaries must avoid debating (that is offering "social-political analysis" of) the State's policy at all (again, like healthcare cuts and increased military spending)? Since the State's policy affects nearly every aspect of life, there would be little topics left to write about. And why should we abstain from the aspects of life such as art, literature etc? To give an example from the ICT forum, there is a thread on the topic of obesity, which can be considered a particular problem of the working class (eg via poor-quality food in children schools). Perhaps your (like baboon's) simple argument/presupposition would be just that the particular issues such as trans-identity or prostitution are of concern to only a small group, and are therefore relatively unimportant to discuss, unlike State-policy on healthcare and military spending which concerns everyone. This would not be a strong (or principled) argument, in my view.
Your comparison of the issue of prostitution to the right-wing topic of "death of Western civilization" is senseless, because the latter is a historico-philophical idea (but even then, shouldn't we precisely criticise right-wing ideologies?). So let's take instead a real/concrete issue like immigration. In fact the ICC has discussed the topic of immigration (here). Just as the SPGB summer school had a lecture on the issue of prostitution. My point is that hotly debated topics in society have a de facto effect on revolutionaries and animate them (for example the libcom attack on the ICC), regardless of the wishes of revolutionaries, and so I think an intervention with a communist perspective becomes advisable/unavoidable into these topics.
Anyone having problems
Anyone having problems accessing the libcom site? I can't get it at all with my server saying it's blocked because their security certificate run out yesterday.
fixed?
baboon wrote:
how about now?
They're up and running - they
They're up and running - they must have put some coins in the meter. A distinct lack of discussion on the "gilets jaunes" movement.
Comunero
I'm not arguing that we
I'm not arguing that we shouldn't debate about State policies, I'm arguing that we have nothing to propose to the State. It's not the same to debate the origin and meaning of State policies and leftist ideologies than to try to determine how to "improve" them.
I agree that it's not a very good point the number of people it affects or not.
I agree as well that hotly debated topics, as you put it, have an effect on revolutionaries. But we have to keep in mind that, even if the debate stems from the insistence of some leftist movements, most workers don't think about them in the same terms of the identitarian leftists.
My point about the right was probably poorly explained. What I'm trying to say is that leftist identitarian ideologies are as reactionary as the alt-right and similar rightist ideologies. One danger of leftism, however, is that it gives the impression of being somehow "preferable" or "closer". They aren't.
As a purely anecdotal fact, I've had quite more respectful and productive debates with rightists than with leftists, to the date. Just an anecdote though, it proves nothing.
Comunero wrote:
It is on this general level about reformism that baboon too tried to locate the problem with the libcom-crowd as concerns idpol. But then the retort of the libcom-crowd was that our critique of idpol is thus not specific about idpol, but is just the general critique of reformism everyone shares (on libcom and in the ICC) with regard to Social-Democrats, the Greens, etc., so does not provide any specific new insight, and by singling out for critique "idpol" as especially bad, is giving cover to the "normal" reformism of Social-Democratcs, etc., and is non-constructive on how to tackle problems faced by identity groups in a revolutionary way (translation: critics of "idpol" are de facto racist, misogynist, etc.).
The distinction of analysing State policy vs. favouring/advocating State policy, would grant us permission for intervention in debate on the usual topics of idpolists. That would be already a big step, for it would show that we do have something intelligent, a communist perspective, to say on these topics (of trans-identity, prostitution, etc.), besides the lip-service of condemning right-wing attacks on minority groups.
But we are told further that we need "to do something about it". Taking the radical position that even activism without direct involvement in the election and legislative process, still involves application of pressure and appeals to the State to change its policy, so though this be dressed up as "challenging" the state, it is still reformist – is again a critique that applies to all activism. Suppose though that idpols do reject traditional leftist activism as being insufficiently radical/efficient on these issues (they're loathe to recognise the significance of the traditional socialist movement, which did "do something" in fighting against black segregation, for women's maternity pay, decriminalisation of homosexuality, etc. ), and that they genuinely abstain from any hope on changing state policy, then they arrive not at the conventional reformist politics, but something closer to ultra-radical terrorist tactists or the often-invoked Maoist "struggle sessions" (or that of Christian fundamentalist who does not just enforce correct action/behaviour, but also correct belief). So it is not accurate enough to condemn idpol for its alleged State reformism. Perpaps idpols have not merely an "ultra-radical" wing, but their specific problem lies in their "ultra-radicalism".
Btw, I tried to comment on
Btw, I tried to comment on the Charnel-house blog (the post where the author criticises himself, I commented on it here before), but couldn't (I hope it's just due to spam filter, not censorship). In the comments section the ex-leftcom (renegade) professor Rectenwald denounced the blogger, along with all Marxists, as groveling before the idpol crowd. I wanted to say that there are in my opinion still a few Marxists who don't buy into idpol (and specifically claims on transitioning), while at the same time I wanted to locate our objection to Rectenwald in the general question of appearances in bourgeous media (namely he appeared on Fox). I argued that in the socialist tradition it was not-done for socialists to give interviews in the bourgeois press.
I must say though there are few Marxists who oppose the claims around trans people. Take for example the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, which in May 2018 published a discussion document which sets out their consensus view, Gender: the right to chose. Like the ICC, it nominally rejects identity politics, it duly denounces the vitriol "of both sides" in the debate, and rejects the non-platforming tactic. But on the scientific question of the possibility of changing sex the AWL buys into the side of the trans advocates, I quote a section:
"The central right that trans people want is to be accepted in their chosen gender.
Transitioning is difficult. But for the individuals concerned, it is worth it, because at least they are now living as the person they are.
If society or individuals then say that these people are not who they say they are, that they are not women or men or neither, then the one thing that means the most to them is denied. The gender they have struggled so hard to reject and leave behind is pinned back on them. To do this is nasty and unempathetic.
The argument that a person’s sex is a biological reality that cannot change may sound logical, but it comes up against the reality that trans people exist. Trans-hostile attitudes usually insist that changing, for example from a man into a woman, is not possible. They insist that the science of biological sex trumps the significance of people’s feelings about their gender. However, this does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. Firstly, science is increasingly recognising biological sex as more complex than previously thought (including male and female chromosomes, hormones, external genitals and internal reproductive organs, which in an individual usually align with each other but in some individuals may not). Secondly, some aspects of biological sex can be changed, for example the balance of male and female hormones in the body. And thirdly, feelings of gender identity are real: they are socio-psychological orientations; although they are analysed differently from physical characteristics, they are not scientifically irrelevant.
Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Non-binary people are non-binary."
Let me also quote this passage, which I had to read twice to understand:
"If we oppose self-declaration and insist that people are sent to the prison according to their legal gender under the current system, then trans men without a GRC [Gender recognition certificate] will be admitted to women’s prisons. So there is as much danger of men being admitted to women’s prisons under the present law as under the proposed changes. It is interesting to note that many criticisms of the GRA changes (and of trans rights more generally) disproportionately discuss trans women, sometimes not mentioning or considering trans men at all."
I want to know if the ICC agrees with these arguments (ie scientific claim about possibility to change sex), because it's better to know in advance, than to learn afterwards that it has already become gospel.
This week news headlines mentioned the case of a white woman Martina Big that claimed to be black. She spent thousands of dollars on surgeries in an attempt to become a Black woman.
“I have great news. I had done the next step in my transformation to a black woman. Yesterday I was with an African hairdresser and got a hair extension with curly, African hair. To become more and more a black woman, that is such a wonderful feeling. I’m so happy. Next, I’ll have consultations for the butt enlargement and for the African facial features,” Martina Big wrote on her Facebook page.
The "race-transitioning" is an already well-known comparison to transgender people (eg Adolph Reed and the WSWS made it). But they do not mean it as a trans-hostile argument. The point is that anyone who genuinely feels sympathetic to black people is free to identity as a black person. Moreover here there is really no scientific basis for race, unlike with sex.
They still would be reformist
You say that if the idpol movement attempted more violent actions, they couldn't be called reformists. I disagree. They would still be fighting for a more humane/open/whatever bourgeois State, a reformed capitalist State. Not social democratic reformism, but still reformism.
I dealt with that point
I dealt with that point already, and it's true that there are apolegtics for reformism on libcom (they also make fun of the expression "smashing the state"): if I recall in the idpol-thread it came notably from Fleur, who perhaps significantly, is a bit older leftist generation (1980s). Like I said, though, idpols tend to "reject traditional leftist activism as being insufficiently radical/efficient on these issues – they're loathe to recognise the significance of the traditional socialist movement". We cannot simply lump together the reformism of Bernstein with the millenial social justice warriors. Again, take into account that some of them (given the anarchist tendency among them) "genuinely abstain from any hope on changing state policy, then they arrive not at the conventional reformist politics". They're called radical liberals (radlibs) after all (I don't think you'll find eg Anarchist Federation's program for state policy reforms).
The idpols' ultra-radical tactists, or call it fascist/thuggish intimidation tactics, are not reforming/damaging the state/capitalists. We can understand the reformist charge in the opposite sense, namely that the radlibs are an (unconscious) tool of the state/capitalists to damage workers' struggle. So yes there is reformism, but it's the states/capitalists who are reforming/damaging the workers' struggle.
28 February, 2019 - 20:42
Looks like this libcom thread on sex and gender is set to be another libcom episode of uninteresting moronic takes about the trans issue (it's a shame really, because there are so many interesting things that could be said about it). For example, what is the point (by Mike Harman) about bringing up intersex people, ie saying that sex is a spectrum? Let us entertain this thought for a moment, given the argumentative laziness of its proponents. Its suggested implication apparently is that there are no "100%" women (or "100%" men): we're all on a spectrum. But the slogan is that "transwomen are women", ie the demand for recognition of being "100%" women – it is not about being recognised as some (non-binary) dot on a spectrum. Or is the suggsted implication of the existence of a spectrum that it allows a person to transfer/transition from one dot on the spectrum to another dot on the spectrum? Fine, but then the person will still never arrive at "100%" definitely women/men. So all that a spectrum would suggest is that a person can move along the female/male spectrum, like in a bad infinity. On the other hand, suppose there are no actual inter-sex people, that is people capable of producing both an egg and sperm (which AFAIK is the truth). What is the feared implication? Apparently the most dire: that trans-people don't exist, have no right to call themselves the other sex. So everything for the trans advocates hinges apparently on the claim of the existence of intersex people/a sex spectrum. Why put all your eggs in one basket like that? And if they say their position doesn't solely depend on the existence of sex-spectrum, then there's no political point to argue about it.
To bring up again the comparison to "race-transitioning": here it can be accepted with less controversy that there are "inter-race" people. Incidentally the remaining controversy is that for racists (principally in America) a person even with just 1% black ancestry is considered black (just as conversely IIRC in Haiti some black politician once said that anyone with a tiny amount of white ancestry in their country is considered white, cf. Noel Ignatiev example). Whereas at least for me it would be normal to consider a Meghan Markle or Obama not as "black", but mixed. Anyway, the existence of a "race-spectrum" then should mean that a white person can identify themselves as "black" (or "Afro-") without any qualifier, and without any uproar. Again, the point here is to say that anyone should be free to identify themselves as black. But that is not accepted as of yet by society or by radical circles, whereas for sex such reasoning is accepted.
2 March, 2019 - 16:01
[quote=d-man]
d-man wrote:
Perhaps the contradictions and inconsistencies in the approach to these different identity categories reveal something about what it is going on. It is less about being methodologically coherent and making consistent claims and more about maintaining a police power function so as to be able to punish and control transgressors. It is less about getting to the bottom of these issues and more about keeping them alive as weapons to wield against those outside the expressive communities who are defined by the very controversies around their identities.
In the case of transgender/intersex, the identities in question are defined by their claiming a biological identity that fits the suppsoed inner truth of their essential self, while in the case of race its about defending the ascriptive boundaries of a group defined by its historical oppression. One is a claim of self-expression about an hitherto hidden inner self, the other a kind of reactive response to historical victimization based on visible pheotypical characteristics and policing the boundaries of who gets to claim victim status.
In the US, they have now invented a new catgeory for this that goes beyond biology or appearing to be "black" in public: ADOS (American Descendants of Slaves). It is now not enough to simply be black in some publicly visible way, one must now be able to trace one's ancestry back to someone held in slavery in order to have the full moral authority and qualify for anticipated reparations, etc. And so the solidarity of the previously hegemonic identity category "People of Color," cracks under the weight of even more specific criteria. Part of this seems like it is a response to immigration, which has seen specifically African American claims against society diluted by those of other subaltern groups, including ostensibly black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean (including Presidential candidate Kamala Harris, but also Obama), who did not experience the destabilzing effects of slavery and therefore cannot be situated very neatly in the racial disparity statistics that drive official social justice policy.
I comment here on jef
I comment here on jef costello's post on that thread (since I still am banned from libcom). He quoted birdtiem as saying:
"What I'm talking about specifically is the conception of sex as an immutable biological characteristic. I don't see how this particular piece of information is not - in and of itself - accurate. It is a distinction between gametes that is applicable to the vast overwhelming majority of sexually reproducing organisms."
Jef's response:
"It is, to an extent, accurate, but it is in that sense meaningless as well. If you strip out everything apart from the simple biology then this is correct, as long as you ignore all the biological variations. I don't see why the biological aspect (especially as it doesn't support a deterministic binary) has much relevance unless it is being used to make a deterministic argument.
It would be like arguing that there are no differences between white and black people's experience of society because both groups can have blue eyes.
I don't know what it is that makes a person trans, I don't think I really need to know. Someone is trans, that's it really. "
Jef, in his typical fashion, sits on the fence: in a single sentence he grants that sex "in simple biology" is binary (the "distinction between gametes"), but adds that this ignores "all the biological variations".
Next he says the biological aspect is irrelevant (which btw also would directly run counter to Mike Harman's line of argument about the biological existence of inter-sex people). The only relevance he sees for it is in case it makes a "deterministic argument", apparently meaning that recognition of binary sex inevitably entails that people will/must "behave" according to the rules imposed by society on their sex. This is indeed the line of argument of reactionaries, which jef apparently finds irrefutable (so the only way to refute them for him is by denying the existence of binary sex, their premise).
Btw, jef is right in saying that he doesn't know what makes a person "trans" (notice he doesn't even dare to say "woman/man"), ie there is no biological aspect to it. Here he is more advanced than Mike Harman's inter-sex line.
One remark from jef is worth trying to unpack:
"It would be like arguing that there are no differences between white and black people's experience of society because both groups can have blue eyes."
Jef is assuming here that skin colour is a more fundamental fact (ie "simple biology") to race, than other "biological variations", like eye colour, are. But jef feels uncomfortable saying that, so he shoehorns in the term "experience" of black/white people in society. That experience is something different, which can't be bridged by biological variations (he should have said: even by "simple biology"). His analogy here is of racial experience to "gender" (and not to sex). He hints at "gender"/race oppression, but stops short and merely uses the neutral-sounding "experience of society", because the desire of trans-people is to identify with a "gender", as a positive experience of woman/man, but not subscribe to a form of oppression. At first you would think that jef wants to say that the existence of a racial experience/gender identity (which again, is not something oppressive here) is not determlned by biology, but what jef implies is that it is not negated by biology. Gender identity (or racial experience) is something valid/real/essential, regardless of any biology. It could sound as if "racial experience", like gender identity, can be experienced by people if they so declare to experience/identify as that race/gender. This would be the race-transitioning argument I mentioned above. But i don't think jef is saying that. I think his point is that gender/"racial experience" is something that we must affirm/accept as essential (more essential than earthly biology).
There was a time on the left when sexual orientation might be considered an expressive choice, a kind of libertarian (or is it libertine?) experience of the world based on one's exploration (or lack thereof) of multifarious forms of desire. That seemed to change around the time the debates over gay marriage became mainstream in the mid-2000s. All of a sudden, sexual orientiation became a function of one's biology, a hardwired fact of one's being that could not really be changed. Things like conversion therapy became taboo and popular culture began to explain "coming out " stories in terms of people coming to know their true essential selves. Anyone who questioned this narrative was denoucned as denying the science demonstrating the biological basis of sexual orientation. Whatever the truth of this, there was a clear strategic thinking going on here: in order to win "rights," like the right to marry, it was deemed necessary to situate minorities defined by their sexual orientation on the same terms as racial groups, who were obviously defined by their biology and therefore "could not help but be the way they were," making it more difficult for the state and civilized, right minded people to deny them their rights. Sexual orientation became less a "behavior" and more a function of brain chemistry. It does seem that today's debates over trans rights complicate that narrative however, as it is not always clear whether the claims for trans rights are made in the name of some kind of bio-medically defined group, or one based more on expressive choice and self-fashioned identity. Of course, its not entirely clear why it would make a huge difference.
That is until the question is comapred to race. Here there are also competing claims: "race is a social construct," yet "there is no such thing as racial choice." While those who "sex-transition" are getting in touch with their essential selves, those who attempt to "race transition," are committing various sins: either passing as a dominant group and therefore betraying their essential racial self or they are appropriating the experience of otherness and victimization in a way that can only harm the offended group. If race is a social construct, racial oppression is based on phenotypical characteristics that are supposedly immutable and therefore cannot be changed. Of course, in the end this also becomes an argument about experience: White people, regardless of their good intentions, simply cannot experience the world any other way than as a member of a dominant group. Attempts to race transition become a kind of "victimhood chic."
We are already seeing the pendulumn on this swing back towards "experience" as the defining variable in surprising ways today that reveal the limits of so-called "intersectionality." In the US, while there is a kind of centripetal political force around the Democratic Party pulling various identity claims together into a kind of hegemomic bloc: "People of Color," there is also a competing centrifugal force pushing the various group claims apart. While African and Caribbean immigrants may experience anti-black racism in the US today, they did not experience the horrors, historical disposession of slavery and its legacy that continue to define the experience of ADOS today. Of course, it also seems clear that the increasing assertiveness of African-American identity claims (around police brutality, claims for reparations, demands to address various aspects of America's historical legacy that specifically affected ADOS, taking down Confederate statutes, etc.) is driven in part by a rising fear of their claims being crowded out by others: either the nosie and furor over sexual identity claims or fears about the increasing demographic weight of Latinos, whose claims against society are for the moment mostly related to immigrant rights, but who may start to bring their own redistributionist claims that would render ADOS claims for reparations only one among several competing group interests.
jk1921 wrote:
There was a time on the left when sexual orientation might be considered an expressive choice, a kind of libertarian (or is it libertine?) experience of the world based on one's exploration (or lack thereof) of multifarious forms of desire. That seemed to change around the time the debates over gay marriage became mainstream in the mid-2000s.
This change started earlier, in the 80s, when a new lesbian faction attacked "political lesbians" like Sheila Jeffreys (or anyone who had previously been in a heterosexual relation) for not being real lesbians. But as my designation ("political lesbians") suggests, the latter were not just some hippy libertarians.
there was a clear strategic thinking going on here: in order to win "rights," like the right to marry, it was deemed necessary to situate minorities defined by their sexual orientation on the same terms as racial groups, who were obviously defined by their biology and therefore "could not help but be the way they were," making it more difficult for the state and civilized, right minded people to deny them their rights.
I doubt if it was part of a real strategy (like winning the right to marry). In any case homosexual orientation was depoliticized, or its radical "maximalist" goals curtailed.
it is not always clear whether the claims for trans rights are made in the name of some kind of bio-medically defined group, or one based more on expressive choice and self-fashioned identity. Of course, its not entirely clear why it would make a huge difference.
It's rarely in the name of expressive choice (today perhaps only Andrea Chu), more in the name of bio-medicine (witness the inter-sex argument), and perhaps mostly a third reason: in the name of mental/psychiatric healing. It was after all a psychologist who introduced the term "gender identity" (John Money, as already discussed in Raymond's The Transsexual Empire). True, a certain part of trans-activists have little respect for the psychologist establishment (=charlatans or authoritarian gatekeepers), perhaps just relying on the psychiatric reason as the only available path, but I think it's nevertheless presented as the most sincere/serious reason: mental illness should not be a stigma. So "trigger warnings" or "safe spaces" can also be justified for people with PTSD, etc.
This brings me back to Libcom's outrage over ICC's quotations around "transphobia". This term implies anti-trans bigots suffer from a psychological/mental fear of trans-people, which as the all-too-woke ICC said, stigmatizes/associates people suffering genuine mental illnesses with political right-wing bigotry. On the other hand terms like "Islamophobia" also depolitcize/downplay right-wing bigots by casting them as mere mental patients. This psychologization is raised also by liberals/lawyers whenever some right-winger commits an atrocity (he was just a "single nutjob"), and features in politics, as with the possible invocation of the 25th amendment against Trump (or conversely for his opponents, Trump Derangement Syndrome). Libcom didn't get the ICC's woke quotations in this case, but generally they are quite supportive of psychiatric/mental care (against the usual anti-psychiatry sentiments you'd except for political radicals).
I seem to remember that you, jk1921, said something about that, perhaps referring to the use of psychiatry against dissidents in the USSR. As an aside, I want to touch upon that, because it seems to be still one of the biggest talking points against socialism, or at least it was the biggest critique rasied against the particular post-Stalin USSR era, that is, the human rights campaign of Carter (Solzhenitsyn even claiming that Soviet psychiatry was worse than the Nazi death camps). In a 2002 article, Alan A. Stone ('Psychiatrists on the side of the angels', Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law) wrote (see page 110 and following):
"I am well aware of the many publications that claim to have documented the widespread political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union and that I am a voice of dissent. But in the 30 years that have passed, it seems to me increasingly clear that much of the empirical evidence was exaggerated, much of the motivation was based on our (I am myself Jewish) concern about Soviet Jewry, and much of the criticism of Soviet psychiatry was ideological rather than scientific. Today, Western psychiatry has accepted many of the psychiatric premises for which the Soviets were condemned."
In Russian there is also the 2006 book by Valery Gindin, Psychiatry: myth and reality (Психиатрия: мифы и реальность) that likewise questions aspects of the dominant Western story about Soviet psychiatry.
While those who "sex-transition" are getting in touch with their essential selves, those who attempt to "race transition," are committing various sins ... appropriating the experience of otherness and victimization in a way that can only harm the offended group. ... White people, regardless of their good intentions, simply cannot experience the world any other way than as a member of a dominant group. Attempts to race transition become a kind of "victimhood chic."
That's an objection against today's trans-"gender" people raised by gender critical (GC) feminists. But even for the more realistic (older) transsexuals or playful transvestites (who don't claim to be the opposite sex), some feminists took offense, comparing this to black minstrels. Perhaps today it would be like a white dude insisting to be addressed (by black people) by the pronoun 'nigga', see:
Semantic Bleaching and the Emergence of New Pronouns in AAVE (African-American Vernacular English), 2015 by Taylor W. Jones, Christopher S. Hall
AAVE is developing new pronouns, facilitated by the semantic bleaching of the word ‘nigga.’ We show ‘nigga’ is not specified for race, gender, or humanness (although default is [+human] and [+male]). Using 20,000 tweets and field notes from NYC and Philadelphia, we demonstrate that there are new first person pronouns in AAVE based on ‘nigga’ (e.g. 1sg “a nigga”) – moreover, we demonstrate they pattern with true pronouns and not imposters (Collins & Postal, 2010) with respect to binding and verbal agreement. We discuss the origin of these new pronouns, related grammatical forms (including vocatives and honorifics), and rate of adoption and current rates of use.
Darren P made the comparison to categorisation of species:
"But then there's no single physiological or biological marker that will categorize an individual organism as belonging to a particular species either."
(Btw, Darren P further made a comparion to cars, asking if he takes out the engine of his car, would it still be considered a car? But he could perhaps better have asked: if he takes out the engine of his Volkswagen Beetle, does it turn his car into an Enzo Ferrari?)
Mike replying:
"But when people say 'sex is a spectrum' they're not saying that male and female are useless categories, they're saying that there are grey areas between categories or whatever and that the way we determine those categories changes over time. Your example of species is a good one, because really what makes two closely related species, or genus or watever, different is socially constructed/a spectrum too"
Mike loves Darren P's comparision to species, after all, witness how "socially constructed" the distinction between a raven and a crow is. But whatever difficulty in classifying animals, the majority have two sexes/a sexual division. Sex is a much more fundamental/universal distinction, than eg between a wolf and a dog. Mike's use of the qualifier "closely related" for the groups, means that they are placed within some broader/higher category: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomic_rank That is, Mike distinguishes between closely and not-closely related groups of animals. He does not want to say out loud that for example a rat and an elephant are on a spectrum, that their difference is "social-constructed", two categories changing with the course of advancing scientific progress, or that between a rat and an elephant there are "grey areas". If he were confident enough in his own reasoning, he would have not have used a qualifier. Let's help Mike: an elephant is a category on a spectrum alongside rats, homo sapiens, horses, crocodiles, birds, butterflies and jellyfish. What conclusion follows from this, what is even Mike's argument? I think it only would establish that the difference between men and women is just as "grey" as between a horse and a bird. Therefore I think Darren P also felt no need to engage any further with Mike. At a time when everybody knows Greer's quip ("I’ve asked my doctor to give me long ears and liver spots and I’m going to wear a brown coat but that doesn’t turn me into a f***ing cocker spaniel"), it is a bit surprising that Mike blithely argues for an inter-species spectrum.
Funny, I once had to have the oil drain plug on a VW replaced. The mechanic could only find one from a Porsche, but it fit nonetheless. He said, "You now have Porsche parts on your car." I replied, "Will that make it any faster?" No, it is still the same slow as molasses piece of junk.
14 March, 2019 - 11:43
baboon's position?
This car comparison, by coincidence, was also just made by Linda Blade in an interview (on feministcurrents) on sex-segregated sport (allowing F-1 cars in a Nascar race).
I wonder if Baboon would dare to give his position on women-only spaces, as regards sport: is the "terf"-response overblown in his opinion here as well? I believe he has downplayed the topic of trans which was the explicit basis of Libcom's attacks. Baboon wrote:
"I'm not entirely sure that the over-the-top reaction from some of the Libcom administration was totally down to the "terf" question, though that was certainly involved. I think that the short mention in Alf's original post, which I think was a fundamentally important marxism v anarchism contribution, of libcom's links to the police and their defence of them, also contributed to their response to the piece"
And the attack on Lenin and the Bolsheviks arose from the attempt by Libcom (which is basically now just Mike Harman's personal site) to paint critics of identity politics as bigots against prostitutes. And "sex-work" is the other wedge-issue (also connected to trans people), which Baboon downplays. In fact, like I said before, I even believe libcom's attacks on the Bolsheviks was a happy distraction: On Libcom people can debate anarchism vs. Marxism on threads for years long to their hearth's contents (as I did) – there is nothing risky about it. But lo if people wade into the wedge issues of "gender" and prostitution. Baboon's own comportment is testament to this truth; he has failed even to maintain neutrality, but sided with the gender-identity/trans advocates and called himself a "sex-worker" in the past. And even when species, biology and evolution, which we know are topics close to Baboon's interests, are brought up in the debate, he has kept his silence. But the diplomacy will not save you or the ICC. The mere existence of this thread on the ICC forum, or by allowing me to post on it without challenging my views, the ICC will be regarded as "complicit", and be further attacked anyway.
Explicit better than implicit
Maybe, instead of wondering, you could just ask, d-man. Perhaps it's because my English is getting worse, but I really don't get where your last post is going.
I already have experience
I already have experience with Baboon ignoring my posts, and anyway it is not a question directed solely at him, but at the ICC in general and other forum posters. Whereas you Comunero have already stated your preference is to stay out of the topic. This is your disagreement with me, not a lack in understanding of English.
Well, I surely know what my
Well, I surely know what my preferences are. I'm just saying that saying what you mean explicitly it's quite more positive and makes it easier for everyone than stating what others have done, said and think, and suggesting ideas without directly making any affirmation (e.g. "diplomacy"). Don't get me wrong, obviously you will write as you prefer, but a direct question is far more likely to elicit an answer than speaking about someone in the hopes he will react. Plus, it's friendlier and easier to understand. Very often, I don't understand half of your posts because of this style of implying things. Of course, the problem of not understanding lies on my side, just don't be surprised if people don't answer when not addressed.
I don't want to derail the thread or starting a discussion on this, only wanted to say that maybe you aren't being ignored and it's just that people won't necessarily reply to posts that just state in third person what they supposedly mean, think and want.
Well, I surely know what my preferences are.
Yes, so do I, since you let me know them earlier on the thread, i.e. you prefer that we as leftcoms/marxists avoid discussing wedge issues like trans activisim or prostitution. I bring up this preference of yours, because I "imply" (if you wish) that this motivates your latest intervention, and not any alledged concern about wishing to see me succeed in getting a response from Baboon. To you use your terms, I think your "explicit" aim doesn't align with your implicit aim. It often happens that when people can't win an argument, they start taking recourse to complaints about the style or tone of people. You even view talk about Baboon in the "third person" as unfriendly. I don't go so far to declare pronouns themselves to be impolite.
That's not my view, but ok. I
That's not my view, but ok. I didn't say it's unfriendly, either. I have zero interest in "winning" any debate here, both because the idea of winning debates is quite ridiculous and because I don't get what you are saying. Although now I'm getting it better, it seems you're just beating strawmen (at least now regarding me). As I said, I don't want to derail the thread (or to get between you and "victory"), and now I have nothing else to say. Good luck.
That's not my view, but ok.
What is not your view? Earlier in the thread you opposed discussing the issues of trans ideology etc. If you don't oppose it, but are willing to debate them, then I'd be happy to learn of this.
I didn't say it's unfriendly, either.
You wrote: "Plus, it's friendlier"
So technically, you didn't say my post was unfriendly, but you did say it could be friendlier. I agree, we can all be more friendly to each other.
I have zero interest in "winning" any debate here, both because the idea of winning debates is quite ridiculous
I knew you would jump on the word "win", and thereby avoid the point: which is that your latest posts are vacuous meta-commentary, instead of engaging in our disagreement, ie have a debate in the first place. I consider "winning a debate" to be the convincing of someone else of your position: there's nothing ridiculous about this. Except perhaps for someone who has no convictions.
and because I don't get what you are saying.
No, you're disagreeing with what I'm saying (ie the unavoidable need for communists to take a position on issues like transactivism etc). It's a strange thing I notice, that some people are afraid or unwilling to acknowledge even the existence of a disagreement.
Although now I'm getting it better, it seems you're just beating strawmen (at least now regarding me). As I said, I don't want to derail the thread (or to get between you and "victory"), and now I have nothing else to say. Good luck.
I don't care to beat strawman, so your "good luck" wishes are misplaced.
To restate the situation:
To restate the situation: Baboon (and the ICC in general) downplay or misrecognise the ongoing wedge issues on the 'left', namely the trans ideology and prostitution debate. It's not a question of anarchism vs. Marxism – after all, the Anarcho-Communist Group split from Anarchist Federation, and nobody will suspect ACG of fostering Bolshevik sympathies. (Nor even a question of state reformism vs. Marxism).
I have documented on this thread that various Marxists have de facto, willy nilly, already plunged into the debate (and if we regard Libcom as good class-struggle anarchists, so have the international anarchists); Alliance for Workers' Liberty; Ross Wolfe (once one of the most voracious critics of identity politics); Historical Materialism (incident at Conference in Sydney); Louis Proyect et al., Libcom (me getting banned) have taken the side of trans ideology and "sex-work" (and even the sub-reddit Stupidpol is split on it). Marxists on the opposing side can be counted on one hand; Cockshott; a few Kiwis (Redline blog). The fact is that the ICC has already involuntarily been caught up by Libcom into the controversy, or worse, has taken a side without wanting to admit or realise it (Baboon). Therefore, all I'm saying is, you should recognise the reality and openly formulate a position now, because like everyone, ICC members are being exposed to the general influence of society and so probably do have a position; in time one side might suddenly, without debate, rule it is dogma, ie not up for debate. isn't this pretty much what happened with AF?
I wonder if there's not some truth to the notion that for (us here as mostly heterosexual) men, the issues are not of personal concern to us, more precisely that is we have no stake in the debate, which gets generalised and projected into the idea that the working class has no stake into debate. The only possible selfish worry for us would be that more and more trans-identifying women are destroying their breasts (by breast-binding and operations). We hardly worry about being outcompeted in sports by women, etc.
2 April, 2019 - 21:52
On Libcom a text was recently
On Libcom a text was recently added to the library ("'Deficient' Womanhood: Girldick and Transmisogyny as Debilitation/Capacity"), which elicited nothing but some jibes from (idpol-critical) commentators at the text's apparent silliness. There was evidently no serious discussion possible on Libcom (once again). But the text is very serious (and well-referenced). Btw, the user who posted it seems to be Marxist.
Here's an article on women's day by a leftcom group in Oceania (on the ICT's site: http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2019-03-07/the-origins-and-capture-of-international-working-women-s-day). The comrades are generally critical of identity politics. However, like the others I listed before in this thread, when they incidentally touch on one of the prominent issues of idpol in the last years, they write (quote, my emphasis):
"Radical Feminist and even much of “Marxist” Feminist theory both place women as being a class based on their assigned sex/gender at birth. Not only do we oppose this theory due to its exclusion of our sister workers who are transgender, but also due to the simple fact that neither are genuinely reflective of Marxism even though they both claim to have their roots in such. Interclassist schools of thought such as these mentioned here do little more than cause division and confusion among the proletariat, while putting the emphasis on “patriarchy” being our main opposition, rather than the unity of workers, regardless of their gender, needing to unite in order to abolish global capital and class society itself in order to emancipate women and humanity as whole."
Elsewhere the article speaks of "the gender antagonisms present in class society", mentioning (domestic-)violence against women and children, inter-male violence and male suicide (btw, I don't understand why the last two are relevant).
Although this is just a passing remark (written by educated comrades), I think it does reflect on the ICT's own position or direction. Anyone who is critical of trans/"gender" (as ideology or a concept) is basically denounced as Terf. Yet there is no indication that this question was ever debated on inside the ICT.
So again, I worry that the ICC is heading in the same direction, despite its (professed) attempt to stay neutral. Besides, I think it's safe to say that young smart leftcom sympathisers number a significant amount of trans-identifying people, so just from an outreach standpoint, it's inevitable that the ICC will be asked to formulate a position, and it's in its interest to engage this topic for open discussion.
Here is an example of a gender-critical intervention by a communist organisation (CPGB-PCC) into the "controversy" on the issue of trans/gender: https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1247/decoupled-from-reality/
The author is a woman, the silence of the men in the CPGB hitherto presumably indicating that they *tried* to remain neutral on the topic...
The left’s response has not been to stand for the rights of lesbians and other women and girls, but, along with every mainstream political party, to suppress debate and to brand anyone who raises concerns or even asks questions with accusations of transphobia, bigotry and, bizarrely, fascism. There is ‘no debate’: trans women are women, trans men are men, non-binary genders are real and valid. To even question these statements, it is claimed, is to threaten the very existence of transgender people.
It criticises the claim that sex is a spectrum, which, as we know, is a position upheld by our dear Libcommers (specifically by its main admin, Mike Harman).
By contrast, and as another example of how the ideology of gender spreads through the apparent innocent use of the term, take this article by the ICT on the woman question: http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2019-04-08/a-class-perspective-on-the-women-question
It consistently speaks only of gender, never of sex (even in the original Italian, it writes genere, and not sesso). This equates sex to gender, and since we presume to agree with feminists that gender is a social construct, then, well, so must be sex. The Italian comrades promise another forthcoming article on radical feminism, so we'll see if they say anything directly on the trans/gender issue.
developed argument for non-binary sex
Queer theorists claimed that sex is non-binary or socially-constructed, and recently scientists took to newspaper columns to defend this idea, so to repeat, this isn't just some fringe political dispute of trans advocates vs. gender-critical feminists (or whatever you call the sides), and not just some "legal" state reformist distraction.
An extensive defense of this non-binary sex idea can be found in the 2010 dissertation (side-note: funded by the Rosa Luxemburg foundation) by a German biologist and adherent of intersectionality (+400 pages, online in German here). (not that it matters, but afaik the author is openly male homosexual). At the time it was praised by some radical Marxist review, and now it is marked as "internationally significant" (ie a candidate for translation into English). So far in English there is only the introduction.
On Libcom (over a year ago, since my ban) I pointed to the existence of an argument (that I came across on twitter) made by a trans-person, who defines "transgender" as "beyond gender", and so I took the position that I too then was "transgender", because I'm beyond the concept of gender, for which I was roundly mocked by the Libcom crew. Now I quote a passage from the introduction to this 2010 book, in which the author calls for the abandonment of the concept of gender:
Queer theory holds that characteristics take shape according to each individual and are polymorphic compared among several individuals. In other words, while `difference ́ is significant, it develops individually and with much variance and therefore defies simple grouping like in the dichotomous gender classification. At the same time, the `sameness ́ of human beings is referred to as a connecting common humanity, and queer theory demands the same, non-discriminating treatment for all people.
The references to what is connecting human beings and to their commonalities, as well as to individuality and variance, render invalid any general definition of the term `gender ́. With the focus on `equality ́, there is no more need to name it. If individuality and variance become the focus, the concept `gender ́ is also basically `empty ́ at first and can be filled by every individual. Here, too, the concept `gender ́ is superfluous without such individual filling.
This constructivist and queer theoretical approach is relevant for the observations of biological-medical theories pertaining to sex development which I will give in chapter three. Because, if `gender ́ turns out to be individual rather than different in a dichotomous way - i. e., female or male - from a biological-medical perspective based on current theories of sex development, then this perspective demands either a precise, individual naming of different characteristics or to leave `empty ́ and eventually drop the concept `gender. ́
This was published in 2010, so probably before the notion of "non-binary" gender arose, with the 56 variants or whatever, and before the upsurge in adoption of the word "gender" into regulations (and even one the site of leftcom groups like the ICT). That is, before the massive affirmation of the concept of gender, about which the "gender-critical" feminists complain.
But as my quote shows, even from a "pro-trans", intersectional, queer-theoretical standpoint, consistent logic should lead to a rejection of the concept of gender. This would seem to be the same position as the "gender-critical feminists"; Of course the "tiny disagreement" is that the latter still insist on the notion of sex (as binary, as a class in a biological sense). I don't see why the ICC should make virtue of maintaining neutrality in such basic questions of science.
6 July, 2019 - 16:07
We briefly touched on the
We briefly touched on the question of reformism here on this thread before, so to give an example that I think does fall within that field (with regard to decriminalisation of "sex work"): https://libcom.org/forums/organise/how-do-people-get-governments-do-thin...
I do not want to shit on the original poster for the naive question. It's just that the responses were underwhelming (to put it politely), and unsurprisingely the thread soon died:
Jef wrote:
In short I have no idea what you can do. I have no idea what anyone can do, I am feeling completely disillusioned with radical politics and obviously I don't believe in electoral politics.
Spikymike wrote:
Being in favour or against some particular reforms doesn't of course involve arguing for a programme of reforms to change capitalism or 'abolish' it.
If I correctly understand Spikymike here, his point (if there's any) is, that being in favour of a "particular" reform doesn't equal to being in favour of a "programme of reforms". I think that's true. But then why is it (in Spikymike's view) preferrable to be in favour of a "particular" reform, and not to be in favour of a "programme of reforms"? The focus on just a single/particular reform would seem to me to be even less radical (or systematical), than fighting for an entire "programme of reforms".
A recent (February 2019) project by "Anarcho Agony Aunts", just involving two women talking about issues relating to love and sex, appeared in the libcom library. Back in late 2017 I actually made a thread raising the question whether or not forums should give space for such discussion (the thread generally got negative responses, and was since deleted). Now there was also intitial negative response by two regular libcom posters:
https://libcom.org/library/how-get-second-or-third-date
Noah fence wrote:
Ready to stand corrected on account of the fact that I’m 53 years old and have been with my partner since I was 17, and so I’m clearly long past the dating game, in fact I was never really in it, but is this really serious advice? I’m pretty sure it’s for real, yet it seems impossible! I live in hope that this channel is just a big fat fucking troll. That said, I have a horrible suspicion that younger people won’t be in the least bit incredulous and that I’m publicly displaying what an outdated old fart I am.
I have no idea who this is supposed to help, apart from its producers. It doesn't seem to be anarchist, it doesn't seem to be anything really apart from very banal "believe in yourself" with occasional "don't be a dick" thrown in.
In response to Jef's complaint about a technical matter, a libcom admin (Jim) came to the defence of the "Anarcho Agony Aunty", but just for posting it – there hasn't been actual engagement with it. So, I repeat it remains (or has become) very much taboo to discuss actual love/sex, whereas "sex work", and sexual-natured abuse feature quite prominently (the latter in the form of exposés).
29 August, 2019 - 11:55
A few days ago the creator of last year's lenghty libcom-thread 'The poverty of identity politics' (my participation in which lead to my wholly unjustified permanent ban from libcom), Link, returned to post one more comment (which received no reply as of yet):
Link wrote:
... aims to present a political argument based on an analysis of reality. Few of the proponents of identity politics on here do that, far too many posts rely on simply dismissal if not outright abuse and bullying. Even bourgeois anti-bullying campaigns in schools do more to stop bullying than what is achieved here.
Yes I understand we all want to see a society that is equal and where this is equality and respect for all individuals whatever they are and whatever they do. However, the current social compaigns by the ruling class that are generally labelled political correctness are clearly a product of the assimilation of radical political approaches of the 60s and 70s towards feminism, anti-racism and libertarianism. Many libcomers fail to take an analytical approach to these developments and their politics remain completely at an emotive level
I doubt the "bullying" is in reference to my ban in particular, or at least I don't remember to have complained about being bullied on the thread. However, there is a tactic called "sea-lioning":
Sealioning (also spelled sea-lioning and sea lioning) is a type of trolling or harassment which consists of pursuing people with persistent requests for evidence or repeated questions, while maintaining a pretense of civility.
I do think the course of the debate on that libcom-thread manifested something of this sort of sealioning: a concerted and persistent demand by most of the libcom-crowd on the critics of IP (such as Link, or such as myself) for a definition of identity politics or, alternatively, examples of it among "anarchists" (my quotes). Any posts that didn't first answer their questions was labelled as "derailment" (in my case), or, in general, a sign of unwillingness to engage in sincere debate.
I gave an example of a critic of identity polticis (Jenny Bourne) already dated from the 1980s, who couldn't be dismissed as some kind of a prejudiced reformist (or crypto-fascist). Here's another: a couple of short 1991 pieces (pp 49–52) by the Maoist International Movement: 'Substituting identity for analysis' and 'Politically correct language'.
The irony is that the MIM themselves use words such as 'wimmin' or 'persyn', and they were also early on board with the new 'gender' concept, in some instances driving it to its absurd conclusion:
Thus, a woman is not someone with female biological characteristics. Women are people with a certain social role. Prisoners who are forced into sexual availability are women, whether or not they are biologically men. Defining women by their biological characteristics has little use to MacKinnon, or MIM. (from a 1991 text: https://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/bookstore/books/gender/m... )
(reviewing Elizabeth Spelman's Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought, 1988)
...and concludes as does MIM that there must be many genders.(p. 175) For MIM, oppressor genders include the traditional patriarchs and also the gender bureaucracy and gender aristocracy. The oppressed gender we call "wimmin" except when we say "wimmin" as a concession to popular usage in reference to adult female biology.
Readers will have to pardon us theorists, because we have so many problems to take care of and a language that does not necessarily come pre-used for revolution. We have two problems. One is to distinguish biology from gender. Just as Plato had the concept of masculine soul, the imperialist country masses also have this concept when they talk of "tom-boys." Secondly, even within biology we have to distinguish between developed bodies and child bodies. Even saying "female" or "female biology" hides the central problem of gender oppression in the imperialist countries, because it is children both male and female that really have the most oppressive sexual conditions. The adult female is not the same thing as the child female at all. The very concept of consent with children is in dispute; although MIM names it as adult consent at age 13.
Because of the burden of history, the oppressed gender is called "wimmin," but in the imperialist countries the majority of gender oppressed people are boys and girls. Even if our readers recall that they too talk about "tom-boys," it is not likely most will forgive us both for distinguishing biology from social role and adult biology and child biology. https://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/bookstore/books/gender/s...
And yet at the same time they (these hardcore Maoists) still also were able to criticize 'political correctness' or what is loosely called identity politics, unlike, apparently, the new libcom-line.
The strange thing is that Libcom actually has quite a strong set of guidelines about behaviour in posting on Libcom, stronger than the ICCs in fact yet their practice is appalling whilst the ICCs discussion threads are very good with very little personalisation of issues or insulting behaviour. Its focusses really well on serious discussion. On libcom are a bunch of hypocritical people who justify the call out culture to attack and abuse individuals with the self-same bullying approach they condemn as discriminatory and derogatory when used about minority groups in general.
I dont particularly mind the humorous threads or the social bits but their use of abusive language is quite incredible. That and the personalised replies , the pisstaking, the use of in jokes at the expense of posters, the avoidance of political responses and sealioning (new term to me but clearly takes place on the threads) must all be counted as bullying dman let alone the banning. I am told there are good people that post there and it is nice to think that some will listen to the serious points mad but im afraid you do have to be prepared to accept an awful lot of crap and just ignore it basically and focus on the political points that need to be made.
I'm surprised they haven't
I'm surprised they haven't locked your thread yet (I was banned at page 11, now, over a year later, it's at 23) – but clearly they resented that you even started a thread on such a topic as identity politics, with Harman-the-admin exasperatingly sighing it was a 'waste of time'. I think it is a timely hot topic, for somewhere since the 2016 US election campaign (and then the defeat of Mrs Clinton), apparently a memo was handed down from above so that a predominant share of the 'radical left' came to view criticism of identity politics as not (or no longer) interesting, or worse, as playing into the hands of the rightwing resurgence in the 'culture wars'. So I knew it had become almost impossible to debate this particular subject on libcom, and I only dared to still intervene on the thread because you, a longtime communist and critical of IdPol, were its creator, and so I thought there was less opportunity for the admins to find an excuse to ban me, as obviously you haven't complained about my posts supposedly derailing your thread, but on the contrary agreed that it was the libcom 'idpol' faction trying to shut down the debate.
Precisely the accusation of bullying (and crying about it or taking offense, ie victim ideology) features a lot in the culture wars, and I wish that could also have been reflected on in your thread (even though, a "theory of bullying", perhaps like a theory of parasitism or a theory of clanism, which identities especially online are said to promote, may be too general, however interesting it could be), but instead, when I found myself banned, I'm afraid to complain about it, for that can be construed as also a form of bullying. Even on the present thread, it was jk1921 IIRC, who tried to paint my motive for postings here as an 'attack' on (or bully-tactic against) libcom. That's parly the reason why I didn't appeal to anyone to stick their necks out, ie to protest libcom's ban me, for that would have been interpreted as an attack on libcom (me sending 'minions' to do my bidding).
Similarly, the ICC's complaint about Libcom's "attacks" on it, could probably be interpreted as a mere exercise in victimology, while the ICC's original article was deemed to offend or "bully" trans-people (again, for putting quotes around the word 'transphobia' – they did not understand that the ICC was trying to be super-woke, as the word 'phobia' suggests a medical condition, so one shouldn't lump persons suffering phobias with actual bigots).
So I think this framework of 'culture of debate', guidelines, civility, etc. (against trolling, and concern-trolling, etc.) is not substantial enough by itself to transcend the deadlock. Like I said before, if we take the IdPols (even the recent converts, who always shout the loudest) as sincere, then from their standpoint (of combatting racism etc.) they feel justified to non-platform/ban those not toeing their line enough.
As for non-platforming, this perhaps will be a returning issue in the future also for non-anarchists (eg leftcoms), since after the original event (commented on by the ICC in this thread's article), ie the clash at the Anarchist Bookfair in London, an 'IdPol faction' (supported by the AF and the libcom new-liners) seems to plan a 2020 Bookfair under their control, so should leftcoms still visit it, and in that sense legitimise the IdPol faction's past action (of deplatforming gender-critical feminists), or in their way 'deplatform' the bookfair by a boycott.
toilet socialism
I don't know whether Craftwork's posts (which were critical of gender ideology) on the libcom thread were deleted by himself or by the admins. In any case, I don't see him being active on the libcom site since. Let me briefly return to one specific attack (I don't recall by whom – it doesn't matter) on Craftwork on that thread that stuck with me, namely something about him probably watching transsexual porn. Which is a strange attack coming from this quarter of otherwise libertarian defenders of porn and "abnormal" sex (such as BDSM etc.). The attack reminds me of that ol' chestnut about homophobes being secretly gay. The analogy itself would relegate trans-people to a sexual orientation (meanwhile I was attacked for the mere suggestion that "transitioning" has a sexual component to it). The secretly-gay-retort is no longer used that often in woke-circles. But why did this line of attack fall out of use? We recognise that heterosexual men can hate and abuse women. That is, sexual attraction (towards a person) doesn't preclude (an ideological framework of) hatred of that person's sex. Likewise it could seem perhaps even more absurd in case of homosexual orientation, that when abusive relations occur with one's specific love-interests, that this is because you hate your partner's sex, which is the same as your own, or hate your partner's sexual orientation (which is again the same as your own). But actually there's the phrase "internalised homophobia" (that is, remainders of self-hatred on the part of otherwise self-conscious homosexual people). And to return to misogynist men, there's the suggestion that these misogynist men secretely want to be women themselves (maybe like antisemites supposedly secretely envy and want to be like Jews etc.). Until recently I think such "psychological" reasoning was still quite permissible. Now imagine to combine such an "explanation" for male misogyny with support for transgender MTFs (ie men who want to be woman). The "psychological" explanation is that hatred of the Other is really hatred of oneself; but what is hatred of oneself, except hatred of the Other? It seems to me that self-hatred-as-such is now often rejected as a concept (eg leftist Jews, in the face of rightwing critics, often simply dismiss the possibility of self-hating Jews existing). Yet those trans-identiying people who don't buy into the whole gender ideology package often get accused of being "truescum", ie internalizing transphobia, ie they are accused of self-hatred. This polemical accusation of self-hatred is perhaps wielded like a bully slapping their victim with their (the victim's) own hand, saying 'stop hitting yourself'.
Or the attack on Craftwork that he secretly watches trans porn could be just that it is hypocritical: to publicly oppose the political goals of trans people, whilst enjoying their existence in private. But then if that is consisdered hypocrisy, why did the libcom-crowd oppose even merely the possibility of allowing sexually-themed discussion on the libcom forum (as I merely raised as an idea on a since banned thread)? If you openly support trans people's poltical rights, then isn't it equally "hypocritical" to ban even mere discussion of their sexuality (including how others may view them, which perhaps can even be negatively, which is just as free a sexual preference to have as an "over-enthusiastic" liking)? If this is not hypocritical on libcom's part, then neither is Craftwork's refusal to disclose his own sexual proclivities.
I know there's still a feeling by many that the topics (on "gender" etc.) are deemed a distraction or banal: like the access of MTF transpeople to female toilets, prisons, women's sports, etc. It was Morris Hillquit I recall who in the early 20th century disparingly spoke of "sewer socialism", ie excessive focus by some comrades on municipal questions, like the reformist campaign for a proper sewage system, unlike the lofty goal of socialism. But having a proper sewage system is important, and the fight for it can become a generalised political movement, if not anti-capitalist. I realize there's a lot of "radlibs" criticize that Sanders campaign' focus on healthcare is just a mild reformism, without revolutionary potential. But help me understand how can the issues of eg trans access to toilets, etc. have more potential to develop into a movement with an anti-capitalist direction?
I forgot to say that toilets are a serious problem also for street protests and ongoing mass action. For example during Occupy Wall Street there was a segment of the Daily Show dedicated to this problem of how the camp occupiers did their duty in the toilets of neighbouring shops, causing some inconvenience. But if you have maybe even hundreds of thousands people mobilised in the street for days, then the toilets have to be self-organised (like at a big music festival). Just on a personal note, I (as a straight man) do get the feeling of unsafety or disgust of going to public toilets, and avoiding going to the toilet when you need to is quite a discomfort (I would do it as a child at school, because there was always the implicit threat of bigger kids harassing smaller ones). So I think women's concerns about mixed toilets are perfectly understandable and should be taken serious, even if they do not lead to the overthrow of capitalism.
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Keyword: lighthouse
Co To island district - emerging sea tourism destination
Wednesday, November 30, 2016 15:06
Co To island district, an archipelago in the northeastern province of Quang Ninh province, can become an important sea tourism destination in Vietnam.
Photos capture journalist’s visit to Truong Sa
Saturday, October 15, 2016 17:49
As many as 60 photos taken by journalist Nguyen My Tra during her journey to Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago are being put on show at an exhibition held in Ho Chi Minh City from October 15-20.
Symbolic lighthouse to go up in HCM City Book Street
The city authorities have allowed the Hoa Binh Corp. and First News to establish a “lighthouse” on Nguyen Van Binh street in District 1 to symbolise Vietnam’s sovereignty over its seas and islands.
Vietnam boosts cooperation with German state
The Vietnamese Embassy and Consulate General in Germany have worked with the German state of Hesse and businesses to seek cooperation between the two sides.
Phu Yen tourism flourishes
Sunday, July 10, 2016 17:07
The tourism sector in Phu Yen has begun to flourish in recent time, gradually becoming an economic pillar of the south central coastal province.
Coastal Phan Thiet City opens night market
Friday, June 17, 2016 14:08
Binh Thuan Province’s Phan Thiet City has opened a night market in Phu Thuy Ward, the first night market in the south central province.
Vietnamese in Germany object to China’s acts in East Sea
Hundreds of Vietnamese in Germany, on April 24, gathered in front of the Chinese Consulate General based in Munich to protest against China’s illegal actions in the East Sea.
Vietnam asks China to stop actions complicating East Sea situation
Thursday, April 07, 2016 20:03
Vietnam requested China to cancel its oil drilling plan and promptly remove its Haiyang Shiyou 981drilling rig out of the mouth of the Gulf of Tonkin whose delineation is under negotiation.
PM hails Vietnam-Germany University as “lighthouse” in bilateral ties
Friday, November 06, 2015 21:49
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung described the Vietnam-Germany University project as a “lighthouse” in the two countries’ ties while receiving Minister of Science and the Arts of Germany’s Hessen state.
NA Chairman greets Hessen State Science Minister
National Assembly (NA) Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung expressed wish that the parliament and government of Germany and Hessen State in particular would further promote all-round ties with Vietnam.
Philippines: Two Chinese diplomats shot dead in gun attack
Two Chinese diplomats were killed in a gun attack at a local restaurant in the central Philippine city of Cebu on October 21 while the Chinese Consul General in Cebu was wounded.
Vietnam protests China’s illegal lighthouse construction: Spokesperson
China ’s construction of two lighthouses in the Chau Vien (Cuarteron) and Gac Ma (Johnson) reefs in Vietnam ’s Truong Sa (Spratly) Archipelago is in serious violation of Vietnam ’s sovereignty.
Vietnam asks Taiwan to stop lighthouse construction
Tuesday, August 25, 2015 10:22
Vietnam resolutely opposes Taiwan’s construction of an illegal lighthouse in Ba Binh Island, part of Vietnam’s Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago, said the Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Le Hai Binh.
China must immediately halt construction on Vietnamese islands: Spokesman
Vietnam demands China to immediately stop the construction currently underway on Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Le Hai Binh said with regard to China’s erection of two lighthouses on Truong Sa islands.
Da Nang to build stronger homes in disaster prone areas
Saturday, April 25, 2015 22:14
The central city of Da Nang has created a pilot programme to build stronger houses in disaster-affected areas in co-operation with domestic and foreign insurance companies.
Con Co Island looks to reap tourism gains
Monday, October 13, 2014 20:14
At night, it looks like a floating city on a sea filled with light. This is how Le Duc, a tourist, describes Con Co Island off the central province of Quang Tri which he recently visited.
Da Nang opens new administrative centre
The People’s Committee of the central city of Da Nang held a ceremony on September 8 to inaugurate the city’s new administrative building.
Con Co Island strives to become safe tourist end
A ceremony was held in the central province of Quang Tri on July 31 to mark the 10th founding anniversary of Con Co Island district which is striving to become a culture and tourism destination in the near future.
Sri Lanka scholars supportive of Vietnam in East Sea issue
Thursday, June 26, 2014 20:51
Many lawyers, scholars and reporters in Sri Lanka have expressed their concerns over the ongoing East Sea tension, sparked by China’s dispatch of its oil rig Haiyang Shiyou - 981 in Vietnam’s continental shelf and exclusive economic zone, at a workshop recently held in capital Colombo.
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(thing) by VT_hawkeye Sat Nov 11 2000 at 7:43:18
1996 movie featuring Tom Cruise as a sports agent, Cuba Gooding Jr. as his client, and Renée Zellweger as love interest.
The general concept of the movie is a redemption story -- how Jerry had a conscience attack one night, discovered there were some things about his life and work he needed to change, and how, despite his screwups, he winds up being a pretty good guy. Cuba Gooding Jr. won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as Rod Tidwell, an Arizona Cardinals wide receiver with an attitude on the field, but his heart squarely with his family. Gooding's part feels overacted, but the Tidwell character is virtually impossible to overact.
Renée Zellweger Tom Cruise is now legally straight Cameron Crowe Quiz machines
Cuba Gooding Jr. Tom Cruise Vanilla Sky What Dreams May Come
Sapere Aude Help me help you Donal Logue Janusz Kaminski
How to appreciate jazz without really trying I knew before I met you just how we would end Squirrel wide receiver
Jerry How to tell if someone loves you Glenn Frey Kevin Kline
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Schools in Ottawa
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Children attend high schools from Grade 9 to complete their secondary education. High schools in Ottawa provide education for children up to the age of 18.
Immunisation must be proved regardless of which school boards the child attends. .
Public schools in Ottawa
The Ontario government pays for public elementary and secondary school education. While most public schools in Ottawa use English as the language of instruction, there are a fair number that cater to the French-speaking population. Some schools offer ESL programs for new-Canadian students.
French Immersion is an increasingly popular program and is now being offered from kindergarden. Students take about 50 per cent of their courses in French.
The general standard of education in Ottawa’s public schools is good. You can easily review the schools’ report cards online. There are various reviews and ranking sources such as the Fraser Institute.
Private schools in Ottawa
While the vast majority of children in Ottawa attend publicly funded schools, the city has a significant number of private schools. Class sizes tend to be smaller and students can receive more personal attention.
Faith-based schools in Ottawa
There are Jewish and Islamic faith based schools in Ottawa. The most popular faith based schools are Catholic schools. The Catholic School Board is one of the largest school boards in the City.
Ontario Publicly Funded Schools and Child Care Information
Ottawa Carleton School Board
Ottawa Elementary Schools
Information on Postsecondary Institutions, Colleges and Universities, Programs and Loans
Ottawa Catholic School Board
Ottawa Catholic School Board General School Location Map
Ottawa French Catholics School Board
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Jason P Schein
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Help Us Excavate a Dinosaur Bonebed in Wyoming's Bighorn Basin
New Jersey State Museum
In 2014, in a remote and barren corner of the Bighorn Basin, NJSM paleontologists and participants in the annual Paleontology Field School made a remarkable discovery. We found at least three partial dinosaur skeletons, including the world's most famous predator - Tyrannosaurus rex. With YOUR support, our team will return in 2015 to excavate the skeletons and bring them back to our research labs for preparation, study, education, and exhibition.
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Getting Back In The Saddle
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SPLASSH will capture and share the vast amounts of information about water that is collected by students, citizen...
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EcologyEducation
Working on What Works: Testing the Power of Highlighting the Positive
The Working on What Works (WoWW) program uses classroom coaches to highlight what is going well, foster collaborative...
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Depression is common among young adults and is a risk factor for suicide. Do young adults recognize the signs...
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An education project funded by 62 people
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Pledge This! (2006): A zero star review.
January 1, 2014 · by Anna (Film Grimoire) · in film review · 31 Comments
“Hey, check this out. Everywhere I go, people totally lose it.” Thus begins the magnum opus that is National Lampoon’s Pledge This! (2006); a film so filled with sexism, racism, homophobia and general stupidity that I’m surprised it was even made in the first place. Paris Hilton plays ‘sorority princess of South Beach University’ Victoria English, and OMG, her sorority has made it to the finals of FHM Magazine’s Hottest Sorority competition! She just has to incorporate some ‘diversity’ into her group of girls to be eligible. The film follows her quest for diversity (kind of), and the group of ‘diverse’ girls who must grovel for her acceptance.
Let me cut to the chase. This was the final film that I watched in 2013, and it was the worst film I watched in 2013. I hated it more than Movie 43 (2013). There is nothing likeable about it. It is a frustrating viewing experience. Normally there’s something I can appreciate about a bad film, but this one is just 100% bad. Why did I choose to watch it? This is a question I am continually asking myself.
I’ll start with the story. Paris Hilton – I mean, her character, Victoria English, is totally the hottest girl at South Beach University. She lets us know about it all the time. And she has to let a bunch of uggos (nerds, scientists, people who aren’t blonde, et cetera) into her sorority so that she can be eligible for the FHM competition. How do I know all this information? The film has a handy voice over, by Paris/Victoria and one of the other characters, that conveniently explains the plot for the viewers. This is the laziest type of storytelling, and it happens constantly throughout the film. Pledge This! doesn’t show, it tells. The worst part about this exposition is that the voice over sounds like it’s been recorded from inside a bucket, and occasionally it seems to be sped up to match the pace of a scene, so the voice sounds like a chipmunk is talking. The characters are so unlikeable that I dreaded having to hear their voices, but I knew it was an inevitability. Oh, and towards the end of the film, surprise!, Paris/Victoria’s sorority wins the competition. How do we know? We get a nice voice over of Paris/Victoria saying, “We won the competition!”. Ugghhhhhhhh.
The film’s soundtrack sounds like the worst unlicensed music you can play around with on Garage Band on a Mac computer. It sounds just like stock music, or, porn music from the 1970s. The cheesy voice over coupled with the cheesy music is just too much. The costuming/clothes and set design all seem to be straight out of the 90s, and is so dated. The film is a real anachronistic Frankenstein’s monster: stock/porn music from the 70s, clothes and set from the early 90s, not to mention jokes from the late 90s, and technology and cultural references from the 2000s. What a mess. It goes without saying that the acting is atrocious.
As aforementioned, the very worst parts about this film are its racism, its sexism, and its homophobia. Additionally, at one point, a character is made fun of for having been sexually assaulted by a Catholic priest as a child. I did not make that up. That was the very moment where I decided this was the worst film ever made.
The racism: A Hispanic character is repeatedly referred to as a “Mexican broad”, a “Shakira wannabe”, and Paris/Victoria makes the remark, “I guess I’ll just have to put a blonde wig on this one”. I don’t even know where to begin with that. One of the ‘diverse’ characters is an Indian exchange student named Senagarvarapoopoo Ghandasini, but the other characters can’t pronounce her first name so they just call her ‘Poo Poo’. The running joke with ‘Poo Poo’ is that the girls can’t understand her accent, and she’s also become hypersexual after her first sexual experience, and aren’t foreigners hilarious! The characters who do this are the ones we’re meant to be favouring, but it makes them look just as horrible as Paris/Victoria. There is also a geisha in Paris/Victoria’s sorority house for some reason, who is clearly a white man painted up to look like a geisha. This results in what can only be classed as a minstrel show with a Japanese twist.
The sexism: Women are sex objects in this film, that’s all there is to it. One of the male characters makes a joke that freshman girls at their college are essentially ripe for the picking, and that’s why they call them freshmen. Ugggghhhhhhhh. The whole film is a tribute to sexists everywhere.
The homophobia: At one point in the film, Paris/Victoria hugs her friends but cuts off the hug after a couple of seconds, saying, “I like the love but let’s not get all Ellen Degeneres about it”. One of the ‘diverse’ characters is a lesbian, and apparently this is a really funny concept to explore because all her role consisted of was hitting on girls and getting rebuffed because OMG lesbians are like totally gross. The ‘diverse’ girls visit a lesbian sorority which is filled with the worst stereotypes you could ever imagine. Also, gay men can be turned straight whenever you want, and then there are more and more gay stereotypes as the film continues.
The good things about Pledge This!: The mature age student can be funny sometimes. She is funny a total of three times. Also, Sophia Vergara is in this film for all of two minutes. What was she thinking?
There was something else that confused me about Pledge This!. Is Paris Hilton a genius actor, or is she just playing herself? The film is so self-indulgent and continually reminds the viewer how totally hot Paris/Victoria is, to the point where you have to wonder: what are you trying to prove? Everyone already knows you’re symmetrical enough to pass off as conventionally attractive. What is it about yourself that you need to continually tell everyone how great and attractive you are? Either she’s a bonafide dumbass, or she has some severe self-confidence issues. I feel sorry for her either way.
I’m sure that Pledge This! is meant to be one of those fun films that is somehow allowed to joke about all of the above, because it’s just a big jokey film! I worry about the people who would find any of this funny or interesting. You can argue that this is just the type of content you should expect from a National Lampoon film. And it is expected, because National Lampoon films are known for this stuff. But that doesn’t mean that it should be acceptable to make fun of people on the basis of their gender, race or sexuality. Because it definitely isn’t acceptable to make fun of people on the basis of their gender, race, or sexuality. I don’t think I can stress that enough.
I watched through the credits to see if there were any extra scenes after the film had ended that might somewhat alleviate my negative feelings. Maybe there would be a 30 second clip of the characters being likeable, or the story being resolved in a way that wasn’t completely confusing and dumb. There were no extra scenes. And after watching all the names pass by, people credited for this monstrosity, all I felt was overwhelming sadness. Then I read that this film was given 8.3 million dollars to be made, and my pit of sadness turned into pure rage.
I also recently discovered that one of the directors of Pledge This! directed an episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in 1993. The episode is called ‘Day of the Dumpster’. I am 100% sure that that episode of Power Rangers has more substance, more charm, and a more coherent story than this film. So maybe instead of watching this, you should somehow find a copy of that specific episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and watch that instead.
Watch the trailer here.
Tags: 0/5, comedy, film grimoire, film review, national lampoon, national lampoon's pledge this, paris hilton, pledge this, the worst
confusedalotofthetime · January 1, 2014 - 8:45 pm · Reply→
OH Dear 😦
Anna (Film Grimoire) · January 2, 2014 - 9:32 am · Reply→
My exact thought during this film! 🙂
alexraphael · January 1, 2014 - 10:38 pm · Reply→
I can see the smoke coming off your ears from here!
I’d never heard of the film before so I’m guessing it wasn’t too successful. Yeah, why would Sofia Vergara be in that? I remember being shocked Al Pacino was in Gigli so nothing surprises me I guess.
My ears are still smoking! I think this one went straight to video, and I’m absolutely not surprised about it. I’m almost glad it wasn’t shown in cinemas though. I’ve never seen Gigli… should I? Sometimes I enjoy bad films simply because they’re bad, but this one was too horrible to be funny.
alexraphael · January 3, 2014 - 2:51 am · Reply→
It was actually advertised in the US as a film so bad you just had to see it. Killed off the director’s career for sure. The storyline about kidnapping an autistic boy seems beyond bad taste and I have no interest in seeing it. What is your favourite bad film btw?
Anna (Film Grimoire) · January 3, 2014 - 10:33 am · Reply→
Wow, that sounds horrible. I had no idea they kidnapped an autistic kid in it, that’s tasteless. I think my favourite bad film is a tie between Zardoz (1974) and Dune (1984). How about you?
alexraphael · January 3, 2014 - 10:37 am · Reply→
Not seen either. Any Man’s Death is pretty soul-killing http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094666/
What high profile films do you loathe?
Anna (Film Grimoire) · January 3, 2014 - 9:49 pm · Reply→
I’ve been having a think about this! I really didn’t like the Coen Brothers remake of True Grit. I felt like a real idiot at the time for not thinking it was that great. I really had to wrack my brain for that one, what’s your pick?
I can’t think of any other filmmakers who are so erratic as the Coen brothers. On the one hand you have Fargo, No Country for Old Men and The Big Lebowski. On the other you have Burn after Reading, The Ladykillers and Gambit.
2001: A Space Odyssey went over my head when I saw it, though I can appreciate it visually. I really thought The English Patient was dreadful. The fact it won so many awards was an insult.
I’m not a big fan of The English Patient either, although the book was fantastic. It just reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine etc are socially shunned because they don’t like the film.
I’m a big fan of Seinfeld. We definitely think the same haha http://alexraphael.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/im-a-versatile-blogger/
davideperretta · January 1, 2014 - 10:49 pm · Reply→
I love that you would even review this! 😀
I almost felt like I needed to exorcise the film from my consciousness. Now that I’ve put it out there, my soul is at rest! 😀
davideperretta · January 2, 2014 - 9:00 pm · Reply→
Oh, I believe you 🙂
Niejan · January 2, 2014 - 2:03 am · Reply→
A zero star review? That’s a new one! I haven’t seen the film, but after reading your review, I’m definitely not going too. I laughed so hard when you mentioned the Power Rangers. LOL.
I felt this was really deserving of a big fat zero. Avoid at all costs! Unless it’s a situation like in A Clockwork Orange and you physically can’t avoid it. In which case maybe the Power Rangers will come to your rescue. 🙂
Parlor of Horror · January 2, 2014 - 6:02 am · Reply→
Zero Star! As soon as I saw Paris Hilton, I knew it was possible 😀 I remember seeing the remake of House of Wax in the theater and people cheered when her character was killed, lol.
That’s hilarious! She wasn’t good in that film, either!
mettelray · January 2, 2014 - 8:58 pm · Reply→
Why do this to yourself? I mean, if you like this kind of torture try Hottie and Nottie or something like that :D. I mean, I think finished watching it myself or I had a brain aneurism and forgot all about it afterwards.. But I didn’t do it for the torture, it has an Estonian actor in the lead.. apparently we aren’t very good with the choices we make in life because he should have never ever made that movie. 😀
Ha! It really is all my fault that I watched this one. I actually chose to watch it over The Hottie and the Nottie or whatever that one is called. I think we can officially say that every film with Paris Hilton in it is horrible!
No no you are mistaken.. The House of Wax is brilliant and she’s in there! Though, she dies a horrible death in the beginning.. huh, interesting coinsidence.
PS: Her episode for Supernatural was actually one of her better performances.. but the script helped a lot!
Hypersonic55 · January 3, 2014 - 2:05 am · Reply→
Good gravy this film sounds disastrous. To hear that it is worse than Movie 43, one of the most disgusting and most offensive films I have witnessed in the cinema or in existence is mad to me. I can’t believe you had to endure this mess, I feel for you yo.
Oh man, it is just the worst. I gave Movie 43 half a star because of the hilarious reviews it inspired, but I think all this one inspires is a black pit of despair. It’s really my fault for choosing to watch it!
snapcracklewatch · January 3, 2014 - 9:32 am · Reply→
Well I know Sophia Vergara was trying to break into American movies around this time. I remember because all the Mexican trash rags were talking about it. LOL.
This is a funny post. I hope I never ever ever see this. hahahaha
Haha thanks! Worst film ever! When Sophia Vergara popped up, I was like “What? Nooooo!”, because I love her in Modern Family.
thycriticman · January 6, 2014 - 1:16 pm · Reply→
I swear these movies are made just so people like us have something to tear apart in reviews. Horrible, utterly horrible. I question what goes through these screenwriter’s minds….
I was actually wondering about that, and whether the film is being intentionally provocative/horrible due to the ‘Paris Hilton factor’. Imagine being the screenwriter for this one! I would feel really ashamed of myself.
thycriticman · January 7, 2014 - 5:58 am · Reply→
Some films legit must be, or aim for the “So bad that it is good” category. The thing is, multiple people look at the script before it is put out, and released. So unless it is done with some sort of purpose, I do not see how someone just does not pause and say, “Wait, are we serious about this?”.
Which makes me really frustrated that some idiot thought a joke about a kid being molested was funny enough to keep in the film!
2014 in review… | FILM GRIMOIRE · January 1, 2015 - 11:46 pm · Reply→
[…] absolute worst film watched in 2014: National Lampoon’s Pledge This! (2006) I have no idea why I watched this, because it was awful. One of the worst films I have seen […]
In Case You Wonder, These Are The 6 Lowest Rated Movies on IMDb | WheeBuzz · May 29, 2019 - 1:47 pm · Reply→
[…] https://filmgrimoire.com/2014/01/01/pledge-this-2006-a-zero-star-review/ […]
← Search & Rescue #1
2013 in review… →
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Better Buy: DryShips Inc. vs. Diana Shipping Inc.
Reuben Gregg Brewer, The Motley Fool
Motley Fool January 26, 2019
DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS) was able to charge customers roughly 60% more for the use of its bulk carriers year over year in the third quarter. Diana Shipping Inc. (NYSE: DSX) was able to up its rates 45%. Despite similar directions on rates, the stocks performed very differently. Dryships' stock advanced 60% in 2018, while Diana Shipping's shares fell nearly 22%. Does that make DryShips a better buy than Diana, or vice versa? Or, perhaps, there's a third answer to consider, here.
Back from the abyss
Even after the massive 60% stock price advance in 2018, DryShips shares have basically lost all of their value over the trailing three- and five-year periods. So, that huge return in 2018 was a bounce off of a very, very low base. What happened?
A dry bulk carrier at sea
Image source: Getty Images.
The easy answer is that the dry bulk shipping industry fell on hard times. The rate advance in 2018 shows that. But this simple fact doesn't explain the full depth of the issue at DryShips. Diana's share price "only" fell 75% over the past five years and is actually up 20% over the trailing-three-year span. There was something else going on at DryShips, and it wasn't good.
While times were tough, DryShips entered into a deal with founder and CEO George Economou for a cash infusion. Following that late 2016 agreement, the company then agreed to sell new shares to a third-party investor. Despite elevated leverage, the company didn't use the cash to pay down debt; it went on a buying binge.
The outside investor, meanwhile, decided to sell the shares. That move, coupled with the massive dilution caused by the stock issuance, pushed the stock to painful lows. It was so bad that DryShips underwent a number of reverse stock splits to keep the stock price from falling below exchange minimums. Motley Fool's Matthew DiLallo estimates that all of the reverse splits would have amounted to a single 1 for 7,840 reverse split. Yikes!
DRYS Chart
DRYS data by YCharts.
With results starting to improve in 2018, it looks like investors basically breathed a sigh of relief, rewarding the company with a higher stock price because, well, it didn't self-immolate. But the bigger takeaway for investors is that the history here suggests that management isn't putting shareholders first. And for that reason, DryShips isn't a stock worth considering for your portfolio. Note, too, that the company recently bought ships from the CEO, a related party transaction that would seem questionable at a company with DryShips' past.
A better choice?
After that backstory, Diana Shipping looks like a pretty boring company. Yes, it ran into trouble when shipping rates tumbled. However, it weathered the storm a little better and didn't make strategic moves that were as questionable as those made at DryShips. In fact, after a long string of red ink, Diana's bottom line finally moved back into the black in the third quarter as it reported earnings of $0.13 a share. Through the first nine months of the year, the company made $0.09 a share.
The company is in good position to keep the good times rolling, as well. At the end of the third quarter, it had $176.5 million in cash on the balance sheet, up from just $40 million at the start of the year. It has since used that cash to buy back stock in an effort to return value to shareholders. Throughout 2018, meanwhile, Diana worked to refinance its debt to extend maturities and, thus, improve its financial flexibility.
Compared to DryShips, these investor-friendly actions make Diana the easy winner in this match-up. However, that doesn't mean investors should be lined up to the buy the stock. The sharp increase in the rates charged by DryShips and Diana speak to a highly cyclical industry. Rates can fall just as quickly as they rise.
In fact, during the third-quarter conference call, Diana CFO Anastasios Margaronis noted that economic risks had risen as 2018 progressed. These risks have only gotten more concerning since then, with the trade spat between the United States and China escalating further, and some European nations starting to show material signs of economic weakness. This helps to explain the weak performance of Diana's stock price in 2018 compared to DryShips.
To put it simply, the rates DryShips and Diana can charge are highly dependent on economic trends. If there's a global recession, or even just a material slowdown in a key demand center (think China), bulk rates could plummet again. And that would be very bad news for bulk carriers and their financial results. Investors are right to be a little concerned about that risk today.
Most should take a pass
Unless you have a deep understanding of the shipping industry, most investors are better off avoiding both DryShips and Diana Shipping. That's especially true right now since the two companies are so reliant on a strong global economy to support the rates they can charge for the use of their ships. There's just too much economic uncertainty to take on that risk right now. In the end, Diana is the better of the two companies, but neither is really worth buying today.
More From The Motley Fool
10 Best Stocks to Buy Today
3 Stocks That Are Absurdly Cheap Right Now
5 Warren Buffett Principles to Remember in a Volatile Stock Market
The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss
The Must-Read Trump Quote on Social Security
10 Reasons Why I'm Selling All of My Apple Stock
Reuben Gregg Brewer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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FEDVIP
Leaving office during the transition? Your pay and benefits questions answered
About 4,000 political appointees will leave the Obama administration in the next nine weeks. While conversations over policy, budget and organizational structure will take center stage, questions about your pay and benefits may not. Federal News Radio reviewed the Office of Personnel Management’s transition guide in search of the answers.
Federal life insurance Open Season signals time to reevaluate health benefits
Open Season for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program is fast approaching, but starting Sept. 1, for the first time in 10 years federal employees can enroll or increase their life insurance without a health exam, through the Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance Program.
Feds given more flexibility updating FEDVIP plans
The Office of Personnel Management just issued a final rule that lets a subset of federal employees enroll in or switch dental and vision plans outside of the open enrollment periods. The amendment goes into effect next month.
Top 3 Tips for Open Season
Open Season, the time when federal employees and retirees can comb through more than 250 plans of the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program and make changes, kicks off today and runs through Dec. 9. Find some key pieces of information for the current Open Season and links to more information. Plus, benefits experts offer their three most important tips for Open Season.
Feds in same-sex marriages given 60 days to update benefits
Federal employees in same-sex marriages have until August 26 to make changes to their health and life insurance among other benefits, according to a new memo from acting OPM Director Elaine Kaplan. Same-sex spouses of federal employees are now eligible for coverage under under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), Federal Employees Group Life Insurance (FEGLI), Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP), and Federal Long-term Care Insurance.
OPM expanding vision, dental options under FEDVIP next year
OPM is planning to add four new insurance carriers to the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP) for 2014. Premium rates and benefits coverage of the new plans would be announced later this year ahead of the annual federal health-insurance Open Season.
Aetna options for FEHB during Open Season
Tom Bernatavitz, senior vice president and head of federal plans for Aetna, talks about the federal employee health benefit options that his company is offering. November 19, 2012
WAEPA
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