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Best Wishes For Bella Santorum
Rick Santorum’s 3-year-old daughter, Bella, who suffers from a serious genetic condition called Trisomy 18, was hospitalized with pneumonia over the weekend, prompting her father to race home from Florida to be at her side. By Sunday, Santorum was able to deliver good news to his supporters in Florida, describing Bella’s improvement as “miraculous.” As Fox News reports:
[Rick Santorum] described the situation as a “very, very tough night last night” but said by late Sunday Bella was “alert and back to her own beautiful, happy girl.”
“It’s been a very hectic 36 hours,” Santorum said. “Life in the Santorum family has dramatically improved since the late afternoon.”
He said doctors hope she can go home in the next few days.
The Boston Globe says Santorum announced he was resuming campaign activities during the conference call with his Florida supporters:
The former Pennsylvania senator also said, “We’re going to get out on the campaign trail later tomorrow … heading out to the Midwest, and start campaigning in the next states as we move this campaign forward.”
Santorum scheduled a speech Monday in Missouri and another event in southwest Minnesota — two states with early February contests. He then planned to head to Colorado and Nevada for events Tuesday.
“I feel very, very good about where we are and where the campaign is going,” the candidate said.
Fox News relayed best wishes for the Santorum family from across the political spectrum:
“Ann and I send prayers and best wishes for Bella’s good health to Rick and Karen Santorum and their entire family,” said Republican presidential primary frontrunner Mitt Romney.
“Lift up prayers for Bella and the Santorum family,” said Newt Gingrich backer and former GOP rival Rick Perry.
“Thank you, Rick and Karen Santorum, for living the Christ-like example of sacrifice and right priorities,” wrote Sarah Palin on Facebook on behalf of her family. “Nothing is more precious or important than the life of an innocent child. Our prayers are with Bella, a perfect child in an imperfect world. God bless the beautiful Santorum family.”
“Let me also add my prayers and thoughts for Senator Santorum and his child. I have gone through problems with a child and my heart goes out to him and his family,” said President Obama’s adviser David Axelrod at the start of an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” a show on which Santorum had been scheduled to appear but canceled. As an infant, Axelrod’s daughter sustained brain damage from a series of massive epileptic seizures.
ABC News published a summary of Trisomy 18 that gives an idea of the odds Bella Santorum has been overcoming:
Children with Trisomy 18, also known as Edwards syndrome, have an extra copy of chromosome 18, which causes symptoms like clenched hands, low birth weight, mental deficiency, small head and jaw and an unusual-shaped chest, according to the National Institutes of Health.
“Most children with Trisomy 18 die in the first three months of life, and only 10 to 20 percent survive past the first year,” said Dr. Robert Marion, Chief of Genetics and Developmental Medicine at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
No doubt someone out there has already suggested that Bella Santorum’s illness should be held against her father’s presidential aspirations, since it has already distracted him from the campaign a few times. (He also caught a red-eye flight home after the Las Vegas GOP debate to be with her following surgery.) I just haven’t got the heart to go looking for that sort of blog post or editorial, and no desire to quote from it.
But I will say this: I hope whoever occupies the White House in 2013 has Rick Santorum’s sense of priorities, duty to his family, and his reverence for innocent life. How many of us manage as many miracles in a lifetime as Rick, Karen, and Bella Santorum have experienced in just the past three years? Here’s hoping for many more.
Massive layoffs at another Obama stimulus company
Political cartoon Jan. 30
Written By John Hayward
John Hayward began his blogging career as a guest writer at Hot Air under the pen name "Doctor Zero," producing a collection of essays entitled Doctor Zero: Year One. He is a great admirer of free-market thinkers such as Arthur Laffer, Milton Friedman, and Thomas Sowell. He writes both political and cultural commentary, including book and movie reviews. An avid fan of horror and fantasy fiction, he has produced an e-book collection of short horror stories entitled Persistent Dread. John is a former staff writer for Human Events. He is a regular guest on the Rusty Humphries radio show, and has appeared on numerous other local and national radio programs, including G. Gordon Liddy, BattleLine, and Dennis Miller.
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Every Rape Victim Deserves To Be Heard�??Except By Hillary Clinton
In a campaign built on lies, it should not be a surprise that the central theme of Hillary’s campaign is the biggest lie of all.
Someday, it will be the subject for a graduate thesis whether reporters who were in diapers when Bill Clinton was president simply don’t know the truth or, in their zeal to see Hillary elected, are obscuring the truth.
The media portray Bill Clinton as a lovable scamp, a good ol’ Southern boy who just liked to have sex in the back of his pickup. In fact, according to numerous independent accounts, he was a sexual abuser and, the overwhelming evidence shows, a violent rapist.
While we would normally extend our sympathy to his wife, Hillary has forfeited those claims by actively conspiring with him to cover up his sexual assaults and smear the victims, showing absolutely no compunction about destroying women whose stories she knew to be true.
Because Donald Trump is reminding people about Hillary’s brutal rise to power, liberals denounce him for using the “sex scandals of the 1990s” against her. But recall that it was Hillary who used the “sex scandals of the 1990s” to launch her entire political career.
A few weeks ago, Trump stirred up feminists by questioning whether Clinton is the most qualified woman who’s ever walked the planet, by saying, “Frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote.”
Of course this is true. Trump wasn’t talking about Sen. Dianne Feinstein. He wasn’t talking about Sens. Claire McCaskill or Elizabeth Warren. Those women climbed the political ladder on their own. Can you even name any of their husbands?
By contrast, Hillary got her positions by virtue of being married to the president, who cheated on her. She played the victim, and suddenly the rest of the world owed her.
Being married to the president did not make for an auspicious beginning to Hillary’s career in politics. She was a grumpy, unpopular first lady, was given control of a health care task force, did a terrible job, and was going absolutely nowhere, when her husband — the president — got caught fooling around with a White House intern, and then committed felony obstruction of justice to cover it up.
Hillary parlayed being the wronged wife into a Senate seat from New York, which was basically an appointed position (she ran against a little-known Republican congressman in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1); and secretary of state, an actual appointed position.
This isn’t about private affairs, the internal dynamic of the Clintons’ marriage or a wronged wife. No one cares about the Clintons’ marriage, least of all the Clintons. In addition to being vastly too byzantine to unravel, Bill’s philandering might affect what we think of him as a husband and father, but it doesn’t reflect one iota on Hillary Clinton.
But to say Hillary is an innocent victim would be incorrect. The overwhelming evidence is that her husband committed repeated predatory sexual acts, in some cases violently, Hillary knew that, and she helped him by muddying up his accusers.
The media worked hand-in-glove with the Clintons’ enablers, Betsy Wright and (future objective journalist) George Stephanopoulos, to conceal Bill’s “bimbo eruptions” — as the campaign called them — as long as they could. But when Paula Jones sued President Clinton for sexual harassment under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, his treatment of other women became relevant evidence in her case.
That’s when the floodgates opened.
Jones alleged that, when she was an employee of the state of Arkansas, Governor Clinton had state troopers bring her to his hotel room, where he proceeded to drop his pants and tell her to “kiss it” — then warned her that he knew her boss.
Either voluntarily or by legal compulsion, a slew of women attested to sexual encounters with Bill Clinton — Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, Gennifer Flowers, Dolly Kyle Browning, Elizabeth Ward Gracen, Sally Perdue, Monica Lewinsky, and several dozen cocktail waitresses along the interstate corridor between Little Rock and Washington. Many more told their stories, but said they were afraid to use their names.
Highly credible women who don’t know one another have given convincing accounts of Clinton’s unwanted sexual attentions, from groping, to flashing to violent rape. Juanita Broaddrick’s rape allegation convinced NBC News. It also convinced congressmen, who read her testimony, that they should reverse their positions and vote to impeach Clinton.
Hillary knew what her husband was doing and yet, over and over again, she helped him cover it up and destroy the women, portraying them as stalkers, blackmailers and loons. As one of Bill’s mistresses, former Miss Arkansas Sally Perdue, told the Daily Mail (U.K.), Hillary has a “vengeful, spiteful ugliness … And she’s championing women’s causes?”
This patron saint of victims made it her business to inflict more harm on Bill’s marks, specific examples of which will be covered in a future column.
Until then, know that when journalists talk about Bill Clinton’s “sexual peccadilloes” and refer to Hillary as a “victim,” that’s not remotely what it was. He was a sexual predator and she was his willing co-conspirator.
Amtrak�??s For-Profit Regulation
Twitter’s Traitors
Written By Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter is Legal Affairs Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS and author of High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Slander, Treason, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), Godless, If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans, Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and their Assault on America, and Demonic: How The Liberal Mob Is Endangering America.
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Tiger and Time
Apr 15 Public post 2
People still look past me. It baffles me that still happens after all these years. Yes, I know I am petite and pretty and, if you will allow a modicum of immodestly, I ooze with Southern charm. If I were in Hollywood, I am sure I would be Doris Day. I apologize if that’s an old reference. I am old. I fear that I have not kept up with the times.
People sense my friendliness. That is good. I am friendly. I welcome everyone. My bridge is always open. I optimistically set the table for two every time.
But I am not to be underestimated.
My name is Golden Bell. I am the 12th hole at Augusta National.
I am 155 yards long, and I am surrounded by azaleas and sand and water and trees. I am less a golf hole and more a vacation spot. My likeness hangs in offices and living rooms around the world. I look as innocuous and dreamy as a postcard from Hawaii.
But I am to be taken seriously. The winds swirl unpredictably around me. They say I was built on an Indian burial ground. I do not talk about my past. But I can tell you that I have broken many hearts.
I broke Arnold Palmer’s heart. That was in ’59, I guess. I revered Arnie, and over time he came to revere me, but he was still young then, full of spirit and too much certainty. He led when he arrived at my door. He then hit his ball into the water and made triple bogey and lost the tournament. I felt heartsick for him. But I am not easy.
Time after time in the years since then, they have come to me with a sparkle of glory and a touch of arrogance reflecting in their eyes, and they have looked beyond me, to opportunities that await, to a dream they have had had since they were children, to a jacket that they long to wear. And they have walked off my green broken. I have crushed so many hopes. Seve Ballesteros. Gary Player. Greg Norman. Jordan Spieth. I cannot remember them all.
It happens every year.
On this Sunday, the hopers and dreamers began arriving much earlier in the day than I expected. They don’t usually show up until late afternoon, as the sun falls behind the Magnolia and Juniper trees, but on this Sunday they started marching up in groups of three in the morning. I believe the weather brought them out early.
Tiger's par on No. 12 on Sunday was all that was needed.
The names change. The faces don’t. In the early afternoon, a powerful man named Brooks Koepka showed up. There is no doubt in my mind that Brooks has the strength to hit a golf ball miles over me. But I watched instead as he hit the ball without assurance. I could tell instantly that his shot would land short and roll back into the water. I tried to stop it. I always try to stop it. But there is not much I can do … once, I recall, I was able to stop the golf ball for a friendly sort named Fred Couples. But ever since then the groundskeepers have kept my grass shorter.
There was nothing I could do to save Brooks Koepka's ball.
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The same was true for Ian Poulter's golf ball. Poulter is English, from what I can tell, and he also hit a high, equivocal shot that bounced well short and rolled back into Rae's Creek. Later, the same thing happened to a tall fellow named Tony Finau. Each time the ball dropped into Rae's Creek, I heard those familiar groans that have always tormented me.
I am haunted by waters.
Then the next group, the last group, came up. A man with a beautiful name, Francesco Molinari, walked to the tee. What a name. I have grown to love beautiful names -- Ian Baker-Finch and Seve Ballesteros and Gary Player and Jose Maria Olazabal and Jimmy Demaret
And standing next to him, there was an older golfer wearing red, he had a familiar face, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
There are only a few who have ever turned this place inside out. Arnie was one of those; he was so captivating and fetching and affable. The fans at Augusta loved him so dearly, so fervently, that they called themselves “Arnie’s Army.” I often thought of myself as a member of Arnie’s Army.
Then there was Jack Nicklaus. I will not lie, he was my favorite. I don’t know if the fans loved Jack with quite the same zeal and warmth that they loved Arnie, but I know they admired him. He was so admirable. He kept his head. He never beat himself. He played the right shot again and again.
And Jack always made me feel seen. I’ve heard that he called me the toughest little hole in the world. That is the most meaningful thing anyone has ever said about me. I have been called beautiful so often that it has lost its meaning. But tough! Yes! It’s true. Jack used to say that he always aimed for the same spot — to that safe space of land between my front and back bunkers — even if it meant aiming away from the flag.
I loved him for that. Jack respected me.
There were others, too, who inspired ear-shattering roars, Sam and Tom and Seve and Phil and so on.
But Tiger Woods is different from all of them.
I remember when he first came to Augusta. He was only an amateur then, a teenager, but full of unimaginable promise and talent and skill (I heard Jack predicted Tiger would win as many green jackets as he and Arnie had won combined). I’m told that when they asked Tiger what he hoped to accomplish his first time around at the hallowed Masters he said, without hesitation: “Win.”
It was a brazen and presumptuous thing for a young man to say — the correct answer apparently being something to the effect of “I’m just happy to be here” — and I am sure some of the older men harrumphed and grumbled. But modesty didn’t fit Tiger or his talents. He came to conquer, and when he was 21, he did. He thundered through this golf course like no one ever had before. When he was done, records were shattered, imaginations detonated, and I overheard people say that they would need to change Augusta National just to accommodate Tiger’s prodigious abilities.
They did change Augusta National considerably, lengthening some holes, adding contours and rises in various places, reworking various parts of the course. But they did not change me — if you will allow me to speak immodestly again, I am timeless — and they did not prevent Tiger Woods from winning again and again. He had won four times before he turned 30.
And the roars for him were unlike those even for Arnie and Jack. I think that’s because Tiger wasn’t adored like Arnie, and he wasn’t lionized like Jack. No there was something else about him, something more aspirational. I am not sure I can describe it — I am no poet, I am the subject of poetry — but as I understand it, Tiger offered to take the crowd to a place where golf had never gone. He was an astronaut. He hit shots no one had ever hit. He saw possibilities where others saw tree branches and double bogeys. He brought order to a disorderly game.
Anyway, that’s how I have heard it described.
Then, one day, something with Tiger Woods changed. One hears things, but I am not one to partake in rumors. But I could see that Tiger no longer commanded the game the way he had. The crowds still shouted for him, but their cheers were less confident and more nervous. He grew older. He seemed to have a different swing every time I saw him. And then, some years, he did not show up at all.
I did not expect to see Tiger Woods compete again.
The cycle doesn’t often go in that direction.
When the last group of Sunday approached, I glanced at the little walking leaderboard and saw that the Italian with the beautiful name, Francesco Molinari, had 13 red. And Tiger Woods had 11 red. The Masters was in the balance.
And I waited with hope.
Molinari hit first. He reached back with his club, and I offered a silent prayer for him, like I do for every golfer. But as soon as he hit the ball, I could see that he had made the mistake that has wrecked so many. He aimed toward the flag. And he had lacked conviction. The ball fluttered in the wind, and landed short, rolled back into the creek, and those agonizing groans came. I saw the crestfallen look on Molinari’s face. I have seen that look so many times. I never get used to it.
Then Tiger Woods stepped to the tee.
I looked at him closely. Was this really Tiger Woods, the bold and impertinent kid who believed that nothing was beyond his powers? I could not tell. I began to say my silent prayer for him … but then I stopped because I noticed something. He was not that Tiger Woods. He moved more gingerly. His face was wider. His weather-worn face suggested that he had seen things.
And as he began his swing, I caught something in Woods’ glance, something unusual, something I had not seen in, well, in a long time.
Deference.
He aimed his shot away from the flag.
He hit it to that space between my front and back bunker. The ball landed and settled 40 feet from the hole, but dry and safe. It was the shot that young golfers feel too proud and too strong to hit. It was Jack Nicklaus’ shot. And now, it was Tiger Woods’ shot.
And I knew right then that Tiger would go on to win the Masters.
I could tell from the roars that he did go on to win. I settled in and just listened for those roars like I do every Masters Sunday. And they were louder than any I have heard in more than 30 years. I have since heard that as he walked off the last hole, Tiger was seen hugging his children, who were not born when he won here the first time. And I heard he took a look up to the sky to think about his father, Earl, who passed away a dozen years ago.
I am not capable of tears. Or at least I didn’t think I was capable of tears.
If there’s one thing I have learned as a most famous golf hole, it is that time, like Rae’s Creek, rushes in one direction. You cannot expect it to stop for anything or anyone. And yet, I’ve been around Augusta long enough to know that every now and again, on special days, time does stop, or at least it pauses. On Sunday, it stopped for Tiger. I think that means time stopped for all of us, too.
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‘Cars 3’ Review: A Surprisingly Good Sports Drama, But With Cars
Is Pixar’s Cars franchise worth another lap with Cars 3?
One of the stark differences between the Cars movies and many of the other Pixar films is that there’s no explicit purpose for its own high concept…except to sell toys. There’s no real commentary on what it means to be a car or own one, and audiences are instead given a “human” comedy that replaces the characters with cartoon sketches simply for visual and experiential distinction.
Even Zootopia, a Disney film that appears to do the same with animals, allows its story to be controlled and guided by the real implications of a society governed by anthropomorphized animals in order to say something relevant about humans. Pixar’s magic has been to get away from that type of storytelling with films like Toy Story, which commit to the real differences between the plight of toys and the separate experience of being a human.
Go on…‘Cars 3’ Review: A Surprisingly Good Sports Drama, But With Cars
The Pixar Theory: How ‘Inside Out’ Fits In The Pixar Universe
Take her to the moon for me. Okay?
The Pixar Theory, or “Grand Unifying Theory of Pixar movies” if you want to be more intense, is a fan theory I wrote in 2013 about how every single feature film made by Pixar Animation Studios is intentionally set in the same universe. Or unintentionally, if you believe in miracles.
Dan O’Brien
I was inspired by an episode of the Web Series, “After Hours,” on Cracked.com. In the episode written by Dan O’Brien, the After Hours crew discusses, at length, how a few of the Pixar movies may secretly be about the apocalypse. They address Toy Story, WALL-E, and Cars before giving up because they can’t find a way to connect the films any further.
So I took that as a challenge.
Over the following year, I developed my own theory on how all the movies connect, and the results have been surprisingly epic. People from all over the world have read the theory, and many of you have been having ongoing discussions in the comments that go way beyond anything I first imagined (trust me, I read all of them).
Now, two years later, it’s time to see where we’re at as we welcome a new Pixar movie to the world: Inside Out.
First, it’s important to point out that the theory itself has changed dramatically over the years. A lot of people have called out flaws and underdeveloped points of the theory that make it fall apart for them. I’ve read the feedback and spent the last two years writing a book that fully fleshes out my original theory. It addresses pretty much every major complaint and issue that “debunkers” have thrown at it. And it does this in about ten chapters.
Every chapter follows a specific movie (some are lumped in together, like the Cars franchise). I talk about the context of the movie as it relates to this theory, where it fits in the grand timeline, and how each movie contributes to the idea that these movies exist in the same narrative. And yes, I go way beyond the easter eggs.
My book is available now on paperback and all e-book stores. Hope you guys like it!
But let’s get back to the main task at hand. Let’s talk about how Inside Out masterfully fits within the idea that all of these Pixar films are connected. What you’re about to read is set up like how I wrote the chapters for my book, so if you like what you read, then that may be a sign that the book is for you. Consider this your sample chapter, if you will.
Obviously, many spoilers are ahead, so read at your own risk. I highly recommend that you watch the movie at least once before reading this, especially since it’s pretty fantastic. You’ve been warned.
THE SET UP.
Inside Out is the story of a young girl struggling to grow up, seen through the eyes of her emotions as literal beings. Yes, Pixar made a movie where feelings have feelings.
The movie opens with the birth of Riley Andersen. The first thing you may notice is that she shares the same last name as Bonnie Anderson from Toy Story 3 and the subsequent shorts based on that movie. That may tempt you into believing that Riley and Bonnie are connected somehow, but that’s definitely not the case since their names aren’t spelled the same way.
For context, Pixar named Bonnie after two people: Bonnie Hunt (a frequent voice actor for the Pixar films) and Darla K. Anderson, the producer of Toy Story 3. Darla actually has easter eggs for her name dating all the way back to A Bug’s Life, where you can catch her first name on a box in “Bug City.”
Anyway, we learn early on that Riley grew up in Minnesota, but her family moves to San Francisco when she’s 11 years old. Now it’s true that Bonnie lives in Tri County, around the corner from Andy, and Tri-County does take place in the Bay Area of California. But that’s really just a coincidence. Riley’s family never mentions that they have relatives around, and they only moved to San Francisco for her dad’s job. For that reason, all signs point to this being a coincidence.
WHEN DOES THE MOVIE TAKE PLACE?
Moving on, we get to know Riley through a montage of her early life. When we get to the point where she’s 11, it appears to be modern day. Much of the technology we see throughout the movie — like a Skype surrogate that closely resembles the one used by Trixie in Toy Story 3 and the presence of smartphones — point to this being a film set in 2015.
That means Riley was born in either 2003 or 2004, depending on her exact birthday. Interestingly, that would mean the movie opens during the same year as Finding Nemo.
We also know that this has to be some time after 2007, which is when Ratatouille takes place. In fact, Inside Out actually confirms that Ratatouille takes place in 2007 instead of 2004, which is a conundrum I ran into while writing the book. It’s all based on the blurry date seen on Gusteau’s will and…eh, don’t worry, it’s not important.
Anyway, the reason we know that this is some time after Ratatouille is because you can see Colette Tatou on the cover of a magazine in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it easter egg. Judging by the prestige of this magazine, Colette has done well for herself during her years learning from Remy and working at La Ratatouille, the bistro she started with him and Linguini.
After all, why would she be on the cover a magazine before her adventures in Ratatouille? Before she met Linguini, she was just a hardworking chef trying to build a career at a failing restaurant. I find it much more plausible that she’s created a name for herself under the tutelage of the best chef in France.
(DONALD GLOVER VOICE) MY EMOTIONS!
So as we get to know Riley in the film’s early montage, we meet her emotions. The film immediately takes us inside her head, where we watch Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger team up to influence Riley’s actions. They work in “Headquarters” (get it?) and use a mysterious console to control Riley’s decisions.
When an emotion manages to elicit a meaningful experience in real life, a memory is generated and sent to Riley’s long term memory. If it’s a specifically powerful experience, then it will create a core memory that will stay in Headquarters.
It’s somewhat confusing, but Pixar does a great job of explaining this better than I can. They use subtle techniques and cleverness to make the inside of Riley’s head immediately unique, while also incredibly believable.
For example, the memories are shaped like “marbles” because without them, Riley would lose her marbles.
This is a fun movie.
The plot of Inside Out focuses on Riley being uprooted to a new home in San Fransisco and how this negatively affects her emotions. She misses her friends, never sees her dad anymore because of his new job, and feels pressured to just “be happy” all the time. This causes her to repress her sadness, which eventually causes even more problems.
CONNECTIONS AND MISFIRES…
There’s another fun cameo during this part of the movie. We see a rat that looks a lot like Remy, which is just a fun reminder that Pixar animation transcends the multiple stories they tell. And we also see memories that feature other Pixar characters. You can see Carl and Ellie’s wedding from Up for example.
A good reason for that could be that Riley saw a tape of this wedding at some point, though that would have to be a very old home movie. It could be a picture, since we see a camera in the first frame of that scene in Up. In that case, Riley could have seen that picture and imagined the wedding herself. This has led a lot of people to think that Riley could somehow be related to Carl and Ellie, which would be quite a stretch.
That’s because Carl and Ellie sadly never had kids, so Riley would have to be a distant relative. If she knows about the wedding, then she’s probably met some of this family, but we know in those early scenes of Inside Out that Riley is visiting California for the first time. She thought the Golden Gate bridge was actually golden, after all.
You could argue that people from this family went to Minnesota to visit her, but I’m not really convinced. Personally, I don’t think we’re able to know just yet, though one theory I have is that she had a teacher or friend’s parent who is somehow connected to Carl and Ellie. A future Pixar movie may shed light on this.
Some people even want to believe that Riley is Boo from Monsters Inc.,or Andy’s mom. Seriously. Look, Riley is Riley. She’s not anyone else, and trying to force these connections is missing the point. For example, the primary reason people think Riley is Boo is because when she’s shown as a toddler, she’s wearing the same hair tie/scrunchy thing that Boo wears in Monsters Inc.
They both even have pig tails. If you’re fixated on them being one in the same, then you miss the cooler reveal, which is that Riley was growing up around the same time as Boo (Monsters Inc., takes place in the early 2000s), so of course that style and those hair ties were popular.
As for Riley being Andy’s mom…I mean that’s way too much of a stretch, even for a limo.
Besides the eyes, nose, time period, and basic facial structure, they’re exactly alike! Sigh.
HUMANS ARE BATTERIES…
A main theme of the Pixar Theory is the idea that humans emit this strange energy that we see all throughout the films. In Monsters Inc., we learn that the laughter of a child can be harvested as energy for a society of creatures that mysteriously know how to use it. In The Incredibles, this energy is seen tangibly through the exploits of super-powered humans who can do amazing things.
Part of my Pixar Theory (the updated version) is that humans power the toys in Toy Story because they’re built to collect energy by the machines from The Incredibles. The book goes more into detail, but the basic idea is that the machines know how to use human energy as a battery, which carries on as a strategy all the way to the future, when monsters have to go back in time through doors to access this energy because no humans are left thanks to WALL-E.
But all this time, I’ve wondered why Pixar seems so infatuated with this idea of imagination being a raw power. And Inside Out addresses this pretty head on. The whole premise of the movie is that our emotions (as seen in Monsters Inc.,) are what truly power our actions. And the most powerful emotion for a child is Joy, as seen by Joy being the de facto leader of Riley’s emotions. Most of Riley’s memories are positive, and this is because Joy is inherently a strong emotion for many children.
The monsters of Monsters Inc, use fear, which can be another strong emotion for some kids, to power their society, but they eventually learn that laughter from joy is far more effective. And why is that? Well, Inside Out explains that joy is one of the first emotions we experience. Joy, the character, is a literal light source. She’s fast, tough, and clever. And she’ll do anything to make Riley happy. The other emotions in comparison are much more passive.
A lingering question in Monsters Inc., is why adults are so difficult to scare. Inside Out sort of answers that by showing how the inside of adults’ minds work. They’re more emotionally balanced, for example, so you don’t see one emotion overpowering the others. When we see inside the heads of Riley’s parents, the emotions don’t bicker like they do in Riley’s head. Instead, they all work together to accomplish the same goal.
But that’s not all. No, no, no. There’s something even better hiding in the dark of this movie that serves as the biggest “Aha!” moment I’ve had since I carefully re-watched Brave and Monsters Inc., back to back.
And it has to do with this guy, Bing Bong.
BING BONG! BING BONG!
Bing Bong is Riley’s imaginary friend. Joy and Sadness meet him halfway through the movie, and he helps them navigate Riley’s mind as they try to return to Headquarters. When Riley was three, Bing Bong was her best friend. He’s part cat, part elephant, and part dolphin. He’s made of cotton candy and, naturally, cries candy. He even has a wagon that can fly when powered by songs…
(humans=batteries).
So what’s the big deal? Why is he important?
Simple. Bing Bong is an imaginary friend, yes. But he’s based on a monster. Riley’s monster from when she was three.
At the end of Monsters Inc., Sulley and Mike decide to make kids laugh instead of scream because it generates more energy and is less messed up. We even see Mike go through a door and perform standup comedy for a child.
But wouldn’t this leave a kid feeling traumatized? Imagine a monster coming through your door, making you laugh, and then disappearing forever. This would make no sense unless…children perceive these new monsters as their imaginary friends.
Bing Bong was a monster who went through Riley’s door and made her laugh when she was three. We know that monsters have animal characteristics, explaining his part-cat/part-elephant appearance. And of course Riley thinks he’s made of cotton candy. Why else would he be pink? I’d even argue that he makes dolphin noises to make Riley laugh, causing her to think he’s part dolphin, too.
This all makes perfect sense if we’re to believe that well-adjusted kids in Pixar movies grew up meeting monsters in their rooms late at night. And it’s further helped by the fact that in Riley’s subconscious, she’s afraid of clowns, not monsters.
And think of it this way. Isn’t it pretty easy to picture Bing Bong living in Monstropolis?
I have plenty more to say about all of this, but those are the major points. If you want to keep digging, you can read another exploration I did of this movie that goes somewhat more into detail. The gist of it is that Bing Bong is life.
There are more easter eggs for the movie listed at the bottom, but that’s the basic rundown of how Inside Out fits into the Pixar Theory. If you think of something interesting to add or have a compelling question to ask, fire away! Just please…don’t ask if Big Hero 6, a Disney movie, should be in the Pixar Theory…
The conspiring doesn’t end here. Check out my other Pixar Theory posts from infinity to beyond:
The Pixar Theory – Part 3: The Good Dinosaur
The Pixar Theory – Part 4: Finding Dory
The Pixar Theory – the full book available on paperback and ebook via Kindle, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, or just a PDF. This will cover the entire theory and every movie in the Pixar universe, updated from what you just read.
The Pixar Theory – What about Planes?
The Pixar Detective – an expanded universe novel that explains the theory as a full narrative.
EASTER EGG ISLAND!
There’s a globe in Riley’s classroom that has been shown in every single Toy Story film.
Some of the cars in San Francisco have bumper stickers from the Pixar movie, Cars.
Bing Bong disturbs a cloud person in Imaginationland, and he looks a lot like the cloud from the Pixar short, “Partly Cloudy.”
Also in Imaginationland, you can see a board game with a picture of Nemo that says “Find Me.”
One of Riley’s classmates wears a camo shirt with Toy Story characters on it. Well, their silhouettes, at least. It even looks like Arlo from The Good Dinosaur is on there as well. There’s even a popular girl at the school with a skull t-shirt in the same fashion as Sid’s from Toy Story, just in a different color. The 90s are making a comeback!
A banner in Riley’s hockey rink showcases a team from Tri-County, which is the setting for Toy Story. I explain this easter egg further in a different article.
Blink and you’ll miss a “For the Birds” cameo during Riley’s road trip to San Francisco in the beginning of the movie. It’s just like their appearance in Cars.
As always, the animators included ample A113 references. I’ve heard there’s more than one, but the only one I saw personally was A113 as the number of Riley’s classroom.
If you look closely at Riley’s Chinese takeout box, you’ll notice it has the same design as the one from A Bug’s Life (pictured below). Those familiar with the theory know that this could be because the same restaurant exists in both movies, so naturally there’d still be remnants of these takeout boxes hundreds of years later during Flik and the gang’s adventures.
Every Easter Egg in the New Ant-Man Trailer
Reid Jones | Moviepilot:
Ant-Man’s daughter, Cassidy Lang, has been fully revealed as Scott’s main motivation for getting into the suit. Little did you know that in the comics, Cassidy grows up to be the superheroine known as Stature, who uses Ant-Man’s same powers, except in reverse: to grow to skyscraping heights. Could we end up seeing a fully grown Cassidy by the time an Ant-Man 3 film comes out? Ant-Man 2 won’t be coming out until at least 2019, leaving Cassidy around her teenage years should a third film ever make its way to the big screen.
A fellow writer at Moviepilot, Reid Jones, compiled a full list of even the most subtle references scattered in the first Ant-Man trailer, which premiered just last night during “Agent Carter.”
If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, you can still check out the article and stream the trailer at the top.
For those of you who have seen the trailer, what did you think?
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← Boycott Israel, Go To Jail?
“Alarm has been raised” over Congress’ anti-BDS bill →
By Jacob Rogers, Medill News Service | July 24, 2017 at 5:59 PM
July 24 (UPI) – WASHINGTON — Pro-Palestine and free speech advocacy groups are concerned that legislation to prohibit restrictive trade practices against Israel will have a chilling effect on businesses and advocacy groups that want to divest from Israeli investments over what they see as the Jewish state’s continued occupation and colonization of Palestine.
The legislation, proposed by Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, has 45 co-sponsors in the Senate and is a legislative priority for the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. The proposal would amend two laws, the Export Administration Act of 1979 and Export-Import Bank Act of 1945, to make it be U.S. policy to oppose “restrictive trade practices or boycotts fostered or imposed by an international governmental organization, or requests to impose such practices or boycotts, against Israel.” It also states that “U.S. persons engaged in interstate or foreign commerce” would be prohibited from doing so.
The proposal also would insert language into the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945 which would make it consider “actions that are politically motivated” against Israel when determining if a company will receive credit from the bank.
Josh Ruebner, policy director at the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, called the bill “unconstitutional on its face.”
“While the possibility of someone getting thrown in jail, I think, is remote, … that has the significant potential to depress corporations adhering to consumer demands not to do business with Israel or Israeli settlements,” Ruebner said. “And it also has a broad chilling impact upon the broader civil society movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions with this threat hanging over everyone’s head.”
The American Civil Liberties Union also opposed the measure, noting civil penalties go up to $250,000 and criminal penalties go up to $1million and potentially 20 years in prison, in accordance with the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
“The right to engage in a peaceful political boycott is squarely protected by the First Amendment, and a proud part of America’s constitutional legacy,” ACLU attorney Brian Hauss said in a post on the group’s website. “Whatever Congress thinks about boycotts targeting Israel, it should reject any attempt to expand the scope of criminal laws targeting peaceful political activity.”
Cardin and Portman disputed the ACLU argument, saying, “Any suggestion that this bill creates potential criminal or civil liability for these actions is false” and it does not “punish individuals or companies from refusing to do business with Israel based on their own political beliefs.”
Ruebner didn’t put much faith in their assurances.
“We still have our concerns because the legislation is so vague,” he said. “The mechanisms through which this law would be enforced … are not clear.”
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is a co-sponsor of the proposal. At a recent town hall, members of Jewish Voice for Peace, an advocacy group that supports boycotts, urged her to oppose the legislation.
“We have a different read of the specific bill language, however, due to the ACLU’s concerns, the Senator has extended an invitation to them to meet with her and discuss their concerns,” Glen Caplin, Gillibrand’s senior advisor, said in an email addressing her views.
According to Ruebner, this proposal is a desperation play by Israel and those in the United States who support its policies in the West Bank.
“They are failing, and will continue to fail, in trying to defend Israel on its merits,” he said.
A representative of AIPAC responded to an interview request with a link to Cardin and Portman’s response. They did not respond to follow-up questions.
This entry was posted in In the News, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. Bookmark the permalink.
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Josoor Institute launches certificate and diploma programmes in next step to building regional human capacity
Media ›
Press Release ›
Josoor Institute, a centre of excellence for the sports and events industries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, today launched its professional certificate and diploma programmes. Designed to provide a detailed understanding of the necessary skills involved in the management of sports and events, the new programmes reiterate Josoor Institute’s mandate to enable the successful delivery of a historic 2022 FIFA World CupTM and help build a legacy for the region.
Launched in partnership with leading international academic partners including Georgetown University, University of Liverpool and Leeds Beckett University, the part-time programmes include six blocks spread over an 18-month period. The programmes are specially curated to provide aspirants and professionals knowledge and skills, and help develop their management and leadership competencies. From the organisation and management of large-scale events to understanding the world of football, these courses provide a unique learning opportunity with insights from world-class delivery teams from the partner universities.
The Certificate and Diploma programmes will provide a detailed learning and understanding of the skills required to prepare professionals in the region for the sports and events industries. Specifically, the Professional Certificate and Professional Diploma programme on 'Football and Sports Management' will focus on the various specialised and managerial aspects of the sports business with a special emphasis on football. Delegates shall derive insights into managerial theories and their practical application in the business of sports.
Similarly, the Professional Certificate and Professional Diploma programme on 'Major Events Management' will provide delegates an interactive learning opportunity with specific sessions from industry experts and academics focusing on the conceptualisation, organisation and execution of large scale events. The first block of certificates titled ‘Major Events Management’ and ‘Football and Sports Management’ are currently under way.
Commenting on the launch of these programmes, Mushtaq Al-Waeli, Executive Director (acting) of Josoor Institute said, “Josoor Institute is committed to capacity development within Qatar and the MENA region. With the launch of certificate and diploma programmes, we have entered the next phase of our exciting journey to enhance skills amongst regional audiences and support their professional development. We continuously strive to provide opportunities that enrich the learning environment and nurture and inspire the young generation. With these programmes we are providing our delegates with a unique opportunity to contribute towards the growth and development of sustainable sports and events industries in our region.”
Delivered in part time format, the programmes allow candidates to continue with their education and professional careers, and enables them to learn the practical and theoretical applications of the course content with platforms for discussion and feedback to help them fully understand the industries and make better informed career decisions.
Dr Khalid Bibi, Associate Dean for Academic Programmes at Georgetown University said, “One of the biggest challenges facing the development of any industry is finding the right talent. Qatar and the Middle East region are a sought-after destination for international tourism and a preferred host for major sports events. It is very important to train local talent and provide them with learning opportunities that fulfil their career aspirations and support the development of the regional ecosystem. We are proud to be engaged with Josoor Institute and support them in their efforts to create legacy opportunities, as Qatar gears up to host one of the biggest sporting extravaganzas.”
The Diploma programmes are scheduled from 12-16 April 2015. These will provide great learning opportunities with insights from industry experts and academics for delegates who are keen on pursuing a long-term career in major events management or football and sports management.
The newly launched programmes have already garnered immense interest from the industry with attending delegates from the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, the Qatar Football Association, Qatar Stars League, Aspire, Abu Issa Holding, the Saudi Pro League, the Qatar Tourism Authority, Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC) and representatives from regional Football Associations including Yemen, Tunisia, Palestine and Saudi Arabia. These are in addition to the 1,150 delegates from across Qatar and the MENA region that Josoor Institute has imparted industry best practice, skills and expertise to date.
For more information on Josoor Institute and its activities visit www.josoorinstitute.qa
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Imagine A City
Unignorable Issues
Changemakers to Watch
Tag Archives: early intervention
How to talk to your child about developmental differences
Posted on January 2, 2018 by United Way Greater Toronto
At some point, it’ll happen—as a parent, you’ll have to talk about developmental differences with your child. Maybe a new classmate will have a physical or intellectual disability, or your family will see someone in a wheelchair, or it’ll come up on TV. (Sesame Street recently introduced a new Muppet, Julia, who has autism, so maybe it already has!) It might not be a comfortable conversation—after all, even talking about developmental differences among adults can feel awkward at times—but it’s a necessary one when raising compassionate kids. Here’s what you should keep in mind.
1. Use the Right Words
Your child will speak about developmental differences the same way that you do, so be sure to use inclusive language that’s up-to-date.
“When we talk to parents who’ve received a diagnosis, we have to be careful about word choices. We always talk to them from a place of positivity,” says Sasha Delgado, manager of the preschool speech and language program at Macaulay Child Development Centre, a United Way agency that supports children and their families in Toronto.
That’s the ideal way to talk to your kids about a friend or classmate’s developmental difference, too, says Delgado. Explain that certain terms can make people feel left out and unhappy, and that using the right words helps you avoid hurting their feelings.
2. Focus on Ability
Terri Hewitt, vice-president of developmental services at Toronto’s Surrey Place Centre, which serves children and adults with developmental disabilities, also thinks it’s a good idea to emphasize abilities. “I advise parents to highlight what a person can do rather than focusing on what they can’t,” she says.
Hewitt often talks to elementary school children about cognitive differences and always starts with a general discussion about what makes each person special, making sure to highlight positive traits rather than negative ones.
When you’re talking to your kids at home, follow Hewitt’s lead. Start the conversation by asking your kids what makes them unique, and have them identify their own physical abilities and personality traits. Then, if your child has a classmate or friend with an intellectual disability, talk about challenges he or she might have with learning, whether its reading, doing math or speaking up in class.
3. Encourage Compassion
After you’ve talked about some of the challenges that developmental differences can cause, it’s important to emphasize the importance of empathy. First, talk to your children about their own strengths and weaknesses; then help them see that they’d want help from others in areas where they struggle, too.
Delgado says that when it comes to children, it’s important to remember that progress is always possible, so long as adults play to their strengths.
Hewitt adds that separating cognitive skill from personality is also helpful. Being a kind, thoughtful and helpful person has nothing to do with a person’s developmental differences. By considering the way you talk to your child about people with disabilities, you might find that you’ll change the way you think about them as well.
For more information and resources, visit Macaulay Child Development Centre, which specializes in helping all children reach their full potential. Services include early education, literacy and support for kids with special needs and their families.
Posted in Issues, Youth Success | Tagged ASD, autism, child, children, cognitive, communication disorder, disabilities, disability, early intervention, education, intellectual disability, language, language delay, language development, language pathologist, language support, physical disability, physical limitation, special needs, special needs child, special needs kids, speech pathologist, therapy
How to get mental health help for your child
Posted on January 23, 2017 by United Way Greater Toronto
Do you have a child or teen who’s struggling with their mental health and aren’t sure where to get help? We reached out to several experts to put together this tip sheet for parents that can help you recognize some of the signs of mental illness and learn more about resources in your community where you can access services and supports.
SIGNS THAT YOUR CHILD OR TEEN MIGHT BE STRUGGLING
One of the first signs that your child or teen may be struggling with mental illness? They may start to behave in a way that is unusual or out of character for them. For example, if they used to be quite social and outgoing and they suddenly become more isolated, even refusing to go to school or interact with their peers, this could be a red flag. “You may also notice changes in a child’s appetite or sleeping patterns,” says Myra Levy, Clinical Director at East Metro Youth Services, a United Way-supported agency. “Sometimes mental health concerns, for example depression and anxiety, can also be triggered by a stressful or traumatic event including a divorce, a serious breakup or a death in the family. Your child or teen may tell you that they’re not feeling happy or that they’re having thoughts about suicide.” It’s also important to remember that you are not alone: 10 to 20 per cent of Canadian youth are affected by a mental illness or disorder and only one in five children who need mental health services receives them.
WAYS TO GET HELP:
If you suspect your child or teen is at risk of harming themselves or others, and you feel that you’re not able to keep them safe, take them to a hospital emergency department right away, advises Dr. Joanna Henderson, a psychologist and Director of the Margaret and Wallace McCain Centre for Child, Youth and Family Mental Health at CAMH. In less urgent situations, Dr. Henderson also suggests that parents can call United Way-supported Distress Centres for support and advice on other appropriate community or professional resources to help your child. Young people can also call the Kids Help Phone to speak to a counsellor and to learn more about other mental health supports in the community.
Many parents often turn to their family doctor or pediatrician for mental health support. A recent Toronto Star article notes that, according to the Ontario Medical Association, family physicians deliver about half of all mental health services in Ontario. This includes supports such as assessments, therapy and prescribing medication. If your family doctor or pediatrician works as part of a multidisciplinary team, he or she can also refer children and their parents to other healthcare professionals on the team including psychologists, nurse practitioners or social workers. All of these services are typically covered by OHIP when delivered in this setting.
COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH CENTRES
There are also a number of accredited community-based mental health centres, including United Way-supported East Metro Youth Services, where parents and their children can access a range of mental health services. The best way to find a centre near you is to visit Connex Ontario or call United Way-supported 211 for resources in Toronto and York Region. Some community mental health centres offer walk-in clinics where parents and their children can access help with no doctor’s referral/diagnosis or appointment required. The services provided by these centres are also paid for by the government, private donors and in some cases, supported by organizations including United Way. Additional services range from one-on-one/group counselling sessions to more intensive options including alternative classrooms and residential treatment programs. United Way also invests in a variety of community-based mental health programs that support vulnerable and marginalized groups including LGBTQ+ and homeless youth. Counselling services at community mental health centres are typically provided by professionals with Masters-level designations in social work, psychology or counselling. “Although traditionally there have been wait lists to access psychiatry or community counselling services, walk-in clinics are supporting early access and reduced wait times,” says Alanna Burke, Clinical Manager at East Metro, which is the lead agency for infant, child and adolescent mental health in Toronto. The agency, in partnership with the Hospital for Sick Children piloted a telepsychiatry project and plans to scale up the initiative across the city to connect young people with psychiatrists to provide faster diagnosis.
Many family doctors will also refer parents and their children/teens to specialists including psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists. Psychiatrists are medical doctors who can assess and diagnose mental illnesses including depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or ADHD, among others. They are also licensed to provide therapy and prescribe medication. Although services provided by psychiatrists and other specialists in the publicly-funded system (including hospitals) are covered by OHIP, wait times for doctors can be significant and variable, depending on circumstances, says Henderson. Psychologists, who do not typically require a doctor’s referral, can diagnose mental illness and provide therapy, but can’t prescribe medication. When they work in the publicly-funded system their services are covered by OHIP. While wait lists to see psychologists in private practice can be shorter, the hourly cost to see this type of specialist ranges from approximately $150- $250-per-hour. Henderson says some specialists offer a “sliding scale” of hourly fees for lower-income clients. Specialists such as psychologists and psychiatrists offer a range of therapies for children and teens including cognitive behavioural therapy, dialectical behavior therapy and mindfulness—in both an individual and group settings. There are also a small number of school board social workers in school boards in both Toronto and York Region who offer supports to students in a school setting. “As a parent of a child or teen struggling with mental illness, it’s also important to take care of yourself,” adds Henderson. “We know that when families are getting support together, that can really lead to positive outcomes.”
Posted in Issues | Tagged Alanna Burke, anxiety, camh, children, community partners, community resources, community services, community supports, community-based mental health centre, Connex Ontario, counselling, counsellor, depression, Distress Centres, Dr. Joanna Henderson, early intervention, East Metro Youth Services, family mental health, health, health services, health systems, healthcare, healthy, Hospital for Sick Children, kids, Kids Help Phone, Margaret and Wallace McCain Centre for Child, mental disorder, mental health, mental illness, Myra Levy, parent, psychologist, psychologists, psychotherapist, psychotherapists, referral, SickKids, signs, teen, therapy, united way, vulnerable youth, walk-in clinic, young people, youth
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6 tips for teaching your kids about diversity
Rebalancing the Opportunity Equation
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'Harishchandrachi Factory' out of Oscar race
A still from the film "Harishchandrachi Factory", India's entry to next year's Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category. REUTERS/Harishchandrachi Factory/Handout/Files
MUMBAI (Reuters) - “Harishchandrachi Factory”, India’s entry to the Oscars, has failed to make the shortlist in the Foreign Language Film category for the 82nd Academy Awards.
The Marathi film, that chronicles the making of India’s first feature-length movie in 1913, did not find a place this week in the list of nine films shortlisted in the category.
Director Paresh Mokashi said he wasn’t disappointed.
“All day people have been calling me to offer condolences, as if someone has died. There is no disappointment in me at all,” he said.
Mokashi said rejection at the Oscars would make no difference to the film’s chances when “Harishchandrachi Factory” opens in Indian cinemas on Jan. 29.
“My film is still a good film, but everyone has different likes and dislikes. Our tastes and the Academy’s tastes don’t match, that’s all,” Mokashi said.
Nine films — one each from Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Israel, Kazakhstan, The Netherlands and Peru — are still in the running for best foreign-language film, a release on the Oscar website said.
The shortlist will be winnowed down to five when the 82nd Academy Awards nominations are announced on Feb. 2.
The last Indian film among the final five nominees at the Oscars was Ashutosh Gowariker’s “Lagaan” in 2002. “Mother India” and “Salaam Bombay” are the only other Indian films to find a place in the shortlist.
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INFP Theologian
Marduk’s Cubicle
Posted on November 21, 2017 by Ryan Ellington
When you’re a religion major, it’s not uncommon to meet some disgruntled freshman, fresh out of his second-semester Old Testament class, railing against whatever it was that his parents raised him to believe, citing disparate factoids that his professor briefly covered, ripped from their context and wielded as shoddy weaponry in their crusade to have cool, edgy new opinions. One such factoid is the Ancient Near Eastern belief in what has come to be called the ‘heavenly court’ or the ‘heavenly council’.
There’s an entire chapter devoted to the subject in Peter Enns’ enjoyable if gratingly polemical The Bible Tells Me So, in which he goes to great lengths to make the ‘court’ seem as outlandish as possible, and suggests that its existence in the ancient Jewish imagination means that that most of we think that we know about the Old Testament is basically wrong. He published the aforementioned book pretty fresh off of being terminated from Westminster Theological Seminary because the angry, rich parents of some uppity seminarians complained that his Old Testament classes weren’t enough like Sunday School, so his hyperbolic approach may have reactionary.
In any case, the ‘heavenly court’ is alluded to primarily in ‘poetic’ sections of scripture, which muddies the water. It is not immediately obvious, for example, whether the imagery used in Psalm 82 should be taken as an affirmation that the ‘heavenly council’ is a concrete body that actually exists rather than a simply a literary device. Likewise, in 1 Kings 22:19-23, Micaiah alludes viscerally to the heavenly council as he describes a vision given to him by the Lord: The wicked king Ahab has requested his counsel on whether he should go to war with Ramoth-gilead – but not before having his messenger pressure Micaiah for a favorable prophecy. He replies:
“Hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and the whole heavenly host was standing by Him at His right hand and at His left hand. And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to march up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ So one was saying this and another was saying that.
“Then a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord, and said, ‘I will entice him.’
“The Lord asked him, ‘How?’
“He said, ‘I will go and become a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’
“Then He said, ‘You will certainly entice him and prevail. Go and do that.’
“You see, the Lord has put a lying spirit into the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the Lord has pronounced disaster against you.”
It is unclear, too, from this passage whether the council is a real entity or simply a common Near Eastern trope that YHWH, through the mouth of the prophet, is satirizing. The verbal prophecy is notably acerbic in tone, and was delivered as a response to Ahab’s complaints regarding his history of unfavorable prophesies. Adding to the formal ambiguity of the passage is the fact that it is puzzling to contemporary readers. Taken at face value, it not only suggests that there is a council of divines with whom the one God YHWH consults, but that He sometimes permits (even solicits!) them to sabotage individual humans (see also: 1 Sam 19:9-14). There is an inordinate demand, even within more conservative religious communities, for demythologized readings of passages of this sort.
What is not ambiguous is the of the book of Job, wherein the council (“the sons of God”) present themselves to YHWH and become spectators of the peculiar exchange between YHWH and Satan. He asks YHWH for permission to torment Job in an effort to incite him to curse YHWH, and permission is granted. He is not, however, given permission to harm Job himself. Later, a similar scene plays out, this time with Satan requesting permission to harm Job himself, again in an effort to incite him to renounce his faith. Again, permission is granted.
It is oft-suggested that the book of Job is ahistorical – that it is chiefly a poem, or a satirical play – and this may be the majority view among modern scholars, but this is an unsatisfactory theory. Although it is true that there is no substantive internal indication that Job is meant to be understood as a tale from history, there is intra-biblical evidence that the man, Job, was a historical figure. Ezekiel 14:15-20, for example, names Noah, Daniel, and Job together in a group.
Now, the reference to Job alone in this prophesy would not by necessity mean that he was a historical figure – the prophets were good rhetoricians (and so is the Holy Spirit) who put the imagery of the Near East to great use in their sermons and prophecies. But it is noteworthy that Ezekiel mentions three men: Noah, Daniel, and Job. Between these three, Daniel is certainly as historical figure, and one can probably expect consistency from Ezekiel here. Which means that, beyond reasonable doubt, it can be assumed that Ezekiel – and thus, probably, all of the ancient Hebrews – believed Job to be a historical figure. And in that case, it is unlikely that an ahistorical tale about a historical figure would be included in the canon (or inspired by the Spirit).
Thus, it can be inferred that the ‘heavenly court’, a common trope in ancient Near Eastern mythology, is, in fact, a historical body – not simply a bit of familiar mythological imagery that the Old Testament writers put to use for rhetorical purposes. As such, the other mentions of the heavenly council throughout the scriptures, although they occur in a variety of genres and therefore must be examined critically, should be understood to refer accurately to a real entity.
Pagan sources are somewhat varied on precisely how the court worked, but a few things were generally agreed upon: The universe was created by the council of gods, either by cooperation or by competition with one another. The world was divvied up and each god took a territory. Together, they bestow kingship on humans (or take it away), and oversee questions of justice and the miscarriage thereof. They hear oaths, treaties, blessings, and curses. They make divine decrees, declare war, and commission the building of holy temples. In some iterations, the gods in the assembly would make obeisance to a higher god.
In the Hebrew scriptures, the assembly was not a gathering of equals, as YHWH appears to have been the final, and perhaps singular, authority over the other supernatural beings with whom He would gather. The other members of the court, the ‘lesser gods’ (Ps. 96:4-5; 97:7-9), would carry out the will of YHWH, sometimes, apparently, by influencing humans (1 Kings 22:20-22) Strangely enough, Satan was apparently granted some degree of access to the court (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7; Zech. 3:1-2), which has led scholars to suggest that the Jews originally envisaged him as a member of the court whose duty was to keep watch over humanity’s conduct on earth. However, a lack of slam-dunk intra- or extra-biblical evidence supporting this view makes difficult to demonstrate, so there is little reason to depart from the traditional understanding, best articulated by John, that Satan was an antagonistic figure from ‘the beginning’ (John 8:44; 1 John 3:8; Rev. 20:2).
What is not clear is the extent to which their subservience to YHWH was willing or coerced. The Qumran sect identified the beings who abided on YHWH’s council as ‘the holy ones’ – a term that shows up often, especially throughout the Psalms and elsewhere. If this is the case, then the heavenly court is presented, it would seem, in a positive light. The ‘holy ones’ are portrayed worshipping YHWH joyfully and carrying out His will with apparently unadulterated enthusiasm. A cursory reading of the Old Testament suggests that this is unlikely. Of the passages often believed to associate the ‘holy ones’ with the heavenly court (Dt. 33:2-3; Ps. 68:17; 89:5-8; Zec. 14:5), only Ps. 89:5-8 is demonstrably a reference to the court:
Lord, the heavens praise Your wonders—
Your faithfulness also—
in the assembly of the holy ones.
For who in the skies can compare with the Lord?
Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord?
God is greatly feared in the council of the holy ones,
more awe-inspiring than all who surround Him.
Lord God of Hosts,
who is strong like You, Lord?
Your faithfulness surrounds You.
The rest, with the possible exception of Zechariah 14:5, read rather like references to the people of Israel. Thus, although the ‘holy ones’ of the council ‘greatly feared’ the Lord, it cannot be assumed that they treasured His authority or carried out His will with a glad heart, as did the ‘holy ones’ of Israel (in theory, of course). Given the incongruity between the inherent ‘territorialism’ of the pagan conceptions of the heavenly court and the unambiguous ‘unilateralism’ of the Biblical accounts of the court, an interested observer may venture to guess that the arrangement was never to the liking of the ‘lesser gods’ over whom YHWH presided. So much so, it would seem, that the Babylonian Enuma Elish declares that ‘Marduk is supreme in the court of the gods,’ not YHWH, and that ‘No one among the gods is his equal,’ – if he couldn’t be ‘supreme’ at the office, at least he’d brag as though he were at home.
All of which is to say, the existence of the ‘heavenly court’ doesn’t seem to be particularly at odds with a fairly traditional understanding of the God of the Old Testament. It does not, as some have suggested, destabilize the notion that Israel was consistently monotheistic in orientation. At most, it implies a kind of soft Henotheism, but hardly the sort that ought to stir up controversy. A council of ‘lesser gods’ who serve the unilateral will of YHWH, whose disobediences and rebellions are only possible by His sovereign permission, is no particular challenge to the vision of continuity between the Old-and-New Testament conceptions of the Godhead that have been passed down. The ‘heavenly court’ poses no challenge to ‘the faith once delivered’.
For reference, see:
Min Suc Kee: “The Heavenly Council and its Type-scene.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 31, no. 3 (2007)
Clinton E. Arnold. Powers of darkness: principalities & powers in Pauls letters. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998.
Gatumu, Kabiro Wa. The Pauline concept of supernatural powers: a reading from the African worldview. Paternoster Biblical Monographs. Milton Keynes , MK: Paternoster, 2008.
Thirty-Three Propositions from Eph. 2:1-10
Posted on October 5, 2017 by Ryan Ellington
Eph. 2:1-10 reads as such:
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
There are some things to be derived from this passage. These are thirty-three of them:
Paul’s readers were previously “dead” in their “trespasses”.
Paul’s readers were also previously “dead” in their “sins”.
They used to “walk” in their “trespasses” and “sins”, but not anymore.
When they “walked” in their “trespasses” and “sins”, they did so “according to the ways of this world”.
When they “walked” in their “trespasses” and “sins”, they did so “according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens”.
The “ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens” is “the spirit now working in the disobedient”.
Both Paul and his readers previously lived among “the disobedient”.
When they lived among the disobedient, they “in our fleshly desires”.
When they were living “in our fleshly desires” among “the disobedient”, they “carried out the inclinations of their flesh.”
When they were living “in our fleshly desires” among “the disobedient”, they also “carried out the inclinations of our … thoughts”
During the time when they lived “in our fleshly desires” among “the disobedient” and carried out the “inclinations” of their “flesh” and “thoughts”, they were “children under wrath”.
When they were “children under wrath”, they were so in the same way “as the others were also”.
God is “rich in mercy”.
God had “great love” for Paul and his readers.
God “made us alive with the Messiah”.
God did this even “though we were dead in trespasses”.
The reason that God “made us alive with the Messiah” is “because of His great love that He had for us”.
Paul’s readers “are saved by Grace”.
God raised Jesus “up and seated” Jesus “in the heavens”.
God raised us up “together with Christ Jesus” and “seated play the immeasurus in the heavens”.
He did this to “display the immeasurable riches of His grace.”
The “immeasurable riches of His grace” are displayed “through His kindness to us”.
The “immeasurable riches of His grace”, which are displayed “through His kindness to us in Christ Jesus” will be displayed “in the coming ages”.
Paul’s readers are saved by grace “through faith”.
To be “saved by grace through faith” is something that “is not from yourselves”.
To be “saved by grace through faith” is “God’s gift”.
Paul’s readers are not saved “by/from works”.
The “faith” through which Paul’s readers are “saved by grace” is not, itself, a work.
Because Paul’s readers are “saved by grace through faith”, which is “not from yourselves” and “not from works” but is “God’s Gift”, thus “no one can boast”.
Paul and his readers are “God’s workmanship”.
Paul and his readers were “created in Christ Jesus”.
“Good works” is that for which Paul and his readers were “created in Christ Jesus”.
The “good works” for which Paul and his readers were “created in Christ Jesus” were “prepared beforehand that we should walk in them”.
Most of my posts are extended comedy routines about things I find important, but not this one. I could write for ages about why Eph. 2:1-10 is funny, and important, but today it can speak for itself. Go do some good works that God prepared beforehand.
Aronofsky’s Demiurge (A Spoiler-y Reflection on ‘Mother!’)
Posted on September 18, 2017 by Ryan Ellington
As the credits began to roll, the audience with whom I saw Darren Aronofsky’s newest film, Mother!, reacted with hushed groans and awkward laughter. This was not the film anyone expected to see. I freaking loved it.
The trailers were vague, but suggested that the film, which stars Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem as an unnamed couple whose home is gradually invaded by an ever-multiplying family of belligerent troglodytes, was going to be a horror film, or at least a thriller or some sort. And it was, although one so oblique that it hardly counts as a film at face value, let alone a genre film.
My roommate turned to me and barked, “What did you bring me to?” before rubbing his beard pensively and continuing, “I’ll be thinking about this movie for a year.”
If you’ve seen, like, anything Darren Aronofsky has released in the last decade or so (and, really, anything he’s ever released) it will not be surprising that his new home-invasion thriller is actually a spiritual meditation.
There are, I imagine, plenty of articles that will lay out precisely how each of Mother!‘s jarring, phantasmagorical images correspond to this or that passage from the Bible, or the Talmud, or the great works of Hebrew Pseudepigrapha, but I want to zero in on a handful of specifics, and the implications thereof.
There will be spoilers ahead. Actually, all of them. If you have not seen the film and aren’t planning on it, I have included a fairly detailed synopsis below. If you have not seen it and plan on seeing it, read no further.
Not unlike his 2014 retelling of the biblical story of Noah and the ark, Mother! is an eco-parable. Rather ingeniously, he dramatizes the biblical story of creation and the Fall – and of multiplying and filling the earth, and, finally, of the flood – from the perspective of Mother(!) Earth.
Jennifer Lawrence is Mother Earth, envisioned here as the nameless bride of a nameless Javier Bardem – a poet, and an illustrious one. They are in the process of rebuilding their house, a beautiful mansion situated on the quiet countryside. It burned down before they met, and our heroine has taken it upon herself to restore it to its former glory.
Soon, a strange man (played by Ed Harris) arrives at their doorstep. He is new in own, and had been under the impression that their idyllic mansion was a Bed & Breakfast. Javier Bardem forgets that hotels exist and invites him to stay the night, much to his young bride’s annoyance. Their unexpected visitor manages to traverse one boundary line after another – he smokes in the house, even after the woman of the house requests that he stop, he pries into their personal life in ways that anyone marginally versed in etiquette would know to be inappropriate. And he is sick, quite so: before retreating to bed, Lawrence witnesses her husband assisting their guest as he expels the contents of his stomach into their toilet. In a blink-and-you-miss-it shot, we catch a glimpse of the strange gash in Ed Harris’s side.
The next morning, his insufferable wife (played by Michelle Pfeiffer) arrives, also unannounced. Lawrence discovers that while she slept, her husband gave Harris permission to invite his wife to stay with them “for as long as they need”. Naturally, she is not pleased, as their guest’s wife proves to be even more prying and unsavory than he. More than anything, she presses – and presses some more – as to why the couple does not have children. Noticing Lawrence’s reticent body language – as these types always do – she corners her while the men are out exploring and reframes her question: Why doesn’t she want to be a mother?
Noticing the terror in her eyes – as these types always do – Pfeiffer realizes that she does want children.
Almost on cue, Harris and Pfeiffer’s own children show up uninvited, barging into the house to have a shouting match, which ends with the elder son bludgeoning his younger brother to death in the den before fleeing the scene of the crime.
Bardem leaves Lawrence alone to follow the family to the hospital. A few hours later, he returns alone. Finally, she thinks, things may return to normal.
They won’t, of course. Without warning, Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer return to the house – with their entire extended family. Our heroine is horrified. Her husband welcomes them with open arms and invites them to make themselves at home. Without mentioning it to her, he had invited the family to hold a funereal gathering in their kitchen.
More friends and family arrive by the minute in full funeral dress, with baked goods wrapped in tin-foil and absolutely no sense of restraint toward their host’s property: While Bardem delivers a speech in honor of the deceased son, rowdy guests co-opt the master bedroom to have sex while others dislodge a washroom sink from the wall, breaking the water main and flooding the house. Bardem doesn’t mind, but Lawrence finally snaps, expelling the guests from her house in a rush of fury so commanding that even her husband counts the cost and opts against gas-lighting her again.
After the dust settles, they are alone again. Still riding the adrenaline rush of the evening, She breaks again from her passive disposition and challenges him to have sex with her. He obliges, and she conceives.
We jump forward approximately nine months. The house is finally complete, and the baby is almost due. Bardem has finally completed his magnum opus, which he gives to Lawrence to read. “It’s perfect,” she says, “It’s beautiful.” His publishers agree. And so do his readers. It sells out nearly immediately.
As she sets the table for dinner one night, there is a knock at the door.
It is a group of devotees. They have come from far and wide to meet the poet. Lawrence asks him to send them away so that they can dine together in peace, to which he agrees. After a few moments, he has not returned. She checks on him to find that the group has multiplied, and he has done nothing to deter them.
Several devotees enter the house through a side door and begin using her appliances. She tries to kick them out, but they inform her that “the poet says that his house is our house.” More devotees force their way inside, and his publicist spots her. Gleefully, she clutches Lawrence’s face, “It’s the inspiration!”
The devotees begin tearing the house apart. One steals the phone while Lawrence tries to call the police. “That’s my phone!” She cries. “I have to have something of the poet’s!” the devotee snarls back, and then hobbles away.
Police arrive and begin shouting at the guests through a megaphone, followed by a swat team in riot gear. They open fire on the devotees, who scream in terror and become even more destructive as they scramble. The pregnant Lawrence runs for safety, looking for her husband. She happens upon his publicist, who warmly greets her as she fires rounds into the covered heads of several hostages. “Close the door,” she says.
The house becomes a war zone – literally. Grenades go off in the corner of the screen, and the house is filled with dust and ashes. A friendly soldier grabs Her and pulls her to safety. As he instructs her the way to the safe zone, his skull breaks apart from the impact of a sniper’s bullet. She screams and flees, now bloodied from the commotion, up the stairs, which are lined with guest reaching out their arms in religious devotion to her pregnant stomach. They’re awaiting the coming of the child inside her. She begins to go into labor.
At the top of the staircase, she finds her husband. He hugs her and brings her into the master bedroom to have the baby. is born, healthy and strong. Bardem hands him to Her. The commotion in the house has died down. “Send them away,” she entreats her much-Beloved husband. “They’ll listen to you.”
He ignores her, and asks to hold his child. She refuses until he sends them away. “I could not get them to leave even if I tried.” He replies, and asks again for his child. “That’s not true,” She snaps, “And you know it.” She holds her ground.
“I do not want them to go.” He finally admits.
She clutches her baby desperately while he menacingly scoots his chair closer. “Give me my son.” He growls. She doesn’t.
Hours pass by, and she has fallen asleep. When she wakes, her baby is gone. Rushing out the bedroom doors, she sees the crowds passing the baby amongst themselves, touching him with their hands, oooh-ing and ahhh-ing. She screams. “They just want to touch him!” Bardem laughs, enraptured at the love that enlivens the crowd.
As they pass the child along to one another, its neck breaks.
Lawrence screams in terror and sprints down the stairs to take back the corpse of her baby. When she arrives, it is on a platter, half-eaten. The devotees have baby in their teeth. She falls over, sobbing uncontrollably. Bardem picks her up. “They killed him!” she cries. “I know,” He whispers gently, “But we must find a way to forgive them.”
This is the last straw for Mother. Calmly, she lifts herself to her feet, makes her way to the basement, and opens the furnace. Pouring oil all over the floor, she lights a match, and sets the mansion and all of its occupants ablaze.
Except for her husband, who comes out unscathed.
He carries her back up the stairs and into the ruins of their home.
“What are you?” She asks, as she begins to draw her final breaths.
“I am I.” He smiles.
“Where are you taking me?”
“To the beginning.” He whispers. “We must start over again.”
“Why? Why am I not enough for you?” She protests.
“Nothing will ever be enough.” He says. “Or else I could not create.”
She gives him permission to use what is left of her love for him to create the mansion afresh. It begins to reanimate around them. We watch as the first frames of the film play out before us again – the burnt house becomes new again, and a new woman appears in His bed. The events of the film will play out again, apparently, as they had before the events of the film, perhaps forever.
The subtext is fairly on the nose: We are guests in Mother(!) Earth’s house, and She can expel us, infinitely, on loop, if she so desires, as we see in the Bible.
Indeed, the first eleven chapters of Genesis narrate a cyclical expulsion and recreation narrative: In Genesis 1-2, God creates, and in Genesis 3, humanity is expelled from the microcosm of Eden. In Genesis 4, Cain is expelled from ‘the land’ for Killing his brother. Finally, in Genesis 6, the Earth expels humanity once and for all: God opens the floodgates of heaven, and the world is flooded, killing everyone, save for the ‘righteous’ family of Noah.
But the ‘righteous’ ones whom God preserved to create the world afresh are a cancer, too, and Noah’s son Ham is expelled from ‘the land’, and Noah becomes a drunkard, and their descendants build the Tower of Babel in a strange campaign to dethrone the gods. They’re expelled, too. Around this point, the reader gets the sense that there’s not going to be a version of this that doesn’t end in expulsion.
Which leads the reader to pose the question: Why did God create, instead of not create?
And here lies the – perhaps unintentional – subtext beneath the subtext.
Aronofsky’s Mother! offers an answer to the reader’s question.
Why did God create – why does He invite guests into His home whom He knows will destroy it? Because His appetite for love is insatiable, and they will love Him. ‘Mother Earth’ is not enough. His capacity is bottomless. He craves the affirmation of His creatures like the Poet craves the admiration of his devotees. He is like an artist who creates from neurosis – to be understood, to be loved, to be wanted by multitudes. Nothing, and no one, is enough.
And so, embedded within Aronofsky’s eco-parable is a kind of theo-critique. That is, intentional or not, the message of the film is that ‘Father God’ puts ‘Mother Earth’ through endless cycles of abuse to oblige His devotees, ultimately, because He treasures the love that they pour out upon Him.
I remember a dreary Sunday morning, sometime during the latter Bush’s Presidency, when I asked my Sunday School teacher if God was lonely, if that was how come He made everything and everybody. She cocked her head and said, “What do you think?” I said, “I think I’d be lonely if it was just me up there in heaven all those years with nothing to do.” Another kid chimed in, “That sounds boring.” And another, “I’d make everything football. And then it would all be football. Then I’d never be bored, ’cause it would all be football.”
One little girl was the theologian of the group, though I am not sure for which religion: She raised her hand and said, “Maybe ’cause he wanted somebody to love Him.” The teacher nodded her head and said, “Ahhh,” before writing on the board: “GOD CREATED MAN TO HAVE FELLOWSHIP WITH HIM.” She went on, “Imagine if you didn’t have aaaaaanyone who loved you. You wouldn’t be very happy then, would you?” She underlined the sentence that she had written. “God made everyone so that eeeeeeveryone would love Him.”
We ohhhh‘d in unison. That was the day that I learned that God is a parasite who creates people because He’s lonely and wants to be loved. Now, it sounds pathetic when you say it in a sentence, and Mother! will be lambasted by Christian talk show hosts and culture warriors for implying it, but it’s probably what most people believe, at least implicitly.
And so, Mother! does not amount to an ‘attack on the Christian faith’ (as several more uppity critics have have clamored) so much as an ecological critique on what is probably one of our culture’s standard assumptions about God. The offense of Mother!‘s ending, one hopes, will be jarring enough to shake the public loose of this vision of God as sycophant and God as leech.
Indeed, Bardem’s Poet bears no substantive resemblance to the Trinitarian God at the center of the Christian story. He is more like a demiurge, perhaps, even, Marcion’s demiurge. He’s an antigod, who drinks people dry to satiate what’s lacking in Himself, for the love they can give Him, who enlivens worlds to crucify them for His iniquity.
This is as good a starting point as I can think of to introduce people to the God who really did create the world from Love – not Mother Earth’s Love, which He takes out on loan, but His own Love, which He pours out, to overlay the vast nothing that covers the face of the deep, to create beings who are not Himself, not to plumb their depths for the Love that they can feed Him, but to spill the Love from His own veins into theirs, to multiply His own contentment into them, to build a cosmos out of people He does not need, with Love He does not lack, to propagate His own joy into creatures He will not forsake.
And, as such, this view of God – the Christian view – changes how we answer the questions that the expulsion narratives in the early chapters of Genesis pose to us. Like Bardem’s Poet, He offers His son to be torn apart and devoured by the masses. But the two couldn’t be further from each other: The Poet gave His son as a sacrifice to appease his devotees – to wring more affirmation from their weary bodies, to enjoy their awe. The Trinitarian God at the center of the Christian narrative, however, gave up the Son so that He could create the world. The Godhead – Father, Son, and Spirit – knew, like the Poet, that His creatures would destroy each other and destroy His ‘house’, and more – they would grow so destructive that they would necessitate their own destruction. And so the Godhead – Father, Son, and Spirit – determined together before creation, that the Son would present Himself as a sacrifice to redeem God’s creatures. The God whom we meet in Jesus is everything Javier Bardem’s demiurge isn’t.
Mother! is a better film than Noah, although Noah has better theology. Whereas Noah saw God Batting in Mother Earth’s corner against a belligerent Humanity, Mother! breaks ‘Father God’ and ‘Mother Earth’ apart without warrant, as though each have conflicting agendas.
Nevertheless, like Noah before it, Mother! proves itself to be a near perfect jumping-off point to share the gospel with filmgoers jostled enough by Aronofsky’s provocative suggestions that they are moved to search the scriptures.
Jack and Mr. Rogers vs. Widening Gyre of World History
Posted on September 12, 2017 by Elyse
When asked about an event a long ago in her life, my grandma sometimes shakes her head. “I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning,” she’ll say (proverbially, of course, because it is a well-documented fact that the lady loves cinnamon toast). Many of her stories are lost to us now. For her, history is difficult to conceptualize. Along with most of my older relatives, she assures me that my own memory will only grow worse. And it’s true: my own sense of time actively decays, as evidenced by all of my lost pencils, my surprised delight at family photo albums, and my inability to exactly retrace the routes to my old haunts in the cities where I’ve lived.
And those are just my own experiences. Learned history is so much more difficult. I loved my 12-credit-hour, 2-semester-long Western Civilization course in my undergrad, which emphasized history and literature from the Romans to the present day. (Nerd alert.) Of course, it’s impossible to fit so grandiose a subject as “Western Civilization” into a single course, regardless of copious credit hours; it’s impossible to fit it into a single lifetime. Instead, we focused on overarching themes, influential philosophies, and traceable patterns based on events and literature considered important. The pattern that emerged to me, and many others, wasn’t exactly optimistic. The sometimes romantic, often nationalistic, and always mystical William Butler Yeats helps me in expressing some kind of philosophy of time in “The Second Coming” where he famously writes,
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
History, to post-war Yeats, is a recurring spiral. But that spiral widens like the falcon, furthering itself from order, from the center, from the thing it is. History (not to mention the cosmos), moves toward disintegration rather than order. It does repeat itself, but in ways more mysteriously horrifying than what has come before: a rough beast instead of a holy infant in Bethlehem.
This vast image out of Spiritus Mundi was handed down to me from a very certain time period after a very certain war. This, I learned, was the mood of the twentieth century, creating the Lost Generation (and spiraling into endless other lost generations), strange artistic movements, and a general loss of faith. And who was I to blame my predecessors for the ennui, the alcoholism, all of the broken coping after World War I? Wilfred Owen assures me that if I could see for myself gas in the trenches, “My friend, you would not tell with such high zest, / To children ardent for some desperate glory, / The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori.” Cause and effect. WWI and modernism. Inevitable. It all fits nicely in the 16-leaf blue book I wrote my exam in.
This simple, entropic vision–my helplessness in Yeats’ gyre–is what I believed as I walked out of my Western Civ final. It was hard not to, there in the wake of other rocking classes, in the midst of important people leaving my life, and with a long summer of serving coffee ahead of me. I read books, when I could, with new knowledge of my place in a world I had just discovered. I quietly observed where writers wrote as expected, staying true to their place in the gyre and perpetuating the falling apart of all things. History grew darker, and predictably so. I had no right to feel happy—especially not when insignificantly good things happened—because happiness had no place. It doesn’t fit in the gyre.
Of course, that isn’t everyone’s experience with the very same material: another reason why history is difficult to conceptualize. Just opening Facebook shows me how different people interpret the same stories, arriving at opposing conclusions. Political discourse, academic essays, and even just conversing with others reinforces the same. And I like to think that courses like Western Civilization don’t simply exist to crush overly-sensitive wanna-be intellectual types. There’s something to be said for the knowing of things, and not all of us walk away with quite the same feeling.
One day in the noisy heat of that summer, I picked up C.S. Lewis’ Surprised by Joy from where I’d left off after one distracted Christmas break. In the spiritual autobiography, Lewis traces the story of his conversion. For him–and probably for all of us, if we can see it–that narrative begins in childhood (probably before) and bleeds over into his adult life. So, begrudgingly, he dedicates a chapter to his own experiences in the Great War: the very same one that I had written about whirling like the lost falcon. And while Lewis’ is not the grittily realistic account I anticipated (it actually rings of repression), it stunned me. He, too, had holed up in trenches and lost a generation of peers. He had also seen the unimaginable. Participated in it, even.
But somehow there was goodness. Something good had come out of the Great War and out of the gyre. True, his works are hardly the zeitgeist. But even if it was just Jack Lewis with his myth of a Lion that had carried me through childhood, there was something. And so, I wondered: if one good thing could come out of an event so systemically and deeply horrific, could two good things, or even three good things, come out of the gyre too?
The summer before preschool began, my grandma babysat me in a hedge-enfolded blue cottage at the end of a cul-de-sac. Neither of us recall that time very well anymore, but I do remember sitting at a tiny table with a glass of chocolate milk. As Grandma cut the crust off my peanut butter sandwiches in the kitchen, I was transported to the Land of Make Believe. Admittedly, the puppet Lady Elaine Fairchilde did scare me, but despite my fears, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was there in that cottage, too. Like it had been for my mom as she pretended that the quiet, cardiganed host with his kind attention was her father. Like, I imagine, many of us did.
Fred Rogers, emerging from the context that my Western Civ course told me was full of mistrust of authority, fear of the Other, wartime anxiety, mass media frenzies, and depleting morals, is another anomaly in the gyre. Instead of angry protests, he kindly requested funding from Congress for public television. Instead of inciting fear, he showed children how to learn from the stranger. Instead of telling us how not to feel, he taught us the power of self-control. Instead of buying into the commodification entertainment–the way television began to strip individuality–he saw an opportunity to humanize, to educate, to express.
How Mr. Rogers could exist in the widening trajectory of civilization is, I think, more than mystical.
Jack Lewis and Fred Rogers, like I said before, are hardly the norm. They are marginally known by the masses, celebrated passionately by tiny pockets of society, and not studied nearly as much as they should be. And why should they be, when they represent the opposite of our great historical narratives?
But it’s anomalies like these that convince me that my historical constructs aren’t necessarily real. Not that these figures have no faults (I’m well aware of Lewis’ misogyny–what some, incidentally, dismiss as a product of his times), but they are without some of the common faults of those we hold up as representations of an entire era. Or at least those vices are less evident. Or at least there was some act of grace along the way.
These ought to be remembered as we attempt to contextualize, to educate, to encapsulate. Because, I pray, if the gyre is true, there will at least always be anomalies that point toward the forgotten center. Because whatever my own construct of history, whatever way I make meaning out of the chaos, the Logos is truer and realer and creates more goodness than my tendencies toward oversimplification care to notice.
Said Fred Rogers himself,
A high school student wrote to ask, “What was the greatest event in American history?” I can’t say. However, I suspect that like so many “great” events, it was something very simple and very quiet with little or no fanfare (such as someone forgiving someone else for a deep hurt that eventually changed the course of history). The really important “great” things are never center stage of life’s dramas; they’re always “in the wings.” That’s why it’s so essential for us to be mindful of the humble and the deep rather than the flashy and the superficial.
Humble. Deep. This is the way anomalies appear: a veteran who envisions a faun in the woods, a seminary student fascinated by television, a grandma who doesn’t remember her kindnesses, a child born in Bethlehem; I pray, too, a kid who read Narnia, watched Mister Rogers, and cried in her Western Civ class.
I Love Bultmann, and He’s Terrible
Posted on August 23, 2017 by Ryan Ellington
Moses Sees the Promised Land from Afar, as in Numbers 27:12, by James Tissot
Rudolf Bultmann is a welcome headache. Drawing a hard distinction between the kerygma – that is, the gospel itself, in its most irreducible form – and the mythic cultural adornments within which it was ‘buried’ in the scriptures, he pioneered a rather scintillating new movement in the twentieth century.
As young Rudolf saw it, the virgin birth, Resurrection, miracles, etc. were not just primitive oddities emanating from the imaginations of the ‘ancient unsophisticates’ who saw and spoke with Jesus (and touched him with their hands), but, in fact, are the gospel, given to us in words inexpressible, to be imbibed and believed, transformed by, and saved by, albeit ensconced in the mythic worldview of the Second Temple Jewry, adorned in the language of ‘proto-Gnostic redeemer myths’ and colored by the flamboyances of the fabled mystery cults. Dizzy yet?
The images by which we receive the gospel are not, themselves, the gospel, he would say. Well, all theology is anthropology, as he’d also say, and Bultmann’s hermeneutic of demythologizing says more about the dangers of modernism’s presumed objectivity than it does about the New Testament. Scientism makes for bad theology.
I should mention here that I like Bultmann. And I look forward to talking these things over with him. One thing I venture to imagine is that the cavernous futures accompanying kingdom come are filled with theologians who never tire of saying “This is greater than I imagined.” So Barth will get his “I told you so,” over Harnack, and J. Gresham Machen, probably, will get his “I told you so,” over the whole lot of them (or maybe Ratzinger). And somebody will get their “I told you so,” over me. I hope it’s Chris Thrutchley.
In any case, Bultmann spent his career expositing what he saw as the gospel in the Gospels. That is, a sort of existentialist soteriology in which ‘believers’ are ‘saved,’ by faith in Jesus, from something like the existential void, here and now. “The only way to find peace with God, yourself, and others,”he might say,”is through Jesus.”
If he sounds like an embodiment of the worst in contemporary ‘evangelicalism,’ it’s because his ideas – at least, their ghosts – have seeped into the thought and writings of their more widely read authors. If your hip, nondenominational pastor has preached a ghastly sermon from Mark 4:35-41 on how Jesus can calm the storms in your heart, blame Bultmann. (And William Barclay).
I should mention again that I like Bultmann. Actually, a lot. As I said earlier, he suffered from captivity to 20th century’s native scientism. But I have often wondered what he might do given access to the merciful obfuscations provided by modern quantum physics. Dawkins can shrug it off if he wants, and so can John Shelby Spong, but the days are over when we could pretend we were hot on our way to grasping the secrets of the cosmos. For the moment, at least, quantum physics, for one, has so muddied everything that the universe-slash-multiverse seems more arbitrary than ever.
If course, there seem to be something like laws, some sort of consistency. Mankind is still subject to the whims of ‘creation,’ but ‘the whims of creation’ isn’t just a figure of speech anymore. Creation really is whimsical. How great and terrible.
I suspect, then, in ages future, that our centuries long sojourn in ‘Rationalism’ will be a curiosity studied in classrooms, mocked by too-confident students, before they are reminded by their teachers that they, too, hold presuppositions, most of them probably errant, that they assume to be bulletproof. Bultmann was an entrenched genius – both ahead of and indebted to his generation’s worst presumptions. Were Bultmann with us now, he might be less inclined to demythologize. After all, gravity ought to crumple us. Time is inexplicably unidirectional. Some of that Interstellar movie was scientifically accurate. Given the whimsy of everything, a virgin birth is pretty pedestrian.
Resurrection, too. It is out of the ordinary, yes. Certainly noteworthy. We should call it a miracle. But it’s quite arbitrary to take vivification as a given but revivification as a puerile fantasy. Bultmann erred in assuming that the ‘Resurrection’ of Jesus meant only an impossible resuscitation. And it did mean that. But the miracle of it was that nobody, not Rome, not hell, not a garden tomb, could keep the incarnate Son from carrying out the redemption He’d colluded with the Father and Spirit to carry out from the foundation of the world.
I’m speaking figuratively here. Of course the dead don’t rise, as far as we know, or can know. Of course it’s a miracle that one did. But its historicity is no more implausible than abiogenesis itself, which Christians also believe was of divine inauguration. Whether or not Bultmann’s kin want to admit it, the floorboards have dropped out from beneath the demand for ‘demythologizing’ the scriptures – at least, in theory.
Bultmann imagined himself to be an apologist, and he was. And, to a certain extent, he was a good one. Having first encountered his work as a sophomore in college, his ‘redeemed existentialism’ struck a familiar chord with me. I still remember the days when I wasn’t sure why I shouldn’t kill myself. I still remember the void. I didn’t climb my way out of it. My emotions never started working right, and things never started being okay. I never pulled myself up by my bootstraps. At risk of sounding nauseatingly saccharine: Jesus did that on my behalf. Bultmann, love-struck Modernist that he was, theologically shoddy but hijacked nonetheless by divine mercy, was always eager to insist that Jesus alone, be grace alone, through faith alone, can make your not-okayness strangely livable.
Getting the Egypt out of Israel (and Us)
Posted on July 4, 2017 by Ryan Ellington
The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, by John Martin (1852)
God exists or doesn’t, and everything takes shape accordingly. Our expectations should change given the reality of God or lack thereof – and our values.
Of course, most of the folks I know who think there’s probably no God also think quite Christianly. One of my best friends in early high school became an atheist after I introduced him to Marilyn Manson. The challenge Marilyn posed to our Bible-Belt Christianity was more than it could bear, and he jumped the boat, though I stayed nominal, for the most part. But damage done is damage done.
After Marilyn and company poked holes through his loosely enculturated religious mores, his politics changed as well. Fifteen-year-olds rarely nurse well-developed political convictions, but the inherited conservatism that he’d brandished uncritically up to that point evaporated and within a few years he was a progressive Democrat with a fairly robust social ethos. It took losing his grandma’s religion to come ’round to Christianity’s obstinate conviction that the measure of a society is its benevolence toward its poor. Our damnation will be that we churn out ‘destitutes,’ which Marx understood, and now so does my old friend.
Though I’m not to the left-of-center politically, those who are understand what most of us deny – that no culture that tramples the poor underfoot can be worth its salt; that the best of societies should be on guard for raining sulfur if their political machinations match what the prophet Ezekiel said about Sodom and Gomorrah:
“As I live,” declares the Lord God, “Sodom, your sister and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it.” (Ezek. 16:48-50)
So if, perhaps, their policy proposals are hasty or uncreative, the progressives among us nevertheless have a significant overlap with Christianity’s social vision. I don’t, of course, mean that political progressivism is somehow synonymous with atheism, because it isn’t. It can’t be, actually, and I think something closer to the opposite is the case.
There is, rather, something inherently atheistic about most political Conservatism. This is not derogatory, but it is a diagnosis. Much contemporary Conservative thought begins with “There is no thread that runs through humanity, and I owe no one anything.” Consequently, underlying much mainstream Conservatism is the notion that the status quo, the power structure, is basically kosher. If God exists, that’s not true.
The book of Leviticus, for example, ought to be plenty evidence that, no, things as they are cannot be accepted, embraced, or even escaped – only redeemed. On the other hand, mainstream Liberalism is undergirded by the notion that progress/justice is natural, or somehow self-evident. Moses suggests it’s the opposite – namely, that what’s common is unclean and we’re all guilty, communally, for everything. Justice is unnatural and we’re called to it, together.
It is easy to get lost in the weeds as one peruses the strange middle book of the Mosaic saga. The sacrificial system itself is convoluted and many-splendored, and embedded at the halfway point of the Pentateuch – which, more than any other section of scripture, weaves an almost Dostoevskian yarn. The natural assumption to make if you’re a disinterested reader with a somewhat-less-than-cursory knowledge of Ancient Near Eastern cultures is that the Hebrew sacrificial system was chiefly an exercise in satiating an irascible deity, and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong, though you’d be close. What emerges on a close reading of Leviticus is God’s slow struggle to ‘desecularize’ nomadic Israel’s communal life and, gradually, to deEgyptianize the Hebrew consciousness.
All of this sounds rather ethereal, and it is. We are not used to reading what appears to be a laundry list of sacrificial regulations as a slow-burning sacrament whereby Israel translates the holiness of God into day-to-day life and, in doing so, inculturates the humaneness of God. “The idea of sacrifice was not unique to the Hebrews in the ancient world, as animal, grain, and drink offerings were common to the religious cults of Mespoptamia and Syro-Palestine,” writes Andrew Hill, “While the parallels between Israelite and ancient Near-Eastern sacrificial practices attest to the universal need for humans to placate the gods, the Hebrew sacrificial system was distinctive in that it was directed toward the goal of personal and community holiness.”
If the ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ divide laid out in its pages seem arbitrary, it’s because it is. Offerings are made to impute ‘cleanness’ on things ‘unclean,’ and to ‘sanctify’ clean-but-‘common’ things and impute ‘holiness’ onto them. If a ‘clean’ or ‘holy’ thing makes contact with an ‘unclean’ thing, – a dead body, for example – it becomes ‘polluted’ and must begin again. I recall playground games that weren’t entirely different. It is tempting to assign moral weight to ‘uncleanness,’ but you’d only be half-right to do so, because ‘sin offerings’ are a different animal – pun regrettably intended. They were not, as it is sometimes assumed, a stand in for good character. Curiously, they seem to have done more to shape good character – or, even, to define good character to a people who consciences were being recalibrated – than anything.
They are never prescribed for premeditated wrongs. One could not, for example, set aside a choice animal on Tuesday to sacrifice on Thursday as recompense for his scheduled visit to the whorehouse on Wednesday. There is no sacrifice laid out for those who plan atrocities – which is interesting, because that leaves only ‘unintentional sins’ to be atoned for by sacrifice. This ought to jostle us at least a little bit, since most of us assume we can’t be held accountable for wrongs we didn’t even know we were participating in.
What this testifies to is that although the division of ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ foods, and objects, and bodies may be arbitrary, the concrete division between cleanness and uncleanness is not. That is, to be declared ‘unclean,’ or ‘clean,’ is a formality to be abided by, but hardly the end-goal in itself. It is an exercise of sorts directed at awakening the Hebrews to something deeper: Namely, that ‘uncleanness’ is the norm. That long-discarded Augustinian trope, ‘inherited guilt,’ gets something right – that everything that is, is unacceptable by virtue of being. It is not, in truth, that the neighbor became unclean by waking up with his arms around his wife who died in the night. He was already polluted, because he is himself. We are not made unclean through carousing or debauchery, as though our default mode was ‘love thy neighbor.’ We are unclean because we are ourselves, and given time we will grow up into the mongrels we were born to be. We rarely sin on purpose, as Leviticus seems to realize, and we don’t need to. We victimize because we’re ourselves. It’s our nature.
‘What is man that you are mindful of him?’ the eighth Psalm goes. One is rightly confused when, in the middle of a quaint service at cozy bible church, this particular line is preached in such a way as to denigrate mankind, to imply that it is somehow surprising that God is mindful of humanity. We are what He made, after all, and He did not seem displeased at the outset.
The tone with which the verse is read affects the meaning more than one might imagine. If, for example, it were read from the pulpit as ‘What is man that You are mindful of him?” then our impression might be that the Psalmist cannot fathom why the God he addresses might treasure a humanity so dingy and commonplace. This is certainly the reading with which I am the most acquainted. If, however, the verse is read as such: “What is man, that You are mindful of him?” – then the meaning changes.
Not, of course, that some new doctrine arrives out of it. It only reinforces what is already well attested throughout the scriptures: We are, somehow, the image of the God who made us, which Jacob took to mean that when we see the face of our neighbors we really see the face of God. Calvinists of old took this to an extreme: We should not depict the Lord in any artwork, they said, not because He isn’t worth depicting, but because He has depicted Himself already – inerrantly, we might say, in Jesus of Nazareth, the ‘true Human,’ the ‘firstborn of many brothers’ in the ‘new Creation,’ who is, Himself, the ‘radiance of God’s glory, and exact representation of His being’ – but, also, in humanity at large. To make images of the Godhead is idolatrous, they believed, because it usurps not only the risen Jesus, but also humanity itself as the image we have been given of the Lord.
So when I say that we are polluted because we are ourselves, I do not mean this like the Gnostics mean it. Our body – ‘this mortal coil’ – is not the problem. Rather, we have bad souls in broken bodies and the product is disastrous. This is not by design; it is devilry. We bear the image of God in ourselves by virtue of existing, and not one inch of us does not exist to glorify the God whose face we see in one another. We are God’s glory and joy, overlaid with muck and mire so thick we’d be irredeemable if not for the insanity of the cross. We are exactly as repulsive, as we are, as we would need to be to move God to crucify Godself in a move to redeem what’s mad in us. We are precisely the sort of folks who would nail the incarnate Lord to a tree and sell his clothes for petty cash.
And, of course, we are ‘society.’ The ‘institution’ is us. We’re the stuff ‘the System’ is made of, and – not unrelated – we’re the stuff holocausts are made of. The decent folks down the street are well equipped to transform their city into a quiet dystopia, and, since we’re already suspending our disbelief, they already have, and you helped. We are unclean, and we are our cities. And our cities are unclean. And we are unclean, and we are the government, and we are the cops, and we are the prison system. We are the world you ought to expect given the fact of depravity.
Regrettably, white-knuckled denial of this fact is what underpins the better part of Conservative thought today. The norm, the structures, ‘the System,’ is fine, we are told, and whoever is trampled underfoot ought to reflect on how they went and got themselves underfoot. In any case, they’re certainly not entitled to anything like charity, we are told, or if they are, they certainly aren’t entitled to mine.
Well, that may be. Assuming, of course, that there is no debtor’s thread that runs through the whole of humanity, binding us together and obligating us to see to one another’s wounds. If there is no such thread, it is because there is no God – such a thread could not emerge arbitrarily, or even be unfurled at random, suddenly enjoined at the whims of a ‘Lawgiver.’ If there is a thread of sorts that runs through humanity, indebting each one to her neighbor, demanding kindness, or empathy, or even something so flamboyant as dignity, it can only be that it emerges from the nature of the God upon whom the drama of existence plays out. It must be that, as beings, we participate in Being itself in part by carrying on with one another according to a moral thread that transcends our mores and flows out from the very nature of Being. And we cannot participate in Being if there is no Being in which to participate, nor can we be obliged to anything.
If, however, there is a God, then the thread is real, and I am bound to its demands simply by existing. Not, of course, that someone can be entitled to another’s income, or to their space, or property. But the God who ‘owns the cattle on a thousand hills’ (Ps. 50:10) certainly owns mine, and is free to distribute His property however he pleases. By participating in Being at all, I noose myself to everyone I know and do not know, and so become their debtor, and there is no end in sight – we owe everything, to everyone, forever, not least to work alongside them for their liberation from the cycle of oppression.
A House for My Name by Peter Leithart, 2000, Canon Press
A Survey of the Old Testament by Gleason L. Archer Jr., 1964 (rev. 2007), Moody Publishers
A Survey of the Old Testament by John Walton and Andrew Hill, 1991 (rev. 2009), Zondervan
The Politics of Yahweh: John Howard Yoder, The Old Testament, and the People of God by John C. Nugent, 2011, Wipf and Stock
The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin, 2013, Oxford University Press
Originally published at Misfit Theology.
But really, what does it mean to speculate?
Posted on June 21, 2017 by Some Positive Possibilities
It is funny to me how our culture feels about the noun, “speculation,” and the verb, “to speculate.” It has the same roots as words like, “spectacles, spectacle, spectators, spectacular,” etc., which means that it derived from the concept of sight, of seeing something. But if it derived from sight, and we as a culture like to talk about and uphold sight, then how did it come to mean something ungrounded, essentially something you couldn’t see? I am pretty sure that this is from modern responses to about two thousand years of philosophical and theological history, in which much of what was practiced was called “speculation” in a positive sense – basically “sight.” Sure, it referred to sight of the mind’s eye, in many ways. But at the same time, often enough we use and refer to the same kind of sight regularly at least in popular America. Much of American culture is made up of speculations – sights justified because they are the sights of the mind’s eye (we make mistakes about these sights, but such sight is still how we justify many beliefs and actions – and even scientific thought is a history of mistakes, hopefully being corrected, but still a history of mistakes – and so is philosophical history).
The elite and some people who pride themselves on their scientific education will probably object to this precisely on the grounds that only the scientific is reliable. But then the grounds of scientific method are non-scientific. In fact, they are speculation. How do we know that nature obeys laws and will continue faithfully to do so? Well, “sight” of the speculative kind, is what justifies such belief – the specific speculative kind which also happens to be extremely unique since most of the 6 billion people on the planet do not share that exact speculation. This is important because people who talk about science in America commonly assume that the bases of science are self-evident – but if they are self-evident why did we not come to them sooner? And why don’t most people hold to them regularly today? In fact, they are speculation. They may be good speculation – a lot of medieval speculation was good speculation. But they’re still speculations, to be held up or knocked down on those grounds, not as self-evident authorities. It is also the case with the belief that we can consistently and coherently observe, theorize, and experiment in the natural world – this essential belief of modern scientific method is speculation which is not held universally or by the majority in history or the present, and it is not a self-evident authority. It falls or stands on speculative grounds – on the sight of the mind’s eye, and our reasoning about such sight.
‘Disinformation’ and the Death of Romulus
Posted on June 12, 2017 by Ryan Ellington
All is not well as Paul and his cohort Silas write to their converts in Thessalonica. The churches into which they had formed have made quite the impression on their city, which is glorious enough, but the result has been blowback.
If every church is a microcosm, they’re a microcosmopolis, where Jew and gentile share bread and wine like brothers, and pool capital like countrymen, entombed beneath the concrete walkways of an empire that does not co-mingle and will not change. Their affront to the norm has not gone unnoticed. The gosh-dang world is upside down.
Neither has it gone unnoticed by the Synagogue leaders who do not appreciate the threat these early Pauline communities pose to the continued livelihood of their faith community. None too pleased to lose a portion of their Jewish attendants and perhaps the bulk of their “God-fearers,” – (gentiles drawn to the monotheism of the Jewish religion who had attached themselves to the synagogue worship) – they found these egalitarian cultists troublesome. Worse, “not a few of the leading women,” drawn by the teaching of these new missionaries, departed from their assembly. Their influence and financial resources departed with them. The Pauline mission robbed the synagogues of attendants and hegemony, and power, and prestige.
Of course, none of these issues couldn’t be resolved with a smear campaign. Paul and his cronies had constructed a message, said the synagogue leaders, that would naturally appeal to ‘God-fearing’ Gentiles. Like all theological novelties, they went on, it was really a ploy for financial gain. The missionaries who brought the message are, after all, chasing prominence and glory. And they fled the scene once they met opposition – hardly behavior that denotes sincerity.
Well, smear campaigns are never really about misinformation. The particulars of propagandist blather never really have to take root in order to undermine the stability of its target. And the synagogue leaders, having saturated the public square with slanderous accusations, at the very least destabilized what the missionaries had built. Misinformation is an understatement. This was disinformation.
Unsurprisingly, their claims were baseless. In reality, the missionaries had come to teach in Thessalonica on the heels of ‘shameful treatment’ in Phillipi for having preached the same ingratiating gospel, having stirred up the wrath of some of the same ingrate Synagogue leaders. Someone is incapable of handling resistance, but it isn’t the missionaries – who, by the way, the Thessalonians may remember had insisted on working side jobs to support themselves during their stay. In truth, they didn’t make any demands on their converts, although they were certainly entitled to. If they’d been thirsty after renown, they would have acted a bit more like their interlocutors.
As the Thessalonians will also remember, they were “gentle among them, like a mother taking care of her own children,” or “a father with his children, exhorting each one of them.” They had been “holy and righteous and blameless in conduct toward them,” and the only explanation was that “being affectionately desirous of the Thessalonians, they were ready to share with them not only the gospel of God but also their own selves, because they had become very dear to them.” Having been “torn away” geographically, their hearts remained in Thessalonica. These new believers were their glory and joy.
So there was a different reason behind the opposition they had faced. The clergy isn’t what it was. Thoroughly domesticated by an empire that shuns them, this group of foolhardy prigs are the same sort that killed the prophets and crucified the Lord, and in “hindering Paul and Silas from speaking to all the gentiles,” they demonstrate their inability to envision gentiles as full participants in the coming kingdom to be established by the Messiah. Synagogues had amassed a large multitude of ‘God-fearing’ gentiles as partial participants in the life of the community, and they were happy with it that way. Behind their visceral opposition to the missionaries was a Jim Crowesque separate-but-equal-ism in which Greeks and the like, however devout, were best relegated to a second-class citizenship. These punks were at least as reprehensible as the hecklers at Galatia.
In any case, the missionaries had sent Timothy to serve as a temporary overseer, and were delighted to learn that although the new believers in Thessalonica buckled somewhat in response to the onslaught of their antagonists, they weren’t ‘bewitched’ like the Galatians had been.
So, concluding their prayer of exhortation, the missionaries entreat God to reunite them with the churches in Thessalonica, and to knit the new believers together in holy love, and to “establish their hearts blameless in holiness” so that they will be prepared for the return of Christ. They’ve issued a renewed call for holy living, a warning against disregarding God’s call to purity, and a command to remain “in the world.” Faithful as the Thessalonian Christians have remained thus far, one wonders why the missionaries thought this necessary.
As it turns out, the Synagogue leaders – horrified at the thought of losing their relative hegemony over Jewish practitioners and Gentile seekers – sought with some success to turn both the city-folk and government against them. Their brutal treatment of Jason and his household, recorded in Acts 17, was hardly an isolated incident:
“Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”
And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. But the synagogue leaders were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd.
And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.”
And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.” (Acts 17:1-9)
It would have been tempting for a relatively new Gentile believer to quietly slide back into her old habits to avoid meeting the same fate. Others, rather than buckling under the pressure of religious and governmental opposition, grew zealous to the point of withdrawing altogether from the life of the city. That the missionaries even needed to remind Thessalonian believers to “aspire to live quietly, and mind their own affairs, and work with their hands…so that they may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one,” is amusing in hindsight. Timothy had encountered a number of well-intentioned believers who, overestimating the imminence of the second coming, had abandoned their jobs and become dependent, quite gratuitously, on the charity of others.
On top of it all, there was concern about whether those who had died would be included in the messianic kingdom at the coming of Christ. The missionaries typically drew out their instruction over the course of several days and weeks, and the religious elites had successfully driven them from the city before they could properly furnish the imaginations of newly proselytized with an accurate conception of how the resurrection of the Son of God would pave the way for their own resurrection.
Further complicating the matter, the proselytes had likely been connected to a strand of Judaism that placed minimal emphasis on the final Resurrection – or ignored it outright – so that when Paul and Silas were prematurely ejected from Thessalonica, the infant churches were left with an incomplete puzzle of sorts. In general, Palestinian Judaism was ‘earthier’ than the acutely Hellenized form that flourished in Alexandria and elsewhere, and whose general impulses would have trickled down into the synagogues of Thessalonica.
Hence, the form of Judaism in which the new converts were versed probably emphasized immortality over resurrection and downplayed the messianic hope, at least tacitly, on the grounds that “the dynamic personality of a messiah has no proper place in such a serene, eternally ordered world,” to quote the celebrated Jewish historian Salo Baron. Having been convinced by Paul and his team that Jesus was God’s messiah, they walked into the new faith carrying over anticipation of a coming “Golden Age, unrivaled in glory, when all peoples would abandon idolatrous practices and join the Jews in the worship of the one God in Jerusalem.” Yet untaught regarding the ‘final Resurrection,’ more than a few among them were concerned about whether those who had died already would be included in the ‘Golden Age’ established at Christ’s return.
As it turns out, they needn’t worry. Just as Christ was resurrected from the dead, Paul insists, so also will those who have died be resurrected at His return. In fact, his whole gospel hinges on it. “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven,” sooner or later, and “the dead in Christ will rise first.” For Paul, this meant the families he’d set ablaze at the height of his career in barbarism, and Stephen, from whose eyes he’d watched the vitality drain with the coats of his murderers strewn across his arms. For myself, it means my grandfather, Homer Chalmus Ellington, and Johnny Cash, to whom I’m supposedly related by marriage. After all this, says Paul, “We who are alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” The imagery is strikingly reminiscent of a pivotal episode in the second book of Samuel:
“Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, “Behold, we are your bone and flesh. In times past, when Saul was king over us, it was you who led out and brought in Israel. And the Lord said to you, ‘You shall be shepherd over my people Israel, and you shall be leader over Israel’” So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel.
David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years. At Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and at Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah thirty-three years.
And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, “You will not come in here, but the blind and the lame will ward you off”—thinking, “David cannot come in here.” Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David. And David said on that day, “Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack ‘the lame and the blind’ who are hated by David’s soul.” Therefore it is said, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”
And David lived in the stronghold and called it the city of David. And David built the city all around from the Millo inward. And David became greater and greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him.
And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, also carpenters and masons who built David a house. And David knew that the Lord had established him king over Israel, and that He had exalted his kingdom for the sake of His people Israel.” (2 Samuel 5:1-12)
That’s to say, when the Thessalonian Christians meet Christ in the air, it will be like the tribes of Israel ‘meeting’ David at Hebron. They will say, “Behold, we are your bone and flesh,” and welcome Him back for good – “and so we will always be with the Lord.” Soon enough, the fermenting churches will meet their loved ones afresh, and their Savior – no longer as an itinerant healer, but as the promised Messiah – King Jesus, come to take the blood bought world back for Himself.
One couldn’t be blamed for missing that emphasis, though. Two millenia after Paul, disinformation abounds – from the press, certainly, and the academy, probably – and, regrettably, the pulpit.
If you grew up Protestant in the United States of America, you might be under the impression that Paul and his colleagues applied for a grant from the Jerusalem council, built a medium-sized rectangular church building with an impressive white steeple, and prepped their converts with the basics of Christian theology to tide them over while they waited out the rapture. This is taught nationwide in pulpits occupied by Spirit-filled ministers with good intentions and poor theology.
In reality, these Pauline communities remade the world. Apparently his exhortation to live quietly and do honest work for honest wages was sufficient to rouse them out of their retreatist stupor because, together with the scattered Church the world over, the Christians in Thessalonica quietly ushered in the death of the old West where ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ were functions of power and little else, people were only acknowledged as human insofar as they were useful to the State and properly assimilated into the bloody machinery of imperialism, and the order of the cosmos endorsed a thickly stacked caste system whereby the poor and others were resources to be consumed by the nobility – as labour, or entertainment, or, more commonly, as sexual playthings to be brutalized and drank to exhaustion. It is hard to oversell how Paul’s gospel toppled the empire that Aeneas built, but it did exactly that, as generations of his disciples lived together in embodied glory – a communitarian compassion that enfleshed the bones of Moses in their midst. As it turns out, all Christian theology is ‘liberation theology’ if you understand where we came from and toward what we are continually blooming.
So the churches in Thessalonica were a counterculture, so to speak – one so thoroughly contagious that it spread through the streets of Rome like a ravaging disease and devoured the ethos of strength, of ‘manly vitality,’ and sowed the egalitarian spirit that continues in each generation to give birth to itself, each time more mature than before.
Depredation was the rule in the world that crucified the Son of God, and the ages were long, the norms static – it was a world that did not change. Armed with the gospel of the crucified God, the scattered church in Rome and abroad broke apart the pavements and tended the Edenic gardens buried well beneath. Consequently, they grew, albeit slowly, into the world that is, and as we, too, see to these gardens, they will grow, perhaps, somehow, into the world to come. And we will meet the Lord in the air, and say “We are your bone and flesh,” and we will always be with the Lord, because the Resurrection of His blood bought world cannot be undone.
Trying (Not) to be Jesus for Others: A Remarkable Thing to Consider
Posted on June 9, 2017 by Elyse
Like many of the Christian NF-types I know around my age, I (finally) picked up Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. I’d heard a lot of high praise for this epistolary novel of a dying father writing to his young son. And the more I read (and reread) the final pages, the more I realized I was not disappointed by the hype. We could devote an entire series of blog posts to Robinson’s glowing coal of a novel—shining forth, Hopkinesque, with the grandeur of God—and an undergrad course I took actually intended to spend three or four class periods over it. Sadly, that class ran out of time by the end of the year; I suppose I don’t have the time to blog all of my thoughts about it, either.
In those last pages, the ones I relish rereading, John Ames imagines his son as an old man. He cherishes the thought of his son filled with wisdom and experiences and evidence of having loved creation. He blesses the body parts that will trouble him in forty or fifty years—the very same parts that trouble Ames as he imparts his novel-length goodbye. “I wish I could help you carry the weight of many years,” he writes. “But the Lord will have that fatherly satisfaction.” The gap after this sentence in the book, marking the end of the section of text, literally underscores Ames’ impending absence.
Even though this is a passing thought (most of Gilead is, actually), I can’t help but find it a “remarkable thing to consider,” to use Ames’ oft-repeated, almost liturgical, phrase.
I’ve lived most of my life in a way that encouraged dependence. Maybe it stemmed from sibling interactions or loneliness or grade school expectations or pride. Maybe it’s just human depravity. I remember realizing in middle school that while being friends with popular kids was a lost cause, I could easily get other (obviously) lonely people to like me. It became a game in high school. A mode of survival in college. It bled into friendships where I could tell myself I was being loving: listening (a lot), offering advice, giving gifts. And it seemed to start with love.
Soon, the object was not so much loving another person—which involves, of course, another person. The object was myself. Seemingly loving behaviors became vehicles for my feeling affirmed, feeling wanted, feeling needed. None of those feelings are inherently bad, of course. But if, like I did, I preyed on other peoples’ loneliness for the sake of my own gratification, then I really couldn’t call that love anymore.
And the worst thing for those who squandered their dependence on me: I, like every other human, am imperfect (in case the previous paragraphs of my predatory predilection didn’t already make the point). Admitting that sets my teeth on edge almost as much as admitting my mercenary desire to be affirmed. I, even the wizened and bright and compassionate and obviously-humble individual that I am, will let down every single person I happen to come in contact with. I will disappoint. I will say the wrong thing. I will hurt.
I will not be able to provide for their every need. Even on my best day, with the best intentions and all of my resources available, I will be insufficient for even one single human soul.
If only this realization about my own sick self was just one of those cool metaphorical dream sequences in a movie. If only I woke up from it, whistling, and hastily changed my ways. But I think the realest lessons have to come from the realest part of our experience: the part where our hands are lacerated by even the dirt we fall down in, and we can’t look away from the fact that it’s our own damned fault. Over the course of a couple of months, I saw that I had let people down not just by my absences and mistakes—the ways that were immediately apparent—but because I simply and ravenously encouraged dependence on me.
The dying John Ames rightly admits that he can’t bear the burden of years for his son. I think he would have realized that even if he had lived to see his son become an old man himself: he writes only of helping carry, not carrying for him. And so he wisely does not express a desire to somehow absorb his son’s struggles, even if it would make Ames feel the essentiality that I crave. And how can he, when he will be gone?
He writes instead of God having “that fatherly satisfaction.” And in two sentences, he does what has been so difficult for me: he entrusts someone he cannot help to the care of someone who can. Someone transcendent and sufficient. Someone who provides the only rest for hearts that fundamentally seek an object upon which to heap their dependence. Someone who gives meaning to the term “fatherly” and, in fact, “satisfaction.” Someone perfect.
Along with Ames, I must also confess that I can’t bear the weight of many years. I can’t do it for myself, much less another human. I can’t fill those deepest wounds because I’m not meant to be Jesus. (And, sweet freedom, I truly thank God for that.) But because I am meant to be like him, I am not excused from caring for others. The way I imitate him is not by pointing dependent hearts in the direction of myself (the listening, sage, meek, and deeply predatory self). It is by turning my attention, and others’, toward the only Person who deserves the fatherly satisfaction of holding all of the aches in our aging bones and aging souls.
A remarkable thing to consider, indeed.
The Omnipresence of Suffering (and the Image of the Bloodied Christ)
Posted on June 1, 2017 by Ryan Ellington
Anonymous Byzantine illustration: The pre-incarnate Christ speaks to Job.
One can rarely be sure how to go about paraphrasing Calvin. He’s an almost bottomless pit of nuance – so much so that it’s nearly impossible to summarize his thought without burying each sentence in qualifications. There is a tacit existentialism to him – especially in The Institutes – and he’s well-pleased when a thought stream grows dizzying and the fragile tensions he has drawn together become insufferable. The result is that Calvinism, in the broadest sense of the term, is a magnet’s coil – always, evidently, liable to burst at the seams, and yet, consistently, holding together. It’s ‘head in the clouds’ theology, to paraphrase a much-easier-to-summarize John Piper. The unfavorable appraisals that he has obtained in recent years seem, at best, reductive.
There’s a certain poetry to the disfavor into which he has fallen of late. Calvin spent his life swinging at enemies real and imagined. He is, in fact, a prime example of the demonic perils of demanding to be proven right. The man nursed an appetite for vindication. At every turn, his words were twisted by adversaries and misinterpreted by troglodytes. He longed, sometimes violently, to be understood. And now, more than ever, he isn’t.
He is know for his rigidity and supposed authoritarian bent. Fair enough. He was insufferably rigid. And rather heavy handed in governing Geneva. These facts are unremarkable. It shouldn’t surprise us that a 16th century intellectual was vociferously combative, nor that he ruled his Protestant theocracy with a half-clenched fist of iron. It should astound us that he was as remarkably flexible as he was – both as a theologian and politician. This flexibility makes him a complex read – not that any of his writings are terribly complicated, but his willingness to tease out possibilities and to take his readers along with him as he plumbs the depths of the transcendant beauty at center of the universe makes him an author who defies systematization. It is not that his thoughts are disorderly; they aren’t. And yet, no summary of Calvin has ever captured his many-layeredness. His nuances must be felt, not simply assented to. Calvinism is a lived-theology, and, as such, can only really be understood in hindsight, and from the inside.
There are no good theodicies. As Austin Farrer observed half a century ago, nothing in the world can quite make up for the fact that the universe runs on suffering. There are also no pacifists. Not unless we so thoroughly restrict the term as to render it meaningless: Research has suggested that plants can feel pain and think thoughts, recognize relatives, and support one another by sharing photosynthesized sugars through a rather complex entangled-roots system. A rapidly multiplying group of animals have proven to be more nearly ‘sentient’ than we ever previously imagined. The boundaries between human and beast, and beast and plant are ever-narrowing. And no creature, human or otherwise, can exist without inflicting suffering on other creatures. One is reminded of a Noah and the Whale song:
When the baby’s born
Oh, let’s turn it to the snow
So that ice will surely grow
Over weak and brittle bones
Oh, let’s leave it to the wolves
So their teeth turn it to food
Oh, its flesh keeps them alive
Oh, its death helps life survive
Oh, the world can be kind in its own way
To understate: The classic ‘Problem of Evil’ is a bit passé. And in light of the sheer brutality of existence, so are theodicies. How can life be meaningful – or, even tolerable – in the face of such horrors? Can anyone stay sane who takes seriously the fact the the world literally runs on the suffering of creatures? It is not simply that unnecessary suffering pervades the goings-on of the current milieu. The ecosystem mainstains itself and adapts as creatures, some microscopic and others magnificent, fight and claw for resources. And there is no rest, no escape route: If creatures did not kill each other on purpose for resources, some would kill others by accident. Larger creatures would still crush smaller creatures by no fault of their own. Sizable creatures would still crush those too small to be seen by the naked eye. And worse yet, if creatures did not kill each other on purpose, even more would die than before. Plants are alive, but herbivores have to eat them. Trees feel the pain of losing bark to hungry herbivores – they emit an ultrasonic noise when feasted upon. Trees scream in horror when predators sink their teeth in and fungi drink them dry from the inside out. And even if plants did not think and feel and scream in pain, there would be unspeakable animal suffering if creatures stopped competing for resources. It is the bloody struggle for survival that guarantees that as few creatures die as is necessary. If they stopped killing each other, there would still be such a scarcity of resources that most of them would starve to death – a worse fate, even, than being mauled. No creature, anywhere, can exist, in any sense, without inflicting senseless suffering on other creatures.
How does one keep from going insane in this world? Interestingly enough, Calvin – who did not have access to the findings of modern science and had not read The Hidden Life of Trees – was remarkably in tune with the absurdity of the universe. I don’t, of course, mean that he grasped the particularly sordid depths of animal suffering. And yet, he grasped, long before it had become self-evident, that the world is precisely as fleeting, as cruelly indifferent, you might say, as Solomon had posthumously warned, and Job had (rather repetitively) chronicled. And yet – he was also the man who, long before Edwards, had declared that ‘there is not one blade of grass that does not exist for the glory of God.’ The world is a horrifying factory of barbarism that somehow, still, is an indefatigable repository of transcendant beauty. If you can accept it, the horrors that travel the veins of everything are a characteristic absurdity, which, though omnipresent, contradict the very fabrics of reality. God is love, and God is the Ground in which we have our being, and yet, to be at all is intolerably painful, and yet, the transcendent beauty at the bottom of everything beckons us onward into the absurdity in pursuit, we hope, of transcendence itself.
And so Calvin eschews theodicy, instead goading his readers on to something less clear and more satisfying. Endlessly qualified and characteristically dizzying, he says to the downtrodden – and, my paraphrase will be unsatisfactory here – ‘You will suffer, and often, perhaps unthinkably so, and others will suffer worse, too, unbearably. And God’s hand is in it, somehow – like all things, your suffering, seemingly needless, traces back to God’s eternal decree. And you have no grounds for protest, because He is the very Ground you stand on. But you can endure it and, by grace, find yourself hammered more nearly into the image of the bloodied Christ.’
from a conversation on Criminal Justice: tone, violence, hermeneutics
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Paul, And The Problem Of Other Christianities
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Vincent S Artale Jr on Paul, And The Problem Of Other…
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Staff Sergeant Emanuel Pickett
080415_ssgt_pickett_044.jpg
April 15, 2008. Wallace, NC..Funeral services were held for National Guard Staff Sgt. Emanuel Pickett at the 1st Baptist Church in Wallace, NC., where he was a police officer.. SSgt. Pickett was killed on April 6, 2008 in Baghdad, Iraq by indirect enemy fire. He was assigned to the 1132nd Military Police Company, North Carolina Army National Guard, Rocky Mount, N.C. and is the 8th North Carolina National Guard soldier killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.. Members of the Patriot Guard,...
April 15, 2008. Wallace, NC..Funeral services were held for National Guard Staff Sgt. Emanuel Pickett at the 1st Baptist Church in Wallace, NC., where he was a police officer.. SSgt. Pickett was killed on April 6, 2008 in Baghdad, Iraq by indirect enemy fire. He was assigned to the 1132nd Military Police Company, North Carolina Army National Guard, Rocky Mount, N.C. and is the 8th North Carolina National Guard soldier killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.. Members of the Patriot Guard, a motorcycle group that escorts the remains of soldiers and protects the families from protesters, line the walk way to the church as a member of the funeral home waits for mourners arrive.
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The Documentary
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Inspiration Takes Many Forms (Tales from the Cutting Room Floor)
Posted: January 10, 2016 in Documentary
Tags: AMPUTEE, DOCUMENTARY, FILM EDITOR, SELF MOTIVATION
Last spring, I experienced a major breakthrough nailing down the story structure for the first act of my documentary, something that had plagued me for the better part of two years.
While the epiphany may have come suddenly, the inspiration for it, lie in a weeks long battle of sorts, on a completely different project.
I’d been working on a fantastic documentary series called Neighborhood Slice at the time (which can be found here). My first episode of the series went well, but I hit a bit of a roadblock putting together the second episode.
A story that (I had set in my mind) was pivotal to a character’s story arc, just wasn’t working within the structure of the episode. I really liked this particular story, and refused to let it go, almost to a fault. I spent weeks editing other aspects of the episode, and it was coming together quite nicely, except for this one particular storyline.
It was driving me insane.
After screening with the producers/directors of the series, the consensus was, no matter how much we all liked it, the story had to go. I felt defeated. But the hard truth was, it was the right decision. The moment the story was cut, the rest of the episode fell into place.
Later that week, I awoke from a deep sleep with a sinking feeling in my gut. Had I been making the same mistake with my own documentary?
I’d had several scenes kicking around on a timeline for close to two years, but they never quite fit together right. I’d fallen in love with one scene in particular though – it opened with a snow covered garage, the door lifting slowly from the inside, revealing the Z in pieces… juxtaposed with narration discussing the inner turmoil I’d faced over the years stemming from insecurities about my “disability.” Insecurities I was unwilling to face, until now.
To me, it was beautifully shot, very cinematic, and the metaphor of a broken car, I desperately wanted to fix, represented everything I was trying to say about myself. Every time I watched it, it gave me goosebumps.
The problem was, as the focus of the film evolved over time, and the story grew in size and scope, this scene began to feel more and more out of place.
I’d spent months editing around this scene, trying to find a way to make it work. At the top? Revealed too much too quickly. Bring it later, lost its impact… no mater where I put it, it sent ripples throughout the timeline, screwing with every scene before or after it. I was really struggling, and in frustration just walked away from the edit (for close to a year).
Only after my late night epiphany did I finally realize I had to let it go.
I sprang out of bed, opened up the project, and began cutting with a clarity I hadn’t had in a long time. As the dust settled and the sun rose, everything made sense now, the structure was there, the story was there. It was a complete game changer.
When all was said and done, I ended up with close to a 30 minute first act rough cut I was incredibly proud of. I decided to send it to some close friends and industry associates for feedback, and the response was overwhelmingly positive! It felt incredible after so much time, and so many setbacks, to finally be making progress again.
This newfound motivation gave way to even more progress – I decided to contact two new people I had been following for close to a year online, a husband and wife (both amputees, and also from the Z community), with hopes they would be interested in participating in the film.
What followed was a two week road trip & film shoot spanning several states and close to 2500 miles – the grand finale taking place at ZCON 2015!
I plan to do a full write up chronicling the road trip, ZCON, and introducing not two, but THREE new characters for the film in the upcoming weeks.
I could have never imagined when I started this project where it would take me. The friendships I’ve forged along the journey, the experiences shared, and stories I’ve been privileged to hear, would forever change the way I look at myself and the word “disability.” For that alone, this film will always be a success in my eyes.
Earning My Stripes at The Glen…
Latest Trailer Is Live!
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The Baron in the Trees - Italo Calvino
July 7, 2019 Justin Joschko
My god, I wish I came across this book when I was 13. I loved it at 33, and don't doubt I'll love it just as much when I eventually reread it (which I'm sure I will), but I think I would have loved it even more then. And not simply for its content—though as an avid tree-climber it would doubtless have gripped me--but for its melancholic whimsy. It reminds me in tone of Winnie the Pooh and, in a sense harder to define, of Louis Sachar’s Wayside books. Stories that seemed so fully realised that as a child I fell into them, walked about their pages for a while, and emerged at the final chapter ever so slightly changed.
The main character is Cosimo Piovasco directed Rondo, who at the age of 12 has a fight with his father over dinner that leads him to climb into the trees and never come down. The story is narrated by his younger brother, who often relies on secondhand information and freely admits that certain passages are supposition on his part--a device that lends both uncertainty and verisimilitude to the story. The rest of the book is an episodic chronicling of Cosimo's life in the trees, with passages both prosaic (his inventive solutions for toiletry, sleep, and commerce) and heroic (battles with pirates and treacherous Jesuits). I loved the former as much as the latter, and the whole story flows effortless as q long campfire fable.
The prose is translated from the Italian, but retains a bit of Mediterranean flavour, evocative but not florid. It avoids the common pitfall of first person narratives where the narrator takes on the cadence of capital N Narration, losing the voice of the person who is supposedly telling the story. I never doubted the voice used here.
Italo Calvino is a name I'd heard for some time but never pursued, knowing nothing about him apart from that he was an author. I found The Baron in the Trees as a fluke, as it was mentioned in the comments of a Guardian article about a man who spent 2 years in a tree. Such happy accidents reinforce the value of always keeping an ear out for new titles. Sometimes the best stories come to you from unexpected places.
Tags The Baron in the Trees, Italo Calvino, literary fiction, Philosophy, Fantasy, Italy, Historical fiction, 1957
The Wall - John Hersey
February 6, 2019 Justin Joschko
The Wall tells the story of the Warsaw Ghetto during the second world war, from the creation of the wall that formed its perimeter to the final savage thrust of noble—if ultimately hopeless—rebellion in which the Jews finally struck back at their oppressors.
The story itself is inherently dramatic, based as it is on a true and monstrous period of history, but the most defining feature of The Wall is not the plot or the characters, but the way it is told. The entire book, from its editorial introduction to its final pages, purports to be extracts from the copious notes of Noach Levinson, a citizen of the ghetto who becomes its de facto archivist.
The opening pages, written in the style of an introduction by an outside academic, describe how the archive was found, and give us a first glimpse of Levinson through outside eyes. The remainder is structured as an assembly of different notes, with each passage marked with the date of its occurrence, the date of its recording, and the source of the material, though every word with very few exceptions is supposed to be written by Levinson.
It’s an interesting structure, giving the impression of something between an oral history and a non-fiction account, and the frequent use of dates helps situate the reader in the broader story. Occasionally notes from other “entries” are inserted as asides to add context, thereby circumventing one of the challenges of the epistolary novel, with its rigid limitations of chronology and perspective.
There are times where the format can be a bit distracting, and while I admire Hersey’s commitment, I occasionally wanted him to just write the novel in a more traditional way, with multiple POV characters undergoing experiences in real time, rather than having everything filter through Levinson’s notes. However, it’s not fair to judge a book on something it’s not, and I have to say it held my interest, and the second half moved much quicker than the first. Hersey apparently wrote a non-fiction account of Hiroshima, and given the talent for historicity he demonstrated in The Wall, I intend to check it out.
Tags The Wall, John Hersey, Historical fiction, World War II, Holocaust, Fiction, 1950
Claudius the God - Robert Graves
It’s been a couple of years since I read I, Claudius, but I remembered liking it enough to request Claudius the God from the library, and the first few pages wasted no time in reminding me why.
The story picks up where I, Claudius left off. While the first book detailed the lives and reigns of Rome’s early emperors through the eyes of the stammering, sly, perennially underestimated Claudius, the second chronicles the reign of Claudius himself. Written under the same conceit as a purported autobiography, it retains much of the flavor of its predecessor, reading more like a second volume of a single work than as a standalone sequel.
Graves writes with supreme confidence in his subject matter. He adopts the persona of Claudius with impressive commitment, the style and substance of his prose lending a great sense of authenticity to the story. He clearly knows the history of the Roman Empire inside and out, and this knowledge comes across in the tiny details, and in references to historical figures great and small.
While I, Claudius stayed largely in the confines of Western Europe, Claudius the God ventures farther east, spending many pages chronicling the machinations of Herod Agrippa in consolidating his grip on the Jewish throne. There’s also a recurring reference to Christianity, which in Claudius’ eyes is little more than a bothersome sect with bizarre practices. It’s interesting to consider how Claudius would view Jesus, and Graves paints his reaction in mingling tones of amusement and contempt for a figure he doubtless assumed would be a footnote in history whose presence he would easily dwarf.
Writers of historical fiction walk a fine line between drowning their reader in explanatory text and stranding them in a world they little understand. This is especially true for books like this one, which don’t merely adopt a historical setting, but set out to retell the stories of men and women who actually lived. Graves strikes the right balance here. While I occasionally got lost in the thicket of Roman names, particularly while Claudius described some finer points of palace intrigue, I generally had a good sense of what was happening politically and socially, and why people were acting the way they were. Descriptive passages felt authentic, less the shoehorning of key details than the lectures of a ruler with a solidly academic bent, which the real Claudius had.
The story itself isn’t quite as engaging as I, Claudius, but I wouldn’t fault Graves for that—when you’ve got a guy like Caligula running things in book one, a steady hand at the rudder doesn’t allow for quite as much intrigue. Still, I read it quickly and with pleasure, and even find myself considering a reread of I, Claudius at some point.
Tags Claudius the God, Robert Graves, Historical fiction, Fiction, 1934
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Human Rights Watch | Lawyers on Trial: Abusive Prosecutions and Erosion of Fair Trial Rights in Turkey
Since the July 2016 coup attempt, Turkey has seen mass arrests and trials on terrorism charges of thousands of people not involved in any violent act. Among them are journalists, human rights defenders, and opposition politicians tried in proceedings which rights groups have documented as politicized and unfair. While lawyers always have a critical role to play in protecting the rights of suspects in police custody and defendants in court, their role in protecting the rule of law and human rights is all the more fundamental in the context of the current crackdown in Turkey. Yet, or more likely because of that, as this report demonstrates, authorities have also targeted lawyers, in particular criminal defense lawyers.
Freedom House | Freedom in the World 2019
Freedom of expression has come under sustained attack, through both assaults on the press and encroachments on the speech rights of ordinary citizens. Freedom in the World data show freedom of expression declining each year over the past 13 years, with sharper drops since 2012. This year, press freedom scores fell in four out of six regions in the world.
The explosion of criminal cases for “insulting the president” in Turkey—more than 20,000 investigations and 6,000 prosecutions in 2017 alone—is one of the most glaring examples of this global trend.
Human Rights Watch | World Report 2019
The June 2018 election campaign took place under a state of emergency imposed after the July 2016 attempted military coup and in a climate of media censorship and repression of perceived government enemies and critics that persisted throughout the year, with many journalists as well as parliamentarians and the presidential candidate from the pro Kurdish opposition in jail.
Terrorism charges continued to be widely used. As of June, almost one-fifth (48,924) of the total prison population (246,426) had been charged with or convicted of terrorism offences, according to the Ministry of Justice. Those prosecuted and convicted included journalists, civil servants, teachers, and politicians, as well as police officers and military personnel.
CORRECTIVE | Blak Sites Turkey
In a near-repeat of the CIA’s ‘extraordinary renditions’, the regime of Turkish president Erdoğan is kidnapping dozens of members of the Gülen movement from around the world. Victims are now raising a serious accusation: secret torture sites are part of the repression. A team of nine media organizations from eight countries, coordinated by CORRECTIV, investigates.
Scholars at Risk’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project | Free to Think 2018
Free to Think 2018 is the fourth installment of an annual report by Scholars at Risk’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project, analyzing 294 reported attacks on higher education communities in 47 countries, from September 1, 2017, to August 31, 2018.
As in past years, armed groups and individuals continue to carry out severe, violent attacks on higher education communities. These include attacks in countries experiencing extremism or conflict, where higher education communities may be targeted as perceived symbols of state authority or sources of opposition to radical ideologies. These also include targeted attacks against individual scholars or students that are intended to retaliate against or deter inquiry and expression. Over the past year, SAR reported both violent attacks on campuses in Afghanistan, Kenya, Nigeria, and Pakistan, and targeted attacks on individual scholars in India, Pakistan, Turkey, and Yemen
Amnesty International | Purged Beyond Return? No Remedy for Turkey`s Dismissed Public Sector Workers
During the state of emergency, the government had the extraordinary power to issue emergency decrees with the force of law. These decrees were used to enact a wide variety of measures, affecting diverse issues from detention periods and NGO closures to snow tyre requirements. Around 130,000 public sector workers were dismissed by emergency decrees. Those dismissed include teachers, academics, doctors, police officers, media workers employed by the state broadcaster, members of the armed forces, as well as people working at all levels of local and central government. Their dismissals did not include specific evidence or details of their alleged wrongdoing. Instead, the decrees offered a generalized justification that they ‘…had links to, were part of, were connected to, or in communication with…’ proscribed groups.
Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) | Clampdown on foreign journalists in Turkey
Turkey, the most notorious country in the world in terms of jailing journalists, with 237 currently behind bars, has also come after foreign reporters in an ever-escalating crackdown on freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
Dozens of foreign reporters have faced administrative and legal action including false imprisonment by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, which is bent on silencing all critical voices in Turkey including local, regional, national and even foreign ones.
Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (BHRC)| Trial Observation Interim Report
BHRC conducted a trial observation in Turkey in May and June 2018 at the closing stages of a trial in which terrorism charges have been levelled against 11 Defendants, 10 of whom worked, or wrote opinion pieces, for Zaman newspaper, in their capacity as journalists.
The Turkish daily newspaper Zaman was previously the most widely distributed newspaper in Turkey. Until its takeover by the Government in March 2016, its editorial line was viewed as being favourable to Fethullah Gülen, an exiled Turkish citizen and preacher who now lives in the United States. He is considered by the Turkish state to be the leader of an organization known as FETÖ/PDY (“Gülenist Terror Organization/Parallel State Structure”) whom it holds responsible for the violent attempted coup. It was closed down by the national authorities soon after the failed coup attempt on 15 July 2016, following the declaration of a national state of emergency.
Amnesty International | Weathering the Storm: Defending human rights in Turkey`s climate of fear
A chilling climate of fear is sweeping across Turkish society as the Turkish government continues to use the state of emergency to shrink the space for dissenting or alternative views. Those who are defending human rights are on the front line – both as the targets of authorities’ attacks and at the heart of courageous resistance to attempts to silence all opposition.
Human Rights Watch | World Report 2018: Turkey
The new presidential system, which consolidates the incumbent’s hold on power, is a setback for human rights and the rule of law. It lacks sufficient checks and balances against abuse of executive power, greatly diminishing the powers of parliament, and consolidating presidential control over most judicial appointments.
Freedom House (CPJ) | Freedom in the World 2018
Turkey’s passage over the threshold from Partly Free to Not Free is the culmination of a long and accelerating slide in Freedom in the World. The country’s score has been in free fall since 2014 due to an escalating series of assaults on the press, social media users, protesters, political parties, the judiciary, and the electoral system, as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan fights to impose personalized control over the state and society in a deteriorating domestic and regional security environment.
World Justice Project | Rule of Law Index 2017-2018
Turkey has fallen to the 101st position out of 113 countries in the World Justice Project’s 2017-18 Rule of Law Index. There has been widespread concern that fundamental rights and freedoms and the rule of law in Turkey have eroded since state of emergency was announced in July 2016. Turkey was ranked in the bottom tercile in six of these eight areas. The two areas in which it achieved an average grade were absence of corruption and criminal justice.
Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) | Kurdish political movement under crackdown in Turkey The case of the HDP
The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the third largest political party by number of seats in the Turkish Parliament, has come under increasing pressure, with the government jailing its leaders, deputies, local elected representatives and members in large numbers. The HDP, once tapped by the government as an interlocutor with leaders of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)1 to resolve armed clashes, has become demonized and vilified.
Platform for Peace and Justice (PPJ) | Construction of a New Regime by Decree-Laws
In the early years of his political career, Turkish President Erdogan said that “democracy is like a train; you get off once you have reached your destination.” However, the authoritarianism of Justice and Development Party (AKP) has entered into a new phase of ideology construction and regime building. The new regime is being established making use of the state of emergency decree-laws. Under this regime, the dissents have been facing repression and persecution. This report discusses how the decree laws are destroying democracy, the rule of law and the fundamental human rights in order to establish a new authoritarian regime.
Freedom House (CPJ) | Freedom on the Net 2017
Internet freedom sharply declined in Turkey in 2017 due to the repeated suspension of telecommunications networks and social media access. The government has implemented a massive purge in which more than 60,000 citizens have been arrested for alleged connections to Gülen or other banned groups, while over 140,000 have been suspended or dismissed from their jobs. At least 5 news agencies, 62 newspapers, 16 television channels, 19 periodicals, 29 publishing houses, and 24 radio stations have been forcibly closed down by decree.
Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) | Tortured To Death Holding Gokhan Acikkollu`s Killers To Account
Investigators from the Stockholm Center for Freedom have laid bare the appalling facts behind the death of Gökhan Açıkkollu, a 42-year-old history teacher who died after enduring 13 days of torture and abuse. None of the people responsible for his death have yet been punished, and no effective or thorough investigation has been conducted into the circumstances that led to his death. Contradictory testimonies and discrepancies in official records have not yet been fully investigated by the public prosecutor, who dropped the probe even before receiving the autopsy results and without talking to key witnesses.
Human Rights Watch | In Custody: Police Torture and Abductions in Turkey
Based on interviews with lawyers and relatives, and on a review of court transcripts, this report looks in detail at ten cases in which security forces tortured or ill-treated a total of 22 people, and an eleventh case in which police beat scores of villagers, 38 of whom lodged formal complaints of torture.
Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) | Abuse of the Interpol System by Turkey
The Turkish government’s blatant abuse of the criminal justice system to persecute, harass and intimidate its opponents and critics has recently escalated to include manipulation of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). The dubious and false charges filed en masse with Interpol to hunt down political enemies of Turkey’s strongman President Erdoğan sparked an international crisis when Turkish nationals and foreign nationals of Turkish origin were caught in a quagmire.
Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) | Turkey’s Contempt for the Rule of Law
The Turkish government appears to enjoy governing the country with interim decree-laws that effectively sideline Parliament and have dismantled the independent judiciary under emergency rule, which has been repeatedly extended for over a year since a controversial July 15, 2016 coup bid. The government has implemented measures that have gone beyond addressing urgent security needs. Many violations have been reported about the infringement of basic principles of law and fundamental rights enshrined in the international conventions with which Turkey is under obligation to comply.
Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) | More Turks Report Anxiety, Stress and Depression Under Erdogan’s Rule
The escalating clampdown on fundamental rights and freedoms in an increasingly repressive regime of Turkey under the autocratic leadership of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan might have very well contributed to the spike in the prevalence of stress, depression, and anxiety in Turkish society, a recent poll done by Stockholm Center for Freedom has revealed. Among the polled, 86.3 percent of respondents said they experience high level of depression, followed by 78.8 percent stating they struggle with stress and 72.1 percent reporting they tackle with anxiety.
Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) | July 15: Erdogan’s Coup
The July 15th failed coup attempt in Turkey was a false flag operation orchestrated by Erdoğan in partnership with a cadre of military and intelligence officials to consolidate his power. The attempt, doomed to fail from the start, was hailed by Erdoğan as a “gift from God” and should be considered a successful bid from his perspective, judging by the results. More than 150,000 government employees have been dismissed from their positions on the basis of their critical views without any effective judicial or administrative probes.
Alliance for Shared Values (AFSV) | What Really Happened in Turkey on July 15, 2016?
The failed coup attempt provided Erdogan with an excellent excuse to consolidate his power. In addition to purging more than 6,000 members of the Turkish military, Erdogan also changed the military’s recruitment, reporting and education structures.
Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) | Enforced Disappearances in Turkey
The Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) has so far documented 11 individual cases of disappearance since 2016 that show a systematic and deliberate campaign of kidnappings by elements within the Turkish security and intelligence services as part of the persecution launched by Turkish President Erdoğan and his government, primarily against participants of a civic group known as the Gülen movement.
Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) | Mass Torture and Ill-Treatment in Turkey
Amnesty International | Turkey: no end in sight: purged public sector workers denied a future in Turkey
This report focuses on the dismissal of public servants, among them police officers, teachers, soldiers, doctors, judges, prosecutors and academics, by executive decree issued under the powers of the state of emergency in Turkey, which continues 10 months after it was first introduced. The mass dismissals have been carried out arbitrarily on the basis of vague and generalized grounds of “connections to terrorist organizations”.
Amnesty International | Turkey: journalism is not a crime: crackdown on media freedom in Turkey
Since the failed coup attempt in July 2016, at least 156 media outlets have been shut down and an estimated 2,500 journalists and other media workers have lost their jobs. Journalists have been arrested and charged with terrorism offenses as a result of posts they have shared on Twitter, cartoons they have drawn or opinions they expressed.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have overseen a substantial decline in press freedom over the past decade, aggressively using the penal code, criminal defamation laws, and antiterrorism legislation to jail large numbers of journalists and punish critical reporting. More than 150 media outlets—including newspapers, television and radio channels, news agencies, magazines, publishing houses, and news websites—were forcibly shut down and had their assets seized in the months following the coup bid.
Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) | Jailing Women in Turkey: Systematic Campaign of Persecution and Fear
SCF cited well-documented cases in this report to draw a picture of a larger pattern of institutionalized abuse of jailed women in Turkey as the art of systematic targeting by the authorities to crack down on the right to dissent, the right to freedom of speech and the right to hold differing views from the prevailing ideology of the current Islamist government.
Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) | Turkey`s Descent Into Arbitrariness: The End of Rule
A growing consensus among jurists and analysts who have observed the rapid democratic backsliding in Turkey, a member of the Council of Europe (CoE), is that the rule of law has been effectively suspended under the renewed emergency rule and that the courts are practically controlled by the authoritarian regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who does not hesitate to abuse the criminal justice system to persecute his critics and opponents.
Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) | Suspicious Deaths and Suicides in Turkey
Following a failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016, there has been a massive increase in cases of ill-treatment and torture, along with unprecedented mass arrests and detentions in Turkey. In statements and criminal complaints made by defendants and their family members, widespread torture practices have been uncovered in detention centers and prisons.
Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) | Freedom of the Press in Turkey: Far Worse Than You Think
This report by the Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) is about journalists, who were arrested, convicted, exiled or otherwise faced harassment in Turkey’s abusive criminal justice system. The main focus is naturally on those who have lost their freedom and are behind bars, although many others suffer in one way or another from the relentless persecution perpetrated by the Turkish government against critical, independent and opposition journalists.
Human Rights Watch | Turkey Events of 2016
On July 15, 2016, elements of the military attempted to carry out a coup d’état against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. In the aftermath, the government declared a state of emergency, jailed thousands of soldiers and embarked on a wholesale purge of public officials, police, teachers, judges, and prosecutors.
Human Rights Watch | Silencing Turkey`s Media: The Government`s Deepening Assault on Critical Journalism
The attacks on independent media after the attempted coup was defeated in July marked an intensification of a crackdown on media freedom that had already been going on for over a year. Censorship of journalism has been going on for much longer. The authorities use ever more creative ways to silence serious reporting and news coverage that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party government disagree with.
Amnesty International | Turkey: displaced and dispossessed: Sur resident`s right to return home
Amid the crackdown on opposition Kurdish voices by the Turkish government, this report focuses on the forced displacement of residents of Sur in Diyarbakır, southeast Turkey’s most populous city. Displaced and dispossessed of their homes, around 24,000 former residents of Sur are unable to return one year after the outbreak of heavy clashes in the district and other towns across the southeast of the country.
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) | Turkey’s crackdown propels number of journalists in jail worldwide to record high
Turkey is experiencing an unprecedented rate of press freedom violations. At least 81 journalists are imprisoned in Turkey, all of them facing anti-state charges, in the wake of an unprecedented crackdown that has included the shuttering of more than 100 news outlets. The 259 journalists in jail worldwide is the highest number recorded since 1990. In Turkey, media freedom was already under siege in early 2016, with authorities arresting, harassing, and expelling journalists and shutting down or taking over news outlets.
Human Rights Watch | A Blank Check: Turkey`s Post-Coup Suspension of Safeguards Against
Based on interviews with more than 40 lawyers, human rights activists, former detainees, medical personnel and forensic specialists, this report looks at how the state of emergency has impacted police detention conditions and the rights of detainees. It also details 13 cases, in one case involving multiple detainees, of alleged abuse including torture.
Alliance for Shared Values (AFSV) | The Failed Military Coup in Turkey & the Mass Purges a Civil Society Perspective
The actions of President Erdogan’s government in the immediate aftermath of the coup constitute a mass purge rather than a proper investigation. In addition to the officers who were accused of taking part in the coup, thousands of soldiers who did not take part in the coup, as well as tens of thousands of civilians including journalists, teachers and judges were detained and arrested within days of the attempt.
International Court of Justice (ICJ) | Turkey: the Judicial System in Peril
The ICJ raises concerns at measures eroding the independence of the judiciary, prosecution, and legal profession in Turkey, with serious consequences for protection of human rights. It analyses developments in law and practice that have affected the independence of both the governing institutions of the judiciary and prosecution, and the security of tenure and independence of individual judges in practice.
Human Rights Watch | Turkey`s Human Rights Rollback: Recommendations for Reform
The report outlines some of the areas where the government needs to take urgent steps to reverse this authoritarian drift. It focuses on four areas: human rights steps in the peace process with the PKK; threats to the rule of law; the reinforcement in the present of a culture of impunity, including a pattern of impunity for violence against women; and restrictions on speech and media, and on the rights to assembly and association.
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BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN TAPS 2003 HELSINKI GIG FOR NEW ARCHIVAL RELEASE
by admin | Oct 8, 2018 | Music News
Bruce Springsteen has finally chosen one of the shows from the E Street Band's 2002/2003 tour behind The Rising as his latest monthly archival collection, with the release of Helsinki - June 16, 2003. In the official essay accompanying the release, writer Erik Flannigan says about the show, "It seems apropos that nine Rising songs are paired with seven from Born In The U.S.A. Sure, this is Bruce and the band’s first-ever show in Finland, so drawing from their most popular album makes sense. Yet the incorporation of so many tracks from both records also suggests that their characters and stories are intertwined, that the people who inhabit 'My Hometown,' 'No Surrender,' and 'Glory Days' went on to experience what unfolds across The Rising later in their lives. Hearing so much from both chapters of that narrative makes Helsinki powerful."
Among the highlights from The Rising album featured in the show are the title track, "Lonesome Day," "Empty Sky," "You're Missing," "Waitin' On A Sunny Day," "Worlds Apart," "Mary's Place," "Into The Fire," and "My City Of Ruins."
Bruce Springsteen told us that following the E Street Band's 1999/2000 reunion tour, the 2002 release of The Rising helped validate and re-establish the band as being a relevant, working outfit: "I guess the nicest thing about it was we were able to reconstitute the band as this ongoing, sort of creative unit, y'know, and, and I think that that process was probably the thing that was hardest in some fashion. And the idea that we were concerned initially about, y'know, not only that the band was as good as it was -- as it was in the past, but that it was as good as it was in the past -- and then we had to bring other things, y'know, and more, in some fashion."
The tracklisting to Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band's Helsinki - June 16, 2003 is:
"Born In the U.S.A."
"The Rising"
"Lonesome Day"
"No Surrender"
"Prove It All Night"
"Darlington County"
"Empty Sky"
"You're Missing"
"Waitin' On A Sunny Day"
"The Promised Land"
"Worlds Apart"
"Badlands"
"Out In The Street"
"Mary's Place"
"My Hometown"
"Into The Fire"
"Thunder Road"
"Bobby Jean"
"Ramrod"
"Born To Run"
"Seven Nights To Rock"
"My City Of Ruins"
"Land Of Hope And Dreams"
"Dancing In The Dark"
"Glory Days"
AUDIO: PATTI SCIALFA ON 'THE RISING' TOUR
AUDIO: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SAYS THE SUCCESS OF 'THE RISING' VALIDATES THE E STREET BAND REUNION
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Joe McCarthy would have been proud
Lend a hand to our brothers
Filed under America, Culture, Foreign Policy, Israel, Palestine, The Middle East
Foreign fighters support Israel’s settlements
By Nour Samaha, 24 Sep 2011 15:53
Two weeks ago, an announcement appeared on a French website, calling for “militants with military experience” to participate in a solidarity trip to Israel between September 19 and 25. “The aim of this expedition is to lend a hand to our brothers facing aggression from the Palestinian occupiers, and to enhance the security of Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria,” it explained. The dates of the trip coincide with the Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations.
As of yesterday, in response to this call, there were 55 French citizens, both men and women, with military experience, stationed inside the illegal Israeli settlements up and down the West Bank. Organised into five separate groups of 11, their mandate is to “defend the settlements against any attack from Palestinians”, and to “aid” in areas where they feel there is a lack of Israeli army personnel or police forces.
The website belongs to the French chapter of the Jewish Defence League (JDL), a far-right Jewish group founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane in the United States in 1968. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has refered to the JDL as a “violent extremist organisation”.
JDL in France
“In France, it is a movement made up of French citizens who defend the Jewish community when faced with aggression, and also defends Israel in a more general manner,” said Amnon Cohen, a spokesperson for the group. “In terms of ideology, we are Zionists, pro-Israeli, and we share similar ideologies to that of the Ichud Leumi [“National Union”] party in Israel.” The National Union advocates the settlement of Jewish people in the entirety of the occupied West Bank, which it calls by its biblical name of Judea and Samaria.
“People say we are extreme because we believe in Judea and Samaria, and that this belongs to the Israelis, the Jews, but I don’t consider this to be extreme,” he told Al Jazeera.
Cohen was quick to point out that the JDL, contrary to recent media reports, is not banned in Israel or the US, but in fact, has active chapters across the world, including the US, Canada, the UK and France.
“We are active, the authorities are aware of us, and we maintain good relations with them,” he said.
Numerous examples of targeted attacks on pro-Palestinian entities, movements, and demonstrations across France by individuals associating with the JDL validate Cohen’s statements.
Nicolas Shahshahani, manager of La Librarie Resistances, a bookstore located in a quiet neighbourhood of Paris, has been the victim of such aggression. The first attack occurred in December 2006 soon after the store’s opening, when Shahshahani asked two Jewish authors, the late Tanya Reinhart and Aharon Shabtai to speak, both critics of Israeli policy in the occupied territories. Midway through the event, the bookstore was suddenly filled with tear gas, as a group of six masked people wearing helmets, and armed with iron bars entered and raided the store, shouting obscenities at the attendees. “They broke the windows, and I had to go to the hospital to get treatment for the teargas,” Shahshahani told Al Jazeera. “We launched a complaint against the police, but of course there was no investigation.”
In July 2009 the bookstore was targeted once again. Five people, who identified themselves as members of the JDL, poured litres of cooking oil all over the store and its books. “This is just as efficient as fire, if not more, if you want to damage a bookshop,” explained Shahshahani.
That time, however, the perpetrators were taken to court, where they admitted guilt, and were given suspended prison terms plus made to pay civil damages.
Courts and convictions
In another case, about 20 JDL members assaulted four students from Nanterre University. The attack, in which one student had his facial bones broken, took place within the compounds of the Administrative Court of Paris. Only Anthony Attal, reputed to be head of the group at the time, was charged.
The spokesperson for the Nanterre student association, AGEN, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal attacks, was present when the beating took place. Forced to do their own investigation into the matter, the students presented the police with their evidence. “We had video footage that identified Attal as the perpetrator,” he said, adding that as an association, AGEN – a Palestinian solidarity organisation – was regularly targeted by the JDL.
“When you spend many years attending these demonstrations, you start to recognise the faces of those who turn up and commit acts of aggression and intimidation, and then you see the same faces in court. It’s not difficult to point out who belongs to the JDL,” he said.
The court process to convict Attal was unusual, according to Dominique Cochain, the lawyer representing one of the victims. “The aggressor wasn’t present in the court, neither was his lawyer, and the judge therefore took it upon himself to interrogate the victim for two hours, trying to make the victim say it was a fight rather than an act of aggression,” essentially playing the role of the defence lawyer, she told Al Jazeera.
Since his conviction, Attal has been captured on video at several pro-Palestinian demonstrations, as recently as this summer.
“It gives the signal to others that there is a possibility to continue with this type of aggression, because it is not dealt with harshly,” said Cochain. “In my opinion, there is a certain level of tolerance between the French authorities and this group.”
Cochain, who has been defending victims of these aggressions since 2004, has also been a victim of intimidation. “I’ve been verbally abused and menaced because of the cases I do,” she said. “They’ve called me the ‘devil lawyer’ and taken my photo,” adding that she can identify them by the JDL logos they flash at her.
‘Protecting the community’
Cohen, however, says any association between the attacks and the JDL are false. “These people say whatever they want against us, but it doesn’t mean it’s us doing it,” he said.
Trying to connect members officially to the group is difficult to prove, due to the way organisations are structured in France. Registration would force the group to put out a manifesto and officially name members of its board. However, as registration is not obligatory, the JDL can exist without being registered, whereby membership is neither official nor public.
Cohen admitted the group was not registered under the name of the JDL, adding that it was registered under different names, “which are not important to know”.
Some people claim that the police purposefully ignore unlawful acts of aggression purportedly carried out by the JDL. While Cohen denies this, he admits to having good relations with the authorities.
“Our adversaries say we work hand in hand with them, but we don’t,” he said. “We just divide the work. For example, if there is a protest we are involved in, the police secure the streets, and we secure the entrances.”
“The police know that we are there to protect the community,” he added.
French authorities referred Al Jazeera to the Ministry of Interior, who did not respond to an interview request.
‘Violent youths’
The JDL encourages its members to undertake training in Krav Maga [Hebrew: “hand to hand combat”], a form of martial art used by the Israeli forces for close combat in urban warfare.
“We give this training to our members, so they are capable of defending themselves,” Cohen explained.
Military training is also encouraged for its members. “I tell the members that they should do military service, and we encourage this,” said Cohen, adding that some JDL members have been enrolled in the French army.
But AGEN says each of its demonstrations have been targeted by the JDL. “They hear about pro-Palestinian demonstrations, such as the Gaza flotilla solidarity events we had this summer, and they show up and start abusing people. It’s not self-defence when they actively search for the demonstration,” he said. “They hide in the streets when demonstrations happen, and attack the tail-end of the protests.”
“We’ve asked for the dissolution of the JDL through a petition signed by 30 different associations, as they are an armed militia, which is forbidden in France,” he said, but the petition has yet to gain traction with French authorities.
Ironically, prominent Jewish lobbies in France dissociate with the JDL, claiming they are groups of violent youth who do not represent the Jewish community.
Richard Prasquier, president of the Conseil Representatif des Institutions juives de France (CRIF), France’s main Jewish lobby group, told Al Jazeera: “There are no relations between CRIF and the JDL, and I don’t want anything to do with them.”
Others remain unconvinced. “For years there have been calls for the government to dissolve the JDL, but they have done nothing because of CRIF,” said Shahshahani. “On the street, when CRIF holds a public event, it’s the JDL that provides the security in coordination with the French police.”
Cohen confirmed what Shahshahani had said, adding: “Officially CRIF says they are separate from us, but there is the official position, and then there is reality. When there is something going on, they call us.”
Sammy Ghozlan, a former police officer and president of the Bureau Nationnal de Vigilance Contre le Anti-semitisme (BNVCA), told Al Jazeera that they too “have no particular relationship with the JDL”, although he was more understanding to the motives behind such actions.
“While the JDL are an extremist group, and not very well tolerated, their actions are a result of the discontent that exists, and this is continuing to grow,” said Ghozlan. “Furthermore, the violence from the pro-Palestinian side is increasing, and the Jewish people are in despair.”
‘Very serious show of solidarity’
Referring to the current “mission” to Israel and the West Bank, the call for solidarity is being taken very seriously by the JDL. Cohen refused to give any personal details of his comrades in the settlements, as “it is not a show, but a serious gesture of solidarity. This is a serious trip; we’ve sent over people who are slightly older, with more experience, between the ages of 24 and 35”, including three women.
“We know the IDF doesn’t need us, but we”re going to show our solidarity. We’re going over to make sure all areas are covered, and to defend the settlements,” he said.
Pro-Palestinian activists such as Shahshahani say the call should be taken seriously. “They are publicly recruiting people with military experience, French citizens with military experience, to serve a foreign country with guns, what is this called?” he said. “We all know of people who were sent to Guantanamo, including French citizens, because of actions like these. What about the ones who aid the Israeli army?”
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/09/201192343750232386.html or http://aje.me/pbhWEx or http://tinyurl.com/3v2b2jn
Photograph of armed French citizens ‘tanning under the sun’ in a West Bank settlement, by the Jewish Defence League.
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2011/09/24/lend-a-hand-to-our-brothers/
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Reviews about Transport for London
Transport for London (TfL) is a local government body responsible for the transport system in Greater London, England.[2] Its head office is 55 Broadway in the City of Westminster.[2]
TfL has responsibility for London’s network of principal road routes, for various rail networks including the London Underground, London Overground, Docklands Light Railway and TfL Rail, for London’s trams, buses and taxis, for cycling provision, and for river services. The underlying services are provided by a mixture of wholly owned subsidiary companies (principally London Underground), by private sector franchisees (the remaining rail services, trams and most buses) and by licensees (some buses, taxis and river services). TfL is also responsible, jointly with the national Department - we are not affiliated with any organisation mentioned. for Transport (DfT), for commissioning the construction of the new Crossrail line, and will be responsible for franchising its operation once completed.[3]
In 2015”16, TfL had a budget of £11.5 billion, 40% of which comes from fares. The rest comes from government funding (23%), borrowing (20%), Congestion Charge and other income (9%) and Crossrail funding (8%).[1]
2 Organisation
2.1 Operations centre
2.2 Connect project
3 Fares
3.1 Zonal fare system
3.2 Travelcard
3.3 Oyster card
3.4 Contactless payments
3.4.1 Apple Pay
3.4.2 Android Pay
4 Identity and marketing
5 See also
7 External links
See also: History of public transport authorities in London
TfL was created in 2000 as part of the Greater London Authority by the Greater London Authority Act 1999.[4] It gained most of its functions from its predecessor London Regional Transport in 2000. The first Commissioner of TfL was Bob Kiley. The first Chair was then-Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, and the first Deputy Chair was Dave Wetzel. Livingstone and Wetzel remained in office until the election of Boris Johnson as Mayor in 2008. Johnson took over as chairman, and in February 2009 fellow-Conservative Daniel Moylan was appointed as his Deputy.
TfL did not take over responsibility for the London Underground until 2003, after the controversial Public-private partnership (PPP) contract for maintenance had been agreed. Management of the Public Carriage Office had previously been a function of the Metropolitan Police.
Transport for London Group Archives holds business records for TfL and its predecessor bodies and transport companies. Some early records are also held on behalf of TfL Group Archives at the London Metropolitan Archives.
After the bombings on the underground and bus systems on 7 July 2005, many staff were recognised in the 2006 New Year honours list for the work they did. They helped survivors out, removed bodies, and got the transport system up and running, to get the millions of commuters back out of London at the end of the work day. Those mentioned include Peter Hendy, who was at the time Head of Surface Transport division, and Tim O’Toole, head of the Underground division, who were both awarded CBEs.[5][6][7] Others included David Boyce, Station Supervisor, London Underground (MBE);[5] John Boyle, Train Operator, London Underground (MBE);[5] Peter Sanders, Group Station Manager, London Underground (MBE);[5] Alan Dell, Network Liaison Manager, London Buses (MBE)[5] and John Gardner, Events Planning Manager (MBE).[7]
On 1 June 2008, the drinking of alcoholic beverages was banned on Tube and London Overground trains, buses, trams, Docklands Light Railway and all stations operated by TfL across London but not those operated by other rail companies.[8][9] Carrying open containers of alcohol was also banned on public transport operated by TfL. The Mayor of London and TfL announced the ban with the intention of providing a safer and more pleasant experience for passengers. There were “Last Round on the Underground” parties on the night before the ban came into force. Passengers refusing to observe the ban may be refused travel and asked to leave the premises. The Greater London Authority reported in 2011 that assaults on London Underground staff had fallen by 15% since the introduction of the ban.[10]
TfL commissioned a survey in 2013 which showed that 15% of women using public transport in London had been the subject of some form of unwanted sexual behaviour but that 90% of incidents were not reported to the police. In an effort to reduce sexual offences and increase reporting, TfL”in conjunction with the British Transport Police, Metropolitan Police Service, and City of London Police”launched Project Guardian.[11]
In 2014, Transport for London launched the 100 years of women in transport campaign in partnership with the Department - we are not affiliated with any organisation mentioned. for Transport, Crossrail,[12] Network Rail,[13] Women’s Engineering Society[14] and the Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS). The programme is a celebration of the significant role that women have played in transport over the past 100 years, following the centennial anniversary of the First World War, when 100,000 women entered the Transport industry to take on the responsibilities held by men who enlisted for military service.[15]
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This article needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (February 2015)
TfL is controlled by a board whose members are appointed by the Mayor of London,[16] a position held by Sadiq Khan since May 2016. The Commissioner of Transport for London reports to the Board and leads a management team with individual functional responsibilities.
The body is organised in three main directorates and corporate services, each with responsibility for different aspects and modes of transport. The three main directorates are:
London Underground, responsible for running London’s underground rail network, commonly known as the tube, and managing the provision of maintenance services by the private sector. This network is sub-divided into three service delivery units:
BCV: Bakerloo, Central, Victoria and Waterloo & City lines.
JNP: Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines.
SSL (Sub Surface Lines): Metropolitan, District, Circle and Hammersmith & City lines.
London Rail, responsible for:
Co-ordination with the operators that provide National Rail service within London.
London Overground and TfL Rail, although actual operation is undertaken by a private sector concessionaire and maintenance by Network Rail.
Docklands Light Railway: normally abbreviated DLR, this is the automatically driven light rail network in East London and South London, although actual operation and maintenance is undertaken by a private sector concessionaire.
London Trams, responsible for managing London’s tram network, by contracting to private sector operators. At present the only tram system is Tramlink in South London, but others are proposed.
Surface transport, consisting of:
London Buses, responsible for managing the red bus network throughout London and the East London Transit which is a Bus Rapid Transit in East London, largely by contracting services to private sector bus operators. Incorporating CentreComm, London Buses Command & Control Centre, a 24-hour Emergency Control Centre based in Southwark.
London Dial-a-Ride, which provides community transport services throughout London.
London River Services, responsible for licensing and co-ordinating passenger services on the River Thames within London.
London Streets, responsible for the management of London’s strategic road network.
London congestion charge which drivers who drive in Central London between Monday and Friday must pay a fee.
Public Carriage Office, responsible for licensing the famous black cabs and other private hire vehicles.
Victoria Coach Station, which owns and operates London’s principal terminal for long distance bus and coach services.
“Delivery Planning” which promotes cycling in London.
“Special Projects Team” manages the contract with Serco for the Santander Cycles scheme.
Walking, which promotes better pedestrian access and better access for Walking in London.
London Road Safety Unit, which promotes safer roads through advertising and road safety measure.
Community Safety, Enforcement and Policing, responsible for tackling fare evasion on buses, delivering policing services that tackle crime and disorder on public transport in co-operation with the Metropolitan Police Service’s Transport Operational Command Unit (TOCU) and the British Transport Police.
Traffic Enforcement, responsible for enforcing traffic and parking regulations on the red routes.
Freight Unit, which has developed the “London Freight Plan”[17] and is involved with setting up and supporting a number of Freight Quality Partnerships covering key areas of London.
TfL owns and operates the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden, a museum that conserves, explores and explains London’s transport system heritage over the last 200 years. It both explores the past, with a retrospective look at past days since 1800, and the present-day transport developments and upgrades.
The museum also has an extensive depot, situated at Acton, that contains material impossible to display at the central London museum, including many additional road vehicles, trains, collections of signs and advertising materials. The depot has several open weekends each year. There are also occasional heritage train runs on the Metropolitan line.
TfL has developed an electronic “Journey Planner”,[18] which enables users to plan journeys by all forms of public transport and bicycle in and around London.
Operations centre
The Palestra building, home to TfL’s Surface Transport and Traffic Operations Centre (STTOC)
TfL’s Surface Transport and Traffic Operations Centre (STTOC) was officially opened by Prince Andrew, Duke of York in November 2009.[19][20] The centre monitors and coordinates official responses to traffic congestion, incidents and major events in London.[21] London Buses Command and Control Centre (CentreComm), London Streets Traffic Control Centre (LSTCC) and the Metropolitan Police Traffic Operation Control Centre (MetroComm) were brought together under STTOC.[21]
STTOC played an important part in the security and smooth running of the 2012 Summer Olympics.[21] The London Underground Network Operations Centre is now located on the fifth floor of Palestra and not within STTOC.[22][23] The centre featured in the 2013 BBC Two documentary series The Route Masters: Running London’s Roads.
Connect project
Transport for London introduced the “Connect” project for radio communications during the 2000s, to improve radio connections for London Underground staff and the emergency services.[24][25] The system replaced various separate radio systems for each tube line, and was funded under a private finance initiative. The supply contract was signed in November 1999 with Motorola as the radio provider alongside Thales. Citylink’s shareholders are Thales Group (33 per cent), Fluor Corporation (18%), Motorola (10%), Laing Investment (19.5%) and HSBC (19.5%). The cost of the design, build and maintain contract was £2 billion over twenty years.
Various subcontractors were used for the installation work, including Brookvex and Fentons.
A key reasoning for the introduction of the system was in light of the King’s Cross fire disaster, where efforts by the emergency services were hampered by a lack of radio coverage below ground. Work was due to be completed by the end of 2002, although suffered delays due to the necessity of installing the required equipment on an ageing railway infrastructure with no disruption to the operational railway. On 5 June 2006 the London Assembly published the 7 July Review Committee report, which urged TfL to speed up implementation of the Connect system.[24]
The East London line was chosen as the first line to receive the TETRA radio in February 2006, as it was the second smallest line and is a mix of surface and sub surface. In the same year it was rolled out to the District, Circle, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan and Victoria lines, with the Bakerloo, Piccadilly, Jubilee, Waterloo & City and Central lines following in 2007.[26] The final line, the Northern, was handed over in November 2008.
The 2010 TfL investment programme included the project “LU-PJ231 LU-managed Connect communications”, which provided Connect with a new transmission and radio system comprising 290 cell sites with two to three base stations, 1,400 new train mobiles, 7,500 new telephone links and 180 CCTV links.[25]
Most of the transport modes that come under the control of TfL have their own charging and ticketing regimes for single fare. Buses and trams share a common fare and ticketing regime, and the DLR, Overground, Underground, and National Rail services another.
Zonal fare system
Main article: London fare zones
Rail service fares in the capital are calculated by a zonal fare system. London is divided into eleven fare zones, with every station on the London Underground, London Overground, Docklands Light Railway and, since 2007, on National Rail services, being in one, or in some cases, two zones. The zones are mostly concentric rings of increasing size emanating from the centre of London. They are (in order):
Zones 7”9, C, G and W
Main article: Travelcard
Superimposed on these mode-specific regimes is the Travelcard system, which provides zonal tickets with validities from one day to one year, and off-peak variants. These are accepted on the DLR, buses, railways, trams, the Underground and provides a discount on many river services fares.
Main article: Oyster card
The Oyster card is a contactless smart card system introduced for the public in 2003, which can be used to pay individual fares (pay as you go) or to carry various Travelcards and other passes. It is used by holding the card close to the yellow card reader. Card readers are found on ticket gates where otherwise a paper ticket could be fed through, allowing the gate to open and the passenger to walk through, and on stand-alone Oyster validators, which do not operate a barrier. Since 2010, Oyster Pay as you go has been available on all National Rail services within London. Oyster Pay as you go has a set of daily maximum charges that are the same as buying the nearest equivalent Day Travelcard.
Main article: Contactless payments
Contactless Visa, Maestro, MasterCard and American Express debit and credit cards issued in the UK are accepted for travel on London Underground, London Overground, Docklands Light Railway, most National Rail, London Tramlink and Bus services. This works in the same way for the passenger as an Oyster card, including the use of capping and reduced fares compared to paper tickets. The widespread use of contactless payment has meant that TfL is now one of Europe’s largest contactless merchants, with around 1 in 10 contactless transactions in the UK taking place on the TfL network.[27]
Main article: Apple Pay
Transport for London also accepts Apple Pay in the same way as contactless payment cards,[28] the fares would be the same as those charged on a debit or credit card and customers would benefit from the same daily capping. Since then, TfL has become the most popular Apple Pay merchant following the UK launch.[29][30][31][32]
Main article: Android Pay
Android Pay can also be used across TfL’s network, working in the same way as contactless cards. Users can track their spending on TfL services from the app.
Identity and marketing
TfL’s corporate roundels
Each of the main transport units has its own corporate identity, formed by differently coloured versions of the standard roundel logo and adding appropriate lettering across the horizontal bar. The roundel rendered in blue without any lettering represents TfL as a whole (see Transport for London logo), as well as used in situations where lettering on the roundel is not possible (such as bus receipts, where a logo is a blank roundel with the name “London Buses” to the right). The same range of colours is also used extensively in publicity and on the TfL website.
Transport for London has always mounted advertising campaigns to encourage use of the Underground. For example, in 1999, they commissioned artist Stephen Whatley to paint an interior ” ‘The Grand Staircase’ ” which he did on location inside Buckingham Palace. This painting was reproduced on posters and displayed all over the London Underground.[33]
In 2010 they commissioned artist Mark Wallinger to assist them in celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Underground, by creating the Labyrinth Project, with one painting to hang permanently in each of the Tube’s 270 stations.[34]
In 2015, in partnership with the London Transport Museum and sponsored by Exterion Media,[35][35] TfL launched Transported by Design,[36] an 18-month programme of activities. The intention is to showcase the importance of both physical and service design across London’s transport network. In October 2015, after two months of public voting, the black cab topped the list of favourite London transport icons, which also included the original Routemaster bus and the Tube map, among others.[37] In 2016, the programme is holding exhibitions,[38] walks[39] and a festival at Regent Street on 3 July.[40][41]
York Road disused station, 174 York Way, London, N1 0AZ
York Road disused station address:
Click here for directions to York Road disused station on Google Maps
York Road disused station opening Hours:
From our research, Transport for London locations (including York Road disused station) can generally be open 24 hours a day. We have been unable to discern the exact times that this depot is open, however.
York Road, 9th floor, 75-79 York Road, London, SE1 7AQ
York Road address:
Click here for directions to York Road on Google Maps
York Road opening Hours:
From our research, Transport for London locations (including York Road) can generally be open 24 hours a day. We have been unable to discern the exact times that this depot is open, however.
Woodside Park station, Woodside Park Road, London, N12 8SE
Woodside Park station address:
Click here for directions to Woodside Park station on Google Maps
Woodside Park station opening Hours:
From our research, Transport for London locations (including Woodside Park station) can generally be open 24 hours a day. We have been unable to discern the exact times that this depot is open, however.
Woodford Dial a Ride, 400 Roding Lane South, Woodford Green, Essex, IG8 8EY
Woodford Dial a Ride address:
Click here for directions to Woodford Dial a Ride on Google Maps
Woodford Dial a Ride opening Hours:
From our research, Transport for London locations (including Woodford Dial a Ride) can generally be open 24 hours a day. We have been unable to discern the exact times that this depot is open, however.
Wood Wharf, Unit1b, Harbour Quay, Wood Wharf, London E14 9QZ
Wood Wharf address:
Click here for directions to Wood Wharf on Google Maps
Wood Wharf opening Hours:
From our research, Transport for London locations (including Wood Wharf) can generally be open 24 hours a day. We have been unable to discern the exact times that this depot is open, however.
10b Wood Lane, London, W12 6DT
10b Wood Lane address:
Click here for directions to 10b Wood Lane on Google Maps
10b Wood Lane opening Hours:
From our research, Transport for London locations (including 10b Wood Lane) can generally be open 24 hours a day. We have been unable to discern the exact times that this depot is open, however.
Wood Lane disused station, Wood Lane, London, W12 7RH
Wood Lane disused station address:
Click here for directions to Wood Lane disused station on Google Maps
Wood Lane disused station opening Hours:
From our research, Transport for London locations (including Wood Lane disused station) can generally be open 24 hours a day. We have been unable to discern the exact times that this depot is open, however.
Wood Green station, High Road, London, N22 4HH
Wood Green station address:
Click here for directions to Wood Green station on Google Maps
Wood Green station opening Hours:
From our research, Transport for London locations (including Wood Green station) can generally be open 24 hours a day. We have been unable to discern the exact times that this depot is open, however.
Woodford station, Snakes Lane, Woodford Green, Essex, IG8 7BL
Woodford station address:
Click here for directions to Woodford station on Google Maps
Woodford station opening Hours:
From our research, Transport for London locations (including Woodford station) can generally be open 24 hours a day. We have been unable to discern the exact times that this depot is open, however.
Visit our sister sites, universalcreditnearme.uk, jsalocal.uk, shoppinglocations.uk, trainstationlocations.uk, courierlocations.uk, and govlocations.uk, postboxaddresses.uk, trainstationlocations.uk and crisisloanhelp.com
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Marlo Angell
Director of Digital Media, Free State Festival Director
marlo@lawrenceartscenter.org
Marlo Angell has a degree in Cinematic Arts from the University of Southern California. She is the founding director of the Free State Festival, a founder of the female filmmaking collective, Women of Lawrence Film (WOLF), the New Media Director of the Lawrence Arts Center. Marlo is a member of the Film Festival Alliance, the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission and Kansas City Women in Film and Television (KCWIFT). Her short films have been screened in festivals across the country including the AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival, and she wrote and directed the feature film, Waiting For The Son, starring Lupe Ontiveros and Brian Aldiss. Marlo has worked as a story analyst, freelance journalist, documentarian, film/writing instructor, and television producer. Her short plays have had readings and performances at the Fishtank Theatre, the KC Fringe Festival, and the Living Room Theatre.
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Justia Lawyer Directory Search for "Anthony G Hall"
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Anthony Hall
Reno, NV Attorney
(775) 327-3030 5441 Kietzke Lane
Anthony James Hall
Orlando, FL Lawyer with 25 years experience
(407) 514-2637 4767 New Broad St
University of Florida, Fredric G. Levin College of Law
Anthony Lucas Hall
Reno, NV Lawyer with 22 years experience
(775) 327-3000 Reno, NV 89511
Employment and Workers' Comp
McGeorge School of Law Univ of the Pacific
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(775) 348-4888 50 West Liberty Street
Appeals, Business, Employment and Immigration
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Ext. 2 31 Penrose St
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Denver, CO Lawyer with 30 years experience
(303) 293-3100 999 18th St
Washington, DC Attorney with 20 years experience
(202) 204-2231 1717 K St NW
Anthony Barrington Hall
Los Angeles, CA Lawyer with 41 years experience
(213) 368-1670 5525 Raber St
San Fernando Valley College of Law
Gary Anthony Hall
Syracuse, NY Lawyer with 34 years experience
(315) 422-7111 443 N Franklin St
Georgetown Univ Law Ctr
Lesley Anthony Hall
Brooklyn, NY Attorney with 19 years experience
(917) 604-6523 1680 Ocean Ave
NEW YORK, NY Attorney with 20 years experience
(212) 655-0880 NEW YORK, NY 10121
Kevin Anthony Hall
San Francisco, CA Attorney with 27 years experience
(212) 549-0420 San Francisco, CA 94131
Anthony Patrick Alfano
Watchung, NJ Attorney with 36 years experience
(908) 561-5577 501 Watchung Ave.
Watchung, NJ 07069
Free ConsultationAppeals, Criminal, Employment and Personal Injury
Mr. Alfano graduated from Seton Hall University Law School in 1982. He was admitted to the New Jersey State Bar and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. He served as Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor from 1983 through 1985 and prosecuted over a 1,000 cases ranging from homicides, serious drug and sex offenses to juvenile matters, Municipal Appeals, Krol Hearings, Gun Revocation Hearings and Expungements. Former Prosecutor Since leaving the Bergen County Prosecutors Office in 1985 Mr. Alfano has practiced law exclusively in the field of criminal defense representing individuals in high profile homicide, sexual...
Anthony Santangelo
Cherry Hill, NJ Attorney with 15 years experience
(856) 371-4454 385 Kings Hwy N # 701
Cherry Hill, NJ 08034-1013
Free ConsultationForeclosure Defense, International, Patents and Trademarks
Rutgers School of Law-Camden, Widener University Delaware School of Law and Seton Hall University School of Law
Free Consultations! Low Cost Trademarks, Patents, Copyrights, IP Enforcement also Business Formation and Advice. I am Also Promoting Inventions. Call for Unbiased Guidance!
Mr. Santangelo is a compassionate attorney who has helped many people in pro bono clinics for bankruptcy, domestic violence and tax preparation. He is a graduate of the prestigious school of business at NYU and has an MBA from Seton Hall.
Mr. Santangelo served as Law Clerk to Francis J. Orlando, Jr., Assignment Judge for Camden County and as an Intern for Jack M. Sabatino, J.A.D. His experience includes work as a Litigation Associate for the firm of Chierici,...
George Anthony LaMarca
Des Moines, IA Lawyer
(515) 225-2600 1820 NW 118th St #200
Business and Personal Injury
Drake University
George A. LaMarca's practice includes Personal Injury Law, Business Litigation, and Professional Malpractice. He has handled some of Iowa's largest personal injury cases and some of the state's most complex business litigation cases. He is board certified in civil trials by the National Board of Trial Advocates. He is also board certified in medical malpractice litigation by the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys. He is a member of the American College of Board Certified Attorneys. Mr. LaMarca was named the Best Lawyers 2016 Personal Injury Litigation - Plaintiffs "Lawyer of the Year" in the Des Moines metropolitan area....
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James M. Hall Jr.
Houston, TX Lawyer with 44 years experience
(713) 844-3006 711 Louisiana
Arbitration & Mediation, Business and Products Liability
Jim Hall is a partner in the Houston office of Kean Miller. He joined the firm in 2017 and focuses his practice on commercial, products, and premises liability litigation. An accomplished trial lawyer, he has handled numerous matters before state and federal appellate courts and the United States Supreme Court.
Jim is a certified mediator and was primary counsel in a nationwide “early look program” designed to resolve claims before suit was filed. He earned recognition from Thomson Reuters among the Texas Super Lawyers in civil litigation defense in 2006-2007. Jim is AV-rated by Martindale-Hubble.
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Divorce, Domestic Violence, Family and Immigration
Attorney Natalie D. Hall is experienced in handling a wide range of Family Law and Immigration cases. Her Family Law practice covers Divorces ( including High Asset Divorces), Complex Property Distribution, Paternity, Relocation, Modification, to name a few. Her Immigration practice covers Permanent Residency (Green Cards), Naturalization, Non Immigrant Visas and Waivers, to name a few. As a former prosecutor, Attorney Hall is quite experienced with trial and court room practice and is known as an avid litigator who goes above and beyond for her clients. For those seeking assistance with Family Law matters and...
Thomas George Hall Jr
Fort Worth, TX Attorney with 34 years experience
(817) 831-6100 2605 Airport Fwy
Free ConsultationMedical Malpractice, Personal Injury and Products Liability
I have been board certified since 1988. Each year I exceed my continuing legal education requirements by not only attending the state required courses, but I also teach Trial Advocacy and Procedural Law at Texas Tech School of Law as an adjunct professor every summer. I have been selected by a Peer Review Organization and has been awarded the designation of Best Lawyers in America for 2011, 2012, and 2013. I have over 25 years experience representing people just like you.
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Thomas Hall
Pittsburgh, PA Lawyer with 25 years experience
(844) 822-6400 300 Mt. Lebanon Blvd., Suite 308
Free ConsultationPersonal Injury, Products Liability, Social Security Disability and Workers' Comp
Duquesne University School of Law
After 23 years of practice I opened my own firm in 2017. I help injured people and their families in personal injury and workers' compensation cases. I'm proud of the way I practice law and I'd be happy to help you.
John A.. Anthony
Tampa, FL Lawyer with 31 years experience
John is the managing member of Anthony & Partners, LLC, Tampa, Florida’s premier bankruptcy and creditors’ rights firm. He covers the statewide needs of his clients from Pensacola to Key West and his practice includes areas of chapter 11 reorganizations, complex chapter 7 liquidations, assignments for the benefit of creditors, loan restructures, state court loan enforcement litigation, and lender liability defense in state and federal courts. From 2001-2009, John chaired a statewide 22-lawyer creditors’ rights department of a large law firm. In the aftermath of the economic crisis that began in 2008, he has positioned Anthony & Partners, LLC to...
Kathryn Ann Hall
Arvada, CO Attorney with 25 years experience
(303) 456-5928 8910 Ralston Road
Free ConsultationElder, Probate and Social Security Disability
Kathryn Hall graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1993. She worked as a Staff Attorney and Managing Attorney at the Georgia Legal Services Program (GLSP) from 1993 to 2006, where she managed the Elderly Legal Assistance Project for the Waycross field office. While managing the Elderly Legal Assistance Project, Ms. Hall successfully represented senior citizens in Medicaid and Social Security appeals, nursing home discharge appeals, debt collection defense cases, and probate matters, as well as assisting with the preparation of wills, living wills, and powers of attorney. She opened the Law Office...
Earl Thomas Hall
Fairport, NY Attorney
(585) 244-8743 4 Wenlock Road
Over 20 years' experience in all facets of employment law and labor law. Founded Ithaca New York Special Education Parent Teacher Association (SEPTA), and serves as its current President. Practice limited to employment law, employment discrimination, labor law and education law. Caring, competent representation. You will not be passed from a partner to an associate to a paralegal at Hall Law. We are "counselors" at law, not just lawyers. We strive to live up to the tradition of Cornell Law - "Lawyers in the Best Sense." Experience: Attorney for a prestigious, nationally prominent labor and employment law firm as...
Scott D. Hall
Sevierville, TN Lawyer with 27 years experience
(865) 428-9900 374 Forks of the River Parkway
Sevierville, TN 37862
Business, Collections, Construction and Real Estate
University of Tennessee College of Law and Florida State University College of Law
The Law Office of Scott D. Hall concentrates in the area of Civil Litigation, which includes all civil trial work, lawsuits, real estate, contracts, and business matters. This Office does not have a criminal practice. When you have a legal concern affecting an issue in Sevier County or East Tennessee, call Scott D. Hall at 865-428-9900. Scott has practiced in the same location for 21 years and focuses on real estate, construction, collections, contracts, and business litigation. Also, Scott continues to represent clients in the Divorce and Personal Injury matters.
Jeffrey Ryan Hall
Peoria, IL Attorney with 14 years experience
(309) 699-4691 316 SW Washington St.
Peoria, IL 61602
Free ConsultationCannabis Law, Criminal, DUI & DWI and Traffic Tickets
Southern Illinois University - Carbondale
Jeffrey R. Hall has practiced law since 2004, concentrating in the area of Criminal Law, DUI/DWI and Traffic Law. He began working as an Assistant State’s Attorney in Tazewell County, IL. Prior to that service, Mr. Hall worked as an intern/clerk at the venerable law firm of Miller, Hall & Triggs, LLC where he handled matters in Real Estate and Business. As an Assistant State’s Attorney, Mr. Hall prosecuted in the traffic and misdemeanor divisions, as well as the Felony Traffic Division. Mr. Hall gained experience as an aggressive trial attorney winning most of his...
Robert T. Hall
Reston, VA Lawyer with 55 years experience
(703) 991-1949 11260 Roger Bacon Drive
Robert T. Hall is one of the founding partners at Hall & Sethi, PLC. He received his Juris Doctorate from Georgetown in 1964. Since that time, he has successfully litigated numerous cases and helped clients recover the compensation they deserve. His efforts have gained him multiple recognitions including the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Distinguished Service Award from the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, inclusion in Super Lawyers®, and many more. For over 40 years, individuals have turned to Attorney Hall to help them seek justice. As an active member in the legal community, he is part of many distinguished organizations...
Malcolm Anthony
Ponte Vedra Beach, FL Lawyer with 35 years experience
(904) 285-4529 814 SR A1A N Ste 105
Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 32082-3271
Free ConsultationCriminal, DUI & DWI, Juvenile and White Collar Crime
Regent University School of Law and O.W. Coburn School of Law
Malcolm is an attorney with over 33 years of experience specializing in various areas of criminal defense with a high success rate in DUIs and license offenses. He has a long-running relationship with St. Johns and Duval county law enforcement and court systems that has served his clients and their cases well. Malcolm is passionate about upholding the rights of his clients and their needs, while defending and protecting their privacy and reputation all with the utmost integrity. You will get peace of mind with Malcolm Anthony as your lawyer.
Brett P. Hall
Sioux City, IA Attorney
(712) 226-4255 505 5th Street
Free ConsultationDUI & DWI, Divorce, Estate Planning and Family
University of South Dakota School of Law
Brett P. Hall is an attorney licensed to practice in Iowa, Nebraska, and the United States District Court, Northern District of Iowa. Mr. Hall is a member of the American Bar Association, the Iowa State Bar Association, the Nebraska State Bar Association, and the Woodbury County Bar Association. He is a graduate of the University of South Dakota, School of Law. Brett lives in Sioux City with his wife and four children. He is active within the community and enjoys participating in local fundraising events, and volunteering with local nonprofit organizations.
Brian Hall
Philadelphia, PA Attorney with 23 years experience
(866) 569-3400 1634 Spruce St.
Free ConsultationMedical Malpractice, Nursing Home, Personal Injury and Products Liability
Brian represents injured persons and their families in complex personal injury litigation. He concentrates his practice on medical malpractice, products liability, premises liability, crashworthiness, and automobile and construction accidents.Brian has successfully litigated and tried numerous cases in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey courts on a wide range of issues. His work has resulted in many million and multi-million dollar recoveries for his clients. Mr. Hall received a Master's Degree in literature from Columbia University, and his undergraduate degree at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. He graduated from Temple University School of Law, where he served on a law journal and...
Keith Hall
Kent, WA Lawyer
(253) 867-2675 610 Central Ave S
Free ConsultationCriminal, DUI & DWI, Domestic Violence and Traffic Tickets
Criminal Defense Attorney | Managing Attorney Keith loves representing and fighting hard for his clients. His clients are often people who have never been in trouble before, but now find themselves in the gun sights of the government's prosecution machine. Often times these clients have nowhere else to turn. Keith is a passionate trial lawyer who will advocate for his clients, when it feels like everyone else is against them. Keith is a believer in the jury trial system, which gives an opportunity for regular people, with the help of a hard working defense lawyer, to stand up in court...
Garland Hall
Glen Burnie, MD Lawyer with 11 years experience
(410) 787-0007 7420 Baltimore-Annapolis Boulevard
Free ConsultationCivil Rights, Criminal, Divorce and Family
Widener University, School of Law
Are you thinking about filing for divorce? Are you unsure where to turn when it comes to dealing with child custody issues or a postnuptial agreement? If so, then you can’t afford to wait for the quality care that is so completely available at the Law Office of Garland C. Hall, LLC. Here, you will be treated with the careful understanding and help that is necessary. If you need a Glen Burnie divorce lawyer, then you don’t have to search any longer. The Law Office of Garland C. Hall, LLC consists of a team of legal professionals who will make...
Jeffrey Scott Hall
Pleasant Hill, CA Attorney with 15 years experience
(925) 230-9002 3478 Buskirk Avenue, Suite 1000
Free ConsultationElder, Estate Planning, Probate and Tax
John F Kennedy Univ School of Law
Local Estate Elder Law Planning Attorney
Long term Pleasant Hill resident, Jeffrey Hall, didn’t follow the traditional path to the practice of law. Indeed, attorney Hall grew up in central Los Angeles, and in a time when there was no expectation that he would attend college; and law school was simply not an option. However, after completing his bachelor’s degree in Economics from Saint Mary’s College, he volunteered with the Air Force in 1981 and served for 9 years, both reserve and active. Upon returning to California, he and his wife made Pleasant Hill their home and have...
Jaired B. Hall
Rolla, MO Lawyer with 10 years experience
(573) 426-4206 1205 Hauck Drive, Suite A
Criminal, Divorce, Family and Juvenile
Jaired is a Missouri native, born in St. Louis, raised in the Kansas City area, and settled for the past several years with his wife and children near Salem. In October, Jaired’s family started a new chapter in their life, moving near Rolla. While Jaired has not yet opened a physical office location in Rolla, he considers both Rolla and Houston to be the locations of his practice.
Jaired graduated with honors from Regent University School of Law in 2008 where he served as executive editor of the Regent University Law Review. He was admitted to the Missouri Bar in 2008.
Prior...
West Palm Beach, FL Lawyer with 26 years experience
(800) 341-2684 330 Clematis Street, Ste.217
Ms. Anthony is an honors graduate from Florida State University College of Law and has been practicing law since 1993. Prior to founding Legal & Compliance, LLC, she served as Chief Legal Counsel for a national investment banking firm and NASDAQ broker dealer with over 200 employees. Ms. Anthony headed the firm's legal and compliance department and coordinated all legal work for the firm including all aspects of FINRA and SEC regulations, FINRA arbitrations, and public and private transactions.
Christopher B. Hall
Atlanta, GA Attorney with 22 years experience
Ext. 116 400 Galleria Parkway
Employment and Personal Injury
The University of Georgia School of Law
Chris Hall has over twenty years of experience as a litigator. He has successfully prosecuted multi-million dollar claims in personal injury and class actions, and many successful claims in employment law. His experience includes Rule 23 class actions, FLSA collective actions, overtime lawsuits, auto crashes, explosions, product liability, and personal injury.
Daryl D. Anthony
Santa Ana, CA Attorney with 28 years experience
(714) 541-6644 1043 Civic Center Dr West
Criminal, DUI & DWI and Domestic Violence
Temple Univ School of Law
Profile Former Orange County Deputy District Attorney & Deputy Public Defender Mr. Anthony formerly worked for the Orange County District Attorney where he successfully prosecuted serious felony cases for the government. His knowledge of D.A. office policies, procedures and personnel are important ingredients in the recipe for successfully defending your matter. Furthermore, Mr. Anthony spent many years of his legal career working for the Orange County Public Defender, defending clients in a wide range of criminal matters. From a background of handling a multitude of cases similar to yours, from both sides of the counsel table, Daryl D. Anthony can offer expertise...
Ronald Jason Hall
West Columbia, SC Attorney with 13 years experience
(803) 791-3196 1055 Sunset Blvd.
Bankruptcy, Criminal, Family and Personal Injury
Hall & Hall Attorneys at Law is dedicated to providing clients with the knowledgeable counsel needed for their unique legal needs. The West Columbia attorneys have served the community for more than 45 years and can assist you with cases involving criminal defense, family law, bankruptcy, personal injury, real estate, and probate law. The firm has a long history of obtaining successful results for their clients, and their lawyers are ready to help with your legal matter. Contact Hall & Hall Attorneys at Law to learn how they can advocate for your rights and best interests!
Ronnie Hall
Arlington, TX Attorney with 11 years experience
(817) 456-0825 P.O. Box 173156
Appeals, Estate Planning and Probate
Ronnie is a Texas attorney practicing primarily probate and estate planning with his firm, Hall & Mixon, PLLC. Ronnie is also very active with the Tarrant County Bar Association, serving as Assistant Director, Writer, Performer and Musical Director for Tortfeasors, the annual skit show benefiting the Tarrant County Bar Foundation. Ronnie is also an of counsel attorney for Jim Ross & Associates, PC, for which he does litigation support, motion practice and civil appeals.
Klaudia Hall
Ocean City, MD Attorney with 15 years experience
(410) 213-9881 9927 Stephen Decatur Hwy
The George Washington University Law School
Mrs. Hall limits her practice to Immigration matters in order to maintain her level of expertise and to provide the highest quality of legal service. Mrs. Hall is a solo practitioner and thus treats each client as if s/he were her only one. Mrs. Hall offers her clients the same resources as many large firms, without sacrificing the personalized focus and attention that every client deserves.
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Home Kentucky Jeffersontown
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Julie Ann O'Bryan
Louisville, KY Lawyer with 34 years experience
(502) 400-4020 1717 Alliant Ave.
Free ConsultationBankruptcy, Divorce, Estate Planning and Personal Injury
Julie graduated from Spalding University in 1982 with a degree in Business Administration with a minor in mathematics. She received her law degree from the University of Louisville in 1985. She spent her last semester of law school at Hastings University in San Francisco where she interned for the Department of Corporations. She became a member of the California Bar Association in 1985 and the Kentucky Bar Association in 1987.
From 1987 to 1993, Julie was employed as a Staff Attorney for the Honorable J. Wendell Roberts, US Bankruptcy Judge for the Western District of Kentucky.
In 1994, Julie started her own...
Claimed Lawyer ProfileBlawgsearch
Kimberly Hutchison
(800) 800-8888 1601 Business Center Ct
Free ConsultationMedical Malpractice, Nursing Home and Personal Injury
Kimberly Hutchison holds a B.A. from the University of Kentucky and a J.D. from Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. Her career highlights include the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. Kimberly is a member of the Louisville Bar Association, the Kentucky Justice Association, the Kentucky Bar Association, the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys, American Association of Justice and the Million Dollar Advocates Forum.
Douglas Jason Pride
Louisville, KY Attorney
Free ConsultationPersonal Injury
Caroline Clay
Louisville, KY Lawyer with 3 years experience
Caroline Clay was born and raised in Somerset, Kentucky. She holds a J.D. degree from the University of Brandeis School of Law. Caroline is licensed to practice in KY and IN.
Lindsey Hemsell
Lindsey Hemsell holds a B.A. in Biology and Chemistry from The University of North Texas (1986), and a J.D. From Creighton University (1991). Since he graduated from law school, his practice has been solely devoted to helping people who have been injured by others. His practice areas include motor vehicle accidents, trucking accidents, wrongful death, and medical negligence.
Todd Allan Greenwell
Todd A. Greenwell holds a B.A. in Communications from the University of Kentucky and graduated cum laude from Chase College of Law. Todd handles each case with excellence, which has resulted in hundreds of satisfied clients. Todd is a proud member of the Kentucky Justice Association.
John Thomas Hester
Free ConsultationCriminal Defense, Medical Malpractice, Nursing Home and Personal Injury
John has a B.A. in Spanish and Communications from the University of Louisville and worked as an editor for a decade before returning to school and earning his J.D. from the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law. He is a member of Kentucky Bar Association and the Kentucky Justice Association.
Claimed Lawyer ProfileBlawgsearchSocial Media
Darryl Lee Isaacs Esq
(502) 458-0026 900 Cherokee Rd, Louisville, KY 40204
Personal Injury and Social Security Disability
Darryl Isaacs, aka “The Hammer” founded this law firm dedicated to putting the best interests of each and every client first. He is a seasoned personal injury attorney with decades of experience in winning the best possible resolution for people who have been injured by somebody else’s negligence or wrongful act. Darryl believes that when somebody suffers a grievous injury which impairs their ability to work and take care of family or other responsibilities, the entire community is also harmed, which can be compared to throwing a stone into a pool of water and watching the ripples expand outwards. He...
Shane Benson
Louisville, KY Attorney with 11 years experience
Shane Benson has a B.S. in psychology and B.A. in both philosophy and religion from the University of Georgia. He earned his J.D. from the University of Louisville’s Brandeis School of Law. He is a member of the Kentucky Bar Association. He is admitted to the United States District Court, Eastern and Western Districts of Kentucky.
David Michael Scott
David Scott holds a J.D. degree from the University of Louisville, Brandeis School of Law. He began his legal career as felony prosecutor focusing on jury trials for victim involved criminal cases. Since 2012, David has been representing clients in personal injury cases. David has numerous successful settlements and trial verdicts for his clients, and he was named “Plaintiff Attorney of the Year” for 2015 by The Kentucky Trial Court Review.
Scott Weathers
Elizabeth Pratt Bernardi
Elizabeth Pratt Bernardi holds a B.A. from Centre College and a J.D. from University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law. Elizabeth is a member of the American Bar Association, the Kentucky Bar Association, the Kentucky Justice Association and the Louisville Bar Association.
Walter Aden Hawkins
Practiced Personal Injury law and tried cases in state and federal court since graduating from law school in 1996. Came to Isaacs & Isaacs from Hawkins Law Office in Bowling Green, Kentucky, his own firm, that opened in 2007.
Stephen Porter
(502) 297-9991 2406 Tucker Station Rd
Municipal and Real Estate
Taylor Kain
(502) 413-5246 1300 Envoy Circle, Suite 1301
Nick Curtis Thompson
(502) 625-0905 800 Stone Creek Parkway Suite 6
Free ConsultationBankruptcy and Foreclosure Defense
Mississippi College
Nick Practices Bankruptcy and Foreclosure Defense Primarily in the Louisville, Lexington, Covington Kentucky and Southern Indiana Bankruptcy Courts.
Dean H. Sutton
(502) 625-0902 800 Stone Creek Parkway
Free ConsultationDivorce, Domestic Violence and Family
University of Oregon School of Law
I am a solo practitioner who drafts all his pleadings and personally handles all his cases. When you hire me, you work with me, not a secretary, paralegal, or some other attorney you did not hire. I am a referral attorney for several different legal plans and have been so for up to 10 years, which attests to my trustworthiness and dedication. I am easy to talk to and I give practical, meaningful advice. I do not tell you something just because I think you want to hear it. In other words, I do not...
Joshua Farley
(502) 753-1600 9300 Shelbyville Rd
Free ConsultationAppeals, Medical Malpractice, Personal Injury and Products Liability
Joshua D Farley is an attorney at Bubalo Law, PLC. He was born and raised in Kentucky, which means he is just as comfortable in a courtroom with a suit, as he is on the back porch with a bourbon. Josh attended Vanderbilt University and the University of Louisville, Brandeis School of Law, graduating in 2006. Since law school he has become a distinguished and preeminent litigator, representing clients throughout the Commonwealth. He has years of experience practicing appellate law, business and contracts law, criminal defense, and personal injury law. Josh spent five and a...
Jennifer Leigh McCarty
(502) 459-4108 2950 Breckenridge Lane, Suite 13
Free ConsultationCivil Rights and Employment
At McCarty Legal, we will listen to what happened to you in a free initial consultation, and we know what questions to ask to assess your situation. In some cases, giving you legal and practical advice is all that is required to resolve the problem; in others, we communicate and negotiate with the employer to solve the issues between you. But if necessary, we will not hesitate to protect your rights in court, taking legal action against your employer. We have successfully represented employees against Fortune 500 companies, as well as state, city and county governments.
We understand the difficulties that...
Jon-Michael Murphy
Louisville, KY Attorney with 9 years experience
Free ConsultationBankruptcy, Business and Consumer
Jon-Michael Murphy received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law in 2009. While attending the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, Jon-Michael worked as a law clerk for Bubalo, Hiestand & Rotman, PLC, a volunteer teacher for the Central High School Street Law Program, and volunteered in the Legal Aid Society's Self-help Clinic. In 2010, Jon-Michael formed his own law practice in Louisville, Kentucky. As a solo practitioner, Jon-Michael focused his practice on Bankruptcy, Family Law, Landlord/Tenant Law, and Business Law. After building his own legal practice for...
(502) 326-5550 7982 New LaGrange Rd
Thomas K. Stone, Esquire has been licensed in the Commonwealth of Kentucky since 1984. He received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Louisville, School of Law. Mr. Stone and his legal group help protect your assets in the following areas: Estate Planning; Probate; Bonded Trustee, Power of Attorney, Curator and Representative Payee. Mr. Stone's primary concentration is personalizing the practice of law and building lifelong relationships with his clients. Ever vigilant of changing times, Stone Legal Group, PLLC remains current in all aspects of the law, including but not limited to, protecting your assets today...
Parker M. Wornall
(502) 426-1661 804 Stone Creek Pkwy Suite One
Business, Employment, Estate Planning and Family
I was raised on a thoroughbred farm in Paris, KY, and have long strived to meet the legal needs of Central Kentuckians like myself. My humble upbringing has instilled in me a tireless work ethic, honesty, and humility, all of which direct the work I do for my clients.
Leeann Thornhill
(502) 964-7878 Wasson & Thornhill, PLLC
3000 Breckenridge Lane
Restart, restore, and rebuild! Come see me for a free, confidential, and compassionate consultation.
Jonathan Bryan Fantoni
Business, Construction, Estate Planning and Insurance Claims
Marina Finegold
(502) 648-2461 4109 Bardstown Road, Suite # 106
Criminal Defense, Family and Immigration
Joni Patrice Bottorff
(502) 895-9900 500 N. Hurstbourne Parkway
Elder, Estate Planning and Real Estate
Vincent F. Heuser, Jr.
(502) 458-5879 3600 Goldsmith Ln
Business, Estate Planning and Real Estate
Johnna Ashley Selvage
Louisiville, KY Lawyer with 8 years experience
(502) 494-5951 8921 Stone Green Way
Louisiville, KY 40220
Collections, Criminal Defense, Family and Probate
David Albert Harris
(502) 245-7474 11507 Main Street
Middletown Historic District
Arbitration & Mediation, Construction, Insurance Claims and Insurance Defense
The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law
Mr Sean Nilsen
(502) 245-8883 2527 Nelson Miller Pkwy., Suite 101
Business and Construction
Douglas P. Dawson
(502) 631-0232 320 Whittington Parkway
Mary Whitlock Stoddard
1002 Springside Way
Kelly Gannott
Louisville, KY Lawyer
920 Dupont Rd
J. Brandon Johnson
(502) 423-1600 10345 Linn Station Road
Todd Kingsley Bolus
Nancy Slonneger Hancock
(859) 620-1964 401 Lochinvar Pl
Martha Eastman
(502) 456-1331 3721 Taylorsville Road
Christopher H. Morris
(866) 583-9701 231 Breckenridge Lane
Free ConsultationAppeals, Medical Malpractice, Personal Injury and Workers' Comp
I am a partner at Hargadon, Lenihan & Herrington- the oldest personal injury firm in Louisville. Since I began practicing in Louisville, I catered to the under-represented Hispanic/Latino population.
I have represented clients in medical malpractice, product liability, wrongful death, construction, and premises liability actions. I also represent clients, and the seriously injured, trucking, motorcycle and automobile collision cases.
Bruce Brightwell
1939 Goldsmith Lane
Elder, Estate Planning and Probate
Indiana University - Indiana University-Bloomington
Bruce graduated magna cum laude from the Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington in 1992. Bruce has been licensed in both Indiana and Kentucky since 1992, and has concentrated his practice in the Kentuckiana area. He has represented clients on every level of the state and federal courts in both states, and is a Board Certified Civil Trial Attorney by the National College of Trial Advocacy.
Bruce has served as an Adjunct Professor at the Brandeis School of Law.
He is an active member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and serves as Executive Editor...
Nolia G Batey
(502) 509-9407 130 Fairfax Avenue, Suite LL-B
Free ConsultationAnimal, Business and Personal Injury
Nolia G. Batey is a member of BATEY BROPHY, PLLC in Louisville, Kentucky where she represents the firm's clients in general civil litigation and personal injury matters in state and federal courts throughout Kentucky. She also represents small businesses from formation to dissolution and just about everything in between.
Nolia received her B.A. from Western Kentucky University and her J.D. from the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law. During law school, she worked as a legal and compliance intern for Churchill Downs, Inc. Nolia also worked as a legal extern for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service Small Business/Self-Employed...
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The OneCLE Lawyer Directory contains lawyers who have claimed their profiles and are actively seeking clients. Find more Jeffersontown, Kentucky Lawyers in the Justia Legal Services and Lawyers Directory which includes profiles of more than one million lawyers licensed to practice in the United States, in addition to profiles of legal aid, pro bono and legal service organizations.
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The partial synthesis in the 1930s of abundant, potent testosterone esters permitted the characterization of the hormone's effects, so that Kochakian and Murlin (1936) were able to show that testosterone raised nitrogen retention (a mechanism central to anabolism) in the dog, after which Allan Kenyon's group[186] was able to demonstrate both anabolic and androgenic effects of testosterone propionate in eunuchoidal men, boys, and women. The period of the early 1930s to the 1950s has been called "The Golden Age of Steroid Chemistry",[187] and work during this period progressed quickly. Research in this golden age proved that this newly synthesized compound—testosterone—or rather family of compounds (for many derivatives were developed from 1940 to 1960), was a potent multiplier of muscle, strength, and well-being.[188]
Dr. Anthony’s Notes: Here's a funny little effect – fenugreek can make you sweet and your urine smell sweet like Maple Syrup. Hell, this could be a good thing for you! This supplement is commonly used for good reasons – it's quite effective for enhancing libido when stacked with the other herbs on this list. Medical Note: Fenugreek may interact with blood thinning medications (Warfarin, Coumadin, Xarleto). Check with your doctor before taking any of these supplements. How To Take Fenugreek: Take 400-600mg (capsule) with food; it's best to take a product standardized for fenuside.
There are positive correlations between positive orgasm experience in women and testosterone levels where relaxation was a key perception of the experience. There is no correlation between testosterone and men's perceptions of their orgasm experience, and also no correlation between higher testosterone levels and greater sexual assertiveness in either sex.[34]
Yeah a lot of information has come out in the last decade or so proving that cholesterol is in fact good for you, and actually has no correlation to heart disease. But I think it will be a few more years until the world will shift such a strong belief that cholesterol is the enemy. If you are interested in this you should read grain brain. It talks all about (and proves) how high carbohydrates are actually the reason for “high cholesterol” and a high fat low carb diet is great for your body, and more importantly your brain.
There are numerous studies that show that Tribulus does not increase testosterone levels, and provides no assistance in increasing muscle mass or strength. I one of the two group of rugby players were put on the herb or a placebo. At the end of the experiment, there were zero changes in testosterone levels in the Tribulus group. Says a lot. [Source]
However, testosterone is only one of many factors that aid in adequate erections. Research is inconclusive regarding the role of testosterone replacement in the treatment of erectile dysfunction. In a review of studies that looked at the benefit of testosterone in men with erection difficulties, showed no improvement with testosterone treatment. Many times, other health problems play a role in erectile difficulties. These can include:
A: Endocrinology is a very difficult subject, some physicians and pharmacists alike have more difficulty with endocrinology than neurology. The reason for this is that there is no clear cut answer. Every hormone interacts with another hormone system in the body whether it be parathyroid hormone, cortisol, follicle stimulating hormone, etc. By in large, testosterone will increases lean body mass, which is to say that it typically increases muscle and or bone mass. We use it in the hospital to put weight on in patients needing to gain weight. That is partially the reason why we refer to testosterone as an "anabolic" hormone; anabolic meaning 'to build'. For more information, please visit us here at: //www.everydayhealth.com/drugs/testosterone Matt Curley, PharmD
Stored food in glassware and never, ever, ever heated food in plastic containers. Most modern plastics contain phthalates. Phthalates are what give plastic their flexibility, durability, and longevity. But they also screw with hormones by imitating estrogen. Because I didn’t want any of those T-draining molecules in my food, I kept all my food in glassware. I also made sure to never heat food in plastic containers, as heat increases the transfer of phthalates into food.
Many endocrinologists are sounding the alarm about the damaging effects that come with exposure to common household chemicals. Called “endocrine disruptors,” these chemicals interfere with our body’s hormone system and cause problems like weight gain and learning disabilities. One type of endocrine disruptor is particularly bad news for our testosterone levels.
The largest amounts of testosterone (>95%) are produced by the testes in men,[2] while the adrenal glands account for most of the remainder. Testosterone is also synthesized in far smaller total quantities in women by the adrenal glands, thecal cells of the ovaries, and, during pregnancy, by the placenta.[126] In the testes, testosterone is produced by the Leydig cells.[127] The male generative glands also contain Sertoli cells, which require testosterone for spermatogenesis. Like most hormones, testosterone is supplied to target tissues in the blood where much of it is transported bound to a specific plasma protein, sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG).
There are a lot of test booster blends out there. A lot of them are junk. I have tried to cover the most effective herbs above. As always, I recommend doing your own research and experiment to see if you notice an effect. If you would like one easy herbal solution I recommend starting with Mike Mahlers Aggressive Strength product purely because I have solid anecdotal evidence of its effectiveness. But again, supplements should be seen purely as that - a supplement to a healthy diet, plenty of sleep, hard training with adequate rest.
The confusion is understandable, as one in-vitro study noted that high doses of zinc blocked the enzyme 5-a reductase inside test-tubes. But the studies that don’t see much daylight actually show that oral zinc supplementation on actual living, breathing, humans is able to significantly boost the production of dihydrotestosterone, and it does so even when there’s no deficiency in the mineral.
Testosterone supplements are typically used by men who want to increase the level of the male hormone testosterone that controls functions such as sexual desire and muscle gain. There are several types of over-the-counter testosterone supplements available in nutritional supply stores. You should speak to your doctor before using any type of testosterone supplement since none of the effects advertised have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Additionally, there are prescription-based testosterone therapies that produce better results.
Testosterone is a hormone produced in the male testes. During a boy's pubescent years (ages 9 to 14), there is an increase in production that leads to male secondary sexual characteristics such as a deeper voice, more muscle mass, facial hair growth and enlargement of the Adam's apple (among others). Some teenage boys experience these puberty changes at later ages than others. The timing of puberty is often genetically determined (through heredity), but other factors can play a role in delaying it, such as poor nutrition, physical trauma and certain diseases. Stimulating testosterone production naturally is possible in teen boys, although in rare cases hormone therapy may be needed to trigger and complete puberty.
Inaccurate or misinterpreted test results can either falsely diagnose or miss a case of testosterone deficiency. Your testosterone level should be measured between 7 am and 10 am, when it's at its peak. Confirm a low reading with a second test on a different day. It may require multiple measurements and careful interpretation to establish bioavailable testosterone, or the amount of the hormone that is able to have effects on the body. Consider getting a second opinion from an endocrinologist.
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Transport February 2, 2016 February 2, 2016
34 years later, the 1982 DeLorean DMC-12 from Back to the Future will hit production lines once more
DeLorean is back to the future. Quite literally! The automaker recently announced plans to hit production lines once again, by resurrecting its iconic 1982 DeLorean DMC-12. This car hasn’t been in production since the last 34 years, and the company has been spending its years restoring old DMC-12s for enthusiasts and Back to the Future fans. Now, DeLorean Motors has announced that it’ll produce 300 replicas of the original model used in the film franchise. Back in the day, the company went bankrupt and founder John DeLorean tried saving his company with money from drug trafficking. Obviously, the scheme didn’t work as planned and DeLorean was caught on film. He was later acquitted of charges, but DeLorean Motors simply didn’t begin churning out cars again.
In 1995, mechanic Stephen Wynne started a new company with the DeLorean Motor name and purchased the logo of the original company. Wynne’s efforts over the years will finally bring the good old 1982 DeLorean DMC-12 back to store shelves. “It’s fantastic. It is a game-changer for us. We’ve been wanting this to happen,” said the enthusiastic Stephen Wynne to TV station KPRC2 in Houston. The refurbished DMC-12s today cost approximately $55,000. The new cars will come with a price tag of $100,000 however, and will go on sale by 2017.
READ: Bentley Continental Flying Spur Series 51 announced
[ Via : Usatoday ]
DeLorean’s very own DMC-12 vehicle is on the auction block; starting price is $35,700
A DeLorean gets a hot tub installed in it in this epic Super-Fan Build
Previous articleTop 5 Cars ever sold at Barrett Jackson Collector Car Auction
Next articleHublot MP-05 ‘LaFerrari’ Sapphire tourbillon
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Man with a Drink, 2008
Born in 1969, Chantal Joffe lives and works in London. She holds an MA from the Royal College of Art and was awarded the Royal Academy Woollaston Prize in 2006. Joffe has exhibited nationally and internationally at the National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavík (2016); National Portrait Gallery, London (2015, two person); Jewish Museum, New York (2015, solo); Jerwood Gallery, Hastings (2015, solo); Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2014 - 2015, two person); Saatchi Gallery, London (2013 - 2014); MODEM, Hungary (2012); Mackintosh Museum, Glasgow (2012); Il Capricorno, Venice (2011, solo); Turner Contemporary, Margate (2011); Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York (2009); University of the Arts, London (2007); MIMA Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (2007); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2005); Galleri KB, Oslo (2005) and Bloomberg Space, London (2004).
Download Artist's CV
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4 Surprising Google Wave Uses
By Samuel Axon 2009-12-15 15:20:33 UTC
Now that Google Wave has opened up to one million users and there are countless unused invites floating around, just about anyone who wants to take Google's new collaboration tool for a spin can do so. Sure, some users are disappointed with the platform, but if you're among them you'll have to admit that whether it's going to catch on or not, it's been used for some neat stuff.
Four uses in particular have stood out for their cleverness and high fun factor, and you probably didn't see any of them coming. Each has gotten a lot of press, so if you've been following Wave closely you might have heard of them.
We'd like to hear about more fun uses for Wave. Have your friends or colleagues come up with anything creative? Read these examples, then tell us if you have any ideas for exciting new applications.
1. Manhunt
A Washington man was suspected of shooting four police officers, but when he evaded capture, a state-wide search began. That's a regular story, but this time a new tool was used. The Seattle Times created a public wave where readers, officers, and journalists could post and update information that might lead to the alleged shooter's capture.
The Wave received photos of the suspect, sightings, a description of what was believed to be his vehicle, evidence, and updates from the police radio. The Times also set up a Google Map with place markers for important events and locations in the manhunt.
2. The Declaration of Independence
When Wave was first announced, a lot of people were having trouble sussing out what it could be used for. O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly suggested a great demonstration tool to Wave designer Lars Rasmussen: Dramatization of the drafting of famous historical documents in Wave.
The Declaration of Independence was used, and if you have a Wave account, you can take a look at the wave and see the edits as they happen. Many of the fake changes are humorous — for example, the first pass at the opener says "we hold these truths to be awesome" rather than "self-evident" — and they illustrate Wave's strengths well.
3. Role Playing Games
Role playing games were among the first traditions geeks ported to networks. Since then they've been played through e-mail, instant messaging, social networks, and virtual worlds. It was inevitable that they'd make their way to Wave as well.
It turns out the platform is well-suited for them. Players and game masters can easily embed supplements like maps, statistics, dice rollers, and character portraits. Players can start private in-character conversations between one another, and game masters can relay information to specific characters. Play-by-e-mail RPGs have been popular for a long time, but thanks to all the extra tools and the real-time functionality, play-by-wave RPGs have a good chance of achieving even more success.
There's a wave out there that was created to list all the RPGs currently running on the platform, so go and check that out to get started if you're into that sort of thing.
4. Pulp Wave Fiction & Good Wave Hunting
These videos went viral when they debuted; watching them is like watching Wave widgets do interpretive dances to the dialog and events in two famous scenes from American cinema. These aren't actually useful, but they're without a doubt the most popular and entertaining items on the list. Watch the videos here, but be warned that this is Pulp Fiction and Good Will Hunting we're talking about; the dialog is probably NSFW.
These have been the best examples we've seen so far, but have you heard about any more creative or entertaining uses for Wave? Let us know in the comments.
More Google Wave resources from Mashable
- HOW TO: Get Started with Google Wave
- Google Wave: A Complete Guide
- Testing Google Wave: This Thing is Tidal
- The Top 6 Game-Changing Features of Google Wave
- Google Wave: 5 Ways It Could Change the Web
- Google Wave Extensions: An Inside Look
- Could Google Wave Redefine Email and Web Communication?
Samuel Axon
Samuel Axon is a digital content producer in New York City. He has worked as an editor at Engadget, Mashable and the Joystiq network, and currently leads content strategy as Editorial Director at Sprout Social.
Topics: contributor, Google, Google Lists, Social Media
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Stanford Medicine News Center
News Center Home
Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified
Stanford scientists devised a blood-based test that accurately identified people with chronic fatigue syndrome, a new study reports.
Ron Davis is the senior author of a paper that describes a blood test that may be able to identify chronic fatigue syndrome.
Steve Fisch
People suffering from a debilitating and often discounted disease known as chronic fatigue syndrome may soon have something they’ve been seeking for decades: scientific proof of their ailment.
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have created a blood test that can flag the disease, which currently lacks a standard, reliable diagnostic test.
“Too often, this disease is categorized as imaginary,” said Ron Davis, PhD, professor of biochemistry and of genetics. When individuals with chronic fatigue syndrome seek help from a doctor, they may undergo a series of tests that check liver, kidney and heart function, as well as blood and immune cell counts, Davis said. “All these different tests would normally guide the doctor toward one illness or another, but for chronic fatigue syndrome patients, the results all come back normal,” he said.
The problem, he said, is that they’re not looking deep enough. Now, Davis; Rahim Esfandyarpour, PhD, a former Stanford research associate; and their colleagues have devised a blood-based test that successfully identified participants in a study with chronic fatigue syndrome. The test, which is still in a pilot phase, is based on how a person’s immune cells respond to stress. With blood samples from 40 people — 20 with chronic fatigue syndrome and 20 without — the test yielded precise results, accurately flagging all chronic fatigue syndrome patients and none of the healthy individuals.
The diagnostic platform could even help identify possible drugs to treat chronic fatigue syndrome. By exposing the participants’ blood samples to drug candidates and rerunning the diagnostic test, the scientists could potentially see whether the drug improved the immune cells’ response. Already, the team is using the platform to screen for potential drugs they hope can help people with chronic fatigue syndrome down the line.
A paper describing the research findings was published online April 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Davis is the senior author. Esfandyarpour, who is now on the faculty of the University of California-Irvine, is the lead author.
Providing the proof
The diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome, when it actually is diagnosed, is based on symptoms — exhaustion, sensitivity to light and unexplained pain, among other things — and it comes only after other disease possibilities have been eliminated. It is also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis and designated by the acronym ME/CFS. It’s estimated that 2 million people in the United States have chronic fatigue syndrome, but that’s a rough guess, Davis said, and it’s likely much higher.
For Davis, the quest to find scientific evidence of the malady is personal. It comes from a desire to help his son, who has suffered from ME/CFS for about a decade. In fact, it was a biological clue that Davis first spotted in his son that led him and Esfandyarpour to develop the new diagnostic tool.
We clearly see a difference in the way healthy and chronic fatigue syndrome immune cells process stress.
The approach, of which Esfandyarpour led the development, employs a “nanoelectronic assay,” which is a test that measures changes in miniscule amounts of energy as a proxy for the health of immune cells and blood plasma. The diagnostic technology contains thousands of electrodes that create an electrical current, as well as chambers to hold simplified blood samples composed of immune cells and plasma. Inside the chambers, the immune cells and plasma interfere with the current, changing its flow from one end to another. The change in electrical activity is directly correlated with the health of the sample.
The idea is to stress the samples from both healthy and ill patients using salt, and then compare how each sample affects the flow of the electrical current. Changes in the current indicate changes in the cell: the bigger the change in current, the bigger the change on a cellular level. A big change is not a good thing; it’s a sign that the cells and plasma are flailing under stress and incapable of processing it properly. All of the blood samples from ME/CFS patients created a clear spike in the test, whereas those from healthy controls returned data that was on a relatively even keel.
“We don’t know exactly why the cells and plasma are acting this way, or even what they’re doing,” Davis said. “But there is scientific evidence that this disease is not a fabrication of a patient’s mind. We clearly see a difference in the way healthy and chronic fatigue syndrome immune cells process stress.” Now, Esfandyarpour and Davis are expanding their work to confirm the findings in a larger cohort of participants. Recruitment for the larger project, which aims to further confirm the success of the diagnostic test, is being done on a rolling basis. Those who are interested in participating should contact clinical research coordinator Anna Okumu.
Doubling up
In addition to diagnosing ME/CFS, the researchers are also harnessing the platform to screen for drug-based treatments, since currently the options are slim. “Using the nanoelectronics assay, we can add controlled doses of many different potentially therapeutic drugs to the patient’s blood samples and run the diagnostic test again,” Esfandyarpour said.
If the blood samples taken from those with ME/CFS still respond poorly to stress and generate a spike in electrical current, then the drug likely didn’t work. If, however, a drug seems to mitigate the jump in electrical activity, that could mean it is helping the immune cells and plasma better process stress. So far, the team has already found a candidate drug that seems to restore healthy function to immune cells and plasma when tested in the assay. The drug, while successful in the assay, is not currently being used in people with ME/CFS, but Davis and Esfandyarpour are hopeful that they can test their finding in a clinical trial in the future.
All of the drugs being tested are either already approved by the Food and Drug Administration or will soon be broadly accessible to the public, which is key to fast access and dissemination should any of these compounds pan out.
Davis is a member of Stanford Bio-X, the Stanford Cancer Institute and the Stanford Maternal & Child Health Research Institute.
Other Stanford authors of the study are research scientists Mohsen Nemat-Gorgani and Julie Wilhelmy and research assistant, Alex Kashi.
The study was funded by the Open Medicine Foundation. Davis is the director of the foundation’s scientific advisory board.
Stanford’s departments of Genetics and of Biochemistry also supported the work.
By Hanae Armitage
Hanae Armitage is a science writer for the medical school's Office of Communication & Public Affairs. Email her at harmitag@stanford.edu.
Stanford Medicine integrates research, medical education and health care at its three institutions - Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Health Care (formerly Stanford Hospital & Clinics), and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford. For more information, please visit the Office of Communication & Public Affairs site at http://mednews.stanford.edu.
Researchers identify biomarkers associated with chronic fatigue syndrome severity
Stanford investigators used high-throughput analysis to link inflammation to chronic fatigue syndrome, a difficult-to-diagnose disease with no known cure.
Study finds brain abnormalities in chronic fatigue patients
Radiology researchers have discovered that the brains of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome have diminished white matter and white matter abnormalities in the right hemisphere.
Hanae Armitage Tel 650-725-5376 harmitag@stanford.edu
Margarita Gallardo Tel 650-723-7897 mjgallardo@stanford.edu
Leading in Precision Health
Stanford Medicine is leading the biomedical revolution in precision health, defining and developing the next generation of care that is proactive, predictive and precise.
A Legacy of Innovation
Stanford Medicine's unrivaled atmosphere of breakthrough thinking and interdisciplinary collaboration has fueled a long history of achievements.
View timeline
Office of Communication & Public Affairs
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August 23, 2018 leebutler Action, Comedy, Crime
Released: 23rd August
Seen: 23rd August
Every so often, there’s a film concept that is basically tailor-made for me to enjoy more than most others. One of those concepts is “R Rated Puppets”, just the idea of a format usually aimed at children being used in a more adult fashion really tickles me. I delighted in watching my old VHS of Meet The Feebles so often that there would be notable signs of wear right around the time that Sebastian get’s on stage to sing about his love of Sodomy. I’ve seen Avenue Q twice and if another tour of the show comes around, I’ll gleefully be there and hum along while they sing about schadenfreude. So when I heard that the son of Jim Henson was going to be taking this on and doing an R rated buddy cop movie I was pretty much destined to enjoy it on some level… “Mid” counts as a level right?
The Happytime Murders is set in a world where puppets and human’s exist, but Puppets are on the lower rung of society and are basically there for entertainment and nothing else. Picture the society that was portrayed in Who Framed Roger Rabbit but replace the cartoons with puppets. In this world, Phil Philips is a private investigator and a former police officer. He’s the first and last puppet police officer, being expelled from the police and leading to all puppets being banned from the force after he didn’t shoot a bad guy quick enough and his partner Detective Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy) ended up being injured. Now Phil Philips is doing everything he can to make a check and his newest private investigation has him stumbling into a plot about a serial killer who is killing the puppet cast members of the TV series The Happytime Gang. It’s up to Phil and Connie to put aside their past and somehow solve this crime before too many good puppets get hurt.
The premise of this movie is really good and allows for a ton of great set pieces. There’s a large amount of potential here for some good jokes and even a little social commentary. It’s not lost on me that the puppet/human dynamic is a stand-in for racism in society in a similar vein to how Bright tried to do it earlier in the year, except this time it actually works a lot better because they don’t try and really justify it by suggesting puppets did something awful years ago, it’s just because they’re different. It creates an interesting dynamic between the puppets and the people, allowing them to tackle things like police indifference to crimes against minorities and… and that’s it. They never actually push this idea much further than Melissa McCarthy making one really poor taste joke at a crime scene and a couple of insults thrown out by Joel McHale. I really would’ve loved it if they could’ve pushed that a little more, actually shown how the cops didn’t care enough to try and solve the murders, push this racism analogy to it’s extreme… but they don’t, they kind of chicken out halfway through.
Where they don’t chicken out is the comedy, which works pretty well. You go into this movie expecting to see Puppets doing some adult things, that’s what you get. Seeing a puppet telling Melissa McCarthy that he’ll suck her dick is genuinely funny, mostly because the puppeteers are able to sell the hell out of their jokes. Sure their jokes are juvenile and disgusting and filthy and raunchy and wrong… to quote Francis from the movie Better Than Chocolate “Yeah, it’s obscene… THAT’S THE POINT!”. If you aren’t Ok with jokes that touch on taboo’s or push buttons or are just gross, then this isn’t a movie you’re going to enjoy. There are jokes about puppet sex, incest, drug use, pornography, everything and anything that crosses a line is here. Most of the jokes land pretty well and when they don’t, at least the puppet design is cool.
Plotwise, this movie is mostly your standard buddy cop film with all the beats you’d expect, down to the sudden twist reveal at the end. It definitely felt like there was more that could’ve been done, some things are there just to create a twist out of nowhere and some story threads get dropped for no reason. For the most part, it’s just what you would expect in an average buddy-cop movie, just with a few more jokes about ejaculation thrown in. I did like that they do set up the big twist at the end well. If you are paying close attention, it’s absolutely possible to figure out who the killer is and even work out the motive. Little things like that keep this movie from being bad and push it squarely into the “OK” category.
This film definitely isn’t quite as subversive as Meet The Feebles, I’d recommend that one over this movie by a mile, but The Happytime Murders delivers exactly what you expect it to do. It’s low brow, it’s dirty and it’s clearly just there to give a solid 90 minutes of brainless fun and that’s pretty much all it needs to be. It’s not the best, it’s not the worst, it’s a decent movie with some good ideas that it didn’t push far enough to make it something special. This feels like a movie you go see when it’s the cheap movie of the week and you wanna laugh at a puppet talking about getting their dick sucked. It’s fine, that’s all it needed to be.
Tagged Film, Melissa McCarthy, Movie, Muppets, Puppets, Review, The Happytime Murders
Published by leebutler
View all posts by leebutler
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Eco-friendly building systems must be both built green and maintained green. That means everything, down to the architecture, design, and maintenance, throughout the building’s lifespan must be considered eco-friendly. It therefore requires that each part of the construction team keep this in mind. At Miller Architects and Builders, we specialize in this kind of synchronicity; during every step of the process we work with architects, clients, and commercial contractors to ensure the final product always remains as “green” as you like it.
But what qualifies as “green,” exactly? The building must be environmentally friendly, of course, but how does one determine throughout the construction process that the building can be certified as green in the future?
Conducting a life cycle assessment (LCA) is among the most comprehensive ways to determine a building’s overall impact on the surrounding community. An LCA will warn commercial contractors of potential environmental dangers related to waste disposal and the management of the project. It also makes evident social and economic concerns. Despite its comprehensivity, an LCA is not necessarily a requirement to get one’s building certified as green by the government or a third party.
To minimize costly and environmentally damaging energy consumption, use details that prevent air from leaking through your building’s envelope. Add extra insulation in ceilings, floors, and walls. Awnings and trees can be placed near roofs to help cool a building naturally during the summer, and properly placed windows can let the sunshine in for eco-friendly warmth. Heating one’s water using solar energy is also both cost-effective and green.
In most places, demand for water exceeds supply. Consider a plumbing system that effectively recycles wastewater for a clean and economic way to manage this resource. A point-of-use water heating and treatment system also improves water quality in addition to being environmentally friendly.
Operation and Regulation
Both governmental and third-party organizations are able to certify buildings as green, as a variety of codes, rating systems, and standards are now available. Many organizations also offer incentives to build eco-friendly features into commercially constructed buildings.
If you’re considering making your next project green, look into Miller Architects and Builders. We specialize in construction project management and architectural design. We are with each part of the construction team every step of the way to make sure your project is as green as can be. Contact us or call us at 320.251.4109 for a quote. We work in Saint Cloud, Duluth, Mora, and the surrounding areas.
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Ahead: Retire Your Way
Saved $1 million and living my dream retirement
by Jennifer Liberto @jenliberto March 20, 2015: 5:01 PM ET
Secrets Of A Dream Retirement
Roy Nash long dreamed of retiring at the age of 55.
A self-taught investor, he diligently stashed all the savings he could in stocks and mutual funds. So by 2009, when he did turn 55, he says he had more than $800,000 saved -- enough to step away from his nearly three decade long career at a natural gas distributor in St. Louis.
Now Nash is 61 and his smart investment choices have helped him grow his retirement savings to more than $1 million.
This sizable nest egg allows him to live the lifestyle he wants. He takes four trips a year to places like Chile and Jamaica and, during the rest of the time, he's volunteering around town, driving the elderly to doctor's appointments or helping poor families file their income taxes.
How did he do it?
Nash said he learned about the importance of saving from his mother, who raised him in Marianna, Ark.
"My mom told me when I was real small I should learn how to save some money, because my father was a spendthrift," said Nash. "I took it to heart and went beyond saving. I became an investor."
At the age of 22, he moved to St. Louis and eventually went to work as a controller for the largest natural gas distributor there.
Related: Volunteering, living abroad: 6 retirees share their stories
During his free time, he taught himself to invest by reading Money and SmartMoney magazines. That's how he learned to love dividend stocks, high-yield, closed-end funds and mutual funds. He also invests in open-end funds and index funds.
Every year, he socked away between 10% and 15% of his income into his 401(k) plan. Additionally, he also saved another $300 a month in investing accounts with Fidelity.
"I wouldn't consider my savings a sacrifice. I had a good paying job and a budget," Nash said. "I disciplined myself."
And he was mindful about looking after his money and reinvesting gains back into funds and stocks.
"I always reinvested my capital gains," Nash said.
In the beginning, he worked with a brokerage to invest his money. But now he manages his own portfolio.
Nash said he's in an informal retirement club, mostly other retired friends from the office, who he loves teasing about their money managers.
Roy Nash on vacation with his family.
"They're paying these guys 1.2% to 2% in fees!" Nash said.
Nash said he collects a healthy sum each year in dividend payouts from his investments in high-yield closed-end mutual funds and preferred stocks.
But still he keeps things simple, living on around $50,000 a year.
Too young for Medicare, Nash gets health insurance through Obamacare, "which has been fantastic," he said.
His retirement income is also enough to satisfy his lust for travel. He takes several trips each year. Often it's just visiting family and friends in Arkansas. But this year, he went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. He's going to Jamaica in the spring and Santiago, Chile later in the year.
Related: Sailing around the world in retirement: How we did it
Most days, Nash fills his time by offering his services to the community. During the tax season, he helps the poor prepare their tax forms. And he volunteers for the county, driving housebound elderly residents on much-needed medical errands to doctor's appointments and the pharmacy.
He also plays golf and likes to go fishing, hunting and boating. And he works out at least five days a week, either on a treadmill or a bicycle for between 20 and 30 minutes a day.
"The most important thing I do, is live an active lifestyle," Nash said. "That keeps my doctor bills down."
He has two kids and six grandchildren, ages 3 to 15. Lately, he's become his family's go-to, back-up childcare for sick grandkids.
"If the kids are sick, I go and pick them up, so it doesn't disrupt their parents' work," he said.
And he takes pride in telling his story throughout the community, to help young people learn the importance of saving regularly and early.
"If your income is equal to your expenses, you're not going to save anything," Nash said. "I think anyone making $40,000 a year should be able to save money in St. Louis."
Are you living your dream retirement? On track to get there? Tell us what dream retirement means to you and what you did to get there and you could be featured in an upcoming CNNMoney story.
CNNMoney (New York) First published March 9, 2015: 5:32 PM ET
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Put it in Park: States with the Most License Suspensions
Getting your license suspended can have serious consequences for your car insurance. These are the states with the most suspended licenses.
No one sets out on the road with the intention of getting a speeding ticket or a citation for tailgating, but of course, sometimes things happen. You don’t realize that the speed limit has changed, or your mind wanders for a minute and you find yourself too close to the car in front of you. A single violation also isn’t the end of the world. It might set you back a couple of hundred dollars in fines, unless it’s as severe as a reckless driving citation or a DUI.
It’s when the citations pile up that you could land in hot water. Too many over the course of a year (three to five depending on the state) can get your license suspended, and that has unfortunate consequences for your wallet. A suspended license can raise your insurance costs, making it more costly to find good quotes.
To take a deeper look at suspended license rates, the research team at Insurify, a website for comparing auto insurance quotes, took a look at the data to determine which states have the highest proportions of suspended licenses.
National averages. In total, 2.95 percent of drivers nationwide have suspended licenses. Additionally, the national average for car-related fatalities per 100,000 people was 11.4, and 12.58 percent of all drivers had suffered a prior accident. Finally, 13 percent of all drivers involved in a fatal crash had a suspended license at the time.
More suspended licenses doesn’t mean more accident prone drivers. A logical thought is that a state with more suspended licenses should contain more drivers with prior accidents. After all, license suspensions are often for offenses such as reckless driving. However, the data doesn’t provide any evidence of that. Analysis showed no significant correlation between the proportion of drivers with a suspended license, and the proportion of drivers with at least one prior accident.
…Or more fatalities. It might also be logical to assume that more drivers with suspended licenses means more dangerous roads and thus more fatalities, but the numbers didn’t back that assumption up either. Once again, analysis revealed no significant correlation between the share of drivers with a suspended license and the rate of vehicle fatalities per 100,000 drivers. One possible reason why? A higher proportion of suspended licenses could take the most dangerous drivers off the roads, thus preventing some fatalities.
In order to determine which states had the highest share of drivers with suspended licenses, the data science team at Insurify, a website to compare auto insurance quotes, pulled the numbers from its database of over 1.6 million car insurance applications. To receive quotes, drivers input personal and vehicle information as well as information about driving history including whether or not they have a suspended license. The number of drivers with a suspended license was analyzed against the total number of motorists in each state. The top 10 states with the most revoked licenses were then selected. Data on the percentage of drivers with a prior accident also came from the Insurify database, while the numbers on fatalities per 100,000 people were compiled in a 2017 study on vehicle fatalities by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS). Information about the percentage of fatal crash drivers with a suspended license was drawn from a 2014 study done by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Percentage of drivers with suspended licenses: 4.54%
Percentage of drivers with a prior accident: 14.4%
Vehicle-related fatalities per 100,000 drivers: 10.5
Share of drivers involved in fatal crashes with suspended licenses: 13%
Oregon, the only west coast state on the list, kicks off the countdown with the U.S’s 10th highest suspension rate. However, Some cities there are actually trying to make it more difficult to suspend a driver’s license. Legislation was recently proposed in Salem that would not allow the Department of Motor Vehicles to rescind a license for certain types of traffic tickets. That said, it has not been put to a vote yet.
9. Minnesota
Vehicle-related fatalities per 100,000 drivers: 6.4
Share of drivers involved in fatal crashes with suspended licenses: 9%
Statistically, Minnesota appears to be a fairly safe place to drive. The Land of 10,000 Lakes has one of the five lowest fatality rates per 100,000 drivers of any state. Its share of drivers that have suffered at least one prior accident is also below the national mean. Given this stellar statewide driving record, what is one possible reason that it still makes the list for drivers with the most suspended licenses? In 2017, it issued roughly 333 speeding tickets per 10,000 citizens, a figure which ranks above the national average, according to a study done by a Honda dealership in Yonkers, New York.
Percentage of drivers with a prior accident: 12.24%
Idaho, which claims the number eight spot on the list, stacks up worse than Minnesota in both safety-related statistics (fatality rate and percentage of drivers with a prior accident). It has a fatality rate well above the national average, though its percentage of drivers with a prior accident is still slightly better than the national mean. The numbers also show that not all the blame rests with drivers whose licenses are suspended. After all, of drivers who have caused a fatal crash, the share whose licenses were actively suspended in Idaho was less than in Minnesota.
Percentage of drivers with suspended licenses: 5%
Much like Oregon, Tennessee is trying to decrease the number of drivers with suspended licenses. In October 2018, a U.S. District judge ordered that drivers who were unable to pay court costs or traffic ticket fines could no longer have their licenses suspended. In addition, the ruling also stated that drivers with suspended licenses would have to pay no additional fees to have their licenses reinstated. The ruling may pay dividends in the future, but for now the Volunteer State still has the seventh-highest percentage of license suspensions.
6. Kansas
Kansas, which claims the number six spot in the top 10, has the highest rate of vehicle-related fatalities per 100,000 drivers of any state on this list, and has the 12th highest share nationwide. In a reversal of trend, it also has the smallest percentage of drivers with a prior accident of any state in the top 10, painting a confusing picture about the safety of driving in Kansas. What is clear, though, is that the Sunflower State has a lot to work on in terms of license suspension.
5. Nebraska
In Nebraska just five percent of drivers involved in fatal crashes have suspended licenses. That figure, which is well below the national average, is actually tied for the lowest rate in the country. Even so, that doesn’t mean that Nebraska is a perfect place to drive. Its share of drivers with a prior accident is among the 10 worst in the country.
Virginia is home to Reston, the city with the highest proportion of suspended drivers licenses in the entire country. However, that could soon change. Virginia—much like Tennessee—has introduced legislation that will reinstate the licenses of all drivers that had their certifications revoked for unpaid court debts. The law, which goes into effect on July 1, 2019, will restore the licenses of an estimated 613,000 motorists.
3. Ohio
The percentage of drivers with suspended licenses in Ohio is more than double the national average, but once again, recently introduced legislation may reduce that number. In June and July 2019, the state is allowing drivers to apply for license reinstatement with an amnesty program that will forgive the debts and reinstatement fees associated with 25 different traffic violations. It’s estimated that nearly 300,000 Ohioans will qualify for the program, an amount that could drastically decrease the number of drivers with license suspensions.
2. Indiana
Indiana, which comes in at number two on the list, is worse than average in all the metrics listed above. It ranks among the 20 worst states in the country in both prior accident percentage as well as fatalities per 100,000 drivers, and has a significant suspended license problem to go along with that. Additionally, unlike many of the other states on the list, there’s no current legislation in the pipeline to reduce that percentage.
Percentage of drivers with suspended licenses: 7.1%
Williston, which has the second highest percentage of drivers with a suspended license of any city in the country, is the biggest contributor to the suspended license problem for North Dakota, which takes the top spot on the list. Its share of drivers with a suspended license is nearly two and a half times the national average. But that’s not the only issue North Dakota has: just four states have a higher share of drivers involved in fatal crashes with a suspended license, and the Peace Garden State also ranks in the top 10 for vehicle-related fatalities per 100,000 drivers.
Categories: What's New
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Home » USA Today
Overall, we rate USA Today Left-Center Biased based on editorial positions that slightly favor the left and factually high due to proper sourcing.
World Press Freedom Rank: USA 45/180
USA Today is a daily newspaper founded in 1982 by businessman, author, and columnist Al Neuharth. USA Today covers national and world news with focuses on entertainment, pop culture, and celebrity gossip news. USA Today Network also provides a Principles of Ethical Conduct For Newsrooms that is available to be viewed here.
The President and Publisher of USA Today is Maribel Perez Wadsworth. As of March 2018, Nicole Carroll is the Editor in Chief. They also provide a listing of their staff index and the Editorial board.
Funded by / Ownership
USA Today is owned by the Gannett Company, headquartered in McLean, Virginia and is one of the largest newspaper publishers in the United States, with interests in newspapers, digital marketing services companies as well as television broadcasting. USA Today is funded through a subscription and advertising model.
Analysis / Bias
USA Today had never taken a position in a US presidential election. However, in 2016, USA Today published an editorial urging readers not to vote for Donald Trump. Further, they did not endorse Hillary Clinton either. USA Today explained its decision behind the “disendorsement” in a separate editorial titled: “Why we’re breaking tradition: Our view,” in which they explain that founder Al Neuharth in his column, described Trump in 2012, as “a clown who loves doing or saying things to get attention, no matter how ridiculous.” Essentially, they felt that this is what Al Neuharth would have wanted if he were alive. Although they did not endorse any single candidate they clearly were opposed to Donald Trump.
In 2017, a USA Today editorial published a rebuke of a Trump tweet: “Will Trump’s lows ever hit rock bottom?”
“Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!” ~ Donald Trump
The USA Today Editorial Board responded by writing: “A president who’d all but call a senator a whore is unfit to clean toilets in Obama’s presidential library or to shine George W. Bush’s shoes.” When USA Today received criticism for this editorial’s perceived bias they responded with an additional editorial explaining their position.
In review, USA Today publishes stories with emotionally loaded headlines such as “President Trump’s 2017 performance review, from Putin with love.” USA Today also publishes opposite view articles such as “Democrats, it’s time for you to dump Hillary Clinton.” USA Today states they pair editorials with opposing views, however in our review we found more editorials slightly favored the left through wording and story selection.
In June of 2018, with the hope of providing balance to readers, USA Today launched a conservative newsletter geared toward the heartland of the United States.
When it comes to reporting straight news, USA Today always uses proper sources such as Associated Press, Slate, New York Times, Politifact, The Hill, and ABC News. Further, straight news reporting is written with minimally loaded words and tends to cover both sides of issues.
Overall, we rate USA Today Left-Center Biased based on editorial positions that slightly favor the left and factually high due to proper sourcing. (7/10/2016) Updated (M. Huitsing 7/9/2018)
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/
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17 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Funeral Directors
BY Christine Colby
Despite the fact that almost everyone will need the services of the "dismal trade" at some point in their lives, the specific job duties of funeral directors often remain shrouded in mystery. Mental Floss talked to several to learn some little-known facts about the profession, from what happens behind the doors of the embalming room to the real reason you might want to think twice about that “protective” casket.
1. THEY DRIVE MINIVANS.
“The reason you don't see the dead being picked up in your daily life is because we're stealth like that,” Jeff Jorgenson of Elemental Cremation & Burial in Seattle tells Mental Floss. “We are soccer moms and we are legion! Actually, we just use soccer-mom vehicles: Minivans are the transportation of the dead. We rarely drive hearses—those are ceremonial vehicles only.”
2. THAT SWEET LOOK ON THE DECEASED’S FACE TOOK SOME WORK.
Funeral directors say that the most important part of preparing a body for a viewing is the “setting of the features”—creating a peaceful facial expression with a pleasant smile. But while it might look nice at the end, the work creating that appearance can be grisly. Morticians stuff the throat and nose with cotton and then suture the mouth shut, either using a curved needle and thread to stitch between the jawbone and nasal cavity or using a needle injector machine to accomplish a similar job more quickly. Small spiked cups are also inserted under the eyelids to keep the lids closed and the eyes from caving in.
Of course, some bodies take more restoration than others. One mortician says that to prepare a decapitated corpse for an open-casket viewing, he uses a wooden dowel to rejoin the head and body, then sutures the neck back together.
3. THEY MIGHT MAKE A TRIP TO THE DRUGSTORE.
In her best-selling book Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, mortician Caitlin Doughty says: “If the usual methods of setting the features aren’t sufficient to keep the eyes closed or the mouth shut, superglue is a secret weapon.” In Grave Matters, author Mark Harris points out that superglue can also be used to close up any puncture marks from needles on a corpse. Brooklyn funeral director Amy Cunningham of Fitting Tribute Funeral Services tells Mental Floss: “If you need to keep a deceased person’s hands folded neatly at their abdomen, but their arms keep falling down into the sides of the casket, you can gently bind their thumbs with a ponytail tie.”
4. COMPARISON SHOPPING IS KEY.
Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde, known for his popular blog Confessions of a Funeral Director, shares this story with us: “About a year ago, a husband and wife died about four months apart. The wife knew us, so we buried her, and the husband knew the funeral home in a neighboring town, so they buried him. They both had the same funeral, same casket, vault, etc. The family called us to let us know that the other funeral home charged $3000 more. Same value, different cost. Call around to different funeral homes. Shop. Ask for the GPL [General Price List]. Remember, cost doesn’t always equal value.”
5. YOU MIGHT WANT TO THINK TWICE ABOUT “PROTECTIVE” CASKETS.
Some caskets that have vacuum-seal rubber gaskets are marketed as “protective” or resistant to the “entry of outside elements.” As Harris details in Grave Matters, this creates conditions that encourage the growth of anaerobic bacteria, which break the body down by putrefying it, “turning soft body parts to mush and bloating the corpse with foul-smelling gas … Inside the sealed casket, the result is a funereal version of the decay that’s found in swamp bottoms and the bowels of unturned compost piles.”
6. SOMETIMES CASKETS EXPLODE.
In fact, the aforementioned buildup of methane gas can cause what people in the industry call “exploding casket syndrome,” where the gas will literally blow the lids off of caskets and doors off of crypts. Some casket makers have added Tupperware-style “burping” features to their sealer models to release the accumulated gases. Harris spoke with a former cemetery owner who told him that those “protective” sealer caskets are “routinely unsealed after the family leaves … to relieve the inevitable buildup of gases within the casket.” Staff may also just leave the caskets unlocked, not engaging the seal to begin with, in an attempt to avoid those “fetid conditions inside the casket.”
7. SOMETIMES PACEMAKERS EXPLODE, TOO.
If a pacemaker is left in a body when cremated, “it can explode and can cause upward of $10,000 of damage to the retort [cremation machine],” Wilde says. “So, pacemakers need to be removed before cremation. And don’t worry, the funeral directors/cremationists will do the removal for you.”
8. SOME FUNERAL DIRECTORS RARELY SEE THE DEAD.
Jorgenson says, “The bulk of what funeral directors do is paper-pushing—filing death certificates, getting permits, editing obituaries, and sending them to the paper. [Some] will only see a dead person when they are delivered for a service. In the case of some funeral homes, a [corporate] funeral director could literally go years without seeing a dead person.”
9. THEY SEE THINGS THROUGH ROSE-COLORED LIGHT BULBS.
While the formaldehyde embalmers use does contain a rosy dye to restore color to graying, lifeless flesh, it’s not always sufficient. According to Cunningham, “mortuary schools teach color theory and stage lighting—how to use colored gels over the ceiling lights.” Doughty also mentions that bodies are often set out for visitation displayed under rose-colored light bulbs.
10. IT ALL GOES RIGHT DOWN THE DRAIN.
You’d think all the chemicals and body fluids involved in embalming would be disposed of like biohazard, but it’s industry practice to just wash it all off the table, right into the drain. Harris points out that just one embalming can generate 120 gallons of “funeral waste”—blood, fecal matter, and the former contents of internal organs, in addition to any chemicals in the preservation fluid itself—and it all ends up in the public sewer system, to be eventually released into waterways. Although, as Wilde points out, “Blood isn’t any worse than the other things that go down the loo.”
11. FORMALDEHYDE MIGHT BE DYING A SLOW DEATH.
In addition to causing relatively minor problems, such as sinus issues and rashes (including one called “embalmer’s eczema”), formaldehyde is a carcinogen. The U.S. National Toxicology Program, among other groups, has said that people with high levels of exposure—such as embalmers—are at a higher risk for nasopharyngeal cancer, myeloid leukemia, and other forms of cancer.
Usually, criticism comes from outside the death-care industry, but that’s starting to change. In the May 2016 issue of The Director, the official publication of the National Funeral Directors Association, Carol Lynn Green, the NFDA’s environmental-compliance counsel, writes, “there is no dispute that formaldehyde poses a health risk.” She says that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is gearing up to make their workplace regulations stricter, and recommends that funeral homes start to transition to preservation products that don’t use the dangerous gas.
12. YOU CAN’T REALLY BE BURIED UNDER A TREE.
Some consumers who dislike the idea of embalming, or have environmental concerns, choose a “green” burial. Alongside that often comes a romantic idea about being buried beneath a favorite tree—perhaps a stately oak, for example. Sarah Wambold, an Austin funeral director and green burial expert, tells Mental Floss: “A body must be buried at least four feet from a tree to protect its root system. It’s a bit of an adjustment for people who are committed to the image of being buried under a tree, but that’s not always the most green option for the tree. Wouldn't they rather allow the tree to continue to live?” You can, however, plant new trees or shrubs atop a grave after a burial, and the roots will grow down over the body.
13. AT LEAST ONE FUNERAL DIRECTOR WANTS TO TEACH YOU TO PREPARE DEAD BODIES YOURSELF.
Caitlin Doughty
Doughty, who runs a funeral home called Undertaking LA, told WIRED, “I’m a licensed mortician, but I want to teach people that they don’t need me.” She advocates people learning to take care of their own dead at home, and says she wants the public to become comfortable with the way death looks naturally: “A chemically preserved body looks like a wax replica of a person. Bodies are supposed to be drooping and turning very pale and sinking in while decomposing. Within a day or so after they’ve died, you should be able to see that this person has very much left the building. That’s the point. I think dead bodies should look dead. It helps with the grieving process.”
Doughty encourages the idea of home funerals, which are legal in all 50 states (although 10 states require the involvement of a funeral director). For more information, check out the Home Funeral Alliance.
14. IT’S HARD TO BE THEIR FRIEND.
Any friend might disappoint you once in a while, but funeral directors will probably do it more often, according to Wilde. “We might miss your birthday party; we might have to leave in the middle of dinner. Death has this way of keeping an untimely schedule, and as death’s minions, we’re tied to that schedule. Whether it be in the middle of the night, or in the middle of your wedding, when death calls, we have to respond.”
15. NO ONE WANTS TO PROFIT FROM THE DEATHS OF CHILDREN.
“It is a tradition in the funeral industry to provide funerals to the families of stillborn babies and very young infants at cost,” Cunningham says. “Funeral directors do not care to make a profit on the deaths of children, and in fact, the death of a young child saddens the whole firm more than almost anything else.”
The funeral industry also includes a number of charitable projects devoted to helping parents after a child’s death. A volunteer group called Little Angel Gowns makes burial garments for babies out of donated wedding dresses, and provides them at no cost to hospitals and funeral homes. The Tears Foundation assists grieving parents in paying for burial or cremation expenses after losing a baby. Eloise Woods, a natural burial ground in Texas, will bury infants at no charge.
16. YOUR GRANDFATHER’S HIP JOINT MIGHT BECOME A NEW ROAD SIGN.
According to Doughty, families can ask for replacement medical parts back after a cremation, but most do not. Hip and knee implants are often melted down and recycled for road signs and car parts, among other things. Unfortunately, she says, breast implants usually melt all over the cremation machine.
17. SOME FUNERAL HOMES EMPLOY THERAPY DOGS.
A large part of a funeral director’s job is comforting the bereaved. Some use grief-therapy dogs to give the families a furry shoulder to cry on. For one example, check out Lulu the golden doodle.
All photos courtesy iStock unless otherwise noted.
This story originally ran in 2016.
death funeral job secrets Lists
7 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Roadies
BY Suzanne Raga
Lindrik/iStock/GettyImagesPlus
Although the word roadie may conjure up images of non-stop partying with rock stars, the reality is that most work unglamorous, physically and emotionally demanding jobs. They lug the gear, set up the instruments, manage the stage, run the sound, sell the merch, drive the bus, and generally do whatever it takes to make concerts possible. Mental Floss talked to a few roadies (who probably wish we'd stop calling them that—see below) to get the inside scoop.
1. Roadie is an outdated term.
Some roadies who worked in the 1960s through the 1980s later wrote books bragging about their sexual conquests, wild partying, and drug use while on the road. Although that lifestyle is not completely obsolete—genres such as metal, rap, and hip hop supposedly see more illegal activity than indie, pop, folk, and alternative—most roadies don’t refer to themselves as such.
Morgan Paros, a violinist and singer based in Los Angeles, says that the generic term roadie seems slightly derogatory now. Instead, it’s better to use terms that more specifically describe individual duties. “Anyone on a tour is generally working very hard to fulfill their role of tour manager, front of house (sound engineer), light tech, stage manager, instrument tech, or merchandise manager,” Paros says. “These individuals make everything possible for the performers every night.”
2. Roadies work insanely long hours.
Most roadies work 16- to 20-hour days. Waking up early and going to sleep late is part of the job description, as Meg MacRae, a production coordinator who’s been on the road with Bon Jovi and the Eagles, attests. A typical day for her starts with a 6 a.m. bus pickup, after which she sets up a temporary production office at the venue. After a long day of problem-solving, booking flights and hotels, and making sure the crew is taken care of, she ends her day at 1:30 or 2 a.m.
3. Roadies get used to roughing it.
Unless they’re working for an A+ list performer, most roadies are not living the high life, sleeping in luxury hotel suites and flying on private jets. Being on the road can be hard work. Depending on the band’s budget level, the road crew may sleep on the floor of a shared hotel room, or sit in a crowded Ford Econoline or Chevrolet Express van for hours.
Tour conditions offer minimal privacy and maximum mess. “You wouldn’t believe how insanely messy a van can get after a 6-week tour of the country,” says Michael Lerner of Telekinesis.
David, a front-of-house sound engineer based in New York, also describes the dirty working conditions in many venues. “Consider how grimy some music venues look. The dusty mixing board in the back coated in spilled beer, the germs of hundreds of singers talking/spitting/shouting into the same microphones night after night, and the questionable odors of green rooms inhabited by people who spend a solid portion of their days packed into a van … this is your office. Good luck not getting sick.”
4. Roadies usually have good reasons for putting up with it all.
So why do roadies subject themselves to the long hours and less-than-glamorous conditions? Many say they love music so much that they can’t imagine working in any other field. “For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to have a job in music,” tour manager and sound engineer William Pepple writes. Some roadies also get into it because they love traveling all over the world, seeing new cities, and meeting new people.
5. Maintaining relationships at home is a big challenge for roadies.
Being a roadie is a lifestyle rather than just a job. Because they travel so frequently for work, roadies often struggle to maintain relationships with loved ones. Technology such as FaceTime and Skype has made keeping up with family, friends, and significant others easier, but it can still be a challenge to find privacy to make phone calls. Roadies who travel on buses have a little more privacy and time to connect with loved ones back home, since bus tours often give them the freedom of waking up in the city where the band’s next show is, while road crew on van tours spend the majority of the daytime driving to the next show.
6. They probably have at least one horror story from the road.
Whether it’s an unscrupulous promoter cheating the band out of their earnings, a bus overheating, a van breaking down, or driving through dangerous winter storms, roadies probably have at least one horror story. Most awful promoters or venues, though, are usually due to simple misunderstandings. “Most bad days are due to either bad communication or a lack of understanding that most touring people just want simple comforts: a clean shower, clean towels, a safe place to put their stuff, laundry machines, and good food,” says Mahina Gannet, who’s worked as a tour manager and production coordinator for bands such as The Postal Service, Death Cab For Cutie, and Neko Case.
7. Good roadies are there to work, not just hang out with the band.
Achieving a balance between being professional and having fun is harder on tours because “you are working, living and traveling with your co-workers,” Gannet adds. “I’m there to get a job done, and when it’s done, I love to hang out. A lot of tour managers I’ve seen definitely can go to either extreme (some actually thinking they are a member of the band, some so distant the band can’t talk to them), but it’s like everything else in life. It’s about finding your own personal balance.”
This piece first ran in 2016 and was republished in 2019.
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14 Secrets of McDonald's Employees
BY Jake Rossen
Justin Sullivan, Getty Images
While there’s virtually no end to the number of fast food options for people seeking a quick meal, none have entered the public consciousness quite like McDonald’s. Originally a barbecue shop with a limited menu when it was founded by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald in the 1940s, the Golden Arches have grown into a franchised behemoth with more than 36,000 locations worldwide.
Staffing those busy kitchens and registers are nearly 2 million McDonald's employees. To get a better idea of what many consider to be the most popular entry-level job in the nation—staff members on the floor make an average of $9 an hour—we asked several workers to share details of their experiences with errant ice cream machines, drive-through protocols, and special requests. Here’s what they had to say about life behind the counter.
1. McDonald's employees can't always deliver fast food all that fast.
While McDonald’s and other fast-service restaurants pride themselves on getting customers on their way, some menu items just don’t lend themselves to record service times. According to Bob, an assistant store manager at a McDonald’s in the Midwest, pies take an average of 10 to 12 minutes to prepare; grilled chicken, 10 minutes; and biscuits for Egg McMuffins, eight to 10 minutes. In the mood for something light, like a grilled chicken and salad? That will take a few minutes, too. Bob says salads are pre-made with lettuce but still need to have chicken and other ingredients added.
The labor-intensive nature of assembling ingredients is part of why the chain has more recently shied away from menu items with too many ingredients. “We are trained to go as fast down the line as we can, and if we have to stop to make something that has 10 ingredients, it tends to slow things down,” Bob tells Mental Floss. “Corporate has realized this and has taken many of these items off in recent years, [like] McWraps, Clubhouse, more recently the Smokehouse and mushroom and Swiss and moved to items that can go a lot quicker.”
2. McDonald's workers wish you’d stop asking for fries without salt.
Joerg Koch, AFP/Getty Images
A common “trick” for customers seeking fresh fries is to ask for them without salt. The idea is that fries that have been under a heating lamp will already be salted and that the employee in the kitchen will need to put down a new batch in the fryer. This does work, but customers can also just ask for fresh fries. It’s less of a hassle and may even save employees some discomfort.
“People can ask for fresh fries and it's actually way easier to do fresh fries rather than no-salt fries,” Andy, an employee who’s worked at three different McDonald’s locations in the Midwest, tells Mental Floss. “For those, we have to pour the fries onto a tray from the fryer so they don't come in contact with salt. It can get awkward sometimes getting everything into position, especially if you have a lot of people working in close proximity and it's busy, so I've had some scalded hands a couple of times trying to get fries out in a timely way.”
3. McDonald's workers have to pay careful attention to the order of ingredients.
McDonald’s is pretty specific about how their burgers and other items are supposed to be assembled, with layers—meat, cheese, sauce—arranged in a specific order. If they mess it up, customers can notice. “In some cases it has a big impact,” Sam, a department manager and nine-year veteran of the restaurant in Canada, tells Mental Floss. “Like placing the cheese between the patties with a McDouble. If they don’t put the cheese between the patties, the cheese won’t melt.”
4. There’s a reason McDonald’s employees ask you to park at the drive-through.
After ordering at the drive-through window, you may be slightly puzzled when a cashier asks you to pull into one of the designated parking spots. That’s because employees are measured on how quickly they process cars at the drive-through. If your order is taking a long time to prepare, they’ll take you out of the queue to keep the line moving. “My store has sensors in the drive-through that actually tell us exactly how long you are at each spot in the drive-through,” Bob says. “We get measured based on something we call OEPE. Order end, present end. [That measures] from the second that your tires move from the speaker until your back tires pass over the sensor on the present window. My store is expected to be under two minutes.” If an order will take longer than that, you'll be asked to park.
5. The McDonald's drive-through employees can hear everything going on in your car.
While the quality of the speakers at a drive-through window can vary, it’s best to assume employees inside the restaurant can hear everything happening in your car even before you place an order. “The speaker is activated by the metal in the car, so as soon as you drive up, the speaker turns on in our headset,” Andy says. “We can hear everything, and I do mean everything. Loud music, yelling at your kids to shut up, etc.”
6. The employees at McDonald’s like their regulars.
Chris Hondros, Getty Images
With hot coffee, plenty of tables, Wi-Fi, and newspapers, McDonald’s can wind up being a popular hang-out for repeat customers. “[We have] a ton of regulars who come into my store,” Bob says. “I'd say at least 75 percent of my daily customers know us all by name and we know them all, too. It makes it nice and makes the service feel a lot more personal when a customer can walk into my location, and we can look them in the eye and say, ‘Hey Mark! Getting the usual today?’ and we've already started making his coffee exactly how he takes it.”
7. McDonald’s staff get prank calls.
Unless they’re trying to cater an event, customers usually don’t have any reason to phone a McDonald’s. When the phone rings, employees brace themselves. In addition to sometimes being asked a legitimate question like when the store closes, Sam says his store gets a lot of prank calls. “Sometimes it’s people asking about directions to Wendy’s,” he says. “A lot of inappropriate ones. Most are pretty lame.”
8. For a McDonald’s worker, the ice cream machine is like automated stress.
iStock/jax10289
The internet is full of stories of frustrated McDonald’s customers who believe the chain’s ice cream machines are always inoperable. That’s not entirely true, but the machine does experience a lot of downtime. According to Bob, that’s because it’s always in need of maintenance. “The thing is, it is a very sensitive machine,” he says. “It's not made to be making 50 cones in a row, or 10 shakes at a time. It takes time for the mix to freeze to a proper consistency. It also requires a daily heat mode, [where] the whole machine heats up to about 130 degrees or so. The heat mode typically takes about four hours to complete, so you try to schedule it during the slowest time.” Stores also need to take the machine entirely apart every one to two weeks to clean it thoroughly.
Bob adds that the machine’s O-rings can crack or tear, rendering the unit inoperable. Seasoned workers can tell if a unit is faulty by the consistency of the shakes or ice cream coming out, and sometimes by the noises it makes.
9. McDonald's employees don't mind if you order a grilled cheese.
Contrary to rumor, there’s no “secret menu” at McDonald’s. But that doesn’t mean you can’t sometimes snag something not listed on the board. Andy says a lot of people order a grilled cheese sandwich. “I've made many a grilled cheese before,” he says. But it’s not without consequences. “Sometimes it can get a bit risky doing it because the bun toaster wasn't designed to make grilled cheeses so sometimes you get some burnt buns or cheese or the cheese sticks inside and it slows down the other buns from getting out on time so that causes more burnt buns.”
Another common request is for customers to ask for a McDouble dressed as a Big Mac, with added Big Mac sauce and shredded lettuce. “I think [it’s] a way more practical way to eat a Big Mac since there's less bun in the way, and it's also way cheaper even if you do get charged for Mac sauce.”
10. McDonald’s workers recommend always checking your order.
Nothing stings worse than the revelation that an employee has forgotten part of your food order. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not because the employees are being lazy or inattentive. According to Bob, it’s simply due to the volume of customers a typical location has to process in a given day. “We are human,” he says. “Mistakes do happen. We always feel terrible when they do but when we serve 1000-plus people a day, it's bound to happen.”
Bob recommends checking your bag before leaving the restaurant and not taking it personally if there’s an issue. “Be nice to us if you have a problem,” he says. “It's a huge difference between coming to us and saying, ‘Hey, I seem to be missing a fry from my bag,’ and ‘You bastards didn't give me my fries!’” If you want to check your bag at the drive-through, though, he recommends trying to pull ahead so cars behind you can move forward.
11. McDonald's employees don't recommend the grilled chicken.
If a menu item isn’t all that popular, it can wind up experiencing a low rate of turnover. Of all the food at McDonald’s, the most neglected might be the grilled chicken. Because it doesn't move quickly, workers find that it can turn unappetizing in a hurry. “That stuff has a supposed shelf life of 60 minutes in the heated cabinet, but it dries out so quickly that even if it's within an acceptable time frame, it looks like burnt rubber, and probably tastes like it, too,” Andy says.
12. Golden Arches employees aren’t crazy about Happy Meal collectors.
David Morris, Getty Images
Happy Meals are boxed combos that come with a toy inside. Usually, it’s tied into some kind of movie promotion. That means both Happy Meal collectors and fans of a given entertainment property can swarm stores looking for the product. “The biggest pain involving the Happy Meals is the people who collect them,” Bob says. “I personally hate trying to dig through the toys looking for one specific one. We usually only have one to three toys on hand. It's especially a pain in the butt during big toys events such as the Avengers one we just had. There was like 26 different toys, and some customers get really mad when you don't have the one that they want.”
And no, employees don’t usually take home leftover toys. They’ve saved for future use as a substitute in case a location runs out of toys for their current promotion.
13. McDonald's employees can’t mess with Monopoly.
The McDonald’s Monopoly promotion has been a perennial success for the chain, with game pieces affixed to drink cups and fry containers. But if you think employees spend their spare time peeling the pieces off cups looking for prizes, think again. Following a widely-publicized scandal in 2000 that saw an employee of the company that printed the pieces intercepting them for his own gain, the chain has pretty strict rules about the promotion. “Monopoly pieces and things like them get sent back to corporate,” Bob says. “We aren't allowed to touch them, open them, or redeem them as employees.”
14. One McDonald's worker admits there have been sign mishaps.
Many McDonald’s locations sport signs under the arches advertising specials or promotions. Some are analog, with letters that need to be mounted and replaced. Others have LED screens. Either way, there can be mistakes. “I've never seen anyone mess around with the letters,” Andy says. “But I do remember one time we were serving the Angus Burgers and the ‘G’ fell off of the word ‘Angus.’ Good times.”
Food job secrets Lists News
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INTERVIEW: ANAAL NATHRAKH’s Dave Hunt on ‘A New Kind Of Horror’, Concept & Nuclear War on Earth
Band Interview
GALLERY: The Summer Slaughter Tour 2018 Live at Gas Monkey Live, Dallas, TX
FESTIVAL REPORT: Good Things Festival 2018 Announce Lineup For Debut Edition
Ahead of the release of the album titled ‘A New Kind Of Horror’, Metal Wani’s Carla Morton had a chat with Anaal Nathrakh’s Dave Hunt.
Asked about the concept behind it, Dave said: “It’s a mixture of different concepts, is not really a concept album, you know, like a King Diamond album, one story, you know, but there are few like, headline things that run through it, but probably the most important one is World War I.”
When asked about the current status of the world regarding nuclear attacks and chemical mass attacks on people: “It’s part of the new album title ‘A New Kind Of Horror’ is to draw parallels between the incidents that happened 100 years ago. There are always new kinds of horror. We don’t seem to learn from our conflicts, we don’t learn how to avoid doing it, we always do it again but we learn how to do it better and that is probably the most threatening thing.”
On the collaboration with Brandan Schieppati of Bleeding Through on one of the tracks: ”It was cool. He’s been a good friend of Mick since a long time. Mick lives quiet near by him in California so is pretty much a case of having a friend to do it, but yeah, he came up to the studio, we had a good laugh and is a pleasure to have him involved. It is nice to be able to call people who are in some quite big bands, but we are not very interested about the fact that a little band is more interested in the fact that they are friends, if that makes sense, so yeah, obviously Brandan knows what he’s doing with the microphone, but from my point of view, just having him involved.”
Stream The Entire Interview Below:
INTERVIEW: GODSMACK’s Shannon Larkin on ‘When Legends Rise’, Download Festival & Future Festival Headliners
Hot off the tail with their latest release “When Legends Rise”, Metal Wani’s Adam Hayward sits down to talk to Shannon Larkin, drummer of Rock Titans Godsmack. On playing Download: “There’s a lot of great camaraderies [...]
INTERVIEW: HALESTORM’s Arejay Hale on Mental Health, ‘Vicious’ Concept & Future Of Rock n’ Roll
Day three of Download and the aftermath of Halestorm’s performance on Saturday Night headlining the Zippo Encore Stage, Metal Wani managed to catch a few moments to talk to drummer Arejay Hale. On the latest release “Vicious” and [...]
INTERVIEW: CLUTCH’s Tim Sult: “We Will Be Entering The Studio In September To Record More Songs”
Tim Sult of the mighty Clutch took a moment shortly after leaving their main stage set at Download Festival 2019 to talk to Adam Hayward. In reflecting back on their last album, “The Book of Bad Decisions” with respect to Neil [...]
INTERVIEW: DELAIN’s Charlotte Wessels on Upcoming Album, Release Date, Download Festival & UK Tour
Download 2019 and Metal Wani’s Adam Hayward took a moment to reflect and look forward with Charlotte Wessels of Delain. When asked about the recently released new EP “Hunters Moon”, she said: “I was really pleased and [...]
INTERVIEW: GLORYHAMMER’s Thomas Winkler on “Legends From Beyond The Galactic Terrorvortex”, Sound & Touring
Hail Hoots! There are very few bands that inspire the same sort of fantasy intrigue as Gloryhammer. The power metal act have grown incredibly popular over recent years and have created massive interest and intrigue around the ongoing saga between [...]
Will AEROSMITH Release One Last Album After ‘Music From Another Dimension!’ Failure? ...
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Kenya Airways to resume daily direct Nairobi-New York flights in June
By: Tom Gitaa
Kenya Airways, which began daily direct flights between Nairobi and New York’s JFK airport last October, but shortly dropped it to five days a week, is set to resume daily flights in June to take advantage of the busy summer travel season on the American side. The airline’s CEO, Sebastian Mikosz had indicated a return to daily flights in the summer when he announced the reduction to five days during the winter.
In a news release, Kenya Airways said “The New York route continues to be a strategic route for KQ and as an airline, we are firmly committed to it as we gear up for summer 2019 season, which is a high-flying season.”
The statement went on to say that beginning in June “Kenya Airways will increase its frequency to New York from five days a week to seven days a week. This is expected to open more opportunities for travelers to take advantage of this route during this high season.”
In an interview with Global Atlanta, Kenyan Ambassador to the U.S. Robinson Njeru Githae, said Kenya is now in the process of working to establish air links with Washington and Atlanta after the successful Nairobi-New York route. Githae was in Atlanta for the Atlanta Council on International Relations luncheon.
The ambassador’s comments come after Kenya Airways announced last week a codeshare agreement with Delta Airlines to enable travelers to enjoy greater connectivity and efficiency in eleven US cities and four Canadian cities. The destinations available from New York are Chicago O Hare, Denver, Orlando, Miami, Raleigh Durham, Phoenix, and Charlotte, according to Kenya Airways. Eight cities in the US and Canada will also be added subject to the approval of the respective governments and regulatory authorities. Those cities are: Houston, Philadelphia, Columbus, Kansas City, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Edmonton.
The Nairobi-New York direct flight has been well received by the Eastern Africa diaspora in the US but the timing and lack of connecting flights to other parts of the United States has been a source of frustration for many, the codeshare agreement with Delta might address those concerns.
About Tom Gitaa
Tom is the President and Publisher of Mshale and chair of the Minnesota Multicultural Media Consortium (MMMC). As Mshale founder, he did a lot of the reporting during the humble beginnings of the newspaper. While he still does the occasional reporting, he now concentrates on the publishing side of the news operation.Tom was also the original host of Talking Drum, the signature current affairs show on the African Broadcasting Network (ABN-America), which was available nationwide in the United States via the DishNetwork satellite service. On the show, he interviewed Nobel laureates such as 2004 Nobel Peace prize winner, Professor Wangari Maathai, the first woman from Africa to win the peace prize and heads of states such as the president of The Gambia, Yahya Jammeh at State House, Banjul. Tom has previously served in the board of directors of Global Minnesota, the sixth largest World Affairs Council in the United States. He has also previously served as President of the Board of Directors of Books for Africa, the largest shipper of donated books to Africa and. He sits on the board of the United Nations Association.
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Peter Asher
Noel Murray
The eclectic non-Beatles output of Apple Records was recently collected in a series of CD reissues and one big box set, the latter featuring bonus tracks and rare singles from the Apple roster. One of the people who guided Apple from its inception is Peter Asher, a former child actor and singing star (as one half of the British pop duo Peter & Gordon). Through his association with Paul McCartney—who dated Peter’s sister Jane—Asher became the head of A&R at Apple and was directly responsible for signing James Taylor, who released his debut album on Apple with Asher producing. Asher later left the company—taking Taylor with him—when Apple’s original ideals of artistic exploration threatened to be overwhelmed by its many side businesses and the influence of brash American manager Allen Klein. He went on to be a go-to producer for rootsy rock acts like Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, and 10,000 Maniacs, and spent a long tenure as an executive at Sony Records. Asher spoke with The A.V. Club about those early Apple days, what went wrong, and how it could’ve gone differently.
The A.V. Club: Do you remember when you first got the call to come to Apple?
Peter Asher: It wasn’t exactly like that. I was friends with Paul McCartney at the time and would spend some time at his house hanging out and just talking. That was when this idea for starting Apple was being talked about. And the company, even before it had a name, included a record label. I was in on some of the discussions. I remember Paul drawing some quite elaborate diagrams about how the company might work and what its aims would be, so it was kind of gradual. I was in on the discussions, and at the time I was becoming a record producer myself. I’d quit making records as a singer and was very interested in production. I was producing some things with Paul Jones from Manfred Mann, and Paul McCartney actually played on some of those for me as a studio musician, so he was aware of what I was doing and thought it might be something I could possibly be good at.
When they got what would become Apple together, first he asked if would I be interested in producing some records for it, and I said of course I would. Then as it became more defined and more real and had a name, he said, “Would you in fact like to be head of A&R for Apple Records, the label,” and I said, “Of course, I would love to.” So I was there kind of from the beginning, and my role gradually became formalized.
AVC: What sort of input did the various members of The Beatles have into the A&R process?
PA: I had a meeting once a week, an A&R meeting, and as many as were around would show up. And they all had a degree of input. They were all quite tolerant in a sense, by which I mean they were sympathetic to each other’s projects. So if John really wanted to make his album with Yoko, or Paul really wanted to go and make a record with a brass band… whatever it was, they all kind of went “fine.” Generally it was a live-and-let-live kind of philosophy, though everyone had comments and thoughts. You know, I brought in James Taylor, and Mal Evans brought in The Iveys, and George wanted to make what amounted to a novelty record with “The King Of Fuh,” and Ringo wanted to sign John Tavener, the classical composer, and the label boss Ron Kass wanted the Modern Jazz Quartet. Anything that seemed to have musical value, and that we all thought was a good idea, The Beatles acquiesced. There were some spirited discussions, but I don’t ever remember there being a situation with someone going, “I want to sign this,” and another person going, “No you can’t.”
AVC: How important were the business prospects of these signings?
PA: Not much, in the sense that we never had conversations that would happen at a record company now, and would’ve happened at a real record company then—you know, about sales forecasts and all that kind of stuff. It was more like: Do we like this, do we think it should come out, do we think it should get made? Yes. Which, to be fair, was how some of the other great labels at the time were run. Like A&M. The genuinely independent labels that were run by musicians, that’s how they worked as well. It was much later on that things got corporate and business prospects became a big part of the equation.
AVC: How were sales, by and large?
PA: You know what, I don’t really know. I mean, obviously Mary Hopkin sold zillions, James Taylor sold a modest amount, probably Jackie Lomax didn’t sell nearly as much as any reasonable businessman would’ve expected him to, for reasons I never quite understood. So like most record companies, we had successes and failures.
AVC: Was there one album that came out during your tenure at Apple that you were particularly proud of?
PA: Well the one I would have to be most proud of, of course, was James. I don’t want to sound self-serving, but obviously that’s the one I produced, and that’s the one that became the basis for the next 30 years of my career. So that’s the one I’m most proud of. The one I think is probably the undiscovered gem would be Jackie Lomax’s album.
AVC: Why do you think James Taylor’s first album didn’t do as well as the later albums that you worked on with him?
PA: I just think it took a while for people to kind of get the message about how good he was. I was really anxious with this record to impress people, and I think as a consequence, I actually may have sort of overproduced the record a bit, in terms of over-decorating it with arrangements. I was really going, “I’ve got to make people pay attention to this. This guy is so good, I must make them listen.” Then when I made less of a conscious effort in that direction on the next album, with Sweet Baby James, that’s when of course they did start listening. I don’t know. Sometimes people’s careers take off on their first albums, sometimes they don’t. It doesn’t matter, because they go back and rediscover all the wonderful songs. So now when James does “Carolina In My Mind” or “Something In The Way She Moves” in concert, they’re among the most well-known songs, even though they were on an album that at the time was not a big hit. If you have the right career, none of that matters in the end.
AVC: How was the transition for you from performing to producing and being an executive? Did you bring your experience from the other end into it in a significant way, or was it a whole new process?
PA: Both. It was a new process of course. Being involved in any kind of business aspect was new. But as a producer, did it help to have been an artist and on the receiving end of instructions from a producer and an engineer? Absolutely it did. When I became a manager, did it help to have experience as an artist? Of course. And the same remained true throughout the rest of my career, when I became vice president of Sony. Did it help having been all of the above: producer, manager, artist? Yes. In any business, the more you learn, the more sympathetic you can be to other people’s positions. So it all helps.
AVC: It’s been said that your decision to leave Apple was exacerbated by the hiring of Allen Klein as the label’s manager. Is that true?
PA: Yes. I knew Allen by reputation from New York. I didn’t think he would be the right person to run Apple. I didn’t think his style was in any way Apple-appropriate. In addition to that, the fact that John was completely convinced that Allen was the right person for the job and Paul was convinced with equal tenacity and determination that he wasn’t meant that Allen Klein’s arrival drove a giant wedge between two people who already were having quite a number of arguments. So it seemed to me that the future looked very bleak with Allen Klein at the helm. Also, James Taylor met Allen briefly at that time as well and didn’t particularly like his approach, so I decided the best thing to do would be to resign and take James with me, sort of steal away in the night. So that’s what we did. I wrote a letter of resignation, thanked everyone, and left.
AVC: Did that go over okay?
PA: I don’t really know. I mean, I think they had bigger fish to fry. The whole place was in a bit of chaos then, because the arguments were getting kind of intense, and Allen Klein was storming around the building being Allen Klein. Everyone was scared for their job, so I think us leaving had little impact one way or the other.
AVC: Was Apple, the way it was set up, ever going to be a viable entity in the long-term?
PA: I think it could’ve, definitely, yes. If the board of directors had shown a bit more unanimity, and if this particular Klein issue hadn’t come up to absolutely divide them into two camps, and if some of the other aspects of Apple, like the shop, and the clothes, and Magic Alex’s electronics division… some of that got a bit out of hand and cost money that shouldn’t have been spent. But do I think Apple Records could’ve survived in the way that other classic artist-founded labels like A&M did? I see no reason why not.
AVC: What to you is the key to running a successful music label? If someone were starting one today versus, say, 40 years ago, how would you advise them?
PA: Well, I think the Apple approach was not to have a particular musical identity, other than what we hoped was a taste identity: that it’s just all good stuff. Whether it’s the Modern Jazz Quartet or John Tavener or rock ’n’ roll bands or a silly comedy thing like “The King Of Fuh” or John and Yoko naked. I like the fact that Apple was, genre-wise, incredibly broad-based. It was just anything we liked and thought people should hear. I would think that if somebody could now get the attention that Apple got—which of course was the huge advantage that Apple had, because it was The Beatles—people would actually check out the Modern Jazz Quartet, who they knew nothing about and even though they didn’t like jazz. So we were able to do it because of who we were. It would be great if somebody could do that again. Of course, now it could be done purely as an online venture, with considerably less infrastructure and cost. I hope Apple contributed to some of the broadmindedness that some independent labels do exhibit now.
Recent from Noel Murray
A new documentary about Toni Morrison puts a great American writer into context
Hulu’s Das Boot miniseries is well-acted and well-crafted… but needs more boot
The new Twilight Zone ends a mixed first season with a meta episode
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Tag Archives: Donna Summer
“When others say “no”, find a way to “yes”: Tina Shafer of the Songwriter’s Circle and her advice for today’s musicians
Posted by musichistorian on August 12, 2014
Many artists we have come to know experienced their first big break at the right place and the right time. This is especially true for Billy Porter, a former pupil of songwriter/ vocal teacher and founder of The New York Songwriter’s Circle, Tina Shafer.
“When I worked with Billy Porter – who won a Tony 2013 for his performance in the hit Broadway Musical “Kinky Boots” – he was an unknown singer with one of the most amazing voices I had ever heard. In the late 90’s he got a record deal with my help on the A&M label. He later went on to perform “Love is On the Way” a song I co-wrote for him that became the Center piece song in Bette Midler’s film “The First Wives Club”. Later that year, Celine Dion cut “Love is on the Way” and it ended up on her album “Let’s Talk About Love”. The Album sold over 33 million copies worldwide because it also contained the song “My Heart Will Go On” from the blockbuster movie “Titanic.”
The songstress, who I had the pleasure of meeting in-person at a performance at the New York Songwriter’s Circle held at Bitter End last month, also talked about another former vocal student named Lana Del Ray. Those who follow Lana know her break was very different from Billy Porter’s.
“Lana, when she was studying with me,” recounts Tina, “wrote the song “Video Games” and most of the attention she first received was through online bullying. She is very beautiful and an easy “hate Target”. As people started listening to her they then started actually liking her music. There was a whole backlash of people that starting standing up for her. It became a viral phenomenon.
But then, where do you go from there? How do you keep your fan base and the customer in mind?”
Music Historian has welcomed advice on how to make it in the music industry from current and former record producers, music publishers, A&R representatives. Now, I welcome advice from Tina Shafer, who is a vocal teacher, singer-songwriter and the founder of the New York Songwriter’s Circle that helps provide a welcoming community to those who work in the beautiful, yet sometimes, lonely and cutthroat world of songwriting. I welcome Tina Shafer to my blog.
Before I get into what Tina advises to current and aspiring musicians and songwriting professionals, I want to share her story about how she became involved in songwriter and began with The New York Songwriter’s Circle. Music served as the background to Tina’s life. Her mother was a composer, and she brought Tina up in a house where there was always music. At the age of 4, Tina started to learn music in an experimental class for young children at a conservatory in Cleveland. Tina explains:
“They [the teachers] were trying to prove they could teach difficult theory and composition to young kids. This is similar to the way they teach languages now to young kids.
“The first time I really decided to become a songwriter was when I listened to my first Joni Mitchell record. I was in the 10th grade. From there on, I decided to pursue music and songwriting.”
Just as she finished high school, Tina made the move to New York City, by herself, where she did not know anybody. She performed in clubs, including the Bitter End, and picked up any gig she could do. After 10 years in the city, she obtained her first publishing deal as a songwriter with Warner Chappell and started working with some big names. In addition to Billy Porter, she has written for Celine Dion, Donna Summer, Phoebe Snow, and performed with John Oates (Hall Of Fame), Suzanne Vega, Marc Cohn, The Hooters, The Spin Doctors, Gavin DeGraw, to name a few.
The New York Songwriter’s Circle officially started in 1991 held the first Monday of every month at the Historical Bitter End located in New York City’s West Village. Tina originally took over the circle as a temp for the original founder. The woman who was initially in charge left to Nashville for a trip and decided to not return. In 2016, The Circle will celebrate 25 years of facilitating rising talent. I then wondered how the business model worked.
“The New York Songwriter’s Circle is a platform for great talent and up and coming writer/performers but her own company “Tina Shafer Inc.,” I work as an executive producer, developing talent, and putting together the best creative package to represent that talent. This often includes, putting together all the musicians, writers, and producers, making an LP and finding the proper promotion. This is known as “Content packaging”.”
The last component of her business model; marketing, is perhaps most crucial. According to Professor Ana Valenzuela, a faculty member at Baruch College, 75% of a plan for any type of business involves marketing. The other 25% are finances. Marketing enables entrepreneurs to understand who they are as a business, which customers they serve, and what makes the customers return to use the product or service.
Based on what I learned at the New Music Seminar earlier this summer, the same holds true for musicians. They must make music for their audiences. On the same token however, the music industry has changed dramatically in the last 10 years, making artists perhaps more vulnerable.
“When Vanessa Carlton – another Grammy nominated artist and student of Tina’s appeared at The New York Songwriter’s Circle before making it big – (in 2002), some of these new artists received $400,000 advances on their first record,” said Tina. She adds that in those days, record labels fostered artists’ development, now, labels do not want to pay for this. On the other hand though, Tina, just like Daylle Deanna Schwartz, asserts an artist does not need a record deal. She explains:
“All you [the artist] need is a great booking agent and advisor. Then you tour, make money from that, and create a record on your own. In a way, this is good, but it costs money to have a booker, a website, you have to pay for so much.
“Now, you have to be self-propelled. Ed Sheeran, for example, was couch surfing and writing with everyone and anyone he could when he started out, then got some air time. Then, he started touring with Taylor Swift.”
While so much has changed in the music industry, Tina reassures songwriters that even when record labels stopped paying for artistic development, Napster started satisfying customers who could get content for FREE, and self-recording and digitization has become more prominent; the only thing that has not changed is the need for great content. In other words, excellent records, songs, playing and performances. We are slowly catching up to the ways of the internet and trying to find avenues to get payment for content.
However, like everybody working in music, I heard a lot of ‘no.’ Even while I was in college, many of my colleagues who were vocalists were told they would have the hardest times finding work after graduation. Now, I find myself talking with a Tina Shafer, who is a conservatory-trained vocalist and guitarist who managed to make her dreams of being a singer-songwriter come true. Naturally, I wanted to know whether she had any advice for someone who is currently in college or in the music industry and receives a lot of discouragement.
“Anyone who goes into the arts will almost always hear that they are not going to make it,” says Tina. “You have to find a way to say, “that is not going to be me”. You have to recognize your strengths. You may be an ensemble player, you may be a soloist, there are many avenues of music to explore”. “When people said “no”, it gave me [the chance] to find a way to say ‘yes.’”
Tina carries these encouraging words to her sons. Her oldest, Ari Zizzo who is 18 and becoming a well-known teen songwriter. He has so far, opened up for artists like Mumford and Sons and this summer will open for Emblem3 and Demi Lavato at the Pop Tarts Concerts in Chicago.
Thomas, her youngest who is 16, is a sophisticated writer who hopes to become a film critic. The boys’ father is also a music producer. (Peter Zizzo)
In addition, Tina applies this lesson to The New York Songwriter’s Circle. While her company also works to help artists create content, Tina confirms that musicians must push themselves to connect with their own fan base, communicate with their customers directly, and get out into the performance spaces. In addition, good music will not change, and a great song has a way of rising to the top.
One might bump into a cynic who discourages them from continuing with the music industry, but remember this – while music is an undervalued industry, music consumption will double within ten years. Thanks to digital technology, the artist, who I believe can now become more personally involved in the marketing and distribution, has the chance to ultimately get closer to the consumer via social media. Therefore, the consumer can have a better relationship with the product. This gives way to great branding opportunities exist for today’s musicians. Also, musicians trying to fund a record through KickStarter.com help create business while increasing communication with their supporters and customers. Finally, digital vehicles like iTunes and Spotify can immediately deliver music to buyers. Fantastic customer service, right?
If you are a musician and worry about making money, your best option is to focus on the customer. A returning customer, whether it is a loyalist who will come to your shows or always buy a new record, will bring you the most financial return. Lastly, I can attest, that customers return for the good music. So don’t stop doing what you’re doing. Tina didn’t stop. If you happen to be a singer-songwriter looking for some help, check out The New York Songwriter’s Circle www.songwriters-circle.com
You can also check out Tina Shafer directly Tinashafer.net.
Leave a comment Posted in Communities, content packaging, marketing, Music Business, Music in Film, Musical Performance, Musical Theater, Nashville, New Music Seminar, New York City, Popular Music, Public Relations, Rock 'n' roll, Self-produced music, Social Media, songwriting, Writing Tagged Billy Porter, Celine Dion, community for songwriters, Daylle Deanna Schwartz, Demi Lavato, Donna Summer, Ed Sheeran, facilitate rising talent, Joni Mitchell, Kinky Boots, Lana Del Ray, music marketing, no record deal, songwriters platform, Suzanne Vega, Taylor Swift, The Bitter End, The Songwriters Circle, Tina Shafer Singer Songwriter, Vanessa Carlton, Warner Chappell, Young Performers 2014
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Home » Musicians » Lillian "Lil" Green
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Lillian "Lil" Green
Lil Green was a dynamic performer and recording artist that enjoyed a short but successful career touring theaters and clubs and recording for major labels as RCA, Aladdin and Atlantic. At the time of her death in 1954, she was only 35.
Born in Mississippi but growing up in Chicago, Green began to sing in clubs in the mid-30s. By the end of the decade she was appearing regularly at some of the city’s best-known nightspots, and was recording with artists such as Big Bill Broonzy, who wrote several songs for her, including ‘Country Boy Blues’ and ‘My Mellow Man’.
Green composed some well-known songs herself, among them ‘Romance In The Dark’ later covered by Mary Ann McCall, Jeri Southern and Billie Holiday. In the early 40s she toured with Tiny Bradshaw and Luis Russell, and was a big hit in the black theater circuit, as well as on the radio.
One of Green’s most popular recordings, “Why Don’t You Do Right was heard by Peggy Lee, who was then with Benny Goodman And His Orchestra. Their cover version, though pale in comparison, was an enormous hit, thus further shading Green’s fortunes.
Although signed by Atlantic Records in 1951, she was in poor health and died in 1954.
Source: James Nadal
Photos (1) Slideshow
Romance in the Dark
Cootie Williams
Big Joe Turner
Barney Bigard
Ruth Brown
Big Time Sarah
LaVern Baker
Mildred Bailey
Juke Boy Bonner
guitar, electric
Instrument: Vocalist
Died: April 14, 1954
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JULY 04, 2017 by Press Progress
More than 50 Canadian economists sign open letter backing $15 minimum wage
A minimum wage increase is coming in Ontario, and a group of prominent Canadian economists are giving it their full support.
Ontario will become the second province to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour joining Alberta and American cities such as Seattle and Minneapolis (which passed new minimum wage legislation on Friday).
In a recent open letter, some 53 researchers and academics from across the country argue that the new minimum wage will greatly benefit workers ‒ adding that the usual warnings of economic doom and gloom are out of line with the latest research.
Moreover, they point out, a minimum wage hike for Ontario workers is long overdue:
"Today, Ontario’s minimum wage is $11.40 per hour. Adjusted for inflation, this is barely one dollar higher than its value in 1977. Yet over the same four decades, the average productivity of workers has increased by 40%. And the prevalence of minimum wage work is spreading. Around 1 in 10 Ontario workers make minimum wage today, with a large increase in this proportion over the last two decades."
The signatories also note that the stereotype of minimum wage workers as teenagers living at home is out of sync with reality:
"Over 60% of workers earning minimum wage in Ontario in 2015 were over the age of 20, as were over 80% of those making $15 or less."
The same holds true across Canada as a whole.
In fact, Statscan's 2015 Labour Force Survey suggested that less than a third (32%) of all minimum wage workers in Canada were between the ages of 15-19 and living with their parents
Unsurprisingly, the usual suspects and special interests have come out against giving Ontario's lowest-paid workers a raise.
Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister, who froze his province's minimum wage at $11/hour last year, offered some familiar talking points:
“You reduce entry level jobs. You stop...young people, especially, from being able to get into the workforce in the first place. There’s only so many bucks out there. And the private sector’s only got so much capacity to create jobs.”
However, say the economists, these claims ignore findings from the latest research on the effects of raising the minimum wage ‒ who note that "the weight of evidence from the United States points to job loss effects that are statistically indistinguishable from zero."
Indeed, several recent studies seem to validate this claim.
A report published last year by the US-based National Employment Law Project which examined some 70 years worth of data found no correlation between minimum wage increases. In fact, researchers found that in the majority of cases, the overall employment level actually went up following a federal wage increase.
Even more recently, a team of economists from the University of California Berkeley concluded that coming minimum wage hikes will lead to a "major improvement in living standards" and will ultimately have a "positive effect on employment."
Why does the research seem to fly in the face of the doom and gloom we're so used to hearing around the idea of raising the minimum wage?
To put it simply, because what happens when minimum wages rise isn't the binary tradeoff presented by some business lobbyists and right wing economists.
As the economists write in their letter:
"There are many possible reasons for minimum wage increases to lead to little or no job loss. Studies have found lower turnover, more on-the-job training, greater wage compression (smaller differences between higher- and lower-paid workers) and higher productivity after minimum wage increases. In short, raising the minimum wage makes for better, more productive workplaces."
Photo: 15 and Fairness.
economy minimum wage Ontario
9 Times Canada’s Labour Movement Made History and Shaped the Country We Live in Today
Fraser Institute's Calgary Herald op-ed used 'B.S.' data to attack raising the minimum wage
New study blows another hole in the Fraser Institute's false claims about raising the minimum wage
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She narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”
He slid his hands from her face down to her shoulders. “I met with Brad earlier.”
“Brad as in my uncle?”
“He sent me an e-mail, asking to meet me alone.” Trick raised a hand when her eyes flared with anger. “I didn’t tell you because you would have insisted on coming, and then I wouldn’t have found out whatever it was that he wanted to say because he’d have minded his words in front of you.”
“And what did he want to say?” She clenched her hands when he hesitated. “Trick, tell me.” So he told her. And she gawked. “He offered you fifty thousand dollars to walk away from me?” Her wolf went stock-still.
“He said he was doing it at Marcia’s request, but he was lying. That was all him. She might have known about it—if she did, she’d probably even approved of it—but bribing me was his idea.” Trick rubbed at his jaw. The damn thing ached from how hard he’d ground his teeth. “He also did a background check on me. He found out about Jana—though he’d been told that she was truly my mate—and he threatened to tell you, thinking it would make me walk away so that you’d never have to know.”
Frankie should have been angry at the news. Instead the swell of emotions inside her just . . . deflated, leaving only the ache of betrayal. She wouldn’t have thought that Brad would ever do something so sly and devious—it seemed so out of character for him. But then, he’d lied to her all these years, hadn’t he? So maybe she shouldn’t be so surprised.
Trick tugged her closer. “I didn’t want to tell you about this, because I knew how much it would hurt you. But there shouldn’t be lies between mates. I won’t keep things from you.”
“You kept it from me until now. Yes, I know why. I also can’t disagree that you made a valid point: I would have insisted on going. He would never have said any of that shit in front of me.”
The pain in her eyes gutted Trick. He rested his forehead on hers. “I hate that they do this to you.”
Yeah, so did Frankie. She backed away, swallowing hard. “I’m going to sit out on the balcony for a while.” He moved so silently that she didn’t even realize he’d followed her until he took the patio chair beside hers.
At the impatient look she tossed at him, Trick raised his hands. “I won’t touch you, I won’t speak to you, but I also won’t leave you on your own. I’m here if you want to talk. If you don’t, that’s fine. But I don’t want you to be alone, so don’t ask me to move.”
She turned her gaze to the scenery. “Awkward fucker.”
“I’ve been called worse.” As he’d promised, Trick didn’t say a word as she simply sat there, facing the view, her gaze focused inward. That promise became harder to keep the longer she didn’t move. He didn’t know what was going on in her pretty little head, and he worried that it was something he wasn’t going to like.
Still, he kept his mouth shut and didn’t reach out to touch her as he so badly wanted to. No, not wanted. Needed. Not just to calm and reassure himself that she was physically fine, but because the drive to soothe pounded through him. He hated that she was hurting, hated that he couldn’t avenge that hurt.
His wolf wanted the freedom to hunt, mangle, and kill. Wanted to see and smell and taste Drake’s blood. Not even his mate’s presence was calming him or—
She straightened in her chair and twisted to face him. “Get ready.”
Trick blinked. “For what?”
“It should hit us any minute now.”
“What do you—?” Red-hot arousal slammed into him and flooded his system. Just like that, his blood thickened, his body tightened, and his cock filled to bursting. And then the drive to soothe her disappeared, completely drowned out by the urge to take and claim and mate. He double-blinked. “Fuck.”
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly bone-dry. “Yeah, we need to fuck.”
They collided. Frankie didn’t remember getting to her feet. One second she’d been sitting on the chair, needing him so badly it hurt; the next thing she knew they were both standing upright and he was kissing the breath from her lungs.
Growling and groaning, they clawed off each other’s clothes. She fisted his cock—it was long and thick and warm—and began to pump. He thrust into her grip, sucking on her pulse and grunting into her neck.
She wanted his cock in her mouth. Needed him to feel her mouth around him. It was a primal thing she couldn’t quite explain, but it was all tied up in this undying need to brand him as hers.
Not much took Trick off guard, but he’d been so caught up in Frankie’s taste that he almost stumbled when she suddenly dropped to her knees. Her lips closed around the head of his cock, and her tongue licked and danced. “Suck,” he rumbled. But she didn’t. She ran her tongue along his length and lapped up the drop of pre-come. He growled. “I said suck it, not play with it.”
She finally took him in her mouth, and Trick fisted her hair. “Perfect for bunching in my hands while I fuck your mouth.” He pumped his hips, mesmerized by the sight of his cock disappearing between her lips over and over. “You still look so innocent, even with your mouth wrapped around my dick.” She swallowed, and her throat contracted around him. “Jesus. You’re going to make me come. I’m not ready yet.” He stilled his hips and tugged on her hair. “Get up.” The moment she was upright, he propped her on the patio table. “Lay back and spread your legs. My turn.”
Frankie shook her head. She loved his fingers and his tongue, but she didn’t have the patience for foreplay. Her pussy throbbed and ached. She wanted him in her, fucking her, claiming her.
Trick arched a brow. “I want the taste of you in my mouth. You can give it to me or I can take it.” Her eyes narrowed, but she lay back and spread her thighs. “Good girl.” He sank two fingers inside her. “Soaking wet.”
Frankie gripped the edges of the table as he lifted her hips and swiped his tongue through her folds. He growled, and his fingers bit into her as he feasted. He didn’t just lick and nip, he sucked at her folds, swirled the tip of his tongue around her clit, and repeatedly stabbed his tongue inside her. The friction built, wound her tighter and tighter, until she just couldn’t take any more. “Trick . . .” It was a warning. She was going to come.
Trick hooked her legs over his shoulders, sucked a nipple into his mouth, and plunged deep into her pussy. And she came. He ground his teeth, fighting the urge to explode along with her. His cock throbbed inside her, as if objecting to him holding back.
Panting, Frankie practically melted against the table. That had been one hell of an orgasm, but her pussy still ached. She got the feeling that the mating urge wouldn’t cool until he’d come deep inside her. “Fuck me.”
“Oh, I’ll fuck you all right.” He drew back until only the head of his cock was inside her, and then he slammed home. Her pussy clamped around him, so wet and tight it was sheer fucking heaven. And Trick lost all pretense of control. He brutally hammered into her. And that was no exaggeration. He’d been fighting the drive to claim her for weeks, and all that frustration poured out of him in a frenzy of violent thrusts. “Tell me to stop.” Hearing her say it would be the only thing that could ease that frenzy.
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Will 2020 be the official Year of the Nurse? - News - Nurses Arena Forum
Nurses Arena Forum / General Category / News / Will 2020 be the official Year of the Nurse? (719) Views
Will 2020 be the official Year of the Nurse? by katty : February 01, 2019, 09:38:59 PM
Efforts to raise the profile of nursing globally took a step forward with the recommendation that 2020 be the official Year of the Nurse and Midwife.
The Nursing Now campaign made the proposal to the World Health Organization (WHO) last year, and this week the WHO executive board endorsed the suggestion.
The proposal must now be confirmed by its decision-making body the World Health Assembly in May, however Nursing Now said it was confident the recommendation would be accepted.
Crucial to universal health coverage
A spokesperson said the campaign is 'thrilled' to have received support for the idea from WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The year will also mark the 200th anniversary
of Florence Nightingale's birth.
Speaking at the executive board meeting yesterday, Dr Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed the importance of nurses in achieving the ambition of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) – where all individuals and communities receive the health services they need without suffering financial hardship.
'Nurses, especially in many low- and middle-income countries, are the bridge between the community and the health institutions,' he said. 'Their role, especially in front-line services, is very important and that is why in UHC their role is crucial.'
He said 2020 was an appropriate year to raise the profile of nursing, as it would also mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale.
'We need to celebrate people like her who have contributed greatly to humanity,' he said.
‘A great year for nursing’
The three-year global Nursing Now campaign is being run by the Burdett Trust for Nursing, in collaboration with the International Council of Nurses and WHO.
It aims to raise the profile of nursing and develop the profession's reach and influence at all levels, including in government policy.
A Nursing Now spokesperson said: 'This is a great cause for celebration and a step towards our goal of improving health, gender equality and economic strength by raising the profile and status of nursing.
'2020 will be a great year for nursing.'
The WHO estimates nurses and midwives represent almost half the total number of healthcare workers around the world.
Source : https://rcni.com/nursing-standard/newsroom/news/will-2020-be-official-year-of-nurse-144731
Holly Whyte who stole nurse's identity sentenced to prison
Views: 2826 June 30, 2016, 08:31:02 PM
#2016NursesWeek #NursesWeek: Who Cares For The Nurse? By Damilare Ogunnoiki
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Porsche for Dummies - Part 2
Porsche for Dummies – Part 2
At Porsche the Jorg Muffler isn’t something Grandmother wears around her neck: The Porsche glossary for insiders – Part 2.
“Entenbürzel“ or the Ducktail. The advertising slogan for the Porsche Carrera 2.7 RS of 1972/73 was already an insult: “Only 500 men are going to drive it...“ To put it differently: In Zuffenhausen, they prayed that indeed 500 pieces of this lightweight version of the 911, which was rather expensive at the time, would be sold. They had to produce it, though, in order to meet homologation rules. But the car was actually too hot for the street: To make sure it didn’t lift off, Porsche equipped the 2.7 RS with aerodynamic devices at the front and rear. It was the first time Porsche did so. The “Entenbürzel“ – a short ducktail rear spoiler – was mainly in charge of the power take-off. Customers were crazy for this erect poultry’s behind – Porsche eventually sold 1,525 units. And offered an excuse to the angered first 500 customers: “Sorry, we forgot about the ladies…“
E.T. He was the movie star of 1982, the stuffed animal of an entire generation and to this day, probably the only bicycle-flying “extra-terrestrial“ in the universe: E.T. With the movie of the same name and its protagonist, Steven Spielberg created the prototype of a cuddly alien, a crooked creature with long and meager fingers. One of his fingers comes with an embedded flashlight, which he points towards outer space in a tear-jerking scene while muttering the words “phone home“ to understanding kids. That was a long time ago, so it might be unclear why this was the reason for a Porsche part to be called “E.T“ – yet there’s an explanation: Just like E.T.’s finger, the raised, snorkel-like third brake lamp looms out of the rear of the Porsche 911 starting in the year of manufacture 1986 in order to lift the additional brake light above the rear spoiler. Phoning home never really worked with it, though.
Ferdinand. Ok, it’s not unusual to call a Porsche “Ferdinand“. That was the name of the founder and his son, too (to make the distinction easier, however, the latter was mostly called “Ferry“), as well as the son of the son (with the byname Alexander, nicknamed »Butzi«). Ferdinand’s granduncle and Ferdinand’s grandson and Ferdinand’s nephew were called Ferdinand. The latter, however, (again) had an -Alexander that followed. With so many Ferdinands around, it’s no surprise that a car of one of these Ferdinands went by the same name – the black coupe Ferdinand. It was the birthday present for Ferdinand Porsche when he turned 75. After the death of his owner, it became one of the first test cars from Zuffenhausen. The Ferdinand made from sheet metal was born in 1950 and was never sold. Instead, it solidly ran for more than 300,000 kilometers on behalf of the company and is now enjoying retirement at the Porsche Museum.
Fuchs Rims. The Fuchs company based in Meinerzhagen probably had no idea that they were actually winning the jackpot when they received the commission from Porsche in the mid-1960s to produce forged alloy rims, at first only for the sportiest model, the Porsche 911 S. The now legendary clover leaf design was penned by Porsche designer Heinrich Klie, who later also gave the 914 its unique shape: five wide spokes, which were initially blank and a black rim star background. Later, the entire rim star was black. With a size of 15 inches, they adorned the 911 S as of 1966 and later also the 914/6 and the 944. They were part of the program until 1989. In 1992, the protection of the registered design expired, and we now have many rims similar to the ones by Fuchs. But only this one is the real one.
Grandmother. Grandmothers who are referred to as “grandmother“ are said to be kindhearted, wise and experienced. Okay, hardly any Porsche car has ever been kind-hearted, wise only if the driver was, but experienced, that’s certainly something a Porsche could handle. One model in particular: the Porsche 718 W-RS Spyder. And indeed, for a race car, the lifetime of the open 2-liter, 8-cylinder Porsche was practically biblical, racing from 1961 to 1964. In 1963, it won its class at the Targa Florio in Sicily. The Grandmother won the European Mountain Championship twice. Granted, with an age of 4 years, Porsche’s Grandmother is certainly the youngest grandma of all times – but in car years…
Hutch. Nobody really handed down whether rabbits were ever transported in the lockable compartments of the 911. The fact is: If you did without the backseats, the special requests department in Zuffenhausen gave you a luggage rack with two lockable compartments instead. These were referred to as the “Hasenstall“ (rabbit hutch) from then on. But it might also be that the inventor was simply named “Hase“…
Hippie. 1970 – right after Woodstock and things were still dope, bright colors, rebellion against the establishment, euphoria vs. theory, chill instead of kill. Porsche showed momentary solidarity – with the “Hippie“, a long-tail Porsche 917 with a pop paint job, which stirred up the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1971. Willi Kauhsen and Gerard Larousse were grooving behind the wheel and came in second. By the way, Porsche designers Anatole Lapine and Dick Söderberg were inspired to this highly original design by the dress of a secretary. The psychedelic pattern of her attire obviously left a wicked impression.
Indy Engine. In 1980, an Interscope singleseater with a Porsche engine was created for the Indianapolis 500. The V6 turbo engine with watercooled four-valve heads was taken from the legendary 935/78 Moby Dick and was the only 911 engine that reached a rated speed of 9,000 rpm. In terms of output, too, the Indy engine was superlative: 904 hp. After the Indy project was prematurely discontinued in 1980, the modified engine found its way into the 936 Spyder in 1981 and won Le Mans.
Jörg Muffler. You’ve heard of perforated, louvered, and chambered mufflers, but none of them comes close to the Jörg muffler. It was developed by Porsche workshop manager Jörg Walter, who was trying to figure out how to bring the Porsche soul to boil. This wise man came up with a sports exhaust system that consisted of a muffler with two long tailpipes. The result: fat sound, great look. Jörg for ever.
Text first published in "rampclassics", issue 4
text: Roland Löwisch
The history of engine construction at Porsche
Porsche Museum Treasure - the 356
History 04/10/2019
50 Years Porsche 917: Showdown in Goodwood
For the first time, Porsche has presented four driving examples of the 917 at 77th Goodwood Members' Meeting.
The VW 39: The Volkswagen that was a Porsche
The “VW 39” Volkswagen prototype with the chassis number 1-00003 left the plant in Stuttgart at the time.
Early days of Porsche Exclusive: The one-off
In 1984, this 911 Carrera 3.2 became the company car of the assistant to the Porsche CEO.
Porsche Consulting 07/10/2019
What role will people play in the “Smart Factory”?
140 managers at the Porsche Consulting Smart Factory Day in Leipzig.
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Cities in the U.S. With the Most SUVs
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
SUVs are having a moment.
Quickly shifting public preference towards SUVs in the United States have jolted the auto industry into a race to see who can produce the next big thing (so to speak) in vehicular manufacture. Foreign brands in particular are rushing to push out bigger models as U.S. preferences sharply shift towards SUVs. Consequently, sedan sales have declined, prompting many vehicle manufacturers to scale down production on smaller models in favor of their more heavy-duty counterparts. Stateside, for example, part of General Motors’ much-publicized radical restructuring can be attributed to shifting consumer preference to SUVs and trucks, resulting in the discontinuation of several sedan models.
In light of SUVs’ booming popularity—and now that holiday-season car sales events are in full swing—it begs the question as to which cities, states, and regions across the country boast the highest percentages of SUVs among all car owners. Where are SUVs most popular, and which models are currently dominating the national market? The data specialists at Insurify pursued these questions in order to rank the top 20 cities in America with the most and least SUVs as a share of all cars on the road.
Here’s what they found:
Explorers reign supreme. By a large margin, the Ford Explorer is the most popular SUV model in the U.S. Exactly half of the 50 states in the country can claim this decades-old standby as their number one most prevalent SUV on the road. Furthermore, only four states or territories have a non-domestic car model as its top SUV.
Regional patterns. In areas where Explorers can’t claim a complete monopoly, other SUV brands emerge as the most popular in curious geographic pockets. Perhaps betraying its evocatively Southeastern name, the Jeep Grand Cherokee is quite popular in New England and other Northeast states. The Chevrolet Tahoe, meanwhile, is the number one SUV of choice in a contiguous handful of states in the Deep South and Plains.
Golden State at it again. California drivers evidently prefer smaller rides. The massive coastal state claims the bottom spot on our state-by-state rankings, with only about 23 percent of all cars identified as SUVs. Furthermore, the state contains 11 of the 20 cities on our list of locales with the lowest share of SUVs.
All in the family. Given the SUV’s practicality for families of all sizes, Insurify’s data specialists analyzed if the cities with the most and least SUVs had any significant difference between their share of homes designated as family households. However, they found no statistical correlation between SUV ownership and family household prevalence, suggesting that the SUV boom is not merely a family-based phenomenon.
The data specialists at Insurify, an auto insurance quotes comparison website, compiled data from its database of over 1.5 million car insurance applications, which ask questions about driving history, vehicle type, and other personal data. From this data, they were able to determine the 20 cities with the highest and lowest percentages of SUVs (as opposed to non-SUVs, mostly designated as sedans) as a share of all cars reported in that city. To improve the results, the final lists were filtered to include only cities with a minimum of 1,500 applications. The data specialists performed the same analysis on a state level for all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia. For both geographic analyses, they also determined the most popular SUV (make and model) for each location. Data on the percentage of family households (as a share of all households) for cities was taken from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.
Cities with the Most SUVs
20. Pueblo, Colorado
Percent of drivers with SUVs: 26.2%
Most popular SUV: Ford Explorer
Family households: 58.9% of all households
19. Anderson, South Carolina
18. Austin, Texas
Most popular SUV: Honda CR-V
17. Summerville, South Carolina
16. Conway, South Carolina
15. Omaha, Nebraska
14. Charleston, South Carolina
13. North Charleston, South Carolina
12. Cumming, Georgia
Most popular SUV: Chevrolet Equinox
11. Reno, Nevada
Most popular SUV: Jeep Grand Cherokee
10. Acworth, Georgia
9. Chicago, Illinois
Most popular SUV: Ford Escape
8. Naples, Florida
7. Alpharetta, Georgia
6. Lexington, South Carolina
5. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
4. Colorado Springs, Colorado
3. Aurora, Colorado
2. Katy, Texas
1. Denver, Colorado
Cities with the Least SUVs
20. Athens, Georgia
19. Atlanta, Georgia
18. Long Beach, California
17. San Jose, California
16. Pompano Beach, Florida
15. Jonesboro, Georgia
14. Norcross, Georgia
13. Charlotte, North Carolina
12. Oakland, California
11. Raleigh, North Carolina
10. Bakersfield, California
9. Sacramento, California
8. Arlington, Texas
7. Fresno, California
6. Fayetteville, North Carolina
5. San Diego, California
4. Los Angeles, California
3. Glendale, California
Most popular SUV: Toyota Rav4
2. Stockton, California
1. Riverside, California
Categories: TSM
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Sandra Dodge
Sandra L. Dodge grew up in New England. She earned a Diploma in Art and a Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education from the University of New Hampshire. She also has a Master’s degree in Mental Health Councilling from New England College. She taught for many years before becoming licensed as a children’s therapist. Now […]
Angela Doucette
Angela Doucette graduated from Dalhousie College of Pharmacy in 1992. Her main area of practice has been hospital pharmacy, but she has also worked in Community and Long Term Care. After battling her own weight issues for many years, and losing her father to heart disease at the age of 58, Angela developed a special […]
Gordon Fader
Joy A. Steele
Carole Glasser Langille
Carole Glasser Langille is the author of four books of poetry, two collections of short stories, and two children’s books. She has been nominated for The Governor General’s Award in Poetry, The Atlantic Poetry Prize, and The Alistair MacLeod Award for Short Fiction. She has given readings and workshops in France, India, South Africa, Hawaii, […]
Larry Kramer
Larry Kramer is a retired family physician living in Brantford, Ontario. After graduating from the University of Western Ontario in 1973, he spent his medical career as a GP in a small town, then as a hospitalist in a larger centre. His articles have appeared in many magazines, including The Medical Post.
Joy Snihur Wyatt Laking
The daughter of an artist, Joy Laking studied art at university and has lived and painted professionally in Nova Scotia for the past forty-seven years. She has had national solo exhibitions of her paintings, including one at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. She has also exhibited internationally. Joy paints in watercolours, oils, and acrylics. […]
Luigi Costanzo
Luigi Costanzo was born in 1946 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He moved to Nova Scotia in 1979 and provided clinical therapy for children in crisis while employed by the IWK Children’s Hospital. He studied stone carving and bronze casting at The Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Gregory M. Cook
Gregory M. Cook was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. As one of three poets in his immediate family, he has made writers and their survival a personal and a professional study. His biography of his close friend Alden Nowlan, One Heart, One Way, was published by Pottersfield Press. He has lived in Wolfville, Toronto, Fredericton, […]
Rick Williams
Rick Williams, M.A., Ed.D, is sole proprietor of Praxis Research & Consulting and research director for the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters. He led the Council’s $1.7 million national fisheries labour supply study completed in 2018. From 2009 to 2013 he served as deputy minister to the Premier for Policy and Priorities in the […]
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"Banners"
"Hip hop (Music)"
Banner for Public Enemy
Public Enemy, American, founded 1982
acrylic paint and pressure-sensitive tape on canvas
H x W: 74 x 69 in. (188 x 175.3 cm)
A banner that the hip-hop group Public Enemy would hang behind them when performing at various gigs. The banner is made of black canvas with the Public Enemy logo printed in red acrylic paint bordered with white.
Hip hop (Music)
Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Public Enemy
linen, nylon, duct tape, paint (probably acrylic)
H x W: 137 x 140 in. (348 x 355.6 cm)
A banner that the hip-hop group Public enemy would hang behind them when performing at various gigs. The banner is made of black linen and features the group's logo of a figure as seen through a targeting scope printed in yellow.
Banner used at Public Enemy performances
acrylic paint on synthetic fiber
H x W: 108 x 207 in. (274.3 x 525.8 cm)
A banner that the hip hop group Public Enemy would hang behind them when performing at various gigs. The banner is made of red synthetic fabric with the Public Enemy logo printed inblack acrylic paint.
H x W: 52 x 132 in. (132.1 x 335.3 cm)
A banner that the hip-hop group Public enemy would hang behind them when performing at various gigs. The banner is made of black linen and features the group's logo of a figure appearing through a scope printed in yellow paint.
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NNLM offers funding for projects that improve access to health information, increase engagement with research and data, expand professional knowledge, and support outreach that promotes awareness and use of NLM resources in local communities.
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Econ Complexity 93rd of 126
Exports 96th of 221
Imports 128th of 221
GDP Per Capita 101st of 214
Photo by Paulo Philippidis
Looking for commercial partners in Mongolia? List your company on Macro Market.
Economic Complexity Ranking
Mongolia is the 96th largest export economy in the world and the 93rd most complex economy according to the Economic Complexity Index (ECI). In 2017, Mongolia exported $6.88B and imported $4.5B, resulting in a positive trade balance of $2.39B. In 2017 the GDP of Mongolia was $11.4B and its GDP per capita was $12.9k.
The top exports of Mongolia are Coal Briquettes ($2.27B), Copper Ore ($1.63B), Gold ($1.26B), Crude Petroleum ($369M) and Iron Ore ($299M), using the 1992 revision of the HS (Harmonized System) classification. Its top imports are Refined Petroleum ($803M), Cars ($263M), Delivery Trucks ($177M), Electricity ($136M) and Large Construction Vehicles ($87.9M).
The top export destinations of Mongolia are China ($5.23B), the United Kingdom ($663M), Switzerland ($662M), Russia ($57.4M) and Italy ($51.6M). The top import origins are China ($1.42B), Russia ($1.25B), Japan ($389M), South Korea ($203M) and the United States ($197M).
Mongolia borders China and Russia.
In 2017 Mongolia exported $6.88B, making it the 96th largest exporter in the world. During the last five years the exports of Mongolia have increased at an annualized rate of 11.7%, from $3.91B in 2012 to $6.88B in 2017. The most recent exports are led by Coal Briquettes which represent 33% of the total exports of Mongolia, followed by Copper Ore, which account for 23.6%.
In 2017 Mongolia imported $4.5B, making it the 128th largest importer in the world. During the last five years the imports of Mongolia have decreased at an annualized rate of -8.2%, from $6.83B in 2012 to $4.5B in 2017. The most recent imports are led by Refined Petroleum which represent 17.9% of the total imports of Mongolia, followed by Cars, which account for 5.85%.
As of 2017 Mongolia had a positive trade balance of $2.39B in net exports. As compared to their trade balance in 1995 when they still had a positive trade balance of $20.4M in net exports.
The top export destinations of Mongolia are China ($5.23B), the United Kingdom ($663M), Switzerland ($662M), Russia ($57.4M) and Italy ($51.6M).
The top import origins of Mongolia are China ($1.42B), Russia ($1.25B), Japan ($389M), South Korea ($203M) and the United States ($197M).
Economic Complexity of Mongolia
The economy of Mongolia has an Economic Complexity Index (ECI) of -0.788 making it the 93rd most complex country. Mongolia exports 54 products with revealed comparative advantage (meaning that its share of global exports is larger than what would be expected from the size of its export economy and from the size of a product’s global market).
The Economic Complexity ranking of Mongolia has decreased by 53 places over the past 36 years from 40th in 1981 to 93rd in 2017.
More on Mongolia from our other sites
Globally Famous People of Mongolia
This treemap shows the cultural exports of Mongolia, as proxied by the production of globally famous historical characters
Globally Famous People of Mongolia by City
This treemap shows the cultural exports of Mongolia by city, as proxied by the production of globally famous historical characters.
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Gulf of Mexico Production Falls 50%
The supply/demand balance in oil…
This Arms Deal Could Trigger A New ‘’Cold War’’
The deliveries of Russian S400…
The Dark Outlook For Non-OPEC Oil
The oil market has been…
Llewellyn King
Llewellyn King is the executive producer and host of "White House Chronicle" on PBS. His e-mail address is lking@kingpublishing.com
Energy Tells Tale of Fading West, Booming East
By Llewellyn King - Nov 19, 2010, 8:53 AM CST
The patient is the United States and the diagnosis is “Asia shock.”
It is a psychological disease with physical symptoms and no known cure. However there are therapies, therapies of trade, diplomacy and fiscal restraint at home.
As President Barack Obama jetted around Asia, he may have pondered not so much the economic power that waits East of Suez, but why it took so long to emerge. And why the patient is in denial.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Asia was for the taking by the European colonialists; and take they did.
Foremost was Britain with India, Ceylon, Burma, Malaya and coastal enclaves in China. France lumped together the countries of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos as Indochina. Holland, of shrinking consequence in Europe, dominated Indonesia. Portugal had its toehold in Goa and Macao. Spain dallied in the Philippines till booted out by the emerging power of the time, the United States.
Only Japan was sufficiently organized to be a local maker of mischief in Korea and China.
Anyone looking at brawling, muscular, talented Asia today has to wonder why the giants slept for so long, and how the colonial masters were so ignorant of the abilities of their subservient people.
Blame Britain.
During the 15th century, the Age of Discovery, exploration was driven by a lust for wealth in the form of spices, gold and silver. Once the Industrial Revolution got under way in late 18th-century Britain, the lust was for those things plus raw materials to feed the factories. The newly wealthy in London and the south, with their lavish country homes, wanted tea and coffee, herbs and spices, tropical goodies and strange flavors from the East.
The colonial compact, more implied than written, was simple: They--the Asians--grow and harvest; the West manufactured.
Britain, followed by its rivals, set the policy, and in so doing kept the Industrial Revolution at home; it was not for export.
While the British like to export their values, their justice systems and, in a tepid way, Anglicism (Catholic countries were more aggressive in the export of religion), they kept their industrial revolution at home, and all of the secondary industry it spawned. It was a black day in London when it was learned that industrial espionage had allowed spinning technology to escape to America.
To this day, the remnants of the system which ruled that “value-added will take place in Britain” can be seen in British specialty products. The great tea-packing houses are still in Britain and Ireland, and some cottons are still woven in Britain.
No factories sprang up in the Asian empires of the European colonists. No technology transfer was encouraged, and the enormous latent talent of Asia went unrecognized.
Japan, without colonial influence, industrialized in the first part of the 20th century, but mostly to mechanize its military.
It was not until after World War II that Asia stirred and threw off the European constraints. Ironically, along with Japan, the British colonies of Hong Kong and Singapore showed the way.
If China was slow to industrialize, it has charged ahead, changing the balance in the world and embracing the central truth of the Industrial Revolution: You need energy to make and move goods.
China has signed up developing countries' oil and gas suppliers at a dizzying rate. In contrast, the United States looks at energy--the indispensable element in industrial output--through a post-industrial, environmental lens.
According to the World Nuclear Association, China has 39 nuclear reactors planned or on order and 23 under construction. There are 120 on its wish list. The United States has nine on its wish list and is building two.
The United States can no longer forge the large components for nuclear reactors. This can be done only in Japan; but China and South Korea are building new facilities to do the work.
The U.S. dominates the world in two disparate arenas: defense technology and entertainment. In nearly all else, it is slipping.
It will be a shocking day for Americans when people from another country walk on the moon, where astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin trod in 1969. But it will happen.
By. Llewellyn King
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of “White House Chronicle” on PBS. His e-mail is lking@kingpublishing.com
Is NATO Still Relevant?
The Growing Importance of the U.S., Central Asia Partnership
EU Slaps Sanctions On Turkey For Illegal Offshore Drilling
Anonymous on November 21 2010 said:
It won't be a shocking day for me if a bunch of fools decide to prance around on the moon, Mr King, or for that matter to stroll around on Pluto or Mars.And while they are up there they can attempt to convince each other that a country that constructed a navy as large as all the other navies in the world during WW2, and trained a million or so men to sail the ships that were built, cannot construct some 'forgings' for reactors, but instead must order them from Guadacanal or Pago-Pago.I suspect that some of my moronic colleagues here in Sweden might buy that kind of nonsense, but I'm not in the mood right now.
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Regardless if you need to earn some fast cash or we're just talking about making money in the grand scheme of things, there's an important psychology that needs to be mentioned before getting into the strategies. If you study Freud's model of the mind, you'll discover the Psychic Apparatus. It's the three-part construct in your mind that controls all of your behavior.
Research other listings in your city on AirBnB and see what the going rate is for a place like yours. You could also just rent out a private room as well or even a bed in a shared room. In fact, that's how AirBnB got its start. However, you might find it hard in the beginning without reviews, but as long as you take really good care of your guests and provide a lot of value, the reviews will eventually come rolling in.
Cost per mille requires only that the publisher make the advertising available on his or her website and display it to the page visitors in order to receive a commission. Pay per click requires one additional step in the conversion process to generate revenue for the publisher: A visitor must not only be made aware of the advertisement but must also click on the advertisement to visit the advertiser's website.
However, if you’re running an e-commerce site, conducting product testing and reviews, or offer Amazon product coupons, then you probably will want to use a WordPress Amazon affiliate theme. To be clear, these themes aren’t usually made specifically for Amazon affiliates. Instead, what you’ll want to look for are e-commerce or multi-purpose WordPress themes that are:
I didn’t realize there was a limit until a few years back when I hit the maximum. I wish Amazon would increase it! To be honest, I find their tracking system pretty messy and think it needs an overhaul however, it is great for testing what works and what doesn’t. Most of what I’ve written about in other tips in these articles was learned through tracking.
Whatever you choose to do with this monetization and marketing technique, take time to plan your strategy. While it is very easy to get started and to add Amazon affiliate links to WordPress, the key to success is in how well you execute those links and promote them to your visitors. Affiliate marketing takes time to excel at, so be patient and don't give up!
Webinars are quite possibly one of the most potent ways you can make an exorbitant amount of money online. You'll need an audience to train and you'll need to know what you're talking about. Of course, this usually requires having a website and some semblance of an online presence. However, people can still do webinars without all of that. For example, you might have a sizable social media following and you train them every week on something to do with social media. But you will need a product to embed and sell at some point. Don't worry about it in the beginning. In my experience, the best webinar platform out there is GoToWebinar.
I concluded that having read a product review, people felt more informed to make a purchasing decision. As a result, if they did click a link after reading the review they were more likely to buy the product. Those clicking on the top link seemed to be more in a ‘surfing’ mode. They clicked on the link less because they wanted to buy it but more out of interest to learn more. Some bought the product and some bought other products once they were ‘in the door’ at Amazon.
This book is written by a hugely successful Amazon affiliate member, Armaan Kohli, and includes real case studies of how he’s built a successful niche site empire that’s monetized through the Amazon Associates Program. He shows you screenshots of how his income keeps growing along with an example of how he ultimately sold his 6 month old Amazon affiliate website for over $15000!
Police responded to an intersection near the airport around 10 p.m. Thursday when shots were exchanged with the gunman, Miami FOX affiliate WSVN-TV reported. — Fox News, "Kidnapping suspect shot dead near Miami airport after shootout with police," 21 Sep. 2018 The jury deliberated for around six hours before delivering its guilty verdicts, NBC affiliate WXIA reported. — NBC News, "Man convicted, sentenced to life in 1983 racially motivated killing in Georgia," 27 June 2018 The two-way contract limits Robinson to 45 days of NBA service time next season, with the rest spent at the Heat's G-League affiliate in Sioux Falls, S.D. — Barry Jackson, miamiherald, "Heat signs a sharp-shooter who has impressed everyone this summer," 10 July 2018 In a third change, the Chargers said Mario Solis, a sports reporter and anchor at the NBC affiliate in Los Angeles, will handle Spanish language play-by-play duties. — Jay Posner, sandiegouniontribune.com, "Dan Fouts off Chargers broadcasts; Jeremiah, LT added," 10 July 2018 After 16 starts last year, De Los Santos was 5-4 with a 4.71 ERA for San Diego’s double-A affiliate in San Antonio. — Bob Brookover, Philly.com, "Phillies prospect Enyel De Los Santos making his MLB debut | Extra Innings," 10 July 2018 Won a title with the Raptors’ G-League affiliate in 2017. — Zach Osterman, Indianapolis Star, "Basketball has taken IU's Christian Watford all over world in quest of pro career," 9 July 2018 His replacement has already been named: Laura Harris, who will be coming in from WFTS-TV, the ABC affiliate in Tampa, Fla. — Robert Philpot, star-telegram, "A weekend anchor is leaving NBC 5. Here's who's replacing him," 9 July 2018 Gunna, the Young Thug affiliate who rubbed elbows with Virgil Abloh at the menswear shows in Paris a few weeks back, put in a valiant showing at the Louis Vuitton show, but Migos might still take the cake. — Rachel Hahn, Vogue, "Who Drips Harder, Gucci Mane or Quavo?," 1 Feb. 2019
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Justice and Solicitor General (18)
18 results found for: "fa"
Organizations: Justice and Solicitor General Tags: recommendations
Report to the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General - Public inquiry into the death of Thelma Eileen Williams
Represents the findings of a public fatality inquiry into the death of Thelma Eileen Williams, including determination of the date, time, place and circumstances of the death. Also includes recommendations on how to prevent similar incidents which led to the death under investigation. See the...
health care facilities public fatality inquiries recommendations
Report to the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General - Public inquiry into the death of LAVOIE, Cassandra Marie-Ange
Represents the findings of a public fatality inquiry into the death of LAVOIE, Cassandra Marie-Ange, including determination of the date, time, place and circumstances of the death. Also includes recommendations on how to prevent similar incidents which led to the death under investigation. See...
public fatality inquiries recommendations
Report to the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General - Public inquiry into the death of WRIGHT, Robert Earl
Represents the findings of a public fatality inquiry into the death of WRIGHT, Robert Earl, including determination of the date, time, place and circumstances of the death. Also includes recommendations on how to prevent similar incidents which led to the death under investigation. See the usage...
health care facilities public fatality inquiries recommendations seniors
Report to the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General - Public inquiry into the death of Cody Mason Demary
Represents the findings of a public fatality inquiry into the death of Cody Mason Demary, including determination of the date, time, place and circumstances of the death. Also includes recommendations on how to prevent similar incidents which led to the death under investigation. See the usage...
public fatality inquiries recommendations workplace safety
Report to the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General - Public inquiry into the death of James Keith Reader
Represents the findings of a public fatality inquiry into the death of James Keith Reader, including determination of the date, time, place and circumstances of the death. Also includes recommendations on how to prevent similar incidents which led to the death under investigation. See the usage...
Report to the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General - Public inquiry into the death of Glenn Paul Piche
Represents the findings of a public fatality inquiry into the death of Glenn Paul Piche, including determination of the date, time, place and circumstances of the death. Also includes recommendations on how to prevent similar incidents which led to the death under investigation. See the usage...
health care facilities psychiatric hospitals public fatality inquiries recommendations
Report to the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General - Public inquiry into the death of Kawliga Potts
Represents the findings of a public fatality inquiry into the death of Kawliga Potts, including determination of the date, time, place and circumstances of the death. Also includes recommendations on how to prevent similar incidents which led to the death under investigation. See the usage...
children in care government responses public fatality inquiries recommendations
Report to the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General - Public inquiry into the death of Stoney Calvin Bearhead
Represents the findings of a public fatality inquiry into the death of Stoney Calvin Bearhead, including determination of the date, time, place and circumstances of the death. See the usage considerations section of this record for more information about public fatality inquiries.
RCMP police services public fatality inquiries recommendations
Report to the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General - Public inquiry into the death of L.C.N
Represents the findings of a public fatality inquiry into the death of L.C.N., including determination of the date, time, place and circumstances of the death. Also includes recommendations on how to prevent similar incidents which led to the death under investigation. See the usage...
children in care public fatality inquiries recommendations
Report to the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General - Public fatality inquiry into the death of K.O.
Represents the findings of a public fatality inquiry into the death of K.O., including determination of the date, time, place and circumstances of the death. Also includes recommendations on how to prevent similar incidents which led to the death under investigation. See the usage considerations...
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La Gioconda / Act 3: Dance Of The Hours - Amilcare Ponchielli, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra,
Polovtsian Dances From "Prince Igor" - Alexander Borodin, Torgny Sporsen, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Chorus
Entry Of The Gladiators - Julius Fučík, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra,
Peer Gynt, Op.23: Prelude To Act 4 (Morning Mood) - Excerpt - Edvard Grieg, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra,
Overture 1812, Op.49, TH 49 - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Artillery Division, Gothenburg Symphony Brass Band, Churchbells of Gothenburg, Gothenburg Symphony Chorus
Neeme Järvi, with his children now as rivals, remains a busy star on the international conducting scene.
Born in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, on June 7,1937, and brought up within the USSR's system for developing musical talent, Järvi studied percussion and conducting at the Tallinn Music School. He made his debut as a conductor at age 18. From 1955 to 1960 he pursued further studies at the Leningrad Conservatory, where his principal teachers were Nikolaï Rabinovich and Yevgeny Mravinsky.
Järvi took a leading role in the musical life of his homeland. In 1963 he assumed the directorship of the Estonian Radio & Television Orchestra, his first important post. He also founded the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, and for 13 years was the chief conductor of Opera House Estonia in Tallinn. From 1976 to 1980 he was chief conductor and artistic director of the Estonian State Symphony Orchestra, then in its infancy. By the late 1970s his fame had spread throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and he received favorable notices for his appearances in the West. He made history by leading the first performances of Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess ever given in the USSR.
Järvi developed a particular interest in unearthing and performing neglected repertory by both little-known and important composers. He was a champion of the Estonian composers Eduard Tubin and Arvo Pärt. In 1979 he premiered Pärt's Credo, a work that represents a turning point in that composer's stylistic evolution. Järvi, recognizing the importance of Credo (which incorporates biblical texts), presented it without first navigating through the usual channels of the Communist Party or the Composers' Union. The resulting controversy and official disfavor induced Järvi to emigrate. He was permitted to leave Estonia in 1980; within a month of his departure, he made his debut performances with the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic. He quickly received important appointments: principal guest conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in England (1981-1983) and the Japan Philharmonic; music director of the Royal Scottish Orchestra (1984-1988) and the Gothenburg (Sweden) Symphony Orchestra (1982-2004). For Sweden's BIS label, he recorded a great deal of unfamiliar Scandinavian music, with various orchestras, from the 1980s to the 2000s. Järvi has also recorded for Deutsche Grammophon and Orfeo. His recording projects include cycles of orchestral music by Sibelius, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Tubin, Brahms, Schumann, Shostakovich, and others.
In 1990 he assumed the post of music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, remaining there until 2005. With that ensemble he made 30 of some 150 recordings on the Chandos label. He has also served as principal conductor of the New Jersey Symphony, and accepted music director positions with the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande for 2012.
Järvi's concert appearances gradually slowed as he approached his ninth decade, but his recorded legacy has continued to grow at an impressive pace. In late Romantic repertory, especially from France and the Scandinavian countries, he remains one of the world's great specialists, and he has maintained relationships with many of the ensembles he has headed. The year 2016 alone saw no fewer than seven new releases, including the continuation of a symphony cycle devoted to Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg, recorded with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Devoting himself mostly to substantial symphonic works, Järvi nevertheless did not disdain lighter fare; in 2015 he released, with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the album A Festival of Fucik, devoted to the composer of the familiar circus march Entry of the Gladiators.
Järvi's children have made their mark on the musical world as well: sons Paavo and Kristjan have gained international reputations as conductors. Daughter Maarika was principal flutist with the RTVE Symphony Orchestra in Madrid. Järvi and his wife, Liilia, live in New York. He has written an Estonian-language memoir, Kunstniku elu (The Maestro's Touch).
Monthly Listeners
Where people listen
Paris, FR4,036 LISTENERS
Mexico City, MX2,876 LISTENERS
London, GB1,694 LISTENERS
Santiago, CL1,508 LISTENERS
Madrid, ES1,437 LISTENERS
Rubinstein: Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 5
French Music for Ballet
Glazunov: The Symphonies
One Century of Music: Premier siècle (Live)
Stenhammar: Sången, Reverenza & Romeo och Julia Suite
Neeme Järvi & Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
Rubinstein: Piano Concerto No. 4 in D Minor, Op. 70 & Caprice russe, Op. 102 (Live)
Great Maestros, Vol. 6: Neeme Järvi (Live)
Mahler: Symphony No. 7
Tchaikovsky; "1812" Overture
Grieg: Peer Gynt-Suite No. 1
Strauss, R.: Aus Italien / Metamorphosen
Tchaikovsky, P.I.: Symphony No. 6, "Pathetique" / Francesca Da Rimini
Alfven: Symphony No. 4, Op. 39
Schmidt, F.: Symphony No. 4 / Strauss, R.: Symphonisches Fragment Aus Josephs Legende
Classical Dance Music: Ballet & Beyond
Perfect Concentration
Classical World: Italy
Orchestral Manoeuvres
Edvard Grieg - Composer Weekly #046
Carlos Kleiber
Listen to Neeme Järvi now.
Listen to Neeme Järvi in full in the Spotify app
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New members could make up majority of Buffalo school board following election
By Marielle Bricker
All nine seats on the Buffalo Public Schools school board in New York are up for general election on May 7, 2019. Three at-large seats and six by-district seats are on the ballot. At-large members are elected to five-year terms, and by-district members are elected to three-year terms. The filing deadline was April 9.
Five incumbents are seeking another term; they all hold by-district seats. All three at-large seats and the East Seat are open. Four incumbents are unopposed, and one incumbent faces a challenger. Louis Petrucci was appointed to the Park Seat in 2018 after previously serving in the district from 2007 to 2013. He faces Austin Harig, who previously ran for the seat in 2016.
The three open at-large seats drew eight candidates, and the East Seat drew two candidates. If Harig wins election to the Park Seat, five newcomers—a majority on the Board of Education—will be sworn in. If Petrucci wins, incumbents will retain a majority on the board.
During the district’s last election in 2016, the six by-district seats were on the ballot. Four incumbents sought re-election, and 1.5 candidates filed per seat compared to the 1.78 per seat in 2019. No race had more than two candidates on the ballot. Three incumbents and three newcomers were elected to the board. The 2014 election had the three at-large seats on the ballot, and two incumbents sought re-election. A total of 13 candidates, or 4.33 per seat, were on the ballot. One incumbent and two challengers were elected to the board.
Buffalo Public Schools served 34,293 students during the 2016-2017 school year.
https://ballotpedia.org/Buffalo_Public_Schools,_New_York
https://ballotpedia.org/Buffalo_Public_Schools_elections_(2016)
https://ballotpedia.org/New_York_school_board_elections,_2019
Marielle Bricker
Marielle Bricker is a staff writer at Ballotpedia and can be reached at marielle.bricker@ballotpedia.org
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SA youth plan to skip vote 25 years after freedom
- mg.co.za | 3 months ago
About six million young South Africans are not registered to vote in the May 8 election — a large swathe of the generation who grew up after the end of apartheid in 1994.
More than half of 18-30 year-olds are missing from the electoral roll in a country that embraced democracy 25 years ago when Nelson Mandela came to power in the first multi-racial elections. Ahead of polling day, two “born frees” — those born after the end of apartheid — spoke to AFP about why they won’t be voting.
Kgatlego More, the doubterAged 22, More is a business student who lives in a residential suburb of Johannesburg with his mother, a fervent supporter of the African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party since 1994.
read full story @mg.co.za
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Betting News > Football > League One’s crazy and unpredictable relegation scrap
League One’s crazy and unpredictable relegation scrap
Bottom 13 sides split by just nine points
oud.com/feed/odds-feed/getLadOdds.php?eventID=210933160&marketID=211645403&categoryID=270〈=en
At this point of the season, you usually start to get a clearer picture on which teams will be playing in which division at the start of the next campaign. This year, League One sides have other ideas.
With a maximum of 10 games left to play for each team this season, there’s only nine points separating Bradford City in rock bottom on 36 points, and Plymouth Argyle in 12th on 45 points.
And with those from 11th place upwards fighting for at least a play-off spot, there’ll be no easy games up until the end of the season. Looking in-depth at the fixture list, are there any sides that have a more favourable run-in to fight relegation?
Scrapping among themselves
With such a high number of teams fighting for League One survival this season, the run-in mainly consists for relegation match-ups.
There are a few games between the bottom 13 and play-off hopefuls, as well as a handful of matches against the top five, but to avoid relegation, it’s crucial that the sides win their ‘relegation six-pointers’.
With an impressive pick up in form since new man Wally Downes took over, AFC Wimbledon have gradually escalated themselves closer to safety. They’re just a win away from 20th place, though they’ll need a huge swing on goal difference to help.
The Dons have eight games remaining, and crucially seven of those are against sides in and around them. They could be looked at as ‘easier’ games, but with a lot more resting on them, they’re never going to be easy. They’re 8/15 for a drop to the fourth tier.
Bradford are six from safety, and five of their eight come against lower half teams too. If they can put a run of form together, they might fancy their chances of survival. It might be too late for them though, and our traders are saying they’re 1/6 for the drop.
Rochdale also appear to be doomed, with two thirds of their games being ‘six-pointers’, there’s a lot of pressure on their shoulders to drag themselves out of the scrap. They’re 4/11 to lose League One status.
With those three odds on for relegation, it also looks like only one relegation spot is up for debate. Walsall and Southend are the two that are expected to fight it out to just avoid the drop, and 6/5 says the Saddlers will miss out over the Shrimpers, who are 11/5.
Plymouth may just about be safe, and have a favourable run-in too. They’re 9/2 alongside Shrewsbury for the drop. Gillingham, Scunthorpe and Wycombe are still vulnerable at 4/1, especially The Chairboys, as they’ve lost five of their last six.
Oxford United, Bristol Rovers and Accrington should all have just enough to secure the points needed to stay up. They’re 5/1, 8/1 and 11/1 for the drop respectively.
How the EFL League One table currently stands.
Play-off contenders weigh in
With five teams battling among themselves for the top five places in the division, sixth place is well and truly up for grabs.
Currently in the hunt for those places are Doncaster Rovers, Coventry City, Peterborough United, Blackpool, Fleetwood Town and Burton Albion.
Out of the 13 relegation battlers, only Rochdale and Wimbledon avoid having to face the play-off hopefuls. Two of the current bottom three swerve those tricky tests, with bottom club Bradford having an outstanding fixture with Coventry, who sit in seventh. The majority of the rest face one or two promotion battlers along the way.
Southend and Accrington face the most matches against those fighting for sixth. Fleetwood, Burton and Peterborough stand in the Shrimpers way, though their own form needs to be the primary concern. Stanley face Burton, Fleetwood and Doncaster.
Doncaster currently occupy the final play-off spot, and they’re favourites to keep hold of that come the end of the season at 2/7. Coventry and Peterborough are expected to battle hard for it at 5/1 and 6/1 respectively, though Doncaster do have a game in hand.
Blackpool and Fleetwood are outsiders with a chance at 14/1 and 16/1, and Burton look to be out of the running, seven points behind sixth at 40/1.
Battling the big boys
Luton Town, Barnsley, Sunderland, Portsmouth and Charlton Athletic are virtually guaranteed at least a play-off spot, barring complete capitulation in the season run-in.
Matches against the top five won’t be season defining for the relegation strugglers, though it must be said that Gillingham did recently pick up a valuable point away to the league leaders last time out.
Accrington and Rochdale face three of the top five. John Coleman’s side face Luton, Sunderland and Portsmouth, with The Dale up against Sunderland, Portsmouth and Charlton.
The remaining relegation scrappers face one or two against the top five, but these matches could have more impact on the title race than relegation.
Luton are hot favourites for the crown at 1/3, with Barnsley expected to be the side that are bringing the fight to the Hatters. The Tykes are 7/2 for the title, or 1/4 for automatic promotion.
Sunderland and Portsmouth are outsiders for the title at 8/1 and 40/1 respectively, though the Black Cats are 8/11 for promotion and Pompey are 13/8. Though Charlton are 1/250 to secure a play-off spot, the Addicks are still outsiders at 3/1 for promotion.
Click here for the latest League One odds.
Drew Goodsell
Drew is a journalism graduate of UEL where he worked as a Business Editor for the university news website. He is a Chelsea fan, but closely follows American sports, being an avid fan of the New York based Knicks (NBA) and Giants (NFL).
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Sussex Police reaffirms commitment to action on stalking
Sussex Police is committed to improving its response to stalking following the tragic death of Shana Grice.
Assistant Chief Constable Nick May, said: “We deeply regret the tragic death of Shana Grice and accept that we have made mistakes in this and other cases in the past.
"We apologised to Shana’s family at the time and I reiterate this.
“Since then, we have significantly improved our response and remain committed to further improvements to ensure we are delivering an effective and consistent service to victims, to prevent harm and ensure they can access the necessary support.
“When we looked at the circumstances leading to Shana’s murder, we felt we may not have done the best we could and made a referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).
“Our former Deputy Chief Constable personally visited Shana’s family to apologise on behalf of Sussex Police.
“Since then, we have undertaken all the IOPC’s recommendations, thoroughly reviewed all aspects of how we deal with cases of stalking and harassment and have significantly improved our service to victims.”
Following Shana’s death, Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne commissioned an inspection by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary Fire and Rescue (HMICFRS) to review the progress Sussex Police has made in its response to stalking and harassment, and a review of the response nationally. This was carried out at the end of last year and the report published today.
Mr May said: “The HMICFRS report acknowledges that we have significantly improved our understanding of what stalking and harassment is, and what our response should be. It also sets out where there is even more work to do and we accept this. The inspection has provided a benchmark of progress made to date and we are committed to a journey of improvement.
“We are recording the second highest number of reports anywhere in the UK after the Met, and are now advising and supporting more victims than ever. With better awareness and enhanced training our approach is more robust in keeping people safe and feeling safe.
“We encourage victims to come forward with the knowledge that our officers and staff are better trained and that they will take all reports seriously. We are absolutely aware of the consequences if our response is not the correct one, so we want to ensure that victims have confidence in how both police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will support them.”
Two police officers, one of whom has retired, will face gross misconduct proceedings, with an independent chair, on 7 and 10 May.
Another police officer is to face internal misconduct proceedings. Three other police officers and three members of police staff, have received management advice and further training. Five other police and staff are not to face any action.
In a separate case, a police contact handler was subject to misconduct proceedings and received management advice for failing to accurately record information reported by stalking victim Michelle Savage in the period leading up to her murder at her home in St Leonard’s by her ex-husband Craig Savage, who also killed Michelle’s mother Heather Whitbread.
Action in both cases has been taken in consultation with IOPC.
For information about the Sussex Police campaign in support of National Stalking Awareness Week click here.
You can report stalking or harassment online or by calling 101 or in person at your local police station. Always call 999 if you are in danger.
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Energy injustice? Cost, availability of energy-efficient lightbulbs vary with poverty levels
Study co-author Michael Reiner doing field research at a home-improvement store in Wayne County. Image credit: Ben Stacey
ANN ARBOR—Energy-efficient lightbulbs are more expensive and less available in high-poverty urban areas than in more affluent locations, according to a new University of Michigan study conducted in Wayne County.
U-M researchers explored disparities in the availability and price of energy-efficient bulbs by surveying 130 stores across Michigan’s most populous county.
They found that the cost to upgrade from a conventional incandescent bulb to a highly efficient light-emitting diode, or LED, was twice as high in the highest-poverty areas. At the same time, the price for less-efficient incandescent and halogen lamps (IHLs) decreased as the poverty level increased.
According to the authors, those disparities could lead residents of poorer neighborhoods to continue buying IHLs and thereby miss one of the simplest ways to cut home energy bills: residential lighting upgrades.
“The lightbulb price and availability patterns we found point to potential barriers to the adoption of energy-efficient lighting in higher-poverty neighborhoods,” said study lead author Tony Reames, assistant professor at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability and director of its Urban Energy Justice Lab.
“The ability to benefit from the transition to more energy-efficient lighting is not equitably distributed, and those disparities raise energy justice concerns.”
The study is scheduled to appear May 15 in the print edition of the journal Applied Energy.
In the U.S., lighting accounts for about 20 percent of the average household’s energy bill, and residential lighting is undergoing a rapid transition to increased energy efficiency. But for many households—especially the poor—the upfront costs of upgrading from an incandescent or halogen bulb to more efficient compact fluorescent lamps or LEDs is a significant barrier, the researchers say.
High-poverty neighborhoods often lack large retail chains that sell products at lower prices and are instead associated with small retailers that generally sell at higher prices, they say. And households in high-poverty areas often have less access to personal vehicles so are more dependent on the offerings of nearby stores.
In their Wayne County study, the U-M researchers looked at residential lighting prices and availability at five store types: large retail stores such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot, hardware stores, variety stores such as Family Dollar and Dollar General, pharmacies, and small retail stores such as mini marts, corner delis and liquor stores.
They surveyed stores in 18 Wayne County zip codes, stratified by the percentage of households living below the federal poverty level. They found that energy-efficient lighting availability and price varied across the county, with limited availability and higher prices disproportionately present in high-poverty areas.
Large retail stores, primarily in areas with less poverty, had the least-expensive compact fluorescent lamps and LEDs. The most expensive CFLs and LEDs were found at pharmacies and small retail stores.
In fact, none of the small retail stores in the poorest sector (40 percent or more of the households living below the federal poverty level) carried LEDs, while 92 percent of them carried less-efficient incandescent and halogen bulbs.
In the poorest areas, there was a $6.24 mean price difference between IHLs and LEDs, “a huge upfront cost in areas where 40 percent or more of the households live in poverty and roughly 27 percent do not have access to a personal vehicle,” according to the authors.
Wayne County has a population of 1.8 million. Overall, 22.4 percent of its households live below the federal poverty level. The county includes a major central city, Detroit, with surrounding affluent communities and suburbs such as the Grosse Pointe communities and the sizeable suburban cities of Dearborn, Livonia and Canton.
Co-authors of the Applied Energy paper are Michael Reiner, a graduate student at U-M’s School for Environment and Sustainability and at the College of Engineering, and M. Ben Stacey, a graduate student at the School for Environment and Sustainability and at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.
Study first published online March 7: An incandescent truth: Disparities in energy-efficient lighting availability and prices in an urban U.S. county
Tony Reames
Related news story: Replace or wait? Study says swap all incandescent bulbs now, but hold on to CFLs, older LEDs
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Livestream confirmed for performance of rare music manuscript from Auschwitz
Contact: Sydney Hawkins sydhawk@umich.edu
ANN ARBOR—University of Michigan students will give the first public performance of a foxtrot that was arranged and performed by prisoners in the Auschwitz I men’s orchestra during WWII.
The concert is the result of research by music theory professor Patricia Hall, who recently researched a music manuscript at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
Ironically titled “The Most Beautiful Time of Life” (Die Schönste Zeit des Lebens), the piece is a light foxtrot based on a song by Franz Grothe, a popular German film composer.
Over the last year, Hall has worked with music theory graduate student Joshua DeVries to transcribe the handwritten manuscript so that it could be performed by the U-M Contemporary Directions Ensemble, led by professor Oriol Sans.
According to Hall, it is likely the first time since 1943 that audiences will be able to hear the music, as very few manuscript parts from works arranged and performed at Auschwitz have survived.
The U-M Contemporary Directions Ensemble, which completed a recording of the song last month at U-M’s Duderstadt Center, will perform the work live at a free concert at 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 30, in Hankinson Hall at the E.V. Moore Building, 1100 Baits Drive, on U-M’s North Campus.
Hall will offer remarks before the performance.
In response to an overwhelming interest in the performance, a livestream of the performance will start promptly at 8 p.m. EST at this link: myumi.ch/LPw4o
The performance will be available to view after the livestream on the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance YouTube channel: myumi.ch/LBg41
Patricia Hall
U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance
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Aug 19, 2017 News Hour Correspondent -
Bangladesh squad against Australia for 1st Test announced
Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) on Saturday announced a 14-man squad for the first Test against Australia scheduled to begin on August 27 at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium (SBNCS) in the capital.
All-rounder Nasir Hossain and medium pacer Shafiul Islam were recalled to the squad while all-rounder Mahmudullah Riyad and Mominul Haque axed alongside Rubel Hossain, Kamrul Islam Rabbi and Subhashis Roy.
However, Mahmudullah and Mominul were included in the squad for the practice match.
Nasir Hossain got the call after two years since August 2015 while Shafiul Islam after October 2016.
Top order batsman Mominul Haque was dropped from the squad for the first time since his debut in March 2013 alongside senior batsman Mahmudullah, who was dropped after the first Test in Bangladesh’s tour of Sri Lanka earlier this year.
Imrul Kayes, a replacement for Mominul in the second Test in Sri Lanka, retained in the 14-man squad.
Since the end of the tour of Sri Lanka, Mahmudullah scored a match-winning hundred against New Zealand in the Champions Trophy and helped Bangladesh reach the semifinal, but his return to the Test squad based on ODI form had been unlikely.
The 14-member team of the First Test: Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Soumya Sarker, Mushfiqur Rahim (Captain), Shakib Al Hasan, Sabbir Rahman, Liton Kumar Das, Mehedi Hasan Miraz, Taijul Islam, Mustafizur Rahman, Taskin Ahmed, Mosaddek Hossain Saikat, Shafiul Islam and Nasir Hossain.
BCB also announced the squad for the two-day practice match against Australia: Members of BCB X1 are: Liton Kumar Das, Mominul Haque, Nasir Hossain, Mosaddek Hossain Saikat, Nazmul Hossain Shanta, Irfan Sukkur, Mohammad Saifuddin, Subashish Roy, Tanvir Haider, Abul Hasan Raju, Kamrul Islam Rabbi, Mahmudullah Riyad (Captain), Abu Jayed Rahi and Jubair Hossain.
Earlier, a 32-member Australian cricket team, including a 14-man Test squad, reached Dhaka on Friday night.
Steve Smith’s men will play the two-day tour match against BCB XI on August 22-23 before their Test battle.
Australia and Bangladesh will play the first Test on August 27-31 at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium (SBNCS) in Dhaka while the 2nd Test on September 4-8 at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong.
As per the Future Tours Programme (FTP), Australia were scheduled to play two Tests and a tour match in Dhaka and Chittagong in October 2015, but the tour was postponed due to security concerns.
Australia have not played in Bangladesh since Ricky Ponting’s team toured here in April 2006 and outside major tournaments, the two nations have played just two ODI series against each other in Darwin in 2008 and Dhaka in 2011.
BangladeshBangladesh Cricket BoardSports
Ioc lifts suspension of Kuwait olympic committee
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Browsing Profiling Scholarship Series by Title
Humanities Research Institute
Profiling Scholarship Series
“I Love Regina!” . . . and its “Infinite Horizons”: The Art of the Small Prairie City
Ramsay, Christine (University of Regina. Humanities Research Institute., 2010-11-12)
Christine Ramsay: "'I Love Regina'... and its 'Infinite Horizons': The Art of the Small Prairie City" Christine Ramsay is an Associate Professor in Film and Media Studies and Head of the Department of Media production and ...
The Practice of Execution in Canada
Leyton-Brown, Ken (University of Regina. Humanities Research Institute., 2010-11-12)
Ken Leyton-Brown: “The Practice of Execution in Canada”. Ken Leyton-Brown is a member of the Department of History; he teaches Legal and Ancient History. His research focuses on Canadian legal history, and emphasizes ...
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How to stop violence against women in India—it starts with training police officers
by Sunita Toor, The Conversation
From the Woman's Marches in the US to the global #MeToo campaign, the issue of women's rights has well and truly permeated society's consciousness.
But this should not disguise the fact that women's rights on a global scale – and specifically women's safety – is still very much in its infancy. Thousands of women and girls each year are victims of gender violence in India – and the most recent statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau show that crimes against women have increased 34% in the past four years.
This figure provides only a glimpse of the actual number of crimes against women and girls – as the vast majority of victims do not come forward and seek help from the police. So while the figures demonstrate a growing level of willingness by women to come forward and report these crimes, there is still a need to address how the police treat victims.
For the past two years Sheffield Hallam University's Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice has been working in India, leading a project to improve access to justice for women and girl victims of violence. Justice for Her is a collaborative effort with the Indian police across the vast and densely populated states of Delhi, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab.
Challenging perceptions
From day one the aim of the project was clear: we wanted the police to prioritise the protection of women and girls who have been victims of violence, so they could be fully supported at their most vulnerable time. And we wanted women and girls to be safe and not fear being victimised again.
Following its inception in 2016, Justice for Her developed a training programme for police officers and lawyers in India, on how they can more appropriately and effectively deal with these cases and secure justice for victims. This training involved a wide range of approaches, including role play, group discussions, lectures, simulation exercises and self-reflection workshops.
The aim was for the police to have full ownership and feel empowered and fully equipped to deliver appropriate support and protection to female victims. We brought together police officers, lawyers, NGOs, and members from civil society, encouraging them to share their experiences of dealing with female victims of crime.
We also visited all the states and met with individual stakeholders to ensure the training programme was informed by them – as well as being designed to meet victim's needs and the nuances of each state.
In Delhi, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab we met committed and enthusiastic participants, who had a genuine thirst for learning. We also met participants who needed to be challenged about their perceptions and stereotypes.
Beacons of justice
The training programme has now been successfully delivered in the four states to senior police trainers working across a range of police training academies. And also to those with a strategic remit of dealing with crimes against women.
We have changed the way police offers are trained about gender violence – with more focus on empathy, the victim and moral principles. This has helped to challenge police strategies – many of which now prioritise gender violence. And has created an empowered police force who have the ability to perform their duties more effectively – without prejudice and discrimination.
All of which is important, because if Indian citizens can see the police as beacons of justice, protection and safety – for female victims and the communities they serve – there will be fewer victims pulling out of the criminal justice system. This will in turn help to address the limited impact of the government's recent legislation to deal with violence against women and girls.
Policing India
Such has been the success of the project, the training will now be included in the curriculum for many new police recruits in the four states, as well as rolled out to existing officers in the field. This means that potentially tens of thousands of police officers will be able to better support women and girls who seek justice.
Part of the project also included senior Indian police officers coming to the UK to see how British police officers tackle gender violence. As a result, the Madhya Pradesh state police force has committed to open 51 one-stop victim support centres for women – having seen a similar model when in the UK.
These centres will provide much needed support and crucial services to female victims of violence – such as legal advice, medical attention, DNA testing, counselling. These centres will meet the needs of thousands of vulnerable women and girls every year and will undoubtedly not just change lives, but in some cases save them.
Justice for Her is a huge step forward in improving access to justice for women and girl victims of violence. But more is needed, much more. The seeds have been planted and now must be spread to other areas of India.
Researchers call for true picture of domestic violent crime
Provided by The Conversation
Citation: How to stop violence against women in India—it starts with training police officers (2018, January 23) retrieved 16 July 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2018-01-violence-women-indiait-police-officers.html
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Intro to D&D | Sherri Stoner Interview | Tom Ruegger Interview | Andrew David Barker Interview | BOTW Dragon Farming | Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire Tips & Tricks
A D&D Deep Dive into the “Eye of the Beholder” with Brian Stillman, Kelley Slagle, and Seth Polansky
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by Ed Liu
in Articles, Film, Interviews, Tabletop Games
Any longtime Dungeons & Dragons player will tell you that one key to success is bringing together the right mix of player characters to ensure maximum coverage of the interesting circumstances an adventuring party can encounter. This D&D skill crosses over into the real world, since any large-scale creative endeavor needs to do the same thing, except replacing fighters, wizards, rogues, and clerics with directors, producers, editors, and all those other people in the credits. We can see this dynamic at work with Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons & Dragons, a new documentary film that follows the evolution of the artwork of Dungeons & Dragons from its earliest origins in the 1970’s to its growing mainstream success with the 5th edition of the game. The core team behind the film also demonstrates the power of multi-classing. Brian Stillman, founder of X-Ray Films and director of Plastic Galaxy: The Story of Star Wars Toys, served as Producer, Co-Director, and Director of Photography, while the co-founders of Cavegirl Productions (coming off the film Of Dice and Men), Kelley Slagle and Seth Polansky, served as Producer, Co-Director, and Editor; and Producer, Location and Post-Production Audio, and Legal Counsel, respectively.
We were able to speak with Kelley Slagle, Brian Stillman, and Seth Plansky via e-mail about crafting Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons & Dragons.
POPGEEKS: When did you all start playing Dungeons & Dragons? Have you experienced all the ups-and-downs of D&D over the years?
BRIAN STILLMAN: I began playing back in the early 80’s, starting with 1st edition AD&D, and also the so-called “Red Box” edition of D&D. I kept playing into 2nd edition, but sort of skipped over 3rd, 3.5, and 4th. I made the jump to 5th edition when it came out a few years ago and discovered that I really, really liked it.
SETH POLANSKY: I started with 2nd edition, played through 3.5, skipped 4th edition, and came back to the fold with 5th. Skipping 4th edition was certainly due to the “downs” over the years.
KELLEY SLAGLE : I was always what I call “gamer-adjacent.” For most of my life, most of my friends were gamers. I actually didn’t start playing until during the making of our narrative feature film about role-players, Of Dice and Men.
(left to right) Kelley Slagle, Brian Stillman, and Seth Polansky at GenCon 2018
BRIAN STILLMAN: I was definitely paying attention as D&D grew in the 80’s and early 90’s, with the increase in novels, the launching of the LJN toy line, and the cartoon. But I also saw when the popularity started to wane in the early 2000’s or so. I never could have predicted how D&D would bounce back and totally take off like it’s done today. Seeing the explosion in the game’s popularity has been amazing. It’s really great that so many people are discovering it.
POPGEEKS: How exactly did your partnership form?
BRIAN STILLMAN: I had the idea to make a movie about D&D art after getting back into the game. I was just coming off of releasing Plastic Galaxy: The Story of Star Wars Toys, and I thought it’d be fun to work with Seth and Kelley, who I’d met and become friends with when we were all screening our films at a convention in Maryland. I knew they were gamers and I loved their movie, Of Dice and Men. I thought it’d be fun to collaborate.
It worked out really well. Kelley and I co-directed Eye of the Beholder. I shot it, Kelley edited it. Seth, our production partner, handled both location- and post-production audio. To top it off, he’s also an intellectual property and contracts lawyer, so he handled the legal stuff. In the end we were able to handle key production and post-production duties in-house. It saved us a fortune and gave us a lot of control over the finished product. Plus, to be perfectly honest, it was a hell of a lot of fun working together.
POPGEEKS: Brian, you had mentioned in an interview for Plastic Galaxy that Lucasfilm wasn’t involved with that project. Did you get to work with Wizards of the Coast on this project?
BRIAN STILLMAN: We reached out to Wizards of the Coast through their parent company, Hasbro, and were told that they weren’t interested in participating in the movie. They didn’t indicate having any problems or concerns with us making it, but they declined to be part of it. It wasn’t a big problem for us; most of the people we wanted to interview were either freelancers or no longer worked for the company.
POPGEEKS: As a personal anecdote, I loved the art in the D&D books when I was a kid (starting with AD&D), but it wasn’t until about a year ago that I realized I had never known who the artists were after I picked up an Art of Dragon Magazine hardcover book on a lark. Were you an ignorant/oblivious kid like I was, or were you always paying attention to the credits and signatures? Do you think there’s more awareness today of the artists behind the art in D&D and comparable fantasy RPGs?
SETH POLANSKY: I was completely oblivious to the artists. When Brian approached us about the film, it was an eye-opening experience to say the least. I hadn’t really considered how absolutely integral the art is to the game.
BRIAN STILLMAN: I was always aware of who the artists were, and I always had my favorites. Back then, they were not only credited on the title page of the books and modules, but they also had their signatures on the art. I would see a strange “-D-” or “DSL” or “DAT” or “DCSIII” and figure out who they were — Jeff Dee, Diesel LaForce, Dave Trampier, and David C. Sutherland III, respectively. Names like the Roslofs, Keith Parkinson, Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Clyde Caldwell, Brom — they became symbols of quality. My friends and I debated who we thought was best, and our answers usually changed weekly.
I’m not sure kids today are as aware of who the artists are. Some names stand out, definitely, but D&D no longer uses a “bullpen” of in-house artists, so it’s a little harder to associate someone with the game the way you could in the past.
On the other hand, Magic: The Gathering players really know their artists. Every card has the artists’ names printed on it, and that’s helped people learn who’s who. I think that’s done a lot to give these newer artists the recognition they deserve.
POPGEEKS: The big Art & Arcana D&D art book and your movie came out in relatively close proximity to each other. Did you cross paths or trade notes with the authors of the book while you were working on your respective projects?
BRIAN STILLMAN: We’d just started shooting Eye of the Beholder when we met Michael Witwer, one of the Art & Arcana authors. It was right before he started working on the Art & Arcana project, and we became friendly. Then, moving forward, as we all worked on our respective projects, we stayed in touch, talking at conventions or online. We’d chat a little about the projects, but we never traded notes or anything like that.
We love that book, their whole team did such an amazing job with it. I always tell people that to get a really accurate picture of this stuff, check out both our movie and Art & Arcana. We overlap in some areas, but each goes in different directions. I think between us we cover all the bases.
Artist Larry Elmore
POPGEEKS: Were there any artists that you wanted to include in the movie and just couldn’t get the scheduling to work out with? Or was there any specific artist where you found your sense of journalistic neutrality challenged by your inner fan?
BRIAN STILLMAN: I’ve been a professional journalist for about 20 years, working in both print and broadcast, and covering everything from the arts to hard news. Staying neutral when covering stuff is important. But the nice thing about a project like this is that you can go in biased. We knew from the outset that we were creating a movie celebrating this art and these artists. So there wasn’t a concern about our fandom getting in the way.
There were a lot of artists we couldn’t get, mostly because they didn’t get back to us when we reached out. In a couple of cases, we didn’t learn how to find particular artists until it was too late to include them. And eventually we had to draw a line about reaching out to more artists because we didn’t want to overstuff the movie. You come to a point in a project like this where more names doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll do a better job of telling the story. In fact, you run the risk of doing the film a disservice by having people fly by without saying much at all. It’s a constant balancing act.
POPGEEKS: What was the most surprising thing you learned about D&D while you were making the film?
KELLEY SLAGLE : We went into the movie knowing the gist of the story after doing some general research. But there were always weird little facts that would pop up and surprise us. One of our favorite stories is about Jack Fred. Jack Fred wasn’t a real artist, he was a character created by Larry Elmore and used whenever Elmore, and then some of the other artists, were forced to release a painting they felt didn’t live up to their standards. So today, if you see a painting that isn’t quite great, check to see if maybe it was painted by Jack Fred.
POPGEEKS: Do you think Eye of the Beholder would have found the funding it needed if not for Kickstarter? How would you say that Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general has changed what you can do as a documentary filmmaker?
KELLEY SLAGLE : We paid for the pre-production and production costs ourselves, and then later we were reimbursed by the Kickstarter campaign. There’s a chance we would have been able to entirely self-fund Eye of the Beholder, but the post-production process would have been more difficult and it would have taken longer to complete. Crowdfunding allows you to quickly and directly reach the fans who want to see your movie made, accelerating your ability to finish your film.
Artist Christopher Burdett showing how he models for his own art
POPGEEKS: There’s a lot of stuff that people thought was weird when I was a kid, like D&D and sci-fi/fantasy fiction and superhero comic books. Now, all those things are completely mainstream pop culture. What do you think accounts for that shift in mindset among the population? And how do you think that growth in popularity has changed the nature of the art of D&D specifically, for better or for worse?
SETH POLANSKY: The people who are making these games (and the people who are making video games and board games) grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons. D&D has influenced so many of these other pop culture phenomena. I think it’s forced Wizards of the Coast to step up their game and include more fresh and interesting pieces of art in the products. And I believe that’s a good thing for the industry.
BRIAN STILLMAN: The shift in D&D’s art in response to popular influences isn’t anything new. In the 70’s, when mainstream book stores started carrying the game, the 1st edition cover art by Dave Trampier and David C. Sutherland was replaced by Jeff Easley paintings. TSR wanted to compete with the paintings on the covers of popular fantasy novels. The art continued to evolve over the decades as tastes shifted and trends came and went. It’s a natural progression and I think it keeps the art vital.
POPGEEKS: Are you already working on your next project, or is there anything else that you’d like to plug or keep an eye out for after Eye of the Beholder comes out?
KELLEY SLAGLE : We have another gaming-related documentary we’re working on, but it’s in the early stages. We hope it’ll have as much appeal as Eye of the Beholder is having.
Thanks to Brian Stillman, Kelley Slagle, and Seth Polansky for talking with us. Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons & Dragons will be available digitally (on iTunes, Google, Xbox, Vimeo, Amazon, Vudu, Comcast, Cox, Spectrum, and more) and on home video formats on May 14, 2019. For more details about the film, check out the trailer (embedded above), the film’s official website, or on social media at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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Work-related: final points pic for a while
Different angle, bigger picture, but it's more or less the same stuff we've been seeing all along. Probably not going to be posting these for a while now, until there's some kind of noticeable change in color or number or something.
We do still have a few that haven't really bloomed yet; some of the plants in the foreground have been close enough to the entrance into the store (which is sort of behind and to the right of me, in this picture) that the lights from the store kept them from getting long enough nights, so they're lagging behind everybody else. Also one of the cultivars (Cortez Burgundy) seems to just be slower in general. But this is basically the shot we've been working to get for the last month.
Click the picture for the full 2816 x 2112 px shot. It'd make a good jigsaw puzzle, no?
Labels: Euphorbia, work-related
Random plant event: Hibiscus acetosella 'Brown Sugar' buds
My wonderful co-worker1 has one of these at home, I guess, which she took a bunch of cuttings from in the spring, and brought in to root and sell. Then, I guess, spring happened, and was busy, and so they never actually got put out to sell even though they apparently rooted pretty easily.
Then this fall, she found the tag that went with the original plant, which identified the particular variety (Hibiscus acetosella 'Brown Sugar') but also noted that it was a patented variety, and was consequently illegal to propagate and sell. Which meant we had 32 small pots of this plant sitting around, and there wasn't anything we could really do with them. They're not a hardy variety that could be planted outside just to be decorative, we couldn't sell them, and there was way too much of it there for any one of us to take it home as a houseplant. (Plus, wonderful co-worker2 has more plants than I do, and isn't necessarily looking to get more of them, and especially not more of something she already has.)
So I wound up taking four of these home, and potted them together. WCW had told me before I did so that this particular variety wasn't all that satisfactory to her anyway, that it had a serious tendency toward legginess, and it wasn't a strong flowerer either, so pretty much the foliage was all there was to get excited about. Which was fine with me. I like foliage.
But now: buds.
I have no real idea what to expect. The plants at work (granted, a different species and all that) like to sit on their buds without doing anything at all3 for extended periods, before the flower actually forms. So there could still be a lot of time for things to go wrong here. But nevertheless, it looks like I've got two stems with three pending flowers apiece, which seems like a lot, for as small as it is, and not being a strong flowerer. There will be updates, of course, and pictures, eventually.
Just in case anybody was wondering: I'm not actually intending "random plant event" to mean "something just flowered" every time I use it. It's just that that's what all the recent plant events have been.
Photo credits: me.
1 (Still not sarcasm.)
2 (Henceforth, "WCW," because that's a lot to type otherwise.)
3 (I myself like to sit around on my bud for a while when I get home from work.) (People say they don't like puns, but I choose not to believe this.)
Labels: Hibiscus, random plant event
Femme Fatale (Calathea ornata)
Let me be up-front about this. This is not an easy plant to grow indoors. Not an incredibly easy plant outdoors, either, though that's going to depend somewhat on where you find yourself when you open your doors, I suppose.
I can't even pretend to be unbiased about this one: I don't consider it an indoor plant at all, period, full stop. Now I know there are people out there who are going to read this and say, but I've had one for fifteen years, growing beautifully, and it's never given me a lick of trouble.1 And to you I tip my hat and say a sincere and slightly envious "Congratulations." But no way, not outside of a terrarium. Or, now that I think about it, not inside a terrarium either. I do not like them in a house.2
Okay, okay, mr_subjunctive, you think they're too difficult to grow indoors, we get it already. What's your problem?
See, the thing is, Calathea ornata kinda broke my heart, once upon a time. It was about a year ago, when I was much younger and as naïve as an egg. The latest round of plant obsession was just getting cranked up – and then I saw her. She stood out like a gun on a jailhouse floor. Roots a mile long, and stems that let you know she'd sell her own mother for a Hershey bar. Face all painted up in pink-white stripes, she was looking for someone that evening. She was looking for me.
I drifted over to her and looked her over. She was into me too; I could feel it. It felt like that rush you get when all the cards are coming up your way and there's a nice little pile of chips on the table.
"Buy you a drink?" I asked.
She turned slightly pinker before answering, "20-10-15." I signaled the bartender to bring us a couple glasses.
"I'd never ask you to trust me," I said, "but I'm gonna be going back to my place later, and it would look so much better with you in it."
She gave me a look as sharp as an Agave with a machete. "Maybe you shouldn't trust me, either. How do you know you can make me happy?"
"Maybe I can do something for you that other men can't."
She thought about it. "Maybe. I might have a job for you, if you're interested."
"I'm interested. Tell me."
"Maybe later. Let's see your place." Something smelled hinky, but a man could get lost in leaves that beautiful. Who am I, Saint Subjunctive? I took her home.
We had a beautiful night together, then another. Every time I asked about this job of hers, she said, "maybe later," and asked me to breathe on her again. Or water her. Or clean off her leaves. It was always something. Finally, after a couple weeks of this, she told me about the job. A gang of spider mites had been giving her a hard time, and she wanted me to make them go away. Far, far away. To China, to the ocean floor, to the moon. She didn't know where they were right that minute, though. I put on my hat and went out to track them down.
I saw a speck of dust here, the glint of webbing there, but as soon as I got close, the mites disappeared into the shadows and alleys. I began to doubt my own senses. What was I really seeing? Were there any spider mites at all? Meanwhile, I could no sooner get into the office but the phone would ring: it'd be her, of course, wanting to know if I'd caught the mooks. Then when I said so, she'd ask me to come over to her place. I need water, I'm too cold, I'm too wet, I need your sweet, sweet carbon dioxide. We went on like this for days. There was always some little bit of care she needed, just one more thing that I had to do and then she'd feel all right. But she never felt alright, and I wasn't making any progress on the mites. Some of my other plants were feeling neglected. I had to draw the line somewhere.
"Look," I said to her one night. "I've got you set up with plenty of water, there's no drafts or vents for miles around, you got your aquarium here to give you humidity, there's a huge bright window right over there, and still you're always tearing yourself apart, throwing leaves at me, telling me it's not enough. I can't do this anymore. Either you learn to take care of yourself, or we're through."
Dame was hysterical. (Dames usually are.) "You can't just throw me out there to fend for myself! The mites will eat me alive!"
"Pull yourself together!" I said. "The mites are all in your head!"
"No, they're real! Real, I tell you! They'll suck me dry!" Her beautiful leaves flexed up and down like she was trying to fly away.
"If they're real, why haven't I seen them?"
"I don't know! Maybe because you're not a very good P.I.!" I put on my hat and headed for the door. "No, wait, I didn't mean that! Come back!"
That was the last time I saw her alive and well. The next time we met up, she was neither, covered in spider mites, spotlit by a fluorescent light in my bathroom like an angel. A cracked, dry, dull-colored angel with bent stems, covered in webbing. As I gently lifted her into a garbage bag and heaved her in the dumpster, I vowed to her that I would get revenge on those damned spider mites if it was the last thing I did. I haven't been able to look at another Calathea since then.
Epilogue: A few of the details have been changed, here: there were actually two plants, they only lasted about 2 months, and there was never a honeymoon period where things were okay: it was all downhill from the moment I brought them home. I never did figure out what, specifically, went wrong, but the list of possible suspects is huge: too hot, too cold (it was Oct-Dec last year, so cold is a strong contender), too wet (soil), too dry (soil), too dry (air), high soluble salts in the soil, too much light, too little light, fluoride toxicity, heavy soil. Even now, after a year of fairly intense study of plants (at GW and elsewhere), I have no idea where it all went wrong, but I suspect that my first mistake was bringing them home. Not going to happen again. Never ever ever. One true bit: the leaves did raise and lower by a noticeable amount, which I knew Marantas did that but I didn't know that Calatheas would also.
Photo credit: me.
1 Why is the standard unit of measurement for trouble "licks?" Was licking stuff generally more dangerous in the past or something? When did this happen?
2(I do not like them with a mouse. I will not grow them in a box; I will not grow them with a fox. Etc.)
Labels: Calathea, plant profile
LOLSpath
I know these aren't everyone's taste. (Not that anybody's complained -- I just know they're not.) But this one, when I saw how it turned out, actually did make me chuckle a little. So I hope everyone will be willing to indulge me from time to time.
(Explanation of lolcats, from which these derive, was here.)
Labels: LOLplant, LOLspaths, Spathiphyllum
Landlord (Aechmea fasciata)
If you're reading this (and apparently you are), you probably already know a thing or two about bromeliads. For example, you probably know that most of them are grown for their pretty spectacular flowers1. You might know that most of them are epiphytes, and grow on tree branches in the wild, not in soil. You probably know that pineapples are bromeliads, and that they're one of the exceptions to the epiphyte thing.
But you may not already be aware that they're also a convenient place for some creatures to lay their eggs. The center of the plant collects rainwater, and also organic debris from higher up in the tree (dead insects, bird droppings, fallen leaves), which serves as a stable supply of water and fertilizer for the growing plant. Mosquitoes need stable pools of water in which to lay eggs, so bromeliads are a natural and convenient place for them to go. (Sometimes, apparently, they hover over the water and drop eggs in from above, even.) Certain kinds of mosquitoes apparently don't lay eggs anywhere else. Some beetles do likewise.
Frogs, too, need water for their tadpoles, and the best kind of water, from a frog's perspective, is water that's not already full of tadpole-eating fish and other predators. So they join up, too. The brightly-colored poison arrow frogs are the most famous tenants, but there are others.
The strawberry poison-dart frog, Oophaga pumilio, "blue jeans" morph.
But don't go thinking that this sort of thing only happens in the wild. Here is a video describing a bromeliad-facilitated invasion of tree frogs ( Eleutherodactylus coqui, common name "coquí:" it's native to Puerto Rico but has spread to other areas, and has become a severe invasive pest in Hawaii2) in the biology department greenhouse at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. I advise my readers to skip the comments. 3 The high point of the video for our purposes is the part where the greenhouse manager shows the camera an Aechmea fasciata in some detail.
Special thanks to the Invasive Species Weblog, kept by Dr. Jennifer Foreman Orth, for linking to the video in the first place. You'll be seeing plenty of links to ISW in the future. Why? Because it's important.
But should I say something about the plant itself? I probably should. Well, they're great, actually. It's difficult to find one in stores that's not in bloom (though we have some at work right now), and that's a complication, because they die after flowering. The dying can take over a year, though (I've had my mother plant for almost exactly a year, and it's still very much alive, still kicking out offsets, though I killed the last two, alas. The one pictured above is an offset, or "pup," from the one I bought. I don't know how long it had been in the store, in flower, when I bought it, but I know it was at least three months, and very probably six), during which time it will offset. Pups can be removed and planted up by themselves when they're of substantial size (the rule of thumb I usually see is, they can be removed when they're about one-third the height of the mother: I don't know whether this is actually a hard and fast rule or if it's just something people say.). Precisely how many pups a plant may produce before it kicks is variable, but my Aechmea fasciata has thus far tried three times, with a fourth in progress at the moment.
Pup #4
Care is a piece of cake, though.
Light: The books say bright indirect light with no sun; mine haven't seemed to mind some filtered sunlight.
Feeding: Feeding is a bit tricky, in that feeding is generally done directly into the vase ('cause, remember, you're trying to imitate tadpole poop) at greatly reduced strength. Feeding the roots is fine, too, and foliar feeding (spraying a fertilizer solution directly onto leaves) is also popular. However you do it, remember to go easy on the feeding. We're trying to simulate tadpole poop, not elephant poop. More is not better. 4 Aechmea does have a higher than standard requirement for magnesium, though this is probably not worth going out of your way to supplement, if you're growing a plant at home for your own enjoyment.
Water: The vase does not have to be full of water at all times, and in fact some growers advise against putting water in there ever, in interior situations. If you do keep water in it, remember to rinse it periodically, to keep mineral deposits, fertilizer, algae, etc., from building up and disfiguring the leaves. I personally do keep water in the vase of my plants . . . when I remember to. They don’t seem to notice whether I do or don't.
Soil: Use a barky, woody mix, with osmunda fiber and perlite or sphagnum or something in there that can hold some water. But there's no need to get carried away with the specialness of the occasion. My own plants are in the usual potting mix I use for everything; lots of perlite in a peaty kind of Miracle Gro base, with random bits of other stuff (sand, bark, gravel) floating around in there. It's not good for starting offsets, I've learned the hard way (too wet, not enough roots), and wouldn't actually be what I'd recommend for other people to use, but since the plants seem happy, I'm not inclined to make any drastic changes. If and when I need to repot, or when I take off that fourth offset, I might change the soil, though, having recently had the importance of good soil impressed upon me.
Temperature: The books advise against letting Aechmea fasciata go below 50ºF (10ºC); cold will cause dead spots to form on leaves and other kinds of badness.
If all that sounds complicated, it's really not that bad. Getting a plant to bloom is sort of a circus, potentially, and I don't really want to get into it here and now, but it should be mostly a matter of time. Plants are generally ready to flower when they're about three years old, though they may or may not do so. Growers have ways to force flowers early, when plants are about a year and a half old, but this isn't really practical for home growers. And besides, what's your hurry?
Photo credits: Aechmea fasciata, me;
strawberry poison-dart frog, "pstevendactylus" at the abovelinked Wikipedia entry;
pup, me again.
1(More correctly, their inflorescences. The individual flowers are nothing special, but the massing of them together, and the brightly-colored bracts, are what make them a big deal.)
2 If this seems familiar, it's because we've seen it before. I kind of get the impression that it's always a bad idea to bring a new species to Hawaii.
3(In fact, as a matter of general policy, it's almost always a good idea to skip the comments at YouTube, which seem to invariably degenerate into racism and homophobia and dumbass macho posturing regardless of the subject matter of the video. The consistency is remarkable and mind-blowing and possibly a little admirable, even – imagine if this single-mindedness were used for good instead of evil! – but a little goes a long way.)
4 More is almost never better. Err on the side of starving your plants, as a rule. Too much food will cause bizarre growth, dead roots, burned leaf tips, and other problems, like death.
Labels: Aechmea, plant profile
Work-related: beginning to look a lot like Christmas
We sold our first points on November 5; since then, they're not exactly flying out the door, but they're beginning to mosey, at least. Which I take it is how it's supposed to be. We've hit full color on a few varieties, and all of them are showing color of some kind or another. It turns out that the angle I chose for pictures isn't ideal for demonstrating this: all the most impressive flowers are at the opposite end of the greenhouse, way in the back of this picture, and just show up as kind of a red scum on the sea of green, but oh well.
Going into work this morning (12 Nov), I'm expecting my day to revolve almost entirely around rearranging the points. The boss says they're still too crowded (which she's been saying since they got here: it may well be true, but I'm a little unclear on what I'm supposed to do about it. I can't create more tables, and I can't make the plants smaller1, so I somehow have to make there be fewer plants, I guess, and move some of them into the already somewhat crowded main greenhouse. This promises to be a good time.
1(Well, I could, but nobody would like what I'd have to do to them to make that happen.)
Random plant event: Chamaedorea seifrizii flowers
For some reason, both of the bamboo palms (Chamaedorea seifrizii) at work have flowered recently. Maybe they do this every year and I just never noticed when I was a customer. Maybe it's special. Don't know. But in any event, it was my first time to see these particular flowers, so I took pictures, which I pass on to you.
The first two pictures, in particular, are clearer if you click on them to enlarge.
The overall situation.
Closer view.
Close-up.
These are only pictures of one of the two plants; the other one is in a less photographable spot. The only big difference between the two of them is that the color of the seeds, or pods, or whatever those things are, on the other, is roughly the color of blueberries.
I'm not sure if one being purplish-blue and the other being bluish-green (the stalks are bright orange in both cases) means that one is fertile and the other isn't, or if it's just an artifact of the different care they got (purple-blue gets less light, and was less hot this summer, and probably also gets watered more often).
The purple-blue one also dropped a lot of fronds recently, which the books tell me is normal, and thought to be the plant's way of making it easier for pollinators to get to the flower. The blue-green one has so far held on to all its fronds, which might mean it has more faith in the pollinators.
EDITED: Changed Chamaedorea erumpens to Chamaedorea seifrizii, which appears to be the more dominant name for this species.
Labels: Chamaedorea, random plant event
Random plant event: Hibiscus acetosella 'Brown Sug...
Work-related: beginning to look a lot like Christm...
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SOUNDS AROUND TOWN: Amanda Maffei continues to live the musical life
By Ed Symkus, Correspondent
There wasn’t much doubt that music would be an important part in Amanda Maffei’s life. Growing up in Marblehead, she and her four siblings all took music lessons; her grandfather played banjo and guitar for, among many situations, the original Broadway production of “The Sound of Music,” Kate Smith, and various radio shows; her mom played a bit of piano, but sang all the time, “really strong and really off key, but it was glorious because she loved it,” recalled Maffei, laughing.
Maffei started as a singer, belting out “Born Free” at a first-grade talent show (“I think it went well; no one left.”). When she was 6, her parents noticed her picking out notes on a piano, so music lessons began. Over the years she picked up flute, guitar, accordion, and pennywhistle. By 15 she was writing songs.
Maffei, now a Hopkinton resident, will be singing some of her own tunes, accompanied by some major local players – Stan Strickland on reeds, Brad Hatfield on piano and other keyboards, Jim Gwin on drums, Jesse Williams on bass, Larry Luddecke on B3 organ and percussion, and Jamison Williams on cello – at Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham on June 10. The gig is to celebrate the release of her new CD “Both Sides Now,” which features a cover of the popular Joni Mitchell ballad and a batch of new and old Maffei originals.
It’s only the second CD by Maffei, after 1998’s “Just Landing.” Now 58, with lots of solo performing as well as working with bands on her résumé, her only excuse for not having done more recording is something along the lines of life, and a teaching career, getting in the way, even though she never totally stepped away from the music.
“Part of my aura right now is that this is the time to treat it like an acorn and use this CD as a springing off point,” she said. “I’ve always done a lot of different things. There was a lot of personal work going on, but I was also doing a lot of open mics.”
She was already doing open mics when she was 14, playing at the Me & Thee Coffeehouse in Marblehead, and at junior high and high school talent shows.
“The band thing started during high school,” she said. “But that was mainly in the summer. When I was in my 20s, I was the lead singer with some Top 40 bands.”
So, it was back and forth between the intimate singer-songwriter presentations and working in bands. Not surprisingly, Maffei’s influences varied. She lists James Taylor, Carole King, and Joni Mitchell, then goes on to include Michael Jackson.
“Well, the young Michael Jackson,” she pointed out. “I used to go in our living room after school and close the door, put on his records, stand there, as if I was performing, and do his songs. I know some of his albums by heart.”
Another major influence, much more recently, was studying with local singer-songwriter legend Vance Gilbert.
“I was at the 2014 New England Regional Folk Alliance gathering, and Vance was doing a performing workshop there,” said Maffei. “I kind of drank in what he was doing, and began studying with him. I initially thought it was going to be about performing, but it turned into songwriting. And he really did change some of what I was doing. For a long time, I wrote songs, and I’d go back and edit them, but not a lot. I figured, that’s a good song, and they were good songs. But he called me to the mat, and said, ‘You serve the song, and you serve the audience, you don’t serve yourself.’ He would listen to a song and would hear something I hadn’t heard, and tell me about it, and I’d realize, ‘You’re right, that part is weak.’ He got me to work on really making the lyrics shine more.”
Maffei is currently studying with another local legend, singer-songwriter-storyteller Don White.
“I’m working with Don more from a performing perspective,” she said. “He’s helping me with banter, with the material, and with what you say in between songs.”
What she’ll be singing and bantering about at Amazing Things will mostly be the songs from “Both Sides Now.”
“Four of the songs on the album – ‘Barefoot on the Moon,’ ‘Float on My Ocean,’ ‘I Love You More,’ and ‘Metro’ – are older ones that I’m reinterpreting now,” she said. “The others are all fairly new, all of them written over the past five years
Amanda Maffei and her band play at Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham on June 10 at 4 p.m. Tickets: $18; seniors, $17; students/kids, $9. Info: 508-405-2787.
Upcoming concerts and club dates
June 9:
BoDeans present what they’re billing as stripped-down versions of BoDeans classics at City Winery in Boston. (9 p.m.)
Singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier is at Club Passim in Cambridge. (5 & 8 p.m.)
Cheryl Wheeler returns with songs and stories to Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham. Lisa Bastoni opens. (8 p.m.)
Worcester-based husband and wife duo The Promise Is Hope (Ashley & Eric L'Esperance) have a CD release gig for “Every Seed Must Die” at Club Passim in Cambridge. (7 p.m.)
Tokyo Tramps rock out, along with Jody Moore, Billy Connors Project, and Club Linehan A Go Go at Midway Café in Jamaica Plain. (4 p.m.)
Backup singer-turned lead singer Lisa Fischer visits the Wilbur in Boston. (7 p.m.)
Cowboy rockers Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore join forces for a duo show at City Winery in Boston (7 p.m.)
Newfoundland singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Keith Murphy has a CD release show for “Land of Fish and Seals” at The Burren in Somerville. (7:30 p.m.)
The Rockin’ Chairs, a recently formed band of guys that have been playing for decades, do some good, old-fashioned rock from the ’50s at Paddy’s Pub in West Newton. (8 p.m.)
The Dickies celebrate 40 years as a band at the Middle East Down in Cambridge. The Queers, Duck & Cover, and Cook Bag open. (8 p.m.)
Combining Western swing with Gypsy jazz the veteran trio Hot Club of Cowtown comes to City Winery in Boston. (8 p.m.)
Contemporary folk duo Goodnight Moonshine plays a CD release set at Club Passim in Cambridge. (8 p.m.)
Folk hero John Prine sings songs from his new album “The Tree of Forgiveness” at the Wang Theatre in Boston. Peter Wolf opens. (8 p.m.)
Three decades into their career, power pop band The Posies come to Once Ballroom in Somerville. Scarlet Sails open. (9 p.m.)
Brilliant electric and acoustic guitarist Al Di Meola plays at the Wilbur in Boston. (8 p.m.)
Boston singer-songwriter Joel Jerome performs selections from his debut album “Fall to Pieces” at The Burren in Somerville. (7 p.m.)
Organist/pianist Bruce Katz and his band play blues and jazz at the Regattabar in Cambridge. (7:30 p.m.)
Ed Symkus can be reached at esymkus@rcn.com.
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Univision Deportes To Rebrand As TUDN
By Lance Venta On Jul 8, 2019
Univision will rebrand its multi-platform Spanish Sports Univision Deportes as TUDN on Saturday, July 20.
Standing for “Tú Deportes Network” or “Your Sports Network”, the rebranding follows a partnership with Grupo Televisa to expand the platform into Mexico. The move will also effect the company’s Univision Deportes Radio network whose programming is heard on Univision AMs in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and McAllen as well as on SiriusXM’s streaming app. With the upcoming demise of the competing ESPN Deportes Radio, the network could be in line to add some additional affiliates.
Univision Communications Inc., the leading Hispanic media company in the U.S., will relaunch its multi-platform sports media brand and leading cable sports network as ‘TUDN’ on Saturday, July 20. Extending across Univision’s robust linear, audio and digital portfolio, TUDN will deliver more live soccer than any other U.S. media brand while offering viewers a richer and more engaging experience than ever before.
Built to serve the most passionate fútbol fanáticos in North America, the TUDN brand identity signals to viewers that this is “Your Sports Network.” The tagline, “Vivimos TU Pasión,” translates to “We Live Your Passion.”
On July 20, the nation’s No. 1 Spanish-language sports network – currently known as Univision Deportes Network – will become the 24-hour television home of TUDN in the U.S. The network will bring together the top sports programming, talent and production capabilities from the U.S. and Mexico through a collaboration with Grupo Televisa, which is simultaneously debuting the TUDN brand in Mexico. Studio programming on the new joint network will broadcast live and original content from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. daily, ensuring fresh content with up-to-the-minute news, analysis and opinion.
The launch on July 20 coincides with the opening weekend of the 2019 Torneo Apertura for Liga MX, the most-watched soccer league in the U.S. TUDN’s debut telecast will feature a doubleheader on the long-standing Sábado Futbolero franchise, with Club América taking on Monterrey at 8 p.m. ET and Necaxa hosting Cruz Azul at 9:55pm. As part of launch week, TUDN will also deliver the first-ever matches from the inaugural Leagues Cup, a new annual competition between Liga MX and Major League Soccer debuting this month, on July 23-24. Univision is the official Spanish-language broadcast partner for this event in the U.S.
“Upon its debut, TUDN will be the largest Spanish-language sports media brand in the world,” said Juan Carlos Rodriguez, President of Sports for Univision and Televisa. “With a bold new content slate built around live programming and the best team of experts in the industry, this new powerhouse identity will resonate with fútbol fanáticos throughout North America and raise the bar for coverage of the world’s most beloved sport.”
MULTI-PLATFORM PRESENCE
In addition to the 24-hour cable sports network, the TUDN brand will also extend to sports telecasts on other Univision networks, including Univision Network, UniMás and Galavisión.
Under the TUDN banner, Univision will continue to deliver more live soccer than any other media company in the U.S. The TUDN live rights portfolio in the U.S., which is projected to account for more than half of all soccer viewership in the country this year, includes Liga MX, Liga MX Femenil, Major League Soccer, the Mexican men’s and women’s national teams, the U.S. men’s and women’s national teams, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, CONCACAF Champions League, Copa MX and Bundesliga. TUDN will also be the home of Euro 2020 next summer.
In addition to television, the TUDN brand will reach sports fans in the U.S. through the nationwide TUDN Radio Network, the TUDN channel on SiriusXM, the TUDN mobile app and TUDN.com. Visitors to the website and app will find Spanish-language news, analysis, scores, highlights and schedules, as well as live streaming capabilities for authenticated TUDN subscribers.
Lance Venta
Lance Venta is the Owner and Publisher of RadioInsight.com and a consultant for RadioBB Networks specializing in integration of radio and the internet. Lance has two decades of experience tracking the audio industry and its use of digital platforms.
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Archives For america’s next top model
INTERVIEW: Rita Ora On Award Shows, TV Hosting And New Music
Not only is Rita Ora in a good place, it sounds like her peers are as well.
“Everyone’s just being really nice to each other and it feels really good,” the “Your Song” singer said in an interview that aired on my show Monday. “Everyone just shows so much support. It feels like we have a little community going on, which I like.”
The comments were a response to my observation of watching Ora’s interaction with Vanessa Hudgens and Drake backstage at the Billboard Music Awards in May. There were no cameras around as the entertainers exchanged pleasantries.
“I mean I’ve known some people in this industry since I was like 18, so it’s nice to just see people do their ‘thang,’” Ora continued. “My mom always taught me to be nice, to be respectful, and then you’ll get it back.
“And if not, then we can take it outside!” the 26 year-old joked.
With the way in which tabloids cover the London-native across the pond, it’s inevitable that Ora sometimes finds her name linked to stories that aren’t so respectful. That does not seem to have affected her disposition negatively; but she’s clearly cognizant of the coverage. This was evident in Ora’s reaction when I mentioned that she spent last summer filming “America’s Next Top Model” down the street from me.
“So I was annoying you then basically,” she retorted, semi-kidding I think. “There were loads of paparazzi. You must have been so angry at me.”
For the record, I wasn’t inconvenienced at all; however the same can’t be said for the people who lived next door to the models’ townhouse. Regardless of its downfalls, Ora is still thankful that she gets to do what she loves.
“I’m an entertainer, yunno?” she responded when I asked about her venture in to TV hosting. She’s currently the host of ABC’s competition “Boy Band.” “I think every time I’ve done a TV (show) it’s been the right timing; like the opportunity came the same time as my music coming out and I just felt like it was perfect to be visible on multiple platforms.”
Ora’s new single, co-written by Ed Sheeran, is called “Your Song” and is available now. Her new album is slated for a fall release. She revealed that the LP is “kind of done” and is in the mastering and mixing phase.
In 2017 Billboard Music Awards, audio, interview #WWOBackstage, abc, america's next top model, Boy Band, drake, Ed Sheeran, Rita Ora, Upper West Side, vanessa hudgens
INTERVIEW: Model Dishes On Upper West Side ‘ANTM’ Parties
Sure I was in Los Angeles covering The 59th GRAMMYs, but that didn’t stop me from making some headlines in my local neighborhood’s blog.
I’m a big fan of Westside Rag if for nothing else, it keeps me updated on the latest openings and closings in the area, and that alone is a lot to track in this day-and-age of Gotham. Recently, I read on the site about complaints regarding noisy neighbors just blocks from my apartment.
These weren’t just any neighbors though; they were cast members from the latest season of “America’s Next Top Model.”
So when recently-eliminated contestant Paige Mobley stopped by our backstage broadcast inside LA’s Staples Center, well I felt compelled to bring these rumors to her. And I was surprised to hear her response.
Check the interview below and the WSR write-up here.
In interview, rrs video, The 59th Annual GRAMMY Awards, WWOBackstage america's next top model, Gray's Papaya, models, Paige Mobley, partying, Rita Ora, Upper West Side, vh1, Westside Rag
Mike Posner, Daya, Dua Lipa And Many More Stop By : The 59th GRAMMYs Day 2
So great to see a couple of current and possibly future GRAMMY nominees on my second day here in Los Angeles and our first day inside Staples Center for Westwood One’s Backstage at The GRAMMYs. I asked Mike Posner and Daya about the big day plus met Dua Lipa. Also, we chatted about a couple neighborhoods in Manhattan when “America’s Next Top Model” contestant Paige Mobley and singer/songwriter Max stopped by.
In audio, interview, photos, Red Carpet Radio, rrs video, The 59th Annual GRAMMY Awards, WWOBackstage #WWOBackstage, america's next top model, Daya, Dua Lipa, Hell's Kitchen, Julia Michaels, los angeles, Max, mike posner, nash overstreet, Nick Hissom, Olivia O'Brien, Paige Mobley, Staples Center, Starley, Upper West Side
you wanna be america’s next top model?
let the superficial-ness and eating disorders commence here…
open audition:
11:00a-2:00p
Clementon Park & Splash World
144 Berlin Rd
Clementon, NJ 08021
In Uncategorized america's next top model, new jersey, philadelphia, tyra banks
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Political spectrum
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Political spectrum could use some help. Please research the article's assertions. Whatever is credible should be sourced, and what is not should be removed.
The political spectrum is a concept for representing different political stances in relation to one another.
1 Left-right axis
1.1 Problems with a 1-dimensional spectrum
1.2 Other measures
2 Leftism
2.1 Far left
2.2 Not far left
3 Liberalism
3.1 Outside the United States
3.2 In the United States
3.3 "Neoliberalism"
4 Conservatism
4.1 Social and economic conservatism
4.2 Supply side economics
4.3 Conservative psychology
5 Rightism
5.1 Far right
6 Centrism
6.1 "Moderate": mixed views and career pols
6.2 Compromisers
6.3 Sell-outs
6.4 Fallacies: balance, solemnify and disregard
7 Extremism
Left-right axis[edit]
At its most basic, the political spectrum consists of a line or continuum from left to right , with varying shades of opinion in between. Some people, particularly those at the far sides of the spectrum, will tend to simplify it further to be just two positions; left or right, with no room for compromise. More realistic ways of assembling a political spectrum tend to be far more complex, but the single dimensional spectrum from "left" to "right" is the most commonly used and most popular.
The terms "left-wing" and "right-wing" originated in the years following the French Revolution of 1789, when the nobility were seated on the right side in parliament meeting, and representatives of the liberal bourgeoisie sat on the left. Thus, the term "right-wing" became associated with maintaining the status quo and protecting the interests of the established elites, like the nobility, clergy and the wealthy. The "left wing" is associated with demanding progress and equality, although the extent can vary from liberals and social democrats who seek change through economic reform (while retaining a market-based system) to communists, who advocate the destruction of capitalism and collective ownership of the means of production.
Although the meanings of left and right vary between different countries, there is more than sufficient shared meaning to enable leftists in one country to affiliate with leftists in other countries and for rightists in in one country to affiliate with rightists in other countries, unless of course their countries are at war. The shared meanings that form the bases for their affiliation involve beliefs about human nature. Otherwise, they would be unable to form organizations like the Socialist International or the International Democrat Union.
The following is the classic left-to-right political spectrum that still makes a good deal of sense to many people in the United States of America and resonates strongly throughout Western civilizations.
Radical—Liberal—Moderate—Conservative—Reactionary
The term "radical" has broadened in popular usage to mean extremists of either the left or the right, though (ironically) it's more often used now to describe rightist extremists. The following linear political spectrum shows examples of western ideologies and where they would fit:
Anarchism—Communism—Democratic Socialism—Social Democracy — Social Liberalism—Christian Democracy—Neoliberalism—Classical Liberalism—Conservatism—Monarchism—Fascism—Christian Identitarianism
Problems with a 1-dimensional spectrum[edit]
There are several problems with the the left-to-right spectrum. One is that the uses and definitions of the terms vary considerably between different cultures and contexts, since they are dependent on the political and economic status quo. For example, in authoritarian countries such as the USSR or China and even in democratic countries such as Hungary, hard-liners have sometimes been described as "conservatives," while proponents of the free market were regarded as progressive reformers, essentially the opposite of how the left and right wings of a spectrum would be labelled in democratic countries the United States. "Centrism" is not so much a clearly distinguishable position in its own right, as it is always defined in the context of other positions - what counts as a "centrist" position in one country may well be considered extreme in another. The terms "left" and "right" are also meaningless for people in many non-Western cultures, simply because they lack a tradition of categorizing politicians and parties in this manner. Another problem with the left-right distinction is that it suggests a one-dimensional spectrum that is often reduced to disagreements over economic policy, ignoring the importance of social issues and freedoms.
Another common observation is that the movements found at both the far-left and far-right positions tend to have more in common with each other than they do with more moderate liberals or conservatives, since both extremes have a tendency towards radicalism and totalitarianism. The horseshoe theory contends that the left-right axis should be viewed in terms of a horseshoe curve, with the ends of the axis curving towards each other, rather than a straight line from one extreme to the other. Horseshoe theory ignores ideologies that don't fit into this narrative, notably anarchism.
Then there is also the issue of green politics, which have been espoused by literally everyone on the left-right political axis, from the far-left saying that capitalism doesn't work because we are polluting our planet, to the far-right arguing that some races pollute more than others, passing through moderates who use environmentalism as an argument for economic planning. The large scale of people using environmentalism as a way to justify their means makes it practically impossible for these politics to be classified under this spectrum.
Other measures[edit]
The Political Compass
The Nolan Chart
Another problem with the left-to-right spectrum is that there are some political positions which do not fit into it. For example, right-libertarianism upholds both personal liberties (traditionally left-wing) and unrestrained economic freedom (traditionally right-wing). This hasn't stopped some right-libertarians from claiming that therefore they are centrists.
Likewise, with what is traditionally viewed as the far-right, fascism and etc, were not always right wing on the economic spectrum. Nazi Germany on the one hand was founded on white supremacy, anti-semitism and traditionalism (all right-wing ideas), but had an economic system that was to the left of "New Deal" America (distinctly left-wing), although by no means communist or even really socialist.
Some contend that a full variety of opinions can be better represented by two-dimensional diagrams where the (economic) left-to-right spectrum is balanced with another (social) axis representing a varying level of restriction on civil and social freedoms, both of which can be either left and right wing. Two examples of such a representation are the Nolan Chart and the Political Compass, where political opinions can be plotted anywhere in a square grid based on the two axes.
The Vosem chart reworks the Nolan chart into three axes: Cultural, fiscal, and corporate.[1] The two ends of each axis are sometimes labeled as "hierarchical" vs. "egalitarian."
It is worth noting that the term "economic freedom" could be considered politically weighted. Leftists might refer to it as, say, "corporate authority" instead.
Leftism[edit]
If you are or want to become a political activist of "THELEFT", or learn "hersay," you better read this book
“”If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.
—falsely attributed to Winston Churchill[2]
Leftist is widely used in US politics to refer to socialism and anti-capitalist ideologies, although it is also often mistakenly applied to liberals, which can cause confusion and resentment, since there is a vast difference between the two groups. For anyone who studies politics with rigor, the conflation of "leftist" and "liberal" is truly infuriating; the American right-wing talking point machine refers to anyone "left of center-right" (e.g. Hillary Clinton, Al Franken), as a "far-left" politician or pundit, further confusing political discourse. Indeed, the nomenclature of US politics is so skewed as to be practically unrecognizable to anyone from outside the US.
Far left[edit]
The term far left is a label used for political movements, parties, and organizations that champion the abolition of private property and "equality of conditions", i.e. recognises the differences in ability and need of individuals but does not allow these differences to be turned into power. Most of these movements fall under the label of either communist (for which there are an absurd number of "subdivisions"), left-wing anarchist, or sometimes (though somewhat rarely today) socialist. Hard greens may be labeled far-left. If you hear it in American politics, bear in mind the possibility that it could be just being used as a snarl word to describe any liberal, or at least any liberal who doesn't kowtow to mainstream consensus politics in Washington.
Some leftists wish to overthrow capitalism through revolution because they believe that bourgeois democracy is a sham, designed only to keep the rich in their places of privilege, while others believe in achieving a socialist society through democratic means. There are many different forms of leftism, as reflected in such terms as Marxist, Marxist-Leninist, Stalinist, Trotskyite, neo-Trostkyite, Maoist, democratic socialist, libertarian socialist, anarchist, anarcho-syndicalism, De Leonist, council communist, guild socialist, communalism, etc., not to mention various modern and postmodern theoretical schools that seem to exist mainly in academic circles, such as deconstructionism, left- or post-feminism, Critical Theory, and the Frankfurt School (sometimes so-called “Academical Left”). Many of these groups have a fierce rivalry with each other, such as the Leninists with libertarian socialists, and the Stalinists and Maoists with just about everybody else.
Common ideas:
The abolition of private property (property used to earn capital), but not personal property (property not used to earn capital).
The abolition of class society.
The abolition of the state. Marxists contend a temporary, transitional state is necessary to protect the revolution while anarchists believe all states will eventually corrupt and will never willingly give up power.
Specifically for anarchists, the abolition of all forms of unjustified hierarchy.
For all non-market socialists, the abolition of markets.
Opposition to religions, ideologies, and philosophies that promote inequality.
Internationalism, however the Stalinist idea of "Socialism in one country" caused some far-left movements to become highly nationalistic.
The best way to obtain these goals is revolution. However, some want to reform.
Automation under capitalism will cause increasing inequality as everyone loses their job. However, automation under anarchism or communism will very nearly abolish labor allowing people the free time to explore their own interests.
Not far left[edit]
Like the label far right, the term is oftentimes used inappropriately and pejoratively to movements that are not actually of the extreme left, such as:
Social Democracy - As social democrats accept the presence of a widespread market system, private property, and some degree of class inequality they are not far left. This label is even more absurd when applied to "Third Way" social democrats who are essentially centrists.
Social Liberalism - As social liberals are even more toned down than old-styled social democrats (as they do not advocate for nationalization of any business) it's really hard to see how they are "far left" in any meaningful sense of the word.
Juche - This one's actually debatable. Most scholars today believe North Korea's ideology is actually much closer to ethnic fascism than communism.
Nazism - Nazism is a form of fascism which is inherently far right. While the Nazis did enact some policies that could be seen as "left" by the US political sphere, their stance on ultra-nationalism, racial superiority, their promotion of social inequality, etc. makes them far right. One must also remember that the NSDAP means "National Socialist German Workers' Party"; while socialists and workers are far left, wingnuts like to ignore that "National" is a far right "patriotic" term in Germany. It is telling when the only party with National in its name is the neo-nazi NPD. Even the DVU, REP, pro civil movement, Die Rechte and AfD avoid describing themselves as "national", preferring terms such as "German", "republican" and "liberal" instead. Economists also rate Nazi Germany as center in terms of economic stance as its economic policy was protectionist, made with a return to mercantillism in mind and hated both communists and capitalists. One should however take note that it isn't all that different from the economic desires of the current European far right; political parties such as the Party For Freedom and Front National promote similar economic policies.
Liberalism[edit]
Funny cartoon showing the socialist brain of a Democrat
Democratic corruption does not count, only Republican corruption counts (fact!)
A liberal tends to champion liberty, individual rights and equality, although it depends on what measures are being taken to realize those rights. Due to this, liberalism can fall under many branches, some even self-contradictory; for instance, classical liberalism favors limiting government action to promote individual rights while social or modern liberalism (a.k.a. progressivism) tends to favor government action to protect individuals. Unlike conservatism, its traditional political opposite, liberalism may be against the status quo, favoring changes to what liberals perceive as a better society. Fiscally, liberals tend tend to be more in favor of market solutions as opposed to government solutions. Additionally, they are generally opposed to protectionism, corporate welfare, and tariffs, supporting free, neoliberal trade, all to varying degrees. This is what generally separates liberals from their progressive cousins, who favor more regulation and socially democratic policies. Other than that, they tend to have similar positions on social views. Like progressives, liberals are generally seen in American politics as being just left of center.
A lot of liberals believe conservatives are trying to curtail women's reproductive rights, impose religion on society, and preserve and promote corporate power and power for the historically privileged. Some liberals attack conservatives as general-purpose scapegoats for any ills of society as seen from their liberal perspective. (A lot of conservatives do make for an easy target. See Ann Coulter for just one of many examples.)
"Liberal" is a term that has been subject to vast misuse by the American public. The right often accuses anyone to the left of Sarah Palin as being a "liberal", which they use like a snarl word. They treat it as an insult, often comparing liberalism to fascism. However, this is fundamentally contradictory, as "liberal" derives from "liber", which is Latin for "freedom". Progressives, on the other hand, also misuse the term often, referring to themselves as liberals. While both liberals and progressives may share socially liberal views on most of the same issues, liberalism as an ideology favors market solutions and a strong private sector, whereas progressivism is far more regulatory and incorporates some moderate socialist policies.
Modern American Libertarianism would be considered a more radical form of liberal politics, often leaning more towards Laissez-faire than traditional neoliberalism.
Outside the United States[edit]
Europeans typically use the term "liberal" to describe politics that draw on neoliberalism's basic touchstone of the individual operating in a free market economy, a notion similar to modern libertarianism. These liberals oppose government regulation on the free market to promote flow of goods in the market. While some might invoke "classical liberalism" rather than neoliberalism, it is important to note that classical liberal thinkers were socialists, with Mill writing an entire piece on socialism [3], and Smith's classical economics and the labor theory of value inspiring various socialists such as Ricardo and Marx.
The left-wing in Europe today, however, is closer to the American interpretation of "liberal". Most developed countries in the West are more left-wing than the U.S., with government playing a bigger role in general, handling universal health care, work vacations, and comprehensive sex education. The common accusations of socialism in the U.S. would've fallen face-flat in European ears, as several socialist leaders stand a significant chance or have won in elections. Not only this, but Europeans are frequently puzzled as to why detractors of Barack Obama commonly call him a "socialist". (See also ad hominem.)
The politics of the United Kingdom offer a prominent example of non-American political labelling. The UK Conservative Party would be called out as "liberals" by Republicans (or as "socialists" depending on their mood) in the U.S. UK Conservatives support continuing the National Health Service (NHS) while they allow abortions and same-sex marriage. Meanwhile, however, during economic recession, the party proposes spending cuts, something more in line with conservative thought in the United States. Compare the UK political party called "Liberal Democrats", a centrist group.
The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia has a non-liberal reputation.[4]
In the European political tradition, the Australian Liberal Party represents conservative right-wing ideology.[5] Compare and contrast the Liberal Party of Canada.
In the United States[edit]
“”Liberalism, above all, means emancipation - emancipation from one's fears, his inadequacies, from prejudice, from discrimination, from poverty.
—Hubert Humphrey, American politician
In the United States, liberalism is typically used to describe politics on the center-left side of the political spectrum. Liberals tend to favor equal rights gained by government. For instance, liberals often favor the public option, gay marriage, banning the death penalty, environmentalism, increased government regulation on corporations as well as trade union presence. On other issues, to promote individual freedom, they tend to favor reproductive rights and the separation of church and state, so they may advocate secularism, removing religious symbols in public grounds, and disallowing creationism to be taught in public schools. As a result, the vast majority of liberals vote Democratic, although the party is not solidly on the left. It's probably a lesser of evils option.
The term "liberal" is used rather liberally in the US, but most American liberals are advocates of social liberalism, which veers center to center-left, though it may also refer to advocates of the Third Way (if slightly to the right of social liberals) or social democracy (if slightly to their left) on economics.
Over the past few decades, the GOP has near-successfully framed it as a synonym for "socialist". This is partially due to their use of bullshit scare tactics and partially a legacy from the second Red Scare, when some people with communist sympathies, not wanting to state their affiliation openly, called themselves "liberals" or "progressives" instead. Liberalism is seen as pure evil by the Religious Right and its counterparts overseas; these groups work tirelessly to depict supporters as Satanic monsters, and to make the very word into an insult. (As a possible result of this, fewer people identify themselves as liberal compared to the numbers of self-identified conservatives and moderates, instead identifying themselves with the name of their party.)
"Neoliberalism"[edit]
“”...there was, in effect, a global threat to the power of the corporate capitalist class and therefore the question was, “What to do?”. The ruling class wasn’t omniscient but they recognized that there were a number of fronts on which they had to struggle: the ideological front, the political front, and above all they had to struggle to curb the power of labor by whatever means possible. Out of this there emerged a political project which I would call neoliberalism.
—David Harvey, author, A Brief History of Neoliberalism
Following the rise of Barry Goldwater in the 1960s the United States began to pull towards the right. Though the socially conservative "Religious Right" would eventually swoop in and hijack the GOP from new constitutional-libertarian establishment, the shift from the 60s onward occurred on the basis of fiscal policy, free trade, internationalism, and economic freedom, made especially popular under President Richard Nixon during the liberalization of China. Key trade policies were enacted during the various administration, accompanied by a series of both individual and corporate tax cuts (although Regan did raise it on the rich eleven times).
Deregulation of markets is a fundamental practice in all forms of neoliberalism. Certain sectors of the economy saw acute levels of deregulation under Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, c,. The deregulation of the tech sector that occured during Reagan's first term, for instance, led to unprecedented levels of economic growth and the rise of innovative new technologies, such as personal computers, video-game consols, various appliances, the World Wide Web. However, besides deregulation of the tech industry, the 1980s and 1990s also saw the deregulation of big banks, and it is believed that this was at part to blame for the gradual disappearance of the middle class. Especially by his second term, Reagan grew popular amongst many on the centre-left, and the influence of Republican neoliberals ultimately pulled those Democrats towards the center, such as Bill Clinton, who himself implemented liberal economic policies not too different than those of Reagan's second term. In doing so, Clinton ended up presiding over the largest economic boom in American history. This all came crashing down with the onset of the Great Recession in 2008. With the resurgence of the American left in the early 2010s, the subsequent Occupy movement, and the Bernie Sanders candidacy in 2016, this growing leftward movement began to strongly criticize establishment liberals as "neoliberals."
According to its leftwing critics, the neoliberals are strongly pro-capitalist, tend to fetishize the magical powers of "free markets" to solve all social or economic ills, and are allergic to class-based analysis or rhetoric. The liberal targets of these left critics often feel the term "neoliberal" is something that doesn't really exist except as a snarl word against them. Liberal pundit Jonathan Chait has made that argument.[6] However, this is technically not true, as the traditional "free marketers" (Reagan-era libertarians) were actually opposed to much of what the left accused "neoliberals" of doing - bailouts, corporate welfare, subsidies, protectionism, central banking, etc. To them, what the centre-left called "neoliberalism" was, in fact, "Crony Capitalism. As a result, the Occupy movement accumulated a sizeable libertarian presence, many of whom were former Ron Paul supporters in the 2008 presidential election.
Some pragmatic free market-capitalists enthusiastically adopt the neoliberal label, and argue that "free market globalists" are the cure for what ails the world.[7] Leftists such as Sam Kriss are unimpressed, and disdainfully dismiss such neoliberal claims as being nothing more than devotion to "untrammeled ruling-class power, an end to the class-collaborationism of the post-war years and a vicious assault of the rich against the poor...fiscal austerity and the penetration of capitalist relations into every possible facet of human life."[8]
Conservatism[edit]
“”Conservative, n.: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
A conservative on the political spectrum tends to be for the status quo, consistency, and traditional forms, while being against change on the grounds that it might be for the worse. In the gulag, the term has been conflated by many with very narrow social and religious prescriptions and co-opted by neoconservatism. During the 2008 election campaign, an article in Atlantic Monthly contrasted the old-fashioned conservatism of Edmund Burke with the right-wing radicalism of Newt Gingrich and company.[9]
Note that left/right and liberal/conservative are only regarded as synonymous in the United States (and Canada to a certain extent). Following a hung parliament in 2010 the Liberal Democrats entered into a coalition government with the Conservative Party. In Australia, the Liberal Party are the direct analogues of the US Republicans or the UK Conservatives — they're economically liberal and socially very conservative. Explaining this to American conservatives tends to make their heads explode.
“”Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
Social and economic conservatism[edit]
“ I cannot call myself a cultural conservative, because that term, hijacked by the media, is customarily used to describe a person preoccupied with such matters as the preservation of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance; the defense of marriage as an institution for heterosexuals only; the promotion of premarital chastity; and the protection of cancer patients from marijuana addiction. ”
—Susan Jacoby[10]
Conservative is a very loose term, essentially meaning only "in favour of conserving." While there are many, many types of conservatism, one essential distinction in the field of politics and society is between social conservatism and economic (or fiscal) conservatism. Although the two often go hand-in-hand, especially in American politics, they are not inherently connected, and it is quite possible to be a fiscal conservative without being socially conservative or vice versa.
Social conservatism emphasizes convention, morality (or old-fashioned notions of morality) and established roles within society and the family. Social conservatives are often, though not always, strongly religious. They support traditional gender roles, marriage and "family values" (a term with a multitude of meanings). Social conservatism is often accused of being homophobic, due to its distaste for same-sex marriage and sometimes racist and sexist to some degree because of the associations with traditional hierarchical societies in which everybody knew their place; and in the West, at least, the White, Anglo/European diaspora being regarded as the ultimate origin and standard of civilized culture. Demands for "equality" or "justice" tend to be seen at minimum as lofty, abstract proposals that are likely to change with the seasons of intellectual fashion. Disrupting settled folkways in the name of these abstract beliefs will always run afoul of the iron law of unintended consequences, while the traditions that would be changed may be sacred, and certainly are our own. They often express outrage at political correctness they disagree with and perceived moral decline (e.g. "Hollywood values"). Social conservatism can be extremely influential in politics; the "pro-life" movement to outlaw abortion is an example of social conservatism in action.
The problem with social conservatism is that it's directly contrary to the tenets of small, limited government and personal freedom and responsibility, and it relies on dated views in the face of changing society. Wanting the government, especially the Federal government to enact and enforce laws based around your morality directly contradicts this. There's a reason social conservatives used to overwhelmingly support the Democrats: they believed in a strong welfare state to support the public good, for example, based on ideas of Christian charity. It was only after the American Civil Rights movement circa 1965, that these same voters shifted to the GOP, creating the current contradictory cocktail of conservatives and social regressives/reactionaries calling themselves conservatives.
Economic or fiscal conservatism is also very significant politically. Fiscal conservatives support low taxation (trickle-down in particular) and free market capitalism with minimal regulation. This benefits the economic interests of big industries, entrepreneurs or the ruling class in some countries, at the expense of everyone else. In Europe, many economic conservatives are not necessarily socially conservative, often being non-religious and unconcerned by issues such as same-sex marriage. In America, however, the two forms of conservatism are heavily intertwined, especially within the Republican Party and its supporters. This bundling of the two major types of conservatism with each other is extreme to the extent that many conservatives cannot recognise the distinction - and see both concepts as central to "conservative values," leading to the idea that you can be all in favour of abolishing tax, deregulating the market and abolishing trade unions all you like, but if you make a single pro-choice statement, you're labelled as a RINO liberal.
Supply side economics[edit]
“”This fear of trusting uncontrolled social forces is closely related to the other two characteristics of conservatism; its fondness for authority and its lack of understanding of economic forces.
—Friedrich Hayek, Why I Am Not a Conservative (1960)
“”Teaching supply-side economics in econ is like teaching creationism in biology.
—Phil Gilbert, economics professor at MiraCosta College, ca 1987 (not an exact quote)
You can't have a discussion about modern day conservatism, especially economic conservatism, without talking about supply side economics. Supply-side economics is defined as an economic theory which articulates that the economy could be best served by reducing barriers to supply/production as opposed to trying to raise demand. The epitome of supply side economics is the Laffer Curve, which is the precept that government revenue is equal at zero and 100% taxation. Supply-side economics is widely criticized by neo-Keynesian economists, who are in turn voraciously criticized by libertarians.
In just eight years, the Bush Administration grew the government faster and larger than any other President, with borrowed money, and demanded $700 billion more to buy up all of Wall Street's bad mortgage paper and preserve the status quo. However, when asked to boost the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) by $250 million to help low-income families pay their heating bills over the winter of 2007-2008 with record oil and gas prices, Bush vetoed it as pure socialism.[11]
Conservative psychology[edit]
“”There is something inherently paradoxical about being an intellectual Conservative: a good measure of the party's raison d'etre resides in the counter-intuitive belief that ideas should be inherited and ignored, not acquired and defended. And they never take the form of convictions.
—Conservative philosopher Roger Scruton [12]
Four researchers surveyed research literature about the psychology of conservatism.[13][14] They discovered that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and other perspectives, and a tolerance for inequality. No shit. The chief psychological factors of conservatism:
Fear and aggression - an easy way to support a conservative position is to scapegoat some convenient "other" and demonise it as a threat to "civilised" values. Islamophobia is simply the current version of this conservative train of thought. Students of history may find other examples.
Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
Uncertainty avoidance - this may lead to the drawing of premature conclusions or resorting to stereotypes.
Need for cognitive closure - As Dubya once said "My job isn't to nuance."
Terror management - such as declaring amber alerts at opportune moments, calling opponents "supporters of terrorists" etc.
It is debatable whether these factors are associated chiefly with conservatism. One admitted shortfall in this study was that "little or no empirical data are available from the major communist or formerly communist countries" on this subject,[14] which made a study of communist psychology in general very difficult. However, the researchers acknowledge that these factors were also exhibited by many communist dictators, such as Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro. They respond by claiming that these men, because they resisted change while in power, "may be considered politically conservative, at least in the context of the systems they defended."[14]
In fairness to conservatives, some studies of political extremist groups have suggested that the far-left has very similar traits to the far-right in terms of their tactics and preference for authoritarianism.[15]
What is conservatism and what is wrong with it?[16]
Rightism[edit]
“”Sir, it is a well-known fact that young people are generally leftwing. It is also well-known that as people get older, they become more rightwing. It is also a fact that, as people get older, their brain cells die at a faster and faster rate. I would therefore like to propose that conservatism be classified as a degenerative disease.
—letter to the Guardian, 1970.[17]
See the main articles on this topic: Conservatism and Fun:Really embarrassing conservatives
The term rightism is rarely used, but tends to refer to a form of extreme conservatism that seeks to do away with democratic politics entirely. In the past, most "rightist" groups either sought a restoration of a previous monarchy, or the creation of a fascist or authoritarian regime to "undo the chaos of democracy." Because the United States has never had a monarch or a totalitarian movement, "true" rightist groups in that country have been relatively few, though the US government has helped fascists such as Pinochet come into power. Another common component of rightism, however, has not waned: extreme nationalism. Most rightist groups try to force out all immigrants and minorities. It is possible that in modern rightism this form of nationalism is the only defining characteristic.
Far right[edit]
“”Trump has changed the way the Republican Party sees the world. Republicans used to have a basic faith in the dynamism and openness of the free market. Now the party fears openness and competition...It’s not that the deals had changed, or reality. It was that Donald Trump became the Republican nominee and his dark fearfulness became the party's dark fearfulness. In this case fear is not a reaction to the world. It is a way of seeing the world. It propels your reactions to the world.
—David Brooks[18]
The far right or extreme right is a political label used to identify parties and movements based on fascist, racist and/or extremely reactionary ideologies. Officially those on the far right embrace the concept of the "inequality of outcome", meaning that one group is naturally better than another. This can apply to everything from absolute monarchies to Nazism, meaning that many far-rightists oppose others on the far right who have a different idea of what the ruling class should be.
Much like the term "far left", if you hear the term "far right" it's almost certain to be a slur directed at a conservative.
The label of "far right" came about in the context of the French Revolution: those who sat on the right wing of the National Assembly[19] in June and July 1789 favored an essentially unrestrained aristocracy in terms of the power allocated to them, essentially wanting to either maintain or (later) restore the old order. They also tended to be opposed to the Enlightenment and secularism in favor of more conservative religious influence in government.
From the start of the 20th century onwards more "populist" reactionary political philosophies such as ultranationalism/fascism, racial supremacy (often to a degree that was considered extreme even by the standards of the time), and politically-oriented religious fundamentalism started to overtake the increasingly unpopular extreme pro-Aristocrat agenda that made up what could be considered the former far right. To what degree there is much of a difference between them in practice is up for debate and usually changes from country to country. In the 21st century the far right in the Western world has increasingly drifted towards broadly authoritarian nativist thought, often influenced by former fascist movements.
Common opinions:
Inequality, both economic and social, between the different people - not only accepted, but actively promoted
Anti-immigration, often combined with Islamophobia (Despite the fact that Islamist groups like ISIS are by nature far-right, just not by Western standards) or other prejudice against the predominating ethnicity and/or religion of immigrants; in many cases outright racism, such as white supremacy and/or ethnic-related conspiracy theories such as Holocaust denial, Eurabia and ideas about "white extinction". Historical far-right movements have included everything from anti-Chinese sentiment to anti-Catholicism and even prejudice against Nordic people.
Anti-rationalism, defending its pet beliefs even from reason
Anti-socialism and extreme anti-communism (as in endorsing conspiracy theories surronding the subject, or commiting massacres against them), though in some cases supporting a limited welfare state and occasionally even "state capitalism"—except in the United States, where any sort of welfare (except corporate welfare, of course) is seen as communism. On the other hand in the States a number of paleoconservatives and laissez-faire types are more hostile to a welfare state and may desire to see the social safety net gutted entirely.
Nationalism, possibly including historical revisionism. More imperialist versions may however favor a world without borders instead, in that the nation encompasses all land on the planet.
Pro-life and promoting childbirth (see also white extinction scenario)
Supporting family values and traditional gender roles, and is virtually always homophobic. However, this might also be inverted and some may want to abolish traditional gender roles and promote feminism and LGBT rights by demanding to expel any minority of which they claim that they are actively upholding reactionary values that prevent these rights from being established (e.g. Party For Freedom). Quite often however these people aren't nearly as progressive on such issues as the left wing or far left.
Tough stance on crime, to the extent of support for capital punishment
Environmentalism might be prevalent, especially in a "protection of home and soil" kind of way, though other far-right groups champion anti-environmental sentiment (climate change denial etc.). A more Christian Democratic approach to the environment ("protecting God's creation") can also be present in clerical fascism.
Questioning (or even outright rejecting) universal civil rights and human rights.
Reactionary beliefs, meaning beliefs that things were better some time ago (often before some major legislative change, such as civil rights laws). The "evil era" tends to be the 1960s, which were a period of great change in much of the Western World, whereas the "good old times" can be anything from the 1950s to pre-industrial times.
A far-right group without even trace amounts of anti-Semitism is rare - even in places where Judaism is rare and there isn't even Jewish immigration. Though more modern islamophobic and religious groups usually do the opposite and promote relatively aggressive forms of Zionism.
Racism - same as anti-semitism above, almost always found, even in trace amounts.
Religious fundamentalism - Religion is often very intertwined with far-right beliefs, even if said far-right beliefs conflict with their religious beliefs. However, some groups may also be radical anticlerics and perceive religious influence as endangering the secular state (e.g. most early forms of Turkish nationalism during and after the reign of Atatürk).
Conspiracy theories - The far right and conspiracy theories go together better than bread and butter.
Economically, far-right groups tend to promote mercantilism and protectionism and to oppose any free-trade agreements that interfere with it. An exception being the more religious forms, which promote distributism.
Centrism[edit]
See the main article on this topic: Fun:Really embarrassing moderates
Centrism is a set of political positions that lie between the "left" and "right" wings of the political spectrum. The term is usually applied to a global spectrum of political philosophies and ideologies, not to those of single nations, as their political centers tend to differ strongly based on history, culture and the state of development. As a result, a party that might be centrist in a global sense such as the American Democratic Party, might be seen as "left" in its own national context.[note 1]
In established democracies, it is usually highly beneficial (and intellectually reasonable) for a party to occupy most of the territory in the middle of the spectrum, especially in majoritarian electoral systems, as this is where the coveted swing votes are to be found. Hence, parties often strive to occupy a center-left or center-right position, or at least try to brand themselves as such. While pure "centrist" parties have a mixed record of electoral success, advancing centrist policies to some extent is a popular strategy among parties in modern developed nations. For example, both dominant parties in Germany are so moderate as to be nearly identical. Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken such advantage of the centrist discourse that she's manipulated the political structure to benefit her most of all; discussion is less about who replaces Merkel and more about who becomes her top lieutenant or successor. During polarizing time periods, centrists tend to be attacked by both sides.
When politics was split between collectivist, statist socialism and paternalistic "family values" conservatism, centrism often manifested as an individualistic liberalism which combined belief in capitalism ("economic freedom") with support for human rights and greater personal freedom: the Liberal Party in the UK (predecessor of the Lib Dems) often took this route, e.g. playing a central role in the legalisation of abortion.[20][21] The Free Democrats in Germany are a centrist or centre-right party of similar bent.[22] Some centrist parties and politicians might endorse the Third Way, trying to harmoniously combine socialism and capitalism. This often manifests as technocracy or "evidence-based policymaking", and can take the form of a centralised, targets-fixated, and slightly authoritarian (but hopefully benevolent) managerial state, as under Tony Blair.[23] Hence centrism can range from liberal to authoritarian tendencies.
Almost all of the Pirate Parties are centrist parties with special interest in civil rights and copyright reform. However, there are a bunch of exceptions, as the Austrian,[24] Australian[25] and Italian [26] Pirate Parties tend to be on a firmly leftist economic stance, while some Pirate Parties of northern Europe have shown some libertarian leanings. The German Pirate Party has made progressive[27] and environmentalist statements,[28] and its European MEP, Julia Reda, is vice president of the Greens–European Free Alliance.[citation needed]
Most European Green parties are leftist, but some centrists such as the British Liberal Democrats take a firmly pro-environmental stance. This may connect with their desire to be seen as the "nice party".[29] "Green conservatism" is a centre-right mix of conservatism with concern about the environment, e.g. the French centrist Independent Ecological Movement which split from Les Verts (French Green Party) because they were too left-wing.[30][31]
"Moderate": mixed views and career pols[edit]
Also known as "fascists", "libtards", "snowflakes", and "shills", depending on who you ask, those who see themselves as being in the center of the political spectrum are, for the most part, criticized by both harder ends of the spectrum. While they do exist, in recent years, the term "political moderate" (a.k.a. centrism) has become a buzzword in the United States. The term often comes with a negative connotation, due to the United States' ethos of bipartisanship,[citation needed] which, since the turn of the twentieth century, has been growing far wider.
A prominent moderate movement that grew in the United States were that of the New Democrats in the early 1990's, after Bill Clinton, who had some views akin to traditional Rockefeller Republicanism, attracted many of Ronald Reagan's more moderate voters, which encompassed quite a bit of the slowly radicalizing GOP establishment throughout the 1980's, a process contributed to by various factors from decades earlier, such as the Civil Rights Movement, the Watergate Scandal, and the Vietnam War. Many of these centrists became swing voters in various elections, such as the 2008 presidential election, which pretty much sealed the fate of the Republican Party. Now, most actual moderates, some even relatively conservative, align with the Democratic Party, and fewer with the Republicans, in some cases. Those centrists who do not are pretty much on their own.
The term "moderate" is generally used by both the left and the right to refer to those individuals who express a certain amount of skepticism towards the views of both wings, preferring instead to think analytically, making centrists the most marginalized political affiliation in the modern climate. As an insult, it instead usually refers to those who have some conservative views and some liberal views — e.g., "I'm a fiscal conservative and a social liberal." Some are just wishy-washy. Others are actually closet extremists pretending to be moderate so they can get elected.[note 2] And some are just calculating, self-aggrandizing schemers. One could argue that, in fact, there is no such thing as a moderate, those being considered such really just being individuals who pick and choose individual policies on an ideological level rather than subscribe to any one particular side.
One reason moderate politicians aren't often trusted is that you never know which side of an issue they actually favor until the last moment. A good example is Joe Lieberman, who was in favor of extending Medicare to people aged 55-64 until it seemed that it would actually pass. Political centrism seems to be rather rare these days, despite moderate wings existing in both parties to some degree.
Compromisers[edit]
More sane criticisms of centrism, usually coming from social democrats or moderate conservatives/libertarians, are directed at those who strive to be "pure centrists". One of the most common criticisms isn't necessarily at centrism but instead towards those that centrism sometimes tends to attract, mainly opportunist politicians with no core values who see centrism as giving them the best chance of getting elected. (Such people tend to do whatever furthers their own political career as opposed to what actually helps their country/organization.) Furthermore, they also tend to rarely actually fight for anything once elected, and will more or less give in to the most demanding party/faction with power so that they can claim to be reasonable "compromisers," even if said compromise does more bad than good. One example of this was the Simpson-Bowles plan, a budget plan that was championed by centrists simply because it was seen as a "compromise" between the two parties, even though some of the measures in the plan could have arguably worsened the 2008 downturn.
Sell-outs[edit]
Political radicals and extremists tend to criticize centrists for being "sell-outs" to the enemy group that secretly controls everything, or claim that centrists are tricksters bent on oppressing the public. Rarely will these radicals actually recognize centrists, instead preferring to characterize them as the "real radicals." This becomes most obvious when political extremists fail to actually name a centrist and, if pressed, will try to pass either themselves or a more "moderate" hard-right/left/libertarian activist as a centrist.
Fallacies: balance, solemnify and disregard[edit]
Another common critique of centrism is that centrists will commonly invoke the balance fallacy, commonly acting as if "both sides are just as bad" just so they can hold onto their centrist credentials. This can lead to the more corrupt or extreme of two parties being elected/empowered by opportunists who are fueled by self-interest. This is especially common with Very Serious People.
Alternately, many centrists become Very Serious People, who talk about serious issues very seriously, yet fail to offer real solutions other than the status quo.
Finally, many centrists tend to disregard ideologies such as socialism and libertarianism completely, ignoring the truth value of individual claims in such philosophies.
Extremism[edit]
Extremism is a catch-all term for those whose political or religious views are far from the center of a given political spectrum, with connotations of being dangerously so. It is often synonymous with wingnut. It also refers to both wingnuts and moonbats simultaneously, given that "wingnut" is sometimes specific to the far right and "moonbat" specific to the far left.
More specifically, it has been used to refer to those wingnuts and moonbats who have an "end justifies the means" mentality and are willing to use violence or other extralegal means to achieve their goals. However, it is sometimes also used to imply that said wingnuts and moonbats are criminal elements willing to use violence even when in some cases they are not.
Wingnuts and moonbats usually don't like being called extremists, although they'll happily call each other extremists. Then again, they usually don't like being called wingnuts and moonbats either.
One of the early and still insightful treatments of the subject is Eric Hoffer's 1951 book "The True Believer." Check it out (as in at your local library).
Essay: Gaming the language: the US political spectrum
Moonbat
Hard green
Horseshoe theory
↑ Don't believe us? All but one of the Democratic nominees for POTUS since the 1970s have leaned New Democrat or straight up Blue Dog, even if their rhetoric may say otherwise.
↑ Such as the Centre Party (Netherlands), which was far-right, but called itself centrist because it was both anti-immigration and environmentalist.
↑ Politics in a Third Dimension: "Remodeling the political spectrum". July 9, 2005. http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/7/7/281/05051.
↑ http://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotations/135-quotes-falsely-attributed
↑ https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38138/38138-h/38138-h.htm
↑ Global Investment and Business Center, Inc. Staff (1999). Russian Political Parties and Organizations Directory. Russian Government Encyclopedic Directory Series. 5. International Business Publications. p. 65. ISBN 9780739707548. https://books.google.com/books?id=uXoyxqGh3M4C. Retrieved 2017-06-23. "The LDPR describes itself as a centrist, pro-reform democratic party. The programme of the party calls for democracy and social liberalism. Despite the name, a widespread opinion outside of Russia is that the party's ideology is not liberal and it is often regarded, especially in external media, as an ultranationalist party."
↑ Compare: McMaken, Ryan W. (2013). "Conservatism". In Claeys, Gregory. Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought. Thousand Oaks, California: CQ Press. p. 184. ISBN 9781506308364. https://books.google.com/books?id=1qjlCAAAQBAJ. Retrieved 2017-06-23. "[...] the Republican Party in the United States, and the Liberal Party of Australia, are also often notable by their use of prudential conservatism as a style of politics."
↑ http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/how-neoliberalism-became-the-lefts-favorite-insult.html
↑ https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xab5b/everyone-hates-neoliberals-so-we-talked-to-some
↑ http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/one-word-guaranteed-make-corporate-pundit-class-squirm
↑ Mr. Conservative, The Atlantic
↑ Jacoby, Susan The Age of American Unreason p. 13. 2008. Pantheon Books. ISBN: 1-59722-793-5
↑ Bush veto hits heating bill aid program for poor
↑ https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2010/jun/05/roger-scruton-interview
↑ Researchers help define what makes a political conservative
↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 The original paper
↑ https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/similarities-and-differences-between-left-wing-and-right-wing-radicals/C46411F0228745583D2EB8E91A19D881
↑ What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?
↑ Not all lefties turn right with age. Far from it. Letters to The Guardian, Thursday 10 September 2015 19.11 BST
↑ Brooks, "The Politics of Cowardice", NYT 1.27.17.
↑ See the Wikipedia article on National Assembly (French Revolution).
↑ See the Wikipedia article on Abortion Act 1967.
↑ See the Wikipedia article on Liberal Party (UK).
↑ See the Wikipedia article on Free Democratic Party (Germany).
↑ Have targets improved NHS performance?, The Kings Fund, 2010
↑ Chancen Pirate Party of Austria
↑ Platform - Economic reform Pirate Party Australia
↑ [1] "The party was a member of the left wing united list at the 2014 European elections"
↑ Positionspapiere - Inklusion Pirate Party Germany
↑ Positionspapiere - Sicherheit kerntechnischer Anlagen German Pirate Party
↑ "people are decent to each other, with ... a clean environment", About Us, Liberal Democratic party, accessed 29 April 2019
↑ See the Wikipedia article on Independent Ecological Movement.
↑ See the Wikipedia article on Green conservatism.
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FBI Cyber Cop Joins Security-Software Firm
Thread: FBI Cyber Cop Joins Security-Software Firm
Leo Taddeo, a top cyber cop at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is leaving after more than two decades in government to become the chief security officer at security-software company Cryptzone.
Mr. Taddeo, 49, is stepping down as the head of the FBI’s special operations and cyber division, a position he held for the past two years. He supervised a number of high-profile cases, including the investigation into the online drug black market called Silk Road, which resulted in the conviction and life sentence of its founder Ross Ulbricht. Mr. Taddeo also helped lead the probe into the cybersecurity attack on J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., a breach that affected millions of households.
FBI Cyber Cop Joins Security-Software Firm - Law Blog - WSJ
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Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
About The Volokh Conspiracy
Volokh Daily Email
Washington Post Archives
Volokh.com Archives
The Tuesday Afternoon Massacre
David Post |The Volokh Conspiracy | 5.10.2017 2:08 PM
Then-FBI Director James Comey on Capitol Hill last week. (Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press)
[Update below, 5-11-17]
There's much to be said for the parallels that many people have noted between the actions taken Tuesday by President "I-Am-Not-Under-Investigation" Trump and those taken by President "I-Am-Not-A-Crook" Nixon in the October 1973 "Saturday Night Massacre."
Both, of course, involved relieving a subordinate who was in charge of an investigation into the possible involvement of the president (and his aides) in illegal activity. [Nixon's case was complicated by the fact that only the attorney general had the power, under the governing statute at the time, to fire the independent counsel (Archibald Cox), which led to the dismissal of both Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General Bill Ruckelshaus, both of whom refused to carry out Nixon's order.]
In both cases, the president had a pretext for the firing. In Nixon's case, it was the preservation of executive privilege. Cox had just issued a subpoena for the White House tapes, and Nixon didn't want to comply—purely on principle, of course; I mean, it's not like he was hiding anything, or anything nefarious like that.
Trump's pretext is equally transparent: FBI Director James B. Comey mishandled the Clinton investigation and lost the trust and confidence of the American people.
I know, from the comments to my earlier posting, that some people buy this. I don't. I can't get over the fact that Comey's handling of the Clinton investigation didn't seem to bother Trump during the campaign. Or during the post-election transition period. Or up until Tuesday.** The memo by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, which is widely being cited by the White House and its apologists as the justification for Comey's firing, has nothing in it that we didn't know six months ago.***
** Benjamin Wittes and Susan Hennessey over at Lawfare have collected Trump's comments about Comey's performance prior to Tuesday afternoon. They write:
Suffice it for now to remind readers that Trump was positively jubilant about Comey's October letter at the time it was issued. "The FBI would never have reopened this case, at this time, unless it were a most egregious criminal offense," he declared at a campaign event in Iowa. "As you know, I've had plenty of words about the FBI lately, but I give them great credit for having the courage to right this horrible wrong. Justice will prevail."
We also do not recall Trump saying then that the letter represented some great breach of Justice Department norms and traditions or that the FBI director should be removed and replaced with someone "who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges never to repeat them." Back in July, in fact, Trump's only complaint about Comey's behavior was that he had let Clinton off the hook. In a statement since removed from his campaign website, Trump blamed a "rigged system" for the FBI's decision not to prosecute. He also tweeted: "FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem"
For months, this was Trump's recurring mantra. In fact, just hours before the release of Comey's letter, Trump appeared on Fox News and claimed that the fact Clinton was "allowed to run for president" at all indicated that "[t]he FBI rolled over and the Department of Justice rolled over." Shortly after Comey's letter was released, Trump praised the decision, saying that Comey had "brought back his reputation" by resisting pressure against prosecuting Clinton. He even went so far as to declare that, "What [Comey] did was the right thing."
Attorney General Jeff Sessions apparently agreed-at least when there wasn't a Russia investigation Comey was supervising that he had the power to stop. On October 30, following the release of the letter, he argued that Comey had an "absolute duty" to disclose new evidence in the Clinton email investigation prior to the election.
I'm on record, here on the VC, as saying that I expected Obama to fire Comey, with good cause, the day after the election; and if Trump had fired him on the day after the inauguration, I would have been pleased (and surprised). But the question now before us isn't "Has Comey done anything to justify his firing?" The question now is: "Why is Trump firing him now?" And why the rush—without telling anyone on Capitol Hill in advance, without telling his own press secretary that it was coming, without calling Comey to his office and telling him to his face? Having waited this long, where's the rush?
*** I have the feeling that Rosenstein got played here by people more sophisticated politically than he.
IMAGINARY CONVERSATION:
Sessions: "So what do you think about the way Comey's handled his job?"
Rosenstein: "Terrible. He mishandled the Clinton investigation—he should never have had that first press conference, back in July, and he should not have written that letter in late October. Really bad."
Sessions: "Yes … Write that up for me in a short memo, would you?"
Rosenstein: "Yes, sir."
[UPDATE 5-11-17 Turns out I may have been closer than I thought: The Washington Post reported today that
"Rosenstein's participation in the Comey ouster took shape this week after he and Sessions attended a previously scheduled lunch with Trump on Monday. The president wanted to get rid of Comey. After the Justice Department officials laid out their view, Trump—[Aha! The Presizdent, not the AG—DP] asked them to put their thoughts in writing, and Rosenstein on Tuesday wrote his memo, according to White House officials.
Rosenstein threatened to resign after the narrative emerging from the White House on Tuesday evening cast him as a prime mover of the decision to fire Comey and that the president acted only on his recommendation, according to a person close to the White House, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Justice Department officials declined to comment on the claim."
Maybe it has nothing to do with the significant increase in resources that Comey had, a few days ago, asked for in connection with the Russia investigation. Or the subpoenas that the federal grand jury has now issued to Michael Flynn and his associates in connection with that investigation. No, none of that—it's because Comey treated Clinton unfairly in the handling of the investigation into her email server.
It's laughable, really. Coming from a guy who led "Lock Her Up" chants, it's downright ridiculous.
The Saturday Night Massacre truly marked the beginning of the end for Nixon. Many people liked Nixon, many people thought he was a good president, and an overwhelming number of them thought he was a much better choice than his 1972 opponent, George McGovern. But they weren't blind. People saw through his BS:
"Less than a week after the Saturday Night Massacre, an Oliver Quayle poll for NBC News showed that, for the first time, a plurality of U.S. citizens supported impeaching Nixon, with 44% in favor, 43% opposed, and 13% undecided, with a sampling error of 2 to 3 per cent. In the days that followed, numerous resolutions of impeachment against the president were introduced in Congress."
There were still some holdouts, to be sure—but most people over the age of 14 saw very clearly that there must be something on those tapes that Nixon didn't want anyone to hear.
Though we won't know for some time whether the Tuesday Afternoon Massacre is a similar tipping point for the Trump presidency, I fervently hope that will prove to be the case. I fear that it will be otherwise; there seem to be large numbers of people who, for whatever reason, still actually believe what he tells them. This is a man, remember, who famously said that he could walk down Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters. That is a terrible thing to say—maybe not for a Mafia chieftain or drug lord, but for a presidential candidate? There may be, alas, some truth to it.
NEXT: New York judge Joan Kenney holding closed-door hearings so reporters won't 'humiliate' her?
David Post was previously a professor at Beasley School of Law at Temple University.
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Gary Partington, Edith Cowan University
Why Indigenous Issues are an Essential Component of Teacher Education Programs
The extensive failure of Indigenous students in school, particularly during adolescence, is a shameful characteristic of Australian education. Students who have most to gain from a successful school experience are the most likely to leave school with minimal skills and qualifications. The situation has shown little improvement over 30 years, as evidenced by the repetitious nature of articles in, for example, The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education. Government inquiries into Indigenous education, especially those addressing issues such as attendance (Bourke, Rigby & Burden, 2000), identity (Purdy, Tripcony, Boulton-Lewis, Fanshawe & Gunstone, 2000) and achievement (Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, 2000a, 2000b; Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, 2000b) have resulted in little improvement. The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy (Department of Employment, Education and Training, 1989) identified goals for Indigenous students but, despite considerable effort to achieve these goals, educational inequality for Indigenous students ‘remains vast’ (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, 2000b). While a growing number of Indigenous students are successful at school, a significant proportion leave school before completing Year 10, and far fewer complete Year 12 than is the case with non-Indigenous students (Department of Education Western Australia, 2002; Ministerial Council on Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs, 2000a). A cycle develops, by which the poor educational standards of Indigenous students exiting from school results in the inability to supply, from their ranks, the teachers and other professionals needed to provide culturally-appropriate role models in the classroom.
Partington, G. (2002). Why Indigenous Issues are an Essential Component of Teacher Education Programs. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 27(2).
Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons
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Time’s Arrow
Episode 4 of Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time
Embark on the quest that will occupy the rest of the course: Why is there an arrow of time? Explore how memory and aging orient us in time. Then look at irreversible processes, such as an egg breaking or ice melting. These capture the essence of the one-way direction of time.
Sean Carroll Ph.D.
Sciences > Applied Science
24 episodes in this series
Episode 1 Why Time Is a Mystery
Begin your study of the physics of time with these questions: What is a clock? What does it mean to say that "time passes"? What is the "arrow of time"?…
Episode 2 What Is Time?
Approach time from a philosophical perspective. "Presentism" holds that the past and future are not real; only the present moment is real. However, the laws of physics appear to support…
Episode 3 Keeping Time
How do we measure the passage of time? Discover that practical concerns have driven the search for more and more accurate clocks. In the 18th century, the problem of determining…
Episode 4 Time’s Arrow
Embark on the quest that will occupy the rest of the course: Why is there an arrow of time? Explore how memory and aging orient us in time. Then look…
Episode 5 The Second Law of Thermodynamics
Trace the history of the second law of thermodynamics, considered by many physicists to be the one law of physics most likely to survive unaltered for the next thousand years.…
Episode 6 Reversibility and the Laws of Physics
Isaac Newton's laws of physics are fully reversible; particles can move forward or backward in time without any inconsistency. But this is not our experience in the world, where the…
Episode 7 Time Reversal in Particle Physics
Explore advances in physics since Newton's time that reveal exceptions to the rule that interactions between moving particles are fully reversible. Could irreversible reactions between elementary particles explain the arrow…
Episode 8 Time in Quantum Mechanics
Quantum mechanics is the most precise theory ever invented, yet it leads to startling interpretations of the nature of reality. Probe a quantum state called the collapse of the wave…
Episode 9 Entropy and Counting
After establishing in previous episodes that the arrow of time must be due to entropy, begin a deep exploration of this phenomenon. In the 1870s, physicist Ludwig Boltzmann proposed a…
Episode 10 Playing with Entropy
Sharpen your understanding of entropy by examining different macroscopic systems and asking, which has higher entropy and which has lower entropy? Also evaluate James Clerk Maxwell's famous thought experiment about…
Episode 11 The Past Hypothesis
Boltzmann explains why entropy will be larger in the future, but he doesn't show why it was smaller in the past. Learn that physics can't account for this difference except…
Episode 12 Memory, Causality, and Action
Can physics shed light on human aspects of the arrow of time such as memory, cause and effect, and free will? Learn that everyday features of experience that you take…
Episode 13 Boltzmann Brains
One possible explanation for order in the universe is that it is a random fluctuation from a disordered state. Could the entire universe be one such fluctuation, now in the…
Episode 14 Complexity and Life
Discover that Maxwell's demon from episode 10 provides the key to understanding how complexity and life can exist in a universe in which entropy is increasing. Consider how life is…
Episode 15 The Perception of Time
Turn to the way humans perceive time, which can vary greatly from clock time. In particular, focus on experiments that shed light on our time sense. For example, tests show…
Episode 16 Memory and Consciousness
Remembering the past and projecting into the future are crucial for human consciousness, as shown by cases where these faculties are impaired. Investigate what happens in the brain when we…
Episode 17 Time and Relativity
According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, there is no such thing as a moment in time spread throughout the universe. Instead, time is one of four dimensions in spacetime.…
Episode 18 Curved Spacetime and Black Holes
By developing a general theory of relativity incorporating gravity, Einstein launched a revolution in our understanding of the universe. Trace how his idea that gravity results from the warping of…
Episode 19 Time Travel
Use a simple analogy to understand how a time machine might work. Unlike movie scenarios featuring dematerializing and rematerializing, a real time machine would be a spaceship that moves through…
Episode 20 Black Hole Entropy
Stephen Hawking showed that black holes emit radiation and therefore have entropy. Since the entropy in the universe today is overwhelmingly in the form of black holes and there were…
Episode 21 Evolution of the Universe
Follow the history of the universe from just after the big bang to the far future, when the universe will consist of virtually empty space at maximum entropy. Learn what…
Episode 22 The Big Bang
Explore three different ways of thinking about the big bang--as the actual beginning of the universe; as a "bounce" from a symmetric version of the universe on the other side…
Episode 23 The Multiverse
Dig deeper into the possibility that the big bang originated in a multiverse, which provides a plausible explanation for why entropy was low at the big bang, giving rise to…
Episode 24 Approaches to the Arrow of Time
Use what you have learned in the course to investigate a range of different possibilities that explain the origin of time in the universe. Professor Carroll closes by presenting one…
Time Reversal in Particle Physics 32 mins Explore advances in physics since Newton's time that reveal exceptions to the rule that interactions between moving particles are fully reversible. Could irreversible reactions between…
Time Reversal in Particle Physics
Time in Quantum Mechanics 32 mins Quantum mechanics is the most precise theory ever invented, yet it leads to startling interpretations of the nature of reality. Probe a quantum state called…
Time in Quantum Mechanics
The Second Law of Thermodynamics 31 mins Trace the history of the second law of thermodynamics, considered by many physicists to be the one law of physics most likely to survive unaltered…
The Second Law of Thermodynamics
The Perception of Time 33 mins Turn to the way humans perceive time, which can vary greatly from clock time. In particular, focus on experiments that shed light on our time…
The Perception of Time
The Past Hypothesis 30 mins Boltzmann explains why entropy will be larger in the future, but he doesn't show why it was smaller in the past. Learn that physics can't…
The Past Hypothesis
Boltzmann Brains 31 mins One possible explanation for order in the universe is that it is a random fluctuation from a disordered state. Could the entire universe be one…
Boltzmann Brains
Complexity and Life 32 mins Discover that Maxwell's demon from episode 10 provides the key to understanding how complexity and life can exist in a universe in which entropy is…
Complexity and Life
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Aphrodite's Child - It's Five O' Clock (1969 greece, 2nd album, remarkable psychedelic rock, japan remaster limited edition)
Aphrodite's Child's second LP was in some ways both a continuation of and departure from their debut album, End of the World. There were some grandiose keyboard-based sub-British psychedelic tracks that could have fit in well on the previous record.
The title song's celestial organ, for instance, is much like that on heard on U.K. psychedelic records of the period such as Rupert's People's "Reflections of Charlie Brown," though it's more sentimentally romantic than virtually anything a British band would have released, especially in its vocal delivery. Yet on other cuts, the group took on a markedly different character, whether it was mildly rousing social consciousness ("Wake Up"), pretty fair stomping power pop-psych ("Let Me Love, Let Me Live"), and, least successfully, good-time country-rock ("Take Your Time") and gravelly vaudevillian soul ("Good Time So Fine").
"Funky Mary," on the other hand, is a really cool departure into almost experimental soul-rock, its phased vocals backed by an almost musique concrete wash of bashing drums, Latin-African-flavored bongos, and jazzy vibraphone. If it's guiltier pleasures you're looking for, the unreservedly heart-tuggingly sad "Marie Jolie" is their best (if most saccharine) pop ballad with Mediterranean gondola balladeer overtones complete with accordion solo, though it's End of the World's "Rain and Tears" that the group's most remembered for in that department.
"Such a Funny Night," which follows right after that, steers the boat back to pop-psychedelia in the twee British mold. Like their first album, then, it's a very uneven record, but one whose best half or so is pretty enjoyable psych-turning-into-prog with Greek accents to both the vocals and melodies, even if it's never going to be classified as especially hip.
by Richie Unterberger
1. It's Five O'Clock (R. Francis, Vangelis) - 3:31
2. Wake Up (R. Francis, E. Papathanassiou) - 4:04
3. Take Your Time (R. Francis, E. Papathanassiou) - 2:39
4. Annabella (R. Adams, Demis Roussos) - 3:45
5. Let Me Love, Let Me Live (R. Francis, Lucas Sideras) - 4:43
6. Funky Mary (Papathanassiou, Sideras) - 4:11
7. Good Time So Fine (V. Johnson, E. Papathanassiou) - 2:45
8. Marie Jolie (R. Francis, Papathanassiou) - 4:41
9. Such a Funny Night (R. Adams, Papathanassiou) - 4:34
*Demis Roussos - Bass, Guitars, Vocals
*Vangelis Papathanassiou - Bass, Keyboards
*Lucas Sideras - Drums, Percussion
1968 End of the World (1st album, 2010 esoteric remaster)
Aphrodite's Child - It's Five O' Clock (1969 greec...
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Cars » Auto News
by David McHugh .
Wednesday Jul 10, 2019
In this April 21, 2017 file photo, Volkswagen Beetles are displayed during the annual gathering of the "Beetle club" in Yakum, central Israel (Source:AP Photo/Oded Balilty, file)
Volkswagen is halting production of the last version of its Beetle model this week at its plant in Puebla, Mexico. It's the end of the road for a vehicle that has symbolized many things over a history spanning the eight decades since 1938.
It has been: A part of Germany's darkest hours as a never-realized Nazi prestige project. A symbol of Germany's postwar economic renaissance and rising middle-class prosperity. An example of globalization, sold and recognized all over the world. An emblem of the 1960s counterculture in the United States. Above all, the car remains a landmark in design, as recognizable as the Coca-Cola bottle.
The car's original design — a rounded silhouette with seating for four or five, nearly vertical windshield and the air-cooled engine in the rear — can be traced back to Austrian engineer Ferdinand Porsche, who was hired to fulfill German dictator Adolf Hitler's project for a "people's car" that would spread auto ownership the way the Ford Model T had in the U.S.
Aspects of the car bore similarities to the Tatra T97, made in Czechoslovakia in 1937, and to sketches by Hungarian engineer Bela Barenyi published in 1934. Mass production of what was called the KdF-Wagen, based on the acronym of the Nazi labor organization under whose auspices it was to be sold, was cancelled due to World War II. Instead, the massive new plant in what was then countryside east of Hanover turned out military vehicles, using forced laborers from all over Europe under miserable conditions.
Re-launched as a civilian carmaker under supervision of the British occupation authorities, the Volkswagen factory was transferred in 1949 to the Germany government and the state of Lower Saxony, which still owns part of the company. By 1955, the one millionth Beetle - officially called the Type 1 - had rolled off the assembly line in what was now the town of Wolfsburg.
The United States became Volkswagen's most important single foreign market, peaking at 563,522 cars in 1968, or 40% of production. Unconventional, sometimes humorous advertising from agency Doyle Dane Bernbach urged car buyers to "Think small."
"Unlike in West Germany, where its low price, quality and durability stood for a new postwar normality, in the United States the Beetle's characteristics lent it a profoundly unconventional air in a car culture dominated by size and showmanship," wrote Bernhard Rieger in his 2013 history, "The People's Car."
Production at Wolfsburg ended in 1978 as newer front drive models like the Golf took over. But the Beetle wasn't dead yet. Production went on in Mexico from 1967 until 2003 — longer than the car had been made in Germany. Nicknamed the "vochito," the car made itself at home as a rugged, Mexican-made "carro del pueblo."
The New Beetle — a completely new retro version build on a modified Golf platform — resurrected some of the old Beetle's cute, unconventional aura in 1998 under CEO Ferdinand Piech, Ferdinand Porsche's grandson. In 2012, the Beetle's design was made a bit sleeker. The last of 5,961 Final Edition versions is headed for a museum after ceremonies in Puebla on July 10 to mark the end of production.
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Komatsu Wa1200 6 Wheel Loader Sn60001 Up Full Service Repair Manual
PDF) Work Ethics, Values, Attitudes and Performance In The Nigerian ... (PDF) Work Ethics, Values, Attitudes and Performance In The Nigerian Public Service: Issues, Challenges and The Way Forward
Komatsu Wa1200 6 Wheel Loader Sn60001 Up Full Service Repair Manual - Lagos, sometimes referred to as Lagos State to distinguish it from Lagos Metropolitan Area, is a state in the southwestern geopolitical zone of Nigeria.The smallest in area of Nigeria's 36 states, Lagos State is arguably the most economically important state of the country, containing Lagos, the nation's largest urban area.It is a major financial centre and would be the fifth largest economy. Lagos (/ ˈ l eɪ ɡ ɒ s /; Yoruba: Èkó) is a city in the Nigerian state of Lagos.The city, with its adjoining conurbation, is the most populous in Nigeria, and the most populous on the African continent.It is one of the fastest growing cities in the world, and also one of the most populous urban agglomerations. Lagos is a major financial centre in Africa; the megacity has the highest GDP. The Independent Sharia Panel of Lagos State Abdul-Fatah Kola Makinde, Philip Ostien ∗ Abdul-Fatah Kola Makinde is a lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State. He is also a member of the Independent Sharia Panel of Osun State. Philip Ostien taught for many years in the Faculty of Law, University of Jos, Plateau State..
Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review (OMAN Chapter) Vol. 1, No.9; April 201214 their jobs, and the subordinate status of permanent secretaries to their political bosses was reiterated.9 Another consequence of the purge, reinforced subsequently, was the destruction of the civil service tradition of security of. The Supreme Court of the United States blog. Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer and White Sales Inc. The “wholly groundless” exception to the general rule that courts must enforce contracts that delegate threshold arbitrability questions to an arbitrator, not a court, is inconsistent with the Federal Arbitration Act and Supreme Court precedent.. FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY - ABUJA The seat of Government which was in Lagos was formerly relocated to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja on December 12, 1992..
Damini Ogulu, Nigerian Afro-fusion singer better known as Burna Boy, was the biggest winner at the Soundcity MVP awards. The award held on Sat. The Amalgamation Of Nigeria Was A Fraud . by . Richard Akinjide, QC, SAN . July 9, 2000. Holding: The Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s actions in assessing a cakeshop owner’s reasons for declining to make a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding celebration violated the free exercise clause. Judgment: Reversed, 7-2, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy on June 4, 2018.Justice Kagan filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Breyer joined..
NIGERIA’S POST-CIVIL WAR RECONCILIATION: Imagine if the Israeli Prime Minister hired a former PLO fighter as his personal pilot. Or if the president of the United States allowed a Russian to be his personal chauffeur at the height of the Cold War.. Slavery was a form of dependent labour performed by a nonfamily member. The slave was deprived of personal liberty and the right to move about geographically as he desired. There were likely to be limits on his capacity to make choices with regard to his occupation and sexual partners as well.. The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War, July 6, 1967 – January 13, 1970, was a political conflict caused by the attempted secession of the southeastern provinces of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra. Created as a colonial entity by the British, Nigeria was divided between a mainly Muslim north and a mainly Christian and animist south..
Understanding the civil service rules & its components
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Performance Measurement System Effectiveness and PublicPrivate Partne…
PDF) Transformative Empowerment in the Lagos State Civil Service: A ... (PDF) Transformative Empowerment in the Lagos State Civil Service: A Gender Policy Discourse
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DSVRT Child Protection Policy.cdr
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Lagos Judiciary Online Reports: (Only for Registered Users) The JIS generates reports which include case management report.
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Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills.
Photo courtesy of Michael Glenn Gibson (as published in his book, The Descendants of Sterling & Reuben Mills: Two Brothers From East Tennessee. Jacksonville, FL: Michael Glenn Gibson, 2009.)
The mystery of my great great grandmother Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills begins with an entry in the book, “The Descendants of Sterling & Reuben Mills: Two Brothers From East Tennessee,” by Michael Glenn Gibson, published in 2009. It comes in a section describing her husband, Charles Harold Mills (1877-1966), which states that Charles Harold Mills and Mary Elizabeth Morris married on 27 June 1896 in Bolivar, Polk County, Missouri.1 The book also claims that “Mary Elizabeth Morris was born on 10 September 1879 in Texas,” and lists her parents as “James Morris and Sarah Woodgroffee,” citing Mary’s death certificate.2
In the book, Gibson states:
The only known record of her parents’ identity is Mary’s death certificate. No census records for her parents are known. According to unconfirmed information passed down among descendants of Charles and Mary Mills, Sarah Woodgroffee was of American Indian heritage.3
The passage continues to describe how Charles and Mary Mills, who “worked with the Salvation Army,” moved frequently with their family, starting out in Springfield, Missouri in 1900, living in several other cities in Missouri; Denver, Colorado; Reno County, Kansas; Jacksonville, Florida; Athens, Georgia; and then finally settling permanently in Jacksonville, Florida. According to her death certificate, Mary died and was buried in Jacksonville on 27 September 1941. Gibson also cites her newspaper obituary, which lists one surviving brother, J.C. Morris of Kansas City, Missouri.4
Since Mary was born in 1879, she should be listed with her parents, James and Sarah Morris, in Texas, on the 1880 U.S. federal census. Several James and Sarah Morrises could be located in Texas in the 1880 census, but none with a daughter Mary aged 0 years old or 1 year old. A researcher named Mark Eckerman subsequently informed that Mary Morris could be found on the 1880 census in Houston, Texas County, Missouri.5
On the 1880 U.S. federal census, in the Town of Houston, County of Texas, State of Missouri, indeed appears6 a James A. Morris, white, age 34 (therefore born about 1846), head of household, farmer, born in Tennessee, from a father born in North Carolina and a mother born in Georgia. His wife is one Serene Morris, white, age 38 (therefore born about 1842), born in Arkansas, from parents both also born in Arkansas. In their household are six children, all listed as being born in Missouri, all from a Tennessee-born father and an Arkansas-born mother (making it highly likely that James and Serene are the biological parents of all of these children). The children are: Nancy E., 14 years old; John, 12; Amanda, 10; Adolphus, 8; James, 6; and Mary E., 1.
There are several facts about the family of Mary E. Morris of Houston, Texas County, Missouri that match what is known about the family of Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills of (purportedly) the State of Texas, and several facts that do not match. Both Marys are the daughters of a James Morris, both are approximately the same age, both have a middle initial of “E”, both have lived in Missouri, and both have a brother with a first initial “J”. What does not match is the birthplace (one Mary is in Texas County, Missouri, while the other Mary is said to have been born in the State of Texas), and the name of the mother (Serene vs. Sarah). Both of these discrepancies could possibly be explained as misunderstandings (Mary and her descendants could have gotten Houston, Texas County, Missouri misremembered as the State of Texas, and the names Serene and Sarah are linguistically similar). However, more work would have to be done in order to confidently explain away these discrepancies.
Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills’s parents’ names, as listed on her death certificate.
One possibility was that Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills’s death certificate may have been sloppily written, and what was transcribed as Mary’s mother’s name “Sarah,” might also be readable as “Serene”. Michael Gibson graciously provided a copy of Mary’s death certificate, but the names of Mary’s parents are legible. Her father is clearly listed as “James Morris” and her mother is clearly listed as “Sarah Woodgroffee”. What’s more, Mary’s death certificate presents new discrepancies. The death certificate lists Mary’s father, James Morris, as having been born in Ireland, and Mary’s mother, Sarah Woodgroffee, as having been born in Colorado. This is at odds with the Mary E. Morris on the 1880 U.S. census, whose father is Tennessee-born and whose mother is Arkansas-born. The death certificate also lists Mary’s birthplace as not just “Texas,” but “Houston, Texas”. While this is still at odds with the Missouri birth of the Mary Morris found in the 1880 census, it does lend more credence to the idea that Houston, Texas County, Missouri may have gotten mistaken for Houston, Texas. The informant for the death certificate was Mary’s son, James H. Mills.
In order to find more information to determine if the James and Serene Morris of Missouri were the actual parents of the Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills who died in Jacksonville, Florida, the Missouri marriage records were searched for a James Morris who married a woman named Serene, in or slightly before 1866 (the approximate birth year of their eldest child, Nancy, as listed on the 1880 census). In Phelps County, Missouri, which is the northern neighbor of Texas County, Missouri, a James A. Morris is listed as marrying a Serena Wood on 30 November 1865.7 No other James A. Morrises could be found marrying a Serene or Serena in the appropriate time and place, making it extremely likely that the James A. Morris who married Serena Wood in Phelps County in 1865 are the same as the James A. Morris and Serene Morris living in the adjacent Texas County in 1880. Once again, new information is provided that comes close to comporting with the facts known about Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills of Jacksonville, Florida, but is slightly mismatched. Serene (var. Serena) Morris’s last name, at the time of her marriage to James A. Morris, was “Wood,” which is close to “Woodgroffee,” but not identical. Furthermore, the agreement of two sources (the 1880 census and the 1865 marriage record) that the wife of the James A. Morris of Missouri was named Serene/Serena, indicate that if this woman is indeed the mother of the Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills who died in Jacksonville, Florida, it is more likely that Mary’s death certificate is wrong about her mother’s name being Sarah — that it was actually Serene.
The 1870 U.S. federal census returns were searched for James and Serene Morris, in order to find more clues about the family, but they were unable to be located. It is still unknown where James and Serene Morris’s family resided in 1870, although the 1880 census states that their daughter Amanda was born in Missouri in about 1869, and their son Adolphus was born in Missouri in about 1872, so if they did not live in Missouri at the time of the 1870 census, it must have been a very brief removal from the state.
In the next available federal census, the 1900 census, a James A. Morris can be found8 residing in Walls, Douglas County, Missouri, of white skin color, his occupation as stone mason, born in Tennessee in March 1846, son of a father born in North Carolina and a mother born in Alabama. This James A. Morris is married to a Sarah F. Morris, white, born in Missouri in January 1861, daughter of a father and mother both born in Kentucky. James and Sarah have one child living with them: Arthur G. Morris, born in March 1895 in Missouri. Sarah is listed as having given birth to two children, only 1 of whom was currently living. James and Sarah also state on the census that they have been married for 6 years, indicating that they were married about 1894.
James A. Morris, wife Sarah F. Morris, and son Arthur G. Morris, can also be found9 in the 1910 federal census, living in Marion, Ozark County, Missouri. James A. Morris gives his age as 64, his occupation as farmer, his birthplace as Tennessee, his father’s birthplace as North Carolina, and his mother’s birthplace as Mississippi. Sarah F. Morris gives her age as 49, her birthplace as Missouri, and her parents’ birthplace as Kentucky. They state that they have been married for 16 years, again pinning their marriage year as approximately 1894.
While the James A. Morris on the 1900 census lists his mother’s birthplace as Alabama and the James A. Morris on the 1910 census lists his mother’s birthplace as Mississippi, the James A. Morris on the 1880 census lists his mother’s birthplace as Georgia. Due to the strong correlation of all the other facts about the 1880 James A. Morris and the 1900/1910 James A. Morris, it can be assumed with little mental reservation that they are the same individual, and that James was simply unclear on the exact birth state of his mother.
Yet again, with the discovery of James A. Morris in the 1900 and 1910 censuses, another fact surfaces that almost accords with what is known about the Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills who died in Jacksonville, Florida, but does not match exactly. James A. Morris is now known to have remarried to a woman named Sarah, although she could not be the birth mother of Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills — only a stepmother.
Could Mary’s son, James H. Mills, the informant for his mother’s death certificate, have accidentally mixed and blended facts about Mary’s origins? Might it be that James H. Mills got Mary’s birth place and parentage incorrect, but that there are kernels of truth in James H. Mills’s assertions? It seems possible, particularly if James H. Mills was born after his maternal grandparents had died, and if he grew up several hundred miles away from the rest of the Morris family, that he was not entirely clear on the Morris roots. Perhaps James H. Mills’s “Sarah Woodgroffee” is an amalgamation of the first name of Mary’s stepmother (Sarah F. Morris, listed as James A. Morris’s wife in the 1900 census), plus something similar to the former last name of Mary’s biological mother (Serene Wood Morris, listed as James A. Morris’s wife in the 1865 marriage record and the 1880 census). Yet more research would need to be done, in order to confirm or deny this hypothesis.
The Missouri marriage records were returned to, in an attempt to locate a marriage between James A. Morris and a Sarah F. in approximately 1894. In the records appears a James A. Morris who marries a Sarah F. Poteet in Gainesville, Ozark County, Missouri (just one county south of Texas County) on 6 October 1893, united in matrimony by a minister named F. Deatherage. No other James A. Morrises can be found marrying a Sarah F. in the appropriate time and place, and so it is extremely likely that the James A. Morris who married Sarah F. Poteet in Gainesville in 1893 are the same James and Sarah Morris on the 1900 census.10
What was known of James A. Morris’s life at this point was that he had married a Serene/Serena Wood in 1865, had produced several children in Missouri between about 1866 and 1879, and had remarried to a Sarah F. Poteet in 1893, with whom he had at least one more child, Arthur G. Morris.
James A. Morris does not appear in the 1920 federal census, although a Sarah Morris, white, age 59, born in Missouri, of parents both born in Kentucky, appears as a widow who is working as a servant in the household of a Sarah Kirk in Ava, Douglas County, Missouri.11
In the 1930 federal census, a Sarah Morris, white, age 69, born in Missouri, of parents both born in Kentucky, appears again as a widow who is now living by herself in Thornfield, Ozark County, Missouri. She is living next door to her son Arthur Morris, who has a wife named Alpha and four children.12
No one matching Sarah F. Morris’s description can be located in the 1940 federal census. These findings indicate that James A. Morris died between 1910 and 1920, and that Sarah F. Morris died between 1930 and 1940.
Researcher Mark Eckerman located the death certificate of a James Arthur Morris, who died of heart disease in Thornfield, Ozark County, Missouri on 11 March 1912, and was buried in Piland Cemetery. This death certificate states that James Arthur Morris was white, married, born on 23 March 1846 in Tennessee, worked as a stone mason, and was the son of a John Morris of unknown birthplace and a mother maiden named “Killpatic”[sic Kilpatrick] of unknown birthplace. The informant for the death certificate was Sarah Morris of Thornfield, Missouri.13 Armed with all of this information, a search was conducted by researchers at the Missouri State Historical Society for a newspaper obituary for James Arthur Morris, which might have listed the names and residences of his surviving children, but none could be located.
Researcher Mark Eckerman also located a Civil War veteran pension circular filled out by James Arthur Morris on May 4th, 1898. He lists his current wife as Sarah F. Morris, maiden named Sarah F. Thompson, and says they were married in Gainesville, Ozark County, Missouri by a minister named Frances M. Deatherage. This indicates that Sarah’s former name, “Sarah F. Poteet”, as listed on their 1893 marriage record, was her married name at the time she married James Arthur Morris, and that Sarah F. Thompson was her original maiden name. On the pension circular, James Arthur Morris also states that he was previously married to a “Surrena E. Morris,” who died in Springfield, Missouri on March 5th, 1885. This agrees with the timeline so far known, which has James’s first wife, Serene, disappearing from the picture some time after the 1880 census, and has James remarrying to Sarah F. (Thompson) Poteet in 1893. James Arthur Morris’s pension circular also lists his children and their dates of birth:
Nancy E. Morris Born Oct. 3th[sic] 1866. John Morris Born Janry 29th 1868. Manda E. Morris Born Nov 4th 1869. Adlph. D. Morris July 27th 1872. Jim Cal. Morris Born Aug. 24th 1874. Mary E. Morris Born Sept. 17th 1877. Jonere[sp?] Morris Born June 12th 1881. Arthur G. Morris Born March 25th 1895.14
This pension circular helps to fill in the timeline of James Arthur Morris’s life. However, it also gives a birth date for Mary E. Morris that is at odds with the birth date for the Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills who died in Jacksonville, Florida. The former is said in her father’s pension circular to have been born on 17 September 1877, while the latter is said in her death certificate to have been born on 10 September 1879. Once again, the facts do not match exactly, but they are similar enough that the discrepancies could be the result of fuzzy memories on someone’s part. One aspect that casts the reliability of James Arthur Morris’s memory into doubt is that he claims his daughter Mary was born in 1877, when the 1880 federal census clearly states that his daughter Mary was born about 1879. So, it is almost certain that James Arthur Morris got his daughter Mary’s birth year incorrect, which makes it seem more likely that perhaps he also got his daughter’s birth day slightly incorrect.
One of the aspects of James Arthur Morris’s pension circular that seems to help the case that the two Marys are the same, is the fact that James Arthur Morris’s son James “Jim” Morris has a middle name of “Cal.”. This agrees with the fact that Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills’s newspaper obituary lists a surviving brother as J.C. Morris of Kansas City, Missouri.
Researcher Mark Eckerman also located a “Declaration for Widow’s Pension” filled out by James Arthur Morris’s second wife, Sarah F. Morris, on 25 September 1916. At the time, Sarah F. Morris is 55 years old, residing in Thornfield, Ozark County, Missouri, and claims that her husband James A. Morris had enrolled in the Union Army at Benton Barracks, Missouri, on 1 December 1863, and was discharged 20 November 1865. Sarah claims that her husband’s first wife, Serene E. Morris, died in Springfield, Missouri on 5 March 1885. Sarah also explains that she had first been married to a Reuben H. Laughary, whom she divorced at West Plains, Missouri, that she had then married a Thomas A. Poteet, whom she divorced at Gainesville, Missouri on 15 October 1891, and that she had then married James Arthur Morris near Gainesville, Missouri on 6 October 1893, the wedding being officiated by Rev. Frances Deatherage. Sarah’s widow’s pension application was attested to by an E.A. Duncklee and an S.M. Thompson, both of Thornfield, Missouri.15 S.M. Thompson may have been some relation to Sarah, given her maiden name of Thompson.
The next step was to use this information on James Arthur Morris’s other children to find newspaper obituaries for them, which might list the married name and residence of their sister Mary, should she have still been living when they died.
A death certificate was located in Ionia County, Michigan, for a Maggy Dinehart who died in Easton Township on 14 February 1931. This death certificate lists her father as a James Morris, her birthplace as Missouri, and her birth date as 3 October 1866, which matches the birthdate James Arthur Morris gave for his daughter Nancy Morris on the pension circular.16 This strongly suggests that James Arthur Morris’s daughter, Nancy E. Morris, went by the nickname “Maggy,” and that she had moved to Michigan.
An obituary located for a Maggie Dinehart in the 19 February 1931 edition of the Ionia County News states that she died suddenly at her home in Easton, Michigan, on 14 February 1931, that she had been born in Missouri, and that she had lived in Minnesota for a while and then had settled in Michigan in about 1913. The obituary lists survivors as her husband, John Dinehart, and two sisters: “Mrs. Emma Wilson, of Iowa, and Mrs. Mary Mills of Florida.”17
Nancy “Maggie” (Morris) Dinehart’s obituary confirms that James Arthur Morris and Serene Morris’s daughter, Mary, did indeed marry a Mills and move to Florida. This is very strong evidence that the Mary E. Morris living in Houston, Texas County, Missouri in the 1880 federal census is the same as the Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills who died in Jacksonville, Florida. If that is the case, then Mary’s son James H. Mills must have gotten his mother’s birth place, as well as his maternal grandmother’s maiden name, mixed up (which would have been easy to do, considering the similarities between James H. Mills’s assertions and what the true facts would have been). However, could James Arthur Morris have gotten his daughter Mary’s birthday incorrect? Can this discrepancy be explained away so easily, as a mere failure of his memory?
A death record for James and Serene Morris’s second child, John Morris, who died 23 October 1919, can also be found. His full name is given as John Vincent Morris, residing at 1920 Elmwood St., Kansas City, Missouri. John Vincent Morris is white, married to a Martha E. Morris, born in Missouri on 31 January 1867, working as a stone mason (the same as his father), and gives his parents’ names as James A. Morris and Elizabeth St. Clair. The informant is a John Lawrence, living at the same address as John Vincent Morris.18 His obituary, which can be found in the 25 October 1919 edition of the Kansas City Times, lists his surviving relatives as wife, Martha E. Morris, a step-son, John R. Lawrence, and a brother, J.C. Morris of Springfield, Missouri.19
While John’s 1919 obituary confirms the survival of a brother, J.C. Morris, it neglects to mention his sister, Mary, whose survival is confirmed by the 1931 obituary of his other sister, Nancy “Maggie” Dinehart. John’s obituary is a very short one, however, and is crammed into a crowded, big city newspaper (the Kansas City Times), which likely had strict word limits for obituaries. John’s sister Mary may not have made it into his obituary simply because of limited space. All the haze and confusion that Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills and her family seemed to have regarding the Morris roots, combined with their distance from Missouri and the rest of the clan, may also indicate that there was not much communication between Mary and the rest of her family, and that knowledge between the branches of the family had become fuzzy.
On John Vincent Morris’s death certificate, his step-son, the informant, John Lawrence, does–interestingly–claim that John Morris’s mother’s name was “Elizabeth”, which is likely what Serene E. Morris’s middle initial stands for. The informant also declares that John Morris’s mother’s maiden name was “St. Clair,” rather than the “Wood” that is listed on James Arthur Morris and Serene’s marriage record. If “St. Clair”, or something similar, is Serene’s actual maiden name, then “Wood” may have been a last name from a marriage to a Mr. Wood, prior to Serene’s marriage to James Arthur Morris.
Also significant to note is that John Vincent Morris’s birth date, 31 January 1867, as printed on his death certificate, is two days off from the birth date that James Arthur Morris gave for his son John in the pension circular. If James Arthur Morris also got his son John’s birth date incorrect, then this lends credence to the theory that James Arthur Morris was simply bad with dates, and that there is no bigger significance in the fact that he gives a slightly mismatched birth date for his daughter Mary.
The next item to be searched for was the location of Nancy “Maggie” (Morris) Dinehart’s sister, Emma Wilson, in Iowa, as stated in Maggie’s 1931 obituary. Emma was first searched for in the 1925 Iowa state census, which conveniently lists each individual’s parents’ names. An Emma Wilson can be found living in Lincoln, Wright County, Iowa, in 1925, married to an R.E. Wilson. She is about 55 years old, and lists her father’s name as James A. Morris and her mother’s maiden name as Serene E. Sinclaire.20 Emma’s birth date of approximately 1870 would mean that she is likely the Amanda Morris listed as a daughter of James and Serene Morris in 1880, and that “Emma” is her nickname, probably derived from her middle name, given that James Arthur Morris lists his daughter as “Manda E. Morris” in his pension circular. Amanda E. “Emma” (Morris) Wilson’s 1925 Iowa state census statement also seems to lend support to her brother John’s death certificate, which says that their mother’s maiden name is “Sinclaire” or “St. Clair”.
Amanda E. “Emma” (Morris) Wilson’s death certificate can be found in Iowa, where Emma died of cerebral hemorrhage on 10 February 1955 in Clarion, Wright County, Iowa, usually residing in Eagle Grove, Wright County, Iowa. Emma’s birth is listed on her death certificate as 2 November 1869 in Gainesville, Missouri, and her parents are listed as Arthur James Morris and Elizabeth Sinclare.21 Again, this lends more credence to the maiden name of James Arthur Morris’s first wife being Serene Elizabeth Sinclaire, or some very close variation thereof. It also should be pointed out that, once again, James Arthur Morris missed the mark on Emma’s birthday by two days. It would seem that he was indeed simply bad with remembering dates, and that his giving a slightly different birth date for Mary is nothing to disqualify Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills from being the same individual as his daughter, Mary.
Amanda E. “Emma” (Morris) Wilson’s obituary can be found in the 17 February 1955 edition of the Clarion (Wright County) Monitor newspaper. It reiterates that she was born in Gainesville, Missouri on 2 November 1869 to Arthur James Morris and Elizabeth Sinclair Morris, and states that she moved with her family in a covered wagon to Houston county, Missouri, when she was a child. The obituary states that she was first married to Perry Pults, who died, and that her second husband, Robert E. Wilson, whom she married on 9 July 1909 in Clarion, Iowa, died on 6 December 1938. There are no surviving siblings listed, as she was likely the last of the children of James and Serene Morris.22
For Adolphus Morris, the fourth child of James and Serene Morris, who died early in the morning on 1 December 1908 and was buried in Springfield, Missouri,23 there are two very short obituaries in the 2 December 1908 and 3 December 1908 editions of the Springfield Missouri Republican newspaper,2425 but neither mention any surviving siblings.
For James C. Morris, the fifth child of James and Serene Morris, a death certificate can be found in Jackson County, Missouri. James “J.C.” Morris died of coronary occlusion on 6 April 1950 in Kansas City, Missouri, was a real estate repairman, and was married to a Mary Z. Morris. His father is listed as a Morris, and his mother’s maiden name is listed as Sinclair. His birth date is given as 4 August 1874.26
James C. Morris’s obituary confirms not only that Serene’s maiden name is Sinclair or some similar spelling, and also provides another instance of James Arthur Morris getting his children’s birth dates incorrect, it also confirms that he is the J.C. Morris of Kansas City, Missouri, as listed in Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills’s obituary in the Florida Times Union newspaper.
It can be confidently stated that the Mary E. Morris, daughter of James A. Morris and Serene Morris, living in Houston, Texas County, Missouri, in the 1880 federal census, is the same individual as the Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills who died in Jacksonville, Florida on 27 September 1941.
Nancy “Maggie” (Morris) Dinehart’s 1931 obituary lists her sister as being a Mary Mills in Florida. James C. Morris’s 1950 death certificate lists his last residence as Kansas City, Missouri, whereas Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills’s 1941 obituary lists her surviving brother as J.C. Morris of Kansas City, Missouri.
The death records of John Vincent Morris, Amanda E. “Emma” (Morris) Wilson, and James Cal. Morris all confirm their parents’ names as James Arthur Morris and Serene Elizabeth, maiden name Sinclaire (or some variation thereof). The fact that Mary’s son, James H. Mills, acting as the informant for his mother’s death certificate, got his maternal grandparents’ birthplaces incorrect, and his maternal grandmother’s name incorrect (“Sarah Woodgroffee”), can be explained by a probable lack of communication amongst the branches of the family and the fact that the entire family seemed to suffer from a general awkwardness with remembering specific dates and details. The name “Sarah Woodgroffee” is likely an amalgamation of Mary’s stepmother’s first name (Sarah F. [Thompson] Laughary Poteet Morris) and a distorted version of Mary’s biological mother’s previous married surname (Serene Elizabeth [Sinclaire] Wood Morris).
The fact that the birth date given for Mary in James Arthur Morris’s pension circular differs slightly from Mary’s actual birth date, is likely because James Arthur Morris was not adept with remembering dates, not because Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills was not his daughter. James Arthur Morris’s inexpertness with dates is attested to by the fact that he also got virtually all of his other children’s birth dates slightly wrong on the pension circular.
Finally, the fact that Mary and her descendants got her birthplace wrong (Houston, Texas, rather than Houston, Texas County, Missouri), is an easy enough mistake to understand. However, it seems that Mary and her descendants may have had an inkling of knowledge that she was, in fact, born in Missouri rather than Texas. While, on the U.S. federal census returns for the years 190027, 191028, 192029, 193030, and 194031, Mary lists her birthplace as the state of Texas, she does–in the 1935 Florida state census–list her birthplace as Missouri.32 Also, Mary’s son, William Louis Mills, on the 1930 federal census, lists his mother’s birthplace as Missouri.33
While there was poor communication of family history details from generation to generation, and even poor knowledge that each individual had about their own origins, kernels of truth remained in the distorted beliefs that members of the family held. By going back and examining original records, the truth of the matter can be discerned, and the evolution of incorrect beliefs and muddied memories can be observed and accounted for. Descendants of Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills can now have confidence in the knowledge that our family descends from James Arthur Morris and Serene Elizabeth (Sinclaire) Morris, who dwelt in Houston, Texas County, Missouri.
Missouri Marriage Records, 1805-2002, Missouri Marriage Records, Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City, Missouri, Ancestry.com ↩
Certificate of Death for Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills, Duval County, Florida, file number 41-2369, Florida Department of Health and Vital Statistics, Jacksonville, Florida 32231 ↩
Gibson, Michael Glenn. The Descendants of Sterling & Reuben Mills: Two Brothers From East Tennessee. Jacksonville, FL: Michael Glenn Gibson, 2009. Print. p.25 ↩
Obituary Notice for Mary Elizabeth Mills, Florida Times Union newspaper, Jacksonville, Florida, 29 September 1941, Page 20, Jacksonville Public Library, Jacksonville Florida ↩
Mark Eckerman, “Mills-Morris,” e-mail message from <mmeckerman@aol.com> to author, 15 March 2013 ↩
Year: 1880; Census Place: Houston, Texas, Missouri; Roll: 739; Family History Film: 1254739; Page: 358A; Enumeration District: 129; Image: 0218. ↩
Ancestry.com. Missouri Marriage Records, 1805-2002 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007. Original data: Missouri Marriage Records. Jefferson City, MO, USA: Missouri State Archives. Microfilm. ↩
Year: 1900; Census Place: Walls, Douglas, Missouri; Roll: 853; Page: 6A; Enumeration District: 0166; FHL microfilm: 1240853. ↩
Year: 1910; Census Place: Marion, Ozark, Missouri; Roll: T624_804; Page: 10A; Enumeration District: 0137; FHL microfilm: 1374817. ↩
Year: 1920; Census Place: Ava, Douglas, Missouri; Roll: T625_917; Page: 15A; Enumeration District: 55; Image: 613. ↩
Year: 1930; Census Place: Thornfield, Ozark, Missouri; Roll: 1216; Page: 5A; Enumeration District: 17; Image: 202.0; FHL microfilm: 2340951. ↩
Certificate of Death for James Arthur Morris, Ozark County, Missouri, file number 10381, Missouri State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Jefferson City, Missouri 65102 ↩
James Arthur Morris file, Certificate No. 410997, Form 3-402, Department of the Interior, Bureau of Pensions, Washington, D.C. 20240 ↩
Sarah F. Morris file, form 3-007, Declaration for Widow’s Pension, before a Notary Public on 25 September 1916, Thornfield, Ozark County, Missouri ↩
Certificate of Death for Maggy Dinehart, Ionia County, Michigan, file number D-193-15715, Ionia County Clerk (Tonda Rich), Ionia, Michigan 48846 ↩
Maggie (Morris) Dinehart obituary, Ionia County News, Ionia County, Michigan, 19 February 1931 ↩
Certificate of Death for John Vincent Morris, Jackson County, Missouri, file number 30385, Missouri State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Jefferson City, Missouri, 65102 ↩
John Vincent Morris obituary, Kansas City Times, Kansas City, Kansas, 25 October 1919, page 13, column 3. ↩
Ancestry.com. Iowa, State Census Collection, 1836-1925 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007. Original data: Microfilm of Iowa State Censuses, 1856, 1885, 1895, 1905, 1915, 1925 as well various special censuses from 1836-1897 obtained from the State Historical Society of Iowa via Heritage Quest. ↩
Certificate of Death for Amanda E. “Emma” (Morris) Wilson, Wright County, Iowa, Iowa Bureau of Health Statistics, Des Moines, Iowa 50319 ↩
Emma Morris Wilson obituary, Clarion (Wright County) Monitor, Clarion, Iowa, 17 February 1955, page 12, column 2. ↩
Young, Judy. “Adalph Morris.” Find A Grave. Find A Grave, 18 Feb. 2009. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. <www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=MORR&GSfn=A&GSpartial=1&GSbyrel=all&GSst=26&GScntry=4&GSsr=121&GRid=33969196&>. ↩
Adolphus D. Morris death notice, Springfield Missouri Republican, Springfield, Missouri, 2 December 1908. ↩
Adolphus D. Morris funeral notice, Springfield Missouri Republican, Springfield, Missouri, 3 December 1908. ↩
Certificate of Death for James C. Morris, Jackson County, Missouri, file number 13147, The Division of Health of Missouri, Jefferson City, Missouri 65102 ↩
Year: 1900; Census Place: Springfield Ward 4, Greene, Missouri; Roll: 855; Page: 35B; Enumeration District: 0038; FHL microfilm: 1240855. ↩
Year: 1910; Census Place: Hutchinson Ward 1, Reno, Kansas; Roll: T624_453; Page: 7A; Enumeration District: 0159; FHL microfilm: 1374466. ↩
Year: 1920; Census Place: Athens Ward 4, Clarke, Georgia; Roll: T625_243; Page: 4A; Enumeration District: 10; Image: 813. ↩
Year: 1930; Census Place: Jacksonville, Duval, Florida; Roll: 312; Page: 22B; Enumeration District: 9; Image: 495.0; FHL microfilm: 2340047. ↩
Year: 1940; Census Place: Jacksonville, Duval, Florida; Roll: T627_623; Page: 7B; Enumeration District: 68-10. ↩
Ancestry.com. Florida, State Census, 1867-1945 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008. Original data: Tenth census of the state of Florida, 1935; (Microfilm series S 5, 30 reels); Record Group 001021; State Library and Archives of Florida, Tallahassee, Florida. ↩
Year: 1930; Census Place: Jacksonville, Duval, Florida; Roll: 312; Page: 6A; Enumeration District: 5; Image: 250.0; FHL microfilm: 2340047. ↩
ancestry, birth, case studies, case study, Civil War, death, documents, evidence, files, florida, genealogist, genealogy, heritage, houston, incorrect, iowa, marriage, memories, memory, mills, missouri, mistakes, morris, obituaries, obituary, pension, proof, records, roots, texas, veteran, veterans
2 Responses to “Case Study: Who are the Parents of Mary Elizabeth (Morris) Mills?”
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Corruption trial in Nigeria may last several months, says Shell
Royal Dutch Shell has said the corruption trial over a Nigerian oil deal may last several months, warning staff of continued critical media coverage in the $1.3 billion case.
An internal memo sighted by Reuters indicates that Shell’s Legal Director, Donny Ching, encouraged employees to study an internal web page that the Anglo-Dutch oil giant had set up for the case before responding to questions from relatives and friends.
Shell and its Italian peer, Eni are defendants in a Milan bribery trial, now in its early stages, focusing on the 2011 purchase of Nigeria’s $1.3 billion OPL 245 offshore oilfield.
Eni’s Chief Executive Officer, Claudio Descalzi, four former Shell managers and a former Shell Foundation Chairman, Malcolm Brinded, are also on trial in one of the largest cases in the history of the oil and gas industry. All the accused have denied wrongdoing.Milan prosecutors allege bribes were paid to win the licence to explore the field, which has never entered into production due to disputes.
In the September 20, 2018 memo, provided to Reuters by John Donovan, who runs the independent royaldutchshellplc.com website, Ching said: “We do not yet know how long the trial will last, but expect this to take many months, continuing into next year.” The website often serves as a forum to criticise the oil major.
A Shell spokesman was said to have confirmed the authenticity of the document. “We expect to see continued, often critical, media coverage around this issue,” the memo addressed to all Shell staff said.
“As a result, I appreciate that you may find yourself having to respond to questions from relatives and friends. You can find more information about the case, which may also help with those discussions, on the OPL 245 intranet web page.“Based on our review of the evidence available to us, we maintain there is no basis on which to convict Shell or its former employees. We will vigorously defend our position and believe that the trial judges will conclude that there is no case for us to answer,” Ching noted.
The Anglo-Dutch company also said that it was unclear if the conviction of two men over corruption in the deal in a separate case in Italy last month would have any impact on the larger case.Shell distanced itself from the two men — Nigerian Emeka Obi and Italian Gianluca Di Nardo — who were found guilty of corruption and sentenced to four-year jail terms each.
“I would like to be clear that neither individual worked on behalf of Shell and Shell was not a party to their fast-track trial.“At this point, it is difficult to read anything into this verdict as far as the outcome of the trial in Milan involving Shell and its former employees is concerned,” Ching added in the memo.
Posted in: Bribery, Business Ethics, Business Principles, Corruption, Donny Ching, John Donovan, Litigation, Malcolm Brinded, Nigeria, Oil, OPL 245, Reuters, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, RoyalDutchShellPlc.com, Shell.
Tagged: Corruption · John Donovan · Malcolm Brinded · Nigeria · Oil · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell
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Exclusive: Shell seeks to sell Venezuela JV stake to France’s Maurel & Prom – sources →
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17:12\nhttps://segway-tours-worldwide.com/segway-night-tour-in-san-francisco-with-stunning-views-of-the-bay-lights-installation-on-the-bay-bridge/ 80% Daily 2017-08-06 18:30\nhttps://segway-tours-worldwide.com/segway-tour-of-the-day-is-from-bilbao-spain-with-a-spectacular-view-of-the-guggenheim-museum-designed/ 80% Daily 2017-08-06 17:51\nhttps://segway-tours-worldwide.com/todays-segways-at-the-beach-photo-is-from-perth-australia-segway-down-under-with-the-folks-from-chariots/ 80% Daily 2017-08-05 16:46\nhttps://segway-tours-worldwide.com/segway-video-budapest-segwayanyway-juggling-segway-hungary-budapest/ 80% Daily 2017-08-05 17:51\nhttps://segway-tours-worldwide.com/segway-tour-of-the-day-is-this-romantic-pic-taken-in-san-francico-near-the-iconic-transmerica-pyramid/ 80% Daily 2017-08-04 17:34\nhttps://segway-tours-worldwide.com/running-a-segway-tour-company-in-langeland-is-not-just-fun-and-games-some-days-you-have-to/ 80% Daily 2017-08-03 16:48\nhttps://segway-tours-worldwide.com/segway-superman-of-the-day-makes-an-appearance-at-comicon-in-san-diego-ca-usa-dont-get/ 80% Daily 2017-08-03 06:30\nhttps://segway-tours-worldwide.com/all-dressed-up-and-somewhere-to-go-via-segway-best-segway-rider-if-the-day-in-vienna-austria/ 80% Daily 2017-08-03 06:30\nhttps://segway-tours-worldwide.com/segway-tour-video-of-the-day-is-from-south-beach-on-miami-beach-florida-usa/ 80% Daily 2017-08-01 19:58"
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Home > McGeorge School of Law > Law Reviews > MLR > Vol. 6 > Iss. 2 (1975)
The Definition of a Security under the California Corporate Securities Law of 1968: The Risk Capital Test
David Merritt Roberts, University of the Pacific; McGeorge School of Law
David M. Roberts, The Definition of a Security under the California Corporate Securities Law of 1968: The Risk Capital Test, 6 Pac. L. J. 683 (1975).
Available at: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/mlr/vol6/iss2/13
All Issues Vol. 46, Iss. 4 Vol. 46, Iss. 3 Vol. 46, Iss. 2 Vol. 46, Iss. 1 Vol. 45, Iss. 4 Vol. 45, Iss. 3 Vol. 45, Iss. 2 Vol. 45, Iss. 1 Vol. 44, Iss. 4 Vol. 44, Iss. 3 Vol. 44, Iss. 2 Vol. 44, Iss. 1 Vol. 42, Iss. 4 Vol. 42, Iss. 3 Vol. 42, Iss. 2 Vol. 42, Iss. 1 Vol. 41, Iss. 4 Vol. 41, Iss. 2 Vol. 41, Iss. 1 Vol. 40, Iss. 4 Vol. 40, Iss. 3 Vol. 40, Iss. 1 Vol. 39, Iss. 4 Vol. 39, Iss. 3 Vol. 38, Iss. 4 Vol. 38, Iss. 3 Vol. 38, Iss. 2 Vol. 37, Iss. 4 Vol. 37, Iss. 3 Vol. 37, Iss. 2 Vol. 37, Iss. 1 Vol. 36, Iss. 4 Vol. 36, Iss. 3 Vol. 36, Iss. 2 Vol. 36, Iss. 1 Vol. 35, Iss. 4 Vol. 35, Iss. 3 Vol. 35, Iss. 2 Vol. 35, Iss. 1 Vol. 34, Iss. 4 Vol. 34, Iss. 3 Vol. 34, Iss. 2 Vol. 34, Iss. 1 Vol. 33, Iss. 4 Vol. 33, Iss. 3 Vol. 33, Iss. 2 Vol. 33, Iss. 1 Vol. 32, Iss. 4 Vol. 32, Iss. 3 Vol. 32, Iss. 2 Vol. 32, Iss. 1 Vol. 31, Iss. 4 Vol. 31, Iss. 3 Vol. 31, Iss. 2 Vol. 31, Iss. 1 Vol. 30, Iss. 1 Vol. 29, Iss. 4 Vol. 29, Iss. 3 Vol. 29, Iss. 2 Vol. 29, Iss. 1 Vol. 28, Iss. 4 Vol. 28, Iss. 3 Vol. 28, Iss. 2 Vol. 28, Iss. 1 Vol. 27, Iss. 4 Vol. 27, Iss. 3 Vol. 27, Iss. 2 Vol. 27, Iss. 1 Vol. 26, Iss. 4 Vol. 26, Iss. 3 Vol. 26, Iss. 2 Vol. 26, Iss. 1 Vol. 25, Iss. 4 Vol. 25, Iss. 3 Vol. 25, Iss. 2 Vol. 25, Iss. 1 Vol. 24, Iss. 4 Vol. 24, Iss. 3 Vol. 24, Iss. 2 Vol. 24, Iss. 1 Vol. 23, Iss. 3 Vol. 23, Iss. 2 Vol. 23, Iss. 1 Vol. 22, Iss. 4 Vol. 22, Iss. 3 Vol. 22, Iss. 2 Vol. 22, Iss. 1 Vol. 21, Iss. 4 Vol. 21, Iss. 3 Vol. 21, Iss. 2 Vol. 21, Iss. 1 Vol. 18, Iss. 4 Vol. 18, Iss. 3 Vol. 18, Iss. 2 Vol. 18, Iss. 1 Vol. 17, Iss. 4 Vol. 17, Iss. 3 Vol. 17, Iss. 2 Vol. 17, Iss. 1 Vol. 16, Iss. 4 Vol. 16, Iss. 3 Vol. 16, Iss. 2 Vol. 16, Iss. 1 Vol. 15, Iss. 4 Vol. 15, Iss. 3 Vol. 15, Iss. 2 Vol. 15, Iss. 1 Vol. 12, Iss. 1 Vol. 8, Iss. 1 Vol. 7, Iss. 2 Vol. 7, Iss. 1 Vol. 6, Iss. 2 Vol. 6, Iss. 1 Vol. 5, Iss. 2 Vol. 5, Iss. 1 Vol. 4, Iss. 2 Vol. 4, Iss. 1 Vol. 3, Iss. 2 Vol. 3, Iss. 1 Vol. 2, Iss. 2 Vol. 2, Iss. 1
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1 oz 2014 Year of the Horse Perth Mint Silver Coin
Added 1 oz 2014 Year of the Horse Perth Mint Silver Coin
In 2014, The Perth Mint's internationally renowned Australian Lunar Silver Coin Series II celebrated the Year of the Horse, the seventh animal in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac.
These superb quality releases are perfect for people born in "horse" years - 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002 and 2014 - who are regarded as hardworking, sociable, optimistic and energetic.
The reverse of each coin depicts two horses within a stylized Chinese landscape. The Chinese character for "horse" and the inscription "Year of the Horse" also appear in the design with The Perth Mint's traditional "P" mintmark. As well as appealing to silver coin collectors, these outstanding releases also make great gifts for people born in any year "ruled" by the Chinese lunar horse.
Country AU
Manufacturer Perth Mint
Obverse Effigy of Queen Elizabeth II (designed by Ian Rank-Broadley)
Reverse The reverse features two horses within a stylized Chinese landscape. - the Chinese character for "horse" - the Perth Mint's "P" mint mark - "YEAR OF THE HORSE" inscription
First Released 2013-09-01
Diameter (mm) 4.92
Average Thickness (mm) 0.78
Legal Tender AUD 1
Designer Ian Rank-Broadley (obverse), Tom Vaughan (reverse)
Effigy of Queen Elizabeth II (designed by Ian Rank-Broadley)
The reverse features two horses within a stylized Chinese landscape. - the Chinese character for "horse" - the Perth Mint's "P" mint mark - "YEAR OF THE HORSE" inscription
First Released
AUD 1
Ian Rank-Broadley (obverse), Tom Vaughan (reverse)
1 oz 2014 Year of the Horse Perth Mint Silver Coin In 2014, The Perth Mint's internationally renowned Australian Lunar Silver Coin Series II celebrated the Year of the Horse, the seventh animal in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac. These superb quality releases are perfect for people born in "horse" years - 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002 and 2014 - who are regarded as hardworking, sociable, optimistic and energetic. The reverse of each coin depicts two horses within a stylized Chinese landscape. The Chinese character for "horse" and the inscription "Year of the Horse" also appear in the design with The Perth Mint's traditional "P" mintmark. As well as appealing to silver coin collectors, these outstanding releases also make great gifts for people born in any year "ruled" by the Chinese lunar horse.
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You are here: Home / Archived Content / DISNEY JUNIOR ORDERS NEW SEASON PICKUPS FOR HIT ANIMATED SERIES “SOFIA THE FIRST,” “DOC MCSTUFFINS” AND “JAKE AND THE NEVER LAND PIRATES”
DISNEY JUNIOR ORDERS NEW SEASON PICKUPS FOR HIT ANIMATED SERIES “SOFIA THE FIRST,” “DOC MCSTUFFINS” AND “JAKE AND THE NEVER LAND PIRATES”
January 9, 2014 By DeniseB Leave a Comment
Disney Junior, the multiplatform brand for kids age 2-7 and their parents/caregivers has ordered new seasons of its animated series “Sofia the First,” “Doc McStuffins” and “Jake and the Never Land Pirates.” Disney Junior is TV’s #1 preschool-dedicated network in the Nielsen demographic, Kids 2-5. The record-breaking “Sofia the First,” which follows the adventures of Disney’s first little girl princess, and the acclaimed Emmy-nominated “Doc McStuffins,” which centers around a six-year-old girl who runs a clinic for her stuffed animals and toys, have each been picked up for a third season, while the Emmy-nominated and Annie Award-winning “Jake and the Never Land Pirates,” featuring a crew of kid pirates alongside classic Disney characters Captain Hook and Mr. Smee, has received an order for a fourth season. The announcement was made today by Nancy Kanter, Executive Vice President, Original Programming and General Manager, Disney Junior Worldwide.
Kanter said, “‘Sofia the First,’ ‘Doc McStuffins’ and ‘Jake and the Never Land Pirates’ do what Disney does best — tell great stories with humor and heart. We’ve seen these series connect with our audience around the world and across platforms in meaningful ways, and we have many more stories to tell. We look forward to developing new narratives that will put our charismatic princess Sofia, aspiring doctor Doc, and inspiring hero Jake into exciting new situations and locales.”
All three series have resonated with viewers across multiple generations, ranking among the Top 10 cable TV series for 2013 in Kids 2-5 and earning parent approval by also ranking in the top 10 preschooler cable TV series in Total Viewers and Women 18-49, in the U.S. Globally, the series can be seen in over 30 different languages in over 160 countries. They are also featured in the popular Disney Junior Appisode app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch and are among the most viewed episodes on WATCH Disney Junior for web and mobile devices.
“Sofia the First,” “Doc McStuffins” and “Jake and the Never Land Pirates” have been embraced across all Disney businesses, including Disney Parks & Resorts, which prominently features all three characters as part of the popular “Disney Junior Live on Stage!” attraction at Disney California Adventure park at the Disneyland Resort and Disney’s Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. Disney Consumer Products has robust product lines inspired by each of the series, including award-winning toys, apparel, room décor and party supplies.Combined, the three series have over 900 book titles, including the New York Times best seller “Sofia the First,” which was released as an e-book and in the accompanying “Sofia the First: Story Theater” app, which has been ranked #1 Kids iPad app on the App Store in 43 countries worldwide. They are also featured in multiple soundtracks and DVD releases from Disney Studiosand in Disney Junior magazine from Disney Publishing.
The series air daily on Disney Channel and Disney Junior. “Sofia the First” and “Jake and the Never Land Pirates” are produced by Disney Television Animation. “Doc McStuffins” is a production of two-time Academy Award-nominated Brown Bag Films in association with Disney Channel.
Disney Junior reflects the emotional connection generations of consumers have to Disney storytelling and Disney characters, both classic and contemporary. It invites mom and dad to join their child in the Disney experience of magical, musical and heartfelt stories and characters, while incorporating specific learning and development themes designed for kids age 2-7. Disney Junior’s series blend Disney’s unparalleled storytelling and characters kids love deeply with learning, including early math, language skills, healthy eating and lifestyles, and social skills. In the U.S., Disney Junior is a daily programming block on Disney Channel and a 24-hour channel. There are 33 Disney Junior channels in 24 languages around the world.
Source: The November 24, 2013 premiere of “Sofia the First: The Floating Palace” ranked as the #2 telecast in cable TV’s history in Kids 2-5 and the #2 preschool cable TV telecast in Total Viewers, behind only “Sofia the First: Once Upon a Princess.” This gives “Sofia the First” the Top 2 cable TV telecasts of all time in Kids 2-5 and the Top 2 preschool cable TV telecasts in Total Viewers.
Filed Under: Archived Content, Media Reviews
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HUG: Digital Can Challenge the Norm
Jun 20, 2018 | News
By Gregory Hale
John Rudolph wants to challenge the status quo.
“I’d like to change the norm. I want to be challenged,” said the newly named president of Honeywell Process Solutions at the Honeywell User Group Americas in San Antonio, TX, Monday. “Share your objectives with us on safety, on yield, on energy, on the environment, and we’ll partner with you to achieve them.”
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In this changing era of moving toward a more digital plant, Rudolph said he was reminded of a quote from Apple leader Steve Jobs said.
“He said, ‘Don’t hire smart people and tell them what to do.’ I’d qualify that statement by adding that even smart people need data, and they need an aggregation of experience in order to make the informed decisions. Connected is about empowerment of people.”
With advances in technology there are great benefits, but before going all in on the latest and greatest technology, all end users have to ask the million dollar question of what is in it for them? If they find there would not be a big change, then maybe they shouldn’t go that route.
“How do it get more efficient with what I am doing?” Rudolph asked.
He recalled the day when there would be a call to an expert across the globe to talk about a problem the facility was having and all you would hear on the other end was “that is impossible, it shouldn’t happen.”
Well, it is possible and it did happen. That is just one scenario where the digital plant can correct the situation where everyone is seeing the same numbers and experience the issue in real time.
“We want to allow people to make intelligent decisions faster,” Rudolph said. “I can fix any problem you have in 15 minutes. The problem is, it may take me six months to find it.”
When you go digital, that means there is a new way to do things and the process changes, which can be a good thing.
“At some point the process has to be cleaned up, that is when you get ahead,” he said. “Don’t waste your time on business requirements because they will go away. You can do it differently. You have to look at the process and where we are going with this.”
“Digital transformation has to be about more than just moving data into the cloud,” Rudolph said. “It has to be about the outcomes, including driving increased productivity and savings for our customers while allowing them to increase knowledge capture, knowledge sharing and knowledge retention.”
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Suir Valley Ventures investment in holographic tech start-up VividQ
Suir Valley Ventures, the entrepreneur-led venture capital fund launched in partnership with Shard Capital Partners LLP to invest in early-stage software companies across a range of high-tech verticals including Augmented Reality (‘AR’) and Virtual Reality (‘VR’), Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’), and the Internet of Things (‘IoT’), is pleased to announce it has led a £3 million funding round in VividQ Limited – a UK-based deep tech software company pioneering the application of holography in AR/VR and consumer electronics display.
VividQ is a deep tech start-up with world-leading expertise in 3D holography. The company developed patented software to enable commercial applications of holographic display in AR/VR headsets, smartglasses, automotive head-up displays, and consumer electronics.
VividQ was founded in February 2017 in Cambridge, UK. Technical co-founders include engineers, mathematicians and computer scientists from the University of Cambridge, Oxford, and St Andrews with expertise in digital holography.
VividQ established partnerships with chipmakers, display and hardware manufacturers in the US, Taiwan and Europe, to enable mass adoption of holographic display with their patented software for hologram generation.
The AR market is expected to grow from $11 to $61 billion between 2018 and 2023, with the VR market growing from $8 to $34 billion in the same period, at CAGRs of over 30%, according to Markets and Markets. At the same time, the global display market, valued at $115.60 billion in 2017, is projected to reach $206.29 billion by 2025, registering a CAGR of 7.4% from 2018 to 2025, according to Allied Market Research.
The investment will enable VividQ to accelerate the adoption of their hologram generating software. They aim to double their Cambridge and London-based teams to implement further developments to the software framework and complete ongoing customer projects, to productise devices using holographic display in 2020.
Suir Valley Venture Managing Partner, Barry Downes, said, “We are delighted to lead the £3million investment round in VIVIDQ Limited. Darran and his team have the unique combination of the world-leading expertise and the pioneering, proprietary software technology that is the missing piece needed for the mass adoption of holography, which will radically enhance and grow the AR and digital display industry.”
VividQ’s CEO, Darran Milne, said, “Suir Valley have been great to work with, both for their professionalism and deep understanding of the companies they invest in and the technology behind them. They demonstrate the kind of vision and passion that the deep tech companies of today need to accelerate bringing truly disruptive solutions to market.”
Founded in February 2017, VividQ is a deep-tech software company with world-leading expertise in 3D holography. With seed funding, VividQ has grown its Commercial and Technical teams in Cambridge and London, made a full release of their software framework, and secured partnerships with world-class customers including hardware and embedded systems manufacturers.
Holography has long been considered the ultimate display technology. The science fiction ideal of engineering and manipulating light to produce 3D projections appealed to the imagination of millions through franchises such as Star Wars or Star Trek. While physically possible, the tremendous computing requirements to create full-depth holographic display made it unreachable for commercial applications. Until now.
VividQ has developed solutions required for the mass adoption of holography in AR and consumer electronics. Its patented software framework allows for the real-time generation of holograms from 3D data, and projection on available micro-displays. Commercially viable holographic display solves a crucial problem of today’s AR/VR – the lack of depth perception, which disrupts the user’s sense of realism and results in eye-fatigue and nausea. Holography overcomes these issues and paves the way for immersive 3D without the need for glasses at all.
With technical co-founders leading their team out of Cambridge (UK), VividQ has benefited from the rich research environment of the University and its Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics. VividQ’s Commercial Team operates from London, as part of the rich entrepreneurial network of TechHub and Innovation Warehouse. The company has achieved wide recognition at international industry events including AWE, nVidia GTC, Photonics West, and Mobile World Congress.
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Summum Bonem
Yours truly on yoga
First thing in the morning, I like to do some stretches. Two of these stretches are known by my yoga-practising human as ‘upward dog’ and ‘downward dog’. Sometimes she does them too, so I do them back to mirror her, as it seems polite.
She wants me to end up doing this with her. But that’s not happening any time soon. Humans!
Using dog stretches in yoga seems like a kind of appropriation – humans are using dog stretches and adapting or appropriating them to their own human ends, such as getting a particular kind of exercise. I’m totally fine with that, and glad that the humans do at least give us credit for the stretches by giving them such good names.
Having lots of friends who’re either Religious Studies scholars or religious practitoners, I’m aware that not all appropriation is that uncontroversial. In fact, yoga is one of the appropriated practices that’s most debated. That’s to do with the difference between historical yoga in the East, and how yoga is represented and used today. Yoga has its origins in very diverse ancient Hindu practices, much of those unrecognisable as what we call yoga today, which were aimed at the reshaping of human consciousness towards some higher goal. But what we now know as 'yoga' in the West came out of nineteenth century attempts to adapt Indian practices to American and European healing movements. So the postural yoga we know today took ancient practices and continued the idea that humans can control and train the mind-body complex, but gave these practices a new purpose: health, beauty and wellbeing.
Today, postural yoga is practised in the West as a health and fitness routine independent of any religious worldview – in fact many people are keen to emphasise that, for them, it’s a physical exercise rather than related to spirituality. That said, other yoga practitioners do see it as spiritual – for example, by regarding it as a universal, eastern-inspired form of spirituality. Some people even adapt it to their own religious tradition, as in the case of Christian yoga, where the yoga is adapted to include exercises designed to strengthen the person’s relationship with Jesus. So people in the West relate yoga to religion and spirituality in different ways: by severing its link to religion or spirituality altogether; by seeing it as a form of spirituality but not religion; by adapting it to a religion other than the one it developed in.
Why would anyone be upset about any of this?
Part of the issue is simply the fact that yoga is misrepresented when people point to common practices in the West and attribute them to ancient India, as though the repurposing for health and fitness and other alterations hadn’t taken place or aren’t important. Much the same is true of other appropriated practices: Native American spirituality, mindfulness, Shamanism, reiki and so on. This misrepresentation seems particularly problematic when the leaders from the cultures doing the appropriating and the misrepresenting are the ones who in the past have harmed the people who are being appropriated – for example, through colonialism – and who continue to hold a dominant position over them. A related problem concerns the fact that these appropriated practices bring in big bucks – and it’s the appropriators, rather than the appropriated, who are getting the lion’s share. Seen in this light, we can begin to see why a Hindu or a Native American might be less than thrilled when presented with a barely-recognisable form of yoga repurposed for fitness and sold at an expensive gym by Europeans, or Native American dreamcatchers sold on high street markets by and to the white people whose society has systematically disadvantaged Native Americans. A final point of contention is that these misrepresentations are often infused with ‘noble savage’ racism: the idea that people in India or Native Americans are set apart from civilisation and so impart particular spiritual insight. This of course is a kind of racism it’s particularly hard to see, because it *looks* like one’s saying something nice about the people – that they’re especially spiritual and uncorrupted or whatever.
Is there a good way to do yoga in the West?
It’s worth saying at this point that there are lots of positive things about contemporary Western yoga. It undoubtedly contributes to many peoples' wellbeing. Many of the people who teach it do so because they want to pass something that’s helped them onto others. Many people are also motivated by ideas that, whether authentically ancient Indian or not, are reacting against unsatisfactory aspects of dominant Western thought. For example, the emphasis on being ‘holistic’ provides an alternative to the ideas that people are purely physical and mechanistic, or else that they can be carved into ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ components. So I don’t think we should lose yoga altogether. But we might want to think about how we can practice it in a more humble, respectful, and religiously or culturally informed way.
The human thinker Edward Said has had good things to say about the social and political issues surrounding how people in the West relate to 'Eastern' culture. You can read him here: Said.
Mental walkies with Lola,
Professor of Dogic and Dogmatics at the University of Leads.
Delicious Tempting Cheese
Dogic
Downward Dog
Muddy Human Challenge
My Christmas Ambles
My Favourite Ball
My Feeding Bowl
My Humans
My Leg Ritual
Philosophy Of Emotion
Philosophy Of Gender
Philosophy Of Psychiatry
UCU Strike
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Tonnes of plastic waste dumped in Malaysia will be returned to UK, US and others
Port Klang, Malaysia (CNN)Malaysia will return 450 tonnes of contaminated plastic waste to the countries that shipped it, in a refusal to become a dumping ground for the world’s trash.
Nine shipping containers at Port Klang, west of Kuala Lumpur, on Tuesday were found to contain mislabeled plastic and non-recyclable waste, including a mixture of household and e-waste. Yeo Bee Yin, minister of energy, science, technology, environment and climate change, said the plastic was shipped from the US, the UK, Australia, Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, the Netherlands and Singapore.
Malaysia will return illegally-imported plastic waste to the source country.Five containers of waste were returned to Spain last month.On April 24, Malaysia launched a joint task force to crack down on the growing problem of illegal plastic waste imports. The authorities have since carried out 10 operations.Read MoreLast year, China banned plastic waste imports as part of an initiative to clean up its environment. That move caused a ripple effect through global supply chains, as middlemen sought new destinations for their trash, including Malaysia.A recent Greenpeace report found that during the first seven months of 2018, plastic waste exported from the US to Malaysia more than doubled compared to the previous year.Yeo told a press conference that one UK recycling company had exported more than 50,000 metric tonnes of plastic waste in about 1,000 containers over the past two years. “We urge the developed countries to review their management of plastic waste and stop shipping garbage to developing countries,” Yeo added.
China's recycling ban has sent America's plastic to Malaysia. Now they don't want it — so what next? The row over plastic waste imports is also playing out in the Philippines, where Canada recently missed a May 15 deadline to take back tonnes of its garbage. That prompted a diplomatic spat with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, which saw him recall his ambassador to Ottawa. After Duterte said he was prepared to “declare war” on Canada over the issue, the Canadian government said it would cover the full cost of the return operation and pledged that the garbage will be brought back before the end of June.
Malaysian Minister of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Yeo Bee Yin shows samples of plastics waste shipment from Australia on May 28, 2019. Last year the governments of 187 countries, including Malaysia, agreed to add plastic to the Basel Convention, a treaty that regulates the movement of hazardous materials from one country to another, to combat the dangerous effects of plastic pollution worldwide.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/asia/malaysia-plastic-waste-return-intl/index.html
spat
exported
Some Ohio legislators yell 'cut' to Hollywood tax deals By DAN SEWELL and ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINSPublished May 22, 2019FeaturesAssociated Press
Maximum Security jockey Luis Saez suspended 15 days
Joe Biden: If I’m Elected President, ‘We’re Going to Cure Cancer’
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Ever since stepping into the arena of international club electronica almost a decade ago, the young man they call Stefan Obermaier first and foremost stayed true to himself and to his unique sonic vision as a producer and DJ.
Born in Salzburg, Stefan lives in Vienna since 2001. His parents gave him his first keyboard when he was just two years old. Inspired by the Vienna Sound of this time, in the early 1990s he already played in various Funk & Jazz projects. Both 1997 and 1998 saw him winning the Austria Band Contest with his school band and his original compositions. Simultaneously, Stefan made it at the age of 17 to the forefront of performing electronic musicians in the Salzburg area. In a time, where there were no functional laptops on the market, he was one of the very few moving around with their computers and installing them in the venues for their gigs. After finishing school, Obermaier moved to Vienna to study music science, but left for good upon signing his first record contract in order to focus on his musical output.
Stefan then has built a name for himself with his remarkable solo releases, the in-demand remixes he delivered for a.o. Supermax, Mark Murphy, and M ('Pop Muzik') over the years and for his Gold selling 'Classic Reloaded' side project that saw him piece apart some of Beethoven’s and Mozart’s most famous works retooling them for the 21st century.
And yet, at the same time, there is a large amount of evolution and freshness in the music of Stefan Obermaier. Our man from Austria effortlessly manages to fuse the essence of what happened on the Vienna scene in terms of all things cool, funky & dubby during the mid nineties with a more energetic, strictly future bound tech approach and quite an organic amount of soulful spirituality on aside.
In order to launch his own label Drift Rec. in 2012 with his partner Zwetelina Angelova, Stefan has stepped up to the plate delivering 4 tracks (Bagana EP) that already has DJs purring with delight. Title track ‘Bagana’ sums it all up nicely: Crisp, uplifting, house music primed for the dance floor. With the worthy successor ‘Traveler’ Obermaier proved again his international capabilities in the matter of organic and soulful house music and reached the top 10‘s in the Germany’s (DCC) and UK’s (Cool Cuts) leading club charts. Shishanna EP and the single Apia, his third and fourth releases in 2012, made it up to #2 at DCC. With his cosequent relaeses „Alpino EP“, "Magolie/Monsoon", "Sinaye/Dawning" and the following Stefan continues this path.
„It is always a certain mood that I am aiming for“ says Stefan with a smile - his music is fresh, positive and breathes quite an amount of new life.
Stefan Obermaier has a permanent sound-exhibition room at the world's first sound and music museum - the Viennese House of Music.
Stefan Obermaier © 2012-2017
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Footprints in Time. 5 Generations of Mexican Artists at the Parota
August 29th, 2014 - September 26th, 2014
Art Gallery of the Consulate of Mexico in New Orleans
901 Convention Center Blvd. Suite 118
The Consulate of Mexico in New Orleans is pleased to invite you to the Art Exhibition of Mexican Masters entitled “Footprints in Time. 5 Generations of Mexican Artists at the Parota.” The exhibit will feature works by Mexican artists Jose Luis Cuevas, Leonora Carrington, Alberto Castro Leñero, Manuel Felguerez, Gilberto Aceves Navarro, Francisco Toledo, and Roger Von Gunten among other.
The exhibit will run from August 29th to September 26th at the Art Gallery of the Consulate of Mexico in New Orleans. An opening reception will be held on August 29th at 6 pm.
Information on La Parota:
The Fine Art Center “La Parota” was created in 1996, by the combined efforts of the Government of the State of Colima‘s Ministry of Culture and the National Council for Culture and the Arts. “The Parota” celebrates a long continuing artistic history, full of achievements and great national and international recognition. The participation of the most important Mexican Masters teaching production of printmaking workshops and Fine Arts have been carried out at this Centre with great success since its beginning.
“The Parota” has been an Institution for established masters and young talented artists. The exchange of knowledge, ideas and experiences given in the workshops have driven new etching techniques, while developing a new generation of Fine Art Printmakers.
With the passing of the years, the Fine Art Center of Colima “La Parota” has generated a wealth of artistic production with the most important artists of Mexico, while simultaneously producing some of the nation‘s most outstanding young artists.
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March 17, 2017 March 19, 2017 Uncategorized 3 Comments
Portrait of David U’Prichard
“At New Year 1972 … we’re driving through the night in this big, old car and listening to AM radio. I still remember the station call letters, WLW Cincinnati, WLS Chicago. That you could go for hundreds of miles traveling long, long straight roads, Interstate 70. I’d never seen a road that goes on for a thousand miles. And I’m thinking, “Oh boy, this is America” and it was all the little kid’s fantasies of the space and the distance.”
Photo by Lisa U’Prichard
My father’s father emigrated from Northern Ireland to Glasgow in Scotland where I was born and spent the first 20 years of my life. My mother was German and she and my dad met in 1945 when she was 19. It was the end of the war – my father was a captain in the British Army during the occupation – and he had to find an English-speaking secretary. So he interviewed a whole variety of young girls and he liked my mother. Well obviously, he liked my mother’s looks, but also she was really, really smart and she spoke decent English. My dad brought her to Scotland a year later. Eventually she ended up going back to college and teaching.
So there was immigration on both sides, which gave me a feeling of “well, I’m not exactly rooted here.” There’s more to that. I had to defend my mother’s honor as a kid in Scotland after the War when feelings still ran high, and kind of got beaten up quite a few times. When I was 22, I immigrated to London like all little Scottish boys with any sense — because the opportunity there is so much greater. I was going to grad school at University College London, and I met this American girl, Eleuthera (Terri), who ended up being my first wife. Terri’s father was an American spy, and her mother a young French resistance fighter, then living in Istanbul. We fell in love, and I got a bee in my bonnet about going to America.
How do I describe my immigration? Well, I was not a refugee. It wasn’t even for economic reasons at all. I was a hippie. I didn’t care where I landed in America. I thought, “Okay, I just want to go there and experience it”. I expected to finish my PhD degree in a couple of years and then we’d go back to Britain. Well, that didn’t happen.
I said to Terri, “Where should we go?” She said, “Why not Kansas?” She grew up as a little girl in Florida, but she somehow wended her way — she was a hippie too — to Kansas and she worked in the KU Pharmacy School in Lawrence. I said, “Why not?” Terri and I meanwhile got married in the summer of 1971 in Scotland and all of her tribe came from America and Istanbul. The mother, the mother’s young fourth husband the artist, Terri’s sister and younger brother, and their spouses. They all looked really, really strange in the Scottish setting. My mother and father were startled, but game.
So I told my dad in the fall of 1971, “Well, I’m actually not very happy down in London, I want to go to the States.” I told him that I was going to go to Kansas and his response was, “Well, watch out for the Indians.” And he was a serious, well-educated man, and that was not a joke. Foreign perceptions of America can be really strange at times.
I was a student. Terri wasn’t earning a lot of money. We kind of tilted that university stuff off so that we could work part-time in a bar in London to save up a few hundred pounds to get on a ship because we couldn’t afford airfares or anything like that.
We did work in a strange little bar for six months. It was a bar for Australians in London, just around the corner from the Australian Embassy. In Australia, they had just changed their liquor laws. It used to be — the bars were only open for one hour, five until six. And so, young Aussie boys and girls would go to the bar at five o’clock and they would drink like a fish for one hour, and get totally smashed. The bar was run by a flamboyant, gay manager and it was raucous every night. And in the middle of the flower fights and tossing cans of Aussie lager, a kind of point of stillness was a little old, English lady who came in every night and sat nursing a small glass of sherry for five hours.
We saved up some money and got a passage on a very famous old ship called the Stefan Batory, a Polish ship named after the Prince of Transylvania. It had seen service as a troup ship in World War II. The ship left Gdańsk in Poland with 700 Poles heading to relatives in Toronto and Chicago, and stopped in Southampton to pick up a few British people.
My father drove Terri and me from Glasgow, Scotland down to Southampton in the south of England. That was then a long 10-hour drive and we superficially chatted but there was a great weight in the air – not great sadness, that would be too strong – but a weight in the air that something was irrevocably changing.
We made our way to the docks in Southampton. I still remember my father standing very straight at the end of the pier — he had good posture from his army days — stoically waving to us as the boat left. I was excited about this whole adventure about coming to America. And my father was happy for me, but also sad because he knew he was losing me. My mother had a far more balanced view of things because she had done this, separated herself from her country and her family and now she was seeing me do the same. It weighed less heavily with her. I’m not saying she took it lightly but unlike my dad, who I could tell was infused with feelings of loss. She was more hardheaded about it, saying, “Okay, he’s taken off on his adventure.” My dad died in the mid ‘90s at the age of 86. He was a strong father and I left him when I was 20. We never were tremendously close after that. I was always closer to my mother, but 3,000 miles distance over decades loosens ties.
This was December 1971. The ship was going to Montreal so we sailed across the North Atlantic and then down the Saint Lawrence River. December, you start to get icebergs, so we’re kind of all a little nervous about the icebergs. That was a very riotous week of sailing. All the Poles drank a lot of vodka, danced a lot of polkas, and threw up over the side of the boat a lot between drinking bouts. I learned to play bingo in Polish but I could never win because I couldn’t remember the numbers in Polish fast enough.
So, halfway across the Atlantic, I was a smoker in those days, I’m up on the deck and I’m sharing a cigarette with the only American on the boat, a nice fellow. I’m telling him my life story and about heading to Kansas and he says, “Well, I guess your first stop is going to be with your local draft board.” And I said, “Do what?”
I had gotten a green card already in London. It was a whole lot easier in those days if you were married to an American, but it wasn’t plain sailing, I had to go to the U.S. Embassy in London maybe half a dozen times, getting seriously interviewed. And I remember one time, some embassy attaché or whatever — with a three-ringed binder and he flips it open and he looks me in the eye and he says, “Look at these pages. Are you or have you ever been a member of any of these organizations?” I came from a left-wing family and had seen the McCarthy hearings in TV when I was little. I’m thinking, “Holy moly!”
What I had no sense then was that green card holders were eligible for the draft. So I said to myself — I said if I get a number lower than 200, I’m out of here. Well. I got a 280.
Coming over, I had $200 in my pocket from working at the bar. We had one steamer trunk that was full of kitchen utensils, pots and pans and some clothes. That was all we had. I was going to Kansas on the vague prospect that I might get a teaching assistant job. Nothing was guaranteed at all but I didn’t care.
The boat made it to Quebec City, and we got on the Greyhound Bus to Columbus, Ohio to stay with Terri’s sister, a grad student there. Our US port of entry was Detroit. So, we get to the bus station in downtown Detroit at about one o’clock in the morning and we have a three-hour layover before the next bus to get to Columbus. That was the only point where I said, “I might turn around” because the Detroit bus station in 1971 in the middle of the night was a not very nice place to be at all.
In Columbus, I spent 125 bucks out of that 200 getting a ‘62 Buick Electra station wagon. It was a wonderful old thing, only five cylinders worked. It was all black, about 23 feet long, with fins. Already it was almost 10 years old and not in good shape, but it was big, lots of chrome, red velour interior and power everything – windows, steering, brakes; you could just rotate the red steering wheel with one finger. I had never seen this before! And the reason that we got that big station wagon was basically to hold the steamer trunk. I sold it the following spring for $75.
We spent about a month in Columbus. To make some money, I tried telephone sales but my Scottish accent was too strong. I had no luck at all. As soon as they heard me, they said, “No, you’re not going to make it in sales.” For a few days, I did get up looking for manual labor at four o’clock in the morning and this was a really cold winter. I didn’t have a lot of luck with that either. In fact I had no luck. Terri was doing better because she got a job at the local Polish Men’s Club in Columbus, waiting tables. That Christmas we spent dancing polkas, and I will admit that in the backroom there, that’s where my daughter Zoë got conceived.
At New Year 1972, we got in the car heading off from Columbus to Lawrence, Kansas. That is still a magical moment – we’re driving through the night in this big, old car and listening to AM radio. And I still remember the station call letters, WLW Cincinnati, WLS Chicago. That you could go for hundreds of miles traveling long, long straight roads, Interstate 70. I’d never seen a road that goes on for a thousand miles. And I’m thinking, “Oh boy, this is America” and it was all the little kid’s fantasies of the space and the distance. So we get to Lawrence, Kansas, very charming collage town, a bit of a hippie hotbed at that time.
I was able to resume my studies. We couldn’t afford normal housing so we lived in a 60 by 12 foot trailer on the bad side of town. The previous owner of the trailer had thrown an ax at his wife right in the trailer. We couldn’t afford to fix the hole from the ax, so we just hung a picture over it. It did let in a lot of wind. And then a year later, we graduated to a 14 by 70 trailer and finally to an apartment before we left Lawrence.
So in Kansas, I like to tell people I learned to sail. How do you learn to sail in Kansas? Well, back in the Roosevelt era, the Army Corps of Engineers, as part of the WPA project, damned all of these rivers, and it created large lakes. You needed to watch out for the tornadoes and stuff, but you can sail. I’d never done that before. I learned to ride horseback, and I’d never done that before either. I would do those three years in Kansas all over again. It was like parachuting into the most American America that you could imagine. Kansans are absolutely wonderful people. They were really, really curious about me. They didn’t see a lot of foreigners back then.
I learned that I had to consciously modify my English. They’d say, so polite, “Excuse me, sir. Could you repeat that? Can you say that again?” They wanted me to take the TOEFL test, the Test of English as a Foreign Language. That insulted me. I considered myself very well read. My father especially spoke English beautifully. He knew all the big words, knew how to use them. So, TOEFL, you got to be kidding me.
The intention had been to be there for two or three years, wrap up the degree and go back. But life happened and my daughter came along very soon in Lawrence. Little by little, we stayed. I finished my PhD in pharmacology. I wanted to do a post-doc and — it was a real shot in the dark, but I applied to some very famous laboratories in area of neuroscience and a famous neuroscientist named Sol Snyder at the Johns Hopkins Medical School out of the blue said, “Yeah, okay. Why don’t you come?”
We lived in Baltimore for three years. In 1978, I got an academic faculty job at Northwestern University in Chicago, and my son Gavain was born. During the 70s, we were able to save money to go back to Europe in the summers, two or three times, to see our folks in Scotland and Greece.
Five years in Chicago as a tenured associate professor, I was doing fine. I had students and visiting scientists in the lab and grants from the NIH. But, I wasn’t satisfied. Actually I liked the teaching and research and I loved Chicago. I got into the Chicago Blues. I could even tolerate the weather and we saw some heavy duty winters about then. It was the narrowness of the academic career. I kind of had a crisis and said to myself, “I don’t know what I’m going to do next, but I don’t like what I’m doing now.”
So I went in to my department chairman, a famous scientist, old-school Japanese, Toshio Narahashi. I said to Toshio, “I am resigning my faculty position.” He said, “Where you going?” I said, “I don’t know.” And I’ll never forget what he said. He said, “David, you are a samurai” and I didn’t quite know what he meant then, but now I fully understand what it meant. And I think now that was a perfect response.
My old mentor Sol Snyder called me up and said, “I’m starting a company. I have money to start a biotech company.” This was the beginning of biotechnology. “Do you want to come back to Baltimore to help?” Sadly, Terri and I, with the strains and stresses of married life, not much money, were separating. And I said to Sol, “Yeah, I can come back.”
Terri and I were separating — I was going to Baltimore and she was staying in Chicago. I got this call from my laboratory and it’s a woman, Lisa Swerdloff, a freelance medical and science writer hired by the new company, who said she wants to interview me. She said, “Can I interview you over the phone?” And so, we conducted this interview and I got totally schizophrenic because a part me was very professional and was giving her the story and the other part of me was saying, “This is one sexy voice.” I am a romantic, and I imagine this young New York freelance reporter girl with a kind of smoky sexy Lauren Bacall voice. So I said, “This is not working. Get the first flight out of LaGuardia to O’Hare tomorrow morning so that we can finish it off in person,” and she did. We continued the interview and both of us realized we didn’t want this to stop. The rest is history. I brought her to Baltimore and here we are 34 years later, happily married.
Fast forwarding in my career, from 1983 to 1986 I helped set up Sol’s company. I then got attracted to one of the big pharmaceutical companies that was based in Wilmington, Delaware. We get in our car, Lisa and I, she is a Manhattan girl, and we’re driving up I-95 and the job is in Wilmington but we don’t stop, and we get to Philadelphia. We turned off in Society Hill and Lisa’s looking around here and she’s saying, “I like this,” and so we ended up here.
I had a career with two pharmaceutical companies. Starting at Wilmington, running the US R&D of a British company called ICI Pharmaceuticals, nowadays AstraZeneca. In 1990, my English boss told me that he wanted me to come to England, what they call a secondment, like a sabbatical – we want you over here.
It was supposed to be for two years. It ended up being four and a half years, didn’t make Lisa terribly happy but it was a good career step. We moved to England in 1991 and until then for 20 years I had said to myself that when I was old and grey, I would go back to Scotland. I felt sentimental about that. But actually moving back to Britain after having been away for 20 years, it had changed a lot and I didn’t empathize with it. It would be too strong to say, “I didn’t like it.” But a lot had happened in 20 years and it was quite a changed country. I had lived in America, where I could breathe deeply and the idea of going back late in life to “a tight little island” didn’t appeal.
I had a conscious thought. “No. I do not want to finish my life over there. I’ll stay here.” And that was when I applied for my citizenship. I had had the green card for 20 years, and I became a citizen in 1992. It was a very conscious decision at that time.
I moved in the late ‘90s to SmithKline Beecham, another Anglo-American company, now GSK. I have always been happiest having a foot on either side of the pond. It felt psychologically right.
Although I never wanted to go back to live, I actually kept my UK passport. In those days, the Americans were pretty strict. You were supposed to relinquish your old country passport but they didn’t look over your shoulder. The UK passport turned out handy because I could travel all over Europe and the airport lines are shorter! Now that all may change with Brexit. But perhaps Scotland will become independent and stay in Europe. I’m up for that.
Zoë and Gavain, my children, they of course see themselves as Americans, but they have a wider perspective on things. I don’t know if that will last through the next generation. I know second, third generation immigrants generally — people lose their ties to the old country.
When my mother in the fall of 2005 called me up to say she’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had six months to live, I dropped everything I was doing here to go back to her and I spent the last five months that she had with her. That was not only a deep immersion into our relationship, but a deep immersion back into Scotland, the Scotland of my youth, because I was dealing with things; I was not just passing through as a tourist or for a day or two. That was probably is the most intensely emotional period of my life. She died away from her original home and I had come from my new home back to her.
I’m very clear about where I want to be, which is right here. But I also feel myself quite European and on occasion, sentimentally pretty Scottish. I can also feel quite German as well and I’ve wrestled with that part of my heritage and having a Jewish wife.
When people think about immigrant stories, there’s a simple motto, “We came from the old country, country A and we move to America,” black and white. But because of my personal life and family, I’m very, very attuned to layers. So I’m Scottish, I’m British, I’m Irish, I’m German, I’m American, my wife is Russian and American. My ex-wife is French and American.
Nobody, at least nobody in the first generation, becomes 100% American. The melting pot is a myth.
Portraits of People on the Move tells the stories of Philadelphia-area immigrants through their own words on the Supperdance.com blog and was first shown as an exhibition June 25–28, 2015, at the Gray Area of Crane Arts in Philadelphia. The exhibition was created as a companion work to Supper, People on the Move by Cardell Dance Theater, a dance inspired by themes of migration.
3 thoughts on “Portrait of David U’Prichard”
Hi David. George Reid here. Still scraping away on cello!
Get in touch if you get this
george reid , December 28, 2017 at 2:27 pm
hello George Reid!! My goodness! I would love to hear more from you. My email is dcuprichard@druidconsult.com.
david U'Prichard , January 2, 2018 at 3:56 pm
Hi David. What a fab story! Need to get in touch. Googled your name and this came up! Will write to you at the druid address. Best to you and Lisa. David & Cherie Tuffin
David Tuffin , June 21, 2018 at 10:25 am
Leave a Reply to David Tuffin Cancel reply
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Evaluating the Color of Low-Fat Cheese to Increase Customer-Perceived Value
Posted on March 25, 2016 by Helena K.
Over the past several decades, advances in our understanding of nutrition have dramatically transformed the dietary habits of millions of Americans seeking to improve their health, promote longevity, and resolve physical ailments. As the public has grown more health-conscious, the food industry has responded to increased demand for healthier choices by offering a host of alternatives to traditional products. Low-fat cheeses were amongst the first reduced-fat and fat-free products introduced to the mainstream market in the 1990s and, while they initially floundered owing to lack of gustatory appeal, advances in low-fat cheese formulation have created a surge in sales as cheese producers have discovered how to create more palatable products that simulate the sensory experiences of full-fat cheeses.
“In the last decade, cheese makers have been doing a much better job,” says Jed Davis, director of marketing at Cabot Creamer Cooperative. “Reduced-fat cheese delivers on the qualities customers expect in flavor, texture and mouthfeel.”1 As demand for low-fat cheeses continues to grow, cheese makers are looking to both improve existing products and create new, more specialized low-fat alternatives. In fact, even some artisanal producers are beginning to recognize the potential of this market segment as our cultural focus on healthy living expands.
However, meeting customer expectations isn’t just about making cheeses that taste like their full-fat counterparts. As the saying goes, we eat with our eyes first, and visual appeal is paramount to ensuring the marketability of a low-fat product. Thus, the color of low-fat cheese is of the utmost importance. Dr. Ranjeeta Wadhwani of Utah State University notes, “Before other flavor and textural properties of cheese can be noticed, the first parameter that distinguishes cheeses is color.”2 Cheese producers often struggle to create products with coloration that approximates full-fat products, which many consider to be a key issue hindering the success of low-fat alternatives. As such, investigating the impact of low-fat formulations and fat replacers on cheese color has become a vital area of inquiry as researchers explore how to enhance the appeal of low-fat products.
The Impact of Color on Perception of Low-Fat Cheese
Milk fat is a critical part of giving cheese its color and opacity; it makes cheese look the way we expect it to. When milk fat is reduced, the color intensity decreases and the cheese takes on a more translucent appearance. Since the introduction of the first low-fat cheese in the 1990s, this has been widely acknowledged as a significant barrier to consumer enjoyment, regardless of the taste of the cheese itself. Until recently, however, no concrete data regarding the effect of color on low-fat cheese flavor perception and consumer acceptability existed.
That changed in 2012 when Dr. Wadhwani designed an experiment to investigate the relationship between color and consumer perception.3 120 panelists were asked to rate a range of full-fat and corresponding low-fat cheddar cheeses on a 5-point scale. The results showed that “among low-fat cheeses, color was shown to be important with consumer liking being negative influenced when the cheese appearance was too translucent or too white.” In fact, low-fat cheeses that were made the same way were ranked differently by the panelists based solely on the addition of color. Furthermore, Dr. Wadhwani discovered that the formulation of the low-fat cheeses was directly linked to likability and flavor perception; specifically, “matching the level of titanium dioxide with the annatto level” gave the most favorable results. The study confirmed what cheese makers have known for years: The color of low-fat cheese has a significant impact on consumer acceptance and recipes must be thoughtfully formulated to optimize appeal.
Evaluating the Color of Low-Fat Cheese Formulations
The central role color plays in the perception of low-fat cheeses has led color to be one of the primary qualities evaluated during the formulation of new low-fat products. To obtain reliable color data, researchers examining the effects of fat replacers and other recipe variables use advanced spectrophotometric instrumentation that distills color information to L*a*b* values for consistent, objective analysis. These technologies allow you to capture even the slightest color variations for a comprehensive picture of a product’s chromatic qualities and directly correlate color to discrete ingredients or process variables. For example, a study published in the Journal of Food Science and Technology found that researchers used a HunterLab Mini XE portable spectrophotometer to examine the impact of using soy protein isolate (SPI) as a fat replacer in low-fat paneer.4 The results found that the SPI had a noticeable effect on the color of the cheese and that the fat content of the paneer was directly proportional to the L value. Additionally:
The a and b values of SPI samples were higher than control. The SPI incorporation would have increased the amine compounds that react with aldehydes during Maillard reaction to form dark pigments (melanoidins). Values for a, which signify red (+) and green (−) and b, which signify yellow (+) and blue (−), increased with increasing levels of SPI incorporation, demonstrating that added SPI samples were more green and yellow colored. This could be attributable to the color difference between control milk (white color) and SPI (light brown color).
To create a truer visual match to full-fat cheese, these color differences could potentially be compensated for via the addition of colorants such as annatto and titanium dioxide. The data gained through spectrophotometric evaluation gives users the ability to easily determine whether or not a low-fat formulation matches its full-fat counterpart, both in whole form and when cooked, and carefully tailor recipes to create a suitable color match. If desired, cheese color may also be correlated to the NCI National Cheese Standards.
Once a formula has been perfected and moves into production, spectrophotometric monitoring of color throughout the production process ensures that your product stays within your chosen tolerance range to optimize appeal and marketability. By instantly alerting you to undesirable color variations, you are able to easily prevent the release of aesthetically inferior products into the marketplace, preserving your brand reputation and guaranteeing that only products that meet your standards are introduced to consumers.
https://www.hunterlab.com/blog/color-food-industry/evaluating-color-low-fat-cheese-increase-customer-perceived-value/
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Home ⎢Mexico's Cozumel Island and Riviera Maya
Posted by Larry Cohen
Mexico has much to offer the traveling diver. The Yucatán Peninsula and Cozumel Island are close to each other and are a perfect combination for a dive trip. While Cozumel has the largest reef in the northern hemisphere, the Yucatán Peninsula has some of the best cavern and cave diving in the world, many of which are found in the Riviera Maya district located on the coast.
Diver in swim-through at Palancar Caves, Cozumel, Mexico. Photo by Olga Torrey.
Larry Cohen and Olga Torrey
To explore both the mainland and the island, you can fly into Cancun. From there, it is a 65km (41mi) drive to Playa del Carmen. From here, you can take a 45-minute ferry over to Cozumel. At the ferry station near the bus and taxi stop, there are people with wheeled carts to help you transport your bags to and from the boat. The ferries run every hour, and it is an easy trip. There are plenty of cabs both in Playa del Carmen and Cozumel to get you to your hotel. If you are just diving Cozumel, there is an international airport on the island.
Cozumel, Mexico’s largest Caribbean island, is on the other side of the Yucatán Channel, opposite Playa del Carmen. The Mayan people called the island "Ah Cuzamil Peten", which means “the island of swallows”.
There are several Mayan ruins in Cozumel. El Caracol ("the snail") is a small ruin located in the Punta Sur Eco Beach Park. This structure was dedicated to the moon goddess, Ixchel. Built between 1200 and 1400 AD, it is believed the building was used as an "alarm" for approaching hurricanes. El Caracol acted as a whistle when strong winds funneled through. The sound would warn the people to prepare for bad weather. It is also believed that the building functioned as a lighthouse or beacon used to send signals to the mainland. Some say these are just legends, and the building was a temple.
Also in the park is the Faro Celerain Lighthouse, with its charming nautical museum, and Laguna Colombia. Visitors can take a boat ride through the lagoon to observe birds and crocodiles. Many of the mangrove trees were destroyed in 2013 during Hurricanes Ingrid and Manuel, with winds up to 140km/h (87mph). They are now on their way to being restored.
Diving Cozumel
Cozumel was named by Jacques Cousteau as one of the top 10 dive spots in the world back in 1961. Most of the diving takes place in the Cozumel Reefs National Marine Park. This protected area was created in 1996. The park is home to some 26 types of corals, with more than 100 subspecies. More than 500 fish species live in the park.
Many of the dive sites are walls swept with currents that can be strong. There is drift diving here, and at times, it is difficult to stop and "smell the sponges". If you happen to be here on a full moon, the current can be even stronger. On the walls, it is possible to get to a sheltered area out of the current. On the flat reefs, divers are exposed, and it can be challenging to get out of the current to take photographs. Many photo opportunities can be missed as one drifts with the current, as a variety of marine life effortlessly swims into the current.
Cozumel has many different dive sites. Here are a few of the most popular ones:
Palancar Caves. Palancar Caves is a site with nice tunnel formations. This site starts on a sandbank in 12.19m (40ft) of water and is 27.43m (90ft) at the deepest. There is a steep drop-off where one may find sea turtles and nurse sharks.
Palancar Gardens. Palancar Gardens starts on a sandy patch inside the drop-off at 6m (20ft). You can then make your way through one of the canyons to around 15m (50ft) down to about 21m (70ft). There are many cuts and channels to navigate through. If you look with an attentive eye, you can find the splendid toadfish. This species is endemic to Cozumel.
Paso Del Cedral. Paso Del Cedral is a flat reef with a few swim-throughs. Here, one can observe barracuda, lobsters, moray eels, grunts, and French and queen angelfish. The site is around 15m (50ft) to 18m (60ft) deep.
Cedral Wall. Cedral Wall has some dazzling coral tunnels and mounds with numerous overhangs. One small overhang had a nurse shark and large moray eel. These two looked like best buddies and one could only guess about their relationship. Large snappers, turtles, triggerfish and spotted eagle rays could be seen swimming into the very strong current.
Punta Sur Cathedral. Punta Sur Cathedral is an impressive site with many swim-throughs. It starts at 18m (60ft), then a narrow tunnel takes you to 24m (80ft). The wall drops at a 45-degree angle down to around 40m (130ft). The chamber known as Little Cathedral has many large sponges.
Santa Rosa Reef. Santa Rosa Reef is one of Cozumel's signature dives. You start on a flat reef, then go through a tunnel to a steep wall. The coral is rocky, with large outcrops that are 10m (33ft) to 12m (40ft) tall. This is a good location to find sea turtles, barracuda and grunts.
Punta Dalila. Punta Dalila is a great site for a night dive. In only 12m (40ft) to 18m (60ft) of water, one can find octopi, lobsters, crabs and moray eels. Here, it is important to keep track of your dive buddy as the current can be strong.
Felipe Xicotencatl C-53 wreck. Felipe Xicotencatl C-53 is an artificial reef with a history. Originally a US Navy minesweeper named USS Scuffle, this ship served during WWII in the Pacific. She participated in the pre-invasion sweep of Manila Bay in preparation for landings at Mariveles and Corregidor. The USS Scuffle received five battle stars for her WWII service.
In October 1962, the ship was sold to the Mexican Navy and renamed ARM DM-05. In 1994, she was renamed again as ARM General Felipe Xicoténcatl (C53). Her time in the Mexican Navy was spent patroling the Gulf of Mexico and the Mexican Caribbean Sea for illegal arms and drugs. The ship also preformed many rescue missions.
The C-53 was decommissioned and donated to the Cozumel underwater park. She was sunk in 1999 in 25m (82ft) of water just off shore from Chankanaab Park. The ship is 56.3m (154ft) long with a 10.10m (33ft) beam and is 12m (40ft) high.
Currents can be very strong. The ship sits intact and upright. In the stern, one can still see the propeller in the sand, now covered with marine growth. The deck still has machinery and some cabins that divers can penetrate and explore. Barracuda and other marine life now call this shipwreck home.
While Cozumel Island is one of the top dive destinations in the world—with its rich, colorful reefs, walls, wreck and drop-offs—when traveling there, you should not forget about the underwater wonders to be found on the mainland along the Riviera Maya, a district that hugs the Caribbean coastline in the state of Quintana Roo.
In the north, the Riviera starts at Puerto Morelos and ends in Punta Allen. This is now a hot tourist district, but what interests many divers is underground.
This area of the Yucatán Peninsula is a porous limestone platform. Millions of years ago, this area was a reef under ocean water. During the last Ice Age, the ocean level dropped, exposing the reef to air. The coral died, and jungle grew over the mile-thick limestone platform created by the dead coral.
Cave systems were formed by the gradual dissolving of the highly porous coral limestone. These caves are called "solution" caves because they were formed by acidic rainfall dissolving the alkaline limestone. During this time, these caves were not filled with water. As a result, formations such as stalactites (which hang from the cave's ceiling) and stalagmites (which extend upwards from the cavern floor) formed. Sometimes, they joined together to create columns. When the Ice Age ended 18,000 years ago, the climate of the planet warmed up, and the caves flooded as sea levels rose.
Riviera Maya does not have any fresh water at the surface, but the area’s caves—Ox Bel Ha, Sac Aktun and Dos Ojos—are three of the longest underground freshwater systems in the world. The cave formations are frozen in time, since they cannot form underwater. These stalactites and stalagmites are a spectacular sight to see.
When a cave ceiling collapses, a cenote is formed. The word “cenote" is derived from the Mayan word “ts’onot,” which means “sacred well.” Cenotes were the only source of fresh water for the Mayan people and they considered them sacred. The Mayans considered cenotes to be an entrance to the "underworld" or "Xibalba," where their gods lived and the human spirit resided after death.
When diving here, it does feel as if you are in a different world. Diving in a cave zone where no light exists requires special training, and the cenotes are in the cavern zone. Taking a cavern course is a good idea, but these areas could be dived by all open water divers if accompanied by a properly-trained guide with an official cenote guide certification.
The visibility can be over 30m (100ft), and the water temperature is around 22-24°C (72-75°F) all year round. Besides the formations in the cenotes, another interesting phenomenon one can observe is the light. Natural sunlight filters around and through the porous ceiling, creating a magnificent light show. Rays of streaming light slice through the water, and different shapes are formed between the shadows and highlights. The effect changes, depending on how cloudy it is, the time of day and time of year.
Cenote Ponderosa. The entrance to Cenote Ponderosa is vast. The permanent gold cavern line begins a little distance in, so you, or your guide, must run a primary reel from open water to the start of the permanent gold line. A very large tunnel leads from Ponderosa over to Corral Cenote. Once you reach Corral Cenote, the cavern line follows the edge, giving you a great view of both the cavern below and jungle above. On a sunny morning, the light show is very impressive, with light streaming into the cavern.
Cenote Chac Mool. Chac Mool is lined by tree trunks and branches that reach into the water. On a sunny day, it looks like a laser show, the way the light enters the water. The light and shadows form distinct patterns on the submerged rocks. In several areas, one will encounter a strong and defined halocline. A halocline occurs when fresh water from an underground stream and saltwater seeping in from the ocean mixes. Saltwater is denser than fresh water; when they mix, one experiences an optical illusion in which everything looks blurry. I felt as if I was underwater without a mask. Swimming through a halocline is fun but can be disorienting.
Cenote Kukulkan. Cenote Kukulkan is part of the Chac Mool System. Divers can enter through an entrance down a set of steps, or one could do a short cave dive from Chac Mool to Kukulkan. At times, the open water area is covered with a green algae bloom. One can see the shadows from the trees of the jungle from underneath.
Ocean diving
Besides diving underground, Riviera Maya, which sits on the Caribbean coast, does offer ocean dives worth doing. Depending on the time of year, one can see whale sharks, sailfish and bull sharks.
Whale sharks. The whale shark season is from June to September. Boats leave from Cancun and head to Contoy Island where the whale sharks come to feed on plankton. Snorkeling with the largest fish in the world is a humbling experience.
Sailfish. Sailfish season is December through March. The boats for sailfish tours also leave from Cancun and head to Contoy Island. The sailfish are here to feed on Brazilian sardines, which form into a bait ball. First, look for the frigate birds feeding on the sardines from the surface. Once you spot them, it is time to grab your snorkeling gear and hit the water.
The sailfish use their sword-like bill to stun the sardines and feed on them. They do not use their bill to spear their prey. These fish can be as large as 3m (9.8ft) in length, and weigh up to 90kg (200lb). They typically swim at 36 km/h (22 mph) but can go as fast as 110km/h (68 mph). They are the fastest fish in the world. Snorkeling with them, as they reduce a huge bait ball down to one fish (and then no fish), is an astounding event.
While in the open ocean, it is possible to encounter manta rays, whale sharks and dolphins, but this is not an aquarium. It is also possible to spend a very long day on the boat and see only water.
Sharks. From November to March every year, a group of pregnant bull sharks migrate to the shallow waters off Playa del Carmen. They come here to give birth. It is believed that the sharks are attracted to the water’s lower salinity, caused by the underground fresh water feeding into the ocean.
The site known as Shark Point has a sandy bottom. Since these are pelagic fish, it is difficult for scientists to acquire data. Since 2010, the nonprofit organization, Saving Our Sharks, has been gathering data and identifying the different sharks that visit Playa del Carmen. Twenty-five individuals have been identified. Besides the bull sharks, remoras and other marine life can be observed.
Diverse marine life. There are many patch reefs off Playa del Carmen including Jardines and Sabalos. These reefs might not be as lush as the reefs and walls off Cozumel, but they are teeming with life. Large schools of grunts, porkfish and tangs can be observed. Different species of parrotfish and moray eels can be seen in the crevices. Skates can be seen in the sandy areas between the reef patches. The current at top of these reefs could be strong. It is possible to stay low and out of the current.
Dive center and hotel
Pro Dive International is a PADI Five Star Dive facility and Career Development Center. It runs the scuba concessions in several resorts in Cozumel, Playa del Carmen and the Dominican Republic. Their gear is in superior condition, nitrox is free and the staff is very supportive. In Cozumel, the center is set up for recreational diving and training, and advanced specialty courses are offered. Dive boats get divers to the dive sites fast due to their close proximity and the boats’ speed. The dive guides help you enjoy your dive experience whether you are a rookie or experienced diver. Pro Dive can arrange excursions to Playa del Carmen for bull shark diving, whale sharks, sailfish run and cenotes.
Allegro is one of the resorts in Cozumel and Playa del Carmen from which Pro Dive operates. In Cozumel, the sprawling grounds include five different pools, one of which is an aquatic park for children, and a hot tub area for adults. On the premises are five restaurants, five bars, spa, tennis and basketball courts and an outdoor theater. There are small bungalow-style buildings, each containing four-guest accommodations for a total of 305 rooms. The resort’s all-inclusive program includes three meals, all drinks and sits conveniently in front of Playa San Francisco, one of Cozumel’s most beautiful beaches. Besides diving, other water sports offered include windsurfing, body-boarding, sailing, snorkeling, fishing and kayaking.
This hotel takes scuba diving seriously and strives to meet the needs of traveling divers. Allegro and Pro Dive offer the VIP Ultimate Dive Experience package, which includes a one-tank dive every day and many other benefits. There is a discount for additional dives. The other convenience is that the rooms are close to the dive shop and there is a special diver lounge named after the Santa Rosa Reef. Twice a day, at no additional charge, they offer non-certified guests a chance to try out scuba diving in the pool. If guests want to proceed further, they can get certified on the premises.
The all-inclusive Allegro Playacar Resort is located inside the gated community of Playacar. The resort sits on a fine, white sandy beach. Besides diving, beach volleyball, windsurfing and other water sports are offered. This is a convenient base from which to visit the Mayan archaeological sites, as well as oceanic and cenote dive sites. Unlimited meals, snacks and beverages are available at the resort’s three restaurants and five bars. After a day of exploring, this is a welcoming way to relax.
Pro Dive International has a small check-in point at the coveted Allegro Playacar all-inclusive resort. Dive operations take place at its larger facility next door, at the luxury four diamond-rated Royal Hideaway Hotel.
The shop is right on the beach. Boats pull up to the surf zone for the reef and bull shark dives. At this location, if requested, Pro Dive provides double tanks and singles with left and right valves for sidemount. Nitrox is free and all ocean guides are fully qualified PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainers. The cavern guides are also at PADI MSDT level, and are fully certified full cave divers, with an official cenote guide certification.
Cavern training and full cave courses are offered as well, by highly qualified and experienced full cave diving instructors. Pro Dive offers cave tours to divers that are cave certified. Pro Dive has comfortable trucks to take divers to the cenotes. The staff can also arrange for vans to take you to Cancun for sailfish or whale shark expeditions. Trips to Cozumel are also offered at this location.
A visit to the Riviera Maya would not be complete without seeing one of the major Mayan archaeological sites. Tulum is the only ruin that is on the Caribbean Sea. It was previously known as Zama, meaning the "City of Dawn". The current name “Tulum” means "fence" or "trench" in Mayan. This is one of the few Mayan cities protected by a wall.
Between the 13th and 15th centuries, vanishing only 70 years after the Spanish army started conquering today’s Mexico, Tulum was a major trading center for the Mayan people. This was an important location for both land and sea routes. The population is estimated to have been between 1,000 and 1,600.
The Daily Mail reported that, nowadays, two million tourists visit Tulum each year—sometimes as many as 2,000 per day. This is more people than the estimated local population. As crowded as it can get, Tulum is still worth visiting. You will get a glimpse into the lives of the Mayan people who depended on the cenotes in which we now dive.
The ruin is enclosed with a limestone wall on three sides. It is 7m (23ft) thick, and varies between 3m (10ft) and 5m (16ft) in height. Visitors enter through one of five doorways and see some spectacular ancient buildings. Castillo (castle) is the most dramatic. It is perched on the edge of a 12m (39ft) limestone cliff. Below is a beautiful white sandy beach on the Caribbean Sea. Besides the ruins, one is almost guaranteed to encounter iguanas, white-nosed coati and other wildlife.
For the curious traveling diver, the coasts of Mexico offer a variety of dive experiences, history and culture. The sun, blue sky, new friends and well-known hospitality of Mexico will create a superb trip experience. Both the Riviera Maya and Cozumel will entice you to come back for more. ■
Larry Cohen and Olga Torrey are well-traveled and published underwater photographers based in New York City, USA. They offer underwater photography courses and presentations to dive shops, clubs and events. For more information, visit: Liquidimagesuw.com and Liquidimagesuw.com/olga.
https://www.barcelo.com/en-us/hotels/mexico/cozumel/allegro-cozumel/
https://www.barcelo.com/en-us/hotels/mexico/riviera-maya/allegro-playacar/
http://www.cozumelparks.com/eng/punta_sur.cfm
https://prodivemex.com
http://www.reefsofcozumel.com/pages/reefs/ShipwreckC53.html
http://rivieramaya.com
http://www.tulumruins.net
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cozumel
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Watch the newest “I Am Texas Children’s” video featuring employee Tiffany Strawn in Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus – Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
“I enjoy working at Texas Children’s West Campus and seeing the progress children have made in physical therapy,” Strawn said. “This is probably the best place to work where everybody brings different approaches to sports medicine and physical therapy.”
Check out Strawn’s video, and find out how you and your coworkers can be featured in the “I Am Texas Children’s” section on Connect.
Getting a visitor while you are in the hospital is always a treat, but having a member of the Houston Texans stop by is a dream come true for many patients at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Some of the team’s football players, along with their mascot, Toro, stopped by the hospital on February 25 to visit with patients and officially announce their seven-year partnership with us. Click here to watch a video of that visit.
Beginning Wednesday, April 1, Texas Children’s Hospital will be the Official Children’s Hospital of the Houston Texans. Through the partnership, the Texans look forward to helping improve the health and wellness of Houston area children through community engagement, education, sports performance and the tools necessary to make healthy choices throughout their lives.
“We want to see all Houston kids grow healthier and stronger,” said Houston Texans President Jamey Rootes. “We feel it’s our responsibility to give every child access to the tools to understand the importance of healthy choices and the benefits of physical activity, and this partnership with the world-class team at Texas Children’s will give us that opportunity. We’re looking forward to working together.”
Texas Children’s is a natural fit with the Texans because of both organizations’ emphasis on community engagement and educating Houston’s youth about nutrition and the importance of being active.
“We are thrilled to partner with the Houston Texans,” said President and CEO of Texas Children’s Hospital Mark A. Wallace. “Both of our organizations want to impact our community in a powerful, positive way. Texas Children’s is helping children lead healthier, more productive lives, and this exciting collaboration will expand our reach to even more families in Houston.”
The Houston Texans and Texas Children’s will appear as partners for the first time at the Houston Texans Kids Triathlon, which will take place on April 19. Registration for the event is now open.
In addition to the Houston Texans Kids Triathlon, Texas Children’s will be the official Texans Play 60 Health Care Partner. The partnership will include the Texans Play 60 Challenge and the Texans Play 60 Character Camp. Texas Children’s will also be the presenting sponsor of the Play 60 Game.
Furthermore, Texas Children’s will be the presenting sponsor of the TORO’s Kids 1K at the Houston Texans Running of the Bulls presented by HEB, the “TORO’s Training Table” school program and the Texans Jr. Cheerleader programs.
Texas Children’s Hospital began with a promise more than six decades ago. It was a promise to the community that we would be here to take care of their children – all of them, regardless of ability to pay – for many years to come. Today that promise is even stronger and more evident and has broadened to include the women who now come to us for care.
It stands to reason that Texas Children’s next chapter would be ushered in with a bold capital campaign that will help ensure we can respond to the growing need for care. Texas Children’s has launched Promise, a $475 million comprehensive campaign.
“We are so excited about the Promise campaign,” said Laura Shuford, vice president of Development. “Supporting a fundraising effort that has a goal of providing the best possible care to even more children is a cause that speaks to the heart and one that so many people can relate to.”
The Promise campaign focuses on five key initiatives:
CareFirst, for the expansion of our Critical Care services, ORs/PACU and Emergency Center at the Main Camp
Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands, our new 548,000-square-foot dedicated pediatric hospital serving the growing communities north of Houston
Endowed Chairs, which are a powerful tool in recruiting and retaining world-class physicians and scientists
Divisions and Centers of Excellence to provide ongoing support for specialty care programs and projects
Charity Care and hospital priorities, to help alleviate the financial burdens families take on with complex medical care and to provide flexible funds to address the hospital’s most pressing needs at any given time
Of the $475 million campaign total, $350 million of the funds raised will support the CareFirst expansion and renovation projects, scheduled for completion in 2020, and The Woodlands campus, currently under construction and scheduled for completion in 2017. These two initiatives are the hospital’s top priorities.
“This is one of the biggest challenges Texas Children’s has ever faced,” said Texas Children’s President and CEO Mark A. Wallace. “But I know we can meet the challenge head on and keep the promise we made so many years ago – and the promise we make every single day – to serve all the children and families who come to us for help.”
You can help us spread the word about the Promise campaign and the impact it will make right here in Houston and beyond. Visit texaschildrens.org/promise and share the page with family and friends who may be interested in supporting our efforts.
Since Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus opened almost four years ago, it has become one of the most active pediatric hospitals in the Houston area, and all indications point toward continued growth.
To keep meeting the steady increase in demand and community growth, Chanda Cashen Chacón, West Campus’ new leader, recently announced an aggressive capital improvement project. The project, approved by Texas Children’s Board of Directors, will cost an estimated $50 million and will focus on three key areas – inpatient capacity, ambulatory capacity and supporting hospital infrastructure.
“At the West Campus we are dedicated to the patients and families we serve, the process in which we serve them and our overall outcome,” Chacón said. “To accomplish all three of these things well, we need to continue to expand the facility that allows us to further our commitment to the community. This capital expansion project will ensure that promise continues.”
The first phase of the project includes a $16 million, 18-bed expansion of the hospital’s acute care capacity. The new unit will include an eight-bed special isolation unit designed for children with highly contagious infectious diseases, such as pandemic influenza, entervirus D68, Ebola and many others. The design for the acute care and special isolation unit is in the approval process and construction is anticipated to begin in May. The unit should be up and running by October.
“This unique unit will be an indispensable resource to our local community, Texas and our region,” Chacón said. “Taking care of some of the sickest children in our hospital system is one of our top priorities.”
In addition to the new acute care and special isolation units, the first phase of the capital project will include the following five projects, which are estimated to cost $6.9 million and be completed by the end of the year:
Create dedicated suite for Interventional Radiology services
Design shell space for OR/PACU expansion
Convert 13 offices within existing clinics into clinic exam space
Build office and administrative support space for dedicated physicians and providers
The second phase of the capital improvement project will include the following four projects, which are estimated to cost $27.1 million and be completed by the end of 2017:
Build additional 24 acute-care beds
Build four additional operating rooms and expand pre-operative and post-operative areas
Equip all beds in critical care unit
Expand clinics to support OR expansion
“Most of these projects are in the design phase or will be soon,” Chacón said. “We look forward to continuing to serve our patients and families.”
The 43rd president of the United States, George W. Bush spoke to a sold-out crowd at the Hilton Americas on February 25 at the 10th annual “An Evening with a Legend.” The event featured an insightful onstage discussion with President Bush conducted by CBS Host Bob Schieffer and raised funds for Texas Children’s Cancer Center. Sitting front row were President Bush’s parents, President George H.W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush.
The event was attended by Texas Children’s supporters who helped raise $1.2 million to support research and patient care at Texas Children’s Cancer Center, the largest pediatric cancer and blood disease center in the United States.
“The Legends event is a very special one for the Cancer Center, and there’s no better way to celebrate the 10th anniversary than with the distinguished company of a former president,” said Dr. David Poplack, director of Texas Children’s Cancer Center. “We’re so grateful for the donors and supporters who have made this evening a success.”
Emceed by Dr. Mark W. Kline, physician-in-chief of Texas Children’s Hospital, the event featured a video highlighting President Bush’s notable career as well as a presentation by the Houston Fire Department Honor Guard and Texas A&M Singing Cadets.
In 10 years, this event has raised more than $47 million for Texas Children’s Cancer Center and has featured notable honorees such as Robert Duvall, Dr. Denton Cooley, Gloria Gaynor, the Texas A&M Junction Boys and Apollo astronauts.
I felt compelled to share the story of my late son, Anthony Jaxon Llanas, who was born at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women on October 16, 2014. Alongside his two older siblings, he was my pride and joy. I only knew him for one month, but in those 29 days, we developed a strong, unbreakable bond.
Unlike my previous pregnancies, this pregnancy was complicated. At 32 weeks, I was hospitalized at the Pavilion for Women. During my two-week stay, many of the nurses were wonderful and made me feel comfortable. Because of polyhydramnios (excessive amniotic fluid), I had an emergency C-section and delivered a handsome 4 pound, 7 ounce baby boy.
While still in my womb, I knew Anthony’s chances for survival would be uncertain. When I was 20 weeks pregnant, Anthony was diagnosed with esophageal atresia – a congenital defect where the upper esophagus does not connect with the lower esophagus and stomach – and tracheoesophageal fistula, an abnormal connection between the esophagus and the trachea. Two weeks later, doctors discovered he had coarctation or narrowing of the aorta. Anthony was also diagnosed with CHARGE syndrome which was not confirmed until after my son passed away peacefully in my arms.
Despite Anthony’s lengthy list of health problems, I was overjoyed to see his precious little face staring right at me, but at the same time, I was nervous about his prognosis. My Little Angel was wheeled away to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Texas Children’s Newborn Center where many of the NICU nurses took excellent care of him and answered all of my questions. He spent two weeks in the NICU before he was transferred to the Cardiovascular ICU, where a team of physicians and nurses closely monitored him.
As I struggled to stay positive while my baby was courageously fighting for his life, Anthony’s health problems quickly stacked up, one after another. Shortly after birth, Anthony was diagnosed with choanal atresia which prevented him from breathing through his nose. At 10 days old, doctors diagnosed him with severe immune system deficiency. His T-cells were lower than most normal babies at birth.
When Anthony was one week old, he had his first surgery to correct esophageal atresia, and two days later, he had surgery to treat choanal atresia. Anthony underwent bypass open heart surgery a few days later to repair the narrowing of his aorta, which eventually caused his heart rate to increase and be off rhythm. He was placed on an Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECHMO) machine because his lungs and heart were too weak to function on their own. While he was on the ECHMO machine, his left lung collapsed. The day after his bypass, he was taken off the machine, but since his heart could not tolerate it, he was placed on the ECHMO machine for a second time. Sadly, Anthony’s extremely weak heart and lung were not cooperating.
On Wednesday, November 12, 2014, doctors told us Anthony’s heart rate was steadily dropping and that his body was not recovering from the multiple surgeries. He was getting sicker and they felt there was nothing more that could be done.
After hanging on for so long and enduring all of the surgeries to save his life, he passed away in my arms in a room full of people who loved him. He was by far the strongest and the most beautiful baby boy I’ve ever met. As all parents who’ve dealt with a loss of a child, I wish I could have done things differently to prevent his death, but with the support of Zoey’s Angels, they’ve helped me understand that I did as much as a parent could do and that his memory is not erased. If anything, it has just begun.
Four months after the tragic loss of my baby, I am back at work. While it’s been a difficult road for me and my family, my colleagues and manager, Lindi Stegeman, have been so supportive and I am so grateful to be working with such wonderful people.
Texas Children’s Hospital recently hosted its first craniosynostosis reunion, bringing together 150 people who have been touched by a condition that causes one or more of the seams between the bones of a baby’s skull to close prematurely.
“For parents of babies with craniosynostosis, it is a scary and stressful time,” said Dr. Sandi Lam, a neurosurgeon and co-director of the Craniosynostosis Surgery Program at Texas Children’s. “Families want to know they are making the right choices for their little loved ones. Connecting them with other parents who are going through the same thing provides a level of support that is irreplaceable.”
At the February 7 reunion, patients who have had craniosynostosis surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital joined their families and gathered at the Meyer Building for a few hours of fun, games and camaraderie. Child Life specialists and volunteers from Neurosurgery and Plastic Surgery hosted sports-themed activities for the children while parents shared stories over coffee and kolaches. A group of mothers who had met and chatted about craniosynostosis online got to meet each other in person at the reunion and were thrilled to be invited to the same event.
“Families tell us this type of patient networking event is amazing because it proves they are not alone,” said Sandra Galvan, coordinator of the program. “They have no doubt we at Texas Children’s will be here for them, delivering superb care for their families, neighbors and friends in Houston and across the nation.”
Craniosynostosis affects one in 2,000 babies and usually requires surgery to separate the fused skull bones to achieve a normal appearance and to allow a baby’s brain to continue to grow and develop properly. Here at Texas Children’s, we have a team of specialists dedicated to treating craniosynostosis. Pediatric craniofacial plastic surgeons Dr. Laura Monson, Dr. David Khechoyan and Dr. Edward Buchanan and pediatric neurosurgeons Dr. Sandi Lam and Dr. Robert Dauser work together to provide the best care for children and their families.
In addition to having the highest quality surgeons on hand to correct the defect and a dedicated team to care for the children before and after surgery, Texas Children’s Hospital has formed a parent-to-parent network to match pre-operative patients’ families with post-operative patients’ families to support each other.
“It has been an incredible experience to see how generous, brave and wonderful our families are,” Lam said. “Many parents want to give back and share. The reunion gives them the opportunity to do just that.”
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CB1 and CB2 structures.
cannabinoid receptor 1 (brain)
NMR solution structure of a peptide mimetic of the fourth cytoplasmic loop of the CB1 cannabinoid receptor based on the PDB: 2b0y coordinates.
CNR1
Alt. symbols
Chr. 6 q14-q15
cannabinoid receptor 2 (macrophage)
Chr. 1 p
Magu (deity)
Latter-day Saints
Stoner film
Cannabinoid receptor type 1
2-AG
2-AGE, Noladin ether
Virodhamine
CP-55940
Dimethylheptylpyran
Levonantradol
SR144528
Grow house
Grow shop
Marijuana vending machine
Effects of legalized cannabis
Gateway drug theory
Long term effects
Time perception
Bhang
Charas
Flower essential oil
Synthetic cannabis
Thai stick
Cannabis rights
Legality of cannabis in US
Legal history of cannabis in US
US (Medical
Timeline)
Cannabis Act of Canada
Legal history of cannabis in Canada
Drug policy of California
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Georgia (USA)
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Cannabinoid receptors, located throughout the body, are part of the endocannabinoid system, which is involved in a variety of physiological processes including appetite, pain-sensation, mood, and memory.[1]
Cannabinoid receptors are of a class of cell membrane receptors in the G protein-coupled receptor superfamily.[2][3][4] As is typical of G protein-coupled receptors, the cannabinoid receptors contain seven transmembrane spanning domains.[5] Cannabinoid receptors are activated by three major groups of ligands: endocannabinoids, produced by the mammillary body;[citation needed] plant cannabinoids (such as cannabidiol, produced by the cannabis plant); and synthetic cannabinoids (such as HU-210). All of the endocannabinoids and phytocannabinoids (plant based cannabinoids) are lipophilic, such as fat soluble compounds.
There are currently two known subtypes of cannabinoid receptors, termed CB1 and CB2.[6][7] The CB1 receptor is expressed mainly in the brain (central nervous system or "CNS"), but also in the lungs, liver and kidneys. The CB2 receptor is expressed mainly in the immune system and in hematopoietic cells.[8] Mounting evidence suggests that there are novel cannabinoid receptors[9] that is, non-CB1 and non-CB2, which are expressed in endothelial cells and in the CNS. In 2007, the binding of several cannabinoids to the G protein-coupled receptor GPR55 in the brain was described.[10]
The protein sequences of CB1 and CB2 receptors are about 44% similar.[11][12] When only the transmembrane regions of the receptors are considered, amino acid similarity between the two receptor subtypes is approximately 68%.[5] In addition, minor variations in each receptor have been identified. Cannabinoids bind reversibly and stereo-selectively to the cannabinoid receptors. Subtype selective cannabinoids have been developed which theoretically may have advantages for treatment of certain diseases such as obesity.[13]
It appears that cannabinoid receptors are unique to the phylum Chordata and, as such, they have a rather restricted phylogenetic distribution in the animal kingdom. However, enzymes involved in biosynthesis/inactivation of endocannabinoids and endocannabinoid signalling in general (involving targets other than CB1/2-type receptors) occur throughout the animal kingdom.[14] Although the cannabinoid receptors are unique to Chordates, other organisms are still able to process the endocannabinoids through other techniques.
1 CB1
3 Other cannabinoid receptors
4 Signaling
5 Cannabinoid treatments
6.1 Binding affinity and selectivity of cannabinoid ligands
CB1[edit]
Main article: Cannabinoid receptor type 1
Cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1) receptors are thought to be one of the most widely expressed Gαi protein-coupled receptors in the brain. One mechanism through which they function is endocannabinoid-mediated depolarization-induced suppression of inhibition, a very common form of retrograde signaling, in which the depolarization of a single neuron induces a reduction in GABA-mediated neurotransmission. Endocannabinoids released from the depolarized post-synaptic neuron bind to CB1 receptors in the pre-synaptic neuron and cause a reduction in GABA release due to limited presynaptic calcium ions entry.[medical citation needed]
They are also found in other parts of the body. For instance, in the liver, activation of the CB1 receptor is known to increase de novo lipogenesis.[15]
CB2 receptors are mainly expressed on T cells of the immune system, on macrophages and B cells, and in hematopoietic cells. They also have a function in keratinocytes. They are also expressed on peripheral nerve terminals. These receptors play a role in antinociception, or the relief of pain. In the brain, they are mainly expressed by microglial cells, where their role remains unclear. While the most likely cellular targets and executors of the CB2 receptor-mediated effects of endocannabinoids or synthetic agonists are the immune and immune-derived cells (e.g. leukocytes, various populations of T and B lymphocytes, monocytes/macrophages, dendritic cells, mast cells, microglia in the brain, Kupffer cells in the liver, astrocytes, etc.), the number of other potential cellular targets is expanding, now including endothelial and smooth muscle cells, fibroblasts of various origins, cardiomyocytes, and certain neuronal elements of the peripheral or central nervous systems.[8]
Other cannabinoid receptors[edit]
The existence of additional cannabinoid receptors has long been suspected, due to the actions of compounds such as abnormal cannabidiol that produce cannabinoid-like effects on blood pressure and inflammation, yet do not activate either CB1 or CB2.[16][17] Recent research strongly supports the hypothesis that the N-arachidonoyl glycine (NAGly) receptor GPR18 is the molecular identity of the abnormal cannabidiol receptor and additionally suggests that NAGly, the endogenous lipid metabolite of anandamide (also known as arachidonoylethanolamide or AEA), initiates directed microglial migration in the CNS through activation of GPR18.[18] Other molecular biology studies have suggested that the orphan receptor GPR55 should in fact be characterised as a cannabinoid receptor, on the basis of sequence homology at the binding site. Subsequent studies showed that GPR55 does indeed respond to cannabinoid ligands.[10][19] This profile as a distinct non-CB1/CB2 receptor that responds to a variety of both endogenous and exogenous cannabinoid ligands, has led some groups to suggest GPR55 should be categorized as the CB3 receptor, and this re-classification may follow in time.[20] However this is complicated by the fact that another possible cannabinoid receptor has been discovered in the hippocampus, although its gene has not yet been cloned,[21] suggesting that there may be at least two more cannabinoid receptors to be discovered, in addition to the two that are already known. GPR119 has been suggested as a fifth possible cannabinoid receptor.,[22] while the PPAR family of nuclear hormone receptors can also respond to certain types of cannabinoid.[23]
Signaling[edit]
Cannabinoid receptors are activated by cannabinoids, generated naturally inside the body (endocannabinoids) or introduced into the body as cannabis or a related synthetic compound.[11] Similar responses are produced when introduced in alternative methods, only in a more concentrated form than what is naturally occurring.
After the receptor is engaged, multiple intracellular signal transduction pathways are activated. At first, it was thought that cannabinoid receptors mainly inhibited the enzyme adenylate cyclase (and thereby the production of the second messenger molecule cyclic AMP), and positively influenced inwardly rectifying potassium channels (=Kir or IRK).[24] However, a much more complex picture has appeared in different cell types, implicating other potassium ion channels, calcium channels, protein kinase A and C, Raf-1, ERK, JNK, p38, c-fos, c-jun and many more.[24]
Separation between the therapeutically undesirable psychotropic effects, and the clinically desirable ones, however, has not been reported with agonists that bind to cannabinoid receptors. THC, as well as the two major endogenous compounds identified so far that bind to the cannabinoid receptors —anandamide and 2-arachidonylglycerol (2-AG)— produce most of their effects by binding to both the CB1 and CB2 cannabinoid receptors. While the effects mediated by CB1, mostly in the central nervous system, have been thoroughly investigated, those mediated by CB2 are not equally well defined.
Prenatal cannabis exposure (PCE) has been shown to perturb the fetal endogenous cannabinoid signaling system. This pertubation has not been shown to directly affect neurodevelopment nor cause lifelong cognitive, behavioral, or functional abnormalities, but it may predispose offspring to abnormalities in cognition and altered emotionality from post-natal factors.[25]. Additionally, PCE may alter the wiring of brain circuitry in foetal development and cause significant molecular modifications to neurodevelopmental programs that may lead to neurophysiological disorders and behavioural abnormalities.[26]
Cannabinoid treatments[edit]
Main article: Medical cannabis
Synthetic tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is prescribed under the INN dronabinol or the brand name Marinol, to treat vomiting and for enhancement of appetite, mainly in people with AIDS as well as for refractory nausea and vomiting in people undergoing chemotherapy.[27] Use of synthetic THC is becoming more common as the known benefits become more prominent within the medical industry. THC is also an active ingredient in nabiximols, a specific extract of Cannabis that was approved as a botanical drug in the United Kingdom in 2010 as a mouth spray for people with multiple sclerosis to alleviate neuropathic pain, spasticity, overactive bladder, and other symptoms.[28]
See also: cannabinoid receptor type 1 ligands, cannabinoid receptor type 2 ligands
Binding affinity and selectivity of cannabinoid ligands[edit]
CB1 affinity (Ki)
Efficacy towards CB1
Anandamide
78nM Partial agonist 370nM ? Endogenous
N-Arachidonoyl dopamine
? Agonist ? ? Endogenous
2-Arachidonoylglycerol
? Full agonist ? ? Endogenous
2-Arachidonyl glyceryl ether
21 nM Full agonist 480nM Full agonist Endogenous
Δ-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol
10nM Partial agonist 24nM Partial agonist Phytogenic [29][29]
EGCG
33.6μM Agonist >50μM ? Phytogenic
0.72 μM ? > 10 μM ? Phytogenic [30]
52.3nM Agonist 0.28nM Agonist Synthetic [31]
1.5nM Agonist 20.4nM Agonist Synthetic [32]
0.28nM Agonist 1.48nM Agonist Synthetic [32]
150nM Full agonist 1.8nM Full agonist Synthetic [33]
9.0nM Agonist 2.94nM Agonist Synthetic [34]
383nM Agonist 13.8nM Agonist Synthetic [34]
9.00 ± 5.00 nM Full agonist 2.94 ± 2.65 nM Full agonist Synthetic [34]
Cannabinoid receptor antagonist
Endocannabinoid enhancer
Endocannabinoid reuptake inhibitor
Cannabidiol
Effects of cannabis
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^ Howlett AC (August 2002). "The cannabinoid receptors". Prostaglandins Other Lipid Mediat. 68–69: 619–31. doi:10.1016/S0090-6980(02)00060-6. PMID 12432948.
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^ Begg M, Pacher P, Bátkai S, Osei-Hyiaman D, Offertáler L, Mo FM, Liu J, Kunos G (2005). "Evidence for novel cannabinoid receptors". Pharmacol. Ther. 106 (2): 133–45. doi:10.1016/j.pharmthera.2004.11.005. PMID 15866316.
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^ a b Latek D, Kolinski M, Ghoshdastider U, Debinski A, Bombolewski R, Plazinska A, Jozwiak K, Filipek S (September 2011). "Modeling of ligand binding to G protein coupled receptors: cannabinoid CB1, CB2 and adrenergic β 2 AR". Journal of Molecular Modeling. 17 (9): 2353–66. doi:10.1007/s00894-011-0986-7. PMID 21365223.
^ Munro S, Thomas KL, Abu-Shaar M (1993). "Molecular characterization of a peripheral receptor for cannabinoids". Nature. 365 (6441): 61–65. doi:10.1038/365061a0. PMID 7689702.
^ Kyrou I, Valsamakis G, Tsigos C (November 2006). "The endocannabinoid system as a target for the treatment of visceral obesity and metabolic syndrome". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1083: 270–305. doi:10.1196/annals.1367.024. PMID 17148745.
^ Maurice R. Elphick (2012), "The evolution and comparative neurobiology of endocannabinoid signalling", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, 367 (1607): 3201–3215, doi:10.1098/rstb.2011.0394, PMC 3481536, PMID 23108540
^ Osei-Hyiaman D, DePetrillo M, Pacher P, Liu J, Radaeva S, Bátkai S, Harvey-White J, Mackie K, Offertáler L, Wang L, Kunos G (2005). "Endocannabinoid activation at hepatic CB1 receptors stimulates fatty acid synthesis and contributes to diet-induced obesity". J. Clin. Invest. 115 (5): 1298–305. doi:10.1172/JCI23057. PMC 1087161. PMID 15864349.
^ Járai Z, Wagner JA, Varga K, Lake KD, Compton DR, Martin BR, Zimmer AM, Bonner TI, Buckley NE, Mezey E, Razdan RK, Zimmer A, Kunos G (November 1999). "Cannabinoid-induced mesenteric vasodilation through an endothelial site distinct from CB1 or CB2 receptors". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 96 (24): 14136–41. doi:10.1073/pnas.96.24.14136. PMC 24203. PMID 10570211.
^ McHugh D, Tanner C, Mechoulam R, Pertwee RG, Ross RA (February 2008). "Inhibition of human neutrophil chemotaxis by endogenous cannabinoids and phytocannabinoids: evidence for a site distinct from CB1 and CB2". Mol. Pharmacol. 73 (2): 441–50. doi:10.1124/mol.107.041863. PMID 17965195.
^ McHugh D, Hu SS, Rimmerman N, Juknat A, Vogel Z, Walker JM, Bradshaw HB (March 2010). "N-arachidonoyl glycine, an abundant endogenous lipid, potently drives directed cellular migration through GPR18, the putative abnormal cannabidiol receptor". BMC Neuroscience. 11: 44. doi:10.1186/1471-2202-11-44. PMC 2865488. PMID 20346144.
^ Johns DG, Behm DJ, Walker DJ, Ao Z, Shapland EM, Daniels DA, Riddick M, Dowell S, Staton PC, Green P, Shabon U, Bao W, Aiyar N, Yue TL, Brown AJ, Morrison AD, Douglas SA (November 2007). "The novel endocannabinoid receptor GPR55 is activated by atypical cannabinoids but does not mediate their vasodilator effects". Br. J. Pharmacol. 152 (5): 825–31. doi:10.1038/sj.bjp.0707419. PMC 2190033. PMID 17704827.
^ Overton HA, Babbs AJ, Doel SM, Fyfe MC, Gardner LS, Griffin G, Jackson HC, Procter MJ, Rasamison CM, Tang-Christensen M, Widdowson PS, Williams GM, Reynet C (March 2006). "Deorphanization of a G protein-coupled receptor for oleoylethanolamide and its use in the discovery of small-molecule hypophagic agents". Cell Metab. 3 (3): 167–75. doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2006.02.004. PMID 16517404.
^ de Fonseca FR, Schneider M (June 2008). "The endogenous cannabinoid system and drug addiction: 20 years after the discovery of the CB1 receptor" (PDF). Addict Biol. 13 (2): 143–6. doi:10.1111/j.1369-1600.2008.00116.x. PMID 18482429. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-18.
^ Brown AJ (November 2007). "Novel cannabinoid receptors". Br. J. Pharmacol. 152 (5): 567–75. doi:10.1038/sj.bjp.0707481. PMC 2190013. PMID 17906678.
^ O'Sullivan, SE (June 2016). "An update on PPAR activation by cannabinoids". British Journal of Pharmacology. 173 (12): 1899–910. doi:10.1111/bph.13497. PMC 4882496. PMID 27077495.
^ a b Demuth DG, Molleman A (2006). "Cannabinoid signalling". Life Sci. 78 (6): 549–63. doi:10.1016/j.lfs.2005.05.055. PMID 16109430.
^ Richardson KA, Hester AK, McLemore GL (2016). "Prenatal cannabis exposure - The "first hit" to the endocannabinoid system". review. Neurotoxicology and Teratology. 58: 5–14. doi:10.1016/j.ntt.2016.08.003. PMID 27567698.
^ Calvigioni D, Hurd YL, Harkany T, Keimpema E (October 2014). "Neuronal substrates and functional consequences of prenatal cannabis exposure". review. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 23 (10): 931–41. doi:10.1007/s00787-014-0550-y. PMC 4459494. PMID 24793873.
^ Badowski, ME (5 August 2017). "A review of oral cannabinoids and medical marijuana for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting: a focus on pharmacokinetic variability and pharmacodynamics". Cancer Chemotherapy and Pharmacology. 80 (3): 441–449. doi:10.1007/s00280-017-3387-5. PMC 5573753. PMID 28780725.
^ "Sativex Oromucosal Spray - Summary of Product Characteristics". UK Electronic Medicines Compendium. March 2015.
^ a b "PDSP Database - UNC". Archived from the original on 8 November 2013. Retrieved 11 June 2013.
^ Ligresti A, Villano R, Allarà M, Ujváry I, Di Marzo V (August 2012). "Kavalactones and the endocannabinoid system: the plant-derived yangonin is a novel CB₁ receptor ligand". Pharmacological Research. 66 (2): 163–9. doi:10.1016/j.phrs.2012.04.003. PMID 22525682.
^ a b US patent 7241799, Makriyannis A, Deng H, "Cannabimimetic indole derivatives", granted 2007-07-10
^ Frost JM, Dart MJ, Tietje KR, Garrison TR, Grayson GK, Daza AV, El-Kouhen OF, Yao BB, Hsieh GC, Pai M, Zhu CZ, Chandran P, Meyer MD (January 2010). "Indol-3-ylcycloalkyl ketones: effects of N1 substituted indole side chain variations on CB(2) cannabinoid receptor activity". J. Med. Chem. 53 (1): 295–315. doi:10.1021/jm901214q. PMID 19921781.
^ a b c Aung MM, Griffin G, Huffman JW, Wu M, Keel C, Yang B, Showalter VM, Abood ME, Martin BR (August 2000). "Influence of the N-1 alkyl chain length of cannabimimetic indoles upon CB1 and CB2 receptor binding". Drug Alcohol Depend. 60 (2): 133–40. doi:10.1016/S0376-8716(99)00152-0. PMID 10940540.
Cannabinoid+Receptors at the US National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
The Endocannabinoid System Network (ECSN) - CB1 receptor
"Cannabinoid Receptors". IUPHAR Database of Receptors and Ion Channels. International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology.
Cannabinoid receptor modulators
(ligands)
Agonists (abridged; see here for more): 2-AG
2-AGE (noladin ether)
11-Hydroxy-THC
α-Amyrin · β-Amyrin
Cannabinol
Epicatechin
Gallocatechol (gallocatechin)
Kavain
THC (dronabinol)
Antagonists: AM-251
Cannabigerol
Drinabant
Falcarinol (carotatoxin)
Ibipinabant
Otenabant
Rosonabant
Surinabant
Taranabant
Antibodies: Brizantin (Бризантин)
Unknown/unsorted: MAFP
Agonists: 2-AG
3,3'-Diindolylmethane
4-O-Methylhonokiol
JWH-73
Lenabasum (anabasum)
Magnolol
Olorinab (APD-371)
Tetrahydromagnolol
Antagonists: 4-O-Methylhonokiol
NAGly
(GPR18)
Agonists: Abnormal cannabidiol
NADGly
Antagonists: CID-85469571
Agonists: 2-AGE (noladin ether)
2-ALPI
CID1011163
GSK-494581A
Lysophosphatidylinositol
ML-184
Oleoylethanolamide
Palmitoylethanolamide
Antagonists: Cannabidiol
CID-16020046
Agonists: 2-Oleoylglycerol
APD668
AR-231,453
AS-1269574
MBX-2982
N-Oleoyldopamine
PSN-375,963
Agonists: Revosimeline
(modulators)
eCBTs
Inhibitors: 5'-DMH-CBD
Guineensine
OMDM-2
Paracetamol (acetaminophen)
SB-FI-26
UCM-707
WOBE490
Inhibitors: 4-Nonylphenylboronic acid
AACOCF3
JNJ-1661010
JZL-195
MAFP
Palmitoylisopropylamide
TAK 21d
TC-F 2
UCM710
Activators: PDP-EA
Inhibitors: ABX-1431
JJKK 048
JW 642
JZP-361
KML 29
MJN110
Pristimerin
Inhibitors: JZP-169
KT182
LEI-106
WWL-70
ABHD12
Inhibitors: Betulinic acid
Maslinic acid
Oleanolic acid
Orlistat (tetrahydrolipstatin)
Ursolic acid
Precursors: Phosphatidylethanolamine
Diacylglycerol
Others: 2-PG (directly potentiates activity of 2-AG at CB1 receptor)
ARN-272 (FAAH-like anandamide transporter inhibitor)
Receptor/signaling modulators
Cannabinoids (cannabinoids by structure)
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabinoid_receptor
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Home / Products / Freddie Hubbard – Ready For Freddie | 45rpm 2LP
Music Matters / Blue Note
Freddie Hubbard – Ready For Freddie | 45rpm 2LP
Note: A 33 1/3 rpm version of this album is also available here.
“The Jazz world was more than ready for Freddie Hubbard when the trumpeter burst upon the national scene in 1960. Clifford Brown, an early influence on Hubbard, had died tragically four years earlier. While Lee Morgan was making his mark, Hubbard's arrival gave Jazz a new explosive and colorful virtuoso. His trumpet solos made him a giant within a short time. Ready For Freddie (1961) finds Hubbard completely emerging from the pack and taking his place among the elite. The trumpeter introduces two of his finest compositions, the uptempo blues “Birdlike” and the dramatic “Crisis” and plays beautifully on his ballad feature “Weaver Of Dreams.” He shows sidemen Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones that he was in their league, despite being only 23. This is one of the quintessential albums for which Freddie Hubbard is best remembered.” - Music Matters
“Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard really came into his own during this Blue Note session. He is matched with quite an all-star group (tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Art Davis, and drummer Elvin Jones in addition to Bernard McKinney on euphonium), introduces two of his finest compositions ("Birdlike" and "Crisis"), and is quite lyrical on his ballad feature, "Weaver of Dreams.”” – AlMusic
Freddie Hubbard - trumpet
McCoy Tyner - piano
Wayne Shorter - tenor sax
Bernard McKinney - euphonium
Art Davis - bass
Elvin Jones - drums
About Freddie Hubbard:
“One of the great jazz trumpeters of all time, Freddie Hubbard formed his sound out of the Clifford Brown/Lee Morgan tradition, and by the early '70s was immediately distinctive and the pacesetter in jazz. However, a string of blatantly commercial albums later in the decade damaged his reputation and, just when Hubbard, in the early '90s (with the deaths of Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis), seemed perfectly suited for the role of veteran master, his chops started causing him serious troubles.
Born and raised in Indianapolis, Hubbard played early on with Wes and Monk Montgomery. He moved to New York in 1958, roomed with Eric Dolphy (with whom he recorded in 1960), and was in the groups of Philly Joe Jones (1958-1959), Sonny Rollins, Slide Hampton, and J.J. Johnson, before touring Europe with Quincy Jones (1960-1961). He recorded with John Coltrane, participated in Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz (1960), was on Oliver Nelson's classic Blues and the Abstract Truth album (highlighted by "Stolen Moments"), and started recording as a leader for Blue Note that same year. Hubbard gained fame playing with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers (1961-1964) next to Wayne Shorter and Curtis Fuller. He recorded Ascension with Coltrane (1965), Out to Lunch (1964) with Eric Dolphy, and Maiden Voyage with Herbie Hancock, and, after a period with Max Roach (1965-1966), he led his own quintet, which at the time usually featured altoist James Spaulding. A blazing trumpeter with a beautiful tone on flügelhorn, Hubbard fared well in freer settings but was always essentially a hard bop stylist.
In 1970, Freddie Hubbard recorded two of his finest albums (Red Clay and Straight Life) for CTI. The follow-up, First Light (1971), was actually his most popular date, featuring Don Sebesky arrangements. But after the glory of the CTI years (during which producer Creed Taylor did an expert job of balancing the artistic with the accessible), Hubbard made the mistake of signing with Columbia and recording one dud after another; Windjammer (1976) and Splash (a slightly later effort for Fantasy) are low points. However, in 1977, he toured with Herbie Hancock's acoustic V.S.O.P. Quintet and, in the 1980s, on recordings for Pablo, Blue Note, and Atlantic, he showed that he could reach his former heights (even if much of the jazz world had given up on him). But by the late '80s, Hubbard's "personal problems" and increasing unreliability (not showing up for gigs) started to really hurt him, and a few years later his once mighty technique started to seriously falter. In late 2008, Hubbard suffered a heart attack that left him hospitalized until his death at age 70 on December 29 of that year.Freddie Hubbard's fans can still certainly enjoy his many recordings for Blue Note, Impulse, Atlantic, CTI, Pablo, and his first Music Masters sets. ~ Scott Yanow” – Blue Note Records
Ready For Freddie
2 × Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, Album, Reissue, Limited Edition
Pressing:
This reissue: 2012 | Original - 1962
Hard Bop, Modal
MMBST-84085
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the avi salem
A Marked Misconception: Tattooed Women & The Male Gaze
by the avi salem
Though tattooed women have been a part of American culture since the late nineteenth century, their recent dominance within the tattoo industry and in the media at large has been a phenomenon of the past twenty years. The evolution of the tattooed woman from circus freak to celebrity and her overall acceptance in society has been a marker for what many feminists believe to be great progress for women’s equality. What is the basis for her sudden acceptance into tattooing, an elitist club that was solely reserved for men for over a century? It would be naïve to assume that women have reversed gender roles within tattooing in the past two decades while gender equality in the workplace and in households is still far off in the horizon. From a second wave feminist perspective, the newfound popularity of tattooed women in the media has turned gender stereotypes on their head and allowed space for women within a subculture that has historically been dominated by males. This is led by the belief that women as the subordinate gender can subvert dominant gender roles that work against them by resisting them from within their own gender. I postulate that white women are not empowering themselves by showing off their tattoos because the act of displaying their body art in itself entraps women into the gender stereotypes they wish to resist. Additionally, women who tattoo themselves as a form of self-acceptance, resistance, or rebellion against dominant gender ideals actually conform to preexisting gender roles by falling into or outside of the defined boundaries of femininity, perpetuating sexism.
Over the course of this essay, I will establish that representations of women’s bodies in American society today are part of a constructed ideal that sexualizes and marginalizes them. After determining the root factors of women’s body construction, I will apply this theory to tattoos to show that the same unsaid rules that restrict women’s bodies in more conventional and normalized rituals such as dieting and fashion apply to tattooing as well. I will continue with explaining second wave feminism and its shortcomings, most importantly highlighting its unintentional acceptance and allowance of the male gaze’s permeance in tattoo culture. Finally, I will grapple with the idea of sex positivity in relation to tattooed women by introducing ideas by the third wave of feminism that argues female body liberation perpetuates existing gender roles. It should be noted that tattoos in modern American society are a much different experience for women of color than they are for white women, and for the purposes of this paper I will focus on the interconnected relationship between white tattooed women and a white feminist movement that together have perpetuated gender inequality within the subculture of tattooing because of the privileged perspective they come from.
The idealized image of women’s bodies has been established and constructed historically in a way that sexualizes and marginalizes them because they have been deemed the subordinate gender in American society. Because of this, women are subject to an array of rules and regulations that govern their bodies, as it is the most external part of them and allows men to gaze at them. The woman’s gendered body becomes a site on which images, ideologies, and principles of the dominant male gender are displayed. The skin acts as the first external barrier to the outside world and is therefore a highly contested site where marginalization takes place. The shape and appearance of women’s skin is manipulated and “shaped by political forces with strategic interests in keeping that body bounded and constituted by the markers of sex” to satisfy the dominant gender’s ideals (Butler 129). These political forces aim to maintain existing gender roles in order to sustain their own dominant power, asserted by upholding strict idealized and sexualized forms of the female body that only benefit men’s desires. Images are figuratively and literally transcribed onto the female body, presenting a variety of unattainable and opposing ideals women are told to follow. Women must be thin in certain places and voluptuous in others; they must use makeup to be attractive but not too much makeup so as to not appear “fake.” Women must adhere to strict diets to maintain “desirable” figures and appear in form and personality as appealing to the male gender. Women abide by these unsaid codes because it is their societal expectation to do so; going against the ideal image constructed for women ostracizes them. If women stray outside what is defined by men as “slender” or “feminine” they are categorized as undesirable.
The ideals projected onto women’s skin extend to the literal marking of the skin through tattooing, creating the same unrealistic and oppressive standards within the subculture. As Patricia MacCormack describes in her essay “The Great Ephemeral Tattooed Skin,” “Skin refers to everything from genetic sex to gender enactment…skin itself marks the body as both taking up space and existing within a particular space…it is impossible to refer to one without the other being included” (60). Skin itself is loaded with a plethora of literal and figurative meanings and images. From its adornments to its color to its curves, bumps, and protrusion, skin is a “loaded” part of the female body that makes a political statement simply by existing. Female skin is gendered skin, existing as subordinate to men’s and embracing every stereotype or negative association made about women within in. The associations historically established and perpetuated in society between women and their flesh is ingrained in all aspects of life, even subcultures that consider themselves counterculture or against the norm, such as tattooing. Women are trapped in a cycle of maintaining sexuality and femininity as defined by men. Not conforming to the stereotypes of femininity also traps women labeling them as “other,” which is considered undesirable. Escaping gendered and generalized associations made with women and their skin is unattainable because even disengaging with stereotypes further traps women in a history of sexism that is perpetuated by both male and female genders. These stereotypes classify and define women into categories of desirable versus undesirable depending on how women choose to respond to the idealized versions of the female body. Regardless of whether or not women fall into or outside of these categories is irrelevant because they are stereotyped in either scenario.
“Skin rebellion” through the act of tattooing is actually skin conformity within the existing hierarchy—the attempt to subvert dominance simply entraps women further into gender stereotypes. The praise tattooed women receive from society is not empowering but is a direct representation of the dominant male-driven ideologies that sexualize and fetishize the female body for having tattoos. Women who believe they are empowering themselves or other women by doing so are trapped in the sexist mentality that perpetuates their subordinate position in society. Acceptance and praise for tattooed women through their presence in the media is a negotiated form of empowerment. Momentary “power” in the form of praise and acceptance is granted to women on a very small level while males still grasp the dominant power over women within society as a whole. Women’s “power” over their bodies through tattooing does not negate the myriad ways women are oppressed by men. For example, women’s participation within the tattoo industry through tattoo contests becomes less about women owning or liberating their own bodies and more about the spectacle it presents for men. In Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the Modern Tattoo Community, Margo DeMello explains that in witnessing a tattoo competition “women who enter their tattooed bodies in the contests are being judged as much for their physical appearance as for their tattoos, and the women who garner the most attention…are generally the most attractive and/or have the most skin showing” (31). The “positive” attention women garner from entering such competitions provides them with praise and momentary power; this can easily be interpreted as also having power over their bodies. This power is, however, false. It provides more complacency within the existing hierarchy than actually reversing gender roles. Women possess no power over their bodies when they are positioned in a way that only benefits men’s desires. Society reinforces the belief that positive attention can be translated into power but the definition of “positive” in relation to women’s bodies is convoluted and skewed. The attention women get is not based off of any factor that elevates their societal position but solely benefits men’s desires to gaze and hold ownership over women’s bodies.
Another example of this is the focus on women’s physical bodies and appearances in tattoo publications. Inked Magazine is a tattoo and culture magazine that self-describes its content as “packed with stunning photography, cutting edge content, and the latest in fashion, music, art, and pop culture” (InkedMagazine.com). However, the contents of its magazine and website focus much less on substance and more on the scantily clad women that adorn its pages. In fact, the navigation bar on Inked Magazine’s website lists “girls” as a category for viewing before artists, videos, articles, and tattoos (Appendix 1). The magazine’s claim that its webpages and print cover topics of culture and art is debatable when tattooed women are the bulk and highlight of its content. Furthermore, users have the ability to view nude tattooed women, filtering them by ethnicity, body type, and tattoo style. Women are literally filtered and categorized by limiting and demeaning descriptions like “A Few Extra Pounds,” “Average,” “Athletic,” “Latin” and “Asian” (Appendix 2). These descriptions filter women for the sole purpose of making it easier for men to effectively search for a “type” that appeals to them. These tattooed women are posing for pornographic material under the presumption that their body art constitutes self-ownership of their bodies. The reality is that the tattooed woman’s body has been objectified and commodified to the point that it can be refined on a search engine. A woman’s tattooed body no longer serves the purpose of displaying the artwork but instead enables a fetishization and domination of the female body by the dominant male ideology and gaze. Inked Magazine displays nude or almost-nude tattooed women on their print magazine covers as well; in the seven issues released from June 2013 to present, every cover has been adorned by a nude woman. Ironically, most of the women featured are barely tattooed (Appendix 3, 4). This further proves the point that tattooed women are positioned in highly sexualized roles that ultimately end up demeaning or trapping them in the existing stereotypes that are present in a male-driven American society. The tattooed woman is given a negotiated amount of “freedom” in that she is not typecast as demure, obedient, and submissive, which are now deemed stereotypes of the past. She is given the power to be “edgy” by extension of her body art but is still very much a part of the existing power structure because she is still fetishized and sexualized for the tattoos she is told are going against societal norms.
Moreover, women are further repressed by the dominant male ideologies in western society as applied to the styles and placements of tattoos on the female body. Women are again categorized and “allowed” certain types of tattoos that fall under the gendered categorization of women—straying outside of these defined boundaries of femininity ostracize women and marginalize them as unattractive and unworthy. In Michael Atkinson’s extensive study of white tattooed women in Canada, he interviews forty white women who give firsthand accounts of what their tattoos mean to them. He notes that overall, tattooed women perform established femininity through their tattoos in their attempts to subvert it, concluding tattoos are “acts of consent to the underlying structures of figurational power distribution” (Atkinson 224). Tattoos serve less of a rebellious purpose and give into existing stereotypes much more than they subvert them. Attempts at “rebellion” often lie within the existing gendered schema and the power rebellious women wield is fetishized. Similarly, more conventional and societally normalized body modifying rituals like dieting and plastic surgery reside under the same metaphorical roof as tattoos as they are all subject to the power and gaze of men, which subjugates women to “self-improvement” under the specifications of a dominating gender’s sexist beliefs. The fact that tattoos are less common and more taboo leads women to believe that this form of body modification falls outside the gaze of men and therefore gives them power to subvert the male gaze and “own” their bodies. This ownership is still highly negotiated. Women modify through tattoos to enhance aspects of themselves that have already been sexualized which further marginalizes them. Tattoos become just another “reproduction of the established cultural standard that women conform to men’s desires and sexual interests—to the extent that a woman will radically modify her body in the process of such conformity” (Atkinson 225). This is evident in the encounters Atkinson has with tattooed women and the many interviews he has with them. Some women admit to tattooing themselves to please their significant others, others admit they do not get tattooed in certain places because their significant others would disapprove or even threaten to leave them (Atkinson 224). Celeste, 24, admits: “I want [my boyfriend] to be attracted to me, and appreciate how I look, and I don’t want a tattoo to ruin that” and Ashlyn, 28, says: “I chose tattooing because it makes me look great, and it draws attention to my body…guys are really cool about my tattoo, and no one has ever said that I look less of a woman for having it. I mean, as long as I don’t go out and tattoo a snake across my neck” (Atkinson 224-225). Both women have negotiated their terms for tattooing themselves to fit the preexisting hierarchy that prefers men’s ideals over women’s. The limitations these women have on getting tattooed is obvious yet is not questioned by either subject. The rules women must adhere to are unsaid but powerful; the former subject alters her self-image based on what her male partner tells her and accepts it as reality. The latter subject believes she is choosing tattooing because looking great gives her power, yet suggests that the idea of a tattoo on the neck (where it would be noticeable at all times) is wrong, stemming from a preexisting belief that imagery deemed unattractive by men is inherently wrong. Tattoos are acceptable only if they compliment the constructed female form or sexualize it, and women accept this as reality. This establishes that women are unknowingly centering their personal belief systems on a hierarchy that is already in place, conforming to a strict body code that rules their decision-making. Ultimately, women’s quest to tattoo themselves is not to self-empower but to transmit power into the hands of the dominant gender in society.
The role of second wave feminism and its belief that “loud and proud” women subvert stereotypes is partially to blame as it perpetuates the male gaze and further entraps women in gender roles. The belief that gender roles can be subverted by resisting them from within the existing gender hierarchy is ineffective; it calls to act against the complacent, obedient, and demure stereotype of women by acting in the opposite way as resistant, loud, and promiscuous. I am not arguing that one stereotype is better than the other; instead, I suggest that all feminine stereotypes are ultimately controlled by the same overpowering male ideology. Second wave feminist belief demands equality between sexes by encouraging women to participate actively in a way other than what is societally expected of them, but that, too, is dominated by patriarchal beliefs. Judith Butler, a highly praised gender theorist during the second wave of feminism, notes in her book Gender Trouble that “the deregulation of such exchanges accordingly disrupts the very boundaries that determine what it is to be a body at all” (133). Butler’s theory argues that a deregulation of normative body practices changes gender roles and therefore forces a reanalysis of what “normal” is, yet does not take into consideration how the terms by which women “subvert” power further restricts them. “Sex positivity,” a tenet of second wave feminist belief, essentially invites the male gaze to take center stage—by doing the opposite of what is expected of them, women end up attracting attention, and by extension, the gaze they wish to break free from. The beliefs promoted by second wave feminism are inherently problematic because of whom they come from; comprised of mostly white and middle-class women, second wave feminism promotes feminism from a place of privilege in society. The claim Butler and many of her colleagues make is representative of their status as white women in society. Women of color face an array of greater challenges that white women do not, proving that this subversion is rather ineffective for women as a collective group. In relation to tattoos, the same privileges apply. Unlike factors for discrimination women are born with like their sex and skin color, tattoos are self-inflicted and could even be described as self-subordinating. This is a phenomenon unique to white women as it is done out of privilege in society as compared to women of color. The belief that changing the gender hierarchy in society through sexual subversion is false. There is only false power in sexuality because female sexuality is defined and enforced by men. Objectification still exists when tattooed women are only accepted in the media when their tattoos compliment their conditioned bodies. Their power is still negotiated—the praise they are given for gracing magazine covers or starring in films is a small freedom they are given but their bodies are still dominated by a patriarchal society that defines what femininity is or is not.
Third wave feminism argues that sex positivity is not equal to women’s progress and challenges the sexism second wave feminism perpetuates. The pro sexuality movement spurred by second wave feminism continues to spectaclize women and keeps them oppressed through preexisting gender roles. Elisa Glick explains in her essay “Sex Positive: Feminism, Queer Theory, and the Politics of Transgression” the problems the sex positive movement has caused for women instead of helping them rise out of oppression; she argues that women’s “…refusal to ‘draw the line’ actually remains within the schema of sexual hierarchy and value that sex radicals set out to critique in the first place” (24). Acting promiscuous and “showing off” (in opposition to covering up and acting modest as certain stereotypes suggest) traps women in the same cycle of sexualization and marginalization. The female body is already established as a highly criticized and constructed ideal in our society; women who assert their sexuality as an act of rebellion inadvertently sustain men’s ability to dominate that gendered form. Third wave feminism seeks to find different subversive tactics for reversing gender roles in arenas that power can be ascertained such as the workplace and in politics while maintaining that second wave feminism’s damage has divided feminist thought and led many women to believe that what they are doing is bettering themselves and other women. The influence of second wave feminism and its unintended negative effects on women is apparent today through groups like Suicide Girls. Suicide Girls is the result of a sex positive movement that has given false power to women under the pretense that they are liberating themselves through sexual promiscuity and openness. Featured on a website that users can only access by paying a membership fee, Suicide Girls is a collective of modified, tattooed, and pierced women who are selected as models and are paid based on their popularity on the site. Suicide Girls claim that “what some people think makes us strange, or weird, or fucked up, we think is what makes us beautiful. This is our idea of beauty redefined” (SuicideGirls.com). Their mission statement demonstrates the inherently problematic issue with sex positive feminism that third wave feminism calls out—beauty “redefined” intends to change or overturn gender stereotypes but actually contributes to the preexisting sexist hierarchy that fetishizes tattooed women. The “Suicide Girls” consider themselves unique because of their body art positions them outside of normal feminine stereotypes yet are still subject to objectification by the dominating gender. Tattoos become another avenue for dominating women, “forming another plane of the traditional ornamentation of women” (MacCormack 64). Tattoos become another accessory of many aimed at creating an idealized female form that is completely unrealistic. White women who choose to tattoo as a means of redefining or taking ownership of their bodies end up contributing to the same dominating force that they attempt to undermine. Women are still made into a spectacle or something to look at regardless of their intent for self-adorning.
Whether women are praised for displaying their tattoos freely, or criticized for asserting themselves when men gaze at their tattooed bodies, they fall under a larger scheme of hierarchal power that has always had control over them and their bodies. The female body has been established in a way that makes it lesser; chopped up, reconstructed, and packaged as something unattainable that women still strive for in almost all aspects of life. But in what ways is the white female body constructed in relation to tattoos, a ritual once deemed acceptable for men? As a tattooed woman who looks white but is ethnically foreign, my interests in exploring the experiences of tattooed women today in American culture stemmed from my own identity and my questioning of my place within tattooing. When I first became tattooed, I hid my body art from friends and family in the fear that I would be criticized because of it. As I became more involved in tattoo art and began tattooing parts of my body that I normally show such as my upper arms and knees, I began to garner unwanted attention, not from my family, but from strangers. I was heckled, touched without my permission, and harassed for wearing tattoos and almost all of that attention came from men. These men often positioned me in extremely uncomfortable situations. When I would avoid them, call them out, or talk back, I was told that I should expect the attention because I had made the decision to tattoo myself—the consequences of such an action were inevitable. My interests in body politics and feminism attracted me to researching the relationship between tattooed women and the positive attention they receive by men for having them, a phenomenon of the past two decades. I felt empowered from getting tattoos but felt threatened wearing a sleeveless shirt outside. Why did I feel like I had to cover myself up for having tattoos unless I played along with getting all the attention from men? This question led to me find the inherently problematic issues with tattooed women and the male gaze, something I found especially problematic in relation to white women whose motivations for tattooing themselves came from privileged perspective of rebellion, self-acceptance, and empowerment. The “empowerment” women feel does not translate to actual power as a gender in society. Instead, it is a negotiated power that makes women feel praised and accepted by men in exchange for men’s ownership over their bodies. Tattooed women are promoted in the media as edgy and rebellious but their acts of freeing themselves allows men to fetishize their edginess, contain it, and keep women subordinate. Tattooing for women has always been and continues to be a form of entertainment for men. Sexual or otherwise, tattooed women serve a purpose for men’s gaze and desires. Tattoos have proven to be just another accessory to women’s body adornment, disguised as something powerful and liberating simply because it is not as ritualized as women’s beauty standards are.
Atkinson, Michael. “Pretty in Ink: Conforming, Resistance, and Negotiation in Women’s Tattooing.” Sex Roles 47.5/6 (2002): 219-233. Web. 1 May 2014.
Bartky, Sandra Lee. “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power.” The Politics of Women’s Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance, and Behavior. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. 25-44. Web.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge, 1990. Web.
DeMello, Margo. Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the Modern Tattoo Community. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. Print.
Glick, Elisa. “Sex Positive: Feminism, Queer Theory, and the Politics of Transgression.” Feminist Review 64.1 (2000): 19-45. Web.
Inked Magazine. Inked. Quadra, 2014. Web. 1 June 2014.
MacCormack, Patricia. “The Great Ephemeral Tattooed Skin.” Body & Society 12.2 (2006): 58-80. Web.
Saint, Warwick. The Sex Issue. Feb. 2013. Inked Magazine. JPEG file.
—. The Style Issue. Mar. 2010. Inked Magazine. JPEG file.
Tags: feminism : gender roles : gender stereotypes : male gaze : tattoo : tattoos : traditional tattoo
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Mickey Gilley’s Rollover Car Accident Has Inspired Him: ‘I Want to Share My Story’
Mickey Gilley's recent rollover car accident changed him. Now, he wants to change others by promoting seatbelt usage in partnership with the Tennessee Highway Safety Office.
Gilley and his son, Michael, were involved in a car wreck on Highway 59 in Lufkin, Texas, on Jan. 3. They were driving to Branson, Mo., when a driver in a 2016 Cadillac plowed through a stop sign, causing Gilley's son to swerve the 2013 Toyota SUV he was driving. Their SUV ended up clipping the other vehicle, which sent their car rolling through the intersection — three times — ultimately landing upside down in the median.
The country star was left with multiple injuries, including a cracked rib and sternum and a fractured ankle and shoulder. Gilley and the Tennessee Highway Safety Office want to remind people why it's so important to wear a seatbelt.
"Had I not been wearing my seatbelt, I’m sure I would’ve been ejected," Gilley acknowledges. "My car rolled about three times over. I want to share my story with Tennesseans to encourage everyone in the south to take pride in wearing seatbelts, because seatbelts do save lives.”
Gilley's participation lines up with Tennessee's statewide Seatbelts Are for Everyone campaign, now in its fifth year. The campaign aims to ensure seatbelt usage among vehicle passengers through education and community outreach programs.
"Because of this belt, I am still alive," Gilley says in a public service announcement. "This belt can save your life, it saved mine, it can save yours."
Country Stars Who Have Suffered Tragedy
Next: Country Music's Scariest Bus Accidents
Source: Mickey Gilley’s Rollover Car Accident Has Inspired Him: ‘I Want to Share My Story’
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Today we talk about one of our newcomers that have joined us here on the Danforth. @d.abrilhandcrafts opened its doors on December 12th of last year. The lovely creative minds behind it are Chris and his wife, Emma Landa. They moved to Canada ten years ago and have made it their home. Chris was working for a construction company for the last 9 years, but his wife was missing the colours of Mexico so that gave them the inspiration of opening this store. They sell beautifully hand painted clay pottery which is traditional to Mexico, and known for their bright colours. These are called Talavera, and have a long history in their culture which traces back to Spain as far back as the 15th century. Hence the name Talavera - named for the Maiolica pottery brought over by settlers from that region in Spain.
They are currently working on also bringing in some of their traditional home cooking into the store, which will give their store a unique one-stop-shop of Mexican street food where you can also buy traditional dinner wear and other home decor to match it. You will be getting the full experience here!
Their love of the community stems back to when they first moved here. Their landlord was also an immigrant, from Greece. Chris says he helped them so much with getting their footings here as newcomers to Canada, and opened so many doors for them. He and his wife are so grateful for that and love the Greek community in this area.
Stop in to have a look around. It having recently been Dia de Los Muertos in Mexico, you’ll also see a lot of the traditional skeletons and ornate skulls which are so popular now. Definitely a place to find all sorts of treasures!
More in this category: « Faces & Places on the Danforth: Jo, Kimberley & Cynthia @ The Yoga Sanctuary Faces & Places on the Danforth: Tracy @ Dough Bakeshop »
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Movie Review: World War Z [2013]
July 24, 2013 January 6, 2015
World War Z [2013]
Writers: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof (screenplay), Matthew Michael Carnahan & J. Michael Straczynski (screen story), Max Brooks (novel)
Genre: Action/Drama/Horror
Starring: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale
World War Z seemed to be doomed from the start. With production delays, a burgeoning budget and multiple script rewrites, Marc Forster’s film struggled to get off the ground. In fact, it took a good 5+ years of development before the final product came together. Surprisingly, even with these miscues, the film isn’t half bad, though it does fall into some familiar traps.
Brad Pitt stars as Gerry Lane, a former UN employee who, after the zombie outbreak hits, is called upon by The Powers That Be to help investigate the source of the virus. Forced to leave his wife Karin (Mireille Enos) and two daughters behind, Gerry embarks on the desperate journey that takes him all over the world in order to (hopefully) save mankind.
World War Z crams a lot into its two hour running time, as Gerry and company travel to South Korea, Israel and Wales. With so much globe-trotting, the film never really finds its footing, instead opting to use these jaunts as action set pieces with increasingly unrealistic outcomes. Some characters are seemingly invincible, surviving disasters that would swiftly kill “real” people. Many in the film also act like complete tools (i.e. forgetting to shut off a cell phone while sneaking past a group of zombies), and they are often getting into cheap predicaments meant to rivet the suspense.
Outside of Brad Pitt’s Gerry, none of the characters receive any real development, and they are merely there to fill the screen. Pitt deserves a lot of credit, however, as he is more than capable of shouldering the load. His portrayal of the near-perfect hero works well, and he helps keep the film entertaining even during its slower moments.
World War Z is rated PG-13, and this raises some issues. I don’t have a problem with a film getting this rating, but WWZ so desperately wants to show the usual zombie gore and violence that it seems frustrated in not being able to do so. Zombies are shot in the head, impaled and otherwise brutally massacred, but all of this happens off screen. We know it happens, but the frequent cuts away from the action are distracting.
Now, that’s not to say World War Z is a bad film. In fact, it is quite entertaining, and it moves along at a very crisp pace. It’s just that it is also a remarkably generic zombie movie, one that has been done better in the past. In short, it’s pretty much what I expected from a summer blockbuster of this nature, for better or for worse.
Posted in: Movies | Tagged: 2013, action, brad pitt, drama, horror, marc forster, mireille enos, movies, summer blockbuster, world war z, zombies
Movie Project #21: Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom [1975]
Movie Project #22: His Girl Friday [1940]
21 thoughts on “Movie Review: World War Z [2013]”
I’m curious about this one despite the mixed reviews. I quite like Marc Forster’s previous film, the grossly-overlooked Machine Gun Preacher, so I’ll give this a shot. I’m not generally a zombie genre fan though, so we’ll see if I dig this one.
Reddited btw: http://www.reddit.com/r/moviecritic/comments/1iz3pz/world_war_z_does_it_offer_anything_new_in_the/ 😀
Hey, thanks Ruth! This one will make for a good rental. It’s also rather tame compared to most zombie flicks, so you don’t have to worry about that. 🙂
Eh. It was an okay movie that had it’s thrilling moments, but felt almost too tame and watered-down. Nice review Eric.
Yeah, that’s pretty much how I felt, too. Thanks, Dan.
I have heard mixed reviews about World War Z, which did put me off going to see it initially. I did go to see it eventually and it was a lot better than I expected it to be. Its not a perfect Zombie film, its very generic, but it still had a few exciting moments.
Glad to hear you enjoyed it. This was better than I expected, too, especially considering the numerous problems during production.
Yes, for all the problems they encountered during the long production of World War Z, the film turned out ok.
LOL. I sometimes play a game called “Guess the score” before I click through to read your posts. I nailed this one on the head. 😀
Too bad I don’t get any prizes or anything. 😦
This movie was pretty lackluster, I’ve already forgotten most of it.
Haha, am I really that predictable? 😉 Yep, this one is lackluster alright. Not something I’ll be thinking about at the end of the year.
Morgan R. Lewis says:
Been seeing a lot of middling reviews for this, which really didn’t surprise me much.
I’m starting to think the shine has worn off on the zombie genre once again; that maybe it’s time for Hollywood to step back for a while. What do you think?
Yeah, I completely agree. I’m all “zombied out” in all forms of media. There are just so many zombie films, books, games, etc. that it takes something truly special to stand out anymore. Sadly, World War Z does not do that.
Good review.
Like the book version, I will probably skip this. Would rather watch Pacific Rim if I am going to spend the money to see. That is just my preference.
BTW. Got to see the Evil Dead remake. To me it was MEH! It was like they took parts of the two movies, but left out what made it “Evil Dead”. Could’ve done with a different name rather than being called Evil Dead.
Thanks. I’ve heard the film deviates quite a bit from the book, and not for the better.
Bummer to hear that you didn’t like Evil Dead. Having that name attached to the film is a bit of a burden, but I think it works well on its own. I can definitely understand why a lot of people didn’t care for it though.
I think if it would’ve been called something like “Possession to Kill Hipsters” I would have been more positive about it.
matthewretman says:
Pretty interesting review, but it seems like your evaluation follows through with the majority of opinions that I’ve received on this film. I’ll probably have to pass this one up since it doesn’t have any gems in its plot, because honestly–a typical action-packed zombie movie isn’t anything that I need to view in my spare time. Other than Brad Pitt, would I be making a mistake?
Hi, thanks for the comment! Honestly, you’re not missing much by skipping this. The film doesn’t bring anything new to the table, and there is little in the way of a strong plot or character development. It’s a solid action ride, but that’s about it.
sanclementejedi says:
I was bummed that the zombie cat I saw in that promo poster floating around the interwebs was not in the film. For all its flaws this was a fairly entertaining thriller. It just was not much of a zombie film.
Ha, I must have missed the zombie cat. Maybe that could have livened up this otherwise generic action flick. 😉
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The Blog of Big Ideas says:
When you have a film go through several rewrites and multiple edits, it’s bound to be fraught with problems. It’s kind of impressive that it has been getting decent enough reviews, as it definitely feels like it could have turned out a lot worse. I’m still a little surprised Pitt decided to do this, since he hasn’t since Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and these types of films seemed to be behind him. I think he’s one of those actors that has improved with age and experience. He’s a lot more capable and layered than he was at the beginning of his career. Too bad I can’t say the same about Angelina Jolie, whose best work came mostly in her first few years of notoriety.
I agree that Pitt has only gotten better with age. I honestly had no expectations for this film either, but it’s mostly through his sheer will that this is entertaining at all. It’s hardly anything groundbreaking — in fact, it’s mostly forgettable — but it’s still a serviceable summer thriller.
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The Banner Saga (2016) [PS4]
By ABXY Reviews on May 1, 2019 • ( 4 Comments )
“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend…”
-Faramir, The Two Towers
“The following is a contributor post by the ABXY Mage.”
Creating video games seems like fun. Of course, that’s coming from someone who knows absolutely nothing about it. But, you don’t need to know much to know that if you aren’t working on projects you want to work on, games you’re passionate about, then it could easily feel like any other job. So, when BioWare Austin finished Star Wars: The Old Republic, three designers decided to leave and form their own development company.
Stoic Studio decided to begin with a rather ambitious project: The Banner Saga, a three-part series of tactical-strategy games telling the epic tale of a diverse and divided country inspired by Norse mythology and Scandinavian settings. The first game, The Banner Saga, reached its crowdfunding goal in just two days, and by its completion, it had raised over seven times the target amount.
Originally released in 2014 for PC and mobile devices before making its way to PS4 and XBox One in 2016, and Switch in 2018, was it worth the developers’ risk and the fans investments?
The Banner Saga opens with the bleak message above. It then segues into a prologue and tutorial that continue the backstory and set the stage for the main game.
The known world contains three races: Varl, Human, and Dredge.
Varl are a giant, horned, humanoid people. They are standoffish and prefer to keep to their own, with extremely long lifespans–partly in thanks to their brilliant fighting ability. They live to fight. Oddly, throughout the entirety of the game, female varl are never seen nor mentioned.
Within the human race exist menders. Menders are able to see the literal fabric of the world and can actually manipulate it. While they are primarily healers, menders can use their ability for a multitude of purposes including attacks in battle.
Dredge also have their own form of menders, called stonesingers. Dredge are a race of stone warmongers who loathe humans, and don’t care for varl either. For ages, humans and varl fought each other, until the dredge emerged and began to conquer both. With no other choice, and survival on the line, the humans and varl joined forces to drive the dredge into the wastelands of the north in what is known as The Second Great War.
Now, many years later, peace and trade exist between the humans and varl, and dredge stay in their territory to the north.
However, an unknown number of days ago, the sun literally stopped in the sky. Covered in perpetual twilight and facing the beginning of winter, tensions have risen and rumors of trouble in the north are beginning to spread. Some even claim to have seen dredge coming…
The first entry in the series, The Banner Saga spans seven chapters and follows two unique parties of humans and varl, each on their own separate journey. I will now discuss a few SPOILERS.
You begin the game in the party of Ubin, a tax collector for the varl king, and possibly the oldest living varl in the world. Accompanying Ubin are Gunnulf, his personal guard, and a caravan of other varl. You are traveling to Strand, the largest city on the border of the varl and human lands. It’s the last stop of the season.
Here, emotions are already at a boiling point. Upon entering the city, you find that the governor and his guards are under attack by a mutinous faction of scoundrels. After dispatching them, the governor offers you double the normal collection if you’ll find and kill the remaining traitors.
A short time later, ships are seen in the harbor. Ubin recognizes one of the two banners as belonging to a varl hero, Vognir. The other banner belongs to the human prince, Ludin. Vognir is accompanying Ludin to the varl capital, Grofheim. There, the humans and varl plan to formalize an alliance between the two races. Ubin’s caravan joins Vognir’s and Ludin’s, and they all set foot for Grofheim.
Not long on the road, Ludin and some of his men are ambushed by dredge. In the battle to save the human prince, the future varl king is killed. His friend, the warrior Hakon, assumes command of the caravan and Chapter One fades to black.
Chapter Two introduces the second party that you will follow through the game’s story. This party is lead by Rook, a human hunter, and his marksman daughter, Alette.
In the northeast village of Skogr, Rook and Alette are heading back to town when they come upon a dredge. They rush back to warn the villagers, but it isn’t long before a horde of dredge pour into Skogr. Unsafe and without options, the villagers flee and head west for a larger city.
With dredge in pursuit of both parties you follow, a decision-making system with real consequences, hand-drawn art, a deep story that has much more to it than first suspected, and a large cast of characters, The Banner Saga sets high expectations for itself and its epic scale. Does it pull it all off, though?
Visuals: 9/10
One of the characteristics of The Banner Saga that stands out most is its visual art style, and it’s also one of the game’s most appealing qualities. Because the developers wanted to create a fantasy epic for adults, they decided to model the visual aesthetic on old animation styles, mainly Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, as well as Wizards, the 1978 animated version of The Lord of The Rings, and the animation styles of Don Bluth (Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go To Heaven, Dragon’s Lair, etc.).
The characters are all visually unique, and the environments as you travel are all beautiful. The banners that are carried by the various caravans grow in length as the game progresses, which is in line with the fact that the banners tell the story of the clan. The travel settings and towns all include small, but noticeable details in the foreground and background art that is worth looking for, too.
Unfortunately, when it comes to enemy variation, you are limited to fighting other humans and fighting dredge. The dredge have a handful of different classes that have different abilities, but that isn’t much considering the number of battles and the fact that they mostly all look the same. A similar criticism can be made of the camps you make during your trip, they mostly look the same.
So, while the art style is uniquely inspired and quite fantastic, it also seems to be restricted in a few of its variations.
Audio: 8/10
Austin Wintory has become a bit legendary in the last decade, thanks to credits like Journey and Abzû, and The Banner Saga is more evidence as to why. Apparently influenced by a mixture of traditional folk music from different cultures, it fits the Viking-esque fairytale setting and perfectly conveys the feelings of winter, marching, hopelessness, wilderness, and survival. It’s the perfect accompaniment to the game, but it’s also very good to listen to on its own, given the right mood.
While there is voiceover during the game, the characters all speak only in text. It really stands out after hearing the voiceover that there isn’t any voice acting during the dialogue scenes. It’s too bad, too, as it seems like good and interesting voice acting could have really taken this game up to the next tier.
Gameplay: 7/10
The Banner Saga has three major sections of gameplay: battle, on the road, and camps & towns.
The battles work mostly as you would expect for a tactics game. The battlefield is a grid and everyone has a set number of spaces they can move, and then they have the chance to attack or do a special move each turn. Fighters can gain Willpower points which allow them to move extra spaces or do additional points of damage, and the team can also collectively earn them for you to distribute during battle. Your party will also receive Renown points which you can use to promote your units or to buy supplies and items.
Within each race, there are different classes of fighters. Between the humans and varl, there are six classes with a combined fifteen subclasses. The dredge have a combination of classes and movesets similar to humans and varl. As expected, the classes and subclasses determine strengths and moves as well as weaknesses and strategies. While you will collect several members in each party throughout the game, you can never have more than six in your battle team. This, along with the fact that some deaths can be permanent (only certain characters), means party management is essential.
Unfortunately, even with all of this, battle is surprisingly monotonous. For the most part, you will figure out who your best characters are, what their best moves are, and you will just use those over and over. I tried to play different styles, but overall, it’s just about where certain party members are on the field and how much health they start with.
On the road, you have three main concerns: supplies, morale, and events. The amount of members in your caravan determines how many supplies you use per day. If you run out of supplies, the caravan members begin to die. You gain and spend additional supplies in a variety of ways including choices you make.
While there are seemingly no benefits to not letting your caravan starve to death (other than it lowers morale), what kind of leader would you be, how could you live with yourself, if you didn’t try to save as many as you could? Morale affects the Willpower you will start battles with. It changes due to events, traveling, resting, and results of battles.
The easiest way to improve morale is to rest. You can rest in camps and in towns. In camps, you can also use the Training Tent, which allows you to practice battles without injuring your heroes or gaining Renown. In towns, you can visit markets where you can purchase supplies or items for your heroes.
In my opinion, the best fleshed-out gameplay mechanic is the choice system. You make choices in dialogue with other characters, when determining when and where to rest, at certain checkpoints along the road, in battle, and in the random events that take place during your journey. These decisions can literally kill both caravan members and heroes; they can gain or cost supplies and fighters; they can reward or devastate.
Many of the choices are vague or seem similar, some come across as innocent, and many leave you having absolutely no idea just how they may impact your adventure. Essentially, you really just get to go with your gut and see what kind of a leader you would be given the same situation.
Accessibility: 6/10
While The Banner Saga does contain a tutorial for the battles, it does leave some elements of the game uncovered for the player to learn through error. Even though battle is the most-covered segment in the game by instructions, it remains pretty difficult and brutal throughout its entirety. Party management and the way to most effectively utilize certain classes against others are a few–very key–components not covered in the tutorial, and this leads to at least part of the game’s difficulty. As the game is mostly story-driven, its slow pace and lack of an ending could also be a turn off for some gamers.
Challenge: 7/10
As previously stated, the game makes itself a little more unfairly difficult than necessary. It seems to make little sense to have a tutorial for part of the game’s mechanics, but not all or most. Maybe this was on purpose, to force you into literally doing the best you can with the experience you’ve gained, and learning the rest as you go, but it’s hard to know for sure if that’s the case or not. Overall the lessons you learn on your own are almost entirely hard lessons to learn, and it can occasionally be a bit frustrating.
While the story is the main driving force for playing The Banner Saga, the different choices and outcomes of that story are what gives it replayability. This could hold even more true with the sequels and how they are impacted by the decisions you make in the first game, but that remains to be seen.
Uniqueness: 7/10
The Banner Saga took inspiration from the Norse before God of War made it hip. You can see its fantasy inspirations from the epics mentioned in the intro as well, though. The trilogy as a whole may be very unique, but it’s hard to speak to considering the first game reveals so little. Overall, it’s an interesting mix of Oregon Trail, tactics games, Norse influence, and Disney movies from the 40s and 50s, but for adults.
My Personal Grade: 7/10
The Banner Saga starts a trilogy that tells an epic tale, but the first game only covers part of that tale. So it comes as no surprise that the ending is left open for a sequel. What is surprising is that there isn’t really an ending at all. The game just kind of says “that’s all for now.”
In the beginning, the battles are just fights for survival. By the end, they are a tiny bit tedious with a lack of desired variation. The choices, however, bring a sense of reward and thought to battles and the many parts of your journeys.
Really, this game is all about the story. Almost immediately I wanted to know the characters and the world. It wasn’t long before I wished the game had voice acting and more animated cutscenes. By the end, I wanted it to be a tv series and/or a prequel tv series based on The Second Great War. I look forward to unraveling the next portion of the story in The Banner Saga 2.
I also look forward to the improvements to gameplay that I can only assume (and hope) come with the second saga. The Banner Saga is a good foundation, but it could use some additions and renovations, so we shall see what the rest of the series brings to the table. For now, The Banner Saga is definitely worth experiencing, if for nothing else than to test your mettle as an unexpected leader of both man and varl, fighters and families, on the run from an unstoppable and mysterious force.
What story will your banner tell?
Aggregated Score: 7.1
The ABXY Mage leads a double life of unfathomable hipness, if his expertise in jazz is any indication. Music maker, fandangoist, writer, you can find this hip cat as ABXY Reviews on Twitter and on YouTube.
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Categories: Game Review
Tagged as: PS4, RPG, SRPG, Stoic Studio, Strategy, Tactics, The Banner Saga, TRPG
Racing Game of the Week #18: “Sega Rally Championship” (1994)
“Side Quests” #13: Non-Final Bosses Pt. 3
SlipstreamMage says:
I’ve wondered about this game for a long time. All I ever saw of it from limited exposure were stills from the Bluth-esque animated scenes, which didn’t really do much for me and the title was a bit odd. Really appreciate the deep dive, because now I realize I’d really enjoy this game. I do see the Rankin & Bass animation-style a bit too. All it needs is a few musical numbers along the way (Frodo of the Nine-Fingers!) and it would be an homage!
Anyways, great review, and thanks for exposing me to what this game is actually about.
ABXY Reviews says:
this might be my new favorite comment. thanks for reading!
If you like story, the game will hook you well enough. the first thing i told Red when i finished it was how bad i wanted it to be a mini-series or i wanted them to make a mini-series of the backstory. it would be so good.
Great review, dude. I am very curious about this game. Did they ever mention Rankin and Bass animation as an inspiration, because I mean look at the resemblance: https://www.google.com/search?q=rankin+and+bass+gandalf&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwicoZj_lvvhAhWOv54KHc_LDEEQ_AUIDigB&biw=1924&bih=1193#imgdii=SfFrAfQ9zEwbgM:&imgrc=mXRYKT9bhfF69M:
not that i saw; several mentions of Lord of The Rings though, so maybe it was supposed to be implied? i do see it
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Archive for May, 2011|Monthly archive page
American Book Publishing “Investigation” Research Released: No Proof of Victoria Strauss’ Claims
In Accountability, American Book Publishing, Authors, Credibility, Investigations, Professionalism, Propaganda, Publishers, Publishing, Reputation, Reputation Management, Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association, Self-Publishing, SFWA, Victoria Strauss on May 31, 2011 at 7:33 pm
As you know, we’ve asked a simple question to Victoria Strauss and the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA): Show your evidence that American Book Publishing “has been the focus of at least one police investigation.”
Consistent with the applicable Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) we have conducted some extensive (exhaustive) research with the agencies listed below. As a result, we have neither located evidence nor reports of any “investigation” involving American Book Publishing in these jurisdictions. The only “investigation” that we did locate involved a “theft” at the residence of Ms. Nunn who had a break-in to her home and also sustained damage thereto. Pursuant to the request of many of our readers, we are releasing copies of our findings herein:
10/24/2011 Update: American Book Publishing: No Case, No Criminal Contact & No Legal Action Taken
A Note to New Authors . . . is Victoria Strauss Lying?
Letter to the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America
American Book Publishing, “Police Investigation” Victoria Strauss Fairy Tale?
UPDATED: April 4, 2011 – Boycott Victoria Strauss’ Books: Request to Reveal Evidence of “Investigation”
What was Victoria’s Motivation? Missing Pieces to the Puzzle
The Write Agenda by The Write Agenda is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on all work at thewriteagenda.wordpress.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://thewriteagenda.wordpress.com.
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More C.R.A.P. From Author, James D. Macdonald: Chutzpah, Simply Chutzpah!
In A.C., A.C. Crispin, Absolute Write, Accountability, Amazon, Amazon Rankings, Amazon Sales Rankings, Ann Crispin, Atlanta Nights, Authors, Credibility, Crispin, Filmmaker, Goy's Law, James D. MacDonald, Making Light, Money should flow toward the author, Mystery Writers of America, Professionalism, Propaganda, Publish America, Publishers, Publishing, Rachael Saltzman, Reputation, Reputation Management, Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association, Self-Publishing, SFWA, Travis Tea, Victoria Strauss, Writer Beware, Yog's Law on May 31, 2011 at 1:40 am
“ . . . From the fine folks who could have brought you Atlanta Nights (but lost the chance) . . . . In a surprise move that’s provoking derision from sea to shining sea, the guys who can’t sell your book to readers now want you to believe they can sell it to publishers. . . . “
– James D. Macdonald
This quote by James D. Macdonald is demonstrative evidence of why every author needs to become a skeptic and why you need to utilize the C.R.A.P test. C.R.A.P. is an acronym for Currency, Reliability, Authority and Purpose and Point of View.
There are a couple of things here to take issue with. Did Publish America really miss an opportunity with Atlanta Nights (the book)? Not really. The book has a current Amazon Sales Ranking of 657,661. Few people (authors) are purchasing the book which is intended to assist the SFWA’s Emergency Medical Fund. This book will never appeal to the general public and is nothing more than a self-serving endeavor and a pitiable literary masturbation get-together by it creators. Also, the funding for Atlanta Nights (the movie) failed to reach its goal. FACT: They were $18,702 shy of reaching their funding support. Also noteworthy, James D. Macdonald and his accomplices failed to publically contribute any financial support to this film project. However, Macdonald, Victoria Strauss and Ann “A.C.” Crispin all have heavily promoted the project. They all want the limelight but can’t kick in one shekel to support the efforts (Rachael Saltzman, filmmaker, are you feeling used yet?). This project has resulted in an epoch failure. The producers are scrambling and have had little to say on their website or Facebook page. Without the necessary “errors and omissions” insurance this project is tantamount to lawsuit bait.
While “Uncle Jim” [James D. Macdonald] claims that Publish America “can’t sell” an author’s book(s), his own Amazon Sales Rankings currently range from 50,962 – 7,572,732. Can you say chutzpah! Frankly, after a quick review, Publish America authors are kicking his New Hampshire-based toches. Many of whom have rankings as high as 32,016; 18,946 points ahead of James D. Macdonald. (Have you seen a James D. Macdonald book in a store?)
Authors don’t be fooled by this misleading propaganda. James D. Macdonald, in spite of his numerous published titles, is neither a house-hold name nor a New York Times best-selling author. Moreover, like his contemporaries, Ann Crispin and Victoria Strauss, James D. Macdonald relies on you to purchase his books and t-shirts. In addition, Yog’s Law, that James D. Macdonald authored, has created false expectations for new authors and is bursting with fallacies. These self-promotion efforts are off the chart and they exceed what one would normally expect from a “watchdog.” Have you noticed that on the Writer Beware site that Victoria Strauss and Ann Crispin both have links for you to purchase their books? (See the links on the right.) This site is “sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America with additional support from the Mystery Writers of America,” both non-profit organizations. Can you say inurement? Chutzpah, Simply Chutzpah!
“Making Light.” Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden. 29 May 2011. Web. 30 May 2011. <http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/>.
When the Facts are Not on Your Side, Edit it: How Teresa Nielsen Hayden Manipulates the Truth
In A.C. Crispin, Absolute Write, American Book Publishing, Ann Crispin, Goy's Law, Investigations, James D. MacDonald, Making Light, Money should flow toward the author, Propaganda, Reputation, Reputation Management, Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association, Self-Publishing, SFWA, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Victoria Strauss, Writer Beware, Yog's Law on May 26, 2011 at 10:15 pm
“The truth cannot be asserted without denouncing the falsehood.”
– Leslie Stephen
In an addendum to a Making Light posting, Teresa Nielsen Hayden stated as follows:
“They’ve [The Write Agenda] also posted a string of new blog entries denouncing me, Jim Macdonald, Yog’s Law, Ann Crispin, and other usual suspects, and an open letter to SFWA in which they misspell multiple names, grossly misquote Jim Macdonald and Robin Bailey, and demand that SFWA discipline, expel, and repudiate Ann Crispin, Victoria Strauss, and Jim Macdonald in order to preserve SFWA’s good name.”
Let’s set the record straight and work through this narcoleptic babble. It is true that we denounced the individuals named above. We also have addressed the fallacies of Yog’s Law. In response, we introduced Goy’s Law. All we have ever asked for was the truth. For example:
Writer Beware: Who’s not minding the forum? Boobs, Bras & Panties?
A.C. Crispin Claims Strategic & Eloquent Books are Not Available in Local Bookstores
Goy’s Law, The Flow of Money to an Author
Updated: 4/25/11 Dispelling the Myth Behind Yog’s Law: The Fallacies with the Flow of Money to Authors
James D. MacDonald Furious Over Tate’s Challenges to Yog’s Law
Pop Quiz on Yog’s Law
Ann Crispin: ” . . . Writer Beware never makes claims without documentation to back them up.”
The Write Agenda: The Right Company to Keep
QUERY: Does James D. Macdonald Have a Criminal History?
Invitation to James D. Macdonald: Show your Criminal History
Do you notice how these “flying monkeys” evade the truth? The mission is to get the reader off topic, attack the opponent and fail to comment on the real issues. If the worse thing that we are accused of is misspelling names, at least it has little to do with intelligence.
James D. Macdonald and Robin Bailey were not “grossly” misquoted in any of our postings. This is a great example of how Teresa Nielsen Hayden is editing and manipulating the truth. All of our postings have been properly vetted and attributed in the reference sections. Both of these gentlemen are in fact the authors of the following quotes. We defy Teresa Nielsen Hayden to provide evidence that these are misquotes:
“But only if she strips down to bra-and-panties first.”
“I do it for power and popularity. It’s all about the power. And the popularity. Really. It used to be about fame, fortune and free sex.”
– Robin Wayne Bailey[1]
We did not request that the SFWA discipline, expel and repudiate Ann Crispin, Victoria Strauss and James D. Macdonald “in order to preserve SFWA’s good name.” We did say that these individuals have brought “disgrace” and “dishonor” to their organization. To wit:
“Based on the circumstances listed above, we believe that there is “good and sufficient cause” for the expulsion of each of the members listed above. At the minimum, some form of disciplinary action should ensue for the disgrace and disingenuous activities that they have engaged in; not to mention the dishonor they have brought upon the organization.”
Whether the SFWA has a “good name,” or not, remains to be seen. As long as they continue to be an accomplice to the apparent lies of Victoria Strauss, that name will continue to be questioned. Therefore, Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s narcoleptic babble has been deemed pure C.R.A.P. Readers, this is demonstrative evidence of why you need to be skeptical of these “flying monkeys” postings and utilize the C.R.A.P test. C.R.A.P. is an acronym for Currency, Reliability, Authority and Purpose and Point of View. Purported “truths” will never prevail where the falsehoods are denounced.
“With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and excommunication have been repulsed.”
– Georg C. Lichtenberg
“I Need a Prompt – Page 2 – Absolute Write Water Cooler.” Absolute Write. Web. 18 Mar. 2011. <http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=207975&page=2>.
[1] See “Reason 13”in the Volunteer Section at http://www.sfwa.org/about/volunteers/
Protected: T.W.A.N.G (The Write Agenda Ninja Group)
In Uncategorized on May 26, 2011 at 7:17 pm
SFWA Treasurer, Amy Sterling Casil, Announces Utilization of “Atlanta Nights” Proceeds
In Amazon Rankings, Amazon Sales Rankings, Amy Sterling Casil, Atlanta Nights, Credibility, Filmmaker, Making Light, Propaganda, Rachael Saltzman, Reputation, Reputation Management, Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association, SFWA, Travis Tea on May 25, 2011 at 9:59 pm
Amy Sterling Casil, Treasurer, of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), recently stated on a Making Light posting : “Just wanted to point up the fact that the Atlanta Nights proceeds so far have gone to the Emergency Medical Fund. That’s worth about 100,000 defamatory nattering nabobs.”
FACT: Atlanta Nights (the book) has a current Amazon Sales Ranking of 847,062. The book was published in 2005. If an Amazon Sales Ranking of 1,000,000 equates to 3 copies sold every 500 days and there’s been approximately 2190 days since publication, just how much is “100,000 defamatory nattering nabobs” really worth? Well, that may buy a few boxes of band-aids.
SIDE BAR: Update 5/16/11: “Atlanta Nights” UNFUNDED, $18,702 Shy of Funding Support
Rank Copies Sold/day
10,000 2.2 (11 copies every 5 days)
100,000 0.2 (1 copy every 5 days)
1,000,000 0.006 (3 copies every 500 days)
2,000,000 0.0001 (1 copy every 1000 days)
“Making Light: The Write Agenda: The Wrong Company to Keep.” Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden. Web. 25 May 2011. <http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012966.html>.
The Write Agenda, 2011 Book Expo America, Associates Information
TO: The Write Agenda (TWA) Associates
We have finalized our itinerary and coordinated your team projects. The link below will provide you with your hotel, transportation and ticket information. Team Leaders, we will be meeting the evening before BEA at the New York Marriott Marquis.
2011 BEA Associates Log In
Protected: 2011 BEA Associates Log In
In Uncategorized on May 19, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Invitation to James D. Macdonald: Show your Criminal History & Military Records
In Accountability, Authors, Credibility, Criminal History, Investigations, James D. MacDonald, Making Light, Money should flow toward the author, Professionalism, Propaganda, Publishers, Publishing, Reputation, Reputation Management, Self-Publishing, Strategic Book Group, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Travis Tea, Victoria Strauss, Writer Beware, Yog's Law on May 12, 2011 at 1:44 pm
Mr. James D. Macdonald,
In a May 6, 2011 post on the Making Light site, you re-posted an email, from 2007, which was attributed to Strategic Book Group’s President, Robert Fletcher. The implication was that you have a criminal history. Ironically, there’s no express denial from you regarding a criminal history. Your only defense was: “First thing is, Bouncing Bobby (since he doesn’t know much about books and writing, or the selling of same to the public) thinks that being a known criminal is a bar. It isn’t. E.g.: Willie Sutton; Edward Bunker.”
Are you a known criminal? Do you have a criminal history? It may not be a bar to being a author; but it does call into question everything that you, as a “watchdog,” have posted about others and their shortcomings, your credibility and any non-profit affiliations you may have. In the spirit of Sutton’s Law, additional research requires one to consider what is most observable and discoverable. Additional research will confirm or deny whether primary source material reveals evidence of this claim. Mr. James D. Macdonald you could have eliminated any suspicion with a simple denial of any history of criminal activity. You didn’t. Now, we’re curious.
Please grant us access to your FBI Criminal History and Military Records. We have attached the forms that can be returned to us via email.
Click Here: FBI Criminal History
Click Here: Military Records Request
The Write Agenda
“Sutton’s Law.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 07 May 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton’s_law>.
V6.00.2900.3028, Microsoft MimeOLE. “Making Light: Robert Fletcher, Part VI: The Monster and the Critics.” Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden. Web. 07 May 2011. <http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/011586.html>.
“Victoria Strauss — Someone Out There Doesn’t Like Us (And We Don’t Care).” Writer Beware™ Blogs! Web. 24 Mar. 2011. <http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2006/05/victoria-strauss-someone-out-there.html>.
The Write Agenda by The Write Agenda is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on all work at thewriteagenda.wordpress.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available athttps://thewriteagenda.wordpress.com.
Who Said Books Were Going Away? Amazon Expansion
In Amazon, Propaganda, Publishers, Publishing, Self-Publishing on May 9, 2011 at 3:32 pm
Amazon to Open Third Fulfillment Center in Indiana, Creating Hundreds of New Jobs.
Click Here for Press release
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1561283&highlight=
Non-Traditional Published Authors vs. “Watch Dogs” Amazon Sales Rankings May 8, 2011– 12:00 PM
In A.C., A.C. Crispin, Accountability, Amazon Sales Rankings, Ann Crispin, Authors, Credibility, Crispin, David L. Kuzminski, James D. MacDonald, Preditors & Editors, Propaganda, Publishers, Publishing, Reputation, Reputation Management, Self-Publishing, Victoria Strauss on May 8, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Non-Traditional Published Authors vs. “Watch Dogs”
Amazon Sales Rankings May 8, 2011– 12:00 PM
Non-Trditional Authors vs Watch Dogs 05082001 Click for PDF file
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Republican Out, Republican In
ThinkProgress Feb 2, 2009, 11:32 pm
By Brian Beutler
Elana Schor has the latest on the Judd Gregg comings and goings:
Senator Judd Gregg and New Hampshire’s Democratic Gov. John Lynch have both confirmed what has been much discussed over the last several days: Gregg has made it clear that he would only accept an appointment to the Obama Administration if it would not cause the Democrats to gain his Senate seat….
Gregg issued his own statement, making the point even clearer: “I have made it clear to the Senate Leadership on both sides of the aisle and to the governor that I would not leave the Senate if I felt my departure would cause a change in the makeup of the Senate. The Senate Leadership, both Democratic and Republican, and the Governor understand this concern and I appreciate their consideration of this position.”
Surely Gregg’s desire to replace himself with somebody who will often oppose his new boss’s agenda is evidence of his deep commitment to the administration, the cabinet, and the agency he appears poised to head.
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I Watched Crazy Illuminati Conspiracy Theory Videos So You Don’t Have To
By Mak Jagger, February 13th 2013
http://tcat.tc/YrNkOp
s_bukley / Shutterstock.com
The rumor mill has been a buzz in recent months with gossip that Beyonce Knowles-Carter is queen of the Illuminati. She, Jay-Z, and their ilk are a secret society hiding in plain sight and throwing up random hand triangles just to taunt you about it. They’ve sacrificed it all for stardom, but now it’s their world and we just live in it. For those who buy into the theory of the Illumanti’s existence, we are all just minions quietly watching the Super Bowl of life while Queen Bey holds her court. And also, Paul McCartney has been dead since before Abbey Road came out and I’ve got some beachfront property on the moon to sell you. Oh wait, no I don’t… because we’ve never been to the moon. Don’t you know that whole thing happened on an old Lost in Space soundstage on the Paramount lot?
YouTube is rife with rudimentary videos exposing the ultra-super secrets of the world’s most elite ultra-super secret society. I watched a few, with a critical eye of course, to learn more about the secrets of those who taunt us in our naïveté by endlessly singing about “making it rain”… allowing the world to think that the phrase simply means the act of throwing dollar bills at a stripper when it’s actually an allusion to controlling our feeble little minds.
1. Illuminati Hip Hop Blood Sacrifices Exposed
In “Illuminati Hip Hop Blood Sacrifices Exposed,” one particularly grievous member of Public Enemy calls out some of his industry peers for eschewing their loved ones in exchange for fame and fortune that exceeds the $20 million mark. So basically if you make $19 mil and under, you’re golden; but if you are a Somebody in hip-hop and you want that extra milestone you have to pay the price by sacrificing a person whom you love.
This video, like many Illuminati conspiracy vids, has two major soundtracks: creepy background music and Eminem songs. Popular culture of recent has associated Beyonce as the most visibly active Illuminati member, but this video tells another story. And that story is basically the plot of 8 Mile. Or one would think, I never saw it.
But back to Bey. This video actually doesn’t even mention Yonce at all. It does mention her husband Jay-Z and the tragic loss of his nephew as his sacrifice for fame, even though he was already incredibly famous when this tragedy occurred. It also alleges that Kanye West gave up his mother in exchange for the success of the song “Lucifer,” which he produced for Hova. But the video totally discounts both the absolute awesomeness of “Lucifer” as the best hip-hop song of… ever (seriously, it’s so good), and the fact that the song was featured in the pilot of the epic bro-down that was Entourage. And if we are demonizing things here for glorifying the cult of celebrity, I say we pick Entourage instead.
The majority of this video is very reaching (Dr. Dre’s tragic 2008 loss of his son as his sacrifice for the fame he acquired a whole two decades prior, Damon Dash was responsible for the death of Aaliyah, Irv Gotti tried to knock off Ashanti, of course Tupac and Suge Knight, and the most vile allegation, that Jennifer Hudson had a hand in the tragic murders of her mother and brother in exchange for fame and a Weight Watchers sponsorship) but there were a few things that did make me go “hmm.” The tragic shooting death of Eminem’s friend and collaborator Proof, an event that Em foretold in a music video several years prior, is a pretty compelling coincidence. They also tell a strange story of the death of a musician friend and collaborator of a then unknown Stefani Germonatta. The world was introduced to Lady Gaga just months after the apparent suicide of this young, burgeoning artist whose image was pretty familiar, to say the least. “Hmm” indeed.
Based on the Gaga conspiracy alone, I give this one a B-.
2. Illuminati Message Superbowl 2013
Basically, the message of “Illuminati Message Superbowl 2013” we have all suspected for years but have yet to say out loud. Not only is Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child the worst member of that group… but she is also actually the anti-Christ. And she has big plans to get revenge for all the bullshit we’ve put her through and also all the crap Tina Knowles has forced her to wear. And she is doing it, Terminator style, during the Super Bowl 2013. No wonder she was so allusive about whether or not she would be appearing in the half time show.
“Destiny’s Child is a reference to the chosen one, the son of perdition, the anti-christ!” (sic) this video claims. Its basis is the fact that the group recorded a new song called “Nuclear,” some numerology nonsense, and some apocalyptical bullshit Reagan was on during a televised presidential debate when he was still relevant. Oh, and because Beyonce is queen of the Illuminati. Madonna knows it, she even told Anderson Cooper all about it. Not even President Obama in his honorary Colts jersey can save us now. The Sandy Hook tragedy and its impact on gun control laws are also involved. And Gabby Giffords. And apples. And alchemy. All sorts of alchemy. You were warned, guys.
Supposedly the presence of pure evil in the form of an R&B girl group was to set off a chain of actions during the Super Bowl that equated to nuclear warfare. This is all based on empirical evidence that the 49’ers are located in San Francisco where some gays live, and also because in some movie Morgan Freeman gets a call from Ben Affleck that the nuclear bomb is being dropped… when he just happens to be at a Baltimore Ravens game. Ravens, you guys, get it? They are all black and creepy. Just like the black out that happened right after D. Child left the stage. I bet the people behind this crazy video were shitting themselves in that moment. Except for the lights came back on, and it was business as usual from there on out.
Lots of creepy music in this video and none of it is performed by Eminem, so that is a plus. But its overall content is really disorganized and Jesus-y. I am not saying nuclear warfare isn’t something we shouldn’t be concerned about considering North Korea is testing that shit out, but I doubt Beyonce has anything to do with that. I am going to give it a C… for crazy.
For a more cognizant but still batshit account of the Knowles-Carter’s reign as the royal Illuminati family and the American religion of football (not a terrible argument in and of itself), watch here.
3. Whitney Houston Illuminati Sacrifice
This version of “Whitney Houston Illuminati Sacrifice” (there are a few) really brings the crazy. I mean, they are drawing some serious conclusions here regarding Madonna’s Super Bowl performance, Elton John in a Super Bowl commercial, Nicki Minaj’s weirdo Catholic Grammy outfit that year, some stuff the Pope did, the lighting of Jennifer Hudson’s tribute performance, Brandy Norwood’s birthday, Bobbi Kristina being Bobbi Kristina, Nancy Grace being alarmist and generally acting like Nancy Grace, and any time that Free Mason imagery and the number 11 could be related to prove that Illuminati killed Whitney as a Satanic sacrifice for the Queen’s Jubilee last year.
In this video, the Queen of the Illuminati is not Beyonce but rather the actual Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth II. And for some reason, the actual Queen wanted Whitney dead because… well, that’s not really explained. I just can’t see the Queen of England being like “Who’s that American singer that made those remarks about smoking crack? I feel like she is a threat that needs to be squashed. Get rid of her.”
The only leg they really have to stand on here is a clip of Whitney wildly interrupting a Brandy and Monica interview to give Brandy a weird note. She also makes some sort of comment about how she nearly “drowned again” while swimming. Here is what we know about the days and weeks leading up to Whitney’s death: she was dating Ray-J (Brandy’s brother) and she was getting fuuuucked up. So, really, this whole scenario is incredibly plausible to me. In fact, the most implausible thing about the whole event is the fact that it occurred during a Brandy and Monica interview. I can believe Whitney was acting irrationally in the days before her death which could possibly include endangering herself in bodies of water. I cannot believe that anyone gives a shit in this current day and age about Brandy or Monica.
Also the video makes a big deal about Bobbi Kristina’s claim that she nearly drowned in the bath just days prior to her mom’s death in the same fashion. How could the Illuminati even have anything to do with that? If anything, it’s a sign of the psychic bond shared by mothers and daughters that is almost always stronger when one of the parties is in danger.
I give this one a B-. It’s reaching; but it’s incredibly, over the top dramatic and I like that in a conspiracy theory. For even more drama on the topic, I give you this video as further viewing. It features the laugh out loud line “Still not convinced that this was a satanic ritual sacrifice? Chaka Khan is.” It also makes the implication that Madonna’s Kabbalah name “Esther” is a reference to the mother of the anti-Christ, and then, apropos of nothing, shows a really creepy image of Obama’s face. Are they saying our President is the anti-Christ and that Madonna is his mother, and for this Whitney Houston had to die? Just like a deranged vagrant rambling out loud at a bus stop, I could listen to this shit all day.
4. Illuminati — The Music Industry Exposed
The video “Illuminati — The Music Industry Exposed” is almost two full hours of mostly reading text on the screen so I didn’t get through the whole thing because I do have something of a life. And also, it’s largely about Eminem, and ain’t nobody got time for that. But there are some interesting (and ridiculous) points to this video that I will discuss.
Ever wonder why there are so many references to “making it rain,” “umbrella-ella-ella-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay,” and the “rain man”? Because it’s the Illuminati taunting you about their devil worship, silly. Hollywood created the movie Rain Man as a reaction to all this so the common person believes their favorite artists are singing about a Dustin Hoffman movie about Autism. No, really. They make that claim.
The video alleges that DMX is the way his is today because he betrayed the Illuminati. Just ask him. Don’t worry, the producers of this video already did. He’s got a lot to say on the subject but it’s highly doubtful that you care about any of it because it’s DMX. They also allege that Tupac and Michael Jackson were set up by the Illuminati, which to me is a bit more plausible. Also, they both died on the 25th day of the month along with Aaliyah, James Brown, Dean Martin, Eartha Kitt, and Left Eye; so something is clearly afoot because numerology!!! It’s a thing. Also, bad things happen in threes, including celebrity murders by the Illuminati.
The heavy emphasis of Eminem is too much for me, though. I could give two shits if Eminem is a member of the Illuminati, the KKK, or the local Blockbuster. Eminem’s angry and frustrated lyrics are reflections of his life, as they always have been. And although I personally find it grating and annoying, some might call it art.
Because of the high production value of this video and the allegation that Michael Jackson was sacrificed to Satan because he dared to interpretative dance defiantly in the “Black or White” music video, I am going to give this one a B+. Not because I believe it, in fact, it’s total bullshit, but it seems like bullshit that these people truly believe. They definitely take the offhanded remarks made by some artists way too literally. Just because the formerly evangelical Katy Perry says she “sold her soul to the devil” doesn’t necessarily mean she meant it in a literal sense. However, the image from the “Umbrella” video of Rihanna crouched down in a triangle with her body creating the image of the devil’s face is freaky. That alone is worth seeing.
People love to conspire on some shit they can’t readily and fully explain: the assassination of JFK, 9/11, and most recently the Sandy Hook tragedy have all been scrutinized to death. And it makes sense some small-minded people might need to make the so-called “cult of celebrity” into a real cult to justify the influence that we allow these few people to take in our lives. However, in these videos there is a lot of logical fallacy at play. They present a lot of correlation, but not a lot of causation.
But the thing is, there really is an actual celebrity cult with honest, out-in-the-open members, doing legitimately crazy shit — under the guise of religion. Scientology, you guys? Come on! We need to be focusing our critical energy on what is going on there rather than during Beyonce’s Super Bowl performance.
Beyoncé brandy Conspiracy Theories Destiny's Child Elton John Entertainment Illuminati jay-z Jennifer Hudson Madonna Monica Nicki Minaj Queen of England Ray J Uncategorized whitney houston WTF YouTube
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Wisdom// May 17, 2019
What Spending Time With Animals Can Teach Us About Empathy
Research shows interacting with animals can help foster emotional intelligence and human connection.
Dr. Aysha Akhtar
By Alena Ozerova/ Shutterstock
Harry Truman famously said, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog!” Actually, there is much dispute whether he ever uttered those words. But I bet when you just read his supposed quote, you instinctively agreed with it, didn’t you? The quote has a double meaning. Animals might be the only friendly faces in the man-eat-man world of politics. Animals also connect us with one another.They make us more likeable. In the past 150 years, all the US presidents brought animal companions with them to the White House, with the exception of Donald Trump.
Recent studies have shed light on how animals act as social lubricants. Researchers found that strangers were more likely to approach and start friendly conversations with people in wheelchairs if they had animals with them. Animals are icebreakers. They can bring the most unlikely people together for a shared experience, much like David saw with the inmates taking care of the bird who, up until that point, had barely uttered a word to one another.
Animals melt the glaciers people build around themselves. A study of more than 2,500 people in the United States and in Australia found that those with companion animals were much more likely to get to know their neighbors and form friendships than people without animals. On our walks through our neighborhood, Patrick has to stop every time we come across a neighbor with a dog. This inevitably leads us to converse with the neighbors rather than just say a quick hello. A half-hour walk easily becomes an hour. Patrick will say to the dogs, “What a cute doggie! What a pretty boy! Are you having a good walk?” One investigator refers to this as “triangulation” in which a person addresses the animal instead of the human. We do this because animals are safe and won’t quickly reject us. As a result, animals allow us to strip our social inhibitions. Patrick often gets down on the ground and rolls around with the dogs we meet. He’s a friendly guy, but I can assure you this is not something he would do with a human neighbor, even if that neighbor was game.
Get on the ground, chat animals up, play with them — and you have some happy animals and more than a few happy spouses. Or if you are looking to get a date, take an animal with you. In 2008,a male researcher was able to get women’s phone numbers 28 percent of the time when he had a dog with him as opposed to only 9 percent without a dog.
Animals connect us with one another. Part of the reason is that we like people who like animals. We often judge others by how they are with animals. Participants in a study were asked to rate people in drawings on different attributes such as intelligence, friendliness, and healthiness. They rated the cartoon people more positively if animals were in the drawings. Similarly, in a study of college students, participants rated psychotherapists as more trustworthy if they had a dog with them.
How people are with animals gives us insight into their moral character. As early as 1699, John Locke advised giving children animals to care for so that they would “be accustomed from their cradles to be tender to all sensible creatures.” During the Victorian era, child advocates and educators encouraged households to teach children to be kind and responsible by caring for companion animals. Sarah Joseph a Hale, magazine editor and author of Mary’s Lamb, published an essay arguing that for boys in particular, animals are a “great preventative against the thoughtless cruelty and tyranny they are so apt to exercise toward all dependent beings.” She believed that animals can teach people about kindness, love, loyalty, duty, and friendship.
However, these positive attributes can’t be achieved without a healthy dose of empathy. It sparks prosocial behaviors that are intended to help or benefit others, like kindness and altruism. Such actions include giving emotional support, murmuring soothing words, or donating money to worthy causes. Kindness and altruism are the flames of our empathy. Empathy also kindles emotional intelligence. In his book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman describes emotional intelligence as the ability to recognize and manage the emotions in one’s self and in others to guide behavior. It’s strongly linked with improved social skills and relationships and with greater mental and physical health. Emotional intelligence is a measure of empathy and the ability to understand and connect with others. “Empathy is the fundamental people skill,” Goleman writes. Empathy is so intrinsic to our relationships with one another that we label anyone who lacks it as dangerous and mentally ill.
We prefer empathetic and kind people. We even judge people’s attractiveness based on these qualities. In a study published in 2014, researchers in China randomly assigned 120 male and female participants to one of three groups and asked them to rate sixty photos of women making neutral facial expressions. Two weeks later, the participants were asked again to rate the photos, but this time, one group of raters was given negative personality descriptors about the women in the photos, such as meanness. The second group was given positive personality descriptors such as kindness. A control group was shown the same photos without any descriptors. In the first experiment, all three groups similarly ranked the photos for attractiveness. However, in the next round, the group shown the photos with positive personality descriptors ranked the faces much higher in attractiveness than the other two groups. The group given negative descriptors ranked the photos the lowest in attractiveness. In other words, as the researchers wrote, “we find that ‘what is good is beautiful.’”
Although this study has limitations (it only looked at a narrow demographic of Chinese women’s faces between the ages of twenty and thirty), its findings support a growing series of studies that have revealed that we like people who are ethical. For example, researchers at the University of British Columbia suggest that, as early as five months of age, our attraction to kindness is evident. They found that infants preferred a puppet who showed kindness in a puppet show over a mean puppet. We gravitate toward empathetic people. In turn, those who show greater empathy tend to be more successful in life. In a study published in PLoS ONE, preadolescent children who extended kindness to others were generally happier, in better relationships with others, and more popular.
Fortunately, empathy isn’t a scarce commodity. There’s plenty to go around. Empathy is likely a mixture of nature and nurture, influenced by childhood experiences. Nevertheless, it can still be learned in those who developed little empathy early in life. We can strengthen our empathy like a muscle.
School programs, such as social-emotional learning programs, have proven successful in teaching empathy to children through lessons in kindness, relationship skills, and managing emotions. Teachers and therapists have also been using animals to promote empathy development in children — not only toward animals, but also toward other humans. In a yearlong school program in which children were randomly assigned to receive either lessons in kindness toward animals or to a control group, psychologist Frank Ascione found that children who learned empathy through animal companionship also showed greater empathy toward other humans. The stronger the bond a child has with an animal, the greater their empathy and social competence. Other school-based programs show that children learn empathy and become less aggressive and violent by being with animals. And there is growing evidence that for even the most violent adults among us, animals bring out their better human selves.
Excerpted from Our Symphony with Animals: On Health, Empathy and Our Shared Destinies by Aysha Akhtar. Published by Pegasus Books. © Aysha Akhtar. Reprinted with permission.
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— Published on May 17, 2019
Dr. Aysha Akhtar is double board-certified in both neurology and preventive medicine and has a master’s degree in public health. She is the Deputy Director of the Army’s Traumatic Brain Injury Program. Previously, she worked for the Office of Counterterrorism and Emerging Threats of the Food and Drug Administration. She is a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Public Health Service, in which she deploys to assist with national public health emergencies. She is also a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and is a consultant editor for The Journal of Animal Ethics. She is the author of Animals and Public Health and Our Symphony with Animals and lives in Maryland.
Community// August 7, 2018
An amazing story of an young man who is thriving hard to give a voice to the voiceless…Mr.Zabi Khan
by Dr.Shakila
Community// April 15, 2019
Actress Katie Cleary: “More and more people are making the connection to what is on their plate and choosing to live a healthy, conscious, compassionate lifestyle”
by Yitzi Weiner
Community// June 4, 2019
PETA Founder Ingrid Newkirk: “Imagine what it would be like to have a watch that, instead of telling you what the time was now, would tell you how little time you had left”
by Authority Magazine
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Times & Trends Academy (TTA) is proud to have won consecutive awards in the education domain.
The 8th Annual Indian Education Awards hosted at New Delhi witnessed Times & Trends Academy being recognised yet again as a premium and sought after vocational education brand the country. A feather in its cap TTA added “Innovation in Skill Training – 2018” award this year at the national convention on Indian Education which endorsed TTA’s contribution to innovation in the Indian Education System.
TTA won the prestigious “Vocational Education Programme Of The Year – 2017” award at Indian Education Congress, New Delhi. The award has been conferred to TTA for its outstanding contribution in the educational domain, especially, vocational education. This award was especially satisfying as we were competing for it with over 500 other academies.
Times & Trends Academy also won the “Concept of the Year – 2016” award at All India Franchise Meet held at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. “Concept of the Year- 2016” Award has been conferred to TTA for the best concept designed for Generation Next Education. It was a proud moment for the entire TTA family, and quite a strong reason for the academy to celebrate as we were chosen from amongst hundreds of academicians from around the country.
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My Trouble in God’s Country research has been focused primarily on the widening economic, educational and health divides between Metro Atlanta and the rest of the state, especially rural Georgia. The extent of the political divide has been obvious and well understood for a long time, and it’s not a topic I’ve paid much attention to.
But last Tuesday night, as I watched the election results come in and poked around on the AJC and Georgia Secretary of State’s websites for county-level returns, I noticed that Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams seemed to be lagging behind her party’s 2014 gubernatorial nominee, Jason Carter, in rural Georgia but outperforming him in Metro Atlanta and other urban areas.
Did that mean, I wondered, that urban and rural Georgians were continuing to grow even further apart politically as well as economically, educationally and health-wise?
To answer this question, I pulled top-of-ticket results for the last five general elections in Georgia – the 2010 gubernatorial election, 2012 presidential, 2014 gubernatorial, 2016 presidential, and 2018 gubernatorial. Yeah, you can quibble with comparing gubernatorial and presidential results, but in this case I think it’s useful.
As a backdrop, it bears noting that virtually everybody agrees that population growth and demographic change are working to the advantage of Democrats and will eventually tip the state back to their advantage. That’s inarguably true. But against that backdrop, the first conclusion to be drawn from the 2018 results is this: Rural Georgia ain’t going down easy.
As of the results posted on the Secretary of State’s site Monday morning, November 12, Republican gubernatorial nominee Brian Kemp is leading in 130 mostly rural counties while Abrams is ahead in the other largely urban 29 counties. The counties Kemp is carrying are home to 2.9 million registered voters versus 3.5 million in the Abrams counties.
With that kind of numerical advantage, you have to wonder how Abrams can be losing. Two answers. The first is turnout. Kemp got a 61.5 percent turnout in his 130 counties versus 59.8 percent in the Abrams counties – not huge, but important in a race as close as this one is. (As of this writing, the Secretary of State’s website is showing Kemp leading 1,975,843 to 1,916,943.)
The second obvious factor was margin. Kemp is winning bigger in his small rural counties than Abrams is in her big urban ones. Which is saying something, because Abrams is ahead by a margin of 66.7 percent to 33.3 percent, or 2:1. Kemp, though, is running up the score in his 130 counties by a margin of 71.4 percent to 28.6 percent.
And there are some interesting subplots under those topline numbers. In Metro Atlanta, for example, heavily black and Democratic Clayton County, on the southside, went overwhelmingly for Abrams: 88.2 percent to 11.8 percent for Kemp. But turnout was only 54.2 percent. Clayton County gave Abrams her largest margin of victory but one of her smallest turnouts.
On the north side of Metro Atlanta, meanwhile, heavily white and Republican Cherokee and Forsyth counties went for Kemp by a combined margin of 72.5 percent to 27.5 percent — and their combined voter turnout was 63.5 percent, nearly 10 points higher than Clayton County’s. If Clayton County had matched the Cherokee-Forsyth turnout levels and maintained the same 88:12 split, Abrams would have netted another 12,000 votes.
But I meander.
Back to my original question: Is the political divide widening between Metro Atlanta and Rural Georgia? The answer is an unequivocal yes – although you might not know it just to look at the statewide results.
In 2010, former Governor Roy Barnes, the Democrat who eight years earlier had surrendered the governor’s office to the first Republican winner in a couple of thousand years, was making a comeback attempt against Republican nominee Nathan Deal; Deal won handily, 55.2 percent to 44.8 percent.
(Caveat # 1: In this analysis, I am ignoring third party candidates and looking only at votes cast for the Democratic and Republican Party nominees.)
In the 2012 presidential election, GOP nominee Mitt Romney got 54 percent of the vote to 46 percent for President Barack Obama, the incumbent Democrat. In the 2014 governor’s race, Governor Deal beat Democratic challenger Jason Carter by the same 54-to-46 margin.
In the 2016 presidential election, the margin actually got a little closer: Republican Donald Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton here in Georgia 52.7 percent to 47.3 percent, a margin of 5.3 percentage points. And, of course, the margin in the current governor’s race is razor thin: Of the votes cast for either the Democrat or the Republican, Kemp currently has 50.8 percent of the vote to 49.2 percent for Abrams.
(Caveat # 2: The votes here in Georgia are, at this writing, still being counted, with an unknown number of provisional ballots still out. We may or may not be headed for a recount if not a runoff. Whatever the final results, they will obviously change the numbers I’m currently using, but I don’t think it will change the overall picture.)
So, over the past decade or so, the Republican margin of victory peaked at a little over 10 percentage points and has lately been shrinking down to a point or so. But where those votes are coming from has shifted dramatically.
To get at this, I wallowed around in the data for a while and finally wound up breaking Georgia’s 159 counties down into four groups:
Big Democratic Counties. These are 16 counties that have at least 25,000 registered voters and have generally voted Democratic over the years. It includes the big ITP counties in Metro Atlanta and a couple of recent newcomers to the Blue column, Cobb and Gwinnett. More than half the state’s registered voters live in these 16 counties. In 2010, Barnes carried these counties over Deal by what seemed like a healthy 57.3 percent-to-42.7 percent margin. This year, Abrams is leading Kemp 2:1 in these same 16 counties. Put another way, these counties have shifted 9.8 percentage points further into the Democratic column. One measure of this group’s population growth and rising clout is that Abrams already has more votes from these counties than Barnes and Deal combined in 2010.
Small Republican Counties. This is a group of 101 rural counties with fewer than 25,000 registered voters, and it’s pretty much a polar opposite of the Big D counties above. In 2010, Deal carried these counties 2:1 over Barnes; this year, Kemp is ahead of Abrams just a hair shy of 3:1. As a group, these counties are 7.7 percent redder now than they were in 2010. The problem for Republicans is that many of these counties, especially in Middle and South Georgia, are hollowing out and losing population. They may still be able to run up the score in these areas, but there’s not enough growth to keep up with the Big D counties.
Large & Middle-Sized Republican Counties. This is a group of 29 counties with at least 25,000 registered voters that are lining up with Kemp and other Republicans in this election cycle. It includes most of the suburban and exurban counties surrounding Atlanta, as well as fast-growing communities in North Georgia and bedroom counties around the state (Oconee, Houston, Columbia, etc.). The good news for Republicans is that these are for the most part growing counties and they are overwhelmingly red. The less than good news is that they aren’t getting any redder; in fact, as a group, they’re 3.3 percentage points bluer this year than they were in 2010. One example: Forsyth County gave 85.2 percent of its 2010 vote to Deal and only 14.8 percent to Barnes; this year, Kemp is carrying Forsyth with a relatively meager 71.6 percent to Abrams’s 28.4 percent. That’s a 13.6 percentage point shift toward the Democrats in a decade. Still, the GOP’s future in Georgia probably lies in retrenching in these counties.
Small Democratic Counties. These are 13 largely rural and heavily black counties with fewer than 25,000 registered voters that are still voting Democrat, but – like the Small Republican Counties discussed above – they’re actually trending Republican. In 2010, they went nearly 60:40 for Barnes; this year, they’re a paler shade of blue and going 55:45 for Abrams. If that’s good news for Republicans, the bad news is that, combined, these counties cast fewer than 90,000 votes.
So, urban Georgia is getting bluer and rural Georgia is getting redder. This is obviously just a local example of the divide taking place all over the country and of the extreme polarization that has afflicted U.S. politics in recent years.
This chart shows Democratic and Republican votes by groups of counties for the 2010 and 2018 gubernatorial elections.
A key takeaway from this chart and analysis is this: If Brian Kemp hangs on and wins this election, he’ll owe his victory to two very disparate voting blocs of Republicans – very affluent, well-educated suburban and exurban voters on the one hand, and some of the least educated, poorest (and for that matter least healthy) voters in rural Georgia on the other. My hunch is that their public policy priorities are very different, and balancing their interests will require a nifty bit of political magic.
Here’s the list of counties by the groups described above:
Big Democratic Counties: Bibb, Chatham, Clarke, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb Dougherty, Douglas, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, Liberty, Muscogee, Newton, Richmond, Rockdale.
Big & Middle-Sized GOP Counties: Barrow, Bartow, Bryan, Bulloch, Camden, Carroll, Catoosa, Cherokee, Columbia, Coweta, Effingham, Fayette, Floyd, Forsyth, Glynn, Gordon, Hall, Houston, Jackson, Laurens, Lowndes, Oconee, Paulding, Spalding, Thomas, Troup, Walker, Walton, Whitfield.
Small Democratic Counties: Baldwin, Calhoun, Clay, Hancock, Jefferson, Macon, Randolph, Stewart, Sumter, Talbot, Taliaferro, Terrell, Warren.
Small Republican Counties: Appling, Atkinson, Bacon, Baker, Banks, Ben Hill, Berrien, Bleckley, Brantley, Brooks, Burke, Butts, Candler, Charlton, Chattahoochee, Chattooga, Clinch, Coffee, Colquitt, Cook, Crawford, Crisp, Dade, Dawson, Decatur, Dodge, Dooly, Early, Echols, Elbert, Emanuel, Evans, Fannin, Franklin, Gilmer, Glascock, Grady, Greene, Habersham, Haralson, Harris, Hart, Heard, Irwin, Jasper, Jeff Davis, Jenkins, Johnson, Jones, Lamar, Lanier, Lee, Lincoln, Long, Lumpkin, Madison, Marion, McDuffie, McIntosh, Meriwether, Miller, Mitchell, Monroe, Montgomery, Morgan, Murray, Oglethorpe, Peach, Pickens, Pierce, Pike, Polk, Pulaski, Putnam, Quitman, Rabun, Schley, Screven, Seminole, Stephens, Tattnall, Taylor, Telfair, Tift, Toombs, Towns, Treutlen, Turner, Twiggs, Union, Upson, Ware, Washington, Wayne, Webster, Wheeler, White, Wilcox, Wilkes, Wilkinson, Worth.
Breaking News: Pierce County GOP opposes secession
Well, darn.
For a few days there I thought we had a major story brewing down in Pierce County.
Leaders of the Republican Party in that deep South Georgia community had included a question on Tuesday’s party primary ballot asking whether the “counties South of Macon (should) join together to form the 51st state of South Georgia.”
Going into Tuesday’s election, I would have bet a cup of coffee it had a fair chance of passing. I have spent a good bit of time in South Georgia over the years and folks down there can be a provincial lot. Many don’t much care for Atlanta.
But in a perhaps surprising display of common sense, Pierce County’s Republicans voted better than two-to-one not to break away from North Georgia and Metro Atlanta. The final tally was 703 ayes to 1,844 nays.
On a personal level, I’ll confess to a certain amount of disappointment a new State of South Georgia is now apparently off the table.
It probably would have moved my home state of Mississippi up in the national rankings overnight.
In one fell swoop, it would almost certainly have created the poorest, sickest and least educated state in the union. Folks in Mississippi (and for that matter Alabama) would have been able to look forward to saying “thank God for South Georgia” when all the new national education and economic rankings come out each year.
Alas, I guess that’s not to be.
More seriously, the Pierce County initiative, unsuccessful though it was, does beg a serious discussion about the relationship between South Georgia (and, more generally, rural Georgia) and Metro Atlanta in particular – especially given the way the head of the Pierce County Republican Party, Kay Godwin, framed the issue going into Tuesday’s election.
“We don’t get anything from Atlanta,” she told The Blackshear Times. “This is an effort to force them to pay attention to us. We are not going to secede, but I hope it passes so maybe it will produce action across the state.”
As the talking heads on cable news like to say, there’s a lot there to unpack. I’ve emailed Ms. Godwin and asked her to expand on her comments, but at this writing I have not heard back from her.
Let’s start with “we don’t get anything from Atlanta.”
That’s nonsense.
The reality, probably not fully appreciated in any region of the state, is that Metro Atlanta has been subsidizing the rest of the state — and South Georgia in particular — for decades.
The Fiscal Research Center at Georgia State University took a mind-numbingly deep dive into this issue nearly a decade ago and found, basically, that as of 2004 (the most recent year for which the author could get comprehensive data) the 10 core Metro Atlanta counties generated 51 percent of state government revenues and consumed only 37 percent of the state’s expenditures, leaving the rest for the other 149 counties.
That’s very much in line with my own Trouble in God’s Country (TIGC) research. Working with federal IRS data that’s available online, I found that in 2013 the 12 counties I classify as Metro Atlanta incurred right at two-thirds of the state’s federal tax liability — $20.4 billion versus $10.6 billion for the other 147 counties – while consuming, to cite just one example, only about a third of the state’s Medicaid expenses. And that was with less than half the population: 4.65 million people in Metro Atlanta versus 5.34 million in the other 147 counties.
Let’s narrow that focus to South Georgia. Working with that same 2013 data, we find that the 56 counties that make up my TIGC South Georgia region incurred about $1.7 billion in 2013 federal income tax liability, or about 5.5 percent of the state’s total. At the same time, it consumed about 17.2 percent of the state’s Medicaid benefits. The level of subsidy implied by these numbers should cause local leaders to pause before they start complaining about Atlanta not doing anything for them.
Truth is, South Georgia (and for that matter most of rural Georgia) is in a world of hurt. In some respects these areas are literally dying, and the breadth and scope of the problems afflicting just about everything from the gnat line south demand some sort of comprehensive solution.
I’ve touched on economics in this piece, but I could make parallel cases using educational and healthcare data.
South Georgia is the least educated and least healthy region of the state, and those facts translate into both an inability to support itself and a dependency on public support for Medicaid and other services.
Atlanta will have to be involved — both in the form of state-driven remedies and as a source of necessary funding. The longer the problems go untended, the bigger — and more expensive — they will become.
The real problem for Ms. Godwin and South Georgia is that these societal and fiscal problems are coming to a head just as their worst political nightmares are also coming true.
For all of Georgia’s history — up until right about now — rural Georgia ruled the political roost. Rural areas generally were smart enough to elect wily young politicians to the legislature and leave them in place to hold Atlanta at bay.
But that’s changing.
By my count, just under half of the current House and Senate districts lie partly or wholly within my TIGC 12-county Metro Atlanta. With the next census and reapportionment, political power will concentrate even further in Metro Atlanta, probably giving it a majority of the legislature.
South Georgia can forget about ever again electing a governor.
What this means is that the political powers who will soon hold virtually all the purse strings may soon be asking why they should be diverting tax dollars generated in Metro Atlanta —which has its own problems — to South Georgia.
Given that reality, South Georgia probably needs a better strategy than demanding “action” and “attention” by threatening to secede.
Who knows? We might take you up on it.
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